CRACKS IN THE WOOD
They will never find me.
This was true. Not by the way they walked across the heavy floorboards down stairs trying to act tough. Each of the footsteps was padded by boot, no doubt still tracking up mud from the rain this morning. I swear I could listen to the sounds of their breaths and wet, whistling lips, humming, making sounds calling out to me.
They will never find me.
I was careful about leaving no trace I was in the house, nothing that might give me away. Up here, this small crevasse full of soot and old cobwebs, was out past any wandering eyes. Nobody could know this little spot existed unless they lived here before and no one in town had lived in this house for decades.
I shouldn’t have played games with the men down stairs. Well, scratch that. I shouldn’t have played games with those men’s families. Some would argue I deserve them hunting me right now. But I promise, I was invited into their homes. I didn’t invite them into mine.
It started Shirley Morris. She was one of the sweetest looking girls in town, with skin like an ivory doll and hair as thick as the local heather. But she was a cruel girl. I’m one of those people who blame the upbringing for that sort of behavior. I’m willing to bet that one of those gentlemen three floors down was her father. I know that ugliness started with him, but I don’t have any proof. Most of the time those bad things were passed down in the blood.
The proof I had that Shirley Morris was rotten to the core was how she treated her little toys. She picked up her daddy’s hammer from the garage (a rusted old thing he never used; just goes to show some men don’t use the tools they’re given), snuck that bludgeon up the stairs one rainy night and smashed her toys to bits. It was the way she smiled when they broke to pieces that I determined she was going to grow up to be something foul.
She was going to grow up. I made sure she never did.
Charlie Neville had a similar problem, that ugly side, but his schematics were one hundred percent different. Charlie Neville like to take things. There was no door, no window, no garage, and no automobile that could keep his grubby little hands out from stealing what he wanted. Some kids just thought everything was theirs. They hadn’t grown up enough like me (I mean living years around this town) and learn the hard way. People had a right to their own possessions. I came to respect that, just like everyone else. Not Charlie Neville. I took something from Charlie he could never back. He wasn’t going to steal anything anymore, not in this town, anyway.
I could go on and on; Timothy Lawson loved to use his fists on the other boys in the playground, Patricia Nye told a million lies, it made crying wolves go quiet. How many kids in the end, I don’t know. The good ones I left alone. The other ones, well, they needed a hard lesson.
Everyone made a big fuss about it. I guess they didn’t see how bad all of them were. I was the only who had the power to do anything about it. Parents are blind by love sometimes; a kid can get away with murder, come home with red hands, and the parents would just tell them to wash up before dinner. But me, I could see what these children were doing, I could see what they were going to become.
I’m going to share a little secret from when I was young myself. Someone had told me a special message. I was no older than fifteen, maybe even younger. I was walking right on the edge of town, right by that crooked abandoned mill. The night was beautiful, an absolute treasure of evening. Warm, but with a gentle breeze coming down from the mountain sides; it was the kind of night that said summer was here and good times were ahead.
I had the groceries I was sent to get under my arm when I heard the voice. I couldn’t make out if it was a woman’s or a man’s voice; it was tricky. I walked along the side road and I noticed it wasn’t a person at all. It was a crack in the wood on the side of building, pluming with smoke like a hot tea kettle.
I leaned in close, and that’s when I heard the sound. It sort of made sense – I mean, think how we talk – it’s just air coming out from our lungs through our mouths, making all manner of sounds. The language seemed familiar, kind of like broken English. I listened for what could have been an hour to the sounds coming out from the cracks in the wood. The smoke didn’t choke me either, it just curled around me.
I didn’t feel the weight of those groceries I carried anymore, and when mom yelled at me for taking my sweet time home, I didn’t feel anything when slapped me that night. Something had changed from what that crack in the wood had told me. It went something like this:
They can’t find you. They will never find you.
I thought it said at the end: “get used to it”, but I couldn’t quite be sure. It was a long time ago and nothing was the same since.
The men kept screaming down stairs. Now they were on the third floor, right below me. I heard them yelling and smashing things around. I heard one mention something about a rifle. I couldn’t help but smile. They could shoot this whole place up and never even touch me.
As I said, I don’t blame them at all. They were parents and parents never want anything bad to happen to their children. I smiled again – and not because of the thought that those men’s bullets would never find their way into my flesh. I smiled because it started with them. What happened to their kids, whether they wanted to believe it or not, was because of them. Their kids were born foul, like a stench. Something my mother always told me; you know the devil is in the room when you smell something bad. Those kids, all of them, were just like that smell. All I did was light a match, and before you knew it, the air was fresh again (maybe with a hint of sulfur). Just like that warm summer night I listened to the smoky cracks in the wood. I was never the same after that night; so long ago now, it seems like it was a hundred years ago.
