“That was someone’s pet,” Nick said as he dumped the first shovelful of dirt on top of the rabbit. He was exhausted after a long night at the hospital and he still had the blood to clean up. Even tired as he was, he didn’t think he was going to sleep very well.
“I know,” Hylas said. “I wasn’t going to say anything given how fucked up the situation already is, but yeah. That was a pet bunny. Someone’s going to notice it missing and be sad about it.”
“Who the fuck does something like this?” Nick made an angry sound through his gritted teeth.
“You know who,” Hylas said after a minute. “The fucking bogeyman of Sparrow Falls.”
Dirt slid sideways off the shovel and only partly into the grave when Nick jumped. Hylas had given voice to the thing that was nagging at the back of Nick’s mind, the thing he knew was real and did not want to acknowledge. Tick-tick. Like pellets of ice clicking against stone.
“Fuck,” Nick said.
“Nancy told me about her door and I saw it a couple of days after,” Hylas said. “I’ve heard all of it; people tell me things, ask me to write about it. I did, too, back when it all first started. After the Turners’ dog got… you know—God, that was so bad—and then Nancy’s door it got pretty shh quiet. Until Hunter and man… man… I was so fucking sad about it that I didn’t trust myself to go to the funeral. I’m sorry now though, really sorry. He was my friend and I feel like I let him down by not showing up. Tobias says it’s okay, says I ought to not beat myself up over it, but I told him that was bullshit. So when I wrote the article, I tried to make it good, right? Tried to make it… do Hunter justice or something, but I don’t think it was enough.”
“It’s all right, Hylas,” Nick said. “It was not a good funeral. Not that there’s any such thing, but that one was worse than most of them, I think. There was something about the closed lid on that coffin. I always thought it would be like a blessing to not have to look at people you love laying there dead with so much make-up on that you don’t even recognize them, but I swear to God, that was worse.”
“Because you couldn’t stop thinking about why the lid was closed, right?” Hylas asked.
“Right,” Nick said. He dumped the last bit of dirt in the hole and started tamping it down. The sunrise was still new enough that everything was gold and pink marbled with silver-grey mist curling around their ankles like an ocean of smoke. It was cold, their breath fogged out to join with the ground mist.
Hylas rocked himself back and forth on his heels and nodded. “It’s all so wrong, you know? Why would someone murder Hunter like that? He never hurt anyone; he was seriously the most decent guy I know outside of Tobias.”
“Well, you do have a long history of hanging out with delinquents, so you don’t have a lot to hold up beside it for comparison,” Nick said. “Not to mention your own delinquent behavior.”
“Hey, man,” Hylas said. He tried to sound indignant, but Nick could hear the smile in his voice. “I am an upstanding citizen and look, Nick, you fucked up, sure, but you’re not a bad guy. You never have— Whoa. Hey, hey Nick? Nick, what’s that?”
“Hmm?” Nick said. He was staring down at the rabbit’s grave, lost in a reverie of what the fuck and only half-listening to Hylas though he had caught enough to think it was sweet even if it was incorrect; Nick was not a good man.
Hylas grabbed his shoulder and shook him, pointing with his other hand. “Nick, look. Somebody’s out there.”
Nick looked up and squinted. The sun was rising but the trees were thick and it was still dark in there. Where the light touched it threw everything into blurry silhouettes limned by copper. At first he didn’t see what Hylas was excitedly jabbing his finger at, but then he did. It was a silhouette just like everything else, back far enough in the trees that it was almost lost in the tangle of undergrowth and hanging vines, the gnarled bone twists of thorn canes that rose up like escapees from Hell’s garden. Someone was there, leaning against the thick trunk of an old pine tree, barely distinguishable from the tree itself. Nick realized that it was because the watcher was standing behind the tree and peeking around, not leaning against it after all. What he was looking at was really only part of one broad shoulder and a head that seemed misshapen in the fuzzy dawn light.
“What the fuck is that?” Hylas whispered to Nick.
Nick saw movement from the shadowy form, a flick near the top of its head, almost like a dog cocking its ears forward to hear better. His mind curled away from that thought; whatever he was looking at was too big to be a dog, any kind of dog, even one standing on its hind legs. No, it wasn’t an animal; at best it was a nutcase—the nutcase—in a dog mask and that movement had been a trick of the light.
“Our good friend the psycho,” Nick said.
Hylas grabbed his arm and squeezed it. “Dude,” Hylas said. “We should leave this place.”
“No,” Nick said through his teeth, hands clenching into fists. “No, I don’t think I will.”
The worst thing you could do with a bully was let them know how afraid you were. Nick had learned that in prison, though his education had really started with sadistic johns. The ones who liked to choke and bite. The ones who liked to burn. His shoulder gave a twinge at the old phantom pain. He’d beat that asshole’s face in for the trouble and yeah, it had felt good.
Nick thought that if he could get his hands around Mr. Psycho’s throat, that too would feel good.
“You motherfucker,” Nick snarled at the shadow in the trees. “Who the fuck are you, huh?”
“Niiiick,” Hylas said. “Don’t.”
He thought about Nancy’s door, the Turners’ dog, the poor goddamn rabbit. Hunter. Nick was furiously angry as he stared through the hanging limbs and twining mist at the crazy son of a bitch responsible for all of the awful things that had been happening since August. The dude was big, Nick could tell that much, but he wasn’t a ninety pound weakling himself. He thought he would enjoy breaking his foot off in the motherfucker’s ass.
He jerked away from Hylas and walked toward the shape. It stood there for a moment, head-shadow tipped to the side as it watched Nick come on. Then with speed that was unexpected given the sheer bulk of the guy, he whirled and tore off through the woods like the Devil himself was on his ass. Nick had the creeping feeling he was supposed to give chase and even as he told himself not to, he started running.
“Nick!” Hylas yelled from beyond the tree line. “Nick, come back! That is so unsafe!”
His voice registered, but Nick ignored it. He was ready for this shit to be over; he’d barely experienced it and he’d already had enough. He couldn’t begin to imagine how the people the fucker had terrorized since summer felt about it. He stumbled over roots and fallen limbs, but he kept his eye on the tree the asshole had been hiding behind, spying on Nick and Hylas as they buried the rabbit. Of course, a sicko like that would stick around to see if anything interesting would come from his work.
A low tangle of vines caught Nick’s boot and nearly threw him to the ground when he was almost to the tree. He pitched forward; hands outstretched, and managed to catch himself against the heavy trunk. His head was facing downward when he came to a juddering halt, shoulder slamming into the trunk shortly after he grabbed it. In the coiling mist, he could see the rabbit’s two missing legs; one and a half of them anyway. There was only the foot left of one leg, lying there tiny and bloody, the bones mangled and broken, poking up from the ruined flesh. The fur wasn’t just matted with blood, the foot had an oddly washed look to it; the red on the fur more of a stain instead of a drenching. It reminded Nick of a well-chewed dog toy.
Seeing the rabbit’s foot like that snapped Nick out of the blind rage which had propelled him into the woods to confront a dangerous psychotic in the first place. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! The word whooped in his head with the pitch and squeal of an alarm. The sick shit motherfucker had eaten the rabbit’s leg and chewed on its foot like a gruesome toothpick. Nick pushed himself upright an
d ignored the twinge of pain in his shoulder, rolling it backward to work out the kink in it.
The forest had been mostly silent before, but inside the trees under the heavy weight of the canopy suspended overhead the silence wasn’t only eerie, it was oppressive. Nick could feel the morning holding its breath all around him and realized he was doing the very same thing. He slowly let out his breath, lungs heaving a thank you at being released from the unintentional torture. He was not alone within the trees, he knew it, he could feel it creeping up his back on skeletal fingers.
Nick turned in the direction he had seen the weirdo hightail it in. Broken limbs and trampled vegetation marked the passage of the guy. He had to be huge, bigger than Nick had initially thought. That wasn’t normal though, usually the guy was careful; he moved quietly and left not a single trace of himself behind. If he hadn’t been that way, someone would have seen something more than they had, there would be damning evidence left behind. This shit would not still be going on.
This morning he had panicked because this morning, he’d almost gotten caught. It couldn’t be fear though, no one that behaved like that even really knew what fear was. That left the question then: If not fear, then what?
Nick’s skin was raised with goosebumps like fleshy Braille and he rubbed his bare forearms. A glance down at the sad rabbit’s leg and mangled foot made his stomach flip. He kicked pine needles over the blood and body parts until there was a mound of straw over the mess. Nick had clenched his jaw in his fury and very carefully relaxed it again, the ache traveling all the way down his neck. He turned away; he needed to go home, clean the porch and go to bed. Before all of that, however, he needed to check on Hylas and let him know he was okay.
As Nick walked away, there was a sound from the dense forest behind him, a sound that went up Nick’s spine with a prickling sensation like needles of ice. It was soft, but the sound of laughter was unmistakable. Low, chuffing laughter that rolled with a growl. It sounded like an animal that had learned to genuinely giggle. He nearly ran then, but Nick reminded himself not to run, to never run because running was how you died. He walked, back tense and head tipped back to listen, but the noise faded to nothing.
By the time he stepped out of the trees, morning songbirds had begun calling back and forth, telling Nick that the forest was safe again. On the ground, head cradled on the mound of dirt that marked the rabbit’s grave was Hylas. He lay on his side, legs askew, head tipped at an uncomfortable looking angle and Nick stopped thinking about the woods for a minute. His laughter surprised him, but it was good, it was a relief.
“Wake up,” Nick said as he crouched down beside him and gave his shoulder a gentle shake. “Come on, up you come.”
Hylas came to with a flutter of eyelashes and then he stretched. Everything about Hylas was languid, relaxed and fluid. He yawned and blinked up at Nick as he started to smile. Then he really woke up and his mouth fell open.
“Fuck, really?” he said with a huff of breath. He slapped at the ground on either side of him. “Goddamnit.”
“You’ve always been good in a crisis,” Nick said.
“Sometimes I am,” Hylas said. He sounded miserable. “My condition has the worst timing though. I remember calling for you, watching you disappear in the woods because like, you’re the blondest guy in the world and I could still see your hair even with the… you know… foliage… in the way. Then I felt it, my eyes got all heavy and I was like, No, Hylas, you will not sleep.” Hylas frowned down at his lap. “Then I did it anyway.”
“It’s all right,” Nick said. “You know the pot doesn’t help though, Hylas. Don’t you have medication?”
“Yeah, but it’s basically just glamorized speed, which is cool and all and gets me through the workday, but I don’t want to be hyped up all the time,” Hylas said. “I like being mellow. I don’t like grinding my teeth and fidgeting and half the time still feeling tired.”
He took Nick’s hands when he held them down and let him pull him up from the ground. Hylas wiped himself off as best he could and when Nick turned him around to brush off his back, he went without protest. He scraped a bit of dirt out of his ear and yawned again.
“I think I really am tired, too,” Hylas said.
“I know I am,” Nick said. He was so ready to lay down that he could feel his mattress under him. It was a lovely, beautiful thing to think about. Then the reality of the bunny blood on his porch jarred him out of his pleasant thoughts and back to reality. “I still have to clean the porch though.”
“Sucks,” Hylas said. “I’ll help you, that way we can sleep faster. It’s weird, you know; I sleep all the time and you’d think I would hate it, but no. I fucking love sleeping.”
“Is it your hobby?”
“Hell yes, it is my hobby,” Hylas said. “I never thought of it that way. Sweet.”
“I think I need a hobby,” Nick said as they walked back around the trailer. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never had one.”
“Uh… What about photography?” Hylas asked. “People like the shit out of that. Hell, I like the shit out of that.”
Hylas had been the main photographer for their high school yearbook and he’d only gotten better at it over time. Nick remembered all of that—but he didn’t think photography was the hobby for him.
“Or hey, jigsaw puzzles,” Hylas said.
“I’m not eighty, Hylas.”
“I know,” Hylas said. He patted Nick on the back. “We’ll think of something.”
“Maybe,” Nick said.
“So… Are you ever going to tell me what happened out there?” Hylas said. “Obviously you are not deceased—congratulations and hallelujah—but did you even get a look at the guy?”
“No,” Nick said. He stood on the porch, refusing to look at the dark red bloodstains on the pale timber and told Hylas the rest of it. Hylas smoked another bowl and Nick desperately wanted to smoke with him, but restrained himself.
“That shit is fucking crazy in the extreme.” Hylas’s eyelids were drooping, shadows of his eyelashes drifting down his cheeks like silky vines.
“I don’t know what the hell it is,” Nick said.
“I just told you, Nick.” Hylas tapped his temple. “Listen to my words, dude. You will learn.”
Nick laughed, actually said, “Ha!” then he ran his hand over Hylas’s mussed hair and earned himself a sleepy grin. “I’m going to get the shit to clean the porch,” Nick said.
“I will put my best maid’s outfit on,” Hylas said with a drowsy laugh.
“You do that,” Nick said as he stepped into the trailer and left Hylas alone while he got the bucket and scrub brush.
When he came back, he found Hylas leaning against the trailer wall, sound asleep. Nick roused him enough to make him go inside and told him to go lie down while he took care of it. Hylas insisted he wanted to help and Nick believed him, Hylas slept a lot, but he wasn’t lazy and he wasn’t the sort to leave a friend cleaning up a mess like that. The problem was that once Hylas got truly tired, his narcolepsy asserted itself even more strongly. Even with conversation, loud music or actual physical activity, Hylas was likely to drop off unexpectedly.
Nick knew that from experience, damnit. They had come so close, but then Hylas conked out with his hand on Nick’s cock and there that idea had gone. It was a hell of a slogan for a t-shirt though: It’s not rejection. It’s narcolepsy.
Nick finished up the porch and with a groan, stood up and went back inside. He only noticed where Hylas had gone when he walked into his bedroom and saw him asleep in his bed.
“Damn,” Nick said. Not that he was complaining because it was Hylas and Hylas was one of the prettiest men. Nick had ever seen. He was shocked that he was so tired he hadn’t noticed Hylas wasn’t on the couch, had in fact forgotten Hylas was even there. It was the first time in years Nick had actually let his guard down so much he became unaware of his surroundings. It was an oddly pleasing and wildly unpleasant sensation at the same time.
He lay down beside Hylas and listened to him breathing and soon found his own breath matching the rhythm. Hylas scooted closer to him in his sleep and Nick’s mind began to drift, to sway and dip in a slow downward dance toward unconsciousness. His half-sleeping thoughts drifted back to the woods, back to the shape watching them. He could feel the dampness of the mist on his face, smell the pine and mossy green of the forest. Nick heard the chuffing-snuffling sound, that growling rumble that came up deep from the watcher’s chest. It was the laughter of a monster gone insane.
Tick-tick.
It was almost enough to startle Nick awake, he felt his heart lurch in his chest with an echo of the fear he had felt earlier. Then Hylas rolled even closer, snuggled up against his side and laid his head on Nick’s chest. Nick went out like a light, soothed and comforted by the warm weight of his friend sleeping beside him. He dreamed of peaceful things for a little while, though when he awoke alone at sunset it was to the sound of rabbits screaming and monstrous laughter raining down from the sky. Beneath it all was tick-tick, tick-tick, like claws on tile.
13
Nick spent part of his day off with Wes. They sat in his room at the Sparrow’s Nest Inn and Nick told Wes stories about the town. Wes wore black-framed Buddy Holly glasses to read and write with, which looked oddly sexy on him. He caught Nick staring a time or two and smiled as he looked back at his notes. Wes had said he wasn’t writing a book, not really, but all of the notes and research piled up on the small round dinette table in the room said Wes was a fibber.
Nick waited while Wes typed up some notes and tried to ignore the music coming from Wes’s laptop; some mish-mash hybrid like Zydeco and bluegrass had rolled out a baby. Wes said he downloaded it to try and get into the “Louisiana spirit,” whatever that was. It did not sound like the spirit of Louisiana to Nick; it sounded like the worst idea in the world and actually kind of hurt his ears.
Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1) Page 12