Misfits, p.1
Misfits, page 1
hUNTER SHEA
Misfits
FLAME TREE PRESS
London & New York
•
In the American folklore of Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, and Connecticut, Melon Heads are beings generally described as small humanoids with bulbous heads who occasionally emerge from hiding places to attack people. Different variations of the legend attribute different origins to the entities.
Clarissa: I hear they’re having an open-casket funeral for Jamie. I think that’s in bad taste.
Tony: It is in bad taste. This whole episode is in bad taste. You young people are a disgrace to the human race. To all living things, to plants even. You shouldn’t be seen in the same room with a cactus.
– River’s Edge
•
For the Chiller Theatre posse, misfits in every amazing goddamn way – Amy, Sam, Star, Jack, Norm, Jerry, Mike, Tom and everyone else brave enough to spend a day with us.
Chapter One
Milbury, CT – 1977
“Can I please go outside and ride my bike?”
Chris eyed his brand-new Ross three-speed in the corner beside the Christmas tree. Around it were boxes of unopened presents, all forgotten the moment he saw his dream bicycle.
“We’re still opening gifts,” his mother said, her irritation on the disruption of tradition clear enough to be heard from Saturn. She had her hair tucked into a plastic cap and her eyes looked small and bloodshot. It was her morning-after-drinking face, what Chris privately called Rude Mom. There was very little point pressing Rude Mom for anything, even on Christmas. So he turned his attention to his father, who was all smiles in his ratty robe and bed head.
“Please?”
His father flicked his gaze out the window. It had been a very warm December with nary a snowflake on the ground.
“Why don’t you wait just a little while longer, bud? The best part of Christmas isn’t over yet.”
Oh, but it was. There was nothing Santa could have brought that would top the Ross. A long oblong box could have been the electronic football game he’d asked for. Hopefully the one with the Steelers vs. the Rams. As wicked cool as that would be, it still paled in comparison to the orange-and-black Ross with its three-geared stick shift and hand brakes.
Chris was all of seven, so time and space worked differently for him than they did for adults. What they would think was half an hour was actually several days for Chris, especially with his bike just sitting there waiting to go on its maiden voyage.
He clasped his hands in prayer and made a silent invocation toward his father. His dad scrubbed the stubble on his chin and shook his head. “How about ten minutes? You think you can hold out?”
“That’s too soon,” his mother said, her voice low and husky.
“I’ll take him,” Chris’s brother, Dylan, said. He’d been sitting in the chair farthest from all of them, quietly opening presents with little or no fanfare.
“What kind of Christmas is this when everyone wants to leave?” his mother asked, clearly exasperated.
“The kind that comes at the end of a total shit year,” Dylan said, getting up and heading for the closet.
“You sit back down.”
“What’s the big deal? I’ll take him out for a quick spin and we’ll come back and finish. You can take an aspirin or something and relax.” He shrugged his jean jacket on, the one with the cover of Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album painted on back.
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that,” his mother shouted.
“She’s right. Can we not have any drama today?” his father said, settling back into the couch, his voice and body language spelling defeat.
Dylan muttered, “That ship sailed long ago.” Then to Chris, “Come on, before I change my mind.”
Chris’s eyes darted between his parents and brother. Dylan never, ever did anything with him. This was kind of like a Christmas gift all its own. But it came with a price. Chris was too young to know that anything good had a catch.
His father rose from the couch and clapped his hands. “You know what, that might be a good idea. We’re all tired because someone was a little anxious and couldn’t wait to get started.” He winked at Chris. “You guys get some fresh air while I make bacon. Honey, you can just sit back and relax. How’s that sound?”
Through a clenched jaw, Chris’s mother hissed, “Fine. You’re all against me anyway.”
All Chris cared about was the one word – fine. That was all the permission he needed. He grabbed the bike by the handlebars, weaving through ripped wrapping paper, boxes and bags. Flipping his coat over his shoulder, he followed Dylan out the front door. His brother’s scratched-up ten-speed was on its side next to the lilac bushes.
Chris slipped one leg over the bike and settled into the soft motorcycle seat. It was comfier than any chair in the house. He put one foot on the pedal, hands squeezing the brakes, testing to make sure the rubber stoppers made contact with the rims.
Dylan flipped his long hair from his face and said, “You gonna sit there with that doofy grin all day or do you want to ride?”
Chris didn’t need any further prodding. Shifting the bike into gear, he started pedaling. The front tire wobbled on the first few pumps of the pedals and for a second, he thought he was going to crash. But he managed to steady himself, riding in Dylan’s slim wake.
The crisp morning air burned his cheeks as they picked up speed, zipping down Logan Hill and easing onto Zander Avenue. This time of the morning, the neighborhood was usually shuttered. But this was Christmas morning, so Chris spied a lot of open windows and lights on, families gathered under their trees and ripping through multi-colored paper, searching for treasure.
The Ross rode like a dream, just like he knew it would when he first saw it in McCann’s bicycle shop. The tires were thicker than the ones on Dylan’s sleek Schwinn and the frame was bulky and built to withstand some serious punishment. The whole thing resembled the structure of a motorcycle on a smaller and more manageable scale. It was beyond awesome.
Dylan rode ahead of him, not bothering to look back to see if Chris was keeping up. Dylan had never been talkative or prone to spontaneous bouts of joy. Things had hit a new dour low over the past four months, though. Something had happened to Dylan, or was happening, and no one told Chris what it could be. He was left with unanswered questions and having to live in a house mired in a thick sludge of tension. It wasn’t cool to leave him out like that. He was old enough to be clued into why his family was in such a sorry state.
Maybe now was the perfect time to ask his brother. Time spent with just Dylan was rare. He pumped his legs harder to catch up. He heard the gears click in Dylan’s bike. He must have sensed Chris was getting closer and wanted to put some distance between them. Typical.
They cruised onto Palmer Street, houses giving way to vacant lots and the old baseball field that had been left to the weeds when the city council had built Nugent Park on the other side of town. The weeds had withered and fallen flat. As Chris sped past, he saw the top of the home-plate cage sagging under the weight of dozens of heavy rocks. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine Dylan and his friends heaving them up there, waiting to see how much weight it could hold until the whole thing collapsed.
Teenagers never failed to perplex Chris. The things they found funny, the way they seemed to distance themselves from everything around them, and the sleeping, oh how Dylan could sleep. It just didn’t make any sense.
Beyond the old field was a lot of nothing and then….
And then….
“Hey, Dyl, wait up,” Chris cried against the wind.
Surprisingly, his brother slowed down. He sat straight and rode with no hands. “How’s the bike ride?”
“Amazing. You can try it if you want.”
“Nah. I’d be eating my knees when I pedaled. That bike is all yours, short stuff.”
Chris bristled at his least favorite nickname. But it was Christmas, a time to forgive and forget. Though no one seemed to be doing either with Dylan, or vice versa.
They pulled to a stop. The paved street was a few feet from giving way to a dirt road that meandered into the dead tree line.
“Maybe we should go back before Mom gets really upset,” Chris said.
Dylan chuckled. “All the more reason to stay out longer.”
Chris played along as if upsetting the hornet’s nest that was their mother was the best idea in the world. “Yeah, but I bet the bacon will be nice and hot by the time we get home.”
Dylan stared at him with his patented dead glare. It made Chris feel stupid.
“Just admit you’re scared,” Dylan said.
“Scared? Of what?”
A bird cawed in the expanse ahead of them. It sounded hungry. It sounded mean.
Dylan backhanded him on the arm, but not too rough for a change. “We go there all the time. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Chris swallowed hard and wished he’d listened to his mother and waited until all of the presents had been opened before going out and giving his new bike a test ride. Because then he could have done it alone. Because Dylan had that look that said they were going to do something Chris didn’t want to do no matter how much he hemmed, hawed, pleaded or cried.
His throat clicking, Chris softly muttered, “I don’t wanna go down Dracula Drive.”
“You know it’s not actual
The wind lifted the hair from Dylan’s forehead, giving full view to the cluster of red, angry pimples that cowered under his locks. He was supposed to use this special cream the doctor prescribed, but hygiene was not one of Dylan’s greatest traits. In fact, all of his friends looked like they needed a long, hot shower. And they smelled funny a lot of the times, too. Not just like teenage BO. There was something else riding herd over their denim-clad bodies that Chris could never place.
“I know that,” Chris said defiantly, though in actuality, he had assumed that was the god-given name of the road that should not be spoken about, much less driven down.
“Well, come on.” Dylan rolled a few yards, stopped and turned around. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
Chris fiddled with his gear shift. “I just don’t wanna.”
“Suit yourself,” his brother said. He shrugged his shoulders and resumed pedaling. “I’ll see you back home. And don’t eat all the bacon.”
He watched Dylan go, the skinny tires having a hard time navigating the rough road. Bare tree limbs rattled like old bones overhead. Chris shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold. He cast a quick look behind him where the road home lay waiting. It was going to be a bit of a ride before he got to what passed for civilization in the burbs.
Then he looked ahead, Dylan still visible but growing smaller with each push of his legs.
Home was where Dad and bacon and presents were waiting for him. And Rude Mom, though there was hope a little nap might have lifted her spirits.
To get there meant several long stretches of isolated riding.
He wanted to call out to Dylan, to ask him to come back. It was Christmas after all. He couldn’t just leave Chris like this.
You don’t go down Dracula Drive.
It was a fact, plain and simple.
Besides, why would anyone bother? There was nothing down there anyway but a few abandoned houses. Dracula Drive marked the part where Milbury had started, and then failed, waiting for a better time, a more lucrative time, to spark the sprawl. When Milbury proper inevitably began to unfold, Dracula Drive was left to be willfully forgotten.
There were no vampires on Dracula Drive.
No, something far worse.
Dare to walk,
Down Dracula Drive,
In day or night,
You won’t survive.
They wait in trees,
And hide below,
Hungry for people,
Too blind to know.
Chris and his friends chanted the Dracula Drive rhyme sometimes to scare one another during sleepovers. Truth was, it wasn’t so creepy when you were safe in a locked house with your friends and parents in the next room.
Just thinking about it now birthed an icy tingle of fear that inched up Chris’s spine.
Something skittered in the brush to his left.
“Dylan, hold up!”
He pedaled faster than he’d ever done before, even counting the day he had to outrun Mrs. Dodson’s butthole rottweiler on his old, rickety bike that had been Dylan’s much abused hand-me-down. He’d been scared to the point of filling his pants with the previous night’s meatloaf that day. Max the rottweiler had almost gotten the back of Chris’s leg. Chris had thrown a backward kick mid-pedal, catching Max on the snout. The devil dog snapped away and got a mouthful of spokes for his trouble. Chris would have whooped with victory if not for the tears of terror blurring his vision.
The Ross hit the bumpy road, the wide tires chewing up the uneven grit and potholes. Chris rose from his seat, giving his legs everything he could, desperate to catch up to his brother. The back of his neck tingled the way it would when he pretended he was asleep and knew his mother was hovering over him, his flesh anticipating the moment when she would brush a kiss against his cheek or finger his hair, the smell of that brown stuff she drank sharp enough to make his toes curl.
“Dylan, please! I’m coming, I’m coming.”
His brother didn’t hear him. Or was ignoring him. But Dylan wasn’t a small, wavering figure in the distance anymore. Chris was gaining on him. Yes! This beat-up road was no match for the Ross. Chris downshifted into third gear, the final gear, each pump of the pedals propelling him faster and closer to Dylan. He was cruising now, skirting potholes and ruts with ease, his body and the bicycle merging into one gliding machine. The cold air stung his eyes as he picked up speed. He looked away from Dylan’s back for a moment to blink a tear away. For the first time, he noticed the density of the woods on either side of the road, how the early morning light struggled to penetrate the black, gnarled trees even though the leaves had fallen months ago. It was as if the sun, like all of Chris’s friends, was afraid to come here.
Close enough now for Dylan to hear him, he said the one thing he knew would snag his big brother’s attention. It usually meant getting a pink belly or being thrown in a headlock, but he was willing to risk it.
“Hey, ass face, slow down!”
Dylan came to a screeching halt. He turned the bike around to face him. Chris caught up to him seconds later, kicking up dirt as he squeezed the hand brakes. The bones in his hands crackled.
To Chris’s surprise, Dylan was smiling. He spread his arms wide, scanning the empty woods. “See, I told you there was nothing to be afraid of.” As if he were in league with Mother Nature, a chirping, harmless sparrow flitted on a branch to their left, cocking its head toward them.
Chris was about to protest, about to once again implore Dylan to go home now that he’d made his point so they could resume Christmas. It was at that moment when the reluctant sun kissed the strip of road, the shinier rocks sparkling like found treasure.
“I…I guess you’re right.”
Dylan twisted his front wheel so it bumped the Ross’s front wheel. “Of course I am, hammer. Now you can tell your fag little friends that you’ve been on Dracula Drive. They’ll look up to you, at least for a little while. Merry Christmas.”
The sparrow lit off the branch, heading up and away. Its absence gave the ensuing silence the weight of lead. Chris’s fear would have returned, but Dylan was smiling, a thing as rare as a seven-year-old riding his bike down Dracula Drive.
“Why do you and your friends come here?”
“Why not?” Dylan turned and spit. He loved to spit, another thing that angered their mother. “There’s cool places to hang out. You just have to find them.”
Chris thumbed the hand brakes. “Weren’t you ever scared? Like even the first time you came?”
Dylan rolled his eyes and shook his head, but Chris would swear he saw something else flicker across his brother’s face before his question was dismissed.
I’ll bet they were all scared, even if Dylan and his stinky friends all came together. Everyone knows what they say about this road. They’re not as tough as they pretend to be.
That was something he could prove. Chris had heard Dylan crying in his bedroom one night after getting off the phone. And another time after a fight with their parents.
And hadn’t he seen Hader, the one who liked to flick Chris’s ears hard whenever he came to the house, running scared from Mr. Everson when he’d tried to snatch a pumpkin from their neighbor’s porch? Everson had given chase and was remarkably fast for an old man (old in young Chris’s eyes at least). And he remembered Steven, who wore black rock T-shirts all the time and kept a feathered roach clip in his hair, when he’d accidentally peed himself at the playground and took off running for his house seven blocks away, Dylan and his friends waving their hands across their noses and cackling.
No, they weren’t the big shots they wanted the world to think they were.
“What do you do when you hang out here? It seems pretty boring.” Now Chris was playing the big shot, belittling Dylan’s tough-guy secret. It felt good to turn the tables for once. He’d earned it.
Dylan fished a pack of cigarettes from his inner vest pocket and lit up. Chris knew he smoked, he’d spotted him flicking his butts into the street before walking in the door at home a few times, but he’d never been face to face when his brother dragged on a coffin nail, as his father called them.
