Suckers - Jack Kilborn [24]
“He’s not hiding in the van?” I asked them. “Maybe under your feet?”
“No way!” said Becky.
“Are you suuuuuuuuuure?”
“Yes way!”
“Seriously, Andrew,” said Becky’s mom, “we didn’t see him come out of the house. Do you think he’s okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine,” I muttered. “We should just leave him here.”
“Yeah, leave him! Leave him!” proclaimed Becky, while my own children giggled.
“No, no, we’re not going to leave him,” I said. “We’ll just wait for him to come out by himself. Boy, will he feel dumb.”
“Is everyone up for another game?” asked Becky’s mom. At the children’s vigorous assent, she began. “I spy, with my little eye…”
Ten minutes later, Roger still hadn’t come out of the Taywood house, and I was concerned. Yeah, he was sometimes obnoxious, and immature, and had an almost religious dedication to being a smart-ass, but he really wasn’t prone to these kinds of pranks. Even if it had only been the two of us, it would have been out of character to drag it out this long, but with the children present it was just plain mean-spirited. Sure, I was talking it up like it was a big game, but if I hadn’t been doing so Theresa and Kyle would’ve been worried sick.
“It’s Kyle’s butt!” said Becky.
“That was my next guess!” Theresa insisted.
“Becky! That’s not very nice! You apologize to him!” said her mother, in that Scolding Parent voice I’ve never quite been able to perfect.
“All right, I’m going back inside,” I decided. “I’ll give him one last chance to come out.”
“What if he doesn’t?” asked Becky’s mom.
“I don’t know yet. I’ll be back in five minutes, tops.”
I returned to the house and stepped into the living room, which was still empty. Once again I got that creeped-out feeling, along with the already present feelings of anger and worry.
“Roger, you’re taking this way too far,” I announced in a loud voice. “Theresa’s in the car crying. Come on out.”
No response.
“If you don’t come out, I’m going to have to assume that something happened to you, and I’ll have to call the police. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to explain to the cops that you were hiding out in an abandoned house just to play a joke on some kids. Get out here.”
Still nothing.
Fine. I’d do one last quick search of the house, and then contact the police. What a lousy Halloween. No candy, no creative use of the candy after the kids were asleep, possible trespassing charges…Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws was looking better and better.
I went back upstairs and waved my flashlight in every possible place that Roger could fit, all the while sharing a loud running commentary about what I was going to do to him when I found him, which included a list of the top five locations on his body that might serve as the flashlight’s final resting place.
He wasn’t anywhere upstairs. And there was simply no way he’d let the joke go on this long. Something had happened to him. It was officially time to go for help.
I went back to the staircase. As I headed downstairs, my flashlight beam shone across the face of an old man standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me. I recognized the face from the newspaper photos. Jarvis Taywood.
I tried to say “What the—,” “Holy—,” and “AAAIIIIEEEE!!!” all at the same time. It came out as an incoherent gurgle. I dropped the flashlight, which bounced down the stairs and rolled away. The figure was gone.
It took me a good fifteen seconds to realize that I needed to breathe, and another fifteen seconds after that to actually regain the ability to do so. One track of my mind kept insisting that there was a perfectly logical explanation, while another kept saying, “I do believe in spooks! I do believe in spooks! I do I do I do!”
No, I didn’t. There was a perfectly logical explanation for this. Roger wearing a Jarvis Taywood mask, for example. Everything would be explained as soon as I walked down the stairs to investigate.
The dark stairs.
I walked slowly, carefully, making sure I didn’t fall and kill myself, which would’ve been a pretty major act of party pooping if this did turn out to be a