The Lost: Book Two, The Eddie McCloskey Series (The Unearthed 2) (6 page)

A
few minutes up the road, Ana said, “She didn’t take shit from anybody, man or woman.”

“Your sister.”

“Well, except for Mike Hollis, and I never got that. She could have had her pick of the litter, but she dated that loser instead.”

Eddie settled into the passenger seat. “Her options were pretty limited.”

It was kind of like home, only smaller. Eddie thought of all the girls he’d finessed into dating him during high school.

“There were some good guys in the mix. She didn’t have to end up with Mike Hollis of all people.”

“You really think this is her tormenting everybody?”

“I told you she was bitch?” She arched her eyebrows. “This one girl pissed her off in high school so Tessa spread a rumor that she had herpes.”

Eddie laughed. “That girl that Tessa spread the rumor about still around?”

“You’ve met her.”

“Huh?”

“The woman at the store. Elsie. Little miss milk crates.”

Eddie wanted to say,
Are you sure the herpes thing was just a rumor?
“Small world, huh?”

The monotonous sound of the road dulled the conversation and Eddie’s mind wandered as the car ate up the miles. How many people had he slighted over the years? How many of them still carried grudges?

He’d done a stretch at the old cross-bar motel awhile back for possession with intent. At the time, he’d felt he was just unlucky to get caught and stewed at the injustice of it all. All the users he knew who never got caught, all the sellers who paraded their wares unmolested by the cops.

He now realized he’d been lucky. Getting pinched was just the law of averages finally catching up with him. And all those other criminals, who hadn’t been collared yet, would get theirs someday.

And in prison, he was able to get his life back together. He got off the drug train and started to take stock of himself. He didn’t like what he saw. He was a loser going no place in a hurry, using the death of his brother as a crutch. He resolved to turn things around.

He turned into a model prisoner, making trustee and earning the respect of most of the guards, some of them who knew who he was and what had happened to Tim.

A week before he was due to get out he was attacked by one of the tatted-up skinheads in the shower. The man came at him unprovoked with a shiv. The skinhead came fast and lunged his right hand at Eddie. Ever since Tim had died in his arms and he’d almost been killed with a blade, Eddie had an aversion to knives.

He’d dodged the blow and the skinhead lost his balance on the floor. Eddie dropped and kicked the guy’s leading leg. The skinhead’s knee buckled and his leg went out from under him. Eddie let him fall and threw the bar of soap he was holding as hard as he could into the face of his attacker, momentarily stunning him. Eddie then landed his knee to the attacker’s solar plexus with all his weight behind it. He kicked away the knife with his foot and, not being one to turn the other cheek, for good measure smashed the skinhead’s nose with a devastating blow with the heel of his right hand.

The skinhead spent a few days in sick bay then was confined to solitary for the remainder of Eddie’s time in prison. Eddie never had any words with the guy and couldn’t think of anything he’d done to annoy the local white supremacist chapter.

The attack remained a mystery until the day he was released. As he exited the main gate there were two men standing by their cars. One was Eddie’s friend, Stan, come to pick him up and the other was Sean McKenna, leering at him.

Eddie realized that McKenna must have paid the skinhead to kill him.

Eddie restrained the urge to charge McKenna and beat the hell out of him. Good thing too, because McKenna was built like Mr. Universe and knew how to fight. And an assault charge would have been an immediate parole violation.

Eddie flipped McKenna the one-finger salute and Stan drove off. That was over a year ago but he could still see the hate and anger in McKenna’s eyes.

“
I
mean it, Eddie.” Ana pulled off the main road into the soft shoulder. “You owe me. This guy’s nuttier than a Snickers bar.”

She entered a narrow dirt road, bumpy and rutted. Winter had stripped the trees on the hill naked. Wet leaves all over made the dirt road slippery. The slate grey sky above was ominous.

Eddie squinted and peered up the hill, trying to find the house.

“Told you.” Ana slowed as the passenger side of the car passed over a deep indent in the road. “It’s a shit shack.”

Eddie spotted the shack poised precariously at the top of a little rise. It gave the appearance of having been built as a temporary shelter years ago while more suitable living arrangements were being made.

The yard was covered with junk, old-washing machines, a rusted eighties-era Dodge Caravan, a stained commode and the ever-popular gaggle of used tires strewn about.

Eddie heard the generator before he saw it. Another rusted hulk, sitting on cinder blocks, peeked out from a tarp that didn’t quite cover the hood of the car.

“He lives alone, right?” Eddie asked.

Ana gave him a look. “Yeah, just him and the voices.”

Eddie saw something hanging in the trees near the shack. Some kind of animal had been strung up.

“That a deer?”

“God that’s gross.”

The dirt road narrowed and transformed into two long tire tracks. They bumped and jostled up the hill. Ana had to slow even more to go over some tree roots.

The dirt tracks continued straight ahead and did not veer toward the house. Ana picked a wide opening between a pair of trees and cut the wheel. She couldn’t get much closer to the house so she stopped about twenty yards shy. Kept her hands on the wheel.

A Labrador retriever sat in front of the shack, panting in the cold air. It lifted its head and watched them.

Ana stared out the windshield, her eyes intent on the shack. “How long are we gonna be here?”

“Twenty or thirty minutes.”

“Can you make it twenty? I want to keep the engine running.”

Eddie looked over at her. “Take it easy. Everything’s going to be fine.”

At that exact moment the screen door burst open and slapped against the wall of the shack. Ana jumped and accidentally hit the horn, which caused Eddie to jump.

“Sorry,” Ana said.

An old man hobbled into view, squinting against the weak daylight like he hadn’t seen it in years. He had yellowing grey hair in need of a good pair of scissors and a better bottle of shampoo. His face seemed frozen in a permanent scowl.

He stood in the doorway and stared at them, keeping one hand inside the house hidden from view.

“See what I mean?” Ana’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.

Hollis shielded his eyes with a hand to get a better look at them.

“Better keep the engine running,” Eddie said.

“Told you.”

Eddie got out but kept his door between him and Hollis. Ana did the same thing.

“Mr. Hollis?” Eddie asked.

“The hell are you?” His intonation was off. It sounded more like a statement than a question. It was like his voice was out of practice.

The Labrador mimicked its master and stared at them.

“I’m Eddie. And I think you know Ana here.”

Hollis looked from him to Ana. She brought her hand up and waved. Squeaked out a hello.

“Anastasia Lovsky?”

She nodded and smiled badly.

Hollis grunted and made it sound like a four-letter word. He looked back at Eddie. “So who the hell are you?”

“I’m Eddie. It’s nice to meet you.”

Hollis hawked up a gob of spit, turned his head, and hurled it a good seven feet. Ana’s face turned green.

Hollis looked at his dog. “Lookee here, Zeus. It’s Eddie.”

“I wanna leave now,” Ana whispered.             

Eddie did too. He felt like he’d stumbled upon the Unabomber’s shack in the middle of a bomb-making session.

Hollis suddenly brought his other hand into view. It clutched a shot gun. He advanced on them and crunched a shell into place.

Eddie put his hands up, cursing himself for not listening to Ana.

Hollis stopped about ten feet shy of Ana’s car. “I don’t give a shit what your name is, boy. I asked who the hell you were.”

Ana crouched behind her door now, her eyes wide with terror. The car was still running. They had doors and a windshield between them and Hollis’s shotgun.

Eddie moved away from the car and the shotgun followed him. That was good. If things got messy, Ana could jump in the car and get away easier.

Time to improvise. “I think Tessa Lovsky is trying to tell us something. I think she wants everybody to know what really happened fourteen years ago.”

Hollis stared at Eddie over the barrel of the shotgun for five or six heartbeats then he lowered his weapon and looked over his shoulder at the dog. The Lab barked and wagged its tail.

“You think they’re alright?” Hollis said.

The dog barked again.

“Mr. Hollis, we just want to talk. Can you put the gun away?” Eddie said.

“I’m still sick.”

“I believe you.” Eddie fought to keep his voice calm and neutral.

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“I wish I weren’t, but I am. I’d trade all the money for my health. Don’t you understand.”

Eddie decided to play a hunch. “I don’t care about your social security or disability. Do I look like a government stiff?”

Hollis looked back at the dog again and mumbled something unintelligible.

“Eddie.” Ana was back in the car.

Eddie held up his palm to her, not wanting her to move.

Then Hollis smiled, revealing a mouth of missing and rotting teeth. “It ain’t even loaded.” He held up the shotgun with a maniacal grin on his face. “But I’ll load it as soon as you’re gone, so don’t bother telling no one, Mister Eddie!”

“I’m not telling anyone, least of all those government people.” Eddie approached the old kook slowly and kept his hands in plain sight. “Mind if we talk for a few minutes?”

“You can come inside. But that bitch stays in the car.” And without another word, Hollis whirled and marched into the shack. He left the shotgun propped against the wall outside.

Ana said, “I’m going to kill you. I told you he was missing some files in his computer.”

Eddie lowered his voice. “You’re right, he’s crackers. But I still gotta talk to him.”

“You’re not actually going in there.”

“Keep the motor running.”

Th
e
Lab tracked Eddie as he approached the shack.

“That’s a good boy.”

The dog didn’t respond, just watched him with knowing eyes.

The generator blared loud enough to drown out all other sound near the shack.  Tucked away in a copse of trees, Eddie spotted a homemade fountain gurgling a weak stream of water. He stopped five paces from the front door and squinted his eyes to see better.

It seemed pitch black inside the shack, and the generator blocked out any noise Hollis might have been making.

Eddie looked back once at Ana. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the steering wheel at eleven and one. He wondered where this ranked among his list of all-time bad decisions.

Ana waved at him to come back.

Eddie turned back around and eyed Hollis’s shotgun, leaning up against the shack. It wasn’t loaded but it made a better weapon than his bare hands. But he decided against it. Hollis might have really armed himself inside and any suspect moves by Eddie would probably earn him two slugs to the chest and a trip to the morgue.

Eddie walked forward, staring into the gaping darkness of the shack.

He stopped in the doorway. Waited a moment to see if Hollis would call to him in the darkness. But he heard nothing except the faint sound of music and the annoying whir of the generator outside.

“Mr. Hollis?”

“Right in front of you.”

Eddie jumped backward and Hollis cackled. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light in the cabin, Eddie could make out the silhouette of Hollis.

The shadow that was Hollis shifted forward, and the old man’s weather-beaten face came into view under the grey light eeking through the grimy window next to him. Eddie’s eyes adjusted more. Hollis sat at a small crooked table. There were things scattered around the floor, the inside of the shack a mess, matching the outside. Eddie knew that style. It was called Early American Cluster Fuck.

Heart still in his throat, Eddie said, “Mind if I come in?”

“Get the fuck in here and shut the door, it’s cold.”

Hollis reached to the floor and Eddie feared he was going for a weapon but then an old space heater rattled on.

Eddie left the front door cracked because he could barely see.

Hollis drank from a bottle of something that looked suspiciously like moonshine. “I was taking a nap, that’s why it’s so dark in here. I get migraines.”

Eddie found an ancient chair and took a seat, hoping he wouldn’t stick to it.

The music he’d heard a few moments ago came back. It was a Steve Miller Band album. A record player spun somewhere. The needle jumped twice but the song kept playing.

This scene had all the earmarks of a bad dream.

“You’re here about Tessa?” Hollis asked.

“That’s right.”

Hollis took another swig of moonshine. “I bet you wanna hear about the water then.”

Eddie had no idea what Hollis was talking about but decided to let it play out like Tim would have.

“That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

Hollis leaned forward. “You wanna tell me how you know about the water, Mister Eddie, beings I haven’t mentioned it to a soul?”

Uh-oh
. “Some strange things are happening in this town and some of them involve water.”

Hollis leaned back in his seat and lapsed into a suspicious silence.

Eddie returned the old man’s stare. The seconds ticked by and still Hollis didn’t look away. The stare-off wasn’t unusual to Eddie. In prison it happened often. If you looked away you were inviting some goon to make you his girlfriend. So Eddie kept his eyes glued to Hollis’s, and stayed quieter than a silent film actor.

They held each other’s gaze like they couldn’t look away. Eddie was starting to get creeped out. No sane man eyeballed someone else this long. He pictured Ana in the car and wondered why he wasn’t in it with her.

Then something beeped and Eddie nearly jumped out of his seat.

Hollis brought a wrist up into the weak light and looked down at an old watch.

“Time for my meds.”

Hollis didn’t need to move. A pill organizer sat on the table in front of him. He opened one of the Thursday compartments and poured out a few pills and shoved them into his mouth and took a pull on the bottle to wash them down.

The mood in the dark room seemed to change.

Hollis said, “The water’s a pain the balls. It gets in everywhere.”

Eddie leaned forward in his chair. “Where’s it getting in and how often?”

Hollis rose and limped to the far side of the room. He switched on a lamp.

Eddie saw something scurry out of the light and make a dash for some yellowing newspapers. He tried to ignore it.

“Here.” Hollis tapped the wall with his boot.

A dark water stain had formed a crescent in the corner of the room. Eddie looked at the ceiling for any tell-tale signs of a leak.

“It ain’t coming from there,” Hollis said. “That’s the first place I looked.”

“How long’s it been there?”

“This one? It’s new.”

“There’s more?”

Hollis nodded. “Every few days there’s a new spot.”

Eddie moved closer to the corner to inspect the stain. “How long’s this been going on?”

Hollis shrugged. “Coupla months.”

“And there’s no leak.”

Hollis bristled. “I told you, there ain’t nothing wrong with the damn roof. This place is old but my son sent me money to fix that roof. It’s sound.”

Eddie had been waiting for Hollis to bring up his son. “How’s Michael doing?”

Hollis looked like he wanted to spit. “Still a pussy. He got hitched to a real hellcat. That bitch wears the pants. She says jump and he says, how high?”

Eddie let that pass as he scanned the room for any additional weapons. Not seeing any, he did notice a few loops of rope hanging on hooks on the opposite wall, reminding him of the deer outside.

“You’re pretty good with a rope, huh? Me, I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Course I am. I’m a man.”

“You know how to tie one of those African tarantula knots?”

Hollis thought about it for a second, then shook his head. He even managed to chuckle. “You’re full of shit, you know that?”

Eddie smirked. “Just testing you. I saw that deer outside too. What kind of rifle do you use?”

Hollis sneered. “You know anything about rifles?”

“I had a water pistol once.”

The old man cackled at that. “Guess you one of them city boys, huh?”

“Not exactly. Can you show me where the other wet spots were?”

Hollis pulled a toothpick out of his shirt pocket and jabbed it in the corner of his mouth. “C’mon, I’ll give you the grand tour. This here’s the living room.”

Hollis mumbled something before limping into a room smaller than a rat’s nest. “Here’s the kitchen.”

Eddie looked around. Saw an old freezer but no fridge. There was a rusty sink, an old formica counter with two cabinets perched above it and a seriously grimy linoleum floor.

Hollis pointed to the middle of the floor with a long, crooked finger that looked like it had been broken half a dozen times.

“Last time, the water was right there. Right in front of you.”

Eddie knelt and examined the floor. The caulk had long ago disintegrated. Most of the tiles were loose. “How much water?”

Hollis’s arms formed a circle. “About yea big.”

“And it was just here, in a circle? It didn’t spread or run anywhere?”

An edge formed in Hollis’s voice. “That’s the lowest point in the room. So it just stayed put.”

Eddie checked the ceiling. Hollis wagged a finger at him.

“No leaks, I said.”

“Could it have come from somewhere else and collected here?”

“Rest of the room was bone dry.”

Eddie looked around the room as Hollis started mumbling to himself again.

All Hollis’s claims were unverifiable. To do a proper job, Eddie would need someone to certify the roof and check the walls and plumbing for leaks. He’d also like to have a couple cameras on site for at least a couple nights.

“You mind if I come back tomorrow and set up a camera or two? I’d love—”

“No fucking cameras in here. You’re lucky I let your scrawny ass in.”

Eddie held his anger in check and screwed his face up into a smile. “Any more wet spots?”

“In here.” Hollis shuffled backward into his bedroom and propped himself against a chest of drawers for support.

Eddie decided to wrap it up as quickly as possible. Hollis wouldn’t let him film and probably wouldn’t let him come back inside again. Hollis hadn’t known Eddie was coming so why would he make up this story. Plus, Hollis clearly didn’t like visitors, and these claims would invite attention he didn’t want. That made these admissions against self-interest. Eddie had learned over the years to generally trust such things.

“When do these wet spots appear?” Eddie asked.

Hollis shifted his weight heavily to his other foot. “No particular time. Just all of a sudden-like and there they are.”

“Bad hip or bad back?” Eddie asked.

“Not that that’s any of your business, Mister Eddie, but both. Herniated discs and pinched nerves. Then those wetbacks hit me with their fucking car. Twice.”

Eddie did a quick scan of the room, by far the darkest in the whole shack. Heavy black curtains were drawn. A shoebox of a bathroom to Eddie’s left. The record player in the far corner of the room, the needle bouncing over the end of the album.

A cot in the middle of the room. A chair and a tall reading lamp. There was something rectangular on the cot, with a plug running to the wall.

“Did you ever work at the Mill?” Eddie asked.

“Long time ago. Back when old man Kindler was running things. He knew what he was doing, not like that worthless son of his.”

Eddie felt like there was more to the story there but Hollis wasn’t going to open up. Hollis shifted his weight back to his other leg. It seemed like he couldn’t make up his mind which side hurt more.

Hollis said, “The latest puddle appeared two days ago. Was up to the doc’s office and when I come back, there she was.”

Eddie realized what the black rectangular box on the old man’s bed was. “Is that a laptop?”

“Bet you didn’t think you’d find one of those in here.” Hollis snorted. “My boy bought it for me so’s we could keep in touch. Been e-mailing back and forth, just like you high-falutin city folk.”

Eddie suppressed a smile. The old man was playing up being a rube, he could tell.

Eddie looked at Hollis like a thought had just occurred to him. “Why would Tessa haunt you?”

Hollis stiffened. “How do you know it’s Tessa? May be my ex-wife. Folks seem to think I treated her a lot worse than that bitch Tessa Lovsky.”

“Just wondering.” Eddie scratched his chin like he was thinking. “Me, I think Tessa went out on that lake by herself. From what I hear, she didn’t need any coaxing to be a wild child.”

Hollis’s body slowly untensed. “My son never went out on that ice. I know that because he was a chicken-shit. More coward than a draft-dodger. Those assholes got together and made up a story and the whole town bought it because they loved that little tramp. God knows why. And they love that little whore sister of hers too.”

Eddie knew the old man was goading him. All the same, Eddie decided to say something.

“You’re just a broken down, bitter old man, Hollis. I almost feel sorry for you. Almost. You’ve got everyone around here scared of you and you’re nothing but a pathetic geriatric fuck.”

“You, you get the fuck out of my house before I—”

“Before you what? You gonna shoot me? You make a move for that gun and I’ll stick it up your ass your miserable piece of shit.”

Hollis wasn’t expecting this and he was momentarily taken aback. He must have seen the anger in Eddie’s eyes.

“You get outta here or I’ll sick the lieutenant on you for trespassing and making threats.”

Eddie laughed on his way out of the shack. “Have a nice day, asshole.”

Eddie took the slope of the hill on the way back to the car. He wondered how Hollis, with his bad hip and back, could move soundlessly through the hilly woods of Pennsylvania quiet enough to kill a deer.