The Poor and the Haunted Read online

  Though they would go back and forth throughout the summer—even after Jimmy accepted his scholarship—that afternoon at Derry’s largely settled the matter. Jimmy would be a Sun Devil. He would bide his time in the desert, returning in summer until Kelly could join him in Phoenix.

  Now, almost a year later, he watched Kelly and Carlisle settle into their table from across the intersection. Kelly saw Jimmy behind the wheel of the Camry and jumped up, her arm waving like something had come loose in her shoulder. The light turned green, and Jimmy pulled into Derry’s parking lot. Carlisle stood from the bench as Jimmy parked the Camry. Though he wanted to give Jimmy a hug, he would wait his turn until after Kelly had her chance.

  Kelly was sixteen now and had left behind the black velvet choker and butterfly clips she was so fond of just a year ago. Her hair was longer and her face more mature. It wasn’t like Arizona State lacked pretty girls, but even on the streets of Tempe, Jimmy knew Kelly would stand out.

  Kelly ran toward her brother, nearly knocking him over. For a year, even with the volume all the way up on her Walkman, everywhere she went Kelly could hear the squeak of the Firebird’s shocks. She heard it while she sat at school, sketching cactus and sunshine on page after page of her notebook. She heard it when her mother was at The Pearl, sloppily waving her lighter to Whitesnake and waiting for her next backyard customer.

  The squeak was especially loud when her mother was actually doing her thing in the Firebird.

  Kelly stayed in Jimmy’s arms. When Carlisle realized the embrace wasn’t going to end soon, he walked over and patted Jimmy on the shoulder.

  “Looking good, my man,” Carlisle said. “Looking tan.”

  “It’s sunny all the time there.”

  “Hot?”

  “Yeah, hot.”

  “Life’s hot,” Carlisle said, squeezing Jimmy’s shoulder. “Let’s get some ice cream.”

  Jimmy told them about his first year at Arizona State. Most of the stories had already been told in letters and phone calls, but no one minded. It was good to hear their voices blend together: Kelly and Jimmy laughing, siblings finishing each other’s sentences, Carlisle telling a police story about the time his new rookie partner chased a half-naked man through his own garden after an ill-informed neighbor called in a false burglary. Jimmy told Carlisle and Kelly about his races, 101 classes with three hundred students, the fraternities that tried to get him to rush. He even made a joke.

  “I’m not doing the frat thing. If I wanted to hang around mean drunks, I could stay at mom’s house.”

  Kelly found this joke hilarious. Carlisle gave it a courtesy chuckle. He understood their fondness for gallows humor.

  “So, have you taught her to drive?” Jimmy asked.

  Carlisle delivered thin envelopes of five- and one-dollar bills Jimmy sent Kelly, and she had his house, cell, office, and pager numbers. If she was ever in trouble, she knew who to call. Still, he could not drive around alone in a car with her like he could with Jimmy. Not before Diane’s threat, and not after.

  “No,” Carlisle said. “I thought that’s why you came back.”

  Kelly looked toward her big brother, eyes wide and smiling.

  “Jimmy, are you going to teach me to drive? For real?”

  Jimmy smiled back and looked toward Carlisle.

  “I think I will. What are you doing today?”

  “Gotta work, my man. Here, though,” Carlisle said, fishing a twenty from his wallet. “Take this.”

  “I—”

  “Take it, Jimmy. It’s not a handout. I told you, it’s an investment. One day you’re going to be rich and buy me a Lexus and a retirement home down there in Scottsdale. Trust me. I’ll owe you way more than you’ll owe me.”

  Other than telling Jimmy he never knew what happened to Roger Crowder, it would be the least truthful thing Mike Carlisle ever said.

  “Can we go to the movies?” Kelly asked.

  “Sure,” Jimmy replied. “Carlisle, you want to get some lunch tomorrow? I’ll pay.”

  “As an officer of the law, it is unethical and against department rules for me to accept gifts. We’ll go Dutch. But I will definitely have lunch with you.”

  Jimmy thanked Carlisle with the half-hug he learned at college from some of the guys he ran cross-country with. Carlisle left, and Jimmy and Kelly got into the Camry and drove through town, listening to music and doing everything to avoid Diane’s house. They went to Sonic and ate burgers and tater tots. They went to a Jennifer Lopez movie called Angel Eyes. They crashed a quiet antique store. They played skeeball in the arcade next to the movie theater. Jimmy used some of his savings to buy his sister new shoes at the mall.

  “Won’t mom just take these?” she asked, looking at her pair of Skechers. Like Jimmy’s first pair of Nikes, they were already her favorite shoes.

  Jimmy just smiled and wrinkled his nose at her. It was their signal for a secret. It was a signal they used since they were little. It was the signal Kelly used when Jimmy asked where she got the package of Oreos she bought for him after his first report card with all A’s.

  “Gotcha,” she said.

  When those Skechers weren’t on her feet, they would remain hidden under her bed.

  It was a great day, but like all good days, it would end. Before it did, though, Jimmy knew he needed to keep his promise and teach Kelly how to drive.

  “I have a surprise for you. A gift,” Jimmy said.

  “What is it? Tell me. Tell me now.”

  “Nope. Then it wouldn’t be a surprise. One more stop, then I’ll give it to you.”

  They stopped at 7-Eleven, where Jimmy bought Twizzlers and banana Slurpees. Once they were back in the Camry, they headed toward a small development under construction just outside of town. Jimmy saw the same sort of houses in Phoenix: row after row of what appeared to be the exact same home, built in a neighborhood with a goofy name.

  In Garrity, the development was called Evergreen Canyon by Prairie View Homes, though there was no canyon and hardly any green. When they entered the new neighborhood, Jimmy pulled the Camry over to the curb and shifted the transmission into park.

  “Ready?” he asked, sipping his Slurpee through his licorice straw.

  “Ready for what?”

  “Ready to drive?”

  Kelly clapped her hands and opened the passenger door, crossing paths with her brother near the trunk before she got into the driver’s seat. The moon provided light for the development, which still consisted of framed skeletons waiting for innards and skin.

  “What do I do now?” Kelly asked, adjusting her seat. In her heart she wasn’t behind the wheel of a 1987 Camry. She was Aladdin’s street-urchin sister learning to fly the same magic carpet that had taken her brother somewhere better.

  “First, put your right foot on the brake,” Jimmy said, gesturing toward her feet. “It’s the one on the left. Then, grab the gear shift—it’s right here—and use your thumb to push the button. Next, pull it into drive. It’s the one with the D.”

  They both felt the transmission thunk its way through each successive gear.

  “Okay. Let your foot off the brake. For now, we’re just going to coast, so you can get the feel of the car before you press on the gas.”

  They coasted through the development, headlights cutting through the shadows of half-constructed homes. A few coyotes crouched behind piles of plywood and drywall, disturbed by the invasion of outsiders.

  “You’re good at this,” Kelly said.

  “Good at what?”

  “Teaching me to drive.”

  “Eh, it’s just the way Carlisle ta
ught me. It’s the only way I know.”

  Their path led them to the front of the largest, nicest, most complete home in the development. Diane’s entire home would likely fit in the garage like a vicious spider nestled in the armpit of an attractive woman.

  “Press your foot on the brake,” he told Kelly. She did, way too hard, and both their heads shot forward. They laughed. “Not like that! Easy, next time. Now, turn the headlights off. It’s on the left side of the steering wheel. Sometimes it sticks. After that, turn the car off.”

  “Kay,” she said. Kelly did as her big brother told her, and they sat in the dark, facing a large, six-bedroom home with an empty pool in the backyard.

  “Are there houses like this in Phoenix?” Kelly asked. The moonlight shone in her eyes as she scanned the half-erected homes and piles of lumber.

  Jimmy laughed. He hadn’t explored his new city much, but he knew there were houses like this everywhere in Phoenix.

  “Yeah, there are houses like this there. Bigger, even. And nicer.”

  Kelly could not imagine a home larger or nicer than the one she was looking at.

  “Kelly,” Jimmy said. “How are you doing? Are you really okay here, alone, with mom?”

  Kelly looked at her brother.

  She was not okay. Every night she cried herself to sleep. What was tolerable with Jimmy around was nearly unbearable with him gone. She had friends, and like Jimmy, was a popular enough kid. Like Jimmy, though, she could never bring friends home with her. In a town the size of Garrity, Oklahoma, the Lansford family’s poverty and tragic history were well known. Her friends even saw her mother on the sidewalk downtown, waiting for some man to pull up and offer drugs or money.

  But common knowledge was different than having a friend see a cloudy pipe and empty beer cans on a kitchen counter—or hear Diane call her own daughter a lazy bitch.

  “I’m okay. Plus, we only have one more year. Next year I’ll be seventeen, and I don’t think mom will stop me from leaving. Just one more year, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy smiled, though her answer made him sad. He didn’t need Kelly to wrinkle her nose to know she just kept a secret from him, the secret of how miserable her life in Diane’s house was without her big brother around.

  “Can I get my surprise now?” She asked.

  “Yes. But first, I have to ask you a question. And it’s going to be weird, but I know you like scary movies. So take me seriously. Please.”

  Kelly was a kidder, a joker, a shoulder puncher, and almost always sarcastic. She set her nature aside and did Jimmy the courtesy of taking him seriously.

  “Okay, I will. Ask away,” she said, taking a sip of Slurpee through her Twizzler straw.

  “Do you think Mom and Dad could be possessed—or, I guess, do you think mom is possessed and dad was possessed? Like, maybe whatever it was moved from him to her?”

  “Possessed, you mean, by the devil?”

  “I guess so. Yeah.”

  Kelly wondered if a car like Jimmy’s Camry would even be allowed in a neighborhood like this, once it was finished.

  “Jimmy,” she said, turning to look at him. She did not smirk, smile, or mock. “What would the devil want with mom and dad?”

  “It’s just—”

  “No, seriously. I’m not teasing you. I believe in this stuff. You know I do. But if you were the devil, and you could leap into anyone’s body in the world, why would you choose mom and dad? Is the devil just curious about what Milwaukee’s Best tastes like? Does he need to learn how to steal cable TV? It doesn’t make sense. I mean, seriously. Unless the devil has a craving for Spam, why possess Dad? And Mom? If the devil’s inside of her, I feel bad for him. No one deserves that. Not even the devil.”

  Jimmy laughed.

  “What?” Kelly asked.

  “You…you just said ‘inside of her.’”

  “Real mature, Jimmy. And…actually, I was talking about your mom, so I kind of said inside your mom. Joke’s on you.”

  Banana Slurpee shot from Jimmy’s nostrils as they both laughed until their faces ached, until there was nothing more to laugh at.

  Kelly kept looking out the front of the Camry. Jimmy watched her and knew one day both their worlds would expand. There would be friends, roommates, girlfriends and boyfriends, husbands and wives, children and grandchildren—but this girl, his sister, would be the only one who was once in the hole with him, not a shovel between them, fighting and figuring their way out. One day Jimmy and Kelly would tell others about the hole, and the people who loved them would feel for them, sympathize with them, even cry for them—and still have no idea what a hole that deep smells like, how hard you had to fight to breathe the dirt before it breathed you.

  “Our parents are just shitty people, Jimmy,” Kelly said, smiling at her big brother.

  There was little more to say. Kelly presented a sound, logical argument. And she made him spray Slurpee from his nose. His couldn’t wait for her to get to Phoenix.

  “If I was the devil,” she said, “I would look for someone in a home like this. With a pool. And a big garage.”

  Jimmy couldn’t argue. If Satan had any sense at all, he would come to a development like this, and stay far away from Diane Lansford’s neighborhood, where competition for the worst person in town was too stiff for even the devil.

  “Hey, let me give you your present,” he said, reaching into one of the garbage bags he used for luggage. He pulled out a Discman. Attached to the Discman was a cord with a tape on the end. He plugged the tape into the Camry’s radio. “This is a Discman. It’s like a Walkman, but it plays CDs. And the tape lets you play it in a car radio.”

  “That is so cool! Jimmy, thank you so much. I love it.”

  “That’s not all. I got you a CD, too.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Willie Nelson.”

  “What? Jimmy, you know I hate country.”

  “Just try it.”

  Jimmy pushed the button that opened the Discman and placed the CD inside, closing it with a soft click. Through the Camry’s speakers, Willie Nelson began to sing his version of “Time after Time.”

  They sat there, the Camry turned off, the interior lit by the moon. Even the finished houses around them were dark, the future occupants not yet having taken possession. They listened to Willie Nelson sing Kelly’s favorite song five times in a row, Jimmy keeping the Discman still so Kelly’s singing wouldn’t be interrupted by the CD skipping.

  They knew they couldn’t avoid the inevitable. Eventually they had to return to Diane’s house. Before they left, Kelly looked through the windshield and said, “When I grow up, I want to live in a house just like this.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  2019

  Cyndi Lauper and the car alarms were deafening, but they could not drown out a voice Jessica heard that said one word: “Go.”

  She dropped her iPad without even bothering to pause her movie and ran down the stairs two at a time, her mother right behind her. In the driveway, Jonathan punched in the code to open the garage door. Just as the door started to rise, Jessica and Jill entered the garage through the house. Jill found the car keys hanging on a hook and pushed the red PANIC buttons on each key fob, quieting the alarms. The music stopped, too.

  Jonathan saw his father first. Jimmy was slumped on the ground, his back against the tire of Jill’s SUV. His hair and t-shirt were soaking wet. He was shivering uncontrollably, despite the heat. Near his right hand, on the concrete floor, lay a long screwdriver.

  “Jimmy. Jimmy. JIMMY!” Jill shook her husband by the shoulders. His eyelids fluttered, but he did not wake.

 
The temperature inside the garage when Jimmy did his practice run with the screwdriver was north of one hundred and thirty degrees. Jill stood and pulled her phone out of her pocket, just as Jessica stepped toward her dad. She dropped to her knees and inched close enough to smell Jimmy’s horrible smell, close enough to feel his breath becoming irregular.

  Jill watched her daughter, the hand holding her phone falling to her side.

  Jessica placed her hands over her dad’s ears, covering them for a moment before grabbing his shoulders. Jonathan grasped his mother’s hand. The goosebumps on their wrists touched.

  Jessica placed her chin just above Jimmy’s collarbone, opened her mouth, and bit down on her dad’s neck.

  Her canines penetrated hard and deep enough to draw blood.

  Jimmy’s eyes flew open as he took a large, gasping breath. Jessica leapt backward. The last thing she remembered was watching her movie. Though she wasn’t aware of it, her dad’s blood was on her lower lip and shirt collar.

  “Get him in the car! NOW!” Jill screamed. She, wisely, concluded Jimmy’s family could get him to the ER faster than an ambulance could. Jonathan and Jill worked together, lifting Jimmy into the backseat. Jessica stood in a daze, not sure of where she was or how she got there.

  “Jessica, GET IN THE CAR,” her mother shouted. Jessica climbed in next to her father, pulling his sweaty arm over her shoulders.

  Jill backed out of their driveway. She saw the exterior screen lying on the porch roof. He had jumped—and Jimmy was no jumper.

  The last sliver of darkness visible between the garage door and the concrete floor disappeared as Jill put the car in drive. She drove as fast as she could, glancing back in the mirror every few minutes at her husband and daughter in the backseat. Jessica was still slumped against Jimmy.

  Jonathan called the hospital as they drove. Upon their arrival, the ER team removed Jimmy from the backseat and placed his body on a stretcher. He was wheeled in, bypassing the normal intake procedure, and given an IV immediately. His pulse was dangerously low, and his breathing was still irregular.