by J. Thorn
The rabbit tracks led Henry past the dark cafeteria and into the band hallway until they disappeared again at a closed metal door marked MAINTENANCE ONLY. Henry knew this door. His father had brought him here once. This door was how you got to the basement and all of the boilers with their girl names: Hillary, Matilda, Gertrude, Amelia. This was where his father drained the fat bears.
Henry pushed on the door and it swung open. The tracks continued down the concrete steps, but the space was narrow and the tracks smudged together into a river of blood, dripping from step to step. Henry stood at the top of the stairs, gazing into the dim room below. Then came the sound:
Thump-thump-thump.
Henry heard this call of the boilers, crisp and clear at first—but then the noise was miles away and his vision was spinning. The stairs twisted and turned, the dim light bulbs flickered and flashed, and he heard the crackle of running water off in the distance.
Thump-thump-thump.
Henry stood at the top of the stairs, one hand clutching the slim metal railing, the other hand cold against the wall, and he closed his eyes. The tremendous darkness behind his eyelids began to rotate and he could see colors, the same kind of colors that sometimes came to him when he was playing games in the backyard. Bright white stars burst to life. His fingers tightened on the railing, but he didn’t step backwards, he didn’t sit. He couldn’t do anything but stand there.
Four words appeared in the darkness, followed by his name, which glowed bright red within the star-spotted void. The stars spun clockwise and the words twisted and rotated and changed places until they settled into their final positions.
The words were: Henry paints against the darkness.
When Henry opened his eyes, the stairs had returned to normal. The walls were no longer damp and the light in the room below was steady. Yet the sound of the running water hadn’t gone away. In fact, it was louder, somehow clearer, although he couldn’t see it.
There was another change, too. The bloody rabbit tracks had vanished. Henry looked around, confused, but there was no sign the rabbits had ever been in the school.
The sound of the water grew louder, and Henry made his way to the bottom of the steps. This was the break room for the maintenance employees. There were seven metal lockers, two wooden benches, a duct-taped couch, a yellowed refrigerator, and an old television tuned to a golf tournament. There were no windows and the floor looked grimy in the buzzing light.
On the far side of the room was a door labeled DANGER: BOILERS. That was where Henry’s father drained the fat bears.
Henry approached the door. The sound of the running water was even louder now.
“Stupid fat bear, c’mon, you bitch!” his father cried from behind the door.
Henry stopped. He had never heard his father speak like this, with this much anger. Henry pulled the door open a crack and he was even more shocked by what he saw.
One of the boilers had sprung a leak. Water was spraying like a fire hose against the concrete walls, which were old and dark like a dungeon.
Henry’s father was fighting with the emergency shutoff value, twisting a gigantic wrench with all his might. His arms were bulging and a vein was popping out of his forehead. His overalls and work boots were soaked in the dirty water, which was slowly filling the room. The large drain in the middle of the floor couldn’t maintain the pace. The water churned around his father, who was fighting desperately to stop the flow.
Then Henry saw the monsters for the first time, lurking in the shadows. They rose from the water, their scaly hunchbacks ascending like a shark’s fin. Their scarred faces came next, followed by twisted arms and curled hands with razor-sharp claws. The monsters scowled at Henry as they edged closer to his father…but he couldn’t believe they were real. This had to be another one of his imaginary worlds, another one of his games, just like he plays in the backyard or like the skeleton in the tree house and the rabbits with the red eyes—but his imaginary games never terrified him like this.
“Daddy?” Henry said, nervously.
His father looked up in surprise at the sound of his son’s voice and in that moment one of the monsters grabbed the giant wrench, twisting it with an inhuman force, snapping the emergency shutoff value in half.
The boiler hissed and released its pent-up pressure directly onto Henry’s father, shredding his shirt and instantly scalding him like he had been dropped into a fryer. His skin peeled off in layers, bloody and horrible. He dropped to his knees, his face melting.
“Daddy!” Henry screamed.
The stream of boiling hot water slowed to a trickle and the ear-piercing hiss ended. There was a deathly silence unlike any Henry had ever experienced in his life. Then the monsters pounced on his father, digging into his exposed flesh with their fangs, sending a wave of blood across the room. The chewing sound was horrible—and within seconds the cooked flesh was ripped from his father’s bones.
As the monsters fed, Henry’s father fell forward into the water, a pool of blood spreading from his body.
Henry gazed at the red eyes of the monsters as they devoured the thick strands of meat—and then he ran from the basement screaming and he didn’t stop running or screaming until he found his way home where he would hide under his bed until the darkness came.
THE PRESENT
(10)
Against the Darkness
Henry pushes the door open, and again there is no sign of whatever has trashed the house. He steps into the kitchen. This time the broken glass and china crunch under his work boots. He stops at the sink and opens the cabinets one more time, retrieving the matches Sarah purchased to light their Christmas candles.
When Henry arrives at the bottom of the cellar stairs, he lights one of the matches and tosses it at the end of the mop. The strands of cloth explode into flames. The sight is impressive.
Henry uses the flaming mop to cut a fiery path through the darkness. The monster—whatever it might be—may not have been afraid to knock the flashlight out of his hands, but Henry is betting fire will be a different story. Fire has always defeated monsters in fairy tales.
There are now three graves in the dirt floor, two large, one small. Beyond them is the boiler and the mutilated remains of the rats…but the boiler no longer appears to be made entirely of metal and asbestos. Although the middle is still firmly attached to the floor, the twisting pipes have transformed into scaly arms—dozens of them, reaching and twisting and pulling. The boiler’s metal door on the fat belly grins at Henry, showing a frightening hint of the raging fire inside.
The monster says: “Hello, Henry.”
Henry gasps as the memories come pouring back: the woods that snowy day when he was five, the tree house, the river, his father’s apparent death, and most importantly, his father’s return that evening, alive and well with not a mark on him. Henry had locked these memories into the furthest corner of his mind, behind a wall of stone he didn’t realize was there.
In this moment, as Henry faces another monster, he understands those events were all true—not necessarily real, but true. Everything may not have happened exactly the way he thought it was happening—his imagination was a wild place—but there was an underlying truth to what he saw. Which means…
“None of this is real,” Henry whispers.
“Silly little boy. You accepted me as real when you were still wetting the bed. You can’t back out now.”
Henry considers this and says: “I don’t want this to be real.”
“Henry, I didn’t call myself into this world. That beautifully twisted mind of yours did. You called me, you keep me. That’s the way life works.”
“Then go away. I’ll make you go away.”
One of the monster’s scaly arms rises and points at the flaming mop, which looks much less impressive in the light of the boiler’s flaming belly. The monster says: “You think a little fire will stop me from eating your family? I’m a fat bear with my own fire in my belly, you silly little boy.”
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The boiler shivers as the asbestos continues the transformation into sharp scales. The top of the boiler bulges into a meaty hunchback, the flesh writhing and twitching. The metal door grins at Henry, showing off newly-grown fangs.
Henry realizes the mistake he has made. Fire isn’t going to do anything to stop this creature. It loves fire and heat. It lives for the fire.
Henry takes a step backwards, throws the flaming mop in desperation, and then he sprints up the stairs again. The boiler swallows the mop in one big gulp.
“You can run from me, Henry,” the monster calls, “but I’ll always find you. I’ll always be with you, no matter how far or how fast you run! You called me, remember?”
Henry hears this but he doesn’t really hear it. He’s bounding up the steps two at a time and through the first floor, not even seeing the smashed furniture and broken plaster and all the damage the boiler inflicted upon the house with those dreadful arms.
Once in the attic, Henry slams the door and falls to his knees. His heart is pounding and tears are dotting his face. He holds his head with his hands, pulling at his hair, and he studies what remains of his studio.
Paintings are shredded—including the Princess in the Dungeon series he never liked anyway—and paint is spilled everywhere. There are splashes of red on the walls, white on the ceiling, blue on the floor, green on the window.
A single blank canvas remains untouched in the middle of the room.
Just start at the beginning, Henry’s father whispers in his mind, and the rest will take care of itself.
“The beginning? What does that mean?”
Just start at the beginning.
“This afternoon when I couldn’t paint?”
Further back.
Henry closes his eyes. “The Princess in the Dungeon?”
Further.
Henry pulls his hair. The pain is sharp and his mind flashes on an image of a tree house and the coldness of the snow and the ice on the river and….
“The day when I was five?”
Yes! is the thunderous reply.
And finally Henry understands. The answer was there in his father’s advice all along. He grabs a blank canvas and his paint palette and he shoves a brush into his pocket. He runs downstairs toward the cellar, again taking the steps two at a time, almost tripping on his own feet in his hurry.
He doesn’t slow, he doesn’t let himself think. Thinking gets in the way; thinking will create doubts, build walls. He had the right idea the first time—he just took the wrong weapon with him.
I paint against the darkness, Henry thinks as he navigates his way through the trashed first floor to the kitchen and the cellar steps.
He slips on the broken glass in the kitchen, slams into the wall next to the cellar door. His leg twists awkwardly, but he stays on his feet. He hobbles down the narrow wooden steps and then he trips and falls onto the dirt cellar floor. The canvas flies from his hands.
The cellar is dark and damp, except for the light from the fire in the boiler’s belly whenever the monster speaks.
“Decided to give yourself to me?” the boiler asks, showing its new metal fangs again.
Henry ignores the question, getting to his feet. He retrieves the canvas and leans it against the mound of dirt next to the three graves. He pulls the paintbrush from his pocket and jabs it through the paint on his palette without even looking.
“What are you doing?” the monster demands.
I paint against the darkness, Henry thinks, but he doesn’t answer. He closes his eyes and applies the paint to the canvas just like when he works in the dark in the middle of the night. He doesn’t need to see what he’s doing. The image in his mind is larger than life.
The Princess appears, holding her sword, putting herself between the monster and the little boy in the dungeon. Henry sees for the first time that he is the child.
The monster, lurking in the corner of the scene, is hunched over, drool dripping from sharp fangs. The monster growls and breathes fire at the Princess. Her flowing gown, which is already tattered and torn, bursts into flames, but she protects the little boy with her body.
Then, releasing a fierce battle cry, she charges at the monster, a trail of flames flowing behind her like beads of water in the air.
The Princess slices at the monster with her sword; he deflects her blow with his massive arms. The sound is odd, though, like steel on steel instead of flesh.
The boiler screams, but Henry barely hears. He continues to paint, his brush moving from the palette to the canvas so quickly his arm is a blur. Paint splashes on his clothes, the dirt floor, the wooden beams, the stone walls.
Thump-thump-thump, cries the boiler.
In Henry’s mind, streaks of colors circle the Princess, swirling and dancing like the fiery bubbles trailing her wherever she goes. She grunts and swings her sword and this time one of the monster’s arms goes flying in a splash of blood.
The boiler screams.
Henry feels an electrical current in the air. There’s heat pounding him like the hottest summer day.
In Henry’s mind, the monster fights back, grabbing the Princess and throwing her across the dungeon, nearly knocking the little boy down. The boy stands frozen in shock, unable to help or run.
In the cellar, one of the boiler’s pipes strikes Henry in the chest. He falls backwards, the breath ripped from his lungs, but he jumps right back to the canvas without opening his eyes and he continues his work without missing a beat.
Thump-thump-thump.
Using a mix of white and gray, Henry adds a wavy bubble of hard air around the Princess and the little boy on the canvas.
The Princess charges again. The monster takes a swing at her, but the razor sharp claws simply break off when they connect with the protective bubble.
The monster screams and so does the boiler.
The colors swirl faster around the Princess, brighter and more vivid.
The monster backs away from her, into a corner.
Thump-thump-thump, cries the boiler.
The Princess—still on fire and badly injured—shows her teeth through a fierce grin as she charges one last time, driving the sword into the moist belly of the beast.
The monster and the boiler scream—and a second later, Henry is engulfed by the roar of an explosion; a wave of heat blows past him and up the cellar stairs.
He opens his eyes. The boiler is shredded and the entire cellar is burning. The brightness of the fire hurts his eyes and the heat makes his skin throb. Yet the flames do not touch him; they’re held at bay by an invisible bubble surrounding Henry. The sight is like taking a peek through a portal into Hell.
Henry feels a surge of triumph, but it is short-lived. The monster is dead, but the explosion damaged the line from the oil tank to the boiler. Black liquid is squirting on the stone walls.
Henry’s eyes widen and he clutches his paintbrush tightly as he sprints up the stairs to the kitchen one last time. He continues out the door and he’s halfway to the garage when the house explodes in a flash of intense white light, knocking him off his feet. The noise is deafening and the entire world glows brightly like a star supernova and then quickly fades to black.
THE BIRTH OF THE ARTIST
(11)
Henry was sniffling and hiding under his bed when he heard the front door of the house open and close. The room had grown dark as the sun disappeared for the day and he was still wearing his yellow rain slicker. His clothing was soaked in sweat, his face was wet with tears. A puddle from the snow melting off his boots trickled across the hardwood floor. He sobbed until his eyes burned.
The bedroom door opened and his father’s familiar work boots crossed the room, landing every step with a dull thud.
His father’s pants were stained with grease and grime and bleach. He took a knee and then, after a brief moment, his weathered, callused hand reached under the bed. Henry grabbed onto the hand, not believing it was really there, but his father gently pulled h
im out from under the bed just the same.
“What are you doing under there?” his father asked.
“The monsters…I saw the monsters get you,” Henry whimpered before sobbing uncontrollably again.
“Son, that’s silly. What do you mean?”
Henry couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t even get the words to form.
His father said: “It’ll be okay, Henry. Just start at the beginning and the rest will take care of itself.”
While Henry’s father helped him out of his rain slicker and into some dry clothing, Henry told him everything he had seen and done, including the fall from the tree house, the herd of rabbits, the trip down the river, and the monsters in the boiler room of the school.
Henry’s father held him and rocked him while he cried some more. His father said: “Well, Henry, it sounds like your imagination really got away from you today, didn’t it?”
Henry only nodded, unable to believe none of what happened had been real. He had the cuts on his face from the fall, after all, and his heart ached with a deep pain.
His father said, “When the weather gets a little nicer, we’ll go look at that tree house together, what do you say?”
Henry nodded.
“You okay?”
Henry shook his head and blurted: “I was so scared of the monsters!”
“Henry,” his father said, “the monsters don’t live in the dark corners waiting to pounce on us. They live deep in our heart. But we can fight them. I promise you, we can fight them and we can win. Why don’t you get a piece of paper and some crayons. I know something that’ll help you feel better.”
Henry retrieved his paper and his crayons and he sat on the floor in the beam of moonlight coming through the window.
“Okay, draw the clearing with the tree house,” his father instructed, standing next to him.