PillowFace

by Kristopher Rufty

  “Wrong,” said Joel. “Our footprints are all over the place, and so’s my blood and puke, and Paul’s blood. On C.S.I. they always figure shit out with evidence like that.”

  Ethan shook his head, “Nuh-uh, you’re talking to the guy who wants to be a cop, remember?”

  “What are you getting at?” asked Paul, a red bubble popping in his left nostril.

  “Walk back through the woods like I said, but we take a long branch with a lot of leaves on the end and anywhere in the dirt we see our tracks, we just stretch the limb onto the path, and use the leaves to wipe them away.”

  Joel was catching on, “Erasing our footprints?”

  “Exactly.”

  Paul pointed at his blood drops on the trail. “But, what about that?”

  “It probably doesn’t go down that far; we’ll just scoop up the dried chunks and get rid of them.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know; throw them in the creek or something.”

  “Carry them?”

  Ethan nodded sternly, but the look on his face wasn’t convinced. “It’s all I can think of on short notice.”

  “Do you have a plastic bag in your backpack?” asked Joel.

  Thinking about it, Ethan nodded, “Yeah. Actually, I do.”

  “Good, we’ll dump the dried dirt in the bag, carry it to the creek and dump it.”

  “Perfect,” said Paul, his face glowing with excitement. “Put our minds together and there’s no telling what we can accomplish.”

  Ignoring him, Joel turned to Pillowface. “You okay?”

  He nodded as he stood upright on his own. He patted Joel on the shoulder, again. The comfort felt good. For a short moment, it felt as if they were the only two out there, being friends, hanging out, and going on their own adventure.

  But, Paul’s voice killed that illusion. “Let’s get this going, guys.”

  Joel sighed. “Okay.”

  Ethan pulled off his backpack, and squatted. He laid the bag across his thighs. He sifted inside for a moment, then pulled his hand out. Sagging between his fingers was a white plastic bag. “Here it is.”

  Joel took it from him. While Ethan found a lengthy stick that was bushy on one end, Joel and Paul gathered up their messes and dropped them in the bag. Joel nearly vomited again while cleaning up the drying puddle of puke. The thick summer heat had made the smell unbearable, like old milk that had spoiled to putty. When they were finished, Joel tied the bag in a knot and stood up.

  They looked at each other quietly, catching their breath. Finally, Ethan said, “What do we do about him?” He pointed at Ray.

  “We…” Started Joel, but stopped. He looked up at Pillowface. “We have to get your saw out of his hair.”

  Nonchalantly, Pillowface strode over to Ray’s prone body. With one immense tug, he wrenched his saw free with a wet rip that sounded like scored cabbage. Dangling from the chain was Ray’s ponytail; his bloodied scalp had come with it.

  The question had been answered. Ray was quiet after that…He didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  (I)

  It was nearly lunch time and Jonesey still hadn’t made an appearance. Could Haley be so lucky? Was he so embarrassed over his behavior last night that he couldn’t come in and face her? She seriously doubted it. Probably just out somewhere being Jonesey. But, it was still strange that he was this late. Maybe something happened to him. She couldn’t ask Jonesey’s father and partner at the firm, Ronald Jones, if he’d heard from him, because he was never at the office, and Jeff Lamberson, their office manager, hadn’t heard anything, either.

  Sitting behind her desk, she skimmed over the final pages of Demon Seed but barely read a single word. Finally, she closed the book, promising to go back to it later. She glanced at the phone on the desk and contemplated calling Alan, but quickly talked herself out of it.

  Why hasn’t he called me?

  She snatched a pencil off the desk, tapping the eraser’s end nervously against the keyboard on her desk. She’d dumped guys for less than this. That’s fine. He doesn’t want to talk, so I’ll just stay away. Show him what it’s like not having Haley Olsen around.

  Carlee poked her head in. “Hey, just got a second, but I wanted to see where you wanted to go for lunch today.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right back after I fax that letter for you. Anything you in the mood for?”

  “Books.”

  “Huh?”

  “I want to go to the bookstore.”

  Smiling, Carlee said, “You got it.” She disappeared behind the door.

  Haley tossed her pencil across the office. “So much for that plan,” she muttered.

  (II)

  Geoffrey Jones parked his car a mile from Haley’s house. Leaving it on the side of the road, he stuck a white t-shirt in the door and shut it, hoping to give the impression that it was stranded. He thought about leaving a note saying please don’t tow me, but it would have been too hard to write with the cast on.

  The mile hike would be hard in his expensive shoes, but worth it.

  He glanced at his car one last time, beaming over the spot he’d pre-selected to park his car. Last week on a long lunch, he’d driven out here to find Haley’s house, and had concocted a plan. He’d learned right away the dog would be a problem, so he’d returned on Sunday and fed it a poisoned hamburger patty. The risk was mind shattering, because Haley was at home when he’d done it, but it must have paid off. Word around the office was the dog was dead. He hadn’t planned on putting his plan into motion so soon, but oh well, shit happens.

  As he started away he heard his cell phone ringing from inside the car. Ignoring it, he assumed it was either his wife, Margie, or someone at the office wanting to know where he was and why hadn’t he come in yet. I can come in whenever the hell I feel like it! Margie was a different matter though, but she could easily be handled later. If she showed any signs of resentment at him for not coming home last night, he’d just have to remind her of how much money he put in the bank account each week. That usually shut her up pretty damn quick.

  He decided to use the woods for shelter as he walked. The damp grass whipped at his pants leaving lashes. As he entered through a shaded area, his right foot came down in some fresh mud, swallowing his shoe. “Shit!” He pulled his foot out, but the shoe remained stuck. His black sock now had a tear in it. Great, a perfectly good sock ruined! He found a dry spot on the ground, and crouched low. He stretched his arms, trying to get the shoe, but it was just out of reach. He could see the tongue of his loafer protruding from the mud like a hand reaching for help. “Two hundred bucks going to putt!!” He should have gone home first and changed clothes, maybe into a sweat suit and some sneakers, but that would have taken even more time, and he was already running behind.

  The bookstore had held him up longer than he’d anticipated.

  He found a stick in the grass and using his left hand, poked it into the mud like he was stoking a fire. He held his right hand in the air, trying not to get any mud on the cast. That would be hard to explain. He already had enough to explain away as it was.

  After a few jabs the shoe was loose enough to grab.

  The damn thing was caked in mud; all but the interior of the shoe was filthy. He slid his foot inside.

  A branch snapped.

  He gasped, and quickly shot around, only to find a rabbit hopping away from him. He slowly exhaled through his tightened lips. “Damn rabbit.” He adjusted his suit–the same one he wore to the book sale—fixed his tie, and marched onward.

  Haley’s house was the destination he had in mind.

  (III)

  When Haley and Carlee arrived at the bookstore, they couldn’t force themselves to leave the car. They stared in shock, neither of them speaking a word. A single tear spilled from Haley’s eye.

  It was awful, absolutely horrible.

  “What happened?” whispered Carlee, unable to raise h
er voice any higher.

  The condition of the store should have been enough for Carlee to not have needed to ask at all. Its twisted features and charred-black boards, a shattered door hanging on a frame without a building behind it, and opening to nothing but snaking plumes of smoke. Between two other shops that stood untouched from the flames, the book store was a broken cavity between two crowns. If the girls still weren’t completely sure what had happened after all of this evidence, the dozen or so firemen shuffling through the ashes and rubble making two piles, one for salvageable books and another for not a chance in hell books, the not a chance pile was three times higher than the other, should have been the final clue they needed to solve this mystery.

  Haley only shook her head, because saying it aloud made it true, and perhaps if she were to keep quiet, then it wouldn’t have really happened.

  Haley stepped out of the car, as if in a trance.

  “Wait,” said Carlee. “Where are you going?”

  Haley drifted to where the debris met the sidewalk. She stopped in front of some firemen. The tallest one of the bunch, a man probably in his fifties, stopped what he was doing and looked at her.

  “Don’t come any further than that,” he said. “Too much for you to hurt yourself on.”

  “How did this happen?” she said, her voice flat.

  “Caught fire sometime early this morning; we think it was arson.”

  She couldn’t swallow. “Was anyone…hurt?”

  “No, and damn lucky, too.”

  She felt her stomach relax a bit. “Where’s Alan?”

  “The owner?” She nodded. “Over there.” He pointed over her shoulder to the right. A bench next to a Dogwood was a good twenty yards away. Alan sat there, staring at nothing, his eyes glassy like a man coming down from a terrible high. Haley recognized it for what it was, the same way she and Joel had looked when they’d learned their parents had died.

  “Are you a friend of his?” She looked back at the fireman and nodded. His face was black with soot except around the eyes which made him look like a six foot tall, albino raccoon. “He could probably use someone like you at a time like this.”

  The fireman was right. “I’m going to check on him.” She didn’t know why she felt the need to inform the fireman of her plan, but his approving smile made her feel as if it was well deserved. Then she offered him a, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He turned back to the wreckage and shuffled about, kicking at some serrated pieces.

  She neared the bench. Alan’s attention was hooked elsewhere. She thought about placing a hand on his shoulder, giving him a tender squeeze, but was afraid of scaring him half to death. “Alan?” She spoke softly.

  He glanced back at her. His eyes were brimming with tears. Black smudges were peppered across his face, wavy lines where tears had passed and dried cut between them. He attempted a smile, and it was a decent one, but not one of his best.

  Lucky he can smile at all.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “My God, are you all right?”

  He shrugged, turned away. “I don’t know what I am.”

  She walked around the bench and sat right beside him, their hips touching. She put an arm around him. “I’m here.” He smelled like a spent campfire of rotten wood, but she didn’t care, she was happy to touch him again, hoped she could offer some sort of comfort.

  He looked at her. “You have no idea how good it feels for you to be.”

  She smiled and felt her eyes starting to water. “I hope it helps somehow.”

  Nodding, “More than you realize.” He laid his head on her shoulder. She cupped her hand over his face and began stroking his cheek. “It’s gone, Haley, all of it. I lived in the loft upstairs, and I have nothing left!”

  He began to cry. She’d never heard a man cry before and there was something extremely sad about it, such defeat and misery. After listening for a while, Haley joined him. She wished she had something to say that would help, but what could she offer him at a time like this? Nothing. It was just the same when the lawyers and the doctors tried convincing her life would be kosher without her parents. She’d actually believed them, but they’d been wrong, so very, very wrong. How could anyone make such a specious promise? She wouldn’t do that now, because she couldn’t guarantee him that anything would ever be fine again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  (I)

  “Fresh?”

  On one knee beside the loose soil, Carp nodded. “Yeah, the dirt hasn’t even dried up yet.” He patted the dirt. “Soft like a tilled garden.”

  “So, something was buried here.”

  “Judging by the layout, I’d say that’s a pretty good assumption.” The area was six foot in length, and four in width, the perfect size and location (under the hanging branches of an oak tree) for a shallow grave. Carp looked up at Buddy through squinted eyes. He could see the vague appearance of worry, and possibly even fear on his leader’s face. That was unnatural for Buddy given any circumstance.

  “Looks too small to be Face, though,” added Carp.

  “I don’t know, unless he was dismembered.”

  Carp grimaced. “Chopped up?”

  “Exactly, shit for brains. You act like that could never happen. How many have we done? Thirty? More?”

  “I’d say more, easily.”

  “That’s right, so I wouldn’t put it past someone else to do the same.” Buddy began to investigate the area, moving about quickly and alert. He looked at the trees, the grave, and the ground around it. He circled the site twice before crouching across the way from Carp. “Found something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Tracks.”

  “No shit?” Carp sprang to his feet, darting over the sinking dirt to join Buddy. Over his shoulder, he saw the perfect imprint of a size nine sneaker. “Looks like a kid’s.”

  Buddy smiled, “Yep. I’d say Converse.”

  “I doubt someone this size could have gotten the drop on Pillowface.”

  “I told you to stop calling him that.”

  “It’s what he wants to be called.”

  “He punishes himself with that name…”

  Carp studied the prints. “Those tracks probably belong to a little boy.”

  “Not necessarily. These days, girls dress just like boys and the boys dress like the girls. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

  Wrong Buddy, there’s one easy way to tell a difference. You make them take off their pants.

  Carp looked to the right and spotted something else just as interesting. Another kind of print, and much, much larger. A fifteen boot, Army issued. “Buddy, look at that.” He pointed to a newborn tree that had most likely been working its way above ground for years. It was a thin piece, a couple of tiny branches developing with maybe three leaves sprouting on each. The print was at its base.

  Buddy kicked the tree over as he settled in front of the other footprints. “Now, these definitely belong to Face.”

  Carp studied a tight path from the tree and found more. “Looks like they’re walking together.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I see two sets, one small and one big, but both appear to be walking next to each other right up this way.” A hill careened down to a thinner section of the forest.

  “Makes no sense,” Buddy said.

  “Should we dig up this hole?”

  Buddy stood up. “You better believe it.”

  They went to their bags and found their shovels. Small, easy to carry, but depending on how deep this grave was they’d be a bitch to use. Plus, the handles were metal and would be shit on their hands.

  Down on their knees, they each picked a side and began digging, tossing the dirt wildly behind them. They weren’t planning to refill it when they were done, so the requirement to make a pile was absent. After fifteen minutes, Buddy found the body. Slower and more vigilant, they unearthed the remains of a female body. They stopped digging once they expose
d her legs.

  “Looks like she might have been a pretty girl,” said Carp, gliding his fingers in over the gelid skin of her thigh.

  “Was.”

  “She still is. Could be useful in a pinch.” Laughing, he patted her leg.

  “A pinch only your sick fucking mind could enjoy.” Buddy shook his head.

  “Check this out,” said Carp. He spread her legs to show Buddy the furry body underneath. “A dog.”

  “Maybe she was killed with her dog.”

  “I’ve never known Face to kill an animal.”

  Buddy shouted, stabbing his shovel into the ground. “None of this makes any goddamn sense and I’m a fucking wizard when it comes to abnormal.” Carp only nodded. “I mean, look at this, some woman buried with a dog. Two sets of tracks, one obviously Face’s, but the other is some kid, or a very small adult leaving the scene together. It’s all fucked up!!”

  “Big time,” he agreed.

  “Put your shovel up. We’re going to find out where these tracks go. Maybe it’ll lead us to Face.”

  “You got it.”

  They packed up in less than a minute and quickly got out of sight, because what they heard off in the distance were voices.

  Kid’s voices.

  (II)

  The boys, along with Pillowface, wandered up on the opened grave. Ethan was the first to notice the pair of legs poking out of the shallow hole like roots. “What the hell is that?” He froze, the color draining from his already insipid face, making him look even sicklier.

  Somehow, Joel knew even before he saw that Ethan had discovered Tonya. He wasn’t as worried about what his friends would say and do as much as he was terrified over how the hole had been opened. There weren’t any kind of animals big enough to dig it up…or were there? Actually, Joel wasn’t sure what kind of animals were in these woods. He’d never come across anything bigger than a fox, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything bigger than that.

  Paul stopped walking. Using his hand as a visor, he placed it on his brow to shield his eyes from the sun. “A hole or something.”