The Girl in Acid Park

by Lauren Harris

  "They have to be within a certain range or frequencies. This is going to be a little weird, but..." From his messenger bag, he extracted a large orange electric drill.

  "Oh, thank Christ," Jamie said. "I had no idea what you were about to-"

  "-whip out." I finished.

  Hiroki blank-faced, which only made it funnier. While Jamie and I fought for composure, Hiroki flipped the switch on the drill.

  Almost at once, there was a series of scrapes and thuds from above. Jamie whirled, arms out, gaze going up.

  "False alarm," I said. "It's probably the god damned possums of regret!"

  Hiroki extended the drill, waving it around as he traversed the kitchen and living room like he was blessing a house with a stick of incense.

  "Anything?" I called.

  "Nada. Maybe it's not loud enough."

  "You know!" Jamie yelled over the noise. "If the amplitude is a factor, you're going to need a bigger drill!"

  "Yeah!" I yelled. "Size matters!"

  Hiroki turned off the drill. "This is all I brought." He waved the orange drill.

  "There's got to be a bigger drill in the workshop. Or, wait. Maybe in the kitchen," Jamie said, walking over to the table. His phone illuminated a set of razor teeth on a wheel. "Think a hand saw would be in the right range?"

  "I think we should avoid turning on a saw completely," I said. "I just don't like the idea of ghosts and whirling blades in the same room. Call me crazy."

  Jamie held up a finger and pointed at me. He stepped away from the saw. Behind me, Hiroki was muttering to himself, so I made my way across a drop-cloth to a sliding glass door to a tiled sunroom filled with building supplies.

  About half of it was paint, labeled and categorized according to which part of the whirligig it was meant to decorate. The other half was a jumble of scrap and...

  I reached out, running my fingertips along the crumbly, rough surface of an old brick. It was caked on one side with some light-hued paint, and the edges had been weathered away by time and rough treatment. It was much smaller than the bricks at Millroad Academy.

  My gut grew heavy, and I noticed rather objectively that my hands had started shaking and my legs were starting to go stiff.

  "Georgia," Hiroki said, his voice a whisper some ten to fifteen feet away. I inhaled a shuddering breath and forced myself to turn around, the brick cradled in my hand.

  The boys were illuminated from below by their cellphones, standing side-by-side. They looked a little ridiculous, because Hiroki barely cleared Jamie's shoulder. I extended the brick toward them, fighting through the sudden fog in my brain for something to say.

  That's when I felt the press of something cold and very real against my spine. Don't ask me how I knew what it was, because I have never been in this kind of situation before. Perhaps it's something I've just imagined after so many years of action-movie brainwashing, but there was no mistaking the thing jabbing against my vertebrae for anything but a gun.

  "Y'all shoulda listened when I said there won't no ghost." Said the familiar drawl of the guy with the Bill Nye tee shirt. "Now y'all got y'allselves in trouble."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Zippity Boo Da

  The zip ties around my wrists made it real. Not the gun--that was too far from my everyday reality to understand--but I don't know anyone who hasn't used a zip tie. There were about six guys, clearly part of the same gang as the guy who nearly found Jamie and me before. Bill's bro seemed to be the only one with enough of a grasp of English to give us commands.

  They dragged us into the kitchen, where a light revealed quaint country wallpaper at least a decade past needing replacement. The pictures on the walls were of a family I didn't know. All except one person--April.

  A part of my brain wondered how I'd write about this if I made it out alive--they clearly weren't all Hispanic, at least Bill Nye Guy wasn't, though that's what the police had told me. I'd have to correct them.

  They tied Jamie's wrists first. He refused to flinch when the burliest gang member wrenched his arms back, but his bravado wasn't comforting. Hiroki struggled until a jab at my back elicited a yelp. I didn't resist at all, shaking beneath the callused grip pulling my arms back.

  Bill Nye Guy smiled at me, patting my cheek with one hand. His fingers were rough, stained with green paint.

  "We're gonna need you to help us out with somethin', hun," he said. "I ain't heard of no one that can do what you do, but I sure hope you told the truth. Otherwise, you get to choose which one of you boyfriends you like less."

  "I d-didn't lie," I said. My voice came out a rasp.

  "We know this one." He paced over to Hiroki. "I known about him for a while now, before I even known about you."

  He swung around, work boots scraping over what I could now see was blood-splattered linoleum. The streaks of it went from the fridge all the way to the side door, where we'd come in.

  God. They'd kept the body in the fridge. In the farmhouse, right under the police's nose.

  Bill Nye Guy swaggered over to Jamie, bony face splitting into a grin that revealed a gold tooth. "You're prob'ly gonna be first, kid--less you can tell me why you'd be more useful than the chink."

  My stomach heaved, and I jerked forward against the rough hands on my arms. Only a jerk of Hiroki's chin told me to stop, and it wasn't until I met his eyes that I remembered our lives were at stake. This dude was getting a swift kick in the nuts at first opportunity.

  Jamie looked down at Bill Nye Guy and snorted. Likely the dumbest thing he's ever done. Bill's bro just smiled, then drew back and punched Hiroki in the face.

  Hiroki went down in one, fingers splayed on the bloody linoleum. I had a horrible flashback to the white, milky eyes of Aaron Nguyen, when he'd been inhabiting Hiroki's body. Hiro had been bleeding like this then as well.

  Jamie had gone pale, which Bill's bro had apparently anticipated. A gang member dragged Hiroki to his feet, ignoring the mess of blood sliding over his lip. My best friend breathed in rasps.

  "Hiro?"

  He opened his eyes a crack, but said nothing, just continued rasping.

  "Asthma?"

  He swallowed.

  "Where's Hiro's bag?" My whisper was shrill. "He needs his inhaler."

  Hiroki shook his head, but coughed when he opened his mouth to speak. Panic washed over me. We were being kidnapped by a gang, and my best friend was struggling to breathe.

  They pushed us toward the door, Hiroki first, Jamie in front of me. I wished I'd never dragged him into this. He didn't have a stake in my reputation. I'd just wanted him along, because I liked him, because I thought it would distract him and make him feel better.

  I really needed to stop trying to be helpful.

  I'd decided on a name for Bill Nye Guy. I couldn't call him Bill, because that was a total insult to the TV science personality of my childhood, so I'd settled on Willy. Thinking of him as a talking penis gave me a slim slice of comfort in the larger pie chart of abject fear. Very slim. But it was there.

  The men marched us through the trees, past the whirligig where Jamie and I had hidden, and into the pasture behind the trees. There were a good number of holes in the ground where the larger structures had been uprooted and transported downtown. I had a hard time controlling my knees all of a sudden--those holes would be perfect open graves.

  Only the biggest and rustiest whirligigs remained. It was toward those the group led us. Damp, knee-high grass swished around my legs, and I found myself absurdly worried about snakes and spiders, though at this time of the year, I was more likely to accidentally step on a mouse.

  I concentrated on stepping exactly where Willy stepped, and this kept me occupied until we arrived at our destination. I remembered the whirligig from my daytime jaunt--it was the big, sideways X with the carousel in the middle and the cutout of a yellow tractor on the top. Here, in the dark, with barely a suggestion of moonlight giving it edges, it looked more like something from the space-camp of nightmares.


  Willy took my arm, holding me back and gesturing the boys forward. Both Jamie and Hiroki looked at me. One of the men pushed Jamie's shoulder. He braced his feet and refused to budge.

  "Go on," Willy said. "Do what I tell you, and maybe she won't end up in one of them holes too."

  Hiroki's jaw worked, and I saw him glance around, muscles tense. For just a moment, I thought he would run.

  But then something click near my ear, and cold metal pressed to the skin behind it.

  "Y'all know what happens when someone gets shot in the head point-blank?" Willy asked.

  My knees went to water, and a flood of darkness threatened my field of vision. Willy jerked at my arm, forcing me to catch my balance. A cracked whimper escaped me. Webs of lightning panic arced out from the cold press of the gun against my skull.

  "Get that thing away from her." Hiroki's voice was still raspy with asthma, but the bulldog-protectiveness was back.

  I opened my eyes, but the scene before me was warped, as if I was looking at it from several inches in front of my face.

  Willy moved behind me, and Hiroki let his captor lead him away. Jamie was so pale, he almost looked like a ghost. They trudged compliantly along to an enormous hole and, moments later, disappeared into it with a splash.

  The light breeze ruffled my sleeves. The smaller pinwheels on the whirligig's arms spun, but the propeller-like ones at the ends of each spoke didn't budge. I thought of April, but there was no drop in barometric pressure, no ghost.

  Finally, Willy drew the gun away from my ear.

  I heard a metallic snick behind me, and then something sharp between my wrists. A jerk, and the zip-tie popped open, my wrists coming apart. Pain flashed through my shoulders and I gritted my teeth.

  "Alright, girly," Willy said. "Get rid of it."

  Breath fluttered in my throat. "Rid of what?" I whispered. One of the guys--his boss, I think--said something to him in Spanish, which he responded to.

  "The ghost," Willy said. "Call her out."

  I shook my head, glancing over briefly at the hole where Hiroki and Jamie were trapped. "I can't... I don't know how to-"

  Willy gestured to a short man, who dumped Hiroki's messenger bag at my feet. The orange drill tumbled out. The skin on my back crawled toward my shoulders. What might they do with that drill if I didn't comply? What if the girl didn't show back up?

  "We don't even know if that's g-going to work..." Willy lunged, and suddenly his face was right up next to mine, and I could smell him. I could smell the dead stench lingering on his clothes, the acrid cigarette smell burning my nostrils.

  "You fucking make it work!" he roared. I jumped, trying to shrink back, but ran into Alvaro's shoulder. My ears rang. "That night you found the body--I saw her, standing next to the fucking road like she was waiting." He stepped forward again, grabbing my face in one hand and squeezing it till my cheeks crushed in against my teeth. I swallowed a yelp. "Gustavo said he saw something. We should'a listened, made it four bodies instead of one."

  He let me go, stepping back. He had an ungainly walk--part swagger, part drunken lack of coordination. In the dim light, his bony face caught all sorts of shadows. I felt like I'd been punched. The realization that this man not only had Spectral Sight, but had hidden it from the police for so long, coursing through my brain.

  He turned, feet crunching the breeze-ruffled grass, and said something I didn't understand.

  He dragged me over to the side of the hole. Below, Hiroki and Jamie stood back-to-back, up to their knees in mud. Hiroki faced me, his eyes wide and angry.

  Then Willy grabbed his gun from where he'd tucked it in his waistband. I watched, everything slow-motion, as he straightened his arm and aimed the barrel at Hiroki's head.

  "Call her out, or this one dies."

  "I swear, I can't call her out!" My voice raked my throat. "That's not what I do--I can only help them move on!"

  "You'll figure it out," Willy said. "Or do you think we're joking? Maybe we should just kill one to prove we ain't."

  "If you shoot either of them, I'm not going to help you." The voice was mine, but I didn't remember deciding to speak. Willy narrowed his eyes at me, then jerked his chin toward the bag at my feet.

  I squatted, rooting through it with a throbbing throat, and pulled up the drill.

  "It isn't big enough," Jamie said. His voice was almost too firm, as if he were struggling to keep it level by putting it on lockdown. Then he spun out an explanation involving words like "amplification" and "intensity" and "constructive interference".

  Willy looked at me, waved his gun at Jamie as if to say, "do you get what this guy is saying?" I was forced to lift my hands, drill and all, into a shrug.

  "SO IT NEEDS TO BE LOUDER," Hiroki translated.

  Willy and I made sounds of comprehension. He took my arm and I watched, grim and scared, as the gang members pushed the whirligig into motion.

  "When she shows, you're gonna come with me."

  "If you can see her, why do you need me?" I asked.

  "You got no reason to be talking right now," he said. "Not unless you're gonna tell me how you knew she'd be here." He said it in an almost jealous way, like he was upset someone else had figured out about the girl in Acid Park.

  Several disparate pieces of information clicked into place all at once. The blood on the whirligig, the article, the brick through my window, everything.

  "Joseph?" I said. Willy turned to me, his eyes wide. I nodded, letting out a little laugh of disbelief. "Joseph Vance--April's boyfriend. God, no wonder her dad left you this place."

  "Shut up," he said, his lips tight, barely moving. The whirligig creaked as it turned on its post, and one big propeller hissed into motion, catching the wind.

  "He's gone now. So when your friends needed a remote place to kill that informant, you offered this one," I said. "You knew no one lived in the house anymore, and you knew there would be a lot of construction. But you needed to leave a warning for other informants, so you used the farmhouse. No wonder you didn't want me and Hiroki working on the case--no one else would have been able to talk to April. Or maybe you were afraid I'd help her move-"

  "No!" His hand flashed out. I saw only a slight gleam of the gun before he slammed it across my head.

  Guns are a lot heavier than they look. That was the only thought floating through my mind as I looked up at the cloud-muted sky. My ears were ringing, and I had fallen on Hiroki's orange drill, though, fortunately, the bit wasn't facing me. I lay stunned on my side for a moment, until Hiroki and Jamie's voices came to me through the haze of pain.

  They couldn't struggle right now. Not for me. Not for this--they'd get themselves shot. I rolled onto my knees, but before I could even get up, a fist closed in my hair and wrenched my head back.

  Willy glared down at me, shoved the gun under my chin. "Y'all ain't worth the trouble," he said, and pulled back the hammer.

  I'm not sure what came over me then. I don't consider myself to be abnormally brave, or cool under pressure. I'm not super strong or fast or skillful. But I had a heavy-ass drill in my hand and a pair of boys I wanted, more than anything, to protect.

  I swung the drill into Willy's arms, slamming them hard to one side. The gun cracked, recoiling in his hand, but the bullet zipped over my shoulder. I heard a clang behind me as it hit a whirligig. There wasn't time to look around, to find Jamie and Hiroki and see if they were okay. Before Willy could get ahold of himself, I lurched to my feet and swung the drill again. This time he leapt away and momentum carried me staggering past him. I whirled, prepared to stab or swing with my impromptu weapon, only to find myself staring at the single black eye of a pistol. I wasn't going to be fast enough to dodge it this time.

  If Hiroki survived, he'd better come talk to me. That was my last thought before the gun fired.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Pieces of April

  The crack rang in my ears, and when it faded, there was the sound of a fan, of change rattling in cans, and
the creaking of a schoolyard swing. Flashes of light streaked across my eyelids, and my arms had already started to go cold.

  I exhaled, and felt my breath rise into my face. Wait, I was breathing? That shouldn't be a thing. I'd just been shot in the face!

  I opened my eyes, and there was Willy, his face turned up, arms outspread for balance. And there, above us, his gun was suspended in thin air, still trailing the last bit of smoke. I could still hear the whirligigs, still sense the phantom headlights flashing just outside my vision.

  He turned this way and that, apparently looking for the manifestation of the spirit so clearly upon us. Behind him, the whirligig was still going, but there were other flashes of metal in the sky--more guns, all floating high above the gang members' heads.

  I spotted Hiroki clambering out onto the tall grass, likely lifted up by Jamie. There was no time to confirm it. Not if we wanted to use our momentary advantage.

  I took one step forward and rammed my knee as hard as I could between Willy's legs. It wasn't the best aim ever, but he bent double with a pitiful whine.

  "That's for my boyfriends," I huffed. Then I drew back my drill and swung the heavy battery-end into the side of his head. He sprawled out next to me. "And that's for trying to shoot me in the face."

  I snatched his pocket knife and Jamie's keys. There were still five more gang members to worry about.

  I looked up just in time to see the whirligig, now moving unpowered by man or wind, slam into a gang member and send him crashing, face first, into the tall grass.

  Okay, four.

  Without guns, and with two of their number already down, the gang members looked less than excited. The boss stood facing off with Hiroki, who had his back up against a very muddy Jamie's, apparently less bothered by the physical contact than the imminent threat of death.

  I glanced back at Willy, then up at the gun over his head.

  "Hey," I whispered, holding out my hand. "Help a girl out?"

  The gun descended slowly, settling into my outstretched palm. I curled my fingers around it, glad my hands were too cold to sweat, and turned back to the gang members. I might not have been able to say anything to them, but I walked straight toward them, gun at the end of my reach, universal for, "get the fuck away from my friends or I will end you, and I probably have really bad aim, so it's going to take a few tries."