Seven Deadly Pleasures (10 page)

Denny put on the best tough-guy face he could muster.

"Where's the rest of it?"

"It's not full-bodied," she said. "It's a spirit. But if it ever gets out from behind the glass, you're a goner."

"Why? What does it do?"

"It joins with things to become whole."

"What things?"

Josephine put her finger against Denny's chest.

"Anything you touch with both hands." He sat back and tried to treat the fascinating picture on the table as casual background while he hashed out the new boundaries.

"So, if I touch a pencil . . ."

"It becomes a pencil-bug. The point would turn into a stinger, the eraser would become an eye, and the body would sprout a thousand scrambling legs. Then it would start to slither. It would come at you until you were trapped and then it would get you."

Denny frowned and made laughter come through his nose.

"I'd lock it in a room and run away. That's too easy."

"No, no," Josephine said. "It's a Slither-
Shifter
. It shifts and changes. The very next thing you touch with both hands becomes a new monster. The 'shift' is forever stuck in your fingers and that's how it follows you."

"How do you kill it?"

"Can't. It never dies."

Denny squinted a bit. Every monster had its weakness. Those were the rules and it was up to him to uncover the flaw.

"How do you stop it from shifting?" he said.

Josephine hesitated.

But she made a mental rally. She grinned and stood up.

"The only way to re-cage the Slither-Shifter once it cuts loose is to make it like you."

Denny grimaced.

"Yuchh," he said. "How do you do that?"

"It's a riddle."

"Hmm."

He offered out a bit of a smile, and Josephine returned the gesture. Her story had been a good one and in their brief moment of smiling at each other, like it or not, Denny felt himself and this newcomer becoming something like friends.

"OK, Denny. Let's go. It's time to put this thing in its place." She grabbed the picture and set it under her arm. Denny sat on his hands.

"What do you mean?"

"You know."

Denny snorted and mimicked her doorbell-like tone.

"No I don't."

She put her free hand on her hip and rolled her eyes up at the ceiling.

"Where's the scariest place in the house?"

"The basement!"

"Well, lead the way, mister."

Denny sat where he was.

"Why?"

"What's the matter, you scared?"

"No!"

"Then let's go," she said. "We have to find the darkest corner of the scariest room and cover the monster up for the night. That is, unless you're chicken to have it actually growing two floors beneath you in the dark while you sleep."

Denny jumped up and raced for the cellar door. Totally cool! She made it so her story could go on all night in a lingering creep-fade. He flipped the butterfly bolt lock, grabbed the copper knob, and swung open the door so hard it banged the wall of the short kitchen archway.

The light high in the basement stairway winked on, and when Denny released the pull string a cone of tiny dust pieces swirled up toward the bulb. The wooden stairs led down to a furl of black shadows, and Denny vaulted to the bottom. Behind was the creak and groan of the steps as Josephine fought to keep up, and when she reached the basement floor she was quick to say, "Where's the next light?"

She shielded her eyes at the brow as if it would help her to read the new blindness, and Denny covered his mouth to muffle the giggle. He stood but two feet away from his babysitter and though it was her mission to scare him, it was now Josephine Thompson who had no clue a rusty water boiler was parked three feet to her right. She could not see that a roll of chicken wire sat directly to her left beside two rescue pickaxes, a spaghetti mop, and a pair of floor brooms with worn, curled-in bristles either. All she saw was Mr. Strange Darkness, and he was a stranger nobody liked especially during first visits to cellars.

"Over here!" Denny said. She jumped and Denny let go his laugh. He was closer than she had anticipated and fifteen years old or not, his sudden call had given her a kindergarten sort of a fright.

"Turn on the main light, Denny."

Her voice had gone out of story-telling character, and Denny went up on his toes for the string. The bent hanger, twisted onto the short length of clothesline that was tied to the light chain up at the bulb's base, soon came to his grasp, and Denny promptly gave it a yank. After all, it was in his best interest to do what she said. It was her picture. It was her story. And hadn't she promised that the best was still coming?

Maybe the scare he just gave her guaranteed it.

The overhead light made a weak yellow oval on the dingy floor and Denny turned, ready to guide her to the farthest corner of the basement. To the left just outside the dim ring of light was a haphazard arrangement of cardboard boxes next to a Westinghouse washer and a dryer missing its label plate. To the right sat a grouping of gray metal shelving units filled with paint cans, turtle wax tins, shoe polish, and varnish. On the wall behind, there were rows of power tools hanging off nails. Denny reached in between Dad's two-speed Sawzall and the cordless drill for his finger flashlight with the soft rubber grip.

"It's scariest back here," he whispered over his shoulder.

"Solid," Josephine whispered back. Denny's light cut slashing lines into the room's thickest darkness. Back by the heater, Denny stopped and shone down his beam.

"Here," he said. "The place for the picture is here."

Her hand fell on his shoulder then, and it took everything in Denny's power not to jerk at the touch. He had not expected it. Oh well, she got backsies on him. No problem. He supposed he'd had it coming.

Still, her voice was not filled with the triumph that he had anticipated. It was flavored with something he didn't quite get, quiet on the high edge of weird with a protective cover on top of it all.

"Denny, what is that stuff?"

He turned but could not see her eyes in the dark. He turned back and looked down into what the flashlight was showing. There was nothing there, however, except a few of his comics, a sleeping bag, and a bottle half filled with some Mountain Dew from last night.

"What stuff?" he said. "It's nothing, just some of my gear for basketball nights and Lady Weekends."

"What?"

He turned and aimed up the flashlight beam so it rode between them. Her eyes seemed strange and focused and hot, kind of like before when he had spoken of eating leftovers for dinner each evening. Or maybe it was just the lighting.

"It's my basketball gear," he said. "When Dad watches his games, he'd, I mean I'd rather play down here by myself. It's my doom-room, my bad-pad. Comics are best read in the dark with a flashlight anyway, right?"

"And what the hell is a 'Lady Weekend'?"

Denny looked back at his sleeping bag and twirled the flashlight so it made tight little circles on it.

"You know, Lady Weekends. Dad calls this special number and a lady shows up. He helps them. It's his weekend charity. The ladies always wear a lot of perfume, and Dad says I could catch something from it if I'm around. When I was younger I used to cry, but I'm a lot bigger now. A month ago I even went a weekend and a Monday without ever coming up, even for food. Dad gave me a dark chocolate Hershey Bar for that."

He put the flashlight right under his chin and gave a monster laugh.

"Mwahh, hahh, hahh!"

Josephine said nothing back for a moment, and with the light in his face, she looked like a burning, white outline. Then her breathing seemed really loud.

"Come, Denny, now!"

She spun and marched back toward the stairway. When she noticed that Denny hadn't followed in tow, she spun back.

"Now, I said!"

"Why? I thought the Shifter had to be put in the darkest, scariest—"

"Plans have changed. It's got to be put elsewhere or the magic air currents won't match up with the stars. I forgot that it's different in the winter, so c'mon, hurry up."

She was standing under the light now and her smile looked about as fake as the new, slipshod twist to the story. And as Denny dragged his feet across the floor he wondered why Josephine seemed not to want to be friends anymore.

5.

When he emerged from the basement Denny was surprised to see that Josephine was not waiting for him by the couch. Instead, she was standing at the foot of the stairway that led to the second floor and hugging the large picture frame, drawing side in. She pivoted, walked up the first four stairs, and turned back.

"Ready?"

Denny approached and rubbed his toe on the first stair.

"Ready for what?"

"It's got to go in your room and you have to survive the night alone with it, Denny. And there's no sticking it under the bed or inside the closet either. It's got to stay in full view, that is, if you've got the guts for it."

Denny did not trust the new deal and he stayed where he was. The integrity, rhythm, and essence of the ghost story had been clearly discarded, and this new stuff had everything to do with Josephine Thompson's obvious need to be shown the upstairs. It was creepy and Denny just couldn't figure out why it had all become so important all of a sudden.

"You know I ain't scared," he said.

"Then let's go. Straight ahead, then to the left or the right?"

"The left," his distant replay. He sidestepped up the stairs, pretending to study the paint chips in the banister, and a light beckoned down proving Josephine had found the hall switch. Denny looked up. She was studying him from the landing.

"Coming or what?"

He glanced down and by the time he raised his eyes the landing was empty. She had made her way down the hall without him.

"Hey!" he said.

Nothing.

"Not funny," he said, forcing a laugh into it.

Nothing still, and he made himself trudge up the stairs. Why was she playing possum at this point? What did it mean? He turned the corner and saw her frozen in his bedroom doorway, facing in and away. The bare bulbs of his combination ceiling fan/ceiling light stretched her shadows down the hall almost to the bathroom.

"Well?" he said.

Silence. She remained a statue in the doorway and Denny took a cautious step toward her. His breath quickened.

This was all starting to spook him for real.

Denny had it figured by the time he shuffled past her and he tried to cover his sigh of relief. Mystery over; Josephine Thompson was just a bit shocked by the mess, nothing more, no reason to freak. Denny hadn't cleaned in a while; in fact, he could not remember the last time he'd reshelved a magazine or wiped off a table. Oh sure, everything looked just peachy to him, but Denny tried hard to put himself in his babysitter's place.

To her it must have seemed pretty gross.

The bed was unmade and rumpled with an old yellow checkered summer sheet balled in a blanket that had faded pictures of tugboats and trains on it. By the footboard, a pillowcase popping lint balls along the seams was crammed to the gills with gadgets, toys, and rolled-up Monster Truck posters. A bit farther up on the mattress there was a stadium air horn turned down on its bell, and next to that a Stomp Rocket Load Launcher with a busted tripod. The place of honor atop Denny's pillow was occupied by the PlayStation controller and an empty case that read "Twisted Metal II," while in the darkness beneath the box spring an ancient, half-deflated kickball could be seen next to an orange squirt rifle that had a snapped trigger from two summers before.

And from there it all really crumbled.

Clothes were strewn around the bed area like a ring of drowning children, all reaching for the lifeboat that kept afloat their captain's best interests. Past that was the clutter of obsolete playthings that crawled for the wall shadows. Tonka trucks were jackknifed and upended across sections of warped Brio train tracks. Two Hot Wheels talking road lanterns sat by a toss of baseball cards, key chains, C batteries, and Mega Bloks Lego pieces. Pogo foot rests, streamers, extended forks, and other bicycle parts lay stranded by the TV, and a heap of greasy chains curled themselves into the remains of a ripped T-shirt in the corner by the closet. Stuffed animals of the past were abandoned by the heating vents. Pocket change, crayons, CDs, spitball straws, and other littery things spotted the rest of the floor, and at the room's farthest edge there sat an unfinished rolltop desk that had a bunch of used-up Wendy's Frosty cups stuck across the top in a line.

Josephine entered the space and walked from one side to the other as if in a dream. By the far window she finally paused and reached toward Denny's only room plant, a large tub-shrub left from the days of his mother. It sat on a rickety bar stool and had a sweat sock stuck in the branches. She plucked it out, let it dangle, and then dropped it.

"What is all this?" she said. Denny shrugged.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Her eyes had gone wide and her voice started to rise. "Nothing? It seems like this room has been left on its own to rot, Denny! This is worse than I thought it would be. It's not just ghetto in here, it's funky and nasty like a live nightmare. There are things on your floor from your baby years. How do you live like this?"

"It's OK."

"OK? Are you out of your mind?" She looked up at the ceiling, blinked, and looked back. "What does your father think of all this? The refrigerator was suspicious and the basement was a horror show, so set me straight one thing at a time. Explain his angle. What does he say about the disaster in here?"