This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental.
Burn Scars Copyright © 2021 UNNERVING
Burn Scars Copyright © 2021 EDDIE GENEROUS
BURN SCARS
EDDIE GENEROUS
PROLOGUE
September 1982
Eric Simons waggled his eyebrows at his friends, and the yellow from the high sodium vapor bulb of the streetlight by the house next-door turned his grin into something sinister and promising. He pulled a crinkled to soft August, 1981 issue of Gallery from the middle of the stack of comic books, Sears catalogs, and Hockey Pictorial magazines. He tapped the cover twice as he said, “I’m telling you, Mr. Bishop has a story in here. The Mr. Bishop. My uncle Ed showed me.” The glossy cover was rubbed dull and flipping it open revealed worn and bent interior corners—clearly this was the most visited of the stacked publications.
Todd Beaman frowned at the idea and made a pfft noise from where he stood by the treehouse window as he ran a finger against the soft cedar grains. He’d always been one of those guys who seemed to disbelieve anything surprising, unless he was the one sharing. He also had cable and parents who were heavy sleepers when he got up in the middle of the night. “Mr. Bishop can hardly write his name on the chalkboard,” he said. He had the heavy, black binoculars out, scanning the quiet suburban night. “You’re full of it and so is your uncle.”
“He can write Butch’s name, no problem,” Freddy Sims said as he bent over the comics on the makeshift table—formerly a wire spindle. Butch Read was a boy who’d had to repeat ninth English twice and spent half an hour every day after school in detention. Freddy had bared witness Butch’s second go ‘round of nine English.
They all lived in Andover, which was a smallish town, though bigger than all the towns in the county—boasting 7,000 residents and four sets of stoplights. The large grocery and discount department stores pushed daytime traffic into the region of busy, though rarely jammed. Most who resided there lived a modest, middle-income lifestyle, leaning closer to low income, but never really starving. A recent surge in marijuana and cocaine use forced the local police force to hire several new graduates to bulk up the numbers—mostly young men from the country, because familiarity couldn’t be trained and doing away with one step toward readiness saved time and money. Still, a handful were from out of town, bringing with them families and outsider attitudes. Bringing with them unforgiving purviews.
“No lie, stick a needle in my eye.” Eric put his hand on the porno mag like it was the Bible and he was swearing in at court.
“Let’s see it here,” Freddy said and started snapping fingers with his right hand, reaching from the plastic Becker’s Milk Co. crate where he sat. He had a mini-flashlight in his right hand, currently clicked off.
The cover model on the Gallery wore a blue two-piece bikini. She squatted. Her waxed smooth thighs acting like guardrails into where the eyes were supposed to look. And if imagining what lay beneath got old, she cupped a left hand just below her left breast, maybe offering a taste, if you were lucky, if you dared, if you bought the damned magazine. Her expression was vapid, an emptiness fogged her eyes, and her lips were parted about wide enough to slip in a pencil or to catch a housefly.
Eric had been whacking off to her, and the others featured in those pages, for a couple weeks already and didn’t hesitate on the images as he flipped past and to a section of straight black type on white background. “Look’it,” he said and handed it over so hard the glossy paper slapped against Freddy’s palm.
Freddy lit his flashlight and cleared his throat. He said, “Quiet in the audience, please. Thank you.” He then began reading aloud—though not too loudly, they were supposed to be asleep in Eric’s basement already, hours ago in fact. “Overnight Repairs by Steve Bishop.” He stopped reading and frowned at Eric. “I don’t know, man, Steve Bishop’s probably a pretty common name. How many Steve Bishops are there?”
“Like a million,” Todd said. He’d settled the lenses of the binoculars on a cop car rolling like a neighborhood creep looking for parted curtains and teenagers in their underwear. The officer then parked and killed his lights about a half-mile from the closest property, which belonged to Eric’s next-door neighbors. The Talbots.
The Talbot house was an eye soar and it didn’t help that a streetlight shined directly over it like it was a museum exhibit. The lawn had a rusty ’72 Chevy Chevelle riding cinderblocks and an old Kenmore wash machine, dented and rusty where the green paint had flaked away. Three windows of the home had faded plywood boards instead of glass and the bug screen on the front door fluttered in the wind like a boat sail.
“Two million even. Hey, check it out. Think that’s that guy, Willie’s cousin, Landon?” Todd added, pointing out the window at the cop two lawns away, but coming closer.
“Flip to the end of the story. My uncle went to high school with Mr. Bishop, he was always writing crazy stuff, he said. Said one time he got a three-day suspension for writing a story where the math teacher sprouted mushrooms out her head and one morning couldn’t get out of bed ‘cause she was stuck to the wall.” Eric spoke with his eyes focused on a smiling skeleton cartoon from inside the pages of an issue of DC Ghosts he’d picked up for a nickel from Aviation Comics and Collectibles. “For real. It’s him. Read the back.”
Freddy cleared his throat again and flipped three pages to get to the bio. “Steve Bishop lives in
