The Bird Eater (12 page)

Eleven

Aaron spilled out the front door and stumbled down the porch steps, nearly twisting his ankle as he tripped across what used to be the lawn. His heart clanged in his ears, drowning out the sound of the breeze, the rustling of leaves, the chirp of crickets, the singing of starlings that seemed to multiply by the day—the nests that had been empty when he arrived now crowded by birds that didn’t seem to sleep.

He couldn’t catch his breath, sure that any second his lungs would seize up and he’d die alone in the dark. He put the house to his back, the structure suddenly sinister rather than reminiscent of childhood memories and loss. He couldn’t look at it anymore, couldn’t sit within those walls for a second longer.

He pitched forward, his head leading his feet as he staggered to the driveway. He hesitated for only a moment, looking down at the driver’s door where Ryder’s name had been scrawled, but the name was no longer there.

You hallucinated everything,
Evangeline whispered.

There are particular details about your case,
Doc Jandreau explained,
that point to post-traumatic stress.

Aaron jerked open the door, climbed inside the Tercel, and peeled away from the house in a spray of gravel, his tires screaming as he veered onto the street and barreled down Old Mill.

The Toyota careened into a truck stop parking lot just shy of the highway—the Blue Ox was closed; this was the only place within twenty miles that laid claim to an
OPEN 24 HOURS
sign. The young, sleepy-looking waitress failed to greet him at the door. She simply grabbed a greasy menu from the hostess stand and motioned for him to follow her with a torpid tilt of the head. Apathetically eyeing his arms and neck as Aaron slid into a booth, she didn’t look impressed. There was no doubt she’d seen her share of strung-out crackies stumble into her diner at half past three, and if Aaron looked the way he felt, she probably assumed he’d just snorted a fat line of coke—last he checked, his eyes had been wide and red-rimmed, his hair wild. His nerves were so frayed they sizzled with each step.

Aaron gave the tired server an unhinged sort of smile before she unceremoniously dropped the menu on the table, then pulled a pad of paper from her apron. Plucking a pencil from behind her ear, she leveled her gaze on one of her only patrons and breathed a listless sigh.

“Coffee?” she asked.

Had Aaron not been crawling out of his skin, he would have burst into crazy, cackling laughter at her lack of enthusiasm.

“Yes. And one of these.” He slid the menu across the table, his finger pressed against a glossy full-color photo of an omelet fit to induce a heart attack. He was suddenly ravenous, desperate to fill himself with something, anything, as long as it pulled him away from the edge of hysteria. The waitress scribbled down the order and turned.

“Extra cheese,” Aaron called out, suddenly overcome with a bout of Tourette’s. “Salsa on the side.”

The waitress slowly glanced over her shoulder, then continued on her way, probably rolling her eyes at the meth head taking up her precious time.

Aaron didn’t know if it would work, but he was determined to eat his way out of this anxiety attack, to swallow his delusions. The Ativan hadn’t done shit, and unless he wanted to break into Banner’s, he’d have to wait until sunup to drown himself again. Maybe his screwed-up visions, his nightmares, were actually a side effect of trying to cut down on his meds, of overexerting himself by working outside in the heat, of living in a creepy house in a middle-of-nowhere town. Maybe Doc Jandreau had been full of shit and coming back to Boone County had been the worst idea on the fucking planet; so bad that Aaron very likely had a hell of a case for getting his therapist’s practicing license revoked.

When his coffee came, he gulped it down despite its heat. His omelet arrived a few minutes later, and he slathered it with salsa and began to chew, desperate to silence his tumbling thoughts with cheese, sautéed mushrooms, and strips of shoe-leather steak. He decided that a call to Cooper was in order. He’d let him yuck it up for an hour or two.

You’re going crazy because it’s Arkansas
, he’d say.
Better get out of there before all your teeth fall out. Better jet before you start wearing overalls and chewing stalks of wheat.

Aaron shoved another forkful of food into his mouth, his gaze settling on a guy at the far end of the diner. He recognized the T-shirt.
Stop staring at my bass
. It was the tow guy. Aaron’s eyes snapped back to his plate as Mr. Bass turned his head, focusing on his too-early breakfast, and hoped the tow truck driver didn’t get shot through the heart by a sudden pang of loneliness and decide he was up for a chat.

Rumor has it you’re supposed to be dead.

Aaron had been struck by the oddness of the guy’s statement during their otherwise silent ride to Vaughn’s that morning—it hadn’t made sense because Aaron had yet to hear the rumor for himself. He hadn’t known that
he
was supposed to be haunting Holbrook House—the kid who’d killed his aunt and disappeared into the woods. But now Mr. Bass’s assertion made his stomach churn around that greasy, chewed-up omelet, because the rumor was true.

Aaron wasn’t supposed to be here.

He was a perversion of mortality.

People weren’t supposed to rise from the dead.

He suddenly recalled an offhand comment he had made to Evangeline years before, something about her beloved ghost shows, about how easy it was to buy an EMF detector off of eBay and start up a ghost hunting society. Hell, Eric had done it and he was a grocery store manager. It didn’t take a special license, just the willingness to believe.

Not everyone has been to the other side,
Evangeline told him before relating the tale; the host of the ghost show had been an everyday schmoe like everyone else until he died and went to heaven. When he was revived, he was able to communicate with the dead.
It’s a gift,
she said.

Back then, Aaron had rolled his eyes at the idea of it, but now his eyes went wide.

He pushed his plate away, no longer hungry. Grabbing his coffee cup, he threw his head back but got nothing. The bitter liquid had been refilled twice; after that, the waitress decided not to refill it anymore, possibly to expedite Aaron’s exit. Mr. Bass was looking at him again, this time with far more interest than before, rubbing at his unshaved chin. Overwhelmed by an abrupt need to get out of there, Aaron reached into his pocket and tossed a crumpled twenty onto the table, then marched into the parking lot, his eyes down, his shoulders slouched, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans.

With his gaze averted, he nearly missed the kid standing on a bright yellow parking curb a few spaces shy of his car. The truck stop was a good two miles outside of town, its bright neon sign casting an eerie glow across an abandoned highway, lighting up the kid’s dark hair with ghostly incandescence. He was facing away from the parking lot, as though watching something in the darkness beyond, but Aaron knew exactly who he was. The wild thatch of his hair gave him away, standing up in crazy wisps like peaks of whipped cream.

Aaron glared at the kid’s back, wondering if he should say something; maybe offer up a truce or grab him by the throat and threaten his life. The latter would get him arrested, no doubt, but at least the cops would come. Aaron would finally give Officer Helpful his long-awaited positive ID on the kid who’d been tormenting him since the day he arrived.

The kid’s arms worked in front of him, as though he were folding paper or twisting the sides of a Rubik’s Cube. Taking a shallow breath, Aaron shoved his hand into the back pocket of his jeans, but his cell wasn’t there. In his panic he’d left it inside the house; he’d stayed only inside long enough to pull on some clothes and grab his keys. He shot a look back at the diner—he’d ask the waitress to call the police while he waited in the parking lot until they arrived, and if the brat tried to make a run for it, Aaron would follow him and see where he went. If he couldn’t get the kid’s identity, he could at least find out where he lived. An address would be just as effective to get the Ironwood police off their asses and onto the case.

Aaron backed up—ready to make a beeline back to the restaurant—when the kid giggled to himself. He finally turned, his hands cupped together next to his chest, and Aaron’s breath left him entirely.

The little bastard was holding a yellow finch, the bird’s wings flapping against his palms. He was wearing the same pair of navy coveralls Aaron had noticed during his first morning in town—the kind a plumber or mechanic

or an inmate

would wear. But this time there was an embroidered name patch stitched just below the kid’s right collarbone,
RYDER
carefully scripted across a white background in a blazing, bloody red.

Aaron’s mouth went dry.

He couldn’t speak, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe as the kid gave Aaron a menacing grin.

Frozen in place, he could do nothing but stare as the kid lifted the bright yellow bird to eye level, inspecting it the way Sylvester would scrutinize Tweety; and just when it seemed that he was ready to let the creature fly away, he crushed it in his hands and shoved it into his mouth.

Aaron wanted to scream, but he didn’t have the air.

The boy continued to chew with a satisfied, unholy expression, gilded feathers jutting out from between his lips, hollow bones crunching beneath his teeth. And then he crouched on the parking curb, as if ready to spring forward and gouge out Aaron’s eyes for witnessing such perversion. But rather than lurching forward, the kid turned and launched himself into the shadows, bolting through the weeded field along the highway until Aaron couldn’t see him anymore.

Struck dumb by what he had witnessed outside the truck stop, Aaron drove to the only place that felt remotely safe—Banner’s parking lot. He had tried to convince himself that everything he’d seen had been in his head, had tried to sleep, but rest came in few-minute intervals—just enough to stiffen his neck, but not enough to let him escape. He wanted to call Cooper, but there was no way in hell he was going back home to get his cell. Feeling strung out and exhausted, he waited for Eric’s Firebird to pull into the lot. When it didn’t appear, Aaron slid out of his car and dragged himself toward the store anyway.

He lethargically wheeled a cart from aisle to aisle, the stupid thing’s right front wheel spinning around like a lunatic top. He headed to the liquor department first, feeling as guilty as he did justified. He had been relatively sober for nearly three months before coming back to Boone County—three months of nothing but an occasional beer with Cooper and the guys, always stopping at one, never even feeling a buzz. This, however, was the last place to get clean.

I’m sorry,
he thought, directing his apology toward Cooper, toward Doc Jandreau, toward Evangeline who no longer cared.
I can’t do this here. I’ll start over when I get back to Oregon. It’ll be better there. I just can’t handle this alone.

He grabbed two bottles of Jack off the shelf, snatched some Grey Goose for good measure, and rounded it off with a case of Boston Lager. Next, he headed to the freezer section for pizza and milk.

Shivering in the dairy aisle, he nearly jumped out of his skin when a pair of hands covered his eyes from behind. He veered around way too fast, unable to keep his nerves in check.

Cheri’s smile wavered at his response. She pulled her hands away like a child recoiling from fire and bit her lip. “Hi,” she said, sounding unsure. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She twisted her red hair at the nape of her neck before letting it go. The fluorescent lights of the dairy cooler made her skin glow pale blue. “I’ve been following you since the cereal aisle,” she said. “I was waiting for you to see me but you seem distracted.” She lifted a shoulder in an easy shrug, canting her head to the side as she studied him. “Jesus, Aaron, you look…”

He gave her a tired smile. He hoped she wouldn’t say it, but he appreciated the worry that drifted across her face and settled in the corners of her downturned mouth.

Her gaze darted to his cart; she noted his intended purchase of booze and pizza, and looked back at him with a frown. “Okay, now I’m really concerned.”

His chest was still tight.

He didn’t feel well.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Aaron, come on…”

“Really,” he assured her. “Just a rough night.”

“Bullshit,” she said. “Something’s up.”

“Nothing’s up.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Look, I get that we haven’t seen each other in forever, but you really think I don’t know? You may
look
different, but you haven’t changed a bit, and something is definitely up. What is all this?” She motioned to the whiskey, the vodka, the beer.

He felt dizzy. Something akin to heartburn clamored up his windpipe. Part of his brain advised him to be defensive. This wasn’t her business. Who was she to question what he chose to spend his money on? If he wanted to get shitfaced, that was his right as an adult. But the reasonable side of him told him to keep his cool, to value the fact that she actually cared.

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” he said, choosing to avoid the subject of alcohol altogether.

“Have you been eating?”

They stood less than two feet apart now, speaking in hushed tones next to the sour cream and half-and-half. Aaron pictured them from an onlooker’s perspective—standing too close to each other, her hand on the handle of his cart.

“I ate,” he said.

“When?”

He hesitated, swallowed against the memory of that truck stop, that kid, the little bird, the way he had sprung away like some sort of feral animal. It had been inhuman, like something straight out of Lovecraft.

“Last night, or this morning, depending on how you look at it.”