Angel of the Underground Page 9

  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  He puts the gun down, kneels before me, and takes my hands into his; the way men do when they propose marriage. “I only want what’s best for you, Robin.” He leans in to hug me, but I put my hands on his shoulders and press him away. I thought I made it clear that I’ve had enough of his advances.

  “You can help without touching me.”

  He lifts himself up with difficultly, almost falling over, while his eyes squint with anger. “I heard about your situation and volunteered to protect any one of you kids. Sorry for giving a shit.”

  Sweating and huffing, he drops into his chair, grabs a fistful of chips from a snack tray, and stuffs them into his mouth. I almost speak because he looks so upset, but think better of it because I’m still not sure of his intentions. Not eager to dig into his psyche, I change the subject and say in a friendly tone, “The first viewing for Sister Alice is at two. Will you be able—”

  “Don’t worry, your highness. Your chauffeur will be ready.”

  I murmur a thank you and head downstairs for a drink. The tension from my encounter with Lori, and then Barry, have parched my throat. When I step into the kitchen, I stop short when I find Jeremy at the refrigerator. He looks directly at me, although I’m not certain how much he can see since his eyes are nearly swollen shut. Through bloated, purple lips he says, “Huck hou, hurrahucker!” I speed past him and decide to get water from the downstairs sink.

  I want to see what Dennis is up to, and to tell him about my brushes with his adoptive parents, but Jeremy follows me downstairs and watches until I enter my room. For the rest of the morning and early afternoon he plays sentinel to Dennis and myself. Every time one of our doors opens, Jeremy rushes out of his room hollering something nonsensical about us remaining apart. I’d ignore him, but don’t want him to bring Barry down here in fear he’d retract his offer to take me to the wake.

  To pass time, I try on the outfits Barry brought for me to wear to church. The only black item is a form fitting dress. It’s a bit too revealing, but I have no other clothes—I’m certainly not going to ask Barry to take me shopping.

  At a quarter past one, as I begin to get antsy, a hard knock sounds on my door and Barry yells, “Let’s get this over with!”

  I take a deep breath, to build courage to face him and the funeral home, and open the door. Barry’s wearing black pants and a black sweater that’s been washed so many times it’s covered with gray fuzz. At first he appears angry, but when he looks me over with devouring eyes he smiles and says, “Tight!” Apparently, he hasn’t become a gentleman since we last met.

  Dennis comes out of his room in black dress pants and a dark red dress shirt. Barry grinds his teeth until the veins on his temples throb, and says rather calmly, “Back in your room.”

  “Are you serious?” Dennis says. “It’s a wake.”

  “You should have thought about that before you used your brother as a Bop Bag.”

  “You’re kidding me. How can you not let—”

  Barry expels a sharp “NO!” that bounces off the walls and shoots straight through my ears. Dennis, unwilling to put up a fight, goes back in his room with a subdued groan. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I guess surrendering is easier than engaging in a fight he most likely couldn’t win.

  * * *

  The Scrimm Funeral Parlor is a small white building just down the street from the Holy Sepulcher Cemetery where Sister Alice will be buried. Black appareled men and women, many of whom I recognize from my church, are gloomily arriving or leaving. Their postures and facial expressions are of complete desolation. I’m skeptical of people I’m not familiar with, and realize the killer could be scouting the wake for me. It might not be the greatest idea to have come, but if the perpetrator has my address anyway, I might as well let him end me wherever he wants.

  Inside, a maroon carpeted lobby breaks off into two hallways. The right side leads to a door that’s blocked off by a velvet rope. The left side leads to an open door beside a letter board that reads: Sister Alice Beatrice Aloia. I exhale a fraction of my pent-up sorrow, and walk toward the room on rickety legs. Barry is close enough to lean on, but I’m not going to use him for physical support. Luckily, the crowd in the viewing room is so abundant I’m able to lose him when squeezing through.

  While locating the closed casket at the far end, I can’t help but notice that anyone who looks at me does so with worry. Those who know I’m a group home child must realize I’ve lost my role model, and are probably taking in their last glimpse of someone whose funeral they also might soon attend. I don’t regard them for long. Once I catch the foot end of a shiny wooden coffin, I put my crucifix charm in my mouth and proceed.

  A nun is kneeling and praying at the head of the casket. She finishes by kissing her fingers and touching them to the fastened lid. An older man on deck is about to pay his respects, but when he sees me approaching he motions for me to cut ahead. I can’t even speak to thank him, but I do feel gracious.

  I kneel on a padded beam before the casket, clasp my hands in prayer, and recite an “Our Father.” When finished, I open my eyes to polished oak and wish I could see Sister Alice one last time in a peaceful state, to dispel the horrible sight of her in agony. While thinking of what to say, I begin twisting my crucifix between my fingers.

  “I always knew this day had to come,” I eventually whisper, “but not like this.” Tears warm my cheeks in straight trails. I wipe them off, and glance back at the line of mourners growing behind me. “I’m glad my mother wasn’t interested in me. I can’t imagine my life without you. I would just appreciate a sign so I know you’re in safe hands, and that God’s kingdom exists, and that what happened to you can’t get in the way of how much love you can still provide for this world. If God’s at your side, maybe you can convince Him to call off whatever He’s been up to. If anything, for Amanda.”

  I begin crying so hard that someone behind me puts a tissue in my hand. I nod with gratitude and dry my eyes and nose. “I should go. You have a lot of friends who want to say goodbye. I want you to know I love you . . . and I’m really going to miss you.” I kiss the casket, wipe my tears off the polish, and turn around to see proof that the virtue in Sister Alice has already found its way to me.

  A slim divide in the crowd allows me to see Dennis standing in the back, near the entryway. He’s sweaty and out of breath, as though he rode his bike a million miles an hour to get here. He gently eases his way through the gathering and meets me with a gentle hug. I close my eyes and absorb his warmth. When I softly back away, I notice Barry watching us from a corner chair. He says words to himself that look nowhere near compassionate, but I haven’t a care in the world about him.

  Dennis and I sit side by side throughout the wake, while Barry wanders in and out of the room to make sure we see him checking his watch. A few people approach me to extend their condolences, and to tell me I’m in their hearts and prayers. I appreciate their kindness, but in a room fronted by death, I wonder deep down if their prayers will save anyone.

  * * *

  Later that night, Dennis falls asleep halfway through a movie, which is a luxury that won’t befall me. I try going to bed, but my stomach is too sour. To distract the constant waves of pain, I decide to go outside, killer be damned.

  While gently rocking on one of the backyard swings, I envision my life without Sister Alice, but can’t picture myself growing old. My mind refuses to conceive of a future, as though I’m doomed to a short existence.

  The back screen door squeaks open. A silhouette nears, and I never doubt it’s anyone but Dennis. He appears through clouded moonlight, sits on the swing beside me, and rocks from left to right to get his seat to bang against mine. I sway my seat against his until we build enough speed to nearly knock each others teeth loose. After a hushed laugh, Dennis hops up and stands before me. He grabs the chains just above my hands, holds me still, and leans his face toward mine. I tilt my head to the sid
e, because that’s how I’ve seen people kiss on TV. His lips meet mine without our noses getting in the way and linger for a few moments. We then lean our foreheads together. I think he says something, but my heartbeat is clogging my ears.

  We stay outside a little longer, not making a sound, until a light upstairs goes on. Figuring it’s best to not get caught out here, we go back down to our rooms and bid each other good night with soft pecks on the lips.

  Alone in the dark, the grueling pain of Sister Alice’s loss continues to hound me. When I think of Dennis, a stream of prickles flow down from my cheeks, up from my toes, and settle on a precise spot beneath my waist. I reach under my pajama bottoms to explore the source with cautious fingers, and am instantly aroused by a warm twinge. I think to extract my hand, since I know I’m up to something sinful, but if God hadn’t intended me to do such a thing, He would never have invented the spot to begin with.

  My fingers rub the swelling knot with exceeding speed. I part my shivering knees to allow my hand freedom to gyrate. A burst of elation creeps up to my throat and causes me to squeal. I turn my face into my pillow while pressing my fingers down harder and circling them faster. My entire body stiffens with numb surges. My thoughts of God and despair completely vanish when I envision Dennis holding me, Dennis kissing me, and Dennis shirtless on my bed as we partake in things prohibited until marriage. Before long, I explode at the mid. My toes curl and my fingertips warm with a sticky gush of release. My knees connect hard as I lift my backside to squeeze out every ounce of pain I’ve felt in the past several weeks.

  Panting atop my bed, my head still deep in my pillow, I hear a shuffle in my closet. I whip my hand out of my pants and listen intently to the clicking of hangers. God forbid I have one moment of uninterrupted peace in this place.

  When the clacking continues, I worry Nathan has come down in his delusional state again. I step out of bed and turn on the light, which shocks my eyes closed. I hear the closet door opening and something dropping to the floor. Through blurred vision I make out Kermit the Frog slippers, a pink nightgown, and blond hair that’s caked to the cheeks of what appears a life-sized doll. As I inch closer, and my eyes gradually adapt, I recognize the doll as the lifeless body of my roommate, Amanda. My stomach explodes with scorching bile that incinerate my thrashing butterflies. I squeeze my pajama shirt to hold back a seething scream.

  The closest door fully opens. Standing inside is a nun. She parts a dry mass of gray, bloodstained hair with each of her index fingers, exposing a wrinkled face. She opens one gray eye. Her left eye remains closed. She smiles with two teeth that protrude over her bottom lip. She’s Gail Grantham, Nathan’s invalid wife of fifty-four years.

  When Gail suddenly reaches for me, I rush out of the room and leap upstairs, two steps at a time. I yank open the front door and run to the center of the yard frantically waving my arms to summon the cops keeping watch. I ease when noticing an orange glow across the horizon, as though several houses are on fire at once. A thin veil of smoke that drifts from their vicinity conceals the stars. Emergency sirens sound from several vehicles and firehouses. It appears as though Armageddon has struck.

  The officer who came into the house the other night jumps out from a white Toyota sedan down the street and rushes over to me with a hand over a holstered gun. “The killer’s inside,” I say to him, “she’s downstairs.”

  He looks doubtful when asking, “She?” I nod once. The cop draws his gun and double-steps toward the house saying, “Wait right here!”

  I have no intentions of waiting right here. I have to get Dennis.

  I hurry back inside and stand at the basement door, listening for the hopeful sounds of Gail’s capture, but there aren’t any. Instead, the cop pounds up the steps, recoils with alarm when seeing me and says, “There’s a corpse and two sleeping boys down there, but no one else.” A soft bang sounds above us, as though a door has been closed. The cop runs straight upstairs while I run straight down.

  Dennis is half-awake in his bed, leaning up on his elbow. He worriedly asks, “What’s with the flashlight?”

  “That cop is back,” I answer, “the killer’s in the house.” I grab his hand and pull him to my room, where I cover Amanda with my bed sheets, sign the cross, and grab the top half of my broken wooden crucifix. If Jesus is ever going to protect me, the sharp end of his fractured post will have to do.

  I hold the cross outward as Dennis follows me up to the dining room. A thud from upstairs causes the chandelier to rattle. A shrill scream is cut immediately short, as though someone were subdued in a heartbeat. I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman.

  Though standing close to safety, I’m afraid the cop is in trouble, and if that’s the case, then I’m the one who sent him to his peril. Unwilling to spend the rest of my days living in fear for my own mortality, or guilt of a cop’s death, I carefully inch my way up the stairs. Dennis never falls a step behind.

  At the end of the unlit hall, Gail is squatting over the cop. A slurping sound carries from them, and it looks as though she’s pulling out his eye with her fingers. When Dennis turns on a light, Gail looks at us sharply and hisses.

  Dennis takes the crucifix from my hand and throws it at her, perhaps expecting it to pierce her sternum as it might in a movie, but it bounces off a wall and lands behind her. Gail cackles and stands with crooked jerks, as though her backbone is made of rusty gears. By the time I notice she’s holding the cop’s gun, she has it aimed at us.

  Dennis shoves me into Barry’s den, jumps in behind me, and elbows the door shut. He locks the knob and slides the recliner against the jambs. I listen for footsteps in the hall, while Dennis goes into the closet for the shotgun case. He extracts the weapon, thrusts in two shells, pumps the handle, and unclasps the safety.

  “You’ve used that before?” I ask.

  “I’ve pretended to,” he replies, “I basically know what—” The doorknob jiggles. Dennis winces and pulls the trigger. The barrel explodes. The top of the recliner bursts into a cloud of cotton while a jagged hole tears through the center of the door. A body in the hall collapses with a grunt. Dennis pumps another shell into the chamber. His hands are shaking so badly the handle rattles. I lean close to the damaged door, listening to whether Gail has been fatally shot or merely wounded.

  Barry sits up and peers through the smoldering hole with pained eyes that lock onto Dennis. “You vicious little shit,” he says, and presses himself against the door with a violent surge, forcing the lock mechanism through the frame while sliding back the recliner. He steps inside and stares Dennis down while breathing like an asthmatic. Black holes in the stomach area of his pajama shirt run lines of dark blood. He grins shrewdly and says to me, “Don’t worry, sugar. I won’t let him get you too.”

  Dennis backs into a row of shelves and says, “It was an accident! I thought you were Gail!”

  “Is this what you learned from that ghoul shit you watch? How to kill women and children?”

  “You don’t understand,” I say to Barry, “your mother’s stroke was a trick.” He doesn’t hear me, or doesn’t want to. Barry charges at Dennis shoulder first and slams him into the wooden ledges. Yankees junk topples to the floor. Dennis plummets with them. Barry retrieves the shotgun and looks down upon Dennis with a proud huff. Dennis gradually stands upright with wrathful eyes fixed on his adoptive father.

  “That was the last time you’ll ever touch me,” Dennis says.

  Barry laughs with, “Is that a fact?” He smacks Dennis across the face, leaving four bloody finger streaks on his cheek and brow. Dennis looks down with a snide grin and, as though remembering every verbal and physical blow he’s taken since my arrival, hammers Barry’s wounded stomach with a taut fist. Barry hunches over and screams through clenched teeth. Blood froths at the corners of his mouth. Dennis looks far from satisfied, though. His eyes widen with fright when seeing something behind me.

  Before I can turn, a sharp implement is jammed through the arc of my right k
nee. I collapse with a shriek and find my crucifix embedded in my leg. Gail steps over me with her right eye in sinister concentration. The cop’s eyeball is jammed crookedly into her empty left socket. The barrel of the pistol is staring directly at my chest.

  I look to Dennis, who’s desperately trying to wrangle the gun from his father’s grasp, but Barry, unaware of my plight, throws him to the floor with a maniacal laugh. He looks at me with beaming pride, and notices his mother. Barry’s eyes bulge out. He clutches his left arm and unleashes a chunky stream of vomit. The room is immediately smothered by an acidic stench. Barry, undoubtedly having a coronary, collapses on top of Dennis, who squeals as his lungs are emptied of air.

  Gail sniffs up the pungent aroma, and exhales with a delighted hum. I try as nonchalantly as I can to crawl to the shotgun without her noticing, but she snatches it up with a victorious screech. She tucks the pistol into her belt of rosaries, and turns the shotgun on me. I shuffle away from Dennis, to save him from the buckshot, and pray for a miracle. To my surprise, Jeremy steps in the doorway, surveying the havoc. I expect him to cheer Gail on, but he appears genuinely terrified of her.

  Gail follows my eyes to Jeremy and turns the gun his way. He ducks and scampers toward the stairs. She shoots at the doorway, perhaps hoping to nail him through the wall, but his footsteps bang down the staircase and head out the front door. Jeremy has escaped. Perhaps his god is more protective than mine.

  Gail pumps the shotgun, but there isn’t another shell for the chamber. She tosses it aside with a frustrated growl. I try prying the crucifix from my leg, but give up when the wood scrapes bone. Gail waves a pointer at me, steps onto my punctured leg, and plucks out the cross with a powerful thrust. She squats on my waist and, before I can maneuver to protect myself, drives the tip straight through my collar bone. I open my mouth to scream, but can only gasp through the pain.