The Pandora Effect

by Olivia Darnell

  Mrs. Morris stared at Billy in disgust.

  “Mr. Johnson!” She said irritably. “Would you please just leave now! This is all your fault!”

  Billy looked at her as if she were an idiot.

  He pulled out his bottle of whiskey and took a small swallow.

  “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” He grinned at her. “I guess I’ll just be goin’ then.”

  Mrs. Morris picked up her shoes from the floor and sat down to put them on.

  “You’d best leave him alone,” Billy told her from the front door.

  “I’m his mother and I’m going with him! Now good day to you, sir!” She quipped.

  Billy opened the front door and was shocked to see Louis Parks standing on the front porch about to knock on the door. Mike Padgett and Tyler McDaniels stood behind him.

  Mrs. Morris looked up in confusion when she heard Louis’ voice.

  “Hello, Billy!” Louis said pleasantly. “What a surprise to see you here.”

  Billy stepped back and Louis entered the house without being asked.

  “Mrs. Morris.” He nodded at the woman who stood up to face him. Her face wore the look of the terminally guilty as she stared at him and the two men behind him. “How are you doin’ this fine afternoon?”

  “Sgt. Parks,” she said in a very high voice. “What can we do for you?”

  “We were in the neighborhood and thought we’d stop by to talk to Junior,” he told her and looked about. “He is here, isn’t he?”

  “He’s upstairs,” she told him curtly. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “I didn’t say he had.” Louis looked at her curiously and then glanced at Billy.

  “I’m glad you’re here!” She said suddenly and pointed her finger at Billy accusingly. “Maybe you can stop him from doing something he’ll regret. It’s all Mr. Johnson’s fault!”

  “What is?” Louis raised both eyebrows and looked at Billy.

  “I ain’t done nothin’, Louis,” Billy shrugged. “I don’t know what she’s talkin’ about.”

  “What are you talkin’ about Mrs. Morris?” Louis asked as he advanced into the living room. He looked around for the stains that Tyler had told him would be there. Mrs. Morris had tried to clean up, but the snow white carpet was beyond her capabilities. Several dark blotches remained from Billy’s muddy feet and here and there were the rusty red remains of Sam’s blood.

  “Billy’s the one that did it!” She blurted very near tears. “Sam has been right here with me.”

  Louis looked at Tyler and Mike. They shrugged and shook their heads.

  Louis frowned at Billy. “Did what?”

  “Louis, you ain’t on duty, remember?” Mike said nervously not wanting another quarrel with the drunken Billy who looked like he was about to explode.

  “He’s the one that beat up Mr. Aliger!” Mrs. Morris jabbed her finger at Billy. “Now Sammy’s going over there and there’s going to be trouble.”

  “Goin’ where, Mrs. Morris?” Tyler tried to intervene. “To the Aligers?”

  “No, to that woman’s house... Maureen!” She burst into tears and fell sitting on a leather ottoman.

  “When did you beat up Mr. Aliger?” Louis turned a frown on Billy. Things were moving too fast for him. “You mean at the dance? Last night?”

  “No, no!” Mrs. Morris wailed. “Just today. This afternoon. At the dam! Aren’t you going to arrest him?”

  “I don’t understand,” Louis frowned deeply. He hadn’t come here to arrest anyone. He’d just wanted to talk to Sam. Hear the story from the horse’s mouth. Try to get all the facts straight and figure out what might be going on.

  “Hush up, Mother!” Sam said as he came bounding down the stairs dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans. “It’s none of their business where I’m going.”

  She looked up at her son and cried even louder. “But Sammy!” She said as he passed by her on his way to the closet. “I can’t let you go over there and get hurt!”

  “I’m not going to get hurt,” he told her as he rummaged in the closet for his pistol. “Do you fellows have a warrant or some other business with me?” he asked his surprised visitors.

  “What are you doing with the gun, Sam?” Louis asked him. He couldn’t believe this was happening.

  “I’m tired of this bullshit!” Sam said as he turned around and clipped the holster on his belt. “Now do you have business with me or not?”

  “Hold on just a minute!” Louis held up his hands. “I can’t just let you go over to Maureen’s house like that.”

  “I have a license to carry this firearm,” Sam told him. “Would you like to see it, Sgt. Parks?”

  Louis looked at Tyler and Tyler looked at Mike who was still watching Billy warily. Billy had relaxed a bit as Sam had caught their attention for the moment taking some of the heat off of him.

  “Let him go,” Tyler whispered to him. “This ain’t a good thing.”

  “I’m going for a ride,” Sam lied to them blatantly. He knew there was nothing they could do to stop him at the moment. Not without a warrant. He hadn't done anything... yet.

  “Listen to reason, Sam,” Louis pleaded with him. “You don’t want to do something stupid.” There was no crime in progress and Sam knew his rights.

  “Going for a ride is stupid? Since when?” Sam walked toward the door.

  “Stop him!” Mrs. Morris cried to them. Billy took advantage of this new development to make his exit. There was nothing they could do legally and very little they could or should do physically to stop either one of them. No one had filed any charges.

  “Wait, Mr. Morris!” Tyler said and stepped in front of him. “We just come to ask your opinion on something. We didn’t come to cause trouble.”

  “What opinion do you want from me?” Sam asked and stopped to look at him condescendingly. He glanced at the clock on the wall above the bar. It was almost five thirty.

  Julia Parks sniffed and pulled another tissue from the desk in Joanne Parker’s office.

  “I just know something terrible has happened,” she said. “I thought maybe they had come here or maybe you might know where they could have gone. I had to take something over to Mrs. Aliger’s house. It was real important that I get it to Mr. Aliger before...” She broke into tears. “He wasn’t there and then when I got home they were gone, too.”

  “I haven’t seen them since yesterday.” Joanne frowned and bit her bottom lip. What in the world were Tyler and Mike up to taking Louis out after he’d just had a heart attack? “I’m sorry, Julia. I don’t have any idea what they would be doin’.”

  Julia cried and Joanne sat unable to think what to do.

  “Let me call my house.” She picked up the phone. “Chris and Bobby are supposed to be grillin’ steaks for supper. Maybe they went there.”

  She called her house and Chris answered.

  “Chris. Joanne,” she said and sighed. “Have you seen Mike or Tyler?”

  A pause.

  “No, no. Look. Here’s what’s up.” Joanne began to tell him what was going on.

  “Mrs. Aliger?” Maureen asked hesitantly when Angelica answered the phone.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Maureen Fitzgerald. Your insurance agent?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have a problem. Perry, I mean, Mr. Aliger is at my house and he’s been injured. I can’t wake him up and I’m getting worried. Is his brother there? Maybe he could come and get him. I have a very bad feeling about this.”

  “Where do you live?” Angelica’s tone changed slightly. “I will come and get him.”

  Maureen gave her the address and went back to bend over Perry’s sleeping form on her sofa.

  “Perry?” She tried again. It was almost five thirty and she had been getting more and more nervous over the past twenty minutes. She had a good sixth sense about things and all her alarms were going off. He would not respond to her at all. He was lying with his back to her. She could see bruise
s on his neck and the side of his face. The white pillow case under his cheek was spotted with dark blood.

  She went to the window by the front door and waited for Angelica nervously twisting the beaded necklace she wore.

  Sam seemed to relax a bit when Billy made his exit.

  “What do you want to talk about?” He asked them again, closing the front door. He realized that he would not get away from them so easily and he didn’t want them following him to Maureen’s house.

  He went back to sit casually on the sofa and waved to them to sit down as well. They sat down nervously on the matching sofa when Mrs. Morris moved to one of the arm chairs greatly relieved, but still sniffling

  “Sam,” Louis began slowly. “We’ve all had some sort of... experience with Perry Aliger. He’s... well... he’s different from us, you know what I mean?”

  “Uh, huh,” Sam nodded in apparent boredom still wearing the condescension.

  “We all have questions that need to be answered,” Louis continued. “The thing is that Perry Aliger hasn’t done anything wrong that we know of. Now, look, I’m stickin’ my neck out here by tellin’ you this, but I ran his plates on his car and they came back clean as a whistle. He came out smellin’ like a rose, a rich rose, but a rose none-the-less. There ain’t no law against bein’ rich. And there ain’t no law about stealin’ somebody’s girl.” Louis thought back with a grimace to what Perry had said about it.

  “No? You’re kidding.” Sam said sarcastically. “And as far as Mr. Aliger goes, I suppose it all depends on your point of view whether he smells like a rose. He did steal my girl. And a thief is a thief. He did cause Billy to fall in the creek and then gave him a heart attack and I heard he gave you one too. And that sounds like attempted murder to me. And he left the scene of an accident which I believe is an actual crime you could have arrested him for and I don’t think he was charged, but we won’t go there. His brother started a riot at the auction and then they blew up the light post and now one of them is over at Maureen’s house again answering her phone. How am I supposed to know he hasn’t done something to her? I suppose that it depends on your point of view, like I said.”

  “He had mitigatin’ circumstances for leaving the scene,” Louis told him defensively. “He did save Billy’s life, you know. He jumped off that bridge and risked his own life to save him. If he’s so bad, how do you explain that? Do you really believe he caused Billy’s heart attack?”

  “If he didn’t, his brother did,” Sam told them matter-of-factly and stood up again. “Now I thought you wanted my opinion. You got it. He’s a philandering, wise-ass with more money than he knows what to do with and he’s got no business at my fiancée's house. I intend to take back what is mine.”

  “Are you talking about Maureen?” Louis asked him.

  “I see no need to discuss my private affairs with you, Sgt. Parks,” Sam said dismissively and stood up.

  “No, wait!” Mike looked up at him. “Listen to me, Mr. Morris. We can’t just go bustin’ in on these people. They ain’t like us! We don’t know what they’ll do! They might just steal our souls or our eyes or our kidneys or something worse!” He glanced at Tyler.

  Louis groaned and Tyler reached to take hold of Mike’s arm.

  Sam stood frozen by his chair with his mouth hanging open staring at Mike. He frowned slightly and then burst out laughing.

  “It ain’t funny!” Tyler came to Mike’s defense. He stood up to glare at Sam and wondered what on Earth he was doing. “It might sound crazy, but let’s look at the facts.”

  “What facts?” Mildred Morris asked in alarm. “What are you trying to say Tyler McDaniels?”

  “Sam,” Louis intervened. “Please sit down. Mike has some ideas. Just hear him out. We all have some ideas. Let’s don’t run off half-cocked. Mind if I use your phone?”

  “Mother, will you hand the sergeant the phone?” Sam sat back down with a look of amusement on his face. He was glad to learn that he was not the only one who was crazy in Magnolia Springs. “I got to hear this. Now tell me, Mr. Padgett, just what is your theory.” Sam glanced at the clock. He was supposed to be at Maureen’s at seven thirty. He still had time to get there and shoot Aliger.

  “Well,” Mike cleared his throat. “I was just tellin’ my buddies here about how I keep up with what’s goin’ on in the supernatural world, you see? I’m the seventh son of a seventh son. Now, that might not mean much to you, but let me tell you, Mr. Morris, it ain’t no fun. But you don’t have to have any special sight to see what’s goin’ on here. I was just tellin’ Tyler, here, about a book I read not long ago about a bunch of campers up in Montana. I can’t remember the name of it, but anyhow...”

  Ten minutes had passed since she had called Mrs. Aliger. Perry had hardly moved. She was looking out the window when the yellow Volkswagen Beetle pulled into her driveway. Maureen opened the door and Angelica came straight into the house.

  “Where is he?” She asked without preamble.

  Maureen showed her to the sofa.

  “Peregrin?” Angelica bent over him and touched his shoulder lightly. He stirred immediately and rolled on his back. She drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the bruises and blood. “Peregrin. You must wake up. We have to leave here immediately.”

  “I know this looks bad, Mrs. Aliger,” Maureen told her as she stood wringing her hands. “I just want you to know...”

  “Did you do this to him?” Angelica looked up at her as she helped Perry sit up.

  “Of course not!” Maureen almost shouted at her then calmed down. “Someone caught him in the restroom and attacked him. He didn’t tell me who it was. He was... ill.”

  “I see.” Angelica bent to look into his eyes. He stared back at her, but he didn’t seem to be awake. “Where is his car?”

  “It broke down over by Wal-Mart,” Maureen frowned. “I offered him a ride home.”

  “I see,” Angelica said again and pulled him up and he stood swaying slightly in front of her. “Come on, Peregrin. Help me, Miss Fitzgerald.”

  Maureen took one of his arms to help her direct him to the door. He moved like a sleepwalker.

  “Angelica?” Perry asked distantly.

  “We have to go,” Angelica told him.

  “Maureen?” Perry tried to focus on Maureen’s face. “Remember what I asked you. Give it some thought.”

  “I will,” she said in a small voice and glanced at Angelica who seemed not to care.

  Maureen helped them out to the car and then helped to stuff his legs in passenger side.

  She breathed a deep sigh of relief when they were gone.

  Louis tried the phone again, but still no answer at his home. Julia was going to kill him for sure.

  Sam had become caught up in Mike’s story in spite of himself. Mike summed up the book, tying in all the things that had happened since the Aligers had moved to Magnolia Springs. He gave a pretty convincing account and he told a hellacious story. Sam shook his head from time to time, but he couldn’t deny the twisted logic of it. He’d heard some strange things, but this topped them all. Yet, somehow... a concerned frown creased his forehead.

  “And well, you see, Mr. Morris,” Mike concluded. “Not that I would want to bite the hand that feeds me so to speak, but Mr. Aliger and his brother are almost perfect examples of your classic alien imposter types. I mean, think about it, Mr. Morris, can you explain it any other way? And you know what they say, if you can think of it, then it’s possible.”

  “I’d like to remind you... all of you,” Louis spoke up when Mike finished “that Mike’s theory is just that... a theory. I admit that a few days ago I would have laughed my ass off at him, but now... I don’t know.”

  “Well, that was a damned good story, Mr. Padgett,” Sam told him. “But if what Billy told me is true, then he’s probably just as human as the rest of us. He said he was drunk on his ass, puking his guts up and when he hit him, he bled just like the rest of us. Don’t sound like any aliens I know,” Sam laug
hed nervously and his mother made a noise of disgust.

  “So what now?” Tyler asked.

  “I’m going over to Maureen’s.” Sam stood up again. “I have a date with her.”

  “Don’t go, Sammy!” His mother protested. “I don’t like this one bit.”

  “Mother, please.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I’m going and that’s final.”

  “Why don’t you let me go over there with you?” Louis asked. “No, better yet, let me go over and check things out first. You know, just see if she’s all right and then you can talk to her or have your date or whatever.”

  “Julia’s going to kill us all,” Tyler shook his head sadly. “Not to mention Paula Anne.” He thought again about the baby and everything he’d been thinking and how he’d left the house early this morning and hadn’t been home since. She was probably hopping mad by now.

  “Let’s all go over there,” Mike suggested. “That way we can watch each other’s backs.”

  Sam sighed and shook his head. Mrs. Morris grabbed her purse and followed them. She wasn’t about to let her boy go off and get himself killed over that Fitzgerald woman!

  From the look of Maureen’s house, yard and street, it appeared a block party was going on. Mrs. Morris’ Lincoln sat behind Tyler’s truck at the curb. Sam’s Lincoln sat in her driveway. Joanne Parker’s truck sat nose to nose with Tyler’s truck. Chris Parker’s custom crew cab was behind her. Julia and Joanne had run into Chris on the way to Mike’s house and had turned around to come back to town when they had seen Tyler go by with Mike and Louis. They had all ended up at Maureen’s house together like a lynch mob. Now they were standing in Maureen’s drive arguing about who should go up to ring the bell. There was Julia, Joanne, Chris, Sam, Louis, Tyler, Mike, Cheryl and Mrs. Morris all talking at the same time. Louis was beside himself. Julia was happy and mad at the same time and beside herself as well. Everyone else was babbling and exchanging stories like it was a family reunion or something. Finally, Louis and Sam approached the door together. Louis had been unable to convince Sam to leave the gun in the car.