The Grateful Boys
Françoise DuMaurier
Dedication
Wayne, Michael, Jenna, Jaylyn. For immeasurable inspiration.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Copyright
Prologue
“Welcome to Corpus. A Quaint Town with Country Charm. Speed Limit 45.”
A man and his wife had just driven seven hours from Orange, Virginia. They made their way through the Carolinas, North and South, and finally hit their destination state, the professed buckle of the Bible Belt— the great Peach State of Georgia. It would take another ninety minutes before they finally crossed that “Welcome to Corpus” sign.
“Never heard of a Corpus, Georgia,” the wife said.
“Nor have I,” her husband responded through yawns, his hands on the wheel.
“How much longer until we reach Savannah?”
“Bout thirty-forty miles, I reckon. The drive through this tiny little dump shouldn’t take long.”
“I swear I don’t recall seeing it on the GPS,” his wife said spuriously.
“Nor have I,” he repeated.
It was dark out now. Very dark. After five minutes riding through Corpus, Georgia, the paved road itself seemed to have vanished in favor of a dirt stretch. But it wasn’t the dirt road that bothered them, it was the blanket of fog that covered everything around them. Their sights were limited only to the view allowed by the headlights.
“Dammit, I can’t see a thing. Never been in a town so foggy,” the man said as he clutched the steering wheel and leaned in.
“Nor have I,” his wife shot back ironically.
Another wheel clutching mile or so went by until the husband told his wife to turn the damned GPS back on.
“Are you lost?” she asked as she turned her phone on.
“Just wonna confirm we’re going in the right direction. To hell with these detours.”
There it was, the luck of the draw. The moment her GPS turned on, the engine of their beat-up old Volvo sputtered to a climatic end.
“Oh, not now. What did you do!?” she asked.
“Me? It was your idea to make the drive when we could have flown,” he mumbled.
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me. Get out and do something!”
The wife quickly snapped her head to side. She went wide-eyed upon hearing a loud horrific screech from outside their vehicle. Her husband could see her trembling.
“It’s nothing,” he said as he opened his driver door, slammed it shut, and lumbered toward the front of the car. Up went the hood and down went his head.
“So what is it?” the wife signed as she rolled down her passenger window.
“Might not be the engine. Might be the carburetor,” he said as he closed the hood after a quick inspection. “Either way, call Triple A. I don’t wonna be out here all ni–”
Before he could finish his sentence, a dark winged figure swooped upon him. His wife screamed as the black shadowy demonic figure slammed him onto the hood of the car. The wife’s deafening screams matched the screech of the demon as it pulled her now bloodied husband into the dark of night. His screaming stopped as he faded out of sight and into the fog.
Panicked. Sweating. Fearful. The wife rolled her up window at once, fumbled for her phone, dropped it under her feet, and fumbled for it again. With a panic attack on the rise, she dialed three numbers on her phone.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“SOMETHING JUST GOT MY HUSBAND! SOMETHING IN THE FOG! WHERE’S HE AT? WHERE’S HE AT?” she screamed.
“Ma’am, calm down. Tell us your location and we’ll have assistance respond to your emergency as soon as possible.”
“Corpus, Georgia. Our car stopped. Something got him! Oh God! Something got him!” she screamed through tears. Nerves frayed. She couldn’t quite understand what else the operator was asking her.
A giant thud was accompanied by an immediately dent made upon the roof of her car. “It’s back!” she screamed into the phone.
“Don’t end the call, ma’am. Help is on the way,” the operator responded.
But there would be no help for the couple that drove seven hours from Orange, Virginia and intended to make a pilgrimage to Savannah, Georgia. The unintended stop they made in the tiny town of Corpus would be their last.
The operator asked the wife if she was still on the line. Before she could answer, her window was shattered into a million pieces. A hooked arm as black as the night itself, that could only be described as belonging to no human on earth, swooped into the car and impaled the wife. And everything went black.
Chapter 1
2254 Roosevelt Road, Corpus, GA.
This was the address of a house that sat squarely in a lower-middle class neighborhood – well, if lower-middle class was a distinction that could be made in Corpus, Georgia. But it was not. There was no distinction of classes in the rural town of Corpus. Everything and everyone was very ‘same-y’. You either lived in a double wide or a small house.
Every adult in this community took pride in making ends meet. They took pride in not allowing their tiny town to be overwhelmed by too many 21st century advances. In fact, the entire town itself looked as if it were stuck in many decades past – only with more wear and tear.
No one ever left Corpus, Georgia. And no one sure as hell ever moved there – with very few exceptions. And the occupants of this particular house in this particular neighborhood were exceptions.
Eighty-seven-year-old African-American Denise Lane spent her entire life in Corpus. Shea always lived there. And three months ago she died there. The house was inherited by her middle-aged daughter, Mel.
“To my only daughter, Melanie, I bequeath the only home I’ve ever owned in addition to any further assets I may have at the time of my passing,” – those assets included a savings account with $5000 and some change. The deed took a month to change hands and soon enough Mel was now a proud homeowner.
It couldn’t have come at a sooner time. Mel was a jobless widow with two kids. Her children were biracial – a Corpus rarity, to be sure.
The kids had spent summers in Corpus but this was their first time being true dyed-in-the-wool Corpus residents.
Mel had enjoyed the picturesque city of Charlottesville but there was surely no one in North Carolina who would leave her a free house. So Mel and the kids packed up and headed to Corpus.
Over two months passed.
The house itself was one of the only larger dwellings in Corpus. It was two stories, four bedrooms, three baths, and even had a basement. To be sure, every bit of furniture looked as if it were from the Civil War-era. But that was neither here nor there. Like Mel told her kids, a free house was a free house.
“Mom, my bathroom’s leaking again,” Mason told his mother.
“Then you’ll just have to share your sister’s bathroom until I can get it fixed,” mom said as she darted into her bedroom.
Mason let out an exasperated sigh. He was thirteen years old, shorter than most of his new classmates, hadn’t had a haircut in years, and the kind of boyish boy who would never change out of his favorite camouflage pants. He rotated only through a half dozen t-shirts, each featuring a favorite horror character.
“You hear that, Hailey?!” Mason yelled d
own the hall.
If he was looking for an answer, one never arrived.
“Tell her, mom!” Mason said.
“I don’t have time! You two just share,” his mom’s voice called from her bedroom.
“What do you mean you don’t have time? It’s not like you do anything all day, mom,” Mason said.
She stuck her head in her doorway.
“A little FYI Mason… I’m going on a job interview today,” his mom smirked in a manner that told him aha!
“Cool, where at?”
“You know that little diner a few blocks down.”
“Hell, everything’s a few blocks down in this town, mom.”
“Watch your language,” she snapped.
“All I said was hell!”
They exchanged glances and mom darted back into her bedroom.
“You two just learn to share!” she called out again. “That means stop calling me, I’ve gotta look good for my interview.”
Mason ran down the second-floor hall, rushed into his sister’s room, and banged on her bathroom door.
“Let me in!” he yelled.
“No!” she said just as loudly.
“UGH!”
The door opened. His sister was three and a half years older than him and staggered over him in height. Her hair was long, her features were soft. Her appearance was well kept and maintained – unlike her little brother’s ‘get up and go’ routine.
“Boy, what do you even need to use a bathroom for? A comb hasn’t touched your hair since dad died. And you never brush your teeth. You scruffy looking little dork.”
“First off, I brush my teeth every day. Thank you very much. And don’t bring my dad into this.”
“I was joking. He’s my dad, too,” Hailey rolled her eyes.
“For real, Hailey. I gotta piss.”
“Go outside in the bushes! You’re like a feral little boy anyway,” she said as she slammed her bathroom door and immediately turned her hairdryer back on.
Despite her sarcastic tone, Mason had made up his mind that it wasn’t such a bad idea.
“Mom, Hailey told me it’s okay to piss in the bushes!” Mason yelled. He grabbed his backpack from his bedroom and rushed downstairs into the backyard.
“Oh my god! Mason, boy, don’t you dare do that outside!” his mom called out, her plea falling on deaf ears.
Mason relieved himself in the backyard. He grabbed his bike, opened the chained fence door, and took off down the road at seven in the morning for school.
Living in Corpus had the honorable distinction of being the first time that Mason ever rode a bicycle to school. He was used to taking the bus back home. But Corpus had another strange distinction—the tiny town had no school buses. Usually there were four ways for kids to get to school. By car, by bike, by walking, or by school bus. Corpus lacked that fourth option. The tiny school district didn’t have the funds to afford buses and drivers and gas. Not when they reckoned the town was so small that any kid could sufficiently get to class by walking or biking—if being driven by parents were not an option.
Corpus only had two schools. The first was Corpus Elementary for Pre-K through fifth grade. The second school was Corpus Middle & High. As the name suggested, the school housed both middle and high school students.
The school contained about 250 middle school kids down the East Wing and roughly the same amount of high school students down the West Wing. To put this in comparison, Mason’s previous middle school (with no adjoining high schoolers) had 500 students.
So here he was, biking on a dewy morning only minutes after the sun had risen. He passed the other old antiquated houses and made his way to the local trailer park where he was joined by Alex McGuire, the first friend he had made in Corpus. The two shared the same boyish love of anything silly, immature, or focused on science fiction or horror.
“What’s up, Mace,” Alex rode up to him on his own bike.
“Nothing new,” Mason shrugged as the two took off and sparked up a conversation along the ride.
“How about games?” Alex asked.
“Oh yeah, I just came across some great stuff. Gonna check it out after school when I get back home.”
***
While Mason was biking with his pal to school, Hailey was finishing up her hair and heading out the front door.
“Bye mom!” she yelled from downstairs.
“Bye, Hailey! See you and Mason this afternoon!” Mom shouted from the second floor.
“He’s already gone! And I’m pretty sure he pissed in the backyard,” Hailey said and left through the front door.
“That damn boy!” she heard her mom yell out just as she shut the door behind her.
Mason may have biked to school but Hailey was not the kind of person to spend an hour doing her hair only to then have mother nature’s weather ruin it on some long bike ride to school.
Parked in the driveway for the past five minutes was her friend, Madison Sewell— a same aged high school girl who possessed her own car. It was an old silver Cadillac. The kind that looked as if it had once functioned as a boat.
“Oh, I want my own car so bad,” Hailey said as she hopped into her friend’s vehicle.
Madison put the old clunker in reverse before backing out. She set it in drive and took off without a care.
“This boat is my life-saver,” Madison said of her car.
“I know!” Hailey grumbled. “Go wherever you like. Hook up with boys. Get away from family.”
“All of the above,” Madison said.
“My mom just can’t afford one. But maybe I’ll win the lottery when I’m eighteen,” Hailey said. “Fingers crossed.”
The morning sky was clear and the Georgia heat had not yet kicked in. Madison went to reach for the dial in her car that turned in the volume of the radio when she thought of something.
“Oh yeah…” Madison said, “You’re not gonna believe this.”
“Believe what?” Hailey asked.
“So I’m on my way to pick you up. Then my mom texts me. She tells me to turn on the WKP-26… you know, the location radio station. So I do.”
“Yeah?” Hailey asked. “And?”
“Some weird report about two people being found dead last night along Old Mill’s Road.”
“Just dead on the road?”
“I don’t know, but that’s what it sounded like.”
“Dead?” Hailey asked. “Like killed?”
To be sure, many people died in Corpus, Georgia. Perhaps that’s how the town retrieved its name. It couldn’t help but happen in a town with a high population of senior citizens. But people being killed in Corpus? That was unheard of.
“Like I said, not sure. There weren’t many details. Not many people spontaneously die on the side of the road. If they were killed it had to be some kind of freak accident.”
“Yeah. You’re right. I guess,” Hailey said with uneasiness, not liking where the conversation was headed. Changing it seemed the best course of action. “How far is the nearest mall?”
“Oh gosh, I guess about forty-five minutes in the city,” Madison answered.
“Jesus, there’s really nothing to do here is there?”
“When you’re in Corpus, the only thing to live for is the tea, sis. And the football games. Our next one is coming up soon. You haven’t been, have you?” Madison asked.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well you have to. It’s seriously, like, what the town lives for. Everybody attends. Doesn’t matter if you are still in high school or if you attended forty years ago. We break out the tailgate parties. For real. The teens I mean. Older people just go for the game.”
“All for high school football?” Hailey asked. The look on her face was one of befuddlement.
“YES!” Madison responded, with the sound of the marching band buzzing through her head. “I can’t wait.”
“Will there be drinks?” Hailey asked.
“Like beer? Lots, sis,” Madison howle
d, slapping her steering wheel as if the game were just beginning.
Hailey turned her head toward her window and they both took a glance at two distinct buildings sitting side by side. The school was right around the corner but right here was the Town Hall, the building where the mayor worked. But it wasn’t really a building. It was a bricked in double wide trailer. And next to it, off to the side, was a small building— a real building— with a small fleet of police cars parked in front of it. The two conjoining signs read, ‘Corpus Town Hall’ and ‘Corpus County Sheriff’s Department’.
“Of course,” Madison continued, “Everyone at the game means the Sheriff’s Department too. So it’s always best to avoid the men in uniform if we’re planning anything really fun.”
“Totally,” Hailey nodded. “Couldn’t agree more.”
Another left turn and they arrived at the school. Generally a student driver would look for a paved cement lot to park their car. But Corpus Middle & High had no conventional paved parking lot— just a dirt road where you plucked your vehicle, preferably to the closest entrance door.
So Madison parked in the dirt lot – the soil of which was thankfully hardened enough to not screw up their shoes, at least until the next time it rained. After parking, the girls headed into the school.
After seeing the lot and the surrounding area, Hailey recalled expecting the absolute worst on her first day of school. But expectations rarely match reality. The interior of the school had been remodeled and renovated within the past decade and looked like a fairly new(ish) school – at least the high school wing, that is.
The county had obviously run out of funds after remodeling the West Wing because the East Wing for middle grade students was old, worn, and didn’t look a day younger than the fifty years that the school had been built.
The cafeteria – the portion of the school that both upper and lower grades shared, was all that adjoined the middle and high school wings.
***
On the East Wing, Mason and Alex headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. This was the only time of day that the middle and high schoolers were together.
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