Haunted Organic

by Kim Foster

  Josie thought he looked like an oak barrel. He had a big chest, suspenders that made it seem even bigger, and a handlebar mustache that sprung out of his face and twitched about like a nervous squirrel.

  Josie did not like Detective Angus Loudon at all.

  “Our son would never hurt anyone, Detective,” Portland said and put his hand on Josie’s shoulder in solidarity.

  Josie felt a lightness. They would get this straightened out. It would be okay.

  “Josie is a good boy, detective, from a good family. I’m sure this is all a crazy mistake.”

  “I don’t think so, Mrs. Brown,” the Barrel said. “Josie hasn’t been very forthcoming about why he was found in Trinket’s bedroom.”

  “He was i-i-in Trinket’s room?” Phyllis looked like she had been slapped across the face.

  “That’s correct,” said The Barrel, checking his notes, “the room was torn apart, the child missing, your son found on the floor covered in filth and what we think is her blood all over his face.”

  “B-b-but, there must be some m-m-mistake.” Portland was babbling, stuttering, trying to right all this in his mind, “Josie, t-t-tell him you didn’t do it.”

  Josie looked at his shoes. He wasn’t sure he did it, but he also had no idea how to start explaining why he was in the room.

  “Your parents are here now, son. Tell them why you were in Trinket’s room? Did she make you mad? Gerty said she had been crying a lot lately. Was she keeping you awake? Maybe things got out of hand when you went in her room to quiet her down. Is that what it was, son? Did you kill her by accident? Did you take the body some place and bury it? Is that why you’re covered in filth?”

  “Josie, tell them you didn’t do this!”

  “Or maybe you’re working with someone? Did you get Trinket out of her room and hand her off to someone? You know, we could go easy on you if you just did the dirty work for someone else. What was his name, Josie? Who are you working for?”

  Josie kept staring at his shoes.

  “You’ve been wanting to hurt Trinket for awhile now, haven’t you, Josie? You’ve been having nightmares about it.”

  Josie jumped a little in his seat. How did they know about the nightmares?

  And that’s when something happened, something Josie never would’ve suspected. It saw a look between his parents, triggered by ‘nightmares’. The discussion they had with Josie in the kitchen.

  Weird things happening.

  There’s something wrong with me.

  Drowning.

  Trinket Parsnips passed out in my arms.

  A monster is going to take her.

  The things he said to them in the kitchen ran through their heads like ticker tape.

  Josie felt something, like the wind, all of a sudden, changing direction.

  His mother let out a small breathless wail.

  “No…” and then she sunk onto the floor sobbing.

  “Oh no, oh no…”

  Portland held onto his wife, cradled her while she shook and sobbed.

  Josie saw his mother’s red, swelling eyes.

  There was nothing there, but recrimination.

  “Oh my God, what have you done?”

  He looked to his father. Portland was looking away, staring at a knot in the wall. He couldn’t make eye contact.

  “Dad, I didn’t….”

  His father put up a hand to stop him from talking.

  “We’ll need a lawyer now,” Portland told the police officer. He lifted his wife from the floor, pulled out his phone and starting dialing.

  “But Dad…”

  He wanted to tell them everything: Bangkok, the nightmares, the visions, how he was drawn into the monster’s hunger, how he was there when Trinket was taken, all of it. He wanted to let it all out, hand it to the people closest to him, and beg for help.

  But he knew they would never listen. His parents, the people who should’ve loved him the most, believed he had killed a child.

  He had to stop himself from just dissolving into a pile of splintered pieces on the floor.

  His parents didn’t know him at all. He was watching his whole world come apart.

  Josie Brown knew two things for sure: He would never trust a grown-up. Never again. And he was sure nothing would ever be the same.

  ✽✽✽

  Josie left the interrogation room. The belly of the police station was bustling, but everything stopped dead as soon as he walked out. Just whispers. The slight moving of chairs. The whirr of fans. All eyes following him.

  They hated him.

  He felt their loathing pelt his skin, like little lead balls. He kept his head low, but he could see, out of the corner of his eye, Miss Hanes signing a piece of paper. She whispered to Gerty and Frida and held their hands.

  That’s how they knew about the nightmares. Miss Hanes had told them.

  He walked by them, trying not to look, but still wanting to see their eyes, so he could gauge how much they hated him. Miss Hanes looked at him like slug in the dirt, no better.

  Gerty, her eyes rimmed with red and sorrow, watched every step he took, carefully sized him up, and stared him down. He was her undoing and she wanted him to see it and feel her pain. She lunged at him. A police officer grabbed her and held her back. The tears poured out of her. Her voice unable to form words, simply shrieked. She collapsed into a puddle of her own loose parts.

  Frida was stone, pure stone, unable to cry or even look his way. She couldn't admit that he even existed. She could barely imagine that Trinket was gone and half expected her to be playing in the front yard when they got home.

  Josie kept walking. He heard only his own steps on the tile floor. Just as his hand touched the door, just as he was almost out of the station, he heard Miss Hanes’ quivering, fast voice.

  “He told me he had dreams about hurting her. Why didn’t I take him seriously? I could’ve stopped him…” Then, her voice went muffled, and Josie suspected she had buried her head in her hands.

  He pictured Miss Hane’s bush of hair shaking like Jello.

  ✽✽✽

  The Police didn’t have enough evidence to charge Josie. He was released to his parents’ custody and only allowed to be at home or at school.

  Not that leaving was a possibility anyway. News vans lined the street, watching for any glimpse of him, shouting questions: “Why did you do it?” and “Where did you bury the body, Josie?”

  Trinket’s disappearance was the story of the year. Her photos hung on every light pole, teams of volunteers scoured the neighborhoods and beaches for signs of her.

  The old ladies gathered inside the Organic Food Shop. “I heard they found a body floating in the Bondi rock pools,” Mrs. Fockerson said, smelling the rock melon.

  “Really?!…” gasped Mrs. Kippelibby, “I heard the Browns had Josie admitted to a mental institution when he was three. He’s quiet because they gave him all kinds of electro-shock treatments...made him loopy in the head.”

  “I saw him looking at me once…” said Agnes McHeadberger. “Scariest moment of me whole life.”

  A crowd jostled outside Josie’s house, carrying signs with Trinket’s photo, the sweet ruby-haired, fat-cheeked baby with the pink dummy in her mouth. They shouted for Josie to turn himself in. They carried signs with his photo, with the words “Jail time for Baby Killer” scrawled in blood red ink across his face.

  Botany Cook interviewed the neighbors. Had they ever suspected Josie?.

  “He was a quiet boy,” Mrs. Kippelibby could be heard saying, her dog tucked up under her sausage arms. “Moosey and I always thought there was something a little weird about him...too quiet if you know what I mean.”

  Josie knew school tomorrow would be pure hell.

  He was no longer invisible. No longer could he slip in his ear buds, Patti Smith or Blondie or Kim Gordon, cranked up and helping him tune out the world. He was hated and loathed. His parents barely uttered a word as they arrived home.

  He was alo
ne in this. Completely.

  ✽✽✽

  Josie opened the door to his room. It was the first time he had been there since Trinket disappeared. It was dark, and the news crews had settled into their sleep outside. He was dog tired. He wanted to put on some Hayden Calnin, church music he liked to call it, even though he had never been in a church. He wanted to sink into bed with his church music. And sleep.

  But something drew him to the window.

  He opened it, and stood there, just looking out to the Organic Food Shop. The breeze felt good on his face, his skin. But he had this urge. A niggling tickle, something small, but then it grew larger and larger until he was compelled. He had no control over it.

  He reached out through the window, stretched his body across the little alley to the wall.

  He braced himself for cold. He pressed his hand into the wall, felt the cold sear his skin. So freezing it burned. And when it did, he felt her. Trinket. Somewhere close. Maybe inside the Organic Food Shop?

  Yes, she was in the shop.

  She was alive.

  And Bangkok? He was gone, moving farther away, out at sea gorging on sardines and shrimp, mouthfuls of plankton, his hunger satiated for now. He was saving Trinket for later, like saving the best cookie to eat last. Bangkok wanted to savor Trinket.

  Yes. Josie could barely feel Bangkok. Josie’s brain was his own again. And Trinket was still alive.

  And the only thing between him and Trinket was whatever was keeping her inside the Organic Food Shop.

  ✽✽✽

  Josie was no hero. And even if he wanted to be a hero, he didn’t have a clue what to do next. He wanted sleep and invisibility and death metal thrumming in his ears.

  He flicked on The Pogues’ If I Should Fall From Grace with God, nice and loud and then Drunken Lullabies by Flogging Molly, let that crack his skull, and gathered his quilts and pillows. He would sleep in the laundry room, on top of the dryer. As far away from the Organic Food Shop as he could.

  His arms overflowed with bedding when he noticed a folded piece of paper fly through the window. It fell with a plunk on the floor. He stared at it for a moment, half-expecting it to morph into an evil dragon.

  He decided to ignore the paper. He ignored it really hard.

  It was probably Botany Cook scamming him for an exclusive interview.

  He stared at the paper some more, then walked out of the room.

  “Crap,” he said to himself, mad at his own lack of will power, and he walked back into the room.

  He dropped the sheets and quilts and grabbed the note. He unfolded it, warily, as if a funnel web spider might jump from it. It was a stark white paper. Someone had written on it with a black, scrawly Sharpie.

  Josie -

  Meet at my house, midnight. 26 Tamarama. The news crews will be asleep by then. I’ll leave the side door open. Find me two rooms on the right.

  I know it was Bangkok. I believe you.

  Emerald (the new girl)

  “I believe you.”

  He read the note again. “Bangkok.” She mentioned the monster by name.

  “How does she know?” he wondered.

  Was it a trick? A reporter trying to get him alone?

  He folded the note. If he got caught out of the house, he’d be back in a holding cell. The Barrel had been clear about that.

  At ll:52, he pulled on his jeans, his sneakers, his black hoodie, pulled the hood over his head, his face deep inside. He checked that his parents were sleeping, heard them snoring, their laptops rising on their slowly moving chests, as if they grew out of their bodies. The news vans were dark and silent.

  Josie slipped out the door, into the black night, keeping only to the shadows, nervous, but feeling a glint of hope for the first time since he awoke in Trinket’s room.

  six

  1952

  The side door was unlocked.

  Josie pulled it open, slipped inside, and closed it quietly behind him. The hallway was dark, but the street lights shown in through the windows and he could see his feet as he walked.

  All the houses on Tamarama Street had been there for a long time. They were wooden, old, had original moldings and door frames. The floors were planked wood, and they often creaked and moaned under the weight of feet. This house smelled musty, mostly because it hadn’t been lived in, for awhile.

  The house was small, and the hallway was narrow, a coffin. His breathing went hard and deep in his chest. But he kept going, deeper and deeper into the dark, one foot in front of the other.

  He walked slowly past the first door. He could see a light glowing from under the door of the room, two doors down on the right. He walked slowly past the first door.

  He hadn’t noticed that the first door was cracked open, just slightly. And that one eye stared out at him. Watching. Josie took another careful step. He could almost reach the door handle to the second room.

  But the door of first room swung open, and he felt something jump out behind him.

  “Bahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  Josie spun around. His eyes wide with fire and fear.

  It was a trap.

  It was some kind of monster, but he couldn’t tell what. It’s face was grotesque, mangled and ensconced in a bright shining light, so that every sinew and flap of skin was visible. Josie panicked, stumbled backwards and fell on the floor.

  That's when the monster, whatever it was, lumbered toward him, stood over him, and started yanking and pulling at its face. It was ripping its skin off, chunks of thick skin and fat from his face flew down around him. The beast was transforming, melting, morphing into something else, something possibly much worse.

  Then, the monster pulled the last bits of skin away and dropped chunks of it on the floor. Josie caught a glimpse. He saw what was under the mask.

  A grinning girl. He blinked and looked again.

  It was a girl, and she wasn't just grinning, she was laughing hysterically.

  "It's a mask!" she said, "Isn't that super-fun?"

  Josie sputtered at her, his mind reeling. He was confused and embarrassed.

  "I make these cool molds out of clay and then poor in liquid latex, and paint them…" Emerald Phan explained.

  Emerald held out her hand to help Josie up, but he refused it and got himself up.

  “OMG! The look on your face!” she cackled.

  “Why did you do that?” Josie’s heart was beating so fast he thought his chest might burst.

  He had to move bush to bush, tree to tree across the street, making sure Mrs. Kippelibby wasn’t staring out the window, waiting for any opportunity to call the police. And just when he ran, bent over across the street, leapt over her fence, bolted up onto the side porch and let himself in through the screen door, he was beside himself with panic, with the idea that one of those reporters would train their cameras on him, that he would be thrown in juvie.

  Emerald’s little prank really made him angry.

  But Emerald seemed completely unfazed by Josie’s irritation. It occurred to him that she might not care what anyone thought of her.

  "C’mon in Giraffe Boy.” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him into her room.

  “I’m Emerald.”

  “Josie,” he said, absent-mindedly, look around.

  “I know, Giraffe Boy.”

  Josie got it. "Giraffe Boy.” Because he was tall. Original. Like he had never heard a tall joke before. She already annoyed him. He wished he hadn’t come here at all.

  He stepped inside her door, and she shut it behind him.

  Emerald’s room was not at all what he expected.

  "She’s a slob," he thought.

  There were stacks of unpacked boxes, clothes matted into a ball on the floor, scuba equipment lobbed into the corners, stacks of books, notebooks, ocean maps and a jar of pens and sharpies on her nightstand. There was a whole work table with plastic mannequin heads, and masks hanging on them. Old molds were heaped on top of one another on one end of the shelf, a basket bri
mming with paints and brushes on the other end.

  Josie walked over and looked at the masks. Some were bloody, some with gashes cut into the cheeks, some screaming in horror, some looked like they were covered in charred flesh. They were all gruesome. He had no idea how she slept in this room.

  "I like horror movies," she said bluntly, watching his face.

  She pointed to a tray of fake teeth, some perfect, some broken, some decayed and rotted, black and ground down to nubs.

  "Girl's gotta have a hobby," she said, with more than a tinge of sarcasm in her voice.

  On the other side of the room, there were photos haphazardly tacked up onto the walls, a woman on a boat, surrounded by sharks, dead and hanging from hooks, their blood puddling at her feet. There were articles from magazines, newspapers. Josie recognized her dad in many of the photos.

  “Where’s your dad?” Josie asked, more to fill the void than anything.

  “At the lab. He’s been working on the disappearance of the small fish along the coast,” she told him, “He thinks it’s global warming…”

  Emerald made a point of dramatically rolling her eyes.

  Josie didn’t say anything. He waited, not wanting to be the first one to mention the monster in case she was playing him, ridiculing him, setting him up, recording their conversation.

  He remembered the prank Grotty played on him in science. Wasn't everyone out to set him up?

  “You know it’s Bangkok, right?” she said, incredulously.

  “What do you know about Bangkok?" he asked her.

  And with that, Emerald walked over to a plush blue curtain that covered one whole wall and drew it back. It was a whiteboard, huge, filling up the wall, on it were maps, photos, newspaper clippings, old pages torn out of textbooks, underwater photos, and scribbled notes written in different colored sharpies, with arrows linking those notes to different photos of people and places.

  It was truly the most impressive thing Josie had ever seen.

  “You can’t tell the adults,” she said conspiratorially. “Grown-ups are brain dead. They think you’re crazy when you talk about sea monsters.”

  “Tell me about it,” Josie said, getting closer to the board to get a better look. It was the truest statement he had ever heard.