by Jamie Ott
Down the Shrinking Hole
Jamie Ott
Copyright Jamie Ott 2012. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without permission.
For more information: [email protected]
ISBN: 978-0615564595
Publication Date: 7/9/2012
New Neighbors
Chapter 1
Miles pulled back the curtains. Across the cul du sac, the new neighbors unloaded patio furniture.
A little blond boy opened the door and called his mother. He stood back and allowed her to enter. Before he closed the door, his eyes met Miles’.
Miles held his breath.
For a moment, he thought he saw a red gleam under the blue surface of the boy’s eyes.
The door shut, yet he felt like his eyes were still on him, burrowing into his mind.
He looked left, down the street.
Standing on the sidewalk were all six of the other neighbors. They were motionless with their eyes directed at Miles.
Slowly, he released the curtain.
“Mom,” he called.
“Yes?”
She was polishing the living room table.
“The neighbors are staring at me.”
“Yeah, okay, babe. Lunch will be ready in a few minutes,” she said absentmindedly.
She turned and walked into the kitchen; Miles followed.
“That’s not all. The new boy across the street is creepy.”
“Mm-hm. What do you want for lunch?”
“P, B & J, of course!”
After lunch, Miles sat down to a game of Hostile World, in his room.
“Miles, you know the rules,” his mother said through the cracked door. “No games during the day. Go outside and play.”
He turned off the television.
From his closet, he grabbed his pellet gun and target paper.
In the backyard, he tacked a sheet to the door of the shed.
Right as he lifted the rifle to take aim, he froze. In the little scope, he saw the reflection of the boy.
“Can I try?” he asked.
Miles turned around.
The kid had a dead pan face. His voice was just as cold and expressionless.
He wanted to say no, but his tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of his mouth.
The boy moved closer to him. He walked slowly and steadily. With lizard-like reflexes, he snatched the rifle from his hand.
Miles gasped.
He pointed it at the target and pulled the trigger without pause.
The pellet hit the target, dead center.
He pulled the trigger several more times. The center of the paper was gone, but the pellets kept hitting the dead center.
“I don’t really like you,” he said nonchalantly. “I need a friend, though. You’ll do,” he said as he lowered the gun and looked him in the eyes.
Just like before, his eyes had a tinge of red that gleamed through his circles of blue. But up close, the red danced fluidly across the surface.
Miles wanted to yell for his mother. But, somehow, the kid held him still; kept him from screaming or running.
Tears leaked out of the corner of his eyes.
“I gotta go, but I’ll be seeing you,” he said, as he pointed the butt of the rifle at him.
His arms could move again.
Miles took back the rifle.
He, then, walked off, but before he opened the gate, he turned and said, “Oh, I almost forgot. You, of course, won’t know who I am,” he sighed. “I’m Seven.”
When Miles finally got back the use of his tongue and the rest of his body, he sank to his knees, in the grass.
He cried, silently.
The sound of the sliding glass door made him look up.
His mother came out, knelt down, and asked, “Honey, are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I just feel really bad.”
She lifted him onto her hip and carried him to bed.
The Gifts
Chapter 2
Miles fell into a fever that lasted several days after. He tried to sleep through it, but his dreams wouldn’t let him. Over and over, he saw a white water whirlpool, spinning and spinning.
In the dream, he was caught in the tide, like a fish in a toilet bowl; only he was alive.
As the funnel sucked down everything that was around him - the ground, the trees, and animals, Miles swam away from the suctioning center.
The pull of the center was too strong. He was stuck in the same spot; neither going down the hole nor moving further away.
One afternoon, he woke when his mother called him.
She and the boy, from across the street, stood in the doorway.
“Honey, this is Seven. He says you two met a few days ago. Because you’re sick, he brought you a gift.”
Miles sat up and backed against the wall.
He wanted to shout, “NO,” but his tongue was stuck again.
His mother asked, “What’s wrong, Miles? He just wants to be friends.”
She pushed Seven in and closed the door.
“Go away,” he managed say around his immobile tongue.
“I brought a gift,” Seven said with the same dead pan face and voice.
He held out a softball sized pink quartz rock. It was nearly opaque, except for a golden light that moved under its surface.
“For good dreams,” the boy said.
He reached for Miles’ hand.
Seven’s touch was deadly cold. The chill traveled up and down his arm.
He turned Miles’ palm upward, and set the rock on it.
Curiously, he brought the stone close up to his face, trying to see what the source of the light was.
As he turned the rock over, in his hand, he got sleepy again.
After a couple heavy blinks of his eye lids, he looked up.
Without a goodbye, Seven had already left the room.
~~~
A few days had passed.
His fever lifted and, having managed to get some restful sleep, Miles felt refreshed.
He walked into the living room. His father was there, flipping through the channels.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, kid-o, glad to see you’re feeling better.”
He went to the couch and sat.
His father, who could never stand to see him sitting about the house doing nothing, said, “Son, go out and play. I see there’s a new boy living right across the street. Make friends with him; everybody needs friends.”
“Can’t I just go to Joey’s?”
“He lives on the other side of town. Now, you can finally play all the time, and we’ll know where you’re at.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.
“Here,” he said. “Go across the street and ask if he’d like to go for ice cream.”
Miles took the ten dollar bill, and put it in his front pocket.
Slowly, warily, he walked out of the front door. In the neighbor’s front yard, the boy sat on a lawn chair.
He reminded miles of a ventriloquist’s dummy as he sat there, dead still. His eyes were focused on some invisible point in the sky.
Thinking there was no way he was going to have ice cream with Seven, Miles walked on down the street to the Mapley Liquor Store.
“Hi, Miles,” said the old guy behind the counter. “How’s your dad?”
“Well,” said Miles.
He made a bee line for the freezer in the back.
“A moment later, he came back with two large chocolate ice cream cones with sprinkles.”
“Nah, enjoy, it’s on me,” said the old man.
Miles smiled widely and said, “Thanks so much
, Mr. Mapley.”
“Have a good day, kid.”
The sun glared down into his eyes, making him squint.
He pulled back the blue and white wrapper of his ice cream. Little chopped nuts fell all over the ground.
It was only 10 am, and his skin was already getting that prickly feeling, letting him know that he was about to break into a sweat.
Miles turned left and walked further down the street.
Traffic was heavier than usual that day. Instead of crossing the street mid section – like his mother told him never to do, he waited at the cross walk.
Across the street, the Thai restaurant his father loved to frequent was open early. Mr. Choy was running a rag across the light brown surface of the window.
The light turned green.
Miles took a deep bite of his ice cream, catching a bit of the waffle cone, as he crossed the street.
He munched down a piece of the solid chocolate coating and swallowed.
He stepped onto the sidewalk and paused.
The hedges in front of the restaurant were shaking, wildly. A strange noise, almost like a barking squirrel, came from them.
Slowly, Miles approached the hedge. He bent over and craned his head, looking around the bush, but he saw nothing except the trembling leaves.
He switched his cone into his other hand, and then reached over and pulled back a particularly leafy vine.
There was only dirt.
Whatever it was, it had gone.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and continued on.
Past a couple blocks of houses, he went until he came upon his school. Summer vacation started several weeks ago, but it was the only other place he could go to burn off energy.
Miles slipped between the fences that’d been chained together.
He walked over to the swing set where he un wrapped his second cone and took a huge bite.
He swung, idly, only pausing when he noticed many little round impressions appearing in the gravel some feet before him. They were about the size of a quarter.
The impressions traveled toward him in a line of three at a time. First, they were off center-right, and then they were off center-left.
Quickly, he got off the swing and walked a few steps back.
The impressions continued to get closer.
Miles ran back to the chained fences and slipped through onto the sidewalk.
Quickly, he walked back toward the liquor store.
When he got close to the Thai restaurant, he crossed to the other sidewalk. All the while, he kept his eyes focused on the hedges, watching for anything unusual.
Back on his street, Mr. Malbec was in the front yard, watering the lawn.
“Hi, Miles.”
As Mr. Malbec looked at him, Miles saw that his eyes had a strange red gleam to them, too.
He turned back to the lawn, but Miles could see that he was watching him out of the corner of his eye.
He decided not to go inside. His father would just tell him to leave anyway.
Miles walked down the side of the house and unlatched the yard gate. In the farthest corner, he sat with his back against the tree.
Despite the shade the tree provided, the heat took him down into the lofty layers of his mind.
Sometime later, Miles woke when something buzzed at his face.
Assuming it was a bug, he swatted the air with his hand, accidentally smacking himself on the cheek.
Something rolled out of his hand, fell onto his lap and thudded to the ground.
He opened his eyes and saw, lying in the grass, a little red ball. It was no bigger than a large marble. In its center, something dark moved beneath the surface.
Curiously, he picked it up and held it close to his eye.
Though he couldn’t see what the source of the darkness was, somehow the little red ball comforted him.
“Hey.”
Miles flinched. There, over the gate, Seven’s head appeared.
He slipped the red ball into his pocket.
“Wanna play?” he asked dully.
“No.”
“What’s that in your pocket?”
“A marble.”
“Can I see?”
“NO!” he said and stood up. “Go away!”
The kid stared motionless.
“My mother wanted me to invite you and your family over for a barbeque. I already told your dad.”
He turned and left.
Summertime Blues
Chapter 3
Miles was bored out of his mind. More than anything, he wished they could have moved to the other side of town; that way he’d be closer to his school buddies.
They got a great offer for the house. His parents were always complaining about money. But, instead, they stayed.
One by one, since Christmas, the old neighbors moved out, and in moved Mr. Malbec and the others. They were all nice, in a creepy way. Seven and his family were the last to join their cul de sac community.
He lay back in the grass, throwing a basketball at the door of the shed.
His mother opened the sliding glass door, and stuck her head out.
“Do you have to do that? The banging noise is annoying. Why don’t you go and do something?”
Miles said nothing.
He picked up the book that was beside him and read.
It’d been a strange week. Between what happened at the school, Seven who was always watching him and his family, and the creepy neighbors, he didn’t feel safe when he was alone. Even the night before when they went out to dinner, Miles had the feeling he was being watched.
He had a burger and fries, as usual. Before he ate, his mother told him to go to the bathroom and wash his hands. When he came back, right as he sat down, he could have sworn that some of his french fries shuffled across his plate.
“What’s wrong?” his dad asked.
“There’s something in my food.”
He stuck his finger into the fries, and moved them over, looking for the intruder, which he supposed was a bug.
“Ouch!” he cried out.
He pulled back his hand. Blood welled up from under the skin of his finger.
“What was it, son?”
“I don’t know. Something bit me, I think!”
Every day, Miles would look out the window and see Seven sitting, motionless, in the front yard.
“You know what’s strange?”
“What?” asked his mother.
“I haven’t seen Seven’s parents since the day they moved in.”
“Maybe they’re working.”
“And leave a kid home, alone?”
“When I was your age, I stayed home alone all the time while my parents went to work. Not everyone can afford daycare, or a full time parent.”
He turned from the window and watched her flip the pages of her magazine.
“You really don’t like that kid, do you?”
“He never blinks.”
She got up from the couch and looked out the window.
“Yeah, I guess he does look a little odd.”
A few days later, his mother baked a chocolate cake. His dad made him put on a green polo shirt.
They walked across the cul de sac.
Chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck! Came sounds from all over their yard.
“They must have a lot of squirrels,” said his father. “Funny, I don’t see any though.”
As they walked up the little red brick path, Miles noticed the rose bushes trembling, as did the row of hedges that lined their porch.
Seven opened the door.
“Hi,” he said. “Come in.”
Inside, the house was barely decorated. It had a couch and two chairs in the living room. There was not a single photograph, painting, or any kind flourish – not even a television.
They followed Seven into the kitchen, which was just as bare.
A dark hair woman, who looked nothing like Seven, was
cutting up vegetables.
She looked at them and said, “Hi, I’m Janet.”
She smiled widely and extended her hands.
“Thanks for baking a delicious cake!” she said enthusiastically. She set it on the counter, looked down at him, and said, “Hello, Miles, would you like something to drink?”
She pulled back the corners of her mouth into a forced smile. Her teeth were unusually white and shiny. She had the same red gleam as the others.
“No, thanks.”
After she poured his parents two glasses of beer, she led them through the kitchen’s sliding glass door.
The back yard was much the same as theirs. It had a large cement patio to the right, and twenty square feet of plush green grass covered the rest of the ground.
Seven’s father, Bob, stood on the patio, behind a large gas grill with a spatula in his hand. He, too, looked nothing like Seven. Where his son had delicate features, Bob seemed boorish.
“Hi,” he said with a big smile.
Miles looked to Bob’s left and saw that Seven, now, sat with the same blank expression, at a heavy glass table with an awning.
“I’m so glad you came over. We’re new in town, so we don’t know many people.”
In his hand, he held a glass of bright yellow beer.
His parents seemed not to notice anything was off with their behavior. They didn’t see that despite his smile and jovial laugh, that in his eyes was indifference.
Idly, he stood there listening to them talk and laugh, until they told him to sit with Seven.
Seven looked unblinkingly at Miles, as he scooted into the chair opposite him. Between his fingers, he twirled a thin green piece of glass. It was about four inches long and glowed with a light green aura around it.
“What is that?”
“It’s magic. Want a try?”
He twirled it flat onto the surface of his palm, and held it out to him.
A blue light sparked out, as he reached for it.
“Ouch!”
He yanked his hand back.
“I guess it doesn’t like you much.”
He returned to spindling it between his fingers.
Although he didn’t smile, Miles saw the amusement in Seven’s eyes.
“I’m bored. This place sucks.”
“Where are you from?”
Seven stopped and pointed the green crystal at Miles left arm. A jet of blue light shot out, again.
“Ow! Stop!”
When he wouldn’t, Miles stood up, breaking the connection. Without saying goodbye, he walked back to his house.
His parents were too engaged to notice.
He went to his room and closed the door.
On his bed, he found a folded piece of paper.
Thinking his mother must have put it there, he opened it.