The Sixth Wicked Child

by J. D. Barker

  He fell silent for a moment, then looked back in the direction they had come. “I chased this kid, Weasel, from Cumberland. I don’t think he realized I was so close behind him. He ducked down here. Hillburn circled the block and came in from Queen. Weasel panicked when he saw Derrick and spun around. I was fast back then. At that point, I was nearly on top of him, and he got spooked when he saw me. The gun was in his hand, and it just went off. The bullet hit the Dumpster, ricocheted, then caught me in the back of the head. I went down right here.”

  “And you remember all that? Exactly like that?”

  “Yeah. Every second of it. I close my eyes, and I can play it like a movie. He didn’t mean to shoot me. The gun wasn’t even pointed at me, it was more of a reflex than anything. I remember the hit, like a hard slap to the back of my head. I stood there like an idiot. Thought I could get back in the car and drive myself to the hospital. I touched the wound, saw the blood on my fingers, and took about two steps before I passed out. Right here.”

  “It’s very odd for someone to remember an event like that,” Poole said. “The brain tends to hide certain memories when we undergo something traumatic.”

  “I remember every second of it…”

  “…like a movie,” Poole said, finishing the thought.

  “Yeah.”

  “What happens if you try to watch that movie backward?”

  Porter frowned. “I don’t follow.”

  Poole took a step closer to him, got near the wall where the Dumpster once stood. “Play the events in reverse order. Start when you’re on the ground, right before you lost consciousness, then tick off the events in reverse order. It helps if you close your eyes.”

  “I’m not closing my eyes.”

  “I won’t run.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “I think you need to try this. Close your eyes. I’ll walk you through it.”

  “I’m not closing my eyes.” His hand was back in his pocket, fingers around the gun.

  Poole looked up and down the alley, then back at Porter. “Okay, try this. When did you first spot Hillburn?”

  “Hillburn circled the block and came in from Queen.”

  “That’s what you said. I’ve heard you say nearly exactly that three times now. A few minutes ago, and when you told me about it back at Metro.”

  “Because that’s what happened,” Porter said.

  “In the movie in your head, did Hillburn have his gun out when he entered the alley? When did you first spot the gun in Weasel’s hand? Was your gun out? You said Weasel was a dealer. At what point did he throw his drugs? They always toss their drugs when they’re running.”

  “I don’t…I’m not sure.”

  Poole continued to press him. “Did Hillburn say anything when he entered the alley? Did he shout police and tell the kid to drop his weapon?”

  “Yes…” Porter replied, but he didn’t sound so sure.

  “Are you saying that because you actually remember it, or because I suggested it and it fits what should have happened? Did I just add a scene to your movie? Did you yell police? Did you tell the kid to drop the gun?”

  “….yes,” Porter said again, softer this time.

  “Your movie just changed, didn’t it? Because I suggested it.”

  Porter’s mouth was open slightly. He looked up at the wall, toward the now fenced-in yard.

  Poole stepped closer. “Close your eyes. Remember from the middle—you ran down the alley, you got here, to this point, near the Dumpster, and—”

  “Hurry, they’re coming…” Porter said so quietly Poole nearly didn’t hear him.

  “What?”

  Porter had closed his eyes, just for a moment. When he opened them, they went from the cobblestone back up to Poole. “That’s what the kid said, Weasel—‘Hurry, they’re coming.’”

  77

  Nash

  Day 5 • 10:10 PM

  Nash took a short nap.

  He didn’t intend to. The idea of Clair missing (or worse) somewhere in that hospital was enough to jolt him back from the dead.

  When Nash’s eyes fluttered open, his head was leaning against the passenger window of a patrol car. A bead of drool trickled down the side of his mouth and found a home on his shirt within a collective pool of its friends. He straightened himself up, grateful for the help of a seatbelt, and looked out the windshield, thinking of the shirt. “Mother will not be happy with that.”

  These words slipped out, and Nash had no idea why. His head wasn’t really on straight. He was aware of things enough to at least understand that. He also knew Mother would be very unhappy with the fresh drool stain on his shirt—he’d have to clean that before she saw.

  Nash fell back to sleep then.

  Not long, maybe a minute or so. When his eyes opened, the car had stopped moving and the patrol officer who had been driving had somehow managed to vanish from the driver’s seat and reappear outside Nash’s door through the use of some Harry Potter magic bullshit. He was caught up in an exchange with two other people, their voices a frantic mess—

  “…he may have been exposed to the SARS virus…first responder at the Upchurch residence. Direct contact with Larissa Biel and Kati Quigley…”

  A woman’s voice. “Why wasn’t he brought in sooner? Do you have any idea how this virus spreads? Are there more like him out there? People exposed just running around? Ridiculous…irresponsible…I need a stretcher!”

  Another quick nap.

  Nash woke again, this time on a bed. A wonderfully soft bed. The walls of his small room were made of white curtains, and there were lots of flashing, pretty lights accompanied by a cacophony of dings, beeps, blips, and thumps. Five or six people hovered around him, maybe more. He found it hard to keep track since none of them would stand still long enough for the count. They all wore white, though, which seemed really strange to him, Labor Day being five months earlier. They talked a lot, too—to each other, to him—he watched all this as if he were sitting in the middle of a favorite television program, witnessing events unfold around him. This was all extremely exciting, but he wished he wasn’t having so much trouble following along.

  “…for the fever! Need to get his temperature down,” someone said. A female someone. “And fluids. He’s severely dehydrated.”

  “He’s been taking these—” A hand held up the bottle of pills Eisley had given him. From the bed, he couldn’t see who that hand was attached to.

  Long blonde hair bobbed into his vision. She looked at the pills, then down at him. “Good. That’s good.” And she was gone again.

  Nash reached up and tried to take his pills back, but his fingers only found air. His hand and arm were so damn heavy, they fell back down on his chest and took a time-out.

  “He’s slipping out again.”

  Fingers snapped right above his eyes. Pretty nails. Red. “Detective? Can you hear me? Try to stay awake.”

  Nash told himself he would do exactly that, right after another quick nap. He was so tired, and it was fucking cold.

  78

  Diary

  When I first arrived at the wonderful Finicky House for Wayward Children, I had been told there was a strict “no boys in the girls’ rooms” and “no girls in the boys’ rooms” policy. This was rattled off along with several dozen other rules to live by. Yet, Kristina spent many a night in Vincent’s room, and Paul would have sacrificed a goat if it meant five minutes alone with Tegan. (I had no idea where Paul was at this particular moment, but I was fairly certain he wasn’t in Tegan’s room. I got the feeling she thought of him no different than she would a puppy.) Not once did Finicky come upstairs and check to see if any of us were violating this particular rule. That didn’t stop me from feeling nervous, nor did it keep me from glancing up at Libby’s closed door. If the rumors were to be believed, Finicky would be in her room right now, taking a pill or four to help her sleep. I hoped that was true.

  Libby dropped a blouse over the lamp in the corner to dim
the light, then gestured for me to take a seat on the floor at the foot of her bed. She went to her dresser and began rummaging through the top drawer.

  None of us arrived here with much, no more than a bag, but I had noticed that everyone took the time to unpack and claim their particular space as their own. Everyone but me. I’d lived out of the green duffle they’d packed for me at Camden until it was empty. It wasn’t until clothes started to return from the laundry that I began using the two drawers and closet space allotted to me rather than refill the duffle.

  Libby found what she was looking for and sat down beside me. It was a book.

  “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson?” I read the cover aloud and ran a finger over the embossed lettering.

  “Do you like poetry?”

  I didn’t know any poetry. I was an avid reader (comic books, mostly), but poetry had never been on my radar. “Sure,” I told her, because she was incredibly pretty, and if she asked me if I liked to eat raw toad, I would have nodded enthusiastically if I thought that was what she wanted me to say.

  “Dickinson is incredible. Her words flow as easily as water. It’s like, I don’t know, like if she knows exactly which ones are meant to be together. Like if you took a bunch of words and scrambled them, she’d know exactly what order to put them in.”

  “Like a puzzle?”

  Libby nodded. “Yeah, like a big word puzzle.”

  “Can I see?”

  She handed the book to me, and I thumbed through the pages. Many of the corners were folded over, and each of those pages contained highlighted blocks of text. I turned to a random marked page near the middle and read softly, “‘Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me. The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.’” I paused for a second. “Why is ‘Death’ capitalized?”

  “She’s saying two different things here with one phrase. She’s implying Death is a person or an entity who is waiting for her, and she’s also saying that she has no control over when she’s going to die. She can try to avoid death, but he’ll stop for her anyway. She can’t avoid it, or him, any more than the rest of us can. Death comes for us whether we want him to or not. There’s no hiding.”

  “I think if he rolled up in a carriage, I’d at least try to make a run for it,” I replied. I tried to run my finger down the page, and a sharp pain shot up my right arm, causing me to wince.

  Libby’s finger brushed the back of my hand then slid over my cast. “When I broke my arm, I couldn’t use it for nearly a month. I learned to do everything with my other one. You should try too. I know it’s hard, but the break will heal faster if you don’t aggravate it.”

  “What’s gossamer?” Another line in the poem—For only gossamer, my gown, my tippet, only tulle—“And tulle? What’s that?”

  Libby giggled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You. It’s such a deep poem and you’re more concerned with what her dress is made of.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  Libby thought about this for a moment. “If I show you, do you promise to behave?”

  I nodded. Because now, I was curious.

  Libby stood and did something that caused that pitter-patter in my heart to kick into high gear. She unbuttoned her dress and let it fall to the floor, stepped out of it, and came closer to me. “My bra and panties are gossamer.”

  My breath caught in my throat and an audible gasp escaped my mouth before I could stop it.

  Her bra and panties were made of this thin, white frilly material that was nearly translucent. I knew I shouldn’t stare, but I couldn’t help myself. My eyes followed the curves of her bare shoulders down to her breasts, to her nipples, both erect and almost visible but not quite. My eyes drifted down over her flat belly. She had a bruise on her left side, nearly healed but still there, and she must have noticed me looking at it—she self-consciously slipped her hand down her side and covered it with her palm. The index finger of that hand curled around the top of her panties and tugged them down an inch or so off her hip, and that was more than enough to distract me from the bruise.

  Although Libby’s face was bright red, she was grinning down at me. “Tegan picked these out. She said they made my butt look good. They’re thongs. I’d never worn them before. They were a little uncomfortable at first, but I got used to them. She said they’re the best when you want to hide your panty lines.”

  She turned in a slow spin, and my brain swirled with her—I thought of Mrs. Carter at the lake, naked for a quick dip in the icy water. Mrs. Carter in the bedroom with Mother, Mother undressing her at the mirror. The photo of the two them in bed together, their naked limbs intertwined. The photo I had yet to get back from Dr. Oglesby or whoever had it now. I thought of Tegan stepping out of the bathroom wearing hardly anything at all—all these thoughts, all at once, and then I was back with Libby, sweet Libby smiling down at me as she completed her slow spin, her fingers playfully twisting the corners of those panties. She knelt down in front of me and leaned in closer. Her hands left her side and found the fingers of my left hand. She pressed her fingertips against mine, then pulled me closer. “Gossamer is very soft.” She drew my hand to her left breast and ran my fingers across the edge of the material. The warmth of her flesh was maddening. A tingle crawled over every inch of me. Her nipple pressed into my palm and her eyes closed, both of us breathing heavy now. I didn’t notice her reach around and unclasp her bra. One moment it was there, keeping me from her, then it was gone, and I felt as if the two of us were one. This urge to touch every inch of her, to taste her, all these feelings I had never experienced rushed over me. She held my face for a moment between both her hands, then her lips found mine and she kissed me. Her hair fell over my cheeks and neck, and before I realized I was doing it, I kissed her back. Five minutes. Ten. I don’t know. I lost all time.

  “You told me to behave,” I finally said, the words barely able to get out between short gasps.

  “I changed my mind. Girls do that.”

  Libby reached down and unfastened the clasp on my belt, unsnapped the top button of my jeans. Her mouth rolled over my ear, warm breath. “Have you ever?”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay.”

  79

  Poole

  Day 5 • 10:12 PM

  “What’s going on here?” Porter looked around the alley, but his mind was elsewhere.

  Poole edged closer. “I want you to think about this very carefully before you answer me, give what I’m telling you a chance to sink in. You’ve told me what happened here in this alley multiple times. You said you remember it vividly. You also said you lost other memories as a result of the gunshot, the pressure from the brain-bleed. That’s a very common side effect from an injury like that. But you said you remember being shot, every second of it.” Poole paused for a moment, choosing his words. “I know you were placed in a medical coma for about a week following the accident. When you woke, who was there?”

  “Heather.” Porter said this without hesitation.

  Poole nodded. “Heather was there, good. Anyone else? Was there anyone else in the room when you first woke?”

  Porter nodded. “My partner was there, Hillburn. Sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, near the window. Looked like he’d been there for a while, like he had been sleeping there.”

  “What exactly did he do when you first saw him?”

  “He was reading a magazine. I think Heather said something. He put the magazine down and crossed the room, leaned over me. He smiled. He looked so relieved. I remember asking him how long I’d been out, what happened.”

  “And?”

  “…and he told me. Said Weasel had been fast, ducked down the alley with me behind him. He rounded the block, came in from the other side. Weasel saw him, spun around, and panicked when he saw me coming up behind him. He said the kid was jumpy and the gun went off. The bullet hit the Dumpster, ricocheted, and I caught it in the back of the skull.” Porter dropp
ed off for a moment.

  “What else? You’re remembering something else.”

  “That’s when Heather jumped back in,” Porter recalled. “She asked me who the current president was, and I told her. Then she asked me who the last one was, and I drew a blank. A doctor came in at that point, asked Hillburn to wait out in the hallway. There were a few more tests. Fluid elicit retrograde amnesia, that’s what they called it. They said the pressure caused some memory loss and everything would most likely come back.”

  “Okay.” Poole was nodding. “I want you to go back to the alley again, in your mind, your thoughts. Try not to think about what Hillburn told you when you first woke. Try to pull from your own memories. Maybe focus on the visuals, the sounds you heard, the smells of this alley. You said there was a restaurant. What did the Dumpster smell like? Recall the temperature of the night air—anything that will ground you, take you back. What do you remember right before you got shot.”

  Porter thought. “I remember chasing Weasel, rounding the corner at Cumberland, and coming down here. Weasel stopped right here, at the Dumpster…” Again, his voice trailed off.

  “What is it?”

  Porter held up a hand, silenced him, and closed his eyes. He stayed like that for a long moment. When his eyes snapped open, he looked scared. He looked down at the opposite end of the alley.

  “What?”

  “I remember Weasel stopping here, at the Dumpster. Turning to me, spinning around fast…but…I don’t see Hillburn anymore. Then the shot…”

  Poole knelt down on the cobblestone next to Porter. “There’s something else, right? Don’t let it slip away. Tell me before you lose it.”

  Porter turned to him. Sweat had broken out on his brow. “I don’t remember Weasel actually having a gun in his hand. I think he had the camera…”

  “Weasel didn’t shoot you?”

  “I…I’m not sure. I don’t think so. ‘Hurry, they’re coming,’ he said…then the shot.” Porter gazed back down the alley, looking at nothing in particular, lost in his own thoughts. When he stood, he moved fast, back the way they’d come. “We need to get that film developed.”