“Nobody was hurt,” Jim told me, “but the car. God, that was painful.”
Evelyn was still talking. Once she got started, she barely stopped for breath. I only half listened. She was prone to exaggeration.
“I need to go. The timer’s going off. Time to take the brownies out of the oven.” They were cooling on the counter, but I wanted off the phone. My mother-in-law was not the most reliable source of information. I wanted to check the local newspaper online. Maybe their report would be less melodramatic.
The Telegraph’s website had a short paragraph, no names, no details, just “Port Massasauga police are investigating. . .” and “More details in tomorrow’s edition.” Local television stations had the story. Channel 19, true to form, sounded like Evelyn wrote their headlines. Family of 5 Slaughtered! Small Town Atrocity! I didn’t want to play the videos with Abby around, and the articles were more innuendo than news.
Evelyn needn’t have worried about me feeding her son. I had meatloaf and mashed potatoes—comfort food—ready, but by the time he got home, after midnight, he had no appetite. He did need to talk.
He sat still—rigid—his head down and his voice toneless. “They were. . .ripped apart. All of them. The kids. Like something ate them. And the blood. So much blood. On the floor. On the walls.”
He was silent for a moment, then raised his head and looked into my eyes. “There was blood all over the fucking ceiling.”
Sometimes, when the brain is hit with something it can’t handle, it shuts down.
A black wall slammed down inside my head. My senses—the sound of Jim’s voice, the glare of the room lights, the lingering smell of brownies and meatloaf—became physical, solid, heavy, pressed against me, smothered me.
I wonder if this is how Abby feels when she has a meltdown. . .
When I could breathe again, I realized Jim was next to me. He held my hand, and we sat in silence for I don’t know how long. It felt like forever.
[6]
Blevins
TURNED OUT LEATHER WASN’T ALL that warm. Blocked the wind, but not much more. Didn’t matter. Blevins liked his new jacket. Made him feel tough. Strong. But when he thought about the night he got it, things went fuzzy. His head hurt.
He remembered Tits and the gun. Fucking awesome. He even remembered what the gun was—M1911—and he didn’t know shit about guns. He remembered walking toward the men and standing in front of them.
“Your buddy was pretty fucking stupid, huh?” he said.
Biker Boy and Mopey were upright, but otherwise not much difference between them and Tits.
“Hey? Anybody home?”
The men stared straight ahead. Blevins couldn’t figure out what they were looking at. All he saw were trees. Boring.
He snapped his fingers under Biker Boy’s nose. Not a flinch. Good thing. If the big dude woke up, he could snap Blevins in two without breaking a sweat.
“Hey, Mopey. She still hates your fucking guts.” He waved both hands in front of Mopey’s face. “Maybe I’ll pay her a visit. See if she’s lonely and in need of a real man.” No reaction. “What’s wrong with them?”
“You want the jacket?” the other said.
“Uh, sure.”
“Give it to him.”
Biker Boy took off his leather jacket and handed it to Blevins.
Too big, but he didn’t care. “I want Mopey’s do-rag too.”
Mopey pulled the red bandana off his head and held it out.
“Holy shit. Did I do that?”
“No, not yet,” the other said.
Blevins took the bandana and stuffed it into the pocket of his new jacket. Do-rag or snot-rag, he’d decide later. “How long they gonna be like that?”
“Long enough.”
“I gotta take care of something.”
He let the air out of the Ford’s tires. He smashed the windows. He did the same to the second truck. Might as well. Who was going to stop him? When he finished, he felt good. Energized. High. He went back to the fire.
Blevins remembered going back to the fire, but then things got cloudy. Foggy, like the night he met the other, but inside his head.
Mopey and Biker Boy. Where were they? He couldn’t find them. The smoke. He remembered the smell of smoke and beer, mixed with something sweet. And wet dog. He swore he smelled wet dog. And copper. Something smelled like pennies tasted.
The harder he tried to see Mopey and Biker Boy, the more his head hurt and the thicker the fog got.
“Let’s go.” The other stood in the doorway of the trailer. He wore clean clothes. His hair was wet.
“A shower? I want one,” Blevins said.
“No time. Let’s go.”
“One second.” Blevins took two beers from the cooler. “Want one?”
“No. Come on.”
He stuffed one beer into his jacket pocket and popped the second. “Now we can go.”
They walked back to town. Blevins hated walking.
“What happened to those guys?”
Silence.
“You need a bike. I can get you one.” Town was full of unlocked garages.
The other looked healthier, sort of. A little less dead, at least. Even with the shower and clean clothes, he still smelled putrid.
“What’s your name?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the other said.
“What do I call you?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“How about if I call you Rat Bastard?” Blevins drained his beer and tossed the can away.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“How about if I call you Ugly?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He opened the second beer and decided to call the guy Ugly, but only to himself. Ugly might decide it did matter, and Blevins didn’t want to piss him off.
• • •
UNBELIEVABLE HOW MANY morons left their cars unlocked. Some stupid bitch even left her purse on the seat. As far as he was concerned, it was a gift. Not a lot of money, but enough for beer and Ho Hos. Ugly’d been missing for a couple of days, so he didn’t have to share. Ugly never wanted any of his food, but there was always a first time.
Maybe Ugly moved on. Or got himself arrested.
With his belly full of beer and cake, Blevins didn’t care. He stretched out and went to sleep.
“Wake up.”
He recognized the stink. Ugly was back. “Go the fuck away,” he mumbled.
“Get up. We’re going for a walk,” Ugly said.
“Fuck you. I’m sleeping.”
“I said get up. Now.”
Blevins rolled over and ignored him. The kick to the middle of his back jarred him awake. He sat up. “Stupid motherfu—whoa.”
To the west, flames lit the night sky. Maybe the whole town was on fire.
“Where?” Blevins asked.
“Pallet yard.”
Until the morning he overslept and got caught, Blevins spent rainy nights in an outbuilding at Forest Savers. Not only did the asshole who found him throw him out, the next night all the sheds wore heavy chains and padlocks.
Forest Savers didn’t have big glass windows, but they did have a football field sized yard full of old wood pallets waiting to be recycled. Tinder. Blevins tried to set it alight but only managed to get one stack going before some shithead saw it and called the fire department. Forest Savers hired a night watchman.
He wanted to get the whole yard going at once and make one badass fire. It was on his bucket list.
Ugly’d done it.
“You can wake me up anytime.”
“Count on it,” Ugly said. “Come on.”
He got up and went.
Cops blocked off the streets around the fire, but the bike trail was packed with morons snapping pictures with their cell phones. Blevins loathed crowds. “This is close enough.”
“They’re not going to notice you,” Ugly said, but he stopped at the edge of the mob.
“They always notice me.” He counted
trucks from eight fire departments. This was one crazy fire—bigger and better than he’d dreamed.
The crowd grew. He was surrounded. “We need to go. I’m gonna get blamed for this.”
“You’re safe when I’m with you,” Ugly said.
Blevins wanted to believe him, but people stared at him. The weight of their gazes crushed his chest. Strangled him. He gasped for air.
A guy with a camera interviewed a fat kid.
“My cousin said he saw two guys starting it,” the kid said.
“Did your cousin talk to the police?” Camera Guy asked.
“Nah. He hates cops.”
“What about the night watchman?”
The kid laughed. “I heard he was a crispy critter. A sizzle burger. A human torch.”
Camera Guy shook his head and turned to Blevins.
“We need to go.” Blevins choked, the words razors in his throat.
“Not yet,” Ugly said.
Camera Guy moved closer. He stopped to talk to a blond woman, but Blevins knew the guy was after him. Staring at him. He trembled. His knees threatened to give way. He tried to move, but his feet stuck to the ground. His ears rang. The back of his head pounded.
Camera Guy moved again.
The glare of the fire burned his eyes. Beer and Ho Hos threatened to come back up. Camera Guy was almost on top of him. He needed air.
“Let’s go,” Ugly said.
Blevins moved. He still shook. His heart thumped and his head ached, but his feet worked. Ugly pushed through the crowd, and he followed.
• • •
“WAKEY-WAKEY.”
Ugly never let him sleep more than an hour at a time. Sometimes less. After the first two nights, Blevins wanted to throttle him. Slug him. Teach him a fucking lesson. He tried, but somehow he never got ahold of Ugly. The bastard looked like a sick old man. Worse than when they met. How did he move so fast?
Blevins worked out a plan to kill Ugly while he slept. He imagined bashing the dickwad’s head in with a rock. He even had the rock picked out.
He was psyched, until he realized Ugly never slept. At least not when Blevins was around.
Blevins tried to shake him. He changed campsites. Ugly found him. He tried sleeping in the park. Ugly found him—if the cops didn’t roust him first.
Day or night, whenever and wherever he slept, Ugly found him.
“Come on, boy, sit up,” Ugly said.
No use fighting. When he did, Ugly kicked him. He didn’t need any more bruises. He opened his eyes.
Daylight. The bastard let him sleep all night. Didn’t feel like it.
“Here. I brought you a present.” Ugly held out a McDonalds cup.
He sat up and took it. Coffee. He wondered if Ugly’d done something to it. Spit in it. Pissed in it. He didn’t care. It was coffee.
Coffee with lots of sugar, exactly the way he liked it.
“There’s more.” Ugly tossed him a wrapped sandwich.
His mouth watered at the smell of grease. He tore off the paper and stuffed half the egg sandwich into his mouth.
He was savoring the last crumbs of biscuit when it hit him. Ugly never had any money.
“How’d you get this?”
“Bought it.”
“Where’d you get the cash?”
“Business transaction.”
Blevins took a swallow of coffee and looked around. “Where’s my bike?”
“You don’t need it.”
“Fuck you, asshole.” He dropped the coffee and stood. “Where is it?”
“I don’t like bikes.”
“I’m gonna kill you!” He leapt at the other.
Next thing he knew, he was flat on his back. Ugly sat on his chest, his hands around Blevins’s neck. No pressure, but Blevins felt them, like a collar.
He fought. He bucked and kicked. He grabbed Ugly’s arms and pulled.
Ugly stayed calm and rode him like a kiddie ride at the county fair. The bastard was heavier than he looked.
Blevins stopped fighting. “Go ahead. Squeeze.”
“I could take you now.” Not a threat. An indifferent statement.
“Then why don’t you?”
“You’re not ready.”
“Fuck you.” He spat in Ugly’s face.
Ugly contracted his hands—not much, just enough to hurt.
Blevins grasped at the fingers on his throat. He couldn’t get a grip. He pounded Ugly’s chest.
“This is good,” Ugly said, “you were getting boring.” He tightened his hold on Blevins’s neck.
He clawed Ugly’s face. His eyes—he’d take out the fucker’s eyes.
Ugly squeezed.
Blevins’s head roared. He longed to give up, cry uncle, let Ugly know he’d won, but his body wouldn’t let him. Against his will, he twisted and kicked. He clutched Ugly’s wrists. They didn’t budge.
Where did the sick SOB get his strength?
Black spots invaded his vision. His tongue swelled, filled his mouth. He met the other’s eyes and looked away. I give up.
Ugly released him.
Icy-hot air burnt his throat, and his lungs filled with pins and needles.
“You’ll be ready soon.” Ugly got up. “You need a fire. You’ll freeze to death.”
Blevins stayed where he was. “Did you get much for it?” His throat was raw. He sounded like a frog.
“Enough for your breakfast.”
Fuck.
• • •
THE NIGHT AIR nipped at his face and raised goose bumps under his jacket. Snow was on its way—he smelled it. He should build a fire, but even thinking about it wore him out.
It was time to go away for the winter. He knew what he needed to do. Break a window. Piss in a planter on Main Avenue. Get caught and get locked up. A nice warm bed and three meals a day. Without Ugly.
He’d do it tomorrow.
He said that every night.
Ugly told him not to worry about it. “This will be your best winter ever. I promise.”
But, he was freezing and Ugly was nowhere to be seen.
His list. Time to make his list.
He strained to remember where he was and what he did during the day. All he saw was Ugly.
Ugly. Life was good before he showed up. Where was he? Blevins hated him for not being there. He hated himself more for caring.
“Oh, Blevins. You missed me.”
“Where you been?” Blevins tried to sound nonchalant.
“Preparing.”
“For what?” He looked up. Ugly loomed over him. “God. You’re a mess.” He slouched and pulled his jacket up around his ears. The smell of wet dog turned his stomach.
“Look at me.”
“No,” Blevins said, but he couldn’t help himself. He looked into the other’s eyes.
“Time for you to go.”
Blevins tasted pennies and heard faraway screams.
He didn’t realize they were his own.
• • •
HE STOOD AND stretched. Rolled his shoulders. A little tight, a little stiff, but new shoes always were.
Anger. Blevins was a very angry man. It tasted like honey. And hatred. More than he expected. He basked in its glow.
Best of all, deep inside, he still heard—felt—Blevins’s screams.
Blevins. Yes. He could be Blevins for a while. With any luck, a long while.
But first, sleep. Feed.
And then, the girl.
[7]
Carole
IT’S HUMAN NATURE TO SEARCH for meaning in coincidence.
I told myself Abby’s newfound interest in gore had no meaning. Somebody—a classmate, a kid on the bus—told her a story. Halloween was past, but winter was still the time of year for spooky stories. She heard something and latched onto it, and we had to wait it out. Even when her obsessions seemed to go on forever, they eventually faded. The latest would too.
The Connors family’s murder was a coincidence. Poor timing.
A murdered family equaled coincidence. I was a horrible person, but I knew it, so it was okay.
Still, when I found Abby paused in a doorway, on her way to Abby-land, I tensed.
“Abby!” I didn’t intend to snap, but I did.
“Huh.”
“You stuck?”
“Noooo.”
No hungry man. No red ceilings. We were back to our usual ritual.
Coincidence, I convinced myself. Meaningless coincidence.
The Mighty Samsonite, on the other hand, developed issues. The hard-on-the-carpet kind of issues. She stopped asking to go out. She spent most of her time in Abby’s room—except when she came downstairs and left a surprise in the corner of my office.
The dog who lived for walks sat down at the end of the driveway and wouldn’t budge. Abby couldn’t get the leash on her. Jim and I got her leashed, but we had to drag her to the backyard. Outside, she planted her feet and refused to go near her designated poopatorium or do what we took her out to do.
I stood with her and hauled her around the yard for an hour. Nothing. Ten minutes after we came in, I found her peeing in the corner of my office.
Jim thought it was hilarious.
“You’re the one who insists we have a dog,” he said, like he had nothing to do with it.
“Wait ’til I train her to aim for your shoes.”
My daughter was her usual self. My dog was screwed up. My husband was a snot-ball. Life was. . .normal.
Normal was good.
I stopped grinding my teeth and considered buying stock in the Dog-Gone Odor Remover company.
Just call me Cleopatra, dwelling on de Nile.
• • •
ON MY BEST DAYS, I’m not a morning person.
Abby didn’t need my help getting ready for school. I got up because she liked to have me there. Our morning routine involved my physical presence but little active participation on my part. Jim’s morning skills were sharper than mine—he got up and got to the caffeine first—and he took care of parental trivialities like lunch money.
The Ceiling Man Page 4
