“We should go to the pawn shop in the morning. Hopefully Shawn will be up, and hopefully no one reports a robbery before we get there.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like he’ll care anyways. Come on, lets get home before the night check. I do not want to get in trouble for being out past curfew again.”
We agreed to meet Serena outside in the morning to drive to the pawn shop, so she jogged back to her house. Andrew and I walked back to the halfway house, and got in through our bedroom window. I placed my little Captain America doll on the dresser, next to Thor and Iron Man. Andrew hid our bag in the back of the closet, but I could still see that necklace poking out from his shirt.
“Seriously Andrew. Take that stupid necklace off. You know we need the money.”
“No! I never get to keep anything. If you don’t plan on selling that doll, then I don’t plan on selling the necklace.” Andrew angrily shut off the lights and got into bed. “Goodnight.”
“Whatever. Goodnight.”
************
Surprisingly, I woke up before Andrew the next morning. I was usually the one that slept in, but it seemed that Andrew was exhausted from the raid last night. Even while he was sleeping I noticed he was a bit paler; the soft lines around his face seemed to be rougher, more prominent, and he almost seemed in pain. I had to be imagining things though, it must have been a rough night, or dream, or something that could be explained.
I went down to the kitchen and cooked up some eggs and pancake for breakfast. It was just supposed to be for Andrew and I, but everyone up at that time decided they wanted pancakes for breakfast too. I ended up making 40 pancakes for everyone, and we actually ran out of eggs. People were urging me to come sit down with them, but I don’t like anyone in the house, so I ran back to my room with a hot plate of food and milk for Andrew.
When I walked in Andrew seemed to have just woken up. I could see now that he looked rather sickly; drained of energy, and almost seeming to be drained of life. He grabbed a plate of food and sat on his bed across from me.
“Do you still have the necklace?”
“Yeah. I forgot to take it off last night though.”
“Andrew, we have to sell it. You know we don’t keep much, especially jewelry. What if someone notices it?”
“No one’s going to notice Nick. It was tucked away in the back of the jewelry box. I’ll just hide it under my shirt.”
Nothing more was said after that. We ate our breakfast, drank our milk, and started cleaning up our room. We didn’t have maids here, so if our rooms weren’t clean and in order, we would get in trouble. That’s the last thing we wanted. The heads of the house never checked our rooms, but we didn’t want there to be a reason to start now.
Andrew was the first to finish his side of the room, so he walked over to the dresser to get dressed for the day.
“Hey, I think my necklace fell off while I was sleeping. I didn’t notice it while cleaning though. Did it make it’s way to your side by any chance?”
“No, bro. It’s not here. Maybe you’ll find it later.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’ll check later. Hurry up though, we have to get down to Shawn’s shop before he takes the noon beer break.”
Andrew tossed me my favorite shirt as I grabbed a pair of jeans from the bottom drawer. “We really need to do laundry, and soon,” I said. “These clothes aren’t going to wash themselves.” I threw on my black T-shirt and jeans, then reached behind Andrew to grab my toothbrush.
“Uh, Andrew. What the hell is on you?!”
“What do you mean? There’s nothing on me.”
“Like hell there isn’t! Look at yourself!”
Andrew quickly turned around to look at himself in the mirror. The same pattern on the necklace watched etched onto his skin. The tribal print repeated over and over, down his arms and chest, but stopped at his wrist, or disappeared under his clothing.. Honestly, it looked like an amazing tattoo, but it was really strange. There was something about it though; something strange. It seemed to move, not just because Andrew was moving, but as if it was somehow living on his skin.
“Nick!” Andrew shoved me against the wall and grabbed my neck, forcefully dragging me up the wall and choking the air out of me. “What did you do?! Do you think this is some kind of game?!”
“And-Andrew..”
“Everything I give to you. Everything I’ve done for you-”
“I-I didn’t-”
“You go and pull some stupid prank like this!” Andrews eyes were changing. There was fire and hate hidden behind the green, and even the green was turning to a dark black.
“Please. I- I didn’t-” My lungs were screaming for air; burning inside of me.
“Andrew!” Serena was at the door, clawing at Andrew’s arms, trying to get him to release me. “Let him go! You’re choking him!”
Suddenly everything in his eyes changed again, returning to their normal, forest green color. He dropped me onto the floor, and I gasped for air, trying to fill my lungs with as much oxygen as possible. Serena was screaming at him, demanding to know what I did to deserve this. Then she was screaming at him about the tattoo, about how stupid he was to ever get something like that done. Serena had quite a temper, but I had never seen Andrew so angry in the year that I had known him.
“Serena.” Andrew grabbed her arms, forcing them to her side. “Serena listen to me!”
“I come over here to tell you about Casey’s grandpa, and I walk in to see you strangling Nick!”
“Wait, what?” I crawled up to my bed and sat Indian style on top of the covers.
“Yeah, Casey’s grandpa died last night. It was really unexpected. He was fine, and then suddenly he was down on the ground having a seizure. They came back from vacation early.”
Serena took a seat across from me. Andrew laid back onto my bed.
“Ok, this is way too strange. First, the necklace disappears-”
“What are you talking about now.” Serena interrupted.
“Well, if you would shut-up for a few seconds I would explain.” Serena stuck her tongue out at me and crossed her arms across her chest. “As I was saying, first that stupid tribal necklace disappears. Then, Andrew wakes up with the same tribal print as the necklace tattooed onto to his skin. Now, the grandpa of the house we robbed, and whom the necklace probably belongs to, ends up suddenly and unexpectedly dying. You can’t tell me these aren’t connected.”
“Ok, you’re acting crazy. There’s no way these could be connected.”
“Well, maybe we should go ask Shawn about it. He may be a drunk, but maybe he’s had some crazy legends come through his shop before.”
“Fine. But put some clothes on you two, especially Andrew. You’re liable to give the girls a heart attack.”
It took us ten minutes to get ready and jump into Serena’s car. Usually we just walked everywhere, but Shawn’s Pawn Shop was way out of town, through the worst parts of the city too. Sure, we could probably hold our own, but with Serena we didn’t want to risk it. Plus, walking around with a sack of stolen goods that was possibly worth at least a couple hundred dollars, we really didn’t want to risk having it stolen.
Shawn’s Pawn Shop wasn’t the nicest place. The door was creaky, some of the windows were boarded up, and the smell wasn’t the greatest. The carpets needed to be cleaned, the counters were wobbly, and there was always some form of trash laying around. He stayed in business though, which was a big surprise to most of the town.
“Shawn! Counter!” His newest girlfriend yelled from the back room. She was incredibly blonde and had one of the most annoying voices I had ever heard.
“Honey I got it. Would ya stop yellin’ already!” Shawn walked out from the music room and stepped up to the counter. “If it isn’t my three little bandits. What ya got for me today?”
We emptied our bag onto the table and let Shawn get busy. He started looking at our earrings, but they were only quartz instead of diamond like we had hoped. When
he picked up one of the necklaces, Serena decided to ask him our big question.
“Hey Shawn, we know you deal with a bunch of crazy items here-.”
“Yup. Shrunken heads, cat tails, guillotines, celebrity hair, trap doors, medieval weapons-”
“Yeah, but we were wondering if you had come across any stories. Maybe something related to necklaces?”
“There’s been a few. Why?”
“Well, something crazy happened with Andrew, and we have no idea what it is.”
“Show me.”
Andrew lifted up his shirt to show Shawn the tattoo covering his back. After a few moments of thinking, it seemed that an idea had popped into his head. He quickly went into a back room for a few minutes, and returned to us holding a leather bound book. It seemed incredibly worn, with the pages yellowing, and the binding looked hand stitched.
“An Indian man brought this in to me about a year ago. I had no idea what it was for, but he said that he desperately needed to get rid of it. He seemed spooked by it, so of course I had to buy it off him.”
“Cool story, but how does this relate to us at all?” Serena was leaning up against the counter with Andrew next to her.
“There’s an old story in here about a Native American curse. I always thought it was just a story, but maybe it’s something more. It talks about old objects and how they held powers, both good or bad depending on how they were acquired. They latched on to a host and helped them through life, or destroyed life if stolen. It doesn’t say anything about a cure though.” Shawn put the book onto the counter and gave Andrew a light smack on the arm. “I’m sure you’ll be just fine. It’s not like you stole it or anything.”
All three of us nervously laughed, but got Shawn back to appraising our goods. We got $200 for everything, and even picked up a cool shirt for Serena. We stopped by the local gas station to pick up some food and drinks to stash in our room too. The cafeteria food wasn’t always the best, and they never had anything unhealthy for snacks. The rest of the day was fairly calm, we just wasted it away walking around town. Then it was off to bed for us, with enough food to last us another week, and tired enough to sleep for weeks.
************
When I woke up the next morning Andrew was already gone, and his bed was made. Everything was perfectly in place, but an eerie feeling had fallen over our room. Something was wrong. I could feel the electricity buzzing over my skin, and my brain was on edge; ready to run if something were to happen.
I walked outside, and even the town seemed wrong. There were no children playing out in the street, no cars on the roads, no church bells ringing. Nothing. I went over to JP’s Cafe and bought two cups of coffee, then decided to go to Serena’s house. I hadn’t seen Andrew all morning, or maybe he just went to the bathroom and I missed him this morning.
I knocked quickly on the door and waited for an answer.
“Serena, come on. I know you’re home.”
“Go away! I never want to see you ever again!”
“What do you mean? Stop playing and come here. I brought you coffee. It’s your favorite!” I tried my best to sound positive, but why was she so angry? “Come on, just let me in. I honestly have no idea why you’re so angry.”
I heard footsteps coming down the front stairs, and slowly the door creaked open. Serena cautiously appeared behind the door; she looked scared and utterly horrible. There were bruises on her arms that looked like hands accompanied by deep scratch marks. She was noticeably trying to keep weight off her left leg, and she was clutching her stomach in pain. Her face was littered with wounds; a black eye, split lip, bloody nose, scratches down her neck, hair in a complete mess.
“My God! What happened to you?” I set her coffee down on the side table, shut the door, and moved to give her a hug.
“Don’t touch me.” She backed away from me and sat down on the stairs. “Don’t you dare play innocent either. I know you had something to do with this.”
“I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about. Who did this to you?”
“Andrew came last night. He was strange. Different. Somehow he knew my parents weren’t home and stopped by to give me a visit. His hair was in a mess, he still had pajamas on, and his eyes, they-”
“They were black, weren’t they?” I cautiously moved over to Serena. She seemed to be in another place, another time; somewhere that I couldn’t pull her back from.
“Yeah. They were completely black, and he never blinked. He had this grin, something like the Joker. He was nowhere near himself; flirting with me, touching me, and being too pushy. It was like something was inside of him and it wouldn’t let him go. He started to get a little too close to me. He kept rubbing my arm, or dragging his hand up and down my thigh. I told him it was late and I needed to sleep, so I got up to walk him to the door. Something inside of him snapped though. He grabbed my arm and threw me forcefully down onto the ground and pinned my arms to the floor. I was screaming at him to let me go. I kicked him few times, but he just punched me in the face over and over. I bit his arm and he let go of me,so I tried to crawl away, but then he grabbed my ankle and pulled me back to him.”
She was crying now, and I had slowly made my way next to her on the stairs. This wasn’t Andrew at all. He would never do anything like this, and escaping the house after curfew was almost impossible. Serena was crying into her hands, and trembling with fear from the memories. This time when I went to hug her, she collapsed into me.
“Nick. I tried so hard to get away, but he wouldn’t let me go. The table broke, there was blood on the floor. Andrew, he- he tore off my clothes. Nick, he- he-”
“Shh, it’s ok. Come here.” She moved closer to me, but I could tell she was having a hard time trying to be comfortable with me there.
Andrew, my closest friend, was something else. He came over late last night, with those same black eyes, and decided to rape Serena. Serena, the girl that had trusted him for years. The girl that was almost a sister to him. Serena. Whatever that necklace did to him, it was taking over him. First it was the fight, now a full night of it. Whatever this was, I wanted it gone, and quickly.
“I called up my parents after the incident, and they want me to go down to my aunt’s house for a while. I just want to be as far away from Andrew as possible.”
I stayed with Serena for a while longer, but then left to go find Andrew. I felt terrible having to leave her all alone, but I needed to talk to Andrew. I had to figure out how to stop this stupid necklace from taking my best friend from me.
It didn’t take long for me to find him. He always resorted to the baseball field to think about things, or throw baseballs around when he was mad. Today he broke into the storage shed and pulled out a bucket of balls,a hitting tee, and a bat.
“I haven’t seen you play in years.” I yelled from the bleachers.
“Yeah. I miss doing this.” He leaned on his bat and turned to look at me. “I’m guessing you heard?” He winced in pain and shook his head a bit, as if he was fighting something stuck in his head.
“I most definitely heard. What the hell were you thinking?!”
“It wasn’t me, I swear! I remember getting into bed to sleep, and then waking up out here at the field. Even the tattoo got worse.” He rolled up one of his sleeves to show the marking, now a dark black, and it looked like it was constricting around his arm.
“We seriously need to get rid-’
“No! I like this boy!” Sparks of red and black shot out from Andrew’s hands, and a huge dust cloud surrounded him.
This wasn’t Andrew at all, this was whatever curse was inside him. The tattoos around
his arms shifted and pulsed, switching from dark reds to blacks. His voice turned cold and hollow, with a wickedly mischievous grin painting itself onto his face.
“You think he likes you? You’re wrong! He hates everything about you.”
“You’re lying! Andrew is my brother!” I ran up to the fence and opened the gate
&nb
sp; “Ha! How dumb you are. He hates everything about you. You’re needy, whiny, and a stupid little kid! You’re so clingy and you never give Andrew any room. He wants to get away from you so he can live a normal life. He tolerates you.”
“How dare you!” I shoved him against the brick wall of the dugout. “Give me Andrew back! Give him back right now!”
“Who is saying this isn’t him? Him and I, we’re one and the same. Everything he feels, I feel. Everything he thinks, I think. Everything he knows, I know. See, I’m just telling you everything he couldn’t.”
“You’re lying! Andrew come on, come out of this. I need you Andrew!” I kept shaking him, hitting him; anything that would bring him back to me.
His eyes changed back to the welcoming green again, and the tattoos seemed to release their constricting grip on him. I wrapped my arms around him and gave Andrew a huge hug, refusing to let go of my best friend. When I let go of him there was a sharp pain in my left arm and I started to feel weak. It was like all of my spirit, my energy, was being sucked out of me and stored away somewhere I couldn’t find it. My vision became blurred around the edges, and my sense became duller. When I looked down to my arm I saw it, the same tattoo marking was running across my wrist, and slowly climbing up the length of my arm.
“Andrew! It’s growing on me!”
“Oh shit! We need to get this gone, and fast.”
Andrew and I started walking back towards town, and when we got there we were completely shocked. Medics were running to an fro. Tons of gurneys were pulled out. Ambulances were parked between houses, while bystanders tried to help other people out of their houses to the medics.
“What’s going on here?” I asked one of the nurses.
“Everyone suddenly got sick. No one can breath!”
“What caused it?” Andrew took one look at me and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was.
The Abduction of Abigail Page 2