Never Wake (30 page)

“Let me guess, you got that dialogue from one of your games, right? Why don’t you just tell us what you want us to know so we can go? Save the corny-ass Dirty Harry shit for someone who gives a fuck.” Troy felt Emma’s fingers tighten around her own. She was trying to warn her against provoking Jake.

“I want you to look in the room first, and then I might let you go,” Jake said through gritted teeth.

“Fine,” Troy said, as if appeasing a child. She sighed and stomped toward the door. But Emma could feel her terror as evidenced by the tight grip on her hand.

Emma didn’t take her eyes off Jake until Troy’s free hand was on the doorknob. She opened the door slightly and peered inside. Emma tried to look over Troy’s shoulder, but Troy had already backed up, pulling Emma roughly with her.

“What is it?”

“Come away from there, now,” Troy commanded.

But Emma had already released Troy’s hand and pushed the door open so that she could see into the room. Her nose was assailed with the smell of old urine. The only light was from a closet door; the rest of the room was cloaked in gray. But she could make out two people lying supine on a bed stained almost completely magenta with blood. The skin on their chests had been pulled back and pinned to the bed with long metal stakes with loops at the ends.

In a macabre impersonation of domesticity, a dog had been placed at the foot of the bed. Its scalp had been peeled back like an orange and pinned to the bed with the same metal skewers.

Shish kebab skewers, Emma realized.

Bile shot up Emma’s throat and she did nothing to stop it. Troy pulled her back into the hallway and shut the door just before Emma began to retch against its threshold. Tears rolled down her face. She took the kerchief Troy handed her and began to wipe her mouth with it.

“Did that bastard do this to them?” Emma heard Troy ask Jake.

A demented kind of anger hit Emma with a force so hard that she whipped around to stare at Jake’s red face. She kept the kerchief over her mouth as she stared at Jake in horror.

The boy was almost shaking with the force of the emotions that he no longer had to keep in check. He was clutching his crotch with his left hand while the gun shook in the other.

“You see that? Did you see it?” His voice had gone up so high that Emma was afraid he would pull the trigger in his excitement.

“Yes.” Emma felt Troy’s revulsion when she realized what they were dealing with. “We saw it.”

“Do you know who did that? Do you?” Jake held his pants bunched as his grip tightened around his testicles. Emma imagined his hand tightening around the gun.

“You,” she whispered. Her throat muscles constricted around the word.

“That’s right.” His eyes had glazed over and his voice took on a dreamy tone. “Those were mine.” As he spoke, a slow, dark stain ran down his pant leg as if drawn with a Sharpie.

Portland, Oregon, Five Years Ago

“Hoyt?” The Boy jumped when he heard the name. He realized that Mrs. Sally was talking to him and not to his father.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“You said I did a good job today,” he said, and Mrs. Sally smiled. He really did like her smile. He wondered if he would see her again after he got to go home.

“Yes, you did perfectly. Did you hear what I said after that? About your mother?”

“What about her?”

Mrs. Sally cleared her throat. “I’m afraid she’s having a hard time making ends meet. She lost her job when the news came out about your father. She’s also been sick.”

“Sick?”

“She can’t afford to have you come home right now.”

“But what about my grandmother?”

“From what I understand, your grandmother would have a hard time feeding herself, let alone a nine-year-old boy. I believe your mother had to make her a ward of the state, too.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that she gets to sleep in a nice room, and she’ll have people come to see her whose job it will be to take care of her.” Mrs. Sally was shaking her head from side to side as she spoke, and it confused him. “She’ll get three square meals a day. They’ll buy her clothes, make sure she’s clean and getting the proper medical attention and exercise. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

The Boy, Hoyt Junior, considered what Mrs. Sally said. It did sound like she might be in a better place. All she did at home was sit in that rocker and stare at the TV. When Pam did give her a bath, she was always real mad about it. Sometimes he wondered if Pam scrubbed too hard. Grandma would have tears in her eyes when she was put back in her chair, all pink and smelling of Johnson and Johnson lotion. He didn’t mind kissing her cheek when she didn’t smell like mashed peas, applesauce, and spit.

“You said if I told the truth everything would be okay. You said I would be able to go home!”

Mrs. Sally stood up, came around her desk, and kneeled in front of his chair. “I know I did, and I’m sorry.” She put her hand on his leg to stop the rocking. “But you don’t really want to go back to that place, do you? You don’t want things to go back the way they were.”

“Yes, I do. I want to go home,” he sobbed.

“Oh sweetie, no, you can’t possibly want to go back there.” She leaned close. “Listen. I had a friend of mine pull some strings to get you into a good home. I know it’s hard right now, but trust me, this is going to be for the best. And when she’s better, your mother can go to the state and tell them she’s ready to have you back home.”

“When will she be better? When will she come get me?” He was scared and suddenly very sorry he hadn’t kept his mouth shut. Hoyt was right. This was bad and it was all his fault.

“I don’t know, Hoyt. Your mother will need to start feeling better and then she’ll need to find a new job.” Mrs. Sally stood up. He thought she looked tired.

“When will she be better? When will she come get me?”

“I don’t know, but until she does, I have a friend whose job is to help good boys find nice places to stay until they can go back home. I talked to her yesterday, and she told me she had already found a very nice couple for you to stay with. They specifically requested a boy. They’ve seen your pictures, and they know how hard it’s been for you. They live in a nice, big house where you could have a big room of your own. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

A big room of his own did sound nice.

“Now, there is one thing. I need you to be real grown up about something that might be hard for you to understand. Can you do that for me?”

The boy shook his head and tried to stop sobbing.

“Remember when you told me how you got beat up all the time at school? How would you like to go to a new school? With new kids that you could have over to your new house?

“Mr. and Mrs. Ostroph—that’s the family you’ll be staying with here in Portland—think it might be better if you used a different name. You and your father are both named Hoyt Pokorney. Your father did some very bad things. It might be better if you came up with something else to call yourself—just until your mother comes to get you. You could pretend you were acting in a TV movie.”

The boy had stopped sobbing. He could name himself anything he wanted. He didn’t have to be The Boy or Hoyt Pokorney, Jr., anymore. He could have any name he wanted.

“The Ostrophs suggested ‘Jake.’” Mrs. Sally leaned back in her chair. “But only if you liked that name. It’s your choice, of course. They will want you to use their last name so that you’ll be like a real family. Would that be all right with you?”

“Jake.” His voice was garbled from snot and tears, but he said it again to make it real. “Jake.” He liked it. It sounded like the name of a construction worker or a fireman. It sounded like a name a big man would have. “I like the name Jake.”

“Hello, Jake Ostroph. It’s very nice to meet you.” She held her hand out like he really was a big man already.

He hesitated before shaking it as if they had never met before. Jake Ostroph? It was better than Hoyt Pokorney, Junior.

Anything would be better than that.

*

“Hurry up.” Jake had a stoned, excited sound to his voice that scared Troy more than the gun pointed at her back.

She and Emma were being herded toward a room with an open padlock on the door. Emma stumbled and Troy reached for her elbow. She didn’t want to be locked in this room either.

“She’s walking as fast as she can, all right?” Troy snapped over her shoulder. She didn’t look back for fear that she would see him pull the trigger. Jake didn’t say anything else until they reached the door.

“It’s unlocked, open it,” he said. Troy hesitated and then turned the knob. This was her fault. She should have trusted Emma. She should have let her keep them away from this house. The light rain must have stopped because sunlight was forcing its way through dark blue curtains.

This is a boy’s room. Must be Jake’s. No, the furnishings are too juvenile, or maybe it was decorated when he was younger and it hasn’t been updated.

A faint ammonia-like smell hung in the air, but it was quickly pushed to the far reaches of Troy’s brain as her eyes focused on the figure huddled on the floor next to the bed.

“Oh, my God,” Troy cried.

Dry blood had crusted the side of his face and his right eye had swollen shut. Emma tried to push her way past Troy. Troy was shaking her head. “No, Emma. I think he’s dead.” She stopped and turned to Jake. “There was a woman at the hospital. She was cut open like your parents. Was that one of yours, too?”

The look on Jake’s face was the same surly one she could remember placing on her own face when confronted.

Troy released Emma’s arm so that she could step over the blood puddle on the floor and bent to look into the man’s bruised face. “He’s breathing,” she said.

Jake laughed loudly. “They’re all breathing. Didn’t you notice?”

Troy looked at Jake, shocked. She’d thought she had imagined it, but maybe she hadn’t.

“Your parents? They’re still breathing even after…”

“Yeah, isn’t that fucking sick? You can’t even kill people anymore. I put a knife right through this cop’s chest over on Northwest Taylor, and he fucking went right on breathing.” His words had bravado to them that his eyes didn’t.

“Why are you doing all this? What did the cop do to you? What did that woman at the hospital do to you? Did you even know her?” Anger and desolation swept through Troy as she spoke. This boy was crazy. He had no problems hurting people, and she had led Emma right to him. She hadn’t protected her; she would be responsible for her death.

“What difference does it make? I told you,” Jake said blankly, “I didn’t kill them. You saw. No matter what I do, they keep breathing.”

“Jake…” Emma stopped speaking as Jake’s dead eyes turned on her.

“That’s not my fucking name. Stop fucking calling me that.”

“What’s your name, then?” Emma asked, her voice gentle and cajoling.

“Hoyt. Hoyt Pokorney.” Troy recognized the name, but struggled with placing it. A murderer. The kid was taking on the name of a murderer. The memory sharpened until a face, like Jake’s, but older and more sardonic, came to mind. Her fear doubled. Emma’s body rocked as she, too, placed the name.

“Your library card said your name was Jake Ostroph. That’s how we found you.” Troy’s voice dropped to a casual, conversational level.

“That’s their dead son’s name. He was hit by a car when he was three. He would have been the same age as me,” he said with disgust.

“You were adopted?” Troy asked.

“No.” Jake’s tone had taken on a defiant petulance that Troy recognized and latched on to. This she understood.

“Foster kid?”

“What’s it to you?”

Troy shrugged. “I just know how fucked up that is. I was a foster kid, too.” Troy wanted to add,
but it wasn’t in a nice house like this, you spoiled demon spawn
, but she kept her eyes turned toward Emma and leaned casually against the wall, as if she was just visiting a friend. She finally had his attention.

“How long?” His curiosity was grudging.

It was always like that with kids brought up in foster care. An immediate camaraderie that, in this case, made Troy feel like she had licked a public toilet seat.

“All my life,” she answered lightly, and he grunted as if she had confirmed what he already knew. He mimicked her pose against the other wall. Troy pictured herself diving for the gun, but Emma was squatting right in his line of sight. She didn’t dare risk it.

“How many houses?”

“Just one,” she said.

“Me, too. Just this one.”

“They made you change your name because of what your dad did, huh?”

“Fuckers made me think I wanted to change it. By the time I realized she’d tricked me, it was too late.” Jake’s voice dripped with self-loathing.

“That’s messed up.”

“They make you change your name?” the boy asked, looking hopeful.

Troy shook her head. “Didn’t have to. If I had a name before, I never knew it. I was left in a church when I was about six months old…by my mother probably, but I don’t even know that for sure.”