Codey wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his grease-covered hand
and swallowed a swig of syrupy sweet soda. The drink was warm, having lost its chill ten minutes after he pulled it
from the cooler in the nearby office. The hot August sun glared in from the open south west side of the long machine
shed. Codey glanced at the tractors lined along the far side of the driveway. The red paint showed dull
with a coating of dust from the dry and powdery road. Heat radiated from the earth in quivering waves and judging from
the smoldering air around him, Codey decided the steel building did little to insulate against the sun.
His brother Brett stood at the back of the machine
shed. He tightened a metal bar into the vice and sang just a tad off tune to the country song emitting from the boom
box hung above the workbench. Codey didn't care for the choice of music and the lack of bass in the radio only exaggerated
the twang of the guitars and the man's voice. He wouldn't complain though. Brett had the seniority.
Codey set the soda down on the hood of a nearby
pickup and walked back to the dump truck he had worked on for the past thirty minutes. He stepped up on the filthy tire,
leaned in under the hood, and stretched down to reach the bolts holding the junk starter in place. He had coated the
grime covered bolts with cleaner and figured enough time had gone by for the liquid to penetrate the grunge. He picked
up the wrench he'd been using and again slipped it over the stubborn bolt.
"Any luck over there yet?" Brett said.
Codey glanced at his brother and shook his head.
He gripped the wrench and yanked. It barely budged. On the second try the bolt spun loose and Codey cracked his
right hand against the frame. Sharp sparks of pain exploded into his fingers. The wrench fell through the engine
and landed with a reverberating clang on the floor. Codey swore and jumped down, cradling his throbbing appendage against
his chest.
"It's loose," he said. He tried to shake
the pain from his hand.
"Damn Codey, didn't mean for you to maim yourself
over it." Brett said. He chuckled.
"Very funny," Codey said. "That's why you
stuck me with this job."
He inspected his soiled hand and watched blood
bubble from a gash low on the side of his thumb. Scarlet paths streaked to his palm, filled the creases in his skin,
and dripped to the floor.
His vision grew fuzzy and his stomach sickened.
He saw a butchered and bloody hand. The webbing between the thumb and index finger was split back to the bone.
Blood gushed from the wound and poured onto a yellowed linoleum floor.
Codey leaned against the bumper of the truck and
shuddered. He stared down at the cement floor at his feet, half expecting to see the imagined hand, but he saw only
droplets of his own blood mixed with dirt and oil. He struggled to recall where he'd seen the mutilated hand but the
information hid from him in the shadows of his mind. He wondered if maybe it was his mother's hand. She had been
murdered.
"Hey, you okay?" Brett said. He squinted
his bright blue eyes, thumped the pipe wrench down on the workbench, and adjusted his greasy, yellow cap to shade his face.
Codey watched Brett walk to him but couldn't say
anything. He toyed with the idea of asking Brett if their mother's hand had been cut, but then thought better of it.
As far as anyone knew Codey hadn't seen his mother the evening she was murdered. Codey himself couldn't remember if
he had.
"Nothing," he managed to say. "It's nothing.
Fine."
Brett pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped
his hands.
"Yeah, well you don't look fine. Let me see."
"It's nothing, just a cut. I'll live, honest."
Brett inspected the wound. Codey watched
his brother, a man he had met only two years before. He had known Brett and the oldest brother, Vincent, as boys
but he'd been only five when his parents moved to Chicago, Illinois leaving the two oldest brothers behind in Pennsylvania
with their grandmother. He didn't see them again until two weeks after his parents were found murdered. Now Brett
was little more than a stranger who could be his twin except he was four years older and had blue eyes instead of brown.
They both shared the chiseled, boyish characteristics they inherited from their father.
"It's pretty deep. You should get it cleaned
out. I'll see if Stevie has a first-aid kit up at the house."
"No way," Codey said. He dabbed the wound
on his grease-blackened jeans. "See, the bleeding's slowing already."
Brett grinned. "She doesn't bite."
"Not you, maybe, and I'm fine."
Brett shrugged. He turned and walked back
to the workbench.
"It's getting late anyway, why don't you head home.
I'll finish up here and swing by the grocery store."
Codey nodded and walked from the building without
another word. He shuffled to his 1980 Monte Carlo feeling the aches in his thighs and arms. He had parked his
car along the west side of the machine shed and now the lowering sun shined its hot rays through the open window and onto
the maroon interior. He climbed in, smelled peppermint air freshener, and gingerly tested the temperature of the keys.
They felt hot but not painfully so. He started the engine and glanced up the hill before him where a rutted tractor
road marked the end of a cut, sunburned hay field and a cornfield full of wilted and browning stalks. The scorching
heat had come on the heels of a drought and the crops weren't faring well.
Codey drove home over the uneven, tar and chipped,
township road he had traveled for the past two years, yet it still seemed unfamiliar. He turned onto the shaded driveway.
Tall maple and oak trees shot up from the underbrush of tangled and twisted chokecherry bushes. The air felt a little
cooler under the shelter of the trees and the sun's rays were already stifled for the evening. He drove up the hill
and around a gentle curve to the house he slept in. He parked in the leaning three car shed at the west of the two-story
house and walked the short distance of weedy yard between the two buildings. His body ached and his back felt like a
twisted mound of exposed nerve endings as it usually did after a long day at the farm.
He let himself inside the front door and stepped
directly into the dining room. The house was eerily quiet except for the chirping of the birds drifting through the
open windows. The tangy scent of last night's marinated steaks still hung in the humid air. Codey glanced over
the furnished dining room and adjoining kitchen. The island separating the two rooms was cluttered with papers and magazines,
but the table and the counters around the sink were spotless. The china cabinet at his left was filled with pristine,
white china and a silver tea set, all reminiscent of his grandmother, a woman he could only faintly call to mind.
A slight breeze touched the green curtains covering
the window above the sink in the far corner of the room. Codey watched them and remembered a kitchen with sunny-yellow
curtains. He forced the knowledge from his mind, yanked off his work boots, and tossed them down the stairs in front
of him to the stone cellar. They thumped on the third step and came to rest on the rough floor. Codey closed the
door, strode through the carpeted kitchen, and crept up the narrow steps and back the hall to the bathroom just outside the
bedroom he shared with Brett. After opening the slats on the blind over the window, he stood at the sink and stared
at his tired reflection in the mirror. His dark brown eyes were blood shot and his black hair was streaked with dust.
He turned on the water in the shower beside the sink, not bothering to close the plastic curtain, and hoped the pounding of
the water would divert his thoughts.
He knew he didn't belong here. He wanted
to go back to the house with the sunny-yellow curtains and yellowed linoleum floor. It was the house he had lived in
with his parents in Chicago.
He shuffled to his room and switched on the stereo
above the chest of drawers between the two windows. He glanced out at the shed as he sorted through a pile of CDs and
chose Vertical Horizon. After turning up the volume and adjusting the equalizer, he returned to the bathroom.
He hoped the music would drown out his frame of mind. The refined sound of the guitar with the beat of the drums and
the suave voice of the lead singer filled his head.
He pulled off his filthy clothes and climbed into
the white porcelain tub. The cool, sweet, spring water felt as smooth as lotion on his tanned skin. He dunked
his head under the flow. The sound of the music distorted and his ears roared. He lathered up with fresh smelling
soap, rinsed, and stepped out feeling a little more human again. At the sink, he gingerly cleaned the edges of lacerated
skin on his thumb. Blood began to flow again. He resisted the memory of the mutilated hand and shoved aside toothpaste,
deodorant, and over-the-counter pain killers before he found the few remaining bandage strips. He covered his wound and dried
off with the towel still damp from his morning shower. In his room he dressed in an old pair of blue jeans full of more
holes than fabric, and stretched out on the bed. The music drilled into his mind, dulling his thoughts, but they still
raced on. He knew he couldn't stay in this house much longer, but he had six more months before he turned eighteen.
After his birthday he could return to Chicago and again start playing in the band with his best friend Jory. He didn't
belong in the life his brothers had dragged him into, but he wasn't certain he could belong in the life he had had in the
city before his parents' deaths either.
The loss of his mother had left an ache in his
soul. His memories of her were beginning to fade from his mind, eaten by the black cloud concealing so much of his past
including most everything about his father. He struggled to hold onto her in this place she had grown up in, but everything
he knew of her here was second-hand knowledge.
The guilt he felt over not missing his father also
nagged at him. He remembered very little about the man except an attitude of inadequacy and resentment. He'd never
understood why his dad split up the family for the factory job in Chicago. It had lasted only a few years and after
it fell through his father had made no attempts to return to Pennsylvania. Codey thought maybe things would have been
better if they had moved back, but now he was here and somehow it wasn't right. He rolled onto his side and gazed
out the window to the maple tree so large it blocked the windows from the boiling sun. The room was still stuffy hot.
Sweat beaded on his chest and forehead.
The heat had persisted for more than a week.
At night the temperatures only retreated into the seventies. Codey hadn't slept well because of it, and he was certain
sleep deprivation played a rule in his deteriorating control of his feelings. He turned from the window and covered
his eyes with his forearm. A new song began. He fought to concentrate on the tune, but the image of the mutilated
hand returned and he knew he was remembering his mother's hand. His heart plummeted to his stomach. He didn't
know how he could have seen his mother's hand in such a state unless he had been there when she was killed.
He couldn't remember the hour and a half surrounding
his parents' murders. He knew he had left Jory's studio near six o'clock with his guitar. His next recollection
was of sitting on a park bench at the opposite side of town. He had no idea how he got there, and of course the cops
hadn't believed him.
Jory told the cops Codey hadn't left until six-thirty
and claimed Codey forgot his guitar at home. Later, Codey discovered his guitar was found in the kitchen where his mother
lay dead. He didn't know how it got there, and he didn't know why Jory gave him the alibi. He decided he would
ask him the next time they talked.
The music clicked off.
"What the hell are you trying to do?" Vince's voice
boomed.
Codey jumped up and stared into Vincent's wide,
pale eyes. His pounding heart quieted.
"I was listening to that," he said.
"And vibrating the whole house. You didn't
even hear me yelling."
Codey sat back down on the unmade bed but didn't
give his brother the satisfaction of an answer.
"What are you doing home so early anyway, and where's
Brett?" Vince said.
"He went to the store, and I could ask you the
same thing, it's still daylight."
Vince combed his fingers through his brown hair.
He wore his construction uniform and was covered in drywall dust and specks of plaster.
"I've got to get a shower, Laura's coming."
Codey covered his face with his hands and his neck
muscles tightened despite his efforts to stay relaxed. He knew why Vince was home so early. He and Laura had a
date. Codey looked at his calloused palms and at the clean bandages. Red showed behind the flesh colored plastic.
"What'd you do to your hand?"
"Nothing, just busted it off a truck."
"It's still bleeding, let me see."
Vince took him by the wrist and yanked one side
of each bandage up before Codey could protest. Codey pulled back.
"It's deep, looks like you need stitches."
"Does not," Codey said. He smoothed the bandages
down.
"It's not going to stop bleeding unless it's stitched."
"I've seen a lot more cuts than you and I'm saying
it doesn't need anything, it'll be fine."
"It's not my fault you got yourself tangled up
with the gang, and if you would've gotten stitches, the scars you have wouldn't be so bad."
Codey's temples thumped. He glanced at the
rough, pale skin stretching six inches from his left shoulder to his chest, but he didn't bother telling Vince most of his
scars hadn't come from the three years he hung with the gang. He couldn't remember exactly where he had gotten them
though.
He stood and picked up a t-shirt from the floor
under the window. He plucked his keys from his work jeans by the bedroom door and started down the hallway.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Out," Codey said.
He heard Vince's heavy footfalls behind him.
"Oh, no you don't. Not without Brett."
Codey skipped down the steps. The ache in
his neck and temples grew stronger and threatened to explode into a full-blown migraine.
"I don't need Brett to follow me all over," he
said.
"You got away with your running around with Mom
and Dad, but you will not do it here under my roof," Vince said. "I don't know how you could've treated them so rotten--"
Codey spun on one heel to face his brother.
"There's nothing wrong with me leaving this hell hole for a while without an escort." He clenched his fists and struggled
to keep his voice low.
Vince's eyes glistened like ice with a hint of
blue. He pressed his lips into a broad line and his faint sunburn grew brighter.
"Except for the fact I don't trust you," he said.
His tone was low and strained.
The screen door squeaked and Codey turned to see
Laura Colvin. She wore a pink, short-sleeved dress and her brown hair was pulled neatly into a French-braid. She
slowly stepped inside and let the door fall shut. She studied Vince with her hazel eyes then surveyed Codey.
"I'm sorry. Bad timing isn't it?" she said.
Codey glared at Vince and licked his lips.
"No, perfect timing, Vince never acts like a jerk
when you're around."
Codey strode by Laura and shoved open the screen
door. It banged against the siding and slammed shut. He jumped from the porch and stomped to his car. He
climbed in, started the engine, and stared at the back wall of the shed. The weathered wood was covered with hanging
mismatched shovels, wrenches, bright orange power cords, and even a couple baseball bats. His car hummed softly.
The exhaust fumes crawled in through the passenger window.
Codey glanced at the fuel gauge. He had less
than a half tank to last him a week. The big 350 engine with the four barrel carburetor wasn't the easiest on gas.
He glanced at the wall again and came to the realization he had no place to go. He cut the engine and pulled his keys
free.
Without Brett, he had nothing to do. He had
no friends here other than his brother. He climbed from the car and stared into the shadow-darkened woods across the
driveway. Brush and young trees edged the lane. At the corner of the yard a monstrous Hemlock stood out from the
undergrowth and surrounding deciduous trees to stab the evening sky with its deep-green, pine needles. He stepped from
the building and walked away from the house. He pushed past a scraggly chokecherry bush and stepped into decaying leaves
and rich humus. Sticks cracked under his shoes. The air felt stifling hot and motionless and held a strong scent
of decomposing wood and hot, dry dirt. He hopped over a dribbling stream and sat down on a fallen tree.
Birds flitted from limb to limb, their songs quieting
for the day. The crickets increased their volume. The chatter seemed to echo from every leaf and weed. Tiny,
yellow-green lights flickered on and off as fireflies zigzagged around trees and through the thickening gloom.
He picked at the calluses on the palm of his left
hand. The tightness in his muscles didn't fade as he had hoped. Instead, he grew even more edgy. He stood,
finally unable to sit still any longer. Moving only his eyes, he scanned the woods. Shadows slithered from tree
trunks all around him. He turned back to the yard. The house was out of sight except for the flicker of the outside
lamp from behind layers of leaves. He took a few steps. Dry foliage snapped under him. The humid air hung
like a cloak over his shoulders.
He moved toward the house knowing full well no
one other than Vince and Laura was around, and he doubted either of them would trek beyond the mowed lawn. The only
break in the woods for a mile or more in all directions, besides the house and the township road, was an abandoned vacation
home. The rocky hillsides and deep ravines in the mountains made most of the land around the house unreachable except
by foot, horseback, or ATV.
He stepped over the creek again and was struck
with an eerie, crawling feeling. Someone was there. Just out of sight. A swift isolated breeze rushed past
him. He thought he heard a whisper. The air around him seemed to plummet in temperature, raising goose bumps on
his arms. The breeze whispered, "Beware."
Codey's heart raced and his breaths grew shallow
and quick. He gulped thick air and felt sweat drip from his forehead. He stepped into the yard and didn't look
back.
***
Jay watched from the shadows as the door closed
and blocked his view of the boy. He held his body rigid next to a tall, rough, hemlock tree just inside the woods.
The sap seeping from the bark generated a strong pine smell certain to cloak his scent from the human nose. A cloud
of gnats hovered in the air beside him. A few had flown into his face and danced around his eyes. They had helped
to conceal him, he was sure. He didn't know what chased Codey away so soon, but he wouldn't let it upset him.
He would have many more chances to speak with Codey.
Our plan will work well, Belial said. The
boy is obviously troubled, more so than we hoped.
Jay nodded but didn't speak to his least-favored
demon. Belial was too calm and soft spoken most times, even when Jay desperately needed his evilness. But Belial
ranked high and close to Lucifer, making him powerful and pleasingly dangerous even if Jay could never be sure of the demon's
true intent.
Jay preferred to deal with Asmodeus, the first
demon he had called upon. Asmodeus was the demon of revenge. Quick and wicked revenge was exactly what Jay wanted
to accomplish, but Belial had intervened with a deal Jay could not ignore although he knew it would take every bit of his
patience and will power to complete.
Only the strong are rewarded, Jay. Quit wallowing
in self-pity, Belial said.
Jay stiffly wiped the sweat from his temple with
his jacket cuff. He turned from the house and traipsed into the murkiness. He had more work to do on his
camp, but he knew the way to Codey's house well now. It wouldn't be long until he returned.
ŠT.C. McMullen2002
