Paranormal After Dark

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “Get in,” I told him.

  “Are you sure? I’ll ruin the upholstery.”

  “I don’t care about the upholstery. You’re gonna catch pneumonia,” I swatted at him.

  I rolled my window up and he ran to the passenger side door and hopped in. He shivered and, for a second, I thought he was going to shake the water off like a dog that had just come in out of the rain. Instead, he put his hands in front of the heater and started rubbing them together.

  “It’s freezing out there,” he looked at me. Even in this state, looking like a drowned rat in his gray fleece hoodie and jeans, he was pretty cute.

  “Not your day,” I smiled.

  “The moon’s in Capricorn,” he said, as though it was an explanation. “Do you have a blanket or something?

  “Actually,I do.” I reached into the backseat, where Casper kept all of overnight necessities and handed him the fluffy blue blanket with floral prints that Casper had owned since way before I knew him. “Keep in mind, it’s Casper’s. So…”

  “Noted,” he said through shivering teeth. He stripped off his gray jacket. The rain had seeped right through it and the black t-shirt he wore underneath was wet and clung to him like skin. I tried not to stare.

  “What’s up with the car?” I asked, picking at my steering wheel cover. I always did that, fiddled with things when I was nervous. To date, I had ruined half a dozen sweaters, two laptops, and my grandfather’s dog tags, which made it through Korea but couldn’t survive the standardized testing jitters of ’07.

  “I think it’s the fuel pump,” he answered, snuggling into Casper’s blanket.

  “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “Cause the guy at the garage said it was the fuel pump,” he shrugged. “I was on my way to Cold Creek now to pick one up. But, like I said, Capricorn.” He pointed to the sky. “I’m so glad you came by. I have zero cell signal out here.”

  “I know what you mean,” I glanced at my own useless phone sitting in the cup holder.

  “What are you doing out here anyway?” He asked.

  “I-I had to bring my mom some stuff,” I stuttered. Owen wasn’t like the other kids at DeSoto. I didn’t think he would look down on me for going to therapy or anything, but I still didn’t want him to know about it. I wanted him to think of me as a girl who had it together, who knew what she was doing, who was confident and maybe even sexy. I certainly didn’t want him thinking of me as broken.

  “I can give you a ride back. You can call Triple A when you get back into coverage,” I suggested.

  “You’re a saint,” he smiled. The heat was giving him a little of his color back, putting a flush in his cheeks. He turned to me as I pulled back onto the road. “What did you want to talk to me about something this morning?”

  I hoped he would attribute the flush crawling up my cheeks to the heater as well. I looked at him, with his expectant blue eyes staring back at me. This was it. This is where I was going to tell him.

  “Um…Chicken,” I said.

  Yeah, that was about right.

  Maybe Dr. Conyers was right. Maybe I was letting my fear get the better of me, or maybe I was waiting for a perfect moment that didn’t exist. Still, there had to be a better one than this; with Owen sopping wet, wrapped in Casper’s blanket, and the moon in Capricorn.

  Besides, the idea of him rejecting me was bad enough. I didn’t want to have to drive twenty miles back into town with him after he did.

  “You wanted to talk to me about chicken? Like, the bird?” He seemed confused, which was reasonable, given that, at this point, even I didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “Right. Yeah. No!” I said, trying to make it make sense. “The food. Chicken, the food. As in, my mom making chicken.”

  He smiled. It was uncomfortable, but it was a smile nonetheless. “Your mom doesn’t cook,” he said.

  “She does!” I said louder than I should have, realizing I had actually stumbled onto a piece of truth. “She just started.” My mind flashed to this morning and way too much bacon. “And it’s just me and her. Well, sometimes Casper, but he doesn’t eat that much.”

  What? That was true, if you measured in metric tons.

  “And well, I was sort of hoping you’d come over tomorrow. For chicken, I mean.”

  I swallowed hard. That was better. That would be better than here, than today. I could bring Owen home, force feed him what would almost certainly be the worst chicken imaginable, and I’d tell him there. Yeah. I’d have home field advantage. I could set things up the way I wanted; get my mind right and roll it out the right way.

  “That’s it?” He reared back and started laughing. “I spent the entire day thinking you were gonna tell me you had cancer or something, Yeah, sure. I’ll eat chicken with you.”

  I’m not sure if it was his laugh, the heater, or the fact that I actually had a plan, but I started to feel a little better, a little warmer.

  He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. There it was; his fingers on me, one of those little cues Dr. Conyers was talking about. Now I knew exactly what it was that was making me warmer.

  “I don’t know why you made such a big deal out of that,” he said, grinning at me. His face, dripping wet and all, took my breath away. “You know I’d do just about anything you asked me to.” He winked playfully. “I mean, how could I say no to a face like that?”

  My God. Those were like cue cards. He was flirting with me. He did love me back. I could see it in those blue eyes. I could feel it in those nimble fingers. He must be dying waiting for me to say something. All I’d have to do is tell him and then, everything would be okay. We would be together.

  The rest of our ride went by in a blur of jokes and music. Like me, he loved indie stuff, so we turned up the Lumineers and jammed out to Dead Sea and Charlie Boy. Before I knew it, too soon, we were back in Crestview. The rain died down, receding to a mist that left the usually boring bone dry Georgia town simply boring.

  “Want me to drop you at home?” I asked reluctantly.

  Or you could come to my house.

  “No,” he answered. “I have a bunch of studying to do. Mr. Jacobs is killing me with homework. Can you take me to the library?”

  I scoffed. “I don’t get you and the library. It’s the information age, O. You could just study in your room.”

  Or my room, if you wanted. That could be arranged.

  “I can’t focus at home,” he said, throwing Casper’s blanket into the backseat. “Besides, the FFA meets there on Thursdays, and they always have the best chess squares.”

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Crestview library; a small aluminum building that looked more like a double wide than a library. Its gravel parking lot was filled with the same cars I was used to seeing every day when I passed it; Mrs. Cleo, the librarian, Dr. Victors, the only ‘actual doctor’ in the entire county (a title he gave himself that always irked Dr. Conyers), and Mr. Shue, how always sat outside, telling random stories about random things to anyone who was unfortunate enough to find themselves in his crosshairs.

  Owen opened the door even before I stopped the car. Closing the door, he stuck his head, this time much dryer, though the window and said, “You’re a lifesaver. What would I do without you, Cresta?”

  “Let’s hope you never have to find out,” I smiled shyly. “Don’t forget about-“

  “Chicken. I know. I can’t wait.”

  “That’s optimistic of you,” I said, picking at my steering wheel again. “She’s not the greatest cook in the world, you know.”

  “I’ll be with you. How bad could it be?”

  Cues. GIANT FREAKING CUES.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” His electric smile cut through me, and he walked away. I watched him disappear into the library, sidestepping Mr. Shue gracefully. Driving away, I took a whiff from my inhaler. Being around Owen always left me breathless, and today was no exception.

  Now, assuming my mother was over th
e breakfast related insanity of this morning, all I had to do was convince her to cook a lavish chicken dinner with one day’s notice. That shouldn’t be so hard, right?

  I looked over longingly at the water stain Owen left on the seat. He really had ruined the upholstery. I didn’t care though. He could destroy the entire car for all I cared, so long as he smiled at me while doing it.

  Moisture wasn’t the only thing Owen had left though. Owen’s phone sat on the seat beside me. I picked it up. I had to bring it back to him. How else would be call Triple A or his mom, or…or Merrin. I thought about keeping it for a second. After all, if he couldn’t talk to her for a couple of days, then maybe he’d realize how bad an idea a long distance relationship really was.

  No. I couldn’t do that. Nothing good would come from that. Knowing my luck, Owen would find out about and think I was some kind of sicko stalker. I had to bring it back to him. Of course, that didn’t mean I couldn’t at least check out the competition.

  I opened up Owen’s pictures and started scrolling through them. I readied my inhaler. If Merrin was half as pretty as I figured she was, I was gonna need it. There were no pictures of Merrin though. There weren’t any pictures of his family or even of himself. The only pictures Owen had were of me.

  I couldn’t believe it as I went through them; me at the county fair last November, me and my mom decorating our tree last Christmas, me reading a book on the bleachers at school.

  I didn’t even know he took most of these. It was like he had been watching me, like he had been admiring me. I jumped out of the car, leaving it running right there in the parking lot. Forget tomorrow. Forget chicken. Forget all of it. This was all the proof I needed. It was right here in these pictures. Owen liked me back, and I wasn’t wasting another minute.

  Mr. Shue’s eyes lit up when he saw me coming. “Cresta, did I ever tell you about the time I wrestled an alligator in the back of a moving truck?”

  “Not now, Mr. Shue,” I said, and pushed past him into the library. I held Owen’s phone in my hand, like it was Exhibit A in a murder trial. He wasn’t anywhere to be found though.

  There was the FFA. There with their chess squares. There was Mrs. Cleo, stacking books in giant piles on her desk. As I weaved through the aisles looking for him, my resolve began to waver. How was I going to tell him? Should I just show him the phone, present him with the incriminating pictures? Would that make him mad?

  I caught sight of him. He was on the other side of the library, walking out the back door.

  “Owen!” I yelled, but all I got was nasty looks from the FFA and a “Quiet please!” from Mrs. Cleo.

  I rushed toward the back door, and pushed it opened. What I saw though, stopped me in my tracks. Owen hadn’t come here to study. He hadn’t even come here to stay. Owen was standing beside the black Sedan from Mrs. Goolsby’s, the one I had seen circling the school all day. He was talking to someone inside. Though, with the angle the car was parked, I couldn’t see just who.

  I thought about saying something, about letting him know I was there. Whatever this was though, whoever he was talking to, he mustn’t have wanted me to know about it. Why else would he have told me he was studying?

  I stood there watching as Owen climbed into the black Sedan and rode away.

  Chapter 4

  Cardboard Girl

  THE DAY BEFORE our house blew up; I woke up clutching the locket my father gave me. I always did that when Mom worked and I had to spend the night by myself. I didn’t mean to, mind you. I’d drift off to sleep just fine, watching Nick At Nite reruns or some old movie on the Hallmark Channel. It never failed though. Sometime during the night, my hand would creep up to my throat and settle on the locket. I guess it made me feel close to him, like he was still around in some small way.

  I half expected to wake up and find that I had pried the thing open in my sleep, but I never did. In fact, I had never been able to get that open, asleep or not. Since the day my father gave it to me, the day he died, I wore it around my neck. I never took it off, even in the shower. But I had never managed to open the golden oval that hung at the end.

  Whatever was in there, probably a picture, was my dad’s secret.

  I crawled out of bed and into the shower, remembering that I’d had the dream again. That was two nights in a row. It had been awhile since that had happened.

  It was always the same. I was being carried somewhere. I couldn’t see by whom, but I felt so safe that it had to be my father. I couldn’t see what was going on around me, but I heard screams and explosions. I smelled smoke and metal, and felt rain pounding against my face.

  Whatever was going on, this was the end of it.

  He turned, took seven steps, and carried me up seven stairs. He laid me in the middle of a dark gray room, in the center of a blood red circle. I tried to move, but nothing worked. My hands, my feet, no part of me responded.

  He leaned down. I saw moisture glisten on his shrouded cheeks and, realized the rain I had been feeling wasn’t rain at all. It was his tears.

  His voice cracked as he whispered in my ear. “Seven. It was always seven.”

  I got to school early again, this time breakfast free. For once, Casper hadn’t slept in my backseat. He must have managed an entire day without pissing his dad off because when I picked him up things were quiet and he seemed relatively content.

  It took me all of three seconds to tell him everything; about Owen, the pictures of me on his phone, and black Sedan that picked him up behind the library.

  I didn’t know what to make of it. Who was in that black Sedan? Why were they visiting Mrs. Goolsby in the middle of the night or circling the school all day? What did they have to do with Owen?

  “Oh my God, he’s a gigolo!” Casper said.

  I should have known he’d have the answer.

  “This makes so much sense!”

  “Casper,” I said, picking at my steering wheel.

  “No, it does,” he said, holding his hands out like he had made sense of all of it and was about to lay some serious wisdom on me. “What do we know about the guy really? He comes here from California, all super SoCal surfer boy.”

  “No he’s not,” I laughed. Owen was a lot of things; cute, considerate, sometimes adorably off kilter, but he was not some blond chiseled surf god.

  “Whatever Cress,” Casper waved me off. “The fact is, the dude’s weird. He’s always talking about stars, and moons, and Zodiac signs, and stuff. I mean, I don’t even know where he lives.”

  “Yes you do,” I scoffed. “He lives on Abercorn. We were there last weekend.”

  “Okay. Okay.” He was stretched across the seat now, sitting on his knees with his hands wide in front of him. It was very Casper. “But we were only there to pick him up. Let me ask you this; when’s the last time you were inside his house?”

  “Well…” My mind went blank. I didn’t know. Owen had been in my house, and we had both been in Casper’s, but I had no recollection of ever setting foot in Owen’s place. Is it possible that I had known Owen for two years, became his best friend, fell madly in love with him, and never even seen the inside of his house?

  “And what about his parents?” Casper continued. “Who even are those people? I’ve never seen them. I don’t think I’ve ever even met someone who’s seen them.”

  “That’s not fair.” I was almost wrist deep in steering wheel now. “His parents don’t work in town. They’re probably almost never here.”

  “Don’t be so gullible Cresta. What kind of people move here from a big metropolitan city, work outside of town, and never leave their house?”

  “You literally just described my family,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Don’t try to play it off just ‘cause you’ve got a thing for him. You’re boy’s a prostitute, plain and simple; a prostitute who caters to sickly old widows. Not that I’m judging. I’m sure there’s good money in it.”

  “You’re insane,” I said as we pulled into DeSoto High.


  “Probably,” he conceded.

  I wrapped my hand around Owen’s cellphone, still in my pocket. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to him. I didn’t take Casper seriously. Owen might be a little mysterious. He might ever be ‘weird’, like Casper said. I admit, there had been more than one time where I caught him talking to himself. But he was definitely, absolutely not a prostitute.

  Was he?

  No. No. He wasn’t. Definitely not.

  Still, Casper did make a good point. I had never been in Owen’s house. I had seen it. I had picked him up there a hundred times, but he always met me outside. We never hung out there. I had never seen the inside of his bedroom, or even his parents’ faces. They were never at any of his football games. Bake sales, car washes, school plays; they were no shows. I’m not sure I could even tell you their names.

  “Oh!” I said as a thought came to me. “Maybe his parents are in the black car. Maybe that’s why he was getting in there.”

  Casper kicked a pebble toward the school, looking at me over his glasses and blowing red bangs out of his eyes. “And his parents are hitting up Mrs. Goolsby at four o’clock in the morning for what, sugar?” I blinked. I guess I didn’t have all the answers.

  “That’s what I thought,” he smiled, kicking at another pebble. It went sailing down the sidewalk and hit the school’s glass door. “Nice try though. He’s definitely a hooker. Maybe whoever’s in the black car is his pimp. That makes sense. Look on the bright side though.”

  I had one hand on Owen’s phone and the other wrapped around my father’s locket as I answered. “And what would that be?”

  “Maybe he can get you a discount. You know, like a red light special or something.”

  It was stupid and disgusting, but Casper’s joke wrenched a smile out of me.

  “I gotta hit up the little boys’ room,” Casper nudged me with his shoulder. “I’ll see you in English.”

  I waved him goodbye, took a seat next to Hernando, and waited for Owen to arrive. I was pretty much ignored by the other students as they poured into school. Every now and again, someone would break away from discussing their weekend plans or complaining about the likelihood of once again getting homework for the weekend, and shoot Hernando a glance. Me though, I might as well have been invisible.