Denton, Texas
Friday, January 19, 2007
Tap, tap, tap.
Melissa shot Amanda a dirty look. Immediately, the noise of Amanda’s boot tapping on the painted wooden stairstep stopped. “Sorry.”
Melissa grunted something that might have been “’sokay” and hunched back over her notebook. She had been working on the lyrics to “Every Day Feels Like Rain” for two hours, and still puzzled over what to do with the third stanza. Every word that came out her pen looked wrong, and when she said them out loud in her head, she couldn’t get the melody to work exactly right.
“Dammit, I give up,” Melissa snapped.
Amanda peeled her headphones off and pushed “stop” on her iPod. “What? I didn’t do anything. Christ, Melissa, you’re so touchy today.”
“It’s not you. It’s them downstairs.” Melissa looked down through the spaces between the weathered railing slats. “Do they ever shut up?”
“Maybe they’re having sex.” Amanda shrugged and started to put her headphones back on.
“Uh, I’m pretty sure the Gregory brothers are not having sex in their living room. They’re fighting. Loudly. For the fourth time this week.” She clapped her notebook closed and stood up, almost stepping on the hem of her black velvet skirt. “I can’t concentrate.”
“Tell them to keep it down.”
“What am I supposed to do, just go downstairs and poke my head in the door?”
Amanda stared at Melissa for several seconds with a blank expression. “Fine, never mind. I’ll do it.”
“Amanda, don’t. You know how Brian gets. Remember last month when Luke got drunk and told him off? And then had his tires slashed the next morning.”
“You just have to know what to say,” said Amanda, and she ground the smoldering end of her cigarette butt against the exposed metal of the railing before standing up and marching down to have a small battle of words with Brian Gregory.
The front door of Apartment 10 was cracked open, and one could clearly hear the voices of two young men shouting obscenities. She opened the door a few more inches and leaned into, but not over, the doorway. “What the hell are you two on about?” she demanded. “Melissa and I can hear you from the top of the stairwell and it’s getting on our nerves.”
Brian, a tall, burly sort who was mainly in college because the football team required it, paused only long enough to flip Amanda the bird. Then he grabbed his younger brother by the shirt and shook him.
“Where’s my jacket, Josh?”
Joshua squirmed out of Brian’s grip. “I don’t know where your damned jacket is, okay?”
“Nobody upstairs gives a flying fuck about it, either,” Amanda insisted.
“Mind your own goddamn business!” Brian yelled, and then he grabbed Joshua for a second time and slammed him into the living room wall. “You took it, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t! I swear!’ Joshua flinched every time Brian made a menacing move towards.him.
“Then where’d you get the money for all those CDs, huh?”
“I got paid this morning!”
“Then cough up your part of the rent and find my jacket, and maybe I won’t bash your head in!”
Amanda took a deep breath and shouted at the top of her lungs, “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
Brian threw Joshua onto the floor and stormed over to Amanda. “Listen, you little goth wannabe bitch, you can take yourself and your vampire teeth back upstairs, or I can punch them out.”
“Oh, no, you did NOT just call me a bitch. You wanna see a bitch, Brian? Come here and I’ll show you. Maybe you’d better put 911 on speed-dial so you don’t forget the number when you need it.”
Melissa appeared behind Amanda then, and she nervously ran her hand through her own bleached platinum-blonde hair. “Amanda. Calm down. We’ll go out to the parking lot or, hell, even to the park, and work on our song there.”
“Did you hear what he said, Melissa?”
“Let. It. Go. I’m sorry I said anything. Come on.”
*
Joshua watched the door close, a silent prayed on his lips that it wouldn’t close. He could smell the alcohol on Brian’s breath and he didn’t want to be at the receiving end of his rage, but now it didn’t look like he was going to be able to get away. He hadn’t really stolen Brian’s letter jacket; it got stolen from him when he borrowed the car and some petty thief broke into it and stole the coat, a bag of groceries, and an ashtray full of dimes and quarters originally destined for the President George Bush Turnpike.
It didn’t matter, and didn’t take any kind of special genius to know what a balled-up fist being pulled back meant. Joshua choked back a wail as pain exploded across his nose and cheek. A weight settled on his chest, making struggle to breathe, and Brian punched him until his eyes rolled back in his head and he was drawing in ragged gasps.
“You’re paying for another one,” Brian said. He grabbed two bottles of beer from the open 12-pack on the wobbly pine coffee table and stormed off to his bedroom.
Joshua picked himself up slowly and went into the bathroom to clean up. He gingerly sponged the blood off his face and leaned against the sink. “You’ve fucked with me for the last time, Brian,” he muttered.
Joshua grabbed his black backpack and Brian’s keys, and then quickly slipped out of the apartment. Even with Usher blaring from the other side of Brian’s bedroom door, the other man was likely to hear the familiar jingle of his mass of keys. Sure enough, Joshua had barely gotten to the driver’s side door of the beat-up silver Civic when he heard Brian’s voice behind him. He jumped in and started the car up again, not even bothering to let the engine warm up before pealing out of the parking space. He pressed the gas pedal and raced away, swerving around an incoming car so that Brian wouldn’t have time to catch up to him. As long as he got out of the parking lot in time, Brian wouldn’t be able to keep up on foot.
“I’m sick of this bullshit,” he mumbled, and wiped a tear from his cheek. It was the first time he’d cried since his mother’s funeral two years earlier. Then again, he wasn't crying. Not really. His eyes were just watering, that's all.
Brian had promised to take him in and take care of him, so that their overtaxed Aunt Patricia wouldn’t have to deal with a sixth mouth to feed. “All you’ve done is been a jackass.”
He reached into the side pocket of his backpack and pulled out a map. He found it when one of the neighbor kids, Jorge, had dropped it. It appeared to be a fake, some kind of Halloween joke; he had, after all, found it about a week before Halloween, and he’d never heard of a wishing well so close to his hometown. But there were the directions, sure enough, with instructions for how to invoke the spirit of the well. “You get one wish” was written in brown block letters near the bottom of the paper.
He would have given it back to the kid, except for two things. He knew that Jorge had gone out to the well with his parents, and that shortly thereafter the couple had a bigger, better car and dressed in new clothes. Not just Wal-Mart new, but upscale-mall new. There might have been something to the well after all “ and it couldn’t hurt to try. Second, Jorge was dead, killed in an accident at the corner of Carroll and University when the traffic lights malfunctioned and two cars collided.
Twenty minutes after leaving the apartment complex, Joshua parked the borrowed car and climbed out. He followed the map as precisely as he could, only having to start over after a misstep once. However, when he got to the place that was marked with an “X” on the yellowed paper, he didn’t see anything.
Joshua looked down. He was standing on a small rock “ one of a circle of rocks around two halves of a wooden board circle and weed overgrowth. At least there really is a well here, he thought, and slowly pulled the circle apart.
He glanced down into the well, but didn’t see anything. Forgot my flashlight, he thought, and dropped a small rock into the well.
Plop.
“All right, let’s do it.” Joshua held the map up, straining to read it with the trees blocking so much of the run. He studied the instructions and then groaned. He needed a 1947 penny.
Joshua looked through all the change in his backpack and in all his pockets. Finally he ran back to the Civic and searched on the floor and in the cushions. “Gotcha,” he said, and snatched up his prize from the back seat.
He dropped the coin into the water, turned around three times, and closed his eyes. “I wish that, um, the next time my older brother is out driving “ without me in the car “ he gets into a crash and dies.”
He heard echoes coming up from deep in the well, at water level. He thought it sounded like “I protect you” but he couldn’t be sure, because his vision suddenly exploded into shades of black, white, and gray that didn’t quite match what he should have been seeing. The ground melted into gray before him, littered with white dots, and he thought he saw a small hunched skeleton deep in the well. Ohgod-ohgod-ohgod. What’s happening? He stumbled back from the well and started running towards the car, a blinding white outline on a background of white, gray, and black. The keys in his hand were brilliant white, as were the bones in his hand, but he could hardly see his skin.
I’m seeing in X-ray vision, he thought. How? Why? What the hell have I done? I’m hallucinating. He hit me in the head. I have a concussion and I’m hallucinating and it’ll all be over soon, when he goes to the gym tomorrow.
He took off back towards the apartments, hoping that he wouldn't get into a wreck on the way home, or miss his exit.
*
“Amanda, we need three hundred dollars by Monday,” said Melissa. She dropped the stack of bills on the kitchen counter and opened up the fridge. There was a pack of cheese singles, only fifty-one percent real cheese, and a Tupperware tub of leftover spaghetti. She wrinkled her nose and shut the door again.
“I haven’t picked up my paycheck yet. I’ll get it tomorrow, and that should cover the rest of the rent.”
“What about the phone bill?”
“I guess... we need the rent more than we need the phones. If one of us loses cell service we can share for a month or two. And who knows “ maybe we’ll get some more gigs lined up after tomorrow night, and get some of the money in advance.
“I don’t want to depend on that. It’s a tough market. There are just too many people in music, and, let’s face it “ neither one of us is Britney Spears.”
“No, we’re not. A toast to being unlike Spears, and not having FedEx baggage?”
Melissa half-heartedly clinked her glass of sangria against Amanda’s. “Yeah. But I could use the cash. We’re lucky to average a hundred dollars a week.”
“And you just had to get a new keyboard,” Amanda said.
“We needed it! The old one had three broken keys!”
“I’ll just ask for more hours at work. Maybe pick up an extra shift on Sunday, and get an advance loan?”
“Are you nuts? Working Sunday morning after playing at Phantom House tomorrow?”
“Got any better ideas?” Amanda scowled and lit up another cigarette.
“I guess, if it gets desperate, I can borrow money from Brandon.”
“It’s desperate. We’re a month behind on the electric bill, and another two weeks and they’ll shut it off. I’m NOT staying here without heating. Call up your brother.”
Melissa picked up the phone and slowly dialed the phone number. She hated asking for money, unless she was asking Amanda, but it had been six months since she’d asked Brandon for anything, and she had paid him back promptly last time.
“Hello? Is Brandon there?... Yeah, okay... hi. What’s up? This is Melissa… Really? What?... Oh, that’s great. I guess. I mean, that’s what you wanted, right?... Yeah, seems that way. Way to go, big brother. How’s Rachel?... I suppose so… Well, that’s good... Uh, nothing really, just wondering what you were up to… No, I haven’t... Um, sure, tell Dad I said hi... Okay. Bye.” She sighed and put up the phone.
Amanda’s eyes could have bored holes through Melissa’s head. “You didn’t ask him!” she snapped.
“Look, it wasn’t a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because he needs the money more than we do right now, okay?”
“He makes more than eight hundred dollars a week, Melissa! We barely make half of that put together! What the fuck? Why the hell does he need the money? Did he take up a crack habit?”
“Rachel is pregnant,” Melissa finally said.
Amanda took a step back, and looked as though she’d just been slapped. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Brandon is going to be a dad in about seven months, and now is not a good time to hit him up for money.” She sighed. “Amanda?”
“What.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. I’m fine. Why?”
“Never mind.”
Amanda slowly picked up her keys and her box of Camel Lights. “I’m going outside.”
“Look, I only told you because you asked.”
“Yeah, well maybe you should think more before you say something.”
“Look who’s talking! I know you’re not really happy about the news “ I mean, with you being unable to have kids and all that. But it’s hardly my fault. Or Brandon’s. Or Rachel’s.”
Amanda opened her mouth to say something, but she shut it again when two voices burst from the apartment downstairs, loud enough to be heard through the floor.
“Get over here!” Brian shouted. They heard a loud collision, then a door slamming, and then feet running nearby.
Someone knocked at the door. Amanda rolled her eyes, and Melissa looked through the peephole. She groaned. “Guess who,” she mouthed, and then opened the door.
Joshua, with a black eye and his T-shirt torn, stood shivering at the door. He looked around nervously and his breaths were fast and shallow. “Can I stay here tonight?” he asked.
“Huh, what?” Amanda raised her eyebrow.
“Josh, go home,” Melissa sighed.
“It’s just for one day. I just need to be here for one day. And then you’ll never be bothered again, I promise. No more fights.”
“Dude, go to a hotel,” said Melissa, and she started to shut the door. Joshua took off running again, and as he did, something fell out of his backpack. Melissa made an “oo!” noise as the cold night air hit her, and ran to get the dropped paper. “Hey! You forgot something!" Josh didn’t even look over his shoulder at her. She looked down to get a better look at the paper.
“What’s that?” Amanda asked, when Melissa came back in and shut the door.
“Looks like a map.”
“Of where?”
“Hard to tell. It’s around here, I guess “ there’s I-35.” She pointed to a line on the map. “It goes out to... to about four miles off Highway 380. Says something about a Townsend. Huh.”
“Let me see.” Amanda grabbed the paper and started reading the words at the bottom. “Yeah, I heard about this. My mom looked into for a story she was writing for the newspaper oh, maybe about six years ago. Haunted well, or something like that. I had no idea it was a real place, instead of one of those silly little superstitions. Well, it’s just a silly superstition, but the well is real, at least.”
“Okay, then. Why is that little punk kid going out there?”
“Dunno. But this lines up with the rest of the Fredericks story.” When Melissa didn’t respond to that, Amanda continued: “Okay, here’s what Nikki told me. Somebody went out there to drop an old coin in the well and wished for her son to be healed of cancer. And he was.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. About a year ago. And her husband wanted to get rich and wished for it and got a promotion, too.”
“Then what?”
“I dunno. They died last year in a car crash. Them and one of the kids who used to live in the complex across from us, all dead, but their son survived. I remember because I was late for work that day “ the roads were closed off. But still... hmm.”
“What?”
“We could check it out. You know, wish for rent money or something.”
“Oh, please. Sunday shifts are a better idea.”
“It’s not going to make things worse, and it just might help. I mean, promotions aren’t rare occurrences and neither is chemotherapy actually working, but going to the well didn’t prevent those things, that’s for sure.”
“No.”
“Come on. I know you don’t believe in the paranormal, but you never know. Maybe it just makes funny noises and then you think it works. There’s a lot about psychology being behind weird events. If nothing else it would make you think more about getting money and you might look for more opportunities to earn it.”
“All right. I mean, it’s a load of bull, but you’re right “ it won’t make it any harder for us, at least. And I’m running out of ideas except for the one. When do you want to go?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Denton, Texas and surrounding areas
Saturday, January 20, 2007
“Okay, pretty painless procedure,” said Amanda. She shivered and drew her black trench coat tighter around herself. “Turn around three times, drop a 1947 coin in the well, close your eyes, and make your wish. Can be out loud or in your head.”
“If you say it to someone else, it won’t come true.”
“According to this paper about this well, it doesn’t matter. Here, you go first.”
Melissa set her mouth in a straight line, but went ahead, just to get it over with. She turned around thrice, humming the Hokey Pokey song, and then dropped the coin into the well. It fell for a long way and she couldn’t be sure the faint noise she heard was the penny hitting the water. “I hope that it really... urk, never mind. I wish that Double and Trouble would become the next major hit duo and rise to the top of the charts in three months or less, and both members, being myself, Melissa Hall, and my friend, Amanda Kline, would be famous and fantastically wealthy for the rest of our lives.”
“Long way from ‘I wish for money to pay the phone bill,’” Amanda remarked.
“Hey. If you’re going to wish, wish big. Your...” Melissa was about to say, “turn,” but then she heard something vaguely voicelike emanate from the bottom of the well. She jumped back. “Um, okay. That was an echo from the penny, right?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Amanda frowned, then walked up to the well. The voice had stopped. She dropped her coin down and waited until it hit the dirt, then spun around, then looked down into the dark pit. “I wish that, even though I’m not able to conceive, not having ovaries or a uterus and all that, that it would happen anyway and I could get pregnant and have a child, at least once.”
The echo came back. “Okay, that has to be from our voices. You know? From talking near the well?” said Melissa. “Let’s get out of here.”
Amanda nodded and looked back at the well only once as they walked back out of the woods.
*
“Paris Hilton. Oh my god. Paris Hilton has a song on the radio? YUCK! Change the station, Amanda. Please.”
Amanda fiddled with the search buttons, going through commercials and rap and country before leaving it alone on Mix 102.9.
“Tracy Chapman? You’re making me listen to Tracy Chapman?”
“Everything good is on a commercial break and we left our CDs at ” Watch out!”
Melissa slammed the brakes just in time to avoid hitting the car in front of her. The traffic was backed up all along 380, and she couldn’t see any sign of it letting up. “Looks like there was a bad crash up ahead,” she said, and stuck her head out of the window to see more. She thought she saw a police car’s lights, but couldn’t be sure.
Evanescence’s "Call Me When You’re Sober" blared suddenly, and Amanda reached into her handbag. She pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open. “Hello? Gary? How are you? They... they what? You’re kidding! Whoa... yes, yes, we’ll be there! First thing Monday morning. Eight o’clock sharp, you bet. Thank you so much!” She hung up, and turned to Melissa, with her contact-lens-black eyes reflecting light and shining. She spoke in the excited tone of a six-year-old about to meet Santa Claus. “Melissa, you’re not going to believe this! That was Gary Young, you know, from Phantom House? Well, he gave a copy of our CD to a guy from Virgin Records, and he took it to his boss, and now they want to talk to us tomorrow about an album contract! Melissa? Hello, earth to Melissa!”
Melissa stared straight ahead, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were bone-white. “The car,” she said.
“What car? Did you even hear me?”
“That’s Brandon’s car up ahead.” Melissa pulled her left hand free and pointed to a twisted mass of blue-painted metal partially wrapped around a telephone pole.
“Huh? Oh, oh my god, that’s not good. But you don’t know it’s his. There could be a hundred Tauruses that color in this city alone.”
“Not that many,” said Melissa.
They crept forward, the silence broken only by honks and the sirens of another police car and an ambulance. Melissa pressed her hand to the horn until someone finally let her through into the left lane, and she swerved around another car and the orange cones. “License plate,” she whispered.
“You can’t just drive up and park here,” Amanda hissed.
Melissa ignored her and parked the car just inside the cones, then jumped out. “Ma’am, you have to leave,” one of the policemen said.
“That’s my brother’s car!” Melissa cried. She ran towards the wreckage, but the police officer grabbed her arm and held her back. “Brandon!”
Her eyes went wide when she saw the scene beyond the cars. Two paramedics were lifting a stretcher with a blood-covered and broken body. Then she heard the words that would haunt her for weeks: “Dead at the scene.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” the officer repeated. “We can give you a ride to the hospital to identify the body, if you like. I can understand that you wouldn’t want to drive.”
Amanda came up behind them, and she took Melissa, who was sobbing, from the police officer. “It’s all right. It’s all right. Come here,” she said. “I’ll drive. Which hospital?”
“Denton Regional,” said the officer.
“We’ll meet you there. Come on, Melissa. I’m sorry.”
[Reviews - 5] [Kudos - 251]
Download story PDF format or ePUB format or MOBI format
Table of Contents
Download story PDF format or ePUB format or MOBI format
Table of Contents
Story Notes:
Dean and Sam appear in every chapter except chapters 1 and 11. 1 is about OCs, introducing the plot, and 11 is primarily about John.