The Window

by Glenn Rolfe

  “Freaky, right?” Kevin mumbled, chewing on his dinner.

  James turned around. “That’s it.” He faced the screen. “That’s the thing I saw in the kitchen window.”

  Kevin swallowed. “That’s just a drawing. An artist’s sketch.”

  “That’s it, Kevin. That’s the thing I saw.”

  Domineus’s fiery eyes glared back at him. James’s insides slid lower. He felt clammy and flu-like, suddenly sick to his stomach and at the will of something he could not control or hope to stop.

  How can it be?

  “Dude, click in and you can read about the German kids and the witch.”

  “James, are you all right?” Carrie asked. She got up and moved to his side. She placed the back of her hand against his cheek. “You’re burning up.”

  James heard her, vaguely sensed her hand on him, but he was lost. Lost in those burning eyes. Lost in their hopelessness. Swimming in an ocean of futility. He couldn’t save Alison. He couldn’t save his dad. His stomach roiled. He jumped up from the chair, pushed Carrie aside, and bolted for the bathroom at the end of the hall. He barely made it to the toilet before the bile shot up his throat. He clasped his arms around the body of the white porcelain seat and squeezed as his stomach pulled in on itself and groaned out another round of vomit.

  “Is everything all right up there?” Mrs. H called.

  “James isn’t feeling good,” Carrie yelled back.

  He felt her cool, wet wash cloth against the back of his neck. Slowly, the cold sweat dissipated. His stomach relaxed. Emptied and free of whatever had invaded its walls. And that’s what it felt like. James felt like he’d been attacked. He spat the remnants of his late supper into the toilet and sat up. Carrie went to the sink and ran the water. She handed him a Dixie cup of cold water. “Thanks.” He wiped his mouth and his face and set the wet cloth on his lap. The water trickled over his tongue and down his sore throat.

  “Are you okay, hon? Should I call your father?” Mrs. H said. She was in the doorway. Her eyes begging for him to let her help take care of him anyway she could.

  “I think I’m okay. Something just hit my stomach funny.”

  “It’s been hotter than hell out there all week, have you been drinking water?” she asked. “You’ve got to keep hydrated on days like this or you’re bound to get heatstroke. Kevin, go get some of the waters from the fridge. Get enough for each of you.”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  James climbed to his feet. His body felt normal. The strange invasion was over.

  Invasion.

  “Thanks, Mrs. H. I’m feeling better already.”

  Carrie took his cup and refilled it.

  “Thanks.”

  “Okay, are you sure? I can give you a ride home if—”

  “No,” all three of them replied in unison, Kevin standing behind his mother with the bottled waters.

  Mrs. H’s eye brows bunched over her eyes. “Oh-kay. That was weird.” She stepped out of the room. “I have Pepto-Bismol, Tums, or the old fashion chicken soup and crackers if you’d like something, James. Just let me know.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. H.”

  “Dude, what was that all about?”

  James thought of Domineus. He’d been looking at his face. Was it possible? Could the demon have just affected him? He took a breath, exhaled, downed the cold water and placed the Dixie cup on the bathroom sink. “We have to get to my dad’s. And the sooner the better.”

  He strode past the siblings and watched them give each other that “what the hell” look.

  “I can’t explain it,” he said, stopping at Kevin’s door. Over by the window, the laptop screen was black. “Let’s go. We can figure out a plan on the way.”

  “What about the site?” Kevin said.

  “I don’t think it’s working anymore.” James headed down the stairs. He glanced back and saw Kevin look into his room.

  “My laptop must have died. I thought I had it plugged in.”

  “You do. Come on. We don’t have much time.”

  “Where are you kids off to? James, I thought you didn’t feel well?”

  “He’s fine, Ma,” Kevin said, waving the bottle of Poland Spring. “We’ve got water. We’re good.”

  “Mrs. H, I’m okay,” James said. Kevin must have gotten cooties on my Hot Pocket.”

  “You’re certain, James?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “We’re going to Eric’s for a movie. Is that okay?” Carrie said.

  “That’s fine. Do you kids need a lift?”

  “Nah, it’s beautiful out,” Carrie answered. “We’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. Come back after the movie. Call me if you decide you want a ride home.”

  “Will do. Love you, Mom.” Carrie gave her mother a kiss on the cheek.

  Kevin followed James and Carrie out the door with his water in hand. “Bye, Ma”

  Mrs. H followed them to the door. “You boys be good. Watch out for my little girl.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Kevin said. He shoved Carrie.

  James led them down the street and up between the Connor’s house.

  “Should we go get Eric?” Carrie said.

  “Yeah, I haven’t seen little Wet Dreams all day.”

  “You guys are gross.”

  “What do you say, Jamey Boy?”

  Eric wasn’t the most helpful kid in town, but he was loyal. That meant something. Besides, who knew what they were in for? There was always safety in numbers. “We can loop over and get him. I think he’d be butt-hurt if he found out we had a summer adventure without him.”

  Adventure?

  It was sure to be something. He just hoped that they all made it through without too many scars.

  Fifteen minutes later, they walked up to Eric’s front door. His mom answered wearing a white tank top a size too small and a pair of short shorts that looked like they were from the seventy’s era NBA. James tried not to stare. Carrie elbowed him in the ribs. He looked and mouthed, Sorry.

  “Hi guys. Carrie.”

  “Hi. Is, uh, Eric home?” Carrie asked.

  “Sure. Eric, your friends are here,” she yelled. “You kids wanna come in. I’ve got some beers?”

  “Ahhh…we, uh…,” Kevin stammered.

  “I’m just kiddin.’ No Buds for you. I do have some diet Pepsis?”

  “No thanks,” James said. James held up his water.

  “Suit yourselves,” she said, and scooted away on her high-heeled shoes.

  Eric rumbled down the stairs and into the breezeway. “Hey guys. What’s up?”

  “We’re going down to the Plaza. You wanna come?” Kevin said.

  “Can I, Mom?”

  “Sure, but not too late. If you’re out past nine-thirty, I’ll be expecting a call and a good reason.”

  Eric kissed his mom on the cheek. “Let’s go guys”

  “Bye kids.”

  “So, what are we really doing?” Eric asked.

  They all stopped at the corner of Cutler Street.

  James laid it out. “This is going to sound fucking crazy, but I—we, think it’s true.”

  “Okay…what is it?”

  “My dad’s been acting really weird since I came to stay with him. I don’t mean rooting for the Yankees over the Sox weird, I mean swearing, being super angry, talking about sex and stuff, being really creepy.”

  Kevin and Carrie nodded.

  “I got a call from Alison the other night. She said her and my dad got into a fight and that she was going to be staying at that Bed and Breakfast and she suggested I stay at Kevin’s, remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, the other night after you went home from the pool party me and Kevin went back to my dad’s for the dirt bike. I saw my dad doing something I never want to see him doing again.”

  Eric crooked his eyebrows which always brought his ears up. They normally teased him about it, but James continued.

  “There was someone in the house wit
h him.”

  “Is he cheating on Alison?”

  “No. It wasn’t…”

  “Oh God, it wasn’t a dude, was it?”

  “No. It was something not…”

  Kevin stepped up. “Jamey Boy saw a fuckin’ demon. A for real fuckin’ demon.”

  “What are you talking’ about? What was it really?”

  “I think my dad’s been possessed. Or he’s being possessed…but we found the thing I saw on the Internet. It’s a demon. A mirror demon. A Seeker.”

  “You guys are messing’ with me. Carrie?”

  “I’ve never seen James this serious about anything. We all saw how his dad was acting earlier tonight,” Carrie said.

  “He told me Alison came home and they were, well, they were making up. He locked me out and told me to stay at Kevin’s again tonight.”

  “So that sounds like they wanted the night alone. Alison’s hot.”

  “Listen, man, if you don’t want to come with us you can turn around and go home,” Kevin said. “This sounds fuckin’ crazy, but I found some shit on the Internet that all matches up with what Jamey Boy’s saying. We think we know how to stop it.”

  “I think Alison is in a lot of trouble. I know my dad. The man who yelled at us and wouldn’t let us in today? That wasn’t him.” James watched Eric contemplate the impossible tale. Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d believe it either if Eric came to them telling them that his mom was possessed by something in her window or mirror…

  “Fuck it. If you guys believe it, if this shit is real…I don’t really know…, but I’m in. I’m with you guys.”

  Loyal. Pals. James never doubted Eric for a minute.

  They walked together in silence. James knew he’d have to go through his bedroom window, but he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do after that. He was about to open his mouth and look for help forming a better strategy when four silhouettes stepped out from behind the ghost of Mathieu’s bike shop.

  “How’s that shiner treating’ ya?” An all too familiar voice spoke.

  Hank Jacobs and the Dipshit Squad.

  “Listen, morons, we don’t have time for your shit tonight,” Kevin said stepping in front of James.

  “Oh, you don’t get the choice, fat boy,” Hank said.

  “All right, motherfucker,” Kevin spat. “You really want to do this, it’s your ass.”

  “Get ‘em!” Hank barked.

  James pushed Carrie behind him and grappled a charging Tim Cyr in a headlock. He threw three solid punches into the side of Tim’s face and pushed him to the ground.

  “James, look out,” Carrie said.

  James turned just as Ben Oliver tackled him to the sidewalk. His elbow smacked the concrete, and pain shot up to his wrist. Ben tried to punch him, but James managed to get his arms in the way to block each shot. He saw Eric wrestling with Chuck Gibbons on the small patch of grass between the storefront and the sidewalk. He blocked another one of Ben’s wild swings and saw Hank and Kevin circling one another with their fists raised like a couple of bare-knuckle fighters. Ben suddenly flung forward. James shoved him the rest of the way off.

  Carrie stood there grinning, and said, “Thought you could use a little help.”

  James gave Tim Cyr a big kick to the stomach to keep him down.

  Ben Oliver was back on his feet.

  “Needed some help from a girl, huh puss? Now you’re dead, both of you.”

  “Come on, dickhead,” James said.

  Ben charged him. James sidestepped and drove his fist into the small of Ben’s back. The kid yelped out and dropped to his knees. James turned to Eric and Chuck Gibbons. Chuck and Eric were both in tears and tearing at each other’s faces. Eric’s lip was bloody, and Chuck had a long scratch from under his eye to his jaw. James ran at Chuck and kneed him in the ribs, knocking him off Eric.

  He lent a hand to Eric and pulled him to his feet.

  Together, they all turned to Hank and Kevin who were still circling one another in the middle of the street. Each taking calculated shots at the other. The Dipshit Squad gathered and crossed the street. Eric, Carrie, and James stayed on the side closest to the closed bike shop.

  “Kick his ass, Hank,” Tyler shouted.

  “Kill him,” Ben whined, a hand to his mouth

  Kevin didn’t need encouragement. He just needed someone to thrash on. He had Hank beat by a good three inches in height and outweighed him by at least thirty pounds. James had never seen the look of hatred on his best friend’s face before. James wouldn’t want to be Hank right now.

  “C’mon, Fatty,” Hank challenged. “Take your best shot.”

  Kevin didn’t say a word. He stepped forward, faked right, and struck Hank in the mouth with his left. Hank stumbled backward, but Kevin lunged like a shark sensing blood in the water. He walloped Hank in the mouth again, followed by a jab to the nose. Kevin landed a huge swooping right to Hank’s eye as the bully was stumbling back and fell. Hank’s head made a loud smack as he fell flat on his back, his head bouncing off the tar.

  James and Eric ran over and fetched their seething friend. They pulled Kevin back toward the sidewalk. Kevin craned his neck back and spat blood at the big mouth lying in the road.

  “C’mon, man,” James said. “Let’s get the hell outta here before the cops show up or those idiots start in on us again.”

  “Let ‘em,” Kevin said. “We’ll beat their asses again.”

  “We don’t have time, remember?” James said.

  They heard the Dipshit Squad asking Hank if he was okay and threatening revenge toward them.

  Ignoring their taunts, they turned the corner and hurried toward James’s dad’s.

  “Holy shit, man. You fuckin’ knocked him out,” Eric said, hopping up and down.

  “Are you guys okay?” Kevin asked.

  “Yeah,” James said. “Your sister even helped.”

  “What?” Kevin said, smiling.

  “I just pushed the ugly redheaded one off of James,” she said.

  “Cool. Did you see that shit, Jamey Boy?”

  “Yeah, man. That was pretty awesome.”

  “I just wanted to get that fucker for what he did to ya.”

  “I think you more than got him back for me, man,” James said. “Thanks.”

  The celebration and jubilation over their payback dried up like Bruton Pond out back of the Paths in late July. Night swallowed the day. Freemont Street and James’s dad’s trailer sat in total darkness.

  They’d reached the point of no return.

  Part IV:

  Shattered Image

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Carrie held his hands. James gazed from her worried eyes to the dark trailer. Kevin and Eric, like two sentinels, waited at the corner of the mobile home closest to the kitchen.

  “I wish you didn’t have to do this.”

  “Me too,” James said.

  “I feel like I should go in with you guys.”

  “We need you to stay out here in case…well, just in case.”

  She held her cell phone and ran her thumb over its dark face. “In case something bad happens.”

  James put his hand under her quivering chin and lifted her face to his. “I have to try and see if I can save them.”

  “Hmm. My Superman.” She wiped at the tear that rolled down the side of her nose.

  “There’ll be three of us. All we have to do is shatter whatever this thing is reflecting in,” he said.

  “And if there’s more than one of them?”

  Alison.

  She could have been taken by the she-demon. There was no way to know. It was a chance they were going to have to take. If that was the case, at least they still had the numbers.

  “We’ll break every window and every mirror on our way out.” He leaned forward and kissed her lips. He tasted the tears sliding down her face. “We’ll need you to wait by my window, so you can hear everything.”

  Carrie nodded and wiped at her cheeks.
>
  Hand in hand, they walked to where Kevin and Eric waited.

  “You ready, Jamey Boy?” Kevin asked.

  “I guess so,” he replied.

  James and Carrie led the way as they crept down the length of the trailer. James eyed the windows. He couldn’t see anyone or anything in them. His window was the one directly after the second living room window. His friends gathered around him.

  “Lift me up,” James said to Kevin. Kevin bent his knees lacing his fingers together as James stepped into his palms and stood. He cupped his hands around his eyes and scanned his empty room. His bedroom door was closed.

  Good.

  “Eric,” James whispered. “Hold my other foot. Eric did. James dug his fingers into the edge of the screen that had bulged outward since he knocked the screen out last summer. He gently lifted the bottom of the screen from the lip and tugged the white plastic frame downward with the touch of a professional jewel thief. He handed the screen down to Carrie who took it and placed it next to the trailer. Next, James squirmed his fingertips under the window, eased it up, and tried to listen into the trailer.

  There was nothing but silence, and the sound of silence scared him down to the bone.

  Taking a few seconds to steel his nerves, James turned his head and mouthed, I’m going in.

  Kevin nodded and held his foot steady. James’s managed to get his torso over the threshold, and placed his hands on his mattress below, as Kevin and Eric helped lift his bottom half in. He tucked and rolled across his bed, the frame giving a slight creak that normally went unnoticed, but in the dead quiet may as well have been a doorbell. Sneakered feet to the carpeted floor, he stared at the door in the darkened room and waited. He sent a silent prayer that no demonic monster would come bursting through for his soul.

  When no one rushed to his room, he swung back to the window, and whispered, “Okay, do you guys think you can get Kevin up here next?”

  Eric looked at Carrie. They nodded.

  Kevin muckled onto the window sill. James grabbed his forearms as Carrie and Eric helped raise him up. Kevin crawled his way through and down onto the bed. This time the frame moaned and groaned like an over-exaggerating wrestler. James tensed as Kevin stepped to the floor and was greeted with a deep, echoing groan from the floorboard.