When Sal entered his house, he was met by the pleasant aroma of food. Angel greeted him with great anticipation and a lot of love. Sal took a doggie treat from a bowl on a small table in the hall. The dog sat immediately down and stretched out her paw. “Not only are you clever, but you're also beautiful,” Sal said with a loving voice, gently petted the dog.
The smell of mashed potatoes, steak, corn, and garlic led him to the kitchen where he greeted his mother—he might as well get it over with. Angel followed him.
His mom looked up. “What happened to you, sweetie? Please don’t say you’ve gotten into a fight like your brother.” Sal’s heart sank.
So, Principal Johnson had informed them about the incident, just as he'd expected.
“Carl didn’t get into any fight. I don’t know what they told you. What did Carl tell you?”
“He didn’t tell me a damn thing. He’s hiding in the basement.” She sighed.
His dad and the twins came into the kitchen. “What happened to you?” His father surveyed him closely.
“Just basketball practice. The heat made it impossible for me to concentrate.”
“Let me look at you,” his father insisted.
“Really, I’m fine, Dad. I just got the wind knocked out of me.”
“You look like someone who’s taken quite a beating. Getting a concussion is no joke.”
Sal was in for it, now. He followed his father to his office.
“What's your name? What's the date? How old are you?”
Sal answered all of his questions correctly.
“Do you have a headache? Do you feel lightheaded?”
Sal answered everything with a no.
His father cleaned his wounds, found a stethoscope, and examined his heartbeat.
“Okay, then. You seem fine.” His father put the stethoscope down. “But take it easy with basketball. Maybe you should skip tomorrow's practice.”
Sal nodded.
Both of his parents were good doctors. They'd always been respected and revered by their patients and colleagues, treating people with humor and love as well as medicine, and they never judged any of their patients. His mother had taken on alternative medicine as well, treating people with things like acupuncture, beneficial healing from plants, and reflexology.
Sal rose from his chair. “Thank you, doctor.”
“Let’s eat.”
Carl was absent from the dinner table. The rest of the family ate more or less in silence. Sal knew what was up. His mother’s voice was so clear inside his head.
What had she done wrong?
Had she not given the boy enough love and attention?
Had she devoted too much of her time to her work?
She was in a terrible state of mind.
“It’s not your fault, Mom.” Sal looked directly at his mother. “You've always been there for us with love and support.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“He's just going through a rough time right now, graduating from high school and all that.”
A dark shadow crept over her face, and she tried to bury something deep at the back of her mind.
Sal was puzzled. He'd never experienced something like that before. It directed his attention to the unspoken.
He finished his meal, helped clear the dishes, and went up to his room where he sat in silence, watching the X-Files poster on his wall. The truth was out there. The truth was all that mattered, right? If that was the case, why did it feel like his mother was trying to bury it?
His phone made a noise, telling him he'd received an SMS. He unlocked it to find a message from an unknown number:
You might be a wizard, after all. I hope I didn’t scare you too much, but we had to know.
Who the hell were "we"?
Who was after him?
Mondays had never been so exciting. It only made his thirst for knowledge stronger.
When the house became somewhat quiet, Sal sneaked downstairs and into the kitchen. He grabbed a plate, piled on whatever had been left over from dinner, opened the door to the basement, and walked down the wooden stairs.
Carl resided in the basement. He appreciated the comfort and privacy such a place provided. He'd lived there since the age of ten, when he'd had enough of the noisy twins and his parents' watchful eyes.
At first, he'd slept on an old sofa with only a worn blanket as a cover. His parents had tried to keep out by locking the door, but Carl moved into the treehouse instead.
Carl had, on his own, cleaned out the basement and stuffed what had been worth keeping into the attic. It took him all of a weekend.
Later on, Carl and Sal had found furniture in a second-hand shop on Main Street, and the basement began to look almost habitable.
To Carl, the basement was his haven away from the family. He loved Sal immensely, but there was something about him that made Carl push him away. Maybe it was his popularity? Or maybe it was his strange capacity to make the world bend to his every command? Either way, there was something unearthly about Sal that could not be denied.
“Hey,” Sal said, choosing his words carefully “I brought you food. I missed you at the dinner table.”
Carl was on the sofa watching The Walking Dead. He turned his head slightly to look at his brother. “Thank you. Just leave it on the table.” He sounded cold. Sal chalked it up to not wanting to endure another interrogation about the event in the cafeteria.
Sal looked at the screen to see Daryl Dixon fire an arrow into a zombie's skull. His brother Carl showed a resemblance to the Carl on the show, Carl Grimes, Rick Grimes’ son. They had the same shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes. Like Carl Grimes, Sal had always felt that his brother had seen too much. He didn’t know how to explain it better than that.
“Have they reached Terminus yet?” Sal asked, not wanting to leave his brother’s side. They used to watch The Walking Dead together. It seemed so long ago now.
“Not yet,” Carl replied without taking his eyes from the screen.
“Remember when we used to pretend to hunt those bastards together?" Sal pushed on.
“What do you want, Sal? Did Mom send you?”
“No. I just wanted to talk, but I guess you’re too busy.” Sal turned toward the stairs.
“Come and watch this episode with me.” Carl’s voice softened.
Sal planted himself in the ugly, green armchair.
“Remember when we brought it home?” Carl pointed to the chair. “Mom looked like she was going to have a heart attack.” They both laughed, then Carl went silent. “What happened to your face?”
“Basketball practice.” Sal looked at the floor.
“What are you not telling me? You've never injured yourself this badly during basketball practice.”
“I simply couldn’t focus today. It must've been the heat.”
“Get up, Sal.” Carl’s voice sounded intimidating.
“What?”
Carl scrutinized his brother. He pulled on his t-shirt with such a rage, he ripped a hole in it, revealing Sal’s bruised back. “Who did this to you? Was it Alan?”
Sal shook his head and told Carl about Robin exchanging him for Eugene, the computer message, the SMS, and the attack in the locker room.
“There's something about you, Sal, something that frightens me. Maybe it’s time we started to dig deeper.”
“I frighten you? But I’m still me.” Sal felt his heart breaking.
“I love you, Sal, but you know things. How do you do that? The truth is out there, remember?”
Sal sighed and smiled. “So, you think I’m a freak, too? That’s okay, I guess.”
“That's not what I meant, Sal, and you know it.” Carl switched The Walking Dead off.
“I’m going to turn eighteen soon, and—God willing—I’m going to graduate from high school. I don’t know where I’m going with my life. Mom and Dad have given up on me, and I feel lost. Do you think any college will accept me?
“And you, Sal, you see right through me—you always have. Once, that was liberating, but now it’s a burden. I don’t want you to see inside of me and discover what a terrible human being I am.”
Sal clenched his hands around the armrests. “And still, I knew nothing of this. I didn't even know that you were a terrible person.
"I don’t want to lose you, Carl, but if I risk losing you by staying, I'll walk away.”
“Don’t go all Shakespeare on me, please, Sal.” Carl laughed, softening the mood. He switched The Walking Dead back on.
“Who am I, again?” Sal pointed at the screen.
“I’m Daryl Dixon, and you're Rick Grimes,” Carl replied.
“Why do you get to be Daryl?”
“Because I’m into nature and stuff.”
Sal laughed. “Yeah, I remember you trying to put up a tent—it looked like a cat chasing its own tail.”
Carl leaned back on the sofa. “Louise is pregnant.” The words had come out of the blue.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not the father, Sal. I haven’t slept with her.”
Sal was totally caught off guard.
“I went out with her last night, and she insisted I take her to Lover’s Hill. She was really aggressive with me, you know, trying to open my pants and kissing me all over.
“I didn't recognize her—the behavior was so unlike her—and I begged her stop. She started to cry and said she was sorry for trying to trick me. I had no idea what she was talking about, and she told me how she'd been out with Alan Hanson, and how he'd forced himself on her, and now she was pregnant. She wanted me to be the father of her child. Said it would be easier to cope that way. Strangely enough, she’d never really looked in my direction before.
"At least I learned what all the flirty texts were about.” Carl bit his finger.
“You know the rest. I went to confront Alan, and it all went to hell. I didn’t help Louise, and I sure as hell didn’t do any good for myself.”
“I’m sorry, Carl. How is Louise?”
“I don’t know. She won’t return my texts or calls.”
“I guess we both had a shitty day,” Sal said, sounding tired.
“Not as shitty as that guy!” Carl nodded at the TV. Sal thought he'd meant some poor human being shredded to pieces by zombies. He hadn't noticed Carl had switched the channel to the news. Apparently, a businessman had been found knifed to death in Serenity Park just an hour ago. Someone had anonymously reported the murder.
Serenity Park was an old, fifty-four-acre park with benches, ornamental trees, flowers year-round, and water fountains. It had roller-blading tracks, basketball courts, jogging tracks, and skateboard basins, and vendors were selling hot dogs, burgers, and ice cream.
Among the slightly green statues, clumps of tall rhododendrons, and old swings, dogs exercised with balls and Frisbees. Next to the playground, where moms watched their young ones at play, enthusiastic Barcelona fans were carrying out a soccer tournament.
The park was a happy place. It had served as a venue to many happy times and probably many more to come if bad things didn't become commonplace.
The police were on the lookout for the victim’s vehicle, a stolen, blue, BMW M3.
Sal's throat tightened.
Could it be the cat killer’s car?
Would he be the next victim?
Sal did not know, but he was sure he would find out.
He spent the rest of the night on the sofa, in the basement with Carl, staring up at the ceiling.