“The way I figure it,” said Reggie, stepping onto the wooden platform that surrounded the wooden building, “is that folks in these parts pretty much forgot about Depot 77—that’s its name. It’s far enough off any road not to be an eyesore, and I can verify no funny business is going on here, certainly nothing that would attract the cops. It’s all but forgotten, which is the way I like it.”
Judd stepped onto the wooden walkway as well, which creaked loudly under his sneakers.
Reggie went on, “The windows are all busted out and most of the furniture’s gone, but it was never really much to start with. Still, it’s home to me, and in case yer wonderin’, no, these tracks haven’t been used since I moved in, seven years ago.”
Resting underneath the hanging lantern was a long wooden bench. Reggie motioned to it. “Have a seat, kid. And don’t look so nervous, I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
Famous last words, Judd thought, but he sat anyway. He suddenly felt very, very far from his home. Far from his bed. Far from his mother. It all might have been a world away.
Reggie sat, too, at the far end of the bench. There was plenty of space between them. Reggie, no doubt a devout member of the Holy Order of the Homeless in Fullerton, found a crooked cigarette in his huge Army jacket and lit it.
“You fight in Iraq?” Judd asked before he could stop and think.
Reggie exhaled a billowy plume. “Yup.”
“My dad did, too.”
Reggie squinted, although his eyes were mostly hidden in shadows. “He didn’t make it home, did he, kid?”
Judd shook his head.
“A lot of good folk didn’t.”
“Well, I never got to meet him. We don’t even have home videos of him, just photos. And my dad’s dog tags. They found ‘em near a bombed-out building and sent them to my mom. She had them silver-plated—cause I am allergic to most other metals—and she gave them to me at the MIA memorial service. She kept the flag. It’s in our living room in a triangle box with glass in the front.”
“Silver, huh?” Reggie said, cringing. “I don’t like me no silver.”
“I wasn’t offering them.” Judd clasped the dog tags through his shirt, jingling the matching silver ball chains, his talismans.
“Magic, aren’t they?” Reggie said, not unkindly.
“You keep him alive in your memory by wearing the dog tags,” Reggie said. “But silver.” He shuddered.
“Do you have anything to eat?” Judd asked, deciding to change the subject. “I accidentally dropped my sandwich in the dirt.”
Reggie laughed, his blackened teeth letting loose a stench that took Judd aback. “No, I find my own food when I’m hungry.”
“Like hunting?” Judd asked.
“Something like that. I don’t really eat. It’s more like...drinking.”
Judd’s eyebrows went up. “Like beer and stuff?”
“No, no. Reggie don’t drink beer no more. More like...blood.”
Judd’s heart nearly stopped. He fell silent, thinking hard. The crickets weren’t, though. They were loud near the old train station, filling the silence. Judd thought he heard the sound of frogs, too. There must be a pond nearby.
A slow realization took over Judd. He put his fingers over his dad’s dog tags, squeezed them hard.
“Like people’s blood?” he asked and drew the silver dog tags from inside of his shirt and held them up to Reggie, who shrank from them.
“No, small animals. Rats, rabbits, even. I certainly wouldn’t drink the blood of children. I got my standards. And I wouldn’t wish this existence on anyone. Especially not the son of a fellow soldier who died in Iraq. That’s just too much pathos.”
“What’s pathos?” Judd asked.
“Tragedy.”
Judd nodded and returned the silver-plated dog tags inside of his shirt.