Dead Scared

by Ivan Blake

  “No...like his dad beats him, I mean really beats him.”

  “He does?”

  “Yes. All the time, ever since Floyd was a little kid. And because his dad does, Floyd is so screwed up. He can go absolutely nuts if he isn’t afraid of you. If you threaten him back, however, he may crumble, and if you tell him that his dad’s business will suffer if he starts anything with you, then I think he’ll leave you alone. Floyd is terrified of his dad.”

  “How do you know his dad beats him?”

  “My dad and Floyd’s used to be friends, and my dad drove for Balzer Trucking in the winter. Then one day my dad saw Floyd’s dad beating him. My dad tried to stop Mr. Balzer and they got into a terrible fight, and my dad pounded him...I mean really walloped him. Dad was fired, and Mr. Balzer made sure my dad never got another job from anyone else in town. Even so, Dad never told anyone else what he’d seen. I guess that’s why Floyd doesn’t pick on me or let anyone else, because he knows that I know, and he couldn’t stand it if I told.”

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “Because...because you look like you could use a friend.”

  For an instant, an icy gust off the water shifted the mist, and light from the back porch fell across the girl’s face. His gaze rested on her pretty face.

  “You aren’t afraid being friendly with me might make things difficult for you?” he asked.

  “Do I look like I care what others think of me?”

  At first, Chris didn’t know how to react. Then Gillian chuckled, and he did too.

  “You can use what I told you to get Floyd off your back. You just can’t tell anyone else. Floyd is an ass, but it would kill him if people knew what a monster his dad is.”

  “Maybe we should tell somebody else,” Chris said, “to get Floyd some help.” If someone had told Chris even five minutes ago that he would ever want to help Floyd Balzer….

  “No! No, you can’t. I once asked Floyd if I could tell our minister. He started crying and begged me not to. He made me promise.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, and then Gillian asked, “Where were you coming from just now? You looked sort of scared.”

  “What do you know about the goatman who lives down the tracks?”

  “Dr. Meath?”

  “For real, he’s a doctor?”

  “A chiropractor from England. Sometimes people go to him, you know, for sore muscles and stuff, because he’s real cheap and he’s local. Even my granddad goes to him when the pain in his back gets too bad. You’d have to be pretty desperate to let him treat you, though. Have you caught a whiff of him yet?”

  “I saw him riding some sort of machine along the rails earlier this evening...and I followed.”

  “Yeah, the bike. Dr. Meath has a part-time job in town, and he sometimes rides it to work.”

  They sat in silence once again. Then Gillian smiled and said, “We should be going in, we’re getting soaked.”

  They got up and started toward the house. “Hey, nice talking to you, Gillian, and thanks.”

  “Yes,” she said with a smile, “but can I tell you one more thing, if that’s okay?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Mallory Dahlman. Be careful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I guess she’s pretty, if you like that big boob look and all, but Mallory Dahlman can be dangerous. Please be careful around her.” She walked away into the night.

  “Sure,” Chris said and headed for the door. Careful? Yeah, right. Dangerous was exactly what any guy was hoping for in a girlfriend. And as for the big boob look, well…. Then, just as he was about to open the back door, he turned and called to Gillian who was already at the corner of the house.

  “Hey,” he whispered as loudly as he could into the mist.

  “Yes?”

  “What sort of part-time job?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The goatman, what sort of part-time work does he do?”

  “He works at Brewster’s Funeral Home.”

  Chapter Four

  Friday, November 15

  Chris had an awful night. His skin crawled remembering what an ass he’d made of himself in Social Studies. He became breathless at the thought of Mallory’s hand on his arm. Several scenarios for his impending confrontation with Floyd Balzer whirled about in his brain. And his stomach lurched at the image of that leg poking out of the goatman’s sack.

  Then there were the sounds through the wall.

  He’d just nodded off when something woke him. On the other side of the paper-thin wall dividing his tiny room from the rest of the huge attic, he heard...what, movement? Faint, but something was definitely moving around in the enormous attic. In the two months he’d been sleeping in the tiny crawl space, Chris had imagined all sorts of noises, but he’d never actually been certain. Tonight, however, as he lay as still as death, he heard shuffling. Like someone was crawling...crawling across the wooden floor on the other side of the attic divide, crawling slowly...toward the door at the foot of the bed. Then...nothing. Chris froze, hardly daring to breathe, waiting for the sound to return. He stared into the darkness, toward the tiny door. Did it move? No. Merely shadows. And silence. After what seemed like an eternity, he fell once again into a troubled sleep.

  * * * *

  He woke late. His family was already moving about down below. He’d have to endure their conversation as he got ready for school. Even so, when his brother and sister started in on him, their questions were a shock.

  “Did you have a fight at school?”

  “Have you got a girlfriend?”

  “What’s she like?”

  “Why did you get into a fight?”

  “You don’t go to my school,” Chris said. “How do you know anything happened?”

  “Mommy and Daddy were talking at supper.”

  Oh crap. Principal Dell must have called his parents about the screw-up in Social Studies, but that wouldn’t explain how his parents knew about Balzer and Mallory. However they’d heard, Chris had to get out of the house before the morning erupted in a shouting match, so he grabbed his school books and raced downstairs and out the door before his parents could intercept him.

  He was already at the front corner of the house when his dad shouted from the back steps. “Christopher!”

  Chris saw Gillian waiting up the lane, worry on her face. All the same, he stopped and walked back to his dad.

  “A word before you go, son.”

  No bellowing; that was a surprise in itself.

  “Ed Balzer came to my office late yesterday afternoon. He owns a trucking company that hauls for the plant. I think his son is in your class? Well, I thought Balzer wanted to see me about the layoffs, but no. He wanted to talk about his son. He said you’d upset his boy by making a move on his girlfriend, and he wanted me to know that he had his son’s back. As he put it, ‘Anybody who crosses my son, crosses me.’ His way of saying whatever Balzer Junior intended to do to you would be okay with him.”

  Just great! Chris’s own father was delivering death threats from his enemies.

  “I don’t think Balzer expected me to respond. He’s a bully and everybody knows it. He caught me on a bad day, however. I slammed him into my office wall and...”

  “You what?”

  “Well, I charged at him, and he stumbled backward against the wall and slid down to the floor. I bent over him and yelled, ‘If your son so much as touches my son, I’ll immediately terminate your contract and order all your drivers off plant property. If he even looks crosswise at my son, I’ll cut you out of the closure settlement. You get me?’” Chris’s dad then chuckled. “It’s amazing how easily a bully crumbles when you call him out. Then Balzer and that huge beer gut of his got up and left my office without a word.”

  Chris was struck dumb. Who was this person?

  “I thought you should know, son.” His dad turned and walked back to the house.

  * * * *

  “Are
you okay?” Gillian asked.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  They got on the bus and were met with the strangest silence. No cracks from the Gobbler, no bellowed insults from the kids. Just two dozen pairs of eyes watching Chris’s every move. Chris looked around the bus, something he’d never had the nerve to do before. Everyone seemed cowed. And there at the back, in the middle of his friends, sat Floyd Balzer. He was a mess: one eye swollen shut, a split lip, and an ear the size of a pork chop. Chris knew immediately what had happened—Floyd’s dad.

  Gillian took her usual seat beside her friend Madelyn, and almost without thinking, Chris sat down right across the aisle. Gillian and Madelyn looked at each other in amazement. Then Gillian leaned across and whispered to Chris, “What’s happened?”

  “Shove over,” Chris said. Gillian and Madelyn scrunched together to make room on the edge of their seat, and Chris slid in beside them.

  “My father. He told Floyd’s dad that if Floyd started a fight with me, he’d immediately terminate Balzer Trucking’s contract with the plant.”

  “So…you think…?”

  “Sure, his father,” Chris whispered in Gillian’s ear so even Madelyn couldn’t hear him.

  “Oh poor Floyd.” Gillian seemed genuinely concerned.

  “Forgive me if I don’t feel quite the same.”

  “Surely you can imagine how pitiful Floyd must feel, knowing his dad hated him enough to do that.”

  Chris remembered all the times he’d thought about taking a swing at his own father, and he felt nauseous.

  They rode in silence for a while before Chris moved back across the aisle. As he got up, he whispered, “Gillian, were you in the attic last night?”

  “What?”

  “I heard some noises in the attic near my room. Really late. Were you up there? It’s okay if you were.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” she replied as if embarrassed by the idea. Then after a moment, she added, “...but maybe one of our cats?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  The rest of the ride passed without incident. Chris was kind of expecting something strange to happen when Mallory got on the bus and saw Floyd, but she was a no-show.

  * * * *

  The morning was even more bizarre. There were lots of glances in Chris’s direction and whispers behind cupped hands. Between periods, Gillian pulled him aside to report what Floyd was telling people.

  “He’s saying that your father threatened to close the plant early if anyone touches you. And he’s also saying goons from the plant ambushed him when he went to meet his dad after school, and they beat him up on orders from your father.”

  “What goons?”

  “That’s just what he’s saying.”

  “Don’t I wish Dad had goons!”

  The bell rang for lunch period. As Chris passed the Social Studies classroom heading for his locker, Mr. Duncan called to him.

  “Mr. Chandler, I have that book on Mortsafemen if you’re still interested.”

  “Yeah sure, thanks.” Chris entered the classroom and went up to Mr. Duncan’s desk. “Uh, would you have a minute, sir?” This was probably really stupid, but who else could he tell; and besides, Mr. Duncan had seemed sort of reasonable, yesterday anyway. So what did Chris have to lose? “Can I ask you something?”

  “Is this about Floyd Balzer’s injuries?”

  “What? No, I don’t know anything about that.”

  “So, not your father’s goons?”

  “My father doesn’t have any goons.”

  “No, I didn’t think so.” Mr. Duncan smiled ruefully. “So what’s this about?”

  “It’s going to sound weird, I mean really weird. Especially after my talk in class yesterday, but...”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, last night, late, I saw someone on the tracks behind our house. He had this big sack, and I think it may have been a body.”

  “A body? What kind of a body?”

  “A body, a dead body.”

  “So you think you saw...what...a murder?”

  “No, I don’t think so, because the person I saw works at Brewster’s Funeral Parlor. Maybe he just stole the body?”

  “Then you’re telling me you saw a grave robber,” Mr. Duncan said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Not exactly. Maybe it hadn’t been buried yet, so technically….”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No. No I swear.”

  “You’re telling me you saw somebody who works at the funeral home stealing one of their clients.”

  “I know what I saw.”

  “So now you don’t just think you saw a body, you know you did?”

  “Well, I guess I could have been wrong, but I was pretty sure I saw a body. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “You shouldn’t do anything. You can’t accuse people of stealing bodies when you have absolutely no proof, and you aren’t even sure what you saw.”

  “Should I at least tell the police?”

  “Ordinarily I’d say yes. In your case, however....”

  “They won’t believe me.” Chris stood there, feeling like an idiot, like he was guilty of something when he was only trying to help. “This sucks!”

  “Look, if you want, I’ll have a chat with the police chief sometime,” Mr. Duncan said. “Chief Boucher is a friend and we see each other socially from time to time.”

  “That would be great!”

  “I’ll ask if he’s heard anything unusual about…what…missing bodies?”

  “Maybe just about the funeral home. That would be great.”

  “See you after lunch then.”

  “And thanks for the book.”

  Chris dropped the book off at his locker, grabbed his sandwich, and headed out of the school. No way was he going to eat in the lunchroom today. Normally, he had to put up with banana peels and apple cores being tossed at him. Today, with all the rumors about Floyd’s injuries, the silence and the stares would be too annoying.

  Chris felt kind of upbeat in the biting November air. The chat with Mr. Duncan was probably his first talk with a teacher in years that hadn’t deteriorated into a war of words. He was encouraged at the prospect of having an ally among the teachers. Without thinking, he walked north up Main Street, away from the center of town.

  Even before realizing what he’d done, Chris found himself outside the main gate of the town’s nondenominational burial ground. The cemetery sprawled across several acres of rolling lawn overlooking Adinack Bay. Huge old elms dotted the grounds and a narrow lane meandered in a loop of sorts among the graves and the trees, over the knolls and through small gullies, before returning to the gate. Chris had been to the cemetery once or twice before, when he’d been trying to get away from the idiots in school.

  He left the main road and walked through the gate. Crows cried as they turned in the steel-gray sky. Dead, dry leaves crunched beneath his feet. Across the grass and between the towering elms, he could see Brewster’s Funeral Parlor. It bordered the cemetery along its north side.

  A couple of employees, bundled against the cold, sat smoking and eating their lunch at a picnic table on a narrow gravel margin between the cemetery and funeral parlor parking lot. And sitting alone on an old kitchen chair near the woods at the far end of the parking lot was the goatman.

  Meath ate a sandwich and stared down through the trees and out over the bay. Till now, Chris hadn’t realized the Brewster property ran all the way down to the shore, which meant it backed onto the old train tracks. So if the goatman wanted to steal a corpse, all he had to do was haul it out the back door, across the parking lot, and down to the tracks, then toss it onto his wagon, and pedal home.

  But why wouldn’t Meath just use his truck? Too noisy maybe, or because the cops might ticket the old rattletrap? The old man must have decided the bike was safer. No matter the reason for the bike, the point was Chris could indeed have glimpsed a body in Meath’s sack.

  For no particular reason, he dec
ided to get a better look at the old man. He left the lane and crept among the gravestones. Just as Chris drew abreast of the goatman, he stumbled over a small stone footplate, twisted his ankle and sprawled across a particularly old and jagged gravestone. He let out a yelp and then a gasp as the wind was knocked out of him.

  He lay still for a moment to catch his breath, then got to his feet painfully. Once up, he glanced through the trees. The goatman was staring right back at him. The old man smiled. Chris spun about and took off back to school as quickly as the painful ankle would allow.

  * * * *

  Chris had been sitting in his desk nursing his twisted ankle, his face buried in the book Mr. Duncan had given him. Mallory had come up alongside him without warning and bent down.

  “I’m expecting you to say nice things about my presentation,” she whispered. “And I’ve added some material just for you. You inspired me.”

  At the sound of her voice, Chris turned abruptly. Mallory’s face was inches from his own, and the sight almost stopped his heart. For a moment, she remained in that position, smiling at Chris, looking into his eyes.

  “I inspired you?” Chris said with a huge, goofy grin.

  At the front of the class, Floyd Balzer was setting up two projectors and a screen for Mallory’s presentation. He paused to look back at Mallory and Chris. In Floyd’s battered face, Chris read a mix of anger and confusion.

  “All right everyone,” Mr. Duncan said, “take your seats. We have four presentations to get through today, so we need to get started.”

  Mallory touched Chris’s cheek and returned to her desk at the front of the class.

  The first presentation was on baby showers and was filled with more giggles than substance. The second was on Jewish circumcision and made everyone, especially the boys in the class, quite uncomfortable. The third presentation, on the opening of Parliament in Great Britain, was excruciatingly dull, and all through it, the usual class buffoons shouted out jokes about queens and men in tights. Mr. Duncan was obviously losing patience.

  “So, Miss Dahlman, you’re ready?” Mr. Duncan asked. He probably counted on Mallory’s presentation, which was bound to be excellent, to redeem the entire exercise.