THE CRESCENT RULE

AuthorHouse

Chapter One

Tommy McAllister falls out of bed drenched with sweat. Awoken at the end of a reoccurring dream where a large refrigerator with arms and a face chased him, hoping to outrun it as he took refuge inside his tree house.

"You'll not catch me, you're just a side by side" is the last thing he remembers.

Just then the song "Mrs. Robinson" mysteriously starts playing on the Zenith clock radio, he hits the snooze button.

"Tommy, Tommy are you alright? I heard a loud thump", his concerned mom yells from the bottom of the stairwell.

"Just had another bad dream about that fridge, mom. I'll be down in a few minutes."

This reoccurring dream may coincide with his deep desire to have his family's home bestowed with the utility so many of his middle class friends have. On those hot humid July nights, the sheets stuck to him like first aid gauze coated with Vaseline. A youngster gets accustomed to this as they age, and often don't know the difference until they spend the night at a friend's house that has it. The deep sleep is incomparable to anything he had experienced. But this morning in his bedroom would prove to be one that changed his life for all time. It wouldn't be just the heat this time.

As he stands up and stretches, he hears the outside sounds of a warm July morning from his "the loft", a bedroom built into the attic area of the big two story Frank Lloyd Wright style home. The stale breeze gently drifts in through the screen that has been repaired using black thread to keep out the bugs, pushing the curtains open with each change in wind direction. The same window his father fell from last summer while painting the outside frame. The warped paneling boards on the ceiling crackle as the sun heats up the roof in the morning. They retract in the cool evenings, popping back into place. The popping would at times scare him in the dark; erroneously believing he was in danger. The Gumby and Pokey duo stand guard on the nightstand. He plops down back on top of his sheets, and tries to get just another few minutes shuteye. The radio turns back on.

Blindly reaching over he turns it off, accidentally knocking over the small statue of the Pink Panther off the nightstand and breaking off its little pink arm. "Mother is going to kill me, she'll be upset on spending 20 bucks on that", he whispers to himself. It gets hidden in his bookcase for now.

On sitting up on the side of the hand-me-down twin bed, he rubs his eyes from that sleep goop crusted on the inside of his eye pits. And while he picks out the accumulation of debris caught between his toes, an echo sound raised his curiosity more than usual. Surveying the room to find out if anything within the confines of what he possesses is the source of this 'whistling echo', but finds no cause to condemn anything in close proximity. Glancing outside the poorly painted spring-loaded window, he gives a quick inventory of any machine or device locally responsible for the noise, but still nothing apparent is obvious. What was this thing, this noise?

(Talking to himself)

"It's not these big black crows 'hawking' while perched on the roof chimney", (happily enjoying the warmth of the fresh new days' sunshine, and looking for food to feed its hungry young).

"It's not the sound of horns from the cars or delivery vans driving by, or even kids playing in the nearby field." Those sounds are recognizable.

Hmm, normally he hears it late afternoon into early evening, never much past dark. This sound is never this early, my goodness, never before noon. It is the type of sound you hear in the distance, the kind you hear in your neighborhood mixed in with all the towns' activities, but never really find the source, a mystery of sorts.

"Was I just imagining it, maybe a figment of my observational ability, or was it really there?" He wondered.

Was the sound something he heard at the end of the refrigerator dream, waking up to the hot sticky air and all sweaty? Tommy shuts off that pesky radio one more time, after it clicked back on just at the wrong time and listened. He would turn his head like a dog to hear the direction of the source. Would it appear again?

Whispering down to his brother Billy who he thought could help in this self-inflicted concern, but no discernable responsive sound waves floated up from his lair. So Tommy gets up and tiptoed down to his room, descending the wooden steps that crackle from his lightly weighted frame. Pushing open the door, it creaks to expose intruders. The hinges lack the needed lube. Tommy enters into his Billy's chthonic room ... a mess as usual. Ignoring the "No Trespassing" sign, the one that was stuck on by reused yellow tape-there to keep bothersome ones like him from entering. He had to maneuver past the trombone and the green high top sneakers his brother dons to play varsity high school basketball. Going to the only window in his room, he opens the Pistons curtains; Tommy nudges him on the shoulder and whispers,

"Wake up! Billy, wake up".

His brother just groaned and turned his head around just enough to open ever so slightly one eye; Tommy barely made out whether he had a pupil or not. He mustered up the breath to say one word, "gedowtidiot".

Tommy figured it was two words-maybe three. His breath wasn't pleasant either. It smelled of puppy turds.

"Billy, did you hear that sound? It came from far away. Billy, did you hear it?"

It was just loud enough to pierce the humid summer air. It was enough to drown out the distant mower hum from Mr. Snyder's' old Toro 2-cycle three doors down.

It's the type of summer air you remember as a kid that made the world seem as if it is in equilibrium, allowing you to play all day without worrying about what you are going to do. It was warm enough to wear cut off jean shorts and a tank top, with Converse tennis shoes and those knee high white socks, but cool enough not to die of heat stroke.

This kind of summer air made Tommy feel safe. It had a certain smell to it, like the summer gods were blessing the air with life crystals, giving it energy. Billy though seemed to just lay there uninterested in his nervous stammering. But as a young boy at eleven, not much can raise his concern as much as this. He hummed something, and covers went back over his head. Not the type of move as one would be when scared by an old Hitchcock movie, more along the lines of covering up from a cold chill.

But cold it wasn't, the ceiling fan chilling the room down to about 85, the upstairs of the house lacking the convenience of cooled conditioned air. When Tommy realized there wouldn't be a response from him; he went back to his room, gazed at the clock radio and figured why he was still so tired, it was just past 8:00 am, and Billy's team won the big game last night. The smell in his room verified he played the whole game, making the last basket at the buzzer. Sure, he'll get the attention and notoriety in the neighborhood today.

His room had the same stench that is noticed from a middle school's gym locker room on Friday afternoons. His mom wears a nursing masks he has left over from when she went to nursing school. Sadly, she didn't finish because of lack of money, and getting married, and having 5 kids. She sacrificed a lot for her children; something mothers just did in this...