Wendy Ogilvie
espresso with a shot of Sambuca
Dante sighed as he watched his best friend walk away.
He knew it was only a matter of time before Leon gave in to Skeleton. He was the
leader of the Bone Collectors: a street gang who ran the south side of town.
They had tried to persuade Dante to join but his grandma would kill him. Leon
didn’t have a grandma or a mother, his guardian was a father who drank and was
too handy with his fists. Living in Barron Heights was tough for most kids; the
kind of tough that steals your youth and leaves you vulnerable. Dante’s mother
and grandma did their best to protect him but he needed to belong, to be part of
a family, and that was the pull of the Bones Collectors.
Dante turned back to go indoors and
saw his grandma standing in the doorway. Her brown eyes wide as she watched Leon
walking towards the old skate park. She placed one hand on her heart and held a
kitchen cloth to her forehead with the other.
“Baron Samedi,”
she whispered to herself.
“What’s up Grandma?”
“Oh my Lord,” she said,
panting heavily, “I just seen death on the boy.”
Dante wrinkled his nose and shrugged his shoulders.
“Grandma you trippin’.”
The old woman pulled her sleeves up her chubby arms and
ushered Dante up to the porch and behind the bar-covered front door. Once safely
inside she stooped down and grabbed his shoulders tight.
“You listen to me child; you
cannot see Leon anymore you hear me?”
Dante looked into her eyes, they were wild and scary.
“But, he’s my friend.”
“That boy is mixed up with
some bad people. Your mamma will have a fit if I tell her what I
seen.”
“But Gran you always say
things like this around Halloween. Maybe we should help Leon?”
“It’s too late
child. Leon is being followed by somethin’ evil. You need to keep
away.”
Dante screwed up his face and glanced out the window.
He couldn’t see anything following Leon. Grandma wasn’t a fan of Halloween, she
was born in Louisiana where they practiced Vodou and didn’t see the need to have
a special day to celebrate everything evil.
“But Mum said she was going to
take us trick or treatin’ tomorrow.”
“Listen to me good. Death was
hovering above that boy today and I don’t want you anywhere near him, you
promise me now, Dante!”
Dante stepped back from her as he slowly nodded without
taking his eyes off hers. She relaxed and wiped the beads of sweat from her
head.
“Whatever that boy has got
himself into, it’s too late for him now.”
***
It was three hours later when Dante got the call from
his mother; she had been working in the local supermarket and heard the sirens.
Leon was found dead on the opposite side of the road. He had been shot in the
head. A rival gang member had driven past and recognised his white bandana as
Bone Collector gang colours. The police had arrested the shooter who had told
them it was payback for what the Bone Collectors had done to his little brother
last month. One dead boy for another.
Dante was inconsolable and
cried for hours alone in his room. He didn’t want to see or talk to anyone.
When the phone rang on his
side table, he couldn’t see the caller ID through the tears.
“Hello.”
“Dante, help me, they keep
grabbing me, help me!”
Dante stared at his phone, “Leon?”
“I’m sorry, it’s not my fault.
Please find me. It’s so hot I’m burning.”
“Leon where are you?” Dante
said, looking towards the window. The darkness was creeping in like next door’s
black cat.
“I don’t know where I am,”
said the voice on the phone “but they keep grabbing me and won’t let me come
home.”
“I’ll get my ma she can help.
Tell me where you are!”
“No she can’t, it’s you Dante,
only you. I’m sorry, so sorry.”
Dante shivered and pulled his jacket around his
shoulders.
“Wait, Leon, I’m getting
Ma, she’ll know what to do.”
“Just you Dante, please find
me.”
“I don’t know where to
look.”
“They’re coming for you Dante,
it was my only choice. I’m so sorry.”
The line went dead.
***
Dante pulled on his backpack, grabbed the torch from
his drawer and crept into the hallway. A few of the neighbours had come in to
console Leon’s father who had been at their house since hearing
the news. Dante had never seen him sober before. Granma was against alcohol and
was busy in the kitchen making tea for everyone. He slowly unlocked the front
door and slipped out.
Not knowing where to start
looking, he gazed around until his eyes landed on the distant lights from the
supermarket where Leon had been killed. He had never been there in the dark
before; he wasn’t allowed out after 7.00 p.m. It was now past eight.
Standing in front of the supermarket, Dante looked
across the road. He leaned forward peering towards the road and could just make
out a half visible black cat sitting between the stripes of the crossing.
Slowly, heart pumping, he stepped towards the cat who stood and looked at him
before walking in the direction of the skate park. Dante looked towards the park
then back at the cat. He remembered being told in a story at
school once that black cats were really the spirit of people who had
died.
Of course!
He thought, the cat is has been sent by Leon to help me. The
skate park was his favourite place when we were ten and skateboarding was our
life.
Dante followed the cat to the park and through the
gates. The park was a large open space surrounded by bushes and tall trees. An
autumn mist had descended, and the only light came from an old street lamp off
to the right, its weak rays penetrating through leafless trees, casting shadows
onto the concrete. There was a playground near the entrance with
one working swing, a seesaw and rusty monkey bars. The skate bowl was surrounded
by floodlights but they had been broken long ago.
Dante was
desperate to see his friend Leon. He caught something moving to the right of him
and watched as the cat slinked away through a hole in the fence. He wondered if
he should follow it but he heard a scratching sound coming from under his feet.
He looked down. The scratching stopped. He stood still and tried to hear over
the sound of his heart thudding in his ears. The scratching noise started up
again and was joined by a burrowing behind him in the grass. Dante jerked his
head around to see if there was anything there. The burrowing stopped. He tried
to move away but his feet were welded to the ground. Then came the scratching
sound again. His body stiffened in response. What’s happening? Why can’t I
move?
The sound of quick shallow breaths accompanied the
continuous thud of his heart; Dante began to sway his head light, his legs
heavy. His eyes darted on the ground around his feet. There is was again; he
could feel the burrowing of the earth. The movement rippled nearer to his feet.
Dante let out a cry as a hand reached through the turf
and grabbed his right foot. He screamed again and yanked his foot hard. His
trainer slipped off and he ran as fast as he could towards the gate.
Turning briefly to make sure
he wasn’t being followed, he could see a black shadow with a white face emerging
from the ground, pushing itself up. In his rush to find Leon, he had not
processed his last words to him...’they’re coming for you,
Dante.’
With a renewed energy, he ran
across the grass, his sock attaching itself to several twigs making it painful
to run. He made his way to the playground and grabbed a section of the monkey
bars to steady himself as his body swung around towards the park exit. He could
see the gate and the street lamps ahead but now he could feel something above
him. He dared not look straight up but swung his hands over his head to bat away
whatever was there. His hands didn’t touch anything. Whatever was hovering over
him was more like a shadow or chimney smoke. He had to get away.
His right foot was now
bleeding through his sock but there was no time to stop. The gate was just
fifteen feet away but as he got nearer, the blackness above him extended its
ebony fingers towards his face gently stroking his right cheek. The softness of
its touch sent an electric bolt through his entire body.
“Get off me! Help me,
somebody, help me!”
The gate was so close, Dante kept running.
On reaching the gate, he swung it open and as he looked
back into the park he could see the white skeletal face of the shadow figure
standing — watching. Dante held his gaze for a second or two
before taking a deep breath, slamming the gate behind
him and running towards his house. His throat sore and his breathing heavy –
there was no time to scream for help again, he had to get home. He heaved his
backpack more securely onto his shoulders, wishing he could throw it off but
there wasn’t time. His foot was now bleeding badly and the pain was slowing his
pace but he managed to hop the last hundred yards to his front porch.
Once at his house, Dante
briefly looked up before bending forward to catch his breath. The shadow above
him had gone.
“What on earth happened to you
boy?” His grandma asked as she walked onto the porch her hands firmly on her
hips.
“I’m sorry Grandma but Leon
called me. He said he needed me but there was ....I saw....”
“What you
talkin’ about child?”
“Leon said he was sorry but he
had to tell them and he didn’t know where he was.”
Dante’s grandma dropped her shoulders and moved towards
him. “What did he tell them; what did you do?”
“Nothing, it wasn’t me Gran I
was trying to stop Leon but ...” Dante’s eyes filled with tears and his body
began to shudder as he struggled to get his words out.”
His grandma took a few steps back from him, put her
hands on his arm and looked into his eyes. “Did Leon kill that little
boy?”
Dante looked at the floor and wiped his nose on his
sleeve. “He didn’t mean to, they made him do it.”
“Were you there? – Dante!
Were you with Leon?”
Dante slowly lifted his head to look at her but she
didn’t look back at him; she was staring at something just above his
head.
About the author
Wendy has been a Personal Trainer for twenty years but has
always made time for writing; She is currently editing the sequel to her Chick
Lit novel 'Wandering on the Treadmill' and completing her first thriller.
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