Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) (16 page)

There was a low-hanging ceiling fan set on its lowest setting, humming ever so lightly. 
A glance up at the TV mounted on the wall and behind Plexiglas showed an episode of
SpongeBob SquarePants
, the volume turned low.  “I need a little help over here!” SpongeBob was shouting.  He tried to lift something that was too heavy, and his pants split down the back.

Then, Spencer
halted.  Something crawled up his neck, then back down, around his crotch and his taint, then inside his head.  A whisper, coming up to his eardrums the same way a hard vibration through the floor might.  The voice wasn’t heard by sound traveling through air, but by traveling through him.

“
I can smell her
,” it said.

Spencer turned around,
got a good look at the room, wondering if it was somehow connected to the harmonics and resonance of the basement itself, some type of anomaly, just pure coincidence. 
No, it’s her
.  He turned and looked at Kaley Dupré, who had been crawling on her hands and knees towards the boy, but now stood upright on her knees, looking all around her.

“
We’re so close
. 
So close
,” said the voice.

“You hear it too, don’t ya?” he said.  Kaley swallowed, and nodded.  Her eyes weren’t wide with fear, but she also wasn’t blinking. 
Frozen stiff by fear
.  Some people thought that there were just two reactions to fear: fight for flight.  But that was wrong.  There was a third option: stunned inaction.  “What the fuck did you bring with you?”

She licked her
trembling lips.  “Nothing,” she whispered.

“Bullshit.  What was that?”

“Just…just some voice—”

“
Who’s
voice?” he said.  Spencer had gone back to aiming the gun at her, even though he couldn’t kill her, because presumably the bullet would only pass through her, the way she she’d passed through him.  But certainly she got the idea.  The boy was directly
behind
her.

“I don’t know.”

Spencer watched her closely.  He knew people very well, and he could tell she wasn’t lying.  But there was something else.  He could feel it emanating off of her, just like he could feel it that night in the basement.  A tremor, something underneath his skin, and thus something underneath hers.  It traveled along unknown paths, possibly through neurons, or through the portions of the “right brain” where it was said intuition resided.  Fear of the unknown, and fear that she might be right about some guess she’d made. 
She doesn’t know, but she’s got a hunch
.  There was something more, though. 
She won’t
allow
herself to recognize the hunch
.

This only confirmed Spencer’s belief about a great deal of the human race.  There was an innate inability in all of them to see what was staring them right in the face.  Fear got the best of them almost every time, and deprived them of their dreams, of their ability to shoot for the stars, of asking that cute boy out for a first date, and, in Kaley’s case, of acknowledging a dreaded thing that was all but ready to consume her.

Spencer felt it.  The longer he was in close proximity to her, the more powerful his intuition on the matter became.  Something was rippling out from her and affecting him, exactly the way it had that night in the house on Avery Street.

Kaley had turned back to the boy, and was back on her hands and knees, crawling over to him, not yet reaching for him.  She tried coaxing him out.  “Hey,” she said softly.  “Hey there, we’re not gonna hurt you.” 
Speak for yourself
, Spencer thought.  “We’re here to help you.  That man upstairs, he’s gone.  He can’t hurt you anymore.  Okay?  We just…we just need you to come out here and talk to us.  We’re going to get you out of here, understand?  Whatever pain you’ve suffered is over now.”  She crawled a little closer, and the boy recoiled more, whimpering.  “What’s that in your hand?”

Spencer stepped around the apparition, and knelt so that he could see the little animal.  The boy
looked no older than eight.  He was naked except for a piece of underwear with what looked like old blood stains on the bottom; he was cleaned, and had combed blonde hair.  He was huddled in a fetal position beneath a spotless oak table—as spotless as everything else down here. 
Keeps it clean, gotta give him that much
.

The kid was sucking on his thumb, almost gnawing on it like a rat.  The
rim of the first knuckle was red and raw from so much suckling and gnawing.  In his other hand was a blue satchel with a zipper on top, and a few pockets around the sides.  On his brow, a sheen of sweat had developed.  “A’ight, kid.  You speak Russian?  English?  Eh? 
Vy gavarite pa par Ruskie?
”

The boy said nothing, only shut his eyes harder and turned his back on them, obviously trying to wish them away.  Spencer figured the kid had probably heard the gunshot upstairs, and knew that his world was about to be turned upside-down again.  He was right.  No matter which way this interrogation went, his life would never be the same.

“What’s your name?” Kaley asked softly.

No answer.

“What’s your name, boy?” Spencer said, growing impatient.  “Eh? 
Kak vas zavut?
”

No response, only trembling.

“Answer me, kid.”  The boy started to weep.  Spencer raised the Glock casually in his hand.  “Ya know what this is?”

“
Spencer!
” hissed the apparition.

“This is a Glock 19, an’ it’s what I used to put an end to the fucker that put you down here.  I’m a fuckin’
hero.  Now talk to me. Where are ya from? 
Vy atkuda?
”  No response.  Spencer popped the clip out of the pistol, briefly checked the bullets, then slapped it back home and pulled the slide.  The whole process was very loud in the confines of the basement.  “I got ten little friends left in here—”

“Spencer—”

“—an’ I ain’t afraid to use them.  Just ask Zakhar upstairs—”

“Shut up, Spencer!” she hissed.

“—or you can ask our little ghost friend sittin’ here beside ya—”

“Shut up!
” she finally screamed.  “Shut up!  Shut up, you—

“—fucking maniac! 
Shut up!
”

Kaley stood
up from her seat, and all around students were staring at her, open-mouthed and unblinking.  Her book bag had fallen to the floor, spilling some of its contents.  She was panting, looking around, trembling in a daze. 

The classroom was tiny
, and filled with only twenty desks, but all of them were filled with various kids from her grade that she hadn’t even learned the names of yet.  She was now hyper-aware of everything around her.  The confused looks of the other kids, the smell of Germ-X on somebody’s hands, some boy’s cologne, which smelled a lot like Aqua Velva but might’ve been something else.  The room also smelled of dust and chalk, and various cleaners meant to cover all of that up.  There were scribbles on her desk, and a carving from where some other kid in another period had brazenly declared “
THIS CLASS SUCKS MY LEFT NUT!
”

And of course, there was
Mrs. Cartwright, up at the chalkboard, frozen in utter shock by Kaley’s outburst.  Mrs. Cartwright had a textbook in her hand and a piece of chalk in the other.  She was writing the morning’s assignment on the board.  The chalk had been scuttling across the board at Mrs. Cartwright’s behest, scratching along with the occasional screech.  Kaley had been aware of all of this while also in that other world she was trying to coax the victim of child rape from a corner where he lay huddled and terrified beyond imagining.

In the basement,
the ceiling fan continued to spin slowly, slowly, slowly.  On the wall-mounted TV, SpongeBob was waving his hands frantically for help.  “They’ve kidnapped Squidward! 
Hellllllp!
”

The emotions of the boy had been barely kept in check.  “Ward yo’ heart, chil’,” Nan had told her time and again.  And she had tried.  Oh,
God
, how she had tried.  But the evils of that basement had been too much.  Slick like oil, oozing onto her, and there was no guarantee that the stains would ever come off.

At the same time she was noticing all of this, water was pooling around her feet.  Indeed, the entire classroom was covered in ankle-deep, murky, foaming water, just as the basement was.  And if she didn’t know better,
she would say something was swimming all around in that murk.  Something touched the desk beside hers, something that looked like a tentacle, but also like a malformed penis.  It came licking up one of the desk’s legs, tasting, tasting…

The classroom was quiet for a full
ten seconds.  Then, there were snickers from all around.  Then some boy a couple rows back snorted.  Some girl barely stifled her laughter.

Spencer sighed, looked at her
reproachfully.  “What have I repeatedly told you about tellin’ me what to do?”  She could feel a threat rising in him.

Kaley couldn’t
address him right at that moment.  She was still caught between worlds, uncertain of what to do about any of it.  She looked at Mrs. Cartwright, and said the first excuse that came to mind.  “I’m…sorry, Mrs. Cartwright.  I-I-I fell…I fell asleep.  I didn’t sleep so good last night—”

“Never mind that cunt
of a teacher,” Spencer said, leaning in to glare at her.  Kaley saw the scar etched across his face, where Dmitry (
Oni
as Shan had once called him) had sliced him.  “Answer me.  What have I said about tellin’ me what to do?”

“—and I laid my head down for just…just a second,” she informed Mrs. Cartwright.  “Had a nightmare.  Thought…thought someone was grabbing me, or something.  I’m…I’m
so sorry.  Can I…go and get a drink of water or something?”

Mrs. Cartwright looked at her disdainfully.  The woman’s eyes were ice cold.  Or maybe that was only a little bit of Spencer bleeding through, some of his
emotions becoming superimposed over Kaley’s other world, coloring her perception of things.  It was so difficult to tell, especially since her eyes kept glancing at the malformed penis-tentacle that had swum back beneath the water, continuing its search.  It licked past her, moved on…but then it came back, wanting a second taste.

Mrs. Cartwright removed her glasses and let them hang from the straps around her neck.  “Go get a drink of water, Kaley.  But before you go, you owe everyone in this room—”

“An apology, yes ma’am.”  Kaley turned to look at the rest of the class, some of them smiling, some of them looking at her with a curled upper lip of contempt, and none of them seeing the multiple threats swimming about their ankles.  “I’m sorry.  Um…”  She swallowed.  Spencer’s face was still an inch in front of hers in that other world; he awaited a reply.  “It was rude, what I said.  I’m sorry if I scared anybody, or…or…uh…
offended
anybody.”

“That’s all fine, Kaley,” said Mrs. Cartwright.  “Go and get your drink.  And don’t let me catch you falling asleep in my classroom again.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Kaley shuffled out of class, sensing the harsh judgments of her classmates; those judgments permeated her, and made it easy to doubt herself. 
When she stepped out of the classroom, she shut the door behind her and walked slowly down the hall, which was also flooded by the same murky water.  A froth collected around her ankles wherever she went, and things were swimming all about her.  “Okay,” she told Spencer.  “I think I can talk again without…raising any suspicions.”

“I don’t care about raisin’ any suspicions,” he said.  She noticed the gun was pointed lazily at the kid, but only in a kind of gesticulation, where Spencer thought he was still making some kind of point.  “You told me this kid knew somethin’ about At-ta Biral, but so far he’s kept hush, an’ for all I know he’s a fucking
mute
!  I’m just as likely to blow this kid’s head off as I am to walk right outta here, leavin’ you along with this brat, an’ you’re worried about Mrs. Cartwright?”

“I don’t think you understand,” Kaley said.  “For that matter, neither do I.  I don’t…I don’t fully understand how any of this is working.  I’m kind of here, but I’m kind of there, too.  Not just my body—or bodies—but my mind—or minds.
”  It was all very confusing.  “I’m kind of dealing with it, but I’m also, like, on autopilot.  I’m going through the motions.  I’m listening to Mrs. Cartwright, and I’ve been listening to the whispers from the two girls who sit in front of me—I think they were talking about that British TV show,
Doctor Who
.  I hear them, and I hear you, too.  Like Pavlov’s dog, I respond to them like I would any other day, but I’m also reacting to you.”

“
I don’t give a shit about Pavlov an’ his fuckin’ dog right now.  You didn’t answer me before.  What have I told you about tellin’ me what to do?”

He’s insane
, she thought.  Kaley had long known this, but this conversation brought it to another level. 
He still expects an answer
. 
He accepts all of this that’s happening to us and he’s only concerned about his own precious ego
.  Kaley looked at him with a quivering lower lip, eyes smoldering with contempt.  “I heard you loud and clear,” she said softly.  “But I yelled at you for a reason.  You pointed that gun at this poor boy and demanded an answer out of him, but not everybody responds to guns and threats.”