The Boy in the Park: The gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by A J Grayson

  Friday

  In the morning I awake in an inconsolable panic. Before there is a thought in my head there is sweat covering my body and my breath is already coming in short flutters. It takes a few seconds for me to register my surroundings, to piece together the events of the previous evening and try to sort out why I’ve awoken in such a state, but when I do the panic just increases.

  I’m in the woods. Somewhere behind me is the farmhouse. And in the house are bodies.

  I can barely breathe.

  I roll over, the surreal surroundings of the forest shanty only adding to the abnormality of my emotions. Joseph is still lying on the other side of the hut. The sun is starting to rise – a few beams of light are working their way through the plastic sheeting above us – but he’s still sleeping. His chest rises and falls slowly.

  I let my head fall back down onto the damp-stained pillow. I’m not a man prone to self-pity, but for an instant I despair over my lot. Two days ago I was at home in Diamond Heights. I was in my shop. I was in the park. Yes, things had become a little odd, but at least the surroundings were familiar. But now I’m here, lying in the forest, and for the first time in my life I have blood on my body that isn’t my own.

  But then my self-pity begins to change. I feel like weeping, like bemoaning my lot; yet I’m here for a reason, and that reason fends off the tears.

  I’d come to Redding for the boy. I’d run into that house for the boy. I’d done the things I’d done with Joseph – all for the boy. And he’d come to me, he’d shown me the way. He’d brought me to that hilltop, with the blood on his arm and the bruise that ate at his flesh. And he’d spoken to me.

  And I hadn’t seen him since.

  He’d spoken to me as we charged down the hill towards his home and his torture, or at least I think he had. The boy’s always been concrete, ordinary if compelling, in all my encounters. But that one was surreal. I remember him motionless and stalwart even as the world was sliding by and my feet in a flurry of movement. I remember a deep voice. I remember words that seemed out of character.

  It’s possible, and the longer I ponder on it, quite probable, that this was my imagination. I was as charged up as I’ve ever been, about to do something beyond my immediate comprehension, and I think I simply wished his face into existence. Because he wasn’t as real then. Not like he’d been by the pond. Not like he’d been on the hilltop.

  And not like he must be now, wherever he is.

  He wouldn’t have told me to stop, not when I was about to save him. He wouldn’t have asked me to retreat.

  But now he isn’t talking to me at all, and I feel the most immense loneliness without him. I wonder where he’s gone, and what it is going to take to find him.

  52

  The Boy in the Park, Stanza 7

  But how long stay the buried down

  In darkness cold and unknowing?

  Until the prey becomes

  the beast

  And tigers roar with claws unfurled;

  Killing hope yet ending the tears,

  Of the little boy weeping …

  The little boy weeping …

  53

  Saturday

  We’ve been in the woods almost two full days. Joseph has been proved right: no one has found us here, and the surroundings have been almost tranquil. We’ve been working our way through the food in his cooler, and Joseph is convinced that it will be easy to get more. He’s got the rifle so we can hunt, and there’s always the option of going back into town and swiping more supplies from various shops in an act that Joseph describes as if it’s a familiar pattern.

  I, though, am becoming more and more anxious as the hours pass. Two days here is about as much as I can handle.

  ‘Joseph, we can’t just sit here like this.’

  He peers at me from a log. We’re sitting outside his shanty. It’s a bright day and the air is crisp, and Joseph’s face bears the marks of genuine surprise.

  ‘Why not?’ He seems to think it reasonable that we can stay here as long as we want. Maybe forever.

  ‘Joseph, eventually people are going to discover what we’ve done. They’re going to find the bodies, and then they’re going to start looking for who did it.’

  ‘They don’t know it was us.’

  ‘But they’re sure as hell going to look everywhere.’

  ‘We’re far away,’ he protests. I shake my head.

  ‘You know we’re not that far. This place may feel remote, but if they start a manhunt – which they will – they’re definitely going to include the woods. It won’t take them long to find this place.’

  Joseph looks uneasy, but doesn’t say anything. Not at first.

  ‘We could go to the city,’ I suggest. ‘San Francisco’s only a half-day’s journey. I have a car, parked back the way we came.’

  He ponders the idea, but it’s clear he doesn’t like it.

  ‘No, if you’re right then the city’s too close. For that matter, anywhere in the state’s too close. Like you said, people are going to be looking for us.’

  I’m pleased he’s understood my point and the need for us to remove ourselves from the surroundings, but I’m disappointed at his rejecting the idea of San Francisco. It’s the place I know best, and the thought of returning there is comforting.

  ‘We’re going to have to go a lot further,’ he continues. ‘If we’re going to get away, we should do it well.’

  ‘Where do you suggest?’ I’m now asking him for thoughts on my own plan.

  ‘I’m thinking. Give me a minute to sort things out.’

  It’s a little strange, that the teenager is the one telling the adult to give him time to sort out the details. But I don’t have any immediate suggestions, myself. I can’t think of the last time I’ve been outside of the state of California. For an instant, all geography fails me. In the map in my mind there is simply nothing beyond the state lines. California, then blackness.

  ‘Well, I guess that’ll do,’ Joseph finally says, responding to a thought that’s occurred only in his mind.

  ‘You’ve got an idea?’

  When he turns to me something of the humanity and determination I remembered from our first encounter are back in his eyes. Just a touch of them. Glimmering in the jade-green.

  ‘I’ve always liked country music,’ he answers. ‘You ever been to Nashville?’

  54

  Sunday

  We are going to be on the road for a while. Several days, at least. Maybe a week, depending on the route we take. A week in the cramped confines of my little car, two men and the uncontainable cloud of an event too massive to be held in any small space.

  I can tell, after only our first few hours on the road, that the darkness hovering over us is going to become as oppressive as any acts we’ve committed – and now that we’ve fled the woods and the little pretend home where we’d pretended nothing had happened, we’re confronted anew with reality. It’s back, with all its fearful force and oppressive bulk. We can’t go on simply sitting in its shadow. A person can only take it so long. From one perspective the darkness is mysterious and haunting and inviting; when you’re peering in, it’s where dragons and monsters and adventures lie. But once you’re there, you realize that darkness is cold and empty. That there are no dragons, only dust and empty rooms.

  I still have my Moleskine in my pocket. The realization comes to me as a sudden comfort – an embrace. I have my notebook and my pencil and unending time on the road with nowhere to escape to but the world of my thoughts. I can let the memories of the past hours haunt me, or I can make them fruitful. That’s what true poets do. Joseph can drive and I can regain my identity; and with it, I hope, a trace of my calm.

  These aren’t going to be hours of the contemplation of flowers and birdsong, of course. But not all poems are like that. It’s nice, under normal circumstances, to see the beauty of the world in ways that others don’t – to behold leaves as dancing wings fluttering at the ends of branches, to see
the greens of nature as the varied brushstrokes of the canvas of the world. There’s a reason a lot of poetry is gaudily over-beautiful. It’s because poets know what it means to see beauty. They can be forgiven if sometimes they forget that writing about it can too easily come off like sucking on saccharin, everything turning sickly sweet.

  But a poet can’t suffer in his heart and write only of beauty with his pen. The internal and the external are supposed to collide in the ink of a poem. In my mind I have the whole canvas of nature; the beauty of my bench in the park is always with me, always in my thoughts, even here in the cramped car with blood-soaked clothes and Joseph silently at the wheel. I’m watching the wings of the wilderness dance in the breeze, but I’m letting them flap their way into the darkness of my new reality. I’m seeing the sun shine in the memories of flowerbeds, yet I’m aware of the darkness that now follows me around, and which I fear may do so forever, even into the brightest sunshine.

  In the lamplight of the passenger seat my pencil is recording it all, the pages taking in their stories. And though for the moment it’s only in my memory, only in the perfect image in my mind, I’ve noted – maybe for the first time – that the remarkable reflection of the world in my pond is, for all its beauty, upside down. Inverted. Shimmering, but wrong. The treetops there don’t point up to heaven. They are mesmerizing and beautiful, but they point down, down into the belly of the earth where there is only darkness and fire.

  And suddenly I’m more afraid than I’ve ever been in my life. More afraid than I was when I first saw the little boy’s wounds. More afraid than I was in the forest, or in the house. More afraid than I was when Joseph held the gun to my face in his rage. I’m afraid because for a moment, just the briefest moment, I wonder whether all my poems amount to anything at all. Whether poetry itself is only a deception. Whether stories are only lies that belittle the darkness. I’m confronted with a reality too terrible for my heart to imagine. Sometimes, a story is just the thing we tell ourselves to escape the ordinariness of a life that has no tale to tell at all.

  VACAVILLE, CALIFORNIA

  55

  Conference Room 4C

  California Medical Facility – State Prison

  There are three chairs on one side of a beige table in the small room. Behind each is a civil official in civilian attire: a grey-haired man in the middle, who is a full three inches taller than both the others and whose demeanour suggests he’s at the head of the small panel; an auburn-haired woman in a violet business suit to his right, who is tapping her plastic pen on her papers in frustration already, before they’ve even begun; and a black man of almost equal age to the first, in a darker suit, to his left. His is the sternest look of the three: hard, holding back what appears to be a desire to launch into an angry yell at any moment. Instead, he busies himself by scrolling through messages on his phone, laid flat on the table in front of him.

  Despite the fact that there are three microphones on the table, one aimed at each of them, a stenographer sits at a small desk to the side. The stenographer is making no effort at avoiding the clichés of her profession: a tight dress that would still be considered skimpy if it were six inches longer, hair done up in a multi-layer nest. She has her keyboard comfortably in front of her and the control monitors for the microphones close beside it.

  The door to the room is locked. This is to be a closed inquiry, uninterrupted. A few jugs of water and a tray of fruit lie on the panellists’ table, in case refreshment is required during the day.

  The only other person in the room is a woman, at a separate table some six feet away from that of the panel. Her table is smaller, though it also contains a microphone, and she is positioned to face the others directly. There is a single glass of water before her.

  ‘If we’re all here and accounted for,’ the grey-haired man in the middle of the larger table says, ensuring he aims his mouth at the microphone, ‘then I say we call these proceedings to order.’ The microphone does not magnify his voice. Its purpose, like that of all the others, is only to record.

  ‘Let’s roll through all the official stuff first,’ he mutters, nodding towards the stenographer. His look is one of mild annoyance, as if this is an unwanted step before their real work begins; but he also appears to be well tried in such proceedings and aware it’s an inflexible requirement. He loosens a burgundy tie that clashes badly with his soft blue suit.

  ‘My name is Benjamin Tolbert,’ he announces, ‘appointed chairman of the inmate conduct review panel.’ He nods to the woman at his right, offering a businesslike smile that deepens the creases at the corners of his eyes.

  ‘Christina Vermille,’ the woman says, a slight southern twang to her vowels. ‘Deputy consultant for the committee.’ She speaks rapidly, as if efficiency is of the utmost importance. Her spectacles have fashionable rims, and in general she presents herself as an extremely well-kept woman.

  Finally, the black man adds his own credentials to the recording. ‘Tyrone Davis. Warden.’ His manner is clipped and direct. He doesn’t look up while he speaks, and the thinning hair at the top of his head is showing some grey. He is a man of bulk, almost all of it muscle, and every facet of his demeanour is one of frustration.

  ‘And that brings us to you,’ the chairman says, nodding towards the woman at the table opposite them. ‘Would you please state your name and position for the record?’

  ‘Dr Pauline Lavrentis, forensic psychologist here at Vacaville.’

  Tolbert takes a moment to scratch a few notes onto a yellow legal pad before looking up at Pauline. She sits cross-legged at her small table, every inch of her the professional. Her jacket is navy blue and trousers beige, her hair a sandy grey that says wisdom rather than age. She wears a gold chain around her glasses, but on Pauline it doesn’t seem either grannyish or passé. She is a woman who exudes confidence and comfort – a surety in her work, her person, and, in this room, her credentials.

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Tolbert replies. ‘Now I don’t want any of us to feel too formal about all this. We’re all on the same side here. Just trying to figure out what happened, and why, and where we go from here.’

  ‘I understand,’ Pauline answers. ‘I’m happy to give whatever assistance I can, beyond my printed notes and the recordings, which I believe the committee already has in its possession.’

  ‘We have,’ the chairman confirms. ‘We’ve all had the chance to listen to them, as I trust you’ve also done, to refresh yourself of the details of the case before we move forward.’

  Pauline merely nods her confirmation. It had not been easy to listen to the recordings, to re-live all the conversations that had led up to this moment, but she’d known it would be a necessity, especially if she wished to make the strongest possible argument, and even more especially given what she hopes to accomplish at this hearing. The nuances will be important. Essential.

  The chairman glances through a few sheets at the top of the stack of papers before him. He turns to the warden. ‘Let’s start with the core details and go from there, shall we?’

  The other man, the warden, finally looks up from his phone. His eyes are heavy, and faced fully on they reveal a frustration that isn’t with the people in this room. He is frustrated with a situation that seems to be escalating beyond his ability to control it.

  ‘The facts are straightforward,’ he says, following the chairman’s prompting. ‘Your patient’s aggressive behaviour,’ he nods towards Dr Lavrentis, ‘has escalated exponentially, leading to his third escape attempt since his incarceration began. This last was at just after two fifteen in the morning a week and a half ago, during the third night watch.’ The frustrated look intensifies. ‘What sets this one apart is the degree of violence that it involved.’ These words obviously eat at him.

  Pauline nods. She’s aware of the details, and shares the warden’s disappointment. If, perhaps, for reasons that differ from his. Her relationship to the inmate is not the same.

  ‘This attempt was made in conjun
ction with two other men,’ the warden continues. ‘None made it past the fences, though they got a hell of a lot farther than they should have done’ – he appears as if he’s making a mental note, jotting down details on precisely who’s to be lambasted for precisely what failures in security – ‘and the attempt involved physical attacks against our guards.’

  A moment’s silence overtakes the meeting. Any time an inmate’s actions involve attacking a guard they automatically invoke harsh responses.

  ‘What we need to know’, the grey-haired chairman continues, taking over from the warden, ‘is just what’s going on in the mind of your patient, Dr Lavrentis. We all recognize that his situation here is going to have to change. His actions mandate that. But some additional information may help us chart a course for his future incarceration.’

  ‘May I ask a question about the other inmates who made the attempt with my patient?’ Pauline interposes. She reaches forward and draws the microphone closer to herself. She is familiar with being recorded. She grabs a pencil and readies herself to jot down notes from the replies.

  ‘One is a twice-convicted felon,’ the suited woman on the committee answers. ‘Three times down for fraud on smaller counts before the two felony charges stuck. Felony assault and felony burglary. The other for repeated counts of aggressive social disorder.’

  ‘But they ended up here?’

  ‘Both were unstable enough that their lawyers pled them to cells with us rather than in San Quentin.’

  Pauline jots down the details. ‘Violent?’

  ‘Aren’t they all?’ the warden snaps back, rhetorically.

  ‘All very fascinating,’ the chairman continues, ‘but our purpose here this afternoon is learn more about progress with inmate #10481-91, since he is the most troubling of the three. He’s the one who had the shank, the one who attacked the guard. He’s been in your diagnostic care for some time, is that correct, Dr Lavrentis?’