He wore a bow tie. And he had green eyes—sometimes.
“hI. Christopher.”
His voice was so pleasant. Like a warm mug of coffee.
“Your mom is going to be safe, and everything iS going to be okay now, son.”
The hair stood up on the back of Christopher’s neck.
“Who are you?” Christopher asked.
“What do you mean? I’m your friEnd.”
“But you don’t look right.”
“Don’t worry about my clothes. You broke her curse. That’S all. As she gets smaller, I get bigger. It’s always been like that.”
The nice man walked closer, his perfectly polished shoes leaving footprints in the blood on the street. Each footprint was a different size. A little girl. A grown man.
Do you know where you are?
Christopher started to back away from the nice man. He felt the screaming of the world break his eardrums. The man in the Girl Scout uniform being pulled into the bushes. The couple kissing so hard their faces began to bleed. The mailbox people held together with string like men on a chain gang. And that screaming. It never ended.
This wasn’t the imaginary world at all.
“Where are we?” Christopher asked, terrified.
“It’s just a dream, chrIstopher,” the nice man said calmly.
“No, it isn’t.”
“It’s a nightmare. A nightmare is nothing but a dream gone siCk.”
“This is no nightmare.”
Christopher felt the fever on his skin. The heat of the flu inside everyone. It wasn’t a fever. It was a fire.
“This is Hell. I’m in Hell.”
Christopher remembered the six days he spent in the woods. The six days he lay on that tree, being whispered to by the nice man. “Chrisssstopher. Chrissstopher.” Soaking in as much knowledge as his little brain could take. Being made powerful. Being turned into God. Or a soldier. Or a murderer. For one purpose. To kill the hissing lady. To get the key. To free the nice man. He thought he was asleep. He thought he was dreaming.
I was in Hell for six days.
“Of courSe you weren’t,” the nice man said, climbing out of Christopher’s mind. “This is just a nightmare. A nightmare is just a few hours in Hell. So, we need to get you out of here. Now go get that key.”
The nice man smiled, so calm and reassuring. But his eyes weren’t smiling. Christopher backed up toward the hissing lady and David Olson. The nice man spoke in a measured voice.
“Where are you going?” the nice man asked.
He walked toward Christopher with calm little steps.
“We need the key, son. Do you want the mirror between the worlds to shatter? Do you want the hisSing lady to get out?”
Christopher saw the thoughts playing hide-and-seek between his words. There was no mirror between the worlds. There was no glass that could shatter. The nice man only wanted to escape through his tree house. He only needed the hissing lady dead and the key buried in her flesh to open the door.
“She doesn’t want to get out. You want to get out.”
The nice man took a step closer. The smile frozen on his face. Christopher looked at David Olson, desperately pulling on the hissing lady’s hand. He looked into the hissing lady’s eyes, filled with tears, delirious with pain.
“Stop helping him,” she wept.
Christopher took her right hand, coarse from centuries of torment. He felt the truth move like a whisper from her hand to his. He saw how the nice man tortured her. How the nice man turned all of her words into terror. This whole time, she wasn’t trying to scare Christopher. She was trying to warn him. The light inside of the tree was not death. The light inside of the tree was life.
She was trying to save his life.
Christopher tried to pick her up, but she was as heavy as the world she protected. It didn’t matter how hard he strained, he was never going to be able to carry her back to the lawn by himself. So, he moved side by side with David Olson, and the two little boys began pulling her off the burning street.
“Don’t do that, christopHer. Please dOn’t.”
The nice man smiled a frown gone sick.
“Attack!” the hissing lady screamed.
Upon her command, hundreds of deer rushed at the nice man. Their fangs exposed. Charging like an army. Ready to rip him to pieces.
The nice man did not move.
He simply held up his hand. The deer instantly stopped and moved to his side. One by one. Their teeth bared. But they weren’t biting this time. They were bowing to him. Rubbing on his legs like house cats. Christopher saw the