by Carl Alves
“Just Jake. He’s heading to the dojo soon. My mom won’t be back for at least an hour.”
Ben approached the door leading to the basement. “Then we should do this now.”
“I thought you were against this,” Kenna said.
“I am, but if we’re going to talk to Mia, I’d rather do it before your mom comes home.”
“All right,” Kenna said. “Let’s go.”
As they walked downstairs, Kenna’s heart thumped with a mixture of excitement and healthy fear. Talking to a dead person had gotten far from old, even though they had spoken to Mia several times.
Kenna got the Ouija board from its hiding spot, put the board on the floor, and sat at one end. Ben sat at the other. His fingers trembled as he gripped the planchette. Cordy and Carlos sat to either side of them.
Kenna glanced at Ben. Their eyes met for a brief moment. They rotated the planchette around the board. An electric vibe coursed through the air, which had a pungent odor. The short hair on her forearms stood on end. This never happened until they started speaking to Mia.
“Mia, this is Kenna. Are you here?”
Without hesitation the disc went to Yes.
Ben’s eyes went wide. “Whoa. How did she know we would be here?”
The planchette spelled YOUR PRESENCE STRONG.
“How are you today?” Kenna asked.
HAPPY.
“That’s cool,” Carlos said. “Sometimes she seems so down.”
“You would be too if you were dead,” Cordy said.
They asked a few softball questions about life on the other side.
The door leading to the basement opened. Jake yelled out, “Hey, Kenna, I’m rolling. Let Mom know I’ll be back around eight. Tell her not to make any food for me. I’m cutting weight.”
“Okay. Mia, that was my brother, Jake. He’s going to see his girlfriend.”
Cordy gave her a thumbs-up.
“You told us about your boyfriend,” Kenna said. “His name was Mark, right?”
The planchette moved to Yes.
“How long did you go out with him?” Kenna asked.
2 YEARS.
“Do you think about him still?”
ALL THE TIME.
“Did you go to your senior prom with him?”
Mia answered Yes.
“Can you see him?” Kenna asked.
The planchette moved to No. Then it spelled NEED MEDIUM.
“Like what we’re using now?” Ben asked.
Yes.
Ben’s brow furrowed. “You said that when you died in your drowning accident, Mark wasn’t there. How come?”
There was a long pause. Kenna and Ben circled with the planchette for a while. Maybe Mia had gone away, although she usually told them when she was exiting the conversation.
“Mia?” Kenna asked.
The planchette tugged and spelled out STUPID FIGHT JEALOUS TOLD HIM NEED TIME APART.
Kenna took her hands off the planchette. “That’s horrible. They got into a fight before she died. He must have been really broken up about it.” Kenna touched the disc. “Mia, do you wish you could let him know how you felt about him?”
There was a pause before the planchette went to No. A few more seconds passed, and then it went to Yes.
“Do you love him?” Kenna asked.
She answered Yes.
Kenna had been so wrapped up with the conversation that she forgot about the whole point of this contact. As if to remind her, Cordy pointed at the Ouija board.
“Did Mark have a nickname for you?”
There was another long pause before the planchette spelled SUNSHINE.
Carlos smirked. “Sunshine? That’s dumb.”
Cordy elbowed him in the ribs, which caused Carlos to groan. “No, it isn’t. She was around in the seventies. It was like the whole Hippie generation and stuff.”
Kenna ignored the bickering. “Did you have a nickname for him?”
No.
Kenna was tempted to tell Mia they were going to email Mark, but she wouldn’t know what email was. She was thinking about what to ask next when a force knocked her backward. Her arms flew up and her body lifted off the floor. Her back landed hard against the carpet. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. She flipped onto her belly and took two shallow breaths. Her head spun, and she closed her eyes. What was that all about? She propped herself on her elbows and looked up.
Ben was on the floor. Cordy and Carlos hovered over him. He must have gotten it worse than she did because he looked out of it. She crawled over to the board and found the planchette moving on its own, spelling COTTER.
Kenna’s entire body shook with fear. Dreading what she would see but knowing she had to do it, she turned and stared at the spot against the wall where the silhouette had appeared the last time. She braced herself, ready to see the silhouette, but this was worse. Two red eyes stared daggers at her.
Kenna screamed.
Chapter VIII
Carlos grabbed Kenna’s shoulders. “What is it?”
Kenna caught her breath. She pointed at those horrible red eyes, but they were gone. Could she have imagined it?
“I, um, I was scared.” Kenna turned around. “Is Ben all right?”
Ben sat up, touching his forehead. Thankfully, he wasn’t bleeding.
Kenna gazed into his dazed eyes. “You okay, Ben?”
“I think so.”
Cordy glanced at the Ouija board. “What happened? It was like the two of you were hit by something.”
Kenna rubbed a swelling bump on her head. “Something hit us, but I have no idea what it was.”
“It was like a blast,” Ben said.
Kenna nodded. “Yeah, kinda like that. It lifted me off my feet.”
Carlos folded his arms and paced around the room. “It was freaky. I ain’t never seen anything that scary.”
He must not have seen the board spell out Cotter on its own.
“I don’t get it,” Cordy said. “Did the blast come from the board?”
“No way,” Carlos said. “That’s impossible.”
Cordy glared at him. “You would have said talking to a dead person was impossible, but we’ve been doing that.”
Carlos shoved his hands into his pockets.
Kenna helped Ben to his feet. “It must have come from the board. I don’t think anything’s impossible anymore. Not after what we’ve seen. But it wasn’t the board that did it. It was Cotter.”
Ben’s voice trembled. “Whaddaya mean Cotter?”
Everyone stared at Kenna.
She looked down. “When I got up, you guys were hovering over Ben. I looked at the board. Nobody was touching it, but it spelled out Cotter’s name on its own.”
“Now you’re freakin’ me out,” Ben said.
“It gets worse. There were two red eyes on the wall.” Kenna pointed to where she had seen them earlier.
Carlos’s hands trembled. “You’re not making this up, are you?”
“I wish I was.”
Cordy shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “That’s creepy. You think they were Cotter’s eyes?”
“I have no idea. It’s not like I’ve seen him before.” Kenna paused. After what had happened today, her friends deserved to know the rest of it. “There’s more.” She told them about the silhouette from their first contact with Mia.
Cordy scowled. “Why didn’t you say something? We’re your friends.”
“I just thought, you know, maybe I had imagined it.”
Ben threw his hands in the air. “Okay, that’s it. We’re not using that Ouija board ever again.
In fact, we’re throwing it away.”
In unison, Cordy and Kenna shouted, “No way.”
Carlos nodded. “Yeah, man. We can’t give up now. We have to find out what this is all about.”
Ben folded his arms. “Then you can do it without me.”
Cordy batted her eyelashes and leaned in toward him. “Ben, we need your help.
We’re all in it together.”
Kenna patted his shoulder. “Yeah, we’re a team. We need to stick together and do whatever we can to help Mia. The first thing we need to do is get in touch with Mark Saleski. Then we can figure out what to do about Cotter.”
Carlos raised his hands. “Back up. I’m on board with contacting Mark, but I want no part of Cotter. That dude’s bad news.”
“We’ll worry about him later. First, we’ll talk to Mark.” In her mind, Kenna was already formulating what she wanted to say to him.
***
Three days after Kenna had seen the red eyes that had scared her senseless, they gathered in Carlos’ house.
“So, did you find out anything more about Mark?” Kenna asked.
“I Googled him, but there were a dozen Mark Saleskis,” Carlos replied. “One lives in Pennsylvania. He’s a lawyer. He might be our guy.”
Kenna tilted her head. “Maybe. There could be another Mark Saleski in the state, or he could have moved out.”
“I don’t like lawyers. We could get in big trouble,” Ben said.
“We’re not going to get into any trouble.” Carlos led the others upstairs to his bedroom and turned on his computer. “Make yourselves comfortable.”
Kenna moved a pile of clothes from the bed so she could sit. His room was a mess. Video games, toys, clothes, and books lay scattered throughout the room. She never realized Carlos was such a slob. The rest of the house was neat, probably because they had a cleaning lady.
“What if he’s not at his computer or phone right now?” Ben asked.
“Then he’ll reply later,” Kenna said.
“That’s if he replies at all,” Ben said.
Cordy shrugged. “If he doesn’t, then there’s nothing we can do about it. All we can do is try, for Mia’s sake.”
Carlos logged into his email account. He started an email message and typed in Mark’s address. “What should we put in the subject line?”
“How about something like “Hi Mark,” Cordy suggested.
“Nah, that might look like spam,” Carlos said. “Or he might not pay attention to it. How about greetings from Mia?”
Kenna chewed her fingernails. They had to get this right. This might be the only chance they had to communicate with Mark. “That might freak him out.”
“Then how about we try, your friend Mia,” Cordy said.
Kenna pumped her fist. “Yeah that will work.”
Carlos typed. “Now what?”
“Write this isn’t a joke, so please don’t delete this message,” Kenna said.
“That’ll make him want to delete it faster,” Ben said.
They haggled back and forth to get the exact wording. Cordy argued she knew better what to say since she sort of had a boyfriend last summer at camp, although when Kenna pressed her, she admitted they had only held hands twice. In the end, the email read:
Mark,
We’re friends of Mia. You went out with her just before she died in that drowning accident and you used to call her Sunshine. Just wanted to let you know that Mia is a-ok. Still thinks about you lots. Mia loved you back then, still does. If there’s anything you want to pass on to her on the other side, let us know.
Friends of Mia.
Carlos rubbed his hands together. “So that’s it. No more changes. Once I hit send, there ain’t no turning back.”
Kenna fretted about tweaking the message but decided this was as good as they could make it. “I think it’s good.”
Ben looked up from the Captain America comic book he was reading on Carlos’ bed. “That’s if you call a train wreck good.”
Cordy yanked the comic book away from him. “If you’re not going to contribute, then you shouldn’t say anything bad.”
Ben put his hands in the air. “You shot down everything I suggested.”
“So, you just gave up?”
“Yeah.”
Ben stuck his tongue out, and Cordy returned the gesture.
Kenna ignored the bickering and stared at the screen. “This is as good as we can make it. Let’s send it.”
Carlos glanced at Cordy, and she gave him a thumbs-up. “Bet ya he doesn’t respond.”
“He’ll respond,” Cordy said.
“What makes you so confident?” Carlos asked.
“Because this was the love of his life. Of course, he’s going to respond. He’s probably had this emptiness inside him since she died, and now he’s finally going to be fulfilled.”
Carlos rolled his eyes. “You’ve been watching too many chick flicks. That stuff don’t happen in real life.”
“And you spend too much time watching scary movies.”
Kenna didn’t know what to expect. This might not even be the right Mark Saleski. Maybe Mark would think they were trying to mess with him. Maybe this would devastate him. There was nothing to do but sit and wait. The others engaged in idle conversation, but she couldn’t.
Ten minutes later, the computer chimed with the voice of Sponge Bob.
“Looks like I got mail,” Carlos said.
They all huddled around the computer. Kenna nearly stopped breathing. It was a reply from Mark Saleski. It read, “Who the hell are you? This shit isn’t funny. Mia died thirty-five years ago. If this is your idea of a sick joke, I’m not laughing.” He didn’t even sign the email.
Kenna closed her eyes. This wasn’t the response she had hoped for.
Ben paced around the room. “I told you this was a bad idea. But does anyone listen to me? No. Ben’s just trying to keep us from having fun. Maybe next time you ought to listen.”
“Will you just chill,” Cordy said. “You’re making my head hurt.”
Kenna sat on a chair next to the computer. “All right. Tell him know we’re not messing with him.”
Ben frowned. “After his email, you still want to do this?”
Kenna nodded.
Carlos said, “It’s not like it can get any worse.”
Ben stared out the window at the dreary fall afternoon. “Sure it can.”
Kenna took a deep breath. “Write this isn’t a joke, and we didn’t mean to make you angry. We really are friends with Mia. We know she’s dead, but we talk to her almost every day.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cordy said. “And write that we can prove we talk to Mia.”
“Like how?” Kenna asked.
Without turning around, Ben said, “We can have him ask Mia a question, something only Mia could know. Then we email him back with her response.”
“But we would have to let Mia know we talked to Mark,” Kenna said.
Ben folded his arms. “You wanna fix this mess?”
Cordy ran her fingers through her long, curly blonde locks. “He’s right. We have to let Mia know what we’re doing.”
Kenna stared at the screen. “Fine, Write that down.”
Carlos finished typing. “Anything else?”
Kenna shook her head. “Send it.”
They waited a half hour and received no response.
“So, what’s this guy up to?” Carlos asked. “I thought we’d hear back from him.”
Kenna shrugged. “Maybe he wants to wait and see if we’re legit. I don’t think he believed us.”
Cordy said, “That’s the problem with grown-ups. They have a hard time believing in things. The first time we made contact with Mia, I was like, yep, that’s a ghost.”
“She’s a spirit,” Ben said.
“Whatever.”
Kenna stretched her arms. “Well, I don’t think he’s going to respond. He would have done so already, so we might as well do something else.”
She stared at the computer screen. They could get Mark to believe if Mia would cooperate. The only problem was Cotter’s looming specter. She wanted to talk to Mia, but Cotter scared the hell out of her.
Chapter IX
Sitting on the bench in the locker room, Jake took a deep breath. His fight was next. The locker room was hot and humid. He typically liked to warm up and
break a sweat before a fight. Tonight, it took little effort. He wasn’t sure if the room was cramped or if it was just his mind playing tricks with him, but he felt claustrophobic. He even had to step out of the locker room and walk around the hallways outside in the arena.
He had never been this nervous before. His first professional fight had been in front of a hundred drunken idiots who wouldn’t know an arm bar from a side kick. Tonight, three thousand people were in attendance at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. More importantly, representatives from major fighting organizations were in the stands. Tonight would be his chance to shine…or wilt under the pressure.
Earlier on, his nerves had been so bad he had vomited his dinner. His normal walk-around weight was one hundred and eighty-five pounds. Yesterday, he had made weight at the contracted one hundred seventy pounds. By fight night, he was usually rehydrated and close to his normal weight, but he had barely been able to eat or drink anything today.
His stomach felt queasy, and his head ached. Because of the drug testing administered by the state athletic commission, he had not taken anything for his headache, not wanting to chance failing his drug test.
A half hour earlier, Joe Renken had sat him down. “What’s wrong, Jake? You don’t look so good.”
“I don’t feel so good.”
Joe put a strong hand on his shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with being nervous before a fight, but you can’t let it get the better of you.”
Jake stared at him, saying nothing.
“Listen, you’re a good fighter, a damn good fighter. You trained your ass off for this fight. Win or lose, I’m damn proud of you. The crowd don’t mean nothing. All that matters is the guy in front of you. You’ve worked hard to develop your skills, and we’ve come up with a good game plan. Go out there, execute, and have fun. You may not be a physician, or an accountant or a finance expert, but very few people in the world are as good at fighting as you are. Relax and enjoy yourself out there.”
He was at ease for about ten minutes. When the announcer introduced the fighters for the bout preceding his, he became petrified. It was easy for Joe to tell him to relax. He wasn’t going against someone looking to take off his head.
A guy from the athletic commission stepped into the dressing room and told Jake it was time for him make his way to the cage.