movie. Gremlins.”
“Oh. Yeah, it’s not bad. Actually, it’s pretty funny. We should see if we can stream it.”
“Right now?”
They were coming down the hill again. “Myrtle is so completely Mogwai.” Misty snapped and snapped. Then she put the phone in her pocket and looked at Jeremy. “Maybe tonight, if we hang that long. We can order Chinese and go pick it up.”
“Okay.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked away. “What do you want to do right now, then?”
“See that other sled?”
His head came up. He wasn’t smiling, but he nodded. “You really want to do that?”
“Yeah, I really do.”
“Guess we’ll lose our asshole status. First, though, can I see your phone?”
“Sure.” She slid it from her pocket and handed it to him. He located the pics while she looked to see what he was doing, then he sent one to his uncle’s phone. She smiled. “Cool. He’s gonna love that.”
“I thought he was into your aunt before. But then we stopped seeing her and he didn’t mention her name at all.”
“I think she’s into him, too. Hell, we might end up cousins.”
“I hope not,” he said, and then a flush of red went right up his neck and into his face. He handed her phone back to her, turned and headed for the coat closet.
* * *
Mason was on his way home when he thought to check the phone while he was sitting at a red light. There was a text from a number he didn’t recognize that included a photo attachment, sent hours ago. He opened it and grinned. Rachel, Josh and Myrtle on a toboggan flying down the hill behind his house. Rachel’s eyes and mouth were wide open, and her hat—no, wait, his hat—was in the air behind her, so her hair was like a flag. Josh was smiling all the way to his ears—laughing out loud, Mason thought. The kid was going to be okay. And the dog... The dog was all flapping jowls and ears and gleaming teeth. She was wearing her goggles and her winter scarf, and looked like she belonged in a steampunk creature feature.
He felt something warm settle into his chest, and it pushed away the cold darkness that been squatting there before. He couldn’t wait to get home. And he thought what a great feeling that was.
As he stared at the photo, realizing it had come through several hours ago, a car blew its horn behind him and a new text message popped up, this one from Rachel’s phone. Ordered Chinese. What’s ur ETA?
He went through the light, then pulled off the road so he could reply. The other vehicle flew by him, and he secretly hoped for a speed trap up ahead.
20 min, he texted back. Want me 2 pickup?
Sent kids. C U soon.
On my way.
He looked at the phone for a long minute. Okay, there was some interesting stuff going on in his sappy regions at the moment. Stuff that bore further mulling.
He clicked the button to make the shot his background image. It made him feel good to look at it, and Rachel’s books were always saying when something feels good, pay attention to it. It was good advice, even if she didn’t always practice it herself and claimed to think it was complete bull.
He looked at her face, her full mouth wide open in a shout but somehow managing to smile at the same time. She’d relived a murder last night—lived it from the perspective of the victim. But today she was raising hell in the snow with her dog and his nephew. Yeah, maybe she didn’t think she practiced what she preached, but he was pretty sure he’d just been given photographic proof that she did.
He put the car back into gear, and headed onto the highway and back toward home.
* * *
I had more fun that day than I’d had since I got my eyesight back—not counting my one-nighter with Mason, which was the most fun I’d ever had. Ever. By the time the younger generation had been thoroughly exposed to the genius of Joe Dante through Gremlins and Gremlins 2, we had spent close to four hours in front of Mason’s gigantic TV. The sixty-inch HD was his country home’s one concession to modern design. Everything else looked rustic, even though he was wired for sound. He had the fastest internet connection I’d seen—essential, he said, for gaming. And his nephews loved their gaming.
We’d pigged out on Chinese, stashed the leftovers, and then re-pigged out between the two movies. We topped the evening off with warm chocolate chip cookies—the kind that came in preperforated squares you just broke apart and threw into the oven—and milk, because there was no point to warm chocolate chip cookies if you weren’t going to dunk them in milk.
And then, as the credits rolled, I looked around and realized I wasn’t in Mason’s living room anymore. I was lying on my back on the floor staring at the ceiling of a room that wasn’t familiar to me. The light fixture above my head had a ceiling fan attached—but Mason doesn’t have a ceiling fan—ivory-colored blades shaped like palm fronds or something. It wasn’t running. I tried to get a better look around me, because my current view only gave me a glimpse of the ceiling and the upper two feet of the walls. Oddly, though, I couldn’t turn my head.
Oh, shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit, it’s another dream.
Something blocked out the light, and something else kicked me in the side, rolling me over so my right cheek was pressed to the floor, my right arm underneath my body.
Wake up, dammit. Wake up!
I felt something tear my blouse up the back, and I knew what was coming. The blade would be next. The cutting. I wanted to wake up. I wanted to scream. I wanted to scrunch my face up in fear, but I couldn’t move at all. I felt the warmth of tears welling in my eyes and spilling over, running along my nose and onto the floor.
If you can’t wake up, then look. See what’s around you so you can remember.
Hardwood floor under my cheek. Mint-green paint on the walls. A brown sofa with wooden claw feet and a crocheted blanket with too many colors to count. Black, white, orange, red—
The blade sliced a path of fire across my back and lower left side, and every ounce of reason left me. Inside, my mind I was screaming. But I couldn’t even open my mouth. I couldn’t breathe. I lay there, completely helpless as the knife cut deeper, and I prayed for death to come fast.
It didn’t.
4
1:00 a.m. Sunday, December 17
Mason had dozed off on the sofa. The kids had taken every other seat in the room, Jeremy in the reclining chair, Misty in the overstuffed one that matched the sofa and Josh was in a beanbag chair on the floor. Leaving him and Rachel the sofa. He didn’t know if it had been intended or not, but they’d taken opposite ends, partly because the corner between the arm and the back was the most comfortable spot on any couch, but mostly because they didn’t want to get too close to each other. In his case, he didn’t want to slip up in front of the kids, absentmindedly start rubbing her leg or something. You could get into a movie to the
