by Tim Wellman
"You've got one hell of an imagination," Evelyn said. "I'll give you that. You should write horror novels." She stepped back over the corpse and headed toward the stairs.
"You know something is wrong, right?" he said.
She stopped but didn't turn around. "I..."
"This whole fucking town is screwed up," he said. "And there's nothing either of us can do to fix it. I tried once, but it cost me my little boy, too." He caught up with her and turned her around. "I was new here, once, too," he said. "I believed I could change things, fix things. But I couldn't. Neither can you. My boy died when the other boys died. Got strangled on candy."
She turned back around and started walking again, but stopped. "Why are you telling me these things now? Why do you hate my girls so much when you know they had nothing to do with the accident?"
"You don't get it, do you?" he said. "It's not just your girls, it's everyone. They seem okay, nice enough, right? I'll tell you something. Charlie was the most normal of the bunch."
"You're telling me everyone in this town is somehow evil?" She turned to face him. "How can an educated man believe that?"
He smiled. "Because they are," he said. "Not on purpose, maybe, not even maliciously evil, but evil still the same."
"My girls, they'll be blamed for this."
"No," he said. "No one is brave enough to blame them. I think they have the power to control everyone else, or at least threaten them someway. Except maybe your past protects you some way, makes you more resistant than everyone else."
She shook her head and snickered. "You tell a good story, Steve," she said. "But I stopped reading horror stories when I auctioned off my black dresses online. Charlie killed himself. The girls might have scratched that in the floor, but probably months ago. Or maybe he did it to set my girls up."
He smiled and shrugged. "Believe what you want."
"I always have."
****
She could see the girls standing outside the building as she walked across the lawn. The day was not starting off on a good note: overslept, drizzling rain, and now it looked like another new problem to face with the girls.
"Miss Crone," one yelled. "They won't let us in."
"What?!" She walked past them and up to the entrance. The doors were locked. "Is anyone inside?"
"Yep," Susan said. "Everyone else is in there."
"We're wet," Betsy said. She tried to smile but seemed embarrassed that she was one of the girls singled out for humiliation. "What did we do?"
"Nothing," Evelyn said. She jiggled the door handle, and then pounded on the door. With no response, she kicked the door several times. She could see the Principal come out of his office, glance toward the door, but then quickly walk into Steve's classroom across the hall. "What the hell is going on!" She kicked the door again. "Open this god damned door!" She saw the Principal peep around the door facing and she pointed at him. "Now!"
He seemed to resign himself to facing her, and slowly walked to the door and unlatched the lock. But he didn't open the door, he simply cracked it open slightly. "Sorry, you and your girls are forbidden on school property until the investigation is over."
"What?" she said. "What are you talking about?!"
He winked at her several times. "They're saying Charlie's death was murder," he said. "And they think your girls had something to do with it. Maybe even you told them what to do since you're a witch."
She was shocked and took several steps back. She hadn't imagined, even in her wildest dreams, that the possibility of her being suspected of any crime would be possible. "This is crazy," she said.
"Mister Cross was interviewed last night by the state police."
"That bastard!" she yelled. "He told them all his idiotic theories, didn't he?!"
"Steve was arrested," the Principal said.
"What?"
"He confessed, apparently," he said. "He told them the girls had forced him to kill Charlie."
"Oh my god," Evelyn said. "I..." She couldn't think of another word to help construct the next sentence. "He's a psycho!" She turned and walked down the steps. "Girls, come on, we're going to my house."
They followed her a few feet then all caught up and walked with her across the field and to the old dormitory building. "Everyone is staying here until your parents can pick you up," she said. "So, come on, we've got a few steps to climb." She tried to smile but her anger was still very apparent.
"Mister Cross wasn't arrested," Susan said.
"What?!" Evelyn squatted down and put her hands on the girl's shoulders. "What do you mean?"
"He is inside the school," she said. "We all saw him go in the back way."
She looked around at all the other girls as they spilled into her living room. "Girls, is that true?"
They all nodded. "He didn't see us 'cause we was hiding behind the corner," Tiffany said.
"Why were you hiding, sweetie?" She motioned them all to sit down on the floor, and then she sat down with them.
"We heard someone talking about Mister Allen dying and thought they could let us in the back way, but then they started talking about us, so we hid," Betsy said. "Mister Cross is not a good person."
She pulled a piece of paper from her coffee table and then took out her cell phone from her skirt pocket and dialed a number. She held her finger to her lips, motioning the girls to stay quiet. "Oh, yes, Sheriff Combs, this is Evelyn Crone, the new teacher at Ceres Elementary." She listened for a moment. "I'm okay, thanks. Listen, there is a rumor that Steve Cross was arrested." She frowned. "Really? No, just a rumor I heard. About Charlie Allen's death... oh, okay. What? No. Well, nothing I can figure out yet. Thank you. Good bye." She put the phone down.
"Well?" Susan said.
"He laughed at me when I asked if Cross had been arrested," she said. "'Hell no, why would I do that? I just had dinner with him and his little daughter last night'." She stood up and paced back and forth, looked out the window at the school, then paced some more. "Allen's death was ruled a suicide," she said. "They found a knife behind his body with his fingerprints on it." She shrugged. "The sheriff seems like a nice enough guy."
"He's my daddy," Karen said.
"What?" Evelyn said. "Your father?"
She nodded.
"Well, that helps, right?" she said. "We know he's on our side." She looked back out the window. "But those bastards over there..." She stepped back. "Oh my god!" she yelled. "The school's on fire!" She quickly punched in 911 on her phone. "Yes, there's more smoke, now. But no one is coming out!" She hung up and called the sheriff back. "Sheriff! The school's on fire! No, no, she's here with me! They wouldn't let us in the building this morning, so all of my girls are at my house! Yes, please hurry!" She opened her door and ran down the steps, then across the field. "Fire! The school is on fire!" She continued to yell but no one came to the door, no one came out. There was no alarm ringing, but there were obvious flames shooting out of the second floor windows now.
The girls had caught up with her as she stood back from the building, the whole structure too hot now to safely approach. There was the sound of a distant siren, getting closer, and as the fire truck pulled in front of the school, the roof collapsed. A million cinders flew into the air, and the hole allowed a plume of dark smoke to escape, filling the air and rising quickly.
"Holy shit!" one fireman said as he got out of the truck. "My sweet lord!" He grabbed the radio microphone from his shoulder. "This is bad!" he said, practically in tears. "Ya gotta call everyone, all the stations around here, they gotta help us. Please, god, they gotta help us!"
The sheriff's car pulled in and as he got out of the car, Karen ran to him and he lifted her up in his arms then sat her down and pulled her close to his side. Another car stopped, and then more cars pulled in. Nosy onlookers, parents, most of them were screaming and crying, begging anyone they could grab to do something.
The pumper truck was spraying water on the doors, cooling the area down and another fireman ran up an
d kicked them several times, until finally the lock surrendered and they opened. The men with the hose directed the water inside the building, apparently trying to make a path for anyone alive inside to escape. But there were no children coming out, nothing, until a lone figure, back-lighted by flames, appeared, and then walked slowly through the doorway. It was Steve Cross holding a young girl. And as everyone watched the surreal scene, wondering what would happen next, he put a large handgun to her head and pulled the trigger.
As quickly as it happened, he swung his arm around and pointed the gun directly at Evelyn, but before he could pull the trigger again, the sheriff had fired five rounds, all landing in the middle of his chest. He stood for a moment and seemed to smile, and then dropped to his knees, toppled forward, and covered the dead child at his feet. His legs were twitching and something inside Evelyn hoped he was still alive enough to feel the pain.
As another fire truck pulled in, the building shook and the sides began to wobble. Karen pulled away from her father's hand and joined the other girls, and then suddenly, they all ran inside.
"Girls!" Evelyn shouted. "Don't!" She ran after them and before she even realized what was happening, she was standing in the hallway watching the girls. They ran down the hall, flames and falling pieces of wood all around them. Two girls stopped at each classroom door, and as the last girls stopped at the final doorway, they all held out their hands and with an enormous blast of what appeared to be wind, the doors were blown open. Just as quickly, children began running out. Evelyn's girls stood in the hall, pointing the other girls in the right direction as they began running past Evelyn and out of the building. She could hear cheers coming from outside, and then watched as the last of the classrooms emptied, the teachers the last to dart out and toward her. The sheriff had caught up with her and was yelling for her and her girls to get out of the building, but instead, all of them, including his daughter, formed a ring in the hallway, all holding hands. They seemed to be preparing to die.
"Girls!" Evelyn shouted. They didn't seem to hear her. "Girls! Right this instant, get over here!"
Her words seemed to break the trance, and they all jerked, as if waking from a bad dream, looked around, and then ran toward her.
"Is everyone out?!" a familiar voice said. She turned to see the Principal standing but badly injured. He was holding his arm and was covered in blood. "The damned psycho shot me!" He wobbled a bit and the sheriff helped him stand as they all left the building.
"Are you okay, Mac" he said. His daughter was wrapped around his waist as he stroked her hair. "It's okay, baby, it's all over now."
"Fine, fine," Mac said. "The damned bastard shot me. Forced me to lock all the doors and then shot me!" He looked around and moaned loudly. "Oh, it's a hell of a way to start a new school year!"
"Girls, is everyone okay?" Evelyn said. She dropped down to her knees and all the girls gathered around her.
"He stopped us before," Susan said. "He told us he would kill everyone we loved if we told people what really happened. We could have saved the boys, but he stopped us. He said we were demons. That our powers were evil, but he had them too; he taught us when we were in his class," Betsy said.
"He did bad things to the boys in the class; he was afraid they would tell on him since he wasn't going to be their teacher anymore," Becky said. "He had to kill them."
"He caused my daddy to drive into the oven. And he was trying to kill us just now until your voice woke us up," Susan said. She looked at Evelyn and smiled. "You get thirty percent off."
"I reckon that means he was somehow controllin' ole' Charlie, too," the sheriff said. He looked at Evelyn. "But, seems your powers are just a bit stronger than his were," he said.
Behind them, with the help of three other fire trucks, the blaze was dying down. The school, nothing more than a frame, now, was gone. Steve Cross lay dead with his little girl, killed for no known reason other than he wanted her dead, or perhaps just as a final act to further frighten everyone who witnessed the murder. Or, just perhaps, it was his payment to the devil for the evil, but fleeting powers he had been granted. But in the arms of their families and friends, smiling and crying, were all of the students the girls had saved. Would things change? Evelyn didn't know. Ideas and opinions change very slowly in small Appalachian towns. Sometimes they don't change at all. But for one day that started badly and got decidedly worse, the people of Ceres, population 2613, assuming things were well at the retirement home, had fifteen young heroes to thank.
Her Own Devices
As houses go, hers was... horrible. It was an old pile of logs and poorly hewn timber with a hard clay floor and no toilet, or running water at all, that had probably been slapped together as a coal-miner's shack on the wrong side of a hill a hundred years ago. There were two larger rooms and a smaller third one that sat off the bedroom and was used as a closet and storage area. The biggest room held a couple of wooden chairs and a large table, and in the corner, a wood-burning cook stove also used for heat. She had a few pots and pans and a couple of other things handy for a kitchen, but they were mostly things found in garbage cans and dumpsters on her monthly scavenger hunts into the nearby small town. There were a few windows and the fact that they had glass in them was a point of pride, even though they were too high off the ground for her to look out unless she stood on a chair.
She poured the batter, just flour and water, into a hot skillet and quickly flipped it over. Breakfast was ready. As she carried the plate to the big table she dipped an old stoneware cup into a water bucket, breaking a thin skim of ice, and sat down to enjoy her meal. Morning was the worst time of day for her. Waking up always held the promise that perhaps, maybe, she had just been dreaming. But, the rude shock of consciousness always hit her like a hammer. Once upon a time she awoke to loving smiles, a warm, comfortable room, the laughter of her sisters and parents. She stopped thinking about it; she fell into that trap every morning, remembering a life that might as well have been someone else's now. And she was freezing.
Wrapping the old dirty blanket tighter around her, she quickly finished her fried bread. "Oh hey, I've got stuff to do today," she said. "I'm gonna make a broom and sweep the whole house!" The thing she was talking to, an old teddy bear sitting on the stone fireplace mantle, didn't answer. She didn't expect it. "I think the old woman is coming today, too. S'possed to bring more flour and she said maybe some sugar this time," she said. "Yummy, huh? Fried cakes!"
She climbed down from the chair and took the dirty dish to the old rusty sink and took a cup of water and poured it over the plate. Life was hard for Jenny Stevenson. It would be hard for any six year old girl living alone in the woods of southern West Virginia when the entire world had forgotten you existed. Well, except for an old homeless woman named Stella, as poor as Jenny but able to get to town more often, who usually shared her treasures. The only other living person she ever talked to was the man who brought the bodies. He had just appeared one evening and chased her around the hollow for hours with a knife before he fell into a mine vent shaft. She had dropped several large rocks onto his head until he finally agreed not to kill her if she let him live. They became friends after she helped him get out of the hole and he made it a habit of showing up once or twice a month. She liked him; he was an artist, a sculptor, an intellectual, though she really didn't understand most of his works. Then again, he only brought the failed pieces to be dumped into the old mine shaft behind the shack so it was unfair to judge all of his art by what she had seen. But he brought her candy and had always kept his word and been a perfect gentleman around her.
He had taught her some of the basics of his craft, and even brought a couple of models for her to practice on, but she could never get used to the tools; even on bodies that were already beaten into total submission, art was difficult. They always squirmed or jerked or something at critical moments and messed her up. But he was patient and told her she'd get better at it; it would just take practice. But she wasn't sure she wanted
to make it a hobby. There was always a mess to clean up and the living canvases didn't seem to enjoy it at all. But, still, he seemed to enjoy watching her play and he brought her candy.
"I wonder what day it is," she said. "It feels like Wednesday." She walked into the bedroom and then into the small storage room and dropped her blanket and quickly pulled on a long sweater, meant for an adult, but the bigger size felt good on the cold morning as the sleeves covered her hands and the hem draped all the way down to her ankles. "We'll just say it's Wednesday." She shook her fingers through her short auburn hair and took a look in the piece of mirror nailed to the wall. She tried not to question her fate in life, but at times, looking in a mirror, she wondered if there would ever be more to it. But then she heard someone knock on the door, smiled, and took off running to open it. "Sugar!"
Among The Things Forgotten
Among the things he missed most was the menagerie of small glass animals his mother kept on the mantle. They had sat there for twenty years, longer most likely, but he could clearly remember twenty years, frozen in a colorful zoo, dusted daily, polished once a week, more often if his mother was upset or worried. There were other things too, the taste of a home-cooked dinner, his father's laugh. But there was no place for those memories, now, no place for him in that world. He enjoyed what comfort came his way, survived the pain, and struggled forward in a world that didn't know he existed. When he finally breathed his last, no one would mourn, no one would remember. No one would read his name in the paper and drop their head in a silent prayer or remember him as an old friend who just slipped away. All those ties were cut so long ago he was certain the lives he and his childhood friends had together only existed in his memory, now, too unimportant for anyone else to hold onto for a lifetime. And he didn't expect it, really; why should those old chums remember, or even his mother after thirty years away.
He had just turned fifty-four as well as he could figure. A year or two might have gotten away from him, but the count was close enough. It only mattered to him. He knew it was on August twelfth and from what he could gather from the weather, it must have been August. He had found an older watch, gold plated but worn; it showed the time and the date, but the last time the police had run him away from a temporary camp, they took it from him. It was the only thing of value he had, so they took it and beat the shit out of him and made it clear he needed to find a new town to call home. But the last time he saw the watch, it was July. That was up north a bit, near the Pennsylvania border. He never cared for those people up there, anyway. Western West Virginia was his home, though he made it a point not to get too close to the far western tip. He never wanted to be within walking distance of his old family home because he knew he would go there, and he knew it would kill him to see the place and not be able to run through the front door like he had done as a kid and see his mother standing, as she always did, in the kitchen, habitually wiping her hands on her apron and smiling, though she seldom had anything to smile about after his father died.
