Sons of the 613 by Michael Rubens Page B

spiky terrain on top, the result of the Product that Tao rubbed in as a final touch. According to Tao and Lesley, Product is very important, and there is now an expensive tube of the stuff in the bathroom. Josh made his grimace/sneer face when Tao was smearing the stuff around the crown of my head, but Lesley told me to use Product, so I’ll use Product.
    I fall asleep still smelling perfume and cigarettes, and dream of Lesley.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE MINOTAUR
    â€œIsaac! Wake up!”
    I open my eyes and sit up, confused and dull headed. I’m still in the tent. It’s dark. My Lesley-scented shirt is still in my hand.
    â€œWake up!” repeats Josh, and my eyes are seared by the painful stab of a flashlight beam. I twist away, squinting, holding my hands up to block the light.
    â€œWhat’s going on?”
    â€œTime to get going!”
    I stumble along after him. We cut through the Olsens’ yard, the Johnsons’, the Patricks’, the Schwartzes’, the erratic line of the creek to our left. The moon is bright enough that we don’t need the flashlight. I check my watch. It’s 2:43 a.m.
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    He picks up the pace, jogging now, and I run to keep up with him, running through the backyards, dodging the dark shapes of trees, passing silhouettes of swing sets and jungle gyms and volleyball nets and lawn furniture, our footsteps nearly silent on the grass, then clomping loudly over the narrow wooden footbridge behind the Schwartzes’, the creek gurgling beneath us. A patch of trees, a field, another backyard, people whose names I don’t remember, a security light blinking on as we pass, our shadows sweeping hard-edged against the lawn. Everything like a dream. I look at my hands, because they say you can’t look at your hands when you’re dreaming. I wonder if this is what it’s like to be stoned. I say, because nothing is real and it doesn’t matter, “Who was that girl at the bar?”
    â€œJust some girl.”
    â€œWhy did you leave school?”
    â€œI needed a break.”
    â€œWhat’s your decision? What did Lesley mean?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œShe said you’re doing something.”
    â€œShe talks too much. She didn’t mean anything.”
    â€œYou’re going back to school?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œWho is the girl at the bar?”
    â€œJust some girl. Come on,” he says, and I race to follow.
    Â 
    I’m not very happy with our destination.
    â€œJosh,” I whisper, “there’s three dogs in there.”
    â€œReally? He used to always have four. Oops—there’s the fourth.”
    He indicates the fourth dog, which has come meandering lazily around the corner from the side of the house to join its pals in the fenced-in backyard.
    â€œRottweilers, man,” says Josh. “Those are mean-ass dogs. Smart, too.”
    â€œJosh, those things weigh more than I do,” I hiss.
    â€œOh, yeah, easily,” says Josh, speaking low. “They’d eat you and probably not even notice it. Plus, Nystrom’s got the shotgun.”
    â€œWhat?!”
    â€œShhh!!”
    We’re lying in the brush at the top of a rise that looks down on Mr. Nystrom’s yard. This was our destination. The house looks like it was plucked from some other, very different community and deposited in Edina—a low, one-story ranch, the paint peeling on the back wall, shingles missing from the roof, the gutter pulling away from the roofline like someone had tried to hang from it. A harsh flood lamp illuminates the yard, which is mostly dirt with a few patchy areas of crabgrass—except right in the middle, where there’s a ring of low, ragged bushes surrounding a circular planter, on which is perched a statuette of a naked cherub playing a harp. From here it looks to be about a foot tall.
    â€œSo there it is,” says Josh.