Mason (12 page)

Mason slept late that morning. Before going to bed the night before, Aunt Molly told him that school was closed because of Rene and Lara Pearce and Lump Hawthorne. That was okay. Mason didn't want to go to school anyhow. He was so tired he didn't think he could get out of bed if he wanted to.

Instead he spent most of the morning sliding in and out of dreams. When a bad dream woke him up, he stared at the ceiling until his eyes grew heavy again. Before drifting off to sleep, he tried to picture something nice, tried to feed his dreams with sunshine and picnics and clean, beautiful places, but he didn't have the strength to hold on to such good pictures; they turned scary and grim behind his eyes.

His last dream on that long morning began with Mason sitting in Rene's hospital room. She was awake
and smiling, and her face wasn't hurt anymore. This was the mind picture he gave himself. He wanted it to follow him into sleep, to last. Rene looked nice and happy, and she told him all about the hospital and said she was going home soon.

Though Mason created this picture with bright sunshine pouring through the window to land on Rene's pretty face, the weather outside soon turned dark. Rain poured down, rapping the glass like the claws of a monster wanting to get in. Soon the glum atmosphere crept into the hospital room, dimming the lights. Rene stopped talking and fell back on her pillow. Her wounds returned. Purple bruises. Cuts nearly black for their deepness. Skin swollen and bumpy on her cheeks and forehead. Mason stood from the chair and backed away from the bed until he hit the wall. His arms lifted up above his head like he was waiting for Aunt Molly to take off his T-shirt. Then the room was full of the thunderstorm. Black clouds rolled in, covering Rene and the bed and the ceiling and the walls. Mason tried to leave, wanted to get away from the hospital, but he couldn't move his arms or legs. Sharp pains shot up and down them when he tried. The clouds pulled away from the center of the room and coated the walls like ugly paint. The floor was no longer clean linoleum, but dirt. Mason was no longer standing. He sat on the dirt floor, his arms still restrained above him.

Then the hospital room was gone completely. Mason sat in a dark place with only the glow of a kerosene lamp that sat on a small wooden table.

He was in Gene's shack.

A dozen crows, their wings affixed to the boards with nails, decorated the walls on either side of him. Mason knew that he too was kept in place with nails, driven deep into his forearms. Across the room stood a woman. It was his aunt Molly. He could tell by her hair and her dress. She faced the wall, arms at her sides. To her right, in a corner where the lantern's light couldn't reach, something moved. Feet shuffled through the dirt. The sound of heavy breathing, like whatever it was had just finished a long run, came in quick gasps.

“I'd like to leave, please,” Mason said. He was looking at his aunt. She didn't move. Maybe she didn't hear him at all. “Aunt Molly, can you get me down, please? I want to go inside now.”

But his aunt didn't move. She kept staring at the wall. Her shoulders shook like she was crying, but Mason didn't hear her cry. He heard the feet and the breaths in the dark corner, but Aunt Molly didn't make a sound.

Really afraid now, Mason tried to pull his arms free, but it just hurt too badly. He began to cry himself, even though he knew only babies cried.

“Please,” he said. “I don't like it here.”

The sounds in the corner grew louder. The dark seemed to move, like it was breathing in time with whatever it hid.

“It hurts,” Mason cried. “Please.”

Gene stepped out of the pulsing darkness. Though the monster didn't look like his brother, Mason knew it was. That happened in dreams sometimes.

Gene wore the face of an angry dog with eyes the color of pennies. Thick brown fur swept back from the snout to cover his head. Spit dripped from Gene's sharp teeth.

“The trouble is keeping my pets alive,” Gene said, nodding his muzzle at the wall beside Mason.

Mason turned his head, seeing the tortured bodies of the dead crows.

“You've lasted longer than any of the others,” the Gene-dog said. “How's it feel to actually be good at something, doorknob?”

“It hurts,” Mason whimpered.

“Dear little brother,” the Gene-dog said, creeping closer. “Pain is the only thing we have left to feel.”

Mason woke covered in sweat and trembling. He jerked his arms up, searching for the holes he believed the nails had left in them, but the skin there was unbroken.

He felt terribly alone as he let his head fall back on
the pillow. He wished Rene was better so they could get ice cream. Maybe if he saw her again, he wouldn't feel so bad.

She might even be awake now!

But Mason didn't think so. She was still hurt. It wasn't fair.
Those bad kids shouldn't-a hit Rene like they did. They shouldn't-a, but they did.

And they were gonna step up. Someone had to step up.

 

At the hospital again, Mason stood in the hallway outside Rene's room. He wasn't as afraid this time. Other people were in the room with Rene. She was still asleep, so nobody really said anything. Her friend Cassie was there with a tall boy Mason didn't know. He'd seen the boy at school and he seemed nice, but Mason couldn't remember his name. Rene's mama was there and she was crying again, so Mason waited in the hall. Men and women in white coats walked past him, and he kept his head down.

When Rene's mama came into the hall and saw him, her face twisted up and she hurried to where he stood. “Mason,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Don't know,” Mason said. “Wanted to see Rene, I s'pose.”

“Well you have to behave,” Mrs. Denton said. “Last
time you scared a lot of people the way you ran out of here.”

“Sorry,” he said. You always had to say sorry and please and thank you.

Mrs. Denton patted his shoulder and sniffled a little. “I know it's scary here.”

“Rene's still asleep,” he said. It wasn't a question. He knew she was. He also knew that it wasn't a good sleep. He'd seen her dreams and nobody should have to sleep with those kinds of haunts.

“Yes, she is. But the doctors say she's better. It just may take some time for her to wake up.”

“I should have brought an alarm clock,” Mason said. “Whenever I sleep too much the clock wakes me up.”

Mrs. Denton looked at Mason like he had six eyes. She shook her head and a little laugh jumped from her lips. “I don't think the doctors have tried that yet.” Then Mrs. Denton began crying again, really hard.

Mason's stomach knotted up painfully. He didn't know what he'd said, but it must have been really mean for the lady to be this upset about it.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“I'm just so angry,” Mrs. Denton said between her sobs. “I want them to catch the bastard who did this, and I want them to hurt him. I want his head broken and his arms broken, and I want him to go through the kind of pain my little girl went through. But it won't
happen. Even if they catch him, he'll get a comfortable cell and a new suit and a smart-ass lawyer who'll cut some deal so he only spends a few days in jail. And after all Rene is going through, it's just not enough. It's not justice.”

“Someone has to step up,” Mason said.

“What?”

But before Mason could try to explain the phrase, he saw two boys walking across the far side of the ward. Hunter Wallace, with his painted arms, walked ahead of Ricky Langham, who was wearing a light blue shirt over sand-colored trousers. Seeing the boys numbed Mason. He didn't even feel bad for upsetting Mrs. Denton anymore. The emptiness opened up in him and swallowed his emotions and thoughts.

“They must be here to see that Humphrey Hawthorne,” Mrs. Denton said with a sniff. “I hate to say such a thing, but that boy got what was coming to him. Do you know they found drugs in his car? And he's already got himself a baby on the way with that Holloway girl. My heart aches for his mama, it surely does, but he's been playing with the devil his whole life, and he was bound to lose sometime.”

“S'pose,” Mason said distantly.

He was watching the two boys from school. The hole behind his ribs grew deeper and darker, as dark as the picture he had drawn with their faces on it. When
Hunter Wallace looked in his direction, eyes filled with hate, Mason just stared back. He wanted to show them something awful, paint a terrible mind picture that would make both of them cry. But he wouldn't do it. Not there.

Not yet.

wall arump am

wall arump am

L-L-L-L-L-L

Thump-thump
.

A heart beat in her head. No,
two
hearts beat. One was just above her left ear. The other was in the back. They thumped noisily, but instead of pumping blood, these hearts pumped pain. Each beat brought a bit more agony with it. And she could see the pain. It was made of light. The hearts beat against her brain and a little more light came with them. It hurt, but she wanted the light. It had been dark for so long, she thought the light might be a good thing, even if it meant enduring this rhythmic misery.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Rene opened her eyes. She saw people, people she
knew she knew, but she didn't remember their names. There was a pretty girl with a handsome boy, and an older woman with an older man. They all seemed very happy. Was it a party?

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

They all started talking, their voices like bits of glass piercing her ears and jabbing at the painful little hearts. They leaned close to the bed, and she saw they'd been crying. But weren't they happy a minute ago?

Oh no, what was wrong? She should ask.

“Wall arump am,” she whispered. “
L-L-L-L-L-L
.”

Then she returned to the dark for a while, because the light hurt too much.

“So, who's taking over Lump's business?” Ricky Langham asked from the passenger seat of Hunter's car.

“That's your major issue right now?” Hunter asked.

“We have clients,” Ricky said casually. “It's a business.”

“And you don't even give a damn Lump's jacked up?”

“When did you grow a soul?” Ricky asked.

“Hey, Asshead, he's been my best friend since we were kids,” Hunter replied.

“We've all been friends a long time.”

“Yeah, you're some friend. He gets smeared all over a rock and you can't wait to go through his pockets. His face is gone, man. It's just gone. Who knows what the hell is under those bandages? And no way that arm is gonna stay attached. They didn't get it in time. I heard one of the nurses talking. His arm is coming off.”

“That blows. But Jesus, it's not like
I
made him go all Dukes of Hazzard and launch his car.”

“Maybe you should be thinking more about who did.”

You're nuts
, Ricky thought. “No one made him. It was an accident. He probably shot a few too many Wild Turkeys before he went out, and he missed the curve.”

“It didn't go down that way. I seen Lump down half a bottle and not even blink.”

“You're freaked because it happened right after Lara bit the crazy wafer.”

“Damn straight,” Hunter replied. “That's just too much of a coincidence for my country blood. There were four of us, and now there are two.”

“Dude, you said that bitch was about to snap anyway.”

“Yeah, and I could buy that just fine, but with what happened to Lump, I don't know.”

“Okay,” Ricky said, trying to keep from laughing, because Hunter was on the deep end of the paranoia pool. “Exactly what do you think could make her go nuts and send Lump off the road?”

“I don't know.”

“Right, you don't know, because the answer is
nothing
. Now, let's figure out how we're going to handle his clients.”

“Shut up, Ricky,” Hunter warned. “Just shut up.”

“We can't just stop.”

“God damn it, Ricky, I swear, if you don't…What the hell?”

Ricky had been watching the road, an empty stretch of two-lane blacktop running along the river's edge. When Hunter shouted, Ricky turned to him. Hunter's eyes were lit up and crazy. His hands clutched the steering wheel with white knuckles. Then Hunter cranked the wheel to the right, sending them swerving along the shoulder of the road. Ricky was so startled he yelped. Adrenaline pumped fast into his system. He looked around frantically, trying to figure out what was going on. They skidded to a stop.

“Shit,” Hunter hissed. “Did I hit her?”

“Hit who?” Ricky asked, his heart thundering in his ears.

“That Denton chick. Did I hit her?”

“What are you talking about? The road was empty.”

“She was right there!” Hunter bellowed. He hit the steering wheel with his palms. “She was in the middle of the road.”

“Dude, she's in a coma. We saw her mama and daddy crying over her bed an hour ago. There is no way in hell she got up and walked out here.”

“She was right there!”

Ricky laughed and shook his head. “Whatever, dude.”

Hunter pulled back his fist and drove it into Ricky's shoulder. It wasn't a playful punch but a nasty blow
that sent a flare of pain all up and down Ricky's arm. “Damn! Dude, what is your damage?”

“Shut up!” Hunter gave the car some gas and pulled it back on the road. “Just shut up until I get you home. I gotta think.”

Ricky rubbed his shoulder and slumped down in the car seat. Dude had no right to haul off and crack him one. What an ass. And what was that crap about seeing Rene in the road? Some kind of mind screw he was playing?

It looked like Lara wasn't the only one who'd taken a bite of the crazy wafer.

 

Ricky's arm still hurt from Hunter's punch when he let himself into the house. The place was empty and as cold as an icebox. His dad kept the AC cranked 24/7, and heaven help the fool who touched the thermostat. Michael, Ricky's kid brother, still had school. Lump's accident didn't give the middle-school brats a vacation. His parents were still at work. So he had the place to himself for a couple of hours.

He looked around the living room, with its ancient green sofa and doilies covering all the tables, and grunted. The place looked like it belonged to a maw-maw with no taste. Picture frames everywhere. Cheap porcelain statues on the mantel and television. Across the room his mama kept her “valuables” in a wooden
cabinet with a glass face. Bits of glass and more pieces of quaint and ugly china. Baubles and trinkets and crap. Nothing more. The stuff in the cabinet couldn't have been worth more than fifty bucks. Damn, he couldn't wait to get out of school, out of the house, and into something with a bit of style.

Ricky firmly believed that he who died with the most toys won. The Bible said the meek would inherit the earth, and that was cool and groovy with him. The meek could eat all the dirt they wanted; Ricky was more interested in plasma-screen televisions and Porsche convertibles. And he'd have those things a hell of a lot faster if Hunter weren't being such a tool.

He rubbed his arm again and headed for the stairs.

It wasn't like he didn't
care
what happened to Lump. They'd been buds for as far back as Ricky could remember. They'd road tripped together and drunk together. At seven years old, Ricky broke his arm falling off the roof while they were hunting squirrels with pellet guns. Lump was there for him. It was Lump who called Dr. Abbott and took Ricky to the office on the handlebars of his bike. When they were nine, Lump showed Ricky his first centerfold in an old issue of
Hustler
from his daddy's stash. So Hunter was totally wrong if he thought Ricky didn't
care
. The fact was, Ricky couldn't
do
anything about what had happened to Lump. He couldn't change it, and he couldn't fix it. So why pitch a fit over
it? It happened. It sucked. Move on.

Hunter was seeing conspiracies, and Ricky didn't like it. Hunter was supposed to be managing their business. If he lost it the way Lara had lost it, they could all be in a world of screwed.

Ricky paused at the top of the stairs. A cold tingling sensation started on the back of his neck. He even turned around, because it felt like someone was breathing cold air on him. No one was there, though. Stupid AC.

He walked down the hall to his bedroom and pushed open the door. He thought it might be time to track down the big man—the guy who was really calling the shots.

Hunter made out like he was doing the major deals, but Ricky knew better. Someone else was involved. Someone close. The guy stayed in the shadows, but Ricky had a good idea who was supplying the product. It didn't take a genius to figure it out. A couple years back, he had seen Gene Avrett at Dusty Smith's a few times. At the time, Dusty was handling the high school, and everyone knew that if you wanted anything—weed, crack, meth, smack—you gave Dusty a call. Later that year, Dusty stopped handling schoolyard deals and started selling to the trailer zombies up to the Bluffs. Suddenly Hunter was the guy to call. Out of nowhere,
Hunter had product and cash. And Gene was around. Oh, he never talked to Hunter—or anyone else at school, for that matter—but he was there. Always on the edges. Like a damn rattler waiting to strike.

Ricky needed to set up a meeting with Gene. He needed to let him know that his general, Hunter, was losing it.

Ricky crossed the room to his desk and sat in front of the new flat-panel monitor. He leaned down to hit the computer's power button, and the cold on his neck returned. This time it felt like water—ice water—dripping down his collar. He turned around and froze. He didn't even breathe.

No way
.

Rene Denton stood framed in his doorway. She wore a white hospital gown. Bandages were wrapped around her head like a cap above her swollen bruised face. Blossoms of crimson stained the white wrappings over her left ear and at the top of her head. Her mouth opened and closed as if she was trying to speak, but no sound came forth.

Ricky slid his chair back to the desk, where it collided with a
crack
. “You aren't there,” he said in accusation. “You're in the hospital.”

The girl's mouth dropped open. Broken teeth and a black tongue showed through the gap of her cut lips.

“Crap,” Ricky said. “You
can't
be here!”

Despite the cold, a sweat broke out on Ricky's neck and brow. His heart beat so fast he thought it might explode through his ribs. He tried to spin in the chair, but it caught on the edge of his desk. Frantic, he jumped to his feet. He turned to the desk and grabbed a pair of chrome scissors. Brandishing the pointed sheers, Ricky spun back to face Rene Denton.

The doorway was empty.

His throat released a low hiss of air. Thoughts banged and broke in his head. He considered hallucinations and ghosts and dementia, but he didn't believe in any of that crap. No way. Someone was messing with him. He didn't know how, but maybe Hunter was right.

Ricky opened the cell phone he kept clipped to his hip. He looked away from the doorway just long enough to speed dial Hunter, and then he took a step toward the threshold. The Bluetooth headset broke into voice.

“Yeah?” Hunter answered.

“Dude, you were right.”

“I'm not laughing, Langham.”

“Dude, I'm serious. I just saw Denton in my room.”

“If you're yanking my chain…”

“Just get over here,” Ricky said. “I'm not kidding.”

“What was she wearing?”

“What?” Why in the hell would Hunter care about that?

Ricky leaped into the hall, hoping to take his tormentor off guard. He shoved the scissors into the grim air ahead of him as he landed. But the corridor was empty.

“Was she wearing what she had on the other night?” Hunter asked.

“What? No. She was in one of those hospital things.”

“Yeah, okay,” Hunter said. “That's what I saw too.”

“Just get over here, dude.”

Ricky continued down the hall, the scissors jutting away from him, ready to stab whatever got in his way. At the top of the stairs, he felt the chill on his neck again and whipped around to find the hall behind him empty.

“Damn,” he muttered.

“You see something else?”

The sound of Hunter's voice in his ear startled him. Ricky whirled around and nearly lost his footing. He teetered on the landing for a moment, then threw his arms back to regain his balance. “Crap. I'm hangin' up. I nearly did a header down the stairs. Get over here.”

Ricky ended the call and stepped down.
Just get to the
door
, he told himself.
Get outside where people can see you. Everything will be cool if you get out into the sunshine. Ghosts don't like the sun. No, wait, that's vampires. Crap, what difference does it make? It wasn't a ghost. I don't believe in ghosts.

He took the last step and jabbed the scissors ahead of him as he made the corner into the living room. Rene Denton wasn't there, but he almost wished she were.

Across the room, three dogs stood in front of the door. The animals were big and horrible. They looked dead, except they were standing up, their lips curled back in ferocious snarls. Tufts of yellowish fur stuck out of bodies caked with dirt and blood. Long wounds in their sides revealed grotesque organs, nearly ready to spill out on the carpet. The eyes of the dogs had been damaged—slashed or pierced with a blade. Fluid drained from the sockets.

One of the dogs stepped forward.

Ricky backed away. He waved the scissors as it approached, but it didn't even pause. Its ruined tail, little more than a whip of cartilage with a ragged brush of fur on it, flicked to the side and then tucked low between the animal's back legs. It crouched on the carpet, next to the green sofa. Ricky stumbled back. He shot his hand out for support and drove his scissors
through the glass of his mother's curio cabinet. The jagged shards cut the back of his hand and Ricky bellowed in pain. He withdrew the hand quickly. Hurt and irrational, he struck out at the cabinet and sent the light wooden furniture to the floor with a crash.

He didn't wait to observe the damage. Instead, he tore for the stairs, leaping up them two at a time. He ran onto the landing and was struck by another impossible sight. The walls were turning black. The smooth, white plasterboard separated and pulled away into columns that branched out at the top. Tree trunks? Only, these trees were the color of pitch, standing in a black forest atop a carpet of rotted leaves. Things moved over the trees. Black snakes coiled around branches and trunks.

Ricky's throat opened in a deafening scream. He swatted the air with his shears, cut at nothing but atmosphere as he sprinted down the wooded path to his bedroom door, which seemed to stand unsupported in the center of the forest. Ricky hit the door hard, dropping his scissors so he could crank the knob.

Inside, he slammed the door and threw the lock. He looked around his room in a panic, fearing the dogs or the forest had followed him in. But he only saw his familiar and comfortable belongings.

He gasped for breath, working his way from the door
to his window. He lifted the sash and leaned his head out, searching the side yard and the street beyond for any signs of help.

Below, at the edge of his parents' property, he saw Mason Avrett sitting on a tree stump, head down.

What's that brain-dead feeb doing here?

It didn't matter just then. Once he got out of the room and down to the ground, he could pound some answers out of the kid. Right now Ricky needed out. He turned to look at his room again, and was terrified to see black branches poking through the edges of his closed door. A long black snake dripped from the lowest limb, coiling as it lowered to the carpet.