In Nightmares We're Alone (9 page)

“Is Buster outside?” I ask.

“Yeah, he is.”

I nod. We’d be all good to go if Sissy would just go back to her room. I think of trying to annoy her so that she will, but I decide to save that as Plan B. For the time being, Martin and I go into my room and give her a bit of time to go back to her room on her own.

“Where are you going?” Sissy asks.

“My room.”

“Ooh, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“I’m not doing anything you
would
do,” I mumble, but I don’t think she hears me.

As soon as we’re alone in my room with the door shut, Martin asks, “So are you going to change out of your school clothes?”

I give him a humorless look and then sigh. “Fine. Okay. Let’s get it over with.”

Already this feels like something Sissy
would
do. But I had the foresight to wear plain, white underwear today at least.

I go into my closet and find a new dress, lay it out, and then change into it as fast as I can. Once I’ve stripped everything off I start dressing again so fast that he says, “Hey wait, I didn’t see.”

For about one second I stand with my arms out like he did and then I go back to dressing.

“Do you think you’re ugly or something?” he asks.

“No.”

“Then why are you nervous? I think you’re pretty.”

“I don’t care about being pretty.”

“Everybody cares about being pretty. Even boys want to be handsome, we just don’t say it.”

“I don’t think about it.”

“Do you think I’m handsome?”

I look at him for a few seconds. “I don’t know.”

“You mean
no
.”

“I mean
I don’t know
.”

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

I pause. Nobody has ever asked me that question. And nobody has ever told me how you say no to it without sounding mean.

“That sounds like a no,” says Martin, looking disappointed.

“I didn’t say… I just…”

“So you want to then?”

“Can we just set my mom’s doll on fire? And talk about this later?”

“You said we can’t. We have to wait for your sister to clear out.”

“Yeah, but…”

“So why don’t you want to be my girlfriend?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I… What do I have to do?”

“Nothing you don’t want to. I was hoping maybe we could… you know… kiss?” He kicks one foot up and looks down when he says it. If he wasn’t blushing about being naked, he definitely is about kissing.

I look away. “I don’t want to.”

“Come on. Just for like ten seconds.”

“TEN seconds!?”

“Okay, five.”

“No. I can’t.”

“Then I won’t help you with the doll.”

My stomach sinks. “That’s blackmail!”

“Well, I don’t know, but that’s… how it is.”

“Why do you want me to be your girlfriend so bad?”

“Because I think you’re cool and… pretty and stuff.”

“Then why are you being mean?”

“I’m not.”

“You totally are.”

“Only when you are.”

“I’m not trying to be. I just don’t want to do that.”

“I like you. So I think we should be boyfriend and girlfriend. Plus…” He stops.

“Plus what?”

“I don’t know, just…”

“What?”

“I don’t think your mom should date my dad. If we start going out then it’ll be weird for them and maybe they’ll stop.”

“Wait. My… My mom is dating your dad?”

“Yeah. You didn’t know that?”

“No.”

This statement really bothers me for some reason. Something feels very wrong about it. And after a second I realize what it is.

“You said your dad got killed by a parakeet.”

He pauses for a second. “He did. This my stepdad. Or… My old stepdad, I mean. They’re divorced now, but I still call him my dad because he’s more of a dad than my real dad was.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am not.”

“How come you couldn’t hear the doll at school and I could?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I haven’t been around it as much or something.”

“Did you ever hear it?”

“Of course.”

“I mean it. Honestly. This is important.”

“Yes. I heard the doll.”

“What did it sound like?”

“Come on.”

“What does her voice sound like?”

“Like a… girl’s voice? I don’t know.”

“How old does she sound?”

“How do I know?”

“Take a rough guess.”

He hesitates and I know he’s lying before he even answers. But it’s even more clear when he says, “Two?”

“Oh my God, you were lying the whole time,” I say.

“That’s how she sounds to me.”

“Why did you tell me you could hear her if you couldn’t?”

“I
could
hear her.”

“That’s why you thought my dog was crazy and not that the doll was evil.”

“Your dog
is
crazy.”

“The doll made him attack us.”

“You know what, maybe it’s
you
who’s crazy.”

“Maybe it
is
. I trusted
you
.”

“There are no voices, Macie. It’s a stupid fucking doll and that’s it. No witches, no possessed dogs, no psychic abilities, no monsters. I thought it was just something you did to amuse yourself but damn. You need serious medical help.”

I try to say something mean back and all that comes out is “Well you need to learn how to pass the second grade.”

He gives a derisive laugh and says, “Whatever.” He heads for the door. “You’re not really pretty. I was lying.”

“I don’t care.”

Somehow my first couple’s quarrel has come before my first kiss or my first relationship. Maybe that’s normal. I don’t know.

He storms out of my room and heads back toward the door and I follow him. As he goes stomping through the living room Sissy and Calvin snap to attention.

“What’s going on?” asks Sissy.

“I’m leaving,” says Martin.

Sissy looks at me coming down the hall after him with tears in my eyes and says, “Stop him,” to Calvin, who grabs Martin’s arm and holds him at the door.

“What happened?” asks Sissy.

“Your sister’s a bitch is what happened,” says Martin.

“Oh, you better watch yourself.” I’ve never heard Sissy sound so much like Mommy. “Are you okay, Macie?”

Let him go, dear. He’s no good for you.

“He’s a liar,” I say.

“About what?” asks Sissy.

“Everything.”

“Should I tell your sister what you just showed me in your room?” asks Martin.

I freeze. I don’t know why after everything that’s happened, this is something that frightens me, but I don’t say anything. Sissy looks over at me and I dread the moment when she asks what I showed Martin. Then she turns back to him.

“Get the hell out and don’t come back.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“And if you say anything bad about my sister at school, I’ll break your fucking arm.”

He holds his arms out at his sides like he’s unarmed and under attack. He turns for the door and leaves.

Sissy turns to me again, “Everything okay?”

Of course it is. You’re fine now, dear. All better.

I go into the kitchen and grab a butter knife off the counter. I start prying the knife into the door to unlock the doll room.

“Macie, what are you doing?”

Listen to your sister. She knows what’s best for you.

I get the knife in right and pull the door open.

“Macie, knock it off,” says Sissy.

I go into the doll room and pull the chair up next to the shelf.

“Stop it. Not today, Macie! What are you doing?”

Sissy grabs me and I push her back violently so she hits the shelf on the other side of the room.

“Hey!” says Calvin who’s been standing in the doorway up until now. He moves toward me.

I jump up on the chair, grab Beth off the top shelf, and run, but Calvin grabs my arm.

I hurl the doll into the floor as hard as I can. It makes a loud cracking sound and slides across the room to Sissy’s feet, but it doesn’t burst open like I want it to.

“Jesus, Macie!” says Sissy.

Outside I can hear Buster barking and snarling and scratching at the sliding glass door.

“Are you all right, babe?” Calvin asks Sissy.

As soon as he turns his head I bite down hard on his wrist. He howls. I taste blood. He lets go of my arm and I duck past him and run for the doll. I pick it up off the floor and Sissy grabs my dress and Calvin grabs my hair, but my adrenaline is so high I just keep running. The dress tears and I feel a clump of hair ripping up my scalp and coming off in Calvin’s hand.

“Christ! What the hell?” I hear Calvin say behind me as I push through the doorway into the living room and turn for the fireplace.

I don’t care if I’m the only one hearing it. I’m not imagining it. And even if I am, burning Beth to ash will fix my psyche a heck of a lot faster than any shrink.

“What are you
doing
, Macie?” I hear Sissy shout.

I ignore her. I hear her footsteps and Calvin’s chasing me and then I hear them come to a sudden stop and that should warn me, but it doesn’t.

“What the fuck…?” I hear Calvin say.

Laser focused on this single task, I toss the doll into the fireplace and turn to the starter switch when I’m hit by a mass of flesh and clothing and I go sprawling over the sewing table and land face down on the hardwood floor. Sissy is screaming and Calvin is cursing and I don’t know what’s happening.

I turn over and Martin is above me, running at me with that knife he pulled on the jump rope girls and the older boy. I put an arm up in a futile effort to defend myself but just before he gets to me Calvin pounds into him and the two crash into the sewing table.

I know what’s happening. I don’t need a good look at Martin’s eyes to be certain.

Sissy’s screaming but she’s standing back and not doing much. Getting to my feet, I look over at the fight and I see Martin stick his knife into Calvin’s side at the base of his chest, all the way up to the handle. Calvin only gasps lightly but Sissy shrieks and cries.

I want to help Calvin, but all I can imagine doing is running to the kitchen and coming back with a chair to plow into Martin with and that’s not going to do much good. My only hope is that maybe I can resolve things by getting to the core of the problem.

I get up and run for the fireplace switch again.

That’s when I hear breaking glass and barking and after a second I hear Sissy shout, “Buster! Get him! Help!”

But I know better than Sissy. I know Buster’s not here to help.

His paws hit me in the chest and his face presses toward mine. I put my arm up to block myself and his jaws clench around my forearm. We both go down in a blur of pain and terror.

I can’t perceive anything that’s happening anymore. Buster’s on top of me barking and growling and biting. He’s mostly tearing up the flesh on my arm and then he gets hold of my shoulder at the base of my neck and starts pulling upward. I kick and punch at him but it does no good. He’s bigger and stronger.

Somewhere in the distance Sissy is still screaming, maybe running around, maybe looking for a way to help. A few feet from my head, Martin’s and Calvin’s feet are dancing around and the sewing table is being pounded in every direction and the occasional drop of somebody’s blood drips down on my face.

Sissy’s feet join the others near my face for a moment and then I hear her cry out and she goes flailing onto the floor at my side. Somebody punches somebody. Buster tears a chunk of skin and muscle from my neck. The sewing table gets pressed upward and then comes down hard. A pair of Mommy’s sewing scissors drops down and sticks in the floor an inch from my face.

In thoughtless fear, I grab the scissors, pry them out of the wood, and jam them into Buster’s throat. He yelps and jumps back, but his eyes stay blue and green and I end up pulling the scissors out and sticking him a second time. He falls down on his side with his legs flailing around, spinning himself in a circle on the floor, crying and disoriented.

I do my best to stand as fast as I can, grabbing the scissors out of his neck as I do. I turn to the boys fighting on the sewing table and Calvin has blood running down his whole body. He’s weakly trying to fight off the little boy on top of him who keeps stabbing him over and over with that three-inch pocket knife.

The scissors in my hand, I cry and shake my head as I come up behind Martin. Somewhere out in infinity I think I hear Sissy shout “No,” but I’m not sure.

And before I know what’s happened, Mommy’s scissors are buried an inch and a half deep in the back of a ten-year-old boy’s head, and Martin slumps over backwards and comes down hard on the scissors and pounds them into his brain deeper. He twitches a little when he lies there, but only at the same unconscious level that Buster has slowed to.

Calvin stands up from the desk, hunching over his wounds. He pulls the knife out of the place in his stomach where it’s been left and coughs up blood on Martin’s pale face without meaning to. Sissy runs to him and puts her arms around him for support and he stumbles and the two of them go falling into the entertainment center. He puts an arm on one of the shelves and manages to steady himself. Sissy has her arms against him and she’s pressing her head to his chest and crying. He hands her the knife and puts his arm around her and cries into her shoulder.

I can barely stand. I’m numb but somehow my shoulder is still in a kind of brutal pain I’ve never felt before. My whole body is shaking uncontrollably.

You did the right thing.

No. I can’t stop now. I have to finish this.

I force myself to move. I put a hand on the wall and half-walk-half-fall against the fireplace. I’m about to reach for the switch when I hear the gurgled screams, the thumping of one body pounding against another.

I turn.

Calvin has fallen on one knee. Sissy has one hand clutching his hair and with the other she is driving the knife over and over into his chest and neck.

“Sissy, no!” I try to scream, but it comes out barely a whisper.

She pulls back his head and slowly, almost lovingly, presses the tip of the blade to the underside of his chin and slides it as far up into his head as it will go. The muscles in his face go limp and peaceful and when she takes the knife out he lies down on the floor with Buster and Martin and it’s just us girls again. Like Mommy wanted. Like both Mommies wanted.