Chapter 4
Avery tugged his overnight gym bag and back pack from under the seat. "Thanks, again," he said to the driver who he'd spent three hours with. He found out he did this every weekend he went home load up a bunch of people going south. It helped to earn a little drinking money. Avery had obliged him with a ten-spot at the first gas stop. This was the furthest south he went since his house was in this town. So he dropped Avery off in this parking lot.
That was fine, he'd already made arrangements with his dad, though he didn't see his car anywhere. This wasn't a great part of the north-neighboring town. Not that there were any great parts.
Now he was in a parking lot too big for the boarded up convenience store. Avery set his back pack and gym bag on the weedy sidewalk and sat on one of the concrete parking barriers, careful to avoid the protruding rebar.
Whether his dad was coming from the office, or home, or somewhere totally different, it might be a while before he would come. Now he wished he hadn't spent all that time on homework last night. He pulled out a few text books and tried to do some random studying, but found he didn't have the mind for it. Not without a goal in mind. He shoved the book back in, and stared out into space.
His mind kept turning to Sophia's death. Now he was comfortable with it, had been since he found out the cause. It was starting to make more sense. Death surrounded their family. Sophia was in a terrible situation, trapped in high school where everything was a clique, people were selfish and needy, and compensated for their feelings of self-worth by cutting everyone down. She would have liked college, although he wondered if she would have bothered going. She wasn't much into education, and had no real goals.
Not to say Sophia didn't have interests, they just wouldn't have led to a career. She liked socializing, music, clothing, everything you'd expect from a teenager, but she always twisted it. She surrounded herself with dark things. It was what made her comfortable, embracing death instead of shirking from it. Avery wished he could do the same.
He wondered what Sophia would say about her own death, since she liked that dark stuff so much. She probably had a list of what she wanted what kind of music should be played, scripts to be read, who should be sobbing over the coffin. Designed down to a 'T'. Why couldn't you design your own funeral? Probably because no one would do it, no one liked to face that sort of thing head-on. He rubbed his wrists nervously.
What would she want people to say at her funeral? What would he say? Would she have asked him? He was her big brother after all, he would tell it like it is, without the fluff. In a sci-fi book he read once they had a thing called a "Speaker of the Dead", a person who would talk about the person at their death, all their good, all their bad, and everything else. Sophia might want something like that. She didn't compromise who she was for the sake of others. How did they become so different? They had come from the exact same backgrounds, with just a small difference of age and gender.
It was more than half an hour before Mr. Price's slate Cadillac pulled alongside the curb. Avery had laid down by this time, head on the gym bag, feet propped on the rebar. The horn blared.
Avery clenched like a bomb had gone off and saw his dad's piggy eyes staring at him from the open window of his car, phone on his ear. Without a word, he grabbed his two bags, shoved them in the back seat and got in the front. His dad was still wearing a three-piece suit with a flower pinned to the lapel.
"Hi," Avery said. His dad nodded.
"Yeah, what?" he said to the phone. Avery kept quiet, waiting until his father finished. "Yeah... I've done that already. I've offered them everything but the shirt on my back. They still won't take it... I think we're dealing with some real hard asses here... yeah, all talk. They aren't gonna back it up... well, they gotta prove the numbers. The onus is on them."
Avery stayed nice and quiet, like he always had to.
"Look, if you gotta tell them a story, tell them a story. I'm not going to lose this deal just because the books all add up. Take the audit to them... This deal's going through, whether they like it or not," he laughed. "All right... all right... all right... yeah... okay, sounds good. Bye."
His father grunted and replaced the car telephone. "Hi, son," he said. "How was the ride down?"
"S'okay."
"How's college going?"
"Good."
"Law classes going okay?"
"Yeah."
There was a small pause. His dad said, "Did you want to go right to the site?"
"No, go home first." He needed to drop off his stuff, and stretch out a bit. It had been a long ride, and he wanted some time with comforting things first. Sophia wasn't... wasn't going anywhere. "How was the funeral?"
"Good. Saw a lot of old family there," he sighed. "Looks like it's just you and me now," he winked.
That little joke sent a shiver through Avery's spine. It was the worst thing he could say right now. But he had another half hour to go before he could start an argument safely.
"Who was there?" Avery asked.
"Oh, just some old family I hadn't seen for a while. Just on my side."
"Anyone I know?"
"Not really, mostly people I know. People from work. Not too many on your mom's side."
"How did the service go?"
"Oh, just like any other service, I guess."
"You can't tell me any more than that?"
"What, you want details?"
"Yes," Avery yelped.
"Well," he hesitated, "You were at your grandpa's funeral. It was pretty much like that. The minister went up, said some kind words about her, and so forth. Typical bush league stuff."
Avery sighed. "How about the eulogy? What did he say?"
"Uh," he tried to remember. "He talked about how she was so young to be taken from us, said how God will let her into the garden of His heaven. Talked about how spirited she was. Read some passages from the bible."
Avery turned to look out the window and sighed. Sophia would've hated that.
He took the other car, a white Toyota Camry, that Sophia commandeered when he went to school. No one had cleaned it out since she'd died aluminum soda cans, tassely decorations fluttering around, and the sickly-sweet smell of old perfume and Mountain Dew residue. There was nothing weirder than driving the car your sister owned to her last resting place.
He stopped to get a bouquet of black violets, Sophia's favorite. There were so many bright, happy flowers in the shop carnations, roses, daisies, posies but Avery though she'd like to show she was there. She didn't mind standing out. In fact, she thrived on it. Avery always admired her for that. That's why he tried to do something she would have wanted.
Then he realized she didn't want much of anything anymore.
Avery drove a town and a half over to get to the cemetery the same one his mother was buried at. He parked in a designated area and checked the map of plots. His mother's was listed a ways down, nearer the border of the grounds. Sophia's would be close by.
On the way there, he saw another funeral taking place on the other side of the walkway, under a tent. People were dying everyday, it seemed. Some of them made eye contact. He felt self-conscious, strolling along the field holding a bouquet of gothy flowers.
The fresh rock read 'Sophia Elisa Price 1979 1997 Beloved Daughter'. The grave was still loose dirt, they hadn't put the sod over it yet. He was just glad he didn't come while they were still digging.
Alone with her for one last time. Even the sun had given them privacy, hiding behind the clouds.
He felt like he should be talking to her, like they did in the movies. Saying something about how he'd miss her, and what was happening in the world. He guessed that made people feel better, to talk as if they were still alive. Avery didn't feel that. He felt... well, nervous actually, as if she were really expecting something out of him. Expecting him to perform. He was talking to a rock, and felt stupid.
He placed the paper-wrapped bouquet in the dirt, and put his hands in his pocket. It wasn't really Sophia he was looking at after all, just her gravestone. And under it, Sophia's body. He wondered what she looked like, how they had dressed her. He couldn't think of anything Sophia owned that was presentable to the family. She was probably wearing a light-colored dress. That was sad the last thing she got to wear was something she hated, and she had to wear that for eternity...
Water had been forming in his eyes for a while, but now tears started to drop. He covered them with his hand, trying to stop, trying to suppress. He wasn't going to lose it again, even with no one around.
With some deep breathing, he was back to normal, back behind border of emotion. He coughed to cover his faux pas and focused on her gravestone again, reading her name over and over. Finally, when he felt stable, he stepped back.
He still felt the need to say something. Anything. What would Sophia want him to say? She hated anything schmaltzy or clich or syrupy. But if not that, what else? What could he say to someone like Sophia that she would get?
"I'll remember you," he said.
He turned around and walked out of the graveyard. He probably wouldn't return until the next time someone in his family died. He didn't like to look back. The legend of Sophia was over.
When Avery got home, he went straight down to his bedroom and took a nap. He usually didn't take naps, but he felt so drained that he wanted to curl up on his own bed and stop doing anything.
He woke up a half hour later, a little disoriented. Now he wondered what he could do while he was home. He paid his respects to his sister. His room was empty, most of its contents had been shifted to college. It was Saturday night, and kept in contact with no one in town.
He watched some of the evening news on the 6-inch TV he had moved into his room temporarily. Then he felt his stomach grumble. It was close enough to six o'clock dinner time.
When he reached the main floor, he was met with the smell of cooking vegetables in soy sauce. This was new to Avery, since after their mom died, he could count the number of home-cooked meals they'd eaten as a family on one hand. It was a wonder Sophia didn't die of a heart attack with all the fast food and instant meals she must have made.
But this was unexpected. "Hey, dad?" Avery called out.
"I'm in here," he called out from the kitchen. "You want some dinner?"
"Are you cooking?"
"Oh, yeah, steak and vegetables. Man's gotta eat for himself now." He said it like it had been Sophia's job to cook, but he knew that she'd never touched anything more complicated than an ice cream scoop in her life. She preferred paper plates because she could throw them out.
The fact that his dad was trying to cook was enamoring. Originally, Avery was going to go out and get a light meal, but if his dad was making an effort, he'd reward him by staying.
The table was already set. Avery sat down at his place while his dad took ten more minutes to finish. The beef steak and vegetables looked soggy, probably frozen in a bag. Still, he had cooked it all himself, so Avery promised he would try it.
His dad took the serving spoon, and scooped some vegetables on his plate. "So how's college?" he asked again.
"Good," Avery said. "How's work?"
"Ah, it's shit. We're trying to get this merger through the door, but this big company keeps trying to butt in and take our share. It's like they're sticking their hand in and yanking out the money before we even take it. Trying to prevent the merger. I think they're trying to acquire both companies before we can close the deal. It's all a pass-the-buck game. Trying for more profits while the little guy suffers." He shook his head. "They keep telling me these sob stories about how their departments are lacking, they don't get back to me. That's why I was taking that call. I just hope the funeral..."
Avery was already tuning him out. He'd wanted to make conversation, but he shouldn't have asked about work. It was his life. And without kids, what else did he have?
"Are you going to do anything about her car?" Avery asked.
"What about it? You want to take it to college?"
"No, I can't take it anyway. I don't have a parking permit. I meant are you gonna clean it out?"
"Of course. Why, does it need cleaning out?"
"Well, yeah, there's a bunch of pop cans and-"
"Goddammit, that girl," his dad said. "That's a company car. I only let her borrow it because you didn't need it at school."
"Actually, I did, you just didn't let me have it."
"That's not what you told me in August. You said you didn't need it, everything was so close."
"I never said that," Avery said.
His dad waved his hand. "Well, whatever. I've got to clean that out, I've got to clean out her room. Girl left me a mess. Lotta junk in there."
Avery's was about to blow, then his dad said, "Oh, I met the mother who owned the shed where they all... where it all happened."
Avery had totally forgotten the three other boys. "You did? What'd she say?"
"Feh, nothing much. Seemed trailer trash to me. I asked her whether her boy had known my daughter at all. If they'd had a break-up or a fight or something. Tried to see if there was any broken home stuff going on."
"What? I thought it was a suicide."
"Hah, that's what the police said. But do you think those others didn't have a hand in it? The four of them together? Something's up with that. Why in that boy's shed? The police said-"
The phone rang. Avery waited to hear what the police said, but Mr. Price rose from his half-eaten steak, and went to answer it. "Hello? Alex? ...What? What's the problem?"
Work. It was always work. Avery tapped his fingers on the table loudly, mentally willing his dad to hang up.
"Yeah," Mr. Price continued, "Yeah... well, the way it works is, they have to give us the proof... no, it's not like that, I'm sick of them giving us this bush league stuff. Let me tell you a story. When I was in DECA in high school we made t-shirts for the faculty, and I had to fill out every single form about copyrights and trademarks to submit to the principal. So if a highschooler can do it, so can they. You got it?... Get those forms. I don't care what you think. You're a graduate student, just do it... tell those bastards they're going to have to do a lot better than that. What, they think they're fuckin' Microsoft or something?... They're a no-name company with nothing but bush league tactics... all right... all right... bye." Geoffrey Price coughed out some phlegm, sighed, and ran a hand over his head, "Ahem, sorry about that," and sat down. "Where was I?"
"The police."
"Oh, right. Damn useless cops. They told me it was a suicide. But there were no pill bottles anywhere around. Not in my medicine cabinet, certainly. They told me the boy must have had them and disposed of them. Couldn't tell me what drug it was either. Called it heart failure, possibly from an overdose. Your heart stops beating, you die, yeah, but why did the heart fail? Hearts don't just stop." He took a big bite of steak, ripping it off his fork like it was straight off the animal. "Dammit, is this what my taxes are paying for? This bush league crap? These redneck detectives."
"Dad, please, what about the mom?"
"Oh, yeah, now I know she must have been on something. I wouldn't be surprised if she was on drugs, probably Valium. But that shed, that was where all that happened. And it was full of Satanic stuff."
"Satanic stuff? Like what?"
"They found a pan with a symbol on it. Not sure what it means. But also a knife, and a boom box that had some Satanic music in it heavy metal junk. Candles everywhere. Now you tell me a story with all those parts."
Avery shrugged.
His dad continued, "I'll bet you anything that boy got them into some kind of cult shit."
"A cult?"
"That's what they suggested to me. Can you believe it? To think of my daughter in some kind of cult shit. They had the nerve to tell me that. Ridiculous. But that's what happens out there in the boonies?"
"The boonies?"
"Yeah, they live in the east, rural area. I think it used to be some kind of farm, but they converted it. Had a lot of acreage though."
"You went to their house?" Avery asked, eyes wide.
"Well, I was gonna hire a private investigator, but they cost you nowadays. Instead of getting Humphrey Bogart, you get some soccer mom who wants to charge you 5,000 for two days of work."
Avery shook his head at his father's blatant disregard for rules. "Dad, that was trespassing. You could have been arrested."
"I just had a look around. Didn't break anything. Besides, who would've been there to arrest me? I couldn't get a hold of the mother anyway. Not on the phone, not at her house. I had to go to her boy's funeral."
"You went to the funeral?" Avery asked, but his dad kept talking.
"It was the only way I could get in touch with her. I'll tell you what, she was plenty creepy though. Just proved my theory."
"What theory?"
"That the family is a bunch of psychos," his dad said. "She was a cousin of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She was like a zombie. She even gave me her business card. I'll tell you, what kind of mother gives you her business card at her own son's funeral?"
"Well, did you find anything out?"
"About her? No, just that she works for some big company. I guess she's there all the time. Must work more than me." He pulled out a cigar and struck a match to it his after-dinner smoke. "That boy though. No idea. Like he didn't exist. Looked like any normal boy. But you know, that's how they get you. Those serial killers look like normal people."
"Sophia wasn't murdered by a serial killer. And the boy died too. You seriously think she's responsible?"
"All those families are the same. Those hillbilly-types that don't live in the city. Under-privileged, broken homes, no money. That's how they get where they are. They get bored, nothing to do with no money, so they start up those rituals."
"What? Where did you hear that? That's ridiculous," Avery said.
"It's true. You know how those people turn out when they don't have good parents," his dad said.
Avery thought to himself, yeah, I know exactly how.
"Now our situation," he took a puff. "I had your mother for fourteen good years. Fortunately, you were both teenagers when she passed on. You were both pretty mature. But it was still hard." Another puff. "But I worked at it. I did fine, you never had to worry about where your next meal was coming from."
"Yeah, but where were you?"
His dad plucked out the cigar. "What do you mean?"
"You were always at work, trying to get your money. You were never here."
"What does that matter? You never wanted for anything. And you were teenagers at that point," he smiled, "You needed to learn independence, so I gave you some."
"You gave us nothing but," Avery shouted. "Why do you think Sophia dressed the way she did? She was trying to get your attention. She was always trying to get your attention." His father frowned, but he kept going. "She just wanted to hear you say she was a good girl and you loved her even if she did bad in school. Even if she didn't have any direction in life. Instead, she got 'I won't be coming home tonight' for the tenth time. We needed stability, not money. We needed you."
"Now, I did the best I could," he said sternly, pointing his cigar at him. "Someone hands you a couple of teenagers and says 'go', what am I supposed to do?"
"That's the point. You never knew how to handle us, so you hid away at work. We had to raise ourselves the rest of the way. As long as the house didn't burn down and no one got in trouble, your job was done."
"Yeah, let's see how you do when you're in the same situation, buddy. She never appreciated what she got, that was her problem. She dressed all weird to get attention from everyone else. I didn't patronize her by giving into her selfishness. She should thank me for that."
"Yeah, well, she can't do much of anything anymore, Dad."
"It was that attention-getting that got her killed. I know that about her."
"You knew nothing about Sophia! You were never here! She was a normal girl that you screwed up."
"Now, don't get agitated," he said in a forced calmness. "Don't get all panicky."
"Don't worry about me," Avery replied as he pulled on his sleeve. "Me, I'm the success story, remember. My life had some direction." He stood up. "And it's directing me out of here." He kicked the chair out behind him which made the table rattle with silver and glassware.
Barely looking where he was going, Avery opened the heavy front door and shut it with a slam.
And ran face-to-face with a cop.
His car, complete with the light bar across the top and badge on the door, was parked in their driveway behind the white Camry.
"Where are you going there son?" he said with his hand out.
"Uh..." Avery was dumbstruck by this sudden surprise.
"Are you Avery Price?"
"Uh... yes."
"I'm with the Kilward police department. I'm here to ask you if you could come down to the office? And answer some questions about your sister's death?"
Avery thought, it never stops.
Dry brown grass surrounded the shed. His boots crushed the blades with each step, crackling and crunching. Every step, slow and meaningful. There was no hurry. There was nothing but time left.
Cellophane police tape barricaded the door. A gnarled hand ripped it away, and gripped the rusty doorknob. The lock fallen off. He pushed the door open.
There was only darkness, except slits of light from the boards. But he could see fine. He could see the table at the wall. The one that held his book.
This place contained all his worldly possessions. Possessions capable of making small dents in the earth. But that book was more powerful than all of them combined. That book was what he needed.
That book was not there.
Nothing was here. The shed had been cleaned out. Even the hay on the floor had been cleared, and now there were only four chalk outlines.
There had been others here. He could smell their body sweat and perfumes, coating the walls of his shed.
The gnarled hand clenched, tightening and tightening, digging fingers into palm. Red dripped out onto the wooden floor, within one of the chalk outlines.
The room filled with a blood red glow.
"Looks like there's killing to do."
