Dead Man's River

By Marty Conley

Stories have a way of finding storytellers...Myles dreams of hockey stardom at Saint Michael's Prep and just being a normal kid - one who doesn't twitch or suffer from anxiety. But an unexpected death during a train ride into Boston for a class field trip forces Myles to take risks he's not prepared for. Overwhelmed with the demands of school, a girl he likes, the mysterious disappearance of a dozen dogs, and the constant threat of bullies and punks that roam his neighborhood, Myles's talent for telling stories is called into action as he finds a way to tell an amazing story that must be told - one that his future depends on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543922653

Book preview

Author

What catches my attention isn’t his massive nose or his bird-like mannerisms; it’s a clicking noise that echoes from his busy mouth. He works his way through the crowded train. His head and shoulders peck and flutter as he staggers in my direction.

Standing before me, his eyes, wild with curiosity, meet mine. The strangeness of his motions unnerves and captivates me. The train creaks and groans as it hurtles along the tracks.

Without warning, a wobbly hand reaches out to me. Expecting that he wants to shake hands, I extend mine to his. He clutches my hand. His fingers tug on the ring that I’m wearing. He mumbles something, but the words are cut off by a noise that erupts from deep in his throat. A dozen juicy clicks slice rapid-fire through the air. His eyes bulge with fright.

Then, his strange motions cease. The clicking noise stops.

What replaces it is the sound of mud being sucked down a drainpipe. His large nose and round forehead burst into shades of red, then blue. Gasping for air, his effort to breathe sounds like a garbage disposal clogged with a fatty piece of meat.

Unsure of what to do, I do nothing. The train car rattles and sways, its wheels click and screech as we enter a dark tunnel.

His grip on my hand weakens.

His noisy struggle is swallowed into silence.

He collapses at my feet.

What the heck!? Brady shouts.

Myles, do something, Kat says.

I kneel down close to the man. His nose, large and round, resembles that of a boxer - one who never learned to duck or get out of the way. He twitches with a final tremor. His eyes are silent and shiny and wet like two cubes of ice.

I think he’s dead, I say.

Brady kneels down next to me. He feels for a pulse. Blood appears at the corner of the man’s mouth. A thin stream dribbles down his chin and drips onto the floor between us.

You’re right. He’s dead, Brady says. I think, anyhow.

Tension tightens in my shoulders and thickens in my throat. The man’s mouth hangs open, suspended in expectation for the next breath that never came. Brady shines his phone into the man’s cave-like mouth. Hey! He has no tongue. It’s not there!

That doesn’t make any sense, I say.

Who says it’s supposed to? Brady replies.

Those noises, he probably choked on it, Kat says.

Brady stands up as Kat shouts for Mrs. Aparicio, our teacher.

Hoping there’s still some life left in him, I give the man a gentle shove.

His suit coat, brown and tattered, falls open. Something spills out. We leave the darkness of the tunnel and emerge into a gray light. It’s a photograph. What I see in the photograph makes my entire body go rigid. Without hesitating, I take it and slip it into my coat pocket.

A group of classmates, aware that something has happened, gather around us. Several of them begin taking pictures. Thinking that, I too, should take a few pictures, I take my phone out but hesitate when I see the sad expression on the dead man’s face. But Brady doesn’t. He snaps off a flurry of pictures like a paparazzi cameraman.

Mrs. Aparicio is our eighth grade English teacher. She’s scrawny with twiggy arms growing out of bony shoulders; her skin is the color of an orange beginning to brown. Her face looks like it’s been kidnapped by dark freckles that cluster around her eyes and nose. She begins clearing people away from the dead man.

Myles, what’s happened?

I’m not sure. The guy walked over to me and grabbed my hand. He seemed like he was choking on something, but I wasn’t sure. He made this awful sound and then he fell. I thought of helping him, but it seemed like he was already dead. The man’s stony shape lies at our feet. He is dead, right?

Mrs. Aparicio reaches down and places two fingers on the man’s neck, feeling for a sign of life. I’m afraid he is.

Brady is my best friend and Kat is my cousin. They love my crazy stories, none of which anyone ever believes and most of which wind up getting me into trouble. They look at me like I just killed the guy myself. But not even my outrageous storytelling talent is going to help this guy now.

Kat, can you call 911, please? Mrs. Aparicio says. Let them know that a man on the inbound Red Line train appears to have died. The cause is unknown.

What was an uneventful field trip into Boston to see a play at the Wheelock Theatre has been unexpectedly delayed. Instead of viewing a show performed by actors on a stage, we get a front-row seat on a real life stage. At the next station the train is taken out of service. The doors are sealed shut. We wait, although I’m not sure what we’re waiting for. No one gets on - no one gets off. Eventually, the doors open and two medics enter the subway car packed with eighth-graders who’ve become bystanders to a reality show drama. A medic, an African-American woman, examines the lifeless man. She snaps on a pair of latex gloves. Her fingers probe the man’s mouth.

She says to her partner, Hey, this guy didn’t choke on food, and he didn’t choke on an object, either.

Her partner is a young man who doesn’t seem much older than me. He’s busy wiping up the blood that has puddled on the floor. Whatever he choked on is probably lodged down in his throat.

The woman reaches in deeper. I gag watching her fingers disappear into the dead man’s mouth past her knuckles. I’m expecting the guy to cough or scream, anything. But he just lies there with his eyes frozen in disbelief like he’s in the middle of a dental nightmare.

There it is. I knew it had to be someplace, she says, pleased with herself. He choked on something alright. She peels off her blood-soaked glove and lays it on top of her med kit. Don’t see this happen too often.

What did he choke on? The man places the bloody towel he was using into a Ziploc bag.

Brady’s suspicions are confirmed when we overhear the woman relay into her walkie-talkie that the man died of tongue-asphyxiation.

Not the way I’d want to go, that’s for sure. My shoulders snarl into a nervous twitch. Everyone is busy posting pictures. Can’t say I blame them, it’s not every day that one sees a dead body. This is my second time. The last time, though, the man was already dead when my friends and I found him. He was in a clear plastic bag hidden in the weeds next to a path that we use to get to our hangout spot on the riverbank. We raced home to tell my mom, but when the police went to recover the body it wasn’t there. He just disappeared. My mom thought I’d made the whole thing up, another one of my crazy stories.

Done with their inspection, the two medics hoist the man onto a stretcher. A white sheet covers his lifeless frame. The shape of his enormous nose swells from under the sheet. He’s wheeled off the train. The doors close behind him. My shoulders coil and uncoil, a twitch that melts into a twitch. And then he’s gone.

A story is born.

Everyone thinks my stories are made-up, that they couldn’t possibly be true. But this is just the sort of thing that happens to me. Some people can go their whole lives without a single crazy or interesting thing happening to them. Not me. Although I didn’t see this coming, stories often come to me from the strangest places. And I love telling stories.

The chatter of dozens of fourteen year olds erupts around me. This time I won’t have to worry about the body disappearing, but there was something odd about the way he walked straight over to me. He wanted to tell me something. Only, he couldn’t because he was busy choking to death on his own tongue. And then he grabbed the ring on my finger as if he were going to take it. It seemed that way, anyhow.

I check to make sure that the ring, the Kaavad ring, is still safely on my finger. The tension seeps away. The ring used to belong to the dead man. The first dead man, the one in the bag. I took it from him. The Kaavad is an ancient storytelling tradition in India, and the ring is worn by the elder in the village who is known as the Kaavadiyas, or storyteller. Some say that the ring holds mysterious powers. Not magic or anything, but more like a power that connects stories to storytellers and listeners. Kaavad rings are very rare, and stories have a way of finding the owner of the ring who then must tell them. I’m probably the only person in this country who has one. Whatever happens, the one thing I can’t do is lose the ring.

Was the man trying to tell me something? Did he want the ring?

Brady, satisfied that he’s told the entire social media world about what’s happened, puts his phone away. He may love all this fright-night stuff, but not Kat. She leans her head on my shoulder. My grandfather once told me that it’s not what a person says but what falls out of his pockets that tell the most about him. I take the photograph out and show it to Brady and Kat.

Where’d you get that? Brady says.

It fell out of his pocket.

Whose pocket? Brady asks.

The guy who just died, I answer.

Myles, you’re crazy, Kat says.

Maybe, but check this out.

The photograph is grimy, stained, and frayed at the edges. Sort of how I’m feeling right now. There are four men in the photograph. One man, with thinning hair and a ridiculously large nose is wearing a white lab coat that’s buttoned to the top. The man next to him, with a big toothy smile and skin the color of cocoa beans, is wearing a green t-shirt under his unbuttoned lab coat. Another man in tan Army fatigues glares into the camera, wearing a green t-shirt that clings tightly to his muscled arms. The fourth man, the one who made my body go rigid, is wearing a gray t-shirt. Visible on the center of his shirt is a logo printed in black, the outline of a ring.

That man! Look at his shirt! Kat exclaims.

A logo, hand-written in the shape of a simple child’s drawing, is that of the Kaavad ring.

The same one I have on my finger. Exactly the same one. The same one I took from the dead man in the bag.

Following the excitement of seeing someone die on the train, it’s little surprise that no one is paying attention to a play performed by a bunch of high school kids. The play, Murder by Death, is about an eccentric billionaire who thinks he’s the world’s best detective and invites a group of other famous detectives to his mansion. He then challenges them to solve a murder that will take place at midnight. The winner will receive a million dollars. In the play, no one has died. Not yet, anyway. Wish I could say the same about the man on the train. I was the last person he saw before he died. The thought that I should be somewhere else and doing something to help the guy troubles me. Since I’ve had the ring, everything has been pretty normal. I wear it everywhere in spite of my mom’s disapproval and have mostly forgotten about it. But today, a story decided to pay a visit. I’m not sure what story or why; however, I’m certain that it’s up to me to find out. It’s not something that I can explain, I just know and I don’t know how I know.

Thanks to my non-stop twitching I discover every possible noise that can be squeezed out of an ordinary theatre seat. After suffering with my twitching through the first two acts, Kerry and Jenn, the girls seated on either side of me, are glad when it’s intermission and time for lunch. They can’t get away from me fast enough. I have anxiety. It’s not always easy for me to sort out my feelings or understand them. Feeling nervous and jumpy is normal for me. I’d like nothing better than to be a normal fourteen-year old kid but that’s not in the cards.

I meet up with Brady and Kat as everyone brings their brown bags out to the lobby to eat lunch.

Slumming it as usual, Myles? Brady says.

What’s wrong with peanut butter and jelly?

Haven’t you heard of Nutella? Brady says, biting into a thick ham and cheddar cheese sandwich with pickles, tomato, and lettuce. Not to mention a container of Pringles, a sleeve of Oreo cookies, and a can of Mountain Dew. And a napkin, too, neatly folded into a triangle. I wish my mom would make my lunch, actually, I wish Brady’s mom would make my lunch.

I doubt they serve peanut butter and jelly at Saint Michael’s, Brady says.

I wouldn’t know, but hopefully I’ll find out.

Have you heard anything from the coach?

He’s coming to practice tomorrow night and meeting with me and my parents afterward.

That’s awesome - congrats!

I haven’t gotten in, yet.

To play hockey at Saint Michael’s Prep is my mission in life. They’ve won the state title five years in a row and it’s a launching pad for kids wanting to play in college.

Where’s your lunch, Kat? Brady asks. Listening to music, she leans against a poster advertising the theatre’s upcoming show, Beauty and the Beast. Her hands are busy texting on her phone.

I’m not hungry, she says, shrugging her shoulders and shoving her phone into her pocket. I’m about to offer her some of my sandwich when she says, I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be back. She strolls down the hallway and disappears around the corner.

My phone buzzes with a text message.

Mom: what’s happened?

Me: guy died on the train - choked to death

Mom: I’m supposed to believe this?

Me: believe it

Mom: this better not be another one of your stories

My mother, weary of my stories of strange events, dangerous hijinks, and random people you’re likely to meet at a crazy farm, regards my latest tale with her typical skepticism.

Me: in case ur wondering - I’m ok

Mom: you have some explaining to do when you get home

A little sympathy being too much to ask for, I decide to throw a little shade her way.

Me: btw - play is great - thx for asking

Mom: it’s not the play I’m concerned about

Me: you’ll be happy 2 know that no one dies in the play but would you be happy if someone did?

Mom: don’t be a wiseguy

For some reason, my mom has never developed an appreciation for wiseguys - something, other than hockey, that I’m actually good at. Knowing when enough is enough, I cut my losses.

Me: ok-sorry

Mrs. Aparicio and the other teachers herd us back into the theatre. I’m hoping that there’ll be something in the play to tell me about the world and the way it works, but there’s no secret message or helpful lesson. There’s nothing at all. Other than it’s better to be alive than dead, and I already know that. In the play, the billionaire fakes his own death. No one is murdered. No one dies. A cheap trick that isn’t funny. The lights come on and the actors line up across the stage holding hands. They take a few bows and then the curtain closes and that’s that. My shoulders twinge, a troublesome twitch, cramped and unhappy, growing out of my need to keep all the parts of me always moving.

When we’re lined up in the lobby outside the theatre, Mr. Organ, our science teacher, does a head count to make sure no one is left behind. You’d think with a name like Organ that his head would be slimy and wrinkly; instead it’s smooth and round like the kickballs we use at gym.

Myles, do you know where Kat is? We’re one person short and I don’t see her, he says.

The last time I saw her was at intermission when she left to go to the bathroom.

You haven’t seen her since then?

I shake my head.

How about you, Brady, have you seen her? Mr. Organ asks.

Same as Myles. I haven’t seen her since lunch, Brady says, playing a video game on his phone.

We can’t leave without her. She has to be someplace. Mr. Organ asks Mrs. Musumeci, our math teacher, to check the girls’ bathroom. Other teachers search every corner of the lobby and the street outside, but there’s no trace of Kat.

She hasn’t responded to my text, Brady says.

Mine neither.

You think something happened to her?

Kat can take care of herself, but if she wandered off someplace, who knows.

We should check the theatre, she may be in there. Let’s go see what we can find, Brady says.

I don’t need the queasiness in my neck to tell me that this is a bad idea - one that could easily lead to trouble. What for? Wouldn’t she notice that everyone’s gone?

Maybe she fell asleep and no one noticed her. Besides, I want to check it out, we can go up on the stage and look around, it’ll be cool.

Brady, once he’s excited about an adventure, no matter how small, one either flees from him or tags along. Sure, may as well.

The theatre is empty and dark other than a few emergency lights high up on the outer walls, and a single spotlight that glows overhead onto a small stage. The stage floats above three levels of steps that wash up against five-hundred red-colored seats. A spongy uncertainty settles in my gut. Beginning in the rear, we snake our way through each row working towards the stage. After about twenty rows there’s still no sign of Kat. There are just a few rows left when we near the stage.

She isn’t…,

KERCRACK!!

Glass shatters with a thunderous roar that echoes through the dark empty space of the theatre. My heart smashes against my chest. I try to say something, but the words freeze in my throat. I look around and see nothing out of the ordinary, although slinking around in an empty theatre is anything but ordinary. Brady is as puzzled as me. His face reminds me of an emoticon that I can’t quite place. There seems to be no explanation for the explosion of glass. And then I notice something up on stage. The weak light above the stage shines down on a living room enclosed on three sides by wood-paneled walls that include a gold-braided couch, several small tables, an old-fashioned lamp, an area rug, and a cushioned rocking chair. A frame with pieces of broken glass sticking out of its edges leans against the wall of the living room. That’s not good.

The thing that crashed was a picture. I point towards the pretend living room.

Scared the piss out of me, Brady says.

My grammy once told me about an old Irish superstition. When a picture falls off a wall for no reason, it means that someone you know has just died.

You mean that man on the train? I’m sorry about him, but better him than me. Besides, I don’t believe in superstitions.

Technically, we don’t know that guy who died.

That’s true, I guess.

I can’t say