The Hollowed Land Page 4

  "I told my mom." Kip glanced to his right toward his house. Still no sign of his dad. "She, uh, worked it out with my dad."

  "This is going to be a blast. As long as you brought your trunks, we've got everything else."

  "Yeah… yeah, sure, in my backpack."

  "I mean it. Food—dogs, chips, sodas—we got it all."

  "Cool, thanks."

  When they reached the VW, Billy shifted the cooler's handle to one hand and popped the tailgate with the other. Together, they slid the cooler in next to a ratty cardboard box filled with greasy engine parts. The unexpected scent of bubblegum joined the oily smell coming from the box. Someone inside the bus clucked her tongue, and then a girl wearing big heart-shaped sunglasses sat up in the rear seat.

  "Jesus, Billy, I'm trying to sleep." The girl's short golden hair fell in a bob of tight unruly curls. She lifted her glasses and set them on top of her head. Her face was shaped like a heart. She blew a bubble, let it pop, and then, as she worked her lips to gather the splattered gum, she said, "Who's this?"

  "That's Kip. He's new."

  "Last night you said you were bringing Farm Boy," she said to Billy but didn't take her eyes off Kip. Her eyes weren't exactly brown, more of a burnished bronze. She was unsettling and mesmerizing; Kip's chest tightened and surged with adrenaline.

  "Farm Boy?" Billy asked.

  "Yeah, big burly kid. Square head, blond buzz cut. Favors overalls. You know, Farm Boy." She began to chew her gum again, kneading the pink mass with her pink tongue to ready another bubble.

  "Yeah, Hax is coming. But so's Kip. There's plenty of room." With the cooler secure, Billy reached up and closed the tailgate.

  "Hey, ya' prick, I was talking!" the girl said, her voice only slightly muffled.

  "Be careful around that one." Billy hooked his thumb at the bus. "She bites. I mean it, both in the literal and figurative."

  "Sure, okay," Kip said.

  "Hey, I heard that!" She slapped a palm against the rear window.

  "You know, man, I'll be right out," Billy said, heading back to the house. "I need to see about lighting a fire under the parental units. I swear, the only reason they decided to have kids was to help keep themselves on track."

  "Right..." Kip watched as Billy headed off in search of his parents. Billy opened the screen door, shouting as he entered. "Hey, Ziggy! Luna! The bus is leaving. Remember? Chillin' on the beach? That's, like, today!"

  "I'm Silvia," the girl said.

  Kip turned to the sound.

  Silvia draped her arms over the middle seat, looking like it was a burden to even lift her head. Kip saw the golden skin of her torso as her white t-shirt hiked up her side. The sleeves and most of the side material of the shirt had been cut away, revealing an emerald green bikini top beneath.

  He shifted his gaze to her eyes and stammered, unable to think of a thing to say. He felt like running away.

  "Do you have any tattoos?" she asked. At first he thought she might be twenty, but now he realized she was closer to his age.

  "No… why, do you?"

  "Maybe." She blinked slowly and seemed ready to fall asleep. She peeled herself from the middle seat and slumped back until she disappeared from view. Only the faintest hint of bubblegum on the air and the stirring in his chest let him know she wasn't just a figment of his imagination.

  "Dude…" Billy said when the screen door flew open and he stepped out. "I swear, it's all patting heads and wiping noses around here."

  Kip laughed softly, but didn't know what he was talking about. He couldn't picture himself having to keep either of his parents on task. As far as he knew, neither had ever been late for anything.

  Billy hopped up into the bus and sat down on the middle seat. "Ready?"

  "Yeah." Kip glanced into the rear seat as he climbed in. Silvia had curled up on her side and pulled her heart-shaped sunglasses over her eyes. She breathed deeply, steadily, as if she were already asleep. Her jaws moved slowly as she chewed her gum. Kip sat next to Billy.

  "She didn't bite did she?" Billy whispered.

  "No… no she didn't."

  "She likes guys that are… different." He checked the back seat. "So be on alert."

  Kip looked over his shoulder. Though she still appeared to be on the verge of sleep, a coy smile formed on her lips.

  Great, he thinks I'm… different. And so does Silvia. I thought maybe that'd slipped their attention. "Do you have any other siblings?"

  "Me? Siblings? Heck no. I'm an only child, bro." Billy laughed. "Ziggy's hit the bong so long his little swimmers prefer to chill instead of, like, swim."

  Kip nodded, trying to piece everything together. The parts of Billy's conversation he didn't understand he set aside for later consideration. "Isn't Silvia your sister?"

  "Na, she's no sister of mine. She lives here, but she's just… well, Silvia."

  Kip's head started to hurt. It felt like when his mom started teaching him German the year before. "So she's not related to you, but she lives at your house?"

  "Something like that." He laughed, his big-toothed grin infecting Kip until he couldn't help following suit. "I can't wait for you to meet Hax. The guy's a mensch. A total dude. You'll fit right in."

  For the first time since he'd met Billy, Kip started to feel at ease. He could now say for certain that Billy's warmth, his friendship, wasn't some act. Billy wasn't getting ready to attack him or belittle him; Kip didn't even think Billy was capable.

  The Revere's front door opened and Ziggy and Luna stepped out, walking hand-in-hand. Luna wore a black tank top and a gypsy-style skirt that reached her ankles. Her long dark hair was pulled back in elaborate braids. Ziggy looked like a taller, older version of Billy. Lanky limbed, his long salt-and-pepper hair was pushed back behind his ears. He had a full beard that fell nearly to his sternum. While Luna was barefoot, Ziggy wore flipflops that snapped against his heel every time he took a stride.

  It was strange to see the two adults holding hands. Stranger yet, they exchanged a warm, affectionate kiss before they parted ways to enter on either side of the bus.

  Is this how other families act?

  Silvia gave off a soft snore from the back seat that ended quickly when Ziggy and Luna hopped into the front seat. They both smiled at Kip.

  "You must be Kipper?"

  "No, just Kip, sir."

  "I thought you said…?" Ziggy said to Billy and turned to Luna. "Didn't he say…?"

  "Well, Zig, he said his name's Kip, so you might want to just take his word for it."

  "Right, so I'll call you Kip, but you have got to drop this sir garbage. You'll make me feel like the fuzz, which is totally mind-blowing considering I'm carrying. Dig?"

  "Sure… Ziggy?"

  "Righteous." Ziggy nodded, patted his pockets and raised one eyebrow.

  Luna held up a set of keys and jangled them. Ziggy took hold of her hand and kissed the back of it.

  "Come on! All the best sand's going to be spoken for and it's on my agenda to scope out plenty of babes. Don't ruin your son's hopes and dreams!"

  "Pig!" Silvia said, somewhat sleepily.

  "That's my boy!" Ziggy said.

  Luna snorted in laughter and Ziggy started the engine.

  "Don't forget we're picking up Farm Boy," Silvia said.

  "Farm Boy?" Ziggy asked, shifting into drive.

  "She means Hax, love," Luna said.

  "Oh, the mad scientist?"

  "He's not a mad scientist, Ziggy," Billy said.

  "Well, if you build your own computer out of spare parts you're a mad scientist in my book."

  "Well, your book is really just a pamphlet with a ton of pictures," Billy said.

  Kip held his breath. Billy elbowed Kip and pointed at his dad. Billy mouthed a single word: burn.

  "You, young man… had better enjoy your youth. That is all I have to say."

  "He got you, Zig," Luna said.

  Kip felt unmoored not only by how his new neighbors interacted, but by
their very words, the simplest measure of communication. He still didn't know what was going on, but he thought that it might be okay, because for the first time that he could remember, he felt no immediate fear.

  Echo Bluff was a small town. Kip and the Reveres lived in the few residential blocks surrounding the tight-knit commercial downtown. Ziggy drove a mile almost completely covered in tall, ramrod-straight cornstalks.

  "Isn't this it?" Ziggy asked as he slowed at a long gravel driveway.

  "Yeah," Billy said. "Give a honk."

  "Shouldn't I just pull up?" A sprawling white farmhouse sat at least a quarter mile away. Rows of maple trees lined both sides of the driveway.

  "He's not at the house," Billy said. "Just honk."

  Ziggy shrugged, gave the horn a couple of short taps.

  A stirring came from the nearest maple tree and someone swung down off a low-hanging branch. The boy was just about man-sized, thick through the chest, and had a blocky head that was made more so by his military-style buzz cut. Hax did indeed favor overalls; they were faded at the knees, and he wore no shirt underneath. He'd been reading up in the tree, and as he walked up to the VW, he stashed a battered paperback inside his front pocket.

  "Open the door, would ya'? Billy asked.

  Kip reached over and opened the side door and Hax climbed up.

  "How's Hax doing today?" Luna asked.

  "Hax is doing better," the man-child replied. "Especially now that we're heading to the beach!"

  "Kip, Hax. Hax, Kip," Billy said as way of introduction.

  "You're new to town, right?"

  "Yeah. That's me. New," Kip said, feeling dumb.

  Hax extended his hand and Kip shook it. Kip felt hard muscles covered in hard callouses.

  "I am so ready for a little r&r."

  "Your dad keeping you busy around the farm?" Ziggy asked.

  "Not more than usual. Sure, I get up with the sun, but that's nothing new. I was up late last night, though. Computer stuff, you know."

  "'Computer stuff?'" Silvia said, still in her reclined position. "Is that what guys call beating off to porn these days?"

  Kip's eyes boggled and Billy guffawed.

  "Actually, Silvia, I stumbled across a backdoor written into the security script on the HNRC website."

  "And that's why we love you, Hax," Luna said. "You say these wonderfully rebellious things, but we don't have the foggiest idea what you're saying."

  "Thank you, Luna," Hax said.

  "HNRC? Isn't that some big bank?" Billy asked.

  "One of the biggest. And you know what? They have some of the shoddiest encryption I've ever seen."

  Kip wanted to ask questions, because he certainly couldn't follow this conversation, but he held his tongue.

  "Okay, even if it's not porn, but that boring-assed hacking stuff, you really need to find a girlfriend," Silvia said.

  "Is that an offer?" Hax turned toward Silvia and waggled his eyebrows.

  Silvia answered with a loud popping of bubblegum.

  Ziggy laughed. "The girl's got a point. All that boredom's going to burn up your chi like balsawood. Best use that energy to get laid, son!"

  "This is some Kodak moment, isn't it?" Billy elbowed Kip, and even though he didn't know what that meant either, he joined in when everyone inside the bus joined in Ziggy's laughter.

  Hax had the smatterings of a beard, downy hair the shade of straw. He seemed so unlike Billy, but somehow he seemed to fit. The otherness of everyone seemed to tie them all together.

  "Onward!" Ziggy shifted into drive and stomped on the gas. Luna let out a squeal of delight.

  The image of his mom's battered cheek and her torn clothes fought for Kip's attention. He felt a wave of guilt for being away from home, for having a good time when he knew she would never escape her fate, even for a day. Kip ignored the image and suppressed his guilt, and as Ziggy drove onto the entrance ramp to the highway leading to Chicago, it got a little easier not to fake his happiness.

  Chapter 8

  1.

  The highway cleaved through farm fields, mixed suburban expanses, the rusted industrial collar of the city. Soon, the skyline loomed around them as they entered the steel and concrete valley of downtown Chicago. The VW hummed along and so did the conversation.

  "And that's when my dad legally changed his name. To, you know, start fresh. The pigs didn't have anything on him. Sure, he was a radical," Ziggy said, framing the word with air quotes, "but he wasn't violent. The man never hurt a fly. But when you live in a world run by despots, sometimes you need to bend to the despots' rules. And when a man's reputation, his very livelihood, can be ruined by innuendo and unsubstantiated bullshit… well, sometimes it's just best to change your name."

  Ziggy had been rambling on for miles, and his lurid stories made the miles zip along.

  "And so that's how a Jewish family has the last name Revere," Luna added.

  "Wow," Silvia said. "So, your dad is really named Paul Revere?"

  "That's the name that's stuck the longest," Ziggy said, looking back at her through the rearview mirror. "He figured he liked his first name, and if the pigs were going to stay on his case, they'd have to drag his new name through the mud. What better way to stick it to the man? Dig?"

  "And they left him alone after his name change?" Hax asked.

  "Yeah, but I don't know if it had anything to do with the name change. I think it's more likely that Paulie just got smarter about how he went about his business."

  "Zig, I think that's enough history for one day," Luna said.

  "But I was going to talk about growing up on the commune."

  "I know you were, love, but we should just let everyone enjoy their own headspace for a while."

  "You're right."

  Kip had never been to Chicago, and as Ziggy drove the VW bus down Lake Shore Drive, it was nothing like he imagined it would be. Outside the passenger side windows he saw trees and acres of grassy areas, walking paths and park benches, and beyond that, the choppy gray-green of Lake Michigan extending to the limits of his sight, as vast as any ocean.

  Beneath them, the curving spine of Lake Shore Drive approximated the pencil-thin lowest edge of the city's skyline. And to his left, gigantic monoliths dominated the horizon. It was an alien landscape, and he was hosted by a wonderful assortment of until now unidentified creatures: Billy, Hax, Luna, Ziggy, Silvia.

  Ziggy turned into a parking lot full of cars. He steered around a long curve that brought them flush with the water. Ziggy paused, waiting for an old Ford truck to pull out, and Kip marveled at the white-capped wave breaking toward shore and the dozens of people awaiting its pent-up energy.

  "Look at that lake!" Luna said.

  Kip couldn't see any limit to the lake. It just kept going off into the distance, a silvery blanket of rippling water. Tiny triangular sails bobbed in the distance. And the scent of the lake… it was sweet and light and something he would never forget.

  "Look at that ass!" Billy said, pointing at a woman walking past the van, wearing a clinging cover up that did little to cover her canary-yellow bikini bottoms.

  "Pig!" Silvia said.

  2.

  Kip had never thrown a Frisbee before, but he got the hang of it after just a few errant tosses. He stood in a large triangle with Hax and Billy. The sand was so hot that they all still wore their socks, and Kip didn't have to worry about explaining his bandages. Wearing a skimpy green bikini, Silvia lounged on her back on a beach towel at the center of their game. Her skin glistened with oil, and it was hard for Kip not to stare at her.

  "Eat this!" Billy tossed the disc at Hax as hard as he could and it cut through the air.

  Hax barely moved, nonchalantly catching the Frisbee chest-high with both hands. "Piece of cake."

  Mobs of people had all had the same idea as they did; today was the perfect day for an end of summer trip to the beach.

  Hax took it easy on Kip with the next toss, arcing the Frisbee so that it hovered. Ki
p ran under it and let it fall into his shaky grasp. His legs ached from his unexpected pre-dawn run, but it was a good ache. "Yes!" he shouted.

  "Nice one, Kip!" Billy clapped his hands together, his smile wide and natural.

  As Kip lined up Billy for the next toss, Silvia lowered her sunglasses. Kip could feel her stare, and he glanced her way long enough that when he let go of the disc, it went sailing far over Billy's head, nearly reaching the edge of the lake.

  "Newbie!" Billy sprinted after the Frisbee, not wanting anyone to randomly take off with it.

  Hax laughed as he brushed sand from where it clung to his sweaty arms. Silvia smiled from one corner of her mouth and pressed a well-manicured index finger against the bridge of her glasses, pushing them back into place. She rolled over onto her stomach, yanked down on her bikini bottoms as they started to ride too high, and rested her head on her folded arms.

  Ziggy and Luna had wandered off hand in hand over an hour ago, just after everyone finished lunch. The moment felt so weird, so utterly foreign to him. His parents—his entire world—were so far away.

  He stopped stark still, his smile diminishing as Hax and Billy traded jabs back and forth.

  "What is it, Kip?" Silvia said, looking up at him with curly blonde locks brushing against her sunglasses.

  The ground beneath him fell away. He felt short of breath, and even though it was pushing ninety degrees, a chill ran through him.

  "It's nothing," he said, seeing concern on her face. "Just… it's nothing."

  "You are a horrible liar, Kip Redfield."

  "Heads up!" Hax called out, and the plastic disc whirled past Kip.

  Everyone at the beach enjoying one last summer hurrah seemed to be staring at Kip. His face was already sunburnt, and he felt it redden with embarrassment.

  "Sorry!" Kip said, ready to run after it.

  "Time out, guys," Silvia said to Hax and Billy before turning to Kip. "Come sit. Tell me your story. We all got one."

  When Billy saw Kip walking closer to Silvia, he nodded in understanding, fetched the Frisbee, and then lofted it at Hax. The game continued, now down to two players.

  Silvia patted the sand in front of her and said, "Come on, Kip, take a seat."