In one of the sleet-covered windows a figure emerged, as if sired by the storm itself, and rapped firmly on the glass.
“Max, take my hands.”
“Mom—”
“Max, just do what I say. Take my hands.”
He obeyed.
“Hey!” the man outside shouted. “We’re fucking dying out here!”
Things would only get worse. If his mother didn’t open the door, the man would surely find some other way in.
“Dearest Lord Jesus,” his mother began. “We pray, in this time of fear and desperation, for you to comfort those in need, to guide them....”
As she prayed, his mom closed her eyes, but Max could not. He worried that the darkness might grow hands to strangle him if he took his eyes off the world, or however much of the world was left to see.
The man moved to another window and rapped harder. He banged and shouted.
“...give us your love, oh Lord, and sweep these devil waters and their devil spawn back to the rivers of Hell....”
More banging.
Max clutched the gold cross, hung around his neck for the first time when he was three.
“Bitch, please!”
How many more are out there? Are they bothering other people, like Mrs. Olsen next door? Are we supposed to let them in? Will God be angry if we don’t?
That which you do to the least of my brothers, so you do to me.
Thunder grumbled, and Max’s gaze fell to one of his drawings, one of his many Lone Ranger sketches, then moved up to a crucifix hanging on the far wall, scarcely illuminated by the candlelight.
His mother squeezed his hands. “You remember the story of the Ark, don’t you?” she asked. “Noah’s Ark, and all the animals?”
Max nodded.
She tried to smile. “This isn’t much different. God is washing the world of its sinful creatures.”
“Is that what happened to Dad?”
“I don’t know, Max, but if the Lord had a good reason for taking him away from us, then we mustn’t question it, mustn’t give it too much thought.”
“Hey!” came again from outside.
The weather continued its assault.
“Mom—”
Suddenly, glass shattered, and Max felt the merciless cold of the storm winds on his face. A window... a window had been broken.
Another one shattered somewhere on the other end of the house.
“Get out of here!” Cynthia Higgins shrieked. She turned to Max and started to move away, keeping her eyes on him. “Honey, you stay put, you understand me? Don’t move.”
“Where are you going?”
She scurried to the kitchen.
Max ignored her request and followed her, watched her shuffle through dark cupboards, listened to the clatter of dishes and pots and pans as prayers dribbled under her breath. Somewhere close, he heard voices, deep and grumbling.
“Max, get over there.” His mother frantically pointed behind the counter.
This time, he obeyed. He peeked around the corner, one eye cast toward the shadow-dance in the rest of the house.
His mother sidled up against the wall, beneath the Felix the Cat clock, next to the archway leading into the living room. The frying pan trembled in her hands.
Over the sound of the storm, Max could hear the movement of strangers in the house, toward the dining room.
His mom heard it too, and moved accordingly, huddling over to the kitchen’s entryway.
Max watched as a face emerged from the blackness—dirty, wild, unclean. He thought of the stories his mother had told him of lepers, and of demons.
The face smiled, clearly delirious. The figure drifted closer, drawn from the murk.
Shuddering, Cynthia Higgins wrenched from her position and sent the pan straight into the man’s primal grin with a metallic crack.
A cry rang out, immediately overtaken by thunder. In the white disclosure of lightning, Max saw the man on his knees, a hand clasped over his gushing face, his eyes shut in agony. Blood and drool dripped from his chin.
Max’s mother stood over him, her breath heaving, her skin no longer the home of Cynthia Higgins but of something as wild and unclean as the man upon whose head she now unleashed strike after strike. Pummeling.
Max could see the pulpy chunks fly, could see the dark liquid rush toward the linoleum, and he tried not to think about what it was.
More lightning flashed, and the shadows appeared. More of them had come, a black and tattered battlement.
“Get out of my house!” his mom screamed.
He had no idea how many there were, but there couldn’t be as many as he first saw. His imagination had exaggerated their numbers.
Yes. That was it.
They closed in.
“Don’t worry, girlie,” one said. “We’ll be gone in the morning.”
It all happened so fast, like one of those cartoons where characters move so quickly that they just become blurry blobs.
His mother flailed with the pan but missed.
One of the men’s hands caught her wrist while another took her around the neck. Yet another went for her legs. There was a tearing of fabric as they engulfed her.
She shouted, “Max baby get out of here please oh please—”
One of the men lunged toward him, but Max eluded him and tore through the house. He burst from the back door and into the yard, clambered across the lawn and past the fence, onto Clover Street and beyond. The wind and rain sliced into his skin, whipping him as he ran and ran, soaked and directionless.
***
Eventually, the clouds moved on, like muscle-bound bullies satisfied with a job well done. Max squatted in some mud, surrounded by wet brush, shivering and waiting. He wondered if he was going to die, a concept he’d barely begun to grasp.
If I’m going to die, does that mean I’m going to meet Jesus? Did Jesus created all this? The massive trees, the gross bugs scuttling on my arms and shins?
He didn’t want to move. Mom had once told him that if he got lost not to move, because that would only make him more lost. He said nothing, too, as he heard his name bouncing through the woods, issued over rain-darkened pathways. He heard the voices and he heard dogs barking. Somehow, he’d forgotten how to speak, or was too afraid
