by Glenn Rolfe
“You never answered me, Johnny,” August said.
“Did you say you were looking for me?” Johnny asked.
The spider crawled over August’s baby-skull shoulders and up the side of his cheek before disappearing into his ear.
August didn’t reply. A smile split his face as though an invisible blade had slit it open. A perfect black facsimile. It was…ghoulish.
“Come on, Johnny,” One Eye said, tugging at Johnny’s arm. “August has been acting weird lately. You’re better off sticking with me.”
They were walking toward the graves and the other boys when a question popped into Johnny’s head.
He turned.
“Hey, August,” he said. “Where were you looking for me?”
“I was in the woods, silly.”
“The woods?”
“Outside your house,” August said.
“But we live in a trailer park. There’s no woods near us.”
“Not that house, Johnny,” he said, stepping forward.
“Come on, Johnny.” One Eye tugged at his arm. “I told you he’s being a weirdo.”
Johnny pulled his arm free and started toward August.
“What house?” he asked.
“How about this?” August said. “How about next time, you look for me.”
The way it seethed out of his mouth prickled Johnny’s flesh. He turned around and looked for One Eye. The boy was gone. They were all gone. He was here alone with August and his wicked smile among the graves.
In the distance he heard a vehicle’s engine rev to life.
Headlights peered through the swelling fog like two yellow eyes seeking him out.
When he looked back to August, he had vanished, as well.
The vehicle revved its engine.
Was that the van?
Before he could get a good look, it raced toward him.
Johnny ran, purposely crossing over graves in hopes that the vehicle wouldn’t pursue him.
He was breathing heavy, his gums hurt, his legs felt like rubber. Suddenly, he was sweating through his t-shirt. His long bangs stuck to his forehead.
The graves never seemed to end.
He had stopped to catch his breath when the roar of an engine growled out of the darkness and bore down upon him.
Johnny raised his arms and screamed.
* * *
“John, wake up!”
He opened his eyes, raising his hands, startled.
Sarah looked more irritated than concerned.
“Have you talked to Dr. Soctomah about your dreams yet?”
“Yeah,” he breathed.
“You’re trembling,” she said, some sympathy slipping into her voice.
He tried to steady his hands, but it took real effort.
Sarah sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed beside him.
“Well,” she said, “it’s probably not work related…the dreams, I mean.” She couldn’t meet his gaze. She looked toward the bedroom window. “Do you think it’s me?”
He reached for her chin and turned her face toward him. “No, why would you think that?”
Her lips turned down at the corners of her mouth. “Because I asked you to try for a baby again.”
He pulled her into his arms. The intimacy felt good.
“Of course not,” he whispered. “Don’t you ever think that.”
He wasn’t a hundred percent certain that the baby talk had nothing to do with his fucked-up dreams, but he didn’t want her carrying his weight over it. Besides, the dreams had started up before she mentioned anything to him about trying again.
“Yeah, but you could have, I don’t know, intuitively sensed it.”
“Huh, you think?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Let me show you something. Turn on your lamp.”
He flicked on the bedside light and squinted at the sudden intrusion of brightness.
Sarah reached down to her stack of library books, pulled out the second from the top, and flopped it down between them on the bed.
John picked it up and read the title.
Dreams and Nightmares: Our Reality’s Creations.
“When did you get this?” he asked.
“A few days ago,” she said. “I’ve been jotting down notes. Here, let me see.”
He handed it over and she flipped through, pulling out a white note card. “These are the ones I thought made some sense with what you’ve told me about your recurring dreams.”
One by one, she handed the cards to him.
He read the note on guilt. Reminders of acts you should or already feel guilt for. Errors you’ve committed against loved ones or friends.
Her note titled ‘others without eyes’: refusal to recognize problem/indicate that you’re hiding something.
‘spiders’
Symbolize women and female power/often represent motherhood/motherly figures.
“So, this is you connecting the dots back to you,” he said.
She nodded.
He considered the other notes. Dr. Soctomah seemed to agree something was buried in his subconscious, something that was probably shrouded in guilt.
“Well, like I said.” John took her hand, brought it to his mouth and gave it a kiss. “This all started before and I’m pretty sure I don’t have enough sense to intuit all your wants and needs.”
She looked at the alarm clock.
“It’s only four thirty. Do you want to catch some more sleep?”
He placed a hand on hers and kissed her cheek.
“John Colby, are you intuiting my wants, right now?”
“I hope so,” he said, kissing her neck.
She pulled away, raised her t-shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor.
“Come here,” she said.
* * *
In the morning, he walked her to the door, gave her a kiss, and reassured her one last time that she had no reason to feel guilty.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too.”
He watched her get into her Subaru and back into the road. She waved and drove away.
John started to close the door when his gaze stuck on the shadows among the trees at the end of the driveway.
How about you look for me.
August’s words from last night’s dream sent a shiver through him like a ghost among the graves.
Chapter Eighteen
John set out on his run shortly after Sarah left. He was up to three miles today. The knee hadn’t acted up so far, but he didn’t want to push it either. He wouldn’t make it full speed all the way home, but if he walked for a bit, he might catch his breath enough to push it a good chunk of the way.
A car slowed next to him. “Hey, hot stuff.”
Kaitlyn Skehan smiled at him behind her sunglasses. Dua Lipa blasted from her Toyota Camry. She began to sway behind the wheel. Sweat glistened over her breasts that were barely held in check by the halter top she was wearing.
“Good to see you out here in them sexy shorts,” she said. “How’s the vacation going?”
“It’s definitely more of a staycation. It’s been interesting.” He left it at that. “How is work going?”
“Oh my God, Alison is so mad. She fucking hates you, but me and Brandon are killing it. She’s got fuck all to complain about and its driving her up the wall.”
“Awesome,” he said.
Fingering the sunglasses down the bridge of her nose, her lips glistening with either gloss or sweat, she said, “You’re going to owe me, you know.”
“I know. I’m in your debt. Whatever you want.”
“Careful, John. I might come calling one of these nights.”
He backed away from the window. “Well, I mean, anything wit
hin limits.”
She pouted. “Well, let’s just see where the road leads us. You enjoy the rest of your vacation, and give me a call if you need anything.”
He waved as she blew him a kiss and drove away.
John shook his head and continued toward the graveyard.
* * *
As he approached the entrance to Fairbanks Cemetery, he found himself half a world away. He didn’t know if it was all this fighting with Sarah lately or just some sort of spell cast over him by his co-worker, but Kaitlyn was invading his thoughts. He’d seen her out of her work attire before, but not like just now.
Shaking his head again as he entered the cemetery, he decided not to beat himself up over nothing. Fantasizing about someone and actually following through on those fantasies were two different beasts. It was okay to admit that someone was attractive.
Halfway up the path, he began noticing the graves.
His gaze moved from headstone to headstone, falling upon the death dates again. August 1st. August 22nd….
John stopped and closed his eyes.
He breathed in the smell of freshly cut grass and the hay from Peacock’s Horse Motel across the road. It was peaceful here.
“Have you picked one yet?”
One Eye’s voice echoed in his head, disrupting the moment of contentment. When he opened his eyes, the name before him seemed familiar.
Ethan Ripley. Born September 9th 1982. Died August 16th 1994.
“In memory of my dearest boy.”
Eileen Ripley, Ethan’s mother, lay next to him. She died that same year.
Of course, Ethan Ripley. The new kid who’d shown up at school halfway through seventh grade. John felt bad for most new kids, so he befriended Ethan. The kid was gangly and strange, but they shared an affinity for baseball cards, rock bands, and riding bikes. As far as John could remember, Ethan didn’t have any other friends in town.
“Help you with sumpin’?” A large, round man with a gray mustache and beady eyes moseyed up next to John. The man pulled a faded blue bandana from the back pocket of his dirty slacks and wiped the sweat from his brow. John got an eerie vibe from him; there was something off about his eyes. They were somehow too dark, too glazed, like he’d seen too many dead bodies and been mesmerized and somehow tainted by the macabre sights. It was a lot to ascertain from a simple look, but it struck John just the same.
“I was just out for a run.”
“Huh,” the man said, stuffing the rag back in his pocket and nodding toward the gravestones of the Ripleys. “Pity what happened there. You from town?”
“Ah, yeah. I grew up here, never managed to find my way out.” John scratched his neck. “Can’t seem to recall what happened to them. I think I knew Ethan, for a little while, I guess.”
A smirk lifted the man’s lips.
“That boy went missing. They found him in Litchfield Pond couple days later, just back yonder.” He gestured out past the cemetery. “After that, his mum killed herself. Got drunk and just…well, I won’t go into the gory details.” The smirk rose again before he coughed and spat a glob of mucus on the pathway.
“Funny, I…I don’t remember…any of that,” John said.
“You was probably too young then. Kids got better things to remember than kidnappings and suicides.”
Had Ethan been kidnapped?
John wanted to ask but wanted to get away from this man even more. He didn’t like his eyes or that disturbing grin.
“Well, I’ll be running along. Nice talking with you,” John said. He started to head toward the road.
“Say, did you ever look for him?” the man asked.
John stopped.
“Excuse me?”
When he turned back the man was waddling off, heading across the graves. Beyond the back corner of the cemetery, through a copse of trees, John could see the corner of a weathered, white farmhouse. Most of the home was blocked out by the rusty, corrugated metal shed next to the trees. The man was heading in that direction.
Did he live there?
Maybe he was the caretaker.
Did you ever look for him?
Had he actually heard the man ask that or had he imagined it?
Not for the first time this month, John wondered if he might be heading to his own cozy white-walled room at the Riverside Mental Health Facility.
Ethan Ripley. Kidnapped and murdered. August 16th 1994. How the hell could he forget that?
He looked toward the farmhouse and saw the beady-eyed creep watching him from his yard.
Fuck this.
He turned and headed out the way he’d come in.
As his jog became a run, he felt a compulsion to put as much distance between himself and the graveyard as he could. Like if he ran hard enough and fast enough and far enough, he could escape the horrible feelings that seemed to be waiting for him just out of sight.
Could you run from nightmares?
Did you ever look for him?
Isn’t that what August had said in his dream?
You look for me.
Did you ever look for him?
Whether it was coincidence or just his mind playing tricks on him, John felt out of step. There was something he was missing.
Chapter Nineteen
1994 (1)
The summer his mother died, Llewellyn Caswell came home. The local police in Wisconsin had been demoted when the FBI was brought in. The heat was on. The feds declared that they were closing in on the person the newspapers and now national media were calling the Ghoul of Wisconsin, the man they suspected was abducting young boys all over the state, making them disappear into thin air. Llewellyn had never done the things he did for the notoriety. Did the sudden attention thrill him? Sure, a bit, but it wasn’t his reason for chasing the dragon, if you will. His actions were all about his need, his compulsion, his driving force. Artists needed to create, to unleash, to give everything they had to their passion because there was no other choice. For Llewellyn, it was exactly that. There was no other way of life. This was everything.
When his mother fell ill earlier in the year, just as the local Wisconsin papers and news channels began unleashing their theories in a desperate attempt to flush him out, Llewellyn headed home.
It wasn’t a cakewalk. There were unmarked cars constantly casing his neighborhood day and night. He had his suspicions that they might even have undercover cops watching him. He wasn’t taking any chances. He left the house that July night at three thirty in the morning. Like a thief in the night, Llewellyn slipped out through the back door and slunk by the tall wood fence of one of his neighbors. A rented Mazda he’d purposely parked two streets over on Maple waited for him. From there, he drove to Lancin and caught a flight to LaGuardia, and then to Logan. A Greyhound bus carried him to Portland, Maine, where his cousin Alvin picked him up at the station on Saint John Street and brought him home.
Llewellyn hadn’t seen Spears Corner since leaving nine years before. The forty-five-minute drive up Interstate 95 allowed him to reflect. He was both free from the scrutiny and attention of the law dogs sniffing him out and yet crestfallen from being so far from his boys.
“Your mom gave me the house,” Alvin said. “She hadn’t seen you, hadn’t heard from you and I—”
Llewellyn waved him off. He wouldn’t have given the house to himself either. He was far from son of the year material.
“You stayed with her, took care of her,” Llewellyn said. “Besides, I have no intentions of sticking around.”
A Garth Brooks song came over the radio.
Llewellyn loved the country singer. He listened to the ruminations about a boy and his lover one summer long ago and let it sweep him away. He’d had many a romance in his days here. None of the girls had been what he’d call pretty, but he didn’t really think of any woman as pretty. Still, the m
otions of a relationship had been engaging and kept his secret desires at bay, at least for a while.
Alvin spoke very little as he drove, and for that Llewellyn was grateful. His cousin was as loyal as family could get, but he wasn’t close to being what you’d call a conversationalist.
When they were teenagers, they’d raised plenty of hell together. They got drunk, got high, and may have coerced a few younger friends into doing things they didn’t want to do. They were free to experiment and when out of his mother’s sight, that’s just what they did. The thought now made Llewellyn have to shift in his seat.
They pulled off the exit, rolled down Route 126, and made a stop at Bower’s Market.
“You want somethin’?” Alvin asked.
“Mom still got my old Dodge?”
“Yeah, but I mean somethin’ here at the store?”
“We got any spirits at the house?”
“Mm hmm, bottle of Bacardi and nearly a whole fifth of Allen’s.”
Llewellyn couldn’t stand rum, but the coffee brandy would suit him fine for the night. “I’m good.”
“All right then.”
As Alvin went into the store, Llewellyn watched his cousin’s neck crane at the boy coming out. The kid was tall and rail thin. Bony shoulders slumped and head down. Llewellyn’s gaze locked on to him and followed the kid and the sad-looking woman he accompanied to the station wagon at the pump.
He promised himself he’d behave while he was here, and he would, but a man had a right to dream.
Alvin came back out with a thirty rack of Coors Light.
“You’re welcome to a few of these, but I get the most.”
“Sure, sure,” Llewellyn muttered.
“What is it?” Alvin asked.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. Let’s get moving. I’m exhausted.”
The old farmhouse was just a ways down the road. Llewellyn tried to relax and enjoy getting the chance to sit down and have a drink, but something kept tugging at the corner of his mind. A voice, a hunger that never seemed to let him be.
He pounded three brandies and then started in on Alvin’s beer.
Drunk and unsteady, Alvin passed out on the sofa. Llewellyn walked outside and stood gazing up at the stars. The hot summer night clung to him like a second skin as he sweat the way he only ever did when he was digging in his yard. He let it trigger him, just as the sight of that thin boy had earlier. He stepped from the porch, walked around the house and saw it sitting there on the back lawn.
