by Anthony Izzo
Ronnie slapped him five and Chris returned it.
“Told you guys,” Ronnie said.
The sight of Vinnie hovering over Jessica troubled Jack. He had a feeling Ronnie’s moment of glory might be short-lived.
They sat down and resumed eating, discussing the supposed serial killer lose in Brampton.
Jack glimpsed Vinnie and Harry dragging the twenty-gallon can across the floor like some degenerate garbage collectors. They stopped three feet from Ronnie and before Jack could say anything, they hoisted it over Ronnie’s head and dumped it. Banana peels, bread crusts, milk cartons, wrappers, and apple cores spilled on top of Ronnie. Vinnie and Harry tossed the can aside and it rolled until stopping at the wall. Harry burst out laughing, and Vinnie punched him on the arm, a gesture that said aren’t we the fucking coolest?
Jack and the others stared at Ronnie as if he had just sprouted a third arm. A banana peel rested on his shoulder, and milk dribbled down his forehead. He looked down at his soiled clothes and wiped the sludge off his shirt. For the first time in his young life, Jack hated someone. Raw hate, like he could punch someone again and again, not stopping until they were a bloody mess. Or wanting to see someone hit by a car. Someone like Vinnie.
“You’re a rotten piece of shit,” Jack said.
“Yeah, Vinnie, you turd,” Emma said.
Vinnie ignored them, leaning over Ronnie. “Thought you were hot shit, asking her to the dance. See if she goes with you now, garbage man.”
Ronnie brushed the banana peel from his shoulder and it rolled off. To Jack’s surprise, Jessica hurried over to the table. She put a hand on Ronnie’s shoulder and gave Vinnie a look that would make a tiger turn and run. “I’m still going to the dance with him, you jerk,” she said. “I’m sorry about this, Ronnie.” She turned and stomped away.
“Why do you do it?” Emma asked.
“Because I can,” Vinnie said.
“Yeah. You want to do something about it?” Harry stepped forward.
Mr. Ruiz, the eighth grade Spanish teacher, flew in and grabbed the moron twins by the arms. Vinnie tore his arm away and Harry laughed. “To the discipline office. Now.” Harry and Vinnie turned slowly and left with Mr. Ruiz in tow. Mrs. Grady, all two hundred pounds of her in an emerald dress and pearls, hovered over Ronnie, brushing him off. “I’ll write you a pass so you can go clean up. Don’t worry about being late for next period. I don’t know about that boy. He ought to be expelled,” she said.
“Sorry about that, man,” Jack said.
“It’s okay. I suppose I had it coming,” Ronnie said.
“It’s not your fault,” Emma said.
Ronnie stood up and left the cafeteria, a wounded warrior caked in lunch refuse.
What would Ronnie’s mom do when she found out what happened to him? Jack didn’t want to know.
The day passed and the final bell rang at three o’clock, causing a rush into the hallway. While Jack and the others sat in class, three more inches fell on Brampton and the wind chill dipped to minus ten. After getting his winter gear on and grabbing some books from his locker, Jack went to the courtyard to wait with his friends for John. Jack had called his mom on the pay phone and told her they were going to Chris’s house. Emma left a message for her mom at work that she was going to the library.
The limo pulled up and John stepped out. He had on a red watch cap and matching ski vest. He came around and opened the door, waving at them to hurry and get in the limo. A moment later they pulled away from the curb. Emma looked around, taking in the polished elegance of it all, like something on Dynasty.
“And who is the pretty young lady you boys have brought along?”
“This is Emma,” Paul said.
“Emma Greer. Nice to meet you,” Emma said.
“Same here. My name is John.”
They followed a tractor-trailer down Main Street, and it kicked up slush onto the windshield. John hit the wipers and fanned it away. Driving in the bad weather didn’t seem to bother him.
“Emma, I don’t mind if you come along, but you might find the conversation a little strange.”
“If it’s about the guy in the tunnel, I know. I can handle it,” she said.
“Good. The more of you that know, the better. It’ll keep you on your guards, I hope.”
“Where’s Ronnie?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, don’t you always pick him up?” Paul said.
“Serving time.”
They must have given Ronnie detention along with Vinnie and Harry.
“He doesn’t need to hear about this anyway,” John said.
They passed the Stigelmeyer mansion, a Victorian complete with turrets, gables, and a widow’s walk. It was the last building on Main Street before leaving Brampton. They drove another ten minutes, passing a barn and field blocked off by a split rail fence. John turned into a driveway and drove up an incline that ended in a parking lot. Emma had been here before to eat.
The Central Diner was a blocky building, purely functional. The walls were white, and the Central Diner sign was done in neat black letters. An awning frame jutted out from the front of the structure, looking lonely and skeletal. She had come here with Mom two years ago on her birthday, and she ate so many pancakes she puked them an hour later. Pancake puking aside, she still liked the food.
The waitress led them to a table in the rear corner of the dining room. Emma wondered what the other people would think when a black man pulled up in a limo with three kids. John didn’t seem concerned. He sat smiling, hands folded in front of him. The waitress took their orders. Jack ordered a plate of fries and a shake, while Paul and Emma went for hot fudge sundaes. John ordered coffee and ten minutes later, the waitress brought their order.
“This place will be filling up for dinner soon, so we’ll talk quick,” John said. “Tell me exactly what happened in the tunnels.”
Jack retold the story and even though Emma had heard it already, it still made her shiver.
“And last night in the garage, what happened?” John said.
“We saw it in the window. Then it tried to pull us out of the garage. That’s when you showed up,” Jack said.
“You didn’t tell me about this,” Emma said.
“The same thing from the tunnel tried to get me and Paul when we took the garbage out.” Jack plucked a French fry from his plate.
“Creepy,” Emma said.
“You guys can’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. Not your parents, the police, your friends, and especially not Ronnie. Got it?”
They all nodded in agreement. Emma wondered what could be so horrible.
Cassie Winter strode through the halls of Brampton Middle School, long skirt flowing as she walked. She drew glances from a few of the male faculty members, furtive glances she could have returned with icy coldness but chose not to. She stopped and asked a man wielding a mop and bucket where the discipline office was located.
“Make a left at the end of this hallway. Third door on the right,” he said.
She entered the office to find a woman at a desk. Blond hair cut short, like a man’s, doughy face, a pink cardigan. The nameplate on her desk read: NOREEN LEWIS. Cassie assumed she was the secretary, and said, “I was called and told to meet with the dean of discipline. Is he here?”
“He is a she. And I’m her. Noreen Lewis.” She rose from the chair and offered her hand.
Cassie shook it. “Cassie Winter.”
“I wanted to talk to you about an incident that took place with your son. He’s in there.” She nodded to indicate another small room off the main office. The door had a frosted glass pane.
“I like to think of that as the holding area.” She chuckled. “It used to be a supply closet, but I like to let the students sit in there and think about what they’ve done before I talk to them.”
“Sort of medieval if you ask me.”
“Not really,” she said.
She didn’t like this woman, who Cassie imagined lorded
over children like a prison warden and in some corner of her heart took pleasure in doling out punishments. The power of the Reach was tempting, and Cassie considered using it to cloud the woman’s mind and make her forget the incident with Ronnie. But she was tired right now and could handle someone like Noreen Lewis without resorting to one of the Powers.
“So can I see my son?”
“Certainly.”
Lewis stood up and opened the door. Ronnie came out first, head down and looking as if he expected to be escorted to the firing squad. Another boy followed him. He wore a permanent scowl.
“Vincent, your father couldn’t be reached. So we’ll have to have our little talk without him. Sit down.” She pointed to the three chairs in front of her desk. Then she excused herself, stepped around Cassie, and closed the main office door.
Cassie sat in the chair next to Ronnie’s and immediately noticed his clothes. He smelled of rotten food and there were bits of bread and crumbs caked in his hair.
“What on earth happened?”
Ronnie cast a plump finger at the other boy. “He dumped a whole garbage can on me.”
She looked at the other boy, who sat slouched in his chair, feet outstretched as if he were lounging on the beach. A bored, disinterested look crossed his face.
“Is this true, Noreen?”
Lewis sat down and crossed her legs. “It is.”
“How can you let things like this go on? How did this happen?”
“It appears Vincent didn’t like Ronnie talking to one of the girls in the cafeteria. That’s when he dumped the garbage on Ronnie.”
“My name’s Vinnie, Noreen.”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” she said.
“I won’t, Noreen.”
How could she let him talk to her like that? Cassie wondered.
“Call me Mrs. Lewis.”
Vinnie lunged forward, bringing himself up on the edge of his seat. Lewis flinched, and it was very apparent that she was afraid of Vincent, or Vinnie as he apparently liked to be called.
“Two for flinching,” he said, smiling.
“We’ll deal with your behavior later, Vincent. As I said, Ronnie was talking to one of the girls, asking her to the dance. That’s when Vincent dumped the garbage over his head. Some words were exchanged and it was broken up. I met with both boys and told them they would be staying after school today.”
“Did Ronnie actually do something wrong?”
“It’s my policy to punish both sides. You know how children are. You can never tell who was lying or telling the truth.”
The woman was starting to sound like a Supreme Court justice, doling out judgments as if she were on the highest court in the land rather than a modest civil servant. In Cassie’s mind, she knew that Ronnie had most likely egged Vincent on in some way, but there was no mention of that by Lewis. “Did Ronnie start anything with this other boy?”
“Yeah, he pissed me off because he’s a fat faggot.”
“Watch your mouth,” Cassie said.
“Watch your mouth,” Vinnie said, in a singsong voice.
She sent a blast of psychic energy into his mind, sharp as a pitchfork. He clutched his head and leaned forward, a yelp of pain escaping his lips. “My head,” he said.
Lewis looked puzzled and Cassie put her hand on Vinnie’s shoulder and said, “Are you okay, Vincent?”
“Ow, my head.”
The wave she sent him passed and he probably felt a searing pain from his forehead to the base of his skull before it ended. Maybe that would keep him in line, for it was apparent his parents weren’t doing their job. Most likely the boy was trouble from a young age and they never told him no or gave him punishments. As he grew up, his temper most likely became worse and by now he was too big and too far gone to control. It was a shame for any child to wind up like that.
She could do the same to Lewis, or cloud her thinking in any number of ways, but it would be best not to arouse suspicion. A student complaining of a headache was not unusual, but if Cassie did something to disrupt Lewis’s thinking, she might remember it. Sometimes they did, and although she had never been found out, it was best not to draw attention to her gifts here.
“Where were we?” Cassie said.
“I’ll be giving Ronnie and Vincent detention. They created quite a disturbance in the cafeteria.”
“That still doesn’t seem fair to me,” Cassie said.
“I could suspend them,” Lewis said.
“I can see you drive a hard bargain, Noreen. I’d better not push it, right?”
“You don’t have to be sarcastic. Punishment has to fit the crime.”
“Crime,” Cassie said. “What an expression. Let’s go, Ronnie.” Ronnie and Cassie stood up to leave. She didn’t want to hear any more from Noreen Lewis, and if the woman was smart, she would leave Ronnie alone.
“He is quite a bit overweight and I noticed stains on his shirt,” Lewis said.
Cassie turned and it took all the willpower she had not to send a bolt like white lightning into the woman’s head. It would most likely kill her or render her a drooling invalid, ruining brain function. Not that Noreen Lewis had much to begin with.
“Don’t tell me my business,” Cassie said.
“And don’t tell me mine in my own office.”
Cassie grabbed Ronnie by the hand and stormed out of the office.
“Here’s what happened,” John said. His hands engulfed the coffee mug, making only the lip visible.
Jack ate another fry. They were almost too hot to eat, but the ketchup cooled them. Salty, good, and greasy, the way he liked them.
“The thing you saw is called a Wraith. That’s what Cassie calls him.”
“The Wraith,” Paul said, testing out the word for himself.
“What is it?” Jack asked.
“It used to be a man. Cassie made it.” His gaze moved slowly to each of them. “All it wants to do is kill.”
All of a sudden Jack’s fries didn’t taste so good. He set the plate aside, his stomach a mess of knotted worms.
“What do you mean made him?” Paul said.
“Did you guys ever hear of Ronald Winter? You might be too young to remember him.”
They all shook their heads.
“He was one of the richest men in America, a billionaire. Made his money in auto parts. About fifteen years ago he met a woman named Cassandra Willis.”
“Ronnie’s mom,” Jack said.
“Right. She literally came out of nowhere. One night Ronald had everyone in the family over for a dinner party. He introduces Cassie and tells everyone they’re married. He was twenty years older than her and they didn’t like it. His mother stormed out of the place. I remember it. It was at their chalet in Aspen.”
“What’s a chalet?” Emma asked.
“A fancy ski place,” Paul said.
“Ronald’s mother took me aside a week later and asked me to dig into Cassie’s background. I was his personal assistant and bodyguard, so I guess they trusted me to look after him. I hired a private investigator and he came back with nothing. No birth records, Social Security number, arrest record, nothing. She appeared out of the blue, like I said.”
The waitress bopped in, asking with a big smile how everything was. John smiled and said, “Fine.” Jack’s dad always complained how they waited until you had a mouthful of food to ask how the meal tasted. Jack wanted to open his mouth sometime and show a waitress the food, telling her how good it was.
“I didn’t like Cassie. She was after his money. Never treated him well. Gave him the cold shoulder unless she wanted something. Two years after she married him, Ronnie was born. From day one, she adored Ronnie. Things went bad not too long after that. He started seeing other women on the side. You all know what that means?”
“He had other girlfriends,” Emma said.
“That’s right, Emma. He was seeing a woman named Daisy Flores. I knew about her because he told me everything.” John looked down at his
coffee cup. “I don’t know how, but Cassie found out. I couldn’t figure it out then, but I did later on.”
“You hired another private investigator?” Paul said.
“No. She can sense things. Read minds. That’s why I drove out here.” He looked around, as if watching for someone. “I don’t feel her right now.”
John flagged down the waitress and she came over with the coffeepot. She poured him another cup and he thanked her.
“She healed my ribs. Those are part of her powers,” Jack said.
“Yep. She can heal, too. When Ronnie was six, he fell off his bike and busted his wrist. I wanted to take him to the emergency room but she wouldn’t let me. She picked him up, took him to her room, and an hour later they came out. His arm was knitted. He said it was still sore, but the bone was in place.”
“I would’ve gotten out of there,” Paul said.
“I couldn’t leave,” John said.
“Why?” Jack asked.
“I’m getting to that part.”
CHAPTER 30
The trouble started brewing in the locker room, a sign of things to come. As Chris pulled on his practice jersey, Robbie Munch sauntered past and slammed Chris’s locker door shut. It bounced back and hit Chris’s exposed belly, leaving a white scratch. He winced and pulled the jersey down.
“Dick lick,” Chris said.
“You wish.”
“I’m gonna waste you out there, Munch.”
“We’ll see,” Munch said, and sauntered out of the locker room.
The punishment for skipping practice was swift. MacGregor barked at him while he ran ten straight suicide drills. His teammates watched from the bleachers. While the other guys stretched and warmed up, Chris did the six inches drill. By the end of warm-ups, his legs felt like deadwood.
They set up for a passing drill, and he drew Munch as his partner. Munch fired the ball at his head. Chris managed to catch it.
“Knock it off,” Chris said.
“Just making sure you can catch.”
“You’re a douche bag.”
He went against Munch, playing center in the scrimmage. Munch dug his forearms into Chris’s lower back or jabbed him in the ribs at every turn. Chris told himself to cool it, because he was already on MacGregor’s shit list, and if he did anything else, he might be the first player to ever run a nonstop suicide drill. Taking crap from Munch wasn’t an option, either. The other guys were watching, and if Chris didn’t do something, they would rag him hard after practice. The pride of sixth grade boys was won and lost on playgrounds and ball fields. Parents always told you to walk away, but it was better to have a bloody lip than wounded pride.