Thunderland

by Brandon Massey

  “If you were cheating on me, do you know what I’d do?”

  He stroked her thigh. “Do we really need to talk about it? Relax, I don’t have anything going on.”

  She was silent. Then: “Am I the problem?”

  “Hell, no. You’re as gorgeous and sweet as ever. I’m the problem. I need to get my act together, put my priorities back in order. Give me some time, that’s all I ask.” He lay down again, sighing heavily.

  She was quiet. She squeezed his hand. “I suppose you’re right. Sorry I grilled you.”

  “That’s okay. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  She smiled thinly. “I’ll survive.”

  He smiled, too. But he had never hated himself more. Like a devilish line of falling dominoes, one lie led to another. Damn it, why did he have to lie to maintain her faith in him? How long could he keep up the act? What would be the final result of all this deception?

  He did not know. But he suspected that he would get little sleep that night.

  “Can we talk for a moment?” she said. “It’s about Jason.”

  “Sure.” He was eager to remove the focus from himself. “What’s on your mind?”

  “A couple of hours after you left the house this afternoon, we discovered a bike in the garage. It happened to be a new bike that Jason really wanted, but he had never told me about it. Apparently, a stranger gave it to him. The stranger tied a birthday balloon to the handlebars, too. Isn’t that weird?”

  “It sure is. What did you do?”

  “We called the cops. They weren’t any help—only said that leaving an anonymous gift isn’t a crime. But they took the bike away.Jason didn’t want it anymore. He seemed very upset by the whole incident.”

  “Strange. Does he have any idea who would’ve given him the bike?”

  “No. That’s what worries me. There’re so many wackos loose on the streets. I hope this doesn’t lead to something else.”

  “Your dad probably bought the bike for Jason. You know how he loves to spoil him.”

  “I thought about that. Dad said he didn’t know that Jason wanted the bike. Jason never told him about it.”

  He shrugged. “Then I’m clueless.”

  She bit her lip. “Jason and his friends are up to something, Thomas. You know they’re sleeping over tonight. He’s never had friends stay overnight. I think they’re planning something.”

  “Boys his age are always planning something. They’re probably planning to sneak in a few girls.”

  She swatted his arm affectionately. “Be serious. I’m worried.”

  “Then what should we do? Put a spy camera in the garage? Hire a private detective to track Jason and his buddies? Lock Jason in his room for the rest of the summer?”

  “How about you talk to him and see what he’s doing?”

  “I thought you already talked to him.”

  “I did, but ... he never tells me anything. If I asked Jason to tell me if the sky was blue, he’d find a way to avoid answering me. Can you talk to him, honey? Please?”

  “I’ll talk to him.” He yawned. “Tomorrow.”

  “That makes me feel better.” She smiled. She kissed him softly. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  She clicked off the bedside lamp and settled on her side of the mattress.

  Thomas folded his hands behind his head. Although he had brushed off Linda, he wouldn’t be able to do it much longer. Happily married couples made love. Frequently. He would either have to make love to her, thereby committing another conscience-wrecking trespass, or give her the truth, at the possible cost of their marriage.

  Neither choice held any appeal for him. And time would not wait for his decision.

  At three o’clock in the morning, two hours after Jason had begun his watch, he heard the telephone ring in his mother’s office.

  Until the phone rang, the night had been uneventful. Mom had agreed to let Shorty and Brains sleep over, and Shorty had pulled the first shift; he reported only seeing Jason awake from yet another nightmare, curled up under a table in the living room. In the past, Jason had suffered the dream once a week. Since finding the message in the bathroom, he’d had the nightmare every night. Clearly, events were building to a head, and as he rushed into the room to answer the telephone, he wondered if this call would be the bomb that would explode the mystery at last.

  The office was dark. The telephone sat on the curved wing of the desk, beside the computer. A green button on the keypad blinked in time with each ring; it emitted an eerie, alien glow in the blackness.

  Neglecting to switch on the light, Jason grabbed the handset.

  “Hello?” he said out of habit, for he knew who had called.

  Silence.

  Then he heard that strangely familiar, smooth voice.

  “Did you like your gift, Jason?”

  The terror that had gripped Jason during the Stranger’s first call did not seize him this time.

  “Cut the games, okay?” Jason said. “Who are you?”

  The Stranger chuckled. “I hope you enjoyed your present,” the Stranger said. “I have more gifts for you, more of your secret wishes to fulfill.”

  “What secret wishes?”

  “You know what they are.”

  “Okay, maybe I do,” Jason said, having no idea what the Stranger meant, saying it only to induce him to reveal more information. “But how do you know what I want? How did you know I wanted that bike?”

  “Because I know you, as I’ve told you before. I know everything about you.”

  “But how?I don’t know anything about you.”

  “Yes, you do. Deep in the recesses of your soul, you understand everything about me.”

  More riddles. “Are you some kind of spirit?”

  “Aren’t we all spirits, Jason?”

  “That’s not what I meant. Are you a demon, a ghost, a poltergeist?”

  “I am all of those manifestations. I am none of those manifestations.”

  “Look, let’s get to the point. What’s your name?”

  “The Stranger.” He chuckled.

  Striving to keep his composure, Jason said, “Come on. Tell me. Please.”

  “That would spoil the fun,” the Stranger said. “I know how you enjoy an engaging mystery. I don’t want to ruin such a fine time for you.”

  “You won’t be ruining anything for me. I’m not having any fun.”

  The Stranger laughed. “I believe your nose grew an inch, my friend.”

  “Friend? Are you saying that you’re my friend?”

  “Of course I am.”

  In spite of his assertion, Jason was not assured.

  “A friend from when?”

  “A long time ago. Years in the past.”

  Jason shook his head. “But I didn’t have any friends years ago. Shorty and Brains are the first real friends I’ve ever had.”

  “You insult me, Jason.”

  “If you’re such a great buddy of mine, why are you doing this stuff to me?”

  “I have not harmed you.”

  “You’re scaring me, driving me crazy.”

  “My intent will become clear soon, Jason. Very soon, promise you.”

  “When?”

  “Soon. Have patience, my friend.”

  “Stop calling me your friend. We’re not friends.”

  “We are friends. You simply cannot remember.”

  “Why don’t you help me to remember, friend?”

  The Stranger paused.

  Awaiting a response, Jason clutched the handset so tightly it seemed it would snap in half.

  “Very well,” the Stranger said. “I’ll help you remember.”

  The line clicked, fell silent.

  The Stranger had hung up.

  Jason hung up, too.

  The office was quiet.

  Jason felt light-headed, as though he had snapped out of a dream. Their conversation had had a dreamlike quality, flowing randomly in all directions like a wild river
, never making sense at any given point. He wiped cold sweat off his brow. The Stranger had hinted that he would give him some kind of clue, but he was glad that, for the present, the ordeal was over.

  He turned to leave the room, to tell Shorty and Brains what had happened. The moment he moved, however, the laser printer beside the telephone switched on.

  Whirring, humming, clicking, buttons flashing and beeping, the printer ran through its setup cycle.

  Jason took a step back, studying the inexplicably animated machine. The Stranger’s final words, “I’ll help you remember,” blared in his thoughts. Was the clue about to appear?

  A sheet of paper was sucked out of the paper bin. It disappeared in the guts of the machine.

  Watching intently, Jason inched closer.

  Slowly the paper rolled out from underneath the hood. It dropped into the awaiting tray.

  As suddenly as it had turned on, the printer shut off. The room darkened once more. Jason picked up the page. Unable to read it in the darkness, he flicked on the light switch. The message consisted of a single word, centered on the page:

  COMA

  “Oh, man,” Jason said. “I don’t believe this.”

  Heart throbbing, he dashed out of the room to wake Shorty and Brains.

  The Stranger had promised to help him remember. But rather than granting him a revelation, he had reminded Jason of something he wished he could forget.

  “It started with an argument between me and Mom, this past March,” Jason said to Shorty and Brains, who sat huddled around him on his bedroom floor. “Mom used to drink a lot, and on that day she was pretty smashed. Whenever she was drunk, she’d get on my case about little, dumb things, and that’s how it began. She said I hadn’t taken out the garbage.”

  Shorty and Brains leaned forward, listening. Although it was three-thirty in the morning, they appeared to be wide awake. As Jason recalled those events in March, his own sleepiness drained out of him. He was back in the past, vividly reliving that fateful day.

  “But I had already taken out the trash,” he said. “I mean, I always did my chores on time. But Mom wasn’t listening to me. She dragged me into the kitchen. She pointed to the garbage can. It was full. That kinda shocked me, but I figured she had just cleaned through some rooms and found more garbage that she stuffed in the can, then accused me of never taking out the trash in the first place. She’d do anything to start a fight. That’s how she acted back then.

  “Anyway, I told her I had taken out the trash before, but she said I was lying and slapped me. She shouted at me, ordered me around, and I don’t know, man—something snapped in me. I hated her. Hated her for drinking all the time and pushing me around, for always treating me like I was nothing, just her little slave. She’d been doing it for years, and I was fed up, you know?

  “So I stood up to her and told her to take out the garbage herself. It was crazy to say that, but I had to. I couldn’t let her beat up on me anymore.

  “That really did it. Mom snapped, too. She attacked me like a wild animal. I tried to hold her off, but we wound up wrestling. We fell on the floor. I got off her, and she came after me, screaming that she was going to kill me. I’ve never been so scared. I ran out of the house, flew across the backyard, and started climbing the big tree back there. She shouted for me to come back, but I ignored her. I guess I wanted to get away for a while, let things cool down. So I climbed the tree, and ... and ...”

  Jason stopped talking.

  “And what?” Shorty and Brains said at once.

  He shrugged. “Well, I don’t remember this, but Mom says it started raining while I was in the tree, thunder and lightning and all, and when I started to climb down, I slipped. She says I probably fell twenty feet. I blacked out. An ambulance came and took me to the hospital. I was in a coma for three days. But like I said, I don’t remember any of it. All I remember is waking up three days later, after coming out of the coma. My memory of what happened between the time I climbed the tree and woke from the coma is blank. Gone.”

  “But isn’t a memory block common for a person who awakes from a coma?” Brains said. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “I’ve heard that a person will usually have no memory of what happened right before he blacks out.”

  “It happens,” Jason said. “My doctor said I shouldn’t worry about it, and that it was probably best that I not remember falling out of the tree. He said the reason I couldn’t remember is because the trauma of the whole thing might be too much for me to handle. I guess it’s a good memory block.”

  “Maybe it would be good for the average kid,” Shorty said.

  “But it ain’t for you, man. You’ve got this crazy-assed stranger to deal with.”

  “I think the Stranger has something to do with my memory block,” Jason said. “He keeps saying that he knows me, and he really does seem to know stuff about me. But I can’t remember him. I bet that when I went into that coma my memory of him got erased, just like my memory of my fall out of the tree. The coma wiped out all of it. It kind of makes sense.”

  “Perfect sense,” Brains said, nodding. “All along, the Stranger’s been telling you to remember him, as though, deep in your mind, you know who he really is. Now he’s given you another clue: the word coma on that paper. As if the key to remembering him lies in exploring what the coma did to you. That means we have to find a way to go into your mind and dig into that memory block. The answer to the Stranger must be in there.”

  “But how can we get in your head, man?” Shorty said. “I ain’t a doctor. Brains is smart as hell, but he ain’t one, either.”

  “No, none of us are doctors,” Jason said. “But I know someone who’s smart enough to be one.”

  “Who?” Brains said.

  Jason told them, unable to hide a smile of pride.

  “My grandfather.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Although Jason had two living grandfathers, whenever he thought of “Granddad,” he invariably thought of his mother’s father, Samuel Weaver. Samuel was the most remarkable man Jason had ever known, the embodiment of kindness, wisdom, patience, and every other virtue Jason could imagine. On the other hand, his dad’s father, Big George, was the polar opposite, and Jason visited him only when his parents forced him to go. But he never tired of visiting Sam.

  Granddad lived in a spacious neo-Victorian house on the west side of town. The house rested on an acre of landscaped grounds, far back from the quiet, elm-shrouded road. A spear-point wrought-iron fence encircled the yard.

  He usually met Granddad for breakfast once a week, normally on the weekend. Although Granddad was retired, he maintained a busy schedule on weekdays, performing duties at his church, leading a community service program, and golfing with his retired buddies. Jason was grateful that Granddad was available to meet when he called him that morning.

  When Granddad opened the door, he smiled.

  “Well, well, I haven’t seen you for a while.” He ushered Jason inside. “You must be a busy man this summer.”

  “Yes, sir, I have been.” Granddad was the only man he addressed as “sir.” “I’ll try to visit more often from now on.”

  “I wasn’t complaining, son.” Granddad closed the door. “I’m glad you finally have some friends. It’s bad for you to spend too much time by yourself. Or with a feeble old man like me.”

  Jason smiled. Feeble old man. Granddad was sixty-eight, but today, in a short-sleeved, striped oxford shirt, olive twill pants, and black Rockports, his solid six-feet-two frame was as impressive as a man’s half his age. True, his short hair had grayed, and his dark-brown skin had a generous web of wrinkles, but his sable eyes shone with vitality as well as with the indomitable spirit that had transformed him from a penniless Southern laborer into a vastly successful—and now, happily retired—entrepreneur.

  “You’re right on time. I just finished cooking breakfast,” Granddad said. “Cooked up a storm this morning, too. Lena would be proud.”

  “I bet she w
ould.” Jason savored the tantalizing aromas that wafted through the hallway.

  Jason noted, as usual, how openly Granddad spoke of his deceased wife. He had been seven years old when his grandmother died—not mature enough to comprehend death, but old enough to understand that his grandparents had been exceedingly close. Far from being reluctant to discuss his beloved Lena, Granddad talked of her, with love, on almost every occasion that he and Jason were together. In a way that was inexplicable to Jason, it was almost as if, in Granddad’s mind, his grandmother had never died.

  In the dining room the table was set: a platter of country ham and sausage, a pot of grits, a bowl of scrambled eggs, and a plateful of fluffy buttermilk biscuits, beside which stood a jar of homemade peach preserves.

  “Hey, you weren’t lying, Granddad,” Jason said. “You threw down this morning.”

  Granddad chuckled. He poured orange juice for himself and Jason. “Man, if my doctor saw me doing this, he’d have a fit. My blood pressure’s already high, and there’s enough fat in this food to choke a horse. But I have to indulge every once in a while. Once a Southern boy, always a Southern boy.”

  Jason sat down and fixed his plate. As he ate, he did not talk much. He was trying to determine the best approach to the subject of memory blocks and how they could be overcome. That he could not tell Granddad why he needed the information complicated the matter. He could not speak of the Stranger to his grandfather for two reasons. Number one: Granddad, a highly rational man, would never believe his story unless he supplied proof. Number two: he did not feel safe telling Granddad about the Stranger, because he did not want the Stranger to target Granddad. Although the Stranger might limit his attention to Jason, Jason could not be sure. It was safer for Granddad to stay ignorant and uninvolved.