The Bone Garden Read online

  THE

  BONE

  GARDEN

  CHRISTIAN MAROTTI

  THE BONE GARDEN

  Copyright © 2013 by CHRISTIAN MAROTTI

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  For any questions or for more information on this book please visit the following:

  www.goodreads.com/ChristianMarotti

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  An introduction/prequel novelette to the characters and world of the upcoming novella series entitled THE GOREYS about MISUNDERSTOOD twenty-four-year-old and his insane, serial killer sister.

  ~ ~ ~

  *50% of the proceeds made from this

  novelette will go to a charity of the author’s choice.

  "We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands, we are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow."

  - TED BUNDY

  2005

  On the morning of my sixteenth birthday, Violet decided she wanted a bone garden on the side of the house. I walked outside to greet the morning with a mug of coffee but was met with my thirteen year old sister, digging holes in the ground and standing animal bones up in them. We weren’t allowed to kill animals so they were more than likely collected from carcasses Violet discovered around town. I shook my head at her and snickered.

  “Have you finally driven yourself mad?” I asked.

  “Fuck off, Perry. I’ve been inspired and one day there will be human bones in this garden,” she explained like a lunatic. I almost expected her to start watering the bones but that would have been a little too far for Violet.

  “You have driven yourself mad,” I said, and took a long sip of my vanilla creamed coffee. It was a cold morning, if I recall, and the sky was overcast with gloom. I looked down at my hand and saw that the dull, sad light made my skin look even paler than it already was. I despised the sun and so did the rest of my immediate family.

  “Call me what you like, it’s your birthday so I will give you a get-away-free card for today. But if you fuck with me tomorrow, you best hide.” I swallowed hard at her words. I knew better than to challenge my sister, she was devious and vile, but sometimes I simply couldn’t help myself. She had such a deep voice for a girl of thirteen and she was awfully mature for her age as well. It was more than likely from being raised by our mum.

  “Remember the last time? You hung that decomposed rat from the top frame of my closet door and mum let you have it. She said we aren’t supposed to fight,” I explained while sipping my coffee. It was quickly getting cold.

  “I can do it again and not get in trouble this time.” She smiled.

  “Bollocks, you’d shit your pants if she got angry with you,” I said.

  “Eat shit and die,” Violet snapped, and she went back to patting the soggy soil around the bones. Her honey blonde hair was falling in her face and she looked determined to have all the bones up and ready by lunch.

  “That reminds me, I need to stock up on Oleander. You do like your tea with cream still don’t you? Or have you gone American and are now drinking it without?” I smiled at my sister but she wouldn’t respond. She just flipped me the middle finger and went back to patting.

  I took another sip of my cool coffee and watched as a group of public school boys messed around on the sidewalk. What the hell were they doing so far away from the high school at nine in the morning, I wondered. I sat the mug down on the top step of the concrete staircase and walked down to the yellowing lawn, my house slippers becoming damp and icky.

  “Can you smell the cock from here?” Violet asked.

  “Fuck off,” I retorted.

  “The one in the blue is looking at you. I think he fancies you.” She giggled and turned back to her odd gardening.

  I looked at the boy in blue and he was, in fact, staring at me. But he wasn’t staring at me in a bad way. It was as if he were studying me like Violet studies a dead animal’s insides. I took a chance and smiled at him, and weirdly, he smiled back, a crooked smile, but it was still a smile.

  The other boys were holding plastic jugs of red liquid and were conversing with one another while the boy in blue and I engaged in eye fucking, as Violet called it. He called me over, cupping his hand in the air. The other boys turned around and looked at me like I was some kind of insect and they wanted to smash me with their non-name brand tennis shoes.

  “Hey, come ‘ere!” the boy in blue hollered, and my knees buckled.

  “Easy there, Perry. You don’t want to get a stiffy in front of the boys.”

  “Eat shit, you twat. And go put on a coat or something, it’s getting chilly out here,” I commanded, and Violet scoffed and stomped up the steps and inside the house. She knew if she didn’t listen to me, mum would let her have it if she got a cold.

  I straightened out my posture and headed toward the boys as they began laughing, while shaking the jugs at each other. I stopped a few feet from them and the boy in blue stepped forward with his hand out. He was blond and built like a rugby player and he made my body tremble. I shook his hand as if it were on fire and then placed my hands back behind me.

  “Why do you look like that?” one boy asked. I locked eyes with him and then looked down at myself. I wasn’t wearing anything out of the ordinary. I was sporting my usual morning outfit: a plain white cotton t-shirt underneath a dark blue house coat accompanied by my royal blue pajama pants, and finally, my brown house slippers.

  “I don’t quite understand you,” I replied.

  “You’re dressed like an old man,” he laughed. I took offense to his words and could feel my neck growing hot as two of the other boys joined in his laughter.

  “Leave ‘em alone, he seems cool.” The boy in blue defended me and I smiled like a giddy school girl who had just soaked her knickers from excitement.

  “Aw, I think he likes you Jacob.” The thicker one nudged the boy in blue in the arm. Jacob blushed a bit but returned a punch in the thick boy’s gut and that shut him up.

  “We’re gonna throw fake blood on front doors, you wanna come? It’s a Halloween prank.” Jacob turned back to me.

  “I’m not really dressed for-”

  “We’re just going to do it on this street, we’ll be done in no time,” Jacob said, and I caved. I looked back at my house, its beautiful Victorian style gleaming with beauty. No one was outside. Violet must have found something to do inside or mum was having her help with a body. I figured I could slip away for a bit before anyone noticed I was missing.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  . . .

  The thick one, who I now knew was called Kevin, threw a thick glob of fake blood on the front door of a nice looking white Victorian home. All the houses on our street were Victorian and worn with age. It was the older part of Bloodworth and I was still surprised these boys wanted to be all the way out here. Something seemed off about them, but I brushed the feeling away as much as I could for Jacob.

  “This is fucking boring,” the one who told me I looked like an old man said.

  “Is there anything to do in this neighborhood?” Jacob asked me. “By the way, how long have you lived here? We’ve never seen you at school.”

  “I’m home schooled,” I answered. “And there is a house by the river, hidden deep in the trees. I’ve heard people say it is haunted,” I lied. I watched all of their expressions and all but Kevin seemed interested. I just wanted to keep Jacob around a bit longer. He was making me feel all kinds of different things and I liked it.

  The first time
I had sex was when I was thirteen. This boy down the street was visiting his grandmother for Christmas and he kissed me an hour after we met. The next day he came by the house and asked for me. I walked with him to his grandmother’s house and we went inside to a room that he said was his. He was sixteen, now that I remember. We fucked on his bed and I bled and he said, it happens sometimes, and I swallowed hard and smiled for him but was still scared.

  When I got home, I threw up in the kitchen sink and ate a bowl of Cheerios because I started shaking and I didn’t know what to do. A month later I unintentionally confessed it all to Darwin, mum’s long time partner, and he vowed to keep it to himself. So far, he’d kept it hidden.

  “Let’s check it out!” Jacob said, ripping me away from the memory. I smiled at him and all six of us walked across the street and through the dead weeds to the river, where a fake haunted house awaited our arrival.

  . . .

  Jacob smiled at me as the other guys stared up at the house. It was in terrible shape, shit brown with hideous pink shutters and an old glass bird chime decoration that was extremely annoying. It was vacant and the front door was missing. Kevin turned back to me and an evil grin grew on his face.

  “Go in,” he said.

  “I’ve been in there countless times, you go in,” I suggested, and he looked at me like he wanted to sock me in the face. The other guys looked at me, even Jacob, with expressions that made it seem like no one challenged Kevin.

  “Fine, but you are going in with me.” He snatched me by my wrist with his fat sweaty hand and pulled me along with him, my slippers filling with soggy dead grass. “You fuckers stay out here.”

  I turned and watched as they all sat on a long wet log, but Jacob kept eye contact with me the whole time I was following Kevin. There was something about the way he looked at me, like he was sorry for me. We disappeared beyond the front door and into the darkness.

  Once my vision settled I saw that there was still light coming through the boarded up windows and Kevin was not letting go of me. He pulled me all the way back into the house, past the old staircase, to a hideous orange rug on the floor near a hall closet. He kicked the rug aside and my eyes widened at the sight of a hidden door in the white wood paneled floor. How did he know it was here?

  “I’ve been here before, some of the guys haven’t. I know you’re fucking lying about it being haunted because I’ve fucked a lot of girls in this house and no ghost has tried to stick its finger up my ass. Why did you want to come here?”

  I didn’t want to answer him, I just wanted to leave and hurry home. He was scaring me and he wasn’t letting my wrist go. I started to breathe in and out to calm my nerves and sudden anxiety, when he took his other hand and grabbed my face.

  “Calm down, dude. I’m not going to hurt you.” His hand felt disgusting on my face and I wanted to bite his fingers off for touching me. There was something dark in his eyes, like Violet. He had either killed before or had done something equally as bad because he was oozing darkness and I didn’t like it one fucking bit. “You’re a faggot aren’t you?”

  My eyes shot wide again and I started breathing in and out faster.

  “If I answer you will you let go?” I asked.

  “No. Just answer.” I could feel my face getting hot. He was starting to piss me off and at the same time I was a tad frightened of him.

  “Yes,” I finally said.

  “Good. So this is what is gonna happen. You’re coming with me down to the cellar and you’re gonna suck my dick. If you do it I won’t tell the guys because they will hurt you pretty bad and you might end up in the hospital. If you don’t, well you know.” My mouth fell open, and with all my might, I wrenched my wrist free from his grasp.

  “Are you fucking mad? If you touch me you’ll regret it, you don’t know me and you don’t know my family,” I said.

  “Have it your way,” he said, and I could see his arm lifting to punch me. I kicked him hard in the nuts and he fell backward and into a fetal position. I took the chance and ran like hell through the house and out of the front door.

  Jacob tried to stop me but I dodged him and kept running. No one ran after me and I made it back to the house, sweaty and with my slippers covered in mud and full with mushy grass and twigs. How the hell had my perfect morning gone so awry? I wanted to run to my room and cower in the corner like a hurt animal, but instead I marched into the house and took a shower. I wanted Kevin’s sweat off of my wrist and my face.

  . . .

  Violet was staring at the birthday cake Darwin had created with insane hunger when I entered the dining room. She had a thing for sweets. There were white streamers weaved in and out through the chandeliers and the table had been set the way I usually did it. I combed my damp hair over my head with my hand and took a seat at the front of the table.

  “Do you like your cake, Perry?” Darwin asked with a luminous smile on his face. He was older than mum and had premature gray hair and a fat, strawberry-like nose. He took a seat opposite Violet and looked back and forth at me and the cake.

  “It’s marvelous.” I smiled. But inside I was still reeling from the fucked up birthday morning I experienced. Violet ripped her eyes away from the cake and looked at me with a smirk.

  “I wanted to draw a penis on it but Darwin didn’t let me,” Violet said, and my eyebrows furrowed.

  “Violet, cut it out,” Darwin snapped. Both of them knew I hadn’t told mum about my sexuality and I couldn’t bring myself to do it anytime soon. But Violet couldn’t help but rub it in with every chance she got.

  Before I could think up something to say to Violet, our mum entered the room through the arched doorway. She was wearing a cream colored lace dress and her honey blonde hair was tied back into a high ponytail. She looked stunning. Violet couldn’t take her eyes off of her and Darwin was enthralled as he usually was.

  “Are we ready to sing happy birthday?” she said in her sing-song voice as she walked over to me and kissed me on the top of my head. She had large, deep dimples in her cheeks and when I was younger, I used to try and stick coffee beans in them to see if they’d stay in. She’d make a kissy face and the beans would tumble onto the counter and I’d laugh loads.

  “Deidra, you look absolutely beautiful,” Darwin said.

  “Isn’t it nice?” She was referring to her dress. I don’t think she realized how smitten Darwin was with her. Every time he said something nice about her in her presence she would change the subject, and I could tell it broke his heart every single time.

  “Are we going to cut the fucking cake or what? I’m starved!” We all stared at Violet and mum stuck her index finger toward my sister.

  “Language, darling.” She smiled and Violet instantly grew embarrassed. She hated being called out by our mum.

  Violet, Darwin and mum sang happy birthday and I hurried over to the cake and blew the candles out. Violet stabbed a finger into the edge of the cake and swiped a wad of purple frosting. Bitch, I mouthed and grabbed the knife to start slicing.

  But before I could do anything, the door bell rang.

  Mum looked around at us and we all shook our heads. Nervously, she smoothed out her dress and made her way out through the archway and to the front door, her white Manolo Blahniks clacking against the cherry wood floor. Violet and I watched with interested eyes as she corrected her posture and cracked open the front door.

  She spoke in a soft tone to whoever was out there and then turned to us and smiled at me. She called me over with her hand and I rushed away from Violet. I stopped a couple of feet away from her and she combed her fingers through my hair, fixing it.

  “There’s someone here who wants to speak with you,” she said and walked away from the front door and over to Violet. The cool wind brushed against my face, and along with the wind, the front door groaned halfway open. On the porch, dressed differently, was Jacob. He smiled at me and I lit up.

  “We’ll keep a couple of slices for you, dear. Go along with your friend
.” Mum winked at me and my stomach did a 180. Did she know I was gay? Had I been scared all along for nothing?

  To avoid looking like a total arse I told Jacob to wait for a moment on the porch while I changed and put shoes on. No one was allowed inside our house unless mum said so, and since she had someone down in the basement it was a no for Jacob to come in.

  I swatted clothes from side to side in my closet, nervous and excited at the same time. It looked as if he was alone and I was happy about that. I never wanted to see Kevin ever again. I couldn’t decide on anything so I closed my eyes, one of mum’s tricks, and grabbed a shirt and a pair of what felt like jeans. I opened my eyes and closed the closet doors.

  I was startled by the appearance of my nutcase of a sister, leaning on the panel of my bedroom door. She didn’t look happy and I quickly regretted telling her about what had happened in the morning.