by JL Bryan
Jenny checked his room to see if he was napping, but his door was open and he wasn't there.
“Dad?” She walked back up the hall. “Dad? Are you here?”
The kitchen table and two chairs were turned over on their sides. Jenny ran into the kitchen. “Dad?”
Broken dishes and cups littered the floor, including fragments of the Happy Days collector's glasses. Jenny's dad lay slumped against the kitchen wall, his eyes empty and staring straight ahead.
“Daddy!” Jenny screamed as she ran to him. Something was pinned to the front of his shirt, rumpled brown paper with letters from newspapers and magazines glued to it, like a ransom note. The letters across the top read:
SETH DIES TONIGHT
Beneath that was a crude marker drawing of an eye with a gray iris. The note was signed in smaller cutout letters:
YOU KNOW WHO
Jenny grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Dad!”
He took a sharp breath of air, looking at her briefly—his eyes confused, seeing her and not seeing her at the same time—and then he rolled onto his hands and knees and crawled away from her, ignoring the broken glass and porcelain that cut his hands.
“Dad, stop! You're hurting yourself!”
He mumbled something and crawled faster.
Jenny wondered if he'd been drinking again, after months of being sober. But this wasn't his usual drunken behavior, either. This was just plain weird, and it scared her.
“Dad, where are you going?” She followed him as he crawled down the hall and into his room. He got up on his knees and peeked out the window, then ducked down as if something was about to come hurling through the glass.
“She's coming,” he said. “She's watching.”
“Who?”
“My daughter,” he whispered. “She killed my wife and she's coming back to kill me. Just a matter of time.”
“Dad, I'm...” Jenny decided not to finish the thought. If he was afraid of her, maybe it was best not to point out that she was, in fact, his daughter. “What happened? Was somebody here?”
“They're coming for me,” he whispered. He peeked out the window again. “They're coming for all of us.”
“Nobody's coming for us.” Jenny touched his arm.
“Get back!” He howled and pulled away from her. He tripped over a pair of his shoes, and his head knocked into the end table by the bed. The lamp and alarm clock toppled from the table as it crashed to the floor.
“Dad! Are you okay?”
He pulled his knees to his chest and lay on the floor in a fetal position, shivering.
“Dad, answer me!”
“They're coming,” he whispered. “They're all coming now.”
“Where's your cell phone?”
“It's all gone,” he whispered. “All this, it's all gone, they're taking it all away...”
“Is it in the kitchen? Wait right here, okay?” Jenny ran to the kitchen and found his phone on the counter, then ran back to his room. He was shaking, staring through her, terrified.
She didn't know what was wrong with him, but Seth could fix it. Jenny dialed Seth's cell.
“Hey, this is Seth, leave a message.” His voicemail answered immediately, which meant his phone was turned off. The voicemail beeped.
“Fuck!” Jenny said. “Seth, it's Jenny. This is my dad's phone. Call back now, okay? It's an emergency. Seriously. Okay? Please?”
She hung up. Her dad got to his feet and stumbled out to the hall, still muttering under his breath.
“Dad? Where are you going now?” She followed him up the hall. His shoulder kept banging against the wall, knocking down framed photographs, as if he were having trouble keeping his balance.
“I got to get the gun,” he said. He doubled back and pushed by her, though she tried to stop him. “Before they come back.”
“Dad, please, do not do that.” She followed him back to his room. He knelt by the bed and rooted underneath it, where he kept his shotgun. “Dad, no!” She dropped down beside him and pulled back on his arms. “We don't need the gun.”
“You ain't listening to me!” He looked at her, but he still didn't seem to recognize her. “They’re coming for all of us.”
“Nobody's coming.” The cell phone in her pocket was silent as death. Why wouldn't Seth call back? “Come on, Dad. Maybe you need to go to the hospital.” She hooked a hand under his arm to help him up.
“No!” he shouted. He crawled away from her.
“They can help you,” Jenny said.
“They're after me.” He crawled into the hallway again.
“Nobody's after you.” Jenny followed him, trying not to cry now. She didn't know what to do, and there was nobody to help her.
He crawled to a corner of the living and pulled his knees to his chest, head low.
“Dad, please.” Jenny took his hands. “Just let me take you to the hospital.”
“You ain't taking me nowhere. You get the hell out of my house!”
“Dad...” Jenny couldn't help it, she was really crying now. “Dad, come on. Just get up on your feet.”
“What do you want with me?” he asked.
“I'm just trying to get you help,” she said. “Come on, stand up.”
He looked at her with deep suspicion, but he did let her help him stand.
“This way,” Jenny whispered. “It's gonna be okay.”
She led him toward the front door, and he leaned heavily on her. She managed to get him out through the screen door and down the steps. Then she guided him toward the car and opened the passenger door.
“Oh, hell no!” He shouted. He pulled away from her and ran into the shed.
“Daddy, stop!” Jenny ran after him.
She found him crouched behind the workbench, looking around. When he saw her, he ducked his head out of sight.
“Dad, come on.”
“You're gonna kill me,” he said.
“I am not!” Jenny didn't even try to stop her tears from pouring out. This whole situation was confusing and frightening.
“Dad, come on...” Jenny struggled to think of what to do. Her mother's name popped into her head. “Your wife is waiting for you. Miriam.”
“Miriam?” He looked up. “Where?”
“We're going to see her.” Jenny held out one gloved hand. “Right now. But we have to hurry.”
“Miriam,” he whispered. He took her hand, and Jenny helped him stand again.
“This way,” Jenny said. She walked him out to the car, and this time he was willing to sit inside it. Jenny hurried to close his door and run around to the driver's side.
“I ain't seen Miriam...” he whispered as Jenny started the car. “I ain't seen Miriam since...”
“Just settle down,” Jenny said. He was squirming and fidgeting in his seat as they backed out of the driveway.
“Miriam... Miriam...” he whispered. Jenny stepped on the gas. It was twenty-five minutes to the county hospital, if you obeyed the speed limit, which she didn't plan to do.
The longer they drove, the more agitated her dad became. He started slapping at the window by his head. “Where we going?” he demanded.
“I told you. The hospital.”
“Aw, no.” He pulled at the door handle, and the passenger door opened. The road outside flew past at sixty miles an hour. He lifted one foot from the floor, clearly intending to step out of the moving car.
“Daddy, no!” Jenny grabbed him and pulled him back. The forward motion of the car closed the door. Jenny wished she had automatic locks, or that she'd locked the door or put on his seatbelt before starting the car. Or that her dad hadn't gone completely crazy in the first place.
He stared at the car door, looking puzzled. Fortunately, he didn't make another attempt to open it.
The county hospital was a single-story brick building. Jenny pulled into a parking spot near the front door labeled EMERGENCY ONLY. She ran to open his door.
“Come on, Dad.” She held out a hand to him. “
We're here.”
His eyes narrowed with suspicion at he stared at the hospital. “Where we at?”
“We're just going to the hospital for a minute, and then we'll go back home.”
“I don't like this. Where's my daughter?”
“She's coming,” Jenny said.
“You better call her.”
He pushed himself out of the car and began to stumble across the parking lot, away from the hospital.
“No, this way.” Jenny took his arm and turned him around. The brown piece of paper fluttered on his shirt like a child's bib. Jenny tore it away and stuffed it in her jeans pocket.
The clear doors to the emergency room slid apart automatically as Jenny walked him in. The bright fluorescent lights gave the hospital an unreal, washed-out look.
Jenny brought her dad to the front desk, where a bored nurse looked up from a portable TV.
“Yes?” the nurse asked.
“Hi,” Jenny said. “This is my dad.”
Jenny's dad stood beside her, fidgeting and looking around the waiting room, but not doing anything obvious to indicate his confused state.
“Yes?” the nurse asked.
“He's really off,” Jenny said. “Like not making any sense.”
“Sir?” the nurse said. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Huh?” He had troubled focusing on her—his head kept moving around. “Just looking for my wife.”
“She's been dead eighteen years,” Jenny whispered to the nurse. “Almost nineteen.”
“Is he on medication?” The nurse looked her dad up and down with a hint of disgust. “Or drugs? Alcohol?”
“Nothing like that,” Jenny said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
The nurse nodded and handed her a stack of forms on a clipboard. “Fill these out. We'll need your insurance information.”
“Um...” Jenny said.
“You do have insurance, don't you?”
“Maybe. Dad, let me see your wallet.”
Her dad stared at a framed photograph on the wall, which showed a decrepit old general store with a prominent Coca-Cola sign. He seemed lost inside it. Jenny poked his arm.
“Huh?” he asked.
“Your wallet.” Jenny held out her hand. “Give me your wallet.”
“Oh. Okay.” He took his wallet out and held it in her general direction. Jenny took it from his hand.
“You gonna give that back, right?” he asked.
“Yes, Dad.” She flipped through the wallet for a minute. “I can't find anything about health insurance.”
“Indigent,” the nurse sighed. “Go have a seat and fill out those forms. Someone will see you when they're available.”
“Okay, thanks.” Jenny led her dad to the row of hard plastic seats in the waiting room. She couldn't make him sit, so she let him stand where he was, gawking at everything.
Jenny filled in all the information she could, looking up frequently to make sure he hadn't wandered off. He was trembling and shuffling his feet around, but he seemed a bit calmer now.
After fifteen minutes, she returned the clipboard of forms to the nurse.
“Have a seat,” the nurse said. She seemed a lot colder now, having determined that Jenny's dad might be poor and uninsured.
Jenny sat. She reached into the pocket where she'd put her dad's cell phone. The crumpled brown paper was on top of it, so she had to pull that out first. She'd been in such a panic that she hadn't really looked at it.
Now she unfolded it.
SETH DIES TONIGHT.
YOU KNOW WHO.
It was Ashleigh's opposite, Jenny thought. He must have inflicted a massive dose of fear on her dad.
The gray eye was one clue, and so were the words “You Know Who.” That was what everyone called the villain, Lord Voldemort, in the Harry Potter books. Ashleigh's first big campaign, when she was a sophomore in high school, was to get Harry Potter banned from all the school libraries in the county, on the grounds that it promoted witchcraft to children. The whole thing had just been a big power trip for Ashleigh.
Jenny dialed Seth, but it went straight to voice mail again, so she tried Darcy’s cell phone, though she was a little unsure about the last digit of Darcy’s number.
“Guten tag!” Darcy’s voice answered. “You’ve reached Darcy. Leave a message, okay? I will definitely call you back.”
The phone beeped.
“Darcy, it’s Jenny, it’s an emergency. Y’all might be in danger, and I need to talk to Seth right now. Please, please call me back right away.”
She hung up the phone. A nurse was approaching, so Jenny shoved the nightmare boy’s note back in her pocket.
“Mr. Morton?” the nurse said.
Jenny’s dad just looked at the picture of the Coca-Cola sign.
“That’s him,” Jenny said.
The nurse put a hand on his arm and he jumped.
“Mr. Morton, we need to go this way,” the nurse said. She led him toward a pair of double doors that said STAFF AND PATIENTS ONLY.
‘Where are we going?” He started to shake again. He looked back over his shoulder at Jenny. “Where are we going? Where are we going?”
“You’re gonna be okay, Dad.” Jenny’s voice broke when she said “Dad,” and she looked down at the floor to hide the renewed rush of tears behind her long black hair.
Jenny raised the cell phone to her face again.
“You ain’t supposed to use those in here!” the front desk nurse shouted. “Take it outside.”
“Okay, sorry.” Jenny walked to the double doors.
“Can afford a nice, fancy cell phone, can’t be bothered to buy insurance,” the nurse muttered. The clear Plexiglas doors closed behind Jenny.
Jenny didn’t know how her dad’s boxy, paint-stained old phone could be considered “nice” or “fancy,” but she had much more important things to do than argue with some stupid nurse.
She tried Seth again, and then Darcy. Nobody answered.
Jenny found June’s number in her dad’s phone and called her instead. June had been dating her dad for a few months now, and she was the only person Jenny knew to call for help.
“Hi, sugar!” June said. In the background, someone shouted an order for two scrambled eggs and raisin toast.
“It’s me, Jenny.”
“Well, hello, sweet potato.”
“Do you know if my dad has any, like, health insurance?”
“Oh, good Lord, what’s happened?”
“He’s had some kind of…I’m at the hospital, and—”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s just had some kind of…nervous breakdown thing.”
“Are you at Eldritch County Hospital?”
“Yes.”
“My shift’s almost over. I’ll be there in ten, fifteen, twenty minutes.”
“Wow, thanks,” Jenny said. “Actually, I have a whole other emergency with Seth, and I have to go find him. So I might not be here.”
“What’s happening with Seth?”
“That’s a long story.”
“Well, honey, they ain’t gonna let me in to see him. Only kin.”
“Shit. Tell them you’re engaged. And I’ll tell them you’re engaged, too. Maybe that will work.”
“I guess I do have my ring from my first marriage,” June said. “I’ll put that on and give it a try. I’ll be there in ten, fifteen, twenty—”
“Thanks, June.”
Jenny tried calling Seth and Darcy again. She paced in front of the hospital for half a minute, then tried another time. Nobody was answering. She ran back inside to the front desk nurse, who was opening a little jar of fingernail polish.
“Any news on my dad?”
The nurse sighed. “We’ll tell you when there’s something to tell you.”
“Okay, well, I have to go. My dad’s fiancé is coming to check on him.”
“Whatever.”
“I’ll try to find if there’s any insurance stuff, too.�
��
“Sure you will.” The nurse began painting her fingernails.
Jenny ran out to her car and cranked it up, but then she sat for a minute. She didn’t like the idea of leaving town when her dad was like this, before she even knew whether the hospital would really be able to help. Maybe they could sedate him, but he would probably still have nightmares.
It was also obvious that Ashleigh’s opposite was setting a trap for her. Jenny’s dad was just a warning—he was threatening to kill Seth. She felt stupid walking right into it, but the guy did seem like a person capable of murder. And Seth had no idea he was coming—unless the guy had already gotten to Seth.
She took a deep breath and put the car in reverse. She would have to drive all the way to Charleston, and she couldn’t even remember the name of the hotel where they were staying. She hoped somebody was answering their phone by the time she got there.
Jenny sped past a Palmetto Bug gas station, towards Highway 63 and the Atlantic Ocean. She felt like the ground had opened beneath her and she was falling fast, and there was nobody left to catch her.
Chapter Forty
“Dude, at the Sig Alph house last weekend, they had sixty pounds of crayfish, six kegs of Heiney, and we ate all that shit,” Wooly said. “It was off the chain, gang.”
“This is pretty good,” Ashleigh said. They were sitting on the sidewalk curb—Ashleigh, Seth, Wooly and the other two Grayson boys, Steven Hunter and Adam Branderford (“Skunker” and “Aces,” as far as Wooly was concerned). Everyone had a Styrofoam bowl of Frogmore stew, which they’d bought from an old lady at a wooden festival booth.
“This ain’t shit,” Wooly said. “My uncle makes a mean lowcountry boil. Fat shrimp he catches himself on his boat, hot sausage, corn, potatoes, Old Bay, splash in some Tabasco—bam. That’s eating like a motherfucking king, S-dog.”
“Those are the same ingredients here, too,” Seth said. He wasn’t liking the S-dog nickname Wooly kept trying to apply to him. He poked a shrimp with his spoon. “Those are the basic ingredients of any boil, aren’t they?”
“Man, there’s ingredients, and then there’s fucking ingredients, you know what I’m saying?” Wooly said.