Black Chuck Page 5

  E

  “Can I have a beer?” Evie asked. He gave her a look. He didn’t say it, but she heard it anyway—what about the baby? “Whatever,” she snapped. “I’m not keeping it.”

  He shrugged and pushed the bag toward her. “Help yourself.”

  She lifted a wet can from the package and cracked it open. She’d been drunk once or twice before, but she didn’t really drink. Not that she didn’t have plenty of opportunity—it just didn’t interest her all that much. Getting wasted was more Shaun’s thing. Shaun’s and Alex’s.

  But she wondered if maybe she just hadn’t done it right before. Maybe their way was how you were supposed to enjoy drinking. She chugged back as much of the can as she could, like maybe she’d find something at the bottom that would fix the way she felt inside.

  “Whoa,” Réal said. “Take it easy.”

  She laughed, and he laughed too, nervously.

  She thought about Alex, how all his close friends had known his big biker secret but her. It was like she didn’t really know them at all. Only Shaun. She’d only ever paid attention to Shaun. But what happened to a moth when you turned out the lights?

  “Tell me a secret,” Evie said. “Something about you that no one else knows.”

  This time he didn’t laugh. He squeezed the can in his fingers, making it crinkle, then drained it and reached for another. “Secrets, huh?” he said.

  “I promise I won’t tell anyone. It’ll be just between us.”

  “Like your baby?” he asked. “Eye for an eye?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Like that.”

  He was quiet a very long time, turning the fresh can in his fingers.

  Then she said, “Oh, come on, you must have one.”

  “I do,” he said. “I’m just trying to decide which one to tell you.”

  “I knew it!” she cried. “You’re way too quiet not to have secrets.”

  He snorted. “Takes one to know one, Evie.”

  She sighed, disappointed. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me,” she said, “but I am taking another beer.”

  “Help yourself,” he said again, sounding relieved that she’d dropped it.

  This can she drank more slowly. Her skin tingled in the warm night air, and she felt like laughing, though nothing was funny at all. She kicked off her shoes and socks and lay back on the blanket, looking up at the stars.

  “Life is so pointless,” she said, “when you look at all that out there.” She waved her arm across the shimmering sky. Endless, empty…she felt the weight of it all crushing her into the blanket.

  “I don’t know if it’s pointless,” he said. “Just…maybe not super important?”

  “I thought you were sort of Catholic,” she said, flopping her arm down on the blanket between them. “What does that even mean, anyway—sort of Catholic?”

  “It means we’re sort of Catholic,” he said, defensive. Then he shrugged. “We’re half Ojibwe too.”

  She turned to look at his shape in the dark. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “On my mom’s side.”

  “I had no idea.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she sipped her beer. Finally, she raised a finger and pointed at him. “That’s a secret,” she said.

  He laughed. “No, it’s not. I don’t hide it.”

  “Well, how come I never knew?”

  “I don’t know. You never asked.”

  “Hello, Réal Dufresne,” she said. “Are you by any chance Ojibwe?”

  He hissed through his teeth. “Don’t be dumb,” he said, but he was laughing.

  She rolled over and stood up, steadying herself, then walked down to the water’s edge. Tipping her head back, she swallowed. The beer was almost warm now. She screwed the can into the sand at her feet and rolled up her jeans. She stepped into the water; it was the exact same temperature as the beer.

  “Be careful,” Réal called.

  She waded in ankle deep, the cuffs of her jeans getting wet. The sandy bottom of the lake was smooth and hard and cold, worn into little ridges by the lapping waves.

  “It’s beautiful,” she called back. She tipped her head to the stars again. The night was thick with them, surrounded at the horizon by a dark, uneven row of trees, their pointed tops biting at the sky. She kicked around in the water, then came back up onto the beach.

  “I’m swimming,” she told Réal. She pulled her shirt up over her head and shimmied out of her jeans, then swiped the can from the sand, taking it with her back into the water.

  “Câlisse,” Réal hissed, putting his beer down.

  He stood and walked to the water’s edge.

  “Come in!” she called. “Swim with me.” Her laugh echoed across the lake like loon song.

  “Evie,” he warned, “don’t go too deep. Maybe you should get out now?”

  “Oh, shut up, Ré,” she said. “Just get in.”

  He hovered on the shore. “Fuck,” he said.

  6

  R

  Fucking skinny-dipping. Well, not quite skinny. He still had his underwear on, but he might as well be naked. The cold water shriveled his balls, and he spat more sacres than a priest on Sunday as he dunked into the black, all his muscles clenching.

  He couldn’t really see where she’d swum to, but he could hear her splashing around, breathing in gasps and bursts. Like a selkie, luring him out.

  “Ev, this is crazy.” He paddled toward her sounds. The lake wasn’t very deep, but you could drown in a bathtub, so they say. Plus, she was drunk. Plus, he was supposed to be taking care of her—how had that gone so south, so fast?

  He dove under the water and kicked toward her, breaching at her side. She was floating on her back with an empty beer can in one hand.

  “Ev, let’s go back,” he said, treading water next to her. He didn’t see that her ears were underwater. “Evie.” He reached for her arm.

  Instead of letting him pull her toward him, she did the opposite, pulling her arm toward herself and dragging him closer. She took his hand under the water and pressed his fingers to her belly. She didn’t say anything, just kept kicking and looking at the sky. The little bump under his hand was harder than he expected it to be.

  Then she tipped upright and suddenly they were face-to-face, skin-to-skin, in the water. He could feel the goose bumps trailing up her waist.

  He sucked his breath. “Evie, what—”

  She put her mouth on his, cold and wet and tasting of beer. Her breasts pressed against him, and blood-warmth flooded his groin—he couldn’t help it. He gripped her slippery body, their legs kicking together.

  “Evie,” he said, pulling back. “Seriously. This is crazy. Let’s at least get out of the water.”

  Her laugh was like a purr. It was like Sunny’s laugh. Did all girls laugh like that? He tugged her gently, and she swam at his side without protest. At the shore, he saw she still had the empty can in her hand. She tipped the water out of it.

  They grabbed their clothes from the sand and walked back up to the blanket, then just stood there, not touching, not talking. He had no idea what time it was. Alex and Sunny could arrive any minute, find them soaking wet and nearly naked—and then what? He bent and pulled his jeans on, yanking them over wet skin. She just stood there with her clothes in her hands, shivering.

  He looked at her, groin twingeing. What the hell was that kiss? It still lingered on his lips when he licked them. She was so strange. Nothing like Sunny. The opposite of Sunny. She was small and soft-edged, and all her cards were covered up. And she was Shaun’s, still.

  He let his breath out at last. “Do you want to go somewhere?” he asked quietly. He swallowed. Swallowed again. Praying she wouldn’t say yes. But she didn’t say anything at all.

  He stood frozen for another long second, then bent to the blanket, grabbing his phone as he gathered it all up. With one hand, he quickly typed Lake sucks. Ghosting.

  He slid the phone into his back pocket and reached for her hand. “I
’ll take you home,” he said.

  The Buick coughed to a stop along the wooded track between the lake and the highway. Fuck. Gas. He’d forgotten about the gas. “Goddamn it, Sunny,” he muttered.

  He looked at Evie, bundled in the blanket next to him with her feet up on the seat, still not dressed, still not saying anything.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. She nodded.

  He looked out the windshield to the dark, lit up by headlights. The battery wouldn’t last long. He killed the lights.

  “I might have to walk somewhere for gas,” he said. “Or call someone.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Let me get warm, and I’ll come with you.” He sat back and gripped the wheel in both hands. His phone vibrated in his back pocket, and he leaned to pull it out. Two words: Screw you. He tsked his tongue and threw the phone on the dash without replying.

  He stared out at the darkness again, no lights at all.

  He cleared his throat. Then he said, “I’ll tell you a secret.” She made no sound, didn’t move. “I had an uncle. A great-uncle, like from a hundred years ago. And he…he was a cannibal.”

  He heard her shift under the blanket. She poked her head out to look at him, eyes big in the black.

  He looked at his thumbs, resting at six o’clock on the wheel. “Uncle Chuck. Black Chuck, they called him, after. He was a trapper, way up north. This was seriously last century or something. Anyway, one really bad winter the Windigo got hold of him, and he ate his own daughter.”

  “Windigo?” she asked.

  He took a deep breath. “It’s like a demon,” he said. “A suffering demon. Fills you with a hunger you can’t satisfy. Makes you go crazy for human flesh.”

  “Seriously?” she said. “I thought you were Catholic.”

  “And Ojibwe.” He laughed, looking at her.

  “So you believe in God and demons?”

  “Most Catholics do, Ev. Anyway, it’s a true story. You don’t have to believe it, but that’s my secret.” He shrugged.

  She freed herself from the blanket and sat up. “I like it,” she said. “Thanks.”

  He glanced at her. She was still almost naked but no longer shivering, and that squirrelly feeling returned to his belly, his legs. It made his hands tingle. He almost wanted to get out and run, but instead he let her slide across the front seat and put her mouth on his again. This time it was warm.

  He reached for her, her ribs in his hands, muscle and bone sliding under the skin. She lifted herself, and he moved from under the steering wheel, pulling her to his lap, heart beating a million miles a minute.

  She pushed him back against the seat, arching against him in her underwear, still damp from the lake.

  And he was wrecked.

  “Evie—” he whispered, shaking.

  “Shhhh,” she said into his mouth. “I am a suffering demon, making you crazy for flesh.”

  She leaned, pressing into him, and she was right.

  E

  Evie thought of Shaun. She thought of his long bright hair curtaining around her, getting in her mouth. She thought of his low laugh, his murmur against her neck, the sweet things he’d say. The dirty things.

  She thought of his shoulders working, flexing, pressing into her.

  His golden skin.

  Evie was crying before she knew she was.

  “Hey,” Réal said, cupping her cheek in his palm. “Hey, hey.” Dark eyes catching her.

  She took a shaky breath, pushing back against the dash.

  “We can stop if you want,” Ré said gently.

  “No,” she said. “I just need to cry.”

  He half laughed. “Okay,” he said, “that’s cool, I guess.”

  His fingers traced her throat and moved down her skin to her hips, making her shiver again.

  What the hell are we doing? she thought. “This is crazy.”

  “Yup,” he agreed, running his thumbs down her thighs, leaving a string of Braille in their wake. “I said that an hour ago.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  She pressed her lips together, watching him as he traced her. She’d never really looked at him before. You just didn’t look at your boyfriend’s best friend. Not like this. Framed in the V of her legs, his plaid shirt open, flat belly crunched in little folds as he leaned back against the seat. Muscle tightly bound under his smooth, dark skin.

  His eyes were nearly closed as he watched his fingers move, lashes spread like paintbrushes on his cheeks, full lips making a near-perfect archer’s bow.

  He was beautiful.

  She leaned toward him again, her hand on the seat behind his head. He looked up and smiled a little, then pulled her in, and their mouths met, hers salty-wet with tears.

  Then a sudden, bright beam of light raced around inside the car, and a sharp knock hit the glass.

  Réal cursed, squinting at the light and ducking behind his lifted arm. Evie shrieked, grabbing for the blanket.

  “Everything okay in there, Miss?” a man’s voice asked.

  Evie shrank under the blanket. When she realized it was a cop, she said through the window, “I’m fine. We just ran out of gas.”

  “Not what it looks like to me,” the cop said, laughing. “Need me to call a tow truck?”

  “Nah.” Réal’s voice was muffled under the blanket. “It’s under control.”

  “All right, then,” said the cop, flashing his beam around the car once more. “Better be gone before I come back around.”

  “Right,” Ré said, tense. “I’m on it.”

  “Sure looks that way.” The officer laughed as he walked back to his cruiser.

  Evie pulled the blanket down. Ré looked so freaked out that she couldn’t help but laugh at him too.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” he said. “Spit all over my face.”

  “Sorry, it’s just…” She shook her head, mystified. “This is not at all what I thought would happen tonight.”

  “Me neither, believe me,” Ré said. “But we should get out of here before he comes back.”

  “Yeah,” she said, reality crashing in as he shifted away from her.

  She slid off his lap, and he got out of the car, buttoning his shirt with his back to her while she searched in the dark for her clothes.

  They cut through the woods toward the Mohawk gas station on Highway 9, leaving the car and the dirt road behind. He was quiet, marching slightly ahead of her with a stick he fanned back and forth so they didn’t walk into anything in the dark. He didn’t hold his hand out for her to take, like Shaun would have done.

  She said, “Tell me about the Windigo.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Well…what does it look like?”

  “They’re super tall and thin,” he said. “Like, skin and bones, with their lips all chewed to shit.” He said nothing for a while, crunching onward. Then he added quietly, “Sometimes they have antlers, like stags.”

  “That’s what your uncle looked like?” she asked, surprised.

  “Nah,” he said. “The spirit isn’t the same as the demon. It’s way worse.”

  “How come?” She picked her way along behind him, trying to see in the dark. He didn’t seem to notice, or care, when she stumbled.

  “’Cause,” he said bluntly, “it can get anyone. In your sleep, in dreams. It catches you, and then you’re infected. Then you become the demon.”

  “And that’s what happened to your uncle? He ate his daughter because of a dream?”

  “Pretty much,” Ré said. “And I mean it that it’s a secret, okay? It goes no further.” He sounded defensive now. Distant and hard, like whatever spell they’d just been under had completely worn off.

  She watched the shadow of his back as he moved, hunched, irritated, and she felt that invisible space rise up between them again. The same space there’d always been. And she knew they were back to who they’d been when Shaun was still between them—strangers.

  She let go of whatever tether had been pulling her alon
g behind him through the woods and fell back. He moved away fast, and the night rose up around her, dark shapes and shadows of trees. Her heart thumped in her ears, and she breathed like she had in the lake, staring up at the stars.

  Floating just above drowning.

  Empty and monstrous at the same time.

  Thinking of Shaun.

  Seeing him leap from that stupid fire escape a hundred and one times.

  She slowed to a stop, letting Réal dissolve into the shadows ahead, the last point of light as Shaun pulled her under.

  She fell to her knees, damp earth soaking her jeans. She dug her fingers into the dirt, sticks and leaves crackling under her weight. Tears wet her face. She thought of Shaun’s rotten body. Smashed open and pulled apart, so much meat and bone. Not even human anymore.

  Her skin crawled cold, the sweet memory of Réal’s touch replaced by that picture of Shaun.

  Just let me disappear, she thought. Or let the Windigo come get me. That would be better than this.

  Feeling nothing would be so much better than this.

  7

  R

  Réal looks down at the leg bones in his hands. They are too long. Not human. He waves them back and forth in the dark, and they tap against the trees, making hollow tocks like wooden pipes. He can’t see which way to go—there is no light ahead, just the light that surrounds him, dim and gray.

  He’s lost her somewhere. Swallowed by the black.

  He tries to call out, but no sound comes from his throat. At least, not a sound that makes sense. And then he knows. It is one of those dreams. The ones he’s had since he was little—where he can’t move fast enough, where the Bad Thing has already got him.

  He looks up from the bones in his hands. The trees shake snow off their boughs with a soft whoosh, and then they aren’t trees at all. They are deer standing upright, so that the greasy fur of their backs rounds up in matted spikes, their forelegs pointing together, with hooves like sharpened stones.

  All the skin is worn off their long, white skulls, exposing tooth and vein, their long antlers reach up like pale fingers. The deer turn to him as one, eyes bulging, white and empty, no irises, their shine bleeding in whispers of light, blurring their pale faces. He tries to scream, but his throat catches, clicks, and he is choking.