Following Christopher Creed (23 page)

She barely stirred, said something unintelligible, and conked off again. Justin picked up her arm and let it drop to the couch, still grinning. He did it again for effect.

"Really scary, isn't she?" he asked.

Officer Hughes popped into my head saying that the Mother Creed never left the house after three. Definitely, that was now the start of cocktail hour, rather than after the kids are asleep, or even five o'clock. Alcoholism, I knew, doesn't get any better without help. If my own mother hadn't gotten help...
What in hell had I done to the younger kids?
I don't think Justin was aware of the measure of guilt that was coming my way. He was simply carrying on some nightly charade, which I could tell filled him with sadness, but he was handling it with aplomb, with humor, even, pulling her up to a sitting position by one arm. Her chin fell onto her chest and her breathing remained the same.

"Dangerous, eh?" he repeated.

I wasn't sure what five years could do to my mother; there was no timetable given by the counselors. But this was slightly more horrifying to watch than what I had at first imagined. My imagination had simply included Justin having to defend himself with chairs like a lion tamer. He climbed up onto the couch, straddled her until her body moved forward and he was sitting behind her, holding her upright with one arm around her ribs. He let go, and she flopped for
ward. He wiggled down further, one leg on either side until her back leaned in to him.

"So, Mom. Who took out your contacts while I was gone?" He did some maneuver, pulling her eye sideways with one hand until something dropped into his other palm. He did the same to the other eye. He laid the two contacts on the end table beside him.

She muttered something. It was pathetic, awful, worse than hitting your mother, seeing one in a condition like this. No kid should have to see his mother like this. Mothers are huge.

He stood, pulling her up with him. She flopped into his side, half staggering, half being carried around the coffee table.

"Get her other arm," he told me.

I stood frozen. "Why ... don't you just let her sleep where she is?"

"Because I just took her contacts out. She has allergies and she'll wake up with her eyes on fire if I don't. But without them, she'll fall down the stairs on her way up to bed when she starts coming to. Believe me—it's happened."

Something shot through me, a desire to help, maybe—some twisted desire to return all the kind gestures that mothers try to make, regardless of how bad they can be at it. I broke through my wall, sending invisible bricks flying all over the stratosphere, as I put her arm over my shoulder and the two of us walked her up the stairs.

It was clunky, as I had no vision down as low as the stairs themselves. We turned at the living room, and I counted the next steps quickly as they came into view in frames. It was my usual trick for ascending in a hurry, but my tunnel vision was deepening the way it could when I was under stress.
Eight steps,
I thought.

It turned out to be seven, so I staggered into the upstairs corridor, almost flinging her over my head. She stirred slightly, slurring out, "You're not allowed t' bring friends...!" and she was out of it again.

It was a last-ditch effort to dish out orders, and Justin chuckled quietly, taking all of her weight to let me get ahold of myself. Suddenly I was chuckling, too. He was right about one thing. There was nothing to fear here. I'm not sure I would have wanted my mom to be reduced to this in order to rid her of power, but if it had happened, it would be a result of her choices, not mine.

We approached the bed and Justin threw back the blankets. She collapsed on her pillow, opening her eyes only once. As it was as black as pitch to me in that room, I lifted my glasses, if for no better reason than to get one last clear view of the Mother Creed without her power. Eyes reflect the light, and what little poured in from the hall allowed her and me to exchange glances. The chill it sent down my back was, fortunately, short-lived. Her eyes rolled almost as quickly as they had locked with mine, and she was asleep again. Justin made a big deal of tucking the blankets around her, which I suspected was not part of his nightly ritual but a drama-fest to drive home the idea that she was stone-cold dead to the world and nothing to be afraid of.

Still, I was almost catapulted out of the room by my own phobic energy, and before I could exit the house via the front door, Justin pulled me down into the family room once more.

"You want to see those e-mails, don't you? Your girlfriend isn't coming for another ten minutes at least."

That all of this could have taken less than three minutes was amazing to me. It had seemed like an eternity.

"Sure," I said, huffing, trying to sound like I wasn't.

He sat down at his computer and put a towel over his hands as he typed.

"What are you doing?" I whispered.

"Told ya. She put a hidden cam in this room somewhere to see what my passwords are. I'm changing my password."

I looked all around.

"Don't bother," he said, watching me look. "It's one of those cameras that's the size of a grape seed or something. I found a receipt for it about two months back. I was already suspicious and downloaded some spyware to see if anyone was using my terminal when I wasn't. She's got her own laptop, but the test came back: affirmative. After finding that receipt, I started putting a towel over my hands to change my passwords daily, and the spyware altered its message to the effect that someone was
trying
to use my terminal but was unable to."

"Good for you." I chuckled, starting to calm down, though I knew I wouldn't be totally calm until we were out of this house.

He found the e-mails, printed them out, and handed me the copies. I studied one as best as I could by moving over to the light.

It was from a CCRider. It read: "want 2 come 2 u. How mom? DON'T TELL HER don't tell anyone." The second was the same sender, only, "I let u know when I come. Look 4 me everywhere."

This person couldn't even punctuate, let alone spell. It smacked of fraud, and I remembered that Justin had posted a couple of times on Adams's website. That would have drawn clicks to his e-mail address. In fact, he had just posted five months ago, back when Adams said he wouldn't be posting anymore. Justin had posted to thank him for all he had done to try to find Chris. The dates of these e-mails were more recent, a little more than two months old. But any cruel joker could have seen that post. Yahoo e-mail address ... I was amazed that he'd received only these two.

I wished he had my investigative reporter training. He needed it, considering he was so inept at watching the details of people. This was a cruel joke by a cruel person.

I didn't want to derail his train totally. I said, "Justin. Wasn't your brother, well, very articulate? Didn't he speak sort of like your dad?"

"I thought of that," Justin said. "And yeah, my brother was obnoxiously well-spoken, my dad all over again. But he would be afraid my mom might see, and he was trying to disguise himself, to try to
look
like a fraud."

"Did you reply?"

"Yeah. Right away. I told him that I hung out at the Lightning Field and to come there. But this is all I got. And you can't trace Yahoo."

Very convenient for a prankster.
I was speechless, but he didn't need my approval. He didn't seem to notice my tight face. He was a bull in a china shop, bursting past people's actions and emotions without them even registering. He only noticed what he wanted to, what he was able to, given his racing mind.

"I think it's my brother," he said, "because of the timing. You know the meditation rituals I started with the lightning trees? It looks crazy, but I've never been the type to care what things look like. Most people are crazier than I am. Most people are crazy enough to accept what's popular without ever questioning it. It's popular to say things are impossible. Well, fuck it. Ya know why? For more than four years, I don't hear from him. Then, I start sending up vibes using the lightning trees in February. And all of a sudden, these show up in March."

"Did you ... put out any Internet posts and stuff around the same time?" I asked.

"No. I swear on my life. All I ever did was touch those trees."

I thought I heard a floorboard creek upstairs, followed by a gust of wind outside the window. The house was still making me nervous. I needed to get out, get a breath of fresh air, and be with RayAnn's calming effect.

"I have to go," I whispered, starting up the stairs.

"Wait while I check my e-mail. It's been a while. Then I'll come out with you. Say a proper goodbye. I will miss you, man. I'm sorry I lost it on you today. I get like that sometimes ... I just pop off."

Speaking of which ... I asked, "Where do you think your mom put your medication? You take two doses a day, right?"

He was busy clicking the mouse, but finally answered. "Well, that could take some finding. One time, maybe a year ago, the school counselor sent me for a formal diagnosis of bipolar disorder, just because I couldn't stop acting up in class. It was mild then, but she was smart enough to see it. My mom wouldn't let me go to a shrink. She said I didn't need any medication and there was nothing wrong with me."

"Jeezus," I groaned. "Being a control freak ought to be a crime in some cases."

"My guess?" he went right on. "She didn't want to admit there was anything wrong with
her,
and all of that would have come out in therapy. That's an alcoholic's thinking. They think everything they're doing is a gosh darn secret, when the truth is that everyone in town suspects what's wrong. Medication ... let's see. First place I'd look? Under her pillow. Second place? I don't know. I'll think of it when you're gone."

She was boiling my blood, blind to the fact that her own son's high-energy mania needed to be leveled out.

"What happens if you can't find it?" I asked. "You've missed one dose already."

"I'll find it," he assured me, but looked distracted with his printer. "I've been warned. It takes a while to build up in your system, but it doesn't take nearly as long to start feeling it if you miss."

"Are you feeling anything right now?"

He grabbed the first page, smiling at me. "I smoked weed today, and tonight I drank a beer. I have no idea how I'm feeling."

I headed up the stairs to the living room level, figuring I needed air badly enough to wait for him out on the curb. I couldn't understand why I hadn't heard from RayAnn, but I pulled my cell out of my pocket, gripping it for security.

I never felt it coming ... I never heard anything. Something beyond sound, maybe beyond energy, made me look up those stairs where we'd laid the Mother Creed. I caught her wild, angry eyes, not much more. She was standing there at the top of the stairs, towering over me like some dragon from my own nightmares, and something came out of her akin to "GET OOOOOOOOOOO ... VER HERE!"

And the next second she was toppling me to the ground, screaming syllables and nonsense and jabbing her nails in my face.

"
Justin!
" I screamed, covering my eyes to protect them, and I could hear stomping and him hollering.

"Ma! Get off him! Get up!" I could feel him tugging at her, but she was tugging back insanely, actually pulling him on top of us.

Something scratched my cheek, and I thought it was her nails, but then realized it was her tongue. She was either licking me or trying to speak with her face pushed against mine. With my own hollering, I still managed to make out the word "Chris."

"Get her off, damn it!" I screamed at Justin.

"Oh my God, she thinks you're my brother," he said with gritted teeth, struggling to get her arms pinned down. I did not appreciate the fact that he was still giggling.
Manic, stressed, half stoned. What in hell made me agree to come into this nut factory?

I spat out something pasty—the woman's drool—and that was the last straw. I closed my eyes and pushed, sending both her and Justin into the dining room table. A chair fell over—I heard it, but could not see a blessed thing. I counted to five slowly as my tunnel vision returned and I heaved a sigh of relief, which was momentary, as her little horse whinnying filled the air.

"My Christopher ... my baby..." she sobbed, her hair wet with drool. I stayed perfectly still, afraid to breathe for fear that she would catch sight of me again. It was animal instinct, like playing possum.

Justin pulled her up, took her under one arm, and led her back up to bed, saying, "He's not here, Mom. What is up? You gonna start having nightmares every night, too? I'm a school kid. Gotta get my sleep, you know."

I jutted to the front door, fumbling first with the doorknob until the door swung inward and cracked me in the nose. I got to the curb and was sitting, trying to figure out what the hell had happened to my cell phone, when suddenly the garage door thundered opened. Tires screeched and a car pulled up beside me. The car door flew open.

Justin was grinning insanely from behind the wheel. I could not fathom what would put me in the death seat beside an underage driver in an expensive luxury car if it was not what had just happened in that house. I dived for it, and Justin took off as I was fumbling to shut the door, almost spilling me onto the asphalt.

"You're bleeding," he said, tossing something wet into my lap. Paper towel. He tossed something else. My cell phone.

I put the paper towel up to my temple, my hands shaking until I exploded. "What the hell was that all about?"

"Dude, I am so, so sorry. Nothing like that has ever happened before. She's totally harmless. I mean, she was—"

"Oh, yeah,
I can see that!
"

"She thought you were my brother come home. I can't think of anything else that would—"

"I don't care if she thought I was the prince of darkness!" I hollered, holding out the paper towel so that I could see a spot of blood the size of a golf ball on it. "She could have blinded me! I have enough problems to overcome without your goddamn insane mother taking my eyes from me! Do you have any idea how much money has gone into my vision? Just so that I can
work
someday?"