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Chapters (79)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Praise for Destroy All Monsters
  77. Books by Sam J. Miller
  78. Back Ad
  79. About the Publisher

When I get to the top, I hear them on the other side of the tattered old red flannel blanket that hung in the doorway. Mr. Barrett, talking. His voice low, harsh, scary. Like how he talked to little Connor when Connor wasn’t doing well at soccer practice.

Solomon, crying.

I decide to turn around. If Solomon is in trouble, if he is crying, he wouldn’t want me to know. Walking in would only humiliate him.

I decide not to pull the blanket-door back.

I pull the blanket back.

I don’t know why, or even how. I don’t think about it. My mind makes one decision, and my arm makes another. Looking back on it so many years later—standing in the rain, between the river and the rails, there but not there—I realize why. Mr. Barrett had made my best friend cry. That was all I knew. My anger at him outweighed everything else. I grabbed hold of the curtain and I yanked it open, prepared to do . . . what exactly?

The film breaks down, at this point. The celluloid strip has snapped. Only freeze-frames remain. Photographs. A whole series of horrible images imprinted indelibly on my brain, stacked neatly in a folder. Hidden away for so long, but found now, and unforgettable.

Solomon, on his knees. Mouth open, fear and shock on his face. He is a child. Anyone can see it. He is saying my name, yelling it, but I can’t hear him. All the sound is gone.

Mr. Barrett, on the far side of Solomon. Sitting on the bench. A cigarette in one hand. The other makes a fist. His face is clenched too, with so many emotions. You could spend a long time looking at the photograph, sorting them out. Frustration. Embarrassment. The struggle to come up with a Good Explanation for This. His eyes, however, hold only anger. They look like lightning might shoot out of them.

Close-up: Mr. Barrett’s gray sweatpants, down around his ankles.

In my brain: raw confusion. The pieces do not add up. The images do not compute.

The confusion fades. I understand exactly what I am seeing.

Rage.

My little fists.

I take a single step back. I want to go back in time, unsee what I’d just seen, unhappen what was happening, undo what had been done to Solomon.

None of these things are possible.

My fingers go to my camera. Even at twelve, this is my instinct.

I take a small step backward, into space.

I fall.

Forty-Six

Solomon