December Park

by Ronald Malfi

  “I’ve got a friend who can get that open,” I said finally, standing up.

  “You do? Who?”

  “Michael Sugarland,” I said. “I’m gonna go meet up with him and the other guys now down at Drunkard’s Pond. You wanna walk with me?”

  “What’s Drunkard’s Pond?”

  “A pond.”

  Distrust was more than evident in his eyes. I wondered if he had been avoiding me on purpose for some reason.

  “Hey, man, it’s up to you,” I said when he didn’t respond.

  Wordlessly, Adrian hefted his backpack off the floor and put it on with both straps. He followed me down the hall, keeping at least one step behind me.

  This kid’s in for a tough year, I thought. Was it possible things had been easier for him in Chicago? It might seem that a big city would eat someone like Adrian Gardiner for breakfast, but I wondered if the anonymity might not prove beneficial for him. He could disappear. He would be one among countless other losers to choose from. But out here in Harting Farms, Maryland, the kid stood out like a turd in a punch bowl.

  We exited the building, the frigid air rushing up to greet us. We cut across the parking lot, which was a traffic jam of bleating car horns and blasting stereos, and headed toward Solomon’s Bend Road. Solomon’s Bend overlooked Drunkard’s Pond and the little spit of land in which it sat. Most of the neighborhood kids steered clear of this area, due mainly to the hobos who squatted beneath the tin bridge and the overpass, so my friends and I usually had the place to ourselves.

  It was no different this afternoon; as Adrian and I reached the corner of Solomon’s Bend Road, I peered over the guardrail and spotted Peter, Scott, and Michael skimming stones off the frozen surface of the pond.

  “Those guys are your friends?” Adrian said. It was the first thing he’d said without being prompted since we’d left the school.

  “They’re cool,” I promised him. I’d spent the duration of our walk talking aimlessly about movies and music, neither of which Adrian seemed to have any interest in, and I was suddenly grateful to dilute Adrian’s awkwardness among my friends. “Come on.”

  I climbed over the guardrail and was halfway down the embankment before Adrian followed. Several times I thought the weight of his backpack would send him toppling down the hillside, but despite his ungainly approach, he managed to stay on his feet and reach the bottom without incident.

  “Hey, slacker.” Michael winged a rock in my general vicinity. “We had a bet you got detention again. Guess I lost.”

  “Not detention, exactly.” But I let it drop there. I wouldn’t mention the talk I had with Mr. Mattingly about the AP English class. There was no point in making myself an outcast among my own friends. In fact, I decided then and there that I would not take the class next year.

  Peter and Scott were digging up stones from the bank of the frozen pond. They both looked at me, then simultaneously turned to Adrian.

  I swung my backpack into the dirt and hunkered down on top of it. “This is Adrian Gardiner. He and his mom moved into the old Dunbar house next door to me. He’s from Chicago.”

  “Hi,” Scott said.

  Adrian looked like he wanted to blink out of existence. “Hello.”

  “You go to Stanton?” Peter asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re in the same English class,” I said.

  Michael whistled. “Jeez, kid, you picked a helluva time to move to town. You hoping to make the Piper’s top ten list?”

  “Cut it out,” I told him. “He’s got a bit of a problem with his backpack. You want to give us a hand here, Mikey?”

  Michael drop-kicked a large stone halfway across the frozen lake, then clapped the dirt from his hands. “Sure thing. What’s up?”

  “Go ahead,” I said to Adrian. “Show him.”

  I had expected him to point out the combination lock, but instead, he turned around so we could all view the ridiculous bulging backpack as it hung from his shoulders. He didn’t say a word.

  “Someone locked his backpack with a combination lock,” I informed Michael.

  “Ahh,” Michael intoned. “You’ve been pack-latched, friend.”

  “I told him you might be able to help.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Adrian jumped when Michael yanked the backpack’s straps from his shoulders. If Michael noticed that he had startled the kid, he didn’t acknowledge it. He tossed the backpack onto the ground and knelt beside it, fingering the combination lock.

  It occurred to me that it was a child’s backpack, made of cheap bright green vinyl with a decal of the Incredible Hulk on it.

  This kid doesn’t stand a chance, I thought again.

  “How can you open it?” Adrian asked, peering over Michael’s shoulder.

  “Ees vetty deefficult,” Michael said in his best German accent. “Das lock ees vetty stubborn.”

  Adrian stared at Michael like he was crazy. I couldn’t help but grin.

  “So what kind of music do you listen to?” Peter asked. He and Scott had finished excavating stones from the hard earth and were trying to stack the flatter ones atop one another without much success.

  “I don’t know,” Adrian said. “I don’t really listen to music.”

  Peter frowned. “Not any music?”

  “No, not really. Well, my mom has some Bing Crosby records that used to belong to my grandma.”

  “Holy shit,” Peter said in a low voice.

  “How about movies?” Scott interjected. “You like horror movies?”

  “I guess so. Some horror movies.”

  “Did you see Jason Goes to Hell? It’s the last Friday the 13th movie.” Scott was a Jason Voorhees fanatic. He had posters, T-shirts, and even a hockey mask he adorned with streaks of red nail polish so that it looked like blood. He owned every installment on VHS, and I couldn’t count the number of times he made us watch them with him. He had all the lines memorized and knew which kill went with which movie.

  “I’m not allowed to see those movies,” Adrian said.

  Scott literally gaped at him. Even Michael, who had been occupied with the combination lock on Adrian’s backpack, turned to stare at him.

  “You’re kidding,” Scott said. “What was the last horror movie you saw?”

  “No, no—what’s your favorite horror movie?” Peter jumped in.

  I tried to catch Scott’s and Peter’s eyes and to mouth the words leave him alone, but they weren’t looking at me.

  “I guess maybe Explorers,” Adrian said.

  “Aw, fuck,” Peter said. “That’s not a horror movie.”

  “Those aliens at the end were pretty scary,” said Adrian.

  “They were like big rubbery puppets,” Peter said. “They quoted TV shows.”

  “What do you mean you’re not allowed to see ’em?” Scott pressed. Scott’s parents worked long hours with little time for their kids. Shy of murder, Scott was pretty much allowed to do whatever the hell he wanted, which included watching any horror movie his little heart desired, no matter how gratuitous.

  “My mother doesn’t think they’re neurologically stimulating,” said Adrian.

  Peter laughed. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “She says they’re like junk food for your brain.”

  “Yeah,” Scott said. “No shit. That’s what makes them so great.”

  “Mmmmm,” Michael moaned, climbing to his feet and thrusting his arms out like a zombie. “Fatty junk-filled braaaaaains . . .”

  “Zombies would starve hanging out with this crew,” I added.

  Peter started laughing uncontrollably.

  “Braaaaaains,” croaked Michael as he stumbled toward Peter, casually dodging the stones Peter chucked at him. “Redheaded braaaaaains . . .”

  Still laughing, Peter launched himself off the ground and tackled Michael around the waist, driving them both down to the hard dirt. The force of the hit drove a fart from Michael, who also burst into maniacal l
aughter.

  Chuckling, I looked over to Adrian and was surprised to see him grinning. It was a goofy grin that made him look almost simple, but it was a grin nonetheless.

  “Get off me, queer bait,” Michael said, bucking his hips until Peter crawled off him.

  “Jesus Christ,” Peter said, looking just as eager to get away. “That fart reeks. What did you eat for lunch? An old lady’s diaper?”

  “Leave your mother out of this,” Michael returned, though I could tell he was fighting off his own bout of laughter.

  I watched Adrian watching my friends. He was so out of place among the four of us that he could have been a visitor from another world. All of a sudden I felt sorry for him.

  Once everyone settled down, Michael returned to the combination lock. More focused now, he was able to open it in under two minutes. It came unhinged with an audible pop.

  “Wow,” Adrian said. “How’d you do that?”

  “Magic.” Michael tossed the lock at him.

  Adrian attempted to catch it, but it rebounded off his chest and tumbled to the ground.

  “Mikey’s practically useless in all other aspects of life,” I said, “but for some reason, the son of a bitch has a knack for popping open combination locks. Anyway, he’s Michael Sugarland.”

  Michael executed a flamboyant bow and said in a cockney accent, “Atcher soy-vice, gov’nor.”

  I pointed to the others. “And that’s Scott Steeple and Peter Galloway.”

  “Hey,” Peter and Scott said in unison.

  Then Peter punched Scott on the arm. “Jinx.”

  “Sweet mother, what in the name of holy hell is all this?” Michael pulled a jumble of random items out of Adrian’s backpack—flattened soda cans, a single muck-streaked sneaker, several large stones that glinted with flecks of mica, a couple of audiocassettes, a paperback novel with its cover missing, and something that looked oddly like a plastic flute. “Our boy is a hoarder, it seems.”

  “It’s just stuff,” said Adrian.

  “Yeah, but why are you hauling it around?”

  “Because I found it. I collect it.”

  Holding the filthy sneaker by its tattered laces, Michael sniffed at it, then wrinkled his nose. “Oh, gross.”

  Adrian shifted from his right foot to his left. “I go on scavenger hunts. Like, I search for things that people lost or threw out or whatever. Sometimes you can find some really neat stuff.”

  “Find the other sneaker and you’ve got a pair. Good for you.” Michael dropped the shoe, then produced a spiral-bound notepad from within the backpack. He opened it and thumbed through the pages until something caught his eye. He paused and scrutinized the page as a look of surprise overtook him. “Jesus,” he said, his voice slightly more reverent now. It was rare to hear him speak in such a respectful fashion. “Did you draw these?”

  “Yeah,” Adrian said.

  “Are you kidding me? Man, these are great.” Michael tossed the book over to me, and it landed in my lap. “Take a look at those drawings. That’s some serious shit.”

  They were pencil drawings of various muscle-bound superheroes swinging punches at each other while others wielded swords or prepared to fire an arrow from a bow. “Yeah, these are really great.”

  “Let me see,” Scott said, and both he and Peter scrambled over to peer at Adrian’s sketch pad. “Wow. Those are cool. Did you trace them or something?”

  “No.”

  “Did you copy them from a book?” Peter asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you make these characters up?” said Peter. “Like, from your head?”

  “Some of them,” said Adrian. “Some others are characters from comic books. But I changed them around and gave them different uniforms or different weapons or whatever.”

  “You think you could draw Bugs Bunny?” Scott said.

  Adrian shrugged. “Sure. That’s easy.”

  “Dude,” Michael said, dropping to his knees and placing his hands together in a parody of prayer. “Do you think you could draw naked chicks as good as you draw those superheroes?”

  “I guess,” Adrian said. “I never tried.”

  Michael looked impressed. “If I could draw like that, I’d draw nothing but naked chicks.”

  “I’m shocked,” Peter commented.

  Everyone laughed.

  Michael pointed to the notebook. “Let’s see you draw one up right now. Give her huge titties. And make the nipples really detailed.”

  “Nipples,” Adrian said, staring at Michael.

  “Yeah, man, you know.” He cupped a pair of invisible breasts.

  “I’m not sure I know what they look like,” Adrian confessed.

  Michael froze, his hands still groping invisible breasts, and Scott’s mouth hung open.

  “Draw Michael’s face,” I suggested. “He’s the biggest boob we know.”

  The five of us spent the rest of the afternoon pitching rocks onto the center of the frozen pond, telling jokes, and bitching about school. For the most part Adrian remained quiet, although I got the impression he was enjoying himself, too.

  Later, as the sky darkened and the streetlights came on, we gathered our backpacks.

  Scott clapped Adrian on the back hard enough to send the boy’s glasses askew on his face. “I’m going to set up a marathon of Friday the 13th movies for us to watch. Trust me, man. You’ll thank me for it.”

  On Solomon’s Bend Road, we went our separate ways. Adrian and I bundled across the road toward the intersection of Point and Counterpoint.

  “Your friends are funny,” he said.

  “They’re cool, yeah,” I said.

  “What did Michael mean when he said I was hoping to make the Piper’s top ten list? Who’s the Piper?”

  “Oh, that’s just the name the newspapers gave to the guy who’s supposedly responsible for grabbing all those kids and killing that girl.”

  Adrian stopped walking.

  “What?” I said.

  “Are you messing with me?”

  “I don’t . . .” And that was when it occurred to me that he probably knew nothing about what had been going on. So I told him about William Demorest, Jeffrey Connor, and Bethany Frost. I told him about Aaron Ransom, too, and what I had seen firsthand on New Year’s Eve. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard anything in school about him.”

  Adrian shrugged and said, “No one really talks to me at school.”

  “Yeah, but you haven’t even heard his name?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “What about Courtney Cole? You must have heard something about her, right?”

  He shook his head.

  Given all that had transpired since last fall, it seemed impossible that anyone could live here and not know about any of it. And it wasn’t like Adrian had just moved in last week; even though he never came out of his house, he and his mother had been here since early October, just before Courtney Cole was found dead in the woods.

  “I haven’t heard any of this,” he said.

  So I told him about the discovery of Courtney Cole’s body in Satan’s Forest. Since we were standing on the street above the woods at that point in the tale, I gestured toward the embankment. “They found her body down there. Me, Peter, and Scott saw them carry her out.”

  Adrian stared into the woods. “When?”

  “Early October.”

  “Are you serious?” His voice trembled. “No way.”

  “Yes way. Why would I lie about it?”

  “I mean, you guys saw her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “I don’t know.” Of course, the image of her smashed skull was imprinted on my own brain with perfect clarity, but I did not possess the words—or the desire—to explain it to him. “I mean, the whole thing just seemed sort of . . . surreal . . . you know? Like it wasn’t actually happening . . .”

  “And no one knows who did it?”

 
“No,” I said. “The Piper’s just a name the newspapers gave him, but no one knows who he is.” We started walking again, heading straight for the highway. “You haven’t even heard about this stuff on the news?”

  “My mom doesn’t want me watching the news,” he said.

  “Well, the news complains that the cops aren’t doing enough, and the cops complain that the news is out to get them,” I said. “My dad’s a detective at the police department, so I hear him complain about that stuff sometimes, too.”

  “What do the cops think is going on?”

  “They don’t really know.”

  “Well, what do you think?”

  I thought about New Year’s Eve and what had happened to Aaron Ransom. I pictured those cops carrying Courtney Cole’s body out of the woods on a sheet-covered stretcher. Lastly, I thought of what Scott had said to us Halloween morning at the Quickman.

  “I think there’s probably a serial killer going after kids,” I said.

  We talked about the Piper for the entire walk back to Worth Street. He asked a lot of questions, and I was able to answer only a few of them, mostly from what I’d heard from other people or what had been in the newspapers. Adrian seemed mostly interested in Courtney Cole. Just as we reached the foot of his driveway, he said, “You said you saw them take that girl from the woods. Like, for real? You’re not fooling with me?”

  “I swear I’m not.” I touched my nose. “I promise.”

  “Did you, like . . . know her?”

  “No. She went to a different school.”

  “Are there pictures of her somewhere?”

  I thought this was an odd question. “There was a picture in the newspaper after she was found. How come?”

  “Just curious.”

  Adrian asked some more questions about Courtney Cole. I assumed his interest in what my friends and I had witnessed was purely sensationalistic—that any boy our age would have been curious as to the gory details of such an event.

  It wasn’t until two weeks later that I would come to understand Adrian’s true obsession with the dead girl, and how that obsession changed everything.

  Book Two

  The Dead Woods

  (February–May 1994)