The Devil's Demeanor (9 page)

“So,” Dad said
to Don after a minute, “how are things with your mom?”

“Good,” Don
said, and they
were
pretty good. “Because Adrian’s around,” he added
before he could stop himself.

“Her boyfriend,
you mean?”

Don nodded.

“That’s good,”
Dad said offhandedly. “As long as your mom’s happy, everything’s all right.”

Don couldn’t
help but notice the way his dad made that comment, as if there was more meaning
behind it.

“I’ve been
thinking about having you boys come and live with me for a while,” said Dad,
catching Don’s undivided attention. “Your mom doesn’t like the idea, and I
can’t blame her, considering I move around a lot. But I’ll settle down soon,
possibly in Florida. You boys like Florida?”

Don and Ethan
said they did. Dad’s gaze lingered on his youngest son before he continued. “I
don’t want to scare you boys, but I think your mom is sick,” he said quietly.
“Not physically sick, but mentally.”

“What does
mently
mean, Daddy?” Ethan asked in his curious-kid voice that Don knew was an act.

“It means she’s
sick in her head,” Dad explained. “I think it might have to do with what
happened to her before you were born, Ethan. Mommy was bitten by a dog.”

Yvonne tore her
attention from the TV to listen to Dad. Clearly, she had never heard this
story.

“I think,” Dad
went on, “that she may have been infected by something the dog had.”

“What about the
rabies shot?” Don asked. Dad was touching upon what he had suspected for a long
time now.

“I don’t think
it’s rabies. I think it’s something else.” Dad stared at Ethan again. “I just
worry about you boys. Your mom made living with her difficult after that
incident, which is why I left. I tried to get you two in the divorce, but it
didn’t work out that way.”

“Mommy’s not
bad,” Ethan said, again in that innocent voice. But this time he was smiling,
and
that
was not so innocent.

“Well, that’s
good to hear,” Dad replied. “Very good.”

But for how
long would it stay that way? How much did Dad know about what was happening to
Mom? Did Grandpa ever tell Dad about the cave and the curse?

“Enough talk
about this,” Dad suddenly said brightly. “Let’s watch the movie.”

He helped
himself to some of his sons’ popcorn. Yvonne got up from the recliner and went
to the bathroom around the corner.

Don decided to
tell Dad what happened at the park now. “Dad, Ethan threw a rock at a boy’s
head today.”

Dad immediately
started coughing on his popcorn, his fingers covered in butter. “What
happened?”

“A boy was
picking on us today.” Don decided to be as truthful as possible. Being ten, he
wasn’t a good liar anyway.

“Well, that boy
is no friend to you,” Dad said, looking at Ethan. “But you shouldn’t be
throwing rocks at anyone.”

“He threw rocks
at Don,” the young boy replied.

“I don’t care.
You should’ve told an adult.”

Don wasn’t sure
if he felt better or worse for telling on Ethan. It had been such a frightening
moment, though, seeing the boy pick up a rock and throw it like that at the
bully. Don’s red vision had subsided the moment of impact, and he had felt like
he had thrown the rock himself. Or had somehow gotten his younger brother to do
it for him.

But Don knew
he’d had nothing to do with it. That had been all Ethan.

*
 
*
 
*

Don had a very
unpleasant dream that night. He was in the apartment, lying on the foldout
couch, and he appeared to be completely alone. The whole place was dark, with
only the moonlight shining through the patio door.

He got up and
flipped a switch on the wall near the kitchen. The light didn’t come on.
“Hello!” he called to the hallway across from the kitchen. There was no
response. The short hall was dark, the bathroom on the right even darker.

On the left,
around the corner, was Dad’s room. Don slowly made his way to the room, where
the moonlight filtered through the blinds just over the king-sized bed. There
was no one on the bed, but the room wasn’t empty.

Ethan stood at
the foot of the bed, staring at Don. He was wearing his Batman pajamas. His
eyes seemed brighter than they should have been. Don backed out of the room and
ran back to the living room. As soon as he got there, he saw someone standing
out in the parking lot, just past the patio.

It was Dad.

Don hopped onto
the couch-bed to get to the other side and opened the patio door. By the time
he actually got outside, however, Dad had already started climbing the rock
wall. “Dad, don’t leave me!” Don shouted as he watched his father climb away.

“Can you blame
him?” a voice behind Don asked. He spun around and saw Ethan standing at the
sliding patio door. “Can you blame him for wanting to leave us? He left Mom,
after all.”

“He left her
because she’s cursed,” Don said. “Just like you. He’s leaving
you
!” Don
screamed the last part, sounding hysterical.

Ethan smiled
and cocked his head. “What makes you say that?”

“Mom was
pregnant with you when she was cursed,” Don explained, though he knew he didn’t
have to. “Everybody knows something’s wrong with you.”

“And what have
I done to make people think something’s wrong with me?”

The way Ethan
asked the question bothered Don. It sounded too grown up. He was also bothered
by the fact he couldn’t think of a truly compelling example of his brother’s
“wrongness.”

“That’s what I
thought,” Ethan said. “Let’s talk about you.”

Don looked back
up the rock wall to see his father halfway up. Dad had stopped climbing,
however, and was looking down at them, as if listening to the conversation.

“What about
me?” Don asked his brother.

“Well, let’s
see….” Ethan tapped his chin and looked to the dark sky as he thought—another
grown-up gesture. “You wrote that hateful note to Candice just because she
wouldn’t let you play with her toys; you hurt Robbie because he stole your
pencil. Sounds to me like you’re the one who’s evil.”

Don’s heart
sped up as he listened to the horrible things he’d done. They couldn’t be
disputed. All Ethan had done was throw a rock at Zeke and kill a helpless
caterpillar. Don looked up at Dad again and found he’d resumed his climb.

“Wait! Dad!
Don’t leave me!”

He kept
climbing, though.

Don turned
angrily toward his brother. “You made me do all that stuff!”

Ethan tilted
his head to the other side. “How so?”

“Whenever
you’re around people, you make them do bad things. You make them angrier.”

Ethan stood in
silence for a moment, then said, “I don’t do that…but you do. Don’t you?”

“Yes, you do!”
Don screamed back. “I know you do.”

Ethan tilted
his head to the other side. “Your theory is flawed. I wasn’t with you when you
attacked Robbie over the pencil. You can’t truly expect to blame me for that,
can you?”

Don was about
to respond when he suddenly realized Ethan was right. He hadn’t been anywhere
near Don when he decided what he wanted to do to Robbie. But if it was true
Ethan couldn’t influence people’s moods, what did it mean for Don? Every time
his skin tingled, someone near him got very angry. If it had anything to do
with the curse, why did Ethan seem so curious about it?

Ethan smiled as
his brother came to the realization.

Don turned back
to the rock wall. “Dad!” he screamed as he began to climb. His father was near
the top now, and did not look down after being called. Don grabbed hold of the
wall and tried to climb, but the rocks he clung to crumbled. He tried again,
this time managing to grasp more reliable holds.

Before he knew
it, he was climbing the rock wall, though this wasn’t under the conditions he’d
wanted to do so. He didn’t want to be chasing his father, who seemed to be
fleeing his evil sons.

Don’s heart was
thumping in his hefty chest at the exertion. Climbing was not easy, and he
tried not to look down because he knew it would only make things worse. He was
barefoot, and his toes ached from the sharp rocks he used for footholds. He
kept climbing, enduring the pain, because he wanted to get away from Ethan.

He wanted to be
with his father.

Just as Don was
reaching up for another handhold, something grabbed his left ankle. He looked
down to see Ethan clinging to him. Don tried to shake him off but couldn’t.
They were twenty feet off the ground, high enough to be seriously hurt if they
fell.

But this was a
dream. It wasn’t real.

“It’s real
enough, Donnie,” Ethan said in a voice that clearly wasn’t his. It was that of
a demon from the cave. “And it will hurt.”

Before Don
could realize the thing had read his thoughts, the Ethan-demon bit off his big
toe. Don screamed in pain and terror, a scream that was high-pitched and
terrible. Though he didn’t want to, he looked down and saw where his toe had
been chewed off. Blood flowed freely over Ethan’s face.

Don looked back
up to see his father watching them from over the edge of the wall. Don reached
a hand out to Dad, begging for help. Instead of helping, Dad disappeared from
sight for a moment, only to reappear holding a large rock over his head.

“You’re not my
son,” he said.

Dad then held
the rock in front of him before releasing it. Don woke up just before it struck
him in the face. His throat hurt, as if he’d been screaming his lungs out. He
looked around the dark living room. He heard the air conditioner humming.

His heart hurt
at the feeling of being abandoned by Dad like that in the dream. He wanted to
jump out of bed and check to see if Dad was still nearby, in his room. He had
to know he hadn’t been left behind in real life as well.

He had to.

The first thing
Don saw when he woke up was his brother, fast asleep next to him on the
couch-bed. He automatically drew away from the sleeping demon, as if fearing
Ethan might spring at any moment.

It was still
very early in the morning, but the sky was steadily brightening. Dad would soon
wake up and grab a bowl of cereal from the kitchen. Don got up from the bed and
planted himself in the recliner. There was no way he was getting back to sleep
any time soon.

He sat in the
gloomy living room and quietly played with his action figures. Ethan never
stirred on the bed. Don wondered if he was even really asleep at that moment.
Ethan was facing the patio, his back to Don. After a while, Don abandoned his
toys and watched his brother lay there. Had Ethan been responsible for the
nightmare? Did he have that power, or was Don assigning him abilities he didn’t
possess?

If it had been
a dream of Don’s own conjuring, what did it mean? Why did Dad kill his own sons
instead of helping them? Did he truly feel there was no hope for either boy?
Perhaps the demon was right when it said it would have Don too.

And why did Dad
tell him he wasn’t his son?

“What are you
doing up so early?” a voice asked, startling Don in the worn-out recliner. He
looked over and saw Dad in a white T-shirt and boxers. His curly black hair was
a mess.

“I had a bad
dream,” Don replied.

“I figured you
did,” Dad said, grinning a little, his thick mustache twitching. “I heard you
yelling from my room. I came to check on you, but you settled down before I
could get here.”

Don felt
embarrassed, but didn’t say so. “What was I yelling about?”

Dad shrugged.
“You kept yelling ‘Dad, don’t leave me!’ ” He patted Don on the head. “Do you
worry about that sometimes?”

“No,” Don said,
and it wasn’t really a lie. He loved his mom a lot, and he also loved his dad.
Up until this point, however, he never really thought about anything but the
curse. “Dad,” he finally said, “is Mom really sick, like you said?” Don
whispered so Ethan wouldn’t hear, if he was indeed faking sleep.

Dad didn’t
answer right away, and he too kept glancing at his youngest son on the bed.
Finally, he said, “I really don’t know, son. I do worry about her sometimes.
About you, too.”

Don wondered if
“you” meant just him or him
and
Ethan, but decided not to ask. “Why?” he
asked Don. “Has she done or said anything to make you worry about her?”

Don wanted to
tell him about the day Mom was late picking him up from Woodcrest, and how that
had led him to conclude (with Dad’s help) she had killed the woman responsible
for their divorce.

“No,” Don
replied after a moment’s hesitation. Dad, who had seemed tense before, suddenly
settled down. He was relieved. That was when Don said, “But Ethan has.”

Dad said
nothing. He was incapable of forming words. It was as if Don had confirmed a
suspicion. “What has he done?” Dad finally asked.

Don went on to
tell him about the caterpillar Ethan had killed, and about what he’d told Nick
about remembering his own birth. He also told Dad about the night he’d been
chased into the playroom by Ethan, the night he’d spent under the couch. He
left out the dreams for some reason. He wanted to see what Dad said about the
other stuff first.

“Well,” Dad
began, “I don’t know if any of that means anything.”

Don was
crushed. That was the last thing he expected to hear. He had felt so relieved
telling his dad all of this, but now he felt foolish.

Dad looked at
Ethan again. “I think your brother’s just fine,” he said, looking suddenly
exhausted. “I think everything is going to be fine. I have to get ready for
work.”

He went back to
his room, apparently skipping breakfast. Don watched until he disappeared
around the corner, into the hallway. Then Don turned back to the bed.

He gasped.

Ethan was awake
and looking right at him.