Tanner awoke with a start. Light was streaming through his open window and he thought the neighbor’s garbage can was rolling down the driveway and into the street.

“No, God please no,” a man’s voice screamed. “Please somebody help me!”

Then all was silent. It must have been a dream, he thought, rubbing sleep filled eyes.

Tanner turned his head on the pillow and looked at Mickey staring back at him from the night stand. The mouse’s eyes rocked back and forth in time with the mechanical gears and wheels in its transparent belly. 12:15pm. It was after lunch and he was feeling hungry.

Tanner didn’t remember much after going to bed the night before. He had not felt well so his mother had made him go to bed early. She should have got him up to get ready for school though. Even if she were letting him stay home, which she sometimes did when he didn’t feel well, she should have woke and kissed him goodbye before she went to work.

A lot of things didn’t seem to work the way they usually did anymore.

Tanner sat up and pulled the covers back before slipping out of bed and putting his bare feet on the hardwood floor. It was cold and his bladder jumped with the shock. He really had to pee. Shuffling across to the door, he crossed the darkened hall into the bathroom.

He wished his father were still here.

Mommy said he had gone to live with his hussy in St. Louis. Tanner didn’t know what a hussy was but when she it her forehead wrinkled and her lips pursed downward as if she had eaten something sour. Mommy never said anything about daddy since but some nights Tanner heard her crying in the bathroom or throwing something in the kitchen.

Tanner remembered seeing his father for the last time six months ago. His mom had let him come to the airport that day, which was strange because it was a school day and she didn’t let him miss school unless he was sick.

He had sat in the front seat next to his dad while mom sat in the back staring out the window. Dad had asked him about school and if he thought he might like to play little league next year. All the while, he stole quick glances in the rear view mirror, frowning occasionally, before asking Tanner another question.

When they arrived at the airport, dad took his bags from the trunk while mom fished her car keys from her coat pocket and got into the driver’s seat.

“I have to be gone for a while,” dad had said. “but I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Where are you going?” Tanner asked.

“Just business little buddy,” he replied, ruffling Tanner’s hair.

Then he walked away, never turning back once, and mommy hadn’t said a word the whole drive home.

Tanner flushed the toilet and went back into the hall then downstairs. In the quiet of the empty

house each stair creaked like the whine of deserted, small animal looking for attention.

He padded into the living room and stopped to pick up the remote from the end table. Tanner hit the power button and the screen came alive with color, showing a man in a suit and tie sitting behind a desk. He was talking and his face looked serious but the volume was muted and Tanner could not make out what was being said.

No matter, Tanner thought. It was probably the dumb old news anyway. He would surf for cartoons later.

Tanner dropped the remote in the chair and went into the kitchen where he saw a note on the refrigerator held in place by a bright blue, magnetic T. He walked by the kitchen table and pulled the half sheet of yellow paper down.

Tanner,

Mommy loves

The bottom of the note had a heart and a line of Xs and Os.

Tanner put the note on the table behind him and opened the refrigerator door. He pulled out a loaf of white bread and the jelly then closed the door before reaching up and placing the items on the counter. His nose was just above its lip, high enough to see the cookie jar against the back splash but still too short to make a sandwich.

He pulled one of the chairs from the table across the vinyl floor and stepped up onto the seat to reach for the cupboard where the peanut butter was kept. He was distracted, however, by a succession of pops outside and then the sound of breaking glass.

Quickly, he slid off the chair and ran into the living room. Darting across the braided throw rug, he launched himself onto the sofa before peaking out between the partially closed drapes. He smiled as the springs bounced him gently a couple of times before allowing him to sag between the over stuffed cushions. His mom hated it when he jumped on the furniture.

Tanner stuck his nose to the window, trying to see through the fog and condensation on it. A draft beneath the sill made his arm sprout goose flesh as his gaze panned across the street to his neighbor’s house.

Mr. Fletcher was standing in his front yard pointing something at a woman in a bathrobe who was slowly walking up the slight incline toward him from the sidewalk. A man, shoe less and shirtless, lay face down in the grass at his feet.

Tanner heard the pop sound again and the woman in the bathrobe jerked to the right before gathering herself and lurching forward. Mr. Fletcher pointed the thing at her again but this time nothing happened. He screamed and threw it at the woman before turning to flee towards the house. The woman in the robe stumbled after him, undeterred.

More people wandered around in the street as Tanner backed off the sofa and headed back to the kitchen. He wasn’t sure what was going on. Adults did strange things sometimes. Mommy said some people never grew up or took responsibility for what they did. They just played around with their lives and the lives of others. Maybe that was what Mr. Fletcher was doing, playing some sort of game with those people.

Tanner decided when he grew up that was the kind of person he would be. The kind of person

who got to play games. Mom talked a lot about responsibility. He didn’t like responsibility. It only seemed to make people unhappy.

As he walked into the kitchen, he glanced at the television again. The man in the suit and tie was still talking and behind him was a grainy picture of a street with several burning houses and a crowd of people stumbling through some smoking canisters on the ground. Other people seemed to be running from the crowd and their mouths were open as if screaming.

Tanner’s brow furrowed. He didn’t like this show. When he finished making his sandwich he would definitely watch something else.

Back in the kitchen, Tanner carefully spread the peanut butter and jelly over the two slices of bread with a butter knife. He wasn’t allowed to use the sharp knives. Even if his mother wasn’t home, she would hit the roof if she found a dirty one in the dishwasher.

He pulled a paper towel from the spindle and then hopped off the chair with the sandwich wrapped inside before heading back to the living room. Just as he reached for the remote to change the channel, something hit the front door hard. Tanner heard a wobbling sound from the foyer and dropped the remote to see what was going on. His mother kept a vase with flowers on a small table and if the door was closed too hard it would shake and fall off. As he reached the hall, his face reddened with the memory that this was not the first such vase to occupy that table.

The door shuddered in its frame and the vase danced across the table top. A groaning sound, like someone yawning when they first woke up, came from outside and then the door shuddered again.

Tanner stepped back. He wasn’t supposed to answer the door when mommy wasn’t home. He didn’t know what was the matter. The mailman usually just left packages at the door. Mommy and Miss Larkin had keys.

The door banged in the frame and a wailing sound rose up from outside. The vase tipped over and fell to the floor, shattering. Then there was silence except for the distant cry of sirens.

Tanner heard a snuffing sound, like that of the neighbor’s dog when it was poking around the bottom of the backyard fence. Tanner backed up until his heels touched the bottom of the stairs. The sandwich was forgotten in his hand and his hunger was replaced with fear. He wished his dad was here. He wished his mom had not gone to work. They said they would come back but. . .

Something struck the door again and this time there was a rending sound as the frame began to split. Tanner turned and ran up the stairs as a moaning howl followed after him. He staggered up the final stair, squeezing the jelly from his sandwich like blood congealing from a wound.

The front door exploded inward and slammed against the wall. Tanner yelped in fear and scurried into his room, closing the door behind him. He fumbled for the lock before remembering his father had removed it. Mommy had always worried that he would accidentally lock himself in and hurt himself. Now none of the inside doors had locks.

Tanner swallowed hard and slowly backed across the room. He heard the sound of things breaking and furniture being over turned. Whoever was down there was very angry, he thought.

Once, a few months before he had gone to the airport with his parents, Tanner had awoke to the sound of screaming and something hitting the wall. Then the door had slammed closed hard enough to shake the wall and knock the vase from the table in the hall. Mommy had found him in the closet the next morning and they had cried together for a long time. Then she took him downstairs and they made pancakes with maple syrup. Comfort food was what she had called it.

Tanner heard the snuffing sound again and the first foot falls on the stairs. He turned to the closet and winced as the hinges squawked when he opened it. As the snuffing sound reached his room, he slipped through the crack and closed the closet door behind him.

The bedroom door rattled and he ducked back behind the hanging coats and pants, curling his knees to his chest, against the back wall. Tanner held his breath and took a bite of the mangled sandwich.

The door shook again and a low growl rolled out from the hall. Tanner bit another small piece of the sandwich and choked back a tear. He hoped his mother came home soon. He hoped they could make some pancakes…