Touch (Denazen #1)(88)

Mom curses as the car whines up another hill. She pumps the slab of steel with the ball of her foot like the hick she is, until the engine revs, re-engages, and spits us forward.

“You coulda at least slept your way into a better car,” I mutter, pulling up the hood of my gray sweatshirt. Not likely. Mom’s always been better at giveaways than bartering.

She doesn’t hear, and it’s probably for the best. A fresh round of tears would’ve been her answer. They’re the answer for everything these days.

To the east, the hills climb into the mountain range. I stare out over the forested landscape, seeing but not seeing. My mind is on the girl in my dreams. Pale face. Dark hair. White gown. Eerie woods. Chills sweep my arms. It’s just an impression, there and gone before I can capture it, but a strange, deep longing rises in my chest. I’ve dreamed about her every night for two weeks, and each dream is more intense than the last. Lately, I’m feeling desperate in a way I’ve never felt before, like I’ve been ripped out of the ground one too many times, and the next time will kill me.

My thoughts return to the present, and I see the road split. To the left, pavement riddled with water-filled potholes. To the right, dirt riddled with muddy potholes. We turn right.

I slap my hand on the outside of the door. “Seriously? A dirt road?” Trees quickly surround the car, and an unfamiliar thickness invades the air. Our soon-to-be-new home is fast losing its appeal.

“It’s a sheep ranch, Dylan. Where do you expect it to be? In the middle of downtown Portland?”

“Not in the wilds of Oregon!”

The car shakes and rattles as we slowly make our way down the torn-up strip of dirt. Mom does all she can to avoid trouble spots.

“This is hardly—” She huffs when the car slams into an especially deep hole and mud splatters in a shower of gloppy brown. The undercarriage smacks the road hard, and she growls her frustration. “—out in the wilds,” she finishes, but I can see even she’s struggling to believe her own propaganda.

“Yeah, right. There’s not even a damn Walmart out here, and Walmart is everywhere.”

“Don’t cuss,” she says. “My mother hates cussing.”

Good to know. Rattle off the seven unspeakable cuss words the first chance I get, and family or not, if she has any brains, her mom will send us packing.

Trees crowd the road, sucking the air out of the car. I’d forgotten how much I detest the great outdoors. I’d spent my whole life traveling toward the city, longing for a place where I belong, and now Mom slaps me back to square one.

Every so often, another dirt road forks off the main one, but try as I might, I can’t see any signs of human life. The road looks like it leads to a campground. What is she thinking? She hates country life even more than I do.

“So, your mom… What am I supposed to call her?”

Her laugh is a short, bitter sound. “How about Granny? That’ll rip her up.”

“Using me to dig at your mom isn’t very mature.”

She pushes the dancing, brown curl out of her eyes. “Oh, shut up. You know I’m kidding. Anyway, what do you care?”

“I don’t.” I haven’t cared about anything in a long time, but still. Someone has to be an adult, and it sure won’t be her.

And she isn’t kidding, regardless of what she says. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who causes that particular look of resentment to flash in her eyes.

As we trundle over the hard-packed mud, a scruffy, tri-colored dog with a bobbed tail and spindle-legs shoots out of the trees and runs alongside the car, all barks and growls like it’s never seen a rusted box on wheels before.

“Beat it, Fido.” I swat at it, but it nearly bites off my hand. “Hey!”

“What?”

“The dog almost bit me!”

Mom looks at me like I’m the problem. “What are you, two? Don’t touch a strange dog.”

Yep. I’m the problem. I slouch back onto my seat. She would side with a mangy animal over her own flesh and blood. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the unwanted son of a teenage runaway.

The dog breaks away when we round a bend cluttered with trees. Mom mutters a few more cuss words. I close my eyes and sigh. That’s Mom. Do as I say, not as I do.

The car veers to the left, and I crack my eyes open. The wall of trees separates to reveal a half-dozen strange, brightly-painted metal sculptures that belong in one of those modern museums only rich people go to. There’s something disturbing about the way they rise up, twisting and stretching in a macabre, colorful dance.

Behind them, a huge, red barn overlooks a clapboard-sided house. When we bottom out near the top of the drive, a small woman, pail in hand, turns and watches us from her place on the front porch. I push my hood off to get a better look. “Yee-haw. There’s Granny. So where’s Uncle Jed, cousin Jethro, and Elly May?”

“Knock it off.”

I can feel a headache coming on. “Let me get this straight. You can say whatever you want, but I’ve gotta behave?”

“Exactly. Nobody likes a smart ass.”

“That would explain your lack of popularity.”

She blows out the last of the smoke that’s rotting her lungs. “For God sakes, would it kill you to be nice?”