Gristle & Bone

by Duncan Ralston

  "What if we slipped in earlier in the day and splashed around some gasoline? Or should I be concerned about wasting gas in this economic climate?" Jim asked with a sly wink.

  She ignored the joke and gave it thought. "No, they'd smell gasoline. But the stench of that—" She didn't want to say it. I don't believe I've ever heard Leanne utter a cussword in the twenty-five years I've known her. I've heard sugar quite a bit, though, and not in the context of asking to borrow some.

  "Shit," Jim said for her, and she gave him a nasty squint again.

  "It smelled like natural gas, under all the other icky smells."

  "If we were to make it look like J—" Not wanting to incur her full wrath, he reconsidered the phrase. "—like an insurance scam, it should seem accidental. If the Schultz kid was going to burn it down, he'd want it to look like an act of God. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt there's been propane in that house since Old Lady Schultz shuffled off to that dusty old library in the sky."

  "Everyone thinks that place is a flophouse," Leanne said. "If we put a hotplate upstairs, they'll just think some hobo left it with the gas on."

  She was onto something, he thought, but she was missing a key element. "They'd smell us, though. Even if they didn't notice the propane, they'd smell us. You said you thought they'd smelled you from outside. Cordelia smelled me from fifteen feet away. And I'm pretty sure animals can smell if a predator's been inside their den."

  Leanne thought for a moment, rubbing absently at the bandages on the sole of a bare foot. "If they were camouflaging themselves with the—"

  "Shit."

  This time she dismissed him. He'd made a guess earlier that if Dutch and the others covered themselves in the eye-watering stench, they could move among whatever scavenger the excrement belonged to—he'd said skunk, though he supposed it could just as easily have been raccoon, wolf... or cougar. Aggressive mimicry, like what Cordelia had done with the cat, lulling it into a sense of security before tearing it to shreds. The dark color would also allow them to slip through the night, virtually unnoticed by human eyes.

  She didn't want to consider it, but the idea was there for the picking. "What if we used their own tactic against them?"

  "You mean...?"

  She nodded.

  "We don't even know if that's why they do it," he said. "It could be like you said, just a ritual."

  "But if it isn't..."

  "I'm not rubbing shit on myself, Leanne." Jim gave her a look of suspicion. "And you're not exactly volunteering, are you?"

  "We've only got one shot at this, Jim," she said. "Don't you think we should do whatever it takes to get it done? And that means one of us has to go inside that house, and plant the propane tank. If they smell it, or us, then it's over. We'll pay the giant his toll and pray he doesn't get greedy for more."

  Jim thought for a long moment, aware she was using the same not-so-subtle coaxing technique she'd employed when she had convinced him to quit his well-paying job and open an Italian restaurant in his rural hometown. She'd been right then, and she was right now.

  Somewhere, a dog barked. And somewhere else, six people who weren't really people went about their lives in plain sight. Whether they were alien body snatchers or were-creatures or cultists didn't matter.

  What mattered was what they weren't.

  "Fine," he said. "I'll do it."

  12

  LEANNE CALLED THE wild animal sanctuary out on the county road Thursday morning, inquiring about the possible hazards of wild-animal manure. "For fertilizer," she explained, saying she'd hoped to use something local and sustainable, preferably not farm waste.

  The woman on the phone advised against it. "Intestinal worms, rabies, you name it," she said. "Steer clear of raccoon latrines, especially, if you can help it. You'll be able to tell what kind of dung it is from the smell. Raccoon is probably the worst-smelling of all." There was a cheerful note to her voice when she added, "If it's unavoidable, we'd be glad to send someone out to disinfect your property. All proceeds go towards preservation and maintaining the sanctuary—"

  Leanne hung up on the sales pitch. They wouldn't provide her with material goods, but they'd made up for it with information. Handling raccoon feces without protection was dangerous (and it was surely raccoon feces they wanted—what she'd smelled could only have been the foulest, worse even than the elephant exhibit at the Kansas City Zoo). The risk of infection too great. They'd need some sort of protective gear, and she knew exactly where to find it.

  The crisscrossed bars in the video store window upset her almost as much as those SLOW CHILDREN signs did as she passed by. Of all the failing businesses their success had resuscitated, they could do nothing for Big Top Video. Robert "Red" Ritter had sold what he could in a fire sale (the Schultz house would never get the luxury, but it would burn, all right—you bet it would), and left town. Off to greener pastures, Leanne dared to hope, though I happen to know the authorities found Red dead in a small, virtually barren apartment in Lincoln barely a year after Big Top folded its tents. Died suddenly, the obits said, which I also happen to know is the polite term for suicide.

  The bell above the door to the army-navy store dinged as she stepped in. Ask not for whom the bells tolls, Leanne thought, remembering the phrase from her English Lit. days, as recited by that professor who'd once asked her on a date. She had declined with some trepidation, hoping it wouldn't affect her grade, and happy when it hadn't.

  "Be there in a minute," the proprietor called from the back. Funny how in all the years she'd had her business beside Knee High Surplus she'd never once seen its owner, just that beat-up maroon Volvo parked out front (of all possible automobile makers he'd gone with the Swedes, one of only a handful of neutral nations during WW-Eye-Eye), from sunrise to well beyond sunset with bullet-hole stickers on its rear window beside a Garfield suction toy, a wooden bead seat cover on the driver's side, and a back seat full of storage boxes.

  Jim had suspected the man lived out of that car, and had considered having it towed several times. But Leanne had ixnayed the idea. "If he is living in that car," she'd said, "you'd be towing away a man's home. Haven't there been enough foreclosures around here, without the two of us adding to it?"

  Inside were articulated mannequins wearing gas masks, camouflage and Kraut pickle-helmets. Military regalia hung from the walls, the shelves lined with folded uniforms, green, desert beige and orange. Though most of the items in the store had been used for violence at one point or another, the manner in which they were placed suggested collectible, not arsenal. The overall atmosphere was of dust and antiquity.

  In the center of the room was a long table filled with swords and weaponry of the Orient, with grenades and mortars and oiled black Lugers, and long rifles with dulled bayonets. Leanne suspected—she hoped—the explosives were no longer usable, although if they were live, it would make the task at hand a whole lot easier.

  A short man with cropped gray hair and deep circles under his eyes materialized from the gloom in the back. He wore none of the green and brown both Jim and Leanne had expected, but a pristine white tracksuit with black stripes, and dock shoes on his sockless feet, though there is no water nearby and Memorial Day was still a few weeks away.

  "Howdy, neighbor," he said.

  "How—?" she started to say.

  He smiled affably. "Just because we've never met, doesn't mean I don't know who you are. Buddy Ames," he said, sticking a hand out over the glass counter filled with sharp, shiny knives. He wore a fresh scent like Ivory soap, a pleasant counterpoint to the shop's musty odor.

  "Nice to meet you, Mr. Ames."

  "Buddy's fine. We're neighbors, after all."

  Leanne nodded and smiled, knocked for a loop. She felt a twinge of guilt for thinking this man had been sleeping in his car. He was clearly doing fine or, at least, had regular access to a shower and a washing machine.

  "What can I do you for, Leanne? You don't strike me as the Soldier of Fortune type, nor a collector, for t
hat matter. So I presume you're looking for a gift of sorts." He smiled then—a crooked smile that set her immediately at ease and got her mind working again.

  "Actually, I'm looking for protective clothing. We've got a bit of a raccoon problem at the house, and Jim, my husband, he's dead-set on cleaning it himself. We'd really rather not call an exterminator. Those chemical cleaners..." She shrugged, and Buddy Ames smiled again.

  "Yup, can't say I blame you there. I suppose if you'll be handling the waste yourself you'll need something with a little more protection than coveralls and a dust mask, am I right?"

  "Preferably. The animal sanctuary—"

  "The chipmunk zoo," he offered.

  "That's the place. They said there's a high chance of contamination?"

  "And you're hoping I've got a hazmat suit among my wares."

  Leanne smiled and nodded again. Such a shrewd businessman should have been selling something of value, she thought. Gold, or cell phones.

  "Well, Leanne, it would seem you're in luck. I've just gotten a new shipment, and wouldn't you know it? It contains not one but two used Level B Tyveks, a large and a small. His and hers, you might say."

  "That is lucky."

  "Indeed." He fixed her with his shrewd gaze. "But I've got a feeling you'll need a lot more than luck with what you and your husband have in mind."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Please," he said, holding up a small, manicured hand. "We're neighbors."

  "Meaning what, exactly?"

  "Meaning they're my Dumpsters, too. And I know all about our... " He made quotes in the air: "...visitors."

  13

  LEANNE STOOD WITH Buddy Ames as he smoked his thin brown cigarette, surveying the small lot behind their businesses where Cordelia Moone had dined on Ms. Kitty and had breathed her last the following night. They'd gone through the large back room where it seemed Buddy slept, ate and bathed in a small military-style quarters, replete with bunk, hotplate and a shower, doubling as a breakfast nook when the curtain was thrown back and the white plastic table was raised on its hinges.

  "I first saw them two years ago," Buddy said, "about the time the lurker next door skipped town." Next door meant Big Top Video; the "lurker" was Red (now deceased) Ritter.

  "Two years?" Leanne said. "And you never told anyone?"

  He favored her with a look through the haze of smoke. "What would I have said? 'Hey there, neighbors. Property taxes sure are taking a bite this year. Oh, and did you happen to notice the human Rodentia in our Dumpsters?'"

  This surprised a laugh out of her. "I suppose you're right. I wouldn't have believed it myself if I didn't see it with my own eyes."

  "And I wouldn't have had the guts to do what your husband did, though I've thought about it quite a bit."

  "You—? You're the one who..."

  Buddy blew out a cloud of smoke and looked her over. "I suppose he told you about the cat."

  Leanne managed a sickly nod. "Was that the first animal you left out there for them? For bait?"

  "Not bait." He gave her another of his shrewd glances. "And to answer your query, I didn't leave your... what was his name?"

  "Rosco," she said, nearly choking it out.

  "I did not leave your Rosco out for those monsters, I assure you."

  She let out a breath of relief.

  "That's not to say he isn't dead. Your husband's posters were one of the reasons I caught Ms. Kitty and left her for them."

  Leanne didn't follow.

  "I'm sure you've noticed the inflated amount of missing pets this past year. Rumor has it there's a cougar loose in the area." He lowered his head, looking up at her through the canopy of his eyebrows. "I assure you, Mrs. Taymor, as I believe your husband may have gathered when Cordelia Moone gobbled up Garfield's little sister, these missing pets are not the victims of a mountain lion."

  "She ate them all?"

  "Not just her, but yes. That's my belief. I left Ms. Kitty there because I had to be sure. Right now, they're predominantly scavengers. Right now. But it won't be long believe me, before meat is on the menu again. Your husband saw what Cordelia Moone did to that cat. That wasn't the first animal I'd left for her, either. I had to know before I agitated the nest. I had to be sure. And, Mrs. Taymor, I am absolutely certain now."

  "Leanne," she said, distractedly, almost dreamily. "Buddy... you've known about these things for two years, and what? Sat back and waited for them to do something awful like this?" She shook her head, swimming with questions. "I just can't imagine living with that knowledge for so long, and not doing anything about it."

  "That's why you're on their bad side, and I'm not even on their radar. I saw the big one the other night—"

  "Richard Holland," Leanne said.

  He exhaled a plume of smoke in surprise. "As in Holland Woodwork?"

  "That's him. I followed him to the Schultz place—the old house on Sammon Circle?"

  He nodded. "I know it."

  "They were all there. I even knew some of them."

  He looked at her in amazement and admiration. "You must have gotten close enough to touch them," he said. "Or for them to touch you."

  Leanne shivered, picturing Kyle Lannegan's cold, blank stare through the window.

  "And now you think you can get rid of them," he said. She turned away from his eyes, which gleamed with excitement. It was too grisly, all of this, and Buddy Ames's enthusiasm for this business was all too ghoulish. "Seven at one blow."

  "Six," she corrected.

  "Of course," he said, "now that Ms. Moone is on ice."

  She was dumbfounded, unable to respond.

  "I watched the whole thing as it happened," he explained, pointing to the eaves, where a small but obvious camera pointed toward the bins. "Smile. You're on Candid Camera."

  That shiver ran up her spine again. How could she have missed that? Buddy Ames knew so much, but how much longer would he keep their secret? Two years, Leanne, she reminded herself. You can see he's grateful. Good riddance to bad rubbish pickers.

  "Trouble is," he said, "you wipe out this hive, and another one's going to creep in and take its place."

  "Another one? What do you mean? There are more of these things?"

  "'Fraid so. The ones you followed to their home away from home, you might call them the Knee High Chapter."

  Leanne shook her head, unable to believe the situation was so entirely hopeless.

  "Or maybe," he said, that hopeful twinkle in his eyes again, "maybe you'll scare the livin' bejesus out of them. Let them know Knee High is not a lurker-friendly town."

  "That's twice you've said that: lurker."

  "What they call them," Buddy said with a nod. "On the internet. Whole chatrooms are devoted to 'em, alongside the chupacabra and Bigfoot. They also call them coonies, though I don't use the term. Don't like the connotations."

  It occurred to her that lurker was the perfect name for them: not that they crept, as such, though they did move on both hands and feet. But there was no doubting they lurked within the shadows, existing unobserved by society at large, their true nature concealed behind a human guise.

  "Big Top Ritter was one of them, I'm almost certain of it. Do you remember, a little over two years ago, when that kid went missing? Danny... what was his name?"

  "Danny Reynolds," Leanne said, remembering the Amber Alert all too clearly, the photo of the little blond-haired boy with glasses that had later shown up on the sides of milk cartons. "Nine years old. Last seen wearing a green parka and a red backpack." She considered what he was saying. "You don't think...?"

  "There was a fight between Ritter and Ms. Moone, outside his shop one night shortly after the kid went missing. I heard her say something about 'that boy,' and the spooky way she'd said it, I knew right away Danny was the boy she meant. Big Top denied it, of course, but she kept at him. Then, just when it looked like it was just about to devolve into fisticuffs, they started screeching at each other."

  "You're saying our former neigh
bor killed and ate that little boy?" she said. "And you saw Cordelia Moone confront him about it. How could I have missed all this?"

  "You've got a successful business to run," Buddy said. "Meanwhile, I've got nothing but time. And free time, I'm sure you'll agree, is a building block of obsession."

  14

  I'M GOING TO cut to the chase here, because this story is running a bit longer than I'd intended; it would seem I'm obsessing a bit myself. What I said about most of this being true—well, much of the preceding conversation was how I imagine it must have gone, based on what Leanne later told me. I hope you'll excuse the fiction. While I doubt it's true what they say about everyone having a novel in them, it would seem I've got one lurking inside me dying to get out. Though, as you've likely noticed, Steinbeck I am not.

  Too much free time, I suppose. If it were April, you'd be getting the abridged version, and so much the better for it.

  Buddy Ames was not available to corroborate their story, nor his part in progressing it along, when the authorities went by his shop. The morning after the Schultz house burned down—along with half the woods behind it, and the fairground's gazebo—his Volvo was no longer parked out front of Knee High Surplus, the store and all of its stock having been left abandoned. He was not, as Red before him, found dead in a barren apartment in Lincoln, NE. So far as I know, he was never found.

  And when you consider the story Jim and Leanne had to peddle, who could blame him for running?

  15

  ACCORDING TO BUDDY (via Jim and Leanne, a broken telephone of pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo), these things he called "lurkers" had once been hunters, just as Jim had suspected, but had given it up in favor of scavenging, around the turn of the last century. According to American frontier folklore (which you can easily find on the internet, as I have), it was decided—by some Lurker High Council, I presume, though the thought of it gives me shivers—that the consumption of human beings had become increasingly hazardous to their freedom, and with tuberculosis, cholera, influenza and typhus spreading like the legs of some diseased whore, it was hazardous to their health as well.