Boneyard Rumblers

by Gina Ranalli

  Quinn’s annoyance quickly vanished as his face lit up with enthusiasm. “Name’s Joshua Meadows. Forty-five years old, twice divorced, father of two daughters. Worked as a plumber in Marysville when he wasn’t getting busted for beating on people in the local watering hole.”

  “Sounds like a real piece of work,” she said, taking a seat in the chair next to Sam. “Where’d he find his victims?”

  “Usual places. Parks. Outside of schools. One time in a library. Busted a few times for indecent exposure when he was a teenager. Escalated from there.”

  “What about the daughters?”

  “Both in junior high. Elizabeth and Emily. Mother hasn’t said much, at least not yet, so we don’t know if he had relations with either of them yet. Killed himself last night in a tool shed behind his house.”

  “Good riddance,” Sam interrupted, raising his glass as if making a toast. “The only good criminal is a dead criminal, right?”

  “The question, though,” Helena said, “is why you think this piece of shit would be up Bliss’s alley.”

  Quinn tapped a few keys on the keyboard and sat back in his chair. “Guy likes monsters, right? The nastier, the better.”

  “Yeah, but I think even he has some standards. He likes killers, not perverts.”

  “Killers of adults,” Sam added. “Never known him to raise anything but.”

  “Well, it’s all I have right now,” Quinn said. “Except…”

  Helena leaned forward. “Except?”

  “Suspicious circumstances involving the death of Meadows’s mother. Apparently, she was schizophrenic, raised Meadows and his siblings in squalor, abused them, let boyfriends abuse them. Text book stuff, really. Right up until the day she allegedly fell down the cellar stairs and ended up with her head caved in in a way that didn’t seem consistent with a fall of that nature. Only son, Joshua, was at home at the time, aged fifteen. Didn’t call 911 at all. Body was found by his sister when she came home from a date approximately three hours after T.O.D.”

  “Was he arrested?” Helena asked.

  “Nope. Not enough evidence, but everyone-and I mean everyone-liked him for it. Cops, lawyers, even his own sister. Not to mention the court of public opinion. Young Joshua’s life became even more difficult after that. The town did everything but lynch him for it.”

  “Weird,” she said. “I mean, if his mom was so awful…why the anger?”

  “Like I said, he’d already developed a reputation as a child molester. I guess they wanted to hang him for just about anything at that point.”

  “This seems like a waste of time,” Sam announced, getting to his feet. “Who gives a shit about this guy? Bliss sure as fuck won’t.”

  “Probably not,” Quinn agreed. “But you have to admit, if he wants an army, he might not be too choosy at this point.”

  Helena considered this as Sam walked out of the room, headed for the staircase.

  “I’m going to catch a few Z’s,” he told them. “Wake me if anything interesting actually happens.”

  When he was out of earshot, Quinn said, “That guy really fucking hates me.”

  Helena waved at him dismissively. “He’s like that with everyone.”

  “Not you.”

  “Well, I’m different.”

  “Because he knew your parents?”

  “Yes. And because he damn near raised me himself after they died.”

  “And Bliss raised them from the dead.”

  “Right. And Bliss raised them from the dead.”

  CHAPTER 3

  It was pushing 7 PM later that night and Justin Cash sat in his parked black, mint,‘66 Mustang, the window cranked down despite the constant rain, smoking a Lucky Strike cigarette, Elvis playing softly on the radio.

  He watched the house-had in fact been watching it for hours-and knew Helena Rose was in there with her cohorts, probably plotting new ways to kill him and his ilk. Well, not him personally, because they didn’t know of his existence but definitely his kind.

  Gunnar Bliss’s kind.

  The dead undead, so to speak.

  Cash considered the cache of weapons in his trunk-shotguns, daggers, even a flamethrower-and wondered if they’d be prepared for any of it. He could just barricade the exits, grab two of the gas cans in the back and torch them all straight to Hell.

  He didn’t want to do that though.

  At least, not yet. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but Rose and her gang had a reputation for being the unforgiving types. The kill first, ask questions never, types.

  Not that he could blame them. Bliss was always up to no good, using his special power for ill for going on ninety years now. Cash himself had been around-born again, if you will-since 1959, knocked down in the prime of his life in the electric chair, grinning the grin of the forever damned. He’d only been twenty-two years old, which wasn’t so bad now. Now, he could be twenty-two forever and that was exactly what he had planned.

  He wouldn’t be knocked down again.

  Cash flicked the cigarette butt out the open window and lit another as Elvis’s song ended and Richie Valens began to croon and moon for Donna.

  He liked this radio station. Brought him right back to his heyday. He’d been a classic greaser, slicked-back duck-ass hair with a twisty slick curl against his forehead. His idol had been none other than the great James Dean. Elvis had been a close second, however, and he’d even been thinking about entering the military, just as the latter had done. But then he’d met young Janey Langford who had melted his heart faster than a scoop of ice cream on a sizzling July sidewalk. Just fourteen years old, he’d known he wanted to marry her the moment he saw those eyes, winter blue and as wide as the Pacific Ocean. She was dead now, of course, but not by his hand. That hadn’t been why he’d fried. She died of cancer back in the 80’s and what a shit-eating decade that had been. All you had to do was ask anyone who’d been there. Stupid clothes and hairstyles and music. It pained him just to think about it.

  No, he’d fried for offing her folks. Assholes, they’d been. Saying she was too young for him, which, in truth, he knew was true, but he’d sworn not to touch her until they were married, all legal like. But that hadn’t been good enough for them. They forbade Cash to even see his one true love-he couldn’t even walk her home from school-and that just wasn’t gonna do.

  They talked about what had to be done, him and Janey. She was in full agreement. They were going to hit the road after, be fugitives if they had to, maybe find a nice patch of beach down in Mexico, but first he had to borrow a shotgun from his old buddy Jimmy and blow their brains all over the rose-petal wallpaper behind their matching pink divan.

  That’s what he’d done-only what needed to be. You couldn’t keep a man from his woman and expect not to pay for it somehow.

  Only it hadn’t gone quite as planned. He’d shot them alright, but he and Janey barely made it out of town before they were chased down into a roadblock, trapped like rabbits in a cage. Fucking cops started shooting at him, with Janey right there, sitting beside him. They didn’t care if they killed her too. So, he’d given himself up, taken all the blame, which was fine by him. It had been his idea, after all.

  He looked old Janey up later, after Bliss had dug him up. She was in an asylum, pulled nearly all the hair out of her own head, taking to shadows and crying for her mama.

  Cash hadn’t gone back for a long time after that. He couldn’t. She was so crazy, there would have been no way to talk to her. It would have made her crazier still. And besides, he’d had to get the hell out of Dodge anyway. If someone had recognized him, shit would have hit the fan. That’s what Bliss had told him anyway. Cash knew he was right, but he hadn’t asked to be brought back. It was all kinds of fucked-up as far as he was concerned. What reason did he have to live anymore? He would have preferred to just stay dead.

  But here he was, alive in a way. Not quite human anymore, but not a monster either.

  Lights glowed in the front room of Helena Ro
se’s home. An occasional shadow moved passed the crack between the drapes covering the window.

  Cash considered his options, smoking several more cigarettes as he did so. Ultimately, he decided to do nothing and drove off after sitting for many hours, just thinking.

  He took a room in a motel in town, smiling at the cute girl running the desk who eyed him with suspicion. He hadn’t changed his style to fit in with current times. He still looked the fifties greaser he was, which did earn him some strange looks now and again. He’d learned to ignore them.

  In the motel room, which stunk of insect spray almost to the point of gagging him, he splayed himself on the bed and clicked on the television without bothering to take off his leather jacket or mud-caked boots.

  When his cell phone rang, he considered just throwing it against a wall. Not only were the damn things annoying and he resented having to carry one, but he knew who it would be. Bliss was the only one who ever called him and he did so usually once a day.

  With a groan of irritation, Cash fished the phone out of his jacket pocket and wondered why he even carried it anymore. It was what most people considered the “old fashioned” kind, a flip phone, and though he couldn’t do much other than talk on it, he was loathe to upgrade to a newer model.

  The number calling him was blocked, as he knew it would be. He opened it and said, “What?”

  Bliss chuckled on the other end. “You sound cranky, Cash. Someone kicked your puppy?”

  Cash ignored the question and said nothing.

  “I think it’s time you came home, son,” Bliss continued. “We got a newbie here. Pretty as the day is long. I think you’re gonna like her.”

  Cash refused to reply. His gaze fell vacantly on the TV, though the volume was too low to be heard. On the screen, three people, mostly naked, appeared to be attempting to cut down bamboo with a single machete.

  “At least join us for a drink, Justin,” Bliss said, still as cheerful as ever. “I know we’ve had our disagreements, but this little lady could sure use a fella like yourself for guidance.” Bliss paused, waiting for a response. When he received none, he continued. “I think I might make her a bit nervous, but she seems to like Melosia well enough. You know how soothing she can be when she wants to.”

  “What the fuck do you want, Bliss?” Cash finally asked.

  “I think I already made that clear, buddy. Come on down. Have a beer. We can talk like civilized gentlemen. Would make it a hell of a lot easier for everyone involved, don’t ya think?”

  “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why the hell not? You’re part of this gang, Cash. We’re family and we miss you. You know that.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t see why you have to be so damn stubborn about it. Come on. One beer. Hear me out. You don’t like what I have to say, we can part company with a handshake and wish each other well.”

  Cash let out a bitter laugh. “Somehow I doubt that.”

  There was another pause. Then, one word: “Justin.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know you were at that woman’s house tonight. Helena Rose. Did you think I wouldn’t know that? I know everything, my brother. I know where you are right now. The Starlight Inn. Room 4. I got eyes on you all the time. You realize that, right?”

  Cash hadn’t realized it. Suspected it maybe, but this was the first definite confirmation he’d gotten. “So? One of your goons gonna come kick the door in and what? Chop my head off?”

  “Course not,” Bliss said, attempting to sound offended, which Cash knew was impossible. “It’s for your own good. I’m protecting you. Which is exactly why I need you to stay away from that Rose woman and her associates. They’re dangerous.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  “I know you can. I do. But if you want to take her out, we need to do it together. We’ve talked about this.”

  Cash said nothing. On the television, the mostly naked people were now seated around a campfire on a beach.

  “Unless…” Bliss said and let it hang for a moment. “Unless taking them out isn’t what you had in mind at all.”

  This surprised Cash. And truth be told, alarmed him a little. “What are you talking about?”

  “You think I don’t know you?” Bliss asked. “I know you better than you know yourself. I know you have a conscience. Hell, I admire that about you, Justin. But you need to use it wisely. You can’t do anything-and I mean anything-that would jeopardize the family. That’s one thing I can’t allow.”

  Cash swallowed audibly.

  “Anyway,” Bliss continued. “You think about it. We’d all love to see you. I’ll be in touch.”

  Bliss disconnected the call and Cash didn’t move, the phone still pressed to his ear for close to a minute. When he finally snapped it shut, the television program was ending and a cartoon lizard was dancing around a hoedown, a tiny cowboy hat on his head. In Cash’s mind, the lizard in the hat looked a lot like Bliss.

  Too much, in fact.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was all coming back to Opal now. The memories seeped up from her subconscious like water evaporating, rising up in microscopic droplets to form an ever-growing cloud in her mind.

  She had stabbed Martin twice in the chest and left him gasping for air and bleeding on the kitchen floor as she went down the hall to take a shower. They’d been arguing, as usual. About what didn’t matter at all. Something minor, probably, but they were both fierce creatures and though Martin was generally a sweet man, he could be insecure and quite vicious with his words when he’d been drinking, as he had on that day.

  Opal had called the police after she finished her shower and feigned ignorance of the murder, claiming to have heard him shouting while she’d been in the bathroom. Whoever had done this to him was gone by the time she’d arrived back in the kitchen to find him with the knife in his chest. She told the cops she had assumed the yelling was directed at her, which was why she hadn’t been in a particular hurry to investigate. She made it a point to tell the responding officers she’d locked the bathroom door, nervous that Martin may have tried to follow her and continue his ranting.

  They seemed to buy the story, simply taking her word for how the events had transpired.

  Someone who hadn’t taken her word for it had been Martin’s widowed father. An only child, Martin and his father had been very close, with Martin confiding in the man about virtually every detail of his life, including his life with Opal. Martin Sr. knew too much about the tempestuous relationship to ever believe a stranger had burst into the house, killed Martin for no apparent reason and then fled the scene, leaving Opal untouched.

  A few days after Martin’s murder his father had paid Opal a visit and she had willing let him into her house, believing he’d needed to be consoled. She remembered her surprise when he’d stood in the kitchen on the far side of the counter and pulled a revolver out of his waistband, shooting her first in the stomach and then, she knew now, several more times. He’d emptied the gun into her and she’d died in the same spot Martin had. Irony at its most poetic, she supposed.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Walter Hobbs said, startling Opal back to the present.

  They were in an abandoned house on the outskirts of a small, shitty town somewhere in the Midwestern United States. Candles burned on every flat available surface, giving the living room a medieval feel. Old wallpaper curled off the walls in long strips and in some places wooden slats were exposed. The furniture was sparse, dusty and had sprung foaming leaks long before the family had arrived.

  Opal sat on a stained with God-only-knew-what puke green sofa with just one cushion while Walter took the lone chair in the room. One of the chair’s back legs was missing, so he sat at an odd angle, lopsided, which gave Opal the feeling of being somewhat intoxicated.

  “Just…remembering,” she told him.

  “That can be both good and bad,” he said and took a slug from a silver flask. “Mostly bad.”

/>   He offered her the flask and she shook her head. He shrugged and drank more.

  “Best to focus on the present,” he said, smacking his lips. “Focusing on the past will give you cancer or some shit.”

  She regarded him coolly. “Is that what you do? Focus on the present?”

  “Try to.”

  Gunnar Bliss and the married couple, Melosia and John, entered the room, coming out of the kitchen. Melosia was carrying a laptop; John, a bottle of wine which he liberally sipped at before taking a spot next to the fireplace and leaning against the crumbling wall.

  Melosia sat cross-legged on the floor as Gunnar flopped himself onto the couch beside Opal, sinking low without the comfort of a cushion. He reached out and gave her knee a pat.

  “How you doin’, darlin’? Okay?”

  Opal gave him a slight shrug. “Fine, I guess. I’m still not sure what’s going on. I was…dead?”

  “That you were,” he agreed, leaning back, his thin legs straight out and crossed at the ankles. It was hard to see the upper half of his face due to the shadow the brim of his hat caused, but Opal could have sworn, for just a second, that she saw his eyes glow gold.

  “But no more. That shit is done and over with.” He grinned at her. “You are one lucky gal. Am I right, folks? Isn’t Opal one lucky gal?”

  The others murmured their agreement, though only Walter met her gaze.

  “And now comes the best part,” Gunnar went on. “The hunt.”

  Opal frowned. “Hunt?”

  His smile widened even further. “Well, sure! What we got here is a bunch of blood-thirsty savages. We can’t just sit around twiddling our thumbs and crying about the bad weather, now can we? We’re here to have fun most of all.”

  He laughed, pushing dirty white shirt sleeves up to his elbows.

  Opal glanced at Walter, who gave her sly smile and drank more of whatever was in the flask. Both John and Melosia were watching her now with curious expressions. She shifted slightly in her seat.

  “Well, what are we supposed to hunt?”