Whisper Down the Lane, Clay Chapman [best short books to read txt] 📗

Sean wanted to run. Run right off the stage. He wanted to grab his mother’s hand and pull her away from this strange and scary place.

“Do you believe Sean’s testimony? These heinous claims of devil worship?”

Miss Kinderman considered this. “I think, as a culture, we must believe our children. No matter what.”

Now Mr. Cassavetes looked directly at Sean. “It’s possible that there are people watching our show tonight who may have been involved in the same secret organization of Satan worshippers as your teacher. Is there something you might want to say to them, Sean?”

Sean considered this as best he could. What could he say?

“Stop hurting me. Stop hurting my mom,” he said directly to Mr. Cassavetes, looking him right in the eye. “Get away from me.”

Mr. Cassavetes smiled a knowing smile. “Stop hurting me,” he repeated. “Such a simple plea. And yet…look at how low we’ve gone, to where the innocent cries of our most vulnerable go unanswered. Our country is in the midst of a holy war right now, ladies and gentlemen. I want to follow Sean’s courageous lead and speak directly to those disciples of the devil who are watching tonight. I know you are.” He looked into the camera, taking on a stern, puffed-up stance. He pointed at the lens and jabbed at the air with his index finger. “You may hide in the shadows, you may creep in the corners of our country, but you’ll be brought into light, under the eyes of God, and you’ll not—I repeat, you will not—win. Not in my America. Evil will not prevail. Thank you for watching.”

The studio audience jumped to their feet and cheered. Most of them. Some pushed against their neighbors. Some yanked the posterboard signs from the hands of their fellow audience members and ripped them in half. A fight broke out in the back. A pair of linebacker security guards rushed in to break it up.

But all Sean heard was the applause. They were cheering for him. Worshipping him.

He was a star. A bright, shining star.

He looked up into his mother’s face. I did what you wanted, Mom. Are you proud of me?

But Mom wasn’t there. Not really. Her body, yes, but the rest of her was gone. Even if he was only five, Sean knew when his mother was there and when she was not.

He turned back to the crowd. Tucked into the audience, two rows back, was a little valley of shadow. Sean had to squint to be sure, but he saw someone he recognized.

A child staring back at him, unaffected by the chaos around him.

Sean waved.

The gray boy waved back.

DAMNED IF YOU DON’T

 RICHARD: 2013

I remember the parents. How they gathered outside the courthouse every morning during the trial. The police set up barricades around the main entrance. Blue-painted roadblocks flanked the sidewalk, creating a narrow egress for officers to escort Mr. Woodhouse inside without being attacked by a stray mother. Protestors pressed against the blockade, brandishing their homemade signs over their heads.

ride the lightning, woodhouse (along with a crude sketch of an electric chair).

the devil you know (with a photocopy of Mr. Woodhouse’s mugshot).

see you in hell (a caricature of Mr. Woodhouse bent over, ready to receive a pitchfork up his rear end delivered by the devil).

Mothers spat at Mr. Woodhouse as he walked by. He kept his head low, an officer at either side, shoulder to shoulder with him. I barely recognized him in his orange jumpsuit. That couldn’t be my kindergarten teacher. Who was this man?

I saw Tommy Dennings’s mom lean over the wooden stanchion and spit a wad of phlegm directly at Mr. Woodhouse’s right cheek. A riled-up dad leaned forward and grabbed his arm, dragging Mr. Woodhouse closer. More parents took hold, seizing him, until Mr. Woodhouse’s slight body was swallowed up by a knot of parents. The police couldn’t yank him back, couldn’t pry him out.

These parents were going to rip Mr. Woodhouse apart. They wanted blood. His blood. They called out his name, shouting it over and over, until it sounded like an invocation.

Woodhouse, Woodhouse, Woodhouse…

“You okay?” Tamara whispers into my ear. “Where did you go just now?”

“I’m right here.”

“No…You went off somewhere again. In your head. Can you tell me?”

“It’s nothing,” I say. “I just want to get—”

Far, far away from here.

“—this over with.”

That hand. I keep seeing the child’s hand in my head. Its flaming fingers waving at me. It looked so real. I could’ve sworn it was flesh and bone—but it was just the severed appendage from a department-store mannequin, lopped off at the wrist. Its fingers had been dipped in some sort of combustible substance. Sterno, maybe. What looked like blood before was just more tempera, pilfered from my own art supply closet.

This isn’t happening, I keep repeating to myself.

Sail a-way.

Sail a-way.

Sail a-way.

“I’m here, okay?” Tamara squeezes my hand. “You don’t have to go through this alone.”

Condrey called an emergency PTA meeting that evening. There’s no getting around this. She can only get out in front of it. She has to craft her own narrative of the incident in hopes of steering the conversation away from the rattled parents now demanding answers. A paranoid din has overtaken the auditorium. Every last seat is filled with distraught parents.

I don’t recognize any of these faces. The demographics of Danvers keep shifting. Fewer suits and ties, more beards and vintage dresses. Hipster parents. Condrey kowtows to nearly every demand these eco-moms and -dads have. Composting. A community garden. Solar panels. A gluten-free lunch menu. Now they want answers for what happened in their school.

The Friends of Danvers want blood.

“If I could have everyone quiet down, please,” Condrey announces into the microphone onstage. “Let’s begin, everybody, thanks.”

I spot Sandy in the audience. Miss Levin brought her along, which seems strange. Parents don’t usually drag their kids to these meetings. They’d be bored out of their minds. Hell—I’m usually bored out of my fucking skull. But Sandy’s