Bone Chimes

by Kristopher Rufty

  The driver side door swung open. Sheriff Wilson clambered out with some difficulty because of his fleshy size. He adjusted his wide hat. He wore reflective sunglasses and a tan shirt with dark brown pants. He slid his nightstick through the clip on the side of his belt. His handgun on the other side gleamed under the intense July sun.

  “Who’s out there, Doug?” My father’s voice. Though he’d spoken in a normal tone, I flinched as if he’d shouted.

  I looked at him from over my shoulder. He stood in the doorway, frowning.

  “It’s Sheriff Wilson,” I told him. “He’s in the front yard.”

  I saw something flicker in his eyes just for a moment, then it was gone. “Stay inside,” he said. He walked to the front door. I looked back and forth from him to the window as Sheriff Wilson sauntered through the yard. Lee, familiar with our visitor, pranced around him as he walked, sniffing his calves and shoes with each step.

  “Why do you think he’s here, Daddy?”

  “Remember what I said. Stay inside.”

  He pulled open the door, booted the screen door open, and went outside. The screen door whacked the house when it closed.

  Mama stepped into the living room. She was absently wiping her already dry hands with a towel. She looked as if she were unaware of anything going on around her.

  “I’m going to my room,” I said.

  If she’d heard me, she gave no indication.

  In my room, I shut and locked the door. I had to find out what the sheriff wanted to see Daddy about. This wasn’t the first time Sheriff Wilson had come to visit. He’d been to a few of my birthday parties, and since my thirteenth was coming up in a little over a week, I assumed he would be by then as well. But this visit felt different. I sensed it the moment I saw the car.

  I went over to my window, slid the curtains over, and unlocked it. The air conditioning was on, so my window had been closed for nearly a month now. I tried raising it quietly, but it made a loud popping sound as it flung high. I bit down on my bottom lip, waiting for Mama to come asking what I was up to.

  She never came.

  I waited another minute to be sure, then I gripped the latches on the screen between my thumb and index finger and lifted it enough for me to squeeze through.

  My feet slapped the ground. I stood there, waiting. My room was at the side of the house. If I went to the left I’d end up in the front yard where Daddy and Sheriff Wilson were. I could hear them talking, but couldn’t understand what they were saying.

  I needed to know what they were talking about.

  Hunched over, I snuck my way to the corner of the house. I could see them. Dad stood with his arms crossed, nodding while Sheriff Wilson talked.

  “How’s the Chevelle coming along?” asked Sheriff Wilson.

  “Why don’t you come see it,” said Daddy, laughing.

  Then they turned toward me and started walking.

  I almost shouted. My heart pounded. I scurried away from the house, spinning circles as I looked around. There was nowhere I could go. It would take too long to climb back into my room. There was a field beside the house. No way could I make it over there without them seeing me.

  Their voices were getting louder. They were so close now.

  I ran for Daddy’s shop. It was behind the house, next to our garden. I hadn’t put up the lawnmower yet from when I was doing chores, so the garage door was still open.

  Inside, I looked around for a place to hide. I could see Daddy and the sheriff heading toward the shop through the small window that faced the house. The only place was inside the Chevelle that was parked a few feet from me, but I didn’t want to go hide in there because that was where they were heading.

  But it was my only option.

  I quietly opened the door, and slid into the backseat. I reached over, pulled the door shut. It was stifling inside the car, hard to breathe from the closed windows. I had been sweating before, but now it was pouring down my body.

  I squeezed myself into the floorboard. Being tall for my age, I had to bend my knees to get on my side, then I slid back against the passenger door. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but I was certain I’d be out of sight.

  I’d just gotten settled when they entered. Since I was tucked so far down, I couldn’t see them.

  “Then I put the tires back on,” Daddy said. “Probably after church tomorrow, I’ll take her for a spin. Drive her into town to get the paper.”

  “Sounds fine,” Sheriff Wilson said. “Although, you could save yourself some trouble if you’d just subscribe to the paper. You know, they drop it right off in your front yard.”

  Their voices became louder as they neared the car. Sheriff Wilson popped into my view at the window. He turned around to face my father, putting his back to me.

  “Well,” Daddy said, “out here, they’re only willing to drop it off at the end of the dirt road. We tried it before and that damn Ellison kept tossing ours into the ditch.”

  Ellison was one of our few neighbors. He lived at the very end of the dirt road with his mother. Over forty and very overweight, I recognized his laziness even as a kid.

  “Well, if you knocked him on his ass, I’d look the other way.” Sheriff Wilson laughed. I could hear Daddy laughing as well. “That son of a bitch would have sure deserved it.”

  “Wish I would have known that then.”

  They shared another laugh. It died in the air, leaving an uncomfortable silence that I could feel even inside the car.

  Sheriff Wilson groaned. “I guess we should stop with this pretend chit-chat and get down to business, huh?”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  The mood became as thick as the heat.

  Sheriff Wilson cleared his throat before he began. “I know you’re familiar with Pete and Ellie Robinson. The family that lives on the other side of the woods?”

  “Sure, I am. I bump into Pete at the parts store a lot. They have a little girl…”

  “Yes. Allison. Nine. She’s been missing for two days now.”

  Daddy was quiet. I felt a sickening flutter in my stomach.

  Sheriff Wilson nodded. “Ellie let her play in the backyard for a little bit. When she went to call her in, she was gone. It was as if she’d vanished into thin air.”

  “Why hasn’t it been in the paper?”

  “We’re keeping it hush-hush.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, John. It seems you’d want this getting out.”

  “Not just yet. Hell, everyone in town knows who Allison is. If they were to see her walking around, they’d just call the parents.”

  “But you don’t think anyone will see her walking around. Do you?”

  “No. I don’t, I’m afraid to say.”

  “Then why are you telling me all of this?”

  The Sheriff sighed. I could tell he was dreading saying what had to be said next. “I think you know why I’m telling you all of this.”

  Daddy said nothing.

  The Sheriff continued. “We haven’t allowed it to go to print just yet, because we wanted to be sure of something first.”

  “Of what?” Daddy’s tone had hardened.

  “The facts.”

  Daddy was quiet a moment. Then he said, “If you have something to say, then say it.”

  “I don’t want to say it. That’s the problem.” Removing his hat, he rubbed his hand through his gray, sweat-drenched hair. Then he put the hat back on. “Her parents were a mess last night. We set out with a search party and combed the woods. When we went to meet up this morning at the starting point, they didn’t show. The parents, I mean. So we went looking again and found their bodies near Cripple Creek. Hacked up with an axe.”

  My skin went prickly.

  An axe.

  “It was a messy attack. Very violent. But the axe wounds were clean, as if the blade was brand new. And I remembered running into you at Anderson’s Hardware last month. You were buying a new axe. I think I remember you said the old one wouldn’t hardly
cut paper anymore.”

  “It had gotten dull.”

  “Where’s the axe? I’m going to need to see it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m afraid so. I could come back with a warrant, but I don’t want to do that. Nobody knows I’m here. Figured it’d be best if I came to check things out first, since we’ve known each other for so long. No sense in dragging anybody else into this if we don’t have to.”

  I heard Daddy sigh. Then he said, “You’re more than welcome to see the axe. It’s over there, beside the weed-eater. The blade’s just been cleaned.”

  “Has it, now?”

  “This morning, to be precise.”

  “I see.”

  Sheriff Wilson turned his back to Daddy. I saw him from the side now, his gut drooping over his belt. He’d only taken one step toward the axe when Daddy lunged for him. He wrapped his arm around the sheriff’s throat, sliding the other under the sheriff’s arm to block him from going for his gun.

  For an older man, he seemed to be strong. He shook from side to side, twisted his hips. He attempted to flip Daddy over his shoulder, but couldn’t get in the position right. He stumbled forward and banged against the Chevelle. His face hit the window, smooshing flat against the glass.

  The sheriff saw me. His eyebrows curled over his wide eyes. Over his shoulder, I could see Daddy applying pressure to the Sheriff’s neck. Gagging, Sheriff Wilson’s eyes bulged. Daddy’s face flushed while Sheriff Wilson’s turned blue as it smeared across the glass, wiping his spit all over.

  The Sheriff’s eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the milky whites. Daddy squeezed him a little longer. Then he let the poor man drop. Hands on his hips, he stood outside the Chevelle, panting.

  Then he jerked the door open and leaned inside the car. “I told you to stay inside.”

  “I’m suh-sorry, Daddy.”

  “You’ve got a lot to be sorry about. Get out of there.”

  Nodding, I scrambled out of the car. I moved to the side, away from Daddy. He looked mad enough to take the belt to my ass. He threw the door shut hard enough to shake the car.

  I glanced down at the sheriff’s body. His face was the color of a plum.

  “I didn’t want to have to do that,” said Daddy. “He left me no choice…”

  “I…know, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

  Daddy spun around to me so quickly that I thought he was about to come after me. He pointed a finger and I flinched as if it were gun. “Get your butt inside and send your Mama out here. We’ll deal with you later.”

  “Okay…”

  I ran inside with tears welling in my eyes and told Mama what Daddy said. She was drinking a beer and stared at me over the can upturned to her mouth. Putting down the beer, she didn’t take her eyes off me. I could tell she was ashamed, and that destroyed me knowing what she was thinking. As she headed for the back door, I went to my room and sat down on the bed. My window was still open, the screen pushed up. I realized Daddy had probably noticed it when he was leading the sheriff to his demise.

  It was all my fault.

  I never should’ve been in the woods the other day. I never should’ve walked to the Robinson’s and hid behind a tree, watching, hoping I would get a glimpse of Mrs. Robinson in a bathing suit. It had happened before. Sometimes, when her husband wasn’t home, she’d sunbathe naked, her body glistening under a sheen of oil. Her nipples would be hard points aimed at the sky.

  Some nights, after my parents were asleep, I’d sneak over there and look through the windows. I’d watched the Robinsons having sex one of those nights, doing things on their bed I’d only seen on late-night TV. Mrs. Robinson’s body, slick with sweat, her eyes screwed shut and her lips bowed as she moaned while her husband rammed into her from behind.

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to go peek in the windows, but I’d hoped just to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Robinson. Hoped she would be naked.

  She wasn’t out there, though.

  Allison was. She spotted me behind the tree. Instead of running to tell her mother, she’d walked over to where I was hiding to ask what I was doing.

  And she looked so much like her mother.

  I shouldn’t have lied about there being baby bunnies in the woods. She never would have followed me if she didn’t think she was going to see their little fluffy bodies hopping around. And I wouldn’t have been tempted to touch her. If I’d kept my hands to myself, she wouldn’t have started screaming. I wouldn’t have held her down and did things to her.

  When I was finished, I was so scared she’d tell on me, I had to clobber her head with the rock. Just like Daddy had to kill Sheriff Wilson. She’d left me no other choice.

  But I felt awful. Her blood was all over me. I came home and told Daddy what I’d done. I was surprised when he didn’t call the sheriff. Sure, he was upset with me, and I knew I would be punished, but instead of handling it right then, he’d gone out to the woods himself.

  I gave him a few minutes before I followed him to the spot where I’d left Allison. He began hacking her body to pieces with his new axe. He was putting the pieces into garbage bags when Mr. and Mrs. Robinson stumbled up on him and caught him in the middle of cleaning up their daughter’s grisly remains.

  And just like Allison, Mrs. Robinson started screaming.

  Then Daddy used the axe on them and put their dismembered pieces in bags as well. But he ran out of bags to put their body parts in. I hurried back home. He returned several minutes later. I eavesdropped on him telling Mama what had happened. He’d told her she needed to get more trash bags in the morning. He said he’d hidden the bodies and they should be fine until he could go back out there and finish up.

  I guess he was unaware of the search party.

  Sitting on my bed, I heard the backdoor open, followed by footsteps moving around in the kitchen. A couple minutes later, the door banged again. Unable to handle the waiting any longer, I went into the kitchen and looked out the window. I could see the shop at the edge of the yard. Mama was turning around as she stepped into the shop through the open garage side. Reaching up, she pulled down the garage door.

  In one of her hands was a brand-new box of garbage bags.

  Story Notes:

  This was the first short story I completed after reading Bentley Little’s The Collection. I’d attempted another one before it, but quickly realized it was pure crap. I was gearing up to start working on the original draft of The Lurkers, but wanted to write something short before committing to another attempt at a novel. I wrote it in a day and was pretty pleased with it.

  Shortly after that, my father passed away. Though he never killed a sheriff (that I know of), nor had to cover up anything evil that I’d done, the dad in this story was based on my own father. I’ve put my dad in other stories here and there, but this was the first and probably my favorite.

  For a long time, the story was lost. A lot of emotional stress followed my dad’s death. Plus, we moved into a new house the following year. When I finally decided I was strong enough to revisit it, I couldn’t find it. Years later, and after another move to another house, I found the printed pages in a box and read over it. I was happy to find that I still liked the story. It needed a lot of tightening, but the foundation was solid. I put the pages away with plans to work on it after settling in.

  I have yet to find those pages again. Thankfully, while searching a thumbdrive for something else almost a year ago, I came across the original file. What’s in this collection is the polished version. I hope you enjoyed it.

  Bruce Smiley’s Ultimate Death Machine

  “That’s a death machine?” Brandy asked.

  The salesman smiled. The name tag pinned to his suit jacket told her his name was Marvin. “An ultimate death machine.”

  “Oh, right. You said that.”

  Marvin adjusted his tie. “All you do, is put in the name of someone you want to die by using the dial like this.” He demonstrated by using his thumb to roll the dial until the n
ame John Doe could be read inside the bar. The machine itself wasn’t so much a machine as it was a device, a bulky handheld gadget that reminded Brandy of the calculator that held the paper roll on top. Her parents had one and only used it during tax season.

  Nodding, Brandy feigned interest. She regretted opening the front door. She’d thought it was the UPS man delivering her vitamins. Every third Wednesday, he showed up around lunchtime with a small box. To her surprise, and now her annoyance, the UPS man was late. She’d tried to explain to the salesman she had no time for a demonstration, but he’d been pushy and was already halfway in the house before she could try closing the door on him.

  She’d figured a few minutes wouldn’t hurt.

  Now she wanted him to leave. First chance she got, she was going to tell Marvin, the Salesman it was time for him to go.

  “And then, you just remove this cap,” he said, peeling back a plastic, pencil eraser-sized cap to reveal a sharp point. He pointed at it. “You have to prick your finger on this needle to give the machine a little blood. That’s what makes it work.” He set the machine on the coffee table that separated them. “You do that, then you wait. Simple.”

  Staring at the needle that was the girth of a coffee stirrer, she said, “It needs blood to work?”

  “Yes. I mean, just consider it a quick, mostly painless blood offering to see your enemies fall.”

  Brandy frowned. She wondered if she should call the police. “I appreciate the demo, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave…”

  “Surely there’s somebody you want to face an ultimate death. Right?”

  What kind of person did this guy think she was? She wasn’t evil. She didn’t start every day constructing a list of people she wouldn’t mind being taken off the earth.

  “I’m good,” she said, “but thanks.”

  “Of course,” said Marvin. He tugged at his green tie, then adjusted his thick black glasses. His dark gray suit and matching hat made Brandy think of the Batman villain, the Riddler.

  “Well,” said Marvin, clucking his tongue. “If you’re sure there’s nobody, then I can’t let you sample the machine.”