He didn’t need a key.
He was the key.
Christopher turned to the nice man with his real eyes. For the first time, he saw…
The d
evil.
Calm. Still. Ready to strike. Abandoned. Insane. Inside a trap that hE could not see. hE was all alone. hiS eyes were sewn shut. hiS mouth was zipped tight. hE held the string around hiS own neck. hE did nothing but gaze into the reflection of hiS own smoke and mirrors and call them clouds. hE wasn’t a God. hE was a coward.
Christopher reached up and unzipped his mouth. Christopher loosened his jaw and spoke for the first time out loud.
“I am free now.”
Christopher dropped the string. The door inside the tree opened.
“nOOOO!” the devil screamed.
The tree opened everywhere. The light broke through the cracks in its skin, cascading out of the giant trunk. The deer and damned ran from it. Their eyes wild with panic. All Christopher heard were two words inside all of their madness. Inside all of their screams.
“Help me.”
The light absorbed them all and took them away in floods. Some wept. Others screamed. And in an instant they were gone. Leaving the hissing lady safely on the ground, the light already beginning to heal her.
Christopher looked at the nice man.
“I love you.”
Then, he turned and walked back into the light.
* * *
The nicE maN ran at him. Murderous.
“yoU’rE noT goinG anywheRe…”
hE ran blindly into the light and reached in to pull Christopher back. hiS skin burned when hE hit the invisible fence. hE pushed through with all of hiS rage.
“wherE iS thE dooR!?”
It burned hiM, but hE wouldn’t stop. Christopher left an opening. Somewhere. hE could feel it. Where was iT!? hE could get out! hE ripped the key from hiS throat. hE kept testing the fence, burning hiS body. Looking for the door. Where is it!? Where is it!?
“geT mE ouT oF herE!”
hE saw Christopher walking back to earth. Christopher was in his tree house on the real side. hE could smell the fresh winter air. The pine trees. Christopher left the tree house. hE saw it.
The tree house door was open!
“leT mE ouT!”
hE could feel the surge of energy outside. The wet grass and winter. hE could get out! hE squeezed hiS body through an opening in the fence, burning hiS skin to scars. hE was inside the tree house on the real side. Christopher slammed the door. hE looked out to the real world through the windows. Wild-eyed and insane. Freedom was on the other side of the door. hE ran at the tree house door. hE was going to escape!
“i aM freE noW!” hE screamed.
Christopher threw his body against the door. The nicE maN pushed against the other side. Ripping the wood. Clawing. Trapped like a caged animal.
“leT mE ouT! leT mE ouT!”
The sheriff joined Christopher. The whole town pushed back. The nicE maN moaned and scratched the glass windows.
“yoU arE all goinG tO burNNN!”
Suddenly hE saw water pouring down the windows in thick streams. hE thought it was rain, but hE hadn’t brought the clouds. hE didn’t know what it was until he took a deep breath through his nose. The mossy pines and the winter air were replaced with another smell.
Gasoline.
hE saw Christopher’s mother climb down from the roof to the ladder with the gas can. Three words stenciled on its side. COLLINS CONSTRUCTION COMPANY. She held a match in her hand. The nicE maN frantically scratched the window to put out the flame. Christopher put his palm against the glass, the whisper scratch touching the nicE man’S hand.
“You are free now,” he said.
Christopher’s mother threw the match onto the tree house.
The dEvil screamed.
Christopher looked at the nicE maN with no malice. No hatred. Nothing but compassion and forgiveness. Christopher took hiS hands and gave the dEvil back everything hE had ever given the world. hE was Mrs. Henderson alone and unwanted in the kitchen. hE was Mike sewing hiS own brother’s eyes shut. hE was Scott and Jenny drowning in floods. hE couldn’t drink enough for Ms. Lasko. hE couldn’t get warm in the freezing backyard with Brady Collins or his mother. hE was the first parent who ever abused hiS child and every child since.
“makE iT stoP!”
The fire ate through the window frames. The door. hE ran everywhere to get away from the feeling. hE screamed through the tree house windows. Every word in another voice.
“puT ouT thE firE! gooD guyS wiN warS. listeN tO grandmA!”
And a quiet voice from centuries ago.
“To kill in the name of God is to serve the devil.”
Light poured into hiS eyes. Blinding hiM. The nicE maN felt the light surround hiM. The tree house was a wooden straitjacket. The burning was too great. The hissing lady pulled hiM back through the light. Back to the giant tree in the blood-soaked clearing.
The devil was back in Hell.
hE looked at the hissing lady, who reached down and took the key from hiS charred hand. She locked the door behind her with a click. Then, she put the key back around her neck. There were no more doors. No more escapes. There were no more deer. No more damned. No more shadows.
There was only him and her.
“You’re off the street,” she smiled.
hE looked at her. Defeated. Broken. hiS eyes blurry from rage baptized in tears. hE ran at her with all the hatred in hiS heart. The hissing lady stood quiet and still. She was at peace.
“diE!” hE screamed.
hE swung and hit her with all the force of Hell.
* * *
She felt no pain. She only heard a voice. A sweet gentle voice.
“Come home. I’m sorry. Your Father loves you.”
Her brother died on earth. It was her choice to die here. The hissing lady broke into a million pieces of light. The nicE maN watched the hissing lady ascend to Heaven. Stars streaking across the sky. We all become the ocean. We all become the stars.
“Please, come home. You’ve done enough. Your Father misses you so much.”
The hissing lady approached her Father’s house. A grown woman freezing in the backyard. She knocked on the door and waited until He opened it. She felt the warm kitchen air. The hissing lady looked up at her Father. He opened His arms and held her.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” she said.
“I know you are. I’m sorry, too,” He said.
“I love You, Father,” she said.
“I love you, too, Eve,” He said, kissing her forehead. “Welcome home.”
Epilogue
tHe nIce Man looked through the kitchen window from the freezing backyard. hE felt so much hatred in that moment that hE thought he could break down the door and kill them both. hE ran at the door and hit it.
“leT mE iN! leT mE iN!”
Silence. hE hit the door over and over until hiS hands were bloody and broken. But no one heard hiM. hE was the tree in the middle of the forest. All hE could do was watch those shooting stars. Every star a sun. Every sun a soul. Within a moment, all of the stars were gone. The planets around earth had no more light.
And hE was alone.
The nicE maN was suddenly terrified.
hE realized hE had been here one hundred billion times.
The faces always changed, but the ending never did. God had abandoned hiM in this trap. hE had to find a way out of this torment. hE looked through the vastness of the universe and saw nothing but a 6x6 cell. hE looked around at hiS white walls, not seeing that hE alone held a string. hE would never reach up and feel the thread on hiS eyes. hE would never feel the zipper on hiS mouth.
“You are free now,” the voice said.
But hE could not hear it. hE could only sit in hiS solitary confinement. Watching the town. Looking for the next child.
hE walked through the clearing. Staring at them. The frogs were still waking up, staggering, getting
sober. They looked at hiS tree house as it burned into smoke that disappeared into
Clouds.
hE knew some would dismiss this experience as a bad nightmare. Some might even force themselves to forget. But hE would always be there. In their ears. In their dreams.
“mrS. hendersoN…psst…mrS. hendersoN…”
hE whispered into the old lady’s ear so closely that she mistook hiS breath for a breeze. She scratched her ear, but she still did not hear hiM. She was too focused on her husband, who looked at the tree and found himself holding his wife’s hand. Now that the nightmare was over, all he wanted to do was take her away for a weekend trip. Luckily, she had already packed a bag.
“jennY, honeY. scotT iS stilL therE. let’S drowN hiM iN floodS.”
But Jenny could not hear hiM. She was safe in her father’s arms, carrying her far away from her stepbrother. She promised herself that she would report Scott to the police because she deserved justice more than silence. What she couldn’t know was that Scott would confess to the sheriff later that night. It was the only way to make himself stop drowning in that creek. In floods.
“bradY…kilL thaT boY…listeN tO grandmA.”
Brady Collins was too busy listening to his actual grandmother to pay the voice any mind. Lynn Wilkinson apologized to her daughter for not stopping her late husband just as Mrs. Collins promised her son she would never put him the backyard again.
“eddiE…psst…eddiE…listeN tO grandmA…”
Special Ed scratched his ear, then went right back to being showered with kisses and promises of cakes and pies and HBO and Showtime in his room forever. That night, he would put his father’s gun back in its case. He would slip himself under the covers and look at the tree outside with the branches like a smile gone sick. The tree would frighten him, and he would go to his mother’s room only to find that his mother was sleeping in the same bed as his father again. Special Ed would sleep between them that night, and when he closed his eyes, he would dream of his grandmother. His real grandmother.
“I am so proud of you, Eddie. You won the war.”
The nicE maN walked through the clearing, getting angrier and angrier as other children were scooped up by their families. hE saw Mike and Matt’s two mothers wrap their boys in their arms. hE knew that Matt and Mike would grow up together. They would always be there for each other. Matt would always keep his magic eye on his brother. No one would ever split up the M&M’s again.
“lisSsteN tO mE…”
hE whispered to Ms. Lasko about the beautiful buzzy butterfly feeling on her skin, but she didn’t need it anymore. That would leave more merLOT for Nurse Tammy, who had vague memories of falling asleep at work before waking up in the middle of nowhere with the doctor, who figured it must have been a fever dream brought on by the flu. She called her father and told him she would come home for Christmas as soon as she and the doctor helped the town get back on its feet. Her father kidded, “Is that the cute doctor you always talk about?” “Shut up, Dad.”
“listeN tO mE!”
hE screamed into their ears but all they did was scratch hiM away and make the peace they needed to make. Jill and Clark returned home. The old lady returned to the log cabin. She would sit in her room that night and look out at the beautiful stars twinkling like sunlight on the Ohio River. She would see her husband beckon her to come into the water with him so they could be together forever. She would be reunited with him soon. He was such a beautiful boy.
“jerrY! she’S goinG tO fucK thE sherifF, jerrY. thE bitcH iS laughinG aT yoU.”
But even Jerry was beyond hiS reach. After hE had moved Hell and Earth to lure him here, all hE could do was watch Jerry utter two simple spineless words…
“Goodbye, Kate.”
Jerry nodded to Christopher. Then, he took his casino winnings back home to Michigan. Back home to Mustang Sally.
“buT goD iS stilL a murdereR, sherifF. goD wilL kilL the woMan you lovE…”
The sheriff looked over at Kate Reese covered in mud and blood. He had never seen anyone so beautiful in his life. He knew they didn’t have all the time in the world, so he didn’t want to waste a minute of it. He wanted to make memories with her. He wanted to have a child with her. He wanted to spend every Christmas and every holiday for the rest of his life with her and Christopher.
“he’lL leavE yoU, katE. jusT likE youR husbanD.”
Kate Reese turned to the sheriff and gestured for him to come and join the family. For a moment, she thought of her late husband. The memories of her life returned but the pain did not. She looked at Christopher, sober and present. His fever was gone for now. So was hers. Children do not cry at happy endings, and he was never going to learn how to do it from her. She kissed the sheriff. She knew she would marry that man. She knew they would be a family. Everyone gets an ending. Whether or not it’s happy is up to them.
“i aM watchinG yoU.”
hE watched the sheriff kiss Kate Reese goodbye and go back to his job to help the town get home without further incident. The sheriff promised himself that in the morning, he would make the drive up to Erie, Pennsylvania, to give Emily Bertovich’s family some peace. But for now, he was needed right where he was standing. The nicE maN watched the sheriff help the crowd disperse and return to their homes safely. It amazed hiM how people always did that. No matter how big the war. How bloody the battle. In the end, the frogs always kept going. Like little seeds sprouting from the soil of a burnt forest. They always went home.
Rubberneckers.
“i aM watchinG yoU.”
hE watched the town leave the clearing and walk back out through the Mission Street Woods. hE looked around at hiS world. Empty. Silent. The tree had fallen in the middle of the forest, and there was no one left to hear it.
Except Christopher.
He was looking straight at hiM.
“i aM watchinG yoU, chrisSstopher,” hE said.
Christopher looked through hiM. To the cloud. The face. The blue moon. The eclipse. The end of days. The shooting stars across the brittle sky. Another. Then another. Every one a daughter. A son. A sun. A soul. A fleck of color in God’s eyes.
“I am watching you, too,” Christopher said.
hE saw Christopher’s mother turn and look hiM right in the eye with all of the fury of Heaven.
“So am I,” she said.
Then, she took her little boy’s hand, and the two walked out of the Mission Street Woods. The nicE maN stayed at the tree for a moment. The last of the tree house was now charcoal on the ground. The smoke rose into the air, and hE followed it.
hE floated into the cloud, rising above the woods. Higher and higher. Until hE saw the clearing and the tree looking back with itS giant angry eye.
hE saw the horizon. The single sun. The earth was the head on the giant’s body. Human beings were the bugs crawling on hiS face. hE looked out into the world. Watching. Waiting. Looking for the next soul.
hE hovered above the town. Following the sirens. hE saw the ambulance race down the road. hE followed it all the way back to the hospital and saw the paramedics rush the gurney down the hall into the operating room.
While the doctors did their best to play God, hE floated down the hallway. hE saw Father Tom resting in a bed. Mrs. Radcliffe held his hand from his bedside. Thank God he is still alive, hE heard the woman pray. Thank God they are all still alive. The mother. The father. The teenage boy. It was a Christmas miracle.
When the girl’s operation was over, hE quietly floated into the hospital room and lay down on the ceiling. hE watched her sleeping. Deeply and peacefully. All day and all night as the world kept itself busy turning.
When Mary Katherine woke up, she looked up into the bright white light above her bed. She looked down at the bandages and gauze covering her legs and arms. Suddenly she remembered the accident. The deer antlers ripping apart her body. But she saved Christopher’s life. Somehow in her heart, she knew Christopher was still alive.
The d
oor opened.
Mary Katherine saw a doctor and a nurse enter the room. Mary Katherine’s eyes were still a little blurry, but she saw that the nurse’s name tag read TAMMY. Behind Nurse Tammy, her mother and father entered the room with Doug. They had escaped from the church. Their nightmare was over.
“Is this Heaven?” she asked.
Everyone in the room laughed.
“No, honey,” her mother said kindly. “We’re in the hospital.”
“You had a close call, honey,” her father said. “We all did.”
Her father choked back tears and held his daughter’s hand. Mary Katherine suddenly felt as warm as if she were in her mother’s kitchen. The doctor stepped up and started explaining the operation to her, but Mary Katherine’s mind drifted on the cloud of painkillers. She heard a word here or there, but she was too focused on her family “blood loss” to put her full attention “ruptured” anywhere else. She just felt so grateful to be alive. To be here with her family and Doug. Beautiful Doug. Maybe she would get into Notre Dame after all. The possibilities of life suddenly seemed “full recovery” endless. Mary Katherine closed her eyes and began to drift away when she felt her mother’s loving hand.
“We will help you, Mary Katherine,” her mother said.
“That’s right,” her father agreed. “We’re in this together as a family.”
“I’ll be here, too, Mary Katherine. You’re not alone,” Doug said.
Mary Katherine was confused. She opened her eyes and looked at her mother.
“Alone with what, Mom?” she asked.
Her mother cried tears of joy.
“They were able to save the baby. You’re still pregnant.”
hE watched as the news spread over the young girl’s face. hE watched as she held her mother. hE watched as the young man professed his love and promised to raise the child as his own. hE watched as the father wondered what his grandchild would be.
A daughter
A son
A sun
A soul
After a few minutes, the doctor ushered her family out of the room to let Mary Katherine get some much-needed rest. After all, she was sleeping for two now. As she lay on the pillow, she felt a little prickle on the back of her neck that she blamed on the air-conditioning. She scratched her neck and curled up into the blanket. She closed her eyes, and right before she fell asleep, she could have sworn she heard a sweet whisper in her ear.
Imaginary Friend (ARC) Page 67