The Axeman

 

 

On my tenth birthday, my great-aunt Tillie, the same great-aunt my parents often pretended didn’t exist, did a tarot card reading for me. Flipping cards on the table, she explained the difference between heaven and hell. “In heaven, everyone is doing stuff they want to do, Bertie. And in hell they are doing the exact same thing, only they don’t want to do it.”

At the time, it didn’t make sense to me. But now I got it. I didn’t want to be here. The Mortons’ house was my personal hell.

To most people, it wouldn’t look like it. The house was at the end of a road called Hickory Street, in an upper-class neighborhood. Everyone kept telling me the same thing over and over. “The neighborhood is so great, Bertie. You’re going to love it.”

To prove their point, Mac and Tabitha took me on a tour after lunch. “Bonding time,” Howard called it. We hopped on our bikes and pedaled past big, clean houses. The yards were nice and green. Kids were at play, or dads or moms were mowing or gardening. Tall shade trees lined both sides of the street. Beams of sunlight poked through the thick branches like hundreds of little spotlights.

The Morton kids were practically tripping over themselves to be nice to me. It felt phony. When I mentioned I needed to be on the lookout for bees because I’m highly allergic and one sting would blow me up like a hot air balloon, I glimpsed a grinning Tabitha. It was like I could read the sinister thoughts churning in her mind. Let’s buy a honey-coated jumpsuit for Bertie!

Our bike ride should’ve been peaceful, but I had an ominous feeling in my gut that it was all a setup. Actually, it felt like I was pedaling through a horror movie. Three kids ride down a lovely street, when … WHAM! Evil beasts pounce from the shadows and tear their bodies limb from limb.

“Look, Bertie. Pretty isn’t it?” Tabitha pointed ahead as we turned a corner. As we got farther from Howard’s house, a mountain just outside the town came into view. In the bright sunlight it looked blue and green and wise, like mountains sometimes do. It reminded me of home.

Brush Mountain, Mac said they called it. I gave it a jerky compliment. “It’s dinky compared to the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. More like an ambitious hill than an actual mountain.”

Tabitha and Mac shared a frustrated glance. Our bonding wasn’t going as planned. I told myself that I’d rather bond with a hungry grizzly bear, or a slithering rattlesnake, or bloodsucking leeches.

“Guys, let’s be honest,” I said. “The only reason we are doing this lame tour is because your dad made you do it.”

“No he didn’t,” Tabitha said. “We’re just trying to give you a chance.”

“Why? I don’t need any chances,” I said. “I won’t be staying in Altoona very long.”

“Promise?” she said.

“Tabitha!” Mac scolded. “Dad said we gotta be nice to Bertie, no matter what. Plus, she let me pet Leon.”

“Ah-ha!” I said, glaring at Tabitha. “Now who’s the liar?”

Tabitha didn’t like that one bit. Skidding her bike to a stop, she looked at me. “I’m not a liar! And I’m not some weirdo seeing things that aren’t there.”

Mac spoke up again. “Definitely not being nice.”

I opened my mouth to say something mean, until I heard a loud caw-caw-caw. The noise drew my eyes to a crow in an oak tree. The bird stared at me like it knew me. Like it wanted to get my attention. Caw-caw-caw! I stuck my tongue out at the crow, then watched it fly away.

My eyes shot wide. I would’ve sworn the black crow had morphed into a dove or some kind of white bird. It was beautiful and creepy at once.

Maybe Tabitha was right. I was a weirdo who saw things that weren’t there.

“Hey!” a man shouted. “You trying to get yourselves killed?”

The shout was so jarring, I nearly fell off my bike. Beside me, Tabitha’s and Mac’s jaws dropped. Under the oak tree stood a gigantic bearded man staring at us through a chain-link fence on his property. A six-foot-six beast of a man, clutching an axe. His hair, face, and clothes were filthy. The yard behind him was even worse. Junk everywhere. A broken-down truck that looked like it hadn’t been driven in years, and was being slowly swallowed up by nature. A rusted washing machine and a stove with no door took up space where a sidewalk should’ve been. The fence surrounding his property was crowned with barbed wire, like Axeman was protecting treasure instead of junk. Suddenly, as if clouds were covering the sun, everything got darker. Spooky dark.

“Thieving kids scoping out my house. You’re lookin’ to steal something, ain’tcha?” Axeman said with a smirk. He opened the squeaky gate. “Go on and try it, I dare you. Take one step inside my fence, and I got the legal right to cut you down to size.”

Swinging the axe at the gnarled oak tree, the axeman sunk the blade into the trunk. THUNK! “Consider yourself warned. Y’all will feel my steel!”

“Move! Let’s get out of here,” Tabitha yelled to Mac and me.

Pedaling away as if our lives depended upon it, I said to Tabitha and Mac, “Shouldn’t we call the cops? That dude totally wanted to kill us!”

“Nothing will happen if the police show up,” Tabitha said. “My dad said even the cops are afraid of that guy. He’s been scaring kids for years. We should’ve gone the other way.”

Glancing back, I saw the axeman eyeballing us. A terrifying thought burst into my mind. Could he be the horrible thing that was going to happen?

Before taking the neighborhood tour, I’d made a mental list of all the awful, freaky, heartbreaking, rotten, scary things that had happened in Altoona. My Reasons Why Mom and Leon and Me Must Escape Altoona Immediately list.

As we raced away from the axeman, I added an item to that list. A psychotic murderer lives down the street.