Nocturnal

Closing In

Rex sat in a plastic garbage can. Rex waited. Rex watched. Where had this sensation been all his life? How many hours had he wasted drawing pictures, when the real thing made him feel alive, made him feel complete?

His tummy tingled inside.

His boner had been hard for hours.

The garbage can was across the street from April Sanchez’s house. It was one of those big brown kind, wedged into a space between two houses along with the blue recyling kind and the green one people were supposed to use for compost. The garbage can smelled, but Rex didn’t care. There had only been one bag inside, which he’d moved to another can. Squatting inside, he could peek out just under the lid and watch for April.

April the meth-head. April the slut.

She had rich parents. They didn’t own part of a house, not just a single floor — they owned the whole thing, all three stories and a garage.

The kids in school talked about April behind her back, talked about how ugly she was. They called her Shrek. She wasn’t fat like Shrek, most druggie girls weren’t, but her face bore a passing resemblance. April had been the one who told Alex about Rex’s drawing. It was her fault Alex broke his arm.

The cops had to be looking for Alex, and here he was with a perfect place to hide. Last night, Rex had followed Alex here. Since then he hadn’t seen anyone but April enter or leave. She fetched pizza, bags of groceries, probably whatever Alex wanted.

Darkness was falling, but even then Rex would wait. Marco had said not to move before midnight. Rex hadn’t listened to Marco, and now Marco was dead because of it. Rex had learned a valuable lesson from that — some things needed to be done in the dark.

Marco had also told Rex that there was a real family out there somewhere, a real home. But without Marco, how was Rex going to find it?

He didn’t want to be alone.

His dreams had reached out and connected with people, made them do the things he wanted done. Rex wondered — could he do the same thing when he was awake? It was worth a try. And anyway, it was a long time until midnight and he had nothing else to do.

How could this work? Did he … what … throw his thoughts? Maybe if he just focused, really concentrated on his need to find these people.

Rex closed his eyes.

He took a long, deep breath.

Find me, he thought. Find me.