December Park

by Ronald Malfi

  We spent the remainder of that week—that first week of summer vacation—not hearing a word from Adrian Gardiner. It was like he’d vanished. We pretended it didn’t bother us. In the daytime, my friends and I prowled the city, not letting the pall of the Piper impinge upon us, ruin us, frighten us. We biked to the Cape and threw rocks at the barges that turtled through the murky waters. We ran relay races between the stone hovels at the bottom of Milkmaid Street, pounding divots into the dirt with our sneakers.

  We rode out to the Blue Pirate Restaurant, which was an old weatherworn tavern near the Shallows, and listened to the garrulous laughter of the shipyard workers and watermen who patronized it. Sometimes they left dirty magazines in the cabs of their trucks. One afternoon, the proprietor of the Blue Pirate, a tattooed and crinkle-faced swashbuckler in his own right, turned on his hose and chased us away, his booming laughter following us down the boulevard like cannon fire.

  Each night, after splitting from my friends, I found myself pulling circles on my bike in the street outside the Gardiners’ house. Lights flicked on and off in different parts of the house. One night I stayed out a few minutes past curfew only to ignite the ire of my grandmother, who peeked out the front door and shouted my name.

  I returned her cry with one of my own—“I’m right here!”—before pedaling up the driveway, pitching my bike in the ivy alongside the house, and going inside.

  I was itchy. Agitated. I watched shitty black-and-white horror films on TV late at night. Every noise in the house reminded me of that phone call from Adrian about the stranger outside. I couldn’t stop thinking of the man I thought I saw standing in my yard that night after waking up from a nightmare.

  Another afternoon, it was just Peter and me heading to the Juniper Theater on our bikes to catch a double feature. Darby Hedges was showing Prophecy and It’s Alive. It seemed we were in store for hours of mutated killers, and we couldn’t have been happier about it.

  “How long do you think this curfew is gonna last?” Peter asked. We were biking past Tiki Tembo, a Chinese restaurant with garish stone lions positioned outside the entranceway.

  “I guess until they catch the guy,” I said.

  “What if they never catch the guy? I mean, they can’t have us in at nine for the rest of our lives, right?”

  “Just until we’re eighteen.”

  “I don’t know if I can wait that long.” He smoked a cigarette down to the filter, then cast it in the gutter. “I fucking hate this town. It’s like an extension of my house. A bunch of strangers telling me what to do. I don’t belong here.”

  “Do you ever think about what you’re going to do after high school?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About college, I guess,” I said. I thought about the AP English class I’d reluctantly be starting in the fall.

  “Fuck if I know,” he said. “I just want to get out of here.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. So you better not leave without me.”

  “No way, man. We’ll leave together. We can go someplace cool, like New York City or Las Vegas. Get an apartment. It’ll be awesome. You could write your stories, and I could become the world’s greatest blackjack player.”

  I laughed. “That would be cool.”

  “So let’s promise. Neither of us leaves without the other.”

  I touched my nose and said, “I promise.”

  Peter did the same. Then he spat on the sidewalk while we pedaled uphill. “If I don’t get out of here someday, I feel like I’ll go crazy.”

  “Maybe that’s what happened to the Piper,” I suggested. “Maybe Michael’s theory is totally wrong, and the killer isn’t someone new to town but someone who’s been here all his life and was never able to get out.”

  “Yeah, man, I can believe that. It’s this town, this whole city. I can see it making someone into a monster. Someone like the Piper couldn’t happen in a city like Baltimore or anywhere else. Only here.”

  “Harting Farms is like Sugarland’s train village,” I said.

  Two summers ago, Michael had set up a model train village in his basement using his father’s old Lionel locomotives. He’d organized several dozen plastic army men throughout the landscape, their plastic rifles pointing at the wedges of hand-carved buildings while troops of green men prepared to hijack the trains.

  “Like an entire world set up on a table in the middle of nowhere,” I went on. “In the middle of someone’s basement.”

  “Yeah, that’s good. Model train set. Shoot,” Peter continued, grinning, “you remember when Michael brought the garden hose through the basement window to flood the village? He called it a tsunami and wound up soaking all his father’s law books.”

  “He hit the fuse box and blew the power out in the house, too.”

  “No, the fuse box thing was when he tried to make an indoor swimming pool in the basement,” Peter corrected.

  I laughed. “I thought his old man was gonna kill him.”

  “It was the same summer we found that old water heater in the woods, and Michael tried to cut it in half to make a bobsled, remember?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Goddamn, that was fun.” Peter shook his head and rose off the seat of his bike, his back arching like a cat’s. I could tell something was on his mind.

  “What is it?” I said.

  He knew better than to lie to me. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking about. I don’t want you to take it the wrong way because I know you like him and everything . . .”

  “Michael?” I said, confused.

  “No, dummy. I’m talking about Adrian. I mean, I like him, too, but do you think . . . I mean . . . do you think there’s something wrong with him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s so intent on this whole thing with the Piper. You know, figuring all this stuff out on our own.”

  “It’s just something to do,” I said.

  “No, it’s more than that. I’ve been thinking about that locket he found and the top of that fence post and how it belonged to the Werewolf House.”

  “What about it?”

  “What if those things are really important? Like, important enough to solve that girl’s murder and find those other missing kids?”

  “Isn’t that the point? Isn’t that why we’re doing it?”

  “Maybe at first. But it was just for fun. If we found stuff that could help the police catch this guy, we should probably tell someone.”

  “We can’t tell the police,” I said. “I’m not even supposed to be hanging around in the woods or going out to the Werewolf House, let alone inside it. My dad would kill me.”

  Peter looked at me. I suddenly remembered him from Charles’s funeral, how he’d shown up with his mother and stepfather at the church in a suit that didn’t quite fit him and a clip-on necktie with boats on it. It had been the only time I’d ever seen his wild red hair combed. He had said nothing at all to me that day, but he sat down next to me on the church steps afterward. We had watched the traffic creep along Augustine Avenue, and he’d given me a Tootsie Pop, which he’d produced from the inner lining of his too-big suit jacket.

  “Do you really think something’s happened to him?” Peter asked. “Something bad?”

  “His mom would have contacted the police if he’s been gone this long.” Though saying this, I wasn’t sure whether I believed it or not. When I glanced over at Peter, I could tell something else was needling at his brain. “What is it now?”

  “Tell me,” he said. “Why do you need this so badly?”

  “Need what?”

  “To find the Piper.”

  “I don’t,” I said, realizing as I spoke the words that I didn’t believe them myself. Yet I repeated them nonetheless. “I don’t.”

  That night during dinner, I casually mentioned to my dad that I hadn’t seen Adrian all week.

  “Maybe he got a summer job,” said my dad, scraping the tines of his fork against his plate as he
shepherded his peas. “In fact, I’d like to hear your thoughts on that matter.”

  “On where Adrian went?”

  “No. On getting a summer job. Have you put in any applications?”

  “No, I haven’t.” I’d been so preoccupied with my friends and with what we pretended was our investigation that I hadn’t even thought about it.

  “Got any ideas where you could go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about that bagel place you worked at before?”

  “They’re not hiring,” I said, not knowing if this was the truth or not. I didn’t want to drag my butt out of bed at four in the morning during my summer vacation.

  “Well, you’ve got to go somewhere.”

  My grandmother got up, refilled everyone’s coffee, then sat back down.

  At the head of the table, my grandfather watched me. It looked like he wanted to say something, but in a rare display of restraint, he kept his mouth shut.

  “But what about Adrian?” I said, bringing the conversation back around. “Would the police know if something happened to him?”

  My dad sipped his fresh coffee, then set it down on the table. “Is that what this is about? You think something happened to your friend?”

  “Which friend is this?” asked my grandmother.

  “The boy next door,” said my dad. “I’m sure he’s fine, Angie.”

  Later, as I cleared the table and helped my grandmother do the dishes, I couldn’t help but wonder how brilliant it would be for the Piper to strike again so soon after his last abduction. While it seemed the whole world was looking for Howie Holt, the Piper could have swooped in, gobbled up Adrian, and no one would even know he was missing. Unless, of course, his mother went to the police.

  When I was done with the dishes, I brought my grandfather’s pipe and tobacco pouch out to where he reclined in one of the wicker chairs on the back porch. The yard was dark, silent. Cicadas and crickets exchanged dialogue.

  My grandfather smiled as he took the pipe and tobacco from me. I turned to go back inside but he said, “No, no—have a seat.”

  I sat beside him. My father had gone upstairs for an early shower, and my grandmother was just settling into the den to watch Murder, She Wrote on the tube, so the house was quiet through the open porch windows.

  My grandfather tamped his pipe against one arm of the chair, and flecks of white ash drifted to the floor. With gnarled and lumpy fingers, he opened the tobacco pouch, pinched out some tobacco, and used his thumb to shove it way down into the pipe’s bowl. Next, he took a box of wooden matches from the breast pocket of his flannel shirt—since he was on blood thinners, he always wore heavy clothing, even in the summer—and shook it so that the matches inside sounded like maracas.

  “I’ve got a thought,” he said as he opened the box of matches, “but I didn’t want to say anything in front of your dad.”

  For a moment, I thought he was going to tell me that he saw something horrible happen to Adrian. It was ludicrous, but that was the first thing my mind jumped to.

  He took out a wooden match, then tucked the box into his breast pocket. Using one rough purple thumbnail, he ignited the match while setting the stem of the pipe in his mouth. Tilting the pipe down, he touched the flaming match head to the packed tobacco and made wet mawp-mawp-mawp sounds with his mouth as he puffed.

  “My friend Callibaugh owns that thrift store on Second Avenue,” he said once he’d gotten the pipe sufficiently lit. Phantomlike smoke curled from the pipe, which he took from his mouth and examined. “You know the place I’m talking about?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I happen to know for a fact that old Callibaugh is looking for someone to work around the place for the summer—stock shelves, take out the trash, maybe man the cash register when he’s busy. That sort of thing.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Best of all, I don’t think he needs someone full-time. Knowing old Callibaugh, he probably couldn’t put up with anyone for more than a few hours, so it could be a good thing for both parties.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Seeing how I’m so goddamn old and wise, I know how precious summer vacation can be for a boy your age. That’s why I didn’t bring this up in front of your father. But seeing how I also don’t know where you stand on this whole summer job thing, I figured I’d let you know on the sly, in case that’s something you decide to look into. You hear me?”

  “Yeah, Grandpa. Thanks.” It was thanks for not bringing it up in front of Dad, not for telling me about it. And I think he knew as much.

  “I won’t stick my nose in it further. Just consider yourself advised of the situation. You have some interest in it, you can go on in, introduce yourself, and handle all the details yourself. You’re practically an adult now, ain’t you?”

  I smiled. “Well, I’m sixteen.”

  “Jesus. You know what I was doing when I was sixteen?”

  “Shooting Japs and Nazis.”

  “Hell.” He made a sour face and waved a hand at me. “I ain’t never seen a Nazi in my life. Was too warm for them where I was. Nazis got cold hearts and mercury for blood, so they stuck to the colder hemispheres. No, son, when I was your age and I was overseas in the war, I did some time as a lifeguard in Australia. There was a whole team of us Americans keeping in shape as lifeguards.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen the pictures.”

  “You know what a winch is?”

  “It’s like a big . . . I guess, crank that you turn.”

  “Yeah, all right. It was this giant spool made of wood with a rope around it, and the locals had constructed it from all these trees that had come down after a big storm. See, that’s how poor they were, that they had to build their own winches from deadfalls. But—”

  “What was the winch for?”

  “Well, when there was a shark attack, you’d tie a rope round your waist and swim out to rescue the victim—or, in most cases, what was left of the victim—and the guys on the beach would wheel you in with the winch.”

  “You swam toward shark attacks?” I asked.

  Again, my grandfather waved a hand at me. “Wasn’t nothing. But let me tell you about how the locals built this winch . . .”

  That night, I dreamed I was trudging through the wet forests of some South Pacific island, my small frame burdened with heavy gear, my hands outfitted in the cold steel of a maple-stock rifle. There were other men with me, but when I looked at them I saw they had no faces beneath the greasy pith helmets they wore . . . or at least I couldn’t make out their faces with any detail.

  —Don’t move, said a voice right beside me. A hand shot out and pressed against my solar plexus. I stopped walking and held my breath. Then the hand pointed with one grease-blackened finger at a fan of thick ferns sprouting from the earth.

  —What is it? I asked.

  —It’s where they hide.

  —Who?

  The man didn’t answer me. Instead, he looked out across the jungle and whistled high and sharp to the other men. They surrounded us like ghosts summoned in a séance.

  I turned to see the man beside me. It was my grandfather. In this dream, he looked both old and young. And while I knew him to be my grandfather, I felt no grandfatherly emotions for him.

  —Watch and learn, Poindexter, said my grandfather as he crept closer to the nest of ferns, his footfalls soundless and his movements as lithe as a cat’s. When his shadow fell over the ferns, he sucked in a great swoop of air, then swung his rifle down in an arc through the brush just as the men surrounding us pointed their weapons at the spot on the ground where the ferns had been just a second before.

  What lay exposed in the ground was what looked like the rectangular opening of a ventilation shaft sans faceplate. It was dark within, but I could clearly see two startling, wet eyes blazing out at me and the bronze nubs of eight fingertips protruding from the opening.

  Rifles roared and the glade filled with black smoke.

&
nbsp; I stumbled backward until something took my legs out from under me, sending me crashing to the ground. My rifle and pith helmet spun away, and the sweat that poured from my scalp was so profuse I thought I’d suffered a head wound. I rolled onto my stomach and crawled through the muck until I saw the maple stock of my rifle through the thinning smoke. I reached for it, galloped my fingers across the wood and up along the steel of its flank. Just as I grasped it, someone plunked my helmet on my head and jerked me by my collar to my feet.

  It was my grandfather, eye-to-eye with me now. I could smell the war on him, the way butchers smell of the abattoir, and it singed the hairs in my nose and caused my eyes to fill with water.

  —Are you some kind of coward? my grandfather barked. Take a look there. See what we done. That’s how you get ’em, Poindexter.

  I looked. As the smog cleared, I saw the ruined hamburger meat of the man’s face wedged in that hole, the shattered splotches of blood where his fingers had been. Those wet, blazing eyes were gone, leaving behind fleshly pockets filled with squid ink. Blood, thick as syrup and the color of motor oil, drooled out of the opening and saturated the earth.

  —There could be two dozen of ’em in that hole, my grandfather informed me, but you only need to do the one up front. The rest of them slope-headed bastards are stuck back there for good and will die there.

  A thunderous noise somewhere behind me caused the trees to shudder. I could smell death on the air, and it was even stronger than the gunpowder.

  —Something’s coming, I said. Something big.

  —Come on, boy, said my grandfather, and he grabbed my hand.

  A second later, we were flying through the jungle at a clip so fast my feet weren’t touching the ground. Literally flying. We’d left the bloody mess in the hole behind us, along with that platoon of faceless soldiers. Whatever giant monster was pursuing us through the jungle was still on our heels, though; I felt each of its footfalls reverberating in the earth and in my bones. For some reason, I knew that if it caught us it would turn us to—