by Blake, Bruce
“I guess someone found her,” Dee said.
I resisted the ‘Captain Obvious’ comment that jumped to my lips because, even for me, this was no time for sarcasm. The last time I saw my son, he accompanied a young man who was apparently also some kind of demon or devil; sarcasm would have to wait.
“Maybe Scarecrow got scared and called it in himself,” she added.
“Doubtful.”
Why didn’t I see it? Tall and thin, with long, stringy hair. Who else would be nicknamed Scarecrow? I knew the three kids who died went to Trev’s school, so it made sense Meg’s son did, too. And here we were again: my son’s life in danger and me to blame.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Dee said, putting her hand on my arm. The vague tingling sensation I’d felt before stole across my skin, no doubt about its presence this time. “You didn’t know Cory and Scarecrow and the thing on the street were all the same.”
“But you did.”
“A spirit’s intuition.”
I raised an eyebrow at her; the intuition she’d shown stretched far beyond anything explainable and into the realm of fortune teller—almost angelic, one might think. Then there was the tingling. And what about her unsettling habit of picking up on fragments of my thoughts? No other soul I’d harvested did that.
This isn’t the time.
I stretched up to peer over the fence we crouched behind to watch the house. It didn’t provide much cover, but seemed better than standing in the middle of the road.
“No one’s around,” I said. “We should have a look inside.”
“They’re not there.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The same way I knew you’d seen Scarecrow earlier: I’d sense him.”
I let out a frustrated breath and wiped melted snow off my face. Dee crouched with her back against the fence, surveying the opposite direction from me, so she didn’t perceive my exasperation.
“Where then? Where do we look for Trevor?”
She shrugged and raised her hand to point. “Maybe we should ask them.”
I jerked around to find a scene straight out of a Quentin Tarantino film. Three black-clad figures strode toward us, their features hidden under wide-brimmed hats and behind the smear of falling snow.
“Carrions,” I said aloud and wondered if one of them was Poe. Despite Dee’s claim she’d spoken to her, I couldn’t be sure where my former guardian angel’s allegiance lay. She may have helped, but I was responsible for her current damnation, a happening to which she might take some offense. “I don’t think they’re going to offer assistance.”
“Probably not,” Dee said, standing.
I glanced up at her, noticed how the snow blew around her without touching her, like metal shavings repelled by the wrong end of a magnet. One more oddity about this young girl to add to an ever growing list.
I grabbed the top of the fence, pulled myself up, and heard the quiet strains of ‘Shout it Out Loud’ by KISS playing from my crotch.
My cell phone ring tone.
I fumbled the phone out of my pocket, already knowing who’d be calling since only one person had my number. I cursed myself for being too scared and frantic to remember I’d given my son the phone; it would have made finding him so much easier.
“Trevor,” I barked pressing the phone to my cheek. A flake of snow the size of a quarter got caught between the earpiece and my head, filling my ear with water as it melted.
“Dad.”
“Where are you?”
“At my house. I need you. I need you to come.”
The tone of his voice twisted my gut into a granny knot.
“You’re in danger, Trev. Cory is--”
“Dad, I--”
His words cut off as the line went dead.
“Trevor. Trevor!” I slammed the phone against my thigh in frustration.
“What?”
“He’s home. He says he needs me.” I raised the phone as I spoke and pressed the speed dial button programmed with his number. It rang unanswered until a robot voice came on to tell me his voice mail wasn’t set up. “Shit.”
I jammed the phone back into my pocket and raised my head to appraise the approaching figures. Luckily, they leaned toward the dramatic, as carrions tend to do, and still some distance remained between us.
“Go,” Dee said, nodding toward the end of the street by the park.
“I can’t leave you with them.”
“It’s me they’re after. I’ll be fine.”
I shook my head, my feet itching to race to my ex-wife’s house to save my son.
“If I leave you, they’re going to take you to Hell.”
“If you stay, what happens to Trevor?”
I stared at her, at the expression of true concern showing in her eyes. She’d never met my son, nor did she owe me anything, yet she acted willing to sacrifice herself. When did it become necessary for anyone unlucky enough to be part of my life to sacrifice themselves? I gave my head a shake; beyond her, I caught sight of the three carrions closing in. Only seconds left to decide.
“I’ll be back,” I said, touching her hand and surprised again at the mild shock I received, as though my finger brushed a bare wire.
Her lips bent up in a smile suggesting she didn’t think I would. She nodded once, then left me to walk toward the three black clad figures. I didn’t wait to find out what happened or see if one of them was Poe.
I had to get Trevor before it was too late.
***
Cory stood close behind Trevor, his shoulder brushing his friend’s back as the teen sifted the contents of his pocket with shaking hands, searching for his key. After a few seconds of fumbling, he fished it out and scratched the tip around the keyhole until it slid in. The lock clicked and he pushed the door open.
“Hello?”
His voice fell into empty silence. Cory ushered him in.
“When will they be home?” he asked. His thigh itched enough to distract him from the stub of tail sticking through his flesh at the top of his ass.
“Soon.” Trevor took a few paces into the hall, then stopped and faced the other teen. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes I do. For both of us.”
Cory scratched his thigh, digging his nails hard against his pants, his fingertips grating against the hard squares pushing through his flesh, their shape angering him.
How did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve it?
He grunted at the back of his throat and directed Trevor toward the living room, his head throbbing and pulsing as if his brain wanted to push itself out through his forehead. Each beat of his heart sent acidic blood through his veins, burning them from the inside out. As they entered the room, he rubbed his hand across his brow to wipe away a sheen of sweat and found another hard square hidden behind his hair.
“Fuck.”
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“You look like shit.”
Cory dragged his eyes up to look at his friend—a label he’d never affixed to anyone in his entire life. Didn’t Trevor realize he’d done this all for him? To make his life better? He didn’t have to worry about Manny and his friends anymore, or his soon-to-be stepfather.
“I’m fine,” he said instead of the other things bubbling in his head. He wanted to say more, tell Trevor everything, but he found it difficult to concentrate, the scales insinuating themselves in his flesh and the tail forcing its way out of his body gradually stealing his brain.
He gestured for Trevor to sit on the couch and Cory himself slouched into the chair across from him. He leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees and head hung low; a drop of sweat rolled along the bridge of his nose and hung from the tip, tormenting him.
Cory’s foggy mind reeled. He pictured Gonzo hanging from the monkey bars, Tom’s bloated face, Manny struck by a car. Other memories followed, including things he’d never seen: his uncle pinned to the driver’s seat by the steering wheel forced
into his chest by another car; his aunt talking on the phone to his mother, not paying attention and mistakenly pouring herself a glass of bleach instead of water and burning her own throat out; Ugly Robert’s ride-on mower accident; a doctor having a coronary. Finally, he saw his father lying unconscious in an alleyway, oblivious to the rats chewing out his throat.
“What?”
Cory glared across the coffee table strewn with magazines and a half-empty coffee mug and raised an eyebrow. He’d been aware of Trevor speaking, but too distracted to hear what he said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t have to do anything. It just happens. People who cross me or anyone important to me have...accidents.” He blinked a drop of sweat out of his eye, resisted the urge to scratch a new itch manifesting on his chest. “You’re important, Trevor. I’ve never had a friend before.”
He watched his friend’s reaction and detected in his face the first signs of the expressions he’d seen more times in his life than he’d bother trying to count. Loathing, repulsion, disgust. Cory’s eyes narrowed; Trevor shook his head.
“If we’re friends, you won’t do this.”
“What?” Cory raised his head, flicked his hair back out of his face with a jerk. The movement flared pain in his head. “Won’t do what?”
Trevor’s throat clicked when he swallowed. “Kill people.”
Cory’s lips pulled up in a sneer and his hand went to his chest, scratched the hard scale under his shirt, found another below the first, two more beside it. The short tail moved inside his pants, swishing back and forth like a cat stalking its prey. But Trevor wasn’t his prey, his ‘Uncle Ric’ was. Cory stood, touched the protrusion at the base of his spine.
“I told you: I don’t kill people.”
“But Manny, Tom, Gon--”
“I didn’t kill them!”
He didn’t mean to raise his voice at Trevor, but the itch driving him crazy made him. It felt like hard-shelled, multi-legged insects crawled around under his skin, clawing his muscles with their pin-sharp feet and seeking to chew their way out. He bit hard on his back teeth, sucked an angry breath between them and forced himself to calm down, gain control before he spoke again.
“Aren’t you better off without them in your life?”
“Yes...I mean, no.” Confusion flashed across Trevor’s face. His eyes darted from Cory to the front hall and back. “No one deserves to die.”
“Everyone dies.”
“When their time comes.”
The sneer returned to Cory’s upper lip. “And who decides when that is?”
Trevor shook his head, shrugged, and Cory saw he had no beliefs or opinions on the matter. Strange. If Ric was who Cory thought, and Trevor knew it, how could he not have some idea what comes after life?
“Why not me?” Cory asked.
“Because you’re just some teenager.”
“Ha,” Cory scoffed. “But it’s okay for your father to decide when someone’s time has come?”
Trevor stared, his mouth fallen open, the look in his eyes growing fearful and concerned.
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend.” He paced out from behind the coffee table and thought that, if he wasn’t wearing pants to confine it, he’d have swiped the magazines off the table with his tail for dramatic effect. “I’ve seen him. He took my mother. He was there when my stepfather died.”
“My father is dead.”
“Not as dead as most of us might think. No, he’s a harvester whose time has come.” Cory stood in front of Trevor, filled is lungs and felt the scales on his chest slide against each other. His friend shrank away. “Call him.”
“No.”
“Pull out your shiny new cell phone and call him. Tell him to meet you here.”
“No. I won’t do it.”
Cory put one hand on the arm of the couch and leaned toward the other teen. He bared his teeth and felt them growing, filling his mouth. Trevor scrambled away, his ass pulling the flower-patterned throw covering the sofa off as he did. Cory grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, the leather creaking in his fingers.
“Call him or others will die.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The old neighborhood always instilled the same feeling in me, and not the comfort of homecoming. Too much bad shit happened in the little house on the street lined with pathetic trees for good feelings. I’d battled my own demons here, been betrayed by my wife, alienated my son, been told I wasn’t his father. No good memories to be found amongst those, and my gut burbled with the unpleasant knowledge that whatever happened today would only add to that already-too-long list.
Down the block, I peeked around the corner of the house once owned by the Rileys. I guessed they didn’t live there anymore—they’d been in their seventies when I left, so I presumed the children’s toys collecting a covering of snow in the front yard didn’t belong to them—but I put little thought to the fate of my one-time neighbors. There were more pressing things to occupy me before I spent time worrying about them.
Five minutes crawled by as I watched, every second that ticked by hammering inside my skull, each one carved off my son’s lifeline. In those minutes, nothing happened. Frustrated, I hurried across the street leaving footprints in the pavement’s fresh, white covering.
I crept toward the house, the tumbling worry in my gut nauseating me. My son was inside with a monster, and possibly my ex-wife, too, who I worried I still loved despite the horrible things that happened between us.
She’s marrying someone else. I haven’t been dead a year and she’s marrying someone else.
The thought encouraged a sour flavor in my already bitter-tasting mouth. I spat a mouthful of saliva at the edge of my ex-wife’s yard—thoughtfully dedicating it to her love, Ashton—and did an awkward bent-over duck walk across the snow-rimed lawn to the fence at the side. The gate latch rattled as I opened it and I hesitated, waiting to see if I’d been heard. When no reaction came, I proceeded to the side window looking into the living room, through which I’d discovered Rae’s relationship with her new fellow after my death.
Another crappy memory to add to the list.
With my back pressed against the wall, I edged up to the glass and snatched a peek inside. In that glimpse, I saw a messy living room and nothing else, so I checked again.
Messy was an understatement.
The one remaining lamp we’d gotten as part of the deal when we bought the living room furniture more than a decade before lay smashed on the floor, finally joining its mate I’d broken in an alcohol-induced anger soon after we got the set. The couch cushions were flung across the room and the chair tipped up on its side; magazines normally spread in neat fans on the coffee table were ripped apart and the pages thrown everywhere; a leg broken from the table protruded from one wall.
Panic burst within me as I nearly impaled myself on the gate rushing back through it, hurrying to the front door. I rattled the knob and found it locked, pissing me off and making me more worried. As I concentrated on my intermittent lock opening abilities, I kept telling myself that, though the living room was a mess, I’d seen no blood.
I failed once at unlocking the door, twice, and gave up. The bottom of my shoe hit the door with a wooden thud that reverberated up my leg and sent a shock of pain through my calf.
Kicking a door open is not as easy as it looks in the movies.
I kicked it again with the distinct sound of wood splitting, but the stubborn thing refused to cooperate. My third attempt sent it flying open and I stumbled through, careless as I rushed into the living room that appeared to have been upended by a tornado. I stared at the mess, scouring it for clues.
“Trevor?” The cliché simile that came to me was ‘silent as a tomb,’ so I forced it from my mind for obvious reasons. “Rae?”
I took a few steps into the room, tracking wetness and snow behind me, kicking aside stray pages of People magazine and Better Homes and Gardens. A p
age detailing how to de-cluttering your life stuck to the tread of my shoe.
“Trevor!?”
“Hello, ‘Uncle Ric.’ We meet again.”
I spun toward the voice, already knowing it didn’t belong to Trevor, and saw Scarecrow standing in the doorway to the dining room. He appeared to sport a nasty five o’clock shadow, but it only took a second to realize whiskers weren’t responsible, scales were.
“Where’s Trevor?”
“Perhaps I should call you Icarus? Or harvester?”
I set my jaw, hands balled into fists at my sides. I didn’t have any idea how, but I was going to get rid of this guy.
“Where is my son?”
He smiled revealing yellowed teeth, and a laugh toiled against the back of his throat. That was enough. I sprang at him, a growl rumbling in my own throat, but the agony of my Hell-injuries slammed into me as though I’d been mobbed by a gang wielding baseball bats. My shoulder, my gut, my leg, my chest. I folded at the waist and nearly tumbled to the floor, but caught myself on the edge of the chair.
When he raised his hand and gestured, an invisible force hit me with the subtlety and love of a speeding car. It threw me through the living room window with all the resistance of a rag doll, glass crashing around me, sharp edges nipping my skin.
The ground leaped up and hit me in the side of the head. In a cartoon world, I’d have seen stars, or perhaps small, singing birdies circling me. Instead, I experienced more pain.
I attempted to push myself up but my hand slipped and I went down again. My ears rang, my brain throbbed.
Fucker packs a wallop for a skinny teenager.
Lying on my back with shards of glass for a blanket and big, fluffy flakes of snow fluttering down on me, I blinked repeatedly, hoping the waving motion of my eyelashes might clear my head. At the same time, I prayed he didn’t jump me before I recovered my wits.
I climbed to my hands and knees, chunks of glass tinkling together as they fell from my chest, my head hung low between my shoulders, listening to a Jurassic Park T-Rex jogging around somewhere behind my forehead. When the dinosaur’s footsteps started to recede into the distance, I raised my head cautiously to keep if from popping off while I looked around.
