Ask the Dark

by Henry Turner

  Can’t you stay out here? I’m very busy inside right now.

  I ain’t gonna bother you, I said. Richie’ll be here soon. I just got to wait, is all.

  She was looking at me and trying to smile but she just managed to make her face look hurt. This was funny because she’d been different yesterday, no more like a crazy lady who hollered behind closed doors when I brought her medicine, but real friendly, mainly because I guess after so many years alone she was happy to have somebody to dote on. Yesterday she’d brought snacks up to me’n Richie, and I knew it was fun for her. But now she looked at me sort’f cold for a second or two, and seeing I weren’t moving away, she said, All right. Just for a minute.

  He won’t be long, I said, and I stepped inside.

  The lights weren’t on and the house was all aclutter with little tables and footstools everywhere with papers on’m, and blinds shut with only little lines of light coming out of’m, and that sort’f smell a house gets that ain’t been aired in years, sour smell.

  She was dressed in some sort’f dark color tight on her, and her hair, it had a net on it, black net, and I remember good how her fingernails were, all red and shiny like the paint on thumbtacks. She waved for me to come on in, even took my hand, and she said, I’ll give you something to eat while you wait, bringing me into the kitchen to sit at the table while she fished in a cupboard for snacks.

  I don’t remember if I ever said how she looks but she’s real skinny, arms like sticks, and hands, too, veiny, and a sort’f pie-crust face, all white and flaky, with the makeup painted on same as how fresh paint colors up dry dough. Figure she’s seventy, or roundabouts.

  I was trying to look happy, and as she peeked at me now and again from behind cabinet doors I tried to smile but couldn’t, and she saw I was feeling maybe a little nervous and her face got dark.

  What’s the matter, Billy? she asked.

  I swear, way her voice creaks, sounds like cellophane.

  Nothing, ma’am, I said, sittin’ there, hands on my lap. Just gotta talk with you, is all. Will you sit awhile?

  She stopped and looked at me, holding a tin of cookies in her hand. Her face was sort’f stiff and she set the tin on the table.

  Will Richie be here soon? she said. She didn’t sit like I asked but kept busy jerking around for them little plates and napkins old ladies use, going in these glass-face drawers to get’m. She seemed real nervous, that like even though she’d let me in to stay what she really wanted was to chuck me out the door right now. And I seen when she weren’t looking my way, she was peeking at the kitchen door behind me.

  Richie ain’t coming, I said. Will you sit with me? I gotta ask you something.

  She stopped and froze, looking at me. She didn’t say nothing but just pulled a chair out and sat, sort’f careful, her back real straight and her hair and glasses wiry and her face old and white. And that tinfoil Richie talked about, to keep the aliens away? I looked then and seen it under the lip of her collar.

  Just as she sat she said, I need to get you some milk, and she started to stand, but right then I looked up’n said, Do you have a son, Miss Gurpy?

  She stopped moving. And something come into her face.

  Fear.

  ’Cause from the way she stared I could see I’d just asked the worst thing in the world.

  Do you, Miss Gurpy? I said, looking up at’r. A son? Or maybe a nephew? Or just some boy you know and took care of? He’d be about Richie’s age now, I’m thinkin’. D’you have anybody like that?

  I heard the water dripping in the sink. And I saw her eyes behind her glasses get bigger and rounder, and it was like we was trying to see who could stare longest.

  Then she yelled, No!

  But that no meant yes.

  I said, Richie told me when he was at Wharton Evans you used to come by visiting somebody, boy about his age, but he didn’t know’m. Who was that boy, Miss Gurpy?

  As I talked her face looked to stretch over its bones, and her eyes got bright and splintery, and her mouth twitchy like she wanted to move her lips but couldn’t, and she bit the bottom one, it all pasty-red, and the lipstick got on’r teeth.

  I found something upstairs here, I said. I think this boy of yours done some bad things. So I got to know who he is. You gotta tell me. It might save some people’s lives. I mean it. I found things that make me sure, but I can’t prove it. Will you tell me, Miss Gurpy? Will you, please?

  This kitchen we was in was dim like the rest of the house but all the furniture, the fridge and table and counters, was all old and white and boxy, catching the little light there was. Doorway was hung with those sort’f beads hanging down on strings. I was watching Miss Gurpy, waiting for her to answer me. Her face was afraid and she was looking at me, but then I heard the beads in the doorway click, and she looked up fast behind me.

  I turned quick and Peter Hodsworth come in the room.

  The first thing I wanted was to run, just leap from the chair and run out’f there. But he come right up to me, one big step, and I knew no matter how fast I jumped he’d get me. So I just kept sitting, and I watched him.

  He was looking at Miss Gurpy, his eyes cold and shaking his head real slow side to side, like he was saying she’d done something wrong, but not with any words. Then he looked down at me and saw me watchin’ him, so suddenly he smiled real big, like he’s happy to see me, and he says, Hey, man, are you Billy Zeets? I’ve been dying to meet you!

  I told him I was. And right then he drops a hand on my shoulder. I looked tight on him. He kept his big smile and his eyes looked bright and frozen on me.

  He says, real cheerful, Are you here to do some work? Place sure needs it, huh? He’s still smiling, and asking real nice. My aunt told me you were getting the rats in the attic! Gross, huh? It sort’f freaked me out! She didn’t tell me until last night, and I’ve got some stuff in there I don’t want messed up. Really important stuff. It’s not cool she didn’t tell me, huh? She’s a little wacked, huh? And again he looked at her like she’d done wrong.

  I didn’t say nothing. I felt the mittens stuffed in my back pocket. And I knew now I’d never get’m upstairs like I’d wanted, so I could go ’head and call the police.

  Miss Gurpy suddenly said, He’s waiting for Richie Harrigan, Peter.

  She said it fast and loud, and a little wild, like somehow she had the terrors. What I ain’t said is, the whole time she seemed awful scared of’m, jerking herself whenever she moved like a hit might be coming, and never saying a word ’cept to blurt it real sudden.

  He just looked at her and grinned.

  No. Richie’s not coming. I heard Billy say that.

  He smiled down at me again, squeezed my shoulder.

  Miss Gurpy’s mouth twitched. She didn’t say nothing.

  Hodsworth said to me, Well, are you done here? C’mon! I’ll drive you home.

  Don’t need it, brung my bike, I lied.

  We’ll take it along! he said.

  I didn’t say nothing for a minute. He was looking down at me and never took his hand off my shoulder, like he’d caught me. And even though he had a smile on his face, there was something in his eyes that weren’t a smile.

  All right, I said.

  He looked at Miss Gurpy and said, I’ll be back in a few hours. Come on, Billy, he said, and I got up and went to the back door, me walking first and him right behind me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Tell the truth, I can’t remember too good what all happened after we left the house. I mean, a lot of people have asked me what it was like to drive with Peter Hodsworth and talk with’m, and did he act all nutty, and was it sort’f like a cat-and-mouse game where he asked me questions to see how much I knowed. But the way it went none of that sort of thing happened. He pretty much just started beatin’ on me right away.

  That ain’t totally true, though. He did ask a few questions, ’cause there was one thing he wanted to know from me. But once he got that, the other thing started, and I can’t
remember too good at all.

  Now, you know how Miss Gurpy’s house was at a dead end, last house, and then woods for a ways. Out back was the big yard all run over with vines and high grass she never cut, and then the big hill with the narrow flight of wooden stairs going up it, the stairs all rotty and busted and the banister just this long line of two-by-fours fallen off the posts and buried in the grass.

  Like I said, I was walking first and Hodsworth walked right behind me. His hand was still on my shoulder and he weren’t letting go. And halfway up he put on the other hand, holding tight, and shoved a couple times to keep me moving.

  He said, Go up the stairs, Billy. My car’s up there.

  I thought about running. But right then my legs felt funny. Hard to move, even to go up the stairs. I knew Hodsworth ain’t slow, knew it from when he’d chased me the other night, and I’d escaped just ’cause I knew the woods better. He was big, too, sort’f chunky. Almost fat. But he could move, and was strong, and I couldn’t out­run’m, ’specially ’cause I was tired and so scared I could hardly move.

  When we got up top I was breathing hard but he weren’t. There weren’t no street, but just that alley of beat-down grass, trees so thick on both sides they rose up high and made a tunnel. His car was there, parked in the shade. A car that’s a truck, I thought.

  He went ahead of me a pace and stopped. A sort’f grin come over his face, not a nice one. He said to me, Hey, looks like we forgot your bike . . .

  But from how he talked I knew he hadn’t forgot nothing.

  Well, he said, that’s no problem, man. We’ll zip around front for it! C’mon, he said, and opened the door. Hop in!

  I did. He sort’f shoved me there, then he shut the door and locked it. Then he went around his side and got in and started it. He pulled out in reverse, crackling over the twigs, brambles scratching ’longside the car. We was sitting side by side, ’cause there only two seats in that Ranchero.

  For a second he stopped.

  When we’re out there on the street, Billy, I want you to keep your head down. It’s best no one sees you with me. Okay?

  He waited a second, and then grinned at me again.

  C’mon! he says. All the other kids do it. Really, it’ll be cool!

  He talked all cheerful but there was something in his eyes I didn’t want to argue with. So I said okay and slunk down a bit, till my head was same level with the doorjamb.

  That’s good, Billy, he said, and backed up farther out the alley.

  We drove, him looking forward, and we went through streets making quick turns. He didn’t talk no more, didn’t look over at me, neither. We never stopped out front Miss Gurpy’s house for any bike of mine. Some drizzle come and he turned the wipers on, going swap-swap. From where my head was I could look up’n see the sky full of dark clouds and treetops, and when we’d been going straight awhile I knew we was on the avenue.

  After a few minutes he turned into some backroads that go into the woods if you stay on’m long enough, up near Robert E. Lee Park, top’f the avenue. All the while he’s looking forward out the windshield paying no mind to me, and I see he got a smile on his face, all sort’f crimped’n sneaky-looking, and now’n then his cheek jerks almost like he’s talking, like he got a voice running on in his head.

  This ain’t the way to go, I says.

  It ain’t? he says.

  No, it ain’t, I say.

  I thought it’s pretty early, he said. Let’s drive some-where. We’ve never hung out before. You’ve never even driven with me. It’s time you did.

  Where we goin’? I said.

  Let’s go to the park, he said. Let’s catch a buzz!

  This last he said not like he was offerin’, but was something he hisself was looking forward to.

  He keeps going. Don’t turn. Finally we go down a long hill through trees with leaves all wet and drippy and then onto a dirt trail with busted timber at the sides and the road all gone to mud, and from how I sat I could feel the tires digging in but not deep enough to stall us. We went far down the trail, all the way to that watershed place where boys take their girlfriends and there’re all sorts of ghost stories about.

  He pulled into a quiet little lane near where you could see the concrete wall of a power plant, and then he stopped the car and turned the wipers off too. Me, I’m looking over at him. He reaches in ’s pocket, takes out a baggy full of weed, and fills a pipe he got out the dashboard ashtray.

  I watch him.

  I don’t smoke none of that, I say. Never did.

  No? he says. Grins at me, then flicks the lighter he got, and the smoke rises from the little metal pipe sticking out his mouth.

  Yeah, I got work to do today, I say. If you ain’t gonna take me home I oughta walk. I’m in a hurry. Can I get out?

  I reached for the door lever, thinking that when he’d turned off the car it’d opened the locks. But right then he flicked that switch on his armrest and locked my door again, and there weren’t no button to pull for me to open it.

  He don’t look at me. But he says, No, you can’t get out.

  In one big huff he smokes that bowl, then taps it out in the ashtray, holding the smoke in a long while. Then he lets it go with a bigger huff and looks at me, his eyes all full’f questions.

  He said, Why are you following me around, Billy? Why are you spying on me?

  I ain’t, I say.

  He breathed out, kind’f long and impatient, and looked ahead, and looked back at me, and smiled then, and laughed without laughin’, ’cause the sound it made was all anger.

  You know, I asked around about you. I had to find out who you are. The other boys say you do a lot of fucked-up things. They don’t like you much. They say their parents hate you and you can’t go in their houses . . . So first I thought maybe you were just fuckin’ around with me, breaking my stuff and wanting to rob me like you do to everyone else. But that’s not right, is it? I heard what you said to my aunt. You said I do bad things. What bad things, Billy? And you said you found things to prove it. What? You know something about me. What do you know?

  I’m looking up out the window. Rain’s come again and it’s splashing down like hose water, jiggling the leaves. I’m gettin’ antsy lookin’ at’m, the jiggling leaves, I mean, and I start shoving at the door even though I know I can’t open it and he sees me plain as day.

  Let me the fuck out’f this car! I say.

  I start yanking at it and real fast he reaches at me and puts a hand on my shoulder’n shoves me. I jump my ass back on my side and stare at the fucker.

  I said somewhere I was scared. Think I said that. But it ain’t so. There ain’t no word for what I was. Scared is maybe when a rabid dog comes up and barks and you gotta run your ass away, and it chases snapping at your ass and maybe it gets you or maybe it don’t. But that ain’t what I was. I was a thousand times more. Best I can put it was like holding a live wire, the current running through you so hard you can’t move or think and can’t even piss your pants, ’cause it ain’t electricity coming through you but terror itself. You know, like little kids? I was like a little kid who screams when you hurt’m, screams with crazy terror, even though I weren’t screaming just yet. But even a little kid got a brain, but it was like I didn’t have one, and so was more like a cat you got chased in a corner and’r whacking at, and it’s all arched up with something more than terror and the look in its eyes is like it sees right into hell.

  That’s how I look. And I gotta say he was surprised. For a second he smiles, saying, Relax, Billy! I’m not going to hurt you. Nothing’s happening.

  For a minute I said nothing. Big brown leaves lay flat on the windshield, rain running round’m. Fucker’s getting weird on me, his face all googly and wild, starin’, and gettin’ shaky.

  He says, Why are you following me around?

  I ain’t, I say.

  Tell me, Billy.

  I ain’t! I yell, looking at’m.

  Do you want to get out of this car?
r />   Yes!

  Then tell me!

  I sat dazed and staring and then I mumbled something ’cause I’m dumb enough to think maybe he really meant what he said. But he don’t hear me, so he says, What’s that, and I yell, To see what the fuck you was doin’!

  He says, What was I doing?

  I say, Nothing.

  He goes to reach for his lighter again, but instead he sort’f lurches over. He beats my face against the window and I scream loud. In a second he grabbed me, smacked me on the door. Lay hard on me, face up close.

  Listen, you little shit, tell me what you’ve seen. I’ll make you!

  After that I can’t get straight anything. I had blood in my eyes and mouth and up my nose and I was crying. He was shaking me real hard, thumping me, and my head was knocking everywhere. I’m crying and yelling and he’s yelling, asking what I seen, what I know about’m. And then he sits up and lights another bowl of that weed and lets me lie there. I try to talk but my voice won’t let me. I was crying like a kid and sort’f begging, and I said, Let me out and I’ll tell. Said it over and over.

  And when he said he would I told him.

  I don’t know if it made sense to’m, and I can’t remember how I went at it ’cause I was blubbery with blood and snot and my face all wet, but I told how I was in the house when he was there, how I found the mittens, saw the boxes, messed his car, everything, even about Tommy Evans and the paper piece, I told it all. I didn’t look at’m and he didn’t move.

  His face sort’f emptied. Went plain. Nothing at all. But such rage in his eyes. I ain’t never seen it before. And he’s pulled away from me like what I’m saying has been hitting against him, pressing him back against the door on his side, his arms out and his hands all spidery, grabbing the seats, ’cause me, I’m scaring the shit out’f him, and he don’t know yet what to do.

  Then he says, sort’f stutters, his eyes all splintery, Who else knows, Billy?

  I cried, Nobody!

  He laughed at that, looked real happy. Said, You haven’t told anyone?

  I can’t think and I’m crying. I yell, I told my daddy, I told my daddy!