Lies of Omission
by C. Dan Castro
So Caleb had taken unusual steps to find out.
“I miss Mom.”
“I know, Sport,” Granddad said, bending down to pat Melon’s head. The German Shepherd puppy wagged its tail. “A few days more. Then she’ll be back, healthy and… and cured.”
Caleb had heard this before.
Downstairs, the doorbell rang. Granddad shuffled away, and Caleb led Melon into his mom’s room. At the foot of the abandoned bed sat an open dog crate. Melon padded over, licked Caleb’s hands, then flumped onto the cage’s dog bed. Caleb gave Melon a good rubbing, smiling as Melon happily kicked one leg in answer.
“Caleb,” Granddad said from behind as Caleb closed the dog crate. “I’m not angry, but you should let me know when you’re having a friend over.”
A friend?
Caleb turned to see Granddad with a small boy, smaller even than seven-year-old Caleb. The boy had close-cropped red hair, angular features, and a mirthless smile.
“Are you going to introduce us?” Granddad asked.
“Um, this is, uh, Damian. Damian, this is Granddad.”
Melon growled. He’d never growled at anyone.
“Sorry, Damian,” Granddad said. “He’s not used to strangers.”
Melon barked. And kept barking.
“Caleb, why don’t you two play in your bedroom?” Granddad said over Melon’s fury.
Caleb ushered Damian to his room. As Caleb closed his door, Melon’s barking stopped.
“Why am I here, Caleb Snowe?” Damian asked, voice painfully raspy, like he had smoked a thousand years. The newcomer scanned Caleb’s bedroom. Toys lay strewn everywhere.
“I need info. You can’t lie, right?”
“Anything I say is true,” Damian answered, picking up Caleb’s slingshot, one big for the child’s hands. “For example, you used this to murder a squirrel.”
“Nuh uh. I aimed at a squirrel. But didn’t fire. My hand slipped―”
“Ah, the dreaded lie of omission.” Damian put the slingshot back, then sat on the floor by the bed.
“What’s that?”
“It’s how the dishonest speak the truth and still fib. Yes, you didn’t fire. But you held your aim until your hands fatigued. Got so tired that your hand inevitably slipped. Poor Mister Squirrel.”
“I need answers,” Caleb whined, face pained at the thought of the dead squirrel.
“And of course you omitted why Mister Squirrel had to die.” Without looking, Damian reached under the bed and pulled out a black tome, its leathery cover wrinkled.
“Put that back!” Caleb said.
Instead, Damian flipped the ancient book open. “Answers about what?”
“What’s Mom sick from?”
“She’s a coke whore.”
“What’s that?”
“So innocent,” Damian answered, then snorted. “It means your mother is addicted to a drug called cocaine. So addicted, she wasted your family’s savings to buy it. Then sold stuff. Then your house. Then to get more cocaine, she started screwing men. Do you know what that means?” Damian traced his hand down a left page, the words blood red and German.
“Will she be cured?” Caleb asked.
Damian closed his eyes and was silent for five long seconds. “Difficult to foresee. She’s resilient. That means she’s tough. Strong.
“But she’s also weak. Weak-willed. Fools herself into thinking she practices white magic, but then uses books like this. The worst kind of lie of omission. To oneself.”
Damian pointed at the words on the right, his pointing hand covering the drawing of a small boy. “Can you read this?”
“The top says, ‘without lies.’”
Damian snorted again. “Keine unwahrheit. Without falsehood. But you didn’t translate the whole page?”
Caleb shook his head.
“If you’d read all the words, you’d understand what you’ve done.”
The doorbell rang.
“I called forth a… truth teller,” Caleb said, eyes closed, forcing himself to remember some of the English translation.
Damian shook his head. “Half correct. This text also warns that truth comes at a price.”
Downstairs, someone cried out. And then came the shattering of glass, followed by voices. Male. And many.
Caleb’s door opened. A portly teenager stood there in a black leather jacket, his head shaved. “Oh hell. Got two kids here!”
A second intruder shambled in, towering over six feet, his bowl-cut hair topped by a short, scarlet mohawk. “Tie ’em up.”
The “Where’s the money?” yells stopped after another crashing sound.
Caleb pulled at the phone cord tying his wrists to a bedpost. No good.
Damian sat by another bedpost, also bound. Or so Caleb thought. But Damian got off the bed, the venetian blind cord falling off his wrists.
“Call the police,” Caleb whispered. “Please.”
Damian gave Caleb a quizzical look.
“You hafta do what I say,” Caleb added.
“I only have to give facts. Besides, they’ve taken the cell phone and iPad, and you’re tied up with the cord for the landline.”
Caleb’s eyes teared up again. “Granddad will save us.”
“No, he won’t. Your visitors want money. And your Granddad has a small fortune hidden in this house. But he’s been forgetting things. He doesn’t remember the money, much less where it is. And sooner or later, your visitors will throw Granddad through furniture that won’t break his fall. Just him.”
“Untie me,” Caleb begged.
“I don’t believe I can. I can only say—”
Mohawk stormed in, dragging Granddad by the neck. The elderly man had dozens of small welts and scrapes on his arms. His face.
Mohawk dropped Granddad, who collapsed onto his hands and knees.
The intruder flipped out a knife. Pressed the serrated blade against Caleb’s right cheek.
Caleb froze. Couldn’t even breathe.
Mohawk glared at the prone man. “Where’s your goddamn money?”
Granddad whimpered a few words. Nothing coherent.
“Where, old man?”
“He doesn’t remember,” Damian answered.
Mohawk stared at the small boy. “How’d you get untied?”
“Max can’t tie knots worth a damn.”
“How’d you know his name?” Mohawk didn’t wait for an answer. “Retard! Retard, get in here!”
At the door appeared an unfamiliar intruder. Short. Hair fanning out on the sides but thin on top, despite his being a teen. He wore the same black leather jacket as the other two.
Mohawk grabbed Retard. “That kid knows Max’s name. Must be cuz you used it.”
“I’ve never seen that k—”
“Shut up, and tie him up! C’mon, old man.” Mohawk dragged Granddad out as Retard picked up Damian and sat him by his original bedpost.
The intruder spied the open tome with its meticulous drawing of a small child. “Damn. Is it me, or does he look like you?”
“He does,” Damian answered.
Retard snatched the venetian cord from the floor. “Keine unwahrheit. You like the kid in that book? Some sorta truth teller?”
“I am.”
“Where’s the old man’s money?” He tied Damian’s wrists to the post. Tight.
“I have no idea.”
“You’re a lame truth teller.”
“I know several good ones.”
“Yeah? Tell me.”
“You have a congenital defect in your scrotum. Meaning with girls your penis will never work right. Oh, you’ll get the occasional girl to bed with you, but you’ll never get hard. Never do the deed. And some girls will pity you, and a few will laugh. But you’ll always be a limp-dicked l—”
Retard slapped Damian full force across the face. And there was a choked-back scream. But not from Damian.
Retard looked at his hitting hand.
It was smoking.
He shrieked, fleeing the room.
Damian hopped off the bed, the venetian cord dropping from his body. “Perhaps I should have told him how bright he is. How he could be something greater, if he would just try.”
In the hallway, Retard reported, “There’s something weird about that little k—”
“Will you shut up?” Mohawk said. “We need to tear this place apart. Start with…” They moved out of hearing range.
“Maybe the money’s here.” Damian traced a hand across the one white wall in Caleb’s bedroom of blue ones. “Could be a secret door.”
“Granddad was gonna paint my heroes there.”
“Which heroes?”
“The Three Stooges.”
“Those are your heroes?”
“My hero… my hero’s my dad.”
“You’re better off with the Stooges.”
“My dad’s a great man!”
“Your dad was a coward. And when combat broke out the last time, he deserted. Got himself and most of his platoon killed.”
“That’s not true. That’s not true!”
“And he was a mediocre artist. A wannabe artist at that.”
“Is that all you say? The worst truths about people?”
“Yes. That’s what I do! Want me to describe you?”
“Nuh uh. Tell me about you. Your truths. Your story.”
“I… I come from a land of light. And beauty. A land where one can see so many colors. They wash over you, and with them comes joy. And serenity. And endless, endless love.”
“Love?”
“Love. Like your mom caring for you when you’re sick. Your dad taking you to a ballgame. Your Granddad begging the intruders to let you go. Imagine all that care, kindness, and concern, but a million-fold more. The love of our creator is absolute.”
Damian stopped, staring at nothing.
“What happened?” Caleb asked.
“My creator planned something new. Something… very different. A creature that could think. That could choose. That would start young and learn. Grow old and die. But this creature would experience pain, heartbreak, cruelty, and so many feelings foreign to our land, it was as if our creator had gone mad.
“Many of my brothers suspected this.
“There was a revolt.
“We lost.
“We were ejected, cut off from each other. Worse, cut off from the infinite love. And now, I wander. Forever telling hateful truths. Forever tracking and observing evil, but never to oppose it. Never to stop it.
“I can almost remember the love. The endless swirl of colors.”
Damian stepped to the desk, its surface covered with dozens of rocks. He opened a small case. Something colorful glinted inside. But as Damian reached for it—
Mohawk shambled into the room, Melon’s cage suspended from the intruder’s hands. He tossed it onto the bed. Melon yipped upon impact, then growled at Mohawk, who said, “Hey kid, if Gramps won’t say where his money is, I bet you will.”
“I don’t know.”
“You were pretty brave with a knife in your face. But this is your dog, right?”
“Leave him alone!”
“He’s cute.” Mohawk opened the cage, then grabbed Melon by the scruff and dragged the pup out. Melon struggled and growled, but couldn’t resist the much larger force. Mohawk pushed the puppy flat.
Out came Mohawk’s knife.
“Leave him alone!” Caleb yelled, tugging fruitlessly at his binds, eyes tearing up again.
“Let’s trade,” Mohawk said. “Tell me where the money is, and puppy keeps all four paws.”
Melon tried squirming away, but Mohawk kept his weight on the dog’s neck. The intruder placed his blade against Melon’s front right paw. “Where, kid?”
“I don’t know!”
“Tell me where.” Mohawk pressed his knife down on the paw, and Melon whined an eerily human cry. Redness welled up around the blade.
“I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know!” Caleb screamed and would have continued except Mohawk slapped him.
“You do. And you’ll tell. But first, let’s take a paw.”
“The stairs!” Caleb yelled.
“What?”
“Granddad hid it. Under the stairs,” Caleb gasped while crying. “But I don’t know which one. And he doesn’t remember. He forgets everything.”
“Which stair? Near the top? The bottom? Kid, which stair?”
Caleb was keening. Couldn’t stop. But over that sound—
“He doesn’t know,” Damian answered.
Mohawk gaped at the freed boy. “How the hell’d you get loose? Do knots not work on you?”
“Apparently not.”
Mohawk grabbed Damian and threw him into the empty closet. Slammed its door. Flicked the eye-hook latch to trap Damian inside.
“I see you again, kid, someone dies!” Mohawk yelled at the door. “You believe me?”
Melon, trembling, crawled into Caleb’s lap.
“I believe you,” Damian answered through the door.
“And you,” Mohawk said, whirling to face Caleb. “You and that dog better pray the money’s in the stairs.”
He stormed out, yelling “Retard! Get to the basement. Find a crowbar.”
Its eye-hook latch somehow undone, the closet door whispered open. Damian stepped out. Walked to the rock collection table.
“He’s gonna be so mad,” Caleb whispered.
Damian pulled a multicolored stone from the case on the table. “Tell me about this.”
“That’s bismuth. Dad said the colors are ’cause of oxide.”
Damian held up the rock to the overhead light. The bismuth appeared to have tiny rectangular steps cut into it. Although silvery, the stone’s facets glimmered like rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. Between those colors, pastel streaks resembled blue sky and a sunset’s orangish yellow.
A runching sound indicated the intruders had pried up the stairway’s top step.
Their cursing suggested they’d found no money.
Damian put the stone down. “It reminds me of home.”
Melon relaxed, the puppy no longer shaking.
“It’s the best thing I own,” Caleb said, his voice a little raspy from all his crying, but nowhere near as raspy as that of Damian.
“Oh? Why?”
“It was from Dad. It’s… it’s all I have from him.”
Damian spread his arms wide to indicate all the toys. “But you have so much.”
“Mom bought most. Granddad some. And Santa brought a lot this year. And last.”
“Santa.”
Runch! Another step pried up.
Eleven steps left.
“That rock’s all I have… from Dad. Without it, it’s like he never was.”
“Caleb, I wish you’d never used that book. You brought evil into your home.”
Melon licked his cut paw. The bleeding had stopped.
“You don’t seem evil,” Caleb said.
Runch! Ten steps.
“Not me.” Damian motioned with his head toward the hallway. “Them.”
“Wha’ kinda evil?”
Damian opened his mouth to answer, but stopped. Frowned. He clicked on Caleb’s little television, which showed a photo of a ranch house with a superimposed banner: “SLAUGHTER IN BRIMFIELD.” Via voiceover, the announcer said “… the entire Vitale family. A neighbor saw what may have been three teens leave the massacre home.”
Nine steps.
“Maa—massacre?”
“Do you know what that means, Caleb?”
Caleb nodded. He didn’t tear up. He had no tears left.
Eight.
“Please help us.”
“I don’t believe I can.”
“That’s not a NO!”
Damian stared.
“You almost tole Retard he…” Caleb closed his eyes, reciting: “… could be something greater, if he would just try.”
Caleb opened his eyes. “Maybe you could be. If you would just try.”
Seven.
Damian stood silent for several seconds. “I’ve fallen, Caleb.”
“Sometimes the fallen get up!”
“I don’t believe I can.”
Six.
“Lie. Lie of omission!”
“What?”
“You fought. You lost. You fell. But if the Creator is infinite love, part of that hasta be forgiveness. Have you asked for it?”
Five.
“I don’t bel—”
“Lie! Of! Omission! You say you don’t believe. Which means, which means you’re not sure. And part of you does believe. You’re just afraid!”
“Oh?” Damian’s countenance darkened.
Four.
“If you never ask, you always have hope. But if you ask, then you hafta face the music. Either you’re forgiven, or you’re not. And you can’t, you can’t stomach it!
“Please ask. Please get up,” Caleb said. “Please save us.”
Damian pondered this for what seemed an eternity.
Three.
Damian shook his head. “I’m sorry, Caleb.” He glanced at the bismuth, then at Melon, then at Caleb. “Goodbye.”
He turned to leave.
“Damian.”
The boy hesitated.
Two.
“Dad gave me bismuth ’cause it’s bright. He said with it, I wouldn’t fear the dark.”
“Did it work?”
Caleb nodded. “Take it. ’Cause it reminds you of home. And someday it may make you not afraid.”
“But it’s from your—”
“Take it.”
One.
Damian picked up the stone, its surface glittering with a spectrum of colors.
“Thank you.”
He walked out.
At what could only be the bottom of the stairs, Mohawk yelled the same curse a half dozen times before roaring, “Where’s the money?”
Caleb yanked on his binds, while Melon yelped, jumping off the boy’s lap.
One hand pulled free!
But Caleb couldn’t untie the other binds. His right hand was stuck to the bedpost.
Caleb slid down the post, his free hand scooping up Melon and lowering him to the floor.
He pushed Melon under the bed. “You hafta stay, Melon. You can’t come out. You can’t bark. You hafta stay. No matter what you hear.”
Melon tried crawling back into the crook of Caleb’s free arm.
“No, boy! You must stay. Stay! Quiet. Stay. Quiet. Stay. Quiet.
“Stay quiet,” Caleb whispered. “Please.”
Melon sat, looking miserable and confused.
Caleb pulled the sheet down, then scrambled onto the bed and shoved his free hand behind his back as the intruders burst in. They glared at Caleb, but heard the television and turned toward it, the announcer suddenly loud. “The family’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Gloria Vitale, died on the way to surgery, but not before giving a description. Police are looking for these three.”
On the television flashed sketches of a man with a small mohawk, one almost bald on top with frizzing hair on the sides, and one with a shaved head.
“We gotta get outta this state,” Retard said.
Mohawk nodded. “Do the kid. I’ll take care of gramps. Max, get the other k—” He cut himself off, seeing the closet open and empty. Mohawk flicked out his knife, turning on Caleb. “Where is he?”
Before Caleb could speak, another voice answered. It sounded like Damian, but raspy no longer. Instead, the voice was softer, and so melodic, it almost sang, “I’m behind you.”
The three whirled to find Damian in the entrance doorway.
“Told you, kid. I see you again, someone dies,” Mohawk said, smiling. “Remember?”
“I believed you,” Damian said. “I still do. May I have a final word with Caleb before the end?”
The question so surprised Mohawk, he gaped, and Damian kept speaking. “Caleb. Granddad gave you a children’s Bible. Do you remember Lot’s wife?”
Caleb nodded.
“Good. I need you to—” Damian stopped, Caleb having pulled his knees to his chest, buried his head against his legs, then with his free hand, pulled the blankets over himself.
“Good, Caleb.”
“Are we done?” Mohawk asked, taking a step toward Damian.
“We are,” Damian said.
For a moment, silence. In his impromptu blanket fort, Caleb wondered if anything would happen.
Then, a sound. A high-pitched whistle, faint but rising, like an old-fashioned train approaching, the shrill note becoming three overlapping whistles, shrieks that grew agonizingly loud, cutting into Caleb’s ears, and he hoped Melon wasn’t suffering as the noise surged again, followed by Caleb’s teeth vibrating when the cacophony increased even further, the clamor intensifying to an impossible din, one not heard for millennia, like a sun being born, or a city dying, and just as the sound crescendoed, and Caleb feared he would shake apart—
Silence.
Stillness.
Had he gone deaf?
“Caleb,” Damian’s gentle voice said outside the blanket fort. “Do not emerge until I go.”
“Where’d they go?”
“When I’ve left, call 9-1-1 for your grandfather. He will be okay. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“When your mother comes home, tell her to find First Lieutenant Alvar Ortiz. He will have just recovered from fighting. Fighting near where your father perished.”
“He’ll say Dad wasn’t a coward?”
“No, Caleb, I’m sorry. Sometimes men become afraid and make mistakes. But sometimes those men realize their error and correct it at great personal cost. And sometimes a platoon dies, but would have died anyway, and their sacrifice saves far more lives around them. Have your Mom speak with Ortiz.”
“Okay.”
Still with his head down, Caleb heard Melon panting.
“Goodbye, Melon,” Damian said. “Goodbye, Caleb. You may come out now.”
Caleb threw off the sheets.
Damian was gone.
Melon bounded up and crashed into Caleb, the pup licking his human, tail wagging so hard that the momentum almost pulled them off the bed. Caleb’s other binds no longer held his right wrist, the phone cord having somehow fallen off.
Caleb got up and reconnected his bedroom phone. While dialing 9-1-1, he saw Damian had left two gifts. The first was the bismuth, returned to the center of his rock collection.
The second was on the previously blank wall. There the visitor had etched three shadowy outlines of the Three Stooges.
Only years later would Caleb realize the central shadow, the Moe of the Stooges, had a very small mohawk.
C. Dan Castro enjoys writing fantasy, mystery, and thriller stories. He has stories published by Dragon Gems, Bards and Sages, Sherlock Holmes Magazine (UK), Thrill Ride the Magazine, and more! When not composing stories, Dan tweets writing tips (@CDanCastro43), dreams of traveling again, or studies languages to imbue his stories with je ne sais quoi. Whatever that means. He lives in Connecticut, where he’s making a final polish on his first novel, a middle-grade fantasy.
“Lies of Omission” by C. Dan Castro. Copyright © 2025 by C. Dan Castro.
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