The Nightmarys (3 page)

in chaos. The lit le light in the darkness. The

words were a comfort. They gave him hope.

Timothy opened the bathroom door and

peered into the hal way. A few footsteps

echoed through the now-quiet corridors of the

school, but he couldn’t see anyone. With

nothing and no one to stop him, Timothy

zipped up his jacket and hiked his book bag

high onto his shoulders before making his way

toward the school’s front entrance and out into

the wet afternoon.

Paul Revere Middle School was a redbrick

Victorian monstrosity of a building that sat on

the edge of downtown New Starkham, wel

away from the river and the bridge, past

Col ege Ridge, bordered on the east by

numerous factories and warehouses.

As Timothy pushed his way into the

blustering wind up Johnson Street, he could see

the silhouet es of the seven gothic spires, which

marked New Starkham Col ege, peeking over

marked New Starkham Col ege, peeking over

the hil ’s horizon. New Starkham students

passed Timothy on the sidewalk in smal

clusters, bundled against the unseasonable chil .

They laughed at nothing in particular as they

made their way up the street.

In a couple of weeks, their final exams would

be done. For the col ege students, graduation

happened at the beginning of May. Lucky,

thought Timothy. Classes at Paul Revere didn’t

let out until the end of June. As he turned right

onto Edgehil Road, Timothy shuddered at the

realization that only a year ago, Ben had made

his own trip across the stage in the high school

auditorium to receive his diploma. So much

had changed since then.

Timothy trudged several blocks along the

tree-lined street, continuing up the hil , passing

the quiet houses on either side, until he reached

the wooded area on the left that dropped away

from the road. A bat ered silver guardrail

hugged the sharp curve—the “edge” part of

Edgehil Road. From there, a long, covered

Edgehil Road. From there, a long, covered

staircase descended the steep wooded hil to

the col ege’s athletic fields at the bot om.

At the end of the guardrail, Timothy came

upon the entrance to the stairs. The blu s

across the river looked as sul en and cold as

Timothy felt, the clouds above darkening in

papier-mâché strips. The only color Timothy

could see came from inside the stairs’ gra ti-

covered wal s.

The staircase had been nicknamed the

Dragon Stairs by students and faculty who lived

o campus in Timothy’s neighborhood. Several

years ago, someone had painted an immense

Chinese dragon onto one wal , stretching from

the bot om stair to the top, where its swirling

eyes rol ed back into its head as if in the throes

of a terrible dream. Timothy thought the

dragon was cool, but its eyes were creepy. He

felt like he might fal into them and keep

fal ing forever. It was an irrational fear, like in

nightmares, the way everyday objects can

instantly become ominous. Stuart teased him

instantly become ominous. Stuart teased him

about it, pretending to chortle in the dragon’s

high-pitched voice, tel ing Timothy, “I’m going

to eat you up.” Then they’d laugh together, turn

up Beech Nut Street, and race home.

Now, at the top of the stairs, the monster’s

black-and-white pinwheel pupils reminded

Timothy of the thing that had been watching

him from inside the jar back in Mr. Crane’s

classroom. He suddenly found himself thinking

about the new girl, Abigail Tremens, who

would be his project partner during the eld

trip to the museum tomorrow. In his head,

Timothy could see Abigail’s eyes boring into his

own, only now, instead of brown, they had

turned the black and white of the Chinese

dragon. Stay away from me, they growled.

Timothy shook his head and turned away.

Why had she been so angry? he wondered.

Maybe invisible things don’t like being seen.

Timothy was nearly soaked by the time he

reached the front porch of his smal gray house.

reached the front porch of his smal gray house.

He thought of the last time he walked home

alone from school. Last week, when Stuart was

at a doctor’s appointment, Timothy had found

a big black car parked in his driveway. Inside,

the men in uniforms had already told his

mother about Ben’s injuries.

Today there was no car. Timothy brushed a

drip of water from his forehead. A cough came

from the house next door. He didn’t even need

to look to know that Stuart was watching him.

He took a deep breath and turned around,

ready to confront his best friend, once more

hoping they could just laugh it o the way they

usual y did.

But Stuart had already gone. The slam of the

screen door rang out across their shared yard.

The Chens’ front porch was empty. Unless

Stuart had gured out a way to become

invisible himself, he wasn’t there, wasn’t

watching.

4.

Inside, Timothy ripped o his wet jacket and

threw it over the banister at the bot om of the

stairs. Then he dropped his bag onto the

wooden bench in the hal way. Timothy noticed

his mother standing in the kitchen down the

hal , leaning her head against the cabinet next

to the sink. “Hi, Mom,” he cal ed. “Guess

what?” He waited for her to turn around, but

she didn’t, so he continued, “I saw a girl light

her foot on fire today.”

“That’s nice, honey” was his mother’s mu ed

reply. A few seconds later, when she did turn

around, her face was drawn. “I’m going to

make dinner,” she said. “Your father should be

home soon.” She looked older than usual and

terribly sad.

“Mom?” Timothy tried again. She turned on

the sink. “When can we talk to people about

what happened to Ben?”

what happened to Ben?”

“Soon, honey.” She turned away from him.

“When we know a lit le more about …” She

washed her hands.

“About what?” he asked cautiously. He

waited and waited, but the only answer that

came from the kitchen was the sound of

clinking dishes.

Later that night, when Timothy was in bed,

through the wal , he could hear his parents

arguing. Outside, the wind had blown away the

clouds, so the moon shone brightly onto his

quilt. The house rocked against a particularly

powerful gust.

His parents were talking about Ben. Timothy

was upset that they had each other to con de

in but he had no one. And when he tried to

talk to them about it, they pretended he wasn’t

there.

It was after midnight, and he was awake,

huddled under his blanket, thinking about the

afternoon’s events, trying to block out his

afternoon’s events, trying to block out his

parents’ voices. If he didn’t get to sleep soon,

he might sleep through his alarm in the

morning. Despite Stuart and Abigail, he was

actual y looking forward to the field trip.

In his parents’ room, the closet door

slammed, and Timothy heard his mother say,

“Quiet, you’l wake him up.”

He noticed that his own closet light was on.

At the base of the door, a smal white line

re ected onto the dark wood oor. The light

had not been on when he’d got en into bed an

hour earlier.

Someone ushed the toilet down the hal .

“Mom?” Timothy cal ed. No answer. “Dad?”

Ordinarily, Timothy wouldn’t have thought

twice about get ing up and turning o the light,

but recently he’d begun to notice things he’d

never noticed before. Invisible things. And what

if one of those invisible things was behind the

door?

“Mom?” Timothy tried again. But the rest of

the house was now dead, and he was left alone

the house was now dead, and he was left alone

with the moonlight, and the wind outside the

window, and the weight of his quilt. And the

light behind his closet door.

Barefoot, shivering, Timothy stepped out of

bed. No one and nothing would be in there, he

told himself. Scary things never happened

when you were expecting them to; scary things

always came out of nowhere to surprise you.

He grasped the doorknob and slowly turned it.

When it wouldn’t turn any more, Timothy

heaved a sigh and swung the door open. What

he saw made him nearly wet his pants.

Inside the closet was a large glass jar like the

ones from his history classroom. The jar was

tal er than Timothy, covered with dust and

l ed with a cloudy yel ow liquid. A large

black lid was hanging loosely over the rim.

Something dark oated near the bot om of the

jar. The object began to move.

Through the smudged glass, drifting in the

liquid, two arms and a leg came into view.

They looked human. After a few seconds, the

They looked human. After a few seconds, the

thing inside the jar nal y came close enough

for Timothy to distinguish the military emblem

on its decaying sleeve. Suddenly, as if blessed

with life, the dark shape raised its hands,

pressed them to the jar, and brought its face

against the glass.

It wasn’t an It.

It was a He.

Timothy’s brother, Ben, opened his mouth

wide and showed him his purple swol en

tongue. Timothy screamed.

Ben stared at him with big eyes the same

color as the Chinese dragon, the same color as

the specimen in Timothy’s classroom. Swirling.

Black. Mad.

Ben reached up and knocked the lid to the

ground. It clat ered against the hardwood oor

and spiraled past Timothy in a long, continuous

cymbal crash. With pale wrinkled hands, Ben

grasped the rim of the jar and pul ed himself

up from the liquid. He raised his head above

the rim, took a deep howling gasp, and smiled

the rim, took a deep howling gasp, and smiled

wide, showing a mouthful of dead brown teeth.

Timothy jerked awake. He sat up. His room

was dark. The closet door was closed and the

light was o . It had never been on. His

bedroom wal s solidi ed and the furnace

hummed somewhere below the oor. Timothy

could hear his father snoring in the next room.

Sheesh.

He’d been having nightmares ever since Ben

went away. This was by far the scariest. But it

was just a nightmare. Not real. And that was a

comfort.

After a while, the moon moved back behind

the clouds, and the nightmare began to fade

away. By the time Timothy’s head hit the

pil ow again, he’d nearly forgot en al about it.

Nearly.

EDGE OF DOOM

INTERLUDE

NEW STARKHAM HOSPITAL—

NEW STARKHAM, MASSACHUSETTS

Byron Flanders had su ered several heart

at acks since retiring from his career as the New

Starkham district at orney twenty years ago, but

this most recent one had been the worst. The

night before his bypass surgery, he was having

trouble sleeping. He lay in his private hospital

bed hooked up to al sorts of tubes and wires,

the weak uorescent light on the wal barely

il uminating the smal mat ress. He was cold.

The pulsing of the heart monitor was like

water torture. Beep. Beep. Beep.

He’d paged the nurse for the third time in

several minutes to try and get an extra blanket,

but no one had responded. He’d already

but no one had responded. He’d already

struggled to close the curtain that surrounded

his bed to stop the air conditioner from

blowing at him, but it was not helping. Byron

Flanders was not used to waiting, and he was

becoming annoyed.

Throughout his life, Byron got what he

wanted. In the courtroom, he’d earned himself

the nickname “the Hammerhead,” as in shark.

If you were accused of a crime, and the

Hammerhead decided you were guilty, he

usual y found a way to put you away. His

tactics were usual y legal, but not always. He

gured, when you have a job to do, you do it.

You get it done. No mat er what.