Ugly Little Things

by Todd Keisling

  The dreams were usually the same: the dead bulldog with glowing blue eyes always gave chase, and Harvey’s voice called out to me from the shadows. I’d usually awaken in a cold sweat, my blankets twisted up at the foot of the bed, my heart threatening to burst, and the back of my hand aching like a bad sunburn. The nightmares led me to question Harvey’s intentions. If he was my friend, why was he haunting me? Surely he didn’t mean me any harm, right? After all, he’d saved me from those bullies all those months ago.

  I kept on drawing my creepy pictures during the day and running from that rotting dog at night. Soon the terrors began to manifest in other ways.

  One particular weekday night, while Mom was at one of her night classes, I was alone upstairs watching a movie on TV. Granny was downstairs reading her Bible, and I was supposed to be asleep already, but with the nightmares and the fact that Mom wasn’t home yet, I begged Granny to let me stay up.

  “Granny, I’m afraid if I go to sleep that dog will get me. Please let me watch another movie. Please please please.”

  “Sweetie, you need to rest. Your mommy will be home soon, I promise. You won’t even miss her.”

  I wrapped my arms around Granny’s waist and closed my eyes. “Please, Granny. Don’t make me run from that dog again.”

  She ran her fingers through my hair and sighed. “One more movie, and then you need to sleep. Yell for me when it’s over and I’ll come tuck you in. Okay?”

  “Thank you, Granny.” I kissed her cheek.

  “You’re spoiled rotten, you know that?”

  I nodded, grinning. She walked over to the VCR and put in my favorite Disney cassette, Bedknobs & Broomsticks. She stayed with me for a while—the film was one of her favorites, too—but soon left to return to her Bible study. I curled up on Mom’s bed, watching as Ms. Eglantine Price tried to conceal her interests in witchcraft from three orphans, transfixed by the mixture of magic and realism, and I was so absorbed in the movie that I didn’t notice the movement to my right.

  Back then, we had a three-tiered Pepsi display used to hold 2-liter bottles of soda. This display shelving stood to the right of my mom’s bed and had been repurposed as a shrine to my favorite stuffed animals. Sitting in the middle of the top shelf was my favorite out of them all: a beige monkey with dark brown paws and black marble eyes.

  When I was younger, I carried this monkey with me everywhere. I slept with it and ate with it. The poor thing had permanent stains around its snout where I’d tried to feed it. The top tier of that shelf was reserved for the monkey and nothing else. He sat in the middle like a king. I hadn’t played with him in at least a year.

  When the movement finally caught my attention, I turned to find the beige monkey crawling toward the edge of the display shelf.

  “I’m comin’ for your Granny, kiddo. Coming to get her and there’s nothin’ you can do about it.”

  I screamed, trying to scramble my way out of the nest of blankets—but my foot was caught, and I fell to the floor with a startling thump. I screamed again, this time accompanied by a stream of tears from the ache in my arm from my landing.

  “GRANNY!” I shrieked, clamoring to regain my footing. She met me at the bottom of the stairs, almost as panicked as I was. I wrapped my arms around her, sobbing into her nightgown.

  “Shhh, it’s okay, I’m here.” She gave me a squeeze, knelt down before me, and wiped the tears from my cheeks. “What happened, honey? What’s wrong?”

  “My monkey,” I choked out. “It was coming after me.”

  She tried to keep from laughing. “Oh, sweetie. You were just dreaming.”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t dreaming. It was moving, Granny. I promise you it was.”

  “Well, let’s just go have a look.”

  But I held her hand. I couldn’t let her go back up there. Not after what the monkey had said. I’m comin’ for your Granny, kiddo. I shivered, trying to hold her in place, but she resisted.

  “Come on,” she said. “Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

  More tears gushed as my heart continued to race. I followed her up the stairs, panicked that something terrible would be waiting for her at the top. I waited on the landing, still crying, fearful that the monkey would attack—but all that followed her ascent was quiet laughter. She emerged from the room, standing at the top of the doorway holding the monkey in her hand.

  “Honey, look. You had a bad dream. That’s all.” She held it out to me. “It’s just your monkey.”

  I recoiled from that stuffed abomination, its dead eyes burning a hole right through me. I shook my head, crawling backward against the banister.

  “It’s a monster,” I sobbed. “I don’t want it anymore.”

  She gave me a puzzled look, then stared at the monkey for a moment. “If you say so, honey.” She tucked the animal under her arm. “Scoot on up to bed and I’ll tuck you in.”

  Reluctant, my heart still racing, I retreated back to Mom’s bed. I made Granny leave the lamp on and the bedroom door open. I stared at the top shelf of the Pepsi stand, wondering if any of my other toys were going to spring to life and attack me. The monkey’s words crawled through my mind.

  I drifted off to sleep and dreamed I was running from the monkey while it swung from invisible branches. Harvey’s voice echoed in that dark dream chamber: Comin’ for your Granny, kiddo.

  And when he finally did, I thought I would be ready for him.

  ***

  We didn’t tell Mom about the monkey incident. She was worried enough, what with my drawings and strange dreams. The word “doctor” got tossed around a lot in those days, usually accompanied by furrowed brows and concerned glances when they thought I wasn’t looking. At first, I pretended not to notice their attempts at secrecy, but one day while playing with my toys I overheard Mom and Granny discussing the dark man in my drawings.

  “—who do you think that’s supposed to be?”

  I turned away from my Legos. Granny stood at the edge of the kitchen table with her back to me. Mom was sitting down, around the corner where I couldn’t see her. Granny had one of my drawings in her hand.

  “He says it’s his friend Harvey,” Granny said. “It’s not uncommon for kids to have imaginary friends.”

  “I know that, Granny, but this is a little scary, don’t you think? I mean just look at this guy. Is he supposed to be a ghost? Or the Devil?”

  I turned away, suddenly very interested in the red Lego brick in my palm. The sound of shuffling papers trailed down the hallway. The Devil? No way. Harvey wasn’t the Devil. He was—

  He’s a tempter, a snake, the enemy of God. Everything he does is meant to hurt mankind, even if it doesn’t seem like it. He’s evil. That’s just what he does.

  The red Lego brick fell from my hand, clattering against the pile of multi-colored bricks spread out before me. Granny’s words echoed in my head, and I was startled when Mom called out to me.

  “You okay in there, honey?”

  “I’m fine, Mommy.”

  A silence followed my words, and for a moment I was alone with just my thoughts. Was Harvey the Devil? No, he couldn’t be. He just couldn’t. The Devil was a big red guy with a tail and horns. He carried a pitchfork and poked people in their butts to make them fall into a big flaming hole in the ground.

  And yet the nightmares hadn’t started until I met him. The strange burning sensation in the back of my hand hadn’t started until he left his mark on me. What if Harvey wasn’t my friend? What if he just said that so he could come inside Granny’s house?

  “Doesn’t look like the Devil to me. You know Toddy’s got a big imagination. You’ve seen the other things he draws, sweetie. He could’ve picked this up from something he saw on TV somewhere. Why’s this one any different?”

  Mom sighed. “I don’t know, Granny. I just—I’m just worried about him, that’s all. Between his nightmares and this dark man he keeps drawing, I’m just scared. For no damn reason, I guess. Maybe I’m crazy.”

  �
��You’re not crazy. You’re just tired. Stressed. You’ve been working too hard, and . . . ”

  She trailed off, stopping mid-sentence as that last word lingered in the air. I turned around, eager to hear what else Granny had to say, but she never finished. She slowly bent forward, her arms pressed against the edge of the table, and I heard her say something that sent a chill crawling across my skin.

  “It’s dark,” she groaned. “Oh Lord, it’s all gone dark.”

  Granny’s voice was all wrong. She sounded like she was in pain and maybe a little scared, too. I stared at her, unable to move.

  “Granny?” I heard Mom’s chair scrape the floor as she rose from the table. It clattered backward, and in a moment she was at Granny’s side. “What’s wrong?”

  “All gone dark,” she said, “‘cept for those blue eyes.” Her head rolled to the side, turning to stare at me. “It’s going to be okay, honey. I just need to go rest . . . ”

  Her knees buckled and her arms went limp as her eyes rolled back into her head. Her mouth hung open in a confused gape, and had my mom not been fast enough, Granny would’ve hit the floor hard enough to crack her head open. Mom caught her, bracing herself against the dead weight.

  “Granny!” Mom was crying now. She knelt and let Granny slide to the dining room floor. I broke free of my trance and went to her.

  “Mommy, what’s wrong with her?” Jaw quivering, I tried hard to hold back tears. I wanted to be brave for Granny, for my mom. “Is she dying?”

  “Baby, I hope not. Stay with her. I’m going to call an ambulance.”

  So I stayed with Granny, watching beads of sweat form on her forehead and roll backward into her signature bouffant. For the first time I recognized the signs of her age, noting the wrinkles and spots in her skin and the slight sag of her cheeks. Until that moment, Granny had been just a big kid in my eyes, far removed from the other adults in my life, capable of a kindness and love rivaled only by my mother. She’d been there for as long as I could remember, and until I watched her sink to the floor, I was certain she would always be there.

  Now I wasn’t so sure, and that epiphany shook me to my core. I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer.

  “Don’t go,” I whispered. “I’m still not done building a robot with my Legos, and you promised we’d go for a milkshake later, so you can’t go. I won’t let you.”

  Mom’s voice carried from the living room. She was panicked but trying to remain calm. I heard her giving someone on the phone our address.

  Granny slowly opened her eyes, her lips twitching and the muscles in her face tightening. I didn’t understand it at the time, but she was trying to speak. The stroke had taken that privilege from her temporarily, and all she could do was stare up at me, at the ceiling. After a moment her face relaxed, and she held my gaze, watching me cry over her.

  “Don’t go,” I said. “Please don’t go. Don’t.”

  ***

  The effects of Granny’s stroke were immediate and invasive. Although she regained the ability to speak several hours after being admitted to the hospital, the left side of her face remained oddly paralyzed, slowing her speech to a collection of slurred, agonizing syllables. When she spoke, she seemed to do so with a mouth full of rocks.

  She also had trouble with her hands. Maintaining a consistent grip on anything was laborious, and for the first few weeks she had to test her strength with a handheld device that looked like it had been ripped from one of those arcade machines at the supermarket, except this one didn’t take quarters.

  Mom and I spent our evenings with Granny in her hospital room, watching game shows and then the nightly news. We stayed until visiting hours ended, and then we’d say our goodbyes until the next day. This was our routine for a week before she was discharged from the hospital. Her doctor said he expected full recovery within six months, provided her physical therapy went well.

  Three times a week, a nurse came to our house to help Granny with her hand and speech exercises and little by little she regained her strength. More importantly, she got her voice back. Toward the end of her rehab sessions, Granny was her old self again, that spark in her eye burning brighter than ever. When she received her doctor’s approval to drive again, the first thing she did was head off to Arlene’s Beauty Shop. Her hair hadn’t been touched since the stroke and was long overdue for that signature 1960s styling.

  Life slowly crawled back to its normal pace. Mom went to work and I went to school. I drew a portfolio’s worth of pictures for Granny’s refrigerator door. She cooked for us and laughed with us. We watched movies together and played together. My friend was back. Everything was perfect.

  Mom eventually remarried, and we moved out of Granny’s upstairs bedroom to go live with my new stepdad. Those days, I didn’t get to see Granny much, but I always called her in the afternoon when I got home from school. We’d talk about what I was learning, what games I was playing, if I’d drawn her any new pictures for her refrigerator, and how Mom was doing.

  I missed Granny so much sometimes that I’d ask to spend my weekends with her, and that’s how time passed for a while: me living at home during the week, going to school, counting down the days until I could spend the weekend with Granny. Then Friday would come around and Granny would pick me up from school. We were like a dynamic duo, me and Granny, making an escape from Corbin Elementary like a pair of wild bandits riding off into the early afternoon sunshine in her forest green Cadillac.

  Several months later, just a few days before the fourth of July, a second stroke tore our return to normalcy out from underneath all of us.

  I was there with her when the stroke happened. She was lying on the couch, and I remember her saying those same three words.

  “All gone dark,” she said. “All gone dark.”

  ***

  “Honey, don’t do that.”

  I looked up from my pad of paper. Granny sat in her armchair, a small stack of newspapers and magazines on one side and a beige ottoman on the other. She was staring at the window to her left, frowning.

  “What, Granny?”

  She glanced at me for a moment and shook her head. “Not you, sweetie. The little girl in the rocking chair right here. She’s rocking too fast.”

  Smiling and trying to hide my confusion, I climbed off the couch and walked over to the window where she was staring.

  “Granny,” I said, “it’s just us here. There’s no little girl. You don’t even have a rocking chair.”

  I’ll never forget that look of surprise on her face as if I’d slapped her across her cheek. She was absolutely dumbfounded, stunned into silence, and for a few minutes afterward, whenever she looked at me, she did so out of spite. My face flushed with heat, bearing a shame I didn’t quite understand. Had I done something wrong? Why was Granny mad at me?

  Except she wasn’t. Minutes later, she asked if I’d refill her water glass. She had a grin on her face like she was the keeper of a big secret. I did as she asked, and when I gave her the glass I walked over to the telephone and called my mom’s work number.

  “Is something wrong? Is Granny okay? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Mommy,” I whispered. I didn’t want to rouse Granny’s attention. “But Granny’s starting to scare me.”

  “Oh, honey, you remember what we talked about? Remember what I said about how strokes can affect the way you think?”

  “I do, but this is different. She’s seeing things again, and when I told her so she kinda got mad at me.”

  Mom sighed. “Honey, you need to remember that when she does those things, it’s because she’s confused. You know Granny loves you and that she wouldn’t do anything to upset you.”

  “But what if she stays mad at me?”

  “Toddy, don’t be silly. I’ll be home in just a few hours, okay? Promise me you’ll be patient with her?”

  “I promise, Mommy.”

  “I love you, sweetie. See you soon.”

  I hung up the phone and looked bac
k at Granny. She was slumped back in the chair with her head to the side. Her chest rose and fell in slow, measured swells. Granny napped a lot—something she never liked to do before the strokes happened. “They’re a waste of the day,” she always said, rising early to make the most of her time.

  And yet as I stood there, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this person had replaced my Granny. This woman was old and confusing and scary. She looked at me with anger sometimes, and other times she was too happy, seemingly in a perpetual state of giddiness. Sometimes she said things that didn’t make sense, and sometimes she saw things that weren’t there.

  This doppelgänger had taken my friend away from me and replaced her with a hollowed-out husk of a human being. I wanted Granny back.

  I’ll give anything, I thought. Even all my Legos.

  Defeated, I wandered across the living room toward the couch—but something caught my eye halfway there. I stopped in the middle of the room and turned toward the window. The back of my hand began to itch, and I scratched at it idly as I approached the glass pane. Outside and across the street, just beyond a row of trees in Granny’s front yard, I saw a man in a black suit standing with his hands in his pockets. He had a black goatee and black hair cropped close to his head. I could see his glowing blue eyes even from across the street.

  My hand stopped itching and started burning.

  For the second time, almost a year to the day, Harvey J. Winterbell had decided to pay me a visit. This time we weren’t friends.

  ***

  “Are you the Devil?”

  A thin smile spread across Harvey’s face. “Do you want me to be?”

  “Are you?” I stood at the edge of the grass, mere feet from him. The warm afternoon air was thick with the stench of rotten eggs. “Is your name even Harvey?”

  “You gave me this name, child. I have many. Harvey is just one of them.”

  “I thought you were my friend, but ever since we met I’ve had nothing but terrible dreams about you and that dead dog in the kennel, and one night when I was trying to go to sleep my favorite monkey attacked me and . . . ”