Shadows Over Main Street, Volume 2

by Gary A Braunbeck

  “So?”

  “She saw me without a shirt on.”

  “Uh-oh,” Bobby said. “Now you gotta fuck her.”

  Henry punched him on the arm. “Shut up, man.”

  Nathan stayed quiet. He wasn’t quite sure what Bobby meant by that, but he knew it had something to do with adult kissing. Sex, it was called sex. No one had ever explained to him what sex meant, not even his friends, who all seemed to know somehow. It was like the whole world was in on this big secret that no one would share with him.

  Sometimes he felt like he did not belong to this world. This world of secrets and bullies, of sex and blood.

  Maybe he didn’t belong anywhere.

  “Ugh, this is boring.” Henry tossed his comic book down in the pile. “It’s summer. We should be outside or something.”

  “We could play some ball,” Carl said.

  Nathan shook his head. “Those guys are still after me, I bet. I don’t want to go outside. They’ll kill me.”

  Henry sighed. “Don’t be such a wuss.”

  “Hey, at least I fought back. At least I didn’t leave you alone, like a coward.”

  “Go to hell. We’re leaving. You can stay here and read these comics if you want, just don’t take any of my stuff. Wuss.”

  “Ass.”

  Henry, Carl, and Bobby stood and left the room with a football. Nathan stayed on the floor, staring at an opened comic book but not really reading it. If one of them had been attacked by a jerk like Connor Trivet, he would have stayed behind and tried to help. At least, that’s what he liked to think. But who really knew what he would have done?

  Nathan chucked the comic book across the room and leaned his head against the wall. He dozed, and when he opened his eyes again, Henry’s sister was standing in front of him, watching him sleep.

  “How long have you been in here?” Nathan asked, yawning.

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Why are you here by yourself? Where’s my brother?”

  “They left to go play football.”

  “Why didn’t you join them?”

  Nathan looked away from her and stared at the floor. He didn’t want to talk about this with her. He didn’t want to admit to a girl that he was a coward. The thought made him teary-eyed with embarrassment.

  “How’s your nose?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “That’s good.”

  They stayed quiet for a spell, awkwardly avoiding eye contact, until Elizabeth sighed and held out her hand. “Come on, I’m bored. Let’s go do something.”

  “But…”

  “Let’s go.”

  Even though Elizabeth was only two or three years older than Nathan, she still managed to possess an authoritative attitude. Her fully blossomed breasts also made her hard to ignore. Nathan stood up and put his shoes on.

  “Okay,” he said. “What do you want to do?”

  Elizabeth paused. “Hmm, I don’t know. Wanna go to the lake?”

  Flashes of Connor and his gang waiting for him in the woods made his heart race. “No. Anything but the lake.”

  Elizabeth eyed him oddly. “Uh, okay. Hmm. Do you have any ideas?”

  He wanted to say, We could fuck, but feared her reaction. What if she screamed and smacked him? Or what if she wanted to fuck? Nathan had no idea what he was supposed to do when you fucked. He would embarrass himself to no end. But at the same time, he still wanted to try. He’d be King of the World.

  Fortunately, Elizabeth saved him the trouble of coming up with an answer. “I know, let’s find the Cannibal.”

  5.

  Nathan’s father sat in the center of the basement, chained to a metal support beam, skull half-crushed in yet somehow still breathing.

  Nathan approached him, eyes of pure hate. He stood above him and spit down, but his father didn’t seem to notice.

  “Wake up.”

  He did not stir.

  Nathan knelt down and smacked the unconscious man. Then he did it again and again, laughing and crying all at once. Sooner or later his old man would wake back up.

  And when he did, Nathan would be ready.

  6.

  Nathan walked just a few paces behind Elizabeth. His eyes stayed glued on her butt, watching it bounce up and down as she moved down the street. Once in a while she would look over her shoulder to make sure he was keeping up, and he would pretend to be staring at his shoes, but then quickly return his gaze to her wondrous buttocks as soon as she redirected her head forward.

  They were heading a few streets down, toward the sand hills in the middle of the woods. Once they reached the forest entrance, they followed a bike trail until eventually branching off to freely roam nature, the sand hills not far ahead.

  It was rumored that an old, homeless man lived somewhere in these hills. Children who ventured deep enough in them never returned. Sometimes, hikers and joggers found strange bones in the sand—leftovers of the Cannibal’s feasts.

  Once, Jeremy Krall told Nathan he’d gone down in the sand hills and met the Cannibal. The Cannibal tried to eat Jeremy’s feet, but he never washed, so his feet smelled too nasty to taste. Out of disgust, the Cannibal fainted, and Jeremy ran away.

  Another kid, Allison Maddux, told Nathan the Cannibal was her senile grandfather, who ran away from a nursing home after biting a nurse’s ear off.

  Nathan knew there was nobody living in those hills. Just a bunch of fairytale hogwash. Other boys had tried convincing him to explore these hills in the past, but he’d always declined. But when Elizabeth brought the topic up, he couldn’t bring himself to reject her offer. Sure, he knew there wasn’t anything evil in the sand hills, but more importantly, he was convinced Elizabeth knew there wasn’t anything there, too. So why would she want to take him out there? To be alone with each other, maybe. To kiss him, maybe. To fuck him, maybe.

  Nathan would go out in the sand hills to kiss a pretty girl. He would go to the end of the world to kiss a girl. He would travel multiple universes and slay dragons to feel Elizabeth’s lips upon his own.

  The sand hills would be a piece of cake.

  He forgot all about Connor Trivet and the pain in his nose.

  All he could think about was Elizabeth’s butt, and how mad Henry would be once he found out Nathan fucked his sister.

  “Where do you think he is?” Elizabeth asked, standing atop a particularly high hill, scanning the area with an intense determination in her gaze.

  “I don’t know,” Nathan said, trying to play along. “Maybe he’s asleep.”

  “Well, where the hell does he sleep? If you were a crazy cannibal living in sand, where would you keep your bed?”

  Nathan shrugged. “Probably in the sand.”

  “How are we supposed to find a bed hidden in sand?”

  “That’s the point. We aren’t supposed to.”

  Elizabeth clenched her fists. “I’ve been trying to find this guy for months. He’s nowhere. He’s everywhere. Why can’t I find him? Where the fuck is he?”

  Nathan had never heard such foul language from a girl. It excited him, scared him. She really believed the Cannibal existed. Maybe he did exist. No, that was crazy. There was no such thing. But did that mean Elizabeth was crazy? Did Henry know?

  He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to leave her here alone. He wanted to be close to her. He wanted to kiss her.

  “Let’s keep looking,” Nathan said. “Maybe if we dig in the sand a little.”

  Elizabeth sighed. “Yeah, maybe.”

  They found a few small logs and started digging into the sand. It was hot, tiring work, and after only a few minutes they both collapsed in the sand, exhausted. They sat together, sweating and panting. The sand was hot against his skin, but he tried to ignore it and instead focused on her leg touching his leg.

  They hadn’t managed to dig deep at all. Every scoop of sand flung to the side seemed to regenerate before their eyes. The work proved pointless, but it seemed to satisfy Elizabeth, which, in turn, satisfied Nathan
.

  He wondered what his friends were doing. Had they come home yet? Were they looking for him? For Elizabeth? Was Bobby cracking jokes about sex?

  Sex, sex, sex…

  He reached out and touched her shoulder. She didn’t flinch, just looked at him and smiled. “It’s pretty hot,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think the Cannibal’s real?”

  He wanted to tell her the truth, but he just couldn’t. “Yes.”

  She smiled wider. “Me too.”

  “Where do you think he is?”

  Elizabeth scanned the sandy waves surrounding them. “Somewhere. The son of a bitch is somewhere.”

  “Let’s just rest for a while, okay? I’m tired.”

  They sat in the sand, not talking, just staring at the hills and sweating oceans of sweat. Elizabeth turned to him and asked if he’d ever kissed a girl.

  Nathan looked down at his lap, nearly shaking. “No.”

  “Well, do you wanna?”

  He didn’t know what to say. Slowly, he lifted his head back up. His heart pounded against his chest in painful bursts. She stared at him, awaiting his response.

  He opened his mouth to tell her he did, he really, truly did want to kiss her, but was cut off by the sound of Elizabeth screaming.

  Before he could react, her body fell through the sand, leaving him all alone under the sun.

  “What the…?”

  Something powerful grabbed his legs, and gravity intensified as his body sunk into the sand. He tried to scream, but no sound came out.

  There was only darkness.

  7.

  Nathan’s father opened his eyes. Nathan stood in front of him, holding a hammer he stole from the toolbox.

  “Nathan… what… what’s happening? Why are you doing this?”

  Nathan pushed his shirt up, showing off the scars across his stomach. The bruises, old and fresh. He dropped his shirt and stared.

  “Son, I’m sorry. Please. What were those… things? Jesus Christ Almighty, what were they?”

  Nathan knelt down, gripping the hammer tightly. “Those are my friends, Daddy.”

  He swung the hammer at his father’s face, laughing and crying at the same time.

  Then he swung it again, and again, until his hand was consumed by blisters and there was nothing left to swing at.

  8.

  Nathan found himself in some sort of cave. Icicles hung from the dark ceiling and dripped water down upon him. Elizabeth lay at his feet, neck twisted at an impossible angle. Her eyes were open, but they couldn’t see anything.

  Nathan screamed, backing away from the dead girl. He eventually hit a wall behind him and stopped. The only dead thing he’d ever seen before was a squirrel on the side of the road. Its guts were all over the pavement and maggots were feasting upon its intestines. But Elizabeth was so much worse than a squirrel. She was a person. A kid, just like Nathan. And now she was dead. But how?

  Nathan looked up at the icy ceiling. Somehow they’d fallen from the sand, into this cave. Was the cave beneath the sand, though? How could these icicles exist? How could any of this exist?

  How could Elizabeth be dead?

  No, this was not real. He was surely dreaming.

  A nightmare.

  He stared at Elizabeth and continued telling himself none of this was real, but he didn’t sound very convincing.

  This was real. This was just as real as the dead squirrel. Just as real as those things his father did to him with the lighter.

  Nathan ran through the darkness, refusing to look back at Elizabeth. If he didn’t see her, then she was no longer dead. She was still sitting on the sand, asking if he wanted to kiss her.

  She couldn’t be dead when only a few minutes ago she had been so real.

  He ran deeper into the unknown. He didn’t care what was ahead of him as long as it wasn’t what was behind him.

  What would he tell Henry?

  Screw Henry. Henry had ditched him. They had all ditched him. They were always ditching him. They weren’t his friends. He didn’t have any friends. Now that Elizabeth was gone, he didn’t have anybody.

  No one would ever want to kiss him again.

  He was alone, so miserably alone.

  In the darkness, under the sand, in a world different from his own.

  Nathan ran into the mouth of shadows and let them swallow him whole.

  9.

  After setting his house on fire, Nathan continued down the street. He kept the hammer with him, despite all the blood and gore dripping from it. Soon the entire neighborhood would be up in flames. The suburbs would be no more.

  The world would be his to claim.

  Nathan, King of the Here and Now, the Always and Forever.

  He found Connor Trivet by the lake, half-buried in mud. Both his arms and legs had long been torn off and consumed by the Discovered. He hadn’t stopped screaming all damn day. The sound was like heaven to Nathan’s ears. He could listen to this boy’s agony for the rest of his life.

  But Nathan could not afford to stand by the lake for all of eternity. No, there were other towns to destroy, other suburbs to burn to the ground.

  Other worlds to obliterate.

  “Who’s the little pussy now?” Nathan said. He thought about smashing Connor’s face in with the hammer, but tossed it to the ground instead. He moved closer to Connor and grabbed him by the jaw, dragging him on top of the discarded tire. Once Connor’s body was in the center, Nathan pushed it into the lake and watched it float away.

  Connor continued to scream even as the Discovered rose from the water and finished their leftovers.

  All the jigsaw pieces were finally falling into the right places.

  10.

  Nathan could not see the creatures in the darkness, but he could feel them—slimy and scaly, reptilian and revolting. He ran his hand along one of their limbs, his legs paralyzed, his arms possessed and devoid of freewill. He could hear their heavy breathing, their soft moans of pleasure as he caressed them.

  No matter how hard he strained his eyes, he still couldn’t see. He tried to imagine their appearance but the image he conjured was simply too horrifying.

  “What are you? Where am I?”

  One of the creatures purred in his ear, then started wrapping around his body. A tail of some sort, or maybe an abnormally long arm. It squeezed itself around his abdomen and pulled him deeper into the cave.

  Something wet and warm touched his face, and he found himself suffocating as his head was swallowed by a thick gelatin texture. He tried pushing away from it, but the blob proved strong and pure.

  The darkness faded away, welcoming him to an intense white light. He thought for a moment that he had gone to Heaven, but the smell was too foul. His nostrils fought back in disgust at the smell—the smell similar to rotting garbage, to something dead and abandoned.

  He was in these creatures’ home. No longer in the cave. No longer in the sand. No longer anywhere.

  These creatures, these discovered beings, they lived in the Never Before and the Forever After. And Nathan had entered their lair.

  One of the Discovered slowly approached him. It was so far away he could barely see it—yet, at the same time, it was so close he could touch it. The ball of slime hovered before him, slithering its many tentacles in a circular motion. It possessed no eyes, yet stared at him all the same. It stared at him and breathed him in, investigating his every feature. They were both alien to each other.

  Nathan wanted to ask it a thousand questions, but he couldn’t seem to talk.

  The creature seemed to understand him, anyway.

  It moved closer.

  Before Nathan passed out, a wet voice snuck into his ear: “We love you, Nathan. Now you will love us.”

  THE BOY WITH THE GOLDEN ARM

  C.W. LaSart

  The wind blew dust in his eyes as a storm gathered to the north, dark clouds piling up at astonishing speed. Roger Holmquist squinted his eyes against
the wind and fired the ball from his shoulder, straight into the catcher’s mitt with a crack that sounded like a gunshot.

  “Steerike Two!” The ump shouted, and the crowd of townspeople in the stands cheered. The boy at home plate adjusted his stance and looked at his feet. He was a good hitter, but nothing Roger had pitched all evening could be touched. One more strike and the game was over. One more strike and the record would be broken.

  Roger wound up his arm and the crowd grew still.

  —

  Little Roger Holmquist was the boy with the golden arm. At least, that’s what all the folks around town said. Short for a twelve year old, with buzzed red hair, a smattering of freckles across his nose, and ears that stuck out just a little too far when he was wearing his ball cap, he wasn’t much to look at. When he stepped onto that mound, though, he became something like a god. That evening was the second-to-last game of the year and Roger was absolutely sure to break the county record for most strike-outs pitched in the regular little league season, if the old men in the barbershop and their neighbor, Mrs. Beesley were to be believed. Even Timmy Golightly’s dad was beginning to brag about his impending achievement, despite his campaign to have Roger thrown out of little league last year after a particularly spectacular pitch broke three of Timmy’s ribs. Just the mention of Roger’s name was certain to bring predictions of a major league career that would put their small town on the map. He was a source of local pride for the community, which could rarely boast of more than a county fair blue ribbon for Aunt Edna’s famous rhubarb pie.

  Roger wasn’t thinking about strike-outs, broken ribs, or even baseball that afternoon. He wasn’t thinking of the impending horrors of back-to-school shopping, starched shirts, stiff new jeans, or slicked-back hair for school pictures, either. Though summer had shrunk from the freedom of months to a scant few weeks, he wasn’t thinking of anything beyond the joys of a lazy August afternoon, riding his bike to the Sioux River just north of town. He was busy investigating the dried out river bed with his best friend, Corey Doucette. The old timers said they couldn’t remember a drought so bad the river completely dried up, but that summer, that’s exactly what happened. The usually boisterous and often dangerous waters had dried to a trickle, then disappeared altogether by late July, leaving behind a cracked bed with occasional patches of sticky, green mud. Frogs and salamanders slunk along those muddy respites, desperate for survival, and too big of a temptation for Corey and Roger to ignore.