Bud

Adelaide Sabre

29/10/2023

Image description: a black and white hand grasping forward.

Despite the shining sun, quacking ducks, and a clear blue pond that rippled gently in the wind, a little boy named Casey felt sad. He sat underneath a willow tree with his knees under his chin, staring at his toy car. The tree’s long branches dipped into the shallow water as he rocked back and forth. He looked back at his grandma, who was busy gardening. Grandma said they should go outside since it was such a nice day. Casey pushed his toy car slowly forward, the buckle of his sandal scraping across the ground. He wished he was inside with his pencils that his daddy said were every colour of the rainbow. He liked the new house and paddocks, and Grandma, who smelt like flowers, and fishing at the stream with Grandpa. Everything was nice here; it was only—

‘Hey Casey, what you doing?’

Casey trembled and squinted up at the figure, holding his hand to his brow sticky with sunscreen.

The figure was shadowy but sharpened as he crouched down close and stared into Casey’s eyes. ‘I asked a question, Case. What. You. Doing?’ The figure poked Casey in the forehead with each word. His touch cold.

Casey scooted back, dragging his bottom through the dirt. It was him. Tyler. Tyler had always been there, even before when Mummy and Daddy went away. He followed him to Grandpa and Grandma’s.

‘Awww…Bud. Don’t look so scared. I was just asking a question.’ Tyler smiled really big. So big, his eyes closed.

‘Playing cars,’ Casey said, pulling at the bottom of his Spiderman t-shirt his mummy got him. Tyler used to be his best friend before he started to get mean.

‘Cars, huh? Odd choice since your mummy and daddy got crumpled up like a tin can. Blood, and guts, and screaming, just like the movies. You hid under the couch, remember? Where you weren’t supposed to be…’ Tyler jerked forward, and Casey could see his wide blue eyes.

‘That’s not true,’ Casey muttered, leaning back.

‘The car crashed, and there was fire, and people screamed. Things you weren’t supposed to see. Scared and dying!’ Tyler screamed.

‘Mummy said you’re not real. You’re just ‘maginary!’ Casey curled into himself like the crabs he caught at the stream.

Tyler flickered, then gripped Casey’s shoulders, his fingernails biting into Casey’s skin. ‘Mummy’s not here, and I am. I’m real, Casey. It’s all real.’

‘You’re not real. Not real. Not real. Not rea—’

Tyler said in a high-pitched voice, ‘Not real. Not real. Mummy said he’s not real.’ Tyler leaned so close his nose touched Casey’s, and his breath blew his hair. ‘But Mummy got in that car, and she said love you, and you didn’t say it back. And now she’s gone, and she’s never coming back. Remember!’

Casey screamed and shoved Tyler backwards, flinging dust into the air as Tyler slammed into the ground. Casey’s heartbeat was in his ears, and tears blurred his vision.

Tyler jumped up and laughed.

‘Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.’ Casey pushed Tyler further and further back.

‘Come on, is that all? You’re gonna make me cry.’ Tyler shoved Casey to the ground. ‘You got to mean it, Bud.’

Casey stared up at the smirking Tyler and grasped a jagged rock, its sharp edges cutting into his hand as he smashed it against Tyler’s face. Tyler staggered back, yelling and clutching at his face as blood ran through his fingers. Casey swung the rock again, and again, as Tyler blindly flailed his fist, clipping Casey’s ear. Tyler swayed, dazed, and then began to laugh, choking through the blood. Casey, gasping and panting through angry tears, screamed and sprinted at Tyler, slamming him into the pond. Tyler hit the water, jerking like a puppet with its strings cut, before going still. Casey watched Tyler slowly sink, disappearing below the water’s surface. Casey dropped the rock, his hand slippery with blood. He looked at the ripples where Tyler had disappeared, and he stumbled into the pond. He rushed through reeds and knee-high water. Casey stopped and kneeled in the wet mud. He grabbed at the mud, but Tyler was gone. There was nothing. All that was left was Tyler’s blood clouding the clear water and the muddy bottom of the pond. I didn’t mean to.

*

Casey looked down and rubbed his finger against an open letter crinkled in his hand, smudging the ink.

Your grandparents, Mr Ivan and Mrs Monica Lewis, in the event of their deaths, have willed all their asse—

He clenched his hand and stood frozen in the doorway.

His home that once smelt of his grandpa’s cigar smoke and the sweet smell of freshly cut flowers, was now gone. Dust rose in the air as Casey’s boots thumped against the worn wooden floor, his eyes watered at the wilted and dying begonias and yellow carnations that his grandma once fussed over. Casey dragged himself further down the hallway. He felt a sting, a stab, in his chest at the pictures in homemade frames of him fishing and gardening with his grandparents. Casey slammed his fist against the wall. How could this happen? It wasn’t fair. He still needed them. He couldn’t go through this agai—

Crunch.

Casey looked down at the shattered picture frame. His grandparents smiled back up at him. He flinched and turned away, storming down the hallway knocking over boxes and a side table. He stomped up to a door and slammed it open. He stood in darkness and leaned his head back to look at the pitch-black ceiling. He took a deep, shuddering breath. Everything was okay. He shut his eyes. Everything was okay.

Opening them, he realised he didn’t know where he was. He sidestepped to lean his hand against the wall, feeling around in the dark for a light switch. 

Buzz…Buzz…Buzz…

Casey squinted against the light. An old flicking bulb hung above some weathered, timber stairs. He slowly stepped down one step at a time, the stairs creaking and groaning as he went — echoing in the darkness. The basement walls were made from concrete blocks, green and yellow mould had formed where water had dripped down the wall. Musty old clothes, old bicycles, rusted saws and bent nails, broken toys and staring china dolls, faded portrait paintings with eyes that followed him, and boxes upon boxes littered the shadowed basement. Something heavy hit Casey as he shouldered through the mess; he shoved it away, and it fell with a muffled bang. It was his grandma’s seamstress mannequin; he averted his eyes as he sat it wobbling upright. The sinister figure scared him as a kid and while he wasn’t scar—

Crash!

Glass was strewn across the ground. Plates, cups, a shaving mirror. All shattered on the cold, concrete floor. Casey looked wide-eyed at the mess. Large slivers of shaving mirror glinted on the floor, and in its reflection, he saw something strange.

A door.

A door with peeling paint, dents in the doorknob, and scratches etched into the wood. Casey crept closer to the door and gripped the doorknob. His fingers fit perfectly into the dents, and the metal was like ice, stinging his palm and fingers. He turned the knob, the internal pieces clicking and grinding as the latch scraped open. A dim light bulb flickered.

Nothing. Just rickety shelves, cobwebs, and spiders. Casey breathed out a gust of air and unclenched his tight fingers from around the doorknob. Turning around he felt a hand grip his shoulder.

‘Hey, Bud.’

***