Dark Screams, Volume 8 Read online

  Whatever theory one chose to believe, the facts remained simple and immutable: Howard’s manuscript and shredded, bloody clothing were discovered by his landlady after his rent fell due; other than Walpuski, the only thing that seemed to be missing from his apartment was his typewriter; and—perhaps less significant, but certainly no less puzzling—three half-starved cats were discovered in the back of his Ford Econoline van.

  Ironically, the final word belonged to Iggy Feinwold. In wrapping up the 60 Minutes segment on the meteoric career and baffling disappearance of Howard Walpuski, Mike Wallace leaned forward, narrowed his most trenchant reporter’s gaze, and said, “Tell me, Mr. Feinwold. Was Howard Walpuski a genius?”

  Iggy, knowing an Important Question when he heard one, paused and tried to come up with an equally Important Answer. He puffed his Cuban cigar and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling.

  “A genius?” he said finally. “Yes, you could say he was a genius. But more than that, he was a driven man.”

  “Driven?”

  “Yes, driven,” said Iggy, nodding sagely. “More than anyone I’ve ever known; he threw himself completely into his work. Headfirst.”

  The Boy

  Bentley Little

  It was only their third day in the house. Kent had left for work, and Christine was outside, watering the flowerbed that abutted the driveway. She should have been inside, unpacking, but the sight of all those boxes was overwhelming, and being outside gave her a brief respite from the stress that had been her constant companion for the past two weeks. Neither she nor Kent knew anyone in the neighborhood, and when she saw two women talking on the sidewalk in front of the house next door, she took the initiative, walked over, and introduced herself.

  Jenna was the woman who lived at the house, a divorced mom with full custody of her son, who went to John Hancock, the neighborhood elementary school. Slim, chic, and friendly, she looked like the kind of mother shown in detergent commercials, and Christine found it refreshingly easy to talk to her. The other woman, Samantha (“Sam for short”), lived down the block with her husband and two daughters in a two-story home with a tastefully landscaped yard that Christine had been admiring since before they even bought their house. Both women were stay-at-home moms, and for that Christine was grateful. She and Kent were trying to get pregnant, and she’d quit her job last March. She not only had a lot of free time on her hands, but there was also an unfamiliar lack of daily social interaction that was bothering her far more than she thought it would have.

  So she was happy to meet other women living in the neighborhood.

  Jenna, it turned out, lived on a very generous alimony check from her ex, had started the local neighborhood watch program, and hosted a bimonthly book club at her house as well as meetings of the ladies’ auxiliary. Her son, Wylie, was quite the athlete, playing soccer, football, baseball, and basketball. Though only in fifth grade, he was already John Hancock’s student body president. Sam’s husband, Mike, was an orthodontist, and she herself was active in her church and president of the gardening club. Her daughters were both Pop Warner cheerleaders.

  Christine felt very comfortable as the three of them talked, thinking that when she and Kent did have a child, this would be a good neighborhood for him or her to grow up in, these would be good neighbors to have.

  As they were chatting, the slight breeze that had been ruffling her hair shifted slightly, and the air became permeated with a growing stench, a horrible smell reminiscent of rotten eggs and feces. She wasn’t going to say anything, wasn’t going to mention it, wanting to be polite, but Jenna nodded toward a young boy walking past them on the other side of the street, following several yards behind a group of giggling girls. “It’s him,” she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Every time that kid walks down the sidewalk, he smells up the entire street.”

  “That can’t be true,” Christine said. “From this far away?”

  “Oh, it’s true,” Sam assured her.

  Indeed, as the boy moved past the house opposite them, the smell started to dissipate.

  Jenna leaned over confidingly. “He’s not in soccer, you know. And he’s not in Boy Scouts.”

  Is he…?” Christine held her hand out flat, palm down, and toggled it back and forth: suburban sign language for gay.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  “The mom barely speaks English,” Sam added. “She’s Middle Eastern, I think. She came to our first PTA meeting last year, and was so nervous when she got up to introduce herself during the meet-and-greet that she was sweating. You could see, like, this little mustache of sweat on her upper lip. She was wearing one of those weird robelike things and a head scarf, and no one could even understand her accent. Even she knew she didn’t fit in, because she never came to another meeting.”

  Christine watched the boy reach the end of the block and turn right. There were other students passing by on their way to school, most of them in pairs, some in groups; the boy seemed to be the only one walking entirely by himself.

  “Well, I need to get going,” Sam said. “I have a yoga class this morning.”

  Jenna nodded. “And I need to walk the dog before he goes stir-crazy.”

  “It was nice meeting you both,” Christine told them.

  She knew she needed to continue unpacking once she finished watering, and she was dreading the prospect. The day stretching in front of her seemed endless. So when Jenna said, “Hey, would you like to come over after lunch, have a little get-to-know-you tea?” Christine jumped at the offer.

  “Sure,” she said.

  Jenna looked over at Sam. “You in?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Jenna smiled. “See you at one.”

  —

  “I met a couple of our neighbors today,” Christine told Kent at dinner.

  “And…?”

  “I like them. Jenna lives next door. Divorced. Lives with her son. I think he’s ten; I’m not sure. Sam, Samantha, lives in that nice house up the block. The one with the yard? She and her husband have two girls, cheerleaders.”

  “Cheerleaders? Wow, that’s impressive.”

  “Knock it off. They’re nice people.”

  “Well, good. You’ve earned your keep today. We should get to know our neighbors.”

  Christine paused. “A weird thing happened, though. This morning? While we were on the sidewalk talking? All of a sudden there was this…sewage smell. I had no idea where it was coming from, but it turned out to be this boy on his way to school.”

  Kent frowned, confused. “The sewage smell came from a boy?”

  “Yeah. I thought they might be joking at first when they told me, but they weren’t. And I swear as soon as the kid passed by, the smell was gone.” She dropped the subject. “Anyway, I met our neighbors this morning when I was watering, and then Jenna invited me over after lunch, so we could talk.”

  “And what did you talk about?”

  “Oh…things.”

  “So that’s why nothing’s been unpacked.”

  “I did some of it. Besides,” she said pointedly, “it would go a lot faster if I had a little help. How am I supposed to know what you want to do with all those old Dodgers souvenirs?”

  Kent laughed. “Okay, okay,” he said. “After dinner. We’ll work on it together.”

  —

  It happened again the next day.

  Christine wasn’t watering this time. Kent had left early for the office, and she’d gotten up early as well, eating a quick breakfast, putting on her work clothes, and unpacking. She’d sorted through several boxes already, and was outside trying to squish some of the empty boxes down and fit the flattened cardboard in the recycling bin before the garbage men came, when she smelled that disgusting stench. Looking across the street, she saw a staggered line of children walking, running, and skipping down the sidewalk.

  The boy walked alone. An older boy rushed by, knocked the books out of his hand, and ran away, laughing. The smelly boy stopped, knel
t down, and picked up his books resignedly, as though this was something that happened to him all the time. He moved slowly, and Christine wondered if he might be a little bit retarded. That definitely seemed like a possibility, but it didn’t engender any sympathy within her. She found the deliberateness of his actions annoying, and she understood why other kids would want to knock things out of his hands.

  She’d been holding her breath, trying not to smell the foul air, but she had to inhale, and as she did so she gagged. It was as though a Roto-Rooter man had taken the black gunk that had been clogging bathroom plumbing and dumped it in an overflowing catbox. It was all she could do not to vomit in the front yard, and she held her nose as she dashed back into the house, barely making it to the toilet in time.

  Later that morning, she went over to see Jenna. Her neighbor opened the door wearing workout clothes and drinking from a water bottle. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m in the middle of my routine.”

  “I didn’t mean to bother you,” Christine apologized. “I’ll come back later.”

  “Nonsense. Come on in. It’s time for me to take a break anyway.”

  She followed Jenna inside. “I was just wondering: Is there something we can do about that boy? I was outside this morning, putting out some garbage, and the smell was so bad I actually threw up! I don’t want to go through that every day. Can’t we talk to his parents or the school or the city or…something?”

  Jenna shrugged. “I don’t think so. It’s a free country. You can smell how you want.”

  “But doesn’t the school have some obligation to protect the kids? I mean, what must it be like to be in a classroom with that? It’s distracting, to say the least. Can’t they pull him aside or have a meeting with his parents and give them all some sort of hygiene lecture?”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Jenna said reflectively. “I’ll talk to the principal about it when I pick up Wylie this afternoon. She’s a friend of mine. I’ll see what she says.”

  “You haven’t talked to her about it before?”

  “It’s none of my business. He’s not in the same grade as Wylie, so my son doesn’t have any contact with him. And I’ve never had as…violent a reaction as you. Just a minor annoyance, really.” She chuckled. “You really threw up?”

  Christine smiled. “I really did.”

  Jenna patted her hand. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  —

  The phone rang while Christine was cutting chicken. It was after five, but Kent still wasn’t home yet. She was tempted to let the machine pick it up, but just in case it was Kent calling to tell her that the car broke down or something, she grabbed a paper towel, wiped her hands, and answered. “Hello?”

  “Christine? Jenna. I talked to the principal. About that boy? She said there’d been no complaints by any of the students or teachers.”

  “Did you explain?”

  “I tried to.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She tried to make out like I was the problem, said the food that different ethnicities eat smells different than ours, and we have to be tolerant. She tried to paint me as some kind of bigot.” Jenna sounded angry. “She’s out of my book club. Out!”

  Christine couldn’t believe it. “Different food smells differently? That’s not just some weird spice that we smell when he opens his lunch pail. He’s all the way across the street and it smells like he took a shit in a sulfur bath!”

  “Don’t I know it.” She could hear the smile in Jenna’s voice. “ ‘Shit in a sulfur bath,’ huh? That’s a pretty good one.”

  Christine smiled to herself. “Yeah, I guess it is. But that is what he smells like.”

  Jenna sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to stay inside, close the doors and windows, and wait for him to go by.”

  “I guess we will,” Christine agreed.

  —

  But she didn’t stay inside. She couldn’t. The boy held some kind of weird fascination for her, and the next morning found her sitting on her front stoop, reading the newspaper. That’s what people in suburbia did, right? Sat outside on a nice day?

  Jenna’s car pulled into the driveway next door, and she and Sam got out. Apparently they’d carpooled with their kids to school. They saw Christine sitting on the stoop and walked over, waving. “Hey!”

  “Morning,” Christine greeted them.

  “Bet you can’t guess who’s coming!” Jenna teased.

  “We saw him as we drove by,” Sam confided.

  He was walking on their side of the street today, and as if on cue, he passed by the foot of Christine’s driveway. This close, she could see that he did indeed have a Middle Eastern look. It was there in his dark skin, in the bright colors and unfamiliar patterns of his shirt. There was a slight breeze, and it was blowing away from them, thank God, so she could not smell him today, but he looked dirty. Even the schoolbooks in his hand appeared to be covered with a layer of grime. Another boy passing by on a bike threw a peach at his head, and the boy ducked, the peach skittering across the sidewalk.

  Christine could not help smiling.

  The boy looked over at her, as though sensing that she found this humorous, and for a second their eyes locked. She could feel the hatred in that gaze and was the one to look away. How dare he be angry at me when he’s the one reeking up the goddamn street? She turned back again to look at him, but he was gone, having passed by.

  She turned toward her friends. “Did you see that? Well, that was rude!”

  “He should just do the world a favor and die.” Sam widened her eyes and put her hand over her mouth, as if in shock at what she’d just said, then suddenly burst out laughing.

  Jenna laughed, too. “Maybe he could drown in a vat of perfume.”

  Sam was laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Jenna told her. “We’ve all thought it. And we’re probably not the only ones.”

  “Except for the principal,” Christine offered.

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “Who put the stick up her butt?” Her eyes widened again, she put her hand over her mouth, then burst out laughing.

  Then they were all laughing.

  —

  The next morning, he walked to school early. Christine, inside, saw him through the window, and though there were few other children on the sidewalks, two screaming girls still ran by, pushed the boy over, and kept running. She chuckled at the sight of him flailing on the ground, his heavy backpack making his effort look like he was an overturned turtle trying to right itself. Then he stood, looked across the street at her house, and glared.

  Little bastard, she thought.

  The next day, he came late. The street was empty, working adults having gone to work, school-age children having gone to school, stay-at-home moms staying inside their homes. Christine was taking a break from rearranging furniture and was outside planting a chrysanthemum that Jenna had given her the other day as a housewarming present. She smelled him before she saw him, the terrible odor wafting to her on the slight hint of a breeze, and her first thought was that he was going to be late for school. Good! She looked across the street for him, then jumped when she saw him pass by the sidewalk right in front of her.

  She let out a startled gasp, and he turned to look at her. Is that disdain on his face? Anger? Hatred? Whatever it was, it was on his face for only a second, because, not looking where he was going, he tripped over the handle of her shovel, sticking out onto the sidewalk. He fell forward, but, with no warning, he had no chance to break the fall. He landed on the concrete headfirst, arms still at his sides, hands clutching his books.

  There was an audible crack!

  Christine jumped up. Her instinct should have been to help him, but instead her thoughts were on whether she would be blamed for this. Before checking to see if he was all right, she pulled the shovel back and threw it on the lawn, so if anyone happened to drive by or look out of their window at that moment, it would appear
that he’d tripped over his own feet rather than over one of her tools. Just to be on the safe side, she reached over and pulled the lace on one of his shoes, untying it so people would ascribe fault to that.

  He was not getting up, which was a bad sign, but he was moaning, so he was still alive. The smell in her nostrils was almost unbearable, but she ignored it and knelt down to examine him more carefully. He had fallen face-forward but had somehow twisted as he fell and was now sort of lying on his side. A growing puddle of blood was seeping out from beneath his head. He glared at her with undisguised hatred, and the thought occurred to her that she could leave him there, clean up her gardening mess, go inside, and let nature take its course.

  But once he was rescued, he would report what had happened. She might be able to convince people that the head injury had scrambled his thoughts, and she might actually get away with it—but, then again, she might not.

  She couldn’t go to jail just because this little shit didn’t look where he was going and tripped over her shovel.

  He was still glaring at her, and, without thinking, she grabbed a hank of his hair.

  Lifted his head.

  Dropped it.

  There was another crack! and this time the moaning stopped. There was no movement, and the eyes staring back at her were glassy.

  Just in case, she lifted his head and dropped it again.

  Then went inside to call 911.

  —

  How was she going to tell Kent? What was she going to tell him? She should have called as soon as it happened. The paramedics took the body away quickly, but the police were there for a while, and the time to have phoned him would have been then. She could even have called right after they left. But instead she’d stayed outside, talking to the gathering neighbors, telling the same story over and over again, before going inside, making lunch, then sitting in front of the TV for the rest of the afternoon, watching CNN, almost as though she thought the news of the boy’s death would be televised.