Debra tucked her legs under her slight frame and settled onto the cushion, “How are you, Corky? I’ve been meaning to come over for a long time.”
“I’m okay, I guess,” Corky said, sitting on the arm of the couch at the far end from Debra.
“No. I mean really,” Debra said, her blue eyes suddenly glowing with intensity, burning into Corky’s. “I mean, how are you really?”
“Not great,” Corky admitted. “I mean, it’s been hard. Real hard. You were there that night, Debra. It must be hard for you too.”
Debra nodded solemnly. “Kimmy and Ronnie think I’ve gone weird.” Her hand went up to the crystal at her neck. “They think I’m weird because I’ve become so interested in the occult. But I can’t get over what happened.”
Corky uttered a dry laugh. “We’ve all gone a bit weird, I think.”
Debra didn’t smile. “They told me not to tell you this, but I have to. They made me swear I wouldn’t say it, but I don’t care. I have to let you know, Corky.”
Corky walked to the window, turned, and rested her back against the sill. “Let me know what? Why are you being so mysterious, Debra?”
“The evil is still here,” Debra said flatly, her eyes suddenly dull as if someone had turned off a light inside her.
Corky’s mouth dropped open, but no words came out.
Debra shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
The awful jangling music from the Nintendo game upstairs seemed to grow louder.
“You were there, Debra,” Corky said, her voice nearly a whisper. “You saw me fight poor Jennifer. You saw the evil spirit pour out of her mouth. You saw the evil go down into Sarah Fear’s coffin where it was buried again. You saw it all, Debra.”
Debra nodded, keeping her lifeless eyes locked on Corky’s. “I saw. But I know the evil didn’t die, Corky. You didn’t kill it. Believe me. It’s still around.”
“But, Debra, maybe …”
Corky wasn’t sure what to say. Kimmy and Ronnie were right—Debra had gotten strange. She had always been a little quiet, a little cold even. But sitting there so straight on the couch, her legs tucked under her, dressed all in black, her pale face frozen in that stare, Debra looked positively frightening.
“Kimmy and Ronnie don’t believe me,” Debra said, clasping her hands in front of her almost as if preparing to pray. “But I’m right, Corky. The evil spirit is still around. I can feel the evil. I can feel it so strongly—right now—right in this house!”
“Please stop!” Corky cried. She pushed herself away from the window and walked back to the couch, stopping a few inches in front of Debra. “These books you’ve been reading. About voodoo and the occult—”
“I’ve been studying,” Debra replied, sounding defensive. “I know what I’m talking about, Corky.” She suddenly reached up and grabbed Corky’s hand. “We were never friends. I know I was never nice to you, or to your sister. But we have to be friends now. We have to trust each other.”
Debra’s hand was burning hot.
Corky pulled away.
Debra let her hand fall back in her lap.
Corky sat down beside her on the couch. “We have to forget what happened,” Corky heard herself say.
Debra shook her head, frowning. “We can’t. Not while the evil is still here.”
“Maybe you should stop reading all that stuff,” Corky said softly. “We’ve all been through a terrible experience. But we have to get on with our lives now. We have to force ourselves. I know that’s why Kimmy and Ronnie asked me back on the squad.”
“You’re not listening to me,” Debra insisted. “The evil spirit is alive. You didn’t kill it, Corky. There’s no way we can get on with our lives—not while it’s still here. You’ve got to believe me!”
“Debra, your hand is so hot. Do you have a temperature?” Corky asked.
A shrill whistle interrupted their conversation.
“Oh, no! I forgot all about the hot chocolate!” Corky hurried toward the kitchen.
“Let it whistle. I’ve been reading about ancient spirits,” Debra said. “I—”
“Sit still. We need something hot to drink,” Corky interrupted, “I’ll be right back.”
She hurried out of the room, her mind spinning, Debra’s words echoing in her ears.
Poor Debra, Corky thought. She seems as troubled as I am. She looks so pale, so tense, so … frail.
What can I say to her? she asked herself after turning off the teakettle. What does she expect me to say?
I don’t believe the evil spirit is still alive. I saw it buried.
I saw it. We all saw it.
But what if it’s true? What if it isn’t buried?
What then?
Is Debra trying to scare me? Corky suddenly wondered. Is she saying all this just to keep me from going back on the squad?
No. Debra believed what she was saying. It was obvious from the expression on her face, from the dull horror in her eyes.
Corky pulled two mugs down from the cabinet and glanced out the kitchen window.
Was that a figure she saw in the backyard? Was someone out there?
She looked again and saw nothing. It must be my imagination, Corky reasoned. She poured the chocolate powder into each mug, all the while peering nervously out the window into the dark yard.
“Hey, Corky?” Debra called from the living room.
“Be right there!” Corky shouted back to her. “I’m just going to pour the hot water.”
She lifted the kettle off the stove and carried it to the mugs on the counter.
As she reached the counter, her arm suddenly flew straight up.
Without wanting to, she raised the steaming kettle over her left hand.
“Hey!” she cried out.
She tried to lower her right arm, struggling to push the kettle back down.
To lower it.
To move it away from her left hand.
But her arm wouldn’t obey her.
She had no control over it.
And her left hand wouldn’t move away from the countertop.
“What’s happening? What’s happening to me?”
Holding the kettle high, her right hand tilted the kettle down.
Down.
Down.
Steam rose from the spout. Then the scalding water began to shower down on her left hand.
“Help! Ow!”
She couldn’t lower her arm, couldn’t move her hand out from under the boiling waterfall.
“Help me—please!” she cried.
The scalding water gushed over the back of her hand, splashing up her arm.
“I can’t stop! Can’t stop!”
The scalding water splashed onto her skin.
Burning.
Burning.
Burning beyond pain.
Beyond all sensation.
Chapter 5
Out of the Grave
“She’s up in her room,” Sean told Chip.
Chip tossed his Shadyside High letter jacket onto the banister and pulled down the sleeves of his bulky sweater. “Is it okay to go up?” he asked.
Sean blew a large pink bubble before replying. “Yeah. Kimmy’s up there too.”
Chip frowned. He glanced up to the top of the stairs. He didn’t really want to see Kimmy. It had been two months since he’d broken up with her and gone out with Bobbi Corcoran. But Kimmy still treated him coldly and made him feel uncomfortable every time they bumped into each other. When they passed in the halls at school, she always turned away, cutting him dead.
“Is Corky feeling okay?” Chip asked Sean, delaying the confrontation.
Sean nodded, unsticking bubble gum from his cheeks. “Yeah, she’s okay. Only she can’t wrestle.”
“That’s too bad,” Chip replied, chuckling. He was trying to decide whether to go upstairs or not. “Maybe I’ll come back later,” he told Sean.
“Chip, is that you?” Corky’s voice called from upstairs.
Trapped, he
thought.
“Hi!” he shouted and stepped past Sean to climb the stairs.
He stopped in the doorway to Corky’s bedroom. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her bandaged hand resting in her lap. Kimmy was standing by the dresser, zipping up her down coat.
“How you doing?” Chip asked Corky, flashing her a broad smile.
“A lot better,” Corky said, smiling back.
Chip crossed the room and bent down to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. After Bobbi’s death, he and Corky had become friends. Corky found that he was someone she could talk to, about her sister, about her feelings of grief, about her fears. After a while they had become more than friends.
A tall, athletic-looking boy with an open, friendly face, Chip was wearing a heavy wool plaid sweater, all greens and blues, which made him look big and broad shouldered. His thick brown hair was unbrushed as usual.
“So the hand is better?” he asked Corky.
“Don’t mind me. I’m just leaving,” Kimmy interrupted, her voice dripping with bitterness.
“Oh, hi, Kimmy,” Chip said, trying to sound casual. He didn’t turn to her. He didn’t want to see the disapproval on her face.
“Thanks for coming,” Corky told Kimmy, standing up. “And thanks for bringing my homework.”
“See you Monday,” Kimmy said. With a toss of her black crimped hair, she strode quickly from the room.
As soon as she was gone, Chip stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Corky’s shoulders, drawing her into a hug.
“Ow. Be careful. My hand!” she exclaimed.
“Hey, what are you two doing?” a voice shouted from the bedroom doorway.
They both looked around to see Sean, hands on hips, staring suspiciously at them.
“We’re not doing anything,” Corky said defensively.
Sean glared at her. “I thought you said you couldn’t wrestle. You were wrestling with him.” He pointed accusingly at Chip.
“We weren’t wrestling,” Corky said, laughing. “Now get lost.”
“Make me.” Sean’s standard reply.
“Go on. Beat it,” Corky insisted.
Sean put his tongue between his lips and made a rude sound. Another of his standard replies.
Chip laughed.
Corky elbowed Chip in the ribs. “Don’t encourage him,” she chided. She glared at her brother. “Go on. Get lost.”
“Okay,” he said, pouting. “I’m going.” Sean started out of the room, but turned at the doorway. “But no wrestling, you hear?”
He disappeared, and Corky heard him clomping back down the stairs.
“He’s funny,” Chip said, still chuckling.
“Who needs funny?” Corky asked dryly. She dropped back onto the edge of the bed.
Chip sat down beside her. “So the hand—it’s really better?”
“Yeah. It’s still pretty tender. You have no idea how hard it is to dress yourself with one hand!” She laughed, a forced laugh. “I’m going back to school on Monday,” she told him. “It’s been a long week. A long week.”
He started to say something, but the phone on the night table rang. Corky sprang up to answer it.
“Oh. Hi. Yeah. Can I call you back later?” she said, holding the receiver in her right hand. “Chip just arrived. Okay. Bye.”
She hung up the phone and, catching a glimpse of herself in the dresser mirror, ran her uninjured hand through her blond hair, smoothing it back.
“Who was that?” Chip asked, lying back on the quilted bedspread, resting his head on his hands.
“Debra,” she replied. “She calls me every afternoon now. Ever since I burned my hand and she ran next door to get my parents, I think she feels responsible for me or something.”
“Is she still insisting that the evil spirit made you burn yourself?” Chip asked, frowning.
Corky crossed to the window and looked down on the backyard. The late-afternoon sun had lowered itself behind the trees, making shadows stretch all across the leaf-covered lawn.
“Don’t make fun of Debra,” she said in a low voice.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” Chip replied quickly. “It’s just that she’s gone weird or something. People accidentally burn themselves all the time, Corky. Your right hand slipped. The water poured onto your left hand. And—”
“My hand didn’t slip,” Corky said shrilly. “It wasn’t an accident, Chip.” She decided she had to tell him what really happened.
Chip pulled himself up to a sitting position. His face revealed his surprise. “You mean you believe her?” he asked, his voice rising several octaves.
“I don’t have to believe her,” Corky replied sharply, staring at him now. “I was there. I know what happened. I could feel the evil, Chip, I could feel it paralyze me. The evil spirit was there. It forced me to scald myself. It held my hand there and forced me!”
“Okay. Okay. Sorry,” Chip muttered. He didn’t like to fight with her. He almost always backed down or changed the subject. “That scary guy hasn’t shown up again?” he asked. “The one with the gray eyes?”
“No sign of him,” Corky replied. She shook her head bitterly. “Kimmy and Ronnie are sure that I made him up. Every time I started to point him out, he’d vanish. Poof.” She snapped her fingers.
“Weird,” Chip replied. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. “So do you—”
“I never told you, I talked to a psychiatrist,” Corky interrupted, walking back to the bed and sitting down next to him.
“Huh?”
“At the hospital,” she told him, “when I told the emergency-room doctors how I burned my hand, they called for a psychiatrist to see me. I guess they thought I did it deliberately or something.” She rolled her eyes.
Then Corky’s expression grew thoughtful. As she talked, she smoothed the bedspread with her unbandaged hand.
“He was a young guy. Really nice. His name was Dr. Sterne. He was the psychiatrist Mayra Barnes saw for a while.”
Chip reacted with surprise. “Mayra? What did she need him for? She’s got to be the most normal person in Shadyside!”
“She told me she started sleepwalking suddenly a couple of summers ago,” Corky told him. “This Dr. Sterne helped her a lot.”
“So what did he say to you?” Chip asked. “Did you tell him about the evil spirit?”
Corky turned her eyes to the window, avoiding Chip’s stare. “Well, actually … no.”
“Huh?”
“I just didn’t want to get into it with him,” she confessed. “I mean, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want him to think I was totally crazy. I told him about Bobbi dying and everything—”
“And what did he say?” Chip demanded.
“He said I should try to return to a normal routine, He said I’ve been through a lot. But I have to stop dwelling on the past. I have to try to get my life back on track.” She grabbed Chip’s hand and squeezed it. “He was very understanding.”
“What’s a normal routine?” Chip asked. “You mean like early to bed, early to rise, or something?”
“Don’t be dumb. He means I should try to do things the way I did before—before Bobbi died and that evil spirit …” Her voice trailed off. “I mean, I’m thinking of going back on the cheerleading squad.”
“Outstanding!” Chip exclaimed with genuine enthusiasm.
“Well, I thought I’d give it a try,” Corky said, still resting her hand on his. “Kimmy and Ronnie have been insisting, so …”
“Excellent,” Chip said, squeezing her hand. “Excellent.”
“I’m going to rejoin for two reasons,” Corky said, her voice a whisper, her expression thoughtful. “I know I have to adjust to not having Bobbi around anymore. Getting back on the squad will keep me busy. You know, give me something to think about.”
“And what’s the second reason?” Chip asked.
“I have to find the evil spirit,” she said, locking her eyes on his. “The evil is back. It must be inhabiting someone else. May
be someone I know.”
“Huh? What makes you so sure?” Chip demanded.
“Because it was right in my house the other night,” Corky said in a whisper, staring down at the floor. “I’m going to find it before it kills again.”
Chip stared at her thoughtfully, but didn’t reply.
She raised her eyes to his. “I have one favor to ask. Sort of a big one,” she said reluctantly.
“Yeah?” Chip eyed her warily. “What is it?”
“Come with me to the cemetery tonight after dinner?” She asked in a tiny, pleading voice.
“Huh?” He swept his hand back through his thick, disheveled hair.
“Come with me. I want to go to Bobbi’s grave. Just one more time. I promised myself I’d stop going there so often. But I just want to tell Bobbi my decision. About going back on the cheerleading squad.”
Chip sighed. “Bad idea,” he said softly.
Corky squeezed his hand. “Come on, Chip.”
“It’s a bad idea, Corky,” he repeated heatedly. “You said that shrink wants you to get back to a normal routine. Well, going to the cemetery all the time isn’t normal. I don’t think you should go.”
She leaned over and pressed her cheek against his. “Come on,” she pleaded softly. “One last time. I promise.”
She kept her face pressed against his. He turned toward her. She kissed him tenderly. A long kiss. A pleading kiss.
When she finally pulled her face away from his, she could see his features soften.
‘Okay, okay. I’ll go with you after dinner.” And then he added, “I guess there’s no harm. What could happen?”
It was a warm night for early December. Thousands of tiny white stars dotted the charcoal sky. A huge full moon cast bright light over the Fear Street cemetery.
Since the cemetery was little more than a block from Corky’s house, she and Chip walked. He carried a flashlight, in case the moonlight wasn’t enough, swinging it as they walked.
She asked him about last Saturday’s basketball game, the first preseason one. He told her about the center on the opposing team who repeatedly slamdunked even though he was the smallest guy on the floor! She told Chip how Sean had slipped green food coloring into the mashed potatoes just before dinner.