Clarence scaled the trunk, and Gordon lifted the cooler to him, grunting. They juggled the ice chest for a moment, then Clarence yanked it inside. Gordon scampered up the trunk, and Art followed.
Lester scrabbled at the bark, trying to climb, but he did not know the holds. “Help me!”
Clarence answered with sepulchral tones, “No one can help you.”
Art offered, “I’ll help, but I can only reach down this far. You have to make it up to me.”
Lester tried again, and failed.
“What a baby,” said Clarence.
“Don’t call me that!” Lester sounded as if he were ready to cry.
I deliberately stepped on a fallen stick.
Art said, “Something’s out there!”
Lester looked back, but could not see me in the dark. He reached up for Art’s offered hand. “Help me!”
I took another crunching step.
Art withdrew his hand. “Oh, my God!”
I delivered a monster-movie roar, and charged.
Lester collapsed in tears, curled up against the tree’s gnarled roots.
Clarence laughed down at his brother. “What a baby!”
Suddenly, I felt like an asshole for scaring a little kid.
I said to Clarence, “You sound like a broken record.”
Clarence scowled.
I put my hand on Lester’s trembling shoulder. “Didn’t your brother ever show you how to climb this tree?”
“No.”
“Get up. First, put your foot on that humped root, and grab that ridge of bark with your right hand, then you can push and pull yourself up. Now, stretch your left hand up to that burl, and wedge your other foot into that deep groove. Good! Put your other foot on that knot, and you can reach the edge of the treehouse with your right hand. When you have both hands on it, pull yourself in, while you kick-step up the trunk.”
Clarence, looking shame-faced, pulled Lester up over the edge, but Lester would have made it anyway. I climbed into the fort, the weathered plywood floor creaking under my weight. Art’s flashlight hung from a screw-hook in the ceiling.
Clarence opened the cooler. “Who wants a beer?”
“I do,” said Art.
“Um, me,” I said.
Lester piped in, “And me!”
Clarence smirked. “You’re too little.”
“I am not, I climbed the tree!”
“Well, we only have twelve cans, and four of us divides into twelve evenly. If you have a beer, one of us will be shorted.”
“You can have one of mine,” I said.
Art and I sipped our beers carefully, but Lester swallowed a mouthful. We all laughed at his expression. Lester scowled, and forced another gulp down.
“There may be hope for you.” Clarence opened the slim, brown bag. “And now, here’s something else for all of the little boys.”
I had seen the models in Playboy magazine, with their firm breasts and neat pubic triangles, but Clarence offered a different magazine, with black-and-white photos of women with pendulous breasts and tangled bushes, who spread their legs wide to display—
“What’s that?” Art asked in horror.
Clarence said, “That is pussy.”
“No way! That’s ugly.”
Meanwhile, Gordon opened a second magazine. His eyes widened.
“What’s this shit?”
Gordon reversed the magazine, showing a photo of a woman with a penis.
Clarence grabbed the magazine, and hid it away. “They sell three of these books in a plastic sleeve,” he explained quickly. “I only saw the top cover; I didn’t know that was in there.”
The rest of us exchanged glances.
Clarence said hastily, “Would you boys like to see some real, live pussy?”
“On Dyke Island?” Art asked.
Dyke Island was really Emerald Isle, a few acres of dry land in the Oswego River, and the location of a private boarding school, the Esmeralda Smith School for Young Ladies.
Clarence replied scornfully, “No, I’m talking about Doris Morris.”
An electric stillness filled the treehouse.
Even Gordon seemed impressed. “Is she back?”
Clarence nodded. “She finished high school in the reformatory. Now, she’s in Delta-Delta-Delta sorority at the college.”
Lester asked, “Who is she?”
“She’s a slut,” said Clarence.
Gordon amended, “She’s the Queen of the Sluts.”
Rumor had it that Doris had seduced her stepfather when she was twelve, and later aborted the pregnancy in a girlfriend’s bedroom. She was a high school junior when I entered sixth grade. She had carried herself like an Olympian goddess, powerful but flawed. All of the sixth grade girls had cowered from her. The head principal had resigned that year, and the other kids had whispered that he was caught with Doris, naked, in his office.
“But it’s Friday night,” said Gordon. “Won’t she be out drinking?”
Clarence shook his head. “Since reform school, she prefers staying at home with the girls, if you know what I mean.”
“What do you mean?” Lester asked.
Clarence rolled his eyes. “She’s a lezzie.”
We decided that this was a great idea, and descended the tree for a night of sorority window-peeping.
A few sips of beer had made my judgment swimmy, and I tried jumping to the ground. I landed wrong, and fell.
“Ouch!”
Art helped me up, laughing. “Smooth move, Stan!”
We angled through the trackless woods, trusting in our youthful navigation sense to lead us where we wanted to go. The full moon rose above us, sailing through the forest’s canopy. Art zapped with the flashlight as we traded rumors about Doris, excited for our adventure.
Suddenly, the woods erupted into chaos. Birds screamed out from their overnight roosts, whirling and tumbling around us. Squirrels and other small animals stormed through the leaf litter, and something large thumped by. I saw the white flash of a deer’s tail. We stopped in our tracks, too startled to be afraid. The commotion ceased as abruptly as it had begun.
Gordon said, “What the fuck,” his voice a-quaver.
A hideous wail replied. My hair stood up. The wail rose high, filling the night, then subsided, only to rise again. I thought that it was a banshee, a monster whose scream presaged my death.
“That’s the alarm at the nuclear power plant,” said Clarence.
“Do you think there’s been a reactor accident?” Gordon asked.
Lester said, “Let’s go home.”
“Maybe they’re just testing the alarm?” Art asked.
“Not at night,” I said.
Clarence said ominously, “It must be a nuclear attack.”
Lester started crying.
“The missiles are crossing the North Pole now. They’ll strike in fifteen minutes.”
“I want to go home!”
“There’s no time, we must savor our remaining moments.”
The siren ended abruptly. The night turned silent, except for Lester’s trembling sobs.
Clarence said, “See, it was just a test. What a baby.”
We continued on our quest.
“It’s really quiet,” Art whispered. “I don’t hear Oswego anymore.”
My skin tingled. “Do you feel it?”
“Yeah, it’s like static electricity.”
“Maybe its radiation, maybe there really was an accident!”
Clarence said, “It was just a test!”
We emerged from the woods on West Bridge Street, and found the city dark.
“It’s a power failure!” Clarence sounded relieved. “That’s what the siren was about.”
From our location, we had a view of the city hospital, where a galaxy of red and blue lights flashed.
“Are those all ambulances?” Art asked.
“They look like police cars,” I replied.
“What’s happening?”
&nb
sp; “Maybe it’s a riot!”
We procrastinated on the curb, intrigued by the distant action. A sense of adventure filled me. I felt as if anything could happen that night.
“Should we go and watch?” Art asked.
“No, we’re on a mission.” Gordon waved dismissively at the police lights. “We’ll find out what that is tomorrow.”
We approached the college via the back streets, wary of meeting campus police, and made our way down Sorority Row. Delta-Delta-Delta, a ramshackle Victorian, stood in the Row’s cul-de-sac.
Lester said, “It’s The Munsters!”
Clarence hushed him.
“Listen.”
Music came from the rear, 2000 Light Years from Home by the Rolling Stones. We crept into the Victorian’s fenced backyard. The place was like a junkyard, littered with broken furniture and liquor bottles.
Clarence pointed up.
Pale light shone through a window above the rear veranda. A rickety trellis invited climbing. We tiptoed across the mossy shingles, and clustered outside the open window.
The light came from a Coleman lantern, and the music from a transistor radio. There was no furniture. Doris and two other girls, all similarly dressed in cut-off jeans and tie-dyed shirts, sat Indian-fashion on a tattered oriental rug, with playing cards in their hands. They passed a small, metal pipe, and sweet, blue smoke hovered in the chamber.
Doris rearranged her cards, then showed her hand, grinning lasciviously. The other girls folded, then pulled their shirts off over their heads. Their naked breasts jiggled.
My heart leaped inside me. The girls were playing strip poker! I pushed closer to the window, and the shingles underfoot squeaked.
Doris turned. Her eyes locked with mine, and lit up. “Boys on the roof!”
We ran for it. Gordon and Clarence reached the trellis first, with Lester right behind them. Art followed, and the trellis collapsed when he was halfway down. He stumbled, but kept his feet, and ran for the street with the others.
I jumped. The landing stung my feet, and I went to my knees. I wasn’t hurt, but I heard the girls racing downstairs, howling like wolves on the hunt. I was too late; they would catch me if I fled to the street. Instead, I hid out back, behind a moldy, old canopy bed. A moment later, the she-wolves burst out through the front door, and howled away up the Row. I waited until their cries faded, then rose.
The Victorian’s back door opened.
I dropped back into hiding.
Doris emerged onto the veranda, and scanned the yard, her face a pale oval in the gloom. Her right hand reached out, as if sensing for me, while her left fist held something close to her hip.
She whispered, “I know you’re here.”
I resisted a guilty urge to reveal myself.
“Do you think I’m stupid? I saw five of you at the window, but only four ran up the street.”
Doris lifted the front of her shirt, and waggled her breasts.
“Come here, you can touch them.”
I found her behavior arousing, but terrifying, and remained hidden. After a moment she stopped waggling, and covered herself.
“Be that way, I’ll find you!”
As she stepped down to the yard, her left hand swung forward, and I saw her switchblade knife. She came straight toward my hiding place. I started crawling around the other end of the old bed as she approached.
“Ah ha!”
She sprang. I lurched up to run, but she grabbed the back of my collar, and pushed me down, bent over the bed’s clammy mattress.
“You’re just a little one,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll bet you don’t even have a pecker, yet!” She humped her pelvis against me. “You have a sweet ass, though.” Doris humped me again. “Makes me wish I had a pecker.” She hauled me upright, and held her knife before my eyes. “Let’s go inside, Baby.”
I knew, in the darkness of my heart, that she meant to kill me.
Letting my knees buckle, I dropped out of her grip and rolled, plowing through her legs. She toppled, and hit the ground with a sharp gasp. I leaped up, and ran, glancing over my shoulder.
Doris had vanished.
I halted, wary that she might plan an ambush, but the yard remained silent. I sensed that I was alone. I crept back to investigate, feeling stupid, but needing to know where she was.
She lay face down behind the moldy bed. I paused, and stomped my foot. When she failed to respond, I moved closer, and nudged her with my toe. Nothing happened. I knelt, and turned her over.
The switchblade’s hilt protruded from between her breasts.
I staggered, my brain reeling. I wanted to run away, but felt too guilty to leave. I should go for help, but then my parents would find out where I had been, and what had happened because I’d gone there. Maybe I could help, even though the look in her eyes told me that she was dead. I reached for the knife, to pull it out of her.
Sirens wailed, and police lights flashed on the next block. I thought that they had come for me. I left the knife in Doris, and bolted away from there, back up Sorority Row, and back to the woods.
The moment I entered the woods, I fell to my knees, and puked. I crouched there until my heart slowed, and my thoughts smoothed out. The police had not been after me. I had gotten away. No one would ever know how I had killed Doris.
I retched again, a painful heave, then I rose, and started toward the treehouse.
After a few minutes, I heard someone following. I thought it was in my imagination, and paused to prove it. The pursuing footsteps continued for two paces, then halted. My guts seemed to freeze, until I had a reassuring thought, that it was only my friends trying to scare me.
“I know it’s you!”
The footsteps resumed, unsteady, but closing inexorably. There was only one follower, and I realized that none of my friends, not even the seniors, would dare to wait alone in the woods just for a prank.
Someone was really after me.
I ran, shielding my face against dead branches, and stumbling on scattered rocks. I had trouble finding the treehouse in the nighttime woods. Finally, I got intelligent, and stopped to listen for Art’s snoring, a sound I knew well from a lifetime of sleep-overs.
I also heard the footsteps limping on my trail.
I clambered into the treehouse, groped my way to Art, and clamped my hand over his mouth.
He said, “Mmph!”
I whispered, “Shush,” and released him. “Is everyone here?”
“Yeah.”
“Somebody’s following me.”
We listened, but the footsteps had stopped.
I went to bed, certain that I would never fall asleep.
***
Clarence said as I woke, “I’ll bet he let her catch him.”
I opened my eyes to a bright morning. Bird songs filled the woods.
I sat up and asked, “What?”
Clarence said, “Oh, we were just wondering why you didn’t run with us last night.”
“And, why you got back here an hour behind us,” Gordon added with a smirk.
“You bird-dog,” said Art. “What did she do to you?”
I could not meet their eyes. “Nothing! I mean, I just hid in the backyard, then snuck out when the coast was clear.”
My friends grinned with disbelief.
“Where was Doris, then?” Clarence asked.
I shrugged, acting casual even though my pulse hammered. “Didn’t she chase you guys?”
Clarence’s grin turned sour. “So you used us as a diversion, you little ass-wipe?”
I shrugged again. “Sorry.”
My friends turned away in contempt. I could live with that, but I wanted to forget what had happened with Doris.
“Are there any chips left?” Clarence asked.
“I don’t want chips,” said Gordon. “I want breakfast.”
“Let’s go to my place,” I offered.
We turned to the doorway.
A frightening man waited outside, seemingly a
sleep on his feet. He wore a blood-stained hospital gown. His hair had been burned to stubble. His fingers, and his bare feet, were purple.
Clarence called, “Who are you?”
The man opened his lids, and for a moment we saw his whites. Then, his eyes rolled down from inside his skull. He lifted his bruised hands, walked to the tree. One of his legs bent wrong. The man clawed at the bark, trying to climb. His face remained slack.
We backed away from the door.
“He must have wandered away from the hospital,” said Art.
“He’s acting weird,” I said.
“No shit, Sherlock,” said Gordon. “The guy’s hurt.”
The man gave up trying to climb, and reached toward us, his discolored fingers grasping in air.
“Not just that, he’s acting like he’s crazy.”
“He’s in agony,” said Gordon. “Art, go down there and help him.”
Art turned chalky. “No way!”
Gordon balled his fist. “Do it!”
“Why don’t you do it?” I asked.
Gordon aimed his fist toward me, but then dropped it. We returned to the doorway, where I noticed something else.
“He’s not breathing.”
Gordon laughed sharply. “Of course he’s breathing!”
After a moment, Clarence whispered, “No, he’s not.”
We silently stared at the creature. Then, Lester burst into tears.
“He’s trying to get us!”
“Knock it off, assholes,” Gordon exploded. “You’re scaring the kid!”
We ignored Gordon.
The man continued trying to get us.
Art asked, “How do we get down?”
I thought of a tactic.
“He’s got a limp,” I said. “If four of us keep him distracted here, one of us can climb out the window, then lure him off so the rest of us can escape.”
“Who’s going to serve as bait?” Clarence asked.
“Me,” I said.
Clarence blinked with startled respect.
“It won’t work,” said Lester. “He heard what you said.”
I glanced down into the man’s flat eyes.
“I don’t think he can understand.”
Without giving myself time to reconsider, I backed my feet out through the window, lowered myself to arm’s length, and dropped. I landed on a loose rock, and fell. The man came around after me. I scrambled up, and hurried away. When I looked back, he was following at his injured pace. I felt elated that I could outrace him, but terrified by his persistence, as if he knew that I could never escape, no matter how fast I ran.
Apoc Series (Vol. 1): Whispers of the Apoc [Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse] Page 11