The Book of Bad Things by Dan Poblocki Read Free Book Online Page A

those magazines she’d mentioned. Strange State ? Cassidy thought maybe tomorrow they could call up someone in the editor’s office and tell them about the Hermit of Chase Estates and the junk that everyone had pulled out of her house, or about Lucky, the ghost dog that was haunting the woods nearby. Or maybe, Cassidy thought, she’d add these odd things to her own little journal.
    Later, after presenting her gifts to the Tremonts — a bag of chocolate-covered potato chips from an expensive store on Atlantic Avenue and a small cheesecake from a famous Brooklyn bakery — she climbed the stairs to Tony’s bedroom, her bedroom for now, thinking of what Levi Stanton had said about the nature of what scares us. The first step in conquering fear is recognizing where it’s coming from. Cassidy had begun her Bad Things journal with this idea in mind. Stepping into the darkness beyond her host-brother’s closed door, she made the decision that the name Joey Tremont would never go into her book. She would not allow him to become a Bad Thing , no matter how hard he tried to make her believe the opposite. They’d been friends once. How hard could it be to make that happen again?

I N THE CITY , at night, when Cassidy slept on her little couch, she could hear the trains of the subway as they passed underground several blocks away. Sometimes the weight of the train would vibrate her entire neighborhood. Often, these vibrations would catch something in Cassidy’s apartment — a picture frame hanging loosely, a couple glasses touching in the sink’s drying rack, a piece of furniture sitting just-so on the slightly slanted wood flooring — and release a faint but obnoxious rattle. The noise never lasted long enough for Cassidy to find its source on the first try. And so she would wait fifteen minutes for the next train to pass, to send out its vibrations, and the rattle would come again.
    It was like a game, though an unpleasant one — every passing tremor leading Cassidy closer to the offending object until finally she’d zero in on it. She’d shift that frame on the wall, or separate the glasses by the sink, or kick at the chair or bureau or table that had somehow, by pure chance, ended up in the exact wrong position. Then, if all went well, she’d crawl back underneath her blanket to capture a few more hours of sleep before dawn.
    It was such a city type of annoyance, that when Cassidy was woken by a similar rattle that first night back in Whitechapel, she opened her eyes into darkness and panicked that the whole day had been a dream, that she was still in Brooklyn, huddled on her hot little couch. But soon Tony’s room — her room — took shape, and she clutched at the soft sheets she’d taken from the hall closet only that afternoon.
    Above, the ceiling fan spun at mid speed, creating a soft din that almost drowned out all other noise. Almost. Something was rattling close by, just like in the city when the subway growled through its underground passages.
    Cassidy sat up. She straightened her T-shirt and shorts. She stood still and craned her neck, listening. The vibration must have been tiny or very far away, because she could not feel it against her bare feet. Tony’s bedroom was above the garage and was large enough that it looked out on both the front and back yards. There was usually a cooling cross-breeze after the sun went down. What if the breeze itself was the culprit?
    But the rattle sounded as though it were coming from beside the window facing the street. As she neared the sill, she thought that the bookcase there must be rubbing ever-so-slightly against the wall. She pulled the wooden case away and the rattle stopped. She listened to the quiet night to see if the rattle came again from somewhere else. But it did not. The house itself must have been trembling. But why? How? A couple years ago, she’d felt the earthquake that hit the city; her desk at school had rocked back and forth like she was on a