The Twisted Ones

by T. Kingfisher

  “You don’t want them coming to your house,” I finished for her.

  “Shit, hon, you say it like that and I sound like a real asshole.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t either. You came and stayed with me. That was more than enough.”

  “I’m staying with you again tonight,” she informed me. “In case that thing comes back with reinforcements.”

  “But…”

  “Not just her,” said Tomas.

  “What?”

  “Skip and I’ll come too,” he said.

  “But… but you… Wait, you believe me?”

  Tomas rolled his eyes. “Hey, everybody knows there’s things in the woods here.”

  I remembered when we’d first met, when Tomas had come up the drive to move the microwave. That’s what he’d said, wasn’t it? Things in the woods.

  “Could be you’re both crazy,” said Skip, as if making an observation about the weather. “But doesn’t hurt to have other people around for that. Believe me, I know.”

  I flailed. Foxy had been an unexpected gift, but I felt terrible about putting her into danger. Two more people, though?

  “I don’t have enough beds!” I said, falling back on possibly the least useful argument I could make.

  “Hon,” said Foxy gently, “I don’t think we’re going to be doing much sleeping.”

  Well, when she put it like that…

  A little before twilight, we all tromped over there. Skip hadn’t seen the inside of the house before. He looked around, then gave me a sympathetic look.

  “I’d apologize,” I said wearily, “but it wasn’t my mess.”

  “I hear you.”

  Foxy made tea. We all sat around, waiting for the monsters to come.

  “Skip, you doin’ okay?” asked Foxy.

  He looked up from the magazine he was reading. I got the feeling he was actually thinking about the answer. Finally he said, “Well enough. The timing’s not great, but at least I’m on the way down, not up.”

  It occurred to me that they were talking about Skip’s bipolar disorder, and I looked away, feeling like I was observing something that was none of my business. Skip must’ve caught my expression, though.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Not a big secret. Down is better than up for this kind of thing. Down, I have a hard time getting out of bed, but up, I get weird.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, which was useless, but there aren’t a lot of social conventions for this sort of thing.

  “Don’t be. I got stuff that mellows most of it out. When I was younger, it was hard.” He considered. “Had ups back then where I’d be throwing the door open here and yelling at your monsters to fight me.”

  “I’d be right behind you,” said Tomas cheerfully.

  “Yeah, and you’d both get et,” said Foxy. “Last thing we need is you two running out and gettin’ in a dick-waving contest with a deer skeleton.”

  There was a brief silence while we all tried to recover from Foxy’s metaphor.

  “That was… a thing you just said. Yes,” I said.

  Skip shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said to me. “Just don’t expect a lot of small talk.”

  “I think Foxy’s got that covered for all of us,” I said.

  Foxy crowed with delight. “You better believe it! Oh, that reminds me, put down that magazine, though. You guys should read this book her granddaddy left. It is some grade-A weird shit.”

  “I been trying to avoid weird shit,” said Tomas, a bit plaintively. “My grandma always said if you leave it alone, it mostly leaves you alone.”

  “Yeah, but here you are,” said Foxy.

  “Hey, once they start banging on doors, all bets are off.”

  Foxy got out Cotgrave’s manuscript and handed it over. Skip began to read it. Tomas tried, then eventually put it down.

  “Look, I can’t even watch reruns of Alien,” he said. “This is too much. Maybe when it’s daylight.”

  “Hon, you realize we’re sitting here waiting for a thing made out of bones to show up, right?”

  “Yeah, but I been trying to pretend you’re both crazy.”

  “Oh God!” I said, louder than I meant to. “I wish!”

  There’s that awkward moment when you’ve just talked too loudly and nobody says anything to fill the silence. I started to flush, and then bone cracked against the front door.

  I cannot say that I was grateful for the reprieve.

  We all looked at the door.

  “Is there somebody there?” said Tomas.

  “It came to the door quicker than usual…,” I whispered.

  “Maybe it thought you were throwing a party, hon.”

  I swallowed a braying laugh that would have come out even louder than the “I wish!” had.

  Skip stood up and went to the door. He looked out the peephole, just as I had done yesterday.

  Crack!

  He stood there for a long moment, and then he stepped back.

  “Tomas,” he said quietly. “They’re not crazy.”

  “Shit,” said Tomas, with feeling. He got to his feet and went to the door.

  Crack!

  He lasted maybe two seconds, jumped back, and turned around, shaking his head. Strangely enough, he was laughing.

  I understood the impulse. Look how much I’m not freaking out. Look how calmly I’m taking this.

  “Shit,” he said again, and then he let out a long string of what I think was profanity in Spanish, although it might have been prayer. It ended with “Shit, shit, shit.”

  “I know, right?” said Foxy.

  The living room filled with the absolute silence of four people who have absolutely no idea what to say next.

  Crack!

  Tomas took out his phone and shoved the camera up to the peephole, muttering to himself.

  “You’re never gonna get a good shot like that,” said Foxy.

  “I sure as hell ain’t opening that door! I’ve seen horror movies!”

  “You just said you can’t watch scary movies.”

  “How do you think I found out I couldn’t?!”

  We had moved on very rapidly from the potential dick-waving contest with the deer skeleton. I was glad of this.

  Skip looked at the big window, nodded once to himself, and said, “We gotta block the windows.”

  Tomas stopped trying to film the effigy and grabbed one end of the couch. Skip took the other. They turned it so the back was against the glass. Foxy and I hurried to turn the regular chairs to hold it more or less in place.

  “It didn’t try to get in the windows before,” I said, almost to myself.

  “Let ’em do whatever makes them feel better, hon. I don’t think that sofa’s worth much anyway.”

  Skip and Tomas stepped back and looked at their handiwork. The hammering against the door had stopped.

  We heard the sound of footsteps on the porch, walking sideways, and then it began to tap against the glass.

  “Do you think it knows we’re in here?” asked Tomas.

  “I think the sofa suddenly appearing in the window might have given it a clue, hon.”

  Tap… tap… tap…

  “Nobody should go out there,” said Skip, quite unnecessarily. “Is there another window?”

  “Cotgrave’s room,” I said, pointing.

  He and Tomas vanished down the hall. I tried to remember if the doll room had any windows, but no, that one was walled up with boxes and doll containers.

  Tap… tap…

  Foxy and I moved away from the door and into the kitchen.

  “So,” said Foxy. “How about this weather we’re having?”

  “Foxy…”

  “Don’t mind me, hon, I get sarcastic when I’m scared to the tits.”

  A thudding noise made me nearly jump out of my skin, but it was only Tomas and Skip upending the bedframe to wedge in front of the window.

  They reemerged. “Anything else?”

  “All co
vered by boxes,” I said. “Except the kitchen window here, and it’s too high up. I think.”

  Skip looked at the window and nodded.

  Tap… Tap…

  “Now what?” said Tomas.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Wait until… wait until morning, I guess. It doesn’t stay in daylight. I don’t know if it has to hang up in a tree or if it just leaves or what.”

  The words coming out of my mouth sounded absolutely bizarre, and the fact that Tomas and Skip were both looking at me and nodding as if I was making sense was the worst bit about it.

  We stood in the kitchen, the way people do during a party. Tomas sat down on the steps going up to the second floor.

  After a while I realized the tapping had stopped. I didn’t want to go look and see where it had gone.

  “Right,” said Foxy finally. “We got tea and I got a deck of cards. What do you want to do next?”

  “You’re suggesting we play cards,” said Skip. “With a monster out there.”

  “You got any better ideas?”

  Skip rubbed his forehead and said nothing.

  “We should make plans,” said Tomas. “Figure out what to do tomorrow, after that thing’s gone. Assuming it’s gone.”

  “It’s always gone away in the middle of the night before… I think… but it’s not like I went looking,” I admitted. I had a strong feeling that it shouldn’t be allowed to be out during the day, but that was more like believing that monsters couldn’t get me if I was under the covers.

  “Don’t think I want to test that, eh?” Tomas nudged my arm, which might have been encouraging or warning or both. “So in the morning. What then?”

  All three of them looked at me, as if I had any idea what I was doing.

  “I don’t know!” I said. “I’ve got to get Bongo back—if he’s coming back—I can’t stay here, but I also can’t leave.…”

  “Does it do anything other than knock on the door and tap on the windows?” asked Skip.

  “Not that I know of. I still don’t know why it doesn’t just break the windows.…”

  “Some things can’t cross boundaries very well,” said Foxy. “You know. Running water and vampires and having to be invited in.”

  “Don’t think this is a vampire,” said Tomas.

  “Damn shame. I could use a sexy man hanging off my neck about now.”

  Skip and Tomas exchanged looks but did not comment. I raked my fingers through my hair.

  “We could tell somebody…,” Tomas began.

  “Yeah, that’ll go over well,” said Foxy, with heavy contempt. “They’ll think you’re high. And what’s adding more people gonna do? You gonna make a cop spend the night here with us?” Tomas grimaced at the word cop.

  “We’ll take it in shifts,” said Tomas. “We won’t let you stay here alone. At least for a couple days, until we’re sure…”

  He trailed off, but I knew perfectly well what he meant. Until we’re sure Bongo’s not coming back. Until we’re sure there’s no point in anyone staying.

  “I just want my dog back,” I said, and my voice cracked and I didn’t even care.

  15

  Bongo came back the next day.

  I had been braced for the worst. You do that, when pets run off. You hope and hope and hope, but a little nagging voice whispers to you about cars and highways and dogfighting rings and then one day you wake up and a few weeks have passed and you know that little voice was right. You’re no longer a person with a dog who’s missing. You’re a person who had a dog once. You cry and stomp around and then you grieve and move on.

  It’s easier with hounds in some ways. They’ll run for miles on a scent. You can at least tell yourself that they ended up six states over and some nice family adopted them and gives them treats and belly rubs.

  All this assumes that you do not live somewhere with monsters lurking in the woods, pretending to be deer. I don’t know if you can grieve and move on after that. I was dreading finding out.

  When there was a scrape at the front door, I about leapt out of my skin. It was broad daylight, but what if the thing had gotten bolder? Foxy’s wasp-nest-headed hog had gone about during the day. I didn’t have any proof that the deer effigy went around only at night, except that I’d only seen it at night so far.

  Does it hang itself up on a tree to sleep, like a bat? Did I surprise it taking a nap?

  I heard that woodpecker noise during the day before, didn’t I?

  The scraping came again. I picked up the tea kettle because it was metal and heavy and, God help me, I should have bought a machete. I should have bought one days ago. What was wrong with me that I didn’t have anything better…?

  I looked out the peephole of the front door and saw nothing. The scraping sound was at knee level, against the doorframe. And it was a scrape, not a bang. It sounded like Bongo did when he wanted to be let out.

  I took a deep breath, thought, It’s either Bongo or I’m about to have the worst moment of my life, and opened the door.

  Bongo looked up at me, tongue lolling, and pawed at the screen frame again. He wanted in. Why was I, designated opener of doors, not seeing to it at once?

  I let out a sob, flung the tea kettle aside, and threw the screen door open.

  What followed was a lot of sobbing on my part and a lot of puzzled but enthusiastic licking on his part. I buried my face in his fur and drank in the strong, oily scent of damp hound, which is not normally a smell that one is glad to encounter. Bongo endured this for several minutes, then finally rolled to his feet and went into the kitchen to paw at his food dish.

  “The prodigal son has priorities, I guess,” I said. I made sure the door was shut again and went to pour out some dog food. He tore into it like he was starving, but that didn’t really mean anything, because he believed that he was starving unless he was actually in the act of chewing.

  He didn’t look hurt. There were some dead leaves in his fur and a couple of burs. The nice thing about coonhounds is that they’re such a short-furred breed that you can see any injury instantly, and I wasn’t seeing any.

  There was a stick shoved through the buckle on his collar. It took me a moment to figure out what it was, because there was a piece of paper wrapped tightly around it.

  Working the stick loose was difficult, partly because Bongo was eager to lick my face and partly because it had been jammed through one of the holes in the collar where the tongue of the buckle fits. I had to pin my dog in a headlock and put my chin on top of his skull while I pried it loose. (He enjoyed this enormously. Bongo has always been a very huggable dog.)

  When I finally got it loose, the paper was somewhat worse for wear. It was about the size of a fortune cookie fortune and the edges were badly scuffed.

  It didn’t need to be large, though. There were only two things on it.

  One was the word HELP.

  And on the back, torn but still recognizable, a drawing. A straight line interrupted by semicircles, two eyes, and a curl of hair.

  Kilroy was here.

  I stared at the scrap of paper for quite a long time.

  Understanding came very slowly, not a splash of cold water but a slow chill.

  HELP

  Kilroy.

  Someone had written this note and attached it to Bongo’s collar, hoping that someone would find it.

  Help. Kilroy.

  Cotgrave had drawn Kilroy.

  Cotgrave was dead.

  He can’t need help. The dead don’t need help.

  Who wrote this note?

  Bongo huffed and sprawled across my lap. I dug my fingers into his ruff.

  Deep breaths, I thought. He taught me to draw Kilroy. He could easily have taught someone else. There could be someone in the woods back here who learned it from him.

  Or learned it from someone else, for that matter. It’s not like Kilroy wasn’t all over Europe. You couldn’t kick a rock in World War II that didn’t have Kilroy scribbled on it.

  While th
is was true, I couldn’t quite believe it. Of all the things to attach to a note that was attached to my dog, Kilroy seemed too specific. Cotgrave had drawn it in his book and again at the end of his typewritten notes, and here it was again. And why would you take up valuable space on your tiny piece of paper with a silly drawing like Kilroy if you were sending a note for help, unless it was important?

  I was forced to believe in some impossible things these last few days, but believing that this was a coincidence seemed to be going entirely too far.

  It felt like a message.

  A message to me? Or to Cotgrave? Do they know he’s dead, whoever they are?

  I did not dare think too long about the alternative, that Cotgrave wasn’t dead, that he was out there in the woods somewhere, desperately trying to get someone to help him.

  No. It can’t be. He’d be at least a hundred years old. It’s not possible.

  It was not possible that deer bones walked with stones knocking together in their ribs. It was not possible that you could go through a tunnel of trees and come out in hills that were found on no map.

  He’s dead. They buried him.

  And still the nagging voice in my head said, But did you see the body?

  No, it wasn’t possible. This assumed that my grandmother would have been involved somehow in faking a funeral, and that wasn’t in her nature. She’d have been thrilled if he’d vanished. She’d have decided that he ran away to spite her, probably with another woman. She’d have milked that so hard that she’d have lived another thirty years on pure hate.

  It couldn’t be Cotgrave. But someone out there was sending a message. Someone Cotgrave had known.

  Unless…

  They can’t know that Cotgrave taught me to draw Kilroy. Surely they can’t.

  I closed my hand over Foxy’s talisman. If the holler people were able to… what? Read my mind well enough to pluck the memory of Kilroy out?… then there was probably no hope at all. They could tell what I had for breakfast. They could tell which direction I was going to drive when I leapt in my truck and drove away screaming.

  For some odd reason, I did not seem to be leaping into my truck and driving away screaming.

  HELP

  I had Bongo back. There was no reason at all that I couldn’t bundle him up, hit the gas, and tell Dad to bulldoze this place to the ground. I could put all this behind me. I could sleep in my own bed, leaving the lights burning all night, and eventually I’d probably stop screaming when I heard woodpeckers. I could get back to my life. I could blame it all on black mold.