The boy was different, though. There was so much more of him. My brain jumped to the image of his heaving chest. The strong line of his jaw as he clenched his teeth in pain. I shook the thought away. He was substantial. Yes, the brain was bigger, but with a larger proportion of mass located in the rest of the body.…
I jumped at the sound of a howl coming from aboveground. Owen and I shared another look.
Einstein.
I silently pleaded that she would get tired and settle down. But the howl continued like the wail of a werewolf during a full moon, and I knew there’d be no such luck.
“Wait here,” I said, craning my neck to stare up at the cavernous ceiling. I shoved the bin of supplies into Owen’s chest.
He straightened. “Hold on a minute. You can’t leave me alone with … with that.” He pointed at the dead body still sprawled at the foot of the stairs.
I stepped over a leg and climbed up the first few stairs. I could hear Einstein’s bellows become more high-pitched and whinier. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “It’s not as if he’s going to jump up and bite you.”
A glance back at Owen confirmed that this was exactly the sort of thing he’d been worried about. “It’s creepy is all,” he whispered, as if the dead boy might hear him and be offended.
I reached the top of the stairs and pushed open the hatch. “I’ll only be a second.” A wave of fresh air hit me. Above, the stars were beginning to shine through the haze of clouds.
I moved like a cat burglar around the side of the house where inside I could hear Einstein clawing at the back door. My dog was a face full of wrinkles with a brown ring around her eye and a knack for thwarting the pursuit of higher knowledge, despite her promising namesake. She had only two talents: smelling and wreaking havoc.
The growl revved up. It was only a matter of moments before my mother would come looking for me to quiet her down. I tippy-toed over to the back door. Einstein’s paw was splitting through the blinds, and I could see her shiny black nose peeking through.
I opened the door, and Einstein let out a squeal.
“Tor?” There was a voice in the darkness. I stiffened. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Mom?” came my tentative reply.
“It’s late, idnit?” she asked. Her speech was throaty, and it came from the living room. There was rustling, and then she appeared in the doorframe of the kitchen still dressed in jeans and a moth-eaten sweater that hung off one frail shoulder. Her stringy hair was slept on, and she had that sluggish, hollowed-out look in her eyes that came from hours of television and too many glasses of wine.
“Sorry, Mom. I’ve been working.” I held on to Einstein’s collar while she wiggled her army tank of a back end and licked what was most likely blood off my jeans. Mom hadn’t been the same since my father died. Sometimes it seemed like she’d died right along with him and left the shell of her body here to tend to me. It was like living with a ghost.
She smacked her lips and ran a finger over the cracked bottom one. “You know, young lady … God … punished Adam and Eve,” she said slowly, as though she were sounding out the words. “… For eating an apple … from the tree of knowledge…” She wagged a floppy finger at me before dropping it limply to her side. “He could, Tor, you know he could.” She was babbling her usual confused prattling of words when we crossed paths late at night, or sometimes not so late, sometimes already by dinner. Mom’s church shows had been her refuge since my dad died. Sometimes she even joined ladies’ Bible study on Sundays.
“Go to bed, Mom. It’s late.” At no point did she register my own state of disrepair, probably because I fit right in with the rest of the house we shared like two messy college roommates. A half-eaten piece of dried toast lay next to the sink, where dishes were piled up to the faucet. In the living room I could see a shirt flung over the back of a recliner.
“You go to bed.” Her brow lowered over her eyes, and she looked like she was trying very hard to concentrate on this one specific thing she remembered, in her more lucid moments, that she was supposed to be doing—parenting.
“I’m going to bed,” I lied. But Mom didn’t budge, and I was beginning to conjure up some awfully creative curse words for my meddling canine. “Fine,” I said. “We’re going.” I dragged Einstein past her to my bedroom, where I left the door open a sliver. My heart sank when I saw her sink back down onto the couch.
I lowered to the floor and waited to hear sirens. Sirens I knew must be coming. But all was eerily quiet except for Einstein’s soft snorts. Every second I spent in my bedroom was agony.
After what felt like an eternity, my mother’s snores filled the house. “Come on.” I patted my leg, and Einstein waddled after me. We left Mom sleeping openmouthed on the couch with one arm dangling on the floor.
I had to carry Einstein like a sack of potatoes down the cellar stairs to the boy’s body. It was exactly where I’d left it, which seemed to be fairly normal corpse activity. The only difference was that Einstein crouched to her belly and began growling in his general direction.
I patted her head. “Cut that out,” I told her.