Bonechiller (2 page)

Stockboys, he calls them. They don’t last long, so he’s always got that sun-bleached
HELP WANTED
sign in the window. As pervs go, he’s mostly an over-the-clothes groper. From what I hear, Fat Bill even pays you for the “overtime” afterward. It’s not something you’re going to brag about after, so there’s always fresh meat applying for the job.

Which is where Howie comes in. He wanted to make some extra money to get a new hard drive. Howie was there less than a week when he noticed how Fat Bill was always brushing up against him. But he thought it was because the guy was so huge he couldn’t help it, trying to squeeze by in the tight aisles and behind the counter.

I’ll skip the details. But anyway, Howie freaked and quit.

Fat Bill put the sign back in the window and hired Jeff Cameron, thirteen years old. But it turned out Jeff’s mother is an Ontario Provincial Police officer. And Jeff wasn’t going to keep his mouth shut like all the other humiliated kids over the years. Cop Mom went ballistic and now Fat Bill’s out on bail and under house arrest till his next hearing.
Can’t go near schools, can’t be alone with kids, can’t run his store. The cops have been interviewing other stockboys, finding more victims.

Howie wouldn’t talk to them, wouldn’t talk to anybody except Pike. His big brother.

I look past Howie shivering up front, toward the darkened store and the glow from the apartment on top. There’s no movement above or below.

We’ve been idling here a few minutes, and the exhaust is starting to leak in through the rusted holes in the floorboards. The fumes are making me dizzy.

“Can’t you kill the motor?” I ask Howie.

He meets my eyes in the rearview. “Pike wants a quick getaway.”

“Then I’m cracking open a window.”

I’m reaching for the handle when a thump on the roof makes us all jump. A face appears a couple inches from mine on the other side of the glass. I flinch from Pike’s deranged grin.

“Got ya!” His breath clouds in the frigid air. “You’re dead.”

“Right. And you’re nuts.”

He’s always sneaking up to scare you.

Pike opens my door and tosses a pile of boxes in my lap. Mars bars. Mr. Bigs. Juicy Fruit. “Don’t say I never gave you nothing.”

He slams the door and gets in front.

“Got your favorite, bro.” Pike turns to Howie. “Kit Kats.”

I hand that box over to Howie.

Pike takes a piece of jerky out of his pocket and starts gnawing on it.

“How did you get in?” I ask.

“I’m a ninja.”

Ash rolls her eyes. “A ninja nutcase.”

She cracks the box of Mars bars and takes one. I try a Mr. Big.

We sit here chewing, getting high off the fumes. Then Pike hands out some
scratch-em
lottery tickets.

“We’ll split the winnings,” he tells us. “Eighty–twenty. Me getting the eighty.”

“Can we get out of here first?” I ask.

“Not yet,” Pike says.

“What are we waiting for?” Ash wants to know. “Let’s go.”

“You’ll see.” Pike looks off toward the store.

We follow his stare. There’s nothing moving in the gloom of the store, or in the apartment above.

The car windows are starting to steam up from our breathing, so Howie wipes a patch of the windshield clear.

“See what? I don’t …” My words die off.

Because there’s a flicker of something inside the store. A flashlight? Or a candle? The light seems to grow.

Not a candle. More like—

“Fire in the hole!” Pike laughs.

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

“No way. No way,” Howie mumbles.

The flicker expands to a torch-sized glow. Too stunned
to even blink, I see the flames start to consume the front counter.

Howie’s box of Kit Kats falls to the floor. He whimpers in the back of his throat.

“Oh man,” Ash groans. “What the hell did you do now?”

Pike wipes away the condensation on the glass with his sleeve. “Just warming things up for Fat Bill.”

“I can’t believe you did that!” I say. “You total psycho.”

A minute passes in shocked silence as we watch the fire eat its way through the store.

“We gotta get out of here,” Ash says.

But Pike doesn’t move, hypnotized by the blaze.

Black smoke leaks out through cracks around the door. The place is going up fast, the flames feasting on the old wooden building.

Now a shadow moves past one of the windows in the apartment above.

“Should we, uh …?” Should we what? Call the cops? The fire department? Harvest Cove is so tiny they don’t even have 911. The fire truck is parked in the garage of the community center, with one guy who sleeps on the couch inside overnight. If there’s an emergency, he calls the volunteers and they meet at the scene. By that time there’s usually nothing left but charcoal.

A figure shows up around the side of the store. Short and wide. Fat Bill. It looks like he’s holding a cell phone to his ear.

Pike snorts happily, shifting into drive. “Okay. Fun’s over. We can go.”

He pulls out slow, with the headlight off. Me and Ash watch the blaze out the rear window. We don’t have to worry about Fat Bill seeing us. He’s busy watching his life burn down.

“Never again,” I say. “Never going nowhere with you again. What if he didn’t get out, eh?”

“What if he was sleeping or something?” Ash snaps at him. “You think of that?”

Pike shrugs. “I guess then we’d have us a pig roast.”

After the glow of the fire is swallowed by the dark, we pick up speed. Pike leaves the headlight off, driving by the faint shine from the sliver of moon playing hide-and-seek with the clouds. The road’s a gray smudge in the blackness.

I feel a trickle of sweat icing down my spine. That Mr. Big bar I ate ain’t sitting right.

“Man,” says Ash. “That was extreme.”

“Want to know how I set it?” Pike asks. “Best way is to always use stuff that’s already there at the scene. Then they can’t trace anything back to you, right? So I used a Marlboro, just like Fat Bill smokes.”

Now I realize why he brought us all along. Pike loves an audience. He needs someone to shock and awe.

“I left the Marlboro on top of a stack of newspapers behind the counter. Even if they find the source, they’ll just figure Fat Bill got careless.”

He pauses. Waiting for applause?

But the only sound is the rattle of gravel against the floor of the car.

“And don’t think about saying nothing to nobody. Because technically you’re all accessories.”

“We didn’t do squat,” Ash says.

“You ate the candy bars, didn’t you? Stolen goods.”

“We’re not accessories to anything,” she says. “Just witnesses to one of your psychotic episodes.”

He shrugs and keeps on smiling.

I slide around in back, bumping into Ash as we hit teeth-cracking ruts and potholes. The gravel’s slick with snow and ice, and the tires on this junker are nearly bald. It’s a miracle we haven’t rolled into a ditch.

Just as I think that, Pike makes a sharp turn and the car tilts to the right. For a second we just hang there, riding the edge. I hold my breath, waiting for the world to turn upside down. But the tires find some traction and we swing away from the drop.

“Pull over,” Howie moans. “I’m gonna be sick.”

He’s got a real nervous stomach—it’s why they call him Howie the Hurler. The car skids to a stop as Howie throws the door open and leans out.

The sound of him retching makes my own guts start to heave.

Ash nudges me with her elbow. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Go? Go where?” I ask. “I don’t even know where we are.”

“That was Cove Road back there. We can walk home from here.”

“That’s like two miles back to the lake. Ever heard of hypothermia?”

“Don’t be a pussy,” she tells me. “We can jog it in no time. Besides, you want to keep riding with him?”

I get out, feeling the arctic wind on my face. I pull up the collar of my leather jacket and yank the zipper to just under my chin. I would have worn a hat, but I didn’t want to mess my hair—gotta look slick for Ash. So now my frostbitten corpse will win best hair.

I glance over at Howie spitting up into the ditch. He’s a skinny little stick insect, lost in the bulk of his parka.

Pike climbs out to check on him. “You okay?”

Howie answers with a groan.

“Come on, bro. Let’s get you home. I’ll take it slow.”

Ash tugs my sleeve and we start walking.

“See ya, Howie,” Ash says.

He gives her a little wave. “Sorry, guys. I didn’t know he was gonna do that.”

Me and Ash crunch through the icy muck to Cove Road.

“See you in hell,” Pike yells to us. His way of saying bye. Guess he thinks it’s funny.

When I glance back, I see he’s got his arm around Howie’s shoulders. Somewhere under the rage there’s something human. Barely.

Me and Ash reach Cove Road and start toward the lake. She turns to me.

“Hey, Danny. Wanna race?”

“Okay.” It beats losing my toes to frostbite.

“On three.”

Just as I nod, she barks—“Three!”—and bursts ahead.

I sprint after her into the inky black.

First time I set eyes on Ash was in the gym on the base. That’s Canadian Forces Base Borden. Ash is an army brat, like Pike and Howie. Their fathers are instructors at Borden.

Call it temporary insanity, but I thought it might be a good idea if I took some boxing lessons. Most of the time I feel like hitting something, so I thought I’d learn how. I’m not a rageaholic or anything, but I’ve had a real bad run these last couple years, and sometimes you gotta let the beast out before he eats you alive.

So I took it out on the punching bag they kept for the amateurs. Rips in the old leather had been sewn up in half a dozen places, with duct tape holding it together in others. You might almost feel sorry for it. But everything I hated was stuffed into this faceless bag. I worked it till my wrists went numb and I could barely hold the soap in the shower after.

One night at the end of August, a couple weeks after I
arrived in Harvest Cove, I got my chance to hit something real.

“Hey, kid! Get over here,” the voice of Sergeant Owens cut through the gym.

I looked up from my assault on the bag.

“Yeah, you, Blondie,” he said, waving me over to the boxing ring. “Move it!”

There were some girls sitting in folding chairs nearby, army brats and townies. They let local civilians come on the base without a hassle. No terrorist has ever heard of Borden. Not exactly a prime target.

The only thing the girls were working out was their mouths. Here to check out the guys, I guess.

My T-shirt was soaked with sweat, and I could feel a fat drop hanging on the end of my nose. My frayed shorts showed off my pale, skinny legs. Real sexy.

“That bag don’t hit back,” Owens told me. “Might as well be jerking off. Let’s get you in the ring and see what you’ve got.” The girls’ laughter made my face go red.

He’d shown me some basic moves in the beginners’ class. I’d done some soft sparring, but mostly shadowboxing and bag work.

“Put this on.” He handed me a face guard.

Basically a cushioned helmet, it left my face open from brow to chin but blocked any chance of serious damage.

“Remember what I showed you? Jabs, hooks and cuts. Focus on the jabs.”

Owens checked to see my gloves were laced up right, then held the ropes apart so I could slip into the ring. The
mat was stained with sweat, brown sprays of old blood and other mysterious substances.

I was trying not to look at the girls, just kind of rolling my shoulders and stretching my neck to loosen up.

“Go easy on the cherry,” Sarge was telling my opponent, who was stepping into the ring. A cherry is a ring virgin, never had a fight. I winced a little at the name, hearing a spatter of giggles.

Shorter than me by a couple inches, slim but wiry, the other guy was no cherry. He stared at me with intense dark eyes, the left one ringed by an old bruise, yellow at the edges. A Band-Aid stretched over the bridge of his nose. Couldn’t see much of his face. Spiky black hair stuck up from the open patch at the top of his headgear. He was wearing a T-shirt with the emblem of the 441st Squadron—the head of a black fox grinning with hungry white teeth. Below was the squadron’s motto:
Stalk and Kill
.

Great, a hardcore brat.

“Protect yourself at all times,” Owens shouted. “Got it? Good. Touch gloves, and get it on.”

I can do this, I told myself. I’ve got a couple inches and maybe twenty pounds on him.

We touched gloves. I stepped back and we started to circle each other.
Focus on the jab
, Sarge had said. So I closed in, guarding my head with my left and striking out with my right.

My jab hit empty air, where the brat’s head had been a millisecond ago. And then—

Then I was staring at one of those mysterious stains on the mat. Up close, because my face was resting on the
canvas. I didn’t remember anything in between. No impact, no falling. Didn’t even see the punch.

“On your feet, soldier.”

I heard the voice past the ringing in my ears. The brat stood over me. His eyes were black pits.
Stalk and Kill
.