Chapter One
He lay on his cousin's couch in his cousin's house under his cousin's old, unwanted bedsheets, watching his cousin's living room ceiling fan spin round and round, squeaking and shaking precariously all the while. The repetitive way-oo, way-oo drove him mad, stirring his already-dark thoughts. It had been doing so for a year and half now, ever since he'd moved here from Longstead.
Longstead: what a town. It would always be his favorite. His dad lived there. His wife lived there. All his friends lived there. His mother had lived there, until she hung herself in the kitchen and wound up buried in the Longstead cemetery soon after. It seemed like she was the only one who had ever hated Longstead. The city had changed without her around. Buck had changed without her around.
Buck tried closing his eyes. Maybe that would shake away old skeletons. But tonight was like any other night, and it was another hour before he actually drifted off. Finally at peace, a dream started forming, light blue against the black of his eyelids. The dream started swirling, started spreading, up until the phone rang.
Buck blinked in the night. Above him, the ceiling fan creaked and whined. He took a deep breath and kicked off his covers, heading in his boxers for the kitchen phone.
"Fletcher residence. Who's calling?" Buck said politely, albeit wearily, into the receiver. He had practiced this greeting frequently; Niles Fletcher was almost always out at his auto shop and was therefore unable to take any calls at the homestead.
"Buck?" came the shaking soprano of a woman. "Is that your voice I hear? This is Stacey. Stacey McDonald."
"Well, hi, Stacey," said Buck, surprised he was hearing from this piece of work. Stacey McDonald had been an impressionable, feisty young creature the last time he'd seen her, always falling for the wrong kind of man and never complaining once about it. "What're you calling for?"
Stacey didn't answer for a long moment. The phone hissed a faint static into Buck's ear until he finally heard the lady squeak, "Your father's had a heart attack. He's in the hospital, and I thought you and Niles would like to know about it. They say he's doin'...poorly. Might have another one any time. He's been in bad condition for a few years and never said anything. It's...it's just terrible. I'm really sorry 'bout this." Suddenly, Buck heard the sound of tears.
The news hit him like a bratty kid with a baseball bat and nothing else to do but terrorize the "old folks." Little Remy Hearting had been like that. Remy Hearting had been fifteen years old when Buck had left Longstead. Buck wondered what the kid might look like now.
"Buck? Buck, you hear me? I don' wanna repeat it, really, but--"
"Yeah, I heard you," said the man in the kitchen in his boxers in the middle of the night. "Thanks for callin', Stacey."
"You gonna be okay?" the lady asked, but by then, Buck had already hung up the phone.
The man shuffled half-blindly down the hallway of his cousin's tiny old house, feeling for the doors on the way. When he reached Niles' bedroom, he turned the doorknob slowly and creeped inside to sit on the edge of Niles' mattress. The springs creaked like the ceiling in the living room, and Niles woke with a start.
"Buck? Buck, what the hell are you--?"
"Dad's in the hospital."
Niles took a moment. His brow wrinkled and his jaw hung like his was a dumb animal; then he said, "Well, what the fuck's he doin' there for?"
"Had a heart attack. Stacey just called."
"Stacey McDonald?"
"The very same," Buck replied, staring through the dark at his cousin's only moonlit wall, the wall covered in old family photos from Longstead. There was even a snapshot of Rich Donahue, the man of the hour himself, holding up a fish three times the size of anything Buck had caught that day while out on the lake with him.
Niles scratched his sleepy head. "Well, what the fuck's she doin' with my number, callin' about your daddy at...whatever it is in the morning?"
"She prob'lly got it from Jeanie," Buck answered, staring into the eyes of the dead fish his father had hooked. "You know they all know each other, all know the numbers."
Niles blinked at his cousin, feeling utter concern for him. "Well, what the fuck is she expectin' us to do?"
"I dunnon," said Buck. "But I know what I want to do. I wanna go see my father in Longstead."
Niles shook his head. That was one thing he could not deal with. "Nuh-uh," he complained. "You're not goin' back to Longstead. It's no good for you."
"It's been a year and a half, Niles," said Buck sternly. "And my pa's in the hospital. I got good reasons for goin' back there."
"But, look. There is nothin' you can do for your daddy, if you go there or not, so just stay where ya are. You'll be all the better for it." Niles tried to tuck himself back into bed, but Buck's weight on the end of the mattress gnawed at the back of his mind.
"I wanna see my dad, Niles. They say it's pretty bad; that I might never see him again if I don't go back soon."
Niles didn't move, but his heart started beating faster. "That bad, huh?" he asked.
"Sounds that way."
After a pause, the cold night air pregnant with deep thought, Niles said, "All right, well...you try and get some more rest tonight an'...an' we'll pack in the mornin' to go visit Longstead. That sound all right with you?"
"Sounds just fine," said Buck from the edge of the bed. He'd sat still there, staring at the pictures for a long, long while.
"Are you gonna be just fine?" said Niles, turning only his head to face his cousin.
Buck nodded weakly. "As fine as I can be nowadays."
"Well, that ain't all that fine."
"But it's the best I got to work with."
Niles sniffed some snot back into his nose and turned his head back to rest against the pillow. "Well, all right, then. Go on and get some rest. Sorry 'bout your daddy. He's a strong man, though; he'll be fine until we get there."
"I have no doubt in my mind about that," said Buck, rising at last. He brushed his hands over his boxers, smoothing them out, then headed for the hallway.
"G'night again, Buck," Niles called after him.
"G'night to you, too, coz."
Buck Donahue felt like a zombie by the time he wormed his way back under his cousin's sheets on his cousin's couch in his cousin's living room. All sense of direction had been stripped from him after that one quick phone call. The whole world had changed again, just like it had when his mother passed. Buck settled down until his cousin's crazy ceiling fan and listened to it way-oo him into a restless sleep.
Longstead: it was just around the corner. Longstead: it was just a few cities away. Longstead: it was always right there with him, in his dreams and in his blood.
