Popcorn Thief

by Cutter, Leah

  If Franklin could afford a place back in the woods here, he would. But he’d have to buy the land, and the easement, and probably a car to get himself to his job. Plus, he’d have to pay to have a hunk of the trees cleared out for a field, and then it would take a couple years to get the soil just right. Still, a man could dream.

  A black SUV sat parked at the start of the driveway to Lexine’s cabin. That was strange. Lexine didn’t get many visitors. It was a rental, too. Maybe she’d gone ahead and put up that web page she’d always talked about, Spirits “R” Us, advertising her services.

  But why was the car parked so far from the cabin? Had its owner just pulled off the road here?

  Franklin took a long swig from his water bottle after he got off his bike, then wiped the sweat off the back of his neck with his kerchief. It was cooler under the shade of the trees, but the day was still hot, and the air was sticky.

  The spirit of Sweet Bess suddenly appeared, standing between Franklin and door to Lexine’s cabin.

  “Shit!” Franklin exclaimed, ready to hop back on his bike and race out of there.

  Sweet Bess, the two other times she’d appeared to Franklin, had tried to mow him down for turning her into bacon. She was the one spirit he could see without Lexine. The sow couldn’t hurt him, but having a ghost or a spirit pass through a body made Franklin shiver for a day.

  But the giant sow just tossed her head at him. If she’d been alive, he would have heard her deep grunt. Then she ambled away, back into the woods.

  Franklin shook his head. He’d never understand spirits.

  Still, the encounter left him unsettled. He approached the plain brown-wood cabin carefully. It looked the same as it always had, a one-story house, just one step up from a shack. Perfectly square, it squatted under the trees with a resigned air. The two front windows on either side of the red door were dark, with no shades—Franklin didn’t think Lexine owned any.

  As Franklin walked across the broken brick walkway, he noticed the front door was ajar.

  It didn’t seem like Lexine to leave her door open. Maybe she was expecting other visitors? Like the strangers in the rented SUV?

  Franklin stepped across the threshold and called out, “Hello? Lexine? Anyone home?”

  The only sound he heard was something buzzing, angry and frantic, coming from the left, where the living room was.

  Franklin paused and let his eyes adjust before taking another step into the room. He was glad he did.

  The place was a shambles.

  Torn-up pieces of paper littered the wooden floor. The twisted rosemary plant that had guarded the door lay broken, its dark stems scattered, the scent pungent. The old couch sat skewed, pushed almost to the wall. Glass from the side window, not visible from the front, spread out in a spiral pattern across the wood, like much of the debris. The pictures hanging on the wall—old drawings of plants and insects—were torn and punctured, the holes aligned in a spiral. Lexine’s desk had been turned over and lay on its side, like a dark wounded horse.

  As Franklin went around the couch, he saw blood. Lots of blood.

  Franklin rushed forward.

  Lexine lay with her head at an odd angle to her body, like a broken doll, her dark eyes blank and staring. Deep slashes marred her arms and legs, like some kind of wild animal had been scratching at her, the blood long since dried. The angry buzzing came from the flies crawling all over her.

  Franklin looked away, sickened. Who—no, what—did this?

  Was it that crazy missing businessman?

  Except that when Franklin looked up, he could see a pair of legs, not moving, on the kitchen floor.

  Franklin made himself go and look.

  It appeared to Franklin that the businessman—Jackson?—had been trying to get away from whatever the hell had found the pair of them. The white kitchen door held bloody fingerprints from where he’d broken off his nails, scratching, trying to get out. He wore a suit, so it was his face that was all slashed up, like from a knife-tipped rake.

  Franklin looked around the kitchen. It wasn’t in as bad a shape as the living room. Lexine’s dried herbs still hung from her drying rack, up above the sink. A few plates were smashed—the ones probably on the counter—the shards in that same spiral pattern. The clean dishes still sat stacked up in the cupboards. Even the knives in the old butcher block looked untouched.

  The only thing Franklin found amiss was that the jar of bacon grease, that Lexine always kept next to the stove, was empty.

  Some ghost had licked it clean.

  * * *

  Franklin went back out to the living room, looking for a blanket to cover up Lexine. She looked indecent like that.

  No wonder Mama had looked sad, when Franklin had mentioned Lexine’s name.

  Mama had known Lexine was already dead.

  Although Franklin could only really see spirits when he was with Lexine, and Lexine was now dead, he still felt like something else was there—maybe the soul of her cabin. It didn’t feel malicious or evil, not the same as what had done this.

  “I’m afraid she’s gone,” Franklin said addressing whatever was there. “I’m sorry.” He paused, then added, “I’m gonna find them and stop them.” He didn’t know about punishing a spirit or a ghost. If he knew how to send this one to Hell he sure would.

  Before Franklin could drag a blanket over Lexine, he heard sirens wailing.

  Had Charlene tried calling him? To tell him the police were coming or had a clue?

  He wouldn’t find out until he got back in cell phone range again. But he wasn’t about to stick around and find out why the police were on their way. Sheriff Thompson was a good man, but he didn’t have much imagination. Franklin being here would cause all kinds of heartache.

  As Franklin turned to leave, a chill raced up his spine. He held himself ready to fly out of there if it was some spirit he’d never met before.

  But it was Gloria. And she was carrying something. It looked like a black ball of hate, until she dropped it.

  An ear of corn rolled next to a pool of Lexine’s blood.

  The ear of corn from Karl’s fields.

  That had Franklin’s fingerprints on it.

  How the hell had Gloria done that? Most ghosts didn’t have the strength to carry something as heavy as an ear of corn, let alone for miles and miles.

  When Franklin made to pick it up, Gloria barred her teeth at him and stood in his way.

  Damn it!

  Franklin had to get out of there. He did not want to be there with the cops coming.

  It would take them a while to lift any prints off the corn, if they could get any at all. Plus, Franklin wasn’t in the system: Mama had made damn sure he’d kept his nose clean, and for once, was grateful for her interfering ways.

  Franklin ran out of the house and hauled his bike around back, to the trails there. He knew another way out of the woods that Lexine had shown him. Bushes scratched his legs as he ran, and got tangled in the wire wheels. The heat felt like a weight, heavy and trying to slow him down. The sirens kept getting close. Franklin knew he was out of sight of the cabin but he kept running, as if that thing that had killed his cousin was coming after him.

  When Franklin finally got back to the main road, Gloria stood there, waiting for him in the hot sun.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” Franklin yelled, madder than a hornet. “Sending me to jail won’t make me a criminal. I’m never stealing Karl’s crop of corn! You hear me?” Karl was his competition. Winning through cheating wasn’t winning at all.

  Gloria’s glare didn’t change, and she didn’t look one bit guilty.

  Franklin took a look at his legs. If Mama had been alive, she’d have thrown a fit over how bloody and scratched up he was. His shirt was ruined too. After tearing out another branch and a few more leaves from his wheels, Franklin got on his bike and started riding wearily back into town.

  Why had Gloria dropped that ear of corn there? People didn’t always make sense,
and ghosts, even less so.

  Or maybe—because it was an ear of corn from Karl’s fields, they’d go see him.

  Why would Gloria want the cops to go see Karl?

  Franklin shook his head. He needed to get home, get cleaned up, maybe do some chores, but then he was gonna have to pay Karl Metzger, his main competition, a visit.

  * * *

  The day stayed hot and muggy. Franklin tried to talk himself out of going to Karl’s house, but he kept remembering Lexine’s body, laying broken like one of Adrianna’s art dolls. So he hauled out his bike and made the long trip from his property, up to the four-lane highway, through town and to the other side, where highway sixty-two split off. Franklin huffed as he rode up the hill, past Karl’s fields, then up the steep driveway.

  Karl’s house was a tall, two-story old building, with gray half-circles covering the walls and white curly bits under the eaves and between the rails on the front porch. It had tall windows that reflected back the sunlight, not letting any inside. Graceful cherry trees stood on either side of the big wooden door, and neatly trimmed bushes ran along the edges. The Kentucky bluegrass that made up the lawn was thick and healthy, without a single brown spot.

  An old black Chevy sat in the driveway, but no one was home when Franklin knocked on the door. When Franklin thought about it, he realized Karl was probably at the vegetable stand out on the highway: Franklin had probably ridden right by him. Damn it!

  Franklin stomped back to his bike, then paused, looking out over Karl’s fields. In front of the rows and rows of corn Karl had a healthy patch of tomatoes, with plump beauties bursting off the vines. Another patch held squash and cucumbers, the prickly leaves hiding more prizes, Franklin was sure. Along the side ran Karl’s rows of walnut trees, that would fruit come fall.

  Everything that Franklin touched grew, and grew well.

  But all of Karl’s crops grew with abundance.

  It just wasn’t fair. Franklin had good land, and he tended his fields with love. Why was every growing thing on Karl’s land so much bigger and better?

  It was like he was back in high school, when nothing he did was good enough no matter how hard he’d studied, he just could never get the gist of algebra or geometry, was always failing while everything came easy to Karl: He got the grades, the praise, and the girls.

  Franklin got back on his bike and rode through town. As had been his luck that entire day, Karl had already closed the stand and gone home by the time Franklin reached it.

  With a dejected sigh, Franklin rode the rest of the way back to his house. He was never gonna catch up to his competition, never gonna catch a break, was always gonna be stacking other people’s produce. That was just his life.

  * * *

  Franklin spent the rest of the night fixing the fence out front, replacing the light bulb that had burned out on the front porch, and cleaning out the yellowjackets who’d thought they’d found a home under the back eves. Anything to keep himself busy and not thinking about Lexine.

  Mama didn’t seem to have an opinion one way or the other about Karl, Gloria, or Lexine. She sat staring at the table—maybe sad? Maybe scared? She didn’t seem as angry as she had been, though.

  Franklin woke when it was still dark, a blaring noise startling him. It took him a moment to realize it was his phone ringing. According to his alarm, it was 4:17 AM.

  He didn’t recognize the name on the caller ID. Maybe some drunk, or maybe his cousin Darryl, in trouble again. “Hello?” Franklin said.

  “You gotta get over here,” Ray said urgently. “There’s something attacking Adrianna. It’s spinning around, throwing things and I can’t even see it! It’s like some kind of invisible whirlwind!”

  “Shit,” Franklin said, levering himself out of bed. It had to be the same thing that had attacked Lexine. Whatever had killed her had left behind those spiral patterns of torn paper and glass. “That thing’s deadly, Ray.”

  “How do I stop it?” Ray demanded. “It’s twirling, snatching things up, throwing them. And—”

  “I’m coming over as fast as I can get there,” Franklin said as he shoved one leg, then the other, into his jeans, wincing as the cloth scratched over his cuts from that afternoon.

  How could Ray defend himself and Adrianna against that thing? What did it want? Why was it attacking her? Why had it gone after Lexine and the businessman?

  “Get Adrianna outside,” Franklin added. He didn’t know if it’d be safer there, but Adrianna, like Lexine, was only inside a place because they had to be: The rest of the time, they lived outdoors. Adrianna was a free spirit, and lived better in the open air.

  “Good,” Ray said. “Now get here.” Then he hung up.

  Franklin rushed out of the house, not bothering to turn on any lights. Mama had her own kind of special glow from her seat at the kitchen table. She didn’t even raise her head as Franklin passed.

  Something was bothering Mama. Franklin didn’t have a clue what. But he couldn’t be bothered with that now.

  Cool night air blew against Franklin’s face as he raced down the lane, then the street, and to the highway. This was one time he wished he had a car. But wishes weren’t fishes. The far off horizon was starting to pink up. Franklin pushed himself to pedal faster, staying in the street instead of switching to the sidewalk when the four-lane narrowed down. None of the homes Franklin passed had on any lights. It was like one of those towns in a horror movie, with him as the sole survivor.

  Franklin put that thought out of his head. He needed to think about what would help Adrianna. The thing liked lard and bacon grease. Shit. He should have brought another jar of Sweet Bess’ lard with him, to try to draw it off. Maybe Adrianna had something like that in the kitchen. Or maybe just salt would do it—most ghosts liked things that were salty.

  At the Sorrels’, Franklin threw his bike against the fence and pounded on the gate. Ray opened it in short order, dressed in a white undershirt, brightly checked shorts and flip flops, his hair all messed. He nodded grimly to Franklin and held the gate open for him.

  Franklin raced inside. The friendly mess of the statues and found art had been replaced by the chaos of decimation. All the daisies and pinwheels had been flattened. The hubcap man lay on the ground, broken in two. Just wisps of the colorful streamers remained, their long tails shredded.

  “What would do such a thing?” Ray asked as they hurried down the path to where Adrianna sat, underneath her men wired together out of fallen tree branches. She wore a nightgown, like what a child might wear, white with pink flowers on it, a high collar, and long sleeves.

  Franklin pulled up right quick when he realized the tree men hadn’t been damaged. In fact, if anything, they seemed taller, bigger. They bent over, protectively, above Adrianna. She, in return, held one of their branches, like lovers holding hands, looking up at it, her face shining.

  The trees weren’t full of ghosts, that much Franklin could say. They weren’t spirits, either, as far as he could tell. They were something different, maybe unique to Adrianna, and how she’d made ’em come alive.

  “Miss Adrianna?” Franklin asked quietly.

  When Adrianna looked at him, he saw two long gouges running down her left cheek, still bleeding. “Thank you, Franklin,” she said, letting go of the tree man’s hand and standing up.

  Was it just the bad light, or did the hand fall in slow motion, as if unwilling to let go?

  “I didn’t do nothing,” Franklin said. “I just got here. Looks like you did…something, to drive it away.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Adrianna said, beaming and reaching back to pet one of the tree men. “They took care of us. Wouldn’t let that thing come near me.”

  “But you still told us to get outside,” Ray said. He patted Franklin’s back. “Thank you. Now, tell me, what the hell was that thing?”

  Franklin took a step back from Ray’s anger. “I don’t rightly know,” he said, shrugging. It was the truth. He really didn’t know what this thing was.
>
  All he knew was that it had to be stopped.

  When Franklin turned to Adrianna, she shrugged as well, before she said, “It’s a spirit. Jealous.”

  “And greedy,” Franklin added. “It’s been after my special lard.” At least, he thought it was the same thing. Only something mighty strong could take off the lid of the jar of lard, as well as do the destruction he saw here.

  “Why did it attack Adrianna?” Ray asked. He held out his hand to her.

  Franklin was relieved to see how easy she took it and went into his arms. He’d been worried that since Ray hadn’t saved her, she might no longer treasure him like she should.

  “I don’t know why it attacked Miss Adrianna,” Franklin said. He turned to her. “You said it was jealous? Of what?”

  “It wanted my eyes,” Adrianna said. She shivered and turned her face into Ray’s shoulder. “It wanted to see like I do.”

  “How do you see, Miss Adrianna?” Franklin asked quietly. “What do you see?” She’d never really talked about seeing before. Any more than he’d talked about his ghosts.

  “The lines of power, of course,” Adrianna said. She gestured to the ground, to the path she’d made Ray move, then to the tree men, then to the pond. “Can’t you see them?”

  A ghostly image of long white streams wavered above the places Adrianna pointed to. The image wavered and collapsed, but not before Franklin realized that each stream connected to the other, and the places where they joined were stronger, not weaker, as the streams flowed together.

  “No, ma’am, I can’t,” Franklin said. “Not clear, like you. Ray? Can you see what Adrianna’s talking about?”

  “No,” Ray replied, then he bent his head down and kissed Adrianna’s curls. “You were always special,” he said fondly.

  Was that why the spirit attacked Adrianna? Because she had some kind of power? Franklin hadn’t known she was like him.

  Who else in town was like that? Was there anyone else? Or was the spirit going to attack Franklin next? And if it did, where would he be safe? In his corn field, maybe? What would protect him?