In a saloon in 1884, Rob the bartender found two Power Ranger action figures floating in a whiskey bottle. Similarly, in 1938, Louie Spanzello found a Beanie Baby and a left sock in his gun case as he prepared for a hit. All Billy knew was that he had found the coolest toy ever.
Sounds of destruction poured from the boy’s curled lips as he smashed the two plastic figurines together. “You cannot defeat me, Leonardo, I am invincible!” he said in his most menacing voice. Then he switched to a
“Billy?” The woman’s call pierced the walls with little effort. Billy ignored it.
“I have you now, dude! No, no, Leonardo, what are you going to do with me? Please, I’m sorry I was bad, I’ll never do it again! No, Skeletor, you said you would stop being bad, but you lied and now you must pay!”
“Billy!” The voice came with more force and higher pitch.
“No, not the hole of darkness! Yes, Skeletor, the hole of darkness. It’s time you were gone for good!”
This time, the woman’s voice came like a snake’s rattle. “Don’t make me come in there, Billy!”
“I’m playing!” shouted Billy, glaring at the door.
“Well finish up and get your heiny in here!”
The boy carried on with a frown. “Do you have any last words, Skeletor? Yes, Leonardo, just one last thing: you’re a big stupid head and I don’t care what you do to me because I hate you! Ah ha ha! Fine then, Skeletor, have it your way!” Billy crawled into the open closet and scooted into the back corner.
There was a hole in the floor about the size of the boy’s hand. He looked into the cavity, and it appeared as if a vacuum had actually stretched the wood flooring and sucked it down into an infinitely long tube.
“This is what you get, Skeletor, now die! No, no, no!” With this last wail, Billy lowered the toy into the hole. Its legs began to stretch, then lengthen and then zip down the hole into a nearly invisible thread of plastic. As the boy lowered it, the rest of the body skewed until he at last let go and the figurine was sucked away for good. He watched wide-eyed and whispered to himself, “Awesome.”
Billy crawled out, opened the bedroom door, and stampeded down the hallway to the kitchen. He pulled open the refrigerator and, standing on his toes, snatched a small juice box from a higher shelf. The woman doing dishes turned at the noise and eyed the boy. She had a frizzy ponytail and a bland face. “Come here, Billy.”
He skipped over to his mom, holding the box with two hands and sucking on the straw.
She shook off the suds from her bright yellow gloves and knelt down. “Look, Mommy has a date coming over tonight, so I want you to clean your room and be on your best behavior when he comes over. Okay, kiddo?”
Billy rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Okay.”
“Good boy.” She kissed him on the forehead and stood. “Now go on.”
Billy stomped back to his room and slammed the door.
“Hey!” Though his mother’s voice was muffled, the message was painfully clear.
Billy sucked in his cheeks, and the juice box collapsed in his hand. He went into the closet and watched as the hole sucked it into oblivion.
His room was not very dirty. He had a few toys out, a couple of coloring book pages torn to shreds, a ken doll with no head, some dirty clothes, and an unmade racecar bed. He placed the toys he really liked in the toy chest, or on a shelf overlooking his bed for protection at night. The ones he didn’t, he tossed in the hole, not to mention the stuffy clothes his mother made him wear to school. When he finished cleaning, he grabbed one of the newer coloring books, flopped on the bed, and began to scribble over the face of an Easter bunny. “Die, bunny.”
It was not long before his mother entered. “Billy, I want you to wear that nice shirt I bought you last week.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
He continued to scribble. “It’s gone.”
“Where did it go?”
“In the closet.”
His mother blew a whisp of hair from her face and walked to the closet. She ruffled through the collection of hanging clothes before turning around. “I just put it in here this morning. Where is it?”
Billy shrugged, and began to jam purple Crayola into the rabbit’s face.
She looked through the clothes one more time. “Billy, where are all your clothes going? Your grandmother just bought you like four outfits for your birthday.”
Billy murmured to his mangled bunny.
“Here, you wear this then.” His mother threw a shirt and a pair of pants at him. “And your church shoes.”
He sighed, and his mother left the room.
Later, Billy sat in front of the television wearing his Sunday best, absorbed in his cartoon. The doorbell rang. He heard the door open, then his mother’s date laugh. After that came the male voice, deep, cocky, and abrasive. Billy did not turn form the television set, even when his mom addressed him.
“Billy? Billy, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. This is Skipper, Skipper, this is my son Billy.”
“Well howdy there, slugger!” He reached down and rustled Billy’s hair. The boy shied away.
“Billy, don’t be rude, say hello.”
“Same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to take over the world,” said the TV.
“He’s usually not like this, Skipper, really.”
Skipper laughed. “Hey, no big thing. Skipper probably wouldn’t like it if some old guy was trying to slip into the sack with his momma, isn’t that right Billy?” He laughed again. “So what’s for dinner?”
A smile twitched across Sadie’s face. “Um, tuna casserole. It should be almost done, actually.”
“Hope you used Star-Kist tuna. Skipper loves Star-Kist tuna.”
Sadie laughed. “Of course. I love Star-Kist.”
“Alright. That’s what I’m talking about.” The Skipmeister bobbed his head and ran his fingers through his hair. Sadie went to the kitchen and threw out the empty cans of Chicken of the Sea.
The two adults were sitting at the dining room table when Billy overheard the man. “So, uh, what happened to the old hubby, if you don’t mind my asking.”
Billy ran back into this room and shut the door. He crawled into the closet and sat against the wall with his feet up against him. He rocked back and forth, and the minutes ticked by. Eventually, his legs began to fall asleep, so he stretched them out. He heard a crinkle in the darkness.
He felt around with his hand and it closed on a crumpled piece of paper. He crawled out of the closet and stood. The paper was extremely white, and Billy unfolded it and smoothed it out on the bed. He lay down and attempted to sound out the typed message.
After much stuttering and mispronunciation, Billy ended up with something like, “Hello. My name is Dur Howard Johanson, and I am from the year two, one, five, five. I need your help. Please wurite back if you get this.”
Billy flipped over the paper, and with his tongue pressed between his lips, scrawled out a message in crayon. “Hi. My name is Billy. How are you? I am fine.” Billy skipped back to the funny hole in his closet and tossed in the sheet of paper. He crouched over the anomaly, and awaited a response. Soon, another crumpled piece of paper hit him in the back of the neck. He looked up and saw nothing, but on the floor beside him was a new message. He dove back onto his bed and began deciphering the strange words. His eight-year-old mind came back with the following: “Thank God. We have been trying to stahbelizee this warm hole for twenty years. The warld is going to end in one year. We need you to help avoid this catastrop-hee.”
Billy wrinkled his face. He left the paper where it was and ran back into the dining room.
“So, whaddya say we crack open this bottle of bubbly, huh?” said Skipper, eyebrow raised. His head swayed as he lifted a bottle of champagne and unscrewed the top.
“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t really like to drink with Billy around…”
“Mom!” Billy shouted from next to the table. He began to dance on his tippy-toes.
“Shush, Billy!” She stared at him for a moment. “What is it?”
“What’s a warm hole?”
Skipper snickered. Sadie tossed him a glance. “We’ll talk about this later, Billy, okay?”
“Okay. What’s a catastrop-hee?”
“You mean catastrophe? That’s when something really bad happens.”
“Okay.” Billy ran back into his room, and began to reply to the message. “I’m sorry about your catastrafee.” He ran to the closet and delivered the message. This time he looked up and waited. The paper popped out of darkness and he caught it, giggling. He read the message as best he could. “I shall send you the neck-a-saree documents. Can you deliver them to the proper owthorites?”
Billy licked his lips and searched his cranium. Again, he raced into the dining room. “Mom!”
Sadie dropped her fork with a clatter. “Damn it, Billy, what?”
“What’s owthorites?”
“Owthorites? Authorities?”
Billy shrugged.
“Authorities are the people in charge. Where are you getting these words?”
Billy was already running back to his room. Blue crayon in hand, he replied, “Yes,” and sent the message.
Later, a thick envelope fell out of the air and the child caught it. He sat on the bed and dumped out the contents. His eyes widened. “Cool!”
Newspaper clippings of all sorts lay before him. He looked at the pictures. In one, rows and rows of people in a hospital lay rotting and sick. In another, a smiling man in a white suit held up a vial of strange liquid. Yet another held the image of a stern man pointing from behind a lectern with the word “WAR!” printed below.
Billy swooped up the collection in his hands and ran back to the table with the jumble of clippings. “Mom!”
“Do you want to go on restriction, young man? Use your manners!”
Billy puffed out his lower lip and held up the wad. “I’m supposed to show you these.”
“Where did you get that newspaper? Is that where you’ve been getting those words from?”
“That’s a smart boy you got there,” said Skipper, picking at his teeth. “Reminds me of me.”
“I’ll read it later Billy. Now go on and play.”
“But--“
“Hey kid, best do what your momma says.”
Billy crinkled his faced and skulked away. Once back in his room he threw the clippings in the corner and lay face-down on the bed. Eventually, he heard a faint whisper in the closet. He walked over and found another note.
“Cannot stahbelizee warm hole for much longer. Did you contact the authorities?”
“Yes. Want to play?” replied Billy. He dropped the note into the hole. The reply never came.
Later, he dropped in a green action figure, hoping that Dur Howard would like it. Instead, sword in hand, the turtle man landed on the deck of a ship in 1492.
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