nice man chased the boys into the woods.
*
Christopher ran down the path with David Olson. The key in David’s hand. The silver blade in his own. They passed the billy goat bridge. Christopher knew the clearing was right in front of them. He felt David’s hand on his. Moving him off the path.
“No! We have to go to the clearing!” Christopher yelled.
David shook his head no. He grabbed Christopher’s hand and made a hard right through the thickest tree branches. Christopher looked back at the path just as the deer poured out from the clearing like fire ants from a hill. It was an ambush. David knew it. David knew every hiding place. Every shortcut. David had been here for fifty years.
The deer spread out behind them like dogs chasing mechanical rabbits.
Christopher followed David through the trees until the path was so thick that only children could move inside it. The deer slowed behind them. Their bodies too big to follow. But they did not stop, pushing themselves through the thickets until their skin scraped on the branches.
Suddenly the sky grew dark. Christopher heard branches snap like twigs behind them. He turned and saw murderous green eyes in the distance. It was the nice man. Tearing the trees apart to find them. Christopher felt David Olson’s hand grab his. The itch moved from David’s skin to Christopher’s. Along with the fever. Christopher felt every hair on his body stand up like pine needles.
The boys closed their eyes and quieted their minds. They pictured themselves beginning to fly. The deer screaming behind them. The nice man tearing the path apart with his bare hands to get at them. They imagined flying higher and higher. Farther and faster. Up through the clouds. The wind in their hair.
Two rockets heading to the moon.
Until David began to sputter. The blood trickled out of his nose like a plane leaking fuel. He barely managed to put the key into Christopher’s hands.
The power comes at a price.
Christopher could feel the pain through the boy’s skin. The cuts and lashes on David’s neck. Christopher felt it all unfold from David’s point of view. The nice man breaking out of the tree house. The nice man savaging the boy to keep him quiet. They weren’t cuts on his neck. They were bite marks.
David began to fall.
Christopher used all of his strength, but he could barely keep himself afloat. Let alone both of them. He curled himself around David’s body to cushion the blow, and the two boys dropped like children playing cannonball in a swimming pool with no water.
They fell out of the clouds and into the sky right above the clearing. Christopher looked down and saw the angry eye cut in the middle of the Mission Street Woods. The giant tree stood in the middle like a demented pupil. Staring. Furious with rage. The deer poured into the clearing. Little veins turning white snow into a bloodshot eye.
The boys landed, the wind knocked from their bodies. They were a hundred feet from the tree. A hundred feet from the door. A hundred feet from life. Christopher jumped up, pulling David to his feet. The boys raced across the clearing to the tree. The nice man crashed through the woods, cracking the branches like bones. He reached the edge of the clearing.
“Hi, boys,” he said.
The boys turned. David Olson opened his mouth to scream. Christopher froze. The nice man smiled. So gentle.
“Christopher, I’m sorry I lost my temper. I didn’t mean to. I just need to get out of here. Please.”
The nice man’s voice sounded so desperate. It was as soft as thunder.
“I’ve been here for millennia. I don’t get to wake up from this nightmare. I’m here. Every day. Every night. I never sleep. So, give me the key, and I promise I’m not going to hurt anyone. I just need to get out.”
He moved toward Christopher. Little baby steps.
“You know me. I saved you over and over, Christopher. I gave your mom a house. And I did it because you are a good boy with the kindest heart. I have never seen anything like you. You can save the world from itself. Please, Christopher.”
His voice sounded so sincere. Everything he said sounded right and true. The nice man did save Christopher. He did give his mother a house. He was the only man Christopher ever knew who didn’t leave him.
“You are my best friend,” the nice man said.
Christopher felt out of his body. Like the dreams