The Smashed Man of Dread End

by J. W. Ocker

  A little sooner than she thought it should, the phone buzzed. Crystal was handing the baton to Noe one last time. Noe typed back the final code word: ELBEREX. If things went well, she would send another message in about twenty minutes: PARTY.

  She put the phone in her pocket and pulled out the vial of darkwash and a thin paintbrush from a watercolor set. She headed down into the basement, put her back against the water heater, and waited for the Smashed Man to unfurl, hopefully for the last time ever on Totter Court.

  Seventeen

  Erica’s plan had been simple but daring. Mark the forehead of the Smashed Man with the darkwash Elberex. Noe hadn’t understood when she first read the diary why Erica was so confident about the plan. And, Noe had to admit, she still didn’t. Noe didn’t feel that confidence, despite what she had told the other Dread Enders. What she felt was desperation. There was no other plan. No other choice. It was this or wait for the Smashed Man to get her while she was sleepwalking. Or Len.

  But the time for thinking about the plan was over.

  The crack in the basement wall glistened. The familiar shape of the Smashed Man’s head, especially after the past five hours, started creeping out, slower than usual. Much slower than usual. That was a good sign.

  Noe opened the glass vial and dropped its small stopper to the hard dirt below. She took the thin paintbrush and eased it into the sparkly darkwash. It felt like she was sheathing a sword, getting it ready for battle. She felt a little silly with her tiny paintbrush weapon, but no way was she going to touch the Smashed Man with her hand. Not after last time. Her hand still throbbed.

  The worst part about watching the Smashed Man creep out of the wall was when he first showed his face. The awful bruised look. The open wounds and torn gray skin. The glistening bone showing through. Those purple shimmering eyes that didn’t blink and seemed larger than they should be. That awful jagged smile.

  But its silence was the worst.

  After a long time, the Smashed Man’s face bent up and looked at her. Its expression was the same. As if it didn’t know or didn’t care that the Dread Enders had been luring him out all night.

  Noe had a decision to make. Do it now or wait as long as possible, to weaken him further. She couldn’t let him get too far out this time, because of his arms. She couldn’t get close enough to his head if his hands were free. But she could wait a little longer. Maybe until he was free to the elbows.

  She took a few steps toward him, remembering how close Dad had gotten without seeing him that first time.

  The Smashed Man was out past his shoulders now, the gray rags embedded in his grayish skin like old grave clothes. Sixty more seconds, she told herself. Then I do it. For Len. For me. For the rest of the Dread Enders. For Erica. A type of scared she hadn’t felt before filled her stomach and head and made her arms and legs tingle. She counted down in her head.

  Fifty seconds.

  Forty seconds.

  Thirty seconds. She almost wanted to count out loud just to destroy the eerie silence. To see if she could wipe that deranged look off the Smashed Man’s flat face.

  Twenty seconds. She could hear the plastic handle of the paintbrush tinkling in the jar and realized she was shaking.

  Ten seconds. She took a deep breath, unsheathed the paintbrush, the darkwash at its tip dripping a little onto the dirt floor, and then moved toward the Smashed Man’s head.

  He moved.

  The Smashed Man’s face didn’t change. It stayed maddeningly the same. But the Smashed Man’s flat head twisted on his flat neck like he was about to bite her hand. She reacted without thinking, moving her hand out of the way fast and dropping the paintbrush onto the packed dirt.

  Directly under the Smashed Man.

  She almost dived for it in panic but quickly realized that she couldn’t go under him. Even without his hands free, he could bend down and get her. His wrists were almost free. She had to act fast, or she’d have to give up and run upstairs and the whole night would be for nothing.

  Noe turned the vial of darkwash upside down over her palm. But the liquid was taking too much time to flow out of the thin bottle. She turned around and hit the vial against the metal hide of the water heater. A loud clang filled the basement, but the vial didn’t break. She did it again, and this time the clang was accompanied by a sharp tinkling as the vial smashed. The darkwash was all over the side of the water heater, thick and starry. She swiped her right hand through it. The liquid felt prickly. Not painful, but like any moment it could be.

  She turned around and extended her index finger, which was coated in a tiny black universe, toward the Smashed Man’s forehead. And then she remembered what had happened to her the last time she had touched the Smashed Man.

  She drew her hand back fast and looked frantically around the basement for anything she could use to draw the Elberex with. Nothing but laundry and moving boxes. And she didn’t have time to dig through moving boxes.

  His fingertips were almost out of the wall.

  Noe extended the finger and steeled herself, drawing the Elberex on his forehead in one fast sweeping motion. She drew her hand back, almost surprised it was still at the end of her arm, and definitely surprised that she wasn’t flung across the room.

  For the first time, the Smashed Man’s face changed. It looked surprised. It looked pained. The Elberex was working. Noe stood there, her eyes wide, not knowing what was going to happen next. Hoping he’d shrivel back into the wall or disappear. She smelled the faint sweet smell of something burning.

  And then pain shot through her left arm like it had been tied to her headboard all night. She yelled, and it went numb.

  And the monster’s face settled back into his ghastly grimace.

  Noe looked down and saw that he had gotten a hand out of the wall and had clamped down on her left wrist. He was using it to pull himself out of the wall faster. He didn’t feel weak.

  She tried to pull away, but he only came out of the wall more quickly. His hips, his thighs, his calves. He was almost all the way out.

  Noe screamed as loud as she could and reached with her other hand, the one covered in darkwash, and grabbed his face. She felt it bend under her hand like a paper plate, and then she felt him twist out of her grasp. As he did so, his hand loosened on her wrist. She pulled it away and fell onto the packed dirt, dinging her head against the water heater painfully.

  She crawled backward, staring at the Smashed Man, who was trying to claw the darkwash off his face. His eyes and teeth showed through it ferociously. The scent of burning intensified.

  And then the Smashed Man righted himself.

  He stood up in the basement. His legs wobbling, his arms wobbling, every part of him wobbling.

  He was completely free of the crack in the wall. And the lurid smile on his darkwash-stained face grew larger.

  Noe screamed again and ran upstairs. She grabbed Len out of her bed with her good arm and ran her into her parents’ room, still screaming. She pushed Len at her parents’ bed and then slammed the door shut.

  Her parents awoke in alarm, asking muffled, confused questions.

  Noe waited for the Smashed Man to come. To slide through the crack beneath the door. To rise from a gap between the floorboards.

  Eighteen

  The Smashed Man didn’t appear.

  Noe realized in the gradually growing morning light that maybe it was because of the gradually growing morning light. They had timed the plan to end right before dawn to maximize how many times they could pull him out of the crack to weaken him, and they had timed it exactly right.

  Monsters had rules. And the Smashed Man couldn’t do anything during the day.

  Still, Noe wouldn’t go back to her bedroom. Wouldn’t allow her parents to send Len back to hers either. So they all finished the early morning sleeping together in her parents’ bed. Except Noe. She didn’t sleep. She found herself still waiting for the Smashed Man. Maybe the rules had changed now that he was out of the crack. Now that
he was in this world. Her eyes darted to the slit under the door and the space behind the tall dresser. She waited for him to rise at the foot of the bed. She was exhausted, but still she waited, holding Mom until Mom grew uncomfortable and shook her off. The same with Dad. And then Len. And then she had nobody to hold but herself, so she lay there and waited by herself, not feeling more secure just because her entire family was inches away from her.

  But the Smashed Man never came.

  She reached for her phone to message the other Dread Enders but realized she had dropped it in the basement. She snuck Mom’s off her nightstand to let the other Dread Enders know that not only had the plan failed, they were all in danger. They decided to meet at Rune Rock later. She had just deleted the texts so that Mom wouldn’t find them when exhaustion landed heavily on her and she finally fell sleep.

  When she awoke, she was sweaty, alone, and the gradually growing morning light had been turned up into blazing summer noon. She got up, changed into drier clothes, and headed for Rune Rock.

  She was the first to arrive. The air was hot and still. The bugs seemed louder than usual. She could barely hear the stream. Noe wondered if the Smashed Man was there, somewhere around her in Old Man Woods, watching. A bolt of ice shot through her spine as she realized how vulnerable she was alone in the woods and wondered again if the Smashed Man had a whole new set of rules now that he was free.

  The darkwash Amberonk sparkled on the rock, as fresh as if it had been painted that morning. A protection sigil, Fern had called it. How did it protect? Who did it protect? Did it even work? The Elberex hadn’t worked. Twice now.

  The crunch of leaves and sticks startled her enough that she yelled and jumped almost clear to the top of Rune Rock. It was the other Dread Enders. They all looked awful, as awful as Noe assumed she herself looked after a night of sleep deprivation and a morning of terror and worry.

  “What happened?” asked Radiah right away.

  Noe shook her head. “I painted the Elberex on his forehead and it seemed to work at first. He looked like he was in pain. But then he grabbed me.” She pulled back her sleeve to show a dark ring of bruises around her left wrist.

  Crystal gasped.

  “Did he hurt you?” asked Ruthy.

  “I don’t think so.” The feeling had come back into her arm, but the bruise throbbed still.

  “What’s wrong with your other hand?” asked Crystal.

  She looked down at her right hand, the one that she had coated in darkwash. Stains covered it like she had a skin disease. She explained about dropping the paintbrush and breaking the vial.

  “While he was holding my wrist, I fought him with more of the darkwash. It seemed to hurt him. It helped me get away from him. But then he came all the way out of the wall. Stood up on the floor of my basement. I ran. He . . . didn’t chase me.” She almost got angry explaining it. Like it wasn’t fair that she had to both experience it and explain it.

  “Why didn’t he chase you after he got out of the wall?” asked Radiah, almost like she wished he had.

  “I think because dawn came,” said Noe. “But I also wonder how weak he is. It took more than a month for him to recover from Erica’s encounter with him. And we had him going in and out of the crack all night. He must be hiding somewhere, recuperating.”

  “Maybe he’s still in your house,” said Ruthy.

  Noe had already shocked herself with that thought. “He could be,” she replied, almost defensively. “But why would he stay so close to the place he’s been trying to escape for decades? Especially when a flat monster can hide anywhere.” They all looked uncertainly at the base of Rune Rock.

  “Maybe he’s back in the crack?” said Crystal weakly.

  “I knew this was a stupid idea,” said Radiah, her eyes livid and her voice raised so loud it drowned out the bugs. “Now we’re not safe anywhere. All because you had to take charge. We were fine before. We would have made it through this eventually. He was stuck in our basements. Now he’s . . .” She gestured around the forest, trying to find the right words. “You’ve been here for a month, and you thought you knew everything. And now it’s all hopeless.”

  “Stop it, Radiah!” They all looked in astonishment at Crystal, who had lifted her head and was staring at Radiah with a tearstained face. “Noe was trying to help us. And she had to anyway. You know that. The sleepwalking. We didn’t have any other choice.”

  Radiah looked at Crystal coldly. Then at Noe. She stormed off back to the path. Ruthy gazed sadly after her but stayed in place.

  “Maybe this is a good thing,” said Ruthy. “Maybe he left the entire neighborhood. Maybe he’s gone forever.”

  “Maybe,” Noe said. Maybe he did just want to escape. Maybe he was somebody else’s problem now. Was she fine with that? Although it made her feel guilty, she kind of was. They stood in the forest, listening to the summer bugs. There were a lot of maybes in this conversation.

  Crystal started to say something but stopped herself. She took Ruthy by the hand and headed out of the forest. She didn’t look back to see if Noe was following.

  Noe wasn’t following. Noe climbed up on Rune Rock and sat there for another hour, crying and looking through blurry eyes at the Amberonk and the stains on her hand, stains that her parents couldn’t see. She had tried to wash it all off, but the darkwash had only faded to a pencil-lead gray. Still, it was enough that her parents’ eyes wouldn’t turn purple anymore when they saw her hand. She thought about the Elberex. How ludicrous it had felt painting it on the Smashed Man’s forehead. The fight should have been more violent. More satisfying, even if she did lose it. Like hitting him with a bat. Not painting on his face like she was a beautician. So stupid.

  Eventually she walked home, shut herself in her room, and threw herself on her bed. She was still exhausted. In every way exhausted. So exhausted that she didn’t care if the Smashed Man came and got her right now. In her sleep would be best anyway. She thought of the line from Crystal’s poem: smother you in your sleep like a deadly, grinning blanket. That was fine. She was fine with that. She fell asleep.

  Nineteen

  Noe walked down the short forest path from school. Autumn had taken over the trees, and the colors were everything she’d hoped they’d be in the new neighborhood: red maple and yellow birch and every shade of autumn in between. She hit the asphalt bulb of Totter Court not five minutes after exiting the glass doors of the school. She loved having the school so close to her house. The green metal Pilgrim weather vane squeaked and wobbled between the north and northwest as she crossed the slight hill of her lawn to the front door with its golden autumn wreath stark against the black wood.

  The door was unlocked. She walked inside, slipping her backpack into the crook of her left arm. “Mom? Dad?”

  “We’re in here, Noe!” came Mom’s voice from the living room.

  Noe threw her backpack onto the floor of the front closet—even though she knew Mom would be upset that she didn’t hang it on a hook—and turned the corner into the living room.

  Noe screamed. Screamed and screamed and screamed.

  Her whole family was in the living room. Mom was in the recliner with Len on her lap. They were feeding each other Goldfish crackers and laughing. Dad was lying on his back on the couch, looking at his phone, laughing at something on the screen.

  And in the wooden rocking chair, the one that nobody ever sat in because it was more a decorative piece than a functional chair, sat the Smashed Man.

  He was folded into a parody of a person sitting. As if somebody had taken a life-sized cardboard cutout of a man, bent the cardboard at the waist and knees, and put it in the chair. The Smashed Man’s ghastly frozen smile split his mutilated face. He leered at Mom and Len and then he turned to leer at Dad and then turned back to leer at Mom and Len again.

  Eventually, he leered at Noe.

  Noe screamed and screamed and screamed until her entire body was shaking with the screams and then she was just shaking and then she rea
lized she was being shaken by somebody else, somebody who was yelling in her ear and then the living room and Mom and Dad and Len and the Smashed Man all disappeared into darkness.

  And she was in her bed and the darkness was her room and Dad was shaking her and Mom was yelling, “Noe, you’re having a night terror. You’re having a night terror, Noe. You’re okay. Wake up, honey.”

  Slowly Noe slipped back into reality. She huffed huge sobs and sank into Dad’s chest.

  “I’m sorry, Noe. We normally wouldn’t wake you up. But this felt like a bad one,” said Mom.

  “Another bad one,” agreed Dad.

  He was referring to the previous night. The night she had released the Smashed Man into the world. They had dismissed her raving and panic as night terrors. Although it was slightly more worrisome than that, because she had, quite literally, dragged Len into it.

  “Do you remember what you dreamed?” asked Mom.

  “No,” said Noe. She didn’t want to describe it to them.

  “Werewolves?” The question came from the doorway. Len stood there with a stuffed mongoose under one arm and a look of concern on her face.

  “Nore, you should go to bed,” said Dad. “Noe will be all right.” Nobody corrected his nickname for Len.

  “No, not werewolves,” said Noe, trying her hardest to smile at her sister.

  “Hmm,” Len said, as if she had drawn insights about her sister from the answer.

  “Hey,” said Dad, his tone changing from calm-my-daughter-down to change-the-subject-to-something-distracting. “Did we tell you guys we’re having a bonfire?”

  “What’s a bonfire?” asked Len.

  “It’s a giant fire that you make outside at night.”

  “At night?” asked Len doubtfully.

  “Yes, but it makes a lot of light. You can roast marshmallows on it and hang out with friends around it. It’s a lot of fun. What’s-her-name, the woman down the street . . .”