Tommy Nightmare (Jenny Pox #2) (3 page)

“You bring us here, all the way out here,”
the older lady was saying to Mrs. Tanner, “All this sneaking
around, and you have only twenty dollars for pay?”

“There’s more,” Mrs. Tanner whispered. “A lot
more. The old man told me. I just need to find out where. Then I
can pay your fee.”

“What if he don’t really have the money?”

“He bragged about it. He said his son—my
husband—had no idea. I need that money.”

“You going to keep for yourself?” the lady
asked. “No telling you husband?”

“That’s between us,” Mrs. Tanner said. “I
wiped this old man’s ass for the last four years. I want to get
paid.”

The hefty lady sighed and eased herself down
onto one of Mr. Tanner’s homemade pews. She spoke in Spanish to the
younger girl. The girl blew a big pink bubble and shrugged.

“How much money?” the older Mexican lady
asked.

“Lots,” Mrs. Tanner said. “Ten, fifteen
thousand.”

“You pay one thousand,” the lady said.

“That’s too much!” Mrs. Tanner said.

“Maybe you find the dead man’s money
yourself. Come on, Esmeralda. This lady is crazy.”

The girl shrugged and started for the open
door.

“Wait!” Mrs. Tanner said. “Wait. Okay. If you
can really do what they say, and you find the money, I’ll pay you
a…a thousand dollars.” She almost choked on the words.

“Good.” The hefty lady pushed herself to her
feet and approached the casket. “Open,” she said.

Mrs. Tanner took a deep breath. She lifted
the lid of the cheap coffin and slid it to one side. The big lady
looked inside the casket and curled her nose.

“How long?”

“About two days now,” Mrs. Tanner said.

“Is ripe.” She waved a hand in front of her
face.

“Well, that happens,” Mrs. Tanner said. “Mr.
Tanner doesn’t believe in embalming.”

The hefty lady sighed. “Esmeralda.”

The girl turned to face them, and she pouted.
She said something in Spanish. Tommy couldn’t follow it, but from
her tone and expression, she was obviously complaining.

The older lady—the girl’s mother, Tommy was
guessing—snapped at her. The girl sighed and trudged over to the
casket. She pinched her nose with one hand. Then she reached her
other hand into the casket.

The girl closed her eyes.

“Wait,” Mrs. Tanner said. “
She
is the
one who—?”

“Sh!” the lady snapped.
“Silencio.”

Mrs. Tanner looked increasingly uncomfortable
as the quiet minutes dragged on. She looked back and forth between
the woman and the girl. She started clearing her throat every few
seconds.

“
Si, si
,” the girl whispered. “I can
hear him now. Questions?”

“The money,” Mrs. Tanner said. “Where did he
hide the money?”

“The money…” The girl scrunched her eyes. She
licked her lips. Tommy was already developing a serious crush on
her.

“This isn’t working—” Mrs. Tanner said, but
the lady cut her off with a glare.

“Yes, he hid the money,” the girl called
Esmeralda said. “It’s in his duffle bag. From the Army.”

“And where is that?” Mrs. Tanner said.

“In the trunk of his car,” Esmeralda said.
“In the barn. Not this barn, the one over there.” She pointed in
the direction of the newer barns. “His car under a sheet. He used
to fantasize about jumping in the car and driving away. With his
money in the trunk. He dreamed he would escape.”

Tommy eased back from the barn. When he felt
he was far enough away, he turned and ran.

Pap-pap’s old Buick was parked inside the
same barn where Mr. Tanner kept the horse trailer. Tommy lifted the
mildewed canvas sheet and pushed it back, revealing the Buick’s
trunk. The car was a rusted heap, at least forty years old. It had
been years since the car had its last chance of ever running
again.

It was locked, and Tommy couldn’t find a way
to open the trunk. He might be able to pry it open with a crow bar,
but that would make a lot of noise.

“God damn,” Tommy whispered. He would have to
go back into the house, up to Pap-pap’s room, find the car keys.
All without making a sound, all before Mrs. Tanner and the others
came from the church to check the car.

Tommy pulled the canvas back into place. He
ran back towards the house, where he eased the front door open and
left it ajar.

In Pap-pap’s room, he found the car keys next
to the scum-filled denture jar. No one had bothered taking
Pap-pap’s dentures out of them in over a year.

Tommy went out the back door, figuring Mrs.
Tanner would soon be returning through the front, in search of the
Buick keys.

Tommy jogged back toward the barn, but he
heard a voice from inside. He ducked low against the building and
listened.

“—can’t get this fucking thing open,” Mrs.
Tanner grunted. “Christ. The keys are up in the house.”

Mrs. Tanner stepped out and Tommy hid himself
around the corner. He held his breath. He forced himself to count
to ten before peeking around. Mrs. Tanner had walked out of sight.
The barn was silent.

Tommy ran into the barn. She’d left the
canvas off the back half of the car. Tommy hurried to the locked
trunk and began sorting through Pap-pap’s thick key ring.

“What are you doing?” a soft voice asked, and
Tommy jumped.

It was the girl, Esmeralda. Tommy looked
around, panicked, but didn’t see her mother or Mrs. Tanner.

“Nothing.” Tommy found two keys with the
Buick logo. He tried the first one.

“You have the keys,” she whispered.

“Quiet.” The first key wouldn’t slide in, so
he tried the other one. There was a rusty squeal that sounded as
loud as thunder to Tommy’s ears. Then he lifted the trunk lid.

A green U.S. Army duffle bag lay inside,
among assorted junk.

“We have to go tell—” Esmeralda started for
the barn door. Tommy caught her bare arm in his hand, and she
gasped.

“Don’t tell anyone!” he hissed.

“Okay!” She shivered. She was terrified of
him. His touch was probably giving her nightmares, and he felt bad
about that. “Don’t hurt me, okay?” she whispered.

“Stay right there.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” She nodded. “Whatever you
say.”

Tommy frowned and let go of her arm. He
watched her for a second, to make sure she didn’t run or scream,
but she just trembled and stared at him.

“Are you the devil?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Tommy said. He unzipped the duffle
bag.

It was full of bundles of cash, each secured
with a rubber band, and each bundle had a scrap of paper with an
amount scrawled on it. The amounts were all in the hundreds of
dollars, and he saw one or two that were over a thousand. Loose
change sat at the bottom of the bag—a big handful of silver coins,
plus one gold coin featuring an Indian head and an eagle on the
back. “2 ½ dollars” it said, but Tommy thought it looked a lot more
expensive than that. Pap-pap’s life savings.

“That is her money,” Esmeralda whispered.

“My money.” Tommy zipped the duffle bag and
hoisted it over his arm. “I need it because I’m leaving.”

“Oh, no,” Esmeralda said. “My mother will
kill me.”

Tommy stared at the frightened girl. He
didn’t want to cause her problems.

“I don’t have much time,” he said. He closed
the trunk as quietly as he could and propped the duffle bag against
it. He unzipped it part of the way, then he reached inside.

“This is for you,” he whispered. He gave her
one of the thousand-dollar bundles.

She gaped at it.

“Put it in your purse!” he said. “Don’t tell
your mother until you’re a long way from here. Don’t give any money
to the Tanners. Okay?”

“Oh…I don’t…” She continued gaping at the
money.

Tommy grabbed her arm and shook her. “Do what
I say!”

“Yes!” She crammed the money into her beaded
purse and zipped it shut. “Sorry. Don’t hurt me please.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said. He could feel
her trembling, but he didn’t want to let go of her arm. She was
warm. She almost seemed to glow.

“What are you?” she whispered.

“What are you?” he asked. “You can speak with
the dead?”

“Sometimes,” she said. “Mostly I listen. But
you are like a…a….”

“A nightmare,” he whispered. Tommy needed to
run, but he couldn’t quite let her go yet. She was different, in
the same way that he was different. He felt like if he touched her
long enough, he would understand.

Then he thought of Mrs. Tanner, on her way
back any second.

And he did something that he later wouldn’t
believe he had the courage to do. He kissed Esmeralda, the
mysterious Latin girl with the supernatural power, right on the
lips. Then slipped the gold Indian-head coin into her hand.

She stared at it.

“That’s for you,” he whispered. “I love
you.”

Then he ran out of the barn and away across
the pasture, towards the distant, flat horizon. He planned to never
see the Tanners, or any other foster family, ever again.

He looked back over his shoulder and saw the
girl gaping after him. He waved at her, then lowered his head and
ran faster.

The television in Bent River sat behind a
shield of durable plastic in case of riots. Located in a crook of
the Mississippi River, just before the State of Louisiana turned
into the State of Mississippi, Bent River housed a mix of medium
and high security prisoners. Tommy lived in a cellblock in the East
Yard, along with a few hundred other violent offenders like
himself.

Tommy sat on the hard bench at rec time,
watching the TV. Next to him sat Doyle Vinner, one count of arson
and two of homicide. Vinner had robbed and murdered an elderly
couple and burned their house to the ground. He'd taken a shine to
Tommy soon after Tommy arrived. Though Vinner was in his forties,
probably a quarter-century older than Tommy, he followed Tommy like
a duckling in awe of its mother.

The TV flipped from a baseball game to a
24-hour news channel.

“Teen pregnancy!” a fat, balding man shouted
on the screen. “A shocking story about how the libs are wrecking
our morals. Again. I’m Chuck O’Flannery, and this is the O'
Flannery Overview Hour. Tonight’s top story of teen girls and sex
will turn your stomach! Keep watching the Overview.” The promo
ended, and cut to a commercial for Axe body spray.

Boos sounded from all the black
prisoners.

“Shut your booing,” yelled a big redneck
named Patrick Headon, better known as Possum. A swastika was
tattooed on the side of his shaved head. He sat with his hefty
white-power cohorts.

Over in the guard station, behind another
clear wall, the two guards smirked.

On TV, the commercials ended, and the
O’Flannery Overview Hour continued.

“Welcome back to The O’Flannery Overview Hour,” he
said. “My special guest is Ashleigh Goodling of Fallen Oak, South
Carolina, population nine thousand. Thanks for coming today,
Ashleigh.”

“Thank you for having me, sir.”

A wider camera angle revealed a very pretty
girl with blond hair and hypnotic gray eyes. Tommy sat up. Her eyes
looked just like his, a rare trait. For a moment, Tommy wondered if
they were related—he knew nothing about his birth parents.

“I don't wanna watch this,” Vinner
grumbled.

“Then get back to your room,” Tommy said.
Vinner stayed.

“We hope you enjoy your visit,” Chuck
O’Flannery said to the girl. “Now, for the Overviewers at home,
give us a little background on this teen abstinence story.”

“Gosh,” the girl said. “Well, teen pregnancy
is such a major problem, even in little towns like mine. Our group
decided to promote the only moral choice, abstinence, at our
school...”

Tommy wasn't listening. He was reading one of
the many flickering sidebars on the screen, which told him all
about the girl:

ASHLEIGH GOODLING, it said. FALLEN OAK, SC.
Her name and town stayed fixed, but the line underneath it changed
every five seconds:

SENIOR CLASS PRESIDENT

PRESIDENT, CHRISTIANS ACT! SCHOOL CLUB

CAPTAIN, VARSITY CHEERLEADING SQUAD

“…I’m not perfect,” the girl said. “I get
tempted all the time. Your body wants it. That’s why you have to
rely on your mind, and on prayer. When adults set the example, and
they say abstinence is bad, it just tells us to go ahead and give
in to our urges.” She was squirming in her chair as if agitated,
and her tongue flicked across her lips.

“Ashleigh Goodling,” Tommy whispered.

“Looks like a sweet slice of tail, don't
she?” Vinner snickered, and Tommy slapped the lascivious grin from
his face. Vinner fell quiet, but he didn't complain. He seemed to
like a little abuse now and then, a little dose of Tommy’s fear.
Some people did, and such people took to following Tommy around in
a very annoying fashion.

“...Christians get persecuted, but God takes
care of us. I don’t care if everyone hates me. I have my faith.”
The girl named Ashleigh touched the cross pendant around her
neck.

Fallen Oak, South Carolina
, Tommy
repeated inside his head.
Fallen Oak, South Carolina.

He watched the girl talk, entranced. A
lifetime of violence and small-time robbery had given him a stony
outer crust, but he felt something move inside him. Something big.
Like those massive plates under the earth, the ones that made
earthquakes and volcanoes.

He'd had plenty of women, in his way—it was
easy enough when you had Tommy's special thing, the nightmare that
lived inside him. His touch filled people with fear. He could make
them hand over wallets, car keys, the contents of a cash
register.

This was a different feeling, though. He
didn't just want to rip this girl’s panties off. There was
something else, a hint of something he hadn't felt in a long time.
Not since he was a kid, and that had only been a glimpse.