Stories and beliefs have power. So do names. When Ellie screamed out the Professor’s name in pain and terror, she cemented the idea of its existence in the minds of everyone that heard it. Even those that didn’t want to believe, that called the stories of ghosts and dark rituals childish fairy tales, had a black sliver of doubt slid into their heart that day. And for those that already believed or wanted to, it was confirmation of something both wonderous and terrible.
I remember us all talking about it one time a couple of years after Ellie was attacked, before the worst of it started happening. We were still comfortable and confident at that point—feeling special. And we talked about it all more freely in those days, about what the Professor might actually be and how it all worked. About how other people must look at it and why they were all at least a little afraid of us. That’s when Mills had spoken up.
She said that if you took a town full of people, most any town, you’d have some people that believed in God, some that didn’t, and some that fell in between. But if one day that town saw a miracle, something that seemed to clearly point to the existence of God and beyond that, seemed to indicate that God liked some people better than the rest, it would be interpreted differently by different people. Some would ignore or try to explain away the miracle, even if there was no reasonable alternative available. Some would embrace it and find comfort in the proof it provided. But some would just be scared. Because what’s more terrifying that the idea that God does exist, but He really doesn’t like you very much?
Now I believe in God, and I think whatever God is, it’s a lot kinder and fairer than the Professor. But after Ellie’s fall, we weren’t worried about the Professor being kind and fair. We were focused on it being on our side. I’d like to think that we were somehow manipulated by it in the weeks and months and years that followed. Pushed to turn a blind eye to the true nature of the thing we had let into our group.
But I think that’s a lie. Having proof to match what our hearts already knew was a relief in many ways, and knowing that the Professor would protect us went a long way towards easing our fears about what we might have played a hand in creating or at least waking up. We felt chosen and special, and if it accorded us extra respect and deference from the other students, what was the harm?
It reminds me of a story my grandmother told me growing up.
There was a little boy who lived in the wilds of India with his family for most of his childhood. When he turned 12, he got work as a servant for the prince. One day, the prince went out riding with two of his friends and took the boy along to act as his steward. They had been riding for several hours when they came to a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a massive tiger sunning itself in the tall grass. The prince and his friends began excitedly boasting to each other about what they could do, how they could fight the beast, even without a weapon. They were somewhat drunk at the time, but they were also feeding off of each other’s foolishness and ego, so it wasn’t long before one slipped from his horse to address the others.
This first friend said, “I will go into the grass and wrestle the tiger into submission.” With that, he stripped off his shirt and ran at the tiger, leaping onto its back. The animal roared in surprise and anger, and within a matter of seconds, it had torn the man apart. The Prince and his other friend were horrified, but they were more determined than ever to dominate the tiger and avenge their friend. The boy tried warning them to stop, but the prince slapped him and told him to be silent.
The second friend vowed, “I will go into the grass with my club and beat the tiger into submission or kill it if it will not submit.” With that, he hunkered down and began creeping through the tall grass toward the great cat as though to sneak up on it. When he was ten feet from the tiger, it leaped on him and ripped his throat out.
The prince was now beside himself with fear and anger. He roughly shoved the boy forward, intending on sending him to his death so no one would be alive to contradict the prince’s grand tale of how he fought valiantly to save his friends from a giant tiger. The boy did as he was told and went out to the great beast.
The tiger studied the boy carefully as he approached, his large yellow eyes narrowed as he glanced between the small figure and the prince who stood back at the treeline. For his part, the prince already had one foot in the stirrup, ready to make a run for it if the tiger headed his way. He wanted to see the insolent boy killed, but not badly enough to risk himself.
But the boy wasn’t killed. Instead, the tiger licked his face with a giant pink tongue and if the prince wasn’t mistaken, he heard the beast begin to purr when the boy put his arms around that massive shaggy neck. The boy said something in low tones to the tiger before releasing his neck and returning to the prince.
“How?” The prince demanded, all fear now forgotten in the face of his wounded pride and indignation. “How did you face the tiger and not get killed, boy?” When the boy said nothing, he pulled a musket from the sash at his waist, his jaw hard with anger. “No matter. If you can face it, so can I.”
The prince let out a grunt as the small knife was shoved into his gut, and when he looked down, the boy twisted the knife and yanked it back out. Incredulous, he went to point the gun at the boy, but the tiger was on him now, removing the gun and the arm that raised it with a single swipe.
As the prince lay dying, the boy and the tiger stood over him covered in his life’s blood. The tiger absently licked the back of the little boy’s head as he answered the prince. “I grew up near these woods, your majesty. This tiger has been one of my best friends for years. He would never harm me or let me come to harm, nor I him.”
The prince, choking on blood, gasped out a response. “But why? Why not warn us before we tried to fight it?”
The boy laughed, bending over to wipe his small knife off on the prince’s fine brocade. “Do you need the advice of a servant boy to tell you not to fight a tiger? You thought there was fun to be had, and there was. It’s just that it was for my friend the tiger, not for you. And why should I spoil his fun? He’s a true and loyal friend, while you? You I hardly know at all.”
“Damn, your grandmother told you some fucked up stories,” Thomas said with a snort, getting a dirty look from Ellis. It was getting late now, and I was reaching my limit for what new and terrible things I could hear for the night. Yet I found myself asking Ellis for more.
“What do you think the point of the story was, Ellis?”
Ellis smiled, his eyes tired. Telling all of this, dredging it up, was taking a toll on him too. “I’ve never been sure. I used to think it meant be careful who you fuck with because you don’t know when you’ll run across someone badder than you. Or maybe that people will do or accept just about anything for something or someone important to them, regardless of who might get hurt in the process. But now…now I think the message is that when you’re best friends with a tiger, you start looking at other people as nothing more than prey.”
The summer after Ellie was a fun and exciting time for us. We were scared, but only enough to make it more interesting. We’d come around to the idea that there was a tiger in town, but that it was our friend. We debated trying to communicate with the Professor, but Mills and me were against it from the start. And with nothing new happening around us, at first we weren’t even sure that the Professor could leave the school grounds.
But by late June we had heard several stories of people having strange encounters in the town. A man being chased by a shadowy figure while walking through General’s Park late at night. A store downtown having all its windows broken out with several employees inside, with no signs of how it was done or why. These things, if they were related to the Professor, had sinister connotations. In truth, Mills and I argued, even though it was arguably payback for her hurting Cassidy, Ellie’s “accident” was fairly brutal and extreme. Maybe the Professor was friendly to us and maybe it wasn’t, but it was certainly dangerous either way.
Then the car accident happened. Or almost happened. Do you remember that part, Alex? Okay. Fuck. Well, one day you and your mom and…you were going to the grocery store. You know that big intersection up from where you lived? A gas truck missed the light as you were crossing the intersection. It should have hit your car right where you were sitting in the passenger seat. The fucking thing was going better than forty miles an hour and would have killed you. I’m sorry, Mills, but it’s the truth. It would have killed him if it had hit.
But it didn’t hit. Less that five feet from the outside of your car door the truck hit something else. We went and looked at the car the next week at the junkyard. It was crushed up to the window of the cab like it had ran into the side of a battleship. Hell, I don’t know how it didn’t explode, but it didn’t. The driver died, but you were all fine, and…well, after that we knew. The Professor really was our friend.
We didn’t talk about it with other people, but news of the wreck had spread through the town. There was even a picture in the newspaper. By the time we got back to school, our social standing had changed again. Some people avoided us like the plague, while others actually started trying to befriend us, to get into the circle. But, of course, the circle already had its sixth and final member.
You were the one that called us that first. The Stonebrook Six. We laughed at the time, but it stuck. When it somehow got out into the rest of the school, we weren’t worried or embarrassed. We wore the name as a badge of honor, a symbol of how special we were to have a tiger as a friend. But then…
Ellis stopped, looking around at the others and back at me. “I’m…I’m beat, man. I’m starting to…I’m going to start messing up on some of the details and I think you’ve heard more than enough for now. We can talk more later about it, okay?”
I nodded my understanding, feeling a mixture of disappointment and relief. We all hung out quietly for a few more minutes before finding spots to sleep for the night. The next day none of us discussed it, and I haven’t talked about it further with anyone yet.
But that needs to change. I’m about to stop writing for now and go call Mills. See if she knows about Ellis and how she’s doing. I don’t want to talk more about this with her over the phone, so I’m going to see about flying out to visit her in the next couple of days, possibly after I’ve talked with my mother.
Because I know my mom has to know some of this. Or know something about something. There has to be a reason why she abandoned me with Aunt Judy at 15 and will barely talk to me even now. I trust what Ellis told me, what I might learn from the others, but I’m not taking anything for granted and I just don’t know. I feel like Ellis was hiding things from me, even if it was with the best of intentions. I don’t think my dear mother will be as worried about my feelings.
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Credits
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