B-Movie Reels (16 page)

He gawked at the bustling locusts that crowded every inch of the car, nudging the vehicle, their tiny feet clicking against the metal, their din a sharing of thoughts in their insect speech. The metal kept giving, and it sounded like a steady pounding of hail as the car crunched and gave under the pressure.
 

Guessing their motives, he shouted in horror, “They’re going to break the windows!”

The scratch of glass, a razor’s edge against a chalkboard, accelerated to a painful screech. Every inch around them pulsed green, enveloping them in an insane light show. Hundreds upon hundreds of them ate the paint from the car, flecks of it flying like metallic confetti. The bumper was suddenly torn from the front end and every tire burst, giving out loud pops. The car sank to the ground, hunkered down.
 

Betsy demanded in a high-pitched squeal, “What do you want me to do? They’re going to kill us—
whatever the fuck they
are!
”

He reached out to start the car.
 
When he turned the key, there was no response.
 
The engine had been destroyed by the bugs shortly after the hood had been ripped off, he realized. It would be stupid to face the locusts without a shelter, he reasoned, so he stayed in the car. But what would they do if and when the windows shattered? Betsy’s continual screams shot to pieces any logical thinking.
 

The windows shattered at the same time, and the locusts swarmed in, the pulsing, neon green flooding inside the car.

Their war chant was deafening,
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

They tore the console and ate up the leather interior, chewing with voracious appetite. The gnashing of insect wings caused his ears to bleed, and he could feel the warmth flood down his neck. The windshield forked into cracks and then quickly exploded. The touch of hundreds of small legs raced up and down his body. It was seconds before he was bleeding from numerous centimeter-long wounds, stinging like paper cuts. He struggled to open the door, unable to get a grip, and so deep in shock he failed to realize his fingers were bare phalanges.
 

Reeling from the rapid blood loss, Ralph turned in time to see Betsy’s steel-toed boots flail at empty air as she was hoisted through the window and into the woods, hovering high up in the sky as pieces of her rained down in liquid form. Her shrieks softened as more of her disappeared, engulfed in neon green and flowing blood.
 

Before her body vanished, Ralph’s body was completely picked clean of skin.
 

Chapter Eight

1

“What do you mean your father’s missing?” Andy stared into Mary-Sue’s concerned face. She clung to both sides of his shirt, as if doing so was evidence of her truthfulness. “Okay, let’s start from the beginning. When’s the last time you saw him?”

Her soft eyes searched through the darkened woods as if her father was coming up over the hill, so hopeful. But then her face lost its hold and went slack, on the verge of another emotional breakdown. He stroked her auburn hair without realizing it, the impulse to comfort her cued instinct. “Come inside and sit down, okay? Tell me all about what’s going on. I’m sure it’s not something we can’t fix.”

He recalled Jimmy’s car parked behind a set of trees half a block down from his house. Andy did his best not to jump to conclusions despite Mary-Sue’s crying. He guided her to the leather chair, and she plopped down with her knees cradled up to her body. She eyed the bottle of McCormick’s whiskey, and he handed it to her.
 

“Take a drink if it’ll calm you down. And you’re shivering. You’re cold.”

He gathered his Iowa State sweatshirt and draped it over her. In the moment she pulled up to the house distraught, he’d forgotten what had happened the other night and their misunderstanding. It didn’t appear to matter to her now.
 

He waited for her to speak up after two long pulls from the bottle.
 

“This is hard to tell you because it involves you and the house.”

“Me and the house? What are you talking about?”

She placed her hand over his and offered an apologetic look. “It’s nothing against you, Andy. You’re a nice guy. I know we just met, and it was a mean thing to pull, but it was my father who pressured me to do it. He threatened to kick me out of the house if I didn’t. Andy, I don’t have a job, I’m not married, and I have no idea what I want to do with my life. Without my father, I can’t make it.”

“Don’t you have other family?”
 

“None that would take care of me,” she sobbed. “But that’s beside the point.”

He patted her back, giving her the benefit of the doubt. “You have a friend in me, okay? And who says your dad is in trouble? You want to go looking for him? I’ll search with you.”

“I’ve looked all day.” She turned her eyes up to Andy’s, and they were swimming in tears. “I went to the police, and they told me I have to wait. My dad has a habit of disappearing without telling me and then turning up much later. But this time I’m really concerned.”

“What were you about to tell me? You said he made you do something. What does it have to do with me and the house?”

Mary-Sue’s chin quivered. “I’m sorry I did this to you, Andy. Please forgive me.”

“What is it? It’s best you just throw it out there.”

“My father,” she whispered, “he made me do it. I like you, Andy. I hope you’re still my friend after I explain everything. My father knows a lot about your late uncle. He’d drink with James in his back yard sometimes and shoot the breeze. James would tell him stories about his magic shows. He even showed my father his stage props. That’s why he was disappointed when he heard James burned most of them. I guess James became a cult celebrity. And then one of my father’s nephews contacted him about the possibility of finding something of James’s to sell for big money.

“And that’s when your other uncle began staying at the place and taking care of the property and trying to sell it. My father tried many times to search the house for something to steal that belonged to James, but Ned locked the place up, and my father didn’t want to get caught for breaking and entering. He was a coward when it came to the idea of prison. His brother went to prison for assault charges for seven years, and when he was released he had scars to show him. Bad scars in unbelievable places. Uncle Mike had been stabbed in the back with a razor blade in the showers, almost strangled to death with an electrical cord, beaten with a pillow case full of broken up rocks, and raped. Uncle Mike used to be a cop, and they don’t treat cops well in prison. When you showed up the other day and Ned left, my father decided to check the house. He convinced me to invite you over and and…seduce you.”

“I knew something was wrong with the way you approached me. It didn’t seem natural. So your father was at my house when I came over?”

“Yes. The plan was to get you out long enough for him to comb over the property. My father wants to retire, and he promised me a piece of the action. I didn’t really believe him, but I depend on him for so much right now. I can’t wait to break away from him, I swear to you, Andy. All I need is some money and a descent job, and I’m gone.”

“Well,” he sighed, surprised that he wasn’t upset, “it doesn’t look like he took anything. I’m not mad, okay? You’re so scared. If that’s what bothered you so much, we can move on. It’s okay.”

“He hasn’t come back since then, and that’s why I’m here. I haven’t seen him or his truck. No phone calls, Andy, and no notes on the table, and no friend of his has called to tell me he’s passed out at their house.”

He helped her up from the couch. “I have to show you something.”

She followed him out the front door. “What is it?”

He guided her through the front yard and down the road to the set of trees where the pick-up truck was parked. “This is your father’s truck, isn’t it?”

She froze. “Yeah, but it doesn’t make sense. Where is he then? That ruins Deputy Stafford’s theory that he’s with Mrs. Johnston. I don’t even think they’re dating anymore. This means something happened to him. It has to.”

“How can you be sure? What if the car broke down, and he walked somewhere to get it fixed?”

“Then why hasn’t he turned up by now?” she snapped, kicking the passenger side door. “The tires aren’t flat, the hood’s not propped up, and my dad hasn’t turned up for over twenty-four hours.”

He was startled by her outburst. “Then what do you want to do?”

“Deputy Stafford said if he didn’t show up by tomorrow, he’d put the wheels in motion to form a search party.”

“I’ll look with you, okay?”

She smiled for a brief moment. “Sorry I yelled at you.”

“Should I take you home?”

“Will you stay with me tonight? I know it’s asking a lot after admitting I set you up for my dad to break into your uncle’s house, but it’d mean a lot to me.”

“Okay,” he replied, not having to think about it. Despite the short time knowing each other, he couldn’t let the closest thing he had to a friend go, especially over something so trivial compared to a missing person. “Let me grab my cell phone and keys, and I’ll be right out.”

He retrieved the items, working fast, thinking how it was strange to learn the truth about Mary-Sue and her father. He pictured the man sneaking through the rooms and cursing under his breath after finding nothing. What if Mary-Sue was right and something did happen to her father? The only possibility was the truck breaking down on the side of the road and the old man walking back home and suffering a broken ankle or a heart attack and was lying dead somewhere in the woods.
 

He locked the door—paranoid that someone else might search for a James Ryerson collectable—and brought his concern back to Mary-Sue. “Do you think he could be out there in the woods? He might’ve had car trouble and decided to walk back to your house.”

“Why would he hide the truck like that?” It was obvious she’d considered the idea herself and refuted it. “Sure, he could’ve broken down, but he wouldn’t have hidden it like he did unless it was from the other night when he was breaking into the house. Otherwise, he would’ve pulled over to the shoulder like any normal person would.”

Mary-Sue wrapped her arms around him, grateful for his kindness. “Thank you for being so nice to me. I don’t deserve it. I lied to you.”

“I’ll move on. And besides, there’s nothing in that house that’s really worth a damn…although I did find a cool film projector.”

The farm was blanketed by nightshade from the overhanging oak and maple limbs that surrounded the property. The land in this part of Anderson Mills wasn’t any good for growing crops, but it was perfect for dairy farming. The rich scent of hay and cow patties circulated in the soft breeze. The red and white painted farm house also contained horses, which Mary-Sue explained were kept for local shows. They paid her father yearly rent for taking care of them. Andy didn’t realize how many ways a farmer could make extra money on the side, including burglary.
 

Mary-Sue walked him to her house, a white and brown colonial. The woods were yards out from the east end of the house. The cattle pens were located across the way. Andy made out a few glinting eyes through the darkness.
 

“How many people work on this farm?”

“Four, but today’s an off-week. We take our own vacations, I suppose. The workers will be back next Monday. We still do the milking by hand. People pay high prices for naturally produced milk without hormones. These cows have it pretty fucking good. They eat hay in the shade, we spray them down with water, brush them to give ’em a massage, and they’re not corralled or hooked up to weird devices. Eddie Stolburg’s slaughterhouse is along the same lines. They humanely butcher their meat. It’s the new fad.”

“It’s a contradiction,” Andy scoffed. “How can you kill something humanely, not that I’m a vegetarian or an activist.”

“Stolburg injects the cow with a kind of natural stimulant that gets them high, and yes, I agree, it’s hard to say anyone can humanely kill anything, but it’s better than most of the industry. The other two slaughterhouses can go through a hundred cows in a day, at least, and they’re crowded and stamping through their shit, and their throats are slit and they just bleed to death everywhere. It’s deplorable. And most slaughterhouses hire illegal immigrants, and if they get injured on the job, they have no legal rights. The meat industry’s a real mess. It’s too bad nobody cares.”

She motioned for him to enter the house. “And we don’t raise chickens. My father used to, and when he tried to make me cut the head off of one, I fainted and hit my head.” She pointed at the faded white line above her left eyebrow. “Doctor had to give me twelve stitches. I landed on a sharp rock.”

Andy sat on the living room couch, and she relaxed on the rocking chair across from him. There was no television or stereo in the room. “How do you pass the time? There’s no electronics.”

“I have a television and a boom box in my room.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a dumb country girl. I do know how to have fun. I bet I could drink you under the table. You ever play pinochle drunk? You went to college. Don’t you party?”

“That depends on what you mean by party.” He was hesitant to go into details of his lame social life. “I dated a girl, and we watched a movie every Friday night and went to dinner, no big deal. The rest of the week was studying and working at the campus bookstore to help pay my tuition. I can’t say I did the fraternity thing. Only rich brats have that luxury.”