Childhood Fears Read online

  Billy lost all sensation in both legs this time, as if they were no longer there. He couldn’t see them past the dead thing crawling toward his belly. Maybe they were gone. Maybe he was paralyzed. He could have broken his neck falling down the stairs. Now it was going to eat him and he couldn’t stop it.

  His mother called his name from somewhere upstairs.

  He screamed, “Mom!”

  “Ignore them, Billy,” the thing said, moving closer, still weighing nothing, breath like cabbage and pages from an old book. Billy wanted to curl his legs in disgust but nothing worked below his waist. It lay on his belly now, and pressed an arm against his left shoulder. The other hand dangled something in front of Billy’s face. A necklace, glowing, or maybe just reflecting the light from upstairs. A shining ball hung at the end of the chain, surrounded by rings. He didn’t want to look at it, didn’t know why, only that he had to look away.

  The clown continued, “They don’t matter. They never did.” Each word echoed like a passing train through the house. He heard it in front of him, but from upstairs too. His mother screamed.

  When it slid closer, the clown let its dead balloon lips fall open, revealing a stinking wide gap in its face filled with a few black and broken teeth. An equally black tongue snaked out then slithered back. Above this hole something that might have been a nose caked in dirt and dried, peeling make-up. A few strands of hair poked from the skin above a bright white forehead. Billy wanted to throw up when he realized the forehead was so white because it was only bone where the skin had peeled away. He focused instead on the dried curl of tape above the left eye. Anywhere other than the necklace glimmering between them.

  “Do you know who I am, Billy?”

  “You’re just a bad dream.” His own voice was no more than a whisper. Billy wished he could be tougher, not like a little baby about to cry. He wanted to close his eyes and open them and be back in his room. But if he took his eyes off the thing perched on his lap it would put those rotted teeth to his face and bite and bite. He pressed his hands against the landing to push back against the stairwell wall. “You’re nothing but a bad dream.”

  The thing shook. Was it laughing? The black tongue dripped from its mouth again, snaked back in. “I’m no dream, son. Aren’t you glad to see your old Grampa?” Each word sounded like a hundred voices in his head, a hundred echoes. Billy turned his head side to side, still trying not to puke but this time because of its breath, which smelled like a dead animal.

  It jiggled the chain, drawing Billy’s unwilling eyes back to the necklace with its metal ball and Saturn rings. “I have a present for you, Billy, something that’s been in our family for a very long time.”

  The ball and rings shined before him. He had a dull notion his mother was screaming his name again. This time he did close his eyes and lashed out with the only arm he could get to work, trying to knock the necklace away. The chain became entwined in his fingers even as the hand slammed against the wall. Billy opened his eyes and tried to shake it free but it wouldn’t untangle.

  “Put it on, Billy. I’ll teach you how to use it. Your father was supposed to show you its power, but he was a disappointment. I had to come back and do this myself. But you will be happy I did. You will be able to do the most amazing things! We both will. We all will.”

  His mother screamed from directly above them a second before she kicked the face away. A blur of motion, his mother in her robe, kicking again and again. As soon as the clown was no longer on top of him, the feeling returned to his legs. Billy curled them up, pressed himself against the wall.

  From the growing gloom of the basement before him, Mom shouted, “Run, Billy! Get upstairs and run!”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lisa landed on her hands and knees on the concrete floor at the base of the stairs. Pain shot through her body at the impact. She turned, saw Billy scurrying backward against the wall of the landing. He was wearing his pajamas and trying to stand. She began to shake. Rage exploded inside her, sharpening the edge of her vision with a white fury, washing her face in such heat she forgot her initial confusion when she’d looked down the stairs and seen what had been perched atop her son. Her mind retained only one thought—her boy was being molested in some indefinable way by a stranger, and she had to save him. When Billy hesitated, she snarled, “Go, now!” then turned back to his attacker. Sounds of feet up the stairs. Good, she decided, that’s good. He didn’t need to see his mother kill a man.

  That was what she was going to do. No other thought. Kill the fucking pervert and do it quickly.

  Lisa’s body tightened and curled like a predator preparing to strike. The intruder was gone. No, there, a brief glimpse of a short old man in the shadows under the stairs. She’d hurt him, then. Good, she thought, be hurt. It won’t last long. Lisa stepped forward, shuffling to her right but never slowing despite the pain from her fall, moving closer toward the shape. She heard something metal drag across the floor. Like a predator she crouched low, peering into the gloom under the stairs, preparing to leap forward.

  The voice returned, but from upstairs, now with a trace of humanity, of normalcy.

  “Billy!”

  How could the intruder have gotten upstairs? Lisa turned her gaze back toward the landing, realized it had been Will’s voice this time. He called, “Lisa!” then Billy’s sobbing voice saying Mommy was downstairs with the clown.

  The clown?

  She looked back toward the intruder and registered a brief flash of reflected light when the pick Will had been using to smash the floor open sailed into view a half-second before an immense, jarring pressure slammed into the side of her neck. Her throat tightened and the room tilted, spun, collapsed over her. Her shoulder popped when she skidded sideways on the concrete floor. Something heavy pulled against the side of her neck. She tried to move, could not feel her arms or legs, only the weight on her neck, her head pinned to the floor. A thing—thing, no other word, not a costume though it surely must be some kind of costume. It was sliding like a beggar across the dark floor toward her. It reached beyond her line of sight and the pressure on her neck lightened then disappeared completely. Feels so good, she thought, so good. Wet heat spilled across the side of her head. The room darkened, more, more. Warmth filled her skull. My head is filling with blood, or maybe it’s draining. I can’t move my body, can’t feel my body. The dead thing slid around on the floor and as it did, Lisa understood, without caring, that it had no legs. Its face pressed up to hers, peeling nose touching her own. Thunder in her ears, hard to hear. It was talking, “…ruined my visit with my… ” Darker, the room, darker. Hard to see, now. “No more meddling…” then it slid away, dragging the pick with it, disappearing under the stairs. Someone coming downstairs. No, no, watch out, she thought, unsure who she was talking to, then fell forever into the silent dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Stay upstairs,” Will said, then flipped on the basement light switch at the top of the stairs and ran down the steps. Billy followed at his heels, not hearing or simply ignoring the command. What the hell was going on? Better not to think, only react. Lisa was right, someone had broken into the house and tried to hurt their son.

  He stopped as soon as he jumped the final step onto the floor of the basement. Billy slammed against him from behind. Will stumbled forward, never taking his eyes from the body of his wife, nightgown riding too high up her legs to expose one thigh. She wasn’t moving. The whole upper part of her body was stained black in the dim light.

  Will forgot what he’d been doing, forgot Billy behind him, only stumbled forward and fell to his knees beside his wife. She lay as if she’d fallen down the stairs, but she was too far from the landing.

  “Lisa?” He touched the torn hole in her neck, watching as blood covered his fingers. How had she done this? “Lisa?” His hands were thick with her blood. He put one under her shoulders and lifted her from the floo
r. She coughed, gagged on something before her eyes fluttered open. Then they closed again.

  “Lisa? Lisa, baby, open your eyes.”

  “Mom?” Billy, behind him. Their situation raced back to him with the sound of his son’s voice. Someone else was down here with them! Still holding Lisa he shouted, “Billy, go upstairs—”

  But Billy screamed, “Dad, look out!”

  Will turned his head toward the stairs, saw a shuffling blur, a too short man. A thought, no legs, jumped to the front of his brain. Will stared, saw in his peripheral vision Billy backing toward the stairs. The thing cackled in a voice that sounded like a laughing crow, or someone gasping for air. It was a laugh, though. It raised itself on twin stumps and swung Will’s pick with too-thin arms, spinning like a toy as it did so. Will dropped his wife and raised his left arm. The point tore into his wrist, its tip breaking through the muscle. He fell back, kicking wildly. Something broke his fall but he could not think coherently enough to consider what it might be. He was a boy himself again, thrashing against a nightmare. That awful cackling laugh returned. “Come here, Boy!” it shouted.

  Billy’s voice followed, all panic. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”

  Will regained himself long enough to shout, “Billy, run upstairs!” He choked, jaw not working right. “Call 9-1-1 then get the hell out of the house! Run!”

  He rolled over, tried to force himself up, the point of the pick still impaling his wrist. The wooden handle banged against the floor and twisted. Will screamed at the sudden, lurching pain up his arm.

  The creature was close now.

  “What a mistake you were. Such a weakling. By now, you should have mastered the portal and passed the necklace on to your son. You have dishonored me. Dishonored the ones that came before me.”

  “What are you—aaahh!” Will shouted, tears in his eyes from the pain so the speaker was merely a blur scuttling toward him.

  “That night in the woods was supposed to be the big moment. When I passed the necklace on to you and taught you its power. Did you really think that place was in this world? It is somewhere else entirely. Somewhere where all the dead are buried, never to be found. You would have learned all my secrets. But you were not worthy. Even now.”

  Will heard Billy loitering on the stairs and shouted, “Run!” Quick footsteps up the stairs. The legless body of Jacob Pallasso crawled over him, paralyzing him in its coldness, and went in pursuit. That’s not my father, not my father, not my father. When Will reached down for balance his hand pressed soft flesh. He looked down. Lisa stared up but did not see him. The bottom of her face, the nightgown, all blood. The world went black around her. He screamed and pressed the jagged hole in her neck, tried to push the flaps of skin together as if he could save her by putting her back together like a broken vase. Not working, not working. He began screaming, kept trying to repair his beautiful wife. Was she dead? She couldn’t be.

  “Lisa!”

  Behind him, his father’s corpse reached the stairs, pulled itself on stick arms up each step, following the child toward the kitchen light.

  Will could only push the cooling skin of his wife’s throat together and call her name. Call her back from the dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Billy gripped the doorframe and swung himself into the kitchen, toward the phone mounted on the wall. The command from his father was his only thought. Call 9-1-1. Mom was hurt, Daddy would help her. Daddy would also stop the monster. It hurt him, but he could hear his father’s voice shouting downstairs, so he was alive and fighting the clown. He wouldn’t die. Mom wouldn’t die. His parents would always be there to protect him.

  Call 9-1-1. That was Billy’s job. The kitchen was blessedly bright. He leaned against the wall beside the phone, for a terrible few seconds forgetting what it was he was supposed to do. Run outside, away from the house, after I call 9-1-1.

  Billy reached for the handset of the phone on the wall. Gram Lucy had never owned a cell phone The autumn leaves swarmed back and over him. A whirlwind, like an entire tree had been lifted above him and shaken until every leaf fell free. They slapped against his face, arms and hands but he slapped back at them. They kept returning. He waved one arm back and forth in front of his face like a windshield wiper and reached with the other. A leaf fluttered into his mouth. He spit it out but another climbed in. Spitting and waving his left hand Billy’s right connected with the cordless phone in its wall cradle. The necklace was still wrapped around his fingers and he couldn’t get a grip on the handset, which finally fell, landing with a loud plastic crack at his feet. He shouted, “No, no!” into the maelstrom and dropped to his knees. The leaves leaped onto his back like a thousand tiny bats, covering him. He fumbled with both hands now, keeping his mouth closed tight and squinting his eyes, trying to ignore the scratches and slapping on his face and neck. Every time he reached with his right hand, the stupid necklace banged against the floor. He shook his hand but it never came free. No time. Fingers of both hands, opened and closed, finding only leaves, a chair leg, the phone!

  He brought it to his face. He pressed the TALK button and heard the dial tone, as he whispered, “Please, please work, please work.” The numbers glowed. Billy made out the 9, pressed it, then the 1, pressed it once, twice. He tried to put it to his ear but the leaves slapped around it. A distant woman’s voice buzzed through the earpiece, then the phone was out of his hand. Like a mad flock of birds, the whirling leaves carried it away, letting it drop again with another clunk on the floor across the room.

  When he reached for it again, something grabbed his ankle. His leg went numb, then was pulled out from under him.

  “Billy,” the dead thing’s voice said. “Here you are, you naughty boy!” He landed on his side and twisted around, kicking out as hard as he could with his free leg. His bare foot hit something that felt like sticks in a paper bag. Through the fluttering leaves he saw the clown slide across the floor. Feeling returned immediately to his other leg, so he scurried away, crawling backward toward the outside door. The leaves rose like a swarm of bees, blocking the ceiling light and casting the room in a flickering underwater glow. Billy kept sliding backward. The back door, he thought. Escape. He turned around and rushed on hands and knees toward it, but more leaves covered the door handle. They would stop him, he knew that now, like they’d done when he tried to shut the basement door earlier. Keep him from escaping.

  He turned around and pressed his back against the door. The legless, dried corpse of the bad clown from his nightmares lifted itself on its arms. It was close enough to simply reach out and grab him. Billy pulled his legs under himself and shouted, “Daddy!” but his voice was so weak. His father wouldn’t hear him because he was too busy helping Mom. They’re okay, he thought. They’re okay.

  The clown’s face stretched, pulling the skin so tight it looked as if it would tear apart. It didn’t. Fingers scurried forward like pale spiders, then the arms pulled the rest of its body forward, a little more, a little more after that.

  “There’s only one way to escape me, Billy, before it’s too late.”

  The necklace was warm in his hand. He glanced down at it, then lifted it in front of his face. The chain, which had wrapped so tightly around his hand, loosened, then hung like a hypnotist’s watch.

  “Billy…” the dead thing whispered. It was only a blur beyond the ball, the rings curving around Saturn, humming. Whispers, humming whispers. Some mental connection made—the necklace and the ball surrounded by rings. Rings. Billy, and Frodo Baggins the Hobbit. Billy had watched that long movie, remembered shouting into the pillow he’d held against his mouth at the long-awaited conclusion, telling Frodo to throw the ring into the volcano. But he hadn’t, had he?

  The clown slid closer, whispered his name again. Heavy footfalls on the stairs. Daddy’s coming. Daddy will save me like he saved Mom. He thought this even as the magic necklace and its rings hummed a song of sa
fety for him and his family. The clown reached out for his curling toes. Billy put the necklace over his head and let it drop.

  The air was dark and clear. Not the burnt autumn smell, but cool summer green. Billy sat against a tree atop a soft bed of grass. The grass was damp, soaking into his pajama bottoms, but that was all right. This was right. This was a special place, where he was safe. The fact that a second earlier he was in his kitchen with a monster crawling toward him was a distant consideration, barely a thought.

  The night wasn’t completely dark. The overhead stars were so bright, they illuminated everything in a soft glow. A tall shadow stood in the woods twenty yards across the clearing in front of him.

  “That’s right, Billy,” his father said. Was that his father? It sounded a lot like him. The shadow moved from the trees.

  Not his father. The bark of the tree behind Billy pressed into his back. His heart beat faster, the panic of moments ago finding purchase once again. The clown stepped into the clearing. He was tall, outfitted in baggy gray and white that glimmered in the starlight. The lips turned up in a smile within a dark crescent of makeup. Bushy hair poked from either side of an otherwise bald head, forming horns. Round red nose. When the man reached two white-gloved hands in his direction Billy feared those arms would stretch across the distance between them. The gloves only turned, palm-up.