Soultaker (4 page)

Myra sighed. “Aw…just when I was starting to have fun.”

She stood and stretched, her lean body magnificent in the dim light. She looked to Trey like a warrior goddess of myth, her body bathed in the blood of battle, but he knew the truth was nothing as fanciful as that. A warrior goddess, or just about any other significant source of power, would quake with terror in Myra’s presence.

She donned a cloak, beckoned to Trey with a slap of hand on thigh, and they followed the other members of the Sacred Circle out of the building.

Outside, the wind that came up was like a cold hand closing around Trey’s bare flesh.

Jake dreamed of the hot blonde girl he’d flirted with at the bar, the delectable little thing he’d belatedly realized was Moira’s baby sister. In the dream, they were on their first date. They were at a drive-in movie theater showing an all-night marathon of B horror movies. There hadn’t been a drive-in theater in Rockville since the early ’80s, but that’s where they were, and they were engaged in the traditional activities of a couple on a drive-in date—kissing and groping. Then the dream shifted, the way dreams do, and they were walking through a fog-shrouded cemetery. Jake felt a sense of dread, and he tried to coax Bridget back to the car. He didn’t know why they were here—Bridget wouldn’t tell him—but he knew she was up to no good.

Bridget came to a stop at a grave with a large headstone flanked by identical granite goblin statues. Jake read the gravestone’s inscription and felt a chill crawl up his back: “Here lies Moira Ann Flanagan. May she rot in hell.”

Then Bridget began to disrobe, shedding her blouse and exposing large, milk white breasts to cold air. It was a dream, yes, but Jake knew it was cold by the way Bridget’s large pink nipples jutted. She stepped out of her skirt, seized Jake by the wrist, and pulled him down to the ground. He was already nude and erect. He didn’t remember undressing, but his clothes were gone. Bridget pulled his erection into her, and Jake was buffeted by conflicting feelings of erotic exhilaration and disgust
at the obscenity of fucking young Bridget on her long-dead sister’s grave.

But that wasn’t the worst thing.

The worst thing was what happened to Bridget’s face just as he was about to come.

It began to change.

Jake awoke with a gasp, and sat up panting in the bed in Stu’s guest bedroom. He couldn’t remember precisely what had happened to Bridget at the end of the dream, but whatever it was had been awful enough to propel him instantly out of sleep. Jake drew in a few more big breaths and waited for his heart to slow to a normal rate. He almost never had nightmares, and the few he could recall tended to be mundane, such as falling from a great height or inexplicable classroom or mass transit nudity.

He recalled some of the more disturbing details and felt fresh disgust. Not wanting to think about it further, he threw back the covers and bounded out of bed. His head throbbed at the sudden motion, and he gritted his teeth against his first hangover in more than a year. It was mild, but its presence was unsettling. He popped some Tylenol, showered, dressed, and left Stu’s house, locking up with the spare key his new roommate had given him the night before.

Stu lived in a middle-class neighborhood at the southeastern edge of Rockville called Washington Heights. Most of the houses were single-story red brick cookie-cutter prefabs, and Stu’s rental was no exception. But Jake had lived in apartments most of his adult life, so the little house was like a sprawling manse by comparison.

Jake climbed into his Camry and drove out of Washington Heights. His destination was a far less reputable address, the Zone. Short for Combat Zone. The Zone was a sprawling maze of cheap living units that had once housed thousands of soldiers during the Second World War. The Rockville army base was decommissioned after the war and the area became home to hundreds of low-income families. One of those families had been the McAllisters. Generations of McAllisters
grew up, lived, and died there, some of them spending the bulk of their lives within its confines, subsisting on welfare and food stamps, rarely venturing farther than the corner store for a case of Old Milwaukee and a carton of smokes.

As Jake drove into the Zone, he was surprised to see that there had been some drastic improvements in his long absence. Many of the houses had been renovated, and the kids wandering its narrow streets looked clean and healthy. He didn’t see any cars on blocks, or any aluminum litter glittering in the sun. The Zone had once been a great repository for empty beer cans. Not so anymore. It was amazing. Somewhere along the line the residents of this formerly blighted place had discovered some fresh sense of community pride and spirit. It was still a poor neighborhood—this was evident in a number of little ways—but it no longer reeked of decay. It was alive and vital.

Well, holy shit, Jake thought.

The change struck him as nothing less than miraculous.

And so he experienced a profound disappointment when he arrived at his childhood home. Aside from some obvious renovations to the small house’s exterior, little had changed. The yard was overgrown. A Camaro was up on blocks in the middle of the yard. The telltale glint of crumpled beer cans was evident even through the tall grass.

Jake parked the Camry and got out. As he walked up the short drive to the front door, he had an impulse to turn around, get back in his car, and get the hell out. He didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to see these people. Not now. Not ever. His body rebelled against it. His forefinger trembled as he stabbed the doorbell button. He waited a while before realizing the button didn’t work. Then he steeled himself and rapped a fist on the glass outer door and yelled, “Mom! It’s Jake!”

He heard a crash from somewhere within the house—glass shattering on a floor, from the sound of it—followed by a screeched curse. Then there was a clomp of bare feet on linoleum and his mother was scowling at him through the pane of grime-stained glass. She pulled the door open, seized him by the wrist, and pulled him inside.

Jolene McAllister slapped him hard across the face. “That’s for being gone ten goddamn years. Don’t your family mean nothin’ to you?”

Jake gaped at her. He hadn’t expected any tearful reunion, but this was ridiculous. Then again, it was just like the McAllisters he remembered. Hit first, ask questions later. Jolene’s aggression was a direct link to that awful past, and being hit made him feel like he was seventeen again, the age he’d been when he’d finally left this fucking hovel to move into a friend’s apartment on the other side of town.

Jake put a palm to his stinging cheek and rubbed it slowly. “You still pack a wallop, Mom. But get this straight. I came here to help Trey. I still care about him. You, I don’t give a shit about.” His mouth curved a humorless smile. “That answer your question?”

Jolene’s bloodshot eyes narrowed to slits, and he could see the muscles in her neck working as she ground her teeth. Jake braced for another slap. If it came, he was out of here. He’d find another way to help Trey.

Then Jolene started crying. Tears welled in her eyes suddenly, then streamed down her face, etching messy trails through her heavily applied mascara. She put her face in her hands and sobbed. Jake rolled his eyes and waited for the storm to subside. Other than being older, his mother hadn’t changed a bit. She was still mean. Still abusive. Still a drama queen. And she still dressed the same, wearing a skimpy pink tank top and cutoff denim shorts that hugged her narrow hips and rode up high on her blotchy thighs. Also present was the same old profusion of cheap jewelry—clacking silver bracelets, large, dangling earrings, and several necklaces. Her long fingernails were painted a tacky shade of glittery purple, and her huge helmet of permed blonde hair would have made even the most shamelessly garish ’80s hair-metal singer cringe.

She looked exactly like what she was—an aging white-trash slut.

“Mom?”

Another round of sobbing followed the sound of his voice.

“Is Trey here?”

“My bay-beeee!”

Jake scowled. “Jesus. I’m wasting my time here. I came back to Rockville because I wanted to help Trey, not to watch you put on a fucking show.”

Jolene stopped crying. She glared at him again. “You and I ain’t ever gonna get along. I get that, son. Hell, I know what you think of me. You think I’m a total idiot?” She sneered. “So let’s forget about the shit between us for now. Trey’s all that matters. All I ask is you listen to what I have to say.”

Jake didn’t say anything for a few moments. His mind showed him a series of images burned indelibly into his memory, moments of childhood terror he wished he could forget, though now it was important to recall them, to strengthen his resolve and keep his mental defenses in place. These were memories of pain inflicted by the adults in his life. First by his biological father, a bitter man who was almost a prototype of a typical Zone man. He still bore the scars left by cigarettes extinguished on his flesh by Lou McAllister. Lou was shot to death when Jake was just eight. He hadn’t wasted a second mourning the son of a bitch. But the abuse did not end then. Jolene McAllister never put cigarettes out on her boys, but she was no less vicious than her deceased husband. Her favorite disciplinary tool had been a belt with a huge Confederate flag buckle. Then the worst possible thing happened. Jolene remarried. And Lou’s successor was even more of a sadistic bastard. The beatings Jake and Mike endured at the hands of that man had been beyond brutal.

Jolene’s thinly veiled attempt to characterize their troubled past as little more than the normal tensions existing between parents and rebellious children was ludicrous. She could never admit her faults, never recognize her past behavior as abusive. So he couldn’t confront her, couldn’t make her acknowledge the damage she’d wrought. There was no closure to be had here. Not now. Not ever.

“All right, Mom. Let’s forget about the…shit…between us. Tell me about Trey.”

“Okay, but let’s move this heartwarming reunion to the kitchen.” She turned away from him and padded down the short hallway, then stepped through an archway into the kitchen. “I don’t know about you, but I could sure use a drink.”

Jake followed her into the kitchen. The sink was piled high with dirty dishes. An odor of shit emanated from an overflowing litter box. The ancient linoleum was stained and curling up in places. Another odor permeated the air in here, a ghost smell just detectable beneath the stench of cat shit. A puke smell. On the floor near the refrigerator was a pile of jagged glass shards, the remains of a shattered jar.

Jake took a seat at the wobbly kitchen table. Jolene pulled open the refrigerator door, popped two cans of Old Milwaukee off a plastic binder, and set one down in front of her son. She plopped down in the seat opposite him, popped the can’s tab, and knocked back a long slug of cheap beer. Jake hated Old Milwaukee, but he needed a beer. More than ever, he needed a goddamn beer. He opened the can and took a sip.

He shuddered and put the can down. “So what’s going on?”

Jolene pushed her chair back and set her feet up on the edge of the table. She had some kind of vine tattoo around her left ankle. And a gold-plated anklet. And a toe ring. Jake tried to conceal his distaste. But Jesus fucking Christ. This woman was in her fifties. Did she know how ridiculous she looked?

“Trey’s gotten mixed up with some punk-ass bitch.”

Jake thought, What are you, Snoop Doggy Mom now?

He kept his voice noncommittal. “Oh yeah?”

Jolene lit a Doral and blew smoke at the ceiling. “This weird slut named Myra. When I say punk, I mean punk rock. You know, alternative? Hair and clothes all funny-lookin’. Piercings all over.”

Jake laughed. “So what’s the problem? Because I just don’t see what the big deal is. So Trey’s hanging with a punk chick. Real shocking, Mom. For 1978, maybe.”

Jolene’s feet came off the table and she leaned toward Jake,
some of the previous heat returning to her voice. “Fuck you, Jake. I ain’t so simpleminded as that. There’s more to it than that.”

“Okay. So make me understand why this girl’s trouble.”

“Trey’s not like you or Mikey, Jake. He’s a good boy.”

Jake sighed.

Jolene pressed on. “He’s a good student. Honors and shit. He plays sports. He’s popular. He’s everything you wouldn’t expect a kid from the Zone to be. At least he was until that cunt came along. Now it’s all gone down the tubes. He dumped his beautiful girlfriend and his grades are in the toilet. I’m not even sure he’s gonna graduate.” Tears welled in her eyes again. “My baby’s in trouble, Jake. He could still have a bright future if he’d just be made to see how this bitch is ruining everything.” She reached across the table and clasped hands with her oldest son. “Can’t you help me?”

Jake doubted this Myra chick was as horrible as Jolene made her out to be. Still, if her account of Trey’s abrupt and dramatic change of behavior was even partially accurate, then there was some legitimate cause for concern. A selfish, private corner of his psyche boiled with anger, though. When he and Mikey were skipping school and getting in scrapes with the law, she’d never been anywhere near this concerned. Hell, she hadn’t given a shit.

“I’ll try to help,” he said at last. “When’s the best time to see him?”

Jolene smiled. “I told him you’d be by to see him when he gets home from school today.” She sniffled. “I just knew you’d help. He should be here about three thirty.”

Jake stood up. “I’ll be here.”

“He’ll want you to tell him all about being a famous writer. He just loved your books.”

Jake’s expression remained impassive. “Yeah. Right.”

Jake had two published novels to his credit, but their sales figures were far south of “famous writer” territory.

Jolene’s expression softened. She almost seemed to project
real warmth at him. “You’re a good role model, son. I always knew you’d turn your life around someday.”

Jake felt a headache coming on.

“Three thirty,” he said.

He turned and walked out of his nightmare house.