by Blake, Bruce
“You’ll thank me for this later,” the man said and rushed Shaun.
Several things happened in rapid succession: the stone skittered across the pavement; the gun went off, the explosion of hammer contacting bullet thunderous in the alley; the man threw himself into Shaun, tackling him.
Time and movement slowed as they went to the ground. Cory saw the jagged rock settle in the precise spot where Shaun’s head hit. The other man landed on him and his stepfather’s breath whooshed out of his lungs, followed by the dull thud of the pointed rock entering his skull. They lay there for a few seconds, the man pinning Shaun under his weight, holding his gun hand. Shaun twitched once, twice, then went still.
A second later, a shadowy version of the detective climbed to its feet and took a step back from the two men. Cory stared at the there-but-not-quite-there apparition of his stepfather, then looked back at the Shaun Williams lying on the ground, blood leaking out of the wound in the back of his head.
He’s dead. In the shadows between two garbage bins, Cory smiled. And I’m responsible.
***
The lock clicked and Meg stiffened in her seat on the couch, forgetting the TV program playing unseen on the set. She held her breath wondering who’d come through the door: Cory? Shaun? Both?
Please let it be Shaun, only Shaun.
A long time had passed since she felt bad for wishing her son wouldn’t come home. Her love for him had gone numb years before and disappeared completely soon after. If she told herself the truth, she’d have admitted the reason she called Shaun wasn’t so he’d look for Cory, but an excuse to hear his voice. She looked toward the doorway at the sound of footsteps, her heart beating fast.
Until she saw Cory alone in the hall.
His hair hung limp and long and his black clothes looked grubbier than usual. He stood in the doorway, shoulders slouched forward, an indescribable expression flickering in his eyes. Meg tensed, considered getting up and going to him, pretending to be concerned for his welfare, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she looked at him and wondered how this...this thing could have come from her.
Half a minute passed before he spoke.
“Shaun’s dead.”
Meg sucked a quick, short breath of surprise through her nose. Her heart contracted, squeezing against her ribs hard enough to hurt. Somewhere, deep inside, she’d been waiting for the day when she’d hear those words.
“Not today. Please, not today,” she whispered and pressed her lips together, fighting back the tearful sob struggling its way up her throat. Seeing him standing there, expressionless, without a hint of remorse in his demeanor, made it easy for her to replace the urge to cry with anger.
Finally, she pushed herself up off the couch and crossed the room to stand in front of him. Meg looked up into his dark eyes that resembled neither hers nor his father’s and recognized joy shining at the back of them.
She drew her hand back and slapped him hard across the face, then went down the hall into her room, worried the whole way for what fate might befall her. The door slammed shut and she collapsed onto the bed, the sob she’d been holding back tearing from her lips, her palm stinging.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Halfway to the motel, the aches and pains of my hell-wounds stopped causing me discomfort. Mostly. My gut still hurt as though I’d been punched hard earlier in the day, but the knot in my leg was gone, taking my limp along with it, and my shoulder seemed to have returned to its old self. By the time I reached the motel, even the faint stitch of pain in my side like a runner might experience after going too hard had settled back to normal. When I opened the door, I encountered an altogether different problem.
I stood in the doorway staring at the empty room, my heart beating an angry cadence against my rib cage. Locked door, no sign of forced entry, no sign of anyone having been inside, but no sign of Dee, either. It seemed I couldn’t win, no matter how hard I tried; someone always suffered because of my choices and decisions.
“Fuck.”
“Language.”
Her voice startled me and I spun to face her with a mix of anger and relief. She stood one door away, an open bag of chips from the vending machine in her hand. I’m not sure why she bothered buying them, I doubted she digested the things—kind of like Poe’s habit of ordering chocolate milk shakes—but the thought disappeared when her smile faded and her jaw dropped.
“You saw him.”
I raised one eyebrow. “What?”
She paced toward me, hands dropping to her sides, the bag of chips forgotten. “You saw him.”
Dee touched my shoulder with the tips of her fingers, then winced as if the pain her touch caused me happened to her. The jolt shooting along my arm might have argued the point.
“Ow.” I pulled back, frowning and rubbing my shoulder. “What the hell are you talking about? Saw who? What did you do?”
She let her hand drop and the pain ceased, but she continued staring at me, her eyes so wide I thought they might be in danger of falling out. I might have found it comical if it didn’t appear only fear held them in.
“Scarecrow.”
She whispered the word quietly enough I didn’t hear her at first. My brain fussed over the sound of her breath, puzzling over it until it made sense.
“Scarecrow? I thought he was a big, black beast. I didn’t see a--”
My words caught in my throat, hooking on my epiglottis like a sock on a loose nail in a crappy hardwood floor. After figuring out the puzzle of Dee’s breathy word, my mind turned itself to another, putting together other pieces. A wide-eyed look, a hesitancy, the pains.
“Cory.” I looked at Dee, thinking my expression must match hers. “He’s with Trevor.”
“Fuck,” she said.
We left without closing the motel room door.
***
He’s the one the boy wants me to kill.
Cory hadn’t expected to recognize Trevor’s uncle, or that he’d be the one. The memory of the first time he encountered him—when Shaun died—filled his thoughts. He recalled it as though it happened again as they walked through the park, and two things occurred to the teen.
‘Shaun called him Mr. Fell’ and ‘He’s not Trevor’s uncle.’
He looked over at Trevor, watched him flip the phone over in his fingers, run the pad of his thumb across the numbered buttons. As far as cell phones go, it wasn’t much: no internet access, no apps, probably not even text capability. No state-of-the-art smart phone, but better than hunting for a pay phone every time Trevor needed to call someone.
It has ‘Uncle Ric’ on speed dial.
“Do you know how hard it is to find a pay phone these days?” Trevor asked as the two of them wandered through the park.
“Huh? What?”
“Pay phones. Do you remember the last time you saw a pay phone?”
Cory shrugged and cleared his throat. “Last time I did, a homeless guy was pissing against the side of the phone booth.”
“That’s why I’m happy to have this.” He brandished the cell phone as if it was an award he’d won.
“I don’t have one.” Cory’s gaze fell to his mud-splashed boots. He felt Trevor watching him watching them.
“Everything okay?”
“What? Yeah, it’s fine. Everything’s...” His voice trailed off as he slipped back into his thought until he noticed Trevor on the verge of prompting him to continue. “You and Ric seem pretty close.”
“You could say he’s like a father to me.”
“What about your father? How come I haven’t met him yet?’
“He’s dead,” Trevor said lowering his voice, but Cory thought the grief in his friend’s voice sounded false. “You don’t know? It was all over the papers.”
“Sorry, dude. Don’t read the paper.”
“Hmm, I guess not. Me, either. Unless someone killed my dad.”
They walked past the pond and the willow tree beside it. Two ladies wearing colorful scarve
s over their white hair sat on the bench, lobbing chunks of bread to the water fowl gathered around their feet. Cory wondered if there were any documented cases of duck attacks.
“Muggers killed him,” Trevor explained without prompting.
Cory pulled himself from his thoughts. “Shitty. When?”
“It’ll be a year in April. They got him outside the church. That’s what made it big news.”
That ruled out one Mr. Fell. So was ‘Uncle Ric’ really his uncle? If so, why lie?
“Ric seemed pretty upset your mom’s getting remarried.”
“Yeah. Him and my dad were like this.” Trevor crossed his fingers.
“And is he close with your mom?”
Trevor laughed, but it held little humor. “Close? No. You might say she pretends he doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Sucks. He seems to care about her.”
“I guess.” Trevor jammed the cell phone into the pocket of his leather jacket. “Uncle Ric kinda stays away from everybody since my dad died. He visits me once in a while.”
“Doesn’t get along with your mom’s boyfriend?”
“Hates him.”
“My mom never had to worry about that.”
“Why not? Her exes and family get along?”
“No,” Cory said. “They’re all dead.”
He heard the sound of Trevor swallowing hard over the noise of quaking ducks fading behind them. Silence fell between them for a moment.
“All of them?” Trevor asked tentatively.
Cory nodded. “I’m all that’s left.” He paused, then added: “Me and my mom.”
“Sorry, man.” Muddy turf squelched beneath their feet. “Everyone?”
“Yeah. Grandparents, two aunts, an uncle, two cousins, my father and two step-fathers. My baby sister, too.”
And my mom.
Trevor stopped, his hand on Cory’s arm. Cory faced him and looked into an expression of distress on his friend’s face.
“Eleven people in your family have died?”
He nodded.
“Did it happen all at once? An accident?”
“No. One aunt and uncle and my two cousins died in a car crash going home after visiting us.” He hesitated, remembering the way his mother’s sister and her husband came to cleanse her of her sins, somehow convinced her life choices caused the deaths of the people in her family, not suspecting it was her son. “The others were one here, one there. Accidents. And suicides...murders.”
Trevor’s eyes widened and Cory knew he was remembering how they’d met on the overpass. Trevor hadn’t said anything, never asked why he’d found him standing on the railing over a busy highway, but he realized what had been going on. They both knew he’d have become a huge insect smear on a windshield if Trevor hadn't come along.
Cory’s mind flashed back to sitting in the bathtub in his own blood with no cuts on his wrists.
Or would I?
“Man,” Trevor breathed, interrupting Cory’s thoughts. “And I thought it was bad losing my dad.”
Cory shrugged and started walking again.
“You get over it. You’re not too happy your mom’s getting married though, are you?”
“No. I hate him. He thinks he’s my dad. He’s not.”
“I know what you mean.”
They scrambled up the rocks at the far side of the park, following the smooth trail once they got to the top. A cardinal sitting in a nearby tree sang out for their attention, one long whistle followed by a series of shorter ones. Cory looked at its red plumage and pointed head feathers and the bird took to the air, fleeing his gaze as soon as it made eye contact with him.
They continued along the top of the rock when Cory realized where they were. He hadn’t intended to bring Trevor here but wondered if their friend was where he’d left him.
“I want to show you something,” he said and gestured for Trevor to follow him to the drainage ditch.
Cory took the lead, tromping along the last section of rocky park with Trevor trailing a few paces behind. He paused when they reached the edge of the embankment leading down to the runoff.
“What do you want to show me?” Trevor asked settling in beside his friend.
“Not up here,” Cory said. He pointed toward the end of the culvert, its bars hidden by a tangle of tree branches and blackberry bushes. “Down there.”
Trevor stretched for a better view, standing on his toes, then shrugged. “Lead on.”
Cory nodded and started down the hill, his boots slipping and sliding on the steep path. Twice his feet almost slipped out from under him, but he kept himself from ending up on the ground with a wet ass. Trevor followed along behind, the buckle of his leather jacket hanging loose at his waist and jingling against his thigh. The gentle rhythm of it settled Cory’s mind, clearing it and allowing him to think, making him suddenly unsure if showing Trevor was the best idea. But he had to show someone his secret.
If not Trevor, then who? Given what he’d seen his ‘uncle’ do, he might be the one person in the world who’d understand.
They slip-slid to the edge of the ditch where Cory stopped again and looked up toward the culvert. The dark mass rested against the iron grate, water rushing past, through and over it. From this distance, it appeared no more than a discarded garbage bag or collection of refuse.
But what will Trevor do?
He hesitated a second longer, sensing the other teen’s presence at his side.
“It’s the ditch. What’s the big deal? I’ve been here a million times.”
A nerve tweaked inside Cory. Did he already see him?
No. Ric had accidentally said three friends died and Trevor corrected him; his ‘uncle’ did a sloppy job covering up. Cory’s hand unconsciously went to the spot above his tail bone and the four inches of stubby tail hidden beneath his black jeans. When he realized he was doing it, he stopped.
“When were you last here?”
“Dunno. Three weeks ago, I guess. Why?”
Trevor doesn’t know, but Uncle Ric does. Because he came and got Tom.
“No reason,” Cory responded in an effort to sound nonchalant despite the excitement building inside him. “Come on.”
He waved Trevor to follow and began walking the tightrope of muddy land separating the concrete side of the ditch from the blackberry bushes. It was precarious in spots, but they soon found themselves standing in front of the grated end of the culvert.
“Okay,” Trevor said raising his hands in question. “Now what?”
Cory pointed toward the mass pressed against the bars. Trevor leaned forward, looking.
“What? The grate?”
“At the bottom.”
Trevor took a step closer, then recoiled, hand across his nose. “That stinks. What is it? An animal?” He looked over his shoulder at Cory. “You brought me here to show me a dead animal?”
Alarm shone in his friend’s eyes and a touch of panic sent a lump into the back of Cory’s throat.
I shouldn’t have brought him.
But who wouldn’t be offended at being led to a dead animal? What kind of monster would do that? It hurt Cory that his friend imagined he’d do such a thing.
“No,” Cory said, his voice flat. “Not an animal. Get closer. Have a better look.”
Trevor looked at him a second, hesitant, then shuffled his way along the edge of the ditch to the front of the culvert. Cory followed close behind him, excited to show his friend what had happened for him, but also nervous to see his reaction.
Trevor leaned against the concrete, his hand a few inches away from the bars. He peered down for a minute, then crouched for a closer look. Cory stepped up behind him.
The young man’s bloated, white skin stretched tight across his face, the one eye not submerged in the water plucked out by some scavenger happy to find a meal: a rat, or a crow. Trevor looked for a few seconds, the back of his head to his friend. Cory imagined the expression on his face, the elation he must be feeling at being free
of not one, not two, but all three of the boys who’d made his life so difficult at school. Surely he’d thank Cory at the very least, perhaps embrace him. Cory shifted foot to foot, mud squelching beneath his boots, waiting to receive his friend’s gratitude.
When Trevor looked back at him over his shoulder, gratitude was not the word to describe his expression. Stunned shock, disturbed surprise; not gratitude.
“Is that Tom?” he whispered.
Cory allowed a shallow smile to cross his lips and nodded. Trevor’s eyes strayed off, looking at nothing.
“Dad was right,” he said, obviously intending the comment for himself.
Cory’s smile disappeared.
Dad?
Trevor stood, his back against the concrete wall. The sound of traffic passing on the street above spilled over the edge, mixed with the gurgle of water rushing past the dead teen. He looked at Cory for a minute, his eyes wide.
“How did you know he was here?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cory said. He resisted the urge to touch his tail again by planting his hands deep in his pockets. Through the material, his fingers encountered one of the hard squares on the front of his thigh. “He’s gone now. So are Manny and Gonzo. You don’t have to worry anymore.”
Trevor stared at him, open mouthed. Cory didn’t say anything for a minute, giving him enough space to thank him in whatever way he deemed appropriate, all the while turning one word over and over in his head.
Dad.
“No one’s going to hurt you anymore, Trev. Not as long as I’m around.”
The first flake of snow drifted down between them.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Halfway down the block toward Meg’s house, we realized we’d guessed wrong. Police tape strung across the front of her yard fluttered in the wind that blew tufts of huge, fluffy snow flakes across the street, and the likelihood of finding Trevor and his so-called friend inside took a nose dive.
