October 15:

I called Marjorie Johnston a tub of lard while she wrote the math solution on the blackboard. Her eyes got all crinkly and her lips pursed like she was aiming to kiss something slimy.

Principal Markus asked why I was turning into a bad boy. I shrugged and he called my dad. 

October 20:

I skipped school and sat by the scummy pond on Walter Drive freezing my ass off and thinking about drowning and hypothermia.

October 31:

I egged all the houses I could, but no one called the cops.

November 1: 

I filled shopping bags with dog crap and threw them around the lunchroom. Principal Markus looked like he might growl, but he just called Dad and gave me a few days off.

November 9: 

Dad’s eyes sparkled like they used to, and I decided against my plan. I don’t know if I could’ve poisoned him anyway.

He grumbled that he was worried.

I’m worried too.

November 11:

Dad’s sparkling eyes are gone. I watched him eat supper, and all the beef juices dribbled down his chin.

Damn that thing in the backyard. I wish we never found it.

November 12:

I slung my mashed potatoes around the lunchroom. 

It didn’t go over well with the students. I think the bites might get infected, but I ran away instead of waiting for an ambulance. Tub of lard, Marjorie, managed to get several mouthfuls of my flesh—an especially big hunk out of my cheek.
        
November 14:

I haven’t been back to school.

I think someone will come, and then take Dad away, and he won’t blame me because I didn’t say anything outright. They’ll find the berries too.

After supper, Dad hobbled into my room, staring at my cheek. It was purple around Marjorie’s teeth marks. I felt like crying when he stood there. I hoped he’d insist we go to the hospital. Instead his eyes went greedy and I turned, hiding my face.

He eventually lost interest and went away.
 
November 14: Evening

I awoke to Dad licking my face—the bite mark, and I leaped up screaming. Both his teeth and smile were dirty. Mud darkened his arms, and slime made a circle around his lips. He was eating the berries again.

His eyes stretched wide. Not good-wide like Christmas morning. I didn’t like it one bit.

He shook his head like our little dog did—before he was cooked on the barbeque.

Dad’s brow furrowed and he hobbled away.

When was the school was going to send someone to check on me?

I waited until I heard the grunting stop, and made my way through the living room crab-like. Dad was thrashing on the sofa like a caged tiger. His eyes were pinched tightly closed showing all the wrinkles on his forehead, and his mouth was stretched into a grimace. I snuck into the kitchen and slipped out the bulkiest knife from the block and carried it back to my room.

I fell asleep with it under my pillow.  
     
November 15: 4:00AM

Dad came in, growling loud and smacking his slobbery lips together. The moonlight grayed his twisted-up face. Red veins were spreading through his eyes as they burrowed into the festering hole in my cheek. He meant to take a bite. I curled into the corner. He moved jerkily, and was hunched over, like his spine had melted. His pupils kept slipping up and back behind his lids, leaving only dark little crescent moons.

My hand was sweaty around the handle of the knife. His expression hardened while his slimy tongue caressed his cracked lips.

I didn’t want to...

My hand swirled around like a tornado.

He staggered, and squished his face as he fell. His body was sprawled like a starfish and blood seeped around him like a bad aura. 

November 15: Late morning

The school finally came through. Darkly uniformed men came, finding us—me with bloody hands, and dad without a heartbeat.

They took me away.

November 18:

A tired-looking doctor asked me how I felt about Dad. I shrugged and studied the floor. Then I said I was sorry for the things I did at school; I just wanted someone to come to my house to help.

I told him about the berries and our barbequed dog, and he just stared. His eyebrows crunched and I’m certain he looked kinda amused. I asked him what was funny.

That’s when it hit me. It wasn’t just Dad, or a single berry bush. The doctor was spying my cheek—the bite mark, then his gaze shifted down to my arm where two other dirty pits throbbed. He wanted to lick them and take his own bite.

November 20:

The doctor asked again about the berries, and I pretended I’d never heard of the bush before. 

He told me I was right... that the berries didn’t exist, and I nodded quickly like it was God’s truth.
     
November 21:

I licked a ragged square of newspaper and stuck it to my cheek to cover the bite mark. The doctor claims he doesn’t see anything, but he’s trying to trick me.
     
November 22:

Everyone here is denying the berries exist, but I know now it’s because they’ve eaten them. I hear them all grunting in the hall.

The berries are real. Believe me. I know. I tried them too. They were sweet in my mouth and tasted delicious like strawberries, but they make you crazy. I can prove it. I admit it was me who hurt the dog. I tossed little Snowflake on the grill and slammed the lid. I didn’t know it was our pet until it was too late and he was all charred.

That’s what the berries do to you.
 
I promise I’m sane. Someone must believe me, because things will only get worse. We’ll have an epidemic.
     
This is probably a waste.

No one ever believes kids.