by Sergio Gomez
In the kitchen, he took out a big Ziploc bag from the fridge with meat in it that resembled chicken cutlets. The meat didn’t belong to a bird at all, though; it was meat he’d chopped off Paige Silverstein’s thighs. The chunks were nice and pink and healthy—Ignacio figured she must’ve been a jogger, and it was a good thing she’d tripped over that picnic table or she might’ve gotten away from him.
Ignacio put the meat into a baking dish, tossed it in oil, sprinkled salt and pepper on it, and topped it with onions, garlic, and rosemary. He turned the oven on and popped the dish into it.
Ignacio sat on the floor cross-legged and looked through the oven window. The lights in the cabin had dimmed because of the strain that turning the oven on put on the generator in the cellar. That was OK, though, because the dimness helped him watch the meat cook.
And that’s exactly what he was going to do for the next forty minutes. He would watch the meat turn from pink to brown and crisp at the edges. He would watch the onions and garlic shrink as they released their juices. He would watch the whole meal cook without so much as blinking, because as Mamá had always said, he was a special boy with a special brain like no one else had.
Chapter 18
“About time,” Fred said, sitting back on one of the chairs around the firepit. The kindling had finally caught fire, and the top of a long flame danced in the air.
Noelle, Fred, and Dalton were the only ones by the fire. Gavin and Fletcher were grilling up hotdogs and burgers for everyone on the cabin porch, while the girls were inside making margaritas with the mixer Vanessa had brought with her. The machine was a monstrosity that had been a point of contention as to who would bring it into the cabin, but ultimately Gavin had made Wayne lug it inside.
“It sure is secluded out here,” Noelle said, looking through the trees.
“Yeah, I really thought Gavin was making up all of this stuff up about the cabin,” Fred said, taking a drink of his beer.
“He’s the type to stretch the truth, isn’t he?” Dalton said.
Fred was annoyed with the guy already, because instead of helping him and Noelle get the fire going, he’d just sat in his chair playing some clone version of Bejeweled on his cellphone the whole time, so he was quick to jump to Gavin’s defenses.
“He just likes to have fun.”
“Ah,” Dalton said, picking his cellphone up off his lap to resume his game. “Is that what that is?”
“He did a good job putting this trip together,” Noelle said.
“Mm-hmm. Sure. That he did,” Dalton said, getting up and leaving them to go inside the cabin.
“Jeez. What a party-starter,” Fred said after he was out of earshot.
Noelle laughed, and looked over her shoulder at where Gavin and Fletcher were grilling. Gavin was shoving Fletcher backward, and pretending he was going to throw a hamburger with melting cheese on it at his face.
“You and I both know your friend isn’t the easiest to get along with,” she offered.
“What? Gav? He’s…he’s alright.” Fred couldn’t bring himself to fully commit to the lie. “Yeah, okay. You’re right. He can be a bit much.”
Noelle touched his shoulder. “You okay?”
Fred took in a deep breath. He couldn’t keep his feelings from her, especially not if this was going to be the beginning of their relationship the way he hoped it would be. It’s time to let it all out, Fred Meyers.
Now, it was him who looked over to where Gav and Fletcher were. It was a good distance between the firepit and the porch, so that neither duo was going to hear the other talking in a normal speaking voice. Gav and Fletch still seemed preoccupied with grilling and it didn’t seem like they were coming over here anytime soon.
“It’s just that we’ve kind of grown apart over the years,” Fred said. “He’s into the same stuff as he was back when we were high school.”
“I see,” Noelle said.
“He’s still into ‘getting pussy’—his words, not mine—and drinking, and smoking pot, and all that. I’m kind of growing out of that stuff, and at the same time I think growing out of our friendship.”
Fred took a big drag of his beer and looked over at her. “Ah, sorry to be a buzzkill. Must be the beer.”
Noelle shook her head. “I’m all ears if you’ve got more to say.”
“No, I think that’s it,” Fred said, even though in his mind he was wondering how to lead the conversation where he wanted it to go. “I just hope he’s alright after college. I’ve been… Ah, I’m going to sound like a dickbag, but I was thinking of distancing myself from him after this camping trip.”
“Might be good for both of you, you know? Maybe losing a friend like you will make him realize he should get himself together.”
“Yeah,” Fred said. “I guess I’ve been feeling bad about it because I hadn’t thought of it like that before.”
“And you don’t have to cut ties with him for good. You can always go back to being friends with him when you want… If he’s open to that, of course.”
Fred grinned at her. “I knew there was a reason I liked hanging out with you.”
Noelle smiled at him. “Everything in life is temporary. Only thing that’s forever is death.”
Fred sat back in his chair, playing with the tab on the beer can. He kept pulling it up and letting it hit the top of the can, so it made a tiny metallic click. “I just hope in the end, he’ll be okay.”
Chapter 19
The walls of the room were covered with newspaper clippings. They were articles Ignacio had collected about his mother’s murder in the weeks after it happened. In the center was the front-page article that’d been printed the day after it happened:
BELOVED NURSE KILLED IN HOME ROBBERY
Simple and to the point because anyone reading the local paper would recognize Federica Calderon even though they’d used a younger picture. Federica was sporting a 90s-style bob cut and holding an enormous eight-year-old Ignacio on her lap. Both were smiling, though Ignacio’s lips were more turned crooked in an awkward grin. Like some sort of cheap doll’s smile.
The article itself was mostly a celebration of Federica’s life. It described her story as an immigrant from Mexico with no education who put herself through school to become a head nurse at the local hospital. It detailed how she did all this while being a single mother to a young boy.
The article didn’t include Ignacio’s name, only referring to him as “Federica’s son” whenever it made mention of him. It also omitted that she was a single parent because her husband had been killed in Mexico due to a drug dealing incident and skipped over the episodes of prostitution to make ends meet. It was supposed to be a celebration, after all.
There was information about the day she’d been murdered, but since it was the article that was printed the day after, the details were scant. Federica had been stabbed to death when two robbers broke into her home in the middle of the day. After the two were caught, it was revealed that they were first-time, amateur kids who had no idea what they were doing. The youngest, a seventeen-year-old kid, stabbed Federica multiple times out of panic when she’d gone to the bedroom to investigate what the noises in the house were.
The article had gotten it all right up until that point, even the bit about her coming from the living room because when Ignacio found her body two hours later, the television had been on and playing novelas.
What they didn’t get right was the part that said the robbers, for reasons unknown, had decapitated her corpse. They’d gotten that wrong, because that had been Ignacio’s doing.
That day, a seventeen-year-old Ignacio had been working at the sandwich shop, where he was working the slicer machine. When he got home, he didn’t notice anything wrong until he went up to his mother’s bedroom. He walked past the kitchen without noticing the shattered window the robbers had used to come into the house. Or the rock sitting on the kitchen floor.
He found her stabbed multiple times—mostly in the chest, some i
n the shoulder—and didn’t know what to do. He dropped to his knees, hugged her, and silently cried.
While he cried, he tried to think of a plan.
He remembered asking his father about the urn they always had in their house back in Mexico. His father told him it was his own mother’s ashes—Ignacio’s abuelita. Ignacio asked him what that meant, and his father told him that her body was burned after she died.
He was scared that someone would burn his mother’s body now that she was dead, and he’d never see her beautiful face again. An idea dawned on him, and he went downstairs into the kitchen. He grabbed the good knife, the one Mamá always told him worked wonderful to cut the meat she used for their meals and cut his mother’s head off.
He put her head into a plastic bag to keep the blood from dripping everywhere, then stored it in a box at the back of his closet. Then he called the cops, and the rest was taken over by them.
When they asked him questions about finding the body, he’d told two lies. First, they asked if he found the body without the head, and he said yes (which was why the article got that part wrong).
Second, they asked if he knew where the head was, and he said no. The cops searched the house after that, but they didn’t find the head because they never checked in Ignacio’s boxes, assuming it was all just clothes and other junk the robbers wouldn’t have taken. They figured he was too stupid to tell lies, and there was plenty of evidence of a break in, so there was no reason for them to suspect him. Ignacio was glad about that, because he might’ve gotten in trouble if anyone found out that he had taken Mamá’s head off her body.
But more important than that, the room he’d turned into a shrine in his mother’s honor wouldn’t be the same without it.
Federica Calderon’s head was in the center of the room with the newspaper clipping. It was impaled on a long wooden stake attached to a cement base. Four run down nightstands Ignacio had found while dumpster diving surrounded her head like a makeshift Dias de los Muertos altar. The dressers had offerings on their surfaces for his mother’s spirit: candles, a framed picture of Federica when she was younger, several snacks still in their wrappers (Ganzitos, Barritas, and a Paleta Payaso among them), hard candies, and flowers, and so on.
Someone who peered through the windows might see it and think there was some sort of Satanic ritual going on, but this was no place for the Devil. There was a plastic Jesus statue, poorly painted with a gaudy color selection, that towered behind Mamá’s head. If that wasn’t enough to keep the evil spirits away, the candles themselves were decorated with images of Jesus, the Virgin of Guadalupe, angels, and other Biblical figures.
Ignacio knelt down on a mat in front of Mamá’s head. He took a box of matches out of his pocket and lit one. If Mamá were alive, she wouldn’t let him have matches, but she wasn’t. And honoring her, especially the day before her birthday, was more important than what Ignacio thought she would disapprove of.
He lit some of the candles, just enough for the room to be dimly lighted, then blew out the match. He slipped the box back into his pants, and from his other pocket pulled out a golden rosary. He always had this rosary on him, because it was Mamá’s favorite one. She’d always taken it with her to mass on Sundays.
It’d been the most valuable thing Mamá owned, and ironically the one thing the robbers had left behind. They must have assumed it was only gold-colored, and instead took the other cheaper jewelry Federica had in her bedroom.
Ignacio leaned his elbows on the altar and touched his hands together in a prayer position with the rosary dangling between his palms. He closed his eyes and began reciting the Our Father in Spanish, the only prayer he could ever remember.
“Padre nuestro, que estas en el cielo…”
This was Ignacio’s favorite part of every day, because while he prayed, he could feel Mamá closer to him than ever. Sometimes, he could even hear her sweet voice reciting the words with him.
Chapter 20
After eating burgers and hotdogs inside the cabin, the group was outside drinking and riding their buzzes by the firepit. They were all a little tired from the drive and unpacking, and the night seemed to be winding down.
Despite that the day had been hot and humid, the sun setting and the trees trapping the cool air of incoming breezes turned the night chillier than what they’d prepared for. The heat of the fire felt good against their skin and complemented the cold beers nicely.
Gathered here in front of this gorgeous cabin, surrounded by friends, music playing on the speaker by Fletcher’s feet, it was almost too perfect of a summer night.
Something must be about to ruin it, Fred thought. Maybe a pair of glowing eyes in the brush would freak them out for a moment only to find out it was a racoon. Maybe they’d hear a strange sound in the distance. Maybe it’d start to rain—
“We should go skinny dipping,” Gavin suggested, looking at the map spread out on his lap. “Says on the map there’s a lake about a mile out from here.”
Ah, there it is, Fred thought, trying not to smirk. It was almost like Gavin had read his thoughts. Or maybe more like he thought the group was too relaxed and wanted to change that. Yeah, that seemed more like Gavin Briggs’ style.
Fletcher laughed, almost spitting out some beer. “You wanna go now? Like, tonight?”
“Yeah,” Gavin said, jumping up to his feet, not caring that the map fell to the ground. “What, we came all the way out here just to sit around doing nothing?”
There was a murmur around the campfire from the others that to Fred, sounded sadly like agreement with Gavin. The truth was, he would have rather just spent this first night relaxing.
“We won’t skinny dip, but we’ll go,” Brooke said from the other side of the campfire.
“I’m in,” Fletcher said.
“You gonna skinny dip, though, right?” Gavin asked.
“Sure, man.”
“My man,” Gavin said to him. Then to Fred and Noelle, “What about you guys?”
“I’m coming!” Wayne called out before they had a chance to answer.
“Shut up,” Gavin snapped at him.
Fred took in a deep breath and reluctantly said, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go. Noelle, you in?”
“Yeah,” Noelle said. “Just like Gav said, what’s the point of being out here if we’re not going to explore the woods, right?”
“Oh no, Noelle. Don’t go reinforcing this clown’s ego,” Fred protested.
Everyone laughed except for Dalton, who was sitting in a chair just outside of the circle formed by the others. “I think I’ll be staying back.”
He said it in a tone that made it sound like it was the generation’s biggest reveal.
Gavin fought the urge to say, no one asked you, dork, but had to play nice. He had to play nice at least until he hooked up with Brooke. But after that? It was anything goes.
And he couldn’t wait because Dalton was what Gavin would describe as a douchebag. The blue hair and the fake-rugged clothing he wore pissed him off the instant he’d met the guy back at his house. There was a lot of ammo Gavin was gathering up, and he couldn’t wait to go off on him when the chance finally came.
For now, though, he just said, “You sure about that? It’s gonna be spooky quiet without us here.”
“Ah, that’s alright. I’ll enjoy the peace and quiet. Might be good for me. Would probably be good for you, too,” Dalton said, crossing his legs.
“Yeah,” Gavin said, noticing the underlying passive-aggressiveness in what he said. “It probably would be. But I like to party. Party hard.”
“If we’re going to go, let’s go,” Fred said, intervening before the two really started butting heads. “We’re gonna have to grab flashlights before we head out.”
They all looked out beyond the cabin when he said this. There were motion lights as well as some fixed lights outside the cabin that created about a twelve-foot radius of artificial light. But outside of this circle, besides the moonlight, everything was dark.
No lights from neighboring cabins, no streetlamps, no car headlights, nothing. Just shadowy woods as far as they could see.
“Guys, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” Brooke said.
“Realizing what I’ve already realized?” Dalton said, posturing up in his seat proudly.
“What’re you talking about?” Gavin said.
“What if we…what if we get lost out there or something?” Brooke protested.
“We have the map,” Gavin said, picking it off the ground and waving it in the air at her.
“Plus, there are probably markers on the trees,” Fletcher guessed. “They always have those.”
“I’ll turn back with you if it starts to get too creepy,” Vanessa said to her.
Their lack of concern tamed hers, and Brooke nodded. “Okay, fine… Alright, but I’m not skinny dipping, Gav.”
They laughed again, all of them except Dalton. Then, they started inside the cabin to prepare for the hike.
Dalton watched the group hike into the woods from inside the cabin.
What a bunch of suckers, he thought.
They’d probably march straight into the belly of a beast if it would make them look cool online.
He was glad that he wasn’t on any social media. No Facebook, no Instagram, no Twitter. The closest he came to any of that were the online writing forums where he posted his poetry. His cousin and her friends would know nothing about that. He assumed they had no artistic ability, no visions, no stories to tell.
Especially not that muscle dummy with the annoying little brother. A dark part of him hoped those two would be lost in the woods and wouldn’t return. Not that he wanted them to die, per se, but he hoped they wouldn’t come back to the cabin.
Let them find their way out of the woods and get back home, just never let me have to see them again, he thought, as the last of the group’s flashlight was lost in the dark.
Dalton stood by the window for a few more minutes, staring out into the woods. The motion lights on the trees out front started to shut off, one by one. Each one that went out shrunk the radius of light surrounding the cabin by two or three feet, until eventually only the front porchlight was on.
