The Crossroads (8 page)

He has
a fierce hunger for a cheeseburger, fries, and a thick chocolate shake.

But the Burger Barn is gone. Something called Chuck E. Cheese has taken its place.

He wants that cheeseburger bad. Hasn't had one in fifty years.

He jams the Thunderbird into reverse and peels wheels.

No one sees his car. No one hears it. They sense only a slight movement of wind, feel a cold swirl of air.

He makes a hard left turn and heads toward the river.

I'll go down to the factory,
he thinks.
Follow somebody on lunch break. Find a cheeseburger.

He has no concept of time. It is four a.m. Nobody will be going to lunch, especially no employees of the Spratling Clockworks Factory, which shuttered its doors in 1983.

He pulls into a crumbling parking lot outside an enormous redbrick building—an empty shell three stories tall with arched windows. The giant Spratling Stands the Test of Time sign is rusty and faded.

He had started working for Julius Spratling in 1951. He pushed a broom, cleaned up trash, and flirted with the factory girls—many of whom he took out back to his secret love nest.

The machine shop. It was his passion pit—even after he was married.

In the east, the sun begins to rise. Somehow he understands he has to leave. When dawn comes, he'll be gone. But he knows he will return come nightfall. He senses it.

He has work to do, unfinished business.

He also has time.

If that lightning bolt couldn't send me to hell, what on earth can?

“We'll chop
it up into firewood, mulch the crown.”

Tony Mandica had brought a crew of six tree men with him to the Jennings house early Saturday morning.

“Would you guys like some coffee?” Judy asked.

“You got a bathroom we can use later?”

“Uh, sure. Right off the kitchen.”

“In that case, pour me a big 'un!”

Judy smiled. Poured coffee into paper cups. Four of the new home's five bathrooms were still operational. The one off Zack's bedroom was a mess. Good thing the plumber was coming that afternoon, too.

“Is your father here?” Judy asked Mandica.

“Yeah. Probably someplace shady taking a nap. I swear, if his name wasn't already on the truck, I'd fire him!”

“Do you think he'd like some coffee?”

“Never saw him turn down a free cup.”

“Zack? Can you and Zipper take Mr. Mandica some coffee?”

Zack really didn't want to traipse around in the evil trees looking for an old man napping like Rip van Winkle.

But Judy gave him that smile. What else could he do? Tell her he was afraid?

“Sure,” he said.

He took the coffee and headed into the woods. Zipper followed him.

 

Zack saw
the old man sitting on a big rock staring at the jagged stump left when the oak toppled over. He had a chain saw sitting near his feet, but it wasn't running.

Zipper barked and the old man looked up.

“I brought you some coffee, sir.”

The old man's eyes looked as milky as bug guts.

“I tried to bring this tree down once before.” The old man pointed at a cluster of angry gashes scarring the bark. “See there? That's where I took my ax to it. Took a saw to it, too. Bent my ax head. Chewed up my saw blade.”

The old man didn't look at Zack and wasn't actually talking to him, either. He was saying stuff to the empty air and Zack just happened to be the only person close enough to hear it.

“When they come to me, I told 'em I'd chop it down. But I couldn't 'cause it's a devil tree.”

The old man wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. The temperature was way over eighty degrees, but he was wearing red-checked flannel.

Because the old man is crazy.

“They wouldn't let me be.
Chop it down, chop it down, chop it down.
Every night, they'd come at me in my dreams.
Chop it down, chop it down, chop it down.
”

Zack placed the coffee cup on the ground.

“I'll leave your coffee….”

The old man spun around. Glared at Zack.

“It's a devil tree, boy! You hear me? The gateway to hell! That's why you never see no snow around it come winter. Hell's too hot. Melts the snow outside its back door!”

“I think I hear my father calling.”

“God himself had to bring this tree down,” the old man ranted, “because no mortal man could!”

“Okay. So long, sir.”

Zack ran the hundred-yard dash back to his house as fast as he could. Zipper ran after him.

Great. The oak tree wasn't just evil; it was hell's back door.

Now Zack had something else not to tell anyone.

While the
tree crew worked on the felled tree, Zack walked up Stonebriar Road with his father, who had decided this was the perfect Saturday to go see if any other kids were living in the neighborhood.

They walked past several houses still under construction.

“When I was a boy, a bunch of us hung out together all summer long. We gave each other nicknames: Cowboy, Moose, Stinky. He, you know, didn't shower much.”

“What'd they call you?”

“Ratfink.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because my father was the sheriff. The other guys were afraid I'd rat them out if we ever did anything bad.”

“Did you?”

“Nope. It's against the guy code. A guy never rats out his buddies unless, you know, uh, one of their fathers needs to know something important. A guy always tells his dad everything important. That's another part of the same code….”

“But your dad was the sheriff. So that part of the code sort of violates the first part.”

“Yeah.” Zack's father was having trouble wiggling out of that one, so he changed the subject. “Hey, there's a couple guys!”

Zack saw four boys his age tossing a baseball around in an empty lot.

“Maybe they're getting up a game,” his dad said eagerly.

A tough-looking boy stood in the center of the others. He pounded a ball into his mitt and glared at Zack. Toughie smirked, then snorted. Zack knew what that meant: Another bully already hated his geeky guts.

“You guys need another player?” Zack's father asked.

“Not really,” said the tough guy.

“Okay,” said Zack. “We'd better go home, Dad.”

Zipper barked in agreement.

“Just a minute,” his father said. “Boys, I'm George Jennings. We just moved in—down the street. The Victorian there.”

“What's a Victorian?”

“A famous style of architecture.”

Another snort from Tough Stuff. “Looks like a dollhouse.”

“That's right. Most dollhouses are fashioned after Victorian homes. What's your name, son?”

“Kyle. Kyle Snertz.”

“Do you live around here?”

“Duh.”

Zack's father chose to ignore Snertz's sarcasm.

“This is my son, Zack. Zack? Say hi to Kyle.”

“Hey,” Zack mumbled.

Kyle Snertz snorted back some more wet stuff. The guy seemed to have a ton of snot stuck inside his nose.

“Say, guess what?” Zack's father said to Kyle.

“What?”

“We're going to build a tree fort!”

“We are?” The news flash surprised Zack.

Kyle was suddenly interested. “Cool. You gonna steal wood and junk from the construction sites?”

“No.” Zack's father chuckled. “We're not going to
steal
anything. I thought we'd run out to Home Depot. You guys are welcome to come along with us if you'd like.” The cell phone clipped to his belt started chirping. “Excuse me, fellas.” He walked away to take the call.

The other boys moved in behind Kyle. Zack could tell he was their leader. The alpha dog.

“So, four-eyes,” Kyle sneered low so Zack's dad couldn't hear. “You live in a dollhouse?”

Zack didn't answer. Kyle was big. The boys who wanted to beat him up usually were. Big and moist.

Kyle moved closer. Close enough that Zack could smell his sweat and know it stank like rancid chicken soup. “Seeing how you live in a dollhouse, maybe we should call you Barbie from now on.”

Great. A nickname. Like Stinky or Ratfink, only worse.

“My name is Zack.” He mumbled it to the dirt.

“No, it's not,
Barbie
.”

Zipper snapped at the boy's ankle.

“Hey! If your stupid dog bites me, I swear I'll sue!” Kyle used both hands to smack Zack hard in the chest.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Zack's dad saw the shove, closed up his cell. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Stupid dog tried to bite me.”

“Whoa,” said Zack's father. “Take it easy there, Kyle.”

“Ahhhhh, bite me, old man.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘Bite me, old man.' What's the matter? You deaf?”

“Okay. I'm going to have a word with your parents. Where exactly do you live?”

“That's for me to know and you to find out!”

“Dad?” Zack tugged at his father's arm. “Let's go home.”

Kyle Snertz spat on the ground. Zack knew what it meant: “Don't come back unless you want trouble.”

“So who
called?” Zack asked when they were a couple hundred feet up the street.

“Work. About my business trip next week.”

“Malaysia?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“Hey, Barbie,” Kyle Snertz yelled after them. “Have fun in your
tree fort
!”

The way Snertz said “tree fort” made it sound like the sissiest thing any boy could ever do.

It also made Zack wish he could fly away to Malaysia with his father.

Either Malaysia or Timbuktu.

As the
sun goes down, he sees an old man sitting on the stump of what used to be his tree.

He doesn't wish to be seen, so he isn't.

He would like to kill the geezer who long ago tried to chop down his tree. But he can't. He can't do much besides make noise and, if he tries real hard, rattle things.

Now something draws him toward the house. Something strong. He drifts out of the trees.

No one sees him because he doesn't wish to be seen.

Not just yet, anyway.