by Mav Skye
Joey slammed the door to the trailer as a cereal bowl hit the wall and exploded beside the front door. “See what you made me do, you darn blasted kid?!?”
Joey snatched the spare pair of sneakers that he’d hidden under the porch steps, and sauntered into the woods to put them on.
He squatted on an old log and had slipped on one shoe when the old man opened the door and looked around outside. “Good! Ya left my truck today. This time, I’ll be able to make it to work on time!” He slammed the front door, and Joey breathed in relief.
Yes, he’d stolen the truck again the day before to help out a friend. Pops had a new job working at a warehouse and was not happy when he had walked outside to find his truck missing.
He’d hammered on Joey’s bedroom door all night, threatening to beat his skull in, but Joey didn’t care. The old man hadn’t been able to break through, at least not yet. And besides, it was worth it for his friend.
Joey watched as his grandfather opened the front door again, stomped down the stairs and climbed into his rig. He let it warm a few minutes before pulling out of the drive and flying off, kicking up dust and dirt down the long gravel drive.
The morning was warm, and the birds sang in the trees as Joey made his way down the drive toward The Misty Goose manager’s office.
Mrs. Price, in the usual pink housecoat, waved at him from her dining room window. Her window was open, and the theme music to General Hospital poured from it. He waved back. He spotted Jenn and May sneaking around Mr. Mortimer’s trailer as usual. Further down, Mrs. Church was weeding her flower garden. She had her AM radio turned down low, and a voice of an old Baptist preacher rose and fell as he built to the suspenseful (yet unsurprising) conclusion of his sermon involving brimstone and a lake of fire.
Up ahead, he spotted Chris waiting by Gosling Circle like he did every weekday morning now. His presence always washed away the darkness and hate from the wee morning hours. Joey needed Chris as much as Chris needed him. Like Chloe, he had found acceptance, friendship, and family in the people he worked for.
Chris mumbled to himself and kicked at the sidewalk gutter.
Joey waved his arm and yelled, “Hey, Chris!”
The awkward teen raised his head. Pure joy lit his face, and even with the distance between them, Joey could hear Chris’s gentle voice break. “Well, hello there,” he said, sounding a lot like his father. The boy turned and began heading back down the sidewalk toward the office, his yellow shirt flapping about his thin waist. Joey jogged and caught up to him, patting the boy on the back when he did. “Morning, partner.”
Chris tilted his face down to the sidewalk as he walked. His arms swung limp at his sides, the expression all in his voice, “Well, hello there.”
“What are we doing today?”
“Coffee and donuts,” the boy replied.
“Your dad is awesome.”
“My dad is awesome,” the boy repeated.
“You smell like a monkey,”
“I smell like a…?” Chris paused, and looked at Joey.
Joey grinned, and the boy laughed before looking back at the sidewalk, then said, “You smell like a monkey.”
Joey laughed with him. Chris was clever in more ways than one.
When they reached the small office, Dan greeted them at the door. He handed Chris a small coffee cup—full of chocolate milk—and a napkin with a donut on it.
Chris said, “Bugs Bunny that darn rabbit.”
Dan said, “Yeah, sure, go watch some Looney Tunes, Chris. Joey and I have a few things to talk about anyway.”
The boy turned and walked back out the door. Joey and Dan watched him walk to their trailer a few feet away and go inside.
“He seems happy this morning,” said Joey.
“He’s happy as a clam, long as we keep the same schedule. Same thing every day, same shirt, same socks, same cartoons—until you came along that is,” Dan chuckled and handed Joey a cup of coffee. “Black. As like you like it.”
Joey accepted the coffee, took a sip. It was piping hot and bitter as heck. “Well, what can I say? Everyone needs a touch of chaos in their life.”
Dan sat behind his office desk and shoved a box of donuts Joey’s way. “Why’s that?”
“So we can appreciate the mundane.” Joey picked up an apple fritter and shoved it in his face, followed by a sip from his coffee.
Dan laughed. “True words, my man, true words.” He held out his coffee mug, and Joey, with a mouthful of doughnut, clinked his mug against Dan’s.
They both drank in silence for a while before Dan said, “Before we talk about what we’d like to accomplish today, I want to show you something.”
Dan stood and looked out his office window, before shutting the blinds, then he locked the office door.
“What about Chris?”
“Chris never leaves his Looney Tunes early. Far as I figure, he’s got another twenty minutes.” Dan waved for Joey to follow him back behind the desk. “It’s in here.” He opened the left desk drawer.
Joey said, “That’s the junk drawer.”
“That ain’t all it is.” Dan pulled the drawer all the way out and set it on the desk. At the very back, was a cigar box. He lifted it and set it on the desk. “Open it.”
Joey lifted the lid, then dropped it when he saw what was inside. “Holy shit.”
“Right?” Dan flipped the lid and drew the pistol from the box. “This here is a Colt Pocket Nine.” He flipped open the loaded chamber, dumped the bullets into his hand, and clapped the chamber back into place. He aimed at a framed poster of Guns and Roses on the wall, drew back the hammer and pulled the trigger.
It clicked.
“Man, this one’s a beauty. Only a few of them out there. Got these back in my wheelin’ and dealin’ days.”
Joey’s mouth felt dry. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you keep it?”
Dan snickered. “Self-protection, son.”
“Is someone after you?”
“No, oh hell, no. You just never know, especially in a place like The Misty Goose, if you know what I mean?”
Joey nodded.
Dan held it out to Joey. “Wanna hold it?”
Joey took the gun. He rubbed his thumb over the silver metal, and tested the weight in his hands.
“Feels good, don’t it?”
“I’ve never seen one in real life.”
“Tell you what; I’ll take you to the range and show you how to shoot. Just never know when you might need it. Maybe, you’ll pull in the drive late one night and hear a woman screaming bloody murder next door. Or, maybe, someone might come pounding on your door late at night, wanting to give you a piece of their mind or maybe more—”
Joey glanced up sharply.
Dan put his hands up. “I’m speaking hypothetically here.”
Joey handed it to Dan. “I don’t want this.”
“I’m not saying you want it. In fact, that’s good you don’t want it. People get power hungry with these things, trigger happy. What I’m saying is sometimes a man needs it. And God forbid you ever happen to need it; it’d be good for you to be comfortable with it. Have some training.”
Joey and Dan both jumped when someone pounded on the office door. Dan quickly slipped the gun in the cigar box and placed it in the junk drawer. Joey unlocked and opened the office door just as Dan slid the drawer into place.
It was Chris.
Dan said, “Well, hello there.”
“Well, hello there,” repeated Chris, and stepped into the office, moving toward the donuts.
Dan refilled Chris’s coffee mug with chocolate milk and poured himself another cup of coffee, then dove into a monolog about the day’s chores. Joey bobbed his head and replied when he needed to, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the desk drawer. Thoughts, dark thoughts, filled his head, dark thoughts that would become a nightly obsession.
11
Children’s Toys
IT WAS THREE WEEK
S AFTER THE barbeque that Chloe found the jack-in-the-box on her bed. She’d just come home from swimming all day with Kelly at the pool. It was the first time she’d seen anyone who had been there that night. Kelly didn’t say a word about it, other than casually mentioning that Donny was hanging with Weasel in Seattle and wouldn’t be in town. It was just Chloe and Kelly with a bunch of little kids in the pool, so it had been a fun day. Shirley had checked on Mama Nola twice as she had promised she would while Chloe was away. Both times, Mama Nola had been happily working in the garden and was still there when Chloe had walked up the drive.
So, where did the jack-in-the-box come from?
Chloe slummed her pool clothes to the floor and pushed back her new pink heart glasses onto her hair that was still slightly wet. She sat on her knees in front of the jack-in-the-box on her bed.
It was a perfect cube painted with black and white 3D squares; tiny jesters danced a jig inside them. Some of the jesters had red hats with little bells, others had black hats with bells, they all held tiny hatchets in their hands.
Chloe wondered if this was a prank from Joey. She had refused to speak to him for a full week before she broke down and asked him to keep an eye on Mama Nola while she babysat the Pratt twins. His landscaping had stirred a sense of pride within the small community. Most of the residents had begun pitching in. The Churches’ gospel group held a car wash and used the donations to purchase shrubs, perennials and a single apple tree for the trailer park.
The Penore brothers had hauled off the beat up couch that had been sitting in front of their trailer since last August. Chloe had later seen it in the woods while walking to town, but at least they were trying. Even Jenn and May had started picking up candy wrappers and beer cans while they were pulling pranks on Mrs. Price and poor Mr. Mortimer.
The job kept Joey plenty busy, and despite this he had made it a priority to pop in and visit Mama Nola several times a day when Chloe was babysitting. Still, they hadn’t talked much since that night. Always the jokester, Joey had probably left the jack-in-the-box as a way of loosening things up between them. Maybe he was even hiding in her room watching. The thought sent a chill down her spine, but it also made her smile. Silly Joey. “You can come out now, Joey. I’m on to you.”
She lifted the bed ruffles and looked beneath her bed; there was nothing but dust bunnies and her Fear Diary. She picked up the journal and swatted the dust off the top. She hadn’t written in it for forever, not since that awful night. But since then, it was like a bad curse had been lifted, no clowns, no more cheerleaders or football players—the vision of Donny’s face came into her mind, and her heart ached.
A noise from the closet brought her back to the now. “Joey?”
She stood and tiptoed to her closet, being careful not to make a sound. She reached for the doorknob when she heard the noise again. Inside, the floorboards creaked, and she couldn’t be sure, but she swore she heard a slight rattle. Chloe pulled her hand back and touched her stomach, then reached for Godzilla. What was she afraid of? It was only Joey playing a stupid joke.
What if it wasn’t Joey hiding in the closet?
That’s ridiculous, she told herself. There hadn’t been a clown sighting in weeks. Weeks. She placed her hand on the doorknob and counted to three. One, two… She flung open the door and screamed, “Caught you!”
There was nothing inside her closet, but her clothes and shoes. She rustled through her shirts and sweaters, just to make sure and stood back. She had heard someone in there…hadn’t she?
Chloe shivered and glanced around the room again. She was the only one there. If Joey hadn’t left the jack-in-the-box, then who had? She pulled an old Mariners sweatshirt off the hanger and slipped it on, then grabbed a baseball bat from behind her shoes. It wasn’t a wooden or even a metal bat; it was hot pink plastic from when she was younger. Not exactly the most effective weapon, but it was something she could swing.
She turned away from the closet and faced her room. The floor length curtains were drawn, but still, they moved slightly as if someone had pushed up against them. Was someone outside her window?
Chloe ghosted over the floor to the window. The drapes were still now. She banished the vision of Mr. Jingles standing at her window, holding a hatchet high in the air like an executioner, waiting for her to draw the drapes and stick her head outside. She held her breath as she used the bat to swing the drapes aside.
Her window was open, but Mr. Jingles wasn’t there. She leaned out, saw Mama Nola carrying a basket of berries and her work shovel across the yard. She waved at Chloe and smiled. Chloe waved back and closed the window.
Boy, was she jumpy today. Determined to get to the bottom of the jack-in-the-box mystery, Chloe strode toward her bed once more and sat down on her knees in front of the jack-in-the-box again. She set the plastic bat at her knees.
Quiet.
The little jesters appeared to dance with their hatchets in the little 3D black and white boxes. A breath of cool air whispered across the nape of her neck, followed by a soft rattle. Chloe grabbed the bat and turned.
Again, no one was there.
Chloe turned back to the jack-in-the-box and placed the hot pink bat directly beside it. She swallowed hard and touched the music crank. It made a slight tinkle, startling her. It’s a child’s toy, Chloe. But, scolding herself didn’t make her feel any better. This time she gripped the crank and turned.
The music clinked out to Pop Goes the Weasel, tinny and metallic. Chloe’s mind filled in the words to the music.
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
She slowed down at the next part, dreading what would pop up out of the box. Maybe it would be nothing, maybe a silly elephant or a giraffe. Or maybe a dog’s mutilated heart, who knows? She spun the handle again.
The monkey thought t’was all in good fun
Pop! Goes the weasel—
The box lid flew open, and a clown sprung out, bopping Chloe’s nose with a tiny hatchet.
Chloe screamed and fell backward to the floor. It kept bouncing on its spring, swinging the little hatchet. Pop Goes the Weasel kept playing, faster and faster, the handle cranking all by itself. She snatched up her hot pink bat and pounded the clown, knocking the box to the floor. Chloe continued to scream, pounding and pounding until the clown was in pieces and the box falling apart, but still the music played.
“Chloe!”
Strong arms hauled her back. She broke free of the monster’s grip, and screamed like an Amazon Warrior before swinging her weapon over her head and bringing it down on the beast that dared to touch her.
The hot pink bat bounced off the top of his head once before she recognized the face.
“Dang it, Joey Parker!”
Joey looked from her to the plastic bat, to the floor, then back at Chloe. “Just as I suspected.”
“What?” shouted Chloe, exasperated.
“Uh huh.” He put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Looks like someone’s a few fries short of a happy meal.”
Joey shielded his face and dropped to his knees as Chloe began to pound him with the bat. The harder she hit him, the louder he laughed.
Mama Nola appeared in the doorway. “By the gods, Ayita! What is going on?”
Chloe sat next to Mama Nola, nursing a cup of chamomile tea while Joey sifted through the wooden fragments of the jack-in-the-box, trying to fit them together like a puzzle. He discovered that something had been written on the bottom of the box, but Chloe had stomped on it at some point, damaging the box so badly that Joey couldn’t piece it back together.
“Do you think the writing was a message for me?”
Joey shrugged. “It’s hard to say, the only word I can make out is dancing.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Chloe sipped her tea.
“Maybe someone wants to dance with you?”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Shut up.”
He daintily picked up his tea cup,
sticking out his pinky finger before rolling his eyes and taking a sip. “I certainly wouldn’t.”
Chloe tried hard not to smile. “I said shut up already.”
“Not after what you did this afternoon.” He sighed dramatically.
Chloe glared at him.
He continued, “If you wanted to marry me you could have just asked, clubbing attractive men over the head is soooo stone age.” Joey made a goofy face and rubbed his head, and gave her a fake hurt look. “Ouch!”
“Tryouts for the Three Stooges were decades ago.”
Hooking his thumb in his tea cup handle, Joey crossed his teal eyes and spread out his arms. “I am all of the stooges, right now.”
This did make Chloe smile. It was impossible for her to stay angry at him for long.
He pointed at her. “Look at that. Your face cracked. Joey strikes again.”
She shook her head and gazed into her empty tea cup. “You’re such a dork.”
“I know.”
“Shut up,” said Chloe.
“Okay.”
Mama Nola said, “It looks familiar to me, that clown.”
At this Chloe and Joey both looked over at her. During their banter, Mama Nola had picked up the clown attached to the spring. Only the head remained.
She nodded. “Yes, I’ve seen this at the circus.”
Chloe glanced at Joey worriedly. He returned the look.
She said, “Etsi, was this jack-in-the-box yours?”
Mama Nola said, “I don’t…I don’t remember, but I’m sure I’ve seen it at the circus.”
Chloe’s previous smile turned into a frown once more. The jack-in-the-box must have been Mama Nola’s, but why hadn’t she seen it before? She glanced at Joey, hoping he’d have an answer.
But he just shook his head and sipped his tea.
Mama Nola was a mystery.
A mystery that Chloe needed to crack sooner, rather than later.
12
Deal with the Devil
CHLOE SQUIRRELED AROUND IN THE KITCHEN getting lunch ready, washing dishes, and praying the oven timer would go off soon.
