Chapter 2
1
“Hey Patty!”
He took his little brother into his arms and swung him around. The boy was three, and he laughed heartily as he watched the world spin. Adam could hear the television on in the other room. He spun Patrick once more, delighting in the fevered dizziness he could see in the boy’s eyes, setting him down on the linoleum only to watch him toddle one way and then the other, throwing his chubby arms out to brace the inevitable fall. “Moh…moh,” the boy said, putting his arms up. Adam only smiled, going toward the fridge where magnets pinned a scribbled mess of red and blue crayon on an old receipt that Patrick had made for mommy.
“Later bud.” He opened the fridge and took out a Coke, swigging the can in nearly one gulp. Grampa was in the family room, his feet up, still wearing those God-awful slippers gramma had bought so long ago Adam didn’t think the argyle pattern was even available anymore. Adam didn’t remember his gramma too well, but damn it all if he wasn’t happy she did pass. He knew the thought was selfish, and he knew never to say it out loud to his mom, but had the woman won the battle against the big C, grampa might never have come to the Creek with them.
“Anything on?” Adam tapped the top of his can and sat on the couch next to the old man, who only grunted and folded his arms.
Without a wife around to tell the ol’ codger to upkeep even a semblance of hygiene, Grampa Lewis had thrown all caution to the wind and held steadfast to a wardrobe most would have questioned in the outside world, debating the man’s senility. The sweatpants hanging so loose from his legs showed poorly patched holes at the knees, and his sweatshirt, something whose brand or logo had long ago peeled away from the cotton, was nearly faded to a yellow as sickly as old parchment. Who am I tryin’ to impress? At that, who the hell cares about a seventy-four-year-old anyway? Adam liked the indifference. And he loved his grampa.
“Donahue. Same ol’ boring claptrap. What’s with you? Ya look like you seen a ghost.” He scratched the scruff on his neck, or what would undoubtedly become shag if he let his beard grow any longer.
Adam felt like he had. He could not wash out the memory of those animals…that graveyard. It was haunting him. He looked at his Coke for a moment. The glistening condensation on the can reminded him of the polished windows on that house. The new windows.
“Just played ball with the guys.”
“Yeah? Who were you today?”
“Jim Rice.”
Lewis guffawed and scratched his throat again. Patrick lumbered into the room and got on all fours, crawling in the deep carpet, hunting a toy that might have rolled under the couch. “You got a nostalgic eye, boy. But not nostalgic enough to remember Ted Williams or Yaz. These days you’d think a boy might want to be Canseco. Somebody who actually knocks the ball outta the park.”
Adam smiled. “Joke’s on you. I hit one right out of the clearing. First true homer of the summer. Guys think it would’ve cleared the Monster!”
“That right? Bat corked?”
“Good one, grampa,” Adam said, mock punching the man in the arm. He watched Patrick for a moment. The boy found an old comb and he was pressing it against his head. He’d seen mom do it so often he’d learned to mimic her morning routine. The homerun didn’t seem to matter to him right now. As he’d walked home, avoiding the usual haunts those boys older than him frequently staked, he thought of the bird, that lonely bird that lay at the entrance of the killing field. As if in warning.
“Grampa, we’ve got a slaughterhouse at the Creek, right? I mean, we’ve got the deli and all, an’ Danny gets his stuff kosher.”
Lew cocked his eye. He was watching a commercial, scoffing at the announcer’s desperation to sell another product nobody needed but would buy any way to keep up with the Joneses. “Slaughter house? Probably not here. Probably ship the meat in. Frozen slabs. Butcher thaws ‘em and cuts to sell. How the hell should I know? You thinking of being a butcher now?”
“Yeah. For the cheap steak.” Adam feigned a smile, but even he could sense how false it looked.
“You sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah.” Adam nodded, as if to re-affirm. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Well, ya really do seem like you saw a ghost. And if you do, warn me. Might be grandma comin’ back to force me to buy new razors. She always hated the scruff.” He scratched his face again. “Or to start up smokin’ again so I come and visit her sooner.” His smile made him young. Adam had seen pictures. His grampa was once a very handsome man. So regal in his military garb, as if in dedication to the year he was born coinciding with the outbreak of World War I that he volunteered his services in the sequel in a bout of predetermination. He heard his mother complain as he stood on the other side of his parents’ bedroom door, almost guilty that he’d invaded the sort of privacy that was privy to adulthood: Ever since mom died, he stopped caring. His hygiene’s gone to hell. I’m worried this is just the first step. I love my father, I do, but if this is the first step to being some sort of a vegetable...Adam couldn’t listen anymore. He knew his dad loathed the old man. Barely spoke a word to him. But grampa helped them when they needed money. Adam did remember that. His grampa was there when his father was at his lowest. When he was around, that is. His daddy was a writer. He remembered the traveling the man used to do. The debates he was always prepping for. Speaking out loud. Raising his voice.
Grampa was eccentric. He’d heard his father say so. But he loved that about him. Adam had to look up the word, but it was true. He marched to the beat of his own drum. That didn’t make him lazy or senile. It made him interesting.
And his grampa was the only one in this house he could truly talk to. Because there were money problems. He knew that. It was really the only reason why they ever packed up and left Boston to come here. Because those men in the suits hurt his father. He remembered his father after that. The unease that came as a result. So the Creek was the next stop, the great opportunity. He wasn’t quite sure what his father had done, no, but he knew he played a dangerous game in Massachusetts. It came down to deduction at that point. His mother told him not to think about it. So did his therapist. But he could only suspect the man got into trouble with some dangerous people. Something to do with a thrift bank and somebody or something called Ponzi. He overheard grampa say that. Good ol’ grampa, the buffer against that world. For him and for Patrick. And thank God Patty doesn’t understand what’s going on.
Sometimes he wished he could go away. Take Patrick and grampa with him. Go somewhere far. But those idealistic wishes were blown smoke. Because he was just a kid. And his grampa was an old man. Past the physical prime that had so filled that uniform in the photo.
Baseball took his mind off of home. Took his mind away from his parents. Freed him. But now there was something else. Something growing with increasing frequency in his mind that by the time he sat to dinner with his family, he could think of nothing else.
He stared at the meatballs on his plate. Patrick was busy mashing the already pre-cut ground beef with his palms, splattering the tray on his high chair as he laughed. Why didn’t ya ever go into the woods before now? He’d never thought to ask the question because the thought had never once popped up. But now it was the most important question in the world. Because he had some odd assumptions.
“You’re not eating,” his mother sounded stern. She had folded her napkin and dabbed her mouth. It was an early supper. His father hadn’t gotten home yet. Thank God for small favors. “I know this may come as a surprise to you, but food isn’t free.”
“I know that,” Adam blurted.
“Adam smacked a homerun today, didn’ ya boy?” Grampa interjected. Always the buffer.
“That’s impressive,” she said. Oh Barbara, the very model of primness and decency that could so annoy one bored of such constant earnestness.
“Yeah. The guys said it would have gone out of Fenway. Over the Monster.”
She exhaled. “I know you don’t want to hear this, Adam. When your father was twelve, he took a job at the market bagging groceries. And when he wasn’t huffing bags of raw veggies to the parking lot, he was earning money mowing lawns.”
“Ah hell, Barb, he’s a kid. Let him enjoy his summers while he still can. I worked for almost fifty damn years after servin’ and what have I got to show for it but a ruddy back and knees that crack.”
“Dad, I am talking about responsibility…”
“No, you’re talkin’ about something your husband did that you think your boy should pay for.”
Adam was silent. Thoughts of the graveyard and the old house were pushed aside for a moment. It wasn’t his intention to cause this. Not at all. But grampa was one who enjoyed the bickering because he wasn’t so shallow not to understand his residency here served some sort of purpose.
“Dad, not here. Not now.”
“Well then, let bygones be bygones and eat your damn food. If the boy wants to play ball for one of the last summers of his childhood, who are we to take that away from him?”
Adam smiled at the man. He knew it would be one of the last summers of baseball. But he didn’t know it would be his last summer with his grampa.
When dinner was over Adam picked up the phone and called Pug. Their plan fell like dominoes from there.
2
“Adam?”
“Yeah Pug...”
He’d picked up the phone after the first ring. “I was just gonna call you.”
“Yeah?”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about that place. All day. It gave me a stomachache. Mom gave me Pepto Bismol. Nada.”
“Me too, Pug. Me too.”
“It wasn’t just the animals either. I mean, it was them too...but it was something else.”
“Then you wouldn’t be against going back?”
There was a pause on the other end. Pug was silent for what felt like minutes. “I think we have to.”
3
Pug’s family owned a Tudor Revival on Deermont Road, whose half-timbered gables bore an almost Germanic veneer that was both European and rustic. Croak lived a few doors down, which was just fine and dandy for Randy Hopson, who for all the Winstons he’d unknowingly given the boys over the last few months, he still found enough stragglers to make inconspicuous appearances when Pug’s older sisters were out in the yard. For all the supposed modesty that was continuously drilled into their heads, the girls liked nothing more than throwing on their two pieces and lying out in the front yard for a little sun. Who could see them in the back spare for the few gawkers who may have peered through their blinds from Deerfield Ave?
Angela and Wendy were out front today, having pulled the loungers from around back with a table propped between them housing two lemonades. They were a year apart. Angela was sixteen, Wendy fifteen. Both had dark hair and what they liked to call azure eyes. They liked to think they looked Greek. Exotic. Pug knew they’d perk at the sound of his and Cory’s footsteps, expecting some cute boy had gathered the guts to stroll by, but when they noticed it was their fat little brother and his gawky friend, the two pushed their sun glasses back up their noses and grunted.
“You’re a mess,” Wendy muttered.
He knew he was. His jeans were dirtied at the knees where he knelt at the foot of the graveyard. And his T-shirt was soiled as a result of his climbing back up the deadwood. He’d fallen back a few times, scratching his arms during the tumble. In the end he had to grab Adam’s hand for support as he shimmied up the gnarled branches, but even then he could feel his sneakers trying ever so hard to lose traction.
“And you stink!” Angela added. “What is it with you boys, Horace? You’re always getting into something.”
Pug knew what that smell was. It had leeched onto all of them. And he knew Chelsey would smell it the moment he walked into the door. She’d smell it and she wouldn’t like it. Because she’d know what it represented.
“Does mom know you’re out here parading your boobs?”
Cory snickered, saying his goodbye when he strolled off toward his place, giving the girls one last look and flushing when they stared back at him with fury.
“She’s getting groceries...and if you tell her...”
Pug laughed as he walked past his sisters, both aware of the power shift here.
“I’m serious, Horace,” Angela reiterated.
It was the Mormon ruse. Every junior Latter Day Saint was aware of the act. The simple rebellion so common to adolescence was often hard to muster past one’s parents because the result was always the same. Always. And Pug knew to avoid the lecture whenever he could. He’d tried Randy’s Winstons when Croak pulled four from his pocket, extracting a box of matches with the Liquor Depot logo splashed across the front. Pug had lit his own smoke and drew in a deep breath. He nearly threw up a lung. Had Adam not been there, he would have crushed the smoke beneath his Converse, but Adam was and he only clapped Pug on the back with a sharp laugh. Adda boy! Boys were creatures of habit. He’d gotten Adam’s seal of approval, so he put that cigarette right back into his mouth and sucked in, coughed and repeated. Because the others were doing it. When he’d gotten home, the stink of cigarette smoke was all over him, and he wasn’t smart enough to have changed his clothes, used some of his dad’s Calvin Klein or chewed copious amounts of Peppermint gum. Because he hadn’t gotten caught with the smoke in his mouth. But his mom smelled the smoke. And both his father and mother sat him down in the front room and gave him the lecture.
“There will always be temptation,” his father said. The T word. The bane of existence. Because boys were imperfect (Adam’s name had certainly popped up a few times, even though it was Croak who brought the damn things in the first place. Parents could categorize kids as well, as if the compartmentalization of cliques was just as obvious to them as it was to the culture inherent to school, and Adam was the obvious band leader), difficult choices would have to be made as one grew up. Yadda yadda. His father had a book on his lap. Always the same book. Doctrine and Covenants. And he would open that book, as if he had every page memorized. And maybe he did. His family had come to the Creek from Provo, and his father once served as bishop of the ward, a calling that had consumed so much of his time the other kids in primary spoke to him more than Pug ever could. He hated it. “You’re going to hear this a lot, Horace. I know. I was young too. You don’t just know this stuff. My father sat me down once. So did my seminary teacher. You’ll see. But it’s important this stuff is taught in the home. The Word was revealed to Joseph Smith on February 27th, 1833, as a result of his growing concerned with early church members smoking tobacco during council meetings, and the irreligious nature of the act having shown irreverence to the Lord. Prophet Smith was given the Word of Wisdom.” He would scan his forefinger down the page until he found the right verse. And then he would adjust his glasses, like any teacher he’d ever had in elementary: “And again, tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is not good for man, but is an herb for bruises and all sick cattle, to be used with judgment and skill.” He then looked up at Pug, as if that verse was enough in and of itself to shower truth to the misdeed. But the Word of Wisdom was never enough. At least not for him. Because the warnings never bore any sort of science that could have revealed some fact to the statement, especially in light of the claim that tobacco could heal bruises. Pug thought of asking his father if smoking could be legitimized if he was punched in the mouth and had bruising in his cheek but thought better of it. Because the Mormon ruse, if one was ever caught, was supported only by the nodding of one’s head and the insistence that the mistake was a result of being misinformed of the allowances according to the Book.
Plus, your dad’s a hypocrite. What about his magazines in the closet? The VHS tapes mislabelled ‘General Conference’ tucked up high on the shelf? Does the Word of Wisdom suddenly not matter when you’re grown up? Pug would never bring this up. Arguing morality with your parents never amounted to anything good. Plus, the Jew told him those porn mags and flicks were a staple of the parental lockbox, no matter the creed, because it was a form of therapy for marriage. Or something like that.
Pug knew his sisters would try and escape the talk at every chance, so their stupid little brother held some power over the matter if he should ever tell his mom and dad what his sisters were up to. Trying to draw guys like Randy Hopson from their yards to come have a peek at the girls in their bikinis.
“Horace!” Wendy screamed. “I’ll tell dad you don’t wear your CTR ring when you’re with your stupid friends.”
Choose the right. Of course he didn’t wear the ring. Because the guys would laugh at him, and understandably so. They called it his Mormon Superpower Ring. It gave him the ability to be super lame. A buzz kill. He was protecting himself from the sort of persecution that drove Mormons in their youth to rebel as a means of fitting in.
Pug ignored his sisters and opened the front door. And he was nearly toppled over just as it opened.
“Hey girl...good girl.” His Spaniel Chelsey jumped up into his arms; he staggered back, nearly dropping his mitt. She licked his face and he quickly closed the door before she could get out and wreak havoc on the neighborhood. He left his sisters to their temporary rule breaking. When Chelsey’s initial excitement wore down the sniffing began. As Pug knew it would. She started whimpering as her nose traveled up and down his jeans. He could see the curiosity in her eyes. Because it was the same as his. He knew his mom would be home soon. He’d like to get cleaned up before she did. So he ran upstairs with Chels on his heels, still prodding him with her moist nose. If the smell was as bad as it had been for him, he could only imagine what manner of hell was going through her sinuses right now. Pug took off his dirty clothes and shoved them deep into the hamper, leaving the Spaniel to burrow against the side of the canvas sack, pawing at it as she dug her snout into folds. “I know girl,” he said, putting on his CTR ring before his mom could question where it might be and why he wasn’t wearing it. Questions he would have rather avoided.
When Pug finished showering he sat on the edge of his bed. Rivulets of water had collected in the cups formed by his clavicle. He stared absentmindedly at his wall, where wallpaper showed the logos of every team in Major League baseball. The Pirates. Red Sox. Dodgers. His eyes were lost, thinking of what he’d seen. He could not stop thinking about it. Chelsey was still pawing at the hamper, and she probably would keep at it until his mom got home and she smelled dinner cooking.
Why were all of the animals there? Animals died, of course. You know that. It’s the circle of life. But why were they there? Collected.
And that was the key word. Collected. He looked at his shelf where he had a few baseball cards in plastic sheets. He saw a Tom Seaver and wondered if that little grove was the same sort of thing. A giant plastic sheet for a different sort of hobby. He’d sit this way until he was dry. When his mom did get home he quickly got dressed and combed his hair. He tried to appear normal but knew the whitewashed shock would never truly disappear. Because the memory would always remain.
He sat to dinner. Listened to the conversation. His sisters were dressed now, both in Duran Duran shirts and faded jeans. They both talked about their days when dad asked them. Angela had a summer job at BB’s Rentals on Main Street, and often came home with videos she and Wendy would watch ad nauseum. Stuff like The Sound of Music, because Julie Andrews was gorgeous. But more often than not it was something with Mel Gibson or Tom Cruise (Risky Business being a favorite), something they would undoubtedly watch when they knew the Talk could not surface. Their parents had a ten swear rule. By the time they heard ten curse words, the movie came out. And Risky Business was rated R.
Pug sat and listened to his sisters talk about their day. His father was especially receptive and when it came time to speak about his own day, he did so with a certain level of caution. He spoke about Adam’s homerun. Wendy sort of swooned at the idea. She always thought Adam was cute, even despite his age, but Pug never mentioned going into the woods after the ball. He certainly never mentioned what they found beyond the woods.
When he was finished his dinner he asked if he could be excused and he went back to his bedroom, Chels following at his heel. He sat and brushed her coat for some time before going to the phone. And when it rang he knew who it would be.
“Wanna go tonight?” Adam asked.
It was already starting to get dark out and Pug couldn’t even imagine blindly feeling his way through the woods. But coming to that graveyard without even a semblance of light made the idea even worse. “No...no I don’t think that would be a good idea. Plus, how would we get the flashlights and stuff past our parents?” He knew that would not have been a problem but did not want to sound like a coward.
“Yeah...you’re probably right.”
“Adam...” Pug was looking at his baseball cards again. Even at some of his old records and the newer audiocassettes, lined on the shelf beneath the cards. “What do ya think happened there?”
“I dunno, Pug. I really don’t. We’ll go tomorrow morning. Wait till the parents are busy. We’ll have to bring some stuff. I dunno, like gloves maybe. Screw driver. Pry bar, if we can find one. Flashlights. Garbage bags.”
“Garbage bags?”
“For our shoes.”
“What do ya mean?”
Adam was silent. “We’re gonna check out that house, Pug. I don’t want to muck up our runners getting there. I don’t think it’s a coincidence those animals are there.”
Collector. “Me neither,” Pug agreed.
“You wanna call Croak? I’ll call the Jew. Let ‘em know what’s happening.”
“Yeah, sure,” Pug said, nodding his head.
“Oh yeah. One other thing. Bring Chels, Pug.”
“Chels? Why?”
“Dogs know shit, bud. You ever see her when a storm’s coming?”
Pug knew what Adam was on about. He did but he didn’t like it. He looked at his dog as she sniffed at the hamper again. If she was getting that worked up about smudge on his pants, he wasn’t sure how she’d handle smelling that graveyard. He wasn’t sure how he’d handle it again too. They were all dead. All of them. Maybe there’s a sickness or something. Maybe Chels will get sick.
He never said this out loud. He said bye to Adam and hung up the phone. He waited a minute before calling Croak. He felt like he was going to be sick.
4
Croak thought Pug’s sisters were cute. But they were annoying as shit. Maybe it was the tone of their voices, both so similar you wouldn’t know which one of them was speaking until you saw their lips moving. So he took in as much as he could while he passed the house. Angela was trimmer than Wendy, and she wore her blue two-piece a lot better. Maybe it was the extra year. Either way, Pug lost the lottery in that exchange.
Cory snickered as he strolled to his place. There was a mature willow in the front yard that he could not wait to see as autumn rolled around and the leaves turned to fire. He and Pug were mostly silent as they walked together. And even now he could hardly believe what they’d seen.
Because there was no explanation.
He and Adam were on the same page there.
“Hey dickhead.”
Croak was pulled out of his thoughts. His brother was leaning against the tree, a Winston perched on his lip. His jeans were ragged, showing holes at his knees, and his long hair was pulled behind his ears, leaving annoying strands over his eyes. It was the sort of rebel rocker style Cory never understood. But it made sense of the heavy metal Croak heard blaring from Randy’s room whenever the boy was home.
He’s pissed. Been pissed for awhile now, because he was old enough when dad left to understand what it meant. And he’s carried that. Carried it for a few years now...and now that you’ve come to a new place, that’s just the cherry on top. Because he left his friends. Cory remembered the fight when his mother brought home the news that she was being transferred. She thought it was a good idea to combat the memories in the old house. Everywhere you looked there were signs of a father that no longer wanted to be there. Cory understood her reasoning. He did. But Randy could think only of what he was being forced to leave. And he was pissed.
“What do ya want?”
“Fuckin’ Hopson sisters are out again.”
“Dude, they’re Mormon.”
“Didn’ know Mormons dressed like hookers.” He drew in his breath, flicking the ashes to the grass. They were alone today. Mom was at work, so Randy could do whatever he wanted. And he usually did. He’d argued his way out of a summer job, claiming if they were moving to a new town, he’d need a period of adjustment that didn’t involve the stress of taking orders from another adult. Hell no. Plus he was going into his senior year, so there would be plenty of time to work when the time came. Now, now he was going to enjoy his vacation. “Where were you, anyway? You’re dirty. You think mom wants to come home and clean up your shit?”
“What do you care?” He just wanted to get inside. He wasn’t feeling well. And more than anything he could use a shower. A long hot shower.
“Hey. What’s with the lip, asshole?” He flicked his cigarette and grabbed Cory by the shoulders.
“Come on, Randy. I’m tired.”
“What, little Pug Nelson bumrush you, faggot?” He slapped Cory and then mussed his hair. Had Croak been holding the Jew’s Easton, he would have taken a swing, but he had nothing but his oiled glove and the curdling memory of a deer and her fawn having died together.
“Leave me alone.” He pushed back and Randy laughed, pulling the awry strands of hair behind his ears. Croak wanted to add: At least I’ve made some friends here. But he thought better of it. Because saying so would amount to something little Cory would rather not endure. And he knew Randy would kick the shit out of him. He knew it because he already had.
“Looks like you crapped yourself when Pug pulled out.” He took out another cigarette and lit it. “Go on inside then. Clean up ‘fore mom gets home. I don’t need her pinning the blame on me cause you look like you were swimming in the shitter.”
With that it was over. Cory went inside and stood at the front door, staring out the sidelight at his brother, casually spying around the tree at the Hopson sisters as they quickly packed up to take the loungers around back. Pug’s mom must be coming home. He knew the routine. He knew the girls must have had the errands timed, because he knew about the Talk. Pug had told him. And when he was done laughing, a part of him wished Pug’s parents would give Randy the Talk. A part of him wondered if those Mormons were onto something.
The house was a mess. He knew his mom would get home and chastise both him and Randy about it. He knew Randy would scoff and go to his room, slamming his door and turning up the music, and Cory would hold in the tears and help his mom gather up some of the debris. They’d make a dent but exhaustion would win out. And they’d order in pizza. Or something. Because cooking was out of the question. The rest of the night would be spent in front of the television. Family Ties. The Cosby Show. Even despite some of its inanities, he could even stomach Growing Pains. Because those families were whole. They weren’t broken. And he liked pretending.
Cory took a quick shower and sat in his room, listening to the heavy guitar riffs of Def Leopard coming through the wall. The sound of the bass helped to keep his mind from drifting. He would sit here until his mom got home. He’d already taken his dirty clothes to the laundry room and hidden them with the towels. He hoped his mom would unknowingly toss them into the machine without parsing through. Cory let himself cry. For just a moment.
Randy could use the Talk. He could.
Maybe in the end that would have made a difference.
When the phone did ring that night, Cory’s mom answered it. She called up to Croak and he came downstairs.
“It’s Horace,” she said, her hand muffling the phone. “I ordered pizza twenty minutes ago. Tell your brother when you get off.”
Cory nodded. “Hey Pug. Miss me so soon?”
“Croak. We’re going back tomorrow morning.”
“Going back? Back where?” A leaden weight fell in his gut. The last thing Cory wanted to do was venture back to that place. But hearing Pug’s suggestion made him realize not going was never an option. Because they’d stumbled onto something.
“You got a pry bar?”
“I dunno. Maybe. I can check the shed.”
“We need one of those. Adam’s orders.”
“For what?”
“I guess we’ll figure that out tomorrow.”
In the end going back out there would be a good thing. That meant he wouldn’t be here. And that was aces.
5
Danny wasn’t up for sitting down with his dad and talking baseball. It was an evening tradition, going over the box scores, checking statistics. His dad loved numbers. He was a chartered accountant and could only laugh when he learned the boys called his son the Jew, because stereotypes characterized his own pursuits. It was only natural he should deal with money. Danny felt sick he’d let down Ron Guidry, watching that goddamn ball make a beeline for the trees. It was his fault they even decided to go down into those woods. Because he’d gone inside on Adam twice. Once to brush him back, the second to trick him into thinking a breaking ball would test the outside corner. But Adam was ready. He was. And he pounced on the mistake.
He was holding Guidry’s rookie card. It was in a plastic container. 1976 Topps, in one of those four-in-one portrait cards that had hobbyists hoping more than one of the players turned out to be superstars (like Adam’s Jim Rice and Fred Lynn). Unfortunately, Dressler, McClure and Zachry hadn’t panned out. No matter. Even if the card in and of itself held no monetary value beyond its rarity among boys his age (your dad gave this to you, since you were born the year it came out. Just another reason you like the pitcher), he cherished the rookie the same way his father cherished his Mantle rookies, both encased in thick acrylics and kept away from any direct sunlight. His father was an accomplished collector of the sorts, whose closet and dresser were not the keepers of skin mags like Pug’s dad but Beckett price guides, whose purpose was to serve the same function as the DOW in the card world. His dad once told him it was baseball cards that even got him interested in economics. “Supply and demand, Danny. Other than the law of scarcity, it’s supply and demand that dictates terms. The ’52 Mantle. Greatest example I can think of. The ’52 Topps set was broken into two series, with high and low number cards. The high number cards were released far enough into the football season to steer kids away from the cheap gum. Huge supplies went unsold. Thousands of Mantles in wax packs. So Topps takes this surplus inventory from their Brooklyn warehouse, and they dump cases…hundreds of cases into the Atlantic. So now the supplies are down. Anybody with a Mantle is in possession of a gem in limited quantity, and prices shoot up. Astronomically. If your card has square corners, no fuzz, no creases, you can command tens of thousands of dollars all because of an arbitrary decision made by the supplier to cut down on inventory. So if you’re ever in the mood for treasure hunting, we can head to Jersey for some diving lessons.”
Danny liked Guidry because he represented a better time for the Yankees. The ’77 and ’78 champs. Now there wasn’t much to root for. Oakland had become the powerhouse of the late 80s that New York had been when he was far too young to understand why his dad was cheering. So there was a nostalgic attachment to Guidry. He and Adam shared that sentiment, and today it was Adam’s devotion to Jim Rice that won out. And that victory sent them on a goose chase. And guess what. You saw a dead goose, didn’t ya? Right there in the clearing. A dead goose, right beside a mole. A fucking mole!
Danny had to sit on his bed. His room was a veritable shrine to baseball. A poster of Dimaggio: When’s the last time you succeeded 56 times in a row? The Yankees logo, that iconic NY marriage, was plastered at every corner, as if branding the room with the signature of World Champs. His dad had given him plenty of his duplicates, baseball cards in stacks from years before he was even born. A Reggie Jackson rookie. Steve Carlton. Hell, he even had some Koufaxes, an unfortunate Dodger but a cherry in the Greenfield household because of the shared commonality in denominations. Danny wasn’t into music. He couldn’t care less about most movies. His life was baseball.
And it was baseball that led him and his friends to discover hell.
There was a knock on his door.
“Daniel, you okay?”
It was his father. There was noted concern in his voice.
“I’m fine, dad.”
“Yanks pulled out a win. Beat the Mariners in the bottom of the 9th. I have the box score, if you want to come downstairs. Phelps hit one out.”
“In a bit, dad. Just finishing something up here.”
“You sure you’re okay? Mom said you weren’t feeling well.”
Danny had told her he thought he was coming down with something. That was mostly to distract her from seeing how dirty his jeans were. But maybe that wasn’t the whole truth either. Because having seen what he’d seen, he couldn’t very well lie and tell his mom he was peachy keen. Because his mom could read through bullshit. She had a knack for that. “Feeling a bit better. Might have been something I ate at lunch.”
“Okay. I’ll let you know when they’re recapping the ball games. Danny. Quick one: who won the National League Cy Young in ’51?”
Baseball trivia. That was their thing as well. Because fathers and sons were always about finding a little commonality.
Danny only looked at the poster of Dimaggio across from him. “Trick question. There was no Cy Young award in ’51. Wasn’t around till ’56.”
“Good boy.”
He heard his dad’s footsteps and soon he was alone again. It wasn’t the safest place to be, alone with your thoughts, but he would have preferred stewing in the memory than speaking it out loud. Because there was a different sort of reality as ideas broke the sound barrier.
When Adam did call, Danny was close to sleep.
“You alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Danny, we have to go back.”
He was afraid Adam was going to say that. Maybe the night of contemplation was a result of this convergent phone call, somehow understanding it would come and understanding what it would mean. “Christ, Adam, I don’t think I can.”
“Why not?”
“It’s my fault, man. My fault we even had to go down there. I fucked up. I threw you a prize and you took me yard. Had I thrown the breaking ball…had I just listened to my gut I wouldn’t feel as sick as I do…”
“That’s bullshit, Danny, and you know it. I hit a homer. Big deal. It was cool, sure, but we found something we aren’t even sure anybody else has seen before. And you know very well if that’s the case, then we have to go back.”
“Why?”
“Because those fucking animals were put there, Danny, that’s why.”
“What do ya mean put there?”
Adam exhaled on the other end. Not out of frustration, but perhaps disbelief. After he’d spoken next, that’s exactly what Danny would think. “Put there to scare people away from what’s behind…”
“And what’s behind?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
6
The four of them met at the pass to Fenway early on Saturday morning. Five with Chelsey.
Adam waited until his dad was gone. He was working long and weird hours with what was called the E10 city council, which was just fine by him. When he heard the garage door, he quickly jumped into an older pair of jeans and a ragged T-shirt his mother had been desperately trying to turn into a washcloth. He already had his backpack filled with garbage bags, his dad’s flathead screwdriver, his grampa’s hammer (old and abused, whose wooden handle had his initials engraved with the year ’48) and a pair of his mom’s gardening gloves he knew would catch him some flak. But he doubted the other guys would have anything better. It was rare any of their fathers, with Croak exempted, found any time or interest to burrow in the planters, preferring a cold beer and the rumble of the lawn mower against their palms. He got to the pass first.
Croak came second. He had his own pack. A pair of grungy jeans and sneakers whose soles had started coming loose, flopping some whenever he took a step. He raised his hand in a wave, but the uncertainty was still etched on his face, like a very bad lie.
“You followed?”
“Followed? What is this, Cagney and Lacey?”
“Your bro…did that asshole see you leave?”
Croak showed his first genuine smile. He considered it might be his last for the day. “You kidding? Guy doesn’t get outta bed till well after noon. What does it matter? He doesn’ give a shit what we do…”
“He might if he knew what we’ve found.”
It was a good point. Croak still wasn’t sure if it would matter, but Randy’s sense of the macabre, forecasted mostly by his demeanor, would prove that graveyard was made for a guy like him.
Pug came third with Chelsey on her leash. He was munching on the last of his Pop Tart, his Real Ghostbusters T-shirt a few sizes too small but enough to contain the bulging belly that protruded some over his faded, acid washed jeans.
“How about you? Your parents or sisters ask where you were going?”
“Dad was showering. Sisters were still asleep.”
“That right? What were they wearing?” Croak asked, but there was not much conviction behind the joke. He’d knelt down and grabbed Chelsey by the scruff of her neck, enjoying the moaning confirmation that she was happy to see him.
“Shut up, Croak.”
“What about your mom?”
“She was reading. I told her I was off to play some ball since our game was cut short yesterday.”
“And she didn’t ask about your clothes?”
Pug looked down at his shirt. Slimer stared deftly back up at him. “Didn’t look up from her book.”
“Good.” Adam nodded. They didn’t need questions. Didn’t need an adult’s prying eyes gauging the matter, because the answers and excuses would grow flimsy.
“I’m not sure about Chels, though,” Pug said. “I don’ want her around those animals. You should have seen her last night. She was going crazy with the smell on my clothes. Slept by the hamper too. Sniffing for most of the night.”
Adam wasn’t a dog guy. Didn’t give one shit about Chels and Pug knew it. But he didn’t want to see her hurt either. There was reason to his madness. Usually was. He looked at the Cocker Spaniel, her chestnut eyes regarding him with questionable indifference, as if she knew he didn’t like her and didn’t give a shit either way. Croak made up for it with his nimble fingers. “It’s a safety precaution, Pug. That’s it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we’re sticking our noses in a place we shouldn’t be. It’s not just our parents I’m worried about here. Chels barks at strangers, right?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Then she can warn us if we’re not alone. Last thing I want is to be rooting around this place and have some asshole come out of the blue with a stern lecture. Something we’ve all heard before, sure, but the next thing you know the asshole’s telling our parents and then we’re not allowed coming to Fenway anymore. We hear her bark, we can take off. That work?”
Pug wasn’t sure. Adam made sense, but another part of him understood they were acting outside the confines of both real and parental law. If Adam was this worried, he either knew something they didn’t or his precautions were just the result of avoiding any confrontation with his father.
“Where’s the Jew?” Croak asked.
Adam was wondering the same thing. He didn’t seem especially overjoyed at the prospect of returning when they spoke last night. He wondered if the Jew had gotten cold feet. He blamed his pitching. That’s what had him up in arms. His pitching. If he’d thrown a curveball, none of this would have happened.
Ever the victim.
And then Ron Guidry himself, bushy black hair (the Jew fro, he so often called it) frothing in precipitous bursts on either side of his Yankees cap, strolled up to the pass in a long-sleeved shirt with the number 49 stenciled in blue across the front, and worn khakis folded over black Chuck Ts. Chels ran up to him and licked at his hands. He patted her head perfunctorily and looked at each of his friends.
“You ready?”
They were.
7
Fenway was awash in the summer sunlight. The boys wouldn’t be playing ball today, but they wanted to. Even despite the curiosities of what lay beyond the field, they could think of nothing they wanted to do more than throwing the ball around. They walked past the row of pines. Nobody noticed the cameras.
They stumbled across the field, Chels taking the lead as she took her leash to its farthest length. Pug lumbered behind her, dreading that deadfall and hoping Chelsey would make it down the descent without hurting herself.
It turned out she was fine. She braced on every branch and deftly made her way to the forest floor, her nose firmly planted to the ground as she paced in a line waiting for Pug to meet her at the bottom.
“Hurry up, fat ass,” Croak said, pulling an awry twig out of the flopping space between his shoe and sole.
“Eat me,” Pug retorted, carefully grabbing a knot of wood as he stepped down slowly, already fearing the climb back up.
“You’re the eater,” the Jew said. It was business as usual. It would have to be. Because they knew what awaited them.
The woods were just as quiet today. Quieter almost. As if the civilization outside this place in the slumbers of a weekend had breached the world of the woods. Their world. They stuck to the path they followed yesterday. Adam kept his eye out for the ball. It was at a near unconscious level; the bulk of his mind was questioning the rationality of this exploration, or what their discovery yesterday even meant. Last night he’d dreamt of an old man in a fedora, something you’d see in photographs from the 40s, when men were refined and wore suits to the ballpark. He saw the man standing behind one of those new windows in the farmhouse, staring out at the boys as they approached the clearing. This place is a trap. He woke up with that thought. And the memory of that old man’s eyes. They were almost inhuman. No, they were the bird’s eyes. The dead bird. The old man stole them. Adam shivered. He’d tell himself it was the breeze in this place, but he knew it wasn’t. The air was still.
Chelsey was leading the way. When Pug felt some slack in the leash, he nearly fell over the dog. She made a dead stop, and Pug’s attention was elsewhere. On the quiet mostly.
“You okay, girl?” He got down on his haunches. She was staring forward. Her tongue lolled from her mouth. Ahead was that flayed opening between the trees. The sunlight filtered in that way, leaving a golden rim above the ground.
“What’s wrong with her?” Adam asked.
“What do ya think? It’s right there. And she knows it too. Knows the smell.”
“Bring any treats to coax her?”
“No, I didn’t, Adam. Did you? You obviously think of everything.” Pug was worried now. Because he’d never known Chels to act so still. Not even when a thunderstorm rolled around. Then, when fear ever set in, her impulse was to jump around. To growl and bark. That’s when his sisters would tell the stupid dog to shut up. Now she just stared.
“Calm down, Pug. Jesus. She just smells the stink. If she was buried in your hamper last night, you’d think she’d gotten used to the smell of shit. I’ve seen your undies.”
“Adam, I wanna take her home. I don’t like this.”
“Pug, we’ll be quick. Trust me.”
“You don’t care about her.”
“Yeah, Adam,” Croak added, down on his knees as well. “She looks scared.”
“No shit,” Adam muttered. He wondered if the dog’s fears were the same as his own; if she saw her own form of the man in the fedora, the man with the stolen eyes. But he never spoke the thought aloud. “Don’t be babies. Tell her I’ll get her a burger. A Whopper. Double Whopper. With the trimmings.”
“You wanna make her sick too?”
“Come on, girl. Come on,” Adam said. His smile was fake. And the insincerity of his tone was worse. But Chelsey took the gesture hook, line and sinker because it came from one who rarely gave her the time of day. It was interest more than anything. She pawed forward. “Adda girl.”
“If anything happens to her, Adam…I swear…”
“I swear nothing will,” Adam said, never taking his eyes off the dog. He tempted her as far as the woods’ skirt. That’s when the whimpering began.
The bird was still there, marking the entrance to the graveyard. Nothing had changed since they’d last seen it. It was still dead. So were the animals in the grove. The sound of the flies had grown thicker.
“She doesn’t look too good,” Croak said. Chels was rigid. Stiff as a board. But her posture was sagging as well, almost limp through the shoulders despite the tension that kept her erect.
It was obvious she wouldn’t look well. Adam was aware of that. But he knew they needed a look out more in tune than the four of them combined. Because they were apt to wander. And at the slightest sign of trouble, it would be too late to make a smooth getaway. He was looking at the house on the other side of the grove. To get a better look than he did yesterday, when his eyes were drawn to the bodies leading up to the front stoop. Was that deck in your dream? He thought so. He thought the man in the fedora had a rocker on that deck, and he would sit in that chair and watch the animals die. There was no rocker now. There was nothing on the deck. The railing had splintered and nearly bifurcated at the side of the house where the wind and rain had both taken their tolls.
Adam set down his pack, careful not to touch the bird at his feet.
“Why are we here, man? Enough with the cryptic bullshit...” Danny said. He was gently stroking the Spaniel’s neck. Pug had her ears scrunched in his hands, rubbing his thumbs in soothing circular motions.
“Because I don’t think these animals died here,” he simply answered. The dream of the man in the fedora did not mean anything. How could it? He was just a boy. A boy who could not escape the thought of this place, and so he was haunted by it. That’s all.
Danny said nothing for a moment. Maybe there was nothing to say. He’d only known Adam for a few months now, and sure, they clicked, but he wasn’t used to some small town kid taking the leadership role. Danny wasn’t tough, but he’d been in enough dustups on his old street to understand there was a certain pathos underlying the culture of boyhood. “Oh, and where the fuck did they die then?”
Adam opened his backpack and took out garbage bags. He unrolled one and slowly pulled it over his shoe, tightening the ends around his calf, his jeans bunching a little by the makeshift knot. “You’re not curious about that place?” he finally asked, ignoring the Jew’s smartass comment. It wasn’t worth it to fight right now. Especially when a lot of what came boiling to the rim here was a result of what happened yesterday. The homerun. The Jew was tightly wound and he could no doubt pack a punch. Adam wouldn’t test that. Not because he was afraid but because he thought that’s exactly what this place wanted them to do. “You’re not at all curious why a place like that, old and in the middle of nowhere, would have brand new windows?”
Croak looked beyond the heap of animals and had a deeper look himself. He hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t noticed much beyond the bear whose fur had shed from rotting legs. But Adam was right. The roof sloped some. You didn’t have to be an engineer to realize that slope was only one of the many tells that this place was old. Been here before Reedy Creek was incorporated, he supposed. But the roof was still intact, as if by some miracle of God the vicious thunderheads that strolled through let the place stand witness to this part of the world as things changed. As industry warped it. And the bio-engineers and biochemists re-located to this hole in the wall to make some use of corn beyond its staple popping at the movie theater and its ungodly appearance in your next shit. The clapboard exterior had buckled some but still held. And the windows were new. Yes. Because the framing, the headers and lintels, was square.
Adam already had both bags on his feet now, and he was wearing some awful gardening gloves Croak thought might look good on Pug’s sisters.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I want to know what’s over there.”
“I can’t, Adam. I’m not bringing her through there.”
“Then don’t. Jesus, Pug, she looks fine just waiting for us.”
“I’m not leaving her alone either.”
Adam exhaled. “Your call, Pug. It really is. I ain’t twisting your arm. You two, I’d cover your shoes. Last thing you want is to track whatever the hell might be infesting that grass through your houses.”
Pug watched Danny and Croak pull the bags over their own shoes, tying the ends around their calves the same way Adam had. Chels hadn’t settled yet. Her breathing was steady, fast. She was panting, throwing out intermingled whimpers. He wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at but he knew it was enough to have left her terrified. He was mad at Adam. The power of suggestion was an enormous influence, and Adam wielded it with every intention of getting what he wanted. And it usually worked. But he couldn’t quail. Not now. He had to show some conviction. Adam was staring at him. Waiting for his move. In the past that would have meant pulling on his own garbage bags and giving Chels one last pat as he joined the boys though the fray. He knew that was what Adam expected.
“I’ll whistle if I see something.” He pulled Chelsey close and saw the disappointment in Adam’s eyes before he turned.
“What’s the game plan?” Croak asked.
“Let’s do a little window shopping.”
8
They turned his gut. He expected they would, but getting this close was worse than he imagined. Because it meant waving away the swatch of flies. And they were thick. There were dozens of dead animals. Mostly squirrels. There were no wounds to prove the harm was inflicted on them. No gunshots. It was as if the birds fell from the sky and the squirrels from the tallest branches. There were deer, emaciated and craven, merely skeletal bowls for the endless cycle of life that would nest those maggots that would turn to flight in their own strange sort of metamorphosis. Feeding. Forever. Until the earth took back what was left.
Adam thought about Chernobyl, and the implications of what nuclear fallout might mean, and for one second those animals turned into people. Patty and his grampa. Boiling under the sun, eyes open, mouths filled with squirming carapaces.
Danny walked with his hand over his nose, trying desperately not look at his feet. Croak did the same. But his eyes wandered. When he locked eyes with Adam, he quickly looked away. Adam knew it was because ol’ Cory didn’t want him to see how afraid he was. How utterly chicken shit this whole thing might make him. So Adam didn’t say a word.
The front stoop showed rickety stairs that were not quite level with the walkway, splintered posts that might have once housed a gate but now only stood testament to the entropy of all things in a world that was wasting away. Adam turned when he got to the stairs and nodded at Pug, who returned the favor. You can’t be mad at him. He loves that dog. And you sure as hell know there’s something wrong when a dog shuts its yapper. He knew that was true. He wasn’t mad. Just disappointed. Because this was something they’d all yammered for this summer. When school started, everything would change. Adam knew that. Because boys in junior high didn’t dwell on baseball and Star Wars, hell no, that’s when the kids started boozing at parties and seeking a different identity. A more mature identity. Adam knew if Pug showed such desperation for a dog now, that his attachment to those things in junior high might mean his falling away as his popularity diminished. What they were doing now, it was a last chance effort for an adventure. To be boys. Because soon that meaning would change.
Adam went up the stairs, adjusting his pack. Croak followed. The Jew was last. The grass around the estate was long, untended. There was no sound. Not even crickets. Just the distant buzz of those flies. They were the only things that had survived the fallout at this place.
The windows were new. Not a scratch on any of them. The planters that had, at one time or another, offered some prosperity to budding lilacs, sat empty and decrepit, the burial grounds of countless spiders that had tuckered in the shadows. There were two doors. One nearer the front stairs and one around the side of the stoop. There was a screen storm door at the front. Most of the screen had come loose from the frame and hung ragged in strips. The door itself had twisted at the top so much that it was askew from the jamb. The door behind was solid pine and painted red. Or what was once solid red. Now it was a chipped burgundy that reminded Adam of blood.
“Locked,” Croak said, turning the handle through the ripped screen.
Adam ignored him and went to the window. He looked inside. The man with the fedora had the eyes of a crow, and what he saw was black. He saw only the dark. Adam shivered again. He expected the man would be staring back at him, his eyes ebony and lit with reflective beads, but it was only the dusty balustrade of a stairway leading to the second floor. A hallway led toward a kitchen, whose cabinets were mostly gone now, except for one counter and an upper shelf with empty jars. The second door opened into this space.
“Nothing in there,” Croak said. “What did you expect, Adam?”
What did you expect? Well, a reason, most of all. A reason for what they’d just waded through. Because you thought, with every ounce of your soul you thought somebody had brought those animals here. That they scoured the woods and the highway for roadkill to scatter the bodies in front of this place to keep stragglers away. To keep boys like them at bay. Because something secret was going on inside.
“It’s abandoned. Long time ago,” Danny said.
“What’s that?”
Adam ignored Croak. He was looking through the window. Trying to gauge everything he could. Catch something. Something that might make this expedition worth it.
“An electrical cord maybe.”
“Electrical?” Adam turned. The place seemed older than electricity. At least the sort of electricity that would require an extension cord. Croak was by the railing where a patch of grass tickled the deck boards. There was a black cord that had been squeezed through the planks from the underside. It wrapped around the post and was hung slack toward the soffit above, a series of old boards that had undoubtedly become the crypt of vermin that had gotten stuck in the crawlspace. The wire was strung along these planks, held in place by nails that had been bent into loops to hold the cord.
“That’s a camera,” Croak said, puzzled. “Like a CC camera...what you’d see in a mall.”
There it was, glass lens staring back at them, black. Like the eyes of a dead crow, Adam gasped. He thought he was going to be sick. The cord leading to the camera was not connected. Not anymore. Because it was slit in two so that the end plugged into the camera was hanging loose from the overhang like a diseased spider web.
“There’s another one over here,” the Jew said, standing on the other side of the deck nearer the secondary entrance, where the window gave a clearer view of the kitchen. And there was. Black lens. Wire cut.
“Check this out,” Danny said. He was smiling. It was a self-congratulatory smile. He turned the knob on the other access door and it clicked open. The striker pulled back and the door swung inwards. “Guess we didn’t need a pry bar.”
9
She wasn’t doing well. Her breathing had grown fiercer and fiercer until her body was just roiling. Back and forth. Up and down. The guys had made the stoop and were looking through the window. You can just leave. Use any excuse in the book, Horace, and just skedaddle. Chelsey doesn’t like it here and neither do you.
But he’d already disappointed Adam. And leaving would be the final nail in the coffin. Boys grew apart. And he’d been afraid of that eventuality ever since his sister had awoken him to one simple truth: when guys like Adam found their voice, they didn’t look back.
No, he could wait. They’d grow bored any minute now, and they’d turn and come back to the woods and all would be fine. They could forget this place ever existed—
The Jew opened the door on the left side of the stoop and Pug watched all three disappear into the farmhouse.
Wrong again.
10
The floorboards did not creak. The expectation had been different. Adam thought the floor would sound like his grampa’s back when he stretched after sitting for a few hours to catch the Pats or the Sox on the tube. There was dust, and a lot of it. It had collected over the years on the countertop, but the floor itself, old linoleum whose edges had come up at the corners of the room, looked swept. Not clean, but clean enough not to show the footprints of whoever had left the handprints on the Formica countertop.
“Somebody’s been here,” Croak said. It wasn’t disappointment in his tone but uncertainty. Adam hoped they were the first people to see this place in years because the sense of adventure that came with the proposition was too enticing...too exciting to excuse. But they weren’t. And Adam knew Croak’s uncertainty came from the looming question that would suggest if somebody had been here, who’s to say they’d left?
“I don’t like this,” Danny whispered. He’d stopped by the window, looking out at Pug beyond the collage of bodies. “It doesn’t feel...right in here.”
“And the cameras,” Croak added. “This place is wired.”
“And the wires were cut,” Adam said. “Maybe the old owners put up surveillance to make sure squatters didn’t break in. Maybe it’s like a summer cabin. But the hobos cut the lines cause the owners were too dimwitted to bury the wires.”
“What? You think somebody would keep this place for vacation? To what, marvel at the woods and the cornfields?”
“I don’t know,” Adam shot back, wanting at that moment to give Danny a shiner. Something he’d have to explain to his father when the man brought him the box scores. “All I know is the door was unlocked.”
“Yeah, so that means whoever opened it hasn’t left yet to lock the fucking thing. We’re not alone here.”
The idea made Adam tremble. Because it brought back the memory of the man in the fedora, the man with black eyes. Like the cameras. Danny turned his Yankees cap around, letting a frothy bush of his black hair to spill out of the adjustment strap.
“You’re looking at me like I have an idea what to do.”
“It was your idea to come here.”
“What do you expect me to say?” Adam’s voice was rising. He didn’t remember raising it...or wanting to...but the Jew’s eyes, the shadows contouring his face as he stood by that window, provoked an ire in him that nearly had him pouncing forward with his fists clenched.
“I expect you to say this was a bad fucking idea. So bad a dog wouldn’t even go through with it. You have us wearing bags on our feet.”
“Fuck you!” Adam was screaming now.
“Guys—”
Danny threw off his hat and came forward. He was biting his lower lip. Adam knew the kid was from New York. A big city kid. Seen some shit. But he didn’t care. He grabbed a tuft of the Jew’s Guidry shirt and felt Danny’s hand throttle his throat, pushing him back against the counter.
“Guys! Stop it!” Cory’s voice croaked. The inflection broke that tumultuous line that had tangled itself around the two. Adam nearly doubled over, trying to catch his breath. Danny’s face was still red with rage, but his eyes showed a latent confusion as he ran his hand through his hair. “We need to get out of here.”
Croak pointed. Adam saw it first. Another camera, installed at the corner of the kitchen, in plain view. A wire hung disconnected from its base.
“And another one,” Cory directed their attention to the front room by the stairway. It was not connected either.
“What, was this guy paranoid?” Adam muttered. He gave Danny a cautious look and noticed the Jew had settled as well.
“Place is like Fort Knox.”
“You’d know. A Jew would keep his fortune locked up tight.” Adam smiled.
Danny returned the favor. They were alright.
“Adam, we’ve gotta go. I don’t like it here. I don’ know what the hell came over you, but it was dark. You weren’t yourselves.”
“Whatever,” the Jew replied snidely.
Adam wasn’t listening. The implication that he wasn’t himself, that he was the victim of boyhood aggression was just the usual harassment. Par for the course. But he could not discount how he felt. How the anger had sort of just washed over him. And he did notice Danny’s eyes. The shadow. It had somehow made him angrier. Down the hallway he saw something else.
There was a box sitting by the door into the stairway wall. Must lead to the cellar. But there was something off about the door. He couldn’t pinpoint it right away but—
That was it. The sunlight coming in through the windows (the brand new windows) was reflecting off the door, giving it a sheen. Maybe it’s overly varnished. He didn’t think so. There wasn’t a scratch on the door. Not like the others. The worn burgundy of the front door and the ratty screen acting its mask showed the ordinary wear and tear of time. And time was unforgiving. The cellar door was not wood. It only looked like wood.
Adam touched the door. It was metal. Like a fire rated door into a mechanical room. Something to hold in the encroaching heat of a burst boiler. He felt something vibrating when he touched it. A hum he could hear, very low and deep, but right on the cusp of the sound barrier. There was a camera behind him. Aimed at the door. The wire was not connected on this one either. This is it, he thought. This is why there are cameras. Why there are animals outside. The excitement that had so recently dulled re-appeared with a vengeance.
“Guys, something’s behind here. Sounds...feels like a generator.”
Croak came to the door as well. Danny flipped a light switch. Nothing happened. “No power.”
“Come here then,” Adam coaxed.
The Jew sighed and came to the door. “What the hell? It’s metal.”
“You still think this place is abandoned?”
“I never said it was, asshole.”
“Look at this.” Croak was crouched down by the box. Adam had forgotten about it once he realized the door was different. The box was not empty. Not something the owners who’d left this place might have forgotten. Inside Adam saw a stack of VHS tapes. Very clearly organized. And labelled.
The cassettes had dates stickered to them. All recent.
“There isn’t a TV in here to watch them on,” Croak said, picking one up and looking at it indifferently.
“That we can see,” Adam said. “Maybe somebody has a nice set up upstairs. Or down there.” He pointed to the door.
“Well, if somebody left the side door unlocked, they didn’t forget this one. It is jammed tighter than Pug’s sisters,” Danny said, giving the cellar door a tug.
“Open your bags,” Adam said as he unzipped his backpack. He took off his mom’s gloves; he’d forgotten he was even wearing them. Before either of them could ask what he was on about, he took a stack of the tapes and set them in his bag. There were at least 20 of them.
And then they heard Pug whistle.
11
What’s taking them so long? What always came with impatience was a sense of regret. And now Pug regretted not going with his friends because this was worse. The waiting game. Five minutes felt like two hours...it didn’t help that Chels was acting drugged up. She hadn’t stopped panting, heaving so frequently Pug thought she was going to be sick.
It’s okay girl, when we’re done with this, we won’t ever have to come back. Never. And I will give you whatever you want to eat. Anything in the world. But he knew food was the last thing on her mind. Dogs were endless pits into which you could fork food until exhaustion set in, because the dog would never quit gulping up what you threw down at her. This was something he would not be able to fix with food. He could only imagine if he’d stumbled on a grove of rotting human bodies, and just how their positions would have switched.
Chels stopped panting for one moment. And then she growled. It was low and guttural. Something she might have once done as a pup when she was just learning the ropes. The sounds came from so deep in the gut Pug was certain barf would follow.
“What is it, girl?” he whispered, not wanting to hear the sound of his voice in this place. In this very hollow place. But he saw as well, didn’t he? And he knew Adam was right in the end. No matter how much he would have liked to dispute that, he knew Adam was right. Because there was somebody coming. Far enough in the distance now that had he relied on his own instinct, there wouldn’t have been enough time to make the getaway. Pug stuck his fingers into his mouth and whistled. It was shrill. There was no return call from the birds since they had all died at this place.
It was a man. Pug had already gotten to his feet and pulled Chels back toward the forest. He was coming from the field at the woods’ eastern fringe. You know him, don’t you?
Pug thought he might have. Because he recognized the awkward gait, the lumbering strides of one who seemed an outcast in the world. And why shouldn’t he? He’d followed the guy as far as the pass to what would become Fenway.
The man coming to the farmhouse was Lazarus.
