Kevin Came Back

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Gene Getty sat behind the circulation desk in the Cold House Public Library. He leaned in, trying to hear what the President was saying on the staticky TV under the counter.

The library was closed and it felt enormous and empty—Gene liked it that way. But then he heard a sound; a wet sound.

Water in his library was a much bigger problem than Reagan and the Russians blowing up the world, so he pushed his chair back from the desk.

The sound wasn’t hard to locate: a little boy standing in a puddle in the Reference Room.

“Hey! What’re you…”

Gene snapped on the light. The boy stood barefoot, dripping and shivering, faded swim trunks plastered to skinny legs.

“I know you. You’re…”

Gene squinted. “Kevin Dunbar?”

The boy nodded.

“But that was… ten years ago. Where’ve you been?”

“The pool.”

Gene glanced toward the windows. There was no pool anymore. Just the library parking lot, silvered in the security lights.

Then Gene smelled something. Sweet… inviting… green, like crushed leaves… carrot tops in sunlight. Gene breathed it in and looked around for the source.

Kevin grabbed the librarian’s hand. “They followed me!”

Riffing off of Alicia’s contribution to my Cold House Swimming Pool stories. Check out her story— https://madmadamemim.substack.com/p/the-other-side