Good Bones (3 page)

That sounded promising at least, but Dylan didn’t get his hopes up. They were bouncing past a long, empty field edged by a steeply rising wooded slope. No livestock were visible in the area, which was also a relief. Dylan wasn’t at all sure he’d be able to resist the lure of beef on the hoof.

The road curved around a stand of firs, and Steve slowed to a halt. There were two houses there, with a long line of poplars between them. The sight of the house on the left got Dylan’s pulse racing—it was a two-story farmhouse, maybe a century old, with porches on the first and second floors and green and brown trim against white wooden siding. The paint was peeling a little, and even from the car Dylan could tell the house needed some major work, but he liked the shape of it, the way the two chimneys rose confidently above the steep roof, the many large windows that were pleasingly arranged. But the other house made him scowl. It was a tiny place, probably dating from the ’50s, and although most of it was hidden behind overgrown shrubs, the part he could see looked like it ought to be condemned.

“Tell me it’s the two-story,” Dylan said as they climbed out of the car.

“Yep! This was all one big farm, but a couple of generations back a pair of brothers had a falling out. One of ’em got the old house, and the other got all the usable land. I don’t know why he built his house so close to the other. Convenient to the power lines, maybe. Or maybe just spite.”

“Great. The old guys still live here?”

“No. Your house has been empty a while.” They walked across the gravel toward the front porch. “I think a grandson’s living in the other place.”

“I was really hoping for no neighbors at all.”

Steve huffed impatiently as he worked at unlocking the front door. “That’s pretty hard to find, Dylan. Unless you want to really go back to nature. Come on. This is hardly an urban jungle here. Why are you being so antisocial, anyway?”

The Realtor had been trying for days to figure out why Dylan wanted to live in the sticks, and Dylan had given evasive answers about needing peace and quiet to work. Dylan wondered if Steve was starting to suspect that he was running a criminal enterprise of some kind. Growing pot, maybe. Or serial killing. Dylan made a face; that last guess wouldn’t be so far from the truth.

But his mood lifted as they entered the house. Yeah, peeling wallpaper and hideous shag carpet, but the molding was original and miraculously unpainted, the ceilings were high, two of the rooms had huge fireplaces, and the windowpanes were slightly wavy old glass. The kitchen was cramped and a hideous mixture of ’50s and ’70s décor, but it would be easy to gut it and tear out the wall shared with the old dining room. That would still leave a living room downstairs, a bedroom he could convert to an office, and a half bath.

The upper floor had four bedrooms and two full baths. He’d probably combine two of the bedrooms into one and expand the master bathroom, and he’d have the enormous claw-foot tub re-surfaced. He could tuck in a window seat nicely along the south wall, where there was a view down a thickly overgrown hillside. The carpet was even more awful upstairs than down, but when he tugged a corner free, his suspicions were confirmed: decent hardwood underneath.

A narrow door in the hallway concealed a flight of stairs leading to the attic. Nothing up there but hints of mice and bats, barely any insulation at all, but there was no water damage, and the roof joists looked solid.

“Whaddaya think?” Steve asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Dylan grunted noncommittally. “It’s in pretty rough shape.”

“Not really. Okay, yeah, it needs… cosmetic work. But it got rewired about ten years ago, and there’s a new furnace.” He patted a wall. “Good bones.”

Dylan was already wondering how hard it would be to wolf-proof a bedroom or maybe install a solid cage somewhere. But he pretended to be skeptical, poking at the chimney bricks and peering at a windowsill. Then he turned back to Steve. “Let me see the heating and electrical.”

Those turned out to be in the basement. It was a big basement, cool and dry, with another half bath tucked behind an area that must have once been a workshop. Tool shapes were still outlined on a wall-mounted pegboard. Another area was walled off and lined with shelves. It had probably once been used to store canned goods and the like, but with a heavily reinforced door it would serve pretty well as werewolf containment. There was even a tiny rectangle of window, too small and high for escape but adequate for a little welcome daylight the morning after.

The furnace needed cleaning but was otherwise in good shape, and the circuit breakers looked fine. The foundation looked solid too.

By the time they went outside to walk the property, Dylan’s heart was racing with excitement. But he tried to play it cool, stepping slowly around a leafless blackberry bramble as they made their way down a narrow dirt path. Even this early in the season, wildflowers were beginning to bloom. Hawks circled overhead, dark against the gray sky, and a jay called hoarsely from the poplar stand.

Steve’s spiffy shoes were getting muddy. “I guess you could bring in a Caterpillar and clear all this out,” he said, waving his arms vaguely.

“Why bother? Not like I’m gonna grow veggies or anything.” Dylan smiled evilly. “Besides, think of all the stuff you could hide in this jungle.”

The Realtor gave him an uncertain look, then seemed to decide that Dylan was joking—probably. But it was Dylan who led them down the hill to a pond that had been formed by a low earthen dam. Most of the pond bank was crowded with trees and ferns and was pretty inaccessible to humans, but something low and four-legged could likely make its way down there, maybe to slink around in search of creatures who came for a drink.

Steve said, “It’s big enough for a little boat, if you could get one down here. Kayak maybe.”

“You think there’s any fish?”

“Dunno. Maybe.”

After several minutes, they hiked uphill to explore the rest of the property. It was hard to form a clear picture due to the uneven topography, but Dylan figured that the parcel was roughly pie-shaped, with the house at the pointy end near the road, forest along one side and at the back, and the poplars and brother’s fields along the remaining side. The over-tall Christmas trees were there too, with the underbrush almost masking the evenly spaced rows.

“I wonder if there’s much wildlife,” Dylan said as nonchalantly as possible.

“Oh, I’m sure there is. Deer and coyotes for sure. Elk? I dunno—maybe even bears. And probably water things, like beavers or otters.”

I wonder what beaver tastes like
, Dylan thought, and barely managed to stifle a laugh. Maybe he made a funny face, though, because Steve gave him another worried look.

There were a few outbuildings to inspect: a newer structure that could be used as a garage or small barn, a small pump house for the well, and a half-collapsed chicken coop. Dylan nodded at them all and wondered whether it was annoying to eat through feathers.

“So whaddaya think?” Steve asked as they returned to the porch. He was grinning again, maybe because for once Dylan hadn’t given him a flat-out no.

But Dylan scratched his neck thoughtfully. “I don’t know. The house needs all that work, and it’s more square footage than I need.”

“Maybe you’ll get a roommate one of these days,” Steven replied with a slight eyebrow waggle.

“Doubt it.”

Steve deflated only a little. It was clear that he smelled a commission in the air. “Well, close off the rooms you don’t need. Or you could find uses for ’em. Home gym, maybe. Media room. Hobby room? Maybe a man cave.”

Dylan rolled his eyes. “Who needs a man cave when he’s got the whole place to himself?”

Another eyebrow waggle with a leer added in. “Playroom?”

Dylan snorted. The truth was he
wanted
this place, more than he’d wanted anything in a long time. But he’d also learned—in life and in love—that wanting led to disappointment, so he tried to dampen his own enthusiasm.

“You know what else?” Steve asked. “This place is a steal. The family just wants to get rid of it. They’re tired of paying taxes on it, I guess. It’s too far off the beaten path to turn into a B&B, land’s no good for a hobby farm, and it’s been on the market a while. They’re asking four fifty, but I bet you could get it for under four.”

That was within Dylan’s budget, even figuring in the substantial amount he would have to put into remodeling the house. And he’d probably have to trade in the Prius for a pickup.

Up until this point he’d been considering the move to the country as a grim necessity, but it suddenly occurred to him that he might be happy out here—or some facsimile of happy. For the first time ever his blueprints would be for him. He could make his space personal, truly his. He could make it a home.

“I’m still not too sure about the neighbor,” he said. “That house is pretty close.”

“Yeah, but the trees are in between.”

“What about in winter?”

“They’re just starting to leaf out now, and you can barely see the place.”

“But from upstairs?”

Steve sighed melodramatically. “Why don’t you go up and take another look? I’ll wait down here. I got a couple calls to make.” He held up his Blackberry with a smile. “See? I even get four bars.”

Dylan walked back up the stairs, noting some squeaking treads and a loose banister along the way. The stairs took a turn halfway up, and the landing was roomy enough for a nice built-in bookcase with glass doors.

The best view of the neighboring property was from the smallest bedroom, a space with faded yellow walls and a hideous flowery wallpaper border at chair-rail height. The large window was unencumbered by any kind of curtains, although there were small holes in the window frame where a rod had once been attached. Grubby fingerprints marred the paint next to the window, as if someone had spent a lot of time leaning there.

Now it was Dylan’s turn to lean. Steve was right: even with the poplars barely leafed out, the branches obscured most of the house next door. But there was a gap in the trees—almost as if several of them had been removed—and through that space he could see the neighbor’s back porch. Dylan recognized that he was using the term loosely. Unstained wood set on cinderblocks wasn’t his usual definition of “porch.” As far as he could tell, the primary outdoor décor consisted of piles of beer cans, rows of beer bottles, and two or three pots containing bare sticks that might once have been plants. There was also an ancient, warped metal-and-plastic lawn chair, a few buckets of unknown purpose, and an upturned wooden picnic table.

Nothing like a boutique hotel.

Dylan spent several minutes at the window, thinking about the risks. Steve was right—he wasn’t going to find a home more isolated than this one, not unless he planned to cut his ties with the rest of the world. Although his social calendar was rather paltry, he wasn’t ready to withdraw completely. If he bought this house a risk would remain. But hopefully the slob next door would be too drunk to venture outside at night.

Christ, he really, really wanted this house.

As he hovered uncertainly, his eyes caught a flash of movement. At first he thought it might be a bird or squirrel in the poplars, but then a human being came into view. A male human being—his gender pretty clear since he was wearing nothing but a tight green T-shirt. He had a cigarette in one hand. As Dylan watched, the man padded to the edge of the porch, stuck the cigarette in his mouth, took his dick in his other hand, and pissed into a thicket of weeds. He seemed to stand there forever, smoking and spraying, his eyes focused on nothing in particular.

And then, just as Dylan was becoming convinced the guy had a ten-gallon bladder, the man glanced up at Dylan’s window. His mouth dropped open, and his cigarette tumbled to the ground. The last driblets of piss landed on his bare feet. He spun and marched back into the house. Dylan was too far away and at the wrong angle to be sure, but it looked like the neighbor had a spectacularly nice ass.

B
Y
THE
time Dylan returned to the Honda, Steve had finished his phone calls and was leaning against the driver’s side door, staring off to the east. “I bet you can see Mount Hood from here on a clear day,” Steve said.

“Terrific.”

“So, what do you think?”

“It… it has potential.”

An enormous grin lit up Steve’s face. “I said you were gonna love this place!”

“I wouldn’t call it love. But I guess I’m interested.”

“Not even a crush?”

Dylan had to admit, Steve was kind of annoyingly adorable, like a golden retriever puppy who kept plopping a soggy tennis ball in your lap. “Maybe,” he admitted.

Steve just about rubbed his hands in glee. He opened his mouth to say something—probably to ask what kind of offer Dylan would make—but then something behind Dylan caught his attention. Dylan turned to see the next-door neighbor approaching them.

He’d put pants on. Tight, faded jeans that emphasized his muscular build. At ground level Dylan had a much better view of the guy. He was probably a little short of thirty, with too-long dark hair falling over his square, handsome face. His skin was tan, and he had a sort of rolling gait like a cowboy. He didn’t seem to be cold even though he wasn’t wearing a jacket, and his feet were clad in ancient, holey sneakers. As he drew closer, Dylan saw that the man was a few inches shorter than his own shade-under-six-feet and that his eyes were a clear and startling blue.

“You scared the hell out of me,” the man said by way of greeting.

“I was just looking at the house,” replied Dylan with a frown.

But the man grinned. “I know. But for a second there I thought you were the old man.” He pointed in the general direction of the window where Dylan had been standing. “He used to stand there for hours, just starin’.”

“And that’s why you wander outside naked?”

Steve goggled a little at that news, but the neighbor’s smile didn’t fade. “Old man’s been dead for years, dude. I thought you were a ghost.”

Wrong monster
, Dylan thought.