Chapter Ten

Heidi heard the chugging of Chuck’s car roll up her driveway. She was sitting in the backyard with Vent, sharing a warm bottle of Miller beer. Earlier, the two of them had watched Witchboard. Vent drooled over Tawny Kitaen while Heidi did a little bit of ogling of Stephen Nichols, the guy who played Patch on Days of Our Lives. Her mother was in one of her good moods today, going so far as to pop them popcorn before the movie had started. Normally, Heidi would have loved a movie about Ouija boards, but she couldn’t get into it. Not when she was filled with so much worry. At eight o’clock, her parents gave them the boot so they could watch their shows. Soon canned laughter emanated from the living room. It was now well past dusk, and each passing moment had been cranking her anxiety up another intolerable notch. The beer bottle slipped from her hand when she tried to hand it to Vent. “They’re back!”

Both lawn chairs tipped over as they scooted to the front of the house. She was glad that Vent had stayed with her. He was one of the few people she could just be quiet around and not feel weird. Even with Marnie she felt she had to fill any pauses with conversation, no matter how inane. He’d eaten dinner with her family and did most of the talking so her parents wouldn’t keep asking her if anything was wrong. To her, Vent had always been the living equivalent of a warm blanket. He was always there when you needed him, was comforting in his stillness, and didn’t cause a ruckus.

Chuck was already out of the car, reaching inside to help Marnie. Mick sat in the front passenger seat tugging at his hair, lost in thought. He didn’t even look up when Heidi and Vent came to the front of the car.

“What happened?” she asked.

Chuck’s lips were drawn in a grim line. He looked frazzled and upset. As Heidi got closer to Marnie, she nearly gasped. Her friend looked like she was terminally ill, her skin paler than the moon, her eyes bloodshot with dark circles under them. Even her hair looked sick, every end suddenly split and limp.

Vent put a hand on Chuck’s shoulder. “Dude, did you get Dunwoody?”

Chuck nodded, his eyes downcast. “Yeah, we picked him up at his house.”

Heidi slipped her arm around Marnie’s waist and held her close. Marnie hissed when Heidi squeezed too hard. She felt so fragile, like an old Christmas ornament. She had a million questions she wanted to ask, but Marnie’s body language screamed that she wasn’t well enough to handle an interrogation.

“Where is he now?” Vent pressed, casting a wary eye at a sullen Mick. “Did you scare the crap out of him? Do you think he’ll keep his mouth shut?”

Chuck closed the car door and leaned against it, taking a moment to stare at the night sky. “He’s dead.”

Heidi’s heart fluttered. “Wait. What? Did he have like a heart attack or something?” She never believed that Mick had the inside scoop to the Melon Head feeding ground. But she was all in for Mick and Chuck putting the fear of god in Harold Dunwoody. Sure, Mick and more than likely Marnie wanted to see him dead, but Heidi never thought it would go that far.

“They ripped him apart,” Marnie said, the words tumbling from her lips and down her body.

“Who ripped him apart?”

The other car door opened, the hinges protesting so loud they echoed down the deserted street. “Who do you think?” Mick said.

Heidi and Vent looked at one another. Vent said, “I don’t know. Was it you? What did you do?”

Of course it was Mick. Heidi would never categorize him as a killer, but he had been known to take things too far. And ever since his mother and stepfather had abandoned him, leaving him out in the woods in that rotting trailer, he’d been acting stranger than usual, as if any controls and filters were off for good.

“It wasn’t Mick,” Chuck said. “It was them.”

Vent laughed and cut it short. “What, the Melon Heads? Yeah, right.”

“It’s true,” Marnie said. “We…we tied him to this kind of stake. It looked like a teepee or part of some sacrificial altar. They came for him. There were…so many of them. They almost got Chuck, and then they turned to Dunwoody and, and….” She broke into heaving sobs. Heidi pulled her head onto her chest and stroked her hair.

This couldn’t be right. The Melon Heads were just a scary story to tell little kids.

Chuck and Mick gazed at Marnie. They looked like they’d seen something far worse than a ghost. They liked to kid around, but this was no joke.

“No way, man,” Vent said. “That can’t be true.”

“I don’t give a shit if you believe me,” Mick said.

“I wish it wasn’t,” Chuck said. “I wish we’d never gone to Dunwoody’s house.”

Did Heidi see a tear in the corner of his eye? Marnie’s crying started to subside. They really had seen the Melon Heads. And the Melon Heads really had murdered Harold Dunwoody. Heidi swooned from the information overload. She shuffled closer to the car, Marnie sluggishly moving with her, so it could hold them both up.

“What were they like?” she asked.

“Exactly like they say,” Mick replied. “Only there was a lot of them. And they’re vicious. Like animals.”

“And strong,” Chuck said. “One of them tried to bite me, but he had no teeth. This is what his gums did to me.” He lifted his shirt to show them the angry red-and-purple circle on his chest. It looked like he’d gotten stuck on an industrial vacuum. His arms were covered in bruises the shape and size of fingerprints. “Or maybe it was a she. It was hard to tell.” He took a deep, tremulous breath, pulled his shirt back down and wandered off, heading toward the street.

“Chuck,” Vent called after him.

Mick said, “Let him go. He needs some time. Shit, we all do.”

Heidi pushed the hair out of Marnie’s face, a face that no longer resembled her shining, pretty friend. “Are you all right? Did they try to hurt you?”

Marnie sniffled. “They didn’t get close enough to me. Dredd wanted to leave us there. If he had, we’d be just like Dunwoody.”

“Dredd. Who’s Dredd?” Vent asked. He scratched behind his right ear. It was a nervous tic he’d had ever since grade school.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mick said. “We can talk about it all later. Right now, I’m just fucking tired.”

“You can stay at my house tonight,” Heidi said to Marnie. She didn’t need to add that she would have to sneak her up later after her parents went to bed at ten. They weren’t fans of Marnie to begin with. Seeing her in such a physical and mental state would send them over the edge.

Marnie nodded against her chest.

“If you want, you can crash at my place,” Vent said to Mick.

“I’ll be fine back at mine,” Mick said.

“No, you won’t,” Marnie said.

Heidi’s confusion grew. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because he killed one of them. At least we think he did. He was trying to save Chuck. Dredd kept talking about the rules, how we’d broken the worst of them all. He said the Melon Heads would find us.”

“You freaking killed a Melon Head?” Vent said breathlessly.

“I stabbed him. I don’t think I killed him, though.” Mick’s bravado faded for a moment, the realization that he’d driven a knife into another living being, even if it was a Melon Head, unmooring him.

“You live in the woods, man,” Vent said. “You don’t think it’ll be easy for them to get at you?”

“I don’t live in their woods.”

“Big deal. Woods are woods. They could come up on you and wipe you out with no one being close enough to hear. Stop being stupid. You’re staying with me.”

“I said I’ll be fine.”

Only he didn’t sound fine.

“Just stay with Vent,” Heidi said. “Please. Even if only to make us feel better.”

Mick toed the sidewall of Chuck’s tire. “Fine, if you’re all going to be little bitches about it.”

“Yes, we’re going to be little bitches about it,” Marnie said. She pressed herself into Heidi. “I need about ten aspirin, a beer and two days of sleep.”

“I can get your aspirin. Don’t think I can swipe another beer out of the fridge, though,” Heidi said. She watched Chuck make his way back to them. He walked and looked like someone who had just had a brush with death. It reminded her of this new report where a plane had crashed in Nigeria. Some had made it out of the plane before it was engulfed in flames. They did the same kind of zombie walk as Chuck when they were filmed shuffling into the terminal surrounded by police and medics.

“I’m going home,” Chuck said.

“Can you drop us off at my place?” Vent asked.

Chuck nodded. He flicked the car antenna over and over, the dull twang grating on Heidi’s nerves. She didn’t tell him that, though. After what he’d been through, he could do anything he wanted.

“What are we gonna do?” Heidi asked before their group drifted apart.

The boys looked to one another, but no one had an answer.

“We’re going to hope that Dredd is full of shit,” Marnie said. There was a dry click in her throat when she swallowed. “Though from everything he’s said and shown us so far, we shouldn’t bet our lives on it.”