Orphans of Wonderland

by Greg F. Gifune

  In addition to the newspaper reports, Katelyn had included some links to television news stories the three major Boston stations had done on Lonnie’s murder. Joel hit each link, listened to the reports showing Lonnie’s apartment building, as he’d been killed only a block from his home; the crime scene; and more stock photos of Lonnie. Several featured brief interviews with local detectives working the case, as well as interviews with Katelyn speaking about justice for her father’s murder. But there wasn’t anything new in the reports, or much of anything he could use. Everyone seemed perplexed by what in the end seemed little more than a senseless crime of violence. Just the same, he grabbed a pad and pen from his middle desk drawer and jotted down the names of the detectives and the reporters and their station affiliations, then did the same with those who had penned the newspaper and online stories.

  Only one file remained, a JPEG. Joel double-clicked it and an old photograph appeared on his monitor screen. He recognized it immediately.

  Taken in 1982, the year after they’d all graduated high school, it showed Joel with Lonnie and the rest of their circle of friends: Sal Valano, Trent Pierce and Dorsey Hill. They stood side by side near a stone jetty at the beach, laughing and mugging for the camera, arms slung over each other’s shoulders. He and Lonnie with their long hair, Sal with his mullet, Trent with his Mohawk and Dorsey with what they all affectionately referred to as his “big-ass ’fro”.

  Happy. Young. Carefree. Yet there was something else there too, just beneath the surface. Something dark that tied them all together, bound them, forever. And when Joel looked hard enough, he could still see it.

  My God, Joel thought, look at us.

  He remembered the day it was taken. Dorsey’s girlfriend at the time had snapped it just as Sal had made one of his typical wisecracks. Joel stared at the photo, letting the memories wash over him. He could almost hear their laughter.

  Clearly the photograph was one Katelyn had found among her father’s things, and had been included on the disk for the sole purpose of playing Joel’s heartstrings. And it was working. If something like this didn’t elicit the emotions needed to convince him to help her, then nothing would.

  “Kid’s good,” he muttered.

  Joel’s eyes came to rest on Lonnie. None of them—least of all Lonnie—had any idea what was waiting for them out in the world. He thought about it a moment, did the math. They were all nineteen in the photograph, which meant that when it was taken, Lonnie had thirty-one years to live. Sounded like a long time, but it really wasn’t. Most of it had come and gone in what felt like the blink of an eye.

  Gone. So many years just…gone.

  Hey, what are you gonna do? Lonnie’s favorite expression; he could almost hear him saying it across all these years.

  You’re gonna die in the street, that’s what you’re gonna do.

  Joel clicked closed the photograph, spun his chair away and forced himself to his feet, wanting—needing—to get away from it. His emotions were getting the better of him, replaying a conversation he’d had with Lonnie a few months before that photograph was taken. Joel’s girlfriend and high school sweetheart had dumped him, and Lonnie, even more than the other guys, was right there to let him know everything would be all right.

  What are you gonna do? The hell with her, bro, plenty of babes out there. You’ll meet somebody else, somebody better, and before you know it you won’t even remember that bitch’s name.

  What they hadn’t realized was that in an even shorter span of time their lives would lead them in different directions, and they’d no longer play the integral parts in each other’s day-to-day existences they’d all been so sure they would. Everything was about to change, and nothing would ever be the same again.

  Time was coming for them. Life was coming for them.

  And Death was hitching a ride.

  Chapter Five

  Dinner over, the dining room table sat empty but for the remnants of what had been a delicious and very pleasant meal. Before Billy arrived, Joel had filled Taylor in on who Katelyn Burrows was and what she wanted. The result was more than a little tension throughout dinner, but both managed to keep it under control. Before Billy got there Joel filled him in over the phone, hoping this would cause Billy to stay quiet and not bring up anything that might open the door to discussing the situation. They’d kept it light, but Joel knew what was coming.

  An older REM tune played from the stereo, and as Taylor excused herself, then went to the kitchen and began straightening up, Joel and Billy stepped out onto the patio off the living room so Billy could have a cigarette.

  It was a cold and clear evening, the sky starless. Joel pulled his jacket in tight around him, buried his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet, as Billy, who always seemed oblivious to the cold, lit his cigarette. “Too chilly for you?” he asked, exhaling a cloud of smoke that mingled with their plumes of breath.

  “Yeah, it’s freezing. What’s wrong with you?”

  “How much time you got?” Billy chuckled. “Think Taylor liked the wine?”

  “For future reference, if it comes in a box, don’t get it.”

  “Fine, nothing but cans from now on.” A short, portly and balding man in his early fifties, Billy Gill had a penchant for inexpensive polyester slacks, ill-fitting sports coats and comfortable shoes. He almost always wore a tie, and tonight was no exception, but they always hung loose and sloppily around his neck, which fit in well with the rest of his perpetually wrinkled and slightly stained clothing. Never married, Billy lived alone in a small condominium complex near Bangor with his two cats, Woodward and Bernstein. He rarely dated, and when he did, things never went well. As a result, his was a rather lonely existence, and the small newspaper he ran had become his life. He’d worked there since graduating college, and had climbed his way up to editor in chief several years before. Once a week he and Joel and a few other guys got together for poker night, but other than that, Billy Gill’s evenings were uneventful and spent alone, so Joel and Taylor tried to have him over for dinner at least a few times each month. Although he’d hem and haw and act like he couldn’t possibly fit dinner into his busy social calendar, he always found a way to make it. “But wine’s about the last thing you’ve got to worry about tonight, pal.”

  Joel nodded. “We didn’t get much of a chance to talk about it, but suffice to say, Taylor’s not pleased.”

  “Can you blame her?”

  “No, of course not. But…”

  Billy took another puff. “You sure this is something you want to do?”

  “If it was about wanting to, I wouldn’t be going. I need to do it. I owe Lonnie that much.”

  Billy stabbed the cigarette between his lips for emphasis and left it there, letting it dangle. He still didn’t look cool. It probably wasn’t possible. “You don’t owe anybody a damn thing.”

  “We were tight once, went through a lot together. That matters.”

  Billy suddenly looked unusually serious. “Yeah,” he admitted softly, “it does.”

  “I just don’t want it to cause any major problems.”

  “What do you think it’s all about?”

  “I’ve got no idea. I don’t think it’s anything like…before…but there’s strange aspects to it for sure.”

  “I mean, this business with the brand you were talking about, what the hell’s that about? And he didn’t know he had it? How is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t conscious when it was done.”

  “What kind of person brands a human being?”

  “What kind of person brands any living being?”

  “I don’t mean to badmouth your friend or his memory, but odds are he was into some bad shit or pissed off the wrong kind of folks. People don’t get shot in the head on the street for no reason. You know that. Could it be a random thing? Sure, it’s possible. But
how often does that really happen?”

  “Maybe it was a mistake.” Joel shrugged. “Shooter got the wrong guy.”

  “That’s the problem—you don’t know much of anything at this point.”

  “No, I don’t. I have no idea what the hell I’m walking into.”

  “That’s never wise, my friend.”

  “Sometimes it’s necessary. I’m guessing it won’t amount to much.”

  “Guessing or hoping?”

  “Little of both. Either way, I’ve been out of the game a long time, Billy.”

  “You’re still a reporter. It’s not like you’re selling furniture or something.”

  Joel stared at him. “My last story was about the school lunch program and how pizza is still being featured. Hard-hitting investigative journalism at its best. I don’t want to come off arrogant or anything, but I’m thinking Pulitzer.”

  “Once a reporter, always a reporter.”

  “I thought that was priests.”

  “Fine. Them too.”

  “My point is the last real investigative work I did was twenty years ago, and I haven’t stepped foot in that part of Massachusetts in all that time. My old stomping grounds probably don’t even exist anymore, and any connections I had back then are likely long gone. So I figure I knock the rust off as best I can, go poke around a little, see if I can come up with anything or make some sense of things. If I come up empty—which is probably exactly what’ll happen—I come home none the worse for wear and able to live with myself because at least I’ll know I gave it an honest shot.”

  Billy smoked his cigarette a while, thinking. “I realize we didn’t know each other back when all that other stuff went down and you had those problems, but I know enough to realize that’s not something you need to get anywhere near again.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  Flashes of memories blinked before Joel’s eyes. Photos of the Catholic church…the altar on which Cindy Mello had been slaughtered and sacrificed…the symbols and sacrilegious writings in her blood and fecal matter smeared across the walls and floors…the desecration…the madness and evil falling through his mind like black rain…

  He forced them away. It had been years since such things had tormented him or come to him so vividly.

  “It’s not like I didn’t read your book,” Billy said. “I do know something about what happened and—”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “But it also nearly killed you. You almost didn’t recover.”

  He and Billy had never really talked in-depth about those days, and Joel had no intention of starting now. “It was a completely different time, a different case and an entirely different situation. This has nothing to do with that sort of thing.”

  “That you know of.”

  “Look, man, I appreciate your concern, okay? But I’m fine, and I’ll be fine.”

  “You’ve got a good life here, Joel. A damn fine woman, a nice home, a badass best friend.” He grinned, then grew serious again. “Don’t fuck it up. Some people would kill for what you have. And by some people I mean me.”

  Joel gave a quiet, obligatory laugh, but both he and Billy knew there really wasn’t anything funny about any of this. As an awkward silence fell over them, a chilly but gentle breeze slipped through the trees at the edge of the backyard. A set of wind chimes hanging off the back of the house swayed into motion, their ethereal song dancing through the darkness.

  “It’s not only a totally different situation,” Joel finally said. “I’m a totally different person now.”

  “Just tread carefully, my man. If you feel a sense of duty to look into this for your friend or his kid or whatever, I get it—I do—but it’s not worth losing what you have. It’s not worth losing Taylor. It’s not worth losing you. No matter what happens, you remember that. Then get back here safe and sound. And don’t be gone longer than your vacation. I don’t want to have to fire your sorry ass, but I will because I’m an insufferable douche. Besides, we’ve got work to do, dinners to have, poker games to play, you hear me?”

  “With your softly melodic voice it’s virtually impossible not to.”

  “Side-splitting. Anyway, if you need anything—”

  “You’ll be the first one I call. And seriously, thanks.”

  Billy clamped a beefy hand on Joel’s shoulder. “You know Taylor still expects me to talk you out of this, right?”

  “I’m sure she’s hoping.”

  “Lie and tell her I did my best, okay?”

  “Sure.” Joel felt himself smile. “There’s a good chance she’ll corner you before the night’s over, though, probably try to get you to take another run at me.”

  “I’ll be ready. I’m not afraid of her.” Billy took another hard drag on his cigarette, dropped it to the ground and stepped on it. “Actually, yes I am.”

  “Come on,” Joel said, cocking his head toward the house. “We better get back in there before she thinks we’re out here scheming.”

  “Yeah, I don’t want her drinking the rest of my wine.”

  “Trust me, that wine could not possibly be in less danger.”

  “Hey, what’s sexier than a big ole gallon box of three-dollar wine?”

  “Literally every other thing in the universe.”

  Laughing, they returned to the house, and much as Joel tried to convince himself to enjoy the evening—as he knew it would be the last time he’d have the opportunity to do so for some time—he realized he was simply whistling past a graveyard. For now, he’d escape the night for the warmth, safety and clarifying light of their home.

  But the darkness was rising, and soon, he’d be walking right into it.

  Chapter Six

  In the quiet house he’d called home for so long, memories crashed like waves, reminding him that the life he’d built and worked so hard to obtain had saved him, cleansed him from the madness and the wolves that even then crouched drooling just outside his door, biding their time until more flesh could be ripped from bone. The slaughter, that’s what they lived for, the thrill of the hunt and the joy of the kill. For Joel, existence was far more complicated.

  Survival was only the beginning.

  All those years before, sitting in the Mello’s home, he watches as her parents—a devastated middle-aged couple—huddle together in the limited light of their small apartment. On the television a VHS tape plays. In broken English, Cindy’s father explains he had it transferred from film not long before her death. It shows a little girl, his little girl, the little girl their daughter Cindy used to be.

  “This was our first summer after we left Portugal,” he explains, the words catching in his throat as his bloodshot eyes fill with tears. “You have to see, you—you have to see who my little girl was. My…my baby…”

  Joel nods, frozen in place in the corner of the room.

  A little girl runs along wet beach sand in her bare feet, a small plastic bucket in one hand. All pigtails and big brown eyes, Cindy joins her father at the sand castle they’re building together. It’s nothing spectacular, as her father clearly has no real talent when it comes to such things, but far as he and his daughter are concerned, it is the most beautiful and magical castle ever made.

  Her father shows her where to put the last bucketful of wet, formed sand, and Cindy carefully dumps it out. He packs sand around it, shaping it a bit with a plastic shovel, then sits back on his heels and smiles. “What do you think?” he says to the camera, to his wife who is filming them.

  Cindy smiles wide and bright. “What do you think?” she echoes.

  “Wonderful!” her mother says off-camera.

  Even then Joel knows he must remember this moment. He must let it burn into his mind, because unlike the countless photographs he has seen from a number of sources, this is his first—and perhaps only—opportunity to see Cind
y alive, moving, talking and laughing. And while there will be other poignant moments, because she is such a small child in the film, so innocent and gleeful and unaware of what life has in store for her, none will be as special as this one. Joel will never be able to reproduce this exact experience, the chance to look in on this dead woman’s joyful childhood. It will only happen this one time, and just like her makeshift sand castle, once it’s gone, none of them will ever get it back.

  Except in memory.

  Cindy watches the coming tide, the waves gently gliding closer and closer along the beach. “Will the water come this far, Daddy?”

  “It will soon, yes.”

  “Will it wreck our sandcastle?”

  He nods, makes a face he hopes is funny.

  “But why?” Cindy asks.

  “It’s all right; it’s not meant to last. It’s only here for a short while and then it’s gone. That’s what makes it special.”

  The sun blinds them a moment, so bright and warm, and Cindy becomes a phantom, a blur at the very edge of the film, like a dream, really, a figment of their collective imaginations. Her father reaches for her…

  And then she too is gone, lost in the sand, sunshine and glistening ocean.

  Later, in the sand castles of his tormented dreams, Joel reaches for the little girl she’d once been too, finds only wet sand, and begins to weep.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  The sound of Taylor’s voice dragged him from that darkness and the depths of its sorrow to one more immediate, its shadows nearly filling their bedroom as it drifted through them like the spirit it was. It was late, and the moon was high, creeping through the bedroom windows and splitting the room into two separate worlds. Beyond the reach of moonlight, Joel lay on his back, nude, eyes trained on the night sky. He didn’t want to tell her about the things going through his mind but saw no way around it. “The home movie Cindy Mello’s parents showed me of her when she was a little girl.”

  “I remember that in your book. It was very powerful.”