- Part 2, "Passing Shadow..."
- Part 3, "Passing Shadow..."
- Part 4, "Passing Shadow..." (A Miscellany of Skins)
*NOTE* There is, to me, your kind and gentle, cold-blooded and eternal host, a distinct difference between this diary format and that of a blog. Though some bloggers are certainly wont to write blog entries of epic proportions, Indrid tends to feel that the blog is a form best suited to truths, at least as the writer sees them. By defining this space as a diary, in Indrid's mind the field of appropriate material to be placed here is expanded. It may be a matter of semantics, but to creatures of the word semantics are intensely important. Word is a virus, said William S. Burroughs [search]. Indrid tends to agree. And like virii are known to do, the word can evolve, morph, accrete other words and add up to something new and more virulent. Perhaps one day even "jump species".
Which leads us to the body of the entry proper. A beginning of something untrue, yet perhaps close to home. Something that might smell familiar and feel as neighborly and nightmarish as the anal-retentive dog catcher down the street who just got popped for serial murder [search].
Indrid dreams things sometimes, visions as true as a nightmare not of old and gothic homes under scars of lightning, but of bucolic backyards and lakeside trails. Summer afternoons of heat and wind, endless days darkened by silence...
In the summer of his 17th year, pets began to disappear from Cameron Hancock's neighborhood.
Neither Cameron nor his friends really noticed at first. In fact, no one noticed the pattern until the spate of fidos and kitties vanishing into the simmering twilight was made obvious by the flyers on the utility poles, fading slowly on the corkboard down at the rec center.
Cameron was busy dating Dahlia Rosenblum, a buxom jewish girl from a posh neighborhood on the west side of town, cajoling the car keys out of his detective sergeant father, who was too tired and preoccupied with his bloody job most days to resist the boy's pleadings. Cameron's friend Max Siler was busy scoring baggies of weed outside the Tilt Room at the mall, hanging out and looking shady on a daily basis in the common area between the game room and the cineplex. His oldest friend who happened to be a girl, the lesbian gymnast Kat Kimmel, was busy trying to hide her burgeoning interest in women from nearly everyone but Cameron or Max, pouring herself into her athletic pursuits and stowing away an enviable (to the guys) cache of Playboys in her closet.
It was, in short, another summer like any other, and the days in May after school let out passed slowly. Cameron came in on weekend nights too late for Dad's taste, but by the next Friday, Dad was too tired to remember any laws laid down the week before. Max was stoned and becoming a master of tanning and playing Mortal Kombat. Kat was in the best shape of her life and curious about a dancer she'd met at the studio where she trained.
Then little Taylor Waycross brought all the flapping, fading flyers with trusting dog faces and disinterested kitty glares to everyone's attention in a big way.
Taylor Waycross found her schnauzer Strudel dead in the woods down by the lake.
It was Saturday on Greenwood Court. In the front yard of 2220 Greenwood Cameron was putting the electric lawnmower through it's paces, feeling sluggish and sullen. He'd only lost his virginity the night before, a signal event for any young man. Dahlia Rosenblum was a year older than he, and in spite of having attended an all-girl private school for the better of her life thus far, Dahlia had managed to lose her virginity some time ago, and her enjoyment of Cameron and her skill in showing him the ropes was exhausting. In a good way, of course. Cameron was sluggish this morning because he and his girl had used 5 rubbers the night before, in the space of 3 and a half hours.
At 2226 Greenwood Max Siler was, for once, wide awake and alert. He'd only begun drinking coffee during the school year just past. It dovetailed directly with his devotion to marijuana. While he could always wake up after a party night, coffee, strong, black, (like I like my womens, he always told Cameron, who never found the joke as funny as Max seemed to think it was) , no sugar, no cream - that was manna now. Max stood gazing out his second-floor bedroom window, sipping a steaming cup and listening to his Dad's old AC/DC album - Back in Black, of course - cranked up on the stereo. Though Max was considered to be a brilliant classical pianist by most everyone, bound for Juilliard, nothing beat waking up with some joe and Angus Young slamming away at the big chunky music Max's own father had bequeathed to him at age 7. Max knew how lucky he was - if his folks were tightasses about some things, when it came to music they were the coolest parents around.
In the smallest house in the cul-de-sac Kat Kimmel was stretching on the living room floor, watching one of the sports channels. It was a training/fitness program where ridiculously buff men and women in very tight clothes did exercises that were far too easy for the conditioning their bodies reflected. Kat did her own routine, whether she was going to practice that day or not, but she watched the show while doing it to fool her Mom into thinking she was interested in the program for some reason other than the opportunity to watch the stunning blonde host, Ilsa, working her perfectly defined muscles with balletic grace. Kat sometimes wondered if she had the brain of a teen boy. It would explain why she got along so well with Max and Cameron, why she laughed at their nastiest jokes. It would explain this rock-solid attraction to other girls she'd felt from at least age 7 onwards.
Then again, she liked to dress girly at school. She liked having her nails done sometimes, and she liked makeup. Kat was a puzzle to herself. She suspected that in her family her father knew the truth of his daughter's life - it would make sense, as he'd left her mom for another man - but everyone else figured that she was too feminine. Following the stereotype, as usual. Kat would sometimes remember comments her grandmother made when her parents were in the middle of their bitter divorce, about how they all should have known, Barry - Kat's dad - was always so effeminate. He had that walk, you know?
These comments explained why Kat couldn't stand the sight of her grandmother.
All three friends - two inside their homes and one in the front yard of his house - heard Taylor Waycross coming up the hill. Cameron stopped the mower immediately, switched it off, looking around. What he heard was, at first, creepy. A wail, continuous, banshee-like, nearing rather quickly. Cameron walked down the gentle slope of his front lawn and onto the pavement, trying to locate the sound. It was coming from the main road - Briarwood Drive (everything 'wood here - always good for a double entendre between the three friends) - it took Cameron a moment to realize he was hearing the sound of a little girl in the throes of either a terrible sadness or a terrible fear. Or both.
Kat was to her feet immediately, on hearing the cry. Kat had babysat Taylor for 4 years, and she knew that voice better than anyone outside of the little girl's family. At 10 Taylor was just about too old for a babysitter anymore, and of late she and Kat were becoming more like friends. But Kat knew Taylor's voice, she knew that wail of pain. She'd heard Taylor make that sound only one other time, when at age 8 the bubbly little redhead (she always made Kat think of Pippy Longstocking, the super-strong, pigtailed little girl from some book she'd read back in elementary school) fell out of a tree in her backyard. Kat was the first to reach the girl that day, and she'd nearly heaved at the sight of a white point of bone sticking out of the little girl's forearm. But she'd held it in and screamed for Taylor's parents while comforting the girl. Taylor had healed up better than expected, and afterwards both she and her parents viewed Kat as a big sister. Kat kind of felt that way about little Taylor sometimes too.
Max nearly dropped his coffee. The first thought that skittered through his head was some kid had been on the wrong end of a car somewhere nearby. Then he thought he recognized the voice. He only listened for a moment before he felt compelled to head outside and see just what the hell was going on. His baby sister Joely had been in the ground for over 8 years, but the protective big brother impulse had never quite left Max. He knew that he at least could hear a little girl in distress, and he was going to do what he could to help.
The girl came running from Briarwood. She'd lost a shoe somewhere on the way up from the lake, and one of her pigtails was flying apart. Her freckled face, already pink from playing outside with no sunblock, was practically purple. Even from a distance Cameron could see raw fear and grief in the girl's face.
He wasn't sure what to do for a second - but only a second.
Moving swiftly but not running, he advanced to meet Taylor.
Kat saw the girl as she came out of her house, and saw Cameron, his eyes wide, walking to meet Taylor.
She bounded down the steps and across the lawn.
Max was out the front door of his house at virtually the same moment, but he still wasn't sure what was up. He hesitated only a moment before he saw Taylor Waycross and his friends going to meet the distraught little girl.
"S-s-s-stru-" Taylor was gasping and sobbing as Cameron met her at the point where the cul-de-sac widened out into a circle.
"What, what is it?" he asked. Instinctively he crouched to get on the little girl's level. At the same time he scanned her face and hands, her pink legs, to see if she was hurt.
"Taylor?" Kat was at Cameron's side, seemingly out of nowhere. He was too concerned to be startled.
Taylor reached out and grasped Kat's hand, pitching forward a little as if she might faint. If she kept hyperventilating, the older kids feared she would do just that. "Stru-Strudel-"
She sobbed again. Her cheeks were wet from tears, Cameron realized. "Taylor," he said, "...what is it? What about Strudel?"
Max was there then. "Let's get out of the road. C'mon Taylor, sit down for a minute."
For the first time Taylor seemed aware of the teens. She knew all three really well and liked them. They were among the cooler kids in the neighborhood, and for teenagers, certainly the nicest. And Kat was one of her favorite people in the world. Chest still heaving, breath still short, she let Cameron and Kat lead her to the curb. She sat, Kat sitting down beside her, a protective arm across the little girl's pink shoulders. The boys crouched down in front of her, eyes searching.
"Strudel." she said softly. Max watched as a tear seemed to spring from the girl's eye and roll down her cheek.
He patted her hand gently. "What about Strudel, kid?"
"I found him..." her eyes opened wide. Suddenly she looked as if she might be sick, which wouldn't have surprised the older kids at all.
Cameron leaned in closer, trying to catch her eye. "Where'd you find him, Taylor? Is he okay?"
She sniffled, breathing a little deeper now, a sob still in each breath. She shook her head.
Max, Cameron, and Kat didn't know what to ask next.
Taylor seemed to catch her breath. When she looked up a moment later, she said with surprising firmness,"He's dead. Someone chopped him up."
The three teens didn't know what to say.
Looking back, years later, Cameron would think of that strange moment as the point where his life changed irrevocably.
He would remember hearing Taylor's simple declaration and marking that in the very next moment a great shadow seemed to pass over. At the time he put it down to a high flying plane - too high to hear - passing between their spot on the ground and the sun.
Years later Cam's memory told him that there was no plane. And the shadow was huge, and cold.
(to be continued...)
