Audrey Curley
Volume 4
It started with the squirrels.
Billy would find them as he trudged through the woods, their tiny bodies mangled, their fur stripped to expose the fragile bones. Usually, they had heads. None of them had eyes. Billy would bury the small, bloodied bodies, gently patting the dark earth over them. He marked their resting places with rocks or sticks or pinecones, anything that was on hand. A yellow beach shovel now lay alongside his pocket-knife in the backpack he carried into the woods. It was too tiresome to dig a grave by hand for the larger creatures – for the cats and for the opossum. Besides, his mother scolded him if he came back with dirt and blood crusting his fingernails. Billy did not tell her about the bodies in the wood. The doctor warned that any excitement would make her episodes worse. Billy was not worried. No, not exactly worried. He felt only a mild sense of something like anticipation, like the butterflies in the stomach that Dolly talked about whenever she felt nervous or eager or afraid. Billy’s life was one long, bland, sepia dream; the squirrel-killer a splash of fuchsia on the beige walls of his existence.
****
Billy dumped his backpack on his bed, the sheets rumpled and stained and full of cookie-crumbs. He methodically unlaced his sturdy boots, slowly pulling the lace entirely out of the boot, then picking off the burrs enmeshed in them, his brow furrowed in concentration. The clock by his bed ticked loudly. The heater whirred softly in one corner, the rosary on the wall above stirring gently in its warm breeze. Whiskey snored softly from his place at the foot of the bed. That was all the old dog did these days. Sleep and snore and dream. The graying muzzle twitched, one black-tipped paw flicking in pursuit of chimeric rabbits. The carpet was springy beneath Billy’s socks as he walked over to the computer desk, then whumped down into his chair, spinning once round in it before pulling it close to the desk and settling his headphones over his ears. He slid the anatomy books to one side. The mouse clicked, the app opened, and Billy was once more immersed in the world of the game. His mouse was a blur of motion as he moved his avatar about, feinting and dodging, never quite fast enough to progress to the next level. Why did the monster always win? It was so unfair. Why could he never win? He was never good enough, never strong enough, never fast enough. Billy’s molars ground against each other. The armor-clad giant towered over him, faceless, eyeless, a menacing iron blank. Billy felt as though he was fighting an oak, or a boulder – some implacable, indefatigable force of nature. The giant’s broadsword swung down – Billy tried to jump back – TRY AGAIN scrolled across the screen. Behind the digital banner, Billy’s avatar lay in a pool of spreading red. He still had not passed level three. The alarm-clock blinked 1:29 AM. Billy leaned back in his chair and ran his hand through his hair, then rubbed at bleary eyes. He jabbed the off button on the computer, threw the headset on the desk, and clambered into bed.
****
Billy gasped, jerking upright in his bed as the nightmare slithered away from him in hissing coils. Always the same nightmare, lately. In the strange way of dreams, Billy was both in the forest of the game and the real woods behind his house. He was running, digital roots rising to trip him, cyber tree-fingers snagging his clothing, his breath coming hot and fast. He did not know who was chasing him, did not want to know, was afraid he did know. He could sense the monster, sense her gaining, yet could not see her when he dared look back. There were eyes, eyes everywhere in the forest, glistening, blazing, watching eyes.
****
Billy’s head was slumped on his hand, his elbow resting on the dinner table, his dark hair tangling over darker eyes. Mother said he needed a haircut. He needed friends. Why didn’t he make friends? Dolly was at a sleepover, again. She had friends. Why did Billy never have sleepovers? Billy said nothing. His fork slid the asparagus, back and forth, back and forth, scratching, screeching against the plate. “Bellamy!” Sharp, spiked tone. Mother’s thin lips smiled tightly, but her eyes didn’t crease. Her lipstick had smeared, a crimson smudge at each corner of her mouth, like a cannibalistic clown. “Please stop that.” Soft, syrup tone. Two bony fingers pinched and rubbed a wax-pale nose-bridge. “Billy,” Billy muttered. “Not Bellamy.” His fork continued to grate. Mother closed her eyes briefly, huffing a stray hair from her mouth. Her eyes opened, glittering. One green, one blue. Her pupils were huge, black wells. Billy looked away. He did not like his mother’s eyes. Two burning holes in a parchment face. He did not like when they got that look; a dual abyss, with green and blue precipices. She started screaming at Father when they got that way, telling him to get away, to leave her be, she didn’t need her medication, didn’t he know the doctors were poisoning her? Billy glanced over at the head of the table; his father’s seat. The plate set, loaded with food, steaming. The fork, untouched. The chair, empty, as it had been since the day Father died five years past. Billy had been seven, then. Everybody said it was an accident. But Billy had seen her. Had seen the crimson lip-print pressed on the bloody, stubbled cheek. Had met the blazing blue-green glare. He had rushed to the body, shaking his father’s shoulder, needing to know why his father didn’t move, tearing open his fathers shirt, scratching at his chest, scratching, digging, trying to reach his heart, why wasn’t it beating, he had to make it beat. His Aunt Gretchen told him at the funeral that he was the man of the house now. He had not felt like a man. He still didn’t. His father was the man. It was his father who taught him to fold his hands, to repeat those familiar words, “Hail, Mary….” Billy had repeated them for the last time at the funeral. He’d begged for the still heart to beat again, tears streaming. He’d been ignored by both his mothers. His father’s death was like a building collapsing. You hadn’t thought it could happen, not really, not until you saw it. His father’s arms were like a statue. Cold, but something to lean on. Billy’s arms were not strong. He couldn’t silence Mother when she had her moods, couldn’t tell her to leave him and Dolly alone. Most days Billy felt like one of the squirrels. Caught. Skinned. Picked apart. Never knowing why. Billy slanted his eyes toward his mother. He watched her through a blurry curtain of hair as she muttered, her hollow eyes darting side-to-side, up and down. Billy pushed his asparagus. He would not go to school tomorrow. He needed the woods. Needed their silent, safe embrace, their boughs like his father’s marble arms.
****
Billy breathed deeply, his chest rising then falling. The air was crisp and tangy with the scent of the pine trees. The morning sky above was slightly overcast, clouds thick with the promise of snowfall. Billy was supposed to be in school. Billy knew this, and the gnarled trees looked as if they knew this, too, glaring at him from their tree-knot eyes. Billy was not worried. Billy was not a worrier, thank heavens, Aunt Gretchen always said. His face was a glass lake. His mind was another matter. Daydreaming in class, Billy sometimes liked to imagine erupting in a righteous rage at his teachers' subtle barbs and his classmates’ snickering looks. They were always watching him; the teachers with their flat, dead eyes, the students with their glassy stares. Glittering, glistening, like his mother’s. He felt their eyes on him constantly. He could feel the prickling stares even now, deep among the whispering pines. There were always eyes. Billy suddenly wanted to gouge them all out. He glared back at the glowering trees. A snowflake drifted down in front of him. His sigh was a puff of ice-crystals. Billy glanced up at the sky again, at the smudge of orange in the west. When had it gotten so late? Mother would scold. She didn’t like him going into the woods at night. Billy shook his head. The past hours were a nebulous smear in his mind. He had entered the woods….tramped about….he couldn’t remember anything more. His memory was never the best. He had been thinking. Tomorrow, he would look for the hunter. The squirrel-killer. Cat-killer. Possum-killer. He gripped his pocket-knife tighter. Oh. Right. Deer-killer. He remembered now. The coarse, dun-colored hair, stiffened with crimson, the same shade as his mother’s lipstick. The ears had been soft like velvet. The coal-black nose was dry, and cold. The muscles where the skin was flayed still glistened wetly. Twin bloody holes gaped where the eyes had once been. Billy looked at the holes for a long time. He saw an image of his mother’s parchment-pale face, her only smile the crimson smear across her lips, he thought of his father’s eyes, staring blue stones, sightless as the deer. Billy shuddered. His stomach twisted. He flipped his knife shut, shoving it in his pocket. He couldn’t tell the police. Mother said the police never believed anything you said to them. They only threatened to put you in the big building with the bright white floors and the bright white lights, full of people wearing bright white coats and bright white smiles. He was the man of the house. He had to stop the killer. Alone.
****
Mother was working late again. Dolly nodded when he told her, failing to hide the faint relief that smoothed her face. Her eyes were the soft, fuzzy blue of forget-me-nots, pinprick pupils lost in the haze of cobalt. She had their father's eyes. That’s what Mother always said, narrowing her own as she said it. Billy did not know whose eyes he possessed. He was glad. He did not want the blue-green gaze of his mother. He did not want the pale blue eyes of his dead father. He had been there, when the light went out of them. He was glad his eyes were his own. Black as the letters on a page. Black as the creek by moonlight. Black as the dead deer’s nose. The house was always bigger when Mother was gone. Quieter, without the whine of the old Irish ballads incessantly drifting downstairs from her bedroom stereo. Breathing was no longer a balancing act, like carrying a teetering pile of porcelain teacups, knowing one might drop and shatter at any moment. Billy wandered the house, breathing deep and swinging his arms, feeling the lightness in his chest. He ambled upstairs to his room. The clock and heater greeted him with their familiar sounds. Whiskey was not there. Billy flopped in his chair, picking up the open anatomy book and flipping through the pages. It was the only class he liked in school. Dissection thrilled and horrified him. It comforted him to see the mystery of the inner workings laid out, to see how the muscles move, how the heart beats. He looked at the illustrations, at the layers of bone and sinew and flesh. He thought of the squirrels. Billy shut the book. Snatching up his backpack as he headed for the door, Billy glanced at the metal baseball bat leaning idly in one corner. He glanced out the darkened window. He hefted the bat, then stuck it in his backpack alongside the beach shovel and the pocket-knife. He walked slowly down the stairs, his heavy boots thumping on the carpet. Billy opened the back door, stepping out into the silent, purple twilight. He was halfway to the trees when he found it. The graying muzzle was still, the black-tipped paws unmoving. Billy gently stroked the smooth fur between Whiskey’s eyes. Between where his eyes had been. The fur was wet. Billy looked at his hand in the dim light, looked at the dark liquid staining his fingers. Looked at the darkened snow surrounding the old dog’s body. At the limp, un-wagging tail. At the flap of fur and skin, at the gleam of the rib cage crushed by a heavy blow, white as the snow under Billy’s boots. Billy raised his head, glancing around warily. The house stared down at him with dull mustard eyes, washing the snow in a sickly yellow light. The back of Billy’s neck prickled, and he whirled around. No one. His heart was behaving strangely in his chest. The killer could still be nearby, could be watching Billy right now from the unsafe haven of the shadowed pines. Watching with flat, glistening eyes. He thought of his mother’s face, the smear on her lips, hunching over the fallen, bleeding statue. Billy shuddered, then jumped up and bolted toward the back door, slamming it shut behind him and locking it. He could not look out the windows. He did not want to see a face looking in. Billy ran to the front door, locked it, squeezing his eyes into blurry slits so that he could not see out the windows. He raced to the kitchen. The phone hung on the wall like a giant black beetle, smug and sleek and shining. Billy’s hand hovered over the phone. Three simple numbers, and he would not be alone. Just push three buttons. It would be so easy. He thought of his mother’s eyes as she told him about the police, about the big, cold building where they took her. He heard Aunt Gretchen’s brittle voice, telling him that he was the man of the house, that he had to take care of his mother and Dolly now. His hand fell. The black beetle stayed on the wall.
****
When Billy awoke, the first thing he noticed was the silence. No faint music reverberating down the hall. No snoring Whiskey by his bedside. Just the steady tick, tick, tick of the clock and the ceaseless hum of the heater. Billy sat up, wisps of his latest nightmare fading like smoke. The nightmare had been different, this time. The monster had not been his mother. His arms prickled, and he slid out of bed, realizing that he had slept in his clothes and boots. Billy was walking to the door when he heard it. A muted thump, thump, thump. The noise was nearby. Billy’s skin crawled. He thought of Dolly, all alone in her room down the hall, totally unaware of any danger because he hadn’t told her, hadn’t wanted her to worry. Billy grabbed the baseball bat. His heart pounded wildly, his vision pulsing along with it. Everything had a dreamlike quality, hazy and vague and subtly threatening. Billy opened his door. Stepped into the hallway. Empty. He walked slowly down the carpeted hall. The ceiling swooped toward him, the walls bearing down on him, everything spinning, sliding, pulsating dizzily to the beat of his thundering heart. He heard it still, over the blood rushing in his ears. Steady, persistent as death. Thump, thump, thump. Billy stood outside his sister’s door, bat in hand, heart hammering. His palm was slick on the cold metal of the door handle. His intestines twisted and squirmed like caged creatures. Billy opened the door. His sister looked up from the beaded string dangling from her clasped hands. Startled, forget-me-not eyes widened. His father’s eyes in a child’s face. The nightmares flashed before Billy, one after the other, dead, dead, all dead, dead and bloody and eyeless. His mind was a haze. Why was he here? What was he doing? He needed to tell Dolly, what, what, what. His mouth opened, but no sound came. His stomach was writhing now, a churning scurry of unhappy squirrels. Still those fuzzy blue eyes staring into his own, staring, staring, pale and shiny as skinned grapes, why was she looking at him that way? He could hear it again, thump, thump, faster as he raced toward Dolly, raced to tell her, but it was too late, his arm lifted, she was screaming words, words he’d known once, he brought the bat down –
And stopped.
Forget-me-nots bathed in dew.
Swimming,
Sliding,
Falling
down cheeks that were not parchment-pale. Not wax-dead.
Cheeks like roses, eyes like forget-me-nots. His father’s eyes, alive. Blinking. Unaccusing.
Billy dropped the bat.
Looked at the hands attached to his wrists. They were strange, trembling, alien growths. They seemed very far away, as though behind a computer screen.
Billy turned, walked through the doorway, down the hallway, leaving his sister’s sobs behind him. The air was syrup, thick and clinging and suffocating. His eyes stung, blurred. The strange hand attached to his wrist touched his cheek. It was wet. Billy walked down the stairs. Into the kitchen. The black beetle on the wall stared. Billy’s hand, his hand, his own trembling hand, reached out and took down the beetle from its perch. He pressed one, two, three numbers. He called. Billy hung up the phone, then slid down the beige wall to the floor. His hands folded, shaking. His mouth formed silent, familiar words.