Chapter 14
THE WEIRDOS
The noise from the Maelstrom Bar percolates through the doorway into the room, and a few early drinkers wander past the opening.
It’s six-thirty PM, and I’ve taken a seat opposite the door, so I’m either at the head or the bottom of this polished timber table.
Molly abandoned her spot beside me to go greet everyone.
A jumble of thrill and dread squeezes the air in my lungs with uneasy expectation, as if this meeting could give me a bucketload of new information.
Will they expect me to reveal everything I know in return?
The talk with Clay shook me. I blurted out secrets I never meant to share and that was a stupid mistake. I haven’t yet relayed what was said to Ron and Molly. His threats and mine. I’m not ready. I’m not ready for this.
I’ve come to see Molly and Ron as friends, but I don’t know anything about these Weirdo people. Since the previous night I’ve been running about, reacting, overreacting.
This time, I will listen to whatever they say. Think. Then think some more.
The members are gathering at the door, drinks in hand. I stand up, which makes me feel less an interloper, though I’m playing with the strap on my handbag where it rests on the table, and my heart rate is up.
The first through the door is a tall woman in jeans and buttoned floral shirt, with a head of short, bouncy blond curls. She raises her hand. “Hi there!”
I wave back.
“This is Melody Rue, one of our town vets,” Molly says. “Melody, meet Hailey Tarrant. She’s sitting in and listening. Maybe we’ll get her to say some words, but it’s up to her.”
“I understand.” The drop of her smile and the slight nod are telling. She’s connected my surname to my father. “We’re all pretty nice, if I dare describe us that way?” She takes a seat to my left.
Two men come in next. The first is the bigger, taller one, with thick black hair swept into a ponytail and a menagerie of tattoos on his arms and face. He studies both me and Melody, though she’s checking her phone, then he ambles to the other side of the table to drag out a squeaky chair.
The second man, lanky-limbed, red-haired, and wearing cowboy boots, is tall and puts me in mind of a long tangy, orange cocktail. He waits for an introduction, and Molly pats his shoulder, though she’s more than a head shorter.
“Hailey, meet Rasmus. He runs a computer repair place down the street.”
“Pleased to meet you, Hailey.” Rasmus slides along the wall, pulls out a chair next to Melody, then reaches behind her to shake my hand.
It’s firm but brief, as well as long fingered.
He has a tattoo of a snake made of cogwheels and machinery on one side of his neck.
“Are we talking about the last book, Molly, or just swapping gossip?”
“Not sure yet. That’s Esau, there, Hailey.” She indicates the big glowering man. “Need a tattoo, ask him for one. He’s got some spares.” She chuckles. “Not that he’s doing me or Ron.”
“One day, Molly.” His voice is deeper than a canyon. He greets me with a click of his mouth as he crams his body into his chair, pulls out a pack of cigarettes that he eyes for maybe two seconds, then tucks away. Then he sighs. “Lulu’s not coming. She’s got a late shift at the minimart.”
“So that’s all of us then. Ron?”
He closes the door and parks at the other end, while Molly edges along the wall to her seat to my right.
Having seated myself, I study the group. Small. I thought this would be bigger.
Melody sways closer. “Gossip is code, just means anything to do with the weirdness in town. Don’t mind Esau, he just likes to look scary. I look after his pets, and he has a tortoise he lets ride his Roomba.”
My grin alerts Esau but he only grunts and shakes his head. “Lies, all dirty lies, whatever Melody whispered about me.”
“So!” Ron slaps the table with his hand, interrupting the laughter.
“Meeting nineteen of the Weirdos is in session. We were reading this new one, Talisman by Stephen King.” He taps the book that Molly slides across.
“But my better half and I figure we’ll keep this one confined to letting you meet Hailey, who is the daughter of the dearly departed Simon. Plus, any gossip you may have.”
“Thank you.” I fold my hands over my handbag then pull it down onto my lap. That way I can hug it without looking obviously nervous. Maybe it’s the number of new people, maybe it’s freaky Clay, maybe it’s the past day’s happenings. Or all of that.
Ron continues. “So, Hailey, as Melody told you, we call the weird happenings gossip. This room is swept for bugs by Rasmus before each meeting, because the book club is really an excuse. Revenant is plagued by a plethora of weird, and it’s been on the increase ever since they switched on the LHC.”
“True. True,” Molly adds, and everyone murmurs agreement. “We’re trying to find out if the first LHC in Europe has caused any such happenings.”
“Okay.” There is one in Switzerland that was built decades ago. One of the benefits of Father’s work is knowing that sort of thing.
“Hailey has some new…” Ron studies me. “Information. A new side to this which is most curious.”
He’s hinting without making me seem a revelation. This is good. Gives me an out.
“But first! Let’s hear from you all. Anyone seen anything?
” Ron spreads his hands. “We had the last palpable pulse from the collider only yesterday. I heard about that deer secondhand from Dale, who is not a member, and he heard it from a hunter at the lake. It was apparently a male deer, and the hunter saw strange holes that were not bullet holes, peppering its head and upper torso, like it exploded from inside. The corpse has gone and drifted out and sunk deep, middle of the lake, so I doubt we can retrieve it. Anyone?”
“Me.” Melody raises her hand. “I have a six-eyed owl report. A client said it was up in a tree on the forest’s edge, north of town.
He wasn’t drunk, or so he tells me.” She smiles, shrugs, which elicits few laughs.
“I think it’s genuine. No body or bird for me to examine, so again, we have no absolute proof. ”
“Proof will come. I can feel it in my bones. Anything else?” Molly peers around the table.
I’m sure she’s referring to me and Kail, with that feel it remark.
“I thought…” Esau begins, slowly drumming his fingers on the table.
“Thought I saw a huge man sneaking through town this afternoon. A stranger that stuck low to the shadows and had odd lines on his neck that might be tattoos, might not, and I’d bet my life they were not.
” He stops drumming, sweeps us all with a hard stare.
“I saw him going north. Lost track of him. I got busy with a client.”
A chill trickles down my backbone. That man had to be Kail. Is he stalking me? Or only the town?
“Might just be one of Zedder’s creepy band of no-gooders,” Rasmus suggests. “Assholes.”
“Zedder?” I ask. “Who is that?”
Esau zeroes in on me. “He runs an outfit he calls the Shredders. They’ve got their digits in much of the bad doings in Revenant. Stolen goods. Drugs. Cars. Repurposing vehicles they bring in from elsewhere. The sheriff, Baxter, he ain’t done much about it.”
“Huh.” Frowning, I shift in my chair. “Yet you know it all?” That seems odd.
“Kickbacks are rife. Sheriff is so on the take he should be sunbaking on the Riviera by now, on his pink flamingo floatie.” He chuckles.
“That is quite the image.”
“Yup.” Then I get a proper broad smile out of him, and it breaks the mold of how I saw him.
“Have you decided if you want to describe what happened?” Molly asks. “Hailey?”
I swing to her. I imagine myself spewing forth all my woes and questions and shit to them, and the potential for drama, for everything crashing in and people asking me probing questions, and it’s a shock.
Slowly, I shake my head. These people seem interested in fixing their town, but is it fixable when a huge corporation is doing whatever they are doing that likely needs millions, trillions, to accomplish?
The LHC required something like thirteen miles of tunnel dug under Revenant.
These guys deal in deer at the bottom of lakes and six-eyed owls. Where do I fit?
My lungs are squeezing in on me, again.
“Let me think on it.” I shove back my chair with a nod and smile as I worm past the backs of chairs to the door.
“Hailey?” Ron is half-frowning, puzzled, and seems crestfallen at my choice. “Next meeting?”
“Yeah. I just need more time.” And breathing space. “Nice meeting you all.”
I get murmured replies, polite smiles, then they resume discussing whether the book should be on the agenda, after all.
I leave, pondering whether I should grab a six-pack of beer from the liquor store down the road. Pretty sure the fridge at the house has none. Not just the house, I remind myself, that place is mine now. I will never get used to it not being Dad’s.
Ron catches up with me at my Chevy, his chair humming. He brakes, folds his arms.
“What? Look I’m sorry I messed up back—”
“No. it’s fine. You need space. I’m more interested in giving you that weapon, if you’re heading back to your house. We won’t be going home for another thirty, forty minutes, I’m guessing.”
“Oh. Of course. Thank you.”
“Good. Take care, and send us a text when you reach your house.”
“I will.”
Which is how I drive out of there with the shotgun in the footwell on the passenger side.
I feel strange, having a gun in my car. I never want to need to use it.
It’s loaded, too. Fuck. That makes me nervous, as does going home to a lonely house.
Where is there in Revenant that I can feel wanted and safe though?
I cannot live in Molly and Ron’s house. I will not do that even if they would let me.
After buying that six-pack I head up to Jordan Street.