CHAPTER NINETEEN
When I came to, I was in an unfamiliar bedroom. There was a poster of Ryan Reynolds on the wall, a collage of photos and some arty framed works of Parisian landscapes. The wallpaper was yellow with tiny roses. >
I blinked hard at the overhead light and slowly eased myself onto my elbows. I was lying on a single bed and was alone. I looked around the room again. The dull thud of music reverberated throughout the walls. It matched the pounding in my head. I wasn’t in pain but I could feel my heart hammering away upstairs in the thin space between my forehead and my skull.
What the hell had just happened? One minute I was talking to Jacob outside by the side of the house and the next I was in Adrianna’s bedroom. At least, that’s what it looked like from the mass of pictures on the wall, her tanned, smiling face with a gaggle of different kids I went to school with.
I rubbed at my forehead to get the pounding to stop. What had we been talking about anyway? Why had I just fainted?
Seriously, I’m quitting drugs tomorrow, I thought. At least cutting back.
I got off of the bed and vigorously rubbed my face up and down, stretching my jaw open and shaking my arms back and forth. A beer would put me right. Maybe a line if I happened to run into someone I knew.
Of course, it was more than likely that Jacob had a bit of coke somewhere. But I wasn’t sure if it was worth it. He had been creepy, he had been talking about…demons? Was it demons? And then I ended up here. No, the coke wasn’t worth it, not from him.
I opened the door and poked my head out into the hall. The sounds of the party came at me. At the end of the hallway, a couple was making out against a door. Pretty hardcore from the looks of it. The guy was getting a handjob at least; the blonde girl’s hand was well into his pants and working him back and forth. I wanted to tell them the bedroom was free if he didn’t want to make a mess in his pants but I kept it to myself and crept past them. They didn’t notice anyway.
I reached the stairs and was met with a party that showed no sign of slowing down. If anything, people were more wild than before. Someone was sitting on top of the television, the beer bong had made its way into the kitchen, everyone seemed to be dirty dancing with anything and everyone. The girls’ tops were all yanked down lower, their makeup smudged beneath their eyes. The guys were all ridiculously loud and I could see every single one of them had a boner in one form or another. Booze was spilled, smoke from pot and cigarettes filled the air. And by the door, a couple was getting into a yelling match that was eclipsed only by the music. People walked past them and took no notice. Everyone had other things on their mind. Mainly, getting f*cked; in more ways than one.
I didn’t recognize anyone I knew. Not Jacob. Not Tara. Not even Adrianna or her boyfriend Angus.
I sighed and continued to walk down. I was almost at the bottom step when a strange sound caught the tip of my ear. It had come from behind me.
I turned and looked. The couple that had been heavy petting had stopped and was standing at the top of the stairs. The guy with his Linkin Park T-shirt seemed frozen on the spot, like he was in mid-embrace. But the girl, the girl with her long blonde hair, she was…growling. And unlike the guy, she was moving. She pushed him backward toward the room I came out of, and he walked backward, as if on autopilot or under a spell.
Then she changed before my eyes. Her skin fizzed like acid was poured on it. Her eyes and her nose disappeared until she was just all mouth, with jagged teeth, her skin suddenly the smooth alabaster of fine porcelain. And then she dissolved before my eyes. All that was left was this sickening growl and the guy who was being shoved backward into the bedroom by some invisible force.
This had nothing to do with drugs. This was actually happening.
I whirled around to look at the party, expecting them to all be watching what I was watching. But everyone was carrying on as usual.
I looked back at the stairs. The door was shut. I had to know what was going on. If what I saw was correct…was real. I didn’t care if I interrupted their sex session.
I walked back up the stairs and paused at the door. I couldn’t hear anything except a strange sucking sound, like a vacuum was running on high power.
I took in a deep breath and was about to enter the room when something touched my shoulder.
Before I could scream a hand was around my mouth, squelching the sound.
I was turned around to see Jacob standing there. He had a gas can in his hand.
Do you see now? he whispered. But his mouth didn’t mouth. The words just entered my head, as if he was in there.
I told you that’s where I came from. That others would be here.
“What are you?” I asked, though my voice was muffled by his hand, my lips tasting the strange, sickly sweet flavor of his hand. It was a ridiculous question to ask. But suddenly, nothing seemed ridiculous. I saw a girl disappear in front of my eyes.
I’m a ghost, he projected, the words shooting into my head as clear as day. I died a long time ago. I don’t know what happened. I killed myself and now I’m stuck. Between here and the other world. The other world is much worse. Black and white.
It was too much. I wanted to run, to flee, but he kept his hand at my mouth.
You’re not going anywhere, Perry. You’re special. I knew it from the start. You’re the only one who can see me. And the only one who can help me stop them.
Stop who? I thought.
Stop the demons, he answered and I realized my thoughts were being read. We aren’t the same.
Overwhelmed, I shut my eyes hard until all I saw were sparks of light behind them. I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, with anyone else. I concentrated really hard, wishing I had the power to just change things. I felt the ground rumble lightly under my feet and the pictures on the hallway wall rattled. An eerie cry shot out from behind the door.
“Stop it!” Jacob yelled out loud. “You’re attracting them!”
My eyes flew open and I glared at him. I reached up with my hand, grabbed his disgusting scarred wrist and yanked it away from my mouth.
“Attracting who!?” I yelled back.
Suddenly the door opened and the blonde girl stuck her head out. She looked like a normal teenage girl again except a trail of blood dripped out of the corner of her mouth. She scanned the hall before her eyes settled on Jacob and me.
She made a move for us, but Jacob quickly threw the can of gas toward her, a gush of acrid liquid flowing out of the spout and onto her, the walls and the floor.
She screamed, more in shock than in pain or anything else.
“Perry!” Jacob yelled. “Send her back!”
He reached into his pocket and tossed a lighter at me. I caught it somehow but I wasn’t about to follow his orders.
The girl was writhing on the spot, the gasoline flowing off her toned body and staining the plush beige carpet beneath us. But she was normal. Aside from the blood, which could have been a result of rough, drunk sex or whatever, there was nothing strange about her anymore. She had eyes, heavily made up with green eye shadow, a pert nose and a normal mouth. I could see the traces of auburn lip liner beneath her lower lip.
Send her back? Did he seriously think I would light some random chick on fire?
I looked at Jacob to tell him he was crazy, that he wasn’t a ghost, that this girl wasn’t a demon, and that the beer I had earlier was probably spiked with acid, but the girl lunged forward and wrapped her hands around my neck. Her fingers felt like icy knives and they sank into my skin with startling precision. The feeling made me sick. And I couldn’t breathe.
“Do it!” Jacob yelled again and made a go for the girl. I couldn’t see what happened but her hands eventually let go and I was left breathless. I looked down to see him tackle her to the ground. He pinned her wrists down and she wriggled beneath them, hissing.
“They don’t let us leave!” he cried out. “The keep us here!”
The girl made a swift kick to Jacob’s groin. Ghost or not, it made him double over in pain. Then she fizzled again, skin bubbling, facial features disappearing until she was a hazy image above the carpet. The only thing that remained was that open, fathomless hole that was her mouth. And it came for me.
Without thinking, I flicked the lighter on and held it out in front of me as the shape collided into me.
I kept the flame going as the back of my head smashed against the wall behind me. Paintings rattled to the floor.
The girl, whatever was left of her, was suddenly outlined by the glow of the flames, like she was traced by some giant pen of golden ink. Her shape came into my vision, then turned into an actual girl again. Normal looking. She cried out in pain and fell to the ground as the sick, hungry flames consumed her, skin first.
I felt sick but couldn’t look away. The girl wriggled on the floor until she was no more. She just vanished, leaving only ash, while the fire began to move along the upstairs carpet toward the stairs, licking at the wet walls.
I looked at Jacob, who was struggling to his feet. He nodded at me, the spiky tips of his Mohawk glowing in the flames’ light.
Suddenly the door to the bedroom opened and the guy in the Linkin Park T-shirt wandered out. He froze at the sight of me, standing in the hallway, lighter in hand, gas can at my side, and the fire, which quickly ate up the crunchy carpet.
“Holy shit!” the guy cried out. I guess I should have been relieved that he was alive and that girl hadn’t killed him, but any sense of relief was taken away when he yelled. “Fire! There’s a girl up here, she started a fire!”
Then he burst past me in the hallway, leaping over the flames while screaming at the same time and ran down the stairs. I could hear the panic and commotion that resulted downstairs. People screaming, yelling, glasses breaking, drunks colliding with each other, falling down.
I looked at Jacob and then down at the lighter. The guy hadn’t seen Jacob. He didn’t know anything about the girl. It just looked like I, Perry Palomino, the fat sophomore, had tried to light Adrianna Gee’s house on fire.
It was one hell of an accident.
~~
I woke up to something licking my face.
I sat up straight, expecting to fight something. But it was just Fat Rabbit, standing on top of my chest and wriggling around. His nails sank into my abdomen and I winced at the pressure.
“Aw, come on,” I groaned and pushed him lightly off of me. He gave me a look and then darted out the door, which had been open a crack.
I looked down at myself in the light that came from the living room. I was back in Dex’s den. I didn’t know where I expected to wake up, but I had a feeling that my dreams had been exceedingly epic. I was covered in sweat again.
I held my hands out in front of me. The back of my left one was swollen and tight, a pale pink shade from the wasp sting. I grimaced at the sight as the memories of last night came flooding into my brain:
The man in the cell. Something about his featureless face was suddenly so familiar. Had I seen him before somewhere? Was he in my dream? I felt like I had dreamt about high school again, so that didn’t make much sense. But when did my dreams ever make sense.
Then there was the Spook Factory, essentially sabotaging us and not letting us out of the basement. Had they gotten everything they wanted? Did they see the footprints, the man in the cell? Did Annie get a cold finger down her spine?
And Miss Anonymous ended up being Jenn. Good ol’ Jennifer Rodriguez. Rebecca was certainly right about her. I wondered if she also knew about the comments. Or maybe it was just Dex. Dex trying to be a loyal boyfriend despite how disloyal he sometimes was. The idea that she had been sitting here in this room and giggling away at the computer as she told me I was fat and worthless…it caused my heart to thump hard in my chest. I was angry again, so very angry.
And finally there was the question. Dex had asked if I loved him. And I lied to save face. Why did he ask that to begin with? Did he suspect? Did he want me to have said yes, and if so, why? Either because he felt the same way or he wanted to have something else to lord over me.
I sighed long and hard, blowing out every last bit of air in an attempt to release the vibrant frustration that was building up inside of me. I was usually one of those people who woke up feeling calm after a hectic night, but suddenly I was just angry all over again. And I knew just who was getting the brunt of it.
I slipped my pajama pants on and padded my way across the room, opening the door and stepping out into the sun-soaked apartment. For once I wished it was raining; it would have suited my mood better.
Dex was sitting at the bar, his back to me, slurping back on a bowl of cereal. He was still in his blue plaid pajama pants but was shirtless. His hair was all ruffled and messy.
I stopped and watched him for a beat, gathering my thoughts. He turned around to look at me and jumped a little on his stool.
“Jesus!” he cried out and leaped off, his spoon clattering loudly into the bowl.
He rushed over to me, looking me up and down in horror, and then picked up my hand to examine the sting on the back of it.
“It’s fine,” I assured him. It wasn’t killing me, at least.
He shook his head and then moved on to my other arm, where another welt had formed just below the elbow. He touched it gently with his finger. I winced. It started to itch again.
He sucked in his lip and then placed both his warm hands on the side of my face. I didn’t like him being so up close first thing in the morning. I probably had sleep in my eyes and my teeth needed a good brushing. I knew I was too tired to do it last night; we had come straight home, got into dry clothes and went to bed.
“Nothing on your face,” he said, still eyeing every crevice of it.
I smiled, tight-lipped and went to move away but he wasn’t done yet. I closed my eyes as one of his hands went to the back of neck and settled on the large sting I had there. That one hurt and itched worst of all and he wasn’t making it any better.
“Oh, Perry, I’m sorry,” he said over a soft breath. Then he let go of me and walked off to the bathroom. I opened my eyes and let out the air I was holding. >
“Where’s Jenn?” I asked tentatively.
“Out,” he replied from the bathroom. He returned with a tube of prescription cream, probably hydrocortisone.
He put a bit on his finger. I was distracted by his bare chest. His tattoo, And with madness comes the light. Like hell that was a song lyric. That meant something more than that to him, just as his “mark of a criminal” fleur-de-lis did.
He reached back behind my neck and gently dabbed the cream on, swirling it around in a massaging motion. I felt my eyes closing again at the caress of his fingers.
No. I’m still mad at you, I thought. My eyes flew open and I stepped back. I took the cream from his hands.
“I’m fine, Dex; I can put the cream on myself. I’m not a cripple.” It probably came out a bit ungrateful, so I shot him a weak smile. He looked hurt and confused.
“OK,” he said and nodded. He still stood there. “I’m really sorry.”
I frowned at him and began to rub the cream on my hand. “Sorry for what?”
“Everything.”
Oh, well, I guess that covers it.
“I mean,” he started and pointed at his body. I eyed his arms and chest awkwardly, not wanting to give it too much of my time. “Look at me. I’ve got nothing on me. One sting Perry, and I would have died.”
“I know,” I said softly, keeping my attention on the meticulous way I was applying the cream.
“And you saved my life. You could have died too, allergic or not, if a lot of those wasps had got you…”
“But I didn’t. And neither did you.” I started now on the welt on my other arm. I didn’t want to get into such a serious topic. I was still mad about the Anonymous thing and I didn’t want to be distracted.
“Please, look at me.” He placed two fingers underneath my chin and tilted my head up. I met his eyes and immediately felt exposed.
“What?” I said underneath my breath.
His eyes looked wet and shiny, a layer of sadness and regret over them. I didn’t like to see him that way. I wanted the hard, flippant, uncaring Dex. Looking into these eyes made my nerves crumble.
“I’m sorry about Jenn,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you she was leaving the comments.”
I tried to look away but he wouldn’t let me. He stuck his face closer to mine in an effort to express himself. The anger I felt throttling through me moments earlier was quickly subsiding, leaving me exhausted. I just wanted to forget about it now.
“I should have told you, I see that now. But I was protecting her and I thought I was protecting you in a weird way. It’s better to think it’s a bunch of sad, anonymous losers instead of the girlfriend of your partner. And I was…embarrassed. I still am. Really f*cking embarrassed.”
I raised my brow at him. He took his fingers away from my face and walked back toward the bar top. I watched his hips shake with each step, the way the sides of his back disappeared smoothly into the flannel band of his pants. No love handles there, not like me.
He raised his face to the ceiling, still keeping his back to me.
“I just hoped Jenn wasn’t like that,” he added. “I knew she was a bitch, and that was fine because I’m an ass, but I didn’t know she could be that bad.”
“But she is,” I said. “And you have to live with that.”
He leaned against the bar in silence, then sat back on the stool and resumed eating his cereal, which was probably all mushy by now.
I went over and pulled up the stool next to him, my bare feet cold against the metal rungs at the bottom.
Dex stared down at his bowl and pushed the soggy Fruit Loops around and around, creating a mini whirlpool of milk. “I just don’t know what to do.”
Dump her ass, you moron. That’s what I wanted to say. But I could see Dex was opening up here and tormented by the situation. I kept silent. I wanted to comfort him but at the same time, I wanted him to see the truth of the matter. That their relationship was dead. It had been disintegrating all week, probably long before I got here, and it was on its final legs. There was no point beating around the bush, no point in keeping it going. It was sick, destroyed by the selfishness of both of them, and because I was on the outside, I was the only one in this apartment who could see it.
Perhaps the dog knew, too.
Dex turned his head to the side, his eyes darting at my face sheepishly. “You must think I’m an idiot.”
I smiled despite myself. “I’m an idiot too.”
“No,” he said with a sigh. “You’re not, Perry. You’re sweet, honest and a very good friend.”
Ah, the damn friend word again. The term made a flush bloom on my cheeks and was glad he took that moment to reach over for the box of cereal and pour more into his bowl.
I cleared my throat. “Well. I know what I would do but I’m not you and I can’t tell you what to do. Did you talk to her last night?” She had been asleep when we came in.
“Briefly,” he said shoveling cereal into his mouth. “She said she had been out with some girlfriends and that her phone had died.”
Likely story, I thought.
He eyed me. “Of course, my phone didn’t work either so I can’t exactly accuse her of lying. Not that I think she was. She may be a bitch, but she does care about me and I know she wouldn’t have just left me in a mental hospital basement, especially not alone with you.”
I spied his cup of coffee, picked it up and took a sip of it. It was lukewarm but it worked. “She really thinks something is going on between us, doesn’t she?”
He nodded grimly. “I guess if she’s been stepping out then it’s easy for her to imagine I’m guilty as well.”
I stared at him, dumbly. He was kind of guilty. Unless I imagined the whole tryst we had on the island, and I knew my imagination wasn’t that good.
He caught my eyes and looked away quickly. “Fine. I’m guilty too. Goddamn it, this whole situation is f*cked.”
It certainly was.
We both exhaled in unison. We sat there in silence for a bit, both of us side-by-side in our pajamas, he eating mushy cereal and me drinking his coffee, both consumed by our thoughts. I couldn’t pretend that my motives for him dumping Jenn weren’t at least a bit selfish. With her out of the picture, it opened up a whole realm of possibilities. At least, I hoped it did. But even if Jenn weren’t an issue anymore…did he feel the same way I felt about him? I didn’t think so.
“You need to break up with her,” I suddenly blurted out.
He flinched. He placed his spoon down and shot me an inquisitive look. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I know. But it’s not that easy,” he said carefully. I watched his eyes and understood what he meant. The apartment. The dog. Ending a long-term relationship. No, it definitely wasn’t going to be easy.
“I don’t…like change,” he added, adding weight to his words.
I could help with the transition, I thought. I wanted to put my arm around his bare shoulders and hold him, pull him close to me.
“And then what happens after that?” he continued.
“You’d be single,” I told him. My voice had automatically dropped in volume.
He pushed the bowl away from him and started chewing on his lip. Finally he looked at me and asked, “Would I be?”
That glowing cord of tension between us was suddenly visible and sparking again. My lungs felt heavy and the air around us felt static and alive. The hairs on my arms stood up and the area around my neck bite was pleasantly cool.
I shrugged carefully, wanting to break away from his intrusive eyes but I couldn’t. They held me in place.
“Could you see yourself with someone else?” I asked softly. There was so much ridiculous hope in the question, and I know he could see it on my face.
He turned in his chair by an inch, facing me. He looked tired, with faint bags under his eyes. But they were so feverish and sparkling, so intense and alive, that it lit up his face and made even his five o’ clock shadow look youthful.
“I could,” he said with conviction. “If she’d have me.”
My eyes widened at that. I couldn’t help it.
“But I can’t chance it,” he added quickly. “And I don’t think it would be a very smart choice. It would be too much of a risk and I’ve had too much of that in my life.”
And at that he abruptly got off the stool, taking the bowl of cereal and my half-drank coffee out of my hand, walking around the bar and placing them in the sink. He avoided my eyes.
I sat frozen in shock, my heart thudding loudly.
“I’m going to give Doctor Hasselback a call and see what the damage is,” he said casually, picking his cell phone up off the table. He walked past me and disappeared into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
“What the hell?” I said quietly and to no one in particular. Fat Rabbit was sitting on the couch and he looked over. I could almost see him rolling his eyes at me.
He had been talking about me, right? I mean…shit, he was vague but it had to be me. I was a risk? How the hell was I risk? Didn’t he know how I felt?
No, you retard, I thought, cutting myself off. You just told him point blank that you were not in love with him. Now he is taking that as the truth.
Yup. The situation definitely was f*cked and now I was partially to blame.
~~
After I had taken a shower and got ready for the day (blow-drying my hair extra straight just in case I wanted to wear it down for the Christmas party tonight), Dex came into the den with good news.
“Doctor Hasselback said we could still air everything,” he announced, walking across the room and sitting down at the computer. I was on the bed trying to re-stick the toe pads into the balls of my devil shoes.
“Oh yeah,” I said mildly. Since our conversation earlier, I was feeling a bit swirly about that still. The show didn’t seem to matter, though I knew in the long run it did.
He spun in the seat and gave me a funny look.
“You OK, kiddo?” he asked earnestly.
I managed to prevent my eyes from rolling.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. Then added, “What about the Spook Factory?”
“That’s just what I’m looking up,” he said, turning back to the screen and clacking away on the keyboard. “He didn’t seem too pissed off about the other show; I guess in the end any publicity is good publicity, but we know for sure that they didn’t get any interviews with the doctor, so maybe we still have a chance of standing out against them.”
“You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?”
He paused. “As I should be.”
He went back to typing and the Fantasy Network website came up on the screen. He scrolled along until he got to the Spook Factory tab.
“No,” he said with relief. “It’s the same old episode as last time. They haven’t uploaded theirs yet. They were bluffing.”
“Or they never found anything.”
“But we did. And we’re going to do this now.”
I pulled my phone out of my purse. It was almost noon.
“Are we going to have enough time before the Christmas party?”
“Christ,” he swore, and focused his attention on the wall. “I totally forgot about that.”
Had he really? I had been thinking about it on and off all day. About how damn awkward it was going to be. Me and Dex. Jenn and Bradley. The rest of the Shownet peeps. I had a feeling something major was going to go down.
“Yeah, well Rebecca texted me a little while ago,” I told him. “She and Emily are going to come over here at six to get ready together.”
He looked at me. “Are you serious?”
“I’m always serious,” I mimicked him with a smile.
“Rebecca, Emily, you…Jenn. All in my apartment?”
“Better get used to the awkwardness now because it’s only going to get worse tonight,” I pointed out.
He chewed on his lip. “God, I hope Rebecca brings some more pot.”
“Yeah, sorry that the wasps got most of yours,” I said.
He tilted his head to the side and a fleeting smile graced his lips. “I can only hope I was worth it.”
“You know you were,” I said.
He nodded, not believing it, and turned back to the computer. “Well, we better haul some ass. I’ll get everything connected. I’m thinking I can run this episode without a score, or perhaps just use a bit from another episode. I could see this using the same stuff I wrote for the Darkhouse.”
“What can I do?” I asked, getting up off the bed and joining him by his side.
His eyes darted to the bookshelf and back. “For one, you can hand me my pills and get me a glass of water.”
I was glad he wasn’t looking at me. The flash of terror would have been totally visible on my face.
“Why, uh, why are you still bothering to take the pills if they aren’t working?” I prodded as innocently as possible.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it could be dangerous if I stopped cold turkey. I’ll just go back to the doctor next week or something and discuss my options or something.”
“Next week,” I repeated slowly.
“Yeah. You’ll be back home by then.”
“Right.” Suddenly not spending every waking minute with Dex was a terrifying thought. I didn’t want to go home now.
“Don’t you have a date with that ‘roid monkey, too?”
Oh man, Brock. He completely slipped my mind, and rightfully so. >
“Maybe,” I said.
“Hell, maybe this time next week, you’ll be the one in the relationship and I won’t be. We’ll switch places. Role reversal.”
And at that he looked up at me. His eyes were soft and playful. He didn’t seem bothered at all by the concept of me being in a relationship with Brock.
“Please, the pills, Perry,” he said again.
I nodded, snapped myself into action and handed the book to him. While he opened the cover, I went out to the kitchen to get a glass of water.
As I was filling it up, I heard a familiar buzzing noise. I turned around, the water splashing out of the glass and into the sink. A wasp landed on the fridge and was climbing up it, its little yellow and black body bright against the chrome steel. I looked behind me and grabbed the nearest suitable smashing device, which happened to be the box of Fruit Loops that Dex had left out. I put the glass down and crept closer to the wasp, not wanting to scare it.
“Die, you little bitch,” I muttered before slamming the box into the fridge. The wasp fell onto the floor in a wriggling heap. I picked up a hanging saucepan and brought the flat end down on top of it with a resounding SMASH. I carefully lifted it up. The bugger was squished beyond recognition.
“What the hell are you doing in there?” Dex cried out from the den.
“Just a minute,” I yelled back, and scraped the remains of the wasp into the sink, washing it down the drain. I wondered how it got in the apartment. There didn’t seem to be any other wasps. It was probably the wasp that stung my neck. It must have hitched a ride in my clothes or hair.
I shivered at that thought while I filled up his glass again and brought it to him.
He looked up at me curiously. “What happened?”
I didn’t want to scare him so I just shrugged. “Killed a spider.”
“You know it’s going to rain now,” he said, taking the glass from my hands. He threw the pills back into his mouth all at once and swallowed them with ease.
“I’ll take my chances,” I replied, and focused back on the screen. His editing software was all open and the footage from last night was quickly being downloaded through a USB.
“Can I do anything?” I asked, feeling useless when it came to this part of the show.
“Sure,” he said and handed me the EVP and a pair of headphones. “If you don’t mind spooking yourself out a little bit, you can listen to what we recorded and make notes of anything interesting.”
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a pen and paper. “Note if the wavelengths on the front monitor change, and if you hear anything, record the time so we can find it easily.”
I was already feeling spooked at my new task, even though the lights in the den were on and the door was open, letting the winter sun filter in through the gauzy curtains of the living room.
I gingerly placed the headphones on my head and before I hit play I told him I was going to listen to it while in the room with him.
I sat back on the bed, getting cozy and making sure there was nothing but the wall behind me. I pressed play and began to listen to what we recorded on Tuesday night. That felt like eons ago.
For most of the recording it was just sounds of us working. It was us talking, our footsteps, the camera. There was nothing on the EVP that wouldn’t show up on the audio from the footage he shot.
But then, after I had told him I was going to go use the washroom, the sound in the hallway abruptly changed. I heard the door close behind me and Dex’s footsteps as we roamed down the hallway away from the monitor, which had been propped up against the wall. But everything else went dead silent. No background fuzz. Not his breath going in and out. Soon the footsteps stopped, too, and it was the blank, unnerving silence that you get when your ears suddenly stop ringing.
I looked down at the monitor to make a note of the time of the recording but the wavelength on the screen started to jump sporadically. I turned the volume up, straining to hear something.
It was very faint. But I heard it.
A voice calling, “Declan. Declan.”
I froze and hit pause. I looked to Dex, who was working at the computer, his back to me, his outline glowing against the monitor. Had Dex heard someone when he was there alone?
I hit play and listened harder, the volume going up to maximum level.
“Declan,” the voice continued. The familiar accent of an elderly woman. Creepy Clown Lady.
My eyes bugged out.
“Declan, can you hear me? You should hear me now. You should see me soon. Your medication no longer works. She switched it on you.”
I let out a yelp and hit pause again.
Dex turned in his chair and stared at me. “What is it, kiddo? You hear something?”
“I…I’m not sure yet,” I said, my voice shaking. “I’ll have to keep listening.”
He frowned at me and pursed his lips. “You look like you’ve seen…or heard…a ghost. Is it…her? Abby?” He said her name warily as if saying it out loud would conjure up her spirit.
I shook my head, not wanting him to hear it quite yet. Freaking clown lady was going to rat me out!
“I’ll let you listen in a bit, OK?”
“OK,” he said hesitantly and turned back to his screen.
I breathed out slowly, readied myself and hit play again.
Clown Lady’s voice continued. “It is for the best. You need to be yourself. That’s the only way we connect again. You need to remember me. Remember your Pippa. I know it’s hard, you don’t want to remember the past. Neither of you do. But it’s time to accept what happened. What happened to both of you. I wish my family had let me stay with you, Declan. You needed someone to take care of you. Someone who loved you like I did.”
I was so engrossed in what I was hearing, I wasn’t aware that Dex had stopped working and was watching me. My hands had been covering my face in fascination and some strange pain as Clown Lady…or Pippa…had been talking. Dex knew something was up.
I glanced at him quickly and bit my lip hard.
Pippa kept talking, her voice pausing every so often as if to listen for Dex’s reaction. But on the recording, he never made any sound in return. “Remember the days we used to spend down in Central Park? The ghosts that walked among us? I’m one of them now. But I’m different. Because I was different before. Just like you. I can cross over when I choose. But I have to be careful. I’m being watched, we all are. By the soulless ones who keep us here. The demons.”
Suddenly the ring of Dex’s phone blasted across the earphones and I had to pluck them off my head with a cry. I had forgotten the volume was turned way up.
I waited, holding them away from my ears, able to hear the phone and Dex answering it. It had been me calling from the floor below, just before Abby attacked me.
When the noise died down, I put the headphones back on.
Pippa said, “Go to her Declan. Whatever you do, don’t let that Abby get a hold of her. The effects will last longer than you think. She’s in real danger, especially when you think she’s fine. When you think she’s safe, the damage will be done.”
There was a pause.
Then, “I don’t suppose you will hear this until later since you don’t seem to hear me now. But when you hear this, know that I’ll be around if I can and when I can. It’s getting trickier to see you. I’m being watched, as I said. So I need you to stop all your medication Declan. It’s time to face what you are. And what Perry is. And who I am to you. To both of you. Perry, if you’re listening…ask your parents who Declan O’Shea is. And watch them carefully. You’ll get the truth that I am not allowed to reveal.”
Then she stopped and the recorder went back to being fuzzy. I waited a few beats and then heard the door to the hall open and Dex and I walking back inside, ready to shoot the hallway scene, totally unaware of the magnitude of what was just recorded on the EVP.
That was more than enough for now. I took the headphones off and placed them gently on the bed. I hit stop on the recorder and tried to think.
Dex was still watching me. I met his eyes. I knew he had to hear this. I just didn’t want him to hear it now. It was totally, completely selfish of me but…I didn’t want him to know what I had done. Not till tonight was over.
“What happened?” he asked carefully. “You look like you’re about to cry.”
I shook my head. “There’s something on this tape, Dex, that you need to hear. But…it’s nothing we can use for the show. I need you to promise me that you won’t listen to it until tomorrow.”
He was confused. He scratched at his sideburns, wincing a bit at what I was asking him. “I can’t listen to it?”
“You can. And you need to. And you will. I just…don’t think it would be smart if you did so before tonight. It’s…personal.”
“I don’t know what that means, kiddo,” he admitted.
“I know it doesn’t make sense. But it will. Maybe. It makes no sense to me. But I think it will to you.”
“Oh, well thanks for making it less vague.”
“Please, Dex,” I pleaded. I got off the bed and stooped in front of him so my face was right up in his. He looked surprised. “Promise me. Don’t lie.”
I held out my pinky finger for him to take. He nodded, conceding, and took my finger in his, shaking on it.
“OK, I won’t listen to it,” he said earnestly. “I mean it, too.”
“Thank you,” I said. And I kissed him gently on the forehead, his skin tasting lightly salted. I was so worried about what he would think of me when he found out I switched the pills. And I was worried about everything else she had said. It felt like it had the potential to change everything and I didn’t know in what way.
I pulled my lips away and sat back down on the bed, unsure of what to do with myself and the buttload of information I was given.
I eyed Dex. He was even more confused now, and gently touched his forehead where my lips had been.
“Perry, I’ve got to ask, should I be worried? Because I am really f*cking worried now.”
I shook my head back and forth and managed to give him just the tiniest smile. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“I’m worried about you. You just kissed me, like you were saying goodbye. For a long time.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I assured him. Not on my own accord, anyway.
Suddenly, Fat Rabbit’s bark erupted from the living room and his form bounded off the couch and clattered all the way to the door. The sound of keys in it. The rustle of grocery bags. High heels walking on hardwood.
Jenn was home.
Dex and I both tensed in unison and waited as she walked down the apartment toward the den. We exchanged a nervous glance. She was so going to know something was up, not that we were doing anything wrong.
She stopped at the door and looked in at us. She was wearing a denim mini-skirt that was way too inappropriate for both her age and the weather.
“What are you guys up to?” she asked suspiciously.
Oh man, I just wanted to go up to pull her damn curly hair out of her head. I wanted to tell her I knew everything, about Bradley, about Miss Anonymous. But I pasted on a fake smile and said, “Just creeping ourselves out with the footage we shot last night. You know, when we were locked in the basement of the mental hospital.”
She sighed and fixed her hazel eyes on me and said, “Look, I’m sorry about that. I told Dex this morning, my phone honestly died the minute I got in the cab. And I did call you, Dex, from Patricia’s phone, but you never answered. Anyway, I didn’t think it was a big deal, just another night shoot.”
Sorry my ass.
“Well, obviously it wasn’t,” Dex said. I noticed he sat rigid in his seat, not getting up to go greet her.
“So I was wrong,” she said defensively. “How was I to know? You obviously had no clue that your stupid rivals would be following you around. Though maybe you should have…”
“Jenn…” he warned her in a tone I wouldn’t question.
She raised up her hand as a peace offering. “I stopped by the store and got some appetizers and wine and whatever. I figured we could have a bit to eat here before we left for the party. Who knows if Jimmy has sprung for actual food or not.”
“I hope you bought enough food for five of us,” I said.
Dex shot me a look. He looked scared.
“What? Five of us?” Jenn repeated.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. Rebecca and Emily are coming over at six so we can all get ready together,” I said cheerfully.
Jenn’s nose wrinkled. “What?” She looked at Dex, who shrugged.
“You get along with your Wine Babe, don’t you?” I asked innocently.
“Of course,” Jenn said. I knew she wouldn’t let me think that someone didn’t like her precious, gorgeous self. “I was just surprised, that’s all. I would have gotten some more goat cheese and crackers.”
She gave us a quick smile and then disappeared back into the apartment and into her room. I could hear her sighing in annoyance as she went.
Dex eyed me with a twinkle, shaking his head but smiling. “You just ruined her whole night, you know.”
“I know,” I said, returning the smile. And I was just getting started.