All the Dangerous Things(6)

I force myself to turn around and fasten Roscoe’s leash to his collar before stepping back outside, the cool night air making the skin on my arms prickle. Then I lock the door behind us and take a right, setting out on our usual path.

Isle of Hope is a tiny little spit of land, barely two square miles. I’ve walked the entire thing hundreds of times, memorized the way the Skidaway River slithers across the east side like a water moccasin, shiny and slick. The way the oak trees have formed a giant archway over the Bluff, their limbs getting mangled together in time like the lacing together of arthritic fingers. But it is amazing how completely a place changes in the dark: Roads that you’ve lived on your entire adult life look different, like instead of stepping onto smooth pavement, you’re walking straight into the murky river itself. You start to notice light poles that you used to ignore, the dimming and subsequent brightening as you work your way between each one the only way to gauge distance or depth. Shadows become shapes; every tiny movement is eye-catching, like the dance of dry leaves on the ground or the legs of phantom children pushing an empty swing, chains squeaking in the breeze. Windows are dark, curtains drawn. I try to imagine the life inside each house as I pass—the gentle stirring of a child as they sleep, a nightlight casting otherworldly shapes against the wall. Spouses in bed together, skin-to-skin, bodies tangled tight between the sheets—or perhaps pushed as far apart as humanly possible, separated by an invisible cold line drawn down the center.

As for me, I’m familiar with both.

And then there are the creatures of the night. The living things, like myself, that crawl out of their hiding spots and come alive in the absence of others. Raccoons scurrying across the shadows, rooting through trash. The distant hoot of an owl or snakes slithering out of their shady places and leaving behind nothing but their own dried skin. The scream of crickets and cicadas and other invisible things that pulse through the grass with a steady determination, like the pumping of blood through veins.

I approach the marsh at the edge of my neighborhood and stop, staring out at the inky water I can hear lapping against the shore. I was born in Beaufort, just barely over an hour from here. I’ve lived on the water my entire life, learned to swim with minnows tickling my feet and the sound of shrimp skidding across the surface at low tide. I’ve tied chicken necks to a string and let them dangle for hours, waiting patiently until I felt that familiar prickle of life on the other end of the line, watching as countless animals gnawed their way toward their own demise: a sick entertainment that, even then, I didn’t understand.

I breathe in the smell of the marsh now, one single whiff immediately transporting me back there. Back home. To the way the salt takes to the air, making it thick like buttermilk. To the pluff mud’s familiar stench of rot like a decaying tooth. Because that’s what it is, after all. That’s the smell of decomposition; the liquid kiss of life and death.

Millions of living things dying together, and millions of other things calling it home.

I stare into the distance and feel my arm rise instinctively, touching the delicate patch of skin behind my ear. The spot I always gravitate to when I’m stuck in a memory. This memory. I try to ignore the twist in my stomach, that feeling of someone plunging their hand into my insides and grabbing them tightly, refusing to let go.

I look down at Roscoe, at the way he’s standing just at the edge of the water. He’s staring into the darkness, too, his eyes trained on something in the distance.

“C’mon,” I say, giving his leash a tug. “Let’s go home.”

We make our way back, and once we step inside, I shut the front door, lock the deadbolt, and fill up Roscoe’s water bowl before pushing various leftovers around in the fridge. Then I pull out a Tupperware container of spaghetti, open the lid, and sniff. The wet noodles flop into a bowl, still molded together in an oblong tube, and I thrust it into the microwave, staring at the clock as my dinner spins. Those little digital numbers glowing in the dark.

3:14 a.m.

When the microwave beeps, I pull the bowl out and bring it into my dining room, pushing aside the various papers and folders and sticky notes with midnight musings scratched across their surfaces with dried-out pens. The chair screeches as I pull it out, and Roscoe ambles over to me at the noise, resting at my feet as I jab my fork into the pasta and spin.

Then I stare at the wall, my skin prickling as it stares back.

I look into the smiling eyes of my neighbors, their pictures clipped from church directories and faculty yearbooks; their statements and alibis and hobbies and schedules pinned into place. I analyze the dead eyes of mug shots; the expressions of the strangers whose pictures I’ve plucked from police blotters or torn from newspaper articles that now decorate my dining room wall like some kind of high-school-girl collage—an obsession I don’t know how to tame. So instead, I stare. I wonder. I try to gaze past the paper and into their minds, reading their thoughts. Because, like those people on the plane, someone out there has a secret.

Someone, somewhere, knows the truth.





CHAPTER FOUR


THEN

I come to in a start. It’s the kind of panicked awakening that follows a slammed door or a breaking glass: not a gentle emergence but a jarring disruption. I immediately know I’m not alone. There’s another body pushed against mine, warm and slightly damp like a leaky furnace. Little puffs of breath hot on my neck.