Rag Doll Bones: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  14

  All four boys looked up.

  Travis’s face contorted in a snarl.

  “You’re dead,” he yelled, pointing a finger at them. Then he glanced down, his scowl replaced with a mean grin.

  “And now you’ll be easy to catch too.”

  Travis lifted a foot and slammed his shoe onto the glasses.

  Sid squinted toward the boys, cringing when his glasses cracked, but Ashley knew he couldn’t see the glasses or even Travis’s face. The boys would be a blur against the sidewalk below.

  “Bloody hell,” she snapped, grabbing Sid’s arm and pulling him up. “Just move your feet,” she hissed.

  The Thrashers would run through the laundromat to the service door that led up the stairs and eventually opened onto the roof. Every kid in town knew how to get there, but not every kid knew about the old dumbwaiter in the fourth-floor hallway. It was their only chance.

  Sid bumped along behind her, breath wheezing between his teeth. She tugged him forward.

  “Stairs,” she told. “Grab the rail.”

  He took the rail in one hand, holding hers in the other.

  Below them, Ashley heard the heavy laundromat door crash open and the slap of tennis shoes on the cement steps.

  Sid groaned, but Ashley didn’t allow the vision of the boys pounding up the stairs to frighten her.

  She jerked Sid down the hallway, nearly tripping when he stepped on her heel.

  “The dumbwaiter,” she whispered, shoving the metal door open with a shriek.

  Sid planted his hands on the edge, his face a mask of terror, but he didn’t complain as he hoisted himself into the dark opening. She gave him a little push, and he tucked into the back corner of the metal box. She crawled in behind him, crushing against him, and pulling her legs against her chest.

  If the boys made it to fourth floor as she closed the door, they’d hear it, and she and Sid would be stuck in the tiny, claustrophobic space.

  She momentarily flashed on the boys lowering the waiter halfway so that they’d be trapped inside the wall in perpetual darkness. For half a second, she wanted to jump out and take her chances with the Thrashers. Instead, she gritted her teeth and yanked the door closed, sealing them in darkness.

  Sid’s breath came out in raspy huffs, and she could feel him trying to slow down his breath. Even she found it difficult to breathe in the space. The air was stale and warm, and the darkness seemed thicker than the air outside the dumbwaiter.

  Her right leg and arm were pressed against the cool metal door. Footsteps smacked down the hallway.

  “They’re not on the roof,” one boy shouted.

  Behind her, Sid made little gurgling sound in his throat.

  More footsteps thumped down the hall.

  Travis’s voice rang out. “Well, they didn’t jump,” he snarled.

  “Third floor,” Gary announced. “The window at the end opens up to the fire escape.”

  “Shit! Come on,” Travis shouted.

  Shoes pounded away.

  Sid started to move, as if ready to plow into the metal door and force his way into the light.

  “Not yet,” Ash warned.

  Several minutes passed in silence.

  She wondered if oxygen had become scarce in the little enclosure. Every breath seemed smaller than the last. Soon they’d be sipping air, and after that, they’d open their mouths, but their lungs would hang empty and deflated behind their ribs.

  Just as the words let’s go formed on her tongue, she heard the soft plod of a footstep in the hall. It was a muted sound. The person walking didn’t want to be heard.

  Ashley shrank back, listening for another footstep.

  Instead, she heard the metallic ting as someone’s hands clutched the door to the dumbwaiter.

  As the door flew open, both she and Sid screamed.

  A woman wearing a gray cleaning uniform lurched back, her own scream erupting from her thin lips. She clutched her chest, her head shaking from side to side and sending her gray hair flopping back and forth on her head.

  “What are you kids doing in there?” She fumed. “Get out this instant. Good Lord, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Damn kids,” she continued, still wide eyed.

  “It’s not them?” Sid whispered.

  “No, no, a cleaning lady.”

  Ashley climbed out and tugged Sid’s hand to follow. He half fell out of the dumbwaiter, struggling as Ashley tried to keep him from tottering over completely.

  The cleaning lady glared at them furiously.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Sid said, squinting at the woman.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Ashley offered, pulling Sid down the hall.

  They took the stairs slowly, stopping often to listen for any sound of the Thrashers. When they reached the laundromat, the coast was clear.

  Outside Sid’s glasses had been crushed into a dozen pieces.

  “My mom’s going to kill me,” he grumbled, as Ashley placed the pieces in his hands so he could feel the damage for himself.

  “Yeah,” Ashley agreed. “But better they destroyed your glasses than your face.”

  “It’d probably be an improvement,” Sid grumbled.

  Ash elbowed him.

  “Oh, come off it, Sid Putnam. I’ll pity you for your glasses, but that’s where it ends. There’s nothing wrong with your face.”

  “Except it’s attached to my body.” He waved at his thick middle.

  Ashley never knew how to respond when Sid went down the long winding road of ‘I’m fat.’

  “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll go eat worms,” she started singing.

  Sid stuck his tongue out at her and then picked up the second verse.

  “Big fat juicy ones. Eensie weensy squeensy ones. See how they wiggle and squirm!”

  They sang the song together as they walked the last few blocks to Sid’s house.

  * * *

  “My mom’s running errands,” he said, relieved when he stepped out of his house wearing an old pair of spectacles. “And look what she got!”

  He held up a box of Spokey Dokeys. “Glow in the dark,” he added.

  “Cool,” Ash said, following Sid as he pushed his bike out of the garage.

  He sat down and started trying to attach the little plastic beads to his spokes.

  Ashley walked to the side of the house and gazed into the woods. If only they’d picked up what Travis had said to his friends. Clearly, he’d whispered the location of Warren’s hideout. She tried to imagine where someone like Warren would disappear to, where any kid in Roscommon would.

  She wandered back to Sid, watching absently as he fumbled with the beads. He squinted through his glasses and bit his lower lip as he worked. His face reminded her of similar expressions from several days before. He’d been prising at a board, a grim look of determination in his eyes.

  “The Crawford House,” Ash blurted, startling Sid as he attempted for the third time to attach a neon green Spokey Dokey to the spokes of his Huffy bicycle. The plastic bead bounced on the pavement and disappeared into the grass.

  His old glasses, with duct tape on the bridge, slid down his nose.

  “Gosh damn-it,” he fumed, kicking the plastic package and sending the rest of the spoke beads flying. His mouth fell as he watched the beads disappear, and he bit his bottom lip. Ashley saw tears sparkling in his eyes, and she grabbed his shoulder.

  “Hey, it’s okay. Here.” Ashley bent and scooped up a handful of the scattered spokeys. She knelt down and quickly attached five to his spokes.

  Sid sat heavily on the curb, picking up the remainder of the beads and dropping them into the plastic package with a frustrated plunk.

  “What about The Crawford House?” he asked finally.

  “Someone could hide there. Live there even.”

  Sid wrinkled his nose. “If they want to die from the plague.”

  “You don’t get plagues from dingy houses, stupid,” Ashley told him, rolling her ey
es.

  “I don’t follow, Ash.”

  “If Warren’s the boy in the woods, he might be hiding out at The Crawford House? It would be the perfect place.”

  Sid shuddered. As if to do something ordinary, he took off his glasses and picked at a little smudge on one lens. “In an old funeral home?” Sid asked, shaking his head.

  “I bet you anything that’s what Travis was talking about,” she continued.

  “I don’t know,” he replied.

  “Have any better ideas?”

  She watched Sid’s forehead crease, and he stared at the line of cracks in the pavement beneath him.

  “Maybe we dreamed it. Maybe there is no boy in the woods or Warren or whatever it is.”

  “Come on,” Ashley hollered.

  “Okay, okay.” He held up his hands. “We didn’t dream it. But what’s he up to then? Stalking other kids from Winterberry? Was he trying to kill us?”

  “I don’t know, but… I think he got Simon and the other kid too, Vern,” Ashley said, remembering again the image of Simon’s lifeless body as they carried him from the woods.

  15

  “Listen,” Max announced. “Quiet, hush. You’re mine for five more minutes, so hush up.”

  The din in the room quieted except for Ashley and Sid. Max gave them a pointed look, and they both clamped their mouths shut.

  “I don’t want to alarm any of you, but I’m sure you realize multiple kids have gone missing over the last six months,” Max started. “And what happened to Simon Frank is just, well, it’s a terrible tragedy.”

  “Who else?” one girl piped up.

  “Vern Ripley, dummy,” a boy across the room shouted. “He’s been gone for like six months!”

  “He went to live with his dad,” another boy stated matter of factly. “His stepdad’s a total prick.”

  “No, he didn’t,” another girl argued. “I live next door to his mom. She said his dad is working on the pipeline in Alaska. No one knows what happened to him.”

  “Okay, hold on,” Max said, trying to talk over the voices.

  “My brother said Warren probably got eaten by the same bear as Simon. Last year we saw three black bears in the woods.”

  “Black bears don’t eat people, dummy,” yet another boy chimed in.

  “I saw Warren like two days ago,” another boy said. “He’s not missing!”

  “Quiet,” Max yelled, finally silencing the group once more. “Warren’s parents have reported him missing. Vern Ripley’s parents have reported him missing, and Simon Frank’s parents had reported him missing. I don’t know what happened to these kids, and I don’t know if any of them are connected.”

  “What do you mean, connected?” Jessica Blanchard, a straight A student who also played several sports and was president of the debate club, asked.

  “He means a kid killer,” Travis Barron hissed, smiling cruelly at Sid and Ashley, who looked quickly away from him.

  Max stared at the kid, unnerved by his tone, but then continued. “I am saying be careful this summer. When you go out to play, go together. Don’t let your friends walk home alone, especially at night.”

  “Like the buddy system?” another girl asked.

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  “Forget buddies, carry a knife,” Travis said, patting his side pocket and offering the other students another cold smile.

  “That’s a good way to get hurt,” Max told him. “Just be on the lookout,” Max finished. “And tell your parents what’s going on. They need to be aware. We all need to be more aware.”

  The bell rang, and the kids jumped from their seats.

  Only Ashley and Sid seemed to take their time, and though they weren’t talking, the significant glances that had passed between them as he spoke were not lost on Max.

  * * *

  “We’re free!” Ashley shouted as she and Sid fled down the steps.

  They’d been careful to blend into the crowd of middle schoolers, knowing the Thrashers might try to single them out after school.

  “That was pretty weird, what Mr. Wolf said,” Sid mused.

  Ashley nodded. “I didn’t know Vern Ripley was missing. I thought he’d moved away,” she admitted.

  “I didn’t either. My dad said the cops believe Simon got attacked by a wolf or something.”

  Ashley frowned. “No way. Have you ever heard of a wolf around here?”

  Sid shook his head. “No, but maybe it’s just a fluke - what happened to us and Simon. Maybe it’s not connected at all,” he said hopefully.

  Ashley sighed in exasperation. “I’m going to Mr. Sampson’s Bike Shop,” she said. “Wanna go?”

  Sid hung his head. “Mandatory last day of school dinner at Charlie Kang’s.”

  Ashley laughed.

  Charlie Kang’s was a Chinese restaurant a few towns over. The food was delicious, but every year Sid’s parents took him and his brother on the last day of school to spend the evening planning what classes and extracurricular activities the boys would enroll in next year.

  “Grab me a fortune cookie,” Ashley told him, waving goodbye and turning onto the street where the bike shop stood.

  * * *

  “Twenty-two dollars and she’s all yours,” Mr. Sampson told Ashley, patting the seat on the Huffy Pro Thunder.

  Ashley grinned and nodded, still touching one handlebar, not quite ready to walk away from her future wheels.

  Mr. Sampson smiled approvingly.

  She knew he appreciated her enthusiasm. A lot of kids walked into Sampson’s Bike Shop, and when their parents pulled out a check, the kid barely smiled, let alone offered a thank you.

  Ashley had been visiting the bike shop at least twice a week since the previous fall when she first spotted the Huffy Pro Thunder in the store window. There’d been a moment, a long pause where the breath seemed pulled from her lungs as she gazed at the purple and gold bike. This was her bike. She knew it in her guts.

  That day, she’d walked in and handed the dollar-fifty she’d stuck in the pocket of her coat meant for a candy bar and the arcade to Mr. Sampson. He put the bike on layaway, and though she knew other kids and parents had tried to purchase the bike, he’d always refused. She’d watched him do it more than once.

  As Ashley walked home, floating on the fumes of being near her future bike, she gazed at the cloudless sky and felt the overwhelming joy of impending summer. The air smelled like freshly cut grass and the sweet intoxication of the Swirly Cone baking fresh cone bowls. A group of kids hooted and laughed from the baseball diamond as they played an early evening game.

  Not even the strangeness of the previous week could get her down.

  As she turned onto her road, she saw the birds. They circled in the distance, several blocks away. She counted ten, maybe eleven, buzzards flying in a slow circle above the woods.

  She walked toward them, her legs simply pushing along despite her mind’s bumbling protests. As she passed in front of her own house, not even bothering to glance at it, her mother’s voice rang out.

  “Ash! Where are you going?”

  Ashley turned, surprised to see her mother standing next to her car, balancing a grocery sack on one hip and a pizza box in her raised hand.

  “I got out early!” She grinned. “Pepperoni and mushroom.”

  Ashley faltered, her mind blank, and then she trotted over to her mother.

  “Yes, pizza!” She took the box from her mother’s hand.

  “And cookies.” Her mother held up the paper bag.

  As Ashley followed her mother into the house, she remembered the birds. She glanced back at the sky, saw them lazily drifting in the distance and shrugged it off.

  * * *

  The following morning, Ashley woke with the fervor of the first day of summer. She climbed out of bed, sun already peeking through her curtains, and stretched.

  Ashley heard her mother’s worried voice. “Oh dear.”

  She finished pulling her hair into a ponytail and walke
d to the living room where her mother stood in a bathrobe, her hair still wet from the shower, watching the news.

  “What is it?” Ashley asked, plopping on the sofa and searching for her tennis shoes in the dark cavern beneath it. “Sweet,” she announced when she pulled out her cassette tape of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts singing “I love Rock and Roll.” “I’ve been looking everywhere for this.”

  Her mother didn’t respond, and when Ashley looked up, she saw her gaze still glued to the television.

  “Wait, is that our woods?” Ashley asked, scooting down to the carpeted floor and crawling closer to the screen. She leaned forward and turned up the volume.

  Technically, the woods weren’t theirs, but they ran along the back of their neighborhood and the kids had claimed them. Each section of town seemed to have its own set of woods, and the kids who lived closest declared ownership over them.

  “Melanie Dunlop was last seen walking into these woods yesterday afternoon by her brother.” The reporter gestured at the woods behind her.

  “I have gym class with Melanie,” Ashley murmured, picturing the girl who favored brightly colored tights and poufy, teased hair framing her heart-shaped face in a halo of blonde frizz.

  “You do?” Deep grooves marred Rebecca’s face as she frowned at the television. Ashley saw her Grandma Patty in her mother’s face.

  “I mean, maybe she just got lost,” Ashley murmured, but a memory was surfacing.

  The birds circling over the woods yesterday afternoon as Ashley walked home. When had she seen those birds before? Just days earlier at the school when Warren had disappeared into the forest shortly before they’d found Simon’s dead body.

  “It’s terrible,” her mom murmured, walking backward to the sofa and sinking down. “You haven’t seen anyone, Ashley? Anyone unusual hanging around? My boss at the nursing home mentioned they found a boy dead outside the school. It hasn’t even been in the papers.”

  “Simon Frank,” Ashley told her.

  “Was he sick?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t play in the woods, honey. Okay? Not until the police find that girl.”