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at once, there is some seismic shift within himself, an almost indescribable sensation of something worming to life. From the space where his mouth is not, lips suddenly pillow. The ridge of his nose thrusts into being. His eyes bud like tiny mushrooms: first as nubbins and then as flowering caps. The dead space in his mouth clenches as the moist snail of his tongue curls from the deep cavity that is the shell of his throat, and now he is screaming on a tidal wave of terror blacker even than the nightmare; he is shrieking, the word exploding from his throat:
“NOOO NOOO NOOO—”

TONY
    Boy in a Box
1
    TONY SUCKS IN a breath.
    Everything has changed. Now he stands, towel around his waist and toothbrush in hand, before a bathroom mirror fogged with condensation because he’s just stepped out of a hot shower. Michael Jackson’s tinny falsetto splutters about how he might be trying to scream from a piece-of-crap Sony transistor, while from beyond the bathroom door comes the ceaseless, monotonous one-note song that is his mother:
kak-kak-kak
.
    I’m back
. There has been no transition, no snap to wakefulness, no
ka-BANG
and bolt of bright yellow light, shattering the darkness, because his father—hair standing in corkscrews, and sleep crumbs like snow in the purple hollows under his eyes—has come bursting in to see why his son’s screaming his lungs out. He is just suddenly awake, like he’s been dreaming standing up and with his eyes open.
    And I’ve been here before
. Déjà vu of the worst kind blasts through his body. On his electric toothbrush—which would be totally boss, if it wasn’t for the fact that this is a little kid’sSnoopy set (red-roofed doghouse and everything) that his pastor-dad unearthed at Goodwill—a bloated green worm of mint Crest oozes on bristles so worn they splay like the tired legs of dead tarantulas.
I’m getting ready for school
. His eyes flick to the mirror, where his face is an oval blur behind scummy moisture.
In ten minutes, I’ll go downstairs and flush the oatmeal glop Dad’s left, because he just doesn’t get that I hate that stuff. I’ll brush my teeth again, because Mom will want a kiss. I’ll drive my piece-of-shit Camry to school. I’m where I belong, and everything is as it’s always been
.
    This should make him feel better, but only for a second. Sure, of course, he’s doing a lot of the same
things
. But not
everything
is exactly the same now as it was, say, yesterday or last week, is it? No, that would be crazy. His eyes fall to a
Twisted Tales
that he really likes. The comic book’s open to his favorite story, about these soldiers and their lieutenant, a guy named Hacker, who suspects that he and his men have been hunkering in their foxholes forever. Then his gaze slides right to the paperback of
Our Mutual Friend
he’s supposed to be reading instead of his comic. (God, what a snooze, and Dickens was popular? The whole river rat thing—fishing bodies out of the Thames—is okay, but there are so many characters, and trying to keep track of that John Harmon guy and all his disguises and alter egos and who the dude’s supposed to be
now
only gives Tony a headache. And he’s got to cough up a ten-page paper comparing and contrasting Dickens’s use of doubles in this monster with either
Great Expectations
or that story … 
The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain
? Gag him with a spoon. At least
Haunted Man
is short, the last Christmas book Dickens published, and anyone with half a brain can see that Evil Genius is really Redlaw. Thank God, they’re going on to Sherlock Holmes next.
Hound of the Baskervilles
—now
that’s
a story. That black doggives him the shivers. He wonders if he can talk the teacher into trying Lovecraft after that. Talk about spooky.)
    But how long have I been reading this stupid book?
He can’t remember. He starts to reach a hand to the Dickens he’s placed facedown to mark his place … then hesitates.
Think
. Where,