The Smashed Man of Dread End

by J. W. Ocker

  Crystal wiped her eyes with her forearm and shook her head vigorously. “We have to do it tonight. What if Len sleepwalks and opens the door? What if my parents open the door and he slips inside my house and gets trapped there again? Or anybody’s house? We shouldn’t take any chances. Let’s go to the white house, get the darkwash, and get this done.”

  “Wait here,” said Radiah. “We’re going to need a few things first.” She walked down the stairs, hitting the dangling chain on the light bulb on her way. Before it had finished dancing, she was back in the attic with three plastic red buckets nested within each other. “We need to do this fast. We can’t lug that giant tub of darkwash around in a wagon this time.” She shoved the buckets at Crystal and then walked over to her dresser. She opened a drawer and pulled out a long, thin leather cord on which dangled a smooth rock with a hole through it. A witch rock.

  “Is that Ruthy’s?” asked Crystal.

  “No. It’s Erica’s.”

  “Erica never had a witch rock.”

  “I found one for her. It was the day before . . . the Smashed Man got her. I never got to give it to her.” Radiah approached Noe. “You should wear this. It may not help against the Smashed Man, but it means you’re one of us. A Dread Ender.” Noe lifted up her hair and let Radiah tie the leather in a knot behind her neck. The rock felt solid against her chest. She tested the weight of it in her hand for a second and then let it drop back. It felt good.

  They headed down the attic stairs and through the hallway, past Radiah’s parents’ bedroom. They could hear the box fan whirring away, the kind of noise that would wake most people up instead of putting them to sleep like the Harrises. Noe and Radiah and Crystal walked downstairs to the front door, where they clustered around the side windows, trying to see if the Smashed Man was wobbling his way back from the forest. The street was empty and dark.

  “I think we should run,” said Noe. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the small stainless-steel key to the white house like it was a weapon.

  Radiah opened the door a crack. “Remember, we can’t see this place. You have to lead us in.”

  Noe nodded. “Stay close to me, and when we get to the porch, Radiah, you grab my hand, and Crystal, you grab hers. Everybody ready?” Radiah nodded, while Crystal held the nested buckets tighter. Noe threw one more look into the bulb of the dead end to make sure it was empty, half hoping it wasn’t so that they would have to stay inside and hide from the Smashed Man. It was empty. “Let’s go!”

  Noe was off, taking a direct line between Radiah’s house and the white house and hoping Crystal and Radiah were behind her. By the sound of shoe rubber on asphalt, the two were sticking extremely close. They were halfway to the white house when Crystal screamed, “There he is!”

  Noe looked over at the edge of the forest where they had last seen the monster. He was coming at them, and he was coming fast. His rippling, physics-defying gait had sped into a terrifying sprint. Like he was being fast-forwarded, like he was flowing through the air and the night instead of moving across the ground. His arms were waving rapidly in front of him. His face was a darkwash-stained leer.

  Twenty-Six

  “Come on!” yelled Noe. It was unnecessary. Radiah and Crystal passed her like she was walking, even though the white house was invisible to them. She could see that both were focused on the area directly in front of them, neither looking over at the Smashed Man. She followed their lead, focusing where they couldn’t—on the Amberonk painted on the front door of the white house. Crystal and Radiah slowed slightly when they made it to the edge of the asphalt to let Noe surge ahead, the key in one hand and her other extended to Radiah. She held Radiah’s hand tight as Radiah grabbed Crystal’s hand.

  Noe jumped up the stairs with the other girls in tow and shoved the key in the lock, hoping the door wasn’t dead-bolted. She twisted the knob and slammed through with her shoulder. It gave, and she pulled Radiah and Crystal behind her.

  Noe stumbled to Fern’s camp chair, took a breath, and turned around.

  She saw the Smashed Man running up the front lawn.

  Nobody had shut the door.

  Radiah apparently realized it at the same time. “Shut the door!” she screamed to Crystal, who was the closest to it. Crystal turned and froze, the buckets held limply in one hand as she stared at the Smashed Man rushing at her like she was in her basement alone with him.

  Noe laughed so hard she almost collapsed the camp chair as she leaned on it.

  Radiah ran at the door and slammed it shut, locking both the doorknob and dead bolt, and then sprinted across the room to where Noe was. “Why are you laughing?”

  Noe kept laughing as she waded through the mess on the floor of the living room to the window with the broken glass that faced behind the house, cupping her hand around her eyes to look through into the darkness. “Look.” She pointed at something outside.

  After stealing a quick glance at the locked door, Radiah walked over to the window, followed by Crystal.

  “He’s behind the house!” said Radiah. The Smashed Man was twenty feet away, spinning around slowly, his horrible face twisting back and forth on his neck. The way his body wavered, he looked like a glitch in the forest.

  “What’s he doing?” asked Crystal.

  “He can’t see the house,” said Noe. “I could tell by the angle he was running on the front lawn. It was . . . off. Like when Radiah tried to prove this house didn’t exist . . . and now he’s exactly where Radiah ended up.”

  “He can’t see the house,” said Radiah.

  “He can’t see the house!” yelled Crystal, grabbing Radiah and hugging her. Radiah hugged her back just as hard. “Can we all move in here until we become adults?” Crystal laughed and let Radiah go. After a stutter of her arms, Crystal hugged Noe too.

  “Let’s get that darkwash,” said Noe.

  It took them a little bit of effort to pour the giant white bucket of darkwash into the smaller red buckets that Radiah had found for them. By the time they were finished, they had three full buckets and a carpet stained with large blobs of the stuff. It didn’t make the room seem any messier.

  Each girl took a paintbrush, leaving the fourth one, Ruthy’s, lying on the carpet beside the spilled darkwash.

  “Which house first?” asked Crystal.

  “This one, I guess?” said Noe. “I mean, he can’t see it, but that doesn’t mean he might not find his way in. You guys are in here and you can’t see it.”

  “It would be the easiest house to do,” said Crystal.

  “Is he still out there?” asked Radiah, looking over at the window.

  Noe peeked out but saw only darkness and hints of trees. “No. Let me check out front.” She walked over to the front door, a red bucket of darkwash in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. She looked through the peephole. Nothing out there. “All right.” She twisted the locks on the dead bolt and the doorknob, and then flung the door open wide.

  Nothing moved on the street.

  “He can’t see us or hear us as long as we’re in here,” said Noe, although whether that was to reassure her friends or herself, she didn’t know. She stuck the brush in the bucket of darkwash and then leaned out and quickly painted an Amberonk on the wall beside the door before diving back in. “That easy,” she said, although she wondered briefly if two Amberonks canceled each other out, like two negative numbers in math. And then she thought about how weird it was to have XRR painted on the front of the house, like a vandal’s initials.

  They all looked through the open door at the darkness of Dread End, pockets of which were alleviated by the light from the streetlamps lining the road. Most of the porches were alive with light, like little islands in the night. Nobody said anything. The next step would be an extremely difficult one.

  “I don’t think I can run out there again,” said Noe.

  “Me either,” said Radiah.

  “We’re going to have to, though, right?” said Crystal.

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nbsp; Neither Radiah nor Noe answered. They all gazed out at Dread End.

  Finally Radiah spoke. “I need a pencil and paper.”

  The items were easy to find, and soon the three girls were on the floor crowded around a large yellow pad. Radiah had sketched out Dread End with little rectangles for the houses. She drew lines between the houses and numbered them as she explained exactly how they would get new Amberonks on all the houses without being exposed outside for too long.

  “Hold on. Here’s an idea. Maybe we only have to do your house and my house,” said Noe to Radiah. “We just saw Mr. Larson walk right past the Smashed Man. The adults are fine. And your house and my house are the only ones with kids in it tonight. Then tomorrow we fix the rest of the houses, just in case.”

  “Are we sure?” asked Radiah, still gazing out into the neighborhood, waiting for the Smashed Man to wobble his way across the road.

  “Sure about what?” asked Noe.

  “Sure that there are no other kids on this block tonight. Are we sure nobody’s nieces or nephews or grandchildren are visiting? Do we know that for sure?”

  “No. We have to paint Amberonks on all the houses tonight,” said Crystal.

  “If we’d only done it right the first time,” said Noe.

  “We didn’t know,” said Radiah, staring down at the plan she had sketched.

  “I should have tried harder to meditate. To see if there was an answer there.” Noe found her own statement silly. She didn’t even understand what she’d been shown during her first meditation.

  Radiah half smiled. “It doesn’t matter. We’re about to fix it. Everybody got the plan?”

  Noe nodded. So did Crystal, as she stared into the dimness of the neighborhood. “Where is he?”

  “He probably gave up after we disappeared. Maybe he’s testing the other side of the trap, somewhere near Rune Rock,” said Noe.

  “That would mean he’s deep in Old Man Woods. That’d be perfect for us,” said Radiah.

  “Or he could be out there on the edge of the woods, waiting for us to come out,” said Crystal.

  The three girls huddled in the doorway, looking for any unearthly movement. The only motion they saw were dots of bugs swarming around the streetlights and a single bat flapping around and feasting on the dots. Noe got her home key ready.

  “Go,” whispered Radiah.

  Noe ran to her house. It took seconds to get there, seconds to paint an Amberonk on the wall—a slash of a vertical line, a hump, and a tail—and seconds to open her front door and jump inside. She looked across the street and saw that Crystal and Radiah were safe in Radiah’s doorway, a fresh black R on the wall beside them.

  That’s all it took. Seconds. They could do this.

  Crystal held up her hand, three fingers in the air above her and Radiah’s heads. Noe focused on it. Crystal lowered a finger to start the countdown. The second she was down to her fist, Noe burst from her house, leaving her front door wide open. She could do that now that the Amberonk was painted on the front wall instead of the door, and she headed to the gray house beside hers, bucket of darkwash in hand. Radiah did the same but headed to Ruthy’s. Ten seconds to get there. Five seconds to grab the brush out of the bucket and paint the Amberonk. Ten seconds to run back to the welcoming open door of her own house. Only half a minute. She looked across the street and saw Radiah back with Crystal.

  The next set of houses would take twice as long, meaning they would be exposed for twice as long. But twice as long was only a minute. She looked across the street. Radiah was counting down this time, with Crystal poised with bucket and brush to take the next run.

  When Radiah clenched her fist, Noe and Crystal took off. Past the houses on which they had just painted Amberonks to the next houses on the block. Quickly up the steps. Quickly painting the Amberonk, quickly back to their open doorways.

  Seven houses done. Six left. But the rest were so far away.

  Fortunately, Crystal’s home was one of the remaining houses.

  This next part of Radiah’s plan was the hardest. The three would take off together. Radiah would paint Amberonks on the three remaining houses on her side of the street. Noe would do the same on hers, skipping Crystal’s house. Crystal would run straight to her house, paint an Amberonk on it, and then open the door so Noe and Radiah could dash inside when they were done. All three would be running through the neighborhood fully exposed, hoping the Smashed Man was still somewhere out by Rune Rock.

  Radiah’s fingers, Radiah’s fist, and all three girls ran into the night, buckets and brushes ready like shields and swords.

  Noe hit the next house that needed an Amberonk on her side of the street, which turned out to be Mrs. Washington’s house. As soon as she jumped onto the porch, she realized this house didn’t need a new Amberonk. Its previous sigil was at the corner of the facade because that was where Radiah had painted it while the rest of them were distracting Mrs. Washington out front. The house was safe. Noe cringed at the time she’d wasted, leaped down the steps, and dashed across the lawn as fast as she could. She didn’t see Crystal until too late.

  Crystal was crossing Mrs. Washington’s lawn, trying to get to her own house next door. The two girls twisted desperately away from each other at the last second, their plastic buckets hitting each other and clacking loudly in the night. Noe felt her bucket pulled from her hand as the handles got tangled. It flew across the lawn and landed with a soft thump on its side in the grass.

  Crystal spun around in surprise and horror while Noe dived for her bucket. She righted it with about a quarter of the liquid left inside. The rest formed a pool on Mrs. Washington’s lawn that looked like it was reflecting the night sky above, even though it was full of its own stars.

  Noe looked up and saw Radiah across the street, almost done with the three houses she had to do, while she and Crystal hadn’t even done one. She looked up to make sure Crystal was opening the door to her house . . . and saw the Smashed Man running hard down the middle of the street, his body flapping like he was running against a strong wind and his purple eyes the brightest points in the entire neighborhood. Crystal screamed.

  “Get in your house!” yelled Noe, jumping up and grabbing the bucket and brush. Crystal turned around and ran, Noe following behind her.

  Crystal ran to her front door and jiggled the key in the lock, while Noe stood behind her, aching with the need to get behind that door with the Amberonk on it. She turned and saw that the Smashed Man was almost to the edge of the lawn.

  And she knew Crystal wouldn’t get the door open in time.

  Noe jumped down the steps and ran at the Smashed Man.

  Twenty-Seven

  Noe picked up speed and got close enough to the Smashed Man that he reached his flat arms out for her, like when he would come out of the basement wall, but at the last second, she pivoted and ran toward the open end of the street.

  She looked over her shoulder and saw that the Smashed Man was only a few arm’s lengths behind her. The relief she felt that he wasn’t going after Crystal, that Crystal would have time to get safely into her house, lasted only half a step before turning into horror. She wanted to drop right there in the middle of the street and curl into a ball and let the Smashed Man get her. Like Len would do when Noe chased her around the house howling like a werewolf. But then Noe had a better idea.

  Her lungs ached and her legs wobbled and she was sweating in the summer night, but she finally saw what she was looking for: a metal diamond on a post. It rose five feet into the air, and she knew that the front was a beautiful yellow with black letters and a glittery Amberonk that marked the edge of the Smashed Man’s cage.

  She sped past the Dread End sign and stopped. She turned around and saw that so had the Smashed Man. He was only five feet away from her, but he wasn’t lunging after her. His arms weren’t even raised. He stood there wavering like a flame and staring like a madman, his purple eyes trained on her as if he was waiting for her to say something.

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bsp; She had nothing to say. It was all she could do to keep from screaming.

  The Smashed Man stared at Noe as he bobbed up and down on his wobbly legs. They were directly under a streetlamp, and she could see that the skin and bare muscle and bone of his face were still stained black from their encounter in her basement.

  The adrenaline that fueled her across the border fled her just as fast, and she doubled over, gulping in deep breaths and trying not to panic from being mere feet away from the monster.

  He was terrifying. Even across an uncrossable border. She felt like she was going to throw up. She didn’t know what type of scared this was. Just that she needed to sit down. To lie down. To curl into a ball and whimper. She wanted to run away from the neighborhood. To run all the way across town. To run back to her old house. To run back in time to before she ever lived here.

  She felt the hard rectangle of her phone in her pocket. She couldn’t call her parents. Couldn’t scream into the night for help. Bringing adults here to drag her back across the border would be as good as throwing herself to the Smashed Man.

  She put the bucket of darkwash on the ground and paced back and forth, hoping it would break the Smashed Man’s silent stare. It didn’t. His head followed her movements with the patience of a monster that had been stuck in a basement crack for decades, starting his escape over and over again until he finally made it out. Until Noe finally helped him make it out.

  She was having trouble focusing. Her clothes were heavy and sticky with sweat and the bugs seemed to be getting louder and the Smashed Man wouldn’t stop looking at her and her entire world was ten feet of asphalt and grass and she was sharing that world with a monster.

  Her exhaustion gave her the only idea it could.

  She was going to lie down in the grass and go to sleep.

  It was a brilliant plan.

  Really, all she had to do was wait for dawn, for the sun to chase the Smashed Man back into a crevice somewhere. She almost smiled. That crevice would have to be somewhere out in the woods. All the houses on Totter Court were protected now, thanks to the Dread Enders.