Bad Things (3 page)

He shook his head. “No.”

“Yes, Ricky. Have I ever lied to you?”

He shrugged. “Guess not.”

“I know you sat in your papa's chair by the front door for a long time tonight. I'm proud of you. It took a lot of courage for you to do it.”

“I stayed twenty minutes,” he said finally. “I didn't think I could do it.”

“You're a brave boy, Ricky, just like Thomas Piper. You just don't give yourself enough credit. But after tonight, you will. Just stick close to your mama and your brother, and the whole time, make believe that
you're
Thomas Piper.”

“But
they're
out there.” He could hear them even as he spoke.

“They can't hurt you. And they can only scare you if you let them. Ricky, you can decide not to be scared, just like Thomas.” She smiled conspiratorially. “You know what'll help?”

“What?” he asked, nearly convinced.

“Be nasty. When no one's looking, stick out your tongue at them!”

He almost smiled.

“They have no right to scare you, so just tell them, real quietly, to go stick their heads in dog doodie.”

He giggled. “They'd probably like to do that.”

She ruffled his hair. “You.”

“Carmen?”

“What?”

“What about Big Jack? He can hurt me.”

She studied him a long moment. “Well, what do you do in the daytime if you see a strange man coming toward you?”

“Stay with friends or cross the street.”

“Okay. Remember, you said that anyone can see him, so that means he's not gonna come after you when people are around. Just treat him like any other stranger.”

“Are you sure you can't go with us?”

“Yes. And I'm also sure you'll be fine. While you're gone, I'll make sure your window's shut tight and I'll double-check the lock on the cellar door, just so you feel extra safe when you get back.”

He tried not to tremble. If Carmen really believed he was as brave as Thomas Piper, then he didn't want to disappoint her. “Okay.”

She gave him one more big, cushiony hug. “You're a brave young man, and I know you'll be fine. You have to tell me all about how you whispered bad names at the jacks when you saw them.”

“Pottyface?” he suggested coyly.

She laughed heartily. “That's a good one. Try it, but make sure your mama doesn't hear. And Ricky?”

“Uh-huh?”

“If you get a Snickers bar, will you give me a bite?”

“Sure.”

“Now, go. Your mama and brother are waiting for you.”

He hesitated, trying to summon up a brave smile. At first he couldn't do it, then Carmen mouthed “pottyface” at him, and he cracked up.

“Little boys,” Carmen said, smiling. “You all like the same disgusting things.”

Still giggling, he returned to the living room. “Didja fall in?” Robin asked. Mom was closing the front door after handing out more candy.

“Bite me,” he told his brother, as he glanced fondly at Grandfather's portrait.

“Richard,
what
did you say?” his mother asked sharply.

“I said I'm ready,” he said quickly, and pulled on his mask.

She stared, not quite fooled.

“He said—” began Robin.

Oh no, he thought.

“—I'm ready,” his brother finished.

“Oh,” said Mom.

He looked at Robin, surprised that he'd covered for him. A second later, Robin pulled on his hand, and he squatted down.

“You owe me all your Tootsie Rolls for that!”

“One.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

“Boys?” their mother said, raising her eyebrows.

“Two and a half,” Ricky hissed.

“Deal,” Robin said. “Okay, Mom, we're ready.”

“Thank you, Ricky,” Carmen said, biting into the Snickers bar he'd fished out of his bag. He'd insisted on giving her the whole thing even though it was the only one he had. “You're the nicest boy in the world.”

“You're welcome,” he mumbled around a sticky Yabba Dabba.

Everyone else had gone to bed, and as they sat at the kitchen table, just the two of them, Carmen watched the little boy carefully. He was so small and so afraid, and she'd felt terrible when she'd had to stay at the house instead of going with him tonight, even though she knew his mama wouldn't let him out of her sight.

“Is it good?” he asked.

“Mmmm. Very good.” She resisted the urge to grab him and hug him.

Truthfully, she knew he had to go out and face his fears, to learn to be less dependent on her, but it hurt her to let him go, because he was so small and she was so afraid for him.

Ricky had been her favorite ever since she'd come to work here the week after the boys were born. Of the two, Ricky was the most fragile. He was so serious and so easily frightened that he reminded her of a wounded deer. Robin, despite his handicap, was all sunshine and smiles, and very capable of taking care of himself. The brothers were an odd pair.

She felt bad for Ricky because no one believed him when he said he saw the greenjacks, and now that he wasn't a baby anymore, she was afraid that his parents would think there was something wrong with him. His mama had been asking her recently if he'd said anything about the greenjacks, and reluctantly Carmen had lied. When she decided to talk to Ricky about it, she was surprised to find out that he already knew his parents were worried. So, even though she wasn't entirely sure it was the right thing to do, she helped him, coaching him, reminding him, trying to build his confidence.

He didn't need to be afraid of the dark, for instance—not in the house—but he was so sensitive. She thought that perhaps he really did see greenjacks since her uncle's talk of
elementales
sounded very similar. But whether he could or he couldn't wasn't the problem. His fear was, so she told him over and over that nothing could hurt him if he wasn't afraid, and tried to play on his love of the stories about Thomas Piper. She watched him now: so serious, so sad. He tried so hard. The fact that he had gone out tonight could only be a hopeful sign.

She finished the candy bar. “Thank you, Ricky. Now, tell me, how was it tonight?”

He smiled, his lip trembling almost imperceptibly. “It was okay.

“What did you see? Anything?”

He hesitated. “Greenjacks. Mostly they were all over our yard, but there were some hanging around other people's yards, too, especially on our street.” He smiled, more bravely. “I did what you said. I pretended I was Thomas.” The smile suddenly broadened. “Know what I did?”

“What?”

“I flipped the bird at one.” He giggled.

“I told you to stick out your tongue, Ricky,” she said reprovingly. Carmen missed crotchety old Grandfather Piper, but he'd sure taught those boys some bad things.

“I did that, too, but the bird was more fun. You do it like this.” He made a fist and extended his third finger proudly.

She cupped the offending hand in hers. “I guess your mama didn't see you do that?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Your grandfather shouldn't have taught you that.”

“Is it as bad as ‘bite me'?”

“Worse. It's real, real dirty. Don't do it again, okay?”

“Okay.” He dug a packet of Sweetarts from his bag and ripped them open. “Want some, Carmen?”

“No thanks, Ricky.”

“I miss Grandfather,” he said around a mouthful of candy. “He told me about the greenjacks.”

“I know.” His brown hair was still pasted damply against his forehead from wearing the skeleton mask all evening, and she reached out and pushed it from his face. She wondered if Ricky would have all his problems if his grandfather had kept his creepy old stories to himself. Who could know? And whether he saw greenjacks or only thought he did, it didn't matter, because she loved him blindly and she'd do anything for him. For good or bad, nothing could ever change that. It made her heart ache just to look at him.

“Ricky?”

“Huh?” He had a Mallomar half-crammed in his mouth.

“Did you see him? Big Jack?”

“No,” he said, swallowing. “I guess not.”

“You guess?”

“I thought I did for a second, in a tree on Penerosa Street.” He picked up a box of Good & Plenty. “But it was windy out there, so I was probably wrong.”

“You're gonna be sick if you eat any more candy tonight. Have those tomorrow, okay?”

He nodded.

“Ricky?”

“Huh?”

She hesitated, then decided to say what she had to say. “Ricky, you know you don't ever have to pretend to me. If you see something, you tell me. No one else will know.”

“Okay.” He pushed candy off the table into his bag and stood. “Are you gonna go to bed now?”

That was his way of making sure he didn't have to go up the dark stairway by himself. “Sure,” she told him, glancing at the clock. “You know what? It's past eleven. I guess Big Jack has less than an hour left to play his tricks, huh?”

He gave her a genuine smile in return. “Yeah.” He fell into her arms for a hug.

They walked up the stairs together, taking care to be very quiet. She told him to make sure and brush his teeth for a whole minute, kissed him good night, then made a show of switching on the night-light in the hall between the bathroom and the twins' bedroom. She walked to her room, around the corner from the others, but stood waiting by the open door until she heard Ricky safely enter his bedroom.

“Robin?” Ricky whispered as he pulled the bedroom door closed behind him. The night-light was out again, and swallowing his fear, he made himself bend down and feel for the wall socket next to the door where it was plugged in.
Nothing to be afraid of in here.

His fingers found the socket but no night-light. “Robin!” he hissed.

No reply.

Robin, who loved to tease him by taking the little light and hiding it, seemed to be fast asleep. Ricky could see him buried under the blankets on the twin bed catercornered from his, and he was too angry at his brother to be afraid. “I'm turning on the big light, you turkey fart.”

He waited a second, heard no giggling from the bed across the room. If Robin were awake, he would have cracked up. Grandfather had talked about turkey farts last year at Easter after dinner and several beers with Daddy. The brothers had practically wet their pants with hysterical glee before Mom came in and let Grandfather have it for saying “fart” and Dad for letting him. Mom was really ticked.

“Turkey fart,” he said again, hopefully.

Nothing.

He flipped on the light switch, but Robin didn't stir because he was completely hidden in his blankets. At least his rotten brother hadn't figured out how to get up high enough to unscrew the overhead bulb, Ricky thought as he took off his costume and pulled on his pajamas. At least he hadn't
yet.

Holding his breath, Ricky tiptoed across the room to the window that overlooked the three-acre front yard and the oak tree. Carmen had promised to lock it, but he had to check, had to put his hand under the curtain and feel the latch, make sure it was turned. He didn't even consider looking. Last year when he looked, he'd seen Big Jack looking back at him, scratching at the glass, tap tap tapping.
Ricky come out and play .
. . He shivered as he reached behind the curtain.

His fingers found the cold metal lock. Either Carmen had forgotten or Robin was messing with him again, because it wasn't latched. Stomach churning, he frantically twisted the lock closed.

The job done, he suddenly felt proud of himself, and almost as brave as Thomas McEnery Piper, not only because he'd flipped the bird at the little jacks, and hadn't panicked when the night-light disappeared, but because he'd calmly—well, pretty calmly—locked the window.

Smiling to himself, Ricky turned right and faced the foot of his brother's bed. Robin was so balled up in covers that he couldn't even see his hair. For a moment Ricky considered yelling boo and tearing the blankets from him. Maybe he'd get a glass of water from the bathroom so he could throw it on him.

No, he decided, he'd probably just end up getting in trouble. He'd cook up a safer trick tomorrow. Briefly he glanced at the wall of closets, saw with satisfaction that they were safely closed, then returned to his own bed, which was set against the inside wall as far as possible from the window and within reach of the overhead light switch. Last January Mom and Dad had redecorated the room. They put up wallpaper covered with drawings of sheriff stars, boots, six-shooters, lariats, and cowboy hats. Then they hung pictures showing cowboys, Indians, and lots and lots of horses. Ricky loved everything about the room except for the tree outside the window and the niggling fear that there might be a secret passage hidden in the closet somewhere.

There were all kinds of stories about the house and its hidden passages. His great-great-grandfather Conlin Piper—
Thomas's son,
he realized with a little thrill—had come here from Scotland and built the first house in Santo Verde: this house. Grandfather had always laughed and said that old Conlin was too creative for his own good and that he'd built a hodgepodge of a house with a maze hidden inside it. Conlin Piper had been in the Royal Navy, and Grandfather claimed he'd found a pirate's treasure, and had built the tunnels to hide his loot safely. Dad said the story about the loot was poppycock, but that the tunnels were real, and he'd even shown them the ones behind the built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace downstairs. One side was fake. The bookshelf turned around to reveal a little square room in which Conlin supposedly hid a deserter during the Civil War. Behind the other, though, was a dusty staircase, so low and narrow that a grown-up would have a hard time using it. It led straight up into utter darkness.

Yawning, Ricky pulled his yellow chenille bedspread down and climbed aboard, then crawled to the end of the bed, flicked off the light, and crawled back up, pushing his bare feet quickly, safely, between the clean white sheets.

Tonight he felt so brave that he didn't pull the covers all the way over his head. He knew Big Jack was outside somewhere, but the window was locked, and before long, the clock would strike twelve and the creature would be gone for another year.

Lying there in the dark, he realized that he felt better than he ever had in his life, and it was all because he'd walked right past the greenjacks, refusing to listen when they called his name. Instead, he'd pretended to be Thomas and lifted his mask and stuck out his tongue. Later, he'd really, truly flipped the bird at one. He thought his ancestor would be proud of him tonight.

Outside, the wind picked up and oak twigs scratched at the window. Ricky shivered with sudden alarm: What if he'd made the greenjacks angry?
They can't do anything to you!
Only Big Jack could hurt him, and he was locked out. Calm again, Ricky stretched and wiggled his toes, knowing for the first time in his life that things were going to be better now. Maybe the fear would never go away entirely, he thought sleepily, but he'd be like Thomas McEnery Piper and not be af—

“Ricky!”

His eyes jerked open.

“Ricky!” It was Robin's voice, muffled and distant.

He's still under the covers.
Ricky realized that his twin was going to try to play a trick on him. Tonight it wouldn't work, he thought smugly. Not tonight.

Outside, the wind howled and distant thunder rumbled.

“Ricky!”

“What?” he whispered.

“Ricky!”

“What?” he called, a little louder.

Something tapped on the window. Suddenly he felt cold.

“Ricky!” The tapping grew insistent. “Open up!”

He slid from the bed, hesitating at the light switch, deciding to brave the dark because Robin was making so much noise that their parents might wake up. If they saw the light on under the door, he'd get in trouble for sure.

He padded to Robin's bed, paused, then poked his finger into the covers just as a brief flash of lightning lit the room. “Whatcha want, you pottyface?” He poked again, harder, and realized he felt nothing under the bedspread but a wadded-up blanket. Thunder boomed just outside. Ricky nearly jumped out of his skin. He glanced around nervously.

Tap tap tap.
“Ricky!”

Just as the rain began to fall, he understood. His stinkpot brother got himself locked outside while trying to play a trick on him.

“Ricky!”

The storm noises would probably keep his parents from hearing anything, and the sudden delight he felt at having Robin's trick backfire helped him fight down his nervousness about having to open the window again. Probably Robin was planning to scare him—he'd done it once before—by climbing out the window and pretending to be Big Jack.

The first time he'd done it, last March, Ricky'd been so terrified that he'd screamed. Mom and Dad had come running, and boy, did Robin get in trouble when they saw him sitting out there in that tree. Ricky had hidden under his covers and cried half the night, even though Robin kept trying to apologize. By the next morning, he wanted revenge, but he didn't get any because he didn't know how.

But oh boy, he sure knew how now. He'd let his twin sit out there all night. Or maybe an hour, anyway. Let him sit out there and get all wet, and then Robin would think twice before he tried to play another joke on him.

He fluffed up the lump of blankets Robin had left and returned to his bed, thinking that if his parents did come in, he'd just pretend to be asleep. Could he help it if he'd locked the window without knowing his brother was out there playing a trick on him? No, he couldn't.

He sat on the edge of his bed.

Tap tap tap.
“Ricky! Ricky! Wake up, dummy!”

He swung his feet up, slipped them between the cool sheets.

“Ricky! Let me in!”

“No way,” he whispered.

Then, abruptly, two words popped into his brain:
Big Jack

“Cripes.” He slipped off the bed and walked quickly across the dark, shadowy room. He'd gotten so full of himself for being brave that he didn't even think about the fact that it was Halloween night when he'd locked his brother outside. “Cripes,” he whispered again. Even rat-fink Robin didn't deserve to get snatched by Big Jack. “Cripes.” He pushed the curtains open.

A skeletal face leered in through the glass, a green glowing face that grinned from ear to ear. With a small yelp, he jumped back. Then he heard Robin call his name again and saw his brother's hand rap on the glass, and realized his turkey brother had tried to scare him with his own Halloween mask.

Drawing a deep breath, he undid the lock. Robin backed up a little way to a thicker part of the wobbly branch he sat on and waited while Ricky pushed open the window. Wind yanked leaves from the tree and splattered sharp raindrops against his face.

“You took my mask, you fart,” Ricky whispered. “I oughta leave you out here all night.”

Robin pushed the mask up on top of his head. “I thought you'd want Big Jack to trickertreat you, Ricky!”

“Shut up!” Ricky ordered, not at all amused. “Get in here.”

“Why? You scared old Jack's gonna get in?” Robin grinned, full of the devil. “I'm gonna tell Mom you told me ‘shut up.' ”

“You just said it, too.”

“Then I'm gonna tell her I saw you flip old man Clegg the bird.”

“Did not.”

“Did so.”

“Did not.”

“I saw you.”

“I didn't flip off Clegg, I flipped off—”

“Who? Huh? Who?”

Ricky shrugged, not wanting to say. When Robin was in the mood to tease, anything made him worse. “Come inside. Mom ‘n' Dad are gonna wake up.”

“Good thing for you old man Clegg's blind as a bat or you'd be nailed already. If you give me all your Tootsie Rolls, I won't tell. You already owe me two and a half for earlier. Now I want 'em all.”

Carmen always said Robin was a Tootsie Rollaholic, and Ricky guessed she was right. “I'll give you one more.”

“Three.”

“Two and that's fi—”

Behind Robin, near the heart of the oak, a thin branch moved against the wind, bending itself around the trunk. Ricky felt his jaw drop open, and knew his brother said something, but didn't understand the words.

Time slowed to a crawl as he watched the branch encircling the trunk. At the end of it were five long twigs, jointed and flexing like human fingers. A second branch, identical to the first, snaked around the trunk from the other side.

A creaking sound. Wind sighed. Rain in his face. Ricky's ears filled with roaring blackness, and the same blackness appeared in spots before his eyes and filled his stomach with nausea. But he couldn't look away.

“Hey, butthead!” Robin called. “Wake up!”

Time began to flow again. “Get inside,” Ricky ordered. “Now!”

“No way, José, not until you give. Three more Tootsie Rolls or I tell.”

“Come in
now!”

Alien laughter exploded inside Ricky's head, a gale of it, similar to the greenjacks' windy cackling, but deeper, more powerful, a hurricane rather than a breeze. Oblivious, Robin continued his teasing, but Ricky couldn't even hear him over the roar of Big Jack's voice.

He leaned out the window as far as he dared and extended his arms to his brother. “Come on!”

Slowly, so slowly, the skeletal arms crept up around the oak, the stick fingers crunching as they gripped the bark. The thought of the creature hidden behind the trunk terrified Ricky, and he had to force himself not to turn and run.

Then he saw it peering at him from behind the trunk. It was a skull, like a twisted burl of wood, human-sized, leering, grinning with wood-chip teeth, the eye holes so black, they seemed to suck light into them.

The laughter deafened him as the creature pulled its body higher, and higher. Ricky blinked, and in the instant his eyes were closed, Big Jack must have leapt, its sounds masked by the storm, for now it stood arrogantly on a thick limb a few feet behind Robin.

Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled.

Big Jack looked like it did last year, only clearer and closer, so close, too close. The monstrosity resembled a human skeleton, but with bones made of tortured bark and buckled wood. Naked white roots, like nerves, twisted through its limbs, and leaves and vines filled its chest, throbbing green tendrils that twined along its extremities like blood veins. One thick vine coursed up its neck, pulsing—
jugular vine,
Ricky thought, fighting the urge to laugh or scream or throw up, he didn't know which. Big Jack opened its mouth, and wet waxy leaves crept from the corners of its smile, growing perceptibly, reaching toward him.

Toward Robin.

Horrified, Ricky jerked backward. His head thunked against the sash, but he barely felt it.