A Trace of Revenge

by Lyle Howard

  Matthew rolled onto his side in a fruitless effort to get comfortable. Nothing seemed to be working. This mattress was much softer than the one he had grown accustomed to at school, and it felt all squishy beneath his legs. He rolled over to the other side, facing the entrance to his room, his tired eyes little more than protesting slits through which he could just make out the locked door across the expanse of his pitch-black room. In what his mother always referred to as his over-active imagination in high gear, he thought he glimpsed a flash of soft yellow light sweep past the crack beneath his door. With his heart thumping so loud he could almost hear it, his eyes snapped shut. And then, slowly, apprehensively, he opened them again, only to find that the ghostly light had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Taking a deep breath, he scolded himself for acting like such a baby.

  Ghosts and robbers, how childish could he be? He was nine years old! There was no fire-breathing dragon out there patrolling the hallway! No masked killer hiding beneath the stairs! He was nine years old, he kept telling himself. His father always referred to Matthew as his “little man,” and there was no reason to doubt him now. He was nine years old, and that was too old to be terrified by such silliness!

  Matthew lifted himself onto his elbows, trying to focus on the Florida Marlins clock that hung on the wall across the room over his writing desk. As his eyes struggled to adjust to the pitch darkness, the sad truth revealed itself. There were seven more, long, solitary hours to go until Spiderman would be spinning his cartoon webs across their big screen television downstairs. Still too immature to put this quality time to constructive use, Matthew just laid there in the morbid stillness of his room, listening to the rain spatter against his window, trying futilely to keep his mind from straying into that haunted place where the monsters roamed free.

  For a nine-year-old, lying in a quiet bedroom produces much the same anxiety that sitting in a doctor’s waiting room does for an adult. You’d rather be anywhere else but there. Maybe a glass of milk might do the trick, Matthew thought. After all, he was far too old to go climbing into bed with his parents, he assured himself. Yeah, a trip downstairs to the kitchen might be just the ticket. Maybe, if he could discover where his mother had hidden them, he could sneak a few of the chocolate chip cookies she had baked for the party. Milk and cookies! Boy, he could never get that after midnight back at Whitehall! He licked his lips with the wicked anticipation of a child who knew he was up to no good. Matthew realized he would be disobeying his mother’s instructions, but it was the middle of the night, and they were fast asleep across the house in their bedroom. It was too late for second thoughts about the monsters in the hallway, and his mouth was already starting to salivate. It would be like a game of spy with the cookies as the goal and not getting caught by the enemy as the object of the mission.

  Throwing his legs over the edge of the bed, he wiped the sleep from the corners of his eyes. Not wanting to push his luck, just in case there might be some truth to his fears, he sat for a moment and reached both arms toward the ceiling, surprised to hear the young bones in his shoulders express their objection. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he studied the familiar sports posters that covered nearly every square inch of wall space. Seeing all of his favorite football and baseball heroes frozen in action seemed to help allay his anxiety. His mother was always threatening to redecorate, but suddenly, he was happy she had never gotten around to it.

  He was stepping over his opened duffel bag when he thought he heard a noise. He stood still, cocked his head to one side and listened. Visions of chocolate chip cookies that were as big as his fist suddenly crumbled into thin air. If it was his father, it was game over, and his mother would kill him for blowing their secret.

  The wood floor was cold beneath his feet, so he reached into his bag and felt around for a pair of socks. He loved the way socks allowed him to slide around on the freshly sealed surface. Sometimes, when his over-protective mother wasn’t there to see him, he would run full tilt across the house and down the long hallway that lead to his parent’s bedroom, then hit the brakes and slide the last twenty feet. It was the closest thing to surfing the Banzai Pipeline for a child with a vivid imagination.

  Sitting cross-legged on the floor next to his suitcase, Matthew tugged his athletic socks up around his ankles and pulled his pajama legs down over them. There was still no sign of that eerie light creeping in beneath his door, but he was confident he had just heard the faint creaking of floorboards coming from the hallway across the house.

  An inquisitive look fell over Matthew’s face as his ears zeroed in on the suspicious sound. The thought of an intruder never crossed his mind, since the alarm system his parents had installed was so elaborate. He couldn’t even begin to count how many times he had tripped the system by accidentally knocking a glass of water off his nightstand. It was that sensitive.

  There it was again...

  And now, the unmistakable sound of a door squeaking on its hinge. The noise was distant but instantly identifiable to him. His parent’s bedroom door was being opened like it was stuck in the mud...and then closed at the same sluggish pace.

  Matthew stood transfixed in the impenetrable darkness of his room with his young hand wrapped around the doorknob. He listened for the footsteps that would surely have to follow...but they never came.

  Putting one hand up to the seam between the door and its frame, Matthew cracked the door cautiously just in case it was his mother coming to check on him. The door was opened just enough to allow him a thin sliver of viewing space. The hallway was better illuminated than his bedroom, the walls shaded a soft gray color by the dim light pouring in through the overhead skylights.

  From his room, he had a clear view of the house, but the living room was empty! How could that be? He was positive he had just heard their bedroom door open and close! Where did they disappear to? They must have come out. Had one of them changed their minds and decided to go back to bed?

  Or worse... what if a monster had slipped inside their room? It could be in there with them right now!

  Don’t think like that! You’re nine years old! Act like it!

  What if it was standing at the foot of their bed? Its hideous fangs and razor-sharp talons dripping with blood! Its orange eyes on fire with vicious intensity! What if it was going to kill them while they slept? Then it would probably eat them both, leaving nothing on their sheets but guts and bones!

  Suddenly, Matthew felt like he had to pee, but he had to fight the urge. He didn’t dare leave the safe haven of his bedroom!

  A nervous sweat ran down the boy’s back, soaking his Miami Heat pajama top. With the side of his hand, the youngster wiped his parched and pasty lips. What if the monster was saving him for dessert? It was common knowledge that creatures always kept the little boys and girls for last, using them to wash down the main course! Shivering with fright and with his knees squeezed tightly together to hold back the flood, Matthew continued to wait...and watch...and listen...

  A cloud drifted across the night sky, throwing the living room into complete darkness. The seconds crawled by like hours. To a small boy caught up in his own world of macabre images, every branch that brushed against a windowpane was another creature that wanted in. Every tire that splashed through a pothole was the footfall of some prehistoric animal that hadn’t eaten since the Ice Age. Every spark of lightning that momentarily lit the house, and each clap of thunder that shook the roof, took on ever more danger in the boy’s young mind. Then he heard it…

  It was loud and fast. A muffled noise coming from across the house! There was no denying it this time. There was definitely a monster in there!

  Something inside told him to hide. It said, Find a corner in your closet and stay there until the morning! But that wasn’t what his father’s “little man” would do. What if he called the police? The inner voice affirmed his fear that they’d never get here in time. Now it warned him to r
un, but if he did, there would be no one else to save his parents! He had to help them!

  Leaving the door still cracked, Matthew felt along his bedroom wall until he reached his desk. His small hands groped around in the darkness until he found what he was looking for. The pencil cup next to the stapler would contain everything Matt would need to defend his mother and father from those things that went bump in the night. He had sharpened pencils, (they were made of wood, just in case this was some kind of vampire) and a pair of scissors (even if they were safety scissors, they still might be able to do some damage to soft tissue).

  Matthew grabbed a handful of pencils in one hand and took the scissors in the other, holding the shears safely by the blades just like his mother had always shown him. The last thing he wanted to do was to accidentally poke his own eye out.

  This was a moment Matthew was sure he would remember for the rest of his life. From somewhere deep within his youthful spirit, he had somehow managed to summon up all the courage and strength of a young King Arthur. The pencil cup had been his mystical stone, the scissors his Excalibur. Chest heaving and confidence rallied, he was ready to slay the dragon!

  Having no hands free, Matthew wedged his left foot into the crack and pried open his bedroom door. As he stood framed by the portal armed to the hilt, his eyes were fixed down the staircase into what now seemed like a massive expanse of living area leading to the corridor and his parents’ bedroom. With his eyes tearing up in terror, every shadow that flashed across the floor, each dark silhouette that flickered up the walls, chipped away at his make imaginary fortitude. He swallowed hard, his hands gripping tighter around his weapons. Take it one step at a time, he cautioned himself...

  Down each stair he descended, one stride at a time, each foot barely making a sound. A bolt of lightning seemed to hit somewhere in the backyard, illuminating the living room for a split second, its dark ambiance suddenly aglow in the bright white light.

  Halfway into the living room, as he stood next to his father’s favorite recliner, he heard it—a shriek so blood-curdling in its tenor that his bladder was terrified into release. A scream so shrill in its urgency, that it made the pencils clatter to the floor. Matthew Walker stood frozen in place, trembling, protected only by a pair of scissors that, even when new, weren’t capable of cutting through more than one piece of construction paper at a time.

  It was his mother! The plaintive wail came twice more before it was abruptly cut off mid-scream. Safety scissors upraised, stocking feet begging for traction, Matthew raced for his parents’ bedroom door.

  He yanked open the door...

  He was right! The monster was there, standing on the other side of his parents’ bed! Backlit against the meager light that filtered into their bedroom through the window curtains, the ogre seemed to have no specific profile. It was a common shape, and it was holding something over its head...what was that? He couldn’t make it out.

  The monster gradually turned his head in the boy’s direction. His worst nightmare was coming true...it had no face! There was nothing above its neck, but a pair of bright white eyes that burned with an incendiary fury that Matthew knew couldn’t be human!

  Out of the merciless night sky, a bolt of lightning followed by a deafening clap of thunder shook the house. Illuminated by the momentary brightness, Matthew could see that it was a baseball bat that the creature held, and it was dripping with a dark liquid and some unnamable stuff that dripped off it in grisly-looking chunks.

  He had to warn his parents!

  When the boy turned his attention to the head of the bed, he realized that he was too late! What he had feared most in his fantasies had somehow become a gruesome reality. In his impressionable young mind, the “little man’s” cowardly procrastination had cost his parents their lives.

  Blood was everywhere! It clung to the wall like an abstract painting, crimson rivulets splattered outward across the stucco. The headboard was streaked with gore, patches of scalp, and clumps of hair that hung off the elaborate piece of furniture like air plants stuck to a piece of driftwood. There was nothing left of their skulls; they were unrecognizable. Their ears protruded from the mush at odd angles, like broken wings. Across most of their comforter covers, a nauseating red stain was already starting to spread and turn brown.

  The monster turned his gaze to Matthew, and for an interminable instant, they just stared at each other, both caught off guard by each other’s unexpected presence in the room. It was an awkward situation that might have almost looked comedic had there been a live studio audience to witness it. The creature was stunned, the boy was petrified, and neither seemed to be sure of their next move. But that hesitation didn’t last long...

  The crazed beast charged around the foot of the bed, grunting like a rogue elephant, his guttural outburst muffled by his mask. The youngster reacted out of unbridled hysteria and with a rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins. Without warning, the wooden cudgel came down in a sweeping arc that narrowly missed the back of Matthew’s head as he turned to run.

  12:30 A.M.

  The boy wasn’t supposed to be home, Magnetti snarled to himself! Someone was going to have the shit kicked out of them for screwing this up! Killing a child wasn’t on his bucket list, but young or old, male or female...there were two rules he always lived by: Never leave men on base, and never leave any witnesses!

  Matthew timed his slide perfectly, reaching out with his right hand and grabbing onto the hallway wall for support without losing a step. The storm outside had returned with a vengeance, pelting the windows and skylights with a shroud of rain so dense that it blocked out any chance of outdoor light illuminating the interior of the house. This gave Matthew the home-field advantage of knowing the exact position of each stick of furniture and every piece of artwork located in the living room. Fifty steps to the front door, and Matthew knew each one of them by heart.

  But Anthony Magnetti was also in excellent physical condition. He was in the well-toned shape that only an entire 162 game season of running down fly balls could provide. He knew where the boy was heading, and there was no way in hell he was going to let him reach the door. He had no time to consider the heinous task that lay ahead for him; he was operating on pure gut instinct.

  Matthew weaved his way through the minefield of bulky furniture, just as another quake of thunder rocked the house. The youngster’s socks may have served their purpose while skidding for fun across a freshly waxed floor, but as for supplying him the needed traction to escape the clutches of a rampaging monster, they were fatally inadequate. He had just reached the couch when, even over the racket of the pounding rain, he could hear the steady breathing of the faceless creature as it closed in for the kill. Matthew began to dodge as he ran, running between the tables and chairs, trying to make himself as poor a target for the monster as possible. He could actually feel the hair on the back of his head rustle in the draft caused by each errant roundhouse swing of the bat.

  The living room was turned into an obstacle course, with Magnetti repeatedly blocking any means of Matthew’s escape. The boy was cagey and quick, but the murderer was just as smart, mimicking every juke, avoiding every object the youngster hurled in his direction. Through the living room and into the kitchen Matthew ran without the time or notion to throw on a light switch. Every time he thought he had managed to gain some ground, the creature would take longer strides and close the gap. A distance of fewer than four feet now separated the two, and Matthew could sense that the monster was about to swoop in and finish him. As they ran past the eating nook, a blinding flash of lightning lit up the kitchen momentarily stunning Magnetti. But the boy never faltered, sprinting past the refrigerator with the dazed creature in hot pursuit. Unaware of where the idea came from, but frightfully aware that the monster was right behind him, Matthew reached up and threw open the freezer door catching the raging ghoul square in the face. The freezer door slammed shut and the
n popped open again on its hinges, flooding half of the room with harsh white light. Magnetti screamed in agony as his nose was cleanly broken beneath his mask.

  Sweet Amy clattered to the tiled floor as the killer ripped the ski mask off his head. Blood streamed from both his nostrils. He tried to use the knit cap to blot the gushing wound, but the crimson flood was uncontrollable.

  Matthew never stopped running, and the guiding voice in his head was back again, urging him that he had a chance to make it now, pushing him to run faster than he had ever run before—but there is only one motivation stronger than a nine-year-old’s fear, and that is his curiosity...

  His legs stopped pumping...

  His body turned back toward the light...

  His eyes discovered the truth...

  This wasn’t some hideous demon from another dimension, it was just an ordinary man! A man whose face, even half-hidden in the shadows, was still visible. A man whose countenance would be the last memory chiseled into the granite of young Matthew’s brain. Magnetti bent over and picked up Sweet Amy, still holding the knit cap firmly against his mangled face. “You broke my nose, kid!” He grunted.

  Matthew’s expression turned dour. “You killed my parents!”

  The enraged killer pointed the business end of the bat in the boy’s direction. “And I promise they died quicker than you’re gonna!”

  Matthew refused to be intimidated. Summoning up all the courage he could muster, he glared steely-eyed at Magnetti...then stuck out his tongue and ran!

  Matthew bolted out of the kitchen and turned the corner. With fifty feet to the foyer, there was nothing between him and deliverance but the front door. His little heart pounded in his chest as he raced for freedom. Twenty more feet and he would be outside running across the lawn and screaming for help as loud as he could!

  Magnetti was given the steal sign. With the imaginary crowd standing on its feet, the pitch was thrown, and he darted for a second... keep your head low, focus on the bag...the throw from home would be close, but his head first slide would make him a hero...