Chapter Two

            Thomas was alone.

At the foster home, he was just another kid. With Louise missing, everything was missing. Laughter and conversation had been taken by the dark hand. Even arguing and slamming doors were missed. The house was one long dreary day.

He missed his Mom and Dad; it was more the memory of them, a life distant and vague. The Hand took more than Louise.

School was worse. From day one, the other kids avoided him. He was known as “Delusional Tom.” Some called him “Crazy Tom.” It was almost amusing how the different groups could not decide on what to call him: DT, CT or that kid. Almost amusing.

The girl, Mason, who sat next to him in English, was the only one that bothered to give him a smile, every day for the first five days of school. It’s a polite smile, courteous, hiding her fear, but a smile nonetheless.

All week, teachers and counselors were all “Hey, Tom,” and “How’s it going?” and “We should try to take some steps.” They were concerned, but distant. “It’s a tragedy what happened.” Yet, he knew that, like the kids, they had heard his story of the door, the shadow world and the hand. They had that look in their eye of concern and of suspicion. He’s heard them whisper too, and he caught words like “therapy,” “mental trauma,” “blocking out reality,” and “Could it be drugs?”

Williams, however, was just clueless. He talked to Tom as if nothing had ever happened. “Hey, Tom,” he would say. “Your journal mentioned a hand grabbing and hitting. I like the metaphor. You should work with that more.” What the hell is that all about?

It came down to one thing. No one believed him.

He was alone.

And that’s what he was writing in his journal, “I am alone.” He had written it over and over, and without realizing it, the words became a hand, dark and mighty, grabbing Louise. He had drawn the picture again.

Tom looked out from the corner of his eye. Her face was afraid. Yet, he also recalled how she had been defiant too. She had not gone “quietly into that good night” as Williams said the other day. But, that was about someone dying. She was fighting. She had not given up.

Nor would he. But, what could he do? He felt hopeless.

Tom looked at his drawing of the hand below the words, “I am alone.”

Where did it come from? Where did it go?

He felt anger rising up into him. Heat flushed into his head. He felt it prickle down into his neck and shoulders. It was burning. He felt it, but he knew it was not real. The sensation of heat moved down his arms. They throbbed. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The surge of heat moved into his hands, then to his fingers. His fingertips itched with pinpricks of heat.

Fire flashed where his fingers held his paper. He heard a shriek, but his eyes remained on the flame incinerating the drawing.

“Tom,” said a voice.

He did not move. All he could see was some wisps of smoke and ash.

Prologue

            It was not dark, but Louise was afraid. It was as if the fading sunlight promised that something dark, other than night, was coming.

She was at house number three, at the corner, then four houses down. Her and Autymn were seven houses a part. Seven was Louise’s lucky number, so when she had moved in with her foster parents, it made sense that she would make friends with Autymn.

Yet, as she rounded the corner, a chill ran up her spine. She had insisted that she could walk home by herself. She was ten, and she had done it before, so why was this evening different. Not to worry, she could always run. Her house was just three away. Louise could see her brother playing basketball in the driveway.

There was a shudder of air, maybe a ‘whoosh’ sound from behind. A blast of cold hit her back and swirled about in front of her. She stopped. The cold air seemed to take the shape of a hand. It moved toward her and pushed against her. Something whispered to her.

“Turn around.”

Slowly, with her body against the translucent hand, Louise pivoted to look behind her.

In the center of the sidewalk was a dark rectangle, like a door. It was as if a picture of another place appeared where there should have been a sidewalk, grass, the neighborhood and sky should be. The setting in the door was dreary with fog and shadowed ground of a heavy forest. It stood in sharp contrast to the pleasant neighborhood Louise was familiar with.

Something within moved.

“Louise,” said the whisper. “Come to me, Louise.”

And Louise, a smart girl, summoned her courage and said, “No.” She twisted against the invisible hand and put her shoulder into the palm and pushed. She made three steps. Through the hand, as if looking through a plastic bottle, Louise could see her brother running out of the yard toward her. He was too far.

“Hold on Louise,” he was yelling. It sounded like it was in her head.

Her eyes blurred from the tears of exertion against the hand.

Again she heard his voice. “Fight, Louise. Fight.”

Anger welled and she punched against the hand. It wavered back, and she took another step. Her brothers distorted form was closer. He looked as if he to were pushing against something. She punched again. This time the hand did not move. A thought flashed into her mind.

Louise put her back against the hand, counted to three, and then dove forward onto the rough cement of the sidewalk. The cold hand rushed over her and into the dark door. Thunder rumbled from inside. In a flash, Louise jumped back to her feet as a ‘Ha-ha’ broke from her grinning mouth.

She ran to toward her brother. He was struggling against the other hand when it seemed to darken as it solidified into dirty water. It became stronger. It knocked him to the ground. Then, as if he were a bug, it rose up high and came smashing down upon him with a hard slap of water on cement.

Louise screamed. Her brother lay motionless in the receding puddle.

From behind, out of the door, came another dark hard that seized her and pulled her away. In another swirl of wind, the door shut.

The only sound left was a skittering of a few innocent leaves in a dying breeze.