Tyler lit a cigarette and toed the water with a worn high-top.
“Where’d you get this shit from, anyway?” Sergio asked, bringing the bottle to his lips.
It was Kent who answered.
“Tyler took it from his mom when she was passed out—all drugged up,” he said, his tongue loosened by the alcohol.
His grin faltered when Tyler turned to face him. Despite his lack of size—even a bulky sweatshirt did nothing to hide his thin frame—the scar on his face made him look sinister. And now, sneering at Kent, his expression was clear—don’t fuck with me—and he was an intimidating sight. Tyler never spoke much of his family, and when he mentioned his mother, it was usually something sarcastic or obtuse. And his father? Tyler had never mentioned him. But when he had taken his shirt off earlier in the day, they had all taken note of the crisscrossed scars across his back—long, smooth stripes that ran from beneath one arm to the other—and these said more than any words. These scars, like the one that ran down his face, were never spoken of, either.
“Don’t make fun of my mom,” Tyler warned.
Kent leaned away, defensive.
“You said it, man.”
“Don’t make fun of my mom,” he repeated, his voice laced with vitriol.
Kent was about to say something, but thought better of it and closed his mouth.
Tyler, eyes still locked on Kent’s, grabbed the bottle from Sergio and took a long swig before handing it back.
“Sorry,” Kent grumbled, and averted his eyes.
The bottle did a couple more rounds as they stared at the reflection of the stars in the lake in silence. When Tyler spoke again, any trace of intimidation had long fled his voice.
“Let’s play.”
“Play what?” Baird asked. It had been a while since the boy had spoken, and Kent was beginning to think based on the way his words ran together that perhaps the vodka had touched more than his lips.
Sergio grinned.
“Why, Ba di ba, of course,” Tyler said with a laugh, “and I think I know whose turn it is.”
* * *
They had been walking for almost an hour, which had become a game in and of itself: every time Baird complained, they walked a bit further, a bit faster. And despite Baird’s aversion to the vodka, he seemed to have a penchant for whine.
“Guys, I’m tired and covered in burrs.”
Kent looked back at the chubby boy and laughed out loud—he couldn’t help it. Baird’s pale blue cotton pajamas were absolutely covered in burrs. He looked like a Hollywood movie star acting in front of a green screen covered in reflective balls. Except that he was chubby, uncoordinated, and a coward, and not a burgeoning action star.
“Almost ther—“
But Sergio stopped short as they pulled into a clearing, making it seem like they had reached a preordained location, when the truth was they had just been wandering aimlessly through the woods.
Tyler grabbed the bottle from Sergio and took another sip. It was almost empty now.
“There,” he finished for Sergio, pointing with a finger that unfurled from the vodka bottle.
Sergio spun the flashlight across the lawn, illuminating several sticks that peppered the expansive clearing like odd, branchless saplings. Beyond the lawn was a massive house bathed in moonlight, the front door boarded up with a sheet of rotting plywood. The awning and door frame were charred from a fire that must have happened years ago.
Despite Tyler’s enthusiasm, Kent didn’t like the look of the place.
Come
“Yeah, I don’t—” Kent began, but Tyler had already bounded up ahead and was nearly out of earshot. Kent looked to Sergio for support, but the boy simply shrugged and hurried after Tyler.
At the stairs leading up the porch, Tyler turned and looked back at them. He had that ominous look on his face again, and with the moonlight reflecting off his scar, it looked like it was glowing.
“C’mon, you pussies, you coming?”
None of the other boys moved—even Sergio had stopped halfway between Kent and the Estate.
“Fine,” Tyler said, “I’ll go in alone.”
As if to prove his point, he turned and quickly made his way up the porch.
Sergio and Kent exchanged looks—despite his previous indifference, it was clear that Sergio had changed his mind about the place. It wasn’t just that the place was boarded up, that they were all a little drunk, and that the house had previously been involved in some sort of fire—it was something else. There was something wrong about this place—a sensation that lingered like a bad smell.
“There was a fire,” Baird whispered from behind them and Sergio whipped the flashlight around.
No shit.
The boy’s eyes were wide, his mouth slack.
“It could be dangerous,” he added.
Sergio turned the flashlight to Tyler, who had made his way to the plywood-covered door.
Kent remembered what his dad had said the other night, and frowned.
Offer him a place where he can fit in, feel welcome.
He shook his head.
Fuck.
Knowing that he wasn’t going to convince Tyler to leave the place, Kent took two hesitant steps toward the house.
“Yo, Tyler, wait up!” he heard himself say as he broke into a jog, pulling a reluctant Sergio with him.
After a dozen or so steps, Sergio stopped and turned the flashlight back toward Baird.
The boy still looked terrified, but his eyes were downcast as if he were contemplating his options. When he eventually took a couple of tentative steps toward them, Kent surmised that he had decided that staying on the lawn in the dark covered in burrs was a worse option than entering the abandoned house with his friends.
When all four of them finally made their way up the porch, Tyler turned and sized up the piece of plywood.
“We can pull it off,” he said to himself, nodding.
“But do we want to?” Sergio asked.
“No, we definitely don’t want to,” Baird said from behind them, but like the vast majority of his inane commentary, this went ignored as well.
Kent turned his attention back to the doorway. The nails that held the wood in place were rusted, and at least half of them had worked their way almost completely out of the rotted plywood.
“There is police tape here, too,” Kent noted.
“What, this?” Tyler replied, picking up a piece of torn tape that hung on either side of the doorway. “Look, it’s all faded and grungy… probably been here for a hundred years.”
Indeed, the yellow police tape had turned a pale green, and the words ‘Do Not Enter’ were faded almost to the point of being illegible.
“Help me get the wood off,” Tyler said, turning his attention back to the door frame. Sergio shone the flashlight on Tyler’s fingers and eventually they found purchase.
In the end, Tyler didn’t need any help; the wood was even more rotted than it looked, and the remaining nails that held the plywood in place came out with ease. So easily, in fact, that Tyler had to lunge backward to avoid being hit by the massive piece of plywood as it crashed unexpectedly to the porch.
The loud bang that ensued skipped across the lake and echoed off the trees, and they all froze.
And waited.
After about a minute, Tyler’s shocked expression became a grin.
“See?” he said to the group, “Ain’t nobody around to hear us.”
Baird looked skyward, his lips moving in silent prayer.
Tyler stepped to one side and waved a thin arm across the threshold.
“After you, ladies.”
11.
It was nearly pitch black inside the Estate, as the windows that flanked the front of the house, like the front door, had also been boarded up. The only light was a sliver of moonlight that spilled in from the doorway.
“Jesus,” Sergio whispered, “it looks like no one has been in here for years.”
He swung the
flashlight across the room, illuminating the space in eerie lanes of blue light. They were in what appeared to be a foyer, complete with two staircases that wound their way to a landing high above them. The fire that had started in the doorway had evidently spread to the foyer, culminating in a large, charred smear in the center. The wooden floor was as black as coal, the wood warped and twisted, a few of the individual planks looking as frail and tenuous as spider webs in a windstorm.
“I don’t think we should be in here,” Baird whispered.
No shit.
“What is this place?” Kent asked.
No one answered.
Tyler, still a few paces further inside than any of the other boys, suddenly spun around. He was smiling.
“This is awesome!” he shouted.
Sergio sprayed his face with light, and Tyler shielded his eyes.
“Fuck, Sergio,” he grumbled, but the smile remained plastered on his face. “Guys, this could be our place—our secret hideout.”
It was a childish thing to say—Welcome to our club, boys only—but Kent thought he knew what he meant. It was like going back in time, nothing seeming to have been touched in years. It was strange, it was scary, but it was also exhilarating.
What happened here?
He bent and ran a finger across the floor beneath his feet. It came back charcoal grey.
“Look at this place—it’s a mansion!” Tyler continued.
To reinforce his point, Tyler grabbed Sergio’s hand holding the flashlight and directed it up to the landing.
Indeed, the place was massive, and despite the oddly confined burnt areas and the smell—a brooding funk, like the only intruder had been a family of raccoons that had found their way in, but had perished trying to escape—it appeared to be in pretty good shape.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Tyler said quietly, and despite Kent’s unease, he agreed. Shit, they were already inside—what could it hurt to explore a little more?
Baird, on the other hand, was more hesitant.
“I’m tired,” he said, feigning a yawn.
Tyler rolled his eyes.
“Head back if you want, pussy, but I’m going up.”
Then he bolted, taking the stairs two by two, and Sergio and Kent had to sprint to the landing just to keep up.
“Wait up,” Baird begged, before he too joined the other boys.
Once they had all congregated at the top of the stairs, they turned back to the foyer below.
“Awesome,” Tyler muttered.
Kent placed two hands on the railing and peered over the edge. Tyler was right, the place was cool—huge and abandoned and fucking cool.
“Hey, you guys wait here for a second,” Tyler added.
Catching Sergio by surprise, he snatched the flashlight from his hand and then faded into the dark recesses of the upper level.
“Tyler!” Kent hollered. “Tyler!”
But he was gone, and the boys resigned themselves to just standing there in the dark, listening to Tyler’s receding footsteps.
“Tyler, get back here!” Baird squealed.
The shout echoed of the walls but went unanswered. After the words died, the house was eerily silent again—so quiet that Kent could hear Baird grinding his teeth.
Where the fuck did you go, Tyler?
Then he heard another sound, a strange rustling noise coming from where Baird had been standing.
“What is that?” Kent asked, his voice small.
No answer.
“Sergio? Baird?”
A bright light suddenly blanketed Kent and he immediately shielded his face. When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, he realized that it was just Baird; the boy had pulled out his cell phone and was shining it like a flashlight directly into his face.
“Baird!”
Kent looked at the boy, now bathed in a wash of light that illuminated his burr-covered pajamas.
Where the fuck was he keeping that? His pajamas have pockets?
Baird turned the light back to the foyer below them, concentrating the weak beam on the burnt scar in the middle.
“What do you think happened here?”
“Dunno,” Sergio began, “Maybe—”
“Boo!”
All three of the boys jumped. Kent fell backward into Sergio, who caught him and pushed him back to his feet before they both went down. Baird dropped his cell phone, and it clattered loudly to the hardwood, the light blinking out.
Tyler burst out laughing, swinging the flashlight in a wide arc across their faces.
“You should see your faces!”
Tyler’s laughter grew more intense, and soon he was doubled over, unable to control himself.
Sergio, the first to regain control of his faculties, reached over and punched Tyler on the shoulder, which only made him laugh harder.
“You should—” he repeated between gasps for air, “—you should see your faces.”
He trained the flashlight on Baird, his hand twitching with the laughter that continued to course through him. The boy, who had yet to move, looked as if he had seen a ghost.
This brought forth another bout of laughter.
“Did you drop some mud in your jammies, Baird?”
Kent swore.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Tyler?”
Tyler, still laughing, held out the nearly empty bottle of vodka, and Sergio took it from him. The boy’s hands were shaking, and it took him several tries to remove the cap. Eventually, he managed a trembling sip, and offered the bottle to Kent first. Kent shook his head.
“Pick up your phone, Baird,” Tyler said, finally recovering from his near seizure. “I found the perfect place to play.”
* * *
“No way,” Baird said.
“Yes way,” Tyler responded.
They were standing in front of a charred doorway, the dim flashlight trained on the interior of the room. It was a nearly empty space, save a leather chair near the door. The back of the room was heavily burnt, a large black smear running from the back third of the room and up the entire wall. The floor looked wonky in places, and Kent thought that he could make out the floor beams in places where the boards had completely burnt away. Even the ceiling was charred.
“No.”
Kent looked at the boy. He looked ridiculous in his burr-covered pajamas, his round moon face the height of terror. For a moment, Kent felt bad for him. But then he remembered how Baird had taken part, albeit reluctantly, when Tyler was beneath the dock. And, besides, no one had forced him to come with them; he could’ve just kept his retainer jammed in his mouth and gone back to snoring all night long.
Kent leaned toward the boy.
“Baird, you gotta play, man.”
Baird shook his head vigorously.
“Hey, you thought it was all fine and dandy when I was playing,” Tyler said. “Fucking giggling when I was drowning under the dock.”
Baird shook his head again.
“C’mon, Baird,” Kent said, “it’s a fucking game. Just go in there—we’ll be on the other side of the door. You just have to answer Ba di bo twenty-five times, then you can come out.”
“Or you can be a big fucking pussy and don’t answer us three consecutive times,” Tyler added, “but then you don’t get to play again.” He paused, his eyes twinkling by flashlight. “Ever. And—”
Kent raised his hand and Tyler surprised him by shutting up.
“Baird, you gonna do it or what?” he asked.
Kent could literally hear the boy’s mind churning as he thought it over, his face blank. Another pang of guilt shot through him as he realized that the chubby, uncomfortable kid had probably been excluded from nearly every game growing up.
Last pick for kickball.
Baird twitched, and Kent leaned closer, indicating that Sergio should focus the light on him.
“Baird?”
Then he twitched again, and Kent realized that the tic had actually been a nod; a subtle, nearly imperceptible m
ovement, but a nod nonetheless.
“Good. Consider this your… your, uh, your initiation,” Sergio added.
The initiation of the uninitiated, Kent thought. Peer pressure at its finest.
Then, to make sure that the boy didn’t change his mind, he rested his hand on the small of Baird’s burr-covered back and gently encouraged him toward the open doorway.
“Just twenty-five times, okay?”
Baird’s eyes were still wide, but this time he nodded more perceptibly. With his hand clutching his phone—which wouldn’t turn on again after having been dropped—so tightly that Kent thought he might crush the plastic case, he turned and took one hesitant step toward the door. Then he stopped and reached out to Sergio, beckoning for the vodka. Sergio grinned and passed him the bottle. Baird took a big swig, grimaced, gasped, and then wiped the vodka that dribbled down his chin before handing it back. His hand was shaking. The boy nodded again, this time more to himself than to the others, and put a foot inside the doorway.
“What happened here?” he whispered absently, but before anyone could answer, Tyler stepped forward and shoved him into the room.
Baird cried out and fell to one knee just as Tyler slammed the door closed behind him.
12.
”Ba di ba?” Tyler asked.
They were all sitting on the floor of the upper level of the charred Estate, Tyler with his back leaning against the blackened, closed door. The vodka continued to make its rounds, their once enthusiastic gulps having since eased into small sips in an attempt to keep the bottle from running dry.
“It fucking stinks in here,” Baird whispered. It was obvious by the clarity of his voice that he was also pressed up against the door—the other side of the door—trying to keep as far away from the burnt smear at the back of the room as possible.
Insatiable Series Omnibus Edition (Books 1-3) Page 33
