by Jeremy Bates
“Yeah.”
Zephaniah was seated at his desk, playing a video game on the computer. Paul pulled up a chair next to him and sat down. “What game’s that?”
“Halo.”
“Looks fun.”
“It’s boring.”
“Then why play it?”
“This computer is really old. It can only play really old games.”
The computer was a Dell Dimension from the late nineties. It had served Paul fine, as he had only used it for word processing. He had considered buying something better for Zephaniah to use, but had been hesitant, not wanting to turn the boy into one of those zombie kids that sat inside all day and night, eyes glued to a screen.
“How was school?” Paul asked.
“Fine,” Zephaniah said, pausing the game.
“That was polite of you.”
“What was?”
“Pausing the game.”
“I’m not good at multitasking.”
“Me either.”
“That’s not true. You’re good at everything.”
“I’m flattered, Zeph. But, no, I’m not. Don’t you ever wonder why only your grandmother cooks?”
“You can make pancakes.”
Paul nodded. “I can do that.” He shifted his weight on the chair. “I spoke with Mr. Jenson today.” Mr. Jenson was Zephaniah’s grade-five teacher.
Zephaniah looked down at his lap.
“Hey, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Paul said gently. “It was those boys who did the wrong thing. What are their names?”
“Steve Kozlow and Clay Parrish.”
“They’re older than you?”
He nodded. “They’re in grade six.”
“What were they teasing you about?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’d like to know.”
Zephaniah shrugged. “My nose.”
Paul raised his eyebrows. “Your nose?”
“They called me a shoebill.”
“What the hell’s a shoebill?”
“It’s a bird that always falls on its face because its beak is so heavy. Steve showed me a video on his phone of it falling over. Then they tried pushing me over too.”
Paul clenched his jaw. “Did you push them back?”
Zephaniah seemed surprised. “Am I allowed to do that?”
Paul thought it over for a moment, then decided what the hell. He wasn’t going to stand for his grandson being bullied. “Usually I don’t condone violence,” he said. “But bullies are the exception to the rule. They need to be taught a lesson. It’s the only way they learn.”
“But they’ll just push me back harder, won’t they?”
“Maybe. But I’ll tell you something else about bullies. They’re usually big wimps. It’s true. They’re scared of a fair fight. That’s why they go after kids smaller than themselves. So if those boys tease you again, you know what I want you to do?” He held up a fist. “You pop them one right in the mouth.”
Zephaniah’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Paul nodded. “That’ll teach them.”
“I won’t get in trouble?”
“Not by me. And I’m the law.”
“Cool! Thanks, Grandpa.” He twisted his hands in his lap. “Can I ask you something?”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
“Can I get a nose job?”
Paul chuffed. “Get real, son.”
“But then nobody will ever tease me about my nose again.”
“What’s wrong with a big nose? Look, I have one too.” He turned his head to profile. “It runs in the family. You’ll…grow into it.”
“But I don’t want a big schnoz.”
“Schnoz?”
“That’s what Clay Parrish called it.”
“He’s just jealous of it. You know why? Because if you have a big schnoz, you don’t ever have to worry about your sunglasses falling off.”
Zephaniah rolled his eyes. “Grandpa…”
“And you’ll never lose a photo-finish race.”
“Grandpa!”
“Okay, okay. But look, Zeph. All I’m saying is there’s nothing wrong with having a big nose. It makes you look distinguished.”
“I just want to look normal.”
“You do look normal. Don’t ever think you don’t.”
Zephaniah nodded. “Can I play my game again?”
“Go for it.” Paul messed the boy’s hair, got up, and left. He found Nancy in the bedroom, wrapped in her housecoat, searching the closet for something to wear.
“Why do you like water so much?” he asked her.
“Excuse me?” she said, glancing back at him. At fifty-six, Nancy was still as beautiful to Paul as the day she’d accepted his invitation to the prom. A few more wrinkles, sure, some gray in her chestnut hair, but the same lively eyes and childish face.
“You take two or three showers a day.”
She selected a pastel blouse and slacks, tossed them on the bed, and went to the dresser, where she rifled through her undergarments drawer. “I like being clean.”
“You’re clean after one.”
“You’re cleaner after two.”
“What do you do here all day when I’m at work? Roll around in the mud?”
“When I’m not getting hot and sweaty with the milkman.” She turned, holding a red bra and matching underwear against her body. “What do you think? Will he like them?”
“I think the milkman stopped delivering the milk in the sixties, when you must have been, oh, five or six.”
“You’re right. My mistake. I meant to say the pool boy.”
“We don’t have a pool.”
“Maybe we should get one—you know, considering how much I like water and everything.”
Paul laughed. “I have to go out for a little, so you and Zeph go ahead with dinner without me. What are you making?”
“Spaghetti Bolognese,” she said. “Are you going to be sitting outside that bar all night again?”
“No, something else has come up.”
Nancy frowned. “Something to do with Barbara McKenzie?”
“Sort of. Do you remember Rex Chapman?”
“Troy and Sally’s boy?”
Paul nodded. “The one and only. Barbara said he stopped by the tourist center earlier. He was heading out to Pavilion Lake with a woman and two kids.”
“Rex Chapman…” She shook her head. “My, my. He hasn’t been back here since…well, why is he back?”
“No idea. I guess I’ll find out when I speak with him.”
“Why do you have to speak with him?”
“I don’t have to. But he likely doesn’t know what happened to the Petersons, or the Ryersons. Barb thinks I should give him a heads up.”
“But that’s all… It must be twenty years since the Ryerson’s disappeared!”
“Twenty exactly,” Paul said, nodding. “Anyway, I better get a move on it.” He clapped his peaked hat onto his head. “I still have to find somewhere to stable a horse for the night.”
CHAPTER 7
Bobby lay on his back in bed, looking up at the inky black ceiling. His nose and cheeks were cold, but the blanket, pulled up to his chin, kept his body warm. The blanket smelled funny, like his grandma’s house, where he stayed when his dad had to fly to different countries.
Bobby wished there was a nightlight up here in the attic like there was in his bedroom at home. It was too dark. He couldn’t see much except the rafters above him and the shadowy outline of the furniture around him. Ellie told him there was a monster hiding under his bed, and if that was true, it might be thinking about coming out and grabbing one of his feet. He would scream if it did that. He didn’t want to. He wasn’t a baby anymore. But he would. His dad would come running up the stairs and fight the monster. Bobby couldn’t picture this scene in his head. Maybe because he didn’t know what the monster looked like in real life.
“It has big claws and big teeth,” Ellie said from her bed a few feet from
his.
“No, it doesn’t,” Bobby replied, and now he could picture the monster, and it made his stomach twist.
“Yes, it does,” Ellie insisted. “And it’s going to bite your head off.”
“I’m going to tell my dad.”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“You still suck your mom’s boobies!”
“Do not!”
“Do too! And you always want your dad.”
“You always want your mom.”
“Not all the time.”
Bobby swallowed and listened carefully. He didn’t hear anything under his bed.
Should he turn on his little flashlight and look? But what if Ellie was telling the truth, and the monster grabbed him? What if it pulled him under? She probably wouldn’t help him. She would be glad if a monster got him.
“I think it’s gone,” he said hopefully.
“No, it’s still there,” she said. “I heard it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s going to eat you.”
“Shut up.
“It’s going to eat you.”
“It will eat you too.”
“No, it won’t, because I’m almost six.”
“I’m almost six too.”
“But I’m older.”
Bobby was getting frustrated—and scared.
“It will still eat you too,” he said.
“Monsters only eat little kids.”
“You’re little too.”
“I told you, I’m almost six. I can do anything.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Do a headstand.”
Ellie was silent.
“See?” Bobby said happily. “You can’t.”
But then he heard Ellie pushing off her blanket. He looked over at her. She was on all fours. She planted her head on the mattress, then kicked with her feet. She went straight up—and came straight back down.
“I did it!” she said happily, pushing hair away from her face.
“That doesn’t count,” he said. “You have to stay on your head for longer.”
“How long?”
“One minute.”
Ellie sighed and tried again. She came down just as quickly as before, only this time she fell sideways off the bed and hit the floor. Bobby laughed.
“Hey!” Ellie’s mom called from somewhere downstairs. “What’s going on up there?”
“Nothing!” Ellie replied, hopping back into her bed and slipping beneath the blanket.
“Go to sleep!”
Bobby remained perfectly silent, but when Ellie’s mom didn’t say anything more, he whispered, “Why do you always wear yellow?”
“I don’t always,” Ellie said.
“All your clothes are yellow. Your dress today was yellow. And your pajamas are yellow.”
“I like yellow.”
“Is your underwear yellow?”
“No!”
“What color is it?”
“I don’t know.” She checked. “It’s white. What color is yours?”
“I’m not telling.”
“I told you mine!”
“So?”
“Mommy! Bobby’s not telling me what color his underwear is!”
“What?” her mom’s voice came back.
“I told him mine, but he won’t tell me his!”
“Don’t make me come up there!”
“She’s mad,” Bobby whispered.
“We better go to sleep,” Ellie replied.
“What about the monster? If we go to sleep, it can get us.”
“I think it’s gone to sleep already.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
Bobby was relieved. He closed his eyes, not tightly like he did to trick Ellie’s mom into thinking that he was sleeping, but just normally. He thought about going fishing tomorrow morning with his dad. He had never been fishing before. He wondered if he would have to put the worm on the hook himself. That would be gross. And what would he do if he caught a fish? Would his dad make him eat it? That meant he would have to kill it, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do that. Maybe he would just let it go again.
Bobby kept thinking about fishing until he found himself thinking about bears. They lived out here in the woods. What if one came to the cabin? What if it busted down the front door? They could do that. He saw it happen in a movie. His dad had been on a date with Ellie’s mom, and Ellie was having a sleepover at his house. They watched Shark Tale, but before it finished, Ellie and the babysitter fell asleep. Bobby watched TV on his own way past his bedtime and found the bear movie on a channel he usually wasn’t allowed to watch. The bear was going around killing people in the woods. It even knocked the head off a horse with its paw. So it could easily get through the front door of this cabin, no problem. It might have a hard time getting up the stairs—it would be fat and the stairs were narrow—but it would get his dad and Ellie’s mom. He would cry if it got his dad, and he would probably even be a little sad if it got Ellie’s mom…
Bobby slept. He dreamed he was wandering alone in the woods, and a bear was following him. He couldn’t see the animal, but he knew it was there. It was a smart bear, and it was waiting for him to lead it back to the cabin, so it could eat not just him but everybody else too. Then somebody was shouting—
Bobby came awake. His dad and Ellie’s mom were speaking quickly and loudly, and they sounded scared. Bobby knew right away what was wrong.
The bear had found them!
“Dad?” he cried. “Dad?”
***
Rex jumped to his feet. “Jesus Christ!” he said, staring at the door in the candlelight.
Tabitha was beside him. “Who is it?”
“I have no idea.” He thought immediately of Tony, but why would the guy be banging on the door at…what time was it anyway? Was he pranking them? Giving them a scare? Rex didn’t think so. Tony was an asshole, but he was an adult. He wouldn’t resort to juvenile games.
Tabitha said, “Is the door locked?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!” He clearly remembered engaging the deadbolt. Locking the door at nighttime was a habit he’d acquired from living in big cities his entire life.
“Dad?” Bobby cried. “Dad?”
Ellie called for her mom a moment later.
“Go upstairs and stay with the kids,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” Tabitha looked panicked. “You can’t go out there! We’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s nighttime. Someone just pounded on the door. That wasn’t a polite knock.”
“Maybe they need help?”
“Have they knocked again?”
The kids were shouting more loudly now.
“Go upstairs,” he repeated. “Tell Bobby and Ellie everything is okay. Tell them to stay up there, then come back down.”
“Don’t go outside until I’m back.”
“I’m waiting. Now go!”
She grabbed a candle and hurried into the other room. He heard her ascend the stairs rapidly. He glanced around for a weapon of some kind. The ice tongs on the wall? Too unwieldy.
He spotted a golf club in one corner. He grabbed it. A nine iron, the head rusted, the shaft wooden. His father had used it to chip golf balls off the dock into the lake.
Rex went to the window to the right of the door. He pressed his nose to the glass but couldn’t see anything outside except for the black night. His pulse was racing, his thoughts moving as equally fast, playing over everything Daisy and Tony had told him earlier.
“Can you see them?”
He jumped. Tabitha stood behind him.
“Can’t see anything,” he grunted, his mouth suddenly cotton-dry. “How are the kids?”
“Scared. Do you think it could be the people who came by? That man and woman?”
“No,” he said.
“Then w
ho?”
An axe-wielding mountain man?
“I’m going to find out,” he said, going to the door. “Lock the door behind me.”
“Rex, please,” she said, grabbing his wrist.
He stopped. “What do you want to do, Tabs? Sitting around and doing nothing is going to be one hell of a long night.”
“Rex—”
“I won’t be long.” He thumbed the deadbolt and opened the door. “Oh shit!”
Tabitha screamed.
***
She’s dead. She has to be. Look at all that blood!
Those three thoughts pushed everything else from Tabitha’s mind as she stared in horror at the woman lying on her side on the porch. Her purple quilted jacket was slit open horizontally across the belly, which appeared to be where all the blood was leaking from.
Rex dropped the golf club and knelt next to the woman. A moment later Tabitha did so too, recording what she saw in crystalline detail. Wavy blonde hair, no dark roots, recently colored. Pale face, unnaturally so. Eyes closed. Eyelashes too thick and full to be natural. Blood on the left cheek. Mouth ajar. Fillings in the molars and two badly nicotine-stained front teeth. Silver studs in the earlobes. A birthmark on the underside of the heart-shaped jaw.
Tabitha said, “That’s the woman…”
Rex said, “Daisy. Her name’s Daisy.” He patted her cheek. “Daisy? Daisy?” No response. He checked her throat for a pulse.
Tabitha swallowed with difficulty. “Is she dead?”
“Not breathing. CPR, quick.”
Rex rolled the woman onto her back. He unzipped her ruined jacket.
Tabitha gasped.
Blood had turned her once white shirt bright red. It had been slit horizontally as had the jacket—along with the woman’s flesh beneath. The grisly wound stretched the length of her abdomen, revealing the pink and wormy organs of her gastrointestinal tract.
“Oh fuck,” Rex said.
He began CPR. Each powerful compression caused blood to squirt out of the terrible wound. Then the woman’s bowels began to slip out too.
“Rex, stop!” Tabitha cried in disgust.
He stopped. His eyes were wide, wild. He felt her throat again for a pulse.
“She’s gone,” he said woodenly.
“What happened to her?” Tabitha said, looking around as if to find evidence of a car accident. Then an epiphany. She stiffened, aghast. “Did somebody do this?”
