The Book of Bad Things

by Dan Poblocki

  Then you wake up.

  Imagine that you’re taking swimming lessons at the local YMCA. You’re not a bad swimmer, so you have no problem when the instructor asks you to demonstrate your ability to the rest of the class at the deep end of the pool. In fact, you beam with pride. Everyone applauds as you adjust your goggles onto your eyes then leap as far as you can into the middle of the pool, through a square-shaped hoop. Under water, you realize you haven’t jumped through a mere hoop. Bars surround you, and you understand that you’re in a cage. Glancing up, you see the bars have locked you in. You’re now wearing scuba gear. You can breathe. But you’re confused, because this isn’t what your instructor has asked you to do. Then, through the blue haze beyond the bars, you see dark shapes swimming toward you. At each wall of the cage, large mouths open, great white sharks who’ve marked you as dinner. You scream, a burst of bubbles that no one at the edge of the pool can hear. You try not to panic as you examine the cage for a way out. That’s when you look down and see the bottom is completely open. And rushing up from the darkness is an open mouth, an entrance to a tunnel of hunger. Pink globs of meat are stuck between razor-sharp white teeth, remnants of the shark’s last meal. The one before you.

  Then you wake up.

  I think the scariest nightmares are the ones where everything is normal, pleasant even, then snap, the world turns and shows you how truly frightening it can be.

  Our brains are so mean.

  THE MORNING AFTER Jaws, Cassidy was lying in bed, her eyes closed, her brain bouncing between sleep and wakefulness, when she heard the door squeak open. “Joey,” Cassidy mumbled, turning over, clutching the blanket at her chin. “It’s so early.” But Joey didn’t answer. Her consciousness tilted back toward dreaming, even as she felt cool skin against her wrist. A soft grip took her palm, and at first, Cassidy struggled to take back her hand. But the grip was insistent. It pulled her harder, so hard in fact, that Cassidy felt her shoulder pop.

  “Oww,” she said, sitting up, still unable to remove herself from the grip. The room was almost pitch black. It was even earlier than she’d thought. Cassidy could not see who held her, but she knew it was not Joey. Ragged breathing filled the darkness. Cassidy was suddenly freezing. “Who’s there?” she asked, unsure she wanted an answer.

  Cassidy felt herself sliding over the edge of the mattress, so she swung her feet to the floor and with her one free hand, pushed herself up. Before she could gain her bearing, the person pulled her toward the bedroom door.

  Only when they were both outside, walking up the street toward the overgrown driveway at the end of the cul-de-sac, was she certain whom she was following. Though she expected to feel afraid, mostly, she felt a sad emptiness.

  Ursula Chambers was Cassidy’s height. Her short hair was tightly curled. She was dressed in her legendary jogging suit. Out in the night, the woman was transparent phosphorescence, glowing dimly like starlight. And though Cassidy could still feel the dry coolness of Ursula’s skin, there was an icy chill underneath it, like a sickness, a fever.

  They stood on the front steps of Ursula’s old house. Inside, the sound of claws scrabbled on the rough wooden floor. Cassidy tried to back away, but the old woman held her still. Reaching forward, Ursula pushed open the door. Beyond the threshold, Lucky sat and stared at Cassidy, smiling that big goofy grin of his. His coat was shining and clean, tinted slightly silver now, different from his usual blonde.

  Cassidy almost burst into tears. This was not the same dog she’d seen limping up the road at the beginning of the week, no more than the woman in the gown had been Ursula … or this version of Ursula, at least. Cassidy could feel the difference between what she’d witnessed on Monday night and now. Despite the fever-chill of Ursula’s touch, she knew there was safety in this dream version of the Chambers house. Only in the world of the awake, with that humming sound that trembled the very ground, had the apparitions contained malevolence, a poison.

  Ursula turned from the house and looked at her with a smile, as if she could hear Cassidy’s thoughts. Then, as if in answer, Cassidy heard the old woman’s voice, a touch of Irish brogue, whisper, “Please, come in….”

  Then Cassidy woke up.

  When Cassidy opened her eyes, her room was lit dimly with the beginnings of the day. She raced down the hall to Joey’s room, knocking quietly so as not to wake the rest of the house. Seconds later, she heard a rustling sound. The door opened slightly. “What is it?” Joey asked, his voice crackling.

  “We’ve got to go to her house,” Cassidy said. When Joey widened his eyes and shook his head, she added, “You, me, and Ping. Today. There’s something Ursula wants us to see.”

  A FEW HOURS LATER, Cassidy sat on the front steps of the Tremonts’ house, kicking the bottom stair with the heel of her sneaker. She was waiting for the first stirrings from the Yu house next door, so she could tell Ping about her dream. It was still too early to knock.

  Presently, she regretted knocking on Joey’s door. He’d practically laughed in her face when she’d told him. “Are you insane?” he’d said, pulling her into his room, closing the door. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you suggested we go over there?”

  Now, Cassidy wondered if she was insane. Had her vision of Ursula merely been a dream? A nightmare? Joey hadn’t needed to remind her what was happening to the people the old woman had visited during recent nights.

  But if there was a pattern here, Cassidy should be safe. She hadn’t taken anything from the house. And Ursula hadn’t presented her with a threat. She’d offered an invitation. Even so, without Joey to accompany her up the street, she wasn’t sure she could go through with it. Ping was her last hope.

  Something in her gut told her that if she sat by and did nothing, bad things would keep happening — and not only to the citizens of Whitechapel. She’d seen the trucks take away the overflowing Dumpsters a couple days ago. Who knew where that stuff might end up? Maybe a landfill … Maybe a thrift store … Maybe a classroom. Whether or not Ursula’s ghost was the thing exacting revenge on the supposed thieves — and Cassidy wasn’t entirely sure about that anymore — Cassidy knew that the answers were in that house.

  The sky was brightening into a royal blue. Cassidy rose from the steps and walked out to the street. She stared at Ursula’s overgrown driveway. A slight breeze crept out of the woods, rustling the leaves and vines and weeds.

  “Whatcha doin’ out here?”

  Cassidy jumped, even as she recognized Ping’s high-pitched voice coming up the street from behind her. She turned and smiled. “Waiting for you, actually. I figured you’d crawl out from your cave eventually.”

  “A cave!” Ping guffawed. “I’d like that, kinda. Actually, I came out looking for you too. Something happened again last night. Something not good. Have you heard?”

  “Heard about what?”

  When Ping got home, her parents told her a story. Halfway through the movie, the twins began complaining of mosquitos, so the Yus headed home. Far from the road, off in the middle of a field before Chase Estates, the flashing lights of rescue vehicles illuminated a disturbing scene. A car had lost control and hit a tree, its metal body wrapped nearly around the trunk.

  “Hal,” said Cassidy, blushing. “Julia and Deb’s friend never showed up last night.”

  Ping’s pursed lips told her she was right. “He’d seen Ursula too.”

  Cassidy thought of the boy’s kindness at the beginning of the week, when he’d let her borrow his phone at the supermarket. Hal Nance is dead. She was immediately nauseated. She swallowed hard, keeping her cereal down. Her eyes stung. “It’s not fair,” she managed to squeak out before her cheeks were wet. “I wanted to tell him to …” But Ping already knew what she’d wanted to tell him. It was too late.

  Ping sighed and watched Cassidy cry. After a while, she took her arm, and they walked farther into the cul-de-sac, stopping in the center of the asphalt circle. Cassidy told her about the dream of Ursula and Lucky and
the house, about what she thought it meant. Ping practically skidded to a stop, shaking her head. “You want to go in there?”

  “We have to. People are dying. What if there’s something we can do to stop that?”

  “What do you think we’ll find inside?” Ping asked. Then, wide-eyed, she squeaked out, “What if your dream was a trick? A trap?”

  “And what if it was just a dream?” Cassidy asked, her face flushing. “What if all this is coincidence?” She shrugged. “We’d have nothing to lose,” she finished, trying to sound confident, steady, strong, even though she felt the opposite.

  “Unless it wasn’t a dream,” said Ping. She blinked. “Unless everything you imagined is real.”

  A particularly strong gust of wind rocked the trees up the road, and branches rubbed against one another, creaking and cracking.

  “If Ursula Chambers thought someone could do something to help her, in whatever way she needs help, why would she choose me?”

  “Because she knows you’re one tough chica,” said Ping, nudging Cassidy’s arm. She turned to the driveway, the shadows dancing without a care in the morning light. “Okay, so if we’re doing this, what do we need?”

  “Me,” said a voice from the curb. The girls turned to find Joey walking purposefully toward them, arms swinging, face pale.

  CASSIDY SHOOK HER HEAD. “You changed your mind?”

  “I was watching you two from my bedroom. If you’re gonna go anyway, then I’m coming with you.”

  “You don’t have to do us any favors,” Ping said with a huff.

  Joey stammered. “I — I know. It’s just …” He blinked and glanced into Cassidy’s eyes before quickly finding his sneakers. “None of us would be in this situation if it weren’t for me.” He swallowed, as if trying to choke down a dust ball. “If I hadn’t been, you know, such a jerk lately.” Cassidy wiped her cheeks, surprised. “For the past year, I’ve blamed you for something that wasn’t your fault. What happened to Lucky … And since you’ve been back, you’ve done nothing but try to help me feel better. I know you believe everything I’ve seen and heard and that means … a lot. But none of this is worth risking your life. I’m not worth it.”

  Pins and needles brushed Cassidy’s skin. She closed her eyes. It wasn’t time for tears again. Not if they were preparing to walk up the shadowed path. “You’re wrong, Joey. You’re worth everything. But thank you for saying the rest of it.” When she glanced at him, his eyes were wide. Pink returned to his pale cheeks. “But you’re not the only reason I want to figure all this out.”

  The girls filled him in on what Mr. and Mrs. Yu had seen the night before. The car crash.

  “We must have driven right past it,” he said, trembling, shaken. He’d known Hal Nance ever since he could remember. “I didn’t even notice.”

  “Why don’t we tell someone what we know?” Ping asked. “Our parents? Your sister?”

  “But what do we know for certain?” Joey answered, his voice growing stronger, steadier. “Look what all my storytelling has accomplished over the past year. Yes, I’ve made a new friend, Dr. Caleb, but my parents pay for me to talk to him every week, so he doesn’t really count. And when I start saying, ‘Ursula’s ghost is killing people who stole stuff from her house,’ I’m pretty sure he’ll want to put me on some sort of medication.”

  “But you have us now,” Cassidy suggested.

  Joey smirked, a sad expression, and she understood. If the Tremonts thought that she’d become a bad influence, reverting their son back to his paranoid ways, they might ship her back to Brooklyn. And then what? She thought again of the trucks that had carted away the Dumpsters, of where all that junk might end up, of what might happen to the people who found it, brought it into their own homes.

  “So we’re doing this?” Ping asked, nodding toward the Chambers property. The dilapidated house was hidden far up the driveway, but when the breeze moved branches, they could see bits and pieces of its dark wood. It seemed to be waiting for them like an animal — some sort of predator, the Big Bad Wolf. Cassidy and Joey nodded at once. “When?”

  “Let’s go now,” said Cassidy, glancing at the patch of shadow, the house in the woods. “I’ve just got to grab my backpack.” My notebook, she meant. It was still her secret. Like a security blanket she should have grown out of years ago.

  “And I’ll find some provisions,” said Joey. “A flashlight might help.”

  Inside, Cassidy dashed upstairs and grabbed the book from under her pillow. She shoved it into her otherwise empty bag, then made her way back downstairs. Ping and Joey stood behind the couch in the living room, where Rose was sitting watching the local news.

  A reporter was describing the situation from the parking lot of the funeral home down in the center of Whitechapel, but Cassidy didn’t hear her words. The headline gleaming at the bottom of the screen had caught her attention. Body Thief Strikes Again.

  Rose leaned forward, her face held up by the palms of her hands. She shook her head then noticed the group gathered behind her. “That poor family,” said Rose. “What kind of sick person would steal corpses?”

  “What family?” Ping asked, her voice rising even higher than normal.

  “Mrs. Moriarty,” said Rose. “And her son-in-law, Owen Chase. Both of them were to be buried this week. But poof, they’re gone! I can’t imagine what Kitty is going through.” To herself, she added, “I should make some stuffed shells for her. Something hearty. Comforting.”

  Ursula’s body had disappeared in a similar fashion only the week prior, Cassidy thought, her muscles tightening reflexively.

  Behind the couch, out of sight of Joey’s mother, the trio stared at one another, unspoken questions hanging in the air. Before any of them had the nerve to speak them aloud, Joey announced, “We’re heading outside, Mom. Gonna explore. Back in a little while.”

  “Good idea. You kids shouldn’t be watching stuff like this anyway.” Still entranced by the television, Rose didn’t turn around. “See you all soon,” she said quietly, as the group crept guiltily out the front door. Cassidy hoped Rose was right.

  ONE BY ONE, Cassidy, Joey, and Ping each stepped over the curb onto what was left of Ursula’s gravel driveway. The canopy of leaves overhead was so thick, it seemed as though they’d immediately jaunted into another season, another dimension where shadows ruled. Cassidy led the group, twisting and turning up the long path, trying to avoid the tall clingy weeds and any plants whose leaves were tinged a poisonous red.

  About halfway to the house, they came across a busted tennis racket lying in the middle of the gravel. A few feet past it was an overturned tin box. Tools spilled out of it. Farther along, more objects were scattered — plates, forks, knives, frames, books. Gauzy dresses hung hauntingly from the crowded scrub branches.

  They paused when the mess became too thick to easily step over without touching any of it. “You think all this stuff fell out of the Dumpsters when they carted them off a couple days ago?” Cassidy asked.

  Ping shook her head. “I don’t think so. I remember the driveway looking pretty clear yesterday.” She blushed. “What?” she asked, as if the others had accused her of something odd. “I was curious so I checked, all right?”

  “If Ursula’s ghost has been warning people to return her things, maybe this is the result,” said Joey. He glanced between the girls.

  “They didn’t even bring the stuff up to the house,” said Cassidy. “They just threw it on the ground.”

  “They were too scared,” said Ping, staring up the drive. “I don’t blame them.”

  Ahead, the farmhouse sat in shadow, its dark shingles mixing with the gloom of the surrounding trees. The front yard was overgrown with thick green shoots and wild looking, ugly yellow flowers. A few choked saplings sprouted up from the ground near the house’s crumbling foundation. An aroma of pine sap masked another scent — something rotten. Cassidy took a deep breath through her mouth so she wouldn’t have to smell it. For a moment, she thou
ght she heard that humming, the primal-sounding noise that had woken her on Monday night and had caused her to come to the moonlit window. The house looked like it had been abandoned for years. You’d never have known that someone had lived there just last week. You might have imagined, however, that the person who’d lived there had also died there.

  “Come on,” said Cassidy. “Can’t stop now. Not here anyway.” She hopped over the items that had become Ursula’s trash. Or Ursula’s treasure? It was difficult to tell the difference anymore. The others followed, as if playing a game, seeking islands of solid ground, gray gravel, so they wouldn’t have to step on the objects.

  At the bottom of the porch steps, they stopped. This might be their last chance to turn back. Cassidy almost hoped for a sign telling her to do just that. The previous summer slammed into her memory. She heard Ursula’s voice screaming at Joey and her to leave or else — such a different tone than the Ursula from her dream. She felt suddenly cold, and she clutched at her arms, rubbing away the chill. From the corner of her eye, Cassidy saw Joey do the same, and she knew that he was remembering too.

  “If people are being punished for stealing things from this house,” he whispered, “then what about Lucky?”

  “What do you mean?” Ping asked.

  “I mean, if Lucky was the first victim, and I’m pretty sure he was, he didn’t steal anything. He was just a dog.” The hurt in Joey’s voice was enough to bring tears to Cassidy’s eyes again. The afternoon of the previous year blinked through her brain again and again.