The Siege (21 page)

If the man had killed Hocker and now had the gun, she could expect at any second to see a bright flash of light and feel a bullet rip out her chest. She waited, her legs trembling, her stomach filled with ice. Waited, now, for the end.

“For Christ’s fuckin’ sake, will you come over here and help me?”

It was Hocker’s voice, calling to her from the dark woods. Never before in her life had she been so relieved to hear his throaty growl. As soon as she tried one step forward, though, her legs gave out beneath her, and she crumpled to the ground. When she awoke, the sun was cutting through the morning mist in the trees, and Hocker was crouched by a small campfire, heating up a can of baked beans.

Tasha looked at him through slitted eyes. When the horrors of the night rushed back to her, she jolted into a sitting position. The night’s events had the gauzy overcast of a dream, but as soon as she moved, the knife-like pain under her ribs convinced her it had been real.

“What the…?”

“Don’t worry,” Hocker said, smiling as he stirred the beans with his spoon. “Everything’s taken care of.”

“What do you mean?” she said, although it was difficult, practically
impossible
to speak. She was positive she had screamed several layers from inside her throat, and just taking a tiny breath hurt like hell!

“Over there, pretty well hidden,” Hocker said, nodding to one side. Through the screen of brush, she could see three rectangles of fresh-turned earth.

“All three were dead?” Tasha asked. Her body was wracked by a wave of shivers that felt like they would never stop.

“They are now, for sure,” Hocker said. He raised up a wad of mucous and spit in the direction of the three new graves. “I don’t want to sound superstitious or anything,” he added. He tested the beans with his finger and licked his fingertip clean. “But just to make sure they stay dead, I cut off their heads before I buried ’em. Pretty wild, huh?”

“Funeral
Time”

I

“I’
m surprised she even remembered me,” Donna said as she and Dale left Mrs. Appleby’s and walked out to her car, parked down by the curb. “She must have had hundreds of students over the years, and she really did remember me.”

Dale chuckled and shook his head, “Well, you must admit, that little ‘accident’ you had would have been pretty memorable. What a riot!”

“I didn’t think it was very funny back then,” Donna said. Her face turned several shades of red, remembering what had happened to her when she was a fourth-grader in Mrs. Appleby’s class. She hadn’t even remembered the name of the boy responsible, but Mrs. Appleby did: it had been Tommy Anderson.

One day, as a practical joke, Tommy had secretly taken the hem of Donna’s dress, (she remembered the dress vividly; it had had a yellow and white check design, and a tiny black poodle sewn on the left shoulder puff) and tied it in several knots around the back support bar of her chair. Apparently he had tied it a little too good. When Mrs. Appleby called on Donna to do a multiplication problem at the blackboard, she stood up. With a sudden, sharp hiss, the whole bottom half of her dress ripped away, and she was left standing in the middle of the room with her skinny legs sticking out from her frilly underpants.

“I think that was Tommy’s way of trying to get me to pay attention to him,” Donna said, still embarrassed. “But it didn’t work. I never even remembered his name until today.”

“Well, something like that would make an impression on a teacher,” Dale said.

When they got to the car, Dale opened the driver’s door for Donna before he got in. They decided to take a drive into Houlton that morning, before the funeral, so Donna could buy an appropriately dark dress. That was what started Mrs. Appleby reminiscing about the famous “yellow and white check dress” story.

School started in mid-August earlier than the southern part of Maine, but let out during the several weeks of harvest. Angie decided to stay at the house and hang out with Lisa. Dale thought he detected a slight jealousy now that Donna had wedged herself between them so fast. If that was the case, however, he felt he’d have no problem reassuring her that this was “nothing serious.” He smiled to himself, though, as Donna started up the car and pulled away from the curb. It was significant, he thought, that this was the first time since Natalie died, that there was even a question of any relationship with a woman becoming serious.

When they passed Brooklawn Cemetery, they exchanged nervous glances, not having to voice their thoughts about what had happened in the cemetery last night. Dale was still haunted by the thought that it had not been a trash can or a floral arrangement he had hit as he backed around out of there. What if the man they had seen had had a buddy out there with him? Maybe a couple of old friends had gone out to the cemetery, as he and Donna did to enjoy the peace and quiet and the view of the town, as they shared a bottle of Ripple. And what if Dale had run the man down? What if he was up there, right now, dead in the road, waiting to be discovered? Maybe to be discovered by the cemetery workers who were coming to work today to bury Larry?

He tried to push those and other thoughts away as Donna drove by the first cemetery gate without a backward glance.

If that’s what happened
, he thought bitterly,
then, that’s what happened
. He’d have to turn himself in!

When he saw a second gateway to the cemetery up ahead, he tapped Donna on the arm and pointed to the black, wrought-iron entrance.

“Just zip in there for a minute, will you?” he asked, hoping the tension wasn’t noticeable in his voice.

Donna forced a smile despite the memory of that man’s face looming in front of them out of the darkness. “Want to see if our buddy’s still up there?” she asked.

Dale nodded. “Just checking.”

Donna slowed and took the turn. Once inside the cemetery, they followed the twisting, twin-rutted dirt road to where they had parked the night before. Donna put the car into park and waited behind the wheel while Dale got out and carefully inspected the ground. His first sensation was of relief; there was no corpse in the road. If there had been one, wouldn’t there be police lines and cruisers all over the place?

The criminal always comes back to the scene of the crime, his mind whispered softly.

After his initial relief at not finding a dead man there, Dale took a few seconds to look around for any sign of the man they had seen. The ground all around was well-trimmed and there were, as far as he could tell, no signs of anyone having been there. There were no footprints, no empty Ripple bottles leaning against the tombstones: nothing. Not even a trace of what had happened last night.

“Satisfied?” Donna called through her open window.

Dale nodded as he circled the area one last time, making a wide swing that included the road where he thought he had seen something. An icy tingle ran through him when he saw a small dark splotch in the middle of the dirt road.

Could it be blood?
he wondered. Maybe the guy they saw hauled his friend’s body away himself, leaving nothing behind but a small puddle of his dead friend’s blood!

Dale shook his head and knelt, slowly extending his fingers to touch the dark, damp spot. It made his hands sticky, but the more he looked at it, the more he became convinced it was oil or something else… It was certainly not
blood
!

“Yeah,” he said, standing up and wiping his fingers on his pants leg as he walked back to the car. “I guess there’s nothing here.”

He got in but couldn’t resist taking one last glance over his shoulder as they pulled away. The events of last night took on a strange, unreal cast, like a dream, only partially, but vividly remembered.

“Oh, damn, you know what?” Donna said as she pulled to a stop at the cemetery exit. “I think I left my other keys behind.” She slammed the car into park and picked up her pocketbook. After a minute of frantically pawing through the contents, she let out a sharp breath that angled up over her face, making the hair on her forehead bounce.

“A problem?” Dale asked.

“The keys to my folks’ house,” she said, grimacing as she continued her futile search. “I went out to the house yesterday, and I must’ve left the keys there. They’re probably right there in the door.”

“Is it far from here?” Dale asked. He knew they wouldn’t be back from Houlton in time for the funeral service unless they left now. His detour to the cemetery had eaten up enough time as it was.

Donna looked at him, a shadow of worry wrinkling her brow. “It’s not far,” she said, “and I really should check to see if they’re there. I wouldn’t want anyone getting in there.”

Dale shrugged. “We won’t make it to Houlton in time if we take much longer.”

Donna shook her head, angry at herself for being so thoughtless. It wasn’t like her to be so absentminded, but when she remembered the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions that had flooded her yesterday at the house, she wasn’t all that surprised that she had left the keys. She would consider herself lucky if that was the worst that happened.

“I suppose I can wear something I brought with me,” she said, scratching her cheek. “That will cut a lot of the hurry out of the day. We can take our time not rush-rush-rush.”

“That’s one thing I like about this town,” Dale said. “The whole feeling that life is somehow unnatural if it goes at a very fast pace.”

Donna smiled in agreement. “That’s why I wanted to get out of here so much when I graduated. I wanted to live in Boston or New York City or someplace, and get away from the really small minds around here. It’s only now after I’ve lived that kind of life”—
and seen what it can do to a person!
she added in her mind—”that I can sort of appreciate it.”

“Let’s go out to the house, then,” Dale said decisively. “You can give me a guided tour down memory lane.” He paused, then added, “Maybe I can dig out a few more embarrassing stories about you.”

Donna smiled as she looked him straight in the eye. “I’ll trade your embarrassing stories, one for one. By my count, you already owe me one!”

II

T
asha couldn’t stand the thought of being near where three bodies were buried, so it didn’t take much convincing on Hocker’s part to get her to agree to check out the abandoned farmhouse he had found the day before. After sharing the can of warmed-up beans, they covered their fire, packed up their camping gear, and left. Just the thought of those three freshly dug graves back there in the woods sent shivers coursing through her body.

“I can’t understand how you can just… just walk away from what you did last night,” Tasha said as they started across the field. In the distance, they could hear the deep-throated rumble of farm machinery, tractors, probably, digging potatoes.

“Not just what I did,” Hocker said, looking at her with a twisted smile that was scary and ridiculous at the same time. “What we did! I only killed two of them, remember? You battered the other one’s head until there was almost nothing left. So if you start thinking this is just
my
problem, you better think again. We’re in this thing together, baby.”

His words stripped her nerves raw, and in her mind she saw the whole rest of her life as a long, narrow black tube.
I actually killed a person!
her mind repeated over and over, until it became a numbing litany.
I actually killed a person!
Stealing the truck down south, even if Hocker had murdered that old man, at least she hadn’t done anything; but now…
now
…

I actually killed a person!

She knew she would have to live with that thought for the rest of her life, and nothing she could ever do would free her from it.

“You actually think three geeks like that will ever be missed?” Hocker said. He spit onto the ground for emphasis. “I mean, did you catch a whiff of those guys?”

Tasha grunted, thinking,
Boy, he should talk about ‘catching a whiff’!
She couldn’t maintain eye contact with him for fear of seeing herself reflected in his crazy eyes.

The old farmhouse was at the bottom of a long, downward slope. Crouching low, Hocker studied the worn-out barn and the empty driveway. Everything looked quiet and peaceful and there was no evidence that there was anyone around. So they made their way to the house, approaching cautiously in case there was someone inside. The closer they got, the more Hocker became convinced the farmhouse was deserted and free for the taking.

“When that last one tackled me and rolled me into the bushes, I thought the smell alone would kill me. It was like that guy had been swimming in sewerage! Gawd!” He waved his hand in front of his nose as if to fan away any lingering traces.

“They were human beings,” Tasha said simply.

“Not any more, they aren’t!”

They arrived at the steps that led up to the back porch, and stood, looking up at the weather-beaten house. Hocker strained to hear any trace of activity inside the house, but all he could hear was the distant rumble of a tractor, somewhere off in the distance.

The windows reflected a distorted view of the sunlit fields stretching behind them up to the horizon. Tasha wanted to cry when she saw herself: a small, nearly transparent reflection, standing next to this monster!

The word “monster” echoed in her head, almost drowning out the words as Hocker said, “Come on, let’s check it out.”

She followed him, walking mechanically up the steps, her fingers gliding over the chipped paint railing. When they were out of the sun, beneath the shade of the porch, Tasha shivered as though she had jumped into cold water.

Hocker looked into the kitchen, his breath fogging the glass that, only moments before, had reflected them. “Well, I guess we don’t have to worry ’bout anyone being around.” He told Tasha. “This place is deserted.”

“Don’t you think—” Tasha started to say, but then she cut her words off, looking frantically over her shoulder as the sound of farm machinery got suddenly louder. A tractor, its harrow raised and gleaming in the sun, chugged its way across the field in the distance.

Hocker ignored her and went around the corner toward the front of the house, and Tasha followed silently. The screen door spring let out a rusty “twang” as he opened the door and tried the doorknob. He looked back at her, his mouth a rounded
O
when the knob clicked, and the door swung inward.

“I’ll be damned!” Hocker said before stepping into the musty cool of the house. Diffused sunlight from outside barely made it through the grimy windows. It looked as though the house was filled with a thin haze of smoke.

With another nervous backward glance (
something I’ll be doing the rest of my life!
Tasha thought) she followed him in, making sure to shut the inside door and throw the bolt just as the rusty spring pulled the screen door shut with a bang.

In the entryway, Hocker was bouncing on his toes, obviously satisfied with their discovery. “Ahh, this’ll be great,” he said. “Absolutely perfect!” He suddenly turned back to Tasha and frowned. “You were saying?”