Little Eddy’s Dark Friend

                                                                                    By David Crerand

My dad’s name was Ed, but thankfully I had been named Thomas, after my grandfather, and that left my kid brother to be named after our father. So he would be the one cursed with being called Little Eddy all his life. I had often heard Mom and Dad joke about Eddy being their little accident. It’s not that they didn’t love him or anything like that; it’s just that he had come as quite a surprise. My sister was already fourteen and I was eleven when Eddy was born. My parents figured “been there, done that”, but then, hey, surprise!

Little Eddy was only six years old when the really weird stuff started to happen.

.

At first, it was just things disappearing. Now, I’m not talking about not being able to find

a couple of items that might have been misplaced or accidentally put in the wrong drawer or something like that. Once something disappeared, it was never seen again! Not ever! Our suspicions were focused on Little Eddy right from the start, simply because none of his things ever disappeared. It was always my stuff, or Mom and Dad’s stuff, and once in a while, before she moved out to an apartment of her own, my sister Eileen’s stuff. My parents tried to discipline him repeatedly to make him stop, but Little Eddy just kept professing his innocence, and things kept disappearing. They tried everything. They talked with him about not touching other people’s things. They sent him to his room without supper and refused to pay him his allowance. They took away favorite toys and finally as a last resort they even spanked him, which was something my parents had never done to me or my sister, and you could see that it hurt them very much to be driven to that point with Eddy. They were at their wits end when they decided to talk with a professional.

Once Little Eddy started seeing the doctor regularly things were never the same. Weird stuff kept happening, things kept disappearing, but we all felt a little different about Eddy. Now the weird stuff was happening all because he had some kind of illness, we thought, some kind of disease that we were too ashamed to talk to others about and too afraid to talk to each other about. We just started to handle him with ‘kid gloves’, as my grandpa used to say and tried real hard not to upset him.

After about six months of therapy, ‘Baco’ made his first appearance. The doctor said that maybe an imaginary friend was just the kind of outlet that Little Eddy needed to boost his self-confidence and encourage developing social skills. Mom and Dad said that Little Eddy’s imaginary friend was an attempt to fill the loneliness of having siblings so much older and no playmates his own age in the neighborhood, so they started to blame themselves for causing his problems. Both the doctor and my parents said that it was a phase that he would soon grow out of. But Little Eddy told me that ‘Baco’ was as real as he and I were. He also said that ‘Baco’ was very mean, and responsible for all the things which had disappeared.

” I don’t know why Mommy and Daddy don’t just send ‘Baco’ away,” he said to me one afternoon.

I looked around for my parents; neither of them was anywhere nearby. They had both told me that I should never confront Little Eddy about the reality of his playmate. I didn’t know how I should answer my brother.

“Maybe you have to help them send him away.” I said hesitantly.

“No,” he wailed, “I can’t do that! He said he would hurt me if I ever tried to send him back.”

“Back where?” I asked.

“From the dark place where he hides, ” Little Eddy said quietly, ” behind the bookshelf in my room.” He started to whimper as he spoke about it. I thought about Eddy’s room for a minute. The bookshelf was in the corner, flush against the wall. There was nothing behind it.

“Don’t get upset!” I quickly hushed him, afraid my parents might get mad at me if he got started on a crying jag and told them it was because I had been talking about ‘Baco’.

“I’m your big brother,” I said, “I’ll think of something!”

The next day there was trouble at my school. They announced over the radio station that school was closed, something about vandals and some broken windows. All the other schools were still open; it was just the high school that was closed.  My buddy Ricky and I grabbed our skateboards and wheeled on over to the school to check it out. When we got there we couldn’t believe our eyes. It wasn’t just a couple of windows; every single window in the large building had been shattered! Even the little tiny windows with the wire mesh in them that were built into the heavy fire doors at the ends of the main hallways were smashed! All eight of our local police officers from our small village station stood in a circle talking quietly. They had cordoned off the area with the yellow “Do Not Cross” tape, but now, as to what they should do next, they were baffled. Such a massive crime scene had never confronted them. They didn’t have a clue

 where they should begin.

As Ricky and I wandered around we heard little snippets from various conversations and were able to put a couple of the puzzle pieces together. By verified count, three hundred and forty-two windows had been broken. There were no rocks, bricks or sticks lying on the ground or in the building, and close examination of the shards of glass had ruled out BB’s, pellets or bullets. Officer John Taddeo had been working the graveyard shift and lived right across the street from the school. He said that he had decided to go home for “lunch” at about three fifteen in the morning. A couple of the other officers joked about what he might have had for “lunch”. It seemed that Officer Taddeo was a newlywed. Anyway, he said that when he pulled into his driveway just after three, everything at the school looked normal. When he stepped back out onto his porch at ten minutes to four the damage was immediately apparent. And he swore he never heard a thing!

There was also a rumor that some piece of evidence had been found near the principal’s office, but they hadn’t yet heard any of the details. Ricky and I decided we had seen enough. We decided to make good use of a surprise day off and go do some fishing. But that was not to be.

We went to Ricky’s house first, to grab his pole and tackle box, figuring we’d go to my house last as it was closest to the creek. By the time we got to my house, one of the police cars had left the school and was in my driveway and the officer was on the front porch talking to my mom.

“Thomas,” she yelled as soon as she saw me, “this officer needs to speak with you!” As I started to cut across the front lawn I noticed that the officer was holding my Buffalo Bills jacket, the one with the little tear on the right sleeve, just above the cuff. It had been among the long list of things that had turned up missing and been blamed on Little Eddy. The officer seemed very skeptical when I told him that the jacket had been missing for quite some time, but he backed off a little when my mom vehemently assured him that between three and four in the morning I was in my bed, where I was supposed to be. The officer told us that they would have to keep my jacket for a while since it was the only piece of evidence found at the crime scene, and that I would have to come down to the station to fill out some forms if I wanted to make sure I got it back.

When my dad got home he was in a foul mood and immediately went to the

liquor cabinet. A couple of scotches later, he sat down to dinner with the rest of us and mumbled through the blessing. During the course of the meal, the reason behind his mood was made apparent.

“I spoke with Alice today,” he said to my mother. Alice was my aunt, my father’s sister, and she and my uncle Phil were in the midst of a messy divorce. “Phil’s trying to ‘duck out’ on his weekend with Elliot so he can go up to Toronto for a show with his secretary slash girlfriend.”

“Isn’t this the weekend she’s supposed to be at the Hyatt for that big regional job fair?” my mom asked.

My father nodded his head, adding “she’s already paid the registration fee and will loose it if she doesn’t show up.”

“She wants us to take Elliot, right?” my mom asked quietly, as annoyed as my father had been. Elliot was not a bad little kid. I mean, he was going through some really tough times, what with his parents splitting up and all. But Elliot was already a bit of a sly one. At the age of seven, he had learned to play on the guilt of parents in a disintegrating home. He lied about which parent was doing what for him. He whined about being scared and alone but actually he was a scheming little weasel. He didn’t like his dad’s new girlfriend and was bound and determined to make sure that his mom never got a new boyfriend.

“She’ll drop him off Friday afternoon, after school,” my father said glumly, “I’m sorry honey, but, she’s my sister, I couldn’t tell her ‘no’.”

My mother said that it was all right, but you could tell that it wasn’t really. Aunt Alice had had some pretty unpleasant things to say about Little Eddy when his problems had started, but that was all too soon forgotten when she needed help.

Later that evening, just before he was supposed to go to bed, Little Eddy came

               ”     

into my room wanting to talk. This was not something that happened often so I set aside the book I had been reading and skootched over on the bed to make room for him to sit.

He seemed very nervous.

“I wish Elliot wasn’t coming here,” he said.

“Well,” I answered, “none of us are too happy about it.”

“No, Tommy,” he whispered like a conspirator, “you don’t understand. Baco doesn’t like Elliot!”

I tried hard not to laugh out loud. “Tell him he can join the club then!” I smirked.

“You don’t know,” he said, sounding terribly frightened, “you’ve never seen Baco when he gets mad. He can make very bad things happen just ’cause he wants them too,” he hesitated before adding, “like last night at the school.”

I sat up straight on the bed and looked Eddy right in the eyes.

“What do you mean ‘like last night’?” I asked.

“Baco broke all the windows at your school,” he answered evenly. “He got mad because you said you’d help me, and he left your jacket there so that you would get in trouble.”

“And he told you that he broke all those windows?” I asked in disbelief.

“No, he didn’t tell me.” Little Eddy’s voice had grown very quiet. “I watched him do it. I was there.”

I stared silently into Little Eddy’s eyes. He made no attempt to avoid my stare and there was no nervous twitch in his lips which usually happened when he tried to fib.

“How?” I asked.

“I don’t know how he does it.” said Eddy with a sigh, “Baco just thinks of a place, and suddenly we’re there. He’s taken me lots of places.”

“And you saw him break all those windows?” I was still shocked by what Little Eddy was telling me.

“Yeah.” he said.

“How did he do it?” I asked.

“Well,” said Eddy, “it was really strange. One minute he’s standing next to me on top of the hill behind the school. The next minute he’s slowly lifting right up off the ground until he’s about as high as a telephone pole. Then, he starts spinning, going faster and faster. When he was moving so fast that he was just one big blur, all of a sudden, little pieces of him start flying off. Each little piece headed straight for a window. It was like the glass exploded when the pieces of Baco hit them but they didn’t make any noise. Then all the little pieces of Baco flew back up to the hilltop and suddenly he was there again, standing next to me, laughing that awful laugh of his.”

I knew there was no way I could tell Little Eddy’s version of what happened to the police. I also knew that Eddy’s concern for our little cousin Elliot, whether real of imagined, was genuine. The next day I talked to my mom. I told her that Eddy had been upset by Elliot’s teasing the last time that he had stayed with us.

“Maybe it would be a good idea,” I said, “to have Elliot sleep on the cot in my room instead of Eddy’s.”

“You always get so mad when the little one’s play in your room.” she replied suspiciously.

“They don’t have to play in there,” I quickly answered, ” just have Elliot sleep there!”

“Well,” she had said, ” if you think it will make things easier for Little Eddy, it’s fine with me.” Eddy was greatly relieved when I told him. I reminded him not to tell ‘Baco’ and then laughed quietly when I heard myself saying it.

Everything went fine on Friday night. Aunt Alice dropped Elliot off right after school and he didn’t pick a fight with Eddy until after dinner. It was pretty typical. Mom told them to get their pajamas on at about seven o’clock and then she made popcorn and let them watch Eddy’s copy of the Power Rangers movie. After the movie, they both went up to bed and my dad and I took over the TV to watch some hoops. Since it was a Friday night, my dad let me stay up to watch the end of the Laker’s game from L.A. By the time I got up to my room to go to bed it was after twelve. Elliot had kicked the covers off of the cot but was otherwise sleeping soundly. I surveyed my room quickly before shutting off the light. Aside from the plastic army soldier floating in my tropical fish aquarium, Elliot had behaved himself. I remembered thinking; I guess this won’t be too bad, before I too was asleep. The next morning when I awoke was when I discovered that Elliot had disappeared.

I quickly pulled on some pants and went running down the hall to Eddy’s room.

As soon as I entered his eyes told the story.

“Baco?” I asked. He nodded his head slowly. I was afraid to ask my next

question but I had too.

“Is Elliot dead?” I asked slowly.

“I don’t think so.” Eddy answered. “But he’s part of Baco’s collection now.” “Collection?” I asked.

“Everything that Baco has taken for years and years.” Eddy told me.

 ”For years and years?” I stammered, ” isn’t Baco just a little kid, like you?”

Eddy shook his head. “No,” he replied, “ Baco is very, very old. And he’s big, way bigger than Dad.”

Now, I was really becoming alarmed. Little Eddy’s invisible playmate had finally shed his sheep’s clothing and revealed himself for the monster that he was.

“How did he take Elliot?” I prodded Eddy. But it was starting to get to him. His eyes were getting that far away look and I could see his shoulders beginning to quake with the onset of a serious crying jag.

“Eddy!” I shouted at him, “I really need your help! We need to get Elliot back, if we even can! Do you understand?” The struggle for control was evident across Little Eddy’s face.

 He took several deep breaths and choked back his sobs. I looked on, and for the first time was very proud of my kid brother as he pulled himself together.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Tell me about Baco’s collection,” I said. ” Where does he keep it?”

 ”In the dark place,” Eddy answered, ” behind my bookcase.”

“And how does he take things there?”

“In his cloak.” Eddy said quietly. “He always wears a great big, long, black cloak, and when he decides to add something to his collection he just swoops his cloak around whatever it is and whisks it off to his dark place.”

“Have you seen his collection?”

Eddy just nodded. His eyes clearly indicated that it had not been a pleasant

experience.

“Are there any other people in Baco’s collection?”

“Not alive.” he said. I decided not to pursue it any further. The beginning of a plan was starting to form in my mind.

“Does Baco come only when he wants,” I asked Eddy, “or can you make him come when you call?

“Both,” said Eddy, “why?”

I told Eddy what I was going to need him to do, but I didn’t tell him why. I didn’t know if he would be able to keep a secret from Baco, and if my plan failed, I might end up a part of Baco’s collection too!

“Have you seen Elliot this morning?” my mother asked, as I bolted through the kitchen toward the garage and my bicycle.

“Yeah,” I lied, ” he said something about going down to the pond and skipping

rocks.”

“Is Little Eddy with him?”

“No,” I answered, half out the door, ” he’s upstairs in his room.”

“What about breakfast?” she called behind me. Her question went unanswered.

I didn’t have the time to stop. Elliot didn’t have the time for me to stop!

Last Halloween, as a gag for a party we were going too, Ricky and I had built ‘The Answer Box’. Actually, it was nothing more than a plywood box painted gray, with lights, buzzers, and bells all hooked up to look like a computer in one of those old science fiction movies. It came out pretty good and was the hit of the party. I would stand alongside ‘The Answer Box’ and would take questions from the audience and write them on a card that I would then slip into a slot in the side of the box. Ricky, hiding in the box, would take the card, flash all the lights, beep the buzzers and ring the bell, and slip another card out the other side of the box with a funny answer printed on it. We got a lot of laughs with it. I was sure it would catch Baco’s attention!

By the time I got back from Ricky’s house it was almost lunchtime. My mother, concerned about Elliot, had sent my father down to the pond to look for him. Eddy, she said, had not come down from his room all morning.

“What are you doing with that thing?” she asked as I struggled dragging the box

upstairs.

“Eddy and I are going to play a trick on Elliot.” I said.

“Oh,” she replied, not really listening, ” lunch will be ready soon, don’t go far.” When the box was sitting on the floor in the middle of Eddy’s bedroom, and I

was in it, with the inside latch, slid home, locking the cover down, Eddy began to quietly call Baco out of his hideaway.

“Baco,” he called, “come out and see what I’ve got.”

Even inside the box, I could feel the room become colder. And then I heard Baco’s voice for the first time and it sent chills down my spine. It was deep and gravelly and seemed to echo as if it was coming from far away and yet very close.

“What is it Eddy?” I could sense the wonder in his voice as Baco stood in front of

my box not five feet from me.

“I don’t really know what it is,” said Eddy. “It’s my brother’s.” He said it as if it would answer all Baco’s questions.

“I want it!” hissed Baco. “For my collection!”

“No,” whined Eddy, “I just wanted to show it to you, Tommy would kill me if I let you take it!”

Baco just laughed and I learned first hand why Eddy didn’t like the sound. It was sinister and mean and scary all at once. Then I heard the cape swirling around the sides of the box and I could no longer hear anything going on in the room. Some light coming in through the seams and slots had softened the darkness inside the box, but now, underneath the cloak, the blackness was complete. It got much colder too, and there was a musty smell, like old books that had gotten wet and dried several times.

Baco dropped the box none too gently in his hideaway, and I could immediately hear his fingers, like tree branches dragging on a sidewalk, inspecting it’s face. Just as the fingers were reaching the seam for the lid, I heard Little Eddy call out to Baco again, the way we had planned. Baco seemed irritated by the intrusion. He wanted to spend more time inspecting the newest addition to his collection, but finally, after Eddy had called out three times, he reluctantly left. I had to hope that Eddy had come up with a plan to sufficiently detain Baco. I slid back the latch bolt as quietly as I could and raised the lid very slowly.

The room in which I found myself was gigantic. Three of the walls I could not even see, and the ceiling seemed at least thirty feet high, and there were rows and rows of shelves from floor to ceiling stretching out as far as the dim light allowed me to see. The shelves were crammed full of stuff. Baco’s collection was as varied as it was large. There were toys, books, games, tools, and articles of clothing, pieces of unidentifiable machinery, plants, foods, road kill, and garbage. I would have liked to spend some time actually looking through it, but that was out of the question.

Thankfully, the most recently acquired articles in his collection were close at hand. Sitting amidst the pile of all the items that Baco had taken from our house was Elliot. He did not react at all to my presence, but at my careful urging was able to stand. In the one wall that I could see, way down low, there appeared to be an opening. It seemed to shine like a beacon in the night from the light in the room beyond. Framed by the opening I could see the edge and part of the back of the bookcase in Eddy’s room. Leading Elliot by the elbow I tried to make good our escape. The closer we moved toward the opening the more animated and alert Elliot seemed to become. Whispering, I urged him to remain as quiet as he could while picking up the pace until he was jogging, almost running alongside me. Periodically, I would peer back over my shoulder, concerned that Baco, interested in his new plaything, might materialize behind us. However, I was not looking back at the moment when Baco did just that and quickly realized what Eddy and I had done. His loud, angry shriek rang through the giant chamber.

“Where is my Elliot?” he roared. And then, as he saw the open lid on the box, my name came like a curse to his lips, “Tommy! I’ll kill you Tommy! No one touches my collection!”

The opening was just ahead of Elliot and I, so I dared to take a look back at Baco. I should not have done so! My first vision of Baco was so unsettling as to almost freeze me in my tracks. He was flying across the great room, his huge black cloak flowing out behind him. The hood from the cloak had fallen back off his head revealing a large skull, with pale white skin stretched tightly over the bones. His eyes, huge from spending all his time in the darkness or near darkness, and yellow where they should have been white, were bloodshot and filled with rage and, intently focused on Elliot and I as we continued to run. His mouth was the size of a manhole cover, and was lined with several rows of long, jagged fangs, and hung wide open as he let out a long, blood-curdling screech as he hurtled toward us. Long, skeletal arms with tattered shreds of skin dangling, reached toward Elliot and I, the fingers clenching and unclenching in their eagerness to seize us, to tear us into bloody remnants.

I stared at the opening up ahead gauging the distance and praying frantically. I could see Little Eddy’s fingers curled around the edge of the bookcase, pulling, straining, and trying to move it away from the wall. Elliot and I reached the opening. Without slowing, I threw myself, shoulder first against the back of the bookcase. The force pushed out one side of the bookcase about eight inches, enough for Elliot to squirm through. I took a step back and again launched myself against the stubborn piece of furniture. But, without as much force behind the blow, it only moved another inch or two.

“Quick,” I yelled, “Eddy, you’ve got to pull some of the books off the shelf to make it lighter! Elliot, help Eddy, hurry!” Immediately I could hear books hitting the floor as both of them started clearing shelves. I turned and looked over my shoulder. Baco would be on me in a moment. Already one arm was sweeping out, clutching the edge of his cloak preparing to swoop me into his collection. My nose was filled with the vile, fetid stench of him and the pounding of my own heart rocked me.

               Gathering all my strength, I again took a step back and threw myself at the

bookcase. This time, much lighter without all those books, it slid completely away from

the wall, and in the instant that I fell panting to the floor, the dark place that had been

behind Eddy’s bookcase was gone. I braced myself for the expected fangs ripping into

me but as I turned I saw only the wall, a little discolored perhaps by the many years since

it had seen any sunshine, but a complete and solid wall nonetheless. I looked at Eddy and

we both burst out in a maniacal laughter driven by our close call with death. Elliot,

looking as if he were about to cry, didn’t know what to make of any of it.

              Elliot never came to sleep over at our house ever again. Evidently, he felt the

entire incident best forgotten. My mom got a little annoyed with both me and Eddy when

we both chose to re-arrange the furniture in our bedrooms. All of the furniture was neatly

arranged in the middle of both rooms.

              “It gives me a better space to run my radio controlled cars,” said Eddy.

              “It’s a lot easier to keep clean,” I told her.

              “I’m not buying it,” she said, “but you can do what you want.”

              Taking their lead from me, from that weekend forward, no one in my family

called my kid brother Little Eddy anymore.