‘I think I’ve been holding on for too long,’ his mom said, sniffing and wiping at her eyes.
He didn’t know what she was talking about but knew he soon would and so listened patiently.
‘I’ve kept his things up there like he was just going to come walking in any day now,’ she said, giving a nervous laugh and a sob at the same time. ‘Like he was just on vacation and he’d be home before long.’
Reggie knew now what was going on and just let it happen. He didn’t have an opinion on the matter. Couldn’t afford to – it was either the pain or numbness. He’d stick with the opiate-like numbness.
‘I’m going into town,’ she said. ‘I’m going to give his clothes to the Salvation Army. I kept the photo albums out on the bed for you to look at. You can take whatever you want. Put them up in your room.’
Reggie didn’t say anything. He looked down and away, waiting for her to finish.
‘You can come with me if you want,’ she said. Her voice was shaky as if it might stop working at any moment, like an old answering machine whose tape was wearing out. ‘I could use the company. Or you can stay and look through the photos. Or whatever you want. I’m not telling you what to do.’
For a moment Reggie almost said yes, he’d go with her. She looked like she really needed the company. But then he remembered what he was waiting for and he shook his head.
‘That’s okay,’ he said, kindly he hoped. ‘I’ll stay and look at the pictures.’
She nodded as if this was okay, though she’d hoped for a different answer. Again he noticed how subdued she was. It was as if she’d walked a long way to an uncertain destination, and she was exhausted. It looked as if she could use help walking, now that her destination was in sight. She seemed like an old woman.
‘I’ll be back in a bit,’ his mom said and picked the box up again. ‘Could you get the door for me?’
He did, watching her from the porch as she moved down the walkway to the driveway and the car. He watched her open the trunk and put the box inside, shutting the lid with a slam. He remembered his dad’s wardrobe of flannels and jeans, and he couldn’t remember one from the other, just a universal image of his dad fixed on a point in his mind. He thought of the closet upstairs empty now of those things, and how the whole house seemed emptier without them.
His mom got in the car, started it, and drove away.
Reggie faced the stairs, looking up. Up there was the new emptiness. Up there were the photo albums. Still images and vibrant pain.
He remembered what he was waiting for, but went upstairs anyway.
***
His dad’s smile was as bright as he remembered. Brighter still were the eyes set in the kind yet strong face that beamed compassion and a joy for life nearly overflowing. It seemed to Reggie that he could almost reach through the photograph and touch the man standing there on the other side. Even the image of the man possessed more life than most living, breathing, three-dimensional people.
Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he grabbed first one album and then another, flipping through each at a leisurely pace. The images of the past leapt up at him, filling the room around Reggie with their lost sounds and colours. He remembered nearly everything, save those where he was youngest, an infant or toddler. And even some of those brought strange sensations that tickled the back of his mind like the phantoms of memories.
There they were at the ocean, the waves rolling in, white and foamy, washing about their legs, rolling in and rolling out in a syncopated rhythm. Here they were having a picnic, grass emerald green and spread out far like a great throw rug. In this one they stood before the Grand Canyon, the gaping vastness of the split earth behind them.
Reggie touched some photos reverently through the plastic sheets of the album pages. He wanted to be in the places they showed, not the here and now that was confusion and hurt and an aching dullness. These were mocking things, teasing him with times that could never be reclaimed. Lost moments in the grand machinery of the passage of years. These things were gone, washed away in the current, going one direction and he another.
Looking at them threatened the numbness with which he’d armoured himself in the course of the past year. He closed the albums violently; put them aside.
6.
The doorbell ringing made him jump.
He got up, looked out the window, saw the sheriff’s department cruiser parked there in the driveway. He’d been so caught up in the pictures he hadn’t even heard its approach.
He went downstairs swiftly, taking the steps two at a time. At the door, he paused with his hand hovering over the brass knob.
Reggie thought about not answering. What if they asked him questions that he couldn’t answer? Or the answers he gave were all too obvious for the lies they actually were?
But some things had been ingrained in him by his parents. Like respect for elders and compassion for those less fortunate. Deference to law enforcement was another of those, and so his fingers curled around the knob and turned it. He didn’t think of who it might be at the door until he opened it. He only knew there was an officer, and he needed to answer the door.
Deputy Collins looked as surprised as Reggie felt, but recovered more quickly. His amused smile was formed of thin, wet lips like earthworms.
‘Well, hi there, kiddo,’ the officer said, hands hooked at his belt by the thumbs. ‘Is your mom home?’
‘There was no rapist,’ Reggie said, even as he shook his head no to the officer’s question. Silently, he cursed himself for giving this man such satisfaction as the discovery of his lie. The growing look of amusement on the man’s face was enough to tell Reggie he was right in this regard. This man was a predator, snatching at any piece of information and feeding on it like a spider on a fly.
‘Yeah, well, I was just having fun with you,’ Deputy Collins said, smiling that wet, delighted smile. ‘You home alone?’ he asked, knowing the answer.
Reggie shook his head, knowing he should close the door, knowing that wouldn’t help. He might be in his own home, but this was Deputy Collins’s game, played by his rules.
‘Mind if I come in?’ the man asked, walking in before Reggie could answer. He took his hat off like most people would do to show respect. For him, however, it was just a motion. Maybe a mockery. He looked around the living room with interest. ‘Nice place you have here.’
He stopped at a shelf, touched some of the knick-knacks there. There were little plaster pigs and cows and elephants, and the deputy’s fingers moved slowly over each perversely, like he was stroking something else. He picked up a framed family photo, showing Reggie with both his parents.
‘Put that down,’ Reggie said with a shaky voice.
He thought again about what Ivan had said.
They know you’re weak.
He had to try and not be weak.
‘Calm down, kid,’ Deputy Collins said, setting the photo down. ‘I’m here to help,’ he added, still smiling. ‘I’m an officer of the law. I’m your friend.’
Reggie still held the door open. He wanted the deputy to leave and knew there was nothing he could do to make him. The man moved about their house, an intruder with a badge. Unless his mom came home, Reggie had to play this out by himself.
‘I may have fibbed about the rape part,’ said the intruder, ‘but I was telling the truth about there being a dangerous man on the loose.’ Reggie knew there was one right in front of him, but kept this little observation to himself. ‘They had us doing sweeps, helicopters flying, K-9 trackers, the whole nine yards. They caught a trail nearby,’ he said with a thumb over his shoulder in some vague direction outside, ‘about a mile or so from your place.’
Now he was walking past the sofa, one hand trailing the top of it, again with a strangely sensual touch, like he was caressing a living thing. He crossed the room to the kitchen entrance, peered in, looked in either direction. Then he turned back to face Reggie.
‘They’re having us check on everybody,’ sa
id Deputy Collins. ‘To make sure they haven’t seen anything strange. Have you seen anything strange?’
Reggie wanted to run from his own house, and this angered him. But his anger at himself couldn’t translate into anger at the man across from him. He was afraid of the deputy, and that squashed any other emotions that might be below the surface.
He was weak.
Before this man, tall and lean-muscled, he was weak, and there was nothing he could do about it.
‘No,’ he answered meekly, hoping for the man’s amusement to run its course. Hoping that in what passed for a mind in his head, the deputy would realize that even he, if caught in someone’s house without permission, would face consequences.
‘No strangers you haven’t seen before?’ the deputy asked, stepping closer, closing the gap between them. ‘No noises from the woods?’ he said, taking another step, and another, bridging the distance.
Reggie shook his head.
Then the man was standing over him. Reggie barely came up to the man’s chest.
He looked up, and it was like looking up at the ramparts of a high tower.
‘You and your mom live alone?’ the deputy asked.
Reggie looked down, didn’t answer. He found himself looking at the man’s gun belt, and the pistol there.
‘Where’s your dad?’ the officer asked.
Could he reach it in time? Could he pull the trigger?
‘Are they divorced?’ the man asked. ‘Separated? Does he live somewhere else?’
Reggie thought about pulling the trigger in the woods and watching the bottles disappear, tugged out of existence.
‘Your mom’s pretty,’ the deputy said. ‘Nice tits.’
Reggie wasn’t sure he’d heard what he’d heard. He forgot about the gun, stepped away from the man. His back met the door, the doorknob pushing harshly into his ribs.
‘I could suck on those things for a week,’ the man said. He made little sucking noises with his glistening worm lips. ‘Milk them dry,’ he said and laughed.
‘Get out,’ Reggie said, shaking.
The man laughed harder.
‘Get out of my house,’ Reggie said, hating his weakness, hating the man in front of him, hating it all.
The man kept laughing.
‘The only thing you know how to suck is dick,’ Reggie said.
He didn’t know where it came from. He just said it. There was no thinking about it. He didn’t consider it in his head before he said it. He just said the words.
And the world stopped.
The deputy stopped laughing.
Reggie’s heart stopped beating.
Then, slowly, the man reached out, grabbed him by a fistful of shirt, and leaned in close. The deputy’s breath was minty and puffed in Reggie’s face in little bursts.
‘What the fuck did you just say?’ he asked, just above a whisper.
There was nothing to do but keep on going.
‘You like ’em big and hard,’ Reggie said, his voice surprisingly steadier.
He was twirled, spun, G-forces stronger than on a rollercoaster pressing against him, and flung away. He bounced off the sofa and sprawled to the floor. His chin met the carpet with a clack of his teeth.
They’d reversed positions. Now Reggie was deeper in the living room, and Deputy Collins was in front of the door. The light outside framed him in a halo, as if giving a physical brilliance to his rage.
‘That was stupid, you little shit,’ the officer said. ‘Really stupid,’ he added, loosening his baton from his belt.
He took a step towards Reggie, moving out of the sunlight.
Something else entered it; an even larger silhouette.
Deputy Collins stood over Reggie, raising the nightstick.
The figure behind him raised its own arms, brought them down over the deputy’s face and pulled back fast.
Deputy Collins gagged, the garrotte wire pulling deep into the flesh of his throat. He dropped the nightstick and it thumped to the floor. He reached up to pull and pry at the arms cinching the wire tight. He drove his elbows into his assailant. He tried bucking with his legs.
He gagged and spittle dripped and flew from his lips. He shoved backwards, driving both himself and his attacker against the wall. Picture frames rattled and swung askew.
The wire was pulled tighter, the fists gripping it white. The deputy’s eyes bulged. He tried inserting fingers between the wire and his throat. There was no room. His eyes pushed out further.
He pissed his pants.
The stench of it was astringent and sharp.
He slid to the ground, his assailant following. The deputy’s legs jerked and jived for a few moments more and then were still. His arms dropped heavily.
The killer unwound the wire from the dead man’s throat.
He was breathing hard and stood on shaky legs.
‘We have to get him out of here,’ Ivan said.
For a moment, Reggie couldn’t move. He saw the dead man on the floor, and the killer standing over him. As he watched, the killer spooled the wire into a loop and pocketed it.
‘Hurry, Reggie,’ he said. ‘We don’t have much time.’
Still, Reggie hesitated. The secreted wire disappearing in the folds of the jacket and the empty stare of the dead deputy seemed to have something in common. A negative space, Reggie thought, recalling the words from art class. That’s what it was – a space where something belonged, or once had been.
‘Now! Get up, Reggie!’
This hushed shout was a command, brooking no argument. It made Reggie flinch, and his mind cleared.
Reggie got up on uncertain legs. He nodded and Ivan gestured to the dead man’s legs, bending and grabbing the deputy under the arms. Reggie moved into position and grabbed either ankle. On the killer’s count of three, they lifted together, shuffled towards the open door.
Reggie tried to tell himself he was lifting a mannequin. This wasn’t a man he was carrying. It was a life-sized doll, maybe, like a crash-test dummy. But it didn’t work.
He remembered his dad’s wake. Seeing the man over the rim of the casket. Waxen, still and lifeless, but a man nonetheless. Reggie paused, bringing their small procession to a halt in the middle of the yard.
He wanted to drop the deputy’s legs and run. But across the stretch of the corpse, looming over the dead man’s face, was another face, alive, grim, and determined. The killer strained with the burden of the deputy’s dead weight, grimaced, yet he met Reggie’s furtive gaze. Read Reggie’s thoughts in the span of seconds, and shook his head.
‘We have a deal, Reggie,’ the killer muttered. And thinking maybe this wasn’t enough, added: ‘We’re friends. I need your help.’
Not knowing exactly why, Reggie didn’t let go, and nodded.
Their burden between them, they started moving again.
The distance from the house to the woods seemed to stretch forever, and the light of the sun shone down on them, revealing it all.
7.
They loaded the body onto the sled beneath the tree house. That seemed its purpose now, ferrying the dead and dying. No more snow rides in biting winters. Reggie didn’t think his dad would have approved.
‘We’ll have to go far,’ Ivan said.
‘Can you make it?’ Reggie asked.
‘I don’t have a choice,’ the killer said.
‘What about the deputy’s car?’ Reggie asked.
‘I’ll come back for it. It’s better if they’re separate,’ said the killer. ‘It’ll confuse the situation, should he or the car be found.’
‘Wait,’ Reggie said and raced back to the house. There, he grabbed a couple bottled waters, stopped to straighten the pictures and shelves where the deputy and Ivan had collided with the wall, then went outside again and shut the door. He met up again with Ivan at the tree house. The killer was staring down at the dead eyes of the deputy, searching them for something and apparently unable to find it.
Then they were off.
&nbs
p; Their small procession moved through the quiet woods in solemn urgency. No one spoke as they passed under the shadows of the trees and the intermittent light of the yellow sun. Birds twittered and then quieted with their approach. The wind seemed to sigh a wordless hymn for the bearers of the dead. As if the heavens noted the passing of the departed, even one so wicked as the man on the sled.
They moved in a general southerly direction, though Reggie could discern no exact bearing. They took turns pulling the sled with the ropes about their shoulders, pausing every once in awhile to break for water and to catch their breath. Ivan’s face had a sallow, sickly cast to it again, and Reggie worried. He wanted to know how the man had eluded the trackers and their dogs, but knew this wasn’t the time to ask. He also wanted to know how he’d come across his new clothes – blue jeans, a T-shirt, and brown suede jacket – wondered if there was someone dead somewhere, missing those garments, but he didn’t ask that either.
Down into a dry creek bed they descended, following the bends and turns. Until they came to a precipice and a far drop into trees and shrubs in a chaotic growth below. Reggie stared down the face of the drop, judging the height, dizzy by the height, and giving up, stepped back.
‘Here,’ Ivan said, breathing hard.
He dropped the ropes and leaned against a rock like a tombstone. He pulled his water out from a jacket pocket, twisted the cap, and took a long swig. He coughed a little but kept it down.
Reggie braved the cliff again and looked down.
It seemed a maw, a throat, a tunnel to a deep place.
‘There’s no telling how long it’ll take them to find him here,’ said the killer. ‘Could be weeks or months. They might never find him.’
Reggie thought of the body bloating, decaying, falling apart, becoming bones.
‘They might say he met with foul play,’ the killer said. ‘Or that he ran off with a woman. Or any of a thousand other stories.’
Reggie thought of that: someone disappearing, no one knowing why. The story of a life unknown, unfinished, left on a shelf to gather the dust of ages. Forgotten and gone.
‘Any of which is fine for us,’ the killer said, ‘because the more they wonder, the less they know. And the safer we are.’
Are You Afraid of the Dark? Page 8