Cannibal Jack, page 4
Barbara heard the girl talking, logged the words into memory. Her eyes danced over the lamppost, now bowing disgracefully toward the ground, the glass of the lamp shattered and flashing in the shadows and light. She bit into her thumbnail and glanced from lamp to Shannon and back again. “Oops?” It was more question than statement, a comic display of parental ineptitude.
“Oops. That’s it?” Shannon folded her arms over her chest and scowled. One hand slowly sneaked out, the palm opening. “Hand over those keys, missy. You won’t be driving for a long time.”
“I never said I was perfect.” Barbara shrugged, walking toward her daughter. She stopped just shy of being toe-to-toe with her. The sharp sting of tears blurred her vision for a moment. Then she swallowed them back and held out her arms. This wasn’t the time. She could break down at leisure after they had unloaded the truck, but not now.
Shannon slipped into the hug with practiced ease, her head resting softly on her mother’s lean shoulder. “We’re here,” she whispered.
“Home. We’re home.” Barbara turned toward the modest yellow house, one arm still wrapped around her daughter’s waist. “It might not be the mansion, but it’s all ours.”
“My sperm donor might have been able to give us a mansion. But there’s one thing he could never give us.”
Barbara cocked a sideways glance at her daughter and knitted her brow. “What’s that?”
“A home.” Shannon punctuated that last with a hard, decisive nod. “And we’re in charge this time.” At the sound of Barbara’s exaggerated cough, Shannon turned her head. “Well, you’re in charge. But I get to be second in command, right? In charge when you’re not here?”
“Deal.” Barbara still stared at the house, her eyes unblinking for fear of spilling tears over the front of her white T-shirt. “Nobody to tell us what to do this time. We can sleep in. We can watch tv. We can paint the walls purple if we want.” She swallowed hard and her shoulders slumped a bit. “Kind of scary somehow. Being in charge.”
“Yeah, but we can eat cookies in bed.” Shannon fought to maintain the stoic expression that had become her stock in trade as of late.
“Well, there’s that.” Barbara nodded. “And the fact that we don’t have to watch each other’s backs.”
“Yeah!” Shannon hollered, offering up a high-five. Black nails slipped past pink ones and the two women locked hands. Identical smiles flashed, like mirrors pointing inward toward each other, reflecting and re-reflecting joy.
Barbara was the first to let go, punching Shannon lightly on the shoulder and laughing. “Well, shall we go inside? Or just stand out here until it gets dark?”
“Let’s rock!”
They were almost to the front door when a small voice called to them from the truck window. “Hey! What about me?” The door swung open, and a small towheaded girl leaped out of the cab. She ran toward her mother with a smile.
“Sorry, chicklet. I guess we sorta forgot about you.” Shannon ruffled the girl’s hair and smiled.
“Oh sure! Forget the kid. No time for the kid. I s’pose you were gonna return me with the truck, huh? Was THAT your plan?”
Barbara laughed out loud, the sound carrying across the street and raising the head of a neighbor’s dog. “Not a chance, babydoll. Who’d watch cartoons with me then?”
“Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” Shannon plucked the keys from her mother’s hand and jammed the brass one into the lock. “I want to see my new room.”
“No weird posters this time.” Barbara’s tone was only half-joking. The rest was all mom, all reproach.
“No Martha Stewart posters in yours.” Shannon nodded and threw open the door.
The air inside seemed too fresh and cool to have been trapped in the house for very long. Barbara poked her head inside and took a quick glance around. It was all neat, tidy, and new, a far cry from the huge, echoing mansion they had come from. That house had been littered with beautiful things someone else had brought in for appearances. It had been filled with bad memories.
The youngest of them rushed past, darting into the living room and planting her feet firmly in the center. She bent backward—way backward—and studied the patterns in the ceiling.
“Jen, wait for Mommy, ok?” Barbara trailed after her, her eyes following the child’s gaze to the ceiling. “Well, would you just look at that!” A smile crawled across her face and settled in for the duration.
“Who in God’s name would put something like that on the ceiling of a house like this?” Shannon marveled softly.
Barbara shook her head at the carved plaster patterns on the ceiling and laughed. “I don’t care who. I like it.”
“I wanna see my room! I wanna see my room!” Jennifer tugged at Barbara’s sleeve and jumped up and down.
“Okay, sweetie, okay.” Barbara reached down and patted the girl’s head instinctively, her eyes still glued to the ceiling. “Let’s check out the kitchen first, though.”
Shannon went first. She was always in the lead, always the bold one. Barbara admired that in her. She threw on the lights and smiled, casting a backward glance at her mother to gauge her response. “So this is what a kitchen looks like, huh?”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous.” Barbara play-punched the girl’s shoulder and shook her head.
“I’m not either. We weren’t allowed in the kitchen back….at the other house. If we wanted something to eat, one of the servants brought it for us.”
Barbara looked deep into her daughter’s eyes and felt herself falling. The vertigo took over, making her head spin and her eyes water. One hand shot out, reaching for the wall, then paused in mid-air, awaiting further instructions.
“You okay, Mom?”
“Fine. Just a second of dizziness. Honest.”
“You can see a school from here.” Jennifer waved the others over. “Is that our school, Mommy? Is it ours?”
“No, honey. Your school is in the other direction. On the other side of the park.”
“Come on. Let’s go see our rooms.” Shannon disappeared around the corner.
When Barbara and Jennifer caught up to her, she was standing at the top of the stairs. Her eyes sparkled. Barbara paused for a moment, realizing that her daughter’s eyes hadn’t sparkled in so long that she couldn’t remember the last time. Guilt pushed in and Barbara sighed it away.
“Which one’s mine? The big one, I presume? With the attached bath?”
“In your dreams!” Barbara mounted the stairs slowly. “Yours is on the left, Jennifer’s is right here in the center, and mine is the big one with the attached bath.”
“Oh sure! Just because you’re old and you pay the bills and everything.” Shannon collapsed against the wall in mock misery.
“Yeah, that’s right. And when you’re old, you can have the big room.”
“Gee, thanks!” Shannon spun off from the wall and threw open the door to her new room. “Aw! It has window seats.”
Barbara smiled and nodded decisively. She had chosen right. Window seats for Shannon and…
“Omigodomigodomigod!” Barbara spun just in time to see Jennifer launch her small body at her. “My room has a walk-in closet and no ceiling fan! That means I can have a canopy bed, doesn’t it? Right, Mom? I can have one, huh?”
“Yes, angel, yes. But not right away, okay? Let Mommy catch up on the bills first. This move wasn’t cheap.”
“Yes, but soon. We’ll go pick it out together and set it up….” The girl broke off abruptly, her face falling a bit. “You do know how to do that, right? I mean, you could find a man somewhere to do it, or you could learn, or maybe the store will send somebody out --”
“I think I can manage, Jen. Really I do.”
Barbara walked away then, bound for her own room. This would mark the first time in forever that she had used the word “mine” in relation to anything. It was her room, to be smothered in flowers and lace if that’s what she wanted. No more designer-just-because-we-can bedroom sets, no more decorators who knew even less about her tastes than the designers. It was hers.
“Wow!” she exclaimed with an exaggerated nod of her head. “The pictures didn’t even do it justice.”
Shannon’s chin came to rest on her mother’s shoulder and Jennifer shoved herself between mother and wall. “Now that doesn’t suck!” Shannon laughed.
“It sure doesn’t.” Barbara covered her mouth with both hands, eyes flashing left and right in wonderment, and struck out across the large bedroom, bound for the bathroom. “Well looky here!” she called from inside.
Barbara waved to Shannon as she entered the room. She had hurried to stretch out in the large whirlpool tub, feet propped on the marble edge, fingers waggling as her daughter rounded the corner of the dressing area. “This, as you are so fond of saying, rocks!”
“It sure the heck does. And I suppose you’re gonna keep it all to yourself, huh? Not even share with your most favorite daughter in the whole world.” Shannon fought back a grin and cast a sideways glance at Jennifer as she pushed past.
“Hey! I thought I was Mommy’s most favoritest daughter!”
“You both are. Favorite one…and favorite two. And yes, I’ll share. As long as you promise not to leave a ring.”
“Scouts honor,” Shannon declared, holding up three fingers.
Jennifer held up two fingers, glanced up at her sister, then thrust the third finger into the air. “Yeah! Scout’s honor!”
Barbara laughed as she eased herself from the tub. “Well, enough of this. We need to get that truck unloaded and return it before dark. And I’d like to have the beds set up so we can sleep tonight.”
“Ever the work-a-holic!” Shannon chided as she followed her mother out of the room. “I’m a stop and smell the roses kinda gal, myself.”
“You’re a stop and write gloomy poetry to the roses kinda gal, if you ask me.”
“And I didn’t.” Shannon ran past her mother, leaping over the last two stairs. “Last one to the truck’s a rotten egg.”
Barbara dropped onto the bottom stair and hung her head. “Well, I didn’t think we’d manage it all in one day, but the truck is empty.”
“That couch gave me a scare, though. I thought for sure we were going to take out the window.”
“Me too.” Barbara laughed. She noticed that it no longer echoed through the bare walls of the house. “And I wish we could stop here. But we have to take the truck back.”
“Gawd!” Shannon announced in a terribly pained, hormone-stoked tone of misery. “Do we have to?”
“We do.” Barbara stood, one hand pressed to the small of her back. “Another day means another two-hundred-dollars. Come on, Pee Wee.” She fished through her pants pocket for the car keys as she watched for the appearance of her younger daughter.
Jennifer trotted down the stairs like an expert, one arm wrapped lovingly around a very ragged rag doll. “There can’t be any more to move, huh, Mommy? Didn’t we get it all?”
Barbara ruffled her daughter’s hair and giggled. “No more moving. But we have to take the truck back. I’ll drive the truck. Shannon, you follow me in the car.” She tossed the keys to Shannon.
“If it’s all the same, I’ll ride in the truck with you, Mommy.”
“Hey! Is that some sort of shot at my driving?” Shannon forced a mean face to the surface and squinted at her sister.
In all seriousness, her face a mask of self-righteous indignation, Jennifer replied, “Oh no! I would never criticize your horrible driving.”
“Yeah, just wait ’til it’s your turn, dwarf. See how easy it is. Of course, I’ll be long gone by then, off to college. So at least I’ll be safe. It’s Mom I’m really worried about. I mean, not only does she have to…”
“Hello-o-o-o!” came the call from the driveway.
Shannon’s head snapped around and she sighed. “Come on, munchkin. You ride with Mom if it makes you feel better.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Calling you what?”
“Munchkin. I don’t like it.”
“Okay, munchkin.”
“I said stop.” Jennifer pouted.
“And I said I wouldn’t call you munchkin anymore, munchkin.”
“Mo-o-om!”
“Jennifer in the truck. Shannon in the car. Stop the bickering, you two. And Shannon, don’t blast that radio so loud that you can’t hear sirens when they come up on you.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Shannon in her car, Barbara in the truck with Jennifer riding shotgun, all set off to the outskirts of town where a grease-covered shack served as gas station and truck rental depot. It was past five, well beyond the point where any small-town business stayed open. So, Barbara parked the truck in the lot, dropped the keys in the box, and joined Shannon in the car.
“You know I can’t ride in a car while somebody else drives,” she explained for the millionth time as she evicted Shannon from the driver’s seat.
“How am I going to get any experience if you won’t let me drive?” Shannon propped one elbow on the door and dropped her chin into her fist.
“I’ll let you drive. Just not when I’m in the car.” She forced the car into gear and kicked up a sizeable amount of gravel as she left the parking lot. She caught Shannon’s nasty look out of the corner of her eye. “Okay, so I haven’t quite gotten the hang of this driving thing. But remember, I’ve spent the last seventeen years of my life being driven around by a chauffeur.”
“Well, get the hang of it quick before you kill us all, huh?”
“Stop being so damned melodramatic.” In the back seat, Jennifer gasped and covered her mouth. Barbara caught sight of the girl’s face in the rearview mirror and sighed. “Look, we’re all overly tired and sore, a little grumpy. Let’s just go by the store and get the essentials so we can go home and rest. Tomorrow, we can explore the town a bit.”
“Fine.”
Experience told Barbara there would be no more friendly, happy conversations that night. She remembered adolescence all too well; the mood swings, the sense that the world was out to destroy you and you were so inept that you actually helped it.
A grocery store loomed in the distance and Barbara steered toward it. The parking lot was nearly empty, so she parked straight in front of the doors. Leaving the girls to follow at will, half suspecting that Shannon would stay in the car, she marched off toward the store.
“I wanna push! I wanna push!” Jennifer shoved at her mother’s thigh with one hip and gripped the cart handle.
“Fine. Just watch where you’re going. Don’t run into anybody, okay?”
“Trust me!”
All was silence as they made their way through the store. Jennifer grabbed up sweets by the handful and Barbara didn’t have the strength to argue with her about it. Shannon would offer no response anyway, so Barbara didn’t bother trying to elicit opinions from her. She merely grabbed up what she knew they needed and got into line at the register.
A new cashier. Of course! On the few occasions when Barbara had actually gone shopping for herself, she had always gotten the trainee. Instead of getting angry, she leaned on the cart and began to read the tabloid headlines. In front of her, an elderly couple did the same.
“Can you believe that?” the old woman offered, nudging her husband with one sharp elbow. She smelled faintly of lavender and hair dye. “Rat boy, for heaven’s sake! Where do they get this stuff?”
“They have teams of sociopathic dwarves who hammer this stuff out in a sweatshop down in Florida,” Shannon blurted, wanting to be mean but lacking the true calling.
The old woman blinked at her and then laughed. “You know, I think you’re right, young lady. But if they really wanted a story…I mean, if they wanted a real story, all they’d have to do is come up here and check out our Cannibal Boy.”
It was Shannon’s turn to blink. The confusion showed in her face as she tried to decide whether to laugh or make some smart remark. “Cannibal Boy? You’re kidding right?”
“Oh no, my dear. Not at all. Why, he’s lived here for years.”
“Margie!” her husband chided, pulling a face at her.
“Oh Fred, you know it’s true! Why just this month he killed his own parents. Of course, they got what was coming to them. T’was his mother who made him the way he was.”
“Margie, stop it! You’ll scare this poor girl.”
Barbara shoved her way into the conversation with a tug on Shannon’s jacket and a frown. “It’s an urban legend, I’m sure.”
Fred peeked around his wife and nodded. “That’s exactly what it is, Miss.”
“Fred! You know as well as I do it’s true. Why, he was born with something wrong with him. But that isn’t the half of it. His mother taught him to like the taste of human flesh. No surprise that he killed his own family and ate them right up.”
“Margie, we have to go now. We’re done here.” Fred looked pained, humiliated. His eyes told Barbara that it wasn’t the first time.
“Ate them?” Barbara wanted to laugh but couldn’t quite convince the goosebumps to let her.
“Oh my yes! And he’s never been caught, either.”
“Margie!” For the first time, Fred was actually firm in his treatment of her.
“Oh fine! Just when we were getting to the good part. Honestly, Fred!” Margie wandered off after her husband.
He turned then and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Fred, come on! You wanted to leave so let’s leave.”
Shannon looked at Barbara and Barbara looked at Shannon. “Ick!” they said in unison as violent shivers shook them.
Chapter Five
Mark didn’t bother going back to the office. Truth be told, he didn’t really have any more to do until the report came through and he didn’t want anyone listening in on the call he was about to make. He parked his car in the driveway, tossed a brief wave at Mrs. Jameson across the street, then hobbled up the steps to his front door.
