Poe Read online

  It began simply enough—write your thesis on a historical person of interest. I chose Grigori Rasputin, partly because I’d recently watched a magician hypnotize a frat brother into squawking like a chicken (an obviously useful skill), and partly because I thought that it would finally give my father and me something to talk about—them both being from Russia and all. After buying a few thick, dusty books from eBay on Rasputin, I quickly discovered that actual research is mind-numbingly dull, so I opted to make my book fictional, which allowed me to incorporate unsubstantiated rumors from the blogosphere. Much easier. Maybe the opening chapter with Rasputin’s resurrection while his corpse was burning, having just been poisoned, stabbed, beaten, and drowned, was a bit much, but after the syphilitic prostitute disemboweled him, I began to think I was on my way to making my first million (gore never having hurt Stephen King’s career). Then I thought—what the hell?—let’s make him a zombie (a vampire would be so… cliché), which would logically explain his pale skin, creepy stare, and inability to be properly killed. “Rasputin: Secret Tsar of Immortal Zombies”. Shit, this could be a franchise. My professor quickly dismissed the book as trash, which only added to the appeal, but now at page 985 I realize that it’s become what we in literary circles call a hot mess. Every night I spend two or three hours feverishly typing, hoping that some Kafkaesque logic will eventually manifest. All I need is another ten pages. Or maybe another ten. I’m like the guy who has lost his life savings at the roulette wheel and is going to the pawn shop to unload his wedding ring—one more roll will make it right.

  I look over, and Maddy pauses her chant long enough to take a drag on her cigarette. If she were really psychic, she’d quit smoking, because even I can figure out what her obituary headline will be: PSYCHIC HAIRDRESSER DIES OF LUNG CANCER.

  Nate shoves another handful of chips in his already-full mouth. “You getting this all down, Shakespeare?”

  “Getting what down? Nothing’s happening.” A cockroach scuttles along the baseboard, as if it’s waiting for us to be distracted long enough so it can make a run for the potato chip crumbs—thrilling stuff. I hear creaking footsteps overhead, which for a few tantalizing seconds gives me hope that there might actually be a ghost and, more importantly, a story to write about, until I realize it’s probably just Lisa on her quest for bathroom tissue. I hope she’s up to date on the rotting floorboards situation. Given the piles of termite dust in the corners, I’m surprised the place hasn’t collapsed entirely.

  “Night’s still early,” says Nate. He opens his pack and pulls out a high-end video camera. “It’s got night vision, so I can catch all the action. Figured I’d need to make sure you get the story right.”

  “You’re worried I’m not going to get the story right? This from someone who just lied his ass off about his grandmother dying.”

  “Shakespeare’s jealous,” he says, wiping a greasy hand on his jeans. “When’s the last time you got laid anyways?”

  “I really don’t think I need to tell you—”

  “So not recently. This year? Ever?”

  I cup my hand to my ear. “Hear that, Nate? That’s the sound of my lawyer calling your dad and filing a hostile work environment lawsuit.”

  “If this is a workplace, then get to work,” says Nate. “You’re supposed to be a reporter; what are you going to report with?”

  “Fine,” I mutter. I open my messenger bag to dig for my notepad, but my hand comes across something else instead, small, round, and hard. I open my bag wider and see a rip in the lining. There is something silver glinting within. My heart skips a beat. I widen the tear, and yes, there it is—my father’s ring. Fuck, I didn’t lose it. The ring’s been in my bag all this time. It somehow feels right to slip it on my finger. It’s heavy and strange but solid too—reassuring.

  “You going to put a necklace on next?” asks Nate.

  But before I can respond there’s more creaking, closer this time, which announces Lisa’s return. She holds a slightly yellowed roll of toilet paper, and Nate quickly resumes his traumatized expression.

  “Best I could find,” she says, tossing the roll to Nate.

  “Thanks,” whispers Nate. He tears off some tissue and pretends to blow his nose, loudly. “I just get a little emotional talking about Granny.”

  “I so believe you,” she says, taking off her jacket and making a cushion of it before sitting back down. “Did I miss anything good?” she adds casually. But for some reason she seems a little shaken, and I notice that her mittens are now stuffed in her jacket pockets. Her hands are also covered with dust, and a raw, mean-looking scratch crosses the back of her wrist.

  “Wanna check out my video camera? It’s got night vision,” Nate says proudly.

  “Hey, you okay?” I ask quietly.

  “Sure, I’m fine,” she says. “Why?”

  “Well that scratch looks like it could use a Band-Aid or something.”

  “It’s nothing,” she says tersely. “I was opening a cabinet and a rusty nail got me.”

  “It doesn’t look like nothing.”

  “Is that thing on?” shouts Maddy from her corner.

  “It’s rolling,” says Nate, pointing it at Lisa. I see he’s working the zoom around her chest.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” says Maddy. She slowly heaves herself to her feet and then raises her flabby arms up like she’s about to catch something—a chunk of plaster from the ceiling perhaps—and her voice takes on a strange staccato cadence, like she’s a bad actor in an equally bad community theater production.

  “Spirits. We come as friends. We come in peace. If you can hear my voice, then give us a sign. Show us your presence. Show us what happened here.” Her eyes roll to the back of her head, and we’re treated to a view of her upturned nostrils.

  But of course nothing happens, except for a few dust motes drifting tepidly in the wake of a slight draft.

  “That could get infected,” I whisper to Lisa. “Or you could get tetanus. I can drive you to the doctor.”

  “What part of ‘I’m fine’ don’t you understand?” she hisses back.

  “The spirits require silence!” says Maddy loudly, glaring at us. But just as she finishes the word “silence,” she’s struck with a deep smoker’s cough and has to hit her chest a couple of times, like something is firmly lodged there—a lung tumor perhaps. All that chest thumping causes her beehive to lean slightly to the left, so it’s hard to keep a straight face as she raises her hands again and intones, “Spirits. What do you have to say?”

  The ghosts here must be a shy bunch.

  “I just don’t see why you want to stay here,” I whisper, “and risk lockjaw when I can easily take you to the doctor. We could grab something to eat afterward.”

  Oh God oh God, I think I just asked Lisa out. But just as she opens her mouth to respond, my dear friend Nate chimes in.

  “That is a nasty scratch you got there. I have Band-Aids. And Neosporin.”

  Lisa gives him a look. “You have Band-Aids, Neosporin, a six-pack, chips, and an inflatable chair with an air pump but no toilet paper.”

  Nate smirks and pulls his bag onto his lap. “You can thank me later.”

  Lisa’s mouth just hangs open in disbelief, but I want to get back to the dinner part. Was she going to say yes?

  “Let’s see,” says Nate. He pulls out a road flare, bungee cord, a set of jumper cables, a pair of handcuffs (handcuffs?), small silver packages of wrapped emergency food, a cigarette lighter, a well-worn paperback—The Complete Survival Handbook: Protect Yourself Against Revolution, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Riots, Famines, and Other Disasters—and finally a small first-aid kit.

  “You’re not one of those creepy package bomber survivalists, are you?” Lisa finally manages to say.

  “Nah. They wouldn’t take me after my buddy blew off a couple fingers. Give me your hand.”

  Lisa pulls it back defensively.

  “I’m just going to put a Band-Aid on it. Shakespear
e’s right about getting an infection. All these rats around here, you could probably get that flesh-eating bacteria or something.”

  “You could just give me the Band-Aid and Neosporin.”

  “Yeah, you could just give it to her,” I say, my voice definitely pitching to a fourth-grade decibel.

  “But that wouldn’t be any fun, and my buddy Shakespeare likes fun. He was just bragging that he’d have you in the sack by the end of the night. That’s why he gave you some of his jacked-up java: so he could keep you up all night, have his way with you. We bet twenty bucks on it. I personally thought you weren’t that kind of girl, but Shakespeare, he’s so immature.”

  I’m so shocked that I open my mouth, but the words won’t come.

  Lisa turns to me and narrows her eyes. “I thought that didn’t taste like decaf.”

  “Lisa,” I sputter, “I didn’t—”

  “Almost like slipping a girl a roofie,” says Nate.

  And then the unimaginable happens, the unthinkable. Staring me down coolly, Lisa reaches out her hand and actually places it in Nate’s meaty palm, as if she’s daring me to complain. Nate grins at me, dabs a bit of Neosporin on her scratch, and then rubs it lightly—no, pornographically—with his thumb.

  Holy mother of God I need a miracle. “C’mon, spirits, do something,” I mutter.

  And that’s when Maddy’s convulsions start.

  CHAPTER THREE: LADYBIRD

  It’s like watching someone being electrocuted, but there is no blue arc of light, no sizzle of an electrical wire. For a moment we all stare in shock as Maddy lies on the floor, her body convulsing furiously. But then Lisa suddenly jumps to her feet and I do too; together we race to Maddy’s side. With the professional touch of someone who’s worked, even as a receptionist, in a nursing facility, Lisa kneels and expertly cradles Maddy’s head, while I do my best to hold down her shaking body—not an easy task, since underneath the rolls of fat, Maddy is apparently built like a tank.

  Nate, though, just keeps the camera rolling. “Man, this is some great shit.”

  “Should we call an ambulance?” I ask quickly.

  “It looks like some kind of epileptic seizure,” says Lisa. “Let’s get her on her side so if she throws up she doesn’t choke on her vomit.”

  The idea that there might be vomit involved soon is disconcerting to say the least. I try to roll Maddy over, and I get an elbow in the chin for my pains. “You thinking about helping, Nate?”

  “Kinda busy,” says Nate. “See if you can hold her head steady so I can get a close-up.”

  “God, what an asshole,” mutters Lisa, and I feel a thrill of joy. Thank you spirits and convulsing Maddy, thank you.

  “A minute ago you didn’t seem to think he was an asshole,” I say smugly.

  “A minute ago I couldn’t decide which one of you was the bigger asshole.”

  Ouch. “C’mon, that’s not even remotely fair—if this was an asshole contest, he’d win hands down.”

  “Thanks, Shakespeare,” says Nate with a cheerful wave.

  Lisa grips Maddy’s head firmly and gives me an equally firm look. “I’ll be the judge of that. And if you’re going to mess with me, then I’m going to mess with you. Got it?”

  I swallow hard. “Duly noted.”

  Just as suddenly as Maddy’s seizures began, they abruptly stop. The room falls into a deathly quiet. There’s a gentle creak as the wind brushes around the corners of the house. The glass that remains in the windowpanes shudders, then is still. For the first time I really think about how far out in the countryside we are—no living human within a ten-mile radius. And the sun is starting to set. Fuck.

  “You think she’s dead?” whispers Nate. “’Cause if she is, we can put her obit on the front page. Dad would love that.”

  I can feel Lisa invisibly seethe.

  “We can kill him later,” I whisper.

  “Promise?”

  “I’ll hold him down and you can beat him in the head with his night-vision camera.”

  We both look over at Nate and the annoying, owl-like lens that is recording us.

  “Deal,” says Lisa with a hint of a smile. “But I guess I should… check.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that Nate might actually be right, but now I notice that Maddy is uncomfortably still, and it’s impossible to tell under the stiff pleather jacket whether she’s breathing.

  “Okay,” Lisa whispers. She takes a slight breath before she reaches a tentative hand out to Maddy’s neck to check for a pulse.

  But as soon as her finger makes contact, Maddy jolts upright with an astonishing speed, like a marionette pulled roughly on a string. She stares straight head, unblinking, unseeing. Her right shoulder twitches, as if she’s still processing the current from an electric shock, and her beehive slowly sags even farther to the left.

  “Maddy?” asks Lisa hesitantly. “Are you okay?”

  Nothing. Silence.

  Lisa catches my eye—this is not a good sign.

  “Maddy?” asks Lisa again, carefully.

  Maddy inhales suddenly, fiercely, like there’s not enough air in the room to fill her lungs. She is breathing.

  “Gotcha,” says Nate cheerfully. “Dad wasn’t kidding when he said she was good. Our web traffic’s gonna go through the roof.”

  This is all just part of the act? Lisa glares at Nate, looking highly pissed, but something like relief starts to wash over me, a giddy “We made it” kind of vibe.

  But apparently the show’s not over. Maddy opens her mouth—forming a small, almost perfectly round O—and begins to sing in a lilting, childlike voice:

  On a mountain stands a lady,

  Who she is I do not know,

  Appropriately creepy—I’m impressed. One of her arms darts out madly, clutches Lisa’s shirt, and she jerks Lisa to her with a strength that seems unusual for someone courting emphysema.

  “This is so cool I’m going to piss myself!” whispers Nate.

  Lisa tries in vain to pry Maddy’s fingers off her shirt, but Maddy’s deep in character—too deep in my opinion.

  “For fuck’s sake, Nate, we got enough footage, don’t you think?”

  All I know is she wears golden slippers,

  And her skin’s as pale as snow,

  “We can string it out,” says Nate. “Make it into a series.”

  “Maddy!” I grab Maddy’s shoulders and give them a shake. “Let her go. Let Lisa go.” Instantly she does, and her hands hang in the air for a moment, suspended, as if she’s frozen. But then she closes her eyes and begins to giggle.

  Lisa straightens her shirt and falls back on her heels, visibly annoyed.

  Damn she looks cute when she’s annoyed.

  But then Maddy’s on her feet in less than a second, and I swear to God I never saw her move. A new wave of panic—real panic—sets in, and my heart begins to thud loudly against my chest. Suddenly I’m thinking of that story by Edgar Allen Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, where the guy kills an old man and buries him underneath the floorboards, only to be haunted by the sound of the victim’s beating heart. For a few horrific seconds I can’t tell whether what I’m experiencing is real or some kind of literary déjà vu, but then I realize that it’s not my heart making that noise; it’s actually something pounding loudly against the sagging floor beneath us. And not only is there a thunderous pounding, but a slight push accompanies it, as if something is straining to get out, like a great white shark bumping against the bottom of a sadly inadequate dingy.

  A frigid breeze rushes through the room, lifting Lisa’s hair—I see her breath form a small cloud of mist. It feels like the temperature just dropped below freezing, and a wave of nausea hits me.

  Take her by the lily-white hand,

  Save her from the water,

  “Whoa, did you see that?” says Nate, face pressed to the viewfinder.

  “See what?” asks Lisa, but her voice sounds far away, like I’m hearing her underwater. My ears buzz, and a s
harp pain pushes against my temples.

  “This white light just flashed on the camcorder. So fuckin’ cool,” says Nate.

  Maddy stands in the middle of the room, swinging her arms in an absent, almost childlike kind of way. Does anyone else see how black her eyes have gone? She pulls at a tendril of hair that has come loose from her beehive and twirls it around her finger.

  Leave her and you might just find,

  There’s no end to the slaughter.

  The pain in my head is turning into a roar, the floor seems to tilt, and vomit rises at the back of my throat. I think someone says “We should go”—Lisa maybe—but it’s hard to tell where sound is coming from, and as I fall to the floor, I don’t really care. I feel disassociated from my body, like it’s someone else watching Maddy rip the brooch from her jacket and toss it across the floor, where it skitters like a living thing. It’s someone else watching Maddy skip in an unearthly kind of hopscotch, like gravity doesn’t apply, like she’s an astronaut on a moonwalk. And the evening reaches a new level of surreal when her voice takes on a singsong cadence that fades into and out of my consciousness.

  Ladybird, ladybird

  Fly away home.

  Lisa’s voice is urgent, almost deafening. “Nate! Call 911!”

  I cover my ears with my hands. There’s something I want to say, but it’s a struggle to remember the words or to think about forming them.

  Your house is on fire

  Your children are gone.

  She stops then, looks at me, or maybe through me would be a more accurate description. What the fuck happened to her eyes?

  “He’s coming for you,” she hisses.

  And then I find the words. “Leave her alone!” I shout.