by Geoff North
“When I awoke dear, I was mistaken—”
Someone was crying, it sounded so far away. Becky realized the sound was coming from her. He’s still singing. Still singing… He can survive a wound like that. Abe recovered from worse. Please… Stop fighting them… Stop singing…
A second spear delivered from two powerful carriers sunk in higher up. Edwin’s song became a whistling rasp. That one had punctured a lung.
A third spear, through the thick meat of an upper leg.
A fourth through the center of his chest narrowly missed his heart. And still Edwin Greely sung on.
“So I hung my head and I cr—”
A fifth and final thrust through his throat. Becky could see his lips still moving as he toppled onto his side, blood bubbling from his mouth. Something pounded at her leg. She looked down and saw Ann’s terror-filled eyes staring up. She had taken hold of Becky’s arm and was preparing to bite. Becky scooped her up and fled into the shadows after Abe and Boo.
She had agreed to head north with Abe because she loved him with all her heart. This world was in the throes of great change. A species that would one day dominate all four corners of the globe was nearing its end in the distant past. Countless generations from now humanity would flood across the world in an unstoppable deluge. But here in the past, that future had now become anything but inevitable. There were few of her kind left.
They would never make it.
But Becky would try. She would try because she loved Abe. And she wanted to go home.
Chapter 13
The Feerce farmhouse had all the exterior ingredients required to make it look like a proper haunted house. All it needed was a little more stirring. A few months more—another year or so left on its own to stew with no upkeep—would give it an even more sinister flavor. The front and back lawns, once mown weekly when Sheila Feerce’s parents lived there, were a foot-high jungle of twitch grass and weeds only mosquitoes and wood ticks called home. The unruly grass twisted in with the untrimmed lilac bushes in front of the house. The bushes had become tangled with ivy and wild caragana, clinging to the house, creeping along the windows and scratching at the siding, as if nature itself was trying to drag the house into the ground.
People didn’t want to talk about the place, or they had been forced not to. The silence built up around the Feerce farm had become legendary in a very short time.
Don’t talk about the young man that lives there. Don’t speak about his paper-white skin and bulging black eyes. Don’t speak about the girl living with him. Her hair is a wild, black mess, her skin as white as the boy’s. She’s a witch. Some say—some think—she’s the daughter of the folks that used to live there. Whatever happened to them? Why did they leave their—only?—child behind? What were their names?
Don’t talk about them. Don’t think about them.
But even in silence, even when close-surfacing thoughts are suppressed, places like the old Feerce Farmhouse grow a subconscious kind of reputation.
No one had told Stewart Weibe to keep his mouth shut. Nobody had warned the kids of Birdtail Elementary they couldn’t talk about things on the playground, or any other place when adults weren’t within earshot. And kids liked to talk.
It was one of those talking days on Friday, October 29th of 2011. The noon hour bell had rung fifteen minutes earlier and the kids were meeting out on the school playground. Meals had been eaten quickly, paper bags tossed into garbage cans, lunch kits shoved hurriedly back into lockers as children from Kindergarten through Grade Six poured outside to enjoy an unusually warm autumn Friday.
Stewart went to meet up with the Goon Squad underneath the big old fir tree bordering the playground’s southern fence. The Goon Squad was a name given by Leroy Thomson’s dad for the six boys that always hung out together. He also called them the Half Dirty Dozen, but the kids liked the sound of Goon Squad better, and the name had stuck. There were only four members under the tree that afternoon; Darren Wayne was home sick with something, and Conrad Matowsky had been excused a few days from school to attend his grandfather’s funeral in another province. That just left Stewart, Leroy, Brian Bryant, and Wesley Zimmer.
Stewart was the first one there. He was playing catch-up since moving to Birdtail less than two years before and joining the gang last. The other boys had warmed to him quickly though; maybe because by becoming a part of their crew it had allowed them their title. You couldn’t become a Dirty Half Dozen or a real Goon Squad with less than six members.
Leroy and Brian joined him next. “Hey, Weibe the Dweeb!” Leroy always greeted him with the insulting nickname, “Whatcha have for lunch?”
“Salmon sandwich, banana, apple juice… again.”
“Is that all your mom ever gives you? Jesus, man—is your kitchen just filled with fish and fruit?”
Stewart shrugged and watched Leroy wipe a wad of snot from his nose with the back of his arm. It left a clear, glistening strip against his coat sleeve. “What time are you guys going trick or treating on Sunday?”
Brian Bryant laughed. “Trick or treating? Is that what you call it? The Goon Squad doesn’t trick or treat. The Goon Squad eggs windows and keys cars.”
Stewart recalled Halloween one year earlier. It had only been a month or so after his dad had the shit kicked out of him in the woods. The other boys let him tag along Halloween night but Stewart couldn’t remember any cars being keyed—a few eggs against windows—no major vandalism.
Brian was still ginning his fat-faced grin. Stewart wondered what he would think of the nick-name they’d given him behind his back. Beach Ball Head. Hardly imaginative, but it summed up the kid’s appearance well enough. His head was roughly the same size and shape of a beach ball—unusually big and round—the skin of his face always pink, his hair a shocking shade of blonde-white and shaved close to his sweaty scalp. Stewart thought he looked more like one of those red and white fishing things, those hollow plastic floating balls that alerted you to a bite, but none of the boys knew what they were called, so the beach ball name was used instead. “What the hell you staring at?” Brian asked.
Stewart was grinning too now. “Nothin’.”
Wesley Zimmer jogged across the playground towards them. Wesley was a scrawny fart next to Brian. He was asthmatic and his trusty puffer was always close at hand, if not in it. “What’s up, guys? Wanna jump the fence and go down town?”
“Bryant’s too fat to climb the fence,” Leroy said. “Stewy here wants to know what’s up on Halloween night. You going out?”
“Hell yeah,” Wesley answered. “I stole a dozen eggs from the fridge two weeks ago and my Mom never noticed. I got them by the heater in my bedroom. Should be good and rotten inside by now.”
“Excellent.” Brian was nodding, but still giving Leroy a dirty pink glare for the too-fat-to- climb remark. “I told Stewart we were gonna key some cars but I get the feeling he thinks I’m shittin’ him.”
“I’m not keying any cars,” Wesley said. “Not after what Darren did two years ago.”
Brian giggled. Stewart looked at Leroy.
Leroy was clearing his other nostril. “Darren keyed old man Smarte’s Buick and got caught.”
“The guy that used to run the old movie theatre?”
“The same,” Leroy answered. “The rest of us ran like hell but I looked back and saw him grab Darren around the neck. Thought he was gonna choke him to death right there.”
“It all worked out in the end.” Wesley took a haul off his puffer and stuffed into a back pocket. “When Darren’s parents found out, they threatened to sue the old bastard for child abuse. Smarte agreed to drop the whole thing so long as Darren never went near his car or theatre again.”
Brian’s was grinning again. “And Darren’s dad kicked the hell out of him real good for keying the old guy’s car. None of us have ever done something that bad since.”
“So why’d you say we should key cars this year?”
Brian shrugged back at him, his f
at cheeks jiggled. “I dunno… just sayin’ shit, I guess.”
Leroy punched Stewart’s shoulder. “You got any better ideas? What’s the plan, Dweeb? We got plenty of rotten eggs.”
Stewart looked at the ground and shuffled his sneakered feet. “Well… seeing as it’s gonna be Halloween and everything… You know, spooky and all… Maybe we should toss ‘em at the old Feerce farmhouse.”
“You’re joking, right?” Leroy answered after a few silent moments. “The frickin’ Feerce farmhouse? No one screws with that place.”
“We aren’t much of a Goon Squad if we don’t do scary stuff,” Stewart said, his eyes still glued to his shoes.
“Looks like Stewy grew a pair over the summer,” Brian said. “Maybe he’s right, maybe we should do something everyone will remember. Hell yeah…I like it.”
“Count me out,” Wesley was already retrieving the puffer from his pants. “My parents told me to keep away from that place months ago. And when they said it, they looked really scared. I’m not going anywhere near that house.”
Leroy was rubbing his chin between thumb and forefinger. “I dunno… My Dad said pretty much the same. Keep away. The two kids living there… I don’t think they’re normal. I heard the girl might be a witch.”
Brian shoved him into the fence. “Who the hell told you that? Your dad? I ain’t never heard that. You’re just a chicken-shit.”
“I’m not scared of nothin’. I’ll go toss a few eggs, but I’ll throw ‘em from far away. I’m not stupid. I won’t get that close.”
“Later.” Wesley headed back across the playground, hiking a hand over his head. “You can come get my eggs Sunday morning. Let me know how it goes on Monday… if you make it back to school.” He made a maniacal laughing sound. It was a feeble mad-scientist imitation, but it still managed to chill Stewart a little.
Brian gave a nervous laugh. “Well that just leaves the Three Stooges, I guess.”
“We’re the Goon Squad,” Leroy affirmed. “Those other three are pussies.”
They started talking about other school matters—how gross the new red-headed girl in Grade Five was, how fat the Grade Two teacher, Mrs. Stemke, had become over the summer holidays, how much math sucked, and the how many gifts they were already planning to receive that Christmas. Leroy expected a new X-Box. Brian wanted a snowmobile.
Stewart’s was still thinking about Halloween, his eyes trained on the groove of loose soil he’d kicked up. He would throw the rotten eggs. But he planned on getting closer to the house than his friends. He pictured his dad—a bleeding, crumpled, black form—lying in the stubble.
Stewart would get a hell of a lot closer.
***
The sun had already set by the time Stewart showed up at Wesley Zimmer’s place to pick up the dozen rotten eggs on Halloween evening.
“This is bullshit,” Wesley warned as he stuffed the cardboard carton into an empty shopping bag. “I can’t believe you guys are actually going through with it.”
Stewart was sitting on the end of his friend’s bed, his hands shoved deep inside his coat pockets where the matches were. On his head was a black toque, one he’d found in his father’s closet that he thought made him look like Jack Nicholson from the old movie he’d watched with his mom a few weeks earlier, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It was a little too big, the black acrylic hung over his eyes and he was constantly pushing it back up. But it made him feel tougher than he was, a little crazier. And he needed too feel a little crazy to get through this night. He needed something to make him brave, and acting the part of a bat-shit crazy, uncaring lunatic was about the best he could do. “You sure you can’t come? An extra set of eyes couldn’t hurt. Maybe you could just hang back and watch.”
“Uh-Unh… No frickin’ way.” Wesley tied the plastic handles into a knot and handed the eggs to Stewart. “You shouldn’t do it, Stew. My Mom and Dad—”
“You didn’t tell them, did you?”
“No way. I don’t even like thinking about the Feerce farm… But I remember that look in my Dad’s eyes when he warned me about the place. Hell, he whispered it to me… like he couldn’t even talk about it in the open… like someone might hear him.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Is it? How come two teenagers are living there all on their own? How come they don’t have to go to school, and where are their parents?” Wesley watched as Stewart placed the eggs beneath his coat and zipped back up. “I saw them once you know… the two of them together in town. It was last winter, right before that big blizzard on New Year’s.”
“Where?”
“The grocery store. I was looking at magazines when they came in. She does look like a witch, you know—her hair all messy and hanging across her face.”
Stewart had never seen the two teens that had beaten his father almost dead. He didn’t know of anyone that had ever seen them close up. “What about him? What did he look like?”
Wesley winced, as if recalling the image caused pain. He looked about desperately for his puffer and found it on the end table under a lamp. He took a half puff and continued. “He was fricking bald, like Professor Xavier from the X-Men. There were these big, blue veins popping up all over his white head… Jesus, it was gross… And his eyes, like big fricking, black marbles.” Wesley took another puff but it didn’t seem to do much good. He sat slumped over next to Stewart, his small chest heaving.
“What happened next, what did they do?”
“Shopped. They grabbed a cart and filled it to the top with food. Must have been four or five hundred dollars worth of junk food jammed in there.”
“Then what?”
“Then they went to the checkout… he said something to the cashier… leaned in and whispered into her ear, and then the food was bagged up and they left.”
“They didn’t pay?”
Wesley shook his head and fiddled with the puffer between his fingers. “Not that I could see. I tried to stay hidden, all hunched over the magazines and comic books like a little chicken-shit. They pushed that cart out of the store and I never saw them again. I don’t think they saw me… Thank God.”
Like a witch… Hair all messy and hanging across her face… Big blue veins popping up all over his white head… Eyes like big black marbles. Stewart had pictured the youths as something quite different… something more human. The egg carton was digging into his sweaty armpit. The toque slid back over his left eye, and suddenly he didn’t feel quite so bat-shit crazy. Maybe this isn’t a good idea.
“Leave them alone,” Wesley was pleading. “Just keep away from there.”
Leave them alone… My Dad was tracking a bear. He was trying to keep us safe… They didn’t keep leave us alone… And my family’s never been the same since.
Stewart stood and readjusted the toque.
Wesley took a final tug on the puffer. “You’re going through with it, aren’t you?”
Stewart nodded.
“It’s Halloween. Where’s your costume?”
“You’re looking at it.”
“Whatcha supposed to be?”
“Jack Nicholson from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Wesley didn’t get it.
“I’m a crazy fucker.”
***
Stewart just wanted to get it over with, but Leroy and Brian had insisted on going from house to house in town gathering as much candy as they could. It was Halloween night, after all. Shortly before ten PM the boys were trudging down the gravel road out of town towards the Feerce farm, pillow cases half-filled with loot slung over their shoulders.
“My arm’s getting sore carrying this shit,” Leroy whined. “Maybe we should come back some other night.”
Brian made a chicken-clucking noise. “What’s the matter, Thomson? You losing your nerve? Maybe we should take you home first to have a suck on your mom’s tit.”
“I’m not scared, I’m just tired.”
Stewart wiped a snowflake from his eye. It had gotten c
older and the road was already covered with half an inch of the white stuff. Clouds blotted out the moon and stars, and they made their way along from the feel of frozen gravel beneath their boots. “We’re going through with it.”
“Can’t see shit,” Leroy muttered. “Stupid idea.”
It took a long while before Brian responded. “You’re stupid.”
Leroy ignored him. “Hey, Stewy, when we’re done do you think maybe we could go to your house and have your dad give us a ride home?”
“Smartest thing outta your mouth all night,” Brian said.
“Sure,” Stewart answered. “Probably be my Mom, though. Dad doesn’t like going out after dark.”
“How come?”
Stewart didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t want to answer. A white glow appeared off to the right in the distance. It disappeared and came back into view the further they walked.
“What the hell is that?” Brian whispered. “Boys… I think it’s a UFO!”
Stewart stopped on the road, wiping small icicles from his lashes and blinking the wet away for a better look. It was a dull light, almost grey with dancing flickers of pink and yellow surrounding it. He wiped an accumulation of moisture from his cheeks mistaking it for sweat and then laughed. “That’s the Feerce farm yard light. We’re looking at it through fog.”
“Fog?” Brian sounded almost disappointed, as most kids do when they realize shooting stars and orbiting satellites aren’t extra-terrestrial. “It wasn’t foggy when we left town.”
“That was half an hour ago, asshole,” Leroy said. “It wasn’t snowing then either.”
They started walking again and watched as the light blinked out and reappeared. It was a line of trees between them and the yard light creating the effect—a shelterbelt of forest surrounding the house. The same shelterbelt Stewart’s dad had wandered into over a year ago and been dragged out of unconscious.