Bad Intentions

by Norman Partridge

  Ross started blabbing again, and I cut him off with a hard glance. Todd didn't look like he was up to talking. Dave shrugged and started in, setting his drumsticks aside.

  "I guess I was the first one to figure out what was going on." He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "But I don't really want to talk about it. It was hard enough to tell Todd the first time, and to do it again..."

  "You gotta tell," Ross put in, and then he buttoned up before anyone could punch him.

  "Yeah, I gotta tell." Dave sighed again. "You know that we've got a party line with Todd's family. Well, I got so I would listen in every now and then. At first it was just for fun. One time, I heard Mr. Palmer cussing out some tractor salesman. And I heard Mrs. Palmer gossiping with Ross's mom almost every day." He paused, his eyes locked on his drumsticks as if he didn't dare look up at me and speak at the same time. "But, to tell you the truth, Janet's voice was the one I really wanted to hear when I picked up the phone."

  I glanced at Todd. His eyes were glazed over, and he was rubbing the welt on his jaw. I knew then, even before Dave said what he was going to say, that Todd would rather get punched out than listen to Dave's story again.

  Suddenly, I knew what kind of story it was going to be.

  People say things. They do things.

  And sometimes they even tell the truth.

  Dave went on, still looking down at his drumsticks. "I know that she's six years older than me. I know that. But when I'd hear Janet talking to her girlfriends, I didn't miss a word. And when she wouldn't tell them the name of the guy she had a crush on, I'd imagine that she was talking about me. And when she told Ross's sister that she was in love with a guy who was in love with her, too, I imagined that she knew how I felt about her without me even saying, and that she felt exactly the same way about me."

  "Without even saying," Todd whispered, still rubbing his jaw.

  Dave nodded, still looking down.

  "Tell him what happened next," Ross blurted. "Tell him about the vam—"

  "Shut up, Ross," I said.

  "Yeah, shut up," Dave said, but his voice didn't have any strength. He looked at me, and I knew that it took everything he had just to hold my gaze.

  He didn't look like a leader anymore. He didn't look like a guy who had everything figured out. He looked like an eleven-year-old boy who'd been scared by an expert.

  He kept talking. "It was two weeks ago, just about the time you left on vacation. I got up around midnight to get a drink of water. I don't know why, but I picked up the phone, even though it was late.

  "I heard him then. I had to strain to understand him, because his voice was so quiet and smooth. Her voice sounded the same way. But I'd never heard Janet talk like that before. It made me feel sick, some of the things she said, and the hard way he laughed when she said them." Dave swallowed. "And I felt sick, too, because suddenly I knew she hadn't been talking about me when she talked to her girlfriends.

  "I wanted to hang up, but I couldn't. And then came the worst part. He said, 'You think your little friend is listening? You think he's gettin' a thrill?', and she just laughed. I hung up then. I didn't even try to be sneaky. I'm sure they heard me.

  "I tried to go to sleep, but all I could do was toss and turn. I knew that I'd never be able to look Janet in the eye again. And then, in the middle of the night, I heard a motorcycle out on the road, full open and racing fast. I got out of bed and ran to the window just in time to see Janet riding with him, her arms wrapped around his chest, her fingers digging into his leather jacket, her blond hair blowing in the wind. They headed up the road, toward wherever he was from, I guess, and they came back about an hour before dawn.

  "That should have been the end of it. Even then, I thought it was spooky that they knew I was listening to them that night. I mean, I knew it was weird. Too weird." Dave's voice quavered with shame. "But I couldn't stop listening. I heard them every night. The things they said... some of them they said to me, because they knew I was listening. And I heard the motorcycle. Roaring out on the road, coming and going night after night. And then one day I heard Todd's mom talking to Ross's mom — "

  "I heard it too," Ross said. "I mean. Mom told Dad about it. She said that an evil boy was sucking Janet Palmer dry, sucking the blood of Jesus right out of her and dragging her straight down to hell."

  "Your mom is pretty wild with the fire and brimstone bit," I said. "She's said worse stuff about me, I'll bet."

  "No way," Ross said. "She was serious. She knew that this guy was a vampire! She knew it! But she was afraid to say the word!"

  Dave shook his head. "I don't know, Jase. Maybe you're right. But if you'd heard this guy. If you'd heard the things that he said — "

  "Or if you'd seen what he did," Ross put in. "I didn't see it. Not myself. But Todd was there when it happened. Todd saw the whole thing."

  Todd stopped rubbing his jaw. He started talking, but his voice was distant, like it wasn't a voice at all but a little machine that had clicked on inside of him. "We went to see Grandma. Mom and Dad and me. You guys know how sick she is. Janet didn't go. She said she wasn't feeling well. She whispered something to Mom about the way she felt, and Mom blushed and said it was okay for her to stay home.

  "Grandma talked for a long time. It was fun to listen to her. She talked about her courting days, and how wonderful Grandpa was back then. It was like she wasn't sick at all. She fell asleep with a smile on her face.

  "We got home late. Dad saw the motorcycle first. He stopped the car at the end of the driveway, got out, and started for the house. He was walking fast, but he didn't run. Mom just sat there in the front seat, not moving at all. I sat in the back, staring at her hair. It was all neat in a bun and it didn't move, either. It was like she was a department store dummy or something. I remember thinking that."

  Todd lay back and closed his eyes. I couldn't decide if it helped him remember or if he wanted to hide from us. He said, "I heard Janet scream, and I scrambled out of the car. Mom was screaming at me, but I didn't stop running. I banged through the screen door and the screaming was really loud, like it was bottled up in the house.

  "I almost stopped running when I got to the foot of the stairs, but it was too late. I took them three at a time and then I was in Janet's room. She was in the corner, all twisted up like she wanted to hide. She didn't have any clothes on and I saw the bruises on her neck where he'd... and there were bruises on her boobs, too." He sobbed. "And then I saw the blood. I saw where she was... bleeding. It was on her legs and... and..."

  Todd was crying now, and there was no stopping his tears. "And there was blood on the sheets. Dad pinned the vampire to the floor with his knees, straddling him. The guy—the thing—it was real white. Its arms and legs were long and skinny, like it was a big spider. Dad had the wrought iron cross in his hands, and he bashed... and he hit the thing again and again, and the guy—the vampire—was twitching and Janet was crying and... its arms and legs were twitching... and the cross... it worked and..."

  Dave's hand dropped onto Todd's shoulder. Todd stopped talking, but he couldn't stop sobbing.

  "That was what happened," Dave said. "Todd's dad sent him to bed, hit him hard when Todd tried to go back to Janet's room. He told Todd that the guy was okay, that he'd only beat him up so he wouldn't come back and hurt Janet again. But Todd knew that wasn't true. He could see the cornfield from his bedroom window, and he saw his father go out there that night and dig a grave."

  "But Mr. Palmer didn't put a stake in the vampire's heart," Ross said. "At least we don't think so. That's why we put the knives and stakes in the grave. 'Cause Todd saw Janet. He saw that blood. He knew what really happened."

  "It really happened," I said. "Everything you told me. It really happened."

  They nodded. No one said anything for a long time. Then Ross started in again. "It's just like they said. It's true, every word. I mean, the vampire only came at night. On the phone, he knew that Dave was listening. They can read minds, right? A
nd the things it said to Janet, and the things it made her say. They can hypnotize people, y'know, make them say or do anything. And the blood. Todd saw the blood." Ross hugged himself and rocked back and forth. "It's scary. I mean, I found where Todd's dad hid the vampire's motorcycle. It's down by the creek. It's black. It's all busted up now, but it doesn't have any mirrors, and I think it never did. Understand? It doesn't have any mirrors!" He was rocking like crazy now. "I don't think the vampire can come back. We did the right thing, didn't we Jase? It can't come back, can it?"

  I shook my head.

  Dave picked up his drumsticks and thrummed them gently on the practice pad, but he couldn't find a beat. "It's hard," he said, and he almost sounded like Ross. "It's hard to know what we should do next."

  I looked at them, and I was with them, and I wanted to help them.

  I looked at Todd. He couldn't do it. He was the son of a hard man, and he'd been broken.

  Dave couldn't do it. He was still in love. If he heard Janet say how sorry she was, he'd never forget it.

  Ross couldn't do it. Not on his best day. Not ever.

  "She won't get up," Todd said. "She won't eat...."

  Dave started to cry.

  Gently, I slid the drumsticks out of his hands.

  I opened my new knife.

  Sometimes people say things. Sometimes they do things.

  But nobody said a word, and nobody moved, while I sharpened the stakes.

  SHE’S MY WITCH

  WE PARKED IN THE OLD CEMETERY THAT NIGHT, the Ford coupe I'd boosted up in Fresno wedged so tight between a couple of crumbling mausoleums that we could barely open one door. It seemed we'd spent the entire summer that way—sitting in one stolen car or another, talking or making out while we listened to the latest rhythm 'n' blues tunes on KTCB. Shari liked the old cemetery because it was real quiet. No one else ever came there, even in the daytime. As for me, I'd gotten used to the place.

  I wasn't crazy about it, but I was crazy about Shari.

  That summer it was like no one else existed. The rest of the world couldn't touch us.

  "Tonight's no different," I said. "Whatever's gonna happen later... well, it's just gonna happen, however it does."

  Shari's hand slipped out of mine, just seemed to melt away. Her gaze was welded to the dash, like if she squinted real hard she'd actually be able to see LaVern Baker through the radio.

  She wouldn't look at me at all, and I don't think she really heard the music, either. "I don't know," was all she said. And then she shook her head, her dark hair washing over her face like a silent wave.

  I couldn't see her face at all, and I couldn't stand to be apart from her that way. Sitting there in a stolen car with my girl, her hair as black as night, her dress just as black... and having her whisper those three words in the darkness, like she didn't have any faith in me—in us—at all.

  Those three words parting the only lips I wanted to kiss. And Shari not even looking at me when she said them, afraid that I'd see her doubts hiding in her eyes.

  My girl, sitting there in a boosted Ford parked in her favorite place in the world, trembling, like she'd rather be somewhere else. Anywhere else. And who could blame her? Christ, with the things she'd discovered that summer, she could have had anyone. Sticking with me was just crazy, just—

  Unsure, I reached out, my hand barely brushing her bare shoulder, traveling that delicate ridge of collarbone, exploring her slender and perfect neck. My fingers drifted through her hair, my movements surer now—I gotta admit it did something to me, just like always. I found her chin and gently turned her head in my direction, brushing that midnight hair over one shoulder.

  There were those beautiful eyes of hers, alive with mysteries she could never share. Those full lips, containing all those secrets that she would never speak. Like I said, it did something to me. Just like always. I moved in to kiss her, and she didn't move away. It didn't start out like much of a kiss, but it shook me up the way I hoped it would.

  When it was over, I really had the itch. I wanted her more than ever.

  One look, and I knew that she felt the same way. A tear ran down one smooth marble cheek. I wiped it away, and it smeared on my callused fingers, and I found myself wishing that I could crush it in my fist.

  She said, "I just want everything to stay the way it is."

  "Don't worry, little darlin'," I said, trying to sound more confident than I was. "Tonight it's you and me. Just like it's been all summer, ever since you and me became an us. Those jerks are in for a big surprise." I slipped one hand around the back of her neck, but not in a rough way, and with the other I twisted the rear-view in her direction. "Just look at you, Shari. You're not the same girl you were when school let out."

  Shari stared at her reflection. She didn't blink once, and a shiver rocketed over my spine like someone was stepping on my grave.

  "No," she said finally. "I'm not the same person. This place... and you... you've given me so much, Johnny."

  She pushed the mirror away, looking at the cemetery through the mosaic of kamikaze bugs plastered to the old Ford's windshield. Low fog bathed the ring of tombstones where she'd danced a couple of nights back with nothing covering that beautiful marble skin of hers but the blood of a black cat. I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay, but I could see that she was spooked, just as spooked as the first time she visited the cemetery. That was back when she was just a scared kid in hand-me-downs who'd been broken by other kids because she couldn't bear to look anyone in the eye, before the black dress and the red lipstick, before I took to parking boosted cars in the long shadows between two jagged mausoleums, before all the secret kisses and all the things that went with them.

  So much had passed between us that summer. We'd made a world of our own, and no one else knew anything about it. But with school ready to start up, our world was going to change. We'd have to face those other people again. I thought I had it all figured out. But with Shari so rattled and uncertain, I couldn't help but worry.

  Her voice trembled. "Sometimes... this summer..." she began. "It just doesn't seem real. I keep thinking I'll wake up, and it will have all been a dream. I keep thinking that maybe I'm imagining you... I always had a crush on you, y'know? And I keep thinking that I'll wake up, and I'll be back in school with all those people, and you'll be here...."

  I nodded. She took my hand then, her fingernails digging into my palm like little knives. I couldn't help but shiver; she couldn't seem to let go. Her face had disappeared in the darkness—there was just a little razor cut of a moon in the sky, and the night was coming on hard, clouds blanketing the stars.

  "I keep staring at that moon," she said. "I keep thinking that it looks like a sickle."

  She couldn't stop shaking. "I'm afraid the moon's going to slice down out of the sky, Johnny," she said, her fingers locked in mine. "I'm afraid it's going to cut us to pieces."

  The carhop's roller skates made an icy little rumbling sound as she drifted across the parking lot, away from the stolen Ford.

  When she was out of sight, I lifted the Coke off of the little metal tray and handed it to Shari. Then I reached under the seat and found the cardboard box. Inside was a Revell model kit that I'd swiped from a hobby shop in Fresno the same night I boosted the Ford. I slipped the lid off of the box, revealing a miniature '48 Chevy.

  "Wow." Shari smiled. "It looks just like it."

  "Yeah, I'm a real artist." I wasn't bragging. I'd done a good job. Customized it just right. Two-tone paint-job—turquoise and black. Every detail reproduced, right down to the miniature tornado swirling on the hood.

  I handed the model to Shari, then rummaged through the unused parts in the bottom of the box until I found the decal sheet. I traded her the sheet for the Coke. She ran her fingers over the decals, whispering a few words.

  I knew better than to listen. Instead I stared between a couple of dead moths splattered on the windshield, studying a turquoise-and-black '48 Chevy parked over
by the bowling alley.

  Shari dipped the decal sheet into the Coke. She let it sit for a minute, until the decals started to drift away from the backing.

  There were two license plate decals. She attached one of them to a blank plastic plate glued to the trunk of the model.

  The other floated on the surface of a Coca-Cola ice-floe. Shari stared down at it as she took the glass from my hand, then glanced over at the Chevy parked by the bowling alley.

  "You promise not to blink, right?" she asked. "I mean, you're not going to get distracted by a carhop who's a dead ringer for Anita Ekberg or anything, are you?"

  When the girl you love asks you something like that, you've got to laugh. "Baby, I'm just like The Flamingos," I said, and then I sang the rest of it—"I only have eyes for you."

  Shari hustled on over there. My ears were treated to the sweet little staccato rhythm of her high heels on blacktop, but my eyes got the better part of the deal when she bent low behind the '48, her tight dress riding up over firm thighs.

  The fingers of one hand dipped into the Coke. Then she reached out, kind of tenderly, the way she sometimes did when she ran a finger over my lips. But her finger only traveled the length of the Chevy's license plate, leaving behind a decal from a Revell model kit.

  And then the two of them showed up, right on cue. Slammed out of the bowling alley like they owned the world, swaggered across the parking lot.

  Shari barely had a chance to straighten up. They both saw her at the same time, saw that black dress hiked up to the limit, that red lipstick, saw everything through a testosterone haze.

  Nick Bradley was the smarter of the two. He got his mouth open first, saying, "You like the ride, huh, honey? You maybe wanna go for a ride?"

  "Course she wants to go for a ride." Marty Hyde's brain had finally kicked into gear. "But it's my ride, and I got the keys and the master switch." Marty jingled his car keys as punctuation, shoving Nick with one shoulder, Nick stumbling in spite of himself. "We don't have to make it a party," Marty added. "Unless you want it that way, angel."