Hauntings by Ellen Datlow Read Free Book Online Page A

and I’m like, ‘No, really, cross my heart. What gives?’”
    Jeremy paused to take a deep breath, and in the silence I heard a faint click, like two pieces of metal rubbing up against each other. That’s when I understood what Jeremy was doing. He was “acting out,” which is a term I learned when I forgot Mr. Fuzzy at Dr. Bainbridge’s one day, back at the clinic in Starkville, after I got suspended from school. When I slipped inside to get him, Dr. Bainbridge was saying, “You have to understand, Mariam, with all these pressures at home, it’s only natural that he’s acting out.”
    I asked Dr. Bainbridge about it the next week, and he told me that sometimes people say and do things they don’t mean just because they’re upset about something else. And now I figured Jeremy was doing it because he was so upset about Mom and stuff. He was trying to scare me, that’s all. He’d even found the little bundle of tools under my bed and he was over there clicking them together. I’d have been mad if I hadn’t understood. If I hadn’t understood, I might have even been afraid—Mr. Fuzzy was, I could feel him shivering against my chest.
    â€œDid you hear that?” Jeremy said.
    â€œI didn’t hear anything,” I said, because I wasn’t going to play along with his game.
    Jeremy didn’t answer right away. So we lay there, both of us listening, and this time I really didn’t hear anything. But it seemed even darker somehow, darker than I’d ever seen our little bedroom. I wiggled my fingers in front of my face and I couldn’t see a thing.
    â€œI thought I heard something.” This time you could hear the faintest tremor in his voice. It was a really fine job, he was doing. I couldn’t help admiring it. “And that would be bad,” Jeremy added, “because this Mueller, he was crazy as a shithouse rat.”
    I hugged Mr. Fuzzy close. “Crazy?” I said.
    â€œCrazy,” Jeremy said solemnly. “This kid, he told me that all the farms around there, the farmers had about a zillion kids. Everybody had a ton of kids in those days. And one of them turned up missing. No one thought anything about it at first—kids were always running off—but about a week later another kid disappears. This time everybody got worried. It was this little girl and nobody could figure out why she would run off. She was only like seven years old.”
    â€œShe was my age?”
    â€œThat’s right, Si. She was just your age.”
    Then I heard it again: this odd little clicking like Grandma’s knitting needles used to make. Jeremy must have really given that bundle a shake.
    â€œ Shit ,” Jeremy said, and now he sounded really scared. Somebody ought to have given him an Oscar or something.
    He switched on the light. It was a touch of genius, that—his way of saying, Hey, I’m not doing anything! , which of course meant he was. I stared, but the bundle was nowhere in sight. I figured he must have tucked it under the covers, but it was hard to tell without my glasses on. Everything looked all blurry, even Jeremy’s face, blinking at me over the gap between the beds. I scooched down under the covers, holding Mr. Fuzzy tight.
    â€œIt was coming from over there,” he said. “Over there by your bed.”
    â€œI didn’t hear anything,” I said.
    â€œNo, I’m serious, Si. I heard it, didn’t you?”
    â€œYou better turn out the light,” I said, just to prove I wasn’t afraid. “Mom’ll be mad.”
    â€œRight,” Jeremy said, and the way he said it, you could tell he knew it was an empty threat. Mom had told me she was sick when I’d knocked on her bedroom door after school. I opened the door, but it was dark inside and she told me to go away. The room smelled funny, too, like the stinging stuff she put on my knee the time Jeremy