The Toothless Dead
A novella by Dan Dillard
DEDICATION:
To Bob King III, thanks for sharing one of the creepiest stories I’ve ever heard. We all had boogeymen growing up, I just thought they lived in the closet. I’m glad you lived through this one and not me, otherwise I might have turned out weird or something.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
Thanks to Terry Castle for being a mentor and calling me on my disjointed writing. I hope the story came through and maybe one day, a film will happen. Thanks to my kids who give me insight into the best thing in the world—imagination. Thanks to nearly every member of my family for reading this one and giving me tips. As usual, any mistakes in the text are my fault. I hope I’m getting better at finding and destroying them.
Thanks to Brett Pittman for the cover art—It reminds me of C.H.U.D. in the best way possible. To The Goonies, thanks for inspiration and believing in the little guy—never say die! Thanks to Walker’s Woods…the place where all my nightmares live. Thanks as always to the ten of you that I don’t know, who still read my books.
The Toothless Dead
Copyright © 2014 by Daniel P. Dillard
ISBN: 9781311873637
License notes:
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
THE TOOTHLESS DEAD
by Dan Dillard
CHAPTER 1
Walker’s Woods was a small suburban town, cracked sidewalks and above-ground swimming pools and streets lined with street lamps. Most of the folks who live there, comfortably or not, worked for one of the south-side plants in the city, which hovered about twenty miles north of them. The rest ran businesses in town, or like many, were looking for work.
It was dusk, and it was chilly that evening with the first breezes of fall howling in. In the evenings, as anyone who ever lived in the Midwest can tell you, they would chill a man to his very bones. The sun was setting a tick earlier each day and seemed to drop more quickly, as if it was trying to hide from something nasty. School had let out for fall break that afternoon and the local youth were eating dinner, preparing for sleepovers, parties and dates that evening. All except for one young boy, who had something more important on his mind.
That particular young boy was screaming along the outer edge of town on a BMX bike, pedaling for all he was worth. A dark blue towel—his superhero cape—was clipped in front of his neck with a safety pin and flapped behind him. The nine year old stood on his pedals, never letting the bicycle coast, not even on the down-hills. Each bump in the sidewalk enhanced his dread. His freckled cheeks wore brilliant red splotches as he panted and sweat dripped from out from underneath his black safety helmet. That and the cape, made him feel like Batman. His mission was undefined, but clearly life threatening. His eyes, blinking only when absolutely necessary, were wide as headlights in the dimming daylight.
He chanced a moment of coasting and took a quick look to the west, checking the position of the setting sun. The bottom of that fiery ball was just scraping the tops of the trees, threatening to set them alight. Batman gasped and quickened his pace, pushing the bike to its mechanical limits. Its chain rattled and bounced, but held on to the sprocket. The boy clenched his teeth and his eyes began to water from the cold breeze on his face. He chewed the chapped skin on his lower lip, peeling a raw spot that was certain to sting later. There was no time for lip balm.
Cresting the top of the last hill, his machine coasted to the bottom where he squeezed the brakes and skidded sideways to a halt. All of Gotham stood in silence, gripped by the suspense, knowing their hero would pull through. He let the bicycle drop to the ground with a clank and a click-click-click as the rear wheel spun freely on its axle.
Standing in the center of the road and shadowed by the graffiti-splattered overpass, he put his hands on his hips in a way only heroes can. The bridge was a relic from decades past when the trains used to run through Walker’s Woods (back then, it was known as Crowe’s Foot, but that’s a story for later). At the boy’s feet, the moist pavement was littered with pebbles, a crushed soda can and one old, rusty manhole cover.
That manhole was his destination, the source of all of Gotham’s evil. He struggled in his pocket, fishing for something. His eyes lit up as he found it, and gleamed when he pulled out the small object, a single tooth, as if it was an ancient artifact. He smiled with relief, revealing the gap the tooth used to fill. With it clamped between his index finger and thumb, he used his remaining digits to flip his cape back, tucking it behind his shoulders.
Kneeling, Batman dropped the tooth as if it was the catalyst for some magic spell, a foil the Joker hadn’t thought of, on top of the manhole cover. The pattern on its surface was a series of interlocking T-shapes, like a puzzle, a maze from which the caped crusader must find and fight his way out. In the center was a star. The tooth made a small clinking sound as it settled into the star-shaped hollow. The noise seemed to silence the crickets in the real world, but set the crowd roaring in Gotham. The boy stepped back to check the sun once more.
As he watched, it ducked behind the tree line, gone until tomorrow. He exhaled in a loud, puffing hiss and leaned over on his knees, his hands tugging at the bottom of his camouflaged shorts. The city was safe for the moment. Batman stood and admired his handiwork as the automatic streetlamp flickered but never fully came to life.
After catching his breath, he hopped on his bike and pumped, riding away slowly, muscles burning on each fresh push of the pedal. His cape stuck to his sweaty back, dangling just past the black vinyl seat, dangerously close to the nubby tire. Danger was how he liked it. All in a day’s work.
The Crickets chirped in their nightly chorus as the small tooth gleamed in the light from the flickering street lamp. Something clanged from beneath. A hard sole on metal sound that the boy couldn’t hear as he disappeared beyond the overpass, over the hill and away to the warmth of home.
The manhole cover rumbled slightly, again silencing the singing insects. Then it rumbled again, groaning as the metal disc scraped against its inset frame. It paused, then after a moment of stillness and silence, it popped up on one side, held in place by a gnarled hand. The angle was slight, but enough that the mating hand, ancient, with yellow fingernails wormed its way out to the elbow and felt around on top of the cover, searching to find the tooth. When it did, it rolled the object between its fingers, making sure of its prize, then grasped the bone tightly and disappeared below. The cover dropped, rolling back into place with a thundering echo.
CHAPTER 2
Zack Winter, who was eleven, and his sister Amy, nine, sat in their front yard the next morning. Amy brushed a lock of dark hair out of her eyes, leaving a dirty smudge on her forehead. She continued digging in the flowerbed that lined the walkway that led to their front door while Zack watched from the home’s small concrete porch. He was deep in thought.
Their mother stopped at the corner of the house, and glanced at her babies.
“Amy, you’re a mess,” she said.
Amy smiled and shrugged, continuing to dig.
“Sometime today, will you and your brother clean up the dishes in the kitchen, please? I’ll see you when I get home.”
Zack waved, nodding, not really hearing her. She blew them each a kiss and then backed the car out of the driveway. As she drove away, she honked lightly and waved. The car horn brought Zack out of his head and back to the front yard.
“Bye mommy,” Amy said.
“Bye mommy,” Zack mocked.
“Shut up,” said Amy as she slapped at him.
r /> Zack dodged, avoiding her grubby fingers twice, but the third time, she landed one on his shoulder. It left a dirty splotch.
“Don’t touch me,” he said.
He dusted his shirt off and checked it for a stain.
“You sure you’re a boy?” she asked.
Zack glared at her as she went back to her hole in the dirt, then checked his shirt once more. He hated grime. Something inside him had always wanted order, crisp and clean, black and white, Math—not English.
Inside, their father zipped his pants, checked his shave and walked toward the kitchen.
“Brad! You up yet?” he shouted.
He grabbed a clean mug out of the cabinet and poured coffee into it, then walked to the table and sat down, shoving empty cereal bowls and a box of Apple Jacks aside. He sipped at the black coffee and checked his watch.
“Brad!”
Brad, seventeen and groggy from only a few hours’ sleep, stumbled into the hallway. He wore boxer shorts and scratched himself in various places. Blondish hair hung in his face, but stood up in the back, his pillow’s fault. Acne dotted his cheeks.
“Yeah?” he said, loud enough for his father to hear. Then, under his breath, an angst-ridden, “God.”
Brad scratched some more and yawned.
“I’m leaving for work. You’ve got your brother and sister today.”
“On it, Dad.”
He leaned into the door jamb, almost dozing back off.
“You might also consider doing something around the house today, or maybe find a job? Your friends have jobs, right?”
Brad ignored the questions and walked back into his bedroom, standing in its center, dumbfounded, and staring at the vague imprint of his body in the warm rumpled blanket and pillow on the bed.
In the kitchen, his dad scrambled to stack dishes and shoved them in the sink in some haphazard order. He looked at his watch again and dumped his coffee down the drain.
“Crap.”
The cereal box had toppled over, and the family dog, Roscoe, was on his hind legs, licking drops of milk and eating the spilled pieces from the tabletop. Dad waved it off with a groan, running late, and opened the garage door.
“Brad, I’m going. You’re up right?”
Brad walked into the kitchen and pulled the dog off the table with a thinly muscled arm. His bicep was wrapped with a tattoo of black barbed wire, bought with a fake ID the summer before. It was something his parents weren’t pleased with, but of which he was quite proud.
“I’m good. Go ahead,” he said.
He held out his fist and his dad bumped it awkwardly with his own before disappearing out the side door. Brad sat at the table and watched, yawned and peered past the spilled cereal and through the window in the living room as the car backed down the driveway. He glanced at the mess in the sink and then picked up the box of cereal, sealing the inner bag and setting it on the counter. Roscoe wagged his tail in anticipation, ears perked. Brad patted the dog on the head, walked back to his bedroom, and fell face-first into his bed. He was snoring before the dust settled.
“Dad’s gone,” Zack said.
He stood on the porch, watching his father drive away. Amy stopped her digging.
“So?” she asked.
“Means Brad’s in charge.”
“He can’t even dress right. That’s why he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Well, that and his breath I’d bet,” Amy said.
It was true, but not for any reason she listed. Brad had dated one girl named Lisa, and Lisa had moved away almost one year ago to the day. Since then, he’d put all of his focus on one thing: owning his own car. Laziness had made the dream just that, a dream. Still, he kept a picture of his dream car on his dresser mirror and he gave it due attention each day.
“Besides, if we ignore him, he won’t bother us,” she finished.
Zack nodded. “He won’t even be up until after lunch.”
He walked along the concrete path, past his sister, and into the back yard. Amy watched him vanish around the corner, then stood up, wiped muddy hands on her pants and followed her brother. Zack was rolling his bicycle from the shed when she got there. He stopped at Brad’s window and looked in to see his big brother asleep. A loud snore rattled the window. Amy hurried to get her bike and rushed to catch up to her brother, who was already in the street headed away from the house.
“Where you goin?” she said.
She coasted up next to him.
“Do you have to follow me everywhere?”
She smiled. “No, but it bugs you.”
Zack shook his head. It did bug him. She was cool on most occasions, but he longed for his own time.
That’s the only sister you’ll ever have. One day, you’ll need her, his mother often said. It didn’t seem like it that day. That day she seemed more like a parasite, sucking the fun out of his morning.
Funsucker would be the common name, he thought. Like a gnat or a noseeum.
Genus: littlesisterus.
Phylum: painintheassus.
Zack circled around in front of their driveway, rolling his bicycle on one curb, then across the street to the other. She copied his every move. A Funsucker.
“Zack, are we going somewhere?”
Zack sighed.
We? You got a mouse in your pocket? he thought.
“Look,” he said.
He was pointing down the street that ended in front of the Winters’ house. A street he’d spent hours watching from his front porch or his driveway. It was like his own personal ant farm. Cars came and went, people walked dogs and mowed lawns. Any change in the routine caught his attention. Amy followed his finger, seeing an orange and white U-Haul truck parking in one of the driveways. The real estate sign in that front yard had a sold banner stretched across it.
“New neighbor,” she said.
“Yep.”
“I hope they got kids.”
Zack nodded. Little girls he hoped. Someplace she could go spend time. That would be a fair trade. Amy would get new friends, and he’d get less Amy.
“See any?” she said.
“See any what?”
“Kids?”
Zack squinted, scanned the truck, then smiled. Didn’t look like any girl stuff, but a boy his age might do the trick as well.
“There’s a pretty sweet set of wheels on the back of that truck.”
They rode a little ways down the street, Zack trying to get a better look, and Amy following. He stopped and straddled his bike as a man opened the driver’s side door of the truck. Amy pulled up next to him and mimicked Zack’s stance. From behind, she looked like a miniature version of him, only with a ponytail. Zack pushed his bike forward and coasted closer to the new neighbor.
The man yawned, stretched and shut the door. He wore old jeans with holes in the knees and a vintage t-shirt. He ran his fingers through his hair and then over his unshaven chin. Then, he smiled and waved. Zack eyed the bicycle on the truck rack. It was similar to his, but black, and wedged behind it were two mountain bikes, adult sized. He didn’t wave back, but instead, headed back toward his house, turning circles in the street again. Amy followed and she didn’t wave either. Her face was as stern as her brothers, the perfect sidekick.
“Why didn’t you talk to him?” she asked.
“Don’t know him.”
“So?”
“You’re not supposed to talk to strangers, Amy.”
“Everyone’s a stranger until you meet them,” she said.
“You’re strange,” he said.
“See?” she replied. “No one stranger than me.”
Zack shrugged with his eyes. She had a point.
CHAPTER 3
A blue minivan, the color of a metallic sky, slowed down and turned off the highway. The blinker was on and steam poured from the engine compartment, clouding the windshield. The clock on the dashboard says 4:40 pm. The gas station had two bays and a full-service sign, a rarity these days. The woman driving the vehicle, Ev
elyn Chance, only hoped they had a mechanic available, and they could fix or at least bandage the issue. She put the heap in park and blew a strand of hair out of her eye, then adjusted her pony tail to incorporate the rogue.
“Robbie,” she said.
Robbie Chance sat strapped in the back seat, playing a videogame with the volume up, earbuds crammed in his ears. He was oblivious. She leered at him in the rearview mirror.
“Robbie!”
He glanced up, with a hopeful look, and paused his game.
“We there?”
“No,” she said.
He straightened up and looked through the windshield at the service station. Then he saw the steam billowing up over the hood. His shoulders slumped and his hopeful face sank.
“Oh. Another hotel?”
“I need to call your father.”
“Cool. Tell me when we get to the hotel.”
Robbie unpaused his game and dove back in. His mother stifled a curse word and pulled her cell phone from her purse. A few button presses and it was ringing.
“Hi babe,” her husband said. “Almost here?”
“No,” she replied. “Van’s acting up again, I’m gonna get it checked out.”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Some Podunk town, about two hours away, I think.”
“Another hotel?” he said.
“Maybe. Hopefully, this place can fix it, at least a band-aid so we can get home. I hope to be there later tonight. I’ll call you later.”
“Love you,” he said.
“You too.”
Evelyn got out of the van as a man in coveralls approached. Robbie sat up at the noise of the van door slamming and looked out the window. He watched as his mother haggled with the mechanic, right up until the hood of the van popped up and the adults disappeared behind it.
His mother stepped back and had one hand to her forehead. Exasperation and worry fought for real estate on her face. The mechanic looked here and there, poking around with well-worn fingers. He nodded and straightened up with a grin.
“Yeah. Just what I thought,” he said.
“Can you fix it?”
“Sure. Looks like a hole in this hose here. How long was she steaming?” the man said.
“Just started. Maybe five minutes?”
“Well, I’ll have to do a little more investigatin’, make sure there ain’t no more damage ’n that. We can put a new hose on there in the morning and with luck, you’ll be back on the road in minutes.”