Stay Away

by Ike Hamill

  Lily frowned. Until that moment, she had been sure that he didn’t smoke.

  Holdty looked at Lily and apologized. “Mom has asthma. You have to go out by the shed if you want to smoke.”

  “No thanks,” Lily said.

  “So, Holdty, it turns out that we gotta stay here tonight,” Jessie said.

  Holdty shrugged and nodded.

  “Wait,” Lily said. “Don’t you even care why?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Can you go borrow a shirt for me?” Lily asked, tenting her wet shirt away from her chest. “This one is all wet.”

  “I guess,” Holdty said, struggling to get up from the tired couch. “It’s going to be big.”

  He held out his hand to her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You want me to put that one in the dryer?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll wait until there’s something to change into first.”

  “Okay.”

  Charlie Holdt climbed the stairs slowly, like the gravity was increasing with each stair. When he opened the door at the top of the stairs, they could hear the radio playing in the kitchen and smell the thick aroma of whatever his mom was roasting in the oven. The door shut as Charlie started to ask his mom about a shirt for Lily to borrow.

  “You shit on my friends, but you’ll notice that he took us in without question,” Jessie said.

  “I didn’t shit on your friends.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re always making little comments about how I should broaden my social circles. Would you prefer to go stay the night at one of your friends’ houses?”

  Lily looked towards the TV. Marcia and Jan were conspiring about something. Jessie knew how to cut her. Even before she had left for Texas, she hadn’t had a very broad social circle. There were friends from work back then—people she hadn’t really gotten back into contact with when she returned. She just didn’t see the point. When she was dating Jim Saunders, she had started to hang out with his crowd. That had all ended with the accident, of course. For about a year, she had pretty much been alone in the world except for her relationship with Jessie and Eric.

  “Mom was the one who said that,” Lily said.

  “Huh?”

  “Mom was the one who was always putting down your friends. She did it to me and Wendell, too. Hell, she even did it with Dad.”

  The door opened and Charlie Holdt came down holding out a blouse. It wasn’t something that Lily would have picked out, but it could have been worse. He had a sweater for her, too. That was thoughtful.

  “You can change in my room or the bathroom. Space is tight in the bathroom.”

  He pointed her in the right direction. Charlie wasn’t kidding. There was barely enough space to turn around. The bathroom consisted of a standup shower, a toilet, and the sink. Leaning over the toilet, she managed to close the door behind herself so she could change. Putting on the blouse and sweater, she hung up her shirt and bra over the shower curtain rod. When she squeezed through the door back to his basement living room, Charlie was gone again.

  Lily sat back down.

  “It is nice of him to let us stay,” she said. “You know, one time Mom gave me a lecture about Brett.”

  Jessie narrowed his eyes.

  “She said that it appeared that he was trying to isolate me from my friends. She said that a controlling person will do that. I don’t remember the word she used for it, but she said that I should watch out.”

  “Is that why you broke up with him?”

  “No,” she said. “I broke up with him because he was an asshole. I don’t know… Maybe it’s the same thing. It made me think though. Was Mom doing that?”

  “Huh?”

  “Like I was saying, it always seemed like she didn’t approve of any of our friends. Even Dad—do you remember when Dad started hanging out with that guy Harry, over on Bickford Street?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You were a kid. He took you over there once or twice. The guy had a pinball machine on his back porch.”

  She saw recognition in his eyes.

  “Yeah.”

  “Dad used to love hanging out with that guy. Together, they were always tearing apart an engine or rebuilding some old machine. Harry was a journalist and he would go away for months at a time. When he came back, he would just unwind and work on things.”

  Jessie was looking off at nothing. “I remember the smell of his garage. It was always oil and gasoline and it was always hot in there.”

  “Yeah,” Lily said. “Anyway, Mom always found excuses for why Dad shouldn’t hang out with that guy. She basically broke up their friendship and then they didn’t hang out at all anymore.”

  “Didn’t he die?” Jessie asked.

  “I don’t remember,” Lily said. “But my point is that you were the only one who managed to keep any friends.”

  “What about Eric and Nicky?”

  “I don’t think that Mom knew about Nicky really. Eric kept her a secret. Remember that time you tried to invite Fish to dinner? Mom told him to go home because she said we didn’t have enough?”

  Jessie shook his head. He looked sad and a little angry.

  “I’m not trying to say that she was a bad person, but she was very protective of our family and she didn’t trust any outsiders. Now, I’m starting to wonder.”

  “About what?”

  “What if it was always him? What if he maneuvered her to be close and at the same time made her distrustful of others. What if the Trader was behind the whole isolation of our family?”

  Jessie took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh.

  “I don’t know. Feels like you’re trying to fit everything together. Sometimes everything doesn’t fit.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You’re right.”

  Both doors opened at once. Fish came in from the outside and Holdty came down from upstairs.

  They both had their hands full. Fish was carrying a bunch of soda bottles and Holdty had a plate of cookies.

  “Mom wants to know if you’re hungry,” Holdty said.

  “We just ate,” Lily said. “But thanks.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Jessie said. “I could eat.”

  ERIC

  HE HELPED OUT WHERE he could, helping Nicky prepare the few orders that came in and covering the register while she took a call. Eric’s optimism faded fast as her shift came to an end. He was pretty sure that Brett wasn’t going to come through with his promise of a finger. They weren’t going to have anything to trade in the morning and the rest of the plan would just dissolve.

  Eric actually jumped when he saw Brett’s face through the glass of the store’s door.

  “You ready?” Brett asked as he came in. He took a bag of chips from the rack and tossed a bill on the counter.

  “It’s on me,” Nicky said, pushing the bill back. She unlaced her apron and began shutting off the lights in back. She wasn’t being generous—Eric knew that she had already counted out the drawer and shut the register down.

  “Who’s driving?” Brett asked, looking between them.

  “I can drive,” Eric said. The Gran Torino guzzled gas, but it was more dependable than Nicky’s car. Besides, it gave his presence legitimacy on the trip. It was only supposed to be Nicky and Brett going, but Eric would just worry about her the whole time. Brett acted like he was dependable, but that was what made him dangerous.

  “Let’s go then,” Brett said. On his way back to the door, he helped himself to a soda, too.

  Brett took the backseat, yielding the front to Nicky. He didn’t announce where they were heading, but doled out the turns one by one as Eric approached. When they headed north on the Lewiston Road, Eric relaxed a little. They passed houses and then farms.

  Eventually, Nicky pulled out her little notebook and held it under the map lamp. She flipped through and then turned around in her seat.

  “Where did you say we were going? I didn’t write it down.”

  �
��I didn’t say,” Brett said. “My buddy works for the crematorium in Mechanic Falls.”

  Eric shook his head and caught Brett’s eyes in the mirror. “We can’t use a burned body, Brett. I’m pretty sure that Lily said something about un-rotted flesh.”

  “Dipshit, they’re burned at the crematorium. They have unburned ones there too.”

  “Your friend works at night?” Nicky asked.

  “That’s the only time they burn,” Brett said. “The locals don’t like the sight of the smoke coming out of the place so they have to burn at night.”

  Nicky turned back around in her seat. Her face looked white in the light from the dash.

  “I thought you weren’t squeamish,” Brett said.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine,” Nicky said. “You’re pretty sure that your friend is going to sell us a finger?”

  “No. No way,” Brett said. “He’s not stupid. He would get fired and go to jail if he did that.”

  “Then what are we doing? Why did you collect money from everyone?”

  “Because he sells dope out of the place at night. He and his partner are both in on it. If I just get a dime bag, he deals it right out of his locker. If I ask him for a couple of hundred, he and his partner both come out to do the transaction at the car. One of them counts while the other weighs out the stuff. They prop the back door open with a brick. That’s when you’re going to sneak in and get the finger.”

  “Jesus,” Nicky said. She was shaking her head and looking more woozy than before. “What makes you think this will work?”

  “Done it before,” Brett said.

  “Gross,” Nicky whispered.

  “Why?” Eric asked.

  “Just drive. You want to ask questions or get this done?”

  # # #

  Brett guided Eric to pull over near a dark road that seemed to lead into the woods.

  “Go down about a hundred yards and look for a parking lot on your left. That’s where you’ll see the guys come out of the back of the place.”

  Eric got out and walked around the vehicle while Nicky slowly climbed from the passenger’s seat.

  “I don’t see anything down there,” she said.

  Brett had already slipped behind the wheel.

  “You’ll see it,” Brett said. He put the Gran Torino in gear, pulling the door from Nicky’s grip.

  The two of them stood there with the darkness closing around them as the rear lights of the Gran Torino got smaller and smaller.

  “He ditched us,” Nicky said.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he thinks it’s funny,” she said. “He’s probably going to go pick up Eddie and they’re going to laugh their asses off about how he drove us to the middle of nowhere and stole your uncle’s car.”

  “He’s not that creative or…” Eric trailed off. He was going to say that Brett wasn’t that cruel. In truth, he was pretty sure that Brett was precisely that cruel. “We might as well go see if he was telling the truth.”

  Eric started to walk.

  “If this was a real plan, he would have told us what to do once we got the finger,” Nicky said.

  “We’ll just come back here and wait for him.”

  “What are we supposed to use to cut with? He didn’t even tell us to bring a knife or cleaver or whatever.”

  “That’s gross,” Eric said over his shoulder. Nicky was still standing back there at the intersection. Eric was sliding his feet forward carefully. He couldn’t even see well enough to know if he was still on the road so he felt with his toe before each step. The sky above was a black void. He couldn’t even see any stars up there. He moved forward, trusting his sense of where the road was until Nicky called to him.

  “Wait up. Jesus. Don’t leave me out here alone.”

  He stood still and waited until she caught up. Nicky fell in behind him and they shuffled along, veering to the right a little when he sensed the edge of the dirt shoulder.

  “Holy shit, it’s dark out,” she said.

  “Shhh.”

  “How are we going to know when we’ve gone a hundred yards?” Nicky whispered.

  It was a great question. Eric wished they had been counting paces, but it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. Brett had just been estimating the distance.

  “There must be a light or something,” he whispered back.

  “You hope.”

  He didn’t bother to answer. Eric was already thinking about what they would do when there wasn’t a light. In his head, he started counting paces from that moment forward. When they had gone two hundred steps, they would turn around and backtrack to the main road. From there, maybe they could find a payphone or hitchhike to one. After that, he didn’t know what they would do. Eric didn’t know the phone number where Lily and Jessie were. The kid’s name was Charles Holdt, but that didn’t get him anywhere. Nicky would have to call her parents or something.

  It hadn’t been that long since he had been on his own, but it felt like he had already lost the knack. Surviving with nothing was a matter of luck and it seemed like the people who got away with it were the ones who were too ignorant to recognize the danger. As soon as a kid really grasped how stupid it was to hitchhike around alone, that’s when they got picked up by a pervert or a killer.

  When her hand landed on his arm, Eric almost screamed.

  “What?” he whispered.

  “That light,” she said back.

  She had to grab his shoulders and turn him until he saw what she was pointing at. Through the trees, there was a dim red light in a cage, mounted to the back wall of a building.

  They moved closer, slogging through leaves and mud until they got to the edge of pavement. A few dozen paces away, he could see the door of the place.

  “Should we go see if it’s open?” Eric whispered.

  “No. He said they would prop it open, right?”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “You see any cars?” she asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Because he said they do the deal out of the trunk of a car. We’re going to need to get an angle on the door that they won’t see from the car.”

  “Oh. Why don’t you stay here and I’ll go hide behind those dumpsters. If they go left, then I’ll be able to get in. If they go right, then you go,” Eric said.

  “Are you crazy? You expect me to go in there alone and cut off a finger?”

  “I’m just trying to increase the odds that…”

  He shut his mouth when the door creaked and began to open. They both crouched down when the sliver of light turned into a rectangle, casting out across the lot. Eric thought that they would be spotted for sure, hunched down at the edge of the trees. Shadows of people bit into the rectangle of light and they heard voices.

  “He said that Mexican food always gives him the quicksteps. I thought he was talking about dancing,” one man said.

  The other one laughed.

  “I told him that it smelled like somebody had died in there. Then, when he tried to play it off, I was like, no.”

  The guy in back leaned down and rattled something metallic across the ground. He let the door close until it rattled the object again. The door was propped open, just like Brett had predicted. The two men moved through the red light towards the corner and then disappeared.

  Nicky poked him in the back.

  “Go!” she whispered.

  He was frozen. The whole idea was absurd. These men were drug dealers with access to a place where they could dispose of bodies. It wasn’t until Nicky began to slide around him and hurry towards the door that Eric found the will to move his own body. She was going—he had to help her.

  # # #

  The hinges practically shrieked when Nicky eased open the door enough to slide through. Eric followed, stepping over the pipe that the men had left in the gap. Cold air leaked through behind him. Inside, the place was as hot as an oven. It was easy to see why. On their right, they saw two heavy doors, outfitte
d with round latches to secure them. They looked like submarine hatches. Near one, there was a steel gurney.

  Nicky moved past all this. Eric just stood there, with his mouth hanging open. There were bodies behind those doors, being burned up and turned to dust. He had no idea how long it would take to finish, but he couldn’t imagine that those men had just wandered off during the process. It seemed dangerous and disrespectful.

  When he got his feet moving again, he followed Nicky through a big set of swinging doors. There, he saw a couple more of the steel gurneys. These had long cardboard boxes on them. Nicky was already pushing up the lid of one when Eric finally figured it out.

  “They burn them in…” he started to say.

  “This one is no good,” she said, putting the lid back down and moving to the next. She shook her head at what she saw in that one as well.

  “Why not?”

  Eric just wanted to get out of there. He couldn’t believe that she was being picky about which body they desecrated.

  “They’re wearing clothes,” she whispered. “If they’re wearing clothes, then there was probably a viewing. A viewing means embalming, right? We’re looking for raw.”

  “Oh,” Eric said. He wasn’t sure she was right, but she sounded so confident.

  Nicky was already moving through to yet another room. This one had a wall of drawer fronts—an oversized filing cabinet of death. She skipped the drawers that didn’t have cards in the holders. Eric moved alongside her as she flipped the latch and tried to open one of the drawers with a card.

  The thing was heavy. Once they got it moving, Eric had to put his weight against it to slow it down.

  Nicky raised the lid.

  Shaking her head, she said, “Ugh. No.”

  He helped her push the drawer back in, not bothering to ask what she had found objectionable. Eric quickly discovered that he barely had the tenacity to stay with her in the place. If possible, he was going to avoid looking at any of the bodies.

  They pulled open another drawer and the smell hit him before she had even removed the lid. On the next one, there was no box at all—just a sheet over a body. Nicky pulled up the edge and looked.

  “Maybe. We’ll have to find a knife or some shears or something,” she said.