2
Teddy and the shadow made it from the woods to the neighborhood that sat just outside it. They paused behind a house in a backyard when they saw a squad car rolling through. A chubby police officer with a cigar hanging from his lips crept along by himself. He shined a light on each house and in between them.
We need more, Teddy. Fast.
Teddy nodded. “I know. I have an idea.”
Teddy waited for the police vehicle to reach the end of the road, and for the first time, he took the lead.
Before they moved away from his father, Teddy’s mom always forgot to lock the back door at night. The next morning, his father would say, “Lila, the back door was unlocked all night.”
His mother would laugh and say, “We live in sweet, simple, little Oakhaven.”
Teddy had a feeling that in this town, surrounded by woods with just the one housing subdivision immediately nearby, people forgot to lock their doors too.
The first door Teddy tried was locked. He hopped down from the back patio and went next door. In the back was a well-kept garden with tomatoes, zucchini, and more vegetation that Teddy was careful not to disturb. His mother used to like to garden.
Teddy tiptoed up the cement steps from the back of the house. He opened the thick white screen door, and it didn’t screech like the back door at the house in Indiana.
Teddy reached for the golden handle of the white-painted wooden door, and it proved his theory about people in small towns. It opened and showed a dark kitchen. A collage of pictures hung on the teal-green refrigerator across from the back door. Teddy stepped into the kitchen, eyeing both sides of it as he peered into the living room. The suede sofa was empty, and a knitted black blanket lay neatly across the back of it.
Teddy couldn’t help but smile at the shag carpet. The familiarity of a home, something he hadn’t known for the past year.
We have to get on with it, Teddy. Your pain will come back.
Teddy nodded, embarrassed by the way the reminder of home had distracted him so much.
They crept up the stairs, and Teddy noted the clock on a stand at the top pointed to 9:47 p.m. The day had gotten away from them. Teddy’s dad always said, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” He wondered what the right word would be for the way time moved when you helped kill to stay alive. “Fun” wasn’t fitting.
At the top of the stairs a dark green carpet split into three bedrooms and what Teddy assumed was a bathroom. The two rooms on the right were empty. They were neat in a way that felt as though their owners hadn’t been there in a long time. Teddy wondered if that’s how his bedroom in Oakhaven looked—clean but untouched. Or, if some other kid was in it now.
The last bedroom had a massive bookcase against the far wall, and just beside it was an open door that led to the master bathroom. Teddy could see the shadow’s golden eyes reflect off the bedroom window. His eyes merged with the yellowed street lights outside.
Teddy stood back and waited for the shadow to move, but the shadow shook its head.
You can do it quickly. It has to be you. I don’t have the strength.
Teddy noticed the spare, decorative pillows thrown to the floor. On the edge of the bed, just feet from Teddy, was an older man long into his retirement days. He snored with a croaking sound that reminded Teddy of his own grandfather falling asleep on the couch after his mother’s Thanksgiving feast.
It’s just like all the games we play, Teddy. I go, and then you go. It’s your turn. Take your turn, Teddy.
Teddy grabbed the pillow on the floor and prayed to God that it would be quick, just as the shadow said. He placed it over the old man’s face and put as much weight as he could onto it. Teddy used the other hand to hold him down if he started thrashing.
He felt movement underneath the pillow. The man’s head tried to turn back and forth, and Teddy pressed harder, turning away and biting his lip. The shadow was right; the more he used his shoulder, the more the pain came back. It shot through Teddy’s arm, and he began to feel feverish again. The person on the other side of the bed was still.
Almost, Teddy. Just a little longer.
Teddy waited until the movement beneath him ceased.
Just another moment. Just to be safe.
Teddy obeyed the shadow, though he felt worn out and nauseated.
Then, when Teddy removed the pillow from the man, he saw his lifeless eyes, just like the man’s in the woods. Killing—whether watching or doing it himself—was hard. But something was satisfying in the way the eyes seemed to freeze at the peak of the person’s fear—at the moment when both the body and the person knew death was just moments away.
Teddy turned toward the shadow and gave it the thumbs-up.
The shadow’s arm stretched across the floor, onto the bed, and pointed to the other turned body.
That one too.
Teddy whispered, “Can’t you do this one? My arm hurts so much.”
Someone else spoke in a frantic hushed voice.
“I will be a better woman. I will sing in church and help at the soup kitchen. Grant me the means, and I will grant you my word. My soul. Please, God, don’t take me yet. I’m not ready to go.”
The woman kept her back to Teddy. Teddy knew what it was like to freeze in fear. The slamming doors in Indiana had done that to him several times.
You can do it, Teddy.
The shadow’s eyes beamed into the window, and the woman shrieked, burying her head away.
“Please, you son of Satan, stay back. I have nothing for you. Stay back.” The woman’s hand fumbled around her nightstand until she found what she was looking for.
As Teddy came around the side of the bed, the woman thrust her fist at him. Dangling from it was a silver cross.
“Please, Lord. Can you hear me? Spare me. I grant you my word.”
Teddy grabbed the coral-colored ceramic lamp beside her. Wincing in pain and grunting in agony, he raised the light over his head and smashed it into the woman’s skull.
It took just the one hit for her calm.
Her hand fell beside the bed, and the cross fell to the floor.
For good measure, Teddy threw the shade from the lamp, used the smooth ceramic’s edge, and beat into her tight curls once more.
He turned her on her side.
Yet again, he couldn’t help but feel a rush when he saw the lifeless eyes.
Creating that stillness, just moments after frantic praying and pleading, made Teddy feel invincible, like a god.
3
Teddy felt torn. He had this rush, an energy, that he couldn’t define. Was he proud of himself? Or did he feel extreme guilt? Was it satisfaction? Or was it anger?
You did well. We have to move.
The shadow placed a hand on Teddy’s shoulder, and again he could feel the warmth of the shadow’s hunger. The pinkness of the wound began to fade to scarred white. The blood felt less like it was orbiting the bullet and went on about its business elsewhere.
Teddy did a shoulder roll and was pleased that he was getting the rotating mobility back.
He patted the sweat on his forehead with his blood-doused shirt. The wetness smeared across his face.
He peeled the shirt off his back, and the pain in his arm reminded him it was still with him, though it was better.
Rotating it continuously was still tricky. Part of him was starting to hate the woman who shot him.
She cared about the other kid more than Teddy. People had always cared about something or someone else more than him. Maybe not his mother. And maybe not Ali. Teddy balled his fists. But everyone else. His dad cared more about Amber, Amber cared more about his dad, and his grandparents cared more about their retirement home. Teddy wondered if Amber or his grandparents even missed him. He felt tears forming in his eyes. They blurred his vision as the wave of them built higher and higher to the center of his eye.
What is it?
Teddy shook his head. “Nothing. I guess—” A tear tried to fall. Teddy stopped, brushed it away in annoyance, and straightened up. “I suppose I miss my mom.”
Teddy said it as though he was analyzing someone else, someone not in the room, rather than himself.
He thought of the little blonde girl who showed him through the woods and floated with him in the creek. “And, I guess, Ali too.”
Teddy threw his bloodied shirt on the green carpet and opened the accordion closet doors. All the clothes in there were sweaters, sweater vests, and button-up shirts.
He went past the shadow and into one of the other bedrooms. One had a rocket poster on the wall that Teddy hadn’t been able to see from the hall. It was on the far side across from the bed. Behind those closet doors, he found t-shirts just a little too big for him. Teddy grabbed a black one and held it up. On the front was a yellow and red graphic of a man’s face. He had gusty hair that Teddy thought was perfectly rock ‘n’ roll. It was Jimi Hendrix, one of his mother’s favorites.
We have to go.
Teddy nodded and went into the bathroom. He looked in the mirror, surprised by how much blood had stuck to his face. The way it grabbed onto the tiny hairs of his eyebrows made them look like part of a Halloween costume. Teddy wetted one finger under the water and dragged it across the side of his cheek. The dried blood parted like the Red Sea did for Moses. Miraculous power, Teddy thought. Shameful, yes. But miraculous.
Teddy scrubbed the rest of the blood off his face. It was under his nails and in his hair. He was surprised at how fast the stuff dried. It didn’t want to drip off Teddy, like it wanted to stay with the person who had freed it from its skin entrapment. He watched the pink color spiral down the drain’s mouth and felt accomplished. Then, he remembered the wound in his shoulder. It was better but still scabbed and bloody, so Teddy dipped his shoulder in the sink and washed it too.
Teddy grabbed his old Yankees shirt from the floor and went down the stairs. He tried not to look at the photos on the fridge. He didn’t want to know anything about the people he had killed. His moods, his thoughts on what he and the shadow did, were too wishy-washy as it was. Teddy wasn’t sure he could handle any added complexity.
Teddy knew the shadow still needed more and fast. Think of it as a game, the shadow had said. Well, to win a game, you had to have a strategy. You had to be creative.
Before Teddy went out the screen door at the back of the house, he grabbed a jagged-edged bread knife sitting atop a Bundt pan on the stove.
Attached to the back of the house, just beside the back door, Teddy noticed a green coiled garden hose. He went to the edge of the yard and saw the neighbor had a nearly identical red garden hose, though it seemed to be far longer. He tossed the breadknife aside into a row of shrubs for safe-keeping. He had an idea.
With the shadow’s watchful eyes behind him, Teddy went through the backyards of the houses on Sycamore Street, right where the Byers boy had ridden his bike, and pulled the garden hoses around to the front. Each of them let running water pour into the streets. It puddled well, with only one storm drain at the end of the road.
Teddy turned to the shadow. “Sometimes in games, like poker, you use other people’s hands to help you win. Maybe even take out one of their opponents too.”
The shadow’s eyes opened and closed as it nodded.
“Do you have enough in you to get those power lines down?” Teddy pointed above at the double wiring that connected post to post down the quiet, little street.
Teddy stepped up to the porch of his first kills of the night, knowing they wouldn’t come down if they heard him outside the front door.
He couldn’t help but feel giddy when the boom of the first fallen powerline hit the pavement. The shadow slithered like a snake to the top of the wooden pole and tugged at the wires, spreading them out in the pooling water.
Another fell, just missing the siding of a two-story home. It slammed into a plastic slide in the front yard, and the burnt smell suffocated the nighttime air. The cables spread like eels. Electric eels, Teddy thought.
He watched as windows throughout the line of homes on both sides of the streets illuminated. He inched back toward the house he had already entered and screamed as loudly and hysterically as he could, “Help me! Somebody! Please help me!”
Teddy tucked into the shrubs next to the porch. The cables coiled along the far side of the street’s sidewalk and the center. One of the electric eels even slithered into the edge of a yard.
A young man with sleek and bright blond hair responded to Teddy’s cries. He came running into the street, his eyes alert and desperate to find the source of the cries. He opened his mouth as he took another step, but whatever he was prepared to shout was lost to the most horrific scream Teddy had ever heard.
The shadow’s eyes beamed brighter in the shrubs. It kneaded its claw-like fingers into Teddy’s shoulder and suffocated the soreness.
Two more neighbors came rushing to the aid of the first fallen. One man ran ahead of the other, dodging a strand of cables, while the other ran right into the downed line at the end of his yard, his bare foot splashing into the water. Teddy could smell how fast the jolts cooked through that neighbor’s fatty frame.
The other man, slightly older than the rest, his ponytail swaying with each step, was still going. Teddy wondered if this was what it was like for hunters, watching the animals scramble after the first kill.
The men screamed in unison as their skin broiled and their hair fizzed, but the ponytail guy kept going. Teddy couldn’t tell if the man’s strategy was admirable or plain irritating.
Garage doors slid open, windows opened, and people from the nearby streets flooded the electric avenue. One woman convulsed, wailing her arms and twisting her neck as the electric surge shot through her body. Her marshmallow-shaped foam rollers in her hair blazed with sporadic flames. She ran in circles, screaming before ultimately falling beside a man in a stained tank-top.
The smell was unlike anything Teddy had ever smelled before. It was a mix of melting skin, burnt hair, and smoking grass. Before Teddy knew it, he counted a whopping nine people either convulsing or roasting on the street.
Just as Teddy began to feel nauseated by that part of him that tried to imagine what dying like that would be like, the shadow pulled Teddy toward it.
Its eyes were brighter than Teddy had ever seen before. Their golden hue was nearly a brilliant white.
Well played. You are a worthy opponent.
Teddy smiled, beaming with validation.
The shadow’s hand traced the site of Teddy’s gunshot wound, and Teddy felt something roll down his spine and to the top of his pants.
Teddy reached for it and found a warm piece of metal laced with his blood’s thickness.
It was the bullet. His game worked. His turn worked.
The smoke cloud grew and lurked into the edge of Warren Woods. Sirens echoed on the far side of the trees.
We have to move, Teddy. Through the back. Move.
With a proud smile on his face and the breadknife in hand, Teddy obeyed.
4
Teddy and the shadow used the chaos to blend in. The screams were horrific and uninterrupted, and the noise fueled Teddy’s rush.
He and the shadow maneuvered through the backyards, over the fences, and just barely past one territorial German shepherd. Teddy could see its sharp teeth as it snarled at them. He wondered if the dog could see the shadow, or if it could only sense it.
It had been a while since Teddy had seen a dog. The shadow saw it as an immediate threat and raised its hand to the dog’s throat, ready to claim it just as it had Teddy’s father. His father had hurt his mother, stampeded her with his rage. The dog was guilty only of doing its job.
Teddy yelled, “No, Shadow!”
The shadow froze, its long bony fingers already curved and prepared to use it
s recharged power.
“Just hurry up. We can get past it,” Teddy said.
The shadow’s hand fell within its two-dimensional form.
Alright.
The German shepherd growled and tried to take a bite of Teddy’s foot that dangled on its side of the fence. He pulled it up too quickly and fell flat on his back in the neighboring yard.
The shadow’s blaring white eyes looked down on him.
“I’m fine.” Teddy sat up and brushed the dirt from his shirt.
“Let’s get back into the woods. Who knows how long these fences go on.”
The shadow hesitated, hearing the sound of sirens mixed in with the agonized cries, and Teddy understood. How could they be certain those sirens weren’t separate from those responding to the electric madness? How could they be certain the cops from the woods weren’t in there at that very moment, walking the trails and searching for him?
“We have to move fast. I know. But it’s been a few hours. Hopefully, if they did search the woods, they’ve gone by now.”
The shadow’s eyes closed and opened as it nodded.
They turned away from the line of backyards and instead clung to the edge of the woods. They continued past the housing subdivision, and Teddy peered through to see that the storm drain was obstructed by a fat woman in a neon green robe.
The sirens made Teddy feel a little uneasy, but nothing could trump his new sense of validation and righteousness.
Then, just a few feet on the other side of them, Teddy heard the crackling of dry leaves further into the woods.
Teddy’s heart hammered. He hurried to a towering tree and pressed himself against it, hiding the moonlight’s glimmer against his bread knife.
A guy came from one of the main trails that he and the shadow had “hunted” on. However, this guy had to have gone off-path a turn or two to reach the housing subdivision. He was wearing the tiniest red shorts Teddy had ever seen on a grown man. Down the sides were two reflective silver strips. Teddy pressed his back harder into the rough bark of his hiding spot.
Take Your Turn, Teddy Page 21