Helens-of-Troy (7 page)

“You mean thanks, right?” she asked
him. “For catching him so he didn’t split his head open when he
fell?”

Ryan nodded sheepishly.

“How’d you know he was going to do
that?” Tom asked, joining them on the porch. “You were running up
to him before he even turned to look at the dead guy.” The aura
about her had changed. It was dimmer, as if some of its power had
been lost.

She thought about it. “I don’t know. I
just had this feeling.”

Stan began to stir. He tried to open
his eyes, but his pupils were stuck somewhere up in his
head.

“Do you want your inhaler, Stan?” Ryan
asked.

Stan shook his head. His speech was
slurred, but the color was starting to return to his face. He tried
to focus. “There’s a dead body on the swing.”

“Yes dear, I know,” Helena said,
feeling his forehead. He was a little clammy. She reached for his
wrist and felt his pulse. It had returned to a normal rate and he
seemed to be breathing easier. She heaved a sigh of relief. “Maybe
this one’s a little too realistic this year.”

Tom looked at the dead guy on the
swing. He pulled the blanket down from his face, wanting to get a
closer look at him “Um, Mrs. LaRose?”

“Cover his face up again, Tom. I don’t
want him scaring any more children.”

Tom didn’t move.

“Tom? Are you okay?”

Tom, like Stan before him, was turning
ashen before her eyes. It was only a moment before he too, passed
out on her porch.

“Well, I didn’t see that one coming,”
Ellie said.

“What is going on here?” Helen asked.
“Mother?”

Helena had no idea.

“I can’t take them anywhere,” Ryan
joked, but even he was feeling uneasy. “I’m used to Stan visiting
Neverland, but that was a first for Tom.” He turned and looked at
the swing. An odd look crossed his face. “Mrs. LaRose?”

“You stay firmly planted, Ryan,” Helena
stated, pointing at his feet. “There will be no more fainting
tonight. Three’s a crowd.”

“I don’t know how to tell you this,”
Ryan said, his voice suddenly becoming solemn. “There really is a
dead body on the swing. It’s Old Man Wagner.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Picking up and moving wasn’t so bad
this time, Ellie thought.

In the past, she and her mother would
wind up renting a tiny, run-down apartment on the west side of the
city. Bits and pieces of her life would be carelessly thrown into
her mother’s car, to be unloaded in a cramped little bedroom she
and Helen would have to share. If they were lucky, the flat would
be semi-furnished with other people’s castoffs; mismatched chairs
around a kitchen table that looked like it had been salvaged from a
restaurant makeover. The table would serve double-duty as her
homework center. Eventually, a new man would enter her mother’s
life and there would be another move. It was always to a bigger
place, and she always got her own room, but it was always
temporary.

This time she hadn’t wanted to bring
many of her personal things along. As she had glanced around her
room at Tony’s one last time, it dawned on herthis room is a
girlie room. It was pink and perky, and she just wasn’t anymore.
Even her favorite posters on the wall seemed juvenile. There was no
accounting for her musical taste when she was twelve. In her heart
she knew she no longer belonged in the room that said “Ellie” on a
ceramic nameplate on the door. She had half expected her banged-up
skateboard to flip up and hit her on the ass on her way
out.

Her Nan’s house, she was delighted to
discover, was fully furnished. It had a welcoming feeling about it
lifeless human on the porch swing aside. There was a big, solid oak
table in the dining room. It was big enough for eight people to sit
at, their butts held firm on chairs that actually matched. In the
living room she found a well-worn beanbag chair that she was pretty
sure her Nan didn’t sit in anymore. It was an avocado color that
screamed “I was made before you were born,” and it was amazingly
comfy. Ellie dragged it from the corner of the room and settled
down in front of the fireplace. It was a real fireplace with real
wood burning in it. She could have stared at it for hours. She had
a craving for a soda, but she heard her mother arguing with her Nan
in the kitchen, and she just didn’t want to go there. Instead, she
watched until the burning embers lost all of their color and the
crackling noise stopped. It was time then, she decided, to make her
way up to the room at the top of the stairs for the night. Her
room.

Once inside, she started to unpack her
suitcase, tossing her clothes wildly across the room. She laughed
when her jacket caught itself on the hook on the bedroom door, as
if it knew instinctively where it belonged.

“I finally have a real bed,” she
squealed. “A double bed. It might even be a queen-sized bed.” She
jumped on top and began to make snow angels upon the mattress.
“I’ve got room to roll over. What a concept.” She sat up and
propped some pillows against the headboard. “And ... I have room
for somebody else,” she smiled saucily.

Her cell phone was in her pants pocket.
She reached into it, pulled it out and called her
friend.

“Hello, this is Dina. Leave a message,
I’m out,” said the teenaged voice on the other end of the
line.

Ellie sat up on the bed. She could
barely hide the disappointment in her voice. “Hey Dina. It’s Ellie.
Sorry to call you so late. You’ll never guess what happened
tonight. We got here to this stupid Troy place, and I met the
cutest guy. His name’s Tom and he is tall and blond and
oh-my-god-gorgeous. You just have to see him. I’ll try to get a
celly-pic of him and send it to you. And there was a dead body on
my Nan’s porch. Mom totally freaked. She kept sending death stares
to my Nanlike it was her fault or something. It was the weirdest
night. Call me back.”

She hung up and looked around for an
electrical socket to recharge the phone. Her eyes followed a lamp
cord until it led her to an outlet near where she had earlier
dropped her duffle bag. The big t-shirt she liked to sleep in was
poking out from where the pull-ties of the bag had come loose. She
went over to the bag and pulled the top out and smelled it. The
scent of the fabric softener her mother always used lingered on the
cotton and she found it oddly comforting.

“At least it doesn’t smell like bug
death,” she said to herself, taking off the clothes she had worn
during the day and putting on the shirt. She found her phone
charger in the front pocket of the bag, and plugged it in, placing
the phone on the nightstand.

She plopped back down on the bed. As
she stared at the stucco ceiling above her, she thought again about
the warning look she had seen her mom flash at Nan when they first
entered the house. What was up with that? It wasn’t like Helen
hadn’t seen a dead body before. Dead bodies seemed to follow her
mother around. Like the time when Ellie was five and an ice storm
snapped the overhead wires on the street where they lived. They
whipped around for what seemed like minutes before finally falling
and electrocuting the garbage man before their very eyes. Her
mother didn’t seem very upset about it. She told her the man in the
dirty coveralls was very, very bad and got what he deserved. Ellie
never found what he had done. Her mother had told her to never
speak of it again.

She was also to remain mum about the
time they were canoeing and they accidentally hit a lump of seaweed
that turned out to be a lump of torso. She had heard her mother
drop an f-bomb herself that time. “Fuck, Frankie,” Helen had said,
and Ellie never learned who Frankie was or how her mother could
recognize him or her without a head. That conversation was also
always met with what Ellie referred to as “the death
stare.”

Ellie turned out the lights and tried
to settle down but something wasn’t right. She tried to put her
finger on it. It wasn’t the bed. It wasn’t the room. It wasBeastie
Bear. She needed him and he was still in the van. That wouldn’t
do.

Throwing the bedspread back in a huff,
she got out of the bed and headed into the hallway. She passed her
mother on the way down the stairs.

“You’re still awake, Ellie?” Helen
questioned. “It’s after midnight.”

“Yes. I left something in the van. I’ll
be right back.”

“
Do you really need it now?
Can’t it wait until the morning?”

“Beastie Boy,” Ellie said firmly. She
was ready to cause a scene if she had to. “I want him.”

“Okay, be quick about it though, it’s
cold outside. Put a coat on. The keys to the van are on the table
by the front door.” Helen was too exhausted from the long day to
fight with her daughter.

Ellie nodded and continued down the
stairs. She noticed Helena in the living room, looking outside
through the paneled glass aside the front door.

“Are you okay, Nan?” Ellie
asked.

“I’m fine, Ellie,” Helena replied, her
gaze not moving from the window. “I just thought I heard something
outside.” She shrugged. “It was probably a stray cat. Can I get you
something?”

“I’m just running to the van. I
forgot...something. I’ll be back in a minute. Can I borrow your
shawl?” she asked, picking Helena’s wrap from the chair it rested
on. She paused only long enough to acknowledge her Nan’s nod of
permission. Shoving her feet in her sneakers without actually
putting her heels into her shoes, she grabbed the car keys from the
table and flip-flopped her way outside, her bare heels sliding and
hitting the damp ground every other step.

The wind had died down, revealing a
strange scent in the still night air. It smelled like dirt. It
smelled like a stinky gym bag. It smelled like a wet dog. She
wrinkled her nose. Something was definitely up with her sense of
smell tonight. “Mom must have left a window open in the van,” she
mused, as she headed around to the driver’s side of the vehicle to
check. “We are polluting the neighborhood with
eau-de-cockroach.”

Inside the house, Helena had moved to
the dining room window. Her face grew grave as she watched her
granddaughter outside. “Come back around where I can see you,
Ellie,” she whispered, sliding the window open so she could call to
her granddaughter if she needed to. As the smell of the night air
filled the room, Helena’s hands motioned the scent towards her
nostrils, much like one would sample the aroma of a fine French
perfume. The smell was disturbing. It smelled like danger. It
smelled like hunger. It smelled a wet dog. She walked back to the
front door and opened it. “You are polluting my neighborhood with
eau-de-fear,” she whispered into the darkness.

The interior van light went on as Ellie
opened the driver’s side door and hopped inside. Reaching across
the dashboard to pick up Beastie Bear, she could see through the
passenger side window that Helena was now standing on the porch
watching her every move.

“What? Does she think I’m a baby or
something?” she asked aloud. “If I’m going to have both Mom and Nan
watching me day and night, I might as well roll over and die a
virgin.”

She checked the windows. They were all
rolled up. “Hmm,” she thought. “That’s weird. It smells worse
outside the van than inside. What is that smell?” She plugged her
nose with one hand and slid over to the passenger side to get out.
As she reached for the door with her free hand, she heard a low,
rumbling growl. She jumped back in the seat. With the edge of the
shawl she rubbed away the fog that was forming on the inside of the
window. Through the condensation streaks she could see a wet, mangy
dog circling the van, marking its territory as it did
so.

“Okay, I’m a baby!” she gasped, rolling
down the window the tiniest bit. “Nan!” she screamed. “Help me! I’m
trapped by Cujo!”

Ellie saw the ears on the animal twitch
as it raised itself up on its hind legs and placed its front paws
against the van’s window. Its brown fur was matted, and the dried
blood around its mouth suggested it had just feasted on some poor
animal that wasn’t quick enough to get away. Its hollow eyes, one
blue and one brown, stared at Ellie like a wolf stalking its prey.
As if sensing the fear within her, it began to emit a blood-curling
howl.

“I’m trapped and it knows it,” she
gasped. “Nan, get it away from me,” she begged, banging on the
window with her fist.

Helena tried to creep up behind the
animal, but its hearing was insanely keen. As it turned to look at
her, its claws slid down the passenger door, putting deep scratches
into the van’s white enamel. It barred its teeth, the elongated
canine’s dripping with an unsightly mix of what Helena hoped were
only rodent guts and saliva. It looked at her with an expression
that was almost human. “Take me on, bitch,” it seemed to taunt her,
licking its snout in anticipation of the feast.

“Don’t even think of it,” Helena said,
coming menacingly close to it, a wooden rake in her hand. “I’ll
have you burning in a bonfire before the animal control people get
a whiff of you.”

Ellie’s eyes widened as she saw Helena
take the end of the rake and smash it on the cement sidewalk, just
inches from the dog. The rake had snapped like a
toothpick.