The Nightmare Girl

by Jonathan Janz

  Joe clenched his jaw, gave the tailgate a smart pat, and made for the passenger’s side of the truck. He hated the feeling he was fleeing from her, but it seemed the only sensible course of action. Stay here and she’d either claw his eyes out or goad him into violence. Walk away and she’d simply follow, hurling her taunts after him and cackling like a witch.

  “That Gentry boy seems to fancy Michelle most of all,” Sharon called.

  Joe stopped, his whole body gone rigid.

  “That’s right, Joey,” she said. “You’ve suspected it all along, haven’t you? That Lily doesn’t really belong to you? One of your workers shot his load in your wife, and out popped that daughter of yours!”

  Joe whirled, his face centimeters from Sharon’s. “Shut your fucking mouth,” he hissed.

  “Yeeesss,” Sharon breathed into his face, the stenches of stale alcohol and rancid cheese washing over him. “Yeeesss, Joey. You wanna have a go at me? Do it right here against your truck?” She reached down, ripped open the fly of her jeans. “Go ahead and jam that little prick of yours in here and see if you can make me scream.”

  He pulled away, passed a disgusted hand over his mouth. “You really are crazy, aren’t you?”

  He reached the passenger’s door, tugged it open, and ducked inside. She lunged for it, but he slammed it and triggered the lock before she could get it open.

  “You’re a fraud, Joe Crawford!” she raved through the closed window. “You aren’t man enough for me! You aren’t man enough for Michelle!”

  “Psycho,” Joe muttered, sliding behind the wheel and firing the engine.

  “That little bitch isn’t even yours, Joe. Check the blood test, it’ll tell you!”

  Joe shoved the Tundra into gear, sure Sharon Waltz would caper out in front of the truck before he could pull away. The worst part was, if she did jump in front of the Tundra, he wasn’t sure he’d want to stop.

  But she didn’t. Joe drove away, his hands trembling on the wheel.

  Chapter Nine

  Joe and Mitch Martin were side by side in the second-story hallway of the Baxter house. Kevin Gentry was supposed to meet them here ten minutes ago, but thus far he was a no-show.

  “Hey, I meant to ask you,” Joe said as casually as he could.

  Mitch’s eyebrows rose. “Yes?”

  Joe smiled to show how embarrassed he was. “This’ll probably seem like a weird question, but did you go to a funeral the other day?”

  Mitch nodded. “A girl named Angela Waltz. My wife’s a distant relation of hers.”

  “Is your wife close to Sharon Waltz?”

  “She’s not close to any of them, from what I gather. She went more out of duty than anything else.”

  The matter apparently resolved, Mitch entered the first bedroom they came to and looked at the cobwebbed ceiling with trepidation. “So, which one of these do you figure will be the master suite?”

  Joe contemplated pressing the matter of the Martins’ association with the dead girl, but decided to leave it. For now, at least.

  “That all depends,” Joe said. “Are you talking about the room that’ll be cheapest to fix up, the one that’s biggest, or are there other considerations?”

  “What other considerations would there be?” Mitch asked.

  Joe nodded at a window, went over to it. The panes were smudged and cloudy, as though a hundred small children had taken turns smearing their hands all over them. “Some people favor an eastern-facing bedroom because they like to wake up with the sunrise.”

  Mitch laughed. “Not Bridg. She’d sleep in till noon every day if she could.”

  “So we can either choose a west-facing room, or you can use light-blocking curtains.”

  “Seems logical.”

  Joe nodded, was about to speak, but noticed Shaun Peterson hovering in the doorway. Joe went over, crouched beside an old radiant heater, which had been painted ivory but over the years had begun to rust badly. It would need to go unless Mitch and Bridget wanted the heaters to stay for historical flavor.

  Running his fingers over the cool iron, Joe said, “Shaun, would you mind heading downstairs and waiting for Kevin?”

  Shaun hesitated as Joe knew he would. The kid was a good worker, but he was lazy when it came to climbing stairs. “Can’t he let himself in?”

  “He can, Shaun, but I prefer he receive a warmer welcome.”

  Shaun’s forehead crinkled in puzzlement. “Huh?”

  Joe gave him a look. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Martin without you in the room.”

  Comprehension dawned in Shaun’s slack face. “Ahh, gotcha. Just holler for me when you want me.”

  Joe smiled and continued studying the heater. He liked its white-brown ridges and the way its slender iron spinal cord pierced the floor. “Sorry about that, Mr. Martin. Shaun sometimes doesn’t take a hint.”

  “I gathered.”

  Joe stood up, moved across the room so that he and Mitch were eye-to-eye, the slightly younger man seeming a little uncomfortable in the thick silence. Joe grinned easily, hoping to relax his potential client. “There’s no way to ask you this without it sounding awkward, Mr. Martin, but—”

  “Mitch, please.”

  Joe nodded. “Mitch, then. This is really none of my business, but I need to ask you a couple questions before we get too far into this thing.”

  Mitch crossed his arms. “Sure, Joe. Fire away.”

  “One, what kind of project are we talking about here? Are you mainly interested in cosmetic changes, making this place functional? Or are we talking about knocking down walls, building on, that sort of thing?

  Mitch shrugged, eyed the ceiling as if the answers would be written there. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make Bridg happy. It’s her money, anyway.”

  “Ah.” Joe paused, searching for the least indelicate way to phrase his question. “I got the impression you did pretty well for yourself.”

  Mitch nodded. “I do. I’m one of the top producers in the Indianapolis area.”

  “Investments?” Joe asked.

  “Mostly,” Mitch agreed, turning toward the hallway. “I occasionally dabble in other areas.”

  Joe followed. “Sounds like you two can do pretty much what you want to this place.”

  When Mitch stopped and shot him a look over his shoulder, Joe added, “Monetarily, I mean.”

  “You are direct, aren’t you, Mr. Crawford?”

  Joe noted the return to formality, but took it in stride. “I’ve just never seen the need for obliqueness. If we end up working together, I don’t want there to be any surprises—on either end. I tell you everything, and you tell me everything. Experience has taught me it’s the best way.”

  Mitch studied him a moment longer. Then, apparently satisfied with Joe’s answer, continued to the next room, which was on the right. This one, being on the western side of the building and it still being morning, was dimmer than the first bedroom they’d entered. But it was bigger, more like a master suite. Or some lucky kid’s bedroom.

  “Ask your next question, Mr. Crawford.”

  “Sorry if it sounds like an interrogation. I’d just rather be up front about things. It can save an awful lot of heartache later on.”

  “I suppose,” Mitch muttered.

  Joe moved deeper into the room, noticing as he did the torn skeins of wallpaper, the ceiling stained and drooping from water damage. Probably the roof, but he hoped it was merely a burst pipe. There was another story above this one, and if a roof leak had caused this much damage to the second floor, how much would it have done to the third? That the roof would have to be replaced went without saying. But a bad leak could mean a complete gutting of the third story, and that would raise Joe’s estimated project cost exponentially. He felt the familiar sinking sensation in his belly of a bid getting away from him.

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nbsp; He cleared his throat. “When I mentioned other considerations earlier, I was mainly talking about children.”

  Mitch scowled, but Joe plunged on. “I know it’s none of my business, but if you’re planning on starting a family, we really should plan for it in the blueprints.”

  “Do we have to decide that all today?”

  “No, but the earlier we figure it out, the better.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Let’s say you’re going to keep things just you and Bridget. If that’s the case, we’d figure out the best functions for each room to decide where we want to spend your money, how you want things laid out.”

  Mitch’s forehead unfurrowed a little. “Go on.”

  “Let’s say you’re gonna have one kid and stop there. Well, you’ll want him—or her—to have his own bathroom.”

  “I guess so,” Mitch allowed.

  “But if you plan on having two, three, four kids—”

  “We’re not having four children.”

  Joe smiled. “If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you and Bridget?”

  “I’m thirty-four,” Mitch said. “Bridg is a year younger.”

  “So there’s a good chance you all might have multiple kids.”

  Mitch tilted his head this way and that, considering. “There’s a chance.”

  “Then we’ll want to connect two of these rooms so you can have a nursery.”

  Mitch was watching him closely now, most of his surliness drained away. “What happens when the child grows up?”

  “You convert the nursery to a study, or maybe a reading room.”

  “We’re not much into reading,” Mitch said.

  Joe didn’t let his disappointment show.

  Mitch said, “I still don’t know what the number of kids we have has to do with anything.”

  “I don’t want my clients to spend a big chunk of their hard-earned money only to have to up and tear out the renovation five years later.”

  They moved into the hallway, saw the next room on the left was a small bathroom. Poking his head inside, Joe saw how the tile floor was ominously buckled, and spotted a diagonal crack through the vanity mirror that reminded him of a cartoon lightning bolt.

  “We’ll keep this room as-is in case your kids ever misbehave,” Joe said.

  Mitch chuckled at that, and some of the tension between them dissipated.

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Joe said, moving briskly down the hallway to the room next door to the nightmarish bathroom, “this one’s gonna be…” He went inside. “Yep, there’s another bathroom adjoining the bad one.”

  Mitch followed him into the second bathroom, which wasn’t nearly as torn up. Joe patted the antique basin. “This could be preserved, if you wanted to do that. If not, I could buy it from you.”

  “Bridg likes old things. She’s a freak for antiques. Anything that reminds her of Ireland. We’ve got an antique bedstead, a rocking chair, even a pair of Celtic swords.”

  Joe nodded. “You could renovate both bathrooms, or you could turn them into a Jack-and-Jill. But these rooms look like they’d be great for your kids.”

  Mitch began to grin.

  Joe went on, nodding toward the stairs. “You might think about adding another stairwell in the rear of the house.”

  “Is that expensive?”

  “Very. But it bears considering. Most houses this size, they have two ways up and down. But your stairway is centrally located, and to be honest, that’s not the safest arrangement in case there’s ever a fire.”

  Mitch tilted his head at Joe. “You really do think things through, don’t you?”

  “In my business, you have to.”

  Mitch nodded. “I respect that.”

  As they exited the bedroom, Shaun joined them with Kevin Gentry in tow. Together, the four of them toured the rest of the house, with Shaun taking measurements and Kevin jotting them down. By the time they were finished, it was nearly noon, and the day had grown balmy and not nearly as overcast. On the lawn of the Baxter house, Mitch shook Joe’s hand and told him how much he appreciated his guidance. That word—guidance—boded very well, Joe decided. As Mitch went to his black Mercedes, Shaun and Kevin exchanged a look and grinned their excited grins at Joe. He told them he’d see them tomorrow, and as they walked away, Joe cut through the small copse of pine trees separating the two properties.

  And saw Sharon Waltz coming around the side of his house.

  Joe’s first response was to freeze, an atavistic fear of the woman enkindling in him a fleeting hope that he could recede into the darkness of the pine trees and thus avoid detection. But what kind of crap was that? he chided himself. His first responsibility was to Michelle and Lily. The figure moving around the eastern corner of his house—she now had her back to Joe and seemed not to have spotted him—was a madwoman. Sharon was capable of anything.

  Perhaps thirty feet away, Joe took a step in her direction, meaning to shout at her.

  Then he remembered that Michelle and Lily were out this morning, would be out until well past noon. Lily had a play date with one of Michelle’s friend’s kids, which meant the four of them would be at a park playing or eating lunch right now.

  And what was Sharon doing?

  For the first time, Joe really focused in on the woman, realized that she was clutching something at waist level. Plagued by a growing sense of dread, Joe watched her reach into whatever she held, then make little tossing motions toward the house. The façade of Joe’s home was white aluminum siding with a low brick base. It was toward the eighteen-inch strip of bricks and mortar that Sharon was casting something.

  She turned slightly, and Joe caught a glimpse of what it was.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he thought.

  An urn.

  “Hey!” Joe yelled, striding down the short hill into his yard.

  Sharon spun around, wide-eyed, looking for all the world like a naughty toddler just busted for smearing shit over the nursery walls. Then a look of such devious cunning twisted her features that Joe feared she would rush him and claw at his face the way she had on the prior two occasions they’d been in each other’s company.

  He had time to hope that Kevin or Shaun or even Mitch Martin was still parked out by the road. Then he reminded himself to grow a pair. This lunatic was on his property, not the other way around. And what she appeared to be doing was not only bizarre—it was incredibly morbid and unsanitary.

  Joe found his voice, now ten feet or so from where Sharon stood, that crafty look still darkening her features. “If that’s what I think it is, you’ve got worse problems than I thought. Now get your ass off my property before I call Copeland.”

  “You’ll call Copeland anyway,” Sharon said. “So you just do that, Joey. Call up your butt buddy so you two can cozy up again at the bar.”

  Joe stopped, off balance again. It shouldn’t have bothered him that Sharon knew about him and Copeland having a beer together, but the knowledge made her seem omniscient.

  “That’s right,” Sharon crooned in that weird hag’s voice she sometimes used. “You and Copeland. And the bitch from the CPS. All three of you are in on it together, aren’t you? You three and your wife and the witnesses and all the other assholes.”

  As she spoke, she reached into the urn—some plain-looking pewter thing—and gathered another handful of ashes.

  “Sharon, don’t,” he said, his heart thumping. “Just—” His eyes flicked to the urn. “—just think about what the hell you’re doing. Think about what that is in your hand.”

  Sharon’s eyes flashed with pleasure. “I know what’s in my hand, Joey. Believe me, I know.” And with that, she sifted it over the bricks.

  Mouth dry, Joe said, “I’m calling the police now. They were going to grant me a restraining order anyway, after the other night…” />
  Sharon’s hand stole into the urn again.

  “…but now that you’ve actually trespassed—Sharon, don’t do that,” he said in a tight voice.

  The hand came out, white with ashes. Her whole fist was clutched full of powder.

  Joe said, “Please keep that stuff away from my house.”

  “Stuff?” Sharon said, and the smile slipped a bit. For a moment, he saw the same crazed hellcat Sharon had been that night outside Stevie’s foster home. “You mean my child’s cremated remains?”

  Joe licked his lips. “I thought they buried her.”

  Sharon nodded sagely. “They did.”

  Joe didn’t dare think about that. “Just go, Sharon. Please.”

  “Oh, I’ll go, Joey. I’ll go.”

  Sharon turned, and for the briefest of moments Joe clung to a vestige of hope that this might all be over, that she’d go away and leave him alone.

  And then she spun and enveloped him in a cloud of ashes. Joe stumbled backward, coughing and spluttering. He landed against a dwarf juniper tree and smacked his head against the gas meter. My God, it was painful, but the pain was eclipsed by the revulsion undulating through his body. She’d gotten the ashes in his mouth, his eyes. He could feel the powder clinging to the oil of his face, collected in the creases of his forehead and the hollows of his ears. He wiped his eyes thinking to spot Sharon before she followed up her terrible desecration with further violence. Perhaps she’d beat him with the urn, or maybe just attack him again with those razorlike fingernails. But when he got his eyes open, he could see her bleary figure crossing the yard, moving west toward where he was sure she’d parked her van.

  Joe leaned on an elbow and spat. He tried not to think about the smoky grit on his tongue, the sensation like chalk dust in his windpipe. He looked again and saw Sharon stepping off the curb into the street, her tight butt sashaying as she descended Hillcrest Road. Yes, she reminded him very much of a hooker. A washed-up, violent, depraved hooker. With an urn dangling from one hand.

  If there were still witches in the world, he decided, Sharon Waltz was one.