The Key to Everything (27 page)

The boys laugh. 

“Come on, T. Let’s do this.”

“After you…”

Blackie rests his hands on the doorframe, leaning his head in first to take a look around. Furniture, picture frames, paintings sit still in the darkness. 

“Shoulda brought a flashlight, bro.”

“Yeah. Shoulda.” T places his hands on Blackie’s lower back and gives him a hard shove.

“Fuck man!” Blackie stumbles forward, his sneakers squeaking their rubber soles across the floor. He gains his balance and turns back in time to watch T slam the door closed. “Dude!”

“Make sure you grab something so we can prove you weren’t a pussy after all and went inside.” T’s laughter sounds muffled through the thick door.

Blackie runs back to the door, trying to pull it open, but T is stronger. He’s always been stronger. Ever since preschool, the bigger kid beat up on him every day, just because he could. The only reason they became friends was because Blackie fought back. Every single time, he fought back. 

After a few hard pulls, Blackie gives up. He knows he won’t be able to get it open if T doesn’t want him to. “Uncool, you fuck.”

“Yeah. You’ll thank me later. Think about Jules and those big fat titties.”

Blackie turns back to the house, trying to let his eyes adjust to the shadows. His ears flood with overload from the sound of his heart pounding. “Right…”

Walking through the living room, he runs his finger along the edge of the fireplace. He looks at the pictures of the people who must have lived here. They’re all pretty lame. Little kids on swings, a wedding, some dude with long hair playing guitar.

He grabs the last one from the mantel. This one is all right. It’s some chick in the shadows, and she looks naked. She’s got some big old pregnant tits too. He squints and can make out her nipples. He smiles. T will dig this. Blackie slides it under the back of his shirt inside his belt. 

A sound pulls at his ear from the kitchen. He walks around the couch so he can see better. He sees something sitting there on the center of the table. It looks like it’s moving. The cover blows up like his stomach does when he’s lying down on his back breathing hard. He reaches out and tugs at the red string holding the old book closed. 

His fingertips brush across the old leather, feeling its warmth. He doesn’t feel afraid anymore. He notices the silence in his ears now. No more deafening drums of his heart.

He traces the edge of the cover. He pulls his hand back sharply, holding his finger up to his mouth. The paper cut sliced deep into the inside of his index finger’s first knuckle. 

“Damnit.” Blackie shoves the book away and turns to leave. A rustling sound makes him stop and turn around. At the far end of the table, the cover of the book rests open. The pages turn by themselves, like the wind is speed-reading. 

Blackie doesn’t wait around to see what happens next. He runs back to the door. Pages tear away from the binding swarming through the kitchen into the living room. Looking back over his shoulder paper twisting around the room piling up on the floor folding into shapes recognizable shapes ink pooling into the curves of toes letters bending to ankles paragraphs knees chapters torsos novels faces. 

He trips over an untied shoelace face-first onto the floor. Blood squishes from his cut lip, smearing across the wood. The street light coming in through the window twinkles in the dark, and fluid dripps down his chin. Cold, unfinished hands reach underneath his arms, lifting the boy back to his feet. 

Blackie doesn’t want to turn around. He doesn’t want to see the woman’s face smiling at him as the pages wrap their way around, molding themselves into the rest of her head. He doesn’t want to see the two little boys walking over, entwining their still-unwritten fingers with hers. He doesn’t want to see the man put his arm around her shoulder while the final words streak through the air and land on his wrist, completing the book of his body. He doesn’t want to watch the smaller boy look up into his mother’s face then step forward and lift his hands out palm first. He doesn’t want to watch the words swimming around the paper skin with unreadable quickness. He doesn’t want to see the letters freeze in place one at a time, standing out for him to understand. 

Spinning away, running as fast as he can, he grabs the doorknob and pulls with strength he didn’t know was in him. The door rips inward, slamming into the wall beneath the stairs. He doesn’t look back this time. Breath rushing in and out of his lungs, sending saliva flying between his lips, mingled with blood still dripping out of the fresh wound from his fall. 

Now he feels fear pounding in his heart again. 

Now the drums thunder in his ears so loud it all but drowns out the rest of the world.

“What the…” T is sitting on the concrete step awkwardly teaching himself to smoke, trying to figure out how to keep the cigarette hanging from his lip without looking like he’s working too hard. Blackie is a blur, running past him out into the street. “Why are you being such a pussy?” The kid throws his cigarette down and chases after his friend. “Did you at least snake something like I told you to?”

Blackie doesn’t notice the picture frame fall from his belt in the middle of the street. He doesn’t hear the glass crack when it hits the concrete. T stops at the black-and-white image in front of his feet and looks down. Picking it up, he pulls out a few broken shards of glass and throws them aside. His fingers carefully brush at the photograph and angle it around until the streetlight illuminates it enough for him to see the naked shape of a woman.

“Cool.” He looks up at his friend shrinking away down the street, and turns back the other way.

Blackie doesn’t stop. He runs all the way home. He runs upstairs. He runs to the security of his bed. He buries himself in safety under his covers. He pretends to sleep when his mom comes to check on him. 

He knows why people are afraid of that house. 

He knows what’s in there. 

-55-

Hands

Most things look better in daylight. The sun strips away everything hidden in shadow that might frighten us at night. In light we can see. The monster climbing out of the closet is now a sweatshirt hanging on the door. The werewolf on the chair becomes an overstuffed teddy bear. What was a vicious hellion, stretching wide its drooling mouth with hundreds of angry teeth, is now the piano in the corner of the living room. 

Unfortunately, there are still hidden places where the light will never reach. Each time Blackie closes his eyes, he finds those spaces. He sees the book. He sees the cover beating and breathing with life. Letters and words pummel him. Through his long, sleepless night, he keeps the lights on in his room, but they stand a useless watch against the horrors inside his head. 

He can still see the expressions on their unfinished faces. He still sees the vowels and consonants twisting and turning into eyes noses mouths. Hardcover bindings are spinal columns sprouting ribs from sentences, flesh from poetry and prose. He can’t stop feeling those fingers grabbing under his arms lifting him to his feet. Formed but not quite solid. Moist and sticky like the paper-mâché from art class. Letters floating around on the little boy’s hands remain plastered across the inside of his eyelids whenever he closes them. 

Blackie crawls out from bed. He rubs his eyes with the backs of his palms and shuffles his tired feet into the bathroom down the hall. The bright, fluorescent light above the mirror stings, so he switches it off and washes his face in the shadows. The warm water feels good on his skin. Maybe a shower will make him feel even better. 

Reaching out to pull the curtain aside, he notices something on his hand. He can’t feel it, but it’s moving. The room is too dark now, so he flips the light back on. He squeezes his eyes and shakes his head against the buzzing semi-green glow. His throat chokes closed, seizing the air flowing in or out from his lungs. 

Scratching at the skin, trying to rip it from his body. Frantically, he claws his nails deeper, exposing muscle and bone. Teeth rip a thick, bloody chunk from the base of his thumb that he spits down to the floor. His mother walks in from the hall and screams. She tries to grab his arms to stop him. His father runs in, alarmed by the noise of the struggle. It takes both adults to pin the boy to the floor and hold him down.

Blackie eventually passes out, allowing his father the time to run to the phone and call for help. The mother pulls a towel down from the shower rod and starts wiping up blood from her son’s hands. She looks at the markings and doesn’t understand how they got there. She puts water on the towel and tries to clean them away, but the words are etched out of reach, deep inside layers of skin. 

Blackie softly mumbles something that she can’t hear. His eyes are still closed, pupils rolling around behind the lids. She leans down, putting her ear close to his bruised lips. “What did you say, honey?”

“Nnnnnn.” His head shakes back and forth. Arms and legs start to fight against the small woman’s weight holding them down. “Nnnnnnot…”

“Not what Blackie?”

“Not Safe!” 

“What are you talking about?” She turns her head to the hall, shouting for her husband. “Bill, I need you in here!”

Blackie opens his eyes and stops struggling. He remains still on the floor of the bathroom until the paramedics arrive. He is still when they lift him onto the stretcher and carry him down the hall. He barely breathes as they bring him through the living room toward the front door. He doesn’t move in the ambulance or when the doctor sticks the needle in his arm to put him to sleep before they piece back together what they can of his shredded hands.

Blackie’s father quickly throws his clothes on so he can follow them to the hospital. He is rushing and afraid so it’s understandable that he doesn’t look at the kitchen table when he picks up his cell phone and car keys. No one could blame him for not noticing the big leather book tied shut with dark red twine, resting next to his unfinished cup of coffee.

The door closes behind him and the house is silent. The brown leather cover rises and falls. 

Rises and falls. 

Rises and falls.

if not for you...

Melissa

Jonah & Gabriel…

without you there are no words

Mom & Dad

your eternal support

Jodi

you put up with all the banging (it’s the brownies!)

&

Thomas Dunn, Brett Merritt, Stephan Cox, Jeff Rosenberg, Jim Malloy, Heather L. Nelson, Katherine Sears, Ken Shear, Greg Simanson, Janna Balthaser, Victoria Wolffe