Crazy Dangerous (10 page)

At once, the whispers stopped altogether. There was silence.

And Jennifer stopped. And she stared.

“Oh!” The sound came out of her on a long breath.

It was true. They
had
changed everything. With their skeleton fingers. They had stripped away the yellow paisley of the hallway wallpaper, leaving only the rough, splintery, unpainted wood beneath. They had scrawled their obscene whispers on the splintery wintery walls in blood-red paint, and they had slashed and splashed and dashed their weird symbols and their hateful, violent scenes everywhere around her.

“Sam-Hopkins-Sam-Hopkins-Sam-Hopkins,” Jennifer whispered frantically very fast because she was so-scared-so-scared-so-scared.

She thought of running for Mark. Her brother. Her hero. Oh hear-oh Mark!

But no. She couldn’t get to the end of the hall where Mark was. A tree blocked the way, a tree spreading its broad branches from the hallway wall to the landing banister and beyond, spreading its branches over a flat dark lake. The flat dark lake was wide and black and deep and threatening. That blocked her way as well.

And then there was the coffin.

The coffin sat right in the middle of the hall. Right there in front of her. There was no lid on it. It was open.

Jennifer didn’t like the coffin. It scared her more than anything. She didn’t want to go near it. She didn’t want to look down into it and see what was inside.

But she had to. The whispers wouldn’t let her alone. The whispers crawled into her brain like bugs and took hold of her with their skeleton fingers, drawing her on against her own will.

“Sam Hopkins . . .”

Even the magic friend-name couldn’t make it stop. She had to go. She had to see. Step-by-step-by-step. Down the hall to where the coffin stood. Until she was standing over it, looking down. Down and down into the dark of the coffin, the dark that went down and down.

And then she saw. She didn’t want to, but she did.

The thing inside the box had once been human, but it wasn’t human now. It was dead and rotten now, a skeleton crawling with whisper bugs.

We are death
, the bugs whispered out of the skeleton’s mouth.

We are angels of death
.

We will destroy them
.

Destroy them all
.

Jennifer stared down at it, whispering back, “Sam Hopkins,” over and over as fast as she could.

But the magic friend-name wasn’t powerful enough. The demon things kept whispering out of the dead creature in the coffin:

They will see our power
.

They will be afraid
.

Afraid of us
.

Because we are evil
.

Because we are death
.

Jennifer stared down at the horrible thing while the whispers rose up to her. She wanted to run away, run away, run back to her room, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t move from the spot. And then . . .

Oh, then . . . then the thing in the coffin came to life!

It sat up suddenly and reached for her.

Jennifer started screaming—screaming and screaming. She couldn’t stop. Even when the bedroom doors burst open, when her mother and brother came rushing out of their rooms . . . even as they put their arms around her, calling out to her, calling her name over and over, she couldn’t stop. She went on and on.

The whisper-things were gone. The wallpaper was back on the walls. The coffin was gone and so was the thing in the coffin.

The house was back to normal.

But Jennifer could not stop screaming.

9
Going Home

I won’t give you a blow-by-blow description of how Jeff and Ed P. and Harry Mac beat me up. Anyway, to be honest, it would be more like a blow-
after
-blow description because the three thugs pretty much just punched and kicked me, blow after blow, for what felt like forever. If I got an answering punch in there anywhere, I don’t remember it. Mostly, I just tried to cover myself, rolling up in a ball, throwing my arms over my head, shielding what I could as best I could.

It was bad. It was really bad. But it could’ve been a lot worse. No, really, it could’ve been. For one thing, the thugs didn’t play nice with one another. They didn’t take turns. I know that sounds like a joke, but it actually helped me. If they’d taken turns beating on me, they would have each gotten in some solid blows. But acting together the way they did, they kept getting in one another’s way. They bumped into one another and tripped over one another and sort of blocked one another without meaning to. It saved me from some of the real damage they could have inflicted if they’d come at me one at a time. Basically, if they’d been more polite, they would’ve been better thugs . . . But then, if they’d been more polite, they wouldn’t have been thugs at all, would they?

So that was one thing that helped me. And another thing was the pickup truck. That road we were on—there was nothing up that way but some old farms, and most of those were abandoned—there was almost never any traffic passing by, especially during the week. Most days, Jeff and his pals would have been free to knock me around for as long as they wanted.

But today—what do you know?—a truck came. A battered old green Ford pickup. Looked like it was about a hundred years old. Came slowly, slowly, slowly up the hill from town, heading home to some farm or other, I guess.

I don’t know how long the thugs had been working me over by then. I could hear their labored breaths above me, so I could tell they’d been at it for some time and were getting tired.

After a while the blows stopped altogether. I peeked up through my arms to see what had happened. I saw Jeff and Ed P. and Harry Mac puffing away, gazing off down the road. They looked concerned. I peeked down the road myself. That’s when I saw the old green pickup trundling toward us from a distance.

There was a long pause. Then:

“What do you think?” said Harry Mac, breathing hard. I could hear by the tone of his voice that he was worried. Obviously, if you’re going to beat a guy up, you don’t want any witnesses.

Jeff took a moment before he answered. “Aw . . . ,” he said reluctantly. “I guess that’s enough. We don’t need any trouble.”

I saw him look down at me. He was already getting a black eye from where I’d punched him, and there were still bloodstains on his chin and his teeth. I could see the anger flashing in his eyes. He would have liked to go on punching me awhile longer.

“You ever tell anyone what you saw with us, this is gonna be like nothing,” he said. He spat. “I thought you were gonna be one of us, punk, but I guess you don’t have what it takes.”

He was right about that, I have to admit. I knew that now. I didn’t have what it took to be like him. And I was right in the middle of thinking,
Thank you, God
, for that, when Jeff gave me one last kick in the stomach. Then he and the others swaggered off to the waiting Camaro.

I lay there at the edge of the road, curled up on my side, clutching my stomach. Blood dripped out of my nose and down from a cut in my head. I saw the red drops falling onto the gray pavement and gathering there in a little pool.

I heard the Camaro’s engine roar to life. For a second or two I was afraid that Jeff was going to drive the car right over me—just his little way of saying, “So long, and thanks for the memories.” But no, I heard the tires screech, and when I dared to look, I saw the Camaro tearing away down the road, sending up a cloud of dust behind it.

I groaned. Then I groaned some more. I uncurled my body and lay flat on my back, trying to breathe. I stared up at the blue sky. I thought about my parents. I thought about how I was going to explain what had happened. I almost wished Jeff had finished the job. Almost.

My plan just then was to go on lying there for—I don’t know—maybe a week or two—at least until the pain stopped, if it ever did. But I knew that the green pickup was still crawling up the road toward me. I thought if the driver saw me lying there, he might call an ambulance or something. I didn’t want an ambulance. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to climb into bed and ache and bleed.

So—after throwing in a few more groans for good measure—I started moving again, rolling over, pushing up off the ground, trying to get to my feet.

I had just made it when the pickup finally pulled alongside me and stopped. The farmer behind the wheel looked to be as old as the truck, which, like I said, looked to be about a hundred. Peering out of his round, wrinkled face, his dark, sparkling eyes went up and down me. He had his tongue in his grizzled cheek as if he thought I was playing some kind of joke, standing there bleeding like that.

“Well,” he said, “I’d hate to see what the other guy looks like.”

I would’ve laughed, but it hurt too much. “The other three guys,” I told him. “And don’t worry: they look just fine.”

The old man gave a hoarse chuckle. “I bet they do. What about you? Need a lift to the hospital?”

“No, thanks. I got my bike. I just wanna go home.”

Looking out the truck’s window, the old man chewed on his lip thoughtfully for a moment. “You’re sure, now?” he said. “You’re sure this isn’t a police matter?”

Rubbing a point on my side where Harry Mac had gotten in one of his better kicks, I shook my head. “No. No police. I threw the first punch.”

This time the old farmer didn’t just chuckle, he laughed out loud. “Did you, now? Against three fellas? Well, you’re a scrappy little guy, aren’t you?”

“Oh yeah,” I said with a painful sigh. “I’m definitely scrappy. I’m just not very smart, that’s all.”

He laughed again. “Well . . . I’m guessing you’re a bit smarter now than you were half an hour ago.”

I smiled as much as I could. “That’s for sure.”

“You take care of yourself, son. And while you’re resting up, you might want to think about choosing your friends more carefully.”

“Yes, sir.”

He waved. Then, when he put the green pickup into gear, it gave a loud grinding sound that nearly drowned out his voice.

“Do right. Fear nothing,” I thought I heard him say.

“What?”

But by then he was already driving away as slowly as he’d come.

I shook my head. I probably just imagined he said that. I hobbled over to my bike, picked it up off the road, and began the long trek home.

No way I could ride at first. My body was just too stiff and sore. I walked the bike down the hill. The sun sank lower and lower behind the trees. The daylight turned golden, then gray. After a while I’d stretched my muscles out enough. With a mighty effort I managed to get my leg over the bicycle seat. Then, gritting my teeth against the pain, I started to pedal.

The evening came on. I switched on my bike lights and coasted through the gathering darkness. I was glad no one passing by could see me now, could see the blood and bruises and dirt all over me.

And yet, you know, aside from that, and aside from the pain and all, it was a funny thing . . . I didn’t really feel too bad. I felt . . . well . . . kind of good, in fact. Not good as in, “Man oh man, nothing makes for a happy day like having three thugs kick the living daylights out of you.” But good in a different way. Good because . . . well, because Jennifer got away without being hurt. There was no question in my mind that Jeff was planning to hurt her—really hurt her. But she’d gotten away because of me. And now, too, I didn’t have to go to the barn anymore. I could just go back to being my normal self, a preacher’s kid like I was before. Only before, it had seemed like a problem. Now it sounded like the best life a dude could ever have.

So I was feeling pretty decent as I pedaled home through the cool evening—until, that is, I got near home and started to think about my parents again.

There wasn’t any chance of hiding this from them. I might sneak inside and make it up to my room before anyone saw me. I might take a shower, change my clothes, clean up a little before coming down to dinner. But I was going to be wearing these cuts and bruises for a long time, and Mom and Dad were going to see them eventually. I hated to think what their reaction would be when they did.

Let me make a long story short. Their reaction wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all. I don’t like to describe my mom as being “hysterical,” but hey, when you hit on the right word, you might as well use it. I didn’t try to hide myself. I walked right into the kitchen where she was making dinner, and . . . Well, I don’t remember everything she said, but I think it involved my being grounded for the rest of my life while the United States military was called in to unleash a massive air strike against Jeff Winger’s house. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but that’s what it sounded like at the time. Fortunately for me—and for Jeff and maybe for the United States military—my dad heard the commotion, came down from his study, and quickly took control of the situation.