The Pond That Wasn't There

Chapter Five

"Where the hell were you, Bailey!" shouted his mother, and then she noticed his shirt, his missing shoes, his dirtied face. "What happened? God's body what the hell happened to you? Where are your shoes?" She cupped her hands over her mouth. "What's on your shirt?"

Bailey had hardly noticed. He was shoeless, and his blue shirt was no longer blue, but brown, and smeared with odd colors, and even ripped across the chest. There was blood on his hands, and he felt his cheek burning slightly with a dull pinging. He didn't know how the blood had got there, but it was thick and slmy and bright as flame upon his pale flesh.

"I was out on the lane, with Welsey," he stated, then stopped, remembering. This was his mother. He couldn't tell his mother everything he saw tonight, what really happened. She was an adult, she wouldn't understand, she wouldn't think he was telling the truth. Adults were always like that. They never understood.

Bailey dropped his head and caught his breath, thinking of something clever to say, something normal, acceptable. "We were out in the woods." It wasn't entirely false.

"Who's Welsey?" asked his mother. "The woods? Which woods?" Her face was red with rage, with shock, with fright, all mingled into one. Bailey thought it a marvel she didn't explode right in front of him, her bits flying all over the sky, hit him across the face like rain. It was not a pleasant thought.

"He's my friend," said Bailey. "He lives down the street. He's nice, I guess." He withdrew when he remembered that it was Welsey's fault after all. "Why are the police here?"

"I called when you didn't show for supper," said his mother. "I thought you were just in your room all day like you usually are, but apparently you were out with this Welsey, frolicking in the woods, careless so as to not tell me! I was worried sick! I thought you were lost. I thought you were dead."

Her words hit Bailey hard, and he gulped, and it felt pained. "I'm sorry," he said, and as he said those words, he heard a door clap shut and a pair of angry feet charging down the stairs.

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" came his father's voice, loud and booming. He peered down at Bailey with devil-eyes, red and dark. "I thought you were lost."

"I wasn't lost," said Bailey. "Just not found."

His father sneered. "Well, I'm glad, truly. I'm so glad that I had to leave early from work, and almost get fired from walking out of a business conference because of you!" He snarled the last words like a snake, pointing his long, bony finger down at Bailey. "Now get the fuck inside!"

Then he seized Bailey's shirt, ripping it further, and threw him towards the house. "I'm done looking at your pathetic little face."

"Walter," insisted his wife.

"Tell the police they can leave," replied Mr. Britton, and he stalked after Bailey as he ran inside the house. "What a fucking piece of shit."

Bailey ran inside faster than he'd run from the Cautton's, and slammed the front door shut behind him so hard he thought it broke. His heart was beating faster than he thought possible, his chest thumping, drumming, pounding. His legs had gone numb, as well as his fingers, and cold shivers spread from his breast, down through his arms and legs so that the tips tingled in all manner of fright.

He shut his bedroom door just as his father entered the house, and he was safe. With fumbling fingers, he shut the lock on the door, and clicked it closed. He breathed out a sigh of relief and felt his heart stutter back down to normalcy. He still couldn't believe what had happened, what had truly happened. In some ways, the refusal to tell his parents made it seem almost imagined, as thought it was a dream he was hesitant to tell.