Curtis raked leaves and twigs into three medium piles in the backyard. With a pair of canvas gloves and a dustpan, he scooped the debris into a plastic-lined, thirty-two-gallon wheeled garbage can. It was a cool, breezy mid-afternoon, but the sun began its descent, causing him to perspire. He stopped to rest, catch his breath, and in doing so, realizing how out of shape he had become. Christ, I really need to quit smoking. The wind blew through his hair and around his face, chilling the glistening sweat on his forehead.

New England storms could be incredibly fierce. Incredibly unpredictable. Incredibly destructive—physically and emotionally. It wasn’t anything he—or anyone else in Southeast Connecticut, for that matter—wasn’t used to having lived his entire life. The last thing he needed was the yard to flood and have his four-burner gas grill and Wes’s playground belongings pulled down a roaring Thames, ending up washed up on a beach somewhere off Long Island Sound. The last storm, two years earlier, sent a red maple into the rusted, metal shed behind the house crushing all of his hanging tools, but that act-of-god that was mostly unavoidable—his tools now lived in the garage. And as he thought about it, he also didn’t want chopped wood from that tree, currently rotting at the edge of his property, to be blown through his sliding glass door window from potential high winds. Another thing to move, ugghhh…

He glanced around the yard to consider the myriad of tasks ahead of him to get everything in order before the storm, and his son caught his eye. Wes, sitting cross-legged in an oversized Hartford Whalers sweatshirt on the red deck, was engrossed in the one-thousand-piece Star Wars jigsaw puzzle. His fingers desperately clung to each piece picked up, wildly fluttering and flapping almost incessantly. He spun each piece around in his hand meticulously and laid it down, always finding where it connected. It was the second one of the day, the first being a seven-hundred-fifty piece Hogwarts Castle & Great Lake puzzle he had completed before lunch; for Wes, it was a slow day. By the age of two, he was churning out two or three competed one-hundred piece boards a day as if he were a one-man assembly line, which fascinated Amy and Curtis.

His spatial and visual abilities were superior to anyone in his age group, and although he rarely spoke, his vocabulary was at a fourth-grade level for someone in the second grade. Having achieved high marks on advanced reading comprehension testing proved this. The only problem Amy or Curtis had was pulling him away from an activity. If Wes was in the middle of a project at dinner time, there was no interrupting him without an absolute meltdown. Amy did her best to avoid such conflicts by having him on a daily schedule, so she could make sure activities didn’t interrupt meals or bedtime. It could be a really late night if Wes was involved in something an hour before he was to turn in.

Curtis tied off his sixth bag of leaves and began to re-line the can when he stopped from across the yard and watched his little boy on the deck. Slightly shocked. It was as if he just realized how big his son had gotten. He felt it was only recently that Wes was using a car seat, which was the last time Curtis was home for any significant length. His mind drifted, recalling barely making it home for Wes’s birthday in July due to work and being utterly exhausted from his conflicting sleep schedule. On a typical day—typical for Curtis, anyway—he’d be in bed by eleven a.m.; but he stayed awake and pushed through to make time for Wes. It made him a zombie and, worse, very moody. The guilt of being away from home for so long set in, and Curtis had to shift his thoughts—yes, he was barely home, but what choice did he have? It wasn’t going to be forever—hopefully.

Amy walked out of the sliding glass door in a tightly wrapped towel with the cordless phone in her hand. Her hair, still dripping wet, was up in another towel. “Miguel’s on the phone.” She shouted, leaning over the side railing. And as she handed it over, she added, “You didn’t hear it? It rang forever.”

Evidently, the phone had rung fifteen times, but Curtis had drifted off in thought. A trance. He took the receiver, ignoring Amy’s comment.

“Miguel, what’s up?” Curtis asked, surprised.

“Aeeey, man. Everything alright over there? Yo, you fucking took off on me, like I was a teenage girl who just told you she was pregnant, and you could be one of two, or maybe three baby daddies, and now we need to go on Maury for the paternity test results, but I ain’t heard from you since!” Miguel ranted, sort of concerned.

“What the fuck are you talking about? And how did you get my house number?”

“White pages, yo. I didn’t even bother trying your cell phone—I know you don’t turn that shit on.”

“Wh-where are you? Are you still at the Mondo-Mart?” Curtis could hear the elevator music and automated ‘specials’ announcements in the background. There was also some distinct chatter nearby.

“Yeah, yo, I stuck around here this afternoon to relax. And to get some more of that herb from that Goth dude—he also works over at this bar. And you know I live in New York, right? I can’t just fucking drive back and forth like I’m going to the office, man. Plus, I met this little niña at the bar down the street. DUDE, she’s got a tattoo of the “bat” symbol around her left breast, yo, she just whipped that shit out in front of everybody—and down on her inner thigh, she got this—”

“MIGUEL! You’re trailing—what is the point of this conversation? I gotta get this house straightened up before this weather hits.” Curtis, getting frustrated.

“Well, I was just gonna say, yo, you left your tool bag here, man. And all the rest of your shit. I didn’t know if you were coming back or not—just wanted to give you a heads up, you know.” Miguel said.

“Fuuuck…”

Curtis looked down on his left hand and saw the narrow, white strip of soft skin around his finger where his wedding band should be. He grew anxious, wondering if Amy had noticed, though he’d seen very little of her upon returning. Wouldn’t she have said something? Then he realized he wasn’t entirely sure she’d been wearing hers.

“Well, what are you doing—are you staying or leaving?” Curtis panicked.

“Just saw that shit as I was headed out the door, man. Gotta get on the road, though. You want me to hold on to them?” Miguel offered.

“NO. Thanks, no. Umm, Alright, I—uh, I’m going to head back up and grab them. Thanks for the call.” Curtis sighed.

“Hey, no problem, man. I’ll leave them in Simmons’ office. Oh, and don’t be alarmed if by chance you go through your toolbox and find a bag of…” Miguel looked around and then whispered, “cocaine,” as if anyone could hear. “That bat-tit girl from the bar left me this eight-ball, and you know I’m on probation and all—”

Click.

“Curtis?” A second or two later. “Hey man, you there?” Miguel looked at the receiver, then back to his ear. “Hello!? Yo, quit playin’, man, ha-ha…”

Curtis was not happy to have to drive all the way back to Rockingham Park, New Hampshire. He never forgot his tool bag on the job before, which frustrated him for being so careless. Thousands of dollars worth of precision tools and specialized telecom devices accumulated over time: coax and modular test equipment, circuit testers, laser measuring and impact tools. His Fluke calibrator and multimeter device alone cost him a grand. Then, of course, there were various cutters, crimpers, strippers, drivers. What was further annoying, he couldn’t trust Miguel with it or its irreplaceable contents—he couldn’t even trust Miguel to run to the gas station for a pack of cigarettes—but the reality was, he didn’t trust anyone with it.

He looked at the time on the phone. There was plenty more to do at the house before making the long journey back, and daylight was burning. Moreover, he was concerned with having to tell Amy, who would most likely give him an ear full of shit, knowing she wouldn’t really understand.

A loud noise, similar to an air horn, prompted Curtis to notice the facility across the water while he wheeled the gas grill from behind the house. He stopped, lit a cigarette, and watched as several vehicles started to evacuate over a narrow passageway connecting the facility to the opposite side of the mainland on route thirty-two. The facility occupied three brick buildings that stretched the length of Holly Hock Island, located and wedged inside the narrow Inlet of the Yantic.

The wind slowly increased in intensity, tossing around decaying leaves as Curtis continued to tidy the yard. His once athletic frame had begun to diminish under the crumbling weight of what stress, age, and lack of sleep provided. Too young at thirty-five to be falling apart. His spine cracked as he took the deck chairs and stacked them inside the new metal tool shed, now offset behind the house; his joints popped as he rolled in the glass table-top; he wheezed, dragging full garbage containers from the driveway, which also went in. Many items in the yard belonged to Wes; scattered toys, plastic furniture, a BMX bike all had to be put away. Lastly, and by far the most infuriating, stacks of rotting firewood needed disposing of, which meant they were to be wheeled out to the woods between the properties.

Being so close to the river, the backyard was susceptible to flood with heavy rainfall. The Reynolds’ had dealt with it on numerous occasions during their time on Forest Street and the mess it left in the wake. After the tree incident, the storm two years prior drove Curtis to properly prepare for all probable future occurrences. As an added precaution, he took the sump pump out of storage, setting it up in the basement, followed by fueling up the ancient hand-me-down generator from Frank inside the shed. He ripped the pull-cord to test it, and to his astonishment, it worked.

Yard work kept Curtis’s mind busy—unfortunately, however, not busy enough from wandering. Lately, he couldn’t shut it off, and being cognizant of that fact stressed him further. His sleep schedule was always off; even after two years, he just could not get accustomed to the time change. Could anybody? It created what felt like an enteral imbalance in his circadian rhythm, which became more and more evident as time passed. There were some days where he wouldn’t see daylight at all, depending on the season and how much overtime put in. He often felt removed, where nothing around him made sense: the present town he was in, the job at hand, his overall existence. It was a feeling of unfamiliarity, almost as if it were a delusion; it would elevate anxiety levels and increase irritability where he found himself smoking more often, which only perpetuated his symptoms. He knew the caffeine wasn’t necessarily helping things, but it was one stimulant he needed to keep him conscious. Sharp. Alert. And he drank it in large quantities.

The last wheelbarrow of heavily decomposed, termite-infested wood had to be carted deeper in the brush. Sweat was dripping from his stubbly face, his white V-neck soaked through, clinging to his thinning frame. He grunted as he dumped the wood, then dropped the wheelbarrow to quickly catch his breath. As he stood, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with a red, paisley handkerchief pulled from his back pocket, a fly buzzed by his face. It was followed by a second and third. He turned and looked back, his house barely visible through the unruly stretch of tall Eastern white pine between his property and the Jensen’s, the elderly couple next door.

The sharp, sweet smell of evergreen trees drifting with the breeze off the river brought with it a jumbled snippet of camping memories, pre-teen—three summers at Camp Hazen. It was that small, unfamiliar window of independence between childhood innocence and bewildered adolescence. An exercise in self-exploration, self-confidence, resiliency. A shared connectedness with peers, with nature. Catch your first fish, build your first fire, develop your first crush. Exhilarating. He took deep breathes. Drank it all in. I wonder, would Wes like camping?

The number of flies increased dramatically, and instinct drove him further into the wooded area. The twisting path canvased with brown pine needles, rickety cones, and decaying leaves crunched under his Timberland boots and, with each step, an occasional snapping branch. Nearing the edge of the river, he looked up to roaring seagulls soaring ten to fifteen feet above as they gracefully passed; he felt as if he could almost touch them. Strange, he thought, having never seen one this far inland, let alone a colony. A common New England indication of inclimate weather, but he could entertain it no further as the smell hit him, now surrounded by swarming flies.

It was a scent he was familiar with, one he hadn’t had the misfortune to come across in over a decade, hating, knowing he would never forget. Rancid. Could it just be the pungent marshland riverbank? Sure, there was nothing unusual there. Having briefly lived on the Connecticut shoreline, where it was much more common, the emanation from low tide was basically synonymous with rotten eggs. Reluctant to continue, he pressed on out of morbid curiosity, a handkerchief over nose and mouth.

What he found was an almost unrecognizable mess. The first disturbing image: a head, decapitated, half-covered—the half still intact—with matted, tufted dark hair. In the top quadrant, everything from the cheekbone through the nose was missing on one side. Hollow. The face took on a waxen complexion, glossy white—a pale green hue developing around the chin and cheekbone. The mouth, blue and scabrous, slightly ajar, was a portal for the passing of black flies through a missing front tooth. Curtis wafted them from his face, unable to avert his eyes as if trying to identify the remains—an internal Rolodex, a subconscious cross-referencing of everyone he’s ever met in town. As if he could. The frosted eye glared up at Curtis.

The torso was ripped vertically up the middle, crotch to chest, viscera, and other internal organs were strewn about. Excavated. Trailing. The remains, still partially clothed with pieces of yellow fabric from a shredded jacket, littered the ground. A right-arm severed at the elbow with a matching leg from the knee down, concealed by a rubber boot, lay five to ten feet away in opposite directions.

The worst part for Curtis—as if any of it were tolerable—were the maggots. Fresh maggots. Tiny, rice-like organisms uniformly squirming. It was the one thing he couldn’t stomach. His stomach churned from the very sight as they discharged from every cut, gash, and gaping orifice. Within seconds, his eyes watered, and he retched off to the side, coughing, the acid burning his esophagus.

He had seen his share of mutilated men, men who met their demise by a smattering of gunfire, men who had been in close range of an explosive device—just far enough away to suffer, if only for a few moments, conscious of their imminent end—pieces of men, but never had he seen a mess quite like this. Fragments of human flesh continued to trail ten to fifteen yards beyond the carcass.

Curtis followed the splotches of blood through withering leaves and forest overgrowth until he was about ten yards from the river. Looking up toward the marsh, he could see the stern of a yellow dinghy partially emerged in tall strands of golden reed. He stood, taking in the view of the Yantic, processing, deliberating, weighing the pros and cons—what to do—his thoughts looping.

Before turning back, he noticed from the corner of his eye a mound of dirt surrounding an oblong crater in the earth. It was about five feet in diameter and looked as if someone had dug a ditch and left it. Not being able to make much of it, he gave an unenthusiastic look in, which only offered infinite darkness, then kicked in a limestone teetering at the edge. The sound it returned was not one of an object landing but a murmur of low chirps and faint scratching. In fact, the stone didn’t seem to contact any surface, vanishing into the void. He squatted, inches from the opening, trying to discern the noise, wondering if a chipmunk or maybe a kitten had fallen in, but that theory quickly proved illogical as it only heightened, squeakier.

A massive cluster tore straight up past Curtis’s face, mere inches, fluttering, squealing as he tumbled backward, arms up, bracing his head. He lay, peering through the crossed frame of his arms, the anomaly lasting only seconds. By the time he perceived what they were, they had faded, dissipating into trees.

Bats…

Next Chapter: CH. 9 - THE ACCUSATION