Part 7
Matt lay on his bed hiding his tears in his pillow. At first his tears felt shameful in front of his siblings and he hated them. But now in the quiet of his room the tears felt good–like expelling some of the pain that infected his heart swelling it and making it throb. He cried out all the ache, confusion, and loss of the last few months. So many new or strange things had been happening ever since they moved—things that scared him. He listed them off in his mind as the sobs escaped him—the loneliness of his oddly half empty room, the noises from the inside of his attic-closet that no one believed, his crazy dreams every night that made him feel as though he hadn’t been asleep, his baby brother Charley disappearing. And, if that wasn’t the worst, no one seemed to remember Charley.
His mother thought their dreams were just their minds processing all the changes they experienced after moving. His sister, Carrie, thought he was just imagining the bumps in his attic closet–that it was just his over active imagination, but no one had a theory about Charley. Everyone thought Charley was what he named their cat years ago because he had wanted to name his younger brother. However, his parents named him, Chad. When they got a new baby kitten the family allowed him to name the cat Charley. That’s what they thought, or what they remembered. Matt, on the other hand remembered both. He remembered another younger brother, one younger than Chad, who he had begged to name Charley and when they got a baby kitten everyone named the kitten Cat. He remembered playing a practical joke on Charley, the baby brother, when he disappeared. It was just a practical joke, he repeatedly said to himself and in his prayers. At first it was a justification, then it became a plea. Now Cat or Charley as the rest of the family called him had run away. Matt was terrified he would never see Cat or his brother Charley ever again.
After a while he ran out of tears and lay motionless on his bed. He still felt the pain and sadness, but now the pain resembled the soreness of an infected wound that had just been cleaned and dressed. Cat was Matt’s comforter. When Matt was afraid at night Cat would curl up next to him on his bed. His soft gray fur, warm body, and purring helped calm Matt when frightened by a nightmare. Last night was no different.
Before bed Matt had checked the knob lock and latch of his attic-closet to be sure they were locked and secure. In his dream, someone was calling from inside his attic-closest. The door knob rattled. The knob jiggled like someone was trying to turn it from the other side. The room was illuminated by silvery moonlight.
“Mom!? Dad!? Please comeback!” Matt heard from the other side of the door.
In his dream Matt was crouched in his bed, his back pressed against the head board. His blanket wrapped around him so only one eye peered out. The locked door swung slowly and steadily open in a way that made it seem to open completely on its own accord, revealing a pitch-dark emptiness. The darkness could not be pierced by the bright moonlight—like a whole that had no bottom. Then suddenly, just inside the doorway, outlined by the darkness, was a boy. The light that illuminated him was golden—like candle light or a lantern and didn’t seem to come from anywhere, but the darkness around the boy did not change. He was about 12 or 13. Staring, his eyes didn’t focus on anything in Matt’s room. He held an olive-green wall phone up with a long curly cord stringing across his chest. The boy fidgeted with something in his other hand, but Matt couldn’t tell what it was.
“Hello,” the boy paused. “Mom, come home.” He paused again, “It’s Michael….”
But before he had even finished speaking Matt heard a dial tone, then suddenly the boy vanished in a jerking sort of way almost like a bad connection. The dial tone still lingered in the air.
Matt woke up to hear his Dad opening his door to check on him. “Are you all right? Mom thought she heard one of you calling.”
“No, I didn’t, but someone was calling her in the closet,” He said.
But as soon as he blurted it out, he realized his Dad wouldn’t think ‘calling’ meant from a phone call and he also realized that he was talking about a dream. Matt was too tired to explain. Jeff meant phone call as well and he was also too tired to explain that their mother probably was just having a dream.
Jeff had check on all the kids and Matt was the only one who was awake and while he didn’t want to give credence to Matt’s imaginations, on the other hand the best way to deal with fear, real or imagined, is to find a way to face it. Jeff walked across the floor, unlatched and unlocked the attic-closet door.
He flicked the light switch next to the door frame and pulled the door open. He stepped into the room. “Come here Matt.”
Matt absolutely did not want to go in there. He hadn’t seen it since they moved in and he had been so afraid of all the noises and nightmares from it that he couldn’t bring himself to look in it. He didn’t obey.
“Matt.” His father spoke in a stern tone.
Matt felt his heart beat faster. He felt his fear in his throat. The relative few feet he had to walk to his Dad seemed like it took minutes. Then he was through the doorway, in the room, with his Dad’s hand on his shoulder. He looked around. The attic closet was a room about 8 by 10. The roof of the room started sloping about 3 feet into the room. At the far end of the room the wall was only about 2-3 ft high. Along the edges of the room boxes stacked up as high as the roof line. The boxes were labeled things like winter clothes, Christmas decorations, and snow suits. There was a random bit of disassembled furniture in front of some of the boxes on the far end of the room.
“Matt,” Jeff said with calmness, “There is no one in here. It’s just as it was after we unloaded the moving van. Nothing has moved and I see no evidence of mice or raccoons or any other animal.”
Matt nodded but did not fully hear his Dad. He had seen something written on the boxes behind the pieces of furniture that distracted him.
A few minutes later Matt was tucked back in bed, closet door re-locked and re-latched. Cat jumped on Matt’s bed with a loud purr mixed with a meow and curled up right next Matt. Matt sat up and snuggled his pet close. Cat was always there for him when he was sad, always comforting him. Matt sat there with Cat until his alarm went off. He was thinking about what he had seen in the attic. Written on the all boxes behind the bits of furniture was a name—Michael.
Cat had only one flaw as far as Matt was concerned. Cat always wanted to go outside and tried to with every possible chance. That morning they had left late going to the bus. He, Carrie, and Chad had forgotten about making sure Cat didn’t escape, but instead they had all run outside at the same time.
Cat darted between their feet and across the yard in a second. At that very moment the bus came down the street and it was all they could do to run and catch it. Carrie had forced him to come with her. All day at school Matt worried over his cat. He was mad at Carrie too. He wasn’t even sure if his parents knew the cat had gotten out. When they got home from school all three of them searched the yard for him. Matt kept accidentally calling him Cat instead of Charley which at first neither Chad nor Carrie noticed and maybe no one would have, since it is common to call any cat ‘Kitty.’ However, his big sister, Carrie, had a critical eye when regarding anything to do with Matt.
“Quit calling him Cat! He needs to hear his name!” she repeatedly corrected.
That made Matt defensive and eventually it escalated into a giant fight where each blamed the other for Cat (or Charley the Cat) getting away. Matt started crying and Carrie, afraid she might cry too, used her fear and sadness to fuel anger towards Matt and made fun of his crying. It was one of their uglier fights that only stopped when Jeff got home from work and broke up the fight. He sent them both to their rooms and got a box to use as a cat carrier and left to search the neighborhood.
Matt, in his room and unable to cry anymore, stared at the attic door. He thought about his dream from that morning of the boy in the attic. The boy looked familiar and Matt felt he knew him. That seemed very strange to Matt. Normally you feel emotions not thoughts or knowledge. How could he feel something he knew without actually knowing it? Matt took his suspicious gaze away from the attic closet and peered out of the window next to his bed. He saw his dad walking down the street toward their house carrying a box. Matt could not tell by the way his Dad carried it if there was a cat in it or not. Matt still didn’t know if Cat was in the box—dead or alive—or even if Cat had never existed like his little brother. While his dad made his way back to the house, all those possibilities were true for Matt’s cat.
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Copyright 2019 J. A. Goggans
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