Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) (53 page)

Kaley stared at Mr. Manning and nodded.

“
…and of course Mrs. Krenshaw and I will have to discuss this with Vice Principal Lowe,” the principal went on, “and we will determine the length of that suspension.”  On the watery wall behind him, something had begun to manifest.  It didn’t know where Mr. Manning was, it only heard him, and moved around in a frantic search.

Kaley stared at Mr. Manning and nodded.

“This will also be taken to the school council and the school superintendent.”  Something splashed behind her.

Kaley
stared at Mr. Manning and nodded.

“…sure you’ll understand.  Like I said, you’re a smart girl, so you’ve heard and read about school shootings, and all sorts of violence that came from kids issuing threats first…”

Something splashed off to her right now, just outside of her periphery.  Mr. Manning’s lips kept moving, and most of his words were lost.  The strange whispers had returned, but they were too distant for her to make out.

Kaley stared at Mr. Manning and nodded.

“One more thing I want to say.  I know that you’ve been through some terrible things, Kaley.  I have a sister who suffered through much the same as you did, so I am
extremely
sympathetic.  There were other students sitting around you who have confirmed that they heard Nancy and Laquanda saying those nasty things, and I understand that that must’ve been very hurtful, and believe me, both of them will have to answer to me for it.”  A large, dark object swam beneath Kaley’s chair, a giant squid on the hunt.

Kaley stared at Mr. Manning and nodded.

“But that
does not
excuse what you said, and I cannot dismiss it.”  The large squid thing turned back around, started feeling at the legs of Mrs. Krenshaw’s chair.

Kaley stared at Mr. Manning and nodded.

“Now, I’ve called your mother and gotten no response.” 
Big surprise there
, she thought.  “So I phoned a next-of-kin, your Aunt Tabitha.  She’s coming to pick you up in about an hour.  I’m going to give you a letter to give to your mother, asking her for a sit-down with myself and Mrs. Krenshaw, to discuss your behavior…”

Mr. Manning went on
and on, but Kaley’s focus was drifting, drifting, drifting.  His words went in one ear, out the other, with very few of them resonating.  All she could think of was Laquanda Everest, and that somewhere far, far across the Atlantic, a maniac was still on the loose, and likely to kill more innocents.

Behind her, several things flopped lightly in the water.  It reminded Kaley of when she and Shan went with Aunt Tabby to her uncle’s lake, when they tossed out some bits of bread for the stocked trout.  The trout would quickly shoot to the surface and snatch the bits away.  Kaley used to try and snatch them, but Shannon always swatted her hand away.  “No!” she would say.  “Leave them alone, Kaley!  Let them swim
around and play!”  Sweet Shannon, who couldn’t even allow Kaley to step on a beetle that night when leaving their house, that night when everything had gone wrong, and everything had changed…

“Kaley?  Have you been listening?”

“Hm?”  She looked up.

Mr. Manning looked at her seriously.  “I’ve been talking and you’ve been nodding, but now you’re just smiling.  What’s funny about this?”  In the corner, Mrs. Krenshaw made another note.

“Nothing, just…sorry…sorry, I was…thinking about Shannon.”

Mr. Manning nodded slowly, unsure
how to take that.  Behind him, a great eye peeked in from the Deep, coming close enough to the surface for her to see its black sclera, its dark-red streaks like veins throbbing in and around the iris.  “You understand the seriousness of this, then?  You understand that you can’t just threaten another student, because that’s not conducive to a learning environment.”

“I understand the weak will always be targets,” she said.

The principal blanched.  “What?”

The words had leapt out of her mouth unbidden.  Kaley had to pause a moment to make sure she had said them.  She then looked over to Mrs. Krenshaw, then to Mr. Manning, and for a hot, tense moment, she grew furious by their big, stupid, idiotic, limited adult minds.  They didn’t see.  Not only did they not see the things stalking them all around, they didn’t see what Laquanda Everest or Nancy Boyle were.  “You said that my threat to her wasn’t conducive to creating a learning environment.”

“That’s right, Kaley.  You’re going to have to explain—”

“I understand what school is for, Mr. Manning.  I learned everything I needed to know about how life works right here in school.  It’s, like, what some people call a microcosm?”  She nodded, wrapping her mind around her own words. 
Words are flimsy things
, Nan had told her. 
Mostly useless
. 
People jes use ’em to give a name to somethin’ they don’t understand
.

“
A microcosm?” said Mr. Manning.

“I’ve learned everything I need to know about the human race between school and life on the streets where I grew up.  Group think, envy, posturing, enabling, and how authority figures protect the bullies.  And whenever the bullied people fight back,
they’re
the freaks somehow.  You keep people afraid.  It’s your job to keep the fear alive in us.  That’s what school is for, to let us know where we all stand.”  She snorted.  “But how to add, subtract, multiply and divide?  How to compose a paragraph?  The atomic weight of hydrogen? 
Pffft
.  Please.”  Spencer’s words, every one of them.  Or, at least, greatly inspired by her contact with him.  Her voice, to be sure, but his attitude, his insane wisdom, was bleeding into them.  Kaley was upset with herself for giving in. 
Damn him
. 
He’s like radiation
. 
You can’t walk away completely unaffected
.

She started to apologize,
but Mr. Manning answered.

“Well,”
he said, looking thoughtfully down at his hands.  “I’m sorry you feel that way.”  Mrs. Krenshaw chimed in.  Kaley watched her lips move, but detected only sounds.  It was like Charlie Brown’s teacher—no real words coming out,
wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa
.

The great eye was back. 
It looked left, right, and finally down at Principal Manning. 
No
, she told it. 
You can’t have him
. 
You can’t have any more
.

Whispers from all around.  Kaley caught only snippets.  “
She says we can’t
…
the wall
…
if we wanted to
…
need a greater opening
…
we need to wait on the pitbull to bring us the other one, we need to the sister
…
as he promised
…”

The pitbull?  Spencer?  What did he promise you?

“
We need the other one
…
can’t hold
…
without
…”

You’re not taking my sister, either
. 
I don’t care what he offered you
.

“
She hears us
. 
She can hear us!
 
We must be close again
. 
Yes, yes, yes, yessssss, we must be very close!
”

You can’t have him, you can’t have anybody else
. 
Especially not her!

“
We will wait for the laughing man to kill the sister—
”

“You can’t have her!” she screamed defiantly at the great eye, rising to her feet and balling her fists.

Ripples went out from her, through the water and up the walls, onto the ceiling and quaking along the Connection.  Even Shannon felt it, Kaley sensed.  All at once, the great eye turned to her, hesitating as she met its gaze.  Finally, it blinked and retreated back into the Deep.

In front of her, Mr. Manning had pushed himself away from the desk in surprise.  Mrs. Krenshaw
had simply frozen, her pen now inert.  “Kaley?” she said.  “Are you all right?”

“No,” she said through gritted teeth.  “I’m tired.  I’m tired of being afraid of them.”

“Of who, Kaley?”

“They can’t have her.”  She was breathing like she’
d run a marathon.

“Who?”

“They can’t have her.”

Here came another whisper.  “
We already have her
.”

“If you have her, why
haven’t
you
killed her?” she shouted.  “Who are you?  What do you want with Shannon?  Tell me, god damn it!”

“Mrs. Krenshaw,” said Mr. Manning calmly, rising from his seat.  “Would you please go and fetch Nurse Anderton?”

When the school counselor was gone, Kaley was alone with Mr. Manning.  Neither one of them were moving.  He was keeping an eye on her, and she was keeping an eye out for the eye.  More ripples were appearing in the water.  The squid-thing moved through the water above her.  “Mr. Manning?” she whispered.

“Yes, Kaley?”

“I need you to go and get my sister.  Or send someone after her.  Please!”  She wasn’t looking at the principal, she was watching the changes to the room.

“Why?”

“Because she’s in danger.”

“How do you know—”

“Because I just do!  Now please, call my aunt and tell her to take Shan out of school now!” 
They’re coming for her
. 
Oh, God, they’re coming for Shan!

“I can’t do that, Kaley.  That would be up to Ms. Jimenez, the principal at Cartersville Elementary.”

Just then, the bell rang.  It was now time for the fourth and final period of the day.

“Call her, then.  Tell her…” 
Tell her what?
she thought.  Kaley’s mind was grasping at straws, and it finally found one long and strong enough. 
You can’t tell them something they won’t believe, so tell them something they will
.  It should’ve occurred to her sooner, but her mind was locked by the horrors she’d seen today.  “There’s something I never told the police.  I need to tell them right away.  It’s about that night in Atlanta.  I need to make a call!”

Mr. Manning watched her carefully, searching for a deception.  “What is it, Kaley?”

“I have to tell them.  They can do something about it.  Shannon may be in trouble because of it. 
Just get me a phone!
”  Her words were somewhat convincing—Mr. Manning had already expressed his sympathies, and his own sister’s tragedy—but Kaley’s charm was now augmenting her case, reaching out to Mr. Manning and coercing.

“You want to call the police in Atlanta?” he said.

No
, Kaley thought. 
They might not listen to me
. 
I need someone who was there that night
. 
Someone who experienced at least some of it
. 
Someone who was there for all that strangeness
.  “I need you to call Detective Leon Hulsey.  I can give you his number.”

When his cell started ringing, Leon just let it go to voicemail.  He was in the middle of his third set.  He was back to lifting 180 again.  That was good for him, having taken such a long break from working out.  It was good to get back to the bench; the exercise pushed his endorphins and lifted his spirits.

On his new big screen, he had an episode of
Mad Men
playing.  A couple of his buddies at the precinct kept raving about the series, but seven episodes in he still didn’t see what the big fuss was about.

Leon laid back down, set his palms apart at the appropriate length, and hit another set.  Lifting that much weight wasn’t just muscle, a lot of it was mental.  It took focus to balance the weight right, keep the shoulders and elbows just so, and ensure that there was alignment with the wrists.  A perfect exercise for taking one’s mind off of things.

A clean set of twelve, and then he racked it.  The bar
thunked
when he replaced it.  He sat up, reached for a towel to wipe his brow and neck.  The cell phone was ringing again, and again he let it go to voicemail.  He laid back down for another set, and when he finished he rose up, checked the number on his cell, and didn’t recognize it.  He tossed his towel away and was about to get up and go grab another Aquafina from the fridge when the phone rang in his hand.  He answered, “Yeah?”

“Detective Hulsey?”

A little girl’s voice, sweet and precocious, and very familiar.  “Who is this?”

“It’s Kaley.  Kaley
Dupré.”  A pause.  “Do you remember me?”

Former APD
Detective Leon Hulsey searched for the remote, found it beneath the towel he’d tossed, and lowered the volume on the TV.  A million emotions suddenly flooded him.  He hadn’t heard from the Dupré family since they took his advice and moved into Bentley Drive in Cartersville.  This was the girl—
the
girl—involved with the case that altered his life.  The last he’d heard, the family was doing okay in Cartersville.