The Lights In the Sky

Chapter 26

Their voices woke me up in the middle of the night. Frank was snoring next to me, sitting straight up with his head back. The TV was still on, beams of blue light dancing across the room. They mirrored the same color outside, moon on snow. The voice was distant and soft. For some reason, it didn't frighten me. I thought maybe this was it. The moment I was waiting for the whole time. One of them coming to get me in the middle of the night. They knew I was too weak to fight them. Too ready to give up.

I got to my feet, careful not to move Frank as I did. He went on snoring softly. I listened for the voice to come again. When it did, I followed it to the bottom of the staircase. It was dark, the TV light hitting only the bottom few steps before fading into nothingness. The violin twang sounded like it was coming from the top of the stairs. I looked back at Frank once more, wondering if it would be the last time I would see him. Part of me felt like it would be. I could only picture him as the little kid standing across the grave. And for whatever reason, that was okay.

The stairs creaked as always. My heart raced as always. But not from fear. From what, I don't know. Not excitement. Not eagerness. Just in knowing that things would be different. One way or another.

The upstairs hallway was lit only by lazy moonlight from the window at the end of the hall. It cast the long shadow of my doorway down to my feet. But the voice was not that far away. It was coming from Tabitha's room to my right. The door was cracked slightly. I put my head in. She was asleep, her windows open. It was freezing. Immediately as I crossed onto the loose square of pink carpet, I could see my breath. The source of the noise was somewhere next to her bed. For a split second, I thought of all those stories about monsters hiding under kids' beds. I wondered if maybe they were true. I knelt down next to the bed, listening to Tabitha's gentle breathing. The voice came again, closer. But there was nothing underneath. The sliver of moonlight between her bed and the wall showed me the bare floor. The voice was just above my head.

I craned up to see her Pooh Bear doll, its black eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling. My hands sunk into his soft belly and I lifted him up. There was a small crackle from the floor as I did, the sheets of paper he was lying on. One of Tabitha's hand drawings. I lifted it into the blue light with my free hand so I could see it clearly. I nearly dropped the stuffed animal from my hands when I did. It was a drawing of our living room, a view of the couch from the TV. There was a crude approximation of Tabitha herself sitting in the center of the couch, her long hair down to her sides. On her right was a drawing of me, sitting there in the same outfit I had been wearing for weeks, a gray hoodie and blue basketball shorts. And on her left was the picture of the thing they showed me in the cage. The half-formed version of myself. We were all smiling. All holding hands.

I dropped the paper. When I did, the thing's voice came through the animal again. It was so close to my ear that I could almost feel the whisper against my skin. I jumped back.

It made another sound. Chills ran up my spine and onto my neck. My hands began to shake. Hidden underneath the strains of echoing strings, he was speaking in words I knew.

"See. Me," they said.

The eyes caught my attention. One solid and smooth, the other cracked but still jet black. Reflecting the moon and stars through the window. Then the stars were closer. I was tumbling into them. They were filling the room. The eyes were everything, broken only by the glow of white diamonds.

Then, nothing but blinding light. I put my arm up to shield my eyes, turning away from the brightness. My vision adjusted as I felt a familiar fabric under my hands. A cushion under me. The grain of the couch against my fingers. The lines and crosses of the plaid pattern came to my vision first. Then the outline of another sitting near me. Frank, I thought at first. But when the light faded away, it was him. The monster. My brother. Nothing but blinding white light and the couch and me and him.