Midsummer's Eve (11 page)

“What if the cops ride by?”

“They won’
t.”

“What if
Adam
has an alarm system?”

“He doesn’
t.”

“What if a neighbor has dogs and they start barking?”

“They don’
t.”

“
I just know someone is stan
ding at the window watching us.”

“Well then, stop talking so much and start moving your big ass!”

“Men never complain about my big… Oh! Oh! Oh! I just felt something scurry over my foot!”

“It was your imagination,
Mallory
. Please, be quiet! When you feel something
slither
across your foot, then
you will have reason to worry
.”

“W
hy did you say slither? There could be a copperhead pilot or a rattlesnake at our feet and we wou
ldn’
t even know it
until it was too late
.”

After a short while the girl’s eternal whining could start to grate on your la
st piece of nerve and she would no doubt
wake even the neighbors with hearing aids
.

“What if the window is locked?”

She was such a worrier.
“
I brought a credit card, just in case. Have you ever opened a do
or with a credit card?”

“
Lots of times.”
She chuckled as we cauti
ously raced across the street. “It’s easy.”

Somehow I knew she had, but we had reached
Adam
’
s house so I didn’
t question her motive for h
aving acquired that particular
life skill. With our backs pressed against the house, we slid around the brick wall checking windows until we finally hit pay dirt. The one in the dining room was unlocked.

“Crawl in,
Mallory
.”

“Me? Why don’
t you crawl in?”

“Because I am 10 ye
ars older than you. Now
stop all your caterwauling and
crawl in before someone sees us!”

“Eve, sometimes you worry the piss outta me!
” S
he
complained loudly, but raised the window and hau
l
ed
her oversized derriere over the windowsill. Although she let it be known by loud huffing and puffing that she was far from happy about having the duty delegated to her. I heard her stumbling around inside, then she finally found the back door and opened i
t.
“How are we going to see?
Surely the neighbors will notice and call
Adam
at work if we t
urn on a light.”

I slapped my palm again
st my forehead in frustration. “
Of all the idioti
c things! Can you believe I forgot to
bring a freaking flashlight?”

“
Well, it was ki
nda spur of the moment. We didn’
t exactly case the joint and plan for days like most master criminals would. Where’
s the phone?”

“
To your right on the wall.” I was anxiously feeling around in the pitch-black room and praying that
Adam
hadn’
t had the forethought to set booby traps for a situation just such as this. But, never mind.
As a general rule
Adam
d
oesn’
t have forethought.

“Ouch! Shit
!”
Mallory
yelped, banging her th
igh against the kitchen table. “Here!”
She handed me the cordless phone followed by the sound of her vigo
rously rubbing her thigh. “That’
s gonna leave a bruise and you know I hate bruises!”

“Just turn out the lights and the man of the hour
won’t even notice
it.”

My eyes aren’
t what they used to be
and I hadn’
t thought to grab my reading glasses, so I grabbed the phone and opened the refrigerator door for light. I hit scroll on his caller ID and there was Chia. About a hu
ndred times! The talkative tramp
!

Grabbing the pen and paper from my pocket, the only things I had remembered to bring in my haste, I jotted down her number and suppressed the urge to send the phone sailing through the nearest window. As I was writing, my eyes were drawn toward a blinking red light in the corner. His answering machine! Well now, I wonder who was leaving messages. It certainly hadn’t been me. Should I or sho
uldn’
t I? I pressed play!

“Hey, baby.”
A sultry, Asian voice purred
from the machine. “
Are you wake? How y
ou sleep without me in you arm?”

Well gag me with a frigging
fork!

Then, yet another Asian voice, “
Hey
Adam
, c
all me when you wake up. I think I ca
n stop by tomorrow around noon.”

I had been hearing
depressing
rumors lately that
Chia wasn’
t the only one sharing
Adam
’s crumpled bed. The pain in my chest felt like someon
e had my heart in a vise grip. “
Let’
s get out of here.”
But a
s I turned to leave I noticed one of those disposable cameras on the kitchen table.
Who still uses those
?
Let’s see.
Should I or shouldn’t I?
I was already breaking and entering. I might as well add theft to the charge. I
slip
ped
the camera into my pocket without the worrywart
even
noticing
.

The woods were even creepier and more ominous walking back to the Jeep with the song of a whippoorwill echoing through the still forest. “Whip-poor-will. Whip-poor-will.”

I had a serious case of jitters and prayed that the sounds I heard were only the workings of an over stimulated imagination. The sounds such as limbs breaking too close to us with loud snaps that echoed through the woods like a rifle shot penetrating the darkness.

Maybe it was a deer.

Dead leaves being crunched on the damp, moss covered ground as if someone were skipping over them a short distance from us.

Maybe it was a deer.

The sound of leaves rustling and stirring in the trees, when the leaves had long since fallen from the trees. Okay! I doubt even Bambi could make leaves appear on barren trees!

At that moment, the moon shone through the clouds and illuminated the skeletal limbs that towered
over us. We stopped dead in our
tracks, as the woods were suddenly filled with the haunting melody of
a child’
s playful laugh
.

“What’
s so funny?”
Mallory
demanded.

“It wasn’
t me.” I whispered peering into the trees with building apprehension.

“What
tha…what
do you mean, it wasn’
t you?” S
he screeched and took off in a sprint.

Glancing up, I saw a small shadowy form or something considerably larger than a whippoorwill or an owl perched on a limb in the tree directly overhead. I stood still, too terrified to move a muscle.

“
Mallory
, look up at that tree,
”
I whispered hoping not to draw undue attention to myself. But
Mallory
was long gone. The girl
left me in a trail of dust and
evidently
didn’
t slow down until she stood trembling and gasping for breath beside the Jeep. When I realized that I was alone, in the woods with. . .
something…
you can believe I wasn’
t far behind her.

“Why did you lock the
door?”
Mallory
whimpered, her breath catching in her throat as I caught up to her. “Did you see him, Eve?
”
Then, without waiting for me to reply, she answered her own ques
tion.
“
It was the
little boy,
wasn’
t it?
It was the same little boy your Dad saw, wasn’t it?
I saw him
…
in the tree! He was laughing! Did you hear him laughing? Oh Lord, we have a ghost after us for real! You know I can’t take this shit, Eve! Why did I let you talk me into doing something this stupid
?
Did you hear that sinister laughter, Eve? He was laughing!”

“
Yes,
I heard laughing and no, I don’
t know who or what it was. And I thought I saw something, but it was probably just my ima
gination.”
Leaning back in the seat, I took a dee
p
breath and tried to calm
my frazzle
d nerves. “It gets kinda spooky around here at night.”

“Spooky? Hell, that ain’
t
even
the word for it! These woods are downright evil! They remind me of the woods in the
Blair Witch Project
!”

It
had to be my imagination, didn’
t it? Of course it did! When I could finally get my trembling fingers to fit the key into the ignition, I put the Jeep in reverse and backed out into th
e road slinging gravel
. I drove home terrified that
the little boy would
skip across the road in front of us, or be swinging from an overhanging tree limb as I
drove under it, then leap
onto the hood and press his
hideous
face against the windshield. Here I was selfishly worrying about myself. Poor
Mallory
would have a seizure on the spot!

When we returned to my house
,
Mallory
adamantly refuse
d to drive home alone
. I heard her rummaging through my dresser drawer until she found pajamas that fit over her supersized backside and crawled in my bed. I double chec
ked the locks on all
the doors and windows and joined her. It was then the delayed thought struck me that if the child could appear and disappear at wil
l -
a locked door probably wouldn’
t present much of a challenge for him. Screw the electric bill. I left every light in the house on.

I had just pulled the covers over me and was reaching to set the alarm when the phone rang. Picking up the receiver I heard, “I cannot believe how truly ignorant the lot of you are!
The Three Stooges
in female form. You know how taxing it is for me to maintain this perfect figure, yet you sit idly by and allow me to stuff my mouth with enough pure cane sugar to send me into a diabetic coma and….”

I handed the phone to
Mallory
. “It’s for you.” Then I put a pillow over my head to drown out Teri’s ceaseless tirade and went to sleep.

I was awakened sometime during the night when a whippoorwill perched on the ledge outside my window and called, “whip
-
poor
-
will, whip
-
poor
-
will, whip
-
poor
-
will” in his mournful echo through the otherwise quiet night. 

I felt like one of the walking dead when I rolled out of bed the following morning, but I was grateful for the light of day. Visions of the little boy had danced through my head for the better part of the night. And when the child had finally taken a break from disturbing my sleep, the whippoorwill had filled in with his haunting lament.

Stumbling down the hall to make coffee I heard
Mallory
rappi
ng in the shower to a
song about the joys of sex, smoking pot, and drinking something purple.

Only after I had my first cup of the steaming aromatic brew in my hands did I remember that I was anxious to
drop off the pilfered roll of film
and then
get to work and talk to Eric. Hopefully he would
agree to the plan the girls and I
had devised and
O
peratio
n
Pay Back is A
Royal
Bitch
could commence.

Six

E
ric agreed totally and enthusiastically to the plan. Especially after
Mallory
’
s gushing rendition, she told it to anyone who
would listen, of the Fair Chia’
s resemblance to a frigging supermodel. Quite frankly, I had long since tired of the comparison. When was the last time she
had
witnessed a 4 foot 9 mod
el sashaying down a runway
?