In the Tall Grass

What the fuck?

“What the FUCK?” shouted Cal. She wasn’t surprised. Ike and Mike, they think alike, Mrs. DeMuth liked to say. Frick and Frack, got two heads but just one back, Mr. DeMuth liked to say.

A pause in which there was only the sound of the wind and

the reeeee of the bugs. Then, bellowing at the top of his lungs: “What the fuck IS this?”

• • •

Cal had a brief period, about five minutes later, when he lost it a little. It happened after he tried an experiment. He jumped and looked at the road and landed and waited and then after he had counted to thirty, he jumped and looked again.

If you wanted to be a stickler for accuracy, you could say he was already losing it a little to even think he needed to try such an experiment. But by then reality was starting to feel much like the ground underfoot: liquid and treacherous. He could not manage the simple trick of walking toward his sister’s voice, which came from the right when he was walking left, and from the left when he was walking right. Sometimes from ahead and sometimes from behind. And no matter which direction he walked in, he seemed to move farther from the road.

He jumped and fixed his gaze on the steeple of the church. It was a brilliant white spear set against the background of that bright blue, almost cloudless sky. Crappy church, divine, soaring steeple. The congregation must have paid through the nose for that baby, he thought. Although from here-maybe a quarter of a mile off, and never mind that was crazy, he had walked less than a hundred feet-he could not see the peeling paint, or the boards in the windows. He couldn’t even make out his own car, tucked in with the other distance-shrunken cars in the lot. He could, however, see the dusty Prius. That one was in the front row. He was trying not to dwell on what he had glimpsed in the passenger seat. . a bad-dream detail that he wasn’t ready to examine just yet.

On that first jump, he was turned to face the steeple dead-on, and in any normal world, he should’ve been able to reach it by walking through the grass in a straight line, jumping every now and then to make minor course corrections. There was a rusting, bullet-peppered sign between the church and the bowling alley, diamond-shaped with a yellow border: SLOW CHILDREN X–ING, maybe. He couldn’t be sure-he had left his glasses in the car, too.

He dropped back down into the squidgy muck and began to count.

“Cal?” came his sister’s voice from somewhere behind him.

“Wait,” he shouted.

“Cal?” she said again, from somewhere to his left. “Do you want me to keep talking?” And when he didn’t reply, she began to chant in a desultory voice, from somewhere in front of him: “There once was a girl went to Yale. .”

“Just shut up and wait!” he screamed again.

His throat felt dry and tight and swallowing took an effort. Although it was close to two in the afternoon, the sun seemed to hover almost directly overhead. He could feel it on his scalp, and the tops of his ears, which were tender, beginning to burn. He thought if he could just have something to drink-a cold swallow of spring water, or one of their Cokes-he might not feel so frayed, so anxious.

Drops of dew burned in the grass, a hundred miniature magnifying glasses refracting and intensifying the light.

Ten seconds.

“Kid?” Becky called, from somewhere on his right. (No. Stop. She’s not moving. Get your head under control.) She sounded thirsty, too. Croaky. “Are you still with us?”

“Yes! Did you find my mom?”

“Not yet!” Cal shouted, thinking it really had been a while since they had heard from her. Not that she was his main concern just then.

Twenty seconds.

“Kid?” Becky said. Her voice came from behind him again. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Have you seen my dad?”

Cal thought: A new player. Terrific. Maybe William Shatner’s in here, too. Also Mike Huckabee. . Kim Kardashian. . the guy who plays Opie on Sons of Anarchy and the entire cast of The Walking Dead.

He closed his eyes, but the moment he did he felt dizzy, as if he were standing on the top of a ladder beginning to sway underfoot. He wished he hadn’t thought of The Walking Dead. He should have stuck with William Shatner and Marvelous Mike Huckabee. He opened his eyes again, and found himself rocking on his heels. He steadied himself with some effort. The heat made his face prickle with sweat.

Thirty. He had been standing in this one spot for thirty seconds. He thought he should wait a full minute, but couldn’t, and so he jumped for another look back at the church.

A part of him-a part he had been trying with all his will to ignore-already knew what he was going to see. This part had been providing an almost jovial running commentary: Everything will have moved, Cal, good buddy. The grass flows and you flow too. Think of it as becoming one with nature, bro.

When his tired legs lofted him into the air again, he saw the church steeple was now off to his left. Not a lot-just a little. But he had drifted far enough to his right that he was no longer seeing the front of that diamond-shaped sign, but the silver aluminum back of it. Also, he wasn’t sure, but he thought it was all just a little farther away than it had been. As if he had backed up a few steps while he was counting to thirty.

Somewhere, the dog barked again: roop, roop. Somewhere a radio was playing. He couldn’t make out the song, just the thump of the bass. The insects thrummed their single lunatic note.

“Oh, come on,” Cal said. He had never been much for talking to himself-as an adolescent, he had cultivated a Buddhist skateboarder vibe, and had prided himself on how long he could serenely maintain his silence-but he was talking now, and hardly aware of it. “Oh, come the fuck on. This is. . this is nuts.”

He was walking, too. Walking for the road-again, almost without knowing it.

“Cal?” Becky shouted.

“This is just nuts,” he said again, breathing hard, shoving at the grass.

His foot caught on something, and he went down knee-first into an inch of swampy water. Hot water-not lukewarm, hot, as hot as bathwater-splashed up onto the crotch of his shorts, providing him with the sensation of having just pissed himself.

That broke him a little. He lunged back to his feet. Running now. Grass whipping at his face. It was sharp- edged and tough, and when one green sword snapped him under the left eye, he felt it, a sharp stinging. The pain gave him a nasty jump, and he ran harder, going as fast as he could now.

“Help me!” the kid screamed, and how about this? Help came from Cal’s left, me from his right. It was the Kansas version of Dolby Stereo.

“This is nuts!” Cal screamed again. “This is nuts, it’s nuts, it’s FUCKING nuts!” The words running together, itsnutsitsnuts, what a stupid thing to say, what an inane observation, and he couldn’t stop saying it.

He fell again, hard this time, sprawling chest-first. By now his clothes were spattered with earth so rich, warm, and dark, it felt and even smelled like fecal matter.

Cal picked himself back up, ran another five steps, felt grass snarl around his legs-it was like putting his feet into a nest of tangling wire-and goddamn if he didn’t fall a third time. The inside of his head buzzed, like a cloud of bluebottles.

“Cal!” Becky was screaming. “Cal, stop! Stop!”

Yes, stop. If you don’t you’ll be yelling “Help me” right along with the kid. A fucking duet.

He gulped at the air. His heart galloped. He waited for the buzzing in his head to pass, then realized it wasn’t