Around

by Glenn Rolfe

  “Dale!”

  “Ugh, okay,” Rocky said, setting his Walkman aside. He slid his feet to the floor and slipped past his parents. “I think I’ll take my shower now.”

  “A shower? At this time of night?” his mother asked.

  “Oh, come on, hon,” his dad said. “It’s only ten thirty.”

  “Okay, just make sure you wipe up the floor when you’re done.”

  “I will, Mom.”

  “And do your exercises before you put your brace back on,” she added.

  He stepped into the bathroom and shut out her nagging.

  * * *

  Clean, half of his exercises completed, Rocky pulled the brace’s torture straps tight and peeked his head out his bedroom door. He didn’t want to go to bed just yet. His mother had gone into the bathroom after him, to take a shower no less. As he entered the living room, his father finished off a Schlitz and placed the empty brown bottle on the coffee table.

  “Staying up for a bit?” his dad asked.

  “Yeah, I was gonna see what’s on.”

  His dad stepped beside him and kissed him on the top of his head.

  “Good night, kiddo. Love you.”

  “’Night, Dad. Love you, too.”

  His father hummed an Elvis song as he strolled out of the room.

  Rocky changed the channel to MTV and shut the lamp off.

  Cast in the TV’s late-night glow, he hoped for a cool video. When the Doublemint gum commercial ended, Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ came on.

  He fumbled for the remote control and changed it. He didn’t mind scary movies, but that video gave him the creeps. Even just seeing the beginning of it, he had to rub the goose bumps from his arms. Axel always teased him about it. He wanted to know how Rocky could watch Iron Maiden videos but not ‘Thriller’. He couldn’t really explain it. Maybe the effects were just too good in Jackson’s video.

  After surfing the channels and not finding anything good, he went to the VHS cassettes and pulled out his copy of Star Wars.

  As he got ready to load the cassette into the player, something slapped against the outside of his house.

  The hairs on his body stood at attention.

  His mind told him it was Zombie Michael getting ready to smash through the wall or the window any second.

  He pressed the tape into the VCR and stood.

  He waited to see if the sound would come again.

  His house was perfectly still.

  He crept to the window and peeked out, praying grey hands wouldn’t reach for him. They didn’t.

  Instead, he heard something at the front door.

  He was slowly edging toward it, checking to make sure it was locked, when the door burst inward.

  He nearly screamed.

  Julie gasped as she entered the house and closed the door, locking it behind her.

  “Jesus, Rocky, what are you doing?”

  “I heard something…something hit the house.”

  “Oh, yeah, that was Derek’s dumb friend Kailin. He thought it’d be funny to egg our house.” She stepped to him. “Not a word to Mom and Dad. I don’t need to give them reasons to hate Derek.”

  Rocky held his hands up in surrender.

  “I mean it. I’ll clean it up tomorrow.”

  “Kailin sounds like a real winner,” he said.

  “Yeah, no. He’s a total loser.” She grabbed a soda from the fridge and came back into the room. “What’re you watching?”

  “Star Wars.”

  Another sound stopped them both in their tracks.

  “Oh god, no,” Julie said, looking like she was about to hurl.

  He turned toward the hall.

  “Start the movie. Hurry, and turn up the TV,” she said.

  A moan came from down the hall, clear as day.

  Rocky clamped his hands over his ears.

  The final preview ended and the 20th Century Fox logo and music came on.

  Julie stepped to the TV and turned it up.

  They both sat on the couch and looked at one another. They burst out laughing.

  They covered their mouths and tried not to laugh more but that only made it worse.

  They eventually settled down. Twenty minutes into the flick, their dad came out singing another Elvis tune in his PJ bottoms in need of another Schlitz. He didn’t say a word to them before moseying back off to bed. He just smiled, sipped his beer and sang his way out of the room.

  As soon as their parents’ bedroom door closed, they both cracked up again.

  Julie made them Jiffy Pop and grabbed them each a soda.

  They made it most of the way through the movie before falling asleep on the couch.

  Chapter Ten

  “I hope she’s at least putting out,” Kailin said, as he slowed his Camaro to a crawl. Derek reared back and launched the last egg at old man Russo’s house on C Street. It splattered just above the doorbell.

  Derek pulled a smoke from the pack of Winstons on the dash. He poked the car lighter and waited until it popped.

  “You gonna answer me or what?” Kailin asked.

  Derek lit his cigarette and placed the car lighter back in its home beside the ashtray.

  “Why should I tell you anything?” Derek said.

  “Dude, she’s cute but you can’t tell me it’s fucking serious. I mean, we got the whole summer in front of us. You can’t tie yourself down to one chick. That’s stupid.”

  He knew the answer before Derek said a word. He’d never seen Derek with the same girl for more than a month. This was going to crimp their style, for sure.

  “I’ve got a girl. So what? What’s the big deal?”

  “You’re serious?” Kailin asked. “I mean, you’re not fucking with me? What’s the big deal? How about you’re supposed to be my wingman?”

  “What? You don’t need me to get laid.”

  “That’s not the point, man. We’re a team. A damn good team. How many virgins have we busted?”

  That got a sly grin out of him. It was Derek after all that came up with the nickname ‘The Virgin Busters’. They’d fucked their first chicks in a tent in Kailin’s backyard in Saco when they were fourteen. The girls were just twelve and thirteen. Right in the same tent at the same time, followed by high fives and Coors Lights in celebration.

  “Dude,” Derek said. “We’re getting too old to be looking for virgins. Haven’t you noticed?”

  Kailin spat out his window and grabbed the beer between his legs. “Are you kidding? Look where we live. This is a haven for virgins.”

  “If you think all these tourist babes are virgins, you’re fooling yourself.”

  “Oh yeah? Come with me right now.”

  “What? Where?” Derek asked.

  “Let’s head back to the pier.”

  “Dude, my house is at the end of the street. I’m fucking tired. No. I’m not going out.”

  “Lame.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever,” Derek said.

  Kailin pulled up to the curb in front of Derek’s house and let him out.

  “I hope it’s not gonna be like this all summer,” he said.

  “Dude, come on, man. She’s cool.”

  “She’s a little bitch.”

  “You know what? Fuck you.” Derek shoved off the car, saluted Kailin and headed to his front door.

  Kailin stewed. Even if she wasn’t really a bitch, this Julie chick was coming between them, pulling a fucking Yoko act. He was tempted to shout ‘Fuck you’ back at him. Instead, he did the mature thing – he turned around in Derek’s driveway and peeled out, leaving a good hundred feet of black rubber on the road.

  * * *

  He was almost back to Old Orchard Street when a black shadow passed before his headlights. When he hit his bra
kes, the beer between his legs flew to the floor, spilling its contents on the floormats.

  “Shit. Ah, fuck!”

  The last thing he needed was for the cops to pull him over. The smell alone would get him arrested.

  What the fuck was that? he wondered, scanning the roadway, first for any other cars, secondly for the thing he’d almost hit. This end of the street was quiet. The one car he’d seen turned right, heading toward Saco. He could still see some of the lights down at the square lit up, but even the bars would be closing soon.

  He was about to let off the brake when a knocking sound on his roof startled him.

  What the fuck?

  “Hello?” he said.

  There was no answer.

  He put the car in park and stepped out.

  There was nothing on his roof.

  From the road, he gave the yards and sidewalk around him a once over. Despite being in a town filled to the brim with people, Kailin had never felt so alone in his life.

  Something cold grasped his neck.

  He wanted to spin around and beat the hell out of whoever it was, but found he couldn’t move a muscle.

  “Shhhh,” the voice came in his ear. Fingertips caressed his neck, slithering their way over his chin.

  Kailin gasped as the hand clamped over his face and his feet came free from the ground. His eyes went wide as he screamed behind the palm of the thing flying him up into the night sky.

  Chapter Eleven

  Officer Pete Nelson couldn’t comprehend what he was looking at. The Camaro was sitting a hundred feet from the stop sign on Milton Street, engine running, lights on, yet there was nobody in sight. The interior reeked of beer. Perhaps the driver had needed to pull over in a hurry.

  After calling in the licence plate number, Pete leaned against his Crown Vic, waiting to hear back.

  A dark lump in the grass next to the savings bank building caught his eye.

  Reggie came over the comm.

  “Looks like the car is registered to Kailin Boucher. Nineteen, 6’, 155 lbs. According to the registration, he lives at 38 Wilton Road in Saco.”

  “Well, he ain’t out here,” Pete said. “And the car is just idling in the middle of the road.”

  “Want me to send for a tow?”

  “Yep, might as well give Jesse a call. He’s probably still awake.”

  “Okay. Roger that.”

  Pete placed the comm back on the hook and turned his Maglite on. There was a queer sensation running down his back, kind of like a millipede walking across his spine. He didn’t like it. He walked over to the Camaro and killed the engine before flicking the hazards on and dropping the keys on the driver’s seat.

  The light gleamed for a split second over something wet on the blacktop beneath his feet.

  He found the spot again with the beam.

  Blood. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. He bent down and ran a finger along the edge of it. Pete Nelson didn’t have a doubt. It sure as shit was blood. He scanned the ground for more, but the drop was the sole specimen.

  Great.

  Sure, he wasn’t concerned about the new AIDS epidemic; he was straight. Not that he had a problem with gays, they were free to love who they wanted, but he really hadn’t thought it would be blood. Now, he’d gone and contaminated it with his finger. Chief would kick him in the balls if he fucked this up.

  He stood, wiping his finger off on his pant leg.

  Maybe the guy was carjacked? He’d never heard of anything like that happening here in town, but you never know. There always had to be a first time for everything.

  He waltzed over to the bank and shone the light on the object he’d noticed in the grass. It was a boot.

  It was a cowboy-style boot, snakeskin, or fake snakeskin, more likely. He scanned the lawn for the matching boot but came up empty.

  Back at his car, he could see headlights coming up the road. Jesse and his tower, no doubt. A warmth flooded his body as the familiar truck pulled up next to him.

  “Jesse, good to see you,” he said.

  “What’s the deal with this, Pete?” Jesse asked, chunks of blond hair jutting out from beneath a blue bandana. “We got a drunk?”

  Pete had played basketball in high school with Jesse. The guy was good. After his father passed, he wound up smoking dope, getting caught in the trap. Never went to college, never went anywhere. Damn shame. Talent, smarts, good looks, the guy had too much potential to get stuck in a place like this. Yet, here he was at one twenty-five in the a.m. fetching a vacant car.

  “Smells like it,” Pete said. “Ain’t no sign of him though.” He made a point of looking around. “Car was right here when I arrived on the scene, still running.”

  “Dude,” Jesse said. “That’s fucking weird.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I’ve been standing here for twenty minutes. All I found was a boot. Hell, might not even belong to the guy.”

  “Huh? Want me to snatch her up and bring it down to the lot?”

  “Yep.” Pete spat a brown stain onto the blacktop. “He’ll sure as shit come looking for it tomorrow.”

  “Unless something happened to him.”

  Pete had a rush of chills ghost through him. He hadn’t mentioned the drop of blood to Jesse. And he really didn’t like that the vehicle had been running.

  “Jesus, Jessie, don’t go wishing harm on the guy.”

  “It’s fucking weird is all. Well, let me get positioned. I’ll have it out of here in a jiffy.”

  Even hearing Jessie talk like a backwoods burnout was a bummer.

  Pete slapped the tow truck’s cab, gave Jesse a nod and backed away.

  He waited until the tow truck drove off with the car before snatching the lone boot he’d found by the bank and heading back to the station to fill out his report.

  Chapter Twelve

  Gabriel wiped the blood from his lips, watching from atop the bank building as the officer drove away. He’d heard everything the cop and the tow truck driver had said. The officer was afraid. He’d found the man’s boot and a drop of blood. Not enough to warrant outright suspicion of foul play, but it had been a bit sloppy on Gabriel’s part. He’d have to be a bit more careful going forward. He didn’t need the police looking for him before they’d even reached the midpoint of the season. That would be a shame.

  He’d dispose of the husk of the young man in the dank basement with the others. He thought of Mother’s words from earlier: “Your scent is ripe with it. Oh, what would your father say?”

  He should go home; there would be plenty of time to feed again tomorrow. A slight tremor moved through his hands. He clenched them and closed his eyes. The hunger only seemed to be growing. Even with the fresh blood flowing through him, tingling every fibre of his being, he wanted…more.

  He bit the corner of his mouth until it bled.

  He exhaled, feeling the monster within loosen its grip ever so slightly, just enough to allow his mind to clear.

  Yes, tomorrow would be fine.

  * * *

  He returned home shortly after two o’clock. He landed in the yard and walked up the steps. Mother was wrapped in a blanket on the front porch waiting. He wanted to tell her not to worry, but she refused to look at him. It’d been foolish of him to think she would not find out. She probably knew every time he’d been out.

  A voice in his head reminded him that she, like Father, had a different idea of what constituted a good life. A safe life. Let her be angry. Let that anger fill her. Then, maybe she would understand.

  He left her alone and went inside.

  The light was on in his sister’s room. The music playing from her record player within cut suddenly as he stepped to the door. The light inside went out.

  Unappreciative. Both of them. If they would just open their eyes, they wo
uld see how much better life could be.

  He returned to his room and picked up a book he’d been reading on Maine’s history. After trying to get into it for several pages, he set the book aside. His mind was too distracted. Daylight was still more than two hours away.

  He paced back and forth for ten minutes before heading back out. A stroll before bed, nothing more.

  When he happened upon the paperboy four blocks away, he couldn’t resist.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sebago Lake 1985, One Year Earlier

  The campground was filling with more people every day. They were drawn to the second largest lake in the state and its seclusion from the rest of the busy little Maine towns. Spending time in the great outdoors appealed to people of many different backgrounds.

  Some were in tents, tents that ranged in size from a two-person nylon bubble to canvas mini-homes that could sleep up to sixteen people. Others arrived in RVs, also coming in small, tall and gargantuan sizes, just like the humans within.

  For his family, Gabriel had chosen a modest two-bedroom cabin. He would take the loft room upstairs while Mother and November would share the bedroom on the main floor. The five-hour drive from their home outside of Caribou had been long but relaxing in his mind. They’d left just after ten at night and arrived around three this morning. He didn’t often take the car, Father’s prized 1968 black Pontiac Grand Prix, but enjoyed being behind its wheel very much. It was a powerful, dark beauty, one he felt represented him well. Kept in storage throughout the rough Maine winters, and in pristine condition in Father’s care throughout the seventies, the car ran like new.

  It was the one thing he truly admired most about his father and the piece of him left behind that also made him feel closest to the man. The car was the loudest, most eye-catching thing about the cautious, docile man. For Gabriel, it shone a light on the inner spirit his father kept a tight lid upon for his entire life. Gripping the wheel, cruising down the black highway in the night, Gabriel enjoyed feeling the vehicle’s power and wondered if Father had ever been tempted to just open it up and unleash its full potential. Like many things in their father’s life, if he had, he’d kept it private. But the car was a signal to him that maybe there was more to Father than the quiet, hard worker that they saw day and night before his heart gave out.