Calamity

was a young kid and sometimes when the world went to shit, young kids turned to the man in the clouds. Hell, old people turned to that same floating overseer as well. Maybe they were on to something.

Was it rude to interrupt? How did you know if someone was deep in prayer or merely browsing through their thoughts like scrolling through a webpage of products?

“Brendan?” The name came out in a croaked whisper. When Brendan turned to him, Tyler realized he was holding the composition book and he held it up like a prize. “Guess what I found?”

Brendan appreciated him for a moment, stood. “Do you believe in God?”

“That’s quite a question, isn’t it?”

“You’ve never thought about it?”

“Yeah, I have. Don’t have any answers though.”

“Do you think He has a plan?”

“You mean like, everything happening for a reason?”

Brendan nodded.

“I guess we can hope. Delaney took a bowling ball to the head; how can that be part of some god’s plan?”

Brendan looked away. Tyler was being too harsh on the kid. He was only twelve. The soul-searching, religion-questioning phase of his life was just starting. Tyler had to be supportive, even if he thought it was all a bunch of bullshit.

“Where’d you run off to today?” Tyler asked.

“Nowhere,” Brendan said, “just wanted to get away.”

“I understand.” He held out the composition book. “I read some of it. Really cool.”

Brendan’s eyes brightened. “Really?”

“Yeah, that Darkman guy is really something.”

“I don’t know. It’s just a story.”

An awkward pause grated on Tyler’s nerves until he finally told himself fuck it, and dove for the truth. “I noticed you wrote Tyler’s Problem before Chapter Seven.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry.”

“What do you mean? Chapter Seven was about hunting a killer in a warehouse. It has nothing to do with me, right?”

Brendan glanced at his hands, which were still locked in prayer. “I know something bad happened and you’re involved. I know because I heard your conversation with Paul Friday night. I thought if I wrote that in the book you’d get curious and eventually tell me what was going on.”

The answer was so perfectly composed, so logically-reasoned that it had to be a lie, yet it rang with such honesty that Tyler couldn’t refuse its authenticity. “You’re pretty cool, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“You looking out for me and stuff? You’re my little brother, you know.”

“After the baby died, everything changed, you know. Things turned dark, like the sky before a storm. I figure we’re still in the storm and I’m trying to make the skies clear again. I hope what is going on with you isn’t another thundercloud moving in.”

For a moment, Tyler couldn’t respond. Brendan was twelve and yet spoke with maturity far beyond his age. Hell, beyond Tyler’s age. He was like one of those prodigies. Or an idiot savant, one with acute emotional insight. “Don’t get weirded out or anything,” Tyler said, “but I love you. You’re my brother and now, well, we’re all that’s left. For the briefest of moments, we had two siblings. But they’re gone now—it’s just us. That’s fucked up, but we have to stick together if we want to survive, right?”

Brendan nodded, glanced around. “So, what happened? What kind of trouble are you in?”

Tyler wouldn’t have expected the truth to pour out so easily, but it did, like water from a garden hose. He told his little brother about Sasha, about their date that ended with her accusation—you raped me—and carried the story right through to the Delaney spread-eagle conclusion. He hesitated before relaying the sex stuff but decided that the story wouldn’t hold as much, if any, meaning if he omitted it. Brendan was mature for his age and even if he really didn’t understand what sex was, he wasn’t too young to learn that it was something that could strangle you into a tangled web of madness. Talk about coming of age.

When Tyler finished, Brendan’s face contorted as if he had eaten something sour. He sucked on his teeth for a moment and scratched his head. He reminded Tyler of Mr. Agles, an aging math teacher who was always stumped by particularly complex equations. My brother is a forty-year-old in a twelve-year-old’s body, he thought with no sense of humor or irony. It was just a fact. Brendan the freak.

“You think they’re real witches?”

That depended, but Tyler erred on the side of well, this is one fucked up situation and it’s probably more fucked up than I can even reason. “Her mother, definitely. Sasha, I don’t know.”

Brendan caressed his chin as if he had a beard. “I’m glad you told me.”

“You sound like a guidance counselor.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Oh, really?”

“There’s things going on that are bigger than you, bigger than both of us.”

“What?”

“Do you want to know where I went this afternoon?”

“Outer space?”

“To a church in Newburgh.”

“What? With who?”

“One was named Ellis, the other Dwayne. They were from the First Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I’ve been confused, but I’ve learned something important.”

“Wait, wait—who were these two guys, Ellis and Dwayne? Where did you meet them?”

“They found me, brought me to their church.”

“They kidnapped you?”

“Dad punched Dwayne in the face. I think he knew him.”

Who was Dwayne? Ellis? Was this just another product of his brother’s hyper-imagination? If Dad knew the guys then how come he had no idea where Brendan had been? Something was going on that didn’t quite make sense. Of course, that was beyond doubt, but this only confirmed that Sasha’s mother had done something. Witchcraft or not. Supernatural powers or superstitious bullshit, that woman had cursed his family.

“What happened at the church?”

“I saw God.”

Tyler couldn’t respond. His twelve-year-old brother just said he had seen God, what could he say?

Brendan glanced off somewhere. When he spoke, it was more to himself than to Tyler. “They could help. They would help. God would want them to.”

“Brendan, what are you talking about?”

Still in his world. “They could solve this problem quickly, easily. Even if this woman is a witch, she’s no match for God and Dwyane and Ellis are God’s messengers.”

He grabbed Brendan by the shoulders, shook him. “Stop it.” Brendan focused on him again. “You’re talking crazy. I don’t need anyone’s help. Certainly not a pair of religious fanatics.”

“But you do,” he said. “You really do.”

“What happened at that church?”

Brendan hesitated. “I had started to doubt it, but this is not a time for doubt. Ellis was right. With God, there is always hope.”

“You sound like one of those freaks who ends up drinking poisoned kool-aid.”