“Alan.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. I was halfway across Mrs. Curtis’ backyard with a bag of mulch on my shoulder, and I’d been thinking about how I wanted to get the flowerbeds done by three so I could run across the county and give the landscaping estimate to the guy who’d called in that morning. My brother Zach had been the farthest thing from my mind.
Yet I’d just heard him say my name.
That was strange enough in itself, as Zach lived three states away. What was way weirder was that it hadn’t been his adult voice I’d heard, but him as a child. When I was twelve and he was about eight. During the really bad times.
I pushed the thoughts away as I looked around for the source of the noise. Okay, if it hadn’t been him, then who was it? Had they really said my name, or had my brain just decided that so it would fit? My name and my little brother’s child voice?
Frowning, I put the mulch down and slowly turned again. No one was out there with me, and the next house was a good hundred yards away. I didn’t hear any radios or televisions on, and…
“Alan? Come here, Alan.”
I blinked and looked to the right. The only thing over there was the large garden shed, but the door was shut and I saw no signs of anyone there. Still, I was feeling a weird sense of unease and guilt, and it irritated me. Clenching my jaw, I strode over to the shed and wrenched the door open quickly, half-expecting to catch some pranking child inside.
But no, just tools and an old lawnmower than probably hadn’t been run since before Mr. Curtis died. Stepping back, I shut the door and looked up at the sun. Maybe I’d gotten too hot. It was just noon, but I decided to finish the yard the next day and go across the county for the estimate. The old lady might get a little pissed, but I didn’t feel right, and I could get things finished by lunch the next day anyway.
My thoughts kept going back to Zach all afternoon, and that night I called him.
“Hey, man. How’re you doing?”
“Um, fine I guess. Everything okay with you, Alan?”
“Yeah…I just…well, I had something happen today that got me thinking. About when we were kids.”
“Okay.”
“Well, and I know…look when Mom was with that Parker guy and he was hurting you, I should have spoken up. Especially when the cops and caseworker lady asked me about it. I didn’t because I was scared, not because I didn’t care or didn’t love you. I…I just wanted you to know that.”
“Okay. I mean yeah, I asked you for help, but I knew you were scared too, and you were still a kid. And I got through it.”
“You were always the toughest kid I knew.”
He sighed. “It wasn’t about me being tough. It was just surviving. I told myself I was two people. The outer one that Parker saw didn’t feel anything. All he did was take the bad and channel it into hate for him. The inner part? That was the stuff I didn’t want to lose or get twisted by hating him. And when he was gone, I just sent the hardened outer part away.”
“J-Jesus. I’m so sorry, man. I wi-“
“Look, I appreciate the call, but this isn’t a good time. Talk to you later.”
And then he was gone.
I didn’t sleep much that night, and when I got out at the Curtis house the next day, my stomach was queasy and loose-feeling. Swigging some coffee, I got out of the truck and went back to work. I was working hard and fast, and only partially to beat the afternoon heat. I also didn’t like being out there, especially with my back to that shed. It was stupid, but
“Alan.”
I spun around on my knees. Nothing and no one. But again it sounded like it was coming from the shed. Getting to my feet, I felt my whole body tensing as I walked to the middle of the yard. Fighting to keep my voice casual, I called out.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
No response. Looking toward the house, I thought about asking Mrs. Curtis if someone else was staying with her or might be out here, but then I remembered she’d been leaving for a doctor’s appointment as I’d pulled up that morning. I doubted she was back, and I had never had any sign of anyone else living there or being around.
“Alan? Help me, Alan.”
“Fuck this.” It was coming from the shed, or someone hiding around on the far side. Had to be. Fists clenched, I stalked a fast circle around the shed one way and then the other before yanking open the door again. There was no sign of anyone inside or out. Was it a hidden speaker or something? Was this some weird vindictive prank Zach had set up to pay me back for when we were kids? Nothing made sense, but I wasn’t imagining it. I had heard a voice, and it sounded like Zach and knew my name.
“I’m hiding, Alan.”
Standing just inside the shed, the voice this time was both louder and oddly muffled. My skin began to prickle as I realized why. It was coming from underneath the shed.
Looking around, I picked up a claw hammer from its pegs on the wall and stepped back outside the shed. The shed was elevated on several pillars of concrete blocks, but the clearance was less than two feet. Wishing I’d already trimmed around the shed the day before, I got down on all fours and peered through the long grass into the dark under the building. The middle of that space was black, but I could still see enough from the sunlight at the edges to make out something large in the center. I tried to tell myself it was probably just a pile of old clippings or some junk the Curtis family had stuck under there years before, but then I saw it move.
Not just move, but start slowly crawling toward me.
“Alan? Is that you, Alan?”
Gripping the hammer tightly, I wanted to get up and run, but couldn’t quite make myself. Was it fear or guilt? It was Zach’s voice, wasn’t it? But how could it be?
“W-who are you?”
“I’m your brother. Help me.”
Anger and fear climbed my spine together as my face began to tingle and my hand ached at how hard I held the hammer. “No you’re not. You’re a liar. Stop. I…I have a hammer.” It did pause for a second at that last, but then it started back toward me. It was close to the edge now, and I could see more with every shuffling motion it made.
Ghastly white skin stretched over small skeletal hands with ragged, dirty nails. The grime traveling up the arms highlighted how pale they were, but I hardly noticed once I saw the other marks. Bruises, purple and yellow and black, covered the forearms and only got worse as his upper arms and shoulders made their way out into the light. Ropy keloids wrapped around the small frame like painful vines of crimson and violet, so thick and intricate and terrible that I couldn’t look away as my gaze traveled between them before landing on the small, grey-haired head that was raising to meet my gaze.
“Oh…oh God.”
It was Zach, or something that looked much like Zach had been when he was eight or nine. But this version of him was not a child. Pale and grey, it was gaunt and wizened not by time or sickness, but by pain and sadness and hate. And looking into his face, he almost seemed like a little old man at a glance. His skin was deeply lined and sallow, the topography of his cheeks defined by more scrapes and bruises. His lips split and resplit in half a dozen places, and when he spoke, I could see jagged teeth behind. His nose was crooked. I’d forgotten that, but hadn’t Zach had his nose busted so bad once they had to take him to the doctor? I thought so. God, I thought so.
But the worst were his eyes. Yellowed and bloodshot, they looked ancient and weary while also having the wounded confusion of someone that knows that the world hurts them more than most but doesn’t yet understand why. Holding my gaze, it spoke again as it pulled itself closer.
“Do you know me now, brother?”
I was sitting back on my ankles now, openly crying as I nodded. “I-I do. I’m so sorry. I should have…should have stopped it. He never messed with me, and I was scared if I told he would start.”
He bobbed his head up and down, and as he did I saw a scabby ravine that ran above his right ear. “Yeah. You were always the favorite. She wouldn’t let him near you. So I got your share.”
Sobbing, I reached out and touched his bony hand. “What can I do to fix t-augggh!” He had lunged forward with surprising speed and strength, pulling himself onto me and biting deep into my left shoulder. Pain and terror filled my brain as I began to hit him on the back with the hammer. I heard a dry laugh coming from around the edge of his rough lips as he ground his teeth down into the meat of my shoulder.
“It’ll take more than that. I’m tough, remember?”
Falling back, I started to roll trying to throw him off, hitting him again and again when my arm and body were in a position where I could. Nothing seemed to work, and I could feel myself slipping toward a darkness as he shifted his mouth closer to my neck and bit down hard again.
“Fuck! Let goooo! Stop it and let goooo!” I was wailing now, almost out of my mind with fear, and my arm was tiring from hitting him and fighting. Terrified I might lose the hammer, I turned it in my hand and hooked the claw in between my shoulder and the thing’s terrible jaws. For a moment nothing happened and I felt my grip slipping, but then there was a pop and he was off me, scrabbling for the bushes as I pushed myself back along the ground several feet before my arms gave out. Hand trembling, I raised the hammer in front of me like a crucifix warding off a vampire.
“Stay back, damn you. Stay…away from me.”
He just stared at me for a moment from under a chokeberry bush, blood dripping from his mouth as he began to smile. “Do you know how long it’s taken me to find you? How many years after he sent me away?” Raising a long, knobby finger, he ran it along his bloody cheek and sucked it clean. “Not now, though. Now I have your number.”
“What do you want from me?”
His eyes narrowed as he spat onto the ground. “Want? I don’t want anything from you. I just want to give you something.”
I stared at him, trembling. “What?”
His face split into a toothy grin as he slid backwards into the shadows beyond the yard.