“You said there’s no such thing as spirits and things that go bump in the night.”
“Lots of things go bump in the night,” he said. “But those things can be explained.”
“You can’t explain what happened.”
“I tried.”
“So what’s the verdict?”
“You’re really not going to read it?”
“I have enough memories from living twelve months in that house to last a lifetime, thank you very much. I don’t need anything
else to give me nightmares.”
“There is no verdict.”
“But you admit that those things happened?”
“Yeah, I saw what you saw.”
“The handwriting on the walls. Audrey’s room rearranged. All the stuff that went missing.”
“All of those could be explained.”
“By whom?”
“Someone could have done all that.”
“See—you still don’t believe what happened.”
“It’s the other stuff,” Dennis said.
“What?”
“The—the smells. The sounds. The other things you said you saw.”
“The things I saw? And you didn’t?”
“I don’t—I don’t know.”
“Or you just chose to forget because you couldn’t make sense of them, because you couldn’t control them.”
“Lucy—”
“When will you ever learn that life is not about control? That you never have any?”
“I have control in the pages of my books.”
“But that’s not real, Den. What we experienced and lived through—that’s real.”
“Sometimes I don’t know,” he told her. “Sometimes real life makes less sense than fantasy and science fiction.”
He waited for her to say truth is stranger than fiction, but she didn’t.
“I just wrote it as a way to try to understand.”
“And do you understand?”
Dennis shook his head. “No. The guy in Echoes ends up in a mental institution. I guess I should be thankful I’m not in one.”
“We were in one for a year. Thank God we’re out.”
He pulled into the driveway and got out of his car, scanning the house to see if any lights were on.
He’s getting to me. That psychotic kid is finally getting to me.
It took him a long time to go to sleep that night.
The next morning the music was so loud in his office that he almost missed the phone call.
“Is there a rock concert going on in the house?”
“Yep. I’ve turned the house into a club. You need to come around sometime.”
“Hey, Dad.”
“This is an early call for you. It’s only eight o’clock your time.”
“I have a class at nine,” Audrey said. “And some of us do have to get up on time.”
“Are you saying I don’t?”
“You could sleep until eleven and still get your work done.” He chuckled. “What’s up?”
“I wanted your advice.”
“No.”
“No? I haven’t even asked you anything.”
“If it has anything to do with a guy, the answer is no.”
Audrey laughed. “You act like I’m going to get engaged to the first idiot I see.”
“No. But maybe the second. Or the third.”
“Don’t worry. It’s about my Literature class. The professor in there.”
And for the next twenty minutes, Audrey detailed her experiences with a know-it-all female professor. After telling Dennis
all about her first few classes and about the attitude and tension between her and the teacher, Audrey asked him what she
should do.
“She’s jealous,” he told her. “I bet that’s it.”
“Jealous? What do you mean?”
“Because you’re smart and you actually questioned a few of her theories and some of the ways she does things. I bet she feels
a little threatened.”
“What? No. It’s not like I’m being disrespectful.”
As Dennis offered ideas and suggestions on handling the teacher—one of them to dial it down and be more laid-back, responses
he knew would be difficult for Audrey—he found himself thinking this was a conversation she should be having with her mother.
This was the sort of thing mothers were for—when their daughters were having issues with other women. Guys could be competitive
pricks, but women could be far more cruel and conniving. Lucy would have been good at navigating these waters with Audrey.
“What is it?” Audrey asked him.
“I was just thinking—about your mother.”
“Yeah. I’ve thought a lot about her lately.”
What was there to say now? Something trite like,
At least she’s looking down at us from heaven?
He wasn’t going to feed his daughter any of that bull. He didn’t say anything since there wasn’t anything to say. She missed
her mom, he missed his wife, life sometimes sucked, the end.
Now there’s a story for the publishers. Package that sucker up and send it off.
“How’s the writing coming along?”
She just
had
to ask.
It was a normal question that everybody asked. And he’d never once said it was going badly or that it wasn’t going at all.
Perhaps all his joking during the years about having writer’s block was coming back to bite him in the butt.
“Can I get your advice?”
“Yeah, sure.” It was the most animated Audrey had sounded yet.
“It seems like your father has a bad case of writer’s block.”
“That’s funny.”
“I’m serious.”
“What?” She sounded genuinely surprised.
“Yeah. Can you believe it?”
“Has that ever happened?”
“Nope.”
“Do you know why it’s happening now?”
“No.”
“I don’t know how to help. You know me—I have trouble writing anything.”
“You’re a great writer when you apply yourself.”
“But I’d rather be outside, be in the ocean, hang out with friends.”
“Like most people,” Dennis said.
“Is it the story you’re writing?”
“Maybe, though I don’t have any other stories waiting to be told.”
“How far are you on the book?”
“Not far at all.”
Audrey laughed. “Get somebody to help you write it.”
That’s not funny. Not in the least.
He sat for a moment, looking out the window, wondering what she would say if she knew. Wondering what she would say when she
found out.
“Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it? What’d I say?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you remember when I’d get stuck on a term paper or on my homework? Do you remember what you and Mom would do?”
“We used to do a lot.”
“Take some of your own advice. You’ve got the house to yourself. Turn up the music. Get outside.”
“You heard how loud the music was.”
“So go outside. Get out. Live life.”
He thought of running into Ward, of the dinner invitation he still had to reply to, of how isolated he felt being all alone
in the house.
Audrey continued. “Do some of those exercises. ‘This is what writers do, Audrey.’ Come on. You’re Dennis Shore!”
He laughed. Sometimes that’s a name that’s hard to live up to.
Audrey said she had to go. She thanked him for his advice and told him she loved him. The words never got old, however many
times he heard Audrey say them.
Ever since the Home Depot “episode” Dennis avoided running errands. But he was coming back from the grocery store when an
unknown caller ID lit up his phone.
“Yeah,” he said into the phone.
“I just read your list. And I have to say, it’s quite surprising.”
“What now?”
“Let me read it to you. ‘The Scariest Movies I’ve Ever Seen’ by Dennis Shore. GQ, huh? When did you write this?”
“A while ago.”
“It’s quite an interesting list.”
Dennis thought back to the list he had created six months ago. He couldn’t even remember every movie he’d included.
“Of course, it’s nothing too surprising.
The Thing. Alien.Silence of the Lambs.
Nothing too original. Did you simply Google the top ten scary movies and average out everybody’s lists?”
“Sorry I didn’t add anything twisted enough to make your top ten.”
“Oh, but you did. I like this list. In fact, in many ways this could be the list of stories from which Dennis Shore stole
in order to build his writing career. Let’s see.
The Sixth Sense
would be your first novel. The Shining would be Echoes. Alien is very much like Marooned. Need I continue?”
“And you think you’re original? Your story is just a twisted version of
Silence of the Lambs.”
“Oh, I was hoping you’d say your number one scary movie. Se7en.”
“You couldn’t even get close to writing something that brilliant.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“What do you want?”
“I just thought I’d share that I left another small present at your door, celebrating the fact that you had
something
published. Something that was yours, unless, of course, you stole this top ten list from someone else.”
Dennis cursed into the phone.
“Now now now. That’s not very nice.”
But as Dennis was about to say more, Cillian hung up.
He discovered the gift Cillian had left for him in a cardboard box on his doorstep. And after Dennis opened it, dropping it
in surprise and horror, the first thing he did was call Deputy Cummings.
He was going to do something about his young, demented, and seriously stupid harasser.
Enough was enough. This time he had gone way too far.
She looked pretty. And untouched.
A photo out of an Abercrombie catalog, a face out of an MTV show. Long, curly, highlighted brown hair, long legs, a long-lasting
smile, and a long life ahead for her.
Cillan had seen her yesterday and today, making sure she didn’t see him, making sure he knew who she was with.
And finally, on this stifling and bloated summer day, with the crowd in Grant Park swarming the stages during this ridiculous
way to suck people’s money, he had found her alone.
And that’s when he went up to her.
“You look hot,” he told her.
“Excuse me?”
“Warm. Sweaty. Thirsty.”
“I’m fine.”
“I have an extra.” Cillian offered the beer to her.
“No thanks.”
“Really, it’s okay.”
The girl wiped her forehead and looked around. She laughed and took the beer. “I could be arrested for this, you know,” she
said, taking a sip.
“You’d have to do a lot more than that to get arrested. Enjoying the show?”
She stared at him for a minute, suspicious and amused. “Sure.”
“What was your favorite performance?”
“What was yours?”
“It’s somewhat boring to me, these festivals. There are lots of other ways to have fun.”
“Look, buddy, I’m with a group of friends, okay? So just— don’t get any ideas.”
He smiled. She was feisty.
He liked that.
“How old are you?” Cillian asked her.
“How old do you think I am?”
“Old enough.”
She sipped the beer and looked around. “My friends are coming back any minute now.”
“Good.”
“Yes, that’s good.” But her face showed that it wasn’t really, that she wasn’t sure when her friends were coming back, that
she wasn’t sure whether she should be sipping this beer and talking to this stranger.
“You from around here?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“Sure. You?”
“You’re not very specific, are you?”
“You don’t take hints, do you?”
I don’t need hints, not where I’m going, not where I can take you.
“Oh, there they are. They’re coming.”
“Good.”
A voice hollered over the crowd, calling her name.
“Audrey! We got you a T-shirt.”
Cillian smiled and raised his eyebrows. “A T-shirt. You’ll remember Lollapalooza for the rest of your life.”
Audrey Shore just looked at him with eyes that mocked, that patronized.
I can wipe that silly little snotty look off your face.
“Enjoy the shows, Audrey,” he said as he walked away, losing himself in the crowd. But Cillian never lost track of the teenager
surrounded by friends.
She wouldn’t always have them around.
“I can’t do anything about it.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“There’s no address on the box, no letter or note or anything inside.”
Dennis cursed and slapped the picture on the dining room table. “That’s not enough?”
The deputy had arrived half an hour ago, and Dennis had told him everything—everything except the fact that he had stolen
a novel from Cillian. But he had shared Cillian’s arrival at the book signing in New York and his threatening comments, calls,
and e-mails. The dead goose, the desecrated books with blood on their pages (which Ryan already knew about).
You forgot to share with Ryan that you’re starting to see things. That you’re starting to lose it.
Whatever had happened before, this was now a step too far.
“And you said he called you right before you got this?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah. Almost as if he was right outside my front door when he called.”
Ryan picked up the picture. “Do you know when this was taken?”
“It’s got to be recent. At least since she went away to Biola. Her hair is long now, just like there.”
“So how’d he get this, then?”
The freckle-faced deputy wrinkled his nose as he examined the photo.
“I don’t know. It just showed up at my doorstep in a box. A photo of Audrey.”
“And there was nothing else inside?”
“I already told you that.”
“And did you ask your daughter if she sent it?”
“Do I really need to?”
“Maybe she did. You never know.”
“She didn’t send it. I know who sent it. And I don’t care if he’s just playing head games with me, this is over. This stops
right now.”
“Yeah, okay. Just—calm down a minute. Let me think.”
“Can’t you run some background checks, just look into him?”
“Yeah, I can do that. But Dennis, I need to see some proof.”
“I want to scare this kid away.”
“What’s his name again?”
“Cillian Reed. I’ve looked online, but nothing’s come up. Not even a MySpace page.”
The deputy wore regular clothes since he was off for the day. Dennis had immediately called him after he’d spoken with Audrey,
who was on her way to class. He had just wanted to hear her voice to see if she was okay. A part of him doubted Cillian would
actually do anything to hurt anybody, but the photo crossed the line. Plus there was the matter of Cillian’s vivid imagination.
Dennis just wanted to be safe and sure.