Some of us were sitting. Lance Ludwick had brought card tables and chairs. And if we weren’t so afraid of being frowned upon, I’ll bet one of us would have broke out a deck of cards. But that’s just rude.
Lance sat in his chair, nudged me. “I could smell that last one. Could you?”
“I think I did,” I said. I had smelled it. It was foul. But I didn’t say a word. I felt like that was rude, too.
Every so often, Ms. Brininstool would wander over to an officer and ask for a body count. Each time she’d come back with a new number, and each time we’d all look at our laps and shake our heads in disbelief. I think every one of us felt a little guilty. We’d all been in that yard, tending to the lawn, planting flowers, and even hanging decorations during Halloween to lessen the eyesore. And not one of us knew about the kids buried there. Yet there we were, walking about on top of them, only a foot or so of earth between us and them.
It was Charlie Sawyer who found the first one. Charlie’s dog, Oscar, had passed, and with the new pool and the deck and the patio taking up most of his yard, he carried old Oscar over to 201 and dug a hole. Except he’d only got down less than two feet before the blade of his shovel cut through the leg of a boy he figured had been there the better part of a year.
That’s when the cops were called, followed by the coroner. And within an hour the block was lined with news vans, unidentified vehicles with law enforcement pouring out of them, crime labs and a few volunteer firemen to help turn the yard inside out. That’s when the neighborhood showed up for an impromptu wake—though a block party is what it more resembled—for whatever poor souls were buried back there.
It wasn’t until Ralph Wygant rolled out his barbeque that any of us suspected one of our own responsible for burying those kids. I knew Ralph better than most, and to me the man was just showing off his goods. I knew he’d gotten a bonus at work and with it bought himself a new grill. In poor taste? Yeah, it was. But I don’t think Ralph was insensitive as much as he was an idiot. And once the steak drippings hit the charcoal, there was more than one guy standing around it, asking questions about charcoal this and flame-broiled that. For a while the talk was pure testosterone. A grill tends to do that. Mix it with trying to be strong around your woman while bodies are dug up across the street and you’ll sprout hair on your chest just standing nearby.
Still, that’s when we all started questioning whether or not any of us on the block was capable of such monstrosities—killing kids and burying them. I overhead more than a few people slinging gossip: What of Mr. Lincoln? Such a night owl he is, always on his porch reading into the wee hours. Or Rick Wenger and how he seemed to hate kids, always cussing at them for cutting through his back lot to get to school. Or about the McPherson boy who came home early from the Army on account of mental problems. Not sure which ones, but enough wrong upstairs that the government didn’t trust him, and maybe we shouldn’t either.
As I listened, I made up my mind that you could have found suspicion in any one of us. Hell, even Mrs. Weimer. She spent more time than any of us over at 201, tending to the perennials, shovel in hand.
And Halloween in particular brought everyone out. Every single one of us made our donation to the late-October decor. Jack-o’-lanterns, styrofoam tombstones, and poster board cutouts. The house was covered in and surrounded by them, thanks to us. It was the one time of year that the chipped paint, broken windows and splintered porch added character to the surroundings rather than stand as an ugly wart in the center of mid upper class Hillfield.
Most of the decorations were up. Except the jack-o’-lantern. Like the star atop a Christmas tree, that was saved for last. Someone, normally Mrs. Weimer, would set a jack-o’-lantern on the porch Halloween day, unlit so no kids would mistake the house for one offering sweets, what with the house glowing in holiday spirit and all. The kids around the block knew better, but sometimes we’d get those from several blocks away with overstuffed bags, on a quest to find more than they could handle, wandering into unknown territory. The thought made me wonder if some of those kids found themselves buried under the lawn of 201.
And here it is, Halloween. Go figure.
The odor hit me again. I couldn’t ignore this time. It was stronger, like hot garbage filled with Lord knows what. I stood up, covered my mouth, and headed over to Wygant’s barbecue grill where he flipped steaks and drank beers with Steve Lincoln.
“I’ll be throwing plenty more on, Richard. I had Suz empty the freezer. Looks like it’ll be a long day. Help yourself.” Ralph pointed to a red cooler sitting in the driveway near some lawn chairs. I knew there was beer inside. Ralph was big on beer. You’d rarely catch him without, but never drunk. I had my suspicions he’d sip on the same one for hours.
It was a little early to be drinking, but I flipped the cooler lid and pulled out a bottle of Stroh’s. Steve was never sold on one brand. He’d try a different kind every time, so what could have been in that cooler was anybody’s guess. Steve handed me an opener and I popped the lid. “To the kids,” I said, then took a gulp.
“What the hell kind of monster does this, Richard?” Steve asked.
“One that’s gonna burn for it, I hope.”
“You think he’s still out there?”
“None of us know a damn thing, and we may never know.”
“Some are saying . . . ”
“People are talkin’ shit.” I cut him off. “We all look guilty in one way or another. But I don’t think any of us did it. I think this has been a safe place for someone out there to dump these poor kids for a long time now.”
“Seems like one of us would have seen somebody,” Ralph chimed in.
“We probably did,” I said. “Probably chalked it up as one of our own, keeping up the yard.”
That day, among the gossip and the wonderment and the worry, was a bond formed between every one of us, black vinyl bags filled with decomposition the catalyst. With each body removed and loaded into a van, our bond strengthened. The horror we experienced that day would stay with us forever, and it’d be nothing anyone else could ever relate to. There’d never be a shoulder to cry on that wasn’t one of our own. And through the years we’d meet other people. Some we’d marry or date or have as friends, and we’d have kids and grandkids and so on. And on those days when we’re staring out the window, fighting back tears, they’d ask what was wrong, and we’d lie and say nothing. Nothing was wrong.
“I’ll never set foot on that land again,” Steve said.
“If I do, it’ll be to fetch my lights and that’s it,” Ralph said.
I knew none of us would ever go there again, and the house would sit buried by overgrown shrubs, the grass would turn to meadow until every few months when the city steps in, cuts it and leaves the foot-long blades scattered about. Mrs. Weimer would never return to the perennials and they’d die away, choked out by weeds, wilted by the piss of roaming dogs. And finally, the city would take it all away, tear it down. And there’d only be a scar in the curb where a driveway used to be. An open lot that would never be used to play catch in or have a pick-up game of ball.
A news reporter had just finished with her hair and makeup and whatever the hell else they do before they go live, then had a test run of their spiel, with Ms. Weimer nearby for an interview. It seemed a little premature yet, that reporter standing there all pretty and composed in front of Summerdale’s own hell house. Even worse than setting out chairs for the morbidly curious and grilling steaks for the hungry in waiting. After all, she didn’t know a thing about our little neighborhood, the history of the house, the time we’d each take to look after the aging, wooden blemish. Yet, there she stood, microphone in hand, not a hair out of place, getting ready to share our corner of the world with those who’d never know otherwise. All for the ratings, the bragging rights—a little game I knew damn well every news station plays, and I suspect if we could look behind that curtain we wouldn’t like what we saw one bit. Well, how’s that for digressing?
I found my coffee again, sipped it to disguise the smell of the late-morning Stroh’s, and wandered over to where Rick Wenger stood. I caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were large and glassy and held tears that threatened to drop at the first blink, which was not for a good, long minute.
“My yard’s an open road now, Richard,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if these kids wanna cut through my yard on their way to school, then they’re welcome to it. I don’t know why it bothered me in the first place. They never mean any harm.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just patted him on the shoulder.
“Matter of fact. I’m gonna get one of those Neighborhood Watch signs and put it right on the edge of my lawn, maybe another sign, too. One of those they post near schools where the kids cross, maybe stick a light on it. I just want them to feel safe, ya know?”
He rambled on about plans he had for keeping children safe. None of it made much sense. But I knew he meant well so I listened.
Most of the backyard at 201 was hidden by pine trees, people working the scene, and a few tarps set up, though you could still make out piles of dirt next to holes dug and little yellow flags that poked up from the ground in a dozen different spots. Other than that, it was hard to see much of anything. Until they took to digging in the side yard. Then everyone seemed to shift that way, slow like. We kind of slithered there. Even Mrs. Chisholm wheeled herself to another window to get a better view. Every one of us wanted to see more, yet we didn’t. We all pretended that we ended up closer by way of chance and not because we’re disgusting humans who peer at things that might keep us up at night for years to come. Human beings are curious creatures. If curiosity kills the cat, it gives humans nightmares.
One of the workers dug about a foot or so into the ground before he stopped, then tugged on what looked like cloth. The crowd grew quiet, a few whispers was all. I looked over at Mrs. Weimer who had her head bowed in prayer, her lips moving frantically, her arms wrapped around herself. Mr. and Mrs. Fields were in each other’s arms, Mr. Field with a cigarette hanging from his lips, puffing at it fiercely.
The worker with the shovel called someone over to him and they both tugged at the cloth, then started at it with small garden shovels while another man took photographs.
“If that’s another one, that’ll be fourteen,” I could hear Ms. Brininstool say.
I felt sick. Mrs. Weimer started crying. I could hear Rick Wenger make funny noises, like he just couldn’t take it anymore and would break down any second. He turned and walked over to Ralph’s cooler and grabbed a beer. He opened the bottle with his bare hands and downed the beer all at once. He burped quietly into his hand, then got another beer. This time he drank only half and sat down in one of the chairs, stared at his feet. I saw his body shaking. He was breaking indeed.
The murmur of voices picked up as we waited for what we’d later regret seeing. The men were careful with their shovels and the digging took some time before they called another person over and more photos were taken. A sheet was laid out on the ground, and a body was lifted from the hole. It wasn’t a small body and I don’t think it’d been dead for long. It was all intact—skin, muscle, fat. And judging by the short brown hair, I think it was a man. Sadly, it was a relief to see the large, bloated figure rather than the small, frail remains we all anticipated. I watched as it stared at the sky with dirt eyes and knew that any minute we’d smell him.
They covered the body with a sheet quick like—for our benefit—then tried to crowd around and block our view while they poked and prodded and took more pictures. I watched two cops talk and point here and there and talk some more, speculating, ruminating. They scratched their heads and their chins, and looked dumbfounded. They knew as much as any of us did. Shit.
Eventually, detectives questioned us, one at a time. They read the same list of questions from a pad of paper and took down notes, but couldn’t answer any of our own questions. Mrs. Weimer begged them for any glimmer of hope that this was over, that it wasn’t going to be happening anymore. They said they were doing their best, then shooed her away.
I know we all wished we’d have seen the bastard in action. We would have done something. I’d once seen a movie where the victims of a serial killer came back from the dead for revenge, tearing his head from his body while he screamed in horror. I longed to see these victims do the same to their captor, their murderer. The children skinning him alive, shoving bamboo shoots beneath his nails, slicing the corners of his mouth and filling the cuts with salt, feeding his still attached feet to a pool of piranha. I wanted the satisfaction of seeing them get their revenge. A slow one, where the eyes of the killer reflected deep regret and terror. Grim thoughts, yes. My way of coping, I suppose. The idea that our quaint little neighborhood would never been the same disturbed us to no end. It would strip our children of their freedom. They would be inside well before dark, checking in obsessively, playing close by and never alone. It would taint the memories of their past. There would always be the house at 201, the urban legend we’d all wish was never true. There were more victims than just the ones being pulled from the earth.
Hours went by, more coffee made, more steaks on the grill, and someone finally set a deck of cards on the table. Nobody picked them up. We mingled. We comforted. And we smoked more cigarettes than we should have, puffing away our nerves. Rick Wenger hung his head for another few hours, paced himself a worn path in the grass of his front lawn, then went home, filled with the guilt of every time he’d ever yelled at a child for cutting through the same grass he’d just trampled.
Then Mrs. Weimer went home. After they’d retrieved the body from the side yard, unless she was exchanging words with one of us, her prayers never ceased. And by late afternoon, the last worker was gone and 201 was draped with yellow tape, a sash that screamed keep the hell away, nightmares live here now! Eighteen tiny, numbered flags rippled in the wind—vinyl tombstones marking empty graves that should never have been.
I helped Lance fold the chairs and Ralph with cleaning up, then we all went home. And those of us with kids put on faux smiles, pretending the day hadn’t been filled with darkness, that it’d been joyous, like every other Halloween. We helped the young ones with their costumes, taking every moment in, treasuring their youthful smiles and innocence, vowing to always keep them safe. Tonight and every night.
As I led my own children outside, treat bags in hand, the timer Ralph had set on the string of lights at 201 went on and the house turned purple. Then orange. Then purple. A colorful heartbeat where no life dwelled. The little flags and the crime-scene tape glowed green under the lights, and the sheeted ghosts hung just last week by my own hand swayed in the breeze.
And then, Mrs. Weimer walked down her driveway and toward 201, a large pumpkin in her arms. It was lit. With a swift flick of her wrist, she cut through the tape and the flimsy barricade disappeared. She made her way to the porch steps and set the pumpkin down. Its face smiled with an exaggerated grin, unevenly spaced teeth. Large moon eyes.
Feet scuffed the road to my left. Rick Wenger held his own pumpkin, its face growing bright. He carried it, sobbing, to the porch and set it on the steps alongside Mrs. Weimer’s. Down the street I caught sight of three more glowing faces bobbing down the street toward 201. Lance, the McPherson boy, and Mrs. Ashton joined the others and added their pumpkins to the growing vigil. If there were appropriately universal Halloween carols to be sung at a time like
this, I suppose they would have been heard right then by everyone on the block.
I grabbed my own jack-o’-lantern, my child with his own, and we carried them, lit. As we approached the driveway at 201, I could hear the squeak of Mrs. Chisholm’s wheelchair, in her lap a glowing pumpkin, her husband pushing from behind.
Every person there during the day showed up that night to pay respects the one way they knew how, to continue hiding the ugly that was 201. And until the city one day levels the house and leaves behind an empty field, we’ll continue keeping it alive.
Especially on Halloween.
MR. IMPOSSIBLE
Gregor Xane
Monkey crept down the road. Suspiciously slow. I would’ve said something, but I’ve never known shit about cars or driving. Plus, we were stoned, and I was glad he was paying attention to what he was doing.
I met Monkey back in high school, in a class called Decisions. It really was a class about making decisions. I’m not sure why they waited until freshman year to bother to teach people about such things. Monkey sat in the back of the room next to a girl with braces who was also a champion kickboxer. Monkey was practically her servant.
No, Monkey didn’t marry the kickboxer. They never even dated. I’m not sure why I brought her up.
On this Halloween night, on our way to Mr. Impossible’s place, we were old friends. Old friends getting older. Both in our early thirties, unmarried. I was unemployed. Monkey worked in an office. Well, mostly he just pretended to work. Every job he ever had, he did his very best to do very little.
I used to think he was lazy.
Doorbells at Dusk Page 11