Chain Letter (15 page)

“Who?”

“I can’t remember.”

“The man?”

“Neil?” she said suddenly, and she was almost begging. “Are you having nightmares?”

“Not all the time.” He tilted his head back, staring at the hazy black sky. “I have
some wonderful dreams. They’re full of colors and music and singing. When I’m in them,
I wish they would never end. They remind me of the days before all this started.”
His voice faltered and he lowered his head. “But I’m like you, I’ve been forgetting.”
He frowned. “Yeah, I’ve been having nightmares.”

“We shouldn’t talk about them. It doesn’t help. Tell me something happy. Was I . . . ?”

Was I in your wonderful dreams?

She didn’t get a chance to ask. Maybe she wouldn’t have, anyway; it was sort of a
sentimental question to put to someone she knew only because she’d helped kill a stranger
with him. Tony interrupted at that point, walking quickly up the street. She released
Neil and he returned to leaning against her car. Wearing cutoffs, his sweatshirt inside
out and backward, the tag hanging at his Adam’s apple, Tony embraced them both. His
eyes were dry and when he spoke, his voice was calm. He had been hit hard but had
mastered himself.

“Do you know what has happened, Ali?” he asked.

She shook her head. One of the patrol car’s red lights had
come to a halt pointed directly at them, making the street look like Lucifer’s Lane.
A policeman came out of the house and stared their way. Tony shifted his body in front
of hers. “Kipp has disappeared,” he said. “He left behind . . . a lot of blood.”

Sleeping with my night-light on.

The shadowed street, the shining house, even Neil and Tony, receded and took on an
unreal quality. She was watching a badly filmed colorless movie that ran on an unending
reel. She was slipping away, feeling she had to get away. She had to force herself
to ask, “How much is
a lot
?”

“The police believe he could still be alive,” Tony said quickly. “We just don’t know.
Somehow, without a lot of noise, he was overcome and dragged out his bedroom window.
The trail of blood leads from the backyard to the street. His mother woke up when
she heard what sounded like a truck starting up out front. She was the one who found
the soaked mattress.” He added quietly, “She had to be sedated and taken to the hospital.”

“How did you two come to be here?” she asked. The answer to the question did not really
interest her. The puddle of blood said it all. She sought for the picture of Kipp
in her head, but he was no longer laughing, fading as if even the life were running
out of his memory.

“After our meeting this afternoon,” Tony said, “Neil and I decided we wouldn’t let
Kipp out of our sight. We came back to his house with him and sat around listening
to music, talking,
whatever. Then about nine Brenda came over with some beer. We were all so uptight
with Fran disappearing, I guess we drank too much and forgot that we were supposed
to be protecting Kipp. When he told us to leave so he could get some sleep, we figured
no one would come after him in his own bedroom.” Tony ran his hand through his hair.
“Then a couple of hours ago, when I was in bed, I got this call. It was a detective.
Since Neil and I were the last ones to see him—Brenda didn’t stay long after bringing
over the beer—he wanted to question us. He wanted to know if Kipp had any enemies.”
Tony stopped and pulled a purple envelope out of his pocket. “I swear I would have
told him the whole story, but I found this on my car seat when I went to drive over
here.”

The page inside the envelope was the familiar pale green. This time, the Caretaker
came right to the point:

If you are not certain they are dead, do what you know you shouldn’t, and be certain.

Your Caretaker

“What are we going to do?” Alison asked miserably.

“I don’t know,” Tony said. “Not yet.”

T
hey sat in the deserted courtyard of Grant High on the raunchy wooden benches Alison
had always despised. The bell signaling the end of break had rung ten minutes ago,
and Brenda and she had watched without moving while the other students had migrated
to their next classes. The day was like every other day had been for what seemed like
the last ten years: a little smoggy, a lot hot.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Brenda said, refolding the morning paper. As with
Kipp, none of them had passed on the letter to her, and still, she had not been spared.
Fran’s and Kipp’s names had been blanked out but otherwise the Caretaker was sticking
to his formula. Decoded, the ad in the paper read:

B.P. Tell Every Teacher School Go To Hell

Brenda had spent last week in a trance after learning the circumstances surrounding
Kipp’s kidnapping. She was a fair actress but Alison had mentally crossed her off
her list of suspects. No one could fake the anguish she was going through. The only
thing that had got her back on her feet was her strong desire to do her “duty.”

“I’ll wait outside each classroom and give you pep talks in between teachers,” Alison
said.

“Who should I start with?” Brenda’s hair was unwashed and she wore no make-up. Incredibly,
in the space of the last few days, gray hairs had begun to show near her ears.

“Start with someone you hate. You may as well get some satisfaction out of this.”
She added, “You won’t get far.”

Brenda nodded wearily. “As long as I get an
A
for effort.” She climbed unsteadily to her feet. “Let’s go to Mrs. Franklin’s art
class. That bitch gave me a
D
on a pretty giraffe I made my freshman year.”

Waiting outside the door, Alison anticipated a loud commotion a few seconds after
Brenda’s entrance. But she heard nothing and when Brenda reappeared a minute later,
her expression was little changed. “The moron just stared at me like she didn’t understand,”
she explained. “The class was too busy painting to notice.”

They went to Mr. Cleaner’s history class next. Young and precise and as bald as an
egg, he had made fun of Brenda’s choice of lipstick her junior year. He was not one
of her favorite
people. This time, Alison kept the door open a crack. It was terrible of her, but
she really wanted to see the look on the teacher’s face.

Brenda had not made it all the way to the front when Mr. Cleaner broke from his lecture
and said, sounding slightly annoyed, “Yes, Miss Paxson. What can I do for you?”

Brenda cleared her throat. “I wanted to tell you that you can go to hell.”

The class went very still. Mr. Cleaner frowned and scratched the top of his shiny
head. “Are you preaching, or what? This is hardly the time for it.”

“No, no. I’m not trying to save your soul. I’m telling you that you can go to hell,
and that I hope you do.”

He responded briskly. “In that case, you can go to hell yourself. And while you’re
at it, get the hell out of my class.”

The kids started laughing. Red faced—she had not got the best of it—Brenda turned
and ran for the door. Alison took her by the arm and pulled her outside and around
the side of the building, where they hid between the bushes.

“At least he won’t report you to the principal,” she said.

Brenda gave a wan smile. “I think he was glad I stopped by.”

Miss Fogleson was the next victim. A grossly overweight lady in her mid thirties,
she taught English literature and made it seem like a foreign language class. No one
liked her because unless you read and reported on
Moby Dick
and
Tale of Two Cities
and similar classics, she thought you were a tasteless
waste who certainly deserved a poor grade. Once again, Alison held the door slightly
ajar.

Miss Fogleson was grading papers while her senior class was pretending to read Hemingway
and Dickens. All was quiet. Brenda had reached the front desk when Miss Fogleson,
without glancing up, said in her crass voice, “Yes, what do you want?”

“I want you to go to hell,” Brenda said, loud and clear.

Miss Fogleson’s right hand twitched and her red pen dropped and rolled off the desk
and fell on the floor. Alison felt a nasty tickle of pleasure. Miss Fogleson looked
at Brenda in amazement. “What did you say, young lady?”

“You heard me. I told you to go to hell.”

She heard her all right; her fat neck began to swell up like a red balloon. The class
put down their books and watched. “How dare you!” Miss Fogleson said furiously.

“I’m just speaking for all of us kids,” Brenda went on, getting revved up. Alison
did not cringe as she had with Mr. Hoglan. Then the poor man had been innocent, and
back then there had been a chance Brenda would get off clean. Today, she was doomed
before she started; best to get it over and have it done with. She gestured dramatically,
“We all hate you. You have lousy taste, no patience, and you’re ugly! You should be
a character in one of those boring books you make us read. Then we could rip out the
pages you’re on and wad you up and throw you in the garbage where you belong!”

Miss Fogleson climbed to her elephant legs, and her mouth dropped open wide enough
to swallow in one bite the doughnut she had on a napkin on her desk. “You cannot say
these things! You will be severely punished!”

“Hah!” Brenda snorted. “Take me to court! Any jury will be able to see you’re the
fat slob I say you are. This is a free country. I can call a pig a pig when I see
it. Pig!”

Gyrating like a rippling bowl of Jell-O, Miss Fogleson appealed to her class. “Steve,
Roger, get the principal. Get the security guard. Get her out of here!”

It was then things got real interesting. A short, black-haired boy, whom Alison recognized
but whose name she could not place, stood in the back and said with a straight face,
“Miss Fogleson, I don’t believe that Brenda has done anything that could be called
illegal. She is, after all, only expressing an opinion. And who knows, there may be
some merit in it. I suggest we listen with an open mind to whatever she has to say
and don’t get upset.” He sat down without cracking a smile.

The class went berserk. They did not merely start laughing as they had in Mr. Cleaner’s
room, they positively freaked with pleasure: falling out of their chairs, jumping
up and down, even throwing things. Miss Fogleson was like a thermometer thrust into
fire, the red blood swelling in her head, ready to burst. It was Brenda who waved
for order.

“Let’s take a vote!” she shouted. “All those who think
Miss Fogleson’s worth a damn, raise your hand.” Whatever hands happened to be up,
came down. “See!” Brenda pointed at the teacher. “I told you I speak for the masses.
You’re out of it, lady. You should roll your fat ass down to the administration building
this minute and hand in your resignation.” She bowed to the applauding class. “Thank
you for your time.”

Alison caught her—or tried to catch her, Brenda came storming out the door—as she
spun into the locker room, leaving a riot at her back. “I think you deserve a break
after that one,” she said.

“No breaks,” Brenda said, her eyes narrowed. “These teachers are going to pay for
what’s happened to Kipp.”

“But
they
didn’t do anything to Kipp.”

“Well, they didn’t help him any.” She barreled around the corner and flung open the
first door she came to. Too late, Alison reached to stop her. The class was Algebra
II and the teacher was Coach Sager whose no-nonsense “slap them till they get in line”
attitude was notorious. Alison put her back to the wall and closed her eyes. This
one, she couldn’t bear to watch.

She did not have long to wait. A thick palm on her shoulder, the other hand pinning
her arms behind her back, a stern mask of discipline riding shotgun above her white
face, Brenda reappeared thirty seconds later, Coach Sager manually steering her in
the direction of the administration building. Alison was thankful the coach’s feet
pounded past her without
notice. She slumped to the ground, losing the laughter she had found only a moment
ago. A student poked his head out the door.

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “Did you hear what that girl told Coach Sager?”

“I can imagine,” she muttered.

T
he days had been hot since the Caretaker’s appearance, and today had added a stilling
humidity, a leaden front up from a tropical storm in Baja, to make sure they did not
forget that they were not far from burning in Hell. At least that’s how Neil saw it,
though he had always been religiously inclined. It was his turn. The Caretaker hadn’t
done him any favors.

N.H. Burn Down School

Fran and Kipp were nowhere to be found. The police had returned twice to question
the others, but the interviews were obviously uncoordinated. They had asked Brenda
and Alison about Fran and had spoken to Tony, Neil, and Brenda about Kipp. No one
had thought to quiz Joan. Why should they, the
police didn’t know of the existence of their cursed group. The kidnappings were big
news locally.

Neil and Tony were sitting in Tony’s room, Neil on the corner stool, Tony on the floor.
The window was open and the sun had a bird’s-eye view of their heads. Both of them
were sweating but neither of them was bothering with his drink. There was a lot they
had to talk about but they were letting it wait. Tony wished he could shut off his
mind as easily as he could his mouth. He kept rehashing the events that had brought
them to their current dilemma, trying to find the turn he had missed that would have
taken them all to safety. But the only exit he could see was the obvious one, Neil’s
trap door: Confess and face the consequences. Now, with the Caretaker’s last threat,
even that way was blocked.

“How is Brenda?” Tony asked.

“Expelled, grounded, depressed, and alive,” Neil answered.

Tony half smiled. “In order of importance?”

“No.”