Strange Robby (27 page)

"Why?" Tommy asked.

"Well, tell me how stupid is this. We don't call them Indians anymore because that's wrong since they aren't from India. But we're going to call them Native Americans even though I'm fairly sure that the 'Native Americans' didn't call this country by the name of an Italian explorer."

Tommy thought about that for a minute. "That is pretty stupid now that you mention it. Why couldn't we just continue to call them Indians when we're talking about all of them, since we all know what we mean, and call them by their tribal names when we're talking about an individual?"

It had taken Spider awhile, but she'd finally gone back to sleep. Later she would wish she hadn't.

The faceless woman screamed and screamed. She was in pain. She wanted Spider's help, but Spider couldn't reach her.

They were poking Spider again. Poking her and talking, but she couldn't really understand what they were saying. The SWTF men just stood around and watched.

The faceless woman screamed again. Spider was wrong, the woman wasn't in pain, she was mad and afraid.

"Let her go, stop it!" the woman screamed.

Spider became aware of her own tears now. She was scared, and it hurt. The poking hurt and she didn't like it; it was scary.

"It will hurt less if you hold still," one of the men said.

The car rolled over and over and over. She went out the window.

There was fire, so much fire, and the woman screamed. She was trapped in the car. She needed help, but none came. Scott was running in circles around the car crying, "Mama! Mama!"

Then everything was black and it was dark. Scott was crying and crying. She couldn't see him, but she knew it was him. She was scared, terrified, but she couldn't scream, couldn't even cry out, and she was trapped. A single light pierced the darkness, and then there were others. She knew what they wanted, what they wanted to do. They were going to poke her again, and she didn't want that. Finally she screamed.

"Honey?" Spider heard Carrie's voice, felt her hand on her shoulder and felt reassured. "You OK?"

"The club . . . it was no coincidence, it
was
some sort of test." Spider was sitting straight up in bed, drenched in a cold sweat. Her throat was a little raw and she realized she must have screamed out loud.

"What?" Carrie asked.

"Nothing, I'm sorry I woke you up," Spider said. She lay back down slowly, and Carrie curled herself around her. "Just paranoia, me trying to make sense of what happened—and the dreams."

"Don't worry about me. It's about time we got up anyway. Who would be testing you, us, for what?"

"I wish I knew. Dammit! It means something . . . I think the dreams are some kind of memory. Something to do with my mother." She shook her head. "Some kind of memory that I've buried or . . . I don't know."

"I know a hypnotist. Good one. Works with us sometimes on potential witnesses. He could do a regression on you, and maybe see what you're repressing."

"I don't think that's such a good idea. I'm fairly certain that knowing whatever I have forgotten could get you killed."

The phone rang, and Spider was only too glad for the distraction. She answered the phone.

"Hello."

"Hello Spider, this is Tommy . . . Listen. I'm sorry about this morning. Sorry that I've been such a prick. Let's take today off. Give me a chance to put things back into perspective."

"But what about the rhythms?" Spider teased.

"I said I was sorry," Tommy said.

"Apology accepted, and I'm sorry I didn't at least call."

"Under the circumstances, I really couldn't blame you. Tomorrow morning at six o'clock?"

"I'll be there," Spider said.

"Great! I'll see you then . . . Oh, and Spider?"

"Yes?"

"Great tits."

 
"As he came forth from his mother's womb naked
shall he return to go as he came, and he shall take
nothing for his labor, which he may carry away
in his hand."
Ecclesiastes 4:14

 

Mark tried to leave a little early so that maybe they wouldn't find him. He tried to take a back way, a short cut he knew about that they probably didn't. Maybe then he could get home without getting beaten up.

He hadn't meant to make them mad, but he wasn't going to give in to them again. His father had told him to stand up to them, but he was afraid. Afraid of what he might do if they started hitting him.

He was fairly certain that he'd managed to shake them when someone hit him in the back of the head with God only knew what.

"Hey, dick head! Where the hell do ya think yer goin'?"

Two sets of hands grabbed him and drug him into the alley. They slammed him against a wall and his pack broke, spilling its contents all over the ground.

"Do . . . don't mess with me," Mark stammered out.

They laughed at him and the bigger one, Johnny 'Round House,' the only thirteen-year-old in the fifth grade, shoved him in the shoulder so that he hit the wall again. More of the contents of Mark's pack rained onto the ground.

"Stutter why don't ya, ya whinin' little flinch." He laughed. "Oh, I'm gonna love kickin' your pussy ass."

The other kid was a lot bigger than Mark, but he was only a year older. Everyone knew that Teddy Miller wasn't the real menace. He just didn't like getting teased for being fat and stupid, and being Johnny's best friend meant he didn't have to worry about that.

"L . . . leave me alone. I . . . I'm warning you!" Mark stammered out.

Johnny punched him in the mouth hard, and his head spun.

"Hey, Johnny! That's enough, man," Teddy said. "You said we was jus' gonna scare him a little."

"Get on outtah here if you can't hack it, Teddy," Johnny said.

"Don't hurt him, Johnny. He ain't a bad dude," Teddy said.

"Get the fuck outtah here, Teddy!" Johnny screamed.

"Fuck you, Johnny," Teddy turned and left.

Mark watched him go. No hope that he'd run to get help, didn't have the balls for that. He didn't want to be part of beating Mark up, which made him better than most. But he was too worried about his own skin, too afraid of breaking the playground code to help Mark.

Mark was scared. This guy was a dark void sucking in any light that touched him and diminishing it. Johnny had it in his mind to hurt him. Hurt him bad.

Mark had the power to stop him. He could stop him the same way he'd stopped Mr. Ryan's damned old pit bull from biting him.

Johnny pulled back to hit him again. Mark didn't stammer this time. He stood up as straight and as tall as he could.

"If you hit me one more time I'm gonna kill you, Johnny Round House," Mark hissed.

Johnny laughed and hit him.

Mark stared at Johnny and smiled. "That's three," he said mimicking Principle Whitters. Johnny went flying across the alley, hit the wall and exploded.

Mark picked up his stuff and ran.

"You know, like you'd say that the American Indians inhabited most areas of the United States, but then you'd say that your friend Joe is a Choctaw. Or the Cherokee of western Oklahoma had their own written language," Tommy said.

"You make fun of me for having 'To much sex,' as if that could ever really happen, and then you and your wife spend your spare time figuring out shit like this?" Spider said with a laugh.

"Don't you think that would be better?" Tommy asked seriously.

Spider shrugged. "I guess. I never really thought about it one way or the other. No blood in my brain, don't you know?"

The call came in on the car's comlink.

"Hey guys! Fry Guy's back. Alley directly behind Harvest School."

"That's fucking impossible!" Spider swore.

Tommy could tell by the look on her face that this was completely unexpected.

"Shit!" She looked out the window so that he couldn't see her face.

"We're on our way," Tommy said into the link. He turned the link off and stared at Spider. "I thought you said he'd always kill. That he couldn't help it."

"Yeah, but I . . . " Spider let the sentence die.

"You what, Spider?" Tommy asked. "What did you do?"

"It's not important."

But it was. She thought she'd taken care of the problem, gotten the SWTF of their backs. Now the nightmare was back.

Spider saw what no one else did. A smashed down place in the garbage where someone had been standing, and a couple of broken pencils on the ground. She purposely didn't walk over and check it out.

"He was . . . Well, I hate to speak ill of the dead, but he was a bad kid," Principle Whitters said. "A bully really."

Spider glared at the man. He was one to talk; he was nothing more than a bully himself. A scrawny, ugly, short guy, he no doubt couldn't hold his own with his peers. So he got a job where there were people he could push around. Some graffiti scrawled across the alley wall told how the kids felt about him. In big red block letters it read 'Child Molester Whitters, humps all sorts of critters.'

"Who the hell are those guys?" the principle asked.

Spider looked up and saw the SWTF guys. She frowned, then said to the principle, "It's OK, they're supposed to be here. You were saying about Johnny?"

"He . . . well, he'd already been in juvey twice for . . . well beating people up. Johnny put a twelve-year-old boy in the hospital when he was only eleven."

"And he's still in school?" Tommy asked in disbelief.

"Not my fault." Whitters shrugged. "According to the state law, as long as the kids are of school age they have to be in school."

"Were there any kids in particular that he was messing around with?" Spider asked.

The principle shrugged. "Who wasn't he bullying would be a better question." He snapped his fingers then. "He has a friend, Teddy Miller. He's always with Johnny; he might know something."

"Thanks." Spider walked away and Tommy followed. She punched in the kid's name and in seconds her comlink spit out an address.

"Or maybe he's in the alley being scraped off the wall with Johnny." Spider knew what Tommy was thinking; he didn't have to say anything. "How did they identify the body anyway?"

"Kid had a fake ID," Spider said nonchalantly. She walked past the SWTF guys and they smiled. "Let's go talk to the Miller kid."

Mark dialed the phone with trembling fingers. Most days he hated it when he came home to an empty house, but today he was glad.

The phone rang once, twice. "Come on, you stupid mother fucker! Pick up the phone," Mark hissed.

"Hello?" a woman answered.

"Hello, ma'am. Is Teddy home?"

"Teddy!" The woman screamed. "Phone!"

Mark waited. It was only a few seconds before Teddy answered.

"Yeah," he said, obviously around a mouthful of food.

"I killed Johnny. You'll know that's the truth in a little while," Mark said. "If you tell anyone about me, I'll kill you, too." Mark hung up quick.

Teddy looked at the phone and shrugged. Some kind of stupid joke. He hoped Mark
did
kick Johnny's ass. It would serve Johnny right for being such a prick.

The doorbell rang.

"I got it, Mom!" Teddy screamed and took another bite of sandwich. He walked over and opened the door still chewing. He looked up at the two people standing there. "What?" he asked around a mouthful of sandwich.

The man and woman showed him their comlinks. "Are one of your parents home, son?"

"Mom!" Teddy screamed. His mom came, and she and the cops went into the dining room to talk. Teddy sat in the living room and pretended to watch TV, but he was sweating. They must have found out that it was he and Johnny that tagged the school. His mom was going to kill him.

"Teddy, come here please," his mother called.

He could tell she was crying, but she didn't sound mad.

Teddy walked slowly into the room. His mother jumped out of her chair and ran over and hugged him tight.

"Wha . . . what's going on?" he asked.

She sat him down in a chair and dried her face with the backs of her hands. "Teddy . . . " her voice broke and she calmed herself down. "Teddy, something terrible has happened. Johnny has been killed."

Teddy dropped his sandwich. He remembered the phone call. He was sad and terrified all at the same time. "Somebody killed Johnny?" Teddy cried.