Green Eyed Boy

1.

“The police are across the street.”

Cal stood in front of the bathroom mirror, face covered in white shaving cream and an orange razor in one hand. The room was full of warm steam from the long shower he’d taken, but after his wife’s statement he’d gone cold.

She knocked on the door again. “Did you hear what I said?”

“At the Daniels’ house?”

“Yes,” she said, “and there are a lot of them.”

In other words, hurry up.

He thought of the black notebook he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk, the Journal of Dead Animals. Cal was trembling.

2.

The kitchen smelled like bacon. A plate of cooked strips was on the table, covered with paper towels that glistened with grease. Saturday breakfast; eggs, hash browns, toast and bacon was their tradition. Julie stood at the windows, peering across the street. He joined her.

“Morning,” he said, giving her shoulders a squeeze.

Two police cars were parked in front of the Daniels’ house. Another, a sleek grey color with no light bar on top, was angled in the driveway. A detective’s car, he thought. Or the coroner.

“They’re pretty old,” he said. “One of them might have passed.”

“Are you going to check?”

He nodded. “Where’s the kiddo?”

“Sleeping in.”

Cal grabbed his coat from the mud room and exited the house. It was getting colder. The furnace needed an inspection, probably some repairs. Need to get that done before too long, he thought as he left the front yard.

Cop cars at the neighbor’s house never meant something good had happened. When they’d bought the house, the Daniels had been the first to welcome them. They’d become friendly acquaintances. Kyle’s peculiarities had never pushed them away, making them true friends. He hoped everything was okay.

The cop cars were black with white emblems on the door. Why did they make them so ominous? He stepped onto the Daniels’ walkway and saw the group on the side of the house. The Daniels, both white haired and stooped over with age, stood next to two police officers and a man in a suit, probably the detective. The formed a semi-circle around something on the ground. Cal approached, walking heavy so that they’d hear his footsteps.

“Everything okay?”

Stupid question.

Old man Daniels waved and stepped away from the circle. Cal saw the dog. Rather, he saw what was left of her. She lay in a heap, blonde fur matted with a crust of blood. Parts of her internal organs lay on top her carcass. She’d been gutted. All that remained whole was her face and she stared into nothing, eyes vacant, dull and dead.

“Oh no,” Cal said.

“Something got a hold of my dog,” the old man said.

Cal joined their circle, but only for a moment. Black flies hovered over the dog-corpse. One landed on something white, a sharp piece of broken bone maybe. Cal’s stomach flip flopped. He backed away.

“You hear anything last night?” the detective asked.

“I heard the dog barking, but not like it was being hurt.”

One of the cops, he looked only a few years older than Kyle, said, “I’m calling this one a Code WTF.”

Indeed.

3.

Kyle shoved a forkful of scrambled eggs in his mouth. He’d covered them with hot sauce and the splotches of red, like watered down blood, against pale yellow egg triggered Cal’s gag reflex.

“So what happned?” Julie asked.

“Something killed the dog.”

Julie sucked in a breath and covered her mouth.

In that gesture, he knew that she knew.

“No way!” Kyle said.

“Tore it inside out,” Cal said, “must have been a wild animal.”

“I want to see.” Kyle’s chair groaned as he backed up from the table.

“You may not,” Cal said.

They’d wanted a house full of children, a tribe of noisy boys and girls. That had been the plan when they’d bought the fixer-upper in Manitou.

“I’m not a little boy,” Kyle said.

That was true. He was twelve years old, almost a teenager.

“I’m old enough to see crap like that.”

“I don’t want you to,” Cal said. “It’s nothing you want to look at, believe me.”

Julie put both hands on his shoulders, her protective touch keeping him in his seat. “You have enough bad dreams already, honey.”

Children had not been in their destiny. Julie could get pregnant, but her body rejected each baby. Her womb cast them out, the pain a little worse each time. But Kyle survived. He was their sandy haired miracle, this handsome green eyed boy.

Cal sat down at the table. The smell of breakfast, however, made his head spin.

4.

Later, when Kyle locked himself in his room, he took Julie by the hand. He closed their bedroom door quietly, so that the boy wouldn’t hear.

“It’s happening again,” he said, his voice a tight whisper. “What are we going to do?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He was home. I sat up with him for at least two hours.”

The shock was gone. She’d had time to find denial and lock onto it like a life preserver.

“What time was that?”

“It was around three to five,” she said. “He wasn’t roaming around the neighborhood, all right?”

“After he’d had the bad dreams?”

“Yes.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. When Kyle has nightmares, bad things happen.”

In Manitou, when Kyle was ten, dogs had died. Not died – been butchered, that was more like it. A poodle behind a tool shed, a pug on someone’s porch, both had been shredded into ribbons of meat. And as the murders went on, the neighbor’s had blamed Kyle.

He was the weird kid on the block, the one who faced the world with an intense, silent stare. Julie described his quiet look as one of depth and creativity. “He’s a sensitive child,” she’d say, “and so very bright.” Cal thought it was just plain strange. So did the other kids, he guessed, because they stayed away from Kyle.

“You sound like one of the crazy people in Manitou.”

“It’s never been a large dog before.”

If any of the kids that lived on the block were capable of sneaking out in the middle of the night and turning someone’s beloved pet into a mangled pile of guts, they’d reasoned it was him.

He’d never left the house, not once, after bedtime. Back then his screams had awoken both of them when his night terrors overwhelmed him. The neighbors didn’t believe that spooky- eyed Kyle remained tucked in his bed at night. They pictured him hunting, sneaking into their yards, a silver knife reflecting moonlight as he went about his work.

“It’s always been something small,” he added. “The Daniels’ retriever must have weighed a hundred pounds. Whatever it is, it’s getting stronger.”

“You said yourself it must have been a wild animal. You’ve heard the coyotes. A den of them must live close by.”

“No coyote would torture a dog like that.”

“But our son could do it while he was asleep? You’re crazy.” She headed toward the stairs, conversation over.

It had been the beagle’s death that had frenzied the neighbors. That dog had died inside. And the neighbor’s couldn’t stand the image of Kyle breaking and entering to do his killing. Had we not moved, Cal thought, they would’ve attacked us with torches and pitchforks.

Maybe they should have?

“I’ve kept a journal. His bad dreams coincide with an animal’s death. I can show it to you.”

“As his parents it’s our job to protect him,” she said, “just in case you didn’t know that.”

“Please, I know you love him. I love him, too.”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then shut up about the stupid journal, please.”

5.

The house in Evange was smaller. With one kid rather than a tribe, a few bedrooms was all they needed. The house needed work, but he could do most of the repairs himself. Best of all it was next to a forest. He’d imagined taking Kyle on long walks amongst the trees, the smell of earth and trees inspiring father-son talks. But that hadn’t happened.

Now he told his boy, “I want to talk with you about the dog across the street.”

It wasn’t normal for a boy to spend all of Saturday in his room – was it? Boys had sports practice, friends, something to lure them into the world. Not Kyle. He’ demerged from his room, his eyes red from computer burn, as the sun began to set.

Kyle looked back, his expression indifferent. “What about her?”

“Let’s go for a walk, just you and me.”

He put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. Kyle looked up at him, a thin smile tugged at his lips.

“When you were younger, before we moved -.”

“Yeah, the neighbor’s dogs got creamed. It wasn’t me then and it wasn’t me last night. Sorry if you don’t believe me.”

He’d said it without a change of expression. Anger would’ve been normal, the healthy kind of rage that accompanied denial when an innocent person was accused of something monstrous. He’d said it all so matter-of-factly.

“I know you don’t mean to do these things,” Cal began, aware that his arms were shaking.

“I wouldn’t hurt Macy. I liked that dog.”

Macy – remember that for the Journal of Dead Animals.

“I also know that something very frightening wakes you up at night. When you have these dreams terrible things happen. Do you realize that?”

Kyle’s feet snapped over twigs and fallen branches. The woods thickened here. A man could get turned around in these woods, especially after dark. If the weather was cold enough, he could freeze to death a mile from home. It could happen to a boy, too, especially one unfamiliar with the woods.

“I guess I do,” he said.

“Can you tell me what you dream about?”

“No.”

“No because you don’t remember or no because you don’t want to?”

“I honestly don’t know what I dream about. I know you don’t believe me. Besides, I’ve already talked about all of this with mom.”

“If you dream of something… Vicious, something that wants to cause harm, maybe you can control it.”

“Dad,” Kyle said, stepping out from under him. “You wouldn’t hurt me, would you? I mean you wouldn’t dig a hole out here and drop me in it, would you? I really didn’t do anything, seriously.”

“God, no,” he said and shoved his shaking hands deep into his pockets.

Kyle gazed at him, his green eyes shone like emeralds and, like gemstones, they showed no fear.

“Okay, good.”

“I would never hurt you,” he said. “Would you hurt me? Or your mom?”

“Can we go back inside now? It’s getting cold.”

“Sure,” he said. “Answer my question first.”

“Never,” he said. “I swear.”

They returned to the house, father and son. Cal wondered if Kyle couldn’t remember what he dreamed about, then what had he talked about with his mother?

6.

The year’s first snow arrived later that week. Cal worked late, waiting out the traffic, and got home late.

“I invited the Daniels over for dinner this Friday,” she said.

“And?”

“They’re busy.”

So now they were friendless – again.

“The heater’s on the fritz,” she added, changing the subject. “The heat’s been on and off all day.”

“I’ll look at it this weekend,” he said.

Nothing died for a while and, because of that, denial came easy. Cal watched Julie dote on the boy. She spoke to him in sweet, hushed tones, one hand on the small of his back.

“What should we get him for his birthday?” she asked one night.

All the years of longing for a child made her immune to him.

“He’s been asking for a couple of new video game. I don’t remember which ones, though.”

Cal rolled onto his side. “All of those games are violent.”

“A little violence is normal for a boy his age.”

She saw nothing but beauty in his strange green eyes.

Cal worked late as often as he could and drove home long after dinner was over. Sometimes, he worked until exhaustion numbed him, then spent hours awake in bed, staring into the dark and listening for the bark of frightened dogs.

7.

Kyle turned thirteen. He unwrapped his presents with methodical care. They’d bought him the video games he’d wanted, a couple of sweaters, new jeans and an expensive pair of shoes.

“Do you love your presents, sweetie?” Julie asked him.

“I do,” he said and smiled back at her, green eyes ablaze.

“Maybe we should’ve got you a puppy,” Cal said. “You’ve always wanted a dog of your own, haven’t you?”

Kyle looked to his mother, then shook his head – no. “Not since I was little.”

He scooped up his new belongings. Cal heard his bedroom door shut a moment later.

“What was the puppy comment all about?”

“He wanted a dog at one time, that’s all.”

“You know what I’m talking about. How could you bring that up? What if you’d ruined his birthday?”

She left him alone. Cal watched cable in the living room, one mindless program after the other. On his way to bed, he saw a sliver of light from Kyle’s door. He paused at the doorway and listened. He heard only silence.

Cal opened the door. He saw Kyle kneeling on the floor. The boy wore only boxers and his pale skin was wrapped by ribbons of shadow so thick they looked like tar. The black strips clung to his flesh, knife-like points stuck to his boney shoulder blades. It retreated, whatever it was, to the darkness under Kyle’s bed. Cal thought it looked a family of octopuses scurrying to their lair.

“Hi, Dad.” The boy turned and looked up at him, a slow smile spreading to show white teeth.

Cal blinked. A fluid coldness washed through him. Kyle’s bedside lamp glowed in warm yellow. No monstrous shadows lurked anywhere.

“What’s wrong?” the boy asked, maintaining steady eye contact.

“I thought I saw something.”

“Mom’s right, you’re putting in way too many hours.”

“Why are you on the floor?”

“I was stretching,” he said. “My back was sore.”

He stared at the boy. The boy gazed back at him, pleasant, somehow patient.

“You look tired, Dad.”

“Yeah,” he said and backed out of the room.

8.

The furnace gave out the first week of December, right after they’d set up the Christmas tree. Cal stayed home to fix it.

“Enough already,” Julie said, “call a professional.”

They’d slept under extra blankets, but Julie still caught a cold.

The repairman arrived late afternoon. “Wiring’s shot,” the guy said. He wrote a quote that Cal barely glanced at before handing over a credit card. The repairman went to grab his tools and he went upstairs to check on Julie. She had a space heater cranked on high.

“Want some medicine?”

She sniffled. “Please.”

He poured her a cup of orange liquid.

“Where’s the kiddo?”

“He’s in detention.”

Detention! So he’d misbehaved. That was something normal boys did. That was good. And for a moment he forgot about the cluster of shadows he’d seen clinging like a parasite to his young son’s body.

“Really? What’d he do?”

“I doubt that he did anything.” She downed the cold medicine like a shot. “He tells me that Mr. Bonner has it in for him.”

“Which one’s Bonner?”

“Algebra,” she said. “You’d know these things if you talked to him once in a while. And what are you smiling about? For God’s sake, Cal, he’s being punished.”

He sat with her until the medicine’s deadening sleep took hold . It took only a few minutes. Kyle made it home before the repair was complete; and Cal saw something new in the boy’s green eyes – rage.

He let the boy slide past him, watched him sulk to the stairs and ascend to his room.

His hideout.

He thought about following his son. For a moment, he even imagined having a fatherly talk while sitting together on the bed. But Kyle’s slouch and sullen expression kept him downstairs.

Let him calm down, he thought, get over himself. Then we’ll talk.

The heat kicked in an hour later.

9.

“The police are here.”

On Saturday morning, Cal stood in front of the bathroom mirror, face covered in white shaving cream and an orange razor in one hand. The room was full of warm steam from the long shower he’d taken, but after her statement he’d gone cold.

She knocked again. “Cal?”

“What do they want?”

“To talk to us.”

Cal dressed and went downstairs. He recognized the paunchy man in the kitchen. He’d been at the Daniels’ house, investigating the dog’s death.

“We met across the street,” the man said.

Cal eyed the fat automatic holstered on the man’s hip.

“I remember.” He joined Julie. “Who could forget a thing like that?”

“The detective says there’s been a homicide,” Julie said.

The man nodded. “At your son’s school.”

Cal said, “My, God.”

“When I saw the body, I couldn’t help but think it looked a lot like the dog at your neighbors.”

Cal thought of the black notebook he kept in a drawer in his office, the Journal of Dead Animals.

I’ll need to change the title.

He was trembling.

Maybe shorten it to Journal of the Dead.

“You don’t say,” Cal said.

“I do say. The man was torn inside out.”

Cars passed on the street outside, their tires hummed against the asphalt.

“So you’re visiting us… Why?” Julie said.

“What do you suppose it is?”

“Something evil,” Cal said. “What teacher was killed?”

“Who said it was a teacher?”

“I just, uh, assumed.”

“David Bonner,” the detective said.

Algebra.

Detention.

The cold fury in Kyle’s bright green eyes.

The detective made small talk for a long time. He asked what grade Kyle was in, when he’d be up, if he was one of Bonner’s students…

The cop’s instinct, Cal thought, would lead him to Kyle, to all three of us. He’d have no evidence, no case to take to court. But he’d know. Just like the neighbor’s in Manitou had known. Just like the Daniels’ knew. Kyle was a different kind of boy. It was clear by his disturbing, unblinking gaze. He was dangerous.

“May I speak with him?”

“I wouldn’t want you to upset him,” Julie said. “Let us break the news about his teacher first.”

The man’s right hand moved toward his gun and Cal thought he was going to draw and fire. He dipped into his pocket, though, and pulled out a business card.

“Sounds like a fine idea,” he said. “Call me when he’s ready to chat. Nothing serious, just want to know if he ever saw anything unusual.”

Cal thought of shadows so thick they looked like strips of tar…

The detective left and Cal asked Julie, “Now what?”

“Now you make him breakfast. I still feel terrible.”

10.

He’d dreamed of a son. He admitted this to himself for what felt like the first time in his life. He’d longed for an athletic, straight A student, one that loved to watch football games on Sundays and didn’t mind his father’s company.

“You’re not spending today in your room, kiddo,” he told the boy after breakfast. “We’re spending time together.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re father and son and we should.”

“But what will we do?”

Cal didn’t know.

“I love you, Kyle.”

Automatically, the boy replied, “I love you, too. But what are we going to do?”

“There’s enough white stuff on the ground to make snowballs. You think you could beat me in a snowball war?”

“I know I can.”

“Grab your coat. Let’s see what you got.”

Cal wanted to hear the sound of their laughter mixed together in the cold winter air. Kyle remained stoic, however, his gaze unbreakable.

“For a boy who hates sports, you throw pretty good.”

“This is weird.”

“What is?”

“Hanging out with you, I mean we haven’t done anything like this for a long time.”

“That’s my fault.”

“It’s okay. I’m getting kind of cold.”

“You want to teach me how to play one of your video game?”

Together, they gunned down zombies, breaking only to warm bowls of canned soup. The sun set early and, as darkness filled the room, Cal rose to finish his plan and murder his family.

“I’m going to check on your mom.”

“Kay.” Kyle’s avatar smashed another zombie into chunks.

“Why don’t you meet me in the kitchen and we’ll dig something up for dinner.”

The bedroom smelled like sweat. Julie was on her back, sleeping. He pulled the blankets up to her chin and kissed her fevered head.

“Good night,” he whispered. “I’ll love you forever.”

Then he swiped her bottle of cold medicine, scanned the instructions and went downstairs. Kyle made it to the kitchen as Cal set two glasses on the table and filled them with juice. He inhaled deep. He pushed one toward the boy.

“Your mom will kill me if you don’t get your vitamin C,” he said. “Drink up.”

He gulped his own juice down. Kyle did the same and Cal glanced at his watch. The boy weighed less than Julie, maybe a buck ten with his pockets full of rocks. He’d just had four time the recommended dose of a do not operate heavy machinery will cause drowsiness across the counter drug. It wouldn’t take long.

Cal turned the stove’s burner to ignite. The pilot ticked twice, then blue flames whooshed in a circle. He adjusted the knob, lowering the fire.

“Do you want to tell me why you got a detention?”

“Oh, so that’s what this is about. I didn’t do anything.”

“Your teacher’s dead.”

Kyle kept eye contact.

“You already know that, don’t you.”

“He shouldn’t have punished me. It wasn’t fair.”

“Do you feel bad?”

“He deserved it.”

“So you feel nothing?”

“Why would I feel bad if he deserved it? Dad, why…?”

Kyle’s eyes went glassy as his body registered the drug.

“I’m going to put you to bed, Kyle. Then I’m going to blow out the pilot light on the furnace. The house is going to fill with gas and we’re going to blow up.”

The headline – Family killed by faulty furnace.

Nobody the wiser.

A tragedy.

Kyle’s lids fluttered closed and his head dipped toward his chest.

“Dad…”

His head jolted up. Cal saw the panic. His eyes were round and frightened. He looked more human that he ever had.

“I’ll always love you,” he said.

“Daddy…”

Kyle slumped in his chair and Cal caught him before he hit the floor. He cradled the boy in his arms, walked him to the living room and laid him out on the couch.

Kyle mumbled something and opened his mouth as if to call out.

“Go to sleep,” Cal said. “It won’t hurt. I promise.”

Kyle moaned, “Ma…”

Cal turned to the furnace room. He was almost there when the shadows seized him. They came from all directions, stripes as thick as tar that wrapped around his chest and torso, slithered around his arms and legs, pinning him in place. The shadows lifted him off the floor and then they pierced through his body. They felt like shafts of ice cold air and he knew, when they retracted, they’d rip him inside out.

“Cal.”

He tried to turn in her direction, but the shadows held him tight.

“I told you it’s our job to protect him.”

The shadows tightened. Cal gasped and tried to breath.

“He’s just a boy and he’ll learn to control it.”

The coils released him. He dropped to the floor and fell over backwards. The shadow tentacles retreated into darkness.

“Just like I have,” she said.

He watched her go to the sleeping boy on the couch and stick her finger in his mouth. The boy gagged. She positioned his head so that he spat up juice and cold medicine onto the floor.

“Help me get him upstairs,” she said. “The poor boy’s exhausted.”

Green Eyed Boy

Lake Lopez 

Copyright © 2010 by Lake Lopez. All Rights Reserved.

D I S C L A I M E R

This horror story is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places and events portrayed in this horror story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.