Do you know where you are?
Christopher watched the hissing lady burn, crying and screaming in what he thought was her rage and madness.
But something felt terribly wrong.
“Who is she?” Christopher asked.
It was such a simple question that the nice man was taken off guard for a moment. He looked over at Christopher as the hissing lady screamed.
“Who is she?” Christopher repeated.
“She’s evil,” the nice man said. “We have to kill evil people.”
The sky thundered. The clouds bumped into each other like koi in a crowded pond. The mailbox people tore at the stitches in their mouths, trying to say something at him, but all he could hear was their moaning.
“Now, go get the key, son,” the nice man said gently.
Do you know where you are?
Christopher gripped the dull, silver blade. He looked at the hissing lady fighting to drag her shattered bones to the lawn. He saw the rope burns around her neck. The chemical burns on her skin.
“But she was a baby once. Where did she come from?” Christopher asked.
“She was born here.”
“I don’t think she was. Look at her.”
Christopher pointed to the hissing lady again. Her eyes seemed filled with agony. Not rage. Not madness. She crawled desperately over the street. Trying to get to the lawn. And for some reason Christopher couldn’t understand, no one would help her. No mailbox people. No deer. They seemed frozen in the light of the fire.
“Christopher, I know you feel sorry for her. But don’t be fooled. She tortured me for centuries just like she tortured David. Just like she would have hurt you and your mother. But you stopped her. Only you.”
Christopher looked at the nice man, smiling through his broken teeth. His skin and clothes torn apart from centuries of torment. There was something so kind about him. Something that reminded Christopher of his dad. Maybe it was the tobacco smell on his shirt. Christopher didn’t remember the nice man ever smoking, but it was there nonetheless.
“We can’t let her get off the street until she’s burnt completely. Come on, son. You need to get that key,” the nice man said, putting his hand on Christopher’s head.
The nice man’s hand felt so comfortable to Christopher. Like the cold side of the pillow. All of the screams around them fell away, and the air became fresh and clean. It didn’t smell like the nightmares anymore. It smelled like the forest in winter. It smelled like…like…
Like Heaven.
The nice man smiled and led Christopher across the street. The hissing lady stretched her fingers to the lawn. Christopher knelt down, blocking her path. She groped at him wildly, her scarred fingers coarse against his skin.
“STOP HELPING HIM!” the hissing lady screamed at the nice man.
“Don’t let her leave the street, Christopher,” the nice man said calmly.
“She’s still too strong. I need your help.”
“No, son. It has to be you. Only you. You’re God here.”
Christopher held the silver blade. The hissing lady burned, her eyes wild with fear. She tried to crawl around him, but her body crumpled. Christopher knew she would never make it to the lawn.
The hissing lady was going to die.
“You saved us, Christopher,” the nice man said. “Your father would have been very proud of you. Now, get the key, son.”
Christopher felt the nice man’s hands on his shoulders. Rubbing them. Christopher smiled. He moved the silver blade to her throat. He was just about to carve the key out of her scarred, burnt skin when something caught the corner of his eye.
A shadow figure.
Walking out of the woods.
It shuffled its feet through the field, dazed and delirious. Its hands and legs shaking. Christopher looked as the shadow figure stepped into the streetlight.
It was David Olson.
He was ashen. Christopher could see the scratches on his neck. The gash across his cheek. The blood pouring out of his nose. The bruises on his arms.
“David!” Christopher screamed in triumph. “It’s over! You’re safe! You’re free! Look!”
Christopher pointed to the hissing lady burning on the street. David opened his mouth and unrolled his serpent tongue. What followed was a cry of such anguish that it made Christopher shudder. David ran to the hissing lady. He took one of her hands and desperately tried to drag her off the street with his battered body.
“David? What are you doing?” Christopher asked.
David pulled with all of his strength, but he was too weak. Christopher looked into the hissing lady’s eyes, illuminated by the streetlight. For the first time, he realized her eyes were filled with tears.
“Stop helping him,” she pleaded.
Christopher suddenly realized that the hissing lady wasn’t talking to the nice man.
She was talking to him.
Christopher felt the nice man’s hands on his shoulders. Rubbing. His ears went flush. His heart began to pound. He turned around. The nice man was in a grey suit. He looked flawless. Not a mark on his skin. Not a scar on his body. He smiled a kind smile, his teeth perfectly intact. He wore a bow tie. And he had green eyes—sometimes.
“hI. Christopher.”
His voice was so pleasant. Like a warm mug of coffee.
“Your mom is going to be safe, and everything iS going to be okay now, son.”
The hair stood up on the back of Christopher’s neck.
“Who are you?” Christopher asked.
“What do you mean? I’m your friEnd.”
“But you don’t look right.”
“Don’t worry about my clothes. You broke her curse. That’S all. As she gets smaller, I get bigger. It’s always been like that.”
The nice man walked closer, his perfectly polished shoes leaving footprints in the blood on the street. Each footprint was a different size. A little girl. A grown man.
Do you know where you are?
Christopher started to back away from the nice man. He felt the screaming of the world break his eardrums. The man in the Girl Scout uniform being pulled into the bushes. The couple kissing so hard their faces began to bleed. The mailbox people held together with string like men on a chain gang. And that screaming. It never ended.
This wasn’t the imaginary world at all.
“Where are we?” Christopher asked, terrified.
“It’s just a dream, chrIstopher,” the nice man said calmly.
“No, it isn’t.”
“It’s a nightmare. A nightmare is nothing but a dream gone siCk.”
“This is no nightmare.”
Christopher felt the fever on his skin. The heat of the flu inside everyone. It wasn’t a fever. It was a fire.
“This is Hell. I’m in Hell.”
Christopher remembered the six days he spent in the woods. The six days he lay on that tree, being whispered to by the nice man. “Chrisssstopher. Chrissstopher.” Soaking in as much knowledge as his little brain could take. Being made powerful. Being turned into God. Or a soldier. Or a murderer. For one purpose. To kill the hissing lady. To get the key. To free the nice man. He thought he was asleep. He thought he was dreaming.
I was in Hell for six days.
“Of courSe you weren’t,” the nice man said, climbing out of Christopher’s mind. “This is just a nightmare. A nightmare is just a few hours in Hell. So, we need to get you out of here. Now go get that key.”
The nice man smiled so calm and reassuring. But his eyes weren’t smiling. Christopher backed up toward the hissing lady and David Olson. The nice man spoke in a measured voice.
“Where are you going?” the nice man asked.
He walked toward Christopher with calm little steps.
“We need the key, son. Do you want the mirror between the worlds to shatter? Do you want the hisSing lady to get out?”
Christopher saw the thoughts playing hide-and-seek between his words. There was no mirror between the worlds. There was no glass that could not shatter. The nice man only wanted to escape through his tree house. He only needed the hissing lady dead and the key buried in her flesh to open the door.
“She doesn’t want to get out. You want to get out.”
The nice man took a step closer. The smile frozen on his face. Christopher looked at David Olson, desperately pulling on the hissing lady’s hand. He looked into the hissing lady’s eyes, filled with tears, delirious with pain.
“Stop helping him,” she wept.
Christopher took her right hand, coarse from centuries of torment. He felt the truth move like a whisper from her hand to his. He saw how the nice man tortured her. How the nice man turned all of her words into terror. This whole time, she wasn’t trying to scare Christopher. She was trying to warn him. The light inside of the tree was not death. The light inside of the tree was life.
She was trying to save his life.
Christopher tried to pick her up, but she was as heavy as the world she protected. It didn’t matter how hard he strained, he was never going to be able to carry her back to the lawn by himself. So, he moved side by side with David Olson, and the two little boys began pulling her off the burning street.
“Don’t do that, christopHer. Please dOn’t.”
The nice man smiled a frown gone sick.
“Attack!” the hissing lady screamed.
Upon her command, hundreds of deer rushed at the nice man. Their fangs exposed. Charging like an army. Ready to rip him to pieces.
The nice man did not move.
He simply held up his hand. The deer instantly stopped and moved to his side. One by one. Their teeth bared. But they weren’t biting this time. They were bowing to him. Rubbing on his legs like house cats. Christopher saw the hissing lady’s expression change from hope to horror.
“They aren’t your army, dear. They’re mine. Did you forget tHAt?”
The nice man calmly walked across the street. The deer turned around and walked behind him, baring their teeth. Christopher and David strained against the hissing lady’s weight.
“Come back here before I get upset, soN.”
Christopher dragged her over the river of blood in the street. The river of blood in his nose. The clouds bumped together. Lightning ripped the sky. The nice man inched toward them.
“Come back here before I have to hIt you.”
Christopher’s heart raced. The nice man stepped closer. Christopher looked down. The soldier’s legs were wrong. He had deer legs.
“I don’t want to do that. Don’t maKe me do that.”
Christopher’s feet reached the lawn. The hissing lady closed her eyes. She was seconds from death.
“If you pull her off the street, I will hurT you.”
One more step.
“If you save her, I’ll kill your motHer.”
Christopher and David Olson pulled the hissing lady onto the lawn. Her skin instantly stopped burning. She got up, her legs shaking, her body still broken. She stood between the two boys and the nice man. A mother lion protecting her cubs. The nice man walked toward them, shaking with rage. The deer stalked behind him. Christopher saw their shadows in the moonlight. They weren’t deer anymore. They were hounds. With glowing eyes. The hissing lady turned to the boys. She ripped the key from her flesh and put it in David’s shaking hand. Then, she screamed.
“Get him out!”