A Hollow Dream of Summer's End (10 page)

"Who goes first?" Freddie asked.

"I don't care," Aiden answered. "Rock paper scissors?"

"Sure."

They bounced their hands in three silent bumps, each throwing paper on the first try. Freddie's fingers were red, long tendrils running down his arm, even more vibrant than they seemed a few minutes ago. Aiden tried not to notice. "Rock, paper, scissors," the lanky boy called.

A second round saw them both throw rock. Then paper. Then three sets of scissors and two more sets of paper. Finally they throw rock five times in a row until Freddie just gave up and snapped, "I'll go. I don't care."

But something told Aiden he did care. He always cared. Freddie tried to hide a lot of things behind a mask of indifference, but at the end of the day that's all it was: a mask.

Then he was gone, descending the rickety rope ladder. Aiden lowered his head, studied that upside down world. Clicking sprinklers. Shadows. A thousand trees on the edge of the property. And that distant house, bright, warm. Sanctuary. Could he make it?

Yes, he thought. Freddie wasn't the fastest, but he could move when necessary. And if anyone had a chance...

Aiden's thoughts turned cold.

"Freddie," Aiden gasped. "Stop, Freddie."

"What?!" Freddie asked, voice laced with fear. "What!?"

"I think..."

"Think what?"

Nothing had moved: no sudden burst of speed, no shifting shadows. Yet his mind said something was there that didn't belong. Something was askew.

"Think what?!"

The sprinklers clicked and clattered, the dull hum of water on grass. And behind it...

Tick-tick-tick.

"What?!" Freddie whined. "God dammit, Aiden—"

"Shut up!"

Click-click-click
, went the sprinklers.

Tick-tick-tick
came the sound, so close by it almost seemed...

"Freddie! Come back! Come back now!"

And with that the tree trunk shifted.

"Oh my God, Freddie, come back!"

A horrible black shape extended itself from the tree trunk. A living shadow that clutched the bark like a barnacle to the hull of a ship. It was beneath the treehouse, so close. Those wretched legs were dug into the fibers of the tree.

It hadn't run away, Aiden realized. It had climbed into a dark spot and waited.

The sound that came from Freddie's lips when that long arm snatched was a pitch so high Aiden's ears rang and his body tensed. Primal, he thought. Pure fear and terror. The sound any animal makes when cornered and fighting for its life.

Freddie screamed and pulled himself up the ladder as quick as he could. Not quick enough, however. The creature latched on three rungs beneath his foot and pulled the rope ladder toward the trunk. The whole ladder bent, taking Freddie with it.

"Freddie, climb!"

Aiden reached out a hand, but his friend was still a quarter of the way down. And that arm, it pulled, hard. Alien joints and muscles curled, wet fingers flexed. Aiden's flashlight passed over it and all went to horror. The skin was patchwork stitching, rotten in some parts, fresh and new in others. Tendons and fibers flexed beneath a grey layer wrapped in torn fabric. A piece of Brian's jacket was tied to a bicep, a brown muck seeping out beneath it. And teeth. A hundred teeth in a dark maw. So many teeth all gnashing as it pulled his friend closer.

At the sight of only a fraction of the monster, Aiden's mind did what he never thought it would do: it screamed out to him to slam the hatch. To shove his friend down into the darkness. To save himself, and himself only.

And yet, he ignored it. "Reach, Freddie!" he screamed, hand out. "Reach!"

Closer, Freddie climbed. Closer...closer...

The ladder bent. The ropes creaked. Freddie screamed and climbed.

Closer... closer.

A loud crack pierced the air. Bones breaking, Aiden thought. Freddie's.

Yet then the ladder swung the other way, away from the tree trunk. Away from the horror attached to it. Away from that grotesque arm that clutched a broken rung. Three inches of wood had been snapped like a child bending a toothpick.

The momentum caught Freddie off balance, sent him spinning sideways. For a moment, brief and horrible, the rungs were jerked from his fingers, and he fell.

Three rungs passed Freddie’s fingers. Then he grabbed the fourth, his body swinging around the side of the ladder. The whole rope structure spun awkwardly, a pendulum now rushing back toward what had set it free: Mister Skitters, and its snarling, gnashing maw.

Aiden reached for the only thing he could think of and threw it. Didn't know if it was a good idea. Didn't even care. He sent the metal flashlight spinning from his fingers in the hardest overhand he'd ever pitched.

The flashlight let out a meaty thump as it smacked into that tumorous face below. A cloud of dry skin and rot erupted. Tendrils of black ran from broken grey skin. A howl, wounded and furious. And then both the flashlight and Mister Skitters plummeted fifteen feet below.

Freddie scrambled and crashed against the trunk, brushing up against the torn bark and indentations from where the creature had latched on. Seconds later he was back in the treehouse. Tears and snot covered half his face. His pants were wet, a dark patch puddling out from his crotch and down his left leg.

But Aiden didn't care, didn't even have time to notice. He pulled the ladder back up as quick as he could. Far below the flashlight cast long shadows at the base of the tree. And down there, skittering and rolling among the darkness and light, Mister Skitters squealed and slapped at its face as if stung by a dozen angry bees. It hissed at Aiden, a resentful shriek, child-like and vulgar.

And then it ran off, skittering into the shadows, leaving the flashlight at the base of the tree. A fallen torch just out of reach. Above, only candles remained. An amber glow, and from within its warmth a boy sobbed.

—

Freddie spent a good twenty or thirty minutes crying. After that he went silent, moved off to the other side of the treehouse to lick his wounds and gather his thoughts. He said nothing to Aiden, no word of thanks or acknowledgement.

Aiden tuned the radio through empty channels, thumbed through the iPad. Again, no signal on either.

When Freddie returned all he said was: "You threw our only flashlight."

"I tried to save you," Aiden replied.

"But you threw away our only flashlight," he said again.

"We've got this," Aiden said, holding up the iPad. "Better than nothing."

Freddie snorted as if the idea was stupid, absurd. Still, he took the tablet and flicked it on, the white light filling the treehouse.

"You're welcome," Aiden said when he passed off the glowing tablet.

"What?"

"For saving you. You're welcome."

Freddie gave no reply, simply stared at the glowing screen as if it held an answer.

He was right, Aiden thought. Throwing the flashlight had been a stupid idea. Yet Freddie hadn't thought of a better one. Aiden had taken initiative, as his coach said. Taken initiative and acted. All Freddie had done was piss himself and scream.

"It's quiet," Aiden said. Again, Freddie gave no reply. "At least it'll be dawn soon."

Aiden opened the hatch, stared into the darkness below. At some point the sprinklers had gone off. Thirty feet down the flashlight lay among the dirt at the base of the damp tree. It might as well have been thirty miles.

"Think it'll come back?"

"Of course," Freddie said. "It's waiting."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Freddie answered, hand scratching inside the pocket of his hoodie. "Yeah, I'm sure."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

"We can wait it out," Aiden said. "The sun'll come up. My dad and Julie will come out. They'll help us."

"Yeah, maybe," Freddie chuckled, his voice dripping with annoyance. "Like when they came out to save Brian. Oh, they didn't, did they?"

"Maybe they didn't hear."

"Or maybe it got them."

Aiden opened his mouth to respond, but found himself unable to come up with anything. The words were heavy, thick.

What if it had gotten them?

It was an idea so horrible it hadn't even occurred to him. What if his dad and Julie were the meals, and they were the desserts? Maybe that's why the lights were still on, why he hadn't seen them since the game of laser tag.

"Don't say that," Aiden said. "Please, don't say that."

Freddie shrugged and stared off at a dark corner, lost in thought.

Maybe it had gotten to them first, Aiden thought. His mind went back to that idea again and again. What if Julie and his dad were off in some horrible black cocoon, acid flowing through their veins as that horrible thing turned them from family into a feast?

No, he thought. His dad was smart, strong, resourceful. He'd seen him knock a ball out of the park once a few years back before his work became the only thing he ever did. Back when they played catch until the sun set. Back when they lived in the same house, and Julie was just a woman that answered the phone at an office.

But that was a different life, a time when they were a team and not three fractured pieces.

"What time is it?" Aiden asked again.

"Five," Freddie said, turning the iPad on and off.

"Can I see it?"

"Why?"

"’Cause I want to see it. Why's it matter?"

"It matters," Freddie said slowly, "because I don't want you to throw it like you threw the flashlight."

"Dude, what's your problem?"

"I don't have a problem. I also don't have a flashlight."

"Yeah, and you wouldn't have anything if I didn't throw it." Aiden felt warmth run up his body. "I saved your life."

"Yeah, so? Whose stupid treehouse are we stuck in? Whose stupid house did we go to?"

The heat built, climbing. Aiden felt his fists ball up, tight. "I didn't make you come here," he said. "Plus, it's not like I knew some freaking monster lived in the woods, okay? What's your prob?"

"My prob? What's my prob?" The lanky boy's voice hardened, primed. He stood up, swaying. Aiden saw a fist inside the pocket of the hoodie, another one at Freddie's side. Dark veins, pale skin.

He's losing it, Aiden thought. Just like he did with Dong Hyun, or Lloyd in P.E., or Brian or...

"My prob is that we're stuck in some tree, and that thing's down there. You threw our only flashlight away! We don't have any way to get out, or call out or anything! That's my prob!" Freddie pointed a finger, red and swollen, right at Aiden's face. "It's your fault! All of it!"

The heat rose from a simmer to a boil. Aiden slapped his hand away. "Don't take it out on me! I'm only trying to help."

Then Freddie was upon him, fists swinging. It happened so fast, a blur really. A left and a right cross sent him back, more open-handed slaps than full on punches. One popped his ear and he heard crickets and bees and felt warmth.

Fists flew from both kids, angry haymakers that went too wide or too narrow and bounced off shoulders or missed altogether. Freddie pinned Aiden but couldn't get enough torque to land more than a glancing blow. And all throughout the assault that heat rose. Hotter, hotter. His hands seemed to pull him up from beneath his friend like a marionette on strings. Rising, fighting, shouting, and the treehouse went sideways.

And suddenly Aiden was the one on top. Suddenly Freddie was beneath him, hands scratching at Aiden's face, fighting him off. Suddenly the four inches Freddie had on him didn't seem to matter at all. Strength, fire, heat that was what mattered. Aiden was a lucid flame, fists alight.

"Guys..."

"Stop it!" Aiden shouted and struggled with his friend. "Stop it!"

"Guys..."

"Fuck you!" Freddie frothed and flailed. "This is all your fault!"

"Guys...help..."

"STOP IT!" Aiden shouted, pinning the lanky boy to the wood.

"Please... help me... guys..."

And then Freddie stopped fighting and Aiden did too. They had both heard it. A faint voice, quiet and tired. Exhausted perhaps. It came from far off, from the shadows.

It came from below, they realized at the same time.

"Is that—"

"—Brian?" Aiden cut in.

And with that, Aiden got up and Freddie wriggled free. They raced over to the window. Nothing but darkness and wet grass outside.

"Brian?" Aiden called. "Brian, buddy, is that you?"

"Brian!?" Freddie shouted, almost a cry. "Brian!?"

"Help me," came the voice, faint enough to be a whisper.

"The hatch," Aiden said as they scampered over and threw it open.

Thirty feet below, among the dirt and tanbark at the base of the redwood, standing over the fallen flashlight, was their friend.