The Waiting: A Supernatural Thriller (15 page)

They
stopped at the island to grab two fishing rods and then set off, eventually dropping anchor at the first spot Jacob had pointed out. Evan sat behind Shaun, helping him hold his rod and cast into the cool water, shaded by an overhanging birch tree. At first Shaun became frustrated as he tried to crank the reel, but soon he got the hang of it. Evan had to slow down his furious pace, otherwise the bait barely touched the water before the boy had it back in the boat.

After some time, he
noticed something missing. Doing a mental check, he sat back, still steadying Shaun’s hands on the rod. The sun shone down on them from a cloudless spring sky. A few waves rocked the pontoon, and the far-off whine of a boat motor could be heard intermittently. He finally realized he felt peaceful. His mind wasn’t clogged with worry or apprehension, and the lack of it had thrown him off. Hugging Shaun close, he kissed his hair, just above his small ear.

“Shaun, are you having fun?”
he whispered.

“Fun,” Shaun said, yanking the pole back as something tugge
d on the other end of the line.

“Wooo, you got one, buddy
,” Evan exclaimed. “Reel it in. Reel it in.”

Shaun cranked and fought the fish until it gradually surfaced, flashing and leaping from the water in a shower of droplets beside the pontoon.
Evan hauled the fish aboard when it got close enough, and Shaun shrieked with delight, flapping his arms so hard it was a struggle for Evan to balance him and unhook the bass at the same time.

“We’re keeping him, pal,”
he said, putting the fish on a stringer. “Supper.”

“Sup
-por,” Shaun echoed.

They whiled away
the time until early afternoon, catching a small mess of fish for a meal. Shaun’s head kept dipping on the ride home, and Evan held him tight, smiling as his son fought to stay awake. Evan docked the pontoon and carried Shaun up to the porch, laying him on the most comfortable reclining chair. Shaun grinned at him once and then shut his eyes, exhaustion dragging him into sleep before he could say or do anything else.

While
he slept, Evan cleaned the fish on a small wooden table he found to the north side of the house, his eyes shooting to the porch over and over.

We’re
both going to have to sleep in the house tonight anyway.

He
threw the fish guts in the woods and took the white fillets into the house to soak them in cold water. The urge to pick up the phone and invite Selena over for supper struck him, and he went so far as to pull her business card out of his wallet. Sliding it carefully into its slot again, he put it back and went to the porch.

Evan
lay down on the daybed beside Shaun, the sleeplessness of the night before finally claiming him. The sun and fresh air paired with the low tinkling of the wind chimes became too lulling, and his last thought before he fell asleep was he should’ve propped a chair against the basement door.

He barely makes
it into the hospital bathroom before throwing up. The vomit courses out of him, sloppy ropes landing in the toilet water. As he heaves he feels the round container in his hand, even though it isn’t there anymore; he’d dropped it back into the bag the moment he pulled it out.

“
Honey, I’m sorry, I—”

But her voice i
s lost in another gagging hack as he doubles over again. When the nausea lets up enough for him to flush and wipe his mouth clean, he leans in the doorway, not looking at where she rests in bed but at the crumpled bag on the floor, at what lies inside.

He moves
forward, his feet full of lead, his head throbbing in time with the pulse running like a jackrabbit in his chest.

“Goddamn you,” he says
, still not looking at her.

He bends
, feeling the urge to throw up again, and grasps the bottle, pulling it free. Its contents rattle in his shaking hand. When he looks up, Elle is gone.

Instead
of her bed, the clock lies on its back upon the floor. Its three glass doors are different; they are rounded and made of the same polished mahogany as the rest of its body. The three cases look like coffins. His mouth falls open, and the pill bottle slips from his hand as he takes a step back—

—
and watches the middle lid rise, pushed from inside.

Evan cried out, his arm spasming as he rolled off the daybed. His fist struck Shaun’s recliner, pain blossoming in each knuckle. Shaun’s eyes leapt open
, and he made a frightened sound, something between a shriek and a moan. Evan landed on his hands and knees, panting, his stomach roiling with sick. Sweat hung in beads from his hair and rolled down his forehead. His arms threatened to drop him, and he pushed himself back onto the bed with enormous effort.

“Da?” Shaun asked, his eyes
wide as he struggled to sit up.

“I’m okay, buddy, I’m okay.
It was a dream.” He spoke more to himself than to Shaun, and when he looked up, he saw an expression of concern on the boy’s features. “I’m fine, honey, just a dream.”

“
’Kay?”

Evan
’s brow creased and his throat constricted. He stood and then sat on Shaun’s chair, holding his son’s hand in his own.

“Yep,
Dad’s okay.” He summoned a smile, shoving the residue of the dream away, praying that it would fade further. “Are you hungry?” Shaun nodded. “Okay, let’s rustle up some food.”

~

They ate on the porch, Shaun downing his roast-beef sandwich in wild bites while Evan nudged his around and picked at the few potato chips on his plate.

After lunch they ventured down to the dock, Evan carrying a frying pan, an
ice-cream-pail lid, some bubble solution, and a small bottle of dish soap. He set Shaun in his chair beside the beach and began to work, talking to him as he did so.

“You have to be careful not to cut yourself, but you also have to make sure these edges are smooth,” Evan said, carving the center out of the
ice-cream lid with his pocketknife.

After a few minutes
, the lid was only a thin ring, the flat center lying discarded on the dock. “Now, this next part is the real art.” Evan poured the entire container of bubble mixture into the frying pan. “You can’t put too much or too little dish soap in with it, it’s got to be just enough.” He squirted the blue soap into the pan, swishing his fingers through it to mix it in. “Then we check it,” he said, standing.

Evan set the plastic ring into the pan, submerging it in the substance. After a second he withdrew it, letting some of the liquid drain off. A transparent skin hung in the center of the ring, reflecting the afternoon light in swirling,
oil-slick colors.

“Now we see if we did it right
.”

He checked
the breeze, then gently pulled the ring through the air with both hands. A huge iridescent bubble expanded from the hollow cover. It grew and grew until it became the size of a large beach ball. With a deft downward motion, Evan cut the bubble off and set it free. It drifted in a lazy motion toward the lake, its sides wobbling so much that he thought it might burst, but it didn’t. It kept moving out over the water, dipping and then rising like a confused bird.

Shaun’s face was a portrait of
wonderment. His mouth was open an inch, his eyes wider than when Evan had awoken him earlier with his cry. A low breeze ruffled his light hair, and he pointed toward the lake.

Evan had completely forgotten about the bubble, his gaze fixated on the beautiful expression on Shaun’s face. When he tur
ned his head, he saw the bubble floated only inches above the water’s surface. A particularly high wave rolled toward the island and grazed the bubble’s lower half, instantly bursting it.

That was our life before the accident
.
Then something came along and tore it apart for no reason.

Shaun’s mouth opened wider
, and for a second Evan feared he might cry, but then his eyes shifted to Evan’s.

“More!”

Shaun placed his fingertips together in the accompanying sign, the one Elle had taught him, the only one he knew by heart, and then Evan bit his lip to ward off tears.

“More?”

“More!”

“Okay
, here we go.”

They blew bubbles for hours. When the solution in the pan ran low,
he refilled it, to Shaun’s happy sounds. The wind changed and began to come from the east, which helped the bubbles travel farther before disappearing. Evan lost himself in the moment, his hands slippery to the wrists. He couldn’t make the bubbles fast enough; Shaun’s laughter was the ultimate payoff whenever he achieved a truly giant orb. Evan wished the afternoon could last forever—the wind speaking in the pines, Shaun laughing, a smile almost constant on his own face. He wished ... and stopped himself, unwilling to break the spell that surrounded them, an invisible bubble of its own.

Finally
, the bottle of bubbles became empty, and a curled line of clouds advanced in a steady wall from the west. The blue sky turned overcast, and the sun hid within the churning, gray folds.

“Time to go in, Shaun,” he said
, and waited for a reaction.

Shaun frowned, kicking his legs once so that they banged into his chair. Evan tilted the pan
toward him so that he could see its emptiness.

“All gone.”

Shaun’s head drooped. Evan smiled and patted him on the back, then cleaned up their supplies. His eyes kept trying to roam toward the house; he knew they would soon have to go inside. The clouds continued to build across the lake, but he heard no thunder and hoped it wouldn’t storm.

Evan fried the fish they caught in flour and butter, seasoning it the best he could with salt and pepper. They ate with relish, Shaun smacking his lips several times, doing it again when he didn’t need to si
mply to get a rise out of Evan.

After dinner
Shaun had a bath. Evan washed his hair and scrubbed behind his ears. As he rinsed a washrag, a strange feeling intruded on his mood, a cloud covering the sun. One more bath, another day gone, meal after meal. It was simply a meter, wasn’t it? A marking of time until the days were thin, the end near, near enough to touch, to taste. Is that what he was waiting for? The end? For this all to be over?

Evan gazed at his son and stopped him from putting the bar
of soap into his mouth, for the tenth time. Shaun splashed the water, and a small runner of drool rolled down the side of his chin. Evan wiped it away, the sight of it more depressing than anything he’d seen in a long time.

“Let’s get you out, honey.”

~

T
hey sat at the kitchen table working on tracing until Shaun’s fingers couldn’t hold the marker properly anymore. Evan watched him close, waiting for his attention to stray to the basement door, but either he had forgotten the prior night’s incident or he chose to ignore it.

“Okay, time for bed. Big day tomorrow, gotta go to the hospital and do some therapy.”

He helped Shaun out of his chair and let him walk to his room, his fingertips barely helping to balance him. After tucking him in, Evan sat on the end of the bed.

“
This was a good day, buddy. I had fun.”

“Bub, bub.”

Shaun struggled with the word, and Evan let him work on it before helping.

“Bubble.”

“Bubbow,” Shaun repeated.

“Yeah, we had bubbles, didn’t we?”

Shaun smiled, snuggling into his pillow. “Moon?”

“Moon?” Evan said
, glancing at the darkening window. His stomach sank. “You mean
Goodnight Moon
.”

He had forgotten the book at home. How had he missed it? He could even see it sitting on Shaun’s bedroom floor. Elle would’ve never forgotten something so important.

“I’m sorry, buddy, it’s not here.”

Shaun’s face darkened. “Moon?”

Evan opened his mouth to try to explain, but instead the first words of the story came out. He spoke easily and found that he could see every page in the book, the words standing out in bold black and red ink. Shaun’s eyes closed as Evan’s voice carried him away. He paused at the page about clocks but pressed on, ignoring the shiver that tried to run through him. At last, Shaun’s breathing became deep and his arm jerked a little as sleep took him fully.

The creaking of a door openi
ng in the kitchen met his ears.

His head
snapped in that direction. He waited, listening to the quiet of the house. With his pulse picking up speed, Evan stood and made his way through the living room to the kitchen, expecting the basement door to be standing ajar.

But it wasn’t.
He checked all the other doors, and none were open even a crack. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, wondering why the hell they hadn’t left today.

Curiosity killed the cat.