“She’s a teenager,” Mona said while they cleared the table and Alyssa jogged up to her room. “It’s what they do. They’ll talk a mile a minute to their friends but the moment their parents ask them a question, it’s like they get lockjaw. You and I were the same way and don’t you dare try to deny it.”
He put away the leftovers and sighed. “I guess you’re right. I knew this would happen at some point. Hell, I’ve dreaded it since she was a toddler. I just didn’t think it would be this hard, you know?”
“I know. It’s hard for me too.”
“For you? Please.” He waved her off. “You’re obviously the good cop in this scenario.”
She smiled. “It’s not a contest. Now give me a hand with these, will you? Even bad cops need to wash dishes now and again.”
He patted her ass and set his beer onto the counter. “I’ll show you bad cop.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” She handed him the sponge.
After watching some television, he went upstairs and stepped into his office, which was a fancy word for his man cave. There was a desk, two bookcases, and a sizeable mini-bar. It was where he came to grade papers on most nights. There was a stack of quizzes and homework atop the desk, but tonight they would go untouched. He hated giving out so many tests, especially so early in the year, but it was out of his hands. The school was so busy standardizing everything that they couldn’t see they’d taken away all the fun from teaching. These days, he felt more like a robot, spewing out facts that his students would forget the moment the bell sounded. He wasn’t giving them anything they could actually apply to the real world. To them wars were just wars, not events that were connected because history really did repeat itself now and again.
He poured himself a bourbon and sat down at the desk, leaning back. He had a good buzz, would have a hangover if he kept up at this pace. He thought about sneaking in a cigarette but it was too risky. Even with the window open the smoke would still drift into the hall.
Downstairs he could hear Mona watching television and from across the hall he heard Alyssa’s horrible music, rap or dub step, or some other shitty excuse for a song.
He opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a high school yearbook, resting among countless photos of Jeremy. He had two framed pictures of his son on his desk. Neither his wife nor his daughter knew of the rest of his stockpile and he intended to keep it that way. Mourning, as his ex-therapist had said, was a different process for everyone.
Alyssa’s voice slipped into his head. You’re not mourning. You’re obsessing.
He shoved her aside, perhaps because she was right, and opened the yearbook. It wasn’t his own, but one released ten years prior. Back when the administration was more laid back, they’d tried out a bring-your-child-to-work day. He’d brought both Alyssa and Jeremy. Someone on the yearbook committee had snapped a few photos of him showing his kids off to one of his classes. Brother and sister were smiling and laughing and no matter how much pain the photo dredged up, it usually managed to bring with it a smile.
But tonight he was not reminiscing. He was here to find out if Busty Brown was related to someone he knew.
The thought had been with him ever since their first meeting last week. Once the anger had subdued, Frank couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen Busty before. Except that wasn’t true. It was the feeling you got when you saw a child or sibling that looked so much like their corresponding relative, you got chills. Come to think of it, that kid had an affinity for giving Frank chills, whether or not he wanted to admit it.
He started from the beginning. There were photos of the entire school in no particular order, kids playing Frisbee, attending pep rallies, hanging out in the hall. There were one or two of Frank himself, ten years younger and two jean sizes thinner. He did not look at those photos for long.
He sipped his bourbon, winced as it went down, and kept flipping through the pages, looking for Busty’s doppelganger but thinking with each dead end that he was grasping at straws.
Eventually he nodded off with the book in his lap. The sounds of the breeze and television and crappy music combined with the booze and sent him into a deep sleep. He stayed that way for a few hours until he heard the screaming.
He jumped awake, dropping the yearbook and spilling his whiskey onto the carpet. He vaguely processed the forming stain as he ran downstairs, his paternal instincts raging.
It’s Alyssa. Something has happened to your daughter. You’ve failed your family again. That’s two kids down and one more reason for your wife to leave your ass.
At the bottom of the stairs he saw Mona and Alyssa arguing, the former looking defiant and the latter crying her eyes out.
He paused on the final step, not because of the argument but because of Alyssa’s outfit. She wore a black leather jacket and matching nail polish. Not to mention the dark mascara that had been ruined from her tears. What the hell was she wearing?
“I don’t care!” she said through gritted teeth. “We’re only going out for a little while.”
“It’s pointless now,” Mona said. She held a cup of coffee, the liquid spilling over the mug’s rim every so often as she spoke through hand gestures. Another stain to deal with in the morning. “Why not stay here and catch up on sleep?”
“Because I’m eighteen, not forty.” She wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve.
Frank stepped down from the stairs and stood between them. “Does anyone want to stop yelling and fill me in on what’s going on?”
“Your wife is being a psycho. That’s what’s going on.”
Frank widened his eyes. “You’d better choose your next words carefully. My wife also happens to be your mother.”
She opened her mouth to retort but he held a hand up and turned to Mona. “Why are we yelling at…” he looked at the grandfather clock. “Eleven o’clock at night. If you woke me up, you’ll probably wake the neighbors too.” How the hell did you manage to sleep for four hours?
“It’s Busty,” Mona said. “He called and asked her out. I told her it was pointless. She’d need to come home by midnight and I’ll be damned if she’s late.”
Frank nodded and turned back to Alyssa, choosing his own words carefully. “Maybe she’s right, you know? I mean you’ll see him again soon enough. What’s one night at home with your family going to hurt?”
Her face contorted into a snarl and he was certain he’d chosen the wrong words. She stepped closer to him so that their eyes were inches apart. With her outfit, no doubt taken from Busty’s influence, she looked less like his daughter and more like a stranger. “I’m not doing anything wrong. According to your rules, I have just over an hour and I’m going to obey it. Have I ever given you a reason to not trust me?”
He opened his mouth but shut it quickly. She was right.
She wiped away streaks of mascara. “Good. I know you hate Busty. But you also didn’t like Justin if you remember correctly. You don’t like the idea of me leaving the house at all. Because you think I’m going to wind up like him.”
“That’s not fair,” Frank said.
“But it’s the truth.”
Outside a car honked its horn and without another word, Alyssa opened the door and sped off.
In the aftermath, Frank stood in the open door, watching Busty drive away with his little girl. It was becoming routine. He sensed movement to his left and was certain the Wright kid was watching as always. He couldn’t take much more stress tonight so he slammed the door shut instead of looking.
“I didn’t know you were sleeping,” Mona said, putting an arm around his waist.
He rubbed his sleep-caked eyes. “Neither did I.”
“I’ll get that,” she said, pointing to the coffee stain on the floor.
He grabbed her arm. “Don’t. Let me. I’ve got a matching one upstairs to deal with.”
She held his stubbly cheek and kissed him. “You’re a good dad, Frank Tanner.”
“That’s up for a
debate, but it looks like we’re both in the same spot now.”
“How do you mean?”
He grabbed a roll of paper towels and rug cleaner from the kitchen. “I’m not the only bad cop around these parts anymore.”
●●●
Frank dealt with the coffee stain downstairs and ushered Mona to bed. He promised her he’d be right in after cleaning the office. She told him she’d wait up and winked, though from her tired eyes he was certain she’d be snoring by the time he retired. Their flame hadn’t dwindled with age, but it was hard just staying awake long enough to stoke the fire.
He grabbed more paper towels and returned to his office, spraying the bourbon stain, scrubbing until he could see some semblance of the carpet beneath. He set the cleaner down, threw away the paper towels, and was about to shut off the light when he remembered the yearbook. It had fallen to the carpet, next to the desk chair.
He stepped toward it, bent to pick it up, and froze when he saw the page to which it had opened. It was one of the last pages in the entire book, one that he often skipped over for obvious reasons.
It was a remembrance of Melvin Brown.
Frank was a fool for not making the connection sooner. Perhaps he’d blocked poor Melvin out of his memory so well that even his sibling didn’t dig up old memories.
The remembrance listed Melvin’s birth and death dates. What it didn’t mention was how the kid had died. There were no details of how the Lynnwood high school students—the school was still located on the cliff at that time, rotting and crumbling even then—had bullied him day after day. Melvin had been in two of Frank’s classes and he’d dissuaded the bullying, but not as much as he could have. Truth be told, he’d been a new teacher then and he was more focused on his lesson plan than making sure his students felt safe in his classroom.
Melvin had kept to himself for the most part. Frank supposed, looking at the picture all these years later, that it was simply the kid’s appearance that brought on all the grief. High school kids, as he knew better than anyone, could be vicious.
The boy was just as pale, just as much an outcast, as his younger brother. Frank picked the book up and stared at the peering eyes. He swore they’d blink at any moment, was certain those dark lips would open and start talking to him.
Do you remember, Frank? Do you remember how everyone used to call me a fag or a retard? How they tried pantsing me day after day? Do you know how many times I was tripped? I won’t even mention the scrapes and bruises. Broken noses and bloodied lips and infinite black eyes. And all I did was dress a little different and draw pictures of monsters in my notebook.
Frank wanted to drop the album. It felt heavy in his hands, like its weight had tripled. He swore he could actually hear Melvin’s voice, like his corpse was in the room with him. Like he’d risen from the grave to recount his death.
Recount it? Why, I don’t need to remind you of that day. You were there after all. You were in the cafeteria, a cocky new hire that was pissed to be on lunch duty. You saw that idiot jock pick up my rib sandwich—those things were the worst, weren’t they? —and shove it into my face. You saw me cry, try to fight back for once. Saw him push me to the ground. You saw me puke that disgusting excuse for food onto my shirt.
And you most certainly saw me reach into my backpack and pull out the nine-millimeter pistol, straight from my dad’s lockbox in the back of his closet. You saw me aim the barrel at those bastards. The popular kids weren’t laughing then, were they? No one was laughing when they thought one of their own was going to get blown to bits.
You know what else you saw?
You saw me turn the gun around so that I could smell the oil.
Saw me put the barrel against my temple.
Saw me pull the trigger so that my brains sprayed the walls.
Frank tossed the book across the room. He thanked the stars when it landed and closed this time. His pulse boomed in his ears but he swore he could hear breathing, like the book was aspirating. He imagined the thing growing teeth, long and jagged protrusions that ripped through the pages like skin.
He stood up and slammed the door shut, not bothering to turn off the light. Then he made his way downstairs, grabbed a beer, and drank it within seconds. He cursed himself for looking into that book in the first place. Now he knew exactly who his daughter was dating and somehow that was worse. He would have a talk with her. There was no way she could go on with Busty.
He stayed at the table for the rest of the night, trying to slow his pulse but failing.
Chapter Seven
What the hell was Tom Parkins doing with Vickie Bronson?
It was a question Tom had asked himself for most of the night and he was sure anyone that saw them driving together was on the same page.
“Where are we going?” Tom said, sitting in the passenger seat of Vickie’s BMW. Her parents were filthy rich, had a house four times the size of Tom’s, and at first he’d been intrigued to set foot in such a vehicle. Until she’d started speeding and swerving and blaring her music, laughing as she went. Then he held onto the door handle for dear life and pretended he wasn’t scared.
“You’ll see,” Vickie said, smiling. “It’s a surprise.”
Earlier that night, after football practice, he’d been grabbing dinner at the sub shop near his house when his phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number so he let it go to voicemail. A few moments later it rang again. When he finally answered, it was Vickie on the other end.
“This may seem a little weird,” she said. “But I was wondering if you wanted to hang out tonight?”
“Hang out?”
“Yeah, like maybe a movie or something. Or I could tutor you in trig? I know math’s not your strong suit. No offense.”
He laughed. “None taken.”
“Is that a yes then?”
“I guess so.” Was she coming on to him? Her new look was a little odd, he had to admit, but her face was still cute and she had a body that distracted him in class. It was half the reason he’d already failed the first trig quiz.
She’d picked him up a few hours later but they hadn’t gone to a movie or dinner—unless you counted burgers and shakes from McDonald’s—and they hadn’t done an ounce of studying. Instead, Vickie had driven around well above the speed limit, telling him how much fun they were going to have.
Finally, when Tom was sure those burgers and shakes were going to wind up on the dashboard, only half digested, Vickie parked the car and cut the engine. “We’re here.”
Tom knew they were near the boulevard, but he hadn’t been paying attention to their trajectory on account of almost pissing his pants. Now he surveyed his surroundings and his bladder felt full once more when he saw the old Lynnwood High School not more than a hundred feet away. He peered through the back windshield, saw the steep hill that wound downward and ended at the decrepit playground. He’d never been up here in all his childhood. He’d been dared plenty of times, but had always backed out. He wasn’t above defending his masculinity, but he drew the line at haunted schools.
He hadn’t noticed until now that the music was no longer blaring. He’d had Vickie pegged as a Taylor Swift fan, but she’d instead been listening to industrial or metal or some other loud and disorienting genre. Now that it was gone, the silence cut into him like a recently sharpened knife.
“So,” Vickie said. “How about Murray, huh?”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, he’s something else. Can’t go a full period without grabbing something from the supply room. That something being a shot of whiskey.”
“Do you drink, Tom?” She moved closer and reached for his hair, her fingers massaging his scalp.
He slithered in his seat, not sure if he was turned on, a bit scared, or both. “When the opportunity arises. Coach doesn’t like us to get too drunk. Says it messes with your performance.” He cursed himself for that last bit. Had she thought he was being crude?
She tightened her grip on his hair. This close she barely
resembled her former self. The paleness of her skin was not from a bottle. No makeup could make you look that ghost-like. Either she’d stayed inside studying all summer or she was fighting some sickness.
“Guy’s a perv too,” Vickie said. “Murray, I mean. His eyes are all over every pair of tits in the class. He tries to cover it up, pretends he’s just spacing out instead of fantasizing. Oh, and when he drops those markers, he takes his time picking them up if you catch my meaning.”
He smiled, pretended to laugh. “I catch it.”
“Can you blame him, though? He’s only human after all.” She leaned forward so that he had a nice view of her cleavage. He’d always found her attractive, but there was something about her new look, something so foreign that it almost seemed…
Deadly.
“Do you ever fantasize about girls in your class?” she said.
He felt cold yet his skin dripped with sweat. “Oh, I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to be coy. You’re a guy. Guys think about sex every chance they get. Hell, you probably jerked off just before I came to get you.”
He opened his mouth to respond but she waved him off.
“Look, I’m not judging. My point is that we’re hard-wired with certain impulses, certain primal desires, and I’ve learned lately that we shouldn’t repress those feelings. It’s unnatural. Instead we should give ourselves over to them. When you take away all the bullshit that society has pushed on us, we only have two basic needs. Do you know what those are, Tom?” She brought her other hand to the crotch of his pants and he was certain he would blow his load then and there.
He shook his head.
“To kill and to fuck.”
He kissed her then, or maybe it was the other way around. He wasn’t sure as she slid from the driver’s seat and onto his lap, as she unclasped her bra and removed her shirt, as she unbuckled his belt and freed his erection from his boxers. He was only sure that something had happened to Vickie Bronson, something that had changed her so completely he felt he was with a different girl.
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