Or maybe it was something else. Perhaps, those dreams he couldn’t remember were slowly sneaking their way into his thoughts. He knew he would wake screaming; what did he see? Did he even want to know?
Jacob watched two boys giggling over a phone in a corner of the hallway, and their faces seemed suddenly sharp and devilish, their smiles too wide, their cheekbones like blades trying to cut through their skin. They looked at him for a moment like they could kill him. He looked away. No. There was something wrong today. He felt it, and he wanted more than anything to be home. It made him feel sick to his stomach.
In Ms. Cracco’s class, they learned about telling time on a clock, the small arm and long arm moving slowly across the numbers on a circle. They made their own clocks out of construction paper, wrote in the numbers with marker, cut out hour and minute hands and fastened them to the paper clock. They moved the arms into the correct position to match times Ms. Cracco announced to the class. Next it was on to shapes – squares, rectangles, stars and circles. Again, more cutting with scissors and arranging the shapes into neat patterns. Jacob enjoyed that lesson. He laid out different shapes over each other, their edges and angles intersecting, forming things that resembled objects in real life. A triangle and a rectangle to form a house; a circle with a square below it resembled a hot-air balloon. He even used the shapes to form people – a circle for the head, a triangle or rectangle for the body, two smaller rectangles for the legs – like the ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ signs in the hallway beside the bathrooms.
He placed the star inside the circle and sat staring at it for a while. It reminded him of something he couldn’t quite remember but somehow seemed important. He took the clock he’d made and then laid the star over it. He traced the lines of the star to the different numbers the five points touched.
“What are you doing, Jacob?” Ms. Cracco hovered over him suddenly, stern and foreboding.
“Nothing,” Jacob said. “I just thought it looked cool.” It wasn’t necessarily that it looked cool, but it looked like something.
The teacher kneeled down next to his desk. “You see how all the points intersect? And those points go to the numbers on the clock? What do you think about that?”
“You can go from one time to another,” he said, “and skip over the other times.”
“Maybe one day we can,” Ms. Cracco said. “You’re a smart boy. Maybe you’ll figure it out.”
Jacob looked at her. She seemed older than her face would suggest, and he thought he saw disappointment in her gray eyes. Was it with him? But she had just said he was smart, so it couldn’t be disappointment with him.
She stood silently and continued walking down the row of desks, overseeing the projects of her students. Jacob wondered what it took to be a teacher. He suddenly wondered about her life. It was a momentary flash of empathy. Wondering if Ms. Cracco was married, if she had children of her own, if she really wanted to be a teacher. Like most adults, she seemed to be hiding something. There was a lie somewhere. Maybe she was sad like his mother or disappointed in something else. The world of adults was strange. They always had information, knowledge, which they held back. When they looked at him, it always seemed like they were looking at someone to pity. It made him feel like a burden, that perhaps their lives would be easier if he didn’t grow up in their presence. The way his mother hugged him, clinging to him like he could be lost at any second, made him wonder what was out there, what waited for him in this strange world.
It was a day like any other. But it was Friday, and Jacob was glad that he wouldn’t have to come back tomorrow or the next day. He could stay home, play in his room with his toys and use his imagination to construct other worlds where there were no secrets because he had them all. They were boy’s games made of Legos and action figures, spaceships, trucks and cars, imagined heroic personalities and villains bent on world domination. In those worlds he had control over the action figures, what they did, what they thought, who they battled and why. He could reach into those imaginary worlds, pull characters out and put them back in, shift time and location and even planets. His was the hand that moved them into situations and either let them live and conquer or suffer under an unseen enemy. That was how he spent his time on those long days of solitude. When he would go outside, he went to the woods where he explored the rocks and trees, imagined monsters waiting in the shadows, and acted out scenes of bravery and control he wished he possessed in real life.
His father would sometimes say he should be out playing with the other boys on the block, but he never saw them. It was as if they were all locked up in their separate houses. Besides, since he was only seven years old, his mother wouldn’t allow him to just wander up the street, looking for other kids to play with. Most of them were older, anyway. Their eyes were focused on phones and screens, which did fascinate him when he had the opportunity to see them, but because he had never played with them, he was instantly lost, outside the circle of understanding, unable to be engrossed in them like other kids.
At the end of the day he was hungry and tired and wanted to be home again. The bus bounced on the old back roads of his neighborhood, a place where nearly every house was partially hidden. Jacob was momentarily lifted off the seat, bounced, and settled back into the vinyl. He could feel the cold coming off the window, touching his forehead. There were very few children on the bus, and, with each stop, there were fewer; the brakes squealed, and their little bodies with big backpacks jumped off the bus stairs and walked quickly and confidently in the direction of their homes.
Jacob’s mother sometimes waited at the top of the driveway for him to arrive, but other times she merely watched him from the windows. He liked those times. Walking from the bus stop to his house on his own made him feel more grown up. He also liked the brief moment of solitude. It was cold and bright out today. The sky was a deep blue, and the leaves were dry and brittle, falling from the trees in a dancing rain of brown and yellow. His stop was next, and he could see the intersection ahead. Jacob pulled his backpack up on his shoulder and readied himself to stand up and exit as quickly as possible. The other kids were already standing in the aisle, holding on to the back of the seats, waiting for the full stop and the doors to fold open. Jacob looked through the windows. His mother wasn’t on the driveway today.
After he got off the bus, it pulled away down the road, and Jacob watched as the two other kids walked away from him in the opposite direction. Normally there were three other children who got off at this stop, but Dori wasn’t here today, so there was only Logan and Bella walking down the street with their backpacks high on their shoulders. The road sloped gently downward toward their houses, and the two other children disappeared out of view. He could hear them talking to each other. They had said nothing at all to him, though he wished they would. He wished that maybe one day he could walk with them and they could talk like friends.
Jacob waited for a moment and watched the bus disappear around another corner. He looked to his house but couldn’t see his mother at the window. The wind pushed cold air across his face and with it a strange, pungent smell – something thick and raw.
There was a small copse of trees separating Jacob’s house from the neighboring one, which was occupied by an old woman who needed a tank to breathe. Jacob began to walk toward his home, but, in that copse of trees, he saw something. Buried in the dry fallen leaves was something bulky, with light brown fur that moved slightly in the light breeze. He stopped and stared at it for a moment and then slowly stepped off the road and walked a few feet into the brush. Overhead, the trees moved slightly with small, twisting sounds of wood. The sky was deep blue above their long, thin branches, and, even in the daylight, the moon was visible but almost see-through, like a cold, distant ghost.
Jacob saw the fur ruffle again in the leaves. He walked to it and looked down and then cautiously moved the leaves aside.
It was a rabbit, but it no longer looked
like a rabbit. The insides had been torn out, and the blood and gore had crusted on the ground and stuck to the dead leaves like glue. Its head was attached by only sinews. Its doll eyes had glazed over with a bluish-white tinge.
He rolled the rabbit over completely with the toe of his shoe. The inside was hollow and black. Strands of muscle and gut were hardened and crusted and old. Jacob stared at it for a while longer, the body splayed open, the life rotted away, and wondered at it. He wondered if that was how it looked when you died. If there was really nothing left but this empty shell, crusted to the ground, hanging with partial bits of what was once stomach, lungs and heart.
Poor rabbit, he thought. Then the same thick and raw smell wafted over him again. There was a shadow on the leaves. A shadow big enough to engulf both him and the rabbit as one. He turned around to look, and the afternoon sun shone bright in his eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
The high mountain lake shone through the leafless trees in the light of the cold, early dawn. Jonathan, Michael and Conner stood at the crest of the meadow and saw the water sparkling, and, for a moment, everything seemed beautiful and good. They turned to look at the black case sitting in the long grass, tinged with frost, and the air seemed to grow dark around them. They pulled out the tent stakes, folded the rods and rolled the tent back up, but they couldn’t get it right. They tried again until Conner finally stuffed it into its carrying case. Jonathan rolled his sleeping bag. It was sloppy. He let it be and strapped it to his backpack. He was too tired to care. Michael stared with his cold eyes at the lake.
“What do you say? About a mile?” Michael said.
“Mile and a half,” Conner said.
“We should have been walking back by now,” Jonathan said.
Michael looked at the sky. “Snow is coming.”
They searched again for animal tracks around the tent and near the coffin, but there was nothing. Jonathan tried for a cell phone signal, but it was gone.
“We should just bury it here,” he said.
“With what? We left the shovels back in the Gulch,” Conner said.
“Fine. Then just leave it and go,” Jonathan said.
“Just out in the open? No. We finish this. Stick to the plan.”
“Are we even going to talk about what happened last night?”
“I don’t know what happened last night. I don’t know what that noise was. But what I remember most is you acting insane.”
“I heard something.”
“We all heard something. An animal, the wind, doesn’t matter.” Conner picked up one side of the case. “Let’s get on with it. Mile and a half and we’re done. We can be back by nightfall.”
Jonathan looked back over the meadow to the Gulch and shook his head. It was cold, even through his coveralls. Beyond the mountains to the west the sky seemed to be building toward something; there was a gray haze where the deep blue disappeared into a fog. He walked to the other side of the box. His legs were sore and he walked slow and stiff. He picked up the side and tried to walk and then put it down to catch his breath. “It’s heavy as hell.”
“We’re just tired, is all,” Conner said.
Jonathan waited a moment and then picked it up again, and, together with the weight of his pack, clothes and rifle, tried to start walking with Conner. Their steps were awkward. The case bumped into the side of his knee, the same raw and bruised spot as the day before, and he became angry again. They walked down the slope toward the lake. Gravity pulled them through their steps. They walked together like a broken animal, stumbling, hobbling down the hill. The long grass scraped against the underside of the case and moved around them, and it sounded like a crowd of people speaking in hushed tones.
He tried to hear it. He tried to make words out of the long, rustling grass the way one might try to discern conversation in a crowded room. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, carried down from the mountains on the cold, open breeze. He stared at the tree line; long, broken fingers, a maze of pale trunks and branches, reached up to claw at the distant sun. He heard the whisper of the grass against the plastic case again. It sounded like the voice of a child, and he listened harder.
He looked at Michael, but Michael was staring into the trees. He looked at Conner beside him, but his head was turned, looking into the distance. There were no faces, and he suddenly felt as if he were alone with this burden. Jonathan turned to look everywhere, to the whole expanse of field and mountains, but he saw nothing. The world seemed like a picture or a painting. It looked so unreal that, for a moment, he wondered if it was all an elaborate hoax, a maze for lab rats. The wind moved the trees and the tall grass. He reached out his hand to try to touch it, but there was only air and distance. The boy in the box shifted, sloshed to the other side, and the weight of it pulled him sideways.
The lake disappeared behind the tree line and Jonathan sweated in the cold sun. The dark trees rose up before them. They stopped at the edge of the field and waited, breathing heavily. The woods seemed to slide up to meet them, and they peered inside. The ground was rocky and covered with leaves and devoid of underbrush, which had choked and died long ago. The tree trunks were thicker and spread apart. Lichen grew patchworks on the bark. It smelled wet. The tall branches were thick and darkened the ground, and roots rolled above and beneath the surface, like thick snakes.
They weren’t walking now, but the whispering grew louder. It sounded familiar. They tried to look past the trees – another mile to the lake, but they waited, catching their breath before taking the final plunge. Jonathan thought of Thomas Terrywile in the box; the thought of dropping it into that lake forever suddenly terrified him more than being caught, than living with it.
The end somehow seemed worse. He wondered if there was an end.
Jonathan turned away from the trees and looked up toward the top of the field, to the ridge of the meadow, the sky pouring across the horizon, and saw a humanlike figure standing dark against the sky, staring down at them. From this distance it was a small, erect shadow, but he could see it. He could feel its eyes. He heard the whisper through the meadow, through the trees and through the box by his side. Something spread across its unseen face.
Jonathan tapped Michael and Conner and nodded up the slope. “About five hundred yards off.” They turned and looked. The wind pushed against them. Michael raised the rifle and looked through his scope. The figure at the top of the meadow did not move. Michael stared through the scope for a long time but kept his finger on the hilt.
“What is it?” Conner asked. Michael was silent. His face paled; the skin around his eyes softened as he opened his left eye and slowly lifted his head from the scope.
“Too far of a shot,” he said, but his voice was dead.
“But what is it?” Conner asked again.
“We should go.”
“Just take the shot anyway, goddammit.” Conner took the rifle from Michael’s hand. Michael didn’t resist. His limp body let the sling slide off his shoulder. He stumbled and swayed slightly in the wind. Conner raised the rifle toward the shadow atop the meadow, but it was gone, and there was nothing but the rounded horizon.
“I don’t see it,” Conner said. He slowly scanned the cold field for any sign of movement, life, but there was nothing. “What did you see? A person? A bear?”
Michael stared off into the trees, as if seeing something in the air, in the spaces between. “I don’t know what it was. It was too far off.”
“Bullshit,” Conner said.
“We should go now,” Michael said.
Conner looked at Jonathan and then back to his brother. “Let’s just get this done,” he said and lifted the side of the box. Jonathan took up the other side. Michael stumbled into the forest. They lost sight of the lake when they dropped below the tree line. It wasn’t far off.
They moved quicker. They ignored the pain in their legs and shoulder
s. The new forest opened up and swallowed them, and they were lost in a limbo of thick trees. They kept a quick pace. There was no undergrowth to slow them down. The downward slope carried them, but it seemed endless, and they could not see more than fifty yards in any direction. Time and space seemed to stand still. Jonathan thought they passed the same rock outcropping several times. Nothing changed; the forest scrolled past them like a broken film. The deep blue morning sky faded, and the sun was now hidden behind a desert expanse of low gray clouds. The colder air came quick and sharp. Sweat seeped out from beneath Jonathan’s wool cap and froze to his cheek.
“We won’t beat the snow,” Michael said.
“We will,” Conner said.
The cold air brought a heavier wind. The tops of the trees danced and swayed, knocked against each other. The sound came from above them and in every direction and echoed hollow, cold and dead. Michael and Conner carried the case now. Jonathan kept the rifle ready. Behind the clatter of the tree branches was the sound of heavy footfalls. Jonathan motioned for them to stop. He turned and watched the trees behind them and was lost in the cascading maze. He felt something but saw nothing. He looked through the scope, but it made him more blind, limiting his vision and perspective. There were only hints of movement, something sliding behind the wall of forest, nothing more than a fleeting shadow from the corner of his eye or the sound of a tree limb snapping or a branch breaking free of its moorings. He let the brothers move ahead and waited for what followed; he waited for what had uttered those words to him the night before and what stood at the crest of the meadow staring down at them.
He wished for other times and places, for other lives where that night ten years ago had not happened, where the bullet was five inches to the right and missed the boy completely. Everything inescapable hinged on precise moments, tiny factors that change the world. He watched and waited and felt something beyond the trees calling to him.
Boy in the Box Page 17
