The Locker (12 page)

As if in answer to my question, the light came on over there without warning, illuminating part of a bedroom. I could see rock posters and movie posters slapped up on walls, and shelves with books and magazines and cassettes scattered around. And then, as I continued to stare from the darkness, I saw a silhouette pass in front of the window, and I recognized Tyler at once.

He was slipping out of his black coat.

He was tossing his black cap onto the foot of a bed.

My heart lurched and caught in my throat.
A person in black would blend in perfectly with the night.… A person in black would never be seen.
…

“Are you crazy?” I muttered to myself. “Get away from the window before someone next door reports you!”

But I knew no one could see me, and I also couldn't move away from the window. I stayed right where I was and watched as Tyler disappeared at one end of the room, then reappeared again munching a doughnut. Then he disappeared at the other end of the room, and I could hear the muffled beat of music. He busied himself at the shelves and turned sideways, and I could see him talking into a telephone. He didn't talk long. After about two minutes he tossed the phone away, and then he ran one hand back through his hair, almost like the conversation had upset him. And then he yanked his sweatshirt off over his head.

If I'd known he was going to start undressing, I wouldn't have stayed there that long—but his shirt was off before I even realized. Nothing else came off after that, but I could feel my cheeks burning just the same—totally shocked at myself, yet not shocked enough to move away from the window. He reached for something on a top shelf, his body stretching out slowly—and he was so beautiful, I thought, so sleek and graceful like an animal. And then he turned around, and I caught my breath, afraid he might look straight through the dark and see me hiding there in the shadows of my room.

He walked over to his windowsill.

He leaned his arms upon it and stared out into the night.

In the room behind him someone appeared, and Tyler jumped, as though he hadn't heard anyone come in.

It was Jimmy Frank.

Their voices raised and they seemed to be arguing, though I couldn't make out a single word.

Then Tyler turned back to the window and slammed it shut and jerked down the shade.

I think I actually stopped breathing then.

When that little square of window light had closed completely up, I let out my breath and sank down in a heap on the floor.

I sat there a long, long time.

I sat there and thought about life … and destiny …

And Suellen Downing …

“You need something else,” the voice said suddenly from my doorway, and I screamed and scuttled back into the corner before I realized it was Dobkin.

“What are you doing?” I railed at him. “Trying to give me a heart attack?”

The threat didn't phase him. “I've been thinking,” he went on seriously. “To figure out what happened, you'll have to find something else of hers to get feelings from.”

“Go back to bed,” I told him. “It's late.”

“Her house,” Dobkin continued, as though I liked talking to the air.

“What?”

“You heard me,” he said. “We'll have to go where Suellen used to live.”

“But we can't just—”

“Why not? You said no one lives there anymore—it should be easy to get inside.”

“I don't even know how to find it. I can't remember all the roads we took last night.”

“That shouldn't be so hard. Anyone in town could tell you where to go.”

I didn't have any more arguments. Dobkin stood by the door and waited.

“Dobkin … we are
right,
aren't we? Thinking Suellen wants me to do this?”

“If she didn't,” he said quietly, “would any of this be happening?”

14

A
ll I could do in school the next day was watch the clock. I'd asked Aunt Celia if I could borrow the van, and I'd promised to pick up Dobkin from kindergarten, and we'd told her we were going shopping in town. She'd been easy to fool because she wanted to devote the whole afternoon to her sculpting, so I didn't really feel like we were doing anything wrong.

I also didn't really want anyone to know where Dobkin and I were planning to go.

You can't very well walk into a brand-new town and tell people you're trying to find someone who disappeared, and that you know she's dead because she's been communicating with you. Especially not a place like Edison, where outsiders are already considered mortal enemies.

Then I remembered that Tyler had told me I could borrow his cabin, so the first chance I got, I asked him again how to get there. He didn't look the least bit suspicious—in fact, he looked kind of happy that I was going to take him up on the offer. He even told me where the key was hidden and said I didn't ever have to ask permission to go—just to go whenever I felt like it.

Phase one successful.

I don't know why I felt so nervous about going to Suellen's house. I knew it was deserted, but there's something creepy about poking around where dead people used to live. Out on the main road I passed up my first turnoff, and Dobkin had to yell at me to turn around and go back.

“Calm down,” he told me sternly. “It's just a house.”

“It's easy for you to be calm,” I retorted. “You haven't been afraid to open your locker every day.”

“I don't even have a locker.”

“I was trying to make a point.”

“Did anything happen today?”

I shook my head.

“Well, there you go.” He sounded smug. “We must be on the right track.”

The van was making weird noises, which made me even more nervous.

“If this thing breaks down, I'll kill it,” I muttered. Dobkin ignored me and hung out the window, trying to grab the tops of weeds as we chugged along the country roads.

There were a few times I thought I'd gotten us lost for sure, but finally we rounded a bend in the dirt road and there it was—the ugly old house—set back in its weed-grown clearing. I turned off the engine, and we just sat there for a few minutes, looking at it. Now I could see where most of the roof had caved in. The whole thing was sort of leaning to one side, and everything sagged, and all I could think of was how all the life had really gone out of it.

“Come on,” Dobkin said bravely, pushing open his door. “We're not going to learn anything staying here.”

“It looks snaky.” I shuddered. “I can't go in there.”

He turned to me accusingly. “So you'd let a six-year-old child go in there all alone? How do you live with yourself?”

“Okay.” I sighed, climbing out. “You win.”

There might have been a pathway at one time, but the weeds had long taken over. Stepping carefully and trying to make a lot of noise, we made our way to the front porch, then hesitated outside the door. The screen hung from one rusty hinge. I bent down and tried to peer through a window beside it, but the pane was so thick with grime, I couldn't see a thing.

“Well,” Dobkin said. “After you.”

“Thanks, you're so considerate.”

I resisted the urge to knock. I tried the knob, and after a few determined twists, I felt the door start to creak open.

“Anything yet?” Dobkin hissed at me.

To tell the truth, I was a little surprised myself. After what had happened at the locker, I'd been preparing myself to be bombarded with images and feelings from all sides. But nothing happened. I just felt like a nervous trespasser who wished she were safe at home.

I stepped cautiously across the threshold.

“Anything yet?” Dobkin hissed again.

“Will you be quiet?” I said irritably. “I promise you'll be the second to know.”

He nodded and followed me, being careful to step exactly where I stepped. The place was filthy—rain had come in, leaving mold and mildew and rot, and the stench of animal droppings was everywhere. Dobkin took a whiff and promptly held his nose.

“Something died, I think,” he said through pinched nostrils.

“What was your first clue?”

It was really rank, and I fanned the air in front of my face, eyes darting back and forth, ready to bolt at a second's notice. There were only a few rooms and no furniture to speak of, but it was clear that people had broken in over the months and left their garbage behind. I couldn't even picture someone living here, much less try and pick up their psychic signals.

Dobkin looked disappointed. “Nothing?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “Let's go. This place is disgusting.”

“One more minute. We haven't seen the kitchen yet.”

The kitchen turned out to be the most repulsive room of all, and I put my arm around Dobkin's neck to keep him from stepping in. Sewage had backed up into the rusty sink and spilled out across the floor, and flies were thick everywhere, the air vibrating with their buzzing.

“I think I'm going to be sick.”

I rummaged in my pocket for a tissue and pressed it against my nose. In the protective circle of my arms, Dobkin pressed into me and buried his face against my stomach.

“Anything yet?” His voice was muffled, and in spite of everything, I had to laugh.

“You don't give up, do you?” I shook him by the shoulders. “You're bound and determined we're not going to leave here empty-handed.”

“Empty-minded,” he corrected me. He tugged on my hand and forced me to take three steps onto the cracked linoleum. “Come on, Marlee, you must feel
something!
”

“You mean, besides nauseated?”

I started to laugh again, but suddenly my eyes shot like magnets to one corner of the room.

“Ssh—Dobkin—did you hear something?”

He pulled away from me and followed the direction of my stare with his eyes. Shaking his head, he started to say something, but I put a warning finger to my lips.

There was a doorway in that far corner. It opened straight out onto an enclosed porch, where piles of junk were buried in dust and spiderwebs. From where I stood I could also see part of one window out there, its rusty screen twisted in and hanging down one wall.

“What is it?” Dobkin mouthed, but I shook my head and pushed him firmly back behind me.

“Stay here,” I mouthed back to him, and once more he nodded.

It was the creepiness of the place, I tried to tell myself as I picked my way carefully across the kitchen floor. It was making me imagine things—hear things—see things moving from the corner of my eye.

For just one split second I thought I'd heard that porch creaking.

For just one split second I thought I'd seen something move beyond that window.

I glanced back at Dobkin. He was standing as straight as could be, his feet planted determinedly, as if ready to rescue me at the first sign of danger.

“
Stay there!
” I jabbed my finger at him to show I meant business, then I jabbed it toward the window, and then toward the porch. He didn't look so brave then. He glanced back over his shoulder and molded himself flat against the wall.

The porch was an impossible mess of garbage and decay. Weeds grew up through the splintered boards, and small bleached bones littered the floor. There were mouse droppings everywhere. I froze in the middle of the cramped space and strained my ears through the quiet. I could hear my heart pounding and the sound of my own harsh breathing.
You must have imagined it.… Nothing could hide out here without making a whole lot of noise.…

I was afraid to get too close to the window. The floor was in such bad shape, I knew it wouldn't hold my weight, and I could hear things scurrying away from me beneath the piles of trash. Shuddering, I took a step back and rubbed goose bumps from my arms.

Why would anyone be out here anyway? This place ought to be condemned.

“
People break in sometimes … looking for food and a dry place to spend the night
…”

“Dobkin,” I said softly, “let's get out of here.”

And suddenly the whole place seemed threatening—a wasted, tragic testament to memories and death and unsolved questions.

“Dobkin?” I murmured.”

My eyes went slowly up one of the walls, and I saw where several pipes were showing through the rotting plaster. One pipe seemed darker than the others, and as I watched it, I suddenly saw two tiny points of light gleaming out at me.

“Run, Dobkin!” I shouted. “There's a snake!”

Whirling around, I raced toward the door where I'd left him.

But Dobkin was gone.

15