Chiral Mad 3 Read online

  Something clicked in Mom’s eyes and she rose and came to Brian. She bent at the waist and ran her fingers quickly through his hair and smelled his hair, too.

  She paused. Thinking.

  “Maybe you should take a shower, too.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t argue with me, Brian. Not right now. Please.”

  “Do I smell like a dead animal, too?”

  “No,” Mom said and she slammed her hand kind of hard on the kitchen table. “No,” she repeated, softer. “And neither does Barry.”

  “Then why do I need to take a shower?”

  “Because,” Mom said.

  Then she left the kitchen and Brian heard the stairs creaking as she climbed them, heard the water falling in the bathroom, the shower, louder, when she opened the bathroom door.

  He heard it grow quieter, muffled, distant, when she closed it again.

  9

  Mom was painting in the living room. Dad lay on the couch. Brian was on his back on the rug on the floor, a throw pillow under his head. Brian and Dad were quietly watching another Gene Kelly movie. Mom didn’t want to be alone in the room she’d been excited to paint in because Mom was worried about Barry.

  They all were.

  He was supposed to be sleeping upstairs in his bedroom.

  “Mom,” Brian asked, unable to see her over his shoulder, “why is he such a good dancer?”

  “Because he practiced all the time,” Mom said, sitting at her easel, painting a watercolor, a man standing in a gray open field.

  “You’ve got to be a little obsessed for that,” Dad said quietly.

  They all spoke quietly.

  They were all worried about Barry.

  “Obsessed?” Brian asked, watching the television.

  “He must have had the … dance-bug,” Dad said. “Crawled its way into his mind.”

  “Steve,” Mom said, and Brian heard her brush mixing in circles inside a plastic cup.

  Brian thought of a black bug, a big one, crawling from the kitchen, crawling toward him, climbing into his ear, getting into his brain. On the television, Gene Kelly looked a little mad to him. A little crazy. Brian started to feel bad for him. Started to see him as a crazy person.

  Dad rose from the couch.

  “Anybody need anything? I’m grabbing some juice.”

  “I’m fine,” Mom said.

  “I’m fine, Dad.”

  “That looks good,” Dad said and Brian knew he was looking at Mom’s painting.

  “His features are out of whack,” Mom said. “His face doesn’t look right.”

  “I’ve seen faces like that.”

  At the voice, Brian sat up quickly and looked to the entrance of the living room.

  It was Barry.

  “Barry?” Dad asked. “You’re up?”

  “Where?” Mom asked with worry in her voice.

  “Where what?” Dad asked.

  “Where have you seen faces like that?” Mom asked Barry.

  10

  Brian and Barry sat at the kitchen table, drawing. In their last home the two brothers attempted to start a comic book all their own. It was more of a who’s who in a fictional world as each page was a new character, a new name, with a brief profile.

  CHALK MAN ‒ 100 years old. Made of Chalk. Writes his name wherever he goes.

  Dad suggested they try it again, tonight. He pulled Brian aside before the brothers sat down together.

  Show him a good time, Dad said, his eyes soft with sadness, worry.

  Why? Brian asked. He was worried, too. Barry was waking up weird. Smelling weird. And Brian heard him at night, too. Talking. Calling his name.

  Sometimes we just need a good time to get back on track, Dad said.

  Now, at the table, Brian was trying to show Barry a good time.

  “That’s a great one,” Brian said, pointing at the picture Barry made.

  But what he really wanted to do was ask Barry where he went at night.

  “Thanks,” Barry said, his eyes dark, overcast. Lost in thought. In memory.

  “Here,” Brian said, noticing there was no horizon in Barry’s picture. He set his pencil at one end of Barry’s sheet of paper. Started to draw the horizon.

  “Hey hey,” Barry said. “No. I don’t want that.”

  “When did you stop drawing horizons?”

  “You don’t need them.”

  “But it gives you perspective, Mom says.”

  Barry held his hand over his sheet of paper, blocking Brian from drawing on it.

  “Some places don’t have that,” Barry said. “Some places go on for a really long time.”

  Someone sighed behind them and Brian turned to see Mom standing in the kitchen doorway, watching them.

  He didn’t know she’d been watching them.

  “You’re sleeping with us tonight, Barry,” Mom said.

  Then she left the kitchen.

  11

  Brian didn’t know which was worse; leaving his bedroom door open or leaving it closed. If you left it open you might wake up to see someone standing in the hall, watching you sleep. If you left it closed, you could be stuck in here with him. He also didn’t know which was worse; waking to hear Barry calling from the bedroom over, or not having Barry in there at all, leaving him, Brian, all alone at this side of the house.

  He felt chilled, thinking of the empty space a wall away. The empty bed. The objects in Barry’s bedroom unmoved. Barry was sleeping in Mom and Dad’s room. Why? Brian only slept in there when he was sick or if he had a really bad dream. Was Barry sick? Did he have a really bad dream?

  Brian heard a door open down the hall.

  He sank further into his bed, his eyes wide, focused on his half open bedroom door. He shook his head no, slowly, watching, almost expecting a stranger to emerge from the hall shadows, to step into his bedroom, to ask him where Barry was.

  A clicking sound. Footsteps in the hall. And Brian thought this might be worse than a stranger. Somehow this was worse.

  He sat up, a little bit, craning his neck to get a better look into the hall. Barry passed, quickly, quietly. Barry’s bedroom door opened and closed.

  Brian listened.

  Barry said something. A whisper.

  A second voice, too.

  Brian was out of bed, trembling on the carpet. He stepped toward his half open door, stepped toward the hall. In his white underwear he felt cold, vulnerable, open. He started to cry, expecting to see a person with the second voice enter his bedroom. Barry whispered again, this time from a distance. Maybe he wasn’t whispering anymore. Maybe he was talking now but further away.

  New footsteps. Different than the ones Barry took in the hall. But still, maybe coming toward him. Toward his bedroom.

  But they weren’t coming toward him.

  Brian stood with his arms half raised, half covering his chest. They were shaking. So were his knees. So were his lips.

  “Mom,” he said, and his voice sounded scared. He should move. He should get Mom. She understood something was wrong with Barry. She understood it more than he did. She was an adult and adults knew a little more about bad dreams and death and whatever was wrong with Barry than Brian did.

  He stepped toward the hall.

  “Briiiiiiiaaaaaaan! ”

  Brian stopped, chilled, shaking his head without knowing he was doing it.

  “Barry?”

  His brother’s voice sounded so far away. Miles away. Like he was calling from their old house. Calling from his bedroom there.

  Brian turned to the window. The one window in his bedroom.

  “Barry?” he called, afraid to say his name too loud.

  A form, something, floating outside his bedroom window.

  Brian made a strange low sound. A single syllable. Sounded like he had dirt in his throat.

  He brought a finger up, pointing at it, pointing at the silhouette, something, floating on the other side of the closed drapes.

  “Briiiiiiaaaaaa
an! ” Barry’s voice. So far away. Too far away to be right outside his window. Too far away to be—“it’s so fun out here! ”

  A second voice. The second voice. An adult. Yelling.

  “QUIET! ”

  Brian couldn’t move, just couldn’t move, stood still, trembling on the carpet, pointing to the window, moaning. The lights came on in his bedroom and he turned, blurred, to see Mom in the doorway.

  “Where is he?” she asked, scared.

  Brian turned back to the window, still pointing, still shaking.

  Mom left the doorway. Dad passed, too. One of them opened the door to Barry’s bedroom.

  Mom spoke to Barry. Must’ve been in his bedroom. Mom spoke to him.

  “What are you doing in here?” she said.

  Brian didn’t remember walking into the hall but he was in the hall, looking into Barry’s bedroom. Between Mom and Dad he saw Barry on his bed, dirty and wet, on his knees on his bed. Dad stepped toward Barry and Mom cried. Barry shook his head no, didn’t want them to take him out of his bedroom, didn’t want them to take him out.

  12

  “Brian,” Dad said, his hands folded upon the kitchen table, “your brother will be staying with Hugh and Bree tonight.”

  “Staying at their house?”

  Brian understood that something was wrong. But in the world he was used to, sleeping at somebody else’s house was supposed to be a good time. A sleepover. A privilege.

  “Yes,” Dad said. Mom was in another room. Somewhere else in the house. Painting. “It feels like the right thing to do. Your mom and I think it’s the right thing to do.”

  He nodded and Brian wondered if he really thought it was the right thing to do. It felt like Dad didn’t know what the right thing to do was.

  13

  Brian was on the rug, on his back. Mom and Dad sat on the couch. Gene Kelly danced on the television and Brian imagined a bug in his brain. Imagined Gene Kelly was smiling with insanity. Smiling because something had crawled into his brain and was wriggling around in there, maze like, endlessly, causing Gene Kelly to move, to move all over the place. And the other dancers danced because they felt bad for Gene Kelly. Felt bad because he was smiling all the time, speaking in gibberish, couldn’t stop moving because of the bug in his brain, constantly moving, unsettled, taping his tap shoes in step with the tip of the bug’s legs, the tip-tap of the bug’s legs, making him dance, making him crazy …

  14

  The empty bedroom beside his own. Brian decided this was worse. Worse than having Barry in there. Worse than the sound of his brother calling to him from an impossible distance. Worse than the second voice.

  The emptiness. No voices. No Barry.

  And still, Brian listened. He sat up in bed, his blanket and sheet pulled up to his shoulders. His own bedroom door was closed. He didn’t want to see into the hall. Not tonight. Barry wasn’t in the room next to his and if he saw something in the hall tonight he might fall to pieces, might go mad.

  He looked over his shoulder, to the window.

  No shape there. No silhouette.

  Brian got out of bed.

  He wore a t-shirt this time because he remembered being so cold, so naked, standing and trembling the night before. He wore socks, too.

  He crossed the bedroom, crossed the carpet, and opened his bedroom door.

  Eyes closed, afraid to look, Brian stepped into the hall.

  “Barry,” Brian whispered, not because Barry could hear him but as some kind of anchor, something to hang on to.

  He opened his eyes at Barry’s bedroom door.

  Tails.

  Brian imagined a coin suspended in the air in the front yard.

  Tails.

  He opened the door to Barry’s bedroom and slipped inside and closed the door behind him.

  He turned on the lights.

  Barry’s bed was made. Mom had made it earlier in the day. His things were neatly arranged on his desk and dresser. Figurines. Comic books. His drawings were in a pile on his nightstand next to his bed.

  One window closed. The other open.

  Mom said she wanted to air the room out. Get rid of the smell.

  Brian went to the window. When he got there he looked over his shoulder. He didn’t like standing by this window. He was too deep into the bedroom. Like the whole bedroom was behind him, had him cornered now.

  He looked out the window.

  Below, in the yard, moonlight splashed across the grass. From here it looked like he could see each blade, tiny individual pins decorating the lawn at night.

  He looked to the trees at the edge of the yard, to the shadows there. He looked over his shoulder. To the closet. To the dresser. To the bedroom’s front door. He didn’t want to look back to the window. Didn’t like that it was open. He breathed deeply, once, and ran across Barry’s bedroom and slipped out as quietly as he had slipped in.

  15

  “Briiiiiiaaaaan! ”

  Brian woke fast. Looked around his own bedroom. It was dark. Still night.

  “Barry?”

  But Barry was at Hugh and Bree’s.

  “Briiiiaaaaaaan! ”

  But it was Barry. Barry’s voice.

  “Barry!” Brian yelled, hoping his mom would hear him. Hoping Dad would come barreling down the hall and end whatever was happening.

  Nothing from the hall. Nothing but the distant sound of Barry’s voice.

  “It’s fun out here! Briaaaaan! ”

  Brian got out of bed again. He opened his bedroom door and did what he did in Barry’s room earlier. He ran. Ran into the hall and ran to Mom and Dad’s room and opened their door and ran to them and shook Mom awake.

  “What is it? What is it? ” Mom woke immediately, grabbed Brian by the shoulders. Dad was up, out of bed.

  “Barry’s in his bedroom!”

  “What? ”

  “Barry’s calling me from his bedroom!”

  “Jesus Christ,” Dad said and Brian heard fear in his voice, saw fear in his dad’s face as he hesitated before leaving their bedroom.

  “What do you mean he called to you?” Mom asked, yelling, shaking Brian by the shoulders. Then she was up and past him.

  Brian stood in their bedroom, beside their bed. He gripped their blanket, needing something to hold on to. Mom’s voice, far off, calling, crying out, yelling. Barry’s voice, too. Distant. So far away.

  Dad appeared in the doorway and Brian screamed. Dad crossed the room and held him.

  “You’re okay?’ he asked, loud, angrily.

  “Yes,” Brian said but he didn’t know what okay meant.

  Mom’s voice from far away. And Dad was gone again. Dad’s voice, too. From another house it seemed. From their old house. From Hugh and Bree’s. From a stranger’s house.

  Mom screamed and Brian mumbled something to himself, felt like he had no control over himself, was trembling from somewhere deeper than he had control over.

  Barry’s voice. Mom’s voice. Dad’s voice. All coming from the dark black hall and the bigger bedroom beyond it.

  “Oh no,” Brian said, hearing a fourth voice.

  Oh no as if oh no could protect him from whoever spoke in that fourth voice.

  Silence then.

  Nothing from the hall.

  Darkness. Blackness. Alone, it seemed, in the whole house. The whole house growing around him, expanding, fanning out until he was standing in a tiny black hole in a space that went on for a very long time.

  Footsteps. On the carpet. Many of them. Something with many legs. He gripped the blanket and almost fell to his knees, to hide beside the bed.

  Footsteps and Dad came through the bedroom door, holding it open for Mom who held Barry close to her, talking to him, wiping dirt from his hair, her own face and arms dirty, all the way up to her elbows, as if shed reached into something, dug, had to stick her arms up to her elbows into something to find him, to bring Barry back, to get him out of his bedroom.

  “We leave tonight,” she said and Da
d was already on the phone, calling Hugh and Bree, asking them how they could let Barry out of their sights, arguing with them when they said he’d fallen asleep in the guest bedroom, arguing with them when they said the doors were locked and the alarm was set. Arguing with them until he hung up and turned to face Brian, his eyes wild with worry, then turned to look at Barry, then looked at Mom and repeated what she’d said. “We leave tonight.”

  16

  The brothers sat in the back of the car, opposite ends of the bench. Mom and Dad were inside, talking to a realtor. Talking with only half enthusiasm. Talking like they didn’t have very much energy. Talking like they were making a decision because they had to, not because they wanted to.

  Brian looked to the windows of the ranch house and wondered which ones were the bedrooms. It was harder to tell. No second story on this house.

  Across the street there was a small graveyard. Seven stones. Possibly a family plot.

  Barry stared out the car window at the graveyard.

  Brian thought of a bug, stuck in Barry’s mind, making him dance, making him smile. It wasn’t the same bug that Gene Kelly had; it made Barry do different things, made him think about different things.

  Barry stared out the window and Brian wanted to cry, thinking of his brother stuck like Gene Kelly. Hurt like him. His own kind of bug. His own obsession, the word Dad had used.

  Brian thought of a coin, too, stuck in the air.

  Tails.

  Heads.

  He thought of the coin held there, floating all on its own, never falling, never determining who got the bigger bedroom, who got the bug.

  Brian almost jumped when Mom appeared by the side of the car. Dad was on the other side. The realtor was walking away. All silent to Brian beyond the closed window.

  Mom opened her door. Dad opened his.

  Mom looked into the car, saw Barry staring out the window. She looked where he was looking. Toward the seven stones.