Accidental Evil

by Ike Hamill

  The stop at the truck was brief. Vernon got the knife and Ricky leaned against the side. He had kept up when running, but didn’t look so hot as he stood there.

  “You need to take it slow?” Vernon asked. He slipped his belt through the sheath of the knife and kneed the door of the truck closed while he buckled his belt again.

  Ricky shook his head and swallowed. It was a lie.

  “How come,” Ricky asked, taking a breath mid sentence, “we don’t take the truck?”

  “Doesn’t start,” Vernon said. He narrowed his eyes. Wasn’t Ricky there for that conversation?

  “Let me try,” Ricky said.

  Vernon started to shake his head, but then remembered that morning. He remembered how Ricky had magically pushed the truck out of the ditch. Vernon stepped aside and gestured to his son. In the worst case they would only waste a few seconds.

  Ricky approached the door slowly, supporting himself against the truck like an old man. He was whispering to himself as he walked. Vernon took a step back. This version of his son was disturbing. Ricky slipped behind the wheel and the truck fired up.

  Vernon could barely believe it. He didn’t waste any time. He pushed the door open the rest of the way and said, “Slide over.”

  Ricky looked at him. “I have to drive.”

  Vernon shrugged and jogged around the tree that the truck was resting against. The truck started to roll backwards even as Vernon got in. He slid the knife to the side as he sat down and noticed the lump against his leg—his keys were in his pocket. His eyes went to the ignition. Ricky had started the car without keys.

  Vernon kept his mouth shut as Ricky put the truck in drive. They pulled down the road towards the intersection with 270. Ricky was keeping to the left.

  “Take a right,” Vernon said. He shouldn’t have needed to tell Ricky that. They could both see Mary and George moving up the gradual hill that led out of town.

  The truck was still headed north. It was still picking up speed as they flew by the stop sign.

  “Ricky?”

  His son looked at him. The boy’s eyes were vacant. Vernon leaned over and grabbed the steering wheel. Still looking at him, Ricky let go of the steering wheel, but it felt like it was welded into place. Vernon couldn’t move it.

  “Ricky!” Vernon shouted. He switched his hands from the steering wheel to his son’s shoulders. He shook the boy, but there was still no recognition there. Vernon gave up. He hated the notion of abandoning his eldest son, but in a spur-of-the-moment decision, Vernon threw himself against the door and pulled the handle. The handle wouldn’t budge, and the door might as well have been bolted in place.

  They were still picking up speed. It was lucky there was nobody on the road, because they were streaking right down the center line and moving too fast to stop. Of course, the window wouldn’t lower. Vernon took out his knife and rammed the butt against the glass. It had a point on it that was designed for such things. The window shattered and Vernon began to haul himself out.

  At that moment, the tires screamed and the truck rocked into a hard right turn. Vernon was collected back into the cab by the angular forces. He was driven into the frame of the window as the truck ground to a stop.

  The engine died and everything suddenly seemed too quiet.

  The door latch popped—Vernon was still halfway through the window—and his door swung open. Vernon spilled out to the pavement. He looked up and saw that they had stopped in the parking lot of the bait shop. Vernon pushed himself up to his feet. He stood as Ricky came around to his side of the truck.

  “Dad?” Ricky asked.

  Vernon looked up and studied his son’s eyes. Ricky looked like he was back, but Vernon wasn’t sure. Vernon didn’t say anything, and didn’t put his knife away. He took a half-step back and waited.

  Ricky’s arm went up. He was pointing to the big lake.

  “I think she needs help,” Ricky said.

  Vernon saw what he was pointing to. The person was slapping at the water, trying to stay afloat. Whomever it was, they did look like they needed help. Vernon took another step back from his son.

  [ Savior ]

  “Stay here,” he said to Ricky.

  Vernon shoved off and kept an eye on his son until the little boat had floated away from the dock. Then, he turned and paddled. All the boat contained was a little plastic oar, but Vernon made decent time. He just hoped that the woman would stay afloat.

  She wasn’t really flailing like a drowning person would. She simply looked exhausted. Her half-hearted strokes were barely keeping her up. She didn’t even turn to see him approach.

  Vernon’s arms were starting to burn as he pulled closer. He turned—Ricky was still standing there on the shore, looking.

  “Hey there,” Vernon said when he thought he was close enough for her to hear. It was a stupid thing to say, but he didn’t want to surprise her.

  She turned to look at him. Her eyes were wide and she gulped down water and then coughed it back up.

  Vernon slid the boat alongside her and finally recognized her. It was April Yettin. At one point, back when April was still sane, she had been a teacher at Ricky’s school. Vernon reached down and she took his hand with both of hers. She pulled his arm close to her face and smiled. For a second, he was sure that she would open those teeth and take a big bite of his flesh.

  She didn’t.

  “You’re not marked,” she said.

  “Let’s get you to the stern. Maybe I can haul you up without capsizing,” he said.

  He did just that. The boat was pretty stable, even as he lifted her up over the transom. Even soaking wet, she barely weighed anything. Her wet dress clung to her bones. Vernon looked away.

  “We’ve got to get you dried off,” he said. “You’ll catch your death.”

  She wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her focus was on the shore. Ricky stood at the base of the dock where Vernon had borrowed the boat. He started to paddle, pulling the bow around to face Ricky.

  “That’s your son,” she said.

  Vernon looked back at her in between strokes. She wasn’t quite as out to lunch as everyone said. When Mary and Louise talked about poor April, they always said that she wouldn’t recognize her own face in a mirror. Apparently she could pick out one or two faces.

  “That’s right,” Vernon said. “You taught him in fifth grade.”

  “He was one of the good ones until Uncle Harold got to him,” she said.

  Vernon stopped paddling and turned around. “What did you say?”

  They lived in a small town, so most of Ricky’s magic tricks had been learned from watching videos on the internet. But sometimes, a trick was better learned from a fellow magician. April’s uncle, Harold Yettin, had served as Ricky’s mentor more often than not. He was an amateur magician and pretty good at it from what Vernon had seen. But there was something sinister in what April had just said. It riled up the protective side of Vernon.

  Her voice lowered to a whisper, like Ricky might hear them from his spot all the way over at the shore. “Uncle Harold taught him things. He taught him things that no kid should know. I saw it through the grate in my floor.”

  A chill ran down Vernon’s spine. April had the apartment over Harold’s house, so that part made sense. But they had never let Ricky spend time alone at Harold Yettin’s house. Nothing untoward could have happened, could it?

  “What exactly are you saying?” Vernon asked.

  April was shivering, like she was feeling the same chill that Vernon felt.

  “Ricky used to come by after he worked at the marina,” April said. “I know he was working because Uncle Harold would make him wash his hands for fifteen minutes before he would let him handle the cards. He always had so much grease under his fingernails.”

  Vernon shook his head. It’s not like Ricky was working on engines at the marina. She must have been thinking of someone else.

  April kept talking. “Uncle Harold told him about different kinds
of magic. He told him about the difference between illusions and conjuring. He told him the difference between conjuring and summoning. He taught him incantations.”

  “April, your disease is catching up to you,” Vernon said. He turned back to his paddling. The current had carried them closer to shore. He didn’t have much more work to do before he’d be back on dry land. This was the first day in a while that he had spent time in one lake and on another. When they were kids, they used to take one day in the summer and ride their bikes between all four of the big lakes so they could swim in all of them in the same day. After they got to driving age, he and his friends would try to hit all the lakes, and all the major ponds. There were too many. It took all day. Now he could count on one hand the number times he had gone swimming that year. He still liked to fish, but swimming almost seemed like an inconvenience. Vernon knew what he was doing—he was trying to think of anything just to banish April’s words from his head. Ricky was standing there, looking nervous and as sweet as he had ever been. April had to be wrong.

  “He’s marked,” she said.

  “Shut up, April,” Vernon said. The bow of the boat hit the dock. “Grab the rope, boy.”

  “He’s infected,” she said.

  Ricky stood there. Vernon had to grab one of the pilings and tie the rope off himself. Ricky was frozen to his spot.

  Vernon held a hand out for April and she crossed her arms.

  “Fine,” he said to April. “Come on, Ricky. I rescued her. Let’s get going.”

  Ricky held his ground as Vernon walked by.

  “We need her,” Ricky said.

  Chapter 34 : Cormier

  [ Empty ]

  THE STREETS WERE SPOOKY. Sarah was glad to have Trina along, even though it meant that they were accompanied by Gerard. She had never seen everything so empty in the middle of summer. There was a lonely time after Labor Day, when everyone left and the town was finally rid of the Summer People. But even that lonely time seemed like a festival compared to what she saw as she walked home. The streamers had fallen down from one of the telephone poles. A merry cluster of helium balloons bumped against each other and tugged the picket fence in front of the old post office.

  It looked like all the people had been zapped out of existence.

  Sarah led the way down to her father’s house. Sarah had lived there all her life, but today the house looked different. She knew it was completely empty even before she opened the front door and called for her father.

  “I don’t think he’s home,” she said to Trina. “I guess I’ll just wait here.”

  Trina looked up at the house. Gerard seemed nervous. His head turned every direction and his eyes never settled down.

  “Maybe you ought to stick with us for now,” Trina said. “My car is parked in the lot. I’m guessing it won’t start. Then we’ll walk back to my house. It’s far enough out of town that it should be safe to wait there until whatever this is blows over.”

  “Thanks,” Sarah said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Trina nodded but didn’t move.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m going to lock the door, go to my room, and lock that door. Nobody will even know I’m inside.”

  “Okay,” Trina said. “Sounds safe enough. Come on, Gerard.” She waved to her cousin and the two of them began walking back towards the main drag. Trina was concentrating on her destination. Gerard was still looking every direction nervously.

  Sarah was true to her word. After Trina and Gerard walked away, she closed and locked the front door. She even slid the bolt. If her father came home, he would have to knock until she let him in. She repeated the process at the back door. Feeling safer, she stopped by the refrigerator. The phones and cable were out, but the electricity was still on. With the door propped open, she enjoyed the cool air and scanned for something good. Shari was on another diet. She had purged all the good food from the fridge. Sarah found a bag of carrots. It was a lousy snack, but it would have to do. She took the whole thing to her room and then locked that door behind herself.

  It was nice to be back on her home turf. After everything that had happened, her room was the one place where she felt completely in control. She amended that thought. When she was alone in the house, her room was the one place she felt in control. When Shari was home, she invaded everywhere.

  Sarah stretched out on her bed and checked her devices. Her tablet and her phone both agreed—there was no internet to be had. Whatever had taken out the lines was still a problem. Sarah sighed and picked up a book instead.

  [ Arrival ]

  Sarah jumped to her feet when she heard the sound. She had been half asleep—reading sometimes did that to her. She moved to her door and unlocked it. She figured it might be her dad. They had a deadbolt on the front and back doors. When locked from the inside, they couldn’t opened from the outside at all. Sarah moved towards the front door.

  She heard the sound again. She had a second to evaluate it.

  Someone banged on the door and then fumbled with the handle.

  “Hello?” Sarah called. She instantly regretted it. The banging came again. This time, the person was banging over and over. This wasn’t a polite knock. This was the insistence of a crazy person. Sarah didn’t even want to get close enough to know who was making the noise.

  She moved to the living room window, where she could peek around the blinds and see what was happening out there. She pushed down one of the blinds and looked. It was Shari. Her father’s girlfriend was standing there, banging on the door with a balled-up fist.

  Sarah moved back to the door, but paused before unlocking it. Where was her father? Why was Shari banging on the door like that and not saying anything? Sarah looked through the peephole and saw Shari’s face. Her expression was completely blank.

  Her hand automatically moved for the lock. She paused with the bolt halfway across its track.

  “Where’s my father?” Sarah asked through the door. When she looked through the peephole again, she saw a huge, distorted version of Shari’s face.

  “Shari? Say something, would you? You’re freaking me out.”

  Shari didn’t move and didn’t blink. Sarah looked at the lock. She was about to open it anyway when she heard breaking glass from the other side of the house. Sarah took her hand off the bolt, leaving it engaged, and pulled back from the door. She left silent Shari on the other side of the door—she could rot there as far as Sarah was concerned—and trotted for the kitchen. One time a bird had gotten confused about the sun reflecting off of one of the kitchen windows and it had smashed right through. Sarah expected to find a bloody bird on the floor when she…

  Sarah stopped in the doorway.

  There were no birds.

  The thing climbing up over the broken glass looked like a kid’s drawing of a lobster. It was a gray block of metal with a truckload of little scrabbling claws on the bottom. The front door was a short jog, but silent Shari with her peephole-distorted head was on the other side. Sarah looked at her own bedroom door, but didn’t even consider it. What if that window was broken too?

  The stairs led up to a half-finished attic, where her brother had lived. Sarah chose that. Pounding up the stairs, she burst through into the dry heat and ran for the window. Her brother’s air conditioner was still mounted there. It was installed, but turned off.

  Something was clicking and sliding on the stairs. Sarah ran back and slammed the door. Jeffrey had a terrible lock on his door—she hoped it would hold back the lobster thing. Back at the window, she managed to force the lower sash up, ripping out the flimsy screws that held the window unit in place. When she pulled on the top of the AC, it rocked and then tumbled inside. Jeffrey would kill her when he saw it. She would worry about that later.

  Sarah slipped through the window, and out onto the roof. It was a narrow skirt of a roof, interrupted by the dormer that framed Jeffrey’s room. Sarah balanced on the angled surface, and tread carefully. The hot shingles were slippery. She had
done this jump a million times when she was younger. It was a paradox—most things looked smaller as she got older. Somehow, the distance of the jump to the shed roof had grown over the years.

  There was another of the robot lobsters down on the lawn. It was marching the thin strip of grass between their house and the Hammond’s house next door. After spotting that, Sarah was driven forward. She took two more big steps, gaining speed, and leapt for the shed. She nearly overshot. Sarah caught her balance before tumbling over the other side. She turned and climbed down the trellis to the driveway.

  [ Departure ]

  Sarah ran for the street. She glanced back at the front door and didn’t see Shari. She didn’t slow. On her best day, Shari was irritating. This new silent version of Shari was downright terrifying. Something was rolling down the driveway of the next house. Sarah slowed to see it. The thing was so improbable, that a smile actually played at the corner of her mouth.

  It was shaped like one of those tall, cylindrical trash cans, like they had at the post office, but it was tipped to the side. Somehow, the thing was balanced at that strange angle and rolling on the edge of the round base. It looked like it would tip over any second, but it kept rolling.

  Her smile disappeared when she realized that it was rolling on an intercept course with her path. Sarah veered and ran faster. She didn’t look back.

  When she got out to the main road, Sarah turned back towards the south end of town, where she had left the others.

  The high whine of a strained engine approached. Sarah changed course again and ducked off to the side until she was hidden by a tall bush in front of the Inn. Peeking between the leaves, she saw a truck blow through town at high speed. It was hard to tell from her position, but she thought it might have been Ricky’s dad.