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  Angelo gave up on the bra itself, clawing at whatever was in reach. His fingers found Ruth’s left breast; he twisted and squeezed the pliable flesh. Ruth howled like a trapped mother coyote but relinquished not one ounce of murderous constriction.

  He curled his fingers into talons and pulled, tearing at her nipple. She snarled and bit into his nose, shaking her head like a vicious pit bull until it tore free, trailing strands of flesh and mucous.

  She spat it across the floor and shrieked as she redoubled her strangling attack.

  Angelo’s face was a slick scarlet rictus of agony, like a stone bust from an insane sculptor. But the rictus soon went slack and lifeless, his lecherous leer forever frozen in stupefied terror, his clutching fingers now dead crabs.

  Ruth held her grip a little longer for insurance, then relaxed and pulled her bra free, letting his head thud against the blood-painted concrete floor.

  She slumped to her hands and knees, exhausted. After catching her breath, she stabbed a scolding finger at Angelo’s ruined face. “You tell Satan what I said, you heathen filth!”

  * * * *

  Elaine Barcroft sat at the table with her trembling hands clasped. She considered calling Reverend McGlazer, or Leticia Lott, but decided against it. They were both so busy right now.

  The incident with poor Mister Dukes had left her shaken. Dennis had literally dodged a bullet. As a card-carrying overprotective mother, she wondered if he could dodge any more.

  He had survived a daredevil period from ages eight till around ten, marveling over the exploits of motorcyclists and stunt drivers before trying them in miniature, first with toy cars and action figures, then with his own skateboard and bicycle, over rickety ramps and potholes, through stacks of boxes, any variable his young mind could conceive.

  When punk rock came along to replace the alarmingly more dangerous and elaborate stunt gags, it struck her and Jerome as relatively acceptable, even welcome. Dennis’s thoughts of death and/or madness simply took a more cerebral form, and no parent worth their worry warts could balk at that.

  After Jerome’s accident, Elaine’s understandable inclination toward self-pity had to go neglected, as she sought whatever relief was to be had for her two sensitive and fragile boys.

  Dennis plummeted into a blackness that could swallow hell, his only expression shell shock. No music was angry or anarchic or bleak enough to give vent to his grief. It was a kind of rage turned inside out. Jerome’s belongings—all the keepsakes she wanted to treasure, to use as conduits to her memories—were collected by Dennis one day. He piled them into the back of his hearse one night at some hour after Elaine’s exhaustion had overpowered her grief, and he drove away. He didn’t return until midday, and when she asked what he had done, Dennis stared off toward some inner horizon and mumbled that they, the Barcroft family as it now remained, would have to forget that Jerome ever lived. The alternative was to—well, to remember that the last thing he did was to die, and he deserved to be remembered for better reasons.

  One of Jerome’s belongings was a bottle of Diamante’s, and that was the one thing Dennis kept, at least until he finished it that evening.

  Stuart’s response was a different animal. He did not stuff down his grief, or distance himself from it. He gave voice to it, with frightening sobs that left him breathless and hitching, until he gulped enough air to do it again.

  Visiting the grave became impossible; Stuart would only stand and bawl at the silent stone. Dennis stayed in the car.

  Hudson and Leticia were there, and let’s not forget McGlazer, much less DeShaun.

  The couple hovered over them like seraphim, Leticia cooking and cleaning and holding Elaine, while Hudson took care of the lawn, house repairs (Dennis’s punch holes in the drywall), and the cars.

  DeShaun brought comics and action figures, and coaxed Stuart out of his bedroom and onto the living room floor to watch monster movies on TV. Not the really scary ones though, just the ones that were old enough to be campy, or spooky in a goofy way. The chainsaw massacres and whatnot would have to wait. DeShaun understood this.

  The reverend took care of the funeral arrangements and other expenses, from his own pocket mostly. And the Barcrofts survived.

  Then the boys picked up instruments again. They wrote songs together, and talked of forming a band, and listened to songs that seemed to celebrate death, even to make light of it. Death lost its power, in a sense, because the boys stood up, turned around, and stared it right in the eye sockets.

  On a beautiful spring day, Elaine told the boys she was going to the grave and they asked to join her. They all stood around the marker for a while, and then Dennis squatted to pat it, like he would an old friend’s shoulder, and they all silently embraced.

  Elaine contained her tears, fearful of smashing the fragile stability they had barely achieved.

  At home, the boys practiced on their instruments until well after Stuart’s bedtime, but Elaine let them be.

  For Stuart, a milestone had been reached, a coming to some terms, if not all. For Dennis, the storm was only beginning.

  There was no build up, no one-drink-then-two-then-thirteen phase. Dennis blasted through a bottle one night, paid for it brutally the following morning. Something about this self-imposed cycle appealed to Dennis. He needed it.

  “You’ve got to stop poisoning yourself!” she screamed at him one black morning from the very frayed end of her rope, as he caught his breath between pukes. Dennis only looked up at her with weary eyes, then to Stuart in the hallway behind her, saluted, and collapsed on the cold tile floor, to remain till daybreak.

  For a good many harrowing, endless nights following, he at least had the courtesy to stay away until he was sober enough to come home and catch just enough rest and nourishment to fuel him for the next night.

  Some nights, Hudson or another deputy would find him, in the cemetery atop a grave, or in a freshly dug one, or behind some building or other, even in a dumpster, as if he was determined to literally throw himself or his life away. The officer would help her get him into bed, even when he smelled of trash or grave dirt, or both. She would thank the officer and if it was Hudson, he would stay with her and pat her while she cried, no matter how long.

  Ma was sure the whiskey would kill him soon, and then probably Stuart not long after, and then her. She became superstitious to the point of paranoia, wondering if some random curse, perhaps connected to the town’s mysterious history, had targeted the Barcroft family after all these centuries.

  Hudson took it upon himself to go to Reverend McGlazer. Elaine and the boys had stayed away from church since the funeral, not from loss of faith but simply from loss of interest.

  McGlazer didn’t mention this. He just showed up one morning, had coffee with Elaine, and went to Dennis’s room, where he propped the young man up, gave him some coffee, and asked him questions, asking, asking, asking, always gentle, till Dennis was ready to answer.

  McGlazer, bringing heaping bags of candy with him, began staying with Dennis in his room for hours, waking him at the crack of dawn and keeping him busy until late in the day.

  McGlazer got Dennis to play music for him, bringing Stuart in for accompaniment, got him to talk about music, encouraged him to make plans.

  What he didn’t do was judge, preach, or pander. He became Dennis’s friend, and that was what he needed more than anything.

  The band came next. Punk rock, horror punk, whatever.

  Now, success. Many had scoffed at the Outlines’s chosen genre. No one questioned their star power.

  Elaine clasped her hands together even tighter to fatigue them, to cease their shaking, and that took many hours.

  * * * *

  Candace went to the kitchen. Mamalee was bent over and humming to herself as she burrowed into the oven to check her roast. As always, Candace made sure to stamp her feet a bit to give M
amalee, easily frightened at the best of times, plenty of early warning.

  “Hi, Mama,” she said to Mamalee’s butt.

  Mamalee rose and greeted her with a squashing hug as she always did. “Welcome home, dear! So glad they let you out early!”

  “So everyone can get ready for the parade,” Candace explained to Mamalee’s fragrant shoulder.

  As the hug dragged on, Candace said, “But I do have to get gravestone rubbings for school.”

  “Oh! That sounds so interes—” Mamalee released Candace to look in her eyes. “Hm. Your boyfriend…”

  “Mama!” Candace chided.

  “It’s all right, Candace.” Mamalee stroked Candace’s arm. “Boys are not evil, you know. Oh…” She cast a dark glance toward the door.

  “Stuart’s only a friend, Mama. And DeShaun. They’re riding their bikes.”

  Mamalee stroked her cheek. “Yes, sweetie. Go see your friend. You know, you can’t tell him…”

  “I won’t tell him we’re leaving, Mama.”

  “Okay.” Mamalee almost made a sad face but forced it back to a smile and whispered, “I’ll deal with your father.”

  Candace was bursting with excitement. Before she could run to her room, Mamalee called after her, “Candace, wait.”

  The façade of vacant bliss had slipped. Candace saw something else in her mother’s face, something she didn’t remember ever seeing before.

  “I know you understand that we must move every year,” Mamalee said in a serious tone. “You understand, but you don’t know why. And you deserve to. Sit down and let me explain.”

  Chapter 9

  Candace stepped into the early afternoon, still stunned from what Mamalee had just told her.

  She only wanted to forget it, to shut it out and live a normal life.

  Life had always been a disappointment, even a quiet horror. Now—disappointment was a word so small it meant nothing at all, and the horror was louder.

  The scent of Ember Hollow’s share of autumn helped her wall it off and put it behind her, if only for the time she would have to be distant from it.

  Candace knew she would soon miss that scent, and she would miss Stuart. She considered the place she called home and then Everett’s shed, seeing it differently. The heaviness in her heart felt ancient.

  She trotted to the end of the driveway, then turned onto the road, feeling stranger by the step. The strangeness was like freedom of a sort, and that freedom was like fear—with which she was well-acquainted.

  She felt herself begin to trot, either into the strange freedom or away from it, not caring which. Her trotting became a run, and her run became a desperate sprint, as she let herself pretend that she was escaping the family and the “home” she knew, and maybe even heading into Stuart’s arms. Tears streamed from her eyes and either giggles or sobs burst from her lungs as her hair blew behind her.

  * * * *

  Upon taking his job, Hudson believed that he should remain professional and businesslike not only while in uniform but at church and during off-duty hours.

  Leticia had seen him on duty and patiently explained that he need not fear being disrespected, that folks would feel more secure in knowing that he was easy to talk to.

  These days, Hudson had good relationships with just about everyone. His friendship with Dennis Barcroft, forged in the wake of the Barcroft patriarch Jerome’s passing, was good for both parties. Knowing the lawman liked and respected the Outlines softened their standing with Ember Hollow’s more conservative residents, and even encouraged those residents to support the band as it became clear they were beginning to ascend.

  Jerome Barcroft had been a retired US Air Force mechanic who served as a sort of technical consultant for local farmers and sometimes repaired their equipment, more as a neighborly gesture and hobby than as a true business.

  One would have been justified in assuming Jerome Barcroft was fairly conservative and straight forward in his expectations of his family. But he and his wife encouraged the musical inclinations in their boys without reservation, buying them instruments and records and taking them to shows. Perhaps Dennis’s leanings toward punk rock raised an initial concern—but it was his interest and his talent, no one else’s.

  Besides, there was also a healthy injection of rockabilly and tongue-in-cheek humor in this weird mashup called horror punk, and there was nothing wrong with that.

  Hudson admired this in Jerome, and he vowed to be the same way with his children. Good thing, since DeShaun turned out to be as quirky as they come in his obsession with B movies and comic books.

  When the accident happened, the horrific incident with the grain thresher Jerome was fixing, Hudson was among the first to arrive on scene. Worse than any shooting or traffic wreck, the death of his friend shook him to his core, tore into all his reserves of faith and professionalism.

  It was a horrible way to die, and a worse way to lose one’s father or husband. From the second he saw Jerome’s corpse, the man’s family became Hudson’s. Thus, it hurt him more than he could express to see Dennis, barely out of his teens, plummet into alcoholism—he finished his father’s bottle of Diamante’s Deep Dark Rum, and thereafter drank only that—to the point of near-suicide. Seeing Elaine crippled with grief yet still trying her best to be a mother, and little Stuart trying to understand the new upside-down world he inhabited, put things in grim perspective.

  Hudson teamed with McGlazer, twelve years sober himself, to free Dennis of his suffering, to find him a band and give him a cause.

  Hudson already knew Pedro from the juvenile system. The big half-Mexican kid had been in far more than his—or just about anyone’s—fair share of fights. But mostly against bullies and bigots. Pedro liked heavy music and was often caught using a fake ID not to get alcohol but to get into clubs where metal bands were playing, just to stand alone as near to the stage as he could get.

  Hudson arranged a meeting between the boys and was gratified when they hit it off. Dennis gave Pedro a bass, and a very young Stuart taught him how to play it. Soon they were talking about forming a band.

  McGlazer placed an ad for drummers and hosted tryouts at the church. Hudson stressed the importance of staying clean if they were serious about music. Jill displayed the most lethal combination of alt beauty and skins-bashing talent any two troubled young fellows could ever hope to see.

  Initially, Hudson and McGlazer worried that the boys might fight over her. It was either a testament to their dedication as musicians or the fact that Jill unabashedly, uninhibitedly chose Dennis, that their worries were assuaged. Besides, Pedro had no trouble eliciting female interest, and being in a band would only magnify the effect.

  In short time, they were a cohesive unit, with Dennis calling the shots when they played. But they were also closest friends, equal and inseparable away from the instruments, with Pedro and Jill forming a protective shell around the still-reeling Dennis.

  It was no surprise that oily-but-mostly-harmless Kerwin Stuyvesant took an interest in managing them. Hudson had seen the report on the bar destroyed by the Outlines one winter night, heard how Stuyvesant smoothed over the trouble and took the Outlines under his managerial wing with just a few silky words.

  It was less surprising that a record label would sniff them out.

  * * * *

  Mamalee put the finishing touches on Everett’s meal of baked potato, flayed and garnished, a healthy portion of the tender roast, barely solid at all, summer squash medallions, and, his favorite, a slice of pumpkin pie. She dabbed whipped cream onto the pie and placed two little chocolate chips on top to create a ghost. His pre-Halloween meals were always extra special. The boy would need a lot of energy.

  Satisfied, she hummed a happy Halloween tune from one of Everett’s records as she set a large plastic spoon to the side and then covered the dish with a thin plastic cake cover. “Aloysius
! Everett’s lunch is ready!”

  She poured milk into a plastic child’s sippy cup, orange of course.

  Aloysius was grim, as usual. “It smells like dinner, not lunch.”

  “He’s getting big, Aloy. I read about growing boys. He’ll need lots of carbohydrates for his big night.”

  “My God, how you spoil him,” Aloysius grumbled.

  “Aloy.” She waxed serious. “He deserves to be spoiled in some way.”

  “Yes?” Aloysius gestured toward the door, as they all did when discussing Everett. “And what do we do when he is grown?”

  Mamalee answered, “He is grown, Aloy.”

  Aloysius rubbed his face, then took the covered tray and the chain leash that hung beside the door.

  * * * *

  Aloysius glowered toward the orange-lit windows of the cement shed, allowing himself a plaintive huff for the many misfortunes of his life. He saw Bravo’s big paws crossed in repose and uncoiled the chain, whistling to wake him. But the huge paws retreated into the dusty dark of the doghouse.

  “Come, boy! Stop this nonsense!” Aloysius tromped to the doghouse and reached in to grab the mastiff’s thick leather collar, balancing the tray in his other hand.

  Bravo pulled back from him with his strong legs, whimpering.

  “Damn your hide!” cursed Aloysius. “Worthless beast…”

  Aloysius set the tray atop the doghouse and reached in with both hands to drag Bravo out. The dog resisted, very strong. “I’ll starve you if you don’t mind me, boy!”

  Gritting his teeth, he heaved Bravo out, only to have the whining dog scoot away again. With great exertion, Aloysius hauled him from the house and whacked him with the slack of the chain, something he’d rarely done since the dog had reached maturity. “You will obey me, damn it all!”

  Bravo sank to the ground in a peaceful protest that left Aloysius enraged. “Get…up, God damn it!”

  He yanked at Bravo’s collar, causing the dog to whine. Aloysius felt guilty, fearing he had hurt his loyal pet. When he released the choke, Bravo took his chance. He darted away toward the forest.