So he made his way through the darkened house to the front door, and pulled it open to find an empty porch. He looked around for a minute, confused, before he saw it laying over to the right of the door. It was an orange extension cord with a red bow tied to the end of it. On the bow was a card, and Jeremiah reached down and pulled the card off the end of the cord and read it.
Dear Mr. Jeremiah,
We are sorry that your wife died. We are sorry that you are sad, and that you didn’t want to put your pretty lights up this year. We hope we did it good and it will make you a little happy.
Feliz Navidad,
Jose y Hector Garcia (from across the street)
Jeremiah stood there for a minute looking around, not really knowing what to think, when he looked up and saw two boys looking out of a living room window across the street. The bigger one looked like he was about thirteen, and the little one looked to be maybe eight. The big one just watched him, but when the little one saw him looking, he waved excitedly, indicating that Jeremiah should plug in the cord.
So he did, and he walked out on his lawn to see his house lit up just like it was every year, with white lights on the little cedar tree by the driveway, on the porch railings, on all the bushes on the front of the house, and even on the roofline, although how those little boys got all the way up there he had no idea. Until he saw his ladder leaning up against the side of the house just like it did every year until after he got everything working just right. He stood there for a minute imagining he could feel a smaller hand in his own as he stood there on his lawn not quite as alone as he’d been a couple hours before, then he turned around, nodded to the two boys in the window, one waving like his arm was on a spring, and one nodding back solemnly, gathered his ladder, and put it away in his garage until after New Year’s.
20
Red Dirt Boy
I am the red dirt boy
running barefoot down the gravel road
in the middle of summer to momma’s house
fighting and throwin’ dirt clods at my cousin
cause it’s my turn to sit on the ice cream churn
and you done it last time
and I’m gonna get a switch for yo ass if you don’t straighten up.
I am sunbleached hair and brown skin
splashing in the creek,
catching crawdaddies in a jar
and throwing mudpies at each other
while we walk through the thistles home
dodging cowpies and horseflies
hitchin a ride
on the tailgate of Uncle Ed’s pickup truck
bouncing across the ruts in the hayfield.
I am a dirty bar of Ivory soap on the window ledge
round back of the house by the spigot
scrubbing all that red mud off my feet into puddles
before momma’d let me back in the house.
I’m that skinny little shirtless boy drinkin’ out of the garden hose
that never remembers to let it run cold first
before he spits out a big mouthful of hot
green plastic-tasting water.
I’m cutoff shorts and flip-flops
eating watermelon off a butter knife
with just a little dash of salt to go with the sweet
sweeeeeet juicy of every bite
after that big ol’ melon’s been sittin’ in the ice box all afternoon.
I’m sitting on the porch listening to my sister sing
while daddy picks a little on the front porch as the dog day storms roll in.
Thunder means God’s bowling
and rain when the sun shines means the Devil’s beating his wife
but who’d marry the devil anyhow?
I’m home —
I’m safe in momma’s arms while the lightning dances across the horizon.
I’m home —
I’m the smell of wood smoke in January with a load of firewood in my arms.
I’m more than a memory
that flashes like fireflies in Granny’s azaleas —
gone like mud puddles from yesterday’s rain
in the glare of all those tomorrows.
I’m
home.
21
Reunion
Oh, hell no!” Jessica Bates said as she looked at the plane ticket in her hand.
“Come on, Jess, it’ll be fun,” her boyfriend, business partner, travel arranger, and the current target of her ire Michael Sutton said. “You haven’t been back since you graduated high school. It’s time to show everybody how awesome you are now.”
“One, I was awesome then. Two, those fuckers didn’t deserve my awesome twenty years ago. And three, they certainly haven’t done anything to earn it now. I’m not going back there. I hated that place when I was in school, and I made myself a promise that if I lived through high school, I was going to get the hell out of Dodge and never look back. I’ve spent twenty years keeping that promise, and I don’t intend to break it now.”
“What’s the big deal, Jess? It’s just a gig, like all the others. Except this one is in your hometown, and we’re getting paid double,” Sam Chima, their tech wizard, said from where she knelt arranging her bags and cases of equipment for the flight.
“The big deal is you guys springing this on me at the goddamn airport because you knew it was the only way you could get me to go! You knew if I had any idea this shoot was in Jackson that I’d veto it.” Jess grabbed her bags from the sidewalk and turned to put them back in the van, but the minivan they’d hired to get the four of them to the airport was already gone. “I guess this was why you insisted on taking a cab this morning, too?” She looked at Billy Colgood, their chief camera guy and editor.
“Yep. We knew you’d pitch a fit, so we took a cab. We knew you’d be a pain in the ass about it, so we didn’t tell you until now. We knew you’d eventually come around when Mike explained exactly how much money your old hometown is paying us to do this investigation of the school and you realized that it’ll pay for both new cameras we want plus my new MacBook Pro with Final Cut Pro. So suck it up, grab your gear, and get on the plane.” Billy hefted a camera bag onto his shoulder and shouldered his way past the sputtering Jessica into the airport.
Jess turned back to Mike, who stood there with a wry look on his face. “I should slap those glasses right off your smug little face,” she said. Bring it in, Jess; you’re making a scene, and not the kind you want. Since the ParaNetwork had picked up their show last spring, they had to be careful of paparazzi, almost like they were real celebrities instead of paranormal investigators.
“But you won’t,” Mike said, giving her that little cockeyed grin that made the dimples pop out on his cheeks. He knew she couldn’t resist the dimples, so he deployed them mercilessly when she was pissed, like now. He even let a little brown curl fall down over one eye, making him look even more mop-headed and absent-mindedly adorable than normal. Jessica knew every bit of it was for effect, hell, she’d taught him the trick with the curl, saying it made him irresistible to the camera. Too bad it still worked on her, too.
“You’re lucky I love you, you bastard,” she said, giving him a light slap on one cheek.
“That’s true on so many levels, my dear.” Mike leaned in to give her a kiss, to retching noises from Sam.
“Gross! Straight people sex makes me want to vomit,” the avowed lesbian electronics tech said, but it was with a smile.
“But you’re carrying my bags, asshole,” Jess said, following Billy into the airport. She found him chatting with a security guard by a door marked “Charter Traffic.” Billy waved her over when he spotted her, and moments later the team of four were all gathered by the door with a cart for their gear and luggage.
“Everybody here?” the guard asked, and at an affirmative from Mike, he opened the door and led them through to the charter check-in area. Thirty minutes later their bags were stowed, the team was on board the small jet, and Jessica was rapidly sl
amming mini-bottles of vodka in preparation to return to her high school after twenty years.
The next morning saw a team of three paranormal investigators gathered around the breakfast buffet in the lobby of a Tennessee motel. Mike was working his way through a plate stacked high with waffles when Sam cleared her throat for the third time.
“You choking, Sammy?” Mike asked.
“No, just wondering when you’re going to answer the question.”
“And what question would that be?” Mike asked, his round face a study in bland innocence.
“Don’t give me that shit. It might work on your girlfriend, but no matter what fantasies you may be harboring, I’m not sleeping with you. So your masculine wiles are useless.”
“I think his masculine wiles are probably useless if you are sleeping with him,” Billy interjected. The thin editor held a long-fingered black hand up across the table and Sam high-fived him.
“Where’s Jess, dude? Don’t make us sweat it out,” Billy asked.
“That’s pretty much what I left her doing,” Mike replied, taking another bite of waffles with strawberries.
“Huh?” Billy grunted.
“Last I saw her, she was sitting in the floor of the shower with hot water pouring down over her. Still in her pajamas, mind you, but that was a dramatic improvement.”
“Hung over, huh?” Sam asked.
“Like a boss,” Mike confirmed.
“Gimme your room key.” Sam stood up and held out her hand.
“Why?”
“There are some things that need a woman’s touch. Frankly, most things are better with a woman’s touch, but a hangover is definitely something I know a thing or two about. Have the car ready; we’ll be down in twenty minutes. She’s gonna want a large coffee and a plain bagel.” She motioned for the room key again, and Mike handed it over.
Twenty minutes later almost on the nose, a soggy but sober Jessica climbed into the passenger seat of their rented Suburban, fastened her seat belt, and wrapped both hands around the steaming travel mug of black coffee that waited in her cupholder.
Jessica took a long sip of coffee, two huge bites of her bagel, another sip of coffee, and turned around in her seat until she could see all three of her teammates. “I’m just going to say this once, and then we can approach this shithole like it was any other case. This is a terrible idea, and we should all leave now. Anybody want to listen to me? No? Okay, then take a left out of the driveway and let’s go to school.”
They spent the day working along just like any other case, ignoring Jessica’s muttering about entrapment, kidnapping, and killing a bunch of motherfuckers. They set infrared and low-light cameras in the hallways and turned the library in the center of the school into a command center where Sam built her massive conglomeration of computer monitors, digital video recorders, audio analyzers, RFI detectors, and other gadgets that no one else on the team understood. Sam worked by herself straight through the day, connecting wires to USB ports, running cables along the tops of doorways so no one would trip on them, and focusing her limited cameras to give maximum coverage of the enormous school.
“How’s it coming?” Mike asked when he popped into the library around four in the afternoon. The winter sun was well on the way to setting, and Sam suddenly realized that she’d missed lunch. She looked up at Mike in annoyance, but relaxed and let it all slide away unspoken when he held out a footlong meatball sub with extra jalapeños, her favorite.
Sam grabbed a Monster energy drink out of the mini-fridge, which had been the first thing she hooked up, and sat down in the camp chair that had been the second thing placed in her control center. Mike sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning back on a stack of road cases with a Dr. Pepper in hand. One of Sam’s secondary duties was making sure there was plenty of each team member’s favorite style of caffeine on each trip. Mike was a hardcore Pepper, Sam loved her energy drinks, and Billy and Jess kept it simple, using black coffee as their pick-me up of choice.
Mike pulled a second sandwich out of his backpack, this one some strange concoction of grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato, pepperoni, mayo, and onions that smelled as bad as it looked. But Mike loved the things, and since he was the one tasked with getting everyone’s meals sorted, he could eat whatever weird-ass sub he wanted.
“We’re in pretty good shape. The new wireless cameras were dead out of the box, but it was just the batteries. I put new ProCells in them and now they work fine. They don’t have much for range, but they’re fine for what we’re dealing with here. I spread them all over the gym and locker room areas. I’ve got all the halls around the library wired for video and audio, and I’ve got a video link to the security cams in the office. Amazingly, they still work, and so do a few of the old CCTV security cams around the building. I’ve got all of them feeding into the D drive, with the infrared on A, HD video with sound on B, and the HD video with no sound on C. If there’s anything to see, we should see it.”
“Sounds good,” Mike said around a mouthful of hoagie.
“So what’s the deal around here anyway?” Sam asked, taking a huge bite of meatball and closing her eyes as the flavor hit her. She’d been a lot hungrier than she thought.
“What do you mean?” Mike’s face was guarded, like he was working really hard not to give anything away.
“Go ahead, may as well tell the whole story,” Jessica said as she walked into the library. The doors were long off their hinges, so she could have easily heard them from outside.
“Why don’t you tell it, Jess? You were here, after all.” Mike handed her a veggie sub and a Diet Coke.
“I don’t think so. I think I’d rather hear the rumors and see how they compare with what really happened. I’ll fill in anything important you leave out.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” Mike said. “Fine, but I only want to go through this once. Let’s get Billy in here and get cameras rolling.” Mike pulled a cell phone from his shirt pocket and tapped the screen. “Billy, come meet us in the library with the high-def. I’ve got some sandwiches, and we should go ahead and get the intro footage down.”
Billy’s voice came from the speakerphone loud and clear. “Coolio, boss. I’ll be there in two minutes. I’m just finishing up the exterior cams. It’s almost dark out here anyway, time to move this party indoors.”
The trio ate in silence until Billy came in with a camera bag slung over his shoulder. He set up a tripod low to the ground and focused the camera on where Mike sat sipping on his Dr. Pepper. He ran a cable to an external monitor so they could see the image that was being recorded and ran another cable to the portable hard drive Sam indicated on her folding table. This one had a square of white tape on it with a large capital “E” in Sharpie.
“You got any Coke?” Billy asked. Sam motioned to the mini-fridge, and he grabbed the familiar red can. Billy popped open his soda, unwrapped his sandwich completely to limit the amount of noise on the tape, and started rolling.
“This is Mike Sutton, and welcome to another episode of America’s Most Haunted. I’m your host for the evening, along with my cameraman Billy Colgood. With us as always are Samantha Chima, our technology guru and repairer of all things I break, and Jessica Bates, professional debunker and semi-professional ghost hunter.”
“I’d be a professional ghost hunter if you’d ever take me anyplace really haunted,” Jess said, leaning into the side of the frame and waving to the camera. Mike playfully pushed her out of the shot, then turned back to the lens.
“We’ve got a very special America’s Most Haunted for you tonight, as we investigate the most haunted high school in the United States, right here in Jackson, Tennessee, home to the one, the only, AMH’s own Jessica Bates!” Mike motioned for Jess to come back into the frame, but she stayed right where she was. He motioned for her a second time, but this time she gave him the finger.
“Well, looks like for once our Jessica has turned camera-shy,” Mike said, once again turning his attention back to the camer
a. “But here we are, at Jackson Senior High School, our own Jess’s alma mater, and site of one of the greatest tragedies in United States high school history.”
“Exaggerate much?” Jess grumbled.
“It’s true, Jess. Outside of school shootings and the Marshall football team plane crash, the accident here took more lives than almost any event in U.S. high school or college history. The whole basketball team, the coaching staff, the principal, and all the cheerleaders were killed in one moment.”
“Jesus, what happened?” Billy asked, leaning forward. He almost unconsciously checked the monitor to make sure Mike was still in frame, but he was engrossed.
“There are a few differing stories, but the official version was that a gas line running underneath the gym floor ruptured and sparked, causing an explosion that killed them all instantly. But there’s been some question as to why there would even be a gas line running under the gym, when the gas main and cafeteria are on the other end of the school. The gym didn’t use gas for heat, and the hot water heaters were well removed from the gym, so no one really knows what happened. Just that the entire basketball team and cheerleaders were wiped out in seconds.”
“Except one,” Jess said, not looking up.
“What?” Mike asked. “Except one what?”
“All the cheerleaders were killed. Except one. One girl had been kicked off the team the week before and was sitting in the bleachers when everything exploded. One girl watched a fireball burn away every friend she had in the world. One girl got to pick teeth out of her hair and pieces of classmates out of her clothes and spent weeks trying to get the smell of smoke out of her nose. Then that girl dropped out, got her GED, and went to work in a coffee shop two thousand miles from Tennessee and never looked back. Until today.”
Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails Page 19
