Her heart sank again.
“God, I can’t do this,” she said out loud. “How do they just get used to this shit?”
A voice called her name and Mandy jumped, almost screamed, but she looked over and saw Lynn coming out of the shadow of a doorway a few feet down the hall.
“There you are,” she said. “I thought maybe you had tried to leave.”
Mandy sighed, caught her breath and calmed her nerves for a second and said, “I was looking for the bathroom. Jane said down the hall--”
“Yeah,” Lynn said, motioning to the door she’d just left. “Right here.”
“Yeah,” Mandy said. “I thought she said down the other way. I didn’t find it.”
“Obviously,” Lynn said, smiling. “Well, it’s here if you need it. When you’re done, just come down to the common room. We’re going to watch a movie.”
“Already?” Mandy asked. “Jane that said was in an hour.”
“Yeah,” Lynn said. “It’s been an hour. I told you, I thought you’d tried to leave; I’ve been looking for you.”
Mandy nodded, smiled and said, “Thanks. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Lynn walked away and Mandy went into the bathroom, thinking what the fuck. The bright lights shocked her, but they were a welcome change from the gloom upstairs, and her nose was assaulted with the metallic piney scent of cleanser. She’d just have to remember not to go up there alone after dark. And to always think twice when she heard arguing around here. Of course something like that could probably get her fired in a real situation between two of her own kids.
Two arguments in one night, she thought. Must be something in the water.
After using the bathroom she felt a hundred times better as she stood at the sink washing her hands. She kept expecting to look into the mirror and see a ghost girl, all dirty and frightened, huddled in the corner behind her, but when she turned around, there’d be no one there. But nothing like that happened, although it didn’t take her long to realize her reflection was about a quarter of a second behind her and that sent a chill straight to her heart, not to mention while she kept her head slightly bent and her eyes down, she felt pretty certain the Mandy in the mirror’s head was up, eyes forward, so she kept the shock to herself and didn’t show any reaction.
But she also didn’t make eye contact and didn’t get too close to the glass. When she noticed the paper towel dispenser was on the wall only an inch from the edge of the mirror, she shook her hands dry, then wiped them on her pants. She wasn’t getting too close and giving whatever that was in there a chance to reach out and touch her.
She left the bathroom, physically relieved but now emotionally and mentally even more uneasy. This wasn’t normal ghost behavior she was witnessing. What she’d seen in the mirror just now, that wasn’t someone else’s recording, so what the fuck was going on?
“They can only scare you,” she muttered as she walked toward the common room. Her eyes were forward and focused on the sight of the common room doors. All she had to do was get there and she’d be surrounded by people, live humans with much more experience in this place than she had. “They can’t hurt you,” she finished.
But God, these empty halls were creepy as hell.
The smell of microwave popcorn, warm and buttery, filled her nostrils as soon as she entered. Several rows of folding chairs had been set up, some occupied by a few of the more impatient kids who just wanted to get the movie started. The lights were down, but the huge TV screen at the front of the room glowed a bright blue, illuminating enough of the area that Mandy had no trouble finding Lynn and Jane. Bea, also, had reappeared, but she was at the back of the room, against the wall, keeping an eagle eye on everyone. The kids milled about the room, boys and girls, younger kids who couldn’t be more than five or six amongst the middle- and high schoolers.
Mandy thought it had to be some terrible kind of emotional scar to have to grow up in a place like this. Not that this was a bad place, but to grow up in a facility as opposed to a home. To not have that sense of personal space, of a personal place within a family. She thought of her own childhood and, it hadn’t been ideal--her parents divorced when she was very young and Mandy’s formative years had been spent going from place to place depending on the day of the week and what time of year it was.
She had grown up keeping a mental tally of where which holiday was spent. Christmas with Mom one year meant Dad had her the year after. And if one parent had her on Thanksgiving, the other one thought they should have her on Christmas, no matter where she’d spent the previous Christmas. And don’t even get her started on Christmas Eve, which Mandy had eventually come to think of as the half-day--because that’s how long she spent at whatever parent’s house--step brother holiday of the real Christmas.
On the bright side, she grew up celebrating two birthdays a year.
That wasn’t a terrible way to grow up, she’d always thought.
But then she looked at these kids and she wondered what they did, if they did anything at all, on their birthdays. Did the Home celebrate birthdays with a party involving all the kids, or did they just get an extra dessert at dinner? Were there presents?
She was curious to find out. Christmas, she realized, had to be a terrible, heartbreaking experience around here, as, surely, being a privately-funded facility, presents came in through donations like Red Cross or United Way, and that route couldn’t possibly guarantee that every kid would get something relevant to them. She didn’t know if she’d have the emotional strength to get through something like that without breaking down, not if there were kids who wound up with nothing.
Watching them interact, she could see they had all formed real bonds with each other. Whether because they shared common interests outside of this place or just by virtue of being here together, she didn’t think it mattered. What did matter, she decided, was that in a place like this where a kid surely feels cut off from that family/home life experience, it was all the more important to find whatever connection to the world they could.
She went to Lynn and asked, “Everything okay with those two girls?”
Lynn nodded and said, “Yeah, just a misunderstanding. They made up.” She motioned to the two girls who sat together in the back row of folding chairs, whispering to each other.
“Good. So we’re watching a movie? Do we, what, stand at the back with Bea and keep an eye on everything?”
“No,” Jane said, “you can sit, we’re not prison guards.”
Mandy laughed, and was glad she could sit.
“What’s the movie?” she asked.
“We’re watching Dumbo,” Jane said. “It’s one of their favorites.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it,” Mandy said.
“Well, take a seat. It’s really good.”
“So we just watch the movie with them and that’s it?”
“Pretty much,” Lynn said. “Like everything here, we’re just here to keep an eye on them. We help the little kids or the new kids, but the older ones, or the ones who’ve been here long enough, they’re pretty self-sufficient. We’re just paid adult supervision.”
“So, pull up a seat and enjoy the movie. After this it’s final evening chores, then off to bed for the kids and we just sit around and wait for the overnight shift.”
Mandy smiled and nodded, pleased at how easy this job was proving to be. Having the piss scared out of her aside, that was. And looking around at the kids, she could see why people would feel compelled to stick around.
She looked over at the seats and noticed that, whether unintentionally or by design, the kids had seated themselves shortest to tallest, with the littlest kids in the front. Mandy took a seat at the rear. The last of the kids sat down. Mandy noticed Ryan and Chuck, standing to the side of the room, leaning into the corner, talking amongst themselves, while Daniel stood near the chairs talking to some of the boys. If this movie was a favorite of the kids, those guys had probably seen it plenty of times and they didn’t
look like the Disney type anyway.
Lynn was at the front of the room and she produced an old, tattered plastic videocassette case. Mandy hadn’t seen one of those in years. Lynn took the black tape from the ragged case, slid it clunkily into the old VCR and pushed play.
The video started, showing previews for other, “new” Disney movies “coming to VHS”. Twenty years ago, Mandy thought.
When the movie started, the quality was terrible, and the big screen on the television hadn’t been made with this stuff in mind. Forget HD, Mandy thought. They were lucky to get something other than dot matrix quality picture out of this thing. Eventually her eyes got used to the picture and within ten minutes, Mandy was watching as if she were back home on her own television, which, admittedly, had been an old fat-bodied garage sale find, but it was thirty-six inches and only cost her and Sam twenty bucks.
That thought triggered the rest and she wondered if he had driven back by the apartment today. Did he see her car gone? Did he wonder where she was so late at night?
She hoped he did. And she hoped it caused him to worry. Let him worry. She was putting him in her past and this was now and she had a life to get on with.
She glanced around at the kids, all of whom seemed enraptured by the movie, even the older ones. And she couldn’t blame them. This was a seriously weird movie. She couldn’t believe she’d never seen it before. Even more, she couldn’t believe how fucked up it was. Especially the scene where Dumbo went on his hallucinatory drunken head trip.
“What the fuck?” she mouthed silently to herself. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”
She noticed then that she’d been slightly distracted over the last few minutes because someone behind her was kicking her seat. It wasn’t a violent, forced kick; it felt as if someone were just swinging their leg back there and it kept knocking Mandy in the ass every so often, a tap on her undercarriage.
She decided to ignore it. She’d probably done it herself a hundred times and hadn’t realized it. But now that she noticed it, it was hard to tune out. And the taps felt like they were getting harder, the swinging foot a little too free.
It was really pretty rude, she decided, and she had been hired to be an example to the kids. Teaching some manners would hardly be the greatest offense she could commit. But she didn’t want that example to be that she was a bitch who couldn’t handle a little nervous energy in the seat behind her. She hadn’t even met most of these kids yet, not on any level that mattered, and she didn’t want their first impression to be “Wow, what a cunt.” Nor did she want it to be “Wow, what a pushover.”
In the end it came down to the simple fact that she wasn’t able to enjoy this incredibly wrong and tripped out movie that was supposedly for kids with this shit going on behind her.
And then she remembered there was no one behind her. She had taken a seat in the back row.
Jesus, she thought. Do I turn around? Will it stop if I see there’s really nothing there? Maybe it’ll just make it angry. But it can’t get angry, she reminded herself. Because it’s just energy. It’s not real.
She didn’t want to panic. She wondered if anyone could hear it? The seat to her left was empty, and to the right was the aisle. Jane and Lynn had spread themselves out also along the back row, but they both looked lost in the movie. All the kids did, as well.
Bea and the guys remained at the back of the room, nearly lost in shadows.
Her seat jumped with the force of another kick and Mandy almost yelled. She turned around now, not caring if it got mad. She had to stand her ground and let it know she was the one in charge, just like she’d feel the need to do for any of the kids here.
She glared at the space behind her as if someone were there, daring it to challenge her.
Nothing happened. No more kicks or taps on her ass through the chair.
She turned back around, but noticed neither Jane nor Lynn had bothered to look at her. She tried to get back into the movie, wondering what she had missed. The kicking, it seemed, had stopped.
It wasn’t thirty seconds later, however, when a force like an open palm to her back pushed her forward so hard, her face hit the shoulder of the girl in front of her.
The girl looked around, giving Mandy a “what the hell!?” look and Mandy looked back up at her, said, “Sorry,” then whipped back around to see what the hell was behind her. For a moment, she feared facing it would give it the chance to do worse than shove her in the back, but nothing happened.
She got up from her chair and moved back to the wall, standing near the closed door.
This job is not going to be a battle of wills, she thought.
The chair moved. Not a lot, and maybe not even enough to be noticeable to those sitting down. But from where Mandy stood, she could see the backs of the chairs all lined up perfectly, except for the chair she’d just vacated, which was now just slightly out of alignment with the others.
It moved again, further this time, and no one looked around.
Then it slid across the floor, silently, as if it were gliding, but it was definitely moving, and it was coming toward her.
She watched it inch closer. She could almost see the evil grin on the face of who- or whatever was moving it, as if they were doing it purposely to scare her, and it was working.
It turned around, so the chair was facing her, then continued across the floor. No one noticed it. Bea and the guys didn’t pay her any attention. The chair crept closer.
The movie played on, a collage of colors and sounds, the sense of which Mandy had lost long ago. She watched the chair.
It came forward as if it were daring her. To do what? She didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. It was closer now, then even closer. It stopped less than a foot in front of her and Mandy stared down at it, dreading what would happen next, but frozen in place.
Her mind said to run, to get the fuck out of here right now and forget this bullshit, but her body was paralyzed. The chair mocked her.
Whatever had moved it over here had noticed her, had wanted her to know it noticed her, and Mandy wasn’t comfortable with that idea at all.
On the screen the credits were rolling and the little kids up front all clapped while the older kids broke their gaze from the television and started talking to the kids sitting next to them again.
Lynn went to the front of the room, pushed the stop button, then the rewind, while Jane stood up, stretched, and came over to Mandy.
Mandy looked from Jane to the chair, but Jane didn’t pay any attention to it. In fact, she walked around it, then reached next to Mandy and flipped on the lights.
“How’d you like it?” Jane asked, grabbing the chair, folding it up, and leaning it against the wall.
“It was weird.”
“Yeah, I always thought so, too. The kids sure like it, though. I think it’s pretty creepy, if you ask me.”
Mandy had to nod in agreement. She had so many different things running through her head, and so many feelings inside over this entire night, none of which she felt could be sorted out right now. She felt as if the entire day were just one long rollercoaster and she had no choice but to ride it out or duck out the chicken’s exit at the side. Chicken’s exit doesn’t pay the rent, she reminded herself, and she was lucky she had found this job.
“So what’s next?” she asked.
“Night chores, then they go to bed.”
“What kind of chores do they have?” Mandy asked. The kids were heading a few at a time out of the room and down the hall. She glanced out to the hall and it looked like they were headed to the bathrooms.
Jane and Lynn folded the chairs and carried them back to the wall, lining them all up. Mandy helped, along with two of the older kids.
“For one, cleaning up in here,” Jane said. “Then they’ll make sure their rooms are straightened. They’ll gather the trash bags from around the building. There’s sweeping to do. It’s not a lot, just general making sure the place looks presentable. We really never know when someon
e new might show up.”
“Then it’s off to bed with the kids and we just sit around and wait?”
“Pretty much.”
“I’ll have to start bringing a book,” Mandy said.
The kids had all taken their turn in the bathroom. The chairs were folded, then loaded onto a rolling cart and taken out of the room. Mandy didn’t know where they went, but the two older boys who were wheeling it must have.
Another boy swept up the popcorn that had been dropped during the movie while June picked up empty microwave popcorn bags and tossed them into a large yellow trash barrel with MCH written on the side in green marker.
Mandy looked around and before she knew it, the common room had been put in order. The kids all broke into groups without being told and everyone went off to their part of the building where, Mandy guessed, they’d take care of their appointed chores.
Lynn came over and said, “Wanna go sit down and wait until they’re all done with their chores?”
“Sure,” Mandy said, only half aware of what was going on.
Lynn took her to the lounge where she got a cup of coffee and sat down. Mandy sipped at the Coke she’d left there earlier. Her mind was back in place and up to speed.
“How do you like it so far?” Lynn asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” Mandy said.
“It takes some getting used to.”
“No kidding. How long did it take you?”
“I don’t know,” Lynn said. “Sometimes I still find little things that get to me.”
“I’m gonna need a flowchart just to know what ghost goes where and does what.”
“They’re not a big problem,” Lynn said. “For the most part, I don’t even notice them anymore.”
Mandy looked up at the corner of the wall, thinking about that shadow she’d seen crawling across it earlier, then she remembered that had been in the cafeteria.
“I heard some stuff upstairs that really creeped me out.”
“You’ll pick it up pretty quick, and in a month you won’t even notice they’re here.”
The Ghosts of Mertland (An Angel Hill novel) Page 6