Bad Man_A Novel

by Dathan Auerbach

  Huh-he moved so ssslow-like, crawlin luh-like a snake, that no one thought he was real no more. Nuh-no one believed.

  And the guh-good thing sssaid, “Well, he wuh-won’t get muh-me.”

  And the bad man whispered back, “Yes, I will.”

  But all the guh-good thing heard was the wind.

  34

  By the time Ben got home, his father was asleep.

  Eric’s birthday cake sat as the centerpiece of the dining table. Evidently Ben’s father had picked it up. A melody drifted through the air, calling to Ben like a siren’s song.

  Deidra’s coffee-colored hair shone vibrantly in the sunlight that poured through Eric’s open window blinds. Her nightgown draped loosely over her delicate frame and billowed gently as she ruffled and whipped the sheets on Eric’s bed. Ben watched as she smoothed the sheets, her hands running over the fabric like irons, tugging and stretching until there were no wrinkles left. The doorframe made a cracking noise as Ben leaned against it, and his stepmother turned with a gasp.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Ben said, gently pushing himself away from the threshold.

  “Not scared,” she replied, smiling, “just startled.”

  “I heard you singing when I came in. It sounded nice.”

  “Was I? Oh. I guess I was.” She smiled again. “I’d sing that song to Eric in the mornings sometimes.”

  “You sang to him a lot, I remember.”

  “Different songs for different occasions. I guess we’ll all be singing later today. Still have to run out to the toy store. Got one last thing picked out I think he’d really like.”

  “Oh, that’s great.” Ben patted his palm against the molding as he took a step back. “I should probably get some sleep then.”

  “I’ll try to keep the singing down.”

  “No, that’s okay. It’s okay.”

  “Thank you, Ben,” she said as he turned back toward his own room.

  Ben’s lips pressed together in a thin and confused line, but he decided not to prod. The woman smiled so seldom that Ben had almost forgotten what it looked like. It was a nice smile. Pretty. But it came always at the wrong time, always at this time of year. Ben didn’t like the way it looked anymore.

  With his door shut, Ben put Eric’s defaced flyer back into his treasure box. He stripped off his pants and lay back on his bed, his sketchbook resting on his stomach. Leaning, Ben snatched up his discarded jeans and fished Eric’s picture out of his back pocket. The soft sounds of Deidra’s morning song drifted through the wall behind his head.

  Opening his sketchbook, Ben flipped past the volume of repeated portraits of little Eric, the ones that he’d drawn to fight the nightmare. Flipped past all the newer ones that were failures, the ones with the bad eyes. He’d get it right this time. And then it would finally feel like it fit the title scrawled at the top of the paper: “Eric, Age 8.”

  Maybe they could even use it on a new flyer. The ink flowed in long and smooth lines here and short and curt ticks there. Gradually, the gentle throb in his leg retreated as he lost himself in ink and paper. Now and then he could swear that he heard a sob interrupt his stepmother’s song. The sound of slicing paper and tearing tape had joined the choir. Regardless of whether she really was happier when winter fell, Ben knew that she wasn’t better. If she was better, really better, Clint wouldn’t have had to buy a cake. Ben wouldn’t be hunched in his bed listening to her wrap presents in his brother’s room.

  In truth, she was worse this year. Maybe worse than ever. For the second time, Ben had caught her making Eric’s bed. That was something new.

  Ben set his sketchbook down on his table. He closed his eyes and tried to dream of a world where sometimes new and good were the same things.

  And the dreams did come, combative and noisy, but there was something else. Something new and warm. Already he could feel it disintegrating into dust in the atmosphere of the waking world. Breathing deeply, he lay there for a while trying to call the images back, grasping and groping at them, trying to hold on for a little while longer. What was it? He had been running. They both had. He and Eric—older now—in front of Ben, then alongside him. They were running so fast—fast enough that his leg didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt. It was sunny, but Ben could remember feeling like it wasn’t as sunny as it should be, or at least not as bright.

  Ben’s eyelids quivered as he awoke and fought against the numbing drag of sleep. Eric had said something in that other world, but Ben couldn’t hear it. Nor could he hear his own responses. Ben put the back of his hand against the cold wall and sniffed mucus back into his nose. With dwindling awareness, Ben’s knuckles rapped three times on the drywall.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Drifting slowly in the silence, Ben’s dream called him back, only to be scattered like dandelion seeds by something bleeding through from the waking world, something that Ben hadn’t heard in five years.

  Knock. Knock. Knock, the wall replied.

  The rhythm was slow, the sounds themselves faint, but they wrenched Ben’s mind back into his body. He sat up too quickly, the dull thudding of his heart playing in his ears. For a moment he felt dizzy. His eyes swept toward his clock: 3:12 p.m.

  The house was quiet and still. The door at the end of the hallway was closed, his father snoring somewhere behind it. In the kitchen, Ben filled a glass from the sink and chugged it. He filled it a second time, and as he brought it to his lips, he saw, from the corner of his eye, that his father’s truck was gone.

  And then he remembered that it was Eric’s birthday, the one day a year Deidra could be counted on to leave the house, out buying one last emergency present that she remembered to forget. Just like every year.

  Quietly, Ben set the glass in the sink and walked back into the hall. He stood at Eric’s closed door. He’d heard knocking. He’d heard it. But Deidra was gone. Ben raised his hand like he might touch the door. But he didn’t. Something felt very wrong, like the air was buzzing with noise he couldn’t hear. There was a kind of charge in his skin, one that made his eyes water.

  Clint was snoring in the bedroom. Deidra was gone. Ben tapped on Eric’s door, but no voice called out to him. Delicately, he turned the knob and paused. He squeezed the knob hard, then pushed the door into the room. “Deidra?” Ben whispered. But the room was empty.

  White sheets with a rainbow of dinosaurs lay messed and twisted on the mattress. Ben glanced back into the dim hallway, then stepped into the room.

  He lay on his brother’s bed and gazed at the plastic stars above and let his mind play tricks, his fingers teasing at something in the sheets. A leaf. Sleep took Ben before he thought to wonder. Ben could almost see Eric’s face. They had been running, yes. Through the trees. God, how they ran.

  35

  “Wake up.” Ben felt a hand pressing firmly against his shoulder, firm enough to rock his whole body. Opening his eyes, Ben could see Deidra’s long, spiraling curls swaying around her snarling face as she again leaned into Ben’s shoulder and chest. “What in the hell’s the matter with you?”

  Beyond Deidra’s burning eyes, Ben could see a collage of white stars on the ceiling, and only then did he feel his feet dangling off the edge of the bed. His heart hammered in his chest at the full and engulfing realization of exactly where he was. And on today of all days.

  As soon as Ben lurched out of the small bed, Deidra set to making it. “It’s filthy. You got leaves in it. Look at what you done!” Her shouts became mutters, and after a moment it seemed like she wasn’t talking to Ben anymore. As she fussed with the sheets with Stampie tucked under her arm, she didn’t even seem to notice that Ben was still there. So he left.

  In the kitchen, Clint was splitting a head of lettuce in his hands, setting the leaves next to a toppled stack of tomato slices. Ben craned his head under the faucet and took a long drink of water. Deidra walked past B
en without a word and began assembling Clint’s work.

  A few minutes later, they were eating. After only a few bites, Ben set his turkey sandwich down. Deidra always used too much mayonnaise. The cake sat at the center of the table, green candles impaling the chocolate skin. Ben stared across the table at the empty plate that accented the empty chair.

  “Not hungry?” Deidra asked.

  “Just saving room for cake,” Ben said with half a smile.

  “Uh-huh” was all she said.

  One by one Clint lit the candles until there were eight glowing columns of fire. Their flickering cast erratic, disfiguring shadows on the faces of Ben’s parents.

  “Made it to the toy store today,” Deidra said to her husband. “Think I found a winner.”

  “Good.” Clint smiled.

  “And I put Stampie on Eric’s pillow, right where we used to put him. And we’d pretend the pillows was hills, and he’d gallop up and down ’em.”

  The fire danced defiantly in the family’s silence. Liquefied wax oozed down the paraffin pillars, making green craters in the deep brown frosting. One wax puddle overran and bled into its neighbor, reaching over like a squid’s tentacle. Ben thought about how fast he and Eric had run under that dark sun, keeping perfect pace, neither pulling ahead, neither falling behind.

  “I remember,” Deidra began, as the wax continued to drip. “I remember when we took him to the mall to meet the Easter Bunny. He had on that little button-up shirt. The one with the stripes. He was so excited. But when we finally got to the front of the line he just hugged my leg and wouldn’t even look at the Easter Bunny. We finally got him to sit on his lap and Eric just cried and cried.” She laughed. “But when I asked him later, after we got home, if he liked the Easter Bunny, Eric said yes. Big ol’ smile on his face.”

  Clint chuckled. “I remember the time he put on your high heels.”

  “Oh—” Deidra interrupted her own exclamation with delight and clapping hands.

  “He stood at the top of those porch steps when we were out cutting the grass. ‘Mama, look!’ and then whack. That boy took a tumble down them steps. By the time I got over to him, I was already figuring how long it would take to get to the hospital. I even had the color of his cast picked out. But when I picked him up, he was laughin that laugh of his.”

  Steadily, the candles disappeared. Ben could feel his parents’ eyes on him as he stared at the dancing flames.

  “Son?” Clint nudged him verbally. “What do you remember?”

  “I…” Ben shook his head. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to share any memories. For the first time in years Ben had hope that his brother was alive, that he was really out there somewhere. But this…this ritual didn’t help anything. It didn’t help anyone. It was like they were sitting around telling ghost stories, and Ben was being forced to acknowledge again and again that he had been the one to write the first tale.

  “I remember…” The words tasted like bile. “I remember when we played tag and he kept chasing me even when I was the one supposed to be chasing him.”

  Silence hung in the air for a moment. “Go on…” Deidra encouraged.

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay then,” she said tersely.

  “Maybe we just skip my turn? I ain’t feelin too good.”

  “No,” Deidra said.

  “Honey…” Clint started.

  “I ain’t gonna let him just sit there and not say nothin.”

  “I don’t wanna do this anymore,” Ben muttered. “Any of this. It’s not…”

  A silence passed. The flames crackled and flickered on the ends of their wicks. Finally Deidra said, “I wish we had more stories to tell too. Say…you know what I remember? I remember you had a birthday party once.”

  “Don’t,” Clint said.

  “I remember that you had a birthday party once, and we made—how many invitations did we make?” she asked Clint. “Must have been twenty or twenty-five at least. Handmade too. Each one was different. Animals in birthday hats. I used glitter glue. You helped with the googly eyes. Remember? And you came home from school with almost all of them. Do you remember that? I remember that. I remember that we had all that cake and all that food and no one to eat it. Well, no one except for you.”

  An uncomfortable silence descended over the table, and Ben could feel his eyes clouding. He’d brought the invitations back home, even though he’d wanted to throw them away, to leave them in garbage cans and say he’d left them in hands. But Ben had brought them home because he thought his stepmother might want them back since her art was on them.

  With red cheeks, Ben leaned forward, filled his lungs with the quiet air, and blew out the candles.

  Deidra gasped as thin tendrils of smoke curled at the ends of black wicks. “Why…why did you do that?” she whimpered. “Why did you do that?” she shrieked.

  “What the hell, Ben?” Clint growled, reaching for the lighter on the table.

  “No, don’t bother,” Deidra said, resting her hand on the fist that clutched the lighter. “We wouldn’t want to waste Ben’s time. Gotta get back to the store! Keep stocking those shelves, that’ll fix everything!”

  “At least I’m tryin.”

  “Why didn’t you try back then, hmm? Why didn’t you try when you let my little boy just wander away?” Her eyes were dark in the new absence of candlelight.

  “At least I looked for him.”

  “What?” she snapped.

  “Ben—”

  “No, I want to know what the fuck that means.”

  “I went out every day”—Ben’s voice fluttered—“to look for him. I’m still looking for him, and I’m gonna find him. You didn’t look for him once. Not one time. You leaving presents in his room? Rushin out for that one last gift you made sure to forget? Throwing cakes away every year? Like he’s going to just show up one day? Now we’re fighting because I blew out some candles. You think he’s going to want this if he comes back?” Ben grabbed at the present that sat next to the cake.

  “That’s enough, Ben,” his father snapped.

  Deidra latched her hands onto the box. “Let it go!” she screamed. She drew her hand back and smacked Ben’s face. He dropped the box.

  “Jesus Christ.” Ben rose fast enough to send the wooden chair sprawling into the kitchen. “I gotta go to work.”

  “Big hero. Thank God for you,” she sobbed. “It’s good you have so much time to help now that you finally graduated high school.”

  Tears welled up in Ben’s eyes. “We can’t all stay home messing up sheets at night just so we can make them in the morning!”

  Confused pain twisted the woman’s face.

  “Honey…” Clint said gently.

  She moved her arms to dodge his grasp. “You think I do all this because I think he’s coming back? You know, I used to wish that it had been you that disappeared, and I felt so bad. What kind of thought is that to have? But really,” she snarled at Ben, “sometimes when I look at you I wish that your accident had done more than hurt your leg.”

  “If only,” Ben said. He hooked his fingers under the cake’s platter and lifted it off the table.

  “Put that down!” Deidra hollered.

  “Both of you sit down!” Ben’s father roared.

  “I gotta go to work.”

  “Ben!” Clint yelled as the door slammed behind his son.

  36

  Ribbons of deep blue hung over the horizon as the sun lost its grip on the world. It was only six o’clock; Ben’s shift didn’t start for another few hours.

  Goddamnit, Ben thought. He shouldn’t have done that. Said those things. Blew out the candles. But what was he supposed to do, sit there for an hour? You could have said something before, when you smashed the first cake. Yeah, that would have gone great. Just like with the rhino. You
could have said something about anything at anytime. Fuck you.

  He’d let things fester in his own mind. That was true. But anything he might say—anything at all—would only make things worse. If Ben told his folks about what Marty said, about the symbol, about anything, they’d talk to Duchaine. Now suddenly it’s a different conversation about how Ben—what had Duchaine said?—caused Marty’s accident on purpose without knowing it. What did that even mean? Jesus Christ.

  Even as he walked farther and farther away, he knew that it was only temporary, that he’d be back. It’s not as if his storming out had paused the event. He wondered what his parents might be talking about now, how much worse things might get before he came home from work. Ben kept looking down at the cake, at the wells of cooled wax at the base of each candle. “Crappy birthday, bud.” His shoes swept against the dry grass.

  Ben could see the hint of the store’s sign in the distance, peeking above the horizon like a gopher worried that it’s too late in the day to come out and see the world. As he approached the woods, his pace slowed. Even the sight of the sign made Ben’s stomach turn. Kicking up dry dirt, he put the woods and the sign to his right.

  “I’ve been finding them. All over,” Palmer had said about Eric’s flyers. Walking down the orange road, Ben looked from house to house, wondering. Ty Cotter was still in jail. Someone had ripped the flyers down, and they’d shown up back at the store. None of it made any sense to Ben. None of it.

  And what if it was all just some gag? Some stranger messing with Ben. Or, worse, someone he knew. What if Eric had been dead since the day he went missing, and this was all just a joke? None of this would have happened if it weren’t for the store. Try as he might, there wasn’t much of a way around that fact.

  The Cotter girls were nowhere to be seen. Nor was Jacob, his orange truck sitting like a hungry metal bird in the front yard, its hood open like a mouth.

  Beyond the trees that bordered the small backyard of the house, Ben could see the sky had lost its color. He heaved himself past the broken bottom step and onto the rotting porch. Setting the cake down on the rough railing, Ben rapped his knuckles against the chipped wooden door. He held his breath, listening to the voices and movement inside, and hoping that whoever answered the door might not look at him with hate in their eyes. Locks rattled. Hinges squealed.