RIOT HOUSE

by Hart, Callie

  A loud, metallic clang eventually signals that I’ve come to the end of the road, I’ve found what I’m looking for, and that hard part, the disturbing-as-fuck part of this evening’s adventure has finally arrived. Takes some time to clear off the coffin and figure out how to open the damn thing. This kind of thing is always made to look so easy in the movies, but it’s not. Far from it. I nearly rip the damn nail from my index finger as I try to heave back the lid.

  “Figlio di puttana! Fucking piece of shit.” I nearly shove my finger into my mouth to suck on it, but then I remember the fucking grave dirt underneath the nail of the finger in question and I decide against it. Dirt is dirt is dirt, but grave dirt? No, thanks.

  Upon close inspection, I conclude there’s no way to finesse the coffin open, so I resort to brute force, heaving on the wood until the coffin makes a splintering sound and the lid frees, groaning as it yawns reluctantly open.

  Inside: the body of a man in his late fifties, dressed in a red button-down shirt and a black tie. No suit jacket. His face, a face I know all too well, is as severe and downturned in death as it was in life. Hooked nose; pronounced brow; deep, cavernous lines carved into the flesh of his cheeks, bracketing his thin-lipped, angry-looking mouth. His hands have been stacked on top of his chest. Beneath them: a copy of the Gideon’s Bible. The cheap, generic kind you might find in the drawer of a nightstand in a Motel 6. I scowl at the sight, a familiar, slick, oily knot tightening in my chest. Ahh, rage, my friend. Fancy seeing you here, you sly old fuck.

  Speaking to a dead body isn’t nearly as weird as you might think. “Well, Gary. Looks like the piper wanted to be paid, huh?” Sweat stings at my eyes. Crouching down, feet balanced on either side of the coffin, I take my t-shirt from my back pocket where I hung it for safe keeping, and I use it to wipe at my face. Before I arrived here tonight, I’d prepared myself for the sickly-sweet odor of death, was ready to face it, but two feet away from Gary, the only thing I can smell are the winter pine trees on the wind. “Figured we’d end up here eventually,” I tell him. “Didn’t think it would be so soon, but hey…I’m not complaining.”

  Unsurprisingly, Gary has very little say in return.

  I contemplate his face. His sallow, sunken in cheeks and his pinched, withered features. When did he get so gaunt? Was he always like that, or did the process of dying shave twenty pounds off the guy? I suppose it’s a mystery I’ll never solve now. It’s been six months since I saw him last; there’s every chance the bastard joined Jenny Craig during that time.

  I stoop low over him and reach out a finger, prodding at his cheek, expecting to find some give in him, but there’s nothing. He’s solid. Stiff, like a calcified husk. Like I said, I didn’t come here unprepared. Gary’s been dead for four days, so it seemed prudent to read up on what kind of shape the motherfucker was going to be in when I unearthed him. His corpse isn’t bloated, though. His tongue isn’t protruding from between his teeth. He looks…he looks kind of normal. Even the makeup they must have put on him at the funeral home still looks like it’s holding up.

  It’s the cold. Has to be. There’s no way he’d be so perfectly preserved otherwise. Honestly, I’m a little disappointed. A part of me was looking forward to seeing the bastard’s skin sloughing from his bones.

  With quick hands I get to work, first grabbing the Bible and tossing it out of the grave, hissing between my teeth. Gary’s hands are next. I wrench them apart, then hinge his arms down by his sides, giving me room to unbutton his shirt and fold the material back. He’s wearing a vest, but that’s no big deal. I stand briefly so I can get my hand in my pocket, and then the short blade of my flick knife is gleaming brilliantly in the moonlight. The sharpened steel cuts through the thin polyester in two seconds flat.

  Gary’s narrow, twisted pigeon chest hasn’t been rouged up like his face, and here I find the evidence of decay I was looking for. His skin’s pale, tinged an unhealthy blue, mottled like a fine-veined marble. And just off center of his torso, a little up and to the right, a small, neat, black hole with puckered edges punctures his skin.

  Do morticians charge for sewing gunshot wounds closed? If they do, then Gary’s penny-pinching brother from Mississauga declined to cover the added expense. I never met him—the brother. In the three years I lived under the roof of Gary Quincy’s doublewide trailer, I only ever heard his brother’s voice on the other end of a telephone, and even then I knew I didn’t like the fucker.

  “Had to make sure, Gaz,” I say. “Needed to see with my own two eyes. Now. Where’d you put it, hmm?” I pat down the pockets of his cheap suit pants, feeling around carefully…

  I didn’t just come here to make sure Gary Quincy was dead, though that was a big part of this. I’ve spent the last two hours laboring in the dirt, digging his ass up, because he has something that belongs to me, something he took from me, and I want it back.

  His pockets are empty. Juuuust fucking perfect. I lift his head, checking his throat, just to make sure, but it’s not there, either.

  “You swallow it, Gary?” I ask, glancing at the knife I rested on the edge of the coffin. “Wouldn’t put it past you, you fucking psycho.” I take up the knife, dread lacing my bones as I survey the concave shell of his stomach, wondering if I have the stones to even proceed with such a fucking crazy idea. Cutting Gary open, unraveling his intestines, feeling around inside the cavities, nooks and crannies of his insides will not be something I’ll ever be able to forget. Something like that changes a person, I’m betting, and I don’t really feel like undertaking that type of a transformation right now. I like being able to sleep at night.

  “Dorme, Passerotto. Shhh. Time to go to sleep.”

  Fuck. No, not here. Not now. I push the voice aside, shivering away from the comforting warmth of it, and I’m left chilled to my core, a cold, angry fist closing around my heart.

  “Fuck you, Gary,” I growl under my breath. “It wasn’t yours. You should have known I wouldn’t let you keep it.” Steeling myself, I pick up the knife and lower the blade, its shining tip hovering an inch above Gary’s stomach. I’m ready. I can do this. I’ll gut him from stem to sternum if it means I can reclaim what’s mine.

  The knife meets Gary’s skin, and…

  The moonlight strengthens for a second, the shadows inside the grave peeling back, and I catch an unexpected flash of gold out of the corner of my eye. A brisk gust of wind moans through the trees, and I stop dead.

  There…in Gary’s right hand.

  “Motherfucker,” I hiss. “I knew it. Couldn’t just leave it for me, could you? Had to make sure I never found it.” Prizing Gary’s fingers open takes work. I don’t even flinch when I feel the snap of his middle finger breaking, though. I actually have to fight the macabre urge to break even more of his bones as I pluck the small gold medallion attached to the delicate gold chain out of his palm and close my own hand around it.

  Suddenly, I’m five years old again, watching owl-eyed as a woman with hair the color of sunshine kisses the small, golden medallion and tucks it inside her shirt. “St. Christopher, holy patron of travelers, protect and lead me safely on my journey.”

  Jesus, the past is hitting hard tonight. It’s as if my close proximity to Gary’s empty carcass is opening all kinds of doors to the dead, and I can’t fucking take it a moment longer. Standing, freezing cold now that I’ve been still for a while and my sweat has cooled, I adopt a wide stance with my feet still planted on either side of the coffin, and I unzip my fly. “Sorry, Gary. But you and I both know you deserve this.”

  Steam rises from the coffin as my piss splashes down onto Gary’s chest. I’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time. It feels…Damn, it feels fucking—

  “Hold it right there, kid. Stop what you’re doing this instant!”

  Oh, come on.

  I tense, freezing in place, every part of me rigid.

  The female voice behind me is alive with anger as she repeats her command. “I said stop what you’re doing, a
sshole!”

  I risk a glance over my shoulder and my stomach sinks when I see the uniform. The badge. The gun aimed at the back of my head. “If you’re referring to the fact that I’m still pissing, Officer, then I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. Stopping mid-flow is bad for the prostate.” I smile to myself, knowing I’m not helping matters. Fuck it though, right? I am going to be arrested. No doubt about it. And if my ass is getting thrown in jail for this, then I’ll be damned if I don’t finish what I started.

  “Kid, if you don’t quit right now and put your dick away, you’re gonna get Tazed. You understand me?”

  Ahh. Tazer, not a gun. Well, I guess that’s something. I surrender a long, resigned sigh. I do not stop.

  “Last chance, dumbass.”

  There are worse things to be in this life than stubborn and dedicated to a cause. And let’s face it…this opportunity will never present itself again. I brace, even though bracing is pointless, and I wait for the pain.

  When it comes, lancing into my back, striking like lightning down my arms and into my legs, I retain just enough control to make sure I sag sideways into Gary’s grave and not forwards.

  After all, the very last thing I need, on the back of such a long and successful night, is to find myself slumped over the deceased remains of the man who repeatedly beat me while lying in a pool of my own piss.

  Somehow, through my gritted teeth, my tensed muscles, and the blinding ball of pain that’s lashed itself to my back, I manage to choke out a single, bitter burst of laughter.

  The sound echoes like a gunshot over midnight Lake Cushman.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Silver Parisi: most likely to suck dick for dollar.

  I stare down at the slip of paper on the table, creased and stained on the back by something that looks suspiciously like mustard, and my temper riots. This, right here, is some fucking bullshit. I’m used to detention, I’m a regular attendee, and I’m used to the chores we’re tasked with, but tallying the nominations for yearbook has turned out to be a rather cruel and unusual form of punishment. Because this isn’t cleaning erasers or scrubbing graffiti from the girl’s bathroom stalls. This is fucking personal.

  Silver Parisi: most likely to contract syphilis.

  Silver Parisi: most likely to cook meth.

  Silver Parisi: most likely to fuck your boyfriend behind your back.

  The suggestions are colorful and aplenty. I already know who’s behind the offensive, hate-filled superlatives: the football team, the cheer squad, and the sheep who follow the Raleigh High elite around with their noses pinched firmly between their pampered, trust fund ass cheeks. I’d say the spiteful nominations stacked on the desk in front of me right now are innumerable, but I’ve actually had to count them, and I know exactly how many there are. And of the twenty-three vile suggestions that have been made in my honor, so far there’s one clear winner.

  Silver Parisi: most likely to die on prom night.

  The Raleigh High Yearbook Committee is going to replace this. No way they’ll allow such a terrible thing to be printed beneath the photo of one of their graduating class students. In fifteen years’ time, anyone who just so happens to be flipping through the pages of their dusty old high school yearbook will see a photo of a pale, seventeen-year-old girl with solemn, intense blue eyes, mousy brown hair, and an unusual shaped birthmark on her neck, wearing a Billy Joel T-shirt, and they’ll read:

  Silver Parisi: most likely to learn a foreign language.

  I can already see it now. Fucking foreign language. No one will remember me. No one will come across my picture and suddenly recall all of the fun, amazing times they shared with me. No, they’re going to take one look at my stern, unhappy face, and they’re gonna recoil. Jesus Christ, who was that girl, again? And why the fuck was she so damn miserable all the time?

  They won’t remember the shit they all put me through in the final year of high school. Most conveniently of all, they’ll have forgotten all about the fact that they subtly threatened my life and implied they were going to murder my ass on the night of prom.

  Assholes.

  I snatch up the slip of paper and scrunch it in my hand, then toss it across the room. I’m aiming for the trash can, but I’m a terrible shot. I miss, and the balled-up nomination slip ends up on the floor with all the other anonymous threats to my life.

  Out of the corner of my eye, Jacob Weaving hunches over his desk, scribbling furiously into his notebook. He’s supposed to be writing an essay on the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I can picture the scrawled mess he’s drawn instead—a manga fuck doll with giant, bare tits and parted lips, legs spread wide open. Anime porn is Jacob’s specialty. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches me watching him, and a smug, infuriating smirk fishhooks his mouth, pulling it up at one side. “Need a ride home later, Sil? Cillian and Sam are waiting in the lot. We really enjoyed the last time we all hung out.”

  “I’d rather crawl on broken glass.”

  Jacob feigns shock. “No need to overreact. Just thought you might like to play us a few songs or something. No harm, no foul.”

  But there has been harm. There’s been more than one foul on Jacob Weaving’s part. He’s a pig. A psycho. An evil, twisted, disgusting excuse for a human being, and I hate him with every fiber of my seventeen-year-old being. I grab the purple sparkly ballot box Mr. French thrust at me when I arrived at detention thirty minutes ago, swing my bag onto my back, and I get to my feet. A loud screeching sound fills the room as my chair legs scrape the floor, and Jacob sits back, lacing his fingers together, stacking them on top of his stomach as he observes me heading for the door.

  “Abandoning detention before you’ve been dismissed? So brave, Parisi. Your courage makes my dick hard.”

  I kick at the screwed-up paper littering the floor by French’s desk. Yanking open the door, I pause before I leave, casting a disgusted look back at him over my shoulder. “We both know it isn’t my courage that makes your shriveled-up dick hard, Jake. You prefer it when I’m screaming and afraid, don’t you?”

  A cold, detached viciousness settles into the handsome lines of his face. Because Jacob Weaving is handsome. He’s the hottest guy at Raleigh. He’s tall, and he’s ripped, and there was once a time when the sight of him smiling would have made me weak at the knees. Not anymore, though. Now, when he smiles, all I see are the many lies and the secrets, lurking just beneath the surface of his privileged, All-American demi-god charm, and it makes me want to puke. It makes me want to claw my way, broken and bleeding out of my own skin, so that I no longer have to be me anymore.

  “Careful, Parisi,” he snarls under his breath. “Your fall from grace has been pretty hard already. Wouldn’t wanna go making things worse for yourself.”

  My own smile is a ruined, sour thing. “Worse?” I want to laugh, but I’m afraid to. My body’s been betraying me lately; It can’t be trusted to carry out the simplest of tasks. No matter what emotion I try to project, I end up displaying the exact opposite, and I cannot afford to cry in front of Jake Weaving. I draw in a deep breath, stepping out into the empty hallway, and I let the door swing closed behind me. Jake’s eyes remain on me, burning into my skin like twin brands, until the door clicks shut and he’s gone.

  I’m going to be in shit for bailing on detention, but I don’t care. Sometimes, it’s as though even the Raleigh faculty are in on this sick, twisted game I’ve found myself caught up in. They know about Jake. They know about our history, and yet they’re still willing to leave us alone, unsupervised in a room together after school hours?

  Madness.

  Pure and absolute madness.

  I check the watch at my wrist, Mickey Mouse on its face, grinning, one arm longer than the other, pointing out the hour and the minutes, and I hiss between my teeth. It’s almost four p.m. which means Mr. French will be coming by to cut us loose any moment. My boots ring out, my footfall echoing loudly off the unending row of scuffed blue lockers that line the hallway, and I fight the
urge to run head-on for the exit. This always happens. I’m terrified the corridor will never end. That I’ll find myself striving toward it forever, reaching out to push the chipped pale blue painted door open, but it’s always just out of reach. Or when I get there, it’s locked, and no matter how hard I push, rattle it, or plead with it to open, I’m stuck inside this hellhole of a building for the rest of time.

  I do reach the door, though. When I push on it, palms pressed flat against the wood, it inches back quickly, and a jolt of relief makes my body feel momentarily numb. Outside, the late autumnal air smells like freedom. I can taste it. On the other side of the emptied-out parking lot, my old Nova is sitting there, waiting for me to climb inside, start the engine, and get the hell out of here, but—

  I can hear voices.

  Principal Darhower’s deep baritone voice has been a daily staple of my life for the past four years; it’s easily recognizable. I don’t know the woman’s voice, though—firm and authoritative—nor the male voice, thick with a southern accent, that speaks after her.

  “We understand this isn’t an ideal situation. For you or your faculty. If it were up to me, the boy'd already be in for a couple of years over in Swanson County, but the judge ruled that he was still classed as a minor.”

  “What about juvenile detention?” Principal Darhower says, his tone tight with tension.

  I creep back from the exit, allowing the portal to my freedom to fall closed. I’m silent as a church mouse as I tiptoe along the hallway to my left. No one notices me as I peer around the corner, into the hallway that branches off toward Darhower’s office. There, Darhower’s ramrod straight in his trademark stance, arms folded across his chest, head canted to one side, the stark strip lighting overhead bouncing off the small bald patch at the back of his skull that he’s always so diligently trying to hide. Opposite him, a thin, tall woman in a grey pantsuit is leafing through a stack of papers, frowning as she tries to find something. The man next to her is wearing a uniform. The ‘Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Department’ badge on the sleeve of his dark green bomber jacket tells me everything I need to know about him.