The Ashes (The Rebecca Underhill Trilogy Book 2)

by Vincent Zandri

  I drink down my glass of wine, ask him to pour another, which he does.

  “Looks like you need a little liquid encouragement to tell me what’s happening,” he says. “So, now that you’re encouraged, what is it?”

  Inhaling a deep breath, I say, “Little Mike tells me he’s been talking to his father.”

  His eyes blink like some dust or powder has gotten into them. He drinks some wine.

  “Now that’s a miracle considering his father is no longer alive.”

  “It gets better,” I say. “Mike claims to have been conversing with someone, or something, that lives in the corn. He calls him Mr. Skinner or Skinner, or The Skinner. Take your pick.”

  “And who precisely is this Mr. Skinner who lives in the corn?”

  “In the precise words of my son,” I say, “he’s the Boogeyman.”

  “The Boogeyman,” Sam says, refreshing both our glasses of wine. Then, “Start at the beginning, Bec, and tell me everything.”

  “Sure, Sam,” I say. “I’ll tell you everything. It begins with Robyn’s daughter, Molly. She, too, knows the Boogeyman.”

  “The Skinner man who lives in the corn,” he says, like a question. “And you’re not freaking out right about now? Now that both kids claim there’s a boogeyman in the midst?”

  “The doctor tells me it’s likely all the work of a child’s imagination,” I say. “Or in this case, two children who spend a lot of time together and who are prone to making stuff up.”

  He nods, purses his lips.

  “And what about you, Becca?” he says. “Who do you think the boogeyman is?”

  My eyes shift from the blanket to over his shoulder.

  “If I were to believe everything a little child tells me,” I say, “then I would say the boogeyman is a ghost who just might be watching us right now.”

  The Skinner watches them from down on his hands and knees through the dying stalks of corn. The big black man, as big and sturdy as the farmhouse he lives in. And the woman. Mike Jr.’s mother. Rebecca. The woman who, along with her sister, was so beloved by him and Joseph. So much so, that they considered the girls their biological children. Didn’t matter to Skinner that he’d never met the girls in the flesh. What mattered was that their spirits collided from afar like angels of the ages.

  Holy spirits . . .

  Like an animal, he maneuvers himself on all fours, his body hairless and naked, the skin stretched over flesh and bone so tightly the purple-blue veins pop through the surface. The only item he wears is a leather belt around his waist, a leather sheave for his flaying knife.

  Gripped between his teeth, is the dead doe. It’s small, almost fawn-sized. Didn’t take much to kill it, other than a quick bite to its neck. He then used the knife to skin her while her heart was still beating. Cutting the heart out, he consumed it while it was still warm. A heart no larger than his thumb.

  His eyes focused on Rebecca and her man, he can smell their scents, hear their pulse pounding in their veins. How wonderful it will be to eat their tender flesh while their hearts still pump hot red blood through the veins. He will feast on them, and he will preserve their skin for all eternity. He will make masks of their faces. Perfect masks that will fit his own face like a second skin. Then, he will have Molly and Michael all to himself. They will live together down inside the earth under the corn.

  Molly and Michael — his posies, his little kittens.

  Ring around the Rosie, a pocket full of posies . . .

  Turning quick, he bolts off along the path, back to his hole in the ground.

  By the time I’ve finished telling Sam everything, we’ve gone through half a bottle of wine and finished our plates, crampy stomach be damned.

  Sam’s not the type to jump to conclusions. Nor is he easily excitable. From what I’ve observed thus far anyway. Maybe it’s the result of three decades spent on the trading floor day in and day out — the tension, the commotion — but he calmly takes time to digest the information I’ve given him while, every now and again nodding to himself or cocking his head over one shoulder or the other as if carrying on an internal dialogue.

  “Where is Mike now?” he asks.

  “Home with Robyn and Molly.”

  “And he doesn’t seem the least bit disturbed by what he’s been seeing and hearing out by the cornfield?”

  “You mean has he been wetting the bed or anything like that? Lashing out? Screaming? No. Not even a nightmare far as I can tell.”

  “Then I wouldn’t worry about anything. Yet.”

  “Yes, yet. I think it’s like Dr. Cuther says it is. Mikey’s imagination. He’s a smart, talented, whip of a kid.”

  “Takes after his mother.”

  “And his dad.”

  “Sure, and his dad. Would you like me to spend more time with him, Bec? Maybe be more like a father to him?”

  In my head, I’m seeing Michael lying beside me in bed in my old apartment in North Albany. My head resting in the crook of his neck, our bodies glistening with sweat only moments after making love for the first time in months, years. Our reunion would turn out to be our first and last time. The time we created little Mike.

  Mikey needs a father, Rebecca . . . It’s okay . . .

  I smile.

  “Yes,” I say, “I think that would be a good idea, Sam. Mike really likes you. You can start by being his big brother, and we can see how that goes.”

  Sam presses his lips together.

  “I’m falling for you, Under Hill,” he says. “Falling hard.”

  He comes to me, and we spread ourselves out on the empty portion of the blanket, and for a time we kiss one another passionately, coming up for air only for survival, feeling one another’s bodies even with our clothing on, loving the moment.

  But the moment is just that. A sweet little slice of time. Because the inevitable happens when I close my eyes and see my Michael. My body goes stiff, and the feeling of wanting to be close to Sam disappears as quickly as it arrived.

  He senses the change even before it’s complete.

  “What’s wrong, Bec?” he says.

  I look away. “I’m not sure.”

  “It’s him again, isn’t it?” Exhaling, frustrated. “Why can’t you just let him go?”

  “I know; I know . . . You have no idea how much I’ve been trying. I actually thought I was succeeding, and now today . . . this morning with Dr. Cuther, Mike revealing his little imaginary meetings with his dad. Then seeing my ex-husband inside Mike’s drawing. It was so real. His face was so detailed. Exactly how I remembered it.” Laughing. But it’s not a happy laugh. “God, Sam, I sometimes have conversations with Michael in my head like he was sitting at my dining room table typing away at his latest book only five minutes ago.”

  He releases me from his arms, but he holds my hand.

  “He’s dead, Rebecca,” he whispers. “I know that sounds cold and even callused. Perhaps selfish on my part. But whether it’s me or someone else, eventually you have to give it up and live your life again.”

  My eyes lock on the cornfield and how the breeze causes the dead stalks to move like a wave.

  “I sometimes feel guilty,” I say after a beat.

  “For what?”

  “For divorcing Michael the way I did.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He was down on his luck. His writing was going nowhere. He wasn’t making any money. He was drinking too much.”

  “That’s reason enough.”

  “I realize that, but I still loved him. We could have worked through it.”

  “Sounds like in the end you did work through it. Achieved a separate peace.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe I need to seek another separate peace. For me. For you.”

  “For us,” he says, kissing my forehead.

  For a moment, we embrace the quiet, with only the wind and the birds filling the void. But the atmosphere is shattered when my cell phone rings.

  Startled, I pull myself away
. Retrieving the phone from my jeans pocket, I read the digital screen. It’s Robyn. Naturally, the first thing that flashes through my head is the little Boo and little Molly.

  I press Answer.

  “Rob,” I say.

  “Becca,” she says. “Get home now.”

  Heart in my mouth.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Mike and Molly,” she says. “I can’t find them.”

  “I’m coming with you, Bec,” Sam insists as soon as I reveal what’s happened.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I say, bounding up.

  “I know I don’t,” Sam says, gathering the blanket in a way that captures everything from the picnic lunch inside it. He then shifts it over his shoulder and carries it like Santa Clause hefting a big sack of toys. “But I want to be a part of your life. I want to be a part of Mike Jr.’s life.”

  We speed-walk downhill along the freshly mowed grass towards the white house. A house I spent many hours in with the best art student I’ve ever had. An autistic savant named Franny. A man who saved my life and my unborn son’s life on that horrible stormy night eight years ago. His mother, Carolyn, and I remained very close friends after his death until her grief became too much, and she died in her sleep, a smile on her face, as if at the moment her soul departed her body Franny was there to take her hand. I can’t think of a better place for Sam to be living during what he calls, “the back nine of my life.”

  When we come to the house, I don’t bother to go inside. I pick up the pace and jog around to the front where my Jeep is parked. Sam drops the picnic blanket outside the back door and sprints his way to the Jeep, jumping behind the wheel before I have the chance.

  “I’m driving,” he says.

  My breathing is so labored, my pulse speeding so rapidly, I’m having trouble speaking.

  “Okay,” I say, handing him the keys. Besides, he’s already adjusting the seat to suit his extra-long legs. “Just make it quick.”

  I hop in the shotgun seat, while Sam starts it up. He starts backing out before I’ve closed the door.

  “Buckle up,” he says, throwing the transmission in drive. “Hang on.”

  He guns it, and the tires spit gravel. He’s not messing around.

  “Michael,” I say inside my head, “if you hear this, please do everything you can to watch over our son.”

  I wait for a reply, but nothing comes.

  As soon as we pull into the drive, I hop out, take the front porch steps two at a time to the front entrance. Pushing the screen door open, I’m greeted by Taco, our three-year-old Chihuahua. He’s barking up a storm. Something he doesn’t do unless he feels threatened on his own behalf or on behalf of one of us. Us being the big, disjointed family that lives in the old Underhill farmhouse.

  The door opens and closes hard behind me.

  Sam.

  Running into the kitchen, I find Robyn pacing the floor. She’s smoking a cigarette. Her face is swelled, and her eyes are red from crying.

  “Bec,” she says, “I left them alone for one minute while I took a shower.”

  “A shower takes more than a minute, Robyn.” I don’t realize it, but I’m shouting. As much as I love my sister from another mother, Robyn is not always the most reliable when it comes to responsibility though I know she would never allow harm to come to the children. She’s a hard worker, a dependable friend, and a great sounding board when I feel like opening up about something that’s been bothering me deep down.

  But there’s a part of her that’s as loose as an old goose if you’ll pardon one of my late dad’s clichés. It was that very free-spirit that almost resulted in her murder eight years ago after she agreed to meet up with a Match.com date at a downtown motel-no-tell. The serial rapist raped her, beat her, and left her for dead. God was on Robyn’s side, and she lived, but the son of a bitch will be doing time for another twenty years. After that, he can go straight to hell.

  “Calm down, Rebecca,” Sam says, setting his hand on my shoulder.

  I shrug it off.

  “Don’t tell me how to feel,” I bark, knowing immediately I should not be so quick to scold a man who is only trying to help.

  “Hi Robyn,” he says. “When did you last see them?”

  “They were in the kitchen goofing around. Molly had just eaten her lunch.”

  On the table, the remnants of her Happy Meal. A half-eaten burger, the crumpled paper it came in, some fries scattered on the table top.

  “Do they often go outside on their own?” Sam presses.

  “Yes,” Robyn says, blue smoke oozing from her nostrils. “One of the reasons we chose to pack it up from the city was so the kids could go outside whenever they wanted and not be threatened by some psycho asshole.” Shaking her head. “Now this.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” I whisper to myself. “Coming back to this house to avoid the psychos of the world.”

  I spot the pack of cigarettes on the table and steal one, lighting it with the Bic lighter that’s set beside it. Sam’s looking at me funny because he’s never seen me smoke before. And I haven’t touched one in over a year. But right now, the nicotine is soothing the hell out of me.

  “Listen, ladies,” Sam goes on, “I’m sure they’re just outside somewhere. Maybe they wandered off and got lost in the cornfield.” He goes for the screen door off the kitchen. “Keep your phones on you. I’m going into the corn.”

  Tossing the cigarette into the sink, I follow on his tail.

  “I’m going too,” I insist. “Rob, you stay here in case they double back and show up while we’re still out there.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” she says. But I also know this — Robyn hates the woods, and in the end, we’d probably end up having to look for her.

  Robyn Painter: Miss Reliability.

  The cornfield is a dark place. It’s a place I never visit. Or, to be more precise, a place I never think of visiting. The property the many acres of corn stalks occupy belong to both me and Sam. We rent the acreage to farmers who make a two-week trip up from Florida during the growing season to plant their crop and then return for a second time along with crews of migrants for the harvest.

  The cornfields weren’t here when I was a child since we didn’t need the extra income like I do today. And the field’s presence, while looked upon as a good thing (who doesn’t like fresh corn on the cob?), still feels somehow mysterious to me. As if a new life form has landed from outer space and taken up residence there.

  “You take that area to the right,” Sam says, his arm outstretched along with his fingers. “I’ll go left. Just make a bee-line for the opposite, east side of the field. Make sure the sun always shines on the right side of your face, and you’ll walk straight. I’ll meet you on the other side.”

  Raising both hands up to my mouth to form a megaphone, I step into the corn, shouting, “Mike! Molly! . . . Mike! Molly!”

  Sam is also shouting in his deep, baritone voice. I have to believe if the kids are anywhere near, they can’t help but hear us. The corn stalks are dry and close enough together that I must remove the hands from my mouth and use them instead to push the stalks out of my way. They might also be dead, but they don’t act like it.

  They slap me in the face as I pass through them, the sting making my eyes water. After a full minute of bushwhacking through the stuff, I’ve managed to work up a sweat, not to mention the flakes and shards of dry, dead stalk that stick to my face, neck, and hands. Still, I shout out for the kids until the back of my throat aches.

  I stop, listen.

  Nothing.

  Looking up at the sun, I make sure it’s shining against my right cheek. Just like Sam says, I keep moving, picking up my pace, the corn stalks cracking and snapping under my booted feet. Something is happening inside me. A welling up of emotion. Panic. Adrenalin filling my head. Eyes filling with tears along with the tiny dry particles of corn stalks.

  “Mike Junior, please answer me!”

  Then, I break throug
h to the other side, and the darkness disappears.

  I look right and make out a narrow swath of flat land that separates the cornfield from the deep woods. The space is empty. Empty of two little children that is.

  A rustling coming from my left-hand side. Sam breaking through.

  “Sam, where the hell are they?”

  He’s shaking his head. “I’ll go further down,” he says. “Towards my place. They’ve got to be here somewhere, Bec.”

  Cold panic injected into my spine.

  “I’ll take the space in between,” I say, jogging towards him.

  I’m wiping fresh tears from my eyes with the backs of my hand, when I hear the voices.

  Skinner didn’t hear the children making their way to the corn. He smelled their scent. His sense of smell is far more acute than the average human. In fact, it’s not human at all, but a kind of genius smell. Something not of this earth. Not biological. Rather, something he acquired not from his father’s DNA but from his fist.

  Ashe the meat cutter.

  When his father tied him to the chair in the barn to watch the flaying of the pigs, the old man insisted the boy pay the strictest attention. The old man demanded it. If the boy’s eyes strayed even for a moment . . . if he so much as blinked . . . the old man would open up his hand, and smack the boy’s forehead with the lower portion of the palm, where the bone meets the wrist, the full force of the thrust smacking the child’s skull and rattling his brain.

  Once, when the old man had trapped a particularly frightened young male pig into the vertical metal bars, the animal was thrashing about and crying so loudly . . . so high-pitched like a human bring . . . Skinner couldn’t possibly watch. He made the dreadful mistake of closing his eyes.

  He never really felt the wallop of his father’s palm until he came to some time later. So much later that the pig was dead, the face, the scalp, the skin, the eyes, and the heart completely removed leaving only a white uneven fleshy surface streaked with red blood. Like old pizza when the cheese is pulled off.