Library
Home / Middle of the Night: A Novel / Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

According to the instructions, the tent can be assembled in fifteen minutes.

It ends up taking me two hours.

Even then, I know I did it wrong by the way the tent pitches slightly forward, as if it's on an incline and not the same flat patch of grass where a similar tent stood thirty years ago. Sure enough, one touch is all it takes to send it collapsing in a heap of orange.

I begin again, starting from scratch. I consider waiting for Russ to get home and enlisting his help. But his demeanor in the store earlier tells me he'd offer more questions than assistance.

"Why do you need this again?" he asked as he rang me up.

"It's for Henry Wallace," I said, making up the excuse on the spot based on my recollection of Henry being inside the tent when we visited the store days earlier. "I thought he might enjoy it."

While that seemed to appease Russ in the moment, I know he'll find it weird that I'm erecting the tent in my backyard with Henry nowhere to be seen. So I go it alone, taking a mere hour to assemble it a second time. Unlike the first, it stays upright, which causes no end of pride.

When I'm done, I go inside to the kitchen, where I'd left my phone, and see literally hundreds of alerts, all from the trail cam app. Of course. Since I'd forgotten to turn off the camera, my every move that morning has been captured and sent to my phone. I swipe through a few of them, cringing at the sight of sweaty, sweary me wrangling with the tent before deleting the whole batch.

The phone pings again, this time triggered by a blue jay streaking by, and I'm treated to the new view offered by the trail cam. Grass in the foreground, spreading to a backdrop of the forest at the edge of the yard, plus the addition of the tent. Well, part of it, at least. Only a portion of the tent's front half nudges into the frame, an orange triangle rising to a peak that's just out of view.

I don't set foot outside again until night falls and I return to the tent armed with a gross-smelling sleeping bag I found in the basement and a ratty throw pillow dug from the hall closet. Also with me: an LED lantern my father used whenever the power went out; my pen and notebook, in case Billy wants to try writing again; a bag of Scrabble tiles because I once saw a movie in which a ghost communicated with them; and a bottle of cheap bourbon because I'm pretty sure I'm being stupid.

No, it's more than that.

I'm insane.

Truly, utterly insane.

Yet my understanding of the situation—that I've lost it, fully and completely—doesn't force me out of the tent. I stay hunched inside, my shoulders scraping the sloped sides as I uncap the bourbon and take a swig directly from the bottle. Not the best idea, really. Especially since the goal is to get into a remembering mood by making things as similar to that night as possible, in which case I should be slurping Hi-C Ecto Cooler from a juice box.

After one more swig of bourbon, I wriggle into the sleeping bag, lie flat-backed on the ground, and wait. For what, I don't know. Probably nothing. Five minutes in and already this feels like a colossal waste of time. I decide to give it an hour. Two at the most. It's not like I'd be sleeping if I were inside the house.

"Come on, Billy," I mutter. "You want me to remember? Then help me. Because only you know what happened. Only you were there. I didn't see a thing."

I stop talking, mainly because there's no one here to listen. Just me. Talking to myself like a psychopath. But I also stop because I'm not sure if what I'm saying is true. There's a very good chance I did see something in the tent that night.

That's why he's been haunting me.

Billy needs me to recall what he already knows, to tell the people who need to be told, to act as his voice now that he no longer has one.

"Fine," I say, ostensibly talking to myself but really addressing Billy. "I'll try my best."

I shift, uncomfortable. Despite the cushion of the sleeping bag, the ground is harder than expected, not to mention slightly uneven. I wiggle to the left, trying to even myself out, and stare up at the tent's vaulted ceiling.

It is, I realize, the exact view I had when I was ten. I remember watching the shadows gathered there, as they are right now. A vaguely threatening darkness looming over the interior of the tent. And while it summons a dozen memories—my mother bringing out the oven-made s'mores, the way the tent's zipped flap trapped the July heat—none of them strike me as vital. They certainly don't shed light on the hazy half memories depicted in The Dream.

The scriiiiiiiitch.

The moment Billy was pulled from the tent.

Definitely not a hint of the person responsible for both.

I shift again, try to start over. It dawns on me that staring at the tent ceiling could be a distraction and that I should instead focus on how the space affects my other senses. How does the inside of the tent sound and smell? How does it feel? Thinking the key to unlocking my memories lies in the aura of the tent and not in visual clues, I close my eyes and take a few deep, cleansing breaths.

Then I concentrate.

At first, I notice nothing but the new-tent smell that surrounds me. A cross between a plastic bag and a latex glove, it's powerful enough to make my nose twitch. Once I get used to it, though, other things emerge.

The chirp of a single cricket, louder than the others, suggesting it's right outside.

The hint of grass that can still be felt underneath both the sleeping bag and the tent's floor.

The trapped air itself, motionless and hot as it covers me like a second sleeping bag. Beads of sweat form at my temples, and I get my first true flashback to the night I'm so desperately trying to remember.

Me zipped inside the tent, waiting for Billy to arrive, wondering if that will happen after the events of earlier in the day. Guilt churned in my stomach—a sensation I would become intimately familiar with over the next thirty years. But then it was still something foreign, something unsettling. I remember worrying that something bad had happened to Billy. That he was still trapped in that gate and that I'd never see him again.

Little did I know that would soon come to pass.

Outside the tent, there's a noise. A soft whisper of movement so faint I can't tell if it's real or a memory. Then I hear it again, closer this time, and I tense inside the sleeping bag.

Something has entered the yard.

It sounds again. Less a whisper than a rush across the grass.

Deep in my pocket, a noise bursts from my phone.

Ping!

My entire body clenches, for I know what it means.

Billy has arrived.

Comments

0 Comments
Best Newest

Contents
Settings
  • T
  • T
  • T
  • T
Font

Welcome to FullEpub

Create or log into your account to access terrific novels and protect your data

Don’t Have an account?
Click above to create an account.

lf you continue, you are agreeing to the
Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy.