by Rachel Rust
I mean, seriously, he may be an enigmatic creature of the night that will suck out all my blood and leave my corpse strung up in the city park for all to see.
But he’s damn cute.
By the time the congregation spills outside into the sunshine, my mind is made up—I’ll talk to him. Because I’m curious above all else.
“I’m going to walk home,” I say. And I’m halfway down the front sidewalk of the church before my grandparents actually give me permission to do so.
I don’t head home. The hardware store is closed on Sundays, so I walk to David’s house. I ring the doorbell, and no one answers. I head back to the other side of town, toward my grandparents’ house, with a defeatist shuffle. I’m crossing the street toward the city park when I spot David handing Old Man Zach a bottle of water and a newspaper.
He sees me and walks my way. My heart beats hard, wondering if I’ve made a mistake. What if he really is the harbinger of death and wants to drag me away into his ghostly death lair?
David’s nearly reached me now. Twenty feet. I swallow hard. Ten feet. Oh god. Five feet. It’s now or never if I’m gonna run. He’s right in front of me. My feet shuffle.
His hand flies up. “Wait! Let me say something.”
I stand my ground and wish my wide eyes would go back to normal. “Who are you?” I blurt out. If he’s going to kill me, I at least want answers first.
David’s face falls. “I’m just me, Chessie, I promise.”
“You…” My chest is tight. There’s barely enough air to get words out. “A few nights ago, you said you’re responsible for their deaths. Was that some kind of sick joke? Did you and Mateo decide it’d be hilarious to pick on the new girl in town?”
“God, no, nothing like that, I swear.” His eyebrows lift in concern.
“So, you’re legit telling me that you’re responsible for the deaths of the axe murder victims?” The words grate against my throat and teeth because I don’t want to speak them.
He nods.
“That doesn’t make any sense.” My fists ball up, and I force them to stay at my side because they really want to punch him in his perfect face. “Those people were killed a hundred years ago and you’re seventeen. Either you’re a ghost or a liar.”
“I’m not a ghost and I’m not a liar. I can explain.”
I cross my arms. “Go ahead.”
His mouth opens, but it’s a solid five seconds before sound follows. “I—it’s complicated.”
I drop my arms with an unamused huff. “Complicated. Sure it is.” I step off the curb and walk past him.
“Chessie, don’t go.” He reaches for my arm, and I move away before he can grab it.
I spin around to face him. “Leave me the hell alone and tell Mateo to do the same! My summer already sucks, I don’t need to be the butt of some idiotic joke. I can deal with the voices on my own. They’re a hell of a lot nicer than the small-town dickheads I almost called friends.”
My feet march across the asphalt with pride. But as I reach the other side of the street, David’s voice halts my steps.
“Did you read the book I gave you?”
My skin goes cold and I turn to him. “You gave me that book? That was your handwriting?”
He nods.
“How?”
He awkwardly rubs the back of his neck. “I came by late last night. But I saw you asleep on the couch, so I…”
I glare at him. “You broke into my house?”
He shrugs, throwing his hands palms up. “I deliver stuff to your grandpa all the time. I know where the spare key is.”
My brow wrinkles. “I don’t think it matters if you use a key or if you smash a window; it’s breaking and entering either way.” I pivot and walk away.
“Read the book,” he shouts out after me. “And then you’ll want to talk. I guarantee it.”
With my middle finger, I wave him goodbye.
I make it to my grandparents’ house and pause on the front steps, but there’s no sign of David. He didn’t follow me.
I rush upstairs, slam my bedroom door, and curl up on the bed with the book. The room and the voices don’t scare me. Even the idea of the gray haze doesn’t alarm me as much anymore. It warned me about David.
Maybe I’ve been afraid of the wrong thing all this time.
I crack open the book again and find that it’s mostly pictures. Old grainy photos of the Moore family and the Stillinger girls, when they were alive and well. Several photos of the town, how it used to look over a hundred years ago. Much the same really, but with dirt roads and old-fashioned clothes. The downtown area was similar, but there was no Dotty’s building yet, and the city park was only a green space with no playground.
The Moore family had been at church the night before they were killed. Their daughter had invited the two Stillinger girls to spend the night.
Bad luck for them.
Page twelve states that Lena Stillinger, the older of the two Stillinger siblings, was murdered in the downstairs bedroom alongside her sister. Lena was the last to be killed and the only one who had defensive wounds.
She fought back against her attacker. Good for her, I think. But then David’s image flitters into my mind, sending a chill through my core. I squeeze my eyes tight to get rid of him. He’s teasing me. He’s making it up, like a sick joke.
The next page features a few 1912 newspaper clippings from around the state. And even one from New York—the first headline big enough to knock the Titanic off the front page.
Next to the local clippings are quotes from shocked townspeople. A lot of worries and talk about people double-checking the locks on their doors, not knowing who their neighbors really were, and a quote by one elderly lady who said the devil was in town. But in response to that, a young Villisca man is quoted as saying, “People are afraid of the devil when they really should be afraid of each other.”
The words ring in my head—and then they settle like a rock in my stomach and vomit rises in my throat.
At the bottom of the page is a grainy photo of the young man attributed to that quote, dressed in dark suspenders and a dingy white shirt. His name is D.B. Smith.
I nearly drop the book.
It’s a photo of David. Dated June 11, 1912.
Chapter Sixteen
The old photo of David stares back at me from the glossy page as if it can see me. I re-read his 1912 quote about the murders, “People are afraid of the devil when they really should be afraid of each other.”
My heart races with another look back into the familiar eyes. Familiar, though distorted from the lens of an early camera and whatever digital process had planted them on the shiny page of this book. Even with the distortion, they’re David’s eyes. And they’re over one hundred years old.
I close the book and stare at the closet door. It’s latched and most of me wants it to stay that way, but a tiny sliver of me wishes it would bolt open. I need answers and wish the communication between me and the entities swirling inside it wasn’t just one-way. Instead of having to wait for them, I wish there was a way for me to contact them whenever I needed help.
But there isn’t. And there’s only one person who can give me straight answers. Only one person who can explain how seventeen-year-old David had his picture taken in 1912.
David himself.
Just as he had predicted—I read the book, and now I want to talk. Read the book. And then you’ll want to talk. I guarantee it.
“Dammit.”
I kick my feet back into flip-flops and head to David’s house.
He’s in the garage, fiddling with a fishing pole. A hint of smugness crosses his face as soon as he spots me. He places the rod on the workbench and turns to greet me. Palms up, he says with a grin, “I hate to say I told ya so, but—”
“Then don’t.” I stop ten feet from the opened garage door, cautious enough to keep my distance. “The book. You’re in it…in 1912.”
He nods solemnly.
“D
id you and Mateo fake the book to screw with me?”
“No, of course not.”
“How do I know you’re not lying to me?”
“Trust me, I’m not. And creating a book would be expensive anyway, and Mateo and I don’t have any money. Plus, it’d take weeks to create a book like that, and we didn’t even know you weeks ago.”
True. I don’t argue back, but I don’t speak in the affirmative either because I’m not in the mood to be nice. “Please, David,” I say. I want to be strong, but I can’t. “I’m confused and I want the truth.”
David exhales slowly. He looks around, as though searching for something to make this moment easier on him. But when he doesn’t find anything, he looks at me and asks, “Are you hungry?”
It’s well past noon, and the scared knots in my stomach don’t fully cover up the empty gurgle within. I hesitate on answering but then decide food is a good idea. It’ll give me energy if I need to run. Plus, if we go to a restaurant, I’ll be around other people, and there’s safety in numbers.
“I can eat.”
We walk in silence the two blocks to the Rolling Stone Café. It’s one of the few businesses open on Sunday. Because church people like to eat.
The walls of the diner are paneled in light wood. It’s a seat-yourself-wherever kind of place, with yellow and red bottles on each table and cheap vinyl chairs. David leads me to a table for two by the front window. The place is busy, about three-quarters full. But all other parties are loud families with small kids, taking up tables for four, six, or more. The two-seater tables are empty, except ours.
Kids play on the jungle gym across the street at the park. Old Man Zach sits on his bench, looking half asleep. An idyllic small town. If only.
A woman of about fifty with bleached-blonde hair plops down two glasses of ice water and two menus in front of us. Rhonda, according to her name tag. She smiles a big Midwestern smile. “I’ll give you two a few minutes and be right back to take your order, kay?”
I say thanks. David takes a sip of water and doesn’t bother with the menu. He’s a local. He doesn’t need one.
There aren’t too many items to choose from. A few varieties of hamburgers and sandwiches. Sides of fries, salad, or soup. When Rhonda returns, I order the BLT with fries and a Coke. David orders a cheeseburger with fries and a Mountain Dew.
The drinks come first, and I waste no time sticking in my straw and inhaling half the Coke. I’m thirsty and hungry and relieved to be sitting in a diner with the sights and sounds of normal people—normal families with bratty kids, a crying baby, a mom yelling at a grade-school-aged boy, and a father telling his preteen daughter to put her phone away.
Though at any moment, the ordinary world is going to sense my presence. I’ll be exposed as a freak—the girl who talks to ghosts. And that kind of girl is not welcomed in normal establishments like small-town cafés. I glance at David. As much as I don’t want to admit it, he’s my companion in this mess.
I run a finger across the shiny veneer of the cheap table. “My dad loves this place.” David’s eyes light up, and he looks like he has something to say about this but doesn’t speak. “He used to bring me here sometimes when I was little. My grandparents aren’t much for restaurants and my mom, well…” I drift off with a little smile. “She’s not much of a small-town fan. She’d rather drive away hungry and wait for a bigger city with more dining options.”
David doesn’t respond either way to the insult of small-town living.
“It was always just my dad and me that came here,” I tell him. “He used to let me get a strawberry milkshake with my hamburger. And I’d always drink the shake first before my food came out, and then I’d be too full to eat the real food.” I laugh at the memory. “But he’d never get mad at me. He’d wink and say, ‘We won’t tell mom.’”
For the first time since his driveway, David smiles.
The food comes quickly, and Rhonda refills my Coke. David begins eating his fries and I can’t stop staring at him.
“What?” he asks.
A smile erupts across my face. “I’m watching you eat, waiting for the food to fall through you like Slimer in Ghostbusters.”
He chuckles and pops a few more fries into his mouth. “I’m not a ghost. I already told you that.”
I pick up my fork, and before he can jerk away, I stab his forearm. Not hard, just enough for the prongs to leave indentations in his skin. He’s genuine flesh and bone. The blue violet of veins on his inner wrist means there’s blood coursing through him. Like a real guy.
“What the hell was that for?” he asks, inspecting the tiny dents. “I said I’m not a ghost. Couldn’t you trust what I told you and not stab me?”
“Sorry.” But I wasn’t. Not really. “So, you’re not a ghost and you didn’t fake the book. I know, you’re immortal right? Like a vampire. Except”—the window next to us displays a mirrored version of him—“you have a reflection, and you don’t sparkle in the sun.”
After a sip of Mountain Dew, he answers with a laugh, “I’m not a vampire.” He pops more fries in his mouth. “That’d be cool though.”
The incoming sunlight makes his eyes gleam as he smiles at me. I look away.
“Okay, you’re not a vampire, not a ghost, not a bookmaker…” I twirl the straw in my Coke. “What are you then?”
“I’m a normal, seventeen-year-old guy,” he says. “Honest. In a few days, it will be eighteen years since I was born. I’ve got a birth certificate and everything. I was born at 8:03 a.m. on June fifteenth. It’s always June fifteenth. Every time.”
“What do you mean every time? Of course it’s every time. Birthdays don’t change year to year…unless you’re born on Leap Day, I guess.”
He shakes his head. “I mean every time I’m born, it’s always on June fifteenth.”
“What do you mean, every time you’re born? How many times have you been born?”
He pauses with a bundle of fries halfway to his mouth. “Seven.”
Chapter Seventeen
David chews his fries with a slight grin, watching me absorb the impossible information.
“You’ve been born seven times?” I ask.
After a sip of his drink, he chuckles. “Don’t freak out on me okay? Are you alright?”
I can’t do much else than nod. He looks at my plate. “Why don’t you eat, and I’ll explain as much as I can.”
I pick up two fries. The physical rumble of my stomach competes with the appetite-reducing shock roiling through me. I blurt out the only four words pounding through my mind. “Did you kill them?”
My voice is louder than intended and carries through the restaurant. A few heads turn our way.
“Shhh,” David demands in whisper.
I don’t apologize, but I do lower my voice. “Tell me! Did you kill them? All those years ago in 1912…was it you?”
People are still looking our way, but I don’t care. I’m not the bad guy here. Though a pang of guilt sweeps through me because the only “killer” people are interested in today is the one who took the missing little girls and drowned one in the river. My fingers unlatch from the fries and they drop back onto the plate.
“Oh god,” I whisper. “Those little girls…”
David’s eyes widen. “What? You don’t think that I have anything to do with that, do you? Jesus, Chessie, who the hell do you think I am?”
“I have no idea who you are!” I snap back. “Did you kill them? Any of them…the Moore family, the little girls who are missing…did you do it?”
“No.” He leans forward and whispers, barely audible, “I have never killed anyone. Ever.”
I study his face—his eyes wide and pleading, his jaw set. “You said you were responsible for the deaths of the axe murder victims.”
He sighs. “Yes. I’m responsible.”
“Then you killed them!” I yell in a whisper.
“No!” He pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. After
a few deep breaths, he clasps his hands together on the table in front of him and his voice softens. “Responsible yes, because I might have been able to stop the killings but didn’t. I’m responsible because I knew who killed them but didn’t tell anyone. I was there the night the Moore family was killed. I know who killed them because I was standing outside the house. I knew the family might be in danger, but I was too scared to stop it. And afterwards, I didn’t say anything.”
His gaze drops as he speaks, seemingly unable to look me in the eye as the truth spills out of him. It’s as if he’s unable to fully come to terms with what he did, even decades later. Minutes pass and we say nothing. The family with the crying baby leaves. Rhonda refills our drinks. The kids on the jungle gym pedal off on their bikes. Old Man Zach is now fully asleep, head hung down. Hopefully not dead.
I eat a few fries and take a bite of my BLT to feign normalness. It works and David takes a bite of his cheeseburger. We finish our meals and drain our glasses. Rhonda brings the check—a single check with our meals printed out as one final total. David digs a twenty out of his wallet, and I get out a ten out of mine. In his first communication in nearly fifteen minutes, he shakes his head at my money. I plop it down in front of him. He shoves it back my way. I crinkle it into a ball and throw it at him. It bounces off his nose and onto his lap. He laughs and chucks it back at me.
“Stop!” I say, smoothing out the wrinkled bill on the table. “Seriously, take this for my half, plus some for tip.”
“I can pay.”
“Take it,” I demand, “or I’ll stuff it in the tip jar at the hardware store someday when you’re not looking.”
He rolls his eyes and takes the ten dollars. “If you insist.”
I smile. He smiles. It’s as if things are normal between us, as if things are normal in the universe and there are no murder victims, no supernatural entities, or re-born boys. Except the three feet between us is a chasm—a wide empty space, thick with unease and fear. I’m fearful of what he is, who he is, and this vortex of shit I am wrapped up in. And he’s fearful of what he’s done, and probably scared that I’ll walk away and never look back just as soon as I get the chance.