What could you do about a monster who doesn’t fear religion? This spirit carried a Bible, for God’s sake! A crucifix would frighten an old-style vampire, but now a former religion professor found himself helpless. His concern for Mich taking hold, he burst from his bed with a surge of energy and launched himself across the room in a way that surprised even himself. He hit some resistance but it wasn’t exactly solid. His momentum carried him through, right into Mich’s hammock. The boy awoke with a shout and began flailing. Tangled in the netting, Terah couldn’t extract himself, breathing in the earthy tones of his companion. Finally he found his voice.
“Mich! It’s me! I was trying,” he gasped between blows, “to stop Wednesday!”
At the mention of Wednesday Mich stopped swinging his fists and deftly dropped out of the back side of the hammock. “What the hell were you thinkin’?” he shouted at Terah. “Don’t ya ever goddam do that again!”
“It was Wednesday—”
“You attack me in the night again and I’m fuckin’ throwin’ you out! I don’t care if it’s twenty fuckin’ below! Don’t ever try that again!” Mich snatched up a flashlight and disappeared into the labyrinth.
Not having a light of his own, and not knowing the way, all Terah could do was call after him. “Mich! Wednesday was about to attack you. It wasn’t me!” He realized how lame that sounded. How’d he ever get Mich to trust him again?
Sleepless and dejected, he went to the boiler and built up the fire a little. The ghosts, it seemed, wanted him out of here. At least Wednesday did. He tried to imagine being awoken by a stranger falling on you in bed. What was Mich to think? There was no Wednesday there to point to as proof. All he knew is that he’d startled awake to find Terah on top of him.
Impossible to tell the hour, Terah stared into the fire. Had he been sleepless at home with Danielle he’d have had books to read. How long had it been since he’d been lost in a novel, or even plowing through an academic book? No television, no internet. The much touted benefits of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle simply didn’t translate into the present day. Sitting there in the orange glow, he realized that although he’d been on his own for weeks now he wasn’t cut out for the drifter lifestyle. He was lonely. Still, he had to give Mich time.
If he’d been awoken so rudely, the shock wouldn’t wear off right away. At the same time, Mich knew there were ghosts. He didn’t know Terah well. They’d only met hours ago. Stepdad had managed to put on a mask that lasted a good six months. Fred had been introduced to Terah’s mother Nancy by a friend from church. That friend had a bachelor brother, she said, a good-upstanding Christian man. Nancy wasn’t much of a critical thinker, and assumed she hadn’t seen Fred because he attended a different church. A person not attending church she just couldn’t imagine.
Fred began showing up at their apartment, all smiles and laughter. Nancy kept things proper, but she’d been desperate for Terah to have a father in his life. “No boy,” she’d say, “should grow up without one.” Her first husband, Terah’s father Abe, had been an alcoholic that Nancy intended to convert. Her religion wasn’t as strong as beer proved to be. Now, feeling guilty about having a son with no man around, she was willing to believe what Fred said. He knew what she wanted to hear.
The marriage was a small affair, but the minister offended Fred with an offhand remark. They moved ten miles away into Fred’s dilapidated shack. His continued mirth and good nature was reassuring. No, he wouldn’t officially adopt Terah, but he’d still be “Dad.” He kept up the charade for half a year. Then his true self came through. Mean and miserly, Fred trusted no one. Had trusted no one for many years. He knew how to get what he wanted, and he wanted someone to fuck and to cook for him and to clean his house. He’d laughingly excused his dingy, dirty shack on being a hard-working loner.
Locals knew Fred’s reputation. He hadn’t spent as many nights alone as he claimed. He had junk cars parked in his yard and refused to let either Nancy or Terah into the garage. There was one key and he kept it himself. When they moved into his house, all their stuff had gone into the garage and they would never see it again. It first he kept promising that once things settled he’d let them get their things and figure out where to put them in his small place. But then the facade fell and they both knew he had no intention of letting them have their possessions back. There was no law against a father stealing from his wife and step-child.
In those days, Terah reflected, looking into the fire, he’d started reading to escape reality. There weren’t any bookstores in Ellwood City and Fred’s salary as a laborer was really only sufficient for a bachelor. He refused to let Nancy work. “No wife of mine’s gonna go gallivanting around all day, as if I can’t support a family!” he’d roar. When mom went shopping at Goodwill, Terah’d buy paperbacks for a dime or a quarter. Nancy didn’t keep too close a watch on what he read. She wasn’t a reader, and how was she to know that Jaws and The Godfather had sex scenes in them? Not with enough detail for Terah to figure it out, but enough to bring his body alive. Other books didn’t stain his sheets, but took him to exotic places. Doc Savage, books about a vampire called Barnabas Collins, anything by Ray Bradbury. Books took him away from what was becoming a Dickensian situation. Terah would excel in school, but neither parent knew how to take advantage of that, or even how to encourage it. For his part, Terah found the answer in books.
Staring into the flames, chilled inside and out, he wanted those books right now.
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