hat, no semblance of anything human at all. Just a mess of tentacles and claws glinting in the moonlight and a crinkling of the white, featureless head into a snarl of hatred. . . .
It pulled above him, drowning out the feeble light, and Sean screamed in the girl’s voice again. The Hollower (
the girl knows it, knows what it is
) crashed like a wave into the wall before them, breaking up over Sean’s (the girl’s) body in a shiny insectoid rain.
The dream-him (her) sank to the ground beneath the oppressive weight of the bugs’ sheer numbers. Needle legs sank into the soft, skinny girl arms, the breasts, the thighs, the stomach, cheeks, forehead, over the lips, inside the mouth, the tongue, which promptly swelled. They stole the air. Their chattering rose and melded into a wail like a teakettle. He clawed beneath them, fighting to pull them away, topull them off, to breathe even the heavy rot-choked air of the alley, to breathe anything at all but them.
With a sharp breath he woke up. The remnant scream leaked from his lungs in little huffing whimpers, the stipple of a thousand spindly legs fresh on his skin.
Wiping sweat from his forehead with the cuff of his pajama sleeve, he listened. Silence, unbroken, reigned from the other side of his door. No bug chatter, no scrabble of legs on the floor or the walls.
His head sank back to the pillow.
“Fuck.” He whispered it, a word still too reverently adult and powerful to be spoken aloud yet. He didn’t use that kind of language often, but saved it for occasions where no other word would do. It made him think of his dad. While his mother never allowed either of “her boys” to use that kind of language in the house, Sean often thought words like that were shared between grown-ups. Men, especially. And maybe if his dad had lived to see Sean become a man, they could have drunk beers and watched football and swore about those “fucking Giants” and their chance at making it to the “fucking Super Bowl.”
In the wake of his thoughts, he heard a faint strain of whistling from outside. Sean frowned. The storm window was closed and usually blocked out all sound. He sat upright in bed and looked at the window. He recognized the song vaguely somewhere in the back of his head, attached to memories of the front yard at tricycle-height. A male voice broke occasionally from the whistling to sing lyrics:
“
I love you, and you love me, and I’ll tell ya the way it’s gonna be
. . . .”
He could almost smell the scent of fresh-cut summer lawn clippings and the organic rot of kitchen garbage leftovers stuffed tightly into Hefty bags on their way out to the curb. That song . . .
“
I know we were meant to be, ’cause no one knows you quite like me
. . . .”
It’s Dad’s song
. That was unmistakably his father’s voice. It had been five, almost six years since he’d heard it, but Sean remembered that voice, and that song. Sean’s father used to sing it when he took out the garbage, mostly, or when he worked on something in the garage or the shed. He had always thought his father might have made up some of the words, because they changed from time to time, but the melody was always the same. The very melody he could hear clear as day now from outside.
“Dad?” The tentative whisper hung in the foreground of his room while the whistling continued lightly out of view.
The silent pounding in his chest sent a pulse he could feel all the way up in his head.
Dad. It had been so long. A lump of pain stuck fast in his throat, threatening to choke off all air to his lungs. Dad. It couldn’t be . . . could it?
His father’s death had been sudden—a heart attack—and Sean missed him fiercely. He thought he was mostly okay with it now; he was a brave boy, and tough, like his dad had been. He’d accepted early on without any real concrete understanding of death that he had to take over as man of the house. But sometimes, more so since the thing across the street
It pulled above him, drowning out the feeble light, and Sean screamed in the girl’s voice again. The Hollower (
the girl knows it, knows what it is
) crashed like a wave into the wall before them, breaking up over Sean’s (the girl’s) body in a shiny insectoid rain.
The dream-him (her) sank to the ground beneath the oppressive weight of the bugs’ sheer numbers. Needle legs sank into the soft, skinny girl arms, the breasts, the thighs, the stomach, cheeks, forehead, over the lips, inside the mouth, the tongue, which promptly swelled. They stole the air. Their chattering rose and melded into a wail like a teakettle. He clawed beneath them, fighting to pull them away, topull them off, to breathe even the heavy rot-choked air of the alley, to breathe anything at all but them.
With a sharp breath he woke up. The remnant scream leaked from his lungs in little huffing whimpers, the stipple of a thousand spindly legs fresh on his skin.
Wiping sweat from his forehead with the cuff of his pajama sleeve, he listened. Silence, unbroken, reigned from the other side of his door. No bug chatter, no scrabble of legs on the floor or the walls.
His head sank back to the pillow.
“Fuck.” He whispered it, a word still too reverently adult and powerful to be spoken aloud yet. He didn’t use that kind of language often, but saved it for occasions where no other word would do. It made him think of his dad. While his mother never allowed either of “her boys” to use that kind of language in the house, Sean often thought words like that were shared between grown-ups. Men, especially. And maybe if his dad had lived to see Sean become a man, they could have drunk beers and watched football and swore about those “fucking Giants” and their chance at making it to the “fucking Super Bowl.”
In the wake of his thoughts, he heard a faint strain of whistling from outside. Sean frowned. The storm window was closed and usually blocked out all sound. He sat upright in bed and looked at the window. He recognized the song vaguely somewhere in the back of his head, attached to memories of the front yard at tricycle-height. A male voice broke occasionally from the whistling to sing lyrics:
“
I love you, and you love me, and I’ll tell ya the way it’s gonna be
. . . .”
He could almost smell the scent of fresh-cut summer lawn clippings and the organic rot of kitchen garbage leftovers stuffed tightly into Hefty bags on their way out to the curb. That song . . .
“
I know we were meant to be, ’cause no one knows you quite like me
. . . .”
It’s Dad’s song
. That was unmistakably his father’s voice. It had been five, almost six years since he’d heard it, but Sean remembered that voice, and that song. Sean’s father used to sing it when he took out the garbage, mostly, or when he worked on something in the garage or the shed. He had always thought his father might have made up some of the words, because they changed from time to time, but the melody was always the same. The very melody he could hear clear as day now from outside.
“Dad?” The tentative whisper hung in the foreground of his room while the whistling continued lightly out of view.
The silent pounding in his chest sent a pulse he could feel all the way up in his head.
Dad. It had been so long. A lump of pain stuck fast in his throat, threatening to choke off all air to his lungs. Dad. It couldn’t be . . . could it?
His father’s death had been sudden—a heart attack—and Sean missed him fiercely. He thought he was mostly okay with it now; he was a brave boy, and tough, like his dad had been. He’d accepted early on without any real concrete understanding of death that he had to take over as man of the house. But sometimes, more so since the thing across the street
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