She

by David Duane Kummer

  “Speaking of emotions, he always had this thing for Crystal, and I suspect she had some feelings his way too, but they could never be proven because... well, I’ll get to that part later on.

  “The important thing, as I said before, is to remember that Michael was the leader; he was the man. Him and Brandon were best friends for their whole lives; I think that’s what they told me. But even Michael, as powerful as he was, and Brandon, as determined as he was, and Crystal, as hotheaded as she was, and Christian, as brilliant as he was, never understood the full story. They never quite got the gist.

  “But I did, many years later, and I take no pride in admitting it. Quite the contrary, I believe if they had the chance, they would have understood much sooner than me, because I was narrow-minded and cold towards anything uncomfortable and unnatural. At the beginning, I never intended to help much, but then I got entangled in their lives, and I feel responsible for what happened now, with as much knowledge that I have gained.

  “I understood later, and I understand now. She watches all. She always has. As I said, my part of the story begins back in 1995, when phones still had those funky-looking antennas on them and you could still get gas for under two dollars, not that you needed to drive many places in Hardy.

  “This is all started with those four kids, and I guess in some ways it ended with them too. This is the story of... the story of She. Yes, that’s the name we gave her. Improper, sure, but I’ll stick with it, for old time’s sake. Everything happened back when I was just a thirty year-old police officer and they were just four young kids surviving the last week of school…”

  2. Elephants

  “Bubby, Bubby, look!” Lilly shrieked.

  Michael turned around, facing the store shelf full of stuffed animals. He groaned, imagining the herds of stuffed animals she already had in the room. As she opened her mouth wide to yell again, he put a finger over his lips, and she shrank her voice to a tiny whisper.

  “Can we get it? Please?”

  There was no denying; she was very cute, even for a little six-year-old. Everyone in the town said so, sometimes to her face. Depending on who it was, she would cower behind Michael, or relish the compliment, smiling wide and showing her best side. She was adorable, with red curls falling like a waterfall just past her neck and a face which seemed to be dotted with two tiny dimples permanently. The truth was Lilly constantly smiled, always finding a reason to, no matter the weather or time of day. She was not just a morning-person; she was an all-day, every-day person, and it wore Michael out, but he put up with it willingly and loved her all the same.

  Ever since their mother had gotten pregnant with Lilly (and nowadays Michael wondered about that a lot, having had no father in his home), Michael took on a special responsibility, keeping the house in order when his mother could not, even though he was not quite double-digits in his age. When Lilly was born, the two of them immediately bonded while his mother worked odd shifts and scrapped together any cash she could.

  As busy as she was, by the time Michael was ten he had changed more diapers than some dads in the neighborhood. Many sleepless nights were spent on his part, rocking Lilly to sleep as she lay there, those red curls swept back and mouth slightly agape. His mother would crash on the couch, and wake up early to go work someplace new. All the while, Michael took care of his loveable sister.

  She grew up even while he did, and learned that her “Bubby” would always be there for her. While Michael grew to a be a hard-working, humble young man, she grew into a little princess, occasionally showing the snappy attitude that often accompanies the post-toddler years.

  Despite all of their faults and oddities, the Walker family, only three-people large, enjoyed a happy life, unaffected by the problems and worries of big-city folks. They lived together, in one unbreakable bond, and that was just the way Michael liked it. He would not trade his family for all the power in the world.

  “Um, maybe. How much is it?”

  Lilly looked at him in surprise. She never thought to wonder how much it would cost. Such a pretty, pink elephant should be given away for free, never costing anyone anything. “Well, not much,” she said, hoping he would not notice the mischievous smirk she failed to hide.

  “That smile says different, little lady.” He grinned, digging through his wallet until he found a twenty dollar bill and some random change. “Here, lemme see it.”

  He checked the price tag and looked down at her with an exhausted gaze. She saw the look of disbelief, and hurriedly said, “Grace has one and it’s really, really soft and pink!”

  Grace was her best friend, and Brandon’s younger sister. Brandon, his best friend for many years, lived up in Hardy, only a few streets away. Their families had been great friends since they both moved here years ago.

  “Well, we can’t get ice cream if we buy this,” he warned, hoping it would change her mind. Ice cream sounded good on a hot day like it was.

  She thought intently, scrunching her eyebrows together, before answering, “I choose... Pinky.”

  “His name’s Pinky?”

  “Her name’s Pinky. ‘Cause she’s pink, see?” Lilly stuck the elephant up as high as she could.

  Michael lifted her by the arms and carried her on his hip over to the counter. She’s getting too big, he thought with a chuckle. They went over to stand in line, waiting for the handful of customers to buy their toys from the kid’s shop.

  Everything seemed to be bright, rainbow colors in this strange world. Every inch had a toy, and every toy had a price tag stuck to it. A small train-track on a table stood farther back, where Michael had spent many days when he was younger and his mother came here to shop for children’s toys and clothes.

  “Excuse me,” a voice said from his immediate right.

  He looked over and saw a slightly hunch-backed, gray-haired woman, whose lips were squirming back in a smile, drawing wrinkled skin along with them. Her eyes were empty and entirely black, it seemed, like small, shaded pebbles. Maybe that was just the light’s reflection. He hoped so.

  “Can I help you?” asked Michael with a shaking voice.

  “Kind sir, I’d like to know the name of your sister there. She is such a cutie.” For extra emphasis, the old lady pinched his sister’s cheeks. Lilly just smiled and buried her face in Michael’s shoulder, escaping the sharp fingernails of the lady but enjoying the attention nonetheless.

  “Um, I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to tell you. I don’t really… know you.” He took a slight step back.

  “Oh, but I know you. Yes, I do. So please just tell me; I mean no harm.”

  “I can’t,” he said with a forceful tone. He felt Lilly giggle and looked down, asking, “What’s funny?”

  She kept laughing quietly, and the lady smiled even wider. “What a wonderful little girl.”

  Michael said, “I need to go now.” His heart-beat was speeding up, and the line seemed to be moving at an agonizing pace. He began to turn around, facing the line.

  The lady stretched out one clammy hand and grabbed his shoulder, with fingernails slicing into his skin. He winced and turned back, as she said menacingly, “Tell me.” All hints of pleasantries were gone now; she glared at him as if her eyes alone could torture their way into his mind and extract the truth.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. Shrugging her claw-like hand off, he put his back to her. The line was gone now. Stepping up to the counter, he placed the elephant down and turned around to tell the lady to go away, but she was gone just like that.

  Mouth slightly agape, he asked the balding man at the counter, “Where’d she go?” His wide eyes were still searching; she had to be hiding just out of sight.

  “Who, son?”

  “That lady back there; where’d she go?”

  The cashier looked at him with lowered eyebrows. “I can’t say who you mean.”

  “There was an old lady and she talked to me.”

  “I’s ringing up an item and didn’t see �
�er. What’d she say?” he asked while shoving the elephant into a white plastic bag.

  “Asked for my sister’s name,” Michael answered. He was still peering around the store, certain she was lurking behind some shelf, waiting to catch him off guard.

  “Don’t know, son. Be careful, ‘ey? There’s some weird folks out ‘ere.”

  Michael nodded, thanking the cashier, and took the bag. While he walked out of the store, he looked over his shoulder one more time, and saw nothing unusual. The worried-looking man, who scratched at his frizzled, unkempt beard, was now helping another customer. Others perused the shelves, often bargaining with their children on what they wanted. There was no lady lurking, and no uncomfortable strangers staring.

  “Who was she?” Lilly asked when he put her down outside, a bit reluctant to let her go still. That woman had shaken his nerves to the core.

  “Nobody,” he said. “Probably won’t even see her again.”

  “Okay, Bubby. Can we go to the river?”

  “No, let’s just go swing.”

  “Oh! Okay!”

  They walked along the busiest street in Marcy, with shops on all sides and a small playground just ahead. After browsing through the windows for about ten minutes as they made their way closer, Lilly took off running to the swingset and Michael followed at a walk. She loved these swings, and any swing she could get her hands on. The entire afternoon would be spent pushing her back and forth, unless their mother came to pick them up after shopping or Lilly collapsed from laughing so much.

  Back and forth, back and forth; the swing flew to the front, before cascading towards the back. Her hair flew in the opposite direction, sometimes running over her face like a red, dazzling tapestry, other times whipping out behind her like a cape and hitting Michael in the eyes. Lilly laughed the entire time, every once in a while almost falling off, before regaining her balance.

  Michael sputtered and said, “Ugh, you got your hair in my mouth.”

  “It wasn’t me!” she hollered between bursts of giggles. She had almost as much giggles as smiles throughout the day. “Look at me!” she cried out in joy.

  Across the street, standing in a musky alleyway, leaning against the wall, stood a lady with a very wrinkled face and light, gray hair. A hood was draped over her head, concealing her in shadows. She heard the little girl cry out, saw the older brother pushing her, and said in a whisper, “Look at you; look at you, my darling.”

  She saw their mother pull up in a small car with crumpled bumpers, and a long scrape along the side. Their mother called out something, and after one last, big push and swing, they piled into the car in a hurry, the little girl climbing in the back where grocery bags were visible. In the rearview mirror, she could just make out the older boy laughing, until his eyes saw the mirror and, in the reflection, saw her.

  With one quick movement, she pointed towards them with a single, gnarled finger. Then she turned and disappeared into the dark.

  Inside the car, Michael gasped quietly, goosebumps pimpling his arms. Lilly was saying something to his mother, and in a moment he felt his mom tap him nervously on the shoulder while they waited for traffic to pass on the main street.

  “Who’s this woman Lilly said you met?”

  Michael stared into the rearview mirror still, wondering where she had gone. With a shaky voice, he answered, “Nobody, mom. Probably just a lonely old woman.”

  “She asked for my name,” said Lilly a little proudly. Her small, feeble fingers twisted the elephant’s pink ears as she toyed with the cuddly object, not realizing she was doing so.

  Michael’s mom addressed him now. “Did you tell her?”

  “No; she gave me the creeps,” answered Michael.

  His mother nodded and said, “Good. There’s some weird people out there.”

  Michael did not say it out loud, but thought to himself, Sometimes they’re not so far “out there” after all.

  3. Relations

  “I don’t know why, but the last few weeks of school always take forever to go by,” said Michael, looking out of the smudged window beside their booth as numerous cars passed. Rumbling down Main Street, they were an earthquake of noise on the road outside the small restaurant.

  “You have no idea.” Brandon smirked behind a hand. “To those of us who don’t sleep through math class, it seems a whole lot longer.”

  He did not turn his head to see Michael beside him, but stared straight ahead. Across the four-seating table, in a more dilapidated booth bench, were his other best friends, Christian and Crystal.

  Few people were in the restaurant now, since it was at that time of day between lunch and dinner where nobody eats at restaurant. These four made all of the noise, talking none-too-quietly amongst themselves.

  Sipping on his milkshake, Christian glanced towards Michael, wondering what he would say to Brandon’s accusation.

  “I don’t sleep in math class.” Michael shook his head to emphasise the point. “And my grades are higher than yours!”

  “The drool stains on your paper are bigger, too. If you’re gonna sleep, you gotta get rid of the evidence,” Brandon said, wagging his finger like he had seen his mother do.

  “You look like my mom,” said Christian with a wide smile, the glasses falling off of his nose. Crystal laughed, throwing her head back, sending smooth, dirty blonde hair flying.

  “Maybe I am your mom, lil’ boy,” Brandon said.

  “That’s not actually possible-”

  Ignoring Christian, Brandon went on in a mock-motherly tone. “Christian, Christian; oh, please do come get your clothes from the clothesline! I wouldn’t want all of Hardy to see your underwear from last night; wetting the bed leaves such awful stains.”

  Christian shot a spit ball at him through the straw of his milkshake, smacking him soundlessly on the lips. Brandon choked, filling the entire restaurant with the noise. This increased the laughter he eventually joined, while the few people eating in the restaurant stared at the noisy teenagers gathered together.

  They all looked around for Mrs. Moore, hoping to avoid her stern gaze. Christian and Crystal’s mother worked there as a waitress, so most days she would take Michael and Brandon to their homes after her shift ended. Both of them had little sisters, Grace Gray and Lilly Walker, but they were in the half-day kindergarten class, so Mrs. Gray took them earlier in the day. The four freshman spent every early afternoon waiting for Mrs. Moore’s shift to be over, unless she made them leave the restaurant because they were too loud.

  Mr. Moore was a traveling man, often driving back and forth between Hardy, where they lived, Marcy, the town a few minutes away where their mother worked and the children all went to school, and Indianapolis, the state capital where his office was. Normally, he would come home for the weekend, tired and stressed, but always made time for his kids. Dinner on those weekends was fantastic, when their mother made the best possible meals they could afford and everyone sat down to hear what new stories The Traveling Mr. Moore, as he called himself when telling stories, had to tell them.

  Stories he told were different from any they heard at school or from friends; these were stories of the city. Lots of traffic everywhere, a combination of nasty smells and good ones, very influential and very corrupt politics; these were what he told them about, but not directly. No, in his stories, everyone had good inside of them, whether they used it or not. There was hate and crime and manipulation, sure, but there was also love and friendship and pride in hard work. “That’s what important, kids,” he had said one night. “No matter what happens, keep working hard and keep with your friends. That’ll get you through life just fine.”

  The Moore twins certainly did work hard; there was no doubt about that. Christian was top of his grade at school, and by a good amount. And Crystal, despite the carefree, teenage attitude she shared with Brandon and Michael, had serious plans for the future, wanting to become a nurse and maybe work in a large, important hospital. When they first met, Brandon teased
her about it, but since then her dreams to become a nurse, even without knowing the first thing about medicine, looked very probable compared to his dreams of becoming a Nascar driver. All considered, the Moore twins had a splendid life.

  Things were not quite as cheery at Michael’s or even Brandon’s house. At the latter’s home, his parents were together, yes, but were very strict. Most people assume having only one sibling means lots of free time, free money, and freedom, but that is not always true, and it certainly was not for Brandon.

  If you had asked Brandon what religion his parents were, he would have said, “They’re Baptists, alright, but the really strict kind that won’t let you have any fun, and if you laugh during church you get a dirty look from the man preaching, right there and then, if not a smack on the head from some random father.”

  The truth is, religion was not the reason so much that they were strict, as you might be presuming. Mr. Gray, Brandon’s father, had lived a rough childhood, working on the farm and being taught lessons the hard way all his life. Between his father’s tough regimen and the prejudiced, racist families he grew up near, Mr. Gray’s life had never been easy. Some men grow and flourish in that environment, making them stronger, but it had made him bitter and resentful. In regards to Brandon, Mr. Gray was a no-nonsense, punishment-ain’t-enough type of guy. He wanted Brandon to grow up as straight as a log, and about as tough as one too, so when he did not quite live up to those spiritual, physical, or mental expectations, his dad got frustrated. Couple that with his mom’s religious values which she had burnt into her at an early age, and you had a child who just wants some freedom, so he often found it with his friends, goofing around when they were allowed and even more when they were not.