Meanwhile, inside, in the air conditioning, the adventure goes on.
XV
Dante
The
Visitor crawled under the covers beside the boy’s sleeping body. As though
sensing he was there, the Boy repositioned himself into a C shape around the
small dog, his arm falling across him.
It was
hot under the blankets and the weight of the boy’s arm pressed him uncomfortably into the mattress. If
he’d had his choice, he would have lain at the foot of the bed, but this was
the best vantage point to guard from. Nuzzling
the small face, he measured the Boy’s breath and listened. He was in a
deep sleep, not yet dreaming, but it couldn’t be long now.
He
sensed the Many were not far off. They were hovering, watching and waiting for
an opening. They would be swift to enter
when that moment came and after that the battle would become a war—a daily
fight to keep the humans safe from the darkness. Not that different than any good dog’s job,
but once they were in, it was no longer about just guarding, giving warnings,
and skirmishes. It would be fighting and killing and sometimes losing.
The
Visitor did not want to think about losing. Not again. So he lay in the
darkness, tense, watchful, listening to the house, the rustlings of the other
dogs as they checked rooms, the cat on the kitchen counter—taking advantage of
the night and the sleeping humans. Water dripped from a faucet; something
electrical somewhere whirred, clicked, and hummed.
The boy
beside him twitched, stirred, muttered, then twitched again. The small Visitor closed his eyes and went
in.
***
They
were in what appeared to be the back yard, except that it was no longer fenced
and the lake, normally two acres away, bound rock and forest, was lapping at
the western fringe. It was night.
A large human stood opposite them
holding something that the Visitor could not make out in the darkness. Though
he could not see or feel him physically, the Visitor could sense the Boy’s
terror. To the Boy’s mind, the figure was
the fearsome thing. To the Visitor, he was a distraction from the real danger.
The
Visitor scanned the tree line, then the banks of the lake. A Creeper had to be
there somewhere, he could feel it.
The Boy
pointed at the human silhouette . He has something bad.
The human was approaching, swinging the object, a bag, in his hand. He spoke in a
surprisingly high, sing-songing voice, “Take
it. Take it. Take it” and swung his arm forward, slinging its contents
toward them.
The Boy
cried and fell, trying to dodge the approaching missile. It landed at his feet,
writhing, and he kicked at it.
A snake
slithered out of the bag and hissed, curling its body and arching its head,
cobra-like. It raised as though to strike and the Boy rose and began to run.
Behind him the snake increased in size and pursued him.
The
Visitor ignored the snake itself. It was another distraction. The danger was
ahead of them, in the house they were running toward.
The
door. Of course. The Boy would try to open the familiar back door and it would
be locked. He would run to the front door and it too would be locked, but
another would appear magically nearby and when he opened that, he would let in something far worse than the phantom chasing them now.
The
Visitor did not stop to wonder how he knew this. He simply followed the boy and
allowed him to test one door after another, saw him bang on the windows,
screaming to parents inside who were either indifferent or deaf to his pleas.
The Visitor knew that before he could help the Boy, he would have to see the
Door and learn not to open it.
The
door finally appeared. It glowed with invitation, light seeping from the cracks
around it. The Boy sobbing in relief, ran toward it. Stepped into the boy’s
path, the dog tripped him and he fell.
The snake was approaching rapidly. Screaming again, the Boy rose, took
another step, and the Visitor tripped him again. The snake was upon them now, hovering over
them, its fangs dripping, its eyes glowing.
The Boy
tried crawling, but the Visitor blocked his path. Look at it. Look at what it really is.
I can’t. It’ll bite me and I’ll
die.
I won’t let that happen.
It’s a snake. It wants to kill
me.
Look at
it.
Crying softly, the Boy faced
the snake. It hissed and reared its head, now towering over them. The Boy, shaking in terror, stared up at it
for a full second.
What does it really look like?
A snake.
Look harder.
It—it—it—looks like a belt. The
boy exhaled sharply. It looks like
Allen’s belt.
The
snake stopped hissing.
Allen?
A big boy at school. Lots bigger than eighth
graders usually are. There’s something wrong with him. He
chased us around the playground a couple of years ago, swinging his belt,
trying to hit us with it. Everybody else got away, but I fell down and he hit
me a couple of times before the teachers stopped him.
It stopped moving.
I
remember thinking that his buckle looked like the head of a snake.
It stopped looking like a snake and
then disappeared.
The Boy exhaled. He looked down at
the dog. Wait. You can talk?
And with that, they both woke up.
***
The
Visitor crawled from beneath the covers and stretched. It was nearly dawn, the
sky outside the boy’s window just beginning to change from blue black to
blue-gray. Beside him, still half asleep, lay the Boy. The Visitor could feel
his eyes tracking his movements.
He
turned, wagging his tail a little and lay down, his nose inches from the Boy’s
face.
“I had
a dream. You were in it, Dante.” The Boy whispered.
At the sound
of his name, the dog’s ears perked and his tail wagged.
“You
could talk.”
The
Visitor licked the Boy’s face and rolled over to have his belly rubbed.
“Of
course, there was a giant snake there too. And it turned into a belt.” He
scratched the dog’s stomach and yawned. “Silly dream, huh?”
Rolling
back over, the dog pressed closer to The Boy. Yes. Silly dream.
They both fell back into a
dreamless sleep.
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