Upstairs

In the shadows, that’s where they hide. At least in the daytime, that is. When the sun’s out, they cower under the shade of elm trees, under beds, and in closets—and they stay there. When the sun goes down, however, they come out of the shadows.

No, that isn’t right. They come out at night, that is true, but they don’t come out of the shadows. Rather, the shadows spread. At night, everything is immersed in shadow. At night the world belongs to them. A shark won't attack if you’re on land, but one foot in the ocean and you’re fair game. 

Brendan sees one of them now. He’s paralyzed in fear, shivering and sweating at the same time. Even if he can’t see it (not properly, anyhow), he can sense that it's watching him. What is it called, a sixth sense? Yes, that’s right. Brendan’s sixth sense tells him that it can see him, probably better than he can see it; these things can see in the dark, don’t you know. Like cats, or vampires. 

Light floods the room so suddenly it would be startling if it weren't such a relief. In the yellow light of his bedroom, Brendan can see that the creature, the monster, is nothing more than a pile of clothes stacked on his desk chair. Phew. He’s safe.

Yes, he’s safe. But in the back of his mind, Brendan doesn’t think they’re really gone. Maybe for now, yes, but remember: in the light they hide in the shadows. Maybe there was something there, after all, but when the lights came on it went under his bed, or in the closet. Maybe, Brendan thinks with a horror he tries to suppress, it can change shapes, and it is only pretending to be a chair with clothes on it. 

Yes, he’s safe for now. But eventually, the lights will go back out, and the sea of shadows will reach every corner and crevice of Brendan’s bedroom.

Mommy sits down at the edge of Brendan’s bed. She’s in her work scrubs.

“We didn’t say bedtime prayers,” Brendan says. “Daniel turned the lights out, and we didn’t say bedtime prayers. I waited for him to come back and say them, but he didn’t.”

“I know, buddy,” Mommy says, stroking his hair. “I’m sorry. I told him you won’t go to sleep without them, so he’ll know for next time. I’m sure he’s just tired from being on site all day.” 

“Okay,” Brendan agrees and sits up a little. “He turned the lights off, Mommy. All the way.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Mommy says again. “Here, I’ll get your night lamp turned on right now.” She reaches over to the nightstand, where a small projector lamp sits. She turns it on, even though you can’t see the projection until the room goes dark. When she sits back down, she puts her hands together. “Ready?”

Brendan clasps his hands together and squeezes his eyes shut. Together, they say, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Guide me safely through the night. Wake me with the morning light. Amen.”

Mommy pushes Brendan’s hair back so she can give him a kiss on the forehead. “Goodnight, buddy. Love you.” She pauses. “Did Margie come by? I told her I had a tupperware container to return to her, but I forgot to tell her I was working today.”

Brendan shakes his head sleepily. “Love you. G’night,” he says, getting settled. Suddenly he is very sleepy, and not all that afraid.

Mommy turns the lights out and is getting ready to close the door when Brendan sits up slightly. “Can you leave it cracked? So Gregory can get in.”

Mommy smiles tiredly. “Yes, of course.” 

When Mommy leaves, the room isn’t dark like it was before. It is, but not endlessly. The sky above Brendan’s head is lit with stars that swirl and twinkle. He watches them, mesmerized, until he falls asleep. When he does, although he is too tired to realize it, Gregory the fat orange cat has slipped under one of Brendan’s arms and snuggled up against him.

When Brendan blinks awake, the stars are still spinning above his head and Gregory has relocated to the foot of the bed. Also above Brendan’s head is a loud noise.

Brendan sits up groggily, looking up at the ceiling. In particular his eyes are drawn to the vent in the corner, the one connecting his room to the room above: that is, his parents room. (Well, Mommy and Daniel’s room now.)

Brendan can hear things banging around up there. Banging, as well as muffled shouts and the creaking of floorboards. Brendan shuts his eyes and pulls the blanket over his head to muffle the sound, but it will be difficult to go back to bed now. It always is.

He sometimes hears such noises coming from his-parents-now-Mommy-and-Daniel’s room. He knows he isn’t supposed to go in there after dark unless it is a serious emergency. One time he did, he just wanted to sleep in their bed (their mattress is so much softer, so much comfier) and Mommy and Daniel shouted at him. 

Not an emergency, not an emergency, Brendan tells himself as he listens to the banging and shouting. He’s heard it before; this isn’t an emergency. If he goes into Mommy and Daniel’s room now, they’ll just shout at him to get out. 

Brendan tries counting sheep, even though it hasn’t ever truly worked for him. He always gets distracted; this time is no different. He listens to the noises upstairs; it sounds like furniture is being moved around, or something heavy. Closing his eyes, he imagines Mommy and Daniel rearranging the bedroom (although he can’t imagine why they’d want to do that now). 

Perhaps the nightstand is being moved to the other side of the bed, or the bed has been pushed up against the window rather than across from it. There, that was from the side of the room Mommy’s vanity is on, the one she never really uses all that much anymore and is now more of a glorified junk drawer than anything. Maybe they're organizing the vanity; maybe Mommy will start using it again—

Brendan is asleep before he can mentally rearrange the room any more.

He awakens to the smell of cinnamon rolls the following morning. Mommy works this weekend and Daniel doesn’t cook, so that can only mean one thing.

“Daddy!” Brendan exclaims and throws back the covers, startling Gregory, who scrambles out of the room in a blurry orange frenzy.

Brendan finds Daddy in the kitchen where he is, indeed, removing a pan of cinnamon rolls from the oven. He barrels into Daddy’s leg and hugs it tight, making Daddy laugh and nearly drop the pan. Luckily he doesn’t, and is able to carefully set it on the stovetop to cool off.

“Hey, buddy,” he grins down at Brendan. Brendan notices he has more facial hair. “Ready for our weekend?”

“Yeah!” Brendan jumps up and down.

“Alright, kiddo. Go get your bag. Once these bad boys cool off, we’ll head out. Sound alright?” 

“Yup!” Brendan runs to his room to get his bag, which he packed the night before. As he’s running back into the kitchen, he pauses. “Oh, but I should say bye to Daniel.” He makes for the staircase, but Daddy stops him.

“Mommy and Daniel aren’t here right now. They’re—” Daddy turns his back to Brendan and cautiously touches the pan with his hands to check if they’ve cooled off enough; he gets his answer when he flinches and says a bad word under his breath. “They’re on a date.”

“Oh. Okay.” Brendan slings his bag over his shoulder and stares at his father’s back; a big and muscular man, Brendan’s father is. He wrestled in high school, and Brendan has seen heavy-looking weights in the living room of his apartment. Brendan tried lifting one of them and ended up with a muscle strain. 

They eat the cinnamon rolls in the car. They listen to Daddy’s rock CDs with the windows rolled all the way down, because the weather is nice and warm. Brendan eats so many cinnamon rolls his stomach hurts; Daddy eats even more, and Brendan wonders if his stomach doesn’t hurt, too.

Daddy turns the radio down just as How You Remind Me by Nickelback is coming on; Brendan sits up sharply in protest. 

“What do you say…” Daddy says, making a left turn. (That’s funny, to get to Daddy’s apartment you gotta go right.) “...we take a road trip? Just the two of us?”

Brendan grins. That sounds like a vacation, and he hasn’t been on a vacation since Mommy and Daddy took him to the Outer Banks two years ago. “Awesome!” 

So instead of Daddy’s apartment, they’re driving down the highway with the windows down and Nickleback blasting on the speakers. Brendan doesn’t know where they’re going, but it's somewhere fun, probably. Maybe the Outer Banks again, or maybe Disney World. 

Brendan wakes up before he realizes he’s fallen asleep. Nickelback has passed on over to Nirvana, and it’s now early afternoon. Somehow, despite the half-dozen cinnamon rolls he consumed earlier, Brendan’s stomach is rumbling. “Can we get McDonalds?”

Daddy glances over at him. “I don’t think there’s any McDonalds nearby. We’ll stop at the next place we see, how about that?”

Brendan takes the empty cinnamon-roll pan in his lap and uses the fork to scrape the sides. “Okay.”

The next place ends up being Coral’s, a small twenty-four hour diner. Brendan perks up at the sight of a claw machine near the entrance, a small glass box filled with rubber ducks. Daddy gives Brendan a few quarters and lets Brendan try for a duck while he parks the car. No luck, so he gives Brendan a few more quarters and watches him from inside from the booth by the window he’s shown to.

Brendan’s luck turns around when the claw picks up not one but two duckies, one in blue scrubs with a stethoscope and the other in an orange construction suit. When the claw drops them down the chute, he excitedly pushes through the flap to collect them, then runs to show Daddy his prizes. 

“Good job, buddy,” Daddy says distractedly. He’s watching the television hanging from the ceiling; Brendan turns to see what’s playing, but it's only the news. Boring. Brendan opens the crayon box that comes with the kid’s menu and starts working on the printed maze.

When the waitress comes, Daddy orders his usual black coffee. (It’s yucky; Brendan tried it once because he thought it would taste chocolatey, but it was like hot dirty water. Very bitter.) Brendan tries his luck by ordering a hot-chocolate, which he usually is only allowed at dessert time, and is pleasantly surprised when Daddy doesn’t protest. He grins at the waitress as she jots the drinks down; he grins even bigger when she delivers them.

The hot cocoa comes with a glob of marshmallow fluff. “That’s how my Mommy makes it, too.” Brendan tells the waitress. “Do you know her? Her name is Ellen Bradshaw.” Daddy winces, but the waitress only shakes her head, smiles, and says they’re all out of marshmallows and fluff was the closest substitute. Then she asks them if they’re ready to order. 

Daddy gets a hamburger and fries, which is what he gets at every restaurant. Brendan orders a stack of chocolate chip pancakes with hash browns on the side. 

While they wait for the food Daddy watches the news and Brendan scrawls on the kid’s menu, which the waitress lets him keep even after taking Daddy’s adult menu. When he makes it to the end of the maze, he lets the rubber ducks take turns trying it out. 

Daddy says he has to use the bathroom. His timing is unlucky, because just after he slips out of the booth the food arrives. The waitress warns that it's hot, and Brendan agrees that he’ll let it cool off, then immediately forgets when the waitress becomes distracted and burns his tongue biting into the steaming chocolatey hotcakes. 

Emily is still standing over the little boy’s table, even though she’s already delivered the food. Something has caught her attention; she can’t seem to look away from the television above his head.

A picture of two people, cropped and zoomed in on their faces, appears on screen. A man and a woman, the man with his arm slung over the woman’s shoulders. “The picture you are being shown is of a Virginian couple, Ellen Bradshaw and Daniel Grey.” Ellen Bradshaw, Emily thinks. Where have I heard that name before? “Ellen and Daniel, a source reports, have been involved since Bradshaw’s divorce to former spouse, Kevin Nelson.” 

The picture of the couple is replaced by one of a middle-aged man, and Emily inhales sharply. The man being shown on the screen is the man that was just sitting across from this little boy. She’s frozen, staring at the screen, helpless but to listen as the newsperson continues.

“This afternoon, Bradshaw and Grey were found dead in their home, previously shared by Bradshaw and Nelson. They were beaten to death with a crowbar. The clip you are about to be shown is an interview with the neighbor who discovered the scene.”

The camera cuts to a woman with watery, swollen eyes, who a line of text identifies as Marge Peterson. Speaking into a microphone, she says, “Well, I was stopping by to pick up a tupperware I lent Ellie about a week ago. I let myself in. We have keys to each other's houses; sometimes Ellie waters my plants and I’ll feed her cat or watch her little boy.  

I went to the kitchen to look for the tupperware, which Ellie had left on the table for me. I was going to leave, then, except for the smell. It was awful, and I had to breathe through my mouth as I approached. Deep down I think I knew, because anyone who smelled that will tell you it's the smell of death. But I wouldn’t let myself really believe that, at least not until I knew for sure.

So I went to the bedroom, which is where it was coming from. The door was closed, locked, too, but I know they keep the key on the top of the door frame so I got it down and unlocked the door.

When the door opened the smell got worse. I can’t tell you how awful that smell was. I think I’ll have dreams about it. I’ve never dreamed of a smell before, but I think I will. And—”

Margie stops, getting choked up. “I saw them. You couldn’t hardly tell it was them, except that, well, who else could it be, and Ellie was still in her work scrubs. And…” Margie looks like she’s going to throw up, her face losing its color. “That cat. That horrid cat. He’s just a cat, and he’s always been a good cat, I guess. Never scratched me once. And I know it’s only nature, he’s just a cat, you know, but I think I’ll hate him forever.”

“Why is that?” the reporter questions, sounding truly perplexed.

Margie looks past the camera, presumably straight into the reporter's eyes. “Ellie’s brains were on the floor. Bashed in. And the cat.” Her eyes glaze over. “He was licking them up.”

Emily feels sick as a new picture is shown on screen, one of a little boy about her own son’s age. “The picture you are now being shown is of Brendan Nelson, the shared child of the late Ellen Bradshaw and Kevin Nelson. At the moment his whereabouts are unknown. It is suspected that he may be with Kevin Nelson, whose whereabouts are similarly unknown. If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of either Brendan Neslon or Kevin Nelson, please contact local authorities immediately. Kevin Nelson is currently the number one suspect.

Emily looks down at the boy she’s just delivered a plate of chocolate-chip pancakes to, pancakes that have now cooled off enough to eat.. Completely oblivious. Her heart lurches for this boy, this oblivious little boy, who reminds her so much of her own. Just as she opens her mouth to say something (only God knows what) she notices something outside.

A truck is pulling out of the parking lot. Emily squints her eyes, then widens them. It’s the little boy’s father, Kevin Nelson. And he is driving away from the diner, onto the highway and away from Brendan Nelson.

She looks back down at the boy, who is still eating his pancakes. She closes her mouth. Whatever she was planning to say is gone now. Suddenly she finds it very hard to keep standing, and takes a seat across from the boy in the booth. She will wait, she decides, until he’s finished his pancakes. And his hot chocolate. Let him have that, at least.