“What? How?”
“He killed himself. With a gun. But I have a message for you.”
“What kind of message?” He didn’t seem to care that Don was dead. He didn’t act all that surprised or ask any more about it. That didn’t make him a very nice friend.
“Isaac Morgan will be at our house soon. And he’ll be alone.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He owned the cabin you burned down.”
“I didn’t burn anything down!”
Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he only shot David. Jeremy didn’t argue. He was getting too nervous. “Okay, well, anyway, no one else will be home.”
There was a long silence. “Are you kidding? This is like taking instructions from a ten-year-old! How can I trust you?”
“I’m just trying to help,” Jeremy said.
“Fuck!” he screamed, and hung up.
“That’s a bad word,” Jeremy said, but there was no one to hear him.
By the time he put the receiver down, he was breathing hard. He didn’t want Isaac to be shot, to have his brains all over the wall Jeremy had just cleaned, but…he wouldn’t think of that. It would all be over soon. Then Isaac would be buried and he wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore. Jeremy had no choice. He had to leave now. Claire would get over Isaac. Once she understood that Isaac was dead, she’d have to get over him just like she’d gotten over David.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be your sweetheart,” he whispered.
The thought of finally touching her, of kissing her with his mouth open like Isaac, made Jeremy’s whole body tingle.
He’d only been able to dream about kissing her in the past. Now it would be real. And they’d be together forever.
He wouldn’t let her leave him like his parents had.
Claire sat up straight, feeling as if she’d been wide-awake all along. She heard a noise at the door, thought maybe it was Isaac. Even while she slept she’d worried about him, kept dreaming that he was in a car chase or a gunfight or lay bleeding somewhere and she couldn’t get to him.
“Isaac?” She was so eager to have him back with her, she got up and went to the door, although she knew he’d taken a key card.
“It’s me.” Jeremy. She frowned as she recognized his voice and peeked through the peephole to see a somewhat distorted view of his head.
What did he need now? He’d had such a hard time going to his own room when Isaac left. He hadn’t wanted to be alone, but Isaac wouldn’t let him stay in their room, and she was glad. He was acting so strange; it was starting to creep her out. The way he stared at her, how quickly he agreed with anything she said, how loudly he laughed at any joke, no matter how lame, she could usually tolerate. But something had changed…?. Still, Alana and Roni, as well as her father, had warned her not to mistreat him, even when she didn’t want him following her around, and she heard their voices in her head now. His life was hard enough, especially with some of the other kids’ cruelty. She didn’t want to be unkind.
“What is it you need?” she called back.
“Can I come in? I—I can’t sleep. My father’s dead. I know it. He’s buried under the house. There was blood. Everywhere.”
“He’s buried where?” That part sounded a little too definite for comfort. What would make Jeremy say something like that?
“Right next to your mother. I’ll tell you where she is if you’ll let me in.”
No way could Jeremy know what he was talking about. It was pathetic how far he’d go to avoid being alone.
Claire rubbed her face while trying to decide what to do. She didn’t want him to disturb any of their neighbors by continuing to knock on her door. She was afraid the manager would come down to shoo him away. Then what would she do? She’d have to take him in because she was pretty sure Jeremy wouldn’t be able to handle that, and she felt responsible for him.
“Look, Jeremy, I’m tired. I understand you want to help me, and I want to help you, too. We’re friends. But you can’t tell me where my mother is because you don’t know.”
“Yes, I do. I swear. She’s in a suitcase under the house. My father killed her.”
If not for the mention of the suitcase, Claire might’ve passed this off as a fanciful invention. That a piece of luggage had gone missing from the house the same day as her mother wasn’t one of those details the police had kept under tight wraps, but Jeremy was talking about an incident that’d happened fifteen years ago. How come he remembered the suitcase?
A chill went through her as she envisioned what he’d told her. She didn’t like what he was doing to get her to open the door, but she couldn’t hold it against him, either. He was frightened and desperate and probably had no clue how hard it was for her to hear things like this, how gruesome imagining her mother’s body in a suitcase would be.
On second thought, it wasn’t all that surprising he’d remember the suitcase. He had an incredible memory for odd facts, unusual details, numbers. He never had to write down a phone number. He could rattle off any one he’d ever called, even if he’d only dialed it once. The kids at school used to jabber off a bunch of numbers just to see if they could stump him.
“Claire?” He knocked again. “Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.” She just didn’t know how to respond.
“Do you believe in zombies?” he asked.
“No, Jeremy. I don’t. There’s no such thing.” This confirmed it. He was completely out of touch with reality.
“I’m afraid my mom and your dad are going to come alive and—and hurt me if I don’t take care of you. I promised your mother I’d keep you safe. Did you know that?”
“No, but it’s…sweet.” In a revolting sort of way…
“So will you let me in?”
She rested her head against the door. “Jeremy, I was asleep…?.”
“Please? I don’t like it out here.”
“Can’t you just go back to your room?”
“No, there are zombies in my room!”
“Oh, God,” she muttered to herself, but she pulled on her jeans under the T-shirt she’d worn to bed and opened the door.
Jeremy stood in the puddle of blue light shed by the energy-conservation bulb in the fixture closest to her door, looking even more distraught than when he’d gone into his room fifteen or twenty minutes earlier. He’d really worked himself up.