The Complete Bleaker Trilogy Box-set

by Jeremy Peterson

  When sleep finally came, it was shallow, restless, and full of darkness. I dreamt of the bear attack but it wasn’t my father at my side and we weren’t on the trails of Colorado. Instead, it was Brandon who protected me and we were in the woods outside my house. We hid amongst the trees, hunkered down in the weeds while the beast stalked us. It’s wet, rotten stink filling our nostrils as it grew closer. Brandon grabbed my arm. It’s your fault, he said.

  I know.

  The beast, that had at one time been just a bear protecting her cubs, loomed above us and roared. Brandon pulled me to my feet and we raced through the trees while the beast followed. I could hear it breathing but its growls sounded like words.

  You can run but I will always be here ... hunting you … forever.

  We continued to run, screaming through our tears. The tree house came into view and we headed straight for it. “Get to the tree house!” Brandon screamed. He was faster than I was and at one point, he looked over his shoulder to see if I was still following. “Move your ass!” he screamed. It was at that moment he tripped over a dead branch. It happened so fast he didn’t have time to brace himself and he landed face first. The impact so intense, I could hear the air leave his body in a violent explosion of wind. I slid into the dirt next to him and hauled him up by the belt loops of his pants, snot and tears pouring out of my head in equal measure. He spit out a mouthful of dirt and blood, but he crawled to his feet and continued limping to the tree house ladder. I arrived first and climbed as fast as I could. As I reached the top, I threw myself onto the tree house floor and swung around to reach for Brandon. He climbed frantically, his lips pulled back in a terrified grimace. Blood and dirt still coated his teeth.

  The beast reached the base of the tree and reared up on its hind legs. On its chest, I saw a button piercing its skin, and of course, it read: Remember, some monsters are real. Then, as if to prove its point, it bellowed a guttural roar that could have only come from hell.

  Help me! Brandon screamed. I stretched out my hand, and he grasped it tightly. Suddenly, I noticed something very strange. Spots of black hair sprouted from my forearm and culminated in thick tufts on the back of my hand and knuckles. I pulled my hand from Brandon’s grip in shock. His eyes opened wide, and he screamed my name as he fell to the earth below. He landed with a dull thud and the beast pounced. Brandon’s scream filled the woods, and I fought the urge to cover my ears. The creature mounted him and placed one of its massive paws on my friend’s face. Initially I thought it was just trying to muffle his scream, but then the beast pressed down and Brandon’s head popped like a rotten pumpkin. My own screams died in my throat and the woods grew unnaturally quiet. The creature looked up at me, and I stared into its black eyes. The face looking back at me began to morph into something else, something more human. I recognized it at once. It was mine.

  I woke immediately with a scream ringing in my ears. Mom didn’t come running so I assumed the scream was from my dream world and not the land of the living, although to this day, I don’t know for sure. I lay frozen in bed, afraid of the dark but too scared to reach out for the bedside lamp; certain the moment I stretched out my arm, the beast would rip it from its socket. On this night, I would remain in the dark.

  I didn’t think it would be possible, but eventually I did sleep. The birds chirping out my window woke me just before dawn. Mom was already up and I could smell bacon cooking in the kitchen. I crawled out of bed but I didn’t eat. Mom made me a plate, but I just couldn’t do it.

  “Are you sure you feel up for camping, dear?” She picked at the bacon and eggs on her plate but she didn’t appear to be hungry either.

  “Yeah, mom, I’m fine.”

  “It’s just … everything with your dad. Everything we’ve been through … you camping makes me nervous.”

  I knew it was serious when she brought up dad. We didn’t talk about him much, especially with Cliff lurking all the time. The truth was, I was nervous too. “I feel fine, ma. This could be good for me. Besides, it’s just Brandon’s backyard.”

  Mom nodded reluctantly. “Well, if you’re not gonna eat your breakfast, lemme pack you and Brandon some lunch.”

  I smiled. “That would be good ma, thanks.”

  She pushed away from the table to scrounge us up some sandwiches, and I got up to pee. Yesterday’s copy of the Rocky Mountain News sat on the back of the toilet, which is where Cliff liked to keep it. One particular headline caught my eye, Body of young boy found in Julesburg culvert identified. Julesburg was just twenty miles away; Cliff had taken us there to see a movie two weeks ago. The boy’s name was Robert Brown and he was my age, twelve. He had gone missing on the last day of school. They found his bike a month ago and now, in a culvert under highway 375, they found him. According to the report, they were not ruling out foul play. Well, no shit.

  That was the highway that connected Julesburg to Chaplin Hills. The bridge Brandon and I spent so much time at brought Highway 375 right into town. I thought of our fort under the bridge and the man who had stolen it. Had he been in Julesburg a couple months ago, I wondered.

  I tucked the paper under my arm, deciding mom didn’t need to be reading about a dead boy one town over on the first night I decided to sleep somewhere other than under her roof. I snuck into my room and stuck the paper in my backpack along with a flashlight and a blanket. Brandon said he had an extra sleeping bag for me. Mom knocked on my door and I jumped.

  “I’ve got your lunch ready.”

  “Thanks, mom,” I said, opening the door to my room. She stepped in and handed over a big plastic cooler. I grabbed it, surprised at its weight. “Geez, mom, we’re only spending one night.”

  She smiled but didn’t respond. Instead, she sat down on the edge of the bed, and sensing she had something important to say, I sat next to her. Suddenly, I had this absurd notion that mom was about to tell me that she and Cliff were getting married and I nearly panicked.

  “I’m proud of you, son.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and it dawned on me that she was crying.

  “Uh, thanks, mom.”

  “It’s been so hard.” She lowered her head, and I put my arm around her. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you too.”

  “You’ve come so far. This has been a good summer, huh?” she asked.

  I smiled at her. “It has.”

  “We’re gonna be fine, little man,” she said.

  “Yes mom, I think we are.”

  “Well,” she kissed the top of my head and stood up, “I guess you probably want to get going.”

  “I guess I should.”

  “If you change your mind, just come on home, ok?”

  “No problem, mom. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”

  She wiped her nose with a tissue and nodded. We exchanged another hug and then the doorbell rang.

  “That must be your partner in crime,” she said.

  “Probably.”

  “Go ahead, kiddo. Get going.”

  I went.

  Brandon stood at the door, a smile on his face. It was cooler that morning, and he dressed accordingly, a plain white t-shirt and a pair of old faded Levi’s. He was strapped with his own backpack, which looked just as crammed as my own. I held out the cooler mom packed for us, and he grabbed it.

  “Mom packed us some food.”

  “Shit yeah!” he said quietly, and then much louder, “Thanks for the food, Misses T!”

  “You’re welcome, Brandon,” mom said. I’m guessing she added an eye roll to go with that.

  “Bye, mom,” I said

  “See ya later, Misses T.”

  We sauntered across the street and into the woods. I listened closely for Mr. Bleaker’s threats but the only thing I could hear was Brandon’s ramblings. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him about my dream but I never did. By the time we got to the tree house, the fading nightmare was just a distant memory.

  We spent the rest of the day putting up the final
wall, and when we sat down to enjoy our sandwiches, we did so in a completed tree house. It wasn’t much, no more than six feet square with a floor, four walls and two windows but it was all ours. The branches above us would act as a roof unless it rained, in which case, we had an old tarp that we could nail to the branches.

  With our belly’s full and our body’s sore, we lay down on our sleeping bags as content with life as two young boys could ever be. The last of the sun leaked through the trees behind us like sunlight through partially pulled window blinds, and we talked about the stupid things only young boys find interesting. Mainly the upcoming school year and how bad it was going to suck. We talked about Tonia Green, who Brandon said was the hottest girl in school. We talked about joining the baseball team when we were old enough and Brandon’s favorite football team, the Chicago Bears. Eventually, I brought out the newspaper. I handed it to Brandon and told him my theory.

  “Jesus Christ,” Brandon said. “Do you think so?”

  I nodded solemnly.

  “I guess maybe we should tell somebody.”

  “Tell ‘em what?” I asked. “That we seen some hobo sleeping in our fort and then we tried to blow him up with some illegal fireworks. I doubt it was him but …”

  “I guess you’re right,” Brandon acknowledged. “But, it sure is strange that a freaking weirdo ends up here of all places right after a kid goes missing. I mean Julesburg ain’t that far. A guy could walk that in a couple days. Hell, he coulda hitchhiked it in twenty minutes.”

  “Yup,” I agreed.

  Brandon sighed loudly. “We’ll be ok, though … you know why?”

  I shook my head.

  He reached into his backpack and pulled out what I first mistook as a black magic marker. I stared at it confused and then Brandon flicked his thumb and suddenly six inches of polished steel popped out of the end.

  “Ho-lee-shit!” I said reverently. I had never seen a switchblade in real life and I was in complete awe.

  “Can I see it?” I asked, expecting him to laugh in my face.

  “Yeah, but be careful. It’s sharper than a sumbitch.”

  I nodded. Of course, it was sharp, I thought, it’s a goddamn switchblade. He handed it to me, and I waved it around theatrically. “Where did you get this?” I asked in a lowered voice, even though we were alone in the middle of the woods.

  “It’s my brother’s. I figured we might need it …’sides, I’ll get it back to him before he knows it’s missing.” Brandon’s brother would be a senior this fall, and as far as I could tell, he was a complete asshole.

  I swung the blade back inside and then pressed the trigger. The blade flew out with a satisfying ‘thwack’ and I smiled.

  He reached out for it, and reluctantly, I handed it back to him. “I’ll set it between us, and if we need it, it’ll be here.”

  That sounded reasonable, and I nodded in agreement. We lay back and stared into the night sky as the darkness settled around us. I had almost forgotten how night seemed so utterly complete and total in the wilderness; the blackness of it so final, without a car’s headlights or a shop’s neon signs to break it up. I had assumed we would be able to see the town’s streetlamps through the trees, but I could see nothing but darkness.

  Next to me, the sound of Brandon’s even breathing told me he was asleep, and I was alone. I hated him for that. Suddenly and completely, I hated him. This was his idea. I would have never done this … I would have never come in here if it weren’t for him. First abandoned by my father and now by my best friend.

  My fingers reached out across the wood floor, which still smelled like gas and oil courtesy of Mr. Barker’s leaky lawnmower, and grasped the knife. I gripped it tight and listened hard for the birds chirping or the crickets singing, but heard nothing; I was completely alone. The image of Mr. Bleaker slithering through the woods filled my head, and I thought more than once about running home. Just climbing down that ladder and running like hell, but the thought of finding my way through those woods in the dark was unthinkable. I resigned myself to the fact that if there was a creature, bear or vagrant-boy-killer in these woods and they wanted me, then they would get me. That was my last thought before sleep.

  The sound of a twig snapping below woke me from my light slumber. I held my breath and remained as still as possible as I listened. A half minute passed and then I heard it again, another twig broken, this one closer. I turned my head to look for Brandon but he was just a lump of blankets in the dark. I reached out and gave him a light push but he was dead weight. I nudged him again but still nothing.

  “Brandon,” I whispered. Nothing.

  Silently, I began to cry. I couldn’t help it. I closed my eyes tightly and tried once more to find the light inside of me. Where’s my light, daddy?

  Below us, unmistakable footsteps crept closer. Keep walking I begged. Keep walking, keep walking.

  The footsteps stopped directly below us and I willed myself to stop crying. I heard the creek of the wood ladder and the tree house shifted slightly. Whoever or whatever it was, they were too heavy to be a kid. I sat up and loomed over the opening of our tree house, the switchblade clutched so tight I could no longer feel my fingers.

  The hatch raised an inch and the squeak from the rusty hinges sounded like the scream that was threatening to burst from my chest at any second. Slowly, the hatch dropped back down. The next few seconds seemed to stretch out forever. I held my breath and the fear running through my body felt electric. I was about to exhale when the door flew open with a crash. With knife in hand, I screamed.

  Everything in that tree house was a shadow and my body shook with a lethal mix of fear and adrenalin. I was so sure that the intruder was the homeless man from the bridge that my mind actually conjured up his hairy face and sunken black eyes. Without thinking, I stabbed at the stranger with all my strength.

  Brandon’s neighbor, Mr. Barker, the guy who had supplied the old lumber and helped Brandon construct the floor of our tree house, stood on our ladder with God-knows-what on his mind. He stared at me wide-eyed as I screamed and thrust the knife at him. He was drunk and the bottle of hobo wine he held in his hand actually saved his life. The blade ricocheted off his bottle and stuck in the hatch door. The switchblade’s handle snapped in half and the momentum of my thrust drew my forearm across the broken plastic, leaving me a three-inch gash that needed stitches to close up. I still have the scar.

  Mr. Barker screamed when I thrust at him, and his wine bottle dropped to the ground below. He swayed on top of the ladder and reached out desperately with his left hand. His other hand, turned out, was busy doing something else. Then suddenly, just as the two of us locked eyes, the rung he had been standing on let go with a crack and the man disappeared. I heard him bouncing off each rung of the ladder and land with a dull thud as he crashed to the ground below. Brandon had finally come awake, and I could hear him fumbling about his gear. Suddenly, the tree house lit up as Brandon switched on his flashlight. He shined the light on my face, and I looked away. It was painfully bright. The pain in my forearm began to materialize, and I used my good arm to wipe at the tears that streamed down my cheeks. Until then, I hadn’t realized I had been crying.

  “Who was it? Was it the bum from the bridge? It is, isn’t it? I know it’s him!” Brandon said, rambling. He wiped neurotically at the sleep in his eyes.

  “No, I think it was your neighbor,” I said and Brandon looked at me with confusion on his face.

  He crawled over me and pointed the flashlight through the hatch at the ground below. We both looked down and stared in stunned silence. Mr. Barker lay crumpled at the bottom of the tree, one leg underneath him, and his face staring into the night sky. He lay motionless in the dirt and his dirty gray wife-beater threatened to burst as it stretched around his extended belly like an overfull water balloon. His sweat pants hung bunched up around his ankles, while his penis lay flaccid against his thigh. Somewhere underneath him was a near empty bottle of Mad Dog 20/20.

 
Part Two

  2012

  1

  All of that happened twenty-two years ago, in the summer of 1990. Aside from the occasional nightmare, Mr. Bleaker has gone silent. I never saw the Homeless man under the bridge again, and as far as I know, neither did Brandon. The mystery of the dead boy in Julesburg was eventually ruled an accidental death. His mother, however, didn’t agree. She would spout off to anyone who would listen that a strange old man with shaggy hair had been stalking them but nobody listened. By the end, she sounded as crazy as me. Either way, the boy was gone.

  Brandon and I remained best friends as I said, but when you grow older and you begin to notice girls, (and as they begin to notice you) that best friend relationship changes. It doesn’t become less important or less relevant, just less central to your life. That first summer in Nebraska seemed to stretch out forever, and I hated to see it end. I’ve had many good summers since, but none of them held the magic of that first one. It saved my life I think. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe not.

  Mom got sick the tail end of my senior year in high school. This meant instead of applying to colleges so I could make some real money and finally move out of this God forsaken stink-hole of a town, I started working full time at the bowling alley so I could stay home and take care of mom. In the end, Cliff was right. With my pathetic minimum wage job as our only source of income, we officially moved into the poorhouse. Hell, we could barely afford the poorhouse at that point.

  Mom pretended the cancer wasn’t eating her alive for as long as she could, but in the end, there was no hiding it. Breast cancer spread to her lungs, and then just to be sure, it set into her bones. It was only the two of us at that time, Cliff was long gone, and it was hard. Mom battled for four years, four long years and most nights, I found myself wondering why she tried so hard. I thought if I truly loved her, I would do something to help, and I don’t mean the countless sponge baths or the bathroom trips or the feedings, I mean something real. Like pillow over the face real, or painkiller cocktail. But, she never asked. That last night she sent me away to grab a Snickers bar. They were her favorite. I grabbed two, figuring I could save a trip the next day, but when I got back she was dead. I still have the candy bars.