FINN AND HIS FATHER CAME TO OUR CHURCH. HIS CHURCH, I SHOULD SAY. I NEVER KNEW WHAT HAPPENED TO FINN’S MOTHER, IF THERE WAS A MOTHER.
FINN WAS SIXTEEN YEARS OLD, A GOOD-LOOKING BOY. A NICE BOY.
MY HUSBAND TOOK A VERY PARTICULAR INTEREST IN HIM.
THIS TROUBLED ME FOR MANY REASONS.
I SAW THE TINY BIT OF FAME THAT MY HUSBAND WAS GAINING START GOING TO HIS HEAD. I BEGAN TO SEE HIM HAVE THIS POWER OVER THE PEOPLE. IT DISTURBED ME. THOSE WHO DIDN’T REVERE HIM ALMOST SEEMED FEARFUL OF HIM. INCLUDING ME.
OF COURSE, ONE OF THE MOST TROUBLING THINGS WAS HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH STAUNCH. I WASN’T ALLOWED IN THEIR CLIQUE OR THEIR WORLD. I THOUGHT “BOYS WILL BE BOYS,” BUT IT WAS MORE THAN THAT.
THEN THIS FIXATION ON FINN.
AND THEN—THEN EVERYTHING STARTED TO COME TO A NASTY HEAD.
HE STARTED TO DO THINGS TO ME THAT I DIDN’T WANT HIM TO. HE HAD CHANGED. HE WALKED AND TALKED LIKE A TORMENTED, POSSESSED MAN. THIS WAS AROUND THE END OF THE YEAR, AND I JUST KNEW SOMETHING BIG WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.
THEN FINN DISAPPEARED. AND THE REST OF THE CHURCH—THE REST OF THE TOWN—WENT ON AS NORMAL. I COULDN’T—I STILL CAN’T—BELIEVE IT. EVERYBODY ELSE I TRIED TO TALK TO SHUT ME DOWN. HE PUSHED ME FURTHER AWAY. AND HE CONTINUED TO HURT ME. I KNOW HE DID SOMETHING TO FINN. AND TO THE OTHERS. AND I’M AFRAID THIS IS GOING TO CONTINUE. WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING.
I put the email down and feel my body trembling. I’m not cold. I’m terrified. I’m about to grab Midnight and put her on my lap when the door swings open, and I spring up, clasping the folder in my hand.
“You’re still up?” Mom asks, dusting off the light sprinkles on her coat.
I’m needing CPR, but I keep my mouth shut and just nod in a nonchalant way.
She looks wide-eyed and tired at the same time. She probably shouldn’t be driving. But that means she won’t notice the white ghost that’s her son.
“I’m going to change,” Mom tells me. “Are you hungry?”
As a matter of fact, I am. I could eat a boar.
I guess fear does that to you.
Learning something new every day.
50. All My Maybes
Maybe I don’t want to learn anymore.
Maybe I don’t want to try and fight.
Maybe I want to go to bed without a worry in my head or my heart.
Maybe I just want to forget about Jocelyn.
Maybe this pastor is a quack, but aren’t most of the pastors out there?
Maybe I should just throw the rest of those emails away and never think about them again.
Maybe I should realize that Jocelyn is gone and Uncle Robert is gone and Mom is basically gone, just like Dad, and I’m on my own.
Maybe I should bolt up my curiosity just like I bolted up that piece of wallboard in the bathroom cabinet downstairs.
Maybe the wind wouldn’t sound as menacing if I didn’t have a dozen other things to worry about.
Maybe I need to just stop, drop, and roll.
Maybe all my maybes will eventually start turning to gibberish.
Maybe I need some sleep.
Maybe it will come.
51. Why We’re Talking
Jocelyn sits waiting in the chair, surrounded by a hundred other chairs. She’s alone, still wearing the black formal dress, still made up like a movie star.
She looks over at me and smiles.
I feel naked and silly. But I can’t hide or run or do anything else. Plus, all I want to do is go over and see her.
I find myself moving closer to her. There’s no sound in here other than the sound of my feet against the shiny, clean floor that reflects the sun from the glass windows around us.
I stop before getting to her.
She’s no longer just beautiful.
I can’t think of a word or a phrase.…
“Hi, Chris.”
Her voice doesn’t sound like an echo or a distant muffle. It sounds real and warm and whispers in my ear. “Sit, please.”
I rest in the bowl-like chair that faces her.
Jocelyn sits with one leg crossed over the other, looking so refined and elegant. She’s older in this—this vision or dream or whatever it is—but she’s also the same. The eyes that look at me are the same ones that looked at me in that classroom and that hallway and that love we shared such a short and such a long time ago.
“We don’t have much time,” she says.
“Time—what is this? Am I really here? Are you?”
“How are you, Chris?”
I don’t worry about what I’m saying, not here, not looking into those eyes.
“Terrified,” I say. “Lost. And like totally just—sad.”
She nods.
I want to kiss her and grow old with her.
“The next few months are important for you. You need to know this.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t—that I wasn’t able to help you,” I say.
“Don’t apologize for something you didn’t do. That’s not why you’re here.”
“What is this place? Is this real?”
“Yes. What you see and what you feel are real. Very real. This is not a dream.”
“I’m sorry, Jocelyn.”
“Chris. A hundred sorrys won’t get me back.”
“What will?”
She smiles.
I remember everything about her and how short-lived everything was and how she kept warning me—how the whole world warned me—but how I just refused to understand.
“How could you understand, Chris?”
She can read my thoughts? In dreams, or nightmares, or visions, or whatever this is, I guess anything is possible.
“Can I run away with you?”
She shakes her head.
I hear something shaking above us and see a plane taking off.
“You need to listen carefully.”
“Jocelyn, help me to get out of Solitary.”
“That’s precisely why I’m here, Chris. Why we’re talking.”
“What do you mean?”
The adult Jocelyn doesn’t smile or give me any sense of security or hope in her expression.
“There are those you can still help. There is still time.”
“Time for what?” I ask.
“You have to stay in Solitary. You cannot leave.”
52. And So
And so I stay.
Like I’m going anywhere.
Some ghost of an adult beautiful fantasy Jocelyn is telling me to stay, so yeah, I’m going to stay.
I just hope she doesn’t tell me to fall asleep on the train tracks tomorrow, because chances are high that I might.
I stay and I endure.
Take a breath and hold it.
Keep holding it.
Keep.
Holding.
It.
53. The Hurting
The boy sits with his arms on his knees and his hands over his eyes.
Is it an horrific dream?
Yet somehow he does what everybody wants him to do.
“Listen to me, okay? You have to lie low. For a while.”
So he listens to his newfound friend and relative Jared and lies low.
He ticks off the time, the class periods, the homework, the bus rides, the silence.
Say what you want.
“You go about your business, and you leave your stories and your troubles to your imagination. I’m not saying that it’s easy being a newcomer, but you gotta go with the flow.”
So he listens to his sheriff, who isn’t being very sheriff-y, and decides to go with the flow.
No fighting back at the bullies.
No speaking out to others.
No investigating with Newt.
No investigating in the woods.
How can I be sure?
“Your mother needs you.”
So he listens to the shadow of Jocelyn and stays around to try and help his mother.
Memories fade.
Avoiding the
dreams.
Avoiding the memories.
Avoiding the pain.
The scars still linger.
“When I tell somebody something, I mean it. You do not want to mess with me.”
So he doesn’t mess with the man named Staunch.
Waiting but not relating.
And he walks the familiar halls and sees the familiar faces and feels the familiar fears and finds the familiar shadows. A host of secrets and lies and deception.
It’s a very, very mad world.
The school doesn’t know him and the teachers look through him and everything makes him sad.
“Don’t lose your sanity like the rest of us.”
So he tries to follow the card’s advice from the unknown friend or mocker.
You can change.
So he tries to stay sane and tries to change and tries to fit in.
He tries to listen. He tries to change and not do anything.
“Mind your own business and stay away from trouble.”
So he minds his own business and stays away from trouble and lets February become March.
I’ll make no noise.
And he doesn’t.
I’ll hide my pain.
And he does.
I’ll close my eyes.
And he does, every day.
He finally does everything he’s told to do and he does it in silence and fear and anger and numbness.
There’s nowhere to run or go.
He stays away from anything bright or hopeful.
He closes the door and locks it and memorizes the albums that detail his hurting.
54. Groundhog Day
I almost forgot about Aunt Alice. I’m just about maxed out with creepiness until the moment Mom says, “We need to visit your aunt,” and I suddenly remember that oh yeah I have an aunt named Alice.
Who likes mannequins.
And whose place smells like death.
And who looks like she’s one séance away from joining the realm of the dead.
“Thanks, but I have to go grave digging tonight.”
“That’s not funny. It’s been a while since I visited her, and it’d be good for her to see you, too. Last time, she asked about you.”
“As in the size of my body? So she knows how much stuffing she can fill me with?”
Mom laughs, but the joke of Aunt Alice doesn’t seem as funny to her as it did the first time we left her creepy cabin.
Soon we arrive at her place. It’s a soggy Sunday afternoon with the rain stopped just enough so we’re able to see the road that leads to my aunt’s cabin. Right before we reach it, my mom drives over something.
“What was that?”
“I don’t want to know,” I say.
She stops the car, and we both get out.
Wedged underneath the car is something big and hairy. Mom freaks out and gets back in the car. I notice that the thing is not moving
hello nice little doggie hello nice little black smoke doggie from hell
and I also notice the smell.
That thing isn’t going to move for a long time.
It looks gray but also seems to have glitter over it.
For some reason I think of Bill Murray. I have no idea why.
“Get in the car!”
“It’s dead,” I say through the window.
She rolls it down. “What’s dead?”
“Whatever is under our car. Move up.”
I wish I hadn’t asked Mom to do that.
On the road is the body of a dead groundhog.
I say body because there’s no head to the thing.
And I say dead because—well, there’s no head to the thing.
If that thing jumps up and starts running at me, I don’t care what happens, I’m going to be as far away as possible from the woods and Solitary and North Carolina and Bill Murray movies for the rest of my life.
Mom parks the car and then gets out. I walk her way.
“Just a dead animal.”
“What?”
“A groundhog.”
“You sure it’s—”
“Yeah,” I tell her as I block her from going any further.
Last thing Mom needs is any more reason to have nightmares.
Aunt Alice seems happy today. And when I say happy, I mean deliriously happy. Medicated happy. Or possessed happy.
“Come on in, come on.”
Last time she wasn’t as friendly. Her short, round figure seems to roll through the living room. The place is the same as I remember it before, dark and creepy, although there seems to be a bit more light this time. Maybe she has the drapes open or something. It still stinks. The black crow is still there. But thankfully, no mannequins.
“Just sittin’ down for some lunch.”
I follow Mom and look over her shoulder, and when I see the family at the table I stop and then get in a sprinting stance, ready to dash.
Sitting around the square table in the corner of the kitchen are four …
oh man
I see that Melissa the Mannequin has gone and found herself a family. A husband with blond hair and two kids. A boy and a girl.
Oh this is beyond creepy.
They’re clothed, and their blank faces stare out like the rest of the things in this house, screaming Help us, we’re trapped with a short devil lady.
“Sorry, I didn’t know ya’ll were coming.”
“You’re having quite the party, huh?” Mom says. She glances back at me. “Would you like anything, Chris?”
“No. But thank you.”
She looks at me and gives me a “cut the crap” look.
Mom talks with Aunt Alice about the weather and about making jelly and about the weather while I feel claustrophobic. I look around the living room, and I see a picture of Uncle Robert in a frame, one I didn’t see last time we were here. I’m tempted to take it and show Mom. But as I glance into the kitchen, she notices me looking at it.
“I gave that to her last time I was here,” Mom says.
I nod. We don’t have any pictures up in our house, not really. But Mom gives Aunt Alice a photo of Uncle Robert.
I’m standing and watching the crow when something catches my eye. It’s the back of the girl mannequin’s head, her dark hair unmoving and her shoulders stiff as my legs feel on a day off from track practice.
Suddenly, the head starts to move.
The face turns, and the eyes are blank and hollow.
No no no.
And worms and maggots suddenly start to pop out of them.
I blink, and of course I don’t see this. This is in my mind, not a dream and not a fantasy. It’s just me imagining something crazy.
I feel hot and dizzy and want to run in the woods for about five days.
“Mom—can I—bathroom?”
“Just down the hall.”
I go down there and find a tiny room with barely space for a toilet, sink, and tub. A big plastic seat-thing sits on top of the toilet, like a basketball rim for a three-year-old. It takes me a few minutes to take it off.
As I’m washing and air drying my hands, I notice the shower curtain hiding the bath behind it.
Of course, I’m curious.
Of course, I can’t let things go.
So of course, I pull back the grimy yellow plastic curtain.
In the tub sits the rest of the groundhog. I see the whiskered face looking up at me as if it’s popping out of a goopy, bloody hole. But of course, there’s no hole. Not in this tub.
I jerk the curtain back and half of it comes down. Then I curse as I turn on the faucet again and rinse my hands with cold water, then douse my face with it.
I look again, and it’s still there.
I’m not imagining this.
I go back out to the main room, feeling woozy. “I need some air,” I tell Mom.
I should tell her to maybe wait to use the restroom until we get back home, but I don’t.
I can’t.
I feel j
ust—just not so good.
55. Double Date
Spring comes, but it sure doesn’t bring hope.
Sometime in March, as I’m minding my business and ignoring things like emails waiting to be read and missing students and the shadows of dead girls I once loved, I get approached by Dan something-or-other who is in my grade and has never acknowledged me once that I can remember. I’m surprised the guy knows my name.
“Hey, Chris, what’s up?”
Dan says this as if we talk a lot.
“Hey,” I say back, pretty confident he doesn’t really want to know what’s up in my life. How long does he have to hear my answer?
“Hey, I got a favor to ask you.”
I’m wondering if he starts every sentence with hey.
“Yeah, okay.”
I’m at my locker and can’t help glancing around to see if this is a prank. He’s not carrying anything from the salad bar in his hands, so I guess I’m lucky there. Not that I could see someone like Dan ever doing that. Dan’s one of the midpack boys. I see him hanging around with Ray and his buddies. Or some of the jocks. Or some of the burnouts. I haven’t really ever noticed Dan, because to be honest there isn’t much to notice about him.
“You know Georgia, right? Georgia Wilson?”
I nod. Georgia is a pretty brunette I’ve seen hanging around with Kelsey. She seems a bit stuck up, but that’s just based on her looks and on the fact that she’s never looked or talked with me either.
“Hey, I got something to ask you, and man, I’ll totally owe you if you help me out.”
“Okay.”
“Look, I’ve been trying to go out with Georgia for like ever, and she just gives me the cold shoulder. You know her, you know? I mean, hey, I get it, but still. I just want her to go out once, you know? So the thing is, I was with her and her friend Kelsey. You know Kelsey, right? Well, they were talking and Georgia was teasing her because she likes you but never in a million years would ask you out, so I kept on about Georgia going out with me, and Kelsey suggested a double date.”
Gravestone Page 17