by Grant Farley
Roxanne warned me not to come here no more. I figured she was warning me about Leguin, and maybe she was. But maybe she was really warning me against something else. Down in that cellar.
But what about Roxanne? If she didn’t run away and she’s not in that cellar, then where is she? If I cross out Leguin, her mom, a boyfriend, and even herself as suspects, who’s left? The Blackjacks.
Man, it’s crazy I didn’t think of them first thing. Maybe the whole reason she first went to Leguin was that the Blackjacks had sent her on a task, just like me. And if she had failed, they would have punished her. What would they have done to her?
Purgatory.
The word hits me hard, like someone slapped me upside the head with it.
Purgatory.
The Blackjacks might have her locked up in that old water tank. But if I go to the sheriff’s and if they even believe me enough to check it out, the Blackjacks will get so much warning that they could do anything to her long before help arrived.
Why should I care? Why should I risk my life for someone who treated me like dirt? I lie back, listening to the summer night sounds, building up the nerve to sneak up Dead Man’s Gorge because I got no other choice. She’s my half a sister.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Purgatory
I stash my bike behind a boulder and crawl up on the trail to Dead Man’s Gorge. Half a moon lights the path so I don’t use the flashlight I got shoved in my back pocket. When the ripply clouds cover the moon, I creep forward. When the moon slides out again, I stop. Check out the trail ahead. Then creep ahead when it’s dark.
My shoe slips off the path, rocks clicking down the hill, and it’s like the noise is bouncing all over the valley. I lie against the side of the hill, trying not to breathe so loud. Where’s the Blackjacks’ lookout? They got to have at least one. I see a big bend in the trail just ahead, and I know that as soon as I round it, I’ll see that creepy old oak like a big shadow in the night.
I must be almost over purgatory by now. The moon peeks out and there’s that hump just ten yards below the trail, with that yellow hatch sticking out of the rocks. I’ve stopped right over it, like it was some kind of instinct. If they got Roxanne, she’s in there. But that tank is out in the open and there’s nowhere for a guy to hide. I scope out the territory. No one. I wait for cloud cover and I slide down the rocks on my Chucks. I land right on top of the hatch and hang on. The moon pops out and it feels like all that light is aimed right at me.
There’s no lock, just this metal bar slid through a hole in the latch and a hole in the frame. Nothing could get out with that bar slid in like that. I shove the bar out and it makes a rusty scraping sound that rattles up and down the tank and echoes back even louder. I drop the bar beside the tank and listen for what’s inside.
Nothing.
My arms shake as I grab the hatch and pull, figuring it’ll creek and groan, but it lifts silently. The darkness slides up at me.
“Anyone in there?”
I didn’t know you were chick-en . . . Roxanne’s voice whispers inside my head, and I remember back to that root cellar. But it takes a minute for my breath to come back.
I take the flashlight and lean over and drop my arm as far down into the blackness as I can, so the light won’t show up above when I flick it on. What if something down there grabs my hand?
I push the switch. No light. I shake it. It flickers on, then off before I can see anything. Then it comes on dim. The batteries must be going out. I lean over and stick my head inside and wave the light. Somehow, the tank looks bigger from the inside. The round sides make it look like the belly of some beast. Candy wrappers and crumpled cigarette packs litter the floor. But there’s no one in there.
I pull back out, sucking in the clean night air.
Wait. There was something. Some kind of writing on the peeling yellow paint. Or had I imagined it? I stick my head in again, shaking the flashlight until it comes on. Something like purple paint, or maybe just scrapes, against the far wall. It’s for sure letters, though I can’t see from up here what they say.
I pull back out and suck air.
There’s no way I’m going down there. No way.
It won’t take but a minute to drop down, crawl over, read the letters, crawl back, and pull myself out. My chest thumps just thinking about it.
No way I’m going down in there.
I can’t come this far and not find out. I check the hatch lid. It’s all the way open, and it’s so heavy there’s no way it could close by accident. So what could happen? Wouldn’t take more than a minute. Just one minute.
No way.
I lie on my stomach, turn, and drop my legs through the opening down into the blackness. What the hell am I doing? My feet dangle inside like floating next to my boogie board with that whole creepy sea under me and a shark or something just waiting to come floating up and swallow me. I can still pull out.
But I drop inside.
The flashlight shakes in my hand and the light flickers. I can do this in one minute. Thirty seconds if I hustle. I crawl across the tank. The floor is wet, slimy. My hand slips on a sticky wrapper.
The flashlight goes out. A faint moonlight from the hatch. I shake the light. Nothing. The blackness starts to close around me. Breathe deep.
Deeper.
Deeper. Slow and steady and deep. I shake the flashlight hard and there’s a glow. I crawl to the end and aim it at the wall. It’s purplish paint.
Foxy Roxy purple.
It’s toenail polish.
It’s too smeared to read. Help . . . hell . . . I don’t need to read it to know what it means.
The light goes out. Gone out for good.
She had written it with toenail polish. Foxy Roxy purple.
I crawl back toward the hatch.
A thud against the top of the tank.
Kaablllaaaammmmm! It’s the loudest sound I ever heard in my whole life.
Blackness. Total blackness.
The sound of a bolt sliding through metal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Lady Finger
The world is black.
How long have I been here? Not long in for real time. But it feels like forever.
Why didn’t I think to bring that bolt with me?
A sound rasps through the walls of the water tank like a heavy breather. My head spins in the dark, and the whole side of the tank is going in and out, in and out under my hand, like I’m inside something alive. I hold my breath so I can hear better. The breathing sound stops. I exhale and the water tank does, too. It’s just my echo.
Chick-en . . . chick-en . . .
Where did that come from?
Outside? No . . .
Inside the tank? No.
Inside. Inside my head. That’s where I am. That’s where she is now, inside my head. That’s where she’s standing, inside my head. Black hair around her shoulders. Drops of rainwater hanging on the ends of fake lashes around black, black eyes. That wet tee. A smell oozing from her. Not a bottled-up smell, all her . . . And her toes in rainbow surfer sandals.
She reaches out and grabs my hand. She’s leading me down . . . down a long black spiral . . .
Ka-blang! I’m in that root cellar again. I can’t believe you fell for that. Her whisper bouncing all around the root cellar stones . . . all around this metal tank . . . all around my skull . . .
The smell of the old stone of that root cellar all over again . . . I’m rocking back and forth, back and forth . . . my butt floating off the ground . . . Then I hear it again, from outside the cellar . . . a foot dragging in the mud . . . a flashlight beam blinding me . . . a hand coming out of the darkness . . . like a claw . . .
Only this time it’s not the old man. It’s Roxanne grabbing my hand, yanking me out of the cellar.
She’s pulling me dee
per down that black spiral . . .
I’m back at Father Speckler’s class, lying in that coat closet in the dark . . . a little crack of light under the door . . . hard to breathe . . . Father Speckler shouting, “All God’s children!”
Then she’s leading me deeper.
The door of a trailer . . . youre hooste. Smell of booze and rotten food . . . a sicker smell under that. She’s opening the trailer door. I’m not going in there. I’m following little round pictures of pilgrims marching around the inside of Mr. Sanders’s trailer . . . that smell . . . a thing lying against the bed . . . the trailer door, with its fresh air and light somewhere far, far, far behind me . . . the thing is half off the bed like it’s saying good-night prayers . . .
Not that not that not that . . .
I break out of Roxanne’s hold . . .
I’m back in the water tank. It’s now again. Roxanne’s gone.
But she was in here. Not with me. Before.
Alone.
I crawl to the hatch, my hand slipping against something slimy on the floor. I’m under it now. My head whacks metal as I stand up. There are a couple holes where the metal has rusted. I put my nose up next to them.
Who’s in there?
Did that come from inside my head? No. A voice outside.
“Who’s in there?”
I know that voice.
“Bobby? Bobby Martin?” I suck air.
“Well, if it ain’t RJ. I’ve sorta been expecting you.”
“Open the hatch, Bobby.”
Silence.
“Bobby, open the hatch!”
“I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can. Just slide out that bolt.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You’re the lookout?”
“Yeah.”
“Guess that’s lucky for me.” I try and laugh.
Silence.
“Open the hatch, Bobby.”
“No way.”
“No one has to know,” I say.
“He’d know.”
A longer silence.
“Remember . . .” Bobby’s voice sounds faraway. “. . . when we used to take insects and lizards and put ’em in a can and blow ’em all to hell with a Lady Finger?”
I stare at pinpricks of light. “Bobby, open the hatch. Please.”
“Thought I’d lost you. But where would you go?” He laughs. “Remember that crraaack sound? I haven’t done a tin can in a long time. Remember that smell afterward?”
“I remember. Why don’t you just open the hatch, Bobby. Like for old times’ sake, you know?” Breathe deep. Just stare at the little holes and focus on Bobby’s words.
“Did you ever wonder, RJ, what it felt like in one of those tin cans?”
“No.”
“Nah, you wouldn’t. I knew you never liked doing that . . . Say, I bet an M-80 in this water tank would feel about the same to one of us as that tin can felt to one of them bugs.”
“For God’s sake, Bobby.”
“God’s sake? That’s a good one. You know what Roxanne used to say? Fer the love-a Gaawd.”
Silence again.
Say something. Keep him here. Keep him talking.
“So, you’re the lookout. That must be a tough job.”
“Don’t try none of your psycho stuff on me, RJ. Nothin’ tough about this job. No one except you’d be lame enough to come up here at night. The Ace said that. He’s been expecting you.”
“You could let me out and I’d be down that hill so fast no one would know, not even him. I won’t tell, Bobby.”
“That was a nasty trick, RJ.”
“Huh? What?”
“That was a nasty trick you pulled about those kittens.”
“Kittens? . . . What . . . That was a long, long time ago, Bobby.”
“Just let you go? You mean just like you did with them kittens? You told me to go for the Lady Fingers. You said you’d watch the kittens until I got back. You said we could blow them sky-high. Put a whole pack in there. And when I got back, you and the kittens was gone. That was low-down.”
I don’t answer.
“I really hated you for that. You know why?”
“No.”
“’Cause you messed up my last chance.”
“I couldn’t let the kittens get blown up, Bobby. I couldn’t.”
“You don’t see it, do you? You messed up my last chance to be good. Every time I’d catch something, I’d tell myself, this time I ain’t gonna do it. This time I’m gonna be good. But . . . something . . . I don’t know. I’d end up doing it again. But kittens, I knew I couldn’t blow up kittens. But you. You had to steal them before I could even find out . . . I know they’d have been the . . . the limit . . . I know I couldn’t have blown up kittens . . . and you screwed it all up.”
“Bobby, I can’t breathe.”
“There are holes where it’s rusted through. You’re standing by one now.”
“I can’t BREATHE!”
“Take it slow. Slow, deep breaths . . . What did you do with them?”
“The kittens? Gave them away. Except one. My sister kept one.”
“Yeah? Which one?”
“The black one.”
“What did she name it?”
“Peabody.”
“Peabody . . . You scared in there, RJ?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
“So are you, Bobby.”
“Me? Yeah, me too. I been scared up here a whole long time. It’s getting bad. Real bad.”
“Bobby, listen. You can still change.”
“Bull. You always thought you knew everything. The way you’d con people. Always getting your way. Always good with words. You think you can do it even now.”
“I just want out.”
“It’s too late.”
“No! No one even saw me. Just . . .”
“I ain’t talking about you. Too late for her. Too late for the Blackjacks. Too late for all of us.”
What’s that even mean? Breathe. Dizzy. Just breathe.
“Bobby! You still there, Bobby?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me out. Tell the cops about all that the Blackjacks done. They make deals. You’re still only a kid.”
“You think it’s the cops that scare me? Man, I’d be dead so fast . . . Things is getting psycho. They never should have had a girl up here. Especially not a crazy girl. She thought she’d be some kind of twisted Wendy in a psychedelic Neverland. But the Blackjacks, they’re way the other side of lost boys. It’s so bad it’s like . . . like the scared feeling is all around in the air. It’s in the way guys stare at each other, like everyone’s afraid someone else is gonna be the first to squeal.”
“That’s right, Bobby. You be the first. If you don’t tell, someone else will.”
“The Ace says it’s all that old man’s fault. Says it all started when he showed up. The younger dudes . . . the Deuces . . . don’t come up here no more. And the Jokers, they don’t bother to go after them.”
“This is like the kittens all over . . . only now you got a second chance. You can be good this time.”
No answer. Is he gone? Just focus on these tiny holes in the metal and suck air.
“Bobby . . . what happened to her? Where is she?”
The screech of the bolt sliding open. The hatch rising.
“Bobby?”
No answer.
I reach up at the night and grab the rim of the hatch. The blackness slides away as I pull myself out.
The most I can do is roll off the tank onto the rocks and gulp air, shaking.
Bobby is gone.
I lie staring up at the clouds and moon. The sky has this pink glow at the edge. Sunrise. The Black
jacks will be up soon. The cool air is sliding in, filling me up. My legs tremble. Can I walk? I claw my way up the rocks to the trail.
On my way home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Peabody
I climb out of the worst nightmare I ever had. The porch is dark and warm. There’s a blanket over me, but I’m still in my clothes. This nightmare just won’t break up and fade like it’s supposed to . . . Roxanne . . . the Blackjacks . . . purgatory . . . Sunlight slants through a crack in the blinds. It must be afternoon. It wasn’t a nightmare. It all happened. A sick flip in my stomach. It’s all happening. The sleep had just been a hard, black nothing in between the for real nightmare.
“You sick?” Mom stands at the door from the trailer to the porch. She’s wearing a blue paisley muumuu covered by her bead necklaces. She circles the room flicking open the blinds and then walks over and sits on the edge of the bed and touches my forehead.
“No fever. What’s going on? Is it that Theresa? Is there something you want to talk about? You know, you’ll have your growth spurt and outgrow her one of these days. Your dad was tall. And look at me.”
“Nothing like that. Anyway, right now I don’t feel like I got any growth left in me.”
Her fingers work the plastic beads like a rosary.
Does she know Roxanne is my half a sister? Sure she knows. That’s what that hate thing between her and Roxanne’s mom is really all about. But how could she keep that from me?
“Is this something you got to talk out with a man? I’ve done my best, but maybe there’s some things . . .”
