Chapter Four
Hobson’s Holiday Tree Farm was crawling with cops: police from nearby towns, deputies from several counties, even a helicopter circling overhead. Despite nearly an hour of creeping around acres of soggy fir, pine, and spruce, Sean had found no way past the cops to see whatever had happened at the cemetery side of the farm.
Can’t say I didn’t try, but at least it’s still early enough for me to get some work done.
Sean took another photograph of the copter over the trees, then trudged to his own flooded yard. He paused at the back door and scraped his soggy mud-and-pine-needle-caked tennis shoes across the edge of the top step. Once the worst of the gloppy mess was hanging in thick, black ribbons, he went inside and kicked off one shoe before he tracked mud through the house.
Might as well get started on those sket—
“Where have you been?” his mother asked, her voice a tight panic as she hurried from the living room, her hands clenched together. “I heard there were a dozen police cars here this morning, then when you didn’t answer your phone…”
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath.
What’s she doing here? And how’d she get in? She never touches anything, not even the front doorknob.
He took a breath and pasted on a stiff smile as he turned to face her, hoping to disarm her nerves before they led to a full-blown meltdown. “There weren’t a dozen. Maybe three. Early this morning. Been an adult a long time now, Ma. I’m managing fine. Really.”
“Still, the police… They were here, and they’ve blocked Juniper Road. I was worried!”
He clenched his teeth and took a steadying breath.
She probably called the hospital, too, to make sure I wasn’t in the ER.
“So the sheriff blocking a road east of town makes it okay for you to barge in?” Remaining on the rug by the door, Sean balanced on one foot to peel off his drippy, needle-coated sock before it drove him insane.
As he snatched the sock loose, he glanced at the kitchen phone. Eleven messages. And he’d been gone maybe an hour, tops.
Goddammit.
“You even stuck around though we obviously weren’t home. Don’t you think that’s a bit overboard, Ma? You could have just waited for me to call you back. Stuck a note on the door, something besides freaking out again?”
Helene Casey grimaced at his shoes and socks, his tendency to attract grime a constant affront to her germophobia. “The door was unlocked, Rosemary’s car was gone, and you weren’t home. I was worried. I am still your mother, after all. Are you going to tell us what happened or not?”
Us? I know you can’t stand Mare, but maybe if you were crazy worried…
Sean flung the sock into the laundry room and yanked off the other shoe. “Who else is here?” When he saw his mother’s frown, he silently cursed and said, “Please tell me you didn’t call Mare. You know how her boss is.”
“I didn’t call Rosemary,” Helene said, grimacing. “Why should I? It’s not like she listens to anything I say.”
Just gotta keep gnawing that bone, don’t ya, Ma?
Sean wrestled off the other sock and hurled it away. His mother knew Mare hated to be called by her full name. “Don’t, Ma. Just don’t, okay?” He marched across the kitchen and jerked a glass out of the cupboard. He filled it with water, drank it down, and filled it again.
Damn, it’s hot.
“Don’t what? Don’t worry about where my only child’s been or what he’s been doing? Don’t wonder why the police were here? Don’t be concerned over what he’s involved in? Don’t ask why he’s reeking of booze on a Sunday?” She paused as he finished draining the second glass of water.
“Don’t badger me about Mare,” he said, slamming the glass on the counter.
“Yes, the… The woman who stole my son.” She paused before pointing a shaking finger at the narrow garbage can and its fresh bag, empty save for the morning’s plastic cups and a couple of paper towels. “Moldy garbage stinking up the place. There are no grandchildren in my scrapbook…” She tucked her hands behind her crossed arms again. “What good is she?”
“Here we go again,” Sean said, stomping past her. Helene imagined filth lurking in every cranny, and Mare had long insisted her fertility issues were no one else’s business, especially his mother’s.
He reached the archway to the living room and stopped when he saw the man examining the print over the sofa. “And of course you brought Pastor Bailey. Thanks, Ma, for dragging him over to hear all that.” Sean nodded hello. “Pastor.”
Bailey returned the greeting. “Sean.” He looked again at the poster-sized enlargement of
GhoulBane
’s twenty-fifth cover, a full color fold-out depicting GhoulBane devouring a barely dressed, gun-wielding bimbette whole.
Bailey examined the print like an art critic at a gallery opening. “Nice job, and congrats on the expanded cover. You’ve really nailed the detail work on Ghoulie’s veins.”
Sean gave his mother a bright smile, then entered the living room. “Thanks. Those books you loaned me helped, especially the one on endocrinology.” Pastor Bailey’s youngest daughter was a third year med student at University of Iowa and had the best anatomy books Sean had ever seen. And she was a Ghoulie fan.
Bailey turned and offered his hand. “Always glad to help,” he said as they shook hands. He leaned forward to say, “Sorry about this, but someone was rather frantic.”
Helene froze in the archway with her arms crossed as if touching anything would taint her. “The police were here and you were missing again! What was I supposed to think?”
“That I’m not a kid anymore?” Sean sighed. His mother had been overprotective and over-reactive since he was twelve. After what had happened to him back then she’d become over-protective, paranoid, and terrified of grime. Getting mad at her wouldn’t change that. “I’m fine, it’s just…”
Aw, hell.
“Some, uh,
odd
people wandered into the yard. They were naked and lost, Nicole called the sheriff…” He shrugged. “After everyone left, I took a walk.”
He paused, uncertain what else he should include. “Dad’s brother… Uncle Paul…”
The corners of Helene’s mouth tightened. “What about him?”
Sean glanced at Pastor Bailey then took a single hesitant step toward his mother. “A guy who looked a lot like him walked out of the tree farm this morning.”
She blinked, the color leaving her face. “Your Uncle Paul’s corpse was in the trees?”
Great. This will make her even more neurotic.
“No, not his corpse,” Sean said. “Him. Or at least a guy who looked like him, said he was him. Other people, too, who had died.”
Helene shook her head and flinched. “
Dead people?
Here? Why would you say such…” She swallowed, gaze darting about as if rotting corpses reached for her. “Such an awful thing?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but they came out of the tree farm. They were naked, had no idea where they were or what was going on. The cops were here because Nic called them. But these people, they all claimed to be folks who’d
died
.”
Bailey closed his mouth, settled himself, and said, “Sean, I know you’ve illustrated some pretty strange things, but you’re scaring your mother.”
Her? I’m scaring myself!
“This isn’t a comic, this happened. Today. Here.” Sean turned again to his mother. “Mindy Howard died a couple of years ago out on the highway. She was here in my kitchen this morning. Evelyn Fischer. I’d never met her but she said she knew you.”
“Not Evie.” Helene scoured her arms with her palms. “No. You were a baby when she got hit by that snowplow.”
Sean pressed on. “That Dunders kid who got run over was here too. And so was Uncle Paul. They’re all at the hospital now. Go check, if you don’t believe me.”
“It’s not possible,” Helene muttered through clenched teeth.
“The cops said they’re running some scam, but I can’t figure out why. What leverage could a woman who’s been dead thirty years possibly use to swindle someone? And a little kid con artist? It makes no sense. And if it’s some joke or hoax, why so many cops? And a
helicopter
? Seems like overkill, if you ask me.” Sean glanced at Pastor Bailey before turning back to his mother. “And why’d they walk up naked? Why’d they all stink of mold?”
“What are you saying?” Pastor Bailey asked.
Sean took a breath. “The cemetery’s right across the tree farm. Its driveway leads to Juniper Road. Maybe those people
were
dead, but aren’t anymore.”
“No,” Helene spat out, as if that was the final word on the matter. “Paul’s dead. I saw him dead, saw him buried.”
Then she stomped out of the house, headlong into a perky young woman on the stoop with a microphone and a cameraman.
The young woman tried to ask Helene a question, but Helene dodged aside and continued down the steps, pulling a bottle of hand sanitizer out of her purse as she stomped to the car.
The newswoman’s smile stiffened, then she saw Sean and Pastor Bailey in the living room.
“My cue to go. Good luck, son.” Pastor Bailey patted Sean on the shoulder then ducked out of the house and hurried to his car.
The newswoman was young, early twenties, and over-dressed for the heat; an eager newbie sent out to cover a Sunday morning fluff story. “Guess it’s just you and me,” she said, her eyes imploring Sean not to slam the door in her face.
“Guess so.” Sean sighed, feeling sorry for her. He stuffed his hands into his pockets as the camera clicked on.
Deep breath
, he thought as the woman asked her first question.
Don’t spill your guts and sound like a lunatic. Try to plug the comic. Free advertising and all that crap.
He took a breath and made himself smile.
And don’t screw this up,
he reminded himself as he told her how the people had walked out of the trees.
GhoulBane fell forward, floundering to the edge of a gravel road. His flesh lay in oozing tatters, exposed bone coated with mud and dog shit, and he struggled to get his feet beneath him again so he could stand. Struggled and failed.
Road grit dug into his tortured flesh as he crawled, the shards tearing and burning, grinding raw bone to dust. Freshly fallen gold and crimson leaves swirled across the gravel, urging him on. Just a little farther, just a little more. He collapsed, his breath leaving flecks of bloody bubbles in the grit and dust. “Have to,” he choked out, reaching forward, pushing with feet so pained he wondered how they still existed. “Have to get across.”
Clover and foxtail, summer green on the far side of the road, trembled and cowered away, turning brown, brittle, and ashen in the wake of a Minotaur’s furious screams. Still Ghoulie crawled, each movement fire and agony, each breath a choking clog of blood and foam.
The Minotaur bellowed its rage and frustration over GhoulBane’s escape, heavy footsteps shuddering the world as it came closer, closer, a low, ripping growl following alongside. GhoulBane clawed toward the scorched and tortured grass, his panic a living, screaming monster of its own, but the growl grew louder, becoming a thundering tear in Ghoulie’s brain. He wailed when hot breath and dog-spittle fell upon on his torn and bloody hands, wet himself at the teeth bared and snarling in his face. Minotaur behind and its hellhound ahead, Ghoulbane’s desperate flight to the far side of the road was over.
“Go, girl,” the Minotaur commanded and GhoulBane screamed his soul away as Peaches lunged, ripping, tearing, devouring, while the Minotaur—
Bap! Bap! Bap!
“Sean! Open the door!”
Startled, Sean shoved away from the fading scent of Peaches’ rancid breath, flipping over his stool and crashing to the floor in a frenzied panic. Sketches fluttered down like autumn leaves, following the busted-twig clatter of mechanical pencils and tech-pens.
Bones, Sean, they sound like dried old bones. Remember that sound?
He scrambled away and pressed his back against the wall.
My studio. It’s just my studio, just another bad dream,
he thought, his heart threatening to erupt from behind his ribs, his mouth as dry and gritty as the dust from the road. He raised his hands, wincing at a smear of spit and blood-red ink. The remembered ghost of road grit scratched his palms. He scrubbed them furiously on his jeans and left a sticky mess behind.
Thud! Thud! Bang!
“Sean! You in there?”
He drew in one frantic breath after another and pushed to his feet. “Coming!” he called out as he stood. He wavered, taking a moment to glance down and confirm that his feet were still there—not gone, not eaten, right where they’re supposed to be, by God!—then stumbled to the hall and the living room.
Hands shaking, he unlocked the deadbolt. He opened the door and stepped aside to let Mare in.
She huffed past with a load of groceries. “What a day! The AC was out on my ward again so everyone was super-cranky, the store was too fucking crowded, and I
finally
get to come home only to find Juniper Road’s blocked. I had to go clear around to Pilot Mound and come in the back way, and it’s hotter than hell out there.”
Mare was sturdily built and curvy in all the right places, gorgeous to his eyes, but the day’s heat had taken its toll. Her hair had clung to her plump, damp cheeks in dark curls, her bright, kitten-print scrubs had wilted to loose, saggy wrinkles, and she smelled faintly of sweat. “Why’d you lock the door? We never lock the door.”
“Got tired of being pestered by news crews,” Sean said, heading out to the sweltering afternoon. Driveway cement scorching his bare feet, he dove into the backseat of Mare’s rusty Buick for the twelve-packs of pop and a huge bag of charcoal.
“Did you say
news crews?
” she asked, her hand resting cozily on his backside as he stood and kissed her.
“Yep. Let’s talk about it inside, okay?” They’d been together a decade and he still loved to stroke the narrowing of her waist, but, with both hands full, he settled for a second kiss. Charcoal slung over his shoulder, he returned to the house.
She followed, carrying the last of the groceries. “Did Ghoulie finally break out? Some big star call for another album cover or movie poster? Des Moines or Ames commission a batch of community propaganda?”