I am not stupid, however.
I am only vaguely aware that this is a dream and I can’t seem to wake myself up but I know this woman. I would know her anywhere. I shiver myself awake and Sam is sitting on his haunches like a little stone frog beside me, staring at my face with profound curiosity.
My head hurts, he says.
I know, I say. Mine does, too.
You were talking, he says.
What was I saying?
You said you weren’t hungry. Then you said the boy is my brother.
Jesus.
Am I the boy?
Yes.
You were having a dream, he says. A bad dream, huh.
Very bad, I say.
What was it about?
His face is pale and fine, his lips still rosy with fever. He is so close to me that I can smell his breath when he exhales. The air coming from him is sour. The smell of sick.
How do you feel? I say.
He thinks for a minute. Okay, he says. But not my arm. My arms hurts.
What’s wrong with your arm?
I don’t know, he says.
Show me where it hurts.
He pulls his sleeve up over the elbow and I see it right away. On the pale underside of his biceps, there is small white mark surrounded by red flesh. It could be a puncture. It could be an insect bite. I take a deep breath and remind myself that kids get nervous when adults freak out.
That doesn’t look bad, I say. Do you remember feeling sick today?
Yeah, he says.
When did you feel sick?
Today, he says. A little while ago.
He bobs his head up and down and sideways and shrugs one shoulder and I remember that he’s five and therefore has no real sense of time.
Uh-huh. What were you doing?
I was sitting on the floor, he says. I was playing with the guys you got me. Wolverine and the guy with fire on his head. They were fighting.
Ghost Rider, I say.
Huh?
The guy with fire on his head is Ghost Rider.
Oh, yeah.
Who was winning?
Wolverine, mostly.
That makes sense. What else were you doing?
Nothing, he says. I was only watching TV… I was watching Sailor Moon and I was having some chocolate milk. That’s all.
Chocolate milk, huh.
He nods, vigorously. I like chocolate milk. I love it.
The trees are dense and twisted, with thin black branches that hang just above our heads and tangle together like terrible hair, blotting out the sky. Unseen wolves howling in the dark, their voices ghostly.
The boy is brave.
I don’t even have to think about it. The chocolate milk is bad, poisoned. I haul it out of the fridge and look at it carefully. The boy is watching me and it occurs to me that children, like animals, generally have a keen nose for madness. I don’t want to scare him, so I whistle softly as I examine the chocolate milk.
Paranoid people don’t whistle, surely.
What I’m looking at is an ordinary plastic milk jug with a white, screw-on top. Brown and white paper label with a bar code and the words chocolate milk two percent and Sunny Fields Dairy in bright, cheerful script followed by your average nutritional bullshit in small print. The jug is half empty. Or half full, if you’re a positive thinker like me. I unscrew the top and sniff it, then the contents of the jug. It smells like chocolate milk. But that’s too easy.
Do you want some? says the boy. He’s looking at me.
No, I say. I’m not thirsty.
Oh, he says.
He doesn’t say anything else but I can see the little-kid wheels turning in his head. Why are you sniffing it, then?
I think this chocolate milk is bad, I say.
It’s good, he says. I think it’s good.
Yeah. But sometimes milk just goes bad, when you least expect it.
Can I smell it? he says.
Of course.
He hops up and comes over to me. I crouch down so he can reach it and he inhales deeply, frowning as he does so.
Trust me, I say.
The boy nods, gravely. As if he knows the world to be a mysterious, often nonsensical place and is therefore willing to accept the notion that chocolate milk, while it may smell good and taste good, may in fact be bad.
What have you had to eat today?
He tells me that the lady brought him some chicken nuggets earlier.
Which lady?
I don’t know, he says. The lady who wears a mask and doesn’t talk to me.
The lady who wears a mask and doesn’t talk to me. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it. I head upstairs, taking the chocolate milk with me. I cruise through the kitchen, the living room and dining room. I peek into the Lizard Room and no one is about. The house is endless and silent. They could be anywhere, and I begin to go from room to room.
I find them in Molly’s room. I open the door and everybody is packed in there under white, hot lights. The air feels thick, almost humid.
Molly sits in a wooden chair, crying. She wears white underpants and bra. Jude is behind her with scissors in hand, bright steel blades that look very sharp. She is apparently cutting Molly’s hair. There are yellow tufts of it like a ring of feathers at their feet. There is a nasty bruise on Jude’s face, puckered and bloody. It looks like a bite mark. Her shirt is torn at the throat. Miller lies naked on the bed behind them, staring at the ceiling. Huck stands in one corner with a camera, Daphne in the other. They don’t look too comfortable. Jeremy sits in the green chair, out of the shot. By the expression on his face, I would say he has an erection.
Why are you crying? I say.
I’m okay, says Molly. I’m okay.
Jude, your face. What happened to your face?
She doesn’t answer. She snips at Molly’s hair and Molly winces at the sound.
Miller looks at me. What do you want, Poe?
Where should I start? I want to know why you’re naked. I want to know why Molly’s crying and I want to know what happened to Jude’s face. I want to know what’s in this fucking chocolate milk.
Jeremy giggles.
You. You’re in my chair, I say.
Jeremy stands up, shifting his gear to hide that inconvenient wood. He looks around but there’s nowhere else to sit. I brandish the jug of chocolate milk like it’s a weapon. I approach him, menacing but feeling ultimately goofy.
Have a drink, I say.
No, thanks. He scratches his head, confused.
Jesus. Just sit down, I say.
Meanwhile, tufts of yellow hair fall slowly to the floor. I find myself staring at them. The hair falls so slowly. It floats.
Dreamy, isn’t it? says Miller.
I look at him on the bed and he is lying on his side, playing idly with his flaccid penis.
What? I say.
Haven’t you ever noticed that our eyes, our very brains have been programmed to register certain images in slow motion?
I shrug. I have noticed that, yeah.
Television and film have been around for what, a hundred years? he says.
That sounds about right.
In less than a hundred years, our brains have mutated. We don’t process visual information the way our great-grandparents did.
What’s your point, Miller?
You walk into a room and you see the following things. Two attractive women in their underwear. One is crying. The other has a bruised face. You see a naked man on a bed. You see two minor characters in the shadows, holding cameras. You see a young, handsome boy who will soon be dead, sitting in a green chair.