Ryan Thomas: The Summer I Died

I rolled up the hat and put it in my back pocket. Given a choice, Tooth would have taken this hat to the grave with him, and I figured I could do that much for him.

Something crunched under my foot as I moved back to the door. I looked down and saw a collection of plastic prescription pill bottles, maybe twelve in all, scattered on the ground. A few were empty, were missing their lids, some lone pills resting nearby, but most were full. I picked one up and read the label: Clozapine. Never heard of it. I didn’t know what the drug did, or what it was for, but it sure as shit wouldn’t surprise me if it had something to do with psychosis. The date on the label was over a year old. I picked up another, also still full, and saw the date on it was also a year old.

I dropped it back down to the floor, next to a child’s doll with wiry blonde hair.

I gave the room a final once over and didn’t see a phone anywhere. Okay, I decided, the fucker doesn’t own a phone, time to leave by the front door and run as fast as possible on my rotting leg to Bobtail.

In the hallway again, I took a breath and steeled myself for the journey. I was moving toward the stairs when it hit me that the backyard was suddenly quiet, too quiet, the kind of quiet that scares the shit out of new parents. Rushing into the bathroom, I slid up next to the window that looked out over the backyard and, barely breathing, pulled back the corner of the blind. I looked out toward the swing set.

Skinny Man was staring right back at me.

The curtain fell out of my hand as I plastered myself against the wall, my heart slamming against my ribcage. At the same time, Skinny Man let out a bloodcurdling wail that sent squawking birds flying from the trees, a wail that raced from the swing set to the driveway door.

And then he was inside the house and rushing though the kitchen, knocking pans to the ground. I heard him in the living room, screaming, a clatter of falling objects bouncing in his wake. A shadow exploded up the stairs, followed by a body that was swinging a shovel like a crack addict frantically looking for a pinata full of drugs. Then he saw me, and in his wide ape-shit eyes, though I was at least fifteen feet away, I swear I saw the trembling reflection of a man with nothing more to lose: myself.

He stopped at the landing, maybe stunned, maybe collecting his strength, maybe hearing voices, who knows. My body was shaking, both in fear and anticipation, and I thought of Jamie downstairs, and what I had to do for her. I thought of Tooth and the way he died. I thought of myself and how unfair it all was. A silence passed between us, him staring at me, me staring back, like two gladiators in ancient Rome. There was no noise but our eager breathing. He was pissed, outraged that I had escaped, outraged at himself most likely. With a spit-drenched roar, he raised his shovel and rushed at me.

“Ahhhhh!”

Without thinking, I charged him with the ax, holding it high like a reaper taking souls, screaming unholy nonsense and simply beyond concern of catching a shovel to the skull. And that’s when I saw something that nearly made me stumble, something behind Skinny Man that I knew couldn’t be real, something that gave me a renewed burst of speed.

I swung the ax.

With an explosive clang, the two weapons collided in mid air, accompanied by angry screams and cracking handles. Then, either because the ax was heavier, or because of what I knew couldn’t possibly be in the hall with us, Skinny Man fell backwards and toppled down the stairs, the shovel arcing through the air with him. My momentum carried me forward and I fell down on top of him, losing the ax as I tumbled.

Still holding the knife, I rolled past him and into the wall at the bottom, spilling into the living room like dirty laundry. Pain erupted throughout my back, my vision blurred. My shoulders seemed to swell up before my eyes, and I was pretty sure my spine was sticking out the top of my head. The dog bite on my shin was gushing like a geyser. I looked up and found Skinny Man lying on the stairs, upside down, with his leg caught in the railing. Above him, the ax peeked out over the top stair, out of my reach. He swung the shovel at me but he was a couple feet too far away to hit me. I braced myself for it to come flying at me next, but he held on to it instead. Watching him watching me, I noticed one of the railing spokes had stabbed through his calf muscle, pinning him there like a fish on a hook.

He yelled, “You are in a heap of shit now. Only people who leave here are the ones marked paid in full, and I don’t see a receipt on your toe, now do I?”

And with that he punched through the spoke and broke it off from the railing. Standing up with the thin piece of wood impaling him, he reached down and took hold of the shortest end and proceeded to pull it all the way through and out the other side of his leg, grinning the whole while. Once the spoke was out, blood began to pool on the stairs and run down toward me. He took a step and winced, sweat flowing from his brow, and his face twisted in surprise. I guess he didn’t think his little trick would hurt that much, but from the way he was breathing through his clenched teeth, and the way he was now afraid to walk, he had obviously misjudged his own threshold for pain. Still, I was in no shape to make for the ax above him so I turned and limped toward the front door.

“Where you going, mama’s boy? You still have to atone for your crime. Hey, Butch!”

A loud bark came from behind me and I spun with my fists raised and ready. Butch came charging through the living room like a runaway train and slammed me into the door. Sharp teeth bit down on my hip and sank into my flesh, thrusting me into the door repeatedly. In excruciating pain, I wrapped my arm around his head and tried to shove the knife in his throat.

From the stairs, Skinny Man yelled, “No! Don’t you hurt him! I’ll kill you!”

But Butch was thrashing, and the knife missed its target and sank into his shoulder instead. With a yelp he burst back into the kitchen and disappeared, the knife still protruding from his body. My hip was filled with red hot gravel. Blood was seeping down my groin. Realizing I had to get out now, I reached up to undo the latch on the front door. From behind me I heard the Frankenstein clomp of Skinny Man shuffling down the steps, and a second later a shovel swooped over my head and took a chunk out of the lintel. I grabbed the handle before he could pull it back and wrenched it from his hands, swung it back at him with all my might. But I was hurt and beyond fatigued, and I misjudged the swing and hit the banister instead. The reverberation sent a shock wave up my arm and I dropped it on the floor. In an instant Skinny Man was on top of me.

“I’m gonna cut you up nice and fine,” he whispered in my ear as we struggled. I saw him go for the ax on his belt. “Hell, I didn’t ask you to come here, you did that on yer own. So many people always trying to come through my property, hike through my hills, drive through my woods. Nobody ever learns, do they?”

My shoulders felt like cornmeal and my punches had little effect. Getting a thumb up to his eye, I jabbed it in but it was a weak attempt. He pulled his head away and put me in a headlock and squeezed, still trying to undo the ax. Spots jumped before me; I was losing my breath. In a way, it felt good, like I would soon be asleep and in a better place. Again, I could see random images before me, the ever-present image of California that had lodged into my subconscious, a quick flash of Jamie when she was younger, holding her teddy bear, my father yelling at me for watching too many horror films. Then I saw another vision: Tooth, standing in the corner of the room. He was saying something to me. “Go for the leg, he’s hurt in the leg.”