The Whisper

“Dad, I don’t want to. Please. I’ll do anything, I will never complain about my homework again. Please, please, please.”

“Don’t be silly, Max. Remember what we talked about? We need to face our fears. What better way to face your fear of the dark than to camp outside during a power outage? We can build a campfire, roast marshmallows, and spend time together without the tv on for once.”

Max clutched his bear, Christmas, tight to his chest. He had indeed received that bear for Christmas and it has only left his side a handful of times since he found it under the Christmas tree five years ago.

“Sam, maybe this is pushing it too far too soon. I mean, he looks terrified,” Sam’s mom said as she looked at Max worriedly.

“Don’t be silly, love. We are just going to be in the backyard. We aren’t going anywhere far away from what he knows, and if we really need to, we can just head back into the house. It’s going to be fun! Right, Max? Now, Max, I want you to think of a really good story to share around the campfire when we are all eating smores! Make sure to go upstairs to get your pillow and sleeping bag ready from inside your closet,” Max’s dad said as he closed the sliding glass door to the backyard closed. The sun was setting and his dad wanted to utilized what little natural light was left before it was gone to set up the tent for the night.

“Go on up and get them quickly while there’s still light, Max. I don’t want to have to come up searching for you with a flashlight,” Max’s mom said as she looked out at his father fumbling with the tent.

Max slowly ascended the stairs one step at a time with Christmas clutched tightly to his abdomen.

He went into his bedroom and stared at the closet where his sleeping bag was waiting for him. The last slivers of light were disappearing behind the silhouette of trees that were visible from his second story window.

His heart felt like it was jumping about around his body and his throat started to close when he approached the closet door.

“Maaaxxxx…” whispered a familiar growl that made Max’s stomach churn.

He held Christmas even tighter and ran onto his bed and pulled up the covers to his chin, all the while staring at the closet.

“Don’t you think it’s funnnnn in the darrrrkkkk, Maaaxxxx…”

“We are going to have ssssoooooo much funnnnn…”

Max pulled the blankets from his bed all around him to create a tight ball as he heard the closet door open.

“Whyyyyy are you hiding, Maaaaxxxx… let’s play!”

Faster than Max could hold his breath, the blankets were swept up around him and Christmas was plucked from his chest where he had been glued. Max felt the blankets being tossed around him as a guttural scream escaped from the deepest part of him.

As fast as the incident had occurred, it was over, with his father standing in the door frame bewildered, his hand holding a beaming flashlight.

“Max! What are you doing? How did you even manage to do that to poor Mr. Christmas?” Max’s father said, with a mixture of anger and shock.

Mr. Christmas was indeed as deceased as any stuffed animal could be at that point, with stuffing in tufts around the room and an empty brown carcass on the floor of the bedroom by the end of the bed.

Max’s face turned red and his sobs overtook his voice that was screaming inside him at his father that he would never hurt Christmas, the only being that had shared with him his true fear, and understood the terror that had presided over his life.

“It’s okay, Max, come here,” his father said as Max ran into his arms and released all of the sadness, fear, and loneliness he held in his little heart.

“Let me just grab your sleeping bag and pillow, okay? We’ll head back downstairs with Mom. Let’s not mention this to her and we will discuss it in the morning. I just want us to have a fun night together. Sound good to you?” Max’s dad said as he opened the closet to reveal nothing but a standard closet for a boy of about nine, with Max’s sleeping bag tucked in the back corner.

Max started to hiccup from trying to contain his sobs and followed his dad back down the stairs. Max was grateful his mom was out in the yard getting the fire started so that she couldn’t see him upset. The only thing worse than what was happening was lying to his mom about it so that she wouldn’t worry.

By the end of the evening, after a heavy dose of smores and stories about his parents’ childhoods, Max was feeling better and fell asleep fast in the tent in between his parents.

He awoke to a buzzing sound that was almost mimicking a fly, but not quite. He sat up and couldn’t see any shadows on the outside of the tent, with the fire having burned out before his parents went to sleep. He grabbed his flashlight by his feet and unzipped the tent to have a look.

“Maaaaaxxxx… I knew you would come out! You always were so curiousssssss…”

Max stopped what he was doing and started zipping up the tent.

“I wouldn’t do that, Maaaaxxxxx… it was a shame what happened to Christmasssss…”

Max stopped what he was doing and whispered, “What do you want?”

“The fire was so nice, Maaaxxxx… don’t you think? It made everything glow. It was so small, thhhhhougggghhh…”

“I am NOT lighting anything on fire. You can go now. You already had your fun today. You get to have fun once a day and that’s it. It’s what you promised.”

“But, Maaaaxxxxx… if we did this one reallllyyyy, big fun thing, then we don’t have to play together ever againnnnn…”

“You really mean that? One thing and you will leave me alone? Like forever?”

“Yesssss, I promissssse… you know I keep my promises…”

Max thought for a second. It was true. The Whisper always kept its promises. When Max was little, The Whisper wanted to play with him all the time until Max had agreed to throw his backpack full of school books over the bridge and onto the cars below in return for only playing once a day. No one was hurt, but it did hit a car and cause a lot of damage. It was after that that Max had to start seeing Dr. Hinkle and talk about his feelings, but it was totally worth it to only have to worry about hearing The Whisper once a day.

“Okay. What do I have to do?”

“Maaaaxxxx, having a fire was so niccccceee… the matches are on the porch. All you have to do is pour some of the lighter fluid for the barbeque on the house and light a matccchhh…”

Max started shaking. He determinedly started walking toward the barbeque. His hands were shaking as he poured the lighter fluid on the sliding glass door and the walls of the house closest to where he was standing on the porch. He traced his steps backward to where he had been standing in the yard, all the while emptying the rest of the lighter fluid on the porch. Max threw the lighter fluid container on the porch and lit a match.

“Yesssss, Maaaaxxxx…”

He threw the match with such force that it surprised him when it landed near the sliding glass door and the entire porch quickly erupted with heat’s dance of fire. With lights still out in the entire neighborhood, there were no streetlights to steal the stage from Max’s final act to please The Whisper.

“Goodbye, Maxxxxxxx…”

The rest of the night was a hazy montage of his furious father, screaming mother, and the fire department arriving in time to see the entire house ablaze, but throughout the noise and commotion, there were no whispers left to hear.

Max just watched the flames as they danced with freedom and realized that his father had been right. After tonight, Max could finally say he was no longer afraid of the dark.