The Narrows(3)

On this rain-swept Friday afternoon, Matthew and Dwight stepped over the train tracks and headed up the slight embankment toward Cemetery Road, their sneakers already blackened with mud. Dwight snapped a branch off a nearby birch tree and began whipping the air. Up ahead, the black iron gates of the Stillwater Cemetery rose up out of the rainy mist like spearheads. As they walked past the gates, Matthew could see the swampy cemetery grounds and the tombstones rising out of shimmering quicksilver puddles. The moss-covered mausoleums beneath the bare limbs of elm trees looked like props in a horror movie. The nearby willow trees hung in wet, loopy garlands, and the sky beyond looked terminally ill. The Crawly house had sustained some damage from the storm, and the electricity had only come back on two nights ago, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was the smell—a permeating, moldy stink that, when inhaled, felt like it got caught up in your lungs like lint in a dryer vent. Lately, it seemed like the whole town smelled this way.

“I want to see it,” Dwight said.

“I can’t. I’m not allowed out that far.”

“Says who?”

“Says my mom.”

“Goddamn it, Crawly. Why are you such a chickenshit?”

“I’m not a chickenshit,” Matthew said, shifting his backpack from one shoulder to the other. His sneakers squished in the mud. “What do I want to go all the way out there for, anyway? It’s just a stupid deer.”

“Billy Leary said it looked like some monster tore it to pieces.”

“It’s probably gone by now anyway.”

“Gone where?” Dwight asked, still swinging at the air with the birch branch. “It just got up and walked away?”

Matthew shrugged. He was still thinking about the bat. After the bell had rung and the hallways had flooded with students anxious to begin their weekend, Matthew had gathered his books from his desk, stuffed them in his backpack, and was about to join Dwight out in the hallway when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. Startled, he had turned around to see Mr. Pulaski towering over him, the oversized wrench still clenched in one thick-knuckled hand. “Shouldn’t be cavalier with bats, son,” Mr. Pulaski had warned him. (While Matthew had not known what the word cavalier meant, the heart of the statement was not lost on him.) “Sometimes they’s dangerous. Sometimes.”

“Man, I just gotta see this thing,” Dwight droned on. “Billy Leary said it might have even been attacked by a bear. Can you believe it?”

No, Matthew couldn’t believe it. Billy Leary was a crusty-faced half-wit who spent most of the school day in the remedial classroom by the gymnasium with four or five other students. Matthew did not put much stock in anything Billy Leary said.

“It probably just got hit by a car crossing Route 40.”

“Either way, let’s go,” Dwight insisted. Frustrated, he snapped the birch branch in half then tossed both pieces over the cemetery fence. “We’ll be home before supper. I promise.”

“Okay. But I want to stop by Hogarth’s first.”

Dwight moaned. Unlike Matthew, whose slight frame and baby-blond hair made him look even younger than he was, Dwight Dandridge was a meaty, solid block of flesh in a striped polo shirt. According to Dwight’s father (who was a drunkard, if the one-sided conversations Matthew had overheard when his mother was on the telephone were at all reliable), his son was rapidly on his way to Gutsville. If that meant Dwight was on his way to becoming fat, Matthew surmised that Mr. Dandridge had been living in Gutsville for most of his adult life, and could probably run for mayor.

“Hogarth’s is on the other side of town, dummy,” Dwight groaned. His hands were stuffed into the overly tight pockets of his jeans and he was kicking rocks as he walked. Matthew glanced at him and found his friend’s profile, with his upturned nose and protruding front teeth, piggish and off-putting.

“I’ll go with you to the Narrows if you come with me to Hogarth’s first,” Matthew said.

“It’s still there, you know,” Dwight assured him. “You don’t have to keep checking up on it. No one’s buying it.”

“Someone might.”

“Everyone else has already got their Halloween costumes picked out, dummy. You’re the only holdout.”

“That’s not true.”

“Of course it’s true. Halloween’s two weeks away. What do you think everyone’s waiting for?”

“So what are you gonna be?”

“A f*ckin’ cool space alien.” Dwight licked his lips in his excitement. “I got these big rubbery gloves with claws on the ends and this mask, such a freaky mask. You gotta see it! It’s got this fishy green skin and eyes like swimming goggles.” He was nearly out of breath talking about it.

“Cool,” Matthew said.

“Do you even have enough money to buy it yet?”

“No.”

“Give it up. You should just be a homicidal serial killer,” Dwight suggested. “Wear some ripped up clothes, put some fake blood all over your face and hands, and walk around with a butcher’s knife. It’s easy.”

“That’s stupid.”

“You’re stupid. Homicidal serial killer’s a f*ckin’ awesome idea.”

“Then you can be the stupid serial killer and I’ll wear your alien mask.”