Baby Boy

They’d dressed Jake in a high-collared tuxedo, and even wrapped his neck in a white scarf, nearly up to his chin, but you could still see the stitches on the left side of his neck where the animal that got him had been at his throat. Christine had asked for a closed casket funeral, but they’d somehow convinced her that the beautiful boy looked so peaceful, lying there like he was merely asleep. The animal had been at his neck but had left his face intact. Let’s enjoy it one last time.

Console, console, console. They all blathered at her incessantly about how they understood, how they would be there for her if there was anything she needed. But she heard the whispers too.

“Honestly! Who lets a five year old wander around alone in the woods?”

“It wasn’t the woods. It was a park.”

“He was found in the woods near the park. They think he was dragged there after he was… killed.”

“It gets dark early in October. He should have been home.”

“Shhhh. She’ll hear you.”

“He loved that park… The poor dear.”

She’d let him play in the park a little late, while she was preparing supper. She’d assumed he was with friends. All his friends had gone home though, leaving him there alone to ride the slide a few more times, to swing on the swings a little while longer, to climb, to run, to be alive.

By the time she’d gone out looking for him, it was after dark. The park was deserted. She’d felt sick with worry, but even then, she’d assumed he’d just gone over to a friend’s house. She tried all his friend’s houses though, and nobody knew where he was. Then she went back to the park, calling for him, and eventually screaming for him. Then she’d called the police.

Now she was at his funeral. Now they were going to bury her baby. She felt the screams rising again from deep inside her, but they were buried somehow. They had her on so many tranquilizers she could barely walk, and the screams were still rising from deep down inside her. The pain wasn’t gone. The pain hadn’t been killed. It had just been buried. She could still hear the screams, very deep down. The pain was a monster that would live forever.

Console, console, and more console. And then it was over. She was in a limousine again, driving to the cemetery, near the woods where he’d been found, near the park where he had loved to play. It seemed appropriate they whispered, that he be buried near the park he loved so much. But Christine couldn’t imagine he’d want to be anywhere near where the thing had got him. She kept this thought buried though, just like the screams.

The police never did find the thing that had gotten him. Some of them had even suggested he’d fallen and torn his throat open on a branch, or a jagged stone. Nobody had seen or heard anything. There were no footprints, fingerprints, defensive wounds, or DNA of any kind to suggest he’d been attacked by a human. There weren’t even any recent animal tracks, just the body of a boy with half his throat torn away. He’d bled to death, but they hadn’t found very much blood at the scene, which led them to believe that he was moved from where he’d been killed, possibly by an animal. The evidence just didn’t add up. The clothes weren’t muddied or scratched as they would have been if the boy had been dragged. It was almost as if something had torn his throat out, exactly where it had killed him, and then simply taken the blood away somewhere.

The police had vowed to get to the bottom of it. But Jake was still being lowered into the ground. What difference did it make who or what had killed him?

---

The screaming resumed later that afternoon, when the tranquilizers wore off. She refused to take any more of them. She didn’t like dodging the pain of her boy’s death. It felt wrong. It felt like betrayal. She would bear the pain of his death, just as she’d borne the pain of his birth. She would wait in agony, screaming as she allowed the pain to ravish through her soul, tearing pieces of it away as the minutes passed into hours. She re-lived every moment of his life, from the first time she’d held him, feeling him softly suckling at her breast, to the last time she’d kissed him goodnight, and everything in between. And she remembered every single time she’d ever scolded and screamed at him too, and the times she’d let him cry all alone because she was too busy to worry about every little issue he had. The what- ifs and if-onlys, stabbed at her like a sadistic mob, blaming her, accusing her, trying to murder her for her guilt, but somehow her soul refused to die. All she could do was lie there screaming, hating her own soul for not dying like it deserved to.

She woke on the floor of his bedroom, not even realizing she’d gone in there, or when she had fallen asleep. It was night now. The October wind moaned through the trees outside his window. His little nightlight glowed for no one. His fish swam aimlessly in the aquarium on the dresser beside his bed. A board game was set up but not played on the floor in the middle of the room—Chutes and Ladders. The blue token was on square four and the red one was on square one. One die was on a number one, and the other had rolled a three.

“Play with me, momma! It’s your turn!”

“I’m busy now, Jake. Why don’t you go play with your friends at the park instead?”

Christine picked up the dice and rolled a seven. She moved the red token to the seven square and then lay sobbing on the floor while she waited for Jake to take his turn. Then her sister Pam was there, trying to hug her, to console her again, trying to lead her from the room, but she refused.

“No! I will not leave this room! I will not! I will stay in here until the pain kills me! I need it to kill me!”

And then Pam was crying, and Christine didn’t know why. Pam had never had a son ripped from her soul. What could possibly be upsetting her?

“I won’t let this grief kill you, Chrissy. I loved Jakey too, and he wouldn’t want his momma dead.”

She got up, and left. Christine rolled the dice for Jake. Jake got a nine. She moved the blue token to thirteen, wondering what Jake would have been like as a teenager. And then she wept some more. She grabbed Mr. Brownbear off his little bed and hugged it until she passed out from the exhaustion of sobbing.

“Come back to me, Jakey! Oh God, please make this all just a dream!”

The only reply was the cold October wind moaning through the trees outside the window.

---

She didn’t take a jacket when she snuck out of the house at 1 am. Pam was asleep on the couch. The TV was blathering quietly to itself about a miracle mop that could wipe up a whole carton of spilled milk in one swipe. Christine walked past the happily smiling memory of her boy watching his favourite shows on that TV and went quietly out the front door, holding Mr. Brownbear’s hand. Pam shivered for a moment as the chilly night air billowed into the living room when the door opened, but she pulled the blanket closer to her chin and did not awaken. Christine was as silent as the night.

The walk to the park was cold and dark, but she had never been so unafraid. If any assailant lunged from the shadows to murder her, she would welcome it. Stab me, slice me, rip me up, she thought. Nothing you can do is worse than the pain I’m already in.

She got to the park and sat alone on a swing, holding Mr. Brownbear. The merry-go-round creaked, waving gently back and forth in the wind. The wind moaned through the trees. Leaves rustled, glowing yellow under the single street lamp that lit the playground from the street. Beyond was the woods where they’d found him. Beyond the woods was the cemetery where they’d buried him. Somewhere in the cemetery was his grave.

“Push me, Momma! Push me higher!”

“No more, baby. Momma’s too tired. Just kick your feet. You can do it.”

There’s no way a mop can clean an entire carton of milk in one swipe. That’s impossible. Almost as impossible as an entire body’s worth of blood simply vanishing…

She took Mr. Brownbear by the hand and walked with him into the woods. “Baby needs his bear,” she told herself. And she was completely unafraid.

---

Someone was standing on the path in the woods. She thought it was a branch at first, leaning way out from the bushes, but when she took a few more steps she saw it was a figure standing there. She just stopped and stared. An old tree moaned above her, its branches creaking and clicking in the wind. The figure, whoever it was, hadn’t seen her yet. It was facing into the woods, just staring. It was dressed in black, a mere silhouette in the near total darkness. She stood watching it, wondering if it would walk away into the night and let her pass. It did not. It just stared into the night, as though lost, confused. She waited, wondering if she should cut into the thicket, off the path, and try to go around.

An especially cold gust of wind blew through her, and she began to awaken from the trance she’d been in since she ‘d gotten up off her son’s bedroom floor and decided to come out here. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she wanted to wander into the cemetery at 1:30 in the morning just to lay a teddybear on a grave. Her son would still be there in the morning, wouldn’t he?

And then the figure on the path turned and looked in her direction. She saw the pale white of his face, like an unlit moon in the darkness. She saw two darker spots on its face where its eyes should have been. She couldn’t see its eyes though. His eyes, if they were there at all, appeared to be hiding in two caves set in the chalky white cliff of his face. She saw that he was a teenage boy. She saw that he was eating something, something dark and furry, with hind legs and a tail. He was eating it, and staring at her with caves instead of eyes. Her legs felt like jello, and her torso felt twisted around with fear. She backed up a step. Whoever this boy was, he didn’t seem to even see her. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking through her. And he was chewing. And then he lowered his hands and dropped the furry thing. It fell like a stone, thudding to the earth. In the dark, it looked like the boy had no mouth or jaw. The lower half of his face was as black as the clothing he wore. And then Christine realized that it was not that his jaw had been ripped away. It was merely covered in blood so dark in the night that it looked black. She backed up another step, but the figure did not step forward. He just stood, staring through her. Then she turned to flee but she stopped dead in her tracks before taking a single step. There was another figure behind her as well.

This second, smaller figure was much closer too. And he was walking, sort of limping toward her, on legs that didn’t seem to want to take the steps. When it tripped over a tree root, its arms didn’t fly out to break the fall. It just collapsed, smacking it’s face into the earth with a thud as dead as the furry thing the teenager had been eating. This second figure turned its face up from the earth and stared at her, and when it did, her mind finally released its grip on her last strand of sanity, like the bladder of a child who could hold the strain no longer and simply let it all go.

“Jakey?” she whispered. “Is that you, baby?”

The thing did not reply. It reached out little fingers toward her and started crawling across the cold damp earth, dragging a body that did not want to move except by massive effort of will. Christine fell to her knees and stretched out her hands toward him.

“Baby, is that you?”

His little tuxedo was ripped and dirty. He was missing one shoe. He still had the scarf on his neck, but it had come unraveled and dragged along behind him in the dirt. He made no sound at all. Not a moan. Not a whimper. Not even a gasp for breath. He just crawled across the dirt, coming toward her. She glanced back and saw the taller figure had vanished into the night. The path behind her was now clear. Then she looked back at the boy in the path in front of her. The dark caves that were his eyes were closer now and she could see that it really was Jakey. He was staring at her, crawling toward her. He did not blink. His jaw hung open in a surprised, pained expression and there were even clumps of dirt in his mouth. His hands were scraped and dirty, nearly black, as though he’d been digging in the earth. There were leaves in his hair.

She wanted to rush toward him. She wanted to grab him up and hold him. She wanted to kiss him, and cry and love him. But something felt wrong. It was her little Jake, but at the same time, it wasn’t. This was a crawling, dirty, staring, silent boy, a boy that looked like Jake, but Jake would have called out to her by now. Momma! Momma! Help me! I’m hurt! I missed you momma! I was so afraid! This thing made no sound at all. Not even breathing. The only noise in the night was the rustling of the leaves he crawled through, and the wind in the trees. Nevertheless, it looked like him, and it was moving. That was all the convincing her delirious mind needed. She held out the teddy to him from where she sat in the puddle of her dead sanity.

“Jakey! It’s momma, baby! I brought Mr. Brownbear!”

Jake didn’t even look at the bear. His eyes were unblinking in his gaze upon her. She sat, watching him come, and then he was there at her knees. She reached down and grabbed his hands. His hands were cold, as cold as the earth. And then she started crying again, realizing he really was dead. This cold crawling thing with leaves in his hair and unblinking eyes was Jake, but he was dead. He smelled of soil and sour meat, and she would have vomited if she’d had anything to eat that day. She would have gotten up to run, except that some horrified part of her brain had convinced her that this was somehow just a dream. It couldn’t be real. She’d watched them lower Jake into the ground.

And now the thing had crawled right up into her lap and collapsed, lying face up, still staring at her with unblinking eyes. Every motion had taken a massive effort of its will, and apparently it had no strength left. Her tears spilled off her cheeks and dripped onto his eyes. Still he did not blink. The tears merely rolled off his eyes and spilled down his cheeks as though they were his own. She stroked his cheek with her hand. It was cold as well. The flesh of his cheek she’d kissed so many times was as stiff as leather, as dead as the arm of their living room chair. A great wracking sob escaped her, a sob that was more of a long agonized scream than piteous weeping. She snatched him up and hugged him to her breast, crying out to the sky. “My baby! My baby!”

With a massive effort of his will, he slid his cold, dead hands up around the back of her neck and pulled himself up to her throat. Moments later her screaming ceased, and there was only the wind in the trees, and soft sucking sounds.

The Journey Home

There once was a young girl named Jane. She lived in an orphanage in the woods, near a great mountain. She'd been there ever since she could remember, but they'd always told her that when she got old enough, she could begin the journey home.

"Where did I come from?"

"You came from the mountain."

And that was all they told her. She decided when it was time to journey home, she would head toward the mountain. The forest looked dark and scary though.

Finally her birthday came and it was time to go. She said goodbye to her friends at the orphanage and began her journey. At the edge of the field, where they used to play as children, there was a path leading into the woods. That's where she began with her little bag of belongings.

She stood for a long time staring into the woods. The path was long and rocky. It looked dangerous. But if she wanted to get home, she would have to go down it.

Finally she took her first step. The moment she did, a man appeared behind her. She hadn't even seen him approach. He sort of startled her.

"You going to the mountain?"

"Yes. My name is Jane. I live there. I have to go home."

"I can take you," the man said, "If you want me to. I know the way."

She looked at him for a moment, trying to decide if she should trust him. She didn't have any other option though, so she nodded at him and they started walking.

"Tell me about your mother and dad," the man said after a few minutes of silent walking.

"I hate them. They abandoned me in that orphanage. If I ever see them again, I'd like to punch them both in the face."

The man stopped. He picked up two rocks and gave them to her. They were fairly big rocks too. They filled her entire palms.

"What are these?" she asked him.

"You have to carry them. They represent your parents."

She looked at him like he was crazy, but the look in his eyes told her he was not joking. So she put the rocks into her backpack and they continued down the trail.

A while later she tripped over a tree root and fell to cursing and muttering to herself. "Stupid, ugly, twisted old tree!"

When she looked up the man was holding another rock out to her. "That's for the tree."

She took it and put it into her backpack. At least it was only three. She could handle three.

But as they walked she began talking about her life. She was bored with the long journey, and wanted to pass the time chatting. She talked about her childhood in the orphanage. She talked about her friends. She talked about the mean old ladies who made them do their chores and get to bed on time, never letting them have any fun. And each time she complained she was handed another rock. Soon she had twelve of them and the pack was getting quite heavy.

"Why do I have to carry all these stupid rocks for anyway?" she said after a while. "This is just making the journey harder. If I could just bring my clothes and the food, we'd get there in no time."

The man just looked at her and asked, "Are you complaining about the rocks now too?"

She quickly shook her head no, but he handed her a new rock anyway.

By the end of the first day, she was exhausted. She slept, oddly enough, like a rock all that night.

They woke up in the morning and had breakfast. She complained about sleeping outdoors on the cold hard ground. She complained about the lousy food. She complained about not being able to take a good bath.

"I thought you hated taking baths," the man said. "You were complaining yesterday about how the women at the orphanage forced you to take baths every day."

"Well now that I'm all tired out in the woods, I'm wishing for one."

The man handed her some new rocks, one for the cold hard ground, one for the lousy breakfast, and one for the lack of a bath.

"You mean I have to carry more stupid rocks!?"

"Yes, you do. One for everything you think is wrong with your life."

"But my life is terrible! At this rate, I won't even make it to the mountain. The journey will kill me. I have a bad leg, and my back is itchy, and my hair is all over the place and I can barely see where I'm going! I hate this!"

"Are you finished?" the man asked her after a few moments.

"No! I'm sore! And I'm tired! And I think I'm getting sick! And these damn bugs are driving me crazy!!!"

"Are you finished now?"

"Yes! I'm finished now!"

"Well then, here's a rock for your bad leg, one for your itchy back, one for your messy hair, one for your sore feet, one for being tired and one for being sick. And here's a few small ones for all the bugs."

The girl sat down and started crying. "I don't want to carry all these rocks. I'm sorry."

The man said nothing. They sat for a long time quietly while she wept and felt sorry for herself.

"I should have stayed at the orphanage. At least those ladies were only doing what they thought was best for us. At least I had a bed to sleep in and could take a bath. And the food there was great compared to this."

Again the man sat quietly, listening to her talk. Finally she had nothing more to say.

"Do you have the rock I gave you when you complained about the orphanage ladies?"

"Of course I do!" she said, sneering resentfully.

"Show me."

She knew exactly which one it was. It was one of the bigger ones. She fished it out and held it in her hand.

"Let it go."

She looked at the rock for a long time, realizing she actually missed the orphanage she had hated for so long. She remembered all the things she'd learned there and all the happy times. Finally she turned her hand slightly and the rock rolled off, hitting the ground with a thud.

"Shall we continue?"

They got up and continued. The rocks felt heavier, especially with the new ones, but somehow they were a little less tiring. They walked all day in silence. By the end of the day, she was aching, sore, tired, itchy, sweaty, and miserable. But she kept quiet. She didn't want to have to carry any more stupid rocks.

They got up the next morning, ate a lousy breakfast and got ready to continue on. But before they did, the man handed her a new pile of rocks to carry.

"What!? What's this!?"

"Well these are for being aching, sore, tired, itchy, sweaty, and miserable yesterday. This is for the awful rest you had last night on the cold hard ground. This is for the lousy breakfast. And this is for not having a decent bath again."

"But I didn't complain about any of that stuff!"

"Yes you did."

She took them and put them in her pack, crying again.

"Why are you being so mean to me? Why are you making everything so much harder!?"

"I'm not being mean to you. I'm helping you. And I'm not making things harder for you. I'm making them easier for you."

"You're a liar. I hate you!"

"Shall we continue?" the man said, without reacting to her bitter comments.

"No! Just leave me alone! I'll find my own way!"

"You'll be hopelessly lost, girl."

"I don't care. At least I won't have to carry around a bunch of stupid rocks."

So the man walked away. The girl was all alone. She dumped out all her rocks and sat on the pile. "What now?" She muttered to herself. She was in a clearing and there were at least four different directions to go in. She didn't even know which way was the path back to the orphanage. So she sat there all day and did nothing. The night fell and she went to sleep in her sleeping bag, all alone. She'd made no progress at all that day, but at least she'd got some rest.

She rested all the next day too, feeling better and better with each hour. She was no closer to home, or to the orphanage, but at least she wasn't tired and sore.

Finally after the third day of rest, she had been resting longer than she'd even journeyed. She was getting bored out of her mind. She decided she'd better just continue toward home, now that she was rested up. But she didn't know which path to take.

She stood for the longest time staring down the trails. If she chose the wrong one, the journey would just take longer, making her more tired, and that would be worse than carrying a bunch of stupid rocks.

"Hello!?" she cried out, wondering if anybody else could show her the way.

"You called?" a voice said from behind her. It was the same man again.

"I wasn't calling you!"

"But I'm the only one who knows the way."

"I don't believe you."

"Well there are lots of people who could lead you to a lot of different places, but none of them would be your home. I'm the only one who knows the way to your home."

"But I have to carry a bunch of stupid rocks."

"Yes, whichever ones you choose to."

"But I haven't chosen any of these! You made me carry them!"

"I didn't make you carry anything. You took them on each time you complained."

"But you made me carry rocks even when I didn't complain, and they were even bigger ones!"

"The complaints of the heart are even worse than the ones you say out loud."

"Fine! Whatever! Can we just go!? Here! I'll pick up the biggest rock in the field and carry it along! This one is my complaint about YOU!"

"Now you're getting the idea," the man said calmly.

So she gathered all her rocks back into her pack, picked up the big two-handed stone and went trudging along behind the man on the path, feeling bitter, spiteful, and angry. Having rested for so long, she was now no longer used to the weight of the stones. The burden felt brand new again, and oh so heavy. She walked along crying.

They journed for three more days. Things slowly got easier. Not much easier, but at least it wasn't torture anymore. More rocks were added, though she never said a word all day over the three days. After three days she began correcting herself in her heart, every time she complained. Every complaint she made, she tried to see the bright side of the situation. The rocks were still added, but they were only half as big.

On the fourth day, they came across a young man lying on the side of the trail. He wasn't dead, but he was just lying there, crying. His bag of rocks was huge. He'd carried them this whole way and finally had fallen down, crushed by the weight of his own burdens.

"We have to help him!" Jane said.

"How exactly?" the man asked.

"I'll pick him up. I'll carry some of his rocks. I'm strong. I can do it."

"They're not your rocks to carry though. Even if you carried them in your pack, he would still feel the weight of them."

"We can't just leave him here!"

"If you want to help him, teach him to look on the bright side of things, to let go of his resentments and bitterness. Teach him to never give up, no matter what."

"How do I teach him that? I don't even know if I can do it myself."

"You've made it this far. You must know a few things."

So Jane stooped down beside him. She picked up one of his rocks and showed it to him. "Tell me about this rock? Why are you carrying it?"

"I hate my mother."

"How can you possibly hate your mother? You wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for her."

"I don't want to be alive. I hate life."

"Well, what about this rock?"

"I hate my father too."

Another big one. She put that one back in the pack and took another one a smaller one. "This?"

"I hate the damn crows. Caw! Caw! Caw! All day long. They drive me batty."

"But you can't do anything about it, even if you wanted to. Why carry around the irritation like this?"

"How do I let it go?"

"Just accept the crows as they are, neither good or bad. Just there."

"But their cawing will get to me eventually. I can't stand it."

"With all these other rocks to carry, you're really so upset about a cawing crow?"

"I never thought of it that way. It seems kind of petty by comparison."

"So can you just accept the crows as they are, neither good or bad?"

"Compared to my other problems, the crows don't even exist."

And he dropped the pebble. He didn't feel any lighter of course. It was just a pebble, but the two of them spent all day talking about his rocks until he'd dropped a good twenty stones. They were all small ones he'd dropped but they made a pretty good pile.

They went to sleep that night and the next day, she helped him up and they journeyed on together. They didn't talk much, and more stones were added here and there, but they made it pretty far.

Halfway through the day however, the young man collapsed again.

"Come on. Get up! You can do it!"

"I can't! I hate this journey! I hate everything! I give up!"

"Don't give up! Just let go of these stones! You can make it if you let them go! You're stronger than I am!"

But nothing she said would convince him. She tried everything, but he would not listen to her. He just laid there. Then after a while, she realized he was no longer breathing. His eyes were dead and cold. His mouth hung open in a grimace of pain. The rocks had crushed him as he lay there on the ground.

“You killed him! You and your damn rocks!”

“He did it to himself. You did everything you could, but he still wouldn’t let them go. He was proud and stubborn and bitter. He just gave up. Will you carry a stone for him now, mad at yourself? Mad at the journey? Mad at me?”

“Well I suppose I have to, don’t I?”

“No. Of course not. You can if you want to though.”

“I’ll carry a stone for him, just to remember him by. I’m proud and stubborn and bitter too, except that I’m never gonna give up. Ever!”

“As you say.”

So they continued on. The burdens were heavier now. She was tired. The rest stops were longer and it was harder to keep going when the breaks were over, but she knew if she rested too long, it would just get worse.

As the weeks went on, she found herself losing more and more stones. When she stopped to consider the stones each morning she realized that the things that had seemed so important long ago didn’t even matter anymore. The itchiness, the aches, the bugs—big deal. Why stress about that stuff when there were real problems in this journey? She dropped more and more stones until the only ones left were the major ones. She was upset about those ones and probably always would be. How could she ever let go of the wrongs done to her, the evil, the abuse? They were part of who she was it seemed, so she just accepted them.

She passed many people along the way, some had heavy burdens, some had only a few small rocks and pranced along the path like a child in the playground. Some even had small carts and wagons to carry their stones in so it was hardly a struggle for them at all, no matter how many stones they’d taken on.

“That’s not fair! How come they get to use carts and wagons, and the rest of us have to carry our burdens!?”

The man just shook his head, staring at one man’s wagon. “You don’t want one of those. You’re much better off.”

“I beg to differ.”

“He had money. He bought the wagon. You can too, if you wish.”

“I don’t have money. I can barely afford a decent back pack.”

“This woman over here convinced her father to carry her burdens along the way, and this beautiful woman used her charms to trick a man into carrying her load of stones.”

“I thought you said nobody can carry each other’s stones for them! The young man back there on the trail... you said I couldn’t...”

“I never said you couldn’t. I said it wouldn’t help him.”

“I don’t understand any of this. It just seems so cruel and unfair.”

“We’re not home yet,” the man replied.

And so they continued on. The road got rougher, but the burdens got lighter and lighter. Jane saw more and more people who had given up. She also saw some who had been carrying their burdens on wagons that had now broken down on them. The people stood crying angry tears, trying to gather up the massive amounts of stones they’d piled onto the wagons, but unable to carry them all, they could not continue on their journey.

“You gotta let go of some of those stones,” Jane called out to them. “It’s the only way you’ll make it home.”

“Shut up! I don’t need your help!”

Jane continued on. They did not.

The going got rougher still. The mountain was now looming ahead. The trail was steep and rocks were everywhere. There were also dozens more who had died along the way. Others were sitting next to those who had died, crying, refusing to go on without them. Others had broken down wagons. And still others were fighting with one another about who was to carry all the stones the rest of the way. One beautiful woman was all alone with a great pile of rocks she’d gotten a partner to carry for her. Her partner had given up on her and her burdens and had gone on without her. She was trying to wile passing men into helping her, but the journey was now too obviously difficult to go on with all her burdens.

Eventually there were no more wagons or carts at all. The trail had narrowed. The trail was rocky. Wagons and carts were impossible.

“Who will help me carry all these burdens? I’ll pay you! I’ll give you everything I own!” one man cried out.

“Sorry buddy, I got my own burdens to worry about. I don’t need your money anyway. I’m almost home,” a passer-by told him.

Jane wanted to help them all, but she knew she couldn’t. “Just let go of your burdens,” she told them as she passed. “Just let go of all of them until the pile is small enough to carry on your own.”

Some listened to her, and began taking stock of their loads. Others ignored her. Others shouted obscenities at her. There was a time when she would have gotten mad about such scathing rebukes, but she knew now that their words were meaningless. She would pick up no new stones resenting hollow insults from frustrated travellers.

“Please! Will you help me carry these up the mountain? I’m begging you!” one defeated looking lady said to her. “I can’t go on any more.”

“I could carry them, but that wouldn’t help you,” Jane told her. “You’ve just got to let them go. Just let them go.”

“But the cruel trail guide forces me to carry them. He gives me more and more each time I let old ones go. It’s so unfair.”

“Just do your best,” Jane said. “Come on, let a few more go.”

And so Jane continued. The road was steep, but the stones she’d carried along the way, had made her strong. She kept going, remembering every struggle she’d had, every trial, every misfortune along the way that had caused her to take on another stone. The struggles had made her stronger, and now she was nearly home.

At last she came to the foot of a great cliff. Here there was a whole city of people gathered around with their burdens of stones, some in back packs, some in bags, some in baskets. Some had found partners or friends to carry their stones all the way to the end. There were just a whole lot of people standing around, and Jane wondered if this was the end of the journey.

“This isn’t the end,” the man told her. “Home is up there, on top of the mountain.”

“So why don’t these people climb it?”

“You can’t make the climb until you’ve let go of every single last stone. The last climb is the hardest of all, and without letting go of every single last burden, nobody can make it.”

Jane felt the weight of her stones. They felt heavier now. She made her way to the base of the cliff, pushing through the city of people all weeping and fighting over their stones. She made it through and stood at the bottom of the cliff. Suddenly she understood. The cliff went straight up into the sky. There were handholds. There were footholds, but nothing to catch you if you slipped and fell. Some started to climb it with the last of their burdens in a back pack, but they quickly tired and had to climb back down. Still others had let go of all their burdens but were still tiring from the climb because they hadn’t had enough burdens along the way to strengthen them. Some however, were making the last climb, distant dots struggling up the cliff high in the sky.

“I’ll never make it,” Jane said.

“Not with these,” the man told her. “It’s time to decide if the resentments you hold are worth keeping you down here forever.”

“Of course not,” Jane replied. “I’ve made it this far, why would I quit now?”

“As you say,” he told her. “Let them all go then. Every single one of them.”

And so she did. It took her a few days, but she managed to go through each one and let them go. She said goodbye to her resentments, her bitterness, her ingratitude, everything in her life that she’d thought was a problem, everything in her life she had thought was holding her back, all the things she’d thought were so important along the way were falling to the ground in piles, one by one. The most important thing of all was the last climb into the sky. She realized that now.

“Goodbye, mom. Thank you for giving me life. Thank you for taking care of me, even when I was difficult. Goodbye, dad. Thank you for loving me, thank you for teaching me to be strong, and stubborn, and proud. Goodbye, sister. Thank you for fighting with me. Thank you for telling me how it is, instead of how I think it should be. Goodbye, brother. Thank you for shoving me in the dirt when I was little, teaching me not to get too big for my britches.”

And she tossed them all away until the only one stone remained, the one she’d picked up for the man who’d guided her the whole way. That one was the easiest of all to let go of.

“Thank you, kind sir, for making me pick up all these heavy stones along the way. I never would have made it this far without your help. I’d have been hopelessly lost along the way. I’d thought you were just punishing me, I’d thought you were just trying to make things harder, but truly you were simply preparing me for the end. You cared about me, and you knew the entire journey. Thank you, most of all.”

And so she let that last stone go. She was strong. She was completely free of all burdens. She walked up to the bottom of the cliff and began her last climb. It took all day. She nearly fell so many times, but her strength held true. Her muscles never tired. Her hands never wavered. She looked down at the city of folk she’d left behind. They seemed so far away now, them and their problems. She also saw the trail that had led up to the cliff, with all the broken down carts and weeping people, all the users, manipulators, and abusers who would never make it in the end. In the very far distance she saw the orphanage, and she saw a few new children starting out on their journey the same way she had, she saw them complaining, she saw them picking up stones, and she wished she could tell them to be grateful for each and every burden they were given.

She turned back and finished her climb.

At the top she met the man who had guided her the whole way, only this time he wasn’t dressed in plain peasant’s clothes. He was dressed like a king, in shining robes. She climbed over the edge of the cliff and stood up.

“You made it!” he said.

“How did you get up here?” she asked him.

“I live here,” he said.

“Then who was that down there, guiding me?”

“It was me. Strange, don’t you think?”

“Very strange.”

“Here. This is for you.”

He gave her a beautiful flowing robe, just like the one he wore. It was soft and shining as a cloud. She took off her peasant’s clothing and put the robe on.

“Welcome home, princess Jane,” the man said to her. He gave her a long hug and she realized he was her father. Then she hugged him even harder. They walked into the city on the mountain top and lived happily ever after.

Spooked

The wind whistles through the cracks in the window frame. It sounds sort of like hissing sometimes, and other times, it sounds like a soft moan of breath from a dying soul. The light from the street spills in, casting shadows on the walls: grey rectangles with snowflakes falling through them, and the claw-like fingers of the tree that shivers back and forth. And the snow taps at the window panes like tiny, scratching fingers. The room is cold.


So she gets up to try to shut the window better. She walks up slowly, feeling the icy air against her legs. Her nightgown does not cover enough.

The house is silent. Her footsteps don’t make a sound, not even whispers across the floor. There is only the wind and the scratching of the cold dead snow against the glass. She can see her breath in the room.

She walks up to the window, feeling around the frame for any drafts whispering in. There are several. It’s an old window. The house has shifted since they put it here, and the rectangles are nearly parallelograms. But the glass has not shattered.

She tugs upward on the window, hoping to open it all the way and give it a good firm slam down into place. It groans a bit and slides up half an inch. She tugs some more but now it’s stuck. And now the winds and snow are blowing in.

And she sees a figure in the night, floating in the air in front of the tree. She thinks it is the tree at first, just shadows playing tricks on her, and she leans in to look harder. There’s definitely a figure in the tree. She stares, almost hypnotized, trying to decide if she’s imagining it. And then the figure, a man in grey, blinks. She has leapt into bed before his eyes have opened again. The covers are up to her chin. She is panting with fright. The frosty air catches her breath and turns it to tiny puffing clouds of icy wind.

But now the window is open a bit and the room is getting colder by the minute. She lies there in the dark, peering out at the window sill, watching the snowflakes billow in, making a little pile. She’s waiting for cold dead fingers to wrap around the bottom of the window and heave it upward.

Nothing happens. There’s only wind and snow. She tries to convince herself she’d only imagined it. It was only a shadow, a trick of light, a certain billowing of the snowfall outside that looked like a face in the night. Yes, that’s all it was. She must close the window. It’s now freezing in her room.

So she slides the blanket off of herself and swings her legs off the bed again. She takes one, two, three steps toward the window and stops. One more step and she’ll be able to see the tree outside again, but she doesn’t want to. She must close the window though.

She leans forward and peeks out. There he is again, still standing in mid air, still floating twenty feet above the ground. The tree’s clawing branches wave back and forth through him, like a magician trying to prove there is no trick. He blinks again, not just a figment of her imagination, but something alive, something staring at her. And in a flash, she’s back under the covers again, this time completely covered, eyes and all. Minutes pass. Maybe twenty before she can hide no longer. She’s running out of air underneath there and she has to pull the cover away from her face to catch a quick snatch of breath.

The snow is still billowing in under the window. No cold dead fingers heaving it upward though.

Now she must close it, not because of the bitter cold but because she’s terrified the figure might come billowing in with the snow, scared he might wrap his icy hands around her throat and steal her soul away, leaving a cold dead-eyed corpse no longer warming the sheets.

She gets up and runs to the window. She can still see him out there, but she ignores him. She heaves with all her might. The window groans and slides upward with a dull wooden grinding sound. Then it thumps into the top of its frame, wide open. The cold winds are tossing her nightgown around now, vigorously, like a flapping flag, mercilessly chilling the flesh underneath. And the icy snow is pelting her skin instead of the glass. She’s yanking hard, downward, but the window doesn’t budge. She bangs on the frame, but it doesn’t loosen. And finally she opens her eyes to see if the floating figure is approaching.

He isn’t. He’s gone. There’s only the tree and the cold blowing snow.

She grabs the window handle and heaves with all her might, lifting her feet right off the floor to add all her weight to the downward pull. Finally the window gives and comes crashing down with a bang that shakes the whole room. She tumbles backward onto her bottom on the floor. The windy whistling has silenced. The window is properly closed now. She scrambles to her knees and peers over the window sill, out into the night. The figure is floating there again. But now he’s closer. He’s approaching. She scrambles backward, still staring, he comes another step closer. His arms are out-stretched now, reaching.

She leaps into her bed and yanks the covers over her head, panting like she’d just run a mile. Her heart is pounding but it does nothing to warm her. Even the sheets feel cold as snow now.

But there was something, she thinks to herself, something wrong somehow. She can’t quite put her finger on it. The feeling gnawing at her guts won’t let go. Something was wrong with the figure in the window.

And then she realizes why she did not see him in the tree when the window was fully open. She didn’t see him because she wasn’t looking at a ghost outside in the night. She was looking at the reflection of a shadowy figure standing in the room behind her.

She sucks in breath, ready to scream what may be her very last scream, and she peeks out from under the blanket.

…

They find her the next morning, half buried in the snow, beneath the tree, about ten feet away from the house. She’s surrounded by jagged triangles of shattered glass. Her body is face down, but her head is turned right around backward. Her eyes are staring, as though seeing something that isn’t there. The coroner and the sheriff can’t decide if she was thrown from the window or if she dove through it on her own. There is no sign of a struggle though, so they eventually chalk it up as a suicide. But why?

“Something must have spooked this girl good.”

They close her terrified looking eyes and cover her with a sheet.

CROWFEATHER

- I -

Todd sat on top of the sloped lid of a backlane garbage bin with his knees clutched tightly together, his elbows tucked into his sides, and a book in his upturned palms. He was hunched, leaning into the read, peering through his oversized glasses, almost unblinking. One eyebrow was slightly raised, his brow furrowed, concentrating. A tuft of hair hung down across his forhead, like a claw, pointing at his left eye. His eyes scanned the page, with robot-like precision. Now and then his eyes would shift side to side, as though watching for someone. No one came though, except Maggie, and he didn't even notice her approach.

"Whatcha you doin up there?"

"Reading."

"No. I mean why you up there?"

Todd didn't answer, but he did slip a bit, sliding downward on the slope, quickly righting himself and wriggling back up near the peak.

Maggie just stared, standing there with a grimmace on her face, wrinkling her nose at him. She crumpled a section of her dress in a fist, and then smoothed it out again.

"Lookit I got!" she said.

Todd looked. It was a stick, with a string tied to the end, and on the end was a bone-shaped rock.

"So? What is it?"

"I'nt know. A thing. It's neat."

She wiggled the stick and the stone danced.

"Cool, huh?"

"I guess."

"I can make you one."

"Nah."

Todd pushed his glasses back up his nose, and looked back at the page he was reading.

"Why you up there anyway? Readin?"

He flicked his eyes down at her, and then back onto his page, ignoring her question.

"There's benches in the park. Why'nt you read there?" She pointed with her stick at the fence across the lane, behind which an expanse of wood and grass grew.

Todd turned a page, humming a bit to himself. Maggie crumpled her dress in a fist again, and then smoothed it out.

"I can make you one of these if you want. They're neat. You just need some string and a rock. There's-"

"Shh!" Todd said, suddenly harsh. "They're coming!"

Maggie looked at him, and then down the lane to where his eyes were. There was no one there. She looked at him again, wanting to deride him for his silliness. What's wrong with your eyes? or You're seeing things! or some such jab. But the fear in his eyes killed those thoughts like a juke box with its cord yanked from the wall. She looked again and saw nothing, and fear bubbled up into her tummy as well.

Todd's book dropped from his hands as he sat for a moment in a daze. It slid off the garbage bin lid and fluttered onto the ground like a wounded bird. The Legend of Crowfeather. Todd slid down after it, landed on his feet, adjusted his glasses, and flashed his gaze back up the lane. Then he snatched up his book in one and, grabbed Maggie's hand in the other and dragged her as fast as he could into the park.

"We have to hide!"

"Why? Who's comin?"

Todd pulled her to a copse of trees and they ducked inside, panting from the burst of running, and crouching down into hiding.

He whispered, "I like your stick thing. It's a really neat stick thing."

Maggie did not reply. She looked at it and gave it to him. He took it and wound it up as fast as he could until the stone was hard against the layer of string on the end of the stick. He shoved it in his back pocket, and turned back to looking at the gate they'd run through coming into the park.

"I'm Todd," still whispering, not looking at her.

"Maggie."

She scanned the bushes, the fence, the lane beyond. Nothing.

"You scared, Maggie?"

"H'yeah."

And she didn't even know why. But when Todd suddenly paled, tensed up, began shaking, and dropped to the dirt, struggling to get more hidden, tears started from her eyes.

"Don't be scared, Maggie. They won't hurt you."

A scruffy-haired blonde kid on a blue bike went by. Just a kid on a bike. He didn't even stop. But Todd didn't even seem to notice him.

"Who, Todd? Who's there?"

Now she was shaking too.

Todd looked back at her as she lie on the earth beside him, her cheek pressed into his hip. His eyes terrified her. They told her beyond doubt that though she couldn't see anyone, there was definitely someone there.

"Them," Todd said.

"I wan' go home," crying now.

"Don't move."

"I'nt see anyone."

"Don't... move... They're right... over... there..."

His whispering voice cracked with a whimper. He shut his eyes tight and breathed deeply, as though wishing. Maggie lifted her face, looked past him, out the bushes, and saw... nobody. Trees, grass, sky, but no people. Only tall prairie grasses in an endless stretch of field where entire neighbourhoods of houses had stood only seconds before. The fence was gone. The telephone poles with their drooping wires... gone.

But before she had a chance to wonder where the heck they suddenly were, she saw them. Them! A small band of aboriginal warriors, with war paint, weapons, and cold, cruel grimmaces on their faces. They stalked through the prairie grasses, not a stones throw from where the children lay in hiding.

"They're looking for him," Todd whispered, his sound drowned out beneath the wind in the tall grasses.

"Who?" Maggie asked.

Todd turned the book toward her, showing her the cover, and tapped it twice.

"Crowfeather."

And suddenly Maggie's vision blurred and everything went black.

                                                                                 - II -

Men were talking in a language Maggie didn't understand, their voices hushed, almost to a whisper, but amplified by the tension they felt. One spoke, giving orders. Another muttered a comment and was hushed. A third asked a question nobody answered. And they came forward.

Maggie lifted her eyes from the earth where she'd pressed them into her hands, trying to hide from the blurry terror. Todd was still lying there, his chin on his forearm, peering out of the thicket the two were hiding in. Maggie looked at the book he held in his hand, by his hip. The cover, beneath the title, showed a fierce yet young-looking aboriginal man crouched in waist-high grasses, staring intently off into the distance at some unseen foe. Maggie looked up but didn't see him anywhere. Apparently, neither did the band of warriors now on the hunt for him in the grass up ahead.

Maggie shook Todd's leg. He looked back at her, his eyes wild with panic.

"Where are we?" she asked him, whispering. "We're not at the park no more. How'd we get here?"

Todd looked away up at the dread warriors. Maggie shook his leg again, but he shoved her hand off of him and pointed.

Maggie looked, and just in time too. There was a whizzing sound, a thump, and one of the warriors, the one in the rear of the formation, suddenly grunted, grimmaced, turned and fell with an arrow in his back. The others barely noticed at first, but when he fell, he fell into the man in front of him. Then they all turned and suddenly were greatly alarmed, suddenly scanning the fields for movement, a shift of a shadow even. They saw nothing though. Neither did Todd. Neither did Maggie. Only swaying grasses on an endless prairie.

"Got him," Todd whispered. "That's one."

For a moment, Maggie thought it was Todd who'd fired the arrow. But he was simply counting. Maggie counted too, in her mind. Five left.

They closed into a circle, their backs to the centre, scanning frantically, muttering, some whimpering. Other hushed them. Finally one called out some unknown phrase, a taunt perhaps, or a challenge to reveal himself. His voice drifted across the empty plain and did not echo back. It disappeared into the wind.

The warrior began to yell something else, but -whizzzz-thump!- and another man fell, this time, from the other side of the circle. The warrior's challenge, threat, whatever it was, collapsed into a surprised whimper as his fellow fell. Someone stretched his bow and fired an arrow blindly into the empty grasses in the direction the latest attack had come. He was scolded, smacked in the arm for wasting a shot. His hands shook as he nocked another.

"Two," Todd said.

There were four left. Maggie tugged on Todd's shirt, urgently. Todd looked back at her, not raising his head. The neat little stick thing she had made swung its stone loose as he twisted to face her. The bone-rock danced beside her face, spinning a bit on its string.

"Who's shootin 'em, Todd?"

A cold emotionless whisper, "Crowfeather. They killed his brother, his mom, and his wife."

"They shount'a. That's bad."

"I think they know that now."

Whiz! Thump! Then only three remained.

The circle tightened. The men ducked low in the grass. Their panicked murmers tripping over one another. Another blind arrow flew, this time straight up into the sky, accidentally, as a shaking hand slipped. It sailed through the air in a tall arc and landed point down in the dirt, pinning Todd's shirt to the earth. Maggie gasped. A warrior spun toward them, his eyes glazed with terror and anger, glaring into the thicket. He pulled back an arrow, not really seeing anything, and was about to let it fly.

Whizzz-thunk! He fell with an agonized, gurgling growl, the arrow on his bow released, but sailed upward, above the trees where the children lay, and landed harmlessly into the distant ocean of grass.

The last two men, back to back, their voices weeping with terror, scanned the field, crying out, trying to sound brave but failing. For them, there was no north or south, no east or west, no sun, no wind. There was only death, hiding somewhere in the grass, and all they could do was wait for the next arrow to fly.

There was no next arrow. A crow cawed in the tree above the children. The warriors jumped at the sound, their faces spun toward it, and they-

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-crunch! The second last man stumbled backward with a hatchet in his chest. He grabbed at it helplessly, but it was in him to the very handle. He weakened, whimpered, and fell, muttering half a prayer to the sky before disappearing into the golden grass.

"Five."

"I'nt like this, Todd. I'm scared."

"He won't hurt you. He can't even hold his bow. Look."

The last of the six warriors staggered, stumbled over a fallen brother, got back up again and hollered in apparent grief, no longer trying to hide. He stood, tossed his bow away with a shaking hand and raised his palms to the sky. He cried out, surrender it sounded like, but got no response. Only wind. Then, like a sprouting tree, Crowfeather rose silently from the grasses behind him, clutching a knife. Both Maggie and Todd stared unblinking, mouths agape. Neither spoke. They could barely even shudder.

Crowfeather grabbed the man hard, pressed the blade to his throat, and yanked him backward, holding him fast against his own body. The man squawked out some plea for his life, half of one anyway, but Crowfeather shushed him and he fell silent immediately. Crowfeather muttered something into his ear, something cold and terrifying. The warrior moaned, helpless, gasping as though each breath would be his last. Maggie shut her eyes, expecting death. Death did not come, no sound of it anyway. Only a whimper, a restrained cry from the last remaining warrior. When maggie opened her eyes again, she saw his hair had turned white with fear. Tears flowed from his eyes.

Crowfeather spoke again, undiscerned by the children, and released the man. He tripped over another body, got up and ran, screaming like a terrified child, a fleeing animal. He ran until he disappeared from sight. Crowfeather sheathed his knife and watched him go, silent, unangry, unshaken. The wind whipped his hair. The sun shimmered on his face. Suddenly a breath of breeze caught his locks in a certain flutter and Maggie and Todd saw the cover of the book pass by like a fleeting snapshot in time, as he stared off into the distance at some unseen foe. Then he crouched, and moved off into the plains without a sound.

"He let one go," Maggie said, her voice trembling with fear and awe. "Why'nt he kill'd all 'em?"

"There has to be one survivor, to tell the tale, or there is no legend."

"Wha'd he say to that last man?"

Todd stared with blank eyes, off into the field, and then closed his eyes, remembering.

"I am Crowfeather. I move unseen, like the wind. You shall live today, but if you return, any of you, you will lie dead like these, food for crows."

Maggie shivered.

"How'd you know that, Todd, what he said?"

He held the book out toward her once again, laying it on the earth before her, tapping twice on the cover.

"It's in the book."

Maggie looked down at it, and finally understood that they were in a story.

When she looked up again, she saw drooping powerlines, and an airplane humming slowly across the sky. They were home again.

Todd moved to get up, but his shirt was stuck fast to the ground by an arrow. He grinned at her. Maggie sat up and wiggled it free, releasing him, and together they left the park.

Hands

If I'd known it was the last time I was ever gonna see her alive, I probably would have fought a lot harder to stay awake. I tried my best, resting my chin on my forearm and just staring at her as the IV drip, drip, dripped beside me. She was my mom and she was sick. She was already sleeping. Her face looked pale and bony and her eyes were sunken, as though she were already practicing being a skeleton. I held her hand. It was cold.

"I want you to take your sister for ice cream tomorrow, okay?" she told me before she fell asleep. "She's little, and she doesn't understand what's going on. Get some money from Baxter and take her for ice cream."

"I will, mom."

"Are you okay? You look upset. Don't look so sad, Ollie. I'm not going anywhere."

"You don't look like yourself."

"No?" and she tried to smile.

"Mrs. Wimmer says you gotta come to my school. She wants to talk to you about my report card. All the other's kids' parents went already."

"I like Mrs. Wimmer. Do you? She's nice."

I didn't answer. I hated it when she talked with her eyes closed. I hated how she trailed off.

"Ollie?" mom said, still not opening her eyes. Her voice was a fading whisper.

"What, mom?"

"I want you to be brave. I want you to be strong. Take care of Sissie."

"I'll take her for ice cream tomorrow." She was talking about forever though. I thought she was talking about tomorrow. She went to sleep and didn't wake up again. I just sat there, trying to stay awake. Trying to be with her, holding her hand, and giving her little kisses.

I fell asleep though, and I didn't hear the machine start to beep when her heart stopped. I think, maybe if I'd heard it, I could have called the nurse or something and they could have saved her. But I fell asleep.

*

Baxter Douglas was some kind of trucker I think. We don't even know what he was when mom met him. He was just all of the sudden there, on our couch everyday, flipping the channel from the show we were watching without even asking. After mom died, he was still there, on our couch every day, and mom's life insurance was sitting in brown bottle on his stomach, being slowly sipped away.

Thing's went crazy very quickly after mom was gone. Sissie and I soon discovered that the whole nice guy thing had been all an act. Now we were walking around like little robots, not looking up above his waist, always doing what we were told, keeping quiet, and hiding in our rooms. The years passed and nothing changed. We just became more afraid, because after a while being good wasn't enough any more.

I was sitting in my room doing my homework and Sissie was lying on the floor colouring with crayons she brought home from school. She was quietly humming to herself and I was trying my best to concentrate on my math, but we could hear the stomping. Sissie kept looking up at the door and her humming got a little louder. She kept swallowing nervously, and blowing out long sighs that had a little too much shake in them.

Stomp, stomp, stomp, back and forth across the kitchen and living room. He was looking for something. Something we'd missed. I tried my best to get as much homework as I could done before the door burst open. Sissie got up off the floor and lay on my bed. The stomping vibrated in the floor. I lifted my foot up onto the bed as well. Sissie's humming got louder.

"Shhh," I said.

"I did everything I was supposed to, Ollie. Honest."

"It doesn't matter."

Her sigh turned to a whimper as the footsteps came down the hall. Stomp, stomp, stomp, faster now, with a purpose.

The door burst open upon our little performance of two normal kids quietly minding their own business. We both looked up, putting on the proper scared face. Not scared, but sort of concerned about what might be troubling him.

"Where's the god damn bottle opener?"

"The... the-"

So it was about the bottle open this time. Okay. This was a new one.

I looked at Sissie. She looked at me and shook her head.

"I put it in the drawer when I put the dishes away."

I got up, to go past him, to show him that it was in the same place it always is. He shoved me. I stumbled forward and fell to my knees, burning them on the hallway carpet as I skidded to a stop.

"Get up! Find it!"

He stomped along behind me down the hall. I moved fast, expecting a kick. The bottle opener was in the drawer, right where I put it, right where it always was.

"Here! Here it is."

He snatched it from my hand and smacked me hard across the side of the head. A bright flash zipped through my head and I saw stars, the side of my face got hot. My ear rang for a moment and I was dizzy.

"From now on I want this thing on top of the TV. Nowhere else. I don't want to have to look for it. Do you understand me?"

I nodded, still dizzy. He smacked me hard again, the other way. I think I cried out a bit, but I can't remember.

"I said, do you understand me!?"

"I do. I do. Yes! I do."

He raised his hand again and I flinched, but he was only putting the bottle opener in his pocket.

"Yes, yes! I do. I do," he mocked me in a whiny little voice that sounded nothing like me. "You do what?"

"I understand you."

He smacked me under the chin, knocking my teeth together and forcing my head up. I'd forgotten to grit my teeth. I usually never forget that.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

I didn't want to look at him. I would have rather pulled out my own eyes. I looked up into his face though and waited for him to continue, trying my best to keep the scared/concerned look on my own face, and nothing else.

"You understand what?"

"I- The bottle opener, goes on the TV."

Yes, that was it. That was the big issue today. Okay. I got it. Are we done now? Can I go?

He studied me for a moment, sneering at me like I was a criminal he was forced to guard.

Scared/concerned. Scared/concerned.

"You think I'm a prick, don't you?"

Oh no. The trap! There was no right way to answer that question.

"No." I said, taking the obvious path.

"No? You're a fucking liar!"

There was no right answer. All there was was a big boom, and I found myself on the floor, waiting for my vision to turn back on. I could feel the cold linoleum, but I couldn't see for a moment. Everything was just a dark blur.

"After all I do for you, you can't even be honest with me! Admit it! You think I'm a prick!"

Another boom, this time in the side of the stomach, with a foot. I slammed against the stove.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

He was worse than a prick. He was a devil in human flesh, but I would never say so.

"Get out of here, you little cocksucker! Go on!"

I scrambled to my feet and was back at my bedroom door before the echo of his yell had even faded. He was coming after me though, running. What had I done? He'd told me to leave, didn't he?

He caught up to me in my door way and kicked me in the back. I slammed into the dresser and the whole thing fell forward, almost crushing Sissie. She screamed. He grabbed me up off the floor and threw me right over the dresser onto my bed. The bed broke and hit the floor with a crash that shook the house, and then he flipped the dresser back up against the wall. The drawers were all over the floor and my clothes were everywhere. He stomped right through the bottom of one of them as he came forward again. Sissie covered her face and I had just a moment to glance over at her before I was yanked up off the bed. My shirt ripped, but held on enough for me to be pulled eyeball-to-eyeball with him.

"If you ever look at me that way again, I'll fucking kill you! Do you understand me?"

What look!? I was looking at the floor the whole time!

I nodded, feeling like this was the end of everything. I would finally be killed. I didn't want to die.

"Don't you ever look at me that way again!"

He threw me back down onto the mattress and the headboard tipped forward, knocking me in the head.

"I understand. I understand."

I didn't though. I hadn't looked at him at all.

He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Christie, I want you in bed in five minutes or you're gonna get it too."

"Yes," her little voice croaked.

I sat there holding my head, holding my side, squeezing my eyes shut and just breathing, deep and hard, trying to force my nerves to calm. I was shaking and I couldn't stop myself. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. The Devil hates wimps.

"Come on, Ollie. Let's clean this up, okay? Please?"

Sissie was allowed to cry. She was a girl. Her voice was a terrified whisper; her sentences were punctuated by tortured squeaks, like a frightened dog.

"Come on, Ollie, in case he comes back again. Please!"

I got up and began cleaning. I put the clothes back in their drawers, folding them all, and sorting them neatly. Then Sissie helped me slide them back into the dresser.

"The bottle opener goes on the TV from now on. Don't forget."

"Okay, Ollie. I won't."

We had gotten the dresser put back together and had begun fixing the bed again when the stomps returned, thumping down the hallway. Sissie jumped when the door burst open, quickly wiping away her tears.

"What the hell are you doing, girl!?"

"I had to help Ollie fix his bed. He can't do it by himself."

"I didn't ask you to help him fix his bed!" (slap!) "I told you to get in your own room!" (smack!) "Now!"

She was already crying, and her little body was being knocked back and forth like a doll. I watched, still trying to socket the frame of my bed back into the headboard.

"Ollie needs help! His bed is broken!"

She didn't want to leave me. That was the real reason she was still here. I've fixed this bed by myself dozens of times. I could do it in the dark, and she knew it. She didn't want to leave me. She was scared. She was just a little girl.

I saw him raise a fist above her and I screamed.

"Fuckin' PRICK!"

He actually jumped a bit, like a gun had gone off behind him. But then his eyes flared over at me, and he lunged at me instead, dropping her like a rag doll on the floor. The punches rained down on me like a storm, and then the choking until I kicked and struggled beneath him, desperate for air, and the cutting insults about me being useless, weak, no-good-for-nothing.

"What good do you serve in this world? Why are you even alive? Who would care if you died right now? I could kill you right now and no one would even care!"

Then more punches. Then slaps across the face. After a while I couldn't even tell one from another. It was just one solid wall of pain, but Sissie was okay. He would take it all out on me and leave her alone. Thank you, God.

*

I woke up in the dark, on my mattress. There was a tapping at my wall, a light gentle tapping. I tried to get up, but I hurt all over. All I could do was lay there, hardly breathing.

"Hold on!" I said, but the tapping continued.

I got myself up off the slanted mattress and finished fixing my bed, slowly, painfully, replacing the boards into the sockets in total darkness, and dropping the mattress back into the frame again. Then I lay down on it and squirmed up against the wall.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Ollie? Are you there?"

Her little voice was weak and cracking. She'd been crying.

"I'm here. Hold on."

I got the wood panelling of the bedroom wall moved aside and I found her little hand reaching out in the space between our rooms. She grabbed my hand and held it tightly.

"It's okay. Don't cry, Sissie. I'm here."

"Are you okay, Ollie?"

"I'm okay. Did he hurt you?"

"No. He just shoved me into my bedroom and slammed the door."

"What time is it?"

"I don't know."

Her hand was damp. Tears, I guess. How long had she been knocking? How long has she been crying alone in the dark, wondering if I was even alive?

"When can we go somewhere, Ollie? When can we just run away?"

"I've got $112 already, Sis. Maybe in a couple weeks we can do it. We only need $73 more dollars and we can get a bus to Calgary and go find dad."

"What if we can't find him?"

"Then at least we'll be far away from here."

"He'll come look for us. He said he would. He can't keep mom's money unless we're living here with him."

"I know, but Calgary is a big city. He'll never find us. Beside he'll look all over Winnipeg first."

"Do you think we'll find dad, Ollie?"

"He works at a bank. We can just go down there and ask for him. If he's not working there anymore we can ask them if they know where he is."

"What if we find him and he doesn't want us?"

"Then I'll just get a job somewhere. I'll take care of us."

She nodded. I couldn't see her but I knew she did. I felt it in her hand. Then she started crying again.

"Ollie, I miss momma."

"I miss her too. Don't worry. She's watching over us. She won't let us down."

"Can you do the prayer thing, Ollie?"

"I don't want to right now, Sis. Come on."

"Please, Ollie. It makes me feel better."

I sighed.

"Okay, fine."

"Thanks, Ollie."

I said the little incantation without much emotion. I'd said it hundreds of times and the words had lost all meaning for me. I wasn't eleven anymore. But Sissie still hung on to her beliefs, so I did it for her.

"Momma, up in heaven, watching over Sissie and me, please take care of us and keep us safe. Please ask God for extra strong angels to protect us. Make sure we have enough to eat and are safe and sound. Thank you, Momma. Love, Ollie and Sissie."

"You forgot the last part.”

I knew I had. I'd left it out on purpose. My aches and pains made it feel more like empty mockery, meaningless words. I didn't reply.

"Please, Ollie. That's the most important part."

I sighed again.

"... and please tell God to make the devil go away."

"Yeah. I hope he dies."

"Don't say that!" I said, though I agreed with her.

"Why not? It's true!"

"God doesn't like that kind of talk. He won't answer your prayers if you talk like that."

"Sorry." But she wasn't talking to me.

I guess she fell asleep after that. Her grip weakened and then faded away all together until I was just holding her limp hand.

"I love you, Sissie." I gave her hand a kiss. "Only $73 dollars more."

I couldn't sleep after that though. I was sore all over and had trouble breathing. Every time I inhaled my ribs hurt. I had a headache and my neck was sore. The rest of me was just sort of numb. I almost felt like I was floating above my bed, sort of twisted around at the waist.

Eventually I pushed Sissie's hand back into her room and slid her wood panelling shut, and then mine. I lay there thinking about everything that had happened, trying to figure out what I could have done to avoid it all. I couldn't think of anything though. We'd done everything right. We always did. Or maybe we didn't do anything right. Maybe we never did. Maybe it didn't make a difference either way. Maybe it would be better if we gave him excuses to freak out on us. At least then it wouldn't be so confusing, so unfair.

The hits always fell harder, and with less restraint though, when he had a reason to do it. That was not an option.

The last thing I remember before falling asleep that night is thinking that if I hadn't fallen asleep in the hospital room five years ago, none of this would have happened.

*

School was bad too, when I couldn't find a hiding place at lunch. I sometimes sat in a stairwell, doing my homework, or reading. I sometimes wandered out into the field and sat by the fence. They'd always find me though.

There was this guy Friesen and his friends. They used to strut around the school like they owned the place, like we had all come there that day for their benefit. They usually always found me, Friesen Alexander and his gang. Sometimes I think they actually looked for me. They caught up to me that day while I was on my way to the washroom. I felt myself pushed into the concrete wall and Friesen got up in my face about me walking down his hallway. It was the usual bullshit.

"Look at him. He's scared!" his friend Daryl said.

"Of course he's scared. He's not stupid. He knows when someone's tougher than him."

"Alright. I get it. You're the king of the fuckin' school. Can I go now?"

The truth was, I wasn't scared. I could mop the floor with this guy and every single one of his buddies. I knew I could.

"I don't think I like your attitude, Octopus boy!"

Octopus boy. Clever. Just because my name starts with O I guess.

"I don't really care if you like my attitude, Friesen. I just want to go read my book."

"What? This?" He yanked it out from under my arm. "Capturing the Rye?"

For Christ's sake, the kid couldn't even read.

He threw the book across the hallway. It banged off of a locker and hit the floor. I moved to go pick it up, but he slammed me back against the wall.

"I didn't say you could leave yet, punk."

I wanted to just loose it right then. I honestly wanted to give up and beat the little bastard into a bleeding, twitching pulp, but I held back, standing there, gnashing my teeth and staring up at the ceiling.

"What? Are you gonna cry, Oliver? Gonna cry for your mommy?"

"No. I was just trying to think of a reason not to kick your fucking ass, you and all your buddies here, right through that glass door over there."

"Excuse me?" he said, with phoney shock, and a how-dare-I chuckle.

"You heard me."

"So do it then, Octopus boy. Come on. Let's go. Right now."

I looked him in the eye and thought about what he'd look like, crying like a baby as I reduced his pretty little face to a sopping pulp. Then I thought about the meeting I'd had with the principle the last time I'd gotten in a fight. He called me into his office and he had a cop standing next to him. He told me he knew I had a history of violence and if I wasn't careful he'd make sure I wound up locked up in juvy.

I didn't have a history of violence. It just seemed that way because of all the times Sissie had gone to school with bruises all over her. I'd told her to tell them I did it if they asked. God only knows what would happen to us if the cops came asking the Devil if he'd done it. The one time I had threatened to go to the police he held me down and choked me until I blacked out, snarling at me that if he ever even so much as saw a cop at our house he wouldn't be taken alive, and he'd make sure we died with him. Suffice it to say we never even thought of asking for help, and lied our asses off to protect him.

It meant that the school saw me as a violent thug however, and didn't think too much of me. Teachers frowned at me as I walked by. Rumours flew. I wouldn't be there for long though. All I needed was $73.

This was part of the reason I protected Sissie from his onslaughts. If she showed up at school with bruises, I'd be blamed and things would get even worse at school. They'd find any excuse to haul me off to juvy and then who would take care of Sissie? Who's hand would she hold at night to help her fall asleep? Who would do the prayer thing for her?

It was also the reason I stood there and let Friesen punch me, right in the ribs where I was already sore.

"He's a coward," he said to his buddies. He hit me again. I gnashed my teeth and took it, with a grunt. I closed my eyes and pictured Sissie's little hand in mine in the darkness of the night. I pictured her reaching out and not finding me there, and I held my temper.

"It's no fun when someone hits back, is it, Octopus? I know you normally beat up helpless little girls, but we ain't no little girls."

A crowd was beginning to gather.

"I didn't do anything to you, Friesen. I just want to leave."

But he hit me again. This time right in the most tender spot on my side, right where the Devil had kicked me on the kitchen floor. I reacted without thinking, shoving him hard away from me. He hit the ground, knocking two of his buddies aside as he went, and slid a couple feet across the polished floor, coming to a stop with the squeak of his running shoe. That was the only sound in the entire hallway. All else was quiet.

"I just want to leave."

Friesen got up slowly, looked around at the crowd, flushed hot with embarrassment, and then lunged at me.

"No!"

The crowd gathered more quickly. Friesen and all four of his friends swarmed me, punching, shoving, kicking at me, and tearing at my clothes, yanking my hair and knocking me into the wall. I could have taken every one of them down, but I just covered my face, ducked, and let the beatings fall.

"Fuckin' kill him!"

"Get him!"

"He deserves it!"

People cheered them on, and I was curled up in a ball with all five of them kicking me and stomping on me.

"You boys there! What's going on!?" a teacher called out from down the hall.

The beating stopped all at once and they were suddenly just standing around talking to each other.

"Go on, get to your classes!"

"Fuckin' coward!" someone hissed at me, and then they were gone.

"He shoved me first! You all saw it right!?"

"Fuckin' rights, man!"

That's all I heard. I slowly got up again, and looked around for my book. Someone had kicked it all the way down the hall.

I sat in class later, aching, shivering, and exhausted inside and out. I just wanted to leave. I wanted to just take off out the door and get far away from school, from everything. I couldn't though. It would give the Devil a reason to beat on me even more. So I was stuck. I couldn't run away. I couldn't stay. I was a prisoner, tortured in an aching body with nothing to hope for but more beatings when I got home. I began to feel like everything would be better if I just died. Why couldn't I just die? It would be so simple. So final. This world didn't want me anyway. Nobody liked me. I should just die.

Sissie would have no hand to hold though.

*

I woke with a start on the last day of that ugly miserable life. He kicked the door in and threw me out of bed.

"Get out there and get your newspapers delivered, boy!"

I barely even had time to give my head a shake and I was already getting dressed.

"If you see your sister, tell her to get her ass home and make her bed."

Then he was gone.

I made Sissie's bed for her and hurried out to find she had already begun my route. She was pulling the wagon down the sidewalk with all her strength and dropping folded papers into mailboxes. She'd already done an entire block.

"What are you doing, Sissie? You trying to kill yourself!?"

"I know all your houses, Ollie. I do this with you every day."

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I just wanted to try it on my own."

"Did you get every single house?"

"Yup. Both sides of the street too. I already done that side."

I looked at her, puzzled, and then smiled.

"That freakin' wagon weighs more than you do," I said.

"It's lighter now."

She was a tough little kid. Just like me.

We delivered the papers and had a nice little talk about what Calgary would be like. We of course took our time heading home again when we were done, and it was almost 11:00 by the time we got there.

Baxter was sitting on the couch watching TV. We went to go straight to my room but he stopped us.

"Take your sister out for some ice cream. There's $4 on the counter."

We looked at each other, stunned. Every once in a while, he was almost human, for no apparent reason. We could never figure it out, but we didn't complain. $4 was $4.

We walked down to the ice cream store and sat on the bench watching the other kids eat their cones. Sissie didn't say much, but I could tell she really wanted some ice cream. She liked strawberry. It reminded her of mom. She looked up at me with pleading in her eyes, but I smiled and shook my head.

"Only $69 more dollars to go."

She smiled back and reached out to hold my hand.

*

The Devil was sitting on the couch when we got back, and he had a jar with $112 in it. Sissie's grip tightened on my hand. I went white as a sheet and almost felt like I would die right there.

"Would you mind explaining this to me, Oliver?" The volcano of rage inside him was hidden behind a calm-sounding voice.

I didn't answer. It was all over. We wouldn't be going to Calgary after all. Everything we'd hoped for the past 18 months suddenly vanished.

"I let you take that paper route so you could contribute to this family, and now I find out you've been stealing from me?"

"I didn't steal anything. Those are tips I got. I was gonna buy Sissie something for her birthday."

He calmly rotated the lid off the jar, spilled the money into his lap and suddenly the vessel of our hope was a weapon in his hand.

"I got a phone call from a Mr. Worthing or something. He says he never got his paper this morning, and he was mad, he says, cause he always gives you kids a tip. Always. Didn't I give you specific instructions that every penny you earn is to be given to me for the family?"

I looked over at the empty beer bottles on the end table beside him, and then I quickly looked away. He saw my eyes move there though and suddenly the jar was sailing at my head. I ducked, covering Sissie, expecting it, and the glass exploded against the wall behind our heads.

"I don't ask for much. All I expect is for you two to fucking LISTEN!"

He got up and stomped forward as he said this. We braced ourselves. A kick hit me, knocking both of us against the wall and down onto the shattered glass. I got some in my hand, but that was it. Sissie didn't get cut at all. We sat there, cowering, covering our heads, waiting for the next blow. Sissie was sobbing already. No more Calgary. No more escape.

No more blows fell though.

"I'm going shopping. Your rooms better be cleaned up when I get back or you're both dead. I am not kidding in the slightest."

We got up and ran.

"And clean up this glass, every single last tiny piece!"

Both our rooms were completely ransacked. Every drawer was emptied, every box was over turned. The closets were open and our clothes were ripped down. The mattresses were even sliced open and their stuffing was thrown everywhere. The only thing that was in any sort of order was the wood panelling in the corner of the rooms by our beds. That's where the jar had been hidden. It was now nailed shut on both sides.

Sissie bawled as hard as I'd ever seen her cry, even harder than when our mom had died. She'd only been four years old back then, and she didn't understand what was going on. She was nine now, and she went through her room trying to put everything back the way it was but not even knowing where to begin. Her teddy bears were ripped open and her picture of our mom was torn from its frame. I stood in her doorway, watching. Numbed by the chaos, spinning inside my head like a ship in a storm. I found myself whimpering and moaning and I couldn't stop myself. I was growling strangely too. I didn't know why. It was scaring Sissie.

"Go clean your room. Please. He'll kill you."

She honestly believed it, and so did I.

"It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters."

I turned and walked out of the house. She came running after me, still crying, calling out my name. I ignored her and kept on walking. I went across the empty field by our house, and kept going. I didn't even know where I was going. I was just going. Sissie caught up with me, demanding to know where I was going, pleading with me to come back and clean.

"It doesn't matter, Sissie! Don't you get it? Haven't you figured that out? No matter what we do, it's always the same. And now we don't even have the money anymore. We might as well just let him kill us. At least he'll wind up in jail, or dead too."

"I don't wanna die!"

"We're already dead Sissie. Haven't you figured that out? Being alive means you have a life. It means you're happy. It means you have hope and peace, and a good place to live. We're not even alive. We're dead already. Our bodies just haven't figured that out yet."

Sissie didn't understand. She looked down at her hands. I walked over to a tree and sat down, put my forehead on my forearms crossed over my knees and just shut my eyes for the longest time.

"Let's just run away, Ollie. We don't need any money. We can-"

"What are we gonna do? Sleep under a bridge? If the police found us we'd be split up. I'd go to some youth centre and you'd be sent to some foster home. There's nothing we can do. We're just punching bags. That's all we'll ever be."

"Ollie, let's pray then. God can help us."

"Sissie, there is no fucking God. We've been praying for years. If there was a God, he would have killed that Devil a long time ago."

"Don't say that! If you say that, he won't answer our prayers!"

"He's not gonna answer our prayers anyway! He doesn't care. He does not fucking care!"

I said this up at the sky, and I honestly believed it.

Sissie walked over to me and sat down. She didn't know what else to do. Her world had suddenly become smaller, colder, deader, more hopeless. She shut her eyes and hugged by arm.

"What are we gonna do?"

I didn't answer. I didn't know.

We stayed out there all day, in that little copse of trees by the field near our house. We just sat there, not talking, not going anywhere, thinking. Sissie fell asleep for a while, and I let her lie across my lap. I thought all day long about what we were gonna do until the thought of going home was even scarier than staying out there in the woods all night. When we got home he would murder us both, or at least make us wish we were dead. So we just stayed out in the empty field.

We got hungry though. I hadn't eaten all day, and neither had Sissie. I began to think about sneaking back home and stealing some food for us. He would be out, drinking away our $112 dollars, or maybe even out looking for us. I could just sneak in, grab some food, and maybe even some clothes. Then maybe we could hitchhike to Calgary. Or just freakin' walk there.

We had to get some food though, first of all. I couldn't let Sissie go hungry.

It began to rain too and that settled it. The April sky darkened the already fading daylight even more, and it was almost like night already — dark enough for me to sneak in and out again.

"I'm gonna try to sneak back to the house, just to see if he's there. If he's not, I'm gonna try and get some food for us. Wait by this tree and don't go anywhere."

"What if he catches you? What if he kills you?" She was panicked at the thought of it. There was a distant flash of lightning in the sky, and a low rumble of thunder.

"I have to get your rain coat too. You can't stay out here in the rain in a T-shirt. Just stay here. Don't come home unless I say so."

She grabbed my hand and held it tight. She looked like she'd grown a few years older, just from the fear in her eyes. She hardly even looked like herself. It was almost dark now, and the flashes of lightning in the sky were making her skin look pale and her eyes look sunken, as though she were already practicing being a skeleton.

"Don't look so scared, Sissie. I'm not going anywhere."

I turned and headed back for our street. The last thing I heard from her was prayer in a tiny voice.

"Please, God. Take care of Ollie... make the devil go away. Please, God. Take care of Ollie... make the Devil go away."

*

I didn't even make it to our house. He was out looking for us, pacing up and down the street in the pouring rain like a hungry beast. I waited for him to head the other way up the street and tried to run for the house. He spotted me though.

"Oliver!"

I stopped on the spot. Everything inside me wanted to run for it, but all courage left me all at once. There was nowhere to run to. My last thought was that I should just let him kill me there in the street, right in front of everyone. He came toward me, crossing the street, his hands clenched in wrathful fists; he was almost frothing at the mouth, soaking wet and seething with rage.

I stood there, expecting to die in the next few moments, but not even really caring. Maybe this was how God would take care of us, up in heaven with mom.

The truck hit him like a great fist, smacking him like a rag doll about thirty feet. I watched him fly through the air, the great terror that had had me fearing for my very life all these years. He seemed so small and frail, just a normal man, less than a man even, whose only real power was that he was bigger than me. He hit a parked car, folded in half at the waist, and rolled over onto the ground, not moving. The truck swerved. Its drunk driver looked back to see what he'd hit, hoping perhaps that it was only a dog or something. His wheels jumped the curb and stopped hard against a light post. I think a lot of people would have come running at the sound of the crash except that nobody heard it. There was a boom of thunder from the sky right when it hit. He hadn't even slammed on his brakes.

I stood there in a daze. Rain fell on the scene. Nothing else moved. The truck's left turn signal light had come on in the crash and was blinking in the darkness, casting an orange glow, off and on, over the wet pavement. Its engine idled quietly, but the driver was apparently unconscious. Then another flash of lightning lit up the street like daylight for a moment, and I saw the Devil laying there against the tire of the car he'd hit. I saw his arm move a bit.

I walked up to him slowly, stopping first to look around for any other people who might be around. There was nobody. No cars, no pedestrians. I walked up and stood over him, looking down. His eyes were open. He was looking at me. He was still breathing. Thunder crackled above, long and loud like a drum roll. He opened his mouth and spoke.

"Go on. Call an ambulance, boy. Quick. I'm hurt bad."

I could smell the booze on his breath, strong and thick, even in the pouring rain. I noticed that the light from the truck's turn signal was reflecting in his face too. On. Off. On. Off. He looked up at me and I saw a hint of anger in his eyes that I hadn't turned and ran the moment he spoke. Then there was another flash of lightning and I saw a mess of gore on the side of his chest. One of his ribs was poking out of his skin, a jagged white shard surrounded by red. Blood was pouring out of him and into him at the same time, slowly filling his lungs. Then it was dark again, and all I could see was the signal light from the truck lighting his face.

"Go on, boy. I'm gonna die if I don't get help. Hurry!"

Still I didn't move. I just stared down at him. He got angry again and actually tried to get up. He groaned in agony, but I think he might have actually gotten up, maybe even limped over to the nearest house and gotten some help.

"No," I said, and pushed him back down with my foot on his shoulder. His head hit the pavement with a dull thud. The thud was answered by thunder, thunder so loud and so near that he flinched a bit.

"What are you doing? Go get help! I'm gonna die."

"I hope God has a special place in hell for you then."

"I'll kill you, boy. I'll fucking kill you, I swear!" He spoke with his eyes closed and his voice trailed off. I rejoiced inside.

He tried to get up again, but I pushed him back down, this time with my fingertips on his forehead.

"Tell me something. What good do you serve in this world? Why are you even alive? Who would care if you died right now?"

He whimpered.

"Please… Please get help."

He never said sorry though. He never said sorry for nearly destroying our lives, our minds, our souls, Sissie and I. He never asked for forgiveness, and when he died a few minutes later, drowning in his own blood, I'm sure he went straight down to hell, falling into the darkness below as though the ground beneath him had disappeared. His breathing stopped, his hand dropped off of his hip and that was the last of him.

I turned and walked away. I went to get Sissie who was still by herself out in the thunderstorm by the tree. She ran to me when she saw me coming and I hugged her.

"Was he home? Did you get any food?"

"He's gone, Sissie. The Devil's gone."

She looked at me, confused.

"Where, Ollie?"

"Wherever dead people go when they die. Not to heaven though. Not him."

"What happened?"

"A truck hit him. He was crossing the street to come get me and a truck hit him, smacked him right over three cars. He's dead now. We better go."

"He's dead?"

I could hardly believe it myself, and I'd seen it with my own eyes. I took her hand and we headed for home.

We saw the scene as we went by again. An ambulance was pulling up. A guy in a housecoat was talking on a cell phone, pointing up the street as though the person on the phone could see him. A few more people were standing around with their hands on their mouths. Lights were coming on; people were coming out of their houses. The truck that had hit him was gone.

Then Sissie saw him. He was being lifted onto a stretcher. He slipped a bit and sagged downward, limp and lifeless. They got him into the ambulance, but didn't drive away. A police car arrived and they talked to the paramedics. Sissie and I didn't even stop; we just kept on walking, crossed the street and went into our house.

It was dark. We went to our rooms and quietly started cleaning, as though he might come home at any minute and raise hell about the mess he himself had made.

We were still cleaning half and hour later when the police came to our door.

"There was an accident out in the street about a block up. We just wanted to know if you kids saw anything."

"No. We were just cleaning our bedrooms. What happened?"

"A man was killed in a hit and run, a man named Baxter Douglas. We can't seem to find any next of kin for him. Do you kids know him? Is he from the neighbourhood?"

"No. Our mom's gonna be home in a while. Maybe she knows."

The Devil had made me a great liar. The police officer gave him his card and asked me to tell my mom to call him if she knew anything about the guy. Then he left.

Our rooms were put back in pretty decent order and we got into our beds. The wood panelling was nailed shut though, so I called Sissie to my room and she snuggled up with me in my bed, holding my hand.

We slept in restless peace for the rest of our lives.