In the Shadows of Children by Alan Ryker Read Free Book Online Page A

futilely raked the air from several feet away, Aaron threw himself back and collided with their dresser.
    Scrabbling across the floor now on all fours, Aaron reached Bobby’s bed and grabbed him by the hand. He pulled, and Bobby came with him. He didn’t seem to want to at first, but Aaron was twice his size and powered by terror, and he dragged his little brother back to his bed and wrapped them both in his blanket. There was nowhere else to go. The closet was too near the door. The creature had them trapped.
    Bobby had stopped screaming. He sobbed and quaked, holding Aaron tightly.
    Then the light came on and the boogeyman instantly disappeared, not leaving behind even a puff of smoke.
    “What’s wrong?” their mother asked, rushing into the room.
    “The boogeyman!”
    She soothed them and put them back in their beds, though as soon as she left the room Bobby sprinted across the gap and jumped beneath Aaron’s blankets.
    From down the hall, Aaron could hear his mother talking in her punishment voice.
    * * *
    Aaron tumbled off the couch, tangled in the afghan, barely managing to land on his hands and knees. He fought his way out, unsure of where he was or if he were safe. The room was dark, and darkness held danger. Now he remembered what kind.
    Drenched in sweat, he finally emerged from his cocoon, stood, oriented himself. He was in his parents’ living room. He made his way to a light switch, flipped it on, felt a bit safer.
    But not much.
    Looking at his watch, he found that it was just after seven. Exhausted and drugged, he’d slept soundly for nearly ten hours. His tongue felt covered in glue, and as soon as some of the adrenaline receded, his thoughts began to stream by in doped slow motion. Like fish in an aquarium, he had time to watch each one pass. And then came the shark, with its dead eyes and lethal maw.
    The boogeyman had taken his brother.
    It had emerged from the closet many nights, and together they’d fought it off, but then Aaron had left, had forgotten, and Bobby faced it alone.
    The memories didn’t flood back, but the brick wall that separated him from his childhood was crumbling, losing structural integrity.
    Aaron peered out the window. Night had fallen. He looked to the stairs, walked out in the foyer.
    Upstairs, his brother lurked in the darkness, waiting for him. He’d somehow escaped the boogeyman. Not fully. If he were free, he’d step out of the darkness and reclaim his life. Aaron wondered why he didn’t.
    It was time to find out.
    He climbed the stairs, keeping his eyes on the doorway to his old bedroom. He was afraid. Afraid of the lurking boogeyman and afraid of Bobby, or what his brother had become.
    At the top of the stairs he flipped on the hall light, forced himself to breathe, stared into the shadows of his old room.
    “Bobby, are you there?” Still standing on the upper landing, Aaron’s voice echoed through the house.
    “You know it.”
    Aaron took a deep breath, stepped forward and reached for the switch on the wall. Then he remembered, and with only a moment’s hesitation, walked into the shadows.
    Bobby sat in what Aaron was beginning to think of as his normal place in the closet. Aaron walked past him and sat on the foot of his old bed.
    He looked to Bobby, who seemed to be expecting something.
    “I went to the park. I found the house. You were right, about Spider-Man, about the slingshot and the knife. You didn’t tell me about the dog.”
    Bobby smiled. “That damn dog. Sorry, I should have told you. If only dad hadn’t been allergic to dogs, we might have had one.”
    Aaron paused at the non-sequitur. “Why does that matter?”
    “To keep the boogeyman away.”
    Aaron’s heart sank. His dream wasn’t a construction of his mind; it was a repressed memory.
    “I remember the boogeyman. I dreamed about the first time. Do you remember that?”
    “I’m not sure. You always told me about it. I remember that, at least.”
    “That was the start of