I slam the book shut and drop it to the floor. My hand shakes, but now there’s a clarity and purpose in my mind that I haven’t felt in, well, I can’t remember when. How the hell did I not know about this gruesome chapter of our family history? This James kid, the dead or maybe not so dead kid, has to be a relative of mine. If he’s Rebecca’s son, that makes him a blood relative. Maybe an uncle or something. I have to find out.

My mind whirs. I need to find out who put the manuscript in the mannequin. And what does the slim volume of gibberish have to do with any of this? Energized, I leap from the chair and hunt around for the book. It must be here somewhere. I’ve got the tome and the awl, so where the fuck is the other thing?

It’s now fully night outside, and my mother’s hatred of bright lights means the exterior gloom is making it difficult to see inside. I’m sure I brought that other book down. Shit, it must still be up in the attic with the hacked up dummy. And if what I remember about the attic remains true, then it has no fucking light to speak of. I need to get my flashlight from the car.

As I head for the living room door a subtle sound catches my attention. It’s a scratching noise like tree branches rubbing against a window. There it is again. By my mother hated trees in the yard. She said they cast shadows and blocked the natural light. I tried to tell her the leafy coolness was a good thing in the heat of summer, but she was adamant about her yard being clean and clear. So what the fuck is making the noise if it’s not a tree?

Emboldened by the bourbon, I nudge up against the window, pressing my cheek this way and that, trying to get an angle into the front yard to have a look outside. A shadow flits across the lawn.

“Hey,” I yell through the closed window. “Hey you!”

It’s probably just some kid fucking around, no doubt the little shit had a friend dare him to look through the window of the dead lady’s house. My Mom had a fractious relationship with her neighbors from the day we moved here from Kirtland, and my moving out wouldn’t have changed that. She is a—was a—woman of firm beliefs and no amount of teenage tomfoolery changed her mind. Which, if I recall correctly, kind of sucked for me, given the nightfall curfew I always had to suffer. Still, I’m made of sterner stuff now, I’ll go and deal with the problem directly.

I reach for the fireplace poker and make for the front door. It may have been a few years since I was a cop, but I still have the arrogant instincts—nobody fucks with my stuff, and my Mom’s house is now definitely my stuff. I bang out the door and head into the yard. The scratching sounds stops. Goddamn chickens. Gotta be those fucking birds.

I heft the poker higher. The air is still and silent. A wave of vulnerability sweeps over me. This is creepier than I thought. I rarely left this house after dark, and I’m getting the oddest creeps. The barren lawn stretches out toward the road, a pale silver under the moonlight. The house across the street is mostly dark, Mrs. Spinwithers not being a big one to spend her government handouts on light leaking through the window.

The houses further down the street are also dark. This suburb has been in decay for years and it looks like time is catching up. I raise my collar up against the back of my neck. A cool breeze springs up, disrupting the silence, and sends a chill down my spine. I tug my sleeves down around my wrists and pull up the zip on my thin top. When the fuck did it get so cold? The noise starts again behind me and I spin.

“Come out, motherfucker,” I shout. “Your games aren’t working.”

I swish the poker a couple of times and just about kneecap myself. The booze in my system gives me the added bravado, but it comes at a coordination cost.

“You’ve got me here, now what do you want?” I demand, half thinking I’m joking around.

“Joseph,” says a voice almost beyond my hearing. “James is waiting.”

“What? Who the fuck is James?”

“James is waiting, Joseph. Come and play with us.”

A shadow appears from around the side of the house. It’s a boy. He’s a tweener, judging by the size of him. Or maybe a small thirteen or fourteen year old. These fucking kids were the bane of my existence when I was growing up. Though I wonder where this brat comes from given the aging population in this area.

“Who the fuck are you?” I growl.

He paces forward toward the middle of the lawn. Then another sprat melts from around the corner.

“It’s your time, Joseph,” they intone in a sibilant harmony.

“How do you know my name?” I yell.

This is fucking weird. If they know who I am, then someone older has told them. I’m getting a bad feeling about this.

“Who the fuck are you?” I demand again. “Get out of my yard!”

I sound like an old man, but I’m at a loss for what else to say to these kids.

Lights appear in windows up and down the street. Someone male bellows at me to ‘shut the fuck up’. I think I have a bigger issue here. There are two strange kids in my childhood yard, and they know my name. Then, they suddenly split and approach me from different sides. The washed out light from the living room provides the merest sketch of their facial features. One of them smiles, and my ex-cop bravado drops a notch as the two kids begin walking a circle around me. I have to keep turning my head to keep them in my sight. I now wish I’d stayed inside.

“Your name is in the book,” one of them replies. “James...and Joseph.”

“Your names are always in the book,” says the other. “You need to come with us. James wants to play. Don’t worry. Your mother will be there.”

“Fuck you,” I say. “My mother is dead!”

“Of course,” whispers the first one. “It was meant to be.”

“It was ordained,” adds the other.

I rock back. A bus killed her. What is happening? What are they talking about? Then a penny drops. James—he’s the boy from the journal.

“What happened to Mother? How do you know James?”

“Everything is known to us. It is written in the book. You can never leave us, Joseph.”

My mind reels. How do they know about James? The journal had to be hidden for decades, secreted deep in the body of the mannequin that’s been passed down through generations of my family. There’s a connection here to me that I don’t understand.

The poker droops, and the boy closest to me softly laughs. “So it’s true,” he whispers.

I can’t help myself. “What’s true?”

The other boy steps in closer and snicks out the blade from a boxcutter. “The male lineage is weak.”

The first boy draws a long blade from behind his back. It’s a serious fucking size - something you’d use to gut and skin a deer. I swish the poker in front of me and side-squint at the front door. Fucking shit! There’s another kid there! In the dull glow of the inside light I see he has the heavy book tucked under his arm and the awl in the other.

“Where’s the codex?” he asks.

“The what?”

He taps the leatherbound book with the tip of the awl. “The codex, Joseph. It’s the only reason you are still alive.”

“I...I don’t know.” The clarity that had illuminated and energized my mind has vanished.  

“But you’ve certainly seen it,” he insists. “The Trinity must always be together.”

“I’ve seen fucking jack, Junior,” I tell him, my bourbon-based bravado leaking out by the ounce.

A niggling in my brain shifts into a flame of rage. These kids, these boys, are here, taunting me. On my dead mother’s lawn. I don’t know what the hell has shifted over my mind here—some sort of cloud, could be the weight of drink and grief—but I start to realize something important. I can take these kids.

“Last chance, Joseph,” calls the punk in my mother’s doorway. “The codex, or your life.”

“Fuck you!” I spit. “Get off my mother’s property!”

The three speak in turns.

“A poor choice you’ve made, Joseph,” says the kid behind me.

“A poor choice, indeed,” echoes the kid in front.

“Don’t forget to spare his heart,” calls the kid from the doorway.

Both weapon-wielding kids charge at me from either direction. They both slice and swipe their blades at my neck, but I duck away, breathing heavier at the realization of how high the stakes suddenly have become. I twist and roll and thump into the aluminum cladding on the side of the house. I stagger up and lunge forward as the kid with the box cutter swipes up again at my neck, barely missing.

Adrenaline and rage both flood my veins like they were in a fistfight. I backhand with the poker, clouting one of the kids mid-face. I hear the satisfying crackle of shattered gristle as his nose collapses. I raise the poker high to smash the little prick down when a searing heat bites across my thigh. One of the kids laughs and ducks away, and in the pale moonlight I see him lick the blood from the long killing blade.

I’m standing with my back against the house. The two who attacked are flanking me while the one from the doorway approaches in front, spinning the awl between his fingers and smiling.

“This is a fun game,” he says, then stops spinning the awl to point it at me. “I love how you think you can win. Makes it all more interesting.”

“Fuck you, kid!” I scream at the insistence of my pain.

Seems like every light is on in the neighborhood. More screams for me to shut up, this time threatening police. Fine with me.

I turn to my left, following the sound of wet, regular gurgling. It’s the kid whose nose I shattered. He’s grinning at me, unfazed by the stream of blood flowing down from the remains of his nose. The blood spatters the grass with each exhale. The light from the nearby window highlights his face. I swear his eyes are the yellow of jaundice.

Distracted for too long. I turn back to find that the kid with the awl is gone. Then the kid to my right lunges at me with the blade. I catch his wrist before he can bring it down and instinct brings my right fist straight across, bashing against the left side of his jaw. It’s a perfect connection. He flops down to the lawn, unconscious, but it’s at a cost. I dropped the poker to deliver the knockout blow and took my eye off the others. I turn to face the next kid too late.

The kid buries the box cutter into the top of my left shoulder and I scream. His mistake was getting so close. I’m all rage now. I grab the kid by the throat with both of my mitts, but I struggle to keep my hold because the blood streaming down his neck from his nose makes the grip slip. He laughs and spits blood all over my face. Enough of this. He’s small enough that my thumbs and fingers meet on either side of his neck. I squeeze. He’s flailing about, turning purple as he tries to kick and punch at me, but I’m much stronger. He takes two big swipes at my face, scratching. He’s desperate, but he’s still got that fucking smirk on his face. Then his eyes search over my shoulder and he starts swiping at the box cutter flapping there, still buried in my flesh. He gets one hand on it and turns it. I scream and squeeze with the pain. I feel and hear a pop as the kid’s face goes slack. All the anger in my face drains down to my stomach.

I’ve killed him.

I let go and his body drops to the ground, his muscles now flaccid.

What have I done?

I scream as a sharp pain shoots through my right abdomen. I spin and find the kid with the awl cackling at me. His hands are empty - he leaves his palms out as if to show me. I look to find the handle of the awl jutting out of my side. Then the kid leaps.

His feet connect with my chest and I fall backward. This little fucker is strong. I reach up to grab him, but he slips in between my grip, smashing his forehead against the bridge of my nose. I cry out in agony and throw flailing, blind punches in front of me. One connects, I hear the wind rush out of the little punk’s lungs as his weight falls off my chest.

Staggering to my feet, I keep my eyes on all three as I go to grab the poker up from the grass. Blue and red lights swirl around, igniting the darkness. I’m grateful. I didn’t have any more in me.

Three cop cars screech into my mother’s front lawn. Doors open and shouts for me to put down the weapon and yadda, yadda, yadda are aimed in my direction. I know, fellas. I’ve been in your shoes. I know how this looks. I’m not going to do anything but cooperate. Hell, I’d like to know what the fuck just happened even more than any of you.

I pitch the poker far away to my right, interlock my fingers behind my neck with my elbows out, and turn as four officers approach. All I tell them is to be careful, because I have a box cutter in my shoulder and an awl in my side.

As I turn, my breath leaves me. They’re gone. All three. Not even the kid I killed. As police flashlights swirl around in the lawn, I can see blood splattered all around, but no sign of the kids.

I feel hands wearing latex gloves carefully bringing my wrists behind my back for the handcuffs.

“Jesus, buddy,” says a cop, “what in the hell were you into tonight?”

“He reeks of booze,” says another cop.

“Where did those kids go?” I ask.

“What kids?”

I don’t know what’s happening. My vision blurs. I can’t see. I think I’m going to pass out.

Next Chapter: Eight