Thirsty - M. T. Anderson [35]
“Don’t worry,” says Chet. “It can’t touch you. And anyway, it’s not in the woods anymore.”
“Thank goodness,” I say.
“It’s at your house.” He lifts his fingers off their foreheads. Jerk’s skin is so pasty the fingers have left red welts. “Okay, boys. Get out of the car and walk into the woods that way. Then why don’t you come to your senses. You’re looking for Christopher.”
In a matter-of-fact kind of way, as if they were getting out to run into McDonald’s, Tom and Jerk open the doors and get out. They don’t speak, but they shake their limbs uncomfortably.
“And take the damn dog.”
Jerk reaches in and pulls at Bongo’s collar. Bongo is whining. It sounds like someone scrubbing a window.
Together, they walk off into the woods.
“What am I going to do?” I ask. “That Thing’s waiting for me!”
Chet shakes his head. “It can’t touch you, because I have my mark on you. The Thing is just observing you. Trying to figure out what we’re up to. Are you going to get out, too? I think you’ll want to walk home with the others for company.”
So I get out, too. I shut my door behind me.
“Good night,” says Chet, leaning down to call through the window. “And good job. With saving the world, I mean. We’ll send someone around soon about the vampirism, and I’ll come by if I have the time.”
Suddenly, I have a very suspicious feeling. Chet is waving and smiling. His smile is very fake.
“Wait!” I say.
But he is still waving, and the window is rolling up, and he pulls out onto the road and drives off.
“Wait! Chet! I can’t sleep! Please! I can hardly eat!”
I listen to the motor fade down the lane as the car rolls past broken stone walls.
“Chet!”
The lights of his car disappear.
“Damn.”
I walk into the woods.
I cannot place where I am.
Then I hear Tom and Jerk thrashing in the distance.
I run toward them.
They are standing in the woods, looking for the road with the flashlight.
“Where were you?” says Tom, as I run up. He looks confused and a little frightened, as if he can’t remember something, but won’t admit it.
“Over there,” I answer; but I don’t point anywhere.
It takes us about half an hour to find our way home. Bongo has quieted down by now. He is exhausted. We go under the railroad bridge. We drop Jerk off at his house and tell him we’ll see him tomorrow. We hear him crooning to the dog as he goes inside that it’s feeding time for Bongo; that Bongo is a good boy.
We walk back to Tom’s. I call my father for a ride.
Who knows what is happening. Who knows whether Chet is on the level, and who knows whether I have just made an error and given Tch’muchgar some hideous tool for evil, and who knows when I shall be cured and be able to sleep again soundly.
My father comes to get me.
Now the classic rock station is playing hits from the seventies.
My father doesn’t know the words, so he cannot sing along.
Once the rains have stopped, the things that were dead start growing.
The blossoms come out in the orchards. They are wrapped around the trees like great white smothering sheets. And there are streets where tree after tree is the bright unnatural pink of circus candy. You can almost hear madcap carousel music just looking at the pink trees drifting by the bus.
The earth is giving birth to insects. At first, there are only a few mosquitoes. Then the swamp starts disgorging them as if spitting watermelon seeds. Little heat-seeking watermelon seeds, spat from between its gap-toothed grin. Flies bounce against the windows. Moths hit the screens at night. Ants are in our Life cereal, marching five by five and six by six, like in the song.
Dead fish lap at the edges of the reservoir. I don’t understand their life cycle, but maybe they waited all winter to die, or maybe their flat corpses have been stacked under the ice all winter like TV dinners and just now floated to the top.
I can’t believe Chet has abandoned me again. I am sure he will be back like he promised, but it would just make me feel better if I knew. I wish I could get in touch with him. Strange things