"Guys! Guys! Someone's moving into the house next door!"

What the hell!?

Isn't it funny how the first reaction to any situation is panic?

"There's an elderly man is moving into the haunted house next door!" said Dave again.

Dante and Matthew came charging out of their rooms, Matt in a towel, Dante completely naked.

"Who is it?"

"Some old man whose wife died a year ago." he said, "He's on his way up in a cab as right now."

So Matt went to go get some clothes, Dante was dressed before him, so him and me, my name is Alex by the way, we went outside to scope things out.

It was a cool October morning, Sunday, the air was brisk and moist and steamy, puffs of white came in pants by the men carrying furniture.

The old haunted house loomed overhead. We knew it wasn't haunted. It just looked like it was, on the outside.

Dante was holding to my arm, staying close to me; we weaved between boxes towards our Dad, who was talking to a pale-skinned old man with one foot out of a cab.

"Dad," he turned and smiled and rubbed my hair, "What's going on?"

"This is my oldest, Alex, and my youngest, over there", I felt Dante's grip tighten, "His name is Dante. Boys," he turned to look at us, "This is Mr. Talbin."

He wasn't exactly scary. In fact he seemed nice enough. But he kept his eyes forward; he stood in a manner that fended people off and seemed like someone who didn't want anything to do with people.

"Is there anything we can do to help, Mr. Talbin?" that was Dante.

I thought for a second Mr. Talbin was going to attack us. Instead just smiled, he looked nice when he smiled, and he bent down low to face level, "No, I'm fine. But perhaps you and you brother could help me later, with my gardening. I'm having a load of flowers trucked over so I can spruce this place up a little bit." I decided I liked Mr. Talbin.

We were coming back inside just as Matt was coming outside. "Want to go play Halo?", nah, Dante was going upstairs to do whatever it was that he did in his room.

That was my little brother, who would offer a total stranger a hand on a Saturday morning.

That was my little brother, who tried to kill himself when he was ten.

I went into his room to see what he was doing. He was just lying on his bed, letting the music blast in his ears; I don't think he saw me come in, even though his eyes were open. I wish I knew what was going on in his head.

"Hi.", he said. It was one of those 'go away' hi's.

I wouldn't bite. "What's up?", sitting down on the soft white chair that sat in front of his TV, but I turned it, so I was looking right at him. Right into him.

"Can I help you?", finally taking the earphones out of his head.

"You sit in this room of yours, you say we don't understand but you just won't show us yourself."

He didn't say anything, just looked at me. I could tell he was trying to think of something to say. "Are you scared of us? Do you hate us or something?" I didn't know why these words were flowing, and I didnt like being in his room, talking to him- really talking. It made him anxious, which made him scared, which made him depressed.

He said nothing.

"You tell us that you love us, but why won't you tell us why you're hurting so badly? Huh!? Huh!?"

I stormed out of the room before I could get too angry.

I didn't see him again for the rest of the day.

It was dark. Early morning, perhaps midnight. Someone was in my room.

A sheet of moonlight from the hallway windows shone in. But there was a shadow, someone standing in the doorway.

I waited.

He waited.

I waited.

And then,

"It feels like I'm completely alone.", said Dante, I could feel his voice quiver, "And even though I know- I know I'm not alone, it still feels the same. It's as if I'm afraid to get close to someone. Maybe I'm afraid to be hurt. Maybe I don't like not being understood. But I've never fit in. And I will never fit in. For these reasons, I guess I am alone."

He stood in my doorway in the dark.

Time for school.

"Time for school kids, common, up and at 'em", Dave was in the hall, poking his head into our rooms and rousing us from our much needed sleep.

My eyes felt heavier than the rest of my face. They were dry and cold and fuzzy whenever I tried to open them. So I trudged down the stairs, leaning on the wall for support and only opening my eyes to a squint.

"You look awful.", said Dante. Maybe it was because he was a kid, but he was a morning person, even after staying out till dawn he could wake up in time for school and be perfectly fine. Always chipper.

I grumbled an annoyed response and sat down.

"Breakfast?"

"Are you always on?", being chipper in the morning is cruel and unusual torture.

"No, I'm just never off.", ha-ha, very funny.

"You seem chipper.", but that was a good thing, he was fun to be around when he was in a good mood. "Why are you chipper?"

He smiled and poured his Mini-wheat's, "Rehearsal after school today. I finally get to see you act."

I forgot about that, and I felt a little better now, a little more awake. We were doing Dr. Jeckle Mr. Hyde at my high school, and because I was the lead, my two middle-school brothers were allowed to help on set.

So it was off to school, six or seven blocks in the biting cold. So freezing that I had to breath out of my mouth so that my nose didn't freeze. I like this kind of weather though, brisk, it was nice, woke me up and made me feel like moving.

Dante thought so too, he wasn't even wearing a coat. He walked along side me, hand in mine, humming a little tune. I wish I could do that, listen to music in my mind.

"What's on the list for you, Mattie?", he was bundled up in two flimsy coats, watching the steam from his breath crystallize.

"Everything, that's how Middle School works, remember?"

"Oh yeah. I guess that's just one more reason why I'm cooler than you two."

"Are not!"

"Says who?"

We walked in silence for a block or two, passing a field of frozen grass with a playground somewhere in the cold, but too far to be seen through the fog.

"The set is finally coming together. We still have to finish painting the thunder, and rigging up the lights to work in unison, but other than that, everything is fine."

"Way ahead of schedule.", I said.

And then I felt Dante tense up on my arm. "Christ, here he comes."

Sure enough out of the morning came something gross, something awful, something that should be shot and killed in some gruesome manner; Nate.

He walked with his shoulders up and his ass out, though he couldn't tell, but he walked a little bit like a chicken.

He walked towards us, so we stopped. We could tell he wanted what he wanted; a quick jolt of control to satisfy whatever complex was hidden deep inside him, and then leave, no kinks.

But what was being a bully without kinks. That was no fun.

"Hello children." he said with malice.

"I'm older than you, dumbass." that was me.

"I'm bigger than you, small fry."

"That the best you can come up with?" Mathew, sarcastically.

"Thanks.", he stuck out his hand towards me, "Lunch money, now."

Getting right to the point today, Nate?

"That's funny; I don't see any lunch money.", and to run it in, I bent a little closer as if looking for hidden money.

"Thin ice, mon ami."

But Nate wasn't a stupid bully. And that made him all the more dangerous; he didn't attack with anger, but with intelligence. If all else fails; intimidation, anger, sometimes bargaining, he would attack the weakest link.

So his gaze shifted off of me, just the feeling of his arms around my arm told me Dante would like nothing else but to slip out of existence.

"What about you little fella'?", he bent down close and put a friendly look on his face, "You going to tell your brother to hand it over so I don't have to beat the living shit out of you?"

Psychological warfare was Dante's specialty. But terror forced his mouth shut and his face turned white. One wrong move, it would end in a very painful trip to the hospital, like when Dante "fell", a month ago, after going to a movie on his own.

"I'm up here, Nate."

"Aww", an awful spite in his voice, he stood back up, "protecting your little brother? How noble. But you can't hide from me, little boy, one way or another, you're gonna be mine."

"Do you want me to bring the police into this?" Matt looked Nate right in the eyes.

Nate looked right back, not a spec of fear evident.

"This is getting out of hand." I reached into my pocket and unearthed my wallet. I handed him a twenty. "That's tomorrow, too."

What an asshole!

"What an asshole!" as soon as we were out of ear shot. I like to think what kind of sick and twisted childhood a douche bag like that had to endure.

"You OK, Danty?", Danty, we called him that when he was a kid. I felt him nod in the back of my vision.

"You sure? We can go back home if you need to. If I'd known he was going to be so hardheaded this morning I would have just given him the money."

Dante said he was fine. "Just need something to eat. I'll get some chips or a chocolate bar at the vending machine when we get to school."

Silence.

"You really should stop bottling your emotions like you do. Get angry."

"I'm sorry." he said.

"Don't be sorry. Its hard to be able to let yourself out."

"No, I'm sorry I didn't have the courage to make him go away. You're so brave. As soon as he looked at me it was like my whole mind just froze. All I could do was look into those eyes of his."

I looked at Matt, a little bit shocked to hear him being so open, he frowned. So I got down infront of him and smiled. "Its not you're fault. People like him, that's what they do. They hurt people. And its not, ever, you're fault."

He smiled.

"Clear the set!" high pitched and screechy, just as we loved her, Gwen sat with a sour look on her face as the actors assembled and the stagehands fled. "Alex!" screech, "Get ready! And remember; let the monster inside you out of its cage."

Gwen was the director.

The spotlight was in my eyes, they watered. So I decided just to disconnect my eyes from the rest of my body.

So I swirled a round bottle of greenish liquid around above my head, like I was a mad scientist. An eerie green light shone out of the bottle, shrouding me in it. I hoped the audience would be able to see it to.

"Very nice," Gwen smiled and prompted me on. "Now drink it."

So I shot it to the back of my throat like whiskey, it burned like fizz, I used the bubbled to foam and scream as if being transformed.

"It hurts!" my voice rang through the auditorium like thunder, and then, queue the moonbeam, a spotlight fell on me and I collapsed in a heap.

I could even amaze myself at times.

Everyone, mostly everyone was clapping. Nate looked sour; he couldn't stand me being a better actor then him.

"Bravo, Alex, I say, I haven't seen anyone with such natural talent in years.", high praise. I didn't think I was that good.

"Come over here a second." said Mathew.

I walked off the stage, I heard Dante running up with a sponge to start cleaning the set, as he did after every scene. Seems I'd left muddy footprints on the floor.

"You know, I was thinking of changing the walls from grey to steel-blue. What do you think?"

"I don't think it matters what color grey the walls are." Matt was the assistant set-director.

"Well, I just want everything to be perfect, you know The Phoenix playhouse is coming and they said I might be able to get a job if they l….", and he was looking over my shoulder.

"What?"

"Turn around."

So I did. And I saw Nate strike Dante across his face. My blood boiled. How could Gwen not see this!?

Dante fell to the ground, tears shining in his eyes but he wouldn't let them fall. He sat, and Nate was talking to him in a low voice, close to his ear.

Nate made to walk away. Dante said something that earned him another punch across his tender skull.

Dante sat, stunned, for a moment while Nate waddled away, before picking up his sponge and trembling off to behind the stage.

All before Gwen came back into the room, a broad smile on her face.

This was ridiculous.

So I shut my eyes and thought, for a moment, of how I might be able to get back at Nate, make him know that if he wants war, he's gonna get war.

He was dissecting the Chem. Set, putting it back in the box so none of the pieces would get lost. I walked up next to him, and I started to 'help' him with his job. He didn't look at me. So I didn't look at him. "If you ever touch either of my brothers again, I'm going to make you wish you'd never been born."

"I'd like to see you try, small-fry.'

"So I grabbed his sleeve, and tied it to the burner.

And I turned it on.

He didn't even see it happen, I bounded across the stage to Mathew, and it was a full thirty seconds before- "Whoosh!" his jacket burned. His shirt burned, his pants lit on fire and he rolled around on the ground. Then something went really, really wrong. From his pants a spark bounced over to the curtain. Nate saw it, still smoking but off fire, he stamped on the flame.

Dave was sitting at home, being a writer and therefore working from home, and he was drinking a cup of coffee.

The silence was absolute.

And then three fire engines went shooting by. Up the street.

Dave ran to the door and flung it open, he peered up the street. The... The school was burning!

Dave ran to the television, flicked to channel four.

"-school has caught fire. The blaze started in the auditorium, and broke into the school attic soon after. The cause of the blaze is still unknown, although officials are saying it was an accident, one of the props of the schools play set a student on fire, he was not hurt, however a spark then transferred to-"

Dave felt the back of his neck prickle; he turned to face the phone, sitting innocently on the wall.

"Please don't ring.", he said.

"Please don't ring."

The phone was silent.

Dave's stomach unclen- "BBBBRING!"

"ALEX!"

"Let me just say, Principal Mullins, I don't think Alex would ever, ever think of playing with fi-" she put up a hand to silence him.

"It wasn't him.", she said, "But the student who caught fire seems to think it was."

The world seemed to get allot brighter. She didn't believe Nate. I was going to be OK." Of course, I shouldn't have lit him on fire in the first place. At least this way my brothers would be safe.

"The student in question has had a grudge against your son for a few years; I suppose he decided to frame Alex, as he was first in line for the lead role before Alex came into the picture."

"So he's… He's not being punished?", Mrs. Mullins shook her head.

I smiled.

Dave frowned.

"Then why am I here?"

I saw this as my queue to leave. I got up to go meet Dante and Matt, who were both waiting on the bench outside.

But she stopped me at the door, "wait on the bench, Alex. And send Dante in."

I wanted to hear what they were talking about, after Id gotten onto the bench and Dante had trudged in.

Mathew looked concernedly at me.

We sat in silence.

"You know he blames himself for the fire."

That was crazy!

"He says if it hadn't been for him, you wouldn't have done something so incredibly stupid. Which it was, by the way.", he cut me off as I tried to retort.

"But the point is- He feels like it's his fault. And I don't think he's ever going to think otherwise. That's just how he is."

It was night time before we had gone home. We offered to stay and help clean up the mess. Gwen said the damage was minimal, but the rehearsals would have to be done on the soccer field until the auditorium was repaired.

So it was cold and it was dark and we were walking home.

Mathew was rambling on about some unimportant detail he'd have to change because of the fire, but my thoughts were on what Mrs. Mullins had said to Dante. Dante himself was silent, holding my hand. What could she possibly have to say to him?

"So what did Nate say to you in the first place?" I asked, to no one in particular, although Dante thought I was talking to him.

"He said.", it sounded like he was trying to hold himself back, "That-" tears welled up on his cheeks again in record time. It must have been really scary.

And then a sound snapped him out of it. All the sadness was gone.

And then another sound. Louder, it like a growl.

No ordinary dog.

Dante face was hard and set. It filled me with courage to look at him.

He surveyed our surroundings, and he pulled us in close.

"I can hear something. Coming closer."

I couldn't hear anything. The growls seemed to have just- died away.

"We're in danger, lets move."

We were about a half a block away from our house, but as Dante took a slow, small step it seemed like a mile.

"Slowly.", barely a whisper he led us on.

The growl again. And then silence. And then it charged at us from behind a hedge. Claws, teeth, horrible moist, warm breath.

We ran. Dante in front, each of us by the hand he pulled us along.

The something lunged; it missed but was so close. It lunged again, this time it would grab- me!

But Dante's shout instead of mine, he screamed in pain as the monster bit him, deep on his shoulder. Blood oozed from the wound.

So close. "Matt!"

Mathew picked Dante up on his back and I saw him run faster than I thought he could.

But the monster sleuthed away, back into the darkness.