* * *
Russell awoke to the chittering of a million birds, his eyes opening to a world that should have been darker and a clock-radio that should have read 7:30, not 10:07.
"Ahhh fuck!" he groaned, swinging his legs out of bed and sitting up so quickly he saw stars.
"Piece of shit alarm clock," he said, pounding the black box with his fist.
Anchoring his elbows to his knees, he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. He hid there for a moment, rubbing the stars away and trying to remember why there had been so much red in his dreams. On the walls, on the cars, on Apollo—that was the part he remembered most vividly: Apollo drenched in red and shaking it off like water. Russell knew that it wasn’t blood—at least not on Apollo. The red on everything and everybody else, however, was blood. In his dream, he had been walking alone through downtown Riley. In all appearances, it was a normal day, except for the minor fact that wet blood coated every square inch of what his eyes told him was real. And the strangest part about the dream was that, even though it looked like nightmare, it didn’t feel like one (at least not in the beginning). No one was screaming "HELP ME! I’M BLEEDING!!" People were just going about their everyday business, covered in blood, unaware that anything was out of the ordinary. The sidewalk was slick with it, and Russell nearly fell on his ass several times before magically switching his sneakers to ice skates. After that, he had skated the red river, dodging pedestrians with graceful pirouettes and back-bending swerves. He even skated on one foot for a while. Then, passing an approaching geezer with blood gushing out of his ears, he waved and the man tipped his hat the way elderly gentlemen sometimes do. All of the Lost Dog posters had been taken down from the light poles and shop windows, and Russell smiled because of it. In his dream, every dog had found his way back home. And if he could have woken then, he would have reentered the world in a state of euphoria he seldom experienced anymore and probably would have made it to work on time. But he didn’t, and the dream morphed into something so horrible he could barely recount it.
There was barking. Terribly loud barking and groaning emanating from the pink clouds occluding the red sky like cataracts. Like thunder, the commotion rolled over the tops of tall pines and echoed off the buildings on Main Street, slapping back and forth down the empty corridor. And that was when Apollo came up from behind and walked right past me without stopping or even turning his head. I knew it wasn’t blood covering his back, because when he stopped to shake the liquid off his coat, some of it landed on my arm and face, and I raised my arm to lick the red spots from my wrists. They tasted like cherry cough syrup. What happened next is confusing, because suddenly I’m up in my room, and there are all of these snarling, feral dogs outside—I can hear them climbing the house and scraping across the roof, their claws snagging on the shingles. They’re so loud, I move away from the window and kneel down to crawl underneath my bed. But my guitar case is in the way. So I pull it out, and after that…
"Something happened."
The phone in the hall rang, startling Russell to his feet.
He tripped into the hallway and picked up the receiver. In a gravelly voice, he said, "Hello?"
"That you, Rusty?"
Shit! Busby.
"Yeah, it’s me. Uhhh…"
"Uhhh…" Busby mocked. "Let me guess: you overslept."
"Listen, I’m sorry. I can be there in five minutes, okay?"
"Hell, son, I don’t need you here. I need you at Ms. Ursula’s. Know who she is?"
Inwardly, Russell shivered. "Yeah, I know who she is."
"Good. I want you to go over there now—and I mean right now—and take a look at the heating element in her oven. You still got my toolbox?"
"Why can’t Lucas do it?"
"Because Lucas don’t know his dick from a torque wrench."
It was true. Lucas Busby, Jeff’s college dropout grandson, wasn’t the least bit mechanically inclined. The only screwdriver he ever seemed to lift was the kind with vodka in it.
Russell sighed. "All right, I’ll be over there in a little bit."
"Right now!"
"Fine."
Russell hung up on Busby just as he started to say something else. He wasn’t in the mood for the old man’s shit. Not today. Not after those dreams.
Those dreams…
"Don’t start thinking about them again," Russell told himself, pulling a pair of shorts up from the floor to his waist. "Not if you want your day to get any better." Then, jogging down the hall and hopping down the stairs, he issued a warning to the cosmos. "And it better get better."
Or else what? What could I possibly do if it gets worse?
He hurried across the living room, around the sofas, and into the kitchen. The jingling of Apollo’s tags announced his presence in the foyer. A second later, the Dane galloped into the kitchen, stopping next to the island.
Russell’s heart swelled as he took the dog’s head in his hands. "Hey, boy!" he said, stroking Apollo’s dark jowls, "I know exactly where you were. You were in the piano room. You snuck out the back way, but that’s where you were. That’s your favorite place in the house. Isn’t it?" Leaning in, touching foreheads, he whispered: "It’s my favorite place, too. Don’t tell anyone, though."
He let go of the dog and went to the junk drawer, where he jotted a note to his parents on the back of an old day-at-a-glance calendar. Under no circumstances, he scrawled, were they to let Apollo out of their sights when he went outside to do his business. Also, Apollo was not to leave the backyard, which meant NO WALKS!! Russell underlined certain words for emphasis. This was the third note of its kind this week. Even though, by now, Darrel and Diane knew the rules, Russell felt it best to err on the side of caution—the stakes being what they were.
He taped the note to the back door and said his goodbye routine to Apollo. He exited the house and locked the door, leaving the Great Dane to do his solitary daytime roaming. Russell knew now (via his discovery two days ago) that Apollo did very little roaming while everyone was out, that he just sat by the piano bench the whole time, waiting for a car to pull up the driveway.
And why does that bother me? Russell mused as he set out the back way to Ursula’s Diner, avoiding Main Street and its gauche fiesta pinks, canary yellows, and baby blues—all courtesy of missing dog signs that will eventually get torn down and thrown away by dog haters, or loosened by the wind and snagged by the camellia bushes lining the sidewalks. Shouldn’t I be happy he waits for me?
The back way was longer, and it took him through a seedier part of town, but Russell deemed it worth the trouble and risk. The roads were dirt, and every quarter mile or so a cluster of mobile homes and trailers—the kind with canopies jutting off the roofs and cheap, frayed lawn chairs underneath—would ease into view. The further he traveled into the boonies, the more smoky and acrid the air became, making him want to pull over and vomit. He managed to hold his gorge back. For some odd reason he held the irrational fear that if he were to barf, a reprimanding redneck would see him, jump from his aluminum shanty, chase him down, and whop him over the head for intruding onto his territory and finding the way he lived barf-worthy.
It’s only burning trash, he told himself, but, God, does it smell awful.
Up ahead, an obese woman in a blue polka dot muumuu hung her wash on a clothesline tied between two pine boles. A pair of humongous pink panties spanned most of the bowed arc, but, looking closer, Russell noticed more diminutive attire flanking the undergarment. A small yellow dress and a pair of boy’s shorts were all Russell saw of the children’s clothes before looking back to the woman.
He glowered at her as he passed. He wasn’t sure why he did it. The woman hadn’t done anything to warrant the scowl. Maybe it was her general aura of insouciance, or her moronic, thick-lipped, blubbery grin that made him act that way, but had she looked up from her wash at that moment and seen the disapproving expression on his rich, arrogant face, Russell would have immediately averted his gaze—if not
out of pure embarrassment, then out of total surprise—because she would have noticed something about him that few people even knew was there, something he had always tried to keep hidden.
And what would that be, Rusty? Tell me, because I need to know.
But he wasn’t ready to admit his secret. Not even to himself.
What he would do, however, is continue driving and ignore anybody else he happened to see by the side of the road. He had to get to Ursula’s. Then he had to fix whatever needed fixing and head over to the shop.
Get there, get out, and forget about those dogs you’re looking at by the edge of the woods. You see them, they’re there, but forget about them. Just keep singing your song. They can’t hurt you. There’s only five of them…okay, six. They’re just mutts—country dogs. You see them all the time. So why is your heart beating like a hummingbird’s? Look, they’re gone. You passed them, and they went off into the woods.
After passing the last of the mobile homes, a wave of relief pulsed through his sweaty body. Then, glimpsing the faraway silvery flashes of traffic on I-65, Russell toed the brake.
In any second there’s gonna be a turn-off road to the right. That’ll take me straight to Ursula’s.
But his eyes were drawn to the left, where, near the fringe of woods, a group of boys took turns jumping on what appeared to be a two-by-four suspended between two discarded hubcaps None of the boys looked older than twelve, and all were laughing hysterically. Russell pulled over to see what they were doing and also to warn them of the strays he had seen heading into the forest.
As soon as he got out, a pained yelp rose from the bottom of the embankment. His first thought was that the preteens were kicking some fourth, tinier kid, but when the yelp fizzled into a throaty, wet grunt, he knew right away what was making the noise. Russell’s mind flashed like a billion suns, and without thinking he sprinted down the hill.
What he saw as he ran knotted his empty stomach and pumped liquid wrath through his veins. Clamped between two planks of wood was the mashed head of a Jack Russell terrier mix. On the far side of the contraption, the dog’s white and brown body lay sliced open in a dozen different places. Blood seeped like pine sap from the wounds. Russell assumed it was dead—murdered by a trio of cruel, simpleton monsters—but when its left hind leg twitched, as if to remove invisible fleas from the wild grass, he realized that, as impossible as it looked, the miserable creature was still alive. When he couldn’t stand its kicking leg any longer, Russell cast his gaze back up to its head, where brains oozed from its ears in dark, gray clumps. A shard of skull had pierced the skin above the terrier’s left eye socket. More brains spewed from that hole. What appeared to be vomit mixed with blood spilled from the animal’s dislocated lower jaw.
Any time fresh vomit or brain matter squirted through any or all of the terrier’s head holes, the kids erupted into peals of high-pitched laughter. After exchanging a high-five with one of his cohorts, a bouncing, shirtless, freckled boy, holding a black-handled kitchen knife high over his head, jumped off the board and sliced the skin over the dog’s vertebrate with a long, quick swipe. The hide tore away, exposing a shiny seam of fascia . There was no blood this time. The terrier had either bled out, or the organ that pumped the crimson life force had ceased to function.
Even as Russell charged the kids, he registered the irony in what he was doing. Was this not the same thing Mike O’Brien had done to him and Apollo four days ago? He even found the time to wonder if he had the same crazy look in his eyes that Mike had had. Am I drooling, too? Mike had drooled.
When he was five feet from the fat kid who appeared to be giving the orders, Russell leaped and tackled the child’s sweaty, shirtless body. He tumbled with him down the slope until the kid’s back struck a pine trunk and they both stopped rolling. Russell briskly got up and brushed the pine needles from his shirt and shorts, while the large, doughy kid stared dazedly up at his attacker. Wordlessly, Russell grabbed the kid’s chubby, slick arm and yanked him to his feet.
"Whoaaah!" exclaimed the boy still standing on the two-by-four.
The freckled kid with the knife shifted his gaze from his friend to the new guy who had exploded from out of nowhere.
"What the fuck are you doing?!!" Russell screamed at the kid he had tackled.
The boy stared at the man, dumbfounded and on the verge of tears.
Russell screamed at him again. "What the fuck’s your problem, you fat redneck fuck? Answer me when I’m talking to you!"
At that, the boy began to cry. Russell pushed him. The kid tripped over a root, fell, and landed on his ass. The momentum carried him down the slope, toward the tree line. He struck the same tree as before, but this time his stomach took the blow.
Russell turned to the other two. "Any of you other shits have an excuse for what you’ve done?"
The freckled boy with the kitchen knife spoke up. "He had rabies." But he said it in an accent so thick it sounded more like, "He-yad raaiiiyybies."
"Raaiiiyyybies, huh?" Russell mocked. Then, raising his hands in total exasperation, he said to the trees, "Everybody’s a goddamn rabies expert this summer—Jesus Fucking Christ, get me out of this fucking nightmare." Then to Freckles: "Why isn’t he foaming at the mouth then? You got a theory on that one, Cooter?
The kid stared at Russell with beady, black eyes. Rat’s eyes. The kind of eyes you get when your mammy is your pappy’s cousin.
"Huh?" Russell asked. "I’m waiting, doctor. You’re the expert, right? You going to tell me how you knew he had rabies?"
The boy standing on the board stepped off (He’ll be the first to run, Russell thought), then sidled over to his friend with the knife.
Russell looked from the dog to the two boys. Pointing to the dog, he repeated, "Why’d you do it?"
Perplexed, the freckled boy responded, "I toldja. He-yad raaaiiiyybies."
"I don’t like the tone of your voice, you inbred piece of shit."
The boy flinched.
"You heard me, you mongrel. I can tell you’re inbred. You’ve got those goofy, uneven features. Your forehead’s too small, and your eyes are too close together. Did your daddy fuck your aunty? Huh? Is that it? You killed your own kind when you stomped the life out of that mutt. Your bloodline’s just as suspect as his." Pointing at the other kid, he said, "That goes for you, too."
That was when Freckles charged him, his knife held high over his head like a sword. Russell effortlessly avoided the attack, both dodging and tripping the kid while taking a short sidestep left. For a brief moment, he pictured the boy falling on the knife and impaling himself, but when the kid stood up a split-second later, Russell saw that his worries hadn’t manifested.
Frantically, Freckles shuffled and kicked through the pine duff in search of his honed steel protection. Russell spotted the black handle right away. The knife had landed by his foot.
"You looking for this", he asked, picking the knife off the ground.
When Freckles looked up, Russell relished the expression on his squinched, small face. It was the look of hope melting to despair. Without a knife, the kid didn’t have a chance. With one, Russell put his chances at being only slightly better.
"So you’re a big, tough guy when you’ve got a weapon. But without one," Russell paused for emphasis, "you’re just a scared, little sack of shit. Get the fuck out of here! All of you!"
When he turned, the kid who had sidled up to Freckles was already running away. Then the big kid, who Russell had tackled and then pushed, stood up and began hobbling off in the direction of his fleeing friend.
And then it was just Russell and Freckles. For some reason, he hadn’t run away like the other two. Instead, he had stayed behind to stare menacingly at Russell: a feeble, pointless attempt to psych out the person who was now brandishing his mother’s kitchen knife.
"Gimme my knife back," he said finally, reaching out with a grubby hand and walking forward.
Russell pointed the tip at the
approaching boy. "Stay away," he commanded.
The boy did as he was told, then repeated himself. "I said, gimme my knife back."
To which Russell replied, "You want the knife? Fine. Go get it!"
He reared back and threw the knife deep into the dark throat of the woods.
The boy looked into the shadowy forest, as if considering the man’s suggestion, then turned to face him again.
Russell thought he had finally broken him, like he had the others. He would now either run, cry, or run and cry. As Russell saw it, those were his only options, but the kid did neither of those things. He just stood there staring at him, slack jawed and expressionless, waiting for something to happen.
Russell didn’t know what to do. The kid appeared catatonic. Should he clap? Whistle? Punch him in the stomach? Then it dawned on him: he had been wrong about Freckles from the start. The big kid who had been giving the orders was the Beta. The inbred puke before him now was the Alpha. The head cheese. The one who fought back when pushed into a corner. Freckles was stunned, because for the first time someone had come along and knocked him down a peg. He knew that he’d never win in a fight against the man, but at the same time, he couldn’t run away, because running away would be the same as admitting defeat. He was in a tug of war match between his junior high ego and his natural fear of getting his ass clobbered by a person who could easily do it.
Russell realized the kid would stay that way—staring at him like a deer caught in headlights—unless he did something to provoke a reaction. So that’s exactly what he did. He lunged at Freckles, refraining from a full-out assault. But before he had moved half a step, the kid was bolting along the shoreline of trees and grass, diminishing rapidly in both size and significance.