by Ania Ahlborn
“And you’re going to come with me?”
He glanced up at her. When she rested her cheek against her forearm and gazed up at him with those eyes, he felt like he could just about explode. He wanted a life with her, wanted to see the world while holding her hand, even if that world only extended as far as Pittsburgh. Something about the way she was looking at him sent a bolt of courage through his heart. Before he knew what he was doing he leaned in and kissed her. It wasn’t like the one they had shared in the McDonald’s, shy and nervous and unsure. This was a real kiss like in the movies, so real that she slid halfway through the window and coiled her arms around his neck, the tips of his wet hair tracing trails of moisture along her arms. When she pulled away, her eyes were sparkling. She brushed a few strands of his hair behind his ears and let her hands cup his face before unleashing a gorgeous smile.
“Spaceman,” she whispered. “Take me to the moon.”
“What’s that mean?” he whispered back, feeling so close to tears he was afraid she’d see them welling up in his eyes. But she burst into a fit of airy laughter instead.
“It means I’ll think about it,” she said. “But until then, the future can wait.”
Michael’s heart sank. He made a move to grab her, to pull her back inside the car and tell her everything—You have to get out of here—but stopped short when she glanced over her shoulder. Rebel was making his way back to the car. Alice ducked down and handed Michael the paper she had in her hand—a few sheets stapled together at the fold to make a little book.
“Birthday present,” she said. “Don’t read it in front of Rebel . . . or Ray, or Casanova. Whatever you want to call him. See you later.” She gave him a wink.
Michael watched her step away from the Olds. She gave Reb a wave and a cheerful “Hey” on her way back across the parking lot.
Reb slid into his seat and leaned back, watching Alice with a disconcerting amount of interest. When he finally turned his attention to Michael, he smirked.
“I saw that,” he announced. “Both of us did.” He pointed to the shop. “Windows all across the front, see? You can see a whole bunch of things through glass, like your baby brother makin’ out with the girl he said bores him. What’s that?” He nodded at the paper in Michael’s lap, but he made no move to grab it.
“Dunno. Birthday present. I’m not supposed to read it yet.”
Reb gave him a weird smile. “I got you somethin’ too. You’re gonna like it. It’ll cheer you right up. I can hardly wait to see your face.”
• • •
Sliding out of the car, Michael bypassed the house and went to visit Misty Dawn instead. Sitting beside her grave, he faced the valley below and smoothed the pages of his birthday present in his hands. The cover was plain, save for a tiny hand-drawn gift box in the center of the page. Inside was a drawing that looked just like the one he had seen in Alice’s sketchbook. A short-haired girl sat at the Dervish’s counter, looking bored and forlorn, a thought bubble above her head reading: I SHOULD REALLY QUIT MY JOB. The next panel showed the same girl perking up and putting on a smile, greeting a long-haired boy at the door, his face hardly visible, his body language lost and melancholy. A man’s face, bisected by a large lightning bolt, was drawn across his chest. It was a surprisingly accurate representation of the David Bowie shirt Michael had worn on his last visit to the shop. Page after page, the little book told the story of a girl and boy growing closer until, in the final three panels, the boy leaves the record shop with a smile and a wave. The girl is left behind the counter once more. But rather than looking listless, she looks blissful. And rather than thinking about quitting her job, the thought bubble above her head holds no words, just a tiny heart filled in with ink. Small but undeniable.
Michael stared at that heart for what felt like an eternity, his mind reeling, his own heart squeezing tight and relaxing beat after beat. His gaze wavered away from the page, paused on the pile of soil beside him, and for a moment he could swear he heard Misty’s turntable playing faintly through the trees. He pictured the M of her necklace glinting in the sun, imagined her smiling at him before fading into the woods. M for Michael, she whispered. Not M for Momma, for mourning or misery or even Misty Dawn. It was M for Michael.
And though he wasn’t sure he could ever have it, he wanted to earn Alice’s tiny inked-in heart.
24
* * *
REBEL MORROW DIDN’T possess the usual interest in girls. His were fantasies of a darker sort—the kind of stuff that involved plastic sheeting and electrical tape. But it was all for the cause, and so he put on his best civilian smile and approached Lucy Liddle in the cereal aisle of the local grocery store.
Lucy wasn’t a drifter; she wasn’t the type of girl who could vanish off the face of the earth without a trace. She was tall and slender, with glossy reddish-gold hair that swept across the middle of her back. Her appearance was remarkable—the kind of face boys fantasized about seeing gaze up at them from a bed of rumpled sheets. She was the kind of girl who got “discovered” at a Midwestern shopping mall and went on to do modeling or TV commercials. Lucy Liddle was beautiful. She had a lot of friends and close family that lived in town. She held a regular job where she’d most certainly be missed. She was the last person in West Virginia that should have been a mark. And yet she became just that from the moment she turned her head, glanced over her shoulder, and gave Reb a mischievous smile.
The day Reb and Lucy met, they smoked a joint in the Delta while watching the sunset. A week later, she invited him to the Dervish to listen to records after hours. She liked Paul McCartney and Billy Joel—guys Reb wouldn’t have been caught dead listening to otherwise. But he bobbed his head and pretended to be enjoying himself. Had it not been for Michael, Reb would have twisted her head off her shoulders as she sang along to “You May Be Right.”
Rebel met Alice for the first time a few days after the listening party. Lucy pulled him into the Dervish during a lunch break, shrugged her shoulders in a bashful sort of way, and introduced him to her best friend as the guy I told you about. Reb could see it in Lucy’s eyes: despite their short time together, he was more than just a guy—he was a boyfriend. That was fine by him. It was just another step toward the ultimate goal.
Before long, Rebel claimed his work schedule had changed. He could only spend time with Lucy while she was working at the record store. It was an inconvenience, but doable when both she and Alice were sharing a shift. Standing at the counter while Lucy was in the restroom, Reb rolled his neck and gave Alice a look.
“You seein’ anyone?” he asked, unabashed by the directness of his inquiry.
Alice, however, was caught off guard. She laughed a little and shook her head as if to say You’re something else, but he didn’t take it that way. He read it as a no, because Reb had been watching Alice more closely than he had been watching Lucy. That was the thing about people who didn’t know they were in danger: they didn’t hide much.
“I’ve got a brother,” he told her. “Younger. How old are you, eighteen?”
Alice blushed and nodded, busying herself with sorting a handful of new arrivals. “Good guess,” she murmured.
“You’ll like him,” he assured her. “He’s . . . different.”
“Different how?” she asked, finally taking the bait.
“Quiet. He sure as hell ain’t like me, if that’s what you’re askin’.”
Alice smirked.
“It’s okay,” he said, “I know you ain’t crazy about me. Watchin’ out for your friend and all. Lucy’s lucky to have someone like you.”
Alice smiled at the records in front of her. “Yeah?” She peeked up at him before looking down again.
“I’ll bring him around,” Reb said. “He could use a friend.”
That was all it took.
The seed had been so easy to plant, he chuckled all the way home.
Despite Lucy’s fondness of him, Rebel kept his distance from her and Alice’
s apartment. He liked toying with her, giving her what she wanted in the back room, but never everything. He knew how girls like Lucy worked. They met a nice person, fell hard, and were eager to pull the guy into their life. First, an invitation back to the apartment. Then, a visit to meet Mom and Dad. The more reluctant the guy appeared, the harder the girl tried.
“I wish you’d finally have time to come over,” Lucy whined, sitting on the counter with Reb nestled between her knees. “That room is starting to make me feel dirty.” She nodded toward the storeroom with a frown. “Cheap, you know?”
“You couldn’t be cheap if you tried,” he said. “Tell you what: why don’t you come over to my place? Meet the parents, make it official.”
Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Really? I mean, are you sure? I don’t want to, like, rush you into anything.”
“You broke me,” he confessed. “We’re gonna have a surprise party for Michael anyway. It would blow his mind if Alice was there.”
Lucy laughed and threw her arms around his neck, then pressed a kiss to his mouth. “Oh, I’ll make her go,” she said with a grin. Before she could unwind her arms from around his neck, the little bell above the door rang. Michael and Alice stepped inside. Alice was wearing a pair of ridiculous yellow sunglasses. They both smelled of greasy french fries from the McDonald’s across the street.
• • •
Rebel stared through the windshield at the girls’ apartment complex. The trees that lined the front of the building glowed in soft yellow hues beneath the parking lights. He soaked in the moment, thinking that this was the way God felt before dropping a church roof on a gathering of parishioners or wiping out an entire town by way of a tornado. The power was invigorating, sensual. He rubbed his sweaty palms against the thighs of his jeans, stepped out of the car, and climbed the stairs up to apartment 2A. He nearly laughed when he realized his mouth was dry. After so many kills and so many screaming girls, so many thrashing bodies and terrified stares, he was actually nervous.
Lucy answered the door with a wide smile, her hair pulled into a high ponytail. She had on a pair of high-waisted blue jeans with the kind of flowy, satiny halter top Misty Dawn would have worn. “Ray, hi! Alice is almost ready,” she said. “We aren’t going to be late, are we?” She gave a clock on the wall an unsure glance. “I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”
“Nah,” Reb said. “It’ll be fine.”
She stepped aside, inviting him in. The apartment was sparse—nothing but an ugly gold-and-brown floral-print couch in front of a black-and-white Zenith TV. He expected it to look more like the Three’s Company apartment but was glad there was no Jack Tripper to deal with.
“Do I look okay?” She held her arms out to the side, spun around, and smoothed the front of her shirt down with anxious hands. Save for the ties at her waist and the nape of her neck, her entire back was bare. “This isn’t too modern, is it? Your mom wouldn’t like something else better?” The way her muscles tensed and relaxed beneath the smooth surface of her skin made him hungry.
“You look great,” he told her. “She’s gonna love you.”
Lucy bit her bottom lip, but was cut off by the opening of Alice’s bedroom door. The short-haired girl was wearing a black V-neck shirt, a pair of dark jeans, and a riveted leather belt. Her combat boots flopped around her ankles, the top eyelets left unlaced. She was the polar opposite of her roommate. Reb had seen pictures of girls like her before—weird chicks with giant mohawks walking down the streets of London. Alice was on the fringes of punk, toeing the line as closely as she could without becoming the pariah of Dahlia, West Virginia.
Lucy cleared her throat, looking somewhat concerned as Alice came into view. “Umm . . .” She hesitated, looking to Reb for help. “Hey, Al? You sure you want to wear that?”
Alice paused in the center of the room, looked down at her choice of clothing, then blinked at Lucy, perplexed. “What? Too much?”
Lucy shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable. “It’s just that . . . I’m kind of trying to make an impression, you know?”
Alice cocked a hip to the side and tipped her head in a mischievous sort of way, and for half a second she was the hottest chick Reb had ever seen—not his type, but undeniably sexy.
“No, it’s perfect,” Reb said. “Michael’s style.”
Lucy still looked unsure, but Alice gave them both a smile, pulled the riveted belt from her hips, and dropped it to the floor. “There,” she said, pushing her fingers through her hair. “It takes the edge off. I’m kind of nervous, anyway.” She laughed a little.
“Nervous about what?” Lucy asked, but Alice just shook her head, as if to forget she had said anything. Instead, she stepped across the small living room, ducked into the kitchen, and held up a bottle of red wine.
“We aren’t old enough to officially bring this, but Ray is. . . .”
Rebel raised an eyebrow in approval. “Good idea,” he said. “A party ain’t a party without a splash of red.”
25
* * *
STILL OUT IN the woods with Misty Dawn, Michael considered spending another night there with her, but decided against it. The bugs were eating him alive. That, and it still seemed important for him to go back home. His return felt heavy with something; maybe promise, maybe ruin. He didn’t know, but his gut told him he’d find out if only he would follow his instinct. Michael had heard of that before—someone taking a different way home only to discover they’d avoided a terrible accident, a person missing a flight only to learn later that the plane had crashed upon landing. He had never experienced such a magical incident himself, but he believed it was possible. And so, with that instinct souring his stomach, he drew his hand across the crest of Misty’s grave and rose to his feet.
He took his time getting back, weaving in and out of the trees, plucking handfuls of leaves off of branches as he went. The sky shone pale purple, delicate shades of grapefruit-pink streaking the horizon as the sun settled to the west. By the time the lights of the farmhouse sparkled through the few remaining yards of forest, the sky had lost its cotton-candy coloring and had settled into a deep, velvety blue.
Michael hovered along the perimeter of trees just shy of the backyard. Alice’s hand-drawn comic book was folded into his back pocket for safekeeping. The fresh mosquito bites up and down his arms were starting to itch. He squinted at the Delta parked alongside the house, but the view was different. Tonight, Wade was bent over his rusty old pickup parked next to Reb’s Oldsmobile. Michael crossed the wild grass of the yard with slow, even steps, pausing next to his father’s truck. Wade glanced up from beneath the hood, then swiped at his cheek with a greasy palm. The caged work light sitting on the engine block cast strange shadows along the angles of his face. Michael was struck by how old his father suddenly looked. Maybe it was that he hadn’t been paying attention, but Wade’s hair looked grayer than it did the last time he saw him. A couple of liver spots dotted the skin around his temples. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he turned his face up to give his adopted son a look.
“Damn carburetor’s dead,” he grumbled. A mundane problem for an ordinary life. For a split second Michael forgot it all—Momma’s girls and Misty’s grave. For the briefest moment, they were nothing but father and son casting twin scowls at a machine that refused to work, bound by a common goal.
“Might have parts in the shed,” Michael announced. “Want me to go look?”
“Already did,” Wade said. “Didn’t see what I was lookin’ for. Probably need to drive out to the yard.”
“Shouldn’t go while they’re open, though. I’ll go tell Reb to get ready. We should probably take some meat for that dog they’ve got watchin’ the place.”
“Nah, forget it,” Wade told him. “We’ll go later. Go on inside. Momma’s been waitin’ on you.”
Michael frowned at that, the mention of Momma a staunch reminder that life was far more complicated than car trouble, that the Morrows were more than a standard gang of yok
els. Momma made them special. She made them what they were.
“Did I do somethin’ wrong?”
“Dunno. Best go in and find out.”
Michael reluctantly turned away from the truck. He would have much rather stayed outside with his dad and worked all night on that truck, so long as he didn’t have to go back inside. It would have been a welcome reprieve from knowing that he wasn’t normal, that none of them were. Perhaps a conventional task here and there would magically transform them from monsters to people.
Climbing the steps of the back porch, Michael hesitated. The kitchen was dark, which was unusual. The kitchen light burned longer than any other inside the farmhouse. Sometimes it clicked on before the sun rose and glowed bright long after dark. The kitchen was where Michael would forever place his mother in his memory. He’d remember her standing at the stove or peeling potatoes at the counter, her apron strings tied tight around her waist.
He pulled open the screen door and stepped inside the house.
“Momma?”
Scanning the darkness, his vision strained to see through the shadows that had settled like dust bunnies in the corners of the room. He frowned at the bare bulb that hung overhead. He reached up as he passed it. It radiated heat, as though someone had flipped it off only moments before. Michael thought he had seen it burning when he had come through the trees, but he couldn’t be sure.
That was when he spotted a flicker of light coming from just down the hall, a warm dancing glow, like firelight. The soft yellow light made the dingy old wallpaper look solemnly pretty—the kind of haunting appeal that only ancient things possessed.
Following the glow, Michael slowly crossed the kitchen and stepped into the hall.
He turned the corner and sucked in a breath of surprise. Golden sparklers burned like stars as they jutted out of a birthday cake sitting on the dining room table. Rebel sat in Misty’s old seat, that strange smile of his pulled tight across his lips. Momma stood behind him, her fingers wrapped around the top of the wooden-backed chair. And for the briefest of moments, Michael swore he could see Misty Dawn sitting at the far end of the table, where the shadows were darkest. Her ghost was attending the party, not daring to miss his birthday, even in death.