Tender as Hellfire (17 page)

It was getting late as hell.

It made me worry that my older brother wasn’t ever coming home.

About a half hour later, I caught sight of him, an awkward shape, grinning like a fool to himself. I crept out of the tall brown grass and met him just beside the culvert. His face was all red and glowing. He patted me on the back and just kept smiling as we walked together toward home.

“What are you smiling at?” I asked. It felt like I hadn’t seen him smile in a long time.

“I don’t know. I just feel like smiling.”

“Did something funny happen at work?”

“You could say that.” He winked at me, and almost at once I knew.

“You weren’t at work, were you?”

“Nope.”

“Where were you then?”

“I was with Lula Getty.”

“Lula Getty? From Sunday school?”

“The one and the same.”

“What were you doing?”

Pill-Bug winked at me once more. “I’ll just say it’s been the greatest night of my life.” And then, unable to stop himself from bragging, he added, “We did it.”

“You did it?”

Pill-Bug nodded.

“But how?” I asked.

“She works at the Pig Pen. A couple of weeks ago, I was out back, smoking near the loading docks, and she was there smoking too, and we just started talking, and it turns out we have a lot in common.”

“Like what?”

“Like we both like wolves.”

“Since when do you like wolves?”

“Since Lula Getty said she did. I took twenty bucks from my work money and went and bought her a ceramic statue of a wolf from the filling station. I gave it to her tonight.”

“At work? In front of everybody?”

“No, jerk-wad. I went over to where she was babysitting. Then I gave it to her.”

“Then you had sex?”

Pill nodded, winking at me again. I didn’t think I had ever seen him so happy. I was glad he was talking to me, but the closer we got to the trailer park, the worse I was beginning to feel.

Shilo hopped along by my side, rattling his metal tags like tiny chimes. There in the distance were the lights of the trailers, a glow rising over the square blocks of mobile homes. The whole place looked empty all of a sudden, now that Val was gone. I felt like everything was ending. I wanted to tell my brother what had happened, how Val had been beat up and was gone already, so that he could explain to me that somehow everything was still going to be okay, because I sure didn’t feel that way. I needed him to muss up my hair or to hear him laugh. I needed to know he was still my friend.

I turned then and just blurted it all out in one gulp. “Pill, Val … Val … she’s gone.”

He stopped in his tracks and stared in my face. “What?”

“She left today. She’s gone. Moved out.”

“But what the hell for?”

“Someone beat her up. Someone broke down her goddamn screen door and tore up her whole place.”

Pill went still. His face became stiff and gray. All the glow that had been in his eyes disappeared from his face. He didn’t punch my arm. He didn’t say a dirty joke or a goddamn word. He just turned and looked over his shoulder down the lonesome dark road.

All of a sudden, a pair of shining yellow lights appeared.

It was a swerving car, and it was coming right at us.

Headlights flashed right in our eyes, as the white car with the red lights on top roared to a stop right up beside us.

There he was, grinning like a drunken lunatic behind the steering wheel.

“Hell,” Pill murmured, spying over his shoulder.

I caught sight of the deputy’s greasy smile, and I was almost sure that I saw him give us a cold little wink.

He slowly rolled his window down. “What you boys doing out here by yourselves tonight?” The deputy nodded to himself, leaning back in his seat.

Me, I didn’t say a goddamn word. I froze in my tracks. My older brother shrugged his shoulders a little, then elbowed me to keep on walking. But I couldn’t move. The lights of the trailer park now seemed so far away. And we were out here all alone. Here was that bastard’s smiling white teeth. Somewhere beside his belt was his shiny silver gun. I suddenly imagined the deputy putting bullets in the both of us and kicking us down into the culvert. I swore I saw him wink again. And there was no way I could make a single move after that. Pill gave me a little shove but the deputy noticed quick.

“Stand where you are,” he barked. He took out his flashlight and shined it right in our eyes, still sitting there in the driver’s seat with his awful smile. “I asked you boys what it was you were doing out here tonight.”

Shilo, by my side, gave a little yelp. I held its brown leash tight.

“I was just coming home from work,” Pill said with a frown, gritting his teeth. He looked that bastard straight in his black eyes, then turned away.

The deputy nodded once, still grinning like mad. “And what about you, son?”

“Meeting my brother to go on home,” I mumbled.

“Is that so?” The deputy shortened his smile. He let out a muffled laugh and shook his head. “Do you boys take me for some kind of goddamn fool?”

There, right there, with those words, I could feel my teeth turn to dust in my mouth. It was like seeing myself drifting toward the end of the world, then slipping closer and closer and falling right over. We were going to be in some sort of trouble again all right. The deputy’s eyes were wild and bright, his lips twitching a little as he threw the damn car into park. I could hear the engine slide into neutral. Then the snap of the deputy’s seat belt.

Pill just stood there, still gritting his teeth. Then all the lights around us went completely dim.

“Run!” my brother shouted, and pulled me by my sleeve. He ran straight off the side of the road and down into the culvert, towing me the whole way. Our dumb dog, Shilo, barked once then followed, hopping down the side of the road, moving quick through the wet brown grass on its three legs as fast as it could. My heart was beating right in my ears. All I could feel was my brother’s hand on my sleeve, pulling me ahead, pulling straight through the dark. Our feet were moving fast, crossing over the wet grass, the dog howling along behind us.

That pair of headlights suddenly turned right on us.

“Jesus!” Pill screamed, stopping just for a second to watch the deputy drive his car off the road and down, down, down into the muddy ditch. But the damn thing didn’t get stuck. It rolled slowly through the mud and straight onto the field, that pair of headlights staring right at us. “Run for the barn!” my brother shouted, still pulling on my sleeve.

Of course, it hit me hard, like a full slap to my jaw: There right ahead was the Furnham barn, standing still and red and quiet and haunted as all hell. The dog was howling and moving right in our tracks, trying to stay out of the deputy’s lights. That damn barn was just ahead.

Pill stopped and turned again, fighting for breath, just as the deputy’s squad car sank into a patch of dirt. Its shiny silver wheels turned and turned, throwing mud into the air. Behind the glow of the windshield, we could both see the deputy’s face all hot and red and full of hate. He pounded the steering wheel with his hand about three times, then kicked open the goddamn door.

My older brother felt around in the dark for the barn door latch. Me, I held the dog right by my side, watching as that deputy’s drunken form moved toward us. He was wobbling a little, losing his footing in the slippery mud, cursing to himself in grunts.

“Don’t move!” the deputy hollered. “Don’t make a goddamn move.”

All that darkness had fallen around us. All the cold night air was coming down over our heads and I could still feel that red heat burning from behind the deputy’s eyes. He stopped then and reached down and drew his sidearm. I could see it glimmer in the squad car’s headlights. The gun. The gun. My heart pumped blood straight to my brain. I gripped the dog’s leash tight as I could, hoping somehow that this gesture alone would keep me safe, hiding in the black shadows cast by my older brother and the barn, making all the prayers I could think of, watching as my brother swore to himself, his fingers fumbling along the barn door.

“Let me be home in bed,” I kept mumbling. “Let me be home in bed.”

“Stay where you are, I said!” the deputy shouted, still wobbling toward us through the dirt. Then he pointed his gun toward the sky and squeezed off a round.

BLOOOMMM!!!!!

All the blood shot from my ears and I felt myself crying, crying like a girl, mumbling more stupid prayers to myself as that man’s black form kept moving close.

“Here …” Pill whispered. “Here!”

He slid the barn door open and shoved me inside, giving our dumb three-legged dog a push. He pulled the door closed, then yanked me by my shirt, drawing us deeper inside the dark. It was quiet and steady and full of that awful stench of death. Nothing made a sound but our breathing. Nothing moved but our shadows along the dirty wood walls. Then I made the awful mistake of stopping and looking up.

Without a doubt, I knew this place was haunted. It was darker than any nightmare I’d ever had, darker than the Devil’s own shadow, covering everything with death and gloom, touching our faces like his thick burlap cloak. There were all the tiny silver spires and spindles of spiderwebs crisscrossing overhead, making all kinds of shadows which breathed and moved like a thousand tiny eyes, like a thousand tiny lips whispering my name. I could make out the shape of the sagging old horse, still lying there rotting, nesting with thousands of sleeping flies. There were the heavy wood beams creaking overhead, burned in a single spot by old man Furnham’s rope. There were the old cardboard boxes of clothes and dry goods that would never be used. All these sad, sad dreams that came to die, hiding in this awful patch of wood and dirt.

My older brother tugged me toward the center of the barn, looking around for somewhere to hide, and then I could feel it, his hand was trembling, his hand against mine was cold. He was shivering like there was something here in this barn that he had seen in all his worst dreams too.

The Devil’s dark red shadow swept overhead, his serpentine head shrieking with an empty smile, as the deputy fired into the night air once again.

BLOOOM!!!!!

I looked into my brother’s face. He was completely quiet and still, staring up into the dark space above our heads. There it was. I could read it in his eyes. They were wide and empty and full of the same kind of fear. He had seen it too. He understood. I could feel him shaking, sweating all over, unable to keep his body still. He had seen the same thing. We had been having the same dream. Our old man had led us both here. The same stretch of lonesome road that disappeared somewhere in the dark. The same hollow shadows and blackened forms. I could almost see my old man’s rig parked somewhere close. I could almost see him lying all alone, left for dead along the side of the road. I could feel the Devil moving above us in the dark, ready to strike, ready to steal both me and my brother’s lives. This was it, then. The end of it all. The end of all our darkest, most hopeless dreams.

My brother pulled my shirt again and shoved me behind a stack of wooden crates. He pushed the dog beside me and then squeezed into the rest of the space, holding his breath, still gripping my arm tight.

The wide barn door creaked open.

“This is it, you little bastards! I’m warning you. Come on out now!”

The deputy squeezed off another round and then stepped inside the barn—
BLOOM!!!!!
I could feel his shadow moving right over my face. I could feel his hot breath seeping right through the air. I could feel him grinning, gripping his gun by his side tight. He might just find us and holler at us and let us go. As long as there was still some light, we might still be fine. As long as we weren’t left alone with him in the dark, we could make it out okay.

The deputy grunted a little to himself, then slid the big red door closed. All the light disappeared from our faces. Immediately we fell straight back into the dark. The dog panted heavily by my side, but didn’t make a sound. It held its face against my shirt and stood still between me and my brother, its thick shoulders going tense as the deputy’s footsteps moved closer.

“Think this is all some game, huh, boys? All some kinda joke?”

His black shoes moved over the dirt.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape
.

“Make a damn fool out of me, huh? Make me chase you out here in the dirt?”

His shadow wobbled a little, following his drunken steps.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
Then he stopped.

“You don’t know what I’m battling inside! You don’t know what it is that’s got me hurting!”

His voice rang like blood in his throat. I could hear him breathing hard, angry as hell, gripping that gun tight.

“All of hell’s come down on me today, boys … Looks like you’re about to get the worst end of it now.”

The deputy laughed to himself a little, stopping to catch his balance. The dark space spun around him, shaking him loose. His shadow faltered, cutting across our skin.

“Where the hell am I?” he kind of whispered to himself. “Let my goddamn mind go out on me.”

The dark crashed right down on his head, nearly knocking him to his knees. He staggered about a little, fighting to keep on his feet, dangling the gun by his side. All the dumb hatred and anger spun on around his skull, making him unsteady.

Then he seemed to sense something moving over his head.

Something up in the beams.

He looked up and lost his balance and fell to his knees.

“Val?” he screamed. “Val?”

He stumbled forward a little, falling against some crates. He fought for some breath, still shaking, gripping his gun in his hand tightly. He wiped some drool from his mouth and lifted his head. He fought to stand. Just stand. He squinted around to see, still buckling at his knees.

Then he caught something out of the corner of his eye.

There, right there, three shadows flashed before him in the dark. He squinted again, then nodded to himself.

“You …” he muttered, and cracked a smile like he was surprised, happy to have seen us there. “I found you here.”