The Whistler

One

His eyes snap open, and all he knows is fear.

Whether Henry's distress manifested before he woke in response to a nightmare he can't remember or it only flooded his body the instant his eyelids opened isn't clear, nor does it matter. What's important is how he'll escape. If he ever can.

His jaw flexes, and a scream that would bring Pawpaw Mac and Mawmaw Tilly running from their room at the end of the hall wants to tear out but doesn't. He can barely breathe deep enough to keep suffocation at bay. Somehow since going to bed, the blanket has moved up around his neck, like a snake constricting tighter by the second.

He tries to move his arms, but they're buried beneath the blanket, a thousand pounds heavier than when he went to bed. Even if he could move them, they'd do little good because his legs aren't moving either, and without them, he's stuck, as if the mattress were made of quicksand, the sheet one large piece of flypaper.

The figure at the foot of Henry's bed, however, moves with ease.

A canvas of black, it's long, lean, silent. It might not even have a mouth. Its arms dangle from shoulders that appear sturdy and strong.

The figure steps closer to the bed. Its black fingertips graze the blanket over Henry, only inches from his feet, sticking up like two pieces of wood. Kindling, maybe. If the figure were to set them ablaze, Henry would be helpless to put them out. His fear swells, giving rise to panic that brings tears to his eyes. It's not an unfamiliar feeling, the panic. He's been overwhelmed a lot over the last year, by anxiety, alarm, hopelessness, and dread.

Just breathe, he tells himself. Because he won't last long if he doesn't do that. But maybe, he thinks, the alternative would be better, to let himself asphyxiate before the shadow man-having taken another step closer, thighs now pressed against the foot of the bed-can inflict a fate much worse. It's not the first time Henry's had that thought. Sometimes he wishes he would have winked out before he got to know the meaning of hell on earth. He's often wondered if the Reaper's hand would be gentler than the impact of a fiery car crash or a freef all from the top of a tall building.

He breathes. He gasps. The blanket pulls tighter. They told him to close his eyes and count during moments like this, when the panic becomes so overwhelming that doom seems certain and inescapable. But he can't close his eyes now. Not with the specter looming over him.

Henry does look away, though, into the indistinguishable corners of the room, all the while expecting the figure to assert itself in his line of sight. His eyes pass over the squat dresser against the wall to his left. A mirror sits atop it, dark except for a small patch of bright white, the glint of light reflected from the window on the opposite side of the room. The curtains are nearly shut. Just a one-inch gap separates the pair, allowing the narrow stream of moonlight to filter through.

Henry focuses on the light. He follows the moonbeam with his eyes from the window to where it's settled on the acoustic guitar that sits in its stand a few feet from the closet. The instrument must be twice his age, at least fifty years old or more. He wasn't allowed to touch it when he was very small, which might have been when he'd wanted to touch it most. It was after the age of six that Pawpaw Mac finally determined that Henry was old enough-careful enough-to put his hands on it. He'd sit on the floor, legs crossed, with the guitar balanced on his lap. Its mahogany body seemed enormous back then, dwarfing Henry's abdomen and chest. He'd barely been able to stretch his right arm around it to reach the strings, and his left arm wasn't long enough to grasp the lowest frets at the far end of the instrument's long neck, wide enough to be a road.

Pawpaw Mac was something of a magician in Henry's eyes when he'd pick up that guitar and play. Song would suddenly fill silence. People who'd been drowsing over a cup of coffee or a pint of beer would suddenly be up and singing. His fingers seemed to move on their own-tapping, pressing, picking, dancing. It was a wonder how he could sing and sway, eyes squeezed shut half the time, and never make a mistake.

His grandfather's flair would frustrate Henry when he himself would try to coax something beautiful from the guitar. His fingers would trip on the strings, each a cruel inflictor of pain, making his digits burn and worse. He screamed the first time he pushed up on one of those strings, bending it and causing the flesh beneath his fingernail to split, like a paper cut right in the tender spot. He'd had to wear tape around his fingertip until it healed. For a while, he didn't want to touch the guitar again after that. But in time he came back, and eventually he learned how to manage those vicious strings, ultimately becoming deeply familiar with notes, chords, and scales-the boring things Pawpaw Mac said he ought to understand if he ever wanted to make magic himself.

Like the thick calluses that once capped each finger on Henry's left hand, the magic is gone now. The calluses had been there to protect him, built up by years of dedication to becoming not just good but great. But now his fingers are soft-splittable-the thick skin having peeled away in horrifying stages. It was a small yet scary sign of just how vulnerable he'd become, every bit of his old armor removed.

He's sure he'll never play again. Paw might not either. It's been a few months since Mac sat out front and strummed. It's been even longer since he played for a crowd. Those good old days are over. Another ending that came without warning.

Instead of calming himself, Henry has made his panic worse. It always swells when he thinks about what he can't do and what he'll never do again. Still, he can't find his voice. He can't find the figure either when he looks back at the foot of his bed. There's nothing there, just a clear view of the laptop sitting closed atop the desk against the wall. There's no chair at the desk. Mawmaw Tilly's cuckoo clock hangs from the wall.

She'd brought it, along with a little wooden dog that had wooden wheels in place of paws, back from her trip to a place that sounded scary to Henry as a kid-the Black Forest.

It still sounds scary now, especially since it sounds like a place the black figure could have come from. It's not gone, after all. It's beside him in the shadowy area between the corner of the room and the head of his bed. He can't see all of it because it's standing behind him alongside the pillows propped beneath his skull. But he can see one of its hands, its fingers flexing as if they'll tighten around his wrist or throat.

He wants to cry out, to beg, to run and never stop. All he can hope is that his distressed expression will earn him some mercy, a reprieve.

The flexing hand rises. Its fingers straighten and grow, becoming long, lean, and pointed, like a pitchfork's wrought iron tines. The figure casts thickening darkness over Henry's face, its hand reaching, coming closer. Closer.

Breathless, Henry closes his eyes and counts, certain that his heart will explode if he doesn't.

One, two, three, fo-

The familiar and mechanical sounds of gears coming to life cut him off. He opens his eyes. The hand is gone. The specter, too. The cuckoo clock, however, has sprung to life, somehow overriding the shutoff that has always kept it quiet at night.

The little white bird with blue wings that lives inside the clock pokes its head out. Instead of intoning the cute little call-cu-ckoo, cu-ckoo-that Henry has heard so many times over the years, the tiny bird whistles, something it's never done before.

Two

February 2023

Peering over the brim of his beer glass, Henry watched Jade the way he'd watch a skilled guitarist shred-rapt, because it wasn't just her purple-streaked hair that bounced when she shook the cocktail shaker in her hands.

A firm grip on the back of his head redirected his attention to the TV above the bar. He turned once the touch fell away and smiled at Pawpaw Mac, driving a broom along the length of the Blue Gator Grill. A pile of dust, a few stray cigarette butts, some loose change, and other bits of rubbish preceded the bristles.

Henry popped a deep-fried alligator bite into his mouth from the basket beside him on the bar and washed it down with a hearty slug. Beer dribbled down his chin. Jade poured the shaker's contents into a glass she'd already rimmed with salt.

"How's it look?" She added a lime wedge to the rim, then stood back to evaluate her work.

He wiped his chin against the back of his hand. "Doesn't look half as good as you did making it." His eyebrows jumped suggestively. "You might need a little more practice."

Jade rolled her eyes, unable to suppress the small smile at the corners of her lips. She set the shaker aside and reached for the simple syrup, which she mixed with water, bitters, bourbon, and ice, all without looking at a recipe for help.

"Perfect!" she said, proud.

Henry leaned in and snagged the margarita sweating next to the old-fashioned she'd just made. He sipped before she could stop him.

"Henry!"

"Guess you'll have to make another one after all."

She glowered and grabbed the shaker while he leaned back on his barstool to watch. There was a time when she came there to watch him, when he'd dress in flared jeans shimmering with rhinestones he'd hot glued to his pant legs. His long hair wild and in his face, it'd hang all the way down to the guitar strapped over his left shoulder. As his fleet fingers hammered the strings, giving rise to party rock classics like "School's Out," "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "Walk This Way," "Sweet Child o' Mine," and "You Shook Me All Night Long," he'd strut from one side of the Blue Gator's small stage to the other, revving the crowd up with his fuck-all swagger as if he'd already earned a rock star reputation bigger than Steven Tyler's and Mick Jagger's rolled into one. And all the while, he'd pretend he wasn't aware of her watching him, just like she pretended now, but she'd be the first one he'd look at after the final notes rang out, to see if she was applauding with as much fervor as she had the last time she'd come to watch him and the boys play. Sometimes she'd scream her lungs out, her hair-purple or pink or neon green-swinging all over the place.

He looked over his shoulder at the stage he used to own. Toad, stiff as an old oak, would be playing bass beside him. Ian would be watching their asses from the drum kit at the back of the stage. And Cash, veins straining in his neck, would be singing his heart out, simultaneously strumming the rhythm parts on his guitar. Sometimes Henry missed it-the high of having all eyes on him. He wondered where he'd be if the pandemic hadn't happened, if live performances and crowded bars hadn't been deemed dangerous. He liked to believe he and the boys, known as the Derelicts to the crowd, would have risen above being reservation rock stars. Maybe they'd have made their way to New Orleans to play in the bars along Bourbon Street. Maybe they'd have recorded an album of their own. He'd had thoughts about getting the band back together, assuming he could lure Ian back from Florida, where he'd started school last fall. Getting Cash to request a discharge from the army would be a hell of a lot tougher.

What he'd started after his bandmates went their own ways, though, was pretty great too. And it was only going to get better. Bigger. He could feel it in his bones.

Jade set the second margarita on the bar next to the old-fashioned. The drink he'd stolen tasted better than it looked. Maybe the best cocktail he'd ever had.

"Do me a favor and take these drinks to that table over there." She jerked her head toward a two-seater in the corner, the most private table the joint had to offer.

"What do I look like?" he scoffed.

"Tell them it's on the house."

"Why do they get free drinks?"

"As if you don't drink for free . . . and eat for free, and take money from the register for the jukebox."

"Perks of being the owners' grandson." He flashed a bratty smile.

"Is he givin' you trouble again, Jade?" Miss Tilly appeared with a rack of clean glasses in her hands that was so big next to her tiny body it surely should have taken her down. She heaved it up beside the taps without straining in the slightest.

"I could've helped with that."

Tilly rolled her eyes at her grandson the way Jade had a few minutes ago. "I'd have had to ask you three times too many." Her teasing smile matched his. "Get you somethin'? A piece of pie? You talked to your mama today?"

The answer to all three questions was no. The last time he'd talked to his mom, she was thinking about pawning her ring. Just for a bit, she said, so that she and his father could get on track. They owned a restaurant in Leesville, but business had yet to bounce back from the pandemic's blow, unlike the Blue Gator. Thank god for community on the rez.

He took another drink, his face puckering from all the salt. "How's she doing?" he asked Tilly when Jade scrambled away for something in the back room.

"One week on the job and she's already better than you ever were." Tilly was still teasing. Sort of. Henry had grown up in the Blue Gator Grill, spending afternoons there after school and weekends when his parents had to work, before they left the rez to chase a dream of their own. He'd tried to help, especially during his teenage years, but he mostly ended up making bigger messes than the spills he tried to clean. More trouble than he was probably worth, he preferred the jukebox, the stage, and talking shit with the regulars. Free beer, too, now that he was old enough to drink. Not that his age had ever stopped him from serving himself before.