"What’s your name?" she asked the frumpy man with the dark denim shirt and black duffle bag. His skin glowed vomit-green under the lights of the 3a.m. city bus.
Her voice shook him out of his daze. "Brad."
"Lisa." Sure. Good as name as any. "I travel this route a lot, and so, I like to meet the newbies."
He pulled his luggage in close to his side, the leather rubbing the soiled yellow vinyl of the seat. "Good to know."
For a moment they watched each other sway back and forth with the rhythm of the vehicle. The elderly woman two seats to his right kept her eyes straight ahead. The bald, withered bus driver glanced up into the mirror for a quick instant.
"So what do you do, Brad?" Lisa said.
He hesitated just a fraction of a second too long. "Serial killer."
Lisa nodded. "Hm. Is that part time? I mean do you have a day job or…"
"Full time."
She pulled back in surprise. "Really? Is there much money in that? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking…"
"Oh, no problem. Um, enough to get by." A purple neon cowboy hat sign flew by outside the window and caught his eye. "And you?"
She grimaced. "Aaah, I’m a pre-law student."
Brad winced right along with her. "Ouch."
"I know! Right?" She shook her head and lowered it in shame.
"Well, it’s never too late to change."
She made an expression of thoughtful contemplation. "Are there openings in your business? I mean, is there like a guild or try-outs…?"
"Solitary work mostly."
"No boss, right on."
"I guess you could call it entrepreneurial even." He leaned back, giving her a better view of the big black leather bag. Overstuffed, strange bulges trying to push through the fabric and on to freedom.
"You know, one of my favorite things about buses is, no security really." She spoke and kept her eyes on his and not on the duffel. "You know, no metal detectors, no x-rays."
All three passengers jerked to one side as the bus slowed. The bus driver turned to the side, but it didn’t hide his grin reflecting in the mirror.
"This is my stop," Brad said, clutching the bag as he rose.
"Good meeting you, Brad." She waved as he turned and left without acknowledging her comment.
The little old lady’s eyes opened wide and she turned.
"Yeah, you’re right," Lisa said. Just as the doors slammed shut she rose and called to the driver to let her out.
She hopped down the aisle towards the front of the bus and the woman spoke. "Lisa? You went with Lisa?"
"Hey, good a name as any."
"I suppose." The older woman glanced out at the man disappearing into the darkness. "Have fun with this one."
"You know I will." She jumped into the exit steps and paused at the stick of a man sitting at the wheel. "You’re new on this gig. Just started today?"
He glanced around to confirm she spoke to him before he responded. "I had a day route last week. This is my first night."
"So what do you think?" She didn’t wait for an answer. "Were we making witty banter about that whole serial killer thing? Am I just naïve and drawn towards potentially dangerous men, or…" her eyebrows rose and she held the pause, "is he really what he says and I don’t care because I’m something worse?"
"I…I’m sure I don’t know, miss."
She winked and leapt down to the sidewalk. The bus driver shook his head and let his body perform the automatic actions he had been trained to do. Down on the edge of the light from the bus, Lisa waved at the old woman and shouted into the closing door. "See you tomorrow!"
The woman waved without turning her head and the bus pulled away, Lisa and Brad left behind, both having vanished into the darkness.
My mother, a housekeeper and part time witch, always told me to keep my fingers out of her food.
"It’s bad manners, Maisy, to touch food while it’s being prepared. It’s disgustin’," she said. "And I know you haven’t washed your hands, either. Look at that grime underneath your nails. Just turns my stomach to look at it! You really need to take a bath every night. And try to keep the pigsty you call a room a little cleaner."
But despite these annoying and frequent pearls of wisdom, I never listened. I liked to sample the food before it was served, often dipping a finger into the gravy or the spaghetti sauce to get a preview of what was to come. Baths were a bother and got in the way of more important things like mud pies and tree climbing. We never could seem to agree on anything, and it only got worse as I grew older. She was always chanting spells or reading Tarot cards for the people whose houses she cleaned. And she loved to embarrass me in front of boyfriends by telling them she hexed the clasp on my bra. No way was that sucker coming loose unless you knew the reversal spell. Can you imagine?
To tell you the truth, I think the first time we saw eye to eye on any subject was when I was adult, and discovered a finger in my own can of soup.
Then I understood what my mother meant by disgusting.
It bobbed in the sauce pan, mixed in with the cream of mushroom and the water I’d added. At first, I thought the darn thing was a weird mushroom the manufacturer hadn’t diced up, but looking a little closer, I could just make out the finger peeking out of the mixture. There was even a little dirt left under the nail which had chipped pink paint and a tiny gold star on it.
That’s just the way Momma use to paint her nails when she was alive.
Now, I’m not normally a fussy eater, but strange things in my soup do bother me. I took out a pair of tongs to examine it closer. Yep, it was a finger, alright, with a tiny little hair on it. Looked like an index finger, too.
It twitched.
With a shout, I dropped it. The finger wriggled on the floor and began to push itself like an inch worm across the linoleum. I suppose a better woman would have scooped it up with the tongs and disposed of it, but I was fascinated as I watched it hide under the stove. It moved around, scratching against the undercarriage like a mutant mouse.
Then there was silence.
What could it be doing? More importantly, how could it be? This wasn’t normal behavior for a chopped off finger, was it? Then again, I’d never found one in my soup before, so how would I know what chopped off fingers with dirt under their nails were supposed to do?
It started moving again and before long, made its way back out from underneath the stove. It inched up to me, and I swear it shook with indignation. I mean, this appeared to be one pissed off finger. About a foot away, it stopped and positioned itself upright, showing me that it was covered in dirt from underneath the stove. It shook itself back and forth, almost like it was saying, "Naughty, naughty."
Oh my god, I thought. You have to be freakin’ kidding me.
"Momma," I said to the finger. "Is that you?"
The index finger wiggled forward and back at the knuckle. I noticed the dirt under the nail again and wondered how it had gotten there. Maybe from digging itself out of her grave? We’d buried her over a week ago. But the soup? How had it gotten in there? Did it really matter? Momma was a witch, and I wouldn’t put anything past her, not even in death.
"Momma, you know you’re dead, right? You should be enjoying yourself, dancing with the Great Spirit or whatever. Are you still trying to tell me that you think I’m living in a pigsty?" I asked with a sigh. "I guess it could be worse. You could have sent your false teeth, and then I would have actually had to hear you drone on and on about it."
The finger wiggled again.
I have to admit with the stacks of pizza boxes piled on the coffee table, the countless cans of Diet Coke strewn on the floor, and the lingering smell of three day old bacon, my apartment wasn’t exactly tidy. But I was in mourning. People in mourning aren’t supposed to be bothered with cleaning. I would have thought Momma would understand that. Yet, even in death she continued to boss me around.
"That’s it, Momma. I’ve had enough. When you start showing up in soup cans just to prove some asinine point, you’ve overstepped your bounds." I stomped on the finger with my foot. Scooping it up in a paper towel, I marched to the open window and tossed it out. To my delight, it landed on top of a pile of garbage. "Ha! That’s what you get."
I closed the window, but couldn’t help taking one more peek down at the finger. It lay there defeated and crushed, and I hoped there were flies buzzing all around it. As I imagined that possibility, my neighbor’s Great Dane bounded up and nudged the finger onto the ground. After a tentative sniff, he hiked up his back leg and let loose a stream of pee.
Now that’s disgustin’, Momma.
At this moment, Misty can’t recall not hating Toby. She knows there have been good times. She remembers they did fun stuff together, exciting stuff. But, try as she might, she can't get that feeling back.
He’ll be here soon. Her fingers tighten on the pistol grip.
Misty and Toby: the perfect couple. Since that's what everyone said in the beginning, she’d kept telling herself it must be so. All of their friends, everyone in both families, even strangers they’d meet—they would all say Misty and Toby were made for each other.
Well, Misty might exist for Toby's benefit. After all, she stayed home and catered to his every whim. He should have nothing to complain about. But it's obvious to Misty that Toby doesn't exist for her benefit.
She finds a place to crouch in the bushes where she won't be seen and waits for the sun to descend a little more. It would be better if it weren't broad daylight when she meets him here, and she doesn't want anyone to see her before then.
She searches for a stronger word than hate—despise, abhor, loathe. That's how she feels about him. She tries out all the synonyms she can think of. All the words that made her feel so helpless for so long. The tables are about to turn.
***
Two years ago Misty had been happy, casually dating Roger, a nice, harmless guy. She’d gone through so many losers, guys who gave her no respect, even one who socked her once. Roger was a little boring, but life was easy with him. They signed up for the company coed field hockey team. Sounded like a fun thing to do.
Misty liked her HR job at Kodak, liked the people she worked with. And she jumped at the chance to play field hockey. In college, she'd not only been on a women’s softball team, but had also played soccer all four years. On the beach she would always start up a sand volleyball game as soon as she arrived. Misty loved to play games that involved balls.
One day, no referee showed up for the company field hockey game. Their team was brand new, and the brand new captain hadn’t called early enough to reserve a ref. Toby, there to watch his girlfriend, another Kodak HR employee, volunteered to call the game.
"You sure, buddy?" asked the captain. "It's a little different from ice hockey."
"I'm sure," said Toby, irritation putting an edge on his words. "I played junior varsity on the men's team at Penn State."
Misty eyed the guy—tall, dark, with a good-looking body. But that arrogant sneer ruined his looks.
The captain handed over the vest, the flags, and a whistle. Misty gave Roger a grin and the game started. Misty, a forward, played physical, like always, knocking opponents aside when they blocked her path.
Toby blew the whistle and yelled "Foul!" after her second collision. Misty shrugged and lined up for the free hit by the other team.
When he blew the whistle on her for the third time, though, she protested.
"That's obstruction. He was blocking my path. You blind?"
Toby glared at her, but restarted play.
The last call, dangerous play in the striking circle, got her thrown out of the game.
Misty sputtered out some strong language for the obviously sight-impaired substitute ref and suggested he get a seeing-eye dog, then mate with it.
"Out!" he shouted. "The rest of the game!" He pointed to the bench.
She walked slowly past him, deliberately coming close enough to brush against him.
He whispered as she went by, low, so no one else could hear. "Put your sweet little derriere on the bench, darlin'."
She ignored the comment and refused to sit. The call was bogus. She knew it; he had to know it, too. She paced the sidelines, dragging her stick, fuming, and glaring at him. Class A jerk. Sweet little derriere. What a pompous ass. He glanced at her, running past with a faint smile on his face. Her rage threatened to boil over.
After the game, she spotted Toby in the parking lot, walking to his car with a woman, and rushed over to him. Roger tried to grab her arm, but she shrugged him off.
"What makes you think you know how to call a field hockey game, you fucking idiot?" Misty said, almost in his face.
"If we were still playing," Toby answered calmly, "you’d get a technical for the rest of the season. Maybe you will anyway."
"Ha!" she yelled, taking a step that put her nose inches from his. "You’re not even a real ref. Nobody’d ever hire anyone as blind and stupid as you."
He pulled her away from the other two a few feet and spoke softly. "What’s your phone number?" he asked, still maddeningly cool and calm.
Misty was so shocked she gave it to him. He left her and helped his date into the passenger seat, then sped off in his Lexus. Misty was left speechless. For about a minute.
All the way home she sputtered to Roger about "the gall" and "the balls" of the "so-called referee." When Roger dropped her at the apartment, she stalked into the building, leaving him to close the passenger door, shake his head, and leave.
After flinging her shin guards into a corner and kicking off her shoes she paced the floor, mumbling to herself.
"Who does he think he is? Asking for my number! He has a girlfriend, and I wouldn’t date him if he rented a billboard to ask me. If he calls, after throwing me out of the game like that, I’ll damn well tell him what I think of him."
Toby didn’t hire a billboard, he merely phoned. He had a smooth, suave telephone voice. Misty found herself being civil and, to her surprise, accepting a date. They met for coffee two nights later.
That was the beginning.
***
It's almost dark enough now. Crickets chirp in the woods behind her. A late songbird trills in a nearby oak tree.
She dials Toby's cell phone.
"Hey, babe," he answers, as if everything is fine between them.
"What do you say we meet at the park?"
"What park?'
"Our park. The one where we met. Where I first saw you at the field hockey game." It seems ages ago.
"What do you have in mind? Something nostalgic? Romantic?"
"I have the paper you gave me, Toby," she says. "I’ve signed it, too."
"Hey, I knew you'd see it my way. That's my girl. I'll be there in forty-five minutes." She can hear the smile in his voice. That smirky smile.
***
There had been times when she thought it would all work out. Over and over, they'd fight, but would always make up. Once, in a posh French restaurant, she got upset with him for flirting with the waitress.
"I'm outta here," she said, reaching for her purse.
"Just wait till I pay," he said. "I'll drive you home."
By the time the bill came, that velvet voice, that voice that gave her goosebumps on her privates, had convinced her she was making a big deal out of nothing.
"You get better service if you play up to them," he said. "That's all I'm doing, just playing along with her."
That was the night, fourteen days after they started seeing each other, that he got her into his apartment’s king-sized bed. Toby told her he loved her spirit, her passion. And she loved it that he wasn’t intimidated by her, that he loved her for who she was. She had come out of the womb kicking, and had been running ever since. Some guys were intimidated by her. Even Roger had sometimes seemed a little afraid of upsetting her. But Toby—tall, good-looking, smart, funny, Toby—adored her, set her on a pedestal. Misty fell in love with being loved. This, she told herself, is what all the books and movies are about. She vowed to keep this man.
He was an IT manager at Kodak and made good money, and their dates were fabulous. Especially the trips. One Thursday afternoon he showed her two tickets to Hawaii for that night, telling her she could call in sick Friday morning and they'd have a long weekend together. If her boss gave her any grief, he’d take care of it.
"There's one problem, Toby. I'm supposed to coach the Big Sisters soccer team this weekend."
"Hey, they can do without you for one game, can't they?"
"I suppose so. It's a play-off, though." She hated to miss the game. She'd been involved with the Big Sisters organization for three years now and was getting attached to her Little Sister, a quiet, big-eyed Hispanic girl named Juanita.
When she called Juanita and told her she couldn't be there for the big game, it sounded like Juanita was going to cry right after she hung up. Misty blinked back her own tears.
Toby and Misty spent a glorious weekend in Maui, mostly on the sand and in the huge bed of their beachfront cottage, and she came back Sunday night sunburnt and deeply smitten.
***
Misty checks the pistol while she continues her cell phone conversation with Toby.
"I signed your damn paper, Toby. You can have everything. Just leave me alone."
"Oh, baby, I would never do anything to hurt you, you know that. I want to take care of you."
***
There’d been some fun times. At Toby's prompting, they’d taken archery lessons together, then target shooting lessons. Misty had turned out to be a crack shot. There’d been talk about a hunting trip, maybe even an African safari, but they’d never made it.
After the wedding on the beach in Hawaii, six months after they met, she moved into Toby’s apartment in the trendy new-old section of town, and they started house hunting right away. Misty had always envisioned an older house with some character and lots of trees when she settled down. Toby, however, insisted on a newer one. He liked an open floor plan, clean modern lines, and lots of skylights.
"We should buy this one, baby. It'll get snapped up if we don’t get it right away."
It was way out, almost an hour’s drive from everything. "It's a long way to drive to my job and Big Sisters. And my parents." Her words echoed in the two-story entryway.
"You don't need to work anymore, babe. I'll take care of you. You can help me set the house up. That'll keep you busy."
Help him set up his house, he meant. That’s how she thought of it, even then. It was always Toby’s house, never hers. But, she made herself believe, this was a fairy tale romance. She wanted to give it her all.
He preferred black, gray, and white decor, and their modern furniture was bought to his taste. When Misty brought home brightly colored throw pillows, Toby grimaced, but left them where she arranged them.
Soon after moving to their new house, Toby brought up her job again.
"There’s no sense in both of us commuting all that way. Your income isn’t that much, we won’t really miss it," he said.
"But I'll miss my job. I like it. Maybe we should carpool, like I've said before."
"That wouldn't work. I have to stay late sometimes."
"I'm capable of entertaining myself while you work late."
"What the hell does that mean?" He narrowed his eyes at her and she felt a chill. "Who are you thinking of entertaining yourself with?"
"What, not who. Probably a book or a movie."
He didn't look like he believed her.
The crack about not missing her income hurt. But that steely, suspicious look scared her, gave her a cold feeling in her chest.
He talked her into leaving her job within a few weeks.
"You should stay home when we have kids, hon. I don't want them in daycare. Filthy places, full of germs, and you never know who's working there for minimum wage."
Misty took that as her signal to stop taking birth control pills. She grew excited about the prospect of a baby. They had barely discussed having children during their whirlwind courtship. Toby hadn't seemed wild about the idea, but hadn't objected when she said she wanted them. Didn't every married couple want children?
She also, reluctantly, quit her job. She had to admit it was nice to have a husband for whom money was no object. Her department threw her a big going-away party her last day. She cried when she left, and everyone promised to keep in touch.
They did, for awhile. Misty drove in for lunches several times a month, then every month or so, then not much at all.
***
"You say you'd never hurt me, but that's not what my lawyer says," says Misty. "He said the paper you want me to sign gives everything to you."
"Your lawyer's wrong. I can explain it to you."
"I don't care anymore, Toby. You can have everything. I just need you to leave me alone."
"I'm on my way. We'll talk. Hang on."
***
The next time they talked about children, Toby sounded like a different person. She'd given up the Big Sisters program soon after she quit her job. Toby complained so much about it interfering with their time together, she got tired of the struggle. Anyway, he said, if she had her own baby, she wouldn't have time for a Little Sister.
Misty spent happy hours decorating a nursery in her mind, looking online and in stores at baby furniture, curtains, and tiny clothing.
"Toby," she said one night when they were cuddled in front of the television. "I’ve been thinking."
"Oh-oh," he teased.
"No, listen. We have to talk about which room to use for the nursery."
"Nursery?" She felt him tense.
"For when I get pregnant and have a baby." She gave him a playful sock on the arm.
"You'd better not be pregnant."
There was that cold tone again.
"I'm not yet," Misty said. "But it shouldn't be too long. I quit taking the pill awhile ago."
"You're not going to get pregnant by me."
She pushed herself away from him and sat up.
"And why is that?"
"I had a vasectomy." He wasn't looking at her. He was watching the TV.
She had trouble processing that word. Vasectomy? "But what about our kids? You said you wanted children."
"I hate kids."
"That's not what you said." Her chin trembled and tears welled in her eyes. "We agreed to have children."
"I suppose you have a recording of that?" Now he looked at her, and the harshness of his gaze matched his tone.
"What? Of course not." Was this the same guy she'd married?
"We are not having kids." He pushed her away, stood up, and left the house.
He came in long after Misty had sobbed herself to sleep. She woke up as he entered the bedroom, but pretended to be asleep. He woke her to have sex, but she said she was too tired.
***
The playing field is shielded by trees on three sides and, this time of day, feels empty, isolated.
It is peaceful here. The sun streaks the sky golden as it sinks. The sounds of cars passing on the distant road is further muted by the woods.
She hears the faint sounds of an engine shutting off and a car door slamming in the parking lot. Toby is on the way. The bastard. She grits her teeth and ignores her pounding heart.
***
She found an ad for a part-time job not far from where they lived and showed it to him. He pushed it away.
"I need to do something, Toby."
"No wife of mine needs to work," Toby insisted.
"I know. I don't need to. But it would be good to have a little extra, don't you think?"
"I make good money. I can take care of you, baby. Your job is to make sure you look pretty when I come home."
That seemed to be all he wanted. She didn’t even cook much because they usually went out to eat. The house and furnishings were so stark it didn’t take long to clean the place. Misty’s days got longer and emptier. She grew to hate the bright, light, sterile house. Toby’s house. Her prison. Sometimes she felt Toby got his ideas from their parents’ generation—or their grandparents’.
One day, she noticed the smell of "Charlie" perfume on Toby’s shirt when she was doing laundry. That's what Misty used to wear before Toby insisted she should wear more expensive stuff. She felt something shift inside her.
After another one of his storming-out sessions that lasted all night, she discovered lipstick on his undershirt. She'd given up a lot for Toby. He didn't seem to have given up anything for her, though. She decided she wasn't going to talk to the prick about it.
It was time to face what was happening to her. This was the end of her fairy tale. But no happily ever after for her. The dream had been just that, and the reality was a nightmare.
Misty packed some clothes and moved into her old room in her parents’ house and made an appointment with a lawyer.
Brock Smith, the lawyer, a heavy-set, middle-aged man, was stern, but cordial. His thick white eyebrows helped emphasize his main point, which was that she should let the lawyers talk to each other and should not try to work things out with Toby.
Misty sat in a leather chair in his sumptuous office, peering at him between two tall stacks of file folders on either side of his expansive carved desk.
"It would really be best if you moved back into the house. You'll likely receive half, but it would make it easier if you’re already there, since this isn't a community property state."
"Oh, no. I...I couldn’t. I can't." It felt so good not living in that Spartan monument to Toby’s taste. She refused to consider ever staying overnight there again.
He cautioned her, as she left, to leave all the communication to him. She agreed, never wanting to speak to that miserable, cheating son of a bitch again.
Until Toby called her the next night.
"Misty, baby," he crooned. "I didn’t realize you were so upset."
"Fuck off, Toby. I found out you’ve been sleeping around. I have an appointment at the doctor in two days to get checked. My lawyer said not to talk to you, besides."
"Aw, let’s not let the lawyers have all our money. Look, I’ll move out and let you have the house. We can do this without attorneys—it’ll be a lot cheaper. I’ve always said I’ll take care of you, haven’t I? Haven’t I always taken care of you?"
She let him sweet-talk her into it.
"Tell you what, I'll leave a key under the mat Tuesday. You can move in any time. Any time you want, babe."
She packed a bag full of clothes and drove out to the subdivision. There was no key under the mat. Toby had never gotten around to having a copy made for her. Misty fished out the key she'd had made without him knowing, and stuck it into the keyhole. It wouldn't turn. She took it out and put it in again. Twisted as hard as she could without breaking it off, until her fingers ached from pressing against the hard metal. No joy. The bastard had changed the locks!
Furious, she sped home, careening around slow drivers and bumping up over the curb on her last turn, barely able to see through her hot, angry tears. She called Toby’s cell phone from the driveway.
"Oh shit. I forgot to leave the key. Sorry, hon."
She stalked to her room and perched on the edge of the bed, staring at her fingers on the cell phone, picturing them tightening around Toby’s neck. "You forgot?"
"I know, I know, I said it would be today."
God, he's smooth, she thought.
"Look, I can’t drive out there until next week. I could leave the key then. Oh, I've got it. Can you meet me tomorrow downtown for lunch? We need to talk anyway."
Was it possible he'd give her the key? She couldn’t think how else to get it. Reluctantly, she agreed. After she hung up she flung herself backwards, bouncing on the mattress, as she realized she had forgotten to confront Toby about the changed locks.
***
The birds that have been twittering, bedding down for the night, grow silent. She hears Toby tromping through the underbrush. He'll appear in a few minutes. It is time to face him. She gulps a mouth full of air and presses her lips together, stands up and steps into the clearing, holding the gun behind her purse.
***
When they met for lunch, he presented her with a paper he wanted her to sign. She grabbed it, insisted on taking it with her.
"Why are you leaving me? I can't figure out what’s the matter with you," he said, sounding truly puzzled.
"Toby—" she couldn’t keep the exasperation out of her voice "—you’ve been cheating on me."
"Baby, it wasn’t really cheating. I need more than you can give. It’s just a physical thing." Was he really saying that? "A man’s gotta have sex, you know. It’s the way we’re built. You don’t seem to want it anymore."
"I’ll admit you have balls, Toby. But other than that, I can’t remember what I ever saw in you."
"I do have balls, sweetie, but lately, how would you know?"
He left her to pay for the meal.
"This isn’t good, Misty," said Mr. Smith when she handed him the paper Toby had given her. He lowered his snowy eyebrows to punctuate the sentence. "He wants to give you a one-time settlement of ten thousand dollars. If you sign this, you give up all rights to anything else that might be coming to you."
"He said he was giving me some money to tide me over. I thought that was too nice for him."
"I’m glad you didn’t sign this document." He gave her a stern look. "I will advise you—again—not to have any contact with him."
"But he says he'll let me have the house," she protested. Which she would sell, of course.
Smith merely raised those bushy eyebrows and gave her a look that said, "And you believe him?"
She wanted to. She also wanted to save the money that the lawyer was charging. His retainer was so hefty Misty had to borrow it from her father. She had left the checkbook to their joint account in the house, Toby’s house, didn’t know the account number, and didn’t know which bank Toby used. He’d handled all the bills and expenses. Two weeks later another bill arrived from the lawyer for a similarly large amount. Toby was right, the lawyers were very expensive.
Misty got the results back from the doctor; she didn’t have any sexually transmitted diseases. She felt a knot in her stomach loosen partway. Now, if she could just get the damn divorce mess settled….
Once, she called Roger, the guy she'd been dating when she met Toby. He'd just gotten engaged. He'd been boring anyway. One day, she told herself, she would find someone else. Someone better than both of them.
She met Toby for lunch again. He looked better every time she saw him. Big smile, expensive-looking new sweater. Separation was agreeing with him.
He asked if she had signed the paper.
"Nope."
"Why not? Did you read it? I’m giving you ten thousand dollars. Don’t you want that? How are you paying that friggin’ lawyer?"
"That friggin’ lawyer says I would get the ten thousand, period, if I signed your paper. I thought you were going to give me the house. And I need some checks from our joint account."
"I am giving you the house, baby. He misread it. I’ll give you the key, and a checkbook, right now."
He handed her a book of checks and a house key. His warm hand brushed her cold one. She ignored the feeling it gave her. She fished her own key out of her purse and lined them up.
"This, Toby dearest, is the one that does not fit the front door. I've tried it."
"Oh damn. I brought the wrong one. I’ll get it to you..." He glanced down at his palm pilot. "I’ll bring it to you day after tomorrow."
Misty shrugged, but did not sign the paper. Instead, she went to "their" house with a locksmith the next day. She had the checkbook in the name of Mr. and Mrs. that convinced the locksmith she owned the house. He also believed the tale about her husband being on a business trip and her being temporarily locked out.
She had no intention of living there again. In and out. She'd get the clothes she'd left behind first. Opening the closet door, she was astounded to see that it was full of unfamiliar women’s garments. She found her things squeezed over to one side.
Toby was living here with someone else. No wonder he changed the locks! Was he stalling, trying to get rid of his latest before he let Misty in? She took a deep breath, then called another locksmith company on her cell.
Meanwhile, she started gathering her shoes, shoved to the back of the closet floor, cramming them into a laundry bag. She fished around and found all but one. Naturally, it was the mate to her favorite pair. On her hands and knees, she spied a towel stuffed into the corner. When she pulled it toward her, it unrolled and a small handgun spilled out.
Whoa! Misty sat back on her heels. She didn’t know Toby had anything but the pistols they'd used for target shooting. And those were locked in a cabinet.
The doorbell rang. She saw the missing shoe in the other corner, and crammed it, the towel, and the gun, into the bag. No time to check if the gun were loaded or not.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the locksmith was at the door, not Toby. He changed the existing locks and added another set for good measure. Misty said she was having trouble with a former cleaning lady who had stolen from her. He suggested re-calibrating the garage door opener, so she had that done, too. She was getting really good at lying to locksmiths. Now if she could just lie like that to Toby.
She was afraid to hang around, in case Toby showed up. She locked her new locks after carting her clothes, her bright pillows, and a few dishes to her car. But, as she started the engine, Toby pulled into the driveway and stopped his car beside hers, leaving his engine idling.
He gave her a questioning look and a shrug, then held up his garage door opener. When it didn’t work, he punched it again.
Misty started to back up, her hand sweating on the steering wheel.
Toby rolled down his window and yelled, "Wait a minute! I have to talk to you."
Misty smiled and drove away, leaving him shouting at her and pounding on the opener. At least she knew he couldn’t shoot her, since he couldn't get to the guns in the cabinet until he called a locksmith himself. Unless he had one in the car, of course. But he probably would have shot her if he had.
She was feeling smug and victorious, not ready for what happened next.
Her mother fixed a pot roast for dinner that night and Misty went to bed with at least her tummy happy. But sleep evaded her. She was normally a sound sleeper. Lately, however, she’d gotten out of the habit. At about one in the morning, she got up to fix a cup of hot chocolate. That usually put her to sleep.
As she reached the bedroom door and turned the knob, her window exploded inward and glass shattered onto the pillow where her head had been seconds before. A brick thumped onto the floor.
Misty stood frozen for a split second, the hairs on the back of her neck bristling, then ran to the front door, only to see the taillights of Toby’s Lexus disappear around the corner at the end of the block.
The next blow came that morning. The bank called to tell her that she had bounced two checks to two locksmith companies. The account was closed. She had to borrow again from her parents to cover the checks and the bank charges. She was afraid of ruining her credit rating.
***
Toby faces her from across the hockey field. There is enough light left to make out the hearty, false smile on his smug face.
"I'm glad you're giving me the paper, baby. You'll see, everything will turn out all right."
He starts walking, stretching his hand out to her.
***
"Misty, honey," her mother said, reaching over the kitchen table to smooth Misty's tangled hair away from her face with soft, smooth fingers. "It’s been two days now. You have to eat something."
Misty trembled and shook her head. She hadn’t been out of the house, or out of her nightgown, since the brick and bank incidents. There was another appointment with her lawyer that afternoon, but she didn’t see how she was going to make it.
Her mother had stayed home from work, worried about Misty.
"You need to get dressed. I’ll take you to Mr. Smith’s. Then you’re seeing the doctor. I made an appointment first thing this morning."
Misty nodded. Okay. Whatever. She was terrified to go out. Her stomach ached all the time. What if Toby was outside? What if he used a gun instead of a brick this time? But if her mother came with her? Maybe that would be all right.
Mr. Smith had her apply for a restraining order and the doctor gave her some pills. He said they'd make her sleepy at first, but she'd feel better when they took effect.
As she walked back into her parents’ house, her mother was on her hands and knees in the front hall closet.
"What are you doing?" Misty asked.
"Just cleaning out. Some of this stuff hasn’t been touched in ages. Go to the kitchen and I’ll fix you some popcorn."
Her mother had piled some things into a box. Misty spied her field hockey shin guards sticking out the top. No, she hadn’t used them for ages. In fact, she’d let her guard down for Toby, had left behind too many things. Misty picked up her stick, ran her hand over the wood, then saw a volley ball at the bottom of the box. Something snapped inside. Misty's spine straightened.
What’s going on? I’m being taken care of by my Mom like a two-year-old. He can’t do this to me! The slob thinks he has balls! Just you wait, Toby. We'll see who has balls.
The next day Misty told her mother she felt much better and convinced her to go into work. And Misty did feel better. She’d gotten a good night’s sleep, thanks to the new pills. She didn’t take any in the morning, but told her mother she did. She dragged herself around the kitchen having toast with her parents, acting woozy.
Misty hadn’t ever said anything to anyone about the gun she'd found. As soon as both her parents left, she dropped her drugged act, perked up, and got dressed. She got the bag of shoes out of her room and extracted the gun. She checked the magazine, saw it was loaded, then wiped the gun with the towel it had been wrapped in. She had no idea whether it was registered or not, but if it was, it would be registered to Toby.
Calmly, feeling almost like she were in a trance (maybe those pills were still working a little), she dialed Toby’s cell phone and managed to speak as if the brick, the bank, the bimbo—as if none of those had ever happened.
***
Misty drops her purse to the ground, holds the gun up, and points it at Toby's head. Her arm holds steady as a rock.
Toby stops walking. "That's not...not the paper. Misty, babe, you...what are you...?"
Her arm wavers. She grins and lowers her aim.
"No, it's not the paper. It's a gun I found in your closet."
"I can tell you how that gun got there if you'll calm down and listen." There's that smirk again. He takes two steps closer.
"You always had balls, Toby." She chuckles at her phrase. "But now..."
Toby lunges at her. Grabs her wrist. Throws her down and pounces on top of her. She's strong, though. She keeps her grip and twists around underneath him.
She takes one shot. Hits his kneecap. He rolls off her.
She shoots again, aiming for his testicles.
At that range, she doesn't miss. Toby screams and clutches his crotch. He writhes on the cool grass, two dark red puddles widening beside him. One from his knee, the larger one from his groin.
She will deny she's ever been here. She will lie like she did to the locksmiths. No one will know. Her word against his. If he lives.
Misty wonders, in a distant way, if he will bleed to death. She wipes the gun, drops it beside him, and walks away.
The house will need extensive redecorating. With no more lawyers to pay, she should be able to afford it soon.
Blade cuts. Blood runs. Scars remain.
The words were burnt into the weathered wood above the doors of the church. Well, if you could call it a church. It was more a hut than an actual place of worship, though late at night people would crowd inside, chanting and swaying as the smell of incense swelled in the air. The bayou shook under the noise at those times, and people who were ignorant to the rites and ritual of voodoo would tuck themselves safely in bed, not daring to peek out.
I was not one of those people. My heritage ran through the blood-tainted swamps all the way back to Marie Laveau, the great voodoo priestess. She had fifteen children, and while her daughter, often called Marie Laveau II, was a well-known practioner of the faith, most of her other children were lost in the pages of history. But they existed, they survived, and my own great, great grandfather was eleventh in the line of Laveau’s children. Through the years his blood mingled with other Creoles until it had produced my family name, Renault.
I stood outside the worn down hut and read the words again: Blade cuts. Blood runs. Scars remain. To the outsider, it might suggest feelings of depression, a litany to suicide. However, I knew that here, in the bayou where the cypress trees swung low, it was the opening lines to a ritual. But which one? That’s what my boss had sent me to find out.
"Joan."
The voice meant only to be heard by my ears caused me to turn. I am a cop graced with the gift of second sight, and my spirit guide is the great voodoo priestess, my ancestor, Marie Laveau. Her aura pulsed next to me, and I waited for her to speak, accustomed to the smell of death that always accompanied her visitations. "Joan, you must not enter this house."
"Why?" I ignored the puzzled look of my partner, Dave. "What does it mean, Marie?"
I sensed Dave lose the puzzlement. He’s been with me for so long he no longer doubts the gift I have, though his strong Irish Catholic upbringing wants him to. When I start talking to things he can’t see, Dave just sits back and waits for me to finish.
"This is not a ritual, but a warning. If you enter this place, the knife of the beast will scratch your soul. The blood spilt will feed his passion. The scar will never heal as the loss you receive will be great," Marie said, her Creole dialect a sigh in the air, mixing with the breeze of the bayou. A little chill ran through me. "Take care. Stay outside and let the beast come to you."
I blinked and she was gone. My partner, impatient and hearing movement from inside the hut, began to creep towards the door. I grabbed his arm, squeezing it, pleased that he listened to the warning in my touch as he stilled.
"Not yet, Dave." I kept my voice low. "It’s a trap."
"But the kids," he said, and I knew he was thinking of his own two sweet angels at home.
"Too late for them." He flinched at the news. And it was too late. I sensed the spilled blood that painted the hut’s floor. There was no life left in it. "We wait. She’ll come out."
He nodded at me, another testament to our long relationship.
A wailing chant seeped through the walls of the hut. It was an incantation of power and vengeance—something meant to harm an enemy. The deep grating tone of the woman inside pricked at my ears as she tried to invoke the spirits. No sense in letting her go too far, though. One beast was all I wanted to fight today.
"Maddie!" I called out. "Maddie, we know you’re in there. Come out so we can talk."
The chanting stopped. I saw an eye press against one of the gnarled holes in the front wall of the hut. It twitched convulsively as it surveyed us, and I knew what it saw—two cops, one female with brown curly hair and one male with a blond crew cut.
"You go away." There was coldness in Maddie’s Creole cadence. "It’s too late now. Go and tell Jason his children are dead."
"Maddie, come out so we can give the kids medical aide." I had heard no remorse in the woman’s voice over her actions, and the trees around the hut shivered, as the other officers in hiding grew antsy at our exchange. Still, they would hold until I said differently. "It might not be as bad as you think."
"Oh, it’s bad. There’s so much blood. It’s dripping from the altar, running down the floor. I don’t remember the color of blood being so beautiful," Maddie said, and she broke into a hoarse laugh, mixed with madness and hysteria. "Go on now. I got to finish the ceremony so I can go home."
"Maddie, you need to come out. This won’t end well for you if you don’t cooperate."
"End well? It’s too late for happy endings. Jason’s got no one to blame but himself for that." Maddie’s words were causing Dave to get twitchy again. "I’m calling the beast to come and take me and my children home."
"We need her alive." The hushed anger in Dave’s voice was all too clear. "After what she did to Cassandra Hall, the kids…she doesn’t deserve an out like death."
"She’s a madwoman," I said. Perhaps he took that as agreement because he nodded and moved closer to the hut. Again I stopped him.
At the touch of my hand against his arm, a vision burst into my head. I saw Dave shaking me off, rushing into the building, the dim light costing my partner precious seconds to blink his eyes and adjust. Maddie would be lying in wait, holding the handle of a curved ritual knife. Chanting under her breath, her eyes wild with possession, she’d plunge the knife deep into Dave’s gut. I saw the beast, with its dragon-like head arise from the altar, smiting anything living in its path, stealing the soul from the body. Mine would be pulled as I pushed Maddie towards the creature, trying to get to Dave. But instead of my soul, it would be Dave’s that the beast took along with Maddie’s. I saw myself, listless, cradling his head in my lap, knowing I would never be forgiven for letting it happen.
But it hadn’t happened yet.
"Stop," I said, and this time I did more than grab Dave’s arm. I blocked him, turning my back to the house. "If you go in there now, you’ll die. I’ve seen it, and you know I am never wrong. Think about your family."
He stared at me, and for a moment, I thought he would brush me aside anyway. He could have. At 6’1", he towered above me and in strength, there was no physical way I could stop him. But like I said, the trust between us is deep. He nodded again and took a step back.
"It’s not Maddie in there anymore," I said. "She’s been gone a long time. Something old, something ancient resides in her skin. It was looking for a better place the second time around, and though thousands of years have passed since it last lived Earth side, the cycle of life has only repeated itself. The same events are replaying."
Behind Dave, a man peered out anxiously from the tree line. Jason, the husband of the woman in the hut, met my eyes, his worn face full of regret. I could sense the weariness though the space between us was great. The last forty-eight hours had been rough for him. His wife had killed his mistress and taken his children from him. Dave followed my gaze, glancing behind him.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered under his breath. "Who let him into the area?"
"It was meant to be," I said. "This has happened before."
I stepped aside, giving Maddie, her eye still pressed restlessly to the hole, a view of Jason.
"Jason," she whispered. The excitement at his arrival was unmistakable. "He’s here."
"Maybe we should let them talk," I said to Dave, lowering my voice.
"Our job is to bring her out. Not get the husband killed."
"He may be the key to finishing this."
We both looked at Jason, a tall man with fair skin and trim blond hair. I’d seen him in the society pages last week, never realizing I’d meet the good looking man who stood smiling next to a petite and fair skinned brunette. Cassandra Hall, the daughter of a prominent banker in our small piece of the world, had fallen for the charms of Jason Argo who was in the process of getting a divorce from his wife of ten years.
I guess Maddie didn’t take seeing the couple’s picture in the paper too well because the next day Cassandra Hall had been found dead, poisoned. The signs pointed towards Maddie as being the murderer.
"Jason." Maddie called to him, and he took a hesitant step from behind the tree. "That you?"
"Sir, I’d advise you to step back," Dave said, holding up his hand.
Jason halted, indecisive.
"Jason, baby." Maddie’s voice changed to an alluring purr. "Come on over here. Did you come to see me?"
"Maddie," Jason said, taking another step. "Where are the children?"
"They’re in here with me, darlin’. You come on in here and see them."
"Send them out. You’re mad at me, Maddie. Not them."
"You hurt me," Maddie hissed, the tone changing into a sudden summer storm of venom. "You cheated on me with that Hall girl, the slut! I’ve done everything for you, Jason. I gave up my life for you, took care of our children, went against my own family. How could you do this to me?"
"You’re a hard woman, Maddie, and you want…everything from me. There’s no room to breathe around you." Jason ran a hand through his hair as if he’d said these words before, but there was no arrogance in his tone. Just defeat. "Come out so we can talk. Bring the kids out, and let’s deal with this like grown-ups. The kids are innocent."
"You hurt me and so I hurt them."
Jason’s face went white and in that moment, the truth hit him hard, though he asked the words anyway. "What have you done?"
She chuckled soft and low. "Shall I show you?"
Dave looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I nodded and we both took a step back, drawing our guns.
"Don’t do anything until she is out," I said. "Her power is stronger inside."
The door to the hut creaked open. The bayou, along with us, held its breath in anticipation, stilling the wind and the rustle of the trees. Heat came from that open doorway along with a stench foul enough to make me wretch. Maddie stepped into the doorway.
Small, almost childlike with hair that streamed down her shoulders, the olive tone of Maddie’s skin let me know she was the product of mixed blood as I was. But where my hair was a tangled mass of tight brown and blonde curls, Maddie’s was a smooth and silky black. Her dress, once white, looked as if she’d spilled dark paint all down the front of it, though I knew the stains for what they were.
But what was striking and frightening about this woman was the madness in her eyes. They swirled with it, no trace of sanity to be seen. The dark circles pressing beneath them accentuated her grief and crazed mental state. I can’t say that they were lifeless because there was light in them. But it was the light of possession. The human soul had long ago departed the body.
In each hand, she dragged a child. They hung in her hands like little rag dolls, their blood staining the path as she moved forward. With a cry of triumph, she thrust them towards Jason, their still bodies kicking up dust as they landed at his feet.
He sank down, touching his children. Not a sound came from him. That would come when the shock wore off.
"There are your children, Jason," Maddie spat. "May you never have a day’s peace again!"
"Put your hands up." Dave aimed his gun at her.
She looked at us, yellow eyes snapping.
"A healer," she said, narrowing her eyes at me. She tilted her head. "You can’t help me, girl. Stay back."
"I don’t want to heal you," I said, leveling my gun at her head. "I want to set you free."
"Free? There ain’t no such thing."
"We’ll see."
I cocked my gun and prayed for the bullet’s aim to be true. Maddie stared at me, and then began to mutter her chant, summoning the beast to come for her. Inside the hut, a glow grew, and the smell of sulfur filled the air. The building shook and I knew that the moment had come.
I fired the gun. The bullet, soaked in holy water and blessed by a voodoo priestess, ripped into Maddie’s chest just as the head of the beast pushed through the doorway of the hut. She wailed, a high pitched keening sound that hurt the ears, and her body fell while the soul within her released itself. It gushed from her pores in the form of gray dust and flew to the beast, which retreated back into the hut. With a great rumble, the light flashed and was gone.
On the ground, Jason wept, gathering his poor lifeless children into his arms. I watched, detached almost, as his body rose and fell with grief before I glanced up at the words burnt into the wall above the door of the hut. To my surprise, they were fading. I watched as the first part, Blade cuts, dissolved. And then the words, Blood runs, followed suit. I waited for the last part, Scars remain, to go also. But they didn’t. The words stayed, burnt bright and deep into the wood. Looking at Jason, I thought the phrase was meant for him.
It’s one of the great truths of the bayou. Here in the heat and beauty, evil sometimes hides and thrives. And always, the scars remain.
I’m fixin to leave if she don’t show her sorry ass pretty damn soon. And after all we been through together, too. It’s powerful aggravatin. What’s a person to do?
Sometimes it seems like I’ve spent most of my life waitin.
That wind’s whippin up somethin fierce and I been feelin right puny lately. It ain’t good for me to be out in this weather in my condition.
In case all y’all are wonderin what I’m doin way out here in the back of beyond, I’ll try to set y’all straight. First of all, I’m waitin for my girlfriend, Sid. Sid and me go way back. We was in grade school together, all the way through tenth grade.
***
Sid was the one taught me how to lift candy bars when ole Luke’s back was turned at the Allsup’s. I would never have thought of it, bein sort of scared of my own shadow the way I was. Until I met Sid in second grade. Maybe I was waitin for her to move into town before that. I never had no friends till we got to be girlfriends.
Daddy wasn’t around much, and a good thing, too. Mama would bring home her paycheck from workin at the fillin station and Daddy would take it all for his Jim Beam. That part of my life was spent waitin for the ole buzzard to git the hell outta there so Mama and me could have some peace. Times was better after the ole cuss took off for good and all.
I didn’t see no point to school learnin. And Sid didn’t neither. It didn’t have nothin to do with nothin. Most days we was just waitin for the bell to ring at the end of the day. The only time I brought home a good grade was when we was readin Thomas Hardy. I kinda felt sorry for that Tess. I liked the gal in the book with the scarlet A, too. Don’t know what that says bout me.
The thing is, I can’t help the way I am around menfolk. Mama says I was always that way, but I don’t think so. I never thought anything about boys till Pawpaw did that messin with me that one summer.
That was a time of hard waitin, I tell you. Boy howdy. Mama sent me to stay with Meemaw and Pawpaw that summer on account of Daddy was there raising holy hell ever single day. Whiskey bottles piled up on the floor fastern flies on watermelon. She musta thought I’d be safer out on her mama’s ranch.
I didn’t know how long I was gonna be there, but I waited for Mama to come git me ever single day. I was too young and green to know what to do about Pawpaw crawlin into my bed and fiddlin around, but I tole Mama when I got back to home. Then I never went back there. Didn’t have no more bad summers like that. It was pert near that time Daddy took off.
That next year at school, though, I knowed what the boys was after. I was glad it wasn’t my first rodeo when SW came at me in the front seat of his car after the movie we went to that night. I give him just a little, but not all of it. He was disappointed, but wasn’t nothin he could do, him bein more of a gentleman than Pawpaw ever was. That Pawpaw wasn’t my real grand-daddy anyway, I want y’all to know. Meemaw had her quite a few husbands, and Pawpaw was number five, I reckon. He was the last one, though.
I had me a little system with the boys. Some flirtin and come-hither work got me lots of dates. And I knew just how far to take things so I wouldn’t end up like Becky Lou or Wila Beth, having them babies all by themselves and livin with their folks, probably forever. Workin the guys like that I avoided trouble until I met Harold. He was older, stronger, and I fell for him like rain in a gully-washer. He washed my gully, all right.
In tenth grade Sid and me, the both of us, dropped out of high school, thinkin we were in for better things. Sid to marry a roughneck and me thinkin I was gettin me a cowboy. I swan. I shore thought Harold was gone marry me, with me carryin his brat n all. He said he’d be back after the summer rodeo circuit and we’d tie the knot. He sure nuff did say it, I wouldn’t make nothing like that up.
But that summer came and went. Then fall done came and went. And Harold never showed up a tall. That was another time of hard waitin. My heart went into my mouth ever time I saw a shiny blue pickup. Wasn’t none of them his, though. And I was swellin up fattern a tick.
Life was good for Sid. I always reckoned that roughneck of hers was dumber than dirt, but he pulled down good money, even if he did come home smellin to high heaven and smeared black as midnight under a skillet, what with the oil all over him.
I was jawing to Sid one morning in her nice, yella kitchen, with a brand new cook stove, fridge, aluminum sink, and just about everything, and Sid reckoned as how I oughta just go get him.
"Y’all know he’s at his Maw’s, doncha?" she said. Sid was fryin up a batch of chicken-fried steak, expectin her man home any minute. "That’s where he always holes up come winter."
"Yeah, yer right, he does. She’s got those deer leases she always needs help with." I made sure to leave fore Sid’s husband got home. He always looked at me peculiar. I’m not sayin he’s unfaithful to Sid. Iffn he was I’d tell her. But he does get a look in his eye.
I turned her words over in my mind a couple days later, while I tended bar at the Tin Spur, my job since last spring when Harold ditched me. Not that I knew then he was ditchin me. Thought he was just gonna go off and rodeo, then come back and we’d get hitched. I wasn’t old enough to tend bar, but Larry, the owner, wasn’t powerful particular. He wasn’t powerful hygienic, either, or I mighta gone after him.
***
The reason Sid and me thought to meet up here, at this cross-roads, is because nobody much comes this way. She’s supposed to bring him to me, the second thing I’m waitin for, then I’ll get the deed done. And nobody to stop us out here back of Evan’s Corner. Used to be a general store and something of a settlement here, but it’s all long gone. Weren’t enough water to sustain a bunch of homesteaders.
Evan’s Corner is just a coupla dirt roads crossin each other out yonder in the mesquite. Steers and cattle egrets is all I can see now where the settlement used to be.
Feels like a blue norther’s comin this way. Nothin about it on the weather this mornin. C’mon, Sid. We’re freezin our asses off out here. I’m bout to have a conniption.
***
The more I pondered what Sid said that day, to just go get him, the more I thought I’d better do it. Junior wasn’t gettin any smaller and I’d sure like to get hitched before I had him. Which was any day now. Then Junior’d have a Daddy and I could quit tendin bar. It was gettin mighty tedious tendin that bar. Men always pokin and feelin, no matter how I dodged. And the bun in the oven didn’t stop em none, neither. Creeps!
I knew Harold done hisself proud on the circuit that summer. Folks at the bar talked about who took the purses and I heard about Harold takin more than a few. I figgered we could probably at least get us a single-wide, maybe even a double. Meemaw and Pawpaw were dearly departed and their land sat empty. I wouldn’t go inside that trailer where I spent that summer. Ever. But we could set up our own trailer on the other end of the land. Harold would have room to keep horses, steers, whatever he wanted.
Maybe this was what I’d been waitin for all my life. It sure was a purty picture.
So I psyched myself up and hauled my ass, and Junior too of course, out to his mother’s spread, way out on that far farm-to-market road, of a Monday afternoon. I didn’t have to work that night. All the way drivin out there I was thinkin about what precisely I would say to Larry when I quit at the Spur. I would go in the next night and do it if Harold and I came to a meetin of the minds that day.
I lumbered outta my truck, swingin that big ole belly in front of me like a fifty-pound sack of feed. The paint was peelin off the trailer and the tires on the roof had collected enough dirt to where things was growin up there. I sniffed and could smell the trash fire out back, still smokin a little, but mostly out. After I made my way up onto the wooden porch I banged some on the metal screen door, but the TV was on so loud there’s no way she coulda heard me.
So I swung the screen door open, shoved on the plywood one, and walked in. I like to scared Harold’s maw half to death.
"What you doin here, missy? Harold ain’t here." She sprang up offa that ole saggy couch and come at me. I backed out the door, onto the stoop, and she follered me out, leaving the screen door blowin in the wind.
I stopped and turned around. That witch wasn’t gonna drive me away without any answers. "Well, where is he then?"
She squinched up her eyes at me like I was smellin bad or somethin. What gives her the right? I ask y’all. And her suckin that filthy cancer stick.
"You go on now. Git outta here." She stood at the top of the steps, took a drag on her butt with one hand, and waved her other scarecrow arm at me to go down. "Whatchall want with him?"
I batted the smoke away. I knowed she was blowin it at me on purpose. "I just need to tell him about this precious youngun." And here I rubbed my belly like there was some little angel in there. I rolled my eyes, too. "It’s hissun."
"Ya don’t say." Well, hell, yes, I DID say. Didn’t y’all hear me, woman? "How you know that? How y’all know it’s Harold’s?"
I thought about this. She was sayin I didn’t know whose brat this was on account of me sleepin my way through every cowboy in the rodeo. And that just plain weren’t true. I’d been faithful to Harold for months now. After all, I’d been waitin for him to keep his word and marry me.
She got her a smirk on her plug-ugly mug and flicked her ash on my shoe.
Okay. That was the last straw. I shoved that old woman down them steps, closed the door to the trailer that she’d left flappin open, and high tailed it outta there, throwin dirt back on her with my tires. But I didn’t know where Harold was. Damn.
***
A tumbleweed rolls across the road. I’m shiverin here just thinkin on it. She produced a prodigious amount a blood for such a scrawny old woman. I had to take care not to get into none of it when I stepped over her. I poked her some with my toe, but she just laid there like a lump. I figgered she was dead.
***
I went back to town and conferred with Sid some more. She’d heard, just that morning while gittin her hair done, that Harold was stayin with some skank out to the lake. It was that shacky lookin tarpaper place, the one Sid and me had always wondered about. We never knew who owned it, but some woman, older than us but not a bad looker, turned up every now and then and we’d see her takin out the garbage and such.
Sid and me formed another plan. This one had to work. I couldn’t afford to wait no longer. Junior was due in less than a month. I knew Harold would be all right with it eventually.
***
And now I wait here for him and Sid to show. I turn to the preacher. He just got here, but he already looks cold, too. That norther is comin on strong now, a huffin and a puffin. The mesquite’s wavin in this wind and the cattle’re bunchin up together, gettin ready for a good blow.
***
He looks at me with sad, kind eyes. "I don’t think Harold is coming today."
"Why not?"
"I’ve talked with him recently, and he’s grieving his mother’s death, you know."
"I know that. He’ll git over it, though." Won’t he? I kin make him fergit, I know I kin.
"If he really does want to marry you, it would be a lot better to wait a bit. And to do it somewhere else. Are you sure this is what Harold wants? A wedding in this lonely place?"
"There! There he is!" I jump up once, land hard on account of the baby weight making me all swole up. Then I grunt and quit doin that jumpin stuff. "Harold’s comin. I knew he would." Still, I can’t keep from teeterin my heels up and down. Sid’s bringin him. It’s gonna work. Junior’s gonna have him a Daddy. I haven’t smiled so big in a long time.
The reverend looks hard at the vehicle throwin up the dirt road plume, comin towards us. "That doesn’t look like Harold’s truck."
Well, if this don’t beat all. It ain’t Harold’s truck. His shiny blue truck. Or even Sid’s little Toyota.
It’s a cop car. No lights and siren, but a cop, sure enough. That smoky jerks to a stop like there’s a house afire. Then the cop gits out real slow like, saunters over to me, and reads me some Miranda crap. He says Sid done tole them all bout me pushin Harold’s maw down the steps. My fingerprints are on the screen door, my footprints in the dirt, and my tire prints on the road.
If that don’t beat all. Sid was supposed to dope Harold up and bring him on out here. That was our plan. She was gonna slip some stuff in his coffee when he come over to see her husband. Of course Sid’s husband didn’t invite him, but Sid made Harold think he did. Harold had called while I was there and said he was gonna come over.
That’s when I went and called Pastor Thomas and tole him we decided, all of a sudden like, to git hitched out at Evan’s Corner. I tole the preacher it was our special place. And, in a way, it was. It’s where Junior got his start, in the shiny blue pickup.
The plan was for Sid to get him woozy, offer to take him to the emergency room, and git him into her car and drive him out here. See, Sid could be our witness then, too. She weren’t supposed to send some cop. Sid is definitely not my friend no more. But it’s no use pitchin a fit.
Guess my waitin’s over. Waitin for Harold, that is. But the cop is kinda cute.
The tattoo on Karen Robison’s ankle was hideous. An abomination. She should never have gone into that shop!
Well, that’s what you get when you pay some…some foreign person to do something for you.
For God’s sake, she was sixty-five years old, seventy pounds overweight, and the mother of two grown men. What had she been trying to do? Reclaim some lost experience her youth had not allowed? The damn thing smelled awful too, like rotting flesh covered with bad diaper rash cream. And it stung. It stung worse than the injection of cortisone she’d had in her foot two weeks ago. For something so small, it sure was turning out to be a major pain in the ass.
Karen shifted her body underneath her wide teacher’s desk, her hand unconsciously touching a red tender spot above her lip. One of her second grade students looked up from his handwriting book, curious at the movement. Karen stared at the boy, a challenge in her eyes, and he quickly lowered his head. She went back to her mental laments, thinking that the topper, the cherry on the top of this disgusting pie of pain was that her nemesis, Carla McIntire, had gotten a tattoo this weekend, too. Only, dammit—Carla’s had turned out cute. The bitch.
A slim, leggy brunette, Carla could wear open toe shoes and stylish short skirts, and though she was pushing forty-four, she looked thirty-four. As the librarian of the school, she was well liked, and Karen’s class loved going to see Carla, with her warm smile and gentle manner. She never failed to give a child a hug or call on them by name, though how she could remember the names of every student in the school was a mystery. Carla’s tattoo, an angel with a little cherub face and wings aflutter with angelic brightness, delighted the young student body.
Karen had gritted her teeth upon hearing the news. She straightened her long skirt, hiding her pig-like legs and the awful tattoo, which she had covered with a small white bandage. The sympathy expressed by her coworkers at the sight of it consoled her somewhat, though she did not tell them what the bandage hid. Once she had it fixed, then she would explain. But damn! It pissed her off every time she thought about how ugly her tattoo was in comparison to Carla McIntire’s.
It was Brennon’s fault. Her son had convinced her that a small tattoo would show she was still with the times. Brennon was her pride, her joy, and her weakness. She’d never been able to tell him no. So when he’d ushered her in to the tattoo shop called Hell’s Leak, Karen had agreed to get something small and tasteful. Wouldn’t that just shock her teammates at school?
The tattoo artist, a large man with inky black hair and cold dark eyes, nodded as Karen explained the small golden butterfly she wanted embossed on her ankle. He’d pulled out a leathery book from under his counter with the word Sinz on the front, leafing through it carefully. After a few moments of studying a particular design, he looked at Karen.
"Won’t you sit down?" He gestured to the red barber chair in the center of the room. His voice rumbled with deepness she expected from such a large man, but there was something else her ears picked up on. An accent…just a hint of it. She shuddered inwardly, thinking foreigners were beginning to overcrowd the streets of Austin, Texas. This man was probably a Democrat, too. Or worse yet, a pot smoking Libertarian.
"Now, I don’t want anything too big," she said, feeling it necessary to speak up since he was foreign. "Just a delicate butterfly."
"No problem." The man patted the seat and she sat down. "By the way, my name is Nathan."
"I’m Karen Robison," she said, and then felt silly for including her last name. It was such a formal thing to do. Her son snickered. "That’s my son."
"You must be proud of him," Nathan said, examining her ankle. "He looks like a ball player."
"Oh, he is. He plays college baseball. Best on his team," Karen said. She watched Nathan get out the tattoo gun. "Will this hurt?"
"Maybe a little, but nothing a tough lady like you can’t handle." Nathan gazed into her eyes, and for a moment, Karen felt caught in the madness of a swirling tornado. Her insides twisted, and her stomach churned as he appraised her. The faintest of hums vibrated in the room.
The buzz of the needle caused her to grit her teeth, and she stared at Nathan’s long black hair, reminded of her husband. Tony’s hair was much shorter, and he wore it slicked back, hiding the touches of gray in it with Grecian Formula. It made him look like a mafia boss trying to be impressive. Hah! Tony was just a dirty old man who thought young girls still found him appealing. Wasn’t that why he was always having affairs?
"Ouch," Karen said, causing Nathan to look up.
"Sorry. No one said creating art was painless." Nathan smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. Karen got the distinct feeling Nathan welcomed, even enjoyed, pain. She found herself falling into his gaze, once again getting lost in the swirling tornado she found there. He whispered, "Do you like pain?"
"No," she said, mesmerized.
"Then why do you inflict it?"
"Because it’s easy…" What the hell was she saying? Karen struggled to pull herself from the whirlwind of thoughts, frightened at the words coming out of her mouth. "I…I don’t know what…you mean."
"Sure you do." He leaned in, sucking her deeper into the abyss. She could hear the steady whir of the drill as it branded her skin, yet Nathan did not look down at the design. "You have a big mouth, Karen Robison. A big, big mouth that spews filth. Someone should sew it shut."
As he said the words, she became conscious of a sharp pain above her lip. She touched a finger to it, feeling warmth there. She closed her eyes, trying to clear her thoughts. When she opened them, Nathan was bent over her ankle, his face hidden from view.
Did that conversation really happen? Had she imagined it? Already the details of his words were growing fuzzy in her mind. What did he say about her mouth? She glanced at Brennon but he was deep into a magazine about sports, unaware of anything amiss.
An hour later Nathan put his drill down and gave Karen a smile.
"There you go."
Karen looked down at her ankle and gasped.
The face of a monkey with big brown eyes and fat cheeks leered up at her. Its hands covered its mouth, but as she stared at it, Karen could have sworn the monkey removed them to reveal the monstrosity underneath.
The lips were sewn together with jagged, black stitches.
She blinked and shook her head, relieved to see it had just been a trick of the eye. The monkey’s hands were clapped firmly over its mouth.
"That’s not a butterfly," Karen said, her face turning pink. "That’s a monkey."
Nathan nodded. "Yes, it is."
"I wanted a butterfly."
"The monkey is what wanted you."
"Is there a problem, Mom?" Brennon walked over, puffing up to his full size.
"Look what this man did!" She gestured to her ankle. "Does that look like a butterfly to you?"
"Hell, no." Brennon bent down closer. "Looks like a monkey."
"I can’t believe this!" Karen’s voice went an octave higher as the anger rose in her. "But what else can you expect? I try to give a damn foreigner a break and this is what happens! He probably just learned to speak English yesterday!"
"Probably." Brennon straightened up and faced Nathan Ink. "So what are you going to do about it, friend?"
Nathan met Brennon’s cool gaze. He shifted his weight and smiled, which angered Karen even further. "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing." Nathan tilted his head and studied Karen’s son. "But I will let her have it free of charge and to further make it up to you, I’ll give your son here a tattoo for free next week. That is, if he’s still interested then."
Brennon relaxed a little. Free was good, and he’d been wanting to get a tattoo on his back. He looked down at the tattoo. "It’s not that bad, Mom."
"It’s a goddamn monkey. An ugly goddamn monkey," Karen said, the anger bubbling up and over. She glared at Nathan, but the anger turned a different direction. Something in his eyes…it squashed the emotion and turned to fear. Her heart pounded, and the air was too thin. She needed to get out of this shop.
"We’ll go to that other place down the street next week and get it fixed," Brennon said, helping her out of the chair. As they left the shop Karen could have sworn she heard a soft chuckle come from behind her.
That had been two days ago. The fear had long since faded, and she couldn’t imagine why some foreigner, some gypsy trash, would frighten her in the first place. She drummed her fingers against her desk, thinking about the injustice of it all. Damn that Carla with her cute figure and long hair. A grim smile grew on Karen’s face. Of course, things weren’t quite perfect in Carla’s world either. A few weeks ago, Karen had seen to that.
Without a word to her class, Karen got up and left the room, unconcerned about them talking or goofing off in her absence. Her students were submissive and knew to follow directions. All the other teachers were envious of her classroom management.
That’s because they don’t know how to stuff the fear of God down their throats like I do, she thought.
Karen paused at the door of another second grade teacher, Cindy Trenklebach, listening as Cindy smoothly explained the water cycle. Cindy even had a little poem with hand movements to help remember the basic concepts, and there was the sound of giggling from the class as they attempted to copy their teacher.
Cindy made learning fun. Last week at the faculty meeting, their principal had said that very thing. Karen had smiled at the time, pleased for her coworker. But right now, with her ankle throbbing, all she could think was, Damn perky bitch!
Without knocking, Karen opened the door to Cindy’s classroom.
"Ms. Trenklebach, may I have a word with you?" The children turned to stare at Karen.
"Of course, Ms. Robison," Cindy said. "Class, continue practicing the movements of the water cycle. Remember, just because I’m stepping outside the room, that doesn’t mean you need to go crazy. We’re still trying to earn our twenty good behavior points for the popcorn party."
Cindy stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her. She crossed her arms and focused on Karen. "What’s up?"
"Did you see Carla this morning?"
"Nope. Did she grow two heads or something?"
"She has a tattoo." Karen was pleased at the surprise on Cindy’s face.
"Really?"
"Oh, yes. An angel." Karen snorted. "Can you believe that?"
"An angel? Interesting choice considering all the things you’ve told me about her."
This was Cindy’s first year of teaching, and Karen had felt it was her duty to take the young woman under her wing. She’d made sure Cindy had everything she needed to complete the year: books, paper, office supplies, and the right colleagues to gossip with. It was her responsibility as an educator to steer young teachers away from the drudges of the profession like Carla McEntire.
"I thought so, too. She actually chose an angel and after all the things we know she’s been doing with you-know-who…well, it’s hardly befitting!" Karen’s loud voice carried and another teacher, Shannon York, poked her head out to hear what was going on. "Come here, Shannon. You’ve just got to hear this."
As Shannon, approached, Karen felt a sharp sting above her upper lip. She touched the large bump forming there. Damn, a cold sore. That’s the second one this week!
"What’s going on?" Shannon asked, eager to keep up with the gossip.
"Carla McIntire got an angel tattoo," Cindy said before Karen could open her mouth.
Karen cleared her throat.
"Oh, sorry, Karen." Cindy bowed her head in deference. "You tell her."
"Carla McIntire got an angel tattoo. Can you believe that? An angel." Karen acted as if Cindy had never spoken. "Isn’t that terrible? Especially when you consider that she’s been sleeping with you-know-who."
There was a flare of pain from the tattoo on Karen’s leg. It matched the throbbing above Karen’s mouth. She could also feel something forming on the delicate skin beneath her sullen bottom lip, and her finger reached up to touch it. A second bump matching the one on the upper lip had formed. The air in the hallway thickened, causing Karen to breathe a little heavier.
"Oh, Karen." Shannon looked with sympathy at Karen’s lip. "You poor thing. You have several nasty cold sores on your mouth."
"I’m aware of it," Karen said, the sarcasm in her voice causing Shannon to take a step back. "Perhaps you could move out of my way. I need to go to the ladies room."
Without another word, she marched off to the faculty bathroom. Stupid Shannon. Why did she have to point out the obvious? Just because her face is flawless! Not one blemish on that milky skin. She really needs to learn some manners. Even as Karen thought those things, she could feel yet another bump forming on her top lip. It was painful and increased her anger at the pain she felt at her ankle, which throbbed without mercy. And why the hell had it suddenly gotten so warm in the school?
In the bathroom, Karen bent across the sink, staring with revulsion into the mirror. There were three crusty circles around her mouth. Two on the top lip and one on the bottom. All three spots were perfectly round, about the size of a dot of glue. Irritated and red, they pulsed as if they had a mind of their own, and to her horror, a fourth circle was blossoming just below the bottom lip.
"What the hell?" she muttered, gently touching the spots, feeling the heat of them below her pudgy fingertips. A line of perspiration broke out on her forehead.
Carla McIntyre entered the faculty bathroom. She paused a moment, as if uncomfortable at being in such confined quarters with Karen. With only two stalls and a sink, Karen’s large form filled the room, blocking out the bland, sterile gray walls.
"Hello, Karen." Carla offered a smile.
"Carla." Karen smiled back, but her nose wrinkled with displeasure. She glanced at the small, tidy bandage that covered Carla’s bicep. "I hear you had an interesting weekend."
"Oh. The kids are so silly about these things. I got a tattoo," Carla said. "They were curious about the bandage so I showed them what was underneath it. You know how kids are. They immediately freaked out about it."
Carla entered one of the stalls, and Karen’s faked smile disappeared. The sting of the fourth little sore drew her attention back to the mirror. What the hell was she going to do about these cold sores?
"I couldn’t help notice you have a bandage on your ankle, Karen." Carla’s voice was muffled behind the stall door. "Did you get a tattoo also?"
"Don’t be silly. I’m too old for such things."
"Age is a state of mind, Karen."
"Tell that to my body."
There was silence from Carla, and Karen, with a wicked smile, asked, "What does Chris think about your new body art?"
"Chris?" Karen could hear the surprise in Carla’s voice. "I don’t know."
"You haven’t shown Chris?"
"Should I have?"
"Well, I know you two are such…close friends. I just assumed Chris would know about anything new in your life," Karen said.
A loud flush answered Karen, and after a few seconds, the lock on the stall was slowly drawn back. Carla emerged, meeting Karen’s scornful gaze with one of her own.
"You know, Karen. It’s come to my attention that someone has been spreading the nastiest rumors about me around campus. These rumors have even been heard throughout the district. You know how I know that? Because the head of human resources called. Someone filed a complaint with the school district about me," Carla said.
Karen’s heartbeat increased as a sly satisfaction filled her. The district moved faster than she anticipated. It had only been a week since she’d filed that complaint.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Someone seems to think that I’ve been sleeping with Chris."
"Chris? That would be a very big deal. A very big deal. Especially considering her position at our school," Karen said, making her eyes round with feigned concern.
Chris Lane was the principal of their school. In Karen’s opinion, Chris had been doing lousy work as an administrator, and she had no qualms at letting the woman know that. After teaching for thirty years, Karen felt speaking her mind to her young, lesbian boss was a perk of the job.
"Apparently, even some of the students have heard this lie and have gone home and told their parents about it," Carla continued. "A lesbian affair with the principal of our school is big news."
"I can imagine."
"Of course, none of it is true."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes. Really. I can’t imagine how the rumor got started."
"Nor can I."
The two women stared at each other. Karen noted the way Carla’s hair fluttered perfectly around her shoulders and her lipstick was just the perfect shade of magenta. Tony would have liked it. Karen could envision her husband salivating at the sight of Carla and her sexy angel tattoo. He would gobble up little Miss Carla with her thin waistline and tight blue blouse that stretched across pert breasts. The visions her mind conjured wreaked havoc with Karen’s steaming emotions.
"Are you okay?" Carla asked as a teardrop of sweat rolled down the side of Karen’s face.
"I’m fine," Karen said. She rubbed the sore spots above her lip. "If you’ll excuse me…"
Throughout the day, her ankle throbbed and more of the odd cold sores developed. For every sore that popped up on the top lip, there was one exactly like it on the bottom. Karen didn’t know what to make of it, and she was frustrated by the way all of her students stared at her, curiosity in their young eyes.
In the teacher’s lounge, it was no different. She sat down in the cheery little room where all the teachers gathered during the thirty minute lunch period. Karen sighed, missing the old days when cigarette smoke swirled in the air and a bottle of whiskey was tucked under the sink of the lounge. A good Irish coffee would have hit the spot right then.
"Good Lord, Karen! What in the world is going on with your face?" Shelia, the school’s secretary, blurted out the question and to Karen’s chagrin, several heads turned to stare at her.
"I have a few cold sores," Karen said through gritted teeth. She had always disliked Shelia and refused to refer to her as anything but an overpaid secretary. "They are a minor annoyance."
"I’ll bet," Shelia said. "They look painful."
"Thank you for stating the obvious," Karen said, and gave the secretary her best go to hell look.
The lounge grew quiet. Karen sullenly withdrew her low fat dinner from the lounge’s freezer and shoved it into one of the small microwaves. She marched out, head high, and headed for the lounge’s bathroom. Inside, she let out a long sigh and inspected her face in the mirror.
It had gotten much worse. The bumps were brown and crusty, festering with heat. She couldn’t understand how they were so perfectly placed. It reminded her of something, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Feeling the call of nature, she lifted her skirt, dropped her panties and plopped onto the small toilet.
"Damn." The word echoed in the room. She reached down and gingerly touched the white bandage close to her ankle. The same heat smoldering in her cold sores could be felt coming from beneath the neat white square. Awkwardly, she lifted her leg up so that she was sitting almost cross-legged and removed the cloth.
The monkey in all its horrid glory stared up at her.
As it had at the tattoo shop, the little creature removed its hands from its mouth, and she was struck by jagged lines sewing its lips together. She shuddered, wondering how it was supposed to eat.
"Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil," she said, covering the monkey back up. She was shaken now, and unsure of what to do. That damn monkey had moved. She must be getting sick and hallucinating. Moving tattoos weren’t possible. Were they?
Karen got up from the toilet and heaved up her panties. She looked at herself in the mirror, the hideous dots marring her normal features. But something in the reflection had changed. With a trembling finger, she touched her mouth. What the hell was that? Beneath the fingertip, she could feel the beginning of a coarse line starting to form vertically between the upper and lower cold sore on that side.
"They’re not cold sores."
The words came with an effort because her mouth wouldn’t open all the way.
"What’s happening to me?" She lisped, shocked at how hard it was to open her lips. That’s when it hit her. The holes were just the right size for a needle and thread to go through.
"Are you alright in there?"
Carla McIntire’s voice floated through the wood door, carrying with it the sound of concern. But the feeling and its source irritated Karen further. That it should be Carla, of all people, checking on her welfare made her fume. "Stupid bitch."
"What was that?"
"Obnoxious whore," Karen said, speaking the words with great effort. To her horror, a heavy black stitching began to appear, linking the top and bottom cold sores together.
"I’m sorry, Karen. I can’t quite hear you. Do you need assistance?"
"Go away, you miserable, lesbian slut!" Karen tried to shout, but only half of her mouth would open. The other half was clamped shut, sewn together with jagged stitches.
"I’ll go get the nurse," Carla said.
"You do that." Karen snarled, though the words were barely decipherable. She scratched her lips, trying to remove the stitches and succeeding only in drawing blood and puffing up the tender skin. Hard and hot, the pain coursed through her face, swirling in her head. Words drifted back to her, words she’d heard recently from that foreign person, the one who’d branded her with the awful tattoo.
Someone should sew your lips shut.
"Why is this happening to me?" The sound came out in a long wail that carried beyond the door and into the teacher’s lounge. But she knew. Deep down she knew. Her filthy lies were catching up with her.
"Karen?" She could hear voices outside the door, strangled with curiosity more than concern. "Are you okay? Let us in."
Let them in? Have them see her like this? She’d rather die first. The doorknob to the small bathroom twisted urgently, and Karen wondered if there was a key somewhere to unlock it. She hoped not. Turning back to the mirror, she scratched at her lips, oblivious to the sounds of misery she made. Blood, like fat tear drops, dripped down her wobbly chin before splattering in the sink.
***
None of Karen Robison’s coworkers could ever figure out why she had done it. Yet, there were some who felt it was poetic justice that the gossip queen who never had anything nice to say had sewn her own lips shut. How she’d done it or why was always cause for speculation , but there could be little doubt that her own hand had accomplished the deed. Those that remained on staff at the school recalled the incident well, how the custodian had to be brought in to unlock the bathroom door, the blood splattered on the sink and mirror, and most tragically, the sight of Karen Robison mutilating herself with wide eyes as if even she was shocked by her actions. No one ever forgot that it had been Carla McIntire who helped Karen by getting the paramedics and assisting them with placing Karen’s heavy and hysterical form onto the gurney. She’d even ridden with Karen to the hospital just to make sure she was not alone in her time of need. And it was Carla who visited Karen from time to time in the state hospital where none of her other coworkers dared to tread. Yes, Carla went above and beyond when it came to being a friend and the campus, as well as the school district, recognized this at the end of the year by presenting Carla with the coveted Librarian of the Year Award.
There were tears in Karen’s eyes when her son Brennon told her about Carla’s success. But they were not tears of joy. Regret was etched into her teardrops and they coated the scars across her mouth, a stinging salve that brought no comfort. The I.V. dripped into her, and her body had begun to waste away since she’d been unable to eat solid foods. The doctors were considering breaking her jaw, but they worried over that, thinking that her psychological state might interfere with the healing process. After all, she’d sewn her own lips shut. A broken jaw might be a setback in her recovery.
But Karen knew there would be no recovery. Alone with her thoughts, unable to speak, she’d had time to reflect on them. They were as ugly as the monkey tattoo, which still throbbed from time to time, though months had gone by. She knew after careful examination of her past words and deeds that she’d spoken enough for one lifetime.
Isabel Musik, former werewolf, knew she had to be on the right scent. Her nose was still keen even though she could not transform anymore.
There was no mistaking the odor that hung around that woman three stools away. Isabel eyed her, giving nothing away with her quick glance; a good-looking woman, with a mane of dark curly hair worn loose and to her shoulders. But the musk clung to her like dog hair on wool slacks.
Her name was Alice Jolie and she was the most famous author at the conference, since her last three children's books had hit number one on the New York Times list. Soon, Isabel knew, she wouldn't be doing these conferences. She would be charging whatever she wanted, wherever she wanted to go. Cruises, seminars in Hawaii, whatever.
The author leaned toward the handsome young man next to her and gave a tinkling little laugh. How cute, thought Isabel. I wonder what he would do if he could see her fangs.
She thought she'd better stay and see if anything bad happened to the young man. When a seat opened up she moved one stool closer.
Alice spoke softly, but not so low Isabel couldn't hear. "It's getting awfully late. Why don't we go up to my room? I could show you some things."
The young man said he'd like that. Isabel saw them as far as the elevator, but she couldn't very well follow them into the hotel room. She hoped the guy made it through the night.
***
Nothing could touch Alice Jolie this afternoon. She was satisfied, sated. Her panel had gone well and people were lined up in the signing room fifteen deep for her signature. Alice signed with her usual flourish, put on her Famous Author Smile, and handed a copy of Wally Visits the Zoo to the shy girl. A mother pushed her pudgy little son forward and he thrust a copy of Wally Goes to the Dentist, her newest, at her.
"Say please," urged the mother.
The boy murmured something that may have been "Please."
"That's all right." Alice Jolie gave the little doughball her Understanding Author Smile and opened the book.
"We just love your books," the mother gushed. "They're not like other werewolf stories. They seem so real. Everyone says so."
Alice put on her Grateful for Praise from the Little People Smile.
"The part in your last book where Wally is in front of the wolf cage in the zoo and they go crazy?"
The little boy chuckled. "Yeah. I like that."
"You'll like the scene where the dentist sees Wally's fangs in this one, then," said Alice.
But before she could sign, another woman shoved the little boy and his mother aside and planted herself in front of Alice, who lost all her smiles and gave her a genuine look of alarm.
"What did you do to my husband?" the woman demanded.
Alice couldn't help but notice the woman hadn't taken much trouble with her toilette. Although, she thought, if you're going to dress off the rack like that, why bother? But, really, when was the last time this pathetic bitch had brushed her hair? It bunched in clumps. And those red-rimmed eyes. Surely she could have used drops.
But Alice was confused. "Um, who is your husband?"
"Don't pretend with me." Her voice rose with each word. Alice looked around. Half the people in the room were staring in her direction. "I saw you with him in the bar last night."
Alice had met a lot of people at this conference, and several in the bar last night. She did remember one quite clearly, but he hadn't told her he was married.
"His name is Brady Fox. You got drunk together."
"I do not," answered Alice, "get drunk." Could this woman look any more like a hick? She was even chewing gum.
"Well he sure did. Where did he go? What did you do with him? He was drunk when he came to the room last night. But then he went out again and never came back. And now he's dead. His body was found this morning in the alley behind the hotel."
Yes, Brady was his name. But she sure wasn't going to tell Wifey what she did with him. Her smirk and arched eyebrow drove the woman into high gear. The woman reached across the table and tried to grab her, but Alice jerked back and sprang to her feet, knocking her chair over.
Alice felt a tap on her shoulder. She whirled to see her agent, Kayley.
"Your time's up," said Kayley.
The unkempt woman backed up slightly.
"Thank God," said Alice. But the autograph seekers were still there, and the pudgy little boy's book lay on her table. She scribbled her name in the front without asking the boy his name, handed it back, and fled the signing room.
Wifey broke into sobs.
"Well," said the pudgy little boy's mother.
***
Danforth gritted his teeth as his ex-wife swept past him. She probably didn't even notice he was there. And that was different that being married to her how? He stepped forward to comfort the poor woman whose husband had died. He knew dear Alice probably had something to do with it. He thought, not for the first time, that the world would be a better place without Alice Jolie in it.
***
Isabel had been watching from just outside the signing room. She'd noticed three werewolves in the line to get copies of Wally the Werewolf books autographed. Then the hysterical woman had confronted Alice Jolie, after which Alice had left the signing room and headed for the bar.
She knew Alice would probably be in the bar at least an hour. Isabel needed to get to work. She reached into the pocket of her hotel maid's dress for the passkey, took the elevator to the fourth floor, and entered Jolie's room. The other maids had reported an unusual number of shampoo bottles missing on the fourth floor.
Since Isabel herself used to be a werewolf, she knew Alice would require lots more shampoo than the normal female. Isabel stepped into the bathroom. She didn't see a wastebasket full of tiny empty shampoo and conditioner bottles, though. Isabel shoved back the shower curtain and saw Alice's razor. She had expected it to be clogged with coarse, dark hair. Nope. Could Isabel be wrong? Was Alice not a werewolf?
Her organization had been tracking Alice Jolie on her last three book signing tours and young, single men had turned up dead in her vicinity about once a week. The widely-held myth that werewolves transformed once a month was simply not true. Some changed every week, some once a month, some only a few times a year. They weren't little wolf robots, all the same. Each had their own unique quirks and foibles.
The job Isabel had held, ever since her undoing, was an important one in the werewolf community. She was a Retransformer, switching troublesome werewolves back into humans. Sometimes a werewolf would get out of control and need curtailing. And in extreme cases, they would have to be retransformed.
Isabel herself had been out of control at one point a few years ago, but had been rescued by another former werewolf. She would forever be grateful to him and, to show her appreciation, became an active member of his team.
Isabel returned to the hotel room and shook her head. She could have sworn Alice was a werewolf and had been overdoing it with the missing men, biting them so hard they died instead of merely being converted. Alice had been seen with several of the missing men, all of whom the Organization detected as werewolves at the time, but their deaths could never be pinned on her. There is, in real life, no way to tell whether a dead person was a werewolf when alive, unless the person dies while in wolf form.
Now what? There were still those missing shampoos and conditioners. And the odor. That werewolf smell was unmistakable. Isabel was puzzled.
She got her coat from the maid's closet and threw it on over her uniform, then made her way to the bar to observe Alice. She sat at the counter. For once, Alice was not sitting with a handsome young guy. Two women sat on each side of her and the two on her left did not look happy.
Alice's ex-husband, Danforth, sat in a shadowy corner booth observing.
The young woman beside Alice gave a short shriek.
***
Kayley, Alice Jolie's agent, almost fell off the barstool. "You what? What are you telling me?"
"I'm speaking plain English," snipped Alice. "I said my new agent has negotiated a contract."
The paper Kayley had just slid over to Alice lay lifeless on the bar. It was the renewal of her contract with Alice, who was just about to hit the biggest of the big time. And Kayley had lost her. "But we agreed. Last month you said to bring my renewal here and you would sign it."
"I changed my mind." Alice turned away from her toward her new agent, who had the good grace to give Kayley a sheepish look.
Kayley turned to Barb, the editor of Haunted House, publisher of the Wally Werewolf books. "Did you know about this?"
"Are you kidding? I would have killed her if I'd known," whispered Barb.
Kayley was confused. "You would be that mad about her changing agents?"
"She's changing publishers too, sweetie. Why do you think he's sitting there?" Barb pointed to the man who was chief editor of Waywith Words, a big rival of Haunted House. "She gave me the news just before you sat down." Barb knocked back her martini and raised her glass toward to bartender for another.
Kayley hadn't started her glass of wine yet, but raised hers for another, too. This looked like a good night to get smashed. There went her dreams of living life one notch or two up from where she'd always been, which was scraping by. In fact, in her most extreme fantasies she had pictured a life of ease, brought about by her star client, the most celebrated children's author in the world, Alice Jolie.
She'd seen that line in the signing room. A little over half were children and their parents, but many were grownups, who seemed to enjoy Alice's books as much as the kids did.
"There goes our ship," slurred Barb. "Sailing away on a Waywith Words contract. Lesh drink to that." She tossed back another martini.
Kayley started in on her wine in earnest.
***
Isabel, once again in her maid's dress, straightened when Alice Jolie got off the elevator and headed for her room, 413. Her steps faltered a couple of times and she concentrated on her feet, making her way down the hall.
"What are you doing here?" asked Alice when she finally looked up and saw Isabel leaning on her door.
"I'm waiting for you. I have some questions."
"I don't need to answer the questions of a hotel maid." Alice laughed at the thought and slipped her card into the slot.
"Yes you do. I'm not a hotel maid. Appearances can be deceiving."
Alice looked truly puzzled. She pushed her door open and Isabel followed her into the room.
"Who are you then?" asked Alice, plopping onto the bed and pulling her shoes off.
"I work for the Organization, which has been checking you out for some time now," began Isabel.
"Oh please. What organization?" Her tone sneered at the last word and she began to rub her feet.
"WWF. The Worldwide Wolf Federation."
Alice grew still. She set both feet on the floor, her skin pale. Even though the only light turned on was the one by the door, Isabel hadn't lost the night vision when she retransformed.
"You've heard of us?" asked Isabel.
"Uh, no. I haven't. And what would you want with me?"
"We're concerned about the deaths accompanying your travels. Our leaders are afraid you're responsible. Several men, new werewolves, have been found dead after being seen in your company. The one found early this morning, not far from here? I'm sure he's the young man you were in the bar with last night. And I smell werewolf in this room."
Alice jumped up. "I'm not! Test me or something. I'm not a werewolf."
"Why have you been seen in the company of them?"
"Research. I do research for my books. I use them for research."
"You use them for research? How do you infect them?"
"I don't do it myself."
Isabel perked up. If she'd been in wolf form her ears would have pricked.
"I mean, I mean," stuttered Alice, "I mean I don't know what you're talking about."
"You don't," said Isabel very slowly, "do it yourself?"
"No, no, that's not what I meant."
Isabel marched out of the room, rode the elevator down, and left the hotel. On the street she made a cell phone call. "Have her house checked," she said, barely above a whisper. "Her home in Lycopolis. See if there's one there."
***
Kayley, the former agent of Alice Jolie, sat very still. She and Barb, the former editor of same, had moved to a booth when they could no longer balance well enough to stay on the barstools. Alice, her new agent, and her new editor had left. Kayley didn't think she'd be able to get to her room tonight. She'd never been quite this drunk. She shushed Barb with a wave of her hand and pointed behind her. She wanted to hear the conversation in the next booth. She'd caught her name.
"Yeah, can you imagine being that stupid?" Kayley recognized the New York accent of one of the male thriller writers.
"Oh, I don't know if she's stupid. Just oblivious, I think." This was probably that chubby woman, a romance suspense author from the south.
"Whatever. Who would want her for an agent? She must have pissed off old Alice."
"Well, Alice is pretty pissy herself. But, I see what you mean."
"And that editor." This much louder voice was unrecognized, but just as annoying as the other two. "How can you let someone like Jolie get away from you like that? Haunted House hasn't even signed any new authors since Jolie started producing for them. That ship might just sink."
Kayley closed her eyes. The tears squeezed out. How could she ever hold her head up again in the writing community? She would cancel her panel tomorrow and leave.
She looked at Barb and mouthed, "We're through."
Barb took hold of her hands. "Sweetie, it's not the end of the world. There's always shomething you can do."
They stumbled out together.
***
At the bar, Nannette, wife of the deceased Brady, blinked back her tears.
Danforth patted her arm. Even with her eyes red and in her disheveled state she was pretty. "I'm so sorry," he said. "You must have loved your husband very much."
"Well, not when he went off with people like your wife." She spit her gum into a bar napkin.
"My ex-wife."
"I'm not going to cry anymore." Nannette wiped her eyes with another bar napkin. "It doesn't do any good. I'll get over it. I know she's responsible. But no one will ever prove it."
Danforth wondered if he should tell her she was probably right. That happened to a lot of men Alice hung around with. The cops had had their eye on her for a while, but nothing could ever be proved against her. Just that she'd been with them before they were found dead. It had taken law enforcement a long time to get wise to her, though, because no one missed any of them. Until now they'd all been unattached. She'd made a mistake with Brady Fox, though, Danforth thought. But could she be nailed for his death?
"I'm so tired," said Nannette. "But I don't think I can face my room. I haven't been back since…since they had me identify his body."
"Would you like me to come to your room with you?" He could see her consider that. He wasn't sure himself whether it was a proposition or not. Something about Nannette made him feel protective. He wanted to keep her safe.
She nodded. Danforth slapped a couple of bills on the bar and steered her to the elevators.
When they reached her room on the sixth floor she fumbled for her keycard, then stuck it in the slot. Nothing happened. The light stayed red. She tried again.
"Here, let me," said Danforth. But the light would not turn green. "Looks like you got a bad card."
Nannette fished a stick of gum from her purse and chomped it.
"I'll take it to the desk," he said.
"Oh, don't leave me alone."
He touched her cheek. Her skin was so soft.
"Come on down with me."
In the elevator he had an idea and punched 4.
"What are you doing?" asked Nannette.
"It's all right. I want to try something." She looked afraid. "I'll never hurt you, Nannette. I just want to see something. Your husband drank with my ex-wife. If one of them went to the other one's room at any point, the keys might have gotten switched. Let's see if this fits Alice's room."
The elevator doors opened on the fourth floor. Danforth had been keeping track of Alice. In fact he had been following her from conference to conference, hoping to uncover some evidence the police could use against her. He knew her room was 413.
"I don't think this is a good idea," said Nannette. She chewed her gum faster.
"Why not? If this fits—"
"That's not legal, is it? To go into someone else's room?" He started down the carpeted hallway. It was late and the rooms were all quiet. Most of the occupants were probably asleep.
She grabbed his sleeve. "No, don't do that. Don't go into her room."
He still held the keycard. Nannette made a grab for it, but he slid it into the slot on the door to room 413. The light turned green.
"Just a minute." He pushed the door a few inches and looked inside. She wasn't far from the door. Danforth gave Nannette a curious look. Alice Jolie lay sprawled on the floor in an awkward position. He stepped to her and rolled her over to see if she could be revived.
***
This was something new, thought Kayley. An honest-to-god crime scene at a mystery conference. But she felt awful. Though she had sobered up as soon as the cop announced Alice was dead and that he would question her as soon as he finished with Alice's new agent and editor, a pounding headache was making it hard to hold her head up and keep her eyes open.
The police had commandeered the signing room. The overhead lights glared unnecessarily. Did they have to have all of them on?
"Tell me again when you last saw her."
"It was when, when she left the bar. Right after…"
"Right after?" His voice was growlly and echoed off the insides of her sore head.
"Right after she told me about her new contract."
"She changed agents, right?"
"I'm sure you already know that. Could you speak a little more softly please?"
"Don't go anywhere."
"I'm not sorry she's dead, but I didn't kill her."
She watched him interrogate Barb. It looked like he suspected her, too. Was it possible he thought they did it together?
***
Danforth shifted in his seat.
"I'm not sorry she's dead."
"That's what everyone has said so far," said the policeman with the five o'clock shadow that looked like it needed shaving every hour. Danforth wondered if he was a werewolf. "Were you out of the hotel at all yesterday? Last night or this morning?"
"No, I've been inside since the conference started."
"That's not what the desk clerk says."
The cop waited. Danforth fell into the silence. "Oh, I did step out last night for a moment." Damn, that's what the cop wanted him to do, fill the empty spaces. "I just needed a breath of air." There, he was doing it again. Now he would shut up.
Another detective approached and drew Bluebeard aside. After a brief conversation the grilling resumed. "And where have you been tonight?"
"I've been with, um, with…"
"Yeah? Nannette Fox? The wife of the dead guy? Did you help her?"
"What? Help her what?"
"Her chewing gum was found underneath the body. It looks like Nannette Fox killed Alice Jolie."
"But I—" He thought he'd scraped it all up. He must have missed some.
***
Isabel still had her maid uniform on. It came in very handy. Especially the passkey in the pocket. The more she thought about the smell in Alice's room, the harder she thought. She took the elevator up to four and stood outside 413. There was no way she could go in now. The crime scene tape sealed the door and they would surely be able to tell if she entered.
Nannette Fox had admitted bashing in the head of Alice. But how had Alice Jolie managed to kill Nannette's husband, Brady? And why did the room smell of werewolf?
Isabel closed her eyes and pictured the room: king bed, dresser, desk, door to the—Wait! There was an adjoining room. The bolt had been thrown, the door locked from Alice's side. But what about the other room?
Isabel opened the next door room, 411. The stench assaulted her. Her eyes adjusted to the dark quickly and her heart sank at what she saw.
A large collapsible cage occupied much of the floor space. And inside, curled in the corner, was a very angry werewolf. He snarled at Isabel and his fangs glistened with blood, Brady Fox's blood, Isabel felt sure.
She got busy. This guy needed a retransformation.
The calmness of the oversized shack didn’t do anything to ease Quinton’s anxiety. Still, it beat the constant white noise of the eerie trees outside, constantly rustling without a hint of a breeze. In fact, the atmosphere pressed down so still and stifling that he felt if he didn’t move he might die breathing back in his own air.
"Should I be afraid of you or the other way ‘round?"
He jumped at the woman’s voice and for an instant considered rushing back out into the swamp. He searched around for movement. There. He’d missed her the first glance around the rustic interior, confusing the patterns of her clothes with all the quilts hanging from the walls.
"I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!" Quinton held his hands out with palms pushing back the space between them. "I’m just really lost and…"
She eased up out of her dark wood rocking chair. Plump, closer to his parents’ age than his grandparents’, but just barely. "And you think I might care enough to let you in my house?"
Quinton gestured to the door. "Well, I knocked and you didn’t answer."
"Am I required to answer?"
"Of course!" He swallowed. "I mean…yeah."
"Really?" She moved towards an old black kettle hovering over a fire in the fireplace and pushed it more towards the area above the flames. Her flesh had a strange pull on her eyelids, cheeks, and shoulders, like gravity gripped at her out of spite rather than habit. "You’d answer at this time of night? In a place like this?"
"Well… maybe…" He took a breath, straightened his posture and wiped his hands on his greasy blue jeans. "Don’t you have a peephole or something?"
"Irrelevant. You’re breaking and entering."
"No! Okay, I entered, but I didn’t break anything!"
Now in the kitchen, she reached up and pulled down an old-style ceramic jar that looked like it had been painted by a five-year-old. "Did you force the door open?"
He didn’t step forward, didn’t step backwards, didn’t shut the door. "I guess a little."
She pulled a cookie from the jar, a big fat one, and bit down with yellowed teeth. "That would be the breaking part."
Quinton sighed. "Look! I just want to get out of here."
She waved the cookie for emphasis. "Then why are we still talking?"
"I need help. I’m lost." He paused. "At night." She took another bite. "In a swamp."
Another bite, then her eyes lit up. "You came here on a dare, didn’t you?" She pointed first at his face and then up and down his soiled uniform. "You and your other scout friends just couldn’t stand not knowing what was in here, hm?"
"I don’t have any scout friends, okay? That’s why I’m lost."
"That doesn’t follow."
"Yes…what?" He stammered while he deciphered what she’d meant. "Look, if I had friends, I wouldn’t be by myself. I might have a map. Or a compass. Or I wouldn’t have to sneak out into the woods away from the porta potties to take a whiz because people keep banging on the walls or dumping them over or taking pictures of me pissing on trees and emailing them to freakin’ everybody in school."
She went for a second cookie. "So you’re a loser?"
Quinton glanced once back out at the void he knew held the swamp. He felt defeated somehow. "I guess."
She moved around the corner and rested against it. "Say it."
He narrowed his eyes and balled his fists. At last he exhaled, long and slow. "Okay, yeah, I’m a loser."
She smiled. "In that case you can stay." And then, holding out the jar, "Cookie?"
Quinton hesitated, uncertain what had just changed.
"Chocolate chip, homemade, from scratch." She waved the container like she thought movement might somehow make the food more enticing for her guest. "Aren’t going to get a better offer than that."
He took a step forward, stopped, and then went back to close the door behind him. The room warmed with the woman’s smile, and somehow the idea of eating cookies on a quilt by a fire seemed the only option that made any sense to him.
"Take two, they’re small," the woman said as he pulled the first one out. Almost an inch thick and as wide as pancakes, they were far from small, but he accepted a second one anyway. "Have a seat." She gestured to a pile of threadbare throw pillows overflowing off a sagging couch with wooden legs that ended in carved bird talons.
He eased down into the cushions, launching a small swirl of dust, then took in more of his surroundings. Based on the furniture struggling for dominance along the walls, this room seemed to serve as the living room, dining room, sewing room, den and library. The fireplace dominated the area, with the kitchen nook on one side and wooden table in a darkened alcove Quinton couldn’t quite make out on the other. A single flimsy-looking door led into what Quinton assumed held a bedroom and hopefully a bathroom of some sort. Were it not for two lamps with leopard-patterned shades and what appeared to be a first-generation microwave tucked in the wall near the sink, there would have been no indication that the house was wired for electricity at all.
"I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for losers." The woman raised the iron lid to the pot hanging over the fire and lifted up what looked like a small cage filled with leaves. After she eased it back down into the pot, a strange mix of smells wafted past Quinton. It made his mouth water and his stomach turn at the same time. Some instinct brought the cookie up and into his mouth. "Attracted them every since I was a kid."
Quinton wanted to say something clever in response, but only grunted through the soft crumbs and bittersweet chunks of chocolate.
"Let me guess." She put a thoughtful finger to her strange sagging chin. "You get picked on in a way that isn’t overtly physical. They don’t shove you in lockers or stick your head in the toilet. You’re not quite scrawny enough for that."
Quinton watched her, trying to reveal as little as possible about himself as she studied him in return.
"They make fun of your clothing idiosyncrasies," she continued, and then pointed at his ankles. "Like those black socks you’ve got poking out of your boots." He strained not to look down. "But they also play tricks on you when you can’t immediately retaliate. Right?"
Quinton sighed. "Usually it’s my bunk." He recalled sliding into cold wet sheets and hoping it was just water. Then he remembered the wet washcloth soaring across the darkness at some point every night and hitting him in the face. That was last year, before Max Early and his lackeys really started getting creative. What sort of punk-ass chump named his kid Max anyway?
"Yeah, I thought so. You have a good idea who does whatever they do, and certainly who laughs at it, but you don’t actually see them do it, right? And if you confront them, they all deny it."
"They aren’t even clever about it," Quinton said. "Just stupid stuff like smearing pudding on my towel while I’m in the shower. I practically throw away each toothbrush as soon as I use it and buy a new one because I’m afraid what they do with them between brushings."
"Yeah and I bet you fantasize all the time of ways to get back at them." She closed her eyes and seemed to watch something in her own imagination. "I doubt you’d be so banal as to go with guns. I’d guess superpowers, or martial arts…possibly some incredible use of supreme technology."
Quinton pulled his head back. He didn’t like the idea of sharing those thoughts with anyone. Or for sure not a woman he just met. "Maybe," was all he managed.
"Ah." She opened her eyes. "I get it. No need to expand on your darker side. I agree, best kept hidden." She grabbed a spice jar from a rack near the fireplace and sprinkled it into the cast iron pot. "I apologize if I delved too deeply there. I do that sometimes on the rare occasions when I get guests."
"No problem," he lied. The chemistry of the room changed again, some of the warmth seeping out with the awkward pause that followed.
"Of course," she said at last, "I grew up on a steamboat, which might have had something to do with it."
"There’s one that keeps going by our camp." Quinton welcomed the change of topic. He swallowed and resisted the urge to request a glass of cold milk. That seemed like just too much to ask for, although if she offered…
"Ah yes, the Elegant Spirit." She put the lid back on the pot and leaned against the wall. "Fake steam, fake pilot, fake passengers. Tourists and prom dates pay twenty dollars a head for that crap."
Quinton nodded without looking at her, instead drawn to the dark niche next to the fireplace. He could make out some shapes on the table if he turned his eyes so he didn’t look directly at them.
"Heh." The woman looked off at nothing in particular. "You know they call this a lake to campers and boaters, and a swamp to fishermen and thrill seekers?" She glanced up when he didn’t reply and then followed his gaze into the shadowed table.
"Oh," he said when he realized her eyes had narrowed to study him. "I’m sorry, I was just…" He wanted to add "being nosy" but instead just let the sentence trail off. He finished the first cookie and waited before he started the second.
"Yes, you were." Her smile radiated a little less energy than before, having transferred it to some penetrating power in her eyes.
He said nothing, caught between the inability to ask for a glass of milk and the inability to keep his gaze away from the darkened table. She cocked her head to one side, and then moved towards a third lamp, a triplet to the other two.
When she clicked it on the shadows fled the recessed extension to the room. "Well, come take a look," she said with a grin.
Quinton rushed over to the table and let out an involuntary, "Whoa," when he got there. Unpainted statuettes covered the surface, each about the size of a yapper dog standing on its heels, but each also a different abomination right out of a carnival house of horrors. All humanoid in basic form, some had tentacles dripping from its face or torso, some had gills, others scales or tails. Quinton blushed when he realized he couldn’t identify whichever movie or comic book the beasts came from.
"These are my babies," the woman said, looking over the figures. "Sculpted each one myself."
"Really?" Quinton’s eyes lit up. He wondered if he’d stumbled into the home of some famous retired special effects artist or movie star from the old black and white monster movies. Studying her again, he ruled out the latter, seeing no remnants of beauty in her frame or face. In fact, in that instant, he wished he hadn’t looked so closely and turned away.
"Oh yes." She slid one of the more ghoulish creatures to make it more in line with the others. "Fascination with local legends comes easy, I suppose, if you don’t have television or the Internet to distract you."
"The swamp monster!" Quinton got it now. Sometimes more formally known as The Goatman, The Caddo Creature, or even just Slimy, tales of the swamp monster had replaced normal classics like Hookclaw and Escaped Asylum Patient around the campfires in this part of Texas and Louisiana for generations.
"All different interpretations, of course." She spoke with the rush of an excited child. "I’ve even named each of them."
"No way!" Quinton laughed and started into the second cookie.
"I’m serious."
"Like what?" He thought for an instant. "Longtongue Tummywater?"
She let out a small laugh and then pulled out a wooden chair that looked like it wouldn’t support her weight. It creaked when she plopped down onto it, but held. "No no no. These are swamp monsters, naming them is much easier than that." She glanced at him sideways. "Also. Less girly."
He rolled his eyes. "How do you name them then?"
She waved her hands out over the statuettes. "You just string together a bunch of random letters for the most part, going as light on the vowels as possible. Oh, and adding apostrophes wherever you feel like it."
Quinton waited to see if she was going to add a punchline. "Seriously?"
"I shall demonstrate." She added a formal tone to her voice and cleared her throat. "This," she said, pointing at an atrocity with alligator heads for hands, "is Blllbdar’ollop." She studied the rest, seeming to weigh her choices with a great deal of thought. "And R’xixb’ddidid." She indicated a humanoid cross between a velociraptor and a beaver. "Oh," she said, tapping a shape covered head to toe in tiny polyps and spikes, "and my person favorite, K’kammnnnunu."
Quinton nodded while grinning foolishly. "That was…that was…glorious."
She eased back away from the table. "I think everyone should make up their own swamp creature name, really."
"Well, they are awful catchy."
"I will permit you to try it, if you wish."
"Oh, may I?" The last of the second cookie gone, the dryness in Quinton’s throat had grown to a significant level of distraction.
She cracked her knuckles louder than Quinton had ever heard anyone do before. "For losers only, I offer a special deal and won’t sue you or claim copyright infringement this one time."
Quinton tossed a bunch of nonsense sounds around in his head until he came across one that almost carried an air of power with it. "Okay, how about, uh, Rrrrarus’X’fddddddes."
She attempted to repeat it.
"Close," Quinton replied, "more ‘r’s in the first part, and six ‘d’s."
"Six ‘d’s?"
"Yes, six."
"Not five."
"No no, six."
"Very well." She took a few deep breaths before finally belching out, "Rrrrarus’X’fddddddes."
"Perfect." Quinton smiled.
"Well, then pleased to meet you, Rrrrarus’X’fddddddes."
"Thank you, thank you." Quinton released one controlled cough which spasmed into a series of involuntary ones. "Can I maybe get something to drink?"
"Beg pardon?" The woman stood and leaned towards him.
"I’m really thirsty."
"Oh." She straightened with understanding. "All I have is tea."
Quinton grimaced. "Ugh." He hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
"Well, I have well water, but it has a funny twang to it, so I boil it and add tea leaves."
"Sure. That’ll be fine."
The woman grunted and pushed herself up out of the chair. The activity of the evening seemed to have caught up with her, and slowed her movement towards the fireplace. "I think I have a map and a compass around here somewhere." She lifted the lid of the pot, releasing the same odor as before. "Would that help you make it back?"
"Actually it would," he said with no small amount of pride. The rest of the troop needed either daylight or a road with a minivan to find their way from the campgrounds even to the main highway.
The woman lifted a jet black iron ladle out of the pot and poured a coffee mug almost to the top. "Here’s to what ails ya," she said as she passed it over. He cradled the warm ceramic in his hands as she went to dig through a pile of papers next to an old cedar chest. While she rummaged through the clutter, Quinton took a deep whiff of the tea. Dissecting the individual components of the aroma, he picked out the scents of coffee, vanilla, and possibly boiled cabbage. He took a tentative sip.
The vanilla hit him first, almost like a dessert drink, but the bitter leafy aftertaste made his entire face fold in on itself. He shook it off and glanced over to see if she noticed. Since it appeared like the wooden chest might be trying to swallow her whole, he concluded that she hadn’t seen anything.
He’d never had more than a tiny drink of hot tea before, and decided he should "man-up," as that jerk Counselor Guy would say, and see how far he could get through it. Two more big gulps were all he could manage.
"Here we go!" She spun around holding up a folded sheet of plastic. He recognized it as a water-proof map case like many of the scout leaders used. "Aaaaand, a compass."
He took the items and with a reflexive motion studied the map for his present location.
"Right here, Sweetie." She pointed to a spot centered in a big splotch of undeveloped green, with blue lines representing the depth of the lake behind the cabin. Thinking back, Quinton figured where he went wrong on his trek and what would be the best route back.
Lost in his calculations and compass bearings, he almost forgot to thank the woman before he headed back out into the darkness. She insisted she had enjoyed the company, and not to worry about returning the compass or map case. Two steps out the door he turned and waved. He felt an odd sense seeing the woman in the doorway, leaving someone behind who had shown him kindness to return to a campsite filled with those he detested.
"Good luck, Rrrrarus’X’fdddddes," she said as he turned. He yelled back thanks and intentionally didn’t draw attention to the fact she’d only used five ‘d’s.
***
Quinton reached the edge of the campgrounds at just after midnight, and nearly knocked over Counselor Guy when he stumbled out into the light.
"Good lord, Quinton!" Guy seemed to struggle with his emotions, appearing to twist sudden shock into righteous anger. The wild blond locks on his thirty-year-old head looked no less ridiculous in low lighting. "Just like you to hide out in the damn woods while we search all over the place!" His volume dropped to normal levels. "Probably too scared to sleep in the cabin."
They walked together through a gauntlet of scowling counselors, all quick to offer up that they were up later than they wanted to be. They murmured about all the authorities they nearly called on account of his excursions, and what varieties of punishments and additional duties awaited him in the morning.
While the words floated by, they got progressively harder to understand. By the time Quinton reached his cot Counselor Guy’s ramblings had faded into a dull hum pushing against the thick cotton between Quinton’s ears.
He found himself standing alone in the dark next to his bunk, the sounds and smells of all the other boys sleeping radiating out from all directions. He waited a short time for his eyes to adjust so he could make out all the shapes in the room. In that moment of solace he felt powerful, up and functioning with everyone else lying vulnerable around him.
His skin itched. It felt so dry, especially on the insides of the folds of his arms, he scratched back and forth between the two until a light burning replaced the prickle. Quinton reached up to confirm the moisture in his sheets, but the cool wetness seemed inviting, a way to ease the smoldering irritation spreading across his arms and down his torso.
He stripped down to his underwear and slid into the water-soaked sheets, pulling them in and twirling around them until they formed a moist cocoon. Looking around at the others Quinton figured someone must have left a light on outside, or that a full moon hovered overhead, since he could make them out so well.
He belched a quiet croak, releasing a putrid cloud of old cookie, coffee, and boiled cabbage. His stomach turned again, but he also found himself enjoying the scent of it.
The form of Max Early, a big silhouetted blob three bunks over, rose and fell with the rattling of half-filled sinuses. Quinton stared at him, wanting to reach out with his mind and squeeze him until his face turned red and he struggled to beg for mercy. With every breath Quinton dreamt up a new way to hurt the chunky mouth-breather, each a subtle variation on a macabre theme, just as the shack woman said.
Staring at Max in the darkness, all the cruel jokes, all the mocking, and all the snide comments gathered inside Quinton, starting in his chest and working their way down to tighten in his gut. Twisting there, they brought up a slow but steady stream of quiet burps he released into his pillow.
The night dragged on, although Quinton grew less tired as it did so. He lost track of time, measuring it not by minutes, but by the rate the burning sensation crawled across his skin, spreading until it reached the tops of his toes. His eyelids, his fingernails, even his tongue itched, which made him all the more irritable at the oxygen thief snoring a few feet away.
Quinton found himself standing over Max’s bed without realizing how he’d gotten there. Looking back, a wet trail of shredded bed sheets led back to his bunk. He pondered spitting on his enemy, urinating on him, or just beating the larger boy until the counselors rushed in, grabbed him by all four limbs and hauled him off to a juvie hall somewhere.
"Ah screw it," Quinton tried to whisper, but all that came out was a guttural mish-mash of consonant sounds. He slapped his hand over Max’s mouth—actually it fit easily over the entire lower half of his face—and lifted him up out of bed. Quinton had intended to just lift him up enough to scare him, but the boy weighed almost nothing. While Max struggled to wake up, Quinton ran out of the cabin with Max’s flailing form dangling under one arm.
Muffled screams called out beneath Quinton’s hands as he loped across the campsite, his feet making loud flaps as they hit the ground. He rushed out down the dock, past the canoes, and jumped off the end.
The coolness of the water quenched the burning of his skin, and he spent a moment relishing the touch of the swamp until he glance down at Max’s face beneath the surface. Quinton had no trouble seeing through the dark liquid, seeing the utter panic in the boy’s eyes. He held him down until the squirming changed from desperate thrashing to involuntary spasms. Quinton knew Max’s chest would force a last gasp at any moment, and just before that instant, Quinton brought his head up to breathe.
After a quick intake of air, Quinton shoved Max’s head underwater again. Again he let him up just before the final breath. He repeated this over and over, his heart racing with the thrill of it. As Max grew more pathetic, his spirit pushed beyond broken, Quinton felt more alive than he had perhaps his whole life. Something called out for him to not let up this last time. A world without Max would be a richer place.
Quinton tossed the limp wet blob onto the dock. The thrill faded once Max resigned himself to die, and Quinton decided it would be better to let the boy live with this nightmare replaying for the rest of his days. Even now Max appeared to have gone into shock. Rapid breathing, eyes open and glazed over, body twisted with no regard for righting itself.
Quinton leapt back up onto the dock. He paused there in the darkness in a crouch, a position so comfortable he wondered why it hadn’t come to him before. His arms whirled at his sides as he hobbled to the counselor cabins. His legs responded differently than usual, but Quinton embraced the primal nature of his movements.
Counselor Guy shared the small tin shed with Counselor Roger, so Quinton figured he had a fifty-fifty chance of the right one opening the door. "Ooooh Counselor Guuuuuy." Again, what Quinton meant to say came out like something in slow motion and possibly backwards to his ears. He licked the hollow aluminum door as he waited. Nothing.
He tapped on the door with his long pointed fingernails. Just for fun he scratched them across the surface, a little surprised they cut into the metal.
The door flew open, and seeing the squinting face of Counselor Roger, Quinton slapped the man back and down before he could even fully open his eyes. He stayed where he landed as Quinton rushed in and lifted Guy up by the shoulders.
Guy shouted out what must have been a string of splendid expletives, but which sounded tinny and foreign to Quinton. Realizing the noise would attract everyone soon, Quinton bolted for the wood line near the water, and threw Guy down into the mud. The man hardly moved, staring up wide-eyed and covering his arms over his face. Careful not to hit anything vital, Quinton raked his fingers all up and down Guy’s skin, leaving a patchwork of thin cuts, almost guaranteed to each be infected with every microscopic horror the swamp could breed.
Noise grew in the light, the incredibly bright light. Voices murmured in that same high-pitched alien dialect. Leaving Guy crying and lying in his own filth, Quinton darted to the water and dove back in.
***
A half hour later the Elegant Spirit cut a smooth wake through the calmness of the lake, drunken idiots laughing at inconsequential drivel, hanging off every balcony. Quinton watched it pass, his eyes just above the surface of the water, visualizing himself leaping up and over the edge to...
"Now now, my little one. You’ve had enough fun for one night," the shack woman called out in a tongue he understood. Hearing someone speak it validated the sounds he’d sprouted all evening. Her voice gave the language life, and a history of something spoken and forgotten long before man learned how to make fire. Quinton whirled to see her standing against the bank of the water. "Never crap where you eat."
Without fully understanding her meaning, he swam over to her and crouched down so only his head rose up out of the water. She patted his forehead and tossed him a dead fish, which he instinctively caught in his mouth and swallowed without chewing.
"This way." The woman turned and headed back towards her home. She paused at a small round stone table she’d set out in front of her doorway, and then reached down and into a plastic bag from a nearby hobby store. She pulled out a fresh block of modeling clay and set it with a splat onto the table.
"Okay, dear," she said, dipping her hands into a bowl of water. "I’ll introduce you to the others later. For now, you just stand still while I capture the moment, as it were."
Quinton did as she asked, crouching there in front of the table while her bony hands poked and massaged the soft gray mound, shaping it to match his new form. He smiled as best he could, literally from ear to ear, content to remain motionless there in the mud. As he waited he made out other shapes rising out of the swamp in the distance, watching and wanting to meet Rrrrarus’X’fddddddes.
The story "Swamp Baby" was inspired by a hand-written version I found in my closet while cleaning over the holidays. Scrawled over 3 wide-lined pieces of yellowed, brittle paper about 30 years old, I thought I’d see what I could do with it. Since Young Steve hadn’t ever heard of H.P. Lovecraft, the tone changed a little in the rewrite, but not much. So, for fun, and as a reminder of the unfettered imagination we all start with and should strive to never lose, here it is in its original form, unedited and with all the original grammar and spelling mistakes from the mind of a 12-year-old…
The swamp monster
(part I)
I was walking along the path hoplessly lost. The path seemed to be disaparing. suddenly, I saw a house. As I walked up towards it I heard strange noises like some woman screaming weird sentences. I looked through the window and was amazed at what I saw.
What looked like a lady, was dancing around some nuts waving her arms and yelling weird chants at them. Then she stoped and said "come in the doors open." I started to run off, but reliezed she could help me get back to camp, so I went in. She offered me some cookies and told me a lot of stuff about a sol called "swamp monster" then gave me some nuts that would protect me from the monster. I ate one to humor her and asked how to get back to the camp, she told me. When I got to my boy scout camp, Scott, our camp prankster kidded me about getting lost. Oh how I’d like to get him back! Once he put a rotton egg uder my pillow (which stinks when broken), and once he put pepper all over my hamburger and so forth and so on. A week later it was a full moon. As I was sleeping I had an urge to go swimming.
(part II)
I got down out of my bunk and walked towards the lake. I passed a mirror. I couldn’t beleive my eyes, in the mirror I saw a 5 foot tall toad! Then I realized what had happened. that lady was a witch and had given me magic nuts which turned me into a frog on nights with a full moon! I thought to myself in the morning It’s not too bad after all it ownly happens on nights with a full moon and I could have fun scaring people. Then I said to myself, Scott! I’ll scare Scott! June 13th was my last day here and it was a night with a full moon. I could hardly wait untell June 12th, then I would have my revenge! finally it came, June 12th. it seemed like years waiting for nightfall but finaly it was bedtime. At 10:00 I got up and walked over to the mirror to make sure I was a frog, I was. Then I walked over to Scott. "BRRRRRIBIT" I said just soft enough to wake him up. "BRRRRIBIT!!!" I yelled. by this time he was up and running, he ran into a closet and peeked out of the crack to see if I came, I did. Then one last time I screamed, my loudest BRRIIIIIBIIT!!!!!
"Don’t hurt me he yelled as he locked the coset door and screamed for help. I jumped into the lake untell I turned back into myself and snuck into my bed. After that when I got home I didn’t do much except on nights when there was a full moon I took a very long and big bath.
THE END