Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones

by Richard Gleaves

  A streak of light tore through the trees. Just one.

  He picked up the sixties, pictured the Crane kid, imagined he was throttling him, bringing the weights down on his head, bashing his skull in. He imagined squeezing the kid’s big brain, how it would look oozing out between his fingers, red and grey and sticky.

  The shadow of a woman fell across the grass. Eddie dropped the weights, turned, and saw Kate Usher standing in the alley, watching him from over the fence. He pulled his earbuds out, reducing Frankie Valli to a tiny mosquito buzz.

  “What are you looking at?” Eddie said.

  “So strong,” Kate said, appreciatively. Her voice was rough, sandpapery, as if she were getting over a cold. The wind changed, coming up from behind her, bringing the mustard gas stench with it, the brown maggoty smell.

  “Go home,” Eddie said, picking up the weights. “I’m doing a set.”

  Kate came into the yard. “How much can you lift?”

  “More than you,” Eddie said.

  She grinned. “Show me.”

  Eddie shook his head. “I’m not your monkey. Where’s your girlfriend? Where’s Zef?”

  Her voice sharpened. “I said ‘show me.’”

  “And I said no, bitch. Get out of my yard.”

  Kate strolled to the bench press, trailing her fingers across the metal plates. “I’m looking for a strong man. I have a gift for him.” A streak of light tore through the stars behind her. “But it must be tonight.”

  “What kind of gift?” Eddie smiled. “Fine. You want to watch? Step back.”

  She clapped her hands, grinning brightly, and dropped on the grass, arms outstretched, gazing at the sky. Eddie dropped too and did some quick push ups to get his heart going. He slapped plates on the bar. Two-fifty. Two-seventy. Three hundred and sixty pounds. He locked eyes with her, grabbed the bar. He did a quick jerk, got underneath it, braced his legs, and pressed the bar over his head. He held it there, showing he controlled it, then let go with a careless swaggering shrug. The weights fell and bounced.

  “Good enough?”

  She rose and walked away towards the alley, beckoning to him. “You’ll do nicely.”

  “Price no object,” said Hadewych, scanning the menu.

  Zef flinched. He didn’t like the way his father was spending Jason’s money. He wanted to object but didn’t. He ordered a plain cheeseburger, but even that cost twenty bucks.

  The waiter poured out wine and left. His parents whispered to each other. Zef leaned back and enjoyed the river breeze. The rooftop at Bridgeview would be the perfect place to watch the meteor shower. Hadewych had bought it out for the evening and they had the entire deck to themselves. They were very near the General Motors site, the endless sea of concrete slabs and stubs. Beyond it stood the Tarrytown Lighthouse. That’s where Zef and Hadewych used to fish, back in the old days. When they were a family. When Hadewych had a salary and a place to be in the mornings. He’d met his dad at lunch hour and they’d thrown their hooks in, trying to catch a whopper. He didn’t remember, now, if they actually caught any fish. He only remembered the smiles and the jokes and the tuna sandwiches. Summer spray and the waves on the rocks. Just being together. And his mom would say, “Did you catch a whale? No? You’ll catch one tomorrow.”

  The concrete slabs lay forlorn and desolate, but a few green things had pushed through the cracks. He had a sudden strange thought, wondering whether any mafia dons were buried underneath that concrete, and if so, what their names were.

  His parents were canoodling, whispering to each other. Zef couldn’t get used to having a mother again. She took him shopping, to movies, came to see his debates at school. And Hadewych didn’t seem to mind his ex and son spending time together, which was surprising. In fact, Zef had never seen his father so mellow. He was sneaking out in the evenings to go out with Jessica, but they were hiding it from him. Trying not to get his hopes up, he guessed.

  He wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea of his parents back together. He’d wanted it for so long that he should have been overjoyed, but he felt only a nagging sense of something brewing, of tectonic forces shifting under his feet. It all felt like a house of cards built on the San Andreas Fault. He couldn’t trust it, even though he wanted to, desperately.

  Two shooting stars streaked past and disappeared behind the Jersey Palisades. Zef made a wish on them but wasn’t entirely sure what he’d wished for.

  “It’s time we told you,” said Hadewych.

  “Though you’ve probably guessed,” said Jessica.

  Hadewych took her hand in his. “Son, how would you feel about us becoming a family again?”

  Zef tried to be glad but it just… didn’t seem real to him. “Just like that?”

  “It was just as much of a surprise to us,” said Jessica.

  Hadewych took a swallow of his wine. “We’re both different people. Better people, hopefully. We’d like to make it work.”

  “At least, on a trial basis,” said Jessica.

  “And there are other things we need to tell you.” Hadewych glanced at Jessica. “Should I go first or do you want to?”

  “Age before beauty.”

  “Pearls before swine. Quick though, before we curse the waiter. Our appetizers should be out soon.” He conceded the stage to her.

  Zef frowned. What did Hadewych mean, ‘curse the waiter’? What was going on here?

  Jessica put a hand on Zef’s.

  Can you hear me son?

  Zef’s eyes went wide. Her lips hadn’t moved. He’d heard her… in his head.

  “How did you do that?” he stammered.

  Jessica smiled. She took a cigarette from her purse and gave Hadewych a look. “Honey, it’s your turn.”

  Hadewych nodded, extended a hand, and lit her cigarette with the tip of his finger. Zef jerked away from the table, his chair tipping, and fell over backwards. He grabbed at the tablecloth, and as he pulled, wine glasses, bread rolls, and a carafe of water crashed all around. His head hit the wooden deck and bounced.

  His mother knelt and cradled his head in her lap. “Sorry, baby. We should have warned you.”

  “You had to know sometime. Up you go.” Hadewych smiled, offering his hand. “We never said it would be a normal family.”

  Eddie parked his car at the side of the Philipsburg Millpond. He’d been here with lots of girls, but never one as hot as Kate. And she was really into him tonight.

  “Show me your scars,” said Kate.

  “My scars?” Eddie laughed. “Sure.” He unbuttoned his shirt for Kate. She raised a hand to his bicep and traced the white lines with one finger.

  “So many,” she said, sounding pleased. Her brows knit as if she were studying a treasure map.

  Eddie liked this side of Kate. He’d never seen it before. She really seemed interested in him and his life. “Yeah. I like my scars a lot.”

  “And why is that?”

  “They’re memories. My proofs of purchase. I got jumped once. Want to see?”

  She nodded eagerly. Eddie pulled his shirt up and over his head. He felt her fingertips, cool on his skin.

  “Those are pretty deep,” he said. “Pretty telltale. My jumpers had knives and I didn’t. I like those scars I guess. I didn’t like getting jumped at the time. Kind of was not on my to-do list. Kind of was going to Sonic and getting a damned Slushee but—”

  “Slushee…” she said, like a foreigner learning a fascinating new word.

  “But it’s still a good scar, yeah? Hey. Here’s the best.” He twisted in his seat and pulled his shirt away from his left shoulder. “Damn, huh? That was a bad fight.”

  “Tell me.”

  Eddie shrugged modestly. “I was a freshman and my dad was a cop in Baltimore. He worked at my school. Actually in it. We had a metro—an actual police station—in our school. Forty, fifty, sixty cops there at all times. We had stabbings, we had bomb threats, we had people set fire to shit. We had people set fire to other people. But no shootings
in our school. Know why? ‘Cause all the shootings were in the parking lot.” He laughed.

  Kate was looking at him with such complete focus, such real interest, that Eddie paused for a second to take it in. Girls never looked at him like that. They talked about themselves usually. This was the first time any of them seemed curious to hear what he had to say.

  “So I’m careful in that lot, right? Usually careful. But I got cornered by these three guys after school. I had some steroids and they wanted them.” He flexed. “I wasn’t as big then so I got knocked to the ground quick. I think they hit me in the head with something. I got kicked. I got punched in the back. I don’t know if they had shit in their hands or if they were just using their hands pretty good. Whatever. I’m hurting. But I reach up and grab the first guy’s hair—he’s got dreadlocks. I grab a handful of his hair, pull him down, and start beating the shit out of his face. I’m throwing elbows into his mouth. I’m hitting his mouth on the ground. Ka-boom. Ka-boom. He takes it for a while but then he stops moving.”

  Her face lit with delight. It was weird.

  “He wasn’t dead but he stopped moving. No longer a threat. So I move on. I’m still on the ground so the next guy—I caught a foot. I take the ankle and I twist it. I don’t know if I broke it. But it clicked. That’s the trick. You just catch it and hold it and spin as hard as you can. His foot went backwards. It was pointing the wrong direction when I was done with it, I know that. And he fell. So ka-boom. I beat that guy’s mouth on the ground until I don’t see any teeth and he stops moving. Two down. That leaves number three.” Eddie felt the adrenaline rising. “Now I’m still on the ground. I’m just a kid and this dude is like twenty. Big strong guy. I have claw marks on my face. My lips are just blood. There’s so much blood on my shirt I’m pretty sure I looked like I had just murdered a bunch of people—”

  She laughed. He joined in. Angry bloody-minded laughter.

  “—and I’ve got blood all over my hand ‘cause those first two kissed my fist quite a bit. Kissed it like a slut pretty much. And I just stand up. I stand up and this last guy—he looks at me.” Eddie’s chest heaved, panting. He spoke through clenched teeth now. “He just looks at me like I’m Satan pretty much and he’s like ‘man’ and he waves his hands around and leaves. He doesn’t walk though.”

  “He runs,” said Kate.

  Eddie nodded. “He runs. And I turn around and guess who’s there. Saw the whole thing.”

  “Your father.”

  “My father. And he comes and takes my elbow and I know he’s got to take me into the station. But when he cuffs me he leans over and says ‘I’m proud of you, son. That was a man’s fight.’”

  Kate brushed her fingertips across Eddie’s forehead. A trickle of sweat ran down his cheek. He leaned in and kissed her. Her lips met his eagerly, ferociously. With a painful clack of teeth. She nipped at his neck, as if to chew through it. “My Horseman,” she whispered.

  “Horseman?” chuckled Eddie, “I’ll show you horseman…” He reached for the button of his jeans.

  She laughed. Her palm struck his cheek—something between a pat and a slap. “Not yet.”

  “Oh, come on,” wheezed Eddie.

  She held him off easily, laughing. Damn, this bitch is strong, Eddie thought. Her strength made him want to answer her with force, to throw her in the back seat and… She broke from him, jumped from the car. Cool air filled the cab, raising gooseflesh on his wet skin.

  “It is a sacred night!” she called.

  He climbed out into the darkness of the Philipsburg parking lot and slammed the door. The meteor shower was ending. Would end soon. Kate was dancing, as if to a drumbeat only she could hear. She had her head back and her mouth open. White fog twisted upwards from her mouth and into the black sky. Her arms were raised. She didn’t have her jacket. Neither did he. She looked like a candle, gold hair whipping like flame.

  That’s a hot one, Eddie thought.

  He bit his lip and rocked, wanting to touch her and burn his hands. She curtsied to him grandly and waltzed away. Eddie flipped the bird at the back of her head. He almost wrote her off and left. But this was Zef’s old girlfriend. The senator’s daughter. The rich bitch. He couldn’t pass that up. That was the god damned Super Bowl. She was going down. He’d drag her down to his own level, down on this asphalt. Down in the dirt. Yeah. He’d pin her down, show her who was boss. Who’s in charge? E. Martinez. Number Twenty-Five. That’s who. The one they called The Monster.

  He followed after her.

  She had spun away, dancing around the gift shop entrance, and had disappeared around a corner, onto a dark trail between the building and the trees. Her foot found a railing and she climbed over the gate, landing on the boards of the rickety bridge that ran along the top of the mill-dam.

  “What a joy it is to be young!” she cried. “Catch me!”

  She ran down the dam, stopping in the middle.

  Yeah, I’ll catch you, attention whore, thought Eddie, climbing the gate. He grinned. She had nowhere to go now, except maybe into the millhouse on the other side. Yeah. He’d catch her there. They’d do it in the straw. And she would like it. He took his time, watching her pant like a pony in the cool air. Water poured over the dam below them, spilling, exhausting itself. She met him in the middle of the span. She held up a palm. She patted the railing.

  “Climb up here,” she said.

  Eddie leered and smiled. He heaved himself up and sat. Her palms rubbed his knees. Eddie threw his head back arrogantly. He unbuttoned his shirt. To show his scars to her again, so she and the moon and the stars could gape with admiration. He reached down, casually, and popped the top button of his jeans. Her hands ran down his legs. They cupped his calves. He flexed them for her. She gripped his ankles.

  And pulled, hard.

  She heaved his feet over his head. His arms shot out, scrabbling for purchase. His nails dragged down the railing drawing splinters and he went over backwards. His body flipped end over end, three hundred and sixty degrees. His feet hit the water and he sank like a stone.

  That bitch! he thought, and would have screamed at her if he weren’t holding his breath. Icy water raked his skin. He kicked, futilely, but something held him. He struggled, beginning to panic. His own bulk was working against him. He’d lost his sense of up and down. Something caught his arm, his shirt. Something yanked his hair. His mouth opened in surprise and a jellyfish of oxygen bubbles escaped his lungs. He was sinking and—

  He wasn’t alone.

  A figure swam into the rippling light. The figure of a man in a business suit and a red power tie. The tie danced in the water, just as the shreds of flesh danced from the hole of his one empty eye socket. He gripped Eddie’s wrist and drew him down. Another face swam into view. A blond girl, her hair billowing around her head like the hood of a cobra. Eddie knew that one. Debbie something. She was dead, wasn’t she? She took his other wrist. Both figures were pale, bloodless, and rotting. They held him immobile, their expressions sad but determined.

  The panic went out of Eddie. He floated in the dark green. He wasn’t drowning, though. He drifted carelessly, peacefully. He might as well have been in the womb. The moon might have been a doctor’s penlight shining through the belly of his mother. Yes. His mother was there, above, waiting for him to be born. Waiting for him to grow strong and emerge to his new life. He floated in the amniotic sac of the millpond. His belly ached as if he were being ripped apart. No wonder. A tendril of blood had attached itself to his navel. Yeah, that’s where the new strength came from. From distant tributaries, gathering here, filling the spidery veins of the sac. A gift from his mother. His gift of blood from Agathe (from who?). Another tendril twisted, arced, and dove into him. It pumped his guts with power, brute might, sturdy and tough and dangerous. It pumped him full of rage and stamina and raw egg and testosterone. It was better than steroids, better than fighting or sex, better than rutting with Zef’s rich bitch. It was—

  Oh yeah.
/>   Bring it.

  Bring him on—

  Him? No—there was no him.

  I’m him.

  He’s me.

  And—

  Blackness. Peace. Reptilian and patient. The ghosts released him. Debbie Flight swam away like a frightened mermaid. Franklin Octavius Darley keened and slipped into the silt.

  The Monster strode across the depths. Kate met him at the edge of the water.

  “So beautiful,” she whispered.

  He pulled himself from the murk and into moonlight. One last spark raced across the sky and dove into the Hudson. He shook the water from his muscles. His massive shadow fell across the picnic tables…

  …and that shadow was headless.

  Kate woke the next morning on the lawn chair in her back yard. She sat up, puzzled. Her back was sore and her clothes were wet. What was she doing out here?

  She had… she had come to the back yard at dusk… to watch the lightshow…

  I must have fallen asleep, she thought. Another of her little blackouts.

  Damn it.

  And I missed the meteor shower.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  “Headaches”

  Hadewych awoke in Jessica’s bed. She lay next to him, on her stomach, floating in sleep, her arms wrapped around her pillow as if around a life preserver. Her blonde hair hung over her eyes and billowed slightly with each breath. He traced the line of her neck, the valley of her spine, down to the tangle of sheets and comforter. He was naked too, so they must’ve had sex—though he didn’t remember it. This wasn’t the first time. Twice before he’d awakened to find her next to him, and twice before he’d had no memory of it. I’m repressing my feelings, he decided. He rubbed his temples. He had a terrible headache. Hangovers had become a regular occurrence, as well. He drank too much around Jessica.