The Devil's Demeanor (7 page)

He walked over
to the big toy box in the far left corner and climbed into it, losing himself
to his childhood.

“There’s
nothing wrong with me!” his mother screamed from the foyer. “I’m not letting
you take my children!”

“They’re my
kids, too, goddamn it!” Dad replied. “And we both know something is wrong with
you. Don’t play dumb!”

“What’s wrong
with me, Patrick? What the fuck is wrong?”

“You’re a
monster!” he screamed, which froze Don’s blood. Did his dad know, too? “After
Ethan was born, you changed. You were a mess, crying and screaming. It’s like
you weren’t even human anymore.”

“It was
postpartum depression!”

“No it wasn’t!”

There was
silence for a time. Don was deep in the box, and couldn’t see through the
sliding-glass door into the dining room, but he knew he was being watched at
that moment. Even as the action figures dug into his legs and back, he knew
Ethan was standing at the door, waiting for him to emerge.

“What was it,
then?” Mom asked quietly.

“I don’t know,”
Dad admitted, defeated. But Don had a feeling his father knew exactly what it
was.

It was the
curse.

“I’m worried
about our kids, that’s all,” Dad finally said. “And I’m worried about you.”

“If you’re so
worried, then why did you leave?”

Dad sighed.
“Because I was weak and scared. I couldn’t imagine staying here with you like...like
that
.”

“And now?”

“Now,” Dad
said, “I realize my kids are more important than myself.”

Don finally
stood up and, sure enough, there was Ethan, standing there and staring at him
in tiny blue jeans and a red-and-black plaid shirt tucked into his pants. His
curly brown hair was filling his tiny scalp. He would have been cute had he not
been so spooky.

“I’m fine,” Mom
said, “and the kids are fine. In fact, I’ve been seeing a wonderful man for
quite some time. His name is Adrian and he keeps me centered.”

That was news
to Don. Even Ethan looked in her direction with a creepy turn of the neck. His
body remained facing forward. Don wondered if Ethan’s head would spin all the
way around like that girl in
The Exorcist
.

Don, at that
moment, wanted very much to live with his dad in Connecticut. But not if Ethan
came along. Don wanted to be away from him and their mom, despite what she told
Dad about being “centered.”

He didn’t know
how soon things would spiral out of control, but he hoped he would be prepared
when they did.

1991 had been
an interesting year for Don. Mom had signed him up for karate at the YMCA on
Fort Gordon, which he didn’t enjoy as much as he thought he would. Karate was
not easy to do with his girth.

Speaking of
Mom, she had finally introduced her kids to her secret boyfriend, Adrian. He
was a few years younger than Dad, maybe even younger than Mom. Adrian also
drove a motorcycle, something Dad used to do before trading up for the van.

Don turned nine
in March, and he felt like a big boy. Things had been going well for the
Scotts, with Mom showering her children with love and gifts. Besides the
argument with Dad, she had truly seemed calmer.

One day, when
Nick was sick with strep, Don decided to play in his backyard. Of course, he
had to take Ethan with him. When they reached the end of the yard, passing all
the neighbors’ backyards in the process, Don climbed the jungle gym set up
there. Monica Harris was on her back porch, playing with something Don couldn’t
see because a big trampoline was in the way. She looked up.

“I hate
caterpillars,” she said. She wore a light-blue shirt with yellow shorts. She
had pink ties in her hair.

“Then why are
you playing with one?” Don asked, noticing the caterpillar crawling beside the
arm she used to prop herself up.

“Because
there’s nothing else to do.”

Monica was a
year younger than Don, and though they’d never spoken in class before, she
seemed really nice now. He opened her gate and walked into her backyard. He and
Ethan sat down on the wooden porch, next to Monica. Ethan had busied himself
with a little hand shovel, though he was looking at the caterpillar.

“So, little
man,” she said to Ethan, “you talkin’ yet?”

“Yes,” he said
simply, as he had started talking a while ago. The problem was he never said
much. Sometimes he would if a lot of adults were around, but if it were just
kids, or just Don, he slipped into his old ways.

And his old
ways consisted of him
staring
, which he was still doing with the
caterpillar. It made Don uncomfortable.

“Do you like
kindergarten?” Monica asked.

“No,” Ethan
replied. He looked up at her, and the look he gave her reminded Don of those
adults give to people they don’t like.

The look was
too mature for a three-year-old.

“Why not?”
Monica was intent on keeping the conversation going.

“Because,
nosey, it’s childish and tedious.”

Monica’s eyes
grew wide just as Don’s jaw dropped. He didn’t know what
tedious
meant,
so therefore, Ethan shouldn’t have either. Also, the young Scott child had
spoken much too surely and fluidly for someone his age.

Don looked at
Monica, and she looked back, but neither said a word.

“I think this
caterpillar is pregnant,” Ethan added, focusing on the bug again. He crawled
toward it and, with shovel in hand, began cutting it in half.

“Ethan, stop!”
Don yelled, but his brother did not stop. He smiled as he dug the blade into
the caterpillar. Dark green blood oozed thickly onto the porch.

“I’m cutting
the baby out,” the child said, again in that sure voice.

Don wondered if
the spirit of a grown man, or something, lurked within his brother.

“No baby,”
Ethan said as he dropped the shovel. “My mistake.”

The caterpillar
squirmed for a few seconds, then stopped. Don quickly buried it in the grass by
the porch, then grabbed his brother’s hand and dragged him back to their own
yard.

“I’m telling on
you!” Don yelled as they walked across the large yard to the house. Don was so
angry, he didn’t notice the German Shepard.

When he did
notice the dog, it was too late.

It came
barreling across the large yard and knocked Ethan down, tearing at his shirt.
Ethan screamed. Don stood in shock at the spectacle, not knowing what to do. As
he watched the dog tear into his brother’s clothes, shaking him around, a
gruesome thought came to him: Maybe he should let it kill Ethan. That would end
the constant worry about what his brother was or would turn into when he grew
up.

Ethan was evil.
He killed a caterpillar just for the fun of it and almost killed Don himself
when he pushed the mattress out of the way at Uncle Roland’s house. If he was
that bad
now
, what would he be like in the future?

Don didn’t know
how long he stood there in indecision—it felt like minutes but was probably
only seconds—but when he came out of his thoughts, he heard his mother
screaming, “Ethan!” She then shot past Don and kicked the dog in the head.

It flew a few
feet away, but Mom wasn’t finished. She ran to the dog and started stomping on
its head, over and over. Don saw its eyes pop out of his sockets as its skull
caved in. Blood and brain matter covered Mom’s slippers and dress.

She stood there
a moment, looking down at the dead dog as she breathed heavily, then she turned
and picked up a crying Ethan. He clung to her, his eyes shiny with tears.

As she carried
him to the house, those eyes of his never left Don.

*
 
*
 
*

That night, Don
lay awake in his bed, staring at his wall. He never liked the design of his
wallpaper: The repeating pattern had a boathouse on a dock, with a sailboat
going past it. The boathouse had darkened windows, and the front door was open
revealing total blackness within. He couldn’t help but always imagine a
creature of unspeakable horror living in the shack, staring out at him. The
wallpaper scared him more than the opening credits of
Tales From the
Darkside
.

At that moment,
though, he imagined the dog that attacked his mother at his grandparents’ house
all those years ago. He didn’t know exactly what that dog had looked like, but
after having one nightmare about the cute bulldog ripping the head off a
rabbit, he used it as a placeholder.

As he lay
there, staring at the wallpaper, he thought about what had happened hours
earlier; about how he let the German Shepard attack his little brother,
secretly hoping the dog would kill him. He knew he should be disgusted about
feeling that way, but he didn’t.

Mom had taken
Ethan to the hospital while Adrian got rid of the dog.

Don was at the
age where he was afraid to sleep with the door closed, but would soon be afraid
to sleep with it open. Now it was open, and he could see the bathroom directly
across the hall. His mom’s room was on the right and Ethan’s room on the left.

Poor, poor
Ethan. He had cried for what seemed like hours at the hospital. The doctor said
he was fine, but Ethan didn’t sound fine. His crying seemed to come from fear
rather than pain, and the look he had given Don as his mother was carrying him
away....

Don couldn’t
get the look out of his mind. Through those watery eyes, Don could see the
words
Why didn’t you protect me, Big Brother?
It was as if the real
Ethan had come to the surface. He’d seemed like a real child for the first time
in his life.

The sound of a
door slowly opening drew Don out of his troubling thoughts. He already knew
whose door it was. He knew if he looked out his own open door, he would see his
brother standing there. He wanted to jump from his bed and close the door, but
he felt he would never make it in time. If anything, Ethan was probably already
in the room, hiding in the shadows.

He didn’t care.
He leapt from the bed and darted into the hallway, past Mom’s room. He didn’t
look to see if Ethan was there, on the left, standing in front of his own door.
He didn’t
have to
look. He could sense his younger brother’s presence,
his eyes no longer leaking tears.

Don ran down
the impossibly long hallway, into the playroom. He wanted to hide in the toy
box in the corner, but it seemed like such an obvious place. Instead, he chose
a couch on the left of the room and hid under it.

Hide and seek.

Don tried not
to breathe hard as he hid under the couch. A few toys had migrated from the box
and into his hiding place at some point. There was a ViewMaster, a baseball,
and a pair of gray plastic handcuffs. A few ViewMaster reels were littered all
over the tile floor, and he focused on them to calm his racing heart.

Ethan was mad.
He wanted revenge, or rather, the thing sharing Ethan’s body did. Don knew in
his heart that was what this was about.

It was about
fear. It was about helplessness. Ethan wanted Don to be afraid. Boy, it was
working.

Don didn’t know
how long he’d been under the couch, but his knees and elbows were cramping. He
wanted to move, but he heard a raspy noise coming from the dark dining room.

It sounded like
breathing.

Ethan was in
there, and he knew Don was in the playroom. Don waited a few more minutes, then
the breathing stopped. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. He quickly
looked out one of the large windows on the other side of the room and saw the
moon, full and bright in the sky. Suddenly the werewolf theory came back to
him.

Had Mom been
bitten by a werewolf or a demon in a dog’s body? Couldn’t a werewolf and a
demon dog be the same thing? Don thought so.

Soon he fell
asleep staring at the moon.

*
 
*
 
*

“Found him!” a
voice shouted. Don snapped awake and started screaming. He thought it was
Ethan. He was so caught up in fear he didn’t realize the sun was up.

The playroom
was bright and safe-looking.

Once he saw
this, he realized someone was kneeling in front of him. It wasn’t Ethan, nor
was it his mother. It was Adrian, and he was smiling.

“What are you
doing down here, little man?” he asked.

Don didn’t know
how to answer, so he didn’t. He crawled from under the couch, knowing it
wouldn’t make for a very good hiding place anymore. Mom ran into the playroom,
still wearing her nightgown. She looked relieved as she hugged Don and kissed
his cheek.

“What were you
doing in here?” she asked him. “Do you have any idea how scared I was when I
went into your room and you weren’t there?”

Don almost had
trouble believing she actually cared. Would the evil spirit inside her allow
her to care about anyone or anything? Was it lying dormant inside her? Was it
in her at all?

Perhaps Don was
wrong about the curse altogether. Maybe a regular dog had bitten Mom after all.
Thinking of that made him feel foolish and relieved at the same time.

Those feelings
went away instantly when he saw Ethan curled up under the dining table. He’d
slept there all night!

Mom followed
Don’s gaze and said, “You and your brother will be the death of me. We found
him just before we found you. Were you two playing a game or something?”

Or
something,
Don thought.

*
 
*
 
*

Don wanted to
spend as much time away from his brother as he could over the weekend, so he
and Nick walked through their neighborhood, which consisted of very long streets
and very steep hills.

School was
almost over for the summer. Mom told Don not only would he spend his vacation
with Dad, but also with Uncle Roland. Don was excited about this news; he liked
his uncle and cousin, and he loved running around their big house and yard.

Don decided to
stay out of the basement this time, though.

Stay away
from the big white pipes,
he added in his head.

He was so
wrapped up in his thoughts he didn’t realize he and Nick were close to their
destination: Clark’s house.

Clark Greg was
Don and Nick’s home-schooled friend who lived in the middle of their cozy
neighborhood, where the hills were abundant. As they approached Clark’s home,
Don marveled at the blue, two-story house resting at the bottom of one such
hill. Across the street was a dirt wall the kids in the neighborhood liked to
climb on occasion. Don had never climbed it himself and figured he probably
should try it before heading to Connecticut to prepare for the rock wall in
front of Dad’s apartment.

“Hey, guys!”
said Clark from his bedroom window on the second floor. “I’ll be right down.
Barbara will let you in.”

Barbara was
Clark’s nanny and was very nice. She opened the front door for Don and Nick and
offered her kind smile. Nick often joked she was the Gregs’ slave because she
was black and did all the cooking and cleaning. When Don asked his mom about
it, she said Nick was being silly and slavery didn’t exist anymore.

As Don and Nick
entered the house, Clark came running down the stairs between the kitchen and a
parlor right next to the foyer. Clark had short brown hair that was bowl-cut
and goofy, with thick-rimmed glasses. His face was covered in brown freckles.

“Ready to get
your asses kicked at
Rampage
?” he asked, his voice squeaky.

“Watch your
mouth, little mister,” said Barbara, though she had long since grown used to
Clark’s potty mouth. Don felt sorry for her, having to put up with the little
brat.

Don and Nick
only hung out with him because he had a Nintendo. Clark was nine, same as them,
but he sometimes acted much younger. Hanging out with him beat staying at home
with Ethan, though.

Barbara and the
kids went down into the low-lit parlor where the TV and Nintendo were hooked
up. Barbara settled into a recliner and started knitting. Don, Clark and Nick
took to destroying buildings with their monstrous avatars. After a while, they
switched to a fighting game. Clark beat Don without much effort, but when Nick
took the controls, Clark found a challenge.

It was around
that time that Don got a strange feeling. His skin started tingling.

Nick proceeded
to beat Clark’s ass five times in a row, and it was pretty clear Clark didn’t
like that one bit. His face turned red. After one particularly brutal match, he
jumped to his feet and threw the controller down.