Bad Things (17 page)

Having picked out a dishwasher and arranged for delivery, Rick left Sears, stopped at the market for Pepsi and rattraps, and returned to the house shortly after one. Pulling into the driveway, he was annoyed to see that Shelly was still gone, but he hid his irritation as Cody raced to greet him.

“Daddy!”

Rick swept the mud-caked child into the air, eliciting a volley of delighted giggles. “You making mud pies, Cody?” He set the boy down.

“Hector and I are pulling weeds!”

“How you doing, Rick?” Hector asked as he approached.

“Fine.” Shaking hands, Rick thought that the small, lean man hadn't changed except for the salt and pepper at his temples and in his mustache. “Should you be working today? Carmen said you were pretty sick.”

“I'm fine. I just had a little flu bug, but you know Carmen. She'll try to make you stay in bed if you've got a hangnail.”

Rick agreed, then asked Hector if he thought the koi pond could be turned back into a swimming pool. They discussed the possibilities for a few minutes until Cody insisted he and Hector had to get back to work.

Indoors, Rick let Carmen feed him lunch, and was relieved when she didn't try to bring up the past. In fact, except for Shelly's stunt, everything was going very, very well. Before going upstairs to work, Rick and Carmen divided up the rattraps, and he didn't protest when she said she'd do the house and the root cellar. He took his out and placed them in the garage and toolshed, then finally entered the workshop.

He didn't lift the tarp off the car this time, but toed a couple bait boxes in underneath it, and placed the rest in the base cabinets.

Time to get to work, Piper.
He had a column due in two days, and he couldn't be late with it. Normally he kept the syndicate supplied with at least six weeks worth of columns, but he'd gotten lax lately. They had nothing in reserve, so he not only needed to get this one done, he needed to write several more, pronto.

I'll go up in a minute.
He'd been thinking about building a big Don Quixote off and on ever since he'd found the unfinished sculpture yesterday, and he was dying to see what he'd need in the way of supplies. He would allow himself that, he decided, before he went in and got to work.

He began pulling equipment and metal from drawers and cabinets, setting it out on the counters, taking stock, and making plans in his head. At one point he nearly went inside to find a notebook so that he could write down the particulars of his project, but remembering that before he'd worked with no plans, only sight and intuition, he squelched the urge. He would design the don by the seat of his pants.

Minutes turned into hours, but Rick, feeling at peace and happier than he'd been in years, had no notion of time until the workshop door opened. “Dad?” Shelly asked. “Carmen told me you needed to talk to me?”

Reality came crashing rudely back.

“Shelly, you took my car without permission,” he said as he set down a box of flaring tools.

She looked at the ground. “I thought you wouldn't mind.”

“Why would you think such a thing?” His stomach started twisting up. Shelly could frustrate him like no other.

“Well . . . you let me take it yesterday.”

“You asked permission yesterday.”

“I didn't want to wake you up, and it was for a good reason: I put in job applications all over town and—”

“Damn it, Shelly! You know perfectly well that you have no excuse for what you did. It was wrong. Why can't you admit it?” Crossing his arms, he took two long strides toward her.

“I thought—”

“You didn't think, Shelly, you just assumed you'd pull another one over on dear old Dad. You've taken advantage of me for the last time.”

“Daddy, I didn't mean to—”

“I knew it would be hard on you leaving your friends back in Vegas, and I've tried to be extra nice to you. But instead of appreciating that I let you use my car yesterday, you decide that gives you carte blanche to take it whenever you please.”

“If you'd buy me a car, it wouldn't be a problem anymore.”

One. Two.
She's your daughter, you can't kill her.
Three. Four. Five.
Maybe you could ship her off to a nunnery.
Six. Seven.
The pressure in his ears and the black spots in front of his eyes started to diminish.
Eight. Nine.
Carmen would help him with her from now on.
Ten.

“Shelly,” he began calmly. “Let's talk about what you've asked for in just the last two or three days.”

She rolled her eyes and started to back out the doorway.

“Don't move,” he ordered.

“Da-ad . . .”

“And don't whine. Now, if I remember correctly the day before we left Vegas, you said you needed a NordicTrack—”

“Well, I do.”

“Shhh. The same day you said your ears stick out too far, and you'd like to have cosmetic surgery to pin them back.”

“They do! They're horrible.”

“You have very nice ears, as I recall. Of course, I haven't seen them in years because they're hidden under your hair.” He smiled sweetly. “But if you keep interrupting me, I'll be glad to pin them back for you.”

She glared, but said nothing.

“In the car coming here, you asked for blue contact lenses. But your eyes are twenty-twenty.”

“My eyes are drab.”

He shook his head, almost amused. “Your eyes are the same green as your mother's were, and hers were beautiful.”

Shelly didn't respond, just stared at something on the floor.

“You also asked for a car, cable television, your own phone line, and a television for your room. First, how do you propose I pay for all these things?”

“You should take that spot on the morning news like you were talking about?” she asked meekly.

Lord, why did I tell her about that?
“If I did take it—and frankly, getting up at three in the morning three days a week doesn't appeal to me—I would use that money to fix up the house.

“Listen, Shelly, I'm not saying you can't have those things you want. I'm saying you're going to have to pay for them yourself.”

“You said you'd buy me a car!”

“Unless things change around here, that won't be happening.”

“Can I use yours?”

“Nope. You blew that today.”

“Then how am I supposed to get a job if I don't have a car?”

“Ride your bike.” As he spoke the words, he realized the movers hadn't arrived yet. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was nearly six, and figured they'd pull in tomorrow.

“I hate you!” Shelly cried. “You're mean and I hate you and you're horrible and disgusting!” Her shot taken, she turned and flounced out of the workshop, slamming the door behind her.

Rick shook his head, knowing she'd calm down soon enough, then put his tools away and went in to clean up for dinner.

Dinner was a Carmen Zapata specialty: pork loin, slow-roasted until it fell apart under a fork, black beans, sliced radishes and tomatoes, guacamole, sour cream, fresh salsa, and warm flour tortillas to wrap it all up in as one saw fit. Food of the gods. Rick now sat in the lumpy old recliner and stared at the television without digesting what he saw because all the blood in his brain had gone south to help digest the obscene amount of food he had consumed. He felt logy and content.

He'd insisted that Carmen and Hector join them tonight, and they'd had a wonderful time, especially since Shelly and Jade, the current malcontents, had refused to join them for dinner. Jade wanted to watch television in her room, so Carmen had taken her a tray, and Shelly pretended to be too infuriated to eat. That didn't bother Rick at all, because when he'd checked his car to make sure it was locked—it wasn't—he'd cleaned out a pizza box, McDonald's wrappers, and three large soda cups.

Carmen and Hector had gone home nearly an hour ago, and now he and Cody had the place to themselves.

His son was sprawled on the floor in front of the television, his head propped up in his hands. They'd flipped a coin for the early evening reruns: heads,
Murphy Brown
, tails,
Married with Children
. Cody, with tails, had won. As he watched, Kelly Bundy miscalculated and walked into a wall. Rick stifled his laugh, because, while he didn't believe in censorship, he wasn't sure he should let his son know he was amused by dumb-blond antics.

His gaze drifted to the draped picture window, and almost instantly, he heard their voices.

Ricky
. . .
Ricky
. . .
Ricky
. . .

Shivering, suddenly wide-awake, he wondered if he'd always heard the voices only when he thought of them. It certainly seemed so now. Back when he was a kid, he'd thought about them all the time, so he had no way of knowing, did he?

He'd been a regular little obsessive back then.

Carmen's admonition to find out if Cody could see them had haunted him since last night.
Now,
he decided,
it's time to find out.
Steeling himself, he tilted the lumpy old chair upright and rose, stretching, fighting down the anxiety that was already threatening to turn his knees to rubber.
Thomas Piper,
he reminded himself,
wouldn't be afraid.
His hands trembled. He felt like a child.

“Bull,” he said aloud.

“What, Daddy?”

An ad was on, and Cody was staring at him.

“Nothing.”

“You wanna have some ice cream? Carmen said we can make sundaes. There's Redi-Whip and cherries and chocolate sauce.”

“Not now, sport. Maybe later.”

“But—”

“We just had dinner. I'll pop if I eat anything else.”

“I'm starved,” Cody whined, but the ads were over and his interest was back on the set.

“Later.” As he spoke, Rick crossed to the window and, without pausing to reconsider, pulled the drapery cord.

The greenjacks were out there, faint in the summer dusk, a dozen of them, maybe twice that, it was always hard to tell. The evening wind was up, and they moved through the blowing grass and tumbling leaves, dancing and cavorting among them, human yet not human, possessing faces yet featureless. As he watched, they became aware of him, turning, coming closer. Watching him.

The panic started low in his abdomen, spread heavily into his legs and arms, making his brain dull and frantic at the same time.
Pretend you're Thomas.
Carmen's words echoed in his head, and he did what she'd said, though he felt like a fool.

Several came closer, melding together to form long-limbed wraithlike figures tall enough to peer in the window. He barely retained control of his bladder, but then he thought:
I'm Thomas. I'm not afraid.

The old trick helped. For the first time in his life, he remained calm enough to examine them, to really see how they resembled liquid mercury, unable to retain form when they melded together, but were merely long-limbed and ghostly.
I'm not afraid,
he thought again. And he began to believe it. He tried to think of them as fog shifting in the wind.

The voices stirred his fear, and he tried not to hear them. Most of the greenjacks remained back beneath the oak so that they could see and be seen, though the formless wraiths stayed at the window, sometimes showing a suggestion of hollow eyes or a mouth, though never for long.

On his seventh Halloween, he'd gone out among these creatures and found that he was able to live through the fear. To transcend it. Then the few hours of freedom were cut short later that night when Robin climbed out the window and . . .

What? Rick wasn't sure. Robin had changed, he knew that, but was it because he'd grown sour over his handicap, or had Rick, always so guilty over his normalcy, merely read more into his brother's teasing than he should have? The notion that Robin had switched bodies with a greenjack seemed ludicrous to Rick now.

It had to be nonsense. But here he was, a grown, hopefully rational adult, and he was looking at greenjacks and listening to their rhyming catcalls. He smiled sadly.
I'm nuts,
he thought,
that's it. But at least I'm not afraid, thanks to my patron saint, Thomas.

Slowly he raised his right hand to the window, made a fist, and extended his middle finger. It felt as good as it had when he was seven. He lifted his other hand, fisted, extended that finger, too, mouthing the words “screw you.”

There was a reaction of sorts: The voices dimmed slightly—probably in amazement, he thought wryly—and their movements slowed down. The wraiths at the window seemed less stable than before. Experimentally he wiggled the fingers, pistoned his hands up and down half an inch.

“Daddy!” Cody's arrival at his side was so loud and unexpected that Rick froze where he was.

“Daddy! You're making a flip-off!”

“No I'm not.” His hands slowly obeyed his order to unclench.

Cody giggled. “Who you flipping off, Daddy?”

“No one, Cody. I was doing, ah, isometrics.”

“What's that?”

“Exercises.”

“Well, it looked like flip-off, Daddy. Do you know flip-off?”

“Yes, I do. But who taught you, young man?”

“Lil.” He giggled and slapped his hands over his mouth, then spoke between his fingers. “She showed me how, but she said I couldn't tell you. You won't tell on me, will you, Daddy?”

“No. As long as you don't do it anymore.”
That bitch.
Of course, he himself had learned it from his grandfather, but the knowledge had come vicariously. That was . . . normal, but for Magill to purposefully teach a child . . .
that bitch.

He stared at the jacks. As darkness grew, their activity, if it had indeed slowed, now increased again. They reminded him of ants, so ceaseless were their movements.

Rick's heart lurched as he saw one, especially dim, just becoming visible as the night grew darker, standing by itself under the oak. Its very stillness made it noticeable.

It reminded him of the one he'd seen the night Robin changed.

Bullshit,
he told himself.
Don't even think it.
But he couldn't help himself, and his next thought was strong and hard and directed:
Robin.

The greenjack looked and raised one arm—Cody yanked on his shirt cuff. “Whatcha looking at, Daddy?”

Jesus, he'd forgotten about his own kid. Glancing down, he saw Cody staring up at him, a quizzical look on his face. Rick swallowed. “What do you think I'm looking at?”

Cody pressed up against the glass. “Cool!”

Oh, no.
“What's cool?”

“The wind. It's blowing good!”

“Daddy, let's go outside and smell the wind!”

“No, Cody, I don't—”

“Please, Daddy, please!”

“It's dark out.”

“Not very. Come on, just for a minute. Please?”

He tried to spot the dim greenjack, but it was nowhere to be seen. “I don't know.”

“Please?”

What could it hurt? He'd been among them before, hadn't he? Suddenly it seemed like a good idea, a final step to cure him of his fear. “Okay, but just for a minute.”

“Yay!” Cody took his hand and dragged him to the front door, waiting impatiently while he undid the bolt. Slowly the door creaked open, and they stepped out on the wide front porch.

The jacks saw them.

“This is fun!”

Rick swallowed his fear as the greenjacks gathered at the base of the steps. Suddenly Cody let go of his hand and raced down the stairs. Rick cringed as the creatures, giggling and singing, surrounded his son.

“Come on, Daddy!”

“Coming.”
Dear God, what am I doing?
He took one step, two, finally all six of them. Then he was standing on the stone walk at the base of the stairs, and the little jacks lined the border.

Cody, on his knees in the grass, windmilled his arms and giggled.

Rick could feel the jacks, like cool breezes, touching his legs.
I'm Thomas,
he told himself again, feeling foolish as hell.
I'm Thomas and I'm not afraid.
Heartened, he stepped off the path and sat down on a wrought-iron bench in the grass near the oak.

They gathered around him and they felt very cold, chilling his legs. Gingerly he reached out. A jack flickered through his hand, a cold, slimy feel. It returned, impaling, itself upon him. Repulsed, Rick drew back.

“Cody, let's go in now.”

“Just a second, Daddy.”

Rick stood, his legs swathed in repulsive greenjacks. A deep chill enveloped him. “Let's go, sport,” he managed as he looked around, hoping to see the solitary jack again. He saw nothing, and the voices were growing louder. Too loud.

“Now, Cody.”

“Just another minute.”

“Well, I'm going to go make myself a sundae. If you want one too—”

Cody was past him, up the steps in a flash. Rick followed quickly. Before he closed the door, he took one last look, and for a moment he thought he spotted the solitary figure, but in an instant it was caught in the midst of the others, lost to his eye, but not to his mind.