took in the paneled walls, the dust covered floor, and the planks nailed over the windows. I somehow knew that I wasn’t a small baby and that, instead, I’d been called to this place for reasons I couldn’t quite comprehend.
Until I heard the coarse voice moan from behind me. Once I turned, I knew exactly why I had been drawn to this particular place at this particular time. He needed me… even if he wasn’t aware I was with him.
I stood there, watching him helplessly, and he’d tossed one t-shirt to the side and replaced it with a fresh one by the time I noticed the child crouching in the shadows by the empty bookshelf.
The boy can’t be older than five or six, but his eyes burn with the rage of a one who’s experienced a lifetime of pain and remorse. What’s left of his lips are drawn back in a constant snarl and his shoulder-length blond hair is matted with blood. Most of his clothes have been ripped and tattered, revealing scratches and welts that crisscross his body.
“Carl, run!” I shout, even though I know my words can never penetrate the veil that separates us. “Damn it, Carl, it’s right there!”
The boy whips his head toward me as if suddenly aware of my presence. For a moment, the anger is gone from his eyes and his mouth moves as if trying to find words. Something about him reminds me of a startled animal and, as we stand here studying one another from across the room, it begins to dawn on me that this child can see and hear me. Carl can’t, but this bruised and battered little boy can.
“But I was tired, ya know?”
Carl’s voice is hoarse and paper thin. Not the deep baritone I had known, but still enough to draw the boy’s attention back to him.
The boy pounces from his hiding place and is at Carl’s side with the speed of a striking snake, his fists flailing through the air as a throaty growl rumbles from somewhere deep within his small body.
“Leave him alone! He’s not doing anything to you! Leave him alone!”
I’m almost to Carl’s side before I realize that the boy doesn’t actually appear to be hurting him. The child is practically a tornado of rage and fury but his little fists seem to simply pass through Carl’s chest like mist through a screen. Carl doesn’t react to the boy’s presence any more than he does my own and I stop short as the meaning of this dawns upon me.
“Who are you?”
The boy leaps away from his prey as if I had just poked him with a hot iron. He glares at me and backs away almost as if afraid to turn his back.
“I won’t hurt you. I want to help.”
The child’s eyes dart from me, to Carl, and then back to me again and I can sense the tense energy pent up within his small body.
“What’s your name?”
In all the talks we had, Carl never mentioned a son so I feel safe in ruling that out. He never actually mentioned any type of kids what-so-ever, come to think of it.
So I am left with nothing but questions: who is this boy? Why has he been drawn here… and why does he seem to harbor so much hatred for the man I have only known as the sweetest and most noble person I have ever met?
CHAPTER THREE: THE CHILD
Hate him, hate him, wish him dead. Hope he’s hurting so bad he wants to die right away but it takes a long, long time. He’s so mean he deserves it and I’m glad I’m here to watch. Wish I could kick him or poke out his eyes so he can’t see when the monsters come for him. Wish I could light him on fire and watch while he burned up but not all the way, just enough so that it would hurt even worse.
I try to spit on him but can’t spit, try to hit him over and over but he don’t feel nothin’ I do. He don’t even look at me and I’m right there in his face. I know he knows I’m here. He’s just tryin’ to make me mad, ignoring me like Uncle Bobby used to. And that lady on the other side of the room gives me the creeps. I don’t like the way she looks at me but somethin’s not right about her so I don’t dare say nothin’ about it. I bet she can see somethin’s not right about me too and that’s why she sometimes looks at me real sad like and other times yells at me to leave him alone, that he ain’t never done nothin’. So I’ll just pretend I can’t see or hear her and hope she just goes away.
At the same time, though, I wish I knew what she sees. Sometimes I feel like I’m two different people. Like I’m here in this little room but also out there somewhere just wanderin’ around. I hear dogs barkin’ and smell smoke and feel like I’m walkin’ but I ain’t doing nothin’ but just standin’ still. And the dogs and smoke seem like they ain’t quite real, like I just woke up from a dream or somethin’ and parts of it followed me out into the real world.
I even see things, trees and fields of grass and all these people around me who are kinda blurry. But it’s almost like the shows I used to watch on TV where people would be doin’ one thing and then it would kinda blend in with other people doin’ different things. And there would be a coupla seconds where you could see all the people but you could also see through ’em at the same time. When this happens I hafta think real hard about Mr. Carl and this room to make it go away but even then it comes back after a bit and I have to do the whole thing all over again, which isn’t fair.
I remember when I used to get scared at night and Mommy would come in my room and tell me how monsters weren’t real. She said there weren’t nothin’ in my closet or under my bed to be afraid of and that big boys didn’t believe in things like that. But then the monsters really did come and they looked kinda like the people from my neighborhood only all messed up and stuff.
And I also always thought monsters would be all noisy and growly but they didn’t hardly make no sound at all. They broke out our windows and I heard Mommy screaming and when I ran into the room they were all grabbin’ at her and she had a piece of glass in her hand that she was stabbin’ with over and over. She had blood on her hand but I think maybe it was cause the glass was cuttin’ her too; but it didn’t matter how many times she stabbed the monsters, they just kept right on comin’.
I started cryin’ and didn’t know what to do and all of a sudden Mommy was there, scoopin’ me up in her arms. Hide your face, baby, she said and I pressed my face into her shoulder and I could feel us runnin’ through the house. Behind us I heard stuff breakin’ and fallin’ over and I knew the monsters were still after us and my Mommy held me so tight I couldn’t even move my head to see how close they were or nothin’.
Next thing I know we’re in the car and the tires are squealin’ just like on the cop shows and Mommy’s telling me to lay down in the floor and not to look out the windows. She’s got the radio on and they keep tellin’ people to stay calm, not to panic but that only made me cry harder so Mommy turned it off and started singin’. Only her voice wasn’t the same as when she usually sings to me and it sounded like she was about to start cryin’ herself which probably scared me more than anything else.
All around us I could hear sirens and loud crashes and people screamin’ and car horns. Then Mommy stopped singing and just kept saying over and over, please God, please God, please….
After that, I really don’t remember much. It was like I fell asleep without really tryin’. One minute I’m in the floor of the car trying to hang on and next thing I know Mommy’s got me in her arms and she’s shakin’ me and saying, “Come on, baby, wake up, please wake up, baby.”
I opened my eyes and there were trees all ’round us and our car was sittin’ halfway in a ditch and it smelled like gasoline. The car was kinda hissin’ and makin’ this ticking noise almost like a clock but other than that everything seemed really quiet.
When Mommy saw I was awake, she hugged me so tight and started rockin’ back and forth. I was lookin’ over her shoulder and could see big clouds of smoke way off in the distance.
“Come on, baby.” she says to me. “We gotta keep movin’.”
