Into that Good Night

by Levis Keltner

  Her absence created a yawning gap in his life, as if a trapdoor had opened beneath him, and Josué fainted. He woke to his youngest aunt, Althea, bent and pinching his cheek to rouse him and to the sound of his mother calling his name, “Josué! Josué! Josué!” as if his revival were being cheered on. He went to the funeral alone and seemed the only boy who cried hot tears upon seeing the face of the harmless-looking girl in the casket, eyes shut forever. He then felt unmanly and went out to the parking lot where a gang of boys heckled him. He came at the hijos de putas full force, cracking fools’ jaws and stealing the wind from their bellies with impassioned punches he didn’t know he had in him, until, outnumbered, they beat him flat. His head cracked the asphalt and the fury fled him. He now recognized his pain and lashing out as selfish. He didn’t like this quality in himself, so he imagined how special she might’ve been to the other fighters, though they didn’t deserve his empathy, and how their anger might also be a kind of mourning. The effect of Erika’s death was all that was left of her. He imagined the joy she would’ve brought to people, how that was gone. His joy, too. And her own. And then the precious memories, bubbles of laughter, moments of perfect happiness in his mind. Would they go, too? It was all very sad. This left Josué determined. Not soon would she be forgotten.

  “That’s pretty great,” Greg said from behind the kid. J. stepped back from his drawing and revealed Erika. In a familiar floral dress with her hands relaxed at her sides, she floated peacefully as if on her back in someone’s pool. Greg’s heart stung, wishing she were alive. The picture wasn’t at all sad. The way she smiled … It was as if Erika were right there, seeing them and happy; still here. “She’s great, man,” he said again. The boys nodded at each other and gazed back at the drawing, remembering, admiring together.

  When Josué and Greg turned around, the whole group was risen behind them in silence. They joined the ring of figures, all filled with adoration and love, and standing against the coming night.

  10

  The kids hiked on sore legs down to Bachelor’s Grove and up again every evening until, come Thursday morning, getting out of bed for school had never been more of a pain and the Big Tree side of the creek had been completely plowed for leads in the case. The kids had accomplished the feat as a team, digging and then filling ten-foot sections of earth, sifting the contents for a murder weapon or some clue as to what Erika and/or her killer or killers had been searching for. The group shoveled and heaved and bent and sweat. In times of weakness, their eyes rested on the dead girl drawn on the tree trunk. As much, they relied on some faith in the Dead Man and his own steadfastness. Yet after three days of hard labor, not a single solid piece of evidence had been discovered. All but John struggled to believe in The Work.

  Even E., who had helped the boy most in his quest, more than she’d helped anyone ever, hoped that John would at last proclaim, “We’ve done our duty. We’re going home,” no longer because she thought his moral character overrated or false, but so that the group might forget the woods and explore their friendships elsewhere. John displayed no doubt whatsoever. Whereas at the start of the endeavor he might go an entire evening without having said but a handful of sentences due to, E. believed, the intense effort spent in masking the effects of his illness, in the last two days he’d become gaunt but also more animated and critical. Instead of losing hope, he scrutinized their methods, revised them hourly, and more than once he’d hinted at plans for scouring the other side of the creek. Occasionally he became frustrated. The boy’s gaze then lingered upon the original hand-dug hole, perhaps as a reminder of what he worked against—the grave, time—and of why pushing forward was crucial, for Erika’s legacy and his own, for dignity in death.

  These moments of relent were brief, yet E. didn’t miss one. Her sympathy, a palpable and self-consuming command of attention and concerns she never knew she possessed, had irrefutably and irrevocably latched her to the boy. It was only a matter of time before John would spot E. eyeing him. She appeared miserable from imbibing his struggle, and he strode over, speaking out of earshot of the others:

  “It means something,” he said defensively. “The hole—your sister’s fingernails—all this junk we’re finding. I’m not crazy.”

  “No one’s given up,” E. reassured.

  He took a half-breath—deep considering the abrasive bodily pain, as if a clumsy doctor were using a nail file to rid the cancer from his bones. “You’re right,” he said with a sigh.

  Five minutes later, the boy was back to the dig or implementing a fresh idea. E. imagined that her reassurances allowed John to refocus on the task at hand rather than on the fact his time was running out. To feel necessary, needed by him, renewed her vigor for a little while longer. The intermittent unearthing of fascinating objects helped, too.

  They marveled for a few minutes at a small gray arrowhead Greg had found buried along the creek. The kids passed it around and naively guessed to name the people who’d called the area home for thousands of years. Near the Big Tree, more recent history had begun to surface. These finds included two more .38 shells, a gnarly crowbar, and a wool fedora. Then Josué tipped the blade of his shovel to the group to display three notched bones. Alex took pictures without comment, first categorizing the find among the rest of the detailed photographs and notes—which, Alex was certain, would be pivotal to solving the case—and confirmed, holding the tip up to the fading light, the bones as a single human thumb. Erika had been buried complete with all her digits, E. assured the group. She recalled her sister’s clean hands crossed over her chest in the coffin. Who then was this nine-fingered victim?

  An unspoken consensus settled over the group that John had been right about more being in these woods than they’d imagined, as well as a general reluctance to uncover any more details of the place’s brutal past. Only one of them was thrilled by these discoveries. Alex had begun researching Bachelor’s Grove nightly and told stories during their now regular circle gatherings. Local gangsters had literally torn their rivals apart in the valley, the Grove being the spot where the infamous Al Capone had tortured and stashed the bodies of his victims.

  “Hey, so you think these killers were after like, Capone’s treasure or something?” Greg suggested that evening.

  “Maybe,” Doug said. “Maybe they were just burying crap.”

  “Like, these killers had their own gold or cash or something they were stashing?”

  “No … crap—their shit.”

  In disgust, Greg threw the sifting pan he was repairing, and Tiffany gasped with a laugh and said, “Good one, genius.” The girl’s encouragement made him feel a foot taller, sharp-witted, brave. Her rebellious spirit came out somewhat snarky and bitter through him. Doug wasn’t sure if adopting her candor and crudeness would damage his rapport with the others, and right now he didn’t care so long as Tiffany thought him more clever and assertive, overall manlier than he really was, and he vowed never to miss an opportunity to criticize the Dead Man’s endeavor.

  “Improbable,” Alex said. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that it were true—about the treasure, not the human waste. The killers learned of a great treasure buried here—how? Again, this is very improbable—and so they made Erika—a close friend, someone with whom these kids could entrust the secret—dig with them into the night. This hypothetical treasure would likely be buried deep. Why the dirty nails then? Why not use shovels, like we’re doing—”

  “Greed was their motivator,” John said.

  “That’s what I was saying.” Greg smiled triumphantly.

  “So why not bury the body? Not even an attempt made at hiding the evidence? No, this detail rings louder than greed to me. Our suspect lacks shame—the mark of a true sociopath. Or worse—they were proud.”

  Alex wasn’t sensitive about Erika’s death, and Doug noticed E. staring into the hole dug by her sister and/or the killers, the bottom of which could no longer be seen in the deepening shadow. She stood beside the seated Dead Ma
n with her hand on his shoulder, like his caretaker. However, weakness showed in her slouchier-than-usual stance and in the way her hips curved toward John as if she might collapse but for his support. Sure, the guy’s health was shit, but his spirit had annoyingly doubled, and when he wasn’t going on about the “will of the woods” or some other bizarre jabbering, he scanned the faces of the kids intently, creepiest at dusk when his eyes appeared gray.

  Doug thought how difficult it must be for E. to visit the site daily. He couldn’t recall having seen her cry once about losing her sister, which he’d thought unusual. Then again E. wasn’t normal, which was what also made her so damn special. Likely, she wasn’t doing OK, and the Dead Man certainly wasn’t in any condition to help. Ready to depart this plane of existence, the guy had his sights set on something higher than love. Which was totally dumb, as love and closeness and comfort were all that seemed to make anything matter.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about … it. Here,” Doug said.

  “It’s fine,” E. said without a hint of sadness. She continued as monotonously, as if hypnotized: “We have to know what happened.”

  “What if they got scared?” Greg went on hypothesizing. “Maybe the kids just freaked after they killed her. I would’ve.”

  Alex looked at Greg as if he’d shouted in their faces. “Would you have?”

  “Any kid would’ve. Come on, A.”

  “Stop saying it was a kid already! You don’t know if it was or if it was somebody’s grandma trying to bake her into freaking gingerbread cookies,” Tiffany said, disturbed that every theory Alex proposed implied her involvement, that Tiffany either knew the killer or was the killer. She’d already told the group what she’d told the police, and more. Though she had a lot of acquaintances, Tiffany had lost everybody that she would call a friend along the road to eighth grade due to being “too confident in who she was, or too real,” or at least too sassy for anyone to handle but Erika, who’d introduced herself by saying that Tiffany was the “baddest bitch she’d ever met” and that she would do anything to be her best friend, maybe to achieve popularity (“Don’t you mean infamy?” E. had interrupted, then immediately apologized) or maybe because she was actually “just the coolest.” So she and Erika had become best friends, OK, but they partied at Bachelor’s Grove a lot with a lot of different guys and sometimes Erika came by herself. Being incriminated by the girl, or boy or whatever Alex was trying to be, made Tiffany anxious that everyone was watching her, waiting for her to scream, “I did it! I killed Erika!” which made Tiffany uncharacteristically quiet and then pissed off until the comments kicked out.

  “Or devil worshippers,” Josué said. His two fingers curled into horns that sprouted just above his ears.

  “Right,” Tiffany said. “There’s way more crazy adults out here than kids.”

  Alex flipped through notes, unmoved. “If E.’s observation about her sister’s soiled fingernails is a fact—and I’m assuming here that it is—and Erika dug for the period of approximately six days, then it wasn’t likely forced by an adult, but someone she trusted or someone whose trust she hoped to gain.”

  “For what?” Greg said.

  “That, we don’t know. More of what she wanted, perhaps. Esteem—love?”

  “Who was she dating?” he asked, trying not to sound stalkerish.

  “She was between boyfriends,” Tiffany said.

  “It could’ve been a friend,” Alex said.

  “Or maybe—” Tiffany took a breath “—some people—OK, maybe kids—just flipped out on drugs, like it was a total accident, and we’re out here for nothing. How about that theory?”

  “The friend-killer theory upsets you.” Alex made a note.

  “First off, you don’t know anything yet. There’s zero evidence. So let’s stop pretending we’re something we’re not, like kid detectives. Second, I know you all think I did it, which is bullshit. You want to cast suspicions? It could’ve been any one of us. Maybe we should all go around and say our alibi. I’ll go first: I was in my room, listening to music and crying my eyes out like an idiot because some dipshit I was seeing cheated on me. I’d cheated on him, so I don’t know why I was crying. It’s just, no one can ever really be trusted, you know? Anyway, I wouldn’t come down for dinner. My bitch of a mother can vouch for that and the police who already put me through this. So, Alex, where were you on the night of the murder, huh?”

  “Studying.”

  “Wow. Very convincing story.”

  “Sowing suspicion among friends isn’t welcome here,” John said.

  Alex jotted another note, moved on. “Let’s say we have a kid-killer on our hands that Erika knew—very probable, for the record. Why kill her? What was the motive?”

  “I think they found it, the gangster’s treasure. But the killer didn’t feel like sharing,” Greg said. “Like in that movie—”

  “No,” John said, “it’s still here.” He rocked back and forth as if tweaking after a pot of coffee.

  “Aw, who knows, man.”

  “Look at it,” Tiffany said. “No offense, but the stupid hole isn’t even deep enough to bury all this treasure you’re talking about.”

  “This is all speculation, of course,” Alex added. “But if there is an item of great value buried here—if the killer still believes a treasure is to be found—one worth killing for—they’ll most certainly return.”

  “Goodness—” John said horrified. He stared into the gray trees.

  The kids scrambled up and faced that corner of the valley.

  Josué’s hands hovered at his sides as if to quick-draw his imaginary six-shooter. He stepped ahead of the others to confront Erika’s killer, the group at his back. He saw nothing.

  “It’s late,” John said. “We’ve stayed too late.”

  The kids had lingered in the woods longer than John had previously allowed, their restless conversation spurned by a desire to know their work meant something. Even the Dead Man’s vigilance had grown lax. Despite the grisly history of the valley, the group’s closeness had bestowed a sense of safety, and they’d worn their bond like an armor that just might prevent knife blades. John’s constant warnings of not straying too far or remaining too late to avoid catching the attention of some nameless evil in the woods didn’t feel quite real until now.

  “Hide the tools back in the bushes,” he ordered.

  The kids did so without question. Effectively spooked, they clambered from the valley and spilled eagerly onto the streets of Palos Hills.

  Doug, Tiffany, Josué, and Greg took the tunnel under the elevated train tracks, not keen on soon splitting up after the scare. On the other side, they walked the lampless, thickly shadowed suburban blocks, each wondering after their bravery and looking back on their work that week as absolute lunacy—plowing an entire crime scene without any weapons to protect themselves or adult supervision when a knife-wielding maniac might return to massacre them or, at least, track and slay them individually. The fact they’d been blind to the danger made them marvel at how they’d let John talk them into it, and seemed to explain why no other kids had yet come to party there. If any place on Earth deserved the title cursed, it seemed to be Bachelor’s Grove, and, as the four kids sloughed the woods’ gravity, they began to struggle to conceive of a single good reason to ever return.

  All at once they craved civilization and turned on 111th for the headlights and streetlamps and whir of steady traffic along Southwest Highway. Tiffany hopped on Greg’s back, and the basketballer veered as if to take to the busy street running. A car honked, and their defiant laughs dispelled the last wisps of doom. At the Dunkin Donuts, the kids had milk and sandy donuts among the bums grimly sipping coffee, goofing off loudly as if the only people in the joint and talking about everything and anything but the woods. Loitering in the parking lot later, Tiffany lit a cigarette stolen from her mother, and each kid had a drag, coughing and dopily smiling because they felt like kids again, the kind to which death is an event that
lies so far into the future that it is more likely a fib created by adults to encourage good behavior.

  The feeling couldn’t last all night (couldn’t it?). Curfew nagged at every glimpse at the clock. The fact they were checking the time, like the lull in conversation, said it was time to part. The yet cryptic language of sexual chemistry had divided them. Tiffany didn’t need Josué or Greg to stay. Maybe the dork? Both boys wanted to be upset, but they’d had too good of a time to call the night a loss. Regret would needle them plenty, later. They punched Doug’s shoulder affectionately and with great meaning—Don’t blow this. Greg swooped on Doug and headlocked him, really wished him the best, as even a tiny advance with the girl would mean success for everyone because they were still a group, after all, and maybe becoming friends, the kind who shared individual joys along with the hardships.

  After Josué and Greg got their hugs and wandered home, and the cute dork stuck around, eyes a bit wet from choking on the smoke, readjusting his glasses with both hands as they slipped down his nose, Tiffany felt so free, like herself again, that she pulled this decent guy, maybe her first, close by the shirt pocket and said, “Get over here,” and he did without any self-consciousness about having to rise on his toes to kiss such a powerful girl because he was so full of her at that moment, and only after they’d finished signing circles and waves and corkscrews with their tongues, a whole fundamental geometry of desire, and peered into the shop window to see the clock well past curfew, did they notice they’d been making out thirty minutes, and Doug hurried off with a sore tongue as proof he hadn’t dreamed it, tripping on the sidewalk and looking back to see that Tiffany had also looked back and seen him trip—but she’d looked back—and they smiled and left feeling at last as if they’d accomplished something significant that week.