Robby’s room had a space-age theme: planet and comet and moon decals were pasted all over the walls suggesting that you were now floating within a night black sky somewhere deep in space. The carpet revealed itself to be a Martian landscape, impressively detailed with canyons and fissures and craters. Spheres made of glass beads dangled from a glittering, savage-looking asteroid that hung from the ceiling above a king-sized art deco bed fitted with a stylish comforter. Along with the ubiquitous Beastie Boys and Limp Bizkit posters were those of various moons: Jupiter’s Io and Saturn’s Titan and the massive rifts of Uranus’s Miranda. The room also contained a minifridge, brightly colored lamps, a leather sofa and a stereo, and one entire wall was a stark black-and-white photo mural of a deserted skate park. Video game cartridges were scattered across the floor in front of the wide-screen TV, now hooked up to PlayStation 2 amid a pile of Simpsons and South Park DVDs. There was a stack of new Tommy Hilfiger shirts on his bed. Japanese action figures lined the bookshelves, which contained mostly wrestling magazines and the entire Harry Potter series, and above the shelves was a large bronze painting of the zodiac. The remains of a Starbucks iced chai sat next to a giant translucent moon that glowed from the computer—Robby’s screensaver.
Robby was staring at Nintendo Power Monthly while slipping on a pair of Puma socks and then he was tying his Nikes. The TV was turned to the WB channel and as I stood in the doorway I watched a raunchy cartoon zap into one of the many commercials pitched toward the kids—one in a series of ads that I hated. A scruffy, gorgeous youth, hands on his skinny-boy hips, stared defiantly into the camera and made the following statements in a blank voice, subtitled beneath him in a blood red scroll: “Why haven’t you become a millionaire yet?” followed by “There is not more to life than money” followed by “You do need to own an island” followed by “You should never sleep because there are no second chances” followed by “It is important to be slick and evocative” followed by “Come with us and make a bundle” followed by “If you aren’t rich you deserve to be humiliated.” And then the commercial ended. That was it. I’d seen this ad numerous times and had yet to figure out what it meant or even what product it was trying to sell.
Robby’s shoulders were slumped and the Hilfiger sweater tied around his waist fell to the floor as he stood up and stretched. There was a young adult book on his pillow called What Once Had Been Earth. My son was eleven and had a Prada wallet and a Stussy camouflage eye patch and a Lacoste sweatband clung to his wrist and he had wanted to start an astronomy club but due to lack of interest among his peers it never materialized and his favorite songs had the word flying in the title, and all of this saddened me. He sprayed Hugo Boss cologne on the back of his hand and didn’t smell it. He still hadn’t noticed that I was standing in the doorway.
“So, Mom wouldn’t let you go as the rap star, huh?” I said.
He whirled around and gasped. And then he regained his composure.
“No,” he said sullenly. He looked shameful, handcuffed.
Something in me broke. I swallowed another mouthful of wine and walked into the room.
“Well, you need platinum blond hair and a wife to beat, and since you don’t have either . . .” I had no idea what my point was; all I wanted to do was make him feel better, but every time I tried, it just seemed to add to his general confusion.
“Yeah, but Sarah’s going as Posh Spice,” he grumbled as I turned down the volume on the television.
“Well, your mom has a problem with the whole rap thing . . .” I drifted off, then caught myself. “So what are you gonna go as?”
“Um, nothing. Nothing, I guess.” A pause. “Maybe an astronaut.”
“Just an astronaut?” I asked. “Can’t you think up something a little more . . . entertaining? Mom said that’s what you were last year.”
He said nothing.
I just shuffled amiably around the vast room and pretended to be interested in a variety of things.
“Is there something wrong?” I heard him ask worriedly. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no, no, Robby,” I said. “Of course not. I was just admiring your room.”
“But, um, why?”
“You’re very . . . lucky.”
“I am?”
I hated the way he asked that. “Yeah, I mean, you should be grateful for all the things you have,” I said. “You’re a fortunate kid.”
Wearily, slumped over, his arms at his sides, he looked around the room, unimpressed. “They’re just things, Bret.”
“I mean all I ever wanted was a TV and a lock on my door.” I made a superficial gesture with my hand. “All I wanted to do was play with Legos.”
I stared at the mobile of planets hanging in the middle of the room—the universe floating below the star-studded ceiling. The satellites in orbit, the rockets and astronauts, the spaceships and moon rocks and Mars and the fiery meteorite heading toward Earth and the concerns about extraterrestrial sightings and the need to establish colonies throughout the solar system. It all seemed horribly useless to me because the sky was always black in space and there was no sound on the moon and it was another world where you would always be lost. But I knew that Robby would argue that far beneath its freezing craters and treacherous sand-blown surfaces lay a warm and yielding heart. It took only two and a half seconds for a laser to flash from Earth to the moon and back again, as Robby had told me at that wedding in Nashville so many years ago.
“Yeah, I guess an astronaut,” he said.
“Okay, that’s cool,” I said. “I think that’s a cool costume.”
I finally noticed the helmet on the bed and the accompanying orange NASA suit hanging on a hook in the closet. “I’ll see you downstairs, bud.”
Robby kept staring at me until I left the room and closed the door behind me. I flinched when I heard it lock. A sconce flickered as I walked past it.
8. halloween
It was sweltering—the warmest October 31 on record—but having grown up in Los Angeles I was used to this weather, even though Jayne and the kids were sweating by the time we reached the end of the block. Robby had already taken off his helmet, his hair matted wet, and hooked up with Ashton Allen, who dissed the idea of going as a famous baseball player once the gay rumors surfaced, and whose parents, Mitchell and Nadine, now joined us along with their younger daughter, Zoe, who was trick-or-treating with Sarah and their guardian for the evening, Marta. (Zoe was Hermione Granger and, yes, Sarah was Posh Spice, complete with a T-shirt that read MY BOYFRIEND THINKS I’M STUDYING.) The two boys would wait on the sidewalk and then inspect their sisters’ treats before deciding to hit that particular house or not. I was drunk.
As we walked through the neighborhood I idly recognized the costumes from various video games (boys dressed as Shadow Phoenix Ninja and Mortal Kombat Scorpion) and movies (Anakin Skywalkers with Jedi hair braids wielding light sabers) while Harry Potters roamed Elsinore Lane everywhere you looked—wearing Quidditch robes, and they held broomsticks and magic wands, and there were green lightning bolt scars on their foreheads that glowed in the darkness as they chatted up a number of bloated ogres that I recognized as Shreks. There were no ballerinas or witches or hobos or ghosts—none of the simple homemade costumes from my childhood—and I was getting old and when I saw Nadine take a swig from the bottle of Fiji water she was carrying I suddenly craved another drink badly. Sarah kept running ahead of everyone, gyrating, while Zoe and Marta tried to keep up, and the four parents kept calling out to their children to stay in sight. There was collective murmuring about why there were so many cars this year—a long, slow-moving stream of them—with costumed kids meekly piling out and running up to the houses and then clambering back into the parade of SUVs that filled the lane. A quiet hesitancy hovered over everything. It was another reminder of the missing boys, and Nadine noted that there were more flashlights than usual and happier-looking jack-o’-lanterns (this was supposed to be an upbeat Halloween). I tried to listen atte
ntively as a zombie pedaled past me on a bike, glaring. Jayne held a digital camera that sometimes she used but mostly didn’t. We ran into Mark and Sheila Huntington, an attractive duo made up of hard edges, as well as Adam and Mimi Gardner—both couples neighbors of ours as well as invitees to the Allens’ dinner on Sunday. As we watched our children move from house to house I noticed how apprehensive everyone seemed, and how lame our attempts at masking it were. People murmured about taking the kids over to North Hill this year, even though none of the missing boys came from our general vicinity. And I noticed how quiet it was, as if no one wanted to attract any unwanted attention from the stranger lurking in the shadows. Someone walked up to Jayne and asked for her autograph.
I couldn’t concentrate on the conversation the various couples were having (the cat that meditated, the healthy multitasking) because I had the feeling that we were being followed—or, more accurately, that I was. I tried blaming it on the lack of sleep, the bottle of wine, the halfhearted realizations in Dr. Kim’s office, my failure to find the jeans from the night before with the leftover coke in them, the sexual frustration, the boy who had lied to me in my office that afternoon.
But I saw the car again.
The cream-colored 450 SL was gliding down Elsinore Lane and came to a stop at Bedford Street. I just stared helplessly as it sat there, idling, and I tried distracting myself by figuring out when I could go to Los Angeles next week. The eight adults, now walking in pairs along the sidewalk, were moving toward it. Suddenly—and in retrospect I don’t know why—I asked Jayne for the digital camera. While commiserating with Mitchell about the new In-N-Out Burger that was opening on Main Street, she handed it to me. I looked through it and aimed it at the Mercedes. The light from the lampposts was ridiculously bright and washed out everything, making it hard to focus. I couldn’t understand why the car no longer seemed innocent, and why it was beginning—after just two sightings—to mean something; something dark, a reminder of something black. As I walked closer, zooming in on its trunk and then the rear window, it seemed as if the car itself sensed my interest and—as if it made the decision and not the driver—turned off Elsinore and disappeared down Bedford. I was in a haze. I felt haunted, and then there was a hot wind and the barely audible hum of what sounded like electrical equipment, and I was shivering. My heartbeat accelerated, and then, inexplicably, I felt sorrow. The moon was giant that night, hanging low in the black sky, and orange-tinted, and people kept commenting on how close to the earth it seemed.
Jayne was explaining to the fascinated parents why she had to go to Toronto next week when I suddenly had to excuse myself. I simply said I was tired. The pavement was wobbling beneath me and my skin was alive with perspiration. Jayne was about to say something when she saw Sarah attempt a cartwheel and yelled out for her to be careful. I said goodbye to everybody, assured the Allens that we were looking forward to Sunday night and then handed Jayne the camera. I knew that leaving was not a smart play but I had no choice but to go with it. I noted her ambivalence and dissatisfaction and headed back toward the house, which was dark, except for the jack-o’-lanterns, whose faces were already caving in. I could still feel Robby’s relief when I stumbled away.
In my office I poured myself a large glass of vodka and wandered outside onto the deck overlooking the lit pool and the backyard and the wide expanse of field leading to the woods. The trees looked black and twisted beneath the orange light of the moon. I sipped the vodka. I wondered: Were the strange lights flickering in the low gray sky that people had reported seeing back in June somehow connected to the disappearance of the boys, which began around the same time? The other explanations I came up with made me hope so.
Something passed over me and then flew away.
Suddenly Victor rushed out of the house and was standing near me, barking and panting. He was facing in the direction of the woods.
“Shut up,” I said tiredly. “Just shut up.”
He looked at me worriedly and then sat down with a whimper.
I tried to relax, feeling the hot wind on my skin, but my eyes were drawn to something lying next to the Jacuzzi, which I also noted was bubbling—someone had turned on the jets—and steam was rising off the heated water. I set my drink on the barbecue and moved hesitantly across the deck until I was standing over a pair of swimming trunks. I assumed the trunks were something left over from the party but when I picked them up they were soaked, as if someone had just climbed out of the Jacuzzi and removed them. And then I noted the patterns on the shorts: large, abstract red flowers. Hawaii suddenly was flying through my mind and it landed at the Mauna Kea Hotel, the resort my family stayed at when I was a kid. Are these mine? I asked myself silently, because I had once owned a pair (as did my father), yet almost immediately knew that the answer was no. I calmly wrung out the trunks and draped them over the deck banister to dry. I sipped my drink and then took a deep swallow. I breathed in and looked back into the woods.
The night was drenched with darkness and the darkness really was dazzling. And the sound of the wind seemed amplified, and I noticed that Victor was standing up again and staring out into the woods, the hot wind ruffling his golden coat. I just kept staring into the blackness of the woods, drawn toward the darkness as I always had been. And the wind rushed up against me and the wind felt . . .
. . . feral . . .
There was no other word for it. The wind felt feral.
“Hello darkness my old friend . . .” The lyric drifted into my thoughts and I felt as if a boundary were being erased. I closed my eyes. I suddenly realized how alone I was. (But this is how you travel, the wind whispered back, this is how you’ve always lived.) I opened my eyes when a moth landed on my arm. It looked as if the entire world were dying and turning black. The darkness was eclipsing everything.
And then Victor started barking—much more insistently this time, shaking as he stared out at the woods, and his barking was soon interspersed with growls. And, just as suddenly, he stopped.
He stood still. He had heard something.
He kept looking into the woods.
And then he leapt off the deck and ran toward them, barking again.
“Victor,” I called out.
I could see his shadow loping along the field as if he was chasing something and he was still barking, but when he entered the woods the barking stopped.
I sipped my drink and decided to wait for him to come back.
I looked at the bathing suit. I thought about the Mercedes cruising down Elsinore Lane. How long had it been following us? Who had been in the Jacuzzi?
And then I thought I saw Victor. A shape, low and hunched over, had emerged from the woods but I couldn’t make out what it was. It was the size of Victor, perhaps larger, but its movements were spiderlike as it lurched grotesquely sideways, clumsily darting in and out of the trees at the edge of the woods.
“Victor!” I called again.
The thing stopped moving for a moment. And then its dark shape scuttled sideways and picked up speed and it began shambling back into the woods. I realized, sickeningly, that it looked as if it was hunting something.
“Victor!”
I heard what sounded like squeals of despair coming from the dog but they stopped abruptly and there was only silence.
I waited.
Squinting, I could make out Victor’s bulk as he slowly walked back across the field and I couldn’t help feeling weak with relief when the dog—now eerily calm—moved past me and into the kitchen. But then something forced me to understand that I was not alone out here.
Can you feel me? it asked.
“Go away,” I whispered. I was too fucked up to deal with this. “Go away . . .”
It was time you learned something, I could hear it moaning.
I was not alone.
And whatever was out there knew who I was.
Something was moving in the woods again.
The swings on the swing set began rattling in a sulfurous rush of hot winds
and then, almost immediately, they stopped swinging.
I could hear the soft, snapping sounds of something approaching. And it was moving eagerly. It wanted to be noticed. It wanted to be seen and felt. It wanted to whisper my name. It wanted to deceive me. But it wasn’t making itself visible yet. And as I kept peering into the darkness, I saw another figure hurrying across the field, grasping what looked like a pitchfork. I stood immobilized on the deck. My teeth had started chattering. The wind gusted again. And then there was the sound of locusts swarming. I started shaking. I’m scared, I suddenly thought. When it sensed how frightened I was, there was a strange odor in the air.
Get inside, I told myself. Get inside the house now.
But when I looked back at the house I knew it couldn’t protect me from what was out there. Whatever it was could get in.
And then I saw the headstone. It was off to the side at the edge of our yard, and it sat at a crooked angle, jutting up from the weeds that blanketed the field, and my momentary annoyance that the decorators hadn’t carted it off turned to dread as I found myself unable to stop moving toward it. The ground beneath the headstone was burst apart—as if something buried there had clawed its way out. Over the roar of the wind I could hear an oddly distinct flapping sound. As I moved toward the headstone I felt convinced that something had actually crawled out of that fake grave. Something huge and black was passing over the house—it was flying—and then it spun around in midair and it was suddenly beneath me and the wind kept howling and there was briefly the snarl of animals fighting in the woods and then the thing began circling above me as I knelt in front of the headstone next to the hole in the ground. There was something written on it. I started brushing the fake moss and cobwebs aside. The headstone was streaked with dried blood.