For several days, the Barvelle family had been trying to ignore the inevitable, going about their business as the ominous pit in their back yard gradually expanded. A few toys lost, a moderate inconvenience to the weekly badminton game, and ultimately, an eyesore that Marcy considered an unacceptable blemish on the lawn they’d worked so hard to keep.
The hole seemed hollow, but somehow unfillable. It wasn’t empty space, exactly, but an inky darkness that undermined Marcy’s authority over the household. A black chasm of temptation. As the tongs tumbled out of sight, she had the momentary urge to dive in after them. She shuddered, and called the boys to take their places at the picnic table.
She used a spatula to gently place patties on buns, her husband and sons climbing across the red varnished benches with condiments in hand. They filled their plates, and after a few passed dishes and careful squirts of mustard, the family of four began to eat.
When Billy, who hated the cabbage crunch of his mother’s famous coleslaw, flicked his spoon and deftly hurled his portion over the grill and into the pit, his little brother screamed.
“William! Finish your food and straight to your room, and I don’t want either of you playing around that… Thing.”
The family ate in silence, save for a few murmurs from Kevin, barely twelve months Billy’s junior, who squirmed and shot glances at the shadowy circle in the grass. The ten year old could tell it was getting bigger.
With Billy banished to his bedroom, the remaining Barvelles went on with their evening routine, brushing teeth, a bit of news, and settling under the covers with books in hand and lamps within arm’s reach.
Marcy snapped awake when she heard the back door slam, and shot out of bed when she heard the sound a second time. She rushed down the stairs, stumbling on her slippers, and by the time she made it onto the deck, both boys were well into the yard. She yelled their names, but neither of them turned around.
Even under the light of the near-full moon, the pit was opaque blackness, now stretched to an oval several feet across. The grill was nowhere in sight. The screen door clattered again, and Marcy jolted her gaze to her emerging husband, taking eyes off her children in the process.
“Honey, what’s wrong? Boys?”
The couple sprinted down the deck stairs, running hand in hand across the lawn to find Billy alone, his back to them, standing at the precipice. Marcy put a hand on his shoulder, but her son didn’t react. She spoke as calmly as she could, the oncoming sobs catching in her throat.
“Billy, where’s your brother?”
The boy turned to her with a placid smile, soft brown curls falling into his eyes. For a fleeting moment, his mother marveled at how much he looked like her own brother, but shook off the thought as her husband knelt at her side and grabbed their son.
The hole at Billy’s heels yawned behind him, swallowing the moonlight, and the boy tenderly placed his hand over his father’s.
“Kevin said it’s a door. I have to go after him.”
As Marcy pleaded, her husband faced her with a loving glimmer in his eyes and slowly released his hold on Billy’s shirt.