by Brian Hodge
"You must've heard that Al's sister was in an accident last night," Woody said. "Too bad. I hope she's all right."
"Yeah, me, too," Marty said. Woody's mock concern angered him, but he knew it didn't pay to let Woody see your real feelings.
"Too bad," Woody said. His hand still rested on Marty's shoulder. The fingers tightened ever so slightly when he tried to twist away.
Marty shrugged and sucked on his Slushie straw. The orange liquid rattled, sounding like an asthmatic trying to catch his breath.
"That was one bitchin' car she had, too," Woody said, still smiling and showing the yellowed planes of his teeth. Marty had to stifle a laugh when he thought how much Woody looked like a degenerate beaver.
Side by side, the turned and started walking down Main Street, Woody directing Marty. It didn't surprise him that Woody thought more of the car than he did Suzie. He also couldn't avoid a twinge of guilt he felt for having started this whole mess with Al in the first place, but it had gone too far now for him to own up to it. Whatever Woody threatened to do or did do to Suzie was beyond his control now.
Woody abruptly let go of his shoulder and tagged right along beside Marty, walking on the outside of the sidewalk, keeping Marty between him and the buildings.
"You know," Woody said after they had walked a block in silence, "there was something of mine Suzie had that I kinda wanted back."
The Slushie felt like hot bile in Marty's stomach compared to the chill tingling his spine. He knew what was coming, and no amount of wishing he was someplace else right now, say Australia or China, was going to get him out of this.
"You know?" Marty said, aware that his voice was trembling. "That's between you and Suzie. I got nothing to do with it."
Again, Woody's hand clamped down on his shoulder, stopping Marty in his tracks and spinning him around.
"Listen up, asshole." Woody's lips were compressed tightly, nearly bloodless. "Your pal's sister burned me of a very large stash. You know what that means?"
Marty nodded quickly, grateful that he hadn't tried to speak because he was positive his throat would have made nothing more than a strangled, gagging whimper.
"I mean," Woody continued, leaning close, his eyes narrowed, "we're talking a major stash. A couple 'a pounds of Colombian and well, frankly, some people I know are pretty upset about it bein' missin'. Maybe your pecker-wood friend Al knows somethin' about it."
"I—uh, I wouldn't know. I haven't seen Al in a couple of days." Marty couldn't resist smiling inwardly when he considered that probably Woody's "friends" thought he had stolen the pot from them. In the best of all possible worlds, Woody might end up taking the burn. Marty almost wished he could be around to see that, but he wouldn't because he'd be... maybe in China or Australia.
"I don't know—" He stopped and cleared his throat, covering it by taking a long pull on the Slushie. "I don't know a thing about it."
Woody's grip tightened painfully as he stepped even closer to Marty, forcing him back against the shade-drawn window of Cooney's Barber Shop.
"I figured you didn't know a thing about it 'cause you don't know shit about shit." Woody's face loomed close, and now Marty had no doubt his breath was stale with beer. His knees almost buckled from fear.
"What do you want from me then?" Marty asked. The only thing keeping him from fainting was realizing Woody didn't suspect—not yet, anyway that he had anything to do with the stolen pot.
"You got any idea where they took the car?" Woody asked, bringing his face still closer to Marty's.
Marty blinked, darting his eyes back and forth, trying to see the reassuring sunlit street beyond Woody's shadowed features.
"What d'yah mean?"
"I mean, I heard the car was totaled." Woody almost hissed the words. "I mean I wanna know where they took it."
Marty shrugged. His hands clenched, denting the Slushie cup. "I don't know for sure," he said weakly. The burning pressure in his bladder was suddenly intense. "If it was—you know, totaled, they would've taken it to the dump, don't'cha think?"
"I heard it might be at Stony's Texaco, out on Route 25."
Marty shrugged, forcing back the stinging in his eyes. "I dunno. If I see Al, I'll ask him 'n let you know, 'kay?"
Without a word, Woody took hold of the front of Marty's T-shirt and scrunched it into a tight ball. "You make goddamned sure you find out where it is. Understand?"
Marty nodded, unable to breathe.
"You find out, 'n you tell me by five o'clock today. Otherwise, you're gonna end up more totaled than her fuckin' car."
Woody pulled Marty's shirt, forcing him forward until their noses just about touched. After a few seconds while he let his point sink in, he let go, giving Marty a hard shove back against the barbershop window. The plate glass window vibrated with the impact.
"I need somethin' cool," he said as he snatched the limp Slushie from Marty and stuck the straw into his mouth. "You ain't got AIDS or nothin', do you?"
Marty shook his head vigorously and watched as Woody turned around and strode down the Main Street. His laughter trailed behind him.
2
Kip was asleep in his bedroom with the shades drawn to keep out the hammering heat of the sun. When they had reached the chamber of the Indian Caves, it had taken quite a bit of effort to roll the stone back into place to cover the exit point. Their luck held, though, and no more untcigahunk attacked them. Watson was looking pale from blood loss as they walked—as fast as they could—back to Kip's house. Then Bill and Kip had driven him to the hospital and admitted him through the emergency room.
The doctors had insisted that, although the wound on Watson's arm was serious, the chances that infection would spread and possibly turn fatal were minimal. Still, Kip had insisted on waiting at the hospital through the night. In the morning, after a disturbed sleep in one of the waiting room chairs, he had been allowed to see Watson in his hospital room.
The cuts on Bill's face from the flying bits of stone had, as Watson had said, been superficial. Stitches weren't necessary, and only a few of the deeper slices needed small butterfly bandages. Bill figured the best way for Kip to get over everything that had happened was to joke about it with him, but whenever he considered how close he had come to getting his face blown away, any feelings of humor evaporated.
Watson was angry that he had to spend any time in bed in the hospital. He wondered what his grandfather would have said about his "softness." He might even have accused him of becoming too much of a "sowbelly," as he called whites he didn't like.
The other thing that concerned Watson was that he didn't have any hospital insurance, but Bill promised he would pay all of his expenses. That hurt his pride all the more. He should be home, tending his wounds himself by applying herbal poultices he had been taught long ago.
He started to get upset when Kip said that would be acting like a wounded animal, going back to his lair to live or die according to Nature's way, but he let it pass because Kip had said it. Even through his medication haze, Watson realized that he and the boy had forged a deep and lasting bond.
Of course, Kip had a lot of explaining to do to his father, and a lot of wounds—some much deeper and older than Watson's—had to heal. But at least they were talking now. How could they not after what Bill had seen. Kip knew it would be a while before he told his father that he had seen the untcigahunk kill his mother, but that, too, would come with time.
Lying on his bed, even as exhausted as he was, Kip found sleep elusive. Images of dark, grasping claws no longer tormented him, but still, swirling at the edge of his mind, there was an impenetrable blackness. Only a small portion of that blackness in his mind had taken on the shape of the little brothers. He knew—and accepted— that the blackness would always be there and, at the end of his life, he would finally sink into it. Already, he realized that acceptance of this fact would take him a long way toward whatever the hell "growing up" was all about.
His thoughts had been drifting all a
fternoon, gliding from the little brothers to Watson to how close he had come to killing his father to contemplation of how close to dying they had all come.
But he had some other, more disturbing concerns, such as what had he seen squirming in the bat shit that covered the chamber floor. He couldn't stop thinking that, like the worms that eventually became cicada, those thick, sluglike things might be another form of the little brothers. He never wanted to go back to the caves to find out, though, even to find Marty's knife.
If he could believe that all of the untcigahunk were dead, he would rest much easier, but he knew they couldn't have killed them all. And he knew that in another five years, if not sooner, they would emerge once again from their underground lairs.
Maybe five years from now—God, I'll be seventeen years old!—he'd have figured out a way to get rid of all of them. Or maybe they'd do something sooner if Parkman believed his and his father's story. He tried not to think that five years from now, Watson might not be alive to help.
A heavy hammering on his door suddenly interrupted his thoughts. It took him a moment or two to orient himself as he sat up in bed.
The hammering stopped, then began again, louder and stronger.
"Yeah—yeah," he croaked. His throat still felt dust-caked from the bat shit in the caves. "C'mon in."
He rubbed his eyes, expecting to see his father, but when Marty loomed in the doorway, he remembered that his father had left for the afternoon, first to go to visit Gail Fleischer and then to try to convince Parkman of what they had seen in the caves. He had overheard his father talking on the phone and had heard something about one of the other policemen—maybe Holden—being missing.
"Hey, Mart. How you doin?" Kip swung his feet to the floor, draping his blanket over his legs. He always slept wearing just his underpants and a t-shirt. He was surprised by his sudden modesty in front of his older brother.
Marty approached the bed, and as he got closer, Kip could tell he was boiling mad. His face was nearly white, and his hands were clenched into fists at his side. He looked like he was trembling.
"I just got one question for you," Marty said, towering over his brother. "And if you don't give me the right answer, I swear to God I'll bust your head open."
Kip swallowed dryly and then suddenly spun around to the other side of the bed. He stood up and hurriedly pulled on his pants, all the while watching his brother's anger-filled face. The bed between them wasn't enough protection, he knew that.
"What do you want?' Kip said, forcing the words out.
"You know damn-right well what I want." Marty started coming around the edge of the bed, his clenched fists raised. "I want to know what you did with my fucking hunting knife!"
Kip almost asked what hunting knife? but he knew he'd been busted. Panic flooded him. The last thing he remembered was putting it down just before he and Watson poured gasoline into the little brothers' breeding area. Maybe he had lost it then. He wasn't sure, but he must have left it there when he had picked up the shotgun and run.
"Oh, shit," he muttered. His eyes darted frantically from side to side as he backed away from his brother who approached him inexorably.
Marty came closer and raised his bandaged arm, shaking his fist under Kip's nose.
"You know how much that knife means to me, 'n don't try to get out of it by lying. I know you took it."
Kip nodded agreement, nervously running his teeth over his lower lip. Sweat had broken out across his forehead.
"I, uh—I had to borrow it a couple of days ago," he said. "I was, uh, going to camp out in the... the woods, and I needed it."
"So where is it now?" Marty kept his voice low and menacing.
Kip swallowed, but the dry lump in his throat wouldn't go down. It didn't even move.
"I... I think I might have lost it," he finally said weakly.
"You what?"
"I said I think I might have lost it. In the caves."
"D'you know how much that knife cost me?" Marty bellowed. He stepped even closer. His clenched fists curled up and did a threatening dance under Kip's chin.
Kip took another half step back, struggling to stay calm, but he knew what was coming. After everything he had faced in the caves yesterday, Marty shouldn't seem so scary, but he was terrified of the beating he was sure he was about to get.
"I already talked to Dad about it," Kip said meekly. "And I promise I'll buy you a new one just as good."
"No shit, Sherlock," Marty said, "but I just wanna make sure you learn your lesson. You leave my shit alone!"
With that, he jabbed his right fist out. The move was quick, but Kip was quick, too. He ducked to the side, and Marty's knuckles glanced harmlessly off his shoulder. Thrown off balance, Marty was just straightening up when something fast and hard slammed into the side of his head, making his ears ring. Zig-zags of bright light tracked across his vision.
"You prick!" Marty shouted as he clutched his head and looked at Kip, who was lost in an indistinct blur. The high-pitched ringing in his ears sounded like cicada, whining increasingly louder in the summer heat.
Kip relaxed a little and bounced on his toes, flexing his knees. With his mouth set in a hard line, he waited for Marty to explode. But when the expected punch came, he was ready for it and ducked it easily.
With more force behind his punch this time, Marty was off balance. When Kip let fly his second punch, he connected solidly on his brother's jaw. There was a loud crack, and Marty did a sloping half spin as he fell back-wards. His shoulder bounced off Kip's mattress on his way down.
"I'm sick and tired of you picking on me all the time!" Kip wailed. He stood over his fallen brother and shook his clenched fists wildly. His pulse was hammering in his ears, and he was scared shitless that Marty would really kill him now; but he also had a feeling of incredible elation.
Marty groaned as he rolled over onto his back. Wide-eyed with confusion, he looked at his brother while fighting back the waves of pain that spiraled in his head. With a feeble groan, he struggled to get up off the floor, but it was too much for him and he slumped back down.
"I told you I'd get you another goddamned knife!" Kip screamed, still trembling. It frightened him to see his older brother down like this and know that he had done it, but nothing was going to dilute the pleasure he felt at finally striking back.
Marty shook his head groggily, then made a deep rumbling sound in his chest. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and whimpered when he saw his wrist smeared with blood. A thick, red clot ran down from his nose.
"If that damned knife means so fucking much to you, I'll get you another!" Kip's voice cracked, and tears were streaming down his cheeks. "But don't think you're gonna get away with beating up on me all the time. I've had enough!"
Saying that, he carefully walked around his brother, fearing Marty would reach out, grab his leg, and drag him down and utterly destroy him.
But that didn't happen.
Unable to say anything, Marty stayed on the floor, staring dazedly at his blood-streaked hand as Kip walked, boldly and confidently, from the bedroom.
3
The night was alive with crickets singing as Woody parked outside the entrance to the town dump. He grabbed the tire iron—the same one he had used to level Officer Doyle—from under the car seat, then got out and quickly approached the chained and padlocked fence gate. The moon cast an eerie blue light that was bright enough to read the chipped and faded sign that listed the dump's business hours. He was glad the moon was close to full. He didn't want to risk using a flashlight unless he had to. No sense drawing attention to himself.
"Sanitary Landfill and Reclamation Area," he read out loud. Inhaling deeply, he flared his nostrils and added, "Huh. Still smells like a fuckin' dump to me."
The fence surrounding the dump was about eight feet high. Woody and his friends had scaled it any number of times, but tonight he didn't want to hassle with the barbed razor wire strung along the top.
"I ain't
leavin' my balls up there," he said, and then cackled with laughter as he inserted the tip of the tire iron into the hook of the shackle. He flexed his grip, and then, grunting, pulled down with all of his weight. The padlock snapped open and fell to the ground. He swore softly under his breath as he carefully unwound the chain and let it slide, clanking link by link, to the ground.
He lifted the latch and swung the gate open, but before he entered, he had what amounted to a brainstorm for him. He scooped up the broken padlock and chain, stepped inside the gate, then swung the gate shut and laced the chain back through the fence. He smiled to himself as he hooked the broken shackle through a couple of the chain links. This way, nobody would even notice anyone was in here, and he could take his time.
Woody walked the quarter of a mile down the road to the dump. All along the road, the moon-cast shadows wavered. They spooked him a little, but he felt a little better when he reached the shack where Fats McCoy stationed himself during business hours. Woody's lips curled back on his teeth when he remembered that Fats still owed him fifty dollars from last year's Super Bowl. Feeling spiteful, he went up to Fats' shack and popped out three windows with the tire iron. The glass fell to the floor inside the building, tinkling like breaking ice.
"There you go, asshole," he muttered before he continued down to the dump. "But that don't make us even yet!"
The wrecked cars were at the far end of the dump. As Woody walked past the mounds of bulldozed garbage and trash, he couldn't help but think this was some kind of alien landscape, like something out of Star Wars or something. The road was grooved by the thick treads of Fats' bulldozer. Woody had to step carefully so he wouldn't trip.
All around him, rounded piles of brush and dirt loomed black against the night sky, but Woody was headed toward the hollow down by the cattail-choked creek where Fats pushed all the junk cars after he had stripped them for spare parts. Fats made a pretty good living, selling old tires and spare parts from the cars. Sneaking in here to steal car parts was one of the reasons Woody had broken into the dump before tonight.
