JMariotte - Boogeyman Read online

  In the other room, Uncle Mike continued his litany of complaint. “Tim, you know I sunk a lot of my own cash into this place. And I’ve been takin’ care of your mom all this time.”

  Pushing through the sheets of plastic that separated the dining room from the kitchen, Tim saw Uncle Mike heading down the other hallway, the one that would bring him out by the stairs. He followed, picking up the pace. If something had happened, or would happen, Tim wanted to get there first, to warn Uncle Mike. He entered the hallway, passing by the closet at its end. The door was still wide open. “Uncle Mike!” he shouted. “I’m right here!”

  Uncle Mike turned and looked at him, a terrified scowl on his face, but there was no glimmer of recognition there. Tim had the feeling that Uncle Mike was lookingthrough him, not at him. There was something behind him that his uncle was reacting to.

  Then Uncle Mike’s hand swung into view, and it held the nail gun Tim had used earlier. With fierce determination, the older man aimed it straight at Tim and fired it with a loud crack. Tim tried to dodge, but the first nail shot through his jacket, pinning his shoulder to the wall. He started to tear free, but Uncle Mike kept firing, one nail after another tacking his jacket down.

  Finally, Tim saw what he was firing at. The Boogeyman burst from the closet behind him, all dark malevolence, and charged toward Uncle Mike. Tim’s uncle fired one last nail, then dropped the gun and ran.

  They both disappeared around the corner, into the living room. Tim struggled, ripped his jacket free from the wall, and gave chase.

  By the time he reached his uncle, the man was on the floor in the dining room. The sheet plastic that had been hanging up was wrapped around his head now, as tightly as if it had been shrink-wrapped there. He looked like he’d been cocooned in a massive spiderweb. Uncle Mike’s mouth gaped open, the plastic indented there, as he tried to suck in air he couldn’t reach. Even as Tim watched, helpless, Uncle Mike’s skin started to turn pale, like Jessica’s had. Throbbing blue veins stood out against it. And still, the plastic tightened, squeezing Uncle Mike’s head. Tim could hear bones popping, could see blood start to fill the plastic. Uncle Mike’s hand reached out blindly, and Tim instinctively grasped it—

  —and felt the older man’s flesh!

  Tim had thought that he wouldn’t be able to touch Uncle Mike. The man hadn’t seen him or heard him, so he thought they were somehow existing on different planes at the same time, or maybe different times in the same plane.

  But they could touch. Uncle Mike’s hand closed on his, desperation making him squeeze tightly. Tim realized he still had time, he had to do something. He tried to rip the plastic off Uncle Mike’s head, but it wouldn’t give. It was too snug already; Tim’s fingers, damp with sweat, only slid off its surface. He scanned the room quickly, his eyes lighting on a carpet knife. He shook free of Uncle Mike’s grasp and dove for it. When he returned with the knife, he could see the older man looking through the plastic, his eyes wide with terror, but seemingly finding some comfort at Tim’s presence.

  Before Tim could slice the plastic, though, Uncle Mike’s eyes widened more, his hands flailing at empty air, his mouth working in a silent scream.

  Tim risked a glance over his shoulder.

  And the Boogeyman, coming from nowhere, had Uncle Mike’s legs. Yanked him out from under Tim, and dragged him, head bouncing, back into the hall. Tim threw the knife aside and followed again.

  In the hallway, the Boogeyman hauled Uncle Mike into the closet. Tim raced inside after them, intent on staying close behind.

  Swirling darkness greeted him, and the now-familiar dizzy wrenching of his gut. Then he saw a door in front of him. He shoved it open, fell out.

  And knocked Kate to the ground as he did.

  Her room, he guessed, in her dad’s house.

  “What the hell was that?” Kate demanded, panic making her voice shrill.

  Tim lunged to his feet, went back to her closet door, yanked it open. Just a closet now, with her clothes hanging from rods, her shoes on the floor. Small boxes and photo albums piled on a shelf at the top.

  “I don’t understand—” Tim began.

  “Understand what?”

  He was about to answer when she was jerked to the floor and under the bed by her ankles, like a swimmer being pulled under the waves by a shark. She screamed and Tim threw himself to the floor, reaching for her.

  He caught her right arm. Holding onto it, he felt himself being dragged forward too. The darkness under the bed yawned like an open mouth, intent on swallowing them both. He braced himself against one of the bed’s legs, determined to hold her here. The floor was hard and cool beneath him, and he mentally clung to that bit of reality, like a lifeline for his sanity.

  “Tim!” Kate cried, panic in her voice.

  “I won’t let go this time!” he swore. “I won’t let go!”

  Kate’s appeal was frantic, heartbreaking. “Tim, help me!”

  With the bed’s legs biting into his feet, Tim pulled her with all his might, his shoulders and back straining with the effort. He sat as if he were rowing against an incredibly powerful current.

  He felt the Boogeyman’s resistance. The shadow man didn’t like to lose. He was a stubborn bastard, Tim was learning.

  Well, Tim could be stubborn, too.

  He pulled and felt Kate slide toward him. Maybe an inch or so. Something, though. He put even more into it. Pulled.

  Another inch, and then another. Slowly, Kate was coming his way. She sobbed, her eyes locked on Tim’s, pleading. He pulled.

  Finally, he broke the Boogeyman’s grip, and Kate came into his arms. He enveloped her, rolling away from the bed. Quickly, before anything else could happen, he pushed to his feet, helped Kate up. They stood there for a moment, arms wrapped around each other as if they were the last two humans on Earth. Maybe they were. At this moment, Tim felt an enormous sense of relief, of triumph. At least he had saved one life.

  But the Boogeyman erupted from the darkness under the bed again, clutching for his prize. Tim, startled, drew back, taking Kate with him. Her legs tangled with his, and they fell toward her closet door.

  At the last moment, Tim knew that the closet was their salvation. If the Boogeyman could use its passageways to avoid him, he could do the same. He staggered to keep his balance without losing Kate. With every ounce of strength he could muster, he hauled her inside, slamming the door behind them.

  They fell out in Tim’s room, back at his mom’s house. But not Tim’s room as it was now, as he had left it tonight. Tim’s room as it had been when he was a boy. His mom had maintained it as well as she could, but there were things he had lost or broken, long ago, that weren’t in it anymore.

  But they were all here now. Contained lightning flashed within his nebula ball. A strangely sinister plastic bird hung from the ceiling—he couldn’t help wondering why he had ever thought that was cool. His chair—somehow, still screwed to the floor, the leather belt segments dangling from it—was piled with dirty laundry, a bathrobe draped over the back of it. He was beyond wondering how or why; he just accepted what he saw.

  Kate hadn’t been through everything he had, though—didn’t know that this kind of thing had become par for the course. Her fingers dug into Tim’s flesh. He tried to pry himself free, but she was in shock, her eyes glassy, her hands curled into claws. “Get up,” Tim urged, finding his own footing. “You’ve got to get out of here.”

  She didn’t answer, didn’t move except for the shuddering of her body as deep-throated sobs wracked it. Tim knew how she felt. A few hours of crying wouldn’t have been a bad idea, he figured, except that they were probably still being chased.

  “It’s okay,” he said, wiping hair from her eyes with his free hand. “I won’t let him take you.” He didn’t know if he could keep that promise, but he had to try. She nodded offhandedly, as if she hadn’t quite heard him but was willing to go along anyway. Tim helped Kate to her feet, but her legs were shaking and he wasn’t at all
sure they would offer support if he released her.

  She seemed to sense what he was thinking. “Don’t,” she began, but a hitch in her voice cut her off. “Don’t let go of me,” she managed.

  Tim was about to answer, but something about the room changed. The quality of the light, maybe. He heard a distant rumble, coming closer, like a train nearing the platform from a subway tunnel. “He’s coming back,” Tim warned. “Go!”

  He twisted himself out of Kate’s grasp. She swayed unsteadily. He had to get her away before the Boogeyman came back, though. He knew he needed to face the Boogeyman, one-on-one, without having to worry about his loved ones. He could hold the shadow man while she made a break for freedom. “You have to get away from me,” Tim urged.

  He pushed Kate aside and turned toward the closet door.

  “Come out!” he challenged. “Let me see you.”

  As if in response, the door swung open. Inside, shadows gathered, taking shape. Then, as if shot from a cannon, the Boogeyman burst out, coming to a halt directly in front of Tim. A powerful wind blew out around him, lifting Tim from his feet and hurling him to the floor. Kate smashed into a wall in the far corner of the room.

  Tim closed his eyes as the Boogeyman loomed before him. He was on his back, helpless. He had only one weapon at his disposal, and he had a feeling it wasn’t good enough.

  “One.”

  He knew death was imminent, that knowledge made more concrete by the images flashing in his mind’s eye. Himself as a small boy, huddled under his covers as thunder crashed outside his room and lightning etched stark shadows on the walls.

  “Two.”

  A menacing action figure standing on his nightstand in the dark.

  “Three.”

  His bathrobe draped over a chair, making a shape like a hunched nightmare creature.

  “Four.”

  His nebula ball, crackling with its own internal lightning.

  “Five.”

  A suspended black bird flapping its wings in a faint breeze, as if some force had brought it to life.

  “Six.”

  What happens when you get to six?Franny had asked. He hadn’t known what the answer was.

  He was about to find out.

  Twenty

  Tim stood up, opening his eyes. His dad’s old trick, the banishing spell of counting to five, hadn’t worked. The Boogeyman was still there in front of him, his arms at his sides. Black as black could be. The emptiness of the void. Eyes mere indentations in the darkness of his evil face.

  Tim looked into those eyes, seeing nothing there. He thought there should be menace in them, or intelligence. Something that could be reasoned or argued with. But the Boogeyman was not, he decided, sentient, at least as he understood the term. He was more elemental than that. He was hunger, horror, darkness. States of being, more than a being in his own right. Which made him even more terrifying, because he was ultimately unknowable. This guy was not some cuddly monster who could be empathized with. He couldn’t even be understood. Like evil itself, he simply was.

  But suddenly, Tim thought that he could be defeated. “I brought you into this world,” he declared. He didn’t know where his certainty had come from, but he felt it just the same. “I can take you out of it.”

  He backed toward his bed, toward the baseball bat he knew leaned against the wall beside it. Risking only the briefest of glances behind him, he closed a hand on the bat, lifted it from the spot it had occupied for so long. The wood, polished from hard use, felt comfortable in his grasp, familiar, as if his hands were still the same size they’d always been. He raised the bat toward his enemy.

  The Boogeyman smiled at it. It was not, Tim thought, a terribly impressive weapon.

  But it’ll do the job,Tim suddenly knew. And at the same moment, he understood what he had to do.

  What he didn’t know about his opponent would always, he was certain, trump what he could know. But he could make logical guesses, based on what he had observed. Probably more accurately, he could also make assumptions based on what his gut told him. Add to it his years of experience, sitting up at night, fearing the dark.

  He certainly wasn’t the only kid in history ever to fear the Boogeyman. The legends and stories long predated him, as did Franny’s news reports of disappearances. He would likely never know for sure, but he suspected that for most kids who had encountered the dark force hiding in a closet or under the bed, the meeting was short—he came and left, never to return.

  But then there were the others, the lost ones, who he took away with them. Mostly children, based on Franny’s records, but also adults. Tim didn’t know how he chose his victims, or if it was purely a matter of who was convenient at any given time.

  For whatever reason, he had chosen Rob Jensen, Tim’s father. And Tim had witnessed his attack. Tim believed it was that—the fact that he had been a living witness to one of his predations—that had put him on the Boogeyman’s list after that. He could probably have come for Tim at any time, and until his long sessions with Dr. Matheson, the boy had worried that every night would be the time. Now Tim thought the only reason the Boogeyman hadn’t come for him was that he’d enjoyed Tim’s terror so much. Why take him away when he had already made him fear the dark so much?

  Somehow, the events of the last few days had changed the Boogeyman’s priorities. Tim’s mother’s death—which perhaps the Boogeyman had foreseen, in some way—was the catalyst that drove Tim back home, back to where Franny was, back to where the secrets could be unveiled. Instead of being a compliant plaything, Tim became a threat. So the Boogeyman, trying to force Tim off his track, to terrify him back into submission, took those closest to Tim.

  Which was encouraging, in a sick way. Because the Boogeyman wouldn’t be worried if there wasn’t something Tim could do to fight back.

  Tim squeezed the familiar wooden handle of the bat, emboldened by the realization, and swung it.

  But he didn’t take aim at the Boogeyman—instead he smashed it into the black bird that dangled from the ceiling like it was some kind of miniature piñata. Plastic splinters flew everywhere—feathers and beak and feet—and the string that had suspended it snapped, coiled briefly around the bat, then released and dropped to the ground.

  When Tim hit the bird, the Boogeyman reacted. Fragments flew from his shadowed form, like the shards of bird plastic, and vanished into the closet. The Boogeyman screamed, a sonic shockwave of a scream that buffeted Tim and Kate against the walls.He can be hurt, Tim realized with a grim smile. It was the best news he’d had all night.

  Before Tim could even raise the bat again, however, the Boogeyman rearranged his shadow-stuff, and he was whole once again. He started toward Tim, intent on stopping him.

  No one said it was going to be easy.

  Tim lifted the bat and brought it down on the remains of the plastic bird once more, then a third time. Each time, the bird shattered into more pieces. And each time, the Boogeyman exploded a little more too, bits of him flying off and into the closet. The Boogeyman screamed twice, the sound like rusty railroad spikes being driven into Tim’s ears, rattling his concentration.

  “Stop it, Tim! Stop!” He caught a glimpse of Kate, huddled in the corner, hands clapped over her ears. Tears ran down her face, and Tim thought there might have been blood trickling from between her fingers.

  There was no stopping now, though. Too late for that. Tim wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that his own ears were bleeding, his eardrums ruptured. He was hurting himself, sure, and maybe Kate too. But he was hurting the Boogeyman more. That, he couldn’t give up on.

  He turned his attention to the sparking, flashing nebula ball. In his mind’s eye he pictured boyhood idol Roberto Clemente’s swing, and he tried to emulate it. Pull back, release, follow through. The bat arced on a perfect plane and sliced through the nebula ball. For a split second Tim thought the bat had dematerialized, but then the ball shattered, glass spraying everywhere as if in slow motion.

 
The sonic blast of the Boogeyman’s anguish shoved Tim with the force of a giant hand, slamming him into Kate. They both went down. As Tim pulled himself off her, he looked toward the Boogeyman. Sparks flew from him, lightning snapped as if from a storm cloud, like he had somehow internalized the nebula ball’s electricity and was now releasing it himself.

  Tim didn’t know how long he could keep this up, or how well the Boogeyman could recover from the assault. The bat felt heavier now, his own breathing labored. It felt like each breath shredded his already raw lungs a little more. His legs protested when he tried to rise again, and the bat slipped from aching, cramped fingers, clattering on the floor.

  But in the center of Tim’s room, the Boogeyman reassembled himself yet again. The shadow-stuff that formed him must have been infinite, or nearly so. Tim figured he had better put an end to this fast, or he wouldn’t be around for the finale.