Creeps by Darren Hynes

beneath that smile, and what it is, is: You’re dead, Pumphrey … coming to my house. Fuckin’ DEAD!

FOUR
    His father parks in front of the strip mall and shuts off the car. Grips the steering wheel and stares forward, then takes the keys out of the ignition and puts them in his pocket and says to Wayne, “Back in a minute.” He opens the door and Wayne says,
    â€œNo, you won’t.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œBe back in a minute.”
    His father—half of him inside the car and half of him out—seems unsure suddenly, as if he’s forgotten what he’s supposed to be doing right in the middle of doing it. For ages his dad stays that way and the cold’s getting in and it occurs to Wayne that staying where you are isn’t always the wrong thing, but then the car door slams shut and his father is walking away and tucking his chin into his coatcollar because the wind has picked up since leaving Pete The Meat’s.
    Wayne watches him pass Mike’s Convenience, a dollar store, an arcade, and Pizza Delight before coming to a stop in front of a neon sign with some of its letters burnt out. ERB’S HID AWAY it says, although Wayne knows it’s HERB’S HIDEAWAY because it’s the place his mother most often accuses his father of going to.
    His dad puts his hands in his pockets and stares at the sign for ages, then pulls open the door and goes in.
    Wayne waits and wonders why his father wouldn’t have left the car running. Freeze to death in here. Can’t even listen to the radio or a CD. He breathes on the window and fogs it up and writes the word weak , then wipes it away. Thinks then of The Meat’s handshake and of his own fingers nearly breaking and the way Pete walked him and his father to the door afterwards and then stood on the porch waving until they drove away. You’re dead, Pumphrey … coming to my house. Fuckin’ DEAD.
    The door to Herb’s opens and a man comes out and he lights a cigarette and takes a few drags and walks away.
    Wayne notices the e in hideaway flash on for a second, then go out again. He zips up his jacket.
    One-thirty becomes two-thirty and Wayne’sfreezing just sitting in the car, so he gets out and starts walking. Past Mike’s Convenience, the dollar store, the arcade, and Pizza Delight, and then stopping where his father stopped. He moves to the window and presses his nose against the glass but there’s too much frost to see anything. He moves to the door but doesn’t go in. A woman walks past and makes some comment about how Herb’s is a grown-up place and why isn’t he in school anyway, and Wayne looks down at his feet and pretends not to hear. When she’s gone, he lifts his head and opens the door a crack and tries to get a peek inside, but it’s too dark and there’s country music and the sound of a slot machine. He opens the door wider and slips in and stands in the foyer, listening to the music. The singer’s singing about where he’s going to live when he gets home, and how his old lady has thrown out everything he owns.
    A woman shouts.
    Someone curses.
    He takes a few steps and looks around the corner. A man with a beer belly and wearing a ball cap is playing the slot machine while a woman with an even bigger beer belly is standing behind him. She grips his shoulder and says, “Come on, Kyle, you’ve played long enough.”
    â€œLeave me,” Kyle says.
    â€œAren’t we going out? You said we were.”
    â€œThis is out.”
    There’s no one else in the place save for Wayne’s father sitting at the bar, his fist wrapped around a Bacardi Dark, and a tall bartender who’s busy flicking the stations on a TV that appears to be suspended from the ceiling.
    The woman says, “‘Somewhere nice,’ you said.”
    â€œGo home out of it, Tammy; you’re bad luck.”
    â€œCocksucker!”
    â€œHey!” says