Chapter Twenty

Chuck failed the economics test that was supposed to account for a quarter of his grade for the semester. Luckily, Mr. Murphy offered to let him retake the test next week in light of his being attacked by the wilding gang. If he only knew the truth.

He wanted a joint real bad, but he had to keep his head straight to study and be on the alert for another attack. He looked up from his textbook and into the small mirror on his wall. He looked like sun-baked dog shit and it had nothing to do with the bruises. It was all in his eyes. His body was in a constant state of fight or flight. Sleep was fleeting. He’d never felt so tired. His eyes were bloodshot all the time. Amazing how he looked stoned but, for once, he was straight as six o’clock.

The words in his book read like nonsense written by a first grader. Try as he might, nothing was getting through the thick fog in his brain.

“Screw it.” He slammed the book closed and pushed his chair back from the desk. The bottle of Benadryl he’d swiped from the medicine cabinet was next to the textbook. He’d promised himself he would get some sleep tonight. What good was he going to be if he was sleep deprived?

The Benadryl would knock him out for sure. It would also send him into sleep so deep, he’d never hear trouble if it came knocking. That would be a fatal mistake.

Chuck opened a desk drawer and swept the bottle inside. He yawned and rubbed his face. Sunlight streamed through his window. It would normally be open, but he kept it locked tight now. He thought of Marnie and her idea of the two of them picking up and leaving for good. And it would have to be forever. The Melon Heads had been living in the recesses of Milbury for a long time and it would stay that way for even longer.

He looked over at the phone and considered calling Heidi. Since the attack, they’d been talking a lot. They were both scared, though he tried to keep his fears to himself. Heidi was smart, though, and he knew she saw through his BS. He could pick the phone up and call her right now and he knew she’d answer on the first ring. Something was happening between them. He wasn’t that dense. This wasn’t just wishful thinking. Their friendship was becoming something more. Just what, he wasn’t sure. He did know what he would like it to be.

If he told Mick any of this, he knew what he’d say. “Dude, what’s wrong with you? She’s like a sister.”

But she wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Never had been. Never would. This strengthening bond between them had been the silver lining in all of this madness. He’d filled so many socks with his hurried fantasies of where all of this would lead that he was now walking in bare feet. He wasn’t sure if his increased spank sessions were out of ignited feelings for Heidi or a way to burn off his nervous energy.

He picked up the phone, started to dial, and stopped.

What was the point? He was either going to leave her or die. Some choice. It would be better for both of them if things didn’t go any further than they already had.

A dull throb started to build in his shoulder. If he didn’t take one of the pills the doctor gave him, he knew it would escalate to screaming pain within the hour. Sometimes, he let the pain come and stay for a while because it kept him in the moment. They said he’d have to wear the sling for at least a month. There would be weeks of physical therapy after that. How had that Melon Head that was half his size and a woman (or girl…how could he know for sure?) have kicked his ass so easily and thoroughly? It was the first time anyone had ever hit him. In the past, his sheer size was enough to cut any fight off at the pass.

She beat you like a red-headed stepchild. You never even had a chance.

How would he fare against two of them? Or five? Or twenty? He’d end up just like Harold Dunwoody, torn apart like a Thanksgiving turkey.

That nightmare wasn’t getting any better, either. Whenever he thought back to Dunwoody’s final moments, he had to sprint to the bathroom. He’d run out of puke a week ago, settling now for painful shits that left him sweaty and drained.

Useless. He’d become pathetically useless. Hell, his brain wasn’t even working. He was cracking up, that was for sure. His parents were getting worried about him. He saw it in their eyes every time he stepped in the room. They had taken to whispering to each other when he’d leave. He wished he could ask them for help, but even they wouldn’t believe him. At least this new concern for his well-being had been a welcome diversion for all of the ‘just say no’ and ‘you need to hang out with a better class of people’ talks. Now, those had been uncomfortable and a little asinine, as far as he was concerned. Thank you so much, Nancy Reagan. Uptight old twat.

Sleep. He needed sleep. If he could recharge, he’d heal and maybe, just maybe, he could think straight and find a way out of this.

The big question was where could he go for a night where he’d feel safe enough to let his guard down? A hotel down in Norwalk would do, or even a seedy motel in Stamford. The problem was money. His wallet wasn’t exactly overflowing with cash.

Call Heidi. She’ll lend you the money.

What if she wanted to come along? His heart raced just at the thought. No, now wasn’t the time for that. He needed real rest, not a night of clumsy attempts to get Heidi’s bra off with one hand.

No sense calling Vent. He was perpetually tapped. He’d feel guilty taking any cash from Marnie. Besides, if he did, she’d spend the entire time trying to convince him to keep on going and never look back. It was easy when you had nothing much to look back on.

And then there was Mick. He’d find a way to pick a cheap motel door lock and get a night on the cheap. That wouldn’t work, either. Chuck knew himself. He’d spend a sleepless night waiting for the police to break the door down with guns drawn.

Just. Call. Heidi.

He sighed deeply and started coughing.

And then he picked up the phone.

* * *

Marnie ‘borrowed’ her stepfather’s Ford van, the one he used on those days when he felt like making some cash as a swinging hammer. The van had been declared off limits to her back when she was old enough to know how to use the key to open the door. She’d happily steered clear of it. What little girl would want to root around a dirty old van filled with greasy-smelling tools?

She drove it as best she could, while Mick gave her directions. The van’s carburetor had some serious issues, threatening to stall every time she stopped for a light or slowed down for a stop sign. She peeked into the rearview mirror at the haphazard shelving in the back. Tools improperly stowed had been shifting around with a steady metallic clinking that was rubbing her nerves raw.

“How much further is it?” she asked.

“Couple of miles, tops. It was hard to tell because I walked it.”

Mick had been busy in his absence. He’d told her how he had brazenly gone to Dredd’s place two days ago, anxious to find him. The decision to go there was out of total desperation. The last place he wanted to be alone was anywhere near Dracula Drive, but it became clear it was the only place that might shed some light on their situation. The cabin had burned pretty good, but one side hadn’t caught the ire of the flames for some reason. Within that sliver of still-standing cabin was a lockbox. And in that lockbox was an assortment of papers and pictures. Most important was a birth certificate announcing the live birth of Christopher James Runde in Milbury General Hospital on June 7th, 1970. The hospital was long gone and Mick was sure Chris, now calling himself Dredd, was as well. There were pictures of two boys, one looking to be almost twice Chris’s age. In one, they were at a pool, waving to the camera. In another, they leaned against the garage door, looking tough. The third is what came in most handy. They sat on the porch stairs of a brown-shingled house. The number of the house was too fuzzy to make out, but the house itself stood out because of the porch swing and the diamond-shaped window in what had to be the attic. Mick had taken the picture with him and simply walked all throughout Milbury, searching for the house. He’d found it last night. It looked like no one had lived there for a very long time. Browning grass and weeds were waist high in the front yard. The front door and windows had been boarded up, though a few of the boards had rotted enough for someone to slip inside. Creeping around to the back, he detected a faint light coming from the basement.

It appeared Dredd had come home.

“Pull over here,” Mick said. The little cul-de-sac was pitch black and the houses looked abandoned. Marnie wondered what had happened here to drive everyone away. The houses looked like they were on the expensive side back in the day when they’d been built. Like most of Milbury, the residents probably left when the economy tanked and no one was dumb enough to buy a place like these in Milbury, the town without a future (and not much of a past when you thought about it).

“Which one is it?”

He showed her the picture. She spotted the house right away. Of the homes in the cul-de-sac, it was in the worst shape. There were no other cars around and nary a light in a window.

Had Dredd’s parents left soon after their oldest son was murdered by the Melon Heads? That’s what she would do. She couldn’t imagine living in a place where the ghost of her son lived in every room. Did his parents just think he was missing? A runaway? Murdered, but not by forest-dwelling cannibals? Had Dredd told them about the Melon Heads and they ran as fast and far as they could?

One thing was sure. The dilapidated house wasn’t going to tell them any of its secrets.

“Come on,” Mick said, practically jumping out of the car. He went to the back of the van and fumbled around until he found a hammer and a coil of rope. “You ready?”

Marnie wasn’t sure she was ready for anything at this point. She was exhausted, her nerves worn to the nub from constant anxiety. The last time she’d jumped in alongside Mick on one of his bright ideas, it had led to the destruction of their lives. Was she insane for taking him out here? Possibly. Maybe it was sleep deprivation more than desperation. It would be nice to have stable adults she could lean on right about now, but so would winning the lottery or marrying Eddie Vedder. Short of that, she had to rely on her own terrible decision-making abilities.

“No,” she said. “But I feel like I don’t have a choice.”

Mick hefted the coiled rope on his shoulder. “We don’t if we want to fix this. You can wait in the van if you want. I can handle Dredd.”

“Dredd has a gun. You have a hammer.”

When he grinned, Marnie almost felt sorry for Dredd. “Yeah, but I’m pissed and he’s just pissing his pants in that basement.”

Marnie surprised herself when she followed him along the side of the house. She cast worried glances left and right, expecting a light to pop on in one of the houses and someone to ask her where the hell she thought she was going. But there was nothing in the forgotten cul-de-sac except crickets and maybe a stray raccoon or two. She followed in Mick’s footsteps, avoiding the odd beer can or plank of wood. Her foot just missed a two-by-four that had been snapped in half, rusty nails the size of witch’s fingers sticking straight up, just waiting to dig into the soft flesh of an unsuspecting sole. The backyard was completely closed in by a high stone wall at the end of the yard, with thick pine trees growing on its other side. Rotting fences blocked out the yards to the sides of Dredd’s old house. They could do anything they wanted here and no one would see. She wasn’t the first to think that. The overgrown lawn, which was more weed than grass, was strewn with used condoms, beer and vodka bottles, cigarette butts and little plastic baggies that once held weed and pills. The place was creepy as hell, more so because she knew the Melon Heads could be near.

“There,” Mick whispered, pointing at a metal storm cellar door sprouting from the back of the house like the rest of the weeds. Paint peeled off the doors, which were cinched shut by a thick chain and padlock. Unlike everything else, the chain and lock looked new. “He’s holed up in the basement.”

“Did you see him?”

“Yep. Watched him crawl in through the window over there. I could hear him going down the steps and saw a light come on before he stuffed something against the glass. Might have been a pillow.”

“And how are we supposed to get down there? I’ll bet the door inside to the basement is locked up just as tight.”

Mick slapped a bug buzzing on the side of his neck. He checked his palm and smeared it against his leg. “We’re not going in. He’s coming out.”

Marnie pulled her oversized flannel shirt tight, burying her hands within the worn cuffs. “I’m not gonna sit out here all night and wait for him to leave. This place is freaking me out.”

What she didn’t say was that she was feeling like she was going to pass out. She was far from out of the woods from her injuries and infection. Her ratcheting anxiety wasn’t making things any easier. She needed to lie down and take her pills. Though what was the sense of resting if she had a chance to save her life, her friends’ lives, and didn’t take it?

Mick put the hammer on the ground and cupped her shoulders. “Look, I said I needed your help. It wasn’t just for the van.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. In the pale blue glow of the moonlight, Mick looked as if he’d been transformed into a kid. Smoothed out by lunar glow were the worry lines that always creased his brow and the bumps of acne that reddened his cheeks and chin. He looked like the eleven-year-old Mick who would ask her if she wanted to go on an adventure, an adventure that would include a small swath of nature and a lot of imagination. She remembered games of safari played well into the night, where he was a knockoff Tarzan and she was the stranded woman who helped him find anything from a lost tribe of elephants to an ancient order of gorillas tasked with guarding a treasure left behind by Captain Kidd.

They’d changed so much since then, but they were still going on adventures. She’d come with him this far. Time to see it through.

“Just tell me what you need.”