Temptation: A Novel (35 page)

101. Real

Maybe I’m like Doubting Thomas.

Oh, come on, I know the story. I know enough stories, at least. Like Noah and the big old ark that saves him from the end of the world. And Jonah and the big old whale. And how about Joseph and his big old coat of many colors. Okay, maybe it’s not big and old. But I know some of the stories.

Maybe I need just a little more proof.

On this bleak December Saturday, I decide to get some.

Borrowing a short and heavy sledgehammer from Brick is going to help. I figure I might need it, and Brick was the person to ask.

I head to downtown Solitary. It seems abandoned, with only a couple of cars on the main street. There’s nobody in sight. The town feels sad. It shouldn’t feel this way in December. It should feel many things—commercial, busy, Santa Claus-ized—but not sad.

Maybe it’s in the eye of the beholder.

I don’t know. I’m not here to evaluate the town.

I’m here to check out that abandoned boxcar. Or to see if it’s still there.

It takes me a while to get to it. But sure enough, it’s right there in the middle of the tracks, just like it was when I first saw it.

It’s gray everywhere. As I approach the railroad car, the sledgehammer in one hand, I can see the hazy fog around it. It’s like some film director came in and used smog machines for added effect.

As I approach, I recall Newt’s voice in my head recounting the myth he’d heard.

“Back in the old days, they used to run trains into town,” he told me over lunch a few days ago.

I’d asked because I wasn’t sure if I’d really seen the boxcar or it was just another of these great visions I was having. The gift in my wonderful bloodline.

“The story goes that the very last car on the train would be a ‘special’ car, one that nobody would open. They would simply unhook it from the rest of the train and leave it on the tracks. The townspeople wouldn’t dare look in.”

I stand next to the wooden boxcar, kicking the rusted metal of a wheel to make sure it’s there. Just like last time, I feel it.

“People in Solitary started going missing around this time,” Newt continued in a hushed whisper as he ate his bologna sandwich. “People thought it had something to do with a railroad car left in town. They wondered if it had people living in it. What if they were creatures of some sort. So a group of young guys—maybe our age—decided to open the doors.”

I’ve reached the door of the car. I touch the bolt and feel the grime of it on my fingers. I try pulling it, but it doesn’t budge.

Obviously. That’s why I brought this stubby sledgehammer I borrowed from Brick’s garage.

“The guys opened up the door in the middle of the night. Of course it was a dare. But what they found wasn’t anything to laugh about.”

I start pounding the bolt back. It doesn’t move at first, but then begins to grind against the old wood and send bits of rust to the ground.

“They looked inside and found a bunch of bodies. Dead bodies of people who had lived in and around Solitary. People who appeared white as ghosts and drained of their blood.”

The bolt eventually goes back, and I manage to swing open the door.

As I do, I hear the deep mumbling of something.

Or someone.

I can’t see in the darkness of the boxcar, but I can smell what’s inside. Decay and death.

I can make out shadows on the floor. Piles of something.

Then I hear the wailing. And moaning. And crying.

“Someone had been killing people in Solitary and sticking them in this boxcar. To get rid of them. Like some dead animals or something.”

“Help us,” a grainy voice says.

I hear shifting and twitching.

Something in the pile seems to get up. Slowly, as if it’s on two knees.

“Hear us, let us go,” cries another voice, this one a woman’s.

I hold the sledgehammer in my hand, but know that it probably won’t do much to the voices I’m hearing.

“Set us freeeeeeeee.”

Then I feel the bony grip of something reaching out from the darkness, skeleton fingers squeezing around my neck.

A mutilated face suddenly appears in front of me. As it does, I hear what seem to be a thousand screams all go off from inside the car.

I fall back and brush away whatever’s on top of me. The heavy hammer falls beside me.

Gasping and kicking and clawing, my eyes closed, I get whatever it was off of me.

Then everything becomes silent again.

I breathe in and open my eyes and sure enough, the boxcar is gone.

The sledgehammer is still there. The stench in the air is still there. And the pressure from the squeezing hand around my neck is still there.

I bet so are the marks.

For a while, I just lie back on the rocks next to the railroad tracks. I steady my breathing and think of what I just saw.

It was there. I saw it and felt it and yes, even smelled it.

What more do you want?

I don’t need any more.

I believe in what people have told me.

I believe in what Marsh and Staunch and my great-grandfather said.

The thing about being able to see stuff that’s not there.

This is why they want me and need me alive.

What they want me to do with this … I don’t know.

But I know it’s real.

And I know the creatures or monsters or demons that I heard and saw—those are real too.

102. What’s in a Name?

Some of the puzzle pieces start to fit.

If the males in the Frenchman’s line—the guy with the last name Solitaire—all had the ability to see things like I can, that means Uncle Robert must have been able to as well.

Maybe he couldn’t handle it. Or maybe they wanted him to use his “powers” for something and he refused.

But this isn’t a comic book movie, and I’m not a comic book hero. I wouldn’t call the ability to see weird things a power, exactly.

And as for Mom and even Aunt Alice, maybe they have a little of it too. But it’s different for some reason. And that’s why Mom needed the booze. And why Aunt Alice is bonkers.

As for Iris … I’m still not sure about Iris. Was she like the good version of Staunch? Was she an angel or good spirit? And what about those dreams of seeing Jocelyn? Were those part of being able to “see”?

I remember Jocelyn telling me in one of those dreams that “there is a place that is somewhere between every day and every dream, a place like this.”

Was that the place Iris referred to as a space in between?

Like the airport I saw Jocelyn in—a grown-up Jocelyn who wanted to talk.

Like the plane where I told her I was fed up with all these visions and conversations and where I told her to let me be.

How could I have sent her away like that? Especially if those were real conversations?

The deaths of the kids in the town—the sacrifices, I should call them—still don’t add up. I don’t understand why. Was it just part of this evil group or cult?

Are they wanting me to join them?

And if I do will I get some kind of membership card?

I see that even in the height of this hysteria, my brain tries to keep it mildly hilarious. I want to start laughing out like one of those
muaahhhhaahaha
laughs we all joke about. But then I realize everything happening and I begin to get scared.

If I’m really the last one in the family line, what will they do if something happens to me? Or if I refuse?

With answers come questions. And more questions only lead to more worry.

Thankfully I haven’t seen or heard from Staunch or Marsh since breaking into the Staunch residence and then riding out of Solitary with Lily.

I’ve been waiting on them to come. I know it’s only a matter of time.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, that time comes.

It’s pitch black in the house when the knock comes on my door. It’s locked. I always double check to make sure. I think it’s Mom, but it’s only eight and she’s not due home for another hour or so.

Midnight lets out a few measly barks.

Why couldn’t I have inherited a big scary dog?

I get up off the bed where I was reading, or trying to read,
The Old Man and the Sea
for English.

For a second I wonder if I should even bother answering.

The knock comes again, so I head downstairs, turning on the stairway lights and then turning on a lamp in the main room.

I see a head peering in the window.

It’s Marsh.

I open the door and feel the cold outside.

“Almost started to think nobody was home,” Marsh says.

“You knew where I was,” I say.

“That’s true. Can I come in? It’s cold.”

Once inside, Marsh takes off his black overcoat. “It’s freezing in here. Why don’t you have a fire going?”

“I wasn’t cold.”

“Gotta look after yourself.”

For a second I just stare at him. His perfectly spiked hair, the perfectly styled glasses, the perfectly clear complexion. I hate him and everything about him.

“Chris, Chris, Chris—you’re at it again,” he says, openly mocking me. “Isolating yourself and planning things and keeping secrets. Have you not learned?”

I don’t even hesitate.

I reach over and grab him around the neck with both of my hands, squeezing just like that monster from the boxcar. We both end up falling backward, and his head narrowly misses the stone edge of the fireplace. I’m on him and I know I weigh just as much as he does and my anger more than makes up for his age. I’m pressing down and gritting my teeth and squeezing and hearing him cough and choke and I swear with everything in me I want to kill him right here and now.

He chokes out a “Chris” and then a “help you” and I continue to drive my palms into his neck muscles and throat. His face is red and pink and purple. A vein is sticking out on his forehead looking like a pimple ready to pop.

“Can—help—Mom—you.”

It’s only the mention of “Mom” that makes me stop.

Suddenly I’m afraid.

He pushes me off him and coughs for a few minutes, spitting out and trying to breathe. Then he curses at me.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Pastors aren’t supposed to use words like that.”

“And teens aren’t supposed to choke their pastors.”

“You’re not my pastor and never will be.”

Marsh takes a moment to stop coughing and regain control. Then he looks at me while adjusting his glasses.

“I’m not the bad guy, Chris. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“None, since I’ll never believe you.”

“Do you have any water?” he asks as he stands. “Man, you’re strong.”

“What do you want?”

You would think he’d at least want to try and knock my lights out for that move, but he simply walks over to the refrigerator and looks inside. He doesn’t find anything, so he goes to the sink and drinks some water from the tap. He walks back over to me, wiping his mouth and shaking his head.

“Listen to me and listen good, okay?” he says. “Staunch doesn’t know I’m here. But he’s growing impatient.”

“Don’t you guys have this place wired or tapped or whatever you call it?”

“Staunch doesn’t have to stoop to that level. But others do.”

“You killed her.”

“
I
didn’t kill anybody, Chris. I keep telling you that.”

“You helped.”

“I had nothing to do with that. But I’ll tell you this. You have only a couple more weeks. That’s it. Come January first, the games end.”

“You came here to threaten me?”

“I came here to tell you that. To warn you.”

“Or what?”

Marsh rubs his neck. “Man, that really hurt.”

“Good.”

“You keep falling into the same old habits. I mean, I know you’re only seventeen, but haven’t you learned?”

“What habits?”

“These girls.”

I think he’s talking about Lily for a second, then realize he’s talking about Kelsey.

I don’t say anything.

“They will take whatever is important in your life away from you.”

“Just like Jocelyn? And Lily?”

“Jocelyn—Chris, that was unexpected. I’ve already told you that.”

“But why?”

“We do what we’re told. Staunch, he’s the one who gets the direct orders.”

“From?”

“I believe you recently met him.”

“Walter Kinner? Creepy great-grandpapa?”

He doesn’t quite laugh at my slam.

“You want to change things, then do it yourself.”

“What do you guys want from me?”

“I want you to see what’s going to happen. You need to stop all this.”

“All this what?”

“Avoidance.”

“What am I supposed to start doing then? Is Yoda going to come out of the woods and start teaching me Jedi tricks?”

“You really are a smart aleck.”

“Nobody said what I’m supposed to do.”

“Running away with the girl isn’t quite the answer.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No?” Marsh asks. “I knew love once. But you will get older and learn. There’s nothing wrong with desire, Chris. Desire is good. Love is bad. Love only makes you weak. And you—you can’t be weak. You have too much going for you.”

“She’s dead because of all of you. You used her and then you killed her.”

“That girl you’re talking about drugged you the very first time you hung out with her at a party. Huh? Yeah, shake your head, but it’s true. You just thought the beer hit you hard, didn’t you? But
that
hard? So tell me—what kind of person would do that? Even if she was being paid.”

“You don’t know her.”

Marsh shakes his head, staring at me for a second. “And you did? What did you think you were going to find? Did you think it was true love or something?”

“Until I learned the truth,” I say.

“Oh, the truth. I see. Tell me something—what difference does it make who she was? You know exactly what you wanted, so what’s the difference?”

“Everything.”

“You’re so naive. So young and stupid and naive. Love is a facade, Chris. Love is a fantasy, and this world paints it as something attainable, but you can never have it. Never. Look at your parents. They’re just like the rest of the world. I tried and woke up and realized I’d never,
ever
have what I really wanted.”

“No.”

“Yes, Chris, yes. Love and happily-ever-afters are crutches. But, boy—you don’t need crutches. The girl—she was yours. What was the big deal? What did you tell me? What? What did you want? You said ‘relief.’ And what did you get?”

“Lies.”

“You got what you wanted, Chris.
Exactly
what you wanted.”

“I thought she liked me.”

“Of course she liked you. But what—did you want to go steady? Did you want her to fall in love? Chris—I fell in love once. And she managed to break every single inch of my heart until there was nothing left. Save yourself. Don’t give your heart out to anybody.”

“I’m not like you.”

“No—I keep telling you that. You’re not like anybody. You’re special. Someone like Lily—there are a hundred Lilys out there Chris. A thousand. You’ll realize that when you get older. But you—people can’t do what you do.”

I curse at him, but he just laughs.

“You have the ability to see between the cracks. To see what’s on the other side. You know that now, don’t you? I don’t have to tell you. Think about it. You always have been able to, even just a little, right? But once you manage to tap into that, everything changes.”

“I don’t want to tap into anything.”

“That restlessness—those empty feelings—the questions and the pain—they will all go away. All of them. You just need to do something simple. And it will all begin.”

“Do what?”

“It’s a formality, really. Consider it a code word to enter the club. Just deny that Jesus is God. I mean—that’s not very difficult for you to do, is it? Since you don’t buy into the whole church thing.”

“I’m not doing anything you want me to do.”

“
I’m
not the one asking. I’m just trying to help you. Staunch is the one you have to be worried about. If you don’t do what he asks, he takes. And takes. And keeps taking. I’ve seen this with my own two eyes. Lily—that was Staunch. He just had to say so, and it was done. Like that. He manipulates everything. He’s been manipulating you from the very beginning.”

“You don’t know,” I say.

“Did you ever think it was weird how Ray just popped into your life after you first got here? Staunch arranged that. Then he realized that social levels didn’t appeal to you. He realized you needed to be watched and studied. Hence, there comes Jared. Your ‘cousin.’ You know how that ended. And then, Chris—he discovered it was so easy. Just put a pretty little hot thing in front of you, and you’ll go following her with your little tail wagging. And that’s where Lily came into play.”

I curse, and just get a mocking laugh in reply.

“I’m telling you all of this so you know to be afraid of Staunch,” Marsh says.

“I don’t care—”

Marsh moves over to me quickly, more quickly than I’d ever give him credit for. Not to attack or hurt, but to simply grab my arm and get my attention.

“You’d better start caring,” he says. “Or it will just keep happening. Your mother. Or father. Or the cute little blonde girl you’ve been seen with.”

I don’t say anything as I jerk my wrist away from him.

“It’s two weeks away from New Year’s Eve,” he says like a warning.

“What are you guys going to do?”

“
He
will do whatever it takes for you to finally understand what’s at stake.”

Suddenly I feel scared.

Suddenly I feel like a teenager again.

Suddenly I remember Chris Buckley.

“Your great-grandfather just wants to hear it with your own voice. Nothing formal or anything like that. But he wants to hear you say it.”