AMONG THE ANGELS

Hunter reached from his cage for his bear blanket, cold iron bars pressing his ribs. Two fingertips found the blanket’s edge, enough to tease it into a grip over time, and pull it in. He wrapped tight with his stuffed animal rabbit, a chill carrying the bite of charcoal and chlorine from the neighbor’s yard. Pine trees in the window came alive, rustling under the moon and singing with the river.

     Hunter’s parents were long in bed when a finger tapped the downstairs coffee table. Five taps, the first softest and the last loudest. The ghost was back, and soon the rising taps would be on his bedroom door. Its memory ran Hunter’s cheeks cold, arms prickly as chicken skin. He pulled his arms to his sides like a nutcracker, firing wide eyes to his rabbit striped by moonlit iron bars.

     Something fell in the living room. The ghost never did that before. It always tapped walls, jammed doorknobs, or pressed a finger into the mattress at his feet.

     Hunter squeezed his palms together. “Dear God, please do something and get rid of that ghost for once!” He looked at his smallest bruises textured by goosebumps. “And for the thousandth millionth time, do something about my parents, too!”

     Out his cracked door, a shadow passed behind the staircase slats. The air filled with a scent too hard to describe, maybe squished lightning bugs and his dad’s tequila, with cherries and olives. Hunter’s heart raced to the wonders of the strange. He reached from his enclosure, pinching the base of the padlock’s tumbler. His parents never knew he could let himself out in urgent times.

     Hands on greasy carpet, Hunter passed a plastic car and a dark green soldier, advancing to the door for a closer look.

     Between the banister poles, the shadow of the angel’s head bobbed on the living room wall, a silhouette cast in blue light from a vintage VCR. Then she stood still for a long time with her pointed ears.

     The angel turned. Her shadow stretched oblong. It formed something large and scary for a house, like a horse. Hunter gasped. His shoulders jumped. The shadow pranced, jumping the wall in struts, shrinking and contorting while nearing the steps to his bedroom.

     He stood and backed from his door, tongue draining to dry. A rumble of paws drummed the carpeted steps, Hunter’s heart following pace. Claws clicked on the hardwood, inches from his door, and his hands shook. Thoughts flooded his brain. What did his prayer do? But then the scrapes and scratches barreled off, rushing away from his bedroom.

     He heard his mom scream like people in scary movies. A loud crash, thump, and his dad shrieked an even higher pitch. The sound of his father charging, falling, then running from their bedroom, into the hall. The bathroom door slammed, rattled, locked.

     Hunter could barely control his body, knees coming apart. Chin vibrating, he focused hard on trembly steps to the door. Clammy hands touched the wall for support, leaning around the door to peek. He saw a huge dog down the hall and his body locked. The dog, at least the width of two adults, stood as tall as Mrs. Martin at school. It stood outside the bathroom, sniffing the air coming through the door.

     “Harol’!” the canine cried in a human voice. It was Hunter’s mom’s voice, imitated perfectly. “What in the world? Havin’ nightmares again?”

     “No, you’re dead!” Dad’s voice, muffled by the oak of the bathroom door, shook. “I saw it! I saw it,” his voice trailed, “I saw it kill you!”

     “Then how the hell am I talkin’ to you?” the creature replied in his wife’s voice, then chortled as she often did.

     “I don’t. I don’t know.” A brief silence. “It’s your, you’re a ghost or somethin’.”

     “Puh-lease. Then why don’t I just pass through this door then, Harol’?” the fake voice paused, and Hunter heard it fighting a snicker. “I ain’t no ghost. We had dinner and we went to bed! Now, come on! You’re havin’ the dreams again—”

     “Go an’ look then!” Dad said. “I’m telling you, you’re dead! You’re still face down in there!”

     “I ain’t dead, Harol’! You had one of them dreams!”     

     “Yes—you’re dead! Over by the dresser!”

     The stand over the toilet fell since Hunter heard a loud crash of canisters spinning across the floor.

     “Look, it’s a Tuesday night, well Wednesday now,” the dog reasoned. “We had meatloaf. You came home from havin’ drinks with Ron. You know that ain’t no lie. Now come on, Honey, you had a dream and you know it.”

     Hunter watched the bathroom door crack open. A sliver of light revealed a strip of red hair along the tall creature’s face, and a reflective yellow eye that glared hatefully.

     The dog now spoke in a deep and masculine tone that sunk Hunter’s chest and dizzied his head. “Get the fuck out here.”

     A thin, leathery tail whipped into the narrow light of the doorway as Hunter’s father screamed like a banshee, then went silent. Hunter scrambled back, the feet of his pajamas slipped, and he fell.

     The noise alerted the canine. Deep thumps rumbled down the hardwood, straight for Hunter’s door. Deep, hearty laughter burst from the creature. Hunter lurched backward, hit his cage bars, and scraped his hand. He kicked and scrambled, crawling under his bed. The noise stopped.

     From a floor-level view, Hunter saw the being’s shadow stretch the hallway boards.

     “Boy?” called his dad’s voice, complete with the drunken slur, but Hunter knew it was the creature. The voice and claws drew closer. “You havin’ the dreams again?”

     Hunter curled his legs up and crossed his arms, a sharp chill swarming his body. He could tell the animal mimicking his father stood inches outside his room.

     “Ya’ know, Boy, I hear an’ smell so good, that I knows where you are in there. You under that bed, breathin’ real good.”

     Hunter covered his mouth as the door slid open and one red and furry leg, like a lion’s, stepped into the doorway.

     The beast spoke in what might be his own, deep and resounding voice, though still slurred. “Believe it or not, I’m okay with you kids.” The giant dog stumbled in, the frame cracking against his shoulder. “What I mean is; what I — I don’t like how they taste!” The monster erupted with a ferocious roar that rumbled Hunter’s chest.

     The boy uncovered his mouth to throw a quick scream at the animal. He tried to hide the shake in his voice. “Get! Go away! Get out of here!”

     “Don’t push your luck.”

     Hunter sucked in hard through his nose. “I didn’t want it like that! Go away!”

     The leg backed from the doorway.

      “You messed up the prayer!” Hunter yelled. “You got it wrong, so go away.”

     Wood crumpled and snapped outside Hunter’s door, followed by a twisted explosion of glass, wood, and metal. Like a train crossing the living area, Hunter heard furniture crushed and thrown.

 

The house lay void of sound, even its most seldom creaks, and the silence unnerved Hunter. He stepped from his room, careful not to let his pajama footpads scruff the floor. Blue light from the downstairs TV revealed a large span of missing stair rails. Hunter peered over the stairway ledge to the living room, as if atop a castle overlooking a city in ruins. The television cast lit one side of every piece of overturned furniture.

     A broken coffee table centered the mess, with objects strewn about like a tornado passed through.

     Hunter’s toes pressed the edge of the shattered railing, a warped set of stairs beneath with another break in the railing. The angel must have rolled down and ran off. Suddenly, something clicked to his right. He jerked his head to find the hall in darkness, the open door to his parents’ room barely visible past the bathroom light.

     He stepped toward the bathroom slowly, thinking about calling for his mom. That thought stopped him in place. Hunter knew what he prayed, left to question what an answered prayer looks or sounds like. He heard the beast carry their voices, whether in possession of their ghosts or masterful mimicry. It seemed God had done something.

     Hunter descended the staircase one step at a time, wondering why God might make angels look the way they do. And must they take care of business with so much noise and bad words, or is that what parents like his deserve?

     “Puppy?” he called out. “I’m not as mad as I thought. Can we talk about it?”

     There was silence in return. Across furniture upturned like mountain peaks, the kitchen archway stood lit within from a fluorescent bulb. The creature who answered his prayer certainly went there. The boy’s shoulders leaped when the motors of the VCR whirred with a soft crackle of metal and plastic. With a final click and snap, the video player powered down.

     The TV blue screen flashed black with the room, leaving the kitchen light the only visible path. A scent of tequila, olives, and the indistinct grew pungent at that very moment. Cold covered the air without warning.

     Nearing the white light spilling from the entryway, Hunter’s eyes adjusted. Around the wall, he saw the dog’s tail on the kitchen floor. It looked leathery and its deep red color blared against the cream linoleum. At the end of his tail, a spaded tip just like the ones to devils in the cartoons...