The Witness

by Sharon Harclerode

  Who had been here? It was a bad habit for my parents to leave the front door unlocked when I was home. They would always tell me that the neighborhood we lived in was safe and that we knew all of our neighbors. And yet, they were hardly to blame in this case. I was the idiot for not locking the door after what happened last night.

  At first glance, nothing seemed out of place. My body sagged with relief, and I started to turn toward the bedroom door once more when I stepped on something. The jangle of tags and a lonely bell alerted me to what it was—Huxley’s collar. It was lying on the ground with tiny pieces of his hair stuck to various spots. I picked up the blue-and-white collar and stared at it, confused. We rarely took it off him, and really only for bath time. Why was it here? I closed my eyes, searching for the answer. I tried to remember everything from that morning before I fell asleep. Trying to rewind the tape inside my head.

  I remembered putting Huxley downstairs when I went down for breakfast, and he’d had his collar on. The last time I heard him, he was barking at the sound of the front door opening and closing. Still gripping the collar, I made my way downstairs and into the sitting room where my mom was watching an old movie.

  “Hi, Mom. Have you seen Huxley?” I didn’t want to alarm her by holding the collar out in the open, so I positioned it behind my back, gripping it tightly to prevent it from making noise.

  “Hi, honey. You know, it’s funny. When we came home from tennis we called for him and looked around the house, and we couldn’t find him, so your dad is out trying to find him. He probably got out through the back fence somehow and is exploring the neighborhood. We’ll find him, honey, don’t worry. It’s not the first time. I’m sure someone will call the number on his tag if they find him first.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. I knew something happened to Huxley. Someone took off his collar and left it for me to find. I couldn’t help but feel like Bill was behind this. I rushed back to my room and closed the door. Who else could it be besides him? This was too much of a coincidence considering the events of the previous night. I had to find out what was going on. Determination somewhat replaced my fear, and I knew I had to talk to Ethan.

  I wasn’t sure how much I would be able to trust him, but at this point I had to take the risk.

  Chapter 4

  I sent a quick text to Ethan asking him if he was home and if he was alone. He said he was and for me to head out back, where he was doing some stuff in the yard. My dad was still out searching for Huxley when I made my way outside and headed toward Ethan’s house. The smell of burning wood laced the air, proof that the fire pit was in use. As I inched closer I inhaled sharply, hoping that somehow I would find the courage that I needed to get more information, hopefully unscathed.

  As I approached Ethan’s house I could see he had his back to me. It wasn’t until I rounded the corner that I realized he wasn’t alone. Bill was just off to the side. It was too late for me to turn around without looking awkward or suspicious, so I kept walking toward Ethan. Fear started to crawl up my body. Once he saw me, Bill’s eyes were laser focused directly on me. We made eye contact, and it took everything in me not to look away. His gaze was boring a hole right through me like a magnifying glass on a sunny day. His intensity never faltered. Ethan turned around and joined his dad in staring at me as I shortened the distance between us. I turned away from Bill and glanced at Ethan. He looked weary but had a smile on his face. The same smile that I was accustomed to. I decided that if I was going to keep my nerve, I should keep my focus on Ethan, that way I could somewhat think about my next move.

  “Ethan, what’s up, buddy?” I tried to act like everything was normal, although nothing could be further from the truth. We slapped hands and did our usual handshake capped off with a half hug.

  “Not much, man, just talking to my dad about a few things and helping him with some chores. What brings you over for a visit?”

  It was hard to keep up appearances considering the events of the previous evening, especially since I thought Huxley had most likely been kidnapped or killed. I was about to say something when Bill decided to chime in.

  “What ever happened to greeting your good friend’s old dad? Watched you boys grow up together. It’s the least you could do,” Bill muttered.

  Reluctantly, I stepped away from Ethan and toward Bill, extending my hand, eagerly waiting for it to be over. He grabbed my hand and motioned as if he was going to shake it, but then he tugged me forward and gripped me tightly. Every muscle in my body tensed up. Ethan and I were both around 5'10", and Bill was an inch shorter. Instead of being at a disadvantage, it gave him the perfect vantage point to whisper in my ear. It was quick and over in a matter of seconds, but the words he whispered lingered and would probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

  “Look, you little shit, I know you know. If you want to see your worthless dog again, meet me in Headley Park by the Castle Ridge Overlook at ten p.m. . . . alone. If you don’t, I’ll start pulling out every one of his little toenails one by one and make sure you can hear it. I will make him suffer all night, and then in the morning, just when his little spirit can’t take any more, I’ll break his neck and leave him on your front porch just in time for your sweet little mother to find him.”

  Bill pulled away and smiled at me as if we were best buds. All I could do was nod my head, a sign that I intended to play along with his sick game. The urgency for me to get help was amplified by Bill’s deadline. Ethan stared at me and mouthed the words, What was that about? I just shook my head and tried to play it off, knowing that Bill was watching me like a hawk. An awkward silence fell around us. It was finally broken by the sound of Bill’s cell phone ringing.

  “Dr. William Meyer here,” Bill said in a professional tone. After a few seconds he said, “I see. I will be there in about fifteen minutes.” Seeming somewhat aggravated, Bill hung up the phone and started to walk toward the house. “I have to go to the hospital and pick up a shift. Tell your mother that I won’t be back until late and that she can wrap my dinner up and leave it in the fridge. Any planned engagements for this evening will have to be postponed until tomorrow night.” Bill turned and looked directly at me, hinting that our meeting would have to wait.

  Both relief and dread washed over me. Relief that I was being given more time to figure out what to do. Dread because I knew our meeting was inevitable and it would be another night before I found out Huxley’s whereabouts. I was stunned by how quickly he could switch back to “normal.” Bill disappeared into the house, and a couple minutes later I heard his car start up and drive down the driveway.

  Once I knew he was gone, I turned to Ethan and said, “I need to talk to you. It’s urgent, I need your help.” I began pleading with my eyes and hoped that he would pick up on the seriousness of the situation. He scanned my face, probably not sure how to react.

  “Are you all right, Jake? I’ve never seen you like this before.” He sounded genuinely concerned, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust him, not yet. Too much had happened, and everyone in his family was freaking me out, including him.

  “Ethan, I can’t talk about it here. Let’s go to our old hiding place in the woods. Remember where it is?”

  I don’t know why I decided to pick the old fort Ethan and I used to play in when we were kids. It was a little run-down shack slightly hidden in the woods behind our houses. We would go there for hours, playing and pretending we were different characters from action movies. Ethan wasn’t allowed to watch much television as a kid, so I would always sneak him into my room and we would watch action adventure movies. My parents never cared as long as it wasn’t rated above PG-13, although some of them were probably questionable.

  I started to walk toward the woods, motioning for Ethan to follow me. Reluctantly, he followed, and we headed deeper into the woods. Long strides and a quickened pace allowed us to reach our destination in no time. I looked around, paranoia now my constant companion. Ethan and I went into the fort, which had four simple wall
s of aged wood and a weathered roof. I never knew what its original purpose was, but I didn’t think much about it as a kid. Two dusty old crates sat in the middle of the shack, most likely in the same resting spot they were in years ago when we still played here.

  We sat down, and Ethan looked at me with anxious eyes, waiting for me to say something. My mouth and throat were so dry that I felt like it would hurt to talk. I yearned for a tall glass of iced water. Ethan knew me well enough to know that something was seriously wrong, and I knew that it was now or never.

  I had to tell him what was going on.

  Chapter 5

  “Before I go into detail about what’s going on, I need to know something,” I said. Ethan stared at me, waiting for me to go on. “I need to know if your dad has been abusive toward you.”

  There. I’d said it. It felt terrible to get those words out, but I had to find out if Ethan had been hiding a terrible secret all these years. My question was met with silence. He just stared at me with somewhat of a blank stare, and then I saw an emotion cover his face that I wasn’t expecting.

  Anger.

  “What the hell kind of question is that, Jake?” He stood up and glared at me. “Why? Why are you asking me this?”

  He was so angry he was trembling, so I knew I had to tread carefully.

  “I don’t want you to be mad at me. We’ve been friends for a long time, and up until yesterday I thought everything was normal. That everything was fine, but it’s clearly not. Not after what I’ve heard and seen.”

  The words started spilling out of my mouth faster than my brain could process them. My eyes welled up, a physical manifestation of the anguish, guilt, and stress I had endured for the past half day.

  “I was sleeping in the back when I heard a commotion. I heard your dad talking to your mom like she wasn’t a human being. I could see them in the backyard, and he was beating her up. Somehow he knows that I know what happened last night. He came into my house this morning and kidnapped Huxley and is holding him until I meet him, which was supposed to be tonight at ten p.m., but now it’s been postponed to tomorrow night.”

  I had to stop to take a breath. Ethan was still standing, but now he was looking up at the ceiling. I couldn’t read his face. What was he thinking? I must’ve sounded crazy, but there was no way that I could make any of this up.

  I waited for him to say something, anything. He started to pace the length of the floor while biting one of his nails, a telltale sign that he was nervous. After what seemed like forever, he stopped pacing and sat down next to me. Just as I was about to say something, he turned and looked at me. His eyes were filled with tears.

  “I don’t know if I should feel relieved or embarrassed,” Ethan said shakily. I didn’t want to interrupt him, so I kept quiet. “The abuse started when I was in elementary school, right before we moved here. At first he would just hit my mom and yell at her constantly. That’s why I never wanted to go home when we were playing outside. It was the only time I felt like an average kid. I loved going to your house and seeing how normal your family was. I tried to help my mom, but I was too small, too afraid. I was just a kid and didn’t know what to do.

  “In middle school I discovered how cruel he could be. That’s when he started to do this to me whenever I got into trouble.” Ethan began to take off his left shoe and sock, which I thought was odd. The top of his foot looked normal. Then he showed me the bottom of his foot, and my jaw dropped. Multiple little circular scars dotted his foot. They were all over, too many to count, and several of them overlapped each other. I didn’t know what to say.

  “He would burn the bottom of my feet with cigarettes and then make me stand on them for hours afterward to exacerbate the pain. I remember him making me stand with my back against the wall and get into a sitting position but elevated off the ground. I had to stay like that for hours, with blisters on my feet, until my legs gave out. If I cried, it would only make it worse. He would always laugh and smile as if he enjoyed it. Over the years I started to lose sensation on the bottom of my feet, which was a blessing after years of torture. You know, he started drinking when I was in elementary school. It’s always worse when he drinks.”

  He had a glazed look in his eyes, and I could tell that he was reliving the past. I was speechless. I had just scratched the surface of Bill’s dark side, and I knew deep down there would be more discoveries and confessions of terror. Of evil.

  I placed my hand on Ethan’s shoulder as a gesture of support, feeling both angry and sad at the same time. I never knew Ethan and Lori were being subjected to this kind of abuse.

  “In high school, I started to fill out and was working out more, and he eventually stopped. I figured it was because I was becoming more of a threat. But even though he stopped getting physical with me, he would find new ways to torment me emotionally, mentally. And he never stopped abusing Mom. He would use her against me.”

  “What do you mean? How?” I asked.

  Ethan shrugged. “Make it so I would hear everything and sometimes see it. I tried to intervene a couple of times, but every time, he would hurt her more, and I knew that there was a purpose behind it. So Mom and I started to talk about a plan. She tried to escape a few times, but each time he found her. She would be gone for a day or a week. The longest she was gone was for three weeks, and I thought she had made it. I was getting ready to run away—that was part of the plan. I would run away and meet her at a secret location after we were sure she was in the clear.

  “But as I was packing I heard my dad drag something into the house. I could tell it had some weight to it by the sound it made when it hit the floor. I peeked over the stairs and saw my mom lying in the foyer, battered and bloody. She looked up at me with the one eye that wasn’t yet swollen shut and mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry.’ I nursed her back to health after that, and we never spoke about it again. But I can’t be a witness to the monster that he is, not anymore.” Ethan started sobbing loudly and covered his face with his hands. All I could do was put an arm around him and cry with him.

  “Let’s go talk to your mom and figure something out.”

  Although I was still afraid, I knew I was at the point of no return. Everything from this point on would affect me for the rest of my life and could put everyone that I love in danger. After a brief hug, we made our way back to the house. As we approached the back door, Lori stepped out. She took one look at me and then at Ethan, and her face changed. Ethan just nodded and said, “He knows, Mom, and he’s going to try and help us.”

  I tried my best to give Lori a reassuring look. She just stared at me for a few seconds and then gave me a strained smile. She motioned for us to head toward the garage area. Ethan’s house was similar to mine with one exception—they had a slightly larger three-car garage with an attic directly above for separate storage. It was closed off from the rest of the house. I was curious as to why Lori wanted us to go in there, but I followed her lead. She closed the door to the garage and locked it. It was well insulated and not too hot, so I was thankful for that.

  “Boys, I thought we could talk in here,” Lori said in a hushed voice. “I can’t be sure, but I think Bill put hidden video cameras in the house.”

  “What?” said Ethan. “Why do you think that?”

  “He mentioned something to me today about a blouse I had on yesterday. I only wore it after he had gone to work, and I wasn’t wearing it when he came home. It’s one that he doesn’t like, and he made a point to remind me that I am not supposed to wear it. I figured this would be a safer place to talk, but I could be wrong. Let’s take a quick look around and see if we can spot any cameras.”

  I swallowed hard, looking around, afraid of being watched.

  We split off in different directions, each of us searching for any trace of a video camera or recording device. We must’ve checked every nook and cranny in that garage and under every shelf and cabinet.

  Just as I was about to say that I didn’t find anything, I heard a noise. I
t was muffled and faint, but I heard something. I put my finger up to my lips to signal Lori and Ethan to be quiet. They froze in place, and we all started to listen intently. At first we heard nothing, but then I heard it again, and it seemed a bit louder. It was a scratching sound. I closed my eyes to try and focus solely on the sound. It was coming from the ceiling directly above me. There was a small door in the ceiling about a foot away from where the sound was coming from. It had a padlock on it.

  All three of us looked at the attic door and then at each other. We had to find a way to get in there and see what was making that noise. I asked Lori if she had the key and she said no, she didn’t even know that door was locked and had never been in there. I assumed Ethan wouldn’t have any idea about the key either. How could we see what was in there without Bill knowing we had disturbed anything? It had to be Huxley making that scratching noise. I racked my brain, searching for a way to get that lock open without damaging it. This was my opportunity to rescue Huxley.

  “Think, Jake, think!” I quietly said to myself over and over again. Ethan and Lori were trying to think of a way to get that lock open, too. I was about to throw my hands up in frustration when a random memory popped into my head.

  Right before finals, I had been surfing YouTube, looking for mindless videos to get my mind off of studying, when I came across a video about how to open a padlock with a paperclip. It was worth a try. I asked Lori and Ethan if they had any paperclips and a pair of pliers. Lori went back into the house, and I pulled my phone from my pocket.

  As I searched YouTube for the video that I saw, Lori came back out with a handful of paperclips and a pair of needle-nose pliers. I watched the video a couple of times to see if I could try to perfect making the rake pick and tension wrench out of the paperclips, but my parents calling me kept interrupting my train of thought. The first few times I forwarded the call to voice mail. When they called me a fourth time I decided it would be better if I just answered the phone to see what was so urgent.