by J. W. Ocker
“I agree.”
Noe raised her head in surprise at what Radiah had said. “You do?”
“At this point, I don’t care if the Smashed Man takes me in my sleep or jumps me on the way to the mailbox. It doesn’t matter anymore. We might as well do something. Although what that something would be, I have no idea.”
“We’ve learned a lot about the Smashed Man,” said Noe.
“We have?” asked Crystal.
“We’ve learned he doesn’t go after adults. Ruthy’s dad is fine, right?”
“Or he can only go after one person a night. Or one a week or something like that. Like panthers,” said Radiah. “Once they take down a full-grown deer, they don’t need to eat for days. When they’re full you could walk right in front of one and it wouldn’t even twitch a whisker at you.”
“That’s possible,” said Noe, picking a short, thick stick off the ground. “But we also know that he doesn’t kill people. Not right out. Erica and Ruthy are in comas. Maybe he keeps them alive for other reasons.” She held the stick in her fist like she was about to stab something with it. “Have you ever read Dracula?”
“I’ve seen a few movies,” said Radiah. Crystal shook her head.
“In the book, Dracula has to feed off his victims three times before they become a vampire. If that’s true in some way for the Smashed Man, that means both Erica and Ruthy—as long as they keep her at the hospital—are safe, since the Smashed Man is trapped here at Dread End.”
“If those Amberonks even work,” said Radiah.
“What good is all this guesswork?” asked Crystal.
“Every monster has rules, remember? Werewolves, vampires, mummies. They all have rules for what they can and cannot do. We know he had to be let out of the wall by a kid. We know he can only be active at night. We know adults can’t see him. The Smashed Man has rules. And that means we just need to learn the most important rule about him: what stops him.” Noe threw the stick at the ground, where it stuck in a patch of soft moss.
“But how do we do that? We don’t have any information. Fern is gone and probably couldn’t have helped us anyway. There’s nothing we can do,” said Crystal.
“All these rules only really mean that we don’t know anything,” said Radiah.
“Then what are we going to do?” asked Crystal.
“I think we should have a sleepover,” said Noe.
Twenty-Four
It had been easy to convince everyone’s parents to let them all sleep over at Radiah’s that night. Because of Ruthy’s condition, they could have asked for anything and gotten it. But the sleepover was what they wanted.
The shrinking group of Dread Enders had been hanging out in Radiah’s attic since before dark. It was ten p.m. now, full dark, and Noe was standing at the window looking at her house, while Crystal and Radiah sat on the old rug on the floor playing games on their phones. It was strange to see her house from across the street. Noe was more used to the inside of the house than the outside. For instance, she had forgotten that they had a Pilgrim for a weather vane, the silhouette of which was now lost in the darkness. Along with her entire house, in fact. Her house was far enough back from the road that it seemed to disappear against the dark forest behind it. If it weren’t for the light on the porch and the lights in the windows, it could have been as invisible as the white house.
One of those lights was from Len’s room. She hated leaving Len behind, but she had made sure that the Amberonks were all in place before she crossed the street. Noe still believed in the Amberonks. She had to. What else did she have to believe in?
The girls had decided that the best thing for them to do would be to watch over the neighborhood. Radiah’s attic room seemed the best place for that, since it was higher up and they could see a large section of the dead end from its window. They took turns, not sure what they were really looking for or hoping to see . . . or not see. Noe paid the closest attention to her house. She was really worried about Len.
She was also worried about what had happened to Ruthy. She couldn’t understand how the Amberonks had failed at Ruthy’s house. Noe had checked all the walls of Ruthy’s house herself earlier that day, and Crystal was right. They were all still there, the big black R’s dark and shimmery.
But the sleepover wasn’t merely out of a sense of duty to the neighborhood. It was also for comfort. If the Smashed Man was going to come for them, he was going to have to face all of them. Even though none of them had put it in those words.
But there was one other thing she was worried about. The last time she had a sleepover at a friend’s house, she had hurt that friend in her sleep. She had carefully explained to Radiah and Crystal about Abby and told them it was okay if they didn’t want her over. “I can’t help myself when it happens,” Noe warned.
“We’ve slept above a monster all our lives,” Radiah told her. “We’re not afraid of you. We’ll be fine.” Crystal nodded her head. Noe had wanted to hug them both.
Noe was about to turn around and ask for one of the other Dread Enders to take a shift when she saw light down the street. Soon that light split into a pair of headlights, followed by the sound of an engine. She couldn’t tell whose car it was in the dark, but if it was headed onto a dead end, it was either somebody who lived here or somebody who was turning around.
The car pulled up in front of Ruthy’s house and a man got out. He left the door open, the headlights on, and the engine running as he followed the walkway to the front door of the house. It was Ruthy’s dad.
“Mr. Larson’s home,” said Noe. Crystal and Radiah left their phones on the floor and clustered around Noe to see.
“Is Ruthy with him?” asked Crystal.
“He’s alone.”
“He’s been at the hospital with Ruthy all day,” said Radiah.
Mr. Larson walked to the house. The front overhang hid him once he got to the door, but a few seconds later, light spilled out onto the front lawn. He had opened the door.
“Bet you he doesn’t shut it,” said Radiah. “He forgets to a lot.”
They all stared at the illuminated grass like they were waiting for an actor to enter a stage. Ten minutes later, Mr. Larson returned with a suitcase. He threw it in the back seat of the car and returned inside.
“It’s going to be a long hospital stay,” said Radiah.
“Like Erica,” said Crystal.
“People must be able to see a connection, right? Two mysterious comas in two kids on the same street?” said Noe.
“Adults are blind,” said Radiah. “Plus, who knows what they’d come up with as the answer? Definitely not a two-dimensional monster from outside the universe.”
The light flowing onto the lawn went dark, and Mr. Larson came out of the house again, this time carrying a backpack and the stuffed penguin from Ruthy’s room. Noe almost broke down when she saw that. She could feel Crystal and Radiah going through the same emotions on either side of her. He put the backpack and the penguin in the car. He started to get in and paused, then turned and headed back to the house. The porch lit up as he went inside.
Soon after a shadow flickered in the light, but the man who came out next was not Mr. Larson.
The three girls in the window froze, and Noe heard Crystal yelp.
The Smashed Man wobbled across the front lawn. Seeing him in an open space was strange. He walked like he was underwater, or like he was water, with ripples and waves running through his flat body. Under the right circumstances, the way he walked might have been hilarious.
But these weren’t the right circumstances.
The Smashed Man stopped halfway across the lawn, wavering there like a plant in a windstorm.
“What’s he doing?” whispered Radiah.
Before anybody could answer, the light on the porch turned off and they heard the front door shut. Mr. Larson came out carrying a grocery bag.
“Oh no,” said Crystal.
“We’ve got to stop him!” said Radiah, sticking her fi
ngers under the edge of the window to throw it open.
“Wait. I don’t think Mr. Larson is in danger,” said Noe.
Mr. Larson walked across the lawn, the grocery bag held in front of him in both hands. It wasn’t blocking his vision. He could see everything between him and the car. But he wasn’t reacting to the terrifying creature on his front lawn. He walked past the Smashed Man, pushed the bag into the passenger seat of the car, and then got in and shut the door. Two minutes later, he was leaving Totter Court.
And the entire time, the Smashed Man stood there.
Noe kept waiting for him to turn his head, to look directly up at the girls. To let them know he knew exactly where they were and that he was coming for them.
Except he never did. When he finally moved, it was down the street the way Mr. Larson had gone. He soon disappeared in the darkness.
“Where’s he going?” asked Radiah.
“To test the edges of his trap?” said Noe. That would mean he would make it as far as the Dread End sign. She looked over at Ruthy’s witch house. The overhang hid the front door, so she couldn’t see the Amberonk they had painted on it. She could see most of the side of the house, but the Amberonk and the house and the night were all overlapping darknesses that she couldn’t parse. “Oh no,” said Noe.
“What’s the matter?” asked Crystal.
Noe walked away from the window to pace around the small cleared space in the attic. Crystal watched her, while Radiah kept an eye on the neighborhood, waiting for the Smashed Man to return. “We know that the Amberonks keep him inside the neighborhood. And that they should keep him out of our houses.” She did another circuit around the room. “We’ve been in this attic since before dark but didn’t see the Smashed Man enter Ruthy’s house. That means he’s probably been there since at least last night. It’s also been dark for two hours now, and the Smashed Man only left Ruthy’s house when Mr. Larson opened the door.” Noe stopped by Radiah’s desk and stared down at an eerily lifelike pencil drawing of the Smashed Man extruding out of a basement wall. “Wow. This is awesome, Radiah.”
Radiah turned her head from the window and saw what Noe was talking about. “Thanks.” She turned back to the window.
Noe continued to stare at the drawing. Radiah had captured perfectly the maniac grin, the wounds on his face, the rags embedded in his skin, the darkness of the basement around him, although she couldn’t tell whose basement it was. And then something Radiah had said a few minutes before hit her. “We’ve made a big mistake,” she said. She almost wasn’t surprised. Everything she had tried since moving to this neighborhood had been a big mistake.
“What?” asked Crystal. Radiah might have echoed the word, but Noe wasn’t sure since she stayed glued to the window.
“Where’s the Nonatuke on the white house painted?”
“On the front of the house,” said Crystal.
“Right. But not on the front door, right?”
“What are you getting at?” asked Radiah, still staring through the window.
“I think that if the Nonatuke was painted on the front door of the white house, it would blink into existence every time Fern opened the front door.”
“I don’t get it,” said Crystal. “Please just tell me.”
Radiah turned from the window. “The Smashed Man only exited Ruthy’s house just now because Mr. Larson opened the door. Opening the door broke the border because the Amberonk was on the door, not the wall. He probably left the door open at some point after dark last night, and the Smashed Man got in. And that means if anybody opens their front door at night, the Smashed Man can get in.”
“Might be worse than that,” said Noe. “Maybe he was in Ruthy’s house the whole time. Maybe we trapped him inside when we painted the Amberonks on.”
“Oh no,” said Crystal.
“We have to fix this tonight,” said Noe.
Radiah turned back to the window and nodded. “Here he comes.”
Twenty-Five
Noe and Crystal stilled in the dimness of the attic, not sure which direction to run—away from the window or toward it. When they saw that Radiah hadn’t flinched from her perch overlooking the neighborhood, they joined her, gingerly peering through the window as if they were afraid the Smashed Man would be inches away from the glass.
But he was still down the street, undulating up the middle of the dark pavement like he’d been copied from a different reality and pasted badly into this one. His head twisted slowly back and forth to take in the houses on either side of the street, but his face, what they could see of it in the dim streetlights, remained that same tortured mask. They watched him wobble closer until he was directly across from Radiah’s house. He stopped, his flat head turning toward the house.
He looked directly at the Dread Enders.
His expression didn’t change. His face was still stained black from his fight with Noe, making him look even more insane and terrifying. He stared at them. Crystal started whimpering and Noe wanted to dive beneath Radiah’s bed, but Radiah returned his gaze like it was a staring contest. It felt like they were all trapped in that moment for hours, nothing changing, nothing moving, but eventually the Smashed Man turned his head and started walking toward Noe’s house on the far side of the street.
That loosened Noe from the moment. “He’s going to my house! To Len! We’ve got to get over there!”
Radiah put a hand on her arm and stopped her from diving headfirst down the attic stairs. “Look,” she said.
The Smashed Man’s turn toward the house was actually a turn toward the forest between Noe’s house and the white house. He disappeared into the darkness of the trees. Noe imagined the sound he must have made, walking unsteadily through the dry leaves and underbrush, knowing that had she been in her own room, she would have heard it and dismissed it as a squirrel or a possum.
“You’re right, Noe,” said Radiah. “The Amberonks work. They keep him out of the houses. As long as nobody opens their front door.”
“Just the front door? What about back doors?” asked Crystal.
“Those should be fine,” said Noe. “We painted all the other Amberonks on actual walls on the other sides of the houses, right? It’s just the front doors that we screwed up on.”
“How are we going to fix them?” asked Radiah.
“We repaint them,” said Noe. “Right now.”
Radiah looked at her strangely, and Crystal seemed like she was about to crumple onto the rug.
“You guys don’t have to go out there with me,” said Noe. “We don’t all need to do this. But I do. I need to make sure Len is okay. I need to make sure we don’t end up like Ruthy and Erica.” Noe sighed. “This is my fault. Ruthy shouldn’t be in the hospital. The Smashed Man shouldn’t be out there in the neighborhood.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Crystal, almost too quietly.
“It is,” said Noe.
“It . . . kind of . . . is,” agreed Radiah.
“No! It’s my fault!” shouted Crystal, her eyes brimming with tears. “I’m the reason the Smashed Man is out! I’m the reason Ruthy got hurt! I messed this whole thing up!”
Noe and Radiah looked at Crystal in confusion.
“Your plan,” said Crystal. “I didn’t do my part in your plan. I couldn’t stand down there and face the Smashed Man. I tried. I went down there the first time. I saw him start coming out of the wall and I . . . ran back upstairs. I didn’t go back down again after that.” She sat down hard on the bed and continued to speak through her tears.
“But you texted us,” said Noe.
“I stayed upstairs the whole time. He wasn’t weak enough for you to attack with the darkwash because of that. It’s my fault for being stupid and scared and now Ruthy’s in the hospital and the Smashed Man is out there and somebody else will get hurt and you both will hate me.” She started bawling.
“You just . . . lied?” shouted Noe. “I don’t . . . I can’t believe it.”
“Is that why y
ou’ve been acting so weird?” asked Radiah. Crystal let out a loud sob, and Radiah raised both of her hands in the air like she could magically calm Noe down and ease Crystal’s crying simultaneously. “It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Noe. “She put my life at risk. She put all our lives at risk. It’s her fault Ruthy—”
“Don’t you dare,” said Radiah in a voice that was so calm it was almost threatening. She walked over to Crystal, who continued to cry, and put an arm around her. “Don’t listen to her, Crystal. I totally understand. Noe doesn’t know what it’s like to live so many years in fear of that thing. She wasn’t around when Erica got hurt.”
Crystal looked up through her tears and said, “I was so scared. I couldn’t help myself.”
Noe immediately cooled. I couldn’t help myself. Those were the same words she used herself when she thought about Abby and about her own sleepwalking. Noe went over and put her hand on Crystal’s back. Her fingers overlapped with Radiah’s as they did so, but neither of them pulled away.
“Radiah’s right. It’s okay. I’m sorry for getting angry,” said Noe.
“But you’re right to be,” said Crystal.
“No, I’m not,” said Noe. “There was never a guarantee that the plan would work in the first place. It might not have worked if we’d have pulled him out of the wall for eight straight days. It might never have worked. I was desperate. I needed to do something, and I didn’t know what else to do.”
Radiah looked at Noe. “But we know what to do right now. Tonight. We all do.”
Noe nodded her head. “Now that he’s off in the forest, I’m tempted to wait until morning. What are the chances someone opens their front door in the middle of the night?” Noe wasn’t tempted at all, but she still wanted to give her friends a way out of what was about to happen.