The Narrows(7)

The entire torso of the animal had been demolished, reduced to a bloody, sizzling vomitus that rotted in the heat of midday. White ribs poked like bicycle spokes from a ragged tear in its side, through which Matthew could see its purplish organs and banded, milky pustules of fat. At first glance, he thought he could see the organs behind the ribs working, as if the thing was somehow still alive…but on closer inspection, he realized the movement he was seeing was the wriggling of maggots that had infested the carcass. The entire thing hummed with horseflies.

“Sure it is,” Dwight said, though Matthew could hear the skepticism in his friend’s voice, too. “What else could it be?”

“Whatever it is, it’s disgusting,” Matthew said.

Dwight cocked his head, as if to examine the thing from a different angle. He pointed to the thing’s tattered hindquarters, where the ragged hook of a two-toned tail curled stiffly out of the brown weeds.

“It’s a whitetail,” said Dwight. Sweat beaded his forehead.

“What do you think happened to it?” Matthew looked up to estimate the distance between the carcass and Route 40 at the top of the hill. “Do you think a car hit it?”

“A car didn’t do this. It looks like something ate it,” Dwight suggested. He stood and prodded the corpse with his stick. One stiff leg rocked and there was a ripping sound as part of its gore-matted hide tore out of the grass.

Matthew wrinkled his nose. “Gross. Don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s—”

Both boys jumped back, startled by the massive beetle that spilled out of the whitetail’s snout and scuttled into the grass, its metallic green carapace glinting sunlight. Nervously, Dwight laughed. Then he tossed the stick onto the ground and withdrew a small boning knife from his backpack.

“What are you doing?” Matthew said. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “You’re not supposed to bring knives to school, Dwight.”

“You’re not supposed to blah blah blah,” Dwight parroted. “You’re such a sissy. Help me cut the tail off.”

“What? No way!”

“Don’t be a baby.”

“I’m not touching it.” Matthew took an unconscious step backward. “Why do you want that tail, anyway?”

“I’m gonna hang it from my bike.” The tone of Dwight’s voice suggested that Matthew was an imbecile for not understanding this.

“You do it yourself.”

“I need you to help.” Dwight stepped over what Matthew estimated to be the ropy, silvered spools of the deer’s entrails, then hunkered down again. Sunlight shimmered along the blade of the boning knife. “Either pull the tail straight out or keep the body steady while I cut.”

Matthew sucked his lower lip. He couldn’t pull his eyes from the dead animal decomposing and crawling with flies in the grass. He could hear their buzzing, an industrial, machinelike drone.

“Okay,” he said finally, “but on one condition.”

Dwight groaned and peered up at him from beneath his brow. It was the same look he shot Mr. Hodgson at school when asked to come to the blackboard and solve a math problem in front of the class. “What?”

“You let me take over your paper route, just until I have enough money so I can buy the Dracula mask.”

“It’s not a f*cking Dracula mask…”

“Vampire mask, then. Deal?”

Dwight’s mouth twisted into a knot. He looked down at the dead deer’s tail, his longish hair damp with perspiration and curling over his eyes, then back up at Matthew. Before he even opened his mouth, Matthew knew he would agree to it.

“I can’t give you the route, Matt. I just can’t. But yeah, okay, I’ll lend you the money. You can pay me back through your allowance. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“But then I get to wear the mask sometimes too. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Swear on it.”

Matthew Crawly spit on the ground then said, “Swear.”

This seemed to suffice. Dwight nodded succinctly then jerked his head at the dead animal’s tail. Matthew tromped through the underbrush and squatted down beside Dwight. This close to the carcass, he could see with perfect clarity the maggots squirming within the pulpy gruel, fat and white, like overcooked macaroni. There was a sticky web of foam spilling out of the rent in the flesh, pinkish with blood and mucus.

“Come on,” Dwight said, prodding the rear of the animal with the point of the boning knife. Agitated flies clotted the air above them.

The tail jutted up at a perfect ninety-degree angle, stiff as a coat hanger. Matthew pinched its tip between his thumb and forefinger then pulled it taut. The fur was incredibly soft and, beneath the fur, he could feel the tapered, pencil-thin tailbone.

“Just hurry up and do it,” Matthew said.

Dwight placed the blade of the boning knife against the tail, at the point where the tail met the creature’s hindquarters, and proceeded to saw back and forth with disciplined alacrity. The sound was like twisting a leather wallet and the sight of the act turned Matthew’s stomach. He looked away, back up the opposite hillside where the undulating fields climbed toward the square stone shell of the plastics factory, partially masked behind a network of dead trees. A cool breeze issued down the mountain, rustling the prickly underbrush and causing the tall, yellow grass to blow.