by Chad Huskins
“What?” Shannon said.
Kaley looked to her right, at her sister. “Shannon, I…” But words failed her. I what? What am I? Where am I?
Shannon looked at her severely, and leaned in, peering into her sister’s eyes. “Kaley? Where…where did you go? Did you leave again?”
“I’m sitting right here.” Her lips were moving, she still felt the jumping and shifting of the bus, and could still hear the Mondo Bitches behind them snickering. A few kids were laughing in the back, boys showing off for some girls or something. One of the boys was talking about his letterman jacket, passed down from his brother.
“But you’re somewhere else, too.” Shannon leaned over, squinting. Then, her eyes went wide. Kaley felt her sister’s fear hit her like a punch in the gut. “Kaley!” he hissed. “Get outta there! He’s in there with you! Kaley? Kaley!”
It was strange, but she was somehow in those two places at once. There on the bus with her sister, and there in a basement with a lonely child, a child now terrified of her sudden materialization. Kaley opened her mouth to say something to both Shannon and the boy to mollify them both, but didn’t know what she could say.
Kaley looked at the basement she was standing in. She took a few steps towards the whimpering child. A white boy, small and skinny, curled up in a ball and sucking on his thumb and filled with such tremendous fear that it made Kaley stagger backwards. Her eyes watered, like she’d just walked into some powerful fumes. Fear was rank. She struggled to regain her composure, and kept a safe distance from him. “Hey,” she whispered. “Hey, you okay?” The boy peeked over his shoulder, and then quickly buried his head into the back of the chair. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you,” she said softly. “Are you…are you hurt? Do you need some help?”
“Kaley!” her sister was saying back on the bus, tugging at her sleeve. “Get outta there! He’s in there with you!”
“Shhhhh, Shan, be quiet! You’re going to scare him.”
“But he’s in there with you!”
“I know he is,” Kaley said, misunderstanding her sister without realizing it. “He’s just a little afraid. I need to see if he’s okay—”
“No, not the boy! It’s him! He’s there with you!”
“I know what—”
But something else consumed her. The fears of another. Sickening, sickening fear that came from somewhere…above her. Kaley looked up, and at once recognized the slimy feel of death. Someone upstairs? She thought. They died? It was that familiar feeling of death she had encountered seven months ago.
Kaley looked back at the boy. “Are…are your parents dead? Has someone killed them?” Her tone became more fervent. “If someone’s in the house with you, you need to get out of here! Now! Before they find you!”
“What the fuck is she babbling about?” Nancy Boyle asked of Shannon.
On the bus, Kaley was staring straight ahead. She was watching the street signs go by—Helton Street, Morgan Street, Pillamy Road—and at the same time her gaze went far, far beyond those roads and lanes, past these side streets and alleyways, beyond the borders of Cartersville, Georgia, across a great unseen gulf.
In front of her, the boy was still trembling, still huddled away in fear. He was also clutching something between his knees, a blue satchel of some kind, with a zipper and some pockets. Kaley moved towards him, and paused when she spotted three small blood stains on the boy’s underwear. They were old and dried, but why would his parents keep him in old underwear that he’d bled on? And why would he—
“Once I ran to you,” someone sang. “Now I’ll run from you. This tainted love you’ve given, I give you all a boy can give you…” It was like it was in the room with her, the singing. It was a familiar voice.
With the familiar voice came familiar feelings, emotions not felt in quite some time. There was something else here. Something not right. A mind of meddle. Slow-moving, but ponderous…
Oh God.
…like an iceberg…
Oh God.
…with things swimming beneath the surface…
Oh God.
…just out of sight, but licking at her…
Oh God.
…tasting her…
Oh God.
…uncaring, vacant, and devoid of sympathy…
Oh God.
“Kaley! Get out!”
Shannon was right. When it came to the Charm she had her own talents, and there were even moments when she shined. This was one of those talents; this was one of those moments.
Kaley tried retreating, but her two bodies remained stubbornly locked where they were—one on the bus, the other in the basement. However, the one in the basement had a stronger connection to that mind of meddle. And whether she liked it or not, she was floating towards it, completely against her will. The way the eye couldn’t just stare at one spot on the wall for too long before drifting to the left or to the right, especially when something familiar had sprung into the field of vision.
It couldn’t be helped.
“Kaley, get outta there!”
“What’re you talkin’ about, Stinky?” asked Nancy Boyle.
Drifting upwards, upwards, upwards…
Spencer stood there a moment, watching the blood as it came spilling out of the hole in Zakhar Ogorodnikov’s skull. It was interesting how every wound and blood spatter could be so different. It all depended on how the bullet entered, if it flattened out enough and expanded before exiting the head—because that would push the brains to the far side of the skull and create a greater explosion—or if it simply zipped on through and came out as sharp as it had entered. It also depended on where on the skull the bullet entered: if the bullet went through the top of the head and came out the bottom, a happy little stream of blood flowed quickly and continuously until all the blood was exhausted, whereas an exit wound out the top of the head typically put clumps of brain matter everywhere, and a slow-moving dark pool would march across the floor.
Zakhar Ogorodnikov’s brains—the parts of him that held opinions and synthesized reality—had been pushed out the front of his face, onto the far wall, a bit on the kitchen table, and mostly onto the floor. Here was a piece of his thoughts on capitalism, sliding slowly down the leg of the kitchen table. Over there was a portion of, perhaps, his memory of his first time jerking off. When Spencer finally stepped over the body, he couldn’t help but to step on some of that matter—perhaps he was crushing his knowledge of Euclidean geometry underfoot?
“You don’t really want any more from me,” he sang just above a whisper. “The love we share, seems to go nowhere…now I’ve lost my light. For I toss and turn, I can’t sleep at night.”
Spencer tucked the Glock back inside his jacket, and Zakhar’s Colt, he tucked it in his waistline. He went to the kitchen, flipped off the radio, which was some Russian weather station. The kettle was whistling, louder and louder. He lifted a small towel from the countertop, then removed the kettle and took it off the eye. He spent a moment searching for the tea bags. There was as shuffling noise behind him. When he looked, Zakhar’s left leg was twitching, shifting, occasionally jumping. “Got that restless leg syndrome, I see, huh, Zakhar?” He shook his head worrisomely. “You need to start stretchin’ more, immediately after you get outta bed. Or, ya know, I hear iron supplements will help fix that.”
Zakhar’s leg jumped again.
“Yeah, I know. A little too late for that advice, right? Well, it’s like I told an old girlfriend when she said she was late on her period: ‘Better late than never.’” Spencer finished mixing the tea and poured himself a cup. While sipping at it, he walked to the hallway, stepping on Zakhar’s thoughts on the works of Dostoyevsky, nearly slipping in his opinion of French culture, and continued on until he made it to the bedroom.
The armoire did indeed have a drawer filled with some clutter and a steel briefcase beneath all of that clutter. There was no lock on it, and why should there be? If someone got this far into his operations, and found out wh
at kind of hobbies occupied his time, a locked briefcase wasn’t going to stop them.
The kid, he thought, sifting through the money. The thought was apropos of nothing, and was dismissed as soon as he thought it. The money did indeed number well into the range of ten thousand. Rubles, euros, and dollars, all neatly stacked and wrinkle-free, bound in paper-tape with a picture of a glowing sun rising over some building, presumably a bank? Above it and below it were the words,Банк Челябинск. Spencer was familiar with these letters; he’d been by the Bank of Chelyabinsk twice now and read those words just above its doors.
Zakhar’s iPhone rang in his pocket. He silenced it for the moment. Spencer put the money neatly back inside, closed the case, stood up, and left the room. Halfway down the hall, he glanced at the door to his left, its many locks.
The kid. Again, apropos of nothing. The basement. Might be more money down there? He’d checked the handle before, while searching for a hiding place when Zakhar went out for firewood.
He thought for a moment about shooting the locks off, but decided against it. It wasn’t likely that any money was down there. Zakhar Ogorodnikov was a careful man, and if he was hiding substantial cash in the house, he wouldn’t put it down there where one of his victims could get a hold of it. Best not to put all your eggs in one basket.
“All righty,” he said, taking a turn of the house quickly. “Is there anything I’m forgettin’?” The kid. That thought was once more spurred by nothing at all. Don’t you wanna see what Zakhar had downstairs? Spencer shrugged. “Not really.” But he’s afraid! Afraid and cold and alone! He’s all alone! For a moment, Spencer experienced something strange. An urging, not unlike the urge to rape or kill someone because the body and mind had its own imperatives. It was an urge pushing him towards something he didn’t necessarily want to do, but the body and mind felt inclined to respond to—
“Waaaaaaait a minute,” he said, dropping the suitcase to the floor and turning around. Both his feet stood in what remained of Zakhar Ogorodnikov’s deepest, darkest thoughts. Reflexively, his hand went to the Colt in his waistline, though instinctively he knew it wasn’t going to do any good with this new threat. “All right, bitch,” he said slowly. “Come out where I can fucking see you.” He enunciated every syllable, no Southern slang present in any of it.
A few heartbeats went by. Zakhar continued being dead, and his leg continued being restless.
“I’m right here.”
Spencer spun, aimed the gun at the door, and froze. He didn’t entirely understand what he was seeing, but he knew very well that the Colt .22 in his hand could do nothing about it. Nevertheless he stood, aiming the weapon directly between the wee girl’s eyes.
She was exactly as he remembered her, if a little taller. Dark-black skin, those cornrows tied tightly to her head, pulled back, her posture not quite straight, and those eyes…those eyes were what he remembered most. A fire inside, dying out slowly, sometimes getting an occasional boost from some unseen fuel, and then dying down again. Fearful, but willing to face those fears. Empty, but willing to face that emptiness.
Above all else, those eyes were lost. They reminded Spencer of someone adrift and starving at sea, standing at a boat’s prow, leaning over, searching longingly for land, and yet resigned to never finding any.
She wore a plain black shirt and faded, loose-fitting jeans—not exactly the baggy style that the other niggers still wore, but loose enough to have a bit of sag. A black coat that was almost too big for her hung low, almost skimming the ground.
“The fuck is this shit?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know,” said Kaley Dupré.
“When I said ‘come out where I can see’ I didn’t think you’d actually…the fuck is this shit?”
“I don’t know!” said Kaley Dupré, more fervently. Her bottom lip quivered, a tear fell from her right eye and she didn’t move to wipe it. She glanced down, and recoiled. Apparently she hadn’t noticed the late Zakhar until just now. She backed up, and very nearly went clear through the door. She stopped, turned her back on the door as if something had just jumped up and nipped at her butt, then turned and looked back at Spencer.
“How the hell…did you get here?”
“I’m not,” she said. More tears, more lip-curling.
“Then where are you?”
“I don’t…I-I don’t know, I can’t…I can’t tell…”
Spencer backed way, never taking the Colt off of her. He wasn’t afraid, he just wasn’t sure. And when you’re not sure about something, sometimes the best thing to do is to take a step back, take it all in, get a wider view of things, and aim a gun at it. He looked at the walls; all were as they had been before. The furniture, the carpet, all normal. He looked up at the ceiling. Everything seemed fine there, too; a bit of Zakhar’s opinions on what caused the fall of the Roman Empire had managed to splatter up there somehow, but other than that, everything seemed ordinary.
He looked back at the door, back the little black girl standing not ten feet from him. “That was you inside my head,” Spencer said. “Tryin’ to make me go an’ check on the boy, eh?” Kaley said nothing. “All right, then,” he said. “Theories. Let’s talk turkey. How did you get here?”
“I…I-I think it’s the Charm again—”
“It’s some ol’ bullshit is what it is. Tell me the truth, now.”
“—and I think I…I came because you and the boy…he’s hurting and I felt it…and I…” She drifted off. Kaley Dupré cupped her hands in front of her, starting to fret. Sniffling, she tried to step around Zakhar without looking down. Spencer continued backing up, the gun always trained on her. She paused right in front of the fireplace. The red-orange light danced on her face, producing hard lines, and the tears glistened. “I can feel the heat,” she said, reaching her hands out. “It’s cold outside, isn’t it? How do I know that? Where are w…shhh, Shannon! I’m talking to him.”
The vision of Kaley Dupré glanced to her right, as though addressing someone there. Spencer looked around the room, saw no one else.
“Shush now,” she said. “I’m trying to talk—”
“—to him,” she said, pushing her sister’s hand away.
“No,” Shannon whispered, fresh tears streaming. She had lowered her voice, and thankfully the two bitches behind them had moved on to other conversation, as well. “No, don’t. Don’t talk to him, don’t go near him! You remember what happened last time!” She squeezed Kaley’s hand. “Don’t go near him. He brought the Others last time.” There was fear in her voice, but something else deeper inside of her. Deep, deep inside Shannon, Kaley felt the underpinnings of hatred—very unlike Shannon—and all of it masked by fear.
She despises him that badly. It’s beginning to change her. Had that been the question Mrs. Krenshaw asked that set Shannon off that day? Had she asked about the laughing man? Kaley had never found out, but considering how Shan was feeling right then, she wouldn’t be surprised.
Kaley looked straight ahead, both into the eyes of Spencer Pelletier and at the road signs swishing by. The bus jumped, shifted, slowed down and sped up. The log cabin they were in though, was standing perfectly still, and was terribly silent. Kaley looked to her left, at the two boys sitting across from her, and at the body of some dead guy missing a part of his head. The boys’ book bags were in their laps. They couldn’t be much older than Shan, and they were both whispering about something they were looking at on their iPhones. Not supposed to have phones at school, she thought, almost numbly. Not supposed to kill anybody, either, she figured, looking at the body lying exactly where the boys were.
It was a strange overlap, and yet each vision was distinct. Kaley could see both realities perfectly. She was somehow here and there. Smelling the odors of the bus—dust, Miss Devereux’s perfume, a bit of methane emissions wafting in through the windows—as well as the odors of the little lodge—gun smoke still lingering, the scent of pinewood, and maybe the dead man on the ground had farted?
I hear people do that when they die. Shit themselves.
Both terrified and detached, just as she was both on the school bus and in some cabin far away where it was snowing outside, Kaley finally accepted it and looked back at Spencer Pelletier. The tears stopped rolling, her mind stopped reeling, and she accepted.
“Hush now,” she told Shannon again.
“Who’re you talkin’ to?” Spencer asked. He’d changed some. A bit of dark scruff was growing across his face like mold, unchecked and unchallenged, while the half-Glasgow smile that Dmitry had given him had healed wickedly, and almost no hair grew there.
She looked at him. “My sister.”
“Your sister?” He made a face, like he ate something sour.
“She doesn’t want me talking to you.”
“Doesn’t want you…?” He snorted. “How’re you even here?”
“I don’t know. I think…I think I was drawn here.”
“Yeah? How? What for?” he said. She noticed his gun was still aimed at her head. What does he think I’m gonna do? Then, she answered her own question. Spencer had seen her at her best—or worst, depending on how you looked at it—and he knew what she was capable of. Kaley didn’t like to think herself capable of any of that, especially when an innocent police officer had been killed amid all of that insanity, but there it was.
Kaley sensed no fear in the psychopath, only that same alertness as before, the same willingness to drop whatever he was doing and change his plans. Like the way some cars go from zero to sixty, she thought. Or the way some can supposedly “turn on a dime.” That’s him: ready to go, ready to move on.
Kaley swallowed. “The boy,” she said.
“What boy?”
“The one downstairs. They’ve…” She could barely bring herself to say what they’d done. “They’ve done to him what they did to my sister.”
Spencer nodded in an ah-what-can-you-do sort of way, as if he’d just heard somebody mention that the Braves had beat the Cubbies the night before; it had been a close game, and the umpire at second base had made one seriously bad call in the bottom of the ninth, but oh well, shit happens. Perhaps these things were lamentable to some, but to Spencer none of it had any bearing on his survival, no bearing on anything in his worldview at all. “Okay, but that must be happening to lots o’ people right now all over the world. Why are you here, now, in the same place as me?”
