Bones by the Wood

by Johnson, Catherine

  Thea pushed her plate away. There was no way she was going to be able to eat now. She might actually be on the verge of throwing up everything she already had eaten. “I don’t know what to tell you, bud. We’re not, but we might be, maybe. How would you feel about that?”

  The microcosm of the lockdown, the reason for it and the effort required to end it, was pushing her and Dizzy down a track at a faster pace than Thea had ever imagined moving. She needed to step back and get her priorities in order. If Josh didn’t like Dizzy, in any way, she needed to put the brakes on.

  Josh gave a little one-shouldered shrug. “He’s alright I guess. Kinda cool. I like his friends. Shaggy an’ Scooby’re way sick.”

  “That means they’re good, right?”

  Josh rolled his eyes at her. “Yeah, Mama. That means they’re good. They’re a lot of fun. They make me laugh and they show me cool stuff and they don’t treat me like a kid.”

  Thea had to physically bite her lip to suppress the urge to remind Josh that at ten years old he was indeed still a kid.

  “Would you mind if we got to know him a little better?”

  Josh gave that quick, one-shouldered shrug again, his eyes cast down at his food. “I guess not. Do I have to call him ‘Dad’?”

  “No, he’s not your dad. You don’t have to call him that.”

  Josh looked up, and his expression was heartbreakingly hopeful. “Can we come back here so I can hang out with Shaggy and Scooby?”

  “Maybe. I think we might get invited back. But we can’t be here all the time. This is their place.”

  “What about Crash and Sint...Sant...Sinatra? Can we go visit them sometime? They’re fun, too.”

  Thea didn’t want to lay the possibility of a visit out to Louisiana before Josh just yet, not until they men had come back safe and whole. “Maybe. I think they’ll be comin’ back here sometimes, too.”

  “Will Dizzy be comin’ to live with us?”

  “No, it’ll still be the two of us in our place.”

  Josh looked down at his food and pushed what was left of it around the plate a few times. Thea was beginning to think that she’d handled this in the worst way possible and didn’t even dare look at Annelle. She sat and waited and watched the top of Josh’s head and waited for him to speak. Eventually he looked up, straight into her eyes. “I think I’d like you hangin’ out with Dizzy some more. He makes you smile. You don’t smile much.”

  Thea was stunned. “I... I.... I do smile.” She stuttered, made breathless by the horror that her son thought she wasn’t happy with their life.

  “Not like you smile at him.”

  Okay, that was a little better, maybe. She could probably deal with that. “Anytime you don’t like what’s goin’ on, bud, you just say so and it’ll stop, okay?” Making that promise scared Thea half to death. There was potential for a lot of pain for her in that promise, but she was fully prepared to commit to it for the sake of her son’s happiness.

  “Okay. Hey, can you teach me to play pool like you promised?”

  She almost had whiplash from the change in the gravity of the topic. “Sure, er... I just need to make sure everything’s cleaned up...”

  “I’ll do that, hon. You go spend the time with your boy,” Annelle interrupted. Thea fought the urge to scowl, not that she wasn’t grateful to be given a reprieve from organizing everyone, but she could have used Annelle’s input a little sooner in the conversation.

  Thea’s appetite didn’t want to recover, so she took her plate back into the kitchen and scraped the food she hadn’t eaten into the trash. When she came out she crossed paths with Annelle, who was coming in with hers and Josh’s dishes. Thea gave in to the urge to scowl a little, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the time or the place, and quite frankly it wasn’t any sort of discussion that she wanted the other girls listening on.

  She spent a couple of hours guiding Josh through the way to hold a pool cue and line up a shot and the rules of some of the different variations of the games. It was an effective distraction for both of them. It was such a strange atmosphere that was hanging over the clubhouse, and it got worse as the hours ticked by, that Thea gave up completely on effective parenting and eventually let Josh fall asleep in front of the TV.

  It was difficult to know what to do for the best, anyway. Samuel had taken Dizzy’s room for a nap before they’d rode out. She had no idea if he would be taking it once they got back. She decided that the best course of action was to be unobtrusive and take one of the mattresses. Annelle was more than a little enthusiastic about the mattresses. Having been unable to score a fuck the previous night, she’d had to be content with one of the sofas for a bed and she was scathing in her assessment of their suitability for the provision of a good night’s rest.

  After she’d gotten Josh settled in a makeshift bed, Thea sat and watched TV with Annelle, Alex and Lyla. She let her ire at her friend go; her head was too full of buzzing thoughts to hold onto it. She was staring blankly at a point somewhere between the sofa and the screen and had no idea at all what show was on. She didn’t feel the least bit tired, but she didn’t want to sleep anyway. She had to keep watch. She had to be awake when they came back. She didn’t know why, but it seemed important that she was. Every so often, she glanced over at Josh’s sleeping form. They had a chance for something here, to be part of something. Thea hoped it wasn’t being snatched away from them before they could investigate it for themselves.

  Annelle had fallen asleep slumped over the arm of the sofa, and Alex had left the sofa completely to settle on a mattress, as had Nut and the other girls. Lyla was the only person in the room, other than Thea, who was still awake. Thea didn’t think Lyla had really seen anymore of the vacuous images that had been flickering across the screen than she had. It was obvious that Lyla was as worried for Ferret as Thea was for Dizzy, probably more so.

  They sat vigil in silence as the darkness of the night outside the windows gradually receded through the shades of grey and gold of the dawn until another day was born. And then, like the rumble of approaching thunder, Thea heard the distant roar of a number of Harley engines. She had thought she’d feel relieved when she heard the signal of their return, but her anxiety increased tenfold. What if he wasn’t with them? What if he’d been hurt? What if...? She couldn’t sit still with the awful possibilities clouding her mind. She jumped up and ran to the door. Lyla had heard the sound of their return, too, and joined Thea in the cold, new daylight.

  The fleet of bikes had been joined by a van that hadn’t been with them when they left. Thea did a quick count. There were two bikes missing. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. And then she saw him. She nearly went to her knees in the doorway. She clung to the frame to keep herself on her feet. She wanted to run to him, but she felt the presence of Lyla at her side. If Lyla, who’d been an old lady for years, wasn’t flinging herself at her man, then Thea didn’t think she had a right to approach Dizzy in any way or form. For one horrific moment she thought Lyla hadn’t moved because Ferret was one of the men missing, but when she looked again, Ferret’s blue bike was backing into its place outside the clubhouse.

  They dismounted, and all of them headed straight to the back of the van, and Thea knew it was bad, really bad. She caught Lyla’s arm and tugged her back into the clubhouse. She intended to go and get the First Aid supplies that had been stockpiled behind the bar and realized that she’d need to wake Alex as well. She hadn’t known before this night that Alex had ever worked as anything other than a stripper. Thea had found her going through the medical supplies and Alex had mentioned that she was double checking what was there and had told Thea a little of her history.

  Their shared inertia and indecision was interrupted by the men coming in through the door. Thea and Lyla turned as one, and Thea’s heart filled her throat as she realized they were carrying a body into the room. Her stomach joined her heart as she took in the scene fully and saw that the body they were carrying was completely stiff. It wasn’t
limp and sagging in their hands, it was grotesquely twisted, although not curled in on itself, and the skin was blotchy in a way that skin should never be. They watched without speaking as the men carried their fallen brother through to the Chapel. Through the open doors Thea caught glimpses of them laying the body on the long table. She hadn’t been able to make out who it was and her brain was too jarred by the fact that one of them was dead to make sense work a process of elimination based on who was still alive.

  They trudged slowly back out of their room, heading back out to the bikes. She watched, and as he passed, Dizzy’s eyes locked with hers. His face remained a mask of exhaustion. He didn’t smile or nod, or scowl or acknowledge her in any other way than to keep looking at her until he had to turn his head to watch where he was going as he stepped back out into the day.

  Thea heard the crashes and rattles and curses of something heavy being moved outside. She didn’t go to see what they were doing, instead she stepped carefully around the sleeping bodies until she found Alex. She crouched down and shook her shoulder urgently until she woke with a start.

  “They’re back.”

  Alex snapped into full wakefulness. “Okay. I got it.” She threw back the covers and scrambled up. She’d fallen asleep fully dressed except for her shoes, and now she padded barefoot into the kitchen to get the kit she needed. Thea followed her. Nut had woken with the sounds of the commotion outside and was stumbling towards the bar. Lyla was already behind it, making sure that hot, fresh coffee would soon be in plentiful supply. Thea hadn’t noticed that Annelle had woken but she joined Thea in the kitchen and together they began to put together food for their returning warriors.

  “Thea!”

  At the hoarse shout Thea left the kitchen. Dizzy was already crossing the room in her direction. It was her bangs getting in her eyes that made them itch. They needed cutting. She was sure it was that. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself until she reached him and he caught her arms in a harsh grip and pulled her to him. She wrapped her arms round him, wanting to get as close as possible, but he didn’t let her. He buried one hand in her hair, twining his fingers into the tangled strands to hold her still as he kissed her long and hard. Thea slid her hands up over his back and clutched his shoulders so that she could pull herself fully against his body.

  When they had to break the kiss to breathe, they didn’t allow any space to intrude between their bodies. Thea laid her head against Dizzy’s chest, needing to hear the beat of his heart to believe that he had truly come back alive, despite the lingering tingle of the bruising pressure of his lips against hers.

  From the comfort of Dizzy’s embrace, Thea watched Alex working on Crash. It looked like she was putting stitches in his scalp. His face was smeared with blood and the shoulder of his t-shirt was dark with it.

  “Where’s your boy?” Dizzy rasped against her ear.

  Oh shit. Oh Christ. Thea stiffened and tried to pull away, but Dizzy wouldn’t let her go, he held her fast. She’d been so caught up that she hadn’t looked to check that Josh was still asleep. She hoped to God he hadn’t seen them bring the body in. She twisted until she could see the corner of the room she’d left Josh in. He was sitting up in the middle of the mattress, the covers bunched around his waist. He was awake and wide-eyed. Dizzy followed her gaze. Keeping an arm firmly around her shoulders he pulled her along with him as he went to Josh. Thea was too disgusted with herself to make her feet move at first. What sort of fucking mother was she bringing her son into the middle of all this?

  Josh spoke first when they reached him, his voice steady, but not much above a whisper. “There’s a dead body in the other room. One of your friends.”

  “Yes.” Dizzy’s voice was still hoarse.

  At first, Josh just stared at them. He didn’t speak. Thea could only imagine the nightmares he was going to have after witnessing all of this, the body, the dusty, bruised and bloody men.

  “This wasn’t really a party, was it.”

  Josh hadn’t spoken the statement as a question, but Dizzy answered it as such anyway. Thea still couldn’t find her voice. “No, Josh, it wasn’t. Some bad men wanted to hurt us and they threatened your mama and you, too.”

  Her boy looked up at her and the disappointed hurt in his eyes tore at her soul. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She had to find her voice. She had to answer the accusation in his question that she hadn’t thought he deserved to know he was in danger. She’d made the right call, she was sure of it. But her son, her boy who was heading into adolescence, had wanted the responsibility of the knowledge. “I didn’t want to scare you, bud. We just had to stay here ‘til it was safe. ‘Til Dizzy made it safe.”

  Her son looked back to the man at her side. “Are we safe now?”

  “Yes, Josh. Yes, I think we are.”

  Josh looked down and then back up again, focusing on Dizzy instead of his mother. “I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to go back to sleep.” He glanced over to the Chapel doors which were still ajar. Thea followed his gaze and felt a measure of relief that, although the doors weren’t fully shut, there was no view of the body from this spot in the room.

  “Lie down and try. Your mama and me’ll be here.”

  Josh lay down, turned to his side, and tucked his head into the pillow, but he didn’t close his eyes. Thea disentangled herself from Dizzy’s hold and dropped down onto the mattress by Josh’s back.

  “I’ll stay with him. You need food and coffee.”

  Dizzy nodded, turned and picked his way between the beds back to the bar. Thea curled herself around Josh, but propped her elbow on the pillow and cupped her head in her palm so that she could observe the room. There were fewer men milling around now. Thea guessed that some of them had retired to the dorms. She watched as Dizzy ate some of the food that Annelle had laid out on the bar and sipped from a mug of coffee that Nut handed him. Alex approached him. She wiped some cotton over a scrape on his neck and he flinched as she did so, the cotton must have been soaked in antiseptic. If he was any more injured than that, he wasn’t letting Alex treat him. He brushed her off and slid off the bar stool he’d been perched on.

  Thea watched him come back to them. When he reached them, he toed off his boots and shed his kutte. He folded the leather neatly and laid it on the floor. Josh had relaxed back into sleep, although Thea wasn’t convinced he was much more than dozing, but he didn’t stir as Dizzy joined them on the mattress. Dizzy lay down behind her, as he had the night before, or was it the night before the night before, now? But this time, instead of pulling her to him, he shifted so that he was tight against her back. She moved so that her head was no longer resting on her palm, but instead cradled on her bent arm.

  Thea tried not to think of them being bundled together as a family. That was dangerous territory to tread. It was still so early in... whatever it was that they were in. She concentrated on the rise and fall of her son’s body under her arm and on the deepening inhale and exhale of Dizzy’s breathing behind her. Wrapped warmly between the bodies of the boy she’d kill to protect, and the man who had killed to protect them, she slept.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thea squinted around the room when she woke. There was a Harley Davidson wall clock behind the bar, its face backlit with neon that was shaded a sickly orange in the daylight. She’d slept for a couple of hours. The rest of the world beyond the clubhouse would still only just be emerging into its lazy Sunday morning.

  She disentangled herself carefully from Josh’s sleeping form. She rubbed her eyes, and as she worked to throw off the clinging traces of tiredness she saw what had woken her. Dizzy had left their bed, and with the help of some of the others, they were carrying the body out of the Chapel and across the room. Thea quickly checked that Josh was still mercifully asleep. She kept her body as still as possible, only moving her head to observe, determined not to wake him to this grisly ritual.

  There was a man she hadn’t seen before waiting by the main door. H
e was another walking mountain, though thicker around the middle than Scooby, Shaggy or Shark, and he wasn’t wearing a kutte. For one ridiculous moment, Thea wondered if there was some radioactive Jesus Juice that anyone in, or associated with, the Priests had to drink as some sort of initiation.

  Other people in the room were stirring now. Thea knew there was no way she was going to be able to fall back asleep, so she rose and stretched once she was standing to get the blood flowing again.

  The mood in the clubhouse was still slow and subdued, but there was a palpable feeling of comradeship, of family. Even Lucy and Britney were working together, seemingly without prompt or complaint, to provide food for whoever was still hungry or who hadn’t joined in the early breakfast.