Rene Denton’s beaten and bloody face hovered an inch from his. Her black mouth with its shattered teeth gaped open. The bandages covering her wounded head slid away, leaving a bloody trail over her scalp.
Ricky screamed at the top of his lungs. He swung out to knock the grotesque apparition away, but his swinging arm passed through the girl. The momentum of the punch tore him from the window and sent him over the edge of the roof. Mind racing, Ricky whipped his arms around, trying to find something to hold on to. His stomach felt like a block of heavy ice. It seemed to fall faster than the rest of him. But he was catching up.
A second later, he landed hard amid a sharp snapping and a deep whump! He remained awake, and even thought the fall wasn’t so bad. Nothing hurt. He rolled his head slightly and noticed his body was draped over the chassis of his father’s lawn mower.
He tried to get up. The pain came to his arms and his neck and his head. Ricky screamed in agony and rolled his head on the grass. Movement made the agony worse, so he lay still and took shallow breaths against the pain. It felt like he’d been split in half. His upper body sang with misery, but worse than this was the realization that he could feel nothing at all from the waist down.
Ricky looked at the sky, desperation pumping into his blood. Above, a flock of black birds circled like an angry cloud.
23
Installation
The day after Ricky Langham fell from his window and broke his back, Hunter woke from a restless sleep. He opened his eyes and looked into the bloody and beaten face of Rene Denton. She hovered over his bed, her nose nearly touching his.
“Shit,” Hunter cried, and rolled out of bed. He hit the floor hard, but the ghost of Rene Denton remained before his eyes. He swung his fists. They passed through the phantom. He blinked, but even with his eyes closed, he saw her battered face. He shook his head furiously from side to side until the picture of the girl was gone.
Breathing deeply, he tried opening his eyes again. He did it slowly, testing his field of vision before committing to the act. When he saw the piles of dirty clothes and the discarded magazines, the common litter of his space, he relaxed a bit. Hunter slid his butt over the floor and propped himself against the bed. He rubbed his face harshly to make sure he was good and awake.
Feeling exposed in nothing but his underwear, Hunter stood and pulled his jeans off the bedpost. Sliding them on, he nearly lost his balance. He righted himself in time to see the first of the birds fly through his wall. It was big and black with orange eyes and a long cut in its belly. The crow flew straight for his face. Hunter yelped and fell backward on the bed, but the bird was still in his view. Its sharp beak came right for his eyes. Again he slapped the air, but he missed the attacking crow. Its beak drove into his eye, and then the bird was gone. Hunter threw a palm to his face, realizing quickly that there was no pain.
“What the HELL?” he bellowed.
A moment later, the room was filled with the black birds. Hunter spun in circles, sweeping his arms through the air, trying to bash the crows before they turned on him. But time and again, he missed. His fists hit nothing but air while the birds swooped and circled, crashed into his walls and ceiling. He’d never seen so many birds in one place before. He could hardly see any light between their bodies, couldn’t tell where one of the damn birds ended and another began. But they managed to navigate the limited space of his room well enough. They dove for his face and body…and passed right through.
And there was something else Hunter noticed. They didn’t make a sound. All of the dozens of flapping wings were crammed into his bedroom, and they didn’t make a single noise. The only sound came from his chest, and it was a fast, heavy beat.
They aren’t real, he suddenly knew. They’re not even ghosts. They’re just pictures, like hallucinations.
“But if I’m crazy,” Hunter rationalized aloud, “I wouldn’t know it. I wouldn’t know I was hallucinating.”
He stood upright and let the flock continue its harmless game. He even chuckled when four of the great flying nothings soared through his chest. This was the same kind of thing that had happened to Lara and Lump and Ricky, he thought. Someone was working hoodoo on them, making his friends see things that weren’t there. It drove Lara out of her mind and it about killed Lump and Ricky.
But not me, he told himself. Not me. I know what’s real. And this is NOT real.
As he came to this conclusion, his bedroom door flew open. His daddy, looking like a troll with a hangover, all fat and bearded with eyes so red they could paint a wagon, stomped in. “You want to shut the hell up?” he growled. “As if all of your other crap isn’t bad enough, you can’t even let us sleep?”
“Whatever,” Hunter said, somewhat awed by the sight of the birds passing right through his daddy’s body, and his daddy not noticing a one of them.
“Yeah, whatever,” his daddy said. “Why don’t you go tell that to the cop that’s been sitting outside our house all night?”
“Go back to…” The sentence fumbled on his tongue. The flock of crows suddenly vanished, and Hunter found himself momentarily stunned by the stillness in the room. “Go back to bed.”
His daddy grunted and slammed the bedroom door.
Cops? Hunter thought. Damn, that isn’t good.
He’d heard the Denton girl woke up. The first reports said she couldn’t remember anything about the night Hunter and his boys took her down. He believed it, because if she had remembered, he would be warming a jail cot right about now. But her memory could come back anytime. Or his little girlfriend Lara might come out of her whack and start blabbing.
Hunter crossed to his window and pulled back the shade. Sure as hell, a police cruiser was parked at the curb. No cops were inside it though. Where the hell were they? He leaned closer to the glass, looked down the street. There was the cop, standing on the sidewalk in front of the Porter house. He was talking to Gene’s retard brother.
Why’s he here, talking to a cop?
Damn and damn and damn.
To make matters worse, Gene wouldn’t answer his phone, wouldn’t respond to emails or IMs. Hunter had been trying to reach him since Ricky took a dive, but Gene hadn’t so much as told him to screw off. Gene was totally freezing him out.
After I put the hurt on Denton for him.
“No way,” Hunter whispered, letting the curtain fall. “No way in hell.”
He was through playing it cool with Gene. He was going to see that bastard and get some traveling cash. Then Hunter was hitting the road for a good long trip.
24
Impressionistic
Rene Denton lay in her hospital bed, drifting in and out of sleep. Despite the opiate dripping through her IV tube, there was still a lot of pain. She was awake, though, and that seemed to make everyone happy.
Carefully she rolled her head on the pillow to look at the room. It was depressing. Just machines and wires and tubes. Her mother said she’d be transferred from the intensive care unit to a private room in a day or two.
“There are so many cards and flowers, I don’t even know if they’ll all fit in it,” her mother had said.
The police had come by to talk to her that morning. They wanted her to tell them what had happened to her out at the Hollow, but she didn’t remember. She couldn’t imagine why she would have been out in the Hollow alone. The last thing she remembered was sitting in a movie theater with Cassie. According to the police, Rene had gone to Frank’s with Cassie after the movie. Then she said she was going home for a few minutes, but her mom said she never made it.
Had someone come along and offered her a ride, only to turn violent? Rene supposed it could have happened, but who? She wouldn’t have gotten into a stranger’s car, and no one she knew would do this to her. Sure, Hunter had threatened her, but she wouldn’t have gone anywhere with Hunter, even if Lara was there. Besides, she didn’t think Hunter would have let her live if he’d gotten his hands on her.
Her mother had been there all da
y, fussing and fixing Rene’s pillow, offering her sips of water. Right now, her mother was down in the cafeteria getting some lunch, and that was okay. It gave Rene a chance to think a bit without her mother’s worried expression floating above her.
wall arump am
L-L-L-L-L-L
And what was that about? She couldn’t be sure. The strange syllables greeted her every time she woke, and they appeared in her thoughts out of nowhere. According to her mother, it was the first thing she said when she woke up, but it didn’t make any sense. Rene found the bizarre non-words annoying and wished she could get them out of her head.
wall arump am
L-L-L-L-L-L
Rene rolled her tongue to make the repetitive L sound and smiled lightly. A flash of pain ran through her head, and the smile faded.
She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
It’s just a dream, Rene told herself, even as she experienced it.
She stood in the Hollow, surrounded by dark shapes. The shapes had no faces, but they had weapons. Long, thick tree branches dangled from their fists. Everywhere she turned, the darkness moved and writhed like the body of a single great beast. Then a branch cracked against her shoulder and the darkness giggled.
Rene woke with a gasp.
“Oh God,” Cassie said, gasping as well. She put a hand over her chest and patted it quickly. “You scared me.”
“Sorry,” Rene said weakly. “Been here long?”
“About an hour. I came over right after school. Were you having a bad dream?”
“I don’t know,” Rene said. “I suppose.”
“Those are kind of going around,” Cassie said.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Cassie said, looking nervous. “Totally nothing.”
“Cassie?”
“Look, Rene, your mom would kill me if I upset you. Just forget it, okay? Please?”
“What’s going on?” Rene demanded. Even though her voice was weak, it was strong enough to convince Cassie she was serious. “Did someone else get hurt?”
“More than one,” Cassie said. “But you can’t worry about this stuff. They were accidents, at least Lump and Ricky were.”
Lump? Ricky?
“I don’t understand.”
So Cassie told her what had happened over the last week since she’d been in the hospital. She started with Lara’s breakdown, mentioned Lump’s car accident and finished with Ricky Langham’s fall from a second-story window. Every time Cassie mentioned a name, Rene felt twinges in her mind, like she wanted to remember something, but they passed, leaving her shocked and disturbed.
“Where’s Lara now?” she asked.
“Up in the city,” Cassie said. “She’s at the state hospital. Totally tranq’d.”
“Have you visited her?”
“Uh…no,” Cassie said sharply. “God, I didn’t want to see her before the meltdown. I certainly don’t want to see her in Drooltown. But isn’t it weird? I mean, that’s like Hunter’s whole crowd.”
“I wasn’t part of Hunter’s crowd,” Rene reminded her.
“Oh, I totally know. And it’s not like they were attacked or anything. Not like you. It’s totally different. Just weird.”
“Yeah, it is,” Rene agreed. “Did anything happen to Hunter?”
“Not yet,” Cassie said, frowning. “But we can always hope.”
Rene was about to point out that Cassie shouldn’t say such a thing, but it required too much effort. And it would have been insincere anyway. She wouldn’t wish harm on anyone, but she didn’t exactly have to wish it away from them either, especially a cruel boy like Hunter Wallace.
wall arump am
L-L-L-L-L-L
Rene paused. Was that what the first syllable meant? Wallace? She’d always played with words. She mixed them up in her head and played with the syllables. Had she done that in the Hollow?
“I mean, it’s not like anyone would care if Hunter got himself injured…or deformed,” Cassie continued. “It might do him some…”
“Shhh,” Rene hissed.
Her mind was working over the odd message in her head. If the first part of it was Wallace, as in Hunter, then arump might be…what?
L-L-L-L-L-L
Larump? she wondered. Lar-Lump? Lara and Lump? That left am. Lam? It had to be Langham, Ricky’s last name. But why were the names of these people mixed up in her head like that? Unless…
“Were you at the Hollow that night?” Rene asked. “The night it happened?”
Cassie’s face twisted up like she’d just been insulted. “Didn’t they tell you? Eric and I found you.”
“No one said,” Rene responded quietly.
“God, we were, like, right there. We were gathering wood for the pit and we found you in the bushes. It was just awful.”
“Were Hunter and Lara there? Were they at Frank’s?”
“No. Thank God. That’s the only thing that could have made the night worse.”
But they were there, Rene knew. She remembered nothing about the Hollow, certainly couldn’t remember who had met her there, but suddenly, she didn’t doubt their guilt for a moment. She had to remember. She had to be sure.
25
Diptych
Hunter wasn’t the only one planning to leave town. In fact, Gene Avrett had been making plans for the last two days to do that very thing. He’d wanted to wait until the weekend, but that wasn’t in the cards now.
Gene stared at the television set, watching a late-breaking report on the morning news. He balled his hands into fists when the video footage of a familiar house played on the screen. Dusty Smith’s body had been found late last night by a neighbor who’d caught a nasty odor while walking through the side yard separating his house from Dusty’s place. A video of that very yard played on the screen before the anchorman returned to shake his head somberly in a wholly insincere gesture. Gene fumed.
If that Neanderthal Hunter had been competent, Gene wouldn’t have cared about the discovery. But Hunter failed, and it would only be a matter of time before Denton fingered Hunter and his crew for her assault. Hunter might hang tough. Even if the district attorney offered him a sweet deal, he might keep his mouth shut, but Gene wasn’t going to bet his freedom on a might. Besides, Denton might remember a night not long before her attack when she was walking down Pecan Street, and she happened to see Gene standing on a porch. And oh hey, that just happens to be the house where they found the rotting body of a known drug dealer.
So Gene would go to the bank and close the account he kept under his real name. It wasn’t much money, not even a fraction of his assets, but it would get him far enough down the road before he had to worry about going hungry. Gene turned off the television and began packing a small bag with the things he would need for the trip. He carried the bag outside and placed it in the trunk of his car, but he wasn’t quite ready to leave yet.
Inside the house, Gene walked down the hall to his brother’s room. He pushed open the door and slipped inside. For a moment, he paused to look at Mason’s things—the toys on the windowsill, the child’s desk with its brightly colored pencil box, the bed where Gene had left the decaying remains of his brother’s favorite pet so many years ago. He wished his brother was here, but Mason had left the house early. Gene wanted to say good-bye, and he had no intention of making it pleasant, but the doorknob ruined that for him too.
Still, Gene knew Mason kept a little money in his dresser. It wasn’t enough to fill up Gene’s gas tank, but it was Mason’s, and Gene wanted it. He crossed to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. He lifted the neatly stacked T-shirts under which Mason kept his allowance.
Instead of money, though, Gene saw a picture. The paper was nearly black, but at its center three disgusting dog-creatures bared their fangs at him. Gene lifted the sheet and found another gruesome drawing beneath, and another under that. Dozens of the dark and disturbing images greeted his eyes. Each one was so realistically drawn, it might
have been a black-and-white photograph, if it weren’t for the otherworldly nature of the subjects.
It seemed his little brother was truly losing it. The brat must be eager to follow their daddy to Crazytown.
Good, Gene thought. Let them lock the little freak up.
He was replacing the pictures in the drawer when the doorbell rang. Gene’s blood raced. His first thought was that the police were wasting no time and had come to ask him questions about Dusty Smith.
Gene crossed the room and leaned over his little brother’s bed to look out the window. There by the curb he saw Hunter Wallace’s car, sitting like a tumor on the road.
He wasn’t happy to see it. Things were falling apart. The ass had sent a dozen emails, which Gene refused to open. Hunter had been calling his house and his cell phone. The police could trace those calls, and now the idiot was outside.
“You should’a called me back, man,” Hunter said, stomping over the threshold past Gene and into the living room.
Gene noted the fury in Hunter’s eyes. “What’s the problem?” he asked coolly.
“The problem?” Hunter roared. “The cops are sitting outside of my house, and my friends are dropping like flies. How’s that for a problem?”
“Keep your voice down,” Gene cautioned. “The house is empty, but we do have neighbors.”
“I don’t really care,” Hunter replied. “You sent us after Denton, and now she’s screwing with our heads. She’s making us see things. She turned Lara’s brain to mush and did the same thing with Lump’s face. Ricky’s paralyzed, man. He’s never going to walk again. This morning I woke up and about pissed myself because I saw her in my room, like right over my bed. And then all these birds came in. You sent us after a witch, man. And now you’re going to pay up, and I’m getting the hell out of here before she learns some new trick.”
Mason Page 13