Seven: Back to School
***
It was months before the three of them met again. Throughout the holiday break Keltie seldom left her room, choosing to keep her nose either in a book or at the window. The scents from both were difficult to interpret. In regard to the former, she kept waiting for something—anything—to happen between the story’s two main characters, a girl and a boy who claimed to love each other, but after three hundred pages of pleasant chit-chat hadn’t even kissed. As for the latter—
Same thing.
Every time she looked out the window she expected to see Bolt, calmly crossing the parking lot in his pressed slacks, ready to stop fucking around and finish her off for good. Her fear of such a scene increased with each new twilight, to the point where she began to peer over the sill from a crouched position rather than face the outside world head on. Yet New Year’s Day came and went without a hint of danger. On the tenth a false summer fell over Norwalk, melting all the snow. Strong southerly winds swept lawns of dead grass. From her room Keltie watched several passers by on Benedict Avenue lose their hats. At night, while in bed, she would hear the occasional loud noise and rush to the window with her heart in her throat. But it was only the wind. A tree limb had fallen; a piece of siding had broken loose from someone’s house. Only the wind, each and every time.
By the thirty-first she was convinced that Vera, despite her brother’s rejection, had followed through with her offer to report with the death of a certain teenaged delinquent. There had been no attacks, no sightings, no nothing. Keltie began eating lunch in the cafeteria again, rather than in her room. She resumed gymnastics tutoring, much to the delight of her cigarette habit. Her students—Amanda among them—seemed happy to have their clandestine coach back in the gym, and paid generously in cellophane-wrapped decks.
“Are you relaxed?” her psychiatrist asked, on February first.
Sprawled on his couch like Cleopatra after a bang session with Mark Antony, Keltie nodded. “Yes, I’m feeling pretty good. Thank you.”
The doctor blew a puzzled haze of smoke from his cigar. “You were panicky all last month.”
“I’ve adapted.”
More smoke came, thicker this time. Keltie couldn’t even see her doctor’s face when he asked: “What have you adapted to, Miss Burke?”
“Fear,” she replied.
“Cool,” the doctor said, sounding pleased. “So our sessions are working?”
“They’re working.”
His next words were delivered with the tone of a man who had just won fifty dollars in the lottery. “Wow. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Doctor.”
On Valentine’s Day she went looking for Marty. He’d all but disappeared from her life after storming off last Christmas, but she carried fond memories of their dance together, and also felt obligated to thank him for twice preventing her death. Armed with a stolen rose from Mrs. Cobb’s desk, she walked to the boys’ wing entrance.
“Hey!” she called, not quite willing to brave their alien world by stepping into the hall. “Anyone down there?”
It was late afternoon. Classes had ended for the day, and several of the doors stood open. From behind one of them poked the head of a boy wearing glasses. The glasses tilted as he considered her attire: black top, short denim skirt, studded bracelets.
“You’re a girl,” he squeaked.
“Wow,” Keltie said. “Very good. Most people need two or three guesses before getting that far.”
“Sorry. But girls aren’t allowed—“
“I know the rules. I’m looking for Marty Calinga. Have you seen him around?”
“Are you his girlfriend?”
Her lip twisted. “Listen, kid—“
“He’s in the storage shed,” the boy squeaked some more. Keltie began to think he was either the biggest nerd on campus or had one hell of a cold. “Mr. Agee sent him out there for some chalk and pencils. School stuff.”
Keltie thanked him and turned to leave.
“You can’t go outside without a permit!” the boy called.
“Don’t worry about me, kid!” she yelled back. “I’m a seasoned pro!”
She didn’t use the back door, which was always locked, but walked straight out the front. Mrs. Cobb said hello. Keltie raised the rose and wished her a happy Valentine’s Day.
“Lucky you,” the old woman sniffed. “I didn’t get a thing.”
Indian summer had gone, but the front-step wind was still strong. It whipped around Keltie’s skirt, flapping it like a flag. Paying it no mind, she struck off around the building, where a pot-holed driveway led to a field too large to cross in February without a coat. Directly in front of her, though a good distance off, was the Norwalk Middle School. Off to the left, not quite as far but far enough to make Keltie feel stupid for not bundling up, stood a small, one level building used by the DC as a storage facility.
“Shit,” she shivered, crossing her arms under her breasts.
At least the muddy grass wasn’t an issue. Her boots weathered the terrain with ease, so when at last she reached the shed, she was bone dry. Shivering, but dry. The door—cheap, white wood with a cheap, gold knob—was unlocked. Keltie opened it to a musty interior lit with bare bulbs, ready to call Marty’s name. Instead, she froze. Rows of steel shelves and the narrow aisles they created brought memories that, like Keltie, had no permit to be here. She shook her head, clearing the cobwebs. Then a hard, heavy pounding noise from the other end of the room made her scream.
“Who’s that?” a voice called.
Keltie clutched her chest, hoping to get her heart slowed down before it exploded. “Hi, Marty,” she managed. “It’s Keltie. Can I come back?”
He made a noncommittal reply—something that sounded like free country or bees honey. Wondering if she was about to get stung, Keltie walked towards his voice, to find him standing at a workbench, on top of which lay, of all things, a naked mannequin.
“Wow,” Keltie said, treading lightly.
What Marty held in his hands went nowhere towards setting her mind at ease. In one was a stake, in the other a hammer. A face dripping with sweat regarded her.
She noticed a hole in the mannequin’s chest, right about where a person’s heart would be, and began to get the picture. He was practicing. Preparing for some dreadful task.
“Oh God,” she said. “Marty. Is this what it looks like?”
A number of seconds went by while he considered the question. “Am I going through with it, do you mean?” he asked. “Not exactly. But I’ve decided to try.”
“Don’t do it for me,” Keltie told him. “Please. I’m five feet, two inches tall and weigh a hundred and four pounds. I can’t carry heavy burdens.”
“Vera’s in pain. She hates what she is. She’s been asking me for years to…you know.” He looked at the mannequin. “The whole thing is a mess. I don’t know if I’m selfish, or cowardly, or noble. She’s my sister. We have memories. Good memories from before Bolt came along. How am I supposed to drive a stake through that?”
“I don’t know,” Keltie answered.
“But you’ve done it twice.”
“I got lucky twice. Hey,” she added, thinking of the Showboat, “weren’t you working with us that first time? When I got attacked?”
“Yes. You came upstairs covered in blood.”
“That’s what everyone tells me. I don’t remember so well.”
“I guess it means I’ll be covered in Vera’s blood,” Marty said, raising the stake and hammer. “If I go through with it, of course.”
“Of course,” Keltie replied. “By the way”—she showed him the rose—“happy Valentine’s Day. You need to put those crazy weapons down before I can give this to you.”
With a shy smile, he did as she asked, allowing her to step forward and proffer the gift. He took it gingerly, as if in fear of thorns. What scratched him turned out to be something different: the corner of a small, white card that Keltie barely noticed until now. It looked like a gift card. Slowly, the walls of Keltie’s stomach began to tighten.
“You wrote something?” he asked.
I sure as shit hope not.
He opened the card. The smile froze. “To my dearest love,” he read aloud.
“Now wait a minute—“
“Sex with you is my greatest dream—“
“What?”
“You make me sigh, you make me scream.”
“Stop it! It doesn’t say that!”
Laughing, Marty flipped the card over to let her see what was actually a very simple missive: For Lucinda, my loveliest rose.
“Ha, ha, ha,” Keltie sang flatly. “You’re a riot, Marty.”
“You stole a rose off Mrs. Cobb’s desk? For shame, girl.”
“I had to whip up something in a pinch. Are you going to thank me for the thought or chide me some more?”
To her complete surprise, he leaned forward to place a light, tickling kiss on her lips. “Thank you for the thought, Keltie.”
She needed a breath of air before answering. “You’re uh…you know. You’re welcome.”
“Are you cold? You don’t have a coat.”
He took off his jacket and helped her into it, then picked up a box of school supplies from one of the shelves. “Ready to go?”
Keltie nodded. “Anywhere, yes. But are you just going to leave that dead mannequin on the table?”
“Sure,” Marty said, with a final glance at the dummy. “Leaving dead things behind. Something tells me I’ll need to get very good at that, very soon.”
***
He chose a Sunday to do the deed. The reason, he informed Keltie at lunch on the Friday before, was simple enough: Vera’s coffin lay in the basement of a school, which had classes during the week and thus couldn’t be encroached on most days.
“Are you going alone?” Keltie wanted to know. The cafeteria was crowded, not due to the food (never that), but the weather, which had turned ice cold over the week. To make matters worse, many of the girls from Keltie’s classes already noticed that a new couple had begun taking meals together of late, and today, the grins and giggles seemed to come from everywhere. She wished they would shut up. Then again, she had always acted the same way towards Penelope’s new boyfriends. What went around came around.
“Yes,” Marty was saying. “Vera’s been legally dead for years. My mom thinks she was kidnapped. And she was. She went out to the store one night for Coke and ice cream, and never came home.”
“When did that happen?”
He pushed a spoonful of baked beans across his plate. “Oh, I must have been five at the time. She was fifteen.”
“And your parents haven’t seen her since?”
“No. My mom and dad…” The beans moved some more. “Well, you know the way parents with kids here are.”
“Legally dead,” Keltie said thoughtfully. “I wonder how many kids Bolt’s relegated to that column at the police department.”
“Not around here,” Marty answered. “Most of Bolt’s kind do their hunting in big cities. Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo.”
“Toledo vampires?”
“Yep. They suck your blood and make you listen to Lynard Skynard afterward.”
“Jesus. That’s even worse torture than I’d imagined.”
“If they really hate you they make it Rush.”
“Stop. I just ate.”
They laughed. Several cries of mercy, mercy and well, well, well were cast in their direction. This time Keltie didn’t mind. Let the rumors fly, she thought. They would anyway. Some of them might even turn out to be true, like the one that was sure to exist on Monday morning, the one about her and Marty sneaking away from the grounds on Sunday afternoon. Sneaking away to who knew where, and to what devious, unspeakable antics.
“You don’t need to go alone,” she told Marty. “I’ll come with you.”
He started to object; she cut him off, raising her hand like a traffic cop. “Eat your beans. They’re getting cold.”
***
After lunch on Sunday they walked out the front door like two people with every right in the world to do so. Keltie held a rake in her hand and made a few well-rehearsed complaints about tidying up the field on such a miserable day, at which Mrs. Cobb warned rather testily that if she didn’t like working on Sundays, she’d best straighten up her act while time still remained to become a proper young woman. Thanks to a poor Valentine’s Day, Mrs. Cobb had been in a dither all week.
As for the weather, it had warmed a little, though the skies were still bleak with gray clouds. They went into the shed where the stake and hammer still lay. Keltie leaned her rake against the wall.
“I still don’t know if I can do this,” Marty said. His eyes were on the mannequin. Doubtless they were seeing Vera instead, covered in blood.
“Of course not,” Keltie replied. “You won’t know anything until it’s over.”
“I have only the vaguest, most distant memories of her from before. Laughing. Playing with dolls.” His hand reached for the stake, but couldn’t quite cover the distance as another memory came home. “She collected My Little Pony toys. Rarity was her favorite. She used to sleep with that one on her pillow.”
“I’ve always been partial to Sunset Shimmer,” Keltie said.
It made him smile. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me in the least. Good girl, bad girl.”
“Me all over,” Keltie admitted, smiling back.
They walked to the middle school, where Keltie might have made the cheerleading squad had she been able to keep her nose out of trouble, then down Christie Avenue, which consisted of more houses like the ones on Benedict: large, old, ornate. At the end of Christie was Norwood Avenue. And on the other side of Norwood…
Keltie stopped.
“What is it?” Marty asked.
They were at the intersection of Christie and Norwood. Keltie’s breath had caught in her chest. On the other side of the street was a wooded area of naked, silent trees, waiting for spring. Daylight penetrated it partway, but the terrain turned black deeper in.
“The woods,” she let out. “I shouldn’t remember them, but now I guess I do. Is the bridge where I was attacked still in there?”
“As far as I know. But Keltie, we don’t have to cut through the woods. We can walk down Norwood and take West Elm—“
She waved the proposal off. “It’s all right. It’s not like Vera wants to hurt me anymore.”
A narrow, treacherous path coiled into the trees. Marty told her that many of the junior high kids who didn’t ride the bus used it to walk to and from school. Others, like the two of them, were AWOL from the detention center.
“So we may run into friends back here?” Keltie wondered.
“None of my friends,” Marty replied, his tone ominous. “But I doubt we’ll run into trouble in this weather. It’s spring and summer you need to worry about.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s when the really rough kids come out to play. The ones who get locked in their rooms after classes.” He held a low hanging branch up so she could pass. “The ones who’d just as soon put you in the hospital as look at you.”
Keltie didn’t need further explanation. Some of the girls in her wing had boyfriends like that. They came to class with bruises and extra dark eye-shadow. They rarely talked and never smiled. Her own mother had once been one of those girls. But Keltie didn’t need further explanation, because the world was what it was. She had accepted it long ago. For all of its pain and poison, she had accepted it. Why, though, had everyone else—people who were smarter and more powerful than she—accepted it, too? Where was it written that a man could not deviate from a set course?
Rather than wonder about it further, she allowed Marty to help her down into a dry gorge, and then up the other side. They strode for another hundred yards or so along a ridge at the edge of the wood. To their left was an open wheat field. On the right, a drop that plunged to a frozen pond. The ice tempted Keltie for a skate. As a young girl, she’d learned how on other ponds like this one.
“I know a couple of kids who skate here sometimes,” Marty said, as if reading these thoughts. “Not me, though. I can’t even stand up on ice skates.”
“I can teach you,” Keltie offered. “If you like.”
Before he could answer they had to duck behind a tree. A police car passing by on Pleasant Street had slowed down to have a look into the gorge.
“Hold your breath,” Marty whispered.
Smiling up at him, she drew in a gasp and did exactly that. It was a mistake. The car pulled to a gravel area that led partway into the gorge and stopped. For the sake of her own levity, Keltie felt obliged to wait. Ten seconds passed. Fifteen. Twenty. Her mittened hand tightened on Marty’s arm. Counting the time it had taken for the car to pull in, a full half a minute had gone by since she’d last taken a breath.
“Uh!” she let out. “Nn!”
Marty heard it. He turned to find her puffy-cheeked and wide-eyed with pain. “What the hell?” he asked.
Forcing a smile, Keltie pointed to her throat: Air!
Comprehension flooded his features. “Okay, Tanya Streeter, he’s turning around. You can breathe now.”
“Gah!” she gasped. “Phew! Thank you!”
“When I said to hold your breath, I only meant it as a figure of speech.”
“Well, I wanted to make you certain I’m with you all the way on this.”
They waited until the cop had gone before leaving the woods. They crossed a river which led through a park (and which, if followed in the other direction, would lead them to a certain stone bridge that Keltie never wanted to lay eyes on again), then walked to the school, where every single slot in the parking area was empty, as were the bike racks, the swings, the monkey bars. The school was closed. Shut down. Asleep.
“Sunday,” Marty said, looking into a row of dark windows. Like the pond, his eyes were frozen. Black pearls set beneath an unstable sheen of apprehension. He grasped one of Keltie’s mittens and squeezed.
“We can still go back,” Keltie said, wishing for wiser words that simply refused to come.
Marty either disagreed or didn’t hear at all. Whichever, he began to walk slowly across the parking lot. The stake and hammer were clutched in one hand, though Keltie wasn’t sure he even knew anymore. She watched him approach