Imaginary Friend (ARC)

by Stephen Chbosky

  All she had to do was play her part.

  And get them all ready for theirs.

  As she stitched, she looked up at the tree house. Such a beautiful little tree house. Her husband was on the other side of that door. She could almost hear him whispering.

  “Honey, let’s go away for a long weekend.”

  “What?” she asked, surprised.

  “I want to spend some time with my wife. I just wish I’d packed a bag.”

  “I have one. I have a bag! I hid it in the library. I brought it with me! It’s right here!”

  “You’re the greatest wife a guy could ever have.”

  This time, they could throw that bag in the trunk of his car and drive away. It didn’t matter where. Because she was young again. Her hair was red. Her body was beautiful. And she knew she would live this day for eternity. Maybe she wouldn’t even need to stab him.

  “Where should we go, darling?” she finally asked.

  “The tree house, of course. It’s so beautiful in here.”

  Mrs. Henderson was so lost in the dreams of her new future that she didn’t realize she had already finished turning Scott into a mailbox person.

  “Scott, it’s Christmas Eve. The tree is so empty. We need to decorate it with ornaments,” she said.

  Jenny handed Scott a length of rope, which Ms. Lasko cut to size with the butcher knife. Scott took the rope and climbed up the tree on the little 2x4s like baby teeth. He reached the first thick branch and climbed out to the edge of it. Then, he tied the rope to the branch and wrapped the other end around his neck. When he jumped off, his neck snapped like a wishbone, but he didn’t die. Just like Mrs. Henderson knew he wouldn’t. No one would ever die again.

  “When can I drown him in floods?” Jenny asked.

  “As soon as we’ve won the war, Jenny,” Mrs. Henderson said and smiled. “Next!”

  Mrs. Henderson turned to the Collins Construction security guard who thought about all the overtime he would be getting for guarding the property so late on Christmas Eve. As the old woman closed his eyelids with thick black yarn, she didn’t hear his screams over the sound of her own anxious thoughts. If a lifetime in public education taught Mrs. Henderson anything, it was to make do with what she had. She looked at the hundreds of townsfolk waiting to be turned into mailbox people. She would have loved to stitch all of them by hand like she did Scott, but alas, they were behind schedule. Midnight was coming. They had to be ready for Christopher’s sacrifice. So, she would have to let go of the controls and let people stitch their own mouths and eyes shut while Ms. Lasko, Jenny, and Brady passed around the needles, zippers, yarn, and thread.

  Or else, I’m never going to get all this sewing done.

  “Next!”

  Chapter 96

  The hissing lady stood up from the bathtub. She was naked. Covered in bullet holes and knife wounds and burns. Christopher screamed. He ran to the door. The hissing lady moved to the wet tiles on the floor. Christopher reached for the doorknob. Locked.

  It was all a trap.

  The hissing lady grabbed Christopher from behind. She brought him up, thrashing like a fish. She kicked open the door and threw him onto the branch. He tried to crawl away, but his hands stuck to the tree like flypaper.

  Christopher looked back as the hissing lady emerged from the tree house. She put on her finest Sunday dress, streaked with blood, torn up like rags. Then, she closed the tree house door behind her. She studied Christopher with her dead doll eyes.

  “Chrissstopppheerrrrr. Itttt’ssss timeeeeeeeee,” she said.

  The hissing lady walked slowly down the branch toward him. Christopher screamed,

  “NO! PLEASE!”

  The hissing lady smiled and grabbed Christopher by the ears. She wrapped him up in both arms and slithered down the tree trunk like a snake.

  H

  S

  S

  S

  S

  S

  S

  S

  Christopher looked down at the clearing. Her entire army was there. Staring up at him in silence. The hissing lady kept slithering. Down. They passed dozens of tree houses. The doors were closed. The curtains drawn. Christopher couldn’t see inside, but he could hear voices. Children were giggling. A doorknob began to turn.

  “Not yet. Let’s surprise him,” the little voice whispered.

  The doorknob stopped. The hissing lady kept crawling down. They passed another tree house. One with a pink door. He heard breathing behind it.

  “He’ll make such a fine pet,” a little girl whispered.

  Her fingernails scratched the door like a school blackboard. He passed another tree house. Blue-and-white curtains like Dorothy’s dress.

  “Does he know where he is?” a man’s voice whispered.

  “He will soon,” a woman’s voice whispered back.

  The hissing lady landed at the base of the tree. Right in front of the large door cut into the giant tree trunk. She stared at her army in triumph. She raised Christopher’s arms. The crowd roared like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Christopher heard drums beat in the distance. Four mailbox people grabbed Christopher by the arms and legs. They pinned him against the tree. It wasn’t bark. It was flesh. Sweaty and warm. Christopher started to scream.

  “Please! Don’t kill me! Please!”

  “I’m not going to kill you,” the hissing lady said calmly.

  “What are you going to do?” Christopher asked, terrified.

  “I can’t tell you that.” She smiled.

  The hissing lady dug into her own flesh with long, dirty fingernails. She ripped the key from her neck. She shoved her hand into the flesh of the tree. Her hand looked like it was squishing into a garbage disposal. Blood. And meat. She found the keyhole inside the tree’s rotten flesh. She turned the key and opened the lock with a…

  Click.

  A chorus of screams rose up from the people in the tree houses above. The voices ripped through Christopher’s mind. His eyes searched the clearing. He looked for an escape. The mailbox people guarded all of the paths out.

  “It’s time! It’s time!” the voices cried.

  The hissing lady put the key back into her neck like a hand in wet cement. In an instant the flesh healed. The key was protected. The hissing lady opened the door. Light poured from inside the tree trunk. Christopher looked into the light. It was blinding. A cold tremor ran through his body.

  “What is this place?! Where am I!?” Christopher screamed.

  “I thought you’d remember,” the hissing lady said.

  Christopher could feel the energy coming from the tree. The static electricity from a million balloons. He remembered following the footprints. The tree felt like flesh. He remembered. He was put on this tree for six days. Cooked here. Incubated here. Made smart here. Left on top of this tree to soak up everything.

  But he had never gone inside it.

  “Christopher,” she said. “This is for your own good.”

  The hissing lady moved him toward the light. It was blinding. Steam came out of the tree like fluffy white clouds. Christopher screamed, digging in his heels. Scratching. Clawing. She picked up his legs. Kicking. He could smell things inside the light. A kitchen. Rusty knives. The water from his father’s bathtub. The smell of the hospital.

  “NO! NO!” he screamed.

  Christopher dug his hands into the flesh of the tree. Hot like feverish skin. The hissing lady ripped his hands free. He squirmed out of her grasp. He planted his feet on both sides of the door. The mailbox people swarmed him. Christopher held on for dear life. He pushed the mailbox people back. He was too powerful for them. The hissing lady grabbed Christopher in her scarred hands. They were coarse like sandpaper. She held him tight to her body and brought his face to hers until their noses were touching. She looked him dead in the eye. Furious and insane.

  “IT’S TIME!!!!!!!”

  Christopher looked down at the clearing. He saw dozens of footprints materialize. Th
e people themselves invisible to him. But they were there. He could feel them. The townspeople on the real side. Their eyes being stitched up. Being turned into mailbox people. The world screaming in pain. It was blinding. The worlds were blurring. The imaginary and the real. The glass was about to shatter.

  Christopher looked up into the sky. He saw the stars shooting. Constellations falling apart like a puzzle dropped on the floor, shattering into a million pieces. It was six minutes to midnight. Six minutes to Christmas. Christopher closed his eyes. He let his mind go quiet. And he whispered,

  “Please God. Help me.”

  Suddenly Christopher saw a cloud coming on the horizon. The face in the cloud. As big as the sky. In an instant Christopher felt a great calm wash over his body. It was as if someone hit the MUTE button around him, and there were no more screams. There was only the sound of his own heartbeat. The beeps of hospital machines. A voice on the wind.

  “Christopherrrrrr,” the wind whispered.

  The hissing lady shoved him. Christopher felt his left foot cross into the light.

  “Don’t go into the light, Christopher. Fight her,” the whisper said.

  I can’t. She’s too strong.

  Christopher’s arms felt so heavy. His right foot crossed into the light. He just wanted to sleep. So sleepy.

  “You have to kill her by midnight!” the wind screamed.

  I can’t kill her by myself.

  “Yes, you can. A nightmare is nothing but a dream gone sick. Say it, Christopher!”

  “A nightmare is nothing but a dream gone sick,” Christopher said out loud.

  Christopher saw the hissing lady’s eyes shift.

  “Who are you talking to!?” she asked.

  “Say it again!” the wind whispered.

  “A nightmare is nothing but a dream gone sick,” Christopher shouted.

  Christopher saw the hissing lady scream, “Who are you talking to!?” over and over, but he could not hear her. All of her screams were gone. There was only silence. There was only peace. The air was cool and fresh. He could only hear the whisper of the wind.

  “And I can do anything in a dream!” the wind said.

  “And I can do anything in a dream,” Christopher repeated.

  “Because in here…” the wind said.

  Christopher closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye, he imagined himself groping in the darkness behind his eyelids until he finally found the switch. He flipped on the light and there, laid before him, was more than knowledge. It was power. Raw and furious. Christopher opened his eyes and looked right at the hissing lady. Christopher saw her eyes move. She was terrified.

  “…I am God,” Christopher said.

  Christopher pushed back with all of his might, and the hissing lady went flying backward in the air. She landed on the edge of the clearing a hundred yards away. The deer and the mailbox people watched, stunned. Christopher looked at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. He couldn’t believe his own strength.

  The hissing lady sat up. Insane with rage. Or was that surprise? The deer and mailbox people turned to Christopher. A thousand eyes stared. Furious at him for harming their queen. But Christopher did not blink. He did not run. He did not hide. He just slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out the leather sheath. He unfolded it to reveal the dull, silver blade.

  “You’re off the street,” Christopher said calmly.

  He looked at the key buried in her neck. Then Christopher raised the silver blade above his head and charged right at her.

  Chapter 97

  Christopher’s mother raced down the highway. It had taken her fifteen minutes to run to Shady Pines where Ambrose kept his old beaten-up Cadillac. Fifteen minutes passing burning stores and hiding behind cars left abandoned and smashed as frightening men looted in the shadows. There were no cabs. No police. She was all alone with nothing but violence all around her. Her ribs fractured. The pain medication now a memory. Christopher’s mother looked now at the clock on the dash.

  Ten minutes to midnight.

  She turned off Route 19 and slowed to a crawl. She expected to see her neighborhood filled with Christmas decorations and lights and families enjoying a final drink on Christmas Eve. Children needing to be corralled back to bed with warnings that Santa might pass by their house if they didn’t go to sleep.

  But that’s not what she saw.

  The place was eerily silent. All of the streetlights turned off. She looked on either side of the road. Deer stood like telephone poles. Their black eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Watching her. Waiting.

  She turned onto Hays Road.

  She looked inside all of the houses. The light twinkled on the Christmas trees, making the ornaments glow. But there were no people in the living rooms. No people watching the televisions playing Christmas specials. No people anywhere.

  Just the deer.

  She turned onto her block. Christopher’s mother passed the old Olson house on the corner. There was no sign of Jill and Clark. She drove by the Hertzog house. She did not see Jenny Hertzog or her stepbrother. There were no cars in the driveways. She looked down the street at the Mission Street Woods, and she saw nothing.

  But she felt it.

  On the hairs of her neck. Impossible to ignore. There was something horrible in those woods. Something spreading. Something running.

  She moved down the street.

  Toward her driveway.

  Just then, the old woman who lived across the street ran out of the log cabin. She wore a white nightgown. Cotton and lace. She had no shoes. She darted in front of the car, the headlights catching her face. Her eyes and mouth were stitched together with black yarn. Christopher’s mother screamed and slammed on the brakes. The old woman moaned through the stitches…

  “Eeee waaas uch a eautiful oy!”

  …and bolted into the Mission Street Woods like a deer on its hind legs. Christopher’s mother looked into the woods to see if anything else was coming. But there was nothing. Just that feeling. Death is coming. Death is here. We’ll die on Christmas Day. Christopher’s mother looked at the clock.

  It was six minutes to midnight.

  Six minutes to Christmas.

  Chapter 98

  Mrs. Henderson stitched as fast as her fingers could fly. She looked at the long line of mailbox people waiting patiently for her to finish. She looked up at the night sky through the tree branches. The branches sagged from the weight of all the lucky ornaments. They kicked their legs and twisted their necks, leaving rope burns. But no one died. No one would ever die again.

  “Next,” Mrs. Henderson said.

  It was six minutes to midnight, and there were only a few souls left. They were going to make it. They were going to be ready in time! Mrs. Henderson looked over at Ms. Lasko. The young teacher stitched the eyes of Jill and Clark, a lovely young couple who wanted to fill the tree house with children like a womb. They were going to have what they wanted tonight. Everyone was going to have what they wanted tonight.

  11:54

  Ms. Lasko could taste it. Every time she licked her lips, it only got stronger. The taste was alcohol. But it wasn’t just any alcohol. It was the whiskey her mother put on a metal spoon when Ms. Lasko was a little baby, teething. The whiskey made her gums stop hurting. Ms. Lasko ran her tongue over her lips. The whiskey turned into the most delicious wine when her mother took her to Communion. Ms. Lasko took the sip of the red wine, but by the time she swallowed, it had turned into champagne. Her mother toasted her on her graduation. “You’re the first to go to college, honey,” she said. Her mother was in the tree house waiting for her. There was a big party happening inside the tree house to celebrate her. She would get to feel drunk again. She would get to feel hopelessly numb and happy.

  “Next,” Ms. Lasko said, finishing the last stitch on Jill’s eyes.

  11:55

  Jenny Hertzog led Jill and Clark to the end of the long line of people waiting at the bottom of the ladder for Mrs. Henderson to finish.
Jenny looked up at her stepbrother Scott, his legs twitching on the bottom branch. Jenny looked up at the beautiful tree house above him. She took a deep breath through her nose, but it didn’t smell like the woods anymore. It smelled like her mother. Perfume and lotion and hair spray and her soft warm skin. She could hear her mother whisper to her, “Come in, Jenny. We will have a slumber party together. We’ll make popcorn and watch movies in your room. Scott will never bother you again. You will be safe forever and ever and ever.”

  “Next,” Mrs. Henderson said.

  11:56

  There were only two people left in line. Debbie Dunham and Doug. Doug had been so sad until he came to the woods. So sad until he saw Debbie Dunham. She was smiling at him. It was the most delicious slutty awful smile he’d ever seen. “What’s wrong, Doug?” she asked. “Mary Katherine cheated on me,” he said. Debbie Dunham nodded sympathetically. “I’ve been cheated on lots of times,” she whispered. “Do you want to cheat back?”

  Doug was quiet. He thought about Mary Katherine, and the sadness grew in his stomach like the baby some other guy put inside her. “Do you want to see me naked, Doug?” Debbie asked. He nodded, hoping she would take his mind away. The air was freezing, but she slowly stripped away her uniform from the Giant Eagle. He looked at her naked body, fresh like ripe fruit. She went in for a long licky kiss. Her tongue like a snake. “Doug, aren’t you tired of doing the right thing for the wrong girl?” she asked. Her words were as sweet as her breath. And when she reached down and brushed her hand against him, whatever shame he felt stepped aside to reveal what was playing hide and seek behind it. Rage.

  All those years being a good boyfriend. All those years of respecting Mary Katherine’s morals. Obeying her wishes. Pretending to bump into her breast over her sweater instead of doing what he really wanted. And then finding out that it was all a lie. The good girl on her knees in a car. The good girl being knocked up by some stranger. “We have to go into the tree house and then you can have every inch of me,” Debbie said. Then, she let go of Doug’s hand while Mrs. Henderson stitched up her mouth.