Ashes

THE HOUNDS OF LOVE

Dexter licked his lips. His stomach was shivery. October was brown and yellow and crackly and tasted like candy corn. He knelt by the hutch that Dad had built back before the restraining order was filed.

He touched the welt under his eye. The wound felt like a busted plum and stung where the flesh had split open. Mom had accidentally left her thumb sticking out of her fist when she hit him. She hadn't meant to do it. Usually, she was careful when she punched him.

But one good thing about Mom, she didn't hold a grudge for long. She'd turned on the television and opened a beer, and after the next commercial break had forgotten all about him. It was easy to sneak out the back door.

Dexter poked some fresh blades of grass through the silver squares of wire. The rabbit flashed its buck teeth and wrinkled its nose before clamping down on the grass and hopping to the back of the hutch. It crouched in the shadows and chewed with a sideways gnashing of its jaws. The black eyes stared straight ahead. They looked like doll's eyes, dead and cold and stupid.

Dexter's stomach was still puke-shivery. He opened the cage and snaked his hand inside. The rabbit hopped away and kept chewing. Dexter stroked the soft fur between the rabbit's eyes.

Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em.

He snatched the leathery ears and pulled the rabbit forward into the light. He held it that way for a moment, like a magician dangling a trick above a hat, as it spasmed and kicked its four white legs. This was October, after all, the month when anything could happen. Even stupid old magic, if you dressed like a dork in a wizard’s cape for Halloween.

Dexter looked over his shoulder at the house. Mom was most likely passed out by now. After all, it was four o'clock in the afternoon. But Dexter had learned from his dad that it never hurt to be paranoid.

He tucked the rabbit under his windbreaker and crossed the backyard into the woods. When he reached the safety of the trees, he took the leash from his pocket. This was the tricky part. With his tongue hanging out from concentration, he squeezed the rabbit between his knees.

He pressed harder until he heard something snap and the rabbit's back legs hung limp. He almost puked then, almost wept, but his first tear rolled across the split skin beneath his eye and he got angry again. "I'll teach you better than to love me," he whispered, his breath ragged.

It was the rabbit's fault. The dumb creature shouldn't have tried to love him. The rabbit was trying to get him, to play the trick on him, to make him care. Well, he wasn't going to belong to nothing or nobody.

Dexter used both hands to attach the leather collar. The collar had belonged to his little redbone hound. Uncle Clem let Dexter have the pick of the litter. Dexter had chosen the one with the belly taut from milk that wagged its thin rope of a tail whenever Dexter patted its head. Dexter had named it Turd Factory. Well, stupid old Turd Factory didn't need the collar anymore.

Dexter fastened the collar and let the rabbit drop to the ground. It rolled on its side and twitched its front legs. Sometimes they died too fast, sometimes before he even started. Dexter headed deeper into the woods, dragging the rabbit behind him by the leash. It was a hundred feet to the clearing where he liked to play. There, the sun broke through the tree-limbs and a shallow creek spilled over the rocks. Dexter squinted at the scraps of the sky, his eye almost swollen shut now. The clearing smelled like autumn mud and rot, the magic odors of buried secrets.

Dexter tightened the leash around the rabbit's neck until its veins bulged. He put one hand under the soft white chest and felt the trip-hammering heart that was trying to pump blood through the tourniquet. The rabbit began kicking its front legs again, throwing leaves and dark forest dirt into the air.

This was the part Dexter hated. The fear that came to the animals sooner or later as he tortured them, that little frantic spark in the eyes. The desperation and submission as they gave all that they had. Stupid things, they made him sick, they made him want to throw up. It was all their fault.

Dexter opened the pocketknife and went to work. This one was a relief. The rabbit had started out scared and stayed scared, paid for loving him without a whimper. Dexter was blind from tears by the time he finished.

He buried the carcass between the roots of a big oak tree. Right next to old Turd Factory. Dexter washed his hands in the creek. It was almost dinnertime. He turned and walked back through the clearing, past the depressions of soil where he had buried the other animals.

His own little pet cemetery. He had seen that movie. It had given him the creeps, but not badly enough to make him give up his hobby. Plus, by the time he was finished with them, no chunk was big enough to stand up by itself, much less walk.

Three cats were underground here, two of them compliments of dear old Grandma. She'd given him the rabbit as an Easter present. He'd swiped a rooster from a caved-in coop up the road, but he didn't think he'd be pulling any more of those jobs. The rooster had spurred him, plus the dumb bird had squawked and clucked loud enough to wake the dead. There was a box turtle buried somewhere around. But that had mostly been a mercy killing. Mom kept pouring beer into its water.

Same with the goldfish. He told her he'd flushed them down the toilet. Goldfish were boring, though. They didn't scream or whimper. They didn't make him want to throw up while they bled. They were too dumb to love.

Dexter giggled at the thought of a goldfish coming back from the dead and haunting him. He'd like to see that in a movie someday. The Revenge of the Zombie Fish. He wiped his eyes dry and headed down the trail to the house.

Mom was boiling some macaroni when he came in the back door. She wiped at her nose as she opened a can of cheese sauce. The sight of her moist fingers on the can opener killed Dexter's appetite. He sat down at the table and toyed with an empty milk carton.

She must have passed out in her clothes again. They were wrinkled and smelled like rancid lard. "Where you been, honey?" she asked.

"Out playing."

"Where?"

"Out," he said. "You know."

She slid a plate of steaming macaroni in front of him. Dexter could see dried egg yolk clinging to the edge of the plate. "How was school?"

"The usual."

"Hmm. What you going to be for Halloween?"

“ I don’t know. I’m getting too old for dress-up and make-believe.”

“ Whatever.” She opened the refrigerator. It was empty except for a dozen cans of beer, a wilted stalk of celery, and something in a Tupperware dish that had a carpet of green stuff across the top.

Dexter watched as she cracked a beer. She was red. Her hands were red, her face was red, her eyes were red.

"You not hungry?" she asked.

"No. Maybe later."

"Well, you need to eat. You'll get me in trouble with Social Services again."

"To hell with them."

"Dexter! If your Grandma heard that kind of language-"

— the old bag would probably slap me upside the head.

But the good thing about Grandma, she always felt guilty afterwards. She would go out and buy something nice to make up for it. Like the pocketknife or the BB gun. Or a new pet.

He didn't mind if Grandma made his ears ring. At least with her, there was profit in it. With Mom or Dad, all he got was a scar to show for it. Maybe Grandma loved him most. He picked up his fork and scooted some noodles around.

"That's a good boy," Mom said. She bent and kissed him on top of the head. Her breath smelled like a casket full of molded grain. "Your eye's looking better. Swelling ought to be down by tomorrow. At least enough for you to go to school."

Dexter smiled weakly and shoved some macaroni in his mouth. He chewed until she left the room. The telephone rang. Mom must have finally had it reconnected.

"Hello?" he heard her say.

Dexter looked at her. He could tell by her crinkled forehead that Dad was on the other end, trying to worm his way back into the bed he'd paid for with the sweat of his goddamned brow, under the roof he'd laid with his own two motherfucking hands. And no snotty-eyed bitch had a right to keep him out of his own goddamned house and away from his only son. Now that it was getting toward winter-

"You know you're not supposed to be calling me," she said into the phone. She bit her lip as Dad responded with what was most likely a stream of cusswords.

That was the problem with Dad. No subtlety. If only he'd play it smooth and easy, pretending to care about her, he'd be back in no time. And after a few months of acting, family life could go back to the way it was before. Back to normal.

But the bastard couldn't control himself. Why couldn't he just shut up and pretend to love her? It was easy. Everybody else was doing it.

Riley Baldwin down the road said that was the secret. The word "love."

"Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em," he always said, with all the wisdom of an extra year and two more inches of height. "Works like magic."

Said love had gotten him a hand up under Tammy Lynn Goolsby's dress. And Grandma said she loved Dexter. Of course, that was different, that kind of love gave you presents. Love got you what you wanted, if you used it right, even if it hurt sometimes.

"Don't you dare set foot near this place or I'll call the cops," Mom screeched into the phone. Her face turned from red to a bruised shade of purple.

She stuttered into the phone a couple of times and slammed the handset down, then drained the last half of her beer. As she went past him to get to the refrigerator, she didn't notice that Dexter hadn't eaten his dinner. He slipped away to his tiny cluttered bedroom and closed the door. He stayed there until Mom had time to pass out again. He fell asleep listening to her snores and the racket of the television.

Nobody said a word about his black eye at school the next day. Riley was waiting for him when he got off the bus. Riley had skipped. Dexter wished he could, too, but he didn't want Mom to get another visit from the Social Services people, showing up in their squeaky shoes and perfume and acting like they knew how to run a family they didn't belong to.

"Got my. 22 hid in the woods," Riley said, showing the gaps in his teeth as he grinned. His eyes gleamed under the shade of his Caterpillar ball cap.

"Cool, dude. Let me get my BB gun."

Riley waited by the back door. Dexter dropped his books in a pool of gray grease on the dining room table, then got his gun out of his room. Mom wasn't around. Maybe she'd gotten one of her boyfriends to make a liquor run to the county line. A note was stuck to the refrigerator, in Mom’s wobbly handwriting: “Stay out of trouble. Love you.”

Dexter joined Riley and they went into the woods. Riley retrieved his gun from where he had buried it under some leaves. He tapped his pocket and something rattled. "Got a half box of bullets."

"Killed anything with that yet?"

"Nope. But maybe I can get one of those stripedy-assed chipmunks."

"Them things are quick."

"Hey, a little blood sacrifice is all it takes."

"What do you mean?"

"Breaking it in right." Riley patted the barrel of the gun. "Making them pay for messing with me."

Riley led the way down the trail, through Dexter's pet cemetery and over the creek. Dexter followed in his buddy's footsteps, watching the tips of his own brown boots. October hung in scraps of yellow and red on the trees. The shadows of the trees grew longer and thicker as the sun slipped down the sky.

Riley stopped after a few minutes of silent stalking. "What's up with your dad?" he asked.

"Not much. Same old."

"That must be a pain in the ass, seeing him every other weekend or so."

"Yeah. He ain't figured out the game."

"What game?"

"You know. Love. Like you said."

"Oh, yeah. Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em."

"If he played the game, we wouldn't have Social Services messing around all the time."

"Them sons of bitches are all alike. The cops, the truant officers, the principal. It don't matter what the fuck you do. They always get you anyway."

"I reckon so." Dexter's stomach was starting to hurt. He changed the subject. "What was it like, with Tammy Lynn?"

Riley's face stretched into a jack-o'-lantern leer and he thrust out his bony chest. "Hey, she'll let me do anything. All you got to do is love ‘em. I know how to reach 'em down deep."

"Did she let you…?"

Riley twiddled his fingers in the air, then held them to his nose and sniffed.

"What about the other stuff?" Dexter asked.

"That's next, buddy-row. As soon as I want it."

"Why don't you want to? I thought you said she'd do anything."

Riley's thick eyebrows lowered, shading the rage that glinted in his eyes. He turned and started back down the trail toward the creek. "Ain't no damned birds left to shoot. Your loud-assed yakking has scared them all away."

Dexter hurried after him. The edge of the sky was red and golden. The forest was darker now, and the moist evening air had softened the leaves under their feet. Mom would be waking up soon to start on her second drunk of the day.

They walked in silence, Riley hunched over with his rifle tilted toward the ground, Dexter trailing like a puppy that had been kicked by its master. It was nearly dark when they reached the clearing. Riley jumped over the creek and looked back. His eyes flashed, but his face was nothing but sharp shadows.

Dexter hurdled the creek, caving in a section of muddy bank and nearly sliding into the water. He grabbed a root with one hand and scrambled up on his elbows and knees, his belly on the rim of the bank. When he looked up, Riley was pointing the rifle at him. Dad had taught Dexter about gun safety, and the first rule, the main rule, was to never point a loaded gun at somebody. Even a dickwit like Riley ought to know that.

"You ever kill anybody?" Riley was wearing his jack-o'-lantern expression again, but this time the grin was full of jagged darkness.

"Kill anybody?" Dexter tried not to whimper. He didn't want Riley to know how scared he was.

"Blood sacrifice."

Riley was just crazy enough to kill him, to leave him out here leaking in the night, on the same ground where Dexter had carved up a dozen animals. Dexter tried to think of how Dad would handle this situation. "Quit screwing around, Riley."

"If I want to screw around, I'll do it with Tammy Lynn."

"I didn't mean nothing when I said that."

"I can get it any time I want it."

"Sure, sure," Dexter was talking too fast, but he couldn't stop the words. He focused on the tip of Riley’s boot, the scuffed leather and the smear of grease. "You know how to tell 'em. You’re the magic man."

Riley lowered the gun a little. "Damn straight."

It was almost as if Dexter were talking to the boot, he was close enough to kiss it. "Just gotta tell 'em that you love 'em, right?"

Riley laughed then, and cool sweat trickled down the back of Dexter's neck. Maybe Dexter wasn't going to die after all, here among the bones and rotten meat of his victims. The boot moved away and Dexter dared to look up. Riley was among the thicket of holly and laurel now, the gun pointed away, and Dexter scrambled to his feet.

He saw for the first time how creepy the clearing was, with the trees spreading knotty arms all around and the laurels crouched like big animals. The place was alive, hungry, holding its breath and waiting for the next kill.

"Tell you what," Riley said, growing taller in the twilight, a looming force. "Come here tomorrow after school. Be real quiet and watch from behind the bushes. I'll get her all the way."

Dexter nodded in the dark. Then he remembered. “But tomorrow’s Halloween.”

“ What the hell else you got to do? Go around begging for candy with the babies?”

He couldn’t let Riley know he was scared. “No, it’s just-”

"Better fucking be here," Riley said.

Dexter ran down the trail toward home, his stomach fluttering. He was half scared and half excited about what he was going to witness, what he dared not miss.

Mom was slumped over the kitchen table, a pile of empty beer cans around her chair. An overturned bottle leaked brown liquid into her lap. Dexter hurried to the bed before she woke up and asked for a goodnight hug or else decided he needed a beating for something-or-other.

The next day after school, he went straight from the bus to the clearing. The sky was cloudy and heavy with dampness. He heard voices as he crawled on his hands and knees through the undergrowth. He looked through a gap in the branches. Riley sat on the ground, talking to Tammy Lynn, who was leaning against the big oak tree.

Tammy Lynn's blonde hair was streaked with red dye. She already looked fourteen. Her chest stretched the fabric of her white sweater. Freckles littered her face. She had cheeks like a chipmunk's, puffed and sad.

Riley rubbed her knee beneath the hem of her dress. He glanced to his left at the bushes where Dexter was hiding. Dexter gulped. His stomach was puke-shivery.

"I love you," Riley said to Tammy Lynn.

She giggled. She wore lipstick, and her mouth was a thin red scar across her pale face. Riley leaned forward and kissed her.

He pulled his face away. She touched her lower lip where her lipstick had smeared. Riley's hand snaked farther under her dress. She clamped her legs closed.

"Don't, Riley," she whispered.

"Aw, come on, baby."

"I don't want to."

"Hey, I said I loved you. It's okay to do it if I love you."

"I'm scared."

Riley stopped rubbing her. He spoke so low that Dexter barely heard. "Pretend you’re a princess and I’m a prince, and we’re in a fairy tale. Don't you love me?"

Tammy Lynn lowered her eyes. Riley cupped her chin and tilted her face up. Her cheeks were pink from shame or fear.

"Don't you love me?" Riley repeated, and this time he was wearing his jack-o'-lantern face. Tammy Lynn nodded slowly. Dexter's stomach felt as if he'd swallowed a handful of hot worms.

"If you love me, then you owe me," Riley said. She shook her head from side to side, her hair swaying against her shoulders.

Riley suddenly drove his hand deeper under her dress. Tammy Lynn gave a squeal of surprise and tried to twist away. Riley grabbed her sweater and pulled her towards the ground. Bits of bark clung to her back.

"No," she moaned, flailing at his hands as he wrestled her to the ground. One of her silver-polished nails raked across Riley's nose. He drew back his arm and slapped her. She cried out in pain.

Dexter hadn't counted on it being like this. He almost ran out from under the bushes to help her. But he thought of Riley and the gun. Dexter could barely breathe, his gut clenching like he was going to throw up, but he couldn't look away.

Riley pinned her down with one arm and moved between her legs. He covered her mouth and Tammy Lynn screamed into his palm. They struggled for a few seconds more before Riley shoved away from her. He stood and fastened his pants. Tammy Lynn was crying.

"I told you I loved you," Riley said, as if he were disgusted at some cheap toy that had broken. Then he looked at the laurels and winked, but Dexter saw that his hands were shaking. Dexter hoped they couldn't see him. The shiver in his stomach turned into a drumroll of tiny ice punches.

Tammy Lynn was wailing now. Her dress was bunched around her waist. Scraps of leaves stuck to her ankle socks. One of her shoes had fallen off.

"Works like magic," Riley said, too loudly, his voice a hoarse blend of triumph and fear. “I told you I loved you, didn’t I?”

He kicked some loose leaves toward her and walked down the trail. He would want Dexter to follow so he could crow about the conquest. But Dexter's muscles were jelly. He couldn't take his eyes away from Tammy Lynn.

She sat up, her sobs less forceful now. She slowly pushed her dress hem down to her knees, moving like one of those movie zombies. She stared at her fingers as if some tiny treasure had been ripped out of her hands. Tears streamed down her face, and a strand of blood creased one side of her chin. Her lower lip was swollen.

She stood on her skinny legs, wobbling like a foal. Her dress hung unevenly. She looked around the clearing with eyes that were too wide. Dexter shrank back under the laurels, afraid to be seen, afraid that he was supposed to help her and couldn’t.

Blood ran down her legs, the bright red streaks of it vivid against her skin. Drops spattered onto the leaves between her feet. She looked down and saw the blood and made a choking sound in her throat. She waved her hands in the air for a moment, then ran into the woods, not down the trail but in the direction of the road that bordered one side of the forest. She'd forgotten her shoe.

Dexter lifted himself from the ground and stared at the dark drops of blood. Rain began to fall, slightly thicker than the mist. He parted the waxy laurel leaves and stepped into the clearing.

Blood. Blood sacrifice. On Halloween, when anything could happen. The clearing was alive again, the sky waiting and the trees watching, the ground hungry.

Dexter felt dizzy, as if his head was packed with soggy cotton. He knelt suddenly and vomited. When his stomach was empty, he leaned back and let the rain run down his face. That way, Riley wouldn't be able to tell that he had been crying.

He looked down at the shoe for a moment, then stumbled down the trail toward home. He expected Riley to be waiting by the porch, the sleeves rolled up on his denim jacket, arms folded. But Riley was gone. Dexter went in the house.

"Hey, honey," Mom said, not looking up as the screen door slammed. She was watching a rerun of "Highway To Heaven."

"Find your rabbit?" she asked.

"No."

"Dinner will be ready soon."

"I'm not hungry. I'm going to my room."

“ You ain’t going trick-or-treat?”

“ I don’t want to.”

"You sick?" She glanced away from the television and looked at him suspiciously. The smell of old beer and the food scraps on the counter brought back Dexter's nausea.

"No. Just got some homework," he managed to lie through quivering lips.

"Homework, like hell. When you ever done homework? Your clothes are dirty. What have you been up to?"

"I fell at school. You know it was raining?"

"And me with laundry on the line," she said. As if it were the sky's fault, and there was nothing a body could do when the whole damned sky was against them. She looked back to the television, took two swallows of beer, and belched. He wondered what she would give out if any trick-or-treaters dared come down their dangerous street and knock on the door.

On the television screen, Michael Landon was sticking his nose into somebody else's business again. Dexter looked at the actor's smug close-up for a moment, then tiptoed to his room. His thoughts suffocated him in the coffin of his bed.

Maybe he should have picked up Tammy Lynn's shoe. Then he could give it back to her, even if he couldn't give back the other things. Like in Cinderella, sort of. But then she would know. And that was like fairy tale love, and Dexter didn’t ever want to love anything as long as he lived.

Anyway, Riley had a gun. He thought of Riley pointing the gun at him, that moment in the woods when he thought the tip of Riley’s boot would be the last thing he ever saw. The boot, the shoe, the blood. Dexter finally fell asleep to the sound of whatever movie Mom was using for a drinking buddy that night.

He dreamed of Tammy Lynn. She was splayed out beneath him in the clearing, the collar tight around her neck, the leash wrapped around his left fist. She was naked, but her features were formless, milky abstractions. He was holding his knife against her cheek. Her eyes were twin beggars, pools of scream, wet horror. He woke up sweating, his stomach shivery, his eyes moist. He’d wet the bed again.

Rain drummed off the roof. He thought of the blood, watered down and spreading now, soaking into the soil. Her blood sacrifice, the price she paid for love. He didn't get back to sleep.

He dressed just as the rain dwindled. By the time he went outside, the sun was fighting through a smudge of clouds. The air was as thick as syrup, and nobody stirred in the houses along the street. The whole world had a hangover.

Dexter went down the trail. He wasn't sure why. Maybe he wanted to relive the day before, the struggle, the tears, the drops of blood. Maybe he wanted to get the shoe.

Water fell off the green leaves overhead as he wound his way into the woods. His shirt was soaked by the time he reached the clearing. The forest was alive with dripping, flexing limbs, trees drinking and growing, the creek fat and muddy. A fungal, earthy stench hung in the air. He stepped into the clearing.

The ground was scarred with gashes of upturned soil. Brown holes. Empty. Where Dexter had buried the pets.

Blood sacrifice. Works like magic. Especially on Halloween.

Dexter tried to breathe. The shivering in his belly turned into a wooden knot.

Twigs snapped damply behind the stand of laurels where he had hid the day before.

No. Dead things didn't come back to life. That only happened in stupid movies.

Tammy Lynn’s shoe was gone. No way would she come back here. It had to be Riley, playing a trick. But how did Riley know where he had buried the animals?

He heard a whimpering gargle that sounded like a cross between a cluck and a growl, maybe a broken meow. The laurels shimmered. Something was moving in there.

"Riley?" he whispered hoarsely.

The gargle.

"Come on out, dickwit," he said, louder.

He saw a flash of fur, streaked and caked with dirt. He fled down the trail. His boots hardly touched the ground, were afraid to touch the ground, the ground that had been poisoned with blood magic. He thought he heard something following as he crossed into the yard, soft padding footfalls or slitherings in the brush, but his heart was hammering so hard in his ears that he couldn't be sure. He burst into the house and locked the door, then leaned with his back against it until he caught his breath.

Something thudded onto the porch, clattering along the wooden boards. Behind that sharp sound, a rattling like claws or thick toenails, came a dragging wet noise.

Clickety-click, sloosh. Clickety-click, sloosh.

It stopped just outside the door.

Dexter couldn't move.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" Mom stood under the archway leading into the kitchen. Her face was pinched, eyes distended, skin splotched. Greasy blades of hair clung to her forehead.

Dexter gasped, swallowed. "The-"

She scowled at him, her fists clenched. He knew this had better be good. "I was just out running."

"You're going to be the death of me, worrying me like that. Nothing but trouble." She rubbed her temples. Her smell filled the small room, sweetly pungent like a bushel of decaying fruit. Dexter put his ear to the door. The sounds were gone.

"What are you so pale for? You said you wasn't sick."

Dexter shrank away from her.

"Now get up off that floor. Lord knows, I got enough work around here already without putting you in three changes of clothes ever goddamned day."

Dexter slunk past her into the living room.

"Guess I'd better get that laundry in," Mom said to no one in particular. Her hand gripped the doorknob, and Dexter wanted to shout, scream, slap her away. But of course he couldn't. He could only watch with churning bowels as she opened the door and went outside. Dexter followed her as far as the screen door.

The porch was empty.

Of course it was. Monsters were for movies, or dumb stories. He was acting like a fourth grader. Stuff coming back from the dead? Horseshit, as Dad would say.

Still, he didn't go outside the rest of the evening, even though the sky cleared. Mom was in a better mood after the first six-pack. Dexter watched cartoons, then played video games for a while. He tried not to listen for clickety-sloosh.

One of Mom's boyfriends came over. It was the one with the raggedy mustache, the one who called Dexter "Little Man." Mom and the man disappeared into her bedroom, then Dexter heard arguing and glass breaking. The boyfriend left after an hour or so. Mom didn't come back out. Dexter went to bed without supper.

He lay there thinking about magic, about blood sacrifice. About the open graves in the pet cemetery that should have been filled with bones and decaying flesh and mossy fur and shaved whiskers and scales. He tried to erase his memory of the creature in the bushes, the thing that had followed him home. He couldn't sleep, even though he was worn from tension.

His eyes kept traveling to the cold glass between his curtains. The streetlight threw shadows that striped the bed, swaying like live things. He tried to tell himself that it was only the trees getting blown by the wind. Nothing was going to get him, especially not all those animals he'd dismembered. No, those animals had loved him. They would never hurt him.

He'd almost calmed himself when he heard the soft click of paws on the windowsill. It was the sound the cats had made when they wanted to be let in. Dexter's Mom wanted them out of the house, because of the hairballs and the stains they left in the corners. But Dexter always let them in at night to curl on top of the blankets at his feet. At least for a week or so, until he got tired of them.

But he didn't have any cats at the moment. So it couldn't be a cat at the window. Dexter pulled the blankets up to his eyes. Something bumped against the glass, moist and dull, like a nose.

No no no not a nose.

He wrapped the pillow around his ears. The noise was replaced by a rapid thumping against the outside wall. Dexter hunched under the blankets and counted down from a hundred, the way he did when he was six and Dad had first told him about the monsters that lived in the closet.

One hundred (no monsters), ninety-nine (no monsters), ninety-eight (no monsters)…

After three times through, he no longer heard the clickings or thumpings. He fell asleep with the blankets twisted around him.

Dexter awoke not knowing where he was. He sat up quickly and looked out the window. Nothing but sky and Sunday sunshine.

Dad picked him up that afternoon. Dexter had to walk down to the corner to meet him. He kept a close eye on the woods, in case anything stirred in the leaves. He thought he heard a scratching sound, but by then he was close enough to get inside the truck.

Dad looked past Dexter to the house. "My own goddamned roof," he muttered under his breath.

"Hi, Dad."

"I suppose she filled you up with all kinds of horseshit about me." His hands were clenched into fists around the steering wheel. Dexter knew what those fists could do. There had to be a way out, a way to calm him. Riley's words came to Dexter out of the blue: Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em.

Yeah. Works like magic. He'd seen how that turned out. Got you what you wanted, but somebody had to pay.

"She didn't say nothing."

"Any men been around?"

"Nobody. Just us. We… I miss you."

Dad's fists relaxed and he mussed Dexter's hair. "I miss you, too, boy."

Dexter wanted to ask when Dad was moving back in, but didn't want him to get angry again. Better not to mention Mom, or home, or anything else.

"What say we go down to the dump? Got me a new Ruger to break in." Dexter managed a weak smile as Dad pulled the truck away from the curb.

They spent the day at the landfill, Dexter breaking glass bottles and Dad prowling in the trash for salvage, shooting rats when they showed their pointy faces. Dexter felt no joy when the rodents exploded into red rags. Dad was a good shot.

They ate fastfood hamburgers on the way back in. It was almost dark when Dad dropped him off at the end of the street. Dexter hoped none of Mom's boyfriends were around. He opened the door to hop out, then hesitated, remembering the clickety-sloosh. He had managed to forget, to fool himself out under the clear sky, surrounded by filth and rusty metal and busted furniture. In the daytime, all the nightmares had dissolved into vapor.

Dexter looked toward the house with one hand still on the truck door. Dad must have figured he was reluctant to leave, that a son missed his father, and that no goddamned snotty-eyed bitch had a right to keep a father from his own flesh-and-blood. "It's okay. I'll see you again in a week or so," Dad said.

Dexter searched desperately for something to say, anything to put off that hundred-foot walk across the dark yard. "Dad?"

"What?"

"Do you love Mom?"

Dexter could see only Dad's silhouette against the background of distant streetlights. Crickets chirped in the woods. After a long moment, Dad relaxed and sighed. "Yeah. 'Course I do."

Dexter looked along the street, at the forest that seemed to creep up to the house's foundation. "You ever been scared?"

"We're all scared of something or other. Is something bothering you?"

Dexter shook his head, then realized Dad probably couldn't see him in the dark. "No," he said, then, "Do you believe in magic?"

Dad laughed, his throat thick with spittle. "What kind of horseshit has she been filling you up with?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

"The bitch."

"Guess I better go, Dad."

"Uh-huh."

"See you." He wanted to tell Dad that he loved him, but he was too scared.

"Say, whatever happened to that little puppy of yours?"

"Got runned over."

"Damn. I'll see Clem about getting you another."

"No, that's okay."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Bye now."

"Yeah."

Dexter stepped away from the truck and watched the tail-lights shrink as Dad roared away. The people in the few neighboring houses were plastered to the television. Blue light flickered from their living room windows. The trees were like tall skeletons with too many bones.

Leaves skittered across the road, scratching at the asphalt. A dog barked a few streets over. At least, it sounded like a dog. A good old red-blooded, living and breathing turd factory. Never hurt nobody, most likely.

He walked into the scraggly yard, reluctant to leave the cone of the last streetlight. He thought about going up the street and cutting across the other end of the yard, but that way was scary, too. The autumn forest hovered on every side. The forest with its clickety-sloosh things.

He tried to whistle as he walked, but his throat was dry, as if he had swallowed a spiderweb. He thought about running, but that was no good. In every stupid movie where dead things come back, they always get you if you run.

So he took long, slow steps. His head bent forward because he thought he could hear better that way. Halfway home. The lights were on in the kitchen, and he headed for the rectangle of light that stretched from the back door across the lawn.

He was twenty feet away from the safety of light when he heard it. Clickety-sloosh. But that wasn't all. The gargle was also mixed in, along with the tortured meow and the rustle of leaves. The noise was coming from behind a forsythia bush near the back steps. The thing was under the porch. In the place where Turd Factory had napped during sunny afternoons.

Dexter stopped.

Run for it? They always get you if you run. But, now that he thought about it, they always get you anyway. Especially if you were the bad guy. And Dexter was the bad guy. Maybe not as bad as Riley. But at least Riley knew about love, which probably protected him from bad things.

Yell for Mom? She was probably dead drunk on the couch. If she did step out on the porch, the thing would disappear. He was sure of that, because the thing was his and only his.

And if he yelled, he knew what would happen. Mom would turn on the porch light and see nothing, not even a stray hair, just a scooped-out dirt place behind the forsythia. And she'd say, "What the hell do you mean, waking up half the neighborhood because you heard something under the porch? They ain't nothing there."

And she'd probably slap him across the face. She'd wait until they were inside, so the neighbors wouldn't call Social Services. Maybe she'd use the buckle-end of the belt, if she was drinking liquor tonight instead of beer.

He took an uncertain step backward. Back to the curb, to the streetlights? Then what? You had to go home sometime. The thing gargled, a raspy mewling. It was waiting.

A monster that could disappear could do anything. Even if he ran to the road, the thing could clickety-sloosh out of the sewer grate, or pop out from behind one of the junk cars that skulked in the roadside weeds. The thing could drop from the limbs of that big red maple at the edge of the lawn. You can't fight blood magic when it builds a monster on Halloween.

He had a third choice. Walk right on up. Keep trying to whistle. Not scared at all. No-sirree. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.

And that was really the only choice. The thing wasn't going away. Dexter stepped into the rectangle of light and pursed his lips. He was still trying to whistle as he put his foot on the bottom step. Monsters weren’t real, were they?

The bush shook, shedding a few of its late yellow flowers. The gargle lengthened into a soughing purr. Dexter tried to keep his eyes on the door, the door that was splintered at the bottom where the puppy and cats had scratched to get inside. The door with its dented brass handle, the door with its duct-taped pane of glass, the door that opened onto the love and safety promised by the white light of home. The door became a blur, a shimmering wedge lost in his tears as the thing moved out from the shadows.

He closed his eyes and waited for the bite, the tearing of his blue jeans and shin meat, the rattle of tooth on bone. He stiffened in anticipation of cold claws to belly, hot saliva on rib cage, rough tongue to that soft place just underneath the chin.

Clickety-sloosh.

His heart skipped a beat and restarted. He was still alive. No pain yet. He tried to breathe. The air tasted like rusty meat.

Maybe it had disappeared. But he could hear it, panting through moist nostrils. Just beneath him. Close enough so that he could feel the wind of its mewling against his leg.

Savoring the kill? Just as Dexter had done, all those afternoons and Saturday mornings spent kneeling in the forest, with his pocket knife and his pets and his frightened lonely tears? He knew that fear was the worst part, the part that made your belly all puke-shivery.

He had to show his fear. That was only fair. He owed them that much. And if he looked scared enough, maybe the thing would have mercy, just rip open that big vein in his neck so he could die fast. Then the thing could clickety-sloosh on back into the woods, drag its pieces to the grave and bury its own bones.

Dexter tried to open his eyes but couldn't. Still the thing mewled and gargled. Waiting was the worst part. You could hold your breath, pray, scream, run. They always get you anyway.

Still he waited.

He blinked. The world was nothing but streaks, a gash of light, a fuzz of gray that was the house, a bigger fuzz of black night. Something nudged against his kneecap. He looked down, his chest hot as a brick oven.

It hadn't disappeared.

Two eyes met his. One round and dark, without a white, hooded by an exotic flap of skin. The other eye was heavy-lidded, yellow and reptilian.

Behind the eyes, lumps of meat sloping into a forehead. Ragged pink where the pieces met, leaking a thin jelly. Part fur, part feather, part scale, part exposed bone. A raw rooster comb dangled behind one misshapen ear.

Beneath the crushed persimmon of a nose were whiskers and wide lips, the lips parted to show teeth of all kinds. Puppy teeth, kitty fangs, fishy nubs of cartilage, orange bits of beak like candy corn.

Hulking out behind the massive dripping head were more slabs of tenderloin, breast and wing, fin and shell. The horrible coalition rippled with maggots and rot and magic.

The lump of head nuzzled against his leg. The juice soaked through his jeans.

Oh God.

He wanted the end to come quickly now, because he had given the thing his fear and that was all he had. He had paid what he owed. But he knew in the dark hutch of his heart that the thing wasn't finished. He opened his eyes again.

The strange eyes stared up into his. Twin beggars.

You had to let them feed. On fear or whatever else they needed.

Again the thing nuzzled, mewling wetly. Behind the shape, something slithered rhythmically against the leaves.

A rope of gray and black and tan fur. A broken tail.

Wagging.

Wagging.

Waiting and wanting.

Forgiving.

Dexter wept without shame. When the thing nuzzled the third time, he reached down with a trembling hand and stroked between the putrid arching ears.

Riley's voice came to him, unbidden, as if from some burning bush or darkening cloud: "Gotta tell 'em that you love 'em."

Dexter knelt, trembling. The thing licked under the soft part of his chin. It didn't matter that the tongue was scaly and flecked with forest dirt. And cold, grave cold, long winter cold.

When you let them love you, you owe them something in return.

He hugged the beast, even as it shuddered toward him, clickety-sloosh with chunks dribbling down. And still the tail whipped the ground, faster now, drumming out its affection.

Suddenly the yard exploded with light.

The back door opened. Mom stood on the porch, one hand on the light switch, the other holding her worn flannel robe closed across her chest. "What the hell's going on out here?"

Dexter looked up from where he was kneeling at the bottom of the steps. His arms were empty and dry.

"Don't just stand there with your jaw hanging down. You was supposed to be here an hour ago." Her voice went up a notch, both louder and higher. "Why, I've got a good mind to-"

She stopped herself, looking across the lawn at the houses down the street. Dexter glanced under the porch. He saw nothing in the thick shadows.

Mom continued, lower, with more menace. "I've got a good mind to take the belt to you."

Dexter stood and rubbed the dirt off his pants.

"Now get your ass in here, and don't make me have to tell you twice."

Dexter looked around quickly at the perimeter of forest, at the black thickets where the thing would hide until Mom was gone. He went up the steps and through the door, past her hot drunken glare and stale breath. He shuffled straight to his room and closed the door. The beating would come or it wouldn't. It didn't matter.

That night, when he heard the scratching at the windowsill and the bump against the glass, he opened the window. The thing crawled inside and onto the bed. It had brought him a gift. Riley’s bloody boot. When you loved something, it owed you in return. Maybe it had carried the other one to Tammy Lynn’s house, where it might have delivered her lost shoe on Halloween, the night of its birth. To thank her for the gift of blood.

The nightmare creature curled at Dexter’s feet, licking at the boot. The thing’s stench filled the room, bits of its rotted flesh staining the blankets. Dexter didn’t sleep that night, listening to the mewling rasp of the creature’s breathing, wondering where the mouth was, knowing that he’d found a friend for life.

And tomorrow, when he got off the bus, the thing would greet him. It would wait until the bus rolled out of sight, then drag itself from the woods and rub against his leg, begging to be stroked. It would lick his face and wait for his hug.

And together they would run deep between the trees, Dexter at one end of the leash, struggling to keep up while the thing clickety-slooshed about and buried its dripping nose in the dirt, first here, then there. Once in a while into the creek, to wet its dangling gills. Stopping only to gaze lovingly at its master, showing those teeth that had done something bad to Riley and could probably do it again.

Maybe if Dexter fed its hunger for affection, it wouldn’t have a hunger for other things.

Dexter would give it what it needed, he would feed it all he had. Through autumn’s fog and into the December snows, through long spring evenings and into summer's flies. A master and its pet.

You owe them that much.

That’s just the way love is.

They always get you anyway.