She had a fierce look in her pale eyes; the look of a true devotee as she bit her bottom lip. Jeremy knew that look very well. He’d worn it hundreds of times, on scores of different faces. Medusa finished her beer, belched without excusing herself then cut her eyes to the side to look at Jeremy. They laughed and then he turned to the bar to order her another PB and J.
“Thanks, man,” Medusa said when he passed her the drinks. “You’re awesome.”
“I know,” Jeremy said.
Medusa rolled her eyes and leaned back against the bar with him for a minute. Then she tossed back her shot and chased it down with her beer in one long draught that would have made any frat boy green with envy. She bumped Jeremy with her elbow and when he glanced at her, she tipped her head toward the crowd closer to the stage. “You wanna mosh with me?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Jeremy said as he offered her his elbow.
Medusa threw her head back and laughed as she took his arm and let him lead her into the thrashing, screaming crowd.
The band finished playing two songs later and by then, Jeremy was slick with sweat, his pulse thumping hard in his ears. He felt good, really, really good as he walked back to the bar with Medusa. She was cool and he liked her, which was always a pleasant bonus. Though they hadn’t talked very much at all, he had not needed to force himself to converse with her when they had chatted. It was easy. In another life, they might have been friends or even lovers.
The thought made Jeremy choke on a laugh that tasted like insanity.
“I’m gonna go say hello to my boys,” Medusa said after another PB and J. “You wanna come meet them?”
The fewer people who got a good look at him, the better. Jeremy shook his head and said, “Nah, I’m cool. You go on.”
“Your loss,” Medusa said. She bumped him with her elbow again. “Go find us a place to sit and talk, huh? I don’t think I’m done with you yet.”
Jeremy grinned at her. “I don’t think I’m done with you yet either.”
“Good plan then,” Medusa said.
She leaned close to Jeremy and flicked her tongue out, quick as a kiss from a snake, against the corner of his mouth. It was shockingly erotic and Jeremy smiled again. He was going to miss Medusa when she was gone. He really, truly was. She stepped back and tipped him a wink, the red and silver glitter lightly dusted over her black eyeshadow sparkling bright like little stars. Then she turned and walked away, arms up in the air, waving with both hands.
“What’s up bitches?” Jeremy heard Medusa yell to the band before the crowd closed back around her.
Jeremy found a table near the back of the bar; it was rickety and the top was sticky when he touched it. It was well hidden though, the corner was dark and the tables and chairs were all painted black. No one would notice him there, but he could see everyone. He kept his eye on Medusa as she talked with the band and laughed, hugging each one in turn. When the good looking vocalist leaned down to whisper in her ear, she nodded and they all walked out the back door of the bar.
“Shit,” Jeremy said under his breath. He was certain he’d lost his catch of the day after all. With a low, muttering sound almost like a growl, he started scanning the crowd again. He was willing to cut his losses and start over though he was sure he wouldn’t find one as pretty or as tolerable as Medusa to take home and play with.
He was still looking around the bar, the crowd beginning to thin out now that the show was over and most everyone had drank their fill, when Medusa came back inside. She was a little unsteady on her feet and smiling dreamily to herself as she looked around. Jeremy got up and walked toward her and when she turned her head back and saw him, her dopey smile got even bigger.
“I thought you bailed out,” she said when he reached her.
“Nope, I’m patient,” Jeremy said. She reeked of strong pot and what Jeremy was pretty sure was spiced rum. She’d only gone out to smoke with her friends in the band, that was all. He was thrilled; Medusa really was meant to be his. Maybe she was even a gift. “You want another PB and J?”
“Yep,” Medusa said. Then she held up a finger. “But this time I’m buying, okay? I reward patient boys accordingly.”
Jeremy snorted out a laugh and held his arms out at his sides in an inviting, Who am I to argue? gesture.
“Be my guest,” he said.
“Oh, I will,” Medusa said.
She grabbed his hand and dragged him with her back to the bar and for half a second Jeremy thought about not killing her. She was fun and funny and seemed smart. Those reasons were exactly what made her perfect though, he thought. She was just the right kind, the best offering imaginable; not cheap or stoned or used up. She was fresh and alive and would die so beautifully that it would be a shame to waste her, too.
He was lost inside his head and the clamor of all his former selves as they argued with him about it; some for and some against, when Medusa turned and shoved the shot of Jameson into his hand. Jeremy drank it down without a second thought and when she wrapped her fingers in the collar of his t-shirt and pulled him down, he went without protest or thought of Mooncricket. Medusa kissed him and her mouth tasted like liquor and faintly of pot and cigarettes; she smelled like incense and Moroccan rose.
As he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss, Jeremy thought that yes, he would keep Medusa after all. She was much too perfect to let go.
15
Life went on and Tobias went right along with it. He told himself he was managing fine, getting things back in order. He went the day after Hylas’s funeral and began cleaning out his house and boxing up his belongings. He spent more time looking at all the art and pictures on the walls than cleaning or packing though; framed posters for horror movies next to beautiful landscape shots. It was crowded and cluttered, but it worked somehow because nothing else would have suited Hylas. Order had not suited Hylas; he saved all of that for his journalism and let the rest crash around him to fall where it may and loved every minute of it.
Most of the art was words; Scrabble tiles carefully glued to make the word LOVE, each letter consisting of many of the wooden tiles that represented it. Three dozen Ls for the first letter and on it went right on to E. Tobias had collapsed into another fit of helpless, near-hysterical laughter when he’d wondered aloud to Lenore about how many Scrabble games had died in the making of that word and how many points it was worth. The laughter had turned to tears when he came to a framed photograph on the entertainment center of him and Hylas when they were children. Their father was holding Hylas, who was tipped back dangerously, nearly upside down, hair flying in a long ago wind as he smiled at the camera. Hylas’s left arm was stretched to its limit where he reached down to cling to Tobias’s hand because there was no one to hold him aloft and laugh, but Hylas would never let him go.
Tobias pulled himself together and walked through the house, actually looking at the organized chaos on the walls and shelves for the first time. He seldom ever came to visit Hylas unless he was giving him a ride somewhere because Hylas was always at his house. There had been no need, but as he looked at the photographs, the chronicles of their lives and the lives of the people they knew that Hylas had kept and cared enough to frame and hang up, Tobias regretted it. There was so much to see; walking through Hylas’s small, blue house was like an art exhibit and a pictorial timeline all at once. There were pictures of Nick and Hunter when they were teenagers; later on a picture of Hunter with a huge buck and Nick all grown up, harder around the edges and thicker with muscle, but still handsome as ever. There was even a picture of Aaron Talley, smiling mouth open in laughter as he flipped the camera the bird. Tobias realized it was the first time he had ever seen Aaron smile and he had a very nice smile, surprisingly sweet though it seemed out of place on him, like it wasn’t sure how it got there.
He took the photographs off the walls and the shelves, he gathered up the stacks of picture albums and the boxes of loose photos and packed them all away. It was there on the day after he burie
d his twin that Tobias found the source of a new project—something he could do to keep himself from thinking. To stop the sadness from slipping in and swallowing him whole when he least expected it.
For the next month, when he wasn’t working or helping his father and Callie tidy up the rest of Hylas’s affairs, Tobias went through the albums and boxes; he sorted through the framed photographs. He hung a lot of Hylas’s art on the walls of his own home (though in a much more orderly fashion) and gave the rest to Hylas’s friends. There was even a Bigfoot made out of all the names given to that legendary creature. It had to have taken Hylas days, perhaps weeks, to make it. Tobias knew the perfect person to give it to and one evening a little over a month after Hylas’s burial, Tobias hand-delivered it to Wes, who got watery eyed and sniffly when he presented it to him.
“Golly,” Wes said in a choked voice. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Tobias said. Then he passed him a bundle wrapped in white butcher paper. “These are for Nick and Nancy, if you could pass them on to them, please.”
“What are they?”
“Pictures that Hylas took of them and their other friends,” Tobias said. “They go back as far as fifth or sixth grade, as best I can tell. I thought he and Nancy might like going through them together.”
“That’s really swell,” Wes said as a big, fat teardrop rolled down his cheek. “I’ll make sure they get them.”
“I appreciate it,” Tobias said. “Good evening.”
He went down the doorsteps and listened to the screen door of the sun porch creak closed. Wes didn’t hide from him, but he always kept something between himself and Tobias, too. Tobias didn’t think he was even aware of it.
Aaron Talley was next on his list and Tobias quietly dreaded that as he got into his newly leased Cadillac to go deliver the parcel. He drove out to Aaron’s place and down the long, rutted driveway, past the many, many No Trespassing signs (some of which were bilingual). The big cattle gate he usually kept locked at the end of the drive was open and Tobias didn’t think Aaron would come down even if he sat there honking his horn until Doomsday.
The second Tobias pulled up in front of the house, two huge dogs—a Rottweiler and a black German shepherd—rushed out to greet the car, barking harshly and circling the vehicle. Their hackles were up and they did not seem friendly. Tobias opened the car door and got out, not concerned with the dogs. If people were afraid of him then animals were terrified of him. Aaron’s big, mean dogs were no different and they backed away from him. Their hackles were still up and they looked furious, but they kept far away from Tobias, watching him with their heads down, the German shepherd’s tail drooping and half-tucked.
The door to the house swung open and Aaron’s head popped out. He looked like he had just woken up, but when he saw Tobias, his storm blue eyes sharpened with alertness and suspicion.
“The fuck do you want?” he asked. “And can’t you read, motherfucker? I’ve got signs all over the place that say no trespassing.”
“I saw them,” Tobias said, unruffled by Aaron’s belligerence. “Your gate was open and I didn’t think you’d hear if I honked.”
“That’s the point,” Aaron said. “I don’t want to hear you or anybody. Gate’s there so people will fuck off and— Wait. What?”
“The gate was open,” Tobias repeated.
“Jason!” Aaron yelled. “You left the gate unlocked again. I didn’t give you a key just so you could leave the gate open and let in any piece of shit that comes along. Visitors, man. We don’t want any.”
“Sorry, love,” Jason called from inside the house, not sounding all that sorry at all.
“I’m going to take your key, I swear to fucking God I am,” Aaron said.
“So you keep telling me, dear,” Jason said.
“Mock me, asshole. Go ahead,” Aaron said.
“Sure,” Jason said and Tobias could hear the laughter in his voice.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Tobias said to draw Aaron’s attention back to him. “I only wanted to leave you some things that belonged to Hylas.” He offered the package to Aaron who glared at him then down at the package, though his expression did soften the slightest bit.
“What is it?” Aaron asked even as he snatched it out of Tobias’s hands so quickly Tobias blinked. He began to tear open the paper without waiting for an answer.
“Pictures he took,” Tobias said anyway.
The framed photographs were tied together with twine and the loose pictures from albums and the various boxes Hylas had were on the bottom in an empty printer paper box. The photograph on the top was the one of Aaron laughing and smiling. He stared at it and touched the image of his own face with shaking fingertips.
“I remember this day,” he said, speaking mostly to himself. Then he looked up at Tobias. “He talked me into going down to the river with him. He called it Redneck Watching, like it was some kind of fucking sport and this chick busted her ass right there in the mud. She dumped beer all over her tits and some of it got on her face. She was so pissed off she started crying, throwing a real trailer park skank of a fit. It was the funniest shit ever and I couldn’t stop laughing. Hylas said my name and when I looked around at him, the asshole took my picture.”
Aaron cleared his throat and blinked rapidly then shook his head. “You need to get off my property,” he said in a husky voice. “You’re trespassing, fucker.”
Then he slammed the door without waiting to see what Tobias would do. Through the wood he could barely hear Jason asking what was wrong, the sound of his footsteps making the old floorboards creak as he went to Aaron.
“Have a nice day,” Tobias said to no one as he turned and walked back to his car.
The dogs were still there and Lenore took the opportunity to caw at them and clack her beak. It sounded a lot like mockery to Tobias and he smiled thinly as he got in the car and shut the door. He sat there another moment then cranked up and left. The dogs remembered themselves then and chased him halfway up the driveway, barking and snarling, bravery restored and honor in need of reclaiming.
Tobias carried on with his rounds, stopping by his father’s and stepmother’s house to drop an even larger box off with them. Callie cried again and though Mitch tried to remain stoic, he looked torn up. Tobias stayed long enough to have a cup of coffee and feed Lenore a wing off the chicken Callie had thawed out to roast later. After his parents’ house, he went to the post office and mailed several parcels to friends and family and tried not to be too taken aback by the cost of shipping.
Tobias wrapped up his day of deliveries by going to Tyson Cemetery and leaving a framed photograph of Hunter, Hylas, Nick, Aaron and Nancy on Hunter’s grave. He’d put it in a weatherproof frame and leaned it against Hunter’s headstone of black granite carved with a deer on one side and large catfish on the other. Hunter Fisher McAllister always had taken his name very much to heart.
“I thought you may like this,” Tobias said to the grave as he stepped back to take a seat on the little wrought iron bench at the foot of Hunter’s grave.
He sat down under the shade of a little soak tree and breathed deeply of the hot, humid air. Evening was beginning to fall, but it wouldn’t be good and dark until nearly nine o’clock that night. It was cooler in the cemetery though with its heavy shade and thick green grass. Just because the heat didn’t bring Tobias to his knees the way it did most people, he still didn’t like it. Winter was his favorite season, when the weather cooperated anyway. Some years in his part of Louisiana, people wore shorts to celebrate Christmas and the New Year.
Lenore flew off to visit with some of the crows roosting around the cemetery. Since the day they had buried Hylas, they’d been roosting all over the grounds of Gallagher House, uncommonly polite and strangely quiet. They still cawed and fussed and chattered at one another, but not with the same noisome frequency they usually did. Everywhere Tobias went, there were more crows to take in. Sometimes he felt like they were following him,
though he’d not noticed them the way he had the day he was driving along in the procession; that huge blanket of feathered bodies darkening the bright summer sky.
The longer he sat in the peace and solitude of the graveyard, the more Tobias’s mind began to churn. He tried to tamp it down, but it wouldn’t be put off now that it was at last idle. For the last month, Tobias hadn’t stopped doing something—anything—whatever he could dream up—in all of his waking hours, he kept busy from the moment he rolled over to greet a new day until he fell into bed at night.
His gardens, always well-tended, had never been in such good shape as they were lately. He cooked and cleaned and arranged then rearranged his many bookshelves. He ironed clothes and did laundry. He watched more television than he probably had in the last year all together. He did it sitting on the couch in the living room or propped up in Dawn Marie’s bed letting her feed him junk food while she put his hair up in pigtails just for the hell of it. And when he hadn’t been doing any of that, he’d been working at the funeral home and visiting with Gary when he was done until Dawn Marie practically dragged him away. Then he would go home, putter around in his gardens some more, eat a snack then get to work going through Hylas’s photographs or hanging his art.
In Tyson Cemetery there was nothing much to do unless he wanted to get up and remove wilted flowers from graves, clear them of pine straw, wipe away the thin green lichen that grew on the granite. He did kind of want to do that, too; it was another distraction in a long line of them he had been manufacturing for himself. What stopped Tobias from doing so was that it wasn’t his place to tend to the dead after they were buried; his job ended when he closed the lids on their coffins.
He was stuck in the graveyard though unless he wanted to walk away and leave Lenore behind. She could find her way back to Tobias with little effort, he was almost certain of it, but it still felt rude to drive off and leave her there. It would be a lot like driving off and leaving a friend in the grocery store just because you’d already bought your loaf of bread.
Falls the Shadow (Sparrow Falls Book 2) Page 21
