Childhood Fears Read online

  Without fully realizing what would happen next, he found the courage and strength to pull himself out of bed and follow his mother into the kitchen. Every sound as he tiptoed past the closed door of his parents’ bedroom, the slightest creak of the floor was a gunshot. His father, if he was in there, did not wake up.

  Dressed in a thick, flowered bathrobe and white socks on her feet, Lucy Pallasso opened the silverware drawer, reached far into the back and produced a black zippered bag. Will watched in silence as she unzipped it, took out the syringe pieces. She put it together with the confident touch of her profession, the cold precision of a nurse doing something she’d done a thousand times before, pressing the needle through the membrane at the end of a small bottle of clear liquid. Will’s heart raced, wondering what kind of shot he would get, what he’d done wrong to deserve it. His stomach hurt, but that was because he was scared. He wasn’t sick. He wanted to say this to her, stop her before she stuck him in the arm, but the silence between them was too urgent. Will watched with quiet fascination and dread as she pulled back the plunger, filled the hypodermic with fluid.

  “Your father came back. He’s sleeping now,” she whispered, pushing out the air bubbles. “It’s now or never.”

  Will nodded, understanding nothing except that his mother knew what she was doing.

  “I need you to be my strong boy.”

  Will nodded again, and began to roll up his left sleeve but his mother didn’t notice. She turned and walked with quick but silent steps in her socks back through the living room, down the hallway to her bedroom. Grateful that the darkness hid his embarrassed face, Will followed like a faithful dog. He waited in the open doorway listening to his father snore. The lamp was on, muted by one of his father’s handkerchiefs draped over the top of the shade. Beside this, the necklace with the sphere and rings lay curled like a sleeping snake. The sight of it sent a renewed sense of horror, of unreality, filling Will’s stomach. He looked away from it, toward the man on the bed. Even in the dim light, the remnants of white greasepaint were visible along Jacob’s jaw. Will stepped completely into the room, stopping on the opposite side of the bed from his mother. His parents kept separate twin beds the past few years, a choice which Will hadn’t thought much about when made, but now he wondered if it had something to do with his mother’s suspicions that something awful was going on.

  “Hold him down,” she said softly. The light from the hallway did not disturb his father’s sleep, nor did her soft voice.

  Will stared with a mix of fear and confusion at the man under the tangle of sheets, stained with the make-up he hadn’t completely cleaned from his neck and forehead. How could someone so close be so alien to him? How could he be able to do such horrible things?

  A flash of his father in the clown outfit, and it had been his father (there was no questioning that now), face painted over, that strange, inhuman glee dancing beneath. How many more victims had there been?

  No, not possible. Will had imagined it all. He was just a kid, barely a teenager. His father wouldn’t do something so bad. Now Mom was going to do something bad, too, and it would be Will’s fault.

  “Now,” she said. When he hesitated, she looked into his face for what seemed like a long time. Will stared back, mouth slightly open, silently begging her to stop whatever she was doing. As if reading his mind, she whispered, “You didn’t imagine what you saw, William. I promise you, this is not your fault. Hold him, please.” The hardened expression softened, for just a moment, at her final word. She needed him. His father hardly knew he existed, but his mother needed him more than ever.

  Will leaned forward and pressed down upon his father’s shoulders, gently at first, so afraid of waking him. He had to lean over to do this until his face hovered only an inch above the large man’s chest. Smell of sweat and dirty clothes. He was so close that, with every breath his father took, his chest touched the tip of Will’s nose. There was no way he could overpower such a large man, but once contact had been made, he pressed harder, waiting for the eyes to open above him. His father’s sudden snore turned into a near-cough as he surfaced from sleep, but Will’s mother had already jabbed the syringe into his throat and pressed the plunger.

  Jacob Pallasso struggled for no more than a few seconds, in that time his eyes rolled in a half-drunken, half-drugged haze, looking down and connecting momentarily with Will’s upturned face. His lips, bright red in a couple of spots, formed his name, Billy, then the head sank deeper against the pillow and Jacob surrendered to whatever he’d been injected with. His breathing was labored as his body fought to stay alive, losing the battle with every rapid blink.

  Then he was still. At his mother’s light touch against his back Will straightened and stepped away from the bed.

  Something had changed in her then, as if strings long holding her upright and strong were suddenly cut loose. She bent over, almost draping herself across the dead man in the bed, before she caught herself with fists on either side of him, one hand still holding the syringe which poked into the mattress. She sobbed quietly but without ceasing, even as she rose and covered the needle with a plastic tip and set it down on the night table beside Jacob’s strange necklace. She slid down onto her knees beside the bed, folded both hands together and rested her forehead against them.

  “Hail Mary,” she whispered. “Full of grace. The Lord is with thee…” She stopped, raised her wet face to Will who only stood on the other side of the bed, not sure what to do.

  “Pray,” his mother said. “Pray for forgiveness.” Her voice was hard.

  He got down on his knees on his side of the bed and together they prayed the same prayer, over and over, until his mother felt they had done enough. She took in a deep breath as she stood up and began disassembling the syringe.

  “He was a bad man,” she said as she worked. “A horrible man. We had to stop him. It was God’s will, so that no more children would suffer.”

  Will nodded, staring in fascinated horror as she opened his father’s mouth and pressed the empty vial far down in the back of the throat, then worked the needle and syringe side by side into his mouth. The plunger and the screw-end of the needle poked out like candles on a birthday cake. Will felt his throat constrict, tried to tell himself that his father was already dead and—

  Too much. He had time only to turn so his back was to the bed before vomiting the remnants of the spaghetti and meatballs he’d had for dinner against the wall, grateful that his mother’s bed was on the opposite side of the room. The woman was shouting at him, but he ignored her, focusing everything he had on trying to stop throwing up and get a breath of air into his lungs.

  He leaned one hand ahead of him, spitting out the constant saliva which pooled under his tongue, vaguely aware of thumps and groans behind him.

  When he finally stood up, hoping he could wait a little bit before cleaning up the mess, she was standing near the door. The rug which had once ran along the feet of both beds had been pulled almost into the hallway. His father lay on top, birthday candle syringe still sticking out of his mouth, hands folded across his chest.

  All of this was bad enough, but what sent the boy to shivering was the sight of the clown suit—he was still wearing the stupid thing, splashes of red across the shirt and pants, at least in the places the hall light spilled over him where his mother’s shadow hadn’t concealed.

  No pretending it had been a dream, now or ever. He hadn’t imagined it.

  His mother waited. Finally, Will looked around the room, vision finally resting on her cold, shadowed face. “We are absolved,” she said. “I know we are, but we can never tell anyone about this. Not even a priest in the confessional. This is just between God and me. God and you. Me and you.”

  Will stared at the unmoving body of his father, mouth full, eyes squinted closed. The body seemed coiled, ready to spring back to life.

  “Now go to bed,” his mother said. �
��We’ll take care of the rest in the morning.”

  Will said nothing, stepped past the body, waiting for hands to reach out and grab his ankles. They didn’t. He made it into the hall, then his bed. His mouth was sour from the vomit, but he dared do nothing except what he’d been told to do. Go to bed. Go to sleep. The latter took a while, as he lay in bed listening to his mother putter around the kitchen, echoes of her footsteps descending into the basement, then nothing. An occasional scritch of something he almost recognized, but in the context of the night could not place it. At last he tumbled off into the deepest sleep. One without dreams.

  Chapter Six

  Present

  Lisa flipped the eggs over, enjoying the smell of them mixing with a touch of butter, the greasy scent drifting across her face. She always loved the smell of cooking food, especially in the morning. Her mother, God rest her soul, never let a morning go by without cooking something for Lisa and her two brothers. Now, with a family of her own, it wasn’t a proper start to the day without a real breakfast—eggs, toast, bacon, something to fill the air with the scent of food. The smell of love. She viewed it as a sensory thing, love of a mother was highlighted by the odor of cooking food, and the barest scent of perfume.

  In her role as teacher, it used to be chalk—though in recent years, before the fine selectman of Shiloh, New Jersey decided to cut her and seven other teachers from their budget, she’d had to settle for fruit-scented whiteboard markers. Gone were the days of tasting yellow chalk at the back of her throat in the elementary school where she’d taught.

  She slipped the spatula under the eggs and lifted them onto the plate.

  “Billy!” she called. “Eggs are ready. Get a move on! Your father and I have a surprise for you this morning.”

  He did not respond, nor was there any hurried stomp of feet across the house. Lisa walked through the living room into the small hallway. The bathroom on the right was empty. She opened Billy’s bedroom door at the end of the hall without knocking. He was curled in a half-seated, half-slumped position against the wall, covers pulled around him like a backward cape. Lisa swore under her breath, knowing what she was seeing. Another nightmare.

  She wandered to the wall beside the door, reached with her left hand under the clown’s chin and pressed the power switch. When the face darkened a wash of cold covered her hand, moved up her arm like gooseflesh. Lisa straightened and rubbed her arm with her right hand, reached below the darkened face again. No breeze. A draft had come from somewhere. She stepped to the windows and flipped the shades up. The room filled with daylight. Billy moaned and curled tighter under the blanket. Lisa pulled one corner free and rubbed his head.

  “Come on, kiddo. Time to wake up and get going. Eggs are ready. We need to hurry to get an early start for our field trip!”

  Billy mumbled something, then tossed the blanket off himself without looking at her. If he heard her field trip comment he gave no notice. He stared down at his feet a moment before scooting off the bed, bare feet on the hardwood floor, stomping into the hall. Never a word.

  Before he’d reached the bathroom door she said, “Bad dream last night?”

  She had to smile when he only replied, “Don’t want to talk about it,” and closed the door behind himself. He was so serious for a boy his age. On the way back to the kitchen Lisa called toward the door, “We’re going to do some sightseeing today. It’s a long drive so we need to leave as soon as we’re done. Don’t dawdle in front of the mirror.” He would, too, staring at his exhausted reflection, trying to spur himself on but succeeding only in dozing with his eyes open.

  Both of them, Billy and Will, had been acting like basket cases since coming here. Something bad happened in this place when Will was a kid, and she suspected that his own father had had something to do with it. Her first and strongest suspicion, even now, was some kind of abuse. Physical, from the way Will had dragged Billy around the house the other night. She wouldn’t put up with that, post traumatic-stress bullshit or not. And whatever was happening in her husband’s head seemed to be directly affecting their son. Billy had nightmares before; they were a normal part of growing up. But three nights in a row, screaming until they brought home that frightening night light from the Dale Pharmacy. That wasn’t right. Hell, the thing gave her nightmares. But that was all they were. Nightmares.

  Not right, none of this. She lingered at the threshold to the kitchen. The basement door was to her right, just inside the room. Lisa reached up and laid fingertips on the wood. Will had gone down there again this morning, as soon as he’d gotten out of bed. He’d become obsessed with the basement since they got here, specifically Lucy’s creepy altar and statue. On a few occasions over the years Lisa found herself downstairs, getting an extra can of something from the pantry for her mother-in-law since Will refused to go down there himself. He never offered a reason whenever she asked, not that she really blamed him. Each time, the altar was a cyst in her eye, forcing her attention away from the task at hand. When she stared at the scene, at the small table draped in a faded, faux-velvet cloth more suited to an Elvis painting than a tablecloth, candles always alight (or perhaps Lucy only lit them when company was expected, who could know?), the scene felt liquid, moving. The Virgin Mary with hands pressed together in prayer riding the wave of the table top, or drowning in it. In those moments Lisa would have to look away to break the spell. If this had been a lone incident she could have attributed it to a moment of exhaustion. But twice, that she could remember…maybe the lighting, the dust...

  Either way, it was a section of the basement she did not enjoy being around. The woman’s madness, or perhaps simple loneliness, had been channeled into that altar. On that first night, encountering the shrine, she’d asked Will about it. He said his mother built it the night his father left. The woman had always been very religious. Makes sense, Lisa thought, then and now.

  She lowered her hand from the basement door and put Billy’s eggs into the microwave for twenty seconds. Keeping the thing around now made no sense, especially if they hoped to get anyone rational to buy the place. It bothered Will, bothered her. This morning he’d been downstairs, making plans on how best to dismantle the symbol of whatever darkness swallowed the woman. He understood that darkness, Lisa thought, but had yet to share it with her. She’d wait until he finished, until the reminders of that life had been removed, before she insisted he tell her everything. Maybe things would fall back into normalcy when they returned to Shiloh, but this past week showed her that there was a part of her husband’s life that was now affecting their son, and that had to be corrected, soon, to get her family back to some relative sanity.

  Chapter Seven

  Past

  The morning after they murdered his father, Will had woken peacefully, staring about his room, the same which his own son, twenty-two years later, would sleep in and suffer his own nightmares. In those first few moments of rising from sleep to wakefulness the world was clean, without worry. These moments came often, still did now, but always fleeting as he came awake, the brain incomplete during its transition between the two worlds. Soon enough, Will came fully awake with the memory of the night. No deception that it had only been a dream. The memory was too sharp, too harsh. As was the smell, the heavy odor of antiseptic that filled the house. To cover the scent of the decay which had already begun. He had not considered this at first, never experiencing death so closely before, only from a distance, like a child watching a murder through the trees.

  He stepped in his bare feet and long-sleeved blue pajamas into the hall. The master bedroom was empty, his father gone. Will’s own vomit had been cleaned up, a bucket of dirty water with a mop in the corner. The antiseptic smell was especially strong here. Overpowering mixture of Pine Sol and Lysol. He covered his face with one hand and continued into the living room, forsaking his usual morning routine of going first into the bathroom to pee. Rounding the china cabinet on his left, then the
kitchen entrance and the open cellar door, the smell was an ocean wave rising over him, threatening to knock him down.

  Over the years Will remembered this moment in his life, a day that outshined any imagined horror he could muster until that dream in his college dorm room. It wasn’t the odor itself that was so overwhelming as he stood with one hand over his mouth in the kitchen, but that he stared into the yellow-gray face of his dead father. Jacob lay unmoving on the rug in the middle of the floor, birthday candle syringe still poking from the puckered gray lips.

  The years that followed offered a slow dawning of what the smell of that morning represented. The decomposing of a body, and the desire to cover it up. His father’s eyes were open, staring up to the ceiling, a little to the left, perhaps at the light fixture over the table. Will stared back and waited with growing certainty for the hair to begin growing, graying as it did, for the nails to yellow and curl out from shriveled fingers like worms.

  When this image did not come to life, Will dropped his hand and shouted, “Mom, his eyes are open!” Nearly screaming as he repeated, “His eyes are open!”

  “Hush.” A hand touched his shoulder. Will jumped back. She’d come up behind him from the basement, still wearing her robe, all of it covered in gray dust and black dirt, as were her feet and ankles. The hand which pulled him back slowly—so tired in every motion—was spotted and stained, though she’d obviously tried to wash them at one point judging by how much more filthy were her wrists. She ignored his reaction and stepped over her husband’s face. The body did not react. Will’s heart slammed against his ribs. He’s alive, he’s alive, and he’s going to kill us like that boy in the woods.