Where the Boys Go

The curfew starts at nightfall but the town had been packing itself away since late afternoon.

“Not takin no chances” Mrs. Court had muttered as she plucked her chubby baby boy from the splash pool on the scorched lawn and bundled him into the house.

The drugstore lights went out at five on the dot and the ice cream parlour hadn’t bothered to open at all.

Mamas called to their sons from porches, filling the streets with an eerie roll call.

“John!”

“Caleb!”

“Come on now Hank.”

“Brett, bring your brother, that’s right. In now.”

“Davie! Dean!”

As the boys folded into their houses, the homes that had them pushed a bewildered family dog out onto the front lawn.

“Keep watch now boy. Good dog.”

Some of the men from town had gathered around the clock tower, delaying the shut-in just a little. Hands in pockets, sweated brows. A flask of whiskey was being passed amongst them, to take the edge off.

“Ain’t right. Lockin us up. We should be out huntin the beast not hidin from him. Show him we ain’t afeared.”

“I second that!”

“Not me. I only gots me the one son and i intends on keepin it that way.”

“Me and all. You keep your family safe best way you can and right now this is it.”

Across town, at The Collins’ place, Junior Collins was watching a wasp his mother had caught as it circled the inside of her upturned glass. He watched it try to mount the sides of the glass like a tiny dog begging for scraps. The sulphur yellow stripes on its back looked hard and crisp, like candy shell. Junior was careful not to knock the glass, the slightest tap could antagonise the wasp and then it would be his own fault if he got stung. Carefully, he tipped the glass towards himself, slowly, slowly, creating a little opening for the wasp to escape. The insect stopped.

“WHAT YOU DOING THERE BOY?”

Junior dropped the glass.

“Stupid little runt, pick that up!”

Junior could feel his father’s eyes on him as he picked up the pieces of broken glass from the porch. The wasp had gone.

“You feed the pigs boy?”

Mrs. Collins was standing behind the screen door, blowing cigarette smoke through the mesh.

Junior nodded.

“Put him in the old barn, Dwayne. Curfew’s startin.”

“Don’t know why you’re bothering, Bertha. What’d The Beast want with a little runt like him?”

Another cloud of smoke billowed out into the evening air. Junior saw the wasp land on his father’s boot.

“Look at him. Ain’t a brain in his head. He don’t say nothing, don’t do nothing. What’d The Beast do with him?”

“Quit your whining Dwayne and see to it. Coming for him or not, I don’t want no Beast near this house. Thought of it gives me the chills.”

Mrs. Collins retreated into the house.

The barn was out at the far end of The Collins’ property, as though someone had dropped it there long ago and forgotten about it. Mr. Collins had threatened it for firewood over the years but, like most things, had never gotten around to it. It used to serve as an overspill pen for the piglets when the sows had a particularly amorous season but now it was a dumping ground for the junk that Dwayne Collins didn’t know what to do with - old vehicle parts, rotting timber, and, tonight, his son Junior.

“Go on, boy.”

Junior stood in the doorway, looking at his father.

“Won’t tell ya again. Get!”

Junior obeyed.

Inside the barn was a dark mass of shadows and shapes. The air was grainy with dust and reeked of rot and diesel. The last sun of the day at Mr. Collins’ back sent his shadow stretching into the barn towards Junior like a looming spectre.

“When you gonna open that dumb mouth’a yours?”

Junior watched his father’s warped form on the ground.

“Whole damn town sayin I got a backwards boy. How’d ya like that? Got hogs with more sense than you. I swear, it’d be a fine thing if The Beast did come for you. Least then I wouldn’t have to look at you no more.”

A ball of spit landed at Junior’s feet and Mr. Collins’ shadow withdrew, slamming the barn door behind it. Junior could hear the sound of a metal chain clanging against the door, the clunk of a padlock and the rattle of wood as his father tested the lock. Inside the barn shafts of light, glittering with dust particles, sliced the air where daylight flooded through the cracks and holes in the timber. Junior put his eye to one of the openings and saw his father stalking away towards the house. He watched him till he disappeared.

The barn was still. No light now. Just black.

The whole town would be in their houses by now, doors locked, windows bolted. Waiting to see if they could make it through the night without losing another boy.

‘THREE BOYS IN THREE SATURDAYS’ the papers had read, ‘Who will be next?’

When the first boy went, the people in town thought it was an accident. Or a runaway. Then the Dawson boy went missing and they started to get spooked.

“Vanished off the face o’the earth, they have! How do two younguns go missing without a trace? Without no one seeing nothing, no one hearing nothing? Like they just got swallowed up?”

Parents told their little ones there was a beast on the loose, scaring them to keep safe, keep close. When Mike Willis was taken last week it became too much to bear and a curfew was announced. Nobody was to be out of their homes past sundown on a Saturday.

What struck Junior was how sweet the boys became once they were gone. The women of town would stand on the corner talking about those “poor boys. Those poor, sweet boys”.

“never did a thing wrong”

“not a bad bone in his body”

“little Johnny Cullen wouldn’t say boo to a goose”

But they weren’t sweet. Junior knew that. He’d seen little Johnny Cullen light a fire under a bird’s nest last month. Taylor Dawson stole Dum Dums and Fizzies from the drugstore every other day and laughed about it. Mike Willis once spat in Miss Roberta’s coffee during a history test. They were bad boys. They were the boys who followed Junior home every day, throwing stones and making pig noises. They were the boys who poked him with a needle in the boys’ bathroom to see if they could make him talk.

They were bad boys, thought Junior.

The worst of them, Billy Judd, had been spared by The Beast. Billy had come into school this past Monday with a black eye. When Miss Roberta asked him about it, he said he’d been with Mike Willis when The Beast took him. Said The Beast had really wanted him but he’d been too strong so the Beast took Mike instead.

“Beast were scared a’me,” beamed Billy. “I showed him who’s boss. Mike was a’cryin for his mama the whole time. Ain’t my fault The Beast took him.”

Liar, thought Junior.

A dog barked in the distance. The barn was so dark now that Junior couldn’t tell when his eyes were open or closed. Something sounded outside. A twig cracked. Junior put his eye to the hole in the wall but all he could see was more darkness. A low moan, coming from the opposite end of the barn was getting louder and louder. It stopped. Nothing. Nothing. A thump on the roof. A tiny tapping in the corner got bigger and bigger until the barn was shaking from thud after thud.

“Piggy! Pigg-eeeee!” A voice was wailing through the hole next to Junior’s shoulder. “Beast’s come to get you piggy!”

Junior slowly, silently, lowered his body so that his eye came level to the crack in the wood. He could just make out a figure, stooping over, a few feet from the barn. He watched as the figure selected a rock from the ground, lurched forward and spun around, launching the rock at the barn door.

It was Billy Judd.

“I know you seen the Beast, Pig Boy!” Billy was rattling the chain on the barn door now. “I saw you going down to the river the night Mike got took. Only one way there and one way back. You’da seen it. Prob’ly coulda stopped it too I reckon. If you weren’t such a wuss.”

Junior backed away from the wall, knocking a tyre with his foot.

“HOOOOO! I hear ya Piggy! Ain’t no use hidin. Nobody to help ya here. I told my Pa you’d seen The Beast and I got his fist for it! ‘Leave that poor Collins boy alone’ he said. Poor Collins boy. Ha! No, sir. I’m gonna get you Piggy. I’m gonna get you and you ain’t gonna tell nobody!”

The kicking started slowly at first, in the far corner of the barn. Billy bashed his foot against the wood in a dull, pounding rhythm. The barn shook with each blow.

CRACK.

Billy had broken through. Junior could hear him, feverish as he pulled and pushed on the splintered plank until it snapped. Billy was laughing as he pushed his shoulder through the fresh gap, finally emerging inside the barn. He stood in the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

“Where are you, Piggy boy?”

Junior smiled.

The next morning before his mama and daddy woke up, Junior went to feed the pigs, just as he did every day. Pigs’ll eat anything they can chew. Junior removed Billy’s shoes, just as he’d done with Mike’s. And Taylor Dawson’s before him. And Johnny Cullen’s before him. He folded Billy’s shirt and shorts and socks into a neat pile and turned on the feed grinder.

When the pigs were fed, Junior took Billy’s clothes out into the yard and pushed them into the mound of garbage bags and dead branches piled up in the centre - Sunday was Dwayne Collins’ burning day and Junior loved to watch the blue and orange flames dance their way through the burn pile until it was just ash.

As Junior climbed back through the small opening in the back of the barn, he heard a siren in the distance - on the Judd’s side of town.

When his father came to collect him, Junior was sleeping soundly where he’d been left.

“Get up you dumb beast. Go see to the pigs.”