List of Fears

Chapter 2: The List of Fears

The walk back to his room was quicker, but Darryl still took each step carefully, trying not to make any noise. When Darryl got to his room, he took a flashlight out of the drawer in his nightstand and flicked it on. He immediately flashed the light into each dark corner of his room to make sure that he was alone. Then he walked over to his closet door and slowly opened it. He pushed aside the shirts that were hanging in the closet and made his way towards the back corner. He shined the light on a pair of old sneakers that he had resting on the top of a shoebox. He had drawn an outline of the soles of the sneakers on the cardboard lid of the shoebox so that he could tell if anyone had moved the sneakers. They were still in place. He reached down and picked the shoes off the shoebox and placed them behind him. Then, the beam of the flashlight still his only source of light, Darryl sat down on the closet floor and leaned up against the wall. He lifted the lid off the shoebox. Inside was another, older pair of sneakers. He stuck his fingers inside the left shoe and grabbed the list. He pulled out a roll of paper from an old, desktop calculator. He'd found the roll years earlier when he and his friend Benny had snuck into the old abandoned middle school down at the end of Benny's block. They climbed in through a broken basement window and ran around inside for hours breaking glass and exploring old lockers. Darryl saw the ancient looking calculator in one of the classrooms with the roll of paper hanging from the back. The paper had yellowed at its edges over time. Without knowing why, he took the roll, shoving it in his pocket and not even telling Benny about it. He brought it home and did nothing with it for months. Then one day he needed it and he knew exactly why he'd taken it and what he was meant to do with it.

Darryl reached inside the other sneaker and pulled out a thick pencil. He took his flashlight and propped it up between his shoulder and his cheek. He slid the fingers of his left hand into the center of the roll of paper and slowly began pulling the end of the paper with his right hand. The paper slid out from the scroll, revealing the markings that Darryl had made over time. They were words. Some of the words were crossed off but many remained untouched. Darryl kept unrolling the scroll into he got to empty space. He had unrolled nearly four feet of paper. Then, in the empty space, beneath the word Zombies Darryl began to write. He stopped for only a second to determine the exact word or words that he should write. It was important that he write the right thing. His history book had used a number of names-the bubonic plague, the black plague. The one he chose was Black Death, being sure to capitalize the first letters of each word. He felt a chill drift down his spine as he wrote the words.

After writing the words, Darryl stayed hunched in the corner of his closet, the yellow beam from the flashlight barely cutting through the darkness. Darryl took a few moments to look at the words he had just written. He remembered the illustrations from his history book. He remembered his teacher's descriptions. His classmates had giggled and joked. Darryl didn't think it was funny. Black Death. Darryl looked at the words one more time. Satisfied, Darryl began to slowly roll his list of fears back up, scanning the list as he went. This was the most important part of the ritual. Every time Darryl added a new fear to the list, he looked at all of his old fears to see if there were any that he could cross off the list. His eyes scanned past the names of monsters like Zombies, Werewolves and Vampires. He glanced at the names of kids from his school, older kids and bullies. His eyes moved over the names of animals: lions, alligators, snakes, rats, bats. The word Dogs appeared on the list but Darryl had crossed it off. He liked dogs now. Now he knew how to put his hand out so that they could smell him before he pet them. The further up the list Darryl got the greater the frequency of crossed off words. Darryl looked at each crossed off word with pride. He was no longer afraid of water after learning how to swim at the local pool. Darryl's friend Georgie had made the list when he first moved into the neighborhood because he was so big but they became friends when they were seated next to each other in science class. Some words that Darryl had crossed off were added again. Sometimes conquered fears returned. The word Dad appeared on the list at least eight times. It was the first word Darryl ever put on the list. He started the list after his father came to their house drunk one night. Darryl had watched helplessly as his father slapped his mother in the face with his open hand. That night, as Darryl hid in his closet in fear, he started the list. The word Mom appeared on the list five times. It was the second word Darryl ever added. All five of the Moms were currently crossed out. The same couldn't be said for the most recently added Dad. The night Darryl added Black Death, he didn't find any words that he could cross off. He hadn't conquered any new fears. Slowly, Darryl made it to the beginning of the list. He could see the words Dad and Mom at the very top, both crossed off there. His hand writing was so much better now. Then Darryl looked at the third word on the list, right below the words Dad and Mom with their lines running through them. The third word was the highest word on the list that Darryl had never crossed off. It stood out among all the other crossed off words, surrounded by fears that Darryl had overcome long ago. Darryl didn't need to think about whether or not to he should cross the word off this time. He knew that he was still afraid. He looked at the word. He had capitalized it without even really thinking about it when he wrote it. The word was God. It had been written so long ago that Darryl barely recognized the child's handwriting that it was written in. Darryl remembered writing it though. He remembered the fear. After staring at the word for what could have been a few seconds but also could have been an eternity, Darryl finished rolling up the scroll. He placed it back inside the right sneaker and placed the pencil back inside the left. He put the lid back on the shoebox and carefully lined up the second pair of sneakers inside the trace marks on top of the lid. Then he turned off the flashlight and stepped quietly back out of the closet. Slowly, gently, Darryl climbed back into bed.

It took Darryl a long time before he was able to fall asleep.