The Book of Bad Things (14 page)

Imagine you’re walking along a beautiful mountain path, surrounded by everyone who loves you. Janet and Benji are beside you, holding your hands. You don’t know why you’ve all ended up on this hike, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except taking the next step, finding your balance, making your way into the clouds. You get to a point where the path is steep and unclear. No one knows whether to step up onto a rock or down into a gully. The next thing you know, you’ve lost your grip on your best friends’ hands, and you watch as they tumble down the mountain, bouncing as their bodies collide off each other and the rocks, coming to rest on the ground far below. And you know they’re dead.

Then you wake up.

Imagine that you’re following your father into a brightly lit parking garage. He wants to show you his brand new sports car. Together, you’ll drive off with the top down into the night, speeding through city streets, the wind messing up your hair, but you don’t care because of the thrill. You find yourself standing at the back of a red Porsche. A voice behind you tells you to open the trunk. So you do. Inside, the space is empty and padded with black felt. Then, the voice behind you says, “Get in.” You turn around and realize that you haven’t followed your father. You’ve followed someone else. Someone you don’t recognize. Someone with big hands and an even bigger smile.

Then you wake up.

Imagine that you’re taking swimming lessons at the local YMCA. You’re not a bad swimmer, so you have no problem when the instructor asks you to demonstrate your ability to the rest of the class at the deep end of the pool. In fact, you beam with pride. Everyone applauds as you adjust your goggles onto your eyes then leap as far as you can into the middle of the pool, through a square-shaped hoop. Under water, you realize you haven’t jumped through a mere hoop. Bars surround you, and you understand that you’re in a cage. Glancing up, you see the bars have locked you in. You’re now wearing scuba gear. You can breathe. But you’re confused, because this isn’t what your instructor has asked you to do. Then, through the blue haze beyond the bars, you see dark shapes swimming toward you. At each wall of the cage, large mouths open, great white sharks who’ve marked you as dinner. You scream, a burst of bubbles that no one at the edge of the pool can hear. You try not to panic as you examine the cage for a way out. That’s when you look down and see the bottom is completely open. And rushing up from the darkness is an open mouth, an entrance to a tunnel of hunger. Pink globs of meat are stuck between razor-sharp white teeth, remnants of the shark’s last meal. The one before you.

Then you wake up.

I think the scariest nightmares are the ones where everything is normal, pleasant even, then snap, the world turns and shows you how truly frightening it can be.

Our brains are so mean.

T
HE MORNING AFTER
Jaws
, Cassidy was lying in bed, her eyes closed, her brain bouncing between sleep and wakefulness, when she heard the door squeak open. “Joey,” Cassidy mumbled, turning over, clutching the blanket at her chin. “It’s so early.” But Joey didn’t answer. Her consciousness tilted back toward dreaming, even as she felt cool skin against her wrist. A soft grip took her palm, and at first, Cassidy struggled to take back her hand. But the grip was insistent. It pulled her harder, so hard in fact, that Cassidy felt her shoulder pop.

“Oww,” she said, sitting up, still unable to remove herself from the grip. The room was almost pitch black. It was even earlier than she’d thought. Cassidy could not see who held her, but she knew it was not Joey. Ragged breathing filled the darkness. Cassidy was suddenly freezing. “Who’s there?” she asked, unsure she wanted an answer.

Cassidy felt herself sliding over the edge of the mattress, so she swung her feet to the floor and with her one free hand, pushed herself up. Before she could gain her bearing, the person pulled her toward the bedroom door.

Only when they were both outside, walking up the street toward the overgrown driveway at the end of the cul-de-sac, was she certain whom she was following. Though she expected to feel afraid, mostly, she felt a sad emptiness.

Ursula Chambers was Cassidy’s height. Her short hair was tightly curled. She was dressed in her legendary jogging suit. Out in the night, the woman was transparent phosphorescence, glowing dimly like starlight. And though Cassidy could still feel the dry coolness of Ursula’s skin, there was an icy chill underneath it, like a sickness, a fever.

They stood on the front steps of Ursula’s old house. Inside, the sound of claws scrabbled on the rough wooden floor. Cassidy tried to back away, but the old woman held her still. Reaching forward, Ursula pushed open the door. Beyond the threshold, Lucky sat and stared at Cassidy, smiling that big goofy grin of his. His coat was shining and clean, tinted slightly silver now, different from his usual blonde.

Cassidy almost burst into tears. This was not the same dog she’d seen limping up the road at the beginning of the week, no more than the woman in the gown had been Ursula … or
this
version of Ursula, at least. Cassidy could feel the difference between what she’d witnessed on Monday night and now. Despite the fever-chill of Ursula’s touch, she knew there was safety in this dream version of the Chambers house. Only in the world of the awake, with that humming sound that trembled the very ground, had the apparitions contained malevolence, a poison.

Ursula turned from the house and looked at her with a smile, as if she could hear Cassidy’s thoughts. Then, as if in answer, Cassidy heard the old woman’s voice, a touch of Irish brogue, whisper, “Please, come in….”

Then Cassidy woke up.

When Cassidy opened her eyes, her room was lit dimly with the beginnings of the day. She raced down the hall to Joey’s room, knocking quietly so as not to wake the rest of the house. Seconds later, she heard a rustling sound. The door opened slightly. “What is it?” Joey asked, his voice crackling.

“We’ve got to go to her house,” Cassidy said. When Joey widened his eyes and shook his head, she added, “You, me, and Ping. Today. There’s something Ursula wants us to see.”

A
FEW HOURS LATER
, Cassidy sat on the front steps of the Tremonts’ house, kicking the bottom stair with the heel of her sneaker. She was waiting for the first stirrings from the Yu house next door, so she could tell Ping about her dream. It was still too early to knock.

Presently, she regretted knocking on Joey’s door. He’d practically laughed in her face when she’d told him. “Are you insane?” he’d said, pulling her into his room, closing the door. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you suggested we go over there?”

Now, Cassidy wondered if she
was
insane. Had her vision of Ursula merely been a dream? A nightmare? Joey hadn’t needed to remind her what was happening to the people the old woman had visited during recent nights.

But if there was a pattern here, Cassidy should be safe. She hadn’t taken anything from the house. And Ursula hadn’t presented her with a threat. She’d offered an invitation. Even so, without Joey to accompany her up the street, she wasn’t sure she could go through with it. Ping was her last hope.

Something in her gut told her that if she sat by and did nothing, bad things would keep happening — and not only to the citizens of Whitechapel. She’d seen the trucks take away the overflowing Dumpsters a couple days ago. Who knew where that stuff might end up? Maybe a landfill … Maybe a thrift store … Maybe a classroom. Whether or not Ursula’s ghost was the
thing
exacting revenge on the supposed thieves — and Cassidy wasn’t entirely sure about that anymore — Cassidy knew that the answers were in that house.

The sky was brightening into a royal blue. Cassidy rose from the steps and walked out to the street. She stared at Ursula’s overgrown driveway. A slight breeze crept out of the woods, rustling the leaves and vines and weeds.

“Whatcha doin’ out here?”

Cassidy jumped, even as she recognized Ping’s high-pitched voice coming up the street from behind her. She turned and smiled. “Waiting for you, actually. I figured you’d crawl out from your cave eventually.”

“A cave!” Ping guffawed. “I’d like that, kinda. Actually, I came out looking for you too. Something happened again last night. Something not good. Have you heard?”

“Heard about what?”

When Ping got home, her parents told her a story. Halfway through the movie, the twins began complaining of mosquitos, so the Yus headed home. Far from the road, off in the middle of a field before Chase Estates, the flashing lights of rescue vehicles illuminated a disturbing scene. A car had lost control and hit a tree, its metal body wrapped nearly around the trunk.

“
Hal
,” said Cassidy, blushing. “Julia and Deb’s friend never showed up last night.”

Ping’s pursed lips told her she was right. “He’d seen Ursula too.”

Cassidy thought of the boy’s kindness at the beginning of the week, when he’d let her borrow his phone at the supermarket.
Hal Nance is dead
. She was immediately nauseated. She swallowed hard, keeping her cereal down. Her eyes stung. “It’s not fair,” she managed to squeak out before her cheeks were wet. “I wanted to tell him to …” But Ping already knew what she’d wanted to tell him. It was too late.

Ping sighed and watched Cassidy cry. After a while, she took her arm, and they walked farther into the cul-de-sac, stopping in the center of the asphalt circle. Cassidy told her about the dream of Ursula and Lucky and the house, about what she thought it meant. Ping practically skidded to a stop, shaking her head. “You want to go
in there
?”

“We have to. People are dying. What if there’s something we can do to stop that?”

“What do you think we’ll find inside?” Ping asked. Then, wide-eyed, she squeaked out, “What if your dream was a trick? A trap?”

“And what if it was just a dream?” Cassidy asked, her face flushing. “What if all this is coincidence?” She shrugged. “We’d have nothing to lose,” she finished, trying to sound confident, steady, strong, even though she felt the opposite.

“Unless it
wasn’t
a dream,” said Ping. She blinked. “Unless everything you imagined is real.”

A particularly strong gust of wind rocked the trees up the road, and branches rubbed against one another, creaking and cracking.

“If Ursula Chambers thought someone could do something to help her, in whatever way she needs help, why would she choose
me
?”

“Because she knows you’re one tough
chica
,” said Ping, nudging Cassidy’s arm. She turned to the driveway, the shadows dancing without a care in the morning light. “Okay, so if we’re doing this, what do we need?”

“Me,” said a voice from the curb. The girls turned to find Joey walking purposefully toward them, arms swinging, face pale.