Part 5 (2/2)

Ralphie peered from a tiny c.h.i.n.k in the boarded window with the shotgun in his right hand.

”What'er they doin'?” Nichole asked. Hunkered behind an overturned table across the room, she clutched a Berreta like a lover.

”Dunno. They're all milling around some kind of contraption. Gettin' smart, I guess.” His knuckles whitened around the gun. ”Wait...oh...” Ralphie crouched and scampered away from the window. ”Brace yourself.”

A distant, muted thump sounded, followed by a moment of silence, then a thunderous crash above them, the sound of something big and wet--like a bushel bag of cooked oats--hitting a sheet of metal.

”Ha!”

Nichole frowned at Ralphie. ”What the h.e.l.l was that?”

”One of them. They've built some sort of catapult, tryin' to get in the roof. Not too smart, yet...”

*for the record, the British spelling is intentional

Chapter 29: Old Water.

There was a little bait shop nestled away in the Green Mountains where old men loved to spread stories like compost on fertile young imaginations. ”The water up here is full dead folk. So much history...war...disease.” They laughed while we listened to the tales of those restless, lonesome souls, bobbing under the murk. ”They're waiting,” they said. Those stories p.r.i.c.ked our courage, forced us to ride our bikes with fis.h.i.+ng poles in hand in search of adventure.

Joel knew a place, and we rode to an old stone fence hiding at the edge of a tree line. Through a path between those trees-crooked conifers jutting to heaven with low, untrimmed branches, dying brown pines, and k.n.o.bby arthritic firs-we saw the hint of a large pond. The trees encroached on the very lip of the water, leaving only two bare patches of packed dirt open for fis.h.i.+ng. The land around the pond seemed somehow twisted, crooked, and diseased, resting as it was in purple shadow of those foothills.

As we walked through the dense mesh of grey branches, the path vanished. Our pant legs caught on bits of jagged rocks and downed limbs, swis.h.i.+ng and snagging through the calf-high gra.s.s in small clearings. The trees began to h.o.a.rd sunlight, and the mountains seemed to fold around us. Below the sound of our tramping feet, a slight humming sound grew. ”Do you hear that?” I asked Joel.

”What?”

”The buzz,” I whispered to him. He stopped ahead of me and balanced his pole on the ground.

Slowly turning his head to look over his shoulder all goggle-eyed, he muttered, ”Come here.” Maybe his quavering voice, seeing too much white around his eyes, or the claustrophobic trees spurred my fear. I wanted to leave, climb on the bike and go. But I obeyed him against the growing storm in my stomach.

He didn't need to say anything else. Lying on the ground, jutting out from behind a low, scratchy bush, I saw two legs. Pants really, and shoes, but they had form and shape unlike they would if they were empty. The pants were black, dirty with mud, and torn in places. I thought of Grandpa's funeral and the black suit in which we buried him. The stories of the poor, unhappy dead swirled in my head.

I can't exactly explain the feeling, but the body drew me to it like some sort of obscene gravity-like a lure, a worm on a hook for a curious boy. I rounded the bush and looked on the rest of this grotesque thing. The torso was still covered by a filthy suit coat that had once been black like the pants. My eyes traced one arm to a white, bloated hand covered thickly by black flies. Corrupted by insects and water, what flesh remained s.h.i.+ned like wax or melted fat. The hand seemed to twitch and move, curling those awful dead fingers.

Just then, Joel poked me in the ribs, shouting ”Gotcha!” My body burst with terrible fire, all my nerves lit with fright. I screamed, dropped my fis.h.i.+ng pole, wheeled, pushed the laughing Joel out of my path, and ran without thinking. I hit the stone wall and scrambled over, tearing my pants and carving a long red scratch on my leg. I toppled to the other side, rested against the rough, cold rocks, and tried to catch my breath.

Feeling a little shame at my retreat, I crawled over the wall again. I had to go back, at least to pick up my fis.h.i.+ng pole. That's when Joel screamed. I dodged through the trees, followed a splas.h.i.+ng sound, and saw my friend thras.h.i.+ng in the middle of the pond with a white hand wrapped tightly around his throat.

I really ran then, not stopping until I reached the village and sobbed my tale to the police. They dragged the water for Joel's body, but they never found him. Officially, he became a runaway, a boy on the side of a milk carton.

I know what really happened. I'll show you the place. Maybe you'd like to bring a fis.h.i.+ng pole or even go for a swim?

Chapter 30: Casualties.

Two boys with toy rifles crawl through a drainage ditch at the far end of the high school practice field. The fog smudges distant buildings into blots of ink. Both boys stop and gaze out of the ditch.

”They're coming,” says the taller of the two, a ten-year-old with too much black hair in a curly heap on top of his head. He rolls over, digs into the cargo pocket of his pants, and draws out a roll of black electrical tape.

”All right, Jack. Who is it this time?” The other boy, thin enough to slip between the posts on the guardrail at the zoo, wipes his nose on a s.h.i.+rt sleeve.

Jack peels a section of tape from the roll and starts covering the orange cap at the end of his play gun. ”The Germans, Gabe. The Germans.”

Gabe frowns. ”I'm tired of playing world war.”

Jack pokes out his tongue. ”Who is it then?”

”Maybe we're protecting the homestead from border ruffians?” Gabe aims his rifle into the fog. A new shape appears as a black scribble against the white backdrop.

”With these rifles? These are M1s, Gabe. They didn't have M1s in the old west.” Jack tacks one last piece of tape on his gun. ”There.”

”What're you doing?”

A smile splits across Jack's face. ”Covering up that stupid safety tip. Now this looks like a real gun.”

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