We picked up the medicine at the pharmacy on the way home. Dr. Schumann made Daddy promise we’d get it as soon as we could. The pharmacist was a nice man who smiled at me and offered me one of the lollipops they give kids who get a shot. I tried to smile back but I was still so scared it was more like a weird kind of half-smile. The pharmacist handed me the lollipop and I tore it open and started sucking on it. That calmed me down a little bit.
On the ride home Daddy asked me questions about the Gratitude Doctor. He was asking me what he looked like and what he wanted and things like that. I didn’t want to say too much about the Gratitude Doctor because I knew Daddy wouldn’t believe me, just like Dr. Schumann. I just told him he was a bad man and that he was scary.
When we got home, Daddy talked to Mommy for a long time. I stayed with Rosie. She was sad because her boyfriend had decided to stop being her boyfriend. Like I said, most teenage girls don’t talk to their little brothers like Rosie talked to me. But she told me what was happening. It was because of Daddy. Teenagers are bullies too, and when they heard about Daddy being short and working in the circus they made fun of him for dating Rosie. So he stopped.
I felt sorry for Rosie. She’d liked Sam a lot. I think Sam probably liked her too but he was tired of hearing people call him mean names. I understood that. I was tired of it too, but I couldn’t just break up with my family. I felt mad at Daddy again. It was just for a second, but I had the bad thoughts again about wanting him to be dead.
I was in my room when it happened, and as soon as I thought that I had another movie play in my mind like when I touched the picture. I saw the things the Gratitude Doctor had told me would happen if I ever called the police again.
He was standing over Rosie holding a knife and yelling at me. In my hand there was a little screwdriver and it was shaking right in front of Daddy’s eye. The Gratitude Doctor was screaming at me to put it in, to kill Daddy’s eye.
“I swear to almighty God in heaven if you don’t do it she’s dead!” the Gratitude Doctor yelled at me. He pressed the knife into her neck and a little red line appeared on it and dripped. I screamed and begged him to stop.
“Please don’t make me do it! Please don’t! Why are you doing this? Make it stop!” I was crying so hard I couldn’t see.
“I’ll give you three fucking seconds!” the Gratitude Doctor shouted at me and pressed the knife harder into Rosie’s neck. “1!”
I screamed and I cried even harder. My whole face was covered in tears. “Please don’t make me! Please! Please!” I screamed.
“2!” he shouted.
“Please, no!” I screamed again.
3!” he shouted.
“Please!” I screamed, with a long “a” that went on for a long time, long after he’d sliced open Rosie’s throat and she started choking on blood. I watched her choke for a long long time, before I woke up in my room, shaking and covered in sweat. I was so cold.
A red note on the wall read: “Next time, it’ll be for real.”
I was shaking so hard I couldn’t even get up when Daddy called me for dinner. He called me two more times before I could get up and go in to eat.
***
At dinner I was very quiet. Everyone else talked about their day but I didn’t have anything to tell them. I didn’t want to say anything about the Gratitude Doctor, and I definitely didn’t want to talk about how lonely I was at school now that I’d stopped hanging out with Paul and his friends. Rosie was quiet too, and we both knew what we were doing. Daddy and Mommy didn’t push us too hard.
After dinner, Daddy gave me my pill. He took it out of the bottle and put it in my hand. He told me to swallow it and gave me some water. I nodded, but before I could I heard a loud voice in my head.
If you take that pill you’ll watch your entire family die. You’ll watch them screaming and suffering in ways you’re too young to even imagine. I swear to God if you take that pill they’ll suffer more than anyone has ever suffered before I let them die.
I stopped, frozen.
“Charlie?” Daddy asked. “Why aren’t you taking the pill?”
I knew I couldn’t tell him the real reason. But I couldn’t take it either. What was I supposed to do?
“Charlie?” Daddy asked again, a warning sound in his voice. “Take that pill.”
I put it in my mouth but I hid it in my cheek.
“Good boy Charlie.”
I nodded and went to the bathroom. I spit it in the sink and washed it away. It left a really bad taste in my mouth but at least I hadn’t swallowed it. That was good. The Gratitude Doctor hadn’t lied about any of the terrible things he was going to do so far. If he said he’d hurt my family so bad I couldn’t even imagine it, I believed him.
***
That night I had a dream that I was back in my old school. My old friends and I were playing and laughing. There was a girl I liked, Terri, and she was there too. In the dream, we were going on a hike and looking at worms and things in the dirt. She was scared of getting hurt but I told her that I’d protect her.
After a while, we were so far away from everyone that nobody could hear us. She stopped me and pulled me over to her and kissed me. It was a hard kiss, like she’d been waiting to do it for as long as I’d been waiting for her to do it. I kissed her back, and I held her. This warm feeling started in my chest and I was smiling so much my face hurt.
Then, a big man jumped out of the bush and tackled her away from me. He started to hurt her and I yelled at him to stop but he just pushed me away. He kept on hurting her and I had to watch. I was crying and trying to get him to stop but nothing I did worked. He was so much bigger than me it was like punching rocks.
Finally, when he was done hurting her, he turned to look at me and I saw that he had a dark, cloudy head.
“Time to wake up, Charlie,” he said.