Fear Story Part Three

Part Three

When our actions do not,

Our fears do make us traitors.

--Lady Macduff, Act IV, scene ii

Weeks passed. I let memory fade and shift into a horrible dream, and I went about my days in total     denial. I spent most afternoons at the decrepit playground, swinging and reading books, until one day I approached the rusty fence surrounding it to find people sitting in my usual spot. I stopped and stared in horror. It was the blue-eyed boy, with a girl, and he was holding a fat leather-bound book in his hands.

I experienced a moment of such utter panic that I temporarily lost my head, and I dodged behind a bush. I thought for a moment that they must have seen me, but when I peered at them from my uncomfortable place in the grass, they seemed absorbed in conversation.

 I turned back around and considered my options; I could warn the boy of the impending spider attack, and risk him thinking I was insane; or I could leave him to the horror and not get involved. I immediately knew which I’d do; he could survive it if I could. But he was bound to find out the name in the front was mine when school started, and he’d probably think I was the source of whatever evil was in the journal.

I thought of the spiders, and squeezed my eyes shut at the memory—had they returned to the book as sketches, or left it an empty shell with my name?

I couldn’t hear them talking from my position, so I crawled to a nearer bush, trying to stay quiet and feeling ridiculous. From here I could make out their low voices in the warm air.

“Don’t be stupid,” the girl said indifferently, “Someone’s pranking you. It’s probably Derek; I’ll tell him to leave you alone.”

“Derek doesn’t know about my dad,” he said, obviously upset. He had an expressive tenor voice, unlike the deep, decidedly disinterested voices I’d come to expect in boys my age. “At least, not this,” he said more quietly. The girl didn’t say anything for a while. When she did speak, she sounded pitying.

“Listen, I get that you’re freaked out, but a sketchbook with a drawing of your dad crying in it isn’t that impossible. A lot of people didn’t like your dad.” He snorted sardonically, and she continued more gently, “I know it’s weird, and unexpected, and I know you hate him, but you can’t know you’re the only one who’s ever seen, or imagined him this way. You just can’t.” 

“What about the signature?” He said defiantly.

In the silence, I turned around to watch them through the leaves. The girl looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know, Bay. How would I? I’m just saying…” The boy, Bay, interrupted her. “Never mind,” he said, “Let’s just stop talking about it.” “Okay,” the girl said immediately, relieved. “Let’s go find the others.”

She got off the swing and held her hand out, but Bay shook his head, not looking at her. “No, you go. I’m going to stay here for a while.” The girl gave a few weak attempts to convince him to come, but in the end left willingly enough and he watched her go, blue eyes expressionless.

I waited a few minutes. Which turned into five, then ten, and soon we were pushing fifteen. Let me tell you, fifteen minutes crouched behind a bush is not a nice experience, and I still had no idea how I would approach him without being seen getting up from behind a bush now that he was alone. Which would be mortifying.

Besides, I couldn’t get over the startling news that the book had changed. I knew it was the same book; I recognized everything about it from the stained sides to the black leather cover, though seeing as it was a book that brought to life one’s fears, nothing was truly shocking anymore. I let my head rest against the grass and we waited together, him not ten feet away swinging ever so slightly with the book clenched in his fists, seeming to know as well as I that something would soon happen. My heart beat like the ticking of a clock, marking the time; although it sped faster and faster the longer we sat.

I finally heard a sharp intake of breath and a low cry from behind me. Turning, I watched the book fall from the boy’s hands as if in slow motion, and what looked like a human hand reaching out of the open page. I lost the ability to breath as the book landed face up. We watched as a man pulled himself out of it, as if emerging from a hole.

He seemed to expand, snake-like as he squeezed out, wriggling his head, neck, and chest into the world. Bay was staring, white and petrified, from the swing, mute as he watched his father being born from the pages. Soon enough the man was fully free, solid and real, standing exactly before him.

The man was crying, and looked drunk, but he was handsome in a 40-year-old-man kind of way. Tears streamed down his red face, and Bay was mouthing something over and over. “I’m sorry,” is what it looked like, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The man lifted his hand, slowly, deliberately, and Bay flinched back, but not enough. A pause made my heart stop painfully in my chest, and the man looked both angry and hungry, until his hand came down and hit Bay hard, in the face. It sent the boy (who looked about 17, muscular in a subtle way that was no match for this powerful man) onto the wood-chip ground of the playground, face down, where he stayed. I screamed, and stood, but the man dissipated within moments; turning abruptly from man to breeze to nothing at all.

When I reached Bay he was already sitting up. There was no mark on his face, although he looked horrified and shaken. “It’s Bay, right?” I stammered, but he looked at me with glassy eyes. “Listen, that wasn’t real.”

 I felt idiotic, talking at him as he obviously was trying to remember how to breathe. We sat in silence for a few moments, and I couldn’t help noticing that he was shaking, and that he had a spattering of freckles just on his nose, like my little brother. I was at a loss at how to comfort him, so I just sat and watched his hands gradually grow still and his breathing slow. It took a surprisingly short time, considering. Once he’d collected himself, he looked over at me, and after a moment, glared suspiciously.

“So you saw it too?” He said finally, blue eyes fierce.  I nodded, “’Course. Where’d you find the book?” A look of surprise crossed his face, but only briefly, before he narrowed his eyes at me again. “I found it in the woods, at the trail head. It had my name in it.” “No kidding,” I muttered.

“Listen, my name’s Katrina,” I said a little louder, “and it happened to me too.”

“My dad came out of a book and slapped you?” A ghost of a bitter, sarcastic smile played at the side of his mouth, and disappeared. I shook my head. “No, but it had my name in it three weeks ago. I found it in the book store on 88th.” “And proceeded to deposit it in the woods.” He must have been looking for someone to blame, because everything about him was sarcastic. I glared back at him aggressively.

“I wasn’t really keen on picking it back up again. I thought you might understand.”

He stood up quickly, and I leapt up a little less gracefully. I didn’t like this development much; he was quite a bit taller than me, his stance not so much menacing as indignant. I immediately felt younger.

 “Okay, so what came out when you had it?” He said, brow raised.  I was suddenly a little embarrassed. “Um.” I hedged, “Well I’ve had a really bad experience with—I mean, I’m not totally—“ He was looking at me with more curiosity than venom at this point. “Spit it out,” he prompted.

“Spiders.”

He sort of laughed, just then, and knowing that he could laugh so soon after the ordeal, even if it was at my expense, made me sort of like him. Sort of. I still turned and quickly walked away, but he followed easily, scooping up the book first. “Sorry. You have to admit, it’s kind of funny.” “It’s really not,” I shot back, and he just chuckled, walking out of the park and down the trail with me.

“So, what,” he asked, “d’you think it shows us our worst fears?” I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe it makes us relive the worst moments of our lives.” He looked slightly skeptical. “Spiders?”

“I told you, I had an ordeal!”

“Did it involve walking through a spider’s web?”

“No.”

“Did it involve anything bigger than your face?”

“You know what; I’m never going to tell you.”

“I’ll guess it eventually. Your fear’s kind of main stream.”

“Oh, go away.”

He walked with me down the path and into town, and all the way to the other slightly more decrepit playground, and he didn’t once mention the book that was in his hands.