by T L Barrett
The idea of being alone on a bike, flushed and tired from a hot autumn journey, and facing an enormous crazed moose, made this trip an act of heroic bravery.
“Private, first class,” he muttered to himself as he pushed his bike around a bend, the roadside brook singing its mad and constant song. He would see about that.
When he arrived at the Blindow residence, which sat far back down a leafy tunnel from the dirt road, Isaac was waiting for him. He had a military pin with ’BLINDOW’ stenciled in shiny brass.
“It is my grandfather’s. My mom won’t let me bring it to school,” Isaac explained. Then he brought Arthur over to the bank of a marshy pond area that was just down a sloping bank from his house. There, on a stretch of packed earth a series of mason jars containing results of some horrific experiments awaited.
A top half of a squirrel’s corpse floated in one of the mason jars. A dank and dark fluid filled jar presumably held the legs and tail. Dead pollywogs floated upside down in one that was covered by an old trail guide book and a piece of granite. Arthur wrinkled his nose at the wet stink of the place.
Isaac picked up an old fireplace poker that was in the grass and pointed at an eviscerated rat upon the edge of the water.
“This is my latest experiment,” Isaac explained. “That is the large intestines.” They stretched out like a gray worm to the edge of the earth patch and disappeared into the grass there. Arthur imagined Isaac alone here all afternoon between the climb off the bus and his parents’ call for dinner, eviscerating rats and chopping up frogs. A queasy shiver went through him.
“Why don’t we go to the Barracks,” Arthur said. Isaac poked at the rat with meditative silence for a few moments. When he looked up to see that his visitor was looking away, and would not be enthralled with the gruesome results of his playtime, he put the poker down and agreed.
They climbed the high hill in back of Isaac’s house and entered the spruce tree copse at the top. The spruce gave way to relatively old forest of Beech, Birch and Fir trees. Underneath the trees, dusk filled the world, rich with rotting leaves and soft beds of needles. Wet sink holes and sudden springs appeared from nowhere as the land bucked and heaved and dropped away from small ledges made from shale and root. On one particular such ledge Isaac showed Arthur where long vines had tangled high into the tops of a gray skinned ash. Arthur watched while Isaac kicked out from the side of the ledge and made wide heroic swings and return.
“Okay, give me a turn,” Arthur finally said.
“You’re too big. You might break it.”
“No I won’t.”
“Well, it is a privilege for the highest ranking soldiers.” Arthur had an image of himself grabbing the vine and shaking the smaller boy from it. Instead, he sighed and started to walk away. The desire to see the mythical grandeur of the barracks wood fort kept Arthur’s resentment at bay, for now.
“Hold up, you’re going to pass right by the armory,” Isaac shouted.
“Where is it?” Arthur looked around.
“It is a secret,” Isaac said and led him into a darkly shaded glen where a chestnut tree stood in the center like an aged giant. A dark cave lay between the giant’s squat legs. Isaac disappeared under the gloom of the tree. Arthur stopped, marveling at Isaac’s bravery having himself shirked away from many such recesses in his own back woods, thinking they would possess all manner of rabid fox, irate mother bears, or the occasional displaced vampire bat.
Isaac reappeared with an old axe in one hand and a stick with two old rusty nails sticking from the end. Arthur was not surprised which Isaac offered him, with all the pomposity of a tycoon at a charity gala.
“We may have to weed out any of the enemy that is encamped at the barracks,” Isaac told his visitor in a hushed tone. Arthur gripped the old board more tightly, his excitement growing. The boy beside him did indeed seem the capable leader. The task ahead took on mythic significance. Arthur owned a great privilege to go to this place first and prepare it for the others. The others would look up to him with a certain amount of awe.
They walked no longer in a ramble, but on the front of their sneakers and leaned forward, one shoulder leading them on a quick and sideways jog from tree to tree. Making crazed bobbing motions with his head, Isaac indicated that the barracks were just in front of them and that Arthur was to jump out and face whatever death presented itself. Swallowing hard, Arthur leapt, rolled, nearly impaled himself on the nailed stick and came up looking at the disheveled mess of old tin and young trees that would one day be the command center for Isaac’s army.
“Isn’t it awesome?” Isaac asked.
“Yeah.” Arthur surveyed the wreckage of what once must have been a place to dry wood. He felt a sinking disappointment now that they approached easily, their weapons down, poking at an old coke bottle and a large rusted winch.
“We have to get this place ship shape for the sleep over,” Isaac said.
“We’re going to sleep here?” he asked looking around.
“Of course. You’re not scared or anything, are you?” Isaac asked. Arthur shook his head.
“Oh, no. It is just a mess.”
“That’s why we’re here.” Isaac dropped his axe, stooped over, and grabbing the corrugated edge of a large sheet of tin, flipped it over.
A veritable village of field mice exploded from underneath the tin. Their comfortable homes suddenly exposed to the indirect autumn light, they screamed and fled in abject terror. Their sudden scurried appearance made Arthur leap back a step in surprise. Isaac did so as well. However, Isaac recovered more quickly and grabbed up his axe.
“Enemies,” he screamed above the mice’s terror. “Attack!” he ordered. And then in a mad assault, Isaac chopped at the ground with his old axe. The mice screamed in terror and then in pain. In a fury, Isaac leapt here and there; his axe went up and down.
“Stop it!” Arthur shouted. Isaac, not hearing, or not wanting to hear, laughed wildly and leapt away.
“Retreat!” he screamed. “Run away!” he laughed and bolted over the hillside and out of sight. “There’s too many of them.” Arthur could hear him yell, the sound of his mock machine gunning sounds dwindling.
Arthur looked down. Most of the mice had disappeared, but five or six of the survivors had not. With horror, Arthur realized why. They had been chopped indiscriminately. One spun in circles, its body pulped and dented on one side. One struggled to move, its back end partially removed by a glancing blow of the axe. This one squirmed on its remaining two limbs. This one was shaking, the remnants of a head sniffing blindly at the air. Arthur did not hear the sound of disgust that came out of him, for the squealing of the maimed mice encompassed his ears.
Such suffering! Arthur‘s fists closed and opened, his chest tightened. His eyes kept moving from one atrocity to another, as if recording the horrible sights. He could not look away.
He took a bounding leap away and then looked back. He could not leave them such, could he? The sound of the screams would follow him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He wanted so desperately to do something, anything for the poor things. He saw a couple of pinkish baby mice mewling and scrambling beside a dead mother near the edge of the tin. He wondered if she had made a desperate attempt to get them back undercover before her life failed her. Not far from her was a large cinderblock, half buried in the mulched leaves on the forest floor.
He knew what he would have to do. He breathed hard, trying to psyche himself up for the impossible task ahead of him. Surely, he did not have it in him to do this, did he? Yet, wasn’t he the only one here to do this? Wasn’t he the responsible one, now that Isaac had so madly run away? And why was he not coming back? Arthur knew the answer to this question. The boy was afraid of what he had done here. He did not wish to see the results of his attack upon the society of tiny creatures. This thought brought anger into Arthur.
The anger got him moving. He stooped and lifted the cinderblock and held it high. It felt heavy and unwiel
dy. He stepped close to where the blind and wretched twisting mouse was struggling in the grass. He grunted and brought his arms down, hard and fast.
Then, thinking a wild and senseless thought, Arthur moved, in quick hops, bringing down the cinderblock, leaning on it hard, and moving on. Soon there was silence.
He looked around and there were the little ones still quaking, blind beside their mother. He lifted the cinderblock and approached; but this he could not do. He filled up with guilt, with a sense of helpless and heavy weakness.
“I’m sorry,” he said and dropped the cinderblock at his feet. “I’m sorry!” he shouted to all of the woods. Tears sprang up into his eyes. He hated himself for doing what he felt he had to do. He hated the other boy who had not returned, for putting himself in the situation. He hated the little creatures for being there and screaming and thrusting their screams into his mind.
And then, eyes full of tears, making the woods around him opaque and blurred, Arthur began to run blindly away from the gruesome sight. When he stopped to catch his breath and look around, he did not know where he was. Here the woods were dark and grim and there was no sound. Arthur looked about him wildly and wondered if Isaac had not followed him, and was watching, grinning at Arthur in his teary-eyed fear. The image made Arthur hate the boy more. It also cleared his mind enough to get him thinking about the lay of the land. He set off in what he hoped was the right direction.
He came out upon a gully in the dirt road that lay a quarter of a mile away from Isaac’s driveway. He felt tired and heavy as he trudged back on the road. He almost turned and went home on foot, but the thought of having to descend those looping curves in the road without the quick escape of the humming huffy wheels were enough to keep him headed back to the house.
When he got to the house, he looked around and went to his bike. He wondered if he had purged his face of the streaks of tears that would incriminate him.
“What happened to you?” Isaac asked from the side of his house. He ate yogurt from a disposable container with a spoon.
“I have to go home,” Arthur said.
“Okay,” Isaac said, “but you’re coming back, tomorrow, right, for the sleep over?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Arthur mounted his bike. “I don’t know if my parent’s will let me,” he lied.
“Yeah, but ask, okay?” Isaac said. The desperate quality to his voice revealed that the enchantment that had held Arthur here had become unraveled.
“Yeah, sure. Bye.” Arthur pedaled up the driveway without looking back. Arthur coasted back down the hill into Pawanic village. After the bridge he did not turn toward his house. He stashed his bike in the high grass and walked down the rail road tracks. Before the first trestle, Arthur slid down the gravely sides and went to the edge of river. He sat among the pebbles there as the Pawanic River turned in the open and moved quickly on toward the Connecticut.
The water glinted and sparkled and charmed in this last warm light of an autumn day. Arthur was not lured so much as to leap into the current. His parents would have punished him severely for doing so; besides, he had learned that lesson long ago. But he could still lose himself among the flashing and bright world before him at the water’s edge; and there, forget about what he had seen and what he had done.
Neighbors
One could see the neighbor’s house from the open window just over the bed. On the other side of the bed was an old radio on a black night stand. Outside the little bedroom the door was open to a long hallway where a fine old grandfather clock stood took ticking note of time as it passed in the old house.
Charlene Morrill, old for a woman in her late sixties, swept the hard wood floors of the bedroom with methodic strokes. When she got near the window, she breathed in the warm summer air and paused.
“Ahh. It’s going to be a fine day, Reggie! Did you hear me, Reggie?” she asked and looked to the empty bed. She stood confused for a moment, and then the truth cascaded down around her once again. Her husband Reggie had died sudden and hard from a heart attack almost two years before. She shook her head at herself, and went back to sweeping. A few minutes later, she paused again, panting.
The silence sat, a terrible presence, in the room with her. The silence felt as unnatural as her empty bed. She went quickly then to the radio and turned it on.
A crooner from the fifties sang out into the early summer evening. As she began sweeping again, Charlene closed her eyes, reflecting fondly on days gone by. She swayed with the music and twirled around. She opened her eyes.
Reggie Morrill, age twenty-five, hair greased into a D.A. stood there, hands in his pockets, looking spiffy and coy.
“You want to dance with me?” she asked. Reggie nodded and came forward. He took her in his strong arms and began to waltz about the place with her. As they padded softly together, Reggie leaned close and whispered in her ear.
“Oh, Reggie Morrill, you are a rascal! I thought so too, to tell you the truth.” She snuggled closer in his embrace. “Do you ever listen to a song, Reggie Morrill, and wish it could last forever?” she asked. He whispered again, a delight in her ear. “You do? Right now?” Charlene’s face reddened. “Right now, right here? Well, all right.” She smiled and closed her eyes. She pouted her lips and waited.
The music stopped. Reggie slipped out of her hands, slipped out of her present and off down into the ticking of the clock that wound things up, but never let them free again.
Charlene opened her eyes and saw how truly alone she was. She dropped the broom, her dancing partner, sat on the bed and wept.
“Oh, Reggie!”
A while later, she got up and went to the window. The neighbor’s children, a little boy and a little girl, both in dirty sport shirts, passed a ball not far outside her window. She liked waking to the sound of them playing, or drifting off early in the evening to their banter. In those times it was all right, the silence was defeated. Charlene could close her eyes and pretend that she was back in her bed at the farm, listening to the older children play statue or kick-the-can.
“Hi! My name is Tucker,” the small boy announced to her for the umpteenth time. What’s your name?” Both of the children waved at her. Tentatively, she raised her hand and waved back. They drew closer to the open window across their adjoining side yards.
A voice roared out from the weather-beaten house next door: “Tucker and Misty, you get your asses in here and in bed, this minute or I am going to tan your hides!” The boy dropped the ball in his startled fright, and it rolled up against the siding of Charlene’s house. Both little ones scampered back around the front of their house and disappeared. Charlene hesitated there, looking down at the ball, then with a sigh set about dressing for bed.
As she laid her head upon her pillow, Charlene said a silent prayer for the children, for on some nights after the neighbor had been home and had his customary six pack, or occasional case of beer, the children would begin to make other sounds, crying sounds, pleading sounds.
Occasionally, a woman’s voice would rise up and join the children’s. At these times, Charlene would wish her husband were alive so badly, she hurt inside. She wanted to jump up and gather those poor children to her side, but what could she do? She was old, and she was alone. On those nights, she would have to turn the radio on.
Some mornings Charlene would wake up with the voices on the radio to greet her, and she knew it would be a day that she could manage. But on other mornings she would wake up to silence. Her head would throb, and her body would ache in strange places. It was on those mornings that Charlene Morrill new that they had come.
The poor woman dreamt terrible dreams on those nights. The dark deepened around her bed. The grandfather clock rang out twelve solemn times. Then the little people, all moon-faced, with dark slanted eyes, danced with mechanical grace through the old house. They flitted and shifted until they surrounded her bed. They swallow-stared her down with their blackness. Then they lifted her up, stiff as a board.
Whispering lunatic things into her ears, they took her out into the night. They made her do awful things in the wood. They took her down long dark caves in the earth, and there they stuck needles inside her and poured lunacy deep down into her skull from a glowing spout. She screamed and cried out for help, but she was alone with those black eyes, incapable of loving her, helping her. She was alone.
One day she woke up and had a plan. She went to her old rotary phone in the hall and dialed it.
“Yes, could you come by noon? You could? Oh, thank you so much. Yes, good-bye.” She looked about the hall. “They’ll be here by noon,” she said to no one in particular.
Sometime later, she found herself standing before the grandfather clock.
“How do you do that?” she asked and ran her hands down the side of the clock. “Where do you come from? Can you hear me in there?” Her voice rose with her desperation. “How do you come out of that place? Why are you bothering me?”