The hissing lady stood up from the bathtub. She was naked. Covered in bullet holes and knife wounds and burns. Christopher screamed. He ran to the door. The hissing lady moved to the wet tiles on the floor. Christopher reached for the doorknob. Locked.
It was all a trap.
The hissing lady grabbed Christopher from behind. She brought him up, thrashing like a fish. She kicked open the door and threw him onto the branch. He tried to crawl away, but his hands stuck to the tree like flypaper.
Christopher looked back as the hissing lady emerged from the tree house. She put on her finest Sunday dress, streaked with blood, torn up like rags. Then, she closed the tree house door behind her. She studied Christopher with her dead doll eyes.
“Chrissstopppheerrrrr. Itttt’ssss timeeeeeeeee,” she said.
The hissing lady walked slowly down the branch toward him. Christopher screamed,
“NO! PLEASE!”
The hissing lady smiled and grabbed Christopher by the ears. She wrapped him up in both arms and slithered down the tree trunk like a snake.
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Christopher looked down at the clearing. Her entire army was there. Staring up at him in silence. The hissing lady kept slithering. Down. They passed dozens of tree houses. The doors were closed. The curtains drawn. Christopher couldn’t see inside, but he could hear voices. Children were giggling. A doorknob began to turn.
“Not yet. Let’s surprise him,” the little voice whispered.
The doorknob stopped. The hissing lady kept crawling down. They passed another tree house. One with a pink door. He heard breathing behind it.
“He’ll make such a fine pet,” a little girl whispered.
Her fingernails scratched the door like a school blackboard. He passed another tree house. Blue-and-white curtains like Dorothy’s dress.
“Does he know where he is?” a man’s voice whispered.
“He will soon,” a woman’s voice whispered back.
The hissing lady landed at the base of the tree. Right in front of the large door cut into the giant tree trunk. She stared at her army in triumph. She raised Christopher’s arms. The crowd roared like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Christopher heard drums beat in the distance. Four mailbox people grabbed Christopher by the arms and legs. They pinned him against the tree. It wasn’t bark. It was flesh. Sweaty and warm. Christopher started to scream.
“Please! Don’t kill me! Please!”
“I’m not going to kill you,” the hissing lady said calmly.
“What are you going to do?” Christopher asked, terrified.
“I can’t tell you that.” She smiled.
The hissing lady dug into her own flesh with long, dirty fingernails. She ripped the key from her neck. She shoved her hand into the flesh of the tree. Her hand looked like it was squishing into a garbage disposal. Blood. And meat. She found the keyhole inside the tree’s rotten flesh. She turned the key and opened the lock with a…
Click.
A chorus of screams rose up from the people in the tree houses above. The voices ripped through Christopher’s mind. His eyes searched the clearing. He looked for an escape. The mailbox people guarded all of the paths out.
“It’s time! It’s time!” the voices cried.
The hissing lady put the key back into her neck like a hand in wet cement. In an instant the flesh healed. The key was protected. The hissing lady opened the door. Light poured from inside the tree trunk. Christopher looked into the light. It was blinding. A cold tremor ran through his body.
“What is this place?! Where am I!?” Christopher screamed.
“I thought you’d remember,” the hissing lady said.
Christopher could feel the energy coming from the tree. The static electricity from a million balloons. He remembered following the footprints. The tree felt like flesh. He remembered. He was put on this tree for six days. Cooked here. Incubated here. Made smart here. Left on top of this tree to soak up everything.
But he had never gone inside it.
“Christopher,” she said. “This is for your own good.”
The hissing lady moved him toward the light. It was blinding. Steam came out of the tree like fluffy white clouds. Christopher screamed, digging in his heels. Scratching. Clawing. She picked up his legs. Kicking. He could smell things inside the light. A kitchen. Rusty knives. The water from his father’s bathtub. The smell of the hospital.
“NO! NO!” he screamed.
Christopher dug his hands into the flesh of the tree. Hot like feverish skin. The hissing lady ripped his hands free. He squirmed out of her grasp. He planted his feet on both sides of the door. The mailbox people swarmed him. Christopher held on for dear life. He pushed the mailbox people back. He was too powerful for them. The hissing lady grabbed Christopher in her scarred hands. They were coarse like sandpaper. She held him tight to her body and brought his face to hers until their noses were touching. She looked him dead in the eye. Furious and insane.
“IT’S TIME!!!!!!!”
Christopher looked down at the clearing. He saw dozens of footprints materialize. The people themselves invisible to him. But they were there. He could feel them. The townspeople on the real side. Their eyes being stitched up. Being turned into mailbox people. The world screaming in pain. It was blinding. The worlds were blurring. The imaginary and the real. The glass was about to shatter.
Christopher looked up into the sky. He saw the stars shooting. Constellations falling apart like a puzzle dropped on the floor, shattering into a million pieces. It was six minutes to midnight. Six minutes to Christmas. Christopher closed his eyes. He let his mind go quiet. And he whispered,
“Please God. Help me.”
Suddenly Christopher saw a cloud coming on the horizon. The face in the cloud. As big as the sky. In an instant Christopher felt a great calm wash over his body. It was as if someone hit the MUTE button around him, and there were no more screams. There was only the sound of his own heartbeat. The beeps of hospital machines. A voice on the wind.
“Christopherrrrrr,” the wind whispered.
The hissing lady shoved him. Christopher felt his left foot cross into the light.
“Don’t go into the light, Christopher. Fight her,” the whisper said.
I can’t. She’s too strong.
Christopher’s arms felt so heavy. His right foot crossed into the light. He just wanted to sleep. So sleepy.
“You have to kill her by midnight!” the wind screamed.
I can’t kill her by myself.
“Yes, you can. A nightmare is nothing but a dream gone sick. Say it, Christopher!”
“A nightmare is nothing but a dream gone sick,” Christopher said out loud.
Christopher saw the hissing lady’s eyes shift.
“Who are you talking to!?” she asked.
“Say it again!” the wind whispered.
“A nightmare is nothing but a dream gone sick,” Christopher shouted.
Christopher saw the hissing lady scream, “Who are you talking to!?” over and over, but he could not hear her. All of her screams were gone. There was only silence. There was only peace. The air was cool and fresh. He could only hear the whisper of the wind.
“And I can do anything in a dream!” the wind said.
“And I can do anything in a dream,” Christopher repeated.
“Because in here…” the wind said.
Christopher closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye, he imagined himself groping in the darkness behind his eyelids until he finally found the switch. He flipped on the light and there, laid before him, was more than knowledge. It was power. Raw and furious. Christopher opened his eyes and looked right at the hissing lady. Christopher saw her eyes move. She was terrified.
“…I am God,” Christopher said.
Christopher pushed back with all of his might, and the hissing lady went flying backward in the air. She landed on the edge of the clearing a hundred yards away. The deer and the mailbox people watched, stunned. Christopher looked at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. He couldn’t believe his own strength.
The hissing lady sat up. Insane with rage. Or was that surprise? The deer and mailbox people turned to Christopher. A thousand eyes stared. Furious at him for harming their queen. But Christopher did not blink. He did not run. He did not hide. He just slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out the leather sheath. He unfolded it to reveal the dull, silver blade.
“You’re off the street,” Christopher said calmly.
He looked at the key buried in her neck. Then Christopher raised the silver blade above his head and charged right at her.