The Deadsong (6 page)

Alan leaned forward, his young face taking on a sick, weathered look, as though he was contracting a terminal illness and watching it happen.

“I think someone up there brought them here.”

5

Gina called shotgun and climbed into her mom’s Buick. Dylan sat in the back with his headphones on, listening to a new pop song by Selina Porter, one about being a hero. Her angelic voice carried him away, far from the pain still throbbing between his eyes. Aside from a sharp wheezing sound that came when he laughed, his nose looked pretty good. He imagined it would probably be another color come tomorrow morning, but he could take care of that with some of Gina’s makeup. If she wouldn’t let him use any, he’d sneak into her room while she was out. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Linda decided to take the back roads into Durden since the sky had opened up into a bright blue dome only marked by a few smoky jet tails and mockingbirds. Whippoorwill Road was the scenic route you took when the days were nice and you felt like gliding through God’s country, parts that had not yet been scarred by the greed of Man. Once you eased over the railroad tracks and crossed Goodman’s Branch––a connective filament of water that ran from Goose Creek all the way past Youngstown and into Lewiston––you’d be in Durden before you could say Reese’s Pieces. It stayed dry most of the year, but the rainfall had been particularly generous since July. As the sedan swept over the branch, Gina saw it gushing out from under the bridge––a rich chestnut-colored watercourse garnished with debris.

Linda turned up the volume on the car stereo. Bobby Billings was talking about the Monroe girl again. Apparently the radio station had enough goodwill to ask the listening public to send money for the girl’s family since she didn’t carry a life insurance policy. Gina closed her eyes and saw Ashley in a satin-lined casket, her head on a soft pink pillow. The tiny pin marks stood out in pairs around her face and neck where she’d been bitten––
like a vampire
, Gina thought, and shivered. She popped open her eyes. They were passing the Shop-and-Save on the right, McDonald’s on the left. Soon they’d be parking at the Glendale Department Store on Redwood Avenue beside the sporting goods store her father use to take her to, the one where he’d spend hours window shopping for camouflaged goodies he didn’t need, but wanted just the same.

It wasn’t that she hated this town; as a matter of fact, she had grown quite fond of it over the years. This was home. Memories cascaded over her––visiting her grandmother who lived across from the public library, she and Dylan feeding geese in the state park while her mother snapped pictures of the foliage for a scrapbooking project that never came to fruition, fishing with her father on Goose Creek in the summertime.

But there were other memories, too. Ones not worth commemorating––her father coming home late and arguing with her mother after he’d been out all night getting drunk and gambling away their savings on games of pill pool with the boys from the plant, Dylan wrecking his bike in a ditch and not finding him until well after dark, and…

Uncle Paul. That unforgivable secret they’d shared.
Our little secret,
he had said.
You won’t tell. Will you?

“We’re here,” Linda said, killing the engine. “I’ve got to find a new blouse, something spiffy for the meeting on Friday, so you two don’t wander off. Meet me back at the entrance in half an hour.”

“Okay, Mom,” Dylan said. He and Gina got out and followed their mother into the department store. Once they passed through the security panels, Linda trotted towards the clothing, and Dylan and Gina made their way passed Housewares and headed to the books and magazines.

Dylan plucked a comic book from the rack and skimmed through the pages. “That’s too bad about Ashley Monroe.”

“It’s already that time of year,” Gina said distantly, browsing the paperbacks. A new Thomas Whitley novel caught her eye, but she wasn’t in the mood for the literary equivalent of a slasher film.

I can taste your thoughts. Sinfully tasty they are.

“Did you hear that sound outside last night?”

Dylan replaced the comic and pulled out another. “I don’t think so. I slept like a rock. What did it sound like?”

She had no words to articulate it. It had been a whirling pastiche of gruesome voices and the most horrible animalian cries she’d ever heard. She thought it could have been just another dream, but she listened to that damn song for most of the night.
A song, yes…

“It was like a song, Dylan.”

His eyes met hers in simple bewilderment. “What the hell are you talking about, a song?”

“That’s what I just said, now wipe that snotty look off your face. I’m being serious.”

“Was this one of those ‘beyond’ sounds you hear sometimes? Like the time you heard me screaming when I fell off my bike, even though I was over a mile away? You’re so lame.”

“Whatever.” Gina decided to pursue it no further. They’re relationship was so typical, it pissed her off to the point of exhaustion. But she held firm in what she heard––and she had heard some pretty bizarre things over the years.

Hey there, baby girl. You smell terrific.

Her overactive imagination, fueled by the Keeper mythos, slowly began to wind down for the sake of her already thin sanity. Being a young girl was much harder than she was given credit for. Come graduation, she’d blow out of this one horse town in search of grander, more fulfilling locales. She’d already applied to three universities—two in Tennessee and one in Louisiana. The latter had just begun a controversial new program in paranormal research, which piqued her interest, although her mother’s resistance to such nonsense deflated her a bit. She was still hopeful.

“Want to check out the video games?” Dylan asked.

“You go ahead. I’ve gotta make a call.”

She didn’t, really, but she stepped  outside and put the phone to her ear anyway. The wind chased around her ankles and batted at the vinyl
CLEARANCE
banner stretched above her head.

A man and woman passed by Gina, and she overheard them whispering about another death.
Susan Lubbock? Is that who they’re talking about? She was in Home Ec with me...

She nearly dropped the phone when it began to buzz in her hand. An unknown number.
Maybe it’s Jared. Yes, I could tell him about––

“Hello?” Gina said.

“It’s me.” She recognized the smooth baritone voice that had been on her mind since yesterday.

“Hi, me.”

“It’s Jared, sorry.”

“Yeah, I know, silly. What’s up? You weren’t at school today.”

“Eh, a little under the weather. I’m better now, though. I’m going over to Duke’s house tomorrow night to shoot off fireworks. You wanna come with me?”

“To Duke’s? Nah, he’s not on my favorites list at the moment.”

“Why’s that?”

She wanted to tell him about what happened to Dylan, but a part of her thought he might know already.

“Ah, sorry. Your brother. I’ll have a talk with Duke and straighten this out. He’s my best buddy and sometimes I have to put him on a leash so he’ll behave. Kind of a job his parents put me up to. For his own good, of course.”

Gina laughed. “I’ll think about it,” she said, turning to see her mother and Dylan, both standing behind the automatic doors with their arms folded. “I’ll call you tonight. I have your number now.”

“Don’t keep me waiting. I’ll track you down.” He said it with gentle humor, but there was the slightest glimmer of something else, too. It wasn’t threatening, just different––like he had changed a little bit in the past twenty-four hours.

She considered asking him to go on a proper date, but she didn’t think that was her little red wagon.
He
should ask
her
.

Just wait. You have all the time in the world.

Gina said goodbye and got into the Buick. After her mother made a few snide remarks, they squeezed through the red light and into the McDonald’s drive-thru. Perhaps a milkshake would settle the heat rising in her chest, that prickly sensation that came when her man-cravings got to jiving.

Her mother was staring at her. It wasn’t a look of disappointment or contempt, which was what she expected. This was more like the way you looked at someone when you knew they were about to go away for a really long time. Her mother finally broke her trance and rolled down the window.

“What do you want to eat?”

6

Jared had just finished dinner when the phone rang. He recognized the number. It was the Army recruiting office. A guy named Stone called every other day or so to deliver his good-buddy spiel and ask if he could send some more brochures in the mail, which would go straight from the box to the trashcan under the sink. Well, Jared couldn’t put them there for his mother to find, so he would put them in his backpack and toss them into the school dumpster after football practice.

Football was his first love. He and Duke had spent countless hours dreaming of making it to the NFL someday. Together, though. They had to do it together. All or nothing, baby. But they both knew if one of them made it and the other didn’t, there’d be no hard feelings. Right? But this new gig threw a wrench into those plans. He couldn’t do both, and if this began to overshadow his first love, well, he had things to think about.

He waiting until the phone fell silent before sneaking across the living room with the morning paper. Jared wasn’t one to enjoy the fruitless gossip and trivial headlines in the Hemming Herald––
SAND MOUNTAIN BAKE SALE SATURDAY
,
PUBLIC LIBRARY ADDITION UNDERWAY, REAPING SEASON BEGINS: TWO DEAD
.

He stopped at the last one. His throat went dry and his hands began to shake. His mother was asleep on the couch. Light from the television splashed over her bulbous form covered with a patchwork quilt. Rivera Marquez on “Shop from Home” was demonstrating an electric-powered tie rack.
Only $39.99 if you call within the next ten minutes!

Jared padded up to his room and closed the door. A thin film of sweat had glued his shirt to his back. He lost the shirt and ran a hand through his hair. A Judas Priest song played quietly on his stereo. He cranked the volume and stretched out on the bed with the newspaper open to page two. He read the column carefully:

REAPING SEASON BEGINS: TWO DEAD

by Kay Daniels

Ashley Monroe, 17, and Susan Lubbock, 17, both residents of Hemming and students at Durden High School, were found dead Monday morning after sustaining multiple snake bites. Both had apparently died in their homes during the night. Authorities searched each property and found no snakes in the homes or on the premises. “I hate that this happens to innocent members of our community each year,” Sheriff Ned Robertson said in a statement issued Monday afternoon. “I assure the public we’re doing everything in our power to prevent this terrible occurrence from happening again.” Mayor Wallace Barnham declined comment when reached for an interview, although an anonymous source claims his office is coordinating efforts with the Arlo County Sheriff’s Department to protect those who reside in housing vulnerable to snake intrusion.

Last year, thirteen young men and women were killed in Arlo County as a result of this questionable snake attack phenomenon. The public should maintain a heightened alertness while proceeding through wooded areas and places of cover where snakes might nest. For more information, visit our courtesy website at…

Jared wadded up the newsprint and tossed it into the floor.
I did it. I can’t believe I actually did it.
He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. The first reaping of the season was merely a demonstration for his own good. He had watched his mentor in action, using the same methods he had been taught. It had been numbing watching Ashley die like that in a frozen fit of shear terror. After it was all over, he had followed his mentor back to the station wagon and drove out to the shack in the woods to return the snakes to their den. It wasn’t until the next day he received his first assignment, his first solo. And the job went off without a hitch. That feeling…

Oh when they bit Susan, it was orgasmic. It was as though her entire life force was sucked out of her, feeding into his own by way of some mystical thievery taking place. Once it was over, that feeling had immediately transformed into an impulse. He no longer felt obligated to do it in fear of Pearson’s retaliation. He
wanted
to do it. No other sensation in the world had any chance of fulfilling him in the same way. If he still had a conscience after last night, it would only be a matter of time before it was squashed like a spent cigarette. The doubts and moral complications would unravel and disappear. Soon, he would be the one who delivered those pitiful souls back to the dark forces who truly owned them.
He thought about Maryann Lubbock and what state of hysterics she might be in right now since her daughter was lying on a cold slab somewhere.
She knew this time would come, Jared. She knew. Don’t forget that.

He got into the shower and tried to scrub away the grime of human compassion that had been his strongest quality for most of his young life.

These desperate wannabe mothers… Don’t they know they should be careful what they wish for?

7

While riding in back of a mildew-scented Greyhound, Alan turned over the last words Sedgewick had left him with:
I think someone up there brought them here.

The idea of a sick looney from Pennsylvania breeding some kind of super-serpent and carrying it to the south was an absurd idea, but one to consider. As a student of science and as a member of the unpredictable human race, Alan was obligated to consider each and every possibility.