A Boy Named Alice

Chapter Five

The smell of smoke stopped me in my tracks and set my heart to hammering. I crept forward, down the twisting road and just past a gnarled tree.

A small, thatch-roofed house greeted me. Smoke drifted from the chimney. A vegetable garden stretched out along the side of the house. Tiny prickles of cold sweat slid down my face, mingling with the dripping rain.

Breathing hurt and air came in shallow burst.

It all looked so normal, a scene out of one of the old movies Dad had sometimes liked to watch. I'd seen enough horror movies, and read enough comics. Sometimes, the ordinary looking house was the scariest. Visions of grisly murders and blood soaked floors threatened to rise.

I swallowed around the tightness in my throat and called out.

"Hello?" The shadows swallowed up my words and carried them off. Slight tremors shook my hands.

"Is anybody home?" I said, a bit louder this time.

Plants rustled, and leaves fluttered to the ground. A familiar form, tall, thin, with knobby joints and round eyes, detached from the dark and came forward. Toady grinned, bright and cheerful, and bounded over.

His wispy hair hung in wet tangles and torn leaves dotted his jacket. Mud highlighted the wrinkles in his paper-thin skin and caked around his fingernails.

"Well," Toady said, voice ringing through the forest. "If it ain't my good friend...What is your name?"

"AJ."

"AJ!" Toady said. Then he frowned. "That is a bit of an odd name. What does AJ mean? Why didn't your parents add more letters?"

"It doesn't mean anything, it's just my first name." I didn't want to explain the oddity of being named Alice.

"Tis odd, but okay. AJ it is then," Toady said and he placed a thin hand on my shoulder. "Come along. Ya' must've traveled far to reach here and Ol'Toady is sure you're tired."

"I took the road you showed me."

Toady nodded as he led me towards the house. "It was definitely a long way. It's such a twisty road that one. It takes ya' further than ya' know, but AJ will figure the Dead Woods' secret out soon enough. All it takes is practice."

He opened the roughened wood door and ushered me over to a table. My shoes squelched with each step, and cold water soaked into already frozen toes. A trail of small muddy shoe prints lead from the door to the table.

"Here, have a seat. It's not often Ol'Toady gets visitors."

"This is your house?" I asked, settling into the chair. My backpack slumped on the floor at my feet.

The weirdness of the whole situation refused to settle. Monsters didn't have houses. They didn't have beds and dressers. They didn't have tables for guest, or books on a shelf. They lurked in dark places waiting to eat people. That's what all the comics and movies always said.

"Yup," Toady said. "I built the house myself, though I had help with the furnishings."

He placed a cup in front of me and filled it with water. "Now drink up. You're thirsty, O'Toady can tell. You Live Ones always get a flushed look about ya' when ya' haven't had enough to drink."

"Thank you," I said.

The tremors increased, my palms becoming slippery. I wiped them on my jeans, and took a deep breath. The feel of the denim was familiar, a small bit of home that grounded me. I waited a beat longer, and reached for the glass.