by Anna Roberts
And there’s no Donna. No Sadie, no Carol even. There aren’t even gaps in the world where they used to be. They were just gone and it was like they’d never existed. Empty. Unimportant. They had meant nothing and been nothing and the only person who noticed their absence was Gloria, who had hated them.
It’s like remembering how to breathe again, and threaded through the vision - tempting as a gift ribbon - is a question. Do you want this?
A stupid question. Of course she wants it. Yes.
Then she’s alone again, standing in the gutted house with a bag of dead chicken bits at her feet, a girl who everybody notices for all the wrong reasons. Her head feels fuzzy and she wonders if maybe the mold spores are playing strange tricks on her; she’s sure she read somewhere that some mold could make you see things and hear things, sometimes even the devil.
Naturally she doesn’t tell anyone she’s been at the old Keane house. She wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place and besides, she doesn’t have anyone to tell. Gloria hides the chicken parts under strategic points under the floorboards and then sneaks off home, hoping that the smell will be sufficiently deathlike by the time of the party.
Halloween in Florida never brings the apple-crisp fall chill that it does further north. The wind blows wet all day and rattles the windows of the science lab where the girls are dissecting frogs. Sadie Roan’s face is an interesting shade of yellow; Gloria thinks it matches her soul pretty well.
It’s been a week since the weird mold spore dream, and while Gloria is sure it was just that, she can’t help but feel like something has changed somehow. Maybe the three garbage queens of high school have developed consciences about the things they said to her last time, but Gloria doubts it. Sadie Roan still shuffles past with a smirk on her face; that crack about health code violations was probably the smartest thing she had ever said in her life and she was as proud of it as if she’d taken a shit then looked into the toilet bowl to see the Sistine Chapel ceiling shining up at her. Only now she’s half-swooning over that frog and it serves her right.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she says, and everyone is sick of her at this point. Nobody likes doing this, but Sadie’s being a drama queen. You’d think she was slicing into her own flesh by the way she whimpers and winces.
“It’s one class, Miss Roan,” says Mr. Black, the science teacher. “If you can’t be an adult about this then you can go and stand in the hallway.”
“Suits me,” she mumbles, and the class holds its breath, waiting for the teacher to blow.
Only Sadie gets there before him. She’s been whining all the way through, but this time she lets out a piercing shriek. Mr. Black storms across the class towards her, but before he can march her out into the hall she leans back far enough for Gloria to catch a glimpse of the red staining her apple green sweater. It’s all over her hand and filling her lap. Donna joins in the screaming and Carol faints prettily into the arms of Warren Yates, which Donna will no doubt make her pay for later.
“What did you do?” Mr. Black says, over and over again. “Sadie, what did you do?” But she didn’t. Somehow Gloria knows; she has enough of the sticky black mold taste still lingering in her mouth to let her know that power is within her reach. And that because Gloria thought it, Sadie sliced into her own flesh when she sliced into her frog.
Gloria starts singing in her head - that song that nearly drove Donna Patinsky crazy over the summer. The taste on her tongue is downright tarry as the tune swells in her mind, the smoochy vocals on the bridge and the squeaky chorus, forcing giggles up out of her mouth.
Sadie slides bleeding to the floor. It’s not a deep cut - her slice across the frog was too wincing and nervous for her to have accidentally spilled her own guts across the floor - but it’s messy and more than enough to teach her a lesson. Mr. Black yells at Gloria - it’s not a laughing matter - but there’s too much going on in the room for him to punish her. He’s too busy sending people running for the nurse and trying to stem the bleeding. Meanwhile Carol is lying stark out on the floor like Snow White waiting for her prince to come and Donna is standing staring at Gloria like she knows that Gloria is the author of all this misery.
“What the fuck are you laughing at?” says Donna.
For a moment Gloria doesn’t know what to say, but the song in her head is deafening now, and she knows by the fear in Donna’s eyes that Donna is sure she’s going insane, thinking about that stupid song at a time like this, and what would happen if she never got that tune out of her head?
“I called the witch doctor,” says Gloria, dizzy with the appalling and yet hilarious knowledge that she did all this. She opened up the possibility of doing it the moment she said yes to the darkness that seeped up between the floorboards.
Meanness is like chocolate, or tears. Once you get started, it’s very hard to stop.
2
The quiet in the woods had a new quality. Even Joe could feel it, much as he told himself he was just being fanciful, and that he could no more hear the absence of ghosts than he could have heard their whispers in the first place. The wind stirred in the treetops above but the sound was like the steady hiss of static on a cross-eyed television set, a noise that could get into your skull and bones if you let it.
Every time he opened the door he thought of deer skulls, expecting to see one set ceremoniously on the front porch. Wasn’t that the way they’d warned Reese they were coming?
They were down to one car, Grayson’s rusty Subaru, but it would have to do. Thank God the moon had come when it had; Joe didn’t like to think too much about being stuck here if the swamp wolves really were on the rampage again.
Axl bounced the rolled up sleeping bags off the porch step and stomped back indoors, almost colliding with Grayson on his way out. The kid made a hissy, teenage kind of noise – like a pasta pot boiling over – and disappeared indoors.
“Axl!”
“Leave him,” said Grayson. “He’s upset. You can hardly blame him; being dragged from pillar to post like this.”
“I don’t see we have a choice.”
“We don’t.”
Joe sighed and loaded the trunk. “Are we really doing this?” he said. “Because Ruby said so? We’re taking off on the say-so of the dumbass who caused half this mess in the first place?”
Grayson shrugged. The notch between his eyebrows was too deep, the way it was when he was pretending his knee wasn’t bothering him as much as it really was. “Gabe seemed to think she was sincere.”
“She’s still a swamp wolf, Luke.”
“Sweetheart, I know that,” said Grayson, leaning on the rear bumper. “But what do your instincts tell you?”
“I don’t know,” said Joe. He reached out and rubbed his thumb between Grayson’s eyebrows, wishing he could smooth out the crease there and make him look younger and glowy again, the way he looked in bed. “All I know is that being eaten by swamp wolves is going to look like a picnic compared to the kind of Cannibal Holocaust shit Stacy Wernicke will pull if I ever let anything happen to her kid.”
“There you go then.” Grayson took hold of Joe’s hand and kissed the inside of the wrist where the skin was most sensitive. Joe shivered, although he couldn’t be sure if it was fear or just because Grayson could still surprise him in this way, fingers unerringly going to tender spots that made his blood catch fire.
“I wish things could be different,” Grayson said.
“Like what?”
“Everything. If I’d only met you ten years ago.”
Joe frowned. “Uh...pretty sure that would make you a pedophile.”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay – maybe not that then.”
There was a rustle somewhere in the bushes nearby. Grayson turned his head to listen, but Joe smelled it before he saw anyone. Artificial sweetness layered over female sweat, a whiff of wax, vanilla and dirt. The memory sprung up like a ghost train skeleton, screaming out of the dark, bared ribs and tattoos on dead skin.
The
girl stepped into view, a backpack thrown over her shoulder, her bare legs scratched and muddy and her lank sweaty hair all black and white stripes. Joe remembered her scent but he couldn’t think of her name.
“Sarah-Lou?” said Grayson.
It was the Hallett girl. She stood there staring for a second and then said, “Holy shit,” and headed across the dirt yard towards them.
“What are you doing here?” asked Grayson.
“I figured they wouldn’t come here,” she said. Under her dark tank top her waist looked almost too small to be real. She set down her backpack; there were tiny mirrors sewn into the fabric and they winked in the light. “I told Mom I’d follow her – she went up to family in Macon, Georgia – but then my truck died and I had to hike all the way out here, because...” She trailed off and took a breath. “Oh my God, I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am to see you guys.”
“I hate to ask,” said Grayson, leading the way to the door. “But what’s the urgency?”
Sarah-Lou followed. Axl had been lurking behind the screen door. As she entered he grunted a hello and turned towards her like a flower towards the sun. Poor kid had been cooped up with men for way too long.
“I dunno,” she said. “The scuttlebutt is that the old man’s grand-nephew - or first cousin or fifth cousin or maybe all three, whatever – he thought he’d break himself off a piece of the North Florida action after the Raines family went the way of the dodo. Assuming the kid doesn’t show up, of course.”
“Assume that, yeah,” said Joe.
“Anyway, this guy Cicero, he doesn’t have the old man’s permission, so he just kind of rolls in there with everything to prove. Rolls right into these here haunted woods with a couple of buddies in tow, and he’s the only one that comes back out. Thanks –” Grayson handed her a glass of water. She gulped and went on. “A white wolf, I heard. Big one. Like a fuckin’ ghost. Like the old black dog...only...”
“...white,” said Grayson, deliberately avoiding Joe’s eyes.
“Yeah,” she said, and quickly hardened again, like the white wolf was a stretch too much superstition even for her. “I figured if I was gonna be anywhere in Florida I might as well be here.”
“We’re leaving,” said Axl. “You can come with us.”
“You going to Georgia?”
“We’re going further than that,” said Joe, who had in mind a cousin up in the twin cities. “But we can drop you off in Macon, no trouble.”
Sarah-Lou exhaled. “Oh my God, thank you. When are you leaving?”
“As soon as possible,” said Grayson. “Actually we were just loading up the car, so...”
“Okay, cool,” she said, and rummaged in her pack. Joe wasn’t sure what he was expecting her to take out of there – maybe some water or an energy bar – but it sure as hell wasn’t what she did produce. It was a set of tarot cards.
She took a seat at the kitchen table and started to shuffle, apparently oblivious to the way they were all staring at her. Finally Grayson cleared his throat.
“And...this is?”
“I always do this,” she said, dealing the cards. “Before I make a decision. Cards told me to come here. Cards told my daddy to get the hell out, but he didn’t.”
“And what happened?” asked Axl.
“Did not end well,” said Joe, determined to leave it at that. The last thing Axl needed was to hear all the gory details.
“Well,” said Grayson. “Good luck with that.” He gave Joe a wide eyed look and pulled him back towards the door, where the bags were piled up. Joe grabbed the nearest one and headed out across the front yard.
“She’s kind of an individual, huh?” he said, popping the trunk once more.
Grayson laughed. “There’s that Minnesota nice I heard so much about it. I was going with ‘batshit insane’ but whatever works for you.”
“What was that you said once? Pissweak reconstructionalists...”
“...with dreamcatcher tattoos. No, she heard the ghosts had gone. She’s the real deal, even if she has gone a bit blessed-be along the way somewhere.” Grayson rubbed a hand over his stubble. “I’m loving the white wolf thing though. You’re a legend in your own lifetime, my dear.”
Joe stiffened. He didn’t feel especially legendary; as he’d turned the wind had blown directly into his face, bringing with it the unmistakable smell of gasoline.
He glanced back at the car, only to see Grayson was looking in the same direction now. There was a darker patch on the dirt beneath the chassis.
“Oh fuck,” said Grayson. “Oh fuck me.”
Joe knelt. Up close the stink was so pungent he thought the air would catch fire with it. A wonder he hadn’t smelled it before; there was a sizeable pool down there.
“Careful,” he said, but Grayson had already unlocked the door. For a second Joe had a vision of the car going up in flames, the gas lit by the spark of the ignition, but there was nothing. Silence. The engine didn’t even turn over.
“Check the battery,” said Grayson, but Joe knew this was more than just a hiccup. The thing had been running fine just this morning. He went round and opened the hood, and what he saw there made him feel like someone had walked right up and looped a noose round his neck there and then.
“Battery’s gone,” he said.
“Gone? That’s impossible. I checked it –”
“ – no. It’s not flat, Gray. It’s gone. Someone took it.”
Grayson got out and joined him in front of the hood. Together they stared into guts of the old car. The spark plugs and battery were gone. Every visible wire had been cut, and beneath them the fuel was draining out in a muddy, reeking puddle.
Fifty miles, give or take. They were so far into the woods that there was no getting out.
“Sarah-Lou?” said Joe.
Grayson shook his head. “No. There’s no way she’d do this. Not after what they did to Mike.” He sighed and slumped over the bumper. “Oh Jesus. She said her truck died. Remember?”
“Yeah. Or somebody killed it.” Joe straightened up. “Okay. If we head out now –”
“ – we’ll be dead in time for dinner,” said Grayson. “Or rather I will. Fifty miles and this knee is not happening.”
“Well, what do you suggest we do?”
“I suggest you three get the hell out of here.”
Joe blinked. “Uh, no. That’s not happening.”
“Do you see an alternative?” said Grayson. “Because I’m dead weight at this point. They’re coming; they’re not scared of this place any more.”
“Okay,” said Joe, remembering something stupid he’d said. Stick a sheet on your head and go ‘wooo’. “So we make them scared.”
It took Grayson a moment to catch up with his train of thought, but when he did he took a breath, like someone who had remembered what it meant to keep breathing. Like someone who hadn’t given up.
“That’s a challenge,” he said. “Scaring the shit out a bunch of redneck cannibal werewolves.”
“Superstitious redneck cannibal werewolves. Come on. With your imagination...”
“You’re right,” said Grayson. “Anything’s worth a shot.”
*
Ruby was flying.
Or so she said. For all Gabe knew she was just getting naked and getting her drink on, but he was in no position to turn down any kind of supernatural assistance. She knelt bareass on the basement floor, in a middle of a target she’d chalked there.
He could see the knobs of her back through her thin, white skin, the bottom of her spine graced with a Celtic knot tramp stamp. When she’d undressed he’d seen the lace and ribbon garter tattooed around her thigh, her ass flat, soft and defenseless. No muscle, nothing like Blue, who hauled vacuum cleaners up and down stairs and had done more than he’d thought humanly possible towards taming Gloria’s jungly yard. Even with her clothes on Ruby didn’t look like much of a witch; without them she looked like a skinny-fat teenager, but then Gabe supposed he didn’t look much
like a wolf, and nobody would have ever pegged tiny old Gloria as the big kahuna. And yet she was. Or had been.
Curious, he moved to Ruby’s side. She sat perfectly motionless, so still that he thought he could see the basement dust settling on her eyelashes. He stayed outside the circle, resisting the urge to check if she was breathing, remembering the old superstitions about not waking a sleepwalker. If you interrupted a witch mid-flight, did she crash?
This was all it took on his part. Just a little faith, just a little fucking patience. And it was so easy to extend these things to Ruby, the woman who had made all this unholy mess in the first place. So why hadn’t he been able to do the same for Blue?
Ruby jolted, her eyes still closed. She shuddered, made a snorting noise in the back of her throat and slowly opened her eyes.
“You okay?”
She started to speak, but her teeth were chattering too hard. She reached out for Gloria’s old robe, and when Gabe handed it to her he felt her hands were as cold as if she’d been naked in a meat locker, instead of a humid Florida basement.
“New Orleans,” she said. “She’s going to New Orleans.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I heard her,” said Ruby. “You hear everyone when you’re up there. Can get deafening if you’re not used to it, but she stands out from a crowd, on account of having more than one person in her head.”
“No way,” said Gabe, his stomach still churning at the things she’d told him. “It’s not possible. She’d die before she’d let him in her head ag –”
“ – I told you, he’s not in her head.”
He sat down heavily on the nearest step. This was horrible. This was insane. “And I told you,” he said. “It’s not possible – what you said. Sure, there were a couple of times when we should have been more careful, but she always got her period afterwards.”
“She bled,” said Ruby. “Don’t mean it was a period.”
There was no arguing with her on these matters. She was a woman and knew better than he did. “Okay,” he said, reaching for something he could actually do. “Where in New Orleans? What did you hear, Ruby? Tell me everything.”