“We just have to wait. We should do something to make the waiting go faster. Do you want to draw more monsters?”
“I’m tired of drawing.”
As if a switch had been thrown, Jack Peter stood suddenly and clapped his hands together. “Let’s have another war. You always like a good war. You can be the greens.” Without waiting for an answer, he took off for his bedroom and the bucket of plastic army men. Nick looked once at the door, willing it to open, for an adult to push through, but it remained closed fast against the outside world. He gathered his resolve and took the stairs two by two to join the battle.
The bodies were piling up when he heard a voice calling from below. They dropped their toys, and Nick ran to greet Mrs. Keenan at the top of the stairs. She was full of questions about her husband, questions for which he had no good answer. So instead, she sat quietly on the sofa murmuring Tim’s name when the Wellers arrived, full of drink and curiosity.
The five of them kept vigil in the living room. Nick’s mother put on a pot of coffee, and his father turned on the Christmas tree lights and built a fire in the fireplace. In a corner, Jack Peter examined the monster notebook again, scrutinizing each page. Mrs. Keenan waited by the telephone, and his parents took up the sofa, collecting their wits and sobriety. A current of anxiety flowed from person to person, and now and again, the notion of a search party was proposed and rejected. Night had fallen completely, and it would be dangerous out on those wet rocks with just a flashlight.
Minutes after six o’clock, Nick heard a scratching outside the mudroom, like a mouse gnawing at the wood, and just as he rose to investigate, the door creaked open. They raced to find Mr. Keenan standing there in the threshold, his face and hands beet red and raw, wildness in his eyes. A slash of dried blood arced across his throat and more blood was spattered on the front of his overcoat in a dark constellation.
vi.
The blood, Jack Peter was mostly interested in the blood. The pattern that it made on his face and clothes, the way the color changed from bright fresh crimson to deep magenta, nearly black. He positioned himself in the middle of the room, and as usual, they were oblivious to his presence, as he studied their every movement and noted every word. The grown-ups wanted the whole story from his father, and they fussed over him when he came in. His mother peeled off his stiff coat and tugged the wet gummy boots from his feet. Mrs. Weller went to the kitchen sink and doused a dish towel in hot water to dab at the crusted blood at his throat. Mr. Weller poured a mug of hot black coffee and stripped the throw from the back of the sofa to wrap around Daddy’s shoulders. Nick sat on a chair at the edge of the room, frightened by the blood and chaos, biting his fingernails. But Jack Peter watched with greedy curiosity as the man slowly emerged from the wind-chapped and dirty skin.
The ragged gashes on his throat resembled the nail marks of an animal, and the wounds would not stop bleeding. When one towel turned red, it was discarded for a fresh one. Running back between the chair and the sink and the cupboards, Jack Peter replaced four towels before the color faded to pink and subsided. His father took a sip of the coffee and winced when it hit the roof of his mouth. His mother’s hands were shaking, and she clasped her fingers together as though in prayer to still the tremors. Mrs. Weller asked for a first-aid kit, and Mommy left the room to hunt for it.
The Wellers threw their questions at Tim, but he could not find the words to answer. His face reddened in the warmth of the house, and the frost in his matted hair melted. From behind the scrim of adults, Jack Peter caught his father’s eye, and he looked as if he was conjuring a plausible explanation. “You had us worried absolutely sick,” Mrs. Weller said.
“There was someone out there. The same thing I saw on the road that night I brought Nick back to you.”
“Coyote,” Mr. Weller said. “You’re not the only one who’s seen it. The Hill brothers found one had been at their trash cans just last week, and it nearly ate the Rivards’ little dog. Some of the fellas were playing poker in the basement there, and they heard all this yapping, and out in the yard, a mangy old coyote snapping its teeth, ready to carry the poor pooch away.”
“It wasn’t a coyote but taller than a man. The boys saw it, too. Tell them.”
Jack Peter waved the bloodied towel in his hand. “It was a monster. Trying to get in our house.”
All of the adults stared at him as if he were crazy. He hid his face behind the wing of his crooked arm and retreated from their scrutiny.
Mr. Weller laid his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “How ’bout it, son. Man, or something else? Maybe a werewolf out in the middle of the day. Did you get a good look at the beast?”