“So, you think it’s possible? Nowadays?” He took one of the bowls she handed him and set it at his place on the kitchen table.
His mother placed the other two salads down and shook her head. “I’m awfully sorry that we didn’t keep on going to church after I married Ed. You should call your grandparents, Ben. They’d love to hear from you and they can answer all your demon questions a lot better than I can.”
The rumble of the garage door opening announced his step-father’s arrival. His mother instantly became agitated and outwardly frantic as she hurried to put the steaks on the indoor grill. Ben noted her fear – that heavy, passive fear that had driven her to drink.
***
Cori’s second appointment called to cancel and Jason offered to drive her home after she mentioned that no one else would be in her house for a couple of hours.
“Shit, there’s a car here,” Jason exclaimed as they pulled up to the curb.
Cori promised him that Chuck had walked to work; they’d still have the house to themselves. Chuck’s car was fast getting buried by the snow, the tracks from his arrival were invisible.
“Exactly where does this Chuck kid sleep, anyway?”
“Downstairs, in the basement. Jealous?” Cori reached over and stroked his thigh, the gesture reeking of sexual innuendo.
Jason parked the car, turned off the engine, and took advantage of the dark night to enfold Cori in his arms and challenge her with kisses. This was the softer side of Jason that she liked. They hadn’t been drinking, or smoking anything, and the clear-headed excitement was pleasant and unhurried. She didn’t mind the slightly stale taste of his mouth. They didn’t break apart until the confines of the car and the cooling temperature moved them both to reach for their respective door handles. They laughed and caught handfuls of snow off the ground to hurl at one another as they dashed for the side door.
“Oh, I left my treasures in the back seat,” Cori said, “Don’t let me forget to get them before you leave.” She pushed the door open and Jason trailed after her. The entry and basement stair lights were on. They left their coats and boots in a heap and Cori stepped up to the kitchen, but Jason descended the stairs.
“Where’re you going?”
“I’m checking up on this Chuck dude,” Jason said over his shoulder. At the bottom of the steps he turned and stood in front of the open door of Chuck’s bedroom. “Dude’s a slob,” he stated. Cori was at his back, peering in, too.
“I told you, he’s not here.”
“Why’s the light on?”
“We’re kids. We leave lights on. Come on.” She pulled at his sleeve but he didn’t budge.
“That mattress looks kind of comfortable.”
“Ew, don’t be gross. Chuck sleeps there. Those sheets have probably never been washed.” She pulled at him again and this time he let her lead him up two flights of stairs.
Chapter 14
Dinner with Ed Rose was the very first thing on Ben’s list of things he hated to do. Ed complained that Ben’s mom hadn’t bought his favorite salad dressing. Then he criticized that his steak was too well done. He hated the vegetables and carped about the water spots on his glass. There was no end to his grumbling, as he found fault with everything his wife did. He was no less appreciative of Ben’s efforts to be pleasant at dinner. He denigrated the boy with verbal abuse; he disparaged his manners and scorned him when he defended his mother.
Ben’s anger stewed in his belly and nearly rose to his mouth, but a quiet look from his mother cooled the heat he felt. He couldn’t fully take on Ed yet. His plan to shelter his mother, whisk her away to safety, needed more time and more money. Treachery and violence filled his mind, but his heart was patient.
Ben stood to take his plate to the sink. “I’ve got to go, Mom. I have hockey tonight and I’ll be late.”
“Hold on there, son, you’re not going anywhere. There’s a blizzard out there.” Ed Rose knew he was irritating Ben by calling him ‘son’. He tested the teen further by adding, “I forbid you to go out and drive in this weather.”
Ben rinsed his plate. He weighed his options. He could be submissive and agree. If he called Chuck, he might be able to get him to pick up Emily and then Megan, but Chuck was not completely reliable. He could be defiant – just go out and leave as soon as Ed settled into his office or in front of the TV. Did he want the consequences that would come later? He could beg his mother to let him go. She would cave in; she’d drunk enough to be easily persuaded. But then she would earn the consequences.
He opted for the truth, laced with flattery. “Um, Ed, could you drive me? I’m supposed to pick up some kids and, uh, well, their folks aren’t as cool with stuff as you are. I don’t want to leave them stranded, you know?”
Ed must have been thinking of an insurance payout on the kid if he should wind up in a car accident on this wintery night. He said, “You know what, son? I’m going to let you get some good old-fashioned experience in driving in the snow. Be careful and keep your cell phone on.” He gave a phony smile. “But you’re paying the deductible if you get in an accident.”
Ben produced a doomed sigh. “Okay. Thank you, sir.” He kept his dimples flat, but it took effort. They appeared only after he was halfway up the stairs headed to his room where he would mess up his bed and bathroom to maintain the deception.
***
Jason wanted to look into the other girls’ bedrooms, but Cori pulled him into hers, flipping on the light switch and pulling the shade on the single window. She felt a twinge of guilt for what she was willing to do, but as she stepped over the Ouija board the guilt evaporated, replaced with shameless power. She spoke to Jason in a husky whisper.
“Why are you whispering if there’s no one here?” Jason eyed the trunk and the board. His voice was as low as hers.
Cori spoke again, her words still ancient and unintelligible.
“What are you saying? I didn’t catch that the first time either.” Jason looked her in the eyes, waited for a clear response, began to float. His heels clicked back on the floor and he wobbled. “Did you feel that? Was that an earthquake? Michigan doesn’t have earthquakes.”
Cori shrugged her shoulders. He pulled her to his chest and kissed her with all of the passion and impatience of a self-centered Neanderthal. She moved against him with her hips and knees and breasts as if she were dancing some weird alien tango. Then she shuddered and twitched as she dropped to the bed, her eyes watering. The effort to levitate him left her raw. She swiped a finger across one eye, smearing her mascara and smoky black eyeliner into dark streaks across her temple. Jason yanked off his shirt and fell on top of her.
The bed creaked, creaked again as he rolled to his side and grabbed at her clothing. A nearby tapping noise caught his attention and he bolted upright.
“What the–” he looked over the bedside to the Ouija board and watched the pointer move from D to I to E. “Cori!” He grabbed her by the elbow and wrenched her forward.
They both stared unmoving until Cori spoke. “Why are we staring at the Ouija board? Do you expect it to move on its own?” She was speaking coherently, the trance of a moment ago gone.
Jason rubbed his thumb across his heart, tracing the skull tattoo that was there. His vision started to blur; he heard a thrumming from above the light and turned his face upward. He squinted and swore. “If you have bats in your attic, they snore.” He tried to add a laugh, but the sound was more of a choke. He jumped to his feet on the mattress and reached for the ceiling with tattooed knuckles. He pounded. The noise stopped with a final snort.
Cori waited, motionless. Her heart beat fast in her chest, a reassuring clock that ticked the message that she was still alive. Somewhere. She broke into peals of sharp and horrid laughter.
Jason fell to his knees on the mattress and shook Cori hard.
“Did you take some drug I don’t know about, Cori? What did you take?”
***
Adam snorted and wobbled on the thin plank. H
e woke up disoriented and off-balance. The attic was dark. The tea light was flickering, ready to going out.
Chuck, you idiot, he thought. Spying on this chick again, falling asleep, and leaving me to get your ass out of this situation.
He put his eye to the peep hole, saw the ugly and pierced face of the man he had paid to tattoo his arm, and, beneath him, his brother’s love interest rocking with shrill laughter as if she were possessed. The man shook Cori with callous force.
Adam, do something. He’s hurting her.
What do you expect me to do, Chuck? Pop down through her closet, bow, pull out a sword and fight him off?
Let me call to her.
Adam acquiesced. He drew his legs up under his chest and rose up to howl like a wolf toward the roof. He opened his mouth to let Chuck call out however he wanted, but the sounds that came from his throat were unearthly.
***
Jason was a half a second away from slapping Cori’s face. He had seen hysteria before, knew he could let it run its course, but felt a violent urge to hit her. Then the sound from the attic stopped him cold. The shriek was three-fold, a demonic chord that shivered through the air and entered not only his ears, but all his senses.
It affected Cori likewise. She stopped laughing, clung to Jason, and gulped in as much air as her lungs could hold. Both of them stared upwards, waiting for a second sound.
***
Ben was amazed at how much snow had fallen while he’d been inside. He took the shovel one of the workers had left on the porch and stuck it on the floor of his back seat. With this much snow he’d probably have to shovel his way up the driveway at the rooming house.
The streets were horrible in the subdivision and not much better when he got out to the main road. Traffic was light but slow. Cars that had parked on the street were plowed in with snow stacked to the door handles. He chuckled at one man who was trying to kick the snow away with his boots and shovel it with his hands.
He knew he had plenty of time to pick up Emily, but there was a fender-bender ahead. Traffic stopped. He watched the colored lights on the police cruiser come up behind him and pass, wondered if it was the officer from earlier. As he waited he sent a text to Emily to warn her that he might be late. She was probably getting used to his tardiness. Poor Em. It was too late to cut down a side street and go around since he was hemmed in by a Hummer and a couple of SUVs.
Shortly after the tow truck appeared things cleared up and the cars started to creep along again. The Hummer was bolder, faster than the rest, and Ben slid in behind it and passed the slower cars.
He pulled in parallel to Emily’s store and watched her work behind the counter. She was ringing up a large order for a woman. He could see that the lady was chatting away at Emily’s blank face, probably wondering why such a nice store had hired a shy girl who exhibited the antithesis of fashion and friendliness.
The woman handed Emily her credit card. Emily finished with it, handed it back, and then the woman handed her something else before she lugged her purchases to the door. Ben considered jumping out of his car and getting the door for her, but the store manager appeared from behind a display and did the job. He watched the lady remotely open the trunk of the car parked in front of him and stow her packages. She must have been shopping for quite a while because her car was engulfed in the white stuff. An earlier plowing service had scraped the road snow right up past her hubcaps.
Ben got out and pulled his shovel out of the back seat. Without a word to the lady he started to shovel out the driver’s side. She closed the trunk, stood back, and pulled her scarf up over her face.
“Thank you so much, young man,” she said as he finished. He asked her if she had a snow scraper and he did all her windows and lights for her, too. “You are a life-saver,” she said. “Let me give you something.”
“No, no that’s all right. I’m just picking up my friend.” He nodded toward Emily.
“Oh,” she said, accenting the single syllable with a strange look. “Here, take this.” She held out a card and Ben accepted it. “If I can do anything for either of you, please call that number. Thanks again.”
Ben gave her a wide dimpled grin and nodded politely. He put the shovel back and climbed in behind the wheel. He turned the dome light on to read the card. It was postcard-sized and had writing on both sides along with a logo, an address, and a phone number. He gave an involuntary grunt when he read the back. He set it on the dashboard and leaned back to think.
***
“What was that?” Cori finally said. Her grip on Jason was hardly romantic and she started edging toward the foot of the bed, closer to the bedroom door. The shrill vocal sound that had filled their ears was both more and less than human.
“Is there a third floor? A way into the attic?” Jason asked.
“Through my closet.”
Jason hopped off the bed and opened the closet door. The step ladder was crushing most of Cori’s black clothing; the end of a string of Christmas lights fell loosely from the ceiling and draped over the ladder.
“Are you going up there?” Cori sounded nervous, incredulous. “Plug those in first.”
Jason took the end and found the outlet. He took a moment to watch Cori’s reaction as he asked her, “What are you hiding?”
***
As soon as the lights blinked on in the attic Adam backed off. This is your problem, brother. I’m outta here.
Chuck felt his brother leave. He sensed that he was lighter, as if he were a twelve-year-old again with no worries, no problems. Then he saw the access lid move aside, a square of light shined heavenward. He tip-toed across the boards, blew out the tea light, and threw it in the crib. He took the cover board and rested it next to the opening, then slithered down his escape hatch. The last thing he did was to reach for the leg of the child’s rocking chair and pull it close, trying to position the board over his hole while angling the rocker to hide the space. The lid dropped into place with a hollow thump.
***
“I’m not hiding anything,” Cori said, a lump forming in her throat. “That scream was unreal!” Her vision kept blurring, she felt the beginnings of nausea.
Jason stuck his head up and looked around. The little lights spread enough illumination that his eyes immediately caught the movement of a small chair, rocking ghost-like on the other side of the attic.
He nervously tapped his tongue stud against his teeth then whispered down to Cori, “You might have a raccoon or rats or something up here.”
“What do you see?”
“There’s a chair and a crib and a bunch of boxes. Is this where you got that stuff from?”
Cori was impatient. “Yeah, yeah, do you see anything else?” The pain in her skull was a constant thumping, tattooing itself into her brain.
Jason climbed all the way up. He looked back down at Cori after he pulled his feet up. “I’ll walk over and check it out.”
“You can’t. You’ll fall through the ceiling. You have to put boards down.”
“There are boards. There’s a path to the crib.”
“What? No, there’s not.”
She heard creaking; Jason’s voice was farther away. “Nothing over here, just a crib, a rocker, and a tree stand. It was probably my imagination that the rocker was moving. You spooked me out, girl.” He crossed back and stuck his foot through the opening, felt for the top step, and descended. “Probably a coon got its paw in a mousetrap and lit outta here like a bat outta hell.”
As soon as he was out of the closet Cori started up the ladder.
“Hey, babe, where’re ya goin’? Let’s get back to business.”
“I wanna see for myself. See if it’s gone. I’m not sleeping here until I’m sure–” She saw the boards, the path zig-zagging across the rafters. She swore with all the vehemence and anger she could produce. “Somebody’s been up here!” She slid back through the opening and Jason caught her, carried her to the bed.
“What are you doing? Get off me
! Don’t you get it? One of those dweebs I live with has been in my room.” She furrowed her brow. It couldn’t have been Megan or Emily, they had left before her. Ben could have come back, but she doubted it. “Chuck! I’m gonna kill him!”
***
Emily pulled open the door and bent down to stare vacantly at Ben before she got into the car. She slipped in without a word. Ben gave her a pleasant greeting, but she neither replied nor looked his way again, refusing to answer his several questions with even so much as an eyelash flutter of acknowledgement. She concentrated on the stupid lyrics of the song on the radio.
The salt trucks had been out and the roads were slushy. He had plenty of time to drive the relatively short distance home and then pick up Megan, but Emily was going to make it feel like hours by ignoring him. She knew he couldn’t stand it. She kept her knees tight against the passenger door and leaned her forehead on the window. She had glimpsed the same card on the dashboard that she had in her pocket. Ben must have put that lady up to it. How else would she know to ask her those particular questions?
Ben passed the street where he should have turned and Emily lifted her head for a moment. She checked the clock. This was ridiculous. He had more than enough time to drop her off. Why was he taking her along to Megan’s restaurant?
She wondered if the window would smash if she started butting it hard with her forehead.
Ben pulled into the plowed lot of the bakery on the next corner.
And parked.
“Okay, Em. What’s up? Why are you ignoring me?” He set the emergency brake and turned off the radio. “Talk.”
Emily shifted slightly, straightening her knees.
“Em? Did something happen at work?”
Sheltered Page 14
