Strangewood by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online

about?"
    "Didn't you see the blood, Daddy?" Nathan cried, his
father's soothing words only seeming to cause him more anxiety.
    The question gave Thomas a start, but he pushed aside the
memory of what he had thought he'd seen in the shadows moments earlier. There
was nothing in Nathan's room but Nathan, and the phantoms always created by a
night-light and a little boy's imagination. And the pain of a part-time family.
    "There was no blood, Nathan," he insisted. "Whatever
you dreamed, it was only a nightmare. Not real. You know that, buddy. You're a
big boy. Now, tell Daddy about your dream, and I'll show you that it wasn't
real."
    Nathan stared at him doubtfully for a moment, sniffling. Then
his eyes wandered around the room as he remembered the dream, and the wailing
began again.
    "They came after me, Daddy," Nathan cried. "They
came after me, wanted to take me while I was asleep. But Crabapple stopped
them, Dad. He stopped them from getting to me . . . and they killed him!"
    A terrible feeling of dread began to roil in Thomas
Randall's belly. It reminded him, in the kind of awkward observational moment
that had become familiar to him over the years, of the feeling he would get
when he knew without a doubt that he was going to be sick, and just as surely
knew he could do nothing to prevent it.
    "Nobody could kill Crabapple, Nathan," Thomas
insisted, tilting his head to look his son in the eye. "Crabapple isn't
real. I'm sorry to say it, but he isn't. He's just in your imagination, and
I've a feeling you know that already, don't you? He's no more real than the
characters I created for Strangewood ."
    "No!" Nathan shouted, getting angry now. "Crabapple
saved me and they killed him, Daddy! I saw them. They killed
Crabapple!"
    "I don't . . . who's they, Nathan?" Thomas asked,
finally, though he suspected he knew the answer. "Who killed
Crabapple?"
    Nathan froze and stared at Thomas. The terror was gone,
replaced by grief and shock. All too real emotions for a flesh and blood child
to feel over the dreamworld murder of an imaginary friend.
    "Nathan?" Thomas prodded, his heart already aching.
    "It was them, Dad," Nathan whispered, a chilly
calm having descended over the boy. "They were after me. They wanted to
take me away, from you, and from Mom. Mostly from you, though, I think. But
Crabapple . . .
    "It was Feathertop and Grumbler," the boy said,
and then the tears returned, and Nathan buried his face in his father's
shoulder once more, and cried until he fell back to sleep.
    All that time, Thomas didn't say another word. There was no
more comfort he could summon, so stunned was he by his son's nightmares. He'd
had no idea that the divorce had affected Nathan as profoundly as it obviously
had. So much so, that his nightmares now consisted of what he must perceive as
his father's imaginary friends slaying his own. But what was worse was Nathan's
insistence that the creatures of Strangewood had been after him , had
wanted to do harm to him.
    For several minutes he could only sit and stare at his
beautiful son and stroke his hair, overwrought by the horrible things his
divorce had done to Nathan's imagination.
    It seemed clear that Nathan's nightmares and daydreams had
something very specific to do with some kind of resentment against Thomas. The
vulnerable part of Thomas Randall didn't really want to hear what Dr. Morrissey
had to say. But he was a father, and whatever it took, he wanted to secure the
health and happiness of his only child.
    Thomas lay Nathan back down in his bed and kissed the boy's
forehead. He pulled the spread over his son and walked back across the hall to
his own room without even glancing down to see if the green feather was still
there.
    It took a long while before Thomas was able to get back to
sleep. Even then, he rested fitfully, with nightmares of his own, all of which
he had forgotten mere seconds after rising with the dawn on Sunday morning.
     

CHAPTER 3
     
    It felt like cheating. That was the bitch