Ghouls

CHAPTER TWO

The corpse lay at her feet.

Vicky Stokes was leaning forward on the couch, knees touching, her head in her hands. She had been crying for an hour.

It was only a dog, a pet, yet in secret she confessed that this current sense of loss affected her harder than any she had known. She remembered the grief she’d felt, several years back, when learning that her parents’ house had burned down with them in it—nothing compared to this. They’d never cared about her, they’d thrown her out of the house at eighteen; still they were her parents, but she mourned the loss of her dog more.

You know you’re a loser when the only friend you have left is a dog.

And she was beginning to realize now that that’s what she was—a loser, who waitressed at a carnal, seedy tavern in a nowhere town with a degenerate tyrant for a husband.

She’d been married to Stokes for a year and a half. The biggest mistake of her life, but she couldn’t blame herself completely because she’d learned of Lenny’s true character only after they’d been married. It was a hard consolation to swallow, though, and she would always hate a small part of herself for ever having gotten involved with him. It might be different if he loved her, as she’d once thought, but Lenny Stokes was not capable of anything close to love. Vicky had learned this the hard way, the painful way. As far as Lenny was concerned, a wife was a commodity, someone to cook his food, clean his house, and earn money. All Lenny had was this house his father had left him; he didn’t have a real job, though he did make a lot of money selling pot and PCP to all the hippie kids in Bowie, and burglarizing homes in Crofton and some of the other wealthier area communities. The weekly check Vicky brought home from the Anvil was used for groceries and bills.

So this was her lot, the rewards of wedlock—to cook, to clean, and to work forty hours a week.

And one other thing, too. The worst part of all. The sex.

She knew Lenny had been cheating on her since their first week as husband and wife, but there was nothing she could do about it, and by now their relationship had corroded to the point that she no longer cared. She was grateful for Lenny’s extramarital affairs. It was that much easier on her when Lenny came home spent; otherwise, he would vent his sexual quirks on Vicky that much more. To Lenny, the ultimate sexual experience had to revolve around pain; that was the turn-on for him, the pain, the hurting, the force. She could get sick just thinking about some of the thing’s he’d done to her. And Lenny did not limit his brutality to the bedroom. Sometimes he would slap her around for no reason at all. Other times it was more than just slapping around—it was beating. She could more easily measure the last eighteen months in bruises and the metal taste of blood in her mouth. Twice he had sent her to the hospital with concussions. She remembered the time last summer when Lenny and his friends had barreled into the Anvil, drunker than usual, and stoned. It had been a Wednesday night, amateur night. Lenny had ordered her to get up on the stage and remove her shirt. “My buddies all wanna see your tits,” he’d said. “I told them what a fine set you had. So get up there, girl. Off with it. Let’s see ’em.” Of course, Vicky had refused, and not in the lexicon of kings. Being a waitress at the Anvil was humiliating enough; one thing she would never do was exhibit her body like the dancers. Lenny had beaten the daylights out of her in the parking lot later. “Don’t you evah make a fool of me in front of my friends, girl!” he’d raged, popping her in the head and abdomen with his hard, knuckly fist. “Don’t you evah! When I tell you to do somethin’, you do it!” He’d left her lying broken on the gravel, bruised ribs, a few loose teeth. Kurt Morris had driven her to South County General, where she’d had to have X-rays, an EEG, and a spinal tap. She could still hear that mammoth silver needle slipping between two vertebrae. Kurt had pleaded with her, begged her to press charges, but she didn’t dare. Instead she’d told the doctors that she’d stumbled and hit her head.

She couldn’t divorce Lenny, not now. She was convinced of the logic of her reasons.

The house was very quiet now. All she could hear was the steady tick of the glass and gold carriage clock on the mantelpiece. Nine o’clock and all’s well. At least until my dearest hubby gets home. Just then it dawned on her that she was sitting in the dark. Night had bloomed fully without her ever realizing it. It was nice like that, dark and quiet and nice, and she hoped to God that Lenny didn’t come home all boned up and drunk, and destroy it all for her.

Just as the tears were beginning to dry, she inched her foot forward and touched something furry with her toe.

Brutus. Oh, Brutus, why can’t you just be sleeping?

She stood up, stepped over the dead animal, and felt her way across the room to the kitchen. She flinched at the sudden, disrupting whiteness when she opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of soda. She went back to the couch and sat staring. The still carcass on the floor reminded her that she’d soon have to take care of things. She supposed there was some county office she could call, but she couldn’t bear the thought. They would probably incinerate the collie and use him for bone meal or something. No, she would tend to it herself.

Her whole body jerked when the kitchen door to the garage opened. The lights flicked on, an intruding block of glare. Lenny set his big Eveready spotlight down on the counter, and didn’t even notice Vicky sitting there until he was three steps into the living room. He stopped, squinting, and said, “How come you ain’t at work?”

“It’s my day off.”

“Oh,” he said. “That’s right, I forgot.” He fixed his eyes on her and threw his head back to get the hair off his brow. “You got something going with Morris?”

“Who?”

“Morris, that pencilneck cop.”

Vicky frowned and reached for her cigarettes. “No.”

“Tell me the truth, girl.”

“I haven’t seen Kurt in weeks. What makes you think I ‘got something going’ with him?”

“I ran into him today, and he was givin’ me a hard time, as usual, the weed. He’s always askin’ shit about you.”

Vicky smiled within herself. “Well, I told you. I haven’t seen him.” She lit a cigarette, leaned back on the couch, and drew. “Where have you been all day?”

“Huntin’, with Jory and Mac.” This, of course, was a lie. He’d only been hunting for the last hour or so. Lenny did all his hunting at night.

“One day you’ll go too far, Lenny,” she said. “Deer season ended in December. And besides, there’s a difference between hunting and poaching.”

”Aw, it’s a dipshit law, anyway. This way, we save a bundle on food expenses. Wait’ll you see the ten-point buck I got. I’ll bet that sucker weighs close to two hundred. We just got done dressing it.”

Lenny smirked. It was obvious that Vicky didn’t share in his delight over bringing home a deer. He stood still, and was squinting at her again in the white, cold light from the kitchen. He noticed, finally, the dried tears that streaked her cheeks. “What you been cryin’ about?”

She looked away from him and swallowed. “Brutus died.”

She expected a fake response from him at least. Lenny had always been indifferent about the collie; he’d never gone out of his way to be nice to Brutus, but then he’d never been mean to the animal, either. He said nothing. He looked at the shape of the animal’s corpse at Vicky’s feet, then reached down to pick the dog up.

“What are you going to do?”

“Gotta get him outa here,” he said. “I’ll take him behind the bowling alley and leave him in the dumpster.”

“You will not. That dog’s been with me for fifteen years, and if you think you’re going to toss him into some damn garbage dumpster, then you better think again.” More tears began to fill her eyes, and she felt a rare kind of rage that was dangerous in that house. “Sometimes I just can’t believe you, Lenny. You’re a miserable, insensitive bastard.”

“You better watch that mouth, girl,” he said, and pointed a finger at her. “I got a mind to clout you upside the head.”

“Well, do it then, I don’t give a shit!” she shouted at him, and the tears were flowing freely now, her words hollow and stilted. She knew he would hit her under any other circumstance but wouldn’t now because her defiance and grief had reduced the threat to something feeble. “I’ll get rid of him myself,” she heard herself say a few seconds later.

He remained there a while longer, perhaps puzzled that anyone could harbor such feelings for a dog. “Now I’m sorry your dog died, but you gotta be re-listic about all this. You take care of it soon; we don’t want the house full up with flies. You hear?”

Her head between her knees, Vicky nodded.

“Okay, then,” he said. He disappeared up the stairs.

Vicky continued to sob faintly. Her face was swollen and red around the eyes, and she realized she was crying not only for the loss of her pet, but also for the graceless plummet her life had taken. She picked the dog up heavily in her arms and pushed through the screen door to the backyard. The night air was cool and crisp, the darkness, again, comforting. The grass underfoot felt strangely moist, like cool oil. She took the animal to the limits of the yard and continued a few steps into the woods itself, where she laid the dog down on the forest ground. She took a moment to breathe in the night scents of the woods. Then she plodded back toward the toolshed to search for the shovel.

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