Carver Pike - Scalp

“Well, hell, maybe that ain’t them,” Peter’s mom mumbled as she took another toke.

“That ain’t like Annie at all,” Saucy agreed. “You know her. If she smelled this shit here, she’d be running over here asking for a hit of it.”

Both women laughed as Peter’s mom handed the joint over to Saucy.

“Yo, Jeb Junior!” Dan hollered as he lifted Casey off his lap and got up to go see his young friend. “You ‘bout ready for baseball season?”

Jeb Junior didn’t answer either. Peter knew Dan was an assistant coach at the high school and all players knew to respond when their coach spoke to them. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but Peter knew something wasn’t right. Everyone else seemed unfazed by the family approaching in the darkness.

“You want some, baby?” Kev asked as he handed his joint to Peter.

Peter didn’t want any of it and swatted it away with his hand. Apparently, he’d knocked it from Kev’s hand because he heard him say, “Aw, come on, clumsy. That wasn’t cool.”

“Kev, get up,” Peter demanded as he rose to his feet and reached for his husband’s hand.

“Okay,” Kev replied, smiling, oblivious to the fact that something unearthly loomed only twenty feet away.

Light from the fire at the circle combined with that of the lamps outside the trailer homes to finally reveal the faces and hunched over bodies of the family members marching into Cloud 9. This clearly wasn’t the Jeb the rest of them knew. Del grimaced and dropped his plate of hamburger meat. His wife nearly fell out of her lawn chair. “Annie?” she asked.

Annie didn’t seem to know her own name anymore, and she wasn’t interested in sitting around the fire with old friends. She crept forward, hands out in front of her, knuckles bent forcing her fingers into claws. Beside her, little Jessica growled like a hungry dog.

Big Jeb picked up his pace and rushed straight at Del. Usually, the old man would have a gun or a knife at his hip. Nearly every man in small town West Virginia did, but Del was at home. They all were. This was the place to rest, to relax, to feel at ease and out of harm’s way. Jeb was only a foot away from Del when the old man threw his hands up to his head and screamed. His arms flailed frantically, like he was swatting away a swarm of bees.

Peter froze with his hand locked around Kev’s. Behind him, his mom yelled, “Hey, get off him.” Saucy, who seemed to understand the attack was much more serious, screamed. Annie barreled right at her, like the sound was a beacon calling her home. Saucy was drunk, but she wasn’t stupid. She reached for a small cooler at her feet and leaped at Annie, smashing the oncoming woman in the face. Her forward momentum continued and soon Saucy was on top of Annie, and she too was screaming and swatting at the sky.

Everyone around ran to their friends’ aid.

Dan, as expected, did have a gun at his hip. He was young and full of bravado. He wouldn’t go anywhere, not even right outside his front door, without a firearm. But he seemed to go numb when he saw the frantic rush at his friends and heard the screaming. He turned to watch and took his eyes off Jeb Junior for only a second. That was all the time the young man needed to get close enough.

“Dan!” Peter yelled. “Get back!”

It was too late. Whatever was attacking the others was now on the young man, and as his girlfriend ran to his aid, Jeb Junior’s sister, Jessica, ran at Casey and leaped on her.

Casey screamed and shook the child off her.

She turned toward Peter and reached for him. She started to run, her mouth open in a scream, when he saw her eyes light up. Like someone had stuck a hot branding iron to her back, her face twisted into a look of pain. For a second, no sound came out of her mouth, but then she let loose a shriek Peter would never forget.

His mom, who was to his left trying to help Saucy, let out a similar wail. It was the agonizing scream of someone who’d had a pot of boiling water thrown in their face.

“Peter, come on!” Kev yelled.

This time it was him being saved as his husband pulled on his arm and yanked him toward their trailer.

As they ran around to the side, where the door was located, the sound of something hitting the far wall and then scrambling up to the hood, or roof, of their home could be heard. It sounded like a monkey was bounding up above them.

Peter’s hand was on the door when he heard what sounded to him like a rattlesnake’s rattle. Kev was at his side, and he screamed. By the time Peter glanced up it was too late to flee from the little girl grinning down at them. Something pounced from Jessica’s head and landed on them both. She remained on the roof, looking down at them for a few seconds, watching them as the pain set in. As Peter’s eyes blurred over, she ran away, pounding her way down the trailer.

The party raged on, moving from trailer to trailer. The interesting thing about Cloud 9 was the amount of nighttime gatherings that took place and the sheer number of times things got out of hand. With so many relapsed junkies and people unwilling to address their addictions at all, fistfights often broke out. Wild yelling and even full-on screaming were a nightly occurrence.

So, nobody batted an eye when the sounds at the Circle of Hope turned sour.

No one called the cops. Most of the residents at the trailer park who weren’t there at the party slept with earplugs or with music softly playing beside their bed. Or they too were passed out after a private party inside the comfort of their home.

When Jeb, Jeb Jr., Annie, Jessica, Del, Lizzie, Dan, Cassie, Saucy, Kev, Peter, Peter’s mom, and all the others went door to door, there wasn’t a single complaint until it was too late.

It was a massacre at Cloud 9, and they would continue to spread.

Hal yearned for a drink. He wouldn’t take one, of course. Mostly because if he did, he would have to stand up in next week’s meeting and tell everyone about it. Some of his friends, if he could even call them that, had gone through that embarrassment.

“Fuuuuck… me,” he complained, lifting up onto his elbows to look out at the filthy trailer he called home.

Packets of peppered beef jerky and empty cans of Mountain Dew littered the kitchen counter. His only towel lay draped over the knob of the bathroom door.

Once upon a time, he and his wife owned a four-bedroom house on eight acres of land. Sheila kept the place spotless, and he mowed the lawn. Life was in order. He didn’t have to look outside to know the grass looked like shit now. It was a pitiful patch of earth, but it was where he called home. For now.

Glancing over at the nightstand next to his twin-size bed, Hal stared at the invitation to the church gathering tomorrow night. It was some kind of end-of-summer festival. He had no plans to attend, but he might stop by before work if he felt the temptation for a chili dog and one of those funnel cakes— no, don’t go there, brother. Don’t think too much right now.

His head crashed back onto his pillow. He reached for the invitation and flung it through the air, watching it Frisbee twirl until it landed on the ragged carpet beside the door.

The fact was, he hadn’t attended any kind of fair, festival, or even party since they were taken from him. He tried not to blame God for their deaths, but he couldn’t help it sometimes. They’d gone to church as a family and they’d prayed together before meals. Wasn’t that what was required?

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Hal heard different variations of that each time he tried church again. It was one of the reasons he refused to go anymore. He couldn’t sit peacefully and soak up the good word now. Every time he tried, somebody approached him either before or after mass to express their sympathies and to try and comfort him.