by Ike Hamill
“We always have Halloween week off, Mr. Harper. It’s because of the mill changeover. They send everyone home while they tear down the machines and switch out the stock,” Pete said.
“I heard all about it,” Alan said. “But I don’t understand why they don’t do that over Thanksgiving or something.”
“We get a half-day on Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving,” Joe said.
“That’s right,” Pete said.
Alan nodded. He eyed the shoulder.
Kids can’t remember to brush their teeth, but they know the school calendar by heart for the next ten months. Maybe I can get around this left-turn lady. I can’t believe they close school for a suspicious death. There has to be more to the story.
There was a ditch. He could have done it in the Colonel’s truck, but the Toyota would probably get stuck.
“So you don’t have school again until when?” Alan asked.
“Until November fourth,” Joe said. He had a big smile. “That’s eleven days.”
Alan picked up his phone. The car was still stopped ahead of them. He texted, “Vacation?” to Liz and then threw the phone down as the car behind him honked. He looked up—the car had turned and the road was clear.
“What time do you need to be home, Pete?” Alan asked.
“Mom will pick me up,” Pete said. “She said so.”
“And do you know when?”
“I don’t know,” Pete said.
Probably takes twenty minutes to get from the mill to our house. She’ll probably be over by 4:30, Alan thought.
“If you boys promise to do your homework as soon as we get to the house, I’ll stop for ice cream on the way home,” Alan said. He couldn’t help himself—he was excited that Pete was finally going to spend some time at the house. He wanted to impress the boy. Pete had friends—kids he’d grown up with—Joe had acquaintances. Joe would probably call Pete his best friend, but Alan doubted that Pete would express the same sentiment.
“Dairy Bar is closed, Dad,” Joe said. “It closed three weeks ago.”
“We could stop at Christy’s then,” Alan said. “We could make our own ice cream sundaes.”
“And we don’t have any homework. We had a math assignment, but then the homeroom teacher said that we could wait and get the assignments when we come back. It’s like summer vacation,” Joe said.
Alan’s phone buzzed. He looked down and saw the reply from Liz. It said “Ur crazy.”
“What about a boat ride then? You boys want to go out in the boat?” Alan asked.
Alan looked in the mirror and saw his son looking at Pete.
“I’m not supposed to out in boats in October,” Pete said. “Dad said so.”
“Really?” Alan asked. He tried to keep his eyes on the road, but he couldn’t help notice the sad look that came over Pete’s face. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” Pete said. The boy looked out his window.
“I have an idea, Dad,” Joe said. “Can me and Pete go out back in the woods?”
Alan looked in the mirror. Pete looked over at Joe. He shook his head a tiny bit.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea this time of year,” Alan said. “Remember the hunters, Joe.”
“That’s right,” Joe said to Pete. “There’s hunters in the woods out behind our house.”
“Ours too,” Pete said.
“Dad said he was going to post it next year so they can’t hunt back there,” Joe said to Pete.
“I said I might,” Alan said. “But I don’t want to stop people from doing things that they’ve been doing for generations. We have to talk about it. Does your father hunt, Pete?”
“Yeah,” Pete said.
“What do you do for October vacation?”
“Nothing,” Pete said. “Dad’s out driving. Me and Mom just sit around the house mostly. Mom said she’s going to can the rest of the tomatoes and vegetables.”
“Do you have a big garden?”
“Nope,” Pete said.
“Back to the boat, Pete,” Alan said. “Do you go out on boats other times of the year?”
“Yeah,” Pete said. “We have a boat that we put in at Jenny’s landing. Dad takes me fishing.”
“But you don’t go out in October?”
“Nope.”
“Because of the hunters maybe?”
“I don’t know,” Pete said.
“Because the fishing is no good?”
Pete shrugged. Alan caught the end of the motion in the mirror.
“So, no reason then?” Alan asked.
“Dad says it’s dangerous. He said that you might run across something you don’t want to know about,” Pete said.
Before Alan could follow up on that answer, his son broke in.
“Hey, Dad, can me and Pete watch a movie until his mom comes?”
“Care to rephrase that, Joe?”
“Can Pete and I watch a movie?” Joe asked.
“Sure.”
X • X • X • X • X
Alan swept quickly into the driveway. The rain had just started to fall and he still had laundry out on the line.
“Dad!” Joe yelled from the back seat.
“Yes, Joe, what?” Alan asked.
“I was just going to ask—what’s on the front porch? Did you put out decorations? What happened to the pumpkins?”
“I don’t know, maybe the delivery guy left a package. I didn’t put anything out there,” Alan said.
He pulled into the barn.
When he stopped the car, he turned to Joe. “Go start your movie and I’ll bring popcorn in for you in a minute.”
“Okay,” Joe said.
The boys were off in a flash. Joe was running down the shed hall and Pete ran after him. Alan looked around the barn as he got out of the car. Maybe kids raised out here were different—if he were a kid visiting this house for the first time, he would have been fascinated to explore the barn. All Pete and Joe wanted to do was go watch a movie they’d already seen a dozen times.
The rain picked up as Alan walked through the shed. He grabbed a slicker from the hook and threw it over his head as the cold rain pelted him. The sheets were getting soaked. They looked wetter than they’d been when he’d pulled from the wash. So much for saving energy. Alan gathered them quickly, leaving the clips out on the line—he could fetch them later.
He was just pushing through the door to the warm kitchen when Joe ran back in.
“Dad!” Joe shouted. “There’s something on the porch.”
“Yeah, you said,” Alan said. “Is it a box? Bring it in if it’s going to get wet.”
“It’s not a box. Pete says it’s a bear cub,” Joe said.
“What?” Alan asked.
He dropped the sheets on top of the dryer and shucked his wet coat. Joe ran off. The boys were in the TV room. Alan walked down the hall and found the front door still wide open. The rain was beating against the storm door. Alan couldn’t see much through the streaked glass. He pushed open the door and the bottom of the metal frame scraped across the thing lying there.
Pete was wrong, Alan thought as he saw the flash of white there. Then, as his eyes took in the complete reality, he thought, oh no—he might be right.
The animal had nothing covering its bones. Its legs were splayed to the sides and its belly was down on the granite slab of the step. The puzzle pieces of its spine ran parallel to the front of the house and the ribs stuck out to the sides. Its naked skull rested on the rock and looked off towards the woods. The rain was washing red and brown stains away from the creature.
Alan pulled the storm door shut and then slammed the front door closed. He shot the bolt.
When he poked his head into the TV room, the boys were sitting on the floor and their eyes were glued to the screen.
“You boys stay here and watch your movie,” Alan said.
“Okay,” Joe said. His eyes didn’t leave the TV. They had advanced the movie to the big b
attle scene.
Alan closed the door. He picked up the phone. While it rang, he walked back to the rear door. He locked that as well.
“Hello?” Bob asked.
“Hey, Bob, it’s Alan.”
“What’s up?”
“I just found a animal on my porch. It doesn’t have skin or muscles or anything. It’s like the thing we saw in the marsh.”
“The purple thing?”
“No, the other thing. After the purple thing was gone? It might have been a bear cub at one point. It’s just chum now,” Alan said.
“Oh,” Bob said. “Have you seen the TV this afternoon?”
“No, I was picking up Joe from school. What’s going on?”
“They’ve found a number of mutilated animals. They didn’t come right out and say it, but I think they’re tying these mutilations to the same thing that got Buster. They had one deputy interviewed who said that people should stay indoors, but then they switched officers. Now they’re only showing the deputy we met. He said there’s nothing to worry about.”
“What should I do? Call the police?”
“Can’t hurt,” Bob said.
Alan walked to the window as he said goodbye and disconnected with Bob. The rain pelted the window. Outside, the light on the front of the barn came on. Alan found the deputy’s card held to the side of the refrigerator with a magnet. He considered the number and even had it typed into his phone when he changed his mind. The number for the game warden’s office was on a card right below. Alan dialed that number. After describing his problem to the man who answered the phone, he sat down at the kitchen table.
“Hey, Dad?” Joe asked.
Alan jumped.
“Are you making us popcorn?”
“Yes, Joe. Go back and watch your movie. I’ll be there in a second.”
“We had to switch to a DVD,” Joe said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, the internet went out and the cable went out. DVD is the only thing that works.”
“Okay. You have that movie on DVD, right? Just watch that.”
“That’s what we’re doing,” Joe said. He wandered back through the dining room.
Alan dragged the big pot out from the cabinet under the counter. He kept one eye on the window, while the corn popped. When it was ready, he yelled for Joe to come serve himself. Alan turned on the radio. The reception was never very good in the kitchen, but today it was dismal. He only heard a few snippets of audio between the bursts of static.
The phone rang.
“Hello?” Alan asked.
“Hey, babe,” Liz said.
“Where are you?”
“I’m stuck in traffic. Did you know that the road is closed?”
“Which road?”
“The Old Belgrade Road. I’m going to have to come back on Summerhaven, I guess.”
“Take it slow,” Alan said. “That road is curvy. Oh! I have to go. Someone is pulling in the driveway.”
A dark shape rolled to stop in the middle of the drive. Alan put on his wet slicker as he walked down the hall. He flipped on the hall lights and wrestled with the door to get it open. He waited in the shed. Through the driving rain, he saw a brown truck with an oval white decal on the driver’s door. Finally, a person emerged from the vehicle. The person wore a plastic poncho that came down to knee-level. The hat with the wide brim had a clear plastic shower cap on it to keep it dry.
“Hi,” Alan yelled over the sound of the rain.
The person didn’t reply. They approached at a fast walk.
From the gait and height, Alan decided it must be a man. He couldn’t see the person’s face and their shape was hidden by the poncho. Finally, the brim of the hat tilted back a little and Alan saw the man’s mustache.
“Mr. Harper?” a low voice asked.
Alan had to lean forward to hear him over the rain.
“Yeah. You’re the game warden?”
“Yes, I’m Rick Prescott. So what’s the issue?” Rick’s hands moved under his poncho. Water dripped from the man and formed a damp circle on the floor of the shed.
“Hi Rick. I found something on the porch. I think we met before—didn’t I meet you on the Mill Road?”
“Yes. Why don’t you show me what you found?”
“It’s an animal carcass. I’m a little worried about it,” Alan said, pointing. “It’s this way.”
He led the warden back out into the rain and they walked along the side of the house. Gallons of water were pouring from the metal roof. Alan had to swing wide around it to avoid the splashing cascades. He was relieved when they came around the front of the house and the thing was still on the porch. He’d imagined that the carcass would be gone.
“That’s it,” Alan yelled. A gust blew back his hood. He clamped it down with one hand and pointed with the other.
The warden approached and then knelt next to the porch. His poncho flared out as he crouched and he looked almost like a child wearing a big skirt. He seemed oblivious to the rain.
Alan moved to the side to see. He didn’t appear to be doing anything. The man was just crouched, with his arms resting on his knees, looking at the white bones and organs that were being drenched by the rain.
“What do you think?” Alan asked.
The game warden stood and waved to Alan. His poncho billowed behind him as he led the way up the drive at a brisk pace. Alan splashed through the soggy grass to keep up. The warden reached the back of his truck and lifted the back lid to the cap. It provided a tiny amount of shelter from the rain.
“I’ll bag this up and take it in for pathology, but I assume that it’s a cub that was attacked by a male,” the game warden said.
“A male what?” Alan asked.
“Black bear. The males will kill and eat the cubs.”
“But just the skin? Isn’t that a little weird?”
“They do the same thing with fish this time of year,” the game warden said. “The skin has the most fat, so they focus on that. They get the most energy from that.”
“Why would it leave it on my front porch?”
The game warden shrugged. He leaned under the cap of his truck and came out with a bag.
“I’ll be done in a few minutes. We’ll let you know if there’s anything to worry about. Black bears are pretty shy around people, but if you see one, make lots of noise and then get indoors as quick as you can.”
“Okay,” Alan said. “Do you think it’s safe? Should we go away until you catch this thing?”
The game warden shook out the bag and held it with one hand while he reached into the truck again. This time he brought out a pitchfork.
“We won’t bother to relocate a bear unless he’s a nuisance to residents. You give us a call if he turns up at your house again.”
“So you don’t think we should go away?”
“I’ll let you know if pathology turns up anything different,” the game warden said. He shut the cap lid and Alan got a face full of fresh rain. He held on to his hood again and watched the game warden walk back down the driveway. By the time Alan shook his jacket out in the shed and found his way back to the kitchen, the warden’s truck was backing down the driveway.
Alan was soaked from the waist down. His feet squished in his socks. He went back down the shed hall and locked the door again.
The boys were still sprawled on the floor in front of the TV. The popcorn bowl was on its side between them.
Alan climbed the stairs and pulled his shirt over his head. The bedroom was cold. He stripped down and shivered as he blotted his skin dry with a towel. The rain coming down on the metal roof made a lonely, hollow sound. In the distance, thunder rumbled. Alan tried the radio next to the bed. He found static there as well. Alan shut it off.
Alan dressed quickly. He hopped from one foot to the next to put on fresh socks, and then repeated the performance to put on his pants. He flicked on the lights—that helped to remove some of the gloom from the bedroom. The daylight coming throu
gh the big window was gray and heavy, like it was wet from the rain. Alan pulled on a sweatshirt. As his head popped through the hole, he opened his eyes to a gloomy room again. The lights were off.
Alan counted.
When he got to eleven seconds, he heard the generator fire up. A second later, the lights came back on. The light pulsed with the uneven power from the generator. Alan smiled.
“Dad!” Joe called from downstairs. “The video shut off.”
“Turn it on again. The generator is on,” Alan yelled.
He put his wet clothes in the bathtub and went back downstairs. Joe and Pete had started the video again.
“Don’t you guys get sick of watching the same thing over and over?” Alan asked.
The boys didn’t have a chance to answer. They heard a distant honk from outside. Alan walked through the door and then into the den.
“Pete, I think your mom is here,” he said.
Pete was already collecting his backpack and heading for the kitchen. Joe followed behind him.
“Message me if you want to do something next week,” Joe said as they walked.
Alan dug through the hall closet and found an umbrella. He opened it in the shed. Pete was already running through the rain to the car. Alan followed, approaching the driver’s door just as Pete was closing the passenger’s door behind himself. Alan waved at the glass. He could barely see Pete’s mom as the interior light in the car went out. She didn’t turn to him or wave back. The car started rolling backwards.
“Hey,” Alan called. “Hey.”
He stood and watched the car back down the driveway. When it got to the road the car turned and jerked to a stop. It accelerated away quickly.
That’s goddam rude, Alan thought. He retreated to the shed. I’m fucking wet again.
In the kitchen, Joe was sitting at the table.
“What happened to your movie?” Alan asked. He sat down and took off his shoes. He threw them on the tray next to his other wet shoes.
“I’ve seen it,” Joe said. “How long does the generator last?”
“I don’t know,” Alan said. His socks were dry. He removed his jeans and threw them in the dryer. “Depends on how much electricity we use. Days though, at least. I have to change the oil every other day if it’s running continuously.”