Deadman's Castle

by Iain Lawrence

  Angelo laughed. “Calm down, Watson. It’s your dad. I told you he’d watch the house.”

  It could have been anybody on the other side of the river. All I could see was the glare of the flashlight. But Angelo was so sure of himself that he waved his arms and yelled. “Hi, Mr. Watson!”

  “Whoever that is, he’s too far away to hear you,” I said. “And he can’t see you in the dark.”

  “So turn the light on.”

  “No,” I said. “That’s breaking the rules, Angelo.”

  “Forget the rules. It’s a good joke.” His voice had that edge to it again. “Bumble, turn on the light.”

  “Don’t,” I said. But she hopped off the bed and ran across the room. That got Smasher excited, and she bounded off the bed to chase Bumble.

  I wasn’t fast enough to stop her. She flicked the switch and the light glared from the ceiling, shining down on Angelo as he waved through the window.

  “I think he saw me!” he said. “Look, he’s going away now.”

  I shut off the light. Still standing in the blackened window, Angelo was laughing. But the thought of Dad crawling through the forest made me cringe with embarrassment. I didn’t want to see that. I told Angelo, “Close the curtains.”

  “Why?”

  “If that’s Dad he’s going to be mad. He’ll ground me again.”

  “No he won’t,” said Angelo. “He’d have to admit he was spying on you.”

  “Well, maybe,” I said. “But don’t say anything when he comes back. Okay?”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Angelo pointed a thumb toward Bumble.

  She was sitting beside Smasher. I told her, “Listen, Bumble, let’s not tell Dad we saw him.”

  “Is it a secret?” asked Bumble.

  “Yes, it’s a secret,” I said.

  My folks came back less than half an hour later. Dad gave his secret knock to let me know it was him. I opened the door.

  Mom was so happy that she danced around the house while Dad locked and chained the door again. She grabbed Bumble by the hands and whirled her down the hall. “We saw the most wonderful movie,” she said. “It was a love story.”

  “Did you like it, Dad?” I asked.

  “Not so much.”

  I tried to guess his mood as he turned from the door and looked at me. I was afraid he’d be angry, but instead he seemed embarrassed.

  “The ending got a bit sappy,” said Mom. “So your father left early. He went out to sit in the car.”

  Angelo caught my eye and winked.

  Dad went upstairs to change. He never said a word about the river, or what he might have seen.

  I walked Angelo home on Sunday afternoon. We played video games till his mother arrived in a yellow taxi. I was only gone for three or four hours, but when I got back and tapped our secret knock on the door, it was Amy who let me in. I couldn’t have been more surprised.

  She stopped yakking on her cell phone just long enough to say, “Your sister’s in the living room. Your mom’ll be back soon.” Then she gave the door a kick to swing it shut and started talking into the phone again.

  “Where’s Mom and Dad?” I asked.

  Amy didn’t answer. Without a break in her conversation, she threw the dead bolt and put the chain on the latch. Then she leaned back against the wall—still talking—and let herself slide down to the floor.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  She held the phone away from her ear. “Your mom took the car and went shopping. Your dad got called into work. Okay? Maybe there was some sort of clown emergency.”

  “Why didn’t Mom take Bumble?”

  “I don’t know!” Amy sounded annoyed.

  I went into the living room. Bumble was sitting on the couch, watching My Little Pony prance across the TV.

  She had spread her grumpy across her lap, and Hideous George was sitting on top of it. I shook his hand and said, “How do you do, Hideous?”

  Bumble laughed. She looked up at me, all smiling and happy. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  She looked around dramatically, then waved for me to put my head next to hers. Into my ear she whispered, “I saw him.”

  “Who?”

  “You know.” She made that grimacing little grin I liked so much, and she whispered again. “The Lizard Man.”

  A BLACK CAR

  I tried not to look surprised. But I felt the way a football coach must feel to have an ice bucket suddenly emptied down his back. There was a terrible shock, and then a chill that went right through me.

  We would bug out.

  That was my first thought, and it was even more frightening than the Lizard Man. Before the sun went down, we’d probably be gone. Dad would cover my head with a blanket and cram me into the minivan, and off we’d go to somewhere else. A new house, a new name. A new life.

  I wouldn’t have a chance to say goodbye to Angelo or Zoe. Not to Mr. Little or Mr. Moran or anybody else at Rutherford B. Hayes. By the time school started in the morning I might be two hundred miles away, and I’d never see any of them again. For a while they would wonder what had happened, and then they’d forget all about me.

  I couldn’t bear to think of it. At that moment, I thought I would rather be dead.

  My Little Pony whinnied and laughed. In the hall, Amy kept talking on her phone, so I grabbed Bumble’s arm and pulled her toward me. “How do you know it was the Lizard Man?” I said. “What did you see?”

  “You’re hurting me,” she said.

  “Tell me what you saw!”

  Her lip started quivering. In another moment she’d be crying, and that would bring Amy running. I told Bumble, “Let’s go to the kitchen.”

  “I wanna watch My Little Pony,” she said. Her legs were sticking straight out in front of her across the sofa cushion.

  “I’ll give you ice cream,” I told her.

  “No.”

  I snatched Hideous George from her lap. Bumble reached up, shrieking. “Give him back!”

  Amy looked in through the doorway, her cell phone in her hand. “Could you kids keep it down?” she said. “I’m trying to have a conversation.”

  I tried pulling Bumble again, but she clung like a tick to the sofa. “Leave me alone!” she whined.

  Leaning down, I whispered again. “I’ll give you a cookie.”

  There was nothing Bumble wouldn’t do for a cookie. In an instant she stopped yelling. “Okay,” she said.

  We left My Little Pony prancing away in the living room. I got Bumble sitting at the kitchen table, then took an Oreo from the cupboard and sat across from her.

  “Are you sure you saw the Lizard Man?” I asked.

  She nodded. Her eyes seemed fixed on the cookie.

  “Where did you see him?”

  “Out on the road.”

  “Why were you looking out the window? You’re not supposed to do that.”

  Bumble made a little gasp. “Umm, I forgot,” she said.

  “It’s okay. I won’t tell Mom and Dad,” I said. “Why did you look out the window?”

  “I heard a car. It stopped outside,” said Bumble. “I thought it was Mom, so I looked out and I saw him. He was sitting in his car, staring at the house.”

  “What sort of a car?”

  “Black,” she said. “I want my cookie.”

  “Just a minute.” Every time I moved my hand, her head turned to follow it. “How did you know it was the Lizard Man? Did you see a lizard on his skin?”

  Bumble pretended to think, a finger on her lip. “I don’t remember.”

  “Yes you do.” I held the cookie closer. “What did you see, Bumblebee?”

  The little rhyme would usually make her laugh. But she only stared intently at the Oreo. “He looked funny,” she said. “Like a lizard.”

  “How?”

  “He had big eyes sticking out.” She made circles with her fingers around her eyes. “He had a wrinkly face, and his neck was droopy.” She pulled at her skin, st
retching it down from her jaw. “He didn’t have much hair.”

  She might have been describing any old man. When I was her age, I’d gone running in fear from every wrinkled coot who looked toward me. Bumble’s Lizard Man was probably just a poor old grandpa with baggy skin and liver spots who got lost on our street.

  But he might have been the Lizard Man.

  I didn’t know what to do. If I told Dad, he’d take me out of school and move us across the country. But if I didn’t tell him, and he somehow found out, he would be so furious that he’d probably take me out of school anyway, and ground me for life as well.

  Your dad’s a nutbar. Angelo had told me that. In his mind, the Lizard Man wasn’t even real. He’s just your boogeyman.

  Bumble shouted at me, “I want my cookie now!”

  “Just a minute.” I wasn’t ready to give it to her. “Did you tell Amy what you saw?”

  She shook her head violently. “Dad said not to tell anyone else.”

  I remembered him saying that when he’d given her the talk. You can tell your mom, or tell your brother, whoever’s closest. But don’t tell anyone else.

  I held the cookie a little closer. “You know what? I think we should keep this a secret, don’t you?”

  “You mean the cookie?” asked Bumble.

  “No, the old man,” I said. “I don’t think we should tell Mom or Dad about him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’d have to move away. You don’t want to do that, do you?”

  “No,” she said.

  “You like living here. Don’t you?”

  She nodded, her head moving up and down while her eyes stayed locked on the cookie.

  “Then it has to be a secret. Right?”

  I let Bumble touch the Oreo. Then I pulled it back. Frustrated, she drummed her fists on the table and shouted, “Give me my cookie!”

  “Okay.” Again I slid it closer, but not so close she could grab it. “Remember, this is a secret. You don’t want to shrivel up and die, do you?”

  “No,” whispered Bumble. I slid the cookie toward her again and she snatched it away. Instantly happy, she twisted the sides apart and chiseled the filling with her teeth.

  I wasn’t too proud of what I had done. But it was for Dad’s own good, as he would say himself. The less he knew, the better.

  But, just in case, I would watch for the Lizard Man. If I saw him too, then I would tell Dad.

  That seemed like a foolproof plan.

  LAUNDRY DAY

  Now that Bumble had put the thought of the Lizard Man into my head, I saw him everywhere I went.

  As I waited for Angelo on Monday morning at Mr. Meanie’s fence, three cars drove slowly by. With each one I thought, There he is. That’s him. On Tuesday, a VW van stopped beside me outside the school, and when the door suddenly shot open I leapt away before the Lizard Man could haul me inside. But out came a girl in pigtails, dropped off by her mom, and she looked at me like she thought I was crazy. In third period, I glanced through the window in the classroom door and saw the Lizard Man going by with a rifle. But it was only the janitor carrying a broom.

  By Wednesday, I’d made myself so nervous that I didn’t want to walk home by myself. So I invited Angelo to come over and play Alfred Chicken.

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll come over after dinner.”

  “Can’t you come now?” I said.

  He laughed. “Relax, Watson. It’s not that great a game.”

  I left Angelo at the corner and ran the rest of the way home. At six-thirty, when he suddenly showed up at the front door, I’d almost forgotten that I’d invited him.

  On Thursday, with only one more day of school to go, I was doing my very last homework when I heard the shuddering bang of the washer door. Water gurgled through the plumbing pipes.

  There was nothing unusual about that. Dad did the laundry every Thursday, and he always slammed the door. But for some reason the sounds made me feel uneasy. When I figured out why, I threw my books aside and raced down the stairs.

  I found Dad in the utility room, his back toward the door. He was standing beside the washing machine as it began its cycle.

  I said, “Dad.”

  He turned around and looked at me. In his hand was a piece of paper, crumpled and creased many times. But I could still see the names I’d written there.

  “Do you want to talk about this?” asked Dad.

  That was what he would call a rhetorical question. I didn’t have a choice. But Dad made me wait while dinner was cooked and eaten, while the dishes were done and Bumble was put to bed. I got more and more nervous as I wondered what would happen. Then, at last, I sat beside Mom in the living room while Dad walked back and forth like a lion in a cage.

  My piece of paper lay on the coffee table. Every time Dad walked by, it fluttered in the breeze he made, lifting from the table like a moth trying to fly away.

  “You couldn’t leave things well enough alone,” he said. “You had to go poking around, prying into everything. I’m furious about this.”

  He didn’t have to tell me that. His face was like smoldering embers, growing redder every moment.

  “I told you not to cross Jefferson. But you went where you weren’t supposed to go, and you saw things you weren’t supposed to see. Who else have you brought into this? Who have you been talking to?”

  “No one,” I said.

  He waved the paper at me. “You thought up this name out of thin air? I don’t think so.”

  Mom tried to calm things down. “We were both surprised by how much you found out on your own. We thought—”

  But Dad talked right over her. “How did you get that name?”

  “From a directory,” I told him. “I looked up the address.”

  “And how did you know that?”

  “I recognized the house.”

  He crossed his arms and stood with his feet far apart. “I imagine there’s more to it than that. I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “Look who’s talking!” I shouted back at him. “You never tell me anything.”

  Mom banged her hands on the coffee table. “Stop this!” she shouted.

  That brought silence. Mom leaned back and looked at us. “We’ve been getting along better than ever, and now you’re yelling at each other like lunatics. Do you hear yourselves, the two of you?”

  Dad was seething. But he gritted his teeth and said, “All right, I’m sorry.”

  “Now, Igor,” said Mom. “What would you like to say to your father?”

  She wanted me to apologize too. But I didn’t feel sorry about anything. “You treat me like a little kid,” I said. “The less you know, the better. It’s all for your own good.”

  “There’s a reason for that,” said Dad.

  “Yeah. You’re afraid.”

  Dad seemed stunned. Too surprised to speak, he just stood there turning even redder.

  “I’ve never seen the Lizard Man,” I said. “Neither has Mom. All the times you say he’s found us, he’s never done anything. Maybe he just likes to see you run away. Or maybe it’s all in your imagination.”

  “Igor!” said Mom.

  “Well, how do I know it’s true?” I asked. “How do I know there are Protectors looking after us? How do I know the Lizard Man is even real?”

  Dad looked very sad all of a sudden. Then he closed his eyes for a moment and kind of pulled himself together. “It is true,” he said. “I wish it weren’t, but it is. That man is very, very real.”

  “So why’s he coming after you?” I asked.

  “As a matter of fact, he’s not,” said Dad.

  That took me by surprise. “Then why do you keep running away?”

  “Because he’s coming after you.”

  THE REST OF THE STORY

  On that summer evening at the very end of the school year, I finally heard the rest of the story—or a bit more of it anyway.

  “Perhaps I have kept too many secrets,” s
aid Dad. “You were right about the house on the other side of Jefferson. That’s where we lived when everything began.”

  “So why did the Protectors send us back here?” I asked.

  Dad looked down at the floor, then slowly shook his head. “I can’t talk to you about that.”

  “Why did you go to the police way back then?” I asked. “What did you see?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Dad. “I can’t tell you that either.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was so awful that I’ll never breathe a word of it to anyone,” he said. “I’ll tell you only that it happened on the other side of the river, near the bridge, and it involved a man who will almost certainly die in jail because of what I said in court.”

  A lump bobbed in Dad’s throat as he swallowed. “That man’s father is your Lizard Man. The night before I went to court to testify against his son, he called me up.”

  “Oh, it was awful,” said Mom. She hugged herself tightly.

  “We were all asleep, you and me and your mother. Bumble wasn’t born yet,” said Dad. “Three in the morning, the phone started ringing. I remember thinking, This has to be bad news. Well, I picked up the phone and there he was. As long as I live, I’ll never forget what he told me. ‘If you put away my boy, I’ll put away yours. I’ll lock him up in a cold dark place and make sure he never gets out.’”

  “You turned as a white as a sheet,” said Mom.

  Dad nodded. “It scared the living daylights out of me.”

  Well, it scared the living daylights out of me too. I asked, “Will he come after Bumble?”

  “No,” said Dad. “Only you.”

  “And what if you think he’s found us?”

  Dad leaned toward me. “We’ll do as we’ve always done,” he said. “If I see the slightest sign that you’re in danger, we’ll pack up and leave. We’ll find somewhere safe and start over.”

  That made me sick inside. I couldn’t stand the thought of moving away. But it was scary to think of the Lizard Man coming after me. What if Bumble was right and he’d found us?

  “If he knew where we lived,” I asked, “would he come right away?”