by Ike Hamill
“This is my brother, Don,” Chelsea said as Don walked up.
“Hey,” David said.
“Did she ask you about my dog?” Don said.
“Yeah. I don’t know about your dog. I mean, I’ve seen him, but I don’t know where he’s at right now.”
“Where did you see him?”
“A dream,” David said.
“Oh, come on,” Don said. “We drove all this way to hear about some kid’s dream?”
“Wait,” Chelsea said, “tell him what else you dreamed about.”
“I dreamed about you and the woman—the witch—I won’t say her name. She was taking your blood to give to her Master. Before you, she took the blood of your friend, until he… you know.”
“He knows about Kyle,” Chelsea said to Don. “That explains his anemia.”
“Nobody took me and Kyle’s blood,” Don said. He shook his head. “There wasn’t a mark on me. The doctors looked me all over to see if I was bleeding or had lyme disease or whatever. They told me so.”
“Just listen,” Chelsea said. “Tell my brother where she went.”
“When the cousins—Roland, Morris, and Merritt—decided to hunt her, she went north and west. She went over the jagged mountains in New Hampshire and into the hills of Vermont. I tried to trace her route from what I remember. I think she’s in a place called Ferbes,” David said.
“We can go look it up,” Chelsea said. “Maybe we can drive there.”
“And then what?” Don asked. “What if he’s right? There was some witch living in the woods behind our house and now she’s up in Vermont. Why would we want to track her down?”
“Because she might have Barney,” Chelsea said.
“Listen,” David said. He thumped his fist into his catcher’s mitt as he pushed the glove back onto his hand. With this one word, his demeanor changed. Don didn’t think of him as a little kid anymore. He seemed to be the one in control—the authority figure. “You don’t have to believe a word I say. You came to ask me what I know, and I’m telling you. I only got involved in the first place because I felt bad about your friend. You want to know about your dog? Go up to Ferbes in Vermont. She’s near a dairy farm that has an old windmill that’s about to fall down. It’s behind a school that has a baseball diamond and a soccer field. She likes to dig a hole and hide under big ledges of rock. If you find her, you’ll probably find the dog.”
David jogged off, leaving Don standing there and Chelsea clutching the fence.
# # # #
Chelsea didn’t say anything on the walk back to the car. She held the key ring around her finger. The keys jingled every time she flipped them.
Don opened his window and let the wind buffet his face as Chelsea accelerated. Maine looked different than New Hampshire to him. It had the same features—houses and parks; stop signs and trees—but it didn’t seem like home. He wondered if it was something subtle, like the different license plates or the different colors of the blades on the street signs. Whatever it was, it was pleasant, but it didn’t feel like home. College was the same way. When he was at college, Don felt like a mercenary. He felt like someone who held no regard for anyone or anything unless it pertained to the job he was sent to do. Maybe, he thought, that’s why he was so unhappy. His college life had no soul. He would rather throw it away and work in a coffee shop for the rest of his life than suffer through even one more semester.
“Fuh-ka-dupt,” Don said.
“What?” Chelsea asked.
“Nothing,” Don said.
“What? I can’t hear you with the window open.”
“Nothing,” Don shouted.
Chelsea used the controls on her side to put Don’s window up.
“Isn’t that something Kyle used to say?” she asked.
“Yeah, well, we both used to say it. His mom freaked out if we cussed.”
“You miss him?”
“Of course,” Don said. He rested his head against the window and watched the not-quite-familiar landscape roll by. Did he miss Kyle? When he was at school, he had barely thought about Kyle. They never talked on the phone or wrote to each other. It was only when Don came home that they even saw each other, and even that was infrequent. This last month was different though. Don didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about Kyle. He spent all his time trying to not think about the absence of Kyle. It was a lot more work.
“At least you got to hang out with him right before,” Chelsea said.
“He was different,” Don said.
“How?”
Don didn’t have an answer. When she asked the question, he realized that he’d been wrong—Kyle wasn’t different. Kyle was the same. When Kyle had called that Friday night before he died, he’d said, “I’m looking for monsters.” That was something Kyle could say, but Don never would. Don was too busy trying to prove to himself that he was an adult, and he wouldn’t indulge in even the notion that he believed in monsters. The realization settled over Don as his sister turned onto the main road, nearly cutting off a big yellow truck. Don realized that Kyle had felt free to act like a kid and experience the world instead of analyzing it.
“I’m looking for monsters,” Don whispered. The sentence gave him a chill.
“What monsters?” Chelsea asked.
“It’s something Kyle said a couple of nights before he died. The night he died he didn’t say much coherent at all. He was too fuh-ka-dupt.”
The idea of monsters stuck in Don’s head and he couldn’t figure out why.
“What are those flowers that mom used to grow? She put them on salads until we complained?” Don asked.
“Oh, yeah, the yellow and orange ones? They’re called nasturtiums, I think.”
“Yes, that’s it,” Don said. He remembered their sweet peppery smell.
“Why’d you think of that?”
“She was talking about them because…” Don said, but he couldn’t finish the sentence. Why had she talked about them? Something about monsters.
“Because?”
Light began to creep in from the edge of Don’s thoughts. Suddenly, areas of his brain became illuminated that he hadn’t even realized were dark. He sat up straighter in his seat.
“What?” Chelsea asked.
“Hush!” Don said. He let the memories come back.
“What’s wrong?” Chelsea asked.
“Nothing—nothing’s wrong. I remember now. Why didn’t I remember before?”
“What? Could you just tell me what you’re remembering?”
“The monster. There’s a monster out in the woods. It’s the thing that killed Kyle. He was looking for it. Actually, he got a video of it. He didn’t realize that it was luring him out to the woods every night. Somehow it makes you forget.”
“Forget what?”
“That’s what those guys were talking about—our neighbors. That’s what Davey was talking about, too. She’s a witch and she steals blood. Oh no—she has Barney,” Don said.
“Yeah, that’s what he said. Barney is with her.”
“But she has him. I mean he’s under her spell somehow. It’s like he’s hypnotized. Poor Barney. I have to help him.”
“Well let’s go then. How do we get to Vermont from here.”
“No, not you. Just me—I have to go alone.”
“No way,” Chelsea said. “You were alone before and you nearly died. What if she makes you forget again?”
“I don’t know, I’ll think of something. Just get us home.”
“You should really take me with you,” Chelsea said. “Haven’t I proven to you how conniving I can be.”
“You ought to be worried about where you’re going to put Dad’s keys when we get back,” Don said.
“Easy—the freezer,” she said.
“What?”
“Yeah, when we got home and I gave him the keys, he was getting frozen vegetables from the freezer. I’ll put them in there, he’ll find them and he’ll figure that he accidentally put them in there l
ast night,” Chelsea said.
“Remind me to never trust you again. You’re too good at this.”
“You have no idea,” Chelsea said.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Highway
THE KEYS WERE STILL chilly when Don took them from the hook. Chelsea’s plan had worked perfectly, it just took a long time. Wes didn’t open the freezer until he was putting away the leftovers. When he found the keys, he yelled so loud that Don heard it downstairs. Now, with everyone in bed, Don stole the SUV’s keys once more.
It’s not that he was scared of driving, Don was scared of how casual it seemed. Pulling out to the road and then turning on the headlights, Don hated how automatic the process was. He hated how his foot knew just how hard to press to accelerate and how his hand found the turn signal on its own. All these tiny little actions, taken independently by his limbs, moved this giant weapon onto the road with too much ease. At any second, he could be at the wheel of an instrument of death. It seemed barely in his control.
Don turned on the radio and tried to relax.
He needed gas before too long. That was the one thing he taught Chelsea about taking the car without permission—gas management. When they’d left the house, the needle was between one quarter and one half. She’d wanted to fill it up on the way, but Don had made her wait until they were almost out, and then he only let her put in half a tank. By stopping a couple times, and carefully managing how much gas they put in, the needle had been in the same exact spot when they left the car in the driveway that afternoon.
Now, with a drive that would take half the night, Don didn’t care. He was just going to fill it up all the way and if he was caught because of it, he would simply apologize. That was the difference between being sixteen and being twenty-two.
Don found the nearest gas station and set the tank to fill while he went inside for coffee. He came back with two large cups and set them in the holders. With the door open, the car chimed, urging Don to close the door and remember the key. Don’s mind wandered as he squeezed the handle and topped of the tank. His eyes wandered too—through the rear window. The screen was pulled over the cargo area. His father always joked about that retractable screen—“What they imagine might be back there has got to be more enticing than the crap we actually carry.” For that reason, his father always left the cargo area open to public scrutiny.
Back on the road, Don put his window halfway down and shouted the lyrics to songs he knew. He’d slept most of the day—in the car while Chelsea drove, and then burrowing under his covers when they’d gotten home—but he still felt tired. As soon as the coffee cooled enough, he drank it fast. The effects seemed to wear off almost between sips. Don stacked the cups as he finished the first. He took his time with the second cup. In that one, he had dumped four packs of sugar. Don opened a bag of chips so he could have something salty to counteract the sweet coffee.
Before long he didn’t have any trouble staying awake. His feet were bouncing on the floor mats and he wriggled in his seat. The only problem was that he had to pee. The coffee had gone right through him.
Don pulled off the highway onto the shoulder. He ran to the front corner of the SUV. He unzipped quickly and barely made it in time. A car passed. He watched the red lights fade and hoped they didn’t see him standing there. When the next car came, Don was just finishing. He turned and waited, letting it go by before he stepped near the road to get back to his door. As the headlights passed through his father’s SUV, Don’s held his breath. Something was climbing from the cargo area into the back seat. It moved with a silky-smooth ease, like a reptile slithering into the water.
Don looked for a weapon. He wondered if somehow the thing from the woods had come back and found its way into his father’s car. Maybe the boy—David—was wrong. Maybe the thing never really left.
He couldn’t find anything—not even a decent stick. The only sharp things around were the tiny pebbles of glass from some long-ago accident that glittered in the headlights. Don backed up. He could run. He considered it. The keys, his phone, even his wallet was in the car. Don decided to get a look at the thing first.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
David
“’LO?”
“SHE’S WAITING FOR him,” David whispered into the phone.
David heard a thick, stringy cough come from the other end. For a second, David wondered if he had dropped right into another nightmare—one where a man named Horace still drove along lonely stretches of roads, looking for hitchhikers. When he heard Morris’s voice, his fear evaporated.
“David, what time is it?”
“I don’t know,” David said. He did know—it was two in the morning—but he figured that if he pretended like he didn’t know, it might make his call seem less rude.
“Well, what do you want?”
“The witch, she’s waiting for that guy and he’s coming. She’s going to get him again.”
“You’re crazy, that bitch is long gone. Pardon my French.”
“He’s looking for his dog. He and his sister came to see me today at baseball camp. I told them where she is—she’s up in Vermont. Now he’s driving up there and she’s going to get him again. You have to help him. He’s still weak from last time.”
“David, listen—sometimes bad dreams are just dreams. I know a lot of people tell you that, but you might want to start paying attention. When you knew all about that monster, I understood. You shared a lineage. Turns out you were right about the witch, too—she got some of the same blood. But how would you know what this random young man is doing? I bet you’re just dreaming about him because you saw him today. Damn rude of him to come up there. I figured at most they would call and ask about the dog. Merritt shouldn’t have said what he did.”
“Can I talk now, Mr. Morris?” David asked.
“Yup.”
David kept his voice low. It seemed like his mom heard every word spoken in the house, and she was a light sleeper. “You just admitted it—I’m always right about this junk. That guy is going to be in big trouble if someone doesn’t help him. You have to try to help him.”
He heard nothing but silence from the other end of the phone.
“Mr. Morris?”
“Yup?”
“Can you help him?”
“What do you say?”
“Please?”
The call ended. David smiled and slipped the phone back into its charger.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Vermont
HE APPROACHED FROM THE passenger’s side, so he could run away without being flattened by a passing car. Don crept up, trying to keep his feet quiet on the sandy gravel. He blinked at the dark cabin of the SUV. The rear windows were tinted just enough to obscure the interior. Crouched behind the seat, he spotted the form of a young teenage girl.
Don whipped open the rear door.
“Chelsea, what the hell?”
“I told you I was coming with you.”
“Put on your seatbelt. I’m driving you home.”
“No, Don, I’m coming with you. Don’t make me tell Dad. He’ll report the car stolen and you won’t make it twenty minutes.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Don said. He walked around the front of the SUV and paused for another passing car. As soon as it went by, Don threw open the driver’s door and flopped down into the seat. Chelsea had closed the rear door and was climbing over into the passenger’s seat. “Hey, watch my stuff. You almost spilled my coffee.”
“I almost jumped out at the gas station,” she said, smiling. “I really wanted a pop, but I thought you’d make me walk home.”
“That’s a good idea. You can walk home. Then you wouldn’t be able to squeal on me. Let me see your phone.”
“What, so I can’t call Dad? No way.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“Chelse,” Don said. He put his head in his hands and drooped over the steering wheel. “This is difficult enough, okay? I’m eighty perce
nt sure I’m crazy, okay? I’ve got this dumb idea that somehow I was hypnotized by a witch that lived in the woods behind the house, and it killed my friend and almost killed me. And now I’m driving across two states to see if somehow it took my dog.”
“It’s not that crazy,” Chelsea said. “I believe it.”
“You’re just a teenager. You’re supposed to believe in crazy shit like that. I’m scientific and analytical. I know better.”
“Donny, when you’ve exhausted all the rational explanations, you have to go along with whatever’s left.”
“That’s a horrible misquote,” Don said. He looked up at Chelsea. Her face looked young and hopeful in the lights from the dashboard.
“How does it go?” Chelsea asked.
“Never mind. The point is this—I’m at my wit’s end. I can undertake this crazy gesture as a final cap on a devastating summer. This isn’t some big adventure for me. Once I’ve done this, whatever happens with Barney I’ll know that I did everything I possibly could to honor his and Kyle’s memory.”
The corners of Chelsea’s mouth turned down and she pressed a finger into the corner of her eye to try to stop herself from crying.
“But I can’t do anything that would put you in jeopardy. You’re my little sister, and I love you. You can’t come to Vermont with me,” Don said.
“I understand,” Chelsea said. “I’m sorry I hid in the back. I don’t want to mess up your trip, but you can’t go back now. Dad will know—I shoved a note under their door to tell them we were going. So you’re not going to get a second chance. Just let me sit in the car and I’ll be safe. I won’t do anything and I can even help you drive when you get too tired.”
Don sighed and slammed his palms down on the wheel.
