The Smashed Man of Dread End

by J. W. Ocker

  “Hello,” said the woman. “I think you moved into the house across the street, didn’t you? The red house?”

  “Yes.” And then she heard Mom’s voice in her ear. She corrected herself, “Yes, ma’am. I’m Noelle Wiley.”

  “Noelle? As in French for Christmas?”

  “Yes.”

  “How nice. I love Christmas. I’m Mrs. Harris.” The conversation paused. Neither was sure where to take the conversation after a Christmas reference in the summer.

  Finally the woman said, “How can I help you, Miss Christmas?”

  “I’m looking for kids. Somebody my age. Do you have any . . . Is there . . .” It was a ridiculous request. She was phrasing it like she needed to borrow a garden tool.

  The woman didn’t look at her like she was making a ridiculous request. She broke into a large smile. “Oh, I think I’ve got somebody for you.” She turned into the house and shouted, “Radiah! You’ve got a visitor! Radiah!” Mrs. Harris stopped and then looked back at Noe. “She’s probably all the way up in the attic. She’s always up in that attic. I’ll ding her.”

  Noe had no idea how to ding a person, but she followed Mrs. Harris down a hallway lined with framed family photos and black-and-white sketches of landscapes into a kitchen full of appliances and decorations from another decade. Mrs. Harris hit a button taped above a wall-mounted phone with a corkscrew cord and raised buttons. It was hanging from the yellow-papered wall beside a green refrigerator. Nothing happened.

  Mrs. Harris sensed Noe’s confusion. “It dings in the attic. That way, we don’t have to shout for her. We just press this button, and me and my husband get an instant daughter.”

  They stood together in the kitchen for a length of time that seemed much longer than an instant and long enough to get awkward. Eventually a girl sidled into the kitchen, although that didn’t make it less awkward.

  It was the girl with the rock around her neck. She was still wearing it. The girl didn’t say anything. She stood there looking down, like she was in trouble. Or like she was very interested in the tips of her shoes.

  “There’s somebody here to see you, Radiah,” said Mrs. Harris.

  The girl named Radiah slowly raised her head. Her eyes widened briefly, but that was the only way she acknowledged Noe.

  “This is Noelle Wiley. Her family moved in across the street. Into Erica’s old house.” Radiah seemed to slump farther down, like she’d suddenly lost a couple of vertebrae. Mrs. Harris turned to Noe. “Radiah can be shy.” She turned back to her daughter. “Her name’s Noelle. Like Christmas. That’s pretty, right?”

  Radiah nodded her head slightly.

  “You can call me Noe,” said Noe.

  “Oh, that’s not as pretty,” Mrs. Harris said.

  Radiah nodded her head slightly again.

  “Why don’t you take Miss Christmas out to the backyard? Or better yet, show her some of the trails in the forest. You need to get out of that attic.”

  “I’ll show her my room,” Radiah said.

  Mrs. Harris sighed. “Okay. But play a game or something. Smile. Be happy.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Radiah, walking toward the stairs. Noe followed.

  The stairs topped out at another hallway. More black-and-white sketches were framed on these walls, this time of horses and cows and other barnyard animals. They passed a few bedrooms with pristinely made beds and spotless floors and well-arranged bookshelves.

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” Noe asked. The family photos she’d seen downstairs only had Radiah and her mom and dad in them, but the question worked to fill the uncomfortable silence.

  “No,” said Radiah without turning around.

  “Which of these bedrooms is yours?”

  “None of them.” Radiah stopped in front of one at the end of the hall. She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, this one used to be mine.” Noe peeked in and saw another room that seemed to have never known an occupant. The walls were green and the comforter on the carefully made bed matched them. A desk against one wall had pencils and paper on it, perfectly laid out like a desk at a furniture store. A couple of crayon drawings that looked like a kindergartner had done them were taped to the walls. “But it’s not far enough away.”

  Against what she’d just said, Radiah entered the immaculate room. Noe followed her. But instead of sitting on the bed or turning around to talk, Radiah walked across the room to the closet door. She opened it and entered. Noe heard the creak of boards.

  Noe approached the door and realized it wasn’t a closet. A set of stairs rose up into darkness. She heard a click, and then the area above went from dark to dim. A thin metal chain above the top stair danced below a bare, burning bulb. Noe walked up the stairs.

  It was a bedroom. In an attic. But like the bedroom of somebody who had snuck into the house and nobody knew they were sleeping there. The room had no ceiling. The walls angled to a point and were made of bare wooden beams. A small, dirty window facing the neighborhood let in a minimum of light. The floor was also bare wood, with here-and-there tufts of yellow insulation poking out. An old rug had been thrown down on the wood, along with a brass bed, a rocking chair, and a dresser. The dresser had more of those black-and-white sketches scattered across its top. All around the makeshift bedroom were dusty boxes and chests and old furniture. It was like Radiah had pushed everything to the edge and made her own space. Before Noe could ask her why she stayed in the attic when there were so many bedrooms, she noticed a piece of paper taped to the dresser. A gray piece of construction paper that had been cut into the shape of a monster.

  “You put that thing in my mailbox?” asked Noe.

  “What?” said Radiah, who still hadn’t looked Noe in the eye. Instead, she looked where Noe was pointing. “Ruthy” was all she said. Radiah walked to the dresser, balled up the paper monster, and threw it as far as she could into the attic, where it disappeared into the clutter and darkness.

  “I ripped mine to pieces,” said Noe. Radiah didn’t reply. She just kept staring into the part of the attic where the ball of paper had disappeared.

  Noe didn’t know what to do with this girl. It was like she was one of the boxes back in her own house, taped shut in two different directions, with the word FRAGILE scrawled across it. But she guessed she didn’t really need to do anything with the girl. She just needed to find out what was in her basement.

  “I saw it,” Noe said, gazing into the dusky edges of the attic space.

  Radiah didn’t acknowledge the statement.

  “That thing you just threw away. I saw the real thing. Coming out of the wall in my basement. It was . . . awful.”

  Radiah continued to ignore her, instead focusing on a cloud of dust motes floating in the light from the hanging bulb. She stuck her hand in the cloud, and watched the glowing points scatter like tiny fish in water.

  “What’s in my basement?” asked Noe. But Radiah continued to focus on catching dust in the light.

  “Why won’t you answer me?” Noe was getting angry. She could feel warmth suffuse her chest and arms and face. Her voice had a slight tremor to it, and her hands shook. If this girl didn’t answer her, she . . . she didn’t know what she’d do. Yell so loud the girl’s mother would come up here. Push over furniture. Grab the girl by the arms and shake her. Whatever she needed to do to get answers.

  Radiah finally looked at her. It was a flat gaze, emotionless. It made Noe uncomfortable. “I warned you not to go down there.”

  “What is that thing?” asked Noe.

  “You don’t want to know. Just stay away from the basement, and you’ll never need to know.”

  “How am I going to live in a house and never go in the basement? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I don’t go in my basement. Just don’t go in yours.”

  “This is ridiculous. There is something in my basement, something terrifying, and you know what it is, but you’re not telling me. Are you a jerk? I don’t understand. You and your frie
nds come to my house to give me warnings. You slip things in my mailbox. But you won’t explain. If this is a game to mess around with the new girl on the street, it’s not fun. I need to know what’s down there, not just for me, but for my little sister.”

  “We’re trying to help you.”

  “What is that thing in my basement?” Noe’s voice quivered in anger.

  Radiah sighed and looked at the tips of her shoes. “The Smashed Man.”

  Seven

  The Smashed Man. S.M. The initials scrawled on the back of the paper doll at her mailbox. Noe stared at Radiah, waiting for more, but Radiah had stopped, like those two words were the only explanation she had. Finally, without looking up at Noe, she said, “We should get the rest of the Dread Enders together for this.”

  “Just tell me what he is.”

  “I don’t know what he is.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Nothing.”

  Noe threw her arms in the air. “You know enough to warn me that he was down there! You know enough to leave a paper doll of him in my mailbox! It was awful. The way he looked at me as he came out of the crack . . .”

  Radiah jumped up off the bed. “You didn’t let him come all the way out, did you?”

  Noe shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t let him do anything. I ran away. Why is he in my basement?”

  “He’s in all our basements,” said Radiah, her eyes dropping to the floor and her bottom back to the bed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I said. He’s in all our basements. Every house on Dread End. At least, every house with kids in it.” She looked away into the forest. “That’s why I stay in the attic. To get as far away from him as I can.” Radiah shook her head, the beads in her hair softly clacking. “This is too much for me to tell you by myself. I need the rest of the Dread Enders. We should go to Rune Rock.”

  Noe threw her arms in the air again. “Who are the Dread Enders? What is Rune Rock? Why aren’t you making any sense? Should I even be talking to you? What kind of crazy neighborhood did I move to? We shouldn’t have done this. The house wasn’t that good of a deal.”

  Radiah quietly ignored the barrage of questions while she tapped on her phone. It had a custom case with an image like the sketches downstairs—tall, dark pine trees on a white background. But suddenly Radiah slammed the phone down on the dresser so hard the case cracked, a jagged black line cutting through the trees. She didn’t seem to care. She was suddenly a streak of fire. “You’re right. You shouldn’t be here. Erica should. Erica should be okay and with us and not in a coma somewhere in Texas. A coma that got you that ‘good deal.’ She should still be in her house. Not you. Not your family.”

  Radiah left her cracked phone on the dresser and stormed down the stairs. Noe stood for a second, shocked, confused, embarrassed. But she had no choice but to follow. All the way to the front door. And then to the house next door.

  This house was black and looked like a witch’s house. Like it shouldn’t be in a neighborhood in the United States but planted by itself in a clearing in a forest somewhere in Europe. Noe briefly considered returning to her own house across the street, but she couldn’t let this go. Not with the Smashed Man in her basement. She didn’t like knowing his name.

  The door to the house was wide open. Radiah shook her head. “Mr. Larson always forgets to close the door. It’s dangerous. Anybody could walk right in.” She walked right in.

  “Wait . . . shouldn’t you ring the doorbell?” asked Noe.

  “Ruthy’s like my kid sister. And it’s just her and her dad here, and he lets me come over any time. Not that it’s any of your business.” Noe thought she liked the quiet version of Radiah better than the angry version.

  Radiah shouted, “Ruthy!” and started walking up the stairs to the second floor. Noe followed uncertainly.

  “I’m up here!” The voice came down the stairs like a ghost, small and weak.

  Radiah stopped halfway down the hall and walked into a room. Not once did she look back to make sure Noe was still there.

  Noe stopped two steps into the room. Everything was covered in paper monsters.

  An unending chain of paper dolls had been looped around the room. They were all made of gray construction paper and taped to walls, stacked on dressers, spread out on the floor. Tiny, horrible faces scrawled in red and purple crayon leered at her from every direction.

  “I hate these,” said Radiah to the little girl on the floor. Ruthy looked about six years old. She was playing with crayons and paper, exactly what Noe would have expected a child her age to be doing in her room. Except she would also have expected her to be making animals and Disney characters. Not the Smashed Man over and over again. Radiah ripped down a paper monster taped to the bed and dropped it to the floor. She sat on Ruthy’s bed and grabbed a large plush penguin that was lying there, put it on her lap, and rested her chin on its head. “Ruthy thinks that if she keeps making these paper dolls, the Smashed Man won’t come into her room.”

  The little girl on the floor winced at the name of the monster.

  Noe knelt down beside Ruthy. “Hi, Ruthy. I’m Noe.”

  “I know. That’s short for Noelle. Did you get the thing I put in your mailbox?” She gestured with her scissors to the paper monsters surrounding them all.

  “That was from you?”

  Ruthy nodded.

  “It scared me.”

  Ruthy looked down at the piece of gray construction paper in her hands. She was cutting a Smashed Man out of it. Only its head and shoulders were free, like the way Noe had seen the real Smashed Man. “I wanted to warn you better. Don’t go into your basement at night.”

  “She already did,” said Radiah. “She didn’t listen and now she’s one of us.”

  “One of us?” asked Noe.

  Radiah sighed. “We’ll tell you everything. There’s not much, but we’ll tell you. But we need to wait for Crystal.”

  “Who’s Crystal?”

  “She’s the other kid on this block,” said Radiah.

  “I’ll check to see if she’s walking over,” said Ruthy, jumping up and leaving the Smashed Man unfinished at her feet. She crossed the room to look out her bedroom window. “She’s here.”

  Ruthy and Radiah immediately left the room. Noe walked over to the window. A girl was standing on the front lawn. She had long brown hair and a long summer dress and seemed really tall. She wasn’t looking around. Wasn’t checking her phone. Wasn’t doing anything but waiting. A few seconds later, Noe saw Radiah and Ruthy come out and meet her. They didn’t hug or smile or greet each other. They stood there like they had stood at the edge of Noe’s front yard. Like they were afraid of the houses, the street, the air. And then they all looked at her. Radiah lifted her hands, palms up, in an impatient gesture, and Noe realized she was alone in somebody else’s house. She hurried outside.

  Eight

  The three girls stared at Noe as she exited Ruthy’s house. Noe didn’t know why they were wary of her. She wasn’t trying to be their friend or force her way into their group. She just had questions. Besides, they had made first contact. The phrase made her think of herself as a space explorer landing on an alien world.

  “Quickest way into Old Man Woods is through your backyard,” said Radiah.

  “What’s Old Man Woods?” asked Noe.

  “The forest on the edge of the neighborhood,” said Crystal. “I’m Crystal.”

  “Noelle.” Crystal was also wearing a rock around her neck and, Noe now realized, so was Ruthy. All were smooth stones with large holes in them, strung through with a rough leather cord. “Why is it called Old Man Woods?”

  “You’ll see,” said Radiah. “Can we cut through your yard or not?”

  “Sure,” said Noe.

  Radiah headed across the asphalt toward Noe’s house. The other two followed like they were on their way to detention.

  Noe fell in step behind Ruthy. “Why are we going to the woods?” asked
Noe.

  “That’s where Rune Rock is,” said Ruthy.

  “What’s Rune Rock?”

  “It’s a rock with this on it.” The girl drew a symbol in the air with her finger that Noe didn’t catch. “We hang out there a lot. There’s no basement under Rune Rock.”

  “You don’t have to answer her questions, Ruthy,” said Radiah. “She’ll see everything when we get there. And then we can figure out what to do with this situation.” Noe wasn’t sure if “this situation” meant the monster in the basement or Noe herself.

  “Let her talk. She’s fine,” said Crystal. Radiah turned her head just enough to give Crystal the side-eye.

  Ruthy shrugged and stuck a thumb over her shoulder toward the abandoned house. “That’s the path to the school.” She was talking about the line of dirt that wended beside the white house and over the lip of the ravine. “The school parking lot is over the top.”

  “It must be awesome being so close to the school. I’ve always had to take the bus.”

  “I don’t start there until September. I’ll be in first grade then. But Radiah walks it. And so did—” Ruthy stopped and started again. “Radiah walks it, but Crystal doesn’t. She doesn’t go to school.”

  “Doesn’t go to school?”

  Radiah spoke from her lead position without turning around. “In winter, the plows pile the snow from the school parking lot at the top of the path. It’s like a ten-foot-tall ice mountain.”

  “What do you do then?”

  “Either slip our way over it, walk the long way around, or get our parents to drive us. The other option is to stay warm at home and let your mom teach you.”

  “Shut up, Radiah,” said Crystal.

  Noe couldn’t tell if they were being mean or that was just how they were. They both spoke in the same flat tone of voice. Either way, there was a definite tension in this group, and Noe felt uncomfortable being around them.