MARCUS

Justin didn’t arrive for dinner, despite Mom’s insistence that we wait an extra half hour for him to return. It was strange to eat without him; the kitchen felt empty when we cleared away the dishes, with Mom washing only three sets instead of the usual four. Dad stalked the living room obsessively; the longer I watched him pace, the more of a pattern revealed itself. After a few minutes of pacing, he would flop down on the couch, run a hand across his forehead, and pull up his left sleeve to check his watch; then, blinking in the dimmer light of the late evening, he would fumble for his glasses, secure them to his face, and again hold up his left wrist to check the time. Finally, he would stand up once again, cast his gaze to the larger clock on the kitchen wall, and remove his glasses, placing them in the right breast pocket of his shirt.

The sink gurgled as it drained; Mom was wiping clean the last of the drinking glasses. Hands folded across her stomach, with the ragged dishcloth wrapped around her wrist, Mom planted herself squarely between Dad and the kitchen clock. “Alfred,” she said resolutely, “If you’re that worried, just call.”

“Call?” Dad snapped back. “Call who?”

“The Selanores.” Mom’s tone was unshakeable. “We were kids too, Alfred. Remember back when we were seventeen?”

A shadow of a smile crossed Dad’s face, as if he planned to laugh. Instead, he released his tension in a long rush of air. “All right. Give me the number.” He then turned his attention on me, looking directly at me for the first time since Mom had served dinner. “And you, Marcus, will get ready for bed. Your mom and I are going to be up late and I want to make sure you’re asleep before we are.”

I nodded obediently and hurried up the stairs towards my bedroom, pausing in the bathroom to run the sink. Satisfied that both of my parents would hear a convincing “getting-ready-for-bed” noise, I doubled back to the top of the stairs like the good thirteen-year-old that I was and knelt, ears open for any snatches of conversation that they might pick up.

The kitchen downstairs was too quiet. I began to worry that I was too late; or worse, that my ruse had been discovered. Then I heard Dad’s voice speaking into the phone.

“Hello? I’m sorry if I’m interrupting your dinner—oh, that’s good. This is Mr. Keller… yes, that’s right, Listen, I was wondering if you’d seen my son around; I know he likes spending time with your daughter… I know that, I’m talking about tonight—he’s not? No, don’t apologize, Mrs. Selanore, we didn’t have anything planned. I’ll be going now… she what?” Dad paused, and even without seeing his face I could envision the look of careful comprehension that was so often his trademark. “All right. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Selanore.”

“Well?” Mom’s question echoed my own sudden curiosity.

“She’s gone, too. Alaya. According to Mrs. Selanore, she about a half hour ago, just a few minutes after their family finished eating. Something about stargazing.”

“Oh, pay attention, Alfred. Remember all the times you and I used to go ‘stargazing’ when we were Justin’s age? Let the boy have a night with his girl. We can ground him tomorrow.”

“Well, it’s not as though we have much say in the matter,” Dad relented. “Can’t contact him anyway. But I’m letting you know right now, he’d better be home by dawn. If he’s not, I’m calling the cops.”

“Fair enough,” Mom retorted.

“And no matter what his excuse is, there will be consequences. I know you’re nostalgic, Melinda, but Justin has got to learn that we won’t tolerate this sort of behavior while he’s under our roof. I mean, for God’s sake! In a year he’ll be in college! He can stay out all night then if he wants. But not now.”

“I wasn’t trying to defend his behavior, Al. Only his motives. Just think! In another seven or eight years, he might have a family of his own. It won’t be long, you know…”

“I know. We’ll have Marcus for a bit longer, though. Speaking of which… hey, Marcus!”

The sudden change in subject sent me scurrying as far as I could away from the stairwell. “Yeah, Dad?”

“Don’t you think you’ve let the water run long enough? Let’s finish up in there.”

“Okay, Dad.” Obediently, I shut off the tap. But as I prepared myself for bed, my mind continued to dwell on Justin. To my knowledge, this was the second time this summer that his bed would remain empty for the night. My gaze fell first on the slim red-and-white volume that lay ever so innocently on the top of my desk, and then on the handwritten sticky-notes that were plastered to its cover: “Wolf/monster/thing=yellow eyes. Hallucination? Demon? Justin gone when wolf present. Justin once had yellow eyes as well. Agrees with me on this point. Cry for help? Justin=possessed?”

The very thought of doing so pained me, but I knew I had to take action. Tensing my muscles as I did so, I reached over to my clock and reprogrammed its alarm to wake me at five. To a soon-to-be eighth-grader, this was an abomination, but it was a necessary one. I would have to wake up early on a summer morning.

I had to find out where Justin was going, if only to satisfy my own paranoia. And to do that, I had to be awake before he returned.

******

I was out of bed at 4:45, fifteen minutes before my alarm; a first for me, and especially ironic considering the early hour. Unlike the typical blurry-eyes and pounding-head symptoms I experienced on those rare times I was forced to awaken early, this morning my mind felt clear and focused. I dressed quickly in day-old jeans and a lightweight t-shirt, then surveyed my desk for items I might need: passing over the clutter of books and paper, my eyes found their way to a short but serviceable pocketknife, left over from my one-year stint in the Boy Scouts. Like Justin, I hadn’t cared much for its formalities, caring more for the comfort of an Xbox controller in my palms and a bean-bag chair behind my back. But unlike Justin, I reminded myself, I wasn’t possessed by an otherworldly demon. I slipped the inconspicuous blade into my back pocket, for use as a last resort only.

I was halfway down the stairs when I heard the noise; a grinding scrape, as though something heavy was dragging itself across the wooden deck outside. But from where I stood, not quite upstairs and not quite down, all of the windows that could allow me to perceive the sound’s source were either too high or two low to see clearly. Taking the only course of action that seemed reasonable, I stood still and listened again. At first I heard nothing. Then came another thud, followed by steps; not a sprint, but a quick and measured pace. The steps grew fainter, and it came to me that their source could be leaving the house. If this was the demon, I couldn’t miss my one chance to catch it. My legs jerked suddenly into motion and I slipped off the stair, tumbling feet-first to the landing. By the time I had raised my head far enough to see through the kitchen window and onto the back porch, the noise and the creature were gone. But as I climbed back to my feet, eyes pealed through the morning mist, an anomaly caught my eye.

I saw footprints, footprints on the deck. Footprints and fresh scratches, lined with dew and just beginning to catch the rays of the rising sun. Captivated, I opened the door and took a step onto the porch to examine them.

“Marcus? Is that you? What the hell are you doing up so early?”

It was Justin! I spun around; the knife somehow leaped into my hand, seeming suddenly small and pitiful against the reality of the threat.

“I should be asking you.” For all my bravado, my knees were trembling. How could Justin have gotten into the house? He hadn’t been home all night. It seemed impossible, yet he stood only a few paces away, wrapped in a towel and scrutinizing me from just beyond the threshold as though he had been standing in the same spot for the entirety of his absence.

“I’m usually up early. In fact, tonight I didn’t go to sleep at all. You, on the other hand, never climb out of bed until noon. What’s that in your hand?” Without waiting for a response, Justin stepped forward, snatched the knife out of my unresisting hand, and flung it downwards into the deck. It hit the wooden slats with enough force to split a rail and stuck, quivering like a windsock before a summer squall.

“What the fuck, Justin!” I screamed at him. “What are you thinking? You could have cut my toe off or something, you could have stabbed me—”

“Yeah, well I wasn’t the one who was brandishing like an idiot.” The severity of his tone snapped me back to reality. Justin was right; he was my brother, and I had deliberately brought a weapon to confront him with. I was a fool, and I could have killed him.

I couldn’t afford to back down in this encounter, though. “Justin, this whole thing is weird. You didn’t come home all night, and now you’re standing here in a towel with dirt in your hair and you’re barefoot—where are your clothes, anyway? And—look at me, Justin!” Justin’s head had spun around to face the right-hand side of the yard.

“Just a minute.” A moment passed, and he turned to face me again. “Okay, we’ve got about fifteen seconds.”

“Wait, what? Fifteen—” The expression on his face was familiar; calm, yet utterly serious.

“Dad probably heard you cussing me out, and right now he’s walking around the shed and coming straight for us. He works out in the garage every morning, Marcus Didn’t you know that?”

And then it came to me. “Justin…”

“Look, just go inside, okay? I’m going to explain everything, but I’m going to explain it later and it’ll be easier on everyone if you let me handle this my own way.” His eyes flashed golden. “Now go.”

I went, pausing only to watch as Justin bent down, plucking the knife out of the deck with one hand and hurling it into the bushes while holding his towel up with the other. About ten seconds later, as I was returning to my bedroom, I heard him greeting Dad with an air of practiced nonchalance. I shut the door without listening for more and buried my face in a pillow.

After all, it was only five o’clock, and as Justin himself had said, I had a good seven hours left to sleep.