Will spoke very little. He didn’t remember why he had come into his parent’s room that late. He didn’t remember dreaming, or thinking he had seen anything. Neither did Burt.
Both boys did remember seeing their father without any clothes. Willard was fairly modest-except, of course, when he and Catherine were alone…they did have four children, after all. So none of the children had ever seen him naked.
The boys started to ask questions, but Catherine simply shook her head. No, this is not the time.
They both seemed unduly fascinated by what they had seen.
5
The same thing happened over the next three nights, Tuesday through Thursday.
Well, not the same thing, exactly, but for one reason or another all three of the boys found themselves, singly, in pairs, or as a triad-standing by Catherine’s bed in the middle of the night. Each night there was enough commotion to rouse Willard. Each night he handled the interruption of his sleep with less and less patience.
“What is this,” he bellowed at Will, Jr., when the boy was leaving for his own bed at 4:15 on Thursday night, “a damned tag-team performance?”
“Willard,” said Catherine, laying a hand on his arm.
He shrugged it off, perhaps more vigorously that she expected.
“Well,” he said, not modulating his voice at all out of deference to Suze, who was still asleep in the next room and hadn’t caused any problems all week. “It might as well be. It if isn’t one of them, it’s the other. If it’s not that one it’s the third. Or all three of them.”
To be fair, Catherine thought, he has a point. Not all of the nightly visits had been quiet, or easily resolved. More than once, Sams had been in tears. Burt came in on Tuesday night sobbing as if his best friend had died. Will, Jr., was generally quieter, but as Willard’s anger grew, he took to glaring at his father, as if trying to stare him down. Twice, it had been enough for Catherine to traipse down the hall with the wanderer-or wanderers-and go through what had become an established ritual. The other times, it took either Willard or both of them to persuade the boys to return.
“Can’t.”
“Won’t”
“Don’t want to.”
“Scared.”
“Birds.”
“Someone…something…in the closet.”
At breakfast on Wednesday, long after Willard had departed for work, just as Will, Jr., was stepping out the front door to walk to school, he turned to Catherine.
“Mom, there really was someone in the closet.”
“Okay, Will.” She was distracted, trying to watch Burt and Suze as they made their way down Oleander.
“Really. He was like Dad was the other night?”
“What” Again absently.
“You know. He wasn’t wearing anything/”
She turned to stare down at her eldest son. “He… Why on earth would you say something like that? We both know there was no one in the bedroom, there never has been anyone in the bedroom. The door are all locked at night, the windows are locked, we don’t even have a fireplace for Santa to come down on Christmas Eve. And we both know Santa wears a big red suit with white fur trim.” This last in an attempt to wrest a smile from Will.
It worked…a bit.
“But…okay. Bye, Mom. See you this afternoon.”
And so went the remainder of the week.
Until Friday night.
6
“Okay, kids. Bedtime. Kiss your Daddy good night and come with me.”
It was Friday evening. Catherine stood in the doorway between the front entry and the family room. The rest of the family was scattered in ones and two around the room, reading, playing, or-in Willard’s case-intently watching the evening news.
His attention barely broke as each of the children leaned over his chair and kissed him on the cheek.
“’Night,” he repeated four times.
One by one the children clustered in front of Catherine. She led them down the hall and into the back bedroom, where she hunched on the edge of the lower bunks and they dropped to the floor, squatting or half-laying.
“You all know what tomorrow is.”
“Saturday,” Burt responded before the others could say anything. Burt and Suze nodded gravely, their expression matching Catherine’s. Sams just sat on the floor, cuddling his blanket in his arms and watching his mother.
“That’s right. Saturday. Daddy’s day to sleep in.”
She paused, and they all nodded again.
“Daddy’s really, really tired right now. You’ve all had really rough nights this week, and he hasn’t gotten very much sleep. And you know he has to get up very, very early, even before the sun comes up, to get to work on time.”
Again, they nodded.
“So tomorrow, I want you to remember to be very, very quiet when you get up. Let’s let Daddy sleep as long as he can. All right?”
Nods around.
“When you wake up, I want you to play quietly in here until I have breakfast ready. Then we will all go very quietly into the kitchen and eat, and then you may watch T.V. in the family room.”
“Can we all sleep in here?” Suze actually raised her hand before speaking, as if she were in school, and spoke in a soft, modulated, answering-the-teacher voice.
Catherine considered for a moment. She wanted for Suze to be as independent as possible, to grow up self-sufficient, so even though the three boys were now crowded into this one room, Suze had always had her own. But this was an unusual night.
“Okay. But you will all have to be quiet.”
“Can I sleep on the bunk with Burt?” Suze again. Sometimes during the day, she and Burt-and occasionally Sams-would play on Burt’s bed, tucking his blanket under the edge of the mattress on Will’s bed and letting the rest of it hang down, making a kind of tent. At times they would play with Suze’s dolls, at other times with Burt’s small plastic army guys, using the rumpled bedding as hills and valleys and marching the toys across one by one. Sams usually just sat in one corner watching them, giggling along with them at some unspoken joke. Will rarely joined the fun, considering it too ‘baby’ for a twelve-year-old.
Catherine had never let them do it at night.
But tonight.
“All right. But you have to be very quiet. You can’t shoot off cannons or anything like that. And no giggling and staying up until the middle of the night.”
Nods again.
“Can I leave the night light on and read?” For Will, that would count as a special occasion.
“Yes.”
“I promise I won’t turn the pages too loud,” he added, a quick grin crossing his face.
Catherine laughed lightly.
“See that you don’t, buster-boy, or I’ll have to come in and confiscate your book.” She grinned back.
“Con-fi-scate,” Suze said carefully, as if tasting each sound as it crossed her lips. “That’s a funny word.”
Everyone laughed…quietly. They were already practicing for tomorrow morning.
“Okay, guys, get ready for bed. Here, give me kisses.”
She waited until all four of the kids were settled-making sure that Sams’ night-time diaper was still clean and dry-then stepped into the hall and shut the door until only a crack of light showed from the Mickey Mouse lamp. Already she heard the rustling of bedding being arranged into a bunk-bed-tent.
Someone on the other side of the door laughed again…quietly.
She went on down the hall to join Willard in the family room.
The Slab- A Novel of Horror (retail) (epub)
Michael R Collings
7
That Friday, no one woke up in the middle of the night.
8