“Wha— what power? I don’t know what you—”
“Cut it out, Claudia,” I said, more firmly. “There’s no point in pretending anymore. So give it to me straight— how long have you been able to move things with your mind?”
Her face fell. She let out a sigh that didn’t sound staged, for once, and looked toward the floor. “Since last winter.”
“After you started having periods?”
She raised her head when I said that. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Puberty’s usually when the ability first manifests, especially in girls.” There was an adult-sized rocking chair in the room, which had probably been useful years back, when Mom had soothed baby Brian to sleep.
“Why don’t you put your brother’s pillows back, and take a seat on the bed,” I told her. “We need to have us a talk.” I eased down onto the rocking chair.
Claudia Irvin replaced the pillows and sat down, the bed springs creaking a little under her weight. She looked utterly miserable— although that comes pretty easy, at her age. I had a teenage daughter once— I know.
“It’s been you, the whole time,” I said.
She nodded glumly. “Me and Brian.”
“How’ve you been making that loud noise?”
“Banging our beds against the wall. We have to be careful not to crack the plaster, or Mom and Dad will know.”
“I see how you could move the bed around pretty easy, with your ability. But Brian can’t do that, can he? He doesn’t have the… gift.”
“No, but his bed’s got these big castor things on it— see? Brian and me oiled them, so the bed moves real easy. You just pull it out from the wall, than slam it back in— bam. We take turns, so Mom and Dad don’t notice that the same one is always upstairs when the noise happens.”
“But the stuff flying through the air— that’s all you, isn’t it?”
Another nod.
I gave her half a smile. “Don’t like Brussels sprouts too much, huh?”
She made a face. “I hate them. So does Brian. I don’t think Dad likes them, either. But we have ‘em every week because they’re so nutritious.”
“There’s lot of nutritious food that doesn’t taste like Brussels sprouts,” I said.
“Yeah, tell me about it. Better yet, tell Mom.”
I thought about having Karl tell her, instead, but we weren’t here to settle the family’s dietary issues. “Brian knows about your ability.”
“‘Course he does. He won’t tell, though — I told him if he rats me out, I’ll make his head fly off his shoulders and go right through a window.”
“I don’t think telekinesis works that way.”
“No.” A twitch of a smile. “But Brian doesn’t know that. Besides….”
“Besides, what?”
“He hates this shithole town as much as I do. We wanna go home.”
“You miss your friends, don’t you?”
“My friends, my school, all the places we used to hang out, the mall— everything.”
“You haven’t made any friends here?”
“No, the kids at my school suck. Nobody’s nice to me— not even the dweebs who don’t have any friends of their own.” She went back to studying the floor.
Kids can be cruel, especially to outsiders. But I hoped that Claudia’s new classmates wouldn’t push her too hard— or they might come to regret it.
I’d once read a book some professor wrote called The Shadow Imploded. It’s about telekinesis, which the book called TK. Most of it focuses on a case study in Maine from back in the Seventies. Some high school girl developed TK power in the days before anybody knew much about it. I guess she was kind of geeky and got picked on a lot, by kids who didn’t realize they were messing with dynamite. The girl herself probably had no idea what she was capable of, at first. And then a few of the kids pulled some mean trick on her at the prom, and she just lost it. I mean totally. Destroyed the building where the prom was being held, and most of the senior class along with it. Burned down half the town, too, before somebody finally put a knife into her back.
I hoped Claudia Irwin wasn’t another ticking time bomb, like the girl in Maine had been, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Then I had an idea.
“Claudia.”
She raised her head and looked at me.
“I’m not going to tell your parents what you and your brother have been up to.”
Hope started to break through the misery on her face. “You’re not? Seriously?”
“Seriously. But this has got to stop. You’re scaring your parents to death, especially your Mom.”
Claudia didn’t say anything.
“If this keeps up, she’s going to snap,” I said. “There’s only so much stress a person can take — and who knows what that will lead to? Divorce, alcoholism — maybe even mental illness. Is that what you want, Claudia? Destroy your parents’ marriage, and maybe put Mom in a loony bin?”
She began to cry softly. “No— ‘course, I never wanted that! I just thought if we scared them enough, they’d take us back home, and things would be just like before.”
“That’s not going to happen, kiddo. You and your brother’s tricks might drive them out of this house, but they’ll just find another one— and it’ll still be in Scranton. Your dad quit his job back in Long Island, remember? Your Mom did the same. And they sold the house, right? There’s nothing for them to go back to. Far as they’re concerned, this is home— whether you like it or not.”
She stopped crying and started looking pissed off again. “Fuck!” she said. “Mom says I’m not supposed to use that word, it’s not ladylike, but I don’t fucking care.”
“I say it myself, once in a while,” I said. “Most people do. Just try not to say it around your parents and teachers, if you want to avoid a lot of hassle.”
“Fuck.”
“If it makes you feel better, say it a hundred times before we go back downstairs— I don’t mind. But instead of swearing, you might want to listen to an idea I’ve got for improving your, uh, social standing.”
What she was thinking was written in the scorn that appeared on her face. What did somebody my age know about her problems?
“You play any sports, Claudia?”
“Just in Phys Ed class.”
“Is there one sport that you enjoy, even a little bit?”
“I guess volleyball’s okay. I’m not real good at it, though.”
“I bet you could be, though,” I said. “Especially since you can make that ball go wherever you want it to. Or you could, with a little practice using your ability.”
“You want me to be a jock?”
“What I want you to be is happy. Or, at least, less miserable than you are now. If you learn to use your power unobtrusively, you could be a star on the volleyball court.”
“What’s that mean— ‘unobtrusively?’”
“It means, don’t be obvious about it. If volleyballs starting changing course in midair, like that Wiffle ball did, people are gonna know that something funny’s going on. But I bet with a little work, you could have the deadliest serve in the league. And when you spiked the ball, it would stay spiked.”
“Yeah, I guess. Maybe.”
“You’d be a star athlete for your school, Claudia. And as a result, you know what else you’d be?”
“What’s that?”
“Popular.”
Her eyes widened, as if I’d just said a magic word. Maybe, to a teenager, I had.
What I was suggesting to Claudia was dishonest and unsportsmanlike. Absolutely. It would be unfair to every team she played against.
But if the alternative was having a persecuted, bullied Claudia strike out one day, the way the girl in Maine had… then fuck it. Compared to a massacre, I’d say the local teams losing a vol
leyball game once in a while would be a pretty good trade.
Frowning, Claudia said, “But, what you said I should do— isn’t that, like, cheating?”
She had a sense of morality. Good— it would serve her well, later in life. But for now, I had to guide her around those moral objections. Fortunately, coming up with rationalizations for sketchy behavior is something I’ve had a lot of practice with— I’ve been doing it most of my life.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “You didn’t do anything dishonest to get your ability, did you? You were born with it. Right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Tell me— is being tall an advantage in volleyball?”
“Sure it is.”
“And some girls are taller than others, right? They didn’t do anything to get that way— it just happened to be in their genes.”
“Well, if you look at it that way….”
“How about quick reflexes? Pretty handy on the volleyball court?”
She gave me a slow nod. “Yeah, I guess they are.”
“And some girls are born with quicker reflexes than others. They can’t help it— that’s just the way they are, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s true.”
“So, what do you think— should tall girls with good reflexes refuse to play on volleyball teams, because they’d have an advantage over the slower, shorter kids?”
She looked at me in silence for several seconds.
Finally, she said, “You know, you’re pretty smart— for somebody who’s old, I mean.”
“I wish you’d explain that to my daughter, Christine. She seems to think I’m dumber than a box of rocks, most of the time.”
That wasn’t true about Christine — at least, not any more — but I was trying to get on the kid’s good side.
“You have a daughter? Is she my age?”
“Not anymore, but she was, once. She’s 23, now.”
And likely to remain that way for a long, long time.
“So, you’re saying I should become some super-volleyball-jock, so the other kids will like me.”
“I’m not telling you what you should do, just pointing out what you can do” I said. “Frankly, I figure if you just hang in there a while longer, you’ll stop being the new kid. You’ll make some friends, and start to fit in better. Then high school won’t be hell for you— at least, not more than it is for everybody.”
She laughed at that.
“But my point is,” I said, “if you want to move things along faster, and be more than an average high school girl, your gift could take you a long way— as long as you’re careful how you use it.”
Anything to avoid another bloody prom, a few years down the road— or something even worse.
“Okay, I’ll think about it.”
“What you decide is your choice, of course. But here’s something that’s not: you and Brian terrifying your parents. That stops— now. Otherwise, I will rat you out to your parents— you and Brian both.”
“You’d do that, huh?”
“Bet your ass I would. What you’re doing to your Mom and Dad is torture— and it’s pointless, besides. You just ain’t going back to Long Island, kiddo. Might as well face the fact, and move on.”
“Yeah, well, I still think it sucks.”
“Sure, it does. And sometimes stuff sucks, and you just have to put up with it. That’s called real life. So, do we have a deal?”
She looked at me some more. It occurred to me that she might be wondering if she could reach out to my heart with her terrible talent— reach out, and stop it dead.
“Yeah, Sergeant,” she said at last, “we’ve got a fucking deal.”
“Good. When we get downstairs, I’m going to tell your parents I did some mumbo-jumbo up here, said some special prayers or something, to get rid of the ghost. You don’t have to say anything, if you don’t want to— but back me up later, if they ask you. That all right with you?”
She made a face that, I was pretty sure, had a smile concealed underneath the surface. “Yeah, I guess. What the hell— you’re gonna tell a lie for me. Seems only fair that I tell a couple for you.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
She looked at me a little more, head slightly tilted. “You’re a pretty weird cop— I mean that in a nice way, okay?”
“Yeah, thanks. And you’re a pretty weird kid— I mean that in a nice way, too.”
I told Mr. and Mrs. Irvin that I’d performed a special anti-poltergeist ritual while Claudia and I had been upstairs. I admitted that I wasn’t an exorcist, but reminded them that dealing with supernatural occurrences was my job. The same ritual, I said, had been successful with poltergeists in the past.
Then I told the family that if there were any future manifestations, they should call me, and I could guarantee to put an end to it. I gave Claudia a little extra eye contact as I said that last part, and she gave me a tiny nod in response.
As we drove back to headquarters, I said, “Nice job with the vampire thought control, there, Karl. You must be learning to read my mind.”
He gave an exaggerated shudder that I caught out of the corner of my eye, just like he’d intended. “I sure hope not,” he said. “Probably be like taking a stroll through the city sewer, without hip waders.”
We’d gone another block before he said, “It was the kid, wasn’t it? The girl?”
“Both her and her brother, but she did the heavy lifting. They wanted the parents to move back to Long Island. Seems the kids don’t like Scranton too well.”
“Hard to imagine,” Karl said, showing some fang in half a smile. “So, she’s a TK, huh? Just like what’s-her-name, Hallie— up in Maine, all those years ago? The one who destroyed her whole town?”
“I don’t think Hallie was her name, but yeah— seems like the same ability. Whether it’s as powerful… no way to tell.” I shrugged. “I’m hoping for a different outcome with this one, though. No more ‘Black Proms’.”
“You and me both, Stan. You and me both.”
* * * * *
Courtesy Call
The car they were using was an inconspicuous dark blue Chevy Nova, and they drove it through the quiet streets of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania at a steady 20 miles an hour. This was slow enough for the two men to avoid the hostile glances reserved for those who speed through residential areas, but fast enough so that they wouldn’t look like predators. Suburban mothers pay attention to strangers in slow-moving cars— nobody wants her kid’s picture ending up on a milk carton.
After a brief circuit of the neighborhood, the driver stopped the car around the corner from the woman’s street and said “So, what do you think?”
The other man shrugged heavy shoulders. He took off his Wayfarer sunglasses, blew dust from the lenses, and placed them in the breast pocket of his expensive gray suit. “Looks all right,” he said finally. “Nobody sitting in a parked car, no vans with one-way glass, no service trucks around, nobody digging up the street in sight of her house.” He scratched his ear for a moment. “I think it’s clear.”
“Yeah, me too,” the driver said, and took his foot off the brake.
They parked right in front of the woman’s house. In a city, they might have stashed the car a block away and walked over— but in a neighborhood like this one, that would only attract attention. A green Lincoln Town Car sat in her driveway, a sign that she was home.
Once out of the car, the driver made a quick, inconspicuous survey of the street. He stood slightly over 6’1”, and at 172 pounds was lean verging on skinny. He looked older than his 43 years. The hair contributed to that— it had gone pewter gray in his twenties, a family trait that showed up every two or three generations. But the deep lines in his face owed nothing to genetics— they had been earned, every one of them.
The other man was s
horter, wider, and younger by twelve years. In contrast to the driver, who moved with an unselfconscious grace, the younger man lumbered. Shoulders hunched and head thrust forward, he walked as though he was butting his way through life.
They took their time on the long sidewalk that led to the house — a raised ranch covered in white siding and trimmed in dark brown wood that badly needed re-staining.
A glass storm door protected the wooden one behind it from the elements. The younger man was reaching forward to ring the bell just as the inner door opened. Through the glass of the storm door they saw a thirtyish, attractive woman wearing pants and a striped blouse, carrying a handbag. The inside door was solid wood without a window in it, so the men had been as unaware of the woman’s approach as she had apparently been of theirs. Certainly, she looked surprised to see them standing there — surprised, and, fleetingly, something more. For an instant, the driver thought, she had looked frightened.
The two men and the woman stared at each other through the glass for a second or two. Then the woman pushed the storm door open. “Yes? Can I help you?” The voice was a pleasant contralto, but the tone was chilly.
“Mrs. Latona?” the driver asked politely.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “But I’m afraid I’m not buying any insurance today, or whatever you guys are selling.” She showed them the large drawstring handbag. “I was just on my way out.”
“We’re not selling insurance, ma’am,” the driver said. He reached inside his jacket and brought out a small leather case which he flipped open to show an identification card on one side and a badge on the other. “FBI, Mrs. Latona. I’m Special Agent George Burke, and this is my partner, Special Agent Tom O’Hare. We need a few minutes of your time.” The man introduced as Agent O’Hare nodded at the woman by way of greeting, then went back to watching the street.
The woman squinted at the tall man’s ID folder. “That picture doesn’t really do you justice, you know.”
Burke smiled briefly. “The Bureau uses the same photographer who does all those passport photos,” he said. “Nobody ever looks good in them. Now, could we talk inside, do you think?”
She frowned. “Well, this isn’t a very convenient time, really. I’ve got a hair appointment, and then some shopping that I really have to get done this afternoon.” She looked from one of them to the other. “I hate to ask this, but do you think you could come back in about two hours? I can give you all the time you need, then. I promise.”
The Devil Will Come Page 23
