The sharp crack from the gun’s hammer slamming down was far louder than he’d expected, and he winced. So that’s what Russian roulette felt like. He’d just played Russian roulette, and he had won, though he hadn’t loaded the gun and hadn’t even thought to load it. He lowered it and clicked open the empty cylinder. He rolled forward and dug around inside the box again until he found the small plastic box of rounds. Only three rounds left from the original box of 50 he’d found with the gun. He thought he had more, but he remembered he’d taken the gun out to the desert with his friends a month earlier to shoot at the lizards and cactuses. Long ago, his dad had taken him to the gun range for target practice, and he’d even gotten to fire an assault rifle that threw serious kickback when he’d fired it. His dad had been so careful about keeping the guns locked up and safe. His dad would go mad if he knew what Michael was doing.
Michael loaded the three rounds into the cylinder. Maybe loading them in random chambers would add a little danger to the mix. But he loaded them next to one another and even made sure the first chamber he fired would hold one of those rounds. He held the gun up above his ear like he had a moment earlier. Ey. His hand trembled at the edge of his sight. Dishes clinked in the kitchen from his mother preparing dinner. He held his finger off the trigger, a habit his dad had taught him at target practice. His arm dropped, and his finger froze on the trigger guard. Why? Why so careful?
His cellphone chirped. He shuddered and aimed the revolver toward the ceiling. Another habit he’d picked up from his dad. The text message was from one of his friends. His friends were relentless until he did what they wanted. Then they’d be silent for days, during which time he’d waste away in front of the television until his mom yelled at him to get out of the house, but where did she expect him to go? He didn’t have a car, he didn’t have a job, and he didn’t have any money. His three close friends, Loner, Nick, and Adam, were his ticket out of there, but then they always circled around to the same conversation. They wouldn’t answer his messages, so he’d go to Loner’s house and beg like some poor chump to hang out with them. After the begging, he always paid the price for his weakness. Sometimes he shoplifted, a valuable skill, and sometimes using the last of his allowance money. The whiskey theft from Marty’s had been his peace offering to the group after refusing to steal a car so they could cruise around town for the afternoon. Still, they’d accepted him back with open arms after he promised he’d do whatever they wanted next time.
He left the phone in his pocket, and his mother’s shrill voice from the kitchen caught his ear. He walked to his bedroom door, resting his head on the back panel, and listened.
“I realize things are difficult there, Artie, but I can’t handle this anymore. I just need to get him out of here for a while. He needs a break from all this. I need a break.”
A long pause and she started up again. “Just for a few weeks. I’m sure he’d be better off there. I think he’s in a gang or something. He’s doing drugs and shoplifting. I barely saved him from being arrested tonight.”
Michael could almost feel her edgy silence for a few seconds as she was waiting for Grandpa Artie’s response.
“Yes, just a few weeks. Please, Artie. I have nobody else.” Another pause. “Thank you, Artie. Thank you. I’ll make the arrangements. Thank you. Bye.” She gasped for breath and sniffled.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he whispered against the closed door. Even she wanted to get rid of him. He didn’t blame her, not after all he’d put her through.
A whiff of garlic caught his nose. A metal dish clanged in the kitchen sink. She was cooking one of his favorite meals. A pasta chicken mix she’d served him since childhood. He didn’t deserve her. She deserved a better son. He wanted to get out of her life before he made things worse. She shouldn’t have to send him to his grandparents’ house in Minnesota for the summer.
The darkness enveloped him. He knew the way to handle it.
He walked back to the closet and stared at the metal barrel. His mom knocked on his bedroom door, and he heard it creak open. “I’m making food. You want some?” She paused. “Where are you?”
Michael scrambled to slip the gun behind the nearest box. “Wait,” he said as he stepped out of the closet.
“What are you doing in there?” She took a step into his room.
“Nothing,” he grumbled. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“We have to talk.”
His cellphone chirped again. He grabbed it from his pocket and stared at the screen. It was Loner.
“Well, it’ll be ready soon.” She shut the door as she left. Not a slam that would signal she was pissed.
Everything he did made life worse. He wanted it all to go away. He wanted her to go away too so he wouldn’t be able to hurt her anymore. He wanted to be alone so he wouldn’t mess things up.
He ran his eyes over the texts Loner had sent, but he didn’t care what they said. He tossed his cellphone onto his bed and walked back over to the closet. The .357 was stashed near the top of the box where he’d left it, and he stood staring down at it, intending to finish what he’d started. It would make life better for everyone.
His phone buzzed again, but he didn’t move. The eye of the barrel stared out with a dark finality that said, ‘I can get the job done.’
Again, his phone went off, twice this time.
“Jesus!” He turned and slumped onto his bed, cradling his cellphone in his hands as he read the messages. He answered each one, rolling his eyes and cursing his friend for each question. Yeah, his mom was pissed. No, he didn’t get in trouble. Yes, it would be great if they picked him up again tomorrow at the same time.
He texted all the way to the living room and sank onto the couch in front of the TV. The channel chattered on about home and gardening, but the remote was several feet away on the arm of the recliner so he turned back to his phone.
His mom brought over his food and set it on the coffee table in front of him. She didn’t say a word.
“Thank you,” he said without looking at her. The garlic chicken pasta was as delicious as always. It took his mind back to when he was a child and had fussed about the taste of the garlic. Now he savored it. As he finished eating, his mom sat down in what used to be his dad’s recliner. The recliner squeaked when she leaned back just as it had when his dad had sat there.
“I’ve got a great idea,” she said. “I called Grandpa Artie, and he invited you to stay with them in Stone Hill for the rest of the summer. Give you a chance to get away from all the craziness here.”
Michael met his mom’s eyes for the first time that day.
“I think it would be a great idea,” she said. “I’m sure Grandma Mary would be more than happy to teach you to paint. You’ve talked about wanting to learn how to paint before. How does that sound?”
Michael was motionless. What was the use fighting her? It was a done deal. He could run away, but where would he go? How far could he get on his own? He sighed. “Fine.”
“It’s just to relax and get away from it all.”
Michael stared at the TV. He felt her eyes peering at him from the recliner.
“Whatever you want,” he said.
His mom nodded and walked back into the kitchen. She rinsed off the dishes and loaded the dishwasher. “I think I can get a plane ticket that leaves tomorrow, so you’ll be able to spend most of July and August with them. They’ll be thrilled to see you.”
It had been a few years since Michael had visited his grandparents in Minnesota, but during his visits there had always been something fun to do. Grandma Mary was a laughing machine. Not in a loud obnoxious way, but in a friendlier, gentler way. She laughed with her mouth closed, which formed a clownish grin and gave you the impression you were in on some secret joke between the two of you. She’d laughed at everything Michael said and did, which gave him the greatest feeling ever.
“Remember to bring your drawings,” she’d insisted before the trips long ago, and when he’d shown her t
he sketches he’d done in his drawing pad, she’d studied each drawing and given suggestions for each improvement.
“You’ve got talent,” she’d told him. “It’s in your blood. You should go to an art school after high school.” He’d replied with an enthusiastic, “Yes!” That had been a wonderful dream back then.
“And there’s that neighbor girl you used to play with,” his mom said. “What was her name? Bex?”
He shrugged.
Bex. Hearing her name took him back to a different life. It had been a long time since he’d visited his grandparents’ farm, five years to be exact. Would she even remember him? The clearest memory he had of Bex was climbing up behind her to the makeshift tree house in the small forest behind her house… and the snake. She’d grabbed the snake by the tail and lifted it toward him, playing like she would attack him with it. Instead, it had lashed out at her face and bitten her earlobe. She hadn’t cried despite the blood dripping onto her shirt.
His Grandpa Artie was a lot like his dad in that he liked to shoot all kinds of guns and enjoyed super-fast cars. The last time Michael’s family had visited his grandparents, they’d all gone out to a drag racing competition at the Brainerd International Speedway. They’d also gone to the shooting range and fired a few different pistols, which he still remembered as being amazingly fun.
Michael wouldn’t argue with his mom anymore. He’d pushed her over the edge, and the weight of not being able to fix her added to his pain. Maybe she was right, but the biggest thing that sucked about Stone Hill was it was small and boring. Unless you drove out of your way for an hour or more, you only had farms and cow pastures to keep you company. Who would drive him around this summer? Not his dad. He didn’t know if he could face his grandparents again. They’d hugged him and had talked softly to him at the funeral, but he couldn’t face them. His mom had even driven him back to the hospital after he’d faked chest pains upon learning his grandparents were on their way over to their house. How could he look them in the eyes? He had killed their son. He was a murderer. Patricide. That was the term for killing your dad. He’d committed patricide.
“I’m a murderer,” Michael whispered to himself.
It was a long way to Stone Hill, but that’s what his mom wanted. She wanted him as far away from her as possible. He’d done that to her. Another rush of bitterness spread inside his chest. He wouldn’t be able to mess up her life there. Would he mess up his grandparents’ lives too? How could he smuggle the revolver onto the plane? That was ridiculous. If he wanted to kill himself, then he should do it now. No time like the present.
Michael went back to his room and hunkered next to his bed, facing his closet. The light in the closet had been turned off, and he lay staring into the darkness. At the back of the closet, in the darkness on the floor, he saw the top half of a picture frame containing one of his grandmother’s paintings. The shadows and shapes in the painting formed a landscape and an old weathered farmhouse. She’d given it to him on their last visit, but he’d never hung it up on the wall. He focused on it in the darkness for another minute until pulling himself out of bed again and going into the closet.
He stepped inside and pulled Grandma Mary’s painting out into the light and studied it. The bitterness inside him eased. The details amazed him, and he studied the hundreds or probably thousands of brush strokes forming each layer of color. She’d said she used resin paints to give her artwork a thickness as each color stacked atop each other. It must have taken her hours of work to add each tiny dab of the brush to form small hills and valleys. And here, in the back of his closet, all those hours of hard work had been sitting unseen and hidden away. Why hadn’t he displayed the painting?
Michael pushed aside some junk souvenirs from the top of his dresser and set the painting on the top surface. He used a small wooden box he stored weed in to prop it up.
“Amazing,” he said.
He walked out into the kitchen and approached his mom for the first time that day. She was hunched over the kitchen counter, scrubbing away at food residue stuck to the surface with her face angled away as he approached. He couldn’t tell if she knew he was there. She didn’t look at him or otherwise acknowledge his presence.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll need suitcases.”
3
Near the edge of Stone Hill, Michael’s cellphone signal cut out. The intermittent text message from his friends back in California ceased, and he immediately regretted his decision to stay with his grandparents. There was nothing in the open fields that might interfere with the signal. No mountains, no large metal structures, and they weren’t that far from a major highway. The cell towers must be near, and yet, no signal.
His grandfather slowed the car to a crawl at the edge of town. His hands gripped the steering wheel, and he leaned forward in his seat like he was driving the Daytona 500 in a dense fog. White vans were parked on both sides of the road, each facing toward oncoming traffic. The driver of a van, dressed all in white, stood in front of his van, writing information on a clipboard as their car passed. The van’s passenger looked at him through large binoculars and locked onto Michael’s gaze.
“Don’t look at them,” his grandfather said.
Michael studied his grandfather’s expression, but it was impossible to tell if he was joking. His grandfather had a permanent scowl carved onto his face, part of which had been passed down to his family and Michael’s own face. “Why not?”
“They’re from the temple. Pretend they don’t exist.”
Michael strained toward the side mirror. The vans sat beside the road like police cars waiting to pounce on speeders. “What temple? Why are they just sitting there?”
“The Stone Hill Risen Temple. We’ll talk later.”
Michael held his cellphone up against the window, but the reception didn’t improve.
“You won’t get a signal here,” his grandfather said without looking over. “Maybe if you head out toward Green Hills, but not here.”
Michael rested his cellphone face up on his leg, just in case a signal bar appeared, and looked at the passing view of the lake on his right.
“The temple doesn’t like it when anyone’s distracted,” his grandfather sneered. “Or at least that’s what they tell us. Just between you and me, they aren’t too happy with those little devices because they cause trouble. Someone might call for help or something. I wouldn’t doubt it if they get banned altogether, but it makes no difference because you can’t make calls with them anyway.”
“Do you have wifi at your house?” Michael asked.
His grandfather shot a glance at him and raised one corner of his mouth. “That’s all gone. That wacky church banned all communications like that.”
Michael raised his brows. “How can they do that?”
“They did. I’m not a technical person, but they pulled it off.”
“How do you guys use your cellphones or send text messages?”
“No text messages. We use older landline phones, push-button. But all calls get screened through them. All the lines go through a central hub, and they listen to everything. Let me know before you call anyone lest the precious overlords at the temple become angry.”
A sinking sensation filled Michael’s stomach. It would be a long summer in this crap hole of a town. He stared at the ‘No Service’ icon on his phone again and slipped it into his pocket as they drove about halfway into town, and then turned left at the main intersection. The four corners had an old hardware store, a small grocery store, a rundown furniture store, and an old brick building that was city hall. They passed places Michael remembered from his previous visit, like the post office and the old high school. Two more white vans passed them.
“There’s the church that’s blocking your phone,” his grandfather said, pointing left at a small white church on a hill at the end of the block. Two flights of cement steps led up to large arched doors. A bell tower crowned an aging steeple and, above it all, sat a wooden cross. It looked l
ike any other small town church, except for the chain-link fence surrounding the perimeter of the property and the uniformed guard standing in front of the gate at the bottom of the stairs. Two more white vans sat parked on the street. Michael didn’t understand how a crappy little church like that could block everyone’s cellphone signals. He glimpsed the apple orchard stretching out behind the church. His grandmother had taken him to that orchard once and he’d picked fresh apples straight from the tree. He couldn’t recall a fence around it back then.
They passed a cemetery on the left, which stretched back to the edge of the apple orchard, and then they turned right onto a gravel road bouncing and rattling him like the airplane turbulence he’d endured earlier that day. He was as far away from civilization as he could get, not a fun thing to do in sight. The tires kicked up rocks and shot them against the underside of the car. The car crunched across the gravel road and drowned out any possibility of a conversation, not that he had anything to say. His grandfather turned up the music on the radio, which had played in the background throughout their trip like a rhythmic whisper. The cornfields sprawled in every direction. The cornstalks stood at eye level, each row forming a living grid of green waving at him as he passed.
After a few more minutes, Michael spotted his grandparents’ house up ahead. It was within walking distance of town, a long walk from the center, but it might as well have been in another country. He wouldn’t have access to a car to get around in, not that he wanted to drive anywhere. The house was small and white with two floors. It resembled a large painted box. A small one-car, detached garage sat at the end of the driveway. Several tall pine trees lined the edge of the property next to the driveway and a little beyond the house was an old barn, but they’d rented it out to another family in town who raised cattle in the pasture behind their house. The cows had been the highlight of his trip years earlier since he’d never seen one before in real life, much less gotten close to one, but that spark was gone now. Were they milk cows or beef cows for eating? If they were cows to eat, then how could such an ugly animal taste so good? His face tightened in a grimace when he imagined slicing one up on his plate.
Shadows Rising Page 2