Dark Things IV

by Stacey Longo

  Peace

  by Lou Treleaven

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m not going to tell them.”

  “Tell them what?” I tried to sound careless, as though I didn’t know what she meant. But I knew.

  “That you’re a murderer, Catherine.”

  My heart thudded. The walls were closing in on me. I stumbled back against the wall as a surge of pupils swept towards their lockers. None of them knew who I was—who I had been. I used my middle name here: Catherine James, not Jeanette James. Mom said I was silly to change it, that nobody would know and anyway, it was an accident. A tragic accident.

  But if it was an accident then why had she moved us so far away?

  “I’ve told you, I won’t tell anyone. I mean, maybe you’ve decided to start again, right? Maybe you’re not a bully anymore.”

  I glared at Susie. Susie Jenkins. I had recognized her straight away when the teacher introduced her as a new girl who’d just moved to the area. She was taller, more confident. Pretty, now her braces were off. Suddenly I wondered what Joanne would have looked like, three years on.

  But I couldn’t. All I could see was her face the last time I saw her alive: beaten and bloodied, staring at me in fear and horror as I brought my hand up to close the trunk of the car. She would never leave it. And she remained there in my imagination, too, always asking for me to show mercy. But I’d had to finish what I started.

  I wasn’t looking at Susie anymore. I was staring at the floor, watching it melt beneath my feet.

  “Better get to class,” Susie said.

  The crowd had gone. The corridor was empty. I watched Susie calmly get her books out of the locker and walk away. It was a while before I could do the same.

  ***

  “You’re depressed again, Catherine,” Mom said.

  “No I’m not.”

  Mom laid a hand on my shoulder. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. It was an accident. You lost a friend too.”

  “She wasn’t my friend.”

  “You hung around in the same group, didn’t you?”

  I stifled a sob. “What if it was me, Mom?”

  Mom sat on the end of my bed. “It wasn’t. You’re not a bully, I know you’re not. Your only crime was to stand by while others went too far. A prank gone wrong, remember?” She ruffled my hair. “Remember?”

  It was like she was trying to brainwash me.

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “Now go to sleep and don’t think any more about it.”

  I turned away as she closed the door. I had punched Joanne, I remembered. My knuckles had hurt. I had come home with blood on me. I had listened to her scream as I pushed her to the ground. I had felt her ribs collapse beneath my feet. And I had… I had…

  She couldn’t take the memories away, no matter how hard she tried. Nothing could.

  ***

  “You look really worried whenever you see me, Catherine. What’s the matter?”

  I swallowed and concentrated on my science experiment.

  “I think it’s great the way you’ve managed to rebuild your life.” Susie added another chemical to her test tube and watched the contents sizzle. “They say the woman whose car it was had to be sedated. It was three days before she noticed the smell.”

  The test tube in my hand fell to the floor.

  “Catherine James!” bellowed the teacher.

  “It’s only a test tube,” Susie said mildly.

  ***

  Murderer.

  What if they shouted that at me as I walked to school?

  Murderer.

  What if they thought it every time they spoke of me, every time they looked at me?

  Murderer.

  Maybe this was the punishment I thought I’d escaped.

  Murderer.

  I wanted it to happen. The sooner she told everyone, the sooner I would be in the hell I deserved.

  ***

  “Your grades have dropped.” Mrs. Murphy said.

  I hadn’t been inside the principal’s office for ages.

  “I thought we’d made progress,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re turning back into the girl who joined us three years ago?”

  I stared at Mrs. Murphy’s photo on her desk. Black and white, it showed a freckled, friendly girl with pigtails, twelve or thirteen years old. About the same age as Joanne when she died. But Joanne had looked different. Joanne had always looked like a victim.

  I blinked and saw my hand shutting the trunk. What must it have felt like in there? Dark, airless, confined? How long had it taken for her to run out of air? Had she had enough breath to scream?

  “Are you just going to sit there, Catherine, or are you going to say something?”

  I dragged my eyes to Mrs. Murphy’s. “No.”

  “I suggest you think very carefully about your future. Giving up now—as you appear to have done—could be disastrous.”

  I saw my hand slam the trunk shut and then I saw myself walking away—bloodstained, exhausted, but triumphant. My campaign was complete. I was dizzy with the extent of my deeds, marveling at my soul, that it could contain so much that was dread and evil.

  Murderer.

  “Can you answer me, Catherine?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Murphy.”

  I came out of the principal’s office straight into a group of girls from my class. Why did they have to be standing right outside?

  “Catherine’s in trouble!” smirked one. “What’ve you been up to this time?”

  My head felt like it was on fire. I pushed her roughly out of my way. She staggered and fell back against her friends. They started shouting at me and I gave them the finger and swore at them as I walked away. As I turned to face the way I was going, I collided with a younger boy, a pathetic looking specimen.

  “Look where you’re going, idiot!” I snarled. Why couldn’t everyone just leave me alone?

  He climbed to his feet and I kicked him in the shins before he could run away. He screamed. The girls outside the principal’s office were watching and started shouting abuse at me again.

  I ran down the corridor, consumed with hate for myself and everyone else. My eyes burned with tears. Why had I let things get out of control again? It was their fault for being in my way. Couldn’t they see I wanted to be by myself?

  I almost didn’t see Susie. She stepped out and took hold of me by the shoulders. Had she seen it all?

  “Catherine! What’s wrong?”

  “Go away! Why did you have to come to this school?”

  To my surprise, she put an arm around my shoulder. I didn’t push it away. How long had it been since someone had hugged me or shown they cared? Even Mom kept her distance these days, as though there was a barrier between us she was too afraid to cross.

  “You’re crying,” Susie said gently.

  “I’m going home.”

  “Let me come with you. It’s only art. They won’t miss us.”

  I let Susie lead me home. I let her open the front door, sit me down, and make me a drink. She seemed to know where everything was. It was like she had been here before.

  She sat next to me at the kitchen table and stroked my hair. “Poor Catherine.”

  I didn’t understand. “But you were her friend!”

  “Yes.”

  “You know what happened!”

  “I told you, I’m not going to tell anyone. Even after what I saw today.”

  “But why? Why are you giving me a chance?” I was crying hard now, proper crying. It was worse than three years ago.

  Susie drew back. Her voice changed. “I didn’t say I was giving you a chance.”

  I looked up. She was still calm but there was a grim determination on her face.

  “Where are your mother’s car keys?”

  I swallowed.

  “Tell me, Catherine.”

  “On a hook by the door.”

  She disappeared for a moment, fetching the keys. When she came back she jangled them in the air. “C
ome with me. This is the door into the garage, right?”

  I nodded. She opened it and I followed her inside. My mom’s Ford sat there impotently, waiting until my mom got paid so it could be fixed.

  Susie pressed the button on the keys to unlock it. “It must be dark in the trunk. What do you think?” She walked around the car. I followed like some dumb tourist following a guide. She opened the trunk and pulled out a few old shopping bags, a car manual, and a bottle of oil. “Plenty big enough. Why don’t you get in and see?”

  I stepped away from the car and her other hand produced a knife. She must have taken it from the kitchen drawer when I wasn’t looking. It was the one my mom used for cutting up chicken.

  “Get in.”

  I could have resisted. I could have tried to wrestle the knife off her. But I didn’t. I climbed inside the trunk. It smelled of petrol and rubbish and old food.

  “You beat Joanne up first, though, didn’t you?” Susie said. She held the knife, looking at me as I crouched uncomfortably. “They said she had internal injuries.”

  “It wasn’t just me!”

  “Oh yes, your friends helped. But then they had enough and left. But you—you couldn’t stop, could you? You had to go too far. Why? Why, Catherine?”

  Again I saw myself walking away from the car that day, a smile on my bloodied face. “Because…”

  “Say it!”

  “Because…”

  “Go on! Admit it!”

  “I enjoyed it,” I said in a small voice.

  I had got pleasure from someone else’s pain. I had felt more alive because somebody else was dead. I was a monster.

  She came up close and grabbed the lid of the trunk. “Let’s see how you enjoy it now.”

  The lid slammed. I was in darkness. There was nowhere to go, nothing to see. Just me and the trunk and the dark.

  I could still hear her voice, though it sounded far away.

  “How long do you think it’ll be before your mom comes into the garage and finds you? You’ll have to scream loudly. Nobody heard Joanne. Do you think she managed to scream, or was she too badly injured? Come on, scream! I want to hear you! Scream, Catherine!”

  I stayed silent. After a moment I heard the dull thud of the door closing, and then silence.

  I didn’t want to scream. I was here at last, where I belonged.

  Susie was wrong. Mom wouldn’t be coming into the garage. The car wouldn’t be used, not until Mom got paid. She wouldn’t find me. This was the end.

  For the first time in three years I felt, amid the fear and panic and sadness of my wasted, wretched life, a little peace.

  So I didn’t scream. I whispered.

  “Thank you,” I said to Susie, though no one could hear me or ever would. “Thank you.”

  About the author:

  Lou Treleaven writes speculative fiction for adults and children. Visit her at www.loutreleaven.wordpress.com.

  Waves of Dread

  by Nick Medina

  The Scarlet Rose, which was neither scarlet nor rose, bobbed in its slip on the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Teddy Gordon, two days shy of his sixteenth birthday, yanked on the brim of his baseball cap, pulling it good and low to shield his eyes from the relentless sun even though he knew he’d end up with an ugly strip of acne across his forehead from the hat’s sweat-soaked inner band pressing against his sweaty skin

  “There she is,” James Gordon—Uncle Jimmy to Teddy—said with a grin, jerking his head toward the Scarlet Rose. “She’s the one I was telling you about.”

  Teddy squinted at the fishing boat. It was big and white with shiny metal railings that reflected the sun straight at Teddy’s eyes. The main deck, constructed of white fiberglass, had two chairs on it and a rather large and long cooler positioned in the center. At the back was a small door that led down to the below-deck cabin and next to the door was a ladder up to the helm where there was a bench beneath a shallow awning for protection from the sun.

  “It’s bigger than I expected,” Teddy said.

  “For catchin’ big fish,” Uncle Jimmy replied, slapping Teddy hard on the back.

  Jimmy was Teddy’s dad’s brother. He’d been trying for two summer’s straight to get Teddy out of Chicago for a fishing trip. If Teddy had been more of the outdoorsy type he would have joined Jimmy two years earlier, but Teddy was a city boy who had never cast a line or baited a hook. He didn’t even like fish.

  “We got ourselves a hot one today,” a muffled voice came out from the Scarlet Rose’s below-deck cabin, followed by a leathery looking man of sixty or so with sun-bleached hair. He was scraggly and slim in a sleeveless t-shirt with more wrinkles than a bulldog thanks to decades in the sun. A cigarette hung from beneath a mustache that was just as sun-bleached as his hair. Teddy couldn’t help but notice the faded tattoo of a red rose in full bloom on the man’s upper left arm.

  “That’s Sharp,” Uncle Jimmy said.

  “What’s sharp?” Teddy asked.

  “He’s Sharp. Sharp’s our captain. He owns the Scarlet Rose.”

  Teddy didn’t say anything, but in his mind he’d pictured the captain as someone with a much more capable appearance, someone wearing a distinctive hat for instance.

  “You boys ready?” Sharp hollered toward the shore.

  Uncle Jimmy turned around and shouted, “Ready?” at Scott and Rich, two of his buddies who’d been fishing with him for years. They gave him the thumbs up, hoisted a cooler of their own, the sound of ice cubes rattling against beer bottles came from within, and headed toward the pier.

  “Let’s get to it,” Uncle Jimmy said. He hit Teddy on the back once again, knocking him from the concrete walkway underfoot to the pale planks of the pier ahead of him. “Better put on your sea legs,” he warned.

  Teddy walked slowly toward the Scarlet Rose so as not to lose his balance. The pier moved up and down ever so slightly beneath his feet. It kind of reminded him of riding the train back home, except the train was a whole lot louder.

  “You never told me ya had a boy,” Sharp said to Uncle Jimmy as he and Teddy boarded the boat.

  “This is my nephew, Teddy. It’s his first time fishing.”

  “No shittin’,” Sharp said. “Welcome aboard. Wait til ya see what we pull out of these waters.”

  Sharp shook Teddy’s hand. To Teddy, Sharp’s flesh felt like fine grit sandpaper.

  “What are we fishing for?” Teddy asked.

  “Marlin,” Sharp and Uncle Jimmy answered at once.

  “Like the baseball team,” Teddy said.

  “Yeah, except there ain’t no foul balls here,” Sharp said. “Only homeruns. Go big or go home.”

  Scott and Rich got on deck while Teddy took a minute to look around. He peaked downstairs where he discovered a small booth table, a bed that could sleep two comfortably, and a closet of a bathroom in the corner. Turning around, he eyed the heavy-duty fishing rods jutting up from the back of the deck. The reels were the size of small beer barrels with line so thick that it looked more like towing cable to Teddy than fishing wire. The enormous hooks reminded him of the Grim Reaper’s scythe.

  “You all got your fishing licenses on ya?” Sharp asked.

  “Yep,” Teddy said. Uncle Jimmy had been sure to buy him one before they set out that morning.

  “Good,” Sharp said. “Then I’ll tell ya what ya need to know before we get outta here.” He was talking directly to Teddy since the others were already familiar with how things worked on the Scarlet Rose. “If you gotta pee, pee over the side. And if you’re shy about your pecker, there’s a cup for pissin’ in downstairs. Empty it in the sink or over the side. Just be sure to run some water if ya pour it down the drain. If ya gotta lay cable…well, sorry, son, but you’re just gonna have to hold it.”

  “What about the bathroom?” Teddy asked. “Doesn’t it work?”

  “You can use the sink because that goes right out into the ocean, but no flushing’s allowed. Anything ya flush, I gotta clean up. And I ain�
��t cleaning nobody’s shit.”

  Teddy nodded and waited, expecting Sharp to tell him something about fishing or the trip, but the bathroom was all Sharp seemed to care about.

  “What if I fall overboard?” Teddy said.

  “I hope ya can swim,” Sharp answered. “Ready, boys?”

  The men gave a cheer of approval and Sharp threw himself up the ladder to the helm much quicker than a man of his age should have been able to.

  “Don’t worry,” Uncle Jimmy whispered to Teddy. “I know where the lifejackets are stowed.”

  Teddy jolted forward as the Scarlet Rose’s motors kicked into gear. Harsh vibrations and a raucous growl rose up from somewhere below deck. The boat backed out of its slip and idled along a long strip until it cleared the no wake zone.

  “You might want to hold on,” Uncle Jimmy warned.

  Teddy grabbed onto the rail just as the Scarlet Rose took off. Like its owner, it seemed to move a lot faster than a boat of its size should have been able to. It crashed into waves head on, which propelled it up and down on the water’s surface. To Teddy, riding the Scarlet Rose was like braving a bucking bronco. Large fans of water sprayed up on either side of the boat, covering him with a cool mist that felt quite spectacular in the harsh heat of the sun. He let out a hoot while yanking on his hat to keep it from flying free from his head.

  “What do you think?” Uncle Jimmy hollered over the combined noise of the water and the twin inboard engines.

  “Awesome!”

  But what was fun for the first few minutes, soon got old. The Scarlet Rose kept going and going for over an hour with no apparent destination in sight. They’d left land far behind in the first fifteen minutes, covering a distance that seemed sufficient for fishing to Teddy. Not to mention that the constant unsteady movement was getting to him; that and the inescapable gas fumes that seemed to engulf the entire boat.

  Scott and Rich sat in the deck chairs looking as comfortable as ducks on water, each of them with a beer in hand, their eyes staring out at the horizon where the sky met the sea. Uncle Jimmy looked like he wanted to join them, and if he hadn’t brought Teddy along, he probably would have.