Two and Twenty Dark Tales (28 page)

Clearly, this was some kind of joke the kids were playing on her. Hazing the babysitter. Sure, they outnumbered her, but Shannon was the closest thing to an adult in the room. She could handle it.

“Cute,” she said with a wink. “Now, where are your parents?”

Slowly, from left to right and back again, the three children shook their heads.

“Okay,” Shannon said slowly. No parents? What the hell were they doing leaving eight-year-olds alone in the house? Maybe that was normal in Australia, but Shannon was pretty sure it was illegal in California.

This made things significantly more awkward. Without the parents, she had no idea what to feed the kids, when to put them to bed. Most parents wanted to interrogate the new babysitter for at least twenty minutes to assuage their fears. Not these guys. Apparently, they had no problem abandoning their kids to an unknown, unproven babysitter.

Shannon felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention, the same creepy-crawly sensation she’d felt on the walkway when she saw the four silhouettes in the window.
So stupid
. This was Malibu, after all. Playground of the rich and entitled. It probably never occurred to the parents that bailing before the babysitter arrived was at all unusual. Maybe they were used to leaving the kids with a housekeeper or something… .

“Oh!” Shannon said. “Do you have a housekeeper?”

Again, the kids just shook their heads.

“Er, okay. A cook? Au pair?”

Same slow shake of heads.

“So there are no other adults in the house right now?”

Together, all three kids raised their right arms and pointed a finger at the clock.

The clock? Why the hell were they so fixated on the clock?

“Funny, guys,” she said. “That’s a clock.” She noticed the time said three o’clock when it must have been near eight. “And it doesn’t even work.”

“There’s a neat little clock,

In the school room it stands.

And it points to the time,

With its two little hands.”

Shannon was starting to lose her patience. She stormed up to the clock. “No, it doesn’t point to the time. It doesn’t work. Its eight o’clock and this thing says three. Get it?”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The noise of the clock’s mechanics upbraided her. Why wasn’t it showing the right time? For some reason, it bugged the hell out of her. She needed to fix it.

Shannon peered into the clock’s face, looking for a latch for the glass cover, but the casement seemed to be attached at all points. Maybe there was something in the back? She stepped to the side of the monstrous clock and froze.

Sticking out from behind the clock was a bright-white piece of fabric. It looked vaguely like a shirt sleeve.

Shannon reached out and pulled. A white sweatshirt unfurled from where it had been shoved behind the clock. “What’s this?”

“There’s a neat little clock,

In the school room it stands.

And it points to the time,

With its two little hands.”

There were four of them now. Four kids. A second girl had joined her siblings. Same hair, same clothes, with the exception of an emerald-green shirt.

They recited the verse together, adding another line.

“And may we like the clock

Keep a face clean and bright
—”

“Enough with the clock,” Shannon snapped. She was tired of the weirdness, a house in the middle of nowhere without parents, kids appearing out of thin air, a ticking clock that couldn’t tell time. This place was freaky. Shannon silently cursed Annie for not showing up.

Annie.

Shannon looked down at the sweatshirt she’d pulled from behind the clock. A white Hollister sweatshirt. Just like the one Annie had borrowed from her boyfriend.

Using both hands, Shannon held the unzipped sweatshirt up in front of her. A dark red stain marred the front.

Shannon dropped the sweatshirt as if it was on fire. Annie’s sweatshirt soaked in blood? With a shaky hand, she fished her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed her best friend’s number.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Brrrrrrrrrrrring!

A muffled phone rang out. It sounded as if it came from inside the clock.

Without a second thought, Shannon yanked open the front of the grandfather clock. Instead of the clicking mechanics of a well-kept timepiece, Shannon saw a face staring back at her. Blue eyes wide open, jaw slack in a silent scream, blood soaked blonde hair hanging lank and heavy across her shoulders.

Shannon knew that face.

Annie.

Her right hand had been crossed awkwardly in front of her as she had been shoved inside the clock, and blood trickled down her hand, gathering at the tip of her index finger in large, sticky drops before falling, one-by-one, onto the floor of the clock.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“There’s a neat little clock,

In the school room it stands.

And it points to the time,

With its two little hands.”

Annie’s phone lay discarded next to the pool of coagulating blood. It stopped ringing as Shannon’s call went to voicemail.

“Oh my God,” Shannon said. She fumbled with her phone. She could barely even think straight as she pressed 9-1-1.

“And may we like the clock

Keep a face clean and bright,

With hands ever ready…”

Shannon turned back to the kids, phone to her ear. “What did you—”

The words froze on her tongue. The kids were right in front of her. Faces devoid of expression and staring straight ahead of themselves. Each child held a large carving knife which glistened in the brilliant light of the chandeliers.

They opened their mouths and raised their knives in unison.

“To do what is right.”

Shannon never heard her own scream.

– The End –

A Pocket Full of Posy

Pamela van Hylckama Vlieg

Ring a-round the roses,

A pocket full of posies,

Ashes! Ashes!

We all fall down!

– Mother Goose

I
have blood on my hands.

I don’t remember anything, and have no idea why I woke up on a park bench blocks from my house. I stand and shove my hands in my pockets. I have to remember what happened last night. I need to get home and wash my hands. The blood is dry. It flakes when I rub my hands together, but not all of it is coming off. It’s under my nails and embedded in the cracks on my hands.

What did you do last night, Jake?

My jeans are filthy. I hope that’s mud on the knees and not more blood. “One more block,” I murmur. My house is locked but I find my keys in the front right pocket of my jeans. I head straight for the bathroom. I just want to take a shower.

I let the water get warmer than I usually like it. I feel the need to scald the red from my hands. The water in the sink turns pink and my stomach turns sour. I feel sickness fighting its way up my throat, but I hold it down. I sit on the floor of the bathroom and think. The last thing I remember is picking my girlfriend, Rose, up at her house after dinner.
What happened after that?

My memory is coming back in short bursts. I remember a field; it was after dark and full of wildflowers. I made Rose a posy of the purple and white flowers. Reaching into my pocket, I find the small bundle of flowers still tied together with a long blade of grass.
I must have never given it to her.
I remember the field. It’s on the edge of town. Maybe my car is there.

I grab some money from the dresser in my bedroom and walk the block to catch a bus heading north. I haven’t ridden the bus since I got my car last year, but the schedule is still embedded in my mind. I’ll probably never forget it. I have fifteen minutes to wait. I text my mom that I’m feeling ill and don’t want to go to school today and that I’ll see her when she gets home from her shift. She works nights at the hospital in the maternity ward. I like that she’s gone four nights a week. I can skip curfew and she has no idea that I even did it.

The bus rolls past the park and I get off at the next stop. Sure enough, my car is in the small, five-car parking lot in front of the park. I start there and try to retrace my steps to where we sat down last night. I keep walking straight through the flowers. I walk in a straight line through the field. The weeds and flowers reach my knees, and I find nothing. I walk in a circle this time and see a ring of flowers mashed to the ground, as if someone had been sitting on them. I rush forward to see if there are any clues, and that’s when I find her.

If it wasn’t for the fact that her throat was open, I could have believed that she was sleeping there with the flowers surrounding her.
She’s dead. Rose is dead.
An accusing voice reminds me that I woke up with blood on my hands.
Did I do this? Did I rip my girlfriend’s throat out?

I have to call the police. Someone has to come get Rose and someone has to tell her parents. But what if I did this? How long do you go to jail for killing your girlfriend? No. There’s no way I would ever hurt Ro. Something is going on here, something I can’t remember. I want to know why this happened, and I want to know why I didn’t help her. I drag the bundle of flowers out of my jeans pocket and place them in her cold hands.
Beautiful dead flowers for a beautiful dead girl.

I turn and run back to my car. My nerves are completely shot and I drop my keys. I stand up and see a police officer on a motorcycle drive by. He makes a u-turn and comes back to the park.

“Hey, son,” he says in his official business voice. “Everything all right?”

“Yes, sir,” I say. “I was just getting ready to drive to school.” I force myself to smile at him, feigning innocence. I could be innocent. I don’t remember killing Ro.

“Get a move on,” he says, donning his helmet again.

I nod and open my car door. I wait until I see which direction he is going before flicking my turn indicator on and committing myself. I thank the stars that he went the opposite direction from home.

Parking my car, I head into the house and change into different clothes. I stuff my jeans in the bottom of the hamper, telling myself I will deal with them later.

Mom will have no trouble believing I am sick. I look as pale as death, as white as Rose looked in the field. A sheen of cold sweat covers my body, making me feel gross. I hop into bed just as she comes through the door.

“Jake?” she calls.

“In here, Mom,” I answer, not bothering to tame the quiver in my voice.

She comes into my room and puts her hand on my head. “Do you want some Tylenol?”

“No, I just need to rest,” I say.

“Well…” I can see that she doesn’t like it that I don’t want the pills. “Okay, I’m going to get some sleep but wake me up if you need anything.”

I nod, not trusting myself to answer. My mom is great, I love her so much. I feel the need to blurt out everything that happened to me this morning, but I’m not ready to talk. And I really don’t want to stress her out. She takes a lot of crap at the hospital and she’s been raising me all by herself since Dad died. I tighten my lips and hold it all in. She goes to bed and I sink deeper into my despair.

***

I spend a week at home. I can’t face my friends. I can’t face anyone, really. I ignore texts and calls. Mom thinks I have the flu.

On the sixth day, they find Rose.

I want to stay home forever. The only reason I am going to school today is to avoid going to the doctor. I have overstayed my welcome and Mom is ready to get me well and back out of the nest.

I decide not to breathe a word to anyone about any of this until my memory comes back. Going to school is a great way to rest my brain from the constant question marks of trying so hard to remember. Also, I need to keep up appearances. I don’t think I am guilty, but that doesn’t mean others won’t.

The fall morning has a chill to it. Cold weather always makes my car a little hard to start, but the third time I try the engine, she turns over. It is a short drive to the school. When it’s warm, but not too hot, I leave a half hour earlier and walk. It clears my head.

The parking lot is full and I end up having to park on the street. I barely make it to my first class before the bell rings.

Fifty minutes are up before I notice it. English has never been my favorite subject. Still, I usually don’t zone out for long periods of time in class.

The hallway is teeming with students fighting their way to their next class. I fight a path upstream to my locker. I input my combination slowly; I want to let the hall thin out a bit before shutting my locker and facing the world again. I grab my history book and close the door. As I turn around, I see two men in suits coming toward me. Their pace is brisk and my fight or flight senses are begging to kick in. I stand my ground and wait. They know I’ve seen them already, there is no use trying to play nonchalant.

“Jake Garrus?” The bigger of the two asks.

“Yeah,” I say. I am dying to add a “who wants to know?” to the conversation.

“I’m Detective Benton and this is my partner, Detective Shepard,” he says, nodding to the smaller of the two. “We’d like to talk to you, son. The principal has given us the use of the teacher’s lounge. Would you mind following us?”

I nod. I can’t trust my voice not to betray fear, or worse yet, guilt. I follow them silently. If I hadn’t been scared out of my wits, I might have been a little excited to go into this room. No one is allowed in there except for staff, and I have always been a little curious about what goes on behind the closed doors.

Benton opens the door and I walk in. Curiosity makes me look around and I am a bit disappointed with what I see. For a moment, I think about what I would tell Ro about being in here. She would have loved to hear that there was no disco ball, no martini bar—just the same tables and chairs we have in the cafeteria. I would give anything to tell her all about it.

“Have a seat, Mr. Garrus,” Shepard says, smiling.

Oh, I see. It’s going to be good cop, bad cop, with Shepard playing the nice guy. I decide to play along. “You can call me Jake.”