ERO

by F. P. Dorchak

Something about the bike seemed so removed, so distant from him just then, and he longed to be back up on it and its spinning wheels, gripping its black-taped handlebars headed home, storm or no...

  But he was standing in the middle of a herd of deer. Deer that poured out into and across 186. The empty, deserted road, with a brewing, rumbling thunderstorm above. Jimmy blinked again. Brought a hand to his head.

  What had he just been doing?

  Why was he standing alongside the road?

  He had to get home. Before it rained.

  His parents were gonna kill him....

  He looked to the deer.

  Were they all looking at him?

  Did deer actually ever look directly at people? A whole herd of them? Into your very soul?

  A smile formed across his face. He reached out. The closest one, standing before him, nuzzled his hand. It tickled, and Jimmy laughed.

  A wild, white-tailed, deer was nudging his hand...

  Jimmy looked around him. There were about a dozen or so of them, just looking at him, several of their blackened chins working whatever cud they were chewing, ears twitching. One repositioned around him, and he reached out and pet it as it strode past. The deer turned and looked straight into his eyes. The clouds above thickened and swirled, flashes of lightning punctuating thunder that rumbled across the sky like a hungry god. Dust kicked up. He had just had a flash of an image... of looking down on this stretch of road... at his bike....

  The deer that had ambled past continued to look directly at Jimmy, and he found himself mesmerized by its large, dark eyes. Eyes that seemed oh, so very deep. So deep and dark. Calling him. Beckoning. Jimmy felt moved by those large, powerful eyes. Black, so very black and deep. All knowing.

  What did they want him to do?

  When?

  He’d just been where?

  Jimmy felt unsteady. Confused.

  Those eyes... bottomless. So knowledgeable. He felt his whole life gobbled up by them. He couldn’t hide. Not anything. Felt like he was under the scrutiny of his—

  What about his mother?

  Hadn’t they just talked... hadn’t she just told him something?

  Jimmy reached out... the doe, the one with the huge, unflinchingly deep, penetrating eyes... eyes that reached deep into his marrow, his spirit... reached out for him, too, its hoof inches from his finger. The space between their touch, no more than an inch if that, felt an entire universe apart, and he felt as if he were flying through all those light-years of empty, not-so-empty space....

  * * *

  The rain held off until just as he came around the bend and down into the hollow of the home stretch of his ride home. The rain came down in powerful rippling curtains, and at this point it mattered not if it had just started or had been downpouring for an hour, he was just as soaked as if the latter had occurred. Squinting through the warm and weighty downpour, Jimmy flew through sheets of rain, mere seconds from home. He blew past the State Trooper’s house, past the on-again-off-again-bully house, past that cute babe’s house, the old Johnson place, their garage, then—finally—banked sharply to the left, and flew up the gray, crushed-stone driveway running with water. The red stationwagon and yellow pickup were both parked in the upper driveway. Jimmy dumped his bike alongside the porch and dashed up the steps into the porch’s protection.

  Mom.

  Something about his mom....

  Jimmy flew down the porch and through the front door. He barreled through the kitchen, where something smelled burned, through the pantry, the back door, and pushed open the screen door with the anticipatory, outstretched hand of a football player punching through an offensive line. The storm pounded the aluminum sheeting of the roof and it sounded like hell and damnation was being visited upon them.

  Jimmy found the heavy wooden backdoor open, and hesitated not a second as he again shot out into the torrential downpour.

  “Mom!” he shouted, his cry feeble against the deafening thunder and blinding lightning. Whipping winds. The rain had become so intense it took him a moment to adjust through the deluge. The parking spot under the Crabapple tree, where his dad parked his State truck was empty, but over by the burn barrel, to the left of the Crabapple tree and along the two cement-block steps that led up to the backyard, he saw her. Her silhouette, frail and waiflike against the summer maelstrom that continued to unfurl its fury. She stood before the barrel, staring down into it. Unmoving. Jimmy ran to her.

  “Mom! Mom!”

  Renée stared down into the empty burn barrel, her mouth open like an afterthought, eyes empty. Stringy, drenched hair hung down about her head.

  “Mom!” Jimmy again shouted. “Mom!” Grabbing her arms, which remained to her sides, he shook her. Renée looked to him like a drugged psycho ward patient.

  “Jimmy... there you are...”

  Jimmy tugged at his mother. “Come on!”

  Renée came along indifferently; cast a look up into the angry sky, blinking against the watery onslaught. Flinched as chain lightning arced above and the thunder concussioned the area. Jimmy pulled harder.

  “Okay...” Renée said, dreamily, and came along.

  * * *

  Once Jimmy had gotten his mother inside, cleaned her up and lay her down in her bed, he quickly set about cleaning up the burned roast and opened all the windows and front and back doors to get rid of the smell. He knew his mother would soon come out of her haze not remembering a thing, and he had to get things right as quickly as he could before Dad got home. Not-so surprisingly, the others had been upstairs napping, and hadn’t been aware of a thing.

  But if his dad came home too soon, he would.

  Jimmy quickly worked the hamburgers into patties and threw them into the frying pan, images of looking down upon a stretch of road by the airport again flashed through his mind. As the burgers sizzled in the frying pan, he also recalled something about deer in a road....

  His mom groggily poked her head around the pantry corner, a hand to her head, pulling hair out of her eyes and behind an ear.

  “Well, what do we have here?” she said, clearing her throat, in a pleasantly surprised voice.

  Jimmy shot her a look.

  Of course she was fine. This was how it always was.

  Jimmy released a pained smile.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said, as Renée came over and hugged him. “I was just watching these while you went to the bathroom—like you asked.”

  “Oh,” Renée, said, slowly—almost painfully—coming out of her grogginess and again swiping hair away from her eyes. She again momentarily brought a hand to her head, then grabbed an apron hanging on a nearby hook. “I really should put this hair in a—”

  Just then Carl, Penny, and Ritchie came bounding and pounding down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  “Hamburgers!” they all shouted.

  “Hey!” Renée said, “what have we here?”

  The three children piled in around Renée, hugging her and actively sniffing the air. As if on cue, Jimmy’s dad came in through the back door, stomping his feet on the mat just outside the entrance and shaking off his wet Forest Ranger Stetson and gear. Jimmy wearily backed away from the stove and his mother; he collapsed onto a chair at the table.

  “French Fries, too?” Carl asked.

  “Hi, honey!” Renée said, as Everett leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek. Both were surrounded by their children. Renée peeked into the oven. “Yes, Carl, French Fries, too!”

  “Yea!” was the combined hoorah.

  “It’s coming down like cats and dogs out there!” Everett said, as he got out of his rain gear. He looked over to Jimmy. “Jimmy, get your bike out of the driveway.”

  “Sorry, Dad.”

  Everett came over and mussed up Jimmy’s hair. Smiled at his son.

  “You’re all wet. Got caught in that storm, didn’t ya?”

  “Yeah...”

  “Maybe next time you’ll listen to your Old Man, huh?”

  “Yes, Dad
dy,” Jimmy said, smiling guiltily.

  Jimmy got up and left the kitchen, leaving behind the sounds of a happy, hungry, and an end-of-day family reunited. He didn’t grab a rain jacket as he went outside. He got to the end of the porch, unhesitatingly went down the steps, and picked up his bike. He looked up into the still pouring rain. The lightning and thunder had greatly abated, and the driving, body-pounding sheets had backed off to just a steady and strong precip.

  Jimmy muscled the bike up onto the porch, brought it down to the far end of the house, and leaned it against its assigned spot on the porch, beside the other bikes. Then he collapsed into a porch chair.

  And just watched it rain.

  2

  Lake Clear, New York

  10 July 1976

  0958 Hours Eastern Time

  Carl and Jimmy, each clad in Wrangler jeans, Converse sneakers, and ratty T-shirts—Jimmy’s a Juicy-Juice grape thing and Carl in a plain old white T-shirt—pounded at each other with boxing gloves in the mid-morning July sun. They were out behind their house and around the boulder that presided over the parking area next to the large Crabapple tree. Both backed away, wiped sweat from their brows, and readjusted their gloves, laughing.

  “Had enough, Little Brother?” Jimmy taunted.

  “Have you?” Carl shot back, defiantly.

  Jimmy tugged one last time at the white lacing with his teeth, then again took up the fighting stance his dad had shown them. Neither took their eyes off the other as they circled, throwing occasional jabs. They had to sidestep their toy Civil War gear—muskets, blue Kepi caps, yellow plastic neckerchiefs—that they’d left lying against the boulder.

  A high-pitched scream punctured the air.

  The woods!

  It came from the woods up behind the house. From the area up on the hill at the split-log cabin their dad had built for them.

  Carl and Jimmy looked to each other.

  Penny!

  Both broke into a run toward the hilltop cabin, frantically tossing off their gloves along the way. Penny, and Ritchie (the youngest), had been playing up there.

  Carl and Jimmy pumped it up the steep, dark-earth slope, grabbing onto trees and brush up the much-practiced route of their ascent. They yelled out to Penny and Ritchey along the way, but Penny just kept screaming.

  Carl and Jimmy arrived at the cabin to find Penny crying, her little ponytailed head bobbing horribly as her shoulders uncontrollably shuddered. She stood over their made-up table of old and bent silverware, cups, and plates. Gobs of tears flowed out of her red, swollen face.

  “They took him agaaain!” she wailed. Carl and Jimmy came quickly to her.

  “Who took him?” Jimmy asked. Carl shot him a look, then out into the woods. Jimmy followed Carl’s gaze.

  Had something just moved out there?

  “You sure you weren’t just playing? Hide-and-seek, or something?” Jimmy asked, trying to soothe his sister.

  “We were sitting right heeere!” Penny blubbered out between huge sobs and stuttered breathing, “playing! Ritchey then said they were coming for him—he could feel them.”

  “Who—” Carl asked.

  “Deer,” Jimmy said absentmindedly. He felt a knot in his stomach.

  They both looked to him.

  “Did you see where he—they—went?” Jimmy asked.

  Still sobbing, but calming down, she pointed out into the woods.

  “Carl—you stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  “No!” Penny cried, grabbing Jimmy.

  “Penny—you want us to find him, right?”

  Penny was again sobbing. “Yes.”

  “Well, I have to go look for him.”

  “But they’ll take you! Go tell Dad!”

  Jimmy paused, trading looks with Carl, who was now also looking scared.

  “Jimmy...” Carl said.

  “Look,” I’ll just go out a little ways, okay? I’ll shout back every so often. If I get out of view—you two watch from here, okay?”

  Both looked to him.

  “Just watch from here. If you don’t hear from me, you run back down to the house and tell Dad, okay? Run fast. He should still be in his office.” Jimmy looked around the base of the cabin. He jumped off the front porch and grabbed a large stick. A large, dead, branch, actually. “And I’ll take this with me,” he said, with a few demonstrative whacks of the stick at a nearby tree. “Okay?”

  Both nodded quietly.

  “Okay—now be brave,” Jimmy said, “keep an eye out if you see anything. I’ll be right back.”

  Jimmy turned; looked to the empty woods before him. He always loved playing in these woods, but now they took on a decidedly sinister edge. He turned back to Carl and Penny. “Shout out if you see anything, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  Jimmy reached out and touched Penny on her head. He was surprised at how warm it felt. Surprised at how frail she looked. He looked to Carl.

  “Be careful, Jimmy,” Carl said. Carl looked nervous.

  Jimmy grimaced, hefted his stick, and went into the woods.

  * * *

  His dad had told them that there was really nothing to be afraid of in these woods. There were no poisonous snakes, like rattlers, here, this far north, and there weren’t really any mountain lions or bears where they lived—they kept to themselves deeper in. But just the same, he told Jimmy to always be prepared. Carry a pocketknife and know your surroundings. If you had to, mark your passage by nicking a tree or two, stacking some rocks into a “cairn,” he’d called it, or any other method to mark your way through the woods. Know where the sun was when you started, and look behind you frequently to get the feel for what things will look like on your return trip. Always let people know where you are. Jimmy tried to live by those words. But now, he wasn’t all that sure that there wasn’t anything to be afraid of up here.

  Deer.

  It reminded him of that storm the other day. Mom.

  What about deer was so strange? Deer’d always roamed these woods. He’d seen them before, but what about them now bugged him?

  He remembered how frail and not-all-there Mom had been, just standing out in the rain.

  And just now he’d thought he’d seen a deer in the distance as he spoke with Carl and Penny.

  As he made his way into the woods, he occasionally knocked his dead branch against trees as he went. Kept looking back to his siblings. As he got farther into the woods, he called back every so often, and Carl shouted back. But so far, nothing. Not even that deer he’d thought he’d seen.

  “Ritchey!” he called, “Ritchey!”

  Nothing.

  Jimmy looked at the ground around him, hoping to find something of his. A broken branch or two. A piece of clothing. Something he could grab onto and run with. That’s what all the outdoor books said, his Boy Scout manual.

  He called out back to Carl and Penny. They returned his shout.

  Jimmy then came up to the old water tank. It was dull gray and about eight feet high. Dad had told him it had been used to store water for the family who lived here back in the 1800s, or something. But it was old and rusted out. Couldn’t hold water anymore because of the rust holes at its rock-and-cement base. Jimmy again called out Ritchey’s name. No response. He tapped his stick against the hollow metal of the tank. Leaned back against it, the hollow reverb of the tank still echoing in his head.

  What the hell had happened?

  Took him again...

  Why did that sound familiar, the “took him again” part? It was like it awakened some dark, sleeping memory. About improbable things. Like deer...

  Shaking his hand?

  “Ritchey!” he again called out, still leaning against the tank.

  Nothing.

  Jimmy pushed off the tank, and continued to tap it with his stick. Coming upon the rusted area, he bent down and looked in—

  And dropped his stick and shot away from the tank.

  His eyes shot to the direction of the cabin, where Penny and C
arl awaited.

  He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t squeak.

  Ritchey was in there—and he wasn’t alone.

  He tried to yell, to shout, but all were trapped in his throat. It felt like something was holding it in him. Not letting it out. He lurched, strained his throat. Screamed empty screams.

  Nothing. Nothing came out.

  He shot back to the tank and again bent down.

  Something was looking back at him through that rusted opening. And behind it, he could see... Ritchey, sitting, scared.

  Jimmy banged the tank with his hands, and again tried to scream. Useless, it was all useless. Groaning to the sky, he again slammed the tank in anger, and shot away from it.

  Ran for Penny and Carl.

  He scrambled through the brush, continued to try to shout, to yell, but it wasn’t until he was about halfway back that he was finally able to.

  “Carl! Penny!” suddenly emitted from his lips. “I found him—I found him!”

  Carl and Penny came to him, and together they rushed back through the woods toward the tank.

  They found Ritchey sitting on the crumbly stone and cement foundation that encircled the base of the rusted-out tank.

  He just sat there, looking out into the woods.

  As they came upon him, they all threw their arms about Ritchey, hugging him fiercely. Carl asked Ritchey what had happened, but Ritchey didn’t know, and Jimmy wrinkled his brow and made faces as he walked around the tank.

  Of course, there were no boy-sized openings. He already knew that.

  Only those tiny, little rusted holes. Openings big enough for only a few fingers to escape through.

  And the tank was eight feet high.

  Jimmy crouched down before it. Gathering his resolve, he leaned down and peered into the opening.

  Nothing.

  No other—what? What was there no other of inside there?

  Jimmy righted himself and stared at the tank. Then got back to his feet and came over to Ritchey.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Ritchey looked up to Jimmy, confused; nodded.

  Jimmy put a hand to his shoulder. “Well, come on, then,” he said, and the four of them left the tank. But as they made their way back, Jimmy couldn’t help but cast backward glances into the woods behind them.