by Alexie Aaron
Ralph crooked his finger, and Mia walked over to him. He whispered in her ear and she smiled. “Really? Cool Beans!”
“What?” Audrey asked as she was escorted out of the room by Ralph.
“It’s a surprise,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
Chapter Twenty-two
Rory waited a half hour before he emerged from his hidey-hole of leaves and dirt. He knew that they would watch the route they had taken from the road. Rory figured that he would have to skirt the area, worried that he might become lost. He looked at his watch, judging that he had maybe four hours of daylight left and hoped that it would be enough time to find his way out of Sentinel Woods.
“Where the fuck is he?” Ethan complained. “You shouldn’t have given him all that time to hide.”
“And where is your spirit of the hunt?” Blair droned. “The guy is presenting us with sport. The least we can do is rise up to the challenge. Besides, hunting people was your idea.”
Ethan kicked at a rotting log. “What I said was, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to paint those truckers instead of just their trucks.’ You came up with this idea.”
“True. But we have to hand it to the prey. The kid no doubt went out and bought equipment for the day. He hasn’t a clue how to use it. Besides, I told Keith to jam the marker, which he assures me he has. The most the hardware man can do is cry, as we shoot the fuck out of him.”
“So the kid can’t defend himself. Seems a bit unsporting,” Ethan commented.
“Now, who’s playing the sportsmanship card? It’s Ethan the honorable.” Blair pulled up his gun and shot the teen in the thigh.
“What the fuck! You shot me!” Ethan complained, rubbing his sore leg under the orange spatter. “That hurt!”
“Imagine that, getting shot with a pellet of paint hurts,” Blair said and walked off into the woods.
Ethan turned and fired. The pellet missed Blair and impacted with a tree inches from his head, decorating its trunk with purple paint.
He could hear Blair’s sardonic laughter. “Now this is a hunt.”
Ethan swore and stalked off, unaware of the extra shadow falling across his path.
Rory watched the guy walk away. He had intended to shoot the traitorous teens from his vantage point, but as he overheard that his weapon had already been disabled, he had to rethink his mission. He needed to find a place to work on the gun and figure out what Keith had done to it.
Keith whistled off key, oblivious to calling attention to himself. An arm snaked across his body and slammed him to the ground. He looked up to see a very angry Rory standing over him. “It was only a joke. Let me up.”
Rory shook his head. He took the marker Keith dropped and placed the barrel to the kid’s crotch. “Fix my gun now, or your jewels are headed inward.”
Keith wiggled uncomfortably. “Hand it here.”
Rory did so and watched as Keith worked on the weapon.
“Here, try it.”
Rory juggled the weapon with his empty hand and managed to squeeze off a shot. The marker, true to Keith’s word, was working again. He continued to keep the barrel of Keith’s gun pointed at him. “Why did you pick me?”
“It’s because you’re a stupid loser. No friends, no one who cares enough to retaliate,” he said bluntly. “You’re a fucking moron that used to be Mr. Big, but not anymore. Hell, your father, the big war hero, was smart enough to stay away from you. Everyone knows you have to volunteer to have a third tour of duty.”
“Liar!”
“What’s the matter, daddy issues?” Keith said, striking a nerve.
Rory, distracted by the hurtful words, didn’t see Keith’s foot rise up, taking aim. Keith knocked the marker from Rory’s hand. He lunged for the weapon as Rory dove for cover. Keith came up with the gun, disappointed to find Rory gone. He whipped around, firing into the bushes in the direction he assumed Rory had fled until the plants dripped in orange paint. “Fucking chicken-shit moron!” he yelled. “I’ll find you, and destroy you!”
Rory waited until Keith’s back was to him before sending a carefully aimed shot to the back of the kid’s head. It just winged him, snapping the back of the boy’s ear, causing him to scream in pain. Rory didn’t wait around for the kid to calm down. He fired again and again until the back of Keith Summerfield was blue as a smurf.
“What was that?” Blair asked, looking at the Smithe brothers who had decided to take a strategy session. They passed the joint between them, not bothering to offer a hit to Blair.
“It’s your fucking brother. I expect he has broken a nail or something equally as lame,” Sean Smithe answered, his voice squeaky from holding in the smoke.
Blair, torn between knowing what a douchebag Keith was and family loyalty, said nothing.
Vince Smithe giggled, amused by nothing in particular.
This pissed off Blair, and he fired two shots, catching both brothers in the chest, before he stalked off in the direction of Keith’s screams.
~
Jane Kline arrived at the Ace Hardware and was surprised to find out that Rory wasn’t scheduled to work.
“I assumed he was at home recovering from the flu. He called off yesterday,” Deb Booker informed her. She was about to say more, but the look on Jane’s face told her that if Rory was sick, it was news to her.
“I’m sorry, I must have misunderstood. If you see him, let him know, his dad’s weekly phone call has been changed to seven instead of eight.”
“I will. Say hello for me?” Deb asked, following the woman out.
“Sure,” Jane replied absently, getting into her car.
Deb watched Jane drive off, putting her arms around herself to stave off the chill she was feeling on this unusually warm fall afternoon.
Rory stumbled over something in the overgrown clearing. He kicked away the accumulation of leaves and saw a gravestone. “Well fuck, this is all I need, a fucking graveyard.” He walked around looking for more graves but found none. Rory returned to the grave. He looked around him before kneeling down and scraping off enough moss to read the resident of this isolated resting place. “Van Kamp. I guess you died a lonely man, Van,” Rory said.
He heard something move just inside the tree line. He dropped to the ground as a shot of purple whizzed by his head and connected with the weathered sandstone of the grave marker. Rory moved behind the stone, propping his gun barrel on top before firing a couple shots into the trees. A wild hoot was all he heard before he was once again fired upon. He had no idea who his assailant was, but he knew he needed to find cover before the baller’s aim got better. He rolled and crawled until he found a mass of thorny bushes at the edge of the clearing. He put on his goggles and stuck his marker in his jacket before balling his fists in his sleeves and crawling into the old roses. A long thorn caught Rory at the side of his neck. The pain of his skin ripping was excruciating, but he held his tongue. He lay on the ground and waited, his wound dripping into the hard-packed earth below him.
Jason ran out of the trees certain he had hit the target. “Come out, Hardware Man. I know I hit you!” he said before crowing like a rooster. He stumbled around, hitting the exposed gravestone hard with his leg. “Ow, fucking hell!” he screamed and proceeded to kick at the stone, knocking off the rest of the moss in the process. “Homer Van Kamp, you are so going to regret this!” Jason moved back a few yards. He started running, taking a jump, angling his two booted feet at the old stone. He connected, and the top of the stone snapped off. Not satisfied with his work, the teenager picked up the broken piece and decided to smash it against the face of the stone.
Rory watched the kid’s violence against the defenseless stone silently from his thorny blind. He saw the destruction of the gravestone, well aware it was just a substitute for Rory himself. He closed his eyes and started to pray for help.
“I’m going to kill him,” Keith vowed as he headed back to the car. “I’m going to take his phone and smash it, and then I’m going to visit his mother and…�
��
“And what?” his brother said behind him. “Go ahead, continue. You seem to have a plan there, sport.”
Keith glared at his brother. He was getting tired of his smugness. “Nevermind.”
Blair grabbed his brother’s arm and spun him around. “Running away, smashing his phone, scaring his mother, is your big idea of revenge. Think. He’s out here in the woods far away from civilization and anyone who gives a fuck about him.”
Keith set his jaw. “I’m going to paint the fucker until he is covered with bruises.”
“It’s a start,” Blair commented. “Let’s flank around to the south. I heard Jason crowing. I think he may be on the trail of the elusive hardware man.”
Jason, having spent his energy on the demolition of the grave marker, sat down and pulled a flask from his pocket. Instead of booze, his flagon was full of Red Bull. He took a pull, waiting for the caffeinated beverage to jump-start his heart. He sipped quietly, conscious that Rory may have taken cover nearby. “Either you are here or not here,” he announced. “If you’re here, I would like to notify you of your near death. I’ll bury you next to old Homer here. Your mommy is going to miss her little boy.
The mention of his mom made Rory mad. He wanted to reach out and punch Jason’s lights out. He visualized how the rich punk would piss himself as the running back emerged from the brush. He wanted to hear the kid’s bones break as he tackled him to the ground.
“Hey fuckwad!” Rory heard Blair call.
Jason looked in Blair’s direction and crowed.
Rory took this as a sign. He would use the noise the teenagers were making as cover. It was time for him to move out of his hide and crawl deeper into the woods. While he waited for his opportunity, he heard crows and howls from Jason that were countered with variations of the ef word from Blair, and now Keith added his insults into the mix. Rory got to his feet and ran. Three experienced ballers were too much for Rory to take on by himself.
“Well looky here, what have you been doing, Jason?” Blair asked, picking up a chunk of sandstone.
“It was like this when I got here,” Jason lied.
“Oh no, I think this is recent activity. Are you telling me the hardware man has been vandalizing a grave?”
Jason smiled wickedly.
Blair looked at the purple paint and thought a moment. “Not that I care, but the evidence doesn’t support your story.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jason asked.
“Keith, do you see all this purple paint?”
His brother nodded.
“Do you see any blue paint?”
Keith shook his head.
“What I think happened is that tracker smurf found the hardware man here and, as he is known to do, shot prematurely, and the kid got away, perhaps taking cover behind whose-it’s stone here.”
“Okay, so I trashed the stone, what’s the problem?”
“I’ve got no problem. But you may have to answer for it sometime. The universe is powerful and does tend to rain down some karma hell on those crude enough to take out their ire on harmless gravestones.”
Jason looked at Blair a moment before crowing, “Bring it on universe!”
Blair shook his head, nudged his brother, and walked north into the tree line looking for Rory.
Jason watched them walk away. He flipped them a full bird salute behind their backs. He took another pull of Red Bull and got to his feet. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes and buttoned up his coat. He picked up his marker and set the dial to high velocity. He started to follow the Summerfields when he heard movement behind him. He turned and fired. Jason was greeted by an empty clearing. The sound of movement continued. He followed his ears until he stood in front of what he was certain had been Rory’s recent hiding space. He shook his head in admiration. “You have to be freaking nuts to hide in there,” he said. “Where have you gone to now?”
He bent down and studied the surrounding terrain. Another creak in the old roses reached his ears. Had he missed something? Was the hardware man still there? He backtracked to the bushes in time to see something odd amongst the ancient roses. The old thorny vines appeared to be moving. He backed away into the clearing. He pushed the goggles off his face, hoping to clear the vision before him. The vines continued to move. They twisted, circled and knotted until they formed into a thorny representation of a standing man.
“I’m not seeing this,” Jason said backing away.
The thorn man angled his head as if to answer him.
The teen took another step backward, his heel connecting with a piece of the broken gravestone. Jason fell backwards, his arms flailing. He caught his wrist on the remaining piece of standing stone, breaking it instantly, dropping his gun, screaming in pain. He managed not to hit his head on the ground by maintaining a tucked position - a remembered maneuver from some childhood self-defense class. He rolled to his feet, his damaged arm tucked to his chest. He took off running.
If the piece of stone that was hurdled at his retreating back was thrown at normal velocity, it would have at best bruised the kid. But it was thrown at high velocity. The stone crushed Jason’s L4 and L5 vertebrae on contact. The boy crumpled face down into the leaves. He managed to turn his head and scream before the piece of sandstone heralding the name of Homer fell, crashing into his skull.
Chapter Twenty-three
Audrey and Mia drove back from Chicago together. They had stopped off at Ann Seaver’s to finalize the cake order for Ralph. Ann reported that the neighborhood continued to enjoy peaceful, ghost free evenings. Mia repeated Burt’s offer to come out if the rascals started up again. Audrey mentioned that the coroner would be releasing the remains of the six lost children soon. Ann offered to take up a collection to bury the children.
“Actually, that’s been taken care of,” Audrey announced. “The alumni of Himmel Elementary School pooled their money together and have purchased two large plots. The Ashes and the Gilberts will have a Christian burial, and their bones will rest side by side.”
“That’s so kind of the old dears. I’m so happy to hear that,” Ann said.
Mia, who was hearing this news for the first time, agreed.
The girls started back and found themselves facing a traffic jam on the expressway.
“I wonder if there is a way around this?” Audrey asked.
“You could go Cid’s way. It’s all back roads, but it beats sitting here all day,” Mia said.
Audrey exited the highway as soon as she was able, and the girls drove through small commuter towns and vast fields of soybeans ready for harvest. The terrain changed, the roads became hilly, and the fields gave way to woodlands.
“I didn’t know this was here. Is it a forest preserve?” Audrey asked Mia as they drove through Sentinel Woods.
Mia’s stomach clenched, and she fought the nervous nausea that had taken hold. “No, it’s not. No one wants it, not even the county.”
“I think there’s a story behind that statement.”
“We’re currently driving through Sentinel Woods. It has a bad history of sinkholes, so it can’t be built on.”
“Did mining cause that?”
“No, it can’t be mined. The ground eats anything heavy that is placed on it.”
The late afternoon sun caught a few of the large maple leaves, firing up the reds and oranges.
“The trees have no problem standing,” Audrey observed. “What does Murphy say about it?”
“Murphy didn’t know about it until a few nights ago when Cid almost hit a group of men running across the road in the dark,” Mia explained. “I don’t know too much about it, but I think I know where we can find out,” she said checking her watch. “The Big Bear Lake library is open for another hour if you’re game…”
“You dangle a mystery and a library I’ve never been to in front of me, what do you think?” Audrey answered and increased her speed.
Mia closed her eyes and fought the presence in the woods. It w
as old and hungry and was looking for something it lost. Mia closed her mind, freeing herself from its grip. As they left the woods, Mia thought she smelled roses.
Blair and Keith followed their noses and located the Smithe brothers. They heralded the Summerfields and offered them a hit.
“You’ll have to excuse my brother; he’s experiencing a blue period,” Blair said, taking the offered joint from Vince.
“Fuck off,” Keith said and plopped to the ground. “I’ll kill him when I see him,” he vowed.
Vince and Sean were working through their supply of blue man jokes at Keith’s expense when Ethan joined them.
“Any sign of our helpful hardware man?” Ethan asked.
“That idiot Jason had him pinned down south of here but lost him. He thinks he landed a shot, but I’m not buying it,” Blair said. “It’s getting late; darkness will soon be upon us. We can call it a night and head over to the highway and shoot at some motorists or continue on here,” Blair said, offering a hit to Ethan.
“Do you think the kid’s still in the woods?” Ethan asked, running his hand along his marker after declining the offered joint.
“Rory’s never been here, and the last sighting puts him smack dab in the middle of this hundred acre wilderness. He’s still here. Although, I would caution that he is probably angry,” Blair warned.
“Nah, he’s scared,” Vince said. “I would be.”
“A scared man gives up,” Ethan pointed out. “Rory looks to have taken out a bit of aggression on little boy blue here. I think he’s mad.”
“We could get hurt,” Sean warned. “Angry animals are dangerous and unpredictable.”
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Blair suggested.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Jason?” Ethan asked.
“Rooster boy will go along with the group.” Blair yawned. “Those who want to call it a day, raise a hand.”
