These Summer Sons

02: Summer Sons

The boys met in the hollow as they always did, down among the wrecks of cars that lay half-buried in the long grass like sunken ships. Jay picked his way through the trees leading up to the slope, scanning the way ahead for the familiar figures of his boys. He spotted Noah soon enough, clear against the deep greens in their usual bright yellow coat.

"Hey, Darby!" he yelled. They looked up, grinning, and waved.

Jay sped up, jogging to meet them beside the grimy skeleton of an old pick up. Close up, Noah stuck out all the more - even in the summer sun their coat was by far the brightest thing around and their butterfly blue hair clashed outrageously. Jay smiled. Nobody had style like Noah had style.

Dropping his rucksack on the floor, he swung himself up onto the bonnet of the pickup truck, perching on it despite the creaks and groans the rusted metal made beneath him, like the complaining of old joints. Noah watched him in silence as he plucked a cigarette from his jacket pocket with deft fingers and stuck it unlit in the corner of his mouth.

"Don't give me that look," he laughed.

"You know what I think already," they replied, grinning back.

Jay struck the lighter aflame, letting it catch and crackle against the edge of the cigarette. He took a long drag before blowing the smoke slowly up into the air. Noah crinkled their nose.

"Is there a reason you asked us down here today?" they asked.

"Do I need a reason to hang out with my best friends?" he answered, bemused. The cigarette flared as he took another deep drag. Their attitude to his smoking only forced him to look once again at how very different the pair of them were - where he was all rough edges and blistering anger, Noah was calm and refined. They balanced each other out in a way no one else could.

"No," they laughed "But you're hardly known for being social. Did something happen?"

Jay bit his lip. "No, no nothing happened."

"Something at home? Your dad?"

"It's nothing like that. I just... I just wanted to go over what we know again."

They regarded him, slowly. He didn't blame them for not believing him - there was always something going on at home and he knew they saw more than most people. Noah was quiet in a way that meant they were always listening.

"Here comes trouble," they nodded. Jay followed their gaze and spotted Carter and Toby weaving their own way through the pine forest. Once again, he found himself struck by how magical this place was in the summer. The lingering perfume of crushed pine needles hovered about the forest floor all about this hollow that foresters had once cleared. The jagged hole that they had left behind was more beautiful now than the destruction should have allowed - filled with the long grass and wisps of wildflowers like funeral wreaths for the gutted corpses of the forester's trucks that still dotted the landscape around Belladonna. Half-submerged and rusting on empty wheel arches as they were, they still seemed to be waiting for their masters to return.

In the sun, Toby's tawny skin glowed almost golden beside the rich sepia tones of Carter's. Jay glanced at the place skin of his own forearms, only just tanning a watery nut brown after months of summer.

"You admiring our tans again, Dawkins?" Toby called.

He laughed. "It's not my fault you're so handsome."

Noah snorted as Toby wagged a finger at Jay, mockingly "Tut tut, Mr Dawkins, whatever will we do with you?"

Jay took another deep drag on his cigarette. "I can think of a few things I'd like you to do with me, Mr Cho."

Toby clutched at his heart. "Damn, you got me good that time."

Carter smiled, a little sheepishly "You walked into that one T."

"Fear not, I'll get him back, sooner or later."

Carter rolled his eyes. "So, what's the agenda for today?" he asked.

Jay blew some more smoke away. "Must you always sound like a private school tutor or something?"

"Course he must," Toby said, "It's practically written into this DNA, isn't that right Jonsey?"

"Something like that," he admitted.

Jay shook his head, flicking the stub of his cigarette away.

"You're going to set fire to the place someday too."

"Jesus Carter, don't you ever stop worrying either? It must be exhausting."

"Lay off, Jay," Toby said, easily.

He rolled his eyes but did as he was told. His boys were the only ones who could talk to him that way and he knew it. Languidly, he stooped for his rucksack, swinging it up onto the truck beside him and from within he pulled out a black reporter's notebook, the kind detectives always seemed to have in old TV shows. Touching his tongue to his finger self-importantly, he rifled through it until he found the page he was looking for.

"This week my inquiries led me to hear about three missing cats and one missing dog. Someone broke into the Radley's chicken house ag-"

"Probably a fox," Carter interjected.

Jay narrowed his eyes. "There was no blood, and the only feathers were a small trail leading into the woods. Joseph said it looking almost deliberate."

Toby snorted. "And how come you were talking to Joseph for your information?"

"A gentleman never kisses and tells. But that's not important - the point is, that's what, five different animal disappearance cases just this week?"

"On the bright side," Noah added, "Some of the dogs from last week showed up again."

"See?" Carter replied, nodding appreciatively at them "We live in the middle of nowhere, of course, animals wander off. But they usually turn up again."

"It's the usually that worries me," Jay said, his eyes burning "You've got to admit that it happens too often to not be strange."

Carter shrugged him off. "Listen I love sci-fi as much as the next guy you know that. But you're not seriously on that whole 'the institute is stealing our pets' thing again, are you?"

"I don't know what I think yet. That's why I want answers."

"It's not just the animals," Noah interjected.

Jay swung down from the truck's bonnet to stand beside them. "Noah, you gorgeous human, what are you talking about?"

They said nothing but plucked their phone from their pocket by way of an answer. Pulling up a webpage they handed it to Jay. He squinted at the screen for a moment, struggling to read the words in the bright sunlight. When he'd read it, he read it again to make sure he'd understood.

"And it was here? Here in Belladonna?"

"That's right." They nodded.

"Bloody hell," he said, running his fingers through his hair. It stuck up wildly in all directions, mirroring his frenzy "That has to be connected surely."

Toby looked backwards and forwards between the two of them. "Alright lovebirds, what have I missed?"

Jay gestured for Noah to answer.

"They found bones out in the woods, buried in a shallow grave."

"Wait..." Carter said "Human bones?"

"That's right. Not complete sets but it looks like they could have come from three different people."

"That's not even the best part," Jay interrupted, his eyes gleaming "Go ahead and guess where they found them."

"No way," Toby said "No freaking way."

"Less than a mile from the institute. Try and tell me that's a coincidence."