by Greg Wilburn
lived.
I hope they treated you well, Art. They don’t seem so bad now that I recall when I encountered them. They’ve never bothered anyone, but you have to understand that it was the possibility of them attacking us that was more dangerous than anything. We were thinking about our safety and the safety of our town, which was at stake. We couldn’t let them hurt me or us, or even worse, kill us. I honestly believed they could’ve, without a doubt. And you became one of them. What was I supposed to do, Art? What could I have done?
I remember the smell of burnt rubber as we threw ourselves forward and sped across the road. Danny was the fastest, but Lucas quickly knocked him out of our competition with a swift kick to the red metal frame on his bike. That other guy was the slowest, and we let him eat our fuming rubber as we left him behind. I rammed you, Art, and as we neared the finish line at the far end of the street, you and Lucas were sent toppling over to the side of the road. And only I, the sole survivor, was left to cross the finish line.
I see now that I crossed more than some childish finish line. I crossed a boundary that day, not really a physical one, but one within myself, as I stood there in awe of that solitary house ravaged by our town’s hate and ignorance. And it’s quite interesting that when we do such things, we lock our subtly beginning transformations away until the contagion has consumed us, already making it too late to revert back to any sort of natural form. It’s only in hindsight that we see the realism behind our repressed fantasy. You see, I became sick and still am to this day. I just hadn’t realized it until these recent moments.
My quivering lip was the only thing that moved on my immobilized body. The time surrounding the she and the her’s cave seemed to stop, and I couldn’t escape the unknown and fearful danger until you and the guys came near, and you put your hand on my shoulder.
You see, Art? Even then, before it even began, you were my angel. You had saved me and would be my salvation through all my days. And as a good angel should do—I hadn’t realized it at the time—, you led us, unknowingly contagioned demons, towards the steps of the cave. And it wasn’t in an operation to seal our doom, but rather, it was to shine a light to our callous existences. We just didn’t want it. Only you, the angel, could see what we couldn’t. We chose to retreat into our hate and misconception while you ventured forth into truth. I’m so sorry, Art.
We shouldn’t have stayed there daring Lucas and Danny to ding-dong-ditch the door. We should’ve left promptly, and none of this would ever have happened. But I see now that it was necessary, for you. Without it, you wouldn’t have been revealed as the truthful and infallible being that you are. You knew, didn’t you, Art? We forced you to show your true nature amongst us beasts and send everything on an axis towards silent self-destruction.
We all stood there, pushing the envelope further for the two by offering incentives. A baseball card collection, fifty cents, answers to Mr. Engil’s quizzes for a month, a torn shoelace, a kiss from Mayley Robertson, a free sundae at Jack’s Malts. I think it was the kiss from Mayley Robertson that did you in, because you piped up and offered yourself as the sacrifice.
Sorry you never got that kiss and all the other things we promised. I could probably make some calls to get you the stuff, but Mayley’s out of the question. She died a few years back, but it was all hush-hush. I wanted to be the prosecutor against Mr. Gillsen, who was accused of the homicide, but it was a conflict of interest since I knew her so well. And you not getting all your promises fulfilled is makes what you did all the more noble, mostly because you were surrounded by Judases and still you gave yourself willingly.
I have to admit that it was the second scariest moment of my life when you disappeared, Art. As soon as you pressed the doorbell, a darkness threw the thickly-woodened door open and a frail and withered white arm reached out, grasped you, and threw you inside. I remember our high-pitched screams of horror, and in my hindsight, I can see that you were calm in your surety, hopeful in what was to come.
We assumed the she and the her had gobbled you up as we sped from the house in tears. We rode all the way up Layton hill and stopped under the shade of that big oak tree with our initials carved in it.
You see, Art, I’ve been the adversary and the Judas long before you became truly lost to us, but found to truth. Forgive me; I told the guys not to say anything about what had happened just then at all, for fear that we’d get in trouble for going onto 13th Street. You have to understand that a beating and scolding from Mom—and especially from Dad when he was drunk—was just too much for my eleven year old heart to handle.
And they did obey me. We kept your disappearance a secret for as long as we could, and for an eleven your old group of guys, four days feels as though you’ve taken a secret to the grave. I’m sorry for all that that did to your parents, who were at their wits ends in desperation in missing you. I never told you, but your Mom promised to make you those roast beef sandwiches you love so much for a whole year if she could only see you again. Your Dad, too, promised he’d never touch a beer or the like again if he could just hold you one more time. You really were loved by all of us. Truly, you were.
The police issued out a missing persons bulletin and conducted a thorough house-to-house search for you. The guys and I met up during the search and decided to keep our mouths shut, mostly because everything was spinning out of control. We were naïve, Art, and believed everything would just blow over. But when all the parents and teachers and friends and uncles and aunts and grandmas started searching for you, I had to say something.
I got the worst beating I ever received in my life when I told Mom and Dad and the police. None of the other guys got in trouble because I took the full blame and said it was only you and I that had gone to 13th Street that day. You see, I can be somewhat sacrificial at times. Maybe I’m less of a monster and caught somewhere in between, kind of like that place the preacher always talks about at the mass I go to every once in a while.
Everyone rushed over to 13th Street, and the search parties turned into one solitary mob hell-bent on hate and destruction. Maybe you knew that, Art, because there you were, with the her and the she, standing on that creaky porch, waiting for our arrival. You and the others looked so innocent standing there, and I can only say that when I look at me and us, the guilty and the obscene. You really were and are something else, Art.
I lost you that night for good, and that was the scariest and most horrible moment of my life. I remember the mob came up and stopped short of the broken sidewalk in front of the house. Your Mom was the first to initiate the negotiations. She begged for them to return you and asked if they’d hurt you. You were so calm, Art, as if you understood something beyond us, beyond it all.
Maybe my memory’s hazy, but I can’t recall the faces of the she and the her. They’re drenched in shadow, and I can only see their pale, thin, and tall bodies clinging to your shoulders and seeming to hover in the air. The she spoke first. She told us that you were theirs now, and that you weren’t going anywhere. And it was your choice alone to stay. That made your Mom cave, and she slumped to the ground in wailing sobs.
Then your Dad and the other men, fueled with their animal rage, rushed forward. I believe now that the she and the her had no powers, but it was you that stopped them. You, Art. Your holy powers stopped them because you understood what had to happen. You had to be our sacrifice. That’s what we, and mostly I, made you to be.
The men couldn’t pass the threshold between the sidewalk and the porch, and they were pushed back by some invisible force. They were left astonished, and the crowd became a sweaty mass of fear. And the her said that if you changed your mind, then you were free to leave at will.
Then your Dad became just as your Mom had been. He threw himself to his knees and cried, begging for you to return. I think it hurt your Mom and Dad so bad to see you have to be the sacrifice. That’s why he promised to take you to the baseball games, on the hunting trips, to that secret place in the mountains that you loved so much.
He promised never to hit you again, cross his heart and hope to die.
The crowd joined in, offering you the world if you would just come back. Free malts for life, a brand new bike, no homework for a year, no curfew, unlimited bubble gum, a car once you turned sixteen, Jenny Sidley offered up to marry you, a rubber band gun, free clothes from the department store, a newborn puppy from the Yellens family. You had the whole world, Art, the whole world. It was right in front of you, and you just had to take it. You didn’t have to be our angel; you could’ve been like the rest of us, and you wouldn’t have a care in the world. You just had to come back.
But you didn’t. I saw the tears fill your eyes as you told us no. I started crying too when you said that you had to stay with the her and the she. We pled all the more, and it wasn’t until Jimmy from next door said that the she and the her were demons trying to possess your soul that you used your powers to shut us up. Then, in that painful silence, all we could hear was the crackling of the torches and the shuffling of our nervous feet.
You spoke, and your voice was beautifully haunting, Art. It truly was. You told us that those women with you weren’t demons at all,