She

by David Duane Kummer

  “Fair enough, Superman. Back to the paper.”

  After they both pondered it for a moment, Michael spoke up, “Look here. The genders. Girl, girl, boy, boy, girl, girl, boy, boy. And the teenage number. They don’t match up.”

  “So?”

  “So the teenage number has a pattern, but it doesn’t affect the kids. Except for the number of kids, see. Every time one teenager is taken, two kids are, and the other way around. The genders are a separate pattern from everything.”

  “That’s not exactly mind blowing, Michael.”

  “Sure it’s not, but it’s a start.”

  Brandon yawned, pushing his arms back behind his head and stretching. “So what about the baby?”

  “The baby’s always a girl, just like Daniel said. The more I look at this, the more I agree with him. She must use the baby as her student-type thing. Otherwise, there’s no reason to take her every eighty years.”

  “Okay,” Brandon said, nodding in agreement, “we have the reason for the baby. What about the others? Why even make a pattern?”

  “I don’t know,” Michael mused. “It doesn’t make sense. Unless it’s some sort of sick, ritualistic thing, there’s no reason to take certain genders and a certain number each time, over a certain amount of years.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Brandon was beginning to look confused. This was seeming more like a mystery show, and less like real life. There are no real-life mysteries, after all; only on television and in books.

  “I know, man; it’s confusing. I’m just trying to make sense of it.”

  “Well, my mom’ll be wanting me home soon, so we need to make sense of it quick. What do we know at this point?”

  “We know a teenager will be taken, still,” Michael said. “And we know if we don’t stop her, chances are nobody will for another twenty years. If they even realize this pattern then.”

  “Wow. Real encouraging there,” Brandon remarked with a nervous smile.

  “Agreed.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Brandon said. “I don’t think you’re right about the teenagers not being connected.”

  Michael looked over at him and saw a deep thought engraved somewhere between his thick eyebrows and the hair on his head. When he did not continue, Michael prodded, “Go on.”

  “I feel like in what he told you, there is always some relationship between the teen or teens and one of the kids. Like a brother-sister thing, most times.”

  Michael thought intently for a few minutes while Brandon studied the paper, as if trying to justify the theory. After a while, Michael spoke up, “You’re right. You’re completely right.”

  “And hear this. Who’s the only sibling of Lilly, and the only sibling of Grace?”

  A spark leapt out of Michael’s eyes, but then they darkened with the sense of fear clouding over that picnic table. “You and me.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So... you think one of us is that teenager?”

  Brandon shook his head solemnly. “I don’t think. I know.”

  “How can we know which one of us?”

  “We can’t.”

  Everything in the park was beginning to take on a deeper color, appearing less lively and more menacing. The whole world was turning gray and serious, like the matters on their own hearts and the effect of their emotions.

  Laughing at Brandon’s jokes seemed like ages ago, and that last day of school like an eternity. So much had happened since then; there was so much pain in the word, hidden before by their child-like hopes and dreams. It had worn a mask, and now that mask was ripped off.

  The truth hit home, and brought an earthquake with it.

  “I’m glad I didn’t tell the other two we’d be here.”

  “Why not?” Brandon asked. “I was wondering about that earlier. Usually-”

  “No,” Michael stopped him. “Maybe before, but not now. Especially after what you said. I think the more time we spend with them, and the closer we get, the more danger they’re in. When all hell breaks loose, I want them to be across town, safe in their house, if not farther away.”

  Brandon rubbed a finger through a small valley in the wood, where some bird had taken a few pecks. “I’m not sure, man. The more help we get-”

  “-the more people are in danger,” Michael finished. “We have to beat her by ourselves. I’m sorry; you know I want to include them. But I’d rather them be safe.”

  “How do we work alone without making them mad?” Brandon asked.

  Truth be told, Michael would cut all ties with the two, at least for the time being, if it were not for Crystal. It would break his heart to move on from her, and hurting her would absolutely crush him. He had enough agony inside as it was.

  “I say we just limit everything. Limit the time together, limit what we tell them, but still let them help.”

  “Christian is one smart dude, though.”

  “He is.”

  After Michael spoke, there was another few minutes of silence. Storm clouds could be seen on the horizon, rolling closer. Weather was unpredictable at best in Hardy; lightning one day and sunshine the next. The town folks were sure to be annoyed by those clouds, though. It would put a damper on their barbecue.

  “Michael?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why’s everything changing?”

  This was one of those rare looks into Brandon’s true self. This was the side of him that worried, the side that doubted, and the side that was scared. Then again, weren’t they all?

  “Because it has to change to get better. And sometimes life takes one step back before jumping ahead two steps. That’s a lot of change; three whole steps. But, in the end, you’re better off.”

  “If you say. I need to mail that diary to him, don’t I?”

  Michael nodded. “Just give it to me sometime and I’ll take it down.”

  “Alright. Thank you for everything.”

  “Same to you.”

  17. Drinks

  Michael’s house was gloomier than ever. His mom was asleep downstairs, possibly after drinking too much liquor, although he begged her not to dive back into that addiction. Unsurprisingly, she ignored him, and now spent everyday either drowning with a bottle or drowning in her sleep.

  Between those sporadic naps, she would happen down to the grocery store, although trips were becoming less frequent and Michael found himself catching a ride with his friends to go to Marcy and buy food. Hardy has it’s own grocer, but the prices were too high and the quality too low. Besides that, he would get awkward questions and chastising looks, as if it was his fault that Lilly was gone and his mother falling apart. Nothing about Hardy was lovable or loving anymore.

  Everything was going to be different in a few minutes, though. For one night, everything would be like it was before. He could smile; he could laugh. He could forget.

  As he lay on the floor, holding his Gameboy, the ceiling seemed miles away. Everything looked like he was falling backwards, into a lightless pit with no bottom. Fridays were so dull now, more so than the other days. Only a few weeks ago, he would have been out and about town with his friends. Now, he longed desperately for their company.

  Crystal and Christian were due to arrive at any moment, and Brandon not long after that. Mr. and Mrs. Moore were going out of town to celebrate their anniversary, leaving their twin children to stay with Michael’s mom. Nicole was happy to let them stay; she would not notice the difference. The world was an everyday, constant blur of alcohol and depression.

  Brandon had been allowed to stay the night, but only on Friday. Saturday was out of the question, since he had church the following day, but he could stay until the afternoon. After he left, Michael would be left with the other two for the second night and some of the following day, until their parents got back.

  He was broken out of his video-game daze by the sound of the doorbell exploding through the house. Leaping to his feet, MIchael checked his hair in the mirror quickly, fiddling with the front. Then he rush
ed downstairs, tripping over his elation on the quick flight down.

  “Got it, Mom,” he called, not that she was showing any signs of movement. He had not expected her to.

  In fact, it would shock him if she got up at all the rest of the day. Michael would try to make her eat something later, but that never went well. It was something he dreaded.

  Opening the door, he was met by Crystal, who threw herself into him and squeezed. A hug was not what he expected, but he welcomed any contact from her and slowly melted. Christian stood there with his and her suitcases, smiling, and when Michael gave him a questioning look, he just shrugged.

  “Miss me, much?” he asked once Crystal had let go.

  She blushed, making his heart beat a thousand times faster, and giggled. “I’ve just been worried about you, with everything happening.”

  Christian walked up behind them, shutting the door. “How’s your mom?”

  Michael shook his head, struggling to swallow. How was she? These two could never understand, no matter how much they wanted to. Then again, nobody really wanted to. They wanted him to feel better, but they would not take his pain for him.

  He turned and began to walk back towards the stairs, in the direction of his room. Crystal would follow, or so he hoped.

  “That bad?” asked Christian again, sounding surprised.

  “Oh, leave him alone!” Crystal chided her brother. “Can’t you see he doesn’t…”

  Michael heard her voice drift out of hearing while he climbed the stairs, back to his room. They would follow soon enough, but he needed to compose himself. Despite all that had happened, he still felt uncomfortable showing his emotions around them. Only Brandon understood. At least Christian did not see the tear squeezing from his eye; somehow, it would have been turned into a lesson on the history of commas.

  Surprisingly, they did not follow. Both of them stood there, watching him lumber up the stairs, making lots of noise and not caring at all. At the top, he slowly turned into his bedroom, moving with stiff, jerky movements like a zombie.

  “See what you’ve done, Christian?”

  Up in his room, Michael sat down on his bed, before leaning back and grabbing a pillow. He covered his face with it, part of him wishing it could kill him, before that part was suffocated by a greater feeling.

  It was a mixture of pain and hate; pain from the wounds and hate for the person who made them. That hug had given him a moment of joy, and seeing the carefree look on Christian’s face expanded it, giving him a hope that everything could be normal in some ways. But then it faded, and became another dusty, fragile memory on his crowded shelf.

  The doorbell rang again, and he faintly heard Brandon shouting something to whoever dropped him off. Then the chatter of his three friends, familiar but foreign. They had not talked like that in a long time. Ever since everything was okay and the lady was just a strange person on the street, watching but not moving. How things had turned for the worse.

  He had a fleeting pang of guilt for excluding some information from Christian and Crystal when he called them last, telling them part of what he knew. No doubt, Brandon felt the same way, although he had always been better at hiding emotions than Michael. It felt sickening, like betrayal, but still Michael knew he had to do it. For their good, he kept telling himself.

  It seemed that if you told yourself something enough, it only proved you could not believe it.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and moments later they entered his small room, full of different objects and random books, notebooks, and scattered pens. Once upon a time, he dreamed of being an author. Now, he found himself in a story, worse than any he could imagine.

  “Cool!” Christian exclaimed, picking up the Gameboy Michael had dropped on the floor. “Can I see this?”

  “You’ve already got your paws on it,” Crystal said with a touch of disdain. Michael just smiled and nodded, giving him permission, trying to seem happier. It was unnatural, forcing himself to smile when he was around friends.

  “Thanks, dude,” Christian muttered, becoming instantly lost in the world of dangerous barrels rolling towards his gorilla counterpart.

  While he stood against the wall, oblivious to everything around him, Crystal sat down on the bed next to Michael and Brandon grabbed the chair at Michael’s black, dusty desk.

  “What ever happened to that story you were writing?” Brandon asked, trying to lighten the mood. “The one with that guy?”

  “Real specific,” Michael answered sarcastically, grinning despite himself.

  “Seriously, though?”

  Crystal turned to look expectantly at Michael. She had never heard much of his childhood. Since his father left, it was a time he rarely mentioned.

  Michael scratched at his temple, thinking back on that notebook he had written in. “I’m sure it’s somewhere in here. Don’t know where.”

  Brandon nodded, content. “You know, I’ve always wanted to write a book.”

  “You?” Michael burst out laughing. “You write a book?”

  “Yeah, sure. A comedy thing.”

  Crystal stared curiously at them the entire time, her eyes widening and mouth opening to say something, but closing once more. She let out a small noise, somewhere between “What?” and a coughing laugh.

  “Huh?” Michael turned to face her.

  “I just can’t believe you two.”

  “Believe what?” Brandon asked.

  “You boys. There’s a lady taking kids, and you two are worried about books you’ll never write, and just laughing at the stupidest things. We could be doing something good to stop her, but-”

  Brandon put up a finger, silencing her. “But what? But we’re too busy laughing? We’re just trying to have fun, you mean?”

  She looked offended at being quieted, but stiffly nodded her head. Before, she sat close to Michael, comforting him. Now she leant over ever so slightly, distancing the gap between their shoulders.

  “Crystal,” Michael said, “if we never laughed, we’d always be depressed.”

  “There’s nothing to laugh about!” she exclaimed.

  Brandon shook his head. “There is. There’s always something to laugh about if you make it up.”

  “I don’t want to make it up. I want everything to be fine, and nobody to be taken.”

  A sudden flash of anger sprang into Brandon’s eyes. He folded his arms, clenching his fists. “Everything to be fine? That’s what you want?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, standing up.

  At last, Christian looked up from his game. “Woah, what’s going on? I was just-”

  “It is fine!” Brandon shouted. “For you, everything’s nice and dandy. You didn’t lose your little sister. You have everything fine.”

  Michael looked anxiously at him. “Brandon...”

  “No,” he said, whipping around towards Michael with an accusing expression. “You should be just as mad as me. These two” -he pointed to Crystal, who looked offended, and Christian, who gaped in surprise- “didn’t lose anything. They’re just as fine as before. They have both parents. You have none!”

  It was a sledgehammer shattering Michael’s chest. His breathing stopped, and for second he thought the world had ended. Not Brandon… He did not say those things. He could not have. It was misheard.

  “Shut up, Brandon,” Michael growled.

  “No, I won’t. You don’t know what it’s like at my house. You can’t ever understand.”

  “Well, it’s not like you’ve tried to tell us,” Crystal said defiantly. There were more emotions running through her than blood.

  “You never asked,” Brandon said, slamming a fist on Michael’s dresser. He now was standing up, too, and although shorter than the rest, he was a menacing figure when angry. “You all were too busy crying about yourselves to ask how I felt.”

  Christian spoke up, and, like always, it just happened to be the wrong time. “I didn’t cry. You were the only th
at-”

  Michael shot him a penetrating look, and Christian shut his mouth, but the damage was already done.

  “Cried?” Brandon erupted. “Is that a problem? You think crying’s weak? Even after my parents spend every day praying with me, having no idea I don’t care what they’re saying? And after one of my last memories of Grace is fighting with her? When she trusted me that night, and it’s my fault she’s gone?”

  Crystal tried to speak up and comfort him. “Brandon, it’s not-”

  “Yes, it is!” he shouted, tears beginning to leak from his eyes. “It is my fault, and nobody can tell me it’s not. I lost her. We were just watching a movie, and I was trying to be nice because the night before I got mad at her and she told me she hated me. I was trying to make up for it, be a good brother, but the one thing I did wrong got her taken. I knew something was gonna happen, but I let her go. How can you tell me I shouldn’t have cried? How can you wish for everything to be normal? Nothing is normal anymore; everything’s changed. It’s never gonna be the same, and no matter how many times you say, ‘It’ll get better; it’ll get better,’ it won’t get better. It just gets worse.”

  There was silence after that. Only a few moments went by, but they stretched into hours it seemed. Brandon both longed for someone to speak, beginning the long road to forgetting his emotional breakdown, and also despised anyone who spoke up, because words could never heal his wounds. Anything someone said was like salt, being rubbed into his large, self-inflicted cut.

  Michael, of course, was the one to speak first. It was these situations when he always answered, and it was no different this time. “We all lost something, and it hurt. It still hurts. But until we fix what’s wrong, not even the right things will feel right.”

  Brandon’s eyes were still misty, on the verge of another breakdown. If not for the fatigue caused by his last one, Michael had no doubt he would have erupted again. Instead, he said simply,“We can’t fix it. We can’t.”

  It was Christian who spoke up this time. “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”

  “Who said that?” Michael asked.