Dark Specter

1

Jamie shot Ronnie Ho four times. Once in the head, twice in the chest, and once in the gut, where he’d heard it hurt real bad. Two shots went wide.

“Jamie!” yelled his mom from the porch. She’d been talking to Marsha Dawson for about an hour, and had gone outside, still talking, to pick up the mail.

“What?” he yelled back.

His mother appeared in the doorway, portable in one hand, her blue bathrobe billowing around her, sorting through the mail.

“What’d I tell you about using that thing in here?”

“But, Mom …”

“Junk, junk, bill, junk. How come no one ever sends me a real letter?”

Jamie sulkily unpopped the suction caps of the darts from the mirror. Two misses wasn’t bad, and if it’d really been Ronnie Ho he’d have got in closer before he squeezed the trigger.

“I bet Wayne gave you that darn thing, just to bug me.”

“I bought it with my allowance.”

“Get him to pay a dime in child support, no way. But any crap guaranteed to drive me crazy, no problem.”

“I’m bored, Mom!”

His mother sashayed through to the kitchen, pushing buttons on the phone.

“Do your homework.”

“I’ve done it.”

“Yeah, right!”

“I have too!”

He knew she knew he was lying, but if she called him on it he’d ask her to help him out, and she didn’t know diddly about math. They’d changed it all since she was at school. Plus he was getting OK grades-she’d back off.

“Did you get new batteries for my Game Boy?” he said, following her down the hall into the kitchen.

“Hi, Kelly!” his mom said in the chirpy voice she used for leaving a message. “Friday’s our girls’ night out? I was wondering if I could catch a ride with you. Call me, OK?”

“Mom? Did you get those new …”

“I forgot.”

“Oh, Mom!”

“Why don’t you go downstairs and play with Kevin and Ronnie?”

“They won’t let me. They keep saying I’m too little.”

“Well, they’ll just have to …”

The phone rang. His mother drifted around the corner, through the dining area and back into the living room.

“Hello? Oh hi, honey. You are? Is it OK with her mom and dad? Uh huh. Sure, as long as they don’t mind. What time’ll you be home? OK. See you.”

“Who was that?” demanded Jamie.

“Megan. She’s spending the day with Nicole.”

“No fair!”

Just then the Accident started up in the next room. Dawn sighed loudly and went to stick a pacifier in its face. Jamie threw himself down on the sofa, feeling sulkier than ever. Megan was fourteen and got to go to sleepovers and goof off for the whole day with her friends, but what was he supposed to do? Once he and Kevin had taken care of themselves, tearing around the basement, staging fights, gradually stepping up the noise level until Mom had to come and tell them to shut up. But since Ronnie Ho came along, his brother had no time for him. Ronnie Ho was five and a half months older than Kevin and smart and his parents were Chinese and took their shoes off at the door and ate wonton soup the whole time and neat stuff like that. Kevin thought he was the best thing since microwavable popcorn. As for Jamie, he was just a kid. No one was interested in him.

His mom reappeared, the baby in one arm, its bottle and the portable in the other.

“What am I supposed to do?” Jamie exploded.

His mom heaved another sigh. She set the Accident down on the sofa, where it started to howl again, and jabbed at the phone. She’d got Kevin and Megan their own private line, so they could firm up their social lives without bothering her.

“Kevin? Listen, I’ve got to take care of the baby and I want you and Ronnie to do something with Jamie. He’s driving me nuts with that dart gun his dad bought him.”

Jamie lifted the pistol and took aim at the Accident, blew its head apart with a single shot.

“Well, you better, you want your allowance this week,” his mom snapped.

She switched off the phone, picked up the baby and the remote control and channel surfed until she stuck on some cheesy old black-and-white movie. Typical, thought Jamie. He loved his mom, but she had no class.

Nothing stirred downstairs in the basement. Kevin and Ronnie were staying put, hoping Mom would forget about the whole deal. Jamie’d have done the same thing. Ever since Dad walked out, Mom had been like a hard-pressed pitcher facing a lineup full of gritty hitters. At the moment she was o-and-one on Kevin, but she still had a long way to go if she wanted to strike him out. Jamie reloaded his gun and took careful aim.

“Jamie!”

He snuck over to the TV, giggling, and pulled the dart off the screen.

“Sorry, Mom.”

It worked. She hit redial on the portable.

“What’d I just tell you, Kevin? I don’t care if you’re … Well, how long is …? Just finish and get your butt up here is all.”

She looked at the gun in Jamie’s hand.

“Get that thing outta here!”

“It’s only a toy, Mom!”

“Go clean your room.”

“What did Kevin say?”

“He’ll be up as soon as he’s died.”

Jamie let his body slump in an expression of despair. If Kevin and Ronnie were playing Mortal Kombat, they’d be at it all afternoon. Mom thought that when you died it was like the power went off or something, like it was something real, but on the video you could die over and over again, as many times as you wanted. It was so frustrating! There was so much parents didn’t understand. They should make them take a test or something. It wasn’t fair, putting people like that in charge of kids. It meant that nerds like Ronnie Ho ended up getting away with murder.

He rolled up off the sofa, leaped over the coffee table and froze up against the window. Mr. Valdez across the road was flat on his back on the drive under his Pontiac, “giving head to her front end” as Kevin had said to Ronnie. Jamie wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but he could tell by the way they laughed that it had something to do with sex. That was a whole world he wasn’t looking forward to. It sounded like going to high school. You had to leave all your old friends and routines and get bused across town to some new place where they were all bigger than you and everything was for real.

Some guy on a bike cruised past, turning to look at the house, holding Jamie’s eyes for a moment. Cool ATB, Cannondale or Bridgestone, he couldn’t be certain, but eighteen gears for sure, the seat high and the bars wide, like bucking a bronco. Jamie had seen stuff like that in the catalogs, and downtown you saw guys riding them, but he couldn’t imagine who’d have one around here. People had that kind of money, they’d trade in their car. Still, Jamie made an effort to keep up on product availability, even though all he had was the hand-me-down BMX Kevin had stopped using when Dad gave him a nearly new Giant for his birthday.

A muffled, whumping beat started up downstairs, making the floorboards shake. Jamie turned around, eyeballing his mom. She sat holding the baby like a sack of groceries, gazing moodily at the TV, where some guy in a suit and hat and mustache was talking to a woman having a weird hair day. For a moment, Jamie thought his mom wasn’t going to get it. It wasn’t like the music was loud enough to drown out the TV or anything. Then she looked up, caught his intent stare. He didn’t need to say anything. She reached for the phone.

“If you’re not up here in fifteen seconds, Kevin, I’m phoning Viacom and canceling cable.”

She tossed the portable down on the sofa dismissively. Snoop Doggy Dogg’s punchy rap immediately faded to a murmur. Jamie turned back to the window to hide his smile. Kevin would sooner have his wiener cut off than TV. He’d won. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to play with Kevin and Ronnie, but they sure didn’t want to play with him, and now they were going to have to.

Another bicyclist passed the house, going the other way this time. A different bike, nothing fancy, one of those old-fashioned drop-handlebar numbers. The guy was different too, older looking, with a beard and kind of long greasy hair, like that boyfriend of Mom’s who hadn’t worked out. The only thing the same was that as he passed, he turned to look at Jamie, as though he’d known all along he was standing there. It was kind of weird.

Footsteps clomped heavily up the narrow stairs from the basement. Jamie’s smile grew, then disappeared as he turned around to watch the payoff. Kevin slunk moodily into the living room, shoulders hunched, scowling at his mom, ignoring his younger brother. Three paces behind came Ronnie Ho, looking polite and concerned as always. What a jerk!

“I’m so sorry we didn’t come right away,” Ronnie said in his smarmy voice. “We were kind of locked into the game.”

Jamie’s mom smiled. She thought Ronnie Ho was “so polite.”

“That’s fine, Ronald. But listen, I need some quality time with the baby and Jamie is driving me up the wall. Can’t you guys do something with him?”

“Like what?” snarled Kevin.

After Ronnie’s smarm, Kevin sounded even more in-your-face than usual.

“Oh gee, I don’t know!” his mother exclaimed girlishly. “Whatever you guys do.”

“He’s just a kid!”

“So are you,” snapped his mom. Her voice had hardened right up. No more buddy-buddy stuff if he wasn’t going to buy into it. Kevin stared back at her angrily. Ronnie Ho stood looking on with an embarrassed smile, pretending that nothing was going on, or if it was then he hadn’t noticed. Jamie bet Chinese people would rather commit hara-kiri or whatever it was than throw a scene like this in front of guests. Well, screw ’em, bunch of F.O.B.s! This is America. Deal with it.

“Come on, guys!” their mother exclaimed wearily. “Go chase each other around in back or something.”

“It’s too cold.”

“Watch TV.”

She stood up, cradling the Accident.

“There’s nothing on but a bunch of dumb shows and crappy movies,” said Kevin, looking pointedly at the glowing screen in the corner.

“Well, let Jamie play your video game,” Mom suggested.

“He’s no good.”

“That’s because you never let me play,” Jamie protested loudly.

“Listen, I don’t care what you do, just get outta here, all right?” snapped their mom. “What’s the matter with you kids? Play hide-and-seek or something.”

She disappeared into the bedroom with the baby. Kevin looked at Ronnie Ho, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Hide-and-seek! What planet did this woman live on? Kevin had long since moved on to sardines, where one person hid and everyone had to find them and then hide in the same place, which gave you a chance to kind of rub up against some of the good-looking babes. Hide-and-seek was for little kids.

“Or maybe you’d rather clean that room of yours?” his mother yelled threateningly from the next room.

Kevin leaned over and whispered something to Ronnie, who nodded.

“OK, we’ll play hide-and-seek,” he called back.

“You won’t play fair!” retorted Jamie. “You’ll make me be it and then goof off somewhere I can’t find you!”

“OK, you hide,” Kevin replied.

He beamed innocently at Jamie. Too innocently.

“You won’t come looking for me!” Jamie protested loudly.

He knew there had to be a catch, and he was determined not to be suckered by the older boys.

“Yes, we will,” replied Kevin. “And I bet we find you right away.”

“Oh yeah? How much?”

“A dollar.”

“A dollar?”

Jamie thought furiously. He was still sure it was a scam, the way they’d whispered to each other, but he couldn’t figure it out. And a dollar was a dollar.

“How long have you got to find me?” he demanded suspiciously.

“Twenty minutes.”

“Ten.”

“OK, fifteen.”

“Shoot, you can search the whole house in fifteen.”

“That’s the deal,” his brother said. “Take it or leave it.”

Jamie reflected for a moment. Then he nodded.

“OK.”

Kevin smiled swaggeringly at Ronnie Ho.

“We’ll be downstairs in my room,” he told Jamie. “We’ll give you a couple of minutes to get hid. C’mon, Ronnie.”

They disappeared. A few moments later the rap was up to strength again, making the floorboards quiver underfoot. Jamie set a fifteen-minute timer on the el-cheapo digital watch his dad had got free at some gas station and passed on to him. Then he headed for the stairs. Through the open bedroom door, he could hear his mom cooing and murmuring to the baby. The way she carried on, you’d have thought she’d wanted the damn thing.

Jamie started down the cramped, twisting stairs leading to the basement. He was careful to avoid the second and fifth steps, which creaked. When he was far enough down he checked the door to Kevin’s room. It was closed. He carried on down to the bare concrete floor of the basement. To his right, a door lay open into a utility room housing the washing machine, dryer and freezer. Straight ahead was the rec room containing the half-finished bar his dad had been building as part of a project to turn it into a den, even though he’d never even got around to carpeting the basement. Empty liquor bottles gathered dust on flimsy glass shelving. To the left was Jamie’s room, and next to it Kevin’s. They had the music on again in there, a strident twangy thumping beat that would cover any noises Jamie might make.

The center of the floor was occupied by the furnace, screened off with plywood paneling. Jamie walked slowly around it, inspecting the housing intently with eyes and fingers. A couple of months earlier the furnace had failed to light and they’d had to call the repairman. Jamie had been home from school with a sore throat the day he’d come. He’d watched from his bed as the guy removed a section of paneling and fiddled around with a vast array of cool-looking gadgets from his toolbox. Jamie had known about the hatch which gave access to the controls at the front of the furnace, but he had never suspected the existence of a removable panel at the side, used for servicing the jets. The joint ran right along one of the beveled black lines cut into the plywood to make it look like real planking. You’d never guess it was there, unless you knew. After the guy had gone, Jamie had taken it off himself and looked inside. The space was pretty small, but so was Jamie. Kevin would never find him there, not in a million years.

Upstairs, the doorbell rang. Jamie heard his mom’s footsteps on the boards overhead as she went to answer it. Then he saw the thin black crack in the plywood and the grubby marks of the repair guy’s fingers. He worked the panel loose and started to crawl inside.

It was more difficult than he’d thought. The surface of the furnace inside the hatch was covered in valves and pipes and stuff sticking out at crazy angles. It was tough to wriggle in between them, feet first, unable to see where he was going. The real problem, though, was replacing the panel from the inside. There was nothing to hold on to, and in the darkness it was tough to line up the metal tabs and slots which held it in place, particularly with your body twisted like a stick of licorice. He’d only managed to get one fastener in place when he heard the creak on the stairs.

He crouched there in the darkness, pressed up against the pipes and ducts of the furnace, waiting for his mom’s call. Probably it was some friend of Kevin’s, either that or Ronnie Ho’s dad was here to take him home. But instead of a voice he heard the shriller squeal of the other loose step. His mom must have realized they wouldn’t hear her calling over the music. It was kind of weird, though. Normally she would have phoned down. Mom didn’t set foot in the basement that much any more. It was their territory, now that Dad had gone. As long as they stayed out of her hair, she left them to their own devices.

Jamie worked his left hand down to the wrist of his right, which was holding the free catch of the plywood panel, and pressed the light button on his watch: 11:36. Almost four minutes since he made the bet with Kevin. Why hadn’t they come looking for him? They must have lost track of time, boxed in with the music, curtains pulled and the light on. Well, that was fine with him. A deal was a deal. Another ten minutes and the dollar was his. He started to think about what he would get with it. Candy was out. He’d put it toward the collection of baseball cards he was amassing. A dollar would buy another six, including hopefully that one of Barry Bonds he’d been after for months, and which no one wanted to trade.

Then he felt a familiar sick feeling, the humiliating sense of having been outwitted yet again. Maybe they’d never meant to find him. Maybe a dollar was the price Kevin was prepared to pay to get his little squirt of a brother out of the loop for fifteen minutes without screwing things up with Mom. He’d split it with Ronnie, who got a big allowance from his parents. That’s what they’d been whispering about together upstairs. Fifty cents each for a quarter of an hour’s peace, they’d pay that. It got them off the hook, and put Jamie in his place, someone who could be bought for a buck.

But just then there was a sudden surge in the music as the door to Kevin’s room opened. He and Ronnie must have decided to get up off their butts and start looking for him, finally. Jamie gripped the metal tab on the hatch as hard as he could. If they noticed any gap or irregularity, they would be on to him immediately. He listened intently for their voices, trying to pick up some clue about where they thought he might be hiding, where they were going to look for him first. All he could hear was the metallic synthesized crashes and explosions of the funk rap, and then even that was drowned by a dull whump and a loud roaring as the furnace started up.

Jamie started to panic. It had never occurred to him that the thing might light while he was in there. Would the pipes he was lying on start to heat up? He was already wedged tight between them. If they expanded and turned red-hot, he would be trapped and scalded to death! No one would hear his screams. The darkness grew dense and choking, an unbreathable mass in which he lay suffocating like that guy they’d buried alive in the video he and Kevin had rented from Blockbuster while their mom was out with that creep from work.

He had to get out, had to. The time must be almost up anyway. He was afraid to check his watch again because his fingers were sweaty and ached from keeping hold of that little sliver of metal. If only he could hear them going upstairs, he could crawl out and go hide in Kevin’s room, under the bed or something. They’d never come looking for him there, not when they’d been in the room the whole time.

A widening glimmer of light appeared as he began to lose his grip on the metal fastener. The panel dropped down about half an inch on one side. Jamie desperately clenched his fingers tight again, ignoring the pain, and managed to stop the hatch slipping any further. He couldn’t get it back in position, though. He didn’t have enough of a grip on the thing to lift it up and pull it in. If he tried, he’d lose it altogether. He just hoped that the triangular crack at the top of the hatch didn’t show too much from the outside. But was there anyone there? Surely Kevin and Ronnie must have searched the basement by now and gone upstairs. That’s if they were looking for him at all. Maybe they’d just gone to grab a snack or something.

All he could see through the gap between the hatch and the paneling was a patch of bare concrete floor and a strip of unpainted baseboard. He felt as though he’d been trapped in there for hours, not minutes, and although the pipes beneath him weren’t getting any hotter, the air was. Jamie remembered something he’d seen on TV about some guy who’d died from working on his car in the garage with the engine running. There was this poisonous stuff, silent and invisible and deadly. You never even knew what was happening until it was too late. Creepy.

He tensed up. There was a flicker of movement in the triangular sliver of light above the hatch. Even when it came to rest, it took Jamie a moment to figure out that he was looking at the leg of a pair of faded blue jeans, a patch of white sport sock and a shoe.

And what a shoe! A Nike Air Jordan! Jamie recognized it right away, black all over with the silhouette of the basketball star Michael Jordan picked out in bright red on the side of a sole as thick as a Big Mac. A shoe to kill for! $125 a pair! No one he knew had stuff like that, not even Jamal Davis, who’d once told Mr. Olson not to dis him, right there in front of the whole class.

Jamie shut his eyes tight and counted to ten. When he opened them again, all he could see through the crack was the patch of floor, the strip of baseboard. The shoe was gone. He must have imagined it. No one in the house had shoes like that, and none of Kevin’s friends either. Maybe the fumes were getting to him, warping his brain, making him see things and act strange, like Dad when he’d been drinking.

Something close by started beeping, a high-pitched electronic sound. Jamie cursed as he remembered setting the alarm on his watch. Even if the time was up, he didn’t want to reveal his hiding place. He might want to use it again. He stabbed frantically at the button with one free finger of his right hand. As he did so, the metal fastener slipped from his tired fingers and the hatch clattered to the concrete flooring.

With a sigh, the furnace turned off. Jamie lay there without moving, as though his cramped, painful stillness could somehow cancel the noise of the falling cover, erase it so that no one would hear. But he knew it was pointless. If Kevin and Ronnie came to investigate, they’d see the hatch lying on the ground and find him right away. But maybe they were upstairs, out of hearing. The music seemed to have stopped, and he couldn’t hear anyone around.

There was a creak on the stairs, then another. Someone was coming down. Footsteps scuffed on the concrete floor.

“Just a piece of wood fell off the …”

It was a voice Jamie had never heard before. A man. He was just inches away, on the other side of the plywood paneling.

“What?”

Another strange voice, this time upstairs. There was no reply, only the scuffle of footsteps close by.

“Russ?” the second man called again.

There was a pause, then the creak of the stairs. Going up this time, the fifth step and then the second.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

The first voice. There was no reply, no further sound of any kind. Jamie huddled up between the pipes. The dark, confined space which had oppressed him just a moment earlier had become a haven, a refuge. It was the open hatchway which scared him now. He expected a face to appear there at any moment, a strange face, smiling a strange smile. He wished he could reach out and replace the panel, but he was afraid to move a muscle. Play dead, he told himself. Play dead.

When he dared move a hand to check his watch again, he found that time had speeded up. Five and a half minutes had gone by. The house was completely still, but Jamie made no move. Even the dull pain of the pipes digging into his back and shoulder seemed a kind of comfort. But in the end the throbbing of his cramped muscles became unendurable. Taking as much care as he could not to make any noise, Jamie started to struggle out of his hiding place. It was even harder getting out than getting in. His ankle had got wedged between two pipes, and there seemed no way to wrench it loose. He remembered the kid in seventh grade who’d gone into the wrecking yard over on 33rd and got trapped when a parted-out car collapsed on him. A surge of panic almost made him cry out for help, but he bit his lip and forced himself to calm down.

Eventually he found the trick to free himself, by pushing his foot into the cleft and twisting it. After that, it was just a matter of squeezing through the narrow opening and lowering himself on his hands, carefully avoiding the loose hatch cover. He crouched on the concrete floor, taking up no more space than he had inside the paneling, listening intently. Silence lay on the house like a fall of snow. The only sound was the whine of the freezer in the corner and a car engine revving up outside in the street. Jamie recognized the deep, throaty roar of Mr. Valdez’s Pontiac.

The thought that normal life was going on close at hand gave him the courage to stand up and look around. Everything looked the same as it had when he came down to hide. Jamie stepped cautiously, on tiptoe, to the door of Kevin’s room. He turned the handle and opened the door a crack. His brother lay stretched out on the bed as though asleep. Jamie opened the door wider, and sniffed. There was a funny smell, kind of nice, like fireworks or something. Then he saw Ronnie Ho lying face down on the floor. Jamie’s fear abruptly left him.

“C’mon guys!” he said in the edgy tone he knew Kevin hated. “Pay-up time.”

Neither of them moved. Jamie began to feel irritated. They were playing one of their stupid games, ignoring what he said, acting like he wasn’t there.

“You owe me a dollar, Kevin!” he said, taking a step into the room.

Still there was no response. The stress and strain of the past twenty minutes had left Jamie’s nerves ragged. Being treated like a dumb younger brother was the last straw. He picked up a social studies textbook lying on the chest of drawers and spun it across the room like a frisbee. It was a heavy book, and the corner struck Kevin just below the ear. Realizing that he’d gone too far, Jamie sprinted quickly across the basement and upstairs before Kevin could catch up and give him hell.

In the hall at the top of the stairs, he paused. There was no sound of pursuit. In fact there was no sound at all. Even the Accident had stopped whining for attention. Jamie was still standing there uncertainly when the phone began to ring, doubled by the electronic warble of the portable. He waited for his mom to answer, but the phone kept right on ringing. Jamie walked through to the living room. The portable was still lying on the sofa where his mom had thrown it. He picked it up and pushed the button.

“Hello?”

“Hi! Is this Jamie? This is Kelly Shelden. Your mom left a message on my voice mail. Can I speak to her?”

“Hold on.”

He lowered the phone.

“Mom!”

There was no reply. Jamie wandered down the room toward the dining area.

“Mom!”

He stumbled on something and grabbed the back of the sofa to stop himself falling. The portable went flying. Jamie looked at the thing he had tripped over. It was wrapped in shiny blue fabric, with pieces of crinkly white appearing here and there.

Mrs. Shelden was hollering something in a squeaky voice. Stepping carefully over the obstacle on the floor, Jamie reached down and picked up the portable.

“Hello?” he said.

“Jamie? Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“What’s going on?”

“I dropped the phone.”

“Oh, OK. Did you find your mom?”

“Yeah.”

“OK.”

Jamie turned and looked down again.

“Hello?” said Kelly Shelden.

“I’m here,” said Jamie.

“Well, are you going to put your mom on or what?”

“I can’t.”

“How come? Is she in the bathroom or something?”

He did not answer.

“Jamie? What the heck are you playing at?”

“Could you get over here, Mrs. Shelden? Like now?”

“Oh boy, you must be kidding! I’ve got a zillion things to do. Listen, I’ll call back in ten minutes. Will she be able to talk then?”

“I think she’s dead.”

“Well, have her call me when she’s free. I’ll be home till four, then I have to bring Ryan to baseball practice, but I should be back by-”

“You’ve gotta come!” Jamie shouted. “I’m only a kid!”

Kelly Shelden’s voice softened into concern.

“Why, Jamie! What’s the matter, honey?”

Jamie broke into sobs.

“I’m feeling weirded out. Like totally.”