by David Dean
“He’s not getting that nasty-ass mouth of his anywhere near my Johnson,” Connor stated plainly. “No,” he instructed Preston, “you can hand over those bottles to begin with.”
Preston winced in spite of himself. He had only the one left, he thought, and he’d be damned if he’d…
The larger boy interrupted his thoughts. “You’ll also have to pay Jared for his bike… that’s an expensive piece of equipment you broke.”
Even in the weak light that seeped through the trees, Preston could see that the bike was undamaged. “I think its fine; I don’t believe I actually broke anything,” a note of complaint entered his voice. “Besides, I don’t have any money left.”
He couldn’t understand why he was lying, as he knew it would do him no good. He wished now with all his heart that he had listened to Fanny the first time he had survived these boys, and had told the police about them. But he had been humiliated and terrified by the experience and had just wanted to put it behind him.
Preston had also feared the trouble that might have followed… the things that the boys had promised to say about him if he “ratted” to the police—the things that they had been willing to allege. He understood how easy it was to become the target, the pariah. And didn’t Chief Catesby remind him of it once again just this morning?
The empty beer bottle was no more than a blur of motion before it struck Preston in his narrow chest. He cried out, sitting down as hard as if he had been shoved by a giant. Grasping his bruised breastbone, he heard himself sob aloud with the pain and humiliation of his predicament.
Preston heard Jared boast, “Dead on center of mass. If that’d have been a bullet he’d be a dead man. Game over.”
As the moon cleared the tops of the trees that lined the tracks, Preston watched in dread the boys detaching themselves from the shadow of the train cars, beginning their self-assured approach. He saw, too, in a haze of misery, that Connor still retained the chunk of concrete, so it must have been Jared that had thrown the bottle. Connor hoisted his burden to shoulder level as he came, appearing to weigh and consider its potential crushing power.
Preston didn’t know why, but he understood that something had changed in just the last few seconds. Perhaps it had been his threat to go to the police, or perhaps this was simply the moment that had to happen for these particular boys—if not now, then later, and if not to him, then to someone else, but he was sure now that Connor was going to kill him.
He struggled to rise, gasping for the breath that had been driven from his lungs. Shooting his arm out, palm forward, as if to ward off his attackers, he wheezed, “I have whiskey!”
Preston fumbled to retrieve the bottle even as he tried to gain his shaky legs. “Unopened,” he cried, producing the bottle with a flourish. Preston felt ridiculously happy that Jared’s bottle had not broken his own, a sickly smile spreading across his face.
“That’s good,” Connor observed in his agreeable monotone. “I wouldn’t want my lips on anything yours have been on.” His elongated shadow fell across Preston while he was still twelve feet distant. The shadow of his smaller partner danced at his side like a black goblin.
“These old bums like to suck each other,” Jared opined. “They’ll rape little girls, too, because they can’t get any from a grown woman. What did you do with that little Guthrie girl anyway, sicko?” He stopped and turned to Connor. “Wouldn’t it be cool if we found her body? This old bastard probably did it, you know. He’s always creepin’ around everywhere. What’a ya say we bash his fingers on the rail with your rock, one at a time? I bet he’ll tell us then what he did with her.”
Connor halted as well, appearing to give his little friend’s suggestion serious consideration, then shook his head decisively. “No,” he declared evenly, “I think I want to kill him now, but I like the idea about the rail. We could do the same thing with his skull.”
Preston heard all of this in a kind of waking horror. They were speaking of him as if were not actually present, as if he were already dead. Staggering to his feet at last, Preston felt a warm trickle of urine run down his leg. The boys turned back to him. They seemed affronted that he had the temerity to rise.
Connor resumed his advance as Jared appeared to search the ground at his feet. “I’ll need something to…”
Something that glowed whitely in the moonlight sprang from the undergrowth and onto Jared’s bent back. As Preston observed this, too amazed to speak, Jared staggered forward with the unexpected weight of his sudden burden, brushing past his companion who had witnessed nothing of what had occurred behind him.
Stopping, Conner looked after Jared, who appeared to have thrown himself into the jimson weed and thorn apple that grew in rank profusion beside the tracks. A strong musk scent descended upon the scene. The following silence was both puzzling and terrifying.
“Jay…?” Connor began hesitantly, taking a few tentative steps in the direction of the other boy’s disappearance. He gave Preston a warning glance, saying, “Don’t even think about it,” and then said again, “Jay… you asshole, what the fuck are you doin’ in there?”
The only answer was a steady, stealthy rustling of the rank plants, as if something squirmed within. Taking several more steps towards the sound, he stopped again, leaning forward in order to see. The old man began to back quietly away.
Preston heard Connor speaking again, a note of incredulity in his voice now, “Hey…” he began, “what are you doin’… Jared?” Then, “Who the fuck are you, asshole?” In spite of the fear that Preston could now hear in his voice, Connor nonetheless raised the concrete chunk in one hand while reaching into the weeds with the other. “Git off him,” he commanded, seizing something and giving it a hard tug.
Preston recognized the streaked pale face, the tangled hair, and the glittering great eyes of Gabriel rising from the undergrowth. The head turned owl-like to regard its captor, the chin glistening dark and moist. Preston thought of how his own blood had looked on his fingertips just moments before. The larger boy hoisted the concrete up and began its descending arc.
Before Preston could break himself away from this mesmerizing tableau, he saw Gabriel’s long arm streak forth like a serpent, seizing Connor’s throat, snapping his head back with the force of it. The larger boy appeared to toss the concrete bludgeon away, so feeble was his response to Gabriel’s attack.
Rising up, from what Preston could only surmise was the body of Jared Case, Gabriel drew Connor to him in his languid, unhurried manner. The bigger boy’s face grew dark with engorged blood, as Gabriel’s hand encircled his neck with its talon-like fingers. The vomitus scent of his musk blossomed like a freshly opened grave.
Using his last shred of will-power, Preston wrenched himself from the scene, turning and stumbling away, scattering stones before him in a clatter, terrified that he too might find the feral child suddenly riding his back like an incubus. Risking a backwards glance, he saw Gabriel’s head snap round at the sound of his flight, his attention as focused as any predator. Then, having gauged the activity as unthreatening, he turned back to his newest captive.
In that same moment, Preston also saw the silhouette of Jared Case sit up from the weeds, even as Gabriel squatted on his legs while drawing Connor closer. Without bothering to turn, Gabriel’s other arm snapped out and pressed the smaller of his victims back into the earth. Before Preston could tear his eyes away, he saw the child’s frog-like mouth drop open into an impossible gape, much like a snake unhinging its jaw in order to swallow a prey of much greater size. With a cry, Preston fled the tracks and into the woods, his only thoughts of life and escape.
Stumbling on, his arms raised protectively in front of him, Preston pushed through low-hanging branches. Even above his own ragged breathing the crashing of his footsteps through the dry litter of the forest floor sounded loud, but he didn’t dare look back to see if he was being followed. His only thought was to put distance between him and what was happening back there at the railroad tr
acks.
A long way off a thin cry rose into the velvety night sky, and this, more than anything he had so far seen, gave him the strength to go on. In that terrible, brief wail he recognized his own terror of mortality, and ran on, heedless of direction or destination, concerned only with escape and survival.
Breaking out onto a deserted two-lane blacktop, head swiveling from right to left, Preston looked for some clue as to which direction he should choose. To his left, at the end of a long corridor of trees, there appeared to be a greater lightening, as if it might open out into a neighborhood, a place where there might be people and shelter. While in the other direction the darkness appeared unbroken, mute and threatening. In the gloom beneath the great hickories that sheltered the street from moonlight, he thought he detected a movement, a shadow a lighter shade from its brothers. He turned to his left, staggering on.
His heavy breathing and pounding heart prevented him from hearing the surf, so he stumbled on past the stop sign at the end of the street. When he saw the oily black expanse of the Delaware Bay heaving beneath the newly revealed moon, he stopped, sinking to his knees. It was high tide, and the narrow strip of remaining beach afforded him no further room for maneuver. His only choice was to turn back, retracing his footsteps up the long darkened street, and this he could not do. Even if his fear of encountering Gabriel could be mastered, he simply lacked the strength.
The shacks and cottages that dotted the shoreline were dark and boarded-up, their owners having returned to their homes in Pennsylvania and North Jersey several weeks before. No one walked the lonely beach beneath the now-bright glow of the moon. The only sign of human life lay far out to sea, where distant lights winked like stars from the bows and sterns of fishing boats and commercial trawlers. With a groan, Preston sank down onto the grainy damp sand and lay there panting like an old dog.
Then, also in the manner of a dog, he rose to his hands and knees and began pulling himself toward a fallen tree that had washed up on shore many years—perhaps hundreds of years—before. It lay gray and smooth as a giant’s femur bone, and he sought its meager shelter where it rested beneath the windows of a faded yellow house. With a sigh, Preston laid his long frame beneath its huge trunk, supported as it was by several stumpy appendages that must have once been great limbs, and then closed his eyes, falling promptly to sleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was the smell that caused his eyes to fly open, and he knew without seeing him that Gabriel was nearby. Preston had no idea how long he had slept, but he could see that the moon had climbed to its zenith in the cold twinkling sky. The shadow he lay in beneath the petrified tree was as inky black as a deep hole in the earth. Trying not to betray his presence by breathing too loudly, he noticed to his alarm the night had grown crisp and chilly, revealing his breath in tiny, silvered puffs. A movement to his right caught his eye and he cautiously swiveled his head to try and take in its cause.
Squatting on top of a downward twist of the huge, felled trunk, Gabriel studied something he clasped in one of his long, furred hands. He was no longer wearing the ill-fitting clothes Preston had last seen him in but wore jeans only a little too short for him now, a jersey marred only by some dark stains at the collar. This last hung on him scarecrow-like. Preston felt his bowels twisting as he recognized Jared’s trousers; Connor’s shirt.
The boy turned his head to peer down at Preston in his disturbing owl-like manner, something dark and sticky-looking on his chin. With a gasp, Preston edged his way further beneath the great trunk. As if making an offering to the old man, or possibly an enticement to come out from his useless burrow, Gabriel held out the object he had been so solemnly regarding. The moonlight made it glow whitely, revealing the fissures, the empty, forward-looking sockets, the few remaining teeth still affixed to the upper jaw. The lower jaw was entirely missing.
“Jesus Christ,” Preston whispered.
Gabriel’s chuckling had the liquid sibilance of a brook running over smooth stones. He thrust the skull closer to Preston in his hidey-hole, saying, “It’s not you; not human.”
At these words, Preston saw it at once—the skull was too low and narrow to have been human, the teeth too long. Smiling now, revealing his own long teeth, Gabriel pointed out to the dark water, the receding tide. He made an undulating gesture with his hand and arm, the rubbery effect made all the more uncanny by the eerie setting. Preston stared uncomprehendingly until the boy barked twice in sharp succession, making him jump.
Preston gaped, before recognizing the obvious. “A seal,” he cried in relief, “it’s a seal, isn’t it?”
Gabriel nodded happily at having been understood, bringing the bleached remains within inches of Preston’s face. Raising his hands, the old man said, “I thought it was one of the…” he stopped himself, “… how nice that you have a seal skull… good for you.”
Gabriel withdrew the offering, still smiling. After a moment, his mouth fell partially open and he began the gentle panting Preston had noted before, but his eyes remained fixed on him.
Preston squirmed, struggling to sit upright and remove his remaining pint from his jacket. He had to slide out somewhat from the cover of the beached tree to accomplish this and he, in his turn, kept his eyes on the boy. Even so, he felt Gabriel’s behavior was not as threatening as he had at first feared. The strange boy appeared relaxed, content to sit at his perch watching Preston. Like an animal, his repose was alert, but seemingly untroubled.
“You won’t hurt me,” Preston said as he uncapped his whiskey. “You’re a good boy, I think. I know you don’t want to hurt anyone.” Connor’s anguished wail was still in his ears.
This last made Gabriel smile once more, the crowded mouth ghastly in the moonlight. Preston recoiled.
Still the boy did nothing, and after several more moments Preston dared to continue, “Thank you for helping me back there, Gabriel.” He had said the name aloud without thinking. Surely the boy had one of his own, Preston thought. But before he could ask, the boy repeated it.
“Gabriel,” he said, turning to stare out across the empty bay.
Preston followed his gaze to see that even the boats had vanished from the horizon as the night had deepened, and now the wind from the east danced across the black waters, throwing up small whitecaps beneath the distant stars. The world might have been empty of people but for the two of them, he thought. Yet, as he took his first long and welcome pull from the bottle, he wondered if, indeed, there were two “people” sharing the beach at that moment. In a sudden burst of bravado and camaraderie fueled by his near escape and the brandy, he thrust the uncapped bottle beneath the boy’s nose saying, “Care for a shot?”
Gabriel’s head reared back, the eyes opening wide, the nostrils distending with an animal-like snort. Preston felt his hand seized in a grip so stern and merciless that he thought it would surely crush the bottle within as well as the brittle bones beneath. He let out a small, stifled cry, even as he was released to fall back against the smooth log. Gabriel’s smile had entirely vanished, and the seal skull now lay in the sand at Preston’s feet, forgotten as a child’s discarded toy.
“I’m sorry,” Preston pleaded, anxious to restore their relationship and ensure his own safety. “That was foolish of me… you’re… you’re too young for alcohol. You were completely right, absolutely correct. I don’t know what I was thinking. Sometimes I drink too much myself, you see, and do foolish things. This was certainly one of them. Let’s not give it another thought, okay?” Gabriel turned his face seaward once more, as if having lost interest in the entire matter.
Preston watched him for several moments longer, then feeling the crisis had passed, thought to satisfy his curiosity about the boy. In any event, he didn’t feel comfortable enough to try leaving his company just yet. “So, the question having arisen naturally enough… just how old are you…” Preston asked, “… fourteen, or so?”
Dropping silently onto the sand, Gabriel stretched his arms wide and yawned, his
great maw turned to the heavens. When he had finished, he shuddered his entire length then set himself down, making use of the skull as a stool for his narrow rump. Gripping his bony knees, his filthy talon-like nails showing a full half-inch beyond his fingertips, he sat facing Preston. The freshening breeze spared Preston his puzzling odor that could at one moment be repugnant and in the next strangely beguiling and lulling.
“I have many more years than you, Preston,” Gabriel answered clearly enough, in spite of the lisp inflicted by his crowded teeth, “Many more I am certain.” Then he added more cryptically, lifting a corroded-looking claw to point at Preston’s thin chest, “You will die soon, I think. You always die soon.”
Preston sat up straighter at this chilling response, forcing himself to smile, and said, “I was never good at guessing ages.”
He swiftly changed subjects, “By the way, I can’t keep calling you Gabriel, you know, I’m sure that you have your own name. Would you mind sharing it with me… now that we’re good friends?”
“Gabriel is my name.” The boy smiled back at him, adding, “I have never had another, and it pleases me.”
Preston considered this response as equally unlikely as the previous. Taking a good long swallow of liquor to steady himself, and lubricate his thinking, he asked, “What do your mother and father call you then? What name did they give you?”
Gabriel appeared to consider this for a moment, his shaggy head tilting to one side as if he were listening to something beyond Preston’s hearing. “She had not learned any speech that I recall, and so, did not name me,” he answered.
“What about your father then?” Preston persisted.
Gabriel shook his head, saying, “No, there was none but her.”
“There’s a lot of single parent families these days… more common than not.” Preston murmured. He hoped he didn’t sound too condescending, but doubted the boy was intelligent enough to grasp it if he did. “What does your poor mother do for a living? Does she work in the area here?”