Accidental Evil

by Ike Hamill

  Her mother nodded. “Be home for dinner.”

  Lily pulled back from the doorway.

  “Say thank you,” her mother called.

  “Thanks,” Lily yelled. She ran through the kitchen and grabbed her raincoat on the way.

  [ Trick ]

  Her shorts were soaked by the time she got to the center of town. The back wheel of her bike sent up a spray from underneath. She dropped her bike on the lawn of Dawn’s and ran up to the window.

  When it slid to the side, Ricky was the one looking out at her.

  “What do you want?” he asked in a fake voice.

  She tried to see past him, but the booth was dark inside. “Is Sarah in there? I have to talk to her.”

  “Come around to the side. She’ll be right back,” Ricky said.

  There was a torrent of water coming off the side of the building. Lily ducked under it as Ricky held open the door.

  “You’re soaked!”

  She shook the water from her jacket and started to peel it off. The inside of the booth was warm and dry. Heat practically baked off the coils on the freezer. Still, Lily shivered. Ricky went to a back cabinet and pulled out a stack of old towels.

  “Here—dry yourself off,” he said, fluffing out a bright pink towel.

  She thanked him and dabbed it at her face. The towel was soft and smelled of potpourri. Ricky shook out her jacket and hung it on a hook next to his. He handed her another towel for her hair and then a third for her legs. She wrapped them around herself and then took a seat on the stool when he offered.

  “We have no business today, so Sarah went with Joey up to the distributor for something. They were supposed to be back ten minutes ago,” Ricky said.

  “Oh,” Lily said.

  “What’s going on?”

  Lily looked through the little order window towards the lake. The rain made the surface dance and boil. She wondered what it would be like to be a fish down in the lake. She wondered if rain confused them.

  “Lily?” Ricky asked.

  “Oh. Nothing, I guess. I think I made a mistake is all. Do you know Trina Prescott?”

  Ricky nodded. “Sure. She lives up towards Christy’s, right?”

  “Yeah,” Lily said. She never told anyone that Trina was their housekeeper. It was too embarrassing. All the kids already thought she was From Away. She didn’t need yet another reason for them to alienate her. Elizabeth had gone away to private school as soon as the kids had really started to tease her about her family being rich. Lily had stubbornly wanted to stay with her friends. Elizabeth was probably the smart one. She was off visiting the world while Lily was still struggling with other people’s idea of her life.

  “Lily? What about her?”

  “Oh,” Lily realized that her mind had wandered. Ricky probably thought she was crazy. “She’s coming to live with me while my parents are going away. I wanted to stay so I could go to my horse events, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “Don’t you have people around?” Ricky asked.

  Everyone else had “people.” They all had extended families that ran deep and who lived no more than a few minutes away. That was the real thing that made Lily’s family “From Away.” They didn’t have any people within a hundred miles.

  Lily didn’t say all that. She simply said, “No.”

  “Well then Trina sounds good, right?”

  “It’s not her,” Lily said.

  Understanding dawned over Ricky’s face. He could be oblivious at times, but other times he seemed to have real insight.

  “The Dingus,” Ricky said.

  Lily smiled, despite her preoccupation.

  Ricky smiled back.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said.

  Lily frowned again. It would be nice if just once someone would take her seriously.

  “Hey,” Ricky said, “you want to see the trick I’m going to do for my grand finale?”

  “Sure,” Lily said. The last time she had watched Ricky do magic, it had been embarrassing for everyone. He had done his act in front of an assembly at school and some of the older boys had heckled him the entire time. The worst part was their teacher—he did nothing to shut down the shouts. Ricky had looked like he wanted to cry by the end. But that had been a couple of years before. She hoped he had improved.

  “Excellent,” Ricky said. “I don’t have a stage or anything here.” He looked around and dragged a milk crate out from under the sink. “You have to imagine that I’m up on the stage in front of the gazebo and I have footlights, okay?”

  “Sure,” she said. The towels had grown damp from soaking up the rain, but they were warm. She pulled at the one wrapped around her shoulders to make it tight.

  Ricky climbed up on the milk crate.

  “They’re not really going to be footlights. I’m going to use a mirror to reflect the sun. Oh, wait,” he said. He jumped down and went back to the bottom shelf of one of the racks. He pulled out a lamp with a heavy base and a hooded bulb that was on the end of a snake-like arm. He set it on the floor and plugged it in. When he turned it on, it lit up the milk crate and the wall behind. Ricky climbed back up into the spotlight. He looked much more grand with the light glowing from underneath.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Much,” she said.

  His nose cast a spooky shadow on his face. Lily hugged the towel tighter around herself as he prepared to start.

  He spoke with a deep, dramatic tone completely unlike his normal voice. Lily’s eyes grew wide as he spoke.

  “In ancient Babylon, the city of Mesopotamia was the home of the world’s greatest wizard, Abil-Ili.”

  Ricky raised his arms and his voice.

  “With a wave of his hand, he could strike a man dead.”

  Ricky whispered something that was lost behind the sound of distant thunder rolling across the lake.

  “When enemies would come for Abil-Ili, he would rise to his feet and declare himself protected by God. But it wasn’t God who protected Abil-Ili, it was the demons on the wind. Through my study, I too have mastered those demons. I say, ‘Carry me, demons of the Eastern Wind. Carry me away from my foes and deliver me from their attacks.’”

  As Ricky bellowed these dramatic lines, he seemed to grow taller and taller. His lips moved and it seemed like he was chanting some mantra, or trying to convince himself of something. Lily’s eye was pulled down as Ricky kicked with one foot. He shoved the milk crate to the side but stayed suspended in mid air. Lit from below, his smile was that of a mad man taking his revenge on an indifferent world.

  “Ricky!” she gasped

  The thunder boomed, this time even closer.

  “Carry me!” Ricky shouted. “And set me down beyond the mountains in the North. Your reward will be an immortal vessel.” When he whispered again, his feet began to drift down again, once more making contact with the floor. The lightning flashed in the window this time, adding even more drama to the performance.

  Ricky threw up his hands when he was once again standing. “Tada!”

  He bent down and switched the lamp off.

  “Of course I can’t expect the thunder and lightning to help out my performance on Saturday. It’s supposed to be a nice sunny day. I have more of a platform to kick over though. I think it will add to the drama, you know?”

  Lily just sat there with the towel pulled tight around her neck.

  “Lily? What did you think?”

  “Ricky, that was the creepiest thing in the whole world. How did you levitate?”

  He smiled and exhaled a quick laugh. “It’s just a trick. It just looks like I’m levitating because of the lights. That’s why I needed to be lit from below. It’s a trick.”

  She shook her head. “You were going to do it without the light. Do it again. This time don’t use the light, but do it again exactly the same.”

  Ricky shook his head. “I don’t want to ruin it for you.”

  “Please ruin it for me. I don’t want to have that in my h
ead, Ricky.” All she wanted was to have a nice, normal day. She wanted no more puzzling mysteries or unknown futures.

  “You can see it again on the Fourth, okay?”

  “No, Ricky, I’m serious.”

  The door banged inward and Lily jumped. A hooded figure ran in and slammed the door shut again. Sarah shucked off her dripping coat, pulling it over her head. When she shook her hair, water flew every direction. Lily lifted the towel in front of her eyes.

  “What are you guys doing?” Sarah asked.

  “Show Sarah the trick, Ricky,” Lily said.

  “I can’t. Besides, she’s already seen it.”

  “Really?” Lily asked.

  Sarah glanced down at the floor and saw the crate. “What, the ancient Babylonia thing? Yeah, I saw that. Ricky fell off the milk crate at the end. No offense, Ricky, but it needs work.”

  “Not the way I just saw it,” Lily said. “It was perfect.”

  Ricky looked down at the floor, blushing. His reaction made Lily feel a little better. Maybe it was just a trick.

  “I still want to know how it’s done,” she said. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  “He never tells his tricks,” Sarah said. She took the towel that was draped over Lily’s legs and started to dry her own hair. Lily let the other towel drop from her shoulders. “He’s a total snot about his tricks.”

  “I can’t tell,” Ricky said. “The tricks lose their power to entertain if other people know how they’re done. It affects the performance or something.”

  “Whatever,” Sarah said. “Someone must have shown it to you.”

  There was a lull while Ricky seemed to be trying to come up with a response. Lily jumped in and changed the subject. “Can I talk to you in private?” she asked Sarah. Her friend nodded.

  [ Friend ]

  They closed the door of the stock closet. The twin of the snake-neck lamp gave them illumination. Both girls wore towels around their necks. They were the wet-hair club, convening for their first secret meeting. Outside the door, Ricky had the radio on so he wouldn’t overhear what they were saying.

  Sarah looked at Lily while she got ready to spill her secret.

  “Can I stay at your house for a few weeks?” Lily asked.

  Sarah was shaking her head before she even opened her mouth to speak. “That’s a terrible idea. If anything, I should be coming to stay with you. Shari is over all the time and when Dad comes home he’s either yelling at me or feeling her up. It’s a horror show at my house.”

  Lily dropped her head and tried to hold back the tears. They were totally irrational—she knew that—but they were coming anyway.

  Sarah reached out and took her hand. At times, Sarah was like a best friend. But most of the time, Sarah felt like the older sister that Elizabeth should have been. Lily looked up and wondered how life would be if Sarah liked her more.

  “What’s wrong?” Sarah asked.

  Tears started rolling down her cheeks, but at least she was still able to talk.

  “I don’t think I’m going to be safe there. I’ve made a huge mistake.”

  “What?”

  Lily told her about Trina and Gerard Dingus. She told her about the way Gerard was looking up towards the house. She looked Sarah in the eyes and waited for the older girl to tell her she was being silly. She waited for the assurance that everything was going to be okay.

  Sarah set her jaw and regarded Lily for a second. When she spoke, her voice was all business. “You’re in a world of shit,” she said.

  Lily caught her breath.

  “That guy is a straight up pervert. I don’t know if he has graduated to full-on rape yet, but he was super into exposing himself to anyone around him. I heard he used to jerk off right in class before they pulled him from school. One time they found him jizzing into a water fountain at Town Hall.”

  “You’re kidding!” Lily said. Her heart felt like it was going to explode from her chest.

  Sarah shook her head slowly. “Eventually they removed him so he wouldn’t interact with anyone else. The Prescotts are powerful around here, but even they couldn’t keep rescuing him from everyone. Some People From Away caught him messing with their dog down at the boat launch and they wanted to call in the state cops. That’s when they swept Dingus away and didn’t let him out anymore. At least that’s what I heard.”

  Lily covered her hands with her face. “I won’t be able to sleep at night.”

  “Just go to your folks. Tell them you changed your mind and you don’t want to stay here anymore. Trina can still house sit, and she can still have the Dingus there. Just make sure he’s gone by the time you’re back.”

  “I can’t,” Lily said. “They’ve already bought their tickets. They’ll do a lot of things, but they won’t change their plane tickets. I have to find another place to go. Maybe my Aunt down in Ohio will take me.”

  “Wait a sec,” Sarah said. “Maybe we can solve two problems at once. Why don’t I come stay with you? He won’t try anything with two of us there. I can bring my inflatable bed and sleep on your floor.”

  “Would you do that?”

  “You have to clear it with Trina. I’m sure your parents won’t care, and I won’t give my dad a choice. He’ll probably welcome having the house to himself and Shari.”

  Lily forced herself to take a deep breath. It already felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. With her friend there, nothing would go wrong. All she had to do was convince Trina that it was a good idea, and then her parents would fall in line.

  “Make it clear that I’ll buy my own food, do my own laundry, and clean up after myself, okay?”

  “My parents won’t care,” Lily said. “They wouldn’t mind either way.”

  “Yeah, but it will mean something to Trina,” Sarah said. “Make sure you tell her.”

  Lily nodded.

  Chapter 14 : Yettin

  [ Aware ]

  AS SHE WALKED DOWN the stairs, the rain poured off the roof and soaked through her dress. She didn’t mind. All that water made her feel safe against the robots. Logic insisted that robots would hate rain. It would probably rust their mechanisms and short out their circuits. April turned her face towards the sky and welcomed the falling drops.

  When she got to the bottom of the stairs, the front door of the house swung inwards and she saw a familiar face poke out of the dark.

  “April, honey, where are you going? You’ll catch your death out there in the rain.”

  Her uncle was padded in layers of fat. He was a prime target for the invasion. They would use his belly fat as fuel, and render the strips of fat from his back to grease their machinery. She saw his puffy cheeks as little batteries, ready for harvest.

  “Death rides a mechanical horse,” she said. “These mechanical contraptions are seen as harbingers of progress, but they’re really screaming for our demise.”

  Her uncle closed the door until he was only looking through a gap of a couple of inches. “Please try to stay dry,” he said. He closed the door.

  She silently wished that he would be taken quickly, so he wouldn’t have to suffer. April took one more look back at her house, so she could fix its location. She thought that if she maintained a really clear picture of where it was, it might have to stay put until she returned. April headed for the street.

  A line of slow cars carried people south, towards the highway. Down that stretch of road they would find big box stores and chain restaurants. It was a mechanical city, filled with opportunities to sit and grow fatter. Meanwhile, the people parked their cars into a conspiratorial grid. All those machines, side to side and nose to nose couldn’t help but join their minds together and then plot and plan.

  April stopped and stared at the girl across the street. It was that helpful girl—the “who instead of that” girl. April didn’t know what the idea meant, but she knew it pertained. She couldn’t remember the name, but she recognized her blond hair even though it was plastered to her head and dark
ened with rain. She raised her hand to wave to the girl but stopped and slowly let her hand drop. The girl was pushing her bicycle. That wasn’t the problem—a bicycle was a dumb machine, nothing to worry about. The problem was the cold fire in the girl’s eyes. She was lit from within with robot intelligence. They had gotten to her. They had taken over her slim body. There was no fat on her frame to fuel their malevolence, so they had infected her instead.

  April shrunk back from the road and hoped the girl wouldn’t see her.

  She didn’t.

  The girl mounted her bike and stood on the pedals to get it going. She rode south. April turned north, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds to make sure that the girl didn’t turn around and come back for her.

  Chapter 15 : Dingus

  [ Golf ]

  JULY 3

  TRINA HADN’T wasted any time. It was like she thought that the offer would be rescinded if she didn’t take them up on it right away. Gerard sat on what they called a “day bed.” It was an extra-deep couch with a mattress instead of cushions. His feet didn’t touch the floor when he sat on it. He felt like a little kid.

  The woman of the house—Wendy, if he remembered correctly—walked by the open door and glanced at him. She almost paused. She wasn’t the type of hostess who would ask if he wanted anything. He was expected to fend for himself, he supposed.

  Gerard pushed up from the day bed and moved towards the door.

  Trina appeared like magic, filling the doorway.

  She kept her voice low, as if she thought that everyone would be trying to overhear. “Please stay out of everyone’s way for the next couple of days,” she said. “I want them to feel comfortable leaving us here.”

  Gerard nodded and smiled. He could have told her what she already knew—these were the type of parents who just expected that everything was going to go their way. It always had—why would their luck turn bad now? But Trina was the one looking for assurance. He would give it to her. She could make his life difficult if she wanted. There was no reason to rock the boat.