Forever Man (23 page)

Bone, his mind whispered to him. You know it’s bone. But is it
human
bone?

Jack pointed to the knife. “What’re you going to do with that?”

Webber began to lift his shirt. “Think for me, Jack. I want you to think. Think really hard.” Then he grinned, and Jack thought he could see a hint of lunacy in the man’s smile. “Think about Izzy Morris.”

Jack frowned. “Why would I think…?”

His words fell away as Webber lifted his shirt up to his breastbone. The man’s abdomen was a patchwork of puckered white scars. They weren’t thin; he hadn’t simply been cut. No, his scars were about half an inch wide and nearly two inches long, like the skin had been torn from him. There were at least a dozen of them, and all but two appeared old. Jack’s mouth dropped open when he saw that the patchwork wasn’t random. The scars roughly spelled out a word.

Bitch
.

“Start thinking,” warned Webber.

“At least tell me why—”

Webber’s wrist flashed. Jack felt a hot line burning across his cheek. He raised his hand to his face, and it came away wet with blood.

“Hey! What the shit!”

“Think about her,” Webber said, his voice trembling with fury. “Or I’ll cut you to ribbons.”

Jack stared at his bloody fingers for a moment, his own anger seething inside him. He didn’t
want
to think about Morris. Her superior attitude or her Be Nothing ways. No, thinking about her would just make him angrier—

“That’s it,” Webber said, his face sweating despite the cold, his jaw set in a grimace of pain. “Yes, think of her. You hate her, don’t you? Hate her. And hate is hungry work. Leaves you with that empty feeling in your guts. An emptiness that hurts. We can’t have that. Here, have a little something to hold you over.”

Jack watched Webber lift a hand, felt the man push something small past his lips. His teeth closed reflexively. Whatever it was felt rubbery, chewy, like steak fat but with no taste. He frowned. His tongue caressed it, flipped it over. More chewing. Hints of…blood and gristle?

“Swallow,” whispered Webber. “This is my body, which shall be given up for you. Swallow—and think of Morris.”

Jack gagged. Webber clamped a hand over his mouth. He didn’t want to swallow, oh God he didn’t, but swallow he did. He wanted to retch, wanted to vomit up the bit of flesh that Webber had fed to him, but it slid too easily down his gullet and was gone.

Watch yourself
.

Jack began to sense a presence, an intruder prowling at the outskirts of his mind. Somebody whispered Morris’ name. He was no longer sure if it was Webber or himself—or the intruder. He thought he could feel the bit of Webber’s flesh moving around inside him, working its way deeper and deeper.

Morris

He could hear something. A noise, like the static you used to get when a television station signed off for the night. Or when you’d tune into an AM radio channel that had no station broadcasting. It was getting louder by the moment, filling his ears, making his skin itch. And there were voices in the noise, wordless but human, cries of pain and suffering. He thought he had heard it earlier, when Webber had sent him to that hellish place.

Jack started to tremble. Why do I keep hearing that noise? What’s happening to me?

Morris

Stop saying her name, he wanted to scream. I don’t want to think about her!

Morris

Images began to flash through his mind. Earlier today at the wake. Izzy Morris up in his face, so close he could feel her warm breath on his skin, smell her perfume; and days ago on his front porch, her clothes clinging to her sweaty skin, strands of her hair caressing the sides of her face, hazel eyes glaring at him, resenting the power he had over her, wishing she had the same power, wishing she had
him
—

Stop it! he protested silently. Get out of my mind!

—Izzy Morris at the summer picnic, shorts hugging the curves of her hips, her ass, and her long legs, shapely legs, legs which should be wrapped around him; legs that flexed smoothly as she walked by, her full breasts pushing at the thin cotton blouse she wore, that perfume again, dizzying, pulling at him, making him want her, desire her—

No! Not true!

That horrific noise—that god-forsaken
screaming
—surrounded him. It was loud now. Loud enough to hurt. It filled him until there wasn’t room for anything else.

The intruder was here. Jack could sense something moving back and forth in the forest, pacing restlessly, just beyond his sight.

Don’t go
into
the woods.

“What did you do to me?” panted Jack. “What the fuck did you just do to me?”

Webber laughed. He’d put away his knife. There was a thin red line forming on the fabric of his shirt. He caught Jack staring and zipped up his jacket.

“Unpleasant,” the man said, “but necessary. I had to reach out and touch someone, as the saying goes. Or in this case, some
thing
.”

Then Jack hadn’t been imagining things. The intruder was real. He began backing away from the woods. “What is it?”

Webber studied Jack for a moment, then shrugged. “I’ve been using it to help me get the job done.”

“You’re some kind of monster,” Jack said warily. “Some devil or demon or something.”

“Wrong again,” replied Webber. “I’m as human as you. And just because I go to extremes doesn’t mean I’m evil. I’m simply thorough. I like the odds stacked heavily in my favor, and my pet is my ace in the hole.”

Jack pointed a trembling hand at the forest. “That thing killed—?”

Webber nodded. “But let’s keep that between you and me. I want Denny to keep thinking Owens killed his boy.”

“Why is it here now?”

Webber made a quick gesture with his hand and the presence started to retreat. The noise in his head faded until it was gone. “It has another job to do.”

“What?”

“It’s going to kill Izzy Morris.”

*   *   *

J.J. Sallinen stood on the front porch, knocking on the door and shivering from the icy wind that sliced through his clothes.

“Come on, answer the damn door.” He changed from rapping smartly on the door with his knuckles to pounding loudly with his fist. “Katie! Mrs. Bethel!”

A half-minute of hammering yielded the same result.

He tested the handle.

Locked.

Another wave of shivers ran through him. He rubbed his arms to warm them. The unexpected turn in the weather had caught him by surprise. His varsity jacket didn’t provide nearly enough protection.

He threw a quick, worried look back at his car. His dad was the reason he was standing there freezing his nuts off. All you had to do was give me a little respect, he thought. Was that too much to ask?

Fuck ‘em. Kevin’s the only one that matters.

Guess so.

J.J. found a little ceramic frog nestled off to the side of the porch. He grabbed hold of its warty back and lifted. The figurine came apart. Inside he found a key and used it to unlock the front door. Then he put the key back where he found it and went inside.

“Hello,” he called out. “Anyone home?”

Nada
.

He gave the house a quick walk-through. Finding it empty, he hurried back out to his car and opened the passenger door.

J.J. extended a hand to his passenger. “Come on, Kev. Let’s go inside.”

It had taken J.J. the promise of something sweet—a candy bar he’d brought with him—to get his brother out of the car and into Katie’s house. The little booger was still upset over being hauled away while he’d been busy with his cookies and milk and cartoons. He’d actually bolted upstairs, tried to hide in his closet. There’d been a minor tussle when J.J. had to carry Kevin out of his room and downstairs—one of Kevin’s flailing legs had kicked over a chair, while his hands had raked across his desk, scattering his drawings.

After he’d wrestled a jacket and some shoes onto his brother, J.J. had grabbed a couple chocolate chip cookies (and the candy bar, of course) and dragged Kevin by the arm out to his car. He’d pushed him into the passenger’s seat, tossed the cookies onto the kid’s lap, and then slid behind the wheel. The cookies had kept Kevin quiet during the drive to Katie’s.

He watched as Kevin, now huddled on Mrs. Bethel’s couch with a blanket draped over his thin shoulders, munched on a Kit-Kat and watched more of his stupid cartoons. J.J. had come across the word “imbecile” while reading
Of Mice and Men
for English class. His brother was the poster child for the word. He also worried that Kevin was destined to play Lennie to his George.

He shook his head. “I may be stuck taking care of you for the rest of my life. It isn’t fair.”

Kevin showed no reaction to what J.J. had said; he remained unreachable, oblivious within his cocoon of autism.

J.J. turned his attention to the empty house. The wake had ended hours ago. He thought he’d find Katie here. Or at the very least, Mrs. Bethel would’ve shown up by now. Katie had told him about her mother’s date last night, about how the woman hadn’t bothered to come home. Either she was sleeping off a massive hangover or she was still going at it with her date. J.J. made a face at the latter thought. Old people sex. Gross.

He wandered into the kitchen. Fruit-shaped magnets hung on the fridge’s door. Each one held up a coupon or recipe that’d been clipped out of a magazine, but there were no notes from Katie or her mother. Yesterday’s paper and Saturday’s mail still sat on the kitchen table. It was past 8 pm and no one had brought in today’s mail? It looked like no one had been home since he and Katie had left this morning.

His curiosity piqued, J.J. turned to head to the back of the house and Katie’s bedroom. That’s when he saw the answering machine sitting on the countertop near the fridge. The little red display light blinked insistently. There were eight new messages.

He’d never known Katie or her mom to have more than a message or two, most of which were from him. He walked back to the fridge and hit the PLAY button.

The first one was from Katie’s friend, Brittany Parsons. In a breathless, tearful voice, she said how sorry she was to hear that Katie’s mom had died.

Stunned, he thought, No way. I must not have heard her right.

Brittany went on to tell Katie to call if she needed anything. Four more of Katie’s friends had called to offer their condolences; Brittany had called back twice.

Mrs. B’s dead? The thought left J.J. cold.

Where was Katie? Had Brittany ever gotten hold of her? Did she even know? He’d left the wake without talking to her. It was stupid, he knew, and rude. But after listening to his father—

Hold on. His phone call the other day—he’d told his dad about finding those photos of Natalie. His dad knew Katie had been there, had said he wanted to do something to keep her mouth shut.

I won’t let you hurt her
, J.J. had said.
That’s part of the deal. To keep
my
mouth shut.

Okay, fine
, his dad had responded.
Something will need to be done, but I promise she won’t be hurt
.

Was his dad involved in Mrs. B’s death? Is this what he considered not hurting Katie? He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and hit speed dial. He got his dad’s voicemail.

“Hey, it’s me. Some weird stuff’s going on, and I think we need to talk. Someplace private. Call me back.” Then he remembered his dad’s tendency to ignore him, so just before he hung up, he added, “Oh, by the way, I’ve got something you may want.”

J.J. stuffed the cell phone back into his pocket. He wished he could call Katie, but she didn’t have a cell phone. She and her mom—well, now just Katie—barely made do with the proceeds from her dad’s life insurance policy. They couldn’t afford the luxury of a cell phone.

While he waited for his dad to call back, J.J. walked into the living room and sat down next to Kevin. His brother was sitting motionless on the couch, his eyes dancing across the television screen as the cartoons played.

“I need to find someplace safe to hide you,” J.J. sighed. “You’re the only bargaining chip I’ve got. I’m not about to let Dad have you without getting something back first.”

He threw a blanket over them both. Kevin snuggled up close to him.

Then J.J. waited, and, eventually, he slept.

It moved silently, gliding past tall brown columns, hard, close, comforting. It hated open spaces, hated especially the vast emptiness that stretched above it.

Sky. It remembered the emptiness was called sky.

Thick muscles bunched as it leapt over barriers; sharp claws dug wounds into the earth; lungs pulled air in through its nostrils. The bitter cold gouged furrows of pain through its skull. It hated the cold.

It hated this place, and the man who kept it here.

Something exploded from beneath it, thrumming loudly into the air.

Animal
.
No
—
bird
.

It ignored the flying thing. Images of the female flashed through its mind. It felt a need to shift direction, angle slightly left.

The female.

She haunted its thoughts.

*   *   *

The two men passed the Be Nothing camp on their way back to the motel room. Jack Sallinen was still shaken from what he’d witnessed. Darryl Webber strode silently beside him.

The first flakes of snow began to fall. They drifted gently through the air, spinning lazily until they came to rest on the ground.

The snowflakes continued to drop as Jack and Webber rounded the end of the motel. At first there hadn’t been many, what Jack’s mother used to call a
little bitch of snow
. But the numbers had grown. Now they were walking through heavy swirls of white. He wondered if it was going to turn into a
big bitch of snow
.

The curtain of white flakes parted, and Jack found himself standing under the awning that ran above the motel’s walkway. He could see that Denny Cain—the everyman’s alcoholic—was gone. The straight-backed wood chair from the room was there, as was the brown paper bag into which Denny had stored his treasure of beer. But the man himself was nowhere to be seen.