“Bless her old heart,” was his last thought, “she even got one of those.”
LITTLE PIECES, by Matt Piskun
I wanted to see her again, her smile, her flowing, golden hair that smelled like spring flowers. I missed the way she touched me, so light and caring yet it always sent a charge through me. My life corroded quickly when she disappeared. A piece of her was mailed back to her apartment. The police had no leads.
We met in the third grade, in this classroom. The furniture had changed, as of course had the children’s artwork on the walls. New pictures and poems on construction paper were hung where ours used to be. Where were my old drawings? They were rotting in a landfill somewhere probably the same as Hope was.
The pictures on the wall fluttered as the door to the classroom opened.
“Can I help you sir?” She spoke with her arms crossed just below her chest.
“I went to school here, had third grade in this room.”
She gave me a nervous smile. Dimples appeared on her face that made her look quite cute. My stomach fluttered as her cool, grey eyes studied mine.
“I’m sorry but you shouldn’t be in here. This is my room. I was just about to lock up.”
“I’m just reminiscing.”
Her smile slowly melted away and a tinge of worry appeared on her face. Could she see the knife hidden under my shirt? I began to sweat and I couldn’t look her in the eye.
“Look,” she told me, “I’ll give you five minutes. I’m going to head back to the teacher’s lounge and get my stuff. I’ll be back with security so please be gone. I know you want to revisit your memories but you really shouldn’t be here.”
I nodded and that adorable smile snuck back onto her face. She held up her hand, “Five minutes.”
Revisit memories, if only she knew. When she left I opened the coatroom door and moved a bunch of wire hangers over to one side and there it was on the wall, just as I remembered it.
Etched into the faded wood were the initials ‘MJ + HW’ encased in a heart; my initials and those of Hope Winters. She wore a red and white strawberry dress the day I carved it. I pulled out my knife and scraped the initials off the wall. I caught the shavings in my hand and dropped them into a small plastic bag.
Before I went to see Babanoose I needed to eat so I headed home. Visits with him could be interesting and I was already light headed.
“What are you doing home?”
“I have the day off, Dad.”
His wrinkled face made a sour expression and he waved his lit cigarette in my direction. “You take off and do nothing? What a waste.”
The old curmudgeon lives with me now. My sister lived in Miami and it was too hot for him to live there, which I find ironic since he would most likely spend eternity in hell.
I made no reply as I prepared myself a peanut butter and Fluff sandwich. He kept yapping but I knew how to tune him out. Occasional words like, “no girlfriend”, “pathetic” and “no confidence” burst through my mental defenses, but I pushed them deep down into that special place I reserve for all life’s bile.
“See ya later, Pop.” I said, but “Fucking die already,” is what I thought.
Babanoose sat on his big, green, ugly-ass couch and puffed on a joint. He wore a black dashiki with gold trim and blue jeans. He offered me a hit but I declined. “Mandatory drug testing at work,” I lied. Baba knew I was full of crap but he respected me enough not to call me out on it. We’ve been pals since kindergarten.
He rubbed his hand over his bald head. “You sure you want to go through with this, bro?”
“I need her back.”
Babanoose looked at me and frowned. “Sometimes the dead should stay dead. She was a great friend but it’s been a year. I don’t wanna be insensitive but you need to date or something.”
“Something inside me vanished when she did.”
Baba knew he wouldn’t win this argument. “Give me what you got.”
I gave him the bag of shavings from the coat-room wall.
“Dust? You shittin’ me? How much mojo you think I got?”
“It’s from when we first met.”
“Hmm. O.K., I’ll give it a whirl.”
He pulled out a skull from a worn leather chest. It looked human but I wasn’t sure and I didn’t ask. He lit two white candles that sputtered and spit out yellow sparks.
“Fat candles,” Babanoose smirked.
He dumped the shavings in the skull and filled it to the top with red dust. “Hold my hand,” he told me, “and don’t let go. Oh, and don’t say shit either.”
I grabbed his left hand and with his right he tilted one of the spitting candles until the flame licked the red powder inside. He looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t fucking let go of me.”
The skull sizzled on the table with smoky, black tendrils drifting up and twisting lazily around each other. I was starting to wonder how much Babanoose had been smoking when the skull started to shake violently. The room grew dark, then darker still. I couldn’t see the skull on the table but I could hear it rattling fiercely. My hands started to sweat and I gripped my friend a little tighter.
The eyes of the skull lit up. Two yellow orbs pierced the blackness and floated before me. Like twin searchlights they scanned the room until they discovered me. The exploring beams found my eyes and for a moment my sight was lost. My heart seized in panic then my vision came back to me.
I was alone in the room, in a different level of reality, but I felt Babanoose’s hand anchoring me back in the real world. In the shifting kaleidoscope of different shades of night I saw her lips. Thin and red and smiling, just the way I remembered them. They whispered but her words were lost in the dark tempest that surrounded her mouth. I moved closer driven by my desire to hear her voice again. I stopped as my arm jerked behind me tethered to the other world by my friend. I pulled harder and I felt my hand begin to slip. The lips moved more frantically. I jerked my arm with greater intensity. My hand was slipping free, my fingers running across Baba’s palm. I was making out what she was trying to say, her words swimming through the murk, kissing my ear when I felt a hand grab my forearm and pull me back into reality.
The candles had burned down to little stubs and Babanoose’s dashiki was wet with sweat down his chest.
His eyes were filled with rage when he spoke, “Bastard, you stupid shit. I nearly lost your ass.”
“Hair.”
“What?”
“She told me that I needed to find a lock of her hair.”
Baba looked surprised then he took the burnt scrapings from the soot-covered skull and rubbed them on a compass. “Her spirit has spoken, man. Take this compass and follow the needle. It will take you to her hair or whatever the hell she wants you to find.”
“Will I be able to bring her back with it?”
“I don’t know but you think I’m gonna try after that stunt you pulled?”
“I swear it won’t happen again. You can handcuff me to you if you want.”
“Then you’d pull my ass in with you and Babanooose is happy where he is.”
“I promise.”
“Damn, we’ll see.”
I put the compass in my coat pocket and walked home. It was cold and I could see my breath. The moon was full but it offered little light through the clouds.
I heard a rustling in the bushes beside me. I peered inside and saw nothing but darkness. I quickened my pace. I heard the brush move once again then heard footsteps behind me. I was spooked, my otherworldly experience still fresh in my mind, and I ran. The footsteps ran too. They were gaining on me. I was about to shout for help when I was tackled on the sidewalk. My hands broke my fall and I felt my palms rip open. Then I was punched in the back of the head causing me to see stars.
“Give me everything in your pockets! Empty them. Now!”
I turned over but I couldn’t see his face as he stood over me in the darkness. What little light the night offered was reflected in the blade he held. I
started to comply to his demands when I felt the ash-stained compass in my pocket.
My pause made him impatient and he wound up for another punch. I jerked my head to the side and his fist hit the ground. I yanked my hand from my pocket and hit him on the side of his face. Then I brought my foot up and kicked him in the groin as hard as I could. He dropped his knife and fell to knees clutching his balls.
I picked up the knife and stood over him. I pointed the blade at him, gripping the handle so hard my knuckles hurt. “No. No, man,” he said through pained breaths. I put the knife in my coat pocket and left him retching in the dark.
Walking into my house I found my father sitting in the living room. A cigarette smoldered in the ashtray. “What the shit happened to you?”
“Nothing, I fell.”
“Clumsy bastard,” he snickered.
Adrenaline still flowed through me. I balled my fists in anger and my heart pumped faster. The steel in my pocket was ice cold.
He picked up his smoke and took a long drag. “Go clean your lumbering self up. You’re bleeding on the damn carpet. It’s no wonder you have no woman.”
Anger was replaced with self-pity. I unclenched my fists and went upstairs to shower. I sat in the tub and let the water rain over my head and back. I picked small pieces of gravel from my palms and watched them spiral down the drain much the way my life had. When Hope died a light went out in the world and the darkness she held back stampeded toward me until I was awash in it, a night that has forgotten day.
I remember the last time I saw her. “She likes you, you know?”
She pushed her hair out her out of her eye as she spoke. “She would go out with you. She’s hot too.”
“I don’t know about that. Plus we work together.”
“Give yourself some credit. You’re a catch and who cares if you work together.”
I grinned at her and she smiled back. God, I loved her. I think she knew it.
“Look, I think I like someone else.”
“Well,” she laughed, “why don’t you ask her out? It is a her isn’t it?”
“Yes! I’m just building up my confidence.”
Her smile widened and she touched my hand. “Don’t wait too long. She may not wait around forever.”
* * * *
The next morning I left for work early before my father was awake so I didn’t have to listen to his crap. As I left I heard him snoring away; the shit in his lungs from a lifetime of smoking rattling around in his chest.
I couldn’t concentrate at all at work so at lunch I told my boss I wasn’t feeling well and needed to leave. He informed me I had no sick-time left but I told him I was going to barf so he let this one slide.
I put the compass on my car dashboard and followed the needle as I drove up Sycamore Avenue and South on the Garden State Parkway. I went about sixty miles and was starting to seriously doubt Baba’s compass as horseshit when the needle jerked to the right as I approached exit thirty-nine. I got off and drove down a side-road for a few miles then pulled onto a dirt path, which stopped in front of a dense forest. I parked the car and peered through the trees. The setting sun cast long, black shadows across the woodlands. There was complete silence, not even the chirping of birds or the rustling of leaves. I got sharp, nervous jabs in the pit in my stomach and thought about coming back in the morning but the needle on the compass was vibrating excitedly in my hand.
I heard a car coming and I turned around to see it approaching. The driver rolled down their window. A woman with green eyes and reddish- brown hair smiled at me.
“You having car trouble?”
Her smile calmed me. “No, just looking around, checking the area out.”
“Did they finally agree to sell some of this land off?”
She was beautiful and I noticed her hands on the steering wheel. She had no rings on. “I heard they might,” I lied.
“Well if you buy it I live a mile up the road, number sixty-four on the right. Come and say hi.”
She smiled at me as she closed her window and drove away. I waved good-bye. She reminded me of the cute teacher I met yesterday.
It was getting darker but I could still read the compass so I went into the woods. I kept stumbling on the overgrown shrubbery and twisted roots that covered the ground. Nightfall seemed to come much too quickly and I couldn’t see the compass anymore. I looked around and saw nothing but trees and blackness. A cold breeze whipped at me from every direction and I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth.
I jumped as I heard a sharp crack. It sounded like someone else was in the woods with me. I peered into the surrounding gloom and saw only the stirring of shadows. There was a pressure building behind me making me want to walk forward. I shuffled slowly ahead when there was another loud bang and the tree trunk in front of me exploded in a shower of splinters. I dove onto the ground as I heard another shot buzz past my head and shatter more wood.
I lay flush to the ground, hiding in the tall overgrowth, when I heard a voice, soft and confident call out to me.
“I’ve got night-vision. I’m going to find you.”
He fired another shot off trying to make me jump up and reveal myself. I crawled further ahead afraid to stay still and do nothing. As I crept along I came across a long swath of what felt like long grass. It was soft but was dried out and caked with dirt. Another shot rang out overhead and I yanked my hands to my ears pulling the grass. A handful was ripped off between my fingers and as I felt it brush across my face I knew what it was. Hair.
I heard footsteps approaching. The snapping of tangled roots and fallen branches brought more dread then the gunshots. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. The man was approaching me from behind. I held my breath and lay flat in the brush hoping he would be peering through a scope, looking behind trees and not looking down.
“You won’t make it out these woods,” he whispered. A foot crunched behind me. “This is my place, where I take people to play.” A boot came down by my head and I could smell its damp leather. He was standing above me. I felt the tangled hair between my fingers then clenched my fist tight.
I quickly got to my knees and jumped upwards screaming with fear. My back came up between his legs and I felt him tumble over and heard the clatter of his rifle hitting the ground. I heard him scrambling to his feet in front of me and I leaped forward into the shadows. I grabbed his arm but couldn’t get a grip on his jacket.
He threw me off and I hit a tree, my vision exploding in a flash of lights. I felt the knife from the mugger in my jacket. I pulled it out but my attacker grabbed my wrists and turned it back on me. He pushed the blade towards my chest. I screamed and pushed back but he was stronger. The tip pierced my jacket then flesh. I felt a bead of blood run down my chest. I crashed my head into his face and he released his grip and fell over. I howled into the night and raised the knife above my head. When he moved I would find him. I would see the ripples in the darkness; I would hear his muffled breathing through his broken nose. Then I would thrust my blade into him again and again. I heard him try to crawl away but as I stepped toward him we were surrounded by beams of light.
The beams got closer and closer tightening their circle. Then I heard the shouts of “freeze” and “police” as scores of cops flooded the woods surrounding us.
I spent the next morning in the Egg Harbor Township Police Station.
“You’re lucky a neighbor called us when she heard shots fired.”
I rubbed the hair in my pocket between my thumb and forefinger.
“I know you’re in shock sir but you should know that we found a body in the woods. We think the man who attacked you may have killed someone and buried the body in the woods.”
I knew it was Hope.
“Would you be willing to come back and answer any questions we might have?”
I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye and nodded my head.
I drove straight to Babanoose’s house with Hope’s hair still entwined in my f
ingers. I knocked on his door and he answered wearing only a pair of boxers.
“It’s early. What to do want?”
“I’ve got her hair.”
His eyes widened. “You sure you want to do this?”
He packed the hair into the skull and looked at me as he held the lit candle over it.
“You’re not gonna let go of my hand?”
The flame sizzled and danced. “No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Little sparks jumped from the wick. “No.”
“Seriously, man.”
Wax rolled down the length of the candle.
“I said no.”
Baba lit the contents of the skull. The shadows came fast and the room was darker then the woods from the night before. Remembering my promise to him I gripped Baba’s hand tightly. I felt pressure in my chest. It felt like something was growing, pushing out on my sternum.
A small light formed in front of me. It shimmered as if underwater. The force inside me grew. The glimmer took the form of a woman and the growing thing in my chest moved to my throat then to my mouth thrusting my jaw open.
The shining lights dispersed into the twin gaze of the skull. The lights searched me up and down and stopped at my face. Radiance caressed my cheek. I saw the smile of the teacher in my old classroom as she left me to reminisce. My heart raced as I saw the folded hands of a mugger begging me to spare him and lastly, hovering before me were the emerald eyes of the caring woman who was pulling over in her car to see if I needed help. The presence in my mouth vanished and with it the light.
The room came back into focus and Baba looked at me with sorrow. “I never tried to bring anyone back. I’m sorry, we can try again.”
I rubbed his bald head now wet with sweat. “You did great, bro.”
“But, she ain’t here.”
“No she is. I think she never left.”
It was noon and I was stoned out of my mind when I got home. My father was waiting for me in the living room.
The Haunts & Horrors Megapack: 31 Modern & Classic Stories Page 28