--I DON’T HATE YOU. I WOULDN’T KNOW HOW.
Bones
He was thinking of Blair when it
happened, which was part of the problem.
He hit the brakes too hard. In the passenger seat Carly’s head snapped
forward, missing out on a concussion by a sliver.
A
cloud of road dust enveloped them. “What
the hell, Evan?” Carly said, but then the dust cleared and she saw what he saw,
the thing that had made him stop so sharply.
“How
many do you think there are?” she asked, leaning over the dash and peering as
one would the edge of a steep cliff.
“Sixteen
maybe.”
Evan
couldn’t recall ever being afraid during daylight hours, but here it was
mid-afternoon, the sun up and angry, with him a sheet of gooseflesh.
“That’s
something you don’t see every day,” he said, trying to sound calm, speaking the
words like a drunk aiming not to slur.
“It’s
a little freaky.”
“Let’s
have a closer look,” he said, as if on a dare.
They got out together, their car doors opening in unison, much like
partners in a detective show.
Carly
waited for him to come around and took his palm in hers. Heat from the hood of the car wafted against
her thighs.
He
thought of Blair again. A splintered
memory, of them after a skinny dip in Storm Lake, her staggering for balance,
grabbing his hand, saying, “Wait up, you insolent bastard.”
“What
do you imagine?” Carly asked. She was a
fan of obscure, incomplete questions, knowing well that those got better
results, sometimes quite unexpected consequences.
Evan
bent down. Carly released his hand,
still standing.
“They’re
just dolls,” he said.
“They’re
creeping me out.”
Many
of the Barbies were crushed—arms and legs, a flattened head. A good yard of the roadside was littered with
dismembered body parts. Her outfits were
torn, shredded around the edges and it was impossible to know when the damage had
been done, and who’d been the culprit, an automobile tire or someone else. Evan picked up a stray head--Brunette
Barbie. He held it by the ends of her
hair, letting it dangle like a key chain or a dead shrew. “She does look pretty real, you know, natural,
life-like?” Evan said, taking in the sapphire eyes. “Did you ever have any when you were a kid?”
“Of
course,” Carly said.
“Which
was your favorite?”
“Can
we just go?”
“Did
you have Ken, too? That was his name,
wasn’t it, Ken?”
He
picked up a stiff yellow piece of fabric—Entertaining Housewife Barbie. A strand of pearls was stitched across the
neckline for added effect.
“Is
that blood?” Carly asked.
That
was why he’d picked it up in the first place, because of the strange smear near
the top of the miniature dress, right below where her throat would be.
“It
is. That’s blood. Don’t pick at it. Where are you going to wash your hands?”
Crimson
flecks came off as he scraped, but a sudden yet momentary breeze sent them
whirling away before he could be certain.
“Stop
it, Evan.”
“It’s
not every day you see something like this.”
“You
said that already. Come on, let’s
go. I have to pee.”
“Go
over there,” he said, gesturing to an opening in the verdant expanse.
Her
arms were folded, her eyes glowering yet tentative, knowing who steered their
fledgling romance. Still, she said, “You
can be really mean sometimes.”
And
then Blair again: “Hey dirt bag! Come
feed me grapes and rub my feet and I’ll forgive you for saying that.”
He squinted.
An airplane, tiny as a necklace cross, floated soundlessly in the wide
sky. When he looked back, Carly was
still waiting for him. “We’re out in the
sticks,” he said. “We’re not going to
find a regular restroom for at least an hour.
Go ahead, no one will see you.”
She
threw an invisible something at him, her palm flapping open empty, and said,
“Meanie.” He watched her turn and walk
into the mouth of the open woods.
Blair
had disappeared. It happened shortly
after she broke up with him, and for the first few months Evan was pleased,
even when others started to consider foul play.
But now he felt guilt-ridden for writing her off that way. He missed her. Plus, there was always the chance she could
change her mind about him, about them as a couple. It happened sometimes. They said it was a woman’s prerogative.
He
bent down and picked up a headless torso--Motorcycle Barbie with black jacket
and matching chaps made of vinyl meant to look leather. He took Brunette Barbie’s head and pushed the
neck stem into Motorcycle Barbie’s torso opening. He tried screwing the head on. He crushed the head between his fingers to
make the neck stem more pronounced and when he did that her eyes expanded, the whites
growing larger. His fingers were
slick. He switched hands and checked the
damp hand to be sure. How could he know
that the doll hadn’t been crying? This
was actual moisture. Evan’s hands never
sweated. His circulation was off. People always remarked whenever he shook
their hands. Blair had teased him,
called him a vampire.
Blair.
He
looked into Motorcycle Barbie’s eyes and realized why he was so adamant about
assembling this particular doll. Why had
he not noticed before, the resemblance?
He
said her name aloud for the first time in many days, stuttering at the B.
Yes,
they had the same alabaster skin. The
doll’s plastic face even felt similar to Blair’s cheeks after she’d applied
that coconut-scented moisturizer she so favored.
Blair.
Now
it was his turn to cry. A tear drop
slashed onto the doll’s face and Blair the doll blinked. Yes!
Blinked.
He
grinned and sniffled and rubbed the tickling tears that were sliding across the
slope of his nose, ant-like.
“I
miss you,” he said.
He
leaned forward. His eyes closed whenever
he kissed Blair. It was instinctual, reflexive,
and no matter how hard he tried, Evan had never been able to keep them
open. “You’re just afraid to watch what
you’re doing,” Blair teased. “If you
kissed me with your eyes open you’d probably have a heart attack.” He remembered the pulsating beat of her chest
against his as they lay there, he on top.
Evan had never felt closer to her.
He imagined himself sliding into Blair’s mouth and napping on her
tongue, imagined himself sliding down her throat and dog-paddling through the
murky soup of her internal fluid, swimming like a determined sperm and
impregnating her aorta, slipping through to the other side, giddy at the
insistent booming of his love’s robust heart.
And
now here he was, lips puckered, eyes closed, the doll’s torso in one palm and its
head in the other.
The
kiss was disrupted by a rustling of tree limbs behind him.
As
he turned, an ill-formed lie was already on its way out before he could take it
back. “I was just—“
But
Carly wasn’t there.
He
looked toward the mouth of the woods where he’d last seen her and saw branches
swaying, their tips curling like fingers.
He called her name. Called it
again. Called louder this time.
A
spur of panic burst inside him. How long
had Carly been gone? Why wasn’t she
answering? What if? No, nothing had happened to her. They were in no-man’s land. But if this was no-man’s land, where had the
Barbies come from? Who knew how things
like that happened? Look at Blair, she’d
gone missing and not shown up.
“Carly?”
He
started to tremble, his mind working overtime.
If—just saying “If”—something happened to Carly he’d have to report it
and then if she wasn’t found, the
authorities would make a connection, wouldn’t they? They’d have to. A pair of young women gone missing, both
linked to him. He remembered the
detective—Hallas was his name--a blunt-nosed, steroid-using dick. Hallas had grilled Evan over and over about
Blair, at one point all but accusing Evan outright. “You do this job long enough,” Hallas said, “You
know a story’s solid if it has good bones.
But your story, well, its bones are off, now aren’t they?”
“Carly? Carly?”
Evan
looked over the doll carnage scene. What
a ridiculous sight. What a ludicrous
idea it had been to stop. If something
had happened to Carly—
But
nothing had, he told himself.
“Stupid
dolls!” he screamed, and without looking, he threw both parts of Motorcycle
Barbie Blair. Just before it left his
fingers, Evan felt a tense tug, as if they doll was trying to hang on.
He
continued to call Carly’s name every other minute. The mouth of the woods gaped cave-like. As he passed through the opening, tree
branches instantly swung on their own accord, helped along by a gust of wind
Evan did not himself feel. He watched
the limbs cross over each other, from one tree to the next, closing the
opening, their pine needles quivering or tittering, a sibilant song echoing
overhead.
There
was no discernible path. Sticker bushes
and thorny plants stuck his legs and ankles.
Several times he stepped face-first into spider webs, plucking the gauzy
tangle from his eyes and mouth. The
thicket grew more intense the farther he went, cloistering him. The air grew heavy and darker, sliced
intermittently by blade-shaped sunlight which revealed a haze of gnats and
mosquitoes. Though it was shaded, the
heat had risen, kicking up a stench of rotting things, of urine and decomposing
carcasses.
Where
was she? How could she have possibly
made it through these conditions? Then
it occurred to him: she hadn’t made it this far because she hadn’t gone this
way. Hell, he was probably lost himself.
He
turned to go back. Something moist and
cool and alive slithered across his calves, and then started winding itself up
his left leg, aiming for the opening of Evan’s cutoffs. He slashed at whatever it was. He even screamed.
Frightened
or dissuaded, the thing disappeared.
Evan
began to run.
At
first it was dream-like, his running. He
simply ran in place. He closed his
eyes. He wanted to picture something
good, something calming, so he conjured up Blair’s face, only it wasn’t exactly
Blair’s face his imagination presented, but a facsimile of Blair and Motorcycle
Barbie.
He
kept moving, kept running. If he fell or
got injured, he didn’t care. His fear
was too cowardly.
He
sprinted.
The
woods slapped and stabbed his shoulders and ribs and thighs. His feet made harsh, crunching noises as they
crushed detritus, and after some time a jeering swoon joined the auditory
calamity. The spectral sound was not
from birds or any type of animal Evan was familiar with.
It
grew louder, shrill, more violent.
Evan
ran faster.
He
flew.
His
sandal caught in a pothole and Evan tumbled aloft, somersaulting perhaps,
perhaps not. He no longer had a sense of
gravity. He let himself be thrown or
taken.
He
crashed to the ground in the fetal position, his shoulder most likely broken
from the fall, and rolled onto his back, gasping in anguish.
When
he opened his eyes it was sunny and clear above him. He lay there for a moment, panting hard.
Then
he jerked.
“Oh,
god, you scared me!” the said. The man
standing atop him wore overalls and a beat up farmer’s hat. In a second, a woman joined him, then a girl
and several boys.
“You’re
late for the picnic,” he man said, his voice gruff and undecided.
Evan
rolled onto his side and looked between the sets of legs. Off where the clearing extended were clusters
of families seated in the grass, blankets spread beneath them.
“Is
Carly here?” Evan said
“Don’t
know no Carly? You’m?” he asked, turning
to his wife and children, who each shrugged.
“We
stopped along side of the road and she stepped into the mouth of the woods to,
you know, go to the bathroom.”
“No
bathrooms out here,” the man said. He
waited a few seconds to break out his grin, revealing his joke.
“Hey,
it’s not funny. She’s my
girlfriend. I’m scared.”
“And
you look it,” the wife said, stabbing her head at him like a hen.
“You
haven’t seen her?”
“No.”
“Carly. She’s blonde, five foot six.”
“I
said, ‘No.’”
“Well,
have you heard anything?”
“We
heard you,” the man said, chuckling without smiling. He looked hungry and desperate. His mouth chewed absently, molars clicking
and padded lips making sickening smacking sounds.
“Bobby
heard screaming coming from the woods,” one of the boys said.
“What
screaming?” Evan asked.
“Shut
up, boy,” the man said, and slapped the back of his son’s bewildered head. “You keep your craw shut lest I say
otherwise.”
“But
someone heard something!” Evan said.
“Animals,”
the man said.
“How
do you know?”
“I
know.”
The
girl had dull, filthy brown hair twisted into a large coil in the back. Her eyes grew as wide as the Barbie doll had
earlier. She pointed at Evan.
“Where’d
you get that?” the man said, his upper lip curled and quivering over a fanged
eye tooth.
“Get
what?”
“That’s
one of her dolls,” the wife said.
“Dolls? What are you talking about?” But when Evan followed the girl’s finger he
saw that it led to his own hand, the one holding Motorcycle Barbie Blair, head
attached.
He
flinched and let go of the doll but it wouldn’t come out of his hand.
“What
kind of man steals a little girl’s Barbie doll?”
“I
didn’t. I swear.”
“In
these parts, we don’t cotton to theft of any kind.”
“Please,
I’m just trying to find my girlfriend.”
“Maybe
you was thinking you’d make that doll your girlfriend. Maybe you’re one of those sicko’s.”
“I
need your help. Please, I’m worried
about Carly.”
“There
ain’t no more Carly.”
“What
do you mean?” Evan asked. Something in
the man’s eyes told him he had a cache of information he wasn’t going to share,
not now, not ever. Evan looked at the
wife and her eyes told the whole story.
The bones were there in the story, and now Evan understood what
Detective Hallas had meant.
“Out
here we make the rules. We say what’s
what.”
The
little girl started to cry, whimpering.
Each sniffle irked the man and Evan watched him squint but not wipe away
a stream of sweat that dripped into his eye, burning.
“You’re
a sick one.”
“I’m
not.”
The
light was leaving the sky. Bodies came
forward. The legs of the jury were many
and they struck with a vengeance, without mercy, proclaiming judgment.
Evan
held crossed his arms against his head for protection, the doll clamped to his
hand. He cried her name, both names, he
begged for forgiveness, but his voice could not be heard.
