“Remember when we were kids and he always tried to shortchange us?” Jimmy asked.
“Until Mr. Anderson threatened to kick his ass if he ever did it again.”
“I would’ve paid good money to see that.”
“Me too,” I said, swinging into the narrow parking lot adjacent to First National Bank. I pulled into a spot and turned off my headlights.
Staring straight ahead across Edgewood Road and up the long gravel driveway, Jimmy didn’t say anything at first, but then I watched as his eyes widened. “Jesus. The Meyers House.”
“You didn’t think it would be gone, did you?”
“Not exactly,” he said, his voice fading. “To tell the truth, I’d almost forgotten about it.”
I looked at him to see if he was bullshitting me, and I could tell that he wasn’t. My heart ached at the idea of him—or any of us, for that matter—forgetting about such an important piece of our childhood. The idea that such a thing could actually happen had never really occurred to me, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. For a split second, I felt an itch growing at the corners of my eyes.
“I used to have nightmares about that house,” he said, breaking the silence.
I wanted to tell him that I still had occasional nightmares about that house, but decided to keep it to myself. All of a sudden, it didn’t feel right sharing that with him. “My father said the owners sold it a couple years ago and someone new lives there now.”
“No kidding.” He stared out the windshield. “Can you imagine living there?”
“Nope. Not even for a single night.”
“God, Brian and Craig dared us to spend the night in the backyard. ‘Bet you twenty bucks you can’t make it until morning.’ What did we last, an hour?”
“Not even,” I said. “Like half an hour. You were so scared you ran home without your sleeping bag.”
“That’s because I saw a ghost,” Jimmy answered with a haughty tone of voice. “I almost peed my pants that night.”
We cracked up then, and the sound of our laughter steered me back to a happy place. It felt good to remember simpler times.
Almost as if reading my mind, Jimmy asked, “Does it feel weird living back here again?”
“Yes and no.” I shrugged. “It feels weird sleeping in my old room, that’s for sure. And the town feels… different somehow… but that’s no surprise these days.”
He looked at me. “I guess you’ve been following the cases pretty closely.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound defensive.
“I don’t know.” He shifted in his seat. “You always liked… mysteries and… figuring things out.”
“Even the police can’t figure this one out, though. We keep hearing they’re about to make an arrest, but nothing ever happens. The whole town’s on edge.”
“Are you?”
“A little bit,” I admitted. I thought about telling him about the strange phone calls, but didn’t. I’m not exactly sure why. “I went jogging the other night—to the end of Hanson and back. I ended up freaking myself out. I kept hearing footsteps behind me and seeing things moving in the shadows.”
“Creepy,” he said in a mock scary voice.
“It really was. I booked it home.”
He laughed and took another drink of his beer.
“Hey, look at that,” I said, pointing across the street.
He followed the direction of my finger but didn’t say anything.
“Right there. By the side of the house.” An indistinct shadow was moving in the darkness, a flickering light guiding the way.
“Is that someone carrying a lantern?”
“Looks like it,” I said, whispering now, feeling like I was ten years old again. “Or maybe a flashlight with weak batteries.”
“What do you think he’s doing?”
“No idea.”
“Maybe he’s moving a body? Or burying one!”
I watched the light disappear around the back of the house. “You want to walk up there and take a look?”
I heard him swallow. “Do you?”
Grinning, I looked over at my old friend. “You know we’re still a couple of idiots, don’t you?”
“Speak for yourself, Chiz.”
“You hungry?”
“Starving.”
I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. Five minutes later, we were sitting at the bar in Loughlin’s, getting change for the jukebox and ordering cheesesteaks and a pitcher of beer.
9
Jimmy farted again and started giggling.
“Jesus,” I groaned. “If they don’t hear us coming, they’ll definitely smell us.”
“Sorry,” he whispered. “What did I tell you? Don’t let me order the onion rings.”
“You shouldn’t have ordered three pitchers of beer.”
“That too.” Stifling another giggle.
It was nearly midnight, and against my better judgment, we were back at the Meyers House. On foot this time. Jimmy was hammered and in rare form. I was mostly sober and drowning in regret. It was late and chilly and just beginning to rain.
Back when we were kids, Jimmy had a way of convincing me to do stupid things. Really stupid things. When I was young, despite the fact that I’d once paid nine dollars and fifty cents for a magic feather, I didn’t consider myself naive or an easy target. In fact, I was usually the one doing the talking-into when it came to our frequent misadventures. But I guess you could say Jimmy Cavanaugh was my kryptonite. He just had this way about him—it’s like he could erase my memory of past nightmares and convince me that whatever he was talking about was the coolest, most reasonable idea in the world. Hey, Rich, do me a favor—that was a specialty of his—and hold that pine cone up and let me shoot it with this BB gun. Don’t worry, your fingers are safe. Hey, Chiz, I dare you to climb that tree and swing down from that vine like Tarzan. Do me a favor, Rich, take this stick and poke that hornet’s nest. I’m pretty sure it’s empty. I swear it was like he was some kind of demented magician casting spells over me purely for his entertainment.
And now, after all these years, he was back at it.
Up ahead, the Meyers House loomed over us, its pointed rooftop vanishing into a starless sky. Every window along the front of the house was dark. Not even the porch light was turned on. A whole crew of bloodthirsty killers could be sitting up there on the porch, sharpening their knives and just waiting for us, and we’d never know it. Listening to the not-so-stealthy sound of gravel crunching beneath our shoes, I knew that anyone would have long ago heard our approach.
“Hold on,” Jimmy said quietly. “I gotta pee.”
“Again?”
He didn’t answer. It was too dark to see more than two or three feet in front of my nose, but I heard him walk a little farther away, and then the sound of a zipper being lowered, followed by a loud sigh, and finally, a steady stream splattering the gravel.
“At least pee in the grass, for chrissakes,” I said.
From the darkness next to me, “Too late,” and then the sound of a zipper going up, and the gurgly squelch of another wet fart. “Excuse me. Sorry.” More giggling.
I’m in hell, I thought, not really meaning it.
“Hey,” he called out in a low voice from somewhere in front of me. “Do me a favor.”
“Nope. Don’t even ask. Whatever it is, the answer’s no.”
“All I was gonna say was keep talking so I can find you. It’s spooky as shit out here in the dark by myself.”
“Oh.”
“What’d you think I was gonna say?”
“Something remarkably stupid, most likely.”
“Keep talking, I think I’m almost there.”
“You know what? I should just take off. Leave you all alone out here in—owww!”
One of Jimmy’s hands had swum out of the darkness in front of my face and poked me in the eye. A split second later, I heard a whoosh, and his other hand slapped me in the ear
.
“There you are,” he whispered, oblivious to my pain. Even with my one good eye, I couldn’t quite make out his face, but he was standing close enough for me to smell his oniony breath and the sour stench of urine. I was pretty sure he’d peed all over his shoes.
“If you did that on purpose,” I said, “you’re walking home.”
“Did what on purpose?”
“Never mind. This is ridiculous. We’re getting soaked. Let’s just go back to the car.”
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“Right there.”
“If you’re pointing somewhere, I can’t see. It’s too damn dark.”
“Up there on the left, behind the Balikos’ house.”
Squinting into the darkness, I could just make out a halo of dim light coming from the rear of the house and the rough outline of a shed in the corner of the yard. “I don’t see anything.”
“Keep looking.”
I kept watching and just when I was convinced that Jimmy was up to his old tricks, there it was—something small and pale and round moving parallel to the driveway maybe thirty-five yards ahead of us.
“You see it?” he asked, his voice suddenly steady.
“What the hell is that?”
Whatever it was, it was coming closer. Floating above the ground. Backlit by the patio lights of the houses behind it. A moment later, we heard approaching footsteps rustling in the tall grass bordering the driveway.
“It’s a face,” he whispered.
We ran, just like countless times before, as if all the demons in hell were chasing after us. Which, in that moment, just might have been the truth.
10
Later, in the car, the heater blasting.
“That was one of the creepiest fucking things I’ve ever seen,” Jimmy said, rubbing his hands together. “You think we should call the police?”
“And tell them what?”
“That we saw some creepy-ass albino dude sneaking around in the dark. Maybe it was the killer.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ve both been drinking. I’m not sure we’d make very reliable witnesses.”
“Didn’t you say they had an anonymous hotline?”
I was impressed that he remembered. “Okay, but you do the talking. You’re not from around here anymore. They won’t recognize your voice.”
Pulling up to the curb in front of Plaza Drugs, I reached into the center console and handed him a quarter for the pay phone and my pair of winter gloves.
“What are these for?” he asked.
“No fingerprints.”
He snapped his fingers. “Smart.”
As he was getting out of the car, I said, “You know the guy we saw might not have been an albino.”
Jimmy just looked at me.
“He might’ve been wearing a mask.”
11
I watched the news and scanned the newspaper for days afterward. I’d told Carly what had happened, and she put her ear to the ground to see if there were any whispers. I drove by the Meyers House at least three or four times a day.
Nothing.
12
On the final evening of July, I found myself standing at the bottom of my driveway, staring up the hill at a regiment of dark clouds marching over the horizon. It’d been a quiet month thus far in the town of Edgewood, but I sensed that peace and quiet would soon be coming to an end.
There’s a storm coming.
Those four words had been echoing through my head for weeks now.
* * *
Growing up, one of my most treasured memories was working alongside my father in the garage. Many of my friends whom I met later in life would find this strange—and with good reason.
When I told people that I wasn’t very mechanically inclined, it was somewhat of a lofty understatement. And, if they didn’t already know this about me, they learned it soon enough. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t figure out how to set up a VCR, much less assemble a piece of furniture. IKEA was my sworn enemy. Car engines—hell, engines of any kind—might as well have been the human brain as far as I was concerned. They were both an eternal mystery to me.
During my childhood—and still to this day—my father standing out in the driveway with his head buried underneath the hood of one of our family cars was a common sight for passing motorists and pedestrians. Me standing by his side helping out? Not so much. We tried. We really did. But it inevitably went something like this:
Minute one: Rich standing off to the side, arms crossed in front of him, rocking on his heels with excitement. Paying close attention. Maybe even asking a question or two.
Minute three: Rich leaning now, using his fingers to tap out the rhythm to the latest Old Spice commercial on the rocker panel of the car, mere inches from where his father’s head is positioned.
Minute five: Rich fidgeting like he’s going to pee his pants at any moment. Paying more attention to a pair of fat squirrels playing chase on the telephone wire stretching across Hanson Road than to what his father is trying to oh so patiently teach him.
Minute eight: Rich spinning in tight circles back-and-forth across the driveway like an F5 human tornado, all the while making chimpanzee sounds like Cornelius from Planet of the Apes (a film I’ve always loved), unable to hear a word his father is saying as he asks Rich to hand him a three-eighths-inch wrench.
Minute ten: Rich, now completely still and silent, arms hanging dejectedly at his side, eyes lowered. His father standing in front of him, a complex mixture of love and frustration etched upon his reddening face. Finally, his father takes a deep breath and mutters those three magic words: “You can go.” And before his father can change his mind, Rich is tearing up the hill toward Jimmy’s and Brian’s houses, hollering over his shoulder as he goes, “Thanks, Dad! Love you!”
And that’s pretty much how it went. Every single time. Until finally, one day we just accepted it and stopped trying.
Fortunately, working inside the garage, on one of my father’s frequent “projects,” was an altogether different experience. I mentioned earlier that the garage had always reminded me of the mysterious and chaotic sorcerer’s workshop from Walt Disney’s Fantasia. That was never more the case than on those long summer evenings after dinner when my dad would busy himself with building or repairing various objects at his workbench. He was the graying wizard, wise and patient and not entirely of this world—and I was his eager apprentice.
He’d ask me to grab a two-by-four from the stack along the back wall or a box of wire from the shelf, and I would hop to it. He’d lower his head and set to work, and I’d be right there next to him, peering around his back, studying, careful not to nudge an elbow while he was performing delicate surgery on a brand-new footstool for my mom or the messy guts of a neighbor’s broken-down television.
For some reason, my most memorable nights out in the garage were almost always accompanied by thunderstorms. While we tinkered away inside, the sky overhead would slowly writhe and boil, shifting and swirling until it resembled the dark purplish shade of one of the many ugly bruises that littered my lanky, ten-year-old body. Long, grumbling peals of distant thunder crept ever closer, like armies of giants on the move. My father loved the sound of thunder and would often turn off the Orioles game playing on the radio just so we could hear it better.
Before long, he’d look up at me and announce, “What do you say we take a break and watch the storm roll in?” and then without another word, he’d drop what he was doing onto the workbench and stroll outside onto the driveway. He’d usually lean back against one of the cars and fix his gaze directly up Hanson Road. Following right behind him, I’d imitate his every move.
Our house was located at the bottom of a natural trough formed by the intersection of Hanson and Tupelo Roads. Sometimes, during big storms, the roadway there would flood, accumulating as much as two or three feet of standing water. When that happened, the pump in our basement was forced to work ove
rtime, and my father had to stay awake throughout the night to make sure it didn’t clog.
In the opposite direction, going up the hill, stood the Gentile and Cavanaugh and Anderson houses, Brian and Craig’s next-door neighbor’s split-level marking the summit of a steep incline.
My father and I, the wizard and his apprentice, would stand outside in the driveway—sometimes talking about the Orioles or one of my friends or a book one of us was reading; many times not talking at all—and watch the storm come over that hill into the heart of Edgewood. On special nights, it felt like we were doing more than just watching; it felt like we were welcoming it with open arms.
First, the wind picked up, whispering among the treetops and tousling our hair. Then, the rumbling of thunder grew louder and sharper and flashes of lightning stabbed at the skyline. The light dimmed another notch, as the skies overhead grew angrier. And then the burnt smell of ozone assaulted us, and the aroma of damp earth filled the air. That’s when we knew: it was pouring somewhere close by, and getting closer. Finally, that tingling, electrical buzz began to dance in the air around us, a dangerous sensation of crackling intensity that made the tiny, tan hairs on our forearms stand at attention.
The first fat drops of rain began to fall soon after. Scattered at first; swollen and heavy and hungry for earth; splatting on our faces, seeping into our hair; staining the roofs and hoods of the cars and the concrete driveway at our feet; all the while, beating a deep staccato rhythm, erasing the everyday sounds of the world from around us.
My father and I stood side by side, embracing every sweet moment, heads tilted, eyes closed, drinking in the cacophony of the storm; just the two of us now—the Lords of Edgewood.
Then, without warning, we found ourselves standing beneath a majestic waterfall. The entire world had transformed, and we were at its mercy—and my mother was standing at the mouth of the open garage, yelling at us to stop being fools and get inside before we caught pneumonia, and my father and I couldn’t stop laughing, too lost in the waterfall to listen, too consumed with greeting the storm…
Chasing the Boogeyman Page 12