The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 19

him know that he would do anything for him, but he was afraid that Jack would somehow see the truth.

'You sure you want to go to school?' he said. 'I can take you home if you want.'

'I'm okay,' Jack said.

Caleb felt sick with anguish. He didn't want to quiz his son but felt he had no choice. 'Jack, the other day, when you asked Gary about thirteen o'clock, what did you mean?'

'About what?'

Caleb forced a smile. 'When we were down at Oxwich. You asked him what happens at thirteen o'clock.'

Jack seemed confused. 'I don't know what you mean, Dad.'

Caleb wondered if his son was being evasive. 'Maybe, like Rat and Mole, you feel that it's better to forget some things?'

Jack shook his head, making his uncertainty evident. 'I never heard of it.'

Caleb believed the boy. He leaned over and hugged him, trying to squeeze strength into his son. 'I love you, Jack. You know that?'

'Yes.'

'I won't let anything hurt you.'

'Dad,' Jack said, his voice muffled against Caleb's chest. 'I don't want you to go.'

Caleb stifled a sob and patted him on the back. 'I got work, Jack.'

The boy pulled away from him. 'I didn't mean — ' He stopped then, kissed his father and got out of the car. Caleb waved after him as he ran across the schoolyard, but Jack didn't look back.

Alone, his eyes watered, and he felt overwhelmed. His love was compromised by a sense of powerlessness, of having failed his son. He felt guilty too, at being afraid, not for Jack but for himself. He was ashamed of his weakness and angry at what he saw as the failure of his reason.

He caught sight of something in the rear-view mirror, a child's bewildered face staring at him from the back seat. Jack's, he thought at first, but after a moment he realized it was his own, as it had been thirty years ago. The cheeks were pale, the lips thin and trembling, the eyes haunted. Caleb felt the glacial creep of fear across his skin. Wanting to connect with the abandoned child, he reached up, touched the mirror, and saw the child's features blur and reassemble themselves into his own, harrowed face.

Discordant sounds frayed Caleb's nerves and a harsh chorus of jeers echoed from the far end of the bar. He realized Polly wasn't really listening to what he was saying. Her attention was elsewhere; on the football match playing on the big screen television, or maybe on the people gathered in front of it. As if sensing his scrutiny, she returned her gaze to him and said, 'I'm sorry, Cale. It's just that I thought we could, you know, talk about something else.'

'Something else?'

She sighed. 'We don't often get the chance to go out for a night. We've both been under a lot of strain lately, I thought it would do us good to be alone together.'

Caleb frowned, frustrated at what he perceived as a lack of concern. 'You don't think we owe it to Jack to —»

'Please don't play the guilt thing on me,' she snapped. 'Of course I'm concerned, but Jesus Christ, Cale, we just have to be patient.'

'I think we should take him to see a specialist.'

'If they continue, yes, maybe we should take him back to Dr Morgan and get him to refer Jack to someone. But just for tonight, can't we talk about something else?'

It was a reasonable request, he knew. Jack's problem had taken its toll on them both. And yet, he was wary of looking away. 'All right,' he said. 'Let me just say something, then we'll talk about whatever you want.'

Polly's lips tightened and she leaned back in her seat, away from him.

'The common thing is a stranger,' Caleb said. 'Think about what that means. For a kid it signifies danger, right? What are kids told all the time? Be wary of strangers, and this is drummed into their unconscious.' He spoke quickly, trying to flesh out his still sketchy interpretation, how Jack's fear of strangers was manifesting itself in his dreams as someone coming to kidnap him.

Stories were in the papers and on the TV about kids being abducted and murdered. That young girl found strangled in the woods outside Cardiff a couple of months ago, and more recently, the teenage boy whose naked body was found beaten to death on the sands along Swansea foreshore. Kids weren't impervious to things like that, he said. They made connections, even if they weren't conscious of doing so. In bad dreams, the most irrational things became real.

Polly finished her bottle of Corona. She tried to sound reasonable but Caleb could hear the frustration in her voice. 'It's not that what you're saying isn't plausible, Cale. Maybe it is, I don't know. I'll read up on it. But I think you're becoming obsessed with this. What chance has Jack got of forgetting the bloody dreams if you keep on about them?'

'Ignoring it isn't going to make it stop.'

'It sounds to me like you don't want them to.'

'Shit, Polly, what the hell is that supposed to mean?'

She got up from her seat. 'I want to go,' she said. 'I can't talk about this anymore.'

Caleb grabbed her arm and said, 'This is Jack we're talking about.'

She pulled her arm free. 'No it isn't. It's you.' She hurried from the bar.

He sat there for a few moments, immobilized by panic and fear. How could she not sense the threat to their son? Slowly, his panic subsided and he followed her out onto the street. He saw her crossing the main road to the car park. A mild rain was falling and the lights of Mumbles flickered on the dark bay like fragile memories. Caleb felt alone as he walked after her, distanced from everything he held dear. How does a man get back what he's lost, he wondered, puzzled at the question. He wasn't even sure what he had lost. Some memory, or maybe some part of his self-belief.

Anna, the babysitter, was watching The O.C. when they got home. Jack was fine, she said. Not a peep since she'd put him to bed at nine. Polly asked Caleb to check on him while she ran Anna home.

Alone, Caleb headed upstairs. A wave of relief swept through him when he saw Jack was sleeping soundly. The muscles in his legs quivered, and fearing he would collapse, he went and sat on the edge of his son's bed.

Wan light edged into the room through the open door, falling on Jack's slippers and a couple of Play Station games at the foot of the bed. A Manchester United poster was on the wall over Jack's head, and other posters around the room depicted Bart Simpson and scenes from the Harry Potter movies. Caleb felt a surge of tenderness. The sight of The Wind in the Willows on the night table filled him with sadness and a deep sense of regret.

I'm sorry, Jack, he thought, as he stood up to leave. The boy stirred and rolled onto his back. Caleb's breath caught when he saw Jack's eyelids were flickering crazily. His lips moved as if he were trying to speak, but no words came out, only the muted sibilance of dreams. 'Jack,' Caleb said, but the sound was less than a whisper.

He turned, saw the small armchair beneath the dormer window. He pulled it a little closer to the bed and sat in it. Jack continued to make soft, indecipherable noises on the bed, one hand above the sheet, the fist clenching and unclenching.

Caleb wondered what his son was seeing. He tried to will himself inside Jack's head, to witness the slow unfurling terror. 'Stay with it, Jack,' he said to himself. 'Be strong.'

Jack began to toss and turn on the bed, his legs kicking sporadically beneath the sheets. His voice grew louder, but Caleb was still unable to recognize the sounds as words.

His movements became more agitated, more violent. Caleb leaned forward in the chair, peering intently at his son. He anticipated some kind of revelation, as long as he didn't weaken and let his attention falter. That was the mistake he had been making, he realized, as Jack started to scream. Waking the boy too soon. Have to let him go further into it, see what he needed to see. Maybe then it would end. Recalling it in the daylight hours, his reason would overcome the nebulous fear.