The Midnight Twins (19 page)

“If only there was some other way out of this.”

“Think of one, then. Please. I don’t want it. I can’t! Otherwise, it
will
be the only thing we do for the rest of our lives,” said Mallory. “Once he knows we know, he won’t ever dare to try it again. It’s the only way.”

“Maybe, Mally, we could just go to that policewoman, the one who came here when you heard the banging on the door. And just tell her!”

“Tell her what? That I had a dream about a guy who didn’t do something I thought he was going to do?”

Meredith sighed. “It was an idea.”

“It will be daytime and we’ll be together. We’ll be okay.”

“Ster,” Meredith said. “I just can’t handle this like you. I never thought of us thinking about stuff like this, Mally. We had it good, all our lives.” Meredith kicked the warm stone with the heel of her shoes, considering how she’d hardly gotten started on her future before she had to consider the good old days.

And then Drew arrived, and though he’d really never looked at them normally since that night at the pizza place, today it was as though a clean rain had fallen on all their faces. Their neighbor was the old Drewsky—with ancient Van Halen CDs cranking and cheeseburger wrappers all over the floor of his car. Mally sat in front, and they played headbangers and she almost forgot how much had changed. They went through the drive-through and got supersize fries. Drew squirted ketchup on Mally’s bare leg. She flicked it on his jeans.

Cleaning her hands off with a napkin, Mallory sighed in contentment and rolled the window down just halfway. Drew was about to complain about the noise of the wind when she saw the sign.

“Drew, stop,” she said. “Back up a little.”

“Now what?”

“I think I saw something. Yeah, I did! Look, Mer! My bike is back there! Remember I told you my bike was stolen out of the garage? That’s it! We’ll get out here and walk the rest of the way home. It’s not even a mile. Look, back there, leaning against that garage that’s just the frame?”

Merry screeched, “A mile? Your bike? Your bike is just . . .”

“We’ll be great! I can ride her on the handlebars,” Mallory rushed on.

“I have to take off,” Drew said. “I’m already practically late.”

Drew was a stocker at Bill’s Star Market. He said lifting the crates of chicken stock and lettuce kept him buff and the few bucks he got each week kept him in gas. Mallory literally hauled Meredith out of the car and squeezed her elbow. They waved as Drew slowly drove off.

Finally when his old green Toyota turned out onto Cambridge Street, Merry cried, “Are you out of your mind? Why am I even asking? Your bike was never stolen! Why did you do this to me? This place is like a mud factory! Why are we here?”

Mallory could barely keep her teeth from clacking in the bright sunlight. She turned up the collar on her turtleneck.

“It’s the new housing development,” she said to her sister.

“Duh!” Meredith said, nearly stamping her foot with impatience.

“Well, when we passed, I noticed the sign,” Mallory said.

Meredith looked up. They were standing under a green street marker.

It read “Crest Haven.”

“You said it would be the old people’s condos,” Meredith whispered, her chin beginning to quiver. “I thought we could run in the back door of the old people’s condos if he did anything. We don’t know what’s back there. There’s nobody here. The houses aren’t even finished. You don’t even know if there’s a tennis court. It’s not that nice out yet. You said it would be.”

“We’ll just walk back there. I’m probably totally wrong.”

“Why? Why, Mallory? Why do we have to do this? Why do we have to know this? What if you’re totally not wrong?”

“Then we do what we said.”

“Mal, I’m calling Dad.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because whether I’m right or wrong, what are we going to tell him? Are we going to tell him this . . . whatever vision I see and you saw? Do you want him to know, Merry? What if we get David to stop this and then we see something else someday? What if . . . what if Dad thinks there’s something wrong with us? I thought about all this. Didn’t you?”

“No, I tried to ignore it. And what do you mean, us? This is all your idea.”

“Ster,” Mallory said. “You know I’m right.”

“We could end up in therapy until we’re sixteen.”

“We could end up in a nut place, Mer. Or boarding school. I could tell that Dad just about had it when the banging thing happened.”

“He can’t blame you. That would be so totally unfair!”

“No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean, he was starting to think that something about us . . . okay, about me, was weird. He was acting like I was going hysterical. I think there’s stuff about Dad’s family, about the women in his family, that we don’t know.”

“You
were
hysterical.”

“No, I mean, like, nutso hysterical. If we just do this, maybe it’s over forever. What if there was a reason we went through all that pain and the little kids were even almost hurt? To save somebody’s life?”

“Let’s just walk back there, then. I don’t want to stand here forever. You’re cleaning these shoes for me.”

“I don’t know why you wore platforms.”

“I didn’t know we were going hiking in the mud, hello.”

Together, glancing left and right despite themselves, Mallory and Merry began to make their way back past the model home with its three gables and huge double bay windows, past the finished houses with their “For Sale” signs, to where the sidewalk ended and paving gave way to planks. The final cul-de-sac was invisible from the road, and only one house was under construction, the raw framing like a child’s Tinker Toy building. The other lots had numbers and strings delineating houses that existed only in the dreams of young families.

“See, there’s nothing here. Thank you, God,” Merry said.

“What’s that?” Mally pointed at a track that went back toward a tiny wooded area—almost the idea of a forest, like a model at a plant nursery. They saw that the pool had already been bucketed out, squared off, and that a contractor was readying the sides for eventual concrete surfacing.

And behind the pool, there was a wide area boundaried by chain-link fence.

The tennis courts must have been poured last summer, before anything else, so that the huge machinery needed to roll out and divide two double courts would never have to go whomping through someone’s future front yard.

Meredith reached for Mallory’s hand.

Parked between the gates of the two separate courts was David Jellico’s car.

“Okay, we’re not going to think about this,” Mally said. “Ster, if we think about it too long, I’m going to lose it and so are you, and, plus, even though we can’t see anybody in that car doesn’t mean there isn’t anybody in it. And so I’m going to run this way. . . .”

“What do you mean, this way? I’m going where you’re going.”

“We’re going to go around separate ways. I’ll be able to see you the whole time. We’re going to go around so we can come in on both sides. He’ll look up and see me, and then I’ll distract him, and then you’ll yell and he’ll see you. If he has anyone in there . . .”

“What if she’s hurt?”

“I told you, we aren’t going to think.” Merry grabbed her hair, as Campbell did when she was worried. “Think, now. Think what Grandma said. If we weren’t supposed to do something about it, I don’t think I would have seen it in my mind pictures.”

“What did he do? What is he going to do?”

“Like the dog, Mer.”

“Oh, no! Oh, Mallory, I can’t . . .” Meredith began to pant.

“Take off your shoes,” Mally said.

“I can’t stand in the mud!”

“It’s okay. I can. I’ll give you my running shoes.”

“Then you’ll have to stand in the mud!”

“I can. I don’t care about it. Let’s just do it.” Meredith quickly laced up Mally’s shoes. Impulsively, they hugged. Then Mally set off at a slow lope between two houses and disappeared into the small stand of birches and evergreens. Merry ran through what would be two backyards and behind what she guessed would be a locker room for the tennis players.

She heard them before she saw them.

“No!” the girl’s voice came, muffled, through . . . through what? Merry stopped, stepping closer. She heard David’s voice, pleading, then lower, almost a growl; and the girl’s cry was sharper this time, accented, “I said no to you!” The green door to the locker room was half open. Meredith did not think that anything on earth would let her open it all the way. But when the girl cried out again—and Merry could tell from the noise that she was fighting, scuff ling—she pulled the heavy door back so fast it slammed against the wall.

“What’s that?” David called.

Meredith crept into the dim interior, past lockers, through a shower stall to what appeared to be some sort of bathroom, with mirrors and counters. A plaid blanket was spread in one corner. A girl’s purse lay on the blanket. But the girl was on the tile floor, grabbing for her bra, struggling, pushing to get up. David was half on top of her, holding her down. She was pretty, little, a Latina girl not much bigger than Merry was. Her sweater was torn and her lip was bleeding. And in David’s clenched fist was his belt.

“Who’s there?” David yelled.

“Your worst nightmare, David,” Merry said. She had no idea how or why she was able to make a sound anything stronger than a squeak. But she came off like Superwoman.

Sobbing, the girl grabbed her purse and ran past Meredith, out the door. She could hear her babbling, in Spanish.

“You psycho little shit,” David said. He sat back, against a counter. “What do you think you saw?”

“Who is she?”

“Like I’d tell you.”

“Tell me or I tell Kim. I tell Bonnie and your dad.”

“Some little slut I picked up at the mall. She works at the freaking pretzel stand. Jesus, Meredith. She wanted to.”

“She
so
looked like she wanted to,” Merry said. David rose slowly to one knee. “Don’t even think about coming near me. I’ll scream and every construction worker out there will hear me.”

“There’s no one out there,” David said slowly, smiling, as if he wanted to soothe her, quiet her with soft words, as someone might do with an excited animal. “It’s Sunday.”

Meredith turned and ran back through the shower. When David’s hand grazed her back, she forced herself to turn and nail him in the jaw with the heel of one of the platform sandals she carried. Blood pooled in bright red stitches along the cut, and David’s hand went up involuntarily. Meredith didn’t wait. She sprinted for the door. She was past his car when he caught up with her again, finally grabbing the back of her sweater and yanking her down into the mud.

“You’re not telling anyone anything,” David snarled. “Ever.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Mallory said then.

David looked up, keen as an animal, his frustration nearly a scent in the air. Mally wasn’t out of breath and looked as calm as she would have looked coming in from her run. “Get up, Merry,” she said.

Merry pulled away from David and ran to stand next to her sister. Under the wide sky, with the sounds of traffic less than a block away, she felt safer. But David was slowly making his way forward.
Serpentine,
thought Merry. It was a vocabulary word. The blue eyes she thought were so beautiful were opaque, expressionless as water. David’s blond hair was flat with mud and sweat. He was unfolding himself toward them, not quite creeping, not quite walking.

“No closer,” Mallory said, pointing at David what looked to Merry like a big silver drill. “David, this is a nail gun. My dad used one when he built the store building. I was only ten but he let me use it. I know how. It’s not hard.”

“Bullshit,” David said, creeping forward.

Mallory’s knees literally began to shake, as they did after a hard game. “David, no! Don’t! I found it on the floor of one of those houses out there. I’m telling you the truth! There are nails in it. Big roofing nails.” She saw David measure the distance between them. Mally used her right hand to grab her left and stop her shaking. He could run toward her, but if she told him about the nails, maybe he wouldn’t move until they could leave. “If I shot this, it would really mess up your face. I would really shoot you in the face. I would, I really mean it. I won’t let you touch my sister. You’re wrecking your whole life, David! You didn’t do anything really bad yet. You can go to a doctor or something. Think of your mom, David!” Mallory began to cry. “David, maybe you’re not really bad. Maybe you’re sick.”

David stopped. He stood, half crouched. Mallory could feel his readiness to leap at her if she tripped or dropped the nail gun.

Still pointing it at him, Mally felt Meredith pull at the waistband of her jeans. They backed up, opening a bigger space between David and them.

“You have to leave,” Mally said, her tears and her leaking nose coating her face. “You have to. Merry already called our dad, David. You might be able to grab me, but you can’t grab both of us. Lots of people know we’re here. Drew Vaughan knows! He dropped us off.” The girls kept backing up and David still crouched on the ground. The closer she got to the road, the braver Mallory felt.

The phone rang, but stopped before Merry could answer. She opened it and punched in her father’s store. The line was busy, but she whispered to Mally that they really could dial 911 if they had to. It was safer if they could call Drew. Less likely to cause a big fuss for their parents and everyone else. Mallory didn’t want Kim or Bonnie to know this had ever happened. She wished she could forget it had happened.

They made their way back through the sucking mud, step by step. Mally wasn’t sad or even completely terrified anymore, but she couldn’t stop crying. She called, “David, this is your last chance! To just get in your car and leave. You sick piece of garbage! You almost killed my little brother and my cousins. You burned Merry’s hand. You tried to scare me to death. It’s over now, David.” Mallory held the nail gun in her hands, her arms extended. “Merry, try the store again. If no one answers, call the police. Will you admit it, David? Will you tell the police that you tried to burn us up? How could you do such a thing to us? I should shoot you anyhow. Maybe I will if you don’t go right now!”