Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Seth Adams C.
and told him one of the window sensors had been triggered. I heard his half of the conversation from my room, where I lay in bed watching TV. He drove off to check it out.
‘Mom asked him not to. She told him to call the police. He said it was probably just an animal or kids throwing rocks. And he left us.’
Something started to come through the numbness inside him, and Reggie pushed it down again. The pain was old and tiresome and he was tired of hurting.
‘He was gone for hours for what should have been a twenty-minute drive there and back,’ Reggie said. ‘Mom finally had enough, grabbed her keys, and dragged me along. I’d never seen her drive so fast, and yet the drive there seemed so long.
‘I remember how dark it was on the highway,’ Reggie said. ‘It was like we were driving through a long tunnel. And those little homemade crosses on the side of the road where people mark accidents that have happened? They were so bright in the dark. Like signposts.’
He looked at the man across from him.
‘And then we were there.’
Like his mom earlier on the way back from the movie and cemetery, Reggie felt a wetness at his eye and swiped it quickly away.
‘We saw him in the parking lot, lying on the ground. The tithing box was broken in pieces around him. The money was scattered all over the place. A couple dollar bills blew around like trash.’
Reggie smiled at the killer across from him.
‘The police counted it later and told us,’ he said. ‘There was sixteen dollars and seventy-two cents on the pavement. After all that trouble, he killed my dad and left the money.’
Whether he’d expected sympathy, some simple display of concern, from the man or not, Reggie wasn’t sure. In the two days he’d known Ivan, he’d seen little to suggest the killer knew such simple things as human emotions. But what he definitely didn’t expect was what the big man said next.
‘Some things live. Some things die. Remember that, Reggie. There’s no sense to it, and you waste your time trying to find any.’
At first, a hint of anger rose up in him. Reggie thought of seeing his dad dead there in the parking lot, and the killer’s casual dismissal pissed him off. He clenched his fists, on the verge of saying something, like he’d said to the older kid at the drugstore. But as quickly as it had come, the rage slipped away.
Instead, Reggie found himself repeating those words in his head, the killer’s voice echoing in his mind. Some things live. Some things die.
Reggie found his gaze drifting again to the shoulder holster and the pistol slid snugly into it. Ivan watched him, saw the direction of Reggie’s glance. Quickly, Reggie looked away.
With nothing left to say, they sat in silence.
1.
That afternoon the killer let him hold the pistol.
He wanted to walk around a bit, which Reggie didn’t think was a good idea. But Ivan insisted and they went down the ladder; Reggie first, the killer slowly following. He said he needed to know if he could move if he had to. Reggie knew that meant escape if he had to, but he kept that to himself.
The killer limped along, occasionally stopping to lean against a tree, holding his abdomen, catching his breath, but otherwise making steady progress. They had walked for about twenty minutes when Ivan told Reggie to stop.
The killer walked over to a fallen tree and set their empty water bottles on it. Making his way back to Reggie, he sat on a stump and pulled out his gun. He checked the safety and held it out to Reggie.
The gun was heavy and solid and cool.
‘Feel the weight of it,’ the killer said. ‘Become familiar with its contours, how your fingers feel around it.’
Reggie did so, feeling the heft of the thing. It was heavier than he would have thought. It felt large in his small hands.
‘Always keep it pointed away from you,’ the killer said. ‘Never point it at anything you don’t intend to shoot.’
Reggie lifted the gun and aimed at the bottles on the fallen tree several yards away. Ivan rose and stood behind him.
‘Keep your right arm locked,’ he said. ‘Now bend your left at the elbow a bit. Keep your legs apart and the left one forward.’
Reggie did as he was told, and looked down the sight at the bottles. Ivan reached over him and towards the safety. Reggie looked up at him.
‘Won’t someone hear?’ he asked.
Ivan smiled and reached in his jacket. From a pocket he pulled out a black metal tube and reached again over Reggie. Screwing the silencer on, he then flicked off the safety.
‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Give it a try.’
Reggie sighted down the pistol at one of the bottles. His finger curled around the trigger, but he didn’t pull it. He thought of his dad in the church parking lot and the blood on the asphalt.
‘Pull, don’t squeeze,’ said the killer.
Then he was thinking about the older boy at the drugstore. And his mom slapping him at the cemetery.
He pulled the trigger smoothly and deliberately.
There was a low whoosh and dirt kicked up about a foot in front of the tree. The recoil shook in his arms and made his muscles twitch.
‘Again,’ said the killer, soft but firm, and Reggie pulled the trigger again.
A silver-dollar sized crater appeared in the bark just below the bottle on the left. The thunk of the bullet sounded like something heavy dropped on carpeted floor. The bottle did a little wiggle and twirl like a tired dancer, but came to rest still upright.
‘Again,’ the killer said, and Reggie pulled the trigger.
The low whoosh again and the bottle disappeared, pulled out of sight like something yanked out of reality. It was there, and then it was gone.
‘Good,’ said the killer. ‘Now the other one.’
He adjusted his stance and aimed. Pulled the trigger and the other bottle likewise was yanked away.
‘Very good,’ said the killer. ‘You’re a natural.’
Ivan reached out and over him to take the gun. For a moment both their hands were over the weapon, and Reggie didn’t want to let go. When he did and it was out of his hands, Ivan considered him with a curious look.
It felt good holding the gun, and when it was in his hands he wasn’t afraid of being hit by anyone.
‘Let’s head back,’ Ivan said, holding his side and starting to walk, each step placed gingerly and with care. He holstered the gun and Reggie watched it until it was out of sight beneath the flap of the jacket hem.
He could still feel it in his hands, like a phantom sensation.
Like it belonged there.
***
‘Was there ever someone you wished you hadn’t killed?’ Reggie asked when they were back in the tree house.
The walk and climb back up had exhausted Ivan, and the man settled back down in his spot near the far window with a groan. Outside, a summer wind stirred the branches and made the structure moan likewise, as if returning Ivan’s grunt like a separated beast calling for its pack. The swinging branches brought the sun in fits and starts of bright light, casting alternating bars of sunlight and shadow across the floor and the