that wasn't there, and now with Duffy," Jack thought aloud.
James felt like he was being ganged up on. The peer pressure made him start to doubt everything he had seen and thought. Was he going crazy? Was the wild country air and the disconnection from people making him imagine things? He hadn't even considered that his life was changing so dramatically that it could be affecting him in such a way. For most people, routine is all they have, and when that's broken, they are often so lost without it that they lose a couple marbles here and there.
"I say we go into the woods," Owen smirked.
"No way," James protested.
"Why not?" Owen leaned forward on the table, putting his chair back on the ground, "If there's no monster then it’s just a bunch of woods. Nothing to worry about. I'm just saying it might be fun—we don't have woods that big in the city."
"Well I'm definitely not going in the dark," James said looking at Jack for support. Jack just nodded. "I mean, tomorrow could be a different story. My dad would be home, too. If we needed help, you know."
Owen laughed, "You're still assuming there's a monster out there. I mean, I would love nothing more for there to actually be one. Life is a boring snooze-fest. Makes me wonder if your dad is right about it not being real."
James, in a moment of self-denial, got up and went to the door and opened it. He poked his head outside and saw Duffy back in the grass sniffing and ripping blades out with his teeth. When Duffy noticed he was there, he lifted his head and began wagging his tail. Everything seemed normal. James stepped out on the porch and looked around at the darkness outside the safe glow of the porch light. Bugs buzzed and collided just as they always had. The wind blew and trees swayed back and forth as they always had. He looked up at the stars, which shone more brilliantly out there—just as they always had. Maybe things weren't changing, he thought, maybe it's all me.
He left Duffy to do his thing and went back into the house where Jack and Owen sat there looking at him.
"I'm not saying I told you so," Owen sneered, "but you didn't get eaten and neither did Duffy, right?"
James sighed. “Right."
Such an intense moment of introspection was way too serious and heavy for a twelve-year-old boy to maintain for long. If everything in the universe was moving toward equilibrium, then to counteract such an intense adult moment there needed to be an equally intense moment of childish behavior. James looked down and saw the empty wing boxes full of sauce and chicken bones, plucked one out that was buried in sauce and threw it at Owen, hitting him right in the face. His delayed recoil was too late to prevent the bright orange sauce from splattering all over his face and shirt.
"Ah!" he screamed. He wiped the sauce from his eyes and saw James doubled over laughing. What had started as an expression of anger and frustration had become a playful outlet for their bustling potential energy. Like Duffy tearing through the open field, they let loose just like children—without a care in the world.
Owen grabbed a box and quickly began rapid-fire-throwing chicken bones and finger-dipped globs of sauce at James. Caught up in his own laughter, he was left completely without defense. Some of the bones and sauce bounced off his chest and hair while others flew directly past him splattering all over the kitchen floor. Jack put his hands over his head and dropped down off his chair, ducking under the table as Owen and James exchanged shots of sauce and laughter. After a few minutes and a lot of mess, they both noticed Jack under the table and Owen pointed down at him. James smiled and said, "All right, truce, truce! Jack, you can come out."
Poor gullible Jack slid out from under the table and as he was standing up, Owen took the last entire box of mostly leftover sauce and poured thick, oozy waterfalls on top of his head.
"NO!" Jack screamed as the yellow orange sauce dripped through his hair and down his cheeks. He slumped back down to the floor and curled into a ball while Owen and James fell down in laughter. The couple minutes of fun faded and they realized they had a big mess to clean up in both the kitchen and themselves.
"Crap, didn't your dad say not to make a mess?" Owen asked smiling.
"You guys are jerks," Jack said, slipping on sauce as he stood up.
"Sorry Jack," James laughed. "Yeah, we have to clean this up."
Jack went to his bag and pulled out a clean outfit, then looked at Owen and sneered, "Sucks to not have anything, huh?"
Owen frowned.
"Don't worry," James said, "I've got stuff you can wear. We can throw all this in the washer."
Owen looked up at James and their tiny feud had ended. "Thanks," he said.
James washed his head off in the kitchen sink and after an hour of cleaning up chicken bones and wing sauce, the boys collapsed on the couch to watch another movie while their clothes were in the washer. The monotonous drone of the television quickly lulled the boys to sleep. James hadn't fallen asleep to the sound of a TV in nearly a week and something about the familiar glow brought with it a nostalgic warmth. A couple hours later the movie ended and the boys exchanged shots in a battle of snores instead of chicken bones.
Eventually, James felt Duffy's pain when his full bladder woke him up. The living room was dark with the TV only displaying a generic DVD menu. He looked over to see Jack huddled in a ball on the couch and Owen completely sprawled out with his arms and legs hanging off the recliner like a skydiver in free fall. Getting up was uncomfortable and he quickly hobbled to the bathroom to pee. After he finished, he came back to the living room and crawled back onto the couch to go to sleep when he heard Duffy barking outside.
"Shit," he whispered, "I forgot to bring Duffy in!"
Just as he was getting back up he heard a loud bang on the wall from the hallway which scared him enough to jump back onto the couch. "Oh my God," he whispered. His mind immediately went to the monster. It's in the house, he thought. He remembered how Duffy would be a heads-up if anything happened. Oh my God, Duffy must have seen it breaking in!
He wanted to wake Owen and Jack but he couldn't move and his ability to speak escaped him. He sat and listened as another bang on the wall in the hallway was followed by a grunt.
Nolan stumbled out of the hallway holding a laundry basket. "God damn it, how'd that get there?" Duffy continued to bark wildly outside.
Dad! James screamed in his head. It was just my dad. He watched as his dad stumbled into the kitchen.
"Shut up Duff," he grumbled.
James realized that Duffy was barking a lot. It must be outside, he thought. He couldn't move and his lips had turned to stone. He watched as his dad opened the door and stepped outside.
"C'mon Duff, for Christ's sake," Nolan yelled as the door closed behind him.
James sat and waited, barely breathing. Duffy stopped barking. He waited for his dad and Duffy to come back in, but time was frozen. He looked at the clock and two minutes had passed and they hadn't come back in.
C'mon, what’s taking so long?
Another minute passed as his body began to thaw. His imagination spun out of control as his level of worry had gone through the roof. He was sure the monster had killed his father and dog on the other side of that door, or maybe he dragged them back to the woods. He couldn't bear to think about it. He got up and walked slowly into the kitchen toward the door. Everything was completely silent except for his pounding heart that beat against his eardrums as he reached out for the door knob then gently squeezed it. He slowly turned it until he felt the latch recede back into the door and then he took a deep breath. Pulling quickly, he yanked the door open which scared his father who had just opened the screen door to come in.
"Ah!" Nolan screamed, scaring James, causing him to scream too. "Jesus Christ, James! What're you doing?"
"I'm sorry," James said retreating into the kitchen, "I...I didn't mean to—
"Leave Duff outside? Oh, it's okay," he said letting Duffy loose into the house. "I saw him outside when I came home and he was just rolling in the grass loving it. Doesn't hurt to leave him out, it’s nice an
d warm and he can crap anytime he wants. I should have known he'd start that shit though with all the things out there."
"What?" James asked nervously.
"What?" Nolan asked in reply.
"You said all the things out there..."
"Yeah," Nolan answered, "there's got to be deer, raccoons, cats...all sorts of shit out there."
"Oh."
"Get some sleep, son. I don't know about you but I'm tired. Got a big date tomorrow!" Nolan bounced as he walked into the dark hallway back into his room.
James sat on the couch for a while and wondered if the monster was all in his head. He had been the only one to see it, and he had seen it every day since he had gotten to his dad's house—except for that day. He realized he hadn't seen it at all that day, even though he hadn't been spying out the kitchen window or the barn and was gone most of the beginning of the day. Was it all in his imagination? Could he even conjure up such a thing?
To continue the story, get Part Two, or read the complete story in The Woods Omnibus by following the links.
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