The Second Evil (5 page)

“My hand didn't slip,” Corky said shrilly. “It wasn't an accident, Chip.” She decided she had to tell him what really happened.

Chip pulled himself up to a sitting position. His face revealed his surprise. “You mean you
believe
her?” he asked, his voice rising several octaves.

“I don't have to believe her,” Corky replied sharply, staring at him now. “I was there. I
know
what happened. I could feel the evil, Chip, I could feel it paralyze me. The evil spirit was there. It forced me to scald myself. It held my hand there and
forced
me!”

“Okay. Okay. Sorry,” Chip muttered. He didn't like to fight with her. He almost always backed down or changed the subject. “That scary guy hasn't shown up again?” he asked. “The one with the gray eyes?”

“No sign of him,” Corky replied. She shook her head bitterly. “Kimmy and Ronnie are sure that I made him up. Every time I started to point him out, he'd vanish. Poof.” She snapped her fingers.

“Weird,” Chip replied. He couldn't think of anything else to say. “So do you—”

“I never told you, I talked to a psychiatrist,” Corky interrupted, walking back to the bed and sitting down next to him.

“Huh?”

“At the hospital,” she told him, “when I told the emergency-room doctors how I burned my hand, they called for a psychiatrist to see me. I guess they thought I did it deliberately or something.” She rolled her eyes.

Then Corky's expression grew thoughtful. As she
talked, she smoothed the bedspread with her unbandaged hand.

“He was a young guy. Really nice. His name was Dr. Sterne. He was the psychiatrist Mayra Barnes saw for a while.”

Chip reacted with surprise. “Mayra? What did
she
need him for? She's got to be the most normal person in Shadyside!”

“She told me she started sleepwalking suddenly a couple of summers ago,” Corky told him. “This Dr. Sterne helped her a lot.”

“So what did he say to you?” Chip asked. “Did you tell
him
about the evil spirit?”

Corky turned her eyes to the window, avoiding Chip's stare. “Well, actually … no.”

“Huh?”

“I just didn't want to get into it with him,” she confessed. “I mean, I wasn't ready. I didn't want him to think I was totally crazy. I told him about Bobbi dying and everything—”

“And what did he say?” Chip demanded.

“He said I should try to return to a normal routine, He said I've been through a lot. But I have to stop dwelling on the past. I have to try to get my life back on track.” She grabbed Chip's hand and squeezed it. “He was very understanding.”

“What's a normal routine?” Chip asked. “You mean like early to bed, early to rise, or something?”

“Don't be dumb. He means I should try to do things the way I did before—before Bobbi died and that evil spirit …” Her voice trailed off. “I mean, I'm thinking of going back on the cheerleading squad.”

“Outstanding!” Chip exclaimed with genuine enthusiasm.

“Well, I thought I'd give it a try,” Corky said, still resting her hand on his. “Kimmy and Ronnie have been insisting, so …”

“Excellent,” Chip said, squeezing her hand. “Excellent.”

“I'm going to rejoin for two reasons,” Corky said, her voice a whisper, her expression thoughtful. “I know I have to adjust to not having Bobbi around anymore. Getting back on the squad will keep me busy. You know, give me something to think about.”

“And what's the second reason?” Chip asked.

“I have to find the evil spirit,” she said, locking her eyes on his. “The evil is back. It must be inhabiting someone else. Maybe someone I know.”

“Huh? What makes you so sure?” Chip demanded.

“Because it was right in my house the other night,” Corky said in a whisper, staring down at the floor. “I'm going to find it before it kills again.”

Chip stared at her thoughtfully, but didn't reply.

She raised her eyes to his. “I have one favor to ask. Sort of a big one,” she said reluctantly.

“Yeah?” Chip eyed her warily. “What is it?”

“Come with me to the cemetery tonight after dinner?” She asked in a tiny, pleading voice.

“Huh?” He swept his hand back through his thick, disheveled hair.

“Come with me. I want to go to Bobbi's grave. Just one more time. I promised myself I'd stop going there so often. But I just want to tell Bobbi my decision. About going back on the cheerleading squad.”

Chip sighed. “Bad idea,” he said softly.

Corky squeezed his hand. “Come on, Chip.”

“It's a bad idea, Corky,” he repeated heatedly. “You said that shrink wants you to get back to a normal
routine. Well, going to the cemetery all the time isn't normal. I don't think you should go.”

She leaned over and pressed her cheek against his. “Come on,” she pleaded softly. “One last time. I promise.”

She kept her face pressed against his. He turned toward her. She kissed him tenderly. A long kiss. A pleading kiss.

When she finally pulled her face away from his, she could see his features soften.

‘Okay, okay. I'll go with you after dinner.” And then he added, “I guess there's no harm. What could happen?”

It was a warm night for early December. Thousands of tiny white stars dotted the charcoal sky. A huge full moon cast bright light over the Fear Street cemetery.

Since the cemetery was little more than a block from Corky's house, she and Chip walked. He carried a flashlight, in case the moonlight wasn't enough, swinging it as they walked.

She asked him about last Saturday's basketball game, the first preseason one. He told her about the center on the opposing team who repeatedly slamdunked even though he was the smallest guy on the floor! She told Chip how Sean had slipped green food coloring into the mashed potatoes just before dinner.

Neither of them talked about what they were doing, where they were headed. It was as if they were pretending they were out for a pleasant walk, and not going to the Fear Street cemetery so Corky could talk to the dead sister she couldn't get out of her thoughts.

After leaving the sidewalk, they made their way
through an old section of the cemetery, past rows of low, crumbling gravestones, jagged shadowy forms in the gray moonlight. Chip's flashlight sent a cone of bright light over the tall grass ahead of them.

Corky stopped and grabbed Chip's arm as two eyes appeared in that light. A scrawny white cat stepped timidly out from behind a granite gravestone. It mewed a warning, then scampered away, disappearing into the darkness.

Corky held on to Chip's arm and led him up a hill toward a section of newer graves on a flat grassy area bounded by low trees. “This way. We're almost there,” she whispered.

Chip suddenly held back.

She stopped and followed the direction of his gaze. He was shining the light on a grave marker, its smooth whiteness revealing that it was new.

Jennifer Daly's grave.

Corky sighed and tugged the sleeve of Chip's sweater. Every time she passed that grave, terrifying memories flooded her mind. She didn't want that to happen now. She didn't want to think of poor Jennifer or the evil spirit that had inhabited her body.

She wanted to tell Bobbi her decision and then leave the cemetery. Leave the horror behind. Leave the memories behind.

Or at least try to.

Hearing a sound on the street, she turned around. Just a passing station wagon.

When she looked back down toward the old section, her eye caught a tilted hundred-year-old tombstone lit up by the bright moon. Corky knew it well. Surrounded by four other graves, Sarah Fear's stone, worn by time and the weather, stood silent.

It was over Sarah Fear's grave that Corky had battled the evil spirit on that dreadful, terrifying night. Over Sarah Fear's open grave, she had fought and won—and sent the evil pouring out of Jennifer Daly's body, back into the grave forever.

Or so she had thought.

But the evil hadn't remained in the grave.

The evil was back.

Somewhere.

Corky shuddered.

I don't want to think about this now.

I don't. I don't. I don't.

“This way,” Corky said, turning away and striding with renewed purpose up to her sister's rectangular grave marker. Remnants of the flowers Corky had brought there a week ago lay shriveled at the foot of the stone.

Suddenly chilled, Corky shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her windbreaker and turned back to Chip. He was leaning against a tree several yards away, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes on the sky.

I guess he's giving me a little space, Corky thought.

She turned to face her sister's gravestone. “It's me, Bobbi,” she said in a low voice. “I'm really not going to be coming here for a while. At least I'm going to try not to come. I need to get my life back to normal. I know you'd want me to.”

Corky paused, glanced at Chip who was still staring at the heavens, took a deep breath, and continued. “I just wanted to tell you about the decision I've made. I hope it's the right one. I've decided to go back on the cheerleading squad. You see, Bobbi—”

Corky stopped. She heard a sound. She turned and peered down the hill.

Her breath caught in her throat.

She froze.

And stared in horror as a woman floated out of Sarah Fear's grave.

A
s the woman materialized in the shadows, Corky struggled to find her voice. Finally she managed to call out Chip's name.

Uncrossing his arms, he turned to her, startled. Corky pointed.

Would Chip see the woman too? Or was she seeing things again?

Corky was suddenly filled with dread. Was she losing her mind completely? Had she really seen this woman float up from Sarah Fear's grave?

“Hey!” Chip shouted. He saw the woman too.

Corky realized she'd been holding her breath. She let it out with a loud
whoosh.

“Oh. Hi!” the woman called up to them.

The beam from Chip's flashlight played across her face as he made his way down toward her. She was
young and kind of plain, Corky saw. She had straight black hair that hung down over the turned-up collar of her trench coat.

She raised her hands to shield her eyes from the light. “You scared me,” she called out. “I didn't know anyone else was here.”

Chip lowered the light to the ground and stood waiting for Corky to catch up. Reluctantly she followed.

“You scared us too,” Chip said as he and Corky joined the young woman.

“I thought you were a ghost or something,” Corky said, trying to make it sound light.

The young woman didn't smile. “I'm just doing a gravestone rubbing,” she said. She had a scratchy voice, a voice that sounded older than she looked. “Did you two come here to be alone?”

Without waiting for an answer, she knelt in front of Sarah Fear's gravestone, then lay down on her stomach to work.

“Oh!” Corky couldn't help but utter a cry. The young woman was lying in the exact same place over the grave where Jennifer Daly had died.

Stop! Stop! Stop! Corky cried silently to herself. Stop thinking about it!

But how could she not be reminded when this woman was lying in the exact place?

“What are you doing?” she asked, speaking loudly to try to force away the horrible memories.

“I just told you—I'm doing some gravestone rubbings,” the woman answered, rapidly moving a piece of black chalk over a thin sheet of paper she had taped over the tombstone. “There are some wonderful stones in this graveyard. Some of them are truly
unique. Many are very revealing of their time, I think.”

She finished quickly, then climbed to her feet, examining her work. Seemingly pleased, she rolled up the paper and smiled at Corky. “I'm kind of glad not to be alone,” she said pleasantly. “This cemetery has an
amazing
reputation.”

“I know,” Corky said dryly.

“How can you work in the dark?” Chip asked, pointing to the rolled-up paper in her hand.

“I do most of it by feel, and I have a flashlight and, of course, the moon.”

Chip wanted to ask more but didn't.

“I'm a graduate student doing research on Shadyside history.” She stuck out her hand to Chip. “I'm Sarah Beth Plummer.”

Chip and Corky shook hands with her and introduced themselves.

She seems quite pleasant, Corky thought, once you get used to the old-lady voice with her young face. Corky guessed that Sarah Beth was in her early twenties.

“Do you know anything about Sarah Fear?” Corky asked, staring at the gravestone in front of them.

The question seemed to surprise Sarah Beth; she narrowed her dark eyes and shook her head. “Not very much. I've read a little about her. In old newspapers, mostly. I know she came to a strange and mysterious end.”