The Nightmarys (8 page)

to you,” said the man. His voice was low,

resonant, a bit scratchy.

Timothy surprised himself by answering

lamely, “I’m sorry.”

“You had the chance to run at the museum

this morning. Shoulda used it, Timothy. Leave

her behind.” The man was talking about

Abigail….

Slowly, the man raised his other hand—the

one without the book—toward the ceiling. In

this st, he tightly gripped a di erent object.

The two ends of a horseshoe jut ed out from

either side of the man’s sleeve. A smal piece of

the object sparkled brightly as light from the

nearest aluminum globe struck it. The overhead

nearest aluminum globe struck it. The overhead

light grew fainter and fainter, until the locker

room disappeared entirely.

Unable to see, Timothy tentatively reached

out. Something pushed by him. He shouted and

slammed himself against the nearest locker,

ailing his arms for protection. After a few

seconds, Timothy realized he was alone. He

slowed his breathing, trying to calm down. I’m

safe now, he told himself. Safe.

A moment later, the locker room appeared

again. The lights were normal. The man was

gone. Timothy stood at the end of the row

where his own locker had been. Behind him,

the yel ow light from the shower room bled

onto the concrete floor.

Timothy needed to get out of there. Beyond

the showers, the crooked hal way revealed the

way to the pool. But even that seemed too far

away. Timothy turned and dashed around the

corner, toward the gymnasium’s lobby.

Once there, Timothy was ooded with relief.

As several passing students stared at him, he

As several passing students stared at him, he

realized he must look like a crazy person,

standing there dripping in his wet bathing suit,

eyes wild, out of breath. He didn’t care.

Seconds later, from the direction of the pool,

Timothy heard the sound of screaming.

13.

Timothy rushed past several of the col ege

students who had wandered toward the pool

entrance. Underneath the diving platforms, a

group of people stood at the edge of the pool,

raising a commotion. One of his teammates, a

younger girl, was crying. In the water, the rest

of the swim team held on to the lane lines.

They had al stopped swimming and were

paying at ention to what was happening in the

deep end.

Suddenly, Thom burst through the surface of

the water from below. He was wearing al his

clothes. He was holding someone in his arms.

He kicked toward the edge of the pool, cal ing

out for everyone to give him room. By the time

Thom had reached the side, Timothy had

managed to make his way through the crowd.

That was when he realized who Thom was

struggling to pul out of the water.

struggling to pul out of the water.

Stuart.

He was unconscious. His skin was a strange

bluish color. Thom managed to lay Stuart out

at. He leaned toward Stuart’s face, feeling for

breath. After a couple seconds, Thom began

pressing on Stuart’s chest with both hands.

“What happened?” Timothy asked an older

boy standing beside him.

“Not sure,” said the boy. “The kid was down

real y deep. Thom thought he was fooling

around, you know? He kept cal ing to him, but

he wouldn’t come up. So Thom jumped in.”

The coach breathed into Stuart’s mouth, then

lifted his head. “Someone cal an ambulance!”

he shouted. He continued pressing on Stuart’s

chest. “And his parents!”

Timothy felt the same way he had in the

locker room, when the rows of lockers seemed

to have rearranged themselves. Lost. Was this

real y happening? Maybe this was al a dream

—a nightmare like the one he’d had the night

before about his brother. He closed his eyes and

before about his brother. He closed his eyes and

told himself to wake up. But when he opened

his eyes, nothing changed.

Just then, Stuart shuddered. He coughed

huge, wet, choking breaths. Timothy hugged

himself.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, he thought

to no one in particular.

THE HAUNTING OF

ABIGAIL TREMENS

INTERLUDE

WAL-MART SUPERCENTER—VERO BEACH, FLORIDA

“Just let me know if you need a di erent size,”

said the salesgirl.

“I wil ,” said the older woman, slipping into

the dressing room and closing the door behind

her.Emma Huppert had needed a new bathing

suit for years but hadn’t wanted to shop for one

until she’d lost a lit le weight. At her age, she

found it harder than ever. Though nal y this

year, Emma had managed to stick with her

resolution.

Emma adjusted the strap and examined

herself in the mirror. The oral pat ern was

at ering, and the skirt that irted out at the

waist hid the parts that needed to be hidden.

waist hid the parts that needed to be hidden.

“Perfect,” Emma whispered to herself. She lived

so close to the beach but hadn’t been in the

water for at least a decade. This would be a

nice change. Something to do other than play

bingo al day with the rest of the white-haired

ladies in the retirement community.

The doorknob rat led, and Emma jumped.

“There’s someone in here!” she cal ed over the

door. She waited for an apology, but none

came. “Rude,” she whispered.

She and Bil had left Massachuset s almost

twenty years ago, but Florida never real y felt

like home. So many tourists always passing

through. So many seasonal friends who came

and went.

Emma often had to force herself to remember

New Starkham. This bathing suit was her way

of trying to get some of that feeling back, if

only to swim in the same ocean she had when

she’d been young. Not that al memories of her

hometown were pleasant.

The doorknob rat led again, harder this time,

The doorknob rat led again, harder this time,

as if someone was frantical y trying to enter the

dressing room. Emma nearly fel against the

wal . “There is someone in here!” she cal ed

again, growing angry.

Probably just teenagers playing pranks, she

imagined, catching her breath. Wel , the

bathing suit t, so Emma decided to hurry up

and let the pranksters tease someone else.

When she bent down to pick up her blouse,

someone slapped the door so hard that Emma

yelped, leapt upright, and clutched her shirt to

her chest. The slap came again and again and

again. She could see under the door, but no one

was standing outside.

Now Emma was frightened. She knew it

wasn’t the salesgirl doing this to her. She was

almost certain that whoever was assaulting the

door was no prankster either. For the past few

weeks, she’d been seeing things she should not

have been seeing. She’d managed to dismiss the

other incidents as exhaustion, but this was not

something she could ignore. She was trapped in

something she could ignore. She was trapped in

a tiny room, wearing a bathing suit that did not

yet belong to her. And outside was … wel …

No, that was impossible. There was no such

thing as ghosts.

Emma reached for the doorknob. Grasping it,

she turned her wrist slowly, then pul ed the

door open. Peeking out, she saw no one, so she

swung the door wide.

But then, standing in the opposite cubicle,

Emma noticed the girl. Her wet black hair was

plastered to her dirty face, her brown skin

pul ed taut over her cheekbones. She wore the

same stars-and-stripes dress she’d been wearing

the last time Emma had seen her … nearly sixty

years ago. “Delia,” Emma croaked. Her sister.

The girl leapt across the aisle, arms raised,

and Emma stumbled backward. “It was your

fault!” screamed the girl. “You weren’t

watching. You weren’t watching. You weren’t

watching!”

Emma hit the mirror behind her and covered

her face. “I’m sorry!” she cried, sliding down

her face. “I’m sorry!” she cried, sliding down

the wal until she’d managed to curl herself

into a bal on the carpet. “I’m so sorry, Delia!

Please!” She felt someone grab at her shoulder.

Emma slapped the hand away, then glanced

up, expecting Delia to lean in at her with a

mouthful of broken teeth.

Instead, the salesgirl stood over her, wearing

a shocked expression. “Is everything al right,

ma’am?”

Emma didn’t know what to do. Lifting her

eyes, she peered at the aisle outside the

dressing room. No one else was there. She

shook her head and wiped the tears from her

eyes. “Everything is ne,” Emma said, standing

sturdily. She brushed herself o . “The bathing

suit ts perfectly. I’l take it.” The salesgirl

nodded and stepped out of the cubicle.

Then a voice whispered from the adjacent

dressing room, the same voice she’d been

hearing for several weeks now, whenever she

thought of her sister. It said, Your fault …

“Wait!” Emma grabbed the salesgirl’s arm.

“Wait!” Emma grabbed the salesgirl’s arm.

The girl looked worried. “Can you do me a

favor?” Emma asked. “Just … stand outside the

door? Make sure no one tries to come in?”

The salesgirl simply stared back, as if Emma

had lost her mind.

14.

The morning after swim practice, the clouds

had broken, and bits of blue shone through the

gray. After he got o the bus, Timothy went

directly to the school library. There were only

ten minutes before the rst bel , but there was

something he needed to do. He plopped

himself down at an empty computer, logged on

to the Internet, and did a search of the name

Ogden Kentwal .

The rst few pages of results didn’t produce

any exact matches—a few “Ogden”s, several

“Kentwal ”s, but nothing else. Just when

Timothy was about to give up and head to his

locker, he nal y came across a Web site for an

independent bookstore, cal ed The Enigmatic

Manuscript, located in the northwest corner of

the state. The Web site listed several other

Zelda Kite Mysteries and a brief biography of

the author, which had been writ en by the

the author, which had been writ en by the

owner of the store, a woman named Frances

May.

“Ogden Kentwal is actual y a pseudonym for

a man whose real name was Hieronymus

Kindred,” wrote Frances, “a lawyer from

Boston, who al egedly based the character of

Zelda Kite on his teenaged niece. Kindred’s

foray into children’s literature was short-lived,

due to the series’ never real y catching on. His

three titles that survive, however, have a

strange, subtle charm, and I would not be

surprised if someday they are rediscovered by

young audiences. I have one copy of each,

available for purchase through this site …”

As Timothy read the short blurb, he began to

feel a chil . Hieronymus Kindred? Why did the

name sound familiar? Before he had a chance

to think about it, the rst bel rang. Timothy

quickly logged o the computer, snatched his

bag from the desk, and headed toward

homeroom.

By the time Timothy made it to Mr. Crane’s

third-period class, the school was buzzing about

Stuart. Timothy hadn’t said anything about

what had happened the night before, yet

everyone was looking at him strangely,

expectant, as if he might know something

more. He sat down and tried not to look at the

empty chair to his left.

Before Mr. Crane came through the door,

Brian Friedman and Randy Weiss had

mentioned Stuart’s name. Timothy wouldn’t

have listened to them, except that he knew

Randy’s mother was a nurse in New Starkham

Hospital’s emergency room.

“I overheard my parents last night,” Randy

began. “Supposedly, when they brought Stuart

in, he was talking real y weird.”

“Weird how?” said Brian.

“I think I heard my mom say he thought”—

Randy paused—“wel … some sort of …

monster tried to drown him.”

“Maybe you heard her wrong.”