A little boy ran past him.
“David!” he screamed.
But the little boy did not stop. He was not David. Another boy ran past him, chasing the first and screaming.
“It’s ours! We built it!”
The boys sprinted through the clearing. Right past a giant shadow in the fog. At first, Ambrose could not make out the shape. It seemed too impossibly big. He took a few steps closer and finally recognized what it was.
A tree.
Every instinct in Ambrose’s body told him to run away from that tree. But his feet kept going toward it. Toward the voice.
“David?” he said.
“iii’mmm upppp heeerrreee,” the wind howled.
He knew he could be walking into an ambush. He knew it probably wasn’t true. The voice wasn’t David. But something compelled him to take the next step. The thought Christopher had planted in his mind.
I can still save my brother.
The wind whipped through the branches. Ambrose could make out the faint outline of a rope ladder leading up to what looked like a tree house.
“heellllllppppp! helllllpppppp!” the voice whispered from above.
Ambrose began to climb. He looked up into the trapdoor above. The light glowed inside the tree house. David could be behind that door. Somewhere. He could be in that tree house. Ambrose could finally know what happened to his little brother.
“helllllpppp meeee ammmmbrossssse! helllpppp!” the little voice called.
Ambrose reached the tree house. He climbed up through the trapdoor. Something pulled at the rope ladder below him. Giggling. Climbing. Ambrose slammed the trapdoor shut. The tree house went pitch black. He could see nothing in the room. His hands groped the wall, hoping to find a lantern or a flashlight.
He heard breathing in the room.
“ambbbbbrossse…” the voice whispered from the darkness.
“David?” he said.
The voice did not speak. Ambrose’s hand trembled along the wall. He finally found something. A plastic bump. It was a light switch. The hair on his neck stood up. It didn’t make any sense. Why was there a light switch in a tree house?
“ambbbbbrossssse…” the voice whispered. “doooo yooouuu wannnt toooo know????”
Ambrose searched the darkness. The wind stopped howling. And started hissing.
“doooo yooouuu wannnt toooo seeeeeee wherreee heeee issssss?”
Ambrose swallowed past the dry lump in his throat.
“jusssstttt turn on the lightttttt.”
Ambrose braced his body, his face flush with terror.
“turnnnn onnn theeee lighttt, ammbrosssssSeeee.”
Ambrose turned on the light. He wasn’t in the tree house anymore.
Chapter 119
Christopher clung to his mother as she carried him through the fog, her feet pounding the mud back into the earth. The sheriff ran next to them, wincing from the pain in his side.
“Christopher, where do we go?” she asked.
Christopher closed his eyes and looked for a way out. He saw nothing but darkness. Ambrose was lost. They were being cornered. Forced like rats through a maze. His mother’s light was all that remained.
“Run past the bridge, Mom,” he whispered.
Christopher felt the billy goat bridge ahead of them. He knew a way out of the woods from the bridge even if he couldn’t see it. They could still make it. He could still save his mom. They passed the billy goat bridge. Christopher looked into her light. There was a path back to his house. As long as they had the tree house, he could always find the way out of the woods.
but i have the tree house now.
The voice tapped on the glass inside his mind. Suddenly the world went silent. His mother’s footsteps disappeared.
i’m waiting for you.
Christopher looked down the path just as they passed the billy goat bridge again.
“We just passed that bridge,” his mother said, confused.
“Where are we!?” the sheriff asked.
“Turn around, Mom,” Christopher said.
She raced passed the billy goat bridge again. Running faster and faster down the path to their house.
Until they passed the bridge again.
you will never leave, christopher.
Everywhere they turned, they just ended up going back into the woods. Deeper and deeper. The shadow all around them. The voices in the fog. Hunting them. He remembered how the cloud lured him into the woods for the first time. He remembered when the child cried and then giggled. The child ran on all fours.
Like a deer.
There were two children on the path ahead of them. The children didn’t move. They just stood there.
“Mike! Matt! It’s me!” Christopher called out.
The boys turned around. Their eyes and mouths stitched together. They pointed and screamed.
“…HISTOPHER!”
The M&M’s ran straight at them. Christopher’s mother turned off the path. He could hear the pounding of feet coming at them. Hundreds of townspeople hunting them like rabbits. Jenny Hertzog and her stepbrother Scott jumped out with knives. Ms. Lasko ran behind with a broken bottle, scratching her own skin like a junkie. Christopher’s mother raced down the path, but there was no escape anymore. There was only the instinct to survive. The people were everywhere in the fog. Christopher could feel their rage. The woods were scorching with it. The voices were getting closer. The wind carried the chant.
“Death is coming. Death is here. You’ll die on Christmas Day.”
He felt Jerry running through the woods with a gun. The Collins family carrying saws and hammers from the construction site. The nice man’s voice twisted people’s minds like a knife. The blood ran from Christopher’s nose and eyes. His body getting hotter with every new voice. Every new person running through the woods.
“Mom,” he said weakly. “You have to save yourself.”
“No!” she screamed as her legs found another gear. “Tell me where to go!”
“There is nowhere to go, Mom.”
But she kept running. She would never give up. She looked for a tree to hide behind or climb, but suddenly, there were no trees. There was only light and fog. Christopher looked up and saw the moon. Brilliant and blue.
Twigs cracked all around them. The voices came from all directions. Chanting.
“Death is coming. Death is here. You’ll die on Christmas Day.”
A body came out of nowhere and jumped on the sheriff. Christopher’s mother turned. The sheriff was gone. She cried out for him.
“Death is coming. Death is here. You’ll die on Christmas Day,” the voices chanted. Getting closer.
Christopher searched his mother’s light, but he could see nothing but clouds. Nothing but darkness. The chanting turned into a single voice on the wind.
death is coming. death is here. you’ll die on christmas day.
The voice blew the wind through the woods and took the fog with it. Great twisting tornadoes carried the clouds back into the sky like a giant exhale. There were no more branches. No more trees. Except one.
They were in the clearing.
They were surrounded by the entire town. The sheriff had been thrown to the ground next to the tree. Every inch of the clearing was filled with a townsperson.
The tree house was lost.
There was no escape.
The mailbox people pulled out knives and rocks. Guns were pointed at Christopher from every angle. Christopher’s mother stood in front of him.
“Stand back!” she screamed.
The mob kept coming. Mrs. Henderson stepped to the front of the pack. Mrs. Collins walked next to her husband, her lungs wet like a child’s rattle. Mrs. Keizer limped on her shattered hip. Christopher began to tremble in his mother’s arms.
“Mom! They don’t want you! They only want me! Please, run!”
She held him tighter and stood her ground. The mob walked closer. She backed up toward the tree. The sheriff staggered to
his feet.
“Everyone back!” the sheriff yelled. “I am still the law!”
The mob stepped closer. Walking as one. Breathing as one. Christopher looked into the faces of the people drowning in their own fear and hatred. The pain was too much. He stumbled against the tree and fell backward when he saw the most terrifying sight of all.
Special Ed and Brady Collins.
The little boys raced into the middle of the clearing, their guns drawn. Their eyes white with murder. They each spoke in the voices of their grandmothers.
“Brady is going to kill your mother, Eddie! Shoot him!” Special Ed said.
“Special Ed is going to kill your mother, Brady! Shoot him!” Brady Collins said.
In the final moment, they raised their guns and pointed them at what they thought was each other.
But the guns were pointed directly at Christopher.
“Listen to Grandma!” they said in unison.
And each boy pulled the trigger.
Christopher closed his eyes, waiting for the bullets to strike.
But the bullets never reached him.
Somebody got in the way.
It was the sheriff.
He threw himself in front of Christopher and his mother, taking the two bullets in his shoulder and back. He fell to the ground. The sheriff reached up for Christopher’s mother. His eyes lost like a child left alone. He tried to say her name, but the words caught under the blood in his mouth. He fought to stay awake. Stay alive. For her. For her son. She cried out his name just as he collapsed, bleeding and unconscious. The mob screamed in unison just as Jerry ran to the front of the crowd. Jerry looked at Christopher, his face twisting into a jealous rage.
“You took her from me,” he said. “She can only love one of us.”
Jerry raised his gun at Christopher.
Christopher’s mother grabbed him and threw him to the ground. Christopher felt her wrap her body around him like a blanket just as Jerry opened fire. The bullet ripped through her body.
But nothing touched her son.
Nothing but her light.
Christopher saw her light flash before him. One hundred billion pictures of a little girl thrown away by the world. The girl became a young woman through sheer force of will. The young woman met a man who was kind to her. The woman saw that man give up in a bathtub. But he gave her a son.
Her son was her light.
Christopher looked into his mother’s eyes. He could see with her light. He could see the answer. As long as she had that light, there would always be a chance.
The light began to dim.
“No, Mom!” he cried.
Her body started to give. Blood ran from her nose.
“Please, don’t go!”
The candle flickered in the wind of the hurricane.
“I love you, Christopher,” she whispered.
Then, the light of one hundred billion stars burned out.
Chapter 120
Christopher closed his eyes. The only sound his tears.
“Wake up, Mom. Please, wake up.”
He held her body close to his, praying that his fever was warm enough to heal her. The mob kept coming. Christopher heard them loading their guns one bullet at a time.
“Don’t go,” he sobbed. “Please, don’t go.”
Suddenly the mob wrenched her body from him and stood him up against the tree. They weren’t people anymore. They were a hive. The rage pushed their fingers against the triggers. But they didn’t point their guns at Christopher. They pointed them at his mother. Christopher held up his hand and screamed,
“LEAVE MY MOTHER ALONE!”
Christopher’s voice boomed through the clearing. The mob froze, terrified. Their trigger fingers stopped for a moment. Then, Christopher felt a little prickle on his hair like static electricity from a balloon. He watched in horror as Mrs. Henderson spoke with a strange calmness, as if she were a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“What do you mean leave her alone, Christopher?” Mrs. Henderson said.
But it wasn’t Mrs. Henderson’s voice.
It was the nice man’s.
“Don’t you understand? This will never stop,” the nice man said through Jenny Hertzog.
“This is eternIty,” Brady Collins mimed. “I can make them do anything.”
Brady ran at Christopher’s mother, pulling the hammer back on his gun. Brady was about to pull the trigger when he froze. The whole group spoke at the same time. Every voice belonged to the nice man. The town was his conduit. A thousand stereo speakers.
“I will make them do this forEver,” he said. “I will kill your mother over and over and the world will never run out of bullets.”
Christopher felt his fever rise. He finally understood what it was. Hell bubbling under his skin. He saw Special Ed walk through the crowd with Mike and Matt. The three of them opened their mouths at once.
“I have all of your friends. I have your tree house. Watch what I can do with it now that it’s all mine,” the nice man said.
Special Ed walked over to the sheriff and helped him to his feet. The sheriff’s eyes never opened. But he looked in Christopher’s direction, trying to pry his eyes open in absolute desperation.
“Please don’t let me sleep anymore, Christopher. Every time I go to sleep, she’s waiting for me, but I don’t save her. I’m late every time. Please make it stop. I can’t hear her say Daddy again.”
The sheriff fought against his own body, but he couldn’t stop it. He climbed the tree against his will. Little 2x4s returned at jagged angles like a broken smile.
“No! I don’t want to go!” the sheriff screamed.
Christopher moved to help him, but the crowd engulfed him.
“No! Stop!” Christopher yelled.
Invisible hands moved his limbs like a marionette. The sheriff climbed to the top of the ladder and opened the door to the tree house.
“Please! I can’t watch her die again!”
“Let him go! Wake up, Sheriff!” Christopher screamed.
But the sheriff was lost. The tree house glowed. The sheriff went inside and closed the door behind him. His screams began immediately.
And then there was silence.
The nice man spoke next. His voice buzzing in Christopher’s mind so sharply that he felt it in the fillings in his teeth.
now who iS going in next?
Christopher watched the town move toward his mother’s body. They picked her up like pallbearers and carried her toward the tree.
“NO!” Christopher yelled.
Christopher fought through the crowd to get to his mother. Mr. and Mrs. Collins each grabbed one of his hands. They hissed,
“Do you know what your mother will see when she wakeS up?”
“NO! YOU CAN’T! PLEASE!” Christopher screamed.
Christopher wrenched his hands free and ran toward his mother. Jerry tackled Christopher to the ground.
“She is going to wake up with Jerry. GuesS what happens next?”
He scrambled back to his feet. He clawed to get to his mother. His fever rising.
“She will notice someone iS watching her from the bathtub. It’s your father. He will rise up from the bathtub with the knife.”
“YOU CAN’T. NOT MY MOM. PLEASE!”
“But he isn’t going to kill her with it. He iS going to kill you.”
The crowd dragged his mother up the ladder by the hair. She dangled like a pocket watch.
“She will watch you dIe and the next morning, she will wake up with Jerry. She will notice someone is watching her from the bathtub. It’s your father. He will riSe up from the bathtub with the knife. But he isn’t going to kill her with it. He iS going to kill you. She will watch you dIe and the next morning…”
“NO!”
Christopher ran to the tree and grabbed his mother’s legs. Trying to pull her down. Christopher dropped to his knees, swimming in pain. He couldn’t hold her anymore. Mike and Matt walked up to him. They each put a lov
ing hand on a shoulder and opened their mouths as one.
“christopheR. i aM donE chasinG yoU. i havE waiteD twO thousanD yearS tO geT ouT oF thiS prisoN. yoU eitheR brinG mE bacK thaT keY and kilL thE hissinG ladY oR i wilL keeP youR motheR aS mY peT iN herE foreveR. therE iS nO otheR choicE. somebodY wilL diE oN christmaS daY. iT iS eithEr thE hissinG ladY oR youR mothEr. noW…
“choosE.”
Mr. and Mrs. Collins opened the tree house door, ready to throw her in.
“Okay! Stop! I’ll do it! Just let her go!” Christopher cried.
There was a moment of silence, then a whisper came in from a thousand mouths.
“thanK yoU, christopheR…”
The town gently lowered Christopher’s mother down the ladder to the ground. Christopher looked at her lying next to the tree. She seemed so peaceful. After everything she had been through. Everything that life had done to her.
He knelt next to her body and stroked her forehead like she always did for him when he was sick with a fever. He took her hand. If there was a pulse, he couldn’t find it.
“Mom, I have to go now,” he said quietly.
The fever started. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. The hairs on his neck stood up. His stomach got warm and crackling with electricity. The whisper scratch heated up all over his body, but for his mother, it didn’t start in his mind or in his hands.
It started in his heart.
He closed his eyes and held her to his chest. The whisper scratch moved through him like the clouds moving above. He could smell the Vicks VapoRub she put on his chest when he was sick. The beer on the rocks he poured like Mary Katherine’s altar wine like the blood running out of Christopher’s nose.
There was no difference anymore.
Christopher felt as if he would have no blood left, but he would never let go. No matter how much it hurt. Whatever he had left he would give to her. The whisper scratch made Christopher feel the bullet in her body. Every hope and every fear that pulled the triggers. Every broken promise and broken life.
His fever climbed. Christopher’s head screamed. His skull felt like it would snap in half. He knew everything now. Everything his mother had been through. Everything his mother had ever done for him. He looked at her life, and he finally understood this feeling inside him.
Imaginary Friend (ARC) Page 60