Dismember

TWENTY

Trevor sat on the sofa and watched his daddy smother the two hot dogs with ketchup and mustard. He wrinkled his nose.

Daddy looked up at him, licking a yellow gob from the tip of his finger. “What’s the matter?”

“You’re stinking up those hot dogs,” he said, plugging his nose with his fingers.

“You think so?”

Trevor nodded vigorously. “Uh huh. They taste way better just plain.”

“Well,” Daddy said, “you might not always feel that way.” He bit a mouthful from the end of one of the dogs and munched.

“Yes-huh,” Trevor said. “I wouldn’t ever eat those. Not for a million dollars.”

“Your loss.” Daddy ripped off another giant bite with his teeth, and a big fat drop of orange goop splattered onto the plate in his lap.

Trevor mimed gagging and then pulled away in real terror when his daddy leaned toward him, holding the half-eaten hot dog in one hand and making scary ghost sounds.

“Quit it,” he said, giggling now that he was out of range.

Daddy set the dog on his plate and wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “You got a movie picked out?”

Trevor shrugged. “Nope.” Out of the corner of his eye, he peeked at the pile of forgotten mail on the coffee table.

Daddy turned sideways in his seat to look at the small bookshelf where they kept their few videos and DVDs. Trevor would never tell his daddy, but sometimes he liked it better at Mommy’s house. She had lots more movies, and more books, and her sofa was soft and huge and comfy. Daddy’s sofa was hard, and if you sat on it wrong you sometimes felt the springs poking you in the bottom.

Daddy looked over the movies and smiled. On the other hand, Trevor guessed DVDs and couches didn’t really matter. If his daddy had been there, Trevor would have spent the weekend in a cardboard box.

Besides, Mommy didn’t do the mail thing with him, and she didn’t like to ride bikes, and her yard was so small you could hardly play in it without the neighbors coming out to shoo you away.

“How bout Back to the Future?” Daddy said.

That was one of Trevor’s favorites. He thought he must have watched it about a zillion times, and he wouldn’t mind watching it again tonight. But not yet. “Daddy,” he said.

Daddy looked back at him.

“Can we do the mail first?”

“Ohhh,” Daddy said, slapping his leg. “I almost forgot.” He picked up his hot dog again, jammed the chewed end between his lips, and waved his hand in a way that Trevor knew meant he could go ahead and start.

Trevor leaned over and took the stack of mail in both hands. Trevor had let Daddy think the mail thing was just a game, something fun to do, but to Trevor it was more serious than that. It gave him a chance to practice reading hard words—not the easy ones like dog and cat and run from his readers—but it wasn’t only the reading. The mail game, really, gave Trevor a chance to see if Daddy got the same kinds of latefees Mommy did.

He mouthed the words in the top-left corner of the first envelope for a few seconds before saying, “Discover Card.”

“Credit Card Junker,” said Daddy, which was part of the game Trevor had let him create. Credit Card Junkers were immediately crumpled into a ball and tossed into the nearest trashcan. Trevor squeezed the envelope between his hands until he’d turned it into a wad about the size of a baseball and threw it one-handed toward the trashcan beside the television on the other side of the room.

“Swish,” Daddy said and put down the hot dog long enough to give Trevor a quick little clap. “Next.”

Trevor recognized this one. It was from Chase.

When Trevor read off the name, Daddy said, “Bill,” and Trevor blew a raspberry at the little plastic window on the front. Just another part of the game. He handed the bill to his daddy, who tossed it unopened onto his side of the coffee table.

The next was a catalog from Victoria’s Secret, which Trevor used to think was a kind of comic book for grown-ups. Victoria’s Secret, he knew now, was an underwear store for mommies. The catalog went in the trash too, and Trevor knew he shouldn’t look inside it because it wasn’t nice to look at other people’s mommies in their underwear. He threw it at the trashcan but missed by a mile.

“Oops,” said Daddy. “Airball.”

Trevor hopped off the couch and picked up the catalog. In its trip through the air, the cover had flopped open, and before Trevor could get it closed again, he saw a blonde-haired lady with no bra, covering her upstairs privates with her arm. Her strange pink undies reminded him of the holey, spider-web-like things his mom called doilies. Did his mom wear these kinds of undies? He didn’t know. Anytime he’d ever accidentally seen her in her underwear, they’d been the regular kind, similar to his own except smoother and without the pictures. He guessed maybe Daddy knew, but he didn’t ask.

There was one more bill, another catalog (this one from a hat store, which seemed silly because his daddy never wore hats), and two more Credit Card Junkers. Trevor threw away all but the second bill, missing the trashcan only once more. As far as he could tell, there had been no latefees, and that was good.

Daddy had finished his first hot dog and started on the second. He had some ketchup on the dip between his bottom lip and his chin, which was icky and funny at the same time. Daddy bit into the second dog, and Trevor realized he was maybe a little hungry, too. Not for ketchupy, mustardy hot dogs, of course—he’d rather eat boogers—but they’d talked about popcorn earlier. Some hot, buttery popcorn sounded tasty and a half.

While his dad finished eating, Trevor took the Back to the Future DVD from its case and inserted it into the player on the shelf beneath the television. While the menu screen loaded, he went into the kitchen and pawed through the cabinet beside the stove until he found the half-full box of popcorn. Butter-flavored, which he liked, but not the movie-theater kind, which he liked more. Still, his mouth was watering already. He took a single pack and pushed the rest of the box back into the cupboard, accidentally knocking a can of olives off their shelf and into a frying pan. The can clanged against the pan and rattled to a stop.

“Everything okay?” Daddy asked from the living room.

“Yes.” He re-shelved the can and ripped the plastic off the popcorn.

“Let me know if you need some help,” said Daddy.

But Trevor didn’t need any help. It was just popcorn, and he wasn’t a little baby. He stood on his tiptoes to stick the bag in the microwave and pushed the button marked with the steaming popcorn bag. One nice thing about Daddy’s house was that the microwave was extra easy to use.

He was watching the microwave door when the face popped into the window on the other side of the room. He saw it only as a reflection, the way you saw yourself when you were brushing your teeth in the bathroom, but somehow that made it even scarier. For one terrible second, he thought he would make another mess in his pants. He had just enough time to think how bad that would be, twice in one day, and then the window broke and he was screaming.

Dave crept across the porch feeling like he’d stumbled into a tanning salon.

What was with all the lights?

On the floorboards around him, a splotchy, black puddle of shadows spread like spilled ink. His shadows, all starting at his feet and leaking away from him in different directions. Dave wondered momentarily at the physics of being at once both bathed in light and steeped in shadows, but gave up on the thought after very little real consideration. He didn’t care about the damn shadows, he just wanted the boy, and the lights meant the Pullmans had finally come home.

Things might not be working out as he’d originally intended, but he was making due.

He felt heat at his back and found red-hot coals in the grill pushed to the corner of the porch. Dinnertime. Hot dogs, from the smell of it. Little bits of meat still sizzled on the blackened grill.

Georgie and Manny stood in the grass on the other side of the porch railing. Dave looked at the boy and motioned for him to stay put. Georgie said nothing, made no returning gesture, only stood there with the leash twisted around his fingers and wrist and his hair blowing in the night breeze. His head had stopped bleeding, but his forehead and nose had turned black with the blood he’d already spilled. Dave wondered if he had any antiseptic back home. He’d have to get the boy thoroughly cleaned up.

On the grass beside Georgie, Manny looked from Dave to the boy before plopping down on his belly.

“Good boy,” Dave whispered and turned back to the house. He pulled one of the knives from his pants.

Dave pressed his face up against the nearest screen window, feeling the mesh material rub away at the caked blood on his nose. Inside, the boy stood in front of the microwave and watched popcorn through the small viewing window.

Dave watched Davy, thinking how strange it felt to spy on yourself, to see your replacement before he knew that’s what he was.

He could have stood there and watched for hours—it wouldn’t have been the first time—but his watching days had ended. He slammed the butt of his knife into the glass, and it tinkled across the kitchen floor inside.

Davy screamed. Dave smiled. He used the business end of the knife to cut out the screen and brushed away the remaining shards of glass. He hoisted himself up and through the shattered window and past the billowing curtains.

Where was the man? Daddy Pullman? Dave moved to grab the boy before things could get complicated, but the little sucker moved fast, and Dave slipped on the mess of glass with his first attempted step. If he had fallen, he might very well have impaled himself on his knife, ended everything right then and there when he was only halfway done, but he managed to throw out his hands and catch his balance. The glass beneath him cracked, crumbled, as if he were walking across the surface of a mostly frozen pond.

The smell of popcorn filled the small kitchen. The microwave whirred and kernels popped. He turned his head just enough to see the collection of crayon drawings on the refrigerator. He’d made those. Or rather, the new him had.

In the other room, he heard frantic scrambling, the sound of some heavy piece of furniture scooting across a bare floor. Tearing his eyes away from the drawings and cursing himself for losing his concentration, he pulled out his second knife and hurried into the doorway between the two rooms.

The Pullmans were gone.

Mike had never believed in the kind of instinct you read about in books and saw in the movies. In his football days, he’d learned to go with his gut, to dive right when he sensed the ball might head that direction, or to jump just before an opposing player dove for his legs, but that had been a cause-and-effect thing, reflexes more than instinct, movements he could perform only because he’d honed his body and his senses, but more importantly because he’d been a kid—sixteen, seventeen years old—and in his prime.

You sensed things, you reacted. Nothing more.

But on that night, hearing the sounds of breaking glass and Trevor screaming, Mike was on his feet and alert before his brain could possibly have registered the oncoming trouble, as if he’d been granted the temporary gift of precognition.

Trevor scurried into the room like he was on the run from a pack of wild dogs, and Mike didn’t hesitate. He pushed the coffee table out of the way, almost knocking over the TV, which wobbled dangerously before coming to rest pointing off at an angle. He was already running when he jerked Trevor off his feet and squeezed him to his chest. Behind him, whether because it had come unplugged or simply broken, the TV darkened, the Back to the Future menu fading into nothingness like a DeLorean doing eighty-eight miles an hour.

Mike carried his still-screaming son out of the living room and down the hall to his bedroom, the only room in the house with a lock. Trevor’s arms clutched Mike’s neck so tightly that for a second he couldn’t breathe. He reached up a hand and clamped it over Trevor’s mouth, not really understanding why, just wanting to keep the boy quiet, keep him from giving away their position.

Giving away their position? The thought was crazy. They weren’t at war. Yet still Mike ran, closing the bedroom door quietly behind them.

Locked inside the room, temporarily safe from whoever or whatever had invaded the house, Mike pried away the boy’s arms and sucked in a long breath.

Whoever was in the house? Whatever? What was wrong with him?

Maybe he had gone crazy. Couldn’t it have been a bird or a bat breaking through the window? Trevor had freaked out a little, and Mike could understand that (he probably would have done the same thing), but surely they’d overreacted a bit, the two of them locked in the bedroom and hiding from some unseen presence like a couple of idiot characters in a horror movie.

Except, as his brain caught up with his body, he realized he wasn’t crazy, that he’d simply reacted to something he only just now fully registered: footsteps.

Someone (or maybe more than one someone) had broken into the house, and he or she or they were moving this way.

Trevor whined, and Mike shushed him more harshly than he’d intended. Before the boy could start crying, Mike took him by the hand and led him to the other side of the room, to the window.

“Listen,” he said. He grabbed Trevor’s shoulder and used his other hand to hold the boy’s chin, making sure he was looking at him. “I want you to go to my workshop, okay? Don’t turn on the lights. Just go inside and wait for me to come get you.” He waited for some sign of understanding. “Okay?”

Finally, Trevor nodded.

Mike opened the window and pushed the drapes aside. The screen came off easily enough, but Mike didn’t bother easing it out of the frame, chose instead to simply kick it free. He could deal with the repairs later. Right now, he had more important things than window screens to worry about.

He lifted Trevor through the window, leaned his head out after him, and whispered, “The garage. Go now.”

For a moment, Trevor simply stood there, not moving, maybe in shock, maybe confused, certainly scared.

The footsteps came to the door and stopped just outside.

“Trevor, please.” Mike reached out a hand and prodded his son in the back.

After one last second of uncertainty, Trevor looked back at Mike and ran.

Behind Mike, the door burst open.

Zach considered letting the dog go. If he did, at least the animal would have the chance to return home, to run back to the girl whose nose the crazy guy had ruined. But Zach had no way of knowing what the dog would do. What if it ran into the house instead? And what if Crazy Dave realized something was going on before Zach could sneak up behind him? He couldn’t risk that, so he tied the dog’s leash to the porch railing with a good strong knot, promising him it wouldn’t be for long.

“We’ll get you home,” he said. “Just be quiet for me, okay?”

He didn’t expect the dog to understand, fully prepared himself for a barrage of barking the second he’d gone out of sight, but the dog almost seemed to comprehend the situation. At any rate, he didn’t bark, and Zach scrambled onto the porch and into the kitchen through the broken window still owning the element of surprise.

The kitchen smelled like popcorn, and Zach’s stomach growled against his will. He’d hardly eaten all day, couldn’t remember what, if anything, he’d had for lunch. He resisted the urge to open the microwave door, though the popcorn smell was obviously coming from inside, and it wouldn’t have taken him long to swallow a couple of mouthfuls. He had a chance to end this, to save himself and possibly others. He looked away from the microwave.

He moved as quietly as he could, for the most part dodging the scattered chunks of glass underfoot.

When he’d taken the knife from the girl’s kitchen, he’d tucked it into the waistband of his pants with the handle jammed between his buttocks and the wide blade flush against his spine. Now, walking through this second kitchen, he could have kicked himself.

A mile through the dark woods, a butcher knife centimeters away from shredding his innards, and for what? He could have grabbed a knife from one of these drawers just as easily .

But, of course, he’d had no way of knowing that. At the time, grabbing the knife had been a last-ditch effort at some kind of backup plan. For all he knew, it might have been the last time the psycho left him alone for days, or weeks, or ever.

If only someone would have picked up the dang phone. I was so close to getting real help.

He pulled up his shirt far enough to remove the concealed weapon, pulled the knife free and held it out in front of him with both hands like it was some sort of huge, heavy sword rather than a simple kitchen utensil. Where was everyone?

He stepped into the living room. The coffee table was pushed away from where it should have been. A couple of envelopes lay crinkled on the floor, a dirty shoe print on one and what could have been bright blood on the other.

He heard a loud bang from the other end of the house and thought, gunshot. At this point, he was pretty sure Davy didn’t have a gun, but maybe this Pullman guy had surprised Davy with both barrels of a shotgun. Could his abductor be lying gut shot right now against a hallway wall?

Probably not.

Zach’s sweaty hands slid around the knife’s handle, so slippery he was sure he’d drop the thing before he could ever use it. He moved from the living room to the narrow hallway leading off it. Splintered wood littered the floor ahead.

“Ggaahhhhh.”

Somehow, although it was just a strange sound that could have come from anyone, Zach knew it had not come from Davy. Screwing up what courage he had left, he ran for the doorway, holding the knife out in front of him, screaming a war cry and not even realizing it.

Dave’s foot tingled as the door flew open, and he had enough time to wonder if maybe he’d broken a toe.

The man at the window turned to face him, his eyes wide and his whole body trembling.

The boy was gone.

Dave saw the open window and rolled his eyes. Didn’t anybody ever just give up?

“Where’d he go?” he asked and advanced on the man with the knives pointed out from his hips like a pair of revolvers.

Pullman said nothing, but when Dave came close enough, the man threw a wild punch that hit Dave right in the space between his eye and his ear. Light flashed in Dave’s head, and for a second he thought he was back out on the porch. He shook himself and growled. Then, before anything worse could happen, he growled and plunged one of the knives into Pullman.

The blade ripped into Mike’s side just above his left hipbone. He felt heat and electricity, as if he’d been wounded not by a hunting knife but with some futuristic ray gun. The intruder pulled the knife back, grinning. It dripped Mike’s blood.

He tried to stay on his feet, but the combination of shock and agonizing pain brought him to his knees.

So this was it. The man swung the second knife into view, and Mike wondered how many cuts it took before you stopped sensing the pain.

When the slender young boy came running through the door with his own gleaming blade poked out in front of him, Mike wanted to scream, No. Get away, Trevor.

Except he wasn’t Trevor. He wasn’t his son. Mike didn’t know who in the hell he was.

Zach felt the butcher knife glance off Davy’s rib and knew he’d screwed it up.

Davy still screamed, but when Zach tried sticking the man with the knife again, Davy knocked the knife out of Zach’s hand and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.

Mike screamed.

Dave screamed.

Zach screamed.

And that’s when things got really crazy.