Dark Mind (The Dark Mind Trilogy Book 1) (10 page)

“Cole?”

Cole’s head snapped up at the sound of Amy’s voice, leaving him frozen and small on the ground. “Amy? H-hi.” A cold sweat had broken out all over his body and he prayed it was not visible.

“Hi, Cole. I was hoping you hadn’t left yet.” She bit her lower lip and rubbed a hole in the ground with her foot. “I’m sorry. I know you just wanted to help. I was a jerk. I hate hanging out with those guys anyway. They’re all a bunch losers. Can I make it up by coming over tonight? I’d really like to finish that game.”

“My mom’s in the hospital. I’m staying with my Aunt Beth again.”

“Oh.” The hole by her foot got a little bigger. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. Coming home tomorrow.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Amy sighed and looked up from the ground. “Do you forgive me?”

“Just don’t ever do that again. Deal?”

A smile spread across Amy’s face. “Deal. Of course. I already asked my mom if I could come over. Is that cool? She’s waiting for me.”

“Yeah.” Cole picked himself up and dusted off. “Oh, hey, there’s my aunt. She finally decided to show up.”

Beth gave her usual unwelcoming assent, which was a little more unwelcoming after Mrs. Brown asked if Amy could go home with them. Amy climbed into the backseat while Beth glared at the back of Mrs. Brown’s head as she walked away.

“All right little girl, looks like you’re stuck with me for the rest of the day,” Beth said, and then mumbled under her breath, “Better for you.”

“Looking forward to it,” Amy said. “So I guess Risk will have to wait. Any idea what you wanna do?”

“Um, not really. Hey,” Cole said, turning to Beth, “can you please take us somewhere?”

Beth’s eyebrows rose as she looked down at Cole. “Seriously?”

“Or at least take us to get something to bring back?” Cole said, a little less confident.

There was an awkward silence while Cole waited with bated breath and Amy watched with growing interest.

Beth sighed. “What do you want to do? There’s a price limit, don’t forget.”

Cole was too shocked to respond at first and, once he had recovered, his mind drew a blank. “Uh, I hadn’t actually thought about it.”

Beth turned the key in the ignition. “Jeez. I’m gonna start driving home. You can pick anything before we pass it but when we do it’s too late.”

Cole looked to the backseat desperately. “Amy? Anything?”

Amy also seemed lost, but amused at the same time. “You know. I guess there is one thing I’ve been wanting to try.”

“Yeah?” Cole said. “Quickly, what is it?”

“Well… do you know about the new arcade that just opened?”

The minivan screeched to a halt on the side of the road and Beth whipped around in her seat. “What? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“We don’t have to…” Amy began

“Whatever,” Beth cut in. “Let’s get this over with. I’ll give you an hour.”

Amy broke into a huge smile and began shrieking and giggling uncontrollably.

“If you keep doing that, you’re not going,” Beth said.

Amy kept bouncing but managed to keep her screams internal. She leaned forward in her seat to whisper at Cole, “I’ve begged to go here every day since it opened but my mom would never 'have time.'”

“What is it?” Cole asked, feeling the excitement despite his ignorance.

“You’ll see,” Amy said.

They arrived a few minutes later at
The Fun Machine
, which still had a Grand Opening sign hanging on the front entrance. The three of them trouped inside, Beth trailing behind the jumping, screaming Amy, where they were met with more bright flashing lights, blaring sounds and kids running around than any of them had ever witnessed in one place. Amy stopped screaming and looked around herself in amazement. Cole joined her, experiencing even greater amazement for he had never seen anything remotely this fantastic in his life.

“What are you waiting for?” Beth said, coming up behind them. “Get going. Your hour is wasting away.”

Amy leaned in close to Cole’s ear. “This could be a problem. Does she not realize we need money?”

“What are you kids doing?” Beth said. “I wasn't kidding. In exactly one hour we leave.”

“All of these machines need tokens,” Cole said, feeling his confidence growing.

Beth took a quick survey of the area around her. “Of course they do. How did I not think of that?” She looked down at Cole and Amy’s pleading faces. “Fine.” She opened her purse and rifled through her belongings. “Here’s five dollars for each of you. Bring me back change.”

Amy smirked at Cole as they took the money and then they both ran off to the nearest token machines.

“Can you believe that?” Amy laughed as she put her five dollar bill into the machine. “'Bring me change.' Well even if it were possible to not change the whole bill into tokens, how can five dollars last an hour?”

“She’s kind of old-fashioned,” Cole laughed. “She forgot that inflation happened. Probably thinks each machine only takes a penny.”

Amy laughed. “Old people. Guess we have to make this last.”

They stuffed the tokens in their pockets and went to the arcade machines.

“You go first,” Amy said.

Cole stood there, staring blankly at the screen.

“Have you never played a video game before?” Amy asked, failing to hold back a wide smile.

“Um.” Cole's face turned a deep red.

“I’ll go first. Show you how it works.” She stepped up to the machine and put in a token. As she played she explained what she was doing. When she was done she made Cole give it a try and, while he played, she shouted tips that were more distracting than helpful but which Cole appreciated nonetheless.

This routine continued for the rest of the machines and, by the end, Cole had picked up enough to try a couple first.

“Wow, you’re getting really good,” Amy said, genuinely impressed.

Cole was embarrassed at how much that compliment meant to him but he did not let it show.
You see that? I can do things if I try.

A couple of times he looked back at Beth, still leaning against the counter by the door. She was watching the kids running around, screaming their heads off, all the while bearing an expression of utter disgust and frequently checking her watch. At one point, a small boy dared to bump into her and she shot him a look of death. He backed away slowly and then sprinted off to join his friends. Cole smiled to himself as he watched these events unfold.

The minute the hour was up, Beth fetched the two of them and they drove back to her house, Amy and Cole chattering the whole time about all the best games they had played and all the most memorable moments of each one. Cole never remembered having this much fun in his entire life, nor did he ever remember having this much to say. When they got back to the house, they continued their conversation in the library, to Beth’s relief.

After wolfing down a quick dinner, they returned to the library, most of their earlier energy and excitement spent, while Beth went off to take a long, warm bath.

“Man, you weren't kidding,” Amy said. “Your aunt's cooking is
awful.”

Cole laughed. “Told 'ya. Hey, check out this crazy book I found in here.” He pulled the supernatural book off the shelf and placed it, open to the table of contents, on Amy's lap.

“Oooohh, this looks interesting,” Amy said as she scanned the page. “I've always been fascinated by things like this. I'm so curious to see what the author has to say about them. What do you think? Do you believe in this stuff?”

“I think so. I want to. I definitely believe some of it. I have to say, I've been reading it and it's very convincing.”

Amy's eyes lit up. “What did it say about ghosts? Are they real?”

They took up seats by the windowsill and chatted about the contents of the book. Cole explained some of the more convincing arguments while being careful not to give away too much so that Amy could experience the same thrills that had absorbed him. In a moment of paranoia, Cole peeked out the window to the empty street outside.
Of course, there’s nothing out there.

“Why does your aunt have this book?” Amy said. “Did you ask her about it?”

“She doesn't really like to answer questions about her things. Or at all.”

Amy smirked. “I kinda picked up on that. Well, if you don't wanna ask, I can.”

“No, that's all right. I can. What's the worst she could do?”

“Cool.” Amy went over to the window and looked out. “It’s so nice out there,” she said. “Hey, who’s that?”

“Who’s what?” Cole said, instantly frantic, climbing over to the window.
No.
One look out the window and his heart was in his throat. “I have to be right back,” he whispered. He sprinted out of the house, praying the car wouldn't drive away before he got some answers.

Miraculously, the car was still idling by the curb, showing no sign of movement. The driver was obscured in darkness, visible only as the silhouette of a woman, but the boy’s head was clearly visible inside the passenger side window. Cole stopped on the sidewalk, catching his breath, trying to remember what he had wanted to ask. The encounter had been so unexpected that all of his burning questions were lost in the abyss of his mind, behind the chorus of voices that had started up inside his head again once he was close to the boy.

The boy broke the silence first. “Nice place. Whose house is this?”

The voice opened the floodgates in Cole's brain and the questions came streaming back. He decided to start with the basics. “Who are you? How did you find this place? And why the
hell
are you stalking me?”

“Easy, Cole,” the boy said.

“How do you know my name?! Who
are
you?” Cole took a threatening step closer to the car.

“You really have no idea?” the boy said. “I overestimated you.”

A fire swelled up within Cole, but before he could react, he heard footsteps behind him and spun around to see Amy approaching.

“What’s going on out here?” she said as she came to Cole’s side.

“Go back inside,” Cole said, surprised at the coldness of his voice. “Please. You shouldn’t be out here.”

“I don’t think so,” Amy said, folding her arms. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Who’s this, your girlfriend? Does she know? I guess not since even you don’t,” the boy said with a sarcastic smile.

“Listen,” Cole said, choosing his words carefully in front of Amy, “if you don’t stop, I’m going to call the cops.”

“Oh yeah, and tell them what?” the boy said. “You don’t even know my name.”

Cole gritted his teeth, his voice threatening to lose its cool. “Either tell me what you want or leave me alone.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.” The boy smiled.

“
You son of a…”
Cole lunged at the open window, arms flailing towards the boy’s face. He saw a flash of fear in the boy's eyes as he shouted to the driver to go. Cole grabbed the boy’s shirt as the car peeled away but leapt back to avoid the tires crushing his feet. He stared after it, fists at his sides, fuming.

“Should have figured!” the boy shouted back at him as the car fled down the block.

“The license plate was covered,” Amy said quietly after the car had turned the corner. “Calm down. Come inside and tell me what that was all about. We won’t let that little weasel push you around.”

Cole’s shoulders relaxed. “All right.”

Amy took his hand and the two of them walked back inside the house. Cole’s head was spinning, the most pressing matter being what he was going to tell Amy. He couldn’t tell her the truth but his lie had to be solid enough to convince her after what she had witnessed.

They sat down in the library, Amy across from him, waiting expectantly. Cole was thankful she did not pressure him, allowing him a second to collect his thoughts.

“I honestly don’t know who that is,” Cole began tentatively. “He showed up at my mom’s house one night and before I could talk to him he disappeared. All I know is that he’s stalking me. He somehow found out where both my house and my aunt's house are and I think I might have seen him outside school once too. But I have no idea what he wants.”
Mostly true but convincing enough.

Amy was quiet a moment. “Okay. Let’s try to figure this out. It didn’t seem like he was just doing this randomly. He must have a motivation. And who was that woman driving, his mother? Why would she help him? Think. There must be some reason.”

Dammit Amy.
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Amy shot him a sideways glance. “This doesn’t seem like something you can ignore.”

Cole glared at her. “I agree. Some things you shouldn’t ignore.”

Amy bit her lip and looked at the floor. “Forget
I said anything. So what were we doing before?”

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, the heavy tension easing as they talked about more pleasant topics. Cole was still shaken up but he managed not to think much about the encounter. He would have to figure this out in his own time. He could not tell Amy that he was essentially insane and that his curse had brought him an enemy, one who knew too much information about him and had definite but unknown intentions.