by Todd Miller
Chapter 7
We Googled the directions to Mrs. Elmwood-Ravensburg’s house and headed for the interstate. A couple of police cars passed us, going in the opposite direction. No doubt they were on their way to Kristin’s house.
How long before they figure out were on the run? Or that we’re driving the McDermott family mini-van? A few hours, maybe? Probably less. Pretty soon we’d have the highway patrol out looking for us, too.
Kristin couldn’t stop fiddling with the radio. One song quickly blurred into another as she twisted the dial. Eventually she shut it off and raided her mom’s CD collection.
“Duran Duran or INXS?” she asked.
“Bleh,” I said. “It’s like your mom’s trapped in 1984.”
“Yeah, well. She’s dead now,” said Kristin. “So cut her some slack.”
“Sorry,” I said, wishing that I had never opened my mouth. “I’m sorry. I forgot. Well, I didn’t forget, but, you know. All this stuff. Um.”
“Shut up and drive, Charlie.”
“Right,” I said. “Maybe, maybe you should put the rum away for awhile.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, taking another swig.
“Could you read that letter for me now? The one from the good witch?”
I handed her the envelope and she took out the note.
“I don’t know,” she said. “The words are all kind of blurry.”
“Just try.”
Kristin sighed, then held the letter up close to her face and read.
“Dear Charles; So good to finally hear from you. I suspect you never did get my many letters. Perhaps your most-sensible aunt tossed them all in the dustbin. I sincerely hope this letter has made it into your hands without any interference.
Your questions are so basic and simple to answer. Yes, the stone tower is a very dangerous place, not the structure itself (although what it looks like today, I have no idea), but rather, who resides inside.
If she still resides inside.
But you already know all this, don’t you? The tone of your letter suggests that you’ve finally figured it all out, that you have seen through the well-meaning but ultimately foolish lies of your family and the townspeople of Elmwood.
Lies do not protect, Charles, they destroy.
You are (and have always been) in great peril, you and so many other young people, for the deals their mothers made with someone who is not to be trusted. Someone with appetites and desires that could hardly be considered civilized.
I think you know who I mean.
There a just a few more dark curtains to part, a handful of secrets to reveal.
But I shudder to put the whole truth down on paper, should this letter fall into the wrong hands. You are a smart boy, a boy who obviously appreciates our fine public libraries. Put together the clues, piece by piece, if you can.
Write to me again if you are able, or better yet, come up for a spell and visit. I simply adore having guests. Whatever you do, do not call me on the telephone. You never know who (or what) may be listening. The Enemy has minions and sycophants everywhere, liars and tin badges and badgers and birds.
In the meantime, be safe. I have enclosed a little something for you. It’s not much, but put it on and wear it at all times. This is very important, Charles. At all times.
Sincerely,
Victoria Elmwood-Ravensburg.”
Kristin turned to look at me.
“Jesus Christ, Charlie, this old lady is crazy!”
“What did she enclose?” I said.
“Something in the envelope,” said Kristin.
She shook it and into the palm of her hand fell something small and metal.
“Ow!” she said.
“What is it?”
She quickly tossed the little object into my lap. I picked it up and held it between my thumb and forefinger.
It was some kind of pin, or button. There was a tiny glass eye in the center.
“What is this?” I said.
“I don’t know,” said Kristin.
“Is this, like, the Evil Eye or something?”
“It’s probably supposed to protect you from the evil eye. From witchcraft, you know?”
“Does it work?
“How should I know?” she said.
“Help me pin this on,” I said.
“That’s okay. You do it.”
She seemed to be shrinking away from me, her eyes glassy and uncertain.
It was tough, but with one hand on the wheel I was still able to fasten the little button to my T-shirt.
“It’s kind of cool, huh?” I said.
Kristin said nothing.
“Try to put the Evil Eye on me,” I said. “Come on.”
Kristin grunted, then frowned.
The smile fell from my face and I just felt kind of stupid.
The CD player cued up one of those gooey songs by the Cure and I decided to ask her something that had been bugging me all day.
“Kristin, do you think I’m a loser?”
She looked at me, made a strange face.
“No,” she finally said.
“Okay,” I said. But I didn’t feel okay. “Eddie said you guys talk about me behind my back.”
“No. No way. I would never do that to you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really!”
“Well, but...he said....”
“Could we not have this conversation when I’m kind of drunk?”
“Sometimes…I don’t even know where we stand, you know?”
Kristin stared out the window and said nothing.
“Eddie’s just jealous of you,” she finally said.
“Come on.”
“No, really. You’re, like, authentic. You can draw…you have this really weird past. You’re like a…a wounded bird or something. Do you know what I mean?”
“No.”
“You’re interesting.”
“Interesting? Is that good or bad?
“It is what it is,” she said.
“Great,” I said. “That’s what I strive to be. Interesting.”
I guess she didn’t know what to say to that, and neither of us spoke again.
“Berger Butt!” screamed Eddie from the back seat.
I nearly jumped out of the car.
Kristin looked at Eddie in astonishment.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“Bbbbuuu…bbb…bttt!” said Eddie.
“Eddie, it’s me, it’s Kristin,” she said, taking his hand.
Eddie said nothing.
“Eddie?” asked Kristin, softly. “Say something. It’s me.”
Eddie stared straight ahead, with his dead, zombie eyes.
“Eddie? Please?”
She leaned in close to him and whispered.
“We’re going to fix you up, baby. We’re going to get you back to normal somehow.”
She kissed him on the cheek and let go of his hand. Then Kirstin began to rummage through the books on the floor and pulled up a fat one, holding up the cover for me to read.
“African Magic and Superstition,” I said. “Sounds great. Are you…are you going to read that right now?”
“Yup,” she said, and opened to the first page.
“I thought we were talking,” I said.
“We’re done now,” she said.
“Oh. Okay.”
A few moments passed as Kristin became more absorbed in the book.
“Any good?” I asked.
She ignored me, and I stared out the window, watching the lights of the other cars going by, kicking myself for being the biggest idiot in the world.
We drove for miles without saying another word. And each Cure song was more miserable than the last. Eventually Kristin put down the book and curled herself up into a little ball. Moments later, she was sleeping.
The inside of the car was dark and quiet. The cars on the freeway sounded like they were a million miles away. My brain wanted to worry, obsess over all my
many mistakes, but my body was so tired I felt my thoughts grow muddy and toothless.
I slowly moved my hand over and took Kristin’s hand and squeezed it.
She quickly pulled her hand away.
My guts were boiling and I found myself talking before I could stop.
“Is it so bad,” I said, “to like somebody and hope that they like you back?”
I looked at her but she didn’t open her eyes.
“Come on, Charlie,” she said. “This is not the right time.”
“Oh. Okay,” I said.
“It’s just...I can’t think straight right now, you know? So much has happened.”
“Uh-huh.”
She opened her eyes and looked at me.
“It’s not that I don’t like you...it’s just…I don’t like you in that way.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Can we just be friends? Okay? Best friends?”
“Friends,” I said.
“I know you’re trying to help...that you’re doing everything you can to help...in your own, crazy way…and...I thank you...for that.”
I nodded.
“But you’re still a jerk for killing Eddie.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Goodnight, Charlie.”
She looked at me, sadly, then turned away and crunched herself into a little ball again.
I watched her back for awhile, but I couldn’t tell if she was really asleep or just faking.
Crap.
Maybe Kristin was right. This really wasn’t the right time to talk about our feelings and stuff. Besides, she didn’t feel that way about me.
We were going to be best friends.
Could I change her mind?
Maybe.
I mean, my competition is a corpse.
I could do it. Right?
But how?
Step One: Stop killing my friends. Or at least, stop killing their boyfriends. Except, I might have to kill him again if he tries anything funny. Like eating us.
Step Two: Become her Bad-Ass, White Knight from Hell.
Step Three: Save the Day.
Sure. No problem.
The sound of Kristin screaming snapped me out of my head.
Her eyes were shut, but she was howling bloody murder, her hands waving frantically in the air. I called her name and shook her by the shoulder.
Suddenly her eyes snapped open and she pulled a pen out of the glove compartment and stabbed herself in the arm with it. Then she really screamed.
“What the hell are you doing?!” I said.
She pulled the pen out of her arm and blood starting pouring out of the hole. I grabbed her hand and wrenched the pen out of her grip. It was hard to drive and wrestle Kristin at the same time. The mini-van began to swerve across the road, and I was terrified we were going to crash.
Kristin was shouting and crying, not making any sense, blood running down the sides of her arm and dripping down to the floor.
I quickly took the next exit and in moments we pulled into one of those giant truck-stops, with the gas and the little food court and dozens of rigs lined up like sleeping chess pieces.
“This is really bad!” I said
I pulled off my shirt and held it to the wound.
“It hurts, Charlie...”
“Was it the Spider Lady again?”
She shook her head, no.
“We have to do something about this hole in your arm,” I said, watching in horror as my T-shirt turned a dark, sticky red.
The zombies in the back seat started to make sniffing noises.
“Oh, no,” I said. “No, no no.”
I reached under the seat, picked up my gun and pointed it at Eddie’s head.
“Back off, freak!”
He looked at me with his dead eyes and a small smile formed on his lips.
Kristin started cursing.
“Holy Jesus, this really hurts!”
Eddie was shaking and huffing, then he snarled and raised his hands.
I shot him in the throat. He flew back into his seat, and then in an instant was reaching again for my face.
My second shot took his head off.
Some stuff that looked like weird, grey chunks of rotten cabbage flew everywhere. The rear window shattered, and gore splattered all over the seats, the ceiling of the car, my face, hair and hands. Hopefully I killed him again, for real this time. And that damn spider living in his skull, too.
“Eddie!” said Kristin.
She lunged into the back of the car, and seized up Eddie’s body in her arms.
“Oh my God…oh my God,” she said. “There’s nothing left…his head…his head is all gone…”
“Don’t—don’t touch that gooey stuff,” I said.
“Charlie! What the hell is your problem?!”
“He was going to eat us!”
“You didn’t have to blow his brains out! I could have stopped him!”
She was right.
“Oh, yeah?” I managed to say. “Like you stopped Curtis from eating your parents?”
Kristin burst into tears.
“You’re a real psycho, you know that?”
And then she stalked out of the car.
“Hey!” I said.
“Leave me alone!”
She slammed the door with her knee, and stormed off towards the food court, clutching the bloody T-shirt to her arm.
I quickly hid the gun under the driver’s seat and jumped out to follow her.
“Uh…stay, Curtis. Okay? Please?”
Curtis looked at me for a moment, then looked away.
The night air was cool, and I could feel the blood on my skin beginning to dry. There was broken glass from the windshield all over the ground. It crunched when you steeped on it, like walking on a carpet of Cheerios.
I ran quickly through the parking lot and up to the front doors of the truck-stop food court. Kristin was just disappearing into the Ladies Room.
A couple of people looked my way as I ran, bloody and shirtless, into the bathroom after her. The whole place was pink, and yet somehow still grungy.
Thankfully, there was no one else in there. I could hear Kristin sobbing in one of the stalls.
“Kristin? Uh, Kristin? Boy, uh, I sure have a lot to apologize for today, huh?
“Go away.”
“I can’t just leave.”
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” she said.
“It’s okay, I’ve been inside a girl’s bathroom before.”
“Pervert.”
“Would you come out already?”
“No.”
Just then the door opened and in strolled this trucker lady with a mullet and a camouflage vest. She stopped for a moment and stared at me.
“Uh…you okay, buddy?” she said.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“You in an accident?”
“Something like that.”
“Want me to call the cops?”
“No, thanks. I’m okay, really.”
“What are you doing in here?”
“Uh, my friend, she’s uh…”
“Ouch,” said Kristin.
There was a flushing sound and Kristin stepped out of the stall, clutching the bloody T-shirt to her arm. There was dried blood all over her arms and hands. Her nose was red and her eyes watery.
“Is there something going on here?” asked the trucker lady.
“Everything’s cool,” I said.
“Don’t look cool to me,” she said.
“Mind your own business, hillbilly.”
“Excuse me?”
And then, without really thinking about it, I reached out and pushed her to the ground. There was a brief moment of shock, as we all realized what had happened, and then Kristin hustled me out of there as fast as she could.
We didn’t speak as we crossed the food court, heads turning everywhere. I figured it would only be a couple of minutes before somebody called the police.
I turned and saw my trucker friend with some of her buddies. They were following us, and they didn’t look too happy. I grabbed Kristin by the arm and pulled her toward the door.
“Let’s go.”
We sprinted out to the parking lot, the truckers closing in fast.
“Hey, you!” said the trucker lady. “Stop!”
They caught up with us at the mini-van. I couldn’t get my keys out quickly enough.
“What’s wrong with you kids?” said one of the truckers.
“This boy’s got a smart mouth,” said my friend.
“Take it easy, Brenda, these kids ain’t right.”
My trucker friend grabbed me by the wrist and twisted it. I went down to my knees, hard.
“Leave him alone,” said Kristin.
“You’ll get what’s coming to you next, girly,” said the trucker lady.
“Aw, Brenda, come on now.”
“I want an apology,” said my trucker friend.
I called her a lot of bad names. She twisted my wrist even harder and I yelped in pain.
“Listen to me,” said Kristin. “You will leave him alone. Now.”
The trucker lady stopped twisting my wrist. They all turned to look at Kristin.
Somehow, in the light of the parking lot, her eyes looked red.
“You will all walk away from here,” she said. “Right now. Turn around. And walk away.”
The trucker let go of me. Then she and her friends all did an about-face and strolled off, some of them in different directions. They didn’t say a word to each other.
I watched in silence, clutching my wrist.
Then one of the truckers walked right into an incoming SUV. The car knocked him back twenty feet and he landed with a sickening thud.
There was a lot of commotion.
“Oh my God!” said Kristin.
She was frozen in shock, her eyes wide and her mouth open in horror.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen…I didn’t!”
“Let’s get out of here!” I said.
We ran back into the mini-van. Eddie’s body was gone. There was blood everywhere, bits of bone and slime covering the entire backseat and dripping down the windows.
“Where’s Eddie?” asked Kristin.
Curtis was gnawing on a pale, severed hand.
“Who’s…hand…is that?” she said.
We stared at Curtis for a moment and slowly a lop-sided grin formed on his blood stained lips. And then he started making this sound, this terrible, coughing gurgling noise, all hollow and cold and I realized it was laughter.
It was the worse sound I ever heard.
“Make him stop,” said Kristin.
“Curtis, could you, could you put the hand down?”
Curtis continued to chuckle as hit bit into Eddie’s hand and tore off the fingers with his teeth. I hesitated for a moment, then reached out to pull the mangled hand away.
He hissed at me.
I quickly pulled my hand away and took a few steps back.
“Okay, uh, maybe we should just let him eat the hand,” I said.
“I can’t take this anymore, Charlie. This is freaking me out!”
“Could you freak out in the car? Because we really need to get out of here.”
We could both hear the sirens now.
“Do you think that man is dead?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably.”
A crowd of people had gathered around the trucker on the ground.
“Kristin, how did you do that?”
She looked at me and shook her head.
“Let’s just go.”
“Seriously. How?”
“I don’t know. I just felt like I could…so…I did.”
I started the mini-van and we got back onto the highway. In my rearview mirror, I could see the flashing lights of an ambulance approaching the truck stop. I put my foot down hard on the gas, and soon the truck stop was out of sight.
“How’s your arm?” I asked.
“Take a look,” she said.
She peeled back the sticky, blood-soaked T-shirt and the wound was gone.
I looked at the fresh, pink skin where the hole had been and my tired brain started to squirm.
“That can’t be good,” I finally said.
“No,” she said.
“How did this happen?”
She shrugged.
“Guess I need a new shirt, huh?”
“Guess so.”
“Where’s the Evil Eye thing?”
“What?”
“The thing, the Evil Eye button?”
I pointed to a tiny hole in my shirt where the pin had been.
“It must have fallen off,” she said.
I looked at her for a moment and she looked away. Then she grabbed her sunglasses off the dashboard and put them on, even though it was almost sunset.
“So…why did you stab yourself?”
“I was having another bad dream.”
“And?”
“And...I thought there was something...growing out of my arm.”
“Hold up. Start from the beginning.”
“I was that other girl again. Elvira. I had on this old-fashioned dress. And the Spider Lady was whispering things to me. At one point, I remember I was inside the Stone Tower, and I felt a tingle in my arms, so I looked down and...there were these thick, awful black hairs bursting out of them, sharp, coarse, and then they were bursting out all over my body, and I could feel my body changing and that’s when I started screaming...”
“Did you say ‘Elvira’?”
“That’s the name everybody calls me in my dreams.”
“Elvira was the youngest daughter of Lionel Elmwood. The guy who built the Stone Tower. She got real sick on a family trip to Africa, like around 1906, and she died. But...what if she didn’t die. What if, somehow...she became the Spider Lady?”
“How?”
I held up the copy of African Magic and Superstition.
“She was cursed,” said Kristin.
“Exactly.”
Kristin stared out the window, thinking.
“Still, you’re just guessing.”
“Well, that’s another question we can ask Mrs. Elmwood-Ravensburg, if we ever get to her house in one piece.”
Kristin said nothing.
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t know…I have a bad feeling about her.”
“A bad feeling?”
“Forget it.”
“No, tell me.”
“I can’t explain. Forget it, really. It’s stupid.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
“I mean, that letter was really weird, Charlie. Like she’s still hiding something, you know?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Like, what’s her part in all this, right? How do we know her hands are clean?”
“I guess we don’t,” I said.
“Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Don’t believe everything she tells you.”
I looked at Kristin and a tiny smile formed on her lips. And for some reason I felt a chill go down my spine.
“That trucker lady almost kicked your ass,” she said.
“No.”
“She did.”
“She didn’t, okay? I was just about to get the upper hand.”
Kristin frowned and said nothing.
“That, uh, that broken windshield back there is going to be a problem,” I said.
Kristin seemed not to have heard me.
“At least it helps with the smell, huh? Or maybe I’m getting used to it.”
Kristin said nothing, her gaze focused somewhere else.
“Are you okay?” I said.
“Maybe we should just die, Charlie,” she said. “Look at what’s happened to us. You’ve go
ne insane, and me...I...”
She trailed off, not finishing her sentence.
“I’m not insane,” I told her. “Maybe, maybe I’ve made a few bad decisions, decisions I really regret now, but I am not crazy.”
“So many people are dead,” she said. “Eddie, my parents…I can’t even bury my parents because Curtis ate them. How messed up is that?”
There were little tears flowing out from under the black lenses of her sunglasses. She looked like some kind of giant, weeping insect.
“You could build them a shrine or something,” I said.
“A shrine?”
“I don’t know! What do you want from me?”
“We’re going to go to jail. For the rest of our lives. Maybe get the death penalty. Of course, that would be a relief, compared to what’s going to happen...”
“What’s going to happen?” I asked.
She wouldn’t answer.
“What’s going to happen?”
“Look at me, Charlie,” she said, taking off her sunglasses.
As she began speaking, her eyes slowly turned from hazel to red.
“Let’s just crash into a truck. Let’s do it, Charlie. Cross the divider and go headfirst into that truck right there, the red one. Come on, Charlie. Do it.”
My head started pounding and I looked back at the road, the red road and the red truck barreling toward us, my red hands gripping the red wheel, yes, turning the red wheel—
Curtis starting laughing.
That rasping, terrible barking sound.
I shook my head and blinked. The red was gone.
“No,” I said.
“Hurry, Charlie! Now! Drive into the truck!”
“No! No!”
And then I shoved her away from me, hard, and she burst into tears.
“You listen to me, Kristin, and you listen good,” I said, trying hard not to shake. “We are not going to die! We are going to beat this curse! I am going to do everything in my power to help you, do you understand?”
She shook her head, no.
“We going to get rid of this curse, and then, afterwards, If I go to jail or whatever, it won’t matter, all that matters in helping you, because, because...”
“Because what?” she asked.
“Because...you know...”
Then I wiped my nose on my hand and stared hard at the road, pretending to be really focused on driving, hoping I could hold it together and not lose my cool completely.
Kristin looked down for a moment, and fiddled with her hands. Then she grinned painfully and punched me on my arm.
“My hero,” she said.
“Don’t do that again,” I said.
“What, this?”
She punched me on the arm again.
“Don’t try to hypnotize me into driving into any more trucks, or off a bridge, or anything crazy like that, okay? That’s not cool.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and looked down. “I’m really sorry. I…I don’t know what’s happening to me and I’m scared, Charlie. Sometimes I get these thoughts…bad thoughts…and I know they’re not mine…but I can’t stop them, you know?”
“What kind of thoughts?”
“Little suggestions…urges to hurt people…”
“That’s the Spider Lady messing with your brain,” I said. “We’re going to put an end to all that stuff.”
Kristin picked up the bottle of rum from off the floor, and unscrewed the cap.
“Here’s to beating the Spider Lady at her own game,” she said, and took a big gulp. She offered me the bottle, but I waved her off.
“And here’s to designated driving!” she said, and took another gulp.
Then she hit the stereo and cranked another one of her mom’s old CDs, the one with the white guy who wears feathers and war paint. We had a good time with that, bouncing up and down in our seats, singing about Ant Music and jukeboxes.
On the outside, I was pretending to be happy, but inside, I was freaking out. She almost killed us. She had magic powers and she was getting closer to the edge every second, cracking up, and I wasn’t sure she was going to make it.
“I think we should all wear pantaloons from now on,” said Kristin.
I heard the siren before I saw the flashing lights in my rearview mirror. My hands tensed on the steering wheel and I cursed.
“What do we do?” asked Kristin.
“I don’t know,” I said.
The siren roared, drowning out the music.
“Charlie!
“Give me a second, all right?”
The police car was right behind us now.
“Do you think you can put the whammy on him, make the cop go away?”
Kristin frowned.
“No—I can’t.”
“It’s our only chance,” I said.
“Not after what just happened. It makes me feel dirty or something…”
“Just a little whammy? Please? Otherwise we’re in big, big trouble.”
“I don’t know—”
“You don’t have to kill him,” I said. “Just make him forget he ever saw us.”
She thought for a moment, and then nodded. I quickly pulled over onto the shoulder and the police car parked behind me. I saw the officer exit his car and walk toward us with one hand resting on his holster. I rolled down my window and cut the engine.
“Keep your hands on the steering wheel where I can see them,” he said.
I did just that.
He came over to the window, but stood a foot or two away, his hand still resting on his holster.
“License and registration, please.”
I handed him my license, which he glanced at quickly, then he took another step back from the car.
“Everyone exit the vehicle with their hands in the air, now.”
I got out, and Kristin did the same.
“Who’s that in the back?” asked the policeman.
“A friend,” I said. “He’s sick.”
The policeman tapped on the window.
“Out of the car, mister. Now.”
I watched the other cars zooming past us on the highway, some of them slowing down for a better look.
The policeman tapped the window again. Inside the car, Curtis didn’t move. Kristin slowly walked around the mini-van and faced the policeman.
“Excuse me, officer?”
He turned toward her.
“Pull out your gun,” said Kristin, her eyes turning red.
The policeman stood listening to her, still as a stone.
“I said, pull out your gun.”
I watched the muscles twitch in his cheeks. He seemed to shake a little bit. Then he slowly pulled out his gun.
“Put it to your head, right here,” said Kristin, pointing at her temple.
The policeman put the gun up to his temple.
“Kristin,” I said. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What’s the matter, Charlie? Don’t you trust me?”
There was an unpleasant grin on her face.
“Let’s just get out of here,” I said, tugging her arm.
Kristin watched the policeman and licked her lips.
“Forget this ever happened,” she finally said to the policeman. “Go home. Buy your wife some flowers.”
I pulled her back into the mini-van, stealing a quick glance at the policeman as he walked back to his patrol car, apparently still hypnotized.
“That was not funny,” I said.
The patrol car pulled back onto the highway and drove off.
“Spoilsport,” she said.
She pulled out the rum and took another swig.
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, starting up the car.
Something about her face caught my eye.
“Your nose is bleeding,” I said.
She held her fingers up to her face and they came away red.
“Pinch it,” I said. “Like this.”
“It’s not
stopping,” she said.
I grabbed a wad of tissues and handed them to her. She turned her back to me, stuffing the tissues into her nostrils.
“Don’t look at me!” she said.
Curtis started sniffing again.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said to him from over my shoulder.
Kristin had blood on her lips, droplets of it on her shirt and jeans. Her eyes welled with tears. She fixed me with a hard, mean stare.
“You think I enjoy this?” she said. “I’m losing my mind to the Spider Lady!”
“I know, but, I’m going to help you—“
“I don’t want your help, Charlie! You’re a creep and I wish you would just go away and leave me the hell alone!”
My face burned.
“It’s going to be okay,” I finally said.
“No, it’s not, is it?”
She held me with her eyes, blood and tears rolling down her face.
I didn’t know what to say.
“I just...I wish this never happened,” she said. “I wish we never went into that tower, I wish...I wish my parents were still alive...”
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
“I know that, Charlie! It was your idea to go to the tower—”
“Because I was hypnotized! Like what you just did. By the Spider Lady. She, she hypnotized me at the cemetery and told me to help her, to bring her fresh blood—”
“So you brought her us? What the hell, Charlie?”
“My mind was all mixed up, okay? I was crazy…I didn’t want to but, I couldn’t stop!”
“Like those truckers in the parking lot?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty much.”
She looked at me, but said nothing.
“Sometimes I think she’s been hypnotizing me my whole life,” I said. “Like, maybe even before I was born. You know?”
“I’m sorry,” said Kristin.
“For what?”
“For calling you a creep.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
I reached out to touch her, but stopped.
Then the CD changer grunted and cued up another disk. Some British guy began to sing.
“Change the disk,” said Kristin.
“Who is this?” I asked. “The Smiths?”
“No, it’s just the lead dude by himself. My mom…my mom used to listen to this record all the time when she and my dad were having their…troubles.”
“What kind of troubles?”
“You know. Parent troubles.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I nodded my head anyway.
“He would do something stupid,” said Kristin. “Then she would overreact. Over and over, lather, rinse and repeat.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He got me that fancy saltwater aquarium after the last time. We worked on it together, you know, putting in the sand, the corals, filters and stuff. I had this little guy in a diving suit, and little bubbles would come out of his helmet. Then my dad put all these red fish in there, Red Oscars they’re called. They look really beautiful, but they fight all the time. Like, nonstop. And they chase the little ones around and bite them. It’s kind of sad, really. I suppose with no one around to feed them, they’ll all go belly-up now.”
“Well,” I began, trying to think of the right thing to say. “Fish have really tiny brains.”
“So?”
“So, maybe dying’s not so bad for them, because they can’t even really think about it, right? You know, as a concept?”
She gave me a funny look.
“I’ll just shut up now,” I said.
“I really miss my dad, Charlie. I miss my mom, too. I never…I never got to say goodbye or anything.”
I nodded and gave her hand a little squeeze.
“God, my head is killing me,” she said. “Is it all right if we stop talking for awhile?”
“You bet.”
She turned her back to me, and curled into herself, staring out the window. I kept quiet, feeling kind of numb all over, and pretty soon Kristin was asleep. Her mouth was open and she made gurgling sounds.
Reaching around on the floor, I found the bottle of rum and tossed it out the window.I figured we’d be at Mrs. Elmwood-Ravensburg’s house in about two or three more hours. Except it would be the middle of the night. And I had no idea what I was going to say to her when we did show up on her doorstep.
I mean, sure, she did invite me to come visit, but…well, for starters, I was shirtless and covered with blood. And I killed somebody. And I was a fugitive. She’d probably take one look at us and called the cops. That’s what any sane person would do.
I was trying to come up with our story, what parts to leave out, but my mind wouldn’t cooperate. I ended up just driving, letting my thoughts drift and watching the traffic go by. The car was quiet.
“So, Curtis,” I finally said. “What’s it like being dead?”
I stole a glance over my shoulder. Curtis was gazing blankly into space.
“Or undead, I guess. In your case.”
“Pain,” he finally said, his voice hollow and slurry.
I felt shivers up my arms, and I didn’t ask him any more questions after that.
