Their voices were those of teenagers, but their words and phrasing were not. It was like some perverse litany in a nightmare church.
Then Connie pointed to Dana. “He is coming for you, Dana.”
Dana stumbled backward and nearly fell. “W-what?”
“He is coming for you,” said Todd, “and we will make you his.”
“His voice,” said Jennifer.
“His accomplice,” said Jeffrey.
“His apostle,” said all of them.
Dana looked around for a way out, but the door seemed to have melted out of sight, becoming nothing more than a door-shaped smear on the wall. The window was fading, too, but there was still some light spilling in from the streetlamp.
“He will take others,” said Connie.
“The boy will die soon,” said Chuck.
“The girl will die first,” said Jeffrey.
“Then you will join us in the world of shadows,” said all the ghosts at once.
There was a narrow opening between Connie and Chuck, and she broke and ran for it, determined to fling herself through the living room window. She dived and crashed through in a spray of glass, but the sound of it breaking was not like glass at all. It broke with a sound like dozens of wind chimes—bars and bells and hollow bamboo—all jangling as if blown by a gust of cold wind. Dana tucked and rolled as she hit the porch, but then she felt her body suddenly lift and fly out over the rail as if someone had caught her and flung her away. She landed in the grass, thumping down with a teeth-rattling jolt, rolling, tumbling, and finally coming to rest in a sprawl of pain and fireworks.
She groaned and tried to get up, needing to run away from this place.
But her body felt broken, and Dana collapsed to the ground.
The front door was a door again.
The window was unbroken.
The night seemed to stop holding its breath. Crickets began chirping—tentatively, carefully—and in the trees there were the scuffle of bird feet and the soft caw of a nervous crow.
She sat up very, very slowly and looked at her arms and legs, expecting them to be slashed to ribbons from the window glass.
Nothing. There was no blood, no pain. Nothing. Her clothes were not torn or bloody. There was nothing wrong. Her mind felt like a fragile teapot on the edge of a table that crashed and shattered.
Then she saw the stick she had planned to use as a weapon against Angelo. A twenty-inch piece of green wood, thick at one end and thin at the other, standing against one of the slats of the porch rail. Her backpack sat next to it, all the snaps snapped and zippers zipped.
Who had put that stuff there?
Dana said, “What?”
But the night held its secrets and did not answer. She looked once more at the house. The house number was clear: 313, and this was Sandpiper Lane.
Who lived here?
Was this Maisie’s house?
Dana picked up the stick and turned in a full circle. The yard was empty, the street was empty. She snatched up the pack, shrugged into it, took a firm grip on her stick, and ran all the way home. When she got there, she went upstairs and locked herself in her room.
CHAPTER 69
Scully Residence
7:37 P.M.
When someone knocked on her door, Dana did not answer. Not at first. She sat on the corner of her bed farthest from the door, a letter opener clutched in her fist, knees drawn up. She’d been that way for the last half hour.
Another knock.
And then, “Hey, let me in.”
Melissa.
Dana got up very slowly and crept across the room. There was a quarter-inch gap on the hinge side of the door from where it had been hung wrong, and she peered through it, saw red hair, and leaned her head against the frame for a moment, exhaling a ball of pent-up air. Then she put the letter opener down, opened the door, and pulled Melissa into the room.
“Ow! What’s with you?” cried Melissa, pulling her arm free and rubbing it. “I’ve barely seen you for two days and now you all but rip my arm out of its socket. What gives?”
Dana closed and locked the door, then wedged a chair under the doorknob. Melissa watched this and then studied Dana. A deep frown of concern etched itself onto Melissa’s face.
“Okay,” she said, “what happened? What’s going on?”
“Too much,” said Dana, and retreated to her corner of the bed.
Melissa came and sat down. “Tell me what happened.”
Dana went through it all, giving her sister every detail she could remember. The wounds of the apostles, Corinda’s warning, taking Ethan to meet Sunlight, the science club, Angelo chasing her, the ghosts. All of it.
“Okay,” said Melissa, “I am officially creeped out.”
“Tell me about it. They said, ‘The boy will die soon,’ ‘The girl will die first,’ and then I was going to die.”
“Yeah, well, if he comes after you, sis,” said Melissa with a steely glint in her eye, “he’s going to come up against a couple of red-haired witches, and the Scully girls don’t take prisoners.”
Dana nodded and tried to smile, but she did not feel as confident as Melissa sounded. “Okay … but which girl and which boy?”
“Ethan, maybe?” said Melissa, and Dana nearly had a heart attack.
“What if you’re right?” she cried. “Maybe the angel somehow knows Ethan’s working on this with me and is coming after us!”
“Will he freak out if you tell him what you told me about what happened in that house?”
“Probably. Who wouldn’t … though I don’t think he really believes much in this kind of thing.”
“That’s his problem. His uncle’s a detective with the sheriff’s department, right? Even if he doesn’t believe, it’s still worth warning him. Maybe his uncle can arrange police protection.” Melissa pursed her lips thoughtfully. “So who’s the girl? I don’t think it’s me, because they’d have said, ‘He’ll come for your sister,’ right?” She glanced at Dana. “Was this a real house or a dream house?”
“Real enough, I guess. The address was 313 Sandpiper Lane.”
Melissa stiffened. “I think I…”
She stopped, jumped to her feet, pulled the chair out of the way, and went out into the hallway phone. She made a call, and Dana came and listened.
“Dave?” asked Melissa when the call was answered. “Put your sister on. No, this is serious. Good. Oh, hey, Eileen … Do you know Karen Allenby? Yeah, Maisie’s cousin. You do? Good. Do they live on Sandpiper? What’s the actual address? That’s what I thought. Okay, what’s her phone number?” She snapped her fingers for Dana, who ran and fetched a notepad and pen. Melissa took it and scribbled down a number. “Thanks,” she said, and hung up. Dana tried to ask a question, but Melissa made another call. It was answered on the fourth ring. “Hello, Mrs. Allenby? This is Melissa Scully from school. Is Karen there? What? Oh yes, I’m so sorry about your niece.… Yes, we all liked her. No, I don’t believe the sheriff’s department is right, either. Maisie wasn’t the kind of girl to do drugs. She was a great girl. You’re welcome. Okay, I’ll wait.”
“What are you doing?” whispered Dana.
Melissa covered the mouthpiece. “Karen Allenby is Maisie’s cousin, remember? She’s the girl you met in school, the one you told me about. That’s Karen. That’s who lives in that house. I think those ghosts were trying to warn you that Karen is the next victim. Her mom just told me she was in the living room watching TV. Oh, wait.” She uncovered the mouthpiece. “Hey, Karen, it’s Melissa. Scully. Yes, from math class. Right. Look, this is going to sound pretty weird, but you know my sister, Dana, right? Uh-huh. The crazy one. Exactly. You know how she thought she saw Maisie in the locker room? Right, you talked to her about it. Well, Dana was walking home tonight and had kind of a weird vibe about you, and she thought she saw someone in your yard. Turned out to be nothing, but maybe you ought to, like, keep an eye out.”
There was a pause while she listened. Then she scowl
ed. “Yes, I’m being serious. Dana gets vibes. What’s so weird about that? You seemed to believe her at school.… Hey, look, watch your mouth, okay? That’s my sister. Dana just wanted to help. You don’t want it, then that’s on you. Excuse the heck out of me for trying to keep you alive. Yeah, well, you too.”
Melissa slammed the phone down and said a few very ugly words with great emphasis. Then she shrugged and laughed.
“Some people get in their own way, you know?”
Dana said, “She didn’t believe you?”
“I don’t know. Karen’s a bit weird, too. I see her at Beyond Beyond sometimes. She takes yoga and some of Sunlight’s classes, and—hey—she even hangs around with Angelo sometimes.” She stared at the phone. “You think I should have told her about him? His tattoo and all?”
“I—”
Melissa picked up the phone and made another call. When Karen came back on the line, Melissa said, “Hey, listen, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out. But with everything going on and … Yeah, so we’re cool? Good. I wanted to bring up two more things. Don’t hang up until I tell you, okay? Yes? Good.” Melissa explained about Angelo being creepy and chasing Dana, and about the eclipse tattoo that Angelo had and how that tied into the jewelry or tattoo on each of the victims. Melissa suddenly winced and held the phone away from her ear.
“What happened?” asked Dana.
“She hung up on me. Very loudly. Probably broke the phone slamming it down like that.”
They went back into Dana’s room and sat on the floor with their backs against the bed. The chair was back in place against the door. Melissa shifted around and studied Dana’s face.
“What…?” asked Dana.
“Shame about Ethan,” said Melissa. “Never spotted him for being a sexist jerk.”
Dana felt her chest tighten. She was so mad at Ethan, but at the same time she wanted to talk to him. She didn’t want to talk to Melissa about it, though, so she changed the subject. “What if what I saw was a vision of what’s going to happen? Maybe not tonight, but sometime soon. If the angel is going after Karen next and she won’t listen, don’t I have a responsibility to do something more, no matter what happens to Ethan or me?”
They sat there, listening to the wind blow through the trees outside.
“Man, I don’t even know what to say about that,” said Melissa.
“We have to do something,” insisted Dana.
Downstairs they heard the front door slam the way it always did when Dad came home.
Melissa smiled. “I think we call in the big guns.”
CHAPTER 70
Scully Residence
8:22 P.M.
They sat at the kitchen table with both of their parents. Charlie was out in the yard chasing the sprites and fairies Gran had told him were hiding out there. The TV was on in the living room, but no one watching.
Mom made tea and laid out some cookies. No one touched anything except Dad, who slowly ate his way through a dozen fig bars while he listened. He did not interrupt once, which Dana took as a good sign.
Melissa said very little, except to agree with what Dana said.
As Dana laid it out, though, she downplayed the visions and emphasized all the hard evidence.
First she went through her dream of Maisie and the strange encounter in the locker room, and what appeared to be the wounds of Jesus. From there she went through the case files and detailed the wounds of the apostles and how they were cited on the autopsy reports, but how those injuries were hidden among the greater damage inflicted by car accidents. She produced the photocopies she’d made at the library and pointed out the matching wounds.
Then she showed them a sketch of the eclipse symbol that was noted in the autopsy reports and collected evidence logs.
Her parents sat as still and expressionless as the big stone heads on Easter Island. When Dana cut a look at Melissa, her sister gave her a weak but encouraging smile.
Dana plunged on and went over the toxicology reports next, and the fact that it disproved the thought that any of the victims were driving drunk but also showed something in their blood. A substance she hadn’t figured out yet.
No reaction from anyone at the table.
She told them about Sunlight, though she skirted around the astral projection part. She said that he was considering talking to the sheriff but hadn’t done it yet. Dana insisted that they couldn’t wait, that something had to be done now.
No reaction.
Dana circled back to the eclipse symbol as a way of laying out the case against Angelo Luz. She told them about the scars on his hand that Corinda had seen in her vision, and how they matched the scars on Angelo’s hand.
She told them about being chased. That was the first time her mother reacted at all. Mom began to reach across the table to take Dana’s hand, but Dad stopped her with a curt flick of his hand. Mom withdrew her hand, and Dana could see her shutting down, dropping the blinds over the hurt in her eyes.
By the time she was done, Dana had told more than she wanted to. She laid her soul bare, and as she did so, it occurred to her how weird it sounded. Being fifteen did not help.
When she was finished, Mom looked at the two sisters and then at Dad. She had not said a single word the whole time.
Dad finished chewing the last bite of his fig bar, washed it down with a long drink of cold tea, set the cup down very carefully and precisely, and then folded his hands together atop the dining room table.
“Well,” he said calmly, “that is quite a tale.”
The kitchen was so quiet they could hear Charlie asking Gran a question about tree sprites and canned laughter from a TV sitcom.
“We need to call the sheriff’s department tonight,” said Melissa. “We can’t let another minute go by.”
“Right,” agreed Dana. “Something bad could happen to Ethan or Karen.”
“Something bad could happen to Dana,” said Melissa, and that made Mom’s eyes twitch.
“And we need to get them to arrest Angelo.”
“Enough,” said Dad, his voice very soft.
“But we—” began Dana, but suddenly Dad rose up and slapped his palm down on the table so hard it was like a shotgun blast. Everyone recoiled, the teacups danced, and one spilled.
“I said enough!” roared Dad. His face, which had been placid, blazed a fiery red and he stood there, his whole body trembling.
“Bill,” began Mom, but he shot her a look so intense and withering that she flinched as if he’d raised his hand to her.
Dad pointed his finger at the girls, first Dana and then Melissa, stabbing the air with it. “I have had enough of this nonsense. Who do you two think you are? Who do you think I am? You come here and tell me all this? You talk about breaking into someone’s desk and reading confidential papers? You lie about seeing dead girls? You do who knows what with hippies and perverts at that store? You try to get me to believe that some boy is stalking you? What exactly do you take me for? Is this how it is with kids today? You think you’re so smart, so hip, that anyone over a certain age is a fool who will believe any batch of lies you try to sell. How dare you? Both of you … how dare you? Where’s your common sense? Where’s any sense at all? And where is your decency and respect?”
The words struck Dana and Melissa like a barrage of cannon fire, driving them back into their seats, stinging their skin, hurting like actual blows. It took so much courage for Dana to speak. Her voice seemed lost, frightened away, leaving only mute silence. And yet she fought to defend herself.
“You have to believe us, Daddy,” she said.
“I don’t have to believe anything you say, Dana. I’m outraged. I’m shocked at both of you.”
“Bill,” said Mom, standing, “you’re scaring them.”
He wheeled on her. “Scaring them? I’m terrified for them. I should be able to trust my own children, and then they go and do this? To my own face? In my own house? I’m humiliated.”
“Dad, please,” be
gan Melissa, but he growled at her.
“I expect this kind of nonsense from you, Melissa. You’ve never had your feet on the ground since you were born.”
Melissa sagged back, tears welling from her eyes, and Dana knew that he could not have hurt her more if he’d shot her through the heart. But then Dad turned his venom on her.
“And you, Dana,” he said, his face darkening from red to purple, “I had hopes for you. You, at least, tried to act right. To do your schoolwork, to be sensible. And now this? You’re even worse.”
“Dad—”
“Who do you even think you are? Investigating a crime? You’re not a trained investigator. There are highly trained and important men whose job it is to catch criminals, and they don’t need help from little girls.”
There was so much in that statement that hurt her, diminished her, deflated her.
“I’m ashamed of you, Dana,” said Dad, turning away. “I’m ashamed of both of you.”
The silence that fell was a crushing weight. Mom sat there, bullied to silence as she was so often, tears filling her eyes but staying there as if not daring to fall. Melissa wept openly, her body shaking as if she were being hit with a series of electric shocks. Dana did not know how to think or feel, and there did not seem to be enough air in the room.
“You’re both grounded,” said Dad. “God only knows for how long. I’d lock you in your rooms if I could. And you can say good-bye to your friends in school and at that stupid astrology shop. No phones, no TV, no radio, no visitors. No boys. And as of Monday you’ll both be seeing Dr. Kingston for psychiatric evaluations. Maybe this is some kind of hysteria brought on by the deaths. Maybe there’s a pill for it, I don’t know.”
He stopped and turned sharply to see Gran standing in the doorway. She wore a small, cold smile, and all the glassiness was gone from her eyes.
“You’re yelling, Billy,” she said.
“Mom,” said Dad, lowering his voice, “this is a private matter. Go back and watch TV.”
“I know what this is, Billy. It’s your own ghosts come to haunt you.”
The X-Files Origins--Devil's Advocate Page 23
