by Brian Hodge
“Everything … I … like!”
And so Mitch watched. For hours.
They’d been reported missing by their overwrought parents during the night but weren’t found until noon the next day. It might have taken longer had a young woman training for her pilot’s license not been flying low overhead. Her instructor radioed in the location. For something looked bad down below, very bad indeed.
Mary Harlow was long dead, primarily from blood loss. Traces of semen would later be found in five orifices, two of which had been made with a knife. Mitch Gainer was barely hanging on. Still propped against his car, he was splayed out like a rag doll tossed aside by a child, suffering from shock, exposure, and internal bleeding. He died en route to the hospital, and the only coherent thing he was heard to say was this:
“The smell … that smell…”
Chapter 34
It was Monday when I got Aaron’s letter about Hurdles and his desire to make his sex life more than a matter of hand. I crossed my fingers for Aaron, grumbled a few choice words about Hurdles Horton, and gathered some books together. I was still feeling a charge over learning where Joshua Crighton lived, and the prospect of being able to put everything into perspective.
I left the dorm for my afternoon classes. The campus trees were rapidly losing their autumn neon, and the leaves that had fallen were blown by a damp wind that sent them rolling along like pinwheels.
After classes I made it to the student union and sought out a TV lounge where a large crowd gathered each afternoon for a daily retro fix of Leave It to Beaver reruns. I sat beside a good-looking blonde I’d sat by two or three times before. We talked a little. I still didn’t know her name. Maybe that would come tomorrow.
Life here was good.
After Wally and the Beave had settled their crisis du jour, I headed for the cafeteria. Greg and I joined Phil and Ashley and half a dozen other guys at a table where all of us had become regulars. We watched Ashley saunter over to another table to talk with some girl Phil said he’d spent the night with over the weekend, while her roommate was gone. And we laughed ourselves silly when she jammed an ice cream cone into his crotch. We gave him a hearty round of applause as he returned to the table. Ashley just smiled and plucked the cone from his pants and ate the rest of it.
Life here was good.
Dinner was followed by conversation, ranging from the lewd to the ethereal, and we finally left for our respective rooms to take in MA*S*H. I started studying around seven, preparing to finish out this short week so I could head home for Thanksgiving with a clean slate. I had a business test the next day. Some teachers just love to put the screws to you at vacation time.
I hadn’t gotten ten minutes into it when the phone rang.
“Finally,” said Shelly. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you since this afternoon.”
“I do have a life of my own, you know,” I said lightly.
A clipped sigh from her end. “You haven’t heard, then.”
I shut my eyes and felt the floor falling away beneath me, because I knew more bad news was on its way. “About what?”
She told me about Mitch Gainer and Mary Harlow. After she was finished with all the lovely details, I nearly felt my dinner backing up the emergency exit. “Right at Tri-Lakes,” she said, a faint quaver in her voice. “Chris, this is really getting scary.”
My stomach was plaguing me with great lurching heaves. “And they were both friends of my brother. Just like Bobby Dennison. That’s no coincidence. Son of a bitch.”
“Chris, I’m sorry.”
“Look, I’ve got to call my brother. Right now. If you hear anything else, give me a call. I don’t care what time it is.” I punched down the cradle, then dialed home. I realized I was shaking.
“Hello?” Mom’s voice. It was anything but steady. “Is that you, Aaron?”
Aaron? AARON? I can’t be too late already. “No, Mom, it’s Chris.” I took a deep breath. “What’s going on with Aaron?”
“We think he may have run away. You probably haven’t heard yet, but—”
“If it’s about Mitch and Mary, yeah, I just heard. A friend called me. That’s why I wanted to talk to him.”
Mom sounded on the verge of tears. “He took my car to school today, because I was off work. And he knew that I was going out to look at houses with Marcia from next door, because they’re moving. And when I got back home, I knew Aaron had been here … I always know if you two are in when I’m gone. But he never came back. And after I heard about those two kids, I checked his room and his closet. Chris, some of his clothes are gone, and his sleeping bag, and a blanket from the shelf … his toothbrush is gone. Chris, he’s run away!”
Good boy, Aaron, I thought. Get away.
She sounded near the breaking point, as if every last reserve of strength had been sucked dry. I should have been there for her to lean on.
“Chris, is this involved with what’s happened to his friends? Are you keeping some secret of his from us? Did he have anything to do with that?”
“Aw no, Mom, no.” But that was mostly a lie, wasn’t it? “Listen, it sounds to me like maybe he’s scared. That he put some thought into this. That he knows what he’s doing.” I paused. “What about Dad? Is he there?” And how’s his heart taking this?
“No, he’s out in his truck looking for the car, in case there’s some other explanation for this and we’re flying off the handle for no reason. And we’ve called the police. They said they’d be keeping an eye out for the car tonight.”
“I can be there in a few hours if you want.”
“No, Chris,” she said quickly. “Just stay put this time. There’s nothing you can do.”
“If you say so. But call as soon as you hear something. I’ll be going nuts up here.”
“You know I will.” She paused a moment. “I love you, Chris.”
“Me, too. Bye, Mom.”
I held the receiver for several seconds after I heard her click off the line, then slammed it down. Didn’t help much. I wanted to punch something. But more than anything I wanted to be with Aaron, wanted to help him stand tall, help him however I could. Help him face whatever it was that had put its mark on the two of us. Whatever was pulling all the supports out from under us.
Because once they were all gone, we would be next on the list.
Somewhere around one-thirty that night, I snapped awake with such intensity that my head jerked. The unconscious mind had worked its problem-solving wonders once more. I knew where Aaron might be. And there was no question but that I had to be the one to go look.
I dressed quickly and quietly and warmly in the dark, then packed everything I’d need for the long weekend. There would be no reason for coming back. Tuesday would be lost, no two ways about it. And Wednesday had looked to be a blow-off day anyway.
I scribbled a quick note to Greg, explaining that my brother had run off, but nothing more. I also asked him to pass the word on to Phil. Then I was out of the dorm, jogging toward my car with a suitcase in one hand and a cluster of hangered clothes in the other.
The car was a little harder to start since the onset of late autumn cold. It finally caught and I aimed for the interstate, first pulling into an all-night truck stop. I gassed up the car and inhaled some pancakes and eggs and sausage and coffee. Tough to know when I’d be eating again.
The solitude of the highway made the distance home seem incredibly vast, like heading from one end of the earth to the other. To fall off the edge into the void.
I felt no relief at Exit 95 into Mt. Vernon, for there remained a fair amount of driving ahead. As I watched the off-ramp slide quietly past, I recalled that conversation with Aaron from early July, the day after Rick had disappeared and a cop had upset me by having the audacity to suggest that Rick might have run away.
Someplace where I could be alone … Giant City … Remember that cave we found up in the hills?
This late in the year he’d likely freeze his gonads, but Aaron wa
s probably crazy or desperate enough to try, so long as he could find the cave. Now for the big question: Could I find it?
I hung on to I-57 for another maddening fifty minutes, then took 13 East into Carbondale. There I picked up 51 South, which took me to the Giant City turnoff, and from then on my navigation was by hope and a prayer.
The Giant City State Park road wound past trees that rose tall and stately, woodland that put even Tri-Lakes to shame. Thick morning fog hung in veils around me, and whenever I glanced into the rearview mirror all I could see was a road being swallowed down a throat of misty gray.
Yes, I had come to the ends of the earth, and pretty soon the road would terminate and I’d tumble over the edge, hurtling through an infinity of fog and mist and, eventually, darkness. Doomed to spend eternity in a Chevy Malibu. It made about as much sense as everything else going on.
Up ahead, a streambed cut the road in two. My tires thudded as I rolled over the buckled back of the bridge spanning it, and I saw I was approaching the main visitors’ grounds. To the left of the road, the trees gave way to a wide clearing, bordered on the far side and up ahead by rocky hills. Picnic tables were randomly scattered about and playground equipment lurked in the fog like giant insects, praying mantes ready to strike.
A lone car took shape in the mist at the far end of the clearing. I was still too far off to tell for certain, but I knew in my gut whose car it was. I killed the lights and rolled to a stop several yards away, cut the engine. As I stared at Mom’s car, I wondered if I could ever find the right path up into those hills. It could take hours.
I emerged from the car, stiff, spine crackling, my butt prickly. The morning fog clung damply, bringing on a shiver. I walked over to look into the car, sneakered feet crunching sticks; I’d done a poor job of dressing them for tromping through the woods.
But I didn’t have to after all.
The windows were fogged from the inside and beaded with dew on the outside, but I could see Aaron in the back seat, folded in at angles that couldn’t be comfortable, swaddled in his sleeping bag and a blanket. Yet he looked young, innocent. Peaceful. He should always look that unconcerned, I thought forlornly. We both should.
I rapped a knuckle against the window. Aaron jerked and thrashed under his covers, eyes popping open in an expression of surprise and terror so complete I thought he’d surely been shoved to the brink of madness and then beyond. I hated myself for robbing him of his tranquility.
Nothing changed when he recognized me. Instead, he flung open the door on the other side of the car, scrambling out and almost falling. He broke into a lurching run, tossing a glance back at me.
“Aaron!” I shouted, the fog deadening my voice. “Hey, it’s me!”
He stopped and whirled around, snatching up a fair-sized limb and brandishing it like a baseball bat. “What are you doing here?” he screamed. “Why did you follow me here?”
I hardly recognized him as the brother I’d known and loved for sixteen years. And I thought he’d be glad to see me. “I just want to help you, Aaron.” Please? I began walking around the car, toward him.
“This is my problem,” he said. “You just don’t understand.” He cocked his limb back, a look of anguish stamped deeply across his face. It cut like a razor. The limb quivered in his hands, as if part of him wanted to brain me with it and another part wouldn’t allow it.
I don’t know what foolhardy bravery possessed me then, but I kept on walking closer to him. And when I was within striking range, the limb went all the way back. It was a good two inches thick and would pack a devastating wallop. I flinched as it started its downswing —
That’ll trash my skull for sure…
— and then Aaron hurled it into the ground with a loud cry. He began to run again, toward the hills, aiming to cut between two portable outhouses that stood out against the fog like buoys.
I ran after him, yelling his name. I’d always been the faster of us, and tackled him from behind, bringing him down and landing atop him. We slipped and slid through a spill of wet leaves, slimed with autumn decay. He rolled out from under me, the fight out of him. Now he looked ready to cry.
“It’s my fight, Chris. Mine.”
It would take a few more days for me to really understand that, for the truth to make itself known. But at the time, I wasn’t quite sure what he meant. So I didn’t say anything.
“Down here,” he said, his eyes numb, empty, hopeless. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess. Remember back in the summer, the day after Rick disappeared? How we talked about running away?”
“Oh yeah. Yeah.” He smiled bitterly. “You know, I couldn’t even find that cave. I wandered around up there all afternoon and couldn’t … I turned my ankle…” He broke off and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Very bad?”
“I’ll live.”
I looked down at my jeans, blotchy with moisture and smears of mud, and I brushed away clinging leaves. “I heard about Mitch and Mary.”
“Yeah.” Aaron’s voice was devoid of emotion. How much more could he give out? “It’s Hurdles, Chris. I think he’s killing people.”
“I figured the same thing. Your letter, and now this other stuff.” I swallowed, and in the stillness it sounded very loud. “Do you have any proof?”
He shook his head slowly, sadly. “I just know, that’s all. He’s not the same old Hurdles, don’t you see? He’s different. Used to be, he was the kind of guy where you’re not laughing with him, you’re laughing at him, and you know it and he knows it and everything’s fine. I felt bad about it sometimes, but it’s not like that at all, anymore. He won’t stand for it.”
I remembered him the night of the Homecoming game, how Hurdles had stood up to Phil. “That’s not much to take to the police.”
“I know, I know. That’s why I came down here. I just had to get away, do some thinking. Get my head a little straighter.”
Bile rose in my throat, hot and acid. “Anyway, I don’t think that would solve much, going to the police.”
“Hell, yes! Get him locked up, it’ll all be over.”
If only it were that simple. “Listen, Aaron. Hurdles may be doing it, but it’s not really his fault. It’s Tri-Lakes. That’s the root cause. That place is bad and you know it as well as I do. You knew it the night I first took you up there. You got sick like you’d swallowed something spoiled.”
He nodded slowly, as if finally coming to terms with things he hadn’t consciously wanted to admit even to himself. No more head in the sands of denial.
“Everything bad that’s happened to us or gone between us or around us, I think that place caused it. I don’t know how, but soon I’m going to try to find out.”
I gave him a brief rundown on what I knew so far about Joshua Crighton.
Aaron cradled his head in his hands. “Why us, Chris? What did we do that was so bad?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. We might never know. But for now, let’s just get back home. Can’t hide out down here forever.”
He ran a hand over his face. There was no stubble, because Aaron only had to shave every three or four days, but his face was slick with oil, and he frowned at it. “I don’t even know what to tell Mom and Dad. They won’t believe all of this.”
“Just tell them you panicked. They’d believe that, all right.”
“I guess.” His voice was barely audible.
We fell silent for a few moments and could hear birds that hadn’t yet scrambled south for the winter, their dawn-songs cutting through the cathedral silence. The sun was getting stronger by the minute, burning off the fog in slanted rays.
“Let’s go home, Aaron. Okay?”
He coughed, pulled his jacket tighter. “Not just yet, Chris. Can we stay here a little longer? Will you just sit with me?” His face was so plaintive and so childlike that I couldn’t have refused even if I’d wanted to. He looked afraid of everything in the world. Everything but me, I guess.
“Sure,�
�� I said, and scooted a little closer to him on the cold, damp ground, not caring when I felt moisture creep in through the seat of my pants. I put one arm around his shoulders and he relaxed against me.
We sat this way for a long while, facing the dawn of a new day. Scared, confused, uncertain. But together. Because brothers are forever.
Chapter 35
I got Aaron back home to Mom and Dad, made some lame excuse to cover my absence for the next few hours, then took off for Belleville, running on adrenaline and so sick of driving I think I’d rather have walked if there’d been time. On the way out of town, I called Shelly from a phone booth, gave her a quick update on things, told her what was coming next. She gave me her blessing. And, she said, her admiration.
Once in Belleville, I stopped at a gas station with grimy windows and a rust-flaked sign squeaking forlornly overhead. Finding Joshua Crighton’s address, and putting to rest my fears that he might not even be living now, was no more difficult than checking a phone book.
He lived on the second floor of an apartment building on a street called South Church. I had to walk up an outside stairway and past a pair of plastic garbage cans to reach his door. Across the landing, a tawny cat lounged in a windowsill, staring at me with lazy interest.
And then my stomach started to squeeze in. I still didn’t know what to say.
I knocked, and was about ready to knock a second time when the door swung open. He stood on the other side of a screen door, about my height but broader, his shoulders slumped but not stooped, his white hair thinning but not yet gone. His eyes were sharp and clear and frank. And haunted? Maybe. I was starting to recognize that look. He said, nothing. My move.
“Mr. Crighton?”
He nodded once.
“My name is Chris Anderson. I … I need to talk to you about something that happened a long time ago.”
