Nowhere Blvd: A Horror Novel (3 page)

“Jack,” said Nanny Gurdy.  “I think Misty here doesn’t want to stay.  She wants to go home.”

“
Reallly
,” Jack asked.  His smile never faltering even in his evident surprise and concern.  “Of
course
you can go home if you want Misty.  Anyone here can go home any time they want.  But if you leave you can never ever return to Nowhere Blvd, and we have so
much
to show you.  Are you
sure
you want to leave?”

Misty’s only reply was once again a tearful nod. 

“Ok Misty,” Jack said.  “Nanny, take her to the house and get ready to take her home.  But Misty won’t you please wait a moment before leaving so
I
can come say goodbye.  You’ll wait at the house a moment for
me,
won’t you Misty?”

Misty nodded again, smiling, and her and Nanny went off hand in hand.

Jack watched them leave then turned to the rest of the children, his eyes and voice grave even if his expression wasn’t. 

“There is one thing, children, that you must remember above all things,” he said as the last rays of light faded behind him.  “I didn’t want to tell you this before because I didn’t want to scare you, but it isn’t safe to go out at night in Nowhere Blvd.  It’s very very dark and you could get very lost.  Worse still, there are the Rejected Things in the forests of Nowhere Blvd.  They don’t dare come into town during the day, but at night...Well of course it’s perfectly safe locked up here in the cabin, my magic protects you here.  But if you tried to go outside, anything could happen...”

The idea seemed a little silly to Spencer until he looked around at how dark it had become in the cabin in just the last few minutes.  He could barely make out the faces around him.  Jack’s grin almost floating in the dark like the Cheshire Cat’s. 

“And then you’d miss out on all the wonderful FUN we’re going to have tomorrow,” he said, lightening up in tone.  “Well goodnight children, goodnight!”

With that he slipped out the door, locking it from the outside (the only door with a lock Spencer had seen in Nowhere Blvd).  Spencer wasted no time undressing and getting into bed.  He thought for a moment of what Jack had meant by “Rejected.”  He couldn’t really guess, but the connotation of a sort of monster was pretty clear.  He thought he would be awake for a while thinking about it in this strange place, but instead fell asleep soon after and dreamt dreams he soon forgot.

*   *   *

Spencer’s parents had done a pretty good job of putting a bedroom together for him in the few days he’d been locked up in the hospital.  His old bed, his old dresser, even a lot of his old toys.  New clothes, which he supposed represented his mom’s best guess at his size.  Same old closet, which he wasn’t happy about.  But he had some ideas on that.  He’d thought back to his second trip between the worlds through Jack’s Grand Closet.  However it worked, it needed darkness.  He knew it somehow, could just sense it on the trip back.  Somehow the darkness
was
how it worked.  And unlike in Nowhere Blvd, here artificial light was plentiful.

Things with his parents were awkward.  He remembered the house, and remembered them.  Yet still it felt for all the world like he was with strangers in a strange house.  Despite Spencer’s not having said a word, his mom talked non-stop, as if to avoid any unpleasant silences.  His father barely spoke at all, clearly at a loss for what to say.  Baby Suzie would spin around and play pointlessly for awhile, then demand something of her parents and scream when she didn’t get it.  Spencer found himself getting annoyed by her fast. 

In addition he felt crowded, and on edge.  Worse yet, he couldn’t stop sneezing.  His eyes burning and watering. 

“Allergies,” his mom said.  “We’ll have to get you some medicine.”

Spencer didn’t remember having allergies, but on the other hand he hadn’t been around so much as a flower in at least two years, so he figured he just wasn’t used to the air.  For lunch they had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sitting around awkwardly at the kitchen table.  He remembered the snack as being one of his favorites, but now it only tasted strange.  When the food in the hospital had tasted strange, he’d assumed it was just because it was hospital food.  But he realized now it was him.  The sandwich gave him stomach cramps, as if his body didn’t know what to do with it.

He’d dreamt about this house and fresh air and bright skies and real food for years, and now all of them seemed to be assaulting him in different ways.  It all made him on edge, made him angry.  He felt he’d been cheated somehow, been given a dream come true only to find out nothing was the way it was supposed to be.  He wanted to be somewhere else, but didn’t know where.

That night Spencer skipped dinner (breakfast and lunch was already more than he was used to eating in a day).  He went to bed at nightfall, like you got used to doing living in the woods.  In truth he could barely keep his eyes open, the day had exhausted him.  He didn’t know how sitting around a house could be more exhausting than hiding from a forest full of monsters, but didn’t question it.  Before bed his parents made him brush his teeth, a process which was painful and produced not a small amount of blood from his malnutritioned gums. 

In his room he left the light on, closet door open where the light could reach every corner of it.  His parents had left him with a nightlight, which he plugged in under the bed so the light would reach the shadows there as well.  After he’d pushed the bed in front of the door, of course.  He didn’t plan on allowing himself to be cornered in here.  He tried to lay on the bed, but it was too soft and hurt his back.  Instead he took a blanket and pillow and slept on the floor, a substantial step up in comfort from what he was used to.  He rested with his fingertips touching the cool steel of a knife under his pillow, which he had snuck from a drawer in the kitchen. 

He thought that the light would make it hard for him to sleep.  Instead, surrounded by light he slept better than he had in a long time, waking only once per hour to check and make sure the room was still secure. 

*   *   *

The second day in Nowhere Blvd, and several after that passed much the same.  Rides at the amusement park, swimming and fishing at Jack’s Lake (no one ever caught any fish).  Playing in the park and eating at Nanny Gurdy’s and the snack shops.  Most days he got to see Perfect Girl Julie.  Sometimes he would ask her to tell him more about Nowhere Blvd.  Once he asked her what Jack had meant when he said he had “made” the Perfects from ordinary boys and girls.  Instead of answering, she just got a faraway look in her eyes and told him it was a secret.  He didn’t like secrets, but something told him not to press the point.  Most of the time there was a lot more play than talk, the Perfects were great at all kinds of games. 

Every night at least one of the children would decide to go home, Jack always seeing them off.  It was a whirlwind of fun and magic and making new friends.  It was hands down the best time he’d ever had.

Spencer knew his parents must miss him, like Wendy’s parents had missed her in Peter Pan.  And like in that book he knew he would eventually return to them and everything would be all right.  But he meant to be the last to do so, to not leave until all the other children had.  Somehow in his mind he thought this would convince Smiling Jack of his loyalty and courage.  That this would maybe allow him to be granted a passport back to Nowhere Blvd, not to be sent away forever like the others.  Maybe he could even become one of the Perfects.  He didn’t know how he could live the rest of his life knowing that there was a magic place he was never allowed to go back to, just the boring old real world.

Of course, that was assuming it really
was
magic.

Once, when Spencer had been in second grade, there had been a magician at his school.  All the classes got together in the auditorium to watch the magic tricks, two grade levels at a time.  Spencer had loved the show, even more than the other kids.  He loved the idea that there was magic in the world, and not just the boring everyday of class and chores.  So after he saw it with his grade level, instead of going to lunch with everyone else he snuck back to see it again.  He knew that he’d be caught if he tried to blend in with the older kids, who were cruel and best avoided.  So instead he snuck around the way he knew to the back of the auditorium.  He remembered it from the Christmas pageants they’d been in, singing carols to their parents in the audience.  He hated the pageants, but remembered the secret backstage areas.  His mom sometimes said he was real good with directions.

Watching the show from behind was thrilling despite the fear of getting caught.  He looked out from a gap in the curtain not just at the magician, but at the whole audience.  He loved that he could see them without them seeing him, same as when he hid behind the couch to listen to adult TV shows after he was supposed to be in bed, only better.

Except the tricks didn’t work from behind.  The various levitations and magic boxes, from behind they weren’t magic at all.  You could see the bars, the hidden panels.  At first he thought the magician did a different show for the older kids, one without the magic, though he couldn’t understand why he would.  But eventually he realized that the audience was just as amazed, they were seeing the same thing from their side.  But from behind you could see how it really was, that is was all just pretend. 

Far from being excited to be let in on this secret, Spencer was terribly disappointed.  In one day he had both gained and lost all wonder in the world.  These events by no means convinced him that there was no such thing as real magic, only forever after that he always looked behind things.  Didn’t ever take things at face value. 

Which is why he couldn’t just let it go when Jack said never to go out at night.  He figured seeing the nighttime of Nowhere Blvd would be like the back of the theatre.  If that’s what kids weren’t supposed to see, then that is where you could see how the tricks were done.  He had no intention of proving it was all fake, he'd be happier to prove it wasn't.  It was more like stealing a little magic for himself, to take home with him. 

He planned in advance for that night, stuffing tissue into the hole in the door jamb, so the door wouldn’t close all the way when Smiling Jack left that night.  He figured if anyone noticed it he would just play dumb, it wasn’t like they could fingerprint tissue. 

That night it was the twins that decided to go home.  Spencer felt a pang of sadness at that, he’d grown close to them and liked to look after them.  They were his favorites of the few kids who were left.  All that remained were a handful of the younger boys and girls and the oldest boy of the original group. 

The twins came and hugged him goodbye, little Bobby and Benny whom he had just learned to finally tell apart.  As Jack walked them out of the door, Spencer felt a lump in his throat and wondered if he would ever see them again back in the real world.  As the door shut behind them, Spencer watched it very carefully for the workings of his harmless sabotage. 

He waited a little while and then, feeling confident everyone was asleep, he slipped on his clothes and made his way to the door.  It didn’t open on the first pull, but when he slid the thin edge of a ruler he’d taken from one of the stores into the gap it was loose enough to get open the rest of the way. 

He slipped out quiet as a mouse, leaving the door just the tiniest fraction of an inch ajar so he could get back in later.  Outside is was dark, much darker than the city he grew up in.  And not just because there were no street lights.  There was a moon, a fairly huge one actually, as if it were much closer than normal.  Like the sun, it would fade and glow in place rather than rising and setting.  But despite this moons large size, it didn’t cast much light, and where the stars should be was only inky blackness. 

Spencer was afraid of the dark, a little anyway.  Much less than most kids, but still a little.  Yet even in the dark, finding the way to Smiling Jack’s mansion would be easy.  It was a straight shot north upon the road.  It would be harder to miss it than to find it.  Even if he lost the road, the hill it stood on dominated the whole north end of Nowhere Blvd and he would only have to walk up. 

As he walked he was amazed at the silence of Nowhere Blvd at night.  No cars, no buzzing streetlamps, no insects, not even wind.  Just his own footsteps and breathing to keep him company in the whole universe.  It was almost maddening.  He only had to tolerate it for a few minutes though before he felt the ground rising beneath his feet as he climbed the walkway to the front of the mansion. 

The large black doors stood there waiting, no lights on that he could see through the windows.  He had no idea if they were unlocked or not, but figured that the front door was no way to sneak in to a house when the people inside were home.  A house this big had to have lots of other doors.  He snuck around the side, wondering if all the dark windows meant everyone inside was asleep. 

Until he finally did find one window with just a little bit of light coming out.  A basement window, rising only a couple feet up from the ground.  He put his face to it, saw that the room it looked into was dark, but the hallway beyond had light trickling out of it.  He remembered that his aunt and uncle who lived in the woods didn’t lock their doors, so decided to take a shot at the window being unlocked by the same principles.  He jammed his fingers into the gaps around it as best he could and pulled.  The old wood was stuck, but after a few tries he got it to come loose, a little louder than he would have hoped.