Free Nowhere Blvd: A Horror Novel by Ryan Notch Page A

attention to him.  Plus he figured if TV was as good as he remembered, movies would be too.  It was all going fine, almost like old times.
    Until the lights went out.
    Once that happened he realized he might as well have been in a giant closet.  The theatre was all dark corners and dark faces.  The light of the screen somehow made it even worse, blinding you.  He tried to ignore it, to tell himself he was safe and to enjoy the movie.
    Surely Jack can’t just show up in any dark room he wants, he thought.  It couldn’t work that way.  There’s got to be more limits than that.
    But as the movie wore on the fear just got worse.  He’d see forms slinking out of the shadows.  See Jack’s face on people in the rows behind him, smiling down at him.  He only made it half way through the movie before he couldn’t take it.  He ran for it, stumbling out of the theatre to the relative light of the lobby. 
    He stood there, waiting.  He was content to wait, didn’t mind waiting for his mom and Baby Suzie to finish watching the movie.  But she came out anyway, dragging a crying Suzie behind her. 
    “It’s all right Spencer, we can see it another time,” she said half heartedly.  He could barely hear her over Suzie’s wailing.  Wailing which continued all the way home, driving Spencer to a simmering and barely controlled rage.
    Several hours later Suzie was still in rare form.  She’d skipped her nap and was basically throwing one marathon hours-long tantrum, still complaining about the movie in her garbled gibberish way (which Spencer figured was a new record in her attention span for anything).  Spencer’s mom was loosing her cool, and Spencer himself was far beyond that point.  His dad was working late, which he could tell was also contributing to his mom’s anger and the general bad temperament of the whole house. 
    Finally it all came to a head when Spencer decided to turn on the TV and drown her whining out.  She toddled up to him and grabbed at the remote.
    “DORA!  DORA,” she screamed.
    Spencer yanked the remote away from her savagely, swinging it in an arc that knocked her arms away at the same time.  The sickening snap that followed was unmistakable.  Spencer had heard the sound of bones breaking before.  He’d broke peoples bones before.  There was no mistaking that sound, or the way Baby Suzie’s arm hung at a wrong angle. 
    There was a breathless moment of stunned silence from her, then the scream that followed was unlike any that had preceded it.  It was a scream of pain. 
    Spencer stared at her, stunned. 
    Jesus, he thought.  How could anything be so fragile?
    Spencer’s mom rounded the corner into the living room.  She took one look at Suzie and guessed at what had happened well enough.
    “How could you!” she screamed at Spencer.  She picked up Suzie and went straightaway to the garage.  Spencer heard the car leave a few moments later, obviously to take Suzie to the hospital.  He was left alone, not knowing what to do with himself.
    Fucking stupid kid.  She should have known not to mess with me.  
    This was it for him, he knew it.  They’d never keep him after this.  Baby Suzie was their real child, he was just somebody they all had to live with.  There was no competition between the two.  They’d send him back to the hospital, or somewhere else.  After all he’d risked to get back, he was going to be expelled again. 
    He went to his room, not wanting to be around to face any of them when they showed up.  He sat in the corner with only a lamp for light.  Stared at the open closet, his hand on the lamp’s power cord.  Thought about turning it off, letting them come for him.  He felt angry at Suzie, or something like it.  The truth was he didn’t really know how he felt, but whatever it was it was terrible.  He wanted it to be over.  All of it.
    Maybe it was for the best that they send him away.  The truth was that his parents acted like they had