Mania. Craig Larsen
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muffled, as though they were trying to make themselves heard through the fabric of a heavy, wet blanket.
“You boys live around here?”
Neither of them had heard the stranger approach, and they both swiveled their heads toward the man dressed in black at the same time.
“You have any more of them sandwiches?” the stranger asked when neither responded to his first question.
Something was wrong about the man. He was dressed in an elegant coat, and the scarf around his neck was as soft as cashmere. He was wearing black leather gloves, nothing like the nylon and polyester ones men like their father would wear. The man’s face, though, was a ravaged mess. His hair was shaggy and greasy, and his skin was drawn. His eyelids were swollen above his brown, empty eyes. He gave off a strange mixture of scents: the rich smell of expensive wool and leather, then the raw, sour smell of cheap whisky. Nick understood without being able to articulate the observation that the man was wearing stolen clothes.
“We only made enough for ourselves,” Sam said.
“You live around here?” the man asked a second time. He looked up from the boys to survey the landscape, as though he might be looking for a house nearby. Nick realized how menacing the sky had become and how hard the wind was blowing. His legs were all at once icy cold. His lips had become purple, and his teeth chattered loudly.
“Just over there, by that road,” Sam lied.
The man continued looking past the brothers. “I don’t see no road,” he said at last.
“It’s hard to see in the snow,” Sam said.
The stranger’s countenance changed. Nick realized that his eyes had become the eyes of a predator. When he took a step toward them, Sam leapt from the wall onto the ice. The dark sheet cracked beneath his weight.
“Come on, Nick!”
Nick understood that he was supposed to be scared. Still, he held onto the remains of his sandwich in his gloved hand as he pushed off the wall to join his brother. He hadn’t appreciated yet that they were going to have to run. He became aware of the half-eaten pieces of bread and bologna from Sam’s sandwich scattered at his brother’s feet.
“You boys don’t have to be skerred,” the man said. He was moving toward them now, and there was no mistaking the intent in his dead eyes. Nick was too young to put the danger into words, but he understood it nonetheless.
Sam shoved Nick hard. “Go!” His voice was urgent, but Nick didn’t move. “Go!” Sam said again, shouting this time. “Run!”
Nick hesitated a moment longer, but when his brother began to skate, he at last dropped his sandwich and pushed his legs forward on the ice, digging his blades into the soft surface as forcefully as he could. Panic rose in his chest as Sam pulled ahead of him. He could hear the stranger’s slippery footsteps right behind him, and the rasp of his ragged breath. The man was gaining on him.
“Wait, Sam,” he cried. He was choking for air, barely able to make a sound. “Wait up, Sam!”
In seeming slow motion his skate got caught in a deep rut in the ice. His right foot was yanked away from him. His knee torqued, whipping him around and knocking him off balance. He tried his best to catch himself, but even as he struggled he knew that he was going to fall. His hands hit the ice first, then his knees and his elbows and his chin. The metallic scrape of his skates catching the ice and the cacophony of his tumble crashed around him as he skidded to a rough stop on the unforgiving surface of the frozen lake. His mouth was full of snow. “Sam!”
The ice turned red in front of him as he shouted, and his lips felt warm and tasted briny. A bloody stain leached across the ice. The man was just behind him, nearly on top of him. Nick writhed on the ice, preparing himself to resist, certain that the man would catch him and kidnap him and that he would never see his parents again.
“Sam!”
Nick’s eyes were squeezed closed when Sam’s hands grasped his shoulders. When he opened them again, the rusty blades of Sam’s skates were glinting just next to his eyes. “Get up!” his brother was saying, yanking his arm. “Come on, Nick. Get up!” When their eyes connected, time stopped for a split second. Nick wasn’t aware of Sam’s hands hoisting him from the ice. You’re my brother. The words passed unspoken through his mind. Thank God you’re my brother. “Come on. Run, Nick. You’re going to have to run.”
Nick rose to his knees, then, scrambling, was back up on his skates. The left lace had come loose and the skate wobbled on his foot, but he pushed off anyway, propelling himself forward. He imagined that Sam was next to him. A few moments later, though, the sounds of flight resolved into nothing more than his own panicked breathing and slicing strokes. He realized that he was fleeing alone. He shifted his skates sharply to the left and, with a fizz of shaved ice, slid to a short, controlled stop. He was dizzy, so nauseous that he thought he would throw up. Sam was still standing in the same place where he had fallen, waiting for the man to catch up to him. He glanced over his shoulder at Nick. “Run, Nick,” he shouted. “Run!”
“Come with me,” Nick replied weakly. He couldn’t understand what his brother was doing. He couldn’t fathom the sacrifice. The man reached Sam before Nick could think what to do next. He felt himself burst into frightened tears, powerless to protect his brother from the approaching violence.
Just as the man reached Sam, the ice broke. The two of them plummeted into the water together. Sam had time to shout for help before his head went under the water. “Nick!”
His brother’s voice ripped through Nick’s body with the force of lightning, and Nick skated as fast as he could, back in the direction he had come, back toward Sam.
Nick didn’t remember much after that. Sam told him, though, that he had skated right to the edge of the hole in the ice and, lying down, had pulled his older brother out of the water. The next thing that Nick remembered was stopping at the side of the lake to lace his boots back on.
Shaking uncontrollably, Sam was peeling off his wet jacket and shirt. Nick took in his brother’s bluish skin, then quickly tore off his own jacket and sweater and gave them to his brother to wear. Nick noticed that Sam’s face was twisted with fear. “We’ve got to go, Nick,” he said. Nick had the impression that his brother was barely seeing him. He watched as a wad of mucus stretched from his nostrils, then slid down his face.
Collecting his things into his arms, Sam took a few halting steps away from the lake. Nick held his elbow, keeping his brother from losing his footing in the slippery snow as they climbed the embankment. Once they reached the road, the two brothers ran the rest of the way home, their skates digging into their ribs, their hockey sticks gripped in their frozen hands.
Nick woke Sam late that night, holding the lens of a flashlight against Sam’s mattress, shaking him on his arm. Sam awoke in a cold sweat and yelped, then saw his brother’s face in the eerie reddish glow emanating from the flashlight. “What?” he said. “What is it?”
“I’m scared.”
“I know,” Sam said. “But don’t worry. No one’s going to find out. No one knows where we were today.”
“It’s not that,” Nick said.
“What?”
“What if that man followed us home?” Nick asked.
“What are you talking about?” Sam asked him. His face was a collage of shadows in the dimming light of the weak flashlight, gradually darkening as the batteries died. “He didn’t follow us anywhere. Don’t you remember what happened?”
Nick felt stunned. He wasn’t sure what his brother was asking him.
“You really don’t remember what we did?”
Nick shook his head.
“You can get in bed with me if you want.” Sam lifted the covers to let his younger brother climb into the narrow bed next to