by S. A. Hunt
Behind her, the automatic light clicked on again, bathing her feet in stark white and unfurling her shadow out in front of her so she was stepping on her own heels. Robin turned and walked backward, expecting to see the hydraulic door easing shut and tripping its own sensor, but what she saw turned her blood vessels into rivers of Arctic ice water. Her hands went numb.
The Red Lord was inside the women’s restroom.
Through the door behind him, Robin saw the automatic light go out, and the monstrous silhouette became a blind rectangle of black.
Bright green lamps appeared in the doorway as his eyes opened, two milky railroad signals in the dark. His shaggy bulk filled the doorframe from side to side and he bent to step underneath the lintel, unfolding to his full height. And he was huge, a stretched-out scarecrow, all hair and sinew and bone.
The two of them stood there in the parking lot of Miguel’s Pizza, facing each other.
“You ain’t real,” she told him.
Those green lamplight eyes gazed listlessly at her from the doorway.
“I know what you are.” An anxious sort of confidence wound its way into her voice. “You’re some kind of lingerin’ hallucination the King of Alabama put on me. I never got to see exactly what her Gift was. It must have been Illusion. That’s what’s going on here.” She scoffed. “Don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. I mean, come on, that’s the deal, right? Maybe Neva reached into my head while I was standing in her living room, found my memories of the night terrors and nightmares I had when I was a kid, and she used them to hex me with some kind of worst-fear bullshit before she died.”
The creature stared, blinking slowly.
Calming, relaxing, she gave a snide little shrug, and continued walking backward. “All I got to do is find somebody, maybe a houngan, that can do a little hoodoo, nix this Illusion hex on me, and we’re golden. Au revoir, weirdo. It was nice knowing—”
Leaning forward, eyes still locked on her, the hallucination let out a deep growl, a low, wet, ragged rumble, a drowned engine.
Grrrrrararararuhuhuh.
She ran.
As soon as she took off, she slid out of one of her untied boots, leaving it behind. The gravel bit into the sole of her foot as she ran for the Conlin Plumbing van. She flung the door open, jumped into the back with the sleeping bag and tubs of junk, and slammed it.
“Hallucinations don’t make noise,” Robin breathed, fogging up the back window as she locked the door. “Do they?” Her voice shook. “I don’t know what the hell that thing is, but it’s not Illusion magic.”
Kneeling in the back of the van, clutching the Glock, loaded with a full mag of hollow-points. Eyes on the back window. Watching for movement.
Staring. Waiting. “Where’d you go, fucker?”
Steeling her nerve, she crossed herself with the Glock—mammaries, ovaries, wallet, and watch—and pushed the back door open. Night air rushed in. She pointed the gun, sweeping the parking lot, finger slipping into the trigger well.
Nothing out there.
It was gone.
7
Since there were no curtains or shades in the cupola, the sun preempted Wayne’s alarm clock. Exhaling faint white vapors, he sat up to discover one of the most beautiful sunrises he’d ever seen in his life. A majesty of royal purple and orange-gold rippled throughout the eastern sky, an explosion of color and light.
Bedroom was cold, surprisingly so. Wind pressed against the north side of the cupola, making the windowpanes crackle subtly in their frames. Wayne pushed back the covers and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, stretching like a cat. He was trembling by the time he got his clothes dug out of one of the boxes.
Mom’s ring lay on the windowsill. He picked it up and was about to drape the chain around his neck when he realized it was warm.
The heck?
* * *
“Freezing up there,” he told his dad as he came down, his shoelaces dragging on the floor. He kissed his mom’s wedding band and slipped it into his shirt.
Leon was brushing his teeth, hugging himself in front of the bathroom mirror. He wore only a pair of sweatpants. “You’re a Chicago kid, and you wanna complain about the cold?” he asked, and spat a mouthful of foam into the sink. “Be glad it ain’t snowing. Hell, this is mild compared to what I grew up with.”
“I know, I know.” Wayne tromped downstairs. “Barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways, blah blah.”
“Tie your shoes before you fall and bust your face,” said Leon’s voice from the top of the staircase. “You don’t wanna start your first day in a new school with a broke nose, do you?”
“I thought chicks dig scars.”
“Scars, yeah. Jacked-up nose, not so much.”
Breakfast was a bowl of cereal and buttered toast. “So what did you decide about the cat?” Wayne asked his father, in the brief moments when the man bustled through the kitchen.
“Cat?” asked Leon. “Oh, right.”
The boy gave him a pointed look.
“I don’t care if you feed it and let it hang around the house,” his father told him. Leon had found his way into a two-piece suit and was looping a tie around his neck as he spoke. “They’re good for catching mice before they get in. I just don’t want it coming inside.” He deftly wound the tie into a four-in-hand knot and cinched it tight. “Cats’re cool and all, but they like to get into shit.”
“All right.”
Leon paused, eyeing him. “We cool?”
“We’re cool.”
Leon straightened the tie and laid his collar down, tugging it firm. “How do I look?” he asked, grabbing his suit jacket from where it lay draped over the back of one of the kitchen table chairs.
“Professional as always.”
Leon held up the jacket. “Jacket or no jacket?”
“Wear it until you get to work, then take it off and hang it somewhere.”
Hesitating for a second, Leon nodded thoughtfully and shrugged into it. “My personal fashion guru saves the day again.”
“And roll up your sleeves. Makes you look like you’re down to clown.”
Roll up your sleeves, Mom said a thousand years ago, stooping to look Wayne in the eye. The memory was bathed in golden light, like an antique photograph. They were standing in their old Chicago apartment, late summer breeze carrying the sound of big-city traffic through their open windows.
Why? he’d said.
Makes you look like you mean business, she’d said.
“Down to clown?” asked Leon.
“Ready for business.”
“Oh.” Leon tossed him a copy of the house key. “Hey, you can keep your phone turned on today, but don’t be playing games on it when you’re supposed to be paying attention in class.”
“I wouldn’t anyway,” said Wayne through a mouthful of toast. “The games on this fossil suck.”
“Attaboy.” Leon bustled back out to the hallway.
Reaching into his shirt, Wayne took out his mother’s wedding ring and clutched it while he ate. It was still warm to the touch, as if it had been sitting in the sun.
Raising it to his right eye, he peered through the ring at the kitchen, studying the bulletin board his father had installed on the wall next to the now-obsolete landline jack. This early in their new life down south, there were only a few things on it—coupons for the local pizza place, Miguel’s; Post-it notes with various phone numbers on them; a to-do list (set up Internet, look into renter’s insurance, get oil changed, etc.).
What if you look through that ring one day—
Shut up, Pete.
Like he’d told the other boy, it was a comforting gesture, like twirling your hair around your finger, or folding your arms, or rubbing the fabric of your jeans, something the school counselor called “stimming,” or “self-stimulating.” Like a heavy blanket on a cold night, something about the solid feel of the gold ring around his eye made him feel surrounded, protected, shielded, like a mask. His fath
er had talked him into playing a few months of baseball several years ago and he had stood in the outfield with his glove over his face, peeking through the gap between his thumb and forefinger, watching the action on the diamond through the crisscrossing leather thongs. He’d known even then he looked like a daggone weirdo, but he didn’t care. The smell of the worn leather, the darkness inside, and the feel of it on his cheeks were reassuring.
He took off his glasses and held the ring in an OK gesture, the hoop tight in the circle of his fingers, braced against his bare eye socket. Another spoonful of cereal into his mouth and he sat at the table chewing, looking around the now-blurry room through his makeshift monocle. Yes, he was nervous about his first day at a new school, all alone.
Just remember, Mom had told him, as Wayne rolled up his sleeves. Everybody else is just as nervous about the first day of school as you are. Remember that, okay?
Okay, he had said, barely believing it.
Imagine them all in their underwear, Mom said.
Wayne had recoiled in horror. Gross. He screwed up his face as he slid his arms through the straps of a backpack that would soon be heavy with textbooks. Besides, I don’t really know what girl underwear looks like.
Mom had laughed at that.
Wayne froze, ring pressed against his eye, spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth. Someone stood just outside the kitchen door, motionless.
A broad shadow darkened the hardwood floor and climbed the opposite wall at an angle before it disappeared behind the doorframe.
“Dad?” Wayne said, quietly.
Whoever stood in the hallway didn’t move, didn’t answer.
“Dad?” A little louder this time. “Dad, you’re gonna be late for work.” His voice broke a bit. “Did—did you forget something?”
No answer.
Wayne leaned to one side, his chin almost against the kitchen table, trying to see into the hallway. Leaning farther and farther, one foot coming to rest on the floor, he could see the edge of a silhouette in the morning light coming from the living room, a person, maybe, wearing something brown, or perhaps red, standing just out of sight with their arms by their sides. Without his glasses on, the shape was just that—an amorphous red blob.
“You there?” he called again. “Dad, what are you doing? Did you change your clothes? You’re going to be late. Don’t forget your wallet. You don’t want to—”
WHAM. The wall shook with a hard, hollow noise as if a bowling ball had been thrown at it.
Wayne jerked upright in his seat, knocking over his cereal bowl. Pink milk and a few soggy pieces of Lucky Charms spilled out onto the table. He snatched up his eyeglasses and put them on, blinking in the sudden clarity, and scrambled away from the table to look out into the hallway.
Whatever the red shape was, it was gone. “Was that you?” Leon leaned out of the living room.
“No, it wasn’t me.”
Leon eyed him. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’d tell you if it was me. Besides, when have you ever known me to mess around and make a noise like that?”
“Well, there was that time you put a bowl of ramen noodles in the microwave with no water, and it sounded like a bomb went off in the kitchen. The apartment was full of smoke, too.”
Wayne pushed his glasses up on his nose. “That was years ago.”
“And it stank until the day we moved out. You ruined the microwave.”
Wayne sighed. Dad liked to bring up the Ramen Incident whenever Wayne offered to cook. Never let him live it down. But God forbid Wayne ever brought up the times he’d had to watch his father schlep through the front door an hour from bedtime, drunk as hell. Wayne had learned how to make his own dinner, real quick.
“Maybe something fell upstairs,” said Leon from the living room.
“Maybe.” Wayne went back into the kitchen to clean up the mess he’d made, swabbing the table with a fistful of paper towels.
* * *
He was still licking his lips and burping up cereal as he went out to stand by the mailbox and wait for the school bus.
According to Pete Maynard, the bus ran at seven, but it was six fifty and he didn’t see Pete in the small gaggle of children standing on the other side of the road. Two girls, two boys, all of them but one younger than Wayne. The oldest was a tall Black girl in a parachute windbreaker, her hair braided into a slender rope down her back.
As he approached them, they stopped chattering at each other and fell quiet.
“Hi,” he said to them, kneeling to tie his shoes.
At first they didn’t respond, but then the tall girl said, “Hi,” and rapped a knuckle on one of the boys’ chest. “Say hi. It’s nice to do that.”
“Hi,” said the boy.
The others glanced at him and chimed in with their own morose greetings.
Wayne tried to think of something else to say.
“You’re the one that moved into the haunted house,” said one of the boys.
Wayne twisted around to look at the Victorian, and back to them. His puffy jacket hissed and huffed with every movement in the still morning air. “I did come out of it, yeah.”
The tall girl backhanded the boy in the chest.
“Ow. Why you do dat?”
“That’s rude, Evan,” she said. She shrugged in a sulky, downcast way. “I’m sorry. My name’s Amanda.” She poked the two boys in the temple with her fingertips in turn, pushing their heads. They were both white, with cold-pinked noses. “This is Kasey, and this is Evan. They’re my step-brothers. The little girl is Katie Fryhover. She lives in the trailer behind us with her grandmama and their dog Champ.”
“My name is Wayne. Wayne Parkin. We just moved here from Chicago.”
“Amanda—”
“Hugginkiss,” said Evan.
Amanda belted him again. “Shut up. My name is not Amanda Hugginkiss. It’s Amanda Johnson. God.”
“Have you seen any ghostses?” asked little Katie Fryhover. Her upper lip glistened with snot and one of her front teeth was missing.
“I ate breakfast with one,” said Wayne, becoming aware of the warm wedding band lying on his chest. The kids’ eyes bugged out of their heads in shock. He instinctively reached up to rub the ring through his shirt. “I eat breakfast with a ghost every morning.”
“Woooaaah,” Evan and Kasey Johnson cooed in unison.
Amanda regarded him warily.
“Really?” asked Katie.
“Yup.” Wayne smiled. “My dad and me leave a place for her at the kitchen table. Nobody ever sits there except her.” The reverent, mild way he said it had a chilling effect on the kids’ excitement, and they fell quiet.
A door slapped shut somewhere in the trailer park, and Pete came huffing and puffing up the gravel drive to join them at the road. He was pulling on a jacket as he went, trading a Pop-Tart from hand to hand, and when he reached them he was still fighting with it, one arm hiked up behind his back.
“What the frick!” he fussed, the Pop-Tart in his mouth. The kids laughed. Pete accidentally bit through the Pop-Tart in frustration and tried to catch it with his free hand, but he slapped it into the culvert. He chewed in anger, the boys laughing even harder. “Are you even for real right now?”
Amanda smirked into her hand. “I’m sure it’s not the first one you had.”
A frown tugged at Wayne’s face as he remembered how little Pete actually ate.
“Just hate to waste food.” Pete wrenched the jacket on and blew a stream of vapor. “Morning, Bruce Wayne. How was your first night in the House of a Thousand Corpses?”
“It was okay. I only saw a few corpses, though. Nothing special.” One corner of Wayne’s mouth came up in a smirk. “Nothing like they said it would be.”
“Not as advertised, huh? That sucks.” Pete gave him a good-natured slap on the back.
The distant snore of the school bus groaned somewhere in the trees, and a car door clapped shut behind him. They moved out of the way so Wayne’s dad
could back out of the drive.
As the Subaru hooked into the road, Leon paused, rolling his window down. Some morning radio show came out of the car, two guys talking about a pie-eating contest in a place called Rome. “Have a good day at school,” he said, turning the radio off. “If you need me, you know how to get me.”
The bulge of Wayne’s cell phone lay against his chest inside an inner jacket pocket, next to Mom’s wedding ring. “Okay. Have a good day, Dad.” The phone was a cheapo crap phone half his own age, didn’t have any apps or games other than a measly pinball game and some kind of game where you made a rabbit jump around and eat carrots, but he could make calls on it and text Leon’s number.
“Oh,” he said, waving.
“Yeah?” asked his father.
“What was that loud noise?”
“No idea,” said Leon. “I went upstairs and looked around, but I didn’t see anything on the floor other than the moving boxes that were already there. Maybe it was the pipes. Did you run the water?”
“No. I was sitting at the table eating breakfast.”
“I don’t know, then. We’ll check it out when I get home, maybe. But, you know, it’s an old house. Who knows? Fixer-uppers like this place make all kinds of noises.” The school bus came wheezing up the road toward them. Leon pointed at the kids and said, “Stay frosty, compadres,” driving away.
Wayne rolled his eyes.
They filed onto the bus, a creaky-drafty thing already teeming with noisy kids. As they sorted themselves into the elephant-skin seats, Wayne gazed out the window. Black wings swooped out of the tree line and a crow landed in the grass by the roadside.
Picking up the remainder of Pete’s Pop-Tart with its beak, the bird struggled back into the air and flew away.
* * *
After spending his childhood thus far in Chicago, Wayne found King Hill Elementary School almost too quiet, funereal in its own country-bumpkin way. The lunchroom burbled with sleepy conversation, puffy-eyed kids mumbling to each other and nuzzling into the crooks of their elbows, trying to catch a few more minutes of shut-eye before the day started.
