ADAM

A Tale from the Dark Side of

Craig G. Carlson

The park covered a good many acres right on the edge of town. All along its south side there were playgrounds, baseball diamonds, picnic areas, and a swimming pool. The northern half of the park was wooded, with hiking trails climbing a steep hill in switchback fashion, finally giving up all together, surrendering to a forest which continued for several miles beyond the actual park boundaries. All manner of wildlife called this park home, the bolder ones venturing even onto the grassy verges overlooking the playground. On the more northerly hiking trails, though, the everyday sounds of the city were strangely far off and muffled. The only close sounds were those of the birds searching for food and an occasional squirrel foraging for nuts in the matted undergrowth. The sun shone in mottled patches against a tapestry of green and gray.  

The squirrels are what had drawn ten-year-old Adam away from the playground, from the other children sailing ships of make-believe and flying through pretend space. Here he finally had found a place where he could be free to breathe, to look, to listen, to smell. Here he could touch the rich earth, lie down on his belly and inhale the rich perfume of decaying vegetation. This was his realm, not the stuffy confines of home, of school, of the playground and the other, hateful, noisy, maddening kids. In that society he felt caged, weighed-down, trapped, panicked, as though at every moment some invisible pillow were being forced down upon his face and he was gasping for breath. It didn't matter if he was asleep or awake, he was always running...running away from something and running toward something else. He didn't know what it was, but he couldn't keep still. He felt hunted. He had to escape. Sometimes the whole world shrunk from his sight. Everything would turn red and he just had to scream. And keep screaming.

But not here. Here he had an identity of his own. It wasn't exactly Adam, lying here on the forest floor, but somehow he knew that he was alive. For the first time that he could remember, his arms and legs were not moving or shaking or jumping. This was a new experience for him, although it seemed like a homecoming to him. He stretched out his full four feet three and a half inches on the ground, reaching his hands out toward a small bush just beyond his grasp. He curled his fingers into the warm, moist mulch and grabbed two handfuls of dirt. Then he rolled onto his back and smeared the dirt onto his face. This was life to him. This was something he understood, not as his teachers wanted him to understand a math problem or something, but way, deep down.

Suddenly he sat up and tore his clothes off. They felt too confining for him now. All these stupid bits of cloth had to go. When he was completely naked he lay back down and began to roll around in the dirt and leaves. He ground the dirt into his skin, his hair. Then he crawled on all fours deeper into the woods. He was alert, attuned to everything around him. He could hear sounds that were unlike anything he had heard before. A rustling off to his left, the sudden panicked flight of a small bird, the stirring of leaves in the trees above him, even though there was almost no wind at all. And he could see more clearly than he had ever done before, like on a sparkling clear day after a heavy thunderstorm only in much more detail. He realized that he could watch ants working from as far away as his tv set in his room. He stood up and looked through the trees at the distant playground. He could count the buttons on the children's shirts if he wanted to. He could also hear each of them talking and laughing as though they were standing right next to him. Suddenly it sounded like a twig snapped behind him and he whirled around to find that a squirrel had just jumped down from a tree. He crouched down next to another tree and watched the squirrel. Unconsciously he froze. The squirrel began foraging, unaware of Adam's presence. Adam remained, unmoving, watching as the animal moved about the forest floor. To him, the only thing in the world was that squirrel. He could see each gray hair on the rodent's back. He could smell the meat beneath that fur. He could hear the breath rasping in and out of the animal's nose and mouth. Slowly, agonizingly, the squirrel moved toward Adam, searching always for food. Occasionally it would find something and would stop, squatting on its hind legs and holding whatever it had found in its front paws and munching it down. Then it would return to its foraging. Closer to Adam it came, now by a couple feet, then by inches, but it was completely oblivious to the still, watching boy. Now it was five feet from him, now it moved away a bit, then suddenly it came closer, always looking only at the ground. It sensed nothing. Adam was not there to the squirrel. The boy's muscles began to tense imperceptibly. His breathing was so shallow that he moved not a millimeter with each breath. The leaves and dirt he had rubbed onto his body had taken away even the slightest bit of human scent. He had become totally invisible to the squirrel.

Finally the squirrel was right in front of Adam. If the boy had wanted to, he could have reached out and petted the animal. But he had other plans, plans which he couldn't have voiced just then, for in that instant, Adam had ceased to be truly human. Somewhere deep in the remotest part of Adam's brain some savage proteins were closing some long forgotten gaps. Primitive connections were being made. Instinctive calculations were being made. He leapt with blinding speed upon the squirrel, grasping the animal in his hands, twisting its head and pulling it apart, his fingernails piercing the skin and stripping off the hide before the animal was aware of any danger. Adam buried his mouth into the steaming, quivering flesh, his teeth ripping into the muscle and fat. A growl of feral pleasure came from his throat. He bit and tore at the meat of the animal. Bones crunched between Adam's teeth. Blood smeared his face, his chest, dripping down and pooling up in the leaves where he sat. Soon only the squirrel's hide, head and feel remained and Adam trotted off in search of more prey, a wild, free exultation running through his clouded mind.

"Adam. Time to get up" his mother called. Adam opened his eyes and, for the first time in his life, found himself lying under blankets. Always before he had found them rolled up, either at his feet or on the floor next to the bed. He also felt rested for the first time in his life. He stretched his entire body and felt a totally relaxed relief at the way his muscles tightened, then released. He smiled broadly and turned onto his belly. Stretching again, he flexed his fingers, gripping the sheet beneath his hands as he had gripped the earth yesterday afternoon in the park. Suddenly he tensed, remembering the sensations of the day before. It all flowed back into his memory with the speed and feeling of an electric shock. Waiting, then devouring the squirrel, chasing after a rabbit, which had eluded him, then almost stumbling into the greatest prize of the day, the den of raccoons. He had gorged himself there, first killing them all, then eating the three kits and finally the mother raccoon.

It was curious, he thought. He could remember every detail of what had happened there in the park, but while it was happening, he had no memory or knowledge of his "normal" self. But whatever it was, he knew that it was good. Before yesterday, he had always felt somehow incomplete. He wasn't like the other kids. They could sit in school and pay attention to their teachers. They could sit in front of the TV for hours, watching something they called a "show." Adam never understood what that meant. All he saw was pictures of people, or animals, or things. Nothing seemed to fit. He would watch for a few seconds, then he'd be up and moving around. And in school, he couldn't stay at his desk. Something always drew him away. He'd be up, wandering around the room, going to the window, out into the hallway, anything, just to be doing something. The teachers couldn't do anything with him. They called it something. Everything had to have a name. This was something like ADD or something stupid like that. ADD is something you do with numbers, isn't it? He guessed that his teachers all thought he was dumb, because they were always talking about him to other teachers and adults right in front of him. Of course, he wouldn't look like he was listening, he was always moving around the room, picking things up and putting them down, or just wandering from place to place. He never looked at anyone for more than a second or two, even when they were talking to him. He just couldn't keep his head still any longer than that. And if there was some test being given, he couldn't do anything with that. He couldn't stay in one place long enough. He could read and write, but simply didn't very much.

There was a knock on his door, then it opened. His mother stuck her head into the room. "I told you it was time to get up. Didn't you hear me, Adam?"

"Yes, Mom. Sorry. I guess I'm a little tired this morning. I'm getting up now."

She looked at him for a moment longer, a little strangely, he thought, then said, "Okay, but don't be too long. It's school today, you know." Then she shut the door.

Adam got up and dressed. For a change, he didn't just throw his pajamas onto the floor, but hung them on the hook in his closet. His dad put the hook there a few months before he left. That was over a year ago and Adam hadn't seen his dad since. For the first time he realized how long it had been. People were just something that were in the world, not something you particularly cared about, as far as Adam knew. If his dad wasn't there, no big deal. There were always other people, but he never cared especially about any of them, either. But now he would have liked to go downstairs to find his dad drinking coffee at the kitchen table, like he used to.

He looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time, which, in a way, he was. Then he went out the door and headed downstairs.

At the end of school that day, Mr. Lowry took Adam to the office, rather than out to Mom's car, like he usually did. Mom was just coming out of the office with the principal, Mrs. Lockwood, who said, "It's almost as though Adam is a whole different person. We'll keep an eye on him, and we'd appreciate any input you might have on his behavior. I don't know what, but there must be something different in Adam's life that has caused this turnaround."

Mon was positively beaming. When they got into the car, she told him that all his teachers were astounded at his new ability to pay attention and get things done. You stayed in your desk all day, took notes, worked on your homework, and Mrs. Lockwood said you asked some very good questions in Mr. Lowry's class, too. I'm so proud of you I could just burst. I hope things keep on this way."

Adam didn't say anything, but just settled back into his seat and smiled to himself. He wanted badly to go into the woods again, but something told him to wait. He felt that he didn't really need to go out there today, but would sometime soon. Better to wait until whatever it was told him the time was right.

For the next two months things continued much as they did on the first day after his "hunting trip," as he now called it to himself. He was able to concentrate in school as he never had done before. The special teachers continued to watch him, but now he stayed in Mr. Lowry's class almost all day, like the rest of the kids. All the stuff he had learned in his six years of school came to the surface and he found himself competing with the best of the other students. He continued to read whenever there was nothing else happening in class. He started to hand in book reports at the rate of two or three every week. During History he asked a lot of questions and started work on a special project about the Civil War. He completed his math homework more quickly than anyone else, so he could work on other things. He began to draw on all the learning he had accomplished before, things that his teachers had thought he never understood because he never sat still long enough for anyone to question him about. When tests were being given, instead of jumping up and wandering around the room or building, Adam calmly went about the business of answering the questions, many of which seemed to him to be ridiculously simple. He finished each test ahead of the rest of the class, quietly brought it up to Mr. Lowry's desk, then went back to his own desk and began reading a book of some sort.

There was something else new. He devoured books. Not just the simple ones most of his classmates read, and those he did book reports on, but books like the grownups read. Some had stories in them, some were just one long story, and some were about real things, stars, planets, animals, bugs, birds, buildings, machines. He had a particular favorite book, one about biology. It showed all sorts of living things, from tiny bugs to huge animals. It showed how they were built, where their organs were located, how they moved, what they ate, where they lived, and all sorts of things about what made them live. He knew why he was interested in the book. It would help him hunt. He still longed to go into the woods, but hadn't been back there yet. The time wasn't right, but he knew it would be soon. When he saw animals outside, he would watch them intently. His mouth would open slightly, his sense of smell would sharpen, all his senses would improve, but the rest of the world would still be around him, and he knew who he was and where he was. When the time was right, all that would change. The world would fade out and there would be nothing in his mind but the hunt.

It began near the end of the day on one of the last Fridays of the school year. He was reading his biology book when, without warning, he began to shake. Just slightly. He knew he was shaking, but he didn't think anyone else could tell. Not yet, anyway. His vision became more clear. He could see each speck of chalk on the blackboard, not just the letters, but the fine grains that made up the letters. The smells of the room assaulted his nose: the wax on the floors, the slightly musty odor of the books, the raw wooden smell from the pencil sharpener across the room, the beginnings of rot from the lunch bags left in the wastebasket; but most of all, the rich animal smells of the people around him, the students and Mr. Lowry, and of the hamsters in the glass fish tank at the back of the room, which triggered his salivary glands. Sounds were also amplified, almost so much that his ears started to ache. He could hear the rustling of the hamsters, the whispers of the kids, and the creaking of the chairs as they fidgeted, anxiously awaiting the bell which would signal freedom from the classroom for another week. He heard every tick of the clock as the minute hand advanced toward the top of the hour. It sounded like a double explosion, as the mechanism readied, then advanced the hand. He looked at the clock. Just five more minutes and school will be over for the week. Mom would be driving up to the school about now, ready to pick him up. He tried to remember what her work schedule was like this week, but couldn't. He hoped she was on nights. If so, she would just drop him off at home and Mrs. Jackson would be there to "sit." He could tell her that he wasn't feeling well, go up to his room and make it look like he was sleeping, then slip downstairs while she was dozing in front of the TV and be out the door, free to be on the hunt.

Finally the bell rang. Adam was out the door before the ringing quit. He raced down the hallway and out the door, sniffing the fresh air of the outdoors. Mom was right there, waiting in the car for him and, yes! She had her uniform on! She would be working tonight and he was going into the woods!

There was a small difference this time. After he had killed and eaten a squirrel, he began to realize something of who he was. Just dimly, in the back of his mind. There was just a spark of himself, enough to give him some rational thought processes, but not enough to dull his new abilities. He could watch and analyze what was happening around him. When he saw a cat scamper through the woods, he knew that it was called a cat, and he watched for a few minutes, to see if the cat's owner would show up. When no one came, Adam began stalking it. He crept silently up behind the animal. As he was about to pounce, the cat turned and saw him. The hairs on its back stood up, its back arched, and, snarling, it jumped away and ran. Adam followed, keeping pace with the creature. Finally the cat climbed a tree to get away from him. Seeing this, Adam turned and moved away from the cat. But he didn't give up. He circled widely around the tree and approached from the other side, downwind from it. Then he crouched down and waited. After a time, the cat came down from the tree and, watching the area where Adam had disappeared, walked right into Adam's waiting hands.

There was no struggle. Adam immediately killed the cat and tore open its throat with his teeth. Without doing more, Adam trotted away from the kill site, the cat's body held tightly in his teeth. In a few minutes, Adam found what he was looking for, a small cave, hidden behind some bushes. Adam crawled into the cave and finished eating the cat. When he left, there was a small pile of bones and fur in the deepest part of the cave. Satiated, for the present, Adam returned to his house.

The summer had become fall. Adam hunted once every few weeks, each time aware of his two aspects. His human side, that part of him which thought human thoughts, that understood what people and especially grownups considered normal behavior for kids, provided an extra measure of cunning, that margin of safety to keep himself from being detected. The animal side cried out for game, for the hunt. But it also provided him with the stability he needed to remain what the grownups considered normal. No longer did he have to see psychologists, nor did he need special teachers or special medication to keep his ADD under control. Whatever had caused all his earlier problems was gone, as far as the adults knew. They couldn't explain the change, they just accepted it, which suited Adam perfectly. He wasn't going to tell them why he was so "normal" now.

At the same time he grew more bold and more cautious in his forays into the park. The wild animals there were safe to kill, as far as he was concerned, but he was very careful with anything which might be someone's pet. Usually he left dogs and cats alone unless he was really hungry, but then he kept a special watch out for anyone who might be at all interested in the animal.

One evening, just as he was getting to the park, he saw a little girl walking back and forth along the edge of the woods. He was fully in control of himself. In fact, he hadn't even intended to do any hunting that night, but came to the park anyway, just to make his trips there seem more usual. He didn't plan to even go into the woods that evening. But the girl caught his attention. Maybe she might cause him some trouble. She did seem awfully interested in the woods, which he was beginning to consider his own. It was his territory, back there in the trees. People could use his paths, but if they seemed at all interested in the woods for anything more than a quiet walk, he felt a kind of jealousy and just a bit of fear. He strolled over to the swings and chose one from which he could watch the girl.

She was about five or six years old, blond and freckled. She had jeans and a red jacket on. As she walked along the edge of the trees, she called out from time to time. Her words came easily to Adam's sharp ears. "Puffy, P u f f f f f f y y y y y y. Here Puffy. Come here, kitty." So, thought Adam, she's looking for a lost cat. It was probably that tan and white one that had scratched his face the week before. He looked around the park, locating everyone he could see, looking at them, placing them into categories: adults who might represent danger for him, adults who were of no possible danger, other kids who might be watching and noticing a little blond girl hollering and a thin, intense boy sitting on the swings. He didn't want anyone to see him, remember that he had been there while the girl was looking for her cat. He finally decided that no one else was close enough to pay any attention to either of them. He got off the swing and slowly walked over to her.

"Have you seen Puffy?" the girl asked him.

"Who's Puffy?" Adam asked.

"She's my kitty. We haven't seen her for a week. We've looked all over, but she doesn't come when we call. Mom and Dad say she's probably found a new home and they want me to get a new cat, but I don't want a new cat. I just want Puffy."

He asked what Puffy looked like and the girl described the same one. His senses were becoming stronger by the minute. His nose was beginning to pick up the blood smell of her. His hands were beginning to clench and unclench. He was shaking, ever so slightly. He could feel saliva beginning to fill his mouth. It was becoming just a little hard to concentrate on what she was saying. His clothes were beginning to feel heavy, confining. He hadn't come to the park to hunt, but suddenly it was becoming essential to get back into the woods, to run free and wild, to chase something and to kill it. He had to feel his teeth closing on raw flesh, any kind of raw flesh, and there was something new in his nostrils, something he hadn't tasted before. While he could still speak, he turned his eyes toward the girl and spoke. He hardly knew what he was saying, and was almost surprised by the evenness of his own voice. He nearly laughed, as the image of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf jumped into his mind, but that, too he controlled, as he said, "I saw a little cat like that a couple of days ago. It was right about here, then it ran into the woods. If you want me to, I'll take you back in there to look for it. I know these trails pretty well."

The girl smiled at him, eagerly grabbed his hand, and started into the woods. As Adam looked back, checking once more to see if anyone was watching, the sun slipped behind a thick gray cloud. There was no one anywhere nearby.

ADAM