Transcription (22 page)

Through the front door, James ran down the steps. He would start at the bottom and work his way up, knocking on every door until he found her.

He raised his hand to knock and stopped himself when he heard a familiar voice.

“Danny? Where are you going?”

Above him, he heard a door slam. James pounded up the stairs, pulling at the railing to make better speed. He rounded the second landing and saw Danielle coming down. She had a wooden baseball bat in her hand. Just behind her, Chloe was standing at the top of the stairs.

“Danny?”
 

Chloe saw James, but she didn’t acknowledge him. She was focused on her friend. As James came up, Chloe moved down a step and put her hand on Danielle’s shoulder.

Danielle didn’t hesitate. She turned and swung her bat.

James dove forward, trying to grab the wood before it could connect. He only succeeded in deflecting the swing.

Chloe, too shocked for decisive action, merely watched as the bat connected with the side of her leg. With a little more force, it would have crunched her knee.

“Hey!” Chloe yelled.
 

James clawed himself up the steps and grabbed again for the bat. This time, he got a solid hand on it. When Danielle tried to swing it again, she was stopped by his grip.

“Danny, what the hell?” Chloe asked.

Behind one of the apartment doors, someone yelled for them to shut up.
 

James pulled at the bat. He jerked it from Danielle’s grip and threw it to the floor. She turned a furious glare towards him.
 

“Danielle, that really hurt. What the hell is wrong with you?” Chloe asked. She put her hand on Danielle’s arm and turned her until they faced.

“Help me,” Danielle whispered.

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They guided Danielle back into the apartment. James turned and slid the chain on their door. Chloe shot him a nervous look, but Danielle commanded her attention. They sat her down on the couch. She sat up straight and stiff. Her eyes looked half-glazed.

“I should have known this would happen,” James said. “I mean, I did know, but I should have realized the consequences. I’m so sorry about this.”

“Danielle? Are you okay?” Chloe asked. She spoke loudly and enunciated each word. “Daneille?”

Danielle tried to stand, but Chloe pressed her back down.

“This is my fault,” James said. “Danielle? Can you understand me? You have to fight the urge, okay?”

“What are you talking about?” Chloe asked. She didn’t take her eyes off her roommate.

“It’s the story,” James said. He waved the stapled papers. They were folded over, so nobody could read the infectious words. “It’s one of my father’s stories. Danielle read it by accident this morning. His stories have a way of almost hypnotizing people, you know?”

Chloe frowned and spared him a glance. She looked back to Danielle. “Danny, if this is one of your early Halloween pranks, you better cut it out. You really hurt my leg with that bat.”

“It’s not her,” James said. He flapped the paper in her direction again.

Chloe sat down on the coffee table, facing Danielle. She took Danielle’s hands. Danielle looked frightened. She glanced between Chloe and James.
 

“I have to go,” Danielle said.

“No,” Chloe said. When Danielle tried to stand again, Chloe shoved her back to the couch. “You stay here until you explain why you hit me with that bat.”

James watched as Danielle clenched and flexed her hands.

“I can’t,” Danielle said. “Help me.”

Chloe held her down as she struggled to get up.

“Danielle,” James said, approaching the two. Chloe shot him a look, keeping him at arm’s length. “Here, Danielle, read this.” He held out the papers.

Chloe let her take the papers. She began to calm down as she flipped over the first page and began scanning the words.
 

“I’ve read this,” Danielle whispered to herself. “Yes. This is it.”

Chloe looked to James for an explanation.

“It’s a story my father wrote. Like I said, they have an effect on people. I can’t explain.”

“You guys cooked this up to creep me out, and it’s working. I’ve had enough of your shit,” she said. Chloe stood, but stayed close to Danielle. She bent over and rubbed the sore spot on her leg. Next, she pulled out her phone and dashed off a message.

Danielle groaned. She looked up to Chloe from the papers. “This is making it worse.”

“What do you mean, worse?” Chloe said.

“She won’t be able to control herself,” James said. “She needs to act out the story.”

“You guys are taking this too far,” Chloe said. Her phone rang. James and Danielle only heard her side of the conversation. “You need to get over here… So call in sick… I don’t care. If you’re in on this, I’ll kill you. Get over here.”

She hung up.

“Wait,” James said. “You’re a writer, right? Is she a writer?” he asked Danielle and then Chloe.

Danielle nodded. She turned the page and returned her eyes to the document.

“Write the story,” James said. “You have to write it. Tonight it’s yours.”

“She has to write a story?”

“No,” James said. “Not any story. She has to write that one.” He jabbed his finger towards the document that Danielle was reading.
 

“Yes,” Danielle said. “I want to.”

“That’s harmless,” Chloe said. “So do it then.”

Danielle rose without taking her eyes from the paper. She moved down the hall with Chloe and James right behind her. Danielle sat down on her bed and pulled a laptop to herself. She used her elbows to bunch up the pillows behind her and then started writing. Her neck was tilted at a funny angle so she could read the pages folded open on her bedspread.

Chloe kept to the doorway. James was blocked out to the hall, but he looked over Chloe’s shoulder so he could watch Danielle.
 

“Slow down,” James said. “You have to stretch it out.”

Danielle nodded.

“And don’t try to copy it verbatim. Try to get lost in the harmless parts of the description so you can lighten it up.”

Danielle nodded again.

Chloe turned to James. “What exactly is going on here?”

“Tonight’s her night,” James said. “She read the story from October 3
rd
, so she has to write it.”

There was a knock at the front door.
 

“You stay here,” Chloe said to James.

James watched Danielle as she became engrossed in the story. To her credit, she had followed instructions and slowed down her typing. James took a deep breath and held it. He tried to count her keystrokes, so he could get a sense of her pace. He tried to remember how many pages there had been in the story. If she got to the end of the story before dawn, he had no idea what would happen. Would she channel another story? Would she be compelled to begin acting out the script?

James did a double take towards the front door when Bo came in. He pieced it together—of course, that was who Chloe had talked to on the phone.

The two came down the hall and joined James at the doorway.

“What’s happening?” Bo asked.

“She’s rewriting my dad’s story,” James said.

“Danielle? Everything okay?” Bo called.

“Don’t interrupt her. Please,” James said.
 

“Relax,” Bo said. “What exactly is the problem here, Chloe?”

Chloe pointed through the door. “She freaked out and wandered out of the house with a baseball bat. Then, when I tried to stop her, she hit me in the leg. Whatever she’s up to, your friend is in on it.”

They both looked to James.

“It’s not my fault,” he said, putting up his hands to surrender. “I mean, it is and it isn’t. I didn’t ask for this to happen. She read the story.”

“Slow down,” Bo said. “Try making some sense. What exactly is going on here?”

James sighed. “I’m not sure how well I can explain it.”

“Well, start at the beginning and keep talking until we understand.”

James looked down to his hands. He rubbed his fingers together and gripped an imaginary pen to see if he felt the urge to write. It wasn’t there. He saw the same avid preoccupation in Danielle’s eyes that he normally felt in his hands.
 

“I’ll give you the short version,” James said. “For your own safety.”

He explained the story while they stood in the hall.

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“Let’s go sit down,” Bo said.

They moved to the living room. Chloe lingered in the doorway, watching her friend. She joined them last. Bo and Chloe sat on the couch. James took the chair at the end of the coffee table.

“So you’re saying she either has to rewrite the story, or she’ll act it out?” Bo asked.

“Yeah,” James said. “She may not even know she’s doing it, and nobody will be able to stop her.”

“We didn’t have all that much trouble stopping her earlier,” Chloe said. “And she certainly seemed to know that something was happening. She asked for help several times.”

James nodded and looked at the floor. “Yeah, I don’t know why it’s different with her. It might be because she didn’t read the whole story. I interrupted her.”

Chloe turned to Bo. “What are the odds that this one of her stupid pranks? Did she cook all this up with James and now they’re both pulling a joke on us?”

Bo glanced at James and then turned to Chloe. “I don’t think so. She usually goes right for the gore, and I don’t think she knows James well enough to collude with him on something like this. No—whatever is happening, she looks like she has bought into it. And this guy couldn’t look more serious.” He pointed to James.

“Maybe he dosed her with something. Some kind of date rape drug.”

James looked up with a shocked face.

“Let’s not go accusing anyone of something like that,” Bo said. “You said that he showed up and helped you stop her from leaving. Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know,” Chloe said. “But his story is crazy, and he looks like he believes it. That means that
he’s
 
crazy. You can’t trust a crazy person.”

“I want to hear what Danielle has to say about this,” Bo said.

“No!” James said. “You can’t stop her. Don’t stop her from writing.”

“I wouldn’t,” Bo said. “And not because of your story. She gets bitchy when people interrupt her, so I’ll wait until she has finished. How long does she normally write?” he asked Chloe.

“I don’t know, a few hours? She’s normally a morning person though, so I’m not sure. Could be less.”

“Let’s wait her out.”

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They watched television for a while, with the sound down low. Every ten minutes or so, Bo or Chloe got up and tiptoed down the hall. They peeked in on Danielle and then returned to their place. After the first hour, they stopped reporting on what they saw. They simply nodded.

Chloe drifted off during the news. She laid her head on the arm of the couch and closed her eyes. Bo leaned forward and bounced his legs, stifling back yawns.
 

James simply sat. Every now and again he would tap his fingers against his thumbs, one at a time, like he was counting to four and then back down to one. That was the most he moved. Other than that, he was static in his chair. James focused all his attention on the television. It didn’t matter what was on—he seemed enchanted by the thing.

Bo changed the channel and found a movie. He got up and started opening cabinets in the kitchen. Quietly, he found the materials to brew a pot of coffee. Bo leaned on the kitchen counter as he waited for the coffee to brew.
 

When it was done, he came back to the living room with two cups. One had cream and the other was black.

“How do you like it?” he asked James.

James shrugged and took the black.

Bo sat down carefully, so as to not disturb Chloe. He blew on his coffee and took a tiny sip.
 

James took a gulp of his and then set it down on the table.

“What was in the story, exactly?” Bo asked.

James shook his head. “I don’t want to give you too much detail. It might be dangerous.”

“All the times we’ve talked on your porch, I never would have believed that you would buy into that kind of stuff.”

“What do you mean?” James asked.

“You seem very practical and no-nonsense. But here you are talking about cursed stories and such. It doesn’t fit.”

“I
am
practical,” James said. “I believe what I’ve seen—no more, and no less.”

“Huh,” Bo said.

Bo picked up the remote control and flipped channels until he found another movie. He still got up and checked on Danielle, but his trips slowed to one or two during the course of the movie. He drank the rest of the pot of coffee. The cup he had poured for James went cold as it sat on the table.

About an hour before dawn, Chloe woke up. She sniffed the air.

“Is that coffee?”

“It’s all gone,” Bo said.

“Holy shit, what time is it?” she asked, pushing herself upright. She rubbed her eyes and craned her neck so she could see the clock. “Has she been writing all night?”

“Constantly,” Bo said. “She slowed down, but yeah, she’s been writing this whole time.”

“That’s incredible,” Chloe said. She got up and moved stiffly down the hall. Bo leaned over and watched as Chloe stood in Danielle’s doorway, poking only her head in the room. She came back and stood near the kitchen. “She seems okay, but she’s barely answering. It’s like she’s entranced by whatever she’s writing.”

James grunted.

Chloe hopped up and sat on the counter between the kitchen and living room. “Inspiration is a funny thing. When she goes without writing for a week, I get really worried. Danny gets backed up and she can’t seem to get her ideas flowing. Now, she’s been writing for hours, and I’m even more worried.”

“It’s definitely unusual,” Bo said.