Around

by Glenn Rolfe

  “That’s a good girl,” Gabriel said. “You’re going to thank me later. But for now...”

  He knelt beside her. “You’re going to rest like the dead. And you’re going to love every second of it.”

  And she fell into his waiting arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Rocky woke up to the sound of crying. He rushed out of his room and down the hall to the living room. His mother and sister were clinging to one another. Officer Pete Nelson stood next to them.

  “Rocky,” Julie said.

  “What’s wrong?” He looked from one person to the next. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Rocky, honey,” his mother said. “Your father had a heart attack last night.”

  “No.”

  “Someone attacked him at your uncle’s. He didn’t make it.” His mother’s voice collapsed on the last word.

  Rocky backed up, shaking his head.

  “No, that’s not true. Dad’s at work.”

  Officer Nelson stepped forward. “I’m sorry, son. Your father’s gone and we haven’t located your uncle.”

  “What? Uncle Arthur? What do you mean you can’t locate him?”

  “As of now, it looks like he bolted the scene,” Nelson said.

  Rocky ran back to his room, slammed the door, and threw himself onto his bed.

  * * *

  The funeral was held three days later. Rocky skipped his driver’s exam and didn’t care if he ever went for it. He didn’t care if he ever went anywhere or did anything again. His soul had been demolished. In a matter of days, this summer had turned from the greatest of his life to the worst ever. One that he’d look back on as a grown man and be able to pinpoint where and when it all went to shit.

  At the viewing the night before, he’d been numb. The body in that casket hardly resembled his father. He was all puffy, his face all wrong. It was like pure cruelty looking at him. It was some form of blasphemy. This wasn’t his dad. This was some horrid wax figure, some horror movie dummy meant to appear like the man who had taught him how to ride a bike, how to fish, how to tie his shoes….

  He couldn’t hold any of it back as they lowered the casket into the ground. Julie held him tight and he soaked the shoulder of her dress as he clutched to her like a life preserver in a swell that would surely swallow them all.

  When it was finished, Mom held his hand and walked him to the car waiting to take them home to the post-funeral reception.

  He got in the car and sat next to the window.

  His itchy eyes stared off at the brilliance of the sun’s golden beams filtering through the maple leaves and casting shadows on the freshly tarred road. It was almost like another hateful trick, this beauty when his heart felt completely deflated. He looked out at a world that had decided to turn against him. His sorrow twisted like thorn bushes, drawing blood.

  The car rolled up behind his father’s truck and the simmering rage within him demanded release.

  He got out of the car and started toward the sidewalk.

  “Rocky, honey,” his mom said. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Rocky, get back—”

  “Mom,” Julie said. “Let him go. He needs it.”

  Their voices faded as he power-walked away from town, toward Scarborough. His breathing quickened. He gritted his teeth and wanted everyone to know how mad he was. He wanted to put his pain on the world. An eye for an eye. He wanted to break something. Kick something.

  There was an old shed set back from the road just over the town line. He and Axel had smoked cigarettes in there last winter. They’d also smashed out the two remaining panes of glass in the crappy place. He stormed off the road, picked up one of the mouldy two-by-fours left to decay beside the building. He screamed as he swung it, slamming it against the side of the building. He swung it again and again until the board snapped in half. He chucked the piece in his hand and walked around to the door. He kicked it in and entered the shack. There was all kinds of loose junk on a worktable, rusted screws, nails, clamps, and old tin coffee cans filled with washers. He picked up a coffee can and launched it against the wall, where it exploded and shot its contents everywhere. He grabbed the edge of the worktable. It wobbled in his hands. He began to jerk it back and forth, determined to snap it free and flip it over.

  Every time it refused to give, he pulled and pushed harder. He felt the stabbing of more than one splinter puncturing his palms and fingers, but he didn’t care.

  He wanted the wood to break. He wanted it to fall to pieces. He wanted it to hurt.

  He wanted his father back.

  As the acknowledgement came to him, he let go of the table and dropped to his knees, becoming a puddle of emotions. He couldn’t breathe. He felt the goddamn back brace trying to suffocate him. He grabbed the front of his dress shirt and ripped it open, sending buttons cascading everywhere. He wrestled out of the shirt and reached back, clawing at the Velcro straps of the brace. He undid all three, pulled the hard plastic shell off and threw it as hard as he could across the small room. He wanted it to shatter, but it bounced off the far wall and tumbled to the floor. He didn’t want to cry anymore. He didn’t want to feel this pain, but at the same time, there in that old shed, he let himself crumble again and again. Out of sight and out of reach, he mourned.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Pete Nelson hadn’t been out to the bars since this nightmare began. All the missing, and still no answers. And no bodies. It was getting to the point that he was ready to start searching the night sky for UFOs. Close encounters of some goddamn kind. How else do so many vanish without a trace?

  That all changed this morning.

  They’d received a call from Scarborough Police. A truck was pulled from the marsh. Four dead bodies. One without its damn face. The flesh had been torn off and discarded. They’d found it all right, though. It looked like some gruesome Halloween mask.

  Discovering the bodies changed things. If indeed it was the same person or persons responsible for the other disappearances, the perpetrators had switched things up. Could they be upping the ante? Daring the police to find them? Or there was the other possibility. This was the work of someone else. A completely separate case. It didn’t feel like it, though.

  Pete needed to get out for a bit. So, he went to the only place he thought might relax him. He walked up the pier and stepped into Duke’s.

  The place was alive. Summer might be affected out there, the streets were a little quieter after dark, but here on the pier, in the company of so many others, the people of his beach town were doing like he was – they were all trying to forget.

  “Officer Pete, mahalo,” Duke said. “What can I get for you?”

  “Hey, Duke,” he said, taking a seat at the bar. “Good to see you’re still getting some business.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t say it’s as good as it has been with all that’s going on.”

  “Look, I’m sorry. We’re doing our best—”

  “No, you misunderstood,” Duke said. “I’m not blaming you. You guys are experiencing this madness with all of us.”

  “That’s good to hear, Duke. Truly. A Jack, straight. Leave the bottle?”

  Duke nodded, tossing his rag over his shoulder. “You got it, boss.” He poured the whiskey and slid the tumbler to Pete, placing the half-full bottle next to him.

  Leaning on the bar, Duke asked, “Any connection with the truck you guys found in the marsh?”

  Pete never talked shop with Duke. Maybe Shannon or Thomas did. They were up here all the time, but Pete didn’t come often enough. He thought he’d wanted to be left alone when he set out this evening, but Duke’s was far from a dive in the town. There were plenty of other dark corners he could have sneaked away to, but he landed here.

  He downed the drink. Duke reached across and
refilled it for him.

  “Thanks,” Pete said. “Honestly, we don’t know yet. Seems likely, I mean, we go thirty-something years without multiple homicides and then we wake up one sunny morning and find a bloodbath on our hands. Only, we ain’t found no bodies.”

  “Until today?”

  “Yeah, until today.”

  He thought again of the faceless man. Zack Walters. Good guy. Hard worker from the shipyard. Family man. Wife, three kids. Same went for Lenny Crates. Pete had met Lenny and his wife, Miranda, last winter at the police charity ball over in Saco. Lenny’s brother, Lyle, was married to Miranda’s sister, Jewel. Both Jewel and Lyle served on the Saco force. All of them had camps here in Old Orchard. The other two bodies dragged from the marsh belonged to two locals, Jim Coniglio and Richie Duncan. Single fellas, but Pete had never heard a bad word on either of them.

  How the hell had the truck ended up in the marsh? Well, that was easy. The killer drove it in. Why? None of it made a damn bit of sense.

  Duke patted Pete’s arm. “You got a lot on that mind, Officer Pete. I’ll leave you in peace. I’m here if you wanna talk.”

  Pete tipped his glass to him. He was beginning to understand why Shannon and Thomas frequented the place.

  The luau-chic joint – tiki torches, hula-girl waitresses, bamboo-dressed tables and chairs, ukulele songs pouring from the jukebox – made him feel like he was on the set of a television show or movie. He thought of that Elvis flick where he’s in Hawaii. He glanced around. The place was nearly full. Another paradise within a paradise.

  * * *

  Pete had to check his watch when he saw the first wave of people begin to vacate the bar.

  It was only ten p.m. and at least half the place was now empty.

  “This is how it’s been. They keep leaving sooner and sooner,” Duke said.

  “Jesus,” Pete said, trying not to slur his words.

  “Yeah, it’s not good, but this is how it stays until closing time.”

  “Sir,” a woman called from the other end of the bar.

  “Duty calls,” Duke said, before shoving off.

  Pete left two twenties on the counter and drifted toward the door.

  Outside, he watched the mass exodus from the pier. Must have been at least a hundred people leaving and only a few, in twos and threes he noticed, coming up. While he was inhaling the salty air, trying to clear his head, one of the comers caught his eye.

  He was tall, slicked-back black hair in a ponytail, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses at night. He most certainly was not Corey Hart. It gave Pete the willies just looking at him. He rubbed his arms, feeling the goose bumps spread like wildfire over his flesh.

  Not wanting to stare at the guy and look like a weirdo himself, Pete moved next to a group of longhairs spouting about the Judas Priest concert coming this week to the Cumberland County Civic Centre. Heavy metal. It wasn’t Pete’s cup of tea, but right now, he’d just as soon go along with these degenerates than stay here and get caught alone with this fella.

  After checking his watch again, he looked up and lost the man in the shades.

  Shit.

  He looked down toward the end of the pier but didn’t see him. When he turned to look the other way, the man was standing next to him.

  “Lovely town you have here,” the man said. What a voice – it sent chills up his spine and turned his stomach. Like the sound of metal scraping metal. The wrongness of it resonated after his last word.

  “Ah, yeah, we-we like it all right,” Pete managed.

  “Quiet out here tonight,” the man said.

  “Well, yeah, it’s been an interesting season to say the least.”

  The man grinned. It was awful. Pete thought he saw teeth, two rows of canines, but more jagged.

  Too much whiskey.

  “You-you from around here?” Pete asked.

  “Just visiting with my family.”

  “Oh? And wheren’ might they be?” Pete asked.

  “We have a rental nearby. Say, are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, sounding more and more drunk by the second. “Say, you got a name?”

  “It was nice chatting with you, friend,” the man said. “I believe I’m ready for a drink.”

  Pete didn’t like the evasiveness. He jumped when the man reached for him, long fingernails coming straight for his neck.

  “You have a spot of something there,” the man said, contacting Pete’s neck with his sharp fingernail.

  “Ow,” Pete said, stepping away and clamping his hand to the spot.

  “Got it,” the man said. “Good evening, sir.”

  Pete watched him disappear among those leaving.

  He pulled his hand away from his neck and stared at the blood.

  He suddenly didn’t feel like walking home alone.

  He couldn’t explain the sensation, but it was set like stone in his mind and soul.

  He’d be all right if he never saw the stranger again.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Rocky awoke sometime after noon. He’d been awake until nearly four in the morning thinking about his dad and uncle and November and Gabriel until his brain felt completely fried. He still couldn’t believe what he was dealing with and that he was the only one who knew that Old Orchard Beach had a family of bloodsuckers taking up residence. That the good kids like Andy Rice, John Chaplin, and Jonas Bazinet and all the others were not the victims of some paedophile or psycho killer, at least not in the traditional sense. Almost more than the others, Rocky was sickest over Vanessa Winslow. Seeing her poster that first night, and the man he came to verify later from seeing him on the news as her father hanging those posters up, made it all real. Rocky remembered the unease that slid through his insides at the sight of Vanessa’s poster.

  He’d made up his mind last night to do his part. He would go to the police station and spell it out for the cops. He knew they would probably laugh him out of the building, but at this point with the number of missing growing exponentially with each day that passed, they would at least have to consider the vacationers out on the edge of town. It ate him up to think November might have a real hand in any of this. Monster or not, he didn’t believe her capable of killing anyone. Yes, she was a vampire. Maybe she had to kill or feed off someone every so often. He was just guessing here; all the other movie stuff seemed to be wrong, and maybe that was, too.

  Even though his heart believed her to be innocent, his mind always brought him back to the facts. She’d lied to him from the very start. Betrayed him. She never told him about how crazy her brother was or that he could be in trouble messing around with her. If she knew Gabriel was a fucking psycho killer, why would she put him in the line of fire? And if it was just her brother doing all this killing, what happened to the bodies? Did he bring them home for the family to feast on? Rocky couldn’t help but picture her with her face buried in Vanessa Winslow’s neck.

  If she turned out to be the angel he’d made her out to be in his mind, well, then that was great for her.

  If the cops followed his far-fetched lead and discovered the truth, that could mean many different things.

  First things first. He had to spell it out for them and let them make of it what they would.

  The first person he bumped into at the police station was Officer Todd Shannon. Shannon was a prick. He’d busted Rocky and Axel for stealing two summers ago at Hector’s Hi-Fi records. It’d been bad enough to get banned from their favourite local record shop for being a couple of stupid thirteen-year-olds, but the way Officer Shannon made a full-blown drama out of it was more than he could take. He’d cuffed them on the sidewalk and chose to stop traffic on Old Orchard Street. This was during the drive home, five o’clock traffic mixing up with all the tourists, not to mention their parents each coming home at that time. Shannon brough
t them across the street and walked them up to the station, where he made them sit in an otherwise empty jail cell while he called their parents.

  He’d never forget Mom’s look of disappointment when she came through wiping the tears from her eyes as his dad talked to Shannon. Rocky had gotten an ass-whipping that night. His father almost never hit him, but that night he’d spanked his bare ass raw. Rocky learned the lesson. He hadn’t stolen from a store since. A yard sale or the school book fair was a different story, but he didn’t have the brass to try at a shop ever again.

  Walking up to Shannon with his story was not going to be easy. He glanced around for someone else, anyone else, but saw no one.

  Hell.

  He made his way up to the desk barely able to meet Shannon’s judging gaze.

  “Oh, Mr. Zukas, gee, it’s been what? Two years since you’ve walked through them doors?”

  Rocky already regretted this.

  “What can I help you with this early in the morning?”

  Where to start? He’d thought about how he would lay it out for them all night, but he pictured Officer Nelson or maybe even Chief Donnelly.

  “Well? Speak up, Zukas.”

  “I think I might have some information on the killer.” The words were hardly more than a whisper coming from his mouth.

  “Come again? What did you say, Zukas?”

  He sighed.

  “I said, I think I know where the killer lives.”

  Shannon sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his thick chest. “Is that so? Well, you want to tell me how it is that you came upon information that five PD stations’ worth of hard-working, competent officers haven’t been able to even catch a whiff of, huh? You want to tell me how a little thieving punk like you just happened upon the answers to the crime of the century?”

  Rocky wanted to both run and punch Shannon in the face simultaneously in equal amounts.

  “Well, Zukas? Enlighten us all with your a-ha Sherlock Holmes moment.”