The Devil's Demeanor

by Hart, Jerry

  Ethan stood at the foot of the bed, staring at Don. He was wearing his Batman pajamas. His eyes seemed brighter than they should have been. Don backed out of the room and ran back to the living room. As soon as he got there, he saw someone standing out in the parking lot, just past the patio.

  It was Dad.

  Don hopped onto the couch-bed to get to the other side and opened the patio door. By the time he actually got outside, however, Dad had already started climbing the rock wall. “Dad, don’t leave me!” Don shouted as he watched his father climb away.

  “Can you blame him?” a voice behind Don asked. He spun around and saw Ethan standing at the sliding patio door. “Can you blame him for wanting to leave us? He left Mom, after all.”

  “He left her because she’s cursed,” Don said. “Just like you. He’s leaving you!” Don screamed the last part, sounding hysterical.

  Ethan smiled and cocked his head. “What makes you say that?”

  “Mom was pregnant with you when she was cursed,” Don explained, though he knew he didn’t have to. “Everybody knows something’s wrong with you.”

  “And what have I done to make people think something’s wrong with me?”

  The way Ethan asked the question bothered Don. It sounded too grown up. He was also bothered by the fact he couldn’t think of a truly compelling example of his brother’s “wrongness.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Ethan said. “Let’s talk about you.”

  Don looked back up the rock wall to see his father halfway up. Dad had stopped climbing, however, and was looking down at them, as if listening to the conversation.

  “What about me?” Don asked his brother.

  “Well, let’s see….” Ethan tapped his chin and looked to the dark sky as he thought—another grown-up gesture. “You wrote that hateful note to Candice just because she wouldn’t let you play with her toys; you hurt Robbie because he stole your pencil. Sounds to me like you’re the one who’s evil.”

  Don’s heart sped up as he listened to the horrible things he’d done. They couldn’t be disputed. All Ethan had done was throw a rock at Zeke and kill a helpless caterpillar. Don looked up at Dad again and found he’d resumed his climb.

  “Wait! Dad! Don’t leave me!”

  He kept climbing, though.

  Don turned angrily toward his brother. “You made me do all that stuff!”

  Ethan tilted his head to the other side. “How so?”

  “Whenever you’re around people, you make them do bad things. You make them angrier.”

  Ethan stood in silence for a moment, then said, “I don’t do that…but you do. Don’t you?”

  “Yes, you do!” Don screamed back. “I know you do.”

  Ethan tilted his head to the other side. “Your theory is flawed. I wasn’t with you when you attacked Robbie over the pencil. You can’t truly expect to blame me for that, can you?”

  Don was about to respond when he suddenly realized Ethan was right. He hadn’t been anywhere near Don when he decided what he wanted to do to Robbie. But if it was true Ethan couldn’t influence people’s moods, what did it mean for Don? Every time his skin tingled, someone near him got very angry. If it had anything to do with the curse, why did Ethan seem so curious about it?

  Ethan smiled as his brother came to the realization.

  Don turned back to the rock wall. “Dad!” he screamed as he began to climb. His father was near the top now, and did not look down after being called. Don grabbed hold of the wall and tried to climb, but the rocks he clung to crumbled. He tried again, this time managing to grasp more reliable holds.

  Before he knew it, he was climbing the rock wall, though this wasn’t under the conditions he’d wanted to do so. He didn’t want to be chasing his father, who seemed to be fleeing his evil sons.

  Don’s heart was thumping in his hefty chest at the exertion. Climbing was not easy, and he tried not to look down because he knew it would only make things worse. He was barefoot, and his toes ached from the sharp rocks he used for footholds. He kept climbing, enduring the pain, because he wanted to get away from Ethan.

  He wanted to be with his father.

  Just as Don was reaching up for another handhold, something grabbed his left ankle. He looked down to see Ethan clinging to him. Don tried to shake him off but couldn’t. They were twenty feet off the ground, high enough to be seriously hurt if they fell.

  But this was a dream. It wasn’t real.

  “It’s real enough, Donnie,” Ethan said in a voice that clearly wasn’t his. It was that of a demon from the cave. “And it will hurt.”

  Before Don could realize the thing had read his thoughts, the Ethan-demon bit off his big toe. Don screamed in pain and terror, a scream that was high-pitched and terrible. Though he didn’t want to, he looked down and saw where his toe had been chewed off. Blood flowed freely over Ethan’s face.

  Don looked back up to see his father watching them from over the edge of the wall. Don reached a hand out to Dad, begging for help. Instead of helping, Dad disappeared from sight for a moment, only to reappear holding a large rock over his head.

  “You’re not my son,” he said.

  Dad then held the rock in front of him before releasing it. Don woke up just before it struck him in the face. His throat hurt, as if he’d been screaming his lungs out. He looked around the dark living room. He heard the air conditioner humming.

  His heart hurt at the feeling of being abandoned by Dad like that in the dream. He wanted to jump out of bed and check to see if Dad was still nearby, in his room. He had to know he hadn’t been left behind in real life as well.

  He had to.

  The first thing Don saw when he woke up was his brother, fast asleep next to him on the couch-bed. He automatically drew away from the sleeping demon, as if fearing Ethan might spring at any moment.

  It was still very early in the morning, but the sky was steadily brightening. Dad would soon wake up and grab a bowl of cereal from the kitchen. Don got up from the bed and planted himself in the recliner. There was no way he was getting back to sleep any time soon.

  He sat in the gloomy living room and quietly played with his action figures. Ethan never stirred on the bed. Don wondered if he was even really asleep at that moment. Ethan was facing the patio, his back to Don. After a while, Don abandoned his toys and watched his brother lay there. Had Ethan been responsible for the nightmare? Did he have that power, or was Don assigning him abilities he didn’t possess?

  If it had been a dream of Don’s own conjuring, what did it mean? Why did Dad kill his own sons instead of helping them? Did he truly feel there was no hope for either boy? Perhaps the demon was right when it said it would have Don too.

  And why did Dad tell him he wasn’t his son?

  “What are you doing up so early?” a voice asked, startling Don in the worn-out recliner. He looked over and saw Dad in a white T-shirt and boxers. His curly black hair was a mess.

  “I had a bad dream,” Don replied.

  “I figured you did,” Dad said, grinning a little, his thick mustache twitching. “I heard you yelling from my room. I came to check on you, but you settled down before I could get here.”

  Don felt embarrassed, but didn’t say so. “What was I yelling about?”

  Dad shrugged. “You kept yelling ‘Dad, don’t leave me!’ ” He patted Don on the head. “Do you worry about that sometimes?”

  “No,” Don said, and it wasn’t really a lie. He loved his mom a lot, and he also loved his dad. Up until this point, however, he never really thought about anything but the curse. “Dad,” he finally said, “is Mom really sick, like you said?” Don whispered so Ethan wouldn’t hear, if he was indeed faking sleep.

  Dad didn’t answer right away, and he too kept glancing at his youngest son on the bed. Finally, he said, “I really don’t know, son. I do worry about her sometimes. About you, too.”

  Don wondered if “you” meant just him or him and Ethan, but decided not to ask. “Why?
” he asked Don. “Has she done or said anything to make you worry about her?”

  Don wanted to tell him about the day Mom was late picking him up from Woodcrest, and how that had led him to conclude (with Dad’s help) she had killed the woman responsible for their divorce.

  “No,” Don replied after a moment’s hesitation. Dad, who had seemed tense before, suddenly settled down. He was relieved. That was when Don said, “But Ethan has.”

  Dad said nothing. He was incapable of forming words. It was as if Don had confirmed a suspicion. “What has he done?” Dad finally asked.

  Don went on to tell him about the caterpillar Ethan had killed, and about what he’d told Nick about remembering his own birth. He also told Dad about the night he’d been chased into the playroom by Ethan, the night he’d spent under the couch. He left out the dreams for some reason. He wanted to see what Dad said about the other stuff first.

  “Well,” Dad began, “I don’t know if any of that means anything.”

  Don was crushed. That was the last thing he expected to hear. He had felt so relieved telling his dad all of this, but now he felt foolish.

  Dad looked at Ethan again. “I think your brother’s just fine,” he said, looking suddenly exhausted. “I think everything is going to be fine. I have to get ready for work.”

  He went back to his room, apparently skipping breakfast. Don watched until he disappeared around the corner, into the hallway. Then Don turned back to the bed.

  He gasped.

  Ethan was awake and looking right at him.

  Chapter 8

  When the Scott boys returned to Georgia, they found most of their stuff packed up. They really were moving! Though it was only down the street, Don couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed. With the move came a different school, since the new house was in a different district. Don would no longer go to Windsor Meadow with Nick and Monica. Instead he would go to Hightower Elementary, which was much nicer (and newer) and located behind a tiny suburb, as if the school belonged to the neighborhood alone.

  Hightower was so clean and new and bright Don took an immediate liking to it. No more homeroom in a manufactured shed separated from the main building. And the library was huge, with many large windows that let the sun in. Hightower was almost nothing but windows. The school was so high-spirited Don actually looked forward to going there every day.

  The first week in the new house had been surprisingly fun. Mom, Ethan and he had set down a few mattresses in the master bedroom, ate pizza and watched TV. Mom claimed it was a tradition when moving into a new house, and that Don was too young to remember them doing it when they had moved into the last house.

  It didn’t take long to settle into the new home, and Don even made a new friend in the neighborhood. There was a boy named Sym Stonebrook, whose house was surrounded by a chain-link fence that went all the way to the curbless street. Large ferns were placed on either side of the mailbox. Sym, who was half Caucasian and half Korean, lived only two houses down, and his mom made Don take his shoes off every time he came over.

  Sym’s driveway was a designated bus stop—the last bus stop, in fact—and resulted in terrible seats on the bus. After a while, Don and Sym decided to trek through the neighborhood to a better stop in order to get picked up sooner. That was how Don found out about the Candy Store, which was really just an old lady who sold candy to the school kids while they waited for the bus in the mornings. Sure, it sounds creepy, but kids don’t care about stuff like that.

  Don still hung out with Nick occasionally, the two of them meeting at the laundromat to play arcade games while Don’s mom did laundry. These were the best years of Don’s life because everything had become somewhat normal for the Scott family.

  Adrian kept mom happy, and Ethan slowly but surely acted more like a regular kid, though he started falling ill often after turning five back in July. At first it was just mild stomach discomfort, but then it turned into fevers in the fall. It was as if his illness made him act normal, for which Don was grateful.

  Summer of ’94 was the last to be spent in Connecticut because Dad and Yvonne moved to Florida the next year. Before they did, though, the family visited New York and Niagara Falls. They even ventured into Canada for a few hours and had dinner in a fancy restaurant.

  Life was good for Donovan Scott.

  He wondered when it would all come crashing down for him and his family. He also wondered if he’d be prepared when it did.

  * * *

  In 1994, Don enjoyed a very comfortable Greyhound bus ride to the Turner building in Atlanta for a field trip. This had been the first time he’d ridden on such a bus, and he couldn’t believe how large the seats had been. Sym sat right next to him, and they talked about videogames and movies and listened to each other’s CDs. In a way, Sym was becoming his new best friend.

  That was also the year Don started middle school. Spirit Spring was the school, and it was like a mix of Windsor Meadow and Hightower—old with new. Each of the three grades had its own hall, seventh grade being in the middle. At Spirit Spring, Don learned to play the clarinet and he became quite good at it, though he never grew to like moistening the reed every day with his tongue.

  As he got older, his interests changed and he replaced his toys with comic books. Since there was no place for the big toy box that once resided in the playroom of their former home, the Scotts had many yard sales.

  To feed his comic-book appetite, Mom often drove him to a comic store in Augusta. Don enjoyed these rides; Augusta was a beautiful city, with its hills and old businesses that looked like they would never go away. He especially loved going to the movie theater that seemed hidden away behind the mall, where no one could see it from the main road. Don and his family had been going to this very theater since the ’80s. In fact, this was the same theater where Mom had gone into labor with Ethan.

  Don hoped the place would never go away, despite that one unpleasant memory. He loved looking at the posters for upcoming blockbusters in the lobby, as well as watching the policy trailers before the feature presentation. He was the kind of boy who loved the stuff before the movies more than the movies themselves.

  It was a great time to be a kid, the Nineties. Don treasured this time while he could, because he knew soon he would be an adult. You only have one childhood.

  * * *

  Dad and Yvonne moved to Melbourne, Florida, in May of 1995. It was definitely a different atmosphere compared to Connecticut, and the road trip from Georgia didn’t take nearly as long. Dad had picked up Don and Ethan as usual in the van, Don lounging on the back seat and listening to Whitney Houston or whoever played on the radio. Yvonne had accompanied them this time, and she controlled the radio from the passenger seat. Whenever one station lost reception, she would tune to another. It was always rap or R & B, music Don had never listened to before. He found himself enjoying, though.

  He marveled at all the billboards on the trip to Melbourne, asking Dad if they could visit Universal Studios some time during the summer. Dad said yes, of course.

  Dad rented a house just off a highway. It had three bedrooms, so Don and Ethan didn’t have to share a bed anymore. Hurricane Erin hit hard, but the family survived, and Don got some awesome footage with Dad’s video camera. But that was nothing compared to a few other significant events: Yvonne told the boys she was pregnant, and she and Dad were getting married.

  Don barely said a word for the rest of the summer.

  * * *

  During the first week back at school, Don and Sym decided to take a different route to the first stop just to see more of the neighborhood. During the trip they found a very steep hill, which proved to be exhausting to traverse.

  “We should ride our bikes this way after school,” Sym panted.

  “Have fun with that,” said Don. “I’m never coming this way again.”

  At the moment they reached the summit, something appeared from around the side of a house on their right. It was a large, snarling English bulldog
, with foam dripping from its jaws. The boys froze in place and stared in hopeless terror as the dog trotted closer. It didn’t seem interested in both kids, however—only Don.

  “Do you have meat in your pocket?” Sym asked.

  Don ignored his friend and focused on the dog’s eyes. A deep growl rose from its chest. “Leave me alone,” he whispered to the dog.

  At those words, there was a slight pause in the growling.

  It picked back up a second later.

  “What did you do to piss it off?”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Don snapped quietly but fiercely. To the dog, he said, “Leave. Me. Alone.”

  It immediately ceased its growling, as if a loud clap had startled it, and then ran away.

  The boys stood in the middle of the street, still frozen with silent fear. Mom always complained about the lack of sidewalks and curbs in this neighborhood, and for some reason Don instantly remembered that. Irrational thoughts in extreme circumstances, he’d read about that somewhere. Though he thought perhaps had there been sidewalks, he and Sym would have been even closer to the dog when it appeared. It would have caught them even more by surprise, perhaps even attacked them before Don could do anything.

  “Can I talk now?” Sym asked after a minute.

  “Sorry. I was just afraid he would attack us if you talked.”

  “You talked,” Sym countered, “and it went away. You know what’s weirder, though? I could’ve sworn I saw that dog smile at you before it ran away.”

  Don nodded as they started back on their journey to the bus stop. He’d noticed it too, but thought he imagined it. He was no longer thinking irrational thoughts of curbless neighborhoods.

  * * *

  Don’s clear plastic phone lit up in different colors as it rang. He answered.

  “Want to come over and play Nintendo?” Sym asked.

  “Why don’t you come over and play Sega?” Don asked.

  “We played Sega the other day.”

  “Fine!” Don relented dramatically. “I’ll be over in a minute.”

  He hung up and went down the long hall to the living room. The TV was on, but there was no one there. “Mom?” he called, but received no reply. He checked the kitchen as well but saw only Ethan, eating a sandwich. “Where’s Mom?”