Savaging the Dark by Christopher Conlon

Author:Christopher Conlon [Christopher Conlon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Thriller, Mystery, Dark Fiction, Psychological Horror, Murder
ISBN: 9780615936772
Google: IBKioAEACAAJ
Amazon: B00KEZJXVS
Barnesnoble: B00KEZJXVS
Goodreads: 22493551
Publisher: Evil Jester Press
Published: 2014-05-17T23:00:00+00:00

16

Things begin to change.

It starts with the coming of early spring, the weather turning from cold to cool. Soon I don’t see Connor’s big coat anymore. Instead he wears a yellow sweater some days, a brown hoodie another. He begins talking more with the other boys in the class, hanging out with them at lunchtime. Once I’m on duty and hope to talk to him a little, maybe walk up to him with his book in his hand and say, “Whatcha readin’, Connor?” But instead he’s on the athletic fields playing soccer. I almost call him over. I want to stand close to him, see the sweat on his face and in his hair, breathe in his active boy-smell, but I know not to. Instead I watch him running up the field with the ball, away from me, away from us, driving straight to the goal. He kicks and scores. His friends yell and whoop and congratulate him.

I know he needs time with kids his age. I know he needs a chance to be a boy. Yet I feel a terrible sadness watching him. He never once asked me that day if we could spend time together, didn’t plead to be allowed to watch a movie in my classroom, didn’t try to whisper something to me after class after the other children had gone.

Something darkens and sinks inside me. The day is bright but the light seems somehow wrong to me, glaring, accusing. Like the light on some alien planet, not meant for humans to see. Poisonous, deadly. I wonder if Connor is thinking of me at all as he runs up and down the field, if I cross his mind, if there’s some part of him that wishes he could be with me right now or if he’s forgotten all about what we are to each other. When I take him aside the next day and tell him what corner to meet me on that afternoon, he says casually—not negatively but casually, as if it’s of no importance—“Oh, okay.” When I pull up to him on the sidewalk and he sees me his face doesn’t light up, it doesn’t become suffused with that apple-glow in the way it did in our dozen or more earlier sessions. He smiles, that’s all, gets in. Doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t ask what motel we’re going to, how close it is, doesn’t ask little-boy questions about anything we’re passing by on the way there. I feel something’s changed between us but I’m afraid to ask what, afraid to even breathe a suggestion to him that his behavior around me seems different. When we get to the room (the “Kings Court Motel”), he jumps on one of the beds, grabs the TV remote and switches on the set, all but ignoring me.

“Baby,” I say, dropping down beside him, taking the remote from his hand and switching it off, “we don’t have much time.”

“Oh, okay.”

Not unpleasant. Not frowning or complaining. And once we’re making love

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