by Abe Moss
“You wanted to talk about what’s going on?” he finally said.
She nodded, though she still couldn’t find the words. “I did…”
“Well… start at the beginning.”
“I know that,” she said curtly, still pacing. “Sorry. I just… I don’t know how to tell you without…”
“I promise I won’t think you’re crazy,” he said. He smiled, and she knew by that alone he wasn’t prepared. To be fair, though, nothing could prepare him for this…
“You say that now…”
“I promise. You can say anything you want without judgement.”
“You say that now…”
“Maria,” he said, and she stopped pacing. He offered his hand, which she observed like it was something not to be touched. He withdrew his hand and rubbed the back of his neck with it instead. “Sorry. I just want to make sure you know… that I know…”
“It’s about my brother,” she blurted. She sat heavily down beside him. By taking away her ability to endlessly move about the living room, she thought maybe she could focus. “I told you he died a year ago…”
“He was eight, you said, right?”
“Right…” Her thoughts were scattered. Just as she formed an idea of how to tell her story, the idea fragmented, fell apart, or was interrupted by a new one. She shook her head. “I’m telling you… you’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“If you knew some of the people in my family—I already told you about my mom, didn’t I?—then you’d know you can tell me anything.”
Anything. That sounded nice, Maria thought. If only…
Either he’d believe her or he wouldn’t. If he didn’t, he’d leave. She’d be back where she started. Big whoop, she thought. She had no control over that. She cleared her throat.
“A year ago, my family visited my grandma in Wellwyn, Nevada…”
As she started to tell him, and the words became sentences, and those sentences connected one after the other and the story developed, it began to pour from her as though from a broken floodgate. Halfway through it she felt the stillness beside her, Jessup’s quiet demeanor. Even afraid as she was to look him in the eyes, to see the disbelief and horror there, she allowed the words to keep coming, flowing, telling her story just the way she wished she could tell her parents, the way she wished she could have told anyone without fear of ridicule, without fear of judgement, without fear of abandonment. And perhaps it was the fact she barely knew Jessup that made it that much easier.
“I was found on the side of the road almost bled to death. That’s where these scars come from…” She passed her hand over her throat. “When I woke up in the hospital, police had lots of questions for me, and I told them almost everything I just told you. They didn’t believe me. They insisted I was drugged and hallucinated everything. They searched where I told them I had found the road, but they didn’t find anything out there but desert. They never found my brother. And my parents… they don’t believe my story, either. They put me in therapy, which I’m sure I need anyway, but…”
“And it’s still happening…” Jessup said.
Maria looked at him for the first time since she started vomiting her story and was stunned to see him staring distantly, thoughtfully, into the shadows in the corner of the room. She’d expected his eyes to be on her, for his face to be skeptical or disgusted. Afraid. But he was none of those things.
“I could tell at the bowling alley, when you came back from the bathroom, you weren’t just upset. You were in a hurry to leave, and I wondered if you’d run into someone you knew, or you saw someone you knew. That’s how you seemed. Like you needed to get away…”
“You remember when I asked you earlier about ghosts?” Maria looked to the corner as she said this, where Harvey liked to appear. He was gone for now. “I see one regularly…”
“Your brother?” Jessup asked.
“No. The man who was chained up beside me. He’s still trapped there. He wants me to help him, too…” Maria watched Jessup again as she said this, gauging his reaction. All she saw in his expression was interest. Fascination, morbid as it was. “I see him all the time. I saw him that night I met you, at whoever’s party that was. Combined with some texts my parents were sending me… that’s why I left in such a hurry.”
“You’re running away from so much,” Jessup said. She felt a block of ice in her stomach hearing his words, taking them for judgment, but his face held none at all. “I can’t imagine…”
“They found me,” Maria told him, divulging the rest. “First at the bowling alley. Then they were here, when you dropped me off. Waiting for me.”
“What do they want?”
She could have started crying then, hearing the genuine curiosity in his voice.
“Nothing. Just… revenge.”
“Revenge?”
“One of them has it out for me… the wolf whose eye I stabbed. She told me they’re going to make me suffer. Take everything from me. They said they’re going to hurt the people I love…”
They thought quietly to themselves. Then, unable to help himself, Jessup cracked a joke which only proved to Maria he wasn’t quite grasping the gravity of the situation.
“After only two dates, I should still be safe then, right?”
Maria gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was likely only trying to make her feel better, silly as that was given the horrific story she’d just told. He hadn’t lived it like she had. She disregarded his remark altogether.
“You believe me, then?” she asked.
He nodded. “I don’t see how anyone could think you’d make something like that up. It’s so…” Whatever he was about to say, he stopped himself. “I’d be a complete mess if I were in your shoes.”
Now that was funny, Maria thought.
“You give me too much credit if you think I’m not…”
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
Maria was reeling. Out of all the things she might have expected, the reactions she anticipated, this hadn’t been one of them. He didn’t skip a beat. She was at a loss for words.
“I… well…”
“Doesn’t seem like there’s much you can do,” he said, scrunching his lips as his eyes wandered over the sofa, his lap, to the floor, thinking.
“There’s only one thing I can do,” Maria said listlessly, resigned to the fact, no matter how unappealing it was. “I have to get to them first.”
Jessup watched her gravely “How do you do that?”
“Go back to where it happened, find them, and hope I can kill them before they kill me.”
“You remember how to get there?”
“For the most part. And if I don’t, I know someone who does…”
“The man who haunts you.”
Maria smiled then. She couldn’t help it. He made it all so easy.
“How the hell did I happen to meet you of all people? And now, at a time like this?”
Jessup shrugged. “My mom would probably say something along the lines of, ‘I was meant to help you’.”
Her smile faded as he said it. How strange it was to hear exactly what she wanted to hear, and at the same time the thing she dreaded hearing most.
“Help me?”
“I’ll go with you,” he said. The look he wore, his boyish naivety, sent Maria’s stomach twisting.
“I don’t think you know what you’re saying…”
“I do.”
“This isn’t… some kind of adventure I’m going on.”
“I know.”
Except he didn’t, she could tell.
“If something happens to me,” he went on, “it’ll be because I chose to go,”
Maria couldn’t shake it. The guilt. She started to tell him she knew he’d say these things once she told him her story, that she had counted on his attraction to her in order to enlist his help because she was too cowardly to fight her own battles. But as she started to speak, he interrupted her.
He
stood from the sofa, a determined, scheming look about him as he viewed the kitchen, likely noticing the mess of knives still on the floor.
“I can’t think of a better way to spend my spring break,” he said.
He offered his hand to pull her up from the sofa.
This time, with a sickening storm brewing inside her, she took it.
✽ ✽ ✽
Jessup helped her pack. She brought a simple change of clothes, just in case. The rest were things they thought they might need—some first-aid supplies, utilities like duct tape and twine, and some weapons. Maria wrapped a few of the kitchen knives inside of towels and placed them in her purse.
“None of this belongs to me,” she told Jessup. “My roommate’s going to be pissed.”
She had a difficult time grasping what exactly her objective was. It was so simple and yet so foreign. She meant to kill someone, she realized. To end the lives of at least three people. Jessup’s eagerness to help didn’t make the situation any more real to her. The opposite, in fact. As she slipped the towel-wrapped blades into her purse and glanced at him organizing their bag of first-aid supplies in the bathroom, he sensed her watching and gave her a comforting smile, which only served to make it feel all the more dreamlike to her—and also to twist the knife in her gut, with the word SHAME written on its blade.
“This doesn’t feel real,” she told him as they did their final sweep of the apartment together, determining there was nothing of use left to bring. “It feels… like I’m preparing for something I can’t possibly be prepared enough for.”
“Probably because we’re not,” he said.
Just then, someone else spoke. She turned toward the voice. It came from the corner of the living room beside the window. A watching shape.
“I’ll warn you when I can,” Harvey said, to which Maria nodded understandingly.
“What was that?” Jessup asked.
“Hmm?” Maria startled, surprised that he’d noticed anything.
“You perked up, like you heard something, and stared off over there.” He pointed to the corner of the room where Harvey stood in shadow. “Is it… him?”
“You sure this guy won’t just get in the way?” Harvey asked. “He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into…”
Ignoring Harvey, she said, “Yes. It’s him.”
“What’d he say?”
“He’s coming with us,” she said, a bit of sarcasm in her tone. “For better or worse…”
Jessup stared wonderingly into what he saw only as a dark, empty corner.
“Sounds good…” He moved to the front door, leading the way. “We’ll stop by my place and get some other things.”
“Are you…” Maria paused. “Are you sure about this? Because I’m not sure you completely understand…”
“I’m sure,” he said. “Stop worrying about me.”
He stepped into the hallway outside and Maria locked the door behind them.
He’ll die, she thought. And it’ll be my fault.
She’d already put it in motion. When she turned to him, waiting for her to finish locking up, he winked and she knew it was too late to take it back.
✽ ✽ ✽
Maria rubbed her eye with the back of her hand as they pulled up to the curb. Jessup put the car in park and shut off the engine.
“You okay?” he asked, as she continued aggressively rubbing.
“My eye just itches…” She forced herself to stop, though the itching persisted. She looked out her window at the small, cozy, red-brick rambler they’d arrived at, and was surprised to see many of the lights on inside. “Who all do you live with?”
“Just my mom,” Jessup said. “Remember when I said she stays up late? To her, these are still the early hours…”
“What are you going to tell her?”
Jessup tilted his head side to side as he considered. “Just the truth.”
Maria’s heart gave a cold-sweat lurch. “You don’t think she’ll be worried?”
He started to open his door as she asked, and then he paused, grinning.
“I won’t go into all the details, of course. But my mom’s different than most. You’ll see.”
Nervously, Maria climbed out after him. She followed him up the sidewalk to the front porch. The door was unlocked. He held the door for her, motioning to go inside.
“After you.”
Stepping into the front room, the first thing Maria noticed was the sound of the many ticking clocks. Many ticking clocks. They were everywhere. There were shelves of them. A small sofa sat against one wall, with two end tables on either side, and each of the end tables held what looked to be three or four clocks. Then, against another wall, there was a glass display cabinet filled with them. All working. All ticking. They were each a different style. Some of them looked to be novelties.
If there was ever an entrance to a house which hinted perfectly at the people who lived there, this was it, Maria thought. Eccentric. Jessup must have been wholly aware of this fact, as he smiled wide-eyed like a deer in headlights as Maria turned to him with a similar look of her own.
“Wow,” she said. “It’s… loud.”
“Jessup?” a voice called from the other room. “You home?”
“Yeah!” he said. He turned to Maria and whispered, “Don’t worry, she’ll love you…”
“Oh!” his mother exclaimed, coming to stand in the doorway to what appeared to be the kitchen. “Hello! Who’s this?”
“This is Maria,” Jessup said. “A friend of mine.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” his mother said, approaching with open arms. Maria stiffened, not expecting such a warm welcome, though she didn’t decline it. “Jessup always makes the nicest friends.”
She wrapped Maria into an admittedly wonderful hug. Over his mother’s shoulder, Jessup grinned apologetically.
“You have a kind aura about you…” his mother said gently in her ear. She gave a slight squeeze as she ended their embrace. Standing back, taking Maria in, she must have noticed her unease. “Sorry if I’ve invaded your personal space!” She put her hands to her heart as though she’d only just now realized. “Sometimes I forget not everyone’s as touchy-feely as I am! I’m Angela, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you,” Maria said. She searched for something to compliment, anything to be polite, and spoke the first thing that came to mind. “I really like all of your clocks.”
Angela drew her eyes over the room, likely familiar with every one of them. “Started out as a kind of joke with Jessup’s father. He gave me one every year for my birthday… I had a reputation for being late, you see… and then I’ve been collecting more ever since.”
“That’s… sweet,” Maria said, and eyed Jessup peculiarly.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Angela repeated once more, stepping away. She gave her son a quick peck on the side of the head. “I can see why the two of you became friends.”
With a knowing smile, Jessup’s mother disappeared back into the kitchen.
“I’ll show you my sweet bedroom,” Jessup told Maria, and led her down the hallway. They turned into one of the open doors and he flipped the light on. “Lots of this stuff I’ve had since I was a kid. Don’t judge me…”
Maria looked over his room, all the various posters on the walls, most of them of basketball players or other basketball related things. Shelves mounted above his bed—a twin-size with basketball-themed sheets under a dark blue comforter—held awards and other memorabilia.
“You never mentioned you loved basketball so much,” Maria said. “Or played it… or…”
“I figured you’d find out eventually. If I brought it up before, you’d just think I was obsessed by the time you saw this.”
She stepped toward the shelf of awards, reading the plaques. “You’re probably right…”
“I know it doesn’t look like a nineteen-year-old’s bedroom,” Jessup said.
After a moment of further reading, Maria
turned to him.
“It’s cute.”
Jessup sighed, then appeared to remember something.
“If you want to hang out in here for a minute, I’ll talk to my mom and let her know what’s going on.”
“How much will you tell her?” Maria asked. Surely if his mom believed any of it to begin with, she wouldn’t approve of him taking such a risk for a girl he barely knew. She already felt guilty enough she’d roped him into it…
“I won’t tell her your personal stuff,” Jessup said. “Just that we’re going on a trip…”
Maria chewed the nail of her thumb. She nodded.
“This is my choice,” he reminded her. “Despite the sheets on my bed, I’m a big boy and I make my own decisions. No one’s going to say Maria Jenkins was a bad influence on that poor Jessup Graham. Okay?”
Maria tilted her head. “Graham? I didn’t even know your last name…”
Jessup leaned against his bedroom doorframe, eyebrows raised.
“I’m sure you’ll learn lots more before the night is done.” He gave her another dorky wink. “Be right back,” he said finally, and left to go talk to his mother.
Alone, Maria spent a while longer perusing the items on Jessup’s bedroom shelves, the posters on his walls. There were framed pictures on one of his shelves. Upon closer inspection, she saw they were mostly of Jessup and an older man she assumed was his father. Jessup was only a boy in all of these. Birthday pictures. Hunting pictures—Jessup toting a hunting rifle as big as he was, kneeling over a buck several times larger than he was, its antlers wider than the span of his arms.
She rubbed her eye some more as she continued looking at the photos, at first absentmindedly. Endlessly itching…
—an eye for an eye—
She peeked out from the bedroom door into the hallway. From across the house, she heard their voices. Jessup’s and his mother’s. She peered down the length of the hall and spotted what she thought might be the bathroom. She tiptoed there, and found she was right. She flipped the light on and shut the door behind her.
The bathroom was adorned in all things American. Patriotic seemed to be the theme here. Red, white, and blue bath towels on the towel rack. A hideous Uncle Sam soap dispenser, pointing finger and all, with the dispenser coming out from the top of his hat. The shower curtain, naturally, was an American flag…
