Chapter 5
The next morning I saw Eddie and Kristin talking over by our lockers, but before I could reach them I heard the Dean call my name.
“Mr. Berger,” he said. “Come to my office, please.”
As he was leading me away I saw them look in my direction. They stared at me, but I couldn’t read their expressions. I figured she must have told him about the kiss, and almost welcomed whatever nonsense the Dean had waiting for me.
Except that when I got to his office, Detective Powell was there to greet me.
“Hello, Charlie,” he said, grinning. “Long time no see.”
I mumbled something and sat down.
“Still drawing all those pictures of monsters?” asked the detective.
I shook my head, no.
“Can I ask you some questions about Curtis Johnson?” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
“Have you seen him around lately?”
I shook my head, no.
“Any idea where he might be?”
“No,” I said.
“He hasn’t called you?”
I shook my head again, no.
“Would you say that he and his grandmother got along?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“Did they argue a lot?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He would do something he wasn’t supposed to do, and she would yell at him. She got mad at him because of his grades and stuff like that. She would yell, and he would yell and, you know.”
The detective chewed on his pen.
“Any arguments between them recently?”
I shrugged.
The detective leaned toward me.
“This is serious business, Charlie. Curtis’s grandmother is dead, and we think he’s responsible.”
My stomach knotted.
“She’s dead?” I asked. “How?”
“I’m not going to go into details,” said Detective Powell. “But it wasn’t pretty.”
“Charlie, if you’re holding out on us,” said the Dean. “Now’s the time to talk.”
I told Detective Powell everything I had already told the Dean. I added that Curtis’s grandmother had called me last night, but left out the part about the gun.
“Are you sure it was Curtis?” I asked.
“A few things point to it being him,” said the detective. “Bloody sneaker-prints, no forced entry, plus a neighbor saw someone matching his description hanging around the house earlier. Said he was behaving strangely, ran off when the neighbor called his name.”
My guts churned as I imagined Zombie Curtis tearing his grandmother apart. I could hear her screaming, see Curtis’s teeth on her throat.
“You okay, son?” asked the Dean. “You want to talk to the counselor?”
“No,” I said.
“There’s no shame in asking for help. We’re all here to listen.”
“Oh?” I said. “Nobody listened to me the last time.”
The Dean looked at me and blinked. Detective Powell scratched his nose.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked the Dean.
“Last time I talked, you all thought I was crazy,” I said.
“You were traumatized,” said the Detective. “And you started to hallucinate.”
“Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe what I saw at the tower was real after all.”
The Detective studied me. I figured I should shut up, but all I felt was a strange kind of anger.
“Are you on any medications right now, Charlie?” he asked.
“No.”
“So your mental health is good?”
“Yes,” I said.
The Detective chewed on his pen.
“I’m not crazy,” I said. “And from what I read in the old newspapers, what happened to Jason Morgan’s body was not a figment of my imagination, either.”
“No,” said the detective finally. “It wasn’t.”
“What happened to his body?” asked the Dean.
“It was completely drained of all its insides. All of his blood, his internal organs, bones. They were all gone. Even his brain was gone.”
The Dean opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“Is there something else going on here, Charlie?” asked the Detective. He stared at me in silence and I realized I had to leave before I said something stupid, something that would incriminate me and my friends.
“No. Nothing else,” I said, looking away. “Can I go now?”
The Dean nodded his head.
“Charlie,” said Detective Powell. “Keep all this quiet for right now, understand?”
“Okay,” I said.
“You see Curtis Johnson, you contact me right away. Until then—”
The Detective held his finger up to his lips. Shhhh.
I met Eddie and Kristin in the school parking lot after eighth period. We sat in Eddie’s car with the radio on low and talked. They had been questioned, too.
“But you stuck to the story?” I asked.
“Yes, quit asking us already,” said Eddie.
Kristin only nodded.
I looked at her, trying to figure out what she was thinking. It was hopeless. One good thing: she must not have told Eddie about the kiss, or things would be going a lot differently right now, and Eddie seemed focused on the problem at hand.
“How the hell is Curtis still alive?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“It’s the spider venom,” said Kristin. “It turned him into a zombie.”
We looked at her. It sounded insane, but it also sounded right.
“So why did he kill his grandma?” asked Eddie.
I shrugged. I was wondering why he didn’t try to kill me instead.
“Maybe he didn’t mean to,” said Kristin. “Maybe he went home, and she found him and there was a...misunderstanding...”
“We’ve got to find him,” I said. “We’ve got to kill him again. For good this time.”
Eddie nodded. Kristin looked dubious, but didn’t say anything.
“Where do you think he’s hiding?” asked Eddie.
“Probably in somebody’s garage, or maybe the woods,” I said.
“He’s hiding in the tower,” said Kristin.
“Not that place again,” said Eddie.
“How do you know?” I asked her.
She shrugged.
“It seems obvious, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not going back there,” said Eddie. “No way.”
The fear in his voice surprised me.
“Maybe we don’t have to go inside the tower,” I said. “Maybe we can lure him out somehow.”
“Okay,” said Eddie. “Let’s do that then.”
We swung by my house and I picked up the gun. Then we stopped at Eddie’s and he picked up a hatchet and a hacksaw. It seemed like a good idea to dismember the corpse this time, and get rid of the pieces separately.
We killed some time at the IHOP, waiting for it to get dark outside. I doodled pictures of guns and spiders on a napkin while Eddie tucked into a big stack of pancakes with a chocolate smiley face on them. Kristin sat with her hands in her lap, staring out the window. An untouched vanilla milkshake slowly melted on the counter before her.
“Any more weird dreams?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
But that was it.
We waited until it got late, then headed back into the forest to the stone tower. We didn’t talk much, mumbling a few words here and there, gathering our courage in silence. The moon was out now, fat and full, giving the trees an eerie white glow. Our footsteps made crunching sounds and we shuffled through the undergrowth. I figured Zombie Curtis could probably hear us coming a mile away.
I felt the tower before I saw it. Like electricity. My tongue tingled and it felt like there was sand in my mouth. The tower loomed there, in darkness, and the moonlight wouldn’t touch it. I felt like I was being crushed.
The ch
ain-link fence surrounding the tower was covered with spider webs. They looked like thick, white blankets, so dense you couldn’t make out the strands. And crawling across the webs were dozens of hideously large spiders, their eyes glinting in the moonlight.
“Look at the size of those things!” said Eddie.
“Look at their backs,” said Kristin.
We could see now that the white markings on the spider’s backs clearly resembled the Spider Lady’s evil, grinning face.
“Great!” said Eddie. “That’s just great!”
As we watched the spiders going about their business, I noticed a peculiar smell in the air, a stench, really, like old meat left out in the sun.
“What the hell is that?” asked Eddie, covering his nose with his arm.
“It’s Curtis,” I said. “Decomposing.”
The hole in the fence was still there. On the ground I saw bloody footprints, leading up to the hole and through it. The blood was drying, thick, sticky.
I thought about Curtis’s grandmother again. This was her blood. I shivered.
Kristin remained strangely calm. She approached the hole in the fence, and it seemed to me as if the spiders moved away to let her through.
“Kristin,” said Eddie “Wait.”
And then she was gone.
Eddie turned and looked at me. I could see he was afraid and it was freaking me out. Eddie was supposed to be the tough guy. If he couldn’t hack it, how could any of us?
“Maybe I should hold the gun,” said Eddie.
I looked at him for a moment and then shook my head, no.
“Let’s just go” I said.
We marched through the hole in the fence, and I could hear the spiders making strange, wet sounds, like a dog begging for a bone.
Kristin was standing there on the other side, looking at the door. It was open, but there was only darkness inside. Eddie came up and reached for her hand. She pulled it away. We could see the bloody footprints go straight inside the tower.
We stood there for a few moments. Then I pulled out the gun.
“Curtis!” I said. “Come out. It’s me. Charlie!”
The air was still. All was quiet. I held my breath.
A bloodless hand appeared from inside the tower, gripping the doorway. Then a figure shambled out into the moonlight, our friend, Curtis. He turned to face us and I nearly lost it.
Kristin gasped.
“Aw, no!” said Eddie.
The top of Curtis’s head was missing. In its place, where his brain should have been, sat a bloated spider, its many eyes peeking at us from over the top of Curtis’s forehead.
“Shoot him, man!” said Eddie. “Shoot him!”
Curtis took a step toward us. The spider—what the hell was it doing there? It resembled some kind of hellish pilot, driving Curtis around like a big machine.
Curtis came closer to us, his arms raising.
“Charlie, come on!” said Eddie.
I pointed the gun at Curtis’s chest and fired.
Nothing happened.
I think I screamed.
Then Curtis was on me, his leathery, ice cold hands around my neck, squeezing the life out of me.
I grabbed his wrists but I couldn’t break free. Stars began to explode at the edge of my vision. The two of us fell down, Curtis still on top, crushing my throat.
Kristin was screaming, the fat spider’s dumb eyes glinting, and then Eddie swung his hatchet down on Curtis’s head and the spider burst like a fat pumpkin, green goo flying everywhere.
I peeled his hands off my neck and scrambled away. Curtis’s body slumped to the ground, and the dead spider rolled out of his head.
“Chop up the body,” I said. “Hurry.”
Eddie looked at Curtis’s body, not moving.
I looked at the gun. It was jammed. I had no idea how to fix it.
“Eddie, chop it up already,” I said.
Eddie and Kristin were watching another spider make its way over to Curtis’s body. It was big, about the size of a softball, and it climbed inside Curtis’s skull and hunkered down. A few seconds later, Curtis sat up.
We all backed away. Curtis stood up, clumsily, and approached us. Eddie swung his hatchet back and forth, but the thing kept coming toward us. My gun was jammed, I had no other weapons. I was useless.
“Die, you freak!” said Eddie.
He buried the hatchet in Curtis’s shoulder, but couldn’t pull it free. Curtis yanked the hatchet out and threw it away. He was almost upon us, hands raised, dead eyes staring at nothing, lips parting to reveal blood-stained teeth...
“Curtis, please!” said Kristin. “Stop!”
Curtis stopped.
And stood there. Waiting.
We all looked at each other, surprised.
“Move back,” said Kristin.
And Curtis moved back.
“How are you doing that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Kristin.
“Tell him to hold still,” said Eddie.
Eddie approached Curtis with his hatchet raised.
“No,” said Kristin.
Eddie turned to her, a puzzled look on his face.
“We can’t do this,” said Kristin.
“What are you talking about?” said Eddie.
“We can’t chop up our friend,” she said.
“That’s not Curtis anymore,” I said.
“Look around you,” she said. “All of this is some kind of magic spell. The Spider Lady was a witch right? Curtis, the giant spiders, everything, this is all her doing. We need to figure out a way to break her spell. That’s the only way that Curtis can really die in peace.”
Eddie and I looked at her. Curtis didn’t speak, but swayed slightly, like a tree in the wind.
“Are you crazy?” said Eddie. “We gotta chop him up. Set the spiders on fire, burn the whole freaking place down.”
“That won’t break her spell,” said Kristin.
“How do you know all this?” I asked her.
She looked away.
“Are you going to help me, or not?” she said.
I had to admit, what Kristin said made sense. But it bothered me that she didn’t answer my question.
“Please, Charlie.”
Then she stole a glance at me, and my need to know disappeared.
“What do we have to do?”
“Go inside,” she said.
“You can’t be serious,” said Eddie.
“Are you coming?”
Eddie hesitated. I could see the struggle on his face. Kristin watched him, too.
“Maybe you should stand guard out here,” I said.
“With this thing?” asked Eddie, motioning to Curtis.
“He won’t bite you,” said Kristin. “Curtis, don’t bite Eddie.”
Curtis said nothing.
Eddie looked at Curtis, and then at me and Kristin.
“Hurry up,” he said, and turned away from us.
Kristin walked to the door and stepped inside.
I followed her, each step harder to take then the last. My heart thumping in my chest.
“Hey, Charlie!” said Eddie.
I turned and he handed me the hatchet.
“Here, man,” he said.
“You sure?” I asked, gesturing toward Curtis.
Eddie nodded. I turned back and went through the door and into the tower.
Inside it was pitch black. Kristin was using her lighter to see, its small circle of illumination barely able to hold back the darkness. I expected the place to be full of spiders, but it was empty.
Suddenly she grabbed my hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered, leaning in close. Her lips brushed against my ear.
I felt a jolt go through my body.
And then she let go and moved off into the darkness. She walked over to a pile of old, broken furniture, and began searching through it.
&nbs
p; “What are we looking for?” I asked.
She ignored me and continued moving the broken furniture around.
“Here it is,” she said at last.
It was a large trunk, dirty and dusty with rusted hinges. She tried to open the lid but it wouldn’t budge.
“Charlie, use your hatchet,” she said. “Hurry!”
I looked at her face in the dim light of her Zippo and something about it bothered me.
“How did you know this was here?” I asked.
She hesitated.
“I dreamed it,” she said.
I shivered again.
“Maybe we should leave that trunk alone,” I said.
“It’s okay, Charlie,” she said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“What’s in there?”
“Books,” she said. “Magic books. We’re going to use them to break the Spider Lady’s spell. Now, smash open the lock, quickly.”
It suddenly seemed like another really bad idea.
She reached out and took my hand again. Her fingers were warm.
“Go on,” she said, the light glinting off her hazel eyes. “Break the lock.”
I took a deep breath and brought the hatchet down with all my might on the rusted lock. It snapped in two with a loud clang. Then Kristin was on her knees, opening the lid.
Inside were all kinds of strange-looking books, bound in dark bindings with little symbols stamped on their covers in gold.
Kristin gingerly touched the cover of one of the books, and ran her trembling fingers over the twirling symbols. Then, just as quickly, she jerked her hand back and closed the lid.
“Help me carry this trunk out,” she said.
“You dream anything else weird last night?”
She hesitated a moment.
“There was one other thing. I dreamed I was standing over Curtis’s body, and…I didn’t have my shoes on, I remember that. I was holding a handful of those spiders and whispering strange words to them...that’s all. But...when I woke up this morning, there was...”
“What?”
“You’re not going to believe me.”
“What?”
“There was mud all over my feet.”
I swallowed hard and she looked at the ground.
“I don’t understand it,” she said. “Unless, somehow, her ghost is messing with me.”
“Or you’re under her spell, too,” I said.
Kristin shrugged, and we both fell silent.
“Better get going,” she finally said.
We each grabbed a handle on the trunk and lifted. It was heavy, and when we picked it up you could hear the books shifting inside. We carried it slowly out the tower door and into the night. I was glad to set it down once we were outside.
“This guy won’t listen to me,” said Eddie, gesturing toward Curtis. “I’ve been telling him to do all kinds of stuff and he just stands there.”
“Curtis,” said Kristin, “help Charlie carry this trunk to Eddie’s car.”
Curtis lumbered over and picked up one end of the trunk. Quickly, I helped him lift it off the ground.
“How come he only listens to you?” asked Eddie.
Kristin shrugged.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Eddie.
“Let’s just go,” said Kristin.
We walked back to Eddie’s car. Carrying the trunk slowed me and Curtis down; soon Eddie and Kristin were pretty far ahead and I couldn’t hear what they were saying exactly, but I could tell they were arguing again.
Good.
I couldn’t figure out why she liked him. Other than the obvious stuff. He kind of looked like Keifer Sutherland in that old vampire movie, and I knew girls liked that. Me, I looked like that chubby Hobbit from the Lord of the Rings.
And Curtis, he looked like hell.
His eyes were still lolling around in their sockets, his mouth slack, dried blood splattered all over his face, shirt, hands. And that weird spider riding in his skull, somehow controlling his body with dark magic.
“Curtis?” I asked. “Curtis, you still in there?”
He said nothing. I don’t think he even heard me.
“I didn’t know you were going to become a zombie, man. I’m really sorry. And, um, I was hypnotized, see? I was under the Spider Lady’s control.”
Curtis said nothing. The spider sitting in his brain stared at me with its many eyes.
When we reached the car, Eddie and Kristin were standing apart, her with her arms folded over her chest, him with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. The trunk of the car was popped open and Curtis and I placed the trunk we were carrying inside. It was too big, and the top wouldn’t close.
Eddie didn’t have anything to tie it down, but we decided to take our chances and drive it to Kristin’s house anyway.
“Tell that thing to go back to the tower,” said Eddie.
“No,” said Kristin. “He’s coming home with me.”
“Are you freaking crazy?”
“We can’t leave him all alone out there,” said Kristin. “He’s our friend.”
“He’s a zombie!” said Eddie.
“Curtis, get in the car,” said Kristin.
“No, no freaking way,” said Eddie.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked Kristin.
“No,” she said. “But we can’t leave him out here where he might kill somebody else.”
“That thing is not riding in my car,” said Eddie.
“Dude,” I said.
“He stinks!” said Eddie.
“Kristin’s right,” I said. “We can’t leave a killer zombie running around.”
Eddie snorted.
“You would take her side,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
“What do you think?” said Eddie.
I shot a quick glance at Kristin. She was looking away.
“The hell with you, man.” said Eddie. “The hell with all of you.”
He threw his cigarette on the ground, got into his car, and drove away.
“Hey!” said Kristin. “My books! Eddie!”
Eddie’s car continued down the road, turned a corner, and was gone.
“Eddie!” said Kristin.
We stood there for a moment, probably both hoping to see Eddie’s car coming back to pick us up, that all was forgiven. A few minutes passed. I could hear the crickets. Curtis swayed unsteadily, like he was drunk.
“I guess we’re walking home,” I said. “Kristin?”
She was wiping tears from her eyes, trying not to be too obvious about it.
“Guess so,” she said, and sniffled. “Come on, Curtis.”
The three of us shuffled off down the street. It wasn’t a bad walk, and Kristin’s house wasn’t too far away. We walked in silence for awhile, and then I got up my courage to speak.
“Did you tell him?” I asked.
“No, Charlie,” she said, sounding tired.
“Well, so, how does he...?”
“You make it kind of obvious,” she said.
“Oh.”
“In fact, you should probably just cool it. You know?”
“Okay,” I said.
I wanted to die right there on the spot.
Then we heard a police car pull up behind us and tap its siren. Bwoop! And the red lights flashed. Kristin cursed. My heart thumped like crazy and my palms started sweating. Curtis looked over at me, and his eyes met mine, and I watched in horror as his mouth twisted into that old lop-sided grin of his.
The cruiser came up alongside us and the front passenger window rolled down with a whirring sound. I could barely make out the face of the policeman sitting inside.
“Bit late for a school night,” said the policeman, almost bored.
“We’re going home,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“Uh-huh. What are you doing out here?”
“Nothing,??
? I said.
“You got any beer? Pot?”
I shook my head, no.
“You out tagging?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“What’s the matter with your friend?” he asked, sounding more serious.
“Nothing,” I said.
“He’s sick,” said Kristin, at the same time.
“Which is it?” the policeman asked.
We said nothing.
“I asked you a question,” said the policeman.
“He’s okay,” I said.
I looked at Kristin. There was panic in her eyes.
“Put your hands out where I can see them,” said the policeman.
Then he got out of his car with his flashlight and came around to us. He pointed the flashlight at Curtis’s face.
“What the hell—” he said.
“Curtis, kill!” said Kristin.
Curtis fell upon the policeman immediately. The cop screamed as Curtis dragged him to the ground. I saw his fingers go into the policeman’s neck and then I turned around.
“Don’t look, Kristin,” I said.
Then I heard the most awful sounds, wet, ripping sounds, and snapping, bones snapping like twigs, and an urgent, terrible gnawing, desperate and vile.
“Stop, Curtis, that’s enough,” said Kristin.
I chanced a glance. The policeman was on the pavement, a large pool of blood forming around him. The policeman’s limbs were all bent. I looked away.
“What the hell did you do that for?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” said Kristin. “I didn’t know what to do.”
I looked at Curtis. His face was a blank, his eyes looking in two different directions.
“Curtis?” I said.
There was no reply.
“Curtis?” I asked again.
He stood there, swaying, blood dripping off his fingers.
“Oh, man,” I said, gesturing toward the policeman. “This is bad. This is really bad.”
“I said I was sorry!”
“We need to get out of here,” I said. “Curtis, drag the body into the woods.”
Curtis didn’t move.
“Would you tell him to—”
“Please don’t hate me,” she said.
“What? No, I—I would never.”
There was panic in her eyes. I put my hands on her shoulders and tried to sound calm.
“Look, we’re going to figure this out. First thing we got to do is get rid of the body.”
Kristin slowly nodded.
A moment later Curtis grabbed the policeman by his ankles and hauled him off the side of the road. I saw the policeman’s blood-splattered head, barely attached to his neck, and I looked away.
“Did you see him…kind of smile, when he killed that guy?” I asked.
Kristin nodded.
“I told you,” she said. “He’s still in there.”
I saw the lumbering shadow of my friend through the dark trees and I skin crawled.
Focus, man. Stay on target.
“They have video cameras in these things now,” I said, pointing to the police car. “So this was probably all caught on tape.”
“Maybe Curtis could drive the car into the reservoir,” she said.
“Too risky,” I said. “The cops are looking for him, remember? The last thing we want is some kind of zombie car chase.”
“A zombie car chase sounds kind of awesome,” said Kristin.
“Could you be serious for a moment here?”
“Okay, what?”
I walked over to the driver’s side of the police car and looked inside. There was a computer, a CB radio, a notebook on the seat, a cup of coffee. I figured the camera was probably mounted in the dashboard, but I had no idea how to turn it off, or break it.
Then I got an idea. I opened the car door, reached down and popped the trunk. From out of the trunk I pulled a couple of flares.
“Stand back,” I said.
I had never used a flare before, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out. Once it was lit, I threw it down on the front passenger seat, which pretty much caught fire right away. Soon the whole inside of the car was burning, black smoke billowing out the windows.
Curtis had returned, and we watched the car burn for a few moments.
“Isn’t it going to explode?” asked Kristin.
“Nah, not yet,” I said. “But we should probably go.”
We hurried out of there as fast as we could.
“Hey, Charlie,” said Kristin, with a look of surprise on her face. “You have a real talent for mayhem, you know that?”
I sure did. And it felt pretty good.