Beer, Death, and High School

He didn’t remember much about the night before. The bitch had him furious and he let loose down at Silky’s. He thought that ingesting a heavy, beefy meal would stave off the effects of the sheer amount of alcohol he had intended to imbibe. But anger-drinking had been a long-time jaunt for him, and he was a professional. No amount of food would overcome the white hot mountain of ire that burned in him when the mother of his children did something stupid to hurt him, but ended up hurting the kids. The price he had to pay was always the next day. Usually, though, the “next days” were manageable. After all, nothing exciting ever happened in the Valley. He could hide himself away on some back road and sleep off the worst of it.

Buck Johnston was the lone “detective” for the Upper Perkiomen Police Department. In truth, he was a sergeant with a background in forensics. He had had a cushy job up in Allentown as a real detective, but, several years ago, “the bitch” made his life a living hell and he was forced to move with the kids. Buck had taken a significant pay cut when he transferred to Upper Perk, but it was a small, unexciting community with a superficial family atmosphere. It wasn’t like the days when he was a kid. Buck hadn’t grown up here, but he did grow up in a similar town up in Michigan. The three towns were quiet enough, though, and he was able to blow off his steam whenever he needed to without raising much of an alarm. (There were a couple of incidents, but being a cop has its perks…)

His shift started early this morning, however. His cell had rang right at sunrise, and the sun overexposed his hazy vision like a photograph. The intensity was like driving into the sunlight as the fog begins to lift, you can barely see beyond the hood of the car. Of course, that was just a bother compared to the earthquake in his head and the volcano in his stomach. For Buck, alcoholism was like the Olympics, all would be calm for a time. Then, like clockwork, the real competition would begin and his drinking would rise to the occasion. And not even the room temperature beer he chugged before brushing his teeth did any good to quell the storm inside of him. As he sat in the driver’s seat of his squad car, it was all he could do to keep the acid in his stomach from ending up on the dashboard.

Popping a couple of TUMS, he opened the door and stepped out into the October morning. The hubbub was behind Pennsburg Manor, the local old folks home. Two bodies had been found in the wooded area behind the building, but that was all the detail that Buck could get over the phone.The sunglasses sat heavy on the bridge of his nose as he made his way towards the captain. The smirk on Craig’s face said it all. He knew that Buck went out on a bender the night before and he was ready for Buck to pay the price. Buck stepped into the grass and down the embankment, approaching the captain’s outstretched hand.

“Mornin’, Buck,” came Craig’s voice like a bulldozer across his scalp. “Glad you could make it to the party.”

Buck clasped Craig’s hand with a wry smile and said, “Fuck you very much, Craig.”

Buck was no slouch. He stood a generous five-eleven and weighed in at a buck-ninety. But Craig was a tank, and his handshakes were like vice grips. His voice was deep and burly, reminding Buck of a V-8 engine that sat too long without running. The captain looked Buck up and down with an eyebrow raised and shook his head ever so slightly.

“You might need a barf bag for this one, champ.”

Buck let out a grunt of disapproval. “What do we got?”

Craig’s face became immediately serious. “It’s gruesome. Two girls, identities just came over the wire. Both died the same way. Something clawed right through their skulls and ripped their heads and spines right out of their backs.”

The vomit rose right to the back of his throat at the visual and held steady with the thought that he’d be looking at the bodies in just a few moments. Perhaps Craig had been right about the barf bag. The intrigue, though, helped keep it at bay.

“What do you mean ‘ripped their heads and spines right out of their backs’? How is something like that possible?”

“Hell if I know!” Craig shrugged his shoulders as they made their way along the tree line. It had just dawned on Buck that he could hear voices behind them. Turning gingerly as he kept walking, he saw the Action News van in the parking lot. Apparently word of something major had made its way into the Manor, and then to the news. There’s that Action News van again! That’s what the commercials always said, and, up until now, Buck was happy not having had to see that in person. Those days are gone now. This story will be national news before we can blink, he thought. Everything was instant these days. There was more information available now to anybody than had ever been in the history of the world. And what did mankind do with it all? He fucked up the world beyond repair.

Buck shook his head and nearly brought the beer he’d chugged out for a bit of sunshine. “Can you say that again, Craig? I didn’t understand you.” He hadn’t been listening. In his condition, multitasking would be about as successful as trying to breathe in space.

The captain inhaled slowly and exhaled quickly. “I said…,” The dramatic pause was unnecessary, but Buck was too woozy to make a stink about it. “There is nothing in this area that could kill one person like this, much less two. Matter of fact…” and he shifted his gaze to the sky and squinted, “I don’t think there is anything that could kill a person like this. My mind is blown.”

“C’mon, Craig. This is Pennsburg, not Area 51.”

“Alright, Buck. You’ll see. But we can not let anybody but us see these bodies. There’s somethin’ unnatural about it.”

The two men turned into the woods and made their way past a few bushes and onto a mud-drenched two-by-six that was a bridge over a small rivulet. The trees before them couldn’t have extended more than fifty feet beyond them before opening onto the backyards of several close-together houses. Buck could see the yellow police line tape already bounding the area where the bodies lay. The volcano in his belly burst into eruption as they approached the scene. The buzz of large black flies curdled his stomach. As the men climbed the small rise to the police line, Buck’s hazy, overexposed vision landed on pooled blood at the foot of one of the victims. That was all he could take.

Craig, seeing Buck’s reaction, instantly pointed to a tree over to the left with a thick bush at its roots. “Over there. It’s out of the way and hidden.” Hurried, but not running, the deep gurgle from Buck’s belly was unmistakable. Yet, he was pretty quiet considering the eye-watering force behind the retching. Buck could feel his nostrils burning as the vomit came out of his nose. But the relief that began to wash over him as his stomach emptied was a blessing. The crisp October air swiftly cooled his sweating brow. And even though he felt like he was dying, he smiled through his dry heaves knowing that it would soon be over.

Buck leaned against the tree, breathing heavily from the strain. The burn of the stomach acid was beginning to subside and he was feeling minutely normal. His brain screamed for water to wash away the taste, but he also knew that he’d never be able to keep it down.

“Here,” said a voice behind him.

As he turned, he saw a small towel being held out to him. He took it with a grunt and gently wiped his face. Upon opening his eyes, he saw the man before him. Under the brim of his officer’s hat was short-cropped, curly hair, deep set brown eyes, and a mustache that made him look ten years older. Buck nodded to the man.

“Buck, you remember Taggert and Rosewood.”

Indeed, he did. The one before him was Taggert. A bit on the heavy side, James Taggert was not a guy to mess with. He had also been a transplant. But he came from Joliet, Illinois. He left Joliet when his youngest child went off to Notre Dame. Apparently, his ex-wife wasn’t much different than the piece of shit that was his own ex. Taggert’s blood family was in Arizona, so the move out to the east coast was not much of an issue for him, as he had no need to “run back to family”.

“It’s Rosemont, sir,” came the other voice, timid and uneasy. Phil Rosemont was a clean-cut kid. His hair was buzzed and his face was clean-shaven. You could see that he took pride in his appearance, though his appearance didn’t seem to exude cop-level masculinity. No doubt the presence of two deceased and violently maimed bodies wasn't helping the matter.

Buck turned his face to Rosemont and began to speak but was overcome by another heave. He didn’t bother turning away since the only thing left to vomit up was a bit of stomach acid.

“Damn it,” he rasped and stood straight. “Why do I do this to myself, cap?”

“You sure you want an answer to that.”

Without answering, Buck pushed himself away from the tree and nodded to Rosemont. “How are you doin’, gentlemen? As you can see, I’m just ducky.”

The other officers wanted to chuckle, but considering the scene around them, it was completely muted. All Buck received for his joke were three wry smiles. That was when his eyes fell on the bodies for the first time. He immediately looked away in an effort to block more dry heaves. The moment passed and he felt that he could look again. Craig had not lied. Buck studied the victims in morbid fascination.

Blood notwithstanding, Buck could see that from the waist down, the girls were, for the most part, unharmed. They lay on their stomachs, arms at their sides and palms facing to the sky. That was where the normalcy ended. Their backs were soaked red with blood, and snaking up their backs were their spines. Just as Craig had told him, it looked like something had just pulled up on their heads and ripped their spines right out. The heads were dangling off their shoulders with the neck meat in a congealing pile beneath. The eyes were closed, but both mouths were stuck in a scream. It appeared as though their eyes were gone, almost as though a large spike had been driven through their eye sockets. And three deep gashes ran across the tops of the heads, from front to back, flesh torn and ripped.

“Do we know their names?” asked Buck, his voice hushed and solemn.

“The redhead is Hailee Carson, the brunette is Jasmine Resnik. Both are seniors at the high school and both are seventeen.”

Buck looked back at the captain in askance, “Do you really believe you can conceal what’s happened here for any length of time? The coroner is in Norristown. There’s no way she’ll allow us to keep the bodies here. And once these bodies are out of town, we’ll be lucky to see them again.”

“Saint Luke’s is just down the road. They’ll let us keep the bodies there. This is our jurisdiction, after all.”

“Until they kick us off of it. Something like this,” and he spread his hands out over the corpses. “This is bound to extend beyond us. PBI will be on us like stink on shit. And you know the people in this town. One whiff of what we found and everybody will know. We’re gonna have a panic on our hands.”

The conversation was off-putting for Taggert and Rosemont. Jim simply stared at the ground. Phil was white as a ghost. Buck caught him looking over his shoulder and peered in that direction. The word was already out that something terrible had happened. The crowd was numbering in the tens over by the Manor, and several had begun to coalesce in the backyards behind them. Buck’s stomach lurched again knowing the fiasco that was about to ensue.

“What do we do here, Buck?” asked Craig, matter-of-factly. He could see the cause in the process of being lost in Craig’s eyes.

Buck could think of only one answer. “Everybody pull out your cell phones. Download an app called Eraser XP. It fronts as a phone reset app, but, for a price, it saves your photos in a secure location. No doubt the feds know about it, but maybe it’ll keep them off our asses long enough to figure this out. Then we need to take photos of every inch of this scene. Top… to… bottom. Then open the app and follow the instructions.”

Rosemont gulped as he pulled out his phone. “What are we lookin’ for, sarge?”

“Everything! We need to have the entire scene within our grasp to complete our own investigation. This thing seems completely unnatural.” He paused for a moment. “I hate to say it, but it looks super… natural. If you get my drift. Whatever this is…” and he spread his arms out and looked around at the scene. “Whatever this is, it’s something way out of our league. Which also means that it will probably be out of everybody else’s league, too. Except, of course, the feds. Whatever this is,” and he spread his arms again and looked up, “it’ll be X-Files for the feds…”

Buck trailed off when he mentioned the X-Files, and he kept his gaze to the canopy.

“What the hell is that?” he asked them in exasperation.

The others joined him looking up. And what they saw made their hearts skip a beat. Strewn chaotically about the small twigs and branches were blood spatters and small pieces of hairy flesh, no doubt from the scarred heads of the girls on the ground. But that was the “normal” part. What frightened the four men were the smoldering tips of twigs on the surrounding trees. They weren’t directly over the victims, but in the direction of their feet. Buck could almost picture in his mind’s eye a great beast hunching over the bodies, it’s back, on fire, singing the branches.

“App and photos, now,” he insisted to the captain and the officers. “I don’t know what the fuck we just got ourselves into, but I can guarantee that the feds will cover this up. We’re gonna be warned not to even think about this case once the feds take over.”

The four men began to quickly download the app and take photos. They didn’t want to appear hurried to the growing crowds so they could try and avoid suspicion, but Buck knew that to be a useless thought. As soon as the trench coats arrived, the rumors would be in hot pursuit. After several minutes, Jim called out to Craig. Buck followed him to the edge of the wood and looked down. Nonchalantly, Buck positioned his phone to take a photo of what he saw, but in such a way that the crowds could not be certain that he was doing it. He was seeing a small bare spot in the grass, maybe ten inches by eight inches. It was just muddy enough that tire markings could be seen, but the rest of the grass appeared untouched by the weight of whatever vehicle may have made the marks. Buck took one regular photo and another zoom photo.

“Nah,” he said loud enough for the onlookers to hear. “There’s nothing here, see?” Taking his pen out of his pocket, he combed it through the muddy soil, destroying the evidence of the tracks. This was something he wanted to keep strictly to them. It would prevent the trench coats from investigating any further and hasten their cover up. He quickly left the area and went back to the bodies. Now that the photos were taken, he could take a little more time with the victims before the circus showed up.

“What the hell are you doing, Buck? You can’t erase evidence.” Craig sounded worried and out of breath. “If this gets found out, we’re done, man.”

“Relax, cap,” Buck answered, trying to sound as sure of himself as was possible in his condition. “We need PBI and the feds off our tail if we’re gonna figure any of this out. We’re in uncharted territory. And I don’t want them up our asses. They’re gonna shut all of this down and make it look like a simple case of murder.” What he didn’t tell Cap, Jim, and Phil was that this wasn’t uncharted territory for him. He remembered what happened in ‘94. He would never forget it, even if the general public had been forced to. “Look at the reaction you guys are having to this. Imagine the public seeing this for what it really is. We’d have every two-bit supernatural and psychic scam artist down here from now until next Christmas. We’d be an internet clown show. It would forever change this town, and not for the better. Remember, a person can be calm, cool, and collected in the face of the unknown. People are dumb and panicky. That makes them dangerous. We gotta get every bit of information we can and let them end it.”

“You sound awfully sure for a man that just puked up last night’s party and this morning’s chug. But I gotta ask… Why are you so determined to crack this case? Why not let the feds cover it up and move on?” Craig sounded very unsure, like a twelve old kid just discovering self-pleasure.

Because of what I saw in ‘94, cap. That’s what Buck wanted to say, but he didn’t have the heart. He wasn’t sure where this would end, but he damn well knew that this was just the beginning. Instead, he said, “All of you open the app and follow the instructions. Like I said, it’s gonna wipe your phone but save your photos in the cloud.”

The men did as they were told and put their phones back in their pockets. Buck pursed his lips then looked to the captain.

“And the answer to your question, Craig, is gut instinct.”

A moment’s silence and the four men burst out laughing at the irony of Buck’s answer. They subdued their laughter as best they could, for this wasn’t exactly the situation to be laughing. But they were caught anyway.

“Something funny, gentlemen?” The owner of the question was a tall, lanky man. He was dressed in a navy blue suit with a spiderman tie. The sunlight gleamed off of his bald head and the tip of his very Jewish nose. High cheekbones accented the glow of face, which was as smooth-shaven as his head. He had dark, piercing eyes that had never missed much at any crime scene. And his spit-shined wingtips screamed military experience. The agent spread his arms out before him, “I’m surprised that this is a laughing matter.”

Behind him, but hanging back out of sight of the bodies were two uniformed State Police Officers. Right again, Buck, he thought. The newcomer was the Pennsylvania Bureau of Investigation, and the FBI was certainly not far behind. With an air of self-assuredness, the agent stood before the bodies with hands clasped behind his back. The bloody scene was surveyed front and back, side to side, and up and down. There was no look of surprise or astonishment at the brutality of it all. Nor was there any emotion given to the flesh and smoldering twigs above. The men stood silent, watching the agent and knowing that this was not a new thing for him. Rosemont and Taggert went pale with the understanding that incidents like this were not uncommon.

“Very well, gentlemen,” the agent began. He flipped out his identification for all to see. “I am

Special Agent Maxwell Dern of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Investigation. Under authority granted to me by the Governor, I hereby take control of this crime scene. I will ask you gentlemen, under penalty of law, to not discuss the matters to which you have been witnesses to any outside party. All of you are hereby dismissed from this case and, under further penalty of law, are not to participate, in any manner unauthorized by the PBI, in any further investigatory actions. You will all be required to turn over your cell phones to myself before you leave the scene. Brand new phones will be provided to you, free of charge, by the state.”

Dern promptly held out his hand to gather their cell phones. With a last glance to the bodies of the dead girls, Captain Craig Sumner handed over his phone. He was followed by Officers Taggert and Rosemont. Last came Buck, whose expression must’ve been one of knowing.

“Sergeant Johnston, you know exactly where all of this is heading. It’s written all over your face. This is not your first rodeo, so to speak.”

The agent’s softened voice betrayed a certain level of emotion to Buck. “And I’m not one to get bucked off very easily, agent.” It wasn’t a threat, but it was a threat.

A small smile spread across Maxwell’s face as Buck handed over his phone. “I know I’ll never see what was on these phones. This is just precaution. I already have the FBI trying to locate the photos all of you took. So, I hope you found a deep, dark place to hide them.” He let out a large sigh and looked Buck in the eyes. “Don’t pursue this. It won’t end well.”

“You don’t want to pursue it, agent. You’re scared.” Buck’s accusatory tone was unmistakable. “Yeah… I watched you. I watched you look all over this scene with calm. That was until you looked up. Your nostrils flared so that your eyes weren’t forced to. You have no clue what happened here. This is beyond even your experience. Even you’re gonna have a hard time letting this one go.”

Buck winked at Dern and walked away. “You have my number Agent Dern. Call me when you’re ready.”

“I’ll meet you at Silky’s, sergeant. Drinking…” and he paused for a moment to sniff the air. “Yeungling and tequila by the smell of it.”

They both smiled to themselves.

* * *

Theo Johnston was the spitting image of his father, Buck. But his attitude was more like his bitch of a mother. Buck loved him, though, like she didn’t exist. Theo was fifteen, quietly intelligent, completely lacking in common sense, and a rising soccer star for the high school team. Getting along with the situation was relatively easy for Theo, as he had adopted an “I don’t care about anything” attitude for many years to keep him from having to feel any of the bad things. Recently, as he began to come into his own, he was showing more emotion. And that was bolstered by Buck taking a much more active role in his life.

Buck’s daughter Samantha wasn’t quite so lucky. She was a great kid, a junior in high school and a very narcissistic seventeen. That was all her mother… Sam took to her mother’s attitude like a moth to a flame. Buck certainly feared an Icarus moment with her. Sam seemed to think that the world was her oyster, and that all the people in it were there to serve her. And she used that idea to its fullest extent, striving to reach the sun. Striving to reach that easy place where everything was taken care of by other people and she could just breeze through life. Like Icarus, that sun of false joy would melt the wings right off of her back and she would tumble to the ground. Buck had taken on the mission of making sure she wasn’t too high before she fell.

They lived full time with their mother, seeing Buck every other weekend in his small Main Street apartment. And as much as he would drink, he never touched a drop while they were with him. When they were gone, though, he just couldn’t help himself. Buck’s sister was a recovered alcoholic, but she didn’t speak to him very often because of his own continued drinking. He liked to blame his drinking on the mother of his children, but he knew that was just an excuse… a catalyst.

Hence, after the previous night’s festivities and this morning’s violent recovery, Buck found himself right back at Silky’s. It was a dive bar, and that was being kind. The bar reeked like cheap beer and the air was choked with cigarette smoke. The patrons weren’t the best of people, either. Dumpy, dirty, backwoods auto mechanics, farmers, and other down-on-their-luck laborers were the choice clientele. But Silky’s owner charged a $20 per month “membership fee” which allowed all of them to be themselves without fear of retribution or law enforcement. Queue the irony since Buck was, himself, a regular paying member.

He sat at the bar, Yeungling and tequila shot on hand, and stared into the mirror set up behind the liquor shelves. Buck hardly recognized himself. Bloodshot eyes barely open inside puffy, dark-circled sockets, he wished to any god that would listen that he could find the willpower to stop drinking. His answer was in the form of alcohol-infused bile rising to the back of his throat. Reluctantly, he pulled the basket of pretzels to him and began to eat.

The door opened and a few words were spoken, but Buck didn’t listen. He just stared at the man in the mirror and groused inwardly about what he’d become. His mind fled back to that night in ‘94, October 7th. Maryanne Tacony, Buck’s dream girl since kindergarten, had been killed out in the woods behind Bad Axe High School. Yes, that was the actual name of the school, and the town. Bad Axe, Michigan, near the tip of the thumb of the lower Michigan mitten, was a close-knit town. There were a whole lot of rumors, but skeletons in dark closets seemed to be few and far between.

Maryanne Tacony never had any skeletons in her closet, as far as Buck knew. But then again, it was always difficult for a high school nobody to know much about the Homecoming Queen. That’s the way these stories always go, isn’t it? The thought escaped its hiding place before Buck could close the door on it. Poor little Buck the Cuck! Always whining and crying about his kindergarten sweetheart never paying attention to him! Get over yourself, cuck-boy! Glaring into the mirror, Buck picked up the tequila shot and slammed it down his gullet, then slammed the shot glass onto the bar.

“May I join you? Or would you like to dine alone?” It was Special Agent Dern. Buck had a gut feeling he’d show up, hence the necessity to come to Silky’s early to prepare.

“Agent Dern! How nice of you to drop by! But this is a members only club.”

“The perks of being a special agent for the state, I suppose.” He looked down the bar and waved to the bartender. “Two tequila shots and a Stella draft for me, please.”

Agent Dern pulled out a twenty dollar bill and laid it on the bar, careful not to actually touch the surface with his hands. Of course, Buck couldn’t blame him, God only knows what sort of shit is hidden within the grime of a pub’s bar.

“You and your reflection appear to be reminiscing about things not-so-nice, sergeant.”

Buck grunted in approval, but changed the subject immediately. “I was right about you, wasn’t I? You were surprised by what we found. And now you want it as bad as I do.” The alcohol was working its magic inside Buck, and his words weren’t entirely clear. “Surprised” came out “sherprized” and “bad as I do” came out “bada sidoo”.

“Yes, sergeant, you were absolutely right. But that hasn’t prevented me from trying to find those photos you took. Now,” and he gave Buck a sideways glance, “I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the PBI investigation is beginning to run a bit cold. And I don’t know about the feds, but I’d be willing to bet that they are chasing their own tails.”

There was a certain level of satisfaction that welled up within Buck. He had thought that Special Agent Maxwell Dern would be on his ass from now until the sun burned out. But I called you out, and now you’re stuck!

“Let me tell you somethin’, Agent…”

“Max. Just call me Max, we’re off the clock.”

Buck smiled and shook his head up and down. Then he extended his hand and shook Max’s. “Max… It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Which came out as “plesshure”. “Call me Buck.”

Max raised his tequila shot and gestured for Buck to do the same. They clanked their glasses together, bumped them on the bar, and slugged them down. Then Max’s own expression changed to one of seriousness.

“Tell me your story, Buck.”

Buck bent his head forward and scratched it, then rubbed it, with his right hand. His look was stressed despite the increasing level of booze in his system. No, he had not known about the existence of any skeletons in Maryanne’s closet, but she had been hiding something.

“She didn’t deserve to die, Max. She didn’t deserve what happened to her before that, either. It wasn’t until after her death that her suffering came to light. Her mother had a long, painful eulogy at Maryanne’s funeral. It all came out. Of course, there was nobody in the casket. The feds had shown up very quickly after her death. It was almost as though they were expecting it to happen. They had taken the body and somehow compensated her widowed mother.

“I loved her more than life itself. Yet she never knew it. She was impossible not to love. And that went for her father and her stepfather. Assholes…”

Buck hesitated for a moment, trying with all of his might to not weep. “Both of her fathers had taken advantage of her. Her father had been crushed by a piano falling out of a second story window. Yeah, I know, right? Sounds just like a comedy show. But no shit, Max. A piano broke through and fell out of a stairwell window above the old hardware store. That happened when we were in second grade. Then, two months before Maryanne’s death, her stepfather had also been killed. He had been trampled by a moose.”

A small chuckle escaped his lips at this. “Can you imagine it, Max. Your father and stepfather killed in such similar ways? Crushed and trampled? Something fishy going on there, right?”

The chuckle that escaped him was louder this time. “But there was a reason. Maryanne was special. She had a special ability. And for those two bastards, she used it righteously. They raped her, the sons of bitches.” He turned an ice cold and menacing glare towards Max. “They… raped… her!”

Max stared at Buck emotionless. He knew that any emotion he showed would be reflected by Buck tenfold, and his current levels of emotion and alcohol would have made any escalation a dangerous situation. Buck sat silent for a few moments more, then he took a pull from his beer and continued.

“I never witnessed her ability directly. Not until the night she died. I guess you could say that I was stalking Maryanne. But I felt that she just needed protection. Her date to Homecoming was Baxter Reed. He was a douchebag of the highest order. A wrestler who thought he was God’s gift to the world.” Had there been an award for the world’s greatest eye roll, Buck would’ve been at the top of the list to receive it. “But he was also a womanizer. Why do nice girls always seem to end up with the womanizers? Anyway, I had overheard in the bathroom…” Buck leaned over so as not to be heard, even though he was speaking quite loudly through the booze. “That Baxter had intended to take advantage of my… of Maryanne. And I wasn’t about to let that shit happen, let me tell you.

“So, trying to be the big hero, I burst out of the stall and confronted him. I wasn’t the wimpiest of the wimps when I was in high school, but I had no business trying to confront a wrestler. But I did anyway and paid for it. You see this scar?” Buck pointed to the scar just to the left of his chin. “Ol’ Baxter caught me with a right hook and put my tooth through my skin. Bled like a sonofabitch. A couple more slugs to the gut and I was toast. But I at least stood up to the asshole!

By the time I was presentable, word had already spread of what had happened to me. And it turned out that Maryanne had not completely forgotten about me. There was a growing crowd over by the refreshment table, and I caught sight of Maryanne giving Baxter the third degree. In the middle of a sentence she just happened to glance my way and saw my condition.”

Buck’s words had slowed, and now he lowered his head again, in shame. Shaking it back and forth, he took a deep breath, looked up to the pint of beer before him, and took a long drag. While it was half the beer that disappeared, Max thought to himself that, had Buck had a cigarette, one drag would have smoked half of it down.

“Maryanne stormed out of the dance, her heels audible over the loud music. I dashed out of the gym myself, and made my way quickly out of another entrance. By the time I found them, the screaming match between Maryanne and Baxter had come to a head. They were all standing in front of the custodial shed. Behind Baxter stood Maryanne’s best friends. Monica, Ruby, and Destiny were their names. The four of them were nearly inseparable. Yet, here they were, standing with Baxter. I could tell because of the hateful looks they were giving her. Why would they betray her? I asked myself. I didn’t have much of a chance to think about it though.

“‘You asshole!’ I heard Maryanne scream, and she raised her fist at him. I swear I saw real light flash in her eyes. Then Baxter’s slap echoed off the steel door as Maryanne’s head snapped to the side. The silence was deafening. Have you ever been in a situation where the silence was deafening, Max? It’s surreal. It feels like, in that moment, anything is possible. Then I saw Maryanne slowly turn back to Baxter, and she seemed to grow… to tower over him. Her presence was the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen. But then she saw her best…” and he made quote marks in the air. “... friends join their hands together. And it spooked her. She suddenly took off running into the woods. She nearly fell over the train tracks because of her heels. But she ditched them and continued barefoot. But Ruby, Destiny, and Monica continued to hold hands and they began chanting. I have no idea what they were saying, but they kept their eyes on her for as long as they could. That’s when I took off after her.

“Baxter noticed me sprint across the parking lot and yelled, ‘Go get her, Buck the Cuck!’ Then he laughed. I didn’t bother looking at him, I was scared out of my wits for Maryanne. Not far into the woods I heard her crying. I had to get to her as soon as I could. But that’s when I saw it.”

Max perked up at this revelation. He had more or less taken this story for a drunkard’s high school regret. But Buck’s face went pale in an instant, and Max knew that wasn’t the reaction to an old regret. He could see the tears welling up in Buck’s eyes.

“Behind her I saw a little floating flame. It flickered for a moment, then it started to grow and swirl. Maryanne didn’t notice it until she saw her shadow. She turned her head to look at it and said the last two words she would ever say. ‘Oh, God.’ She stood up to face it and was overcome with fear. I wanted to yell to her, but my fear was as strong as hers and I was frozen. The fire turned into a ring with nothing but black inside of it. It grew larger and larger. Maryanne was finally able to rip her gaze away from it. But when she turned to run, she was stopped by some force. The ring of fire grew large enough to singe the twigs and branches of the trees above. Then out stepped… something.”

Buck squinted his eyes and brought his hands up as though he was gripping a ball. Max imagined that the expression of fear on his face now was not all that dissimilar from the expression he wore on that October night.

“The thing was tall, with black, charred skin. It had gigantic wings and hair of flame. Its eyes gleamed red in its doglike head. It had huge hands with nails… talons… they must’ve been ten inches long. And only three fingers and a thumb. It was fearsome and gruesome. And it grabbed Maryanne by the head with one of its hands, the talons tearing into her scalp like razors. Then it grabbed again to get a firmer grip, two of its talons piercing each of her eye sockets. I could only stare in disbelief.

“Then the thing slammed her face first to the ground. It put a foot on her shoulder…” Buck trailed off, barely able to keep it together. The tears streamed freely down his cheeks.

Max knew where this was going, but again he remained silent so as not to escalate the emotions. So long as Buck was reliving the memory, the current moment would stay calm.

“It yanked…” he whispered to Max from far away. “It yanked her skull and her backbone right out of her body.” The look of disgust on his face was intense.

Buck sat silent for a few seconds, then quickly got up and ran to the bathroom. Max knew that Buck would be emptying his stomach again. But he also knew that Buck would come back out here and continue his drinking as though it never happened. Max lifted his own beer and took a long, slow pull himself. The cool beer ran down his gullet like a refreshing waterfall. He had never heard the story of Maryanne Tacony of Bad Axe, Michigan. But he would certainly be looking into it now. Feeling now justified in his actions of throwing off the PBI and FBI, Max patiently waited for Buck’s return. He could work with this small town cop, and he found himself wanting to.

Eventually, Buck made it back to the bar. His puffy, red eyes belied that he was doing more than vomiting in the bathroom. Buck gave Max a sideways glance as he sat down. Max, however, grabbed his pint and held it aloft in Buck’s direction.

“To Maryanne Tacony,” he said to Buck.

Buck stared at Max and then raised his own glass to his partner’s glass. “To Maryanne Tacony.”

They cheered her memory, then Max said, “We’ll find out what happened, Buck. You have my word.”

Buck stared back at the Buck in the mirror with a renewed sense of duty.