She knew she couldn’t go through the copse of trees. She’d already tried that once, and now she had no time to even consider it. So she began running around it, racing toward the edge of the Anikawa.
The sun was just a smidgeon out from being straight overhead, looking like a yellow blister in the center of a parched skin sky. Its heat beat down on Leah like the hammer of God pounding against an anvil. Sweat streamed down the back of her neck. Her shirt felt heavy and wet. Her breathing became labored. Her stomach knotted and her chest hurt. The breath wheezed from her dry throat.
But she didn’t stop.
As she rounded the copse, the Anikawa spluttered its disdain from alongside her. But she paid it no attention. She just kept running, racing toward that dusty parking lot.
Just when she was nearly past the back side of the chaparral, only a few seconds away from where the short dirt road fanned out onto a wide-open plain, a new sound rose above the scream of the river. The revving of an engine and the squeal of wheels spinning out in the dusty ground. She heard the vehicle start to pull away just as she came out from behind the trees. Throwing her hand up over her eyes to shield the sun, she squinted into the bright light of morning, watching a vehicle quickly pulling away.
Only she couldn’t see it. All the dust it had kicked up behind it concealed it from Leah’s view. By the time the cloud settled, the car or truck or whatever it was had already made it to Garner Road and taken a turn that caused it to vanish behind a tall row of Douglas fir.
Leah’s breath came in convulsions as sweat ran down every part of her body. Bending forward, she grabbed her knees and breathed deeply, waiting for the pain in her chest and the rawness in her throat to subside. Slowly, even the knot in her stomach untied and she was able to think again.
Standing, she scanned the area between the dusty plain and the Anikawa.
Sure enough, she saw what she expected to see: the macabre outline of a shirtless woman’s body hog-tied in a disturbing backward thrust, staked into the ground like some sort of ghastly, twisted vampire. From the top of that stake, a white piece of paper billowed in the gentle breeze.
The Stickman had struck again.
Leah’s eyes grew dark, and her head snapped to the short length of road the vehicle had sped off on. “He killed you!” she screamed. “My pa shot you! You’re goddamn dead!”
But there was nobody to hear her shouts. She stopped yelling and conceded that even though her pa had already killed the boogeyman, somehow or other, the boogeyman had come back.
CHAPTER 35
I woke up excited about the day. It was the Fourth of July, and that meant a whole day of fun. Alvin always had a big Independence Day celebration that began with a parade, which led into a whole day of eating at Willet Park, until finally tonight there would be fireworks after the sun went down. I think the eating was my favorite part.
To top it all off, the rain had finally stopped. I never closed my bedroom curtains before going to sleep last night, and now the morning sun streamed into my room. Then I realized something. My mother never woke me up. Last night she said she would have me and Carry up by eight so we could have a decent breakfast and still make it down to Main Street in time to see the Independence Day Parade. The parade wasn’t near on as good as Alvin’s Christmas Parade, but it was still a parade. I’d seen enough parades to last the rest of my life. Dewey, it seemed, would never run out adoring everything about them, but these days, I rarely loved watching parades.
I leaned over and rummaged through the drawer in my bedside table, looking for the watch that Uncle Henry gave me. It wasn’t easy—the drawer had pretty much become my junk drawer. I threw just about everything and anything inside it, especially important stuff. I knew, if it was in this drawer, I’d never lose it. Things like the pictures of my pa that my mother gave me. Most of them were still in a shoe box sitting on my chest of drawers, but I picked out some special ones I really liked and put them in this drawer for safekeeping. While I tried to find my watch among all the papers, pens, takeout menus, comic books, and other stuff, I began wondering how safe this drawer really was. It seemed like anything I threw inside just got swallowed up.
Finally, my fingers found my watch and I pulled it out. I looked at the face, expecting the worst.
I was lucky. It was only eight-fifteen. That gave me plenty of time to still make it down to Main Street by nine. I put my watch on my wrist, closed the drawer, and got out of bed. I searched through my chest of drawers for something to wear as the sun streamed in through my window. It was still low, barely high enough to shine over the oak trees in our backyard, but at least it was back. There wasn’t even a rain cloud in sight. The sun just hung above the treetops all yellow and happy, alone in a clear blue Alabama summer sky.
This was how Alabama summers were supposed to be.
It was a big, bright, beautiful day, one of them days that make you happy just to be awake. After stretching with a small yawn, I took a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from my drawers and got dressed. Then I remembered my mother hadn’t woken me like she said she would, and I got a bit worried. Carry’s bedroom door was still closed when I walked out in the hall. Undoubtedly, she was still sleeping, something she did until the afternoon on summer days.
I thought she was crazy. The summer was made for enjoying being out of school. How much could she enjoy that while sleeping? I shook my head. I couldn’t believe she didn’t realize this herself. For someone older than me, she certainly didn’t have my smarts.
A pit formed in my stomach as I looked into my mother’s room and saw her bed was not only empty, but unmade. Her drapes were still pulled tightly closed, casting the room in shadow. It felt dark and ominous. A pool of dread filled the pit in my stomach.
“Mom?” I called out, but heard no response. I walked out to the kitchen, my sock feet near on silent on the hallway’s wooden floor. The sun’s rays poured into the window above the kitchen sink, gleaming off the stove and refrigerator.
My heart fell when I realized I couldn’t hear Dan’s snores. He always snored.
“Mom?” I called out again as I walked through the dining room and into the living room. Sure enough, Dan wasn’t asleep on the sofa. His covers and pillow were there, but no sign of him. On the coffee table, a small stack of files and other paperwork lay scattered about.
Nobody except me and Carry were home. I returned to the kitchen, where I found a note on the counter beside my mother’s stack of file folders. Beside the note lay two ten-dollar bills. The note said: Had to go in to work for an emergency. Enjoy the Fourth. Sorry I won’t be able to join you. I left some money for you both. My mother ended it with some X’s and O’s, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I was expecting to spend the day with her. Since she started working on this new Stickman case, I barely ever saw her, and when I did, Dan was always there. She seemed to be too busy for me right now.
I walked back down the hall and knocked on Carry’s door.
“What?” she hollered from the other side, with a snap in her voice I didn’t like.
“Carry, it’s me,” I replied, timidly. “You gotta get up so we’ll make it down to Main Street in time for the parade.”
“I don’t wanna go. Tell Mom I’ll just meet you guys at the park for lunch.”
“Mom’s not here. It’s just you and me.” I paused, thinking how unlikely that scenario was, and added, “And probably Dewey.”
“Great,” she said sarcastically. “Where the hell’s Mom?”
“She left a note sayin’ she had to go in to work for an emergency.”
“When will she be back?”
I started to become annoyed having to holler through her door. I wished she’d just get up so we could talk like normal people.
“She didn’t say,” I answered.
“Great,” she said again.
“Is Jonathon comin’?” I asked.
She didn’t answer, but I heard her get out of bed and open her closet door. I s
tood in the hall outside of her room listening to her bustling inside. A few minutes later she opened her door, fully dressed in an Auburn Tigers university shirt and orange shorts. The shirt was navy and had orange sleeves. The football team’s logo was on the front. I remembered from last time I’d seen her in it that the words, “War eagle!” were on the back.
“You never answered my question,” I said.
“What?”
“ ’Bout Jonathon.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What ’bout Jonathon?” She sounded angry and I had no idea why. Probably just because it was so early. Carry and mornings weren’t that agreeable.
“I asked if he was comin’ along,” I said.
“Of course.”
“Okay. I have to call Dewey.” I headed back toward the kitchen counter for the phone.
“Don’t be on it long,” Carry said from behind me. “I need to call Jonathon.”
I couldn’t believe she was telling me not to be on the phone long. She and Jonathon sometimes talked for hours, even on days when they just finished spending the whole entire day together. I’d never once told her to get off the line. Not even when I desperately needed to call Dewey.
Dewey answered on the first ring and asked why it took me so long to call him. I ignored his question and just told him to come over as quick as he could on account of we had to walk down to Main Street.
“Why can’t your ma drive us?” he asked.
“She ain’t comin’,” I said.
“How come?”
Carry stood tall behind me, her arms crossed. She had no patience, even on her good days. Seeing her like this, woke up so early with her hair all matted and disheveled, I almost got scared.
“Get off the phone,” she said slowly, enunciating every syllable. “I need to call Jonathon.”
“Dewey, just get over here as quick as you can,” I said and hung up the phone.
I went into the living room and switched on the television while I pulled on my shoes and waited for Carry. I hoped she wouldn’t be long. Odds were, with the nest of hair she came out of her room with, she would likely be having a shower. I could still hear her talkin’ on the phone and wished she’d just hang up and get moving.
I flipped around the channels until I stopped at the first thing I found even slightly interesting—an episode of Full House, a show that was as much funny as it was corny. Oh well, it would waste time while I waited for my sister to finish getting ready.
Eventually, Carry hung up the phone and went back down to the bathroom, only a minute before Dewey showed up at my door.
* * *
Lots of people stood on the side of Main Street waiting for the parade. The shops were all decorated for the festivities, everything bright and clean in the morning sun. Red, white, and blue were the only colors I could see as I stared down one end of Main Street and then the other. The street was empty of traffic, since all of the parade route had been blocked off. But people swarmed on the sidewalk, some with children up on their necks, some even brought their dogs. I saw Mr. Robert Lee Garner a block down the street, with his coon dog, Dixie. I waved, but he didn’t see me. I guess I was too short.
We were about two blocks up from the courthouse, where the parade always started. Every year it took the same route, starting at the far end of Main Street and then turning up Hunter Road and weaving all the way up to Willet Lake, which had a huge park wrapped around it.
We stood right in front of Vera’s Old West Grill, the restaurant hosting the lunch and supper barbecue at Willet Park. I loved Vera’s and couldn’t wait to start digging in to the burgers and milk shakes after we followed the parade up Hunter Road and down Blackberry Trail. I could already taste all the food just from thinking about it.
A trumpet sounded, announcing the beginning of the parade.
People began marching from the side of the courthouse. The Independence Day Parade wasn’t near on as good as the Christmas one. It didn’t have floats or nothing like that, but it was still fun to watch. Mostly, though, it was pretty near the same year in and year out.
I watched as the beginning of the parade started passing by us. Four girls with red skirts and blue and white shirts twirled batons, throwing them in the air and catching them at the same time. Just behind them, two boys dressed the same played trombone while another boy marched between them playing a snare drum.
“What song is this?” Dewey asked.
I rolled my eyes. “How long you been alive?”
He looked up, as though calculating. He was ridiculous. “I reckon goin’ on thirteen or so years. I’m not sure if I should start at zero or one when I’m countin’.”
Shaking my head, I said, “Dewey, you’re thirteen. Same as me. Are you tellin’ me that over the course of those thirteen years you’ve never heard this song before?”
“Why can’t you just tell me what it is?”
“It’s ‘America the Beautiful,’ and my mother would say you should be ashamed for not knowing that.”
He didn’t look ashamed. In fact, he pretty near lost interest in me before I even finished. He was busy craning his neck to watch a classic dark blue car with no top on it slowly drive a good ways behind the musicians. Small flags mounted on either side of the windshield rippled in the breeze. Mayor Robertson sat in the front seat, along with a driver, waving and smiling to everyone. Only about half the folk waved back. Neither me nor Dewey did.
Two clowns on stilts came out from nowhere, catching up to the mayor’s car. They were tossing saltwater taffy into the crowds. Dewey managed to scrummage with everyone else on the sidewalk for however many pieces of candy he could grab. When he stood back up, he was beaming.
“Look!” he said. “I got four! One’s even strawberry-flavored!”
“Your lip’s bleedin’,” I said.
“Yeah, I think someone accidentally kicked me in the mouth.”
“Was it worth it?” He touched his bloody lip with his finger, examining it afterward.
“What?” he asked. “Was what worth what?”
“Bleedin’. Was the taffy worth bleedin’ over?”
His smile came back. “Shucks, yeah. I love saltwater taffy.”
I just let that one fall and looked back out to the road, where the members of the Future Farmers of America were now walking by with tall flags announcing who they were. I recognized them from last year. Each of them had red, white, and blue armbands.
After the farmers, people dressed in oversized animal costumes skipped all over the road. One was a dog, another a bird, and the third one was a dragon. I had no idea what any of them had to do with the Fourth of July. But they threw out more candy—this time mints of some sort, all individually wrapped—that Dewey scampered across the sidewalk for, fighting against a flurry of kindergarten kids.
I just let out a breath and shook my head. When he finally came up, his lip was bleeding more than ever.
“Really, Dewey,” I said, exhausted from just watching him grab candy from the hands of little kids. “Is it worth it?”
“What?” Again his finger came to his lip. This time when he pulled it away, it was actually bloody.
“Keep that up and you’re gonna need stitches,” I said.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Dewey. You just fought six-year-olds for mints.”
“I got four.” He opened his hand and showed them to me.
“Your lip’s bleedin’ like crazy.”
“No, not really,” he said. I watched the blood drip down his chin. His tongue came out and licked most of it away.
“That’s so gross,” I said.
“Just watch the parade.” I could tell he was running out of smart things to say.
Next came the Ladies Auxiliary, all of them wearing bright red berets. One woman marched front and center holding a big American flag that kept catching the wind and snapping from side to side.
Then, with the crash of cymbals and snare drums came a full marching band made up of ki
ds who couldn’t have been much older than me or Dewey. I found this exciting, as I couldn’t remember them from any previous Fourth of July parades. Spilling out behind the drummers came at least a dozen other kids, all marching three abreast, each one playing a different musical instrument. There were trombones and trumpets, and flutes and clarinets. At the back came a large boy with his arms wrapped around a tuba. The whole lot of them brought their knees up at the same time and halted on the street as the drummers rat-a-tat-tat-ed a military march on their snares.
The cymbals crashed again, and the band started “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Folk all around us on the sidewalk took off their hats and sang along. I couldn’t believe how loud it was. It reminded me of the choir at Reverend Starks’s Full Gospel Church, only common folk like the ones on the sidewalk couldn’t sing near as well as Reverend Starks’s choir.
Still, their voices rang out loud, true, and clear, and goose bumps appeared on my arms. The singing rose above the sounds of drums and brass, taking me with it. Something about it made my heart swell, and I actually felt tears sting the backs of my eyes. Something had an emotional grip on me, but I didn’t know what it could be.
I assumed the answer would be something I’d discover later in my life. I tried unsuccessfully to hide my watery eyes as the musicians started marching again and moved on down Main Street.
“What the hell you cryin’ for, Abe?” Dewey asked.
“I’m not cryin’,” I said, wiping my eyes. “It’s sweat. It’s like a thousand degrees out here. Aren’t you sweaty?”
Dewey’s eyes narrowed. “Sure looked to me like you was cryin’.”
“Dewey. Look at your shirt. You’ve got wet spots under your arms. You’re sweatin’, too.”
“Yeah, but I ain’t cryin’ ’bout it.”
I took a deep breath. My goose bumps were gone, and I felt kind of sad at the fact. “Just watch the goddamn parade,” I said, finally.
“Okay, as long as you ain’t gonna cry ’bout it anymore.”
I grit my teeth. “I wasn’t cryin’. I was sweatin’.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, not even pretending like he believed me.
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