The Missing (13 page)

“Mrs. Wintrob, is she . . . dead?” he asked. “You broke her ankle.”

His mouth pruned into a look of pain, and he squinted. “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” Albert whispered. Then he added. “She’s always so nice to me. I love her.”

Fenstad’s throat went dry. “Lots of people love Meg.” Albert nodded. His hair was as white as the pillow, and the few teeth he still had were brown. “Can’t you

smell it?”

“You’re safe here, Albert.”

Albert shook his head. “No, I’m not,” he whispered. “I hear it calling in the woods, Don’t you?” Then he opened his fist flat along the side of his leg, and he wig- gled his fingers. Fenstad took his hand, and held it. He didn’t usually cross this physical barrier with patients,

particularly the ones who beat up his wife, but then again, his patients weren’t usually dying.

Great things had once been expected of Albert. He’d planned to organize new mass transit trains in Los An- geles and design waterfront parks off ribbons of high- way in Florida. And now he would die young, and in disgrace.

“It’s not fair, is it?” Fenstad asked.

Albert blinked, and they were both quiet. Then he whispered so softly that it might have been a tick, “Put a pillow over my face. I’ll be dead, and it won’t like my taste.”

Fenstad pulled his hand free. “Get some rest. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Tick-tock! In a week you’ll all drop!” Albert sput- tered. Spit flew out from the gap of his missing teeth.

“It doesn’t live in the woods, Albert. It’s you. It lives in you.”

Another tear rolled down Albert’s cheek. “It’s real.

You’ll see. The pillow, please.”

Fenstad paused for a moment. Something in the sound of Albert’s voice. Something ominous, like déjà vu, and a dog barking. He shook his head, turned his back, and started out of the room. “Rest well,” he called as he walked out.

Fenstad met Meg at reception. Her hair was straight again, and she’d replaced the button missing from her blouse with a safety pin. Together they left the hospital. He walked slowly while she labored across the black- top. “I’ll bring the car around,” he said, but she nodded her head at the crutches.

“I should learn how to use these. I’ll be living with them for the next six months.”

Night had descended, and the parking lot was dark. Meg grunted with each step, but he knew better than to

offer to carry her. When they got to the Cadillac Esca- lade, she climbed the two steps, grimacing through the pain, and he realized that the bursitis in her hips had to be excruciating. Vanity, he thought, thy name is Meg Wintrob.

As they drove down the lit-up stores along River Street, he asked, “You take any codeine?”

She looked straight ahead. “I had to. It really hurt.” “Well, yes. I should think from the way you’re sweat-

ing that it
still
hurts.”

She didn’t answer, and he didn’t say anything more. When they got to the house, she didn’t make a move to get out of the car. Maddie’s bike was not in the garage, which meant that she was visiting with her boyfriend at the Puffin Stop, which in theory she was supposed to ask permission for. “I know what you’re thinking,” Meg said.

“You do?” Could she guess what he’d imagined about Graham Nero?

Her tone was matter-of-fact, and a little bit angry. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let Albert come around. I hate to imagine what those parents must think of me.”

He sighed. “A madman threw you against a wall.

Nobody blames you for that.”

“But you knew it would happen. You warned me.” “I’m just glad it wasn’t you on that IV drip.”

She wiped her eyes, and at first he thought they itched, but then he realized she was crying. This he knew how to respond to with some competence. He slid across the leather seat and held her. At first she stiff- ened, but then she let go. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Here,” he said. Trying to be chival- rous, he offered her his shirt sleeve. They smiled at each other, and then she burst into another round of tears.

“I was scared.” She spoke with her face pressed

against his chest. It was easier for her to confess this, he surmised, when she didn’t have to look at him.

He nodded:
I was scared, too,
he thought, even though he didn’t say so.
I still am.

“I wanted to call you. I wanted to see you. That’s all I wanted when it happened. Isn’t that silly?”

He felt the tension in him leave. For the first time in a long while, he felt . . . okay. “No,” he said, “It’s not silly.”

“I wanted to tell you I love you,” she said, and he squeezed her tighter.

As she cried, he surveyed their Victorian Tudor that he’d loved from the first day they’d moved into it fifteen years ago, and the garden that had only recently lost its bloom, and the beautiful woman in his arms. He won- dered if, despite everything that had happened between them, things would work out after all. Maybe, he thought. Just maybe.

E I G H T
‌

The Hunger

D

anny Walker was watching his favorite show,
Elimidate
. If you wanted to gawk at a train wreck, forget Jerry Springer; this was where it was at. On to- night’s half hour, four skanks were taking turns French kissing a skinny hayseed from Duluth. The hayseed was supposed to bounce the worst kisser from the show. Then he and his remaining slut pack would frolic in a hot tub. With luck, in a bid for the hottest chick with the lowest self-esteem, they’d all take off their tops. Right now they were sloppy drunk, which he guessed explained why they didn’t care that they were acting like degenerates on national television. Or maybe in the land of white trash, this was what passed for

famous.

To keep things interesting, Danny started imagining the kinds of things he’d do to the girls, if he was the hayseed. Three of them were blond with inhumanly massive knockers, which he guessed were implants. He knew silicone was supposed to gross him out, but those six perky tits were pretty hot.

The cordless phone was in his lap, and any minute his parents might call with news about James, which was why he’d jerked off only once tonight. Also, he’d

never have guessed it, but he was worried about the crazy fuck.

On TV, the really hot girl with long red hair had a pot belly, so after the French kiss round robin, the blondes called her a heifer. In reply, she stuck out her tongue, lifted her tube top, and flicked the diamond in her belly ring, which she seemed to think was a flaming comeback. Then the other girls tried to slap her gut flab, and all of them came close to throwing hands. Then the hayseed announced, “Ladies, don’t fight! There’s more than enough of me to go around,” which convinced Danny that the hayseed was high, because when in his sorry life would four girls fight over him again? Cat- fights were Danny’s favorite part of
Elimidate.
Girls ripped one another to shreds over losers they wouldn’t ordinarily let buy them dinner.

In the end, the hayseed gave the hot girl the boot because he said she had too much junk in her trunk. “Shithead,” Danny called, and threw a ruffled Lay’s potato chip at the screen. As he let it fly, he acciden- tally leaned against the talk button on the cordless, so the dial tone resounded, which for a nanosecond he mistook for ringing. He had a moment of real hope that his dad might be on the line with news about James. But nope. Danny pressed off and sank down in the couch. The kid had to be lost, right? James was too fruity to abduct. Christ’s sake, he’d killed a rabbit once, even though nobody wanted to admit it. The kid was a total psycho.

But then again, James was small, and he didn’t have much common sense. Last month he’d put orange juice in his cereal because they were out of milk. He’d been shocked when he’d swallowed a spoonful and realized it tasted like piss. And
he
would know . . .

On
Elimidate,
four fake boobs rose above the wa- ter line in the hot tub like the soldiers in
Apocalypse Now
.

He should have been nicer to James. Miller and Fe- lice thought he was a psycho, so the kid was starting with two strikes against him. He shouldn’t have picked on him so badly when they’d shared a bus stop. He should have given him some advice once in a while, like letting him know that Mr. Crozzier, the teacher who left him back, had a thing for extra credit. If you wanted your report card filled with “outstandings!” all you had to do was write a two-paragraph report on the history of the Iroquois Indians, or Balto the Wonder Dog. But Danny never gave that advice, and now James was a two-time left-back.

Danny shoved a greasy chip in his mouth. What if James had been hurt, or even killed? It was possible. He didn’t like to think it, but the kid had been missing now for nine hours. If the worst happened, Miller would handle it okay. He’d drink an extra quart of scotch at the club for a while and get a few people over at the school fired, but he’d handle it. Felice, on the other hand, would have another breakdown. Her first one came right after James was born. She got taken away in a padded wagon and everything, which maybe explained why no one had been all that keen on James’s entrance into the world. His colicky crying had been the final straw to drive Felice Walker from permanently nervous to stark-raving-bananas. The day the orderlies had taken her away, she hadn’t recognized her three- month-old baby, or Miller, or even Danny. Danny never forgot how bad it had hurt when he’d waved good-bye, and she hadn’t waved back. A part of him still hated her for it.

When people wanted to piss Danny off at school, all they had to do was say, “Your mom’s a psycho,” and he went ape-shit. But most knew better than to mess with him. Last time it happened two years ago, he broke Pete O’Donnell’s nose. Felice was still on a bunch of drugs, and at dinner or while watching late-night reruns she usually spaced out even though she wasn’t drunk.

James wasn’t much help around the house, so every- thing pretty much fell on Danny’s shoulders. He had to be his dad’s friend, even though Miller was a jackass. At the country club, Miller liked to collect the Irish waitresses’ phone numbers and then wink at Danny, like screwing around was a cute little joke he was play- ing on Mom. It was Danny who cleaned the dishes and asked Felice about her day because nobody else ever bothered.

Danny groaned. James. Where was he? He’d never been nice to the kid, so it was unnerving how much he wanted him to be okay. But then again, James was his brother, and it didn’t matter that they weren’t alike, or that the kid was slow. Danny still loved him.

Just then Danny heard a rap on the door. James? No, he wouldn’t knock. The cops? Maybe they’d found James’s body near the river, or in some gay guy’s tor- ture chamber basement. Or maybe the little shit was eating stale donuts at the Puffin Stop with the druggies and the spic housecleaners waiting for the late bus out of Corpus Christi. God, he hoped it was the donuts. He really did.

Danny opened the door, but no one was there. He walked out into the dark night. Street lamps shone their yellow sickness in every direction. A few cars drove down the road. It was brisk tonight, and Danny wasn’t wearing a sweater. He started to shiver, and thought

about going back inside, but James might be out here. Maybe he was afraid to come home because in those woods today, he’d done something worse than kill a rabbit. And then what would they do? Get a lawyer? Pay off a judge so that James would grow up thinking he could get away with murder? For the first time in a while, he wondered if they were lucky or cursed by Miller’s money.

Danny circled the house. It was the biggest in town, but there wasn’t much land surrounding it. In the mornings he could hear the Wintrobs next door argu- ing with Maddie. He didn’t usually use the word “freak,” but man, when you looked it up in the dic- tionary, you saw purple-haired Maddie Wintrob’s picture.

Danny cupped his hands about his mouth. “James!” he hollered, but nobody answered. Then he smiled, because one of the hemlocks in front of the house was shaking, like someone was hiding inside it. “James. It’s okay,” he called as he headed for the bush. “I’m not mad. I promise. Everybody’s too worried to be mad.”

He talked at a lower and lower volume as he ap- proached, so that he could sneak up on the kid. It re- minded him of the way he used to pretend he was Michael Myers from
Halloween
back when they were little. He’d walked slowly through the house, not speaking, while James ran. Inevitably James lost his cool and trapped himself in a corner. There Danny would stroll, calm as the bogeyman, to give him a pounding.

“Mom and Dad are really worried,” Danny said. “Mom’ll probably buy you a rabbit, she’ll be so happy you’re back.”

The bush that had been shaking went still. Danny

was close enough. He pushed the branches aside with one quick stroke and—
yes!
—there was James, hunched down. Fuck, yeah, he’d found him! He’d throttle the mutant for scaring him this bad.

James knelt on all fours in the dirt. He raised his eyes. They weren’t the right color, though. Instead of blue, they were big and black. Danny stepped back. His stomach got queasy. James was holding something be- tween his teeth.

Despite the darkness, Danny could see the blood that ran in a line down James’s chin and against the front of his torn Iron Man sweatshirt. His jaw was clamped tight around a lump of fur with paws.

Danny tried to say something—to make a joke, even, like:
Hey, fuckface, need a napkin?
but instead he only gurgled. His throat was full of bubbles. There was acid there, too, and it rose until it burned his tongue.

James dropped the lump of fur and leaped out from the bushes. An instinct told him to get ready for a fight, but he forced his fists to unclench.
This
was his brother?

“James, you okay?” he asked.

James bared his teeth. He leaped in Danny’s direc- tion, just as a car pulled into the driveway. Its head- lights shone blindingly into James’s black eyes. He fell. They were close enough now that Danny could see the bib of blood on his shirt, and his bare, gored feet.