Harrison was annoyed even though he knew, on a rational level, his wife was right. He didn’t know what he thought he'd actually find here. His mother had always been a mystery to him, and he was really raised by his father's side of the family. When the realtor asked about his family today, it was really none of her business. Truth be told, he hadn’t seen his mother since his 13th birthday. He knew his parents were getting divorced, remembering that his mother had been reborn with some hokey religion. Most nights he went to sleep with a pillow over his ears because his father ridiculed her talk of sea creatures and sleeping gods.
"Hello?" Nicole said to her husband, bringing him back to the present.
"Sorry, I'm just really hungry and this day has been crap. Look, from what I have heard, there's a great seafood place just down the road. What do you say I treat you to a romantic dinner of fried fish while we sit in the parking lot and watch the sun go down?"
Nicole hooked her arm in his. "Seafood? Really? I've never had seafood before. I was only born in New England."
Harrison had to laugh. "I guess that would be like trying to impress someone from Baltimore with crab cakes."
"Or like trying to impress someone from Tijuana with Mexican food."
"Or trying to sell ice cubes to Eskimos."
Nicole playfully punched him in the arm. "That’s racist. You can't call them Eskimos."
"Then what do you call them?"
Nicole shrugged." Beats me. I'm from New England. Let's go try this amazing seafood from New Jersey."
* * * * *
They pulled up to the ancient house an hour after dark. There were no street lights, and Harrison had forgotten to put the porch light on. The only illumination came from the water, possibly a ship.
Harrison opened his car door but didn’t get out when Nicole made no move to follow.
"Honey, we went over this at dinner. The only smart thing to do is to stay here tonight. We can't afford a hotel room, and I swear I'll call the realtor tomorrow to sell the house. I admit I brought you with me thinking that you'd fall in love with the house." Harrison smiled sheepishly. "I guess I had the romantic notion of living near the water and getting back to my roots."
"You already live near the water, in a modern house with modern appliances and without a vermin problem."
Harrison put up his index finger. "One night, and I swear we head back to Boston. The next time we visit will be to sign the final papers, and visit Snookie."
Nicole opened her door and smiled. "Fine. One night in the Munster house won't kill me, but you can forget about seeing the sleepwear I packed."
"That’s not fair." Harrison got out and moved to the trunk of the car. "I suppose I have to get all the bags now?"
Nicole snapped her finger. "Hurry up, bellboy."
Harrison struggled with the luggage. "Ma'am, tipping is required in this establishment."
Nicole grabbed two bags herself and laughed. They walked up the steps and he fumbled with the keys in the dark. When he finally found the right key and opened the door, he set the bags just inside the doorway. Reaching around in the dark, he finally located a light switch but when he flipped it nothing happened. Nicole moved past him inside.
"Is the power out?"
A lamp suddenly turned on in the room. Nicole, with a grin, had a hand on the lamp. "Look, magic! You hit the button on the lamp and it creates light."
"Sarcasm will get you nowhere." Harrison picked up two of the suitcases but as he looked up the stairs he shivered. Did he just now hear a bang against a door or was that his imagination?
Nicole grabbed the rest of the luggage and put a foot on the bottom step. "I'm guessing there's a bedroom up there? It seems kind of freaky to be sleeping in your grandfather's bed. Did you see if there was a guest room?"
Harrison put down the suitcases next to the door and took the bags from his wife and put them back.
"What are you doing?"
Harrison did not want to go upstairs. He only checked one room but knew that the rest of them were also devoid of furniture. The padlocked room might contain a bed but it was probably occupied. By what… Harrison decided he didn’t want to know. "You know what, honey? Let's just get a hotel."
He could see Nicole was both aggravated and tired. She sat down on the second step. "You're joking, right?"
Harrison knew how close he was to completely pissing her off. But right now, you couldn’t give him a million dollars to walk up those steps. "There's nowhere to sleep upstairs."
"Are you f-… freaking kidding me? Why wouldn’t you tell me hours ago that there was nowhere to sleep?" She was getting hot. Heck, she'd almost cursed. While she often chided him on his Jersey attitude and short temper, she was his polar opposite.
Harrison turned and tried his best to fake a smile as he looked into the living room. "I have a fun idea. Why don’t we crash on the couches? It will be like in college when you slept on the futon." He went over to the lamp that she turned on and moved it onto the dusty coffee table, hoping it would make the room brighter and more inviting. He noticed the key for a small lock half buried in the dust on the coffee table and put it in his pocket, hoping Nicole didn’t notice.
She wasn’t happy. Harrison took a step back, waiting for the explosion. "There's a Ramada in Hazlet we could drive to and be in the room in less than half an hour."
Nicole muttered under her breath as she grabbed luggage and headed out the door. Harrison scooped up the remaining bags and followed. As he turned to shut the door, he was sure he heard a bang from upstairs.
Halfway down the path, the wind picked up and he knew it was going to rain soon.
"Fuck!" Nicole yelled, standing next to the trunk of the car. Harrison dropped the suitcases and ran to her. "What's the matter?" She'd screamed with such fury at first he thought she'd been bitten by a snake.
Nicole had a hand over her mouth, whether if in embarrassment or shock, Harrison didn’t know. When she pointed at the two deflated rear tires, he wanted to curse himself.
Harrison did when he saw the two front tires were also slashed. As if in answer to his blasphemy, the sky opened up and it began to pour.
Without a word, and not meeting the gaze of his wife, Harrison managed to grab all of the bags and trudge through the rain and back onto the porch.
He was about to comment on the lights coming from the water, seemingly a dozen different points out in the bay. Instead, he opened the door and silently followed Nicole inside making sure the door was locked.
* * * * *
Nicole's stiff neck woke her up and she rolled off the couch and onto all fours with a start. Even in the dark of the living room, she was sure a dust cloud had been stirred. Harrison snored softly on the other couch.
They'd gone to sleep fighting. Nicole was frustrated at this entire trip and wanted to punch her husband in the face. She'd lost her cool too many times today and it was something she never did. Ever. She grimaced at the thought of using such a vile word when she saw the tires slashed.
It was raining outside and she could hear water dripping in the hallway. Nicole was sure there was more than one hole in the ancient roof, and wouldn't be surprised if a solid rain would flood out a room or two.
She needed to use the bathroom. Nicole didn’t want to turn on the light, but she had no idea whether it was downstairs or upstairs. She smiled and had an idea.
Her cell phone was in her small purse, and she could use the light of it to see.
Only the phone wasn’t there. She checked her jeans, wadded on the floor and then around the coffee table and chairs.
"Please, don’t let the phone still be in the car," she whispered.
Why hadn't she simply gone to the bathroom before sleep? She glanced at her snoring husband and knew why: because she was mad as heck and made sure she got undressed in front of him, but didn't even give him a kiss goodnight before plopping onto a couch, ignoring the cloud of dust, and twisting her body away from him.
Harriso
n had tried to talk with her but she kept telling him to leave her alone and let her sleep, and he'd finally obeyed and shut up. The heavier rain had come then and, even if they'd wanted to talk, the noise as it bounced off the ancient house would have precluded that.
Nicole knelt next to her husband. She whispered his name softly to see if he was deep into sleep, although, his snoring had gotten louder in the last minute. He'd fallen asleep with his clothes still on, even his sneakers. She slid two fingers in his right front pocket searching for his phone. She found it. When she carefully slid the phone out of his pocket, something metallic clanged to the floor.
It was a small key, one she'd never seen before in her husbands' possession.
She walked out of the living room and halfway up the stairs before stopping. Flipping open his phone, she used the light to get a better look at the key.
Her bathroom break was now forgotten, as she heard something heavy drop upstairs.
Should I wake Harrison? She used the cell phone like a flashlight, pointing it in front of her as she navigated the steps in her bare feet. At the landing, she stopped and looked around. The hall was empty and all the doors were closed. As she moved the cell phone around, she caught a glimmer of something at the far end.
Nicole hesitated. Her mind screamed to wake her husband. She took three tentative steps and stopped, listening to the rain as it bounced around above her in the attic.
She had the insane thought to rush down the steps, wake Harrison and tell him that the rain was destroying the house and the property value.
She heard a tap on the far door and couldn’t help but approach. There was a padlock just within reach at the top of the door, and she was positive she had the key to it.
There was another tap on the other side of the door.
"Hello?" Nicole whispered.
When she heard the crying, she jabbed the key in the lock. As the padlock fell to the dusty hallway floor, the door swung inward and she noticed the pair of red eyes.
* * * * *
Harrison woke with a start, the front door wide open and the wind gusting rain into the foyer. He leapt from the couch but before he got two steps he realized his wife wasn’t sleeping on the other couch. He went to the door and poked his head out but the rain was sluicing off the battered porch roof and through so many holes it looked like a shower. He called for Nicole but the noise of the weather drowned him out.
That was when he realized his cell phone was no longer in his pocket and the padlock key was missing.
Harrison stared up the dark steps in fear. He put his right foot tentatively on the first step. As if in reply, the house shook from a clap of thunder.
Don’t think, just move. Nicole is up there. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his wife was in trouble. Harrison felt like he'd failed her.
He turned his brain off, willed his feet to move, and ran to the top of the stairs. Even though it was so dark that he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, he knew what door he needed to get to.
Harrison cried out when he kicked the padlock, somewhere on the ground in the hall. He put his hands out blindly and began to sob when he realized the door was open.
"Nicole?"
She wasn’t in the room and whatever had been here was now gone. It felt… anticlimactic. Harrison suddenly felt hollow inside.
He began screaming for his wife.
He was down the stairs, out the front door, and running-sliding across the lawn, his throat raw from screaming in a losing battle with the weather.
In seconds he was soaked. He could actually feel his mind slip. Hysterical, he was running toward the bay. Nicole was there, somewhere out there among the lights.
Even through the sheets of driving rain, he could see the boats. Like a procession, the rowboats and small craft moved single file away from land.
Harrison didn’t know if he was seeing things. He didn’t know if his mind had snapped or was showing him an imagined horror.
Despite the distance and poor visibility, Harrison swore he saw Nicole standing in the front of a rowboat and embracing a grotesque albino before the two figures plunged overboard.
* * * * *
Harrison stood on the porch and watched as the realtor pulled up next to his car. As she exited, she put a hand on her sizable chin. "Wow, what happened to your tires?"
Harrison was silent, just watching as she approached.
"I brought the papers with me." She took a jumble of papers from her satchel and tried to hand them and a pen to Harrison.
Harrison didn’t move to take it, so she finally put everything down on one of the drier parts of the porch.
"Tell me, where is my grandfather buried? I never did ask."
The realtor looked away. "I need you to sign the papers. I have a buyer lined up." She glanced at his car. "I'll call a really good mechanic in town and he'll run over four new tires. That way you can be home before dark."
Harrison picked up the paper work. "I am home." He scattered the papers on the porch.
"You don't seem to understand…" she began to say but Harrison put a finger up and she stopped.
"Oh, I do understand. I understand all of it now."
As Harrison began trudging though the mud following the tracks from last night made by his wife and grandfather, he wondered how fast he could find a rowboat.
B ARREN
Three weeks ago he was called Bones, sporting a long red goatee and ponytail, proudly flying the black and silver of the Black Death Motorcycle gang (nomads based in Florida), cruising on his 1200 Low Harley bike, and surrounded by his brothers.
He pulled into the parking lot of the Keyport Diner in a stolen Honda Civic and parked it in the darkest corner he could find, near the dumpster. He wore his black riding gloves but wiped down the steering wheel, doors and dashboard before grabbing his backpack and exiting, leaving the keys in the ignition.
Now he was known as Bobby Anderson (according to his new ID), and his head and face were clean shaven. Gone were his earrings, his colors and his bike. He wore a non-descript gray T-shirt, blue jeans and a pair of sneakers. Even his Harley sunglasses and chain wallet had been replaced by cheap WalMart versions with no markings or corporate logos. Bobby Anderson was your average, anonymous, forty-ish guy passing through. And right now he just wanted an endless cup of weak coffee with a cheeseburger and fries.
The counter was filled with teens and those still in their twenties, making a racket. Bones—shit, Bobby, from now on Bobby—slid into a booth by himself, the empty one in the far corner, allowing him to see the doors and put his back to something solid. It was Friday night and he supposed there was a movie theatre or bowling alley or someplace the local riffraff hung out before hitting the diner with their change and holding onto a drunken night. Those Friday nights seemed to be in his rearview mirror right now.
The waitress was ten years past being anything to look at but she smiled when she took his order, lingering at his table like she wanted to say something flirty or witty. He'd leave exactly fifteen percent on the tip, not make small talk, and hope she'd forget about him in an hour or two.
Shit. Two shields, State troopers, walked in and smiled at the hostess while scanning the diner like good cops did.
Bobby yawned casually and picked up the greasy dessert menu, his eyes watching the two as they were led to the only other empty booth in the diner. The one next to his.
He casually leaned back and made sure his Ruger LCP 380 ACP was hidden, tucked in his waistband. The last thing he wanted was a shootout in a diner with two troopers. His coffee came and he added a ton of cream and sugar to it, finishing it in two gulps.
The waitress turned to the shields and took their order. Bobby continued to study the dessert menu while listening to their conversation. He'd heard the nearest cop, the bald one, say something about a murder when he put his cover on the seat next to him.
The other trooper, a skinny guy with glasses, was leaning forward and talking louder
than normal to be heard over the kids at the counter. "Damn if I can figure it out. My brother Nate says six bodies have washed up in the last three days."
"Six more?" Bald Cop asked. "How many does that make it?"
Bobby watched Skinny Cop shrug. "I don't talk to him much, but they have a clusterfuck going on in Sunken City."
"Glad I don't work down there. This stretch of Route 36 is busy enough with drunk drivers and speeders. I don't want to mess with dead bodies." Bald Cop smiled when the waitress dropped his coffee cup and a buttered bagel in front of him.
Bobby didn't know where Sunken City was and didn't care.
Maybe there was a shipwreck off the coast, or a storm he missed had killed a family? None of his business and he didn't plan on staying in New Jersey that much longer. His next move would be to hole up in a cheap cash-only motel for the night and then hitch a ride north and get as close to Upstate New York as possible. The greater the distance between him and his former brothers in Black Death, the better.
"They really think it's a serial killer?" Bald Cop asked.
That piqued Bobby's interest. A serial killer was one of those things you read about or saw on the news after the fact. If they were in the grip of an honest to God mass murderer, someone who maybe tortured people or was a cannibal… shit, that would be cool. He'd never met that kind of celebrity before.
Skinny Cop was talking around a mouthful of bagel. "Each of the victims was missing a weird part of their body. One had a hand missing, another had one less ear."
"How do they know it wasn't just the fish eating the ear off?"
"I heard the cut was perfect in each case. Like that murder in Long Branch last year, where the guy killed those people on that vacant lot off of Chelsea Avenue."
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