On the way home I stopped by a house that looked like nobody was home and used the garden hose to clean Max’s injured ear. He flinched away from the cold water with a whimper, but finally let me clean him off. The wound didn’t look as bad as I thought it would. There was a lot of blood, but after I washed it off and used my shirt to staunch the wound, it started to look a lot better, but I knew there was still a risk of infection. I had to get him home and let my mom look at him.
First I had a debt of gratitude to acknowledge. I took his head in my hands and put my forehead on the top of his muzzle. “You saved my life back there, Max,” I said.
He licked my face until I started to laugh and finally pushed him away. Not very hard, though.
“You’re a good dog, Max. I love you. You ready to go home?”
He barked once.
I patted his flank and we walked the greenbelt back home. It was probably not the smartest way home, considering Billy and his gang were still looking for me, but at that point I just didn’t care. I was too exhausted. And, believe it or not, the farther I got from the Swamp, the more unreal what I’d just encountered seemed, like it was a bad dream or something. The fear I’d felt out in the wild country had subsided, leaving me numb, and that’s how I was feeling when Max and I walked in the back door.
I started to call out, but before I could I heard my mom and dad arguing from my mom’s study.
“I don’t want to argue about this anymore,” Dad said. “I’m tired.”
“I’m not arguing. And I’m tired too, Wes. I’m just so tired of this schedule. We never see each other. Either I’m working or you’re working. It’s hard. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not trying to blame you.”
“Blame me? Oh Jesus Christ, Meredith. What the hell do you expect me to do about it?”
“Please don’t yell.”
“I’m not yelling. Jesus, I don’t get where this is fucking coming from. I mean, what the hell?”
My mom didn’t answer.
“Well? Christ, I’ve been working this schedule for eight years. Why are you all bent out of shape now?”
I thought I heard her crying.
“Oh Christ, really? I’m not gonna deal with you if you’re crying.”
He came around the corner from the entryway then and saw me. He stopped in his tracks. “Holy hell, what’d you do to my dog?”
Dad took a few steps forward before he noticed me. From my hair down to my shoes I was one big grass and dirt stain. And there was blood on my shirt. Some of it mine, some of it Max’s.
“Mark, what happened?”
He came forward and took my shoulders in his hands. Mom came around the corner behind him, drying her eyes with the back of her hand.
Then she saw me and she turned all business.
She pushed her way around my dad and took my face in her hands. She looked into my eyes, then checked my ears, my neck, my arms and hands.
“What happened to you?” she asked. “Something happened?”
“I saw him,” I said.
“Who?” my dad asked. “Did somebody try to hurt you?”
I nodded. “Max fought him off me. He bit Max’s ear. Nearly tore it off.”
“Who?” he insisted. “Do you know who did this to you?”
I nodded again.
“Who, damn it?”
I swallowed. It was hard to get it down. “The hairy man,” I said.
“Who?” my mom asked.
I looked at my dad, and I could tell from the ashen color that had descended over his features that he understood exactly who I meant.
* * *
I told them everything.
Then I told the detectives from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office the same thing a bunch more times.
They showed me photos, a bunch of photos, and asked me over and over again if I was sure this wasn’t the guy.
No?
Well, what about this one?
Or this one?
I shook my head to all of them.
Finally, I guess, they’d figured I’d had enough and passed me off to my mother, who sat with me on a long wooden bench, like a pew, in the hall outside the Homicide Office. Through a few panes of glass I could see my dad inside, arguing with Detective Travis. I wanted to know what they were arguing about, but I couldn’t hear them, and I couldn’t read their lips. All I could tell was that they were pissed at each other.
Later, my mom drove me home.
“Your dad and I talked it over,” she said when we were in the kitchen. “I don’t want you to go out and about by yourself.”
“Mom,” I said, “I wasn’t…I wasn’t alone. Jeff and Eric were with me. And I had Max.”
“I mean…without one of us.”
“You mean, you and Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Uh,” I said, and had no idea how to continue. “Mom, it’s…it’s summer.”
She drew a deep breath and let it out. She looked suddenly tired and worried and sad all at the same time. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it’s your summer vacation. I’m sorry.”
“But Mom…”
She turned away. She opened the fridge and pulled out a half-full bottle of white wine and poured herself the tallest glass I’d ever seen her pour. Mom took a sip and set the glass down next to the sink.
“Go upstairs,” she said.
“But Mom…”
“You don’t have to go to bed. Just go upstairs. Watch TV, read, I don’t care.” Her voice had been steadily rising until she was almost yelling at me, but she suddenly broke off with that last little bit about not caring. When she spoke again, she sounded put upon and worn down. “Just go upstairs.”
I didn’t bother to argue. Had it been my father delivering the same set of marching orders, my pride probably would have insisted on a fight. At the very least some heated shouting on both sides. With my mother there was none of that. She possessed a sort of witching absolutism that broached no retort. I didn’t dare respond.
Instead, I slinked off up the stairs, turned on the TV, and found nothing I wanted to watch, so I turned that off and went to the bookshelf. There I found a tattered copy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and resigned myself to spend an evening with Robert Louis Stevenson.
I read it in the chair I kept next to my window.
Some few minutes later, I put the open book down on my lap and pressed my face against the glass, for I had heard a noise.
The guttural chopping noise of a helicopter flying overhead, bearing north.
I watched it sprint overhead, and though I didn’t know it for sure I sensed it in my gut that this was the vanguard of the police manhunt for the hairy man Max and I had battled that very afternoon.
Somewhere out there, my dad and Max were no doubt gearing up to storm the little abandoned farmhouse where I’d nearly lost my life just a few hours earlier.
The hairy man, if he was still there, was about to meet the police.
He was about to meet my dad.
* * *
I waited up all that night in the hopes that my dad would come home and let me know what happened.
That didn’t happen.
I read until my eyes got tired then turned on cable and found a lot of nothing to watch. Around three in the morning I got hungry and went downstairs. I stepped carefully through the living room, not wanting to wake my mom, but in the silence of our darkened house I heard her sobbing in her room. I went over to her door and looked through the crack to where she lay stretched out on her bed, her back to me. Her shoulders were hitching with each sob and every once in a while she’d sniffle.
I wanted to say something, but I felt like I’d only make a muddled mess of it. I was never any good at that sort of thing. I’d been useless to say anything meaningful to Alan when he needed a friend, and he’d ended up pushing me away. I looked in on my mom and I was terrified I’d repeat the same mistake with her.
So I turned away from the door and went into the kitchen. My mom had gone shopping since the storm, but the fridge was still relatively empty. I found some peanut butter, some honey, a little raspberry jelly, and I mixed it all together in a bowl of yoghurt and dropped down at the kitchen table to eat.
I had the spoon nearly to my lips when I saw a flash of white in the living room.
I looked up, expecting to see my mom in her nightgown, and instead caught a glimpse of Heather Crawford in a white dress. She was covered head to toe in blood.
With a skipped heartbeat I dropped the spoon to my bowl and stood up, the chair skidding across the tiled floor.
“Heather?” I said.
But she was gone.
In the time it took me to get to my feet and call out to her, she was gone.
I shook my head. I blinked at the empty darkness where I could have sworn she stood just a moment before. Confused and frightened, I tried to swallow the lump in my throat but couldn’t quite do it.
Dimly, I became aware of the tremor in my breathing. My skin felt hot, my fingers numb. I needed to sit down and catch my breath. I dropped heavily into the kitchen chair, still staring at the empty living room. To be honest, I was afraid to look away, for I realized then that I had seen a ghost. Even if for just a moment, I had seen a ghost. I had never thought I’d be the kind to believe in ghosts. I thought I was more of a materialist than that.
But my fear taught me the truth.
I believed in ghosts.
* * *
My dad woke me up the next morning. He was covered in sweat and mud, and there was a look of frustrated exhaustion on his face.
“We found the house, just like you said.”
“And the hairy man?” I asked.
Dad shook his head.
“He was there, Dad. I swear it.”
“I know. We found blood in that hole near the back porch where he fell through. We found a lot of chewed on bones too. Some of the CSI guys told me they might be able to match bite marks to the marks on Heather and her friend.”
“But you didn’t find him?”
“No, I’m afraid not, Mark.”
“So…what’s the next move?”
He looked down at his hands. His knuckles were caked with dirt. “Listen, Mark, I don’t want you to go out for a while.”
“You mean, to the Swamp?”
“No, I mean out. At all. I don’t want you running around without your mom or me with you.”
“I don’t understand. You’re grounding me?”
“No, Mark. No, that’s not it. Mark, this scares me, and I don’t like being scared. I looked around that place. I saw the bite mark on Max’s ear. It scared me, Mark. I don’t want to lose you. You understand, don’t you?”
I didn’t know what to say. Finally, I answered him with a shrug.
“I love you, Mark. You’ll do as I say, won’t you? You’ll stay indoors until I can get this guy.”
I could have argued, but I didn’t.
Instead I lowered my head and nodded.
“Good boy,” he said. He went to the door of my bedroom, turned, and said, “I love you, Mark. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I love you too, Dad.”
He nodded, and closed my door behind him as he left.