The whistler, p.23
The Whistler, page 23
Henry didn’t get the joke, and he damn sure wasn’t going to ask Roddy to explain. “Shut up,” he grunted.
Dead Roddy, so unlike Reporter Roddy—redder—flashed in Henry’s mind like the little green arrows on his dashboard when the hazard lights were on. Gore effects in a splatter film were tame compared to Roddy’s broken face, which grew bigger, surrounded by black, as the mix of agonizing emotions fueling Henry’s panic brought him to an unsteady standstill next to a tilted tree, its exposed roots—
The wrong ROOT, Henry thought, finally getting the joke.
—losing hold of the ground. Henry lost his stomach in the dirt. His retching echoed into the canopy of leaves above. Somewhere, a crow cawed in response. Henry was relieved to hear it. Caw, he thought, just please don’t whistle.
He spat and wiped his lips, his mouth still sour, his stomach still churning. Another wave of vomit dribbled down his chin a moment later when the sound of sirens wailing in the distance cut through the calm that had settled around him. He spat again. The brownish wad landed on the toe of his left shoe, which darkened from the dirt he kicked atop the stinking mess he was leaving behind.
As he lurched in the general direction of the car, a torrent of regret rushed through him, asserting that he was the dumbest, most desperate, most selfish person on the face of the earth. He wished he’d listened when Roddy asked to turn back, or even before that, when Roddy said now wasn’t a good time. He wished he’d stayed at Toad’s, and that he hadn’t felt so validated each time a notification banner popped up beside his social media app icons. He wished he’d never stumbled upon that fucking circle in the first place.
Was it possible that the barren circle really was cursed? Had it caused this? Or had Roddy doomed himself when he tossed the jar that shattered the mirror on his wall? Or—Henry shivered—was it he who was cursed, by greed and whatever might have attached itself to him when he whistled at night outside the Cadow house, where some other evil had once whistled in the dark, and where that evil might have spent fifty years waiting for someone like him to come along and blow air past his lips?
Finally, he spotted the street through the trees, his car parked fifty feet or so away. He slowed and gasped as the vegetation thinned, his eyes looking toward the sky, searching, perhaps, for a sign that everything would be all right no matter how bad things seemed now. He spied nothing hopeful, and so, burdened with protecting the horrible secret he possessed, he scanned the street to ensure no one would see him sneak from the cover of the trees.
Naked without the woods around him, he was cold enough to think he’d never feel warm again, even after he locked himself inside the Challenger’s stifling interior, the backpack already stowed in the trunk.
The engine revved from Henry’s anxious foot on the gas ahead of his hand shifting the car out of park. He cursed and punched the wheel, nearly hitting the horn. Apprehensive about drawing attention to himself, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his lips proceeding to mouth Stop fucking up on the exhale. Steadier because he had to be, he opened his eyes and eased the car onto the street. He drove slowly for the first few seconds, like a bad guy tiptoeing away from his slumbering jailer in an old-time movie, as if the barren circle might wake and cast its outer edge around him like a lasso that would drag him back to the marks in the mud should he be too loud. The more distance he put between himself and the woods, the more pressure he applied to the gas pedal, and soon he was flying, Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels” blaring on the radio, as memories from the last half hour were shoved into a box, which was hidden in a closet, which was never supposed to be reopened inside his head.
Thirty-three
The gear case Toad gave him for his birthday sits open on Henry’s bed, its foam-padded interior waiting to welcome the gadgets and gizmos that once filled Henry with pride. Discomfort rises within him when he opens the closet and looks down at the cardboard box he’s tried to forget. The spirit box is still out, moved to the dresser since Tilly discovered the dogs missing. But everything else is still in that box, backpack included.
He rolls forward, moving the front wheels of his chair over the closet’s threshold, and stops. He’s not alone. His senses tell him he’s not. Yielding to the habit that’s developed over the last few months, he looks down to the side of his chair. Ratboy should be there, his bulging eyes, protruding lower jaw, and pointy snout aimed up as if expecting a treat. All Henry sees is floor that hasn’t been swept.
“It’s getting dark.”
Henry startles at the voice, eliciting an apology from Tilly in the doorway.
“You’re really going?”
Is that her way of saying she’d rather have him home for the night? It’s been forty-eight hours since Samson and Delilah went missing. Despite her call to Cain Fisher, chief of tribal police, there hasn’t been a bit of hopeful news to suggest that she might get them back. She’s gone out to look for them more than she’s opened the fridge to feed herself. She’s printed their pictures alongside a plea and a $1,000 cash reward for their return. Henry rode with her yesterday as she made the rounds on the rez, hanging Missing Dog posters in the community center, the museum, the resort, and all the establishments inside it.
“I don’t have to go,” he tells her. “We can take a ride instead.” By ride he means he’ll rattle the Milk-Bone box and call the dogs’ names from the open passenger window should she want to search the rez again.
“No, no.” She shakes her head. “I’m glad you’re going. I want you to.”
Her words contradict her tone and the defeated look on her face. She hasn’t just stopped eating since her sweeties went missing. She’s stopped working, too. The last stop on yesterday’s tour of the rez was at the Blue Gator Grill, where she hung a poster on the door beside a sign that read CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. That must be why Jade—her shift cut—texted Henry that morning to let him know the hunt was on. He hadn’t expected her to call his bluff so soon.
“How long will you be gone?”
It’s hard for Henry to say. It can take minutes or hours to coax a spirit forth. Sometimes they don’t appear at all. “You can call me if you need me.” He feels stupid saying that, insecurity telling him there’s nothing she could possibly need him for. “I don’t think we’re going far.”
He’d asked about the location in his reply to Jade’s text, but he hasn’t heard from her since.
“Want me?” Tilly steps into the room and moves toward the closet. Henry rolls out of the way to let her pull the box out but stops her from opening it. “I forgot about dinner,” she says, her hand on the lid. Her face falls with the disappointing realization she makes next. “I forgot about lunch too. You should’ve said something, Henry. My mind…it’s all over the place right now.” She turns toward the door and mutters, “You must be starving,” on her way out.
Henry hollers to let her know he’s fine. He hasn’t had much of an appetite either since the dogs disappeared. They may be ugly, but they’re family. Besides, the house has been too quiet without them and the happy sounds his grandma made when they’d fight for her attention.
Kitchen sounds carry down the hall. Drawers rumble open. Cabinets squeak. A knife collides with a cutting board. Henry checks the time on his phone. It won’t be long until Jade and Toad are at the door. Better get on with it.
He lifts the box’s lid and stares down at the disarray, his once-loved possessions all jumbled inside. The sight of the backpack, weighed down by his flashlight, the Ouija board’s planchette, and the remaining battery in the pack Tilly had pulled from the box, brings a salty, metallic taste to his tongue, as if his gums have begun to bleed. Resisting the urge to spit, he reaches into the box, his hand avoiding the backpack, and begins to take the items out. One by one, he transfers the headlamp, the compass, the thermometer gun, the two-way radios, a few candles, a lighter, and the Ouija board itself from the box to the gear case on the bed. He moves to the dresser to fetch the spirit box, then opens the drawer to retrieve the paranormal music box Jade gave him for his birthday. Its exposed cylinder begins to turn as soon as it’s in his hands, eliciting a tinkling melody from the tiny metal teeth of the comb mounted next to it. Henry stops cold, breath in short supply. The notes in the air are as metallic as the taste in his mouth.
Though the sensor that triggers the little light on top of the box is aimed away from Henry’s body, the bulb begins to glow. Again, he senses that he’s not alone. He glances at the doorway. Empty. Then at the guitar. Then up at the clock on the wall, the cuckoo bird hiding inside.
“Is someone here?” he whispers.
A single tinny note rings out. Henry drops the music box into his lap as footsteps—too many to be Tilly’s alone—sound in the hall.
“Jade?” he yelps, unease having taken a firm hold. And then she’s there, stepping through a shadow that suddenly fades, her eyes asking Are you all right?
He picks up the music box and places it in the case. “Didn’t hear the door.” The dogs were always good for announcing when visitors arrived. “Where’s Toad?” By the sound of it, there’d been at least two people in the hall.
“He just texted. Said he’d be here in a minute and that we can take his car tonight.” Jade walks to the side of the bed and peers down at the open gear case. Her hands take to rearranging the items Henry has placed inside, like when she’d hang his clothes by color in the apartment closet, or when she’d bundle his electric guitar cords to keep them from tangling.
“My grandma let you in?” he asks.
“Who else?”
He hasn’t heard another footstep in the hall, and no one’s followed Jade into the room. “Where’d she go?”
“Said she’d be a minute in the kitchen. She had a slice of cheese in her hand.”
That doesn’t explain why she would have been in the hall, which leaves him unable to explain what he heard, but it’s not the only thing he can’t explain lately. “I’m just about ready.” He reaches for the top of the gear case to hinge it closed. Jade stops him, saying, “You didn’t double-check.”
He looks everything over, nods, and proceeds to close the case as Jade bends to grab something from the cardboard box at her feet. Henry tenses. He almost shouts Don’t touch it! But it’s not the backpack she takes from the box.
“You didn’t pack the cameras.” She shakes one of the small surveillance units at him, then bends again and lifts his go-to cam, the one he’d carried through the Cadow house and into the woods with Roddy, up by the strap of its attached harness.
Henry bristles at the sight of it, turning his attention back to the gear case, its clasps quite challenging for his fingers to snap closed.
Confusion practically drips from Jade’s face. “Why aren’t you packing the cameras, Henry?”
He gets the first latch to click shut. “This hunt’s not for an audience. It’s for me. For us. To see what it’s like now that everything’s changed.”
Jade turns the camera over in her hands. For a second, it looks like she’s going to slip it into her bag, which would force Henry to lie about why the camera can’t record right now.
“I’ll have my phone,” he says to sway her. “And you and Toad will too. In case something happens that we don’t want to forget.”
“It’s your show.” She shrugs and sets the camera back into the cardboard box. “Got everything you want to take?”
The pouch that fits on the back of his wheelchair is already packed with things he’ll likely need through the night, catheters included. The snap of the second clasp seems to make things official, as if there’s no way to turn back now, though the thought plays on his mind.
“Are you all right?” Jade asks aloud this time.
Henry reminds himself why he asked Jade and Toad to go out on another hunt with him. He owes them. He owes Rhett Collie and everyone else, too. “Yeah.” The word barely makes it out of his phlegmy throat. He swallows. “Good to go.”
The approaching footsteps are definitely Tilly’s. The insulated bag in her hands enters the room ahead of her; it’s almost as big as the gear case. She passes it to Jade. “Did he tell you I forgot his dinner?” An apologetic frown appears. “The three S’s of a brown bag lunch will have to make up for it…sandwiches, sodas, and snacks.”
Shouldering the bag, Jade leans in to give Tilly a hug that lasts. Henry feels some sort of way about it—embarrassed, ashamed, regretful—because he hasn’t been able to hug his grandmother like that in the wake of all that’s happened. A small eternity slips away before the embrace breaks, and then the three of them jump at the first of eight cuckoos that come from the little bird darting out of the clock.
“You’d better be on your way,” Tilly says, dabbing her eyes.
Henry slides the gear case from the bed onto his lap, the only way he can carry it and propel himself at the same time. He gives his grandmother a hug at the door, which doesn’t last half as long as her hug with Jade. Henry promises that they’ll be careful and that he’ll have his phone on at all times, proceeding to show her that it’s fully charged. “Are you sure?” he asks, giving her one more chance to tell him to stay.
“Go. Be young.” She walks them out of the house, her hands reaching but never making contact. Toad, waiting in his car, hops out to help Henry down the concrete step and into the backseat.
“Will you tell me now?” Henry, the gear case on the seat beside him, waves to Mawmaw Tilly as the car pulls out of the drive and into the night. “Where are you taking me?”
Toad casts an anxious glance at Jade. “Any chance of changing your mind?”
“No,” she replies. “It’s the way it should be.”
With a shrug and a sigh, Toad says, “We’ll be there soon.” It’s not long before he switches the headlights off.
Thirty-four
July 2023
It didn’t matter how much he didn’t want to go back to Toad’s. He had to go back, his one hope being that Toad was still asleep. He whipped the Challenger to the side of the street, where it’d been parked before he made the regrettable walk to Roddy Bishop’s house next door, then grabbed the jar of weed from the cupholder and hurried to make it look like he’d never been gone.
The cottage was quiet inside. Only for a beat, the silence broken by Toad’s next rumbling snore, a sound that lifted crushing weight from Henry’s shoulders.
Breathing better, his chest still tight but no longer on the verge of imploding, he dashed to the coffee table and put the jar back by its twin, being careful not to rustle the bag of snack mix or knock into the bass now precariously propped against the table. Shaking, he hurried to the bathroom, where the horror of what he’d just been through—what he’d done—finally had a chance to look him in the eye.
It was all there on his face. Pain, fright, panic, smudges of dirt he hadn’t consciously transferred to his cheeks, and streaks that ran through it from the tears he’d cried. Small twigs, one pine needle, and a serrated leaf were tangled in his long black hair, and a whole lot of gossamer was stuck to his shirt. The urge to punch the mirror, to break it the way the little glass jar broke Roddy’s, came on strong. He retched over the sink, gagging, but everything he’d had in him was already in a muddy puddle in the woods.
He looked into the mirror again, and this time he saw Roddy’s red face, black blood dripping from his hair, his mouth endlessly opening and closing, gasping like a despairing fish that’s been pulled from water.
“Fuck.” He lowered his spinning head until the sink’s cool porcelain pressed against his brow. He didn’t want to think about what was going on out on Grand Nacre Drive, but his mind punished him with ugly images anyway, of Roddy being pulled away from the tree, of his blood leaving a telltale stain on the ground, of his broken back being snapped straight.
The crack sounded in Henry’s head. He heard the sounds of the wreck again too. They’d live inside him no matter how much digging he did in his brain to bury them at the deepest depths of denial.
Forced to face himself again, he plucked the brown and green bits from his hair and the gossamer from his shirt, all of which he dropped into the toilet, and which vanished with a flush. He washed his face and his hands, twice, then used his fingers to fix his hair. Creeping again, he planted himself in the recliner beside the couch, then reached for the remote because the show had ended and autoplay wasn’t on. No time to scroll, he clicked at random. The ta-dum of the Netflix intro jarred Toad from his slumber. Lips smacking, he rubbed his eyes with his wrists.
“Where’d you go?” His belly pooled in his lap as he sat up and reached for another handful of cheesy chips from the bag on the coffee table.
“Bathroom,” Henry grunted.
Toad hummed and chewed and wiped his snack hand on his shirt.
Uncertain about the sound of that hum, Henry fumbled the remote. Its bang was more jarring than the ta-dum.
Toad winced. “Hungry?”
“Nah.” Henry scrambled to reclaim the remote. He tossed it to Toad, who let it land on the couch, his hands already busy with an uncapped jar of peanut butter, a spoon sticking out of it.
“I was thinking pizza.” The muffled words coming through Toad’s gunked-up throat intensified the sick sensation in Henry’s gut.
“How long have I been here?” he muttered, digging for his phone.
Toad shrugged and licked peanut butter from his lips. “Long enough to be hungry.”
It would have been better if Toad had established Henry’s alibi for him, but he glanced at the time and said, “Over an hour already,” his gaze shifting to observe Toad’s reaction.
The jar of peanut butter was gone, as magically as it had appeared. Toad, apparently bored by Henry, swept the snack mix aside and slid the ashtray closer.
