Slices (12 page)

“Anything
else? Anything magical about them?”

“They
could stay up all day! They never slept. And they could go out in the
day, too, they could go out in the sun without burning.”

“Why
do you suppose that is?”

“Raishaillion
says — ” The boy stopped, bit his lip, suddenly aware
he’d spoken the forbidden name.

“It’s
all right,” Jasper said, soothing. “What does
Raishaillion say?”

“He
says they had a powerful god.” He was still biting his lips,
not sure he should continue, not sure if he should blaspheme in front
of this old woman. “One of the old gods. A god they’d
killed, nailed to a, a cross of wood, so they could have his power.
And they’d use these crosses against us.”

“Did
they work?”

“Sure.
Sure they did. And if they didn’t, they’d come after
people with garlic and wooden stakes, and they’d cut people’s
heads off and — and — ”

“There,
now. There. You settle yourself right down. You’re getting
yourself all worked up over nothing. How old did you say you were?”

“I’ll
be fifty in another two years.”

“Fifty,
huh? Fifty’s too old to believe all this nonsense. All this
talk about monsters. No such thing as them.”

“Oh.”
He watched her for a long moment, listening to the fire hiss and
crack. “You’re sure?”

“I’m
sure. Don’t you think I’ve lived long enough that I would
have seen one, by now? I think I know better than you. I’m a
little older than you, aren’t I, now?”

He
laughed. She just smiled.

“So
you answer me some questions, and we’ll call ourselves even.
All right?”

He
looked immediately nervous. “What kind of questions?”

“Sociable
questions, that’s all. I want to know what kind of guest I have
here. What do your parents do? They have any more like you at home?
What’s your town like? That sort of thing.”

Every
young boy likes talking about himself. Toniele answered her questions
eagerly and easily. And soon, she knew, without Toniele being aware
at all of what she was really asking, roughly how many were in the
settlement. Where they slept by day. How vulnerable they were.

Jasper
stood finally, slowly, her old joints feeling locked in position
already, a little taste of rigor mortis. She stretched the life back
into her arms and legs and said, “I should be letting you get
on home. It won’t be too long until sunrise and I’m sure
your friends must be worried sick by now. They’re probably
convinced that I’ve eaten you down to your bones.”

Toniele
laughed delightedly.

She
showed him to the door, let him out, and he turned toward her shyly
and reached for her hand, reaching in his memory for the right words.
“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Jasper.”

She
hesitated, just for a moment, and then held her hand out to him. “It
was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, as well, Master Toniele.”

She
took his small hand in hers.

His
eyes widened, staring up at her in new awe.

The
second she released his hand, he bolted, back down the steps, down
the path, running to his still waiting friends as fast as he could.

She
laughed, watching him go, a little worried this would all be for
nothing, that he’d carry a warning back with him to the
settlement, but no, she shook her head, not believing it.

His
friends would tease him and tell him the old woman must have been
playing a trick, she must have warmed her hand at the fire, that no
one’s hand was really that warm.

That
only monsters had hot blood pulsing through their skin.

She
watched the boys run off. The tallest of them — Raishaillion,
probably — stole a moment longer to watch her, watching them,
before his fear took over and carried him away as well.

Only
monsters.

She
went back inside, stretching again, trying to put her age aside.

She
had much to do before sunrise.

Sarah
sat in her car, her eyes on the door of the school, fingers tapping
the wheel. School had been out for twenty minutes, and her boys
hadn’t come out to meet her.

The
door burst open, and here was Josh, running, and she smiled at his
energy, then the smile died — she could see from here his pale
face, his wide eyes —

He
wasn’t in trouble. She knew that. She didn’t spend even a
second wondering. He wasn’t hurt, he wasn’t scared, he
never was, but as she ran toward him, unlocked doors and keys in the
ignition forgotten, she knew the first words from his lips would be:

“It’s
Kyle.”

“Where
is he?”

“Playground.
Come on.” He took hold of her hand and led her around the side
of the building almost faster than she could keep up. Off in the
distance, a clot of children, clustered tight, laughing and yelling.
It didn’t look like a game. It looked like trouble, which meant
Kyle was right in the middle of it.

She
ran closer. There was Kyle, on his back and bleeding, centered in the
circle with a boy twice his size looming over him, screaming, “Get
up! Come on! Get up, you little pussy!”

She
just froze.
Don’t
hurt him,
she thought,
Oh,
God, please don’t hurt him.
But she didn’t know for sure who she meant.

Kyle
stood. The other kids stood back. Josh just looked at her, his blue
eyes huge, the color of kite-flying weather, and he didn’t say
anything. He didn’t need to say anything.
Aren’t
you going to do anything?
They were both thinking it.

“You
want some more?” the older boy was saying. “Come on. Come
on, hit back, you little chickenshit.” He hadn’t noticed
there was an adult there; none of them had. She was the adult here,
wasn’t she?

Kyle
didn’t say a word. He didn’t even reach up a hand to wipe
at the blood that ran from his nose, spilling down onto his shirt. He
just took a firm stance, feet apart, and stood his ground.

And
stared.

“Come
on,” the older boy said. He shoved a hand in Kyle’s
chest, but Kyle wouldn’t be moved.

He
stared, and his eyes were like an open furnace.

“Stop
it,” the boy hissed, and he raised a hand to hit him again,
or push him again, but the hand hung there, aimless, until he dropped
it. “Stop it. Quit looking at me like that.”

There
was a sound. Sarah thought she heard it. Like locusts, or like the
sound between stations on the radio in the middle of nowhere. But
when she tried to listen to it, it wasn’t there. It was an
absence of sound; something being taken out of the world.

“Stop
looking at me.” The words were almost lost in the anti-hum.

The
only real sound, now, was the trickle of urine running down the older
boy’s pants leg. Kyle’s bleeding had stopped. Now the
older boy’s nose had started bleeding instead.

“Stop
it!” he screamed. His face twitched; Sarah could tell he wanted
to look away, look to someone else for help. “Make him stop!
Make him stop looking at me!”

“Kyle.”
Sarah was almost surprised to realize the voice was hers. “That’s
enough. It’s time to go home.”

Kyle
turned to look at her, astonished. The older boy broke and ran,
shoving his way out of the circle. The moment broken, the other
children scattered.

Kyle
stared at her for a moment as if he couldn’t remember where he
was, or what he was.

Then,
inexplicably, he burst into tears and ran into her waiting arms.

“I’m
really sorry.”

The
small voice from the back seat wasn’t Kyle’s. It was
Josh.

Sarah
just nodded, eyes on the winding road. Heavy branches curved low
overhead, and the sunlight just reached them, filtered and watered
down by thick fall leaves, still green, but only just. It was their
secret road, almost never another car on it.

Kyle
wasn’t saying anything.

“I
try not to let him get in trouble,” Josh said. “I try to
keep an eye on him, but the big kids won’t leave him alone.”

“They
will now,” Kyle said, so quietly Sarah wasn’t sure she
really heard it.

“It’s
not my fault,” Josh said.

“Nothing’s
ever your fault,” Kyle said.

“Enough.”
Sarah looked at them through the rear-view mirror. Josh’s
golden curls, Kyle’s straight raven hair, her two twins, night
and day.

“So
am I in trouble?” Kyle asked.

“Did
you start the fight?”

“ …
No.”

“Josh?
Did he?”

“I
don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“You
know what? I don’t care. It doesn’t even matter. You’re
too old for this shit. You’re both nearly — ”

Nearly
twelve.

Sarah
felt herself grow pale. Her eyes lost focus.

“Mom?”

She’d
been trying not to think about it, to put it all out of her head, a
fairy tale long ago and far away —

“Mom
look out!” Josh screamed.

She
blinked, saw, swerved too late.

“Oh,
no.” Josh started crying as she pulled over. “Oh, no.
Poor kitty.”

“Is
it dead?” Kyle asked.

She
got out of the car — “You two stay here — ”
and Kyle ignored her and followed. After a moment, Josh came as well
— concern outweighing the need to be obedient.

“Oh,
man. Poor little guy.” Kyle kneeled right down next to it.

Sarah
knelt down beside him, wincing, feeling under long blood-matted fur
with hesitant fingers.

“What
are you doing?” Josh asked.

“Looking
for a collar,” she said. “I should — I need to
call — ” His? Her? “The owners. Let them know.”

She
unclipped the collar, wiped off the tag.

“Josh,
you should see this,” Kyle said. “It’s kind of
cool-looking.”

“You’re
sick,” Josh said, his face scrunched up. But he came to look.

Sarah
made it back to the car. Back to her purse, her cell phone.

Somewhere,
down in the bottom of that purse, was a single piece of paper, torn
from a legal pad. No one would look twice at it — but Sarah
knew. It couldn’t be torn, couldn’t be cut, wouldn’t
burn. And the name — she didn’t want to think about it,
but she had to — the name written at the bottom of the page was
hers.

She
couldn’t read the ID tag in the dim light of their secret road,
and she turned on the overhead light and started dialing the number.

She
looked out her window and stopped.

Her
twins, light and dark, were petting the dead cat, trying to comfort
it even though it was gone.

But
then something — changed. They looked up at each other, at some
wordless signal. They kept stroking the cat, their touch growing less
tentative, more purposeful, each using both hands now.

Looking
up at each other for mutual guidance and reassurance. Hands moved in
a complex spiral dance.

Then
the cat jerked its legs, its head, once, twice, and was on its feet
and gone in a moment.

She
dropped the phone.

“What
did you do?” She got out of the car and ran to their side.
“What did you do? That cat was
dead,
what did you do?”

“I
don’t know,” Josh said. “We were just petting it, I
don’t know what happened — ”

“Are
we in trouble?” Kyle said.

She
just stared, off into the woods where the cat had gone, and then
grabbed both her boys tight and held them very close.

“You’re
my special boys, you know that?” she said, rocking them like
they were babies again. “You’re my special, special
boys.”

The
screams woke her up that night. She sighed, looked at the clock, got
out of bed. Kyle didn’t look up at her as she came into the
living room.

She
stood for a moment at the threshold, watching the flickering black
and white from the television play over his face.

“It’s
after midnight,” she said finally.

“I
couldn’t sleep.”

“What
is this?”

“
Night
of the Living Dead.”

She
started looking for the remote. “You’re too young to be
watching this.”

“Mo-ommmmm.
I’ve seen it already. Last Halloween at Jordan’s.”

She
stared at the blank faces, the boarded windows. “I still don’t
think you should be watching it,” she said uncertainly.
“Doesn’t it give you nightmares?”

“No.”
He shrugged. “I never get nightmares.” He said it with
the certainty that came with his age. He looked up at her. “Josh
is having bad dreams. Right now. That’s why I can’t
sleep.”

She
glanced back down the hall toward their room. “Could you hear
him?”

“No
— I can see it. I can see what he’s dreaming.”

She
sat down next to him on the couch, brushed some of his ink-black hair
out of his eyes. “It sounds more like you were dreaming,”
she said.

He
frowned and batted her hand away. “Mom, no. You’re not
listening.”

He
stood up and walked down the hall, and she turned off the TV and
followed him into the dark.

“Kyle?
What are you doing?”

“Shhh.
You’ll wake him.”

He
was standing over his brother’s bed, looking down. Josh
stirred, a low sound in his throat, and he kicked at the blankets,
but he didn’t wake up.

“See?
Dreaming.” He looked down at Josh’s closed and shifting
eyes, seemed to look past them. “He’s dreaming about you.
You a long time ago. You’re driving — no, you’re in
a car, someone else is driving — ”

“Kyle,
stop it,” she whispered.

“You’re
going really fast and it’s dark and you’re laughing,
you’re saying slow down, but you’re laughing — ”

“Kyle.
Stop. This isn’t funny.”

Josh
was squirming, grabbing at the edge of the blankets, face screwed up
tight, and Kyle’s features had gone slack, his voice quiet and
mild. “You’re upside down. Something happened. You’re
upside down and you’re bleeding. Everyone’s bleeding and
you’re screaming. You’re the only one. Why isn’t
anyone else screaming, mommy?”