“I’ll start the engine. We’ll be warm in no time,” he said as he closed his door.
Megan unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite.
“Oh, man, I didn’t give you a chance to buy a drink,” Ben gave himself an exaggerated forehead slap. “I’m sorry. I can run back in and get you something. What’d’ya want?” He put his hand on the door handle, ready to leap back out.
“That’s okay, I’m fine. I usually go to the drinking fountain after I eat anyway, so . . .” She gave a little cock of her head and took another bite. “Mmm, Emily should be a chef. Did she put nuts in the tuna?”
“Yup, you’re not allergic are you?”
Megan shook her head.
“Good. Emily should have asked, though.” He smiled at Megan.
“If we ever do this again you better save your lunch to eat with me. I can’t stand your watching me. Here, you want the other half?” She held out the remaining half.
“Nah, that’s okay. Sorry, I won’t stare.” He looked out the front window. “So . . . do you have to work tonight?”
“Yeah, five to nine.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“I don’t mind walking, really, and it’s not that cold.”
Ben twisted in the seat and faced her again. “I have to be somewhere at five,” his mind’s eye flashed on his mom’s face, “and then I’ll swing by at nine so you don’t have to walk in the dark.”
Megan smiled. “Okay, thanks.” She took another bite and stared at him while he pretended to be interested in the rear view mirror. She wondered why he didn’t already have a girlfriend. He was so cute. And so nice. Why was he paying so much attention to her? As soon as he turned his head back toward her she blushed and glanced away.
“Look!” She stopped chewing to point at Chuck’s car as it crept through the lot. “Is that Adam? I mean, Chuck . . . Chuck wearing that hat? What’s he doing here?”
“This can’t be good.” Ben’s voice was low; an adult tone colored the words.
***
Adam eased the nose of the car up to three garbage bins, clearly in defiance of the over-sized no parking signs posted on their sides. He looked toward the windowless double doors that were an emergency exit from the cafeteria. He had run out those doors on his first day of high school.
No, that was me. I ran out those doors. Yes, Chuck, you’re right. You told me all about that day and now I remember it like it happened to me. I will avenge you.
Adam looked down at the box of doughnuts that sat tilted over the gun’s handle. When had he bought those? He opened the top and stared at the three remaining ones: glazed, chocolate, jelly. He couldn’t remember eating nine doughnuts. Had he shared them with someone? With Chuck?
He pushed the box away and fingered the barrel of the gun. So smooth.
He unwound the scarf from his neck and placed it in his lap. He settled the gun on top and turned it until the angle suited him. He knotted the scarf and flipped the package over and knotted it again. Now he had a bulky present that would be appropriate for . . . for . . .
What were their names, Chuck? Did you ever tell me their names?
Adam raised his head and focused on the red letters of the sign. The car idled and the heat blasted and an insistent knocking emphasized the pounding in his head and the slow beating of his heart.
***
Ben kept knocking on the car window.
“What’s wrong with him?” Megan was at his elbow, peering into the front seat. “He’s like a zombie. Is the door locked?”
Ben tried the door, but nothing happened.
“Chuck!” He pounded again, faster, hoping he wouldn’t break the window.
Megan moved around him and waved her hands in front of the windshield. She yelled, “Adam! Hey, Adam!”
Adam’s head moved slowly to the right and Megan circled the car to the passenger’s side while Ben kept up his battering.
“I think I’ve got his attention,” Megan called over the hood. She shivered and grabbed the passenger door handle and jiggled it. Locked. “He’s staring at me. Ben, it’s the same look he had last night. What if he has another seizure?”
Adam broke his gaze. He moved like a snail, scooting himself to the center of the bench seat. He placed the “package” on the dashboard and lifted the doughnut box to his lap, all in the slowest slow motion. He stretched both arms out to the sides and held his fingers above the door locks.
“That’s right, Buddy, open the doors,” Ben implored.
The lock buttons rose to meet the tips of Adam’s fingers. He felt the power of the action and pulled his arms to his chest with the suddenness of a striking snake. His head struck the back of the seat and his mouth fell open.
Ben flung the door open and lunged into the driver’s seat, but Megan stared through the window.
“It’s okay, Buddy, it’s okay. I’ll take you home. Everything’s gonna be fine.” He motioned for Megan to open the door, then instead hit the window button and rolled it down. “Hey, I’m takin’ him home. Can you go turn off my car? And, uh, drive yourself and Em home after school?”
***
“He never said a word. He didn’t have a seizure, but somethin’ really weird is goin’ on with that guy.” Ben shook his head.
Emily stood in the entryway and listened as Ben explained to her and Megan what happened next.
“It’s like he had his tongue cut out or something. He tries to speak and then it’s just a garbled mess. He goes from angry to tearful to nothing in five seconds. Then he stares.”
Emily was mute. Welcome to my world, she thought.
Megan handed Ben the keys and moved on into the dining room to set her books down. Ben turned his back on Emily and followed.
Emily stepped up into the kitchen, felt invisible. Felt . . . angry.
Felt the pressure on her chest that only came with nightmares. She wanted to run up to her room, but she could hear Cori up there moving furniture or something. She didn’t want to pass her room.
Maybe she could do something for Chuck. She didn’t mind Chuck . . . or Adam. Well, now that Megan had revealed the secret on the way home that they were one and the same she considered him to be as equally outcast as she was.
Was he as stupid, too? She felt like an idiot that she’d never put two and two together. When had Adam and Chuck eaten dinner together? Never. When had they both watched TV at the same time? Never.
So many lies and secrets from Ben. The only good thing was that Ben looked out for all of them and kept their secrets. Well, not anymore.
She listened for a second to Ben and Megan’s conversation in the dining room. Their voices were lowered and there was a lighter attitude. They weren’t talking about Chuck any more. They wouldn’t notice if she went downstairs.
She took each step cautiously. This was a big deal for her. She never reached out to others. She hadn’t been particularly friendly with Chuck ever and pretty much ignored him with the same heartless indifference that she knew most people had for her.
She was halfway down the stairs and felt a twinge of dread that she might soon find herself rebuffed by a schizo. Her good intention folded in on itself; she felt her goal wither and cramp.
She paused. Something changed. Her heart was leaden and the pressure was spreading to her limbs. All she could see ahead was the bottom step and nothing beyond.
The basement shouldn’t be this dark. There was no laundry room light bulb. She glanced back up the stairs and couldn’t see the window in the door. Her vision narrowed until she could no longer see even her hand in front of her face.
I should yell, she thought.
Her lips moved, but air skipped past her vocal cords.
She felt along the wall and turned toward Chuck’s room, found the door knob, and froze. The pressure knocked her to the floor. She saw nothing. Could not scream. Could barely feel herself rise up, stiffened, frozen mid-air exactly as she remembered the fat man. Was it Cori? Was she doing this to her
? There was no way to control the fear.
Mute, blind, paralyzed.
Emily panicked to the point of passing out.
Chapter 12
Cori strode into the dining room with a purpose. “Hey . . . Megan. Need your help. Come upstairs.” She turned with the confidence that her command would be obeyed though she expected Ben to say something inane. This ridiculous little romance was tiresome, but she could endure it if Megan could unlock the treasure trunk. “Bring that lock pick you had to get into Mrs. Kremer’s room.” She thought of turning back to wink at Ben when she said “Mrs. Kremer”, but she smirked to herself instead.
She didn’t hear Ben’s whispered question to Megan, but she heard her little minion obediently following her, though she paused at the den door for some reason. Cori hurried up the stairs first and waited at her door.
“Right this way, new girl,” Cori oozed sweetness, fake though it was. She closed the door behind Megan and dropped the friendliness. “That thing. I can’t get it unlocked. Lost the key. Can you pick it?”
“Me? I don’t know how to pick a trunk lock.” Megan kneeled down to take a look at the trunk. “What’s in it?” She stuck the metal pick she had retrieved from the den’s doorframe into the large hole.
“NOYB.”
“Enno why bee?” Megan looked straight at Cori, studied her piercings, noticed the blue-ish black of her dyed hair.
“N. O. Y. B. None. Of. Your. Business.” Cori grabbed at the pick and jiggled it. “That’s too little. Have you got something else?” The pick clunked on the floor boards where she dropped it.
Megan sat back on her heels and put her hands on her knees. “Maybe. But you’ve got to tell me about this trunk first. It looks old. Was it your grandparents’ or something?” Megan held Cori’s stare, read the meaning in her gaze, and backed off. She lowered her eyes without saying another word and reclaimed the pick.
Five minutes passed as she struggled with the lock. Megan asked for several items that Cori fetched with the enthusiasm of an annoyed sloth. A nail clippers, a ball point pen, a paper clip. Ten more minutes passed and then fifteen.
Megan’s persistence was the positive counterpart to Cori’s stubbornness.
“Hold this right there,” Megan said. She used both of her hands to work the tube from the pen in tandem with the straightened end of a paperclip.
“You got it!” Cori’s reaction was the closest to a warm response that Megan had heard from her in the short time that she had lived here. They flipped the lid up jointly and laughed at the first thing they saw.
“Holy cow. How old are those?” Megan leaned back and let Cori lift out the sheaf of yellowed drawings. They were nude sketches that would have been given a PG-13 rating for their chasteness. The artist had hidden the private parts with objects held by the model.
“Old,” Cori answered, forgetting to be rude. There were seven in all. The old paper was ragged and crumbling. The charcoal drawings were smudged in places and had imprinted themselves faintly on the backs of each other.
“Look. They’re signed.” Megan pointed at the faint signature of one. “Robert Joseph Kinton. Sounds familiar. Maybe it’s some famous dude and you’ve got some original artwork worth millions.” Megan tried for a smile from Cori, but it didn’t work. The single moment of shared discovery had evaporated.
“All right, you can leave my room now.”
Megan stood up. “Aren’t you going to thank me?” She couldn’t resist putting her hands on her hips as if she were scolding a child for ill manners.
Cori uttered something unrepeatable and Megan was tempted to kick the trunk. From this vantage point she could see the edge of a brown board revealed beneath some other objects. The trademark symbol and name at the top caught her attention.
“Is that a Ouija board?”
***
Ben rummaged around the kitchen wondering what the heck Cori was doing with Megan for so long. And where was Emily? She usually helped him on Tuesdays while he prepared his customary salad and frozen family-size lasagna. He switched on the oven according to the package instructions and got out some dishes.
From the basement there suddenly blasted Chuck’s music as if he had opened his door wide.
Feet charged up the stairs and Ben stuck the pan in the oven before it finished pre-heating and quickly backed away, prepared for Chuck to run through. He had been bowled over before, though it wasn’t the ceiling-walking attack that Megan had depicted. He doubted that things truly happened as she described. That was entirely too weird. But for some reason he could accept Cori’s levitating abilities. That seemed like yoga or something. Wasn’t there scientific proof for that?
Chuck checked himself at the top of the stairs, turned and ran back down. Ben figured he had forgotten something or was simply Chuck being Chuck. Then he heard loud choking gasps. Was Chuck strangling himself? He stepped to the entry and looked down.
“What’s the matter, buddy?” he called to Chuck’s back. His dark shadow was as still as a brick.
Ben took a step down, pulled his foot back when the oven beeped that it had reached the set temperature, then said, “Chuck? What’s wrong?” He continued to ask in as smooth a voice as he could muster all the while slipping down step by quiet step.
When he was close enough to reach out, he touched Chuck’s shoulder. The tensed muscle felt rock hard and Ben’s contact didn’t budge him. Without warning Chuck crumpled to his knees and the scene that his silhouette had hidden shocked Ben. Emily!
“Emily?”
He ran to the floating figure and wrapped his arms around her, tugging her to the floor. “Emily! Wake up!” Her body was cold and stiff and Ben wasn’t sure she was breathing. He felt his pockets for his cell phone, pulled it out, and punched in 9. Emily’s eyes opened and she groaned.
“I’m calling 9-1-1, Emily. What happened? Did Cori do this to you?”
“No, no, don’t call.” Emily shrank away, sat up, and looked beyond Ben to Chuck’s body on the floor. “What’s wrong with Chuck?”
Ben scooted over, his finger still hovering over the keypad, ready to hit the next number. Chuck was now prone on the concrete and sleeping like a baby, breathing normally, and smiling like the Mona Lisa. Ben felt for a pulse in his neck and found a strong heartbeat.
Chuck moaned, opened his eyes, and sat up. “Dude.”
“You okay?”
“Dude . . . Emily. What were you doing?”
The guys turned their attention back to her and she cowered. “It wasn’t Cori this time.” She paused, stuck her fingers up her sleeves, and scratched at her cuts. “It was demons.”
***
“I did not,” Megan protested.
“Yes, you did,” Cori barked. “I could feel you pushing that thing. It’s supposed to move on its own.”
“It is. It keeps spelling the same thing. Look, it’s pointing to the same letters: B and J again.”
“That doesn’t spell anything, Einstein.” Cori lifted one hand to push back a strand of hair and unconsciously brushed her fingers over the most recent piercing. The Ouija board was intriguing, even if it was hokey and looked like it was a hundred years old.
Megan lifted her hands, too, and used them to accentuate her words. “Think. They must be initials. Who do you know with the initials BJ? It’s not Ben. Billy Joe? Bobbie Jean? Bobby Joe?” Megan’s hands flew to her face.
“What?” Cori tried to dampen her interest by folding her arms in an appropriately defiant gesture. “You know a Bobby Joe? Old boyfriend?”
Megan grabbed for one of the nude sketches and read the signature again. “Robert Joseph Kinton! Bobby Joe! The murderer. The guy who killed his mother and sister . . . it must have been right here . . . in this house!” Megan looked towards Cori’s closet. “This is from the attic, isn’t it? You went up there.”
Cori started to give a rough answer then caught her breath as the planchette began to move around the board on its own.
It stopped
on YES.
Megan sucked in her breath. The air in the room abruptly felt like it had been routed through hell. “The pointer is on the YES! Yes, you went up into the attic – it’s answering my question.” She saw Cori give a nod. Megan stared back at the board, moved the planchette to the center of the board between the numbers and the letters, and asked, “Are you Bobby Joe Kinton’s ghost?”
The little wooden piece spun around twice and then wobbled toward the corner. It landed on the YES again and Cori’s expletive overpowered Megan’s exclamation. They stared at one another, trance-like. Finally Megan spoke, “We should tell the others. This may be why Emily has nightmares and why you can levitate things and . . . why Chuck can walk on the ceiling.”
Cori’s eyes widened. “And you,” she said.
Megan frowned. “Me? What about me?”
“I saw you. You were sleeping mid-air. Floating.”
“Huh?”
Cori completely lost her gruffness. “I got home late Saturday, well, it was early Sunday morning, I guess. I was stoned and I picked your lock and I saw you there. I didn’t think it was really happening, but . . .”
Megan nodded her head, remembered waking up half off the mattress, her door open. “Let’s show the others. Come on.” She grabbed the board and pointer, not expecting a protest from the usually obstinate girl, and not hearing one.
***
Emily wavered between enjoying Ben’s arm around her as he helped her up the stairs and worrying about running into Megan when they reached the first floor. He guided her to the living room and sat next to her on the couch. Chuck had trailed them and settled himself into the corner chair.
Cori and Megan just happened to come bounding down from the second floor a few seconds later.
Emily tensed and pulled away from Ben when she saw what Megan carried.
“Oh, good, you’re all here.” Megan sounded happy, but there was a strange catch in her delivery. She plunked the board down onto the floor at Ben and Emily’s feet. She and Cori sat on the floor and Chuck slid off the chair and folded his long legs as well as he could to get close to the Ouija board.
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