Bloody Bloody Apple

by Howard Odentz

  “Becky told me that five will die this year, or maybe six.”

  “Becky’s crazy,” says Newie as he holds his big hand in front of his face, examining his fingers like he’s just discovered them for the first time.

  “True,” I tell him. “But this afternoon something else happened.”

  “What?” he asks, still staring at his fingers, forcing each one to bend and flex.

  I tell him about walking through the woods with Annie and Mark Zebrowski. I tell him about seeing the cops and Mark wigging out on us.

  Then I tell him about Officer Randy and the other cops who were looking at the trees and how they found the letters that spell out what was written on Becky’s stomach.

  Five will die.

  “No way,” Newie whispers. He’s no longer looking at his hand. He’s looking at me, and I can tell that the smoke has clouded his brain, too, but he knows this is serious. Still, he’s having a hard time concentrating on everything at once, which is nothing new, because Newie often has a hard time concentrating on more than one thing at a time, even when he’s not stoned.

  “I tried to ask Becky about it today, but she pulled a nutty.” I spare him the gory details, like her crapping her pants or practically breaking her wrist trying to wriggle free of the handcuffs. “Now she’s going on about how five will die, or six for kicks.”

  “Huh?” he says. I have to give him credit for being wasted and still trying to take everything so seriously.

  “She’s saying that six might die this year in town. Six murders, you know?” I take a deep breath and let the words continue to spill out. “And my mother’s a basket case, my grandfather’s completely demented, and my father hides in the garage all night like everything is totally normal.” What a whiner. I can’t believe I’m dumping this all on Newie. He has his own stuff to worry about.

  I’m just about to tell him to forget about everything, because I’m stoned and rambling, and it doesn’t matter anyway, when something stumbles out of the woods about a hundred feet down the tracks.

  “Shit,” says Newie and flattens himself against the gravel hill that leads down into the woods. I do, too. The weed was really strong, and my mind is racing inside my head. I can feel the vague presence of fear scratching at the backdoor of my brain, wanting to come in.

  I can’t let it—not this time of year—not in Apple.

  There’s a figure on the tracks. It’s not a deer or a porcupine or even a bear, which wouldn’t be totally out of the question because there are bears around Apple. It’s a person—I can tell that much—standing on the tracks, looking one way then another, trying to decide which way to go.

  An owl hoots right behind us, and the figure on the tracks whips its head around and looks in our direction. Slowly, it starts heading toward us, and my heart begins to pound. The door in my head opens wide, and paranoid thoughts flood my brain.

  It’s the murderer. It’s the murderer, and Newie and I are going to be number four and number five. Becky said five will die, and we’re going to fulfill her prophecy.

  That awful burning sensation erupts in my chest again, and I’m unable to move. The figure is coming closer and closer, and I can see that it’s wearing a dark jacket and a hat and carrying something that looks like a gym bag.

  Both Newie and I lie on the gravel and try not to move. We can see the person clearly now, stooped and walking with a bit of a limp. I rack my brains to think if I know any gimps in town, like maybe one of the bikers from The Gin Mill or a dreg from Millie’s Café, but I can’t think of anyone—mostly because I’m scared out of my mind.

  The figure gets closer, and Newie and I both hold our breath and stay perfectly still. Although it’s a clear night and everything is washed in moonlight, I pray that whoever it is won’t see us.

  Twenty feet, ten feet, five feet away, and I can hear its breath as it limps along the path. It sounds deep and ragged, like a man, but I can’t be sure. Right when I think we’re dead for sure, the figure passes us and continues down the tracks toward town. We hear its footsteps recede into the night, but we don’t move.

  Newie and I lie there for at least five minutes before we dare to look at each other.

  “What the hell was that?” Newie whispers to me, but even his whisper sounds like he’s screaming. My heart starts to beat double time. I’m not stoned anymore. The fear has washed any mellow feelings out of my head, and all that’s left is a dull headache.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper back. “But it’s someone who’s not scared to walk around Apple alone at night.”

  Newie nods and looks down the tracks to where the figure went, but it has already faded into the dark.

  “I almost shit myself,” he says.

  “You and me both. Let’s get out of here.”

  Quietly, very quietly, we crawl down the embankment and disappear into the woods. I only feel truly safe when we emerge on the other side and see the streetlights and lit-up houses of Vanguard Lane. Of course, I’m not foolish enough to think that home means safety, but at least it’s a thin veil between me and whatever lurks in our town.

  My thoughts go back to the limping figure on the railroad tracks, and I know it’s not safe tonight in Apple.

  It’s not safe at all.

  30

  IT’S AFTER NINE by the time I climb up the front steps of my house. Newie says he’s going to grab something to eat, because he has the munchies, then we can walk up to the BD Mart and wait for Annie.

  I’m cool with that, so I decide to make a peanut butter sandwich for myself, but when I walk in the house, I can immediately tell there’s something wrong. Maybe it’s a sixth sense—I don’t know. There’s a heaviness in the air, and I think I know where it’s coming from.

  Becky.

  The house is deathly quiet. I hang my jacket on my dad’s coat rack and walk through the living room to the basement door. It’s cracked a little, and I can hear a faint noise creeping up from the darkness.

  I don’t want to go down and look. Still, I think Becky might be crying again—not Not-Becky, but my sister—the one that I love and still care about despite everything.

  I slowly open the basement door, turn on the lights, and walk down the steps.

  “Jackson?” I hear her whisper through the bars.

  “Yeah, it’s me. You okay?”

  I hear a clicking sound and realize that her teeth are chattering together.

  “No,” she says. “It’s so cold.”

  It’s not cold at all in the basement, and I can’t figure out what she’s talking about.

  “It’s not cold,” I say before realizing that she’s bone-thin and very well might be freezing. “Do you need a blanket or something?” I approach the door and see my sister clutching the bars and staring at me. Her skin seems paler than usual, and her lips look almost blue.

  “Co-cold,” she whispers through her rattling. “So, so cold.”

  “Let me get you a blanket,” I say, deciding not to try and make sense of her internal thermometer. She nods her head vigorously.

  Sometimes, I feel so sorry for Becky when she’s herself. Dissociative identity disorder robs her of half her life. I can’t imagine slipping in and out of consciousness, not knowing what I said or did when I blacked out.

  I can’t imagine waking up to a shit-stained room and a bloodied wrist, with the taste of Hydrox cookies in my mouth.

  I go back upstairs and quietly walk down the hallway to my mother’s bedroom. The door is partially open. She’s fast asleep, curled into a fetal position without any covers. I take one of the blankets that are folded up at the end of the bed and quickly leave. A minute later, I’m handing it to Becky through the bars.

  “Th-thanks,” she says to me as she pulls the material between the dark metal. She drapes the blanket over her b
ony shoulders and crosses her arms so she’s cocooned by the folds of material. “I feel all wrapped and packaged,” she says as she sits on the edge of the bed.

  It’s such a weird thing to say—wrapped and packaged. My head’s still foggy from the pot. What’s wrapped and packaged supposed to mean?

  Suddenly, Becky flips sideways and falls back on her mattress. Her mouth pops open and closed, like she’s gasping for air.

  “Wrapped and packaged,” she struggles to say. “Wrapped and packaged.”

  She looks like one of those smallmouth bass that you can buy, every once in a while, from the local fishermen down at the Quabbin Reservoir. Sometimes the fish are still alive when they hand them to you, all wrapped and packaged in newspaper, with their tails sticking out of one end and their heads sticking out of the other, still gasping for air—just like Claudia Fish struggled through her last breath as her eyes were pulled from their sockets.

  Claudia Fish. Crawdaddy Fish.

  I watch in horror as Becky’s jerks become more and more futile until, finally, she’s just lying there on her side, with her mouth occasionally dropping open, like she’s sucking in her last seconds of life.

  I back away from the door because I don’t want to see any more. Whatever mind game Not-Becky is trying to play, I don’t want any part of it. My brain is totally spent, and I don’t have any more room in it for bizarre crap. I’m tired, and I need a mental vacation. Even getting stoned with Newie didn’t help. That creepy figure on the tracks saw to that.

  Still, I stand there in the same spot, staring at the door to her room, not knowing what to do. Finally, I hear Becky whisper, “Goodnight, Jackson. I love you.” I don’t know if she knows I’m standing outside the door or not, but tears well up in my eyes just the same. In my head I say, Love you, too, Becks, but I can’t manage to bring the words to life.

  How much longer do I have to suffer through my sister’s madness right alongside her, like it’s me locked in a cage with manacles biting into my wrists, instead of her?

  How many times do I have to be “wrapped and packaged” into a little box with a note attached to it that says, Inside is such a good boy—he’ll give up his life for you?

  How many Hail Marys do I have to say?

  Upstairs, as I stuff the last pieces of a sandwich in my mouth and try to calm a growing anger inside, I hear a light tap at the front door. It’s Newie. He’s standing on the porch.

  “Why the hell didn’t you text me?” I snap at him as I grab my jacket and walk out the front door.

  He shrugs. “What’s the difference?”

  “You could have woken up everyone in the house,” I grumble, stopping short of saying, “You know, the religious zealot, the vegetable, the guy with the wheels but no brain, and the demon.”

  Newie shakes his head and walks down the porch toward the street. “Excuse me,” he grumbles. “Maybe I’m just a little preoccupied.”

  “With what?” I mutter.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe getting the shit scared out of me by whoever that was out on the tracks? But what the hell. No biggie. Don’t sweat it.”

  “Whatever,” I say, using that perfect word—the one to end any unpleasant conversation.

  The two of us don’t talk as we walk up Vanguard Lane to Main Street. I still can’t shake the image of Becky flopping around, all wrapped and packaged, like a piece of fish—that, or why she was so cold.

  Nothing makes sense anymore. I feel like we’re stuck in a toilet bowl, and everything’s swirling around us like one of those enormous dumps you find in public bathrooms. There’s so much crap, you can’t even flush it away no matter how hard you try. Ever since me, Newie, and Annie found that lifeless body in the woods yesterday afternoon, I feel like we’re all in some weird sort of free fall. Annie’s cutting herself again, Newie’s getting angry, and my whole world is rapidly turning into some sort of puzzle where there are pieces missing.

  “I mean, what the fuck?” Newie finally croaks out. “Who was that on the tracks?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, because I truly don’t.

  We walk another minute or so. “Did you see the bag?” he blurts out. “I mean, the dude had a bag.”

  I close my eyes and think the worst. “We don’t know it was a dude,” I murmur under my breath.

  Newie snorts and waves his hand. “Yeah, well, maybe it was the fucking murderer, and that bag was his tool kit where he keeps his knives and ropes and shit.”

  I can’t hear this right now. I can’t hear any of this. “Stop,” I snap at him. “Just shut up, Newie.” I take a deep breath and lash out with the first thing that comes to mind. “Don’t be such a fuckwad, you know?”

  He stops talking then. Calling him a fuckwad as a joke is one thing. Saying it for real picks open a scab and lets fresh, goopy shit drip out—the kind you don’t want to deal with—not ever.

  Just like Claudia Fish. None of us wanted to find her in the woods. We didn’t ask for any of this—but now that we have, fresh, goopy shit is dripping over all of us, too.

  31

  JULIE DOPKIN’S A lesbian, or at least everyone thinks she is. She’s really tough, and every other word out of her mouth makes her sound like a trucker. The weirdest thing is that she still wears makeup and does her nails. Her buffed and polished man-hands only accentuate the fact that she’s wearing some sort of costume. We all know that the real Julie Dopkin would be way more comfortable in jeans, work boots, and a T-shirt.

  By the time Newie and I reach the top of the hill, we’re not pissed off anymore. I think we’re both just numb, but things get tense again as soon as we get to the BD Mart. Even from the parking lot we can hear Julie yelling at Annie. Annie just looks like she wants to find a hole someplace to crawl in and die.

  When we walk in the door, Julie turns to look at me and snaps, “You should teach your girlfriend about cold medicine.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You only sell one box at a time,” Julie barks as she waves a box of antihistamine in front of Annie’s face. “Every loser in Apple knows that.”

  “Again, what are you talking about?”

  Newie snorts. “It’s a Ziggy thing,” he says.

  Julie raises one hand up in the air, and they high-five each other. “The giant gets a gold star,” she barks.

  I look at Annie. Her mascara’s starting to blur the edges around her eyes.

  “Drugs, dude,” explains Newie. “They use the shit in the capsules to make some of the hard junk.”

  “Oh,” I say, like I know exactly what he’s talking about. I guess it pays to be the son of a cop. You learn all the tricks of the trade.

  “I’m sorry,” Annie says to Julie. “I didn’t know.”

  “Well, now you do,” Julie spits. She’s being really harsh. It’s only Annie’s first night. Who the hell does she think she is, anyway?

  “Yo, Julie,” I say. “Back off. It hasn’t been the easiest couple of days.”

  “I’m the one in charge, and I’m the one who gets screwed for mistakes,” she snaps. “I can’t afford to lose this job.” Julie’s parents are really nice and all, but they’re about as poor as the Bergs, if that’s even possible. Why else would Julie be working nights this time of year?

  Hard times call for hard choices.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” she grumbles.

  “Walking Annie home.”

  A sort of sadness washes over Julie’s face, probably because nobody ever shows up to walk her home. “Well, you can’t hang in here,” she says. “Go sit on the picnic table outside or something.” She flicks her thumb at the clock. “We still got another forty-five minutes to go.”

  Newie palms a couple candy bars as we leave. I think Annie sees him do it but doesn’t say anything. Ju
lie already has her back to us and is counting the packs of cigarettes behind the counter. She starts explaining to Annie about how she has to count them every night before closing up, because the manager keeps track of stuff like that.

  Outside, Newie throws me one of the candy bars he lifted and plops down on one of the plastic picnic tables. He tears it open and stuffs half of it in his pie hole with ease, chewing with his mouth open like a total bottom feeder.

  “You’re a felon,” I say to him as I rip open the wrapper on mine and take a bite of nougat and peanuts.

  “For now,” he says. “Besides, I think stealing a couple of candy bars is more like a misdemeanor. What’s Asshole gonna do, haul me in?”

  “Beat the crap out of you,” I say.

  “He can try,” he mumbles through a mouthful of chocolate.

  About five minutes before the BD Mart is due to close, a black car pulls into the parking lot and maneuvers uncomfortably close to the picnic table where the two of us are sitting. It’s one of those older big cars that nobody drives anymore. It looks like a hearse. The driver’s side door opens, and a tall figure gets out.

  It’s creepy Father Tim.

  He looks at us and says, “Good evening, boys.” The words ooze out of his mouth.

  “Father,” I say. Newie just nods his head.

  Father Tim’s older than dirt, probably older than Mr. Colton or Old Nick, but he’s still spry. He’s ancient and sinewy, which makes him that much creepier, because he glides through the air when he moves, like a predator honing in on its prey. His spindly arms pump back and forth, giving him added momentum, and his huge Adam’s apple bobs up and down.

  He looks like a dangerous turkey.

  “Aren’t you out a little late, Jackson?” he asks me, ignoring Newie. I think he figures Newie’s big enough to take care of himself.