Accidental Evil (26 page)

“He’s marked,” she said.

“Shut up, April,” Vernon said. The bow of the boat hit the dock. “Grab the rope, boy.”

“He’s infected,” she said.

Ricky stood there. Vernon had to grab one of the pilings and tie the rope off himself. Ricky was frozen to his spot.

Vernon held a hand out for April and she crossed her arms.
 

“Fine,” he said to April. “Come on, Ricky. I rescued her. Let’s get going.”

Ricky held his ground as Vernon walked by.
 

“We need her,” Ricky said.

[ Empty ]

T
HE
STREETS
WERE
SPOOKY
. Sarah was glad to have Trina along, even though it meant that they were accompanied by Gerard. She had never seen everything so empty in the middle of summer. There was a lonely time after Labor Day, when everyone left and the town was finally rid of the Summer People. But even that lonely time seemed like a festival compared to what she saw as she walked home. The streamers had fallen down from one of the telephone poles. A merry cluster of helium balloons bumped against each other and tugged the picket fence in front of the old post office.

It looked like all the people had been zapped out of existence.

Sarah led the way down to her father’s house. Sarah had lived there all her life, but today the house looked different. She knew it was completely empty even before she opened the front door and called for her father.

“I don’t think he’s home,” she said to Trina. “I guess I’ll just wait here.”

Trina looked up at the house. Gerard seemed nervous. His head turned every direction and his eyes never settled down.

“Maybe you ought to stick with us for now,” Trina said. “My car is parked in the lot. I’m guessing it won’t start. Then we’ll walk back to my house. It’s far enough out of town that it should be safe to wait there until whatever this is blows over.”

“Thanks,” Sarah said. “I’ll be fine.”

Trina nodded but didn’t move.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m going to lock the door, go to my room, and lock that door. Nobody will even know I’m inside.”

“Okay,” Trina said. “Sounds safe enough. Come on, Gerard.” She waved to her cousin and the two of them began walking back towards the main drag. Trina was concentrating on her destination. Gerard was still looking every direction nervously.

Sarah was true to her word. After Trina and Gerard walked away, she closed and locked the front door. She even slid the bolt. If her father came home, he would have to knock until she let him in. She repeated the process at the back door. Feeling safer, she stopped by the refrigerator. The phones and cable were out, but the electricity was still on. With the door propped open, she enjoyed the cool air and scanned for something good. Shari was on another diet. She had purged all the good food from the fridge. Sarah found a bag of carrots. It was a lousy snack, but it would have to do. She took the whole thing to her room and then locked that door behind herself.
 

It was nice to be back on her home turf. After everything that had happened, her room was the one place where she felt completely in control. She amended that thought. When she was
alone in the house
, her room was the one place she felt in control. When Shari was home, she invaded everywhere.

Sarah stretched out on her bed and checked her devices. Her tablet and her phone both agreed—there was no internet to be had. Whatever had taken out the lines was still a problem. Sarah sighed and picked up a book instead.

[ Arrival ]

Sarah jumped to her feet when she heard the sound. She had been half asleep—reading sometimes did that to her. She moved to her door and unlocked it. She figured it might be her dad. They had a deadbolt on the front and back doors. When locked from the inside, they couldn’t opened from the outside at all. Sarah moved towards the front door.
 

She heard the sound again. She had a second to evaluate it.

Someone banged on the door and then fumbled with the handle.

“Hello?” Sarah called. She instantly regretted it. The banging came again. This time, the person was banging over and over. This wasn’t a polite knock. This was the insistence of a crazy person. Sarah didn’t even want to get close enough to know who was making the noise.

She moved to the living room window, where she could peek around the blinds and see what was happening out there. She pushed down one of the blinds and looked. It was Shari. Her father’s girlfriend was standing there, banging on the door with a balled-up fist.

Sarah moved back to the door, but paused before unlocking it. Where was her father? Why was Shari banging on the door like that and not saying anything? Sarah looked through the peephole and saw Shari’s face. Her expression was completely blank.

Her hand automatically moved for the lock. She paused with the bolt halfway across its track.

“Where’s my father?” Sarah asked through the door. When she looked through the peephole again, she saw a huge, distorted version of Shari’s face.

“Shari? Say something, would you? You’re freaking me out.”

Shari didn’t move and didn’t blink. Sarah looked at the lock. She was about to open it anyway when she heard breaking glass from the other side of the house. Sarah took her hand off the bolt, leaving it engaged, and pulled back from the door. She left silent Shari on the other side of the door—she could rot there as far as Sarah was concerned—and trotted for the kitchen. One time a bird had gotten confused about the sun reflecting off of one of the kitchen windows and it had smashed right through. Sarah expected to find a bloody bird on the floor when she…

Sarah stopped in the doorway.

There were no birds.

The thing climbing up over the broken glass looked like a kid’s drawing of a lobster. It was a gray block of metal with a truckload of little scrabbling claws on the bottom. The front door was a short jog, but silent Shari with her peephole-distorted head was on the other side. Sarah looked at her own bedroom door, but didn’t even consider it. What if that window was broken too?

The stairs led up to a half-finished attic, where her brother had lived. Sarah chose that. Pounding up the stairs, she burst through into the dry heat and ran for the window. Her brother’s air conditioner was still mounted there. It was installed, but turned off.

Something was clicking and sliding on the stairs. Sarah ran back and slammed the door. Jeffrey had a terrible lock on his door—she hoped it would hold back the lobster thing. Back at the window, she managed to force the lower sash up, ripping out the flimsy screws that held the window unit in place. When she pulled on the top of the AC, it rocked and then tumbled inside. Jeffrey would kill her when he saw it. She would worry about that later.
 

Sarah slipped through the window, and out onto the roof. It was a narrow skirt of a roof, interrupted by the dormer that framed Jeffrey’s room. Sarah balanced on the angled surface, and tread carefully. The hot shingles were slippery. She had done this jump a million times when she was younger. It was a paradox—most things looked smaller as she got older. Somehow, the distance of the jump to the shed roof had grown over the years.

There was another of the robot lobsters down on the lawn. It was marching the thin strip of grass between their house and the Hammond’s house next door. After spotting that, Sarah was driven forward. She took two more big steps, gaining speed, and leapt for the shed. She nearly overshot. Sarah caught her balance before tumbling over the other side. She turned and climbed down the trellis to the driveway.

[ Departure ]

Sarah ran for the street. She glanced back at the front door and didn’t see Shari. She didn’t slow. On her best day, Shari was irritating. This new silent version of Shari was downright terrifying. Something was rolling down the driveway of the next house. Sarah slowed to see it. The thing was so improbable, that a smile actually played at the corner of her mouth.
 

It was shaped like one of those tall, cylindrical trash cans, like they had at the post office, but it was tipped to the side. Somehow, the thing was balanced at that strange angle and rolling on the edge of the round base. It looked like it would tip over any second, but it kept rolling.

Her smile disappeared when she realized that it was rolling on an intercept course with her path. Sarah veered and ran faster. She didn’t look back.

When she got out to the main road, Sarah turned back towards the south end of town, where she had left the others.

The high whine of a strained engine approached. Sarah changed course again and ducked off to the side until she was hidden by a tall bush in front of the Inn. Peeking between the leaves, she saw a truck blow through town at high speed. It was hard to tell from her position, but she thought it might have been Ricky’s dad.

Sarah wasn’t interested in finding out. The truck had been rolling danger—she could sense it. When it had gone by, she ran back to the street and continued towards the Village Peddler. She saw a group of people gathered behind the garage and she almost slowed. Mr. Endicott’s story came to mind. She put the pieces together. He had described things attached to people. Maybe he had been referring to the lobster robots that she had seen. Maybe they were coming for her.
 

She found more speed and sprinted until she could hardly breathe. When she finally burst back through the door of the Village Peddler, Sarah doubled over for a second to catch her breath.
 

The place was empty.

She rose back up and glanced around.
 

It wasn’t empty. Ms. Polhemus was still sitting on the stool. She was sitting perfectly still and staring off at nothing. For a second, Sarah was convinced that Ms. Polhemus had passed away, and they had left her there.

When the woman turned to look at Sarah, the girl nearly screamed.

Ms. Polhemus’s eyes were vacant, like Shari’s, but there was a smile on her lips.

The door to the back room creaked and opened a few inches.

Sarah finally lost her composure. She screamed and tugged on the door handle, trying to get out. The door wouldn’t open.

[ Hiding ]

J
OHN
’
S
BREATH
CAME
FASTER
and faster. As he started to pant, his thoughts ramped out of control. They always ran to the same place—he pictured the people with the machines pumping out their life. He looked down at himself again. He had done it a thousand times, but he had to be sure that none of the things were clamped to him.
 

John looked back to the woman on the stool. She was like an empty shell. John wondered if maybe something had already sucked the life out of her. He wondered if everyone was destined to be like her—vacant.

“John?” Louise Townsend asked.

John jumped and nearly screamed. He had forgotten that the shopkeeper was still there. After the Dunns had left, John had thought he was alone in there with the vacant woman.

He blinked at Louise as all this went through his head.

“Maybe they’re right,” she said. “Maybe we should go in the storeroom until everything calms down?”
 

Louise looked over at the vacant woman and her hand went to her chest. She saw it too—there was something wrong with that woman. John found himself nodding.

Louise waved him towards the door behind the counter. He got up from his chair and felt uneasy as his damp clothes shifted against his skin. She showed him the way around the counter and he followed her into the office.

“I wish I had some dry clothes to give you,” she said. She guided him to a chair.

John shook his head. She seemed to understand that it didn’t matter. His discomfort wasn’t going to be solved by dry clothes. Louise moved over to the door and opened it a crack. John watched her carefully.

After she closed the door again, she turned back to him.

“I don’t trust her,” she whispered. “I never did like that woman. She moved to town and just
insinuated
herself into every social event. I can’t trust a woman like that.”

Out in the store, Louise had been so quiet.

“I just can’t imagine what is happening out there. You’d think with all the people around that nothing really strange could be going on, but what you described behind Farnham’s, and then what happened to Ricky Dunn. I can’t begin to fathom what’s going on. Of course the Sheriff is nowhere to be found. That man
creates
drama. He never settles it. Do you know what happened out at the Colonel’s old place last fall?”

The whole time she was talking, John hoped she would stop. Her voice just cluttered up his brain and didn’t allow him to think. Then, when she did stop, he thought of those people again. He remembered how the machines were sucking them dry. He wished she would say something to clutter up his brain.

“There was a whole thing. I’ve heard from some very reputable sources that it doesn’t pay to go east of the stream at all in October. Can you believe that? The flooding does something to the animals. It makes them go wild.”

“Louise?”

“Hmmm?” she asked. She seemed to have forgotten that he was even sitting there.

“Would you mind talking about something else?” John asked. He looked down at himself to make sure that none of the machines was attached to him. A new panic-inducing image flashed through his imagination. He imagined Mary tumbling from the ladder, but this time she failed to grab the orange extension cord as she fell. John shivered as he pictured her falling right on her head, snapping her neck.

“Are you cold?” Louise asked. From a trunk next to a filing cabinet, Louise pulled a blanket. It smelled of fir trees and pumpkin pie as she wrapped it around John’s shoulders.

John focused on the pleasant smell and tried to tune out Louise’s constant chatter.

[ Interruption ]

She stopped talking.