Taste: Terraway, #1

1

FREDDY KRUEGER, BUGS AND WOLVES

Ollie’s laugh was a welcome sound, warming my heart as my brother’s familiar cadence reached me through my cell phone. What if I give you a million dollars? Will that get me out of meeting Bev’s new boyfriend?

"Not even if you offered ten million, I replied with a smile on my face. I loved it when my brother laughed. Had you said you’d buy me a pack of gum, I’d have let you out of meeting the man who could turn out to be your future stepfather, no problem."

Ollie let out a dramatic groan, sounding eight years younger than me, even though he was really eight years older. Don’t say ‘stepfather’. You know he won’t last. They never do.

That doesn’t sound like ideal stepson talk, I scolded, pretending to be the adult, so at least there was one present for this conversation. This is important to Bev, so be a good son for her. Try to be pleasant.

Ollie sighed, and I could picture his hazel eyes that matched mine rolling back at the very notion he should be seen as a son to our mama. Yeah, fine. I’ll bring my best fake smile and I’ll even say nice things to him like, ‘Please, do tell me about your criminal record,’ ‘Wow, you still have some of your own teeth’, and ‘How fascinating you don’t have a job. Think of all the free time!’

A chuckle escaped before I could suppress it. Then the deeply programmed guilt rippled over me that rose up whenever we poked fun at Bev’s expense. Be nice, now.

I’m only coming to hang with you. How about I skip the new guy meet and greet, and just catch you after?

My tone turned southern and bossy as I tucked a stray auburn curl behind my ear, using my knee to steer the car. Oliver James, if you ditch me, I’m pretty much going to crazy murder you. You haven’t seen Bev in years. Bite the bullet.

I could hear the fondness in my older brother’s voice. Ah, but you’re the good child. The blessed child. October Grace: the daughter who stayed in Georgia to look after our psychotic mama. You know very well you should’ve moved away, like Allie and I did. He paused for a beat at the mention of our estranged sister, but then sniggered at my threat. ‘Crazy murder’? Well, I should hope you don’t opt for a regular, run-of-the-mill offing. I’d at least like my death to make the front page.

I scoffed good-naturedly. What are you, the mayor? If you want the front page, I’ll have to break out the fancy tools.

I spotted a large abomination of dust on the dashboard. I’d just detailed Terence, my Taurus, but there the dust sat, mocking me and throwing up a middle finger that it wouldn’t be banished. I swiped it away, wishing again that all the dirt and dust in the universe would just stay out of my car, my house and my world. I mean, is that too much to ask?

I don’t want to go to this thing, Ollie whined.

Ditch me, and you’ll regret it. I know all the good places to dump a body if you leave me to go meet New Boyfriend alone.

He let out an audible shudder. You creep me out when you say stuff like that, because I know it’s true.

I gave Ollie my best evil villain chortle. "I was thinking we should have a Nightmare on Elm Street marathon when you come into town next week. All Freddy, all night. Sleep with one eye open, if you dare."

"I’m just happy you’re willing to entertain a movie marathon that doesn’t star Bruce Campbell. I can only watch him in Evil Dead so many times."

Do you have a problem with my first love?

"No, I have a problem watching Evil Dead for the hundred millionth time. He cleared his throat, and I could tell he was gearing up to say something he was reluctant to voice. I’m staying at Gabby’s the first night I come into town, and maybe the night after, too. Freddy Krueger will have to wait."

I whispered in my creepy witch voice, Freddy waits for no one! I shook my head at my brother’s old habits. You’re back with Gabby? Do I need to tell you that you’re a masochist? How many times are you going to get together and break up with her?

I dunno. Maybe ten?

My attention was distracted when something black skittered across my dashboard, drawing my eye, and making my spine tingle. What the… I scratched the back of my hand and grabbed a wipe from the package I kept in my glovebox. Still steering with my knee, I smashed the trespassing ant, keeping an eye on the road as best I could. The trees and grass that dotted the side of the road would have been a much better home than my car. Poor ant didn’t have a clue. I longed to wash my hands, but suppressed the urge as best I could.

What’s wrong? Ollie inquired, noting my diverted attention.

A bug in my car, right after some dust on my dashboard. I just detailed it, too.

Ollie’s pause was not unexpected, nor was the parental mode he slipped into without missing a beat. You alright?

I’m fine, just annoyed. It’s like, one of the two places I like to keep clean.

My brother’s response was quiet and controlled. Life is messy, October, and that’s okay.

I sighed at the mantra he’d drilled into my head, wishing that one day I’d get to a point where I didn’t still need to hear it. I was about to concede that he was right, that dust and one single ant was nothing to be concerned with, but my hackles rose when a line of ants marched out from under the passenger’s seat. They traipsed up the console just to stare at me, repeating the speedy path of the damned onto my dashboard, drawing my focus.

They stared at me, paused between my steering wheel and the odometer, studying me with their beady little eyes that had intention. Bev’s trailer was always filled with a wide variety of bugs and critters, but these ants had marched with purpose in my direction.

I let out a noise of distress when a row of cockroaches followed behind, facing me on the dash to make up a second row of gawkers. What the…

What’s up, kiddo?

I tried to keep my eyes on the road, the city giving way to thicker smatterings of trees that dotted the landscape. The cockroaches were starting to freak me out, not because I was scared of them, but because cockroaches were naturally afraid of daylight, and these guys were out on their own free will in the late morning sun that shone through my windshield. Weird.

I needed to scratch the back of my hand, but gripped the steering wheel tight and clutched my cell phone to keep myself from slipping into bad habits. When a small army of furry, black caterpillars inched out from under the passenger’s seat and climbed up the dash by the dozens, I let out a shriek, sweat breaking out on my forehead. They looked like a line of mobile Groucho Marx eyebrows, moving unapologetically into my view. Gross! Get out! I kept a steady hand on the steering wheel, willing myself not to lose control of the car. I tried not to think about what kind of filth I must’ve somehow missed that had attracted these creatures to me in droves.

October? Hey, what’s wrong?

I… My car is dirty! I screeched, not ready to admit to my brother that I was so filthy, apparently, that the car I’d tried to keep immaculately clean was now infested with bugs that inched closer to me, like I was their target. I could practically feel them crawling on my skin, so I scraped at my arms again, hoping to alleviate some of the tension that was building to blow the top off my stress volcano. Ollie!

Ollie’s voice tried to calm me through what he probably assumed was a freak-out over a few dust bunnies. Life is messy, and that’s okay, he repeated. After this stupid dinner next week, I’ll clean your car myself. You’ll see. We’ll get all the dust out, and it’ll be good as new. I’m here, kiddo.

That would’ve been comforting, but a rattling noise sounded in the front of my car, making me even more apprehensive. My car was perfect. It was supposed to be perfect. It was only a year old, and I took meticulous care of it. What could possibly be wrong with the engine?

I let out a horror movie-style scream and dropped the phone when a zillion tiny white moths flooded the interior of the car through the vents. They pelted my skin and fluttered their germ-filled wings in my ears. I let my foot off the gas, swerving in and out of oncoming traffic as I tried to get a grip on my panic. My heart pounded in my chest as a flash of my body, fresh from a car wreck, surfaced in my imagination. They’d haul my carcass out of the bug-infested wreckage, no doubt disgusted to see someone driving with a car that was overloaded with insects. I was filthy, as I’d always suspected, and tried so hard not to be. My brother would come to collect my bug-spattered body, wondering how it all went so wrong.

Air was suddenly difficult to suck through my lungs. I needed to find a safe place to pull over, but the moths were in my face. I thought it couldn’t get any worse, until something slimy slithered up my pant leg. I shrieked and kicked my right foot without thinking, slamming on the gas by accident. The moths began to flutter around the car, giving me a glimpse of the road I was swerving down more precariously than Evil Knievel had a right to.

I hadn’t seen the half-naked, brown-skinned, mid-thirties dude standing in the middle of the road next to a gray wolf.

Like, a legit wolf.

My brain processed things in the wrong order when I caught sight of what looked like hundreds of fat worms crawling all over the man’s muddy skin. My foot scrambled for the brake, stomping down too late, I was certain. Without meaning to, I screamed and shut my eyes like a baby, praying I didn’t hit the guy and fling his bug-riddled body into a swift death.

I braced myself for the crash, but it never came.

When Terence the Taurus screeched to a halt, it took a solid three seconds before I could open my eyes to take in what damage I’d done. Quick as I could, I pulled off to the side with shaking fingers and a scared whimper, grateful the road was fairly deserted at this time of day.

I scrambled out of my car and crashed through the green and brown bramble that lined the roadside, leaving the door wide open to escape the bug-stuffed vehicle. It was either that I permitted the bugs to infest me or that I let the wolf eat me, and I was too turned around to make anything like an educated decision. I had to locate the dude I’d almost hit and make sure he was okay. Before I could turn my head to the street, I closed my mouth through a terrified scream when bugs poured out of my car, flying and scurrying toward the open road. The cloud of insects dissipated out into the sparse bits of nature behind me and across the street. The creepy-crawly army was now cloaked behind trees and a few knee-high bushes.

The dude was gone. I mean, simply vanished, as was the wolf. They’d been in the middle of the road, plain as day, but looking around now, they were nowhere. The man’s brown skin, tall physique and broad, naked shoulders should have been easy to pick out, especially factoring in that he’d been covered in streaks of mud and worms. And how exactly was a large gray wolf supposed to up and disappear, like some kind of twisted magic trick? They were gone. I mean, just utterly nowhere.

I clawed at the backs of my hands as my anxiety hit a new level. My perfect car had been polluted so horribly, and I almost killed someone in the mess of it all. I sunk to my knees, hugged my middle and rocked myself on the side of the road. I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy, I chanted over and over to myself. The fear that I was insane was never all that far off, but hallucinations were a new one. Usually it was only my OCD that kept me dosed with a healthy fear of being hauled away if it all got to be too much.

If I got to be too much.

I took my sweet time calming myself down. I focused on steadying my breaths and summoning up all the mantras my brother and sister had drilled into my head over the years. They’d done everything so I wouldn’t be the crazy girl, rocking herself on the side of the road. I didn’t have it in me to tell them they might’ve failed.

When it dawned on me that there was a wolf roaming about, my trembling legs finally found their way back into my car. I looked around, noticing with surprise that the interior was shockingly clean. There was no trace of the insect invasion anywhere. I knew my meds didn’t have anything resembling a hallucinatory side effect on the warning label, but the whole ordeal was so confusing; I was starting to wonder how much of my spluttering brain was firing correctly.

October!

I scrambled to retrieve my phone, wiping it down first so the floor germs didn’t attack my face when I pressed the device to my cheek. I didn’t know how long my brother had been calling for me. Ollie?

What happened? he thundered, fear controlling his oft-swinging temper.

My eyes darted to the road nervously, as if I was hiding a dime bag under my seat. I didn’t want the world to know I was dirty, that bugs had crawled in my car. I, um, I saw a bug. A few bugs, actually. I swallowed, not wanting my brother, of all people, to think I was filthy. I dropped the phone because I had to slam on the brakes real quick. Something was in the road. Or someone.

Ollie calmed with my explanation. You scared me. Are you alright?

I think so. My voice came out pinched as I worked out the next words I couldn’t keep from spilling out of me. I don’t want you to ever send me to a mental hospital, Ollie. Promise me.

My brother’s reply came out slow and practiced. You know I would never send you away. If you feel yourself tipping over the edge, I’ll come get you, and you’ll stay in New York with me. Nowhere safer. Then we can be crazy together.

I breathed a gust of relief that the world was still spinning on its usual axis. There were no more bugs, no one who was almost murdered by my mid-motor freak-out, and my brother was coming home next week for a visit. Everything would be alright. I had plenty of sanitizer in my glovebox to clean up the mess I’d managed to escape. Okay. Thank you. I think I’m alright now.

Ollie was patient with me, and never condescending. October, your car is clean. You don’t need to worry about a little dust and a couple of ants.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and let out a steady exhale. You’re right. Tell me you’ll be there for Bev’s special dinner next week.

I could hear the softness that only came when Ollie smiled. Are you kidding? You’re my favorite person. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

2

BEV’S SPECIAL THINGS

October Grace, could you stop being useless, and pass me that clip? Bev looked at herself in the sliver of mirror that was visible through the mountains of clutter. There was a coat hanging on the edge of the broken profile-length glass, and a pink hat with a coffee-stained, crumpled flower on the brim that had seen better days. Something had nested in the brim, and left a brown trail behind as a sweet, sweet memory of what the hat could’ve been.

I looked around my mama’s mobile home for the clip she wanted with the practiced patience of the dutiful daughter I was. If there was a superhero outfit for shutting up and smiling, I would have it in five different colors, with a cape or something, so everyone would know of my shutting up powers without me having to say a word. Some people were good at weightlifting; I was good at smiling through the discomfort.

Which clip do you want, Bev? They’re all so pretty. It wasn’t easy to find a clip in the chaos. Each one that littered the thigh-high pile to the left of the door in Bev’s bedroom was in a state of disrepair, or had been covered in some sort of animal mess. I kept my fingers tight inside my hospital gloves, my face composed through my internal wince. Nasty as she might turn, I just couldn’t let Bev put rat feces in her hair, no matter how pretty her clips were once brushed clean.

Most nurses didn’t feel the need to have their own box of rubber gloves to carry around in their car, but most nurses didn’t have a mama like Bev.

Bev teased her thin blonde bangs so they had a little life in them. The rest of her hair had endured a good brush-through at the insistence of her comb that was missing about nine teeth. She held out her hand expectantly to me without moving her gaze from the mirror. Grab me something pink. There’s a rose-ish one with pearls I was looking for the other day. Can you find it?

I gave a good representation of searching for the accessory. I breathed through my mouth to avoid the sharp sting of ammonia that permeated my pores from all the rodent and feral cat excrement. I looked toward the mountain of clothing that stretched to the ceiling. To the left of it was the pile of torn and ratted towels that were precariously perched atop a busted record player Bev had sworn that she was just about to fix ever since I was a kid. I fished through the sea of garbage at my feet that climbed up to my thighs in spots.

I reached past the doorstopper that was actually just a large white rock. The rock was older than I was, but it still lit up when I touched it. Bev could never get it to light up, but swore it was still a good doorstopper. Try getting her to put the doorstop outside with the other rocks, and she’d throw the biggest Southern Belle fit you’d ever seen. So the light-up white rock with jagged edges stayed put in the doorway of trash. Well, to me and everyone else in the world it was garbage; to Bev it was all her special things.

I had an affinity for lavender-scented antibacterial hand sanitizer, so to each her own, I guess.

I cast around the larvae-infested area that had her discarded yogurt containers. No, I don’t see your rose clip. How about this one? It would look pretty with your shirt. I lifted a gray clip from the mess, swallowing my creeping anxiety at the maggots that squiggled and squirmed when my gloved hand swept near them. I knew how to approach the wildlife that had taken up residence in Bev’s singlewide mobile home. Give them a good warning, and they scattered for fear of being taken away from their golden opportunity. No one tried to kill them here. No one bothered. For each cockroach, maggot or spider exterminated, there were hundreds more to take their place. It was the best life ever for them. Not so much for humans.

I made the mistake of drawing in a breath through my nose and winced. It wasn’t the stench – which was abominable, make no mistake. The thing that stung me were the memories that swirled up inside of me like vomit. Every can of rotting tuna, cat food container, aerosol can and broken bathroom fixture swelled together to sing me its symphony of neglect.

Pungent neglect smelled like childhood, and I wanted no part of that.

I exhaled out the stink my memories clung to before I was paralyzed by the mental image of my four-year-old self in the refuse. Ollie and Allie had waded through the chaos to play hide-and-go-seek with me when I was little, and they pretended to be young for my sake. My older brother and sister, I loved. But Bev and the ammonia that rotted my soul and turned my stomach? Not so much.

I sucked down the sour memories and reached for Ollie’s mantra that never failed me: keep your chin up, take it slow. This was second only to the ever-helpful: life is messy, and that’s okay. That was enough to keep me rooted in the waste, not abandoning Bev to her devices, as Ollie and Allie had done long ago. If I were a manipulative hoarder, I would need someone to not ditch me. I would want someone who knew my secrets but didn’t run. I couldn’t control Bev, but I could control myself. I had to live with myself every day, and I knew I couldn’t do that if I turned my back on my mama, mentally ill as she was.

Today the cockroaches weren’t prone to scatter. Instead, they inched toward me, like they were listening in on our boring talk. There were two neat little rows of them watching me, just as they had been doing last week in my car. I’d tried to write that off as a bad daydream, but here it was, happening all over again. My head whipped around in paranoia to check for a row of ants or eyebrow-looking caterpillars, but there weren’t any in sight. The cockroaches barely fidgeted in the normal insect way, but instead stood still, like watchful little soldiers waiting for me to do or say something interesting.

These cockroaches weren’t afraid of the bare bulb that shone overhead. For some reason, that little tidbit made a whimper catch in my throat. Usually they scattered like cockroaches are supposed to from any kind of illumination, but these ones, like the bugs last week, seemed sentient, controlled somehow.

Cinderella got birds that braided her hair. I apparently got cockroaches watching my every move. I rock.

My body wanted to shiver at the disgust coursing through me, but my brain had suppressed the need for that particular release. It had been too many years. The carpet in Bev’s room had been a dusty rose color once upon a time, but now was a squishy brown underneath the piles of things, trash, newspapers and animal droppings.

Bev stabbed the gray clip into her perfectly poised blonde hair as if she hated her skull and wanted to inflict pain upon it. She tilted her head and admired her colorful and precise makeup job in the smudgy mirror. She wore her usual Barbie pink eyeshadow, bright pink lipstick on thin lips, and complimented the look by applying thick, black mascara to convince herself she had long eyelashes, like Allie and I had gotten, but she’d never had. I don’t know how she always managed to look so put together, when she could barely see her reflection. Wow, you’re right. That does look pretty. I’ll have to find that pink pearl one, though. If you see it, let me know.

Will do.

Her voice turned sharp, as she tended to do on a dime. Don’t steal it, now.

I chewed on the correction I’d never needed from her. Of course not, Bev. No one’s going to steal your special things. Can we go? I had someone to see, and every minute spent waiting in the mess felt like twenty minutes wasted.

Now, now. Hush up, October Grace. Your brother’s traveled all the way from New York to see us. He ain’t going nowhere. She adjusted her pants that I still couldn’t believe were stark white without noticeable stains on them. In fact, for staying away for three years, let’s say we make Ollie wait another fifteen minutes.

The stubbornness was already starting. I knew it would. There was too much baggage to be discreetly shoved under the rug. Not that there was a rug visible, or that another piece of crap could fit in the mobile home, but you get the picture. Ollie’s already on his way there, so we’ve got to get going. I’d been standing in the one clear space that was exactly large enough for one twenty-two-year-old woman, if she kept her arms at her sides and didn’t move much. I feared the massacre a sneeze could do. In fact, I feared breathing at all, but gave in to the hazardous habit with a grudging grimace.

A line of ants skittered across my black sneakers. Someone new to the dysfunction might have made the rookie mistake of shuddering, and thus, would bring more rubble down upon her head. I knew to let the ants pass as I choked down a whine. I had tucked my jeans into my socks, so I knew the damage was only psychological.

Luckily, I’d been bred for enduring psychological damage. It was one of my many superpowers.

Today, much like the cockroaches, the ants stopped their progression, formed two rows, and paused to stare at me, as the ones in the car had done. There wasn’t accusation at me being associated with the clutter. They merely looked at me with curiosity, as if studying my mental state.

I was personifying insects, so I guessed my mental state wasn’t all that great. I had a good many patients at the prison I worked at who saw things that weren’t real, but as I looked down at the ants tilting their miniature heads up at me, I knew I wasn’t imagining things. Finally they seemed to confer with each other about something and went on their merry way to the never-ending pile of garbage for their day’s feast. One woman’s trash is an army of ants’ treasure.

I wondered, not for the first time, if my doses of crazy were from my father’s genetics – whoever and wherever he was.

I can’t stand that he’s meeting us there and we have to drive ourselves the whole way. Bev spoke the word drive like it’d been rude to her. I started to worry that our long-awaited reunion would devolve into the cattiness that usually exploded once Bev decided she had good reason to be offended. It was that stellar Southern pride that she wore like a County State Fair blue ribbon on her chest. Her self-importance always managed to annihilate even the most perfect days. I don’t know why your brother doesn’t come here. I mean, this was his home, too.

I knew better than to answer the obvious. Bev didn’t see the chaos; she only saw a sea of treasures. Growing up with next to nothing made Beverly Jo Reese that much fonder of the things she could now afford on her meager salary as a receptionist for the smallest real estate office in northern Georgia.

I don’t know, I lied. But Ollie hasn’t come to see us in years, so let’s try to get along, okay? Just for one day, Bev.

Okay, that was another lie. Ollie came back at least twice a year to visit me. But Bev didn’t need to know about that. It would only hurt her, and I didn’t want to do that.

When am I not nice? Honey pie, I’ll have you know that Jeanie came out of the bathroom with the back of her skirt tucked into her hose, and I didn’t say a thing. Before I could comment that any friend would’ve told Jeanie to her face instead of talking about it after the fact, I remembered that manners like those were lost on Bev.

Did you leave your change of clothes in your car, honey pie? Bev tore her gaze from her reflection and zeroed in on me. I gulped, understanding a cornered animal’s urge to bolt by any means necessary. Well, go ahead and get changed, October Grace. I’ll wait.

I looked down past my unzipped lavender hoodie to my I heart Pee-Wee Herman blue fitted t-shirt. I’d worn the jeans without holes in the knees in anticipation of not being at the prison, stitching up inmates for a whole weekend. There was really no point in having pretty nails or fancy hairstyles, pulling the hours I normally did. Since I had very little life, I worked ten-hour shifts six days a week. Or maybe that was why I had very little life. I couldn’t decide which was the chicken and which was the egg at this point. The job kept me occupied, and more than paid the few bills I acquired. However, I had precious little need for nice clothing, so I wore what I liked in the few moments not clad in blue hospital scrubs. I’m already dressed, Bev. This is what I’m wearing.

Bev wrinkled her