Seth Adams - Are You Afraid of the Dark?

‘I chopped wood for us,’ Ivan said. The change of subject jolted Reggie, but he remained quiet. The set of the killer’s face – all hard lines and solid planes – told Reggie they were getting somewhere. Somewhere important. This was something told in a way only the teller could determine, in his own time. Like when Reggie had to tell his mom or dad about a lie he’d told, or something bad he’d done at school.

‘I loved doing it. It was hard work and repetitive, and the rhythm of the work set me at ease. And then watching the logs crackling in the fire and the smoke going up the chimney seemed a fitting conclusion to the work. A cycle of a kind.

‘The hatchet I’d bought from a hardware store with the money from one of my first summer jobs. I kept it in my room rather than outside in a shed or with the cords of firewood. I kept it under my bed wrapped in an old blanket.’

The snowy expanse of the killer’s northern home came alive for Reggie. Hills and forests and mountains. A small town of quaint, warm houses. And in one a young man in a room, kneeling to reach under his bed for a cherished bundle.

‘My father was a heavy sleeper and snored loudly,’ the killer said. ‘The walls in our home were thin and I could hear him clearly when he was asleep. I climbed upstairs without a single squeak of the floorboards beneath me, which was unusual. It was an old house, and the creaks and pops of its structure was a background noise you got used to. That day, however, it was silent, as if the place itself approved of my intentions.’

Reggie wondered about that. Could a place think? Could a house or building have a memory? He thought of the church and its parking lot. He thought of his dad’s plot at the cemetery. How he’d avoided both places for the better part of a year. The very air of each of them seemed heavy and difficult to breathe. At the wake in the church and the funeral at the cemetery, Reggie had felt as if he’d been watched the entire time, and not merely by the people who’d gathered to say their goodbyes.

Shifting uncomfortably, he didn’t think that was such a strange idea at all.

‘He was face down on the mattress,’ the killer continued. ‘He never awoke, never saw me coming. I did it with one swing. Cleaved his skull in two.’

The killer took a breath, let it out slowly. Then another. Reggie was reminded of a bull chuffing, its nostrils flaring, as it stared at an intended target to gore. Measuring the distance to the tree house ladder, Reggie hoped he wasn’t the focus of the man’s quiet, bestial fury. When the killer spoke again it was in a noticeably quieter tone, so Reggie had to strain to hear.

‘I wonder if maybe he knew I was coming and slept soundly because of it. Maybe in his own way, he wanted to be punished.’

He looked at Reggie with those stony eyes.

‘What do you think, Reggie?’

Reggie didn’t think much of anything at that moment, and said as much:

‘I don’t know.’

‘How does a man sleep after doing what he did?’ Ivan asked. ‘I like to think he knew I was coming and slept in comfort knowing that it was over. Maybe he knew the things he did were wrong and wanted them to end.’

‘How do you ?’ Reggie said.

‘How do I what?’ Ivan said.

‘How do you sleep, knowing the things you’ve done?’

The cold blue eyes twitched but nothing more. One hand slipped beneath his jacket and roamed, idly searching, and finding what it sought, stroked the item gently. Whether gun or knife or some other secreted instrument, Reggie didn’t know, and didn’t want to.

‘I’d like to be alone now, Reggie,’ the killer said after a time.

Reggie nodded and stood up. Moving down the ladder he stopped and looked back at the man leaning against the far wall.

‘I’ll bring you a sandwich or something for lunch,’ he said. ‘Lemonade or something to drink too.’

‘That sounds fine,’ the killer said, his gun now beside him. That Reggie hadn’t seen the motion that brought it forth was unsettling.

The man’s fingers ticked slightly, as if they yearned to touch the weapon. So close, only inches away.

Reggie moved down and out of sight.

In his room, Reggie moved to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and reached under his socks. His fingers found the bundle of money he’d filched from Ivan’s jacket, pulled it out.

He flipped through the bills, made a quick tally. Three hundred dollars. More than he’d ever had at one time. Once, he’d gotten over a hundred dollars combined for Christmas, from both sets of grandparents. He’d felt rich then, and his mom and dad had to remind him not to blow it all at once.

Now with three times that amount, Reggie felt momentarily overwhelmed with the possibilities. He could get a new bike. Or the new Xbox everyone at school had been talking about.

Then his excitement was quickly squashed as he considered the source of his newfound wealth. Where it had come from. How it was obtained.

We have an arrangement. We have a deal.

There’s consequences for breaking your word.

Suddenly, Reggie wasn’t sure if he really liked the terms of the deal. If he spent the money, it would be as if he agreed to it. But if he didn’t spend it …

Shoving the bundle back under his clothes, Reggie shut the drawer and walked out of his room, then downstairs, putting as much distance between himself and the cash as possible.

***

His mom did indeed want to go to lunch and a movie; Reggie didn’t know how to get out of it, and it was all because of the bruise on his face. She overreacted when she saw it, as he’d known she would.

‘It’s just a bruise,’ he said, trying to push her hand away as she cupped his face and turned it in the light of the kitchen for a better look.

‘How’d it happen?’ she asked.

‘I fell off my bike,’ he said, not quite lying.

‘You need to be more careful,’ she said, just short of a shout. ‘I can’t watch you twenty-four seven, Reggie!’

‘I know,’ he said, hanging his head low, hoping submission would end the interrogation.

‘You’ve got to be responsible, Reggie!’ she said, wetness gleaming at the corner of her eyes. ‘No one else is going to look out for you!’

‘I know,’ he said.

‘Your father would be disappointed,’ she said, peering so close and intently at his discoloured temple Reggie could feel her breath. ‘He’d never approve of such recklessness.’

In Reggie’s mind flashed backyard wrestling matches with his dad. Hikes along forest trails. Woodcrafts in the garage, the table saw buzzing, sawdust sprinkling the floor.

He was sure she knew the untruth of what she said. Her husband, his dad, had done many things with certain risks, and invited his son to all of them.

But that wasn’t the point, and Reggie knew this as surely as she knew the reason for her harsh words. Without his dad around, certain things just weren’t safe anymore. As his death had shown, anything was possible at anytime.

Only vigilance could assuage disaster, and that only with luck.

She went to the freezer and got out a bag of frozen peas, came back and pushed it at his face. He tried pushing it away but she prevailed, pressing the cold bag against his temple.

‘Hold it there for a bit,’ she said.

‘Mom,’ he began.

‘Don’t argue with me,’ she said in near hysterics, pushing him onto the sofa.

So he sat there in the living room, reached for the remote and turned on the television. Onscreen, the starship Enterprise blasted at vicious Klingon cruisers. Uninterested in the explorations of the crew that had in years past previously enthralled him, Reggie changed the channel, found a talking head on a cable news station. Sat back and tuned out the world to the droning white noise of the smartly suited anchor. His mom moved about the house in an imitation of work – dusting this, rearranging that – but always found her way back to the living room. After a dozen or so circuits, she stopped in the hall and looked in at him.