When Billy Pallasso awoke, terror poured into him like black ink. The night light was out. The wall was dark…wait, no, not right. He’d rolled over, was staring at the wall beside his bed. To be sure, he un-snaked his arm from the covers and reached toward the side of the bed that touched the wall, the rough print of flowers on the wallpaper under his fingertips. His mother was planning on stripping off the old paper before they went home, put up a fresh set so, he supposed, someone might want to buy the house. Just as soon as I have time to breathe, she’d said, spoken in a way which worried the eight year-old boy, because it sounded like his mother was always gasping for breath, trying to get too much done. As soon as she caught her breath she’d promised to spend a day with him sightseeing, too, maybe going to a few historic places near Boston. At this point, Billy would settle for seeing a movie somewhere. Anything would be better than peeling off old wallpaper.
He sighed under the blanket. He would rather be sitting in class with Derek and Steve instead of dragged a million miles away after only a week of school, on this lousy fake vacation in Gram Lucy’s house, a place that smelled like dust and gum drops. Billy missed his grandmother, was sad she was gone. He’d slept here plenty of times before, when his parents would go away for a weekend alone they’d drive him hours and hours to visit so they could have Mom and Dad Time. No nightmares then, just Billy and Gram Lucy and the whispered mumblings which always flitted from her mouth when she wasn’t saying real words like How about some macaroni and cheese, or Oh, I don’t think your mother would want you watching so much television, Billy. Between these normal sentences were the whispers, most of which Billy never understood, except an occasional Hail Mary. She said that prayer a lot. Maybe that was all she said, but she was so old her lips didn’t always work right. Now she was dead. They hadn’t let him go to the funeral, and he was glad about that. But he missed her. She was nice, always baked cookies when she knew he was coming for a visit, always kept the glass bowl in the living room filled with those spicy gum drops.
Life had suddenly become confusing and scary. Even his dad was different. That was probably the scariest part of all, even worse than the nightmares.
Billy reluctantly pulled his fingers from the wall, thinking only of his mother, trying to forget the embarrassment of the other night with Dad. Now that he’d come fully awake, the colors on the wall were painfully obvious. Colors from the clown face across the room. He had acted like a baby. Ooh, it’s too dark, I’m so scared.
Baby!
He wasn’t a baby.
Billy pulled his arm under the blanket and rolled over to face the room. A tall man was standing with his back to the wall, between the night light and the closed closet door. He wasn’t startled, his brain simply registering that someone was there, nothing more. “Daddy?” he called out. The figure stirred very slightly. The red and yellow of the clown face glowing on the wall illuminated shiny white pants, like pajamas. Must be Dad, he thought, but he was so tall. And skinny.
Billy propped himself on one elbow, squinted into the dark which covered the figure’s face like a hood. He should be able to see him clearer, but…but no.
“Dad,” he said, quieter, more of a question this time, careful to use Dad instead of the childish Daddy, not wanting to sound like a little kid, not after the other night. He deserved what his father had done, dragging him around the house. He didn’t see any monsters that night, because there weren’t any. Staring at the swaying figure, Billy’s face flushed again with the unwanted memory.
Why wasn’t he saying anything? Was he mad again?
“Dad? I’m not scared. I just woke up, promise.”
And why did he look so skinny?
The dark-shrouded head nodded. “That’s good, Billy. You’re a brave boy.” A whisper, dry, not exactly like Dad’s. Billy noticed the outline of hair, tufted to points like limp horns. Horns, he didn’t like that image. His father said, “Brave boy. Brave boy.”
In the moment the figure lurched forward, away from the wall as if pushed, the night light went out. The dark swallowed the room, but would not save him from the monster—there are monsters there are monsters I’m sorry I said there weren’t—stepping toward his bed, and Billy wanted to scream but his throat wouldn’t work.
Then, just as suddenly, the night light was glowing again, reassuring. The man was gone. Billy sat upright, pulling the sheets to his face. Nightmare, bad dream, that’s all, he told himself, over and over, while looking around the empty room, fixing on the smiling clown face on the wall, wanting to scream at it for letting the bad dream come. Two whole days and nothing. Good sleep. Now this.
A sob bubbled up, escaped from him like a baby’s spit bubble. Billy swallowed it down, wiped his face. Dry. No tears. He found a pride in that. No tears. No more. There was no way he’d go running into his parents’ room. Not anymore.
The monster had called him brave in the dream, which was less and less real the longer he stared into the luminescent clown’s face. It couldn’t hurt him. He closed his eyes and saw the after-image of the night light against his lids, distorted now, moving in time with his pulse so it looked like the mouth was moving. What was it saying? he wondered. He watched it speak in silence until the image faded, finding comfort in its presence as he once had whenever he thought about his dad, before they came here.
Billy scooted back against the wall, trying to feel the slight rise of the floral prints, to pretend it was his mother rubbing his back, telling him everything was going to be all right. Shush now, there you go.
Slowly, his lids fell like a curtain over the smiling clown face. Billy slept peacefully the rest of the night, in that half-crouch between the wall and headboard.