Make Willing the Prey (Dreams by Streetlight) (6 page)

Sandy read aloud slowly.  She
looked up from the card, and saw Jina, wide-eyed, with her feet pulled up onto the
chair, still staring at the table.

A soft evening sound came from
nearby, within the apartment.  Chirping.

Sandy looked down.  Through the
glass, she saw dozens of crickets crawling all over the underside.  Another
rhythmic chirp joined the first, doubling the volume.

“Jina,” she said, grabbing the
petrified girl’s arm, “We’ve got to get out of this house.”

“I thought they were from Stan,
really, I did.”  More crickets began in the chorus. 

“I know, Jina.  Come on.”

Jina gave in, and allowed herself
to be dragged through the front door.  As they left, the sound of a hundred
crickets followed them into the hallway.

Once outside, they heard the
comforting sound of silence.  Sandy put Jina in the passenger seat, got in the
driver’s seat, and started the car.

“Ok, let’s just drive, and figure
out what to do.”

“How did the crickets get
inside
the strawberries?”  Jina was starting to calm a little.

“Hallucination?  We both ate.”

“But we both saw the exact same
thing.  And how did S.A. know you’d be reading the note with me?  How did S.A.
know about Stan, and where I live?”

“I don’t know.  That brings up a
good point, though.  We can’t go back to my apartment, and we surely can’t go
to yours.  So we have to find someplace safe to crash for the night, while it’s
still daylight.”

“Stan’s place?”

“No Jina.  Most definitely not. 
We can rent a hotel room.” 

Sandy pulled into the parking lot
of Motel Sleepyhead.  It was the only place on the street that didn’t have any
letters missing from the neon sign.

“This ought to work.  We can go
rent a chick flick and stay up late.  What do you think about that?”

“Sounds good.”

“And then we can decide what to
do about this whole thing tomorrow.” 

Jina smiled.  “Hey, do you know
what’s worse than finding a bug in your candy?”

“What?”

“Finding half a bug in your
candy.”

S
andy
pounced on the alarm clock at 5:30am.  She turned her head and looked across
the rust-colored paisley covers to see that Jina was already up.

She groggily pulled herself into
the bathroom, and woke herself with a shower.  It wasn’t until she was brushing
her hair that she realized Jina wasn’t in the hotel room at all.  Holding the
white towel tightly around herself, she searched until she found a note stuck
to the TV.  Jina’s neat handwriting read:

Dear Sandy, got brave and have
gone back to my apartment to pick up change of clothes.  See you at school
later.  -Jina

What a stupid thing to do
, Sandy
thought.  A knock interrupted her brooding.  Jina must have forgotten the key.

Yelling, “Just a minute,” she
quickly threw on her jeans and a shirt.

She opened the door and saw the
all too familiar eyes of the Gregorelli delivery boy.

“Sorry to disturb you so early,
Ma’am… Oh, it’s you, Ms. Windham.  I didn’t expect to see you here.  This is
for you.”  He handed her a single black rose.  There was a card hanging from
the stem.  He turned to leave.

“Wait,” Sandy said.  He turned
back.  “Who are these from?”

“I don’t know, Ms. Windham.  I
just deliver them.”

“Is there any way you can find
out?”

“No.  Not without getting into
trouble.”

“What if I gave you a tip?”

The boy’s face lit up.  “What
kind of tip?”

Sandy stepped inside and grabbed
her purse.  She handed over a twenty.  “That kind.  Bring the answer by the
history department at the University this afternoon.  I would
really
appreciate it.”

Smiling, he said, “No problem,
Ms. Windham.”

Sandy quietly closed the door,
and opened the little tiny card.

The game is not over,

It has only begun.

If you want to save Jina,

Then you’d better run.

There’s a house out on 6th
Street,

Like its neighbors, condemned.

Stand in front of five-twelve,

And wait for your friend.

Yet there’s just enough time,

Put yourself to the trial,

That you might pack a bag first.
. .

You’ll be gone for a while.

S.A.

The card fluttered to the floor
as Sandy turned white. 

“No,” she whispered.  “I don’t
want to play anymore!”

Thoughts tumbled through her
mind.  She snatched up the phone and dialed Jina’s number.  It rang through to
voicemail. 

Fine then, if she couldn’t call
Jina, she would try Jina’s apartment.  She was not about step into S.A.’s turf
based on a little note.  With wet hair, she snatched up her purse and ran to
her car.

It didn’t start.

The key turned again.  The car
merely sputtered and then wound down.  A dead battery.

Damn!
  Sandy
slammed her hands against the wheel.

J
ina had
arrived at her apartment, taken a shower, and packed some things in an old,
torn up gym bag.  Her good gym bag and all of her travel things were still at
Sandy’s house.  She wasn’t about to go back for them, especially since Sandy
had the only keys to Sandy’s front door.

While digging through her back
closet for a spare stick of deodorant, the doorbell buzzed.  In light of the
week’s events, she decided not to get it. 

The elusive deodorant was hiding
behind a stack of wadded towels.  Her hand wrapped around it and she heard, “Jina,
it’s for you.”

She groaned.  Her roommate came
walking back holding something in her hand.

“It was a delivery for you.  I
took it.  Why didn’t you get it?  I was studying.”

“Look, Megan, I don’t want it. 
Whatever it is.”

“But it’s a rose.  And there’s a
note.  It looks important.”

Megan walked just close enough
that she could see it.  A single rose.  Black.  The word “Urgent” was spelled
out in bright red letters on a small envelope.

Jina took the rose and opened the
note.

I’m enjoying the game.

There are two now to be had.

Sandy’s still playing,

Which makes me quite glad.

If you’d like to join her,

And I know that you will,

Meet her on 6th Street,

She’s standing there still.

S.A.

“Uh, I gotta run Megan.”  She
grabbed her half-packed bag and darted for the door.

“What’s going on?”

“Sandy’s in trouble.”  The door
slammed.

S
andy
jumped out of her dead car, and yelled up at the sky.

“If I can’t drive to Jina’s, I’ll
walk!  You can’t manipulate me anymore!”

She slammed her car door, and
strode down the street.  Two blocks later, her gait slowed.  For the first time
she noticed her surroundings.

The early morning sun beat down
hot in a neighborhood with too much concrete and not enough trees. A row of
dilapidated houses squeezed together, each with a tiny lawn and empty gravel
driveway.  Most appeared vacant, but a few showed signs of life.  Three days’
worth of uncollected newspapers piled on a few narrow porches.  A sprinkler had
been running in one yard a little too long.  Some of the trashcans were full to
overflowing. 

On the opposite side of the
street lay an empty lot that ran the length of the block.

Sandy never remembered passing
here on the way to Jina’s before.  Had she gone the wrong way?  Coming from a
motel in a strange part of town must have disoriented her.

The street did look a little
familiar.  She realized that Fifth Street lay parallel to this one.  She was on
Sixth.

Sandy stopped walking.  She
looked up.  Unpainted numbers hung loosely from the tattered old house before
her.  Five-twelve.

Somehow she had ended up here
despite her attempt to avoid it.

Much like the other houses on the
block, a small front yard filled with brittle overgrown grass threatened to
overtake the rusty chain-link fence.  A neglected wisteria vine grew partially
up the cracked front wall.  What little paint remained on the house peeled free
in generous patches.  The concrete steps leading up to the door crumbled at the
corners.  Surprisingly, only one window was broken, and that was way up on the
third story. 

The mood of the area, especially
this house, oppressed her, and Jina was nowhere to be seen.  Of course S.A. had
lied.  She was about to turn and run back the way she had come, when Jina came
dashing up, an old gym bag bouncing around on her shoulder.

“Oh, thank god you’re still here,”
she huffed.  “The bus would have been too slow, so I had to run the entire way.”

“Jina!  What the hell are you
doing here?”

“I got a note saying you’re in
trouble.  You ok?”

Sandy rolled her eyes.  “Of
course I’m ok.  I got a note too, saying
you
were in trouble.  It’s the
old, ‘Susan’s mommy said
she
could go’ trick.  Why did you fall for it?”

“You obviously fell for it, too.”

“No, actually I accidentally
wandered here.  It sounds crazy, I know, but…”

“So we’re both just fine.  I say
we leave before that changes.  This has reached the point of being more than a
sick practical joke.”