by Milo Abrams
James, in a moment of self-denial, got up and went to the door and opened it. He poked his head outside and saw Duffy back in the grass sniffing and ripping blades out with his teeth. When Duffy noticed he was there, he lifted his head and began wagging his tail. Everything seemed normal. James stepped out on the porch and looked around at the darkness outside the safe glow of the porch light. Bugs buzzed and collided just as they always had. The wind blew and trees swayed back and forth as they always had. He looked up at the stars, which shone more brilliantly out there—just as they always had. Maybe things weren't changing, he thought, maybe it's all me.
He left Duffy to do his thing and went back into the house where Jack and Owen sat there looking at him.
"I'm not saying I told you so," Owen sneered, "but you didn't get eaten and neither did Duffy, right?"
James sighed. “Right."
Such an intense moment of introspection was way too serious and heavy for a twelve-year-old boy to maintain for long. If everything in the universe was moving toward equilibrium, then to counteract such an intense adult moment there needed to be an equally intense moment of childish behavior. James looked down and saw the empty wing boxes full of sauce and chicken bones, plucked one out that was buried in sauce and threw it at Owen, hitting him right in the face. His delayed recoil was too late to prevent the bright orange sauce from splattering all over his face and shirt.
"Ah!" he screamed. He wiped the sauce from his eyes and saw James doubled over laughing. What had started as an expression of anger and frustration had become a playful outlet for their bustling potential energy. Like Duffy tearing through the open field, they let loose just like children—without a care in the world.
Owen grabbed a box and quickly began rapid-fire-throwing chicken bones and finger-dipped globs of sauce at James. Caught up in his own laughter, he was left completely without defense. Some of the bones and sauce bounced off his chest and hair while others flew directly past him splattering all over the kitchen floor. Jack put his hands over his head and dropped down off his chair, ducking under the table as Owen and James exchanged shots of sauce and laughter. After a few minutes and a lot of mess, they both noticed Jack under the table and Owen pointed down at him. James smiled and said, "All right, truce, truce! Jack, you can come out."
Poor gullible Jack slid out from under the table and as he was standing up, Owen took the last entire box of mostly leftover sauce and poured thick, oozy waterfalls on top of his head.
"NO!" Jack screamed as the yellow orange sauce dripped through his hair and down his cheeks. He slumped back down to the floor and curled into a ball while Owen and James fell down in laughter. The couple minutes of fun faded and they realized they had a big mess to clean up in both the kitchen and themselves.
"Crap, didn't your dad say not to make a mess?" Owen asked smiling.
"You guys are jerks," Jack said, slipping on sauce as he stood up.
"Sorry Jack," James laughed. "Yeah, we have to clean this up."
Jack went to his bag and pulled out a clean outfit, then looked at Owen and sneered, "Sucks to not have anything, huh?"
Owen frowned.
"Don't worry," James said, "I've got stuff you can wear. We can throw all this in the washer."
Owen looked up at James and their tiny feud had ended. "Thanks," he said.
James washed his head off in the kitchen sink and after an hour of cleaning up chicken bones and wing sauce, the boys collapsed on the couch to watch another movie while their clothes were in the washer. The monotonous drone of the television quickly lulled the boys to sleep. James hadn't fallen asleep to the sound of a TV in nearly a week and something about the familiar glow brought with it a nostalgic warmth. A couple hours later the movie ended and the boys exchanged shots in a battle of snores instead of chicken bones.
Eventually, James felt Duffy's pain when his full bladder woke him up. The living room was dark with the TV only displaying a generic DVD menu. He looked over to see Jack huddled in a ball on the couch and Owen completely sprawled out with his arms and legs hanging off the recliner like a skydiver in free fall. Getting up was uncomfortable and he quickly hobbled to the bathroom to pee. After he finished, he came back to the living room and crawled back onto the couch to go to sleep when he heard Duffy barking outside.
"Shit," he whispered, "I forgot to bring Duffy in!"
Just as he was getting back up he heard a loud bang on the wall from the hallway which scared him enough to jump back onto the couch. "Oh my God," he whispered. His mind immediately went to the monster. It's in the house, he thought. He remembered how Duffy would be a heads-up if anything happened. Oh my God, Duffy must have seen it breaking in!
He wanted to wake Owen and Jack but he couldn't move and his ability to speak escaped him. He sat and listened as another bang on the wall in the hallway was followed by a grunt.
Nolan stumbled out of the hallway holding a laundry basket. "God damn it, how'd that get there?" Duffy continued to bark wildly outside.
Dad! James screamed in his head. It was just my dad. He watched as his dad stumbled into the kitchen.
"Shut up Duff," he grumbled.
James realized that Duffy was barking a lot. It must be outside, he thought. He couldn't move and his lips had turned to stone. He watched as his dad opened the door and stepped outside.
"C'mon Duff, for Christ's sake," Nolan yelled as the door closed behind him.
James sat and waited, barely breathing. Duffy stopped barking. He waited for his dad and Duffy to come back in, but time was frozen. He looked at the clock and two minutes had passed and they hadn't come back in.
C'mon, what’s taking so long?
Another minute passed as his body began to thaw. His imagination spun out of control as his level of worry had gone through the roof. He was sure the monster had killed his father and dog on the other side of that door, or maybe he dragged them back to the woods. He couldn't bear to think about it. He got up and walked slowly into the kitchen toward the door. Everything was completely silent except for his pounding heart that beat against his eardrums as he reached out for the door knob then gently squeezed it. He slowly turned it until he felt the latch recede back into the door and then he took a deep breath. Pulling quickly, he yanked the door open which scared his father who had just opened the screen door to come in.
"Ah!" Nolan screamed, scaring James, causing him to scream too. "Jesus Christ, James! What're you doing?"
"I'm sorry," James said retreating into the kitchen, "I...I didn't mean to—
"Leave Duff outside? Oh, it's okay," he said letting Duffy loose into the house. "I saw him outside when I came home and he was just rolling in the grass loving it. Doesn't hurt to leave him out, it’s nice and warm and he can crap anytime he wants. I should have known he'd start that shit though with all the things out there."
"What?" James asked nervously.
"What?" Nolan asked in reply.
"You said all the things out there..."
"Yeah," Nolan answered, "there's got to be deer, raccoons, cats...all sorts of shit out there."
"Oh."
"Get some sleep, son. I don't know about you but I'm tired. Got a big date tomorrow!" Nolan bounced as he walked into the dark hallway back into his room.
James sat on the couch for a while and wondered if the monster was all in his head. He had been the only one to see it, and he had seen it every day since he had gotten to his dad's house—except for that day. He realized he hadn't seen it at all that day, even though he hadn't been spying out the kitchen window or the barn and was gone most of the beginning of the day. Was it all in his imagination? Could he even conjure up such a thing?
Day Six
16
"James! James, wake up!" Jack yelled, shaking him violently from his slumber.
"Huh?" James replied groggily. "What?"
"Wake up!" Jack said still shaking him.
"St...op...sh...sh...shaking me, Jack!" James sat up and looked aroun
d. Owen was at the window in the kitchen looking into the driveway. "What's going on?"
"I don't know," Jack said anxiously, "I woke up and there's a cop outside.”
"Lights are still on, too," Owen said from the window.
James looked puzzled, "Well, did you get my dad?"
"That's just it," Jack said as his anxiety began to unwind him, "I went to and he's not in the house anywhere. James, this is bad. The monster, it's real. I think it got your dad and the cop."
Owen walked back into the living room, "What?"
James sat up straight, hardly able to process all the incoming information. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened," Owen said crossing his arms. "Jack, you watch too many scary movies. There is no monster in the woods, remember? They're probably out in the barn."
"If you know so much, then what happened?" James asked Owen.
"Beats me," he said shrugging, "scaredy-cat here woke me up just before you."
The front door opened and Nolan walked in visibly upset.
"Dad!" James said hopping up from the couch. He had never been so happy to see him. "What happened?"
"I can't believe this!" Nolan said throwing his arms into the air. He started rustling through a drawer in the kitchen.
"Dad!" James said again walking up to him. "What happened? What's going on?"
Nolan looked at him, his face twisted in an expression of half anger and half heartbreak. "The car! Someone stole the gas tank off the car!"
"What?" James exclaimed.
"Gone! The whole thing is gone! The officer is out there now writing up a report!" Nolan slumped into one of the kitchen table chairs.
"Holy shit," Owen said, his swearing being ignored by the despair of the moment.
Nolan got back up and dug through another drawer. "I have to find that insurance paper, where is it?" After a couple more seconds of shuffling he produced a piece of paper and quickly ran back outside to the police officer who was still in the barn.
Jack and Owen entered the kitchen. "Holy crap," Jack said, "the entire gas tank?"
"And in the middle of the night!" James pointed out. "Poor Dad." James was secretly happy his dad’s car was now out of commission. Without it, his date would be ruined. He had never met the woman but that didn't stop him from already hating her. As far as he was concerned, there was no room for more members in his family.
Nolan came back in as the police car backed out of the driveway. He sat down at the table. "Ridiculous," he grunted, "I went out there to pick up the tools from the other day. I never got to it yesterday because we were gone all day and then I had to work. I got out there this morning and the car is flipped on its side and the gas tank had been torn right off!"
"I'm sorry, Dad." James was sorry because he knew that his dad was genuinely upset, but his curiosity came out as best as it could without trying to sound insensitive. "So, no date then, huh?"
Nolan looked up confused, "Oh, I almost forgot. I have to make a phone call." He grabbed the phone and started dialing, "just have to take the Red Rocket instead."
This upset James, so he went back into the living room where Jack and Owen were waiting.
"So, what do you think about that?" Owen asked James.
"About what?" James asked still lost in his own emotional fog.
"The theft of your father's personal property!" Jack exclaimed in a hushed voice so Nolan wouldn't hear him. "You have to admit that's a pretty fantastic thing to do, we're talking multiple people, equipment and an escape vehicle. Or..."
"Or what?" James asked.
"The monster," Owen interrupted.
"What do you mean the monster?"
"We were thinking about it, James. Things are starting to add up if you think of the monster as atypical." Jack explained.
James leaned in. "What do you mean atypical?"
"Unusual or not in the average sense. Okay," Jack started getting excited because he loved to solve puzzles, "your typical monster acts a lot like a wild animal might and doesn't display, what is it called... sentience. But if you think of this monster as more human-like than animal-like, then maybe it's smart like us. Maybe it has the best of both worlds: the strength of a wild animal and the intelligence of a human."
"Wait, I see what you're saying. Like when I thought it was in the barn below me the other day. So it was in there looking for something?"
"Exactly!" Owen said. "It seems like it was checking shit out and maybe you interrupted it and then it came back last night, then BOOM BITCH."
James's head spun. In less than a day he went from doubting his fears of the monster to a consensus among his peers that it may exist after all. Yet amidst all the chaos, he was excited to finally have his friends on his side.
"You know what this means then if it came here last night? Let's suppose that it followed the same path as most animals and humans tend to do," Jack said.
"It means there's one bad ass monster living in those woods?" Owen asked smiling.
James looked at Jack and nodded. He knew exactly what Jack meant. "We need to get the game camera," he said.
17
Nolan came back into the living room in a rush. "C'mon boys, time to go."
"What?" James asked.
"I just talked to your mother and because of everything that’s going on, she doesn't feel comfortable with you being here until the police get some answers."
James couldn't believe that his dad had called his mom. "What did you tell her for?"
Nolan looked confused. "What? It's my job as your father to make sure your mother knows everything that goes on with you and around you. She doesn't like you here right now and so you're going home. Let's get moving, she's pretty upset and wants us there A.S.A.P., okay?"
"But Dad, it's not like it's an emergency!" James pleaded. They were finally breaking through on their ideas about the monster and were so close to possibly seeing it.
"I'm not going to argue with you, James. Guys, get your stuff so we can get going. I'm sorry to rush you. I'll be out in the truck." He patted his leg and whistled, "C'mon, Duff."
"Show's over, bro." Owen said shrugging.
"It's understandable," Jack chimed in, "if your parents feel there's an immediate threat here then they would want to remove you if you don't have to be here."
"It's bullshit," James protested.
"Well if it wasn't a monster, I wouldn't want to mess with the guy who jacked the gas tank," Owen said standing up, “or a monster, of course.”
Jack and James got up and followed him to the door. Once on the porch they could see James's dad still distraught in the truck with Duffy next to him.
"You guys go ahead, if my dad asks, tell him I went to grab the game camera." James jumped off the porch and started running toward the woods. Jack and Owen stood back in awe. James ran as fast as he could without looking at anything but the feeder and game camera. Once he reached the deer feeder he noticed it still had feed in it. He hesitated then committed and ran for the camera. At first, he couldn't figure out how to detach it, but a little frustration went a long way and soon it was free. Without taking the time to think about the woods, the monster, his dad, or if he was being hunted, he turned around and dug his heels into the dirt and threw himself like Duffy across the field back toward the truck.
By the time he reached the truck he was out of breath and couldn't speak. His dad looked at him and smiled. "Can we go now?”
The trip back to the city was a blur. The three boys sat crammed in the front of the truck without saying a word but they all were thinking the same thing. What was on the camera? Did it get any pictures of the monster? They couldn't wait to get back to James's house to find out.
As soon as they pulled into the driveway, they saw that Margaret was already outside on the porch waiting. Everyone fell out of the truck and as soon as Duffy hit the ground he ran for her, overwhelming her with wet kisses and drool.
"Aw I missed you too, Duff," she said.
; The boys quickly ran up the walkway and once at the porch, Margaret wrapped her arms around her son and kissed him on the forehead.
"I'm so glad you're okay," she said.
"Mom," James pulled away embarrassed, "of course I'm fine, it's not like I slept in the barn."
"I know," she said, "but a mother worries." As soon as he broke free from her loving grip they hurried inside.
James's house was significantly smaller than his dad's country house. Although it had three bedrooms, it was long and slender like a trailer or a box car that had fallen off a train. Nolan had neglected it for years, spending all his time and energy at work. The front door opened to the kitchen with dated appliances, worn cupboards and a tile floor that looked dirty even when it was scrubbed clean. But it felt like home even though there were no beautiful hardwood floors. There were only carpets stained by juice, paint, and other toddler mishaps. The boys ran through the living room, down the narrow hallway which led to every other room in the house and into James's room at the very end. This was a trip the three boys had made many times over the years but never had they been so excited while doing it.
They piled into his room and James closed the door behind him. Clutched in his hands was what felt like the pinnacle of human discovery. Inside that square of plastic was proof of a monster living in the woods behind his dad's house—they were sure of it.
18
“Here it is, the moment of truth!" James fumbled around the camera looking for a way to view the pictures. After a minute of analysis, he realized he had no idea how to look at the pictures contained within it. "Uh, anybody have any idea how to get to the pictures?"
Jack took the camera from him and looked it over. "Well there's no screen of any sort." He flipped a part open to reveal a port for a cable and the slot where the SD card was located. "Well," he said, "looks like we need the USB cable. Plug it into your computer and look at them that way."