Andrew Klavan - Nightmare City

Whatever , Tom thought. The important thing, after being trapped in that horror movie of a house, was how beautiful this place was, how peaceful. No fog. No bizarre voices. No monsters. Maybe the Lying Man in the computer wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Maybe the lie he had told to coax Tom out of his room had been well-intentioned. Sure, there had been moments of terror and agony when he’d stepped out into that hall and the malevolents attacked him. But now he was here. In this peaceful place. So maybe the man in the computer was right to lie. Maybe things were going to be okay after all.

Tom took a hesitant step forward. A wonderful thought had come into his mind. It was the same thought that had come to him last time, just before the phone had rung and brought him back to his bedroom. He thought: If this is heaven, then Burt must be here . He would be able to see Burt. He would be able to talk to Burt again. Burt would know what was going on. Burt would have the answers.

What would Tom give—what wouldn’t he give—for the chance to hang out with Burt even one more time?

A smile began to play at the corners of Tom’s lips as he started searching the faces of the people in the garden. But at the same time, he became dimly aware of a noise in the background. What was that?

Oh no , Tom thought.

It was his phone! Right on cue. His stupid cell phone was ringing again, playing the guitar riff from the old Merle Haggard song. A sour feeling came into Tom’s stomach and rose from there up into his throat. If he turned away from the park… if he answered that phone… would it take him back? To the nightmare? To the pain? To the horror?

He did not want that to happen. He did not want to go back.

Well, why should he? All he had to do was take one more step, one more, and he would enter this beautiful and peaceful place forever. No more monsters. No more fog and fear. No more suffering. Why would he ever turn back? Why would he ever want to answer that phone?

Behind him, the phone kept ringing, singing insistently. Tom gave a fierce shake of his head, determined to ignore it. He would continue forward. He would walk into the beautiful park. He would find his brother. He and Burt would be together again.

Why was he hesitating?

A memory. A memory from his childhood had sparked and flared in Tom’s mind, just a flash, there and gone in a single instant. Such a strange, random thing to think about. Why had it come to him? And why did it make him pause?

He had remembered how three of Burt’s friends came to the house once for a sleepover a long time ago. Tom was just a little boy then, five or six. He was supposed to go upstairs to bed early. But he begged his mom to let him hang out with the big kids. Mom said he could stay up with them for a little while if it was okay with Burt. And Burt said it was okay.

This was before Tom and Burt had redone the basement. The best TV they had was in the back room then. Tom was thrilled to sit there cross-legged on the rug and watch the movie Tuck Everlasting with the big kids. He didn’t say much. He was afraid Burt’s friends would make fun of him if he did. He just sat and listened to the big-kid talk and watched the show.

After a while, Burt had gotten up and gone into the kitchen to make some popcorn. While he was gone, one of his friends—Vince Lindstrom, his name was—had started talking to Tom.

“Hey, did you hear about the guy with the hook?” Vince asked him.

Tom had not heard about the guy with the hook. Vince began to tell him. He told him that there was a man roaming around Springland who had a big hook where his right hand should have been. Vince said the hook guy crept into kids’ bedrooms at night, hooked them around the neck, and stole them away.

“It’s a true story,” Vince said.

Tom didn’t really believe Vince, but he sort of did believe him at the same time. Anyway, he started to get scared—really scared that he might go to bed and the hook guy would come into his room and steal him.

Finally, Burt came back with the popcorn.

“Hey, Burt,” said Vince, with a big grin. “I’ve been telling your brother all about the hook.”

Burt carefully set the bowl of popcorn down on the table by the sofa. Then he walked over and gave Vince a slap on the back of the head. It was a friendly slap—but not that friendly. Hard enough— whack!— so that Vince cried out.

“Ow! Hey! What’s that for?”

“Don’t lie to him,” said Burt.

“Aw, I was just giving him a hard time,” said Vince, rubbing the spot on his head where Burt had thwacked him.

“You can give him a hard time all you want. You can tease him. You can make fun of him. He’s my little brother. That’s what he’s here for. But don’t ever lie to him. It’s not allowed.”

Even though he was just a little kid, Tom had somehow understood this—understood why Burt made this rule. He and Burt didn’t have a father. Their father had left before Tom was born. Tom had never even seen the man. Mom was a great mom. She worked hard to pay for their house and for food and everything. She was an assistant at a law firm—a paralegal—and sometimes she had to stay up with her papers long into the night to get all her work done. But she still found time to be Mom, to make breakfast, to make sure her sons got to school, to help them with their homework and all that. There was nothing wrong with Mom, it was just…

It was just that without a father, Tom felt that there was no one in his life who would tell him the truth, no matter what. There were just some things Mom wouldn’t say to him, some things she was too nice to say or too embarrassed to say. She would never say, for instance, You are acting like a complete and total idiot , even if he was. She would never say, If that bully bothers you again, slug him one in the cake-hole . She would never tell him what girls were really thinking about. Stuff like that.

But Burt would tell him those things. No matter what the subject was, no matter what the problem was, Burt would tell it to him straight, as much as he knew and as much as he thought Tom could understand. It wasn’t that Burt was always right. Sometimes he didn’t know the answers. Sometimes he got the answers wrong. But Tom knew Burt would never lie to him intentionally, never say anything he didn’t believe. That was the rule.

And that was the memory that came back to Tom as he stood hesitating on the border of the garden, as he stood looking out over the green grass and the bright flowers and the majestic Greek temples. He heard the phone ringing behind him, ringing and ringing, threatening to draw him back into a world of pain and fear.

Why had he remembered that night of the sleepover? Why did it make him hesitate to step into the garden?

The answer came to him.

No matter how peaceful this garden seemed, he was here because the man in the computer had lied to him, had tricked him, had talked him into going back out into the hall where the malevolent monsters were waiting.

But Burt—Burt had told him to fight. Burt’s voice had shouted to him from the television set, telling him not to give in to the monsters, not to despair—that despair was never an option. Burt had urged him to find the baseball bat—the Warrior—and make a stand against the creatures who wanted to destroy him.

And Burt never lied.

Tom gazed longingly at this mysterious parkland that seemed to him like heaven. His heart yearned for its beauty and its peace. The phone ringing insistently behind him sounded irritating and discordant. He knew that if he turned back to answer it, he would step right back into a nightmare.

But he knew—he knew in his heart—that Burt would want him to go back. Go back and fight—go back and figure out what was going on—get to the bottom of things, get to the truth of the matter.