Dastardly Bastard(33)

Looking at the mouth of the cave in the rock face ahead of him, Lyle saw movement, just a quick play of shadows, a deeper black moving along in the darkness.

His right hand slipped. The rope left his palm, and he was suddenly hanging by one arm.

His mom screamed, “No!”

Lyle felt hands under his armpits. He was pulled up and tossed forward. He slid on his knees, rocks digging into his shins. Rising to his feet and turning around, he waited for Jaleel to step onto solid ground before wrapping his arms around the man who’d saved his life.

“Sweet Jesus, kid. Let me breathe.” Jaleel’s chest hitched as he laughed.

“Thank you!”

“No problem. You’d have done the same for me if you could’ve.” Jaleel grinned down at him.

Lyle watched something flicker over Jaleel’s shoulder, a burst of color, like a dying sparkler.

Jaleel looked at the oddity and nodded. “You’re right,” he told his shoulder.

“What?”

Jaleel craned his neck, looking back down at Lyle. “Huh? Oh, nothing. Just glad you’re all right.” The guide stepped out of Lyle’s embrace and turned around to look back out over the expanse. “Marsha! You’re up, dear. Mind the cracked ones!”

“What if more break?” Lyle asked, moving to the man’s side.

“Won’t happen, kid. He won’t let it happen,” Jaleel said.

“Who won’t? What are you talking about?”

“Jaleel.” The guide’s face was funny. Lyle thought it looked… distant. “Jaleel’s not going to let anything else happen. Don’t you worry none.”

Lyle stepped around to get a better look at Jaleel. The guide’s face shimmered, all blue and pink.

“But you’re Jaleel. Why are you—”

“Oops!” The voice was in Lyle’s head. Jaleel wasn’t moving his lips.

“Sorry. Jaleel can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the beep. Beeeeeeeeeep!” Jaleel’s face contorted into a hideous fun-house-mirror version of itself. One face, the fleshy one, stared forward while the second emerged. The new face was transparent, glimmering with coalescing pinks, purples, and blues.

“Id’s the name, and Jaleel is my game. Step on up, kid! You have prizes to claim!” The ghostly apparition cackled. “Now you see me! Now… you… don’t!”

The pink and blue vapor came flying at Lyle’s face. He backpedaled, flailing his arms, until his feet no longer found solid ground. Lyle could have sworn the bridge was behind him, but it was no longer there. He watched the sky come into view.

He fell.

And landed on the floor of his bedroom.

He scrambled backward until he crashed into his bedroom door. His eyes darted left to right and back again. Everything looked familiar, just as it should have been, but he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. It should be familiar, he told himself. He’d lived there his entire life.

There was his bed, the mattress and box spring lying on the floor. His parents had gotten rid of the frame after he’d assured them a troll with red eyes lived under there, a troll that most definitely wanted to eat him.

His Panic! at the Disco and Fallout Boy posters hung where he’d left them, though they looked newer, glossier, than he remembered. On the top of his dresser sat his Nightmare Before Christmas alarm clock. Jack Skellington’s face was hidden behind the shadows cast by thick hands as they rotated, the second hand moving quickly while the minute remained lazy on the three. Hour had given up the ghost, sitting on the ten, waiting for his turn.

To his right was the floor lamp he’d bought at Target with his allowance money. He’d saved up all summer long, mowing grass and washing cars, until the Petersons gave him a fifty for cleaning out their gutters. It looked great in his room, just different enough from everything else with its black base, red stem, and gold lattice hood. That thing rocked.

On his left was the entertainment center Dad had gotten him for his birthday, his television and video games right where he’d left them. The TV was on, tuned to BBC America, with his favorite episode of Doctor Who. David Tennant—close to giving up the role to Matt Smith, who Lyle loathed—was telling Sally Sparrow she had better not blink.

“The Weeping Angels,” Lyle told his boob-tube companions.

It occurred to him that he’d forgotten something, had been interrupted during a very important thought, but he couldn’t imagine what that could have been. Still, he couldn’t shake off the idea that something wasn’t right.

Doctor Who went to break, and in the brief silence between program and commercial, Lyle heard a soft humming. The song was one he recognized. It had been his father’s favorite.

“Dad?” Lyle asked. His voice was much brighter, younger, than he remembered, and it didn’t crack when he raised his voice.

“In here.” His father’s response made his heart leap in his chest.

Lyle burst from his room and took off down the hallway. He slid across the living area, almost tripping on mom’s throw rugs, barreling through the family room holding onto the back of the couch for support. He crashed through the kitchen door, his hot breath scorching his chest like a scalding piston. He stopped just inside the door and swung his head to the right, then to the left, until his eyes found their prize.