Bad Man_A Novel

by Dathan Auerbach

  The front doors rumbled as Ben pried them apart. Wind hurled icy rain into Ben’s face. Light from the store’s windows fought its way into the dark but succumbed quickly. Ben squinted and ran in alternating directions in front of the store calling for his brother, despite knowing in some meaningless, cognitive way that they’d be long gone by now.

  Because Ben had given them a head start. How long? Two days. It couldn’t be more than that. What did you say? He jogged into the emptiness of the parking lot. What had Ben said when he’d called? What had he told “Joyce”? Think. Had he mentioned Beverly’s house? What had he said? Ben gripped the sides of his head and again screamed Eric’s name into the air.

  She had a head start. A big one. How fast could Beverly move with a struggling boy? And for how long? He didn’t know the answers to those questions. But he knew where. He knew that much.

  He stepped into the grass that bordered the parking lot and again screamed his brother’s name. More steps now. Just a few more. He needed to call the police. How much time would that waste? How long would he spend trying to convince Duchaine or some deputy? He didn’t even know Beverly’s address.

  The sky howled and spat in Ben’s face.

  But he’d find the house. By God, he would find it. Ben felt a current surge through his body, as if lightning had reached out to touch him. His legs fired like old pistons that ached from years of neglect. His body heaved with each step, steps that carried him deeper into the curtaining rain.

  I can fix this, Ben thought. I can fix everything.

  Somewhere in the distance, lightning lit the sky on fire, and it screamed in pain.

  55

  Ben ran next to the tree line, his feet pounding into the spongy earth. How far had they walked, him and Marty? Each opening in the bush called to Ben. Lightning flashed too quickly to be of any use. His feet slid in the shallow mud. Several times Ben ducked into the trees, only to be pushed back by them. When he finally came upon a void large enough to be a passage, he took it. Congested with branches and vines, the artery squeezed and tore, snagged and stabbed. This wasn’t the same path. Ben pushed his body through and called for his brother. The sky seemed to answer with a roar, and then all at once it opened up.

  The sound of the rainfall in the trees was deafening. Ben wiped water away from his face and pulled his shirt free of branches and thorns. A lingering throb coursed through Ben’s hands, accented by the sting of new thorns as Ben continued to beat back the forest. His eyes peered half lidded through the tangled snares, slamming shut and pinching tightly when poked or scraped by the defending trees. At last, the tunnel opened up, and Ben searched for a landmark that might indicate that he was on the right path. But there was nothing.

  The sky cracked and burst with light and sound. The tip of Ben’s shoe caught on something hard. Tree bark dug and pulled against Ben’s grasping hand. Ben hit the mud with a whimper and then pulled himself back up.

  “Eric!” he yelled. “Eric, where are you?” His words fell apart. He shouldn’t yell. Whatever Beverly’s plan had been—changing the number, writing notes in her own file, the moonchild—she couldn’t have known that Ben would find that room. She didn’t know he was coming.

  But neither did Eric. And he needed to.

  Again the sky bellowed. Ben cradled his side, which stabbed with a cramp. The sound of rain played on, like a radio tuned to the wrong frequency. His chest heaved, lungs quivered. Doubled over, Ben dug his palms into his knees and wheezed.

  “Eric!” Ben screamed.

  The wind was so loud that Ben nearly missed what whispered on it.

  “Olly olly oxen freeeee!”

  Ben tried to yell again as he ran toward the sound, but his throat was choked. He’d heard it. That had been real. That had been Eric.

  Even as the rain slackened, Ben’s path was not any clearer. His shouts were ignored or unheard. The thunder rolled faintly in the distance, carried off by some traveling clouds. Water spattered against Ben’s head and shoulders, falling not from the sky, but from the crooked trees above. More clouds loomed overhead, as dark and enveloping as the sky beyond them. Not spent but resting.

  Ben felt dizzy, and his throat stung as he gasped in air. He winced at the stabbing pain in his chest, and his legs shook uncertainly underneath him as he walked a path that he found indistinguishable from all the others.

  “Where—” he rasped, and hacked. “Where are you?”

  Rich odors of mud and bark wafted into his nostrils as he breathed as quietly as he could, waiting for a reply that didn’t come. Bracing himself on each trunk he passed, Ben trudged through the muck and grasped vines. Please, he thought, as he shambled along a path. Please be real. Please be real.

  Each step was a concerted effort to keep walking. Ben wasn’t even trying to run now. His movements were slow and plodding. Blinding currents of pain cracked from knee to hip. He leaned his shoulder against a large pine, then slid down with his back against the bark. Shivering, Ben plied his leg with his thumbs and the heels of his hand, but the usual relief refused to come. There was only agony.

  Sobbing quietly, Ben picked at a couple spears of pine straw, splitting them from their sheaths and letting them fall to the damp earth between his knees. Only now did Ben have time to feel the full gravity of his mistake. He hadn’t called anyone. But there was still time. He could still fix this. If he could make it back to town, he could call for help. Pressing his back against the tree, Ben struggled to his feet.

  Water sheeted off the face of his watch as Ben wiped his index finger across it. He pressed a button, and the Indiglo light told him that dawn was still a few hours away. He made a halfhearted attempt to orient himself, then began walking.

  He locked his knee and walked as he had when he first started moving under his own power after his accident. Each trunk became a waist to stumble into, each limb an outstretched arm. Ben hardly noticed when the rain started again. It came without fury, whipping only in occasional gusts of wind. Slowly and painfully, his foot swept the leaves at the end of his useless leg. Just focus on the squeaking hinge, the whining brace. Just imagine the sound and concentrate on that.

  Ben wasn’t sure how far he’d traveled, but he knew that he’d been moving for about two hours. Every few minutes, sometimes every few steps, he’d have to brace himself against a tree to take some of the weight off his leg. He tried making a crutch from a long stick, but the insides were soft with rot and it crumbled beneath his weight. Leaning against the rough bark of an evergreen, he searched the ground for a sturdier branch.

  As he knelt, something moved in his peripheral, and he turned his head to meet it. The boy peered into the distance through his golden hair as he crept from around the tree. Frozen, Ben watched the boy take a step forward with delicate, careful feet.

  Ben cleared his throat to speak. The boy jerked, turning on his heels and losing his balance in the mud. He looked at Ben with wide, fiery eyes as Ben grabbed him by the arm.

  Ben studied the boy’s face: his pointed nose, his high, sharp cheekbones. His blond hair.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Ben said. “You…You’re the kid…the kid from Halloween. Beverly’s grandson.”

  Rain pattered against leaves and dirt. The boy’s mouth moved as if to speak but shut in silence.

  “It was you,” Ben said, slackening his grip in shock. “You were with my brother. My brother, Eric.”

  The boy’s amber eyes glowed vibrantly for a moment. Ben felt the boy’s arm slipping from his grip. He tightened his fist.

  “Is he alive?” Ben demanded. The boy nodded, and Ben felt so weak he almost let the child go. “Do you know where he is? Where Beverly’s house is at?” Again, the boy nodded. “Show me, okay?” Ben tried to calm his voice. “Show me, please.”

  The boy walked and Ben followed.

  “Did she take you? Did she take you too?” The boy
said nothing, but Ben’s questions were so frantic that he hardly left time for an answer. “Is it far?” Ben waited longer this time, and the boy nodded.

  They walked in silence for a while. The boy didn’t speak or even look at Ben. He didn’t look at much at all, for that matter—never seeming to consult his surroundings, walking as if he could see right through the trees and the night itself. Each time Ben asked if they were headed in the right direction, the boy simply nodded. Ben stopped asking when they passed the mangled car.

  Faintly, the moonlight glistened on the thick mud of the woodland floor. Driving deep pockets into the earth, Ben pulled himself through the sticky ground. The boy walked more easily, his steps lighter and almost effortless; it was as if he walked on an invisible platform just above the unsteady, waterlogged earth. He hardly left any trail at all, but it was there. And although it was hard to see, Ben recognized the zagging pattern from a lifetime ago, when he had shattered a rancid jar of mayonnaise.

  “Did you…did you put that flyer in my locker?” Ben asked.

  Again, the boy nodded. But this time he turned and smiled.

  Beverly must have made the boy tear down Eric’s flyers, and the boy had reached out to Ben for help. And now here he was. Now they could help each other.

  “When we get there,” Ben said, lifting the boy over a fallen branch and then stepping clumsily over it himself, “you’re going to run and get help, okay? Do you know how to get back to town?” Again, the boy dipped his chin. “You’re gonna tell them where to go and who I am. My name’s Ben. Ben. Can you remember that?” The boy nodded.

  “What’s your name?”

  The boy turned his blazing eyes back toward Ben and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Don’t you got a name?”

  Ben tightened his grip on the back of the boy’s shirt. As he pulled the fabric, he could see the tangled knot of the twine necklace resting against his spine.

  “Did you live with Eric? In that room in the store?” The boy bobbed his head slowly. “Did she treat him okay?” Ben’s words caught in his throat. The boy did not answer. “Did she hurt him?” The boy shook his head. “Can’t you talk?” Ben said with subdued frustration.

  “Yes.”

  Then fucking talk, Ben thought. Damp leaves and clumps of fallen pine straw scattered in the wake of Ben’s shifting feet. “It’s gonna be okay,” Ben said through chattering teeth. “I don’t want you to worry about what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna be fine. She’s not even gonna see you, okay?” The boy nodded.

  Periodically, Ben tugged on the boy’s shirt, reining him in like a horse who moved too fast. Too gradual to notice as it happened, the path had started widening and the ground grew to be made more of grass than dead leaves and branches. The trees thinned until Ben and the boy were nearly free from them altogether. Ben struggled against his leg and the slope of the land, pushing against damp bark whenever he had the chance.

  The boy’s shirt slipped from Ben’s fist. Lunging, Ben called out for him to stop, but was cut short by the buckling of his leg. He panted, kneeling in the soft dirt. After a few steps the boy stopped and looked back, waiting. Ben stifled a yelp as the pain in his leg spiked, and he closed the distance to his guide. The boy’s eyes blazed as he extended an arm behind himself, pointing.

  In the distance, beyond the scattered trees and their beards of Spanish moss, was a home. It was almost impossible to see, tucked safely in the consuming night, save for the flat shine of a window. It was Beverly’s home.

  “Okay.” Ben’s voice was strained as he knelt in front of the boy. “Which way is town? Alright, you go that way, and you don’t stop. You don’t stop for nothin. There’s a restaurant.” Ben checked his watch. “The Finer Diner. Do you know what I’m talking about? Okay, you go there and you use their phone. If they’re not open, you break a window. The cops won’t care. Don’t stop for nothin, and don’t come back here even if the cops try to make you. You got it?” Ben exhaled heavily and struggled to his feet. His eyes fell back on the boy’s. “Does she know I’m coming?”

  Chewing on the inside of his cheek, the boy nodded.

  Ben turned back toward the house. Leaves rustled quietly under the boy’s gentle steps. “Thank you,” Ben called in a loud whisper, just as the boy was about to slip into the darkness.

  “You’re wuh-welcome,” the boy replied.

  56

  Ben wobbled slightly on his numb legs as he made his way down the hill, his body sure of its footing only when the vibration of each step carried up to his torso. The sound of the wind chime drifted through the air as Ben limped down the hill, his stomach in knots. He had a bad taste in his mouth.

  The steps had moaned when he climbed them with Marty, but they seemed to be too bloated with water to make any noise this time. Wind howled through the trees and around the house. The metal edges of the window screen that Marty had removed jostled lightly against the wet wood. Ben’s whole body quaked with nerves and cold.

  Gently, he turned the doorknob. It was unlocked.

  The smell of old dust and mildew filled Ben’s nose as he entered the void of the house. Ben crept with delicate steps into a home so dark it was as if only his peripheral had any vision left at all. Shadows danced in the corners of the room and then fled from his pupils. Ben knew he was standing in the living room, but only by memory. The coffee table, the chairs, the armoire—everything was buried under black. Ben groped at the air with damp hands and pulled himself through the darkness deeper into the house.

  He stood in each doorway, squinting into the black boxes that made up the house, searching for movement, but finding only its illusion—the swirling dark that writhed only in his eyes.

  In the kitchen, Ben cupped his hands against the window but could see only gyres of windblown rain. The lantern that was hanging next to the door squeaked as he lifted it from its hook and eyed the carbonized wick. He fumbled through the drawers. Can openers and wooden skewers. Rags and papers. Finally, his fingers brushed against something rough. The box rattled as he shook it. Two matches tumbled out of the package; one rolled against the side of his hand and then was lost.

  The remaining match lit on the third strike, and Ben hurried it to the thirsty wick. His eyes gorged themselves too quickly as the flame burst to life and squinted in reflex. Dust floated like snowflakes in the stale air, rolling and swarming in the wake of the swinging lantern. Ben nearly screamed when he caught his own reflection in the window.

  The house cracked against the wind. “Eric?” Ben whispered, turning and raising the light above his head as he moved back into the hallway. Ben’s hand trembled as the lantern light filled the bedroom. The sheets were made. A chill swept across Ben’s neck and he backed into the hallway. As he turned toward the opposite bedroom, the light washed over the living room.

  He nearly dropped the lantern when he saw Beverly. She sat motionless in a tattered chair, the same chair Marty had thought he’d seen her in. She hadn’t been here. Not then. But as Ben stared at the woman, her eyes fixed toward the dirty window in front of her, he thought that none of that meant that Marty hadn’t seen her. No, Ben felt sure that the emptiness of the house had been the illusion.

  A deep, ratcheting breath rumbled from her throat. “You shouldn’t have come here,” she said flatly. “Ain’t nothing for you here.”

  She looked like a doll a child had arranged. Her head bobbed erratically. Her hands shook. The harsh light was unkind to her ancient face; shadows drew deep trenches in the wrinkles of her saurian skin. Her eyes seemed to seek the darkness of her skull, retreating from the lantern into dark pockets, flashing only at the occasional swing of the lamp. Each breath rolled loudly in her chest. She stifled a cough and hacked into a lace handkerchief.

  “Eric!” Ben shouted.

  “He can’t hear you.”

  Ben ignored her. “Eric! Tell me where you are!�
��

  The windows rattled as he stormed back into the hallway. He checked the other rooms again. Every drawer. Every creaking cabinet. He screamed his brother’s name so many times it began to lose its meaning. When he paced back into the room Beverly occupied, she was looking at her watch.

  “You look so stupid.” Beverly leaned back in her chair, folding her handkerchief. Her head trembled around her motionless eyes.

  Ben could feel the blood rushing to his face. The house shook as he stormed toward the old woman. Her lips curled back as she recoiled in the chair. Ben caught her by the wrist. It was thin and cold, her skin draped loosely over her bones. “Take me to him.”

  “No,” Beverly said.

  Ben squeezed, staring into her jaundiced eyes. He squeezed just a little, just enough that he could feel her bones start to bend toward one another like the thin walls of a tube of toothpaste.

  Beverly gritted her teeth. “Alright!” she sneered at Ben. “Alright.”

  Ben’s hand loosened and slid away before being snatched up again by Beverly’s.

  “Help me up, then.”

  The woman groaned; her crooked spine contorted her torso, while the swinging light shined on her weathered face. The two walked in single file down the narrow hallway. Ben had to take half-steps behind the old woman. One of her shoulders hung lower than the other, and she would occasionally brace it with her hand. A deep purple was bleeding into her papery skin where Ben had grabbed her.

  The wind moaned against the roof while the windows flexed, returning reflections like fun-house mirrors. With her good arm, Beverly reached for the kerosene lantern. When Ben refused, the woman rolled her eyes, then grabbed for an old umbrella leaning against the wall near the back door. Again, Ben said no.

  “I’m sick, you moron. I ain’t goin out there without this.”

  They walked out of the house and into the rain.

  Beverly shuffled slowly in the grass, angling the umbrella against the wind. Ben scrunched his face unconsciously at the cold spray. He looked at the back of Beverly’s head and the blue veins traveling down her neck like the tentacles of a jellyfish.