by Dan Poblocki
People often wore long coats and hats outside on cool nights. Was it possible that the sight of this man had meant nothing? He decided to call Abigail when he got home, just to be safe.
“Timothy! Where have you been?” his mother shouted at him when he came through the front door. The entire first floor of the house was lit up.
“I was at my friend Abigail’s house,” he said, slipping out of his wet sneakers and kicking them into the front hall closet.
“Why didn’t you call?” said his mother, stepping into the doorway from the kitchen. “We were so worried. Your father was just about to notify the police. Plus, your school phoned that you had detention this afternoon. What is going on with you?”
“It was for passing a note in class,” Timothy explained, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “Mr. Crane was being totally unfair.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” his father shouted from the kitchen. “Next time, you’d better call.”
Something was going on here. Timothy could sense a change in the atmosphere; his parents were electrified. Last night, they hadn’t cared that he’d walked home alone from the pool, but now …
“We got a call from your brother’s doctor,” said Timothy’s mother. “They feel that he’s been stabilized enough to transport him to a base in Maryland. He’s on his way there right now.”
Timothy grabbed on to the banister at the base of the stairs to steady himself. “Is he awake?”
“Not yet,” she said. “But there’s hope. I’m flying down first thing tomorrow.”
“Can we all go?”
“They don’t think that’s a good idea, honey. Maybe eventually, but for now, I’m going alone to sort out the situation.”
“What about Dad?”
“He’ll stay here with you,” said his mom. She held open her arms. Timothy came forward, and she hugged him. “You boys will take care of each other.”
Timothy sat at the kitchen table and listened to his parents discuss their plans for the next few days. His mind was swirling with questions. “Have you heard anything about Stuart?”
His mother looked up from a pad of paper she’d been writing on. His father just looked confused.
“Stuart Chen,” said Timothy. “Is he okay?”
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “We’ve had too much on our minds. Why don’t you try calling over there? Maybe he’s home now.”
Timothy stood up and went over to the phone hanging on the wall next to the refrigerator, but before he had a chance to pick it up, it rang. Surprised, he quickly answered it. “Hello?”
“You little monster.” The voice was familiar, but Timothy was so shocked by the tone that it took him several seconds to place it.
“Mr. Crane?”
“Don’t play all innocent with me, Mr. July,” said Timothy’s teacher. His voice shook, furious. “You know what you’ve done. And I do not appreciate it.”
“Mr. Crane,” Timothy said slowly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll give you a clue,” said Mr. Crane. “The jars.”
“The what?”
“The jars I requested you throw away after school this afternoon. Where, may I ask, did you throw them, exactly?”
“I took them outside and left them next to the garbage bin. The box was too heavy to lift,” he answered.
“Why then, may I ask you, have they appeared on the front steps of my house?”
Timothy was so astounded he couldn’t speak. The hum of the refrigerator killed the overwhelming silence. He glanced at his parents, who were now staring at him. His father mouthed, Who is that? Timothy turned away and stared at the floral wallpaper.
“I don’t know why, Mr. Crane,” said Timothy. “I didn’t do it.” The Nightmarys had told Abigail they’d helped her. Could this have been part of their game?
“Right. Just like you didn’t throw the water balloon at the museum. Just like you didn’t try to pass a note to Abigail Tremens during class today,” said Mr. Crane. A few seconds later, he added, “Are your parents home?”
“They’re right here,” Timothy answered.
“I’d like to speak with one of them, please.”
In a daze, Timothy held out the phone to his mother, stretching the long cord tight.
Timothy spent the rest of the night in his bedroom, both dreading and looking forward to the next day. He insisted to his parents that he hadn’t pulled the prank on Mr. Crane, and thankfully, they believed him.
Just before he brushed his teeth, he remembered that he still hadn’t called Abigail. He looked at the clock. It was nearly ten now. Much too late. He didn’t want to bother anyone, especially Zilpha, who, according to Abigail’s mother, needed her rest. Besides, the man he’d seen had probably been nobody.
When he turned off his light and got under his covers, Timothy imagined the specter of two girls watching him from the corner of his room. If what Abigail had told him was true, what sort of horror might they make next?
22.
Timothy woke up early the next morning when his mother knocked on his door to say goodbye. He wished he could go with her.
Later, Timothy was standing on the front porch, waiting for the bus, when he heard the Chens’ screen door slam. Timothy rushed to the railing, leaned forward, and called to Stuart’s mom, “How is he?”
She smiled a wan smile. “Technically, he’s okay,” she called back. “I think the whole thing has shaken him up a bit.”
Timothy understood the feeling.
“He could use a friend,” she added, making her way down the driveway toward her car. “Come by the hospital after school, if you can? They said he could have visitors. He’d love to see you.”
“I’ll try,” said Timothy, even though he was frightened by what Stuart might have to say.
As Mrs. Chen pulled away from the curb, Timothy heard the phone ringing inside his house. Maybe it was his mom, calling from the airport? Since his dad had already gone to work, Timothy pulled out his keys, opened the door, and lifted the receiver.
“Hello?” he said.
The connection was bad. Static hissed as he waited for a response.
“Timothy?” The familiar voice on the other end was soft, ragged, as if it hadn’t been used in a very long time. The room spun. Timothy reached out for the wall. He wondered if this wasn’t some terrible trick. It had to be. There was no way he could possibly be on the phone with his brother.
“Yeah?”
“Oh my God, dude,” said the voice. “Don’t sound so excited to hear me.”
“B-Ben?” Timothy stammered. “Is that you?”
“Sure, it’s me.” Ben laughed. But then the laugh turned into a cough, which went on for a long time. “Hold on … Water.” A few seconds later, he added, “Sorry about that. Not been feeling too good lately.”
Despite feeling baffled, Timothy smiled, but soon he felt tears coming. He didn’t even bother fighting them. “Ben, are you okay? Where are you?”
“Some hospital. They tell me I’ve been asleep for a while?”
“You could say that,” said Timothy. “How long have you been awake?”
“In and out for the past twelve hours, I think. Everything’s a blur.”
“Mom’s flying down. She should be there soon.”
“That’s what my doctors told me. But I really wanted to talk with someone I know … and love. My family. Dad must be on his way to work, but I thought I’d catch you before school. God, it’s so good to hear your voice.”
Questions flooded Timothy’s brain. Not only about the attack. He wanted to ask his big brother’s advice about finding order in chaos. The light in the darkness. Even though it sort of felt selfish, now might be his only chance for a while. If you were in my situation … “Are you in pain?” Timothy said instead.
Ben groaned. “They got me doped up pretty good. Attached to all sorts of tubes.”
“What do you remember?”
“Not
much since before deployment. Weird. Most everything else is a big blank page. They say it’s going to take a long time to recover. Obviously an understatement. It’s like there’s a huge chunk of my life missing.”
Missing. The word made Timothy cringe. “I miss you,” he said.
“I was dreaming about you, little brother.”
“You were?”
Ben chuckled again. Or coughed. Timothy couldn’t tell which. “It was a nightmare. Really scary.”
“What was it about?”
“I was walking down a desert road,” said Ben, struggling. “Sand everywhere. You were there. Strange thing was, you were holding a grenade and smiling in a really weird way. Your smile just kept growing and growing until your mouth was bigger than your face.”
A horrible image. Timothy blinked it away. “That is weird,” he said.
Ben went on. “Then you held the grenade out to me. You wanted me to take it. And right before I did, I realized that you’d already pulled the pin.” Timothy felt his face flush. He felt dizzy now. Then, with his voice crackling, Ben added, “It’s your fault this happened to me. It’s your fault I’m dead.”
Timothy tried to speak but couldn’t.
Silence hissed from the other end of the line; then Ben began to laugh. The laughter turned harsh, sinking into a deep pitch as it grew louder and louder. It was no longer Ben’s voice. And it was no longer only in the phone. The laughter surrounded him, bouncing off the walls of the foyer, filling the entire house. Timothy crouched into a ball and covered his head to try to block it out.
Suddenly, a siren screamed. He fell against the wooden bench. Timothy looked at the receiver in his hand. A busy signal blared at him through the holes in the plastic. Then a tinny female voice shouted, “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again. If you need help, please dial—”
A door slammed. Timothy dropped the phone and glanced upstairs. “H-hello?” he called. No one answered. Dizzy with fear, Timothy stood, replaced the phone on the cradle, and listened to the house’s overwhelming silence.
Outside, an engine sputtered. His bus was turning up Beech Nut Street. Timothy opened the front door and ran to catch it.
23.
A stranger sat behind Mr. Crane’s desk—a substitute. Mr. Crane was out sick.
Timothy snuck to his seat in the back of the classroom. The rest of the students slowly began to trickle in. Moments later, when the class was nearly full, a new girl with short black hair appeared in the doorway. No one seemed to notice her. She gave him the smallest, most hidden smile he’d ever witnessed. It was their secret now, one of many.
The bell rang, and the substitute teacher stood up and read from a piece of paper. “Please move to be with your partner, and work on your project.”
Timothy got up and sat down in the desk next to Abigail. “What’s wrong?” she said. “You look a little odd.”
“I wonder where Mr. Crane is.” He was still trying to recover from his frightful phone call. He kept remembering the sound of his brother’s laughter.
“After you left last night,” she said, shaking her head, “all hell broke loose at my house.”
“What do you mean?”
“My grandmother got really upset that we had been asking her about that book her uncle wrote. She said she doesn’t want me to hang out with you anymore.”
Timothy’s face burned. “She doesn’t like me?”
“It’s not that. I think she’s trying to protect us from something.”
“From what?”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“If we knew the truth,” he said, “we would know what we’re up against.”
“To be fair, we didn’t tell her the truth either.”
“Yeah, but …” Timothy thought about that. It would be impossible to explain the events of this week to anyone who hadn’t experienced them too. “But should we? Your grandmother is obviously keeping a secret. Maybe we should tell her ours.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. If she wasn’t so weird about the whole thing …” Abigail stared at her desk. “I slept on the couch in the living room, if sleeping is what you want to call it. I waited all night for those girls to show up. They didn’t, thank God. Maybe my disguise worked.”
“I almost forgot! You’ll never believe what else I saw … or maybe you will at this point, actually.” Timothy finally told her about the man he’d seen leaving her apartment building.
Abigail nearly fell out of her chair. “Why didn’t you call me?”
Timothy explained what had happened when he’d gotten home—about Ben’s transport to Maryland and Mr. Crane’s call. “I sort of forgot about everything else,” he added. “Sorry.” Finally, he told her about Ben’s phone call that morning.
“Are you sure it was him?” said Abigail, the color draining from her face.
“It sounded like him. Maybe someone’s trying to screw with us?”
“But who?” she said.
Timothy was about to suggest that the call might have been from Abigail’s Nightmarys, but she continued, “And who was the guy you saw at my building? Was he real? Do you think it was your shadow man?”
“Could’ve been anybody, I guess. Have you seen anyone like that there before?”
Abigail shook her head. “No. But I haven’t really been looking.” After a moment, she said, “Hey, did you check the jars yet?” When Timothy gave her a blank look, she continued, “Didn’t Mr. Crane say you left them on his front steps? I wonder if the box you put in the parking lot is still there.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Timothy. “Don’t they empty the Dumpsters every night?”
Abigail sighed. “I can’t help remembering what the Nightmarys said to me. That they had ‘helped’ me, and now I have to go with them. Are they still ‘helping’ me? You’re seeing and hearing creepy stuff. Mr. Crane is obviously bugging out. Stuart’s in the hospital. If that is all part of this, then the Nightmarys must think I owe them. Maybe if I go with them, all the rest will stop.”
“No freakin’ way!” Timothy shouted. “Don’t even think that.”
Abigail blushed. “But where do they want to take me? And why?” She stared at the floor. “What if they find me? What if I can’t say no the next time they ask me to go?”
“You always have a choice,” said Timothy, unsure if it was the right thing to say.
Abigail seemed to shudder, then said, “I’ve got an idea.” The bell rang, marking the end of class. “Remember that Web site you said you found with my great-great-uncle’s author biography?”
“Ogden Kentwall?”
“Right. Well, I was thinking, since my grandmother probably won’t tell us her story, maybe we should write to the Web site. Try to get some more information.”
Timothy nodded, excited. “Yeah. Like, how does the book end?”
“Exactly. Maybe there is an actual clue to an incomplete corpse.”
Together, they walked to the library and opened the Web site. “We’ll just ask her if she can provide us with any more information about the book’s history,” said Abigail. “Maybe even a plot summary … I hope this woman, the owner, won’t think we’re cheating on a class project.”
Timothy shrugged. “At this point a little cheating is in order. If she asks, we’ll tell her someone stole our only copy.”
“Hey,” said Abigail, “at least it won’t be a lie.”
Waiting for the end of the day, Timothy floated through the rest of his classes. Then he met Abigail, and Abigail logged into her e-mail account. To their amazement, there was a response from the owner of the bookstore.
From: frances@
To: lilbadwolf97@
Subject: The Clue of the Incomplete Corpse
Dear Abigail,
Thank you for your inquiry. I am always happy to oblige a literature lover’s rare-book pursuit. I understand your financial and time constraints, so I am absolutely willing to help answer your questions, the f
irst obviously concerning the plot of Ogden Kentwall’s debut mystery novel for children. As you’ve stated, you understand the basic premise of the book—Zelda Kite, girl reporter, searches for her missing classmate. Fairly standard mid-twentieth-century stuff. But about halfway through the novel, the story takes quite a dark turn. The darkness stems from a magical object Zelda learns of, which supposedly gives its user the power to control other people’s fear. In this case, I think the object was the jawbone of some sort of ancient goddess. I don’t remember how it worked, except that whoever wielded it simply targeted the person they meant to frighten, and then made a wish. The jawbone’s magic would penetrate the victim’s mind, driving him mad in the process.
The plot of this book pales in comparison to some of the creepy things children read nowadays, but as I said in my online description, the book does have its charms. Zelda Kite is a strong, quirky female character, with oodles of savvy and wit. I do hate to spoil the ending of the book for you, but since you asked, I’ll go ahead with it. If you wish to be surprised, you may want to stop here.
By closely examining a photograph she took at the Fourth of July Parade, Zelda Kite realizes she’d captured the moment of her friend’s abduction. She uses this evidence to track down a professor at the local college. Eventually she learns that this is the man who has taken her friend, with the dubious purpose of using the girl to somehow charge this magical jawbone. You see, the bone maintains its power through a sacrifice to the ancient goddess. This professor has been keeping the poor girl locked in a hidden room at the college where he works until the time is right to make the sacrifice and charge the bone. Lots more mumbo jumbo ensues, but the point is, Zelda Kite rescues her friend and becomes a local hero.
I actually sought out The Clue of the Incomplete Corpse after I learned of its strange origin at a booksellers’ convention several years ago. Supposedly, in the 1940s, Mr. Kentwall’s niece was a reporter, or maybe a photographer, for her school newspaper. One of her classmates was in fact abducted by a prominent local man, a professor at New Starkham College, in Massachusetts. Mr. Kentwall’s added mysticism aside, I’m not entirely sure of the real story, but I believe that Kentwall’s niece was not pleased to have been turned into a literary celebrity. I imagine the real experience was quite harrowing for her, especially since in reality her own friend was never found.