I followed behind him, breaking into a trot to keep up with his chair.
But Calvin pressed his brake and we nearly collided. “There she is again,” he hissed, tapping my hand furiously. “Doesn’t she creep you out, even a little?”
Little Miss Sunshine, as Calvin had called her, was busy inspecting the nutrition information on the backs of two different bags of corn chips. Her long, blond hair was swept up in an elegant French chignon. She hadn’t bothered to take off her sunglasses.
I scooped up a box of graham crackers and left the aisle. Calvin followed me this time.
Once the woman was out of earshot, I told him, “The only weird thing about her is that she looks like she’s rolling in dough, unlike most Sav’A’Buck customers.” I shrugged. “But we probably stick out here too.” I found the aisle for candy and grabbed a humongous bag of chocolate. “So give her a break.”
Calvin acknowledged his two-hundred-dollar polo shirt and shrugged. “Eh, you’re right,” he replied, and popped his collar.
“That’s lame, by the way,” I said, and found an empty basket to dump my purchases into.
“What?” Calvin replied, his expression one of mock offense. “Girl, you are just jealous because you can’t pull off the look.”
“Sooo jealous,” I replied sarcastically. I was perfectly happy in my jean shorts and plain black tank top. Nobody needed to know my mom had spent a fortune for both articles of clothing. If it were up to me, I’d wear clothes from the local consignment shop, thank you very much. People were going hungry these days, and obviously many of them were right here in Harrisburg. That was way creepier, IMO, than Little Miss Sunshine jonesing for cheap, salty grease.
Calvin poked his nose into my basket. “Would you mind telling me exactly how white girls from the north make s’mores? Where I come from, we use marshmallows.”
“Dammit!” I’d forgotten to grab a bag when we were in the candy aisle.
“Come on,” Calvin replied, and reached for my basket. He set it atop his lap and followed me as I sprinted back toward aisle eight.
“Skylar, slow your ass down!” Calvin whined, but when I did, he zoomed past me, laughing.
“Oh, it’s on,” I said, pushing to keep up. “I could totally beat you in a race.”
It was Calvin’s turn to roll his eyes when we both had to slow for oncoming traffic. “Oh, yeah? How much you wanna bet?”
“I’ll have to think about it,” I answered, and that’s when the screaming started.
Calvin grabbed for my arm. “What the…”
I turned to see a little old lady frozen in fear at the end of aisle eight. Then other voices joined the chorus, including a woman reciting the “Our Father” in Spanish.
“Don’t,” Calvin said, holding my elbow to keep me from walking toward them.
It was then that the screaming was replaced by a loud ccccccrrraaaaaacccck.
All I could smell was fish. Lots of fish. Enough fish so that I hoped and prayed I would never, ever have to eat sushi again for as long as I lived. My nose burned, and I swallowed hard a couple times to keep from heaving.
And then, Little Miss Sunshine rounded the corner.
“Oh, sheee-it!” Calvin exclaimed.
And I had to agree.
At first, I thought her body was facing me, but after a moment I realized that, somehow, her head had pivoted almost completely around. Her chin rested awkwardly on her shoulder blade, and she was walking backward just to see where she was going. It was like that old Exorcist movie my mom watched every year at Halloween, but this lady was real, and she was heading in our direction.
She was also smiling.
“Okay, eff the s’mores, Sky. I’m out,” Calvin said, his voice carefully even. But I wasn’t moving, and neither was he.
Little Miss Sunshine, on the other hand…she was getting closer.
I didn’t know where her sunglasses had gone, but I could see her eyes now. They were wild. And she had a terrible smile, like the Cheshire cat had up and lost it.
“Sky?” Calvin said, and I knew for a second what it must feel like to be him—absolutely paralyzed. I couldn’t move my legs. I was stuck in that spot.
And she was smiling at me.
People began to peek out from aisle eight to see what was happening. I spotted the old lady and the woman who had been reciting prayers. Mullet woman at the register was quiet too. In fact, the entire store had become terribly silent. The only sound was the canned music clinking through cheap overhead speakers. It was some terrible electronic version of an old Frank Sinatra song, complete with computerized steel drums. I swallowed hard, the smell of fish absolutely overwhelming me.
“Look what I can do!” the woman said, and snapped her neck back around.
“Ohhh!” the Sav’A’Buck crowd gasped. Little Miss Sunshine giggled. Her perfectly manicured hands held her head in place. She spun around to face me.
I’ve got…youuuuuu…under my skin…
The lyrics echoed eerily through the grocery store, and I looked down at Calvin for a second. He had turned a pale shade of green, which clashed with his chocolate-brown skin.
“Look what I can do!” the woman repeated, her voice horribly clear, her tone singsong, as if she were reciting a nursery rhyme. She clapped her palm onto the side of her face, and I watched her jaw completely dislocate.
“Mommy?” one of the little kids in the register line squealed, while the Hispanic lady said something fast in Spanish and fainted.
“Look what I can do look what I can do look what I can do!” Little Miss Sunshine repeated, and this time it sounded more like “Ooook Uuut Aaah Aan Ooo” because she couldn’t close her mouth. Her eyes were wide, with a disturbing amount of white showing on the top and bottom. I watched her grab the top of her mouth and pull.
I’ve got youuuuuu…deep in the heart of meeee….
Four of her teeth fell out and landed on the linoleum floor, close enough to my feet so that I could see the blood.
“Oh God oh God oh God,” Calvin uttered, and his hand on my arm was clammy.
“On the ground!” The security guard who’d been dozing out front rushed through the sliding doors of the store. He’d drawn a Taser from his belt, and he sprinted toward the insane woman, pointing the weapon at her and blocking both Calvin and me in the process.
“Do it! Now!” he said. He was a stocky guy with a big salt-and-pepper mustache and squeaky black boots. I was close enough to smell him—cheap cologne, stale cigar smoke, and more of that terrible fish smell.
Instead of getting on the ground, the woman chuckled. A rivulet of red-tinged drool fell from her distended mouth and landed on the linoleum. The cop took a split second to look where it landed. And in that moment, Little Miss Sunshine high-kicked the officer in the bottom of his chin with her stiletto-heeled shoe. He fell backward, and from the way he hit the floor, I knew he wasn’t getting back up.
The Taser bounced and skittered, and I swear that I don’t know how it happened exactly, but somehow the weapon found its way over to my feet. And then it found its way into my hands.
“Really? I mean, really?” Calvin exclaimed, as I held the weapon with two extremely shaky hands. I felt like I’d chugged ten cups of espresso, I was jittering so bad.
But I lifted the weapon to point it at Little Miss Sunshine’s chest—the biggest possible target.
Somehow I knew, despite her bloodied, disfigured mouth and saucer eyes, that she was still smiling at me. Mocking me.
And then she knocked her jaw back into place with a horrible crunch.
“I think you should have listened to the officer,” I said. “Get on the ground.”
I acknowledged the cop with only a slight nod, not daring to look away from the woman even for a moment. I could see from my peripheral vision that he was completely still, in a heap between Calvin’s wheelchair and the crazy lady. I inanely wondered how long people typically remained unconscious after being kicked in the chin with a
designer shoe.
“Just pull the trigger, dammit,” Calvin urged from between clenched teeth.
Fingers shaking, I aimed the thing and squeezed.
Little Miss Sunshine looked down at her chest, at the hissing and sparking Taser that should have sent her to the floor. Then she plucked it from the front of her shirt, looked up at me, and smiled.
“Look what I can do look what I can do,” the woman continued, and yanked a massive-looking gun out of her bag.
Everyone in the store hit the deck at the sight of the gun—everyone except Calvin and me.
She pointed the barrel at my face.
A nasty wave of déjà vu washed over me. It was mixed with a hefty dose of panic and combined with at least a small degree of consolation that Calvin, as always, had my back.
“Oh, hell no!” he barked. All the fear had vanished from his tone, and now he just sounded pissed. “You wanna mess with someone? You wanna put your gun in her face? You’re gonna have to shoot me first!”
And then, things got really weird.
“Hey!” someone called from behind Little Miss Sunshine. It was a girl, older than me but probably only by a year or two. She’d appeared as if out of nowhere, but she must’ve come in through the front doors while my attention was on that gun. Dressed in full motorcycle garb—a red leather jacket and black steel-toed boots—she hollered again. “Hey, you!”
Little Miss Sunshine whirled around.
Motorcycle Girl charged forward and flicked the pistol out of crazy lady’s hands as easily as if she were removing a piece of lint from a buddy’s jacket.
The gun spun a couple times before landing on the floor. Motorcycle Girl kicked it back into the air with her foot and caught it with one hand. She tucked it deftly into the back waistband of her pants and then slammed the crazy woman down onto the ground using the palm of one hand. I could have sworn Little Miss Sunshine took a nosedive before Motorcycle Chick even touched her, but then again, I’d been seeing all kinds of crazy things this week.
“Whoa,” Calvin said, while the crowd gasped again.
Little Miss Sunshine landed, hard, and made a gurgling sound. She looked up once at me and pointed, still smiling that awful smile, before her face dropped onto the ground.
The room once again was silent. Mostly.
Sooo deep in my heart, that you’re really a paaart of meee…
Motorcycle Chick turned, running a hand gruffly through her platinum-blond pixie cut as she looked at me and frowned, her eyes the color of icicles.
Calvin could have caught flies, his mouth was open so wide.
“God damn, this music blows,” the girl said as she glared from me to Cal and back again, as if the soundtrack was from our personal playlist.
Around us, the crowd began to move almost as one, with everyone—shoppers and clerks alike—rushing for the door.
I was about to turn too—getting out of there seemed like a brilliant idea—when Motorcycle Girl spoke again. Her words stopped me. “Way to protect Tiny Tim here, Sky. What were you waiting for? A sign from God?”
I looked at Cal—Cal looked at me. And I knew we were both thinking the same thing.
How the hell does this girl know my name?
Chapter Two
I’m getting ahead of myself here.
The crappola had really started hitting the fan almost a week before the infamous Sav’A’Buck incident. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that a string of unbelievable events were about to take place that would forever change my life. But then again, who can ever tell something like that?
My week had started out completely normal. It was the usual. School, Calvin, babysitting, dealing with Momzilla—a totally typical few days. If anything, it was an uber-awesome week because I got to babysit Sasha an extra night. Extra babysitting equaled extra money. And, anyway, I loved watching Sasha. She lived right down the street from me, and her whole family was exactly what I wished I had. Even though Sasha’s mom and dad were struggling with money and both needed to work two jobs because of the whole Second Great Depression that everyone kept talking about, they still seemed so happy all the time. And relaxed.
Nothing like my uptight mom and her crazy rules. Momzilla always told me that we should consider ourselves “lucky” because we hadn’t been affected by the world economic crisis or whatever. But seriously? No matter how much money we had, I still had paranoid Mom on my case constantly. And that didn’t make me feel lucky at all.
Anyway, that Sunday night was the last “normal” evening I would have in a really long time. Sasha sat at her dining-room table as I stood behind the kitchen counter and mixed chocolate syrup into her milk.
“A lot, please,” Sasha said, crossing her fingers together as she swung her pajama-pant-clad legs underneath the table.
“Not too too much,” I replied, pouring more syrup into the glass.
“But too too much is good!” she exclaimed. Her brown eyes were big and almond shaped and quite serious. “Daddy and Mommy let me have as much as I want!”
“Well. You’ve got it made, then,” I said. “My mommy won’t let me have milk or chocolate.”
Or beef. Or any soda pop with artificial sweeteners. Actually, the list of things my mom wouldn’t let me eat was longer than the list of things that I could. Ever since the accident and then our move to Coconut Key, the rules I had to follow would have given a kindergartner a rash. Compared to me, Sasha was pretty much living it up.
I had to do my homework before I watched TV.
I was not allowed to get into a car being driven by anyone who hadn’t had their driver’s license for a full decade.
I had to be home by ten thirty on the weekend and in bed, lights out, by eleven on a school night.
And blah, blah, blah…
Because life was so dang dangerous now, unlike the incredibly safe and bucolic good old days of the twenty-teens, or whatever ancient but perfect decade Mom had grown up in.
“Skyylarr!” Sasha brought me back to the present.
“Sorry,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” Sasha’s eyebrows wrinkled up. Her expression of concern made her look way older than a nine-year-old. But she acted way older than a nine-year-old too. Sometimes Sasha was an old, wise person in a little girl’s body. But unlike some kids who had older sisters and were nine going on sixteen, Sasha still embraced her inner five-year-old and liked being babied.
“Nothing,” I said cheerfully as I handed her the glass.
She took a long, luxurious sip before grinning up at me. She had a serious milk mustache and she knew it. She pretended to twirl it with one tiny finger—exactly the way her dad did when he was joking around. “Yumbo!”
I giggled. Sometimes she acted like a wise, old person…and sometimes she was her extra-goofy father’s daughter.
“Okay. Big sips and then bed.”
“Big sips, tooth brushing, and then bed!” Sasha reminded me.
“I stand corrected.”
She drained the glass and then carefully returned it to the sink, making sure that it was rinsed out and set perfectly in the dishwasher before padding deliberately down the hallway to the bathroom.
It was pretty crazy—I had never met a neat-freak nine-year-old before, but Sasha was borderline OCD about certain stuff. It just added to the overall cuteness, though. She was as tiny as an elf, seriously small for her age, with little stubby pigtails and eyelashes that went on for miles. But her elfin appearance hardly matched her little-professor attitude.
I wished I could adopt her.
Or, better yet, I wished Sasha’s parents would adopt me.
“You’ll tuck me in?” Sasha called after she’d brushed her teeth (carefully, of course, complete with milk-mustache removal) and climbed into her bed.
“Of course,” I said, going into her room.
“Thanks a bundle,” Sasha replied cheerfully, curling up underneath her pink bedspread. She held her favorite teddy bear close, placing the so
ft, downy fur underneath her chin before smiling up at me.
I lifted the covers around her, patting the sides with painstaking precision, just the way Sasha liked it. “I’ll be in the living room doing my homework if you need me.”
“Like if I have a nightmare or something.”
“Like if you have a nightmare or something,” I agreed as I looked around at the immaculately organized bookshelves, her neatly arranged toys—her massive doll collection the little room’s centerpiece. She owned about a trillion old-school dolls, with big glassy eyes and frilly clothes. All of the beautiful brown-skinned dolls were front and center, with the blonds and the redheads at the bottom and in the back. They sat in perfect rows—typical Sasha organization. “But I bet you won’t have any nightmares tonight.”
Sasha looked over at the window, with its chiffon curtains, and I went to double check that it was locked—something Mom had trained me to do long before I was Sasha’s age. Outside, the night was dark and silent.
“Or if I just get scared or something?” Sasha asked as I checked to make sure her collection of night-lights was on.
“Or if you just get scared,” I answered.
Sasha sat up. “Unless you want to stay and watch my dollies dance!”
I gently pushed her back down. This kid was a procrastinator when it came to bedtime, because she was so afraid of the dark. She’d make her dolls perform an entire Broadway show if it meant I’d stay in her room a little bit longer. “I’d love to see your dollies dance,” I replied. “But it’s time for bed now, so we’ll have to play with them another day.”
“No!” Sasha shook her head fast and sat up in bed again. “They don’t dance during the day! Only at night!”
I pushed her down again, this time sitting beside her on the bed and pinning her down with the blankets. “Well, maybe you’ll have a good dream tonight about your dollies dancing. That way, you won’t have any time for nightmares.”
Sasha belly-laughed. “But you don’t get it!” she exclaimed through giggles. “They don’t dance in my dreams. They dance before I fall asleep! Like this!” She wiggled out from beneath the covers and sat up once more, letting her head loll forward, her arms outstretched like a puppet on strings as she shifted her body back and forth.
Dangerous Destiny: A Night Sky novella Page 5