The Nightmarys

by Dan Poblocki

  Everything had changed when Timothy’s brother Ben’s unit had been sent away. The Chens didn’t understand how the Julys could let Ben enlist during such dangerous times. The Julys didn’t think it was their neighbors’ business.

  When Timothy asked his brother about his decision, Ben explained that, though he was terrified to go, it was his way of finding a sense of order in all the world’s chaos. This was something Ben could do: find a little light in the darkness. Make a decision. Accomplish something. It was Ben’s way of dealing with his fear, with the uncertainty of war and politics and all those other big ideas that Timothy hadn’t yet begun to think about.

  After Ben went overseas, those words had become like a mantra to Timothy. Find order in chaos. The little light in the darkness. The words were a comfort. They gave him hope.

  Timothy opened the bathroom door and peered into the hallway. A few footsteps echoed through the now-quiet corridors of the school, but he couldn’t see anyone. With nothing and no one to stop him, Timothy zipped up his jacket and hiked his book bag high onto his shoulders before making his way toward the school’s front entrance and out into the wet afternoon.

  Paul Revere Middle School was a redbrick Victorian monstrosity of a building that sat on the edge of downtown New Starkham, well away from the river and the bridge, past College Ridge, bordered on the east by numerous factories and warehouses.

  As Timothy pushed his way into the blustering wind up Johnson Street, he could see the silhouettes of the seven gothic spires, which marked New Starkham College, peeking over the hill’s horizon. New Starkham students passed Timothy on the sidewalk in small clusters, bundled against the unseasonable chill. They laughed at nothing in particular as they made their way up the street.

  In a couple of weeks, their final exams would be done. For the college students, graduation happened at the beginning of May. Lucky, thought Timothy. Classes at Paul Revere didn’t let out until the end of June. As he turned right onto Edgehill Road, Timothy shuddered at the realization that only a year ago, Ben had made his own trip across the stage in the high school auditorium to receive his diploma. So much had changed since then.

  Timothy trudged several blocks along the tree-lined street, continuing up the hill, passing the quiet houses on either side, until he reached the wooded area on the left that dropped away from the road. A battered silver guardrail hugged the sharp curve—the “edge” part of Edgehill Road. From there, a long, covered staircase descended the steep wooded hill to the college’s athletic fields at the bottom.

  At the end of the guardrail, Timothy came upon the entrance to the stairs. The bluffs across the river looked as sullen and cold as Timothy felt, the clouds above darkening in papier-mâché strips. The only color Timothy could see came from inside the stairs’ graffiti-covered walls.

  The staircase had been nicknamed the Dragon Stairs by students and faculty who lived off campus in Timothy’s neighborhood. Several years ago, someone had painted an immense Chinese dragon onto one wall, stretching from the bottom stair to the top, where its swirling eyes rolled back into its head as if in the throes of a terrible dream. Timothy thought the dragon was cool, but its eyes were creepy. He felt like he might fall into them and keep falling forever. It was an irrational fear, like in nightmares, the way everyday objects can instantly become ominous. Stuart teased him about it, pretending to chortle in the dragon’s high-pitched voice, telling Timothy, “I’m going to eat you up.” Then they’d laugh together, turn up Beech Nut Street, and race home.

  Now, at the top of the stairs, the monster’s black-and-white pinwheel pupils reminded Timothy of the thing that had been watching him from inside the jar back in Mr. Crane’s classroom. He suddenly found himself thinking about the new girl, Abigail Tremens, who would be his project partner during the field trip to the museum tomorrow. In his head, Timothy could see Abigail’s eyes boring into his own, only now, instead of brown, they had turned the black and white of the Chinese dragon. Stay away from me, they growled.

  Timothy shook his head and turned away.

  Why had she been so angry? he wondered.

  Maybe invisible things don’t like being seen.

  Timothy was nearly soaked by the time he reached the front porch of his small gray house. He thought of the last time he walked home alone from school. Last week, when Stuart was at a doctor’s appointment, Timothy had found a big black car parked in his driveway. Inside, the men in uniforms had already told his mother about Ben’s injuries.

  Today there was no car. Timothy brushed a drip of water from his forehead. A cough came from the house next door. He didn’t even need to look to know that Stuart was watching him. He took a deep breath and turned around, ready to confront his best friend, once more hoping they could just laugh it off the way they usually did.

  But Stuart had already gone. The slam of the screen door rang out across their shared yard. The Chens’ front porch was empty. Unless Stuart had figured out a way to become invisible himself, he wasn’t there, wasn’t watching.

  4.

  Inside, Timothy ripped off his wet jacket and threw it over the banister at the bottom of the stairs. Then he dropped his bag onto the wooden bench in the hallway. Timothy noticed his mother standing in the kitchen down the hall, leaning her head against the cabinet next to the sink. “Hi, Mom,” he called. “Guess what?” He waited for her to turn around, but she didn’t, so he continued, “I saw a girl light her foot on fire today.”

  “That’s nice, honey” was his mother’s muffled reply. A few seconds later, when she did turn around, her face was drawn. “I’m going to make dinner,” she said. “Your father should be home soon.” She looked older than usual and terribly sad.

  “Mom?” Timothy tried again. She turned on the sink. “When can we talk to people about what happened to Ben?”

  “Soon, honey.” She turned away from him. “When we know a little more about …” She washed her hands.

  “About what?” he asked cautiously. He waited and waited, but the only answer that came from the kitchen was the sound of clinking dishes.

  Later that night, when Timothy was in bed, through the wall, he could hear his parents arguing. Outside, the wind had blown away the clouds, so the moon shone brightly onto his quilt. The house rocked against a particularly powerful gust.

  His parents were talking about Ben. Timothy was upset that they had each other to confide in but he had no one. And when he tried to talk to them about it, they pretended he wasn’t there.

  It was after midnight, and he was awake, huddled under his blanket, thinking about the afternoon’s events, trying to block out his parents’ voices. If he didn’t get to sleep soon, he might sleep through his alarm in the morning. Despite Stuart and Abigail, he was actually looking forward to the field trip.

  In his parents’ room, the closet door slammed, and Timothy heard his mother say, “Quiet, you’ll wake him up.”

  He noticed that his own closet light was on. At the base of the door, a small white line reflected onto the dark wood floor. The light had not been on when he’d gotten into bed an hour earlier.

  Someone flushed the toilet down the hall. “Mom?” Timothy called. No answer. “Dad?”

  Ordinarily, Timothy wouldn’t have thought twice about getting up and turning off the light, but recently he’d begun to notice things he’d never noticed before. Invisible things. And what if one of those invisible things was behind the door?

  “Mom?” Timothy tried again. But the rest of the house was now dead, and he was left alone with the moonlight, and the wind outside the window, and the weight of his quilt. And the light behind his closet door.

  Barefoot, shivering, Timothy stepped out of bed. No one and nothing would be in there, he told himself. Scary things never happened when you were expecting them to; scary things always came out of nowhere to surprise you. He grasped the doorknob and slowly turned it. When it wouldn’t turn any more, Timothy heaved a sigh and swung the door open. What he saw made him n
early wet his pants.

  Inside the closet was a large glass jar like the ones from his history classroom. The jar was taller than Timothy, covered with dust and filled with a cloudy yellow liquid. A large black lid was hanging loosely over the rim. Something dark floated near the bottom of the jar. The object began to move.

  Through the smudged glass, drifting in the liquid, two arms and a leg came into view. They looked human. After a few seconds, the thing inside the jar finally came close enough for Timothy to distinguish the military emblem on its decaying sleeve. Suddenly, as if blessed with life, the dark shape raised its hands, pressed them to the jar, and brought its face against the glass.

  It wasn’t an It.

  It was a He.

  Timothy’s brother, Ben, opened his mouth wide and showed him his purple swollen tongue. Timothy screamed.

  Ben stared at him with big eyes the same color as the Chinese dragon, the same color as the specimen in Timothy’s classroom. Swirling. Black. Mad.

  Ben reached up and knocked the lid to the ground. It clattered against the hardwood floor and spiraled past Timothy in a long, continuous cymbal crash. With pale wrinkled hands, Ben grasped the rim of the jar and pulled himself up from the liquid. He raised his head above the rim, took a deep howling gasp, and smiled wide, showing a mouthful of dead brown teeth.

  Timothy jerked awake. He sat up. His room was dark. The closet door was closed and the light was off. It had never been on. His bedroom walls solidified and the furnace hummed somewhere below the floor. Timothy could hear his father snoring in the next room.

  Sheesh.

  He’d been having nightmares ever since Ben went away. This was by far the scariest. But it was just a nightmare. Not real. And that was a comfort.

  After a while, the moon moved back behind the clouds, and the nightmare began to fade away. By the time Timothy’s head hit the pillow again, he’d nearly forgotten all about it. Nearly.

  EDGE OF DOOM

  INTERLUDE

  NEW STARKHAM HOSPITAL—

  NEW STARKHAM, MASSACHUSETTS

  Byron Flanders had suffered several heart attacks since retiring from his career as the New Starkham district attorney twenty years ago, but this most recent one had been the worst. The night before his bypass surgery, he was having trouble sleeping. He lay in his private hospital bed hooked up to all sorts of tubes and wires, the weak fluorescent light on the wall barely illuminating the small mattress. He was cold. The pulsing of the heart monitor was like water torture. Beep. Beep. Beep.

  He’d paged the nurse for the third time in several minutes to try and get an extra blanket, but no one had responded. He’d already struggled to close the curtain that surrounded his bed to stop the air conditioner from blowing at him, but it was not helping. Byron Flanders was not used to waiting, and he was becoming annoyed.

  Throughout his life, Byron got what he wanted. In the courtroom, he’d earned himself the nickname “the Hammerhead,” as in shark. If you were accused of a crime, and the Hammerhead decided you were guilty, he usually found a way to put you away. His tactics were usually legal, but not always. He figured, when you have a job to do, you do it. You get it done. No matter what.

  Now, if only the nurses had the same philosophy …

  As he reached out for the call button again, a draft blew against the curtain, as if someone had opened the door to his room. Finally …

  “Nurse!” Byron called. “I need a blanket. It’s freezing in here!” The curtain went still, but no one answered. “Nurse?” he tried again. “Hello?” Goose bumps broke out all over his frail body, and this time, it had nothing to do with the air conditioner. He could feel a presence. Someone was in the room with him.

  He’d said goodbye to his children earlier that evening, but maybe one of them had come back.

  The curtain at the foot of his bed was moving, as if someone were scratching at it from the other side. “Is anyone there?” he asked, though he wasn’t certain he wanted an answer. Suddenly, the scratching moved. Now it was directly to his right, next to the bed stand. Then the scratching moved again, to the opposite side of the bed. Suddenly, the entire curtain began to ripple, as if hundreds of fingers were dragging against the cloth. Eventually, the fingers clenched, balling up the fabric. They began to pull downward, putting pressure on the silver bearings that attached the curtain to the long slider on the ceiling.

  The heart monitor began to beep faster and faster. Though it pained him, the old man cried out as loud as he could, “Nurse!”

  The curtain was torn down, fluttering like a magician’s cape to the floor. Now Byron could see that the room was filled with people. He shrieked. Their faces were illuminated by that faint fluorescent light, making them all appear sicker than himself. He knew them. They were the criminals he’d helped convict over the course of his life. None of them spoke. None of them moved. They stood around his bed and watched as he wet himself. Then, from the middle of the group, Byron saw a man in a long gray overcoat step forward. He smiled.

  “Christian? Is that you?” Byron whimpered. “You … you’re dead,” he added, pathetically. “You’re all dead.”

  A new pain bloomed in his chest, like a bright red rosebush full of pricker thorns. The man in the overcoat smiled wider and chuckled as Byron’s vision blurred. He tried one last time to call for the nurse as his life slipped away into darkness, and the heart monitor finally stopped its awful beep-beep-beeping, instead filling the room with a plain and soothing hum.

  5.

  On the morning of the field trip, Mr. Crane lined up his students in the hallway. Several yellow buses waited in the fog in front of the school. The classes piled in. To Timothy’s surprise, Stuart smiled as he made his way up the aisle and slipped into the seat beside him. Tufts of dark hair stuck up from Stuart’s head, his eyes were still puffy from sleep, and some sort of pale milky crust had been left from breakfast just below his lower lip. As usual. But after yesterday’s fight, Timothy didn’t expect everything to be fine between them.

  “Oh my God,” said Stuart, “you wouldn’t believe what happened last night.” He didn’t wait for a response. “You know the part in Wraith Wars where Fristor has to climb the cliff with his bare hands and we can never get to the top without losing almost all of our life force because the giant Nemcaws keep flying at our heads and trying to peck out our eyes?”

  “Sure,” Timothy answered tentatively. “That part’s wicked hard.” He didn’t trust that Stuart wasn’t still mad at him.

  “Not anymore,” Stuart continued. “When I was about halfway up the rock, before the Nemcaws got there, I noticed that there was this ledge sticking out of the cliff way off to the right of the screen. So I swung myself over to it, and guess what I found?”

  Timothy shook his head and shrugged.

  “A cave!” Stuart said, throwing his hands into the air. “It was so amazing. The walls were carved with all these weird symbols and it was really dark and I could barely see.”

  Stuart paused in his story for a moment, and Timothy noticed the red-haired girl come onto the bus. She didn’t look at anyone. Stuart didn’t say anything about her, but Timothy watched as something clicked inside his friend, as if Stuart had checked an item off a mental list. Stuart simply blinked, then began again. “So I was crawling into the darkness and all of a sudden, I saw this huge claw coming toward me.”

  Abigail made her way to the back of the bus and slid into the last empty seat near them.

  “I ducked out of the way, then smashed it with my sword.”

  “That’s awesome,” said Timothy, trying to sound excited.

  The bus shuddered as the driver started the engine. Mr. Crane strolled down the aisle taking a final head count, before the bus finally lurched forward into the mist.

  The ride up the hill toward the river was bumpy. Abigail Tremens hung her head. Timothy could hear the same faint clicking sound he’d heard yesterday in class, the harsh grind of the silver lighter’s wheel striking the fl
int. He wondered if she had on her fireproof socks again.

  The bus crossed onto the Taft Bridge. Once over the river, they passed the Little Husketomic Lighthouse, perched on an outcropping of steep rock upstream from the bridge. A white light flashed dully through the mist and a horn sounded, warning boats to keep their distance. Moments later, the bus veered off the highway and exited onto a small road. They drove for several minutes through a pale forest of birch trees. Everyone stared straight ahead as the Husketomic Museum appeared in the distance, looking like a temple out of ancient Greece.

  “This is going to be—” Stuart started to say, but when Timothy glared at him, apparently he decided not to finish his sentence.

  Once outside, in the parking lot, Mr. Crane asked everyone to partner up. To Timothy’s surprise, he noticed a redheaded presence standing next to him. After what Abigail had said yesterday afternoon, he’d expected her to simply ignore him all day. Or punch him.

  Mr. Crane led the group up the museum’s front steps, through the teethlike columns, and into the mouth of the building. Before Timothy passed through the doors, he heard the faraway foghorn cry out once more, greeting the morning with another warning.

  6.

  Inside, their tour leader, a gap-toothed young woman in a tweed jacket, brought the group to a small room where they hung their damp coats. “Keep those eyes open for your project,” said Mr. Crane.

  The museum was endless. Several rooms were packed entirely with headless and armless white marble torsos. In other rooms, giant canvases stretched from floor to ceiling and were so old, tiny cracks formed in the paint. There were rooms filled with tall glaring totem poles and long wooden canoes; rooms with mysterious obelisks carved with hieroglyphs; hallways of glass cases stuffed with tiny pieces of colorful ancient jewelry.