The Last Crayon

I’m the youngest of three, but I never met the other two. My mother, Elena, remarried when I was five, and my stepfather, Paul, was the only father I knew. My older siblings, Marcus and Lily, were from her first marriage to a man named Victor. Marcus was about nine months old and Lily four when Victor was killed in a hunting accident. That’s what the official report said, but my mother always whispered the truth: Victor’s best friend, Dale, shot him point-blank in the chest, claiming he thought Victor was a deer. Dale pleaded intoxication, and the jury bought it. He got two years, served eight months. My mother never spoke of Victor much, but when she did, she always mentioned how odd he’d been in the days before his death. He’d started hovering over Marcus and Lily’s cribs at night, staring at them for half an hour, kissing their foreheads. He wasn’t an affectionate man, she said, so it frightened her. The night before the accident, he gave each child a small, wrapped gift. For Marcus, it was a tiny silver rattle. For Lily, a worn crayon drawing of a sunflower he’d made as a boy. My mother thought it was a sweet gesture, but she found it strange that he’d never done anything like that before.

My own childhood was normal, if haunted by the specter of the half-siblings I never knew. They died in a house fire when I was two, just a year after Victor’s death. My mother rarely spoke of it. She’d remarried Paul, and we moved to a small coastal town, far from the old house. But when I turned twelve, we returned to that town for my grandmother’s funeral. The old house was still there, boarded up, with its blackened frame and collapsed roof. I was curious, drawn to it despite the warnings. The day after the funeral, I slipped away and went to the ruins. The floor was charred, and the air smelled of soot and salt. In what used to be the children’s bedroom, I found a small, fire-scorched box. Inside, wrapped in a melted plastic bag, was a crayon drawing of a sunflower, same as my mother had described. The crayon was a bright yellow, but it felt warm to the touch, like it had absorbed the heat of that fire. I took it, a strange compulsion, and shoved it in my pocket.

Back home, I forgot about the drawing until a week later, when I found it on my desk, the crayon still warm. That night, I had a dream. I was in a dark, endless hallway, and I could hear children giggling. But the giggling morphed into a low, guttural whispering. I saw a figure at the end of the hall, a tall man with his back to me. He turned, and his face was a blur, but his eyes were black pits. He held a flashlight, shining it in my face, and then I woke up. The next morning, the crayon was on my nightstand, but now it was the only thing there, burning hot. I touched it and yelped. That’s when I saw the door to my room was slightly ajar, and on the floor just outside was a small, scorched footprint. I told my mother, but she dismissed it as a nightmare. But the dreams continued. Each night, the same hallway, the same man, and now I could hear my name being called in a child’s voice: ‘Ethan.’ I’d wake up drenched in sweat, the crayon warmer each time.

A week later, I found an old photo album in the attic. Among the pictures of my mother and Paul, there was a faded snapshot of Victor holding Marcus and Lily on his lap. In the background, I saw a painting on the wall of a sunflower. And in the corner, almost hidden, was a man’s blurry face, half in shadow. I felt a chill. That night, I decided to confront the dreams. I placed the crayon under my pillow and willed myself to stay lucid. In the dream, I walked down the hallway, following the whispers. I came to a door, painted with faded sunflowers. I opened it, and inside was a nursery, but everything was burned and melted. In the center stood the man, his back to me. He turned, and his face was Victor’s, but twisted in grief and rage. He pointed to two cribs, and I saw them: two small, charred forms. He opened his mouth, and instead of a scream, a swarm of flies flew out. He mouthed, ‘You are not my child.’ And then the dream shattered.

I woke up with the crayon in my hand, and it was cracking, heat radiating from it. The next day, I did research. I found an old newspaper article from the fire. It said the fire was caused by faulty wiring, but there was a note: a neighbor reported seeing a man fleeing the scene, but the police dismissed him. I felt a wave of terror. That night, I heard whispering outside my window. I looked out and saw a figure in the yard, holding a flashlight. He raised it, and the beam hit my face. I stumbled back, and the crayon fell from my hand. When I picked it up, it was ice cold. On the floor, I saw a pattern: the outline of a sunflower scorched into the wood. I knew then that Victor had done something to his children before he died. The gifts, the watching, the strange behavior—he knew he was going to kill them, or he knew someone would. Maybe Dale was the tool, but Victor was the architect.

I couldn’t sleep. I went to my mother, desperate, and told her everything. She turned pale, and she finally confessed: Victor had been strange, talking to himself, drawing sunflowers obsessively. He’d told her he saw things in the dark. She thought it was stress. The night of the fire, she’d been at a neighbor’s. When she returned, the house was engulfed. She never saw Victor again. He disappeared, presumed dead, but no body was found. I knew then that Victor was still out there, watching, and that he wanted something from me. The crayon was a key, a lure. I think he was trying to bring me into his world, to replace the child he lost.

I decided to destroy the crayon. I took it to the beach, to the cliffs overlooking the ocean. As I held it, it grew unbearably hot, and the sky darkened. A storm rolled in. Victor appeared beside me, his face gaunt and skeletal, his eyes full of fury. ‘You are not my child,’ he hissed. ‘But you will be.’ He reached out to snatch the crayon, but I threw it into the sea. In that instant, the crayon burst into flames, and Victor screamed, a sound like tearing metal. He fell to his knees, and his body crumbled into ash, which the wind swept away. The storm vanished, and the sun broke through.

I returned home, shaking. My mother knew, without asking, that something had changed. I told her Victor was gone for good. She nodded, and tears streamed down her face. That night, I slept a deep, dreamless sleep. But when I woke, I found a fresh drawing of a sunflower on my nightstand, drawn in a crayon that was gone, but the paper was warm. And I heard a faint giggle, and a whispering voice: ‘You’ll be back, little brother.’ I know then that the cycle had not ended. Victor was gone, but something else had taken his place, and it was waiting for me in my dreams, with a flashlight and a grin made of shadows.