Case File 13

by J. Scott Savage

  Mom smacked him. “That’s gross.”

  “I’m not really sure,” Nick said, telling the truth. He had no idea when he’d come home. Or how. “Was everything okay last night?”

  Mom looked up from shoving the last pair of shoes into a duffel bag. “Okay? What do you mean?”

  Nick realized he couldn’t say what he was thinking without giving himself away. “It’s just that it was Halloween. Sometimes things…you know.”

  “Oh.” Dad’s face tightened. “You mean the voodoo queen that attacked us while we were sleeping. All Hallows’ Eve and a full moon. We never had a chance.”

  Nick’s eyes widened. His stomach felt like a ball of ice. So it had happened. How much of it was his fault?

  “She sucked our brains out through a straw.” Dad held his arms straight before him. “And made us join her legions of the living dead.” He was joking. Nick let out a sigh.

  Mom poked Dad in the back. “You are such a dweeb.” She rolled her eyes and turned to Nick. “If you mean sleeping on a lumpy mattress and listening to your father snore like a dump truck stuck in second gear, yes, everything was okay last night. Why? Was everything okay with you? I fell asleep reading and didn’t hear you come in. You didn’t go down to the basement, did you?”

  “No.” Nick’s hand went unconsciously to the amulet under his shirt. “I think I might have fallen asleep on the front porch swing.”

  “I hope you didn’t come down with anything. You look a little pale,” Mom said. “Why don’t you go downstairs and have some breakfast while I get you packed up? I made bacon and eggs, and there might be a doughnut or two left if your dad hasn’t eaten them all. But move it, because I want to leave as soon as the movers come to pack up the furniture we’re keeping.”

  “That sounds good,” he said, relieved to be getting away without any closer questioning. “I’ll just clear off my bed and put the sheets in the washer.”

  “That would be nice.” Mom smiled.

  Nick tossed his balled-up sheets in the washing machine, careful to turn them so most of the mud was on the inside, and went to the kitchen where there was an open box of doughnuts on the table. Chocolate old-fashioned—his favorite. Almost half the box was gone. Clearly his dad had gotten there first.

  Nick grabbed a doughnut and took a bite as he walked to the counter to pour himself a glass of juice. As soon as the food hit his tongue, he gagged and spit it into the sink.

  “Something wrong?” his dad asked, stepping into the kitchen.

  Nick held out his doughnut and turned it over. “I think this is spoiled or something. It tastes disgusting.”

  “Really?” Dad sniffed at the box and shook his head. “Mine were great.” He took another one out of the box and offered it to Nick. “Here, try this one.”

  “No, thanks.” Nick threw his doughnut in the trash and rinsed his mouth out with water. Just the thought of another bite of the sweet chocolate and cake made him want to gag.

  Dad tossed his doughnut into the air, caught it on one finger, and took a bite. “Guess I could force myself to eat another one.”

  Nick looked at the carton of orange juice and realized that didn’t sound good either. What was wrong with him? Cautiously, he picked up a piece of bacon and sniffed at it. He tried a bite. It wasn’t as bad as the doughnut, but it still tasted wrong. The strangest thing was that the uncooked bacon in the package on the counter actually sounded kind of good. That was disgusting. Maybe he really was coming down with something.

  Nick kept an eye out for anything unusual as they packed up the car. Except for his memories, everything was as peaceful as could be. Only he knew that behind his aunt’s house was a graveyard, and possibly something much worse.

  Soon—to Nick’s great relief—they were in the car and on their way, leaving behind whatever had or hadn’t happened the night before. Nick considered taking off his amulet, but decided he’d leave it on, just to be safe. Halfway to the airport his mom looked over the seat at him and sniffed. “I thought I told you to take a shower.”

  “I did,” he said, crossing a finger over his heart. “Promise.”

  She turned up the air conditioner. “Well, either you didn’t do a very good job or you stepped in something, because you are one stinky kid.”

  Nick shrugged.

  The flight back was mostly uneventful. At the security checkpoint, he’d started to take off the amulet before deciding it might be a good idea to leave it on just a little longer. Surprisingly, it didn’t set off the metal detector.

  Mom insisted his dad sit between her and Nick. Dad, who was suffering from allergies, didn’t mind because he couldn’t smell a thing. Just before they closed the doors, as the last passengers were storing their suitcases, Nick had the odd feeling someone was watching him. When he turned around, though, the only person he saw was a cranky flight attendant telling people to turn off their cell phones and MP3 players.

  A couple of hours later, lunch was served. Nick tried a bite of his cold turkey sandwich. The bread tasted like sawdust, but he managed to choke down a few bites of the meat after peeling it off and eating the turkey by itself.

  Mom stared over at him and frowned. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

  “I guess.” He wasn’t achy or anything, and he hadn’t been coughing, but he did feel a little off.

  She reached over and put the back of her hand against his forehead. “You don’t feel feverish,” she said with a frown. “In fact, if anything, you feel a little too cool.”

  Dad punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Nothing that sleeping in his own bed and seeing his friends again won’t fix. Get him home, and he’ll be good as new in no time.”

  Nick couldn’t agree more. He’d be happy to put as much distance between himself and Great-aunt Lenore’s house as he could. And he wouldn’t mind if he never heard about voodoo again.

  The next morning, Nick was up before his alarm went off. In fact, he wasn’t actually sure he’d slept at all. He must have dozed off without realizing it though, because he didn’t feel a bit tired. His voice was still a little croaky, but his headache was almost gone, and his appetite was back with a vengeance. He felt like he could eat a horse, and possibly a goat, a pig, and a duck on the side.

  Climbing out of bed, he stumbled a little. His right foot felt sort of tingly—like it had fallen asleep. But he was home, and today he’d be back at school with his friends. That was what mattered. Excited to hear how the zombie costumes had gone over, he hurried to the bathroom and got undressed. The amulet was still hanging from his neck. He hadn’t felt like taking it off before he went to bed. Now, as he reached for it, he felt the same reluctance to remove it.

  “Gris-gris,” he whispered. Protection. A kind of good-luck charm. Of course he couldn’t wear it forever, but for now it felt kind of good where it was. Sort of like it belonged there. Maybe he’d show it to Carter and Angelo and see their eyes widen as he explained what it was. Imagining their faces when he told them about the cemetery behind his great-aunt’s house, he turned on the shower and began washing his hair.

  Taking extra time to get all the swamp smell out of his skin and hair, he was nearly done before he realized he’d left the water on cold. He should have been freezing under the icy spray but it felt fine on his skin, so he left it that way. Maybe he was toughening up. After he dried off, he took a minute to sniff himself. He didn’t think he smelled bad, but just to be on the safe side he used extra deodorant.

  “I’m starving,” he said as he came into the kitchen.

  “Lucky for you,” Mom said from where she was standing at the stove. “In honor of our return home, I made your favorite. Pecan pancakes and scrambled eggs.”

  His stomach rumbled at the thought of his mom’s fluffy pancakes slathered with lots of butter and drowned in maple syrup. “One hot stack coming up,” Mom said, sliding his plate across the table.

  “What about me?” Dad asked as he strolled into the kitchen.

 
; “I thought that after seven doughnuts yesterday, you’d be more in the mood for something a little lighter. Like, say, a diet granola bar,” Mom said with a smile.

  Dad kissed her on the cheek and began grabbing pancakes. “That’s what I like about you, your wonderful sense of humor.”

  Nick grinned. It was good to be home. He buttered and syruped his pancakes, cut them into squares, and got ready to dig in. But as he started to put the first bite into his mouth, something felt wrong. He lifted the food to his nose and sniffed. He thought it smelled okay, but something was…strange.

  “Everything okay?” Dad asked, sitting down at the computer and browsing the internet.

  “I think so,” Nick said. He lifted the bite to his mouth, stuck out his tongue, and licked a drop of maple syrup. His stomach clenched as if he’d just swallowed a mouthful of poison.

  “What is it?” Mom asked, watching him closely. “Did I overcook the eggs?”

  “No.” Nick shook his head. The food was fine. But something was wrong with him. Why was it that his favorite foods suddenly made him feel like he was going to puke?

  He was saved from answering as the kitchen door flew open and Angelo and Carter came piling through.

  “You should have seen all the candy we got,” Carter chirped. “I ate so much I woke up in the middle of the night and threw up.”

  “Excellent,” Nick said, grinning.

  “And the costumes were the best,” Angelo added. “You should have seen Angie’s face when she saw the beating hearts. She totally knew we’d outclassed them again.”

  “What did they go as?” Nick asked.

  “Vampire cheerleaders,” Angelo said. “They were pretty realistic-looking, too.”

  “Don’t forget your field trip to the pool today,” Mom reminded Nick, holding out his swimsuit.

  “Right.” He shoved it in his backpack and the three boys headed out the door. In all the excitement of Halloween talk, Nick didn’t have a chance to tell them what had happened to him. They were almost to the school when Carter looked around nervously. “Um, you might want to try and avoid Frankenstein for the next few days.”

  “Why, what happened?” Nick asked, wondering what the bully had been up to this time. “Did he chase you guys while you were trick-or-treating?”

  “Uh, not exactly,” Angelo said. “It turns out his mom forgot to get him a costume until the last minute. The only things left in the store big enough to fit him were a snowman and Barney the Dinosaur. His mom thought a dinosaur would be scarier.”

  “He didn’t wear it, did he?” Nick asked, covering his mouth to hold back the laughter.

  “No.” Angelo shot a look at Carter, who ducked his head. “He was so embarrassed he begged Carter to come up with something. He promised if we gave him a real costume he’d leave us alone that night.”

  Nick looked from Carter to Angelo. “So? What did you do?”

  Carter bit his lip. “I suggested the crepe-paper mummy.”

  Nick snickered. “And it rained?”

  “No,” Angelo said as they entered the front of the school. “But he was waiting in the Dashners’ yard to steal candy from some little kids when old Mr. Dashner turned on his sprinklers.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Nick said, laughing so hard his jaw ached. “The crepe paper dissolved and he ran home in nothing but his boxers?”

  Carter shook his head and grinned. “He forgot to wear boxers. Mr. Dashner chased him halfway up the block yelling that he was going to have him arrested for indecent exposure.”

  Nick was still laughing at 10:30 when his teacher, Ms. Schoepf, herded them out the door to the school bus that would take them to the pool. Unfortunately, all three sixth-grade classes would be there at the same time.

  “This could be bad,” Carter said, pulling on his swimsuit and hurrying out of the locker room before Frankenstein showed up. With the bully on the warpath and all three of the classes in the pool at once, it was only a question of who he’d catch first.

  “Maybe if we stick together we can hold him off,” Angelo suggested as they waited for the lifeguard’s signal to jump in.

  “No way,” Carter said. “He’d just drown us all. If we split up, we’ll have a better chance of escaping him.”

  Nick dropped his towel by the edge of the pool and Carter’s eyes opened wide. “Wow, what is that?”

  Nick looked down, having completely forgotten he was still wearing the amulet. “Oh, uh,” he stammered, a little embarrassed. “I, uh, got it at my great-aunt’s house.”

  “It’s a necklace?” Carter asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “No!” Nick said at once. “It’s more like a good-luck charm.”

  Angelo leaned forward to study it more closely. “I think I saw something like that in a book once.” He reached toward the amulet and Nick jerked backward.

  “I wasn’t going to take it,” Angelo said.

  “I know.” Nick touched his hand to the stone. It felt warm against his fingers. Why had he pulled away like that? It was almost like the amulet made him do it. Like it didn’t want to be touched by anyone but him. Of course that was crazy.

  “Where did you say you got it?” Angelo asked with a frown.

  Before Nick could answer, the lifeguard blew his whistle. “Everybody in the water!”

  Cody Gills, aka Frankenstein, came out of the locker room at that moment wearing a leopard-print bathing suit at least two sizes too small. Nick was hoping he might not notice them. But as soon as Frankenstein came out, he scanned the pool and made a beeline for the three of them.

  “Good luck!” Carter yelled, diving into the pool and stroking for the other side.

  “You want me to cover your back?” Angelo asked.

  Nick shook his head. “Carter’s right. Our best chance is to split up and confuse him.”

  The two of them dived into the water in opposite directions. Keeping underwater to remain hidden, Nick held his breath and stroked as hard as he could. He dodged between boys and girls, changing directions randomly to throw off any pursuit that might be headed his way. Not until he’d covered nearly three quarters of the pool did he dare to surface and look around.

  As soon as he raised his head above water, he checked for his friends. Carter was at the other end of the pool hiding behind a teacher and an especially tall girl. It took Nick a couple of seconds to spot Angelo near the high dive. When he did, his friend was waving wildly in his direction and shouting something. Nick spun around, but it was too late. Cody was right on top of him.

  “Nice necklace, wimp.” The bully grabbed Nick’s neck and before he could take a breath yanked his head under the water.

  Nick tried to force Frankenstein’s hands off of him, but the bigger boy’s muscles were like steel. He knew the bully wanted to see him swallow water, then he’d let him up, coughing and choking, while his jerk friends laughed.

  Nick closed his eyes and clamped his jaws shut. He wouldn’t give Frankenstein the satisfaction of seeing him half drowned. Instead, he concentrated on holding his breath as long as he could. It wasn’t nearly as hard as he thought it would be. He hadn’t had a chance to fill his lungs before he was shoved underwater. His chest should be burning by now. And yet he felt no pain or discomfort. In fact, he felt really good. The water was comfortable against his skin, the outside noises muted. He floated weightless in the water.

  He didn’t realize Frankenstein was no longer holding him under until a strong pair of hands grabbed him and lifted him up. Nick opened his eyes and looked around. All of the kids in the pool and all of the teachers were staring at him in silence.

  “Are you okay?” asked the lifeguard, clearly unnerved.

  “Yeah, why?” Nick asked. Why was everyone staring at him?

  The lifeguard shook his head as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. “I’ve never seen anyone hold their breath that long.”

  “Come on, tell us how you did it,” Carter begged, slinging his backpack toward Angelo’s bunk bed an
d missing by a good two feet.

  “There’s nothing to tell,” Nick said to his two friends as they hung out in Angelo’s bedroom after school. “I just held my breath.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Carter waved his hands as he paced around. “For ten minutes? That’s got to be some kind of world record or something.”

  Angelo went to his bookshelf, pulled out a thick paperback, and flipped quickly through its pages. “Not even close. It says here some guy broke nineteen minutes.”

  “Still,” Carter said, plopping onto the bottom bunk and fiddling with a video game controller. “Ten minutes! I start to get lightheaded after holding my breath for thirty seconds while I rinse the shampoo out of my hair. What did you do, hide one of those oxygen canisters in your mouth? Tell us how you did it. I promise we won’t reveal your secret.”

  Nick shrugged. He had no idea how he’d done it. The lifeguard said he should consider joining the swim team. But the truth was, up until today he couldn’t remember holding his breath for more than a minute or so. “I swear I don’t have a clue. I’ve felt kind of weird ever since I went into that crypt.”

  “Crypt?” Angelo slammed his book closed, his eyes two big brown circles behind his glasses.

  “Crypt?” Carter sprang off the bed, thunked his head against the top bunk, and collapsed at Nick’s feet. “You went into a real crypt—with, like, dead people and stuff in it? And you didn’t tell us?”

  Nick leaned against the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the floor, knees against his chest. “Sorry, I meant to bring it up this morning. Then I forgot with all the Halloween stuff. And after the pool, all anyone could talk about was how I held my breath.”

  “Sounds like your Halloween wasn’t quite as boring as you expected.” Angelo nodded thoughtfully. “Is that where you got the amulet?”

  “Yeah.” Nick lifted the chain from under his shirt. The red gem was warm against his fingers. “It all started with this cat.” For the next twenty minutes he told his friends everything that happened on his trip. Starting with his great-aunt’s creepy house, and ending with his strange loss of appetite.