Staycation, page 15
“Yes, dear.” Ask him about the meat.
“Daddy knows best, right?” Junior lit a cigarette and took a long, slow drag.
“Yes, dear.” God, that smells good. I want a smoke. Ask him about the meat.
“Will he be coming back?”
“No.” He blew smoke through his nose like a dragon. “I wouldn’t expect him to come back.”
“I see.” Ask him. “Can I have his portion of the meat?”
Junior’s eyes lit up. He smiled and slid a paper plate across the table to her. It was a smaller helping, a child’s portion. Mary buried her face in it and ingested the small pile of mystery meat without ever taking a single bite. When she’d finished, she let out a raucous, sulfuric burp.
“That’s my girl,” Junior said with an approving smile.
46
Masks
Toby kept to himself for the rest of the day, hiding out in Alex’s bedroom—his for the game. Normally, Toby enjoyed spending time in Alex’s room, but not so much today. There was no Alex, and that was a loss Toby felt deeply.
They were less than a year apart and so alike that their mom used to say she’d been blessed with twins without having to carry them both at the same time. And that was how they thought of each other. Not just as mere siblings, but twins. Their bond went deeper than blood. They shared part of the same soul.
Sometimes, their bond creeped out the rest of the Millers. They knew things about each other, things that were never said aloud, things that didn’t need to be said aloud. During long car rides, not that there had been many, Alex and Toby would simultaneously break into a fit of hysterical laughter as though they had heard the same punchline, but no one had said a single word aloud.
In first grade, Toby lost his favorite toy, Spot the dog. He came home screaming and fussing about how he’d killed Spot and what a terrible dog owner he was to have misplaced him. Alex slipped out of the room and returned a few minutes later with Spot. She’d seen exactly where Toby had left the thing. She saw it in her mind, through his eyes.
Their connection went far beyond finding misplaced objects. Alex was afraid of needles. The first time she got a booster shot for school, she’d passed out cold. And forget drawing blood. That was a nightmare. But then, one day, the fussing stopped. She’d sat perfectly still as they poked and prodded her, smiling and giggling the entire time.
On the drive home, their mom had asked her what was so funny back there at the doctor’s office; what had made her laugh so?
Alex had giggled again and said, without missing a beat, “Toby was telling me the funniest story.”
For the briefest of moments, Alex thought she saw her mom’s face turn to utter horror and panic, before it eased back into its normal mask.
47
There’s Children in That There Corn, Ma
Denise Miller felt like someone had walked over her grave when her daughter said this. Toby hadn’t been with them at the doctor’s office. And Alex, whether she knew it or not, was talking about telepathy.
“This is too weird. We’re talking about fucking Stephen King Carrie territory,” Denise told Billy later that evening.
Billy wasn’t nearly as concerned about Alex and Toby’s connection. “Carrie White had telekinesis, not telepathy. She could move things with her mind. Come on, now. You can’t possibly think they’re actually talking to each other with their minds?”
She had, and the thought terrified her. Not because they shared something unique between them that no one else could experience, but because if Toby and Alex could do that, what else could they do?
Denise Miller watched her youngest kids like a hawk for months. There were things she couldn’t explain. One morning she had spent ten minutes looking for her car keys, and then they randomly appeared on the kitchen table. Denise was positive she’d looked there, too. Several times. She would have bet her life on it. The whole time she was running through the house like a chicken without its head, Toby and Alex were sitting on the living room floor, lost in their own little world, giggling at a shared private joke. Denise knew she was that joke, but she couldn’t prove it. And the more she talked about it with Billy, the crazier the whole idea sounded. My kids blessed with special wonder-twin powers? Yeah… hardy-har-har. That’s a good one.
Still, the feeling never quite went away, but Denise tried not to think about it. She forced herself not to think about it, no matter what crazy shit she saw out of the corner of her eye. She’d just smile and say, There’s nothing to see here. Nothing at all.
Toby knew all about the bad man and what he’d been doing to Alex. He didn’t understand it at first. The images he saw in his head were confusing, too adult for his comprehension. But he understood the feelings perfectly.
Fear, pain, shame, and rage.
After the first couple of times, Toby slipped into her head and told her stories to keep her distracted until the bad man had finished. While he couldn’t take away the physical pain after the bad man’s visits, Toby shielded his sister from a great deal of psychological trauma.
Distracting her with his stories meant Toby saw everything, like he sucked a mouthful of snake venom out of her and poisoned himself. But Alex seemed mostly unaware of the rapes after a while. She stopped talking about the bad man’s nocturnal visits with him entirely, but the images lived inside his head. And now that she was gone, Toby wasn’t sure what to do with the rage brewing within his split soul.
He had wanted to do more to help his sister, his non-romantic soul mate, but he didn’t think he could do it without her. Whatever they had shared, it only worked when they were together. Toby never could have hidden their mom’s keys on his own. Neither could Alex. Their power, or whatever it was, just didn’t work without the both of them. Alex told Toby that they were like batteries. One was positive and one was negative, and you needed both ends to power up their ability.
Toby closed his eyes and lay down on the bed. Even though he’d been sleeping in her bed for over two weeks, her scent lingered on the sheets. He conjured her in his mind, fleshed out every detail until he believed Alex was lying in bed beside him, stroking his hair soothingly. It’s okay, little brother. It’s okay.
But it wasn’t. He was alone now, and he would always be alone from now on. A part of him was missing, and until they were together again, he’d be no more than a broken half. He thought of Junior sneaking into her room at night, pulling aside her panties and putting himself inside her, then slinking off into the darkness when he’d finished. Toby hated Junior for what he’d done to Alex, and then for taking her away from him.
Toby opened his third eye and extended an invisible hand through his mind. At first, his fingers fumbled through the dark, feeling nothing. Similarly, the eye saw nothing but black, as though it had been blindfolded. Some sounds and smells came from outside the house and some from within, but Toby couldn’t see a thing.
His real fingers dug down and clutched the bedspread. The veins in Toby’s arms popped as he squeezed the fabric into his fists. His sweat-soaked body thrashed furiously, and his slender legs kicked high into the air like a Radio City Rockette. Then every part of him tensed as Toby squeezed harder and deeper with his mind. He kept trying to find Junior, to see him. Toby’s heartbeat accelerated and then halted.
A deep freeze tore through his body. He convulsed once, his body rising two inches off the mattress, then twice, and then a third time before it sank back down onto the bed where it remained still, cold, and nearly lifeless. Suddenly, he gasped and clamped down his jaws so ferociously that his mouth instantly filled with blood. His eye had opened.
Toby sought Junior in his head. He fixed on Junior like a beacon, concentrating on his brother until an image slowly formed. Fuzzy at first, but soon he could make everything out with perfect clarity. He had done it on his own, after all.
Junior sat at the kitchen table. He was sweating, smoking a cigarette that was nearly burnt to the butt, and pouring himself a beer. Toby went deeper into his mind, feeling the ability surge through him—a marvelous, blindingly bright light. Yet as bright as it shone now, it had burned even brighter when he was with Alex. Together, their blaze rivaled the sun.
He heard the steady rhythmic beat of Junior’s heart and then a slow exhale of air and smoke through his mouth. A sip of cheap room temperature beer. Another long drag on the cigarette, which was now finished. Junior dropped the cigarette stub into the can where it sizzled and hissed before dying.
In his mindscape, Toby cracked one of the back legs of Junior’s chair. The wood splintered as though it had been nothing but a twig. The chair wobbled, and a second later, Toby heard a loud crashing thud followed by a slew of profanity.
And he knew he’d done it. He’d really done it. Now the question was, what else could he do?
Alex giggled and sang inside Toby’s racing thoughts. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…
The twins conversed silently, speaking rapidly in the safety of their secret place.
Alex, you’re here!
I am.
But where are you?
I don’t know exactly. Close, I think. I can’t really see.
Are you…
I don’t know. Maybe.
How long can you stay?
Forever.
Toby laughed so hard he cried. The sound brought Mary to the door.
“Hey, kiddo. What’s so funny?”
He rolled around on the bed as though being tickled by ten invisible fingers at once. “Nothing.” Toby howled with laughter, holding his sides. “Alex just said something really funny.”
“Well, keep it down. Daddy’s in a mood.” The Alex comment didn’t register with Mary’s own distracted mind.
Toby didn’t keep it down. He laughed harder and harder until he couldn’t breathe and damned near wet himself.
Mary went downstairs and found Junior still on his ass, covered in beer, cursing at everything in creation from Peter, Paul, and Mary to Jesus. She couldn’t help but smile at him as he kicked the air and threw his hands up and down like a toddler.
Toby’s laughing fit grew louder, and Mary laughed a bit herself. It was like hearing someone rip one out in church right in the middle of the sermon and trying not to cackle.
“What the fuck is so goddamned funny?” Junior said, trying to brush himself off from the tumble.
“Oh, nothing. Toby just told the funniest joke.”
Alex might still be alive somewhere in the Miller house. Somewhere close by. Junior hadn’t killed her properly after all. She’d have to check. Junior kept secrets in the basement. Magazines. DVDs. Naughty stuff. She wondered what else he kept down there.
There was only one way to find out.
48
The Final Interlude
Even before Mr. Buchanan found the Millers’ car parked behind the shopping plaza at the end of St. Augustine Place, about three and a half blocks away from their house, he had a bad feeling in his gut. It came with age and experience. The nosey neighbor, Mrs. Garriga, hadn’t done much to lessen that feeling.
At forty-eight years old, he had both. It also came with the job. People laughed whenever he said that, like he was a private dick or something more “official” than a mere mail carrier for the postal service. But with twenty-four years on the job, Bob Buchanan had seen his fair share of freaky shit. Houses that fronted for brothels or crack dens. Hordes of migrant workers spilling out the back door of a house because a neighbor complained about “too many people” living next door. Homes overrun with cats or dogs—or both. Hoarders buried alive by mountains of debris. Adulterers indulging in a not-so-secret daytime tryst while a spouse was away at work. Neglected and abused kids. Abusive husbands. You name it, Bob Buchanan had probably seen it.
Walking through neighborhoods every day gave him eyes on household routines—laundry days, takeout days, preferred times for vacation. Bob Buchanan thought it was a lot like the old saying—rather elementary if you paid the slightest bit of attention.
That was the key. The only key. You had to pay attention.
For the new blood, this was next to impossible. They were the distracted generation—tech-obsessed, constantly tapping away at their cell phones or plugging their ears with headphones while the world twisted and turned around them. Bob Buchanan didn’t own the latest gadgets and had no use for them. He still watched movies on VHS and the occasional DVD and listened to vintage vinyl and audio cassettes. He didn’t know what an MP3 player was, nor did he care to find out. His cell phone, which he begrudgingly acquired in case of emergencies, was a decade-old flip phone Nokia that didn’t even have a camera. The device did only two things—send and receive text messages and make emergency phone calls. For a whopping twenty-nine bucks a month, he still felt like he was grossly overpaying.
Fresh-faced mail carriers couldn’t understand how or why Bob Buchanan could spend eight hours a day, walking around untethered to tech.
To stay sharp, Bob thought. After all, he never would have spied the voluptuous blonde on Elden who liked to shower with the window open every day at two fifteen if he’d been distracted by technology. Just another perk of the job. Two perks, actually.
Yes, there wasn’t much Bob Buchanan hadn’t seen in twenty-four years of delivering mail, except for maybe a serial killer. That was the holy grail of mail carrier stories. That’s nothing, Bill. I delivered mail to Son of Sam. Even talked to him once or twice. Everybody liked a good serial killer yarn.
The feeling that something was terribly off had been nagging at him even before the hold mail request had been submitted. And not long after, the Millers’ car moved from their driveway. Bob Buchanan knew the Millers, knew them well and was on a first-name basis with the parents, Billy and Denise. He’d been their carrier when the youngest was born, and when Mary learned how to ride a bike. Hell, he saw Junior toss a football for the first time, too.
Bob Buchanan may have never stepped foot inside the Millers’ house, but he knew them intimately, and he knew Billy was cheap. They’d never go on an actual vacation, other than their annual trip to see his mammy in Nevada, but that was always in March when the kids had spring break. Billy’s idea of a vacation was staying home, drinking whatever beer was on sale at the supermarket and hanging out with the kids. He did it every year at the end of August.
This was unusual. Most unusual.
The Millers, like most of the families on his route, were creatures of habit. They rarely deviated from their routines. And if they did, it was unlikely to last more than a day or two and had an obvious explanation—the house needed painting, the car needed fixing, or they were waiting for the cable guy. In this case, it wasn’t a mere one-off. It was going into its third week, and that was unusual. Most unusual.
Down at the post office, they joked that Bob Buchanan was nosy. He asked too many questions and got too involved in other people’s business, specifically those on his route. And maybe that was part of it. Bob Buchanan was just a little bit too nosy for his own good. He couldn’t help himself. Had he been in possession of Pandora’s box, Bob Buchanan would have opened it to see inside. And that’s exactly how he felt about the Millers’ house. It was an itch that needed to be scratched until it bled right down to the bone.
Bob Buchanan spoke to Mrs. Garriga first. If anybody was a bigger busybody than him, it would be Mrs. Garriga. I’m not just a member, Bob. Why, I’m the President of the whole damned busybody club. Yes. Mrs. Joanne Garriga was all that, and more.
“No, no. I called Denise—when was this? Right after I spoke to you about the mail. I told her I’d hold the overflow and to give me a buzz when they’re back.”
“And has she called you?”
“Not yet. I mean, why would she? They’re still on vacation, right?”
Unusual. Most unusual.
“Of course. Vacation.” Bob Buchanan hadn’t walked three steps before the busybody suspected something was up.
“Hey! They are on vacation, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t think something happened to the Millers, do you, Bob?” From her tone, it was obvious that she thought something had happened to the Millers. Something bad.
“No,” he said with a reassuring grin. “Not at all. I’m sure you’ll be getting a postcard from Bora Bora soon enough.”
The Millers’ car was the sticking point. First, it sat in the driveway for days, and now it sat behind the plaza. Bob Buchanan could write off most of the unusual things he’d seen at the Millers over the last two weeks—and the wafting aromas seeping through the crevices of the house—but he couldn’t explain the damned car. The Chevy was a jalopy, held together with tape and a prayer, but to Billy, it was a Tesla. He bragged about how he paid cash for it, but never said just how much. And because the vehicle was so old and had more miles under its belt than god, it cost next to nothing to insure. Regardless of what the thing was worth, Billy would never leave it unattended for days on end.
Never.
It was unusual. Most unusual.
It had been over twenty days since Bob Buchanan last saw any trace of the Millers when he walked up the front steps. He looked up, side-eyed, at the bedroom window at the Garriga house, where he knew Joanne would be watching him like a hawk, and rang the bell. She would be the lookout for whatever half-assed mission this turned out to be. Bob hoped Joanne Garriga’s eyes were better than her discretion.
As with his last visit, Bob Buchanan didn’t expect anyone to answer. Nor did he expect to hear anything inside the house. If it weren’t for the car and his gut feeling, he’d believe the Miller family was indeed on vacation.
But Bob Buchanan knew better. He knew the Millers were holed up somewhere inside the house. And he would find them if it was the last thing he ever did.
Bob Buchanan was about to ring the fuck out of the bell when he stopped. He couldn’t believe the awful, pungent odor. It hit him instantly and then surrounded him in a wall of stink. As the noxious cloud stung his eyes, tears rolled down his cheeks. Whatever was in his stomach gurgled loudly with a groan and a splat, then Bob Buchanan hurled his breakfast all over the Millers’ front porch. The puddle of undigested bacon and eggs oozed down the landing, dripping down each step until it landed on the front walk.
