Hidden Pictures(40)
And then a single word, spoken softly, not much louder than a whisper: “Hello.”
It’s followed by a quick hiss of static. The video skips forward, then freezes again. The image has turned blurry, lo-res. Teddy is looking up from his sketch pad, directing his attention toward the door of his bedroom, to someone or something just outside the frame.
“Getting the pencils ready,” he says, and then laughs. “The pencils? For drawing.”
There’s a longer hiss of static, and the noise rises and falls with a rhythm that reminds me of breathing. Something in the microphone crackles and pops and again the picture skips forward—now Teddy is looking right at the camera, and his head has doubled in size. It’s like a reflection in a fun house mirror; his features are stretched to impossible proportions, his arms are short little flippers but his face is enormous.
“Careful,” he whispers. “Gently.”
The static gets louder. I try turning down the volume but the knob doesn’t do anything; the sound gets louder and louder until I hear it all around me, like it’s escaped the speaker and filled the room. The video skips ahead and there’s Teddy sprawled out on his mattress, arms extended, his body convulsing, and I can hear his bed thump-thump-thumping on the ceiling.
I run out of the den, through the foyer, and up the stairs to the second floor. I reach for Teddy’s doorknob but it won’t turn, it’s stuck, it’s locked.
Or something is holding it closed.
“Teddy!”
I bang my fists on the door. Then I step back and kick it, like I’ve seen people do in movies, but all this does is hurt my foot. I try smashing my shoulder into the door and this hurts so much I sink to the floor, clutching my side. And then I realize I can see into Teddy’s room. There’s a tiny half-inch gap beneath his door. I lie on my side, rest my head on the floor, close one eye, and peer into the gap, and the smell hits me hard—a toxic punch of concentrated ammonia, venting from the room like warm exhaust. It fills my mouth and I roll away, coughing and gagging and clutching at my throat like I’ve been pepper-sprayed. Tears stream down my face. My heart is going a mile a minute.
And as I’m lying in the hallway wiping the snot from my nose and trying to recover, trying to muster the energy to simply sit up, I hear the tiny mechanism in the doorknob click.
I scramble to my feet and open the door. Again I’m hit by the stench—it’s the smell of urine, extremely concentrated, suspended in the air like steam from a shower. I pull my shirt up and over my mouth. Teddy seems unaffected by the odor; he’s oblivious to all my shouting. He’s sitting on his bed with a sketch pad in his lap and a pencil in his right hand. He’s working quickly, slashing thick black lines across the page.
“Teddy!”
He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t seem like he’s heard me. His hand keeps moving—shading the page with darkness, filling in the black night sky.
“Teddy, listen, are you all right?”
Still he ignores me. I step closer to his bed and my foot comes down on one of his stuffed animals, a plush horse that emits a noisy high-pitched whinny.
“Teddy, look at me.” I place my hand on his shoulder and finally he looks up and I see that his eyes are completely white. His pupils have rolled back into his head. But still his hand keeps moving, drawing without seeing. I grab his wrist and I’m shocked by the heat of his skin, by the strength that’s coiled in his arm. Normally his body is loose and floppy like a rag doll’s. I often joke that he has hollow bones, because he’s light enough to lift off the ground and spin in a circle. But now there’s a strange energy thrumming beneath the skin; he feels like all his muscles are clenched, like a small pit bull terrier poised to attack.
Then his eyes snap back into place.
He blinks at me. “Mallory?”
“What are you doing?”
He realizes he’s holding a pencil and he instantly drops it. “I don’t know.”
“You were drawing, Teddy. I was watching. Your whole body was shaking. Like you were having a seizure.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize. I’m not angry.”
His lower lip is quivering. “I said I was sorry!”
“Just tell me what happened!”
And I know I’m yelling but I can’t help myself. I’m too freaked out by everything I’m seeing. There are two pictures on the floor and a third in process on the sketch pad.
“Teddy, listen to me. Who is this girl?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she Anya’s daughter?”
“I don’t know!”
“Why are you drawing these things?”
“I didn’t, Mallory, I swear!”
“Then why are they in your room?”
He takes a deep breath. “I know Anya isn’t real. I know she’s not really here. Sometimes I dream we’re drawing together, but when I wake up there are never any pictures.” He flings the sketch pad across the room, like he’s trying to deny its existence. “There shouldn’t be any pictures! We just dream them!”
And I realize what’s happening: Anya must be taking the pictures out of the bedroom, before Teddy wakes up, so he won’t have to look at them. And I’ve come along and interrupted their usual process.