by Margaret Zotkiewicz

“Inhale. You’re home. At last.”

Mark stepped outside. The screen door slapped its familiar slap. Sunshine from the cloudless sky made the emerald grass glisten. A soothing breeze, possible only on a perfect day in early June, washed over Mark’s shoulders. He felt the hum of yellow jackets settle his mind like a mantra.

“Dinner’s at five,” Gran Kate called from the kitchen window. “And Mark,” Gran’s kindly face folded down into a furrow, “be careful. Things are different up there.”

Mark nodded at his grandmother absentmindedly. “No worries. See you at five.”

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Summer took forever to arrive this year. Thanks to the rainy spring, the cramped apartment in Cincinnati where he lived with his mother oozed more dreariness than usual, the sickly-sweet smell of mold permeating the walls. What would you expect from a place called a tenement? Mostly, people lucky enough not to live there called the run-down complex a tenement. Whatever other people called it, Mark called it prison.

To Mark, home was his grandparents’ farm, outside a Kentucky town so small it didn’t show up on most maps. Here, there were no nightmares shaking him awake like they did in the dank tenement bedroom. No blow-ups with his mother when he couldn’t, wouldn’t explain why he screamed into the morning hours. No Dr. Zahn murmuring gently in her low-lit office, displaying easy-chair body language, trying to glean his thoughts in her well-meaning way.

Here, he could wander the woods aimlessly, fish the river for hours, help Gramps in the fields when he felt like it. Gran and Gramps understood him. But not completely, not since The Day It Almost Happened.

The image had burned itself into his mind:  his face, still free of the encumbrance of facial hair, smothered with dirt. Soft, innocent temple flesh pressed by unforgiving metal. Breath that didn’t come. Mason laughing.

“Things are different,” he told himself when Mom had dropped him off this morning. “Another year has passed. You’re alone. Mason’s gone. GONE.”

But The Day It Almost Happened continued to invade Mark’s brain like a fast moving cancer. “Don’t kid yourself. Your cousin was a sociopath.”

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Back in the apartment, while his mother was at work, Mark had taken to watching news footage of serial killers, people who had committed horrific crimes, flattening lives like they were crushing boxes for the recycling bin.It was inevitable: an astonished neighbor or family member would appear on camera, saying things like “He was such a nice guy,” or “He kept to himself, never caused anyone trouble.” Charmers, the killers often hid their secrets out in the open, volunteering at the local foodbank, coaching Little League baseball teams and the like.

 Mason made those people look like saints.

“Breath in and out slowly, block the thoughts,” Dr. Zahn’s words from their last session floated into Mark’s head. He had tried. The horror movie of his life played in a loop: Mason chasing Mark up the jumbo slide when they were seven, then pushing him over the edge when Aunt Trish and Mom weren’t looking. Mason hovering over Mark’s can of Coke in sixth grade science lab, wiping white powder on his jeans when Mark walked in. Mason forcing Mark to drink something that smelled like a dead possum in front of the other laughing freshman at the end of the year party. Mason, flashing a dazzling smile every time he was questioned, never getting the heat for anything.

Mason hid his illness well: the cutest girls in school vied for his attention, while the teachers gave him high marks for attitude and helpfulness. Aunt Trish and Uncle Jack worshipped the ground Mason walked on.

As he meandered down the dirt path behind Gramps’ barn, Mark took it all in, the verdant fields and rambling red farmhouse soothing him.The smell of freshly cut hay, Gran Kate’s honeysuckle bushes, even the rancid sting of cow manure was exhilarating.

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He scooped up a handful of moist black soil. Ahead, the back woods welcomed him as if the tree branches were arms.

Yet it wasn’t the forest that Mark looked forward to the most, but a manmade mass of steel and rubber, noisy, dirty, polluting the air, dangerous if you got too close.

Mark found the oak tree he had marked with his initials and settled into the curve at its base. His eyes sank with drowsiness.

It Almost Happened. Again.

“Mason, please,” Mark begged. He lay face down at the edge of the murky brown water. The metal was cold, pressing against Mark’s temple. Mason laughed. His hair, coal colored and falling in thick waves across his forehead, glinted in the sun like black diamonds. His eyes, cold and icy blue, focused on an object somewhere high above them.

“Please shoot you, or please drown you?” Mason shoved the gun harder into Mark’s soft flesh. “I could make it look like an accident, you know,” he said. “I’ve practiced.” Mark felt warm fluid trickle from at least three parts of his body.

As the train approached, Mark sat up and shook himself awake. Cold sweat slithered down his back.

“It was just a dream,” he told himself, “Mason didn’t pull the trigger that day. Mason died a month after he tried to kill you. Mason will never put a gun to your head again!”

The train shuddered to a stop as the last car passed Mark. He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand.

“You don’t see many cabooses these days,” he thought.

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The train began to move slowly. A shadowy, familiar figure emerged from inside the caboose.

“Mark, please!” The boyish figure waved frantically as the train picked up speed. This person was surely too young to work on the trains. He flailed his arms as panic crept into the familiar eyes. Could it be?

Mark began to run towards the caboose, fearful of what he’d learn, while at the same time fearful of not knowing.

“I know what happens before it happens,” the boy-man said. “A storm is coming. The tornado will touch down so quickly the town won’t know what hit it. Many people will die. Go home now!” 

“Mason?” Mark’s voice cracked as he forced his cousin’s name through his lips.

“Yes, I’m Mason. You need to get out of here!” He shouted, icy blue eyes wild with fear, black hair clinging like spider webs to his ashen face.

 “But- the sky.” Mark said, pointing at the cloudless expanse.

“No matter about the sky. I’m telling you; a tornado is coming!” Mason was in tears now, arms limp at his sides.

Instantly, Mark saw the gun in Mason’s hand, felt the unforgiving metal pressing against his temple.It Was Happening All Over Again. Was it for real this time? Mark closed his eyes and braced for the gunshot.

Nothing.

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The train’s wheels screeched. Mark opened his eyes and felt the cold sweat return. Mason’s voice seemed to be coming from somewhere behind Mark.

“Mark, I’m sorry. I never meant to do all those horrible things to you. Truth is, I was jealous.”

“Jealous? Of me?”

“You lived. I didn’t. I hated you for it. Now go! Save our grandparents, and the only place you’ve ever called home!”

“What are you talking about? Mason?”

Mark tripped over a dead tree branch as he tried to keep up with the train. Darkness and silence surrounded him.

“Inhale. You’re ok. You’re home now.” On the back porch, Gran Kate ran a damp washcloth over Mark’s clammy forehead.

“You saw him, didn’t you?” she whispered.

“Saw who? What are you taking about, Kate?’” Gramps asked.

Gran’s words hit Mark in the chest: all the words he had crammed in his head since The Day It Almost Happened, the words he could not, would not say aloud, collided with Gran’s as if they were bombs exploding.

“He told me a tornado is coming.”

“A tornado? Who told you? The sky is as clear as glass, son,” Gramps said.

“Mason. He knows what happens before it happens. We have to get into the storm cellar.”

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Gramps jaw dropped.  “Who?”

“My cousin Mason.”

“That can’t be,” Gramps said incredulously. “Mason died.”

“I know, a month after…”

“… your first birthday,” Gran Kate finished. “I told you it was different up there.” Her eyes, the same color as Mason’s, blazed with a newfound fierceness.

“Mason would have turned eighteen today.” Gramps said. “And you say you saw him?”

Mark laughed for the first time in years, so hard his eyes watered and a cramp started in his side. It all made sense. Complete, insane sense. Mark now knew why he had never told anyone about The Day It Almost Happened.

Gran grabbed Grandpa’s arm. “Hank, listen to the boy. He’s right. We must get inside. A storm is coming. Many people will die.”

Mark never visited Dr. Zahn again.