CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Despite being haunted and harangued by Stinkeye Roy, the sheer terror of his mother’s fraught drive to the ER overshadowed Tab’s previous anxieties. An hour’s trip on a normal day, Sandra and the boys managed it in forty-five minutes. Tab gaped at the sedan’s speedometer as it climbed past the 55 mph mark. At one point it landed on 90 but backed off when the ass-end of a trundling semi hauling two layers of brand new Subarus loomed large in the distance. The truck’s hazards flashed an ominous beat in the candy-like colors of Subaru paint jobs.

“Mom, slow down!”

“Not now, hon,” she said. “This is an emergency.”

He tucked his hands under his thighs, choosing silence for the remainder of the trip. Now and then, his brother’s head wobbled on his neck, as if he was about to pass out again. He never did puke. That was a good thing. But he was not well. Tab feared Jeremy would fall unconscious again, that he would be left to deal with Roy alone. Dealing with Roy at all was bad enough, but dealing with him by himself was the worst. His mom was too distracted to care. And Jeremy? Jeremy never cared at all.

The lights of Hollow River’s downtown—most specifically the red glowing EMERGENCY ROOM sign—were a welcome sight when Sandra made the turn into the facility. Here she was forced to slow down because families and outpatients had to cross her path to get to the parking lot. She ground the Accord to a halt in front of the ER doors. In a flash, she was helping Jeremy out of the passenger side before Tab even unbuckled.

“Hurry, Tab,” she said. Was she irritated with him now? Blaming him for Jeremy’s condition because he couldn’t handle Roy on his own? A part of him began to doubt whether Roy was the big deal he’d made him out to be. Jeremy’s predicament seemed so much larger, more serious. At least at that moment. Was he just being dramatic, as Jeremy liked to say girls were? Jeremy did sometimes called him “Tabitha,” after all, trying to insult his masculinity. Although Tab would not say so, he thought the name was beautiful. So what if Jeremy thought it was a girl’s name? What was so wrong with being a girl? Unless that girl was Ashley Reardon, of course. She was all kinds of wrong. And not very girly, at least according to his brother’s understanding. Tab had begun to suspect that people did not always fit into such firm molds as his brother’s definitions of boy and girl.

“Tab! Come on!” Sandra was already halfway to the door, struggling to keep Jeremy upright as his lanky, nearly a teen frame trembled and his knees threatened to buckle.

Tab leaped from the car, slamming the door behind him. Ten skips later, he stood at his brother’s side. His mom shot him a grateful glance when Tab also put his arms around Jeremy. Or was she chiding him? Was it “thank you very much” or “it’s about time?” He found them difficult to distinguish but tried to swallow the hypervigilance so it didn’t prompt him to bother her for reassurances. She had a lot on her plate. Like she often said his dad did. One son is tortured by a ghost. Another has a medical emergency. Add to that a dead husband and it was no wonder she was hard to read.

“Thank you,” Jeremy murmured. Tab wasn’t sure whether it was directed at him or his mother, but his brother’s head had lolled in his direction when he said it. Therefore, Tab decided to accept the acknowledgment for himself.

“Help!” Sandra shouted when they pushed through the door together. This grabbed the attention of two techs, who rushed to their aid. At reception, Tab recognized the EMT who had wanted to transport Jeremy. Leaning against the wall, his thick arms folded, his lips twisted into a smirk. “Told you so,” the look said.

Tab summoned the courage to glare back at him. Instantly, the mocking green eyes collapsed. Tendrils of goo melted from their sockets, the droplets playing Plinko through his five o’clock shadow.

Tab blinked, and the EMT was Roy, his expression unchanged even without his eyes. A second blink, and the space at which Tab had been staring was empty save for a small group of people wandering the hall in the distance, searching for the restaurant, gift shop, or bathrooms. “It’s this way!” Tab heard one of them announce. Then they, too, were memories.

He glanced at his brother. Jeremy had been provided a wheelchair at the reception desk while their mother dug her insurance card from her purse and handed it to a scowling older woman with an auburn beehive atop her head. Jeremy looked awake, although barely. His half-lidded eyes stared straight ahead, seeing nothing. His jaw hung open slightly, as if his nostrils were plugged and he had to breathe through his mouth.

Roy had managed to manifest even when Jeremy was conscious and nearby. “He’s getting stronger,” Tab whispered. “Not weaker like I thought. He can look like other people. And he’s getting stronger.” He shuddered and sidled close to his mother. His left hand closed around her purse strap where it connected to the bag. He didn’t want to distract her, but he needed the comfort of the touch at the moment. His fingers brushed against her copy of Soothing the Obsessive-Compulsive Beast. Dr. Clifford’s shining bald head and smiling eyes beamed at him from just beyond the title, peeking at him over nut brown artificial leather.

Tab plucked the book from his mother’s bag. She did not appear to notice. He felt momentary guilt about taking it from her, but then considered she had meant it for him anyway. He carried the book to a seat in the front row of the waiting area and paged to the Table of Contents.

“That ain’t gonna help you,” Roy’s voice said from somewhere to the right of him. Tab gasped and spun his head to locate the source. Roy sat beside him, now in his beige coveralls, grinning his rotted, mocking grin. Tab had never seen his eye sockets so close. Pulsing red and blackened meat surrounded the perimeter of the holes. There was familiarity there. It was not dissimilar to the mess of gore he thought he’d seen in his bump that day back in May.

While Tab stared, a maggot fell from the ceiling of Roy’s left eye and landed in his lap. The man pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and popped it into his mouth. He swallowed without chewing and resumed his grin.

“Man’s gotta eat! You’re scrawny and you look like a little girl. It’s because you don’t eat enough.” He jerked a thumb at the book. “That quack don’t care about you. He only wants to diddle your momma. Now you’ve killed your brother, your momma’s gonna put you up for adoption. She’s gonna run straight into that dude’s arms. Mark my words. She don’t care about you any more than he does because you’re my boy.”

Tab fingered the bold chapter title that read TALKING BACK TO THE BEAST. It was the only topic he’d covered in any depth with Dr. Clifford so far, and the only thing that seemed to work besides Jeremy’s proximity. “I’m not your boy,” he said. “My mom does love me, and I won’t believe you. I don’t care what you say about it.”

Roy nodded toward Sandra and Jeremy. She had knelt in front of the older boy and appeared to be testing his eyes the same way the EMT did when they were at home. Jeremy scrunched up his nose and swatted her index finger away.

“Come on, Mom. I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Look how she dotes on him,” Roy said. “She don’t even remember you’re here right now. She don’t even care that you got your own problems. She’s only worried about Tim’s boy.”

“Tim Beard was my dad, too,” Tab said. “Not you. Even if you are my biological father, you’re not my dad.” He pronounced “biological” syllable-by-syllable, as if saying the word for the first time, staring into Roy’s eye sockets as he did. Even without his eyes, the ghost’s hurt expression seemed genuine. He sniffled and wiped his vaporous nostrils with one transparent sleeve of his coveralls.

“I woulda been. I woulda been your dad if Tim Beard hadn’t murdered me. Your momma didn’t tell me about you. If I’da known I’da fought for you.”

Tab narrowed his eyes, his fists resting atop the pages of the open book. “She didn’t tell you because you attacked her. You hurt her. And I’m not your son.”

“She showed you the story they wrote about me in the paper, huh? Ain’t true, boy. Ain’t a word of it true. Echo has a vendetta against me on account of some of my, uhm, political associations. Your momma won’t say so, but she thinks the same way I do. She wouldn’t have met me at Whitt’s that day if she didn’t. She just feels guilty about being married to Beard while she was fucking me. So I got the blame for it all.”

“That. Is. Not. True,” Tab said. “Mom stopped for gas. She didn’t know it was a racist hangout.”

Roy grinned and leaned over him, pretending to examine the book’s contents. “It’s all true,” he said. “Every word I said. He pointed at the TALKING BACK line with his middle finger. “How’s that working out for you right now? Huh? Clifford is a fucking quack. I told you. You’re talking back to me right now and I’m still here. You ain’t getting rid of me, boy. Not easy, anyway.”

Tab inhaled, resolve bubbling to the surface. If it was time to behave more “manly,” then so be it. He’d try one of his brother’s tactics: “Oh yeah? Well F—FUCK YOU!” Blood rushed to his face as the words escaped. It was his first swear. Out loud, anyway. A tingle ran up his spine when he uttered it. It sounded unnatural, coming from his mouth that way. But there was something about finally allowing himself to say it that also felt...good? Roy vanished, allowing Tab to see the elderly woman who had been napping two seats away from him. She was awake now, looking at him with the most horrified, offended gray eyes he’d ever seen. Shame immediately replaced his momentary lapse of good feelings.

“Sorry!” he said, diverting his gaze to the floor. “I’m sorry! I wasn’t talking to you!”

Sandra and Jeremy were suddenly there with him. Jeremy remained in the wheelchair, groggy, both there and not there. Sandra squeezed herself between the older woman and Tab, the space Roy had occupied only a moment before.

“We never spoke to our elders like that when I was a young’un!” the older woman huffed. She addressed Sandra, not Tab. “You need to control your boy. Teach him some manners. Why, my dad would’ve hauled me to the back of the woodshed and whipped my bare behind with a switch if I’d done what he did.”

Sandra gritted her teeth audibly. “Well, your dad’s not here, is he? My son apologized. We don’t hit at our house.”

“Well, you should!” the woman said.

“Yeah?” Sandra shot back. “Well, if your dad had been less abusive maybe you’d be able to loosen your grip on them pearls a little, eh?” She spun away from the scene. “Sorry for calling you out on your swearing, boys. Let’s go take care of some shit.”

“I—” the woman started but was halted mid-sentence by the thud of the door to the examination rooms. A pleasantly smiling nurse in pink scrubs with her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail called Jeremy’s name. Sandra grabbed Tab by the hand and stood up with him. She guided him to her side, opposite the older woman.

“That’s not appropriate language in public, Tab,” she whispered through gritted teeth. Together, they pushed Jeremy’s wheelchair through the examination room and away from Tab’s humiliation. Blessed relief, although it did not last long.

As they strode the length of the hall behind the nurse, Roy peered from around the corner of an open door to a darkened room. He sneered as the trio passed and hissed, “I told you talking back wasn’t gonna work. You’re gonna be mine yet, boy!”

Tab ignored him.

“All we gotta do is get rid of your brother first!” the ghost said from behind him. It was impossible to tell from how far behind. He resisted the urge to turn and check. Instead, he glanced at the next chapter title in Soothing the Obsessive-Compulsive Beast. The words SITTING WITH THE BEAST: MINDFULNESS AND OCD floated in his vision. That was something Dr. Clifford had not yet discussed with Tab, or with his mother. Tab had no idea what “mindfulness” was or how to use it. He would need to read the chapter, or at least skim it. He hoped he had time.