Kill Radio
Excerpted from Kill Radio, a novel by Lauren Bolger
Rory burst out the back door and into the morning dark—the early spring kind that makes equals of sky and of earth.
The sky seemed to him to descend at night. To meet the ground. Today, it pressed heavily down on him, like a silent theater with no stage or spotlight. And Rory—the moving piece—was the focal point.
He checked behind him as he ran. Waiting. Expecting the thing to follow. Nothing came. But that probably meant it was still back there in the house, with her.
He turned as he exited his open yard. Saw the outline of the old playground with the broken slide and three dying ash trees. Bare branches reached from the base of the trunk, grasping at life the only way they could now. They were the only decoration in the wide-open field between neighboring houses,a row of strong roofs and peeling paint.
He slowed again as an orange glow played across the darkness. He breathed in something familiar. Beyond the dead-fish stench of standing water. It was sharp and metallic. Stronger than a bloody nose. He could taste it. Rory turned. His own house was engulfed in flames. Flames bursting from the back windows; a pillar of smoke clouding over the smooth, black heavens.
There’d been house fires like this, many times. Except before, it’d never been his own. It had every characteristic of a real fire. The flames scorched his eyes with their white leaping brilliance. As the heat stung his face, that encompassing terror returned.
Angry house, he’d called it, for as far back as he could remember; probably since he could talk. Yes, the fire looked angry; violent even, with those orange thrashing flames. Consuming the wood, melting the siding. Hungry for destruction and desperate to escape, all at once. But ever since he saw that real house fire last year, the one his mom could see, he’d felt the big difference. That house was abandoned. Nobody inside. And there was no fear that time. No fury. And now, a new question was born. Was his house the new angry house because of what happened inside?
He couldn’t go back. She’d forced him to run. His fear for her twisted itself up with the all-encompassing alien one. Confusing him.
“Mom,” he choked. His eyes stung, and his nose started running. “It’s not real,” he whispered, then closed his eyes. Who cares about the stupid fire? He saw what happened inside before he left. The monster, and his mom. The bad screwing up the good.
He ran in the strange empty silence for a while, until a loud scraping sound made him jump. He looked down. A tornado of wet leaves danced at his feet.
His heart pressed against his throat and he swallowed. His hands were numb with cold. He stuffed them into the pockets of his pajama pants and continued on.
The leaves scraped each other again, this time more loudly. But when Rory looked down, the leaves lay still on the ground. Some protested in brilliant yellow. Others were brown and rotted from having been under the snow all winter.
There was no wind. Chills crawled down his back. It was like something borrowed the sound of the leaves and made a pattern with it. A harsh scratching, strung together by a softer dry brushing. Like speech.
Keep going, it said.
No. Of course it wasn’t talking,Rory thought. He checked. Nobody there.
Straight ahead, it said.
He made it to the top of a hill. Up ahead, the pre-sunrise glow settled upon a parking lot. Weeds thrust their way up from underneath. Green raked across, choking the crumbled asphalt. The lot led to—and wrapped around—a small brick building with a wide back door and a dumpster. If it weren’t for the cars and a light on inside, the place would have seemed abandoned.
Rory’s gaze settled on a nondescript white box truck. A man hopped down from the cab of it, seeming impossibly miniature. A man with big shoulders and a beard. Rory glanced down at his feet, and began the quick shuffling steps that would bring him down the hill, to the lot.
***
Stanton Avery scanned the parking lot as he turned off the main road. Only two cars in the lot. One was the owner’s. The other, an early-80s black Mustang with a cardboard window. He swung his truck around back and jerked the parking brake up with an angry quickness. He thought he’d known who’d be here at this early hour, and hated being surprised by someone different. But this seafood place was the best in town. And, therefore, his top customer.
To Stanton, early morning was the most tolerable part of the day. He imagined that the night—in all its stillness—refreshed the earth. He felt like all the bodies in the world heated it up and soured the air. Why else would the air feel so crisp and fresh in the morning, when the world had been quiet and still for hours?
Damned human emissions, he thought, squinting to himself, an expression that resembled a smile.
Stanton hopped down from the truck, eager to get in and out quickly. He shook his head at himself when he looked at the maybe eight better spots he’d passed up. I wanna be where the people aren’t.In a few minutes, more people would be pulling in to start prepping for the day. Better get moving.
He loaded his first stack of crates off his truck onto a dolly. Clearing his throat loudly, he gave the back of the dolly a hefty shove with his boot and pushed it toward the propped-open door.
“Crabs are here!” Stanton called, craning his head toward the kitchen, competing with the blaring radio. Some guy yelling for everyone to hurry up and come buy his cars before they float away and disappear. Stanton moved the dolly very slightly forward and back.
After some footsteps, a voice came from around the corner, “I hear you say you got crabs?” followed by a high-pitched, staccato giggle. Jimmy, the dishwasher, leaned against the doorway with one elbow, grinning maniacally.
“You’re here early,” Stanton said flatly.
“Yep, when I leave without finishing the dishes, they make me come in early with the prep guys to finish up.”
“Gotcha.”
“You aren’t the guy who normally drops off. When Javier comes, he always laughs at my jokes.”
“Does he really…” Stanton replied flatly.
“No. But he smiles politely.” Jimmy grinned again, showing his long, surprisingly clean dentition. “So he gets more jokes outta me.”
“Don’t waste them all on me.” Stanton mirrored Jimmy’s exaggerated smile.
Very briefly, Jimmy fixed a blank gaze upon Stanton. “Where is he, anyway? He never takes a day off.”
“Hard to say.”
“I hope he’s okay.”
“I’m sure he’ll turn up.” Stanton gestured with his hand. “Where do you want this?”
***
Stanton turned and headed to the back of the truck to retrieve the rest of the order. He opened the roll-up door again and reached in, dragging more crates of fish toward the edge of the cargo area.
“Hey mister?” He thought he heard a voice. A frightened whisper. He turned, checking the rest of the lot. Nobody there.
He turned around to stack a third crate. Two small hands were wrapped around the edge of the second one. He tipped the crate to the side to avoid crushing the tiny fingers. The crabs shifted, and he almost lost his grip.
“Hey!” Stanton yelled at the kid. His voice came out hoarse and almost angry. He stopped, then stifled a laugh, observing the boy’s horrified expression. He felt a little bad. He must have looked and sounded crazed. The kid hung back, staring at him with wide wet eyes, his face pink as though he’d been crying. He looked up at Stanton, shielding himself with one arm. Is he crying because of me?Stanton wondered. He set the crate back on the truck and turned to the kid.
He softened his voice. “Where are your parents?”
The boy’s eyes widened. Then he shook his head—firmly and quickly—in response. The corners of his mouth turned down and he looked away, pretending to see something off in the distance.
“An emergency happened to my mom.” He sniffed, and brushed the back of his hand against his nose. “I mean . . . she needs help. It’s an emergency.”
“What’s going on?” Stanton’s stomach clenched. “What happened?”
“A monster came in our house and got her. She told me to run.”
“Can you tell me your name?”
“There’s no time!” the boy reached for Stanton’s hand, and then drew away again. “Are you going to help me, or no?”
Stanton never got involved with other people. What’s a little kid mean by monster? It could be anything.He always felt getting involved was like picking up a mess nobody else wanted. He liked things simple. He didn’t know many simple people. Here, though, it seemed the only possible option was to help.
“Yeah, I can help you.”
“Who’s the kid?”
Stanton and the kid turned quickly to Jimmy, who was leaning in the back door again.
“I’m Rory,” the kid said nervously. Hands on his hips, elbows out.
“We ain’t got all day.” Jimmy’s hands were palm-up in a disbelieving shrug.
Stanton stared hard at Jimmy for a minute. He felt the hollow of his cheek twitching ever so slightly, just above his jaw. He hated when lightweights acted like they had weight to throw around. But it wasn’t worth it. He grabbed the crates from the back of the truck and hoisted them onto the dolly.
“Sorry, something came up. Gotta run. I’m sure you can wheel them in.” He turned to Rory. “Can you tell me which way if we drive?”
The kid’s eyes were dinnerplates. Dinnerplates with a little twitch in one corner. “I’m scared,” he whispered.
“It’s okay to be scared. You’ve got me a little scared too.” Stanton tried to laugh a little. The kid’s eyes did not get any smaller. He was breathing kind of funny, like he’d been running too fast for too far. He’d seen unkind gym teachers push a kid that way until they threw up.
I honestly don’t want to go, he thought. But there was no alternative. They could call the police but he figured that’d take longer. No five-year-old could run very far on foot. The house had to be close.
“Just hop in,” Stanton said. “She’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out.”
Rory nodded and ran around the back of the truck, gravel leaping behind him. Stanton yanked his door open and climbed into the driver side. Rory was already inside buckling up.
He accelerated toward the main road. Jimmy still stood just outside the door, stuck in the same confused shrug.
Me too, man, Stanton thought. Me too.
