by Rich Wallace
“What do you mean?” I’m getting angry again.
He smacks my arm. “This wasn’t about you, man. When Scapes beat me up, I spent the next two weeks figuring out how I could get revenge. And when you said you’d seen Bainer on the Internet, it hit me: scare Scapes to death. Let him know that this crap he dishes out can be serious. Maybe even jail-time serious if it goes far enough.”
He flops onto his bed and laughs again. “You were the perfect helper, even though you didn’t know it. You were scared out of your wits, so Scapes bought everything we said. When I sent you those fake links to the obituary and the sympathy notices, it clinched it. I left you in limbo about it so I could turn the screws on Scapes even tighter.”
I stare out the window. Barney is whimpering in the hall, so I open the door and let him in. “So that’s one part of it,” I say. “The easy part.”
“What do you mean?”
“How’d you get him on that video? How’d you get my computer to turn on by itself?”
Barney jumps onto the bed and Gary starts wrestling with him. “You really think you saw Bainer on some video?”
“You think I’m lying?”
“Okay,” he says. “You think you saw him.”
“I know I saw him.”
“You didn’t.” He gently shoves Barney off the bed and sits up with his feet dangling. The bottoms of his white socks, just below the toes, say Hanes in red stitching. “Look,” he says, “maybe some of these techno guys can do that—make images appear on somebody else’s computer. But I don’t know anything about stuff like that. And anyway, you said he showed up first on your father’s screen. How would I have known that you were looking at that particular video, at that particular time, on your father’s computer? How could anybody know that?”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I had nothing to do with what you say you saw. I just picked up on what you told me the next day and took it from there, with that fake obituary and all. You were so convinced you’d seen Bainer’s ugly mug on the screen, I figured I’d freak you out some and take Scapes down a notch in the process.”
I think about each time I actually saw Bainer online, and I guess it was only three times. I also heard that music a bunch of times, but I’d been searching Freewheeler earlier those nights.…
“I did see him,” I say firmly.
He shakes his head and smiles. “Like your uncle said, it was the power of suggestion. You thought you might have glimpsed him, and your imagination kicked in. Reading that obit made you all the more sure that you’d seen him. You saw a mirage, buddy.”
I don’t know what I saw, but it definitely wasn’t my imagination.
He got me good, and he knows it. But this doesn’t add up. Too many things happened that were out of Gary’s control. I’m not done with this. And I have a very strong feeling Bainer isn’t done yet either.
CHAPTER TEN
I do a “Lorne Bainer” search on the Internet and find nothing—no sign that he’s dead, no sign that he’s alive—then I study that stupid “Way Back into Love” video a couple of times. Uncle David’s been downstairs watching reruns of Family Guy and The Simpsons all evening.
When I hear him turn on the shower around nine thirty, I put on my sweatshirt and gloves and slip out of the house. If he even notices that I’m gone, he’ll figure that I’m over at Gary’s.
Our street is very dark and heavily tree-lined, so I’m out of sight of the house in seconds. I test the flashlight quickly after turning the corner. It works fine.
I take my time walking the back streets, but I’m pumped up. I’m scared, yeah, but I’m also excited. Bainer is out there somewhere—cyberspace or afterlife or maybe just over in Europe. But he’s had his eye on me all week, and I’ve had enough of it.
This is my city; I’ve never lived anywhere else. I’m not going to be driven out of town—or out of my mind—by some annoying kid who hasn’t been around for eighteen months. (Not in the flesh anyway.)
I cross Main before I get downtown and cut through the edge of the college. There are lots of people over by the student center and walking the paths, and an Aerosmith song is blasting from an open dorm window. I stay in the shadows, scuffing through leaves and acorns.
I pass the rows of off-campus houses and head for Bainer’s. There are sounds in the distance—students talking on a porch, an airplane overhead, traffic on Main Street—but I feel cut off from the town back here, a good block away from any signs of life. The air is clear and cold.
I walk slowly across the lawn, and the wind lifts a few leaves into the air. Something scurries through the brush over by the empty warehouse—a cat or a possum maybe.
I put a hand inside the windowsill, place my foot against the stone foundation, and haul myself up. I step to the floor as gently as I can, trying to avoid making any sound.
Then I breathe. My heart is racing. I wait for my eyes to adjust and my nerves to steady. I slide my back down the wall and take a seat.
There’s nothing to see down here, but I sit for ten minutes, letting the house get used to me, allowing the energy to settle.
I don’t even need the flashlight, but I take it with me as I cross the living room and tiptoe up the stairs. What will I do up here? Try to talk to Bainer? Just sit and wait until something happens?
I catch my breath sharply—the attic door is open. I know we didn’t leave it like that.
I edge up to it and flick on the flashlight, since the hallway going up is pitch dark.
“God!” I jump back.
The tiny samurai is on the first step, facing me. Two steps farther up is the Batman, its right arm raised as if it’s pointing to the attic. Doc is waiting on the next-to-last step.
Somebody’s been here, I guess.
I poke my head into Bainer’s room, but it’s empty, so I take a deep breath and slowly climb the attic stairs.
The attic is a big open space—no partitions or rooms, just bare floorboards and exposed beams overhead.
Something flutters down from the ceiling and I jump. A bat? No. I shine the flashlight and see that photo of Bainer, the one that was tacked to the wall in his bedroom the other night. I can’t bring myself to reach down and pick it up.
The light catches a cardboard box in the corner, covered with dust. I step toward it and swallow.
The box is square, about two feet high and wide. LORNE THINGS is scrawled on the flap in black marker.
I unfold the top, holding the flashlight in my armpit. Then I pull out a handful of papers and set them on the floor.
His report card from fifth grade, all Bs and Cs. A couple of school photos. A sealed envelope with Mr. and Mrs. Bainer handwritten on the outside.
I hesitate, then carefully tear open the envelope. Inside is a note from our fifth-grade teacher.
Mrs. Graham has informed me that you’ve decided not to take advantage of the counseling that was offered to Lorne. I urge you to reconsider. Lorne is a bright boy, but he has extreme difficulty fitting in with his classmates. Some sessions with a psychologist could do him a world of good and help him adjust.
Sincerely,
Gloria Munson
The next paper is a simple list in Bainer’s handwriting: Invite to birthday. There are four of us on the list. Me and three people I don’t even recognize. Maybe from his church or something.
I never got that invitation. Probably nobody did.
Why did they leave all this stuff behind? Maybe it was too painful to take.
And here’s the script he wrote for that comedy routine that never happened. It has some reasonably funny jokes.
Me: How come your father didn’t come to the show?
Jordan: He went hunting bear.
Me: Well, he should have put on some clothing.
Another piece of paper. It looks something like a form for a prescription, with Douglas Schuter, MD, at the top and the doctor’s address, dated just before the Bainers left the country.
I scan it: Cheshire Medical Center … Lorne Bainer, male, 11 years …
And then I hear my name. Clear. From the second floor. It’s not a voice I recognize. Not Scapes or Gary or any guy. It sounds like the tone of a bell, or a song. Just my name: “Jordan.”
I freeze and slip the paper into my pocket.
I’ve heard no footsteps. No one entering the house or climbing the stairs. I listen hard, but there’s nothing.
But there must be something. Something called my name. My breath is short and cold and the back of my neck is sweaty.
An attic step creaks ever so slightly. I back against the wall, crouching behind the box.
Those stairs are the only way out of this attic.
* * *
Fifteen minutes have passed, but there hasn’t been another sound or any movement. I’m cold. Petrified. I can’t bring myself to move.
The voice sounded pure, like it was floating in the air and detached from any person. It went right through me; it feels like it’s still vibrating in my chest.
Another attic step creaks. This one sounds closer. I grip the flashlight tighter; it’s my only weapon.
There are four small windows up here, but it’s a three-story drop straight to the ground. Broken legs, at least. I’ll take my chances for now.
Another creak, and then I hear the plastic toys clunking down the stairs. I put one hand on the cardboard box and squeeze, just staring at the opening in the floor where whatever it is would emerge.
The shadows seem to shift in the attic, as if the faintest glimmer of light has moved in. It’s everywhere at first, and then localized in the corner directly across from me. It’s like that almost-imperceptible glow from the facedown flashlight when me and Scapes were in Bainer’s room. Too soft for me to make out any shape—just a presence.
I swallow hard and turn on my light, aiming it toward the glow. It’s grayish and my size and it moves slowly, like an animal—wary and controlled. I think I see a head, two arms.
I’m across the attic and onto the stairs in less than a second, taking them three at a time and pivoting as I reach the bottom. My feet slide out from under me—Batman and Doc cracking from my weight and shooting away from me as I go down hard, feeling intense pain in my forearm.
I push up and hear “Jordan” in that same eerie voice from upstairs. My face is dripping with sweat and tears as I hobble down the next flight of steps.
I reach the front door and yank it open with my good arm and stumble onto the lawn.
“Come back and play, Jordan,” I hear. “I only want to be your friend.”
I run a few steps, but my arm hurts too much. I pull it against my body and wince. “I wish I could,” I say, turning toward the house. “I wish I’d tried back then.”
I see a flicker of light in Bainer’s room, then the shadow of a person on the wall.
The house goes dark, and I step away. But then I hear footsteps or something behind me, and I shiver and turn and see a swirl of dried leaves scooting toward the back of the yard.
And despite the pain and my fear, I walk toward the swirl until it stops and seems to hover. The leaves slowly fall to the ground.
“Go back, Bainer,” I whisper. “Wherever you’ve been, go back there and start over. There’s nothing I can do for you here.”
The leaves rustle up again, then settle. I stare at the pile for a couple of minutes, then back away and walk home.
Gary comes to our house late the next afternoon, bringing me my history book and a homework assignment. He signs the cast on my arm—Happy Ghostbusting!—and asks if I’ll be able to play in Saturday’s basketball game.
“Are you nuts?” I ask. “I’m out for the season.”
“Big loss.”
Uncle David managed to reach my parents this morning, but he told them not to pay for an earlier flight home. “He’s tough,” I heard him say. “It’s just a hairline fracture.”
He tripped up a bit trying to explain how it happened, but then again, he didn’t have much to go on. My story was that I went for a jog to get in better shape for basketball. Fell on the bumpy sidewalk. That’s what I told Gary, too.
“What really happened?” Gary asks me now.
“I slid down those attic stairs. Trying to get out of there as fast as humanly possible.”
“Because of an inhuman presence?” He laughs.
I don’t laugh back. “Something like that.” I shake my head. I’m not ready to talk about it with him or anybody else. But I do think it’s over.
Maybe Bainer died from all those beatings, and maybe he didn’t. Maybe he’s been haunting me for the past five days, and maybe he hasn’t. I found that paper from the box in his attic in my pocket this morning. It said Lorne was scheduled to start chemotherapy right before they moved. That’s how they treat cancer. Maybe they went back to Europe so he could get better treatment. Or maybe they just ignored it, like that letter from Mrs. Munson.
Like Uncle David said about these urban legends: there’s always a kernel of truth behind them. You poke around, looking for that truth, but you usually come up empty. Instead, you find half-truths and fiction, and the reality disappears into myth.
But the myths don’t come from nowhere. Somewhere in the past some creepy event really did happen to start the story. This one started here. This week. And I lived through it.
The legend of Lorne Bainer has a lot more truth to it than fiction.
THE HORSES OF BRICKYARD POND
Tragedy. A century ago, a team of horses drowned in a flooded brickyard, snuffed out at the height of their power. But sometimes, on dark, rainy nights, they summon all their vigor and run free.
Danny closed his bedroom door tight and walked to the bathroom. He leaned over the sink and pried up his left nostril, examining it in the mirror. It looked dry in there. Empty. No more blood.
“Danny!” Claudine called from the bottom of the stairs. “The pasta’s ready! Mom says to get down here. Now!”
He pulled the note from his pocket and considered throwing it away. But then he walked down to the kitchen.
“Here’s a note from the nurse,” he said, handing the envelope to his father. “It’s no big deal.”
“Did you get hurt at school?” Mom asked, setting down a slotted spoon that she’d been using to stir the pasta.
“I had a bloody nose,” Danny said. “It was nothing. She said she had to send a note anyway.”
Dad unfolded the paper and read it. “What’s this mean?” he asked, squinting. “ ‘Nosebleed. Likely due to digital manipulation.’ ”
“It means he was picking his nose!” said Claudine.
“Lay off,” Mom said. “Did you get any on your shirt, Danny?”
“Snot?”
“Blood. Snot washes out, but blood stains.”
“Maybe a little,” Danny replied.
“Well, get the shirt. I’ll spray some pre-wash on it.”
Danny walked back up the stairs.
“Pick me a winner!” called Claudine.
“Bite me,” Danny mumbled.
It was a good shirt. Light blue with a collar and buttons all the way down. The kind you’d wear if you worked at a convenience store or a quick-lube car place. Danny held it up. There were three drops of blood near the chest pocket. Two were smaller than a kernel of corn. The third was the size of a nickel. They were a dark, rusty red.
“That’s bone-dry,” Mom said, poking at the spots with her thumb. “How long ago was this nosebleed?”
“I think that one was around noon.”
“You had more than one?”
Danny frowned and sat down. He scooped a heap of pasta onto his plate. “It was bleeding when I got to school this morning. I stopped it up with toilet paper. Then it bled some more at lunch. Just a few drops, but I didn’t feel it coming, so it landed on my shirt.”
“That’s ’cause you dug out the boogers,” Claudine said. “They were holding back the blood.”
“M
ind your own business,” Danny said.
Dad cleared his throat. “This isn’t an appropriate subject for the dinner table.”
“Better watch what’s under the table,” Claudine said. “That’s where he wipes it.”
“Enough,” Mom said. “Is this a problem, Danny? Have you been having a lot of nosebleeds?”
“Just those two.”
“Then let’s forget about it. No worries.”
“Fine with me.”
“But be careful when you pick,” Mom said. “Sometimes it’s better just to leave it in there.”
Dad set his fork down hard. “Can we please move on to something else?”
“It’s perfectly natural, Byron.”
“Yes, dear, I know that full well. But there are a lot of natural things we don’t talk about over spaghetti.”
Claudine laughed. “Dad’s squeamish.”
“He must have looked at your face,” Danny said.
Claudine put her hand to her heart and gasped. “Biting sarcasm, Danny. Such a clever wit.”
“Cleverer than you.”
“More clever.”
“Like I said.”
Dad set his fork down even harder. “How old are you two? Will this go on forever? Most brothers and sisters get along, you know. Maybe not when they’re children, but you two are teenagers!”
“She is,” Danny said, pointing at Claudine, who would turn fourteen in a few weeks. She didn’t look fourteen, still holding on to baby fat and her straight, unfashionable hair. Danny wouldn’t be thirteen until summer, and he didn’t look his age either—short and freckly and bony.
“He’s so disgusting,” Claudine said. “He never washes his feet.”
“How would you know?” Danny asked.
“You told me. And this nose-picking thing … Have you guys ever looked at the side of the couch? It’s like a green wall of snot.”
Mom shivered and looked at Danny. “Is that true?”
Danny shook his head.
“Take a look after dinner, Mom,” Claudine said. “Not you, Dad. I know it would upset you terribly. Especially after this lovely spaghetti.”