Ashes Read online

"Where?"

  "Out," he said. "You know."

  She slid a plate of steaming macaroni in front of him. Dexter could see dried egg yolk clinging to the edge of the plate. "How was school?"

  "The usual."

  "Hmm. What you going to be for Halloween?"

  “I don’t know. I’m getting too old for dress-up and make-believe.”

  “Whatever.” She opened the refrigerator. It was empty except for a dozen cans of beer, a wilted stalk of celery, and something in a Tupperware dish that had a carpet of green stuff across the top.

  Dexter watched as she cracked a beer. She was red. Her hands were red, her face was red, her eyes were red.

  "You not hungry?" she asked.

  "No. Maybe later."

  "Well, you need to eat. You'll get me in trouble with Social Services again."

  "To hell with them."

  "Dexter! If your Grandma heard that kind of language—"

  –the old bag would probably slap me upside the head.

  But the good thing about Grandma, she always felt guilty afterwards. She would go out and buy something nice to make up for it. Like the pocketknife or the BB gun. Or a new pet.

  He didn't mind if Grandma made his ears ring. At least with her, there was profit in it. With Mom or Dad, all he got was a scar to show for it. Maybe Grandma loved him most. He picked up his fork and scooted some noodles around.

  "That's a good boy," Mom said. She bent and kissed him on top of the head. Her breath smelled like a casket full of molded grain. "Your eye's looking better. Swelling ought to be down by tomorrow. At least enough for you to go to school."

  Dexter smiled weakly and shoved some macaroni in his mouth. He chewed until she left the room. The telephone rang. Mom must have finally had it reconnected.

  "Hello?" he heard her say.

  Dexter looked at her. He could tell by her crinkled forehead that Dad was on the other end, trying to worm his way back into the bed he'd paid for with the sweat of his goddamned brow, under the roof he'd laid with his own two motherfucking hands. And no snotty-eyed bitch had a right to keep him out of his own goddamned house and away from his only son. Now that it was getting toward winter—

  "You know you're not supposed to be calling me," she said into the phone. She bit her lip as Dad responded with what was most likely a stream of cusswords.

  That was the problem with Dad. No subtlety. If only he'd play it smooth and easy, pretending to care about her, he'd be back in no time. And after a few months of acting, family life could go back to the way it was before. Back to normal.

  But the bastard couldn't control himself. Why couldn't he just shut up and pretend to love her? It was easy. Everybody else was doing it.

  Riley Baldwin down the road said that was the secret. The word "love."

  "Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em," he always said, with all the wisdom of an extra year and two more inches of height. "Works like magic."

  Said love had gotten him a hand up under Tammy Lynn Goolsby's dress. And Grandma said she loved Dexter. Of course, that was different, that kind of love gave you presents. Love got you what you wanted, if you used it right, even if it hurt sometimes.

  "Don't you dare set foot near this place or I'll call the cops," Mom screeched into the phone. Her face turned from red to a bruised shade of purple.

  She stuttered into the phone a couple of times and slammed the handset down, then drained the last half of her beer. As she went past him to get to the refrigerator, she didn't notice that Dexter hadn't eaten his dinner. He slipped away to his tiny cluttered bedroom and closed the door. He stayed there until Mom had time to pass out again. He fell asleep listening to her snores and the racket of the television.

  Nobody said a word about his black eye at school the next day. Riley was waiting for him when he got off the bus. Riley had skipped. Dexter wished he could, too, but he didn't want Mom to get another visit from the Social Services people, showing up in their squeaky shoes and perfume and acting like they knew how to run a family they didn't belong to.

  "Got my .22 hid in the woods," Riley said, showing the gaps in his teeth as he grinned. His eyes gleamed under the shade of his Caterpillar ball cap.

  "Cool, dude. Let me get my BB gun."

  Riley waited by the back door. Dexter dropped his books in a pool of gray grease on the dining room table, then got his gun out of his room. Mom wasn't around. Maybe she'd gotten one of her boyfriends to make a liquor run to the county line. A note was stuck to the refrigerator, in Mom’s wobbly handwriting: “Stay out of trouble. Love you.”

  Dexter joined Riley and they went into the woods. Riley retrieved his gun from where he had buried it under some leaves. He tapped his pocket and something rattled. "Got a half box of bullets."

  "Killed anything with that yet?"

  "Nope. But maybe I can get one of those stripedy-assed chipmunks."

  "Them things are quick."

  "Hey, a little blood sacrifice is all it takes."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Breaking it in right." Riley patted the barrel of the gun. "Making them pay for messing with me."

  Riley led the way down the trail, through Dexter's pet cemetery and over the creek. Dexter followed in his buddy's footsteps, watching the tips of his own brown boots. October hung in scraps of yellow and red on the trees. The shadows of the trees grew longer and thicker as the sun slipped down the sky.

  Riley stopped after a few minutes of silent stalking. "What's up with your dad?" he asked.

  "Not much. Same old."

  "That must be a pain in the ass, seeing him every other weekend or so."

  "Yeah. He ain't figured out the game."

  "What game?"

  "You know. Love. Like you said."

  "Oh, yeah. Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em."

  "If he played the game, we wouldn't have Social Services messing around all the time."

  "Them sons of bitches are all alike. The cops, the truant officers, the principal. It don't matter what the fuck you do. They always get you anyway."

  "I reckon so." Dexter's stomach was starting to hurt. He changed the subject. "What was it like, with Tammy Lynn?"

  Riley's face stretched into a jack-o'-lantern leer and he thrust out his bony chest. "Hey, she'll let me do anything. All you got to do is love ‘em. I know how to reach 'em down deep."

  "Did she let you....?"

  Riley twiddled his fingers in the air, then held them to his nose and sniffed.

  "What about the other stuff?" Dexter asked.

  "That's next, buddy-row. As soon as I want it."

  "Why don't you want to? I thought you said she'd do anything."

  Riley's thick eyebrows lowered, shading the rage that glinted in his eyes. He turned and started back down the trail toward the creek. "Ain't no damned birds left to shoot. Your loud-assed yakking has scared them all away."

  Dexter hurried after him. The edge of the sky was red and golden. The forest was darker now, and the moist evening air had softened the leaves under their feet. Mom would be waking up soon to start on her second drunk of the day.

  They walked in silence, Riley hunched over with his rifle tilted toward the ground, Dexter trailing like a puppy that had been kicked by its master. It was nearly dark when they reached the clearing. Riley jumped over the creek and looked back. His eyes flashed, but his face was nothing but sharp shadows.

  Dexter hurdled the creek, caving in a section of muddy bank and nearly sliding into the water. He grabbed a root with one hand and scrambled up on his elbows and knees, his belly on the rim of the bank. When he looked up, Riley was pointing the rifle at him. Dad had taught Dexter about gun safety, and the first rule, the main rule, was to never point a loaded gun at somebody. Even a dickwit like Riley ought to know that.

  "You ever kill anybody?" Riley was wearing his jack-o'-lantern expression again, but this time the grin was full of jagged darkness.

  "Kill anybody?" Dexter tried not to whimper. He didn't want Riley t
o know how scared he was.

  "Blood sacrifice."

  Riley was just crazy enough to kill him, to leave him out here leaking in the night, on the same ground where Dexter had carved up a dozen animals. Dexter tried to think of how Dad would handle this situation. "Quit screwing around, Riley."

  "If I want to screw around, I'll do it with Tammy Lynn."

  "I didn't mean nothing when I said that."

  "I can get it any time I want it."

  "Sure, sure," Dexter was talking too fast, but he couldn't stop the words. He focused on the tip of Riley’s boot, the scuffed leather and the smear of grease. "You know how to tell 'em. You’re the magic man."

  Riley lowered the gun a little. "Damn straight."

  It was almost as if Dexter were talking to the boot, he was close enough to kiss it. "Just gotta tell 'em that you love 'em, right?"

  Riley laughed then, and cool sweat trickled down the back of Dexter's neck. Maybe Dexter wasn't going to die after all, here among the bones and rotten meat of his victims. The boot moved away and Dexter dared to look up. Riley was among the thicket of holly and laurel now, the gun pointed away, and Dexter scrambled to his feet.

  He saw for the first time how creepy the clearing was, with the trees spreading knotty arms all around and the laurels crouched like big animals. The place was alive, hungry, holding its breath and waiting for the next kill.

  "Tell you what," Riley said, growing taller in the twilight, a looming force. "Come here tomorrow after school. Be real quiet and watch from behind the bushes. I'll get her all the way."

  Dexter nodded in the dark. Then he remembered. “But tomorrow’s Halloween.”

  “What the hell else you got to do? Go around begging for candy with the babies?”

  He couldn’t let Riley know he was scared. “No, it’s just—”

  "Better fucking be here," Riley said.

  Dexter ran down the trail toward home, his stomach fluttering. He was half scared and half excited about what he was going to witness, what he dared not miss.

  Mom was slumped over the kitchen table, a pile of empty beer cans around her chair. An overturned bottle leaked brown liquid into her lap. Dexter hurried to the bed before she woke up and asked for a goodnight hug or else decided he needed a beating for something-or-other.

  The next day after school, he went straight from the bus to the clearing. The sky was cloudy and heavy with dampness. He heard voices as he crawled on his hands and knees through the undergrowth. He looked through a gap in the branches. Riley sat on the ground, talking to Tammy Lynn, who was leaning against the big oak tree.

  Tammy Lynn's blonde hair was streaked with red dye. She already looked fourteen. Her chest stretched the fabric of her white sweater. Freckles littered her face. She had cheeks like a chipmunk's, puffed and sad.

  Riley rubbed her knee beneath the hem of her dress. He glanced to his left at the bushes where Dexter was hiding. Dexter gulped. His stomach was puke-shivery.

  "I love you," Riley said to Tammy Lynn.

  She giggled. She wore lipstick, and her mouth was a thin red scar across her pale face. Riley leaned forward and kissed her.

  He pulled his face away. She touched her lower lip where her lipstick had smeared. Riley's hand snaked farther under her dress. She clamped her legs closed.

  "Don't, Riley," she whispered.

  "Aw, come on, baby."

  "I don't want to."

  "Hey, I said I loved you. It's okay to do it if I love you."

  "I'm scared."

  Riley stopped rubbing her. He spoke so low that Dexter barely heard. "Pretend you’re a princess and I’m a prince, and we’re in a fairy tale. Don't you love me?"

  Tammy Lynn lowered her eyes. Riley cupped her chin and tilted her face up. Her cheeks were pink from shame or fear.

  "Don't you love me?" Riley repeated, and this time he was wearing his jack-o'-lantern face. Tammy Lynn nodded slowly. Dexter's stomach felt as if he'd swallowed a handful of hot worms.

  "If you love me, then you owe me," Riley said. She shook her head from side to side, her hair swaying against her shoulders.

  Riley suddenly drove his hand deeper under her dress. Tammy Lynn gave a squeal of surprise and tried to twist away. Riley grabbed her sweater and pulled her towards the ground. Bits of bark clung to her back.

  "No," she moaned, flailing at his hands as he wrestled her to the ground. One of her silver-polished nails raked across Riley's nose. He drew back his arm and slapped her. She cried out in pain.

  Dexter hadn't counted on it being like this. He almost ran out from under the bushes to help her. But he thought of Riley and the gun. Dexter could barely breathe, his gut clenching like he was going to throw up, but he couldn't look away.

  Riley pinned her down with one arm and moved between her legs. He covered her mouth and Tammy Lynn screamed into his palm. They struggled for a few seconds more before Riley shoved away from her. He stood and fastened his pants. Tammy Lynn was crying.

  "I told you I loved you," Riley said, as if he were disgusted at some cheap toy that had broken. Then he looked at the laurels and winked, but Dexter saw that his hands were shaking. Dexter hoped they couldn't see him. The shiver in his stomach turned into a drumroll of tiny ice punches.

  Tammy Lynn was wailing now. Her dress was bunched around her waist. Scraps of leaves stuck to her ankle socks. One of her shoes had fallen off.

  "Works like magic," Riley said, too loudly, his voice a hoarse blend of triumph and fear. “I told you I loved you, didn’t I?”

  He kicked some loose leaves toward her and walked down the trail. He would want Dexter to follow so he could crow about the conquest. But Dexter's muscles were jelly. He couldn't take his eyes away from Tammy Lynn.

  She sat up, her sobs less forceful now. She slowly pushed her dress hem down to her knees, moving like one of those movie zombies. She stared at her fingers as if some tiny treasure had been ripped out of her hands. Tears streamed down her face, and a strand of blood creased one side of her chin. Her lower lip was swollen.

  She stood on her skinny legs, wobbling like a foal. Her dress hung unevenly. She looked around the clearing with eyes that were too wide. Dexter shrank back under the laurels, afraid to be seen, afraid that he was supposed to help her and couldn’t.

  Blood ran down her legs, the bright red streaks of it vivid against her skin. Drops spattered onto the leaves between her feet. She looked down and saw the blood and made a choking sound in her throat. She waved her hands in the air for a moment, then ran into the woods, not down the trail but in the direction of the road that bordered one side of the forest. She'd forgotten her shoe.

  Dexter lifted himself from the ground and stared at the dark drops of blood. Rain began to fall, slightly thicker than the mist. He parted the waxy laurel leaves and stepped into the clearing.

  Blood. Blood sacrifice. On Halloween, when anything could happen. The clearing was alive again, the sky waiting and the trees watching, the ground hungry.

  Dexter felt dizzy, as if his head was packed with soggy cotton. He knelt suddenly and vomited. When his stomach was empty, he leaned back and let the rain run down his face. That way, Riley wouldn't be able to tell that he had been crying.

  He looked down at the shoe for a moment, then stumbled down the trail toward home. He expected Riley to be waiting by the porch, the sleeves rolled up on his denim jacket, arms folded. But Riley was gone. Dexter went in the house.

  "Hey, honey," Mom said, not looking up as the screen door slammed. She was watching a rerun of "Highway To Heaven."

  "Find your rabbit?" she asked.

  "No."

  "Dinner will be ready soon."

  "I'm not hungry. I'm going to my room."

  “You ain’t going trick-or-treat?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  "You sick?" She glanced away from the television and looked at him suspiciously. The smell of old beer and the food scraps on the counter brought back Dexter's nausea.

 
"No. Just got some homework," he managed to lie through quivering lips.

  "Homework, like hell. When you ever done homework? Your clothes are dirty. What have you been up to?"

  "I fell at school. You know it was raining?"

  "And me with laundry on the line," she said. As if it were the sky's fault, and there was nothing a body could do when the whole damned sky was against them. She looked back to the television, took two swallows of beer, and belched. He wondered what she would give out if any trick-or-treaters dared come down their dangerous street and knock on the door.

  On the television screen, Michael Landon was sticking his nose into somebody else's business again. Dexter looked at the actor's smug close-up for a moment, then tiptoed to his room. His thoughts suffocated him in the coffin of his bed.

  Maybe he should have picked up Tammy Lynn's shoe. Then he could give it back to her, even if he couldn't give back the other things. Like in Cinderella, sort of. But then she would know. And that was like fairy tale love, and Dexter didn’t ever want to love anything as long as he lived.

  Anyway, Riley had a gun. He thought of Riley pointing the gun at him, that moment in the woods when he thought the tip of Riley’s boot would be the last thing he ever saw. The boot, the shoe, the blood. Dexter finally fell asleep to the sound of whatever movie Mom was using for a drinking buddy that night.

  He dreamed of Tammy Lynn. She was splayed out beneath him in the clearing, the collar tight around her neck, the leash wrapped around his left fist. She was naked, but her features were formless, milky abstractions. He was holding his knife against her cheek. Her eyes were twin beggars, pools of scream, wet horror. He woke up sweating, his stomach shivery, his eyes moist. He’d wet the bed again.

  Rain drummed off the roof. He thought of the blood, watered down and spreading now, soaking into the soil. Her blood sacrifice, the price she paid for love. He didn't get back to sleep.

  He dressed just as the rain dwindled. By the time he went outside, the sun was fighting through a smudge of clouds. The air was as thick as syrup, and nobody stirred in the houses along the street. The whole world had a hangover.

  Dexter went down the trail. He wasn't sure why. Maybe he wanted to relive the day before, the struggle, the tears, the drops of blood. Maybe he wanted to get the shoe.