Misfits, page 14
Heidi couldn’t keep from giggling. She buried her head beside Marnie’s on the pillow when Helen, her uniform dripping, threw a highly agitated look their way. It took her a few moments to compose herself, and then a smile touched the corners of her own mouth.
“Wow, you really had to go,” she said. “Looks like I have my work cut out for me. Be right back.”
The moment she left, Marnie and Heidi broke out into hysterical laughter. They laughed until they cried, holding on to one another, ignoring the heady aroma of urine that filled the room.
Marnie thought she would never smile, much less laugh again. She wiped a tear from Heidi’s cheek. “Aren’t you glad I asked you to stay?”
“It’s the grossest, funniest thing I ever saw. Oh my god, her face!”
The laughter continued. It was the strangest yet most perfect distraction she could have received. It stopped her from fixating on the fact that Harold Dunwoody had forever robbed her of the ability to have children.
Chapter Sixteen
Heidi phoned Chuck on Thursday and filled him in on everything. It was difficult talking to her with his parents in the same room. They were watching Friends, a show Chuck thought was beyond stupid, but his parents loved. Chuck got up from the love seat and carried the phone into the dining room while the snarky guy said something that was met by canned laughter.
“When can she come home?”
Heidi sounded tense. “The doctor said maybe tomorrow. The infection was really bad. If she goes all night and tomorrow morning without a fever, I think she’s good to go.”
Chuck plopped into a dining room chair, the wood creaking. “I can’t believe she can’t have kids.”
“Don’t tell anyone else. And don’t tell her I told you. She’s devastated.”
She would be. All Marnie wanted to do was find a nice guy someday, hopefully someone who didn’t live in Milbury, get married and have a bunch of kids. She joked that she wasn’t good at anything else, so why not spend her life barefoot and pregnant? He knew she loved kids. He saw it in her eyes every time they saw a baby in a stroller or went past a playground. She’d banked her entire future on the corny American dream of the family and house with a white picket fence. No one else would ever think that of her, but he knew it. And now that had been taken from her. His horror at recalling how Dunwoody had suffered before he died lost some of its effect on him.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m fine. I think.”
“Why don’t you come over and meet me in the yard?”
“I don’t know. Hold on.” He heard the clunk of the phone as she put it down and the squeak of her door when she left the room. She came back a few seconds later. “Okay. My parents are doing the nasty in their room. They won’t miss me.”
“Cool. See you in a few.”
Chuck lived only a few blocks from Heidi. His yard had often been their meeting place over the years. He went up to his room, got the last joint from his stash and slipped outside while his parents laughed at the television.
He didn’t have to wait long for Heidi to show up. She rode her bike into his yard and leaned it against the picnic table.
“Come on,” he said, motioning with his head for her to follow him. They went out by the aluminum tool shed and huddled behind it. Chuck lit the joint, took a quick hit to make sure it would draw and handed it over to Heidi.
“Oh, I needed that,” she said, resting her back on the shed wall. Chuck knew enough to not follow suit. The last time he did, his body weight put a sizeable dent in the cheap material.
“We were getting freaked out when we couldn’t find either of you,” he said, coughing into his fist.
“I was pretty freaked myself.”
“Marnie’s parents up there with her now?”
“God knows where they are. Must have found some cheap bar in New Haven. If they don’t take her home, my dad says we can.”
“Her parents suck.”
“Always have. Why change now?”
They passed the joint back and forth until there was very little left.
Chuck said, “Speaking of shitty parents, Mick’s are back.”
“That can’t be good.”
“Nope. He’s staying with Vent.”
“Anything with—”
Chuck shook his head. He didn’t want to hear their name said aloud. “Mick thinks he can get them on his side.”
“How?”
“Same way Dredd did. Or at least the way he thinks Dredd did. The dude split right after everything.” He left out the part about his car being attacked and Dredd’s cabin being burned to the ground. After all, he’d asked her here to help her relax.
“That’s not good.”
“Nothing’s been good since Dunwoody put his hands on Marnie.”
“At least she’s safe up in New Haven,” Heidi said. She hugged herself against the night chill. Chuck had a sudden urge to hold her. They’d kissed once during the summer at Missy Kapernick’s kegger. They were both drunk, the kiss sloppy, and neither talked about it the next day. For Chuck, it had been a longtime wish fulfilled, although in his fantasy they were both sober and she whispered in his ear that she’d always had a crush on him. He wasn’t sure Heidi saw it the same way, so he didn’t press her on it.
“For now,” he said.
The weed had relaxed his body but barely dulled his overactive mind. They couldn’t let anything happen to Marnie. She’d been through enough. But how could they help her when they couldn’t find a way to help themselves?
“You going to school tomorrow?” he asked Heidi.
“Yep. Can’t wait to make up all that work I missed. That’ll suck hard.”
“I can help.”
“And I’ll take you up on that.”
He told her some of the things she’d missed in class, neither of them acknowledging the much larger issue hanging over their heads. It was almost nine thirty when Heidi said, “I better get back.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’ll feel better if I do.”
“Okay, but I’m not putting you on my handlebars.” She laughed softly.
The streets were quiet and dark. Some of the streetlights had gone out over the past week, which was nothing new on this side of town. The infrastructure was in dire need of repairs. They strolled into pools of light, followed by patches of dark. Heidi walked alongside her bike. Chuck pulled leaves off bushes and tore them into little strips, casting them to the wind.
“You believe what Dredd said?” Heidi asked when they were around the block from her house.
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It sounds crazy, but what I saw was absolutely insane.”
“Is it weird I wish I was there with you guys?”
Chuck stopped and looked at her. “Yeah, it is weird. Trust me, you don’t want to spend your life trying to un-see and un-hear what happened out there.”
“I don’t know. It makes me feel like I don’t belong. Like you, Mick and Marnie have a different bond now. I know it sounds stupid.”
They continued walking. “One thing you’re not is stupid. Strange, yes. But then again, we’re all freaks.”
“Aw, you called me a freak. That’s the nicest thing you ever said to me.” She nudged him with her shoulder.
Someone darted across the street twenty yards ahead of them. They popped up in the light and disappeared in the gloom. Chuck put his hand on the bike to stop Heidi. “Who was that?”
“Who was what?”
“Kind of late for kids to be out running around on a school night.”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
She tried to resume walking, but he held the bike in place. “Hold on.”
“You’re scaring me.”
It wouldn’t help to tell her he was scared, too. Because in that brief moment when the figure was bathed in the streetlight’s luminescence, he swore he saw a head that looked much too big to be on a body that short and slight.
Fuck!
He fumbled in his pockets for any kind of weapon. All he had was his blue Bic lighter and a quarter.
“Chuck? What’s wrong?”
Chuck put a finger to his lips. He turned around. Was that a shoulder that just dipped behind a Trans Am?
Was it him, or was the darkness growing, like a wine stain spreading out across a white tablecloth?
The bushes shook across the street to their left. Chuck squinted as hard as he could but couldn’t make anything out.
“They’re here, aren’t they?” Heidi whispered.
“I think so.”
He also thought they were the ones who had been knocking out the streetlights, creating the perfect place to hide in plain sight. Could they really think that far ahead?
Something skittered behind them. They spun around to catch it but were too late. Heidi grabbed his arm. She started to breathe heavily. “I want to go home.”
“We’re going to get you home.”
He wasn’t so sure he believed it.
Her house was only half a block away now. Chuck looked ahead and felt something die in his stomach. The light across the street from her house danced, as if someone were tugging on the pole – or was shimmying their way up it. It flickered for a moment and went out with the sound of breaking glass.
“Fuck.”
They couldn’t go forward. And they couldn’t, wouldn’t, make it back to his house.
“What do we do?” Heidi said.
“We stay in the light.”
He could hear movement all around them. They were getting closer. Chuck grabbed the bike with two hands. If needed, he’d swing it around like an ungainly club. And he knew he’d need it. What sounded like the wet smacking of lips slithered out of the darkness.
“Scream,” he said to Heidi.
“What?”
“Scream as loud as you can. And keep screaming until people start turning on their outdoor lights and coming out.”
He didn’t know if the Melon Heads would run away at the sight of more people or if they would just add them to the menu. It didn’t matter. Right now, it was their only chance at getting out of this trap alive.
Heidi’s shrill scream pierced his ears. Wow, he didn’t know she had that kind of scream in her. She let loose like a horror movie starlet, her shriek ripping the night in two. It sounded like she was about to die.
She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. So far, no one in the surrounding houses had so much as flicked on a light or opened a window.
Chuck looked around incredulously. “What the hell is the matter with these people?”
“Maybe they didn’t hear me.”
“Anyone living in Rhode Island would have heard you.”
There was one thing. The furtive movements just out of their sight had stopped. That could be equally as bad as it could be good. The Melon Heads could be preparing to attack.
“Keep going,” he urged Heidi.
She drew in a deep breath and belted out a keening wail that could wake the dead. Chuck thought he saw a dark, misshapen figure scurry from behind a tree to an azalea bush to their left. Heidi kept up her scream until he thought her vocal cords would split.
A porch light popped on in the house directly to their right.
That was the first domino. Lights came on in windows and lawns up and down the street. A door opened and he saw a couple tentatively looking up and down the street.
“That’s it, don’t stop.”
There was less strength beneath Heidi’s cries, but it served as a beacon for everyone’s attention.
A man’s voice called out, “What the hell is going on out there?” He sounded irritated. Chuck was happy to hear him at all.
As more lights came on, Chuck heard clumsy footsteps retreating into the shadows. He couldn’t believe it was working. He let go of the bike with one hand and pulled Heidi close. “You did it.”
She coughed and when she spoke, she sounded like she was in the throes of a whopper of a cold. “I didn’t have to fake screaming for my life.”
Chuck spotted the headlights of a car turning into the road. He ushered Heidi into the street and started waving his arms. Something heavy crashed into the back of his head. He dropped to a knee, dazed.
“Oh my god, are you all right?”
He looked up into a pair of lights headed straight for him. The driver had to see them. With a quick glance at the ground, he saw the sizeable rock that had been thrown at his head. Heidi tugged on his arm.
“I don’t think he’s slowing down.”
Chuck stood up and saw why. Several pale Melon Heads stood beside the parked cars lining both sides of the street. When the headlights hit them, they shielded their faces, turned and ran away. The driver must have seen them too and was panicking. Heidi and Chuck darted back to the sidewalk and ran toward the nearest lit house. A woman was on her meager porch, one hand cinching her robe closed. Chuck pointed. “In there.” They couldn’t risk running the added distance to Heidi’s house.
He looked back and the pain in his head was forgotten.
Melon Heads were running behind the car now, their rushing bodies clogging the road.
Dear god, it was an invasion!
Chuck and Heidi hit the edge of the woman’s lawn. The grass was slick. She must have watered it just before sunset like so many others did every evening. Heidi slipped. Chuck latched onto her flailing hand and kept her from falling.
Until he fell.
The car was almost parallel with them.
And so were the ravenous Melon Heads.
Chapter Seventeen
Mick sat on his haunches in the shadows, watching the Airstream. All the lights were on. Tom Jones belted out ‘It’s Not Unusual’, the Welsh singer’s voice echoing between the dense trees.
He rubbed his thumb along the BB gun’s trigger guard. This wasn’t safe. One of those Melon Head freaks could come up behind him and he’d be dead before he could pull the trigger. Not that a BB would do much good. At best, it would only slightly delay the inevitable.
If there were only a way to let them know what he planned to do for them. They had some ability to understand. How else had Dredd managed a peaceful coexistence with them? Mick could be just as useful to them, if not more. He’d been leaving dead animals and packaged meat he’d shoplifted from the supermarket all around the clearing. When he came back each day, it was gone. Maybe that was a sign that it was working. It was impossible to know for sure.
As much as Mick despised Dredd now, he realized their similarities. Hopefully, the Melon Heads did, too. First and foremost, it was important to find a way to save himself and his friends. Second, his future was about as dim as the darkest corners of the Airstream. Lording over the Melon Heads and keeping the town safe was a better prospect than any other of his imagined futures. From Fennerman to Dredd to Mick. It was like a succession of popes or presidents. In a weird way, it would make him special. If only Dredd were around to teach him what to do.
Dredd. Where was that bastard? Mick had spent days scouring the back alleys and woods of Milbury, though he was smart enough to steer clear of the forest around Dracula Drive. He wasn’t suicidal, though he bet Chuck would disagree if he could see him now.
Come on, Dwight, you fat prick. Bring your drunk ass outside. I have a present for you.
His mother and stepfather had been out earlier. He assumed they were at a bar or maybe pawning what little they had. Money was always tight and Dwight didn’t appear to be in working mode at the moment. Mick’s mother sometimes waitressed at the diner, but it had been a long time since she took an order. Something about an argument with the other waitresses and how they were dividing the tips. Tact was not her forte.
No matter where they spent their day, he was there to watch them roll in about nine. The big Cadillac bumped into a tree before it came to a stop. Dwight and Mick’s mother stumbled out of the car, Dwight in loud drunk-laughing mode. He slammed the trailer door shut and a minute later, Tom Jones had started. They were now midway through his greatest hits album. Mick had heard it a thousand times. It was his mother’s favorite and had more skips and pops than he could count. Mick was not a fan of Tom Jones, though he could appreciate the revenge brutality of the song ‘Delilah’.
“I felt the knife in my hand, and she felt no more,” Mick muttered. That was pretty badass coming from some Vegas crooner who wore pants tight enough to see the wrinkles in his ball sack. Mick would have thought he was a homo if not for all the panties he got thrown at him. He bet old Tom was up to his eyeballs in free pussy.
Experience taught Mick that his mother would pass out before eleven. She drank harder than Dwight and was always the first to call it a night. Once she was snoring loud enough to scare even the bats away, Dwight would stumble out and smoke a joint, usually one stolen from Mick’s stash that he spent so much time making fun of. Asswipe.
While they were out, Mick had slipped a fat blunt in his less-than-secret hiding place, knowing Dwight would find it. Now it was only a matter of waiting for him to spark up. Fuck rabbits and squirrels. If he wanted to gain the trust of the Melon Heads, and save his own ass, he had to go for bigger game. He couldn’t think of anyone more worthy of their hunger than Dwight. Sure, there were others (he’d spent an hour making a list that was now tucked in his back pocket), but Dwight held a special place at number one.
The crickets were making such a racket, Mick wanted to scream at them to shut up. There was nothing peaceful about being out in the woods. He missed living in an actual house on the outer edge of Milbury. It was in a crap section of town, but at least it had honest-to-god plumbing and room to move around. And he liked having neighbors and cars rolling down the street and people playing the radio and partying late into the night. It made him feel like he was part of the greater world. After his father died, no, killed himself because he was a selfish prick who obviously didn’t think about the shitty life he was leaving his only child, his mother lost the house and gained a rusted Airstream and Dwight. There wasn’t even any insurance money to see them through the worst of it.
