by Adam Cesare
Now, in a post-nap haze, he wasn’t even sure he did it. He knew he’d started out with the right stuff, used his bicycle to hit the fuses in record time. But did he stash the M-80s . . .
Whatever. No one would care about his side of the story. That much was obvious from the note his mom had slid under his bedroom door.
Confess now and I can help you.
God, Mom. Way to be melodramatic. He’d pay for Herman Lacey’s new tire. Tucker had some money squirreled away from his Frendo appearances. And the little kid who’d fallen off the float wasn’t hurt bad—just a twisted wrist and a few scrapes. He’d pay his doctor bill, too, if he had to.
He flipped the note around in his hands. On the back, Mom said he was grounded. Which was total bullshit. Hadn’t the hangover and the chewing-out been punishment enough? She knew tonight was the party and that he wasn’t going to miss it. She couldn’t stop him from going, but she could stop him from taking the car.
He’d have to secure a ride.
Tucker looked down at his phone. Though the screen was cracked diagonally from the home button up to the middle of the right side, the top quarter of the glass spiderwebbed, it still worked. At least, it did when the town’s shitty service would let it.
With his thumb over the screen, Tucker considered sending out a text. Cole’s car was probably full up, but Matt would be able to squeeze him in. If Ronnie would share.
Holy shit, it was already after seven? Before he’d napped, he’d intended to play a few rounds of Fortnite to clear his hangover. He hadn’t realized the time had gotten away from him. He had to hurry. There’d be no getting Matt to turn around if he was already on the road.
Tucker leaned back in his chair and considered his options. The frame beneath him began to creak, and he caught himself, straightened up. Tucker had already broken three desk chairs this year. This chair had been part of their dining room set. Mom had whined when he’d brought it upstairs, but when was the last time they had anyone over for dinner anyway? Never. She and whatever dickhead boyfriend-of-the-month never wanted to eat at home. Whatever.
With a practiced gentleness, Tucker swiped to unlock the phone.
Nd ride. Cum pick me up?
He paused before sending.
Wait. Where is Mom?
He looked out his window. The driveway was empty. Was she at one of her boring town meetings or had she simply parked the car around the block in an attempt to hide it from him? She’d done it before. And she’d also threatened to call the sheriff if he took the car without asking.
He unlocked his bedroom door and yelled downstairs:
“Mom!”
He waited. Nothing.
He looked back at his cracked screen: 7:29. This wasn’t like her, to leave him alone without saying where she was going or when she’d be home.
But, then again, Tucker was going out to a party, so why should he give a fuck if she gave even less of one? Tucker suspected that her douchebag boyfriend had surprised her and that they were probably boning at some roadside motel right now. Tucker shuddered just thinking about it and then hit Send on the message to Matt.
It was marked as delivered, then a few moments later marked as “Read at 7:31.”
But no response came, so he texted again:
Fucking better come pick me up.
His text was again marked as delivered, again marked as read. But no response.
Matt can be such a shithead, Tucker thought. He should have texted Cole first. But now Cole would be pissed if he went out of his way or turned around to get Tucker, only to have Matt also show up. And Tucker couldn’t jeopardize his thing with Cole. The rest of the gang could sometimes be dicks to Tucker Lee, but that didn’t matter. Cole Hill was the coolest kid in Kettle Springs and Tucker’s best friend. Some people used to joke that he was Cole’s bodyguard, but Tucker knew he was more than that. Cole had his back as much as Tucker had Cole’s. Now that he thought about it, it was Tucker’s duty to get out to Tillerson’s. Under his own power. Cole shouldn’t have to fuck up his plans with the new girl, come halfway across town to give Tucker a ride. And besides, Tucker was a big guy, didn’t feel like being the third wheel in the back seat of Cole’s two-door car.
So if Matt was going to pull this bullshit and not respond, and ditch Tucker, that was fine. Fuck him and Ronnie. Tucker would give them another minute and then he’d start calling the JV squad. Part of him was tempted to text Ronnie directly. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that she was sneaking in the back door once or twice a week. She always swore him to secrecy—he hated not being able to tell the guys that they were hooking up—but it seemed a small price to pay.
When was the last time they’d chilled? It’d been months; she was taking things more seriously with Matt now. Still, if Matt didn’t write back soon, Tucker would try Ronnie next. And if she was with Matt? Wouldn’t be the worst thing to break them up. It wasn’t like they loved each other or anything. They just liked having that . . . “power couple energy” was how Ronnie explained it.
Tucker put down the phone and opened his laptop.
After Dad left, his mom had insisted that she needed to feel safe and had ordered two wireless security cameras. With Tucker’s help, she’d installed one over the front door, next to the porch light, and the other looking out onto the backyard. The front camera’s motion sensor triggered whenever raccoons came for the garbage. Tucker kept an air rifle by the front door.
He rubbed the sweat of his palm off on his pant leg and refreshed the camera. Tonight he was hoping for pests. Shooting something would make him feel better.
Finding signal. Please wait.
The image resolved itself into a view of his front porch and . . .
What the fuck!
Tucker nearly fell out of his chair.
On his laptop screen was a clown. The figure stood stock-still with its feet on the welcome rug.
In the desaturated, low-light vision of the camera, Frendo looked like a ghost. His pom-pom buttons were spots of infinite darkness running down his chest. There was a glossy glow at the corners of the mask’s painted smile. The slight fisheye of the lens made the clown’s features distort, made his nose even more bulbous than usual.
Goddamn it. Tucker’s heart was racing. As much as Tucker loved pranking an unsuspecting dweeb, he hated to be scared himself.
His movement jerky on the camera, the clown at his front door reached out one gloved finger, placed it over the doorbell, then poked it forward.
Bing, bong.
Tucker had to admit, they got him good. If it weren’t for him checking the camera, whatever this plan was probably would have succeeded. He squinted at the screen, trying to see if he could spot where Ronnie was hiding. She had to already be filming so she could catch his reaction. But he couldn’t see her. Well, it didn’t matter, time was wasting. They didn’t know he’d seen them.
Tucker stood from his desk. Time to beat someone’s ass. He padded downstairs, cracking his knuckles along the way. In a way, this was better than a raccoon, would release more stress.
Stepping wide around the windows, Tucker snuck up to the front door, turned the knob slowly, silently, and then quickly pushed open the screen door. He was hoping to crack the clown right in the face.
But as he jumped out on the front porch: nothing.
There was no clown. No friends laughing in the bushes. There was nothing but the faint sounds of crickets chirping on his cold, empty block. Even emptier than usual, and then he remembered why. Everyone was at Tillerson’s already.
“Yo,” Tucker said, his voice echoing down the street. “Good job, guys, you got me. Come out now and take your beatings. Make it easier on yourselves.”
He waited for a response. Silence. He looked down at the doormat: Enter and Be Blessed. Leave and Be Blessed. His mom had a QVC problem.
“Fine,” he said, exasperated. “Fuck it. Never mind. I won’t kick your ass. Can we please just go to the fucking party?”
&nb
sp; Still, no response.
He looked up.
Across the street, Ms. Olsen’s house was dark, as were all the other neighboring houses down the block. Kettle Springs was a quiet, sleepy town, but something about the vibe outside felt too quiet, too sleepy, too dark.
He began to swing the door shut, intending to slam it, then stopped himself.
Whoever it was, they were probably creeping around the back of the house. What they wouldn’t expect would be to be pursued.
He stepped out the front door, looked inside to the air rifle, then thought better of it and continued down onto the grass. At Tucker’s size, stealth was difficult, but he tried to keep to the shadows.
The lawn was damp. Tucker Lee shivered against the chill. Reflexively, he touched a hand to his pocket to make sure he had the house keys and hadn’t just locked himself out.
Shrubbery brushed against him, dotting his shirt with moisture, as he tried to stay as close to the cover of the house as possible.
He undid the latch to his backyard gate, then listened. Nothing.
Oh, was there going to be an ass-beating tonight. He smiled.
There was a concrete path that led to the back door. If he swung around the side of the house quickly enough, he’d scare whoever was there and they’d be close enough that he could grab them before they could escape.
But he’d only have one shot to do it right.
Flattening himself against the back corner of the house, Tucker Lee took a deep breath and leapt out.
But there was nothing and no one on the back steps. Only the soft amber glow of the backdoor light, the tiny red LED of the security camera, watching him.
What the fuck? If they had started to pull a prank and then called it off and ditched him . . .
He thought about how embarrassing that would be, how much it spoke to what his friends—besides Cole, never Cole—really thought of him.
Oh, he’d make these backstabbing fucks pay.
He unlocked the porch door and let himself back into the house.
As he was crossing through the kitchen, he opened his phone, going easy on the cracked screen.
Nice try assholes.
Tucker entered the living room as he finished texting, not bothering to turn on the lights. He was so focused on his phone and the thought of stealing a beer from the basement fridge that it took a moment to register that he wasn’t alone.
“Shit!” Tucker said, jumping a little, then putting his phone over his heart to emphasize his surprise.
Frendo stood in the living room, his hands behind his back. The clown was between the coffee table and the media center. Even in the darkness, Tucker could see that Frendo had tracked mud onto the carpet. He must have come in through the front door while Tucker’d gone around back.
“Okay. Mask off, dickweed,” Tucker said. “Let’s see who’s earned the beating.”
As he spoke, he closed the distance and realized that whoever was in the costume was bigger than he was.
Huh. That was weird.
Had to be Ed. Matt was way too puny. Weird. Matt and Ed didn’t usually hang out. Why would he be giving him a ride, too? Where the hell was he fitting him in his car? Tucker couldn’t figure it, but it didn’t really matter.
“Did Matt drive you here? I’m in a forgiving mood, so clean up your muddy fucking footprints and let’s get out of here.”
But instead of responding, Frendo tilted his head. It was a slight movement, like a bird eyeing a crumb, but still not committing to take flight.
And then Frendo revealed what he’d been holding behind his back.
The knife was impossibly long, the kind of exaggerated blade that only existed in video games.
“Cool,” Tucker said. “You went to Party City.”
The clown said nothing, but he extended his arm, the knife toward Tucker.
“Come on. Put that shit away. There’s carpet cleaner and rags in the hall closet.”
Tucker swatted at the knife with one hand, expecting the toy to go flying across the room, but it stuck firm. The clown’s grip was strong.
And then Tucker looked down at his hand and saw that the webbing between his thumb and forefinger had been split. In the half-light, the wound across his hand looked like cut wax for a moment, and then dark blood began to well.
“Are you kidding m—”
Frendo lifted the tip of the blade and gently pressed it into the area beside Tucker’s belly button.
A searing coolness spread across his stomach.
Tucker’s phone tumbled out from between his fingers. It hit the ground, then took a bounce. The screen flashed, illuminating the room for a second as the device slid under the couch.
Not a fake knife!
It took a moment, but the sensation was unlike anything he’d ever felt.
It didn’t hurt. Not really. It felt more just . . . wet.
But a second later, as the knife was pulled out, the wound hurt plenty.
Zzzzslllip.
Frendo nodded to hear the sound, and that nod snapped Tucker into action.
Tucker backhanded Frendo, catching part of the clown’s jaw. The clown’s porkpie hat stayed in place, the molded plastic of his mask shifting, hopefully enough to blind him. Whoever wore the clown suit was heavy, but hadn’t been expecting the blow. Frendo stumbled back into the TV. The entire console rattled against the clown’s weight. Mom’s Hummel figurines and fine collectible crystal clattered in the cabinet.
Tucker placed a stabilizing hand on his stomach. All the shows said that you had to put pressure on the wound. Easier said than done; the puckered lips of the cut screamed. Tucker pressed, the cold of blood loss becoming the fire of a chemical burn.
He screamed. Blood ran down his fingers, soaked into his shirt.
The phone. Tucker needed an ambulance.
He squinted into the darkness, catching sight of the facedown phone under the couch just as Frendo did the same.
No, wait, he could try the house phone.
They were both going to go for the cell phone, not the corded handset on the end table beside it. Tucker had a chance.
Tucker roared, reaching his free hand out and grabbing hold of Frendo by the costume’s coveralls. Pom-pom buttons shook and Tucker swung down hard, the clown’s momentum from pushing back off the TV sending their weight down through the coffee table. It was an extreme wrestling move, something that would have been badass if it weren’t so painful, the glass shards so sharp.
The way they landed, Tucker was much closer to his cell phone than the landline.
Glass crunched and bodies wriggled as Tucker moved for the phone, hoping that the fall through the tabletop would keep the clown dazed for a moment.
A strong hand gripped Tucker by the ankle. He reared back, horse-kicking with all his might and connecting with the clown’s shoulder, missing his face, but still doing some damage.
No time to look back.
There was so much blood it was difficult to hold the phone. Tucker rubbed his free hand on the carpet, the other trying to keep pressure on his stomach.
With his thumb clean of jellied blood, Tucker swiped to unlock and quickly navigated to the call screen.
9.
The tinkle of glass behind him. Frendo was still moving. Was on his feet.
1.
The drip of blood, his own blood as it slipped through his fingers, the living room carpet drinking it up in thirsty whick-whicks.
1.
The fingers pulling on his scalp, fingers in bunchy white gloves, the kind that made it difficult to manipulate balloon animals. Tucker was only ever able to make fucking balloon swords because of those gloves.
With his thumb ready to touch the green dial button, Tucker felt his head jerked back, his skin drawn taut and painful.
The blade ran across his neck and, like that, Tucker Lee didn’t feel much anymore.
Nine
“You okay?” Cole asked, looking over to Quinn while shifting gears wit
h a steady hand.
She wasn’t okay.
She was in a strange black muscle car with bucket seats. They were on a dark stretch of road, corn on either side, going too fast and . . .
“She’s fine,” Janet answered from the car’s skinny back seat. The girl was ashing out a Newport into an Altoids tin. “Tough as nails, that one. You picked a winner, Cole. I can tell. Look at that laser focus.”
Janet managed her smoke while keeping her hair in place, wind whipping into the car from the opened-a-crack front windows. Vaping and a little weed, sure, but Quinn couldn’t think of a single kid back home who smoked actual cigarettes.
Cole made a throat-cut gesture. Janet flashed him a frown in the rearview mirror and quieted.
Quinn held the side handle to keep herself upright and to fight the motion sickness coming from the soft bounce of the car’s suspension.
They took a tight curve without slowing and Quinn felt like she really might be sick. She quieted her stomach by focusing on Janet, who was mugging for Cole in the rearview. Was Janet her new frenemy—was that what they were destined to be? Or straight-up enemy? It was hard to tell; her behavior was erratic, her attitude sometimes sweet, sometimes aggressive. But Quinn had seen at the parade how close she’d been to melting down when Ronnie had started joking about her mother, and she couldn’t bring herself to hate the girl.
Quinn couldn’t help but notice that Janet was wearing the same pink lip gloss that she was. Why did she care? She just did. Outside the lips, Janet had a fresh dust of makeup under her eyes to hide . . . what? Exhaustion? Emotion? Quinn could only guess. Janet must have gotten in massive trouble after the parade. Quinn was amazed neither Janet nor Cole had been grounded. Or maybe they had, and maybe they were the kind of kids who ignored orders like that.
Cole reached over and adjusted the radio. No aux cable or phone hookup—it was one of those old-fashioned AM/FM jobs where you had to keep fine-tuning the knobs, searching for reception. In this case, Cole was dialing between an oldies station and a Billboard countdown. “Free Bird” was a really long song, so the two stations became a kind of impromptu mashup where Kendrick Lamar would occasionally lay a few bars over southern rock. Quinn looked over. In the harsh shadows of the dashboard light, Cole looked handsome. He was wiry and thin, pale but still attractive. Jared Leto–y, almost. He’d probably never look bad, but today he did look sadder, more serious than when they’d first met. The events of the parade and Sheriff Dunne’s accusations had rattled him.
