by Catie Rhodes
“I know this is something Eddie wanted you to get,” she said. “I also know the other woman looking for it creates some urgency in your mind, but you’ve always been levelheaded, Peri Jean. Don’t get caught up in a buying frenzy and waste your money on an old trinket.”
“It’s not just an old trinket. It has to do with the Mace Treasure.”
“Oh, I know. With Eddie, all roads led back to the Mace Treasure. Don’t let yourself get caught up in it, too.”
But it’s more than just the treasure, I wanted to say. It’s the person who murdered my father. If they get this box, they’re going to start the apocalypse right in Gaslight City. Best keep my mouth shut for the moment. The less Julie knew, the better. I didn’t want to test her loyalty to Eddie by challenging how she felt about me. The answer might hurt my feelings.
Hinges screamed from the direction of the house, and an ancient wood frame screen door scraped along the porch boards. Too warped to open all the way, it stopped halfway. A stooped man, his white beard hanging halfway down his chest, stepped out onto the porch and stared at us. He wore a pair of faded overalls with a white ribbed t-shirt underneath. Yellowed, overgrown fingernails capped his twisted fingers. Julie gave me one last glance, an odd expression on her face, and slipped out of the truck.
This is going to go over like telling your Sunday school teacher you have the clap. I hopped down from the delivery truck’s cab and tagged after her.
“Carl? Is that you?” Julie managed to paste a toothy smile on her face as she picked her way through the yard.
“Yep. Ain’t seen you in—what?—forty years?”
“Can’t be that long. I’m only thirty-five.” She laughed, but her cousin didn’t join in. He simply watched through watery blue eyes. We made it to the porch without breaking any bones or giving ourselves tetanus on the rusty junk. The cousin’s gaze flicked to me and then back to Julie, a silent question.
“This is Peri Jean Mace,” Julie said. “She’s the one interested in the little box you have.”
I held out my hand to shake.
“Carl Mahoney.” Ignoring my hand, he opened the door and motioned for us to come inside. Next to the door sat the skeleton of a small animal which had been painted gold and turned into a decoration. I shivered.
“Come on in the kitchen.” He moved along the tiny path through the junk as though it was a mile wide and turned on a light at the other end.
Julie and I picked through what must have been the living room. I had to put one foot exactly in front of the other so I didn’t risk tripping on anything.
“Got beer or sody-pop,” he called from the kitchen. I heard a refrigerator open. Is he kidding? The smell of cat urine had already permeated my mouth and cemented itself onto my tongue. I didn’t want to put my lips to anything in this house. I’d have to bleach them when I got back to Gaslight City. Our trek through the living room spit us into the kitchen. Compared to what I’d already seen, it was moderately neat. It only had one row of boxes stacked along its perimeter. Carl held an unlabeled brown beer bottle in his hand, already opened and with some of the liquid gone. He took another swig.
“Want one?”
“Ah, no sir. Don’t want to have to find a restroom on the way back to Gaslight City.” I smiled. The expression on Carl’s face stayed the same. Maybe he didn’t know what a restroom was. Maybe I should have said “john” or “outhouse.”
“Same here, Carl.” Julie stood in front of the Formica and chrome table sitting in the middle of the kitchen. The chrome legs had a few tiny spots of rust, but it was otherwise in great condition. She pulled out one chair. The sparkly vinyl covers wore a thick coat of dust, but I saw no tears or dry rot. I figured she’d love to have this set for her shop in Gaslight City. A nice set like this could bring a few hundred bucks.
“Go on, sit down.” Carl took a chair across the table.
Julie continued staring at the dusty seat, probably wondering if she could wipe it off without offending Carl. I wondered the same thing about my seat, though I wasn’t as worried about my jeans as Julie probably was about her pastel colored linen pants. At long last, she took out a tissue, gave the chair a few swipes, and sat down, smiling uncomfortably. I took my seat without cleaning it. I’d have to take ten hot showers to wash this place off anyway.
“I been thinking ‘bout the box you asked about ever since you called.” He flicked his rheumy eyes in my direction. “I cain’t let it go. Been in the fam’ly over a hundred years.”
“I understand,” Julie said. “I told Peri Jean it was a long shot, but she wanted to try anyway. Now about this dinette set—”
She just threw me under the damn bus. I sat in shocked silence while the two haggled over the dinette, Julie explaining how it would take a while for the right buyer to spot it and how it did need a little work and Carl arguing people were clamoring to get their hands on these things.
It didn’t take me long to start thinking about the exact way Carl’s family had come into possession of the box. My hands balled into fists on my legs. Hell, I’d have done better coming here on my own. At least I could have threatened him with a busted nose. I could have brought Wade Hill as my bruiser.
Carl and Julie reached a price on the dinette set. Knowing the price she’d put on the set in her shop, I thought she’d gotten a bargain. Carl dragged over one of the boxes and opened it to show Julie a bunch of Vaseline glass wrapped in newspaper. Julie clapped her hands to her mouth and squealed. I’d had enough.
“Mr. Mahoney, why don’t you tell me how your family acquired the box I came here to buy.”
“It doesn’t matter how they got it,” Julie said. “All that matters is Carl has it and isn’t willing to sell. We discussed this on the way over.” She narrowed her eyes at me, a sure signal to shut up.
I had enough sense to know how much pissing Julie off could cost me. I’d lose more than the work I did for her. She had the pull to erase a lot of my money-making opportunities. All the filling in I did at bed and breakfasts would end. The day work waiting tables in diners when somebody didn’t show up would dry up. My best bet might be to let it go, wait and see if there was another way to skin this particular turd.
A drumming on the kitchen window yanked me out of my own head. I turned to see what it was. A huge black bird perched on the window sill. Soon as it was sure I saw it, it pecked the window and let out a funky caw. Seeing the bird injected a breath of determination into me, helped me remember I had proof of my claim on the box. I turned to Carl, ready to present my argument, but found him staring at the window, his mouth open. His teeth hurt to look at.
“Son of a bitch. I hate these damn things. Always showing up. Eating my garden, shitting on the deck. They’re bad luck.” He grabbed a wad of newspaper from the box of Vaseline glass and threw it at the window. The ball ran out of steam and dropped to the floor several feet away. “Get the hell out of here.”
The bird sputtered and flew away. My muscles gave a little jerk. For completely irrational reasons, I wanted to grab the collar of his shirt and yank him into my face, bare my teeth at him, and tell him how it was going to be. Keeping my mouth shut was out of the question.
“The residents of Gaslight City lynched the woman the box used to belong to, and Archie Mahoney robbed her defenseless corpse. Isn’t that how your ancestors ended up with it?”
“The box is staying where it is. In the Mahoney family.” Carl pointed one finger at me. “You calm down and shut your mouth.”
“Peri Jean Mace! You can’t talk to people like this, especially not my cousin.” Julie laid one cool hand on my arm.
I sat as still as I could. If I moved one muscle, I would slap her cool hand right off me. Julie let go of me and turned to Carl.
“A man we both know—one who was like a father to her—died a couple of days ago. He was looking for your box when he died.” Julie did a combo head shake and eye roll. “I think she wants it out of some sense of duty to him.”
&nbs
p; Carl grunted and gave me a nod, his watery eyes still hard with anger.
“If you stop right now, I’m willing to forget all this.” Julie’s voice was sharper than I’d heard it since the day a tourist’s child broke an expensive carnival glass vase and the parents got snitty when Julie expected them to pay for it. The moment of truth was staring me right in the face.
Am I ready to die on this hill? Lose my business over this? No.
I had bills to pay, financial responsibilities. I worked too hard building my day labor business to piss it away in one day. There would be no starting over. I’d have to look for minimum wage shift work at something owned by out-of-towners. No Gaslight City natives would hire me and risk Julie’s wrath. It took every bit of self-control I possessed, but I clamped my mouth shut and sat back in my chair. My ear canals burned as though little jets of steam could shoot from them any second.
“Are you finished?” Julie stared at me.
My pride wouldn’t let me answer, so I stared at my lap, the back of my neck on fire. What I saw in my ex-friend’s eyes dug at me more than anything she could have said. Flat out don’t give a shit shone out of Julie’s windows of the soul. She’d decided her cousin should have Priscilla Herrera’s curse box, and the deal was done in her mind. Aside from forcefully taking it, nothing I said would do a damn bit of good.
Something moving in the yard caught my eye, and I gladly turned away from Julie and peered out the dirt caked window, unable to see much detail. A huge shadow moved across the yard, coming toward the house, darkening the ground as it went. It didn’t look good.
Someone was yelling at me. I turned to see Julie all red-faced. She glared at me and set her jaw. “I’m asking if you’re finished, Peri Jean.”
“Shut up and look out the window.” I pushed back my chair and ran the few steps across the kitchen, getting as close to the filthy window as I could without touching it in hopes of widening my field of vision. A short distance from the house, the sun still shone. The darkness only covered the house and yard. A strong wind whipped through the murky dusk, almost laying the tall grass on its side. The lighter items in Carl Mahoney’s junk collection blew around. The dollheads jittered on the fence, their eyes opening and closing. The window began to rattle in its frame. I heard dishes in the cabinets clinking together. I took several steps backward, though I knew it wouldn’t help if push came to shove. We needed to get into a windowless room, preferably in the middle of the house. “Storm’s coming. Fast.”
“Ain’t no storm.” Carl’s beer bottle jittered on the table in front of him and overturned, the beer foam rushing into his lap. He slapped it away and stood. “I checked the weather.”
The back door blew open, and Julie bleated. About a hundred yards from the house stood an unused well. A concrete disk covered the opening, indicating the well was no longer in use. The disk rattled on top of the well, jumping until I could see space between the well and the concrete. Bony fingers appeared at one edge of it and pushed the disk aside like it was nothing. It thumped onto the dirt next to the well.
My heart tried to climb up my throat, gave up, and started banging against my ribcage instead. The disk would weigh a hundred dense pounds. Heavy enough I’d have had a hard time moving it alone. The whipping air carried an almost electric current, which turned the fine hairs on my arms into tuning forks, standing them rigid. My muscles bunched. I was ready to run but couldn’t make myself move a muscle. The only part of my body moving was my trembling knees.
Skeletal fingers hooked over the edge of the well, and I knew something on the other side was climbing up to join us. A small skull appeared, rising over the well’s edge, hooking its arms over and pulling itself out. Carl joined Julie in screaming, though his screams had words.
“Stay down! Stay down! Stay down!” The man’s eyes were so wide I wondered if it was possible for his eyeballs to pop out. Even if they didn’t, I bet his heart would give out before too long. My muscles tightened to the point I thought I might pee my pants, but still I couldn’t move. The skeleton threw one bony leg over the side of the well and hefted itself over the side.
“Stop it, Peri!” Julie came to stand next to me. “You stop this witchcraft or whatever it is.”
“You think I’m making this happen?” I touched the black opal through my shirt. It was cool and calm. Unusual in the face of something paranormal. Usually it heated up and burned me. “You’re crazy if you think I’d do this.”
Julie’s mouth popped open like one of those candy dispensers. “How dare you call me crazy.”
Her words slammed into me, hurting to the deepest, most hidden part of my soul. Crazy. The thing I feared people saying to me, thinking about me. A hundred years ago, they’d have done me the same way they did Priscilla Herrera for the same reasons people kill spiders in their houses—just in case. I tore my gaze from Julie to check the progress of the skeleton.
It crawled across the yard, growing tattered, parchment-colored skin as it came. The skull filled in, revealing solid black eyes with no whites and cracked, broken lips. Its proximity allowed me to see the femurs had been broken and the back of the skull was bashed in. Using fingers covered with broken and cracked skin, the skeleton gripped the door jamb and pulled itself to a standing position and stepped into the house.
The black opal finally came to life, going from cool to ember hot. I yelped and pulled it away from me. Instead of the power I usually felt coming from it, I felt a sucking sensation, making me think of water running out of a sink. The skeleton dragged itself a few more feet forward and grabbed my ankle. I recoiled, choking on the spit flooding my mouth, but the hand held me fast. A voice filled my whole world—the house, my head, even the outdoors.
“Who has my box?” The voice sounded garbled like a thousand voices all talking at once, using each other to form the words.
I tried again to shake off the horror holding onto me. It tightened its grip. I bent at the waist, intending to pluck its hand off me even though I could barely stand the idea of touching the thing. The black opal’s heat increased to an unbearable level. As soon as I made contact with the bony hand, light flashed, and the skeleton fell away, the false life in it gone.
I fell backward, dizzy and devoid of energy, gasping as though I’d been exercising. Another gust of wind hit the house, making the old boards cry out. The skeleton twitched, once, twice, three times. It rolled to its knees and got to its feet and lurched at me. We weren’t done. I held my arms out to ward it off, unprepared for the next attack but too ignorant to know what to do.
“Peri Jean Mace, I am the future of this town unless you fulfill your destiny.” Its teeth clacked together as the words came, even though the words didn’t seem to come from the bones.
The skeleton opened its arms as though inviting me to give it a hug. I pushed myself backward and hit the wall. Imaginary ants swarmed over my skin. My lips and cheeks tingled. I wanted to turn my gaze somewhere else, to relieve the terror, but I couldn’t. The skeleton came closer, its coal eyes fastened hungrily on me.
Red flashed behind my eyes, and my vision turned inward. I saw Hannah Kessler sleeping in her bed. The skeleton came from under the bed and reached up one bony arm to grip her leg and raise itself onto the bed. Her eyes flew open, and her mouth opened to scream as the skeleton opened its mouth to bite into her. A black hound with red eyes chased Kansas Fischer, the son of my dead best friend. Tears streamed down the boy’s face as he tried to outrun the thing. The animal launched itself and slammed into his back, forcing him to the ground. Its mouth ripped into the back of his neck. Rainey Bruce sat locked in her car, her eyes wide with fear, her mouth opened in a scream as flames engulfed her.
“No more, no more.” I forced myself out of the vision and back into Carl Mahoney’s filthy kitchen.
“Where is my box?” The skeleton screamed.
I glanced at Carl Mahoney. The horror turned on the man, opened its mouth wide, and let out a roar. Carl tried to run but tripped ov
er his own feet and hit the floor. The man whimpered and tried to scuttle away, using his hands to slide himself toward the living room. The skeleton jerked and stumbled after him. Carl backed himself against a pile of crap. His legs kicked wildly as the skeleton stood over him.
“Give up your ill-gotten gains, thief.” The skeleton’s hiss shook the room.
“Do it, Carl.” The steadiness of my voice surprised me.
“No, no, no.” He whined. “It can’t have my box.”
His words were like a cold slap on my face. Your box? After all this, Carl still thought it was his box. Unbelievable. I wanted to run over and kick the old man cowering on the floor, but a whine filled my head. It hurt worse than any screech I remembered hearing and gained in intensity each second. I clapped my hands over my ears, which did nothing to block it out.
A shadow fell over me, and the young, tattooed version of Priscilla Herrera leaned over me. She offered her hand. I took it without hesitation and let her pull me up. Then she stepped into me, the chill of her deadness inundating me, filling every nook and cranny. The whine turned to a sweet sound, the call of an old friend. I knew I had to follow it.
I ducked past the skeleton and Carl and stumbled toward the sound, bouncing off piles of crap in the living room. A stack of magazines toppled and slid across the floor. I tried to plow through them but they slid underneath me, throwing me off balance. I grabbed the nearest thing, which was a stack of jigsaw puzzles. Boxes went flying, and I hit the floor with them.
“Son of a syphilitic bitch,” I screamed and slapped the floor. I rolled onto my stomach, preparing to get up and saw what sat in front of me. The box was as I’d seen it in my vision, though a lot worse for the wear. It bore dings and punctures where generations of greedy-assed Mahoneys tried to get into it. Though the world raged around me, the box drew my full attention, shutting out the chaos. I picked up the box, and energy flowed into me, restoring the energy the skeleton took to become animated. The skeleton. What happened to it? I turned to stare at the animated corpse. Its limbs tangled with Carl Mahoney’s, keeping him away from me.