by Z Brewer
The three old men standing outside eyed our vehicle distrustfully. I sank down in my seat, pretending not to notice. We were the new people here. We weren’t part of their group. We had to prove ourselves worthy of their small-town ways. I didn’t even want to think about what the school year would be like if we were still here this fall. If the adults stared us down this bad, what would the high schoolers be like?
The other side of the gas station was home to graffiti—nothing special, just a large, roughly painted pair of stark black wings. Probably Spencer’s idea of what passed for small-town rebellion, when in fact the teenage punks were all just farmers’ kids or a close variation thereof. These kids had no idea what punk was, what a big city was. Kids in Denver would eat them alive.
As Dad pulled into the surprisingly full parking lot of the Lakehouse Grill, he grimaced. "I swear this town never changes. It looks the same as it did the day I left."
I caught sight of two bumper stickers on the truck next to us. One read Pro Life: Have a heart. Don’t stop one. The other read Keep honking. I’m reloading.
Awesome. Just . . . awesome.
I opened the passenger door of the Beetle, hoping like hell the rust would hold it together and the door wouldn’t fall off completely. I climbed out, closing the door behind me with a slam. It was the only way to be sure the stupid thing would close at all. My actions apparently caught the attention of a group of four kids around my age as they exited the restaurant, because all four were staring at me and my dad’s crappy car. One of the three guys in the group—tall, tan, and probably into things like Ultimate Frisbee and racquetball—whistled at the rust monstrosity as he slipped his arm around the slender, just as tan, likely-into-gymnastics-and-discussing-everything-to-do-with-her-hair girl in the group. An embarrassed heat worked its way up my neck as we walked by them and headed inside. I hated the Beetle. I hated the way those kids had noticed it, had noticed me. My dad seemed oblivious to the stares.
The Lakehouse Grill was small-town chic . . . in that it had panel-covered walls from the seventies, ripped-vinyl booth seats, and enough fake plants to choke a horse. A weird horse that ate fake plants. Probably a horse from small-town Michigan.
As far as I had seen, it seemed like it was pretty much our only option for eating out unless we wanted to drive thirty minutes to the next town over, so I was hoping they had some fair-to-decent food. When we stepped inside, we were greeted by a woman who was basically every hostess in every small-town café everywhere. She was relatively short and relatively thin, and I could tell by her gravelly voice that she smoked way too many cigarettes when she wasn’t busy directing people where to sit. Around her neck she wore a pair of reading glasses on a chain. A younger, much prettier blond lady was arguing quietly with her. The hostess was losing her cool. “I know, Marjorie, but Spencer’s going through a bad time right now. You just have to be more careful is all. It’ll all be over soon. Now get your buns back in the kitchen.”
She looked at my dad expectantly. “Two?”
“Yes, please.” We followed her into the main dining area, to a booth near the back. As we moved, I could feel eyes on me, wondering just who we were and what we thought we were doing here. Maybe some of these people recognized Dad or something. But from the look on Dad’s face as we moved past the tables, it was clear that he didn’t recognize any of them.
The hostess handed us menus and told us that Donna would be taking care of us, then she called me “honey,” and, even resistant to her chain-smoking charms as I was, it felt nice. Maybe she could speak to the gas station guys on our behalf and tell them that my dad and I weren’t so bad. Or at least get the patrons to stop staring.
Dad peered over his menu at me and cleared his throat. “It would be nice if you called your mom when we get back, and let her know we made it okay.”
It was a nudge. I’d become very familiar with his nudges in the past six months. He’d nudge me to call her, to make a connection, to try to forgive her for the things she couldn’t control. But I wasn’t ready yet. So as usual, I countered his nudge with a lie. “Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. We’ve got all that unpacking to do.”
Dad frowned.
A perky brunette approached our table with a little too much bounce in her step, considering it wasn’t yet ten in the morning. “Good morning, you two. Can I get you started with some drinks?”
“Coffee, please. Cream and sugar?” My dad remained completely oblivious to the stares we were getting. Either he had no idea, or he was trying to make the best of it. Likely, option B. He’d always been a peacekeeper. That’s why it took him so long to get the balls to lock Mom away. Or maybe, in the end, locking her away had been his way of keeping the peace. I wouldn’t know. No one had explained any of it to me. It was like when he’d told me we were moving. Simple, direct, with no room for argument. “Stephen, I’m committing your mother to a mental hospital.”
My life with Dad was a series of simple statements.
“And you?” Donna smiled at me, her pen poised over the small pad of paper in her hand. She struck me as one of those really annoying people who love what it is they do for a living.
“I’ll have a Mountain D—”
“Everyone! You’re gonna burn. You’re all gonna burn!”
I whipped my head around to the wild-eyed woman standing just inside the restaurant’s front door. She was dressed in a plain gray dress that reached her ankles, with sleeves that stretched all the way to her wrists, despite the fact that it was eighty-eight degrees outside. Around her neck she wore a small silver cross. In her hand she clutched a worn leather book. She didn’t seem to be speaking to anyone in particular, and in return, most of the patrons simply hunched up their shoulders and tried to avoid eye contact with her.
The chain-smoking hostess approached her calmly, like this was a regular occurrence in her day. “Now, Martha, what have we talked about? You can’t keep coming in here and disrupting people.”
Martha didn’t look like she gave a crap. She also looked like she pretty much lived on Planet Martha most of the time, with brief visits to the town of Whackadoo. When she spoke again, her tone remained every bit as embittered, but it was quieter, at least. “You’ll all burn. You should be home on the Sabbath. Family and hearth. All of you.”
By the pinched expression that was settling on the hostess’s face, I could tell her patience was wearing thin. “Martha, we’re trying to run a business here. If Dave sees you in here again causing trouble, you know what he’ll do. He said he’d call Officer Bradley last time, and—”
“YOU’RE GONNA BURN!”
I was starting to like Martha.
The door opened, jostling the bell that hung above it, and a girl around my age rushed inside. Her shoulder-length hair was stark black, with streaks of cranberry and thin, plum-colored braids twisting all through it. She was dressed in small-town punk, with bold black-and-white-striped knee-high socks and beat-up military boots. Several safety pins were hooked along the hem of her short black skirt, and the tattered T-shirt she wore depicted a band I’d never heard of. Attached to the front of her shirt, clinging to her curves, was a button that read Buttons Are for Dorks. She definitely didn’t look like a farmer’s daughter.
She twisted one of her braids between two fingers in a way that was almost childlike. But there was nothing childish about the way she licked her lips or how she grazed the fingernails of her left hand along the smooth skin of her thigh as she looked around the place. I took my time noticing.
When she saw Martha, she groaned. “Mom, come on. Come home. You can’t keep doing this.”
Martha gestured to the patrons dramatically with a sweep of her right arm. The hostess rolled her eyes. Something told me she’d heard this punch line so many times, she was just waiting for the joke to be over. “I have to warn them. I have to tell them.”
The hostess spoke up again, her already-pinched face pinching even more in irritation. “Cara, I’ve had about enough of this.
You’ve got to get her home and keep her there. Every Sunday, for crying out loud.”
“I know, Mary. I’m sorry.” The girl—Cara, I instantly memorized—turned back to her mom then, and my sympathy for her grew. It had to be hard to be the parent to your parent. It had to be hard to be the girl with the crazy mom. Especially when everyone in town seemed to know that was your lot in life. At least Dad had spared me that embarrassment.
Cara sighed, and then something sparked in her eyes. “Come on, Mom. What are you always saying we should do on the Sabbath? Stay home with our family, right?”
Her mom nodded eagerly. At last, someone was starting to listen to her. “Home and hearth. Family and home.”
Cara tugged her sleeve and nodded at the door. “Well, come on, then. We’re family. It’s the Sabbath. Let’s go home.”
At first, Martha didn’t move an inch. But then, with a distrusting gleam in her eyes and a furrowed brow, she edged toward the door, letting her daughter lead the way. As they exited, Cara glanced over her left shoulder, like she’d heard a sound or was checking to see if anyone else had anything to say about her crazy mother. When she did, our eyes met. I nodded a hello, and hoped she noticed, but I couldn’t be certain. In seconds, she was gone. Off to take her mother home, on the Sabbath, like any good girl would.
Read more of The Cemetery Boys!
About Z Brewer
Z Brewer is the NYT bestselling author of The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod series, as well as The Slayer Chronicles series, Soulbound, The Cemetery Boys, The Blood Between Us, Madness, and more short stories than they can recall. Their pronouns are they/them. When not making readers cry because they killed off a character they loved, Z is an anti-bullying and mental health advocate. Plus, they have awesome hair.
Z lives in Southern Illinois with a husband person, one child person, and three furry overlords that some people refer to as “cats”.
Also by Z Brewer
Into the Real
The Cemetery Boys
The Blood Between Us
Madness
The Chronicles of Vladimir Todd
Eighth Grade Bites
Ninth Grade Slays
Tenth Grade Bleeds
Eleventh Grade Burns
Twelfth Grade Kills
The Slayer Chronicles
First Kill
Second Chance
Third Strike
The Legacy of Tril
Soulbound
Soulbroken