Dark Places(99)

He was about to go for the shotgun when his arms gave out, he was done, the anger leaking from his body, and he didn’t feel power at all. He felt embarrassed, the way he felt after he jacked off to a dirty magazine, limp and wrong and foolish.

Diondra busted out laughing. “He’s pretty tough when the thing’s practically dead,” she said.

“I killed it, didn’t I?”

They were all panting, spent, their faces covered in blood except where they’d each wiped at their eyes, leaving them peering out, raccoon-style. “You sure this is the guy that got you pregnant, Diondra?” Trey said. “You sure he can get it up? No wonder he’s better with little girls.”

Ben dropped the axe, started walking toward the car, thinking it was time to go home now, thinking this was his mom’s fault, her being such a bitch this morning. If she hadn’t freaked out about his hair, he’d be at home tonight, clean and warm under his blanket, the sound of his sisters just outside his door, the TV humming down the hall, his mom dumping out some stew for dinner. Instead he was here, being mocked as usual, having done his best to prove himself and coming up short, as always, the truth finally out. This night would always be here to point at, the night Ben couldn’t get his kill.

But now he knew how the violence felt, and he wanted more. In a few days, he’d be thinking about it, the bell rung, can’t unring it, and so he’d be thinking about it, obsessing about it, the killing, but he doubted Trey and Diondra would take him out again, and he would be too pitiful, too scared, as always, to do it alone.

He stood with his back to them, then raised the shotgun to his shoulder, swung back around, cocking the hammer, his finger on the trigger. Bam! He imagined the air ringing, the shotgun butting against his shoulder like a friend with a punch, saying good job! And him cracking the gun, popping another shell in, walking deeper into the field, swing that gun back up, and bam!

He pictured his ears ringing and the air smelling smoky, and Trey and Diondra for once saying nothing as he stood in a field of corpses.





Libby Day





NOW





Lyle had left nine messages in the days I’d gone Oklahoma-incommunicado, their tone wildly varying: He’d started with some sort of impression of an anxious dowager, I think, talking through a pinched nose, inquiring about my welfare, some comedy bit, then he’d moved on to annoyed, stern, urgent and panicked, before swinging back to goofy on the last message. “If you don’t call me back, I’m coming … and hell’s coming with me!” he screamed, then added: “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Tombstone.”

I have, but it was a bad Kurt Russell.

I phoned him, gave him my address (an unusual choice for me) told him he could come over if he wanted. In the background I could hear a woman’s voice asking who it was, telling Lyle to ask me something—-just ask her, don’t be silly, justaskher—and Lyle trying to scramble off the phone. Maybe Magda, wanting a report on Runner? I’d give it. I wanted to talk, in fact, or I would get in bed and not get out for another ten years.

While I waited, I prepped my hair. I’d bought a dye kit at the grocery store on the way home from seeing Ben. I had planned on grabbing my usual blonde—Platinum Pizazz—but in the end I left with Scarlet Sass, a redhead smiling saucily at me on the box. Less upkeep, yes, I always preferred less upkeep. And I’d been thinking about changing back since Ben remarked how much I looked like my mother, the idea irresistible to me, me somehow thinking I’d show up outside Diane’s trailer, looking like Patty Day resurrected, and maybe that would be enough to get me inside. Goddam Diane, not phoning me back.

I packed a crimson glob of chemicals on my head, the smell like something gently burning. Fourteen minutes more to go when the doorbell rang. Lyle. Of course he was early. He rushed in, talking about how relieved he was to hear from me, then pulled back.

“What is that, a perm?”

“I’m going back to red.”

“Oh. Good. I mean, it’s nice. The natural.”

In the thirteen minutes I had left, I told Lyle about Runner, and about Diondra.

“OK,” Lyle said, looking to his left, aiming his ear at me, his listening-thinking stance. “So according to Ben, Ben had gone back home, that night, briefly, got in a fight with your mom, and then left again, and he knows nothing after that.”

“According to Ben.” I nodded.

“And according to Runner, what? Either Trey killed your family because Runner owed him, or Ben and Trey killed your family and Diondra in some sort of Devil worship ritual. What’d Runner say about his girlfriend recanting his alibi?”

“He said she could suck his dick. I gotta rinse.”

He trailed me to the bathroom, filling the doorway, hands on each side of the frame, thinking.

“Can I say something specific about that night, Libby?”

I was bent over the tub, water dribbling out of the attachable nozzle—no showers in Over There That Way—but I paused.

“I mean, doesn’t it seem like it could have been two people? Somehow? Michelle’s murder was just—Your mom and Debby were like, uh, hunted down almost. But Michelle dies in her bed, covers pulled up. They have different feels to them. I think.”

I gave a small, stiff shrug, the Darkplace images swirling, and stuck my head under the spray, where I couldn’t hear anymore. The water started running toward the drain, burgundy. While I was still upside down, I could feel Lyle grab the attachment from me and pat at the back of my head. Clumsy, unromantic, just getting the job done.