“Thank you,” she said, taking the cup that was handed to her.
She got back into van and tried to sip the coffee but it was too hot. It was a few minutes past 11:00. She would let Meredith have a little extra time, sit here for a couple minutes and allow the car to fill up with the smell of coffee. Maybe she should have gotten something else, something that smelled stronger, a sandwich with extra onions—wasn’t that was Lisa had ordered for her mother that day? Some kind of club sandwich with extra onions? Maybe she should start picking up that club sandwich for Colleen Bellow on her way home from work. Maybe she would leave it at her front door so she wouldn’t have to have the conversation, the one where she was told again and again that no, she did not understand. Or perhaps Colleen Bellow had only said this once but the echo of it had continued unabated.
After a few minutes Claire pulled from the lot. The coffee was still undrinkably hot but it definitely smelled good, potent, and she almost felt like she was drinking it even though she was only smelling it.
She pulled up in front of the assigned house and was aware of bumping over the sloped curve onto the grass of the front yard, but only a tiny bit, a few inches at most, and it was the kind of thing that might have been intentional, a courtesy to passing traffic. There was no one standing around the yard anymore, and she walked to the front porch where two high school boys sat on white wicker chairs, looking at their phones. One of the boys was short and blond and had a cigarette. The other boy was Logan Boone. She had not seem him in at least five years but there was no mistaking him, his shock of ginger hair. She stood at the bottom of the porch stairs—there were only seven or eight steps, but there might as well have been a thousand. She was one-hundred-percent certain her legs would not support her bid for the top.
“Is this the eighth-grade party?” she asked, her head titled up at the boys. She was startled by the sound of her own voice, which sounded louder and more judgmental than she had intended.
“Yeah,” the blond boy said, not looking up from his phone. “They’re all inside. We’re protecting them from zombies.”
Logan Boone laughed and set his phone on the table between them. “We’re the hired help,” he said. His voice was very deep. He didn’t look like a teenager, not like Evan and his friends. He looked like a man. He looked sturdy. He looked like a man who would fix her car or check her electric meter. What did that even mean? She had no idea. Was she drunk? Or was she just surprised? Her heart was hammering.
She did not think he recognized her.
“Who’s your daughter?” the blond boy asked. “I can go get her.”
“Meredith,” she said. “Oliver.”
“Meredith Oliver, princess of darkness.”
“That’s the one,” she said.
“They’re all that one,” Logan said.
The blond boy stood and stepped on his cigarette and went inside the house. Was she not allowed inside the house? What was happening inside the house? She stayed at the bottom of the stairs, silent.
“They’re watching scary movies in the dark,” Logan said. Had she asked her question aloud? “There’re about fifty of ’em all over the floor. Believe me, you don’t want to go in there. Can’t see a thing.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks for the tip.”
She thought she might sit down on the porch steps to wait, but then she would have to turn her back to him and that seemed rude. Then he stood up. He was tall, well over six feet. He walked slowly down the stairs. “I think you were my dentist,” he said, reaching the bottom step. “A long time ago.”
“Is that right?” she asked. “Well, it’s certainly possible.” He smelled like cigarettes and she recalled vividly the smell of cigarettes in an embrace, her nose pressed against the white cotton shirt of a smoker. What smoker? When? College? High school? She took her phone out of her purse. “I think I’ll just text her and tell her I’m out here.”
She started through her contact list and the phone slipped from her fingers and landed on the stone walk. It broke apart and the battery went flying into the dark lawn.
“Oh no,” she said. “Oh, wow. Oh, no.”
“I’ll find it,” Logan said. He crouched down and started brushing through the tall grass. “Happens to me all the time. Every time I drop it the battery goes flying somewhere. Once in a pool.”
“Was it ruined?”
“Oh yeah. Big time.”
He was on his knees in the grass, sweeping his arm across the dark blades in wide arcs, and then he crawled away from her into the blackness and vanished. Somehow he was just gone, abruptly, into a place where the porch light could not reach. She felt weak. She felt like something terrible was about to happen to her, like he might not return from the darkness, and then she might never get home. She was Meredith with her cheek pressed to the cold floor and the man standing over her. And then she was Lisa Bellow, kneeling, standing, walking, stepping from the restaurant into the afternoon, and then into the car, and then, and then, and then.
“Here you go,” Logan said, on his feet now, materializing ghost-like from the dark yard and back into the glow from the porch. Only a step from total darkness into light, she thought. Only one step. Only half a step. Only an inch. Only a millimeter. He held out his hand and she took the battery from him.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just really tired. I’ve had a long day.”
He smiled. “Halloween must be a tough day for dentists.”
“Oh, you know it,” she said, forcing a smile in return.
“Well let me know if you need a ride home,” he said. “We’re here to help out.”
“Are you a babysitter or something?”
“Abby’s my cousin,” he said. “I’m just helping look after everyone, keep everybody out of trouble.”
“The adults, too,” she said. “Apparently.”
“Sure,” he said. “I mean, whoever.”
The door opened and the blond boy emerged with a girl who might have been Meredith. The girl had a white face and bright red lips and a bloody tear on her cheek. “I found her,” the blond boy said. “One princess of darkness, only slightly traumatized.”
“Thanks,” Claire said.
The girl who might have been Meredith was walking down the stairs toward her. How would she know if she’d gotten the right girl, the one she’d come for? Would Logan know?
“See ya, Meredith,” Logan said.
“See ya, Logan,” Meredith said.