Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror) (19 page)

Drake was the first to start smoking.  They all agreed cigarettes were nasty and never picked up the habit but they all tried them, thanks to Dupree.  Then they moved on to marijuana and that they
didn’t
give up.  They all loved a good blunt.  Drake was also the first to do Ecstasy, which he then got the others to try.  Drake was the one who stole peppermint schnapps from his father to provide all of them, at the age of sixteen, with their first drunk.

Drake Dupree wasn’t mean-spirited and he wasn’t stupid.  He was bright enough to work in his father’s accounting office and, despite the fact he received exorbitant pay for his labors (his father secretly practiced nepotism, which make the other guys jealous), his father
did
expect Drake to work.

In one regard, however, Drake had never exhibited any intelligence whatsoever.  When it came to pretty girls, he had no common sense.  He knocked up Jody Troxell on the night of their senior prom.  He married her four months later, after having sex with two different prostitutes during his bachelor party.

All the guys were surprised when he settled down after the baby was born.  Drake loved his infant son and he believed himself to be a great dad, even though Jody changed all the dirty diapers.

Drake currently lived in a four room apartment above his in-law’s garage.  The apartment was tiny and his wife was always grumpy about having company over.  Consequently, Drake hadn’t seen much of the guys lately.

Except, of course, for Tom.

Tom Pascal was Drake’s best friend.  Like Drake, Tom was good-looking, although his features were more sensitive, even a bit feminine.  He had wavy brown hair that he wore thick and feathered back: a 1980s hair style.  He had a willowy body, thin but not skinny.  He had brown eyes, a boyish smile, and a melodic voice.

Tom was the musician of their group.  He played guitar, piano, and saxophone.  In high school, the others all expected he would go on to college.  Tom
wanted
to go to college, to study Music Theory, but so far that hadn’t worked out.  While exceptionally talented, he was easily distracted in high school and didn’t obtain a scholarship.  And his parents were poor.  His mother had a stable position as a secretary in a dentist’s office but his father had had a string of miserably low-paying jobs over the years, everything from a gas station attendant to a shift manager at a Pizza Hut.

Tom was currently working at Taco Bell while he tried to save up for college but he always seemed to end up spending all his spare money on dope.  Tom was the biggest pothead of the five.

The members of Tom’s rock band,
Cold Dead Love
, put on make-up so that they looked like mangled zombies.  They had played at a couple of local birthday parties but they never made enough money to offset their expenses (which included marijuana).

Currently, Tom was dating Teresa Troxell, sister of Drake’s wife, Jody.  They sometimes double dated, whenever Jody could get her mother to babysit. 

One night in mid-May, when the two couples were together at Drake and Jody’s apartment playing euchre, Drake broached the subject of a camping trip in the presence of the Troxell sisters.

“We should get the guys together,” Drake said to Tom.  “The five of us haven’t been hunting in a coon’s age.”

Of course, Jody felt obligated to point out, “That’s because you’re married now.”

Teresa aimed a withering stare at Tom.

Tom knew Teresa wanted him to pop the question.  She and Jody both believed it was ‘long past due’ that he proposed.  Tom, however, had no intention of getting tied down.  Particularly after seeing what marriage had done to Drake.

Drake never heard what he didn’t want to hear.  Undaunted, he asked, “When is Kyle getting back from school?”

Tom didn’t know.  “The end of May, I think.  Maybe June.”

“Well,” Drake chuckled, “it’ll probably be hard as hell to drag John away from his new squeeze… but I know Roger would love it.  He works
entirely
too hard.”

Tom nodded.  “John’ll come too.  You know he will.  He’s not
that
pussy-whipped.”

Teresa slapped him, saying, “You say ‘pussy-whipped’ like that’s a
bad
thing.”

Jody giggled.

Again, Drake didn’t seem to hear the women.  “We should do this, dawg.  We could
all
use some down time.  Head over to Bullet Lake, trek out into the woods, set up camp, drink some beers, do some huntin’ and fishin,’
unwind
a bit.”

Now it was Drake’s turn to get slapped by Jody. “Like
you
have anything to be stressed out about!”  His wife sang her favorite tune: “Try spending the whole day at home with the baby and
then
talk to me about needing to unwind!”

The conversation went on from there but the matter was settled.

The women didn’t want the men to go on a hunting trip.

The men fully intended to go anyway.

A couple of days later, Drake stopped in at the garage on the west side of Middleridge where Roger worked.

Roger was the oldest of the Fearless Five, having just recently turned twenty-one.  That was a celebrated event because it meant the group would never again have to worry about how to get liquor.

Roger Luttman was the oldest because he had been held back a year in school, in the fifth grade.  His nickname was ‘Lunkhead’ but Luttman never seemed to mind when his friends called him that (although he might take offense if someone
outside
their group called him that).  Roger was a big guy.  By the age of seventeen he stood six-feet-six-inches tall.  He had monster long limbs, a crane-like neck with a softball-sized Adam’s apple, and emaciated facial features vaguely reminiscent of a ghoul.  With his gangly body, he was never very good at sports, although he did play football (badly) for two years.

Roger talked very slowly and generally said very little.  Most people who didn’t know him thought he was dimwitted.  His friends knew differently.  In many things, Roger lacked common sense, and he was painfully shy around strangers (or any girls) but, in at least one area— mechanics— Roger was a genius.  He had a passion for fixing cars and he absolutely loved guns.  Roger enjoyed disassembling things and putting them back together again.

Tom once called him, “Our idiot savant.”

None of them expected much from Roger after high school.  His current success working as an auto mechanic had surprised them all.  Of the five of them, he had the coolest car and the nicest apartment, even if he did have to share his place with an obnoxious roommate.

Drake caught up with Roger as he got off work, telling him, “We’re going camping, dawg.  The Fearless Five, back in the saddle again.”

Roger gave Drake some shit. “Jody’s actually letting you out of the house?”

Drake’s face darkened but his eyes sparkled with good humor. “Fuck you, Lunkhead.  At least I’ve
got
a woman.”

Roger tried to play this off but color rose in his cheeks.  “Women are more trouble than they’re worth.”

Drake smiled smugly.  “Yeah?  That’s not what you said after my bachelor party.”

 Roger was a virgin until the night of Drake’s bachelor party.  Drake got him his first piece of ass and he never let Roger forget it.

A smile slowly gathered on Roger’s pale, skinless face.  He asked Drake, “So camping, huh?  A hunting trip?”

“Hunting, fishing, drinkin’, smokin’, the whole nine yards, buddy.”  Drake slapped Roger on the back.  He would have draped an arm around Roger’s shoulder but Lunkhead was too tall.  Drake asked, “John still has his tent, right?”

“As far as I know.”

“And his granddad still has his place on the lake, right?”

“As far as I know.”

“Hell, maybe we’ll even go look for the Indian burial grounds again.  We haven’t done that since we were what?  Sixteen?”

Roger looked at his feet and nodded.

“Who knows?”  Drake continued, now grinning.  “Maybe we’ll even run into Injun Joe this time!”

Roger looked sharply at Drake and said, “Fuck you.”

When they were kids, Roger was the one most frightened by the old ghost story.  More than once, when they were teenagers, they went looking for the spirit of the old Delaware Indian chief that locals had long ago dubbed ‘Injun Joe.’  Joe was supposed to haunt a fenced-in section of a thick forest along the western banks of Bullet Lake, a place known in legend as Bountiful Woods. 

The Fearless Five never found the woods, of course, let alone Injun Joe.  None of them
expected
to find Joe . . . except for Roger.

“So what do you say?” Drake asked, already knowing the answer.

Later that night, after supper with Jody, Drake snuck out of their rat-hole apartment above his in-law’s garage.  He went for a walk down the sidewalk of his residential neighborhood on the northeast side of Middleridge, headed for the nearby Dairy Queen, four blocks away.  He was thinking he would buy Jody a strawberry sundae (her favorite) to surprise her.  It was a beautiful night, warm and dry, and all the two-story houses on East 6
^th
Street were lit-up from within, while outside their lawns were lit by streetlamps.   Crickets and other nocturnal creatures were serenading each other.  Despite the glow of the city, the dark sky still revealed the light from distant suns.  Fireflies in the grasses competed with the blue-white glitter of the stars by flashing yellow responses.

As he walked toward ice cream, Drake pulled out his cell phone and called John.

Drake had known John Womack longer than any of the others.  Growing up, Drake and John were next door neighbors.

John was short, barely 5'3".  In high school, since he couldn’t play basketball effectively, he took to track and baseball.  He worked out obsessively, jogged twice daily, and ate sensibly, all in an effort to make certain he had the perfect physique.  Drake had long believed John was overcompensating for the fact he was so short. 

And like his father and grandfather before him, John began losing his hair at the age of seventeen.  By the time he was nineteen, his hair line had receded so far he decided to go bald.  His friends gave him crap when he first shaved his head but they all finally admitted he looked better fully bald than partially bald.

Once again, Drake started the conversation with a statement rather than a request.  “We’re going camping, dawg.  All of us.  Hunting and fishin’ on Bullet Lake.  Tom is going to score an ounce of the green.  Roger’s got us covered on beers.  It’s gonna be sweet.”

Drake was surprised when John didn’t offer a single objection.  John sounded eager, in fact, when he asked, “When?”

“Tentatively, we’re talking the second weekend in June.  I haven’t talked to Kyle yet.”

John promised, “I’m there, dude.  Just let me know when.”

“Your granddad still owns that place on the lake, right?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Sweet.  And we can use your tent, right?”

“Yup.”

“Cool.”  Now that their plans were made, Drake felt the need to harass John a little. “I can’t believe you’re actually going to tear yourself away from your K-Mart wench.”

John was in love.  He moved in with Angie Bailey four months ago.  They met at K-Mart, where they both work.

John returned the ball to Drake’s court. “I can’t believe your wife is giving up the keys to your shackles for a night.”

Neither would ever admit it but they were eager to see each other.

Finally, a couple of days later, Drake got a hold of Kyle, who was away at college.

Kyle Cain was odd looking, a big nose and big ears, with jet-black hair he wore in an unflattering Beatles mop.  He was the smartest of the Five; he always earned the best grades in high school; and no one was surprised when
he
got a scholarship to a small college in Virginia.  He intended to be veterinarian one day.  He’d always loved animals.

Drake secretly admired Kyle’s spirit, considering how tragic his life had been.  Kyle was the only one of the Fearless Five who’d truly faced death.  Both of his parents were murdered when Kyle was only twelve years old.  He was raised by his grandparents. 

Then, shortly after his sixteenth birthday, his grandfather died, making him ‘the man of the house.’ 

In Drake’s opinion, Kyle had the most cause to be rebellious and yet, of all of them, he was the most responsible.  He was even more dutiful than Roger.

Drake hadn’t talked to Kyle in months when he finally reached him on the phone one day during his lunch break.  He was sitting at a picnic table in back of the building where he worked.

Drake and Kyle engaged in small talk first, catching up.  Kyle asked about Jody and the baby.  Drake asked if Kyle had a girlfriend yet (and wasn’t the least bit surprised when Kyle said he didn’t.)

Then, finally, Drake got to the point, “We’re going on a hunting trip.  All the guys.  It’ll be like old times.  The Fearless Five Ride Again.”

Kyle didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic about the prospect.  “I don’t know, man.”

“What do you mean, you ‘don’t know?’  We haven’t gone hunting in forever! Tom’s gonna score some weed.  Roger’s bringing the whiskey.  John’s got the tent.  We’re all set, dude.”

After a pause, Kyle said, “I’m just not into that shit anymore.”

Drake was genuinely confounded.  “What shit?  Hanging with your dawgs?”

“No, dawg. 
Hunting
.”

Drake winced.  Of
course
Kyle had no interest in hunting.  Kyle didn’t like hunting all that much when they were kids (he would always come up empty handed in the trophy department, claiming he missed).  Now that he was dedicated to becoming a vet . . . . Drake slapped his forehead.  “I’m an idiot, dude.  I didn’t think.”

Drake could almost hear Kyle’s smile as he replied, “What else is new?”

“You don’t have to carry a gun.  You still fish, right?  Fishing isn’t against the Veterinarian Code of Ethics, is it?”

Kyle snickered.  “No.”

“I didn’t think it
would
be, considering every Vet’s office I’ve ever been in has a fish tank.”