The Loveliest Dead

by Ray Garton

  “Fine.”

  “Really? Just fine? It’s not fantastic, or wonderful?”

  “It’s fine. Really.” He smiled at her briefly before turning back to the monitor.

  “Are you making friends? I mean, besides Todd Haney?”

  “Todd’s okay. He’s kinda weird.”

  Jenna reached out and turned his chair so he was facing her. “Hey, I want to talk about your nightmare. I don’t like it that you’re having trouble sleeping.”

  “I’m only having trouble sleeping in my bedroom in the dark,” he said, as if it were all quite simple.

  “Tell me about this nightmare.”

  Miles looked into her eyes a moment, then cocked his head—he seemed to come to some decision. “I see a big fat man coming up through the floor of my bedroom with some kinda hat on his head.”

  “And what does this man do?”

  “He just talks to me.”

  “What does he say?”

  Miles lowered his voice to a growl. “ ‘You gonna be a good puppy? Be a good puppy and come on over here.’ Stuff like that.”

  Jenna’s stomach did a fast-elevator flip when she heard the malice in Miles’s impersonation. “What does he look like?”

  “I can’t get a good look at him because he never finishes coming up out of the floor. As soon as I turn on the light, he disappears. He doesn’t like the light.”

  “Ah. So that’s why you want the overhead light on.”

  Miles nodded.

  “Well, if you haven’t gotten a good look at him, how do you know it’s a fat man?”

  Miles frowned. “ ‘Cause that’s what he is. I can tell.”

  “Do you think he’s going to hurt you?”

  “I know he will, if he ever gets to me. I can tell by the way he talks to me that he wants to do bad things to me.”

  “How tall is this man?”

  “I don’t know, because he never comes all the way up.”

  “How high does he get?”

  “I don’t know, maybe ... this high?” he said uncertainly as he held his hand out approximately forty inches off the floor.

  Jenna could not tell Miles that she had been trying to communicate with Josh, or that she was certain Josh had been trying to communicate with her. She found it all very confusing, and she was a grown woman—how would a ten-year-old boy take it? But she wondered if Josh was trying to get through to Miles as well? She remembered the message from the Ouija board—HELP PUPPEEZ. The figure in Miles’s room kept calling him a puppy, and its height was about the same as the toddler she had been seeing. Could there be some connection? Could Miles be misinterpreting something from Josh?

  She said, “I bet if you look at it closer next time, you’ll see it’s not that at all. You’ll find that it’s something much more interesting. Maybe even something pleasant.”

  Miles returned her smile and nodded once, but he said nothing. An awkward silence fell between them. Jenna stood, bent down, and kissed him on the head.

  “If you promise not to abuse the privilege, you can go downstairs and turn on the television if it helps you to sleep,” she said. “But you have to try to sleep in your bed every night, okay? And this only lasts as long as you keep having this nightmare. Is that a deal? You won’t milk this like a monkey with a coconut, will you?”

  Miles laughed, then shook his head. “No, I won’t. Thanks, Mom.”

  “I’ll put a blanket and pillow down there for you. And promise me you’ll look closer next time, just to make sure, all right?”

  “I promise. I don’t want to, but I will. For you.”

  She hugged him, kissed his cheek, then started out of the room. She stopped in the doorway, turned to him. “Is anything else bothering you, honey? Anything at all?”

  “No.”

  “You’d tell me if there was, wouldn’t you?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  “Okay. Go ahead and play a little longer. Then it’s bedtime.”

  Downstairs, Jenna sat on the couch with Martha and watched television for a while. Fortunately, Martha had heard nothing earlier that day while Ada was there— apparently, she’d slept through the whole thing. Jenna was relieved that she did not have to explain herself to anyone.

  While they watched television, both David and Martha nodded off for a minute or so, then jerked awake, only to do it again.

  Am I the only person in this house who’s sleeping well? Jenna wondered.

  When they finally went to bed, David’s feet were dragging on the floor. He let his clothes drop where he stood. Jenna picked them up, took them to the bathroom, and put them in the hamper while he crawled into bed. By the time she joined him, David was already asleep. She turned out the lights, curled up beside him, and wondered what tomorrow would bring. The question did not keep her awake long.

  David was down in the kitchen by 12:49 A.M. He had awakened suddenly to the sound of the boys’ laughter outside in the backyard. After putting on his sweats and running shoes, he’d come down to the kitchen without turning on any lights. He stood at the back door, pulled the curtain aside with a finger, and looked out the window. He could see nothing in the dark.

  The gentle patter of rain falling outside was occasionally interrupted by the shriek of the swing’s rusted chains and the boys’ playful laughter.

  They had to climb over the fence, he thought. It was the only remaining possibility.

  He unlocked the door, opened it, and went outside. He did not take the flashlight or turn on the porch light this time, because he was afraid that would scare them off. He went down the porch steps and out through the weeds. The rain was cold on his face and the back of his neck.

  “Boys?” he said. “Don’t run away. You’re not in any trouble.”

  He could see them, five dark figures standing close together in front of the swing set. One of the swings still wobbled and swayed on its chains. The boys did not move. Even after his eyes adjusted to the darkness, David could not see their faces, but he could feel them staring at him.

  “Where do you boys live?” he asked.

  They neither responded nor moved.

  “How did you get into the yard?”

  No reply, no movement.

  Then one of them whispered, “He’s coming.”

  “Go!”

  “Run!”

  “No,” David said, “don’t—”

  They were gone. They had not turned and run away. The boys simply were no longer there. They had disappeared without making a sound.

  David’s mouth dropped open and he uttered a quiet sound of shock. He looked all around the yard. The boys were gone.

  There was a sound behind him—the unmistakable chitch of a canned carbonated beverage being popped open. David spun around, mouth still hanging open.

  The fat man in the cowboy hat and denim vest and dirty T-shirt stood on the back porch, one shoulder leaning against the wall. “Fuckin’ puppies,” he said.

  “Who are you?” David said, moving quickly toward the porch. The back door stood open right behind the man, and David did not want him going into the house.

  The fat man tipped the beer to his mouth and took a few gulps. He sighed and wiped his mouth with the back of his left hand. He pushed away from the wall and shifted his bulk upright. “Let’s go down to the basement.”

  “What?” David said with disbelief as the man came down the steps. David stepped out of his way, but the man stepped aside with him, then into him.

  The taste of beer filled David’s mouth. He smacked his lips a few times. Not just any beer, but Michelob, even though it was unlikely that David would know that—he drank beer so seldom that most of it tasted the same to him.

  Most American pilsners taste pretty much the same, but Michelob has a creaminess the others don’t.

  It was a thought in David’s mind, but it was not his, and he had not thought it—it had been spoken in a mental voice that was foreign to David’s mind. Nor was it under his direction that hi
s legs took him up the concrete steps and into the kitchen, where his right hand picked up the Mag-Lite without any help from David while his left closed the back door.

  Let’s go down to the basement, the fat man said again, but this time the voice came from within David. I’ll show you what to do with them fuckin’ puppies.

  The flashlight came on as David started down the narrow staircase to the basement. But the deeper he went, the weaker the Mag-Lite’s beam seemed to become.

  I’m dreaming again, David thought before he was swallowed up by the darkness.

  Miles woke at 3:41 A.M. and sat up in bed. Rain pattered against the windowpanes and branches clawed at the house. His bedroom was dark—too dark. Someone had turned off the desk lamp. But there was something else. Miles did not feel alone in the room. He wondered if the voice had awakened him. He slipped his hand beneath his pillow and closed it on the penlight he kept there.

  “You gonna be a good puppy?”

  Miles’s body froze while his bones seemed to melt with terror deep inside him. It was a low, throaty, gravelly whisper, but it was not the same voice he’d heard on previous nights—there was something different about it, and at the same time, something familiar.

  Miles told himself not to scream, not this time—he didn’t want to wake his parents and hear his mother talk about horror movies and his dad about nightmares. He realized why it seemed so dark in the room—the door was closed, keeping out the glow of the night-light in the hall. Who would turn off his desk lamp and close the door of his bedroom?

  “Be a good puppy and come on over here, now.”

  Miles brought the small flashlight out from under the pillow and turned it on. As he bounded from the bed and ran for the door, for the light switch on the wall beside it, the flashlight’s beam fell on a figure hunkered in front of the shelves, forearms resting on bent knees with hands dangling in between, watching Miles with its head down. But it wasn’t the fat man.

  “You gonna be a good puppy?”

  The figure wore a familiar green sweatshirt and familiar blue sweatpants.

  Miles fumbled with the switch, flipped it up, and filled the room with light. He opened the door and spun around. He dropped the flashlight when he saw his dad.

  For a second, maybe two, there was something other than Dad squatting there in front of the shelves. Dad’s head was craned forward and his lower jaw jutted. His hair was wet and wildly mussed. His brow was gathered into an intense frown, but at the same time, the left half of his mouth was turned up in a malicious grin while the other half curled downward. It was an expression Miles had never before seen on his dad’s face, and Dad’s eyes were narrowed in a way that was unlike him. Miles knew, in that brief moment, that something else was looking out of his dad at him. He knew it wasn’t Dad watching him with that leering grin.

  Then the moment passed and Dad fell on his side like a marionette whose strings had been cut. He got up slowly, looked around with half-closed eyes and a slack jaw. As he rose cautiously to his feet, he said, “Miles?”

  Miles said, “Dad?”

  He looked around again, as if to double-check his location, then frowned down at Miles. “Did I... come in here?” he said groggily. He looked as if he felt sick.

  Miles nodded. “You woke me. You were saying what that man usually says.”

  “What man?” This seemed to startle Dad a little, in a groggy sort of way.

  “The man who comes up through my floor.”

  Dad rubbed his fingertips in slow circles over his temples, eyes closed. He swayed groggily. “And what was I saying that... he usually says?”

  “ ‘You gonna be a good puppy? Come on over here and be a good puppy.’ Stuff like that.”

  “Puppies,” Dad muttered, his voice thick. He looked away for a moment. “Fuckin’ puppies.”

  Miles could not believe what he thought he’d heard, but he said nothing about it. He sensed that this was one of those times when it was best to say nothing, or as little as possible.

  Dad walked over to the doorway and leaned on the doorjamb wearily. “Must’ve been walking in my sleep. Again. Sorry. Go back to bed. Do me a favor, will you? Keep this just between us, okay?”

  “Keep what between us?”

  “This. You know, this sleepwalking thing, me coming into your room like this. There’s no reason to tell your mom. She’ll just... worry.”

  Miles nodded. “Okay.”

  Dad hugged him, patted him on the back a couple times, and said, “Atta good puppy.”

  Miles’s back stiffened, and he would have taken a step backward if he weren’t momentarily paralyzed by that word—puppy. He stood frozen in place as Dad turned and shuffled away, then went out the door. Miles finally thawed enough to take a step forward, then another, until he was standing in the doorway.

  Miles watched his dad stagger down the hall to his bedroom. As soon as he closed the door, Miles picked up the little flashlight, turned it off, and put it back under his pillow. Then he turned his light off and went downstairs. He turned on the television, tuned it to The Cartoon Network, and stretched out on the sofa.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Wednesday, 4:02 A.M.

  While sleepily watching cartoons, Miles heard a noise from the kitchen, a sound like someone putting the teakettle down on one of the burners. He got up and left the living room, saw the light from the kitchen as he went through the dining room. He found Grandma in the breakfast nook with a cup of something hot and a paperback.

  As soon as she saw him, she got up and went down the hallway, and came back several seconds later. She carried her old cardboard checkerboard folded and tucked beneath her right arm. The checkers themselves were in a small net bag. She put the board on the table and took her seat, opened the net bag, and set up the game. Before they started to play, she got up and fixed Miles a cup of instant hot chocolate.

  While they played, they spoke in whispers. Miles told her what had happened upstairs earlier. He had promised Dad he wouldn’t tell Mom, but he’d said nothing about Grandma. He knew she would keep his secret, and that Mom would never find out. He waited for a response when he was done, but she said nothing.

  Miles took a full minute to decide whether or not to say what was on his mind. Grandma had always been very open-minded, but this called for a little something more than that. He wasn’t sure how she would react, but he needed to talk about it.

  “I think it was the fat man,” he said. “I think Dad sleepwalked into my bedroom and the fat man came up out of the floor and right into Dad. I think the fat man was inside him.”

  “That’s crazy talk, Miles,” Grandma said. She whispered the response flatly, with a finality that made it clear she wanted to hear no more.

  They said nothing for a while and concentrated on the game.

  Miles heard the distinct sound of kids laughing outside. He turned to the window and heard it again. His eyes brightened as he turned to Grandma.

  “Did you hear that?” he said. “There are kids playing outside.”

  “No, there aren’t.”

  “There, I heard them again!” He got on his knees on the bench and leaned toward the window.

  “Get back down here, Miles, right now,” Grandma said, her voice loud and firm.

  Miles immediately sat down again, surprised by her harsh tone.

  “It’s just the rain playing tricks on your ears,” she said. “There’s no kids out there. I don’t hear a thing. It’s your move.”

  He dropped the subject, but as they played, he continued to hear kids laughing outside. Miles decided his bedroom was not the only part of the house where something very strange was going on. He stopped playing after only a couple games, and returned to the couch. Grandma went back to reading her book.

  The living room was still warm and cozy from the fire Dad had built the night before. Miles was more comfortable there on the couch, in front of the television, where all he could hear were the cartoons.

  The electrici
an was a rugged-looking fellow named Walt, tall with close-cropped black hair streaked with gray, and wire-framed glasses, somewhere in his forties. Jenna took his wet jacket at the door. He wore a blue chambray shirt and faded blue jeans. He carried a black-and-silver metal toolbox in his left hand.

  “I’ll take a look around,” he said after Jenna explained the problem, “but this place was completely rewired about two, maybe three years ago. A friend of mine did the job, and he knows his stuff, so you can be sure he did the job right. That wasn’t very long ago.”

  “Just two years?”

  “Something like that. I bid on that job myself.”

  Then you met my father, Jenna thought. For just a moment, she was tempted to ask Walt about him, but decided there would be no point to it.

  Walt said, “I’ll take a look around for you, see what I can see.”

  While Walt was seeing what he could see, the doorbell rang and Jenna found Avril Lauter on the front porch. She was a stout young woman with short strawberry-blond hair. She wore a long green coat with a big red vinyl bag slung over her shoulder. Jenna invited her in, took her coat and umbrella, and hung them on the wall hooks by the door. Under the coat she wore a black-and-white sweater and gray jeans. Jenna led

  Avril into the living room and told her to take a seat on the couch. “Can I get you some coffee or anything?”

  “I can’t stay,” Avril said. “I’ve got class soon.”

  “Let me get my folder, and I’ll be right back.”

  Jenna hurried upstairs to the computer room and removed a thin brown leatherbound folder from a desk drawer. Before she got back to the living room, she heard Martha call “Jenna!” from the kitchen. She turned left at the bottom of the stairs, went down the hall, and entered the kitchen through the back door. Martha was standing in the middle of the kitchen in her robe and slippers, just out of the shower, hair wet, staring at the laundry room.

  “What?”Jenna said.

  Martha squinted because she wasn’t wearing her glasses. “Who’s knocking around in the basement?”

  “The electrician came while you were in the shower.”