Bad Man_A Novel

by Dathan Auerbach

  “Kids and grown-ups screamin at me or each other or themselves or nothin or everything.”

  Reggie’s mouth trembled. “And I know,” he said, shuddering, “I know you wanna say, ‘That’s called a hospital, Reg.’ But it weren’t. Some of them kids was just kids. Just regular kids. Put in that place…Put into rooms that was too big, made for bunkin together.

  “There was this boy. Oh, goddamnit. There was this little boy that was sent there. I seen him come in. When he first got there, ‘Yes, sir. No, sir,’ all the way. He was good. He was a good boy, and that place took him…” Reggie gnashed his teeth and mimed his hands as if he were crushing something resilient into a ball.

  “It was a rowdy place. A sick place with sick people. We did this thing at night, when it was time to sleep. We’d walk down the hallways sayin, ‘Night’s out! Lights out!’ while we flipped the switches off. ‘Night’s out! Lights out!’ Over and over. Got blacker than black in that place. They couldn’t see nothin. They’d start screamin. They’d all be screamin.

  “I worked there for a year and a half. I don’t know nobody from there. I ain’t seen nobody from there.”

  Ben tapped the book in Reggie’s lap. “Do you recognize that name there? Someone named Beverly?”

  “Did she work there?”

  “Do you recognize the name?”

  Reggie seemed to think for a moment, then shook his head. “And I don’t want to, okay? They weren’t all bad. The ones that lived there and the ones that worked there. They weren’t. But you can’t tell whoever you got this book from about me. You can’t do it. Please.”

  “I found it.”

  “Then you should leave it. For the life of me, I can’t imagine that anyone who had anything to do with that place would want to remember it. Don’t tell them about me, Ben. Please. Please.”

  “Okay, Reggie,” Ben said, standing. “I didn’t mean to…you didn’t do nothin.”

  Reggie sat in his chair, nodding silently to himself. “I chanted. That’s the only thing I did, and that’s too much. ‘Night’s out! Lights out!’ Jesus Christ.”

  Ben leaned carefully over Reggie, then gently pulled the book from the man’s tight hands.

  “You can’t take Frankie out there. You can’t do it.”

  “I won’t, Reggie,” Ben said. “I promise that I won’t.”

  Reggie sobbed behind him as Ben opened the door.

  Outside, the gray clouds made the day look older than it was. Ben climbed into the truck but didn’t start it. He opened the Bible and looked at Beverly’s name. Somewhere behind him, a man was laughing.

  In the rearview, Ben watched Frank smile in the middle of the street, shouting back through the window of the car that appeared to have dropped him off. His clothes were different. A uniform. Frank tapped the top of the car and walked up his driveway with light steps.

  He looked so happy. Ben wasn’t in the mood or condition to talk to Frank, and he knew that probably worked both ways. But Ben thought of Reggie, thought of Frank opening the door to his home and seeing his father unraveled in his favorite chair.

  The truck door squeaked open, and Ben lifted himself out of the seat. “Hey, Frank!” Ben shouted. His old coworker turned with a smile that became confused. Frank didn’t reply. He only waved. Then he went inside.

  And when the tuh-teeth chewed his legs off, the guh-good thing yelled for help. “Pleeease! Suh-someone!”

  But there was nuh-no one around to hear.

  And the bad man just sssmiled.

  47

  Ben could see the scar in the glass almost as soon as he entered the parking lot. It looked like a crystal spiderweb, thin lines radiating out like spokes from a central hub—a kind of fractal geometry that seduces the eye, simple shapes made elegant by their array. But really, it was just a great big crack in the store’s front door. A hole, actually, about the size of a baseball.

  It had been there for three days. From what Ben had been able to find out, it had appeared sometime between the time he dropped the papers off with his dad and when the store opened a few hours later. Palmer’s solution was to sit in his car at the back of the parking lot every night and wait for the vandal to return. Just knowing that the man was out there, breathing heavily and spying on the store, was close to the most annoying thing Ben could imagine.

  The store was in absolute shambles, like the aftermath of a Supermarket Sweep episode, only everyone in town had been a contestant. It was the kind of ruin that was going to take about a week of slow rebuilding between trucks to fix, just in time to be undone by whatever white hell awaited those aisles in the small remaining preamble to Christmas.

  Palmer had made no mention of any corresponding disarray in his office, no mention of Beverly’s file. Each time Ben had seen the man, he’d felt his body tense, ready for a confrontation that never came. Maybe Palmer was biding his time. Or maybe Ben had covered his tracks better than he thought.

  “Security to the front, please. Security to the front.” Chelsea’s voice floated from the intercom.

  Ben couldn’t help but grin. Chelsea had started asking him to walk her to her car. No threat of moonlight weirdos or toothless midnight panhandlers had ever done what Palmer’s still-dented BMW had.

  Ben slid the doors apart and stepped through them. He held his wrist in front of his waist and stood, back erect, scanning the parking lot like a bodyguard. Chelsea reached through the doors and shoved Ben’s shoulder.

  “Please be careful, ma’am. I am a weapon.”

  “Well, be a weapon away from the doors.”

  Ben moved forward an almost imperceptible amount.

  “Ben!” Chelsea laughed. Her breath on the back of his neck as she tried to push him out of the way was the best thing he’d ever felt. Still, he moved and pressed the doors back together.

  Most nights, they talked for only a few minutes, knowing that Palmer was watching them. Or maybe for other reasons too. It was hard for Ben to know. But this time, before Chelsea got into her car, she hugged him. And even though she lingered for a moment, Ben almost didn’t react in time, almost didn’t get his arms around her. But he did. He worried in those slow seconds that Palmer would flash his lights or honk his horn, but that didn’t happen. And Ben was glad for it. Glad until he thought of Palmer’s tape collection, thought of the couple at the deli cooler. But even that couldn’t spoil things. Not entirely.

  She pulled away, said that he was a real shit bodyguard, since someone could have just crept up behind him. Then she got in her car. Ben didn’t respond. He wasn’t even sure he said good night. He just smiled like a doofus and waved as she drove away.

  Inside, Ben’s feet moved inaudibly across the tiled floor. Above, the fluorescent tubes over every other aisle had been clicked off—an effort to mitigate some of the financial pressure created by Palmer finally having to turn the goddamn heater on. Ben had to squint his eyes to see some of the tags in the darker aisles. His peripheral was a playground. Phantom blurs and flashes teased him so much that Ben sometimes chased them through the store, followed them all the way to nothingness.

  But the empty feeling that Ben had felt for so long wasn’t there. That gray fog that enveloped him, the one that he could practically feel in his lungs, was gone. Ben could see through it, because he knew where to look. Because Ben had a plan.

  In a few days, Ben was going to borrow his father’s truck and drive to Alabama. He didn’t know where Blackwater School had been or maybe even still was, but he knew where the Blackwater River flowed. That might be good enough. Even if he needed to go farther north than the river itself, it was just a matter of talking to people.

  And maybe it was farther north. Maybe far enough that James Duchaine really didn’t know what the symbol was. But if there were records of any kind, or if he could find someone who knew more than Reggie, then maybe Ben could figure
out what in the holy hell was going on. How Palmer was involved with the school that wasn’t a school. What message Beverly was trying to deliver.

  Reggie had been terrified, reduced to a shaking child by just the thought of that place. So why the fuck was its logo scribbled on Eric’s flyer?

  “There’s something wrong with Beverly,” Marty had said—had screamed, actually—angry that Ben couldn’t see what he did. But if Beverly had anything to do with Eric or these games, then why would she draw the symbol? Marty didn’t see everything, didn’t see how Palmer looked at Ben. How much the man enjoyed firing Beverly.

  Then again, Marty had seen things that no one else had. Had seen Eric staring out from the summer trees, he said.

  Had seen the Blackwater Bible sitting on the table.

  And the golden boy vanishing into the sprawling woods.

  Ben tried to talk it out with himself, saying these things aloud as he worked as if he were telling himself a story. Each time the tale began to strain credulity, Ben would start over. He never seemed to finish.

  For the first time since he’d started working at the store, Ben started taking his breaks in the break room, and he didn’t like it. The room just felt sad to Ben. Hopeless. Where employees burned through their days in the store, even when they weren’t being paid for their time. But Ben let himself stew in the room because it was better than sitting outside, where Palmer could see.

  When the sun finally began creeping through the glass, Ben wrapped up his work, hauling a few half-pallets of old stock back into Receiving. He tossed some pieces of cardboard into the baler like he was flicking enormous playing cards into a monster’s mouth.

  He was alone, but it sure didn’t feel that way. It felt like he was back at the police station, sitting alone in a grim room, waiting for James Duchaine to come ask him more questions, staring at himself in a mirror while others stared through it.

  As Ben headed toward the front of the store, he realized that the anxiety he’d felt all night had abated. He didn’t want to see Palmer, but it was time for the man to show up. The anticipation was gone.

  Even the sight of Palmer oozing out of his smashed-up coupe didn’t faze Ben.

  But the sirens did.

  Cold water fell irregularly from the sky, the sun’s brilliance hoarded selfishly by dull clouds. A police cruiser whipped by, skidding audibly as it stopped at the intersection of the town and the nothing beyond it. The sirens shrieked and wailed, seemingly coming from all directions at once.

  Red and blue flashed like finale fireworks; sirens screeched like banshees carried by the power of their own voices. Five, no six police cars, still crying into the murky sky as they disappeared down the embankment. Wiping small drops of rainwater from his face, Ben turned toward Palmer and met the man’s gaze. Had this been what he’d been waiting all night for?

  His father’s truck bobbed violently as it made a harsh turn into the parking lot. The yellow headlights flashed as the truck careened toward Ben.

  With his father’s arm frantically pumping, the window lowered. Words flew like gnats from his cotton-white lips, his eyes still adhered to the horizon. “Get in! Get in the car!”

  “What is it, Pa? What the hell’s goin on?”

  “It’s Eric. They found Eric!”

  48

  The truck fishtailed as it turned too quickly from the lot and struggled to find traction in the damp earth. Ben’s shoulder thudded against the window. Bald tires screamed momentarily at a patch of gray asphalt before leaving it behind.

  Ben’s palms were tingling. He looked to his father, whose gawking eyes flitted wildly on the stretch of road ahead. The truck shook as it thundered over the craterous pavement, attempting to close the distance on the twinkling lights ahead of them.

  “They found him?”

  “What?” his father shouted over the roaring engine.

  “They found him?” Ben yelled.

  “I dunno.” He clenched his fists around the wheel. “Yeah. Well, someone saw him. Someone said so, anyways. Someone called the house.” Clint burned past a slow-moving tractor. “This morning. Phone woke me up. Next thing,” he grunted as he swerved to miss a pothole, “next thing I know the police are at the door.” He smiled uneasily through his beard. His eyes were tired and searching.

  “Does Deidra know?”

  “She’s the one who answered the phone.”

  Ben and his father rode white-knuckled down the dirt road. Both men scanned the terrain for an indication that they should stop. Finally, as they crested a hill, Ben saw several police cars parked on the right side of the road. Colorful lights strobed, but the air was quiet now, save for the shouts of the officers standing by the tree line. Among them stood Lieutenant James Duchaine, hands cupped around his mouth as he bellowed into the rustling trees. Ben clenched his jaw so hard that it hurt.

  “The man of the hour,” said Duchaine.

  “Is this it?” Clint panted as he jogged over. “Is this where he was?”

  “This is where dispatch sent us.” Noise crackled through Duchaine’s radio; he listened for a moment before lowering the volume.

  “Anything?” Ben’s father asked impatiently.

  “Not yet. Powell! Green! I said the other side!” He gestured dramatically across the road to the adjacent woods. “Deidra still at home? In case he makes his way back there?” Duchaine patted Clint’s shoulder as the man nodded.

  “What can we do?” Ben asked.

  “Call for him. He’ll hear your voices before any of ours.”

  And so they did. For the next two hours, Ben, his father, and half a dozen uniformed police officers shouted Eric’s name into every pocket of air that a human voice could touch. They called, but the only thing that answered them was the wind.

  It took Ben’s mind a long time to catch up, to fully confront what was happening. It felt almost like he was phasing through time, bouncing along his own life with each unsteady movement, each foot stepping into a different part. One step and he was fifteen, screaming into the endless trees. Another and he was older but still in the same goddamn place.

  Was this real? Three days ago, Ben had talked to Reggie about Blackwater School. The day before that, he’d broken into Beverly’s home. Before that, Palmer’s office. Twice. Before that and before that and before that and it never ended.

  Still, Ben screamed as loud as he could, so loud and ferociously that he worried his voice was no longer inviting.

  Duchaine leaned against a pine tree, jolted forward and checked the bark for sap, then reclined again. He took a swig from a large bottle of water and held it out in the direction of Ben and his father, who both declined. The sun burned a hole through the dark clouds and cast the forest in shadows.

  “Shouldn’t we have found something by now? Anything?” Clint said.

  Duchaine checked his watch, then looked off listlessly into the distance. “I dunno. What do you make of all this, Ben?”

  Weak echoes from faraway calls drifted through the branches. Duchaine spoke into his radio, and a garbled voice responded. Duchaine swished water around his teeth and then spit it into the dirt.

  “Alright then,” Duchaine said vaguely to the group, as he took the lead.

  Clint was breathing heavily. Duchaine offered him the water bottle again and smiled faintly when the man accepted.

  “No dogs this time either?” Ben asked.

  “No dogs.” Duchaine sighed, looking at the sun through the leaves and clouds until it overpowered his eyes.

  “I…” Ben started. “I got a drawing I been workin on. Of Eric a little older. If you think it’d help—”

  “How long after the call did we get here? Do you reckon we should have stopped sooner and then swept this way?” Clint asked.

  “Witness said they were traveling north, so we set up a bit north of that hop
ing to cut ’em off.”

  “They?” questioned Ben.

  “That’s what the witness said.” Duchaine glanced at Ben’s father and then at a notepad he slid out of his pocket. He read in a slightly mechanical cadence. “ ‘I seen the kid traveling north past the cotton, coming away from town on Bayou Boulevard. East side of the road. Him and a blond-headed boy.’ ”

  “Blond boy?” Ben’s stomach turned.

  Leaves and sticks crunched and cracked. Officer Duchaine headed in the sound’s direction. Ben and his father followed. Circumventing a tangle of draping vines, the three men emerged to see two more men walking in their direction. One was an officer unknown to Ben. Another was a man Ben hadn’t expected to see.

  “Jacob!” Ben called as he quickened his pace, lifting his legs high to avoid toppled tree limbs ensnared by coils of thorns. “Did you see him? Are you sure it was him?” Ben reached to shake his hand.

  “Sure as I can be. You find anything yet?” Jacob asked as he shook Ben’s father’s hand.

  “No. Nothing,” Ben replied. “You saw them around here?”

  “Well, they was headed this way, anyhow.”

  “How long between when you saw them and when you called?” Duchaine asked.

  “What about the blond kid?” Ben interjected.

  “Couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, thirty minutes.”

  “Why’d you wait so long?”

  “I ain’t got a phone in my truck, Lieutenant. I figured it’d take less time to drive to where I was goin and use the phone there than to drive all the way back home.”

  “And where were you going?”

  “I don’t see what that has to do—”

  “What about the blond kid?” Ben repeated.

  “I didn’t get a good look at him.”

  “But you got a good look at the other boy? At Eric?” Clint pressed.

  “Yessir.”

  “If you were heading in the same direction as them boys, then how’d you see their faces?” Duchaine asked. Even to Ben the attempt at nonchalance had failed.