The Descendants

by Kirk Kilgrave

  Logan grinned. He wanted to know more about Eloise, and he certainly enjoyed their playful banter. It broke through a lot of the apprehension he felt around her. It gave him hope that he might not get tongue-tied the next time he saw her.

  Eloise passed the concession stand, where Ashleigh and Tyler had been only a minute ago.

  He started looking around for them while at the same time keeping an eye on Eloise.

  She strolled by the ticket stand and then pushed through the door and exited the theater.

  Logan’s pulse pounded in his head. He thought she’d been joking around. But she left the building without giving him any indication that was the case. So…did she truly plan to steal his phone! He had no clue, but he darted toward the exit to find out.

  Outside the theater, Eloise stopped beside Tyler and Ashleigh and then handed the phone to the latter. She swiveled to face the theater and spotted Logan. Eloise waved and grinned at him before walking away.

  Logan came to a stop upon realizing that she’d done it to get a rise out of him, as everyone in the lobby stared and whispered about him. He hunched over and placed his palms on his knees. She’d put a real fright into him. And he kind of liked it.

  “Why is it so cold in here?” asked Tyler, after bursting through the front door to hang up his coat. “Is the heater broken?”

  Ashleigh passed through the threshold, removed her coat, hat, and gloves, and placed them on the rack behind her. “It’s not cold in here.”

  “It was a minute ago,” Tyler said, confusion turning his eyebrows into a straight line. He turned to Logan, who had just entered the house. “Does it feel any different in here to you?”

  Logan slung his jacket off his frame. “Not that I can tell, but we all just came in from outside, so some of the chill outside may have come in with us.”

  Tyler shrugged, looking confused. “But after I got in the house, I felt something cold blast against my face. Maybe the air conditioning is on or something?”

  Logan looked at Ashleigh. “Did you change the setting on the thermostat?”

  “No.” She made her way upstairs.

  “I didn’t mess with the thermostat either,” Logan said. “Sorry, bro, I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Tyler nodded, but he stayed in place, consternation on his face. “Weird.” Then he headed upstairs as well.

  Logan stayed downstairs and checked to see if anything needed to be cleaned up, but of course, Ashleigh had taken care of things. He just wanted to make sure that he didn’t leave anything undone, only to forget it later, and have his mother come home disappointed that her children had left a mess. Afterward, he turned out the lights and made his way up the steps.

  On the second floor, he stepped into the bathroom and flipped on the light. He wasn’t sure which he noticed first – that his socks got soggy or that he saw a very thin layer of water along the floor.

  “What the fuck!” he shouted. Logan traced his gaze to the left, toward the bathtub, but when he looked inside, it was dry. Shifting his eyes to the right, his gaze fell upon the toilet bowl.

  Water filled the ceramic circle. A pair of tampons floated atop it. Thankfully, waster wasn’t still seeping from the bowl and hitting the ground.

  Logan’s mind returned to the conversation Ashleigh and Tyler shared yesterday, the one he thought had ended in an enlightening manner, at least for his brother. Looking at the mess, Logan decided to second-guess that opinion.

  “What?” Ashleigh called out. A couple of seconds later, her footsteps came to an abrupt stop behind him on the outskirts of the waterlogged floor. “What happened?” She sucked in a heap of air. “Oh my God!”

  He turned just in time to see Ashleigh’s red cheeks vanish. A couple of seconds later, she barged through Tyler’s door. “Why did you do it, Tyler?”

  Logan came up behind her and looked into his brother’s room. He couldn’t recall the last time she hadn’t called him by his nickname, which lent credence to the severity with which she took the situation.

  Tyler, nestled in skin-tight Spider-Man pajamas that were two inches shorter on his wrists and ankles than they had been last year, sat on his bed with his guitar cradled in his arms. He looked up, and although the rest of his body remained stiff, he drew his neck backward. “What’s your deal?” he asked in a calm yet curious tone.

  “My deal?” She stalked into his room. “You stuffed my sanitary napkins in the toilet and flooded the place.”

  He flinched at the accusation. “No, I didn’t.” His gaze surveyed his room as a querulous look remained on his face.

  “Stop lying, Tyler. We talked all about that yesterday. Why would you do that?”

  “I wouldn’t.” He looked past her to Logan and set his guitar on his bed. “I didn’t.”

  Logan lowered his gaze, sickened. His brother must’ve caused this mini-disaster before they left for the movie. How had everything gone so bad, so quickly? What had Ashleigh done that persuaded Tyler to act out? That she accused him of slamming her door? If Tyler had resorted to this as a way to get back at his sister, he responded with way too much force for such a tiny matter of contention.

  “It didn’t just happen by itself,” said Ashleigh. “The same way the door didn’t slam yesterday. Or how Logan’s phone mysteriously ended up under the couch.”

  Logan wouldn’t have mentioned it, but for Ashleigh to have brought it up with such hostility in her voice proved that she was just as upset as he’d been earlier. Rather than question his brother, he continued staring at him with what he hoped looked like a concerned expression, one free of blame, hoping to get an honest answer.

  “Maybe a ghost did it,” Tyler said.

  Ashleigh threw up her hands. “Of course. A ghost. Why wouldn’t a ghost visit us?” Her eyes blazed with aggravation. “Oh, that’s right. They like to plug up toilet bowls?”

  “Well, no. But just because—”

  “See? And you know why a ghost wouldn’t have done this? Because I sincerely doubt that ghosts go around clogging toilets.”

  “We’ve all,” Logan said, “lived here our entire lives. A ghost wouldn’t come now, would it?” He sincerely doubted it, since he didn’t believe in them, but he knew better than to push his opinions on others.

  “No,” Ashleigh shouted. “Because—”

  Logan reached out and grasped her arm. “Tyler, is this something that would’ve happened in one of your horror flicks?”

  Tyler lowered his gaze. “No. Usually, if someone dies, they can come back as a ghost. But no one died, so…” His pain-stricken eyes turned glassy as he turned them onto his older siblings. “I guess it’s not a ghost.”

  Ashleigh breathed heavily through her nostrils and then jabbed a finger at the toilet bowl. “I’m not cleaning that up.” She spun around and marched off. Then a door slammed. “That time, it was me, Tyler!”

  Logan almost chuckled but seeing the downtrodden look on his brother’s face squashed that urge. “I don’t know, Tyler. Only you and Ashleigh were up here before we left.” What else could he say?

  Tyler leaned forward on his bed, and tears slipped down his cheeks. “I didn’t do it, Logan. I didn’t. I promise.” His voice choked on that last word.

  Logan wanted to believe him, wanted to trust the tears on his face, but the facts didn’t line up. He nodded, hating that he couldn’t tell Tyler that he believed him this time. “Goodnight.”

  As he turned around, he thought he heard a sob get caught in his brother’s throat. It made him stop. For Tyler, who rarely lied because his face always showed whatever emotions gripped him, to have feigned that sound would have reflected an actor as skilled as Meryl Streep. Once again, Logan wanted to trust it, and he did, sort of. He just didn’t know what that meant or amounted to.

  Since he couldn’t place blame, he spent nearly an hour cleaning up the mess. Afterward, Logan returned to his bedroom but he couldn’t sleep. With so much happening lately, most notably his mother leaving for the we
ek while his siblings seemed to argue about everything, Logan’s mind spun with those thoughts the way clothes swirled around a dryer.

  Three hours later, Logan was still in bed hoping sleep would come. He withdrew his covers and felt a chill in the air. He took a few steps, but it didn’t disappear like Tyler had stated earlier this evening. He crossed his bedroom, opened his door, and entered the hall. The chill remained. Even worse, the air felt tight, constricted. It took more effort for him to inhale than usual.

  He hadn’t endured this much stress since his father died. Had his body reacted this way because he didn’t know how to manage it? Finding it difficult to conserve heat and breathe?

  Logan made his way down the steps, yet strangely, the air grew warmer. Likewise, it wasn’t so difficult to suck oxygen into his lungs. He entered every room and left it, trying to determine if there was a pattern to the atmosphere, but nothing convinced him of that. He checked the thermostat, and it was set a few degrees shy of seventy, the same spot they set it at each night.

  The air seemed perfectly fine downstairs, so he made his way back upstairs. Just as he reached the second floor, Logan felt the chill again. He reached up and grasped his throat as he once more found it difficult to breathe. He thought about waking Ashleigh and Tyler, but what would that accomplish but upset them?

  So he went back to his bedroom. This new conundrum disentangled the other concerns from his mind and freed him to probe this new development. What he found most distressing revolved around the idea that heat rose. But not in this house. Not tonight.

  Since Ashleigh and Tyler hadn’t awoken and confronted him with these issues, he convinced himself that his body reacted this way to the tension he now faced. But something at the back of his mind considered that notion ridiculous. In fact, it pressed him to mull over the idea that something else, something outside of the norm, had caused this change in the air.

  It was something Logan didn’t want to contemplate. But he did just that. All night long. It explained why he tossed and turned for hours. And it also explained why he didn’t get a wink of sleep that night.

  5

  The following day passed without an issue. There were no arguments. No shouting. No tears. Logan deemed it a victory. Of course, Ashleigh had been hanging out with her friends all day, after which they all planned a sleepover. Tyler had spent much of the day in downtown Chicago with a friend and his parents at the Museum of Science and Industry.

  With all that alone time, Logan finally gave up pondering the bizarre circumstances last night and instead debated whether to call Eloise. He was so exhausted that he didn’t want his fatigue to enter the conversation. With that topic off the table, he contemplated the message his father wished to pass along to him. So much monotonous deliberation tuckered him out, and he ended up sleeping most of the day. Through his nap, none of the strange occurrences awakened him.

  After Tyler returned, they shared a pizza and then held a football video game tournament. Just as Logan planned to turn in for the night just before midnight, his phone chirped. His thoughts immediately went towards potentially speaking with his mother until he remembered that she wouldn’t contact him until the following day. A potential employer wouldn’t contact him this late, so he figured it must be an emergency. Ever since the end of high school, all of his friends had fallen by the wayside because he spent too much time studying and working to find the time to socialize.

  And since Ashleigh hadn’t checked in to let him know how things were going, he checked his phone and saw that he had twelve text messages. All from Ashleigh. He also found three voicemails from her. Worried that Ashleigh was in trouble, Logan’s throat tightened up on him as urgency shifted into high gear.

  He placed a call to her immediately. “Hey, is everything okay?”

  “No!” she shouted, gasping for air. “Nothing’s okay. Why haven’t you answered my text messages? I even called you three times. Three! What’s your deal?”

  “I didn’t sleep at all last night, so I took a long nap. Then Tyler got home, and we played videogames. What’s wrong?”

  “I need you to come get me. Right now!”

  “Are you okay?” he repeated, stunned by her volatility.

  Cringing, he pulled the phone away from his ear. With Tyler staring at him, Logan said, “It’s Ashleigh. She wants me to pick her up.” He returned his attention to his sister. “What’s the problem?”

  “I need you to pick me up at Aaliyah’s. Get here as fast as you can.” She hung up.

  He let out a heavy sigh and turned to his brother. It ticked him off that she hadn’t explained the situation. Maybe she didn’t want her friends to overhear her or the predicament was of a personal nature. For that matter, anything could have gotten under her skin.

  “Wanna go for a quick ride?” he asked Tyler.

  Five minutes later, he parked his old Ford Ranger in the driveway outside the home of Ashleigh’s friend. He stepped into the night. With every breath, a plume of chilly humidity swirled around his head. He started for the front door.

  Ashleigh burst through it a second later, her jacket swinging off her shoulders behind her. In the distance, from behind curtains that swayed in the plate glass window, a few girls Ashleigh’s age watched her dart across the front yard. The lamplight behind them showed them glancing at each other and chatting amongst themselves with shocked expressions. In record time, Ashleigh reached the passenger side door, whipped it open, and hopped inside.

  Logan looked from his sister’s friends back to Ashleigh.

  Seated beside Tyler on the front seat, she waved at him with a petrified expression. “Let’s go!” she yelled. “Come on!”

  He glanced back at her friends, who now pushed away from the window, the curtain swaying for a moment before it stilled. Then he turned back to his truck and pulled the door open.

  “Logan!” she said breathlessly. “Let’s go!”

  Haunted by the panic-stricken fear in her eyes, but unable to determine what convinced her to react so crazily, he jumped into his truck, started it up, and backed out of the driveway. He shifted into drive and started down the street. His heart was actually doing double-time.

  “Faster!” she said. Her hands trembled as she chewed her nails, something she’d never done before since she spent so much time and effort switching the colors on her fingernails every few days. She stared out the windshield with wide eyes.

  As Tyler pressed his bony shoulders into Logan’s ribs, Logan was surprised his brother had remained completely silent. As for himself, he needed a moment to get a grip. Wicked thoughts entered his mind: had she been sexually assaulted? Did she get injured? He looked her over, but he didn’t see any visible scrapes, bruises, or cuts. That settled some of his anxiety.

  Did someone humiliate her in front of her friends? Did she embarrass herself? He silenced the mental onslaught by gripping the steering wheel tightly.

  “What happened?” he finally asked in an easy tone, even if that task wasn’t as simple as it seemed. He couldn’t let either of his siblings know she had put a fright into him. If he had, they might not trust that he could handle what they threw at him over the next week.

  “Can we just go? Please?”

  “We are,” he said. “You’re out of there. Now tell me what happened.”

  Rapid bursts left her mouth.

  “Ashleigh?” he asked. “I did what you asked. I got here as quickly as possible. I’m worried.”

  No response.

  Had she even heard him? He exchanged a worried glance with Tyler, who mouthed the words, Do something!

  “Ashleigh?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Damnit, I can’t help you if I don’t know why you’re so upset.”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  If someone hurt her, I swear to God, I will tear their limbs from their sockets.

  His temper crept up on him faster than expected, so he stayed quiet for a long moment to rega
in his composure. It took all of his self-control to manage that feat.

  “My friends didn’t believe me. Why should you?”

  Why didn’t she think he would believe her? He couldn’t recall disregarding anything she’d said in the past that would give her that impression. “I believe that you’re completely freaked out right now. That’s what I believe. But you’re scaring the shit outta me.”

  She nodded at that and blinked a few times but didn’t tear her gaze away from the windshield.

  “So why don’t you tell me anyway. Just to see how I’ll take it. Sound good?”

  Ashleigh looked at the fingernails she’d bitten into and cringed in shock. “All right. I’ll tell you.”

  Logan pulled into their driveway and killed the engine.

  Ashleigh whipped the door open and raced out of the car.

  Tyler turned to his brother. “Whatever’s up with her, I didn’t do it.” A fleeting smile made its way to his face before he scooted over to the passenger side door, slid out, and followed Ashleigh at a slower pace.

  Logan went after him, and when he entered the house, the lights downstairs were still off, so he headed upstairs and found Ashleigh’s door halfway open with a light on behind it. At the other end of the hall, Tyler stood in the threshold of his door with quirked eyebrows. “Good luck in there, master sergeant.”

  Logan nodded at him and slipped into Ashleigh’s bedroom. After all of her uneasiness, he was glad to finally reach a place where she would disclose what bothered her. For a moment, he wondered if she’d broken a law, but he immediately dispensed with that idea. A couple of months ago, she’d told him that a former friend got in trouble with the police for smoking weed on campus, which freaked her out so much that she didn’t want to ever get “pinched” by the cops. He just hoped she was okay, and he could handle whatever she threw at him.

  Ashleigh sat on the bed and leaned against the corner portion of her wall, her fingers zipping across her telephone. “What took you so long?” she asked without looking up at Logan.

  Logan closed the door. “Tell me why you’re so upset.”