“That’s impossible,” Alan said.
“Maybe you’re right,” Buster said. “I woke up a couple seconds later. I sat straight up in my bed and threw back my sheet. Everyone was quiet. For a second I wondered if I was still asleep. The whole vision was so strange that it made me question everything. I laid back down and tried to get to sleep. I couldn’t sleep though. Every time I thought I was going to drift off, something snapped me back. Something was nagging at me. I sat back up. It was Hooker—he looked wrong in his bed. I know it might seem funny, but if you grow up in the same room as someone else, you get to know what they look like when they’re asleep, and Hooker didn’t look right. I went over to tap him and ask him what was wrong.”
Buster stopped. Alan recognized the look on Buster’s face. It was the look of someone who’s about to try to lift something heavy, and he’s bracing himself for the strain.
“I was the one who screamed. I realized that the sounds coming out of my mouth were the same ones I’d heard Hooker making in my dream. Hubie got the lights on and they all saw it too. Only the insides of Hooker were under that sheet. You could see his skull and his eye sockets. You could see his tongue poking out through the gap where he’d lost a couple teeth in that fight with Stan Turner. You could see his neck bones and the pink gum that was squished between his vertebrae. Hubie pulled the whole sheet off of him and the horror was complete. His thigh bones ended in ragged strands of tendons and marrow. The bottoms of his legs were gone.
“My parents came through the door. Paul and Skip came from their room. My father was stone. He said, ‘Go bury him next to your sister. We’ll never speak of this again.’”
“What about the police?” Alan asked. “What did they say for the cause of death? Why didn’t they lock up your father and throw away the key?”
“We didn’t call the police. We kept to ourselves. As far as I know, nobody ever asked about Hooker. Quid pro quo. My mom tried to take up the gardening that next spring, but she failed.”
“Wait, that’s it? You didn’t try to find those migrators and kill them? They didn’t come back for the rest of you?” Alan asked.
“That was it. We didn’t work in October and we never spoke of it again. As soon as Paul saved up enough money, he got married and then moved out. He used to travel north in October and November and work on a tree farm up there. Skip started his business and he would always take his vacation that month. Hubie moved south. My parents died when the house burned down in seventy-six. I’m the last of them, not counting kids and grandkids that is.”
Bob was counting brothers on his fingers. “What about Gordie?” he asked.
“He went wild,” Buster said.
“What do you mean?”
“Sometime after Paul moved out, Gordie started spending more and more of his time outdoors. He would only come in for supper, and then Mom would kick him out because he always smelled. Eventually, he stopped coming for meals. He would still fish and trap, and we’d find his kills on the back porch. He’d leave them there like a proud cat. Sometimes Mom would cook them, sometimes she’d just throw them in the garbage. For a few years, Gordie would come back for October and re-domesticate. Then, after awhile, he stopped. Shortly after my parents died, he turned up dead.”
“Migrators?” Bob asked.
“No,” Buster said. He chuckled and shook his head. “They found him dead by the side of the road—down near the corner of the Mill Road and the Crank Road. He was just off in the bushes with a knife in his heart. It was stuck between his ribs. Sheriff figured that Gordie had come across a still or poachers and they’d killed him to protect a secret. I don’t know what killed him, but it wasn’t migrators.”
Alan shook his head. “If you really believed all this, you wouldn’t be telling us about them now. You would be afraid that they’re going to track you here. I mean, it’s October twenty-first for god’s sake.”
Buster just nodded.
“Thank you for the whiskey,” Buster said. “Now you know my weakness, feel free to come by any time.”
“Thank you for the story,” Bob said. He rose and leaned forward to shake Buster’s hand. Buster gave each of their outstretched hands a quick squeeze with a couple of his fingers. He didn’t bother to put down the feet of the recliner.
“Close it tight behind you,” Buster said. “The latch is tricky.”
“They love their stories around here,” Alan said when he was pulling back out onto the road.
“Yeah,” Bob said.
“Oh shit, we forgot to tell him about the nest.”
“He would have mentioned it if he knew anything, don’t you think?”
“You want to get another bottle of whiskey and go back in a couple of weeks? We can ask him why he still has his skin.”
“If he makes it that long,” Bob said. “He had enough Zofran bottles lined up on his sink to stock a pharmacy.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s an anti-nausea drug for people undergoing chemo.”
“They say it runs in the family,” Alan said. “His brother had stomach cancer, or something.”
“That could be it then,” Bob said.
“He ought to write a novel before he cashes in,” Alan said. “He has quite the imagination.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ghosts
OCTOBER 22
“BIG JOE,” Alan said as Joe walked into the kitchen. Joe smiled a little, but didn’t slow. He walked his bag over to the chair next to the door and then returned to his seat at the kitchen table. “You ready for a special breakfast?”
“Sure,” Joe said.
“That’s about an oatmeal level of enthusiasm, Joe. What I have for you here is blueberry pancakes. Can I get a blueberry pancake answer from you?”
“Sure!” Joe said again, this time with a forced smile.
“That will have to be good enough,” Alan said. He put a plate in front of Joe. He spotted a genuine smile cross Joe’s face as his son looked down at the food. Alan grabbed his own plate and sat in the chair next to Joe. He jumped up a second later to reach for the fridge door. Alan returned with the syrup. “This will give you just enough sugar buzz to cruise into lunch. Then you’re on your own. What did you guys decide on for Halloween costumes?”
“I’m not telling,” Joe said. “Mom said it’s bad luck when you know beforehand what our costumes will be. She said they turn out better when you’re surprised.”
“You see,” Alan said, pointing his fork at his son, “this is why your mother makes a good lawyer. She’s able to convince you that somehow there’s a causal connection between the strength of your costume and my knowledge of said costume. Think about it, why would those two things be connected?”
“Dad?”
“Yes, my son,” Alan said. He already felt the syrup going to his head. He felt goofy this morning.
“Remember last week when I asked if we could move?”
“Yeah?” Alan asked. He took another bite of his pancakes. A part of him wished he had sausage links to go with the pancakes. Liz didn’t mind when Alan ate meat, but there were a few foods she couldn’t handle. She said sausage links looked like baby fingers. They were forbidden from the house. Alan wondered if Liz realized that Joe ate hamburgers last summer when he stayed over at his friend Pete’s house.
“What do you think of moving?” Joe asked.
“We talked about this, Joe,” Alan said. “This is our home. It’s the place where your mom had her fondest childhood memories and we want to ensure it stays in the family.”
“Who will get the house when you guys die?” Joe asked. Joe rubbed his head and squinted.
“What do you mean?”
“How is it going to stay in the family? I’m going to move away for college, right? Then I’ll go wherever I want.”
“And your mom and I will work here until we retire. Then we’ll get to enjoy all this luxury.”
“But what if I don’t want to move here when you die? The house won’t be in the family anymore.”
“Maybe someone else will want it—one of your cousins. We’ll work it out one step at a time,” Alan said.
“I just think that if I don’t want it, then why do we have to keep it? I don’t need it, and we barely know those other cousins. They only come here for Thanksgiving, right?”
“And some come for Christmas,” Alan said. “Look, Joe, some families have traditions. It’s how they make their mark on the world. This place is your mom’s mark.”
“I don’t think we should have to live here just because she came here sometimes when she was a kid.”
“How about we live here because it’s a good place to live? It’s a great community, and we have woods and a lake. We get to try snowboarding this winter—that will be fun, right?”
“I don’t know,” Joe said.
“I don’t see what the problem is, Joe,” Alan said. “Do you miss your friends? You seemed happier here with your new friends than you ever did down in Virginia.”
“I just don’t like this place,” Joe said. He set his fork down and leaned close to Alan. Joe whispered, “I hate it here.”
“Give it a chance.”