The Dark Trail

by Will Mosley

  Chapter 9

  The inside of the house looked as if two people with good taste in furniture, art and décor, and fabric design, had put in it their hopes and dreams of what a home should look and feel like. Hours were poured into making even the slightest design flaw perfect, or at least not as noticeable. Picture frames were not just the minimalist, postmodern black frames that sold at large retail chains for next to nothing, each one was hand crafted genius. Tiny imperfections in the flowering gave away the craftsman’s mark; whether on accident or by design, it was there. The couch, sofa and loveseat trio were all fine, taut leather with strings of brass knobs like pearls, keeping the hide tight. The fireplace and mantel were separate pieces of polished granite with rough, hewn faces. And the floors! The floors were reclaimed antique hard pine, with natural and manmade blemishes of pewter, hints of teal and deep walnut colored veins running along the seams of the boards, polished to a high gleam.

  Then, something was released. A monster so terrifying, so lax in its concern for the esthetics of home, that it had nearly made the living room unrecognizable. The beast had strewn infinite, unmatchable and tiny pairs of Barbie's high heels, clothing, and miniaturized home accessories throughout the room. Several Barbie styling heads with hair teased in styles from some post-apocalyptic future, were placed side by side on the mantel as if on display, or, maybe to ward off intruders. A bi-fold Barbie house was opened and large globs of multicolored Play-dough with impressions of Barbie and Ken's butts were packed into each tiny room. And the center piece of the catastrophe was a child size Barbie car with several Barbie's dolls and a Ken doll sitting on the passenger’s seat, frozen joy on their faces, waiting for their chauffeurs return.

  Ken sighed and slumped his shoulders after he had fully embraced the carnage. “Tanner, please excuse the house.” He said. Then to himself, “Why does she allow Lainy to wreck the place?”

  “Nice place, Ken.”

  “Or so it used to be.” Ken gently closed the door. “Keep your voice down. I don't wanna wake those two.”

  Once Tanner had absorbed the wreckage and deciphered the items that didn't belong, Ken huffed, laid his bags down, and pointed Tanner to the kitchen. “I'm going up stairs to change. Coffeemaker's next to the microwave. If you know how to make it, do it to it. I'll be right back.” He said, and dashed up the stairs.

  The house immediately felt like home, or at least he could see a future home of his own being similar. It also looked and felt like his parents’ house, and he was sure that Ken had made great strides with his wife to get those few touches as close to theirs as possible.

  He walked to the kitchen, surveyed the coffeemaker briefly and knew that, with all the buttons and knobs and flashing lights on the thing, the simple mindless act of making coffee had now become a full-fledged science. At the tall, pub-styled dining table, Tanner found himself a seat, climbed up into the chair and started to unwind his tense muscles. But before he could relax, he wiped beads of sweat from his brow, looked at it strangely, and then swiped two fingers across his temples. Because it was so cold outside, Tanner had not immediately realized how hot it was in the house, and between the thermal undershirt, a beefy-T and the camouflage jacket, Tanner felt as if he had been set ablaze. He stood up and began sliding a jacket sleeve down one arm and, as his hand reached in the cavity of the shoulder of the jacket, as he bowed his shoulders to let the jacket fall down from his back, he slowed his movements, stared hollowly into his reflection on the kitchen window and a tiny voice within him said, “The total insanity of it would scare him. Now is not the time.” He knew that the voice was right: it would, and it wasn't. He worked the jacket back onto his shoulders, clasped his hands on the table and placed his head on them. He hadn't slept during the twenty-two hour long bus ride and it was just starting to catch up with him.

  “So,” Ken said from the bottom step. Startled, Tanner spun around in his seat. “You got my coffee ready?”

  Tanner rubbed his eyes and relaxed now that it was just Ken. “Sorry. I don't know how to operate nuclear reactors.”

  Ken laughed. “This was dad's Christmas present to us last year. I just figured out how to operate the thing myself.” He then grabbed two mugs from the cupboard and placed them on the counter, filled a container with water, lifted a lid and placed two sealed vessels a little larger than souffle cups inside. He pressed several buttons on the machine and it came alive. Lights flashed and noises from the coffee maker were strange to Tanner's ears. Normal coffee makers just burped and grunted like old men. This thing buzzed and whizzed like some over caffeinated twelve year-old, and sounded far too efficient to brew coffee.

  “How are they?” Tanner asked.

  “Mom and dad? Fine. Dad retired three years ago and just sits around in that chair of his. That thing reeks. It smells like hot ass.” Tanner laughed. Then Ken, after realizing it did sound funny, joined in with a few chuckles. “We bought him a nice recliner for retirement. Leather, brass knobs,” Ken pointed into the living room. “It was actually the recliner that came with that set. We didn't need it since we already had the couch, loveseat and chair, so we stored the recliner in the basement. It wasn't getting any use so I figured dad could use it.”

  “Let me guess,” Tanner put one hand over his mouth and slid it down, combing his beard with his fingers. Then, with the same hand cinched his jacket at the neck as if he were still cold. “If the old man hasn't changed, he probably accepted the chair gratefully, then, gave it away a little later.”

  Ken chuckled again. “Close, but worse. I drive by there in the afternoons to get the mail for them and just do a general check-up, you know. One day I go by there and when I get close to the house, I see something going on in their yard. So, I stop and park on the road. I see that him and mom, both in their mid sixties, are in the front yard, sweating and swearing at one another – mom's hair is all disheveled and dad has on his church slacks and this tight ass t-shirt, like he's some bodybuilder – his man-boobs and gut are all hanging out everywhere – and they've moved the recliner, from the house, through that tight front door, and into the middle of the yard!” Tanner was leaned over, his arms wrapped around his stomach, uncontrollably laughing, futilely trying to quail his noise.

  “I can totally see that!” He said, sucking in air between laughs.

  “No! That's not the worst part. So, the price of this chair was like 700 bucks, okay? Well, it had rained the day before and dad cherishes that pristine lawn of his. Apparently, they're mad at one another because while he's trying to lift the chair so that its innards won't drag on the soupy ground, she's trying to figure out how to maneuver damn thing. But he's old and weak, so he can't lift it. When I arrived, he's yelling at mom, telling her to lift it up on her end because he's doing all the work. 'Lift with your legs, woman!' he's yelling. She's saying, 'But I can't because of my hip surgery! It's too heavy!' So, each time they lift it, since they can't see the underside of the chair, they can only move it about six inches at a time because the innards keep falling out and dragging across the yard. You know how a recliner works, right?” Tanner nodded. “Well, each time the innards fall, the extension pops out and kicks mom in her shins. She can't hold on to the chair while being attacked by that thing, and she keeps dropping it. So, he's pissed, livid at her because he thinks she's not trying. After I finished laughing, I see dad pointing and yelling at the Jensen's house. I look over and see Mr. Jensen offering to help, but dad – because he's dad – doesn't want his help and is telling old man Jensen to go back in the house and bake cookies or something.”

  Tanner's laughter was barely containable. “He said that?”

  “Dad said, and I quote: 'Jensen, take your old ass back in the house! I don't need some puny accountant out here messing up my plans with your numbers and stuff. I've got everything under control here. Go back inside and bake some cookies, or knit me a hat!' They are a freak show, man. I pull into the driveway and they both stop as if I just caught them stealing cookies
from the cookie jar. From the vantage point of the driveway, I could now see why the thing was so heavy. They had dragged a chair sized rut across half the yard, and all of that mud and grass was caked up inside of it! At that point, the chair was like a lead weight! But when I asked why they were getting rid of the chair, mom said that he likes the comfort of that old, beat-up, stink chair, and didn't want to hurt my feelings. So, after I cleaned out all of the gunk, I brought it back home and put it back in the basement.”

  The Keurig coffee maker beeped three times to alert Ken it was finished during the middle of the story, now it gave three louder, almost warning beeps, as if the machine would douse him with hot coffee if he didn't hurry up and prepare it. Ken filled the two cups he had laid out, placed one of them in front of Tanner and sat down with his cup, immediately sipping from it.

  Tanner's laughter subsided when he said, “I sure do miss them. God, I miss all of you. I can't wait to meet Mary and... Lee Ann?” Tanner asked.

  “We call her Lainy. We named her Katherine Elaine Garay, and Mary had planned to call her Katie, but Lainy hates that name. Apparently some little girl in her class is named Katie so, we call her Lainy.”

  “Katherine. After mom's middle name before she got married.”

  “Yep.” Ken said. Taking a long swig of the coffee, the beginnings of an awkward silence crept between them. Awkward silences meant potentially unwanted questions about his past. That could not happen yet.

  “So, what happened, Ken?” Tanner asked. “What, the band, the girls from everywhere, the drugs, weren't good enough for you?”

  Ken laughed, rolled his eyes and let his laugh die with a mischievous smear of a smile. “Wow. Those were... special days, indeed.” He shook his head. “My biggest concern when Mary and I hooked up, was that I didn't have some mutant STD that doctors couldn't treat nor identify. I literally tried to screw everything. We used to have a competition to see who had done the most drugs,” Tanner raised his eyebrows. He could now see that he was in good company. “Not so much the quantity, but who had used the most of an array of drugs.”

  “Who won?”

  “Tanner, no one wins when drugs are involved.” Ken said firmly, then laughed. “I'm sorry. That was what the department came up with for drug awareness month for the schools in the area. Since most of us cops had used something in one form or another, we had an inside joke about that. I didn't win, that's for damn sure. Do you remember Peter Lauren, our drummer?”

  Tanner though for a moment, then said, “I remember a guy named, Petey, about a year younger than you from high school.”

  “Same guy.” Ken swayed his head from one side to the other. “He won, and lost. The band broke up because of him. Like I said, we were using everything we could get our hands on. The thing is, when we couldn't get different drugs, we tried using the same stuff different ways. At a bar in St. Petersburg, just before a show, I was high on Coke and had drank half a bottle of Jack, but so had everyone else. Petey had brought some Methamphetamine that he acquired from this guy in South Georgia. Meth was new, then, and we didn't know anything about it. But we had all planned to try it after the show. Right before we start up, I yell out, 'We're gonna tear St. Petersburg a new asshole!' and behind me, I hear Petey saying that he can't see. I turn around and he screams, 'I can't see, man! Something's in my head!' Because he's mic-ed, the entire crowd hears him – and he had that drum stick in his hand. Just... holding it, you know,” Ken looked at his hand and flexed it as if he were the one holding the drum stick. “The air was heavy and even though the crowd was screaming, everything was silent. 'What's in my head?' He's saying. Joey was so high, that he was oblivious to his surroundings, and just started up on his bass. Me and Mitch Driver were both looking at Petey. Then we looked at each other like... we both knew something was up, but we wouldn't be able to stop what was about to happen. Then, almost instantly, with a flick of his wrist, Petey shoved the drum stick in his eye.” Ken abruptly put his coffee cup on the table turned away from Tanner with his arms crossed. His lips were pressed and he stared at the wall, into the past, but not at that event. Further into the past before the sex, drugs and rock and roll had turned him and his band members from trouble seeking, bicycle riding little boys, into something else entirely.

  “It was bad, huh?” Tanner whispered. Ken didn't respond until Tanner sat his own cup on the table, gently thumping it against the wood.

  “Huh?” Ken asked. “Oh! Well, yeah. That was it for us.” Ken turned back, dropped both elbows on the table and slumped around the coffee as if he cherished it for being his only friend. “We stopped all drug and alcohol use that day. No more. That was it. We kept playing gigs, though, but it just wasn't the same, you know? Petey was gone –,”

  “He died?” Tanner asked.

  “Come on, Tanner. Of course he died. He didn't just poke at it, man, he shoved that thing in... deep! The autopsy said the stick busted through his Ethmoid, apparently that's the bone behind your eye, and went into his brain. It also said that they found Meth in his blood that had crystallized. He had injected it intravenously.”

  “Good god, man.”

  “Yeah. But, without the camaraderie that we had around the drugs and the booze, it wasn't fun for us anymore. So, I came back home and mourned Petey.”

  “I'm sorry to hear that.” Tanner said, solemnly.

  The room was quiet for a moment, but not long enough for Tanner to get into another topic before Ken spoke.

  “Well, that's what happened. I met Mary at his funeral, we dated for a while and got married. Then, we had Lainy four years later. What about you, Tanner? What have you been up to?” Ken squinted his eyes and scanned his brother. “My God, boy, you're sweating like hell! Take that jacket off.” Ken reached across the table to remove Tanner's hand that clutched his jacket collar. When he did, Tanner sprang out of his seat, banging his knee against the table on the way up, which wobbled Ken's cup of coffee, but toppled his and sent brown liquid rushing across the table, dripping over the sides. Tanner moved back several steps from the table, avoiding the chair that flung away from him and had slammed to the floor. Ken winced, waiting on Lainy to awake from the sound and start crying. In a deep, loud voice, Tanner yelled, “No! It's fine. I – I'm fine.” Ken's attention, back on the table, drawn by the sound of the coffee cup rumbling against the wood, rolling helplessly, he pointed,

  “The cup!”

  Tanner was too far back from the table to do anything about it and wasn't even looking in its direction when the coffee cup rolled off the edge of the table. It would be a loud, crisp explosion when it hit the floor and shattered, each curved shard bouncing up only to return to the floor in a second-and-a-half cascade of noise, and would surely awaken Mary and Lainy, if they weren't already awake. Ken closed his eyes and waited for the impending clatter. He heard the shuffle of fabric and when he opened them a second later, Tanner was bent over beside the table in the spot where the cup had fallen. There was no shattering explosion. There was no tinkling of broken bits of ceramic glass raining across the kitchen tile, because when Ken leaned down to look under the table to see exactly what happened, he saw the coffee cup in Tanner's hand no more than an inch from the floor.

  “Whew. That was close.” Tanner smiled, still clutching his collar, keeping his jacket firmly sealed.

  He caught the cup. Ken thought. “You caught it!” He said aloud, awed.

  Chapter 10.

  Howard Mills, a former Jew and converted Lutheran, owned 45 acres of mostly wooded land in the north Georgia mountains. With the help of his sons, Clark, Victor, and Xoscha, he built a modest one story cabin on the property. Clark and Victor were both adults with families of their own by then, and would drop in to see Howard occasionally and stay for a week to enjoy the clean, mountain air. Xoscha, born ten years after Victor, lived in the cabin with his father and kept the old man company after breast cancer had taken Eunice from him.

  Years before the cabin was built, Howard was an avid d
uck and deer hunter, but had given up the hobby after Eunice's death. The thought of killing things the way that cancer had ravaged her plus sized body – reducing his soul mate to a mere wisp of a human – even if it was to savor its delicious meat, no longer appealed to him. He kept his guns, however, in case the need to eat out weighed the desire to please his fragile heart.

  Because he left many of his weapons throughout the house and in the open, Xoscha, being young and an inquisitive 13 year-old, began asking Howard to teach him to shoot. Howard declined more than a hundred times, telling the boy, “If you ever have a need to use a gun, you'll figure out pretty damn quick how it works. If you don't, you'll starve to death, or somebody'll kill you.”

  Xoscha salivated at the thought of being able to kill something from a distance and Howard's constant rejection only emboldened him, bringing his gun lust to a crescendo one morning in late September of that year.

  Howard made a breakfast of bagels, eggs and bacon. After several minutes of pounding on Xoscha's bedroom door, he gave up on trying to wake the boy and figured he'd just have to eat his food cold. But as Howard sat down at the table holding the bagel inches from his lips, he sensed that the room had changed and something was missing. He quickly scanned the living room, noticed nothing out of place and took a bite of his bagel. A moment later, he took a second, longer, glance at the living room and in the corner beside the front window there was an empty place where his 30/06 –,