Dogs

by Allan Stratton

  I never saw Dad again, except on supervised visits at that government building. I remember the blue walls and the plate of cookies and the cameras and the social worker in the corner.

  I was scared seeing him at first. I figured there must be a reason we couldn’t be alone, but he was always gentle, and when I’d back away from him, his face would crumple up and I’d feel mean. I remember when I finally let him lift me onto his lap. He put his arm around me, and I cried into his shoulder. I didn’t care who saw.

  Dad rocked me. “It’s okay, Buddy. Don’t be scared. Sometimes people say things about other people that aren’t true. Just so you know, I love you and your mom, and I’d never do anything bad to either of you.”

  “But what about that night?”

  “Sometimes your mother did things behind my back and we’d get mad at each other. That night, she was so mad she stormed up the stairs, tripped, and fell. She hurt herself by accident, promise.”

  “Then why aren’t we together?”

  Dad got very quiet. “Your grandma and grandpa don’t like me. They say all kinds of things, don’t they, Buddy? You know how people can put ideas in other people’s heads?”

  I nodded.

  He tousled my hair. “Here’s something else. Since that night I haven’t had a drink. Not one. You can tell your mom. Maybe she won’t believe me, but it’s true.”

  I remember my last visit with Dad, before Mom and I started running. Dad had this weird look in his eyes. He waited till the social worker’s back was turned. Then he slipped me a photo of him and me at the beach.

  “Don’t let anyone see this,” he whispered. “Your mom would take it away. She doesn’t want you thinking about any of the good times we had. But you and me, we remember, don’t we, Buddy?”

  “Sure.”

  “Shh. My new address and cell number are on the back. Our secret? Cross your heart and hope to die?”

  I nodded and slipped the photo into my pocket. I was scared about hiding it, but Dad was right. Mom would be mad if she saw it. Back home, I put it behind the picture of Mom and me with my grandparents that sits on my bedside table.

  The weird thing is, I’ve never looked at the photo since. I’m afraid if I take it out I’ll see Dad’s number and have this overwhelming need to call him. And I can’t. Not ever. I’ve thought of getting rid of it so I won’t get tempted, but I can’t do that either. What if I want it someday to remember what he looked like? So there it is beside my bed, the secret photo: Dad, hidden out of sight but always on my mind, like in life.

  After I put the photo in my pocket, Dad hugged me for the last time. “I love you. I love your mom too. If I didn’t love her so much, the things she did wouldn’t have made me so mad. Trust me: there are things you’ll know when you’re older.”

  That’s exactly what Mom says: “There are things you’ll know when you’re older.” Well, guess what? I can’t wait till I’m older. There’s things I need to know now.

  9

  I peek through the hole in the barn wall and stare at the house. Dad couldn’t have stalked us here already.

  Oh yeah? When we split, he might have been parked around the corner. Or hired a detective. Or slipped a GPS chip under Mom’s car at the mall or at work.

  No, I’m just scaring myself. Dad’s far away, all lonely and missing me, not knowing where I am. Maybe. I just have to go inside and prove it.

  Don’t be stupid. Remember those movies where the babysitter hears something in the attic and checks it out? Everyone always says, “That’s crazy, who’d ever do that?”

  This is different. If there’s nobody there, I won’t have scared Mom for nothing. And if it is Dad, well, then I can warn Mom. I have a phone, after all. Besides, I’m not in danger; he never did anything to me.

  He did.

  Not much and hardly ever, and maybe I dreamed it. Anyway, I have to do this. For Mom.

  I walk to the house, eyes forward, shoulders back like I’m not afraid of anything. I open the back door and step inside.

  “Hello,” I call out super loud. “Is anybody there?”

  Silence.

  “If anybody’s there, I live here, okay? So I’m going to walk through the house now. If you’re a thief or something, I’ll be going up the living room stairs, so you can run down from the big room and escape through the kitchen and I won’t even see you. Okay?”

  Great. I sound like a dork.

  I go from the kitchen through the downstairs bathroom into Mom’s room. I look under her bed—nobody—and in her closet—nobody. I stick my head into the living room—nobody—and stand at the foot of the stairs.

  “This is your last chance,” I shout. “If you don’t go now, Mom’ll be here any minute, and I have a phone so you better not try anything. I mean it. Okay? Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Here I come!”

  I climb the stairs, look in the small bathroom—nobody—and inspect my bedroom—nobody. I pause at the door to the big room over the kitchen, then throw it open. The room’s empty; the trapdoor to the attic is sealed as always. The only thing left to check is the basement.

  I go back down to the kitchen. The door to the basement is open. Was it open when I came in? I can’t remember. But hey, who’d leave the door open if they were trying to hide?

  The only way to know is to go down.

  I get a flashlight from the drawer to the right of the sink. It’s hardly a great weapon, but at least it’s something if anyone tries to jump me. Also, I won’t have to worry about the overhead light going out, like in those movies.

  I flick the light switch. “Dad? Dad, are you down there? If you are, please let me know, because you’re scaring me. Also, because I want to see you. I’ve missed you.”

  Silence.

  I remember when I was two or three. Dad drove me out to the middle of nowhere, a forest or something. No one was around and he hid behind a tree. I thought he’d left me, abandoned me with no one anywhere. I didn’t know what to do. I cried and cried. Dad watched the whole time. He thought it was funny.

  The stairwell looks more like a tomb than ever. I try to stay calm by counting to ten over and over. Before I know it, I’m at the bottom.

  The place is cleared out except for the furnace. Once I circle it, I’ll know everything’s okay. I duck under the pipes real fast so if anyone’s hiding, they won’t have time to run around and get me from behind.

  There’s nobody there.

  What about inside the coal room?

  I stare at the little door. “Dad?”

  Silence.

  I turn on the flashlight, throw open the door, and jump back like I’m expecting something to pop out. Nothing does. I shine the light inside. Except for some pieces of coal in the corners, it’s empty. Mission accomplished. Home secure. Phantom army destroyed.

  I’m about to close the door when I see something scratched on the left wall. I lean in for a better look. There’s three groups of four short lines with a fifth line crossing them, plus two extra lines.

  Was somebody locked in here, counting days?

  I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand. My light hits a dusty cardboard folder propped against the inside wall to the left of the door. No wonder I didn’t see it before. Who would? It could’ve been hidden here since forever.

  I pick it up and smell mold. A chill shoots through my body. I imagine corpse fingers squeezing my bones. I run up to the kitchen and everything’s fine again—except my hands are smudged with soot from the folder. When Mom sees the tiniest bit of dirt on my shoes, she goes wacko: “You’re tracking mud through the whole house!” If I spread coal dust, I’ll be dead.

  I put the folder in a plastic bag from under the sink and wash my hands. Then I grab some paper towels and take the bag up to my room. After I cover my desk with the towels, I open the folder flap and pull out the stuff inside
. There’s a pile of kids’ drawings, some crayon and pencil stubs, and a black-and-white wedding photo in a cardboard frame.

  The bride and groom have strange, dead eyes. On the back, there’s fancy handwriting:

  Mr. and Mrs. Frank McTavish. May the Lord bless thee and keep thee. May the Lord be gracious unto thee. May the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon thee and give thee peace.

  August 1, 1948

  Someone else has put an arrow beside “Mrs. Frank McTavish” and written “Evelyn née Cartwright.”

  At the bottom, a kid has printed “Mother and Father.” He must be the boy who made the drawings and whose things were in the basement. He’s printed his first name in the bottom right corner of all the pictures: “Jacky.” So he’s Jacky McTavish.

  The top drawings are mostly of Jacky and his mother and father at the farm. His father is huge—even bigger than the barn. He has enormous black eyes, without any whites, and a mouth of yellow teeth. Plus he almost always has a pitchfork, a hammer, or a saw. Jacky and his mother are way smaller and mostly off to the side holding hands. Her eyes are empty circles; sometimes she doesn’t have a mouth.

  But what give me goose bumps are the pictures of Jacky. He’s wearing a Davy Crockett cap.

  He was the kid in the barn last night.

  No. There was no kid in the barn last night. If there was, I imagined the cap. It was too dark to see.

  Really?

  Really. Anyway, if a kid with a Davy Crockett cap was trespassing last night, it wasn’t this kid. He’d be old by now.

  I concentrate on the drawings. Mixed in with the family pictures are a few drawings of two boys climbing trees and playing on boulders in the middle of a clearing. I’ll bet they’re in the woods at the back of the field. I recognize Jacky because of the cap, but who’s the other one?

  Mr. Sinclair?

  That would make sense; he lived on the next farm over.

  But if Mr. Sinclair played with Jacky, why won’t he talk about him?

  Questions, questions. If I’m not careful, I’ll be as paranoid as Mom.

  I work my way through the rest of the pile. Jacky’s mother’s disappeared. Jacky’s father was still around though. In some drawings, lightning shoots out of his head, like in comics where some crazy super-villain’s going nuts. In others, he holds Jacky over his head with one hand like he’s a doll. Jacky’s hands are in the air. It’s hard to tell if he’s waving or trying to get help.

  Finally I get to the drawings at the bottom of the pile. My heart stops.

  Dogs. Packs of dogs. Their teeth are jagged. Their tails are like whips. And everywhere there’s scribbles of purple and black and red.

  10

  Mom brings home KFC. Over dinner I ask her how things went at C.B.’s office and try hard to stay interested. Mostly, though, I think about Jacky’s drawings.

  The dogs. What happened to them? Why did Cody ask if I heard dogs at night? He couldn’t have meant them, could he? Those drawings are fifty years old.

  And what about Jacky? Why did he stop drawing his mother? Did something happen to her? And what’s with his father’s pitchfork, his hammer, his eyes? I think about him holding Jacky up with one hand—and suddenly remember Dad swinging me around in circles when I was little. Mom’s screaming at him to put me down. Now we’re on the balcony and Dad’s dangling me by a leg over the railing. “Shut up. You wanna see him fly?”

  After dinner I go to my room and look at the drawings again. I start seeing random arms, legs, and heads in the scribbles around the dogs. I get into bed and turn out the lights.

  After forever, I fall asleep…

  I’m in the cornfield. It’s night and I’m running. The dogs are after me. Paws pound the earth. Barks fill the air. They’re getting closer. I fall down, get up, fall down again. Cornstalks snap behind me. They’re going to get me. Help!

  “They won’t hurt you. I won’t let them.” It’s a boy. Where?

  I blink and I’m in my room under the covers in the dark. I’m sweating. My heart’s pounding.

  I feel a draft. Something’s in the room. Someone.

  “Mom?”

  Silence. I try to move. I can’t.

  “Who’s there?”

  It’s me. Jacky.

  I didn’t hear that. That was just me talking to myself.

  Don’t be scared.

  “I’m not scared. You’re a voice in my head. That’s all you are.”

  No. I’m Jacky. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been lonely since Mother and Father left.

  “Stop it. Leave me alone. I’m Cameron, Cameron Weaver. Whatever you are, you’re not real.”

  “Why are you being like that?” Jacky’s voice—it’s not in my head anymore. It’s in the room.

  I panic. “I’m still dreaming. That’s it. I dreamed I woke up from a nightmare, only I went into another nightmare, this one. Well, now I’m going to wake up for real.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Wake up!” I yell. “Wake up!”

  “Don’t shout,” Jacky says. “You’ll worry your mother.”

  Oh no—I’m still here, wherever here is. How do I wake up?

  “I thought you’d like me. I thought we’d be friends.”

  “Help!”

  “Don’t you like me?”

  “Wake up! Help!” I try to grab at the lamp on my night table, but I’m tangled in bedsheets, wrapped up like a mummy. “Wake up! Help!”

  Mom turns on the light. “Cameron?”

  I can’t say anything. I’m panting, freezing, boiling. I look to the desk. There’s nothing there. I look at the closet. It’s closed. Is he inside? No—there’s nothing inside. I’ve had a dream, that’s all. But if I’ve had a dream, why doesn’t this feel like waking up?

  Mom sits at the edge of my bed. “You’re soaking wet.” She feels my forehead. “You have a fever. Let me get you something.”

  “No. Don’t go.”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “It’s not.”

  “It will be.” She smoothes my hair off my forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Mom—”

  Mom opens my closet door. “There’s nothing in the closet,” she says gently. “There’s nothing under the bed either.”

  “I know that. I’m not a baby.”

  “I know.” Mom comes back to my bed. “Cameron, these fears of yours, they’re not your fault. It’s your father. Every time we move, the nightmares come back. But they go away. They always have. They will this time too. Remember that.” She gives me a kiss on the forehead and goes to get stuff from the bathroom.

  Mom’s right. It always starts like this in a new place. The nightmares come, but worst of all, they never feel like nightmares. They feel real. I see something like the kids’ stuff in the basement, and I start imagining things. Next thing you know, I’m on Planet Psych Ward.

  Mom comes back in a minute, sticks a thermometer in my mouth, and pats my face with a cool cloth. She checks my temperature. “Like I thought, a fever.” She gives me some medicine and has me bundle myself in a blanket while she changes my sheets. I’d help but I’m shivering too much.

  “All right then,” Mom says. “Back into bed.” She tucks the covers under my chin. “You’re staying home from school tomorrow.”

  What? I’ll be here alone all day? With Sinclair next door and nightmares whenever I close my eyes?

  Mom reads my mind. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay home too. I’ll tell Ken you’re sick.”

  “No, don’t embarrass me. I’ll be fine!”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” Not.

  She gives me a close look. “All right then. But do me a favor: no zombie games. They don’t help.”

  11

  I w
ake up Friday feeling as cold and gray as the sky. Mom brings me oatmeal and toast on a tray and leaves me a sandwich and an apple for lunch, plus a pitcher of water. She’s really nice when I’m sick.

  “Call me if there’s a problem. I’ll be back no later than five,” she says.

  Being sick is boring. I always think I’ll have fun watching TV and playing video games, but after a couple of hours I want to be doing stuff. Sometimes I sneak out, but not today. I don’t feel like throwing up or anything, but every time I move, I get chills.

  After breakfast I pick up my tablet and check out old friends on Facebook. I’m super careful. Mom told me about privacy settings when we first ran away. She said she didn’t want me to have an FB account, but sooner or later she knew I’d get one anyway. Telling me now was like Grandma and Grandpa telling her about birth control: “You need to know how to protect yourself so you’ll be ready when the time comes.” I guess I wasn’t paying attention because she grabbed me by the shoulders. “This is important, Cameron. If you don’t pay attention, your father can get into your account and figure out where we are, and we could end up dead. Understand?”

  When I turned ten I lied about my age and got my account, using a fake name and a picture of a sci-fi mutant for my profile. I made sure no one could see my page except friends I approved, then I searched for kids I used to play with. A few had secret accounts like mine, a few others supervised by parents. I messaged about why I’d left and told them to call me “Rob Booker” online. Because I had an alias, I thought I could talk about everything.

  Only somebody—a.k.a. Dad—went creeping. He created a fake Cameron Weaver account and sent friend requests to kids he knew I’d played with.

  Tommy Gee, the idiot, clicked Accept and messaged: “Using your real name again, ‘Rob’?”

  And “Cameron Weaver” said, “Yeah, LOL.”

  Tommy asked, “You coming back from Wellington?”

  When I found out, I told Mom and we were on the run again.

  For a while, friends posted “Good luck, Rob” on their time lines, and messages piled up in my inbox, but I was too scared to write back, except to tell Tommy he’d ruined my life.