White Smoke

by Tiffany D. Jackson

“I don’t know. Someone in the hallway.”

  “What were they doing?” he asks.

  She shrugs. “Just standing.”

  “Was it Marigold?”

  I narrow my eyes. “Why would you automatically think it’s me?”

  Alec doesn’t spare me a glance. “Just a simple question.”

  Yeah, a simple loaded question, he means. I look to Mom, who shakes her head at me, hoping to avoid confrontation.

  “It wasn’t Marigold, it was . . . somebody else. She said she used to live here.”

  Alec smiles and gives Mom a wink. “Oh. Really? Is this a new special friend?”

  Piper stays quiet and builds a small fort with her fries as if she didn’t just mention some stranger was hanging around the halls while we slept.

  You ever wake up in bed and feel like you’re not . . . alone?

  As I snuggle up to the wall, my eyes pop open, skin prickling at the whispering voices surrounding me, distant and muffled. Someone is standing at the foot of the bed, my senses scream. Standing there, watching me dream. I sit up quick, heart racing. I’m alone. My covers are on the floor, the room freezing, the voices silent. . . .

  And my door is wide open.

  In the hall, no one else’s door is open besides mine. It’s silent, the house still asleep. But there’s a light on downstairs.

  Buddy trots in an infinity loop around the kitchen and family room, nose to the ground like a hunting hound.

  “How the hell did you get out?” I ask before a twinkle of light catches my eye.

  The glass cup is on the counter again.

  I pick it up, glancing at its home on the shelf, the inside still damp with murky water. Or maybe . . . milk.

  “Weird,” I mumble.

  CREEEEEEEAK

  Buddy freezes, his tail erect.

  “It’s nothing, Bud, chillax,” I say, rinsing off the cup before shelving it. This place is old, full of old-house noises. My toes drum against the floor. Barefoot, I can fully feel that the house is strangely uneven, the ground tilting it forward, as if trying to feed its contents to the street. The cold bites into my bare legs. I check the time: 3:19 a.m.

  “Bud, let’s go,” I order, and head for the stairs but hit a wall of a stench so violent I gag. It’s rancid. A decaying animal, a rotting corpse.

  CREEEEEEEAK

  This time, the sound is distinct. Sharp. And close. Like it’s right next to me.

  Like it’s coming from the hall closet.

  A chill wraps my arms in ice, fear ramping up its engine.

  CREAK

  “Shit,” I say, and take off, scrambling back to my room, Buddy at my heels.

  Four

  “ANYTHING?”

  With a yawn, I hold my phone up like a sword toward the sun on the corner of Division and Maple. Sammy grips the leash as Buddy sniffs the edges of an overgrown yard.

  Three bars and several text messages from Tamara roll in.

  “Enough to call Dad,” I say, relieved.

  Sammy grins. “Do it!”

  I press call and set it on speaker. The ring is full of static but as soon as he picks up . . .

  “Finally! I thought you forgot about your old man.”

  “Hi, Dad!” we say in unison.

  “Hey! Hey! Why does it sound like you guys are underwater?”

  “No service in the house.”

  “No internet either,” Sammy adds.

  “Back in the Stone Age. All right, I got a meeting in fifteen, but tell me everything!”

  We update him about our new home and the less than pleasant neighbors. Dad lives in LA but he’s on a long-term project in Japan. He’s a contract architect who designs condos and office buildings.

  “I’ve heard about Cedarville,” he says. “Most of those homes were foreclosed in the financial crisis, people leaving in droves. Pretty awful, but it’s interesting what the Sterling Foundation is trying to do. Rename the city, buy up all the properties, and develop. Some of those homes were built back in the early 1900s. Too bad most of them burned up during the riots.”

  “Riots?”

  “Yeah. I’ll tell you all about it later, but right now, guys, I have to go. Say hi to Mom and Alec for me, okay? Love y’all!”

  “Love you too, Dad!”

  “Oh, wait. Marigold, take me off speaker for a sec, would you?”

  I give Sammy a look and walk a few paces away.

  “Yup, Dad, I’m here,” I say, bracing myself.

  “Is everything going okay?” Dad says in that “I’m dead serious” voice.

  “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

  “Okay. Remember what we talked about, we’re giving this a chance . . . and then we’ll see. But you have to keep your end of the bargain. No slipups. One mark on your record is enough.”

  “I know, Dad. You don’t have to remind me.”

  Dad grunts. “I do it because I love you, kid.”

  Dad clicks off and I type “Cedarville” into Google. I don’t know why I didn’t do this before. Caught up in the prospect of leaving everything behind, I didn’t even consider what hellhole I could be walking into.

  “What are you doing now?” Sammy asks.

  “Fact-checking.” I sigh. “Dude, isn’t it weird we’re in the middle of a city and have such shitty cell service?”

  Sammy shrugs as a grin grows across his face.

  “Hey,” he says, nodding over his shoulder. “Let’s check it out.”

  I follow his line of sight to the corner house, its chipping white paint flaking over red wood. A ripped curtain waves at us through the busted bay window.

  “You lunatic! No WAY am I going in there!”

  “But it’s an empty house. Like the ones Dad used to design.”

  “Those were brand-new homes. This is an abandoned one filled with other people’s trash.”

  “Exactly why we should check it out! It’ll be like exploring. Come on! I just want to see what it’s like inside! Aren’t you even a little curious? You can probably take some really cool pictures.”

  In theory, I should set a good example as the big sister and tell him no, that it’s too dangerous. But I am hella curious. Who lived here before? And why did they leave everything behind? What was the rush?

  My breath catches as I stare at the boarded-up door.

  Probably thousands of bedbugs in there. . . .

  Sammy measures my reaction. “As soon as we’re out, I promise, we’ll burn our clothes.”

  I nod. “Plus, hot showers and full-body scans.”

  “Done deal!”

  Sammy ties Bud to a broken mailbox at the property line. We wade through the hip-deep weeds, bees and gnats fighting over their territory. Closer to the porch I stumble, tripping over a hidden step.

  “Careful,” I warn Sammy as we climb up, already having second thoughts but no way I’d let him go in without me. A little reefer would’ve made this adventure a bit more manageable. Sammy peers into the broken window as I scan the neighboring houses. There is an eerie silence when you live on an empty block. It’s not a cabin-in-the-woods type of feeling. More . . . unsettling because you know there should be people nearby. You can almost sense a shadow of their presence. But there’s no one. We’re isolated.

  The door is nothing more than an old piece of plywood, warped and weatherworn. Sammy shoves it with his shoulder. It huffs a breath and creaks open. The broken windows allow just enough light to shine into a living room, painted in volcanic ash. Or that’s how thick the gray dust seems to be.

  “Whoa,” Sammy whispers. “It’s like they just left . . . everything.”

  We split apart, navigating around cast-aside furniture, crumbling paint chips, broken dishes, ripped lampshades, a two-legged table, empty bookcases, and an old wooden TV, its screen smashed in.

  “Dude, this is way cool,” I say.

  Pulling out my phone, I angle and take the perfect shot. No one has seen these types of TVs in decades.

  On the s
taircase leading to the second floor, every step has piles of random junk blocking the path upstairs—holey shoes, a mattress, rotting stuffed animals, and tires.

  Sammy tests a locked door near the stairs. I rub the chill off my arms as we walk deeper in.

  This place seems . . . familiar.

  In the middle of the living room, a red sofa is cocked on its side, half-burnt, covered in mold.

  FACT: Bedbugs lay eggs along the cracks and crevices of your sofa.

  “Sammy, don’t touch anything!” I shout.

  Sammy jumps in his skin. “Ah! I’m not! Geez.”

  “Are you sniffling? Is it your allergies? We should go.”

  Sammy steps over some broken floorboards to check out a fallen mirror. “Dude, would you relax? This place is awesome!”

  Something crunches under my foot. Crackers. A dusting of fresh ones. I follow their trail into the next room. Bright sunshine explodes from the open kitchen into a narrow dining room with a brick fireplace. In the corner is a green sleeping bag, aged and covered in dust.

  Sammy creeps behind me.

  “Squatters,” I mumble, inspecting an open can of soup with the tip of my sneaker.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Someone, like a homeless person, was living here,” I explain. “Sort of like camping out in a house that’s not theirs.”

  “Someone was living in here . . . like this? Why?”

  I shrug. “If you got nowhere else to go, why not take shelter in an empty house?”

  Sammy gazes around. “Hey, this place kinda reminds me of our house.”

  There is charred wood in the hearth of the blackened fireplace, the dusty mantel carved with intricate flowers and some sort of family crest.

  I snap a shot, testing a few filters before a creak above our heads makes my neck snap.

  “What was that?” Sammy gasps.

  Footsteps. Quiet ones, coming from upstairs. Someone’s in the house! The sleeping bag, the open cans . . . shit, I should have known.

  I push Sammy behind me, scanning the room for a weapon. A bat, rock, a glass bottle I could break, anything. Sammy clutches the back of my shirt.

  Another crunch, a foot on broken glass. Much closer this time. Heart surging, I take another step back, hiding us behind the kitchen wall. Broken chairs and scrap metal barricade the back door. With no clear path to the front door, we’ll never make it out before whoever it is reaches the bottom of those steps.

  “Mari,” Sammy whimpers, and I bring a finger to my lips, pointing to the broken kitchen window. I could push him through, give him a chance to run for help. Sammy shakes his head, but I silently insist. He pleads again as I drape my hoodie over the broken glass to keep it from cutting him. And just as I’m ready to hoist him up, Piper rounds the corner.

  “SHIT!” I cough out. “Piper!”

  “You said a bad word,” Piper shouts, pointing.

  “What the fuck were you thinking, playing upstairs!”

  “I wasn’t upstai—”

  “Dude, you’re ten,” Sammy laughs. “Back in my day, I threw a few curse words around without a second thought.”

  Piper narrows her eyes. “You shouldn’t curse. Grandma says people who curse are stupid.”

  Sammy rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

  “That wasn’t funny, Piper! You scared the crap out of us,” I snap.

  “Yeah,” Sammy adds. “And why don’t you make noise when you walk like a regular human instead of creeping around like a cat?”

  “I thought you were allergic to cats?” she shoots back.

  “Ha, she got you there,” I chuckle. “But really, what are you doing here?”

  Piper struggles to come up with something but instead puffs her cheeks. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Oh, did your grandma tell you that?”

  Piper’s face falls, the wind knocked out of her. She toggles from Sammy to me, then back, eyes flooding with tears, before running out the front door. Sammy tilts his head back with a whistle.

  “Dude, that was savage.”

  “I know,” I grumble. “Low blow, but I’m sick of her shit.”

  “You know Ms. Tattletale is going to rat us out, right?”

  I sigh. “Yeah. I know.”

  Piper sits on the porch steps for the rest of the afternoon, waiting for Alec to come home. Contract workers don’t miss a beat, maneuvering around her like water around a rock, loading new building materials, racing against some imaginary clock.

  Mom busies herself in the kitchen, making our favorite: black bean burgers on sweet potato slices with zucchini fries. Mom used to be a meat eater before Sammy was born and we learned he was allergic to the world. She switched gears, studied nutrition, and learned how to make everything from cauliflower crust to vegan butter.

  “We should have internet by Friday,” Mom says, grabbing a plate of veggie snacks with garlic hummus from the fridge, laying them out on the counter.

  “Best news I heard all week,” I mumble.

  “And no wonder Irma’s pushing for it,” she says, scrolling through her phone. “I swear that woman has sent more than a dozen emails and invites. School district functions, board meetings, then a kickoff benefit. I haven’t even written ten words for that New York Times piece due on Friday. Between the move, deadlines, and these contractors . . . Hey, have you seen my zucchini spiralizer?”

  “No.”

  “Hm. I know I unpacked it. Feels like I’m going crazy, I keep misplacing things.”

  I glance at the porch, at Piper sitting upright on the steps, clearly listening in through the screen door.

  That little asshole.

  I move to slam the front door and see Mr. Watson in the sitting room, packing up some tools. It wasn’t until he shifted the ladder propped on the wall that I noticed the intricate carvings on the fireplace, newly stained.

  “Hey, Mr. Watson,” I say, drawn to it.

  He glances up, nods, and continues wrapping up his saw.

  I trace a finger around the family crest.

  Same as in the other house. . . .

  If this house was in similar condition to the house on the corner, it would’ve been easier to just demolish and start from scratch. Except they didn’t; they kept it. Almost as if they wanted it to stay the same.

  “Mr. Watson, have you worked on all the houses in this neighborhood?”

  He shakes his head. “Nope. First time I’ve been over here since I was a boy.”

  “Why did they decide to renovate rather than just tear this place down?”

  He takes a swig of water, avoiding my eyes. “Don’t know. Took over for Smith, who took over for Davis, who replaced all the pipes that were stolen.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Yeah, folks like to steal house materials, bring them down to the scrapyard. You can get good money for copper pipes. Davis switched everything to plastic.”

  “So, there were three separate contract companies working on this house over the last year?”

  “The last four months, actually. There were more.”

  “Why so many?”

  He hesitates before shrugging and returning to his work.

  A new boiler and plastic pipes mean the perfect water temperature for wash day.

  As steam swirls, fogging up the bathroom mirrors, I detangle my twist out, examining the welt under my eye. Maybe I could cover it up with makeup, the thick kind I used to use when acne left craters on my face.

  The last time I washed my hair was in California water, and the style survived the move. But no telling what it’ll do here. Gonna need to try a few styles before school starts so I don’t end up the butt of some stupid jokes. Bad enough I’m walking in there as the new girl during her junior year. I also want to kick myself for wondering if Yusef will be in any of my classes. Shouldn’t be worried about boys while I’m on the road to self-healing. Boys are nothing but distractions.

  Still, he’s nice to look at.

  I lift
the knob above the faucet. The showerhead hums before water coughs out a steady stream. I step into the tub, pulling closed the shower curtain with a picture of a giant sunflower. Mom chose to decorate most of the house in bright yellows, blues, and oranges to remind us of sunnier, warmer days. My room will remain stark white, light enough for me to check for bedbugs.

  The warm cascading water soaking through my hair is heaven on my scalp. That “ahhhh” feeling never gets old. I relish the natural massage with a few deep breaths, and just as I lean my head back and close my eyes, the water vanishes.

  “What the hell?”

  The knob for the shower is down, water racing out of the faucet, kicking the backs of my heels. I pull it back up and continue with my regimen—two washes with sulfate-free peppermint shampoo, fifteen-minute deep conditioner, then detangling with a wide-tooth comb before a cold-water rinse. I’m elbows deep in suds when the shower shuts off again and a cool breeze hits my neck, making me shiver. Weird. It hasn’t done this before. I lift the knob once more, jiggling it into place.

  Just let me get through this last wash. . . .

  It stays, giving me enough time to wash the soap out from roots to tip. I stick my head under the pouring water and take another deep breath, wishing it was ocean water instead of Cedarville’s best tap.

  Will I ever see the beach again? Do I even want to?

  I open one eye to reach for the deep conditioner and see a shadow through the curtain as a shaky hand reaches for the knob.

  “AHHHH!”

  I reel back, hitting my head on the tile wall, and slip, catching air before landing on my ass. Ooof! Water shoots down on my face, filling my nostrils and mouth, until I scramble onto my hands and knees, shutting it off.

  I snatch back the curtain, heart pounding. No one. The bathroom is empty. But the door is wide open, softly swinging into the wall.

  Within seconds, I hop out of the shower, wrap myself in a towel, and rush into the hallway.

  Sammy’s back is to me, heading toward his room.

  “Hey!”

  He swivels, hands loaded with various snacks and an apple in his mouth like he’s a pig about to be roasted at the bonfire.

  “That wasn’t funny, Sammy! You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t ‘huh’ me. That prank was hella weak.”