1.1 Raisinville, Population 2711
Sarah screwed the adjustment wheel on the binoculars until her view through the lenses focused.
No doubt about it; her mother’s new tenant at 417 Brooks Street was moving in. The man was definitely taking boxes into the house from the small Ford pickup truck and coming out empty-handed.
She scowled, blowing a stray strand of faded blonde hair from her peripheral vision. The late summer trees were wearing thin, but the leaves weren’t falling yet—just crumpling up in shades of orange and red until they burnt out in brown and died. Her view of the rental house two streets over was obstructed by a few homes nestled in her line of vision, but it was mostly the trees that ran blocker.
She leaned closer to the window and bumped the binoculars on the pane. Her eye sockets smarted at the impact, making her nearly drop the glasses and cover her eyes with both hands. “Ugh...ouch...”
She still had both fists in her eyes when her cell phone rang, making her yelp and grab it before her position in the attic could be pinpointed. She checked the screen. It was Deidre. She stuck the phone in her pocket, still rubbing her eyes with the other hand.
Through the window, she could barely see any activity at the rental house yard without the binoculars. The attic room was stuffy and hot and the closed window only reflected the Friday afternoon sun back at her. She took a deep breath and flicked her ponytail out of the binocular strap around her neck and raised the glasses again.
“...three...four...” she murmured as she saw the man complete another trip of boxes. She smiled.
The new tenant was young, tall, blondish, with a lean build in jeans and a dark gray t-shirt, moving among the pickup and front door of the rental house alone.
“No one helping him,” she said aloud. “Hmm, no girlfriend. Maybe a student?” She nodded to herself, watching the man make another trip. She couldn’t tell how old he was, but he didn’t move like he was old, and the town was close enough to the college for easy commuting. “Too old for high school,” she guessed aloud.
“Then too old for you,” a male voice said behind her.
Sarah recoiled at Croy’s voice and nearly strangled herself as she half-flung the binoculars to her side. “Agh! Croy! You scared me to death!”
Croy crossed his arms over his chest, unconcerned at her brush with the afterlife. “You’re in my room.”
“It’s the attic,” she said briskly, composing herself.
“My room now, sis.” He stepped to her side and looked out the window. “Who you spying on?”
She unwound herself from the binocular strap. “No one.”
He grabbed the glasses while she was still strapped to them and held them to his eyes.
“Croy...” she grumbled as the strap pulled her to his side, smelly armpit and all.
“Hush, I’m looking.” His finger wound the adjustment wheel. “The rental house?”
“Maybe...” She ducked out from the strap and wiped her ponytail from her sweat-damp neck. “How can you stand it up here? It’s like a sauna.”
“With two roommates, I could swing the rent on that dump,” he grouched, testily thumbing the adjustment on the glasses. “So much for the college experience.”
She tried to squint through the window enough to make out the rental house’s activity, but the distance was too great. “What? You and your college buddies trashing the place? Skipping class?”
He lowered the binoculars and faced her. The whisper of a dark mustache traced his upper lip. “I’d make classes, Sarah. She just wants me here to do shit around the house.”
He shoved the glasses back at her and grabbed the window ledge and heaved it up. With a crack of old paint, the window lifted and let in a much-needed breeze.
“Why didn’t you do that before you left for class this morning?” Despite her words, Sarah smiled at the welcome draft of cooler air.
“Because it was raining this morning and coming straight this way.” He turned and knocked an elbow on the deeply slanted ceiling of the room as he pulled his t-shirt over his head.
She backed up and giggled at his funny bone impact, estimating her older brother’s build. “Scrawny.”
He didn’t turn around, tossing the shirt on a pile of other dirty clothes on the floor as he headed for his half-made bed. “Freshman.”
She smiled. At least it was high school. A whole new level of new in Raisinville. “I can see why Cassandra Bradford is so in love with you with a body like that... Oh, wait, that’s right. She’s not.”
Before she could finish her laugh, he chucked a pillow at her. “Get out!”
She didn’t duck in time and the pillow caught her face with her mouth open. “Ugh! Don’t you ever wash that thing?” She kicked the fallen pillow to him. “It smells like you on a hot day.”
Croy flopped onto his bed. “Beat it, Sarah!”
1.2 Raisinville, Population 2712
Deidre Churchill was night to Sarah Foster’s day. Sarah was all blue eyes and blonde hair and Deidre was brunette and brown-eyed. It had always been that way, since day one in kindergarten, except for the summer that Deidre had bleached her hair blonde.
It had been the summer that her parents had split, and then her mother deserted her for some man she met in a bar. Since then Deidre had left her hair dark and had lived with her grandmother. It had been a steady audio diet of “irresponsible parenting” comments directed at Deidre’s mother—her grandmother’s daughter—but a decent living.
Sarah shared Deidre’s passage of her teenage years at the tall Victorian house on Main Street where Phyllis Churchill lived, splitting the time almost equally at the Foster house. For the most part, they were nearly sisters, until Deidre developed a crush on Croy, which Sarah found just plain creepy. Fortunately, Deidre’s lapse into stupid was over and they moved on to other unreturned love interests.
Deidre giggled at Sarah’s obvious shock. “Do you like it?”
They were behind the Raisinville Public Library where Grandma Phyllis was lecturing the Historical Society on some long-dead town patron. Evening was wearing on, and the tattoo on Deidre’s shoulder blade was a little fuzzy in the poor lighting from the neighboring cinema.
“You got a tattoo?” Sarah could only stare. “Really?”
“Do you like it?” Deidre moved her shoulder in what was supposed to be an alluring circular fashion, but turned out more of a jerky twitch because of her pushup bra.
“A dragonfly?” Sarah took a step closer.
The tattoo was sketchy, black, and looked evil in the bad lighting.
“A butterfly,” Deidre insisted.
Sarah frowned. “Have you seen it? Up close?”
Deidre quickly shrugged her double tank-top straps back onto her shoulder. “Of course I have.”
“Oh.” Sarah forced a smile. “Well, yeah...cool.”
“You don’t like it.” Deidre flipped her dark hair over her shoulder to hide the embellishment. “It cost me sixty dollars.”
Sarah blinked twice. “Really?”
Deidre snapped her bubblegum and slung her purse over her shoulder. “Well, that’s for touch-ups, too.”
“Touch-ups?” Sarah followed as Deidre walked to the alley between the library and theater. “I didn’t know—“
“For color. Later.” Deidre didn’t look at her.
“Oh. Color.” Sarah tried to hide her confusion.
A sudden dark shadow fell over the alley, darker even than the evening. Both girls stopped and looked up as an inky shadow riding just below the heavens passed over them and continued on. A rushing sound followed the dark, leaving as quickly as it had arrived.
Sarah shivered. “Weird.”
Deidre nodded. “Very weird.”
They rounded the theater and found a line already formed for Blood Scream 3. The nine o’clock show was ten minutes away. Sarah and Deidre stepped into line just as a carload of preteens got out of a mini van.
Deidre popped h
er gum and blew another bubble. She sucked it back into her mouth and looked to Sarah. “What’s Blood Scream 3 got that One and Two didn’t?”
Sarah had just opened her mouth to answer when she caught sight of a somewhat familiar form passing down the sidewalk between the library and the bar on the other side. Her mouth hung open as she leaned out of line as her gaze followed the tall, lanky figure until he moved out of sight.
It was a brief glimpse, but it instantly registered in her mind.
“Hey,” Deidre said, elbowing Sarah’s side. “What did you see? A ghost?” She giggled. “Grandma is giving a lecture on the town patron saints tonight. Maybe one of ‘em got loose, you think?”
Sarah stood on tiptoe, but the figure was gone, down the alley, past the newspaper boxes and out of sight. “Huh?”
“Who did you see?” Deidre followed her gaze.
Sarah turned back to her. “Zombies.”
Deidre huffed a sigh. “You saw zombies?”
“No, Blood Scream 3 has zombies.”
They moved ahead as the line of mostly teens shifted to the ticket window.
“Blood Scream 1 had vampires and Two had werewolves,” Sarah said. “Three has zombies.”
Deidre nodded, still watching her. “Then who were you looking at? That blond guy that went down the alley?”
Sarah gave an eager nod. “Mom’s new renter...I think.”
Deidre spun around and sent a glance back to the alley. “What’s he like?”
“Don’t know yet.” Sarah tugged at Deidre when the line moved ahead. “But he’s older, like college-age.”
A flirty glint came to Deidre’s eyes. “Oh?”
Sarah felt a shove from behind, accompanied by Croy’s, “Which makes you two too young.”
Sarah turned to see her brother. “What are you doing here?”
He grinned. “Babysitting.”
“We don’t need you here,” Sarah said, turning her back on him.
“Yeah, well, tough luck, ‘cuz I’m staying.” He gave a glance around at the line, spotting Cassandra Bradford ahead of them near the ticket window.
Sarah breathed a tight exhale. “Go away, Croy.”
“No doing. I’m here.” His tone changed to something more serious. “Mom said so. According to Chief Bradford,” he said, voice lowering, “looks like someone used real blood to paint the graveyard this time.”