The Poor and the Haunted Page 2

  “Yeah.”

  “Any more screaming while I was gone?”

  “No.”

  Jimmy opened the Walkman, took out Tupac and Biggie, and replaced it with Cyndi Lauper. He put his hands on his sister’s shoulders, looked her in the eyes, and ran his hands through her long, curly brown hair.

  He kissed her on the forehead, something he hadn’t done since Kelly was a little girl.

  The kiss made her feel safe. The feeling of safety wouldn’t last, but the feeling of being loved by her big brother did.

  At twelve and fifteen, siblings are often enemy combatants for scarce resources, which is especially true for poor kids like Jimmy and Kelly. Love, encouraging words, food, and money—scarcity was the soul of the Lansford home. There wasn’t enough of anything to go around. They waged war over a single Fruit Roll-up like conquistadors fighting for gold. They could, under the right circumstances, before they were separated by their parents, draw blood—but often Diane and Ronnie were too drunk or high to notice their children fighting. On most days, their mother and father were engaged in a fight over scarce resources of their own.

  Usually money, but sometimes love.

  The Lansford siblings were also each other’s guardians. One time their father had Jimmy by the shirt, his fists ready to rid his son of his remaining baby teeth. Ronnie didn’t graduate from high school, but the class ring he once accepted as payment for a dime bag could still teach his son a lesson about mouthing off to his father. But before he could start in on the lesson, Kelly leapt on her father’s back, wrapped her legs around his waist, and sank her teeth deep into Ronnie Lansford’s neck. The bite was deep enough her canines penetrated the sweaty flesh near her father’s jugular vein.

  After he shook Kelly off, her father stumbled away, blood running into the hair covering his bare chest. Jimmy never forgot the sight of his sister, dangling from their father’s neck by just her teeth, growling like a rabid dog.

  The Lansford children learned several lessons from their environment. One of those lessons was a promise of love and loyalty sometimes required doing whatever it takes.

  And a sharp set of teeth.

  They didn’t protect each other from just the violent outbursts and constant warring of their parents. They protected one another from change. For the Lansfords, change of any type usually meant change for the worse. Change always left them with less than they had before, which was hard to believe, considering they started with nothing.

  Jimmy understood the scream they just heard meant change, and even more so than usual, change for the worse. He raised his hands to the headphones swallowing Kelly’s ears, pressed gently, squeezed her shoulders, and walked toward the barn.

  Kelly pressed the headphones tighter against her ears, listening to Cyndi Lauper reassure her if she was lost, or if she fell, someone would catch her.

  Time after time.

  Standing between a rusted-out Firebird and a crappy old truck her dad didn’t even own, the cars themselves sandwiched between a rodent-filled house and crumbling barn where she just heard a nightmare scream, she sure hoped someone would catch her and her brother.

  But she doubted it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  2019

  Over the last year, Jimmy’s dislike for work travel slowly morphed into hatred.

  And tears.

  Often a single tear welled up in his eye before rolling down his cheek. Once he wept from just his right eye, which was strange, but not as strange as a grown man bursting into tears while running, driving alone in a rental car, or just sitting in his office, listening to music.

  In his present state, he assumed the worst-possible decision he could make was holing up alone in a hotel room and ordering room service. No matter what the Cedar Rapids Marriot served, it would pale in comparison to Jill’s meatloaf. Or her chicken. Or her grilled cheese. Or cereal, poured by Jill. Room service—an idea so glamorous when he was a kid—long ago lost its novelty and appeal.

  He decided to skip the disappointment of a hotel meal. This Marriot was built using a design Jimmy rarely saw. The rooms surrounded an interior, indoor courtyard. Jimmy was on the second floor, and he could view the hot tub from his room.

  He set his coffee cup on the windowsill, changed into his shorts, and left his room, passing the vending and ice machines near the elevator.

  Jimmy entered the courtyard through a waist-high gate. He had the hot tub to himself. That was fine with him. Leaning against the jets massaging his lower back, Jimmy assumed it was sweat running down his face. He had been in the water for fifteen or twenty minutes, and it was warm. He reached up to wipe the sweat off his cheek, and realized he was crying.

  Again.

  Jimmy slowly lowered himself further, the top of his hair bobbing and floating beneath fizzy bubbles like a male-pattern jellyfish. He kept himself underwater for as long as he could, hoping a little heat could shake his funk.

  When he emerged from the water, he looked toward his second-floor window.

  There was someone in his room, watching Jimmy sob. Jimmy could feel whoever it was looking back at him. The window must have been dirtier on the outside than it was on the inside, because Jimmy could not make out the observer’s face. He could not tell if it was a man or a woman. From the hot tub, the observer looked more like a human-shaped smudge than an actual person.

  His observer did not appear to have any shame about being caught red-handed.

  Jimmy was paralyzed, unable to do anything but look at the person standing at his window. His son Jonathan feared home invasion, having watched The Strangers when he was eleven. Jimmy and Jill bought an expensive alarm system just to reassure him. He was thinking about whether he should tell Jonathan this story when he realized if the observer stole his clothes he would be left with just a pair of soaking wet gym shorts.

  He got out of the hot tub, grabbed his key, and ran, bumping his knee on the gate, hard enough to break skin. After Jimmy’s run, the path from the hot tub to the second floor was dotted with drops of blood.

  Jimmy had his hand on the door of his room when he stopped. He learned a hard lesson once in his life: Some doors are fine to go through alone. Others aren’t. This one wasn’t. He had no idea what the person on the other side of the door intended to do to him, or why they chose his room. He took his hand from the doorknob, stuffed his keycard back into his pocket, and ran to the lobby.

  “There is someone in my room,” he told the front desk clerk, a young woman in her early twenties named Brooke.

  “Are you sure, Mr. Lansford?” Brooke asked. When Jimmy didn’t answer, she continued. “You checked in alone, and housekeeping isn’t on duty. Unless you need something, of course.”

  “I was down in the hot tub and I looked up and someone was in my room,” he said.

  “Are you sure it was your room?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked doubtful but picked up a walkie-talkie next to her.

  “Nelson?” She asked the walkie-talkie, which emitted static that sounded like “yes.”

  “Nelson, Mr. Lansford in room 237 believes he may have seen an unauthorized person in his room. Can—”

  “Tell him I’ll meet him there,” Jimmy said.

  “Mr. Lansford says he’ll meet you there.”

  “Thank you,” Jimmy said.

  “Sure,” Brooke said, looking at him for a while longer before sitting back down.

  Jimmy took the stairs back to the second floor, completely oblivious to the drops of knee blood dotting the carpet. Nelson, a large man with a security badge, a shaved head, and all sorts of gadgets attached to his belt—though not a gun�
��was already waiting. He stuck out his hand when Jimmy was close enough, and said, “Hello. Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Lansford.”

  “Thank you. Thank you…for your help,” Jimmy said, looking at the doorknob.

  “Sure thing. I’m going to open up this door and go in first. Stand back and to the side, in case he’s still in there.”

  Nelson opened the door, hand on one of his gadgets, and entered Jimmy’s room. Jimmy could hear the security guard moving around the bed, opening the closet, opening the bathroom door, even opening the dresser drawers.

  “Mr. Lansford?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Come on in here.”

  Jimmy entered the room. Nelson was standing next to the TV. The curtains still opened to the courtyard. Jimmy’s coffee cup still sat on the windowsill.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone is in here,” Nelson said.

  “I saw someone,” Jimmy said.

  “I’m not saying no one was in here. It just looks like nothing was disturbed.”

  Other than me, Jimmy thought. Nothing disturbed in this room, other than me.

  “But I saw someone,” he said again.

  “Could be. Could be,” Nelson said. “You know, it could be a confused person. Someone off their meds.”

  “With a key to my room?”

  “You never know,” Nelson said. “These new keycards aren’t like old-fashioned keys. Maybe something got crossed up in the software, and they got a key to your room.”

  “Thanks,” Jimmy said. “Hey, do you mind if I watch the camera footage? You guys have cameras at the end of the hall, right?”

  Nelson paused at the door. It was clear the security guard didn’t believe anyone had been in this room, but it was also clear Nelson was a kind man and didn’t want to make the night harder on Jimmy.

  “Sure thing. Me and you and Brooke can crowd around the monitor and watch the footage.” He paused and tried for a joke. “Maybe we’ll get some popcorn.”

  Jimmy realized he hadn’t texted Jill in a while, and grabbed his phone—and, just like he suspected, she had sent him a message.

  You okay?? Haven’t heard from you in a bit. Just making sure you’re doing good.

  She tended to check on him right when he needed checking on. He repaid his wife’s thoughtfulness, perception, and love with a lie.

  I’m safe babe, he texted her.

  More than a thousand miles away, Jill set her phone down on their kitchen counter, not knowing what to do with that response. She waited a moment and looked at her screen again before setting the device down so she could watch reruns of The Voice with Jonathan and Jessica.

  Downstairs, in the small room behind the front desk area, Nelson, Brooke, and Jimmy gathered around the monitor. The security system’s software allowed Nelson to zoom in on Jimmy’s door and scroll through all the footage recorded since Jimmy checked in.

  There was Jimmy entering the room, the handle to his bag in his left hand as he used his right to open the door.

  There was Jimmy leaving his room in his gym shorts, his shoulders bare and white in the camera footage.

  There was Jimmy returning to room 237, soaking wet and lacking even a pool towel. He stood outside his door, his hand clenching the metal handle, the keycard still in his pocket. Even in the grainy footage it was possible to see Jimmy’s eyes suddenly widen as he exited the frame at a full run.

  There were Jimmy and Nelson, standing at Jimmy’s door. Nelson entered the room, and shortly after Jimmy followed.

  Finally, Jimmy and Nelson left the room and exited the frame to head downstairs.

  Nowhere, in any of the footage, could anyone be seen entering Jimmy’s room.

  Nelson zoomed out and played the same footage for the two rooms on either side of Jimmy’s. The only movement in the footage was Jimmy and Nelson alternately running and walking through the frames. No other guests appeared on the monitor.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lansford,” Brooke said. “Maybe you’re just tired and a little hungry. Travel is hard on us all. If you want to go lie down, I could send up some complimentary room service. We have a black n’ bleu burger that’s pretty good, if you like bleu cheese.”

  “No thank you,” Jimmy said. “I think I lost my appetite.”

  “We can put you in a different room,” she offered.

  “No thank you. I think I’ll stay in the room Nelson already checked.”

  “Just let me know if you change your mind,” she said.

  “Mr. Lansford,” Nelson said. “If you do hear anything strange, or someone tries to enter your room, just hit zero and ask for Brooke. She’ll send me right away. I can come check on you, if you want. I’ll also do a few walk-bys tonight.”

  “That’ll be okay,” Jimmy said.

  He felt stupid and cowardly. A grown man, crying in a hot tub before panicking and getting a security guard.

  “I’m just going to go up and get to bed,” he said, shaking Brooke’s and Nelson’s hands before heading toward his room for the fourth time since he checked in. When he entered, he texted Jill again, telling her another lie.

  Sorry for the radio silence! I’m just tired. Fell asleep. I think I’m going to go back to bed, and I’ll call you in the morning. LY!

  As soon as he set his phone down, it vibrated with a new message.

  Love you too! Call me as SOON as you wake up! It’s hot here! Miss you so much.

  His shorts had long since dried, and he didn’t bother taking them off. He was exhausted and wanted to ride this wave of fatigue right into sleep, before he could start thinking again. These days, thinking usually led to crying and crying now apparently led to hallucinations. He lay down on the bed, keeping the curtains open. The turquoise glow of the chlorinated water illuminated his room.

  The light from the pool helped him see what was there on the window, what Nelson missed by checking drawers and closets:

  A single handprint, in the exact spot with the best view of the hot tub.

  Jimmy grabbed his phone, his bag, and one dress shoe. He took what he could and ran. He wasn’t a cross-country superstar anymore, but his legs could still move. If Nelson and Brooke were watching the security footage at that moment, rather than standing outside the rear exit having a cigarette, they would see Jimmy leaving his room at a dead run toward the exit closest to his rental car.

  That same night, the security cameras at Kmart recorded a man walking into the store in gym shorts, a hoodie featuring a high school basketball team’s logo, and sneakers. Until that night, the man believed he and Kmart crossed paths for the last time back in the 1990s. His lack of familiarity with the store is apparent on the footage, as he wanders around aimlessly for several minutes. Wanders, in fact, might be an understatement.

  The man appears lost.

  After he left the store, exterior cameras recorded the same man driving a nondescript rental car toward a deserted corner of the Kmart parking lot. The car remained in the same place until 8 AM the following morning, before leaving and heading toward a Gold’s Gym. There, the man showered and changed for the meeting that was the whole reason for him traveling to this town.

  Jimmy would be the first to admit the meeting wasn’t his best performance, but he had an excuse. He spent most of his night sitting bolt upright in a rented Nissan Altima, too scared to close his eyes.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1997

  Kelly stood between their parents’ cars, hands squeezing the headphones covering her ears, her eyes shut. That was good. Jimmy knew there was nothing inside the barn a twelve-year-old girl should see.

 
They did not play around the farm. The excuse they gave themselves, each other, and their parents (when their parents cared to ask) was they were too old. Too old for tire swings. Too old to build forts. Too old to play in a dirty barn. But the main reason they didn’t explore the farm was because the farm terrified them.

  Jimmy had been inside the barn just once before and wasn’t familiar with how the door worked. It turned out he didn’t need to be. The door was already wedged open, and Jimmy easily slipped through the crack to the darkness on the other side.

  Scattered daylight shone through several holes in the old and broken roof, the beams of sunshine cutting through the dust. Even with the sunlight, it took Jimmy’s eyes time to adjust. When they did, he saw his mother sitting on the ground, her back to Jimmy. His mother’s soft crying was interrupted by her own scream.

  In scary movies, people screamed for one reason: terror. In the movies, Drew Barrymore and Neve Campbell screamed when Ghostface tried to cut their throats. The sound coming from deep inside his mother was not terror. She did not sound like Neve Campbell. This sound was something else. It was mean. Jimmy hoped Kelly had the volume on the Walkman turned all the way up.

  “Mom?”

  Another scream.

  “MOM?”

  If he heard one more wordless scream, he would turn around, get Kelly, grab the spare key to the Firebird their parents hid in the visor, and just take off. Jimmy didn’t know how to drive a car. It couldn’t be hard, though. His parents drove no matter how high or drunk they were, and he and Kelly were still alive. He would figure it out.

  He was a big brother. He would do what had to be done. Jimmy would take his sister away from this place. They would go and make a life for themselves somewhere else.

  Anywhere else.

  His mother adjusted her body and looked back over her shoulder toward her son.

  He wished she hadn’t.

  Her face, right to her hairline, was covered in blood. It looked like the facemasks Brian’s mom would wear and peel off before she tucked Brian in—except you can’t buy blood in the cosmetics section of JCPenney. And JCPenney didn’t take payment in food stamps. Diane’s lower right arm was also soaked in crimson. Jimmy tasted generic Rice Krispies rise to the bottom of his throat. He bent over to keep himself from vomiting.