The Pines

by Robert Dunbar

  “It’s one thirty now.” A dark puddle spread beneath the clattering air conditioner. They crossed the parking lot, Barry a little in the lead.

  “Damn.” He sauntered in the door. “Would you look at this reception committee?”

  Blind from the sudden change in light, Steve stood in the doorway and relished the coolness. He strained his eyes in the direction of the corner booth. Even from across the room, the group’s quiet conveyed a tautness, and only Athena failed to look up as Barry approached. Steve stared a moment, shocked: her face was the color of lead.

  “You’re late,” said Doris, and Steve noticed the worried way she kept sneaking looks at Athena.

  Barry stood in front of the table, glaring down. “You got guts, boy. What the fuck you doing h ere? You didn’t tell me he was gonna be here, Doris.”

  Very red, Jack fidgeted and shot Larry a glance, while Steve appropriated chairs from a nearby table.

  “Yessir, you really got balls.” Barry sat. “You’re lucky to be still breathing.”

  “Look, Barry,” began Jack carefully.

  Barry leaned across the table, pushing his face too close to Jack’s. “Don’t give me that ‘look, Barry’ crap.”

  “Hey,” Doris interrupted, “what goes on? I thought you guys were supposed to be such good buddies.”

  “Not no more,” Barry growled. “Some buddy.” His tone became aggrieved.

  Steve relaxed as the violence almost imperceptibly melted from his partner’s stance.

  “A guy don’t want buddies that are hanging around the house while he’s out working.”

  “You got it wrong, Barry. Cathy and me ain’t…”

  “Oh Christ,” interrupted Doris. “You two would have to start this now.” She kept checking Athena, but the other woman kept her eyes fixed on the table, her face unreadable. Larry, however, had gone dead white.

  “And you supposed to be her cousin,” Barry went on with a nasty smile. “Let me tell you something, cuz. I ever catch you two at it, I’m gonna blow your head off.”

  “You’re crazy. I never…” Jack stopped. His jaw tightened, and he gave Larry a look that clearly said “you owe me big-time, pal.”

  Steve’s gaze never wandered from Athena. Something was going on here. Something bad. There were blotches under her eyes. Her blouse was newly washed, very clean, very wrinkled. She’d been the source of the tension when they’d entered—he felt sure of that. Dread coiled deep in his gut.

  Finally, there came a lull in the noise from Barry.

  Still gazing down at the table, Athena drew a deep breath. “I asked you two to stop here because, well, really, Doris asked you, but we both thought so, because I wanted to ask you—I mean, tell you—what I’ve just been telling the others.” She paused, gathering strength. Barry stared at her, and the ambulance crew squirmed. “The night my husband, I mean, my brother-in-law died, the night before last when Lonny was killed…I saw something in the woods. It came after me. Something like a man.”

  “What?”

  “But I thought”—Steve paused, searching her expression—“I thought it was the dogs.” She raised her head for the first time, and with a sinking feeling, he recognized the look in her eyes; he’d seen it often enough in mirrors. But what could she have to feel guilty about? “Are you telling us a man killed Lonny?”

  “Like a man.”

  “What are you saying?” Barry glared at her.

  Everyone shifted uneasily. Doris picked up a hamburger. “There’s a hair in this. Oh Christ, I think it’s from Sims’s mustache.”

  Larry nudged Jack. “Quick, man, get the throw-up pan.”

  “What exactly did you see, ’Thena?” Steve kept his voice calm.

  “You can’t expect her to describe it,” Doris interrupted, bristling. “Not after everything that’s happened, not when—”

  Athena put up a hand. “It was dark…and the storm…” Her voice fell, and she turned her face toward the window. “Barry? I saw its teeth. They were human teeth. And it stood up.”

  “So what are you saying? It was the Jersey Devil or what?”

  Steve asked, “Did anyone else see this…this thing?”

  Athena looked away from the window. “My sister-in-law was there.”

  “And did she see it?” he repeated gently.

  Doris leaned forward.

  She shook her head. The Formica tabletop was scratched and yellowed, and she stared at the worm tracks of cigarette burns.

  Steve’s voice coaxed. “What did she see?”

  “Dogs,” she whispered, gazing into her coffee mug as though peering down a well.

  With a laugh both exasperated and triumphant, Barry sat back. Before he could speak, Doris added, “I took some scrapings from the bodies of both victims.”

  “What both?” Barry looked ready to snarl.

  “Athena’s brother-in-law and the construction worker found in the car.”

  “Oh for—”

  “I took scrapings,” she continued, “and left them with a friend of mine at the lab. Unfortunately, the hospital administrator got wind of it. Took sort of a dim view.” She sighed. “So we don’t exactly have a lab report, but—”

  “You support this?” Steve interrupted, watching her face. “You’re supporting this story? This claim that there was a man or what ever involved? Do you know something about this?”

  “It’s like I was saying, I don’t exactly have a report. But one of the bodies, the hard hat, I’m pretty sure what the scrapings were. Semen.”

  “Jesus,” Larry breathed.

  “You may have noticed this last little fact wasn’t in the official account,” Doris finished. “No mention of it at all.” Exhaling a cloud of smoke, she put a supportive arm around Athena’s shoulders.

  Barry stared hard at Athena. At the next table, a woman asked loudly for the check.

  “Even so.” Steve nodded slowly, his voice grim. “It could still have been dogs.”

  “Oh shit.” Larry looked sick.

  Unnoticed until now, photographs had been lying facedown on the table. Doris flipped them over.

  “Jesus H. Christ!”

  The color enlargements revealed each wound in pornographic detail.

  “Where the hell’d you get these?” demanded Barry. “Oh. Of course. You and your frigging friends.”

  “Doris?” A slight tremor marred Steve’s attempt at a tone of mere professional interest. “Have you got anything else to go on?”

  Some of the anger drained from her face, but her hands remained clenched. “Well, for one thing,” Doris began, “there are no animal hairs on this body. And there should be, especially considering the method of attack—the ferocity, the violence. Look at the claw marks.” She pointed to a photo, nodded to Steve. “We both saw those. Even on the side of the car.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “There should be fur all over, inside the wounds, even.”

  “And the other? Lonny?” asked Steve. “Was there any fur on him?”

  “Well,” Doris hesitated. “He may have been killed first and later eviscerated by dogs.”

  “Shit,” Barry grumbled. “So what you’re saying is there were dog signs all over Lonny. Am I right?” Again he laughed. “This is fucking ridiculous.”

  Steve watched Athena. Her fingertips stroked her forehead, one hand shielding her eyes from Barry, screening her face from his words. She seemed so drained, so weary, yet still so strong. He felt as though he were seeing deep inside of her now, as though this quality, this endurance, this purity were something she normally kept hidden from the world.

  Hesitantly, Larry turned to the older cop. “But what about the guy in the car?” he ventured. “I mean, like Doris says, if the dogs did it, why isn’t there…?”

  “The rain.” Barry spoke slowly. “The rain washed the dog fur off him. That’s all, twit.” He looked at his watch. “Is that it?”

  “The stateys may have something,” added Doris.

  “Yeah, so? What d
o you want me to do about it?”

  “Couldn’t you maybe talk to somebody?”

  He mumbled an obscenity.

  “When I was in the trailer…”

  Everyone turned toward the flat voice.

  “I think I heard…what ever it was…fighting with the dogs. It…the man…may be bitten. We could check hospitals.”

  Barry made a scornful noise.

  “Maybe what you heard was your brother-in-law,” Steve suggested, “being attacked by the dog pack.” His hand inched across the table toward hers, then stopped, fingers curling.

  Barry blew smoke. He leaned forward, parodying Steve’s position and tone of voice. “Listen, Athena, I understand how bad you feel about poor old Lonny, but you really do know it was dogs tore them men up, don’t you?”

  Athena clenched the handle of her mug so hard her knuckles stood out like a row of pearls.

  Steve cleared his throat. “Barry, I thought you were the one saying these animals weren’t dangerous.”

  “I never said they wasn’t dangerous,” Barry railed at him, obviously feeling betrayed. “I just said—”

  “It wasn’t an animal! I told you, it stood on two legs like a man! Why doesn’t anybody believe me?”

  “And I’m telling you we don’t need to stir up no trouble like that!” Barry answered, breathing hard.

  “About what time would you say this all happened?” asked Steve. “’Thena?” When she didn’t answer him, he looked around and realized that all over the restaurant, people were staring at them. “’Thena?” he repeated. “What do you want us to do?”

  She looked at him and didn’t say anything.

  “What?” He furrowed his brow.

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I want you to help me, I guess. I had a chance to shoot it and couldn’t do it. I waited too long. I don’t know why.”

  “Could it have been your brother-in-law who chased you?” asked Steve.

  “Listen, Doris.” Jack started to get up. “Larry and me, we got to get going.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Larry. “We, uh, got things to do.”

  “Could a couple of scrawny mutts tear a man’s arm off?” demanded Doris.

  “You saying a man did that?” Barry slammed the photos down in the center of the table. “You said it yourself—look at the claw marks.” He sat back, satisfied he’d made his point. In a softer, patronizing tone, he added, “Now, it would be different if you had one shred of evidence.”

  “That’s exactly what we do have.” Doris shoved the pictures back at him. “Shred of evidence.”

  “I’m not crazy. Don’t everybody look at me like that!”

  “Honey, nobody said that.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait a minute, Barry,” Steve said. “If it is wild dogs, and if they have started attacking people…”

  “What the frig’s going on at this table?” Doris looked up to find Sims glaring down at them, his mustache twitching with outrage. “People comin’ in here for lunch, an my customers is complainin’ you’re takin’ their appetites away. Good Christ, what are those?” He snatched the photos off the table before anyone could stop him. “What the hell kinda thing is ’is to bring inna restaurant?”

  Larry and Jack took advantage of the diversion to edge away from the table. Hopelessly, Athena watched as they headed for the door.

  “If they’re your patrons, they don’t need us to make them sick,” Doris growled, her hand on Athena’s shoulder. “They should thank us. We probably saved them from ptomaine.” She turned back to Athena. “Excuse me, honey. I have to go to the little girls’ room.”

  “Wait, Doris, please, just…Even if the dogs killed Lonny, I tell you I saw what was chasing me. After I got away, the thing must’ve found the man on the road and…Doris?”

  “Back in a minute, honey. Yo, Sims, why don’t you turn the air-conditioning up?”

  “Shit.”

  Steve watched as Doris took the proprietor aside. They stood by the door, Doris whispering and gesturing rapidly, and Steve knew Sims wouldn’t bother them again. When he returned his attention to the table, he saw Barry leaning across it with both his hands on Athena’s folded hands. She kept shaking her head. When he caught some of Barry’s words, he faced away in embarrassment.

  The woman at the next table had impossibly blonde hair sprayed to brittle stiffness. “So she was riding the…you remember the old Camden trolley, don’t you? And there the Devil was, she said, just sitting right on top the power cable, wings folded up, she told me, just sitting there like a bird or a bat or something.” She waggled bright red fingernails. “Anyways, the driver stops the trolley, and they all hanged out the windows to watch until a policeman come along and shoots at it. Then it flaps away. She says it made a awful noise, like something dying.”

  Steve craned his neck to look around the room and overheard wisps of similar conversations. Some people even kept glancing at the windows, and a few actually started gathering up their things.

  “But it’s what you said. Remember?” Athena’s voice grew louder. “There’s always been too many deaths and disappearances out here. There must be a reason. Remember, you said…?”

  Movement across the room caught Steve’s attention: Sims stood on a chair and, after several wobbling attempts, managed to unhook the painting that hung over the counter. He jumped down heavily, muttering, then stuck the picture of the Devil behind the counter before hobbling back to the stove where things were frying. A dark grease shadow lay where the painting had been; at its center, wormy laths showed through a hole in the crumbling plaster.

  “She told me herself she had a big fight with him a couple days before he died. He even hit her, and she had to set that damn big dog of hers on him. Now he’s dead, and she finds the body? If she makes a federal case out of this, who the hell’s she think the prime suspect’s gonna be?”

  Pines whipped furiously past the car.

  “Slow down. I’ll bet Frank won’t care much for this development. If they get a manhunt started, it’ll really ruin your little business.”

  “Shit.” Barry gritted his teeth, jerked the wheel. “We’ll handle it,” he said finally, flicking a butt out the window. “Things’ll die down after while.”

  “You hope.” He looked hard at his partner and didn’t like what he saw. “I doubt the ambulance people will just let it drop.”

  “Well, then, maybe Frank’s got some ideas about that.” Barry shook with laughter. “Ideas that’ll fix their wagon.” The car swerved.

  Uneasy, Steve watched him, puzzled.

  By the time she’d left Doris—after an evening spent hanging around the hall—it had already grown quite dark.

  She wondered what time it was as she slammed the car door and walked around to the back of the house. She only knew that it had to be late. She felt drained by anger and frustration, sick and furious with herself every time she thought of Barry. At least Steve had seemed more receptive. Or perhaps just more polite.

  The darkness around the house seemed more solid than usual as she limped heavily up the porch stairs. Every light in the place blazed. She couldn’t wait to see this month’s electric bill.

  A shriek assaulted her ears, and a heavy iron skillet gouged wood from the doorframe. “It’s me! Pamela, stop it!” The thrown skillet rolled, thudding on the floor.

  Pam cowered against the stove, one hand on her heart. “Oh God, ’Thena. Oh, I’m so glad, oh God…I got so scared. I’m so glad you’re home.”

  “Yeah, me too,” she muttered as she locked the door.

  “I kept hearing noises. Oh, ’Thena—all night long, I kept hearing noises. All alone here. An’ things kept moving by themselves and all, I swear to God. By themselves. ’Thena, I heard footsteps outside. I knew it was them dogs coming to get me, or a monster. I know it was Lonny’s ghost. I know it.” She blinked red, swollen eyes. She hadn’t gotten dressed today. When she’d seen it in the catalog, her nigh
tgown had possessed the glamorous shimmer of a frost-covered window pane. Now it hung like an old curtain. “I asked the Ouija board an’ it just kept on saying, ‘danger in house danger.’ Oh, ’Thena. An’ then a rat got in the house, I swear to God, a big black wood rat. I tried to get it with the broom, but it ran behind the stove, an’ then I didn’t see it no more.”

  “All right, Pam. I’m home now. It’s all right.” Standing at the stove, she poured herself yet another cup of coffee and wondered if she’d ever sleep again. She marveled to think that just a few weeks ago she’d been worried about sleeping too much. “Could you do me a favor, Pamela? Could we just sit here and be quiet for a few minutes?”

  A moth swung about the light globe on the ceiling.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’re back. Oh, and you know what else? Y’know what Matty said while I was feeding him dinner?”

  “Where is Matthew?”

  “Oh, I put him to bed a while ago now. Anyhow, you know what he said? I said, ‘Eat it all up an you’ll grow up big and strong now,’ an’ he said, ‘I don’t wanna grow up!’ Just like that. ‘I don’t wanna grow up!’ Wasn’t that a funny thing for him to say? I’m gonna push the table against the door now you’re home. You think I should?”

  She closed her eyes, shutting Pamela out, shutting herself in with bleak thoughts of Matthew’s future. There were times when she didn’t want him to grow up, either. If possible, she felt even more weary than before.

  “An’ look—he hit me today. I mean, he didn’t do it on purpose or nothing, but look at that.” She displayed a large bruise on her upper arm, already mottling from purple to green. “The dog ain’t here. I’d like to know where the hell he goes at night. Matty gets all upset. An’ those bad dreams he’s been havin’. Why should he be havin’ bad dreams about Chabwok all of a sudden? What’s that? Oh, what’s that?”

  “It’s just Dooley scratching at the door. Let him in, will you. Oh, never mind. I’ll do it. Be quiet, Pam. I’ll lock it again. Get in here, dog.”

  “Why should Matty be havin’ bad—?”

  “I don’t know.” She sat at the table. “What have you told him about Lonny?” She put her head in her hands. “No, not now. Please, Pamela, I’m so very tired. Could we talk about this some other…?”