Chapter 12: Part Two

It was the sickening kind of pain that starts in one place; in this instance, it was at the ankle, setting his nerves on fire as it shot up his leg and eventually reached his gut. And David hadn't even broken anything. At least, he hadn't heard a disturbing snap, and when he reached for the ankle he'd managed to roll in the fall, he was fairly certain that everything was where it was supposed to be... if he didn't count himself.

Looking up, he felt uncomfortably shocked as he stared at the night sky visible behind his mother's shadow looming other the hole above, and in that moment--only in that moment--as he lifted his hand, as if to reach for her, he wished. He wished that for the slightest second she would just be his mother. A real mother. One who'd climb down into the vile space that was to be his prison and just... do whatever it was that mothers were supposed to do.

He sensed her sealing the metal plate over the opening before she'd even reached for it, and he tried to call out, but nothing more than a startled gasp escaped his lips even as he struggled to say his words. "Don't leave me here!" he choked out, even as it became too late, and as he struggled to his feet, wincing as his weight reached his ankle, he was left in darkness. "You don't know what you're doing," he whispered, reaching out to hold himself against the nearest wall, and fighting off the revulsion he felt as his hand came into contact with the slimy surface. He closed his eyes, as if it would help him adjust to the dark faster, but even with the mild glow coming from the vent, it seemed impossible... just like the basement at home. In the dark. He hated the dark.

David forced himself to be careful as he reached into his pocket, his entire body, inside and out finding a certain calm as he felt his lighter. His thumb felt sweaty, his actions unstable, and it took him several times to ignite the small flame, but the light was a welcome intrusion, even as it revealed exactly what he was facing.

The area was tall enough for him to stand in, as he knew it was, but so... closed. It felt crushing. Fungus. Mold. He didn't have to see it to know it was there. The stench was overpowering. But, he didn't dwell on these things. Couldn't. He could feel his eyes growing as heavy as his body felt, and as he looked around for a dry place on the floor he became frustrated to see the shine of moisture all the way to the back wall. So, his focus came to the spot where the mulch at his feet looked the deepest. Kneeling in it, he held his lighter safely out of the way and moved his free hand into the puddle, searching the stone floor with his fingertips until he felt a grated surface and began to clear whatever mud and other obstacles there were away from it until he heard the drain swallow.

It wouldn't be long until it backed up again. He knew that. And while the situation was hardly what he'd describe as good enough, he also knew that he'd have to make do, and do it in a hurry. Forcing himself up, to move towards the back wall where the moisture wasn't quite ankle deep, he propped himself up in a corner as he looked around groggily, and then taking a deep breath, he allowed the lighter to go out as his hand searched the surface of the wall until his thumb came up against a crack that was just big enough for what he needed. He forced the lighter in, hoping that when he woke it would still be there before he crossed his arms over his chest, closed his eyes and wondered how bad the pain would be when the numbness wore off. Rest it away, he told himself. Rest it away, and then... get out. Get out before he began to look around the dark walls... before he remembered what had happened the last time he was trapped between them.

"Did you have to kill it?" Oliver's voice whispered in his ear.

David jumped as his eyes snapped open, and he looked to his right. David was kneeling next to him, running a finger over the dead doe's long ear.

"She was so pretty, David," Oliver said.

It was either her or that damn chicken of yours! David hardly prevented himself from snapping. He took a deep breath as he roughly ran his hand over his face. "If you didn't want to look, you could have gone with Dad to bring the truck closer," he pointed out.

"We shouldn't have to kill things, David," Oliver said quietly. "We could get stuff at the grocery store..."

"Dad's cheap!" David snapped, deciding not to add, and he likes to kill things. He hated conversations like this. Especially, the way that Oliver looked at him during conversations like this. He'd never really understood how he and his brother could have practically the same face when Oliver could make his look so... vulnerable. "I'm sorry, okay? But you knew what was going to happen when you came out here, and I can't take..."

"I said I wanted to go home, David," Oliver reminded him.

David stood up, grinding his teeth. "Just... shut up, Oliver," he snapped. "Don't make me... I don't..."

"You're turning red, David."

"That's because I don't want to argue with you!" David responded, genuinely ready to tear his own hair out. It was times like these that he found it entirely too difficult not to voice his frustrations with his family--especially with his father. But back then, he'd made a point not to say too much to Oliver. It was a fear, really. Oliver loved their parents. And why not? They loved him back, David thought. If he started saying bad things about the two people who Oliver called Mom and Dad... well, he couldn't help but wonder if something like that would cause his brother to turn his back on him... and that, David wouldn't handle well. Sometimes--more often than not, actually--he felt like Oliver was all he had in the world. "Listen, let's just go figure out where he's parking the truck so we can..."

David felt his voice drop down to nothing as he stared straight ahead, his body becoming frigid as the muscles became almost afraid to move... afraid to startle the big brown eyes no more than eight feet ahead of him. The fawn was so young that its spots hadn't even begun to fade away, and it seemed almost too small to David to be out there in the woods. Too innocent. And while he waited for it to dart off at any given moment, something in his instincts told him that it wouldn't. It was there, in the way it was looking at him--there was caution, but not that expected fear. And it was cute. If David were to move at all during that moment, it would be to scratch his head because the notion of finding something--anything--completely adorable was just... weird to him. Kittens and puppies and even the family of raccoons that had frequently come by their house the spring before--he'd seen it all. They were just animals. Not cute. Not cuddly. Just individual lives passing him by; but the fawn--it was cute. The smile, the pleased one tugging at the corner of his mouth felt abnormal to him, causing the muscles in his face to quiver, but he liked it. For a moment, he liked the feeling of being...

It didn't really matter. The moment passed as soon as he heard his brother gasp behind him, and then Oliver whispered, "You killed its mother, David."

Dropping his eyes towards the ground, David found that he really didn't want to look at the fawn anymore.

"But you didn't know it had a baby, David," Oliver quickly added, as if he sensed the darkening of his brother's mood as he moved to his feet. "I didn't mean to... I'm sorry, David."

"It's fine, Oliver," David replied quietly. "It's not like you're wrong, anyway." He reached down slowly as he glanced at the deer again, lifting a stick.

Oliver watched, his eyes steadily widening as his brother began to move towards the fawn. "What are you doing, David?" he demanded, quickly running forward to grab for the hand in which David was holding the thin, fallen branch. "Don't."

"Oliver, we've gotta scare it away," David responded, as if it was supposed to be common knowledge.

"No!"

"Yes!" David snapped. "Look, we've gotta scare it away before he comes..." David groaned. It was the way that Oliver was looking at him. Again. "Oliver... it should be afraid of people, anyway!"

Oliver looked at the fawn, and then frowned at David. "But it doesn't have a mother anymore," he said. "What'll happen to it if it's out here all by itself?"

David didn't answer that question. Truth be told, he didn't want to think about the answer. "So what do you want me to do about it?" he grumbled, knowing what his brother would say before Oliver said anything at all.

David could remember the rest of that day clearly: the way he helped his brother approach the fawn until they'd caught it; the way that the small animal didn't seem to mind being handled at all... and he remembered Oliver begging their father to let them take it home. It hadn't taken much convincing. And then there was dragging the fawn's mother to the truck, which Brian had parked on a road closer to them than he'd originally stopped on. But that's where things became strange for David, because Brian hadn't told him to help carry the carcass, he'd had Oliver do it, leaving David to carry the fawn.

Something had changed. David had been unable to explain it at the time, but as he watched his father moving ahead with Oliver, joking with his brother as if they were old friends--because they were friends, in a way that David had never been invited to understand--David simply knew. It was what exactly he knew, that seemed to be in question. But it was there in his father's face, every time the old man looked over his shoulder and met David's eyes with his own deceptively friendly ones. There was something there that told David that things were going to change. He didn't know how, and if he cared to take the time to think about it, he likely would have concluded that life could get no worse, therefore it didn't matter. But it was still there--the silent warning he remembered creeping into the back of his mind that day. And while he didn't know if life would change, something told him that he would. He held the fawn a little closer, as if the innocence of the creature could shield him from something that decidedly, was not.

Day One

Oliver Martin sat on the front steps in front of his house, resting his chin in the palm of his hand as he looked across the lake. He couldn't see Frank's house with the trees in his way, but that didn't stop him from staring in the direction. Waiting.

Oliver knew that there were a lot of things that he didn't understand. Like, why his head hurt, or why there was an uneasy feeling in his gut--a feeling that told him something was wrong. Not necessarily physically, either. And he knew that he'd forgotten something important, too. It happened like that sometimes. David always told him that it was because he didn't want to remember, but Oliver didn't understand that, either, and this time he wished that he did, because exactly three hours ago, Frank Seaberg had left without saying goodbye to him, and he didn't know why. And Frank had told him... down there in the dark, he'd told him that everything would be alright.

Maybe Frank was confused, too, though, Oliver thought. He remembered waking up in the basement, finding Frank there with him. Frank had said some things that... Well, as much as Oliver wished that he could remember what had happened before he'd woken up in the basement, he didn't want to think about the things that Frank had said down there. Bad things about his parents, and Oliver did not want to think bad things about his parents. But the way Frank had left...

"Oliver..." His mother's voice was gentle, but it still made him jump when she took a seat beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "Why not come inside now... you must be hungry, and you'll feel so much better if you take a little nap. Don't you think so?"

Oliver shook his head. "I don't wanna take a nap."

"Well, then come eat something then; how 'bout..."

"I don't want to eat," Oliver cut her off in a startlingly firm tone. "I wanna sit here, so when Frank comes back he knows I waited for him."

Mary fell silent next to him. For a moment, even her breathing ceased to exist as she looked at her son as if he'd said something particularly peculiar. "But Oliver, you don't need to..."

"Why did Frank leave, Mama?" Oliver suddenly asked. "Why did he go like that?"

Mary pursed her lips for a moment, and then looked at Oliver, even while he turned away from her. "He's not coming back, Oliver."

"Yes he will," Oliver replied, just as quickly.

Mary felt her frown deepening. There was something in his posture, his voice... it wasn't right. Not right for this son. And she found it frightening, and maybe a little surprisingly infuriating as she suddenly grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. "He's not coming back, do you hear me, Oliver? He's not!" Mary released him when she saw his eyes widen, that familiar uncertainty in them that she often saw cross Oliver's face, and she forced herself to calm down as she smoothed the reddened spot on the side of his face that she'd created with her tight grip. "I'm sorry, Oliver, but it's true... Frank's not going to come back. He told us."

Oliver balked. "Why?" he demanded.

Mary swallowed, straightened her shoulders, and looked him in the eyes. "You know why," she said quietly. "David... he's misbehaved again, and Frank..."

"Frank said David wasn't bad!" Oliver responded, his voice beginning to shake. "Frank said... he said..."

Oliver stopped, staring at his mother as if he expected everything she'd just told him to go away, and she continued to watch, waiting to see if he was going to continue. When he didn't, she simply smiled in such a way that had the hair on Oliver's neck prickling in a way he didn't understand.

"Come inside and eat something, baby. You'll feel better."

But Oliver didn't move, not even as his mother stood and left him there. He heard the squeak of the screen door open and close, her footsteps fading away inside--quiet voices as she encountered his father somewhere in the house.

David wasn't bad. Frank had told him that. David wasn't the reason why Frank had left like that. He couldn't have been, because David wasn't even there. But still, Frank had left... but he'd come back. He had to come back, because they were friends. Frank cared. Frank liked him. He'd come back.

But why had he left at all? Why had looked at Oliver like... like his mother was right. Oliver didn't understand. He hated it when he didn't understand! And he hated that he was sitting there alone, that Frank had left, that David wasn't there to tell him why... David would know. If it really was his fault, like his mom said, David would know, and he could tell Oliver how to make Frank come back, and...

Why wasn't David there?

Oliver swallowed hard as a thick knot rose in his throat, and an eerie feeling took over every nerve from his head to toes as his muscles froze up, like he was experiencing the feeling of a disturbing nightmare that had woken him in the night... just without any of the frightening details, except perhaps an image or two, promptly pushed from his mind.

When Oliver stood, his movements were slow, but he felt as if he'd moved into his house in an instant, where he followed his parents' whispers to the kitchen.

"We can tell him something else--anything else," his mother was saying, although he was too focused on the question running through his mind to completely absorb her words. "Just think about it, Brian, it's madness! And people around here, they'll start to talk as soon as they hear..."

"They never paid enough attention to talk," Brian replied. "It'll work... and you're gonna help me make it work, unless you want the truth to come out."

Mary was silent for a long moment. "I can't do this to Oliver, he's fragile enough; if we..."

"He's a complete moron, Mary," Brian cut her off. "That what he is, it's what he's always been. No one's gonna pay any attention if he starts talking like a crazy person; besides..."

"Oliver!" Mary said, sounding startled as she suddenly looked up to find her son staring at them, bewilderment in his expression. "Oliver..."

"Mom," Oliver said, as if he hadn't heard a single word either his mother or father had just said. "Where's David?"

Mary's jaw dropped as she looked at her husband, an old habit she'd acquired from years of not knowing what to say. Not knowing what lies to tell. And if ever there was a time she wished she would have broken it, it would have been now. But then, it was too late before she knew it.

"David's not here, Oliver," Brian answered.

Oliver frowned. "But I wanna talk to him, Dad. Was he bad? If he's in the basement I'll stay in there with him... and..."

"He's not in the basement," Brian interrupted.

Oliver fidgeted with his hands as he diverted his eyes to the old tile covering the kitchen floor where they wandered until he finally focused on his father's thick, black boots. "Where is David?" he asked again, this time sounding, and feeling, much too uncertain.

"Son," Brian replied. "You know better than to ask such silly questions. There is no David."

He wouldn't disappear. He'd get out of this, and whether or not they liked it, he existed. He'd show them. He wasn't just going to disappear.

But god, it hurt. His eyes snapping open, David Martin pushed the upper half of his body from the moist, hard floor he'd been lying on for... well, he wasn't certain how long. Less than a day, he imagined. The light still hadn't faded from the drain opening, unless it had and he'd managed to sleep through it... but time didn't seem to matter as he felt the painful tightening in his gut right before he retched.

It wasn't the first time, and now he was almost used to the foul stench of his prison mingling with his own vomit. He was used to the pain, inside and out, and he had decided six times that his mother hadn't simply subdued him with drugs--she'd poisoned him. But also six times, he'd also decided that she couldn't have. Of that, he was certain. He supposed that if Mary Martin were to purposely kill anyone it would likely be by poison. Less confrontation that way, and she hated confrontation. But still, he doubted that this was the case. If he was going to die now, his parents being responsible, David came to the conclusion that it would be there. This hole. This place, and with no aid from poison.

But, he reminded himself as he moved slowly, and painfully to a sitting position, propping himself against a corner further away from his most recent mess--he wouldn't die. Not yet, anyway.

David couldn't remember the exact moment when he'd realized that his parents hated him. Hated him. Because they didn't simply disapprove of him, or dislike him. They hated him, and he was pretty sure that they liked it that way. And while the matter of why had run in and out of his mind for as long as he could remember, something about this place made him wonder how. How did things ever become... this way?

Whatever it was, it was their fault. He'd made his peace with that years ago, no longer willing to carry around whatever guilt he thought he was expected to feel. Because really, as far as David was concerned, he hadn't done anything wrong. Not really. It had taken him some time to get there, though. Because really, when you were hardly out of diapers and your parents insisted that there was something wrong about you--something bad--then you believed it. And this was how David Martin was introduced to himself, how he'd learned to think of himself. For a very long time. It hadn't mattered that he remembered. Remembered and knew that the things they told him weren't true. It hadn't mattered until later, when he'd become angry. When he'd had enough.

Looking around the darkness, attempting to avoid the foul visual that the meager amount of light that the drain offered him, David tightly closed his eyes. He'd definitely had enough. And how? Maybe the why still didn't matter so much, but he supposed that it was a damn good question, too. But the problem was, there were no answers for it. No reasonable answers, because his parents always gave him the same answer. He was evil, you see. Cruel. A wicked child, who not even God would have the sense to forgive. And it was because he'd taken his brother's life. Or rather, he'd taken the life that Oliver might have had.

Oliver had been intelligent, strong. Born a full three minutes and eleven seconds ahead of David, there was a time when Oliver had done everything first. He'd been the first able to roll over, to crawl, and to stand. He'd even started to talk a whole year before David moved past the only word he ever managed to say: his brother's name. But, it hadn't mattered back then. They were happy, or so David was told. He and Oliver were the best of friends, and everyone was happy.

Until he ruined it. His grandmother's house. David didn't remember her now, but he remembered the house. There'd been a window in the room he and Oliver shared while they were visiting, and he remembered looking out it. Not very clearly, but he remembered some things. Like, the park across the street. He and Oliver would wake up after their naps and just watch the other kids, wishing that they could go play, too. He was positive that he remembered looking out that window. He even remembered it being opened a crack, the cool air hitting his face, refreshing him every morning as the sun warmed the sky. But what he did not remember was the one thing that his parents talked about every time that window came up in conversation. What he absolutely couldn't remember, was pushing his brother out that window.

Because it hadn't happened. And if it had, David was damn sure that he would have remembered it. He would have remembered it, and it would have been an accident, because, Christ--he'd been three. Not that that even mattered, because it hadn't happened.

"I didn't do it."

The sound of David's own whispered, coarse voice startled him into opening his eyes as he wrapped his arms more tightly around his chest and drew in his knees, fighting off a cold chill.