CHAPTER TWENTY

When the drawing was done, Tab knocked on the door of the family study. Well, what they called a study. It was little more than a narrow walk-in pantry in which a desk, chair, landline phone, and power strip had been added to the back wall. The shelves had been removed except for a head-height row containing some volumes of books on machine maintenance, agribusiness, and accounting. His mom’s psychology books from Dr. Clifford also occupied the space, their spines crinkled from repeated reads. These days, his mom was in the study more than anywhere.

“Mom? I finished the drawing!”

Behind the door, papers rustled. A drawer opened and closed again. “Bring it in, hon.”

He handed the new portrait to her with some trepidation. There had been neither hide nor hair of Roy since he’d appeared on the car ride home. Tab feared drawing him from memory might summon him. Despite what Dr. Clifford had explained, the idea he was causing what he drew remained unshakable. If not the act of drawing him, the act of showing the drawing might prompt a new appearance.

Up to now, neither Tab’s mom nor his dead dad believed Roy was real. But seeing is believing. Tab found it puzzling that anyone who saw this new drawing could go on believing Roy was a figment of his imagination. His imagination was powerful. Everyone told him so. But it was not that powerful. He hoped.

Sandra scrutinized the page for an excruciating span of time as Tab looked on. Light shining from behind revealed what he’d drawn in reverse. A thick-necked man in a collared work shirt stared at them from scooped eye sockets. His brow was smooth, although thick eyebrows added a sinister element. A round nose flared over smirking thin lips. The red cap sat atop his head, shaded gray, nothing printed on it. From beneath, strands of light-colored hair curled every which way.

Regardless of its subject, Tab basked in the drawing. It was the best picture of a person he’d ever created. But he couldn’t stare at it for long without feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. He allowed his eyes to drift elsewhere. Soon, his mother placed the drawing on the desk and out of his sight.

She sniffled, about to cry, inhaling a ragged breath and letting it out in a long, exasperated sigh. “Tab, I’m going to show you a picture now. It’s an Echo clipping from a long time ago. Before you were born. I want you to tell me if you recognize the man in the picture. Can you do that?”

Tab’s stomach tightened. He needed to go to the bathroom. But he nodded, terrified and curious.

Sandra pulled open the top right drawer of her desk. From it, she produced a thin piece of newsprint about the length and width of a grocery store receipt. An advertisement for a car dealership screamed from the side facing Tab. It had been mangled by the clipping but was no less obnoxious for it. She folded the page to hide the headline from his view. When she turned the article around to show him the picture, she also covered the story’s first paragraph with two fingers.

“Do you recognize this man?”

There was no mistaking it. The pictured man was Roy. There was something uncanny about the photo, a creepy lack of clarity to the yellowed half-tone that Tab was old enough to recognize but not yet capable of explaining. From beyond the dots, he saw a man who resembled the drawing he had just handed his mother. The only difference is this man had eyes, half-lidded and staring into the camera. The black-and-white photograph could not reveal their color, but Tab thought they might have been blue or gray. They were narrow, too—not beady, precisely, but more rectangular than he thought eyes should be.

“That’s him! That’s Roy,” Tab said. A tear streamed down his mother’s face. She pivoted and swiped at it. “Have you seen him or something?”

His heart thudded with dread. Had Roy told him the truth? Was his mom once in love with a man who was not Tab’s dad? Had she been married to his dad at the same time she was in love with this man? If Roy was not lying, the synchronicity of the drawing of his dad’s hand and his mom’s nightmares could also be signs of something very real.

“Have you ever seen this picture before, hon?” No hints in her eyes or her mouth about which way she hoped he’d answer.

Tab shook his head. “No. First time ever.”

“You haven’t been rummaging around in this desk before? Maybe you were looking for a pencil or something and accidentally saw it at some point?”

He shook his head with more emphasis. “No, Mom. I don’t go through your things. Not since the makeup. You and Dad made me promise.”

She nodded, running a forefinger under her nose and then under each eye. “Ok. I believe you. Now tell me. Did you touch me or push the back of my head the last time we were in the car? Remember when I said I thought I had nodded off?”

Tab stiffened, inhaled, and held it for a few seconds. “Yes?”

“I wasn’t a hundred percent telling the truth when I said that. I don’t lie to you, Tab. But right then, I thought that was the best explanation for what happened. It felt like somebody was tickling the back of my head at first. Right here.” She ducked and patted her crown with her right hand. “Then, while you were still talking to Roy, it felt like something—I don’t know—pushed me. The back of my neck is still a little sore from it. We didn’t hit a bump or anything that I remember.”

“Roy shoved your head through the back of your seat,” Tab said. His voice quavered, his lower lip trembling. “I’m not making it up, Mom. I swear. He was trying to prove to me that he was real because I kept telling him he wasn’t.” He paused. “He could have killed us!”

I ain’t no goddamn murderer.

Tab thought, But you’re a liar.

From her desktop, Sandra produced Tim’s DVD copy of Mortuary! The cover featured a woman’s hand bursting from below earth in front of a gravestone. The hand was open-palm, fingers spread, as if seeking purchase on something. Or someone. The calves of passersby, maybe? To have been buried under the earth, Tab’s artist’s eye noted that the hand and the arm attached to it appeared remarkably clean.

“Have you ever seen this before?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. What is it?”

“One of your dad’s horror movies from the early eighties. Are you sure you’ve never seen it before? I’m not asking if you’ve seen the movie. I’m asking if you’ve seen the cover art.”

“No,” Tab said. “I haven’t seen either of them before.”

Sandra sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

“Why? What does it mean?”

She shrugged, her gaze distant, looking at the floor. “Maybe nothing. Does it remind you of anything?”

“The picture of Dad’s hand from my sketchbook,” Tab said without thinking about it. “And if Roy turns out to be really real—”

Son and mother stared at each other for a moment, each knowing what the other was thinking. “I’ll get my keys,” Sandra said. “You go get your brother. Tell him we’re going to visit your dad at the cemetery.”

***

The drive to the Lost Hollow gravesite was a short one, but it seemed to Tab as if days passed. He was smart. He left his sketchbook and pencils at home. But because there was nothing to draw and no eraser to tap against his temple, his fingers kept wandering to his bump, worrying at it. It was warm to the touch right now, but no warmer than anywhere else on his face. That meant Roy was not around. Maybe.

The Beard family piled out of the car and located their patriarch’s gravestone immediately.

Tab glanced at the lot, unwilling at first to lay eyes on the stone. He dreaded the pangs of loss that might wring from him a fresh round of hot tears. A small shack sat in the corner of the lot. The face of an older man appeared in its dusty window and vanished seconds later. Creepy. But it wasn’t Roy.

“Don’t look over there,” Jeremy said from behind him. “You’ll lure old Diggum out here. They say he’s crazy.”

“Jeremy! We don’t use words like ‘crazy’ anymore.”

“Sorry, Mom. They say he’s a whack job!”

Sandra rolled her eyes but ignored the slur. She knelt in front of Tim’s headstone, placing a hand on it for support as she did. Her knees and the tips of her shoes sank into soft earth. For a moment, Tab had a terrible fear she was going to drown in his dad’s grave. It hadn’t rained in weeks that Tab could remember, not much at all since the flood. He had imagined that the dirt over his dad would be hard, packed. Unless. Unless, unless, unless. Unless the drawing in his sketchbook, his mother’s nightmares, and Roy were all telling the truth.

“Careful,” a hoarse baritone said from somewhere behind the family. “I resodded this morning. It ain’t took hold yet.”

Tab spun his head around. A weathered looking man wearing gray coveralls and an enormous pair of black clod-stomping work boots approached them from the caretaker’s cottage. As he neared, Tab smelled the distinct aroma of gasoline. An unopened pack of Winstons peeked over the lip of his breast pocket.

Diggum the cemetery caretaker directly acknowledged neither of the children. Tab didn’t like the way his eyes darted to them now and then, as if he was expecting one of them to jump him.

“Flood washed away a lot of the topsoil around here,” the man said. “Been working hard every day since to get things looking right again. Sure enough. I try to not bother people while they’re mourning their kin, but y’all are standing right on the spot I sodded this morning. Don’t want you to fall and hit your head or nothing.”

Sandra stood up to greet him. “Thank you. We’ll be careful.” She considered him for a moment and pushed forward. “Can I ask you something? Have you seen anything weird around here over the past couple of days? Anyone lurking around when they shouldn’t be or bothering the graves?”

Diggum’s face screwed up in recollection. “Can’t say I have. Why? Something wrong with this one?”

“No,” Sandra said, shaking her head. “No, I guess not. You wouldn’t happen to have any security cameras monitoring the graves or anything, would you? So if someone did disturb something, you’d be able to tell what happened and who did it?”

The man’s eyes grew wide, offended. “Hell, naw! That kind of stuff is a privacy invasion. I live here. I don’t want no security system keeping tabs on everything I say and do.”

“But—”

“Let me ask you something, ma’am. What’s with all the questions? You accusing me of something? We got walls here now thanks to the county commission. Had ‘em since 2008. We got a gate I lock up at night. You got me living here twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. You expecting Dr. Frankenstein to come steal some bodies?” Sandra tittered, a blush reddening her cheeks. “No, nothing like that,” she said. “I’ve just—well, with everything going on now I’ve got it in my head I need to keep watch on it all, I guess. Thank you again for your help.” She turned to the kids. “We need to go.”

Diggum nodded but did not reply. Tab figured he’d leave them then. He didn’t. Instead, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his coveralls and waited, eyes never unlocked from Sandra.

“Come on boys,” she said. “Let’s go.” She reached for both of their hands but only managed to grab Tab’s. Jeremy had already stepped out of the way and headed for the car. He was too old for handholding, anyway. Mom just reached for him out of habit.

Tab could sense Diggum’s eyes on their backs as they walked. At least he wasn’t following them. The cloud of gasoline stink had dissipated.

A warm breeze picked up, stirring the leaves on the few trees dotting the cemetery landscape. The sudden wind stung his bump. That was a new sensation. It made him wish he had bandaged it, or that his mother would allow him to grow his hair longer on that side to cover it up. The breeze whistled in Tab’s ears. Somewhere within the sound, he thought he could also detect a voice. A familiar one.

TAAAB, it said. III’M COOOMING. STOOOP HIIIM.

“Dad,” Tab said. His mother’s hand tightened around his own. “Dad’s here.”