She stepped back, twirled and kicked with her leg straight out. The door gave way in one big chunk as though someone had loosened it for her and she was the final bit of force it needed to open—like a pickle jar or a bottle of soda.
“Awesome,” murmured Bullseye as the door fell inwards.
Yup, Prianka was pretty awesome. What we found inside definitely was not.
39
“POXER!” PRIANKA screamed, but she was wrong. The smell was the tip-off. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. There was a dead guy propped up against the dirt wall in the cellar hole with half of his head gone. It’s not like a chunk had fallen off and slipped to the floor. His skull was just plain missing, as though it exploded into a million bloody little pieces and floated away on the wind.
There was a sleeping bag there, too, along with a kerosene lantern and a bag full of food with the Swifty’s logo on it—the creepy little fishing bear. The air was filled with those fat black flies that look like they’re bloated with juice.
A gun was still in his hand.
I covered my nose. Death is a horrible smell. It’s rank and dirty and makes you want to scrub the scent off your skin.
“Bullseye, keep Sanjay back,” I barked at him.
“No problem,” he grimaced. “No problem at all.” He guided Sanjay away from the cellar hole.
The buzz of the helicopter was starting to get louder, and with each passing second I was getting more and more skittish. The helicopter people could see the path, but they really couldn’t see through the canopy of trees, could they? Even if they could, they wouldn’t land here, would they?
“It reeks,” complained Trina.
“Yeah, dead people do that,” I said.
Jimmy didn’t go down into the hole. His bubbly balloon of enthusiasm was completely deflated. Frankly, I didn’t blame him.
Prianka scrunched up her nose and doggedly move forward. “There’s a note,” she said and grabbed the piece of paper off the floor in front of the dead guy. We all backed out of the dank cellar, gulping at the fresh, clean air of the forest—then we gathered around her.
The note said:
Dear whoever you are,
I thought I could do it. I really did. But when it comes right down to it, I don’t want to live in a world filled with zombies. Please take care of my store. If my pals knew I closed up during leaf peeper season they’d say I’d gone nuts.
I believe in reincarnation. Hopefully I’ll get another chance at life. Next time I want to be a dog. All they do is sleep, eat, poop, and have fun.
I’m not having fun.
Ross Esi Allan III
So, this was the guy who owned Swifty’s. I knew it was strange when we first got to the store and there was a closed sign on the door. It’s September—that’s when Massachusetts is at its busiest. Carloads of tacky tourists pour in, wanting stellar pictures of dying trees and steaming cups of hot apple cider. No one with something to sell closes up shop this time of year—no one.
“He killed himself,” whispered Prianka. “That’s so sad.”
“If I was all alone I’m sure the thought would have crossed my mind, too,” I said. “There’s just so much freakiness a person can take before you go all nutball.” An image of Roger Ludlow’s face bloomed behind my eyes.
Prianka looked like she was about to cry. “It’s too bad he didn’t stay in the store,” she said. “We would have found him eventually.”
“Killing yourself is cowardly,” announced Trina with her hands on her hips. “Suicide is weak.”
Jimmy grabbed for her hand. “Not all of us are as strong as you, babe,” he said. “What would I have done in that sound booth if you guys hadn’t come along?”
I cleared my throat. “Ahem.”
“If Tripp hadn’t come along,” he corrected himself. “I might not even have had a choice.”
Trina just shook her head.
We were all quiet, the steady drone of the helicopter getting louder and louder.
“Helicopter,” said Sanjay, stating the obvious. “Poopy Puppy says so.”
Still, no one moved. I don’t know what everyone was waiting for. Diana was looking for me and Trina. Actually, the helicopter people were looking for any survivors, as long as they were young enough and healthy enough.
I looked at our little group. Young and healthy technically counted Jimmy out. For that matter, Sanjay wasn’t part of the new world order either.
“Damn you, Diana.” I whispered under my breath. I looked back down into the darkness of the cellar hole. The smell was still ripe in my nose—I could almost taste it on my tongue. I closed my eyes and spoke. “We have to hide,” I said, staring at the gaping wound in the ground.
“What, in there?” Trina gasped.
“We have to,” agreed Jimmy.
“I’ll puke,” she cried.
“I hate to say this,” I said, “but it’s better than the alternative.”
Trina’s eyes welled up with tears. It always freaked me out when she did that. This constant flip-flop between Amazon queen and frightened little girl was too much for me to wrap my head around.
“How do we know they’re even bad guys?” she cried. “What if they’re good guys with helicopters? People who can help us.”
“We can figure that out in the hole,” I said flatly.
Prianka brushed by Trina and went over to Sanjay, bent down, and talked to him quietly. He held Poopy Puppy to his ear and nodded his head. This was way more than a little kid should have to go through. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair—but life isn’t fair. Not lately, anyway.
Jimmy was wearing a backpack that had his towel and some poxer-torching supplies.
“I don’t suppose you have a flashlight in there?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said as he slipped it off and reached his arm into the bag. “I have this little thing with batteries that makes light. Is that what you’re looking for?”
“You’re the man,” I said.
Jimmy turned the flashlight on and pointed down the cellar hole. As we slowly made our way inside, we all tried to ignore Ross Esi Allan III, sitting there with half a head. The beam of the flashlight trailed off into the gloom. Jimmy whistled. “Wow. I’ve heard about the Quabbin cellar holes before. I just thought that they were little dugouts in the ground. This one looks big.”
I sighed. “Time for that adventure, Pri?”
She didn’t look happy—neither did Trina—but in the end, the helicopter blades whirring away overhead forced us to ground along with the flies and the dead guy and God knows what else.
Do I hear werewolf, anybody? Vampire? Ghost? Oh yeah, we had enough monsters to contend with without worrying about the fake ones.
39
I THINK I HAVE coward genes. I don’t like blood. I hate the woods. I’m not particularly fond of the dark. Snakes are nasty and real dead-dead people freak the crap out of me. Weirdly enough, poxers I can handle. They’re just kind of gross and definitely ugly.
“Close your eyes, Sanjay,” said Prianka as we shuffled by Ross Esi Allan III and his final resting place. “Breathe out of your mouth.”
Jimmy shone the flashlight around. The cellar hole was damp and smelled of earth and death, which is sort of like cold cuts that have been left in the back of the refrigerator way too long.
Underground consisted of three rooms—the first one was where the dead-dead guy bought it. There was a second room behind the first, littered with leaves and small animal bones. Finally, off to the left was a small room not much bigger than a closet. There was an old wooden shelf in it with a few glass jars sitting on rotted slats. Their contents were black with age.
In another life, it would have been a killer hideout—a place where kids could hang and c
reep each other out with spooky stories about things like, well, the Donkey Man.
“This is cool,” said Jimmy as he pointed the flashlight around. “Big.”
“It’s gross,” snapped Trina. “And dead guy smells like ass.”
“Wow,” chuckled Jimmy. “And you kiss me with that mouth?”
It took every bit of restraint not to stick my finger in my mouth, trigger my gag reflex, and barf—maybe even twice.
Trina just folded her arms over her chest and pouted. Above us, the helicopter blades sent a chill through me. They weren’t just close anymore. They sounded like they were right on top of us.
“Do we, um, close the door?” asked Bullseye.
“No,” I said. “No movement. We don’t want them to see anything.”
“But what if they land?
“Then we hide in the way back with the jars of black goo.”
“Black goo?” said Jimmy and snorted. I chuckled a little—so sue me. Somehow, the thought of a dog, a crow, a guy in a wheelchair, two kids, and three teenagers standing quietly in a dirty, hundred-year-old basement in the woods struck me a little funny. Oh yeah, let’s not forget dead Ross Esi Allan III with half his head blown away.
“Shut up,” growled Trina.
“You shut up,” I snorted. “They aren’t going to land. They didn’t see us, and this is just a tiny little snag on our way to the beach, right?”
Trina just stared at me with a blank expression.
“Right, Trina?” I said again louder. “Let me hear you say it.”
I swear I could hear her teeth grinding together.
Instead, Sanjay spoke up. “Affirmative,” he said in a small voice with Poopy Puppy pressed to his ear. “Also yes, yeah, sure, certainly, absolutely, indeed, naturally, and surely.” He bit his lip and knitted his eyebrows. “Of course and sure thing, too.”
I smiled. “See, at least someone’s got with the program.”
Bullseye pulled his gun out of his pants and checked the chamber in the arc of Jimmy’s flashlight. Prianka inched her way closer to me and linked her fingers to mine. Trina folded her arms around Jimmy and kissed his ear.
“Sure thing, too,” squawked Andrew. Newfie woofed.
A long minute later, the sound of the whirring blades began to move away. It seemed as though the helicopter people were heading back toward the covered bridge where Dorcas and I took the ambulance, but that was just a guess. Underground, everything sounded muffled and weird.
“They’re leaving,” said Bullseye.
“Good,” I said. “Wanna holster your piece?”
“Huh?” said Bullseye.
“‘Holster your piece’?” repeated Trina as she rolled her eyes. “You watch too much TV, Tripp. A simple ‘put the gun away’ would do just fine.”
“Oh,” said Bullseye and tucked the pistol into the back of his pants. “I get it.” He put his elbow over his nose. “Can we leave now? They’re gone and it stinks in here.”
“I second that,” said Jimmy.
“Can I third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth, it, too?” grumbled Trina as she went to push the back of Jimmy’s chair.
“Don’t push my chair,” he said a little too harshly, probably out of habit. “And who’s our eighth?”
“Poopy Puppy,” said Sanjay like Jimmy was a monumental idiot. Yeah, duh, dude. The doll has a vote too. Welcome to Poxer World.
As we shuffled out of the cellar hole, Prianka turned to Ross Esi Allan III and said, “What about him?”
I was actually confused for a minute. He was dead. I didn’t even get what she was asking. The sad thing was, Ross Esi Allan III was just a guy. He wasn’t a poxer or a monster or even Diana. He was just a guy who got caught in a really bad situation and did the only thing he knew how to do.
He ended it.
I could feel a snarky remark rising in my throat but I bit my tongue to keep it from coming to the surface. If it had, I may have said something like ‘so what?’ or ‘who cares?’ The truth was that both of them were really bad responses.
Ross Esi Allan III was a man. He was born and he lived and he owned a store named Swifty’s. He wasn’t a poxer. Somehow I think that made a difference to Prianka.
“Do you, um, do you want to maybe say something?”
I think that was probably the last straw for my sister. Trina grumbled incoherently then pushed past Jimmy, leaving him behind to struggle up the dirt and gravel slope. Prianka looked at me and shook her head yes.
“Okay,” I said. “Go ahead. I’ll be right here.” I scooted Bullseye and Sanjay out the door, along with Newfie and Andrew, then stood by the earthen opening as Prianka crouched down against the far wall on the other side of the little hole in the ground from where Ross leaned against the wall.
Before she could begin, Sanjay pushed back by me with Andrew on his shoulder. He stood in front of her in that dank, ancient cellar then reached his hand out to her.
“Andrew says let me,” he said in a strange voice that sounded like a normal ten year old instead of the autistic boy we had been traveling with. Prianka stood and together they faced the dead body of the man who was not a poxer and never had been.
Sanjay was quiet for a moment, his humongous brain probably accessing some ancient death rite. Then he said, “Take him now, take him now, as he faces the end of this life. By the earth and wind and the fire and rain, he’s on his way, remember him. Take him now back to the earth from which he sprung and now returns. Help him cross over for now it is his turn. He is not afraid. Remember him.”
He stepped forward to the rank corpse, bent down, and touched Ross’s forehead. I could almost see Sanjay’s index finger sink in the rotted flesh—just a little. He pulled away and touched his own forehead before turning and touching Prianka’s. “Blood of my blood,” he said as he brushed her soft, brown skin.
Then he came to me and reached up and touched my cheek. “Bone of my bone,” he whispered. I had nothing to say back. I wasn’t even sure he was expecting me to say anything. Sanjay walked outside, up the small slope, and touched Bullseye’s shooting hand and said, “Flesh of my flesh.” To Trina, he touched her stomach and whispered, “Keep his soul alive. Help him live on.”
When he reached Jimmy, he lightly placed his hand over his chest and said. “Help him live on within your heart. Be not afraid. Remember him.”
It was all so bizarre. I didn’t know if I was the only one who thought so or not. Everyone else seemed to accept Sanjay’s ritual like it was normal. Maybe it was normal. Maybe this is how human death would be from now on. Someday, Sanjay would be saying this weird little ritual for me or Trina or Prianka or Jimmy or Bullseye. Maybe he would be saying it for one of the adults.
We were people. We weren’t monsters. Sanjay was right—we deserved to be remembered.
The somber mood was finally shattered when Sanjay said, “Beach—Poopy Puppy, Andrew, and Newfie all say beach.” Just like that his spell was broken. We all trudged back to the sunlit path and continued toward Black Point Fort like nothing ever happened, leaving a real dead person behind in an abandoned cellar in the woods.
40
UP AHEAD WAS A big birch tree covered with yellow leaves and a wooden arrow nailed to the bark. On the arrow in bright yellow letters it said ‘Black Point Fort—.5 miles.’ Another frickin’ .5 miles in the woods? Did I mention how much I hate the woods?
The sun beamed down on the tree and made the canopy glow. As a matter of fact, the sun was beating down on everything so much that the morning chill was wearing off. It wasn’t even sweatshirt weather anymore.
The forest was getting positively balmy.
“Why is it so hot?” said Trina. She plucked the words right out of my mouth.
“Indian Summer,” answered Jimmy as his wheel
s bumped along the dirt path. I could see the sweat beading up on his forehead, but I knew he didn’t mind. He was having the time of his life.
“Indian Summer—what’s that?” asked Bullseye as he tilted his head sideways and stopped to look at something off in the trees.
“Ask the Indians,” I said and motioned toward Prianka and Sanjay. Okay, so it was incredibly rude and socially inappropriate of me—but a little funny, right?
Andrew took off from Sanjay’s shoulder and flapped his black wings a few times as he climbed in the air. He landed on one of the mid-level branches of the birch and sat there preening his feathers.
Prianka just bit her tongue and shook her head at me. Hey, I was the same Tripp Light that she had known since we were tiny tots. If she fell for me now, it must have had something to do with my sense of humor.
“Well?” she said to her brother. “Any thoughts on the definition of Indian Summer?”
Sanjay stared up at Andrew then promptly sat on the ground. Newfie sat down beside him, his great, slobbery tongue hanging out of his mouth.
“What’s that?” said Bullseye again.
“According to the 2009 and 2010 Old Farmer’s Almanac, the criteria for an Indian summer are warm mild days occurring between November eleventh and November twentieth,” he said.
“No,” said Bullseye as he shielded the sun from his eyes with his shooting hand. “What’s that?” He pointed thought the trees, their leaves twirling toward the ground like slow, heavy rain. There was something moving there. I shielded my eyes so I could get a better look. Newfie hoisted himself to his feet and stood erect, his ears held alert against his massive head like two giant ear muffs.
“Andrew, to me,” said Jimmy and held out his arm, but Andrew didn’t move. His beady little bird eyes were targeting the strange movement in the trees.
We all watched whatever it was lumbering in the woods. Then I caught a glimpse of purple and red and I knew.
The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 1): Wicked Dead Page 17
