Day 5.

I could see the faint, ghostly reflection of my face in the window, lit by the moon’s feeble glow. Below was the front lawn that was really more of a grassy expanse broken by a few oaks, leading to a gate at the end of the driveway. I couldn’t see that far. The oaks had lost the distinctions of leaves from limbs, and instead became dark masses reaching to poison the speckled sky.

I couldn’t see anything to speak of. Sometimes I thought I could see a bird darting across the moon, but that was more than likely my imagination. I began to be lulled into a dreary state as the landscape before me melded into blurry forms of varying shades, undulating and swirling as my eyes began to droop.

I didn’t see the eyes staring up at me. I didn’t notice the dark form that was somehow darker than the tree it stood under. I just stood up in that window, my face nearly pressed against the glass, dazed and a little happy about it.

The bird flew at the window with a gut wrenching scream, flapped its wings frantically inches from the glass, then flew off again. And when I saw inches from the glass, I also mean inches from my face.

I was so terrified I wasn’t able to even fall back in shock. I just was frozen there. The only thing worse than being scared is to be scared and not able to move. After this point in my life, I stopped laughing at squirrels who just halt in the middle of the road when they see your car barreling at them at 60 miles an hour.

I think my heart fell out. I remember pretty well it ripping itself from my chest and thudding to the floor. After the few seconds it took for me to regather my mind that resembled TV static, it must have hopped back in, because I could feel it beating against my chest as wildly as the bird’s wings beat against the window.

So smart guy that I am, I looked out the window again.

This time I saw the eyes. I don’t know how I saw them. Somehow they glowed in the darkness, maybe out of sheer contrast.

Now before I tell you what happened next, there is something you must understand about me. I am, as I have previously mentioned, a coward. There are quite a few things that either scare me or make me extremely uncomfortable. I find it favourable to never come into contact with those things. Not good for the liver. Or something.

But I have a conflicting attribute.

I am a creative person, and by that nature therefore very curious. I am easily intregued, though usually that will only take me so far as the local library. There are occasions when my cowardice and my curiosity meet, and like a Capulet and Montague, are required by honour to come to arms. These battles are usually rife with casualities, and all very interesting. Their strengths are nearly matched, and I am always on pins and needles awaiting the result.

These two sides were, at this time, in a fierce struggle. Every ounce of my self-respecting cowardice was screaming to stay put. Crawl back into bed, try to get back to sleep. Pretend there isn’t some dark, foreboding figure lurking below your window. Mr. Curious, the clever little one, thought it would be a marvelous idea to just go on down and see what the hell is going on. How that was a good plan, I couldn’t get out of him.

Now my money was on Coward. This was far too illogical of a choice for him not to win. Even as I pulled on my untied shoes I was thinking, He’s bound to win! No idiot would go out there right now!

It wasn’t until I was at the front door that I realized Coward had been dealt a stunning blow to the temple, and he wasn’t coming back any time soon.

I opened the door. I stepped outside. I saw those eyes, maybe fifty feet away, turn towards me.

Neither I nor the shadowed mass at the tree moved. He didn’t blink, I couldn’t. I also couldn’t breath, which seemed to be taking a toll.

“Stay away.” Whatever was there, it only had to whisper, and I could hear it as if its breath was hot against my ear. It still didn’t move. But I knew that voice. I had heard it at the church earlier that day. I had also felt its fist.

The eyes darted to my right, beyond the side of the house. Whatever head they were on turned sharply in the same direction. They widened a little. Back to me. Then gone.

I could hear the footsteps very faintly, heavy, consistent strides of a fast pace. I looked to my right, couldn’t see anything.

It was at that moment that Curious collapsed, and Coward woke up. I can’t explain how my insides rose about four feet, sending shivers through every inch of my body. Open the door, slip inside, slam shut, back against the door, breath coming back. Three steps at a time up the staircase, into my room, under the blankets. I could hear my ears pulsing, could feel my eyes pulsing with every beat of my heart.

Sleep was merciful and found me before a heart attack.



Edgar’s funeral was sad. I dug a hole by the church in the back with the other graves. I made a cross with sticks and string. I stuck it in the ground so I know where I buried him. He is buried with a lot of people who died. None of them have crosses. They don’t look like a cemetery with stone things with their names. But I know there are lots of dead people behind the church because that is the graveyard.

I said a prayer for Edgar. That’s what you do when people die. You pray for them. I prayed and then I left. When I looked back someone in the window was praying for him too. Sometimes there is someone in the window praying and sometimes there isn’t.

Today there is.



“Did you stub your toe or something last night?” Lea asked the next morning. I had just put an amount of Lucky Charms so surprisingly large into my mouth that even I had been impressed, so I chewed hastily and swallowed too soon so I could answer. They sort of got stuck partway down, but I muscled my way through it with a few more embarassing facial expressions. Finally, danger past, I said,

“What do you mean?”

“You were cursing like Poppa when he’s working with the pigs,” she said, taking an unusually dainty bit of toast after she said it, showing me how proper she can be. Which she isn’t. The kid can wolf down a steak faster than a food motivated Rottweiler.

“You were cursing, Benjamin?” Mom looked thoroughly disapproving. I opened my mouth to say something, Lea cut in,

“Oh yeah! All sorts of things like shit, damn, and a bunch of creative uses for fu-”

“Lea!” Mom scowled. We all knew Lea was just trying to find an excuse to use those words and show how mature and grown up she sounded. Kids tend to think that cursing makes them sound older.

Unabashed, Lea said, “So what’d you say ‘em for?”

I readied another bite of cereal as I answered, “Um, yeah, stubbed my toe.”

Mom didn’t believe me, she was smarter than that. But she was also smart emough to not continue the subject with Lea in the room. She gave me a look that said ‘later,’ then took her cup of coffee into the living room.

“You know you’re too wimpy looking to wear that bruise right. You thould hab Jethhh put thome cubber up on it,” Lea said, managing to shove half a piece of bread into her mouth and still make the last sentence somewhat coherant.

“I think I have your colour.” Jess had just come into the room. Despite being so very scholarly, Jess also managed to be the one obsessed with looking good. I tried to ignore both of them. As I pushed my chair away from the table and stood, Lea said,

“Where you going?”

“Putting my dishes away.”

“I mean after that, stupid.” Ah, the witty comebacks of a fifteen year old.

“Library.”

“Oooooh, you wanna see your girlfriend, huh? I bet Rosalie has been waiting so long for you! You’re gonna go make out in the library and–”

“Shut up, Lea,” I growled.

“And tell her you love her and you wanna have make up sex with her and–”

“Lea!” That was Jess this time.

“What, the kids at school say that make up sex is the best kind,” Lea said, making it clear that the kids at school were the professionals in this area. And not her married sister.

“Just shut the hell up, okay?” I said, walking towards the door to get my coat.

Lea’s eyes got huge. “MOM! Benjamin cursed at me!” She yelled. She didn’t care. But she knew Mom would.

I left before I had to face Lea’s innocent act.

Lea had had it in her mind for the past two years that the reason I had gone to the library so much back when I was a highschooler was because Rosalie had worked part time there. I actually didn’t know Rosalie well; we were just sort of aquaintences. But she was a nice girl who was always very friendly when she saw people she knew, and Lea had had too much time to think about that, and decided that her friendliness was a sure sign that we were getting it on between the four and five hundred sections. I think of all of us Lea was the most curious about the opposite gender but, like the rest of us, was discouraged from dating in highschool. Our parents thought it was an unrealistic environment to nurture a young romance, and that kids are pretty stupid about romance at that age anyhow.

So she lived vicariously through her imaginings about her siblings.