by Vivian Barz
Whack!
“Wakey-wakey!”
Eric blinked briskly, his vision muddy. As his view cleared, he made out Milton hunched above him, knobby hand poised to backhand him again.
“No, sir, you don’t want to be doing that,” Milton said. Threatened.
The left side of Eric’s face throbbed, as did his ear, which was ringing from the assault. He didn’t want Milton to hit him again—that shit hurt —but what he wanted even less was for Milton to take more drastic measures to keep him conscious. Fingernails pulled out with pliers, maybe, or eyelids lopped off with the banana-bread knife and fed to the chickens.
Yes, provoking Milton would be a very bad idea.
Milton returned to his seat and continued, as if there’d been no interruption. “One day—and here’s where the fate part comes in, Eric, so pay attention—my brother and I were outside playing hide-and-seek. We were just young; oh, I was ’bout eleven or twelve, Lenny around kiddiegarten age.”
Eric felt a mad giggle simmering up in his throat, a lunatic’s laugh. Did he say kiddiegarten? It died fast.
Eric was hideously drowsy once again, tired in a way that he could only comprehend as agonizing. He physically ached for rest. He allowed his lids to slide closed. Just for a second, just a quick kip to soothe his eyes.
Milton was having none of that. He rose from his seat before Eric even knew he’d begun to doze, twisting the tender flesh on the inner crook of Eric’s elbow until he drew blood.
Eric made a shrill owwwwgh sound as he came to.
“You really don’t want to make me get up again, son. Got me some wicked joint pain, and it tends to make me cranky. No more , understand?”
Eric moaned in acquiescence.
Satisfied Eric was listening, Milton nodded once, returned to his seat, and continued. “Lenny was always cheating at hide-and-seek, so it wasn’t much of a game. We were kind of fooling around on this day I’m telling you about, killing time before supper. My mother had baked a fresh loaf of sourdough, and Lenny was whining because he said the smell was driving him crazy . He didn’t want to play—Lenny was always a baby when he was hungry—but I promised him my slice of pie if he won. Lemon meringue was one of his favorites.”
Eric blinked to show that he was listening.
“Lenny, that damn kid, never listened to anything he was told. Time and time again, my stepfather warned him to stay away from the Nichols’ property, even spanked him once good so he wouldn’t forget.” Milton scratched the back of his neck absentmindedly, staring off into space, making soft mmm-mm-mm sounds.
The floodlights are on, but nobody’s a-plowing , Eric thought, and once again he found himself fighting back a giggle.
After some time, Milton turned back to Eric. “He was funny around kids, you know. Wayne Nichol. Hell, let’s just call him what he was, a child molester. I don’t know the extent of Gerald’s perversion, though he couldn’t have been that innocent if he went to prison. Mary—that’s Wayne’s wife, Gerald’s mother—never touched any kids, but I imagine she knew what was happening . . . you listening to me, son?”
Eric widened his eyes and blinked rapidly. Yes, he was listening. You bet your ass he was.
Milton made a satisfied hmph sound and went on with his story. “Personally, I don’t think Mary has ever been right in the head. She’s slow, I mean,” he said, tapping his temple. “And I think Wayne took advantage of that, made her subservient.” He raised his eyebrows at Eric. “Bet you didn’t think an old hick like me would know a big ole word like subservient , did ya?”
“Geeeehhhhh.”
“Mary’s now in a state-funded hospice. Sitting around in her own filth all day, running out the clock, waiting for some minimum-wage orderly to take notice of her long enough to change her diaper.” Milton leaned forward. “If I ever get that bad, son, I can only pray that somebody takes me out back and puts a bullet in my brain. Though I imagine cancer will take care of me long before there’d be a need for such a thing.”
Milton sat back and clasped his hands. “I’m getting off topic again. Anyway, people in town used euphemisms—another big word for you, sonny—He’s funny around kids . Funny , they’d say, with a gesture.” He made a seesawing back-and-forth motion with his hand.
Eric squeezed his eyes shut and then open in understanding. He stifled a cough, his throat feeling roasted.
“He’s funny around the young’uns. Yep, that’s what they’d all say. Though I saw nothing funny about what was going on next door. I suppose everyone in Perrick is a little bit to blame for how Gerald turned out—for not intervening, I mean.” He sighed. “But things were different in those days. People kept their noses out of everyone else’s business.”
Eric was beginning to feel an itching discomfort from the neck down, which gave him hope.
The drugs were burning off.
“My mother was a lot like Mary Nichol in that respect, always looking the other way when it came to my stepfather beating me. Though I imagine he belted her a couple of times too. He liked to always keep us a little scared. Man was as mean as a rattlesnake. But he put clothes on our backs and food on our table, and that was good enough for my mother,” Milton said.
Eric tried to wiggle his big toe again; this time, all his toes moved. The pain on the inside of his elbow was also increasing in severity. He shifted his gaze to assess the damage Milton had done when he’d pinched him and saw a small stream of blood oozing down his arm.
How am I going to get out of this? he wondered, and then he immediately answered himself: I’ve got nothing. He nearly burst out laughing. He settled for a lazy grin. The drugs might be wearing off his body, but in his mind . . . high.
So very, very high.
“Lenny, I think, was too young to understand a lot of it—this business with the Nichols, I’m talking about now—which is why he probably didn’t think twice about hiding in their shed on that day we were playing hide-and-seek.”
Milton sat back and got that faraway look again. Eric didn’t like it one bit; he didn’t want Milton’s thoughts to wander. If they ventured too deeply into the dark crevices of his demented brain, he just might start thinking about how he was going to escalate the situation. If Milton had drugged him and moved his car, it was for a reason. Eric did not want to find out what that reason was. The longer the old man kept talking, the better chance he had for the drugs to wear off.
“I’m not saying it was dumb of Lenny to hide in the shed, just naughty,” Milton continued. “It was actually quite smart: I wouldn’t have even thought to look for him there, but I’d peeked while I was counting and had seen him sneak across the field.”
Lenny shocked Eric by materializing at Milton’s side, his face scrunched with fury as he kicked Milton hard on the shin.
Milton rubbed at his leg, oblivious. “Goddamn cancer,” he griped. “Everything hurts. You get pain in places you didn’t even think you could have pain.”
Lenny hovered at Milton’s side, unmoving. Eric wished the kid would hit the old bastard over the head. Use one of the hefty legs from the smashed coffee table, for instance. But maybe, he thought, spirits of the dead don’t possess the power to do just anything —they, like humans, probably had restrictions.
Milton eyeballed Eric sharply. “You falling asleep on me, boy?”
“Neggghhhhhhh.”
Milton continued, “I let Lenny think I hadn’t seen him go into the shed. I even pretended to look around the yard a little before I crept across the field.”
Lenny vanished, and Eric thought miserably: Why didn’t he help me? He can’t just leave me here with this lunatic! He can’t!
HELP ME, YOU LITTLE SHIT!
“Everyone thinks they know the exact moment their life changes,” Milton said. “My life changed when my future wife walked into the bar , they’ll say. Or, My life changed when my son was born . Horseshit, really. I imagine few can truly pinpoint such an event. And even if they could, I can’t see why they’d want to
.”
Eric became sorely aware of cramping in his midsection, the weightiness of his bladder. He needed to pee something fierce. He bit down on his tongue to see if he could feel it. He could. Keep babbling, old man. Keep babbling.
(Whatever you do, don’t let him see you move.)
“But in my case, I believe it to be true. Because my life really did change when I walked into Wayne Nichol’s shed and found Lenny trapped inside that trunk—the lid had fallen down and locked him in, you see.” Milton lifted his chin in the direction of the porch. “And you know why that is? Because it was at that moment I realized my calling. Prior to that day, my . . . urge to keep the world in balance had been limited to critters.”
Lenny flickered back into existence next to Milton—so close that he was nearly hunkered on his lap—his little hands balled into fists at his sides.
“I finally understood what God had put me on earth to do.” Milton brought a fist down to his opposite palm. “Understand?”
Lenny’s chest began to rise and fall in jarring huffs. His eyes narrowed.
In his head, Eric was screaming. Go on, kid, hit him! Knock the crazy fucker out!
“The lock to the trunk was on the ground right next to it. Lenny must’ve taken it off when he hid inside,” Milton explained. “So I allowed Lenny to fulfill his fate when I put it back on, locking him inside. Why else would things have lined up that way, if it wasn’t meant to be, if Lenny wasn’t intended to sacrifice himself to nature? Why would smothering feel so right if it was in any way wrong?”
Just like that, the boy was gone.
Eric’s cheeks dampened with tears.
“I was chosen.” Milton’s eyes took on a deadly black shine that iced Eric’s veins. “It became my duty to keep the world balanced, understand? Nature needs death so that other life can flourish. It’s a cycle, and sacrifices must be made. The farm took my father, you know. He was killed by a machine just out in that field.” Milton tipped his head toward the window. Then, as if proving a point, he added: “A couple years later, Lenny was born.”
Milton sat back, reflecting. He prodded his dried-up wound with an index finger, cracking it open. He smeared coagulated blood across the back of his hand, making a lazy figure eight. “To hear Lenny take his last breath . . . I’d never felt so alive . It was as if I’d absorbed his energy into my own body—his life force. I didn’t want that feeling to ever end.”
I have to get out of here.
“That night in bed, I could hardly sleep. I knew I’d need to find a way to carry on my mission. A couple days later, while everyone in town was still preoccupied with the search for Lenny, I sneaked into the barn where Lenny’s horse, Mabel, was kept, and I suffocated her.” He smiled craftily. “Do you know how hard it is to suffocate a horse, Eric?”
Eric blinked once to indicate no.
“Probably never even been on a horse, I bet,” Milton scoffed. “I was just a kid, but I took down a whole horse. Can you imagine? And I did it so good that my parents couldn’t figure out why she’d died so suddenly, though I suppose they had other things on their minds. I got to bury Mabel all by myself, too, right under that big oak out back. Made her a little tombstone and everything. Kept her tail for my effort. Now, you tell me that isn’t something!”
I wonder if that’s where he’ll bury me? Eric wondered. Keep a piece of my scalp for his effort.
“I may have been uneducated, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew all too well how cruel the world could be, even to young boys. My undertakings would not be accepted by society; they just wouldn’t understand—that I knew positively —and so I had to be cautious. Patient. I waited a few years before I resumed my work, knowing that I could carry out my duties more efficiently once I was mobile.”
Milton paused a moment to pick at his wound. His blood had gone syrupy. Looking at it made Eric ill, yet he couldn’t tear his eyes away, hypnotized.
“By the time I reached driving age, homelife was a mess, both here on the farm and next door. I’d become invisible to everyone around me. Continuing my work was easier than I’d expected. A lot easier. For years and years, nobody paid me no mind.”
Milton let out a weary breath.
“But I became an old man, if you haven’t noticed, and I got tired. I’d abandoned my mission, for the most part, by the time I was diagnosed with cancer.” Pick-pick. Bleed. “Most folks fall down a rabbit hole of depression when they get news of the big C, but for me . . . well, it provided a kick in the ass that I’d needed. It energized me, that certainty of death, because it was now time for me to be a part of the cycle. And why not go out with a bang?”
Eric’s throat was scratchier than steel wool. He swallowed to give it some moisture.
“I have no wife, no kids. So once I’m gone, it will be like I was never here. To everyone, that is, except my little nothings. They felt the force of my existence, and those who’ve yearned for them over the years will never forget the mark I made on their lives either. Their sacrifice is what gave my life purpose, you see? You may find this hard to believe, but I do love them for that.”
Eric swallowed once more.
“What I can’t gather is how you got hold of the trunk. I saw Gerald going through the shed, you know. He’d just gotten out of prison, so he must’ve been looking for things to pawn. Man’s always been lazier than a box of rocks, so you know him getting a job was out of the question,” Milton said with a disgusted snorting sound. “Though I can’t imagine too many folks would want to hire an old child molester like Gerald, anyway.”
Don’t cough, don’t cough, don’t cough —
“Gerald’s father, Wayne, was a notorious pack rat, always getting to sales early so he could buy up all the good stuff only to cram it in that damn shed of his. Used to make my stepfather mad as hell . . . After Wayne died, the shed stopped being used—and it hadn’t been touched for, oh, thirty-some years. Not until Gerald came along. My guess? Gerald came across Lenny while he was scavenging and panicked, ditched the trunk someplace away from his house. Guess he’d figured that they’d think that he’d killed Lenny, given his unnatural fondness for the young’uns. Why he took it upon himself to bury Lenny by that telephone pole is beyond me. Man never was too smart. He’d have been better off ditching Lenny with the trunk.”
Eric could hold it in no longer. A cough forced its way up his throat, and he had no choice but to let it fly.
Milton seemed to come back to himself. “Right! Almost forgot you’ve been tranqed. Guess we’d better get to it, hmm?” He rose to his feet. “Be back in a jiff.”
As soon as the old man was out of sight, Eric endeavored to lift his limbs. His legs were as useless as two concrete stumps, but he managed to heave his arms about six inches off the sofa and hold them horizontal for three seconds. It took every ounce of energy he had. Weak, he let his arms drop back to his sides like a couple of dead fish.
Eric tried again. This time, he managed to keep his arms raised for ten seconds. He lifted his right foot and rotated it twice. At this rate, he thought, he’d be standing by the end of next week.
He let everything drop when he heard Milton come clattering back . . . with a wheelbarrow? “Upsy-daisy,” he said, hoisting Eric up from the couch. He tossed Eric into the wheelbarrow with horrifying ease, as if his innards were nothing more substantial than tissue paper.
Milton wheeled Eric toward the far end of the house and then out the back door, Eric’s full bladder throbbing with each stair they descended. Thud-thud-thud went his skull against metal. His teeth chomped down on his tongue, this time involuntarily. Tears leaked out from the corners of his eyes, and he whimpered.
The sky had just gone dark; it was that time of year when the sun faded early and the temperature dropped by multiple degrees with each passing twilight hour. Eric’s breath puffed small ghosts that floated for a blink before evaporating. Philosophical in the face of death, he wondered how many other souls under the same sky were also marching—or rolling, as it
was in his case—to their death. Hundreds? Thousands?
Or was it only him, alone?
He began to quietly sob as he thought, It’s official. This has been the worst year of my entire life.
Milton pulled a key ring from his back pocket as they approached the barn and clicked open the fat padlock that sat at the center of its double doors. The stench of death hit Eric even before Milton wheeled him inside. He twisted his neck and gagged. Only drool came out.
“Don’t look at me. You can blame Gerald for this one. Man was rotten in life, so it’s only natural that he reeks in death.” Milton gazed down in the wheelbarrow. “Oh, come now,” he said. “Don’t look so scandalized. You think the world’s really going to miss a child molester?”
How long until someone misses me? Eric wondered, cursing himself for not making more friends in Perrick or at least telling the two he did have where he’d gone. But even if Jake or Susan did realize he’d vanished, they’d have no reason to look at Milton.
The old man’s going to get away with murder. He understood this now unequivocally. Again.
“If someone’s going to serve as my scapegoat, wouldn’t you rather it be a creep like Gerald?” Milton said conversationally. “This’s why it pays to be clever, though I suppose a big smarty-pants like you already knew that. Man would still be alive, had he not buried Lenny by the pole. After they found Lenny’s body, I knew it was only a matter of time before the others were found—the ones I put on the property. Couldn’t let Gerald blow my cover. Imagine that: I’ve been doing the Lord’s good work, keeping the balance, for the better part of fifty years, and here Gerald comes and undoes it all after just a couple days out of prison. Yep, you gotta be smart about these things.”
“Pleaaaassse,” Eric slurred.
“I knew with Gerald being gone the law would never say boo to me. And they didn’t. They assumed those bodies were all his, also like I knew they would,” Milton said. “Could do without the smell in my barn, though. But with the FBI buzzing around, I’ve had to keep him hidden.”
Half of Milton’s face was obscured by shadows. Soon, it would be completely dark inside the barn. As if realizing this, he flipped the light switch by the door.
