The Loveliest Dead (25 page)

Jenna smiled. “You’ve never told me this much before.”

“Well, you’re all grown up now. We haven’t talked about this since you were a teenager, and I sure wasn’t about to tell you all this stuff
then
.”
 

Jenna found herself laughing quietly. One of the reasons she got along with her mother so well was that Martha could always make her laugh, make her feel better.
 

The squeal of the swing’s chains rose in the stillness outside, and her smile fell away as she turned to the window. Its expanse of blackness reflected Jenna and Martha and the kitchen. When she heard the boys’ laughter outside, Jenna saw fear spread over her reflection.
 

“Do you hear them?” Jenna whispered.

“I hear them every night. Sometimes during the day, too. I don’t look out the windows anymore.” She turned the radio’s volume up a little, then sipped her tea.
 

Jenna remembered the hideous faces the flashlight had illuminated outside—empty eye sockets and rotting skin. There were no boys playing in the backyard—she knew that. And yet she could hear the swings screeching and the boys laughing. She turned away from the window and tried to ignore the nagging suspicion that the boys were out there staring in at her.
 

“Who was the man in the living room with the beat-up face?” Martha asked. “Did he have something to do with this?”

She told Martha everything, from the first time she saw the hooded toddler in the upstairs hallway to the incident in the living room with Dwayne Shattuck, and everything that had happened since she’d gotten out of bed twenty minutes earlier.
 

“Jenna, honey, you should’ve come to me with this before,” Martha said.

Jenna shook her head slowly. “You’ve always been so practical, so down-to-earth about everything. I didn’t think you’d believe something like this.”
 

Martha put her hand on Jenna’s arm and whispered, “Look, if getting old has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t know squat about nothin’. That nightmare in my bedroom ... it took a few nights for me to convince myself I was really seeing it and wasn’t just going batty. Put that together with everything you just told me, and I’d say there’s something in this house besides the four of us.”
 

Something already disturbed it
, Dwayne Shattuck had said.
 

Jenna said, “The attorney told us that Leonard never remarried, but do you think he had other children?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“Why did he set up playground equipment in the backyard?”

“I don’t know. Maybe his parents put them up.”

“They’re old, but they’re not that old.”

“Who knows. Why?”

“Just wondering. How do you feel?” Jenna asked.

Martha smiled. “Much better with you here. It’s nice to talk.”

“You seem so calm. My heart is still beating a mile a minute.”

“I’ve kind of gotten used to it. It’s still unnerving, but the shock has worn off. But I’ve been thinking.” Martha leaned back and reached down to the pile of tabloid papers stacked beside her on the cushion. She picked through them until she found the
Global Inquisitor
and opened it on the table. She turned the paper around so Jenna could read it.
 

The headline read:

VICTIMS OF DEMONIC FORCE

ENDURED RAPE AND TORTURE!

BLOOD-CURDLING DETAILS OF

HORRIFYING EXORCISM!

Gooseflesh broke out at the back of Jenna’s neck when she heard the laughter from outside again, the sound of boys breaking each other up with fart noises and ass jokes. She wondered again if they were out there watching her.
 

Martha said, “I heard what you said to that man in the living room, that truck-driving medium. About us not having anyplace to go but here. So I’ve been thinking, maybe we should call someone who can help us. Arthur and Mavis Bingham have made a career out of this sort of thing. They’re experts.”
 

“How could we possibly afford them?”

“I think they make all their money from their books and lectures.”

“How would we reach them?” Jenna asked.

“They’re on the Internet.”

“I can’t sit here anymore,” Jenna said as she scooted out from behind the table. “Let’s go into the living room and start a fire.”
 

“Yeah, I get the feeling they’re watching me sometimes, too.” Martha turned off her radio and stood. “Would you like me to make you a cup of tea, honey? It’s herbal, no caffeine.”
 

“That would be nice, Mom, thanks.” Jenna stood and turned to the laundry room, made sure the basement door was still closed. In the living room, she turned on all the lights. Apparently, Miles had brought in some wood and kindling the day before, no doubt at Martha’s urging. Jenna used it and some newspaper to make a fire.
 

Martha came in with a cup in each hand, gave one to Jenna, and sat in her usual spot at the end of the couch. Jenna stood with her back to the fire and they spoke quietly, almost whispering.
 

Jenna said, “I’ve got to get some drapes in the windows.”

“That would be good,” Martha said. “But it wouldn’t help, not really. Because it’s not really outside. You can put up all the drapes you want, but we’ve got to do something about what’s in here with us.”
 

Jenna frowned. “Are we talking about... ghosts?”

“I don’t know
what
we’re talking about. But I know I can’t sleep in that room anymore. I’ll take the couch.”
 

“You can have Miles’s room, if you think you can take the stairs. He’d love sleeping down here.”

“I don’t know if I
want
to sleep in Miles’s room. He’s got a fat man coming up out of the floor every night.”
 

Now that she had seen the fat man herself, Jenna had some idea of how terrified Miles must have been. She wondered if he was ever in any danger, and the possibility made her feel cold in spite of the fire’s warmth. She shook her head and said, “We kept insisting it was a nightmare.”
 

“Sometimes we need to listen a little more closely to kids. He knows what’s a nightmare and what’s not.”

“Do you think I should tell Miles that
I’ve
seen the fat man?” Jenna said.
 

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

Jenna decided she would deal with that later— whatever she told him, or didn’t tell him, Miles was not going to be the problem. “David isn’t going to buy a word of this,” she said.
 

“Are you sure? Maybe he’s seen a few things he hasn’t mentioned to you.”

“That’s possible.”

The room became toasty as they sipped their tea in silence. After a while, Jenna put her cup on the lamp table beside David’s recliner and curled up in the big chair. Martha stretched out on the couch. As the fire gently crackled, Jenna and Martha fell asleep in the brightly lighted living room.
 

Jenna slept fitfully, and finally got up, fixed a pot of coffee, and started breakfast She did not have to go upstairs to wake Miles—he came down dressed and smiling, looking well-rested and better than he’d looked in days. Jenna had not realized, until that moment, how run-down Miles had been looking. Had she been that preoccupied?
 

Not anymore
, she thought. Jenna decided she was going to do exactly what Dwayne Shattuck had told her to do—keep a close eye on Miles.
 

While Miles and Martha ate breakfast, Jenna called the hospital and spoke with David, who was more alert than he was yesterday, but still groggy from painkillers. He was eager to come home, but had to wait till his doctor came to see him.

Jenna drove Miles down to the end of the driveway, where he caught the school bus, then she returned to the house, showered, and dressed. A couple guys from the garage were good enough to bring David’s pickup truck to the house and park it in the garage while Jenna was getting ready to leave for the hospital. She was on her way out the door when Kimberly called.
 

“You’re in the newspaper,” Kimberly said.

“Oh, shit,” Jenna said. “I was afraid of that. What does it say?”

Kimberly read the short article to her. It quoted Dwayne’s description of what had happened “in the Starfish Drive home of David and Jenna Kellar.” Jenna reportedly corroborated his story, but was said to have “refused comment.”
 

“At least they didn’t print my address and phone number,” Jenna said.

“What are you going to tell David?”

Jenna sighed. “I’m going to have to tell him everything. I’m just not sure how to go about it.”

“You could always start by showing him the paper.”

A few minutes later, Jenna drove to the hospital to spend the rest of the morning with David. The morning’s
Times-Standard
had been left in the room on the bed table, but David had not read it. When Jenna arrived, she took it off the table, put it on the chair, and sat on it. They talked quietly about unimportant things. David sat up in bed and was more animated and alert than he was the day before, but on his face was the same expression he wore when he was experiencing indigestion after a heavy meal—a faint frown, a slight narrowing of his left eye, an uncharming tilt to his mouth. Jenna did not know if it came from pain, or from David’s worries about their future now that he had been injured and would be unable to work indefinitely. It was probably a combination of both.
 

The doctor came in shortly after noon and talked briefly with David, then said he wanted to see him again in a few days. Shortly after that, David was released and a nurse wheeled him down to the car in a wheelchair. When Jenna left the room, she grabbed the newspaper from the chair and took it home with them.
 

“I can’t believe you brought people like that into this house,” David said. Wearing his robe, the left sleeve empty, he sat on the edge of the bed, where he had napped for a couple hours after lunch. He tossed the paper aside and it landed on the bed, open to the article about Dwayne Shattuck.
 

Jenna stood facing him, fingers stuffed into the back pockets of her blue jeans. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “After I saw that little boy—”
 

“I
told
you, Jenna. We’re just missing Josh because—”
 

“I
know
it’s not Josh. I know it now, anyway. I saw his face. He’s a little red-haired boy with freckles, he looks nothing like Josh. I saw him while Dwayne was trying to contact whatever it is that’s—”
 

“Jenna, are you
hearing
yourself?” He spoke through clenched teeth, trying to keep his voice down, and his right fist was clenched in his lap. He looked away from her a moment, relaxed a little. He slapped his hand down on the newspaper. “Don’t you see, Jenna, you gave that guy exactly what he wanted. He’s in the paper now. This article’s nothing more than a commercial for that guy.”
 

“He’s retired.”

“Yeah, sure. Not so retired that he couldn’t whip up a little publicity.”

“David, I
saw
the man. His nose was broken and he was covered with blood.”
 

“Did you see it happen?”

“No. He fell down behind the recliner.”

“How do you know he didn’t do it himself?”

“For a little article in the lousy
Eureka Times-Standard
?”
 

“You can’t
buy
that kind of publicity. It’s how they work. He may get a magazine article out of this, maybe even a book.” David sighed as he stood and put his right arm around her. He spoke quietly, gently. “Why didn’t you talk to me about this, huh?”
 

“Whether or not he was a phony has nothing to do with what I saw, David. I haven’t been imagining things. There’s something in this house. Those boys who keep showing up in the backyard in the middle of the night are part of it.” She stepped back, out of his embrace. “You have to admit, David, there’s something very weird about those boys, about the way they come and go.”
 

He nodded. “Yes, I admit that. And I’ve been having some pretty strange dreams lately. Dreams about those boys ... I think. I’ve even walked in my sleep.”
 

Jenna frowned. “You’ve been walking in your—”

His anger flared again as he interrupted. “But that does
not
mean our house is haunted, for crying out loud. I can’t believe you’d spend money on some old gypsy woman when we can barely afford the groceries we need.”
 

“Kimberly doesn’t expect me to pay her back right away.”

“That’s even worse—
borrowing
the money. How are we going to pay her back? Especially now that I can’t work? I don’t understand it, Jenna. You’ve never been the kind of person to fall for this sort of thing. What were you
thinking
?”