The Survivors (18 page)

He looked up at me in the faint glow of the penlight. “Then you said hide-and-seek. I wanted to be it, but they wouldn't let me do that either. That's how I ended up in the closet.”

All of that sounded right, like something that might have happened, but I couldn't remember any of it.

Scottie said, “Ron was wearing that blue and gray polo shirt he always wore. And he had a cold. He sneezed after we got in the closet. Alan told him to be quiet. That was just before the door opened.”

I didn't like his whiny tone, or the way he was blaming my brothers. “Nobody planned for what happened,” I said, more harshly than I should have. “I'm going to check something out downstairs. I'll be right back.” I left him there in the bedroom.

It was pitch black on the stairs, and I moved down slowly. At the bottom I turned in to the living room, where they'd found my father. I tried to imagine where he might have fallen. There was a sofa against that wall maybe? A chair over there? I wasn't sure of anything.

I moved on to the dining room. There was a little more light. I could make out a trestle table, not ours. Over it was a cheap chandelier. I found the light switch and tried it, but there was no electricity. The hutch was between the two windows, right where it always had been. It probably weighed two hundred pounds and was too much trouble to move.

There were cupboards on the top and more on the bottom. In between was a row of three drawers. I felt one and found the slot for a key. It would have been big—a thick skeleton key. I opened the drawer and ran my hand inside, then did the same with the second one. The lock mechanism was gone. The wood was badly splintered, showing it had been forced.

I left the drawer open and walked around the table. I used to race through this room on the way to the kitchen, sometimes sliding in my stocking feet. My mother would yell at me to slow down. I tried to recall her sitting there, the expression on her face, the lean of her body. Now, when it should have been easiest, I couldn't picture her.

“Hey, come here,” Scottie called down the stairs. “Let me show you something.”

Before I went, I checked the kitchen. It had been completely remodeled. Even the windows were moved. It brought back nothing to me.

There were two closets at the top of the stairs. Scottie had the one on the right open so the door blocked most of the landing. Hearing me coming, he said, “We decided to hide together. Ron picked this spot. He went in first, then me, then Alan. We were in there long enough to start fooling around. You know how I hated being poked in the ribs. They wouldn't stop. Then Ron started sneezing. The door opened, like this.”

Scottie closed it, then pulled it open a few inches. He cocked his hand like a gun and aimed into the closet.

“There was light coming from downstairs, but I never saw anything because Alan was in front of me. He must have seen the gun and figured out right away what was happening. He threw me back and tried to push his way out.”

He pulled the door wide open. There was a single clothes hanger on the rod, and, with the penlight, it made a crazy shadow on the wall.

“Alan couldn't get the door to budge. Then Ron shoved past me. That's when the gun went off. I don't know which of them was hit by the first bullet. The autopsies said they both were shot in the face.”

He shined the light on the closet floor. “I was there, curled up. I heard the second shot but not the third. That one shattered my skull. See the dent in the wall where it's been patched? I'll bet that was a fragment from that last bullet.”

He tried to keep the light trained on the spot, but his hand was trembling. “Do you remember anything after that?” I said. “Police or the paramedics?”

He glanced at me. “I remember it hurt like hell. Then it was five days later, and I was in the hospital coming out of an induced coma.”

He reached out, swishing the air in the closet. “Just like always with your brothers, shoving me to the back so they could get out first.”

“You were the youngest, Scottie. They were trying to protect you.”

“No, they hated me. And look where it got us all.” He slowly shut the door.

For a few moments we were both quiet. The wind rose outside and that snapped us back to life. “OK, your turn. You were in your parent's bedroom, right?”

“Right,” I said. My voice was husky, but I felt steady enough. I pointed the way down the hall.

We went around the corner into the new wing. There was a storage room on one side and the master bedroom on the other. Scottie led the way with his light. There wasn't a stick of furniture or even a rug. The room was so big our footsteps echoed. I expected a rush of memories, maybe an overload. But once I was inside, it seemed like any other room.

I went to the window and looked out. “I was here, counting, while you went to hide. I thought I heard closet doors slamming. That must have been the gunshots. Then, a few moments later, my mother stepped out there.” I pointed to show him. “She looked up and saw me.”

“She saw you? What did she do?”

“Waved at me, sort of. I—”

Scottie wheeled around. “Did you hear that?”

I nodded. It was a solid click, like a door latching shut. “You're sure nobody lives here?” I whispered.

“Of course. There's no electricity. And what do they do, sleep on the floor?”

“All right, don't get mad.”

We both held still. At first we heard nothing. Then, right below us, there was a thud and a grunt of pain. In the dark, someone had walked into the open drawer of the hutch.

Scottie was rocking as he stood. His eyes were wide and frightened. “Calm down.” I took his arm. “We'll just—”

He jerked free and bolted for the hallway. By the time I was after him, I could hear running footsteps downstairs.

Scottie made straight for the open window in Alan's room. I got there a few strides behind. As he stepped out, he lost his balance. I reached to grab him and got his shirt collar. His weight was too much. He pulled me through the window.

We tumbled, scrabbling at the wet shingles and the gutter at the lip. Then we were airborne.

SEVENTEEN

I
landed on my side, and the air slammed out of my lungs. Scottie hit, rolled, and came to his feet like a cat. He was halfway to the car before he realized I wasn't with him.

“Come on,” he hissed.

I got to my knees, gasping. He sprinted back and half-dragged me across the yard.

He still had my keys, so he punched the unlock button and pointed for me to get in the passenger's side. I didn't argue. I was breathing by then, but every time I inhaled a painful crackle shot through my ribs.

He turned the key and the engine ground and ground but didn't catch. I looked back at the house. There was a faint glow of light moving upstairs. It disappeared for a few moments before reappearing downstairs.

Scottie punched the steering wheel. “Damn it, start!”

I took two slow breaths and was able to talk. “Nobody's going to kill us for breaking into an empty house.”

He gave me a frantic look. “What if it's the cops?”

“I doubt it. Take your foot off the gas. OK, try again.”

He cranked the key, and the engine started. Someone moved out from behind the house. In the darkness it was only a shadow. Instead of coming our way, the figure ran at an angle across the yard, behind us.

Scottie got the car in gear, then let the clutch out so fast it almost stalled. Another engine fired up behind us as we lurched over the first hill.

From the house, it was a mile and a half to Ridge Road. The lane dipped and rolled through a series of bends. Scottie kept it in first gear, and we cruised through the turns. Then he remembered second and third, and suddenly we were going sixty.

“Slow down!” I grabbed his shoulder.

Ahead was a dead left turn. There was a small barn past the corner. Scottie kept his speed up, and we flew straight off the road. The car bottomed hard and pitched into a deep dip where it shuddered to a stop. We both looked back and saw the roof of the other car as it took the corner and continued on. I could only tell it was small and sleek—definitely not a police car.

Scottie had never turned on his headlights, so everything was dark. He opened his door, and the overhead lamp flicked on. His face was pale, but he was grinning. “Great, huh?”

“Until we try to get out of here,” I said.

“We just back up the track.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

He'd driven straight onto a tractor path. It looked easily passable. “Yeah, that is pretty great.” Then I heard a hiss.

I got out to check it. The front tire on my side was half flat and losing air fast. “Well, almost great,” I called to him.

I wouldn't let him help change the tire, so he sat in the weeds, criticizing everything I did. “Have you ever done this before?” I asked. He'd just laughed when the tire iron slipped and I scraped my knuckles on the hard dirt.

“No, but I read the owner's manual for my landlady's car once.”

“That makes you an expert?”

“Apparently more than you.”

Ten minutes later, I was finished. The pain in my side had subsided, as long as I didn't bend or laugh. We got back on the road, and this time I did the driving.

“Who do you think that was in the other car?” he asked.

“Maybe a neighbor has a key. They drove by, saw our car parked there and decided to check things out.” I'd also thought about the Acura I'd seen the night before in Palisades. It could have been the same car. I figured Scottie was already stirred up enough, so he didn't need to hear about that.

We reached Ridge Road, and there wasn't another car in sight. “Have you had dinner yet?” I said.

“Not really.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“No.”

“Let's see if Bunny & Bud's is still open.”

B&B was a diner my parents took us to only when it was so late nothing else was open. It was at the south end of Mt. Airy. From a distance, it looked about the same as it always had, a low pile of dark bricks. Getting closer, I could see it had been subdivided. One side was a roadhouse (adults only). The other side was now the B&B Gourmet Grille. The “gourmet” part was priceless, given the grimy sign over the door that said, “Mondays: All You Can Eat Wings Buffet.”

As I parked, Scottie started picking at his hands. “Do you think we should go in?”

“Why not?”

He was looking at three hard-faced men leaning against a pickup truck nearby. “Maybe we'll get beaten up.”

“Tell you what. If a fight breaks out, run.”

He frowned. “What else would I do?”

“Of course. Silly of me to think otherwise.”

Inside, the place wasn't half bad. That late, there were only a few patrons, most lounging over drinks. We picked a booth on the far wall. Our server yawned as we gave her our order—two burgers and two iced teas. Scottie asked for a beer, but I vetoed that. I wanted him relaxed so we could have a talk. I didn't want a beer-induced tantrum.

Partly, I'd made this trip to satisfy my own curiosity. I also wanted to understand why, after so many years, Scottie had become obsessed with the shootings. The death of his mother had a lot to do with it, but there was more, a card he wasn't showing me. The best way in was to get him to talk about the old days.

“Your parents brought us here on your birthday once,” I said. “We had milkshakes.”

“Yeah. You called me a twerp, and I dumped mine all over you.”

“My hair smelled like strawberry for a week.”

“My mom wouldn't buy me another one,” he said sadly.

“We got thrown out of here, Scottie.”

“We could have gone to the Dairy Queen or something.” He kept the sad look, but he was using it to hide a grin.

“Twerp,” I said. Though it hurt like hell, I laughed with him.

The server arrived with our food. I gave Scottie time for his rituals: squaring his plate and silverware, straightening the salt and pepper shakers and the ketchup bottle.