by Lisa Gardner
I did my best to nonchalantly stroll back to my bedroom. Phone was still there. I decided not to take any chances, and I removed it myself, hiding it up in my closet. Like hell I was losing privileges just because Burgerman couldn’t control his appetites.
Back in the kitchen, I poured another bowl of cereal and sat munching in the silence. My presence must have galvanized the boy, because he slowly picked up his spoon and slurped up some soggy cereal. I wondered if he would keep it down. Some did. Some didn’t.
He’d be gone in a day or two, once the Burgerman had had his fill. Did he kill them, turn ’em loose? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I couldn’t remember anymore what year I had been born, my exact birth date. But I must have been a teenager, because the only emotion I could muster anymore was contempt. For Burgerman, the kid, myself.
And then, for no good reason, I thought of the very first boy. All those years ago. The one I’d thought I could help. I wondered if they ever found his body, or if he remained, rotting alone under the azalea bush.
The thought made me angry. I grabbed my cereal bowl, slammed it into the sink. The sound made the new toy flinch.
Burgerman walked into the room.
He’d put on pants, but not a shirt. The years hadn’t been kind to him. His beard held more gray than black, his frame had grown slack from too much beer and greasy food, the skin hanging from his thin chest and scrawny arms. He looked exactly like he was, an aging, white-trash son of a bitch, one foot in the grave and still mean as a rattlesnake.
I hated him all over again.
He looked at me. Then put a hand on the new boy’s shoulder. At the first contact, the boy flinched, then froze, sitting motionless while tears welled up in his eyes.
Suddenly, the Burgerman beamed at me. “Son,” he announced triumphantly. “Meet Boy. He’s your new replacement.”
And I knew, in that moment, that the Burgerman must die.
I waited until the Burgerman retired to his bedroom, dragging Boy behind him. Then I disappeared into my own room, stocked such as it was with a dumpy twin mattress, milk crate clothing bins, and a tiny black-and-white TV I’d salvaged from the neighbor’s trash and repaired myself.
My room stank. The sheets, bedding, dirty clothes. Everything held the rank, sweaty odor of unwashed skin, too-long nights. The whole dingy apartment smelled this way. Milk soured in the fridge. Dirty dishes overflowed the sink. Cockroaches scuttled across the stove.
It pissed me off all over again. The rancid stench of my own life. The endless, gray nothingness that marked my existence. Because the Burgerman had chosen me and after that I’d never had a chance.
Now there wouldn’t even be graduation. Oh no, the Burgerman had a new plaything now. A toy he planned on keeping. Meaning my days were numbered.
And for no good reason, the sting of Burgerman’s rejection hurt me more than his affection ever had.
I was stupid. I was weak. I was nothing.
The Burgerman had killed me. I just didn’t know how to die.
The screaming again. The poor stupid boy shrieking as if that would make a difference.
I crawled into the middle of the bed, pulling the blankets over my head and covering my ears with my hands. I went to sleep.
When I woke up later, it was dark. I lay on my mattress for a long time, watching the way the streetlight filtered through my blinds, creating slashes of light against the far wall.
Then I got up, went to the closet, and fetched the telephone.
Back to my mattress, I lifted the corner and retrieved a phone book I’d smuggled inside the apartment when the Burgerman wasn’t looking.
When I finally found the number, my hands were shaking and my mouth had gone dry.
I didn’t let myself pause, didn’t let myself think too much.
Plug in the phone. Dial the digits.
At the first pickup, “Help me,” I whispered, “Please help me.”
Then I hung up the phone and cried.
THIRTY-ONE
“Spiders are experts in the art of poisoning. A spider releases venom through fangs that look like curved claws beneath its eyes.”
FROM Freaky Facts About Spiders,
BY CHRISTINE MORLEY, 2007
“What happened to your parents?” The boy asked. He sat on the front porch with her, drinking a glass of powdered lemonade. He’d been working most of the morning, since he’d appeared shortly after six a.m. She’d let him in without comment, feeding him breakfast, making light conversation.
He didn’t bring up their last encounter and neither did she. She’d done the same thing with Mel when the older man had rung her doorbell yesterday afternoon, bearing a box filled with fresh-ground sausage, eggs, and orange juice. He’d handed it over without a word. She had accepted it with a single nod of acknowledgment. Then he’d gone his way and she’d gone hers.
Sometimes, things were easier that way.
She noticed the boy moved stiffly as he’d helped her roll up rugs and drag them outside for a good beating. His ribs seemed to bother him, and from time to time, she caught him rubbing his backside. She didn’t ask, he didn’t tell. They had a theme to their gray, chilly day. And now this.
“My parents died,” Rita said presently. “Long time ago.”
“How’d they die?”
She shrugged. “Old age. Everyone dies in the end.”
“You’re old,” the boy said.
She cackled. “Think I’m gonna keel over, child? Leave you without a breakfast companion? Don’t worry. World’s not done with me yet.”
The boy was regarding her seriously, however.
“I had parents,” he said abruptly.
She stopped laughing, smoothing out Joseph’s old green plaid flannel shirt, the hem of which fell nearly to her knees. “I see.”
“They died, too.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I don’t know how,” he continued relentlessly, his voice growing thicker. “I had them, then one day they were gone. Just like that. My sister, too. She was little. Always gettin’ into my stuff, wantin’ to play with me. I’d be mean to her. Tell her we were playing hide-and-seek, but once she hid, I wouldn’t look for her. I’d go play all by myself. Then she’d cry and I’d call her a baby and my mom’d get mad at me.”
“I had an older brother like that myself.”
“He was naughty? Then the family sent him away to live with the other naughty boys?”
“We all loved him.” She said it matter-of-factly. “Then he went off and got himself killed in the war. Brothers and sisters fight, child. But they still love.”
“I once gave my little sister a teddy bear I got for my birthday,” the boy whispered. “I knew it would make her happy.”
“Did it?”
“I think so. Sometimes … sometimes, it’s hard to remember. I try to picture them, but it gets jumbled in my mind. Like my favorite flavor of ice cream. I think it’s chocolate, but it’s been so long … Maybe it’s vanilla. Or strawberry. Can someone take your favorite flavor from you? I get confused.…”
“What happened to your sister, child?”
He shrugged. “She’s dead, I guess. They’re all dead. That’s what he says.”
They were on treacherous ground now. Rita could feel it, even if she didn’t understand it. When she’d first met the boy, she’d assumed he came from an “unfortunate” home situation. Those were the words the social workers always used in her day. This child comes from an unfortunate home situation.
Lately, however, Rita had begun to wonder. She tried to pick her next words with care.
“When your parents were alive, child, did you live around here?”
He frowned at her. “Where is here?”
“Dahlonega. The Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia. Is this where you were born?”
He was quiet for so long, she wasn’t sure he was going to answer. But then, slowly, he shook his head. “Macon. Macon Bacon, that’s what my father always s
aid, when we were driving up the highway. ‘Macon Bacon, Georgia, where it’s all about the chickens!’ And he’d laugh. He liked bacon, too. And scrambled eggs in the morning. Do you think that’s what killed him? Eating eggs and bacon?”
The boy’s eyes were guileless. The expression made him appear smaller, more vulnerable. Rita wondered again if she was doing the right thing. Then she spotted her brother Joseph, racing along the front yard, leaping up to snag the lowest branch of the old oak tree, swinging himself up just as he used to do when they were kids.
Joseph spent the afterlife forever young. She wondered if that was because he died young, or if it was a choice each spirit was allowed to make. She was tired, she thought. Tired of the ache in her joints, the way the chill of a winter morning bit so deep into her wrinkled flesh. Not much time left, she figured. All the more reason to spend it wisely.
“When your parents died,” she asked, “did you have any other family?”
The boy studied her curiously, seeming almost perplexed.
“Did a social worker visit you?” Rita forged ahead. “Explain to you about foster parents and your new home?”
“What are foster parents?” the boy asked.
Rita stilled in the rocker, then forced herself to move again. Her mind was racing. If the boy wasn’t living with his parents, other relatives, or foster parents … She wished that she got out more, knew her neighbors. She’d dearly like to ask someone what they knew about the house on the hill, the man who lived there, when they had first started noticing the boy. Because they were beyond an unfortunate home situation now, she was certain of it. She was journeying instead into something darker, more sinister.
“Who lives with you, child?” she asked quietly.
The boy shook his head.
“It’s okay to tell me. I’m an old lady, you know. We’re the best at keeping secrets.”
The boy wouldn’t look at her. His gaze fell to the floor. “I don’t think I should be talking anymore,” he whispered.
“Tell me your name, child.”
The boy shook his head.
“How about your birthday?”
“I don’t have one. There’s only homecoming day, the day you belong to him.”
“Are there others?” she insisted. “Children, adults, pets? Tell me about them. I won’t judge.”
The boy studied his empty lemonade glass, then the shape of the porch banisters. Rita rocked back and forth in her chair, watching the dark clouds pile up on the horizon, feeling the electric pulse of the impending storm. She wanted to push harder, but she didn’t. Children talked when they felt like talking. You had to have the patience to let them come to you.
“He’s going to kill you,” the boy said.
She waved her hand. “Nonsense. I’ll die when I’m good and ready to, and not a minute sooner.”
“You don’t know what he’s like. He gets what he wants. He always gets what he wants.”
The first gust of wind hit, laced with rain, tasting like distant pines. Rita heard the boom of thunder, followed shortly by the crack of lightning. The storm would be a good one. The kind to rattle a house down to its very foundation.
The boy stood. “I gotta go—”
“Nonsense. You’ll stay the night.”
“The rain is coming,” the boy insisted. “I gotta get back.”
“You’ll stay the night.”
“Rita—”
“Sit down!”
The boy paled at her firm tone. He sank down into his chair, wary now, skittish.
“If you will not talk to me,” Rita said curtly, rocking furiously in her little wooden chair, “that is your business. But you’ll not be returning to the house on the hill. I couldn’t in good conscience send you back, and that is my business.”
“He’ll be angry. You don’t want him angry.”
“Pish posh. At my age, what’s some man gonna do that isn’t already about to happen? If he gets angry, he can visit me himself. Because I have a few things to say!”
She finished brashly, rising out of her rocker, stomping her foot. Neither she nor the boy were fooled, however. Rita didn’t know the man, but she already understood: If Scott’s “guardian” appeared on her front porch, it wouldn’t be to talk.
“Rita—”
“Shall I call the police, child?”
“No!”
The boy spoke instantly, in wild-eyed panic. Enough to let her know that the moment she picked up the phone, the child would bolt.
“Then it’s settled,” she declared. “You’ll stay. We’ll make stew. Have hot cups of cocoa. We’ll hunker down inside and watch the world go to holy hell. It’s the best way to spend a stormy night.”
The boy looked at her, his eyes wide, filled with something she hadn’t seen before. Fear, hope, longing. He opened his mouth. She thought he’d argue. Or maybe, leap from the porch and dash up the hill.
But then he closed his mouth. He squared his shoulders. Not happy, she noticed, not relieved, but a soldier resigned to war.
Rita guided the boy inside, shutting the old door behind them. He headed for the kitchen, while she paused in the foyer to work the locks. First fat drops of rain hit her driveway. She fastened the newly installed chain lock, pretending she didn’t notice the darkness gathering outside her window or the lights glowing in the old Victorian up the hill.
THIRTY-TWO
“During daylight hours, brown recluse spiders typically retreat to dark, secluded areas.”
FROM Brown Recluse Spider,
BY MICHAEL F. POTTER, URBAN ENTOMOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE
Kimberly woke up to a string of bad news. The manager at the Smith House had come up with forty-five possible credit card receipts. A lightning storm was forecast by mid-afternoon. Her supervisor wanted to know why she hadn’t attended yesterday afternoon’s meeting for Violent Crimes.
And Mac hadn’t returned her call.
She took them in stride as best she could. All receipts would be photocopied for her and Sal to divide and conquer upon their return. Given the approaching storm, they would leave for Suches immediately. She put in a message with her supervisor that she was following up on a major lead.
And she put Mac out of her mind. At least, the best she could.
They all climbed into Sal’s car and headed for Suches.
Highway 60 took its own sweet time. It looped through an endless series of S-curves, climbing higher and higher. They passed a gold mine, a bunch of boiled-peanut stands, various log cabins for rent. To the right, the Blue Ridge Mountains soared up as a dense wall of green underbrush and gray boulders. To the left, a deceptively thin wall of towering trees gave way to sudden views of a plunging valley that spread beyond the line of sight.
The first heavy drops of rain splattered the windshield just as they burst from a dark tunnel of trees into a gently unfolding valley. The land went from thick underbrush to painstakingly cleared fields, framed with white painted fences and dotted with red farmhouses. If Dahlonega was tucked up in the mountains, then Suches was a remote northern outpost. Handful of farms. Requisite double-wides. Too many boarded-up buildings.
Kimberly tried not to blink so she wouldn’t miss it.
Too late.
“That says T.W.O.,” Rainie just got out, finger pointing, as Sal blew by on Highway 60.
“Wait, there’s Dale’s,” Kimberly echoed as Sal swung his head left and totally missed the convenience store on the right.
He scowled, tapped his brakes, fishtailed on the rain-slicked road, and finally did the sensible thing and slowed down. They came to a stone schoolhouse—Smallest public school in Georgia! Kimberly read on the sign—and Sal turned around.
They hit Dale’s first, pulling up outside the gas pumps, then making a dash for the glass doors through the pelting rain.
Inside, Kimberly registered three things at once: a blast of warmth, the smell of homemade chili, and an entire display of bright orange hunting
gear. Dale’s, apparently, did carry a little of everything.
“Is that chili I smell?” Sal was already inquiring at the counter. “Well, as long as we’re here …”
The back part of Dale’s included a couple of tables. They had a seat and an older gentleman wandered over to assist. Not Dale, they learned, but Ron. Dale was out.
He didn’t explain, and judging by the reserved look on his face, Kimberly guessed Ron had already pegged them as outsiders and not in the need to know. He took their order, brought their food, then returned to meticulously wiping down tables.
Sal waited until halfway through his chili to get into it. Ron was cleaning the table beside them when Sal brought out the sketch and said, in the nonchalant voice favored by detectives and TV actors, “Say, do you happen to know this fellow here?”
Ron wasn’t fooled. He looked from the sketch to Sal and back to the sketch. Then he shrugged and returned to spritzing tables.
“He’s a person of interest,” Sal said with more emphasis.
Ron paused, thought about it, went back to wiping.
“You might have seen him with a teenage boy,” Kimberly spoke up. “Maybe they live around here.”
“Boys,” Ron corrected. “I’ve seen him with two boys. One older. One younger. They’re not much for talking.”
Sal set down his spoon. “Do you know their names?”
“No, sir.”
“Are they local?”
“Nah, not locals. But they come up a fair amount, ’specially last fall. Must’ve seen ’em half a dozen times. The man mostly. The boys waited in the truck. Except one time—the younger one had to use the john, so the older one brought him in. Looked like trouble to me, those three, but they just did their business and cleared on out. Who am I to judge?”
They’d all stopped eating and stared at Ron, who was still tending to his duties.
“Can you describe the older boy?” Kimberly pressed.
Ron shrugged. “Dunno. Teenage boy, seventeen, eighteen years old. White. Maybe five ten or so. Scrawny thing. Wore Army cargo pants about two sizes too big, the way boys do nowadays. Kept his hands in his pockets, walking all slouched over. Like I said, didn’t talk much. Just came in, delivered the younger boy, waited, then left.”
