Mason (9 page)

Mason heard about Rene over dinner. He'd seen her picture on TV but didn't really understand what the lady with the pretty blond hair was saying about her. He thought it was kind of neat to see a picture of someone he knew on the television, and he told his aunt Molly all about it over dinner.

“But why is she on TV?” Mason asked.

Aunt Molly looked up from her plate of casserole and shrugged. “Maybe she won a prize,” she said.
Please don't let him find out. It'll just crush him
.

Mason took a big gulp of cola and shook his head. “I don't think so. I'd think if she won a prize, everyone would be smiling, but the news lady didn't smile at all. They showed pictures of the woods over to the other side of town and another place I don't know. I wasn't even really paying attention until they showed a picture
of Rene, and it was really pretty, but by then the news lady was talking about something else.”

“So he knows?” Gene asked as he came into the kitchen, looking like he'd just heard a funny joke. “Good. We really shouldn't try and keep things like this from him. It's counterproductive to his development.”

“Gene,” Aunt Molly said, startled. “We were just…”

“Sad. Sad business.” Gene walked around the small table and leaned down, putting his arm around Mason's shoulders. It felt like a crawling snake. “I'm sure Rene will go to heaven, Mason,” Gene said.

“Oh now, don't,” Aunt Molly protested. “Gene, please.”

“She'll be with all the other angels. It's really the most we can hope for.”

“Gene! That's enough. You're scaring your brother.”

“Rene's not with angels. You only get to be with angels when you die,” Mason said.

“Exactly,” Gene replied, patting Mason's shoulder and pulling away. He crossed to the refrigerator and retrieved a can of soda, leaving Mason to simmer in fear.

Something bad happened,
Mason thought.
Something awful. That's why Rene was on the television
.

Mason shook all over. Aunt Molly reached across the table and patted his hand. She tried to smile, but it looked more like she'd banged her shin on the coffee table.

“Rene was hurt, Mason,” Molly said. “That's all. She
just got hurt. She's in the hospital, but she's going to be fine.”

“The hospital?” Mason said. People went to the hospital and didn't come back.
Mama
.
Daddy
.

“She just needs to rest a little. They're taking care of her.”

“I want to go,” Mason said. “I want to see Rene.”

“You can't, honey. Not just now.”

“Well, if he wants to see her alive, he'd better get over there quick.”

“Gene, I don't want to have to tell you again.”

“Otherwise, she's just another angel.”

Mason trembled and felt the sting of tears in his eyes. Rene was his best and only friend. Something bad happened. She went to the hospital. People never came back from the hospital.

 

After dinner Mason paced his room frantically, going back and forth, trying to burn away his concern. The exercise didn't work, though. He still felt frantic. So he sat down at his desk and began to draw, but the pictures all came out dark and terrible. Mason's nerves were so tense, he accidentally snapped his pencil. He opened the drawer of the desk to search for another and came across a set of colored pencils. Aunt Molly had given them to him as a Christmas present. He'd forgotten all about them because he got the gift after
Gene told him to stop drawing.

Using the colored pencils, Mason began drawing the park. He lost himself in the bright hues of green and gold and blue. Whenever something dark and nasty came to his mind, Mason fought it really hard, because the picture had to be nice if it was going to make Rene feel better. The grass spread out on the page with hints of sunlight and shadow on every blade. The river ran in the back, rippling and churning against the far bank. Lightning leaped in the air to catch his tennis ball. People walked or spoke to one another, and everyone was smiling. Mason sat with Rene on a checkered tablecloth, having a picnic. She looked really pretty, just like she did at Frank's, only she wore a white dress, the kind she always used to wear when they were children. In the picture, she laughed and held a big glass of lemonade.

It was a good picture, and Mason would take it to the hospital tomorrow and give it to Rene. She'd like it. It would help her get better.

It had to.

It just
had
to.

Mason walked along the outskirts of Marchand, his tennie-runners kicking up bits of dirt and rocks. He'd never gone to a hospital before. He'd seen them on television, on programs where pretty people in white coats talked and joked, but mostly yelled and cried. He knew his mama got hurt when he was a boy. She went to the hospital and never came home. When his daddy got sick, he went to another hospital, and he never came home either.

Mason hoped Rene would come home. He wanted to see her and know she was okay, and he would do it, no matter how scared the hospital made him feel.

Just another angel
.

Mason kicked the dirt and stomped forward. Rene said Gene talked like that to be mean because he liked being mean, and Mason thought she was right.

Though it was wrong, and he knew it was wrong, he didn't think he'd mind very much if Gene went to a hospital.

 

Warm air greeted him when he stepped into the lobby. It didn't look like the hospitals he saw on television. Instead of little rooms with lots of machines shoved in them and people scrunching by one another rushing from one place to the next, the lobby was quiet, with blue sofas and tall, leafy-green plants. It smelled a little like the bathroom at home right after Aunt Molly cleaned it, but there was a sweet smell over that bathroom smell, kind of like bubble gum. The people wore all kinds of clothes, but Mason didn't see a single white coat.

Unsure of what to do, Mason took another tentative step inside, looked around at the sofas and the plants and the hallways and a long desk with an old man sitting behind it. He walked to the desk, and the old man looked up from a book he was reading and peered over the top of his glasses.

“I'm looking for Rene,” Mason said, uncomfortable under the old man's gaze.

“Rene?” the man asked.

“Yes, please. Rene. She's my friend.”

The old man put down his book and took off his glasses. He smiled a little and leaned closer to Mason.

“Is your friend an employee or a patient?”

“She got hurt.”

“Well then,” the man said. “That would make her a patient. And what was your friend's name again?”

“Rene,” Mason told him. “She's my friend since we were babies.”

“Those are the best friends to have. Now tell me, what is Rene's last name?”

“Denton.”

The old man nodded. “Let me see what I can find out for you.” He lifted a telephone and punched at the buttons.

Nervous, Mason looked at the cover of the man's book. On it, a strange man with a dog's head emerged from a black background, snarling and looking angry. He'd seen this kind of beast before, in movies on the television, but he couldn't remember what it was called. It didn't matter. The picture interested him. Mason's gaze followed the arc of the creature's brow over the points of its ears and down the long, powerful jaws. He noted each tooth, its shape and its sharpness. He observed the color of the eyes—yellow like gold coins—and the tongue—pink and black.

“Son?”

He studied the rounded, muscular chest and the big arms ending in pointy claws. It wasn't a very good picture, not like some he had seen, because the shape
didn't look real, and it was supposed to be covered in fur but the hair was drawn badly.

“Son?” the old man said again.

Mason snapped out of his reverie. “Yes, sir?” he asked, having forgotten why he was standing at the counter in the first place.

“Your friend is upstairs. She's in intensive care. You can go up if you like, but you may not be able to see her.”

“She's in a tent upstairs?” Mason asked.

The man smiled. “
Intensive care
,” he said. “Maybe I'd better show you.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. You always had to say thank you.

The old man stood. He was taller than Mason and really thin. He walked away and Mason followed, noticing how the man's arms swung when he walked. They turned a corner, and Mason found himself looking at a wall with three elevator doors in it. The old man pushed a button and stepped back.

“Now, when you get inside, press the button with the five on it,” he said. “When you get out of the elevator, just walk down the hall to a big counter and tell one of the people there your friend's name. They'll get you set up right as rain.”

Right as rain
—his aunt Molly said that sometimes, and its familiarity was reassuring. Mason smiled and
thanked the man again.

Upstairs, he did what he was told. He stepped off the elevator into a hallway that smelled like the clean bathroom at home, only without the bubble-gum scent over the top of it. And this place did look like the hospitals he'd seen on television.

Men and women, old and young, all in white coats, walked the hall. They didn't even look up at him, but that was fine. He went to the counter like the man told him, and a pretty woman with black hair and green eyes said, “Can I help you?”

“I'd like to see Rene, please. She's my friend, my best friend since we were babies.” Mason wanted to say more but stopped himself. He was scared of this place and was worried that he might get in trouble for being here, and the woman with the black hair was looking at him like he'd done something wrong.

“Rene Denton?” the woman asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Are you a family member?”

“She's my friend.”

“I'm sorry, young man,” the woman said, though she didn't look sorry to Mason. “But Ms. Denton can't have visitors just now.”

“Oh,” Mason said, looking down at the floor. He shoved his hands in his pockets, felt the folded piece of paper with the picture he'd drawn for Rene. Maybe the
woman would take Rene the picture. He didn't have to give it to her himself, just so long as she got it. It might make her feel better.

Before he could pull the picture out, a hand fell on his shoulder. Startled, Mason jumped. He turned around and saw Rene's mama and his heart slowed a bit.

“Mason?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said.

Mrs. Denton looked really tired and sad. Her eyes were pink, and her hair didn't look as pretty as it usually did. It was kind of smushed down on one side and really tangly on the other.

“Did Molly bring you out?” she asked, looking around the room.

“No, ma'am,” Mason said. “She said I shouldn't come, but I brought Rene a picture to make her feel better.”

“That's very sweet,” Mrs. Denton said, but she started crying.

“I've already informed the young man that your daughter isn't seeing visitors right now.”

“It's okay,” Mrs. Denton said, sniffling. “Rene would want to see him.”

Mrs. Denton wrapped her arm around Mason's, and the fear he'd felt since walking into the hospital grew worse. It was like Mrs. Denton was really afraid too,
and when she touched him, a lot of that fear ran into his body.

“Is Rene okay?” Mason asked.

“We hope so,” Mrs. Denton said, squeezing his arm a little tighter. “We're praying.”

They walked around the desk, past two men in white coats who were looking at a clipboard and whispering. Ahead of them stood walls of glass with white curtains behind them. The rooms inside were dark except for glowing machines and small lamps. Mason hesitated, feeling as though Mrs. Denton was leading him into the mouth of a monster.

“It's okay,” Mrs. Denton said. “You don't have to go in if you don't want to.”

But he did want to. That's why he came. He was just being a baby and he knew it. He said, “She's my friend,” and they continued to the room.

Inside, Mason saw someone on the bed. It didn't look like Rene, though. A big white cap covered her head, and a square bandage covered her cheek. The other cheek was purple and yellow, the way Mason's arms looked after Gene hit him with the sock. A tube ran over the girl's face, and machines hissed and clicked and beeped around her. But it wasn't Rene. Was it?

“Is that her?” he asked.

“Yes, Mason,” Mrs. Denton said, sniffling loudly. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped at her
eyes and nose. “She was hurt very badly.”

“Is she asleep?” he asked. “I don't want to wake her up.”

“You can't wake her up,” Mrs. Denton said. She started to cry really hard then.

Mason felt responsible. He knew he'd done something wrong, said something wrong, like always. Why was he such a doorknob? Why couldn't he ever say the right thing?

He felt like he might cry too. “I'm sorry,” he said.

“It's okay, Mason,” Mrs. Denton said through her crying.

But it wasn't and he knew it. He should just leave. Rene wouldn't be able to see his picture anyway, not if she was asleep. He should just give it to Mrs. Denton or tear it up and throw it away.

“Your pictures piss people off
,” Gene had said.

Looking at Rene, anger joined the fear in Mason's body. Gene lied. People liked Mason's pictures. They told him so. Maybe Rene was asleep and couldn't see the nice picture he'd drawn for her, but he could put that same picture in her mind if he wanted to. If he wished hard enough, he could let her see the park and the river and all of her friends and the sunshine and a nice fried-chicken lunch and big cups filled with lemonade.

Mason gently removed Mrs. Denton's arm from his,
and he walked across the room. Closer now, he recognized Rene beneath the bandages and the terrible bruises. He reached out to hold her hand, imagining the perfect Sunday afternoon at their favorite place, wishing she would dream of it until it was time to wake up. He wanted to put his palm on her forehead like his mama had when he felt bad as a boy, but the bandages there scared him. So he slid his hand under hers, really carefully, instead.

Her skin felt warm on his. It was nice, even though he was still frightened. He concentrated as hard as he could on the nice picnic picture; it had to be perfect to make her feel better. But something terrible happened.

The dream of the park and the smiling people and the chicken lunch turned dark as if a sudden thunderstorm rolled in from above. The trees at the edge of the park raced toward him, closing in like an angry mob, and the river slid closer. The grass he'd imagined turned brown and black, melted into leaf-shaped globs. Familiar faces appeared. They were mean and frightening. When the picture finished changing, Mason saw that instead of the park, he was in the Hollow. The faces came closer. And he was scared. So terribly scared.

“Mason?” Mrs. Denton said from the doorway.

He let go of Rene's hand. Sweat poured off his
brow and into his eyes. He stepped away, mouth open, trembling.

“They shouldn't have done it,” Mason said, still terrified by the faces in his mind. “They shouldn't have.”

“Mason, are you all right?”

He didn't answer. Instead, he ran out of the room, knocking into Mrs. Denton and not even saying he was sorry. And he kept running. He raced down the hall, voices raised at his back. He turned a corner and kept running as if the terrible people in his head were chasing him.

Mason found a stairwell and stomped down it as fast as he could. At the bottom, he threw open the door and sprinted along the hall and into the lobby. The nice old man who had helped him find Rene called out to him, but Mason didn't stop running, not until he was all the way home.

 

Mason sat on the floor of his room, eyes squeezed tightly against the pain in his chest and his head. He'd never felt so frightened and lost before. Sadness, anger, and fear coiled in his skull and behind his ribs. Usually, when he felt bad, he thought about a nice spring day or playing with his old friend Lightning, or some of his mama's nice chocolate-chip cookies, but none of these familiar comforts helped. Nothing helped.

Mason yanked the paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He stared at the picture he'd drawn for Rene. The park. The picnic. He hated what he saw there. The nice picture was a lie. Rene's picture, the one he'd seen when he touched her hand, was more real.

He stood and carried the sheet to his desk. He slapped the page on the table with the pretty picnic scene facing down. He snatched a black colored pencil from the edge of his desk. Then he started sketching, his hand moving so fast and his fingers squeezing the pencil so tightly that his muscles ached after only a minute. He kept drawing and drawing, though, hoping to get the terrors out of his mind. But even when the picture was complete, and he gazed at the four faces captured on the page, more terrible pictures remained in his head.

The dark and oily thoughts were just too strong to be banished. He pictured the trees of the Hollow, wrapped in the bodies of a thousand black snakes. Not a single leaf or branch or bit of bark was visible beneath the serpents. The ground oozed and pulsed under a blanket of wet, rot-black leaves. Faces floated above the ground. They were terrible faces, twisted up with ugly smiles and hateful frowns. Their mouths moved. They yelled. They laughed. Each movement of their lips brought another flash of pain, another layer of fear.

“Stop it,” Mason whimpered into the room.

More creatures appeared in his vision. A great flock of crows with ember-orange eyes and shredded feathers flew through the black woods to perch on the moving branches. Their bellies were opened; bits of their insides poked out and dangled above the dark forest floor. Dogs, similarly abused and long rotted, emerged from among the tree trunks, forming a grotesque pack behind the hovering faces. Black shapes, creatures Mason was unable to fully imagine, slunk in the shadows and clutched at the serpent-ringed trees.

It was all so awful. Mason couldn't take any more of it, so he opened his eyes.

But the haunted forest did not vanish when his eyelids parted. It remained all around him. The walls and floor and ceiling of his room were gone. The woods rolled out ahead of him, seemingly endless, and Mason was trapped with the beasts it harbored.