The Twelve-Fingered Boy (20 page)

“Shreve. That's Jack. We're new in the neighborhood.”

“You guys play Wiffle?”

I snort.

His eyes narrow, but with everyone lined up, looking at him, the light failing, he shrugs and says, “Okay, Shreve. You guys are in. You know the rules, but we play that you can bean somebody for an out. If you miss, the person can run it home.”

“That's cool.” We played a similar variation at home.

“You hit the Stevensons' roof? Auto homer. First team to ten or dark.” He points with the long Wiffle-ball bat at a nearby roof and then whips the bat in another whistling arc.

A small lot in a small neighborhood with regular kids. Sunlight failing. Motes in the air. Jack smiling. A woman's high-pitched voice carries through the air, bright and piercing. “Daaaaannnneeeeee!!!”

“Shit, Chuck. She's calling for me,” one kid says.

“Ignore her.”

A good-looking blond kid scuffs his sneakers in the dirt and says, “She has to come lookin' for me, she's gonna be pissed. Let's hurry this up.”

“Aubrey, you pick the other team.”

A red-haired girl moves to stand beside Chief. They divvy up sides. Jack and me being the last two kids picked, we're on different teams.

The white Wiffle ball makes wonderful
thocks
as we hit it into the air, burning worms, skanking the fences. In the gathering dark Jack laughs, and I laugh with him, running as hard as hell and tossing the ball around. These kids are cool—nice kids. Aubrey asks me where I go to school, and I chuck my head from the direction we came from. “Malbey Fields?” She smiles. “Me too. You have Mrs. Crotchet, yet? She's a fucking doozy.”

“Not yet.” Chief pitches and the kid at bat clocks one, up high, and I dash to the fence and snatch it out of the air. “Booyah!”

We play. So easy. I feel like my body has become lighter, buoyant. There's one kid back in the “outfield” watching each batter like we're in the major leagues, and I can hear him saying under his breath, “Short's the best posish they is … they is…” over and over again.

Jack's up at bat, hefting the yellow implement of Wiffle destruction. Chuck does his windup routine, pitches a couple of woofers, which Jack swings at anyway. The kids yell out the strikes as they happen.

Jack connects with the next one, the white ball making a hollow
twhock!
as it peels off to the left, falling outside of the baseline, and the group, almost as one, yells “
Foul!
” and Jack rehefts the bat.

It's then that one of the kids, Danny whose mother is waiting on him, says, “Holy shit, guys, he's got six fingers on his hand.”

Silence. It's so out of the blue, no one says anything, and Chuck, who must not have heard, pitches the ball. Jack doesn't swing. His face has gone slack except for the pain around his eyes, and his shoulders hitch high, as if he expects a blow instead of the pitch.

The ball hits the ground in a puff of dust and rolls away. No one goes to get it.

Jack drops the bat.

“Shit, seriously. You see that? Hey … you.” Danny begins walking toward Jack, and I intercept him.

“Back off, man. None of your business.”

These kids look at me, and I'm struck for a moment because I thought I'd see anger or hatred on their faces. Or loathing. There's just interest, curiosity. Jack is new.

This isn't Casimir, and these kids aren't the general pop.

I look at Jack. “We better go, man”

We're putting all these kids at risk. Quincrux.

But secretly I'm thinking,
Damn you, Jack. Goddamn you for being so different. Couldn't we have just had this one afternoon?

I'm ashamed at my anger with him. Moms was right. God, how I hate her for being right.

Luckily, at that moment Danny's mother calls again, and the sun is down and the Wiffle ball game has ended. A few kids, uninterested in the physical anomaly amongst them, take off for home. Chuck picks up the bat and ball. Danny stares hard at Jack even though his mother is calling and finally says, “That's cool, man.” He waves and takes off, calling over his shoulder, “Nice to meetcha!”

We gather our backpacks, start to walk back towards the shops and drag just a few blocks away, when Aubrey trots up and falls in beside us.

“You're not really from around here, are you?”

I shake my head. Jack's got this vacant, empty stare— hollow as a Wiffle ball.

When I don't respond any further, she says, “Well, I think it would be awesome if you went to school at Malbey.” She takes my hand. Hers are very warm. Slightly moist. “Your brother is cute. But I like my boys tough,” she says and passes me the piece of paper. She's got brown hair and a narrow face, but her smile is easy and generous and there's a mischievousness to her stare that makes me warm and nervous.

She lets go of my hand and walks off into the dark, toward home.

Jack and I walk a few minutes more. I open the paper, look at it.

A phone number.

It's harder than I thought to throw it away.

We decide to hit a few more stores and shops and see if I can work the scam at all. To make sure this thing that Quincrux gave me hasn't dried up. We walk south without even thinking. Away. Putting distance between us and … and…

It. The thing in the north.

But all the while I'm thinking,
Them. Between us and them.

Another cashier with a noggin like titanium, and then our luck changes and we manage three in a row as easy as getting into as an unlocked car. I dive in and root around. Nice folks, regular lives, struggling to get by. They've all done bad stuff and had bad stuff done to them, but nothing out of the ordinary. It's not that I want to snoop, but I need to prove to myself I can still do it.

It's scary, but I've come to rely on my ability. I guess Quincrux didn't realize he was giving me a gift when he was possessing me. But if I had my way, I'd rather he'd never come to Casimir.

I can't say the same about Jack. And with Jack comes Quincrux. It's a sad truth that I won't linger over.

When our cash flow is back up near a grand, it's late, nearing ten. And the later it gets, the more nervous I get, worrying about local curfew laws. They say the freaks come out at night.

And here we are.

We grab a cab and head back to the Amtrak station, the second time today.

By the time we roll out of the cab, the downtown Raleigh streets are semi-deserted. I realize as I'm staring up into the buzzing, lonely streetlight outside the train station that I don't even know what day it is.

Jack looks dazed. He's got his thumbs hooked in the straps of his backpack like some farm boy snapping his suspenders. His fingers are fanned wide and on display for any Tom, Harry, or Dickhead to come along and see.

“Jack.” I toss my head in the direction of all those fingers pointing everywhere. “Hey, man. You're a bit conspick.”

“Huh? Oh.” He stuffs them in his pockets and blushes.

“Listen, bro, we're gonna get a sleeping car. It'll be more expensive, but we're flush now and the farther away we get, the easier it'll be to get more. Right? We'll head down to Charleston maybe. Or Jacksonville? We'll be snowbirds or tourists, sunning ourselves on the way to Disney World. Whatdya say?”

“I liked Florida when we were there.”

“Yeah. That sounds good. Maybe we can make it down to the Keys. Nothing to stop us.”

He yawns. “Okay. That sounds fine.”

When you're running, what direction you run in doesn't really matter, as long as it's away from danger. Of course, Jack and I couldn't even explain to you what we are running from.

We head into the station and buy Mountain Dews from a vending machine so we can get our systems a little more caffeinated for the transaction. I might have to alter our appearances. Technically, you can't buy tickets unless you're an adult and can present a valid form of ID. The rule is never enforced in our experience, though; we've bought tickets plenty of times without any kind of magic whizbangery from me. And there's the real trick: knowing when you don't need to do anything at all.

But whatever the case, I have to get inside and be ready to make adjustments if need be. Make the teller see college students rather than kids. Make him see a driver's license instead of a library card. Getting into someone's noodle takes energy, and I'm already tired from throwing myself against brick walls all day.

The ticket counters are in a row against the far wall. A guy sits behind a wire-crosshatched booth, looking out at the transients, derelicts, and travelers. He looks infinitely bored.

We approach, and I make the move once I can see the guy's face. I'm learning my power. I need to see a face for it to work. I've got to be pretty close to the target. I hate thinking about people that way, but there it is: I'm predatory. Better that than the alternative.

The counter dude is sallow-cheeked and a smoker. He's got greasy hair and an Adam's apple like Ichabod Crane's on a wattled, splotched turtle neck, long and crooked.

Jack has his wallet out and says, “Two tickets to Jacksonville, Florida, please.”

And now it's time for me to go in.

The man is crusty on the outside. His insides resemble his outsides, his stream of consciousness slightly frozen over. But when I hit, it cracks and there's a hole through which I can enter. I dive under without much resistance.

And inside it's cold and strange. There are currents and eddies inside this guy that are as strong as the tides in oceans or the whirlpools in a sea. I descend into the depths, searching. It's foul and cold but fascinating, too, for the inquisitive mind. I can't help myself; I follow the pull of the waters, going darker and deeper. Down into the depths where there is no light and the pressure is near unbearable and the darkness is illuminated only by cold and foul things that give off their own sickly light…

“You'll have to change trains in Charleston. That'll be two seventy-five for both of you.”

He takes Jack's money and gives him two tickets, still bored, still oblivious to my invasion. I'm struggling to come out of the depths of the man, to rise from the ocean of his thoughts and memories. I don't know if I can make it. In the end I just rip myself away. I rip myself out of the man. He jumps and maybe, just maybe, realizes something is amiss.

Jack's turning away as I start to retch, heaving up the sandwich and soda I had earlier, spewing it on the concrete outside the ticket counter.

“Hey!”

Jack looks at me with a worried expression on his face.

“Sorry, mister! My brother's sick.”

I'm heaving now as Jack tugs at my arm and drags me away. I can only get myself under control once I realize that Charles Birch Dubrovnik might leave his booth and come after us.

“Go…” I stumble toward the train platforms, off-balance. Jack holds my arm and keeps me upright.

He leads me to our platform, train 213, platform 3, southbound. It smells of diesel and cigarette smoke and vomit. Maybe the vomit stink is coming from me.

“What the hell is going on?” Jack sounds exasperated and more than a little pissed.

The platform is near-deserted except for a couple of businessmen down the way and a derelict a few benches down. It's nearing midnight, and this should be the last train of the night.

“No, Shreve. I'm serious. What the … what is going on? This is like the third or fourth time today you've … you've…” He pauses, not knowing how to say it because he doesn't like the idea of what I can do. Poor baby.

I can't help the bitterness that creeps into my voice. “Hey, not everyone can just go explodey. Or fly…”

I can see it hurts him, but I don't care. He's hurt me.

Jack sits down next to me and puts his hands on his knees. He breathes deep, like he's trying to clean his airways.

“I've asked you not to call it that.”

“Yeah? Well, get off my back. When you do your thing, you don't have to jump into cesspools. You don't have to lose yourself in … in … monsters.”

His eyes bug. At least now I've got his damned attention.

“What monster? Quincrux?”

“No. We can't leave. We got to stay here now.”

“What? Why?”

“That guy. His name is Dubrovnik. He's got a little girl in a secret room under his house.”

Jack looks bewildered. He shakes his head, like he's trying to deny it. “Why would he do that? What's the point? I don't—”

“Why do you think, man?” I spit onto the concrete platform. My mouth tastes like bile and pecan shells, acrid and nutty all at once.

We're born into pain and we die in it, and along the way monstrous adults and horrible children do what they can to inflict pain on us because it pleases them. It gives them pleasure. Of all of them, Dubrovnik is the worst. He makes Ox and Quincrux look like angels. I got it all in the few moments I was inside. And I'll never be clean again.