Evil Heights, Book I: The Midnight Flyer Read online

  Squirming and wiggling, Lee fought to arch his back, but damn, Ronnie was heavy. At last, he had enough room and flung his legs up and over, catching Ronnie around the neck with his calves. Lee squeezed unmercifully, but Ronnie hung tenaciously to his advantage, continuing to dig his knuckles into Lee's head, roaring and whooping to beat the band.

  His air cut off, Ronnie began turning deep red, then teetered and lost balance, finally falling to his side. Both boys let go and rolled apart in the grass, as they could no longer laugh and breathe simultaneously without choking.

  Lee, catching his breath first, sat up, his t-shirt balled up in a ring around his neck. Flecks of grass were stuck to his bare back and chest. “That'll teach ya."

  Ronnie lay on his back panting, his stomach heaving in and out. Using his elbows and then his hands he worked himself to an upright position. “Yeah?” he countered with all the pity of a vast playground education. “Teach me what? Teach me you cry like a baby, when you're gettin’ your butt whupped?"

  Ronnie swiped at his head dislodging a twig from behind an ear. Both boys sported short crew cuts. Lee, being what the old folks would call a towhead, was a silvery blonde. Ronnie's hair though, was jet black and seemed sparse, each piece standing out from his white scalp like a bristle brush. Ronnie too, wasn't lanky and muscular as was Lee. He liked his mom's fine cooking a bit much, and it showed.

  Struggling, Ronnie managed to pull his red and black striped t-shirt back down. Leaning forward and still breathing heavily, he began retying the shoelace of one of his canvas high-top tennis shoes. One of which, for some unknown reason, always seemed to be undone.

  Lee picked up the twig, and peeled off a leaf, then wadding it up, he flicked it at Ronnie. “Is that what you call a butt kicking?"

  Ronnie blocked it with one hand and grinned toothily. “I was the one on top, or are you still so dizzy you don't remember?"

  "Dizzy, I'm smashed flat,” Lee came back. “You only weigh about two tons."

  Ronnie's chin was mashed to his chest as he worked at trying to snap the top of his jeans back together. The snap had come undone during the all the wrestling and rolling about. He was too big though; there was no way he'd get that snap snapped while sitting down. Giving up, he looked up to Lee, his face still as red as a blister. “I had you there for a minute. You gotta admit."

  Lee got up on his knees. “Didn't last long though, did it?"

  "Long enough,” Ronnie came back. “I got ya good."

  Both boys got to their feet, and with Ronnie finally getting his jeans re-snapped, they set off towards the street, picking off remaining blades of torn grass and pulling up their blue jeans.

  "What'd you do today,” asked Ronnie stepping off the sidewalk into the street.

  "Not all that much,” Lee replied. “Laid low mostly. Dad's making me help Maggie get the stuff unpacked.” He paused to let the injustice of chores sink home. “How ‘bout you?"

  Ronnie landed a good kick on a flattened, dead toad lying in the road. It skittered along like a blackened tin can top with splayed arms and legs before disappearing into the black hole of the gutter. “I had to help my mom out in the garden."

  "Well, at least it's better than being in school,” Lee replied.

  "I guess,” agreed Ronnie hollowly. “Course next year you jump up to high school, and I'll be left in the eighth grade all on my lonesome. I can't believe they're letting you skip a whole grade. You don't never study neither. It ain't fair."

  Lee shrugged. “I guess they know brains when they see ‘em."

  "Yeah right,” Ronnie came back. “You mean when they smell ‘em."

  Continuing the argument they turned off Valentino. Sticker, who was sitting by the porch, ceased licking himself for a moment and watched silently as the boys headed down Arbuckle, south towards the river. Even though his collar still appeared to be tight they stayed over to the opposite side of the street while passing, then kept on, not really going anywhere.

  "So what you think about livin’ in your grandma's old house?” Ronnie asked, swinging his arms around and jumping on and off the curb.

  "We've only really been in the place since Saturday, you know,” Lee replied. “But so far, it's not been too bad. At least I got a room now that's big enough to swing a cat in."

  Lee's grandmother, his mother's mother, had died suddenly, just a few weeks before school let out for the summer. It was late in the afternoon when Javier Fuentes, an old Mexican who lived at the end of the road, had driven past and spotted the body sprawled in the drive. The official coroner's report concluded she'd been carrying in her groceries when she'd suffered a massive stroke. The driver's side front and rear doors of her nearly new, green and white ‘58 Ford Fairlane were open, and two bags from the Lucky Seven were lying to either side, the contents spilled out on the grass. The day she died it had been more than two months since Lee had last seen her. At the funeral, he'd heard grown-ups talking in low whispers about the look on Kathleen's face. He'd never know. It had been a closed coffin.

  "But ain't it weird y'all bein’ there?” Ronnie asked, watching his feet as he balanced on the curb. “I mean you know she hated y'all. And now, you're livin’ in her house. And not only are y'all in your dead grandma's house, but right next door to Old Lady Ballard's, to boot.” Ronnie rolled his eyes as he made his version of the horror face all the kids made when they mentioned weird, old widow Ballard and her haunted mansion.

  "Grandma didn't hate me,” Lee corrected, stressing the me, “just Maggie, Dad, and Patty."

  "You know what I meant,” Ronnie said.

  Lee's family never visited his grandma, not even for Christmas, yet they had inherited the big, slate roofed house, as Maggie, his step mom, was the nearest heir. For almost as long as he could remember, at least since Maggie and his dad had married, Lee was the only one Grandma Bonham had ever tolerated for a visit. The house, along with the car and a little money, was a huge windfall for Lee's parents; there was no mistaking that. But now that Grandma was gone the house itself seemed to know it, and to Lee it felt empty and strange, almost resentful, as if the very stone and wood were aware of their trespass.

  Momentarily feeling it, Lee just looked away, not wanting to reply.

  Way off down the street, where Arbuckle Avenue passed under the railroad trestle, a small boy was jumping up and down and hollering. Seeing that he'd been noticed, the boy broke into a frantic run in their direction. The skinny, little kid, wearing only a pair of stained, plaid shorts came flying up the street, his bare feet slapping on the warm asphalt. He stopped just short of the two older boys, his lungs heaving and his ribs stretching under his scabby skin. How his pants stayed up was anyone's guess.

  "Hey, y'all, guess what?” he panted.

  He was around seven, and was one of a brood of hillbillies whom had taken over an abandoned house between the PS&Y railroad trestle and the Yalahalla River. This one's name was Alton, and he had two brothers, one older, and the other about the same age as Lee, they sometimes saw around. Altogether, counting cousins and runaways there were maybe seven or eight kids that lived at the place off and on.

  "I know what,” Ronnie answered Alton, following with a laugh. “Your momma told ya', you're gonna have to take a bath tonight."

  The dirty little boy obviously wasn't expecting this, and it took him a moment to catch his thoughts.

  "Bath? What're you talkin’ ‘bout?” he hollered, revealing a few green baby teeth. “You ain't seen my mama. You don't even know my mamma. ‘Sides, you're wrong! You're dead wrong! I ain't takin’ no damn bath!"

  Ronnie grinned at Lee; obviously knowing he'd struck the right nerve.

  "When's the last time you had a bath anyway, Alton?” Lee joined in, “Last Christmas?"

  As he thought about it, Alton scratched at a bug bite around the back of one shoulder blade getting one hand over the shoulder and the other coming up and around from behind. Suddenly he remembered what he'd come running to tell.

&
nbsp; "Carl and Daryl, they caught themselves a turtle! A big ass turtle! They got it in the hole, ‘round to the back of the house!” He turned and broke into a run, flailing one arm back behind. “Come on ya'll!” he yelled, “Y'all come see!"

  Reflexively, Lee almost started to run, but stopped, realizing it was beneath his dignity as a big kid to chase along behind Alton.

  Another fifty yards beyond the trestle's abandoned tracks, amongst some sad, crooked chinaberry trees and dry, gray brush, leaned a house whose homey spirit had moved on long ago. At one time it might have been a young couple's first home. But now, the window frames held only a few complete panes of glass, and the front door hung on by just a bottom hinge. So faded was the paint, that it was impossible to tell what color, if any, it had ever been. And what might once have been a decorative brick wishing well out front, was now stuffed with the residue from a half a dozen dead lawnmowers.

  Making their way around back, the tall brush grew so close, they had to squeeze past a giant blackened car motor, hanging from a chain beneath a bent and straining swing set frame. There wasn't any grass anywhere, as the deposits of thick, tarry oil, shards of metal, and scraps of trash had long since killed the soil and nothing green would come near.

  Lee was careful where he walked, as he didn't want to step in something and ruin his new PF Flyers. The commercials on T.V. promised he could “Run faster and jump higher, thanks to the Action Wedge.” He had yet to make up his mind entirely if the wedge actually worked, as he'd only had the pair since Saturday, but it did seem that when he ran, he did feel like he was just a tad bit quicker.

  "Come on y'all, over this way,” Alton turned back, his impatience nearing a frenzy. “Daryl and Carl got him down in the hole to the side of the shed.” The boy led the way, strutting proudly forward, his bare feet immune to the perils.

  Lee came around the tin shed but stopped short just as a muddy boy in plaid shorts screamed, “Shit fire,” and hopped back from a huge, nasty hole that stretched twenty or thirty feet around.

  Another boy, Carl, a tall and wrangly teen, was attempting to close a makeshift scrap of chain link, that together with some cracked planks and stolen road signs, made up the fence around the edge of “The Hole."

  "Goddamn! Looky here, ain't that some shit!” Daryl whooped, holding up the splintered shaft of a red broomstick.

  The excitement was too much for Alton, who began stamping one foot on the ground and clapping like a cheap, mechanical monkey.

  "Hey, Carl. Hey, Daryl,” Ronnie said cautiously. “Alton says y'all caught a turtle."

  "Biggest damn turtle, you ever seen,” said Carl, not looking at Ronnie, but peering back over the chain link as though he needed to keep an eye on whatever it was that was in there.

  "Fuckin’ A!” agreed Daryl.

  Carl was the oldest of the Willis brood, and was known for being wild and mean. Luckily, he seldom had anything to do with the boys Lee and Ronnie's ages. If you didn't drink, smoke, fuck or fight, Carl Willis had little use for you. This evening, the rangy youth was wearing filthy blue jeans stuck down into a pair of big, green rubber boots, and a blue mechanic's shirt with the name “Lonnie” stenciled above the pocket.

  For a moment Lee and Ronnie, Carl and Daryl stood across from each other in one of those pauses between boys that can swing one-way or the other.

  "Git on out of here, Alton,” Daryl said, and flung a blob of mud off the broomstick smacking his little brother on the shoulder. “Or we'll feed yer ass to the turtle."

  The tension was broken. Someone had been picked on, and everyone was glad to see that it had been Alton.

  "Y'all come on over here and have yourselves a look,” offered Carl, plucking a pack of Lucky Strikes from his pocket. He tamped the stubby, unfiltered cigarette against a big knuckle and then lit it with a flick of a chrome metal Zippo he'd produced from his pants.

  Ronnie didn't move. Something in Carl's tone sounded more like a dare than an invitation.

  Lee though, stepped right up, and for whatever reason, looked Carl straight back in the eye. The big teen stared back coldly for a second then turned pointing with his cigarette down into the filthy pit. Ronnie moved in to the left of Daryl, and Alton hung by his armpits on one of the few sturdy boards.

  The pit didn't appear to be very deep, and was filled with yellowish, foamy water, flecked with pieces of grass, bits of twigs, and a big, scaly carp's head could be seen floating out near the center. A garden hose let in a trickle of water at one end, and a busted piece of concrete tube let the overflow seep out on the other side. Right near the gate, just below Carl's long fingers and stubby Lucky Strike, was more than a hundred pounds of mean, black lightening.

  There were a few other reptiles visible, attempting to hide down in the goo. A big, flat, white soft shell, close to two feet around, stuck its snorkel-like snout up at the far end. And a small green and yellow striped alligator, maybe three feet long, lay motionless on top of a chunk of rotten cottonwood log that jutted out from the bank almost to the middle of the muck.

  But it was the alligator snapper that ruled the roost. Its massive shell was black and covered with plates like some kind of horned armor. Its clawed feet were flat and stuck out from each corner of the shell. Opposite its short, pointy tail was its massive head supported by a scaled, leathery neck as thick around as a full-grown man's forearm. From its terrible, wedged beak, a piece of mangled red broomstick stuck out as a warning.

  "Where'd y'all get him?” asked Lee, properly impressed.

  "Just down below the falls, over yonder,” Daryl answered, waving an arm towards the high granite bluffs on the other side of the trees that marked the southern bank of the Yalahalla River. “Carl and me, we was giggin’ us some frogs, and no sooner had Carl stuck this big fat sucker, than this bitch come up from under this old log and bit the damn frog clean in two."

  "See here. Daryl ain't lyin'. I got the frog's legs,” said Alton, proudly plucking a pair of leopard frog legs without a body from a gory bucket by the board where he'd been hanging. “Here's all that's left of ‘em."

  "Then what'd ya'll do?” Ronnie asked, not taking his eyes off the monster below.

  "I told Daryl to run quick, back up to the house for the cast net and some rope,” continued Carl, extending his arm way out and tapping his cigarette so the ash fell on the turtle's shell. “I took my frog sticker and shoved him down in the mud, up against the bank so the fucker couldn't get loose."

  Carl's face changed to a scowl, an easy transition, and said, “Took you damn near forever to get back too, Daryl. Slower'n a damn three legged dog. Couple of times, he ‘bout got away. Here I was up to my ass in that river. If that bitch had got free, he'd have bit my balls off."

  "I run as fast as I could,” defended Daryl. “And it took both of us to ball him up and drag him home."

  A mosquito landed right above the turtle's left eye and probed for a place to suck between the scales.

  The turtle didn't even blink.

  Lee slapped a mosquito biting his thigh and another on his calf. Looking west, he noticed the sky had begun to go from washed blue to streaks of red and gray.

  "Y'all catch all these turtles and stuff around here?” Lee asked.

  "Yeah, Carl and me don't spend much time ‘round some pussified school, like y'all.” Daryl waved the broomstick in the direction of the river and the thick woods that followed the bluffs. “We go all back up in there. There's shit we seen you wouldn't believe if it bit you in the ass. Huh, Carl?"

  Carl flicked his cigarette ash again, hitting the turtle on its flat head and dislodging the bloating mosquito.

  "Damn, he didn't move a muscle,” said Ronnie. “You'd think he'd pull up in his shell."

  "You don't know shit about snappers. Do you?” said Carl rudely.

  Ronnie didn't argue.

  "A turtle like that,” Carl shook his head and took another long drag from his Lucky Strike, smoke coming out of his nose when he talked, “shit, he don
't never hide. And if he does, it's just so's he can sneak up on somethin'. He ain't afraid of a goddamned thing. If he can't bite the piss out of it, or flat out eat it, then whatever it is just might as well do the same fuckin’ thing to him. That's all he's ever known. That's the way it is. Whether it's down in the river, or up here in town, there ain't no difference. Some's strong and some ain't."

  Carl looked hard at Ronnie.

  Alton slapped a mosquito and lost his balance knocking over the bucket of frogs.

  With a violent quickness, Carl had him by his shorts, hanging the flailing boy out over the fence.

  "Aaah!” Alton screamed, his terror real. “No Carl! Please don't! Maaama!"

  "Drop him, Carl! Drop him!” jeered Daryl, his eyes gone wild.

  The long muscles of Carl's arm stood out, but his arm stayed straight, despite the swinging arms and kicking feet of the forty-pound boy.

  Lee and Ronnie stood frozen; anything might happen.

  Alton's panic was real. His high voice cracked as he shrieked.

  Slowly, Carl retracted his arm and set his little brother down on the dry side of the fence.

  "Now pick them frogs up and get ‘em inside to Mama,” ordered Carl.

  Alton, settling down enough to start to cry, scooped the bloody mess, grass, mud and all back into the bucket and ran off towards the house.

  "I guess we'll be going,” said Lee. “Mosquitoes are getting kind of thick."

  "Yeah,” agreed Ronnie. “We'll see y'all around."

  Carl put his hard gaze back on Lee and leaned away hanging on to a fence post. “You been to the movies lately?"

  "Not for a little while,” Lee replied.

  "Well, you tell me if you do,” Carl said, grinning and taking a final drag off of his Lucky Strike. “You put on one hell of a show, you know that, boy?"

  Lee nodded; suddenly understanding what he'd first thought was a trick question.

  Ronnie had walked away a few steps and was standing back, one shoelace again untied. “Come on, Lee, let's go."

  Carl continued to glare like he expected something.