Stay Away

by Ike Hamill

  She turned on the road that led to the Public Works garage. The gravel popped and ground under the tires of her BMW. When she heard a stone clink off the vehicle, she pulled to a stop. There was a closed gate up ahead anyway. She was going to have to continue on foot.

  Zinnia took her purse and glasses and then doubled back to lock the doors of the car.

  Slinging her bag over her shoulder she walked fast and cut around the gate. There was a path from the dirt road that led in the direction of the pits. Whenever she reached a puddle, Zinnia slowed to look for footprints. Wendell hated to get his shoes dirty, but maybe he had been careless in his efforts to catch up with his brother.

  Instead of heading directly to the quarry ponds, Zinnia veered right. One trail led over towards a neighborhood of mobile homes. There was an abandoned garage in that direction—Mason’s. Jessie hadn’t admitted it, but Zinnia suspected that the boys might have spent the afternoon in that crumbling building, maybe looking for treasure.

  The path was blocked by a low fence. It was rusty chain link.

  “Dammit,” she whispered.

  The kids probably vaulted it as easily as jumping over a log. There was a day when she would have done the same. Her mother always called her a tomboy. When she was in grade school, she had taken pride in the moniker. By middle school, she had hated it.

  Hitching the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder, she backed up. Zinnia ran at the fence, planted a hand, and swung her legs over.

  “Ha,” she said, wiping her hands together to clear the rust. She walked with her head high towards the building.

  Her brother had worked at Mason’s for a while, back when it had been open. The shop had specialized in bodge work, and Dell had been good at that. Instead of scientifically tracking down the broken parts of a vehicle and replacing them with new, Mason’s would rig up something that would get it rolling again, one way or another. Dell would come home with busted knuckles, covered in grease. He loved that job. Then, when everyone’s standards went up and parts became available again, Mason’s had fallen out of favor and eventually closed.

  A steel door at the back of the building was open a crack. Zinnia pushed it inwards, cringing at the groan of the hinges.

  It was dark in there.

  “Wendell?” she called. Her voice echoed into the dark as her eyes began to adjust. Somewhere in there, water dripped. She saw a light at the far end. One of the blacked-out windows had been broken, letting in sun, air, and probably pestilence.

  Zinnia took another step.

  “Wen? Are you here?”

  She couldn’t imagine little Wendell going into a place like that. He wasn’t precisely afraid of the dark, but he wasn’t the biggest fan of it, and he hated getting dirty most of the time. He was also terrified of tetanus. Zinnia had never tracked down where he had acquired that fear.

  In the sunlight that leaked through from the doorway, she saw dirty footprints on the floor. They were small—kids had been in there at some point. Moving deeper into the shadows, she saw more evidence. Pinching a greasy rag between her fingers, she lifted it to find it concealing a jar with some kind of engine part inside. She dropped the rag again. Whatever was going on in the place, she couldn’t picture Wendell being a part of it.

  Zinnia backed out to the sunlight.

  “Wendell?” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth.

  Picking her way around the rusted hulk of some metal frame, she went to the front of the building.

  “Reynold should have come,” she whispered. “He can bellow.”

  The front of the building revealed nothing. She tried to picture it the way it had been. When he closed the place, Mr. Mason had taken down the sign over the front door. Later, someone had spray painted all the glass black, probably to prevent kids from looking inside.

  “They ought to tear this place down,” she mumbled, shaking her head.

  She yelled one more time.

  “Wendell?”

  # # #

  She had felt fine back at Mason’s. The crumbling old building was clearly separated by a long gap in time from her childhood. The path that led to the quarry pond was a different story. She might as well have been eleven years old again, walking it with her sister. Nothing had changed at all.

  Zinnia found the place where the path followed along an old stone wall, and the place where the rock ledge split apart to reveal a vein of quartz and mica. Rose had loved the shiny flakes of mica when she was a kid. Rose had collected the best pieces in an aspirin tin.

  The day they found the body, they had been after berries.

  Their yard was lousy with blackberries, but their father only liked raspberries. For those, they had to go beyond the old quarry to the edge of the fire road.

  Zinnia ducked under some branches and remembered what her sister had said.

  “We can pick the blackberries before they’re ripe. He won’t know the difference.”

  “You have to be kidding,” Zinnia had said. “Those don’t taste anything like raspberries. Those are so sour. They’ll make him pucker up like a fish.”

  Her sister had laughed at that and then come up with a solution.

  “Sugar! If we add enough sugar, it will take away the sour. It’s like with lemonade,” Rose had said.

  Even back then, Rose had always been looking for a shortcut. They were more than halfway to the spot where they would be able to pick raspberries, but Rose had still been looking for an easier way to make raspberry pie for their father.

  In fact, Rose’s impatience had been the whole reason that they took the path that led past the quarry. Taking the path beneath the power lines would have been easier to follow, but it wasn’t as straight of a line, so Rose had demanded the quarry route.

  Zinnia paused, remembering her sister’s shout.

  Rose had pushed through the branches first. Their path required them to go right to the edge of the pit and then skirt around it to the other side. When Rose had pushed through the branches, she had sounded both excited and horrified.

  “What is it?” Zinnia had asked, clawing through after her sister. Rose had backed away from the edge and Zinnia had plowed into her. The two of them almost tumbled over the edge, but caught each other. Then, Rose’s pointing finger had directed Zinnia’s attention to the water below.

  Tyler’s empty eyes had been looking straight up at the sky. His bloated stomach had been pushing against the buttons of his shirt.

  “Holy mackerel,” Zinnia had whispered.

  Zinnia snapped herself back to the present, shaking the image out of her head. Wendell would not be floating down in the water. She refused to imagine such a thing.

  Angry at herself for even allowing the memory back into her head, she bent the branches away until she saw the sparkle of water. She inched forward, careful not to slip. The water was low in the pit. It was a longer fall to the dirty surface.

  And, thankfully, there was nothing floating down there.

  She inched her way around the edge of the pit, to see it from all angles and get a better view at the corner. When she was convinced that it was indeed empty, she found a path to take her away from there.

  The neighborhood where she had grown up had changed completely. Before she got within site of it, she turned back and headed towards the dirt road that led back to her car. Wendell hadn’t been at Mason’s, and he hadn’t drowned in the quarry pond like Tyler Cunningham. That left her one old ghost to visit before her mind could rest.

  # # #

  Zinnia slowed before she got to Elm Street and parked along the edge of the cemetery. Parallel parked, her car was the wrong way for traffic. If a cop stopped to hassle her, so much the better.

  This time, she left her purse in the car. With nothing but her keys in her hand, she walked down along the edge of the road and turned the corner until she saw the old tree. Her feet wanted to slow down. After a quick battle with her own fear, Zinnia raised her chin and resumed her approach. She didn’t sto
p until she was only a few yards away from the tree.

  “Hello?” she called.

  Here, the memories were even stronger than at the quarry pond. If she turned around quickly, she might see Rose, standing there with a nickel in her outstretched hand.

  “Hello? I have come to trade.”

  There was no response. Glancing around, Zinnia reassured herself that she was at the right tree. She wondered for a moment if maybe she should have brought something to trade.

  “No,” she whispered to herself.

  On Elm Street, a car drove past. Until it rounded the corner, she felt self-conscious, but she forced herself to stay put.

  “I know you’re here. You’re always here, right?”

  If someone she knew spotted her, they would say that she had gone loopy. Zinnia didn’t care. One way or the other, they were going to find their son. It was up to her to rule out all of the worst possibilities. After Mason’s and the pond, this place rounded out the trifecta.

  Zinnia folded her arms across her chest. Her keys jingled in her hand.

  “I have plenty to trade,” she said.

  She allowed herself to think back to the day that she and her sister had come to the tree. She remembered the coin in Rose’s hand and tried to remember if there had been something they had said to draw him out. It was hard to be sure, but she thought that all she needed to do was say that she wanted to trade.

  “Maybe I’m too old,” she said with a sigh. There had been a book or something—maybe a movie—that had suggested that only kids and animals could see ghosts. Maybe it was the same thing with devious old elves as well. She had always assumed that the old man was some kind of elf or imp, like Rumpelstiltskin or something.

  “Or, I was a child with an overactive imagination,” she said to herself.

  She and Rose had often played pretend. Their mother had tried to discourage it until one of their teachers had said that it was a good way for kids to learn about their place in the world. In fact, the day they rushed into the kitchen, talking about the man floating in the quarry pond, their mother had first dismissed it as pretend.

  She turned to walk away. There were no more ghosts in the haunted places of her youth.

  A stray track caught her eye and Zinnia dropped to a squat to examine it. In the mud near where a root popped out and then dove underground again, she saw the arc of a shoe print. It would be impossible to prove that it was Wendell’s.

  There was a chance, though.

  She cupped her hands around her mouth to call to him and then let them drop again without saying his name. This wasn’t a good place to be shouting the name of someone she loved. There was no way to know who might hear it.

  Zinnia walked quickly back to her car.

  1976

  ERIC

  THE NAIL WAS PINCHED between his finger and throbbing thumb. Eric swung the hammer carefully—too carefully—and it glanced off the head. The nail sang a high note as it sailed away into the shadows.

  “Dammit!” he swore in a whisper. “Fuck. Shit. Dammit.”

  He slumped back against the wall and stuck his thumb in his mouth, even though he hadn’t hit it this time. It still hurt from the last time. The pressure was building against the underside of the thumbnail as it filled with black blood. By morning, if he didn’t find a way to vent out that pressure, the thumbnail would start it’s journey to sloughing itself off.

  Eric put his hands in front of his face.

  He heard Lily’s door open and her soft footsteps as she approached.

  “You need help?” she asked.

  “No. Thanks.”

  “I know how to drive a nail.”

  “No, I know. You work all day though. You don’t need to be helping me. This is my work.”

  He sensed her lean against the wall and then felt the brush of her arm as she slid to the floor to sit next to him.

  “They’re still going to look for him. You know that, right? Just because the case is inactive, it doesn’t mean they aren’t looking.”

  “No, I know,” Eric said. He didn’t really believe it though. Lily’s new boyfriend seemed perfectly nice now, but Eric had seen the other side of him. He had seen the underside of Jim Saunders’ shoe before it came down on his chest. All of her information came unofficially from Officer Saunders, and it all sounded scripted to mollify Lily.

  “And Mom’s investigation is going strong. If I had to put odds on it, I would say that she has more hours on the case than the whole police force. Not that they’re not really trying. You wouldn’t believe how much Jim talks about Wendell.”

  Eric nodded.

  “So, what’s wrong?” Lily asked.

  He looked at her and tried to make his face as empty as he could.

  “I just need a break,” he said.

  “So, take one,” she said, getting up. Lily extended a hand to help him to his feet. “You’ve been hammering since before I left for work, and you’ve been nonstop since I got home. I should know—each time that hammer hits, the sound echoes in my head until the next one.”

  “Sorry,” he said. He brushed off his jeans. The trim in the back landing was almost done, but he hadn’t even started cleaning up. There was enough dust to fill the shop vac twice.

  Lily was just noticing the mess she had made of her own clothes.

  “I guess it’s laundry night,” she said. “That’s my lot in life. You can quit the cleaners, but you can’t quit doing laundry.”

  She turned and headed towards her room.

  Eric went the other way—down the stairs and then grabbed a coat before heading through the back door. Snow was drifting into the path he had made to the rear gate. Eric grabbed a shovel and cleared the path, barely able to see what he was shoveling by the time he reached the end of the circle of light around the house. He leaned the shovel against the fence and then pushed out into the alley. Mr. Riday had plowed the alley after the last storm.

  “The oil man must be coming,” Eric said to himself as he closed the gate. In his sneakers, his feet were already getting nipped by the cold. He broke into a jog, headed towards Dottie’s.

  # # #

  The bell tinkled and the warm air hit him all at once.

  Eric unzipped his coat immediately and shook off the snow clinging to him.

  “It’s like an oven in here,” he called.

  Nicky came through from the back with her hand cupped over the receiver. She laid a finger to her lips and then returned her attention to the phone.

  “Yes, Dottie… I will… No problem… Okay… Night! Okay… Bye.”

  She hung up and rolled her eyes.

  Eric took off his coat and hung it on the end of one of the display racks.

  “Come wash your hands,” Nicky said. “We have to make a pizza.”

  “For Dottie?” Eric asked. He unbuttoned his cuffs as he moved around the counter. The water was hot and made his thumb throb again. He soaped it up unmercifully.

  “No, the Johnsons,” Nicky said. “They called and asked for a pizza, so I said that Dottie closes the kitchen at seven and I guess they called her directly. It’s her rule, but she acted like it was rude of me to turn them down.”

  Eric turned on the oven while Nicky pulled dough from the refrigerator. Everything had been put away for the night. While she worked the ball into shape, he took the slip and began to pull the ingredients.

  “So, what brings you out tonight?” Nicky asked as they assembled the pizza.

  “Two things,” he said. “First, I need you to put a hot pin through my thumbnail.”

  “Jesus! What?”

  “Yeah. I can’t do it myself. I have a blood blister forming under there and if I don’t get the blood out, the nail is going to fall off.”

  “That sounds incredibly stupid, you realize that, right? You want me to rub eye of newt on there too?”

  “No, just the pin.”

  Eric started to put cheese on the pizza and Nicky slapped his hand away. She always p
ut the pepperoni under the cheese. She said it was her signature. Eric had somehow forgotten.

  “What’s the second thing?”

  He sighed.

  She waited for him to say it.

  “I’ve started to think lately that maybe Wendell’s disappearance is my fault.”

  She looked at him sideways, but didn’t let her eyes rest on him too long. Nicky didn’t tell him that he was being stupid again. He sensed that she was thinking it, but she was too nice to say it.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said.

  She finished putting the last toppings on the pie and checked the oven. It wasn’t quite up to temp yet.

  Nicky leaned back against the counter and took a deep breath.

  “Eric, you always find something to feel guilty about,” she said. “At some point, you’re going to have to forgive yourself for whatever you think you’ve done. Not everything is your fault.”

  “Forget about everything else,” he said. “What if this one thing is because of me?”

  “How?”

  “You remember those dreams I told you about? How that man came after my mother and then me?”

  She shrugged.

  “I owed him,” Eric said. “I never figured out what he thought I owed him for, but he was chasing me to collect.”

  “And you think he took your mother in payment.”

  “Maybe,” Eric said. “Maybe not. I don’t know—maybe it really was just a heart attack. She was already so weak from being sick before. Maybe the whole ordeal just… I don’t know. Anyway, I ran and ran to stay ahead of him and then I eventually came back here. What if it just took him that long to find me?”

  “You’re having the dreams again?”

  He thought about it for a second and then shook his head.

  “Not that I can remember, no.”

  “Then I don’t understand how it is you’re making the connection.”

  Eric felt the logic of his argument but he couldn’t articulate it. He felt like the connections had been made in a foreign language and he didn’t posses the words to translate them.