by Cara McKenna
“Should I call for an ambulance?” she asked.
“No,” both men said at once.
“Is it deep? How will you get it taken out?”
“We know somebody,” Vince said vaguely. “Just go stay by the bike. I’ll make this quick, get you back in ten minutes.” And he disappeared inside the house, the screen door clattering at his back.
Kim was left standing on the lawn, making awkward eye contact with the brother.
“I’m Kim,” she said. “I’m not entirely sure how I got here.”
“You must’ve drunk even more than me, last night.” He looked down, peeling the dish towel from his thigh and wincing at whatever he saw.
“Can I help you somehow?”
“You want to help,” he said, “You could clean up the kitchen.” His lazy tone got Kim’s hackles rising.
“Because I’m a woman?”
“No. Because you got shoes on and there’s glass on the floor.”
Her shoulders dropped. “Oh.”
“I’m Casey, by the way.” He stuck out his left hand, the right busy with the dish towel.
Kim shook it. “Nice to meet you. Vince’s brother, right?”
“Yeah. Or half brother. Or something.” He had a slight Southern accent.
“Right. And who shot you?”
“Our mom. Guess I can’t really be mad that she didn’t recognize me after almost a decade.”
She glanced at the door. “I’ll see what I can do inside. If you’re sure I won’t get shot.”
“Vince would know, so I’d say you’re good.”
The kitchen was dim. Modest but homey, with appliances out of the seventies in chocolate brown, the counters avocado. The floor was patterned in shades of green and orange, and near the stove was the mess in question—shards of a broken glass bowl, and a splattered expanse of what she guessed was salsa. Plus fat, dark drops of fresh blood, grisly bread crumbs leading in a jagged path around the linoleum.
“Christ. What a family.” She looked around, seeking cleaning supplies. There was a pantry in the corner, and she found a stack of rags there, as well as a dustpan.
She’d just gotten to her knees and shuttled the first rag full of glass and salsa into the pan when she heard voices from a nearby room—Vince’s deep rumble plus a faint, female tone. She couldn’t tell what was being said, but she imagined Vince was trying to soothe the woman. Kim started to put the pieces together: Surely a mother would recognize her son, even after ten years’ absence. If she was with it. If she wasn’t with it? Yeah. Rifles might factor.
She had the mess nearly cleared when the click of a door opening jerked her chin up.
Vince appeared first, propping the door wide with his arm as a woman in a bathrobe shuffled through. She might have been tall once, but she was stooped now. Her wavy reddish hair was streaked liberally with white, much of it escaping from a long braid. Her skin was paper-pale, and the hands dangling limply at her sides were crisscrossed with ghostly blue veins.
“You remember Casey,” Vince was saying to her, his voice as soft and gentle as velvet. Nothing like he’d ever offered Kim. “Let’s just try that intro again, okay—” He stopped, spotting Kim on the floor. His eyes widened.
She stood. “Your brother asked me to clear the glass.”
The mother’s arm shot out, cocked finger shaking, pointed at Kim’s face. “You.”
Her heart froze.
“Mom,” Vince said calmly. “This is my friend Kim. She’s cleaning up a little mess Casey made. Okay?” He gave Kim a look, clearly annoyed she’d not followed his instructions and stayed put.
“She’s the eyes,” his mother announced, her own eyes saucer-wide, finger still pointing. Her voice had gone strong and clear. “The ears, and the eyes.”
A chill trickled down Kim’s neck. Her legs felt weak, bones al dente.
“She will stay,” the woman announced. She said it with the confidence of someone pointing skyward and proclaiming it blue.
“Get outside,” Vince told Kim, his voice not so calm anymore.
Half of her was tempted to take the order, another half oddly mesmerized. Something in the woman’s tone or stare was hypnotic. But she’s clearly batshit.
“She’s forsaken another to be at your side,” the woman went on, gaping blue eyes moving to Vince.
Kim blinked. “I didn’t—”
“Two days ago,” the mother intoned, standing nearly at her full height now. “Two days ago, she left another man for you.”
The floor seemed to drop out from beneath Kim’s feet. Vince stared at her, looking at once confused and intrigued.
“I didn’t,” she told him. “Leave anyone for you, I mean—”
“Now she must stay,” his mother declared. “She must stay to be the ears and the eyes. The ears and the eyes, to point you toward the bones. She must stay, or all is lost . . . All is lost . . . for all of us.”
At that, Kim saw Vince go as still as she felt—petrified. Pinned in place.
He stared at her and asked, “You dump somebody the other day?” Suddenly his attention was yanked to the door, and Kim turned to find Casey framed in the screen.
“Stay outside,” Vince ordered him, snapping out of statue mode.
“Who’s that man?” his mother asked, and her voice had changed. Spacier, more distant, and she’d folded back in on herself.
“On the lawn,” Vince told Casey. To Kim he added, “Go to the next house—the white one. If a woman comes to the door, that’s Nita. Tell her I need her help over here.”
The spell had broken, and a cold urge told Kim to obey, to get out of this kitchen. She set the messy dustpan and towel in the sink. “Sure.”
Their mother rose up again, and her voice returned as she stared at Kim. “She. The ears. The eyes . . .” She kept talking, but Kim couldn’t hear over Vince’s booming orders.
“Outside,” he repeated, crowding her toward the door. “Out, out, out. Get Nita.”
Then she was practically stumbling down the steps, eager to escape Vince’s shouting and the creepy scene. The creepiness of what his mom had said, and what she’d somehow known. She found Casey at her side, looking ridiculous up close—in his underwear, bloody dish towel still clamped to his leg.
He shook his head with a sigh. “And people wonder why I left this fucking town.”
Chapter 10
The screen door popped open, and Kim turned to see Vince’s big hand wrapped around the frame. “After you send Nita over,” he told her, “take my brother to get fixed up.”
“Uh, okay.” This seemed beyond the call of duty in exchange for the sunrise photo op and a chance to get laid, but on the other hand, the man had a bullet in his thigh.
“Not in my car,” Casey said. “I can’t bleed in there. I’m on a lease.”
“You drive stick?” Vince asked Kim.
“I used to.”
“Good.”
“Where am I taking him?”
Vince looked to Casey. “Dancer.”
“Christ. That fucker still kicking around?”
“Just go.”
“Where’s he parked these days?” Casey asked.
“Creek, last I heard. South bend.”
“Fine. Yeah,” he said gruffly, waving an arm to tell Vince to fuck off back inside.
Vince disappeared for perhaps five seconds, then tossed a key ring out the door at Kim. She caught it, eyeing the big boat of an ancient station wagon parked under the carport. She hadn’t driven a manual since high school, and that had been a nice compact sedan. Not much traffic around here, at least.
She crossed the lawn and mounted the steps to the neighbor’s front porch. She gave the bell a ring, heard some movement. In a few moments, a Hispanic woman of about fifty in a funky, spangled tunic appeared and opened the inner door. She smiled through the screen with some trepidation, like maybe Kim was here to sell her some Jesus.
“Good morning.”
“Morning. Vince se
nt me.” Kim hooked her thumb toward the green house. “He said to tell you he needs some help with his mom . . .”
She didn’t ask for clarification, just said, “I’ll get my shoes on,” and disappeared inside.
Kim saw no reason to wait and headed back to Casey, finding the car key on the loaded ring. “Okay. Lead the way.”
Casey grabbed shotgun and Kim got the car started, pleased her feet remembered more about driving a stick than her brain did. She backed down the short gravel drive to the road and aimed them where Casey instructed, stalling out only once.
“Where are we going, exactly?” she asked, righting the massive steering wheel.
“To the creek.”
“Yeah, I caught that. But who’s going to patch you up?”
“This guy, John Dancer, we grew up with. Weird motherfucker.”
“Is he a medical professional?”
“He’s a psychopath.”
She blinked at the road and decided she didn’t want details. Same as how she kept shoving the words their mom had spoken out of her consciousness, not ready to process them. Or what they might mean.
“Left here,” Casey said when they reached a crossroads, and Kim turned the old mammoth south onto the dirt lane.
“So, what have you been up to, the past ten years?” she asked.
“Bit of everything.”
“What brought you home, after all that time?”
He sighed at that, and she turned to see his brows pinched together, forehead furrowed. “Allegedly I came home because my mom’s dying.”
“Oh jeez. I’m sorry.”
“Except Vince made it sound like she was bedridden and barely holding on. Not like she was capable of barging into the next room and shooting her son in the leg. Where were you and Vince, anyhow?”
“He took me out to the desert around five. I’m in town on a photography assignment, and he knew where I could get—”
“Christ,” Casey said through his teeth, mashing his head into the car seat. “I am so fucking hungover.”
“Benji’s?”
“You were there?” he asked.
“Not yesterday. The night before, though.”
“That where you met Vince?”
She nodded.
“Are you guys . . . ?”
“Are we . . . ? Oh. Jesus, I have no idea. But I’m sure if your brother decides we’re something, he’ll be sure to tell me.” And tell her bluntly, brooking no argument.
“Sounds like Vince.”
“How come you’ve got an accent?” she asked. “Where have you been living?”
“Oh, that’s just a bad habit I picked up. Turns out people think you’re more gullible if you pretend you’re from Tennessee or wherever.”
“Why would you want to sound gullible?”
“You ask a lot of questions, Kim.”
She shut her mouth. But she was a little pleased at least one of the Grossiers had remembered her name.
After ten minutes’ silence, Casey said, “Right at this fork.”
She turned them onto an even-less-civilized dirt road, following a weakly flowing stream, its water winking between clumps of brown scrub grass.
“Should be anyplace around here,” Casey said a mile later. “If he hasn’t upgraded, it’ll be a shady-ass camper van.”
And there it was. It complemented Vince’s mother’s kitchen, its orange paint and vintage profile pure seventies. In white block letters along the side was painted PRIVATE PROPERTY. BEWARE OF BIRD. Below that, WE DO NOT DESIRE ENCYCLOPEDIAS, COOKIES, MAGAZINES, OR SALVATION.
Kim pulled off the road, as close to the van as she dared. Considering that Casey had already gotten shot this morning, she didn’t take the unfriendly signage lightly.
Casey got out first, slamming his door as Kim was swinging hers wide. She slammed it, too, thinking the warning might be appreciated.
“Dancer!” Casey called, limping barefoot toward the camper, towel still clutched in place.
The wide rear door swung out, and a man nearly as underdressed as Casey emerged. He was as tall as Casey, too, six feet or so, dressed in jeans, the top button of which hadn’t been fastened, and nothing else. As in nothing else—Kim jerked her gaze off his hips the second she registered he wasn’t wearing underpants, courtesy of a peek of dark hair. More of the same peppered his lean abdomen and chest, and his intense face sported a Vandyck beard. The hair on his head was wild, long enough to tuck behind his ears. He reminded Kim of that iconic photo of Frank Zappa. Equal parts scary and weirdly sexy. Emphasis on weirdly.
“Fuck me,” he said, breaking into a broad smile. “That you, Grossier?”
“Yeah, man. Back in town for like ten minutes and already I got a bullet in my leg. Fucking Fortuity. Any chance you can help me with that?”
Dancer stared at the ground, nodding as though trying to remember what other activities he had on his to-do list that morning. He looked up. “Yeah. Sure. Get inside and lie down, and don’t touch anything.” As Casey obeyed, Dancer called after him, “And don’t bleed on anything. And don’t stress my bird out—she’s got a nervous disorder.” He turned to Kim. “And you are?”
“I just drove him here. I’m Vince’s . . . friend. Or something.”
The guy smirked. “His something.” He nodded. “Gotcha.”
“Not that we’re—”
“C’mon inside.”
Jesus, what did everybody in this town have against letting a person finish their sentences?
Dancer added, “Always hotter with a nurse.”
And for absolutely no good reason Kim could think of, she followed the sleazebag and the bleeding, barefoot grifter into a van parked down by the river.
• • •
The second Nita had arrived and his mom was calmed down, Vince was swinging a leg over his bike and tearing ass for the creek. Whether he was racing to make sure his brother wasn’t bleeding out or to minimize Kim’s exposure to this chaos . . . Racing to get his talk with Casey done with? Racing to make sure his brother didn’t take off the second his leg was patched up? No . . .
Racing to make sure what his mom had said about Kim wasn’t true.
He needed to get her alone as soon as possible, get the lowdown on what had happened two days ago, her supposed forsaking of some guy. A cold intuition gripped him, and he imagined he already knew the answer.
That tone his mom had used . . . that stony, strong voice that had only ever come with a prediction. Those predictions she made that so often—always—came true. And if that were the case this time, it meant one very inconvenient thing had to happen.
He had to keep Kim here.
Vince called them predictions. Nita called them visions, but that was way too spooky for Vince’s comfort. Whatever they were, they came in cryptic scraps and snatches, like the way his mother had seen Casey “leaving town on a sky blue horse.” That had been the first one, nearly ten years ago. Vince had written it off as one of her increasingly demented spells, unnerved only by how icily lucid she’d seemed when she relayed it to him. But two days later, his little brother had come home in a faded turquoise Mustang no one had seen before. He’d headed south the next morning, and he hadn’t been back to Fortuity until yesterday.
Then three years later, she’d foreseen the assault on Raina. Seen it right down to the night, the hour, the spot, and thank-fucking-God Vince had humored his mom. He’d tugged on his boots, swearing under his breath, and climbed on his bike under the winter stars to ride out to Big Rock in the cold. And with seconds to spare. He still had a shiny, dime-sized patch from where he’d split a knuckle on the chin of one of those cocksuckers. He eyed it now, bleached white from his grip, and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind.
He took the turnoff to the creek too fast, nearly spilled.
Bad enough he had to convince his brother to stick around. He only wanted Casey here as man power, in case there really was something dangerous going down. But now . . .
He recalled her words. “The ears and the eyes, to point you toward the bones.” Fucking shit. How to explain this to a near stranger he shared nothing with aside from a mutual desire to screw?
Yeah, so. Gonna need you to stick around awhile. Because my crazy-ass mom said so. Because my mom says you’re the fucking ears and eyes. Whatever that meant. Oh yeah, that’d totally convince the girl.
John Dancer’s van was right where Vince expected it to be, his mom’s Malibu parked beside it. Like Kim hadn’t had a shitty enough morning without being trapped in a small space with Fortuity’s most decorated dirtbag.
Vince killed the engine.
His arrival had been anything but subtle, and a shirtless Dancer appeared from the shadows of the camper, with long surgical forceps in one rubber-gloved hand. The other held a clear glass bottle of what Vince hoped was rubbing alcohol and not moonshine.
“Grossier,” he said with a little nod. There wasn’t much love lost between the two of them; they’d always had a sort of wolf-and-coyote relationship.
“How is it?” Vince came around and peered inside the van. Casey was laid out on the narrow fold-out bed, Kim crouched at the head of the thing with towels in her lap. A big white parrot was perched on a storage bin behind her, beadily surveying the excitement.
As soon as he spotted Vince, Casey sat up and glared. “What the fuck?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“Explain now, Vince. I left a good gig to drive back to this shithole, ’cause you tell me our mom’s dying. You got a real fucked-ass concept of what bedridden looks like.”
“Later,” Vince repeated. Dancer brushed past to climb back inside the van, and Vince asked, “You take the bullet out yet?”
“Nah. Just dug these puppies out of storage.” Dancer opened and closed the long tweezers. Leave it to this guy to own such a thing. They looked clean, at least.
“It’s in deep,” Dancer said, and pushed Casey back down. “Can’t tell yet if it’s corking some artery or not. Guess we’ll find out.”
Casey shut his eyes and groaned. “Fucking fuck. I hate this goddamn town.”