by Brian Hodge
When he regained consciousness, he was lying on clean sheets on a jail cell cot. His face and hands burned from cuts and bruises, and his shoulders felt like they would never move right in their sockets again. The inside of his mouth felt like most of it had died. It tasted that way, anyway. He swam up to awareness like a diver who has run out of air too many feet below the surface and has already given up hope of ever re-surfacing. It hurt his cracked lips to do so, but he groaned as he opened his eyes to a slitted squint.
"You had quite a fall there, Mr. Wood," said the smiling policeman who was standing at the foot of his bed.
Woody formed the words, "Fuck you," but wasn't able to say them. The face looming above him was lost in a watery blur.
"Your lawyer got the Assistant D.A. to get you released," the policeman said gently. "As soon as you're able to move, you can collect your things at the front desk and leave."
"Fuck you," he finally muttered, surprised that he could speak at all. It sounded like he'd said, "Fug ohh."
He made one feeble attempt to get up, but his arms—especially his shoulders—couldn't bear his weight, so he slumped back down with a sigh and let himself drift off.
As he drifted back into unconsciousness, his only coherent thought was that his tax dollars were paying for this shit-hole, so he'd stay where he was just as long as he pleased. Then he had another coherent thought that once he did get out of here, he was going to sue the pants off the Portland Police Department.
4
"I was watching that!" Marty shouted. He grabbed the remote control from Kip and clicked the T.V. back to the show he was watching. Marty sank back into the couch with a look of mean satisfaction on his face.
"Get bent," Kip muttered, casting a glance at his father, then slamming his hand onto his history textbook. The notebook that rested open on his lap started to slip to the floor, but he quickly snatched it back up.
Bill was sitting at the telephone table by the kitchen door where he had been for the last hour or more. He'd had several calls back and forth with the Chief of the Portland Police, but it had finally taken a call from Ken Altschuler, the assistant D.A., to get Woody released.
No charges relating to Officer Doyle's assault were being pressed. Not yet, anyway. The assault charge on Suzie, of course, was still pending, but blackjacking a cop from behind was a bit more serious. Bill hoped Woody hadn't been involved, but his instincts told him he was. Still—so far, anyway—it was circumstantial. If he got lucky or if he got Sidney Sr. any madder, he just might lose a client, which wouldn't exactly hurt his feelings.
This, Bill vowed as he dialed Sidney Wood's number, will be my last call of the night. He would tell Sidney that his son was out and would be home soon. Hopefully, that would calm him down at least enough so he wouldn't have a coronary before morning. On second thought...
"I can't get any work done with that—" Kip almost said shit but caught himself after glancing at his father. They'd just finished an intense "third-degree," as Kip called them, about his math test grade. "With that on."
"I suppose you want to watch The Brady Bunch or something," Marty said, using a singsong voice he knew bugged Kip. For extra measure, he hit the volume button and the T.V. got louder.
"You're dog-squeeze, you know that?" Kip said. He looked again at his father, hoping he had noticed the increased sound and would say something, but he had turned his face to the wall and continued talking with his free hand covering his ear.
"Listen, Kippy-boy," Marty said, not even bothering to look away from the T.V. "The reason you've got a desk in your room is so you can do your homework up there. You can't take over the living room, you know."
"Well, neither can you," Kip said. He slammed his book shut, closed his notebook, and hoisted himself out of his chair. He was going to go straight upstairs to his room, but he veered toward the T.V. and popped it off with his elbow on the way by. The screen went blank, and the sound dropped like a stone falling down into a deep well.
"Jerk," Marty snarled as he bolted from the couch. He practically flew through the air and hit Kip with a solid flying tackle. The remote control, still in Marty's hand, grazed the side of Kip's face as he fell to the floor, hitting the carpet with a heavy thud.
"You don't want to live long enough to collect Social Security, do you?" Marty said. He was crouching over his brother, pinning him to the floor with both hands.
At least so far his hands aren't free to hit me, Kip thought through his fear of what was going to happen next.
What did happen next was they both heard the steady tread of their father's shoes on the carpet. Looking up, they saw their father glaring at them, his arms folded across his chest.
"I wish to God you two would stop acting like two-year-olds," Bill said, clenching his hands in frustration. "I can't leave you two alone for five minutes before you're pounding on each other."
"I didn't start it," Marty said as he slowly got up and brushed his knees. "Jerk-off here turned off what I was watching."
"He started it," Kip whined. "He changed the station on me." Rolling onto his side, he got his legs underneath him and stood up slowly, testing to see if anything was hurt. He wasn't hurt much, but the fall had reawakened the pain from his accident earlier that day.
"Look here," Bill said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "I've had one hell of a day, and I really don't need this."
"Neither do I," Kip said. "I was just trying to do my homework, and he—"
"Yeah. Right."
"Just shut up!" Kip shouted, glaring at Marty. Then he turned to his father and said, "It's not fair. He comes in here and blasts the T.V. when I was here first."
"He can do his homework in his room," Marty said, sounding nothing but reasonable. "He can't expect life to stop just because he's doing his homework."
"Your brother's right, Kip. This is the living room, not your private area." Kip looked at him sullenly. "And how about your homework?" Bill asked, turning to Marty. "You must have something to do."
These brotherly squabbles were so routine by now that Bill had given up long ago trying to determine who really started them. He saw the irony—him, a lawyer, unable to settle petty differences between his boys while handling legal cases involving divorce or robbery or, thank God not too often, worse.
But after a week at the office, especially a week that involved working for Sidney Wood, all he wanted this weekend was a little peace and quiet. If that meant Kip sitting in his bedroom doing homework and Marty taking off for the evening with his friends, then that's the way it goes.
"I... uh, I didn't have any homework," Marty said, hoping his father wouldn't see through so transparent a lie. "The teachers all said they were gonna give us a break 'cause summer vacation's so close."
"Bull!" Kip snapped. "You were complaining about the research paper you had due in hist—"
"Shuddap," Marty snarled, clenching his fist and shaking it under Kip's nose.
Bill stood there, stroking his chin and looking back and forth between the boys.
"My paper's not due 'til Thursday," Marty said.
"Have you started it?" Bill asked.
Marty glanced down at the floor. "Not yet," he said softly.
"My advice to you, Mart, is to get your butt in gear. Spend a little time every day on it so the night before it's due, you won't have to stay up all night."
Kip was grinning now that Marty was taking some grief, but his smile melted when his father turned to him with a trace of a scowl on his brow. "And my advice to you, Kipper, is stop antagonizing your brother. Judging by that math test today, I'd say you could spend a little extra time studying quietly in your room."
"But—" he began to say I was here first again but decided better of it.
"Go up to your room and study," Bill said, keeping his voice firm. "I'll call you down when supper's ready." Kip scooped up his books and trudged upstairs. He was boiling mad at his brother, and with each heavy step on the
stairs, he imagined Marty's face beneath his feet, getting the good hard grinding it deserved.
But he was also—well, not really mad at his father. More like disappointed. It seemed as though more and more he took Marty's side in things. It just wasn't fair. Whenever they had a scuffle, no matter how large or small, it seemed like his dad was a little bit too fair handing down the sentence.
Sure, sometimes Kip would say or do something just to get his brother going. He tried like a demon sometimes to set Marty up for a fall, and if that meant a few tears from time to time, the result was usually worth it. But it seemed as though his dad always took Marty's side, and he was getting sick and tired of taking it from both of them.
But it didn't matter because he had a plan. He couldn't help thinking about it as he went up the stairs and down the hallway to his bedroom. He kicked the door shut, wishing there was a lock on his door so he could make sure no one came in and bothered him. He flung his books onto the desk, almost knocking over his study lamp, and looking fitfully at the shut door, got down on his hands and knees beside the bed.
Crouching low, he fished under the bed until he found what he sought. It was funny how, even last year, he had been so afraid—especially at night—of what might be lurking under the bed. He couldn't remember when he had first gotten the idea. It was probably something Marty had told him, but for a long time he had been convinced there was something under his bed.
Something... or somethings.
Even now, when he tucked in at night, he was careful never to let his hands or feet hang over the side of the bed. As long as he kept everything under the covers, he was safe. It was only if a hand or a foot hung over the side that he was in danger. Then whatever was under the bed would snag hold of him and ever so slowly—just so he could really feel the terror—pull him kicking and screaming under the bed. Then in darkness thicker than night he would be torn to pieces. In the morning, when his father couldn't find him anywhere, at least Marty would be happy that he had disappeared.
And that was Kip's plan.
He was going to disappear.
He had been planning for nearly six months and stockpiling what he needed. Now, with less than a week left of school, he was actually ready to do it. Under his bed, he had a nylon tent, a down-filled sleeping bag, plenty of changes of clothes, and enough dehydrated food and camping equipment so he could stay out in the woods all summer if he had to. And as soon as school was out, that's what he planned to do. If he pulled this off, his dad was going to be really sorry he didn't see his side of things a little more. If he stayed away long enough, maybe even Marty would be sorry.
"No way... Not him," Kip whispered as he pulled the well-stuffed backpack out from under the bed. It made a soft, hissing noise as it slid across the floorboards. Kip stiffened, thinking the hissing might have been something else... another sound. Thick blackness swirled in his mind. Sweat broke out across his forehead.
Kip scooted backwards away from the bed, drawing his backpack with him. His eyes were locked on the swaying edge of the bedspread. The white fringe rippled back and forth, and Kip tried hard to convince himself that the motion was just from him pulling out the backpack.
There wasn't—there couldn't be anything else under there making the bedspread move.
He sat back on his heels, staring at the bedspread until every bit of motion stopped. His throat had closed down to what felt like pencil-thinness. He needed a drink of water, but then realized he shouldn't leave his bedroom. He was supposed to be doing his homework.
It was difficult opening the Velcro fasteners without making loud noises, so Kip disguised the sound with a sharp cough every time he tore one open. Then he scooped the entire contents out onto the floor. He thought he had done this a hundred times before, but now—as the end of school approached—it felt different. He silently inventoried the clothes, food, cooking utensils and camping tools he had so carefully accumulated. It was all there, and as far as he could tell, he had everything except for one last item.
"Marty's knife," Kip whispered, casting a nervous glance at his closed door.
Marty had what Kip considered the most incredible knife he had ever seen. Six inches of honed, tempered Swiss steel sheathed in a nut-brown, hand-tooled leather scabbard. The handgrip was rippled to fit your hand like a glove. The blade, so shiny Kip suspected he could start a fire just by glancing the sunlight off it, was a modified, slimmer version of the famous Bowie knife.
Kip knew something about Bowie knives because his dad had found Marty's knife and, upon inspecting it, had told them both about one of his childhood heroes, Davy Crockett, and how Davy had fought and died at the Alamo along with Jim Bowie in one of history's famous "last stands."
Kip also knew that his dad had told Marty he was never to take that knife out of the house, and he knew where Marty kept the knife, supposedly hidden from him. But Kip had found it a long time ago and had made plans to... well, not steal it, exactly, just "borrow" it when he ran away. Kip was smart enough to leave it where it was until the night before he took off.
And that would be within a week.
Then, he thought, they'll both be sorry. His father—always too busy with this case or that case, always trying to see both sides, even when Marty had started and finished everything—would be sorry. And Marty—always teasing him and beating up on him, always stretching his imagination to concoct some new torment and telling Kip he wished he had died instead of their mother—even Marty would be sorry.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs made Kip jump and as fast and silently as he could, scoop the stuff back into the backpack. He knew from the sound in the hallway that it was Marty, and he knew when he got to his door he would hear—
"Knock, knock," Marty called out as he banged on Kip's bedroom door. "Is the wimp home?"
Frantic that Marty would open the door, Kip shoved the backpack under the bed—so hard he thought it came out the other side.
"Get the heck outta here!" Kip yelled, hoping his voice would carry to wherever his father was downstairs. "I'm busy!"
"Busy pulling your little weenie?" Marty said, his voice cackling slightly.
"Eat me!"
Another, heavier hammer blow fell on the door, making it shake. As Kip got up slowly from the floor, one of his knees popped. His breath burned in his lungs as he waited for the door to open.
"Don't give me any of your bullshit," Marty said softly. "You'll be sorry if you do."
Kip could tell that Marty's face was close to the door, and he imagined the damage he could do if his door swung out instead of in. Tiptoeing over to his desk, he opened his notebook, then slid out the chair and sat down.
"Leave me alone or I'm gonna tell Dad," he said.
"I'm gonna tell Dad-d-d," Marty mimicked in an irritating singsong voice.
"You're a real peckerhead, you know that?" Kip said, but he said it so softly enough so Marty wouldn't hear.
"You say something?"
Kip picked up a pencil and squeezed it so tightly his knuckles turned white, and his hand began to shake. You're gonna be sorry all right, he thought as his anger bubbled inside him like lava. Even if it's only because your precious knife's missing, you're gonna be sorry.
"I said, go away," Kip shouted. He raised his clenched fist over his head and brought the pencil down as hard as he could, point first, onto his notebook. The wood shattered, and the lead point shot off and hit the far wall. A hole the size of a small caliber bullet was centered in the middle of his notebook page.
Tears stung Kip's eyes, and he blinked rapidly, trying to hold them back, but to no avail. Glistening streaks ran down both cheeks, and salty drops hit the desk like rain.
You'll be sorry! his mind screamed, and the scream echoed down into the swirling darkness deep in his mind.
5
The sun set early this time of year behind Eagle Hill, and as Gail Fleischer paused from raking her lawn and looked up at the last tinges of orange fading from the trees, a chi
ll much too cold for this warm day made her shoulders shake. Leaning on her lawn rake, she wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her work glove.
Barkley was doing his best to scatter the leaves she had pulled into a pile. He had a large stick in his mouth and was shaking it low to the ground. Twigs and last year's browned maple leaves flew everywhere.
"Hey! Come on! Cut it out!" Gail yelled. She made a dash toward the dog, but he thought she meant to play and growled deep in his throat before darting to one side. Then he barked loudly and began running a wide circle around her.
It wasn't long before Gail gave up the chase. At least here, unlike in Springfield, she didn't have to stuff the leaves into Hefty bags and have them hauled away. There was a wide, shallow gully behind her house, and she could just scoop everything—leaves, branches and all—down into it. Out of sight, out of mind, she figured. So what if Barkley made a mess. Out here, who was going to notice or care?
The sky was a deepening blue and all around her the night sounds of the woods swelled. A few spring peepers still chimed in the swamp down the road, their shrill singing now drowned out by the lower, bass tones of bull frogs. Night birds called to each other in the gathering darkness, and from far off came the low, ruffling hoot of an owl.
Gail took a deep breath and let it out slowly, appreciating the calm surrounding her. This was exactly what she had imagined living in Maine would be like, and it irritated her that she couldn't shake a feeling of uneasiness that stirred deep within her.
Maybe, she thought as another shiver ran up her back, maybe it had something to do with the dream she'd had the other night. Just before dawn, she had awakened, bathed in sweat because she had seen—dreamed—a face... several faces, peering at her through her first floor bedroom window.
The transition from dreaming to wakefulness had been vague, and in the eerie early dawn, even when she swung her feet to the chilly floor and walked over to the window, she had been surrounded by a sense of unreality.
