During his years here, he’d been through most of the woods surrounding the property, but he’d avoided one particular path since he was a very small boy. It was this path down which he pulled the wheelbarrow now, a path that was not a trail but simply a series of half-remembered twists and turns, a path only in that it was the path of least resistance. He jerked the barrow over a mound that may have been a fallen log at one point and around a group of close-growing trees. The contraption bucked and swerved behind him, and more than once he had to stop and straighten out the cart before it tipped over and dumped his load. His muscles screamed for mercy, and he ignored them. Once he’d finished, he would take a hot shower, but until then his body would just have to tough it out.
The ghost tree appeared ahead as if it really were a ghost, something that could materialize out of thin air, glide down from the sky above, or float up from beneath the ground. Dave/Hank brought the body to the tree and tried not to look into the field beyond. He hadn’t been here since he was six years old. At this very spot, Mr. Boots had caught him and led him back to the house, barefooted and miserable. Dave/Hank looked at the heap in the wheelbarrow and punched it suddenly, as if it would do something besides sting his hand. He brought his fist up for another blow but then blew out a long breath of air around the toothpick and swatted the body instead.
Asshole, he thought, both at himself and at Mr. Boots.
Looking first from the corner of his eye, he peeked past the trunk of the pale tree. The space beyond was dark, but he saw the car, in the same place it had been twenty-three years before, now partially hidden behind overgrown grass and weeds but still there. He turned to face it fully. The station wagon with its crumpled hood. Dave/Hank remembered the moose, remembered the way it had killed his daddy/him. He carted the wheelbarrow past the tree and through the weeds, sweating, panting.
The wheelbarrow jerked, bounced over molehills or stones or who knew what. Moving so slowly, Dave/Hank saw the skeletons long before he reached the station wagon. Their sun-bleached skulls all pointed in different directions. The one in the passenger’s seat was aimed directly his way, grinning, eyes pulling on him like black holes. He hadn’t known whether the bodies would still be here or not, had thought maybe the animals would have crawled in through the broken windows and snatched away the bones one at a time. But either the bodies had been too hard to get to, or the animals simply hadn’t been interested, because from what Dave/Hank could see, the skeletons remained mostly intact. Even the dog’s bones were there. He spat out the mangled sliver of wood.
Bits of memory came to him. He remembered a bloated tongue, though he couldn’t remember to which body it had belonged. He remembered a gaping chest wound and thought it might have been Georgie’s. So long ago. He supposed he’d repressed the rest of it.
The wheelbarrow tilted to one side, and he applied enough pressure to keep it upright. The body shifted and thumped against the side of the basket. He moved again, pulled the wheelbarrow around the back of the car to the unoccupied side of the back seat. He wouldn’t let himself think about the bones in the car. The bodies inside weren’t his family, not anymore. His family had returned from the dead, and he was their savior.
On the other side of the car, he dropped the handles and took a second to stretch his shoulders. His left bicep burned, but a few quick flexes brought the pain down to a tolerable level. He reached for the back door and tried the handle. It didn’t budge. He yanked on it harder but with no more success. It had rusted shut.
Oh well. The window was gone. Tiny triangles of broken glass poked up from between the cracked rubber weather strips like monstrous teeth from between dead lips. He looked back at the body, telling himself this would be the last time he would ever have to lift it. He allowed himself a thirty-second breather before reaching into the wheelbarrow.
The bedding stunk. He supposed the stench wasn’t any worse now than it had ever been, but somehow, as he lifted the body to the empty window frame, it seemed to have taken on a whole new odor. Dave/Hank poked one end of the roll through the window and shoved. It was like trying to push a socked foot into a shoe that was already laced. He groaned and leaned on the bundle, pushed on it from different angles and punched at the protruding mounds, some of which were probably body parts.
The body finally popped into the car. Dave/Hank heard rattling bones and rasping cloth, but he didn’t look inside at the damage he’d done. His business here was done forever. The car had its full load—it could finish its trip to Hell.
Dave/Hank thought about bringing back the wheelbarrow but decided to leave it be. He didn’t want to have to mess with dragging it all the way back to the house, wrenching it over fallen trees and through prickling bushes. If he needed it that badly, he could always come back, but he didn’t think he would. The wheelbarrow and its stolen tire had served their purpose.
Hank Abbott rubbed his hands together, blew out a long exhalation, and walked away from the station wagon, looking at nothing but the path ahead.
THIRTY-TWO
Libby sat on Trevor’s bed. She had one of his action figures, a cartoony looking guy with red skin, pressed between her hands. Mike had stayed in the living room by the phone, but she’d wanted to get up and stretch her legs. She’d ended up here, looking through Trevor’s things, thinking about him and crying.
She twisted the action figure around and found a hole on his back probably meant to connect with some accessory, maybe a jet pack or an extra set of bendable arms. She wasn’t sure, couldn’t remember buying this particular toy. Mike had probably gotten this one for their son on one of their weekends together.
Not for the first time, Libby thought about how strange it was that Trevor’s life contained portions to which she was not privy. He spent whole days away from her, doing things she didn’t know about (though he often told her of the days’ events in extreme detail), having conversations she wasn’t a part of. She supposed it was the same when he went to school. Him with his little friends, talking about comic books and superheroes, television shows and movies. But it wasn’t the same. The time Trevor spent in this house, away from her, was the result of her and Mike’s failed marriage. It was her fault. Every kid went to school, but not every kid’s parents split up. She dropped the toy onto the X-Men pillow beside her and rubbed her face.
No more police had arrived, no knocks on the door, no check-up calls, which she took to mean no progress. If they’d found Trevor somewhere in the woods, they’d have brought him directly home. Surely. She tried to imagine where Trevor was but quickly shut off her imagination when the images took a nasty turn. It was better to sit here and play with his toys, to try not to think about what was happening to him, to wait.
She plucked the action figure from the pillow and flew him lazily through the air. When the phone rang, she dropped the toy on the mattress, and looked toward the living room. Part of her didn’t believe it, thought it must be her mind playing a trick on her. Another part recognized the sound as reality but didn’t want to know what news the phone call might bring. What if they’d found Trevor’s body? What if the kidnapper wanted a million dollars they didn’t have?
She hopped off Trevor’s bed. Although she felt like she’d hesitated forever, she entered the living room before the phone could ring a third time.