Flesh

by Laura Bickle

  Amanda hands me a folded slip of paper. I recognize it as being from one of the yellowed legal pads we keep in the crematorium, to keep track of time and who’s being cooked when. I put it in my pocket.

  “I just…” she says. “I just want him to have some closure.”

  “I understand.” And I do.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you think…” I don’t know how to say this. I try again, more honestly this time. “Do I have to be afraid of you?”

  She looks up at me, and there is fear in her face. “I hope not.”

  *

  Secrets burn.

  I can feel this one burning in my throat, choking me, on top of the others. On top of not taking my meds. On top of stealing the charm from the museum. On top of the trouble my parents’ business is in and the growing knowledge that something truly terrible is happening in Mooresville.

  And there is no one I can tell.

  No one would believe me, first of all. I am convinced that they would pour more pills down my throat, make sure that I was walking through my days in a half-lidded haze. Maybe even commit me to a hospital. It makes me angry, that they think I’m so fragile. That they think I’m a liar.

  Mostly, I’m angry at myself for being so weak.

  And I know that other kids at school can sense it, that they’re watching me. I find a page torn from the newspaper, stuffed in my locker. Someone has scribbled GHOUL GIRL in capital letters on the top of it. Looks like a teenage girl’s handwriting, but I can’t be sure. It’s the police blotter page, the province of busybodies everywhere. There are question marks drawn in the margins. There are a handful of OMVIs listed, a couple of domestic violence arrests. One that seems to have involved a woman chasing a drunk man on a riding lawnmower. I scan the blotter and suck in my breath as I read.

  At 323 Sulliven Road on Friday evening, a body was reported missing from the Sulliven Funeral home. Sheriff’s deputies are investigating.

  Fortunately, there seems to be no mention of the who. But on Thursday, that would have to be the floater. Travis. I continue to skim the columns.

  Also at 323 Sulliven Road on Friday evening, deputies responded to a report of a felonious assault on an adult woman. No arrests have been made.

  Damn. I hate the way that’s worded. It makes it sound like my dad is abusing my mom. I glance at the question marks. Maybe someone is concerned, and that’s why the paper is here.

  I also find mention of a grave robbing at Redbriar Cemetery. Well, they called it “desecration of a burial place.” It’s interspersed around a couple of pranks—a missing dinosaur statue from the local mini golf course. I wonder how on earth that happened. Bruto the Brontosaurus had to weigh at least eight hundred pounds. There’s also a report of a whole pumpkin patch being smashed.

  I read the next entry, and my brow crinkles. This one seems odder than the others, if that’s even possible:

  Vandalism was reported at the mill on River Road, with damage to the structure caused by person or persons unknown.

  I tap my finger on the page, thinking. Amanda mentioned the old mill when she was chasing Catfish Bob. I wonder if Travis is still there, hiding out. I circle the entry with my pen, then fold the newspaper and tuck it in my book bag.

  I feel like I’m excavating something. That something is coming clear, something just outside of my peripheral vision. Something too extraordinary to be believed.

  I wonder if this is how Amanda felt. Before this mystery led to her death.

  I plunge back into the hallway as the bell rings. Mercifully, bodies fill the hallways, heading to lockers, homerooms, and restrooms. I normally hate the crush of the crowd, but it’s a relief now. I let it wash around me, wanting to be anonymous in it.

  I spy a familiar dark-headed figure beside a bank of lockers, fiddling with a cell phone. Rafe.

  I let the crowd push me up against him, jostling his elbow.

  “Hi,” I say, awkwardly.

  He glances up from his phone, pockets it. “Hi. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

  I swallow a lump in my throat. Rafe has really nice dark eyes. I reach into my pocket for the note that Amanda gave me. I thrust the wrinkled paper into his hands.

  “This is…This is from Amanda,” I blurt at him.

  And I turn and flee back down the hallway.

  *

  I don’t think that Mr. Haskins reads the police blotter. Something tells me he’s much more interested in things dead and buried than current events, which is a huge relief.

  I feel eyes on me on the bus and hear the whispers in my wake as I get off at the museum. It’s a different bus than the one I usually take home, so maybe I’m just imagining the whispers. I mean, I tend to blow stuff like that out of proportion.

  Mr. Haskins pokes his head out of his office to wave at me when I come in. His arms are covered in what looks like black copier toner. I wave back and give him a wide berth as I head downstairs.

  I’m relieved to be in the silence of the dungeon-like basement, among the spiders and the mildew. I focus on the boxes lined up against the wall, noting which ones are from the Cattell Estate. I tear into them, one by one, careless of my checklists and forms. I need to know what’s inside, if there are more pieces of this puzzle.

  The first two boxes are nothing but moldering magazines. Mostly Playboy, with women from the 1970’s lit in gold and giving the camera languid glances through fringed Farrah Fawcett hair. I close the lids and shove them out of the way, not bothering to take them out to the Dumpster. I’m in a frenzy to discover something that hasn’t been seen before. Another box yields hats and a cache of mothballs. I stab my fingers with hatpins as I dig through them, then dump that box with the others.

  And so it goes for an hour. I suppose some of these things might have been interesting, in another time and place—old clothes, Sears catalogs, glassware. But they are obstacles to me right now. I fling boxes against the wall, heedless of the fragility. These things aren’t important.

  A box of handbags confronts me next. Handbags. They’re old and fragile, leather with hand-sewn edges and broken threads of tapestry. I am tempted to chuck them to the side. But I open them, reaching inside. I find old coins, a thimble, tortoiseshell combs, and glass medicine bottles with the contents evaporated out of the corks.

  A carpet bag sits at the bottom of the box, its leather handles split and broken. I spread the mouth of it open, reaching into the gullet. My hand closes around something prickly. A hairbrush?

  I yank it out, gasping as I hold it up to the light.

  It’s a human head. My hands are tangled in thin hair, still clinging to bits of a tanned scalp attached to the skull. The bottom jaw is missing, but skin is sunken into the eye holes.

  This is more like it. I turn it over. There are still a couple of tiny vertebrae attached, clinging to the skull with ropey dried sinew. The cheek is pulled away, almost as if chewed. Yellowed teeth can be seen through the holes, though they rattle a bit.

  I wonder if this is another victim. A victim of a flesh-eating creature, with roots going back to Catfish Bob. And I wonder if it is something more. Something put in the bag to startle away snooping Victorian ladies. A guardian, of sorts.

  I put the head down on the table, reach back into the bag.

  My heart hammers as my hands close around a book. It’s covered in leather, like the diary I saw before, and it’s the size of my palm. I flip through the brittle pages, seeing a blur of familiar handwriting.

  The rest of the story.

  Footsteps clomp on the steps above. I jam the book into the waistband of my pants, tugging my blouse over the top just as Mr. Haskins walks into the room.

  “How’s it go—oh.”

  He pauses, adjusting his glasses, and gazes at the head parked on the table. It doesn’t sit straight, leaning on its right cheekbone in a permanent yawn.

  “I, uh…wasn’t sure how to classify this,” I say.

  Mr. Haskins lifts a finger. “L
et me go find a form. There’s a special one for human remains.”

  Of course there is.

  I clasp my hands behind my back, feeling the cover of the journal behind my thumbs. Mr. Haskins is fascinated by the head, but I know, deep down, that I’m holding the heart of the mystery. Against my sweating backside, sure. But it’s mine.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  RAIN BEGINS TO SPECKLE THE windshield of Garth’s truck by the time he picks me up. I climb into the passenger seat, clutching my book bag to my chest. The journal is inside, and I can feel its outlines through the fabric. I can’t wait to get home and start reading.

  Garth’s right eyelid twitches. That happens when he’s stressed.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Garth’s fingers chew the wheel, clearly anxious. “It’s Mom and Dad. I think they’re in big trouble.”

  “What do you mean?” Visions of Travis’s decomposed body running through the house assail my imagination. Or maybe Amanda got hungry… I bite my lip.

  “A process server came to the house this afternoon. Travis’s family is pissed. They’re going to sue us for failure to discharge our duties in a responsible fashion. Or some such bullshit.”

  “But there was a police report. Someone came in and stole the body. Right?” The lie tastes sour in my mouth.

  “Yeah, but they’re alleging lack of due care. They can still sue us, whether there’s any merit to the case or not. And Mom and Dad have to show up in court, and the reporters will be there, and it will still be ugly.”

  “Does…does anyone know about Amanda’s body?”

  “The Sheriff is stalling. He’s saying that the body can’t be released yet, since it’s part of an ongoing investigation. And the family has been asking when the funeral’s gonna be. Sheriff Billings has got to find her, and soon, or we’re all screwed.”

  “Do you think people will really…stop sending their Dearly Departed to us?” I don’t see how they could. There’s no other funeral parlor in town.

  “Long’s Funeral Home in Gabesville just started a television ad campaign. Word’s gotten around. And this gossip’s gonna stick. Mom’s up for re-election next year.”

  I stare out the window, at the spangles of rain on the glass. I don’t see this situation getting any better.

  “Garth,” I begin. This conversation is somehow easier to have when I’m not looking at him. “What do you think happened to those bodies?”

  It’s a few moments before he speaks, and we listen to the gravel crunching under the truck tires. “The Sheriff thinks it’s the work of a sicko. A necrophiliac or something.”

  “I didn’t ask what the Sheriff thought. I asked what you thought.”

  Garth stares through the windshield at the thumping wipers. “I don’t know. It’s like something out of a horror film.”

  “Do you think something…something creepy could be going on?” I’m plumbing the depths of his ability to believe, here. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the knowledge, but I really want an ally in this. This whole mystery feels so much bigger than I am.

  “Like there’s some guy with a basement of cadavers, turning them into lampshades? Yeah. I think that’s possible.”

  Garth is thinking evil, but human-created evil. Natural evil. Not supernatural evil. I let it drop. If he doesn’t believe in something as commonplace as heaven, what makes me think that he’d buy the idea of the walking dead?

  He turns down our driveway. “Besides which, Mom and Dad won’t want me talking to you about this, anyway. Not in your current state of mind.”

  I blow out a breath that fogs the window and obliterates my view of the funeral home. “Garth. I’m not crazy.”

  “I kind of hope you are. No offense.”

  I punch him in the arm, not caring that he’s driving. The truck skids a bit in the gravel as he jerks the wheel. “I’m not.”

  “I think you’re an artistic soul with a lot of imagination. There, is that better?”

  I am about to launch into a defense of what I saw the night Amanda got up and walked off, but my attention is arrested by a plume of smoke.

  Coming from the crematorium.

  I open my door and my feet hit the gravel before the truck has come to a stop. I take off running. Across the field, the crematorium doors and windows are open. The wet grasses lash and stick to my jeans as I charge to the door.

  I pause in the threshold, pressing my hand against the doorframe. Shadows and bright-red embers churn inside. Heat strikes me like a wall, the air warping.

  A figure closes the door to the crematorium oven. In the shimmering haze, I see that it’s my father.

  “Dad, what’s going on?”

  My father turns. He’s wearing a heavy apron, and sweat is thick on his brow. His round glasses reflect the light. “Hi, Charlotte. Just getting things going. How was your day?”

  I suck in my breath. “Who’s in the oven?”

  “Mrs. Gatsky. Her husband wants to take her ashes to Florida with him, rather than interring her here.” I can see his mouth turning down as he analyzes my face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Um. Nothing. I just…I just thought for a moment that maybe one of the missing bodies had turned up.”

  My father takes off his glasses to wipe them on his shirt. “No. No word from the Sheriff on that.”

  “But everything is…fine?”

  “Everything is fine.”

  I gaze surreptitiously around the crematorium. There is no sign of Amanda. None of my clothes or shoes. Even the bedding I gave her is missing.

  Everything is not fine.

  She’s gone.

  My hands clench into fists. I have to do something. I have to find Amanda. I promised to help her, and I need to fulfill that promise.

  “I’m gonna go down the road. To see Renee.” My voice is low, halting, as if the content of the lie is leaking out.

  “Okay,” my dad says, distractedly, as he sorts cardboard containers. “Make sure that you have Garth drive you there. I don’t want you out wandering by yourself since it’s getting dark.”

  I mumble something that he seems to take as assent, and then I flit out the door. Raindrops pepper my face. The clouds are low and darkening, and night is swiftly falling, chased by the storm that I know is coming. Somewhere in the distance, I hear thunder.

  I circle around the back of the crematorium. Still no sign of Amanda.

  I remember that I found her near the creek last time. I head in that direction, the wind tearing all the flat-ironing from my hair and stuffing wet curls in my mouth. The rain drives through my shirt, pressing it to my body. I squeeze my hands into my sleeves, trying to at least keep my fingers dry.

  “Amanda,” I call softly into the darkness. “It’s me, Charlie.”

  No answer.

  “Amanda. Please…come back. Don’t go.”

  In a flash of lightning, I see the outline of a figure beside the creek. A flush of relief crawls over my face as I rush toward it.

  “Amanda, I—”

  The words die on my lips. It’s not Amanda.

  The figure turns toward me with black eyes. His face is sunken, and he’s wearing camouflage, like a hunter, with an orange safety cap. I know that it’s not Travis—too fresh. I don’t think it’s Jesse, but it’s dark and I never paid much attention to Jesse except for an obituary photo showing him, shirtless, in a ball cap. The beer in his hand was cropped out. All I can do is fixate on those teeth bared at me, hissing. It’s inhuman.

  I stumble backward, sucking in my breath. “Oh Jesus Christ.”

  The creature lunges at me.

  I run. I get a good ten yards away when I hear a loud thumping noise, almost like a wet sock full of rocks hitting a tree. I turn, gaping at the scene illuminated before me in lightning.

  Amanda is standing before the toothy figure, beating him with a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. Soggy leaves shake from the branch as she pummels him. She turns on her heel like a softball playe
r and gives him a tremendous whack. The ghoul goes tumbling down the bank.

  “Amanda!” I shout.

  She sees me, takes off running. Her hair is plastered to her head like a helmet, her eyes wide. “We’ve got to hide from him, he’s—”

  The ghoul clambers up over the bank, growling as he does so. He lurches toward us.

  He’s not going to give up, and I can’t lead him to the house. Not to my family. I veer toward the road, thinking that we might be able to lead him away…

  He follows.

  Amanda and I race through the field, but he’s fast. His orange cap bobs in the blackness, and he’s gaining on us. That’s all I can see—the rest of his camo clothes fade into the background.

  A deafening crack rends the air. My hair stands up on end, and I let loose a shriek. A telephone pole splinters in two, a shower of blue sparks erupting as it goes down, dragging the wires with it.

  I shove Amanda hard, across a ditch. I taste mud and something metallic and something burnt. I glance up at the sizzling wires. I freeze. The electricity crackles all around me, shimmering like a living thing.

  “Oh god,” Amanda breathes.

  The hunter looms over us, reaching for the wires. Blue flames leap from the wires to his hands. With a boom, he’s driven back, beyond my peripheral vision.

  My fingers flex in the mud. Beneath me, Amanda whimpers, “Oh, shit.”

  I slowly lift my head. There’s only one wire remaining, like a lone viper, stretched across the ditch near my feet. With excruciating slowness, I draw my feet out without touching the wire, and crawl forward in the trench until I can pull my head and shoulders up to survey the damage.

  “Is he still there?” Amanda asks. I hear her clawing her way in the mud behind me.

  The body of the hunter is lying about twenty feet from us, motionless and on fire. The rain pelts the blue-red flames on his body but doesn’t put them out.

  I slowly advance on the body. Every fiber of my being is telling me to run, but I have the same feeling I did when I was twelve and there was a wolf spider the size of my hand in my bed. I know that I have to kill it, to be safe. I reach down to pick up a piece of smoking, broken wood to bludgeon him with. Some part of me registers that it’s absurd that I don’t feel I need to do this same thing to Amanda.