Scary Out There (43 page)

Bethie is beaming. “
Thanks
, Hank! I
love
brats!”

“And they love you, sugar.” Hank's tousling Bethie's hair, but his eyes tick to Sarah. “Why, you're whiter'n a ghost, honey, and sweating to beat the band. You coming down with something?”

“Yeah . . . I mean, no.” The words ride a breathless gasp. She needs a shower, and this jawbreaker is
awful
. She's going to spit out the stupid thing as soon as she can. “Thank you, Hank.” Before he can respond, she practically dives into the car and slams the door. Reaching around for her belt, Sarah hauls it across her lap and—

And Ms. Avery is there.

In the
car
.

No.
Sarah's eyes bug.
Nonono!

Ms. Avery smells like the inside of a deer that Sarah's dad's just gutted, its liver and lungs and intestines and bulging blue colon mounded in a steaming, putrid mess that reeks of dying blood and new shit. Her eyes are fire.

Hey, sugar.
When she smiles, Ms. Avery's mouth splits into a wide clown's grin. Mottled with decay and Coke-bottle green, the flesh from cheekbone to jaw peels away to hang in ragged flaps. Dead-white maggots squirm from Ms. Avery's ears and nostrils.
That brat smells so good. Can I have a bite?

“No!” She doesn't know if she screams this out loud. Later, when she has time to think about it, probably she doesn't scream, because her mother keeps driving as Bethie munches a brat drippy with ketchup that squirts like blood from the bun. “Go away!”

Now? We're just getting started.
Skimming a blue-black tongue, Ms. Avery flips maggots into her mouth, then grinds down until they burst in snotty, white spurts of maggot guts.
Mmm-MMM
, the ghost says.

Oh my God.
Sarah suddenly remembers the jawbreaker, how odd it feels and tastes and . . . “Guh!” Spitting out the candy, she looks at the gluey orb in her palm . . .

And it is an eye.

Soft. Trembling. Milky white, with tiny green veins. Its iris is cloudy with death, but not so much that she can't tell that its color was once deep brown, like fine chocolate.

Oh jeez.
Picking at her teeth, Ms. Avery sucks the remains of a maggot from a fingernail grown long as a talon.
I wondered where that got to.

“Mommy?
Mommy? 
” Bethie gives a sudden, shrill shout. “Sarah's being sick!”

•  •  •

Hours later:

She's burning up, sprawled in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets. She's inched as far away as possible from her little sister, who shares with her in winter. Deeply asleep, Bethie lets out the occasional musical snore. From downstairs drifts the low mutter of the TV punctuated by the occasional, breathless
OH WOW TIGHT GLUTES
note. Infomercials mean Mom's probably finished off that bottle of cheap red wine she snagged on the way home. You'd think that Sarah puking her guts out might prompt a mom to, oh, take her sick kid home or at least climb out and hold her kid's forehead while she yorps, but
nooo.
(Instead, Ms. Avery did that, one skeletal hand, ooky with liquefying flesh, on her forehead and the other, equally as disgusting, holding back Sarah's hair.) After Sarah emptied her stomach and was down to dry heaves, her mother swung by Jake's Liquor, where her credit was still good.

It's not right.
Sweat dribbles down her temples to soak her hair. Raw eyed and furious, Sarah stares at shadows swarming and bunching in the well of her ceiling. Her busy, busy fingers caress what she's stolen from Hank.
Mom says we have no money, but she can buy smokes and booze.

Adults are such pricks.
In a far corner Ms. Avery—or whatever the ghost's becoming—perches ghoulishly like a gigantic, malevolent parrot atop the rail of a straight-backed chair. When the ghost moves, it rustles like dry corn husks.
Yet her voice seeps from the tiny owl's skull Sarah holds.
But you're just as bad, you liar.

I'm not a liar.
She fingers the skull. She just didn't volunteer. Don't ask, don't tell.
He's my dad.

Among other things.

“What does that mean?” And, oh, why isn't she surprised when the skull chooses not to answer?
Fine, keep secrets. Bitch.
(Another word she never says but which feels
good
and
right
nonetheless.) She shifts her gaze back to the ceiling. Those shadows creep her out, and after what she's seen today, that's saying something. She thinks they are faces. In fact, they're like those monster-angels from an Indiana Jones movie: first pretty and then raving skeletons. Heck, maybe that's Ms. Avery. Maybe Sarah's only getting the monster-angel she deserves.

A rustle from the corner:
Perhaps I am the angel you need.

Sarah returns her gaze to the tiny skull's wise, eyeless sockets. “For what?”

Big surprise: no answer.
Bitch.
She clenches the owl skull, hard and then harder. Be easy to crush, grind to dust. Her dad does that. Says bone's good for the garden, so he dumps the skeletons of his kills into a fire barrel, gives it all a good, long squirt of lighter fluid, and
whump!
Then her dad stirs and stirs, like a witch at a cauldron, raising great black clouds that coat her nose and throat and turn her spit black.

He's inside you,
the owl skull says.
You're infected with him, his crime.

“No, I'm just a
kid.
Can I help it that you were so stupid you didn't stop to think that maybe he was
danger—
”

All of a sudden, a knife of bright yellow light slices her room, going from left to right as someone turns into their drive.

Uh-oh
, the skull says.

Car.
Her heart crams up against her teeth. Whoever this is, she can tell from the way the gauzy curtain has lit up that he/she/it is simply waiting, coming no closer but not going away either. Pulse thumping, she holds her breath and listens above the still-muttering TV. After a second she catches the slight
chug-chug-chug
of an idling engine. Who would come by this late at night?

Take a guess.
In the corner the Ms. Avery–thing swells and stretches with a rustle. A limb moves into and then out of the light. The moment is brief, but Sarah can see how thin Ms. Avery's arm now is, the skin shiny and taut.
Skeletal.
Ms. Avery's like an X-ray come to life.

Forget me
, the skull says as the light firing Sarah's curtains winks out.
You've got bigger problems.

Slipping from bed, Sarah pads to the window, then carefully inserts a single finger into the slit between her curtains. High above the trees the moon is a thick, blue-white thumbnail. Lances of bright silver moonlight spear through trees and glimmer over a truck perched at the very mouth of the drive. Then, an orange flash from the truck's dome light as the driver pops his door, and Sarah gets the general impression of a stocky
man with big shoulders, a bull neck. Unfolding from his seat, he stands, muscled arms loose by his sides. She doesn't need light to know that his hands are large, the knuckles sprouting black wiry corkscrews, the backs matted with so much hair his buddies tease that his mom musta married Bigfoot.

It still might be okay.
Dread walks the knobs of her spine.
He's not coming any
 . . . That thought stutters as he pulls something long and heavy from the truck.

You know
, the skull says,
now would be a good time.

“Bethie!” Whirling, she dashes to the bed. “Get up, Bethie, get up!” Then she's out the door, sprinting for the stairs. “Mom!
MOM!  
”

The only light downstairs is the soft blue pulse of the still-muttering TV. On the screen some guy's spazzing about soap guaranteed to take away any stain, even blood. Sprawled on a lumpy couch, her mother's asleep, head flung back, her neck arched as a swan's. The air is fruity with cheap booze.

“Mom!” She gives her a violent shake. “Wake
up
!”

“Huh?” Her mother opens a single bleary eye. “Wuh?”

“Mom, get
up
!” Sarah throws a look toward the boarded-up bay window. She can't see out, but that also means her dad can't see in.
So, if we're quiet, move fast, we can get out of the house.
She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Mom, Dad's
here
.”

“Daddy?” Sarah can't tell if her sister is scared or excited. Maybe she's a bit of both. “He's outside?” Bethie asks.

“Wuh?” Moaning, her mom struggles to a sit. “Honey, go back to bed.”
Propping her forehead in one hand, she yawns. “Your dad's not . . .”

“Mom, I
saw
him. His truck's blocking the driveway.” When her mother doesn't respond, she gives her another impatient poke. “Mom,
please
.”

“Sweetie,” her mother says, thickly, “I don't think . . .”

And that's when the lights go out.

•  •  •

Oh no.
Sarah stares at the ceiling as if this might make the suddenly dark fixture wink back to life. In the corner the TV screen is only a muddy, gray, quickly fading glow. “It's Dad,” she says, her voice hoarse with urgency. “Mom, he cut the lights.”

“But why?” Bethie asks. “Mommy, did you forget to pay the 'lectric bill?”

“No,” her mother says, her voice still gluey, although Sarah can now hear a note of worry.

You're running out of time
. The skull warms the hollow of her throat. Until this moment, Sarah hasn't realized that she slipped the cord around her neck.
Get out, now.

The skull's right. “Mom.” Sarah pulls at her arm. “We have to
go
!”

“Go?” her mother echoes.

“Go where?” Bethie says. “You mean, out . . .”

BANG!
The sound is sharp, hard, an explosion. Crying out, Sarah wheels around as, from just beyond the front door, there comes a harsh bellow: “Jean?” Another
bang
as either
her dad's fist—or the club end of that bat or axe—connects with the front door.
“Jean?”

“Oh!” There is a glassy
clink
as either her mother's knee or hand knocks a bottle or glass. Something topples, and then the stink of booze rises in a stinging cloud. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” her mother says, but she's on her feet at least.

“Jean!”—and then there is a sound that is not a
bang
or
bap
but a hollow
chock
, and Sarah thinks,
Axe.
The cheap door bawls a high, grinding squeal that echoes Bethie's shrill screech. “Open the damn
door
!” her dad shouts.

“
Mom!”
Sarah finds her mother's wrist and hangs on. “What do we do?”

“I . . .” Her mother swallows. “Basement. Or your room. Lock the door and . . .”

“Against an
axe
?” Another hollow
chock.
The front door rattles in its frame, and something—a chunk of wood—
tocks
to the floor. Splinters of light seep through sudden cracks in wood. “Mom, we can't. He'll break through every door if he has to, and there's no way out of the basement!” Get trapped down there and they'll be like muskrats that save her dad the trouble. “What do we . . .”

Here.
Craning, Sarah looks down the hall toward the kitchen. There, two red sparks hover in midair.
Back door. This way. Hurry.

“We'll go out the kitchen.” Sarah tugs harder at her mother's hand. “Mom, we have to leave!”

“Into the w-w-woods?” Hiccupping, Bethie's voice hitches. “It's d-d-dark!”

“No, not the woods.” Sarah's thinking of the shed, her dad's nasty Glock, the rifle. If she can get to a
gun
 . . .

And do what?
From its place around her neck, the skull thrums.
The shotgun and pistol are too heavy. You might manage the rifle, but you've never shot a moving target, much less a person. No, Sarah, there's another way.

“What other way?” Sarah shouts at the cinder-red eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“S-Sarah?” Bethie wails. And her mother: “Sarah, who are you talking to?”

Sarah pays them no mind. “
Tell
me!”

Do what I say.
The skull is relentless, as remorseless as the tide.
This house is lost. Run, Sarah. Run NOW.

“BITCH!”
Sarah rages as, outside, her father bellows again—and they are, for that second, one voice eerily in sync. “This way!” Sarah yanks her sister toward the kitchen. “Mom, come on!”

“Wait, wait!” Bethie balks. “Sarah, the woods are scary. . . .”

“Scarier than Dad?” She isn't wild about the woods either. Where would they go? Her dad knows them. They're
his
. No, best to get to the shed, a gun . . .

No, Sarah.
The owl has grown so hot that it is flame.
Do what I
 . . .

“Jean?” Through a jagged gap in the front door, Sarah sees
her father. His face is thickly bearded as if his skin hasn't seen a razor in months. His long hair is a ratty tangle. He looks like a mountain man who's been hunkered in a cave. “Damn it, look what you made me do.”

“What do you want, John?” Her mother's come to stand between them and her husband. Her tone is surprisingly steady. “You want to talk? Fine. But you have to stop this.”