Ghost in the Machine

by Patrick Carman

  This is the first time she’s used a password I’ve never heard of.

  Anyway, when I got home, I found Henry on the porch eating leftover pancakes with peanut butter.

  “You didn’t go down there and throw rocks in my favorite fishing hole, did you?” he asked. He seemed genuinely nervous that I’d gotten up early and scared all the fish out of his number one spot on the creek.

  “Just out for a walk is all,” I said. “The fish are fine.”

  He stuffed a big slab of pancake in his mouth and gave me his best comic evil eye as I walked past.

  Finally, I got back here to my room, so I could write down these words.

  Sarah’s at school and I’m stuck here at home. I already checked out that password online. I’m sort of surprised I didn’t catch it, but then again, that show aired before I was born. I can’t be expected to know every scary pop culture reference, right?

  Still, I had to laugh at that Carl Kolchak. Classic.

  I wonder what Sarah found?

  SARAHFINCHER.COM

  PASSWORD:

  CARLKOLCHAK

  Tuesday, September 21, 9:17 A.M.

  She got me.

  I mean she really got me. I just about had my nose on the screen when that thing went off.

  I screamed so loud I think it woke Henry downstairs.

  I can hear him moving around in the kitchen.

  But it was good — it was okay.

  Seeing Sarah laugh was worth it.

  That’s the part I replayed seven or eight times. Watching her smile like that makes me believe we could get back to where we once were. Before Old Joe Bush and Daryl Bonner. Before I couldn’t trust my dad or see my best friend.

  I just watched it again.

  She’s got a great laugh.

  Sarah must have sent that video really early this morning while I was sleeping.

  Only forty-five minutes and she’ll be in the computer lab at school.

  I’m getting breakfast.

  Tuesday, September 21, 10:21 A.M.

  Sarah sent me something sort of scary from school, which I have already watched.

  Here’s what happened, starting when I left my room an hour ago:

  I took my phone downstairs with me and left it in the front pocket of the same hoodie I wore to bed last night. I always leave it set on vibrate instead of sound, and it went off while I was drinking coffee with Henry (unlike my mom, Henry couldn’t care less what I drink for breakfast). I couldn’t check my phone until I was alone … and I couldn’t be alone because Henry wanted to play a game of cribbage at the kitchen table.

  I was whipping him good, which is hard to do because he’s played a lot of cribbage. I couldn’t just fold up and leave, so I stayed and finished the game. He came back from thirty pegs behind and beat me in the final hand.

  “You lost your concentration right there,” said Henry, pointing his finger to the general area where my pegs were sitting when the pocket of my hoodie had started to vibrate.

  He didn’t know how right he was.

  If Sarah had sent me a message, I didn’t care about winning, I just wanted the game to be over.

  “Better luck next time, champ,” said Henry.

  I wasn’t sure what to make of Sarah’s message, which I snuck a look at once I was free of the kitchen and had started up the stairs.

  “Be careful checking that thing,” said Henry. “Stairs require the full attention of a one-legged man.”

  I was startled to hear Henry’s voice. He’d obviously followed me out of the kitchen and somehow knew what I was doing. I pocketed my phone and turned all in one motion and saw that Henry had already gone into the guest room. He peeked around the corner and looked up at me where I stood on the second stair.

  “I don’t care if you talk to her. I think keeping you two apart is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I told your dad that.”

  I was shocked. Did he really know I’d gotten a message from Sarah?

  “What did he say?”

  “Sorry, pal, he’s firm as concrete on this. He won’t budge. But I won’t spy for him. If you want to call Sarah, I won’t say a word. I’ve always liked her.”

  “Thanks, Henry.”

  “You owe me one. I’m sure I’ll figure out a way to collect before I go.”

  He went back into his room and started packing some of his things. He’d be gone in a day, and I was sure going to miss him.

  I went to my room as fast as I could and shut the door.

  She must have seen something to take this kind of risk. No message, no note, nothing — just three words run together on my phone. imatschool

  I figured that must be the password — imatschool — so I jumped online and went straight to Sarah’s site.

  What I saw there made me realize something important.

  Something big was about to happen.

  SARAHFINCHER.COM

  PASSWORD:

  IMATSCHOOL

  Tuesday, September 21, 11:00 A.M.

  I knew it! Mr. Bramson never watches us in computer lab. Never. He’s practically nonexistent because we run these tutorials that tell us how to use Microsoft Excel or Word or some other evil empire program. Mr. Bramson types away on his own computer, which sits on the corner of his desk. He’s probably sending emails or reading news headlines. He doesn’t even look up unless someone asks him a question, which is basically never.

  So why is Mr. Bramson watching Sarah? I’ll tell you why — because my parents have told him to. Mr. Bramson is spying on us!

  I knew they were ruthless, but seriously — my parents telling our teachers to make sure we’re not talking to each other? They’ve gone even further than I thought they would. Do they really think Sarah and I are that dangerous together? I mean, what do they really think? We’re going to get into deadly trouble or something?

  Fine.

  If it’s deadly trouble they want, then deadly trouble they’re going to get.

  Breaking and entering? Check.

  Planting secret cameras at a meeting for a society that appears to be killing people left and right? Check.

  Seeing Sarah as much as I want? Check! Check! Check!

  I don’t even care anymore.

  Tuesday, September 21, 2:00 P.M.

  I’ve calmed down a little bit, but I’m still mad.

  I went for a long walk.

  I don’t feel like writing.

  Tuesday, September 21, 10:00 P.M.

  I sat through dinner and said almost nothing.

  Henry leaves tomorrow, so I felt sort of bad.

  But I couldn’t even look at my parents.

  They think they’re so sneaky.

  Right in the middle of dinner, Dad excuses himself to use the bathroom.

  There’s a perfectly good bathroom downstairs, but he goes upstairs and uses the one up there. Or so he says.

  I know what he’s doing.

  He’s in my room, checking my computer.

  Searching the drawers.

  Looking under my bed for journals or notes.

  Staring out the window and wondering — what’s this kid up to?

  Well, good luck, Dad. You’re not going to find anything. You know why? Because I’m sneakier than you by a long shot. I got this wonderful trait from you, Mr. Secret Society. You passed it down and it got bigger and better. You’re an amateur with your wooden bird and flushing the toilet like you think I’m actually going to believe you’re using the bathroom up there.

  Afterward, I went straight to my room and wrote a huge, complicated, get-in-the-worst-kind-of-trouble email to Sarah.

  Tuesday, September 21, Midnight

  I fell asleep at my desk.

  This is bad.

  Real bad.

  I didn’t finish the email to Sarah.

  The screen is black on my laptop. It went to sleep a few minutes after I did, so the screen went dim, but I can’t be sure that nobody came in here and saw it. All you have to do is wipe your ha
nd across the mouse and the screen comes back on, big and bright, and I’m in huge trouble.

  I moved the mouse and it came back up right where I left off.

  That was when I saw the black door.

  I remember what happened.

  I took a break and leaned back in my chair.

  I rubbed my leg because it felt like it was falling asleep.

  I had turned the light off so it was totally dark except for the light from my screen.

  I leaned forward again, placed my elbow on my desk, and rested my head on my hand.

  That’s the last thing I remember.

  A couple of minutes later the screen must’ve gone dark.

  I woke up and it was pitch-black in my room and I decided right then and there that falling asleep was just the beginning of my problems.

  The real problem was what woke me up.

  Old Joe Bush.

  He was in my room. I’m sure of it.

  I heard him.

  I heard the leg dragging down the hallway.

  I didn’t dream it! I know I didn’t dream it.

  You want to know how I know I didn’t dream it?

  Because I did something then. Something I should not have done. By the light of my computer monitor I crept over to the Dark Side of the Moon poster. The one that covered the words on my wall.

  Don’t make me come looking for you.

  I lifted the poster out of the way from the bottom. The tape wasn’t very sticky, so it was easy. My shadow covered the wall and I couldn’t see the words, so I moved to the side.

  And there they were.

  More words.

  Words that hadn’t been there before.

  The Apostle will see you now.

  I taped the poster down and came back to my desk.

  Did I write those words or did he?

  I don’t remember having the pen in my hand.

  And I don’t think it’s my handwriting.

  Either I wrote both messages or I didn’t write either one.

  And what does this new message even mean?

  The Apostle will see you now.

  He’s watching me.

  It means I stepped over the line and I’m next. The Apostle is dead. I’m dead.

  I feel a chill that runs right down the center of my broken leg, like it’s in the freezer and it’s about to crack into a thousand pieces from the cold. That kind of feeling doesn’t come from nowhere.

  I don’t think it’s a feeling from this world. It’s from The Apostle’s world, Joe Bush’s world — it’s from the kingdom of the dead.

  I’m just about sure he was here.

  Either that or I’m going crazy.

  I sent the email to Sarah unfinished just to get it off my screen.

  I can’t tell her this stuff. I can’t. It’s not like being a member of my dad’s fishing club. This is different. She’ll think I’ve lost it. She won’t trust me anymore.

  I started a new email.

  I took a close-up picture of my wall and printed it out at my desk.

  Having a picture of it makes the words real.

  I’m not making this up. I’m not seeing things.

  Wednesday, September 22, 1:00 A.M.

  I can’t sleep.

  Wednesday, September 22, 2:00 A.M.

  I can’t sleep.

  Wednesday, September 22, 3:00 A.M.

  I won’t sleep.

  I’m not writing on these walls.

  It’s someone else.

  Wednesday, September 22, 5:00 A.M.

  I zonked out for a couple of hours. Then, when I woke up, I refused to look behind that poster again.

  Sarah emailed me, pretty upset. She wasn’t too keen on the long email after we agreed not to take chances. But then she said it was nearly impossible not to email each other. She was doing it, too. Just be careful, she said — erase, erase, erase. Leave no trace. Our relationship doesn’t exist.

  I hate the sound of that.

  Our relationship doesn’t exist.

  Have my parents won?

  Sarah’s email went on and got a little better. Talk about breaking her own rules. I’ve almost never seen her write this much. Maybe she misses me after all.

  I’m actually sort of excited about getting out of my room.

  I don’t like it in here anymore.

  Wednesday, September 22, 10:00 A.M.

  I’m sitting at the café all by myself. I just got here.

  Right after I deleted Sarah’s email, I went back to bed. The sun was coming up, which made me feel safer. That whole vampire thing is so right on. Darkness and evil go together like sprinkles on cupcakes. It’s amazing how much calmer I am when it’s light.

  Anyway, I didn’t wake up until an hour ago, and then I went downstairs and discovered that my dad had decided to stay home from work and spend the day with Henry. He (Henry) is leaving tomorrow. My dad took all of last week off from work. He was supposed to take this week off, too, but, according to him, “the place was falling apart.” My dad has worked for the same company since before I was born. He’s a maintenance mechanic at a paper mill, which means he works on a gigantic metal machine with a lot of moving parts. The machine is worth a lot of money. If it breaks down, it’s a big deal. The problem is my dad has been there so long everyone else is younger or less experienced than he is with this dinosaur of a machine. So if it rattles or shakes funny, everyone freaks out and they call my dad.

  “It’s amazing they lasted a week,” he said when I was down on the porch. “Took two days just to calm everyone down. But I still have time for a Cabela’s run.”

  Yes, Dad had that sporting goods gleam in his eye. I mean, at Cabela’s, the fishing section alone is bigger than some of the lakes I’ve been on.

  “You should come with us,” said Henry. He was wearing a cowboy hat I hadn’t seen before.

  “Where’d you get that hat?” I asked. Henry took it off and examined it with some pride.

  “Yard sale. Two bucks. Can you believe that?”

  “Did you wash it?”

  Henry looked at the cowboy hat as if he hadn’t thought of that but probably should have, then he set it on his knee and looked back at me for an answer about whether or not I was going with them.

  “I’m not sure I can walk that much,” I lied. A trip to Cabela’s sounded amazing and I totally could have done it. “But I might walk downtown and back.”

  My dad piped in. “I’m glad to hear you’re at least thinking of getting outside. That room of yours is starting to smell funny.”

  The truth is — and this was actually okay with me — I could tell my dad wanted a few hours alone with his best friend on his last day in town. I could understand how important it was even if he didn’t.

  “You guys have a good time,” I said. “Don’t spend too much of my college fund.”

  I knew as well as my dad did how easy it was to blow months of savings at Cabela’s in a matter of hours.

  Dad’s timing seemed to be working out really well for me, since I was supposed to be watching the crow all day from the vantage point of the café. But then Henry went inside to run a dishrag around the rim of his new cowboy hat, and my dad and I were left alone on the porch. He sipped his coffee and set the cup on a folding card table that had seen more action on the front porch in the past week than it had in the previous year.

  “How’s that leg doing? You ready for school?” he asked.

  He didn’t sound like he was going to badger me about Sarah, so I played along.

  “I think I’ll be okay. Seeing some of my friends will be nice. It’s getting a little old being home every day.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Sitting around Skeleton Creek will get you nowhere.”

  He picked up his cup and looked at the drawing on the side. My dad is very fond of a good coffee cup, and this one, I had to admit, was my favorite.

  It was white with an old Far Side cartoon on it where two deer are standing together and one of them has
a big red bull’s-eye on its chest. The one without the bull’s-eye looks at this poor deer and says, “Bummer of a birthmark.”

  I was thinking how clever this was when my dad said, “Let me see your phone.”

  He knew I kept it with me a lot of the time and there was no point trying to hide the fact that I had it just then, so I gave it to him.

  He had become a lot savvier with phones and computers in the past few weeks. The accident seemed to wake him up to the fact that he needed to know what was going on or risk missing something that might get me killed. In a weird way this made me feel loved, like he was willing to put in some effort in order to protect me from myself.

  But like I’ve been saying all along, I’m two steps ahead of my dad when it comes to stuff like this. Every teenager is. Most parents, even ones like mine that are actually trying to keep up, are perpetually behind.

  He touched some of the buttons — obviously checking it for text messages from Sarah and callback numbers. I’d gotten plenty of calls from other friends I wasn’t close to but stayed in contact with anyway. But he wasn’t going to find anything from Sarah.

  I was surprised when he held the phone to his ear. He was using my phone to call someone. No one answered, so he hung up and handed the phone back to me.

  “No one’s home at Sarah’s,” he said. If she had been there, she would have picked up. Caller ID would have told her it was my cell phone. It’s a lucky thing she was gone.

  He dug into his back pocket and pulled out a fat wallet. This is one of the old-school things I like about my dad. I love his old jeans and the prehistoric leather belt that holds them up, but this wallet — I don’t know, it seems like the sort of thing I’d never carry. It’s shaped funny, like it’s been sat on for twenty years. Its worn leather is dark in the middle and lighter on the edges. And when my dad opens it up, there are all kinds of treasures in there. Pieces of paper from I don’t know where, notes about forgotten things, faded pictures of me and mom, pennies and nickels that have left round marks in the leather.