The boy’s eyes darted inside the store again, but he turned to face Max, clutching the spray bottle tight in his right hand. Max suspected if he moved on the kid too fast, he’d get a face full of window cleaner.
“My name’s Max,” Max offered. “I’m helping Ms. Rowe find out what happened to Chris.”
It was only a small lie, but he suspected mentioning Ms. Rowe’s name would ease the kid’s suspicions. “I met some kids at the basketball court who said you saw a black van the day Chris Rowe disappeared.” Max figured he’d better get right down to it. The kid looked uneasy, and he doubted the parent in the store would leave him talking to a strange man for long.
Ethan looked in the direction of the basketball court. “I already told Ms. Rowe everything I know.”
“Can you tell me too? Just what you remember?”
Ethan fidgeted, shifting from one foot to another and glancing up at the sky as if trying to jog his memory.
“I was walking to the store, and a guy in a black van pulled up. I’d never seen the van, and it didn’t have any windows except in the front. A guy rolled down his window and held up a Twix bar. He said he was trying to find a gas station. If I’d get in and show him the way, he’d give me the candy bar.”
Max recoiled. The story was even more disturbing hearing it firsthand.
“He wanted you to get in the van?”
Ethan nodded. “I don’t eat store candy. Plus the guy creeped me out.”
“What did he look like?”
Ethan shrugged. “Normal, I guess. Dark eyes, kind of dimmed glasses, you know like guys wore in the sixties and seventies.”
“Clean?”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah, no beard or nothing.”
“Why did he creep you out?”
Ethan blinked at his feet. “He umm…. he seemed like he was pretending. He had this real high voice. Ever seen Animal House?” Ethan looked up at him, then glanced toward the store window.
“The movie?” Max asked, not following.
“Yeah, yeah. Dean Wormer’s that real uppity guy who runs the school. The guy in the van sounded like Dean Wormer, but he dressed like a hippie.”
Max nodded, though he wondered if the man in the black van had been playing at sounding sophisticated to lure the young man into his van.
The door opened and a man not much taller than Ethan stepped out. He wore a crisp white shirt tucked into black trousers.
“Can I help you, sir?” the man stepped in front of Ethan blocking him from view.
“No, thank you,” Max said, taking a step back. “I’m a teacher. Max Wolfenstein.” He held out his hand, and the man shook it, though wearily.
“He’s helping Ms. Rowe find Chris,” Ethan blurted.
The man nodded and nudged Ethan toward the door.
“I need you to take out the trash, Son. You can finish the windows later.”
He pushed his son through the door, and offered Max a curt nod before following him inside.
19
“Milk, medicine droppers, Polaroid camera, and steak knives,” Sid said, picking through his backpack.
“And my baseball bat,” Ashley added, clanking her metal bat against the curb. “And keep your eyes on the sky. You see any birds and were out of there.”
They’d neared the edge of the forest when a voice startled them both.
“What are you guys doing?” Shane asked, kicking up his skateboard and balancing it on the tip.
Sid shot her an anxious look and shook his head.
Ashley shrugged. “Walkin.”
“Into those woods?” Shane nodded at the woods where Melanie Dunlop had disappeared several days before.
“No, into the mall. Obviously.” She rolled her eyes, and Sid grinned.
“Can I come?” Shane asked. He tossed his head back, his blond hair returning to a sheath across his forehead.
“No,” Sid whispered under his breath, but Ashley’s head had already tilted up and down.
“Sure, why not?” She ignored Sid and traipsed into the woods, stomping branches beneath her sneakers.
“Are you guys looking for Melanie?” Shane asked as they walked beneath the awning of trees.
“No,” Sid griped, eyes cast toward the sky in search of vultures.
“You okay, man?” Shane asked.
Sid didn’t answer and dropped his jaw when Shane got a running start and ran right up the side of a tree, grabbing a branch above him and swinging his legs up. His upper body arced back, and he dangled, his golden hair waving below his head.
A blue jay squawked and fled from the tree, its bright blue body vanishing into the higher branches.
“Why did you let him come? He’ll make fun of us with The Thrashers,” Sid whispered to Ashley.
Sid’s belly felt like a pit of writhing snakes. He didn’t understand why, but suspected it had something to do with the way Ashley laughed when Shane had flipped into the tree.
“Three is better than two, Sid. We need all the help we can get if we run into the monster.”
Sid grunted and picked up a stick, poking at the dirt and avoiding looking at Shane as he gracefully swung down from the tree.
“Swear you won’t tell anyone what we’re about to show you?” Ashley asked, turning to face Shane.
He stopped, pulling a face and squinting at the forest floor.
“You didn’t find her, did you? Melanie?” Shane whispered.
Ashley screwed up her face.
“No, gross! What do you think, we’re leading you to her body?” Ashley cringed.
Shane released a whoosh of breath and ran his hands through his hair, a mannerism that made Sid want to hack off every piece of his golden hair with a pair of rusted gardening shears.
“Haven’t you read “The Body” by Stephen King? It’s in his book Different Seasons. Crazier things have happened,” Shane replied.
“You’ve read it?” Sid asked, as if he expected Shane to be illiterate, though he knew full well he wasn’t. He'd heard Shane read aloud in English class. He never even stumbled over the big words like procrastinate or bewildered. Sid, on the other hand, who was an exceptional reader in his own head, turned into a stuttering ignoramus when forced to read out loud during class.
“I won’t show you until you promise to keep them a secret.”
“I swear,” Shane said, resting a hand on his chest.
Ashley led him to the clearing where they’d built the raccoon den.
Shane walked up to their little raccoon tree house and peeked into the opening.
“Wow,” he said. “I’ve never seen baby raccoons before.”
“Want to feed one?” Ashley asked.
She pulled the backpack from Sid’s back and took out the milk and medicine droppers.
Shane lifted a raccoon out and cupped it in both hands as he sat on the ground.
“Hey, little dude,” he told it. “Where did you find them?” he asked Ashley.
“In a tree. We think their mom got hit by a car.”
“Bummer,” he said.
“Want the other dropper?” Ashley asked Sid.
He shot Shane a grouchy look and shook his head. “You go ahead,” he murmured.
Ashley lifted Alvin from the den, rubbing his soft head beneath her chin.
“Hey, Alvin. How’s your day been?”
“Alvin?” Shane asked.
“Alvin,” Ash repeated, lifting the raccoon. “And you’re holding Simon. Theodore is the little pork chop still in there. He’d guzzle all the milk if you let him.”
After they fed the raccoons, they walked back toward the road.
Sid had never taken the camera from his bag. He sensed Ashley didn’t want to reveal what else they’d been looking for in the woods. Keeping the secret suited him just fine.
“We could go to the arcade,” Shane suggested as they left the woods.
The summer day lazed around them. Sun splashed across the metallic hoods of cars parked in driveways.
/> Sid saw sprinkler’s sending arcs of water across green lawns.
In Mrs. Lincoln’s yard, her windmill flamingos didn’t move a feather. The leaves didn’t rustle in the trees. The heat had the thick stifling sensation that reminded Sid, unpleasantly, of being tucked into the dumbwaiter several days before.
“I can’t,” Ashley said. “I’ve got to mow Mr. Bauman’s yard, and then run to the market for Mrs. Jasper.”
“Dang. Are those like your jobs or something?” Shane asked.
“I’m saving for the Huffy Pro Thunder. I only need twenty-two dollars and it’s mine. I have eight right now, fourteen bucks to go.”
Shane whistled.
“I’ve seen that bike in Sampson’s. It’s totally bitchin.”
“What about you?” Shane asked Sid.
Sid looked up sharply, a flush rushing from his neck to his forehead before he could demand his body to play it cool.
Shane watched him as if he were dead serious, not asking so that when Sid said yes, he could laugh in his face.
Sid wanted to go to the arcade. He had dreamed two nights before that he’d defeated Donkey Kong and won back Lady, but when he tried to imagine riding his bike alongside Shane on his skateboard, he stumbled instead into a vision of Shane luring him into the park where Travis and the other Thrashers would hide in the john, waiting to grab him and stick his head in the toilet for a bogwash.
“Nah, I don’t think so,” he said at last. “My mom said something about burgers at the Pin Wheel today.”
It was a lie. His mom never wanted burgers at the Pin Wheel. The last Friday of the month they went as a family because their father insisted the boys deserved a greasy burger and fries once in a blue moon. Gloria Putnam disagreed, but went along with it after too many arguments with her husband to count. However, they’d gone to Pin Wheel two weeks before. Their next trip wouldn’t be until July.
Ashley knew as much, but Sid didn’t let her catch his eye.
“Okay, see you guys later,” Shane said, pulling his skateboard from the bushes.
Sid and Ashley had walked to the woods, so they continued home on foot.
“You’d like him if you gave him a chance,” Ashley said after several minutes of silence.
“Like a needle in the eye,” Sid grumbled.
“Come on,” Ashley argued. “What’s your deal, Sid. He’s been nice.”
“He’s boring, Ash. Okay. He’s one of those perfect everything dudes. Perfect hair, best at skateboarding, too cool for the cool kids, too cool for the dorks. He’s like a shadow of a person.”
Ashley started to disagree, but Sid cut her off.
“And he’s probably pulling the prank of the year. He’ll spend the summer befriending us and then lure us to some secret Thrasher hideout so they can beat the tar out of us before school starts back up in the fall.”
Sid heard the explanation, weak and bordering on paranoid. He didn’t believe a word of it. The truth was, he didn’t want a third. Period. He liked Ashley and Sid as they were.
Ashley didn’t say more about it. She rattled on about the Huffy Pro Thunder until they reached his street.
“My mom’s making spaghetti tonight. Want to come over later?”
“I thought you were going to the Pinwheel,” she mocked.
Sid’s mouth fell open, but he clamped it shut. “I just didn’t want to go with him, okay?” He heard the whine in his voice and wished he could cut out his stupid voice box and just be one of those cool, silent guys you sometimes saw in noir films. They wore black trench coats and smoked cigarettes, and gorgeous women fell all over them even though they never spoke a word.
Ashley shook her head and Sid noticed a wistful look in her eye. “I’m cooking dinner for my mom tonight.”
“What? Can you even work the oven?”
Ashley glared at him. “Actually, smart-ass, I can. But I’m going to make tuna fish sandwiches, so I won’t need to.”
“Umm, I don’t think that’s called cooking.”
“Whatever. I’ll see you tomorrow, Sid.” She offered him a light punch in the bicep and turned left, cutting between a row of houses leading toward her house.
“Okay,” he yelled after her. “Call me early. Okay? Maybe we can take the camera out and look for, ya know…”
But she didn’t respond and as he watched her run off, and his throat constricted around his words.
20
“Mr. Wolf?”
A girl’s voice, as clear as if she’d spoken into his ear, flowed to Max out of the darkness.
He sat up in bed.
“Who’s there?” he asked, his mind suspended between waking and dreaming.
He squinted into his dark bedroom. He made out the silhouettes of his dresser and the chair next to his closet.
Had a student snuck into his house?
He fumbled for his bedside table, flipping on his lamp, and extinguishing the shadows.
No girl stood in his bedroom.
His eyes flitted over the dresser scattered with his wallet, keys, and a few quarters. Beside his dresser, the previous day’s clothes were draped over a chair.
He stood and shuffled to the door, looking down the dark hallway to the equally dark stairs. No sounds emerged, not even a breath broke the silence.
He slipped back into his room and closed and locked the door. As he walked toward his bed, something scratched at his window.
He jumped back, imagining a girl’s sharp fingernails clawing at the glass.
The scratching came again, and his heart galloped in his chest. He lunged to his lamp and flipped the light off, feeling exposed in the yellow beam.
In the cover of darkness, he peeled back the curtain, preparing for the face he expected to find pressed against his window.
His cat, Frankenstein, named after the scientist, not the monster, stood on his roof, paws pressed against the window pane. His yellow eyes glowed in the dark night.
“Jesus, Frankenstein,” he muttered, putting a hand on his chest and feeling the rapid thud beneath his palm.
Max opened the window, and the cat leapt inside, his black and white hair standing in a rigid arc from nape to tail.
The cat had been all that was left after his break-up with Cindy Montgomery two years before. She’d given him the kitten for the single Christmas they’d spent together. He remembered her confused and disappointed expression when she’d opened her own gift: a waterproof Timex watch. He’d realized later, after Jake elbowed him after Christmas dinner, that Cindy had expected a ring.
Frankenstein had outlived several of Max’s, short but not so sweet, relationships since.
“Something spook you?” he asked, kneeling to pet that cat.
Frankenstein leaned into his touch, but remained alert, his tail a streak of agitated fur.
As Max stroked the cat and the hazy fear of being awakened dissipated, he realized he recognized the voice who’d spoken to him from the darkness.
It had been the voice of Melanie Dunlop.
Max walked into the hallway, turning on lights as we went. He peeked into the spare bedroom, the bathroom, and finally, traipsed down the stairs into the living room.
A book lay on the living room floor. He grabbed it, not bothering to glance at the title and returned it the shelf. The house was empty.
“I dreamed it,” he sighed, retiring to his room and crawling back into bed.
Frankenstein curled into a ball and rested his head on his tail.
“Melanie Dunlop,” he whispered and then shook his head, thinking back to his conversation with Ashley and Sid from the day before. The ghost story had clearly planted a creep seed in his head, and he’d dreamed her voice in his room as a consequence.
Creep seeds were a term invented by one of his college professors during psychology 101 and referred to unnerving events of the day that later wove themselves into dreams.
Max’s experience at The Crawford House had definitely left a lasting impression, one he’d
never made sense of. Though in the years since the incident occurred, he’d decided he’d made it up. Fear mingled with a powerful boy’s imagination produced the images Max saw that night. Nothing more.
He leaned over and flicked off the lamp, listening to Frankenstein’s purrs as he drifted back to sleep.
Sunlight filtered through the slants in his blinds when Max woke. He rolled over, mouth falling open, when he spotted the time: ten forty-three a.m. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept later than seven o’clock in the morning.
His feet tingled from the heavy ball of fluff curled on his ankles.
“Ok, Frankie, move it or lose it,” he murmured, wiggling his legs until the cat stretched, shot him an irritated look, and hopped down from the bed.
He followed the cat down the stairs and into the kitchen, stopping abruptly at the mess on the floor.
“What the…” he bent down to take a closer look. A trail of colorful cereal lay scattered along the linoleum.
He picked up a piece of the cereal and sniffed it.
“Fruit Loops,” he murmured, smelling the faint aroma of lemons.
Max stood and set the single yellow loop on his counter, eyeing it wearily.
He didn’t own a box of Fruit Loops. He stopped eating sugary cereal in high school when the football coach had told him he’d never make the team if he didn’t build some muscle, which meant protein. Max had started eating eggs for breakfast the next day. He never did play football.
By the time his body achieved the desirable physique of an athlete, Max had shifted his focus to the basketball team and considered the football players to be lunkheads who likely lost half a cup of braincells every game.
Frankenstein sniffed the cereal and then batted a loop with his paw, sending it skidding across the floor and under the kitchen table.
Max walked to the door and turned the handle. It wiggled, but otherwise stayed in place, the lock engaged.
He thought of the voice from the night before, the girl’s voice, Melanie Dunlop’s voice. Maybe she had run away and for whatever reason had broken into his house and dropped a handful of Fruit Loops on his kitchen floor.
“Like Hansel and Gretel,” he said out loud before shaking his head in disbelief. “Better take pictures of this, Frankenstein. Detective Welch will definitely want to see the latest clues I’ve discovered.”
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