Chapter 144
The similarities to what he’d seen were so very close, though it had been dark when Elliott had had his encounter. He waited a moment to see if Jimmy was done, but it looked like he had more he wanted to say. He stared at the floor for a moment, and then slowly said, “That’s not the worst of it.” He looked truly petrified now, like he thought this creature might pop out of the closet or grab his ankle from beneath the bed. “It was… its eyes.”
Goose bumps rose up all over Elliott’s arms, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. “It’s eyes?”
Slowly, Jimmy nodded and lifted his head to look his brother in the face. “They were dark in the middle, like a gray color, and real white and bulging around the iris. And underneath, it was all red and bloodshot.”
Elliott drew in as deep a breath as he could, though his lungs felt restricted. He nodded and sat across from his brother in silence for a few moments, not sure how to proceed. He wanted to assure his brother that he wasn’t crazy, but he also had no more room on his plate to deal with the situation either. “Well, Jimmy… I could sit here and bullshit you, tell you your eyes are playing tricks on you, that kind of crap you don’t want to hear, but honestly, I have to admit, I’ve seen ’em too.”
Jimmy’s eyes widened. Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting that. “You have? Wait—more than one?”
His head bobbing up and down, Elliott said, “Yeah. I saw three of ’em once, a few years ago, out in the woods near Lawson’s Point. I thought it seemed nuts, too, so I kinda tried to forget about it. But I don’t think you’re crazy, kid.”
“You don’t?” Jimmy seemed relieved, despite the fact that being told he wasn’t the only one who had seen the monsters made them more real.
“Nah, I mean, I know you’re mentally challenged,” he teased, reaching over and ruffling his brother’s hair. “But you ain’t crazy. Mom says you’re out riding your bike all the time, though, so I guess that means you ain’t scared of ’em?”
“It’s not that,” Jimmy said, his voice low. “It’s just… I thought if I saw it again, maybe I could prove to myself I wasn’t losing my mind. That’s all.”
“I guess I can understand that. But now that I’ve told you I saw it too, can you stop looking for it? I mean, what’s the point? I don’t think it wants to hurt you because if it did, it probably would’ve by now. But, ain’t no sense in getting tangled up in a mess that ain’t yours.”
Jimmy considered his words and nodded, but Elliott knew that nod, and if anything, he would probably spend more time searching. And, the fact that he actually had no idea if this thing was dangerous or not made him worry that his brother might actually get hurt. Regardless of his promise, now he’d have to figure out what was going on.
“Listen, I won’t tell Mom what you saw if you still don’t want me to, but I am going to tell her what I saw….”
“Elliott! You promised!”
“And I just said I won’t tell her. I’ll make up some story about some girl breaking your heart, and you can snap out of it now and start acting like yourself. But, I need to find out what this thing is. Maybe Mom knows or might know someone who does know, okay?”
“Okay,” Jimmy said, but the worry on his face told another story. They were quiet again for a moment before he asked, “Elliott, do you ever think maybe you shouldn’t call her that?”
His eyebrows raised, Elliott stared at his brother again. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… do you ever think about… our first mom? Our real mom? Arlene?”
The question shouldn’t have surprised him. It was bound to come up eventually, and now that they were discussing frightening creatures, why not throw her in there as well? “Of course I think about her,” Elliott assured him. “How could I not?”
Jimmy nodded. “Do you ever wonder… why she never came looking for us? Why she just let us go? Do you think… she’s okay?”
Sighing, Elliott leaned back in his chair. “That’s a whole lotta questions I ain’t got the answers to, kid. I don’t know why she didn’t come for us. Maybe she didn’t know where to look. Maybe… she couldn’t catch a ride.” He knew that was a silly excuse since she would’ve been able to find some means of transportation if she really wanted to in the last six years. “I don’t know if she’s okay or not.” There had been lots of times he’d been tempted to try to contact her, to try looking her up in the phone book, but he had no idea what he’d say if he called her. Surely, if she’d wanted to, she could’ve found him by now. He’d been living in his own house for almost two years and had a listing. She probably wasn’t checking, though. If she ever had looked for them to begin with, it likely stopped a long time ago.
“I think… I think someday I’d like to find her, to see how she is. I feel like, maybe, some days….” Jimmy stopped talking and stared at his folded hands, running his thumb over the crease between two fingers on the other hand.
“You think what?”
He looked up slowly. “That it wasn’t right. That maybe we shouldn’t have left her.”
“Jimmy, that place was a hell hole. I don’t know how much you remember….”
“I remember, Elliott. I remember everything. I know the way she treated you was different than how she treated me. I know you was taking care of me from the time you was old enough to lift me. I get that. And it wasn’t fair to you. But… in a sick way, she needed us. You took care of her, too, and I did my best to help out.”
Elliott remembered Jimmy as a tiny, scrawny little boy trying to wake his mother up out of a pool of her own vomit, of him trying to keep the bugs off of her food when she’d pass out before she finished whatever dinner Elliott had scratched up. He remembered how she’d get angry and call them both names, though the older boy usually did get the brunt of that. And the men she brought to the house usually left Jimmy alone since he was small and cute. But, he’d had his fair share of nightmares. “Jimmy, believe me. We did the right thing. Arlene refused the help she was offered. I heard Janette and Jordan offer to help her. She could’ve taken it. She could’ve cleaned herself up, and maybe they would’ve taken us back to her. But… she didn’t. Trust me, kid. We made the right decision. You made the right decision. Peggy and Frank love you like they made you themselves. Don’t ever feel bad about loving them back, okay?”
Jimmy swiped at a tear that was trailing down his face and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “’Kay,” he said through his tears.
“Now, you stay out of the woods, at least until I can figure out what this might be, and start doing your homework, kid. You can’t afford to be a major screw up like me. And—stay away from the girls. If you do get near one, remember they’re far more dangerous than these monsters in the woods, so use protection. Every time.”
Jimmy’s forehead crinkled as he looked up at his brother, and Elliott realized he had no idea what he was talking about, which was a good thing, but he would need that advice someday. Hopefully, it would stick.
He pulled himself out of the chair and approached his brother who stood as well, and Elliott wrapped his arms around him. “I love you, you scrawny little ankle-biter.”
“I love you, too, big brother.”
Elliott pounded him on the back and walked out of the room, hoping that his brother would be okay and stay out of the woods. He had too many people to take care of at the moment to also be worrying about Jimmy, and even though he sometimes felt indestructible, at some point, something was going to have to give, or he was going to be the one needing to convince people he wasn’t crazy.
