“At night?”
Kenny watched as she shoved her flat nose into one of the blooms and took a deep whiff.
“I never would have thought of that. Church folk help you? No, I reckon church folk would be home in bed in the middle of the night.”
“It was one of the neighbor boys. He helps me out. A good boy with good Christian folks. I pay him.”
“Kyle Edwards?”
“Why, do you know what? I’ve never even asked that boy his name! Isn’t that awful? I just call him boy. That’s the way I was done when I was coming up.”
The pan of turds pointed back behind the house. “That shed where you keep your tow truck?”
Kenny nodded.
“You know what my daddy did do? He owned a towing service. I’d love to see your rig.”
“Oh I don’t know about that. They’s spiders and such in that shed. The air’s bad in there. Been closed up so long.”
“My daddy still keeps his hands in the business. Could maybe help you find a buyer for it if you’re of a mind.”
He noticed that she was laying on the just-folks Southern charm again. Kenny further noted that he had gone from being in complete control of the woman to being put on the defensive. The bodies the boy had dug up were in there. So was Melodie High-and-Mighty Godwin’s car. For the love of Christ, Kenny wondered, what was it going to take to get this pan of turds away from his house?
“I reckon not. I reckon I’m not ready to sell it. I’m just a sentimental old man.”
“I understand. You know what? I’m just going to peek at it real quick.” And she disappeared around the side of the house. Kenny flicked on his chair and raced down the ramp as fast as he could. The side yard was a little lumpy, but as soon as he got to the smooth stone surface of the back patio, he was able to fly right up to the massive shed—a converted barn with a faded orange GULF sign hung above the massive double doors—which were already wide open. He’d told that boy to put the padlock back on.
The woman was running her fingers along the hood of his rig. “She’s a beauty. 4300?”
Kenny nodded.
“ ’71?”
“1972 International 4300. Bought her new.”
“A fine rig. Well, if you decide to sell it, let me know. You know what? It does smell bad in here.”
“Probably a possum. They hole up in here sometimes and die. I’ll get the boy to find it.”
“Kyle?”
“That’d be the one.”
“Is this your car here?” The policewhore fingered the gray tarpaulin covering Melodie Godwin’s blue Chevelle Super Sport.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You interested in selling it at all?” Officer Turd Pan pulled up the tarp high enough for them both to get a glimpse of the powder blue paint.
“Officer Turpin, you know what? I wish you had took me up on that glass of Kool-Aid. My sugar is dropping. If I don’t get back inside this minute, I could go into a coma.”
Officer Turd Pan dropped the tarp and said, “We’d better hurry then.”
“I’m so dizzy. Could I get you to close up those doors? And put that lock on? The boy must have left it off.”
IT WAS MIDNIGHT. THERE WAS NO MOON
tonight, and Kyle decided to go through the cornfield. He didn’t worry anymore about Soap Sally hiding in the corn. He’d seen the real Soap Sally. She wasn’t hiding in the corn; she was chained up in the paralyzed man’s attic. He knew now that Soap Sally was real—with the wild hair and the craziness in her eyes, and the bloodlust for little children. She even had needles on her fingertips. But that wasn’t right and Kyle knew it. Those weren’t needles, they were just pop-tops. Her name was Melodie. And if Melodie really was Soap Sally, it was because the paralyzed man had turned her into Soap Sally. Just like he had turned Kyle into a zombie. He was changing all of them.
Kyle told himself over and over that the woman was Melodie. Melodie Godwin. That her mama missed her and wanted her to come back home. Melodie was caught up in all of this just like Kyle was caught up in it. She needed help. His help. And underneath it all, was the bad, bad feeling that all of this was his fault. It was because of him that the paralyzed man had caught her and changed her and turned her into Soap Sally. Because Kyle was riding his bicycle down the middle of the road, and she had to wreck herself to keep from killing him. She had sacrificed herself to save him. And now she was damned. Up ahead Kyle saw the dim green witch-light oozing out of the front window, and he reckoned him and Melodie were both damned.
HE GAVE KYLE THE ORANGE TOAST CHEE
crackers and the co-cola and told him to be quick, that they had a long night ahead of them.
Kyle wasn’t scared like he thought he would be, going back up those stairs to see Melodie. He knew who she was now. She was just like him. That policewoman had shown him that. Kyle and Melodie were the same. They were both under his spell.
She was waiting for him when he got up there, real calm. She wasn’t wearing those metal pop-tops on her fingers anymore, and she had made a kind of dress out of one of the garbage bags. She was just sitting there up against the pole she was chained to. Kyle could tell that they had both been thinking about each other and realized that they were the same. The crazy light had gone out of her eyes, and now Kyle could see the scared girl. She took the Coke and the crackers real gentle out of his hands, and used one of the old pull-rings to pry open the top on the Coke can because she didn’t have fingernails, but Kyle could see that they were starting to grow back.
“Melodie?” he asked, keeping his voice real low.
She nodded and pointed at him and raised her eyebrows in question.
“I’m Kyle,” he said. He pointed to the spot of wet scar tissue that bubbled her throat and asked, “Can you talk?”
She shook her head no.
“Did he do that to you?”
She nodded yes.
Kyle walked over to the pole and shook it. It was solid. So was the chain. Half-inch thick iron. “I’m going to help you get out of here.”
Melodie smiled at him and touched the top of his head real soft. Then she touched real gentle right under the spot on his face where she had cut him.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I don’t blame you.”
Melodie pointed at herself, then to Kyle, and shook her head no.
He understood what she was saying. She was saying that she didn’t blame him either.
“Boy!” It was him. Kyle could feel him controlling him. He had to go. He told Melodie that he would figure something out and left her up there.
DOWNSTAIRS, THERE WAS A LONG-
handled bolt cutter and a set of car keys lying on the kitchen table. The paralyzed man told Kyle to pick them up, and that they were going out to the shed around back.
KYLE COULD SMELL THE BODIES EVEN
though he had triple bagged them in plastic garbage bags.
Right next to the tow truck, there was a car under a piece of tarpaulin, and the paralyzed man told him to uncover it. Kyle recognized it right away. It was Melodie’s car. He’d seen it in his dreams a thousand times.
“That colored policewhore been sniffing around here like I don’t know what. Parking up from the house, spying. Got to tidy up. Got to get things right. First, pick up that broke piece of cinder block right over there. Good. Now, can you drive a car?”
“I ain’t but ten.”
“I could drive when I was ten. Drove a tractor. Your daddy never taught you?”
“Sometimes he lets me sit in his lap and turn the wheel.”
“Sweet Jesus. Well, it’s just as easy as pie.”
KYLE WAS DRIVING MELODIE GODWIN’S
powder blue Chevelle SS straight down the middle of Eden Road. It was two o’clock in the morning, and there were God-only-knows-how-many dead bodies chopped up in trash bags in the trunk. He was ten years old. The night air was cool as it streamed in through the busted-out passenger window.
It was a straight shot down Eden
Road to Sweetwater Reservoir. No turns, just the curves in the road. The paralyzed man had told him how to find the little lever up under the front seat so that he could slide the seat forward and his feet could reach the pedals. He showed him the gas pedal and the brake pedal and said that he should use the same foot for both of them, but Kyle found himself wanting to use his left foot for the brake. He showed him about changing the gears, but said not to worry too much about it. The car was facing forward, so park and drive were the only gears Kyle would need. He told him to just keep his foot on the brake and let it off slow, to only give it gas real gentle like, then put his foot right back over the brake, just resting it there. It was scary having all that metal under his control, but Kyle did okay.
And he said if Kyle got stopped by the police that he would see him in hell, because Kyle was as deep into this as he was.
Kyle kept the car dead in the middle of the road, going about five miles an hour. He had to stay in the middle, because when he got over to one side, it felt like the car was being pulled off the road and into the ditch. If Kyle wrecked it, that would be it. He only had one mile to go. He could do it.
Something was bothering his eyes. He had to squint them. It seemed like there was more light in the car than there had been a minute ago. The rearview mirror was throwing bright white light straight into his eyes. There was a car coming up behind him. It got right up on Kyle so that the car’s interior was as bright as daytime. And that car just rode his rear end like that for what felt like a long time. That car couldn’t have been more than two inches from his back bumper. That’s when the blue lights started flashing.
IT WAS LIKE A MONOCHROME KALEIDO-
scope, the blue strobes of light dancing around inside the car, bouncing off the rearview mirror and pulsing in his eyes. Kyle had seen this scenario on TV countless times, so he knew that he had two choices: he could hit the gas and try to outrun the police, or he could pull over to the side of the road and let the police have him. Even if Kyle had the skill to attempt to outrun a police car, he wouldn’t have done it. Part of him was glad this was happening. He wanted to get caught. He wanted this to be over. Kyle figured that he would probably go to jail for everything he had done, but Melodie would be saved and the paralyzed man would be stopped. Although, he guessed the paralyzed man could say that Kyle was in it with him. What would his mama and daddy do to him after the police called them and said their little boy had been caught driving down Eden Road in the dead of night in a stolen car with dead bodies in the trunk? Bodies he had dug up out of the yard of a neighbor man?
Somehow Kyle managed to angle the car over to the side of the road without going into the ditch. He used his right foot on the brake and she stopped pretty easy. The police car stayed right up on him. They both sat there for a good long time. Kyle watched the blue lights bouncing off the landscape and disappearing into the blackness that the fire had created. In the little side mirror mounted on his door, Kyle saw the policeman open his door and step out. He stood there a minute writing something down, then he started walking up to the Chevelle. Behind the policeman, Kyle saw white light filling the horizon. Another car was coming. It had blue lights flashing too. And its siren was bleating. It was disturbingly loud in the night. The second police car blew by them like a bullet from a gun; the dust it kicked up from the road was caught in the headlights like red fog.
The policeman behind him ran back to his patrol car. Kyle saw him lean in the window and say something on his radio. Then he jumped in his car, hit the siren, and swerved around the Chevelle. He was gone as quick as that. Kyle sat there in the growing silence watching red dust sifting through the headlight beams, little bits of silica lighting up like diamonds.
There wasn’t nothing left for him to do. Kyle took his foot off the brake and the car rolled forward.
EDEN ROAD DEAD-ENDS AT MOUNT VER-
non Road, and the reservoir lies directly across. Kyle came to the stop sign, and even going as slow as he was, the car jerked to a rocking stop when he pushed down on the brake with his left foot. Kyle heard the bags in the trunk pitch forward. He looked both ways down Mount Vernon. It was deserted. He took his foot off the brake and the car nosed through the intersection right to the front gate of Sweetwater Reservoir.
After he pulled the gear lever to the park position, Kyle picked up the bolt cutter from next to him on the seat and got out of the car. At first he didn’t think he was going to be able to cut through the metal padlock. Kyle brought all his strength to bear on the long handles of the bolt cutter and finally felt the mouth blades bite a little into the shackle, sink in a little more, and then pop through. Kyle tossed the broken lock into the backseat of the car just as he had been instructed.
He cut off the headlights, only then remembering that he was supposed to have done that before crossing over Mt. Vernon. A gravel road circled the outer perimeter of the reservoir. There was a quarter moon that night—enough light for him to see, but dark enough to remain hidden. Kyle was familiar with the reservoir and knew exactly the spot the paralyzed man had indicated. About a quarter-mile past the bait shop, one of the monolithic chunks of granite that dotted the shoreline was unusually flat. A favorite spot for fishermen, it was a thick, smooth slab that jutted far over the dark water.
Kyle aimed the car so it was pointing straight at the granite slab. He was about fifty yards back from it. The thing he had to be sure of was to give himself time and room to jump out of the car before it went over, but not so much that the vehicle might veer off course.
Kyle depressed the brake pedal and carefully shifted into park. He picked up the chunk of cinder block from the passenger side floorboard and placed it over the gas pedal. The weight of it pressed the gas pedal at least halfway to the floor. The engine roared like an angry beast, the sound of it disturbingly loud in the quiet night. Kyle felt the car lurch forward about an inch, straining to release all that pent-up energy. The paralyzed man had told him to leave the door wide open; that once he downshifted into drive, he’d have a good full second before the gear caught and the car took off. Just roll right on out, he’d told him. Don’t try to jump and don’t wait for the gear to catch, just roll right on out the door.
Kyle sat there making sure he had his actions planned out. He would have thought about it longer, but the protest from the engine was so loud that Kyle couldn’t stand it anymore. He grabbed hold of the gear lever right above the steering column. He pulled it toward him to free it, then pulled downward. It wouldn’t move. The paralyzed man had told him that might happen. The transmission won’t like it, he had said. It’s gonna strip the gears. But it ain’t like she’s gonna be selling it later. If it fights you, just use both your hands.
That’s what he did. He wrapped both his hands around the gearshift and yanked like hell. There was a loud crunching sound and an immediate deep-throated grunt, and the car took off. Kyle rolled. He rolled right into the closed door. The sudden acceleration had slammed the door shut. His left arm was pinned between the seat and the door from the way he had rolled. By the time he righted himself, Kyle felt the front bumper bite violently into the granite slab. Then the car was in the air. He was surprised at how far out the car sailed. It seemed like it just floated there in midair. And when it hit the water, it wasn’t very loud at all. It just sat there in the water, gently rocking, the engine dying. Kyle tried the door, but the water outside put up too much resistance. He was trapped.
He looked at the busted-out passenger window. Water was cresting over the opening. Kyle scrambled across the seat to crawl out the window, but his shoe got tangled under the parking brake. It was wedged tight. Kyle pulled, but it just wouldn’t come free. Finally, he was able to slide his foot out of the shoe. When his foot was free, the water was gushing through the window. A nearly solid rectangular column of water. Kyle couldn’t fight his way past it; the inward motion of it was too strong. The force of it swept him up and over the front seat. He was lodged up against the rear window in a pocket
of air. The car was sinking nose first. Then it was underwater.
Everything was still and quiet, just the sound of the water lapping gently inside the car. Kyle was fine. He could breathe easy in the air pocket. He could stay just like he was and be fine, but he knew the air would run out after a while. He could feel his clothes weighing him down in the water. He could kick his shoeless foot with ease, but the other one dragged, so he pulled off the other shoe. He had to get back down to the front of the car and swim out the window. The air pocket was growing smaller and smaller, so pretty soon Kyle wouldn’t have a choice. He could see air bubbling out around the seal of the rear window. The change in the pressure was causing the car to tilt over, to fall flat to the bottom. The interior would be completely full in just a few more seconds. Kyle held his breath as the car floated lazily toward the bottom. The weight of his clothes made it nearly impossible to swim, but his bare feet saved him. He propelled his body through the window, curved up, and broke through the surface.
Up top, crickets chirped in the dark night, and in his mind, Kyle could hear the paralyzed man laughing.
“THUM-THUM-THUM-THUM-THUM-THUM
thum-thum. Thum-thum-thum-thum-thum-thum thum-thum. Wonder Womaaaaan!” Grace danced around her room, singing. Her little girl’s voice carried down the hall, and into the kitchen, but her mother did not hear it. Her mother was preparing a chuck roast for that night’s supper, but she wasn’t thinking about the roast or enjoying the sound of her child’s singing, as she once would have. And Grace knew it.
Grace missed her Wonder Woman doll. She didn’t think of the doll as Wonder Woman, but as Diana Prince.
She had made up her mind to get the doll back. Kyle had told her that the bad man had it, the paralyzed man; and Kyle said he was going to get it back for her. But it had already been a long time. She believed in Kyle, but she just couldn’t keep waiting forever. He spent all his time at the bad man’s house, doing things for him. And now, not only had Grace lost her doll; she had lost her only other friend, her brother Kyle.
At the End of the Road Page 14
