Big Bad Read online

  Big Bad

  Copyright © 2019 by Christian Galacar

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, or events used in this book are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, alive or deceased, events or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover Art By Jacoba Niepoort

  E-book design by Maureen Cutajar

  www.gopublished.com

  Print ISBN: 978-1688421448

  For my mother, who gave me nothing

  but good stories.

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE: MOLLY

  1: STORM

  2: SCOTTY AND THE BOYS

  3: RABBIT

  PART TWO: EMMA

  4: SAVANNAH

  Interlude (I) Big Bad: Funerals and Pictures (1988)

  5: ARRIVAL

  6: MAKING FRIENDS

  Interlude (II): Big Bad: The Talking Tree (1988)

  PART THREE: ROCKCLIFFE ISLAND

  7: THE MEMORIAL SERVICE

  8: STOLEN MOMENTS

  9: THE WINTHROPS

  10: NOTHING PERSONAL

  Interlude (III): Big Bad: The Hunter (1989)

  11: THE PIG’S EAR

  12: PHOTOGRAPHS

  13: OUTSIDE HELP

  Interlude (IV): Big Bad: The Loam Heap (1989)

  14: COWS

  15: GASLIGHTING

  16: PELKEY FISHING COMPANY

  17: YELLOW PLACE

  18: ONE MONTH LATER

  About the Author

  Other Works

  One Last Thing

  PART ONE

  _________________

  MOLLY

  CHAPTER ONE

  STORM

  1

  Molly Rifkin and her nine-year-old son, Ben, crossed the Grocer Go parking lot beneath a low winter sky as the snow began to fall. Ben had his face angled up to the sky, tongue pushed out of his gaped mouth, trying to catch the small flakes as his mother dragged him along by the hand in fits and starts.

  “I got one, Mom!” he yelled, stopping again. He tried to wander away, tongue outstretched, chasing another.

  “Come on. Knock it off.” Molly tugged him back toward her.

  His arm yanked in its socket, stopping him short, like a dog finding the end of its leash. He reeled in his tongue, his face threatening to pout. “Hey, I woulda got that one.”

  Molly gave another light tug. “Benji, come on. Let’s go. You can play when we get home.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. Now’s not the time. There won’t be anything left on the shelves but black olives and Velveeta cheese if you keep it up.”

  “I hate olives.”

  “Do you? I had no idea,” Molly said, and grinned.

  He fell in step with her, slouching as the excitement went out of him. “I’m thirsty.”

  “We’ll get you a drink inside. I’ll buy you a Yoo-hoo.”

  White panic burst in her mind. Her talk of buying something had summoned it. She slowed, looking into her purse to make sure she had her wallet. A quick scan of this morning’s memories did not return any recollections of seeing it, of placing it for sure in her possession. God, if she’d forgotten that at the house she would have to drive all the way back to the other side of the island to get it. She came to a full stop and started digging through the mix of receipts, lipsticks, tissues, packs of gum, and other junk that she didn’t need, making a mental note to clean out her purse when she got home. The storm would be a good opportunity to get a few chores like that done. The sort of chores she always told herself she would do later.

  Well, Molly, she thought, today might just be a perfect later.

  Her heart fluttered when she saw the newspaper photograph, the one she had cut out of the local paper six weeks ago. The photograph that had turned her world on its head and brought up things she’d thought long gone. It was folded and tucked carefully in one of the internal side pockets of her purse. She’d forgotten she’d put it there. When she took it out and looked at it, snow started to leave dark spots on the paper.

  “What is that, Mom? Let me see.” Ben started swinging her arm back and forth impatiently, twisting from side to side at the waist like a whirling dervish.

  “Hold on a sec,” she said, distracted. She folded the clipping, stuffed it in her pocket, and continued to search for her wallet.

  “I’m thirsty,” he repeated.

  Too deep into her self-loathing, she didn’t answer. Why am I such a scatterbrain? Why, why, why? How hard is it to remember where you put your damn wallet?

  Ben swung his mother’s arm harder. “Mom. Listen to me-eee.” He paused but continued swinging and twisting. “Mooom!”

  At last Molly found her wallet at the bottom of her purse. It always amazed her how long it could keep itself hidden in such a small space, how certain she could be that it wasn’t there when deep down she knew it had to be. What amazed her even more was the frequency with which she lost things. Dr. Alder, her therapist, had taught her to stop telling herself by default that she’d “lost” something when she couldn’t find it. Instead she should tell herself it was simply “temporarily misplaced,” and it would turn up if she just took a breath and counted to ten. It usually did.

  “All right, we’re good,” she said.

  Ben huffed, then began to lodge another complaint with his mother: “Mo—”

  “What, what, what? I heard you, Benji. We need money, don’t we?” Molly said, readjusting the purse on her shoulder. “They’re not going to give us anything for free.”

  Three short honks of a car horn blasted behind them, turning both their heads. A smiling, bearded face leaned out the driver-side window of the yellow plow-strapped pickup truck. “Move it or lose it, you two! I got places to be!” The man laughed, showing a mouthful of bright white teeth. Beside him on the seat sat a stout corgi with orange-and-white fur.

  Molly smiled back, shaking her head. She and Ben reversed direction toward the truck. “Hi, Mike.”

  “Hey, Mol,” Mike said, his eyes drifting down to Ben. “Hey, Benji boy.”

  “Hi,” Ben said shyly, pressing himself against his mother’s side and hiding half his face in her coat.

  “Benji, you remember Mr. Harrow, don’t you?” Molly put her hand on her son’s back.

  Ben nodded. “The firewood guy.”

  Mike laughed, adjusting the old, grease-spotted John Deere hat that sat atop his tangle of brown hair. He was in his early forties, good-looking in a rugged way, with leather-tough skin that seemed to stay tan no matter the season. “That’s right, the firewood guy.” He glanced around the parking lot and pointed at the sky. “Looks like I’m gonna be the plow guy soon too. News is saying it’ll be one heck of a storm.” With his Yankee accent, the last word came out stawm.

  “Last I heard, ten inches by tomorrow morning,” Molly said. “I’d say bad but not terrible.”

  Mike curled his hand into a loose fist and made the universal sign for “more” by cocking his thumb skyward a few times. “The radio just pushed it to a foot and a half. Now they think the storm’s gonna stall off the coast and really wallop us good. Boston and Cape Ann are expecting at least two feet… maybe more. This’ll be a good one for sure.”

  “Nothing we haven’t seen a hundred times before,” Molly said.

  “We? Since when are you a local? That right’s gotta be earned.”

  “Ten years doesn’t get me anything?”

  “Not even close.” Mike laughed.

  “Two feet, huh?” Molly said. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Whateve
r supplies you were thinking about getting, I’d double it.” Mike glanced at Ben. “You know what I’m gonna be when this is all over, Benji?”

  Ben shook his head.

  “The tired guy,” Mike said, and laughed.

  Ben smiled, peeling himself away from his mother’s side.

  “They cancel school yet?” Mike asked.

  “No,” Ben said, looking at the ground. A surge of hope lifted his gaze. “Mom thinks they will soon, though. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

  “They will. I’d bet this old boy on it.” Mike dropped his arm out of the window and patted the door panel twice, his fingers drumming the H of HARROW’S TREE SERVICE, which was stenciled across the door in an arch of green lettering. “Anyway, I’ll let you get to it, Mol. Won’t be nothing left inside if I keep the two of you much longer. Half of Rockcliffe’s already in there buying up everything but the flooring. Folks got themselves big ideas about this one. You’d think they’d never seen snow before.”

  Molly laughed. “Same thing every year. First big one always gets people excited.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s the truth. Take care, now.”

  “Bye, Mike,” she said.

  “Bye, Mike,” Ben repeated.

  “Stay warm. You don’t want your ears to fall off. I’ve seen it happen, yessir.” Mike winked at Ben, laughing as he rolled up the window. He drove away from them, paused at the intersection, then went right and headed out of the shopping plaza, the bed of his truck piled high with sand that was starting to turn pale from a light dusting of snow.

  “Come on, Critter. Let’s get a move on,” Molly said. “Heavy stuff’s coming soon.”

  They still had time, though. According to Channel 7’s lead weatherman, Pete Ambrose, the main body of the nor’easter wouldn’t arrive until late afternoon—around five or six o’clock—which still put it a few hours out. This was an old routine for Molly—for anyone who lived in New England, really. When a winter storm rolled on through, folks did the same old song and dance of preparation they always did. They gassed up their snow blowers, brought in firewood to stack beside the woodstove, set the television to their preferred news station to stay abreast of storm coverage, then headed to the store to stock up on rock salt, shovels, essential groceries—bread, milk, eggs, bottled water—and, of course, plenty of booze.

  The shovels always confused Molly but only when she thought about them in that obsessive way she sometimes thought about things. It wasn’t why a person would need a shovel—that was pretty obvious—but rather how every year the Grocer Go and True Value Hardware sold so many of the damn things without the demand ever seeming to slip. It happened the same way every season: come early November, both stores lined their front sidewalks with dozens, if not hundreds, of shovels—a wide variety of plastic shafts, wooden shafts, and aluminum ergonomic designs meant to spare aching backs—and every year they sold out by mid-January. Molly never understood how. Where the hell were they all going? She and Jack had purchased two cheap ones from True Value when they bought their house eight years ago, and they still had both. Only twenty-five hundred people lived on Rockcliffe Island, but she supposed being ten miles out in the middle of the Atlantic did make them a little more susceptible to that wet brand of snow that was notorious for breaking backs, giving out-of-shape men heart attacks, and snapping shovels if you weren’t careful.

  “Mom! Don’t call me that.” Ben sighed, then threw his head back dramatically, the red pom-pom of his winter hat whipping through the air.

  Molly dropped her hand on her son’s shoulder, then reached farther down and tickled his side as they began to walk again. “What? You are my crispy little critter.”

  Ben picked up laughing as his mother’s fingers dug into his ribs and played them with the expert skill of a concert pianist.

  “Crispy critter, crispy critter,” she repeated.

  Ben continued to laugh as they made their way across the parking lot to the automatic double doors of the Grocer Go. It was January 24, 2016, and it was the last day of Molly Rifkin’s life.

  2

  Snowstorms in New England are funny things. It’s not so much that people hate them—although most wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to tell you they do, and how much they do—but rather that locals love to hate them. Nothing pleases them more than to gather at the backs of pickup trucks, in parking lots, or in front of the pharmacy or the grocery store or on sidewalks, a cup of coffee in hand, gossiping about how bad the latest inbound snowstorm is sure to be; talking about how many inches are headed for them and how they can’t wait for the summer to hurry up and get here already, because they’re sick of all the snow and the cold; and every year it’s more of the rotten same, wouldn’t you know, and they just can’t take it anymore, and this is their last winter in this godforsaken frozen hellscape—and just what in the hell is a polar vortex, anyway?

  But underneath this ingrained narrative of weatherly woe resides the true heart of a New Englander—a big nostalgic soft spot for the white stuff, endeared from youth with memories of snow days, sled rides, and hot cocoa. New Englanders hate the snow in the same way everyone hates that one annoying childhood friend who, no matter how many times he or she has pushed your buttons, you’re still a little excited to see when they show up at your doorstep, ready to shake up the stale routine for a little while and turn things interesting.

  3

  Chaos greeted them inside the store. Only two shopping carts remained in the caddy near the entrance. Ben’s mother grabbed the one without the crooked wheel.

  “Mike wasn’t kidding,” she said, taking a straight path toward the crowd gathered at the meat counter. “Come on. Don’t wander off.”

  Ben trailed closely behind her, his head on a swivel, eyes wide. He had never seen the place picked so clean. It didn’t look real. A silver flash of undefinable fright needled his gut. He didn’t know why the scene made him uncomfortable, but something about it did. The produce shelves were empty down to the green matting: a stray scarred eggplant or a dented squash here and there, some scraps of withered lettuce leaf. The little island by the seafood counter on which onions and potatoes were usually piled high was now nothing but an empty bin of dried husks. People were grabbing whatever they could and dropping it into overflowing carts. If he had known the word, Ben might have thought the crowd looked desperate. And if he had been a little older, he might have understood that this desperation he sensed was the source of his unnamed disquiet. Because desperate people were dangerous people. He didn’t know this as knowledge, but he felt it as truth.

  “Mom, there’s nothing left,” he said, worry bleeding into his tone.

  “Keep up, Critter.” His mother continued across the crowded store without looking back at him, skillfully maneuvering the cart through the hordes of panicked shoppers like a race car driver working toward the head of the pack.

  A moment later they reached the butchery line and came to a halt.

  “Wait here a sec. Don’t let anyone steal our cart.” She shouldered her way to the counter and pulled a number from the little spool. Overhead, the Now Serving sign read 30.

  “What number did you get?” Ben asked when his mother returned.

  She flicked the ticket against her palm twice, then folded it in half. “Forty-three. But it’ll go fast. They’ve got a few people back there today.”

  Ben, waist-high in a world full of adults, could see through the forest of legs and heavy winter coats in front of him to the foggy display case. It wasn’t completely empty, but it sure seemed to be getting close. A stack of whole chickens lined the far-right side, and beside that was an even smaller selection of beef roasts. He didn’t know what type they were, but people were buying them up quickly. He recognized it as something his mother had cooked before, and he knew that it smelled good and tasted even better: definitely better than chicken, which wasn’t his favorite.

  Rind rib, he thought. It’s something like that. Maybe pine rib? He couldn’t remember.


  Ben glanced up at his mother. A preoccupied expression had possessed her face as she slowly pinched and rolled her bottom lip, staring vacantly across the store. He could tell something was the matter. He poked her leg with his finger, calling her eyes to him. “Mom, there’s not going to be anything left.”

  She let go of her lip and smiled at him. The warmth of it loosened the anxious rope lassoed around his stomach. “It’s going to be fine, Critter. We’ll get something tasty for dinner. Don’t worry your handsome little face. It’s just a snowstorm, not the end of the world.”

  “But what if they run out? Forty-three is sooo far away.” He threw his head back, slumped his shoulders, and huffed.

  His mother rubbed the top of his head, then slapped the pom-pom on his hat to the side. “You’re too young to worry so much. Everything will be fine. We have stuff in the freezer at home, too, if it comes to that. It’s not like anyone’s going to starve.”

  A moment of silence settled between them, and her concentration drifted away again. She looked over her shoulder and began to stare at something—maybe someone—but Ben couldn’t see what or whom. Her hand went back to her bottom lip and began to pinch and roll it again.

  “Mom, what’re you looking at?” She didn’t hear him. Or if she did, she didn’t acknowledge him. “Mom?”

  This time she looked back at him and unfolded her arms. “What? Huh?”

  “Nothing,” Ben said, and started swinging his arms slowly from side to side, dropping his gaze to the floor.

  “Why don’t you do us a favor, Critter? A big-boy favor.” She tickled his shoulder.

  “What?” he said, suspicious.

  “Why don’t you go get the bread and the milk before those are gone too. Okay? That way we can have peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and Yoo-hoos for lunch when we get home. Sound good?”

  “There’s probably nothing left.”

  “You won’t know if you don’t go check,” his mother said. “Go on, now, I’ll be here. You know where everything is?”

  “Yes,” he said, and sighed.

  “Okay. Go on, then.” She smiled at him.