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CHAPTER 1
BOOM!
The gun jumped back in my hand like a startled cat. I winced at the shot, a screaming thunderclap that cut off my hearing as if someone had snuck up behind me and shoved cotton balls in my ears. The empty bullet shell bounced off my foot and rolled onto the ground. When I opened my eyes, I saw a puff of smoke breathing out of the tree trunk a few yards away from the trashcan I was aiming at.
Shit, I thought, not even close. If I'd been aiming at Kennedy I would have hit Oswald.
Next to me, Tooth let out a whoop and slammed his palm against my back. "Well wrap my nuts around a pole and call me Mary, looks like you just popped your cherry."
It was the first time I'd ever fired a gun. A .44 magnum to be precise, a big mother of a cannon that Tooth swore would make my dick hard. And he was right. I felt bigger, brighter; hell, I felt invincible. Holding a .44 in your hand, well, it's a bit like being deified.
"You missed the shit outta the can though," Tooth said, taking the gun and aiming at the target. He squared his feet, looked down the barrel, took a breath and squeezed the trigger.
BOOM!
With my ears still clogged, the shot sounded like I was underwater. Tooth's hands, wrapped around the grip, went flying up over his head with the recoil. He burst out laughing.
The metallic bong and firefly sparks that erupted from the metal can proved he was a much better shot than me, but then again, he'd had all winter to practice while I was down at the university.
"Did you see that? Dead on!" he shouted.
I could barely hear him through the humming in my head, but I flipped him off and motioned for him tohand the gun back. On the road out past the woods a car drove by. It seemed to slow a bit, like it was trying to spy on us, so I quickly hid the gun behind my leg. Tooth read my concern, shook his head in disappointment, and said, "Will you relax? Ain't nobody gonna care about some gunshots out here. Besides, we're too far out to be heard."
That wasn't exactly true. The spot we were at--a dirt clearing in the woods that overlooked a small valley of evergreens--used to be a popular spot for teenagers, and most everyone in town knew about it. True, it was set back far enough off the road that passing motorists couldn't really see through all the trees, but no amount of dense foliage would stop gunshots from echoing.
We'd been here many times before, whether to get high, drink beer or just shoot the shit on a Friday night. Used to be you could come here and expect to find at least someone you knew hanging around.
But since two summers ago, when Mark Trieger, the prodigy runningback for Lakewood High, had jumped to his death, the place had become associated with ghost stories and bad vibes. Nobody came up here much anymore.
"Yeah, I know," I said. "It's just--"
"Just what?"
"I dunno, people drive by here now ... they tend to check up on things. I'm just being careful."
"Fucking Mark Trieger."
"Yeah, fucking Mark Trieger."
It happened on a Sunday afternoon after church let out. Some kids had come here to get wasted and accidentally knocked their six pack of Bud over the side of the cliff. Realizing what a bitch it would be to find another adult to buy them more, they climbed down to retrieve it.
At the bottom they discovered the beer bottles shattered from the fall. They were about to go back up when one of the boys spotted something sparkling among the fallen leaves. It was a necklace. Figuring he could hock it for more beer, he reached down and grabbed it. When he yanked it up, up popped a blue and purple head, its mouth wide open and dripping maggots, two glazed eyes looking into oblivion.
The boy fell down screaming, his fist still clenched around the necklace. He tried to run away but because he kept gripping the necklace, the body slid after him like a zombie in a George Romero film and knocked him over. He finally let go, but he was in such shock his friends had to carry him back up.
Turned out Mark'd been down there for about two weeks, nestled among the heaps of beer cans and porno mags people had hurled over the side.
Like any small town in the New England mountains, the body had drawn a crowd as if it was the second coming of Jesus. I remember standing with Tooth when the paramedics hauled Mark up. The police kept everyone back, but you could still kind of see what was going on through the trees. They had this sort of winch thingy bringing up the body, and when it got to the top, the head bounced over the rocks and made this thwacking sound you could hear all the way back on the road. People gasped. Tooth put his Red Sox hat over his heart and said something I didn't hear. He didn't know Mark, but he'd gone to enough Lakewood games to respect him. Personally, I couldn't care less about sports, but I remember my sister Jamie being real upset. She was a freshman at Lakewood at the time, and like all freshman girls, she thought she was gonna marry the football captain someday, despite the fact that about twenty colleges were interested in recruiting Mark before he'd even graduate.
Looking back at the trashcan, I lifted the gun.
"It's easier if you pull the hammer back first." Tooth reached over and made like he was gonna do it for me. Beating him to it, I yanked it back with my thumb and found my target. I wanted to hit it this time, because if I didn't, Tooth would go telling everyone what a bad shot I was and I'd spend the summer the butt of sissy jokes. So I took a breath, and held the gun a little looser than before, a little more relaxed. The first shot had given me some idea of the compensation required in aiming. Since it had gone high and wide to the left, I aimed a little lower and to the right.
"Steady," Tooth whispered, "just relax. Once you feel it, then fire away."
I felt the weight of the gun getting heavier, like when you hold a dumbbell out to the side of your body and see how long you can keep it level. So I added a little backbone to it, took another breath, and pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
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