Ghosts in the Attic (2 page)

He always came back.

SEED

I have a watermelon growing in my stomach.

I’m sure you’re wondering how a girl my age could end up in such a predicament. I keep asking myself the same thing. I’m sixteen years old, I’m not a kid anymore, I should have known better. My mother has told me since I was five years old and had my first watermelon, “Don’t swallow the seeds, otherwise you’ll end up with a watermelon taking root in your belly.”

So I can’t claim ignorance, can’t pretend that I didn’t know the risks. I have no defense other than stupidity and youthful hubris, that feeling of immortality that a teenager experiences when on the cusp of adulthood.

It was a dare. That sounds so childish, but that’s what it was. Jimmy Dillingham from down the street was over at the house. We were in the backyard by the pool, our feet trailing in the water, eating watermelon and listening to music. I had taken a big bite, the juicy meat of the melon exploding in my mouth, the sweet nectar trickling down my throat. Jimmy looked over, smiled his gap-toothed grin and said, “I dare you to swallow one of the seeds.”

I knew it was wrong, I knew that it was something I shouldn’t do, I knew that the consequences of such an act could be more than I could deal with. I knew all of these things, and yet it was with no real hesitation that I poked my tongue out at Jimmy, showing him a large black seed poised on the tip, then pulled my tongue and the seed back into my mouth and swallowed, opening my mouth wide to show him that the seed was now gone.

I have to say, I didn’t immediately feel guilty like I’d thought I might. In fact, it seemed kind of funny, a lark. We giggled and cracked jokes about it for the rest of the afternoon before Jimmy had to go home. Swallowing the seed actually made me feel rather daring, and I liked the thrill it gave me.

Eventually the thrill faded, however, and I sort of forgot about the incident for a couple of months. I started to feel a little tired, but I didn’t think much of it. My mother commented on the fact that I seemed to be losing my appetite, and yet I noticed I was gaining a bit of weight. Not all over, just my stomach, a round little bump forming in my abdomen.

I think I knew what was happening long before I was willing to admit it. I wanted to force ignorance on myself, as if by denying the truth I could somehow alter the very fabric of reality and make it not so. But my belly continued to swell, and I finally had to be honest with myself. I had a watermelon growing in my stomach.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I couldn’t tell my mother, her disappointment would be crushing. She had raised me better than this, and I didn’t want her to know how thoroughly I had let her down. So I told Jimmy. I thought maybe together we could figure out what to do. After all, it was his dare that had gotten me into this situation in the first place.

“I didn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to do,” was what he said to me when I told him.

“I’m not saying you
made
me do it, but you were there, you were a part of it.”

“This isn’t my fault. I was just fooling around, you should have been more careful. This is your responsibility, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

After that, Jimmy stopped talking to me, avoiding me in the school hallways. Sometimes when I passed his friends, I thought I heard them snickering and giving me strange smiles. Had he told them?

I didn’t want anyone else to know. As if I could somehow keep it from being real as long as no one knew about it. I started wearing baggy sweaters to hide my stomach and the watermelon that was growing inside. Some of the kids at school, kids who used to be my friends, started calling me Bag Lady. Even my mother commented on how dowdy I looked, but I told her that baggy and sloppy was the new fashion. I don’t know that she believed me, but she dropped the subject all the same.

Months have passed now, and my stomach is getting quite large, the melon almost fully ripe inside me. It has become a challenge hiding it. I think some of my teachers suspect, and perhaps even my mother. She avoids me these days, and sometimes when I catch her eye, I think I see hopelessness there, as if she’s given up on me.

Things are almost to the point where I have no choice but to tell people and take the judgment that is doled out to me. There aren’t many other options available to me. Not any good ones anyway.

Which is why I sit here now, my shirt raised up to my small breasts, staring down at my protruding stomach. I think I can actually see the melon under my skin, trying to push its way out. See it as clearly as I see my own hollow-eyed face reflected in the butcher knife that I took from the kitchen. It gleams in the light from my bedside lamp, its blade sharp and wicked.

Father Hannigan has a watermelon patch out behind the rectory. Would he notice if he got up tomorrow morning to find one more melon in his patch, one that had not grown from the fertile soil there?

A HELL OF A DEAL

The Devil looked a lot like David Letterman.

Lisa wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting—a red-skinned beast with horns and cloven hooves, a debonair gentleman with charming eyes and a black mustache—but this tall gangly man with his gap-toothed smile and mop of light curly hair seemed an unlikely Satan. Then again, when one was the Prince of Darkness, perhaps it was best not to advertise.

“Thank you for coming,” Lisa said dumbly, as if the Devil were a coworker who had accepted a dinner invitation. As it was, the Devil had been summoned by a spell Lisa had found in a dusty old tome procured from a small, musty occult shop in the city. The candles and incense burned in the darkness, the last words of the incantation still hanging in the air, and the Devil had materialized in front of her without the fanfare of smoke or flame. Just one moment empty space, the next the Devil kneeling on the carpet before her.

The Devil looked nervous, fidgety, and his eyes darted around the room as if afraid something was going to leap out at him from the shadows. “Why have you brought me here?” he asked, smiling uncertainly. “What is it you want from me?”

Lisa frowned, wondering if perhaps she had gotten the words of the incantation wrong. Maybe she’d summoned the wrong creature. “Are you … the Devil?”

“The very one,” he said, and Lisa thought she detected a blush creeping into his cheeks. “Not what you imagined, huh?”

“Well, not exactly.”

“I may not be much to look at, but I assure you that I have power to spare.”

“Good to know, because that is why I have summoned you here. I wish to propose a trade of sorts.”

“Intriguing. What sort of trade?”

“My soul in exchange for my heart’s desire.”

“Ah,” the Devil said with a quick nod of his head. “The standard contract.”

“I suppose you must get summoned for this sort of thing a lot.”

“Not as often as one might expect. So tell me, what is it you desire?”

Lisa took a deep breath and said, “I want to be the best singer in the world.”

“Really? That’s it?”

“Yes, music is my passion. I have been struggling to make it in the business for fifteen years and have gotten nowhere. I’m thirty-four years old, not a kid anymore, and I am tired of the struggle.”

“And you’re sure that is what you want?” the Devil said, his expression turning serious. “Think carefully before we make our deal; there will be no turning back once the pact is made. Choose your request wisely.”

“I know what I’m doing. I have given this much thought, and I know exactly what I want. I want to be the best singer in the world, that is my desire."

“Very well then. Once I leave this place, you will be the best singer in all the world. I will grant you exactly forty years, after which I will return to claim your soul for my own. Are those terms acceptable?”

“Yes. Do I have to sign something in my own blood?”

The Devil chuckled, completely relaxed and comfortable now. “I’m afraid you’ve seen one too many movies, my dear. Nothing as dramatic or ghoulish as that. A simple handshake will seal the deal.”

Lisa reached out and felt her hand engulfed in his. The Devil’s hand was slightly clammy but otherwise felt like any other hand.

“It is done,” the Devil said with a smile. “See you in forty years.”

Lisa opened her mouth to speak but then the Devil disappeared just as quickly and completely as he’d appeared.

Lisa sat for a moment then began to sing quietly to herself. Her voice was rich, deep, and emotive, and by the end of the song, she had brought herself to tears.

forty years later

Lisa wheeled herself across the room. The arthritis in her hands was intense this morning, making it a struggle to move her chair across the floor. She wished she had one of those electric wheelchairs, but she couldn’t afford it. She could barely afford her room in this prison they called an assisted living program. Across the room, her roommate snored loud and frog-like.

Lisa stopped at the dresser by the window, pulling open the bottom drawer and removing a thick scrapbook. Less than half the pages were filled, but she turned them slowly, lovingly looking over the album covers, programs, magazine articles—all the momentous of her singing career.

If one could call it a career. Her eyes blurred with tears as she reached the last filled page. Her mouth twisted bitterly as she thought of all the missed opportunities, the unrealized potential. By all rights, she should have filled up dozens of scrapbooks, her shelves should be weighed down by awards, but things had not come to pass that way. As it was, all she had was half a scrapbook of memories.

Lisa had recorded only two albums. The first had produced one moderate hit, a mournful ballad entitled “Guess I Wasn’t Enough.” The second album had failed to produce even that much, selling only fifteen thousand copies. She was promptly dropped by her label, and no other record company had been willing to gamble on her. She had ended up playing small clubs and dive bars, weddings and high school dances. Her aspirations had shriveled up and disintegrated like a slug sprinkled with salt.

Lisa put the scrapbook back in the drawer and closed it, sitting back in her chair with her hands folded neatly on her lap. Her expression was blank, slack, unreadable. She exhibited no surprise when she felt the clammy hand on her shoulder.

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” she said in her raspy, old-woman’s voice.

The devil squatted next to Lisa; he hadn’t aged a day since the last time she’d seen him. “I promised I would return in forty years, and here I am. To the very day.”

“I suppose you think you’ve come to claim my soul.”

“It is mine to claim,” the Devil said with a patient smile. “That was the deal.”

“You breached our contract, therefore the deal is null and void. You forfeited your rights to my soul.”

“What do you mean?” the Devil asked, but there was no anger in his voice. Only worry, as if he were concerned for her mental state.

“You did not live up to your end of the bargain.”

“I most certainly did. You asked to become the best singer in the world, and I made it so.”

“But I was a
failure
,” Lisa said, a pleading note infusing her voice. “My voice remained unheard throughout my life. You cheated me.”

“No, I did not,” the Devil said with a sad, sympathetic smile. “You didn’t ask to be a
successful
singer, only the best.”

“Shouldn’t one follow the other?”

The Devil laughed softly. “Dear, you really know nothing about the music industry, do you? Talent, even extraordinary talent, is merely a single ingredient to success. Other ingredients are needed—a certain look, a certain attitude, a certain vibrant charisma—none of which you possessed, and none of which you asked me for. I gave you what you asked for, nothing more. I told you to choose your request wisely; you should have heeded me.”

“But that isn’t fair,” Lisa said, and she sounded like a petulant child.

“Perhaps not, but it was our deal. Now it is time for you to complete the trade.”

The Devil held out a hand, and Lisa took it. Reluctantly, but she took it nonetheless. The Devil helped her to her feet and led her toward the door.

“If it is any consolation,” said the Devil as they stepped out of the room and off the mortal plane, “I really loved your second album.”

THE DELIVERY BOY

Grayson had just sat down to watch the Bond marathon on television when the doorbell rang. Grunting, he muted the TV and hurried down the short hall to the foyer. He was looking forward to a quiet evening at home, and this interruption was most definitely unwelcome.

“Yes?” Grayson said, pulling open the door. A teenaged boy in black pants and blue shirt with matching blue cap stood on the doorstep, holding a pizza box. “Can I help you?”

The boy held up the box. “Extra large veggie. That’ll be fifteen ninety.”

Grayson blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Fifteen ninety,” the boy repeated with a smile, rocking on the balls of his feet. Steam was rising from the pizza box.

“I think there’s been a mistake. You must have the wrong house.”

The boy consulted a scrap of paper in his palm. “Is this 409 Prescott Road?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Then this is the right house.”

“No, it isn’t,” Grayson said slowly, trying to keep his temper in check. Somewhere behind him, Agent 007 was sipping a martini with a buxom blonde, and he was eager to play voyeur. “I didn’t order a pizza.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I think I would know if I ordered a pizza.”

“Perhaps someone else at this residence ordered the pizza and forgot to mention it to you,” the boy said, undaunted, his smile never wavering.

“There’s no one here but me, son, and I will say this just one final time, so listen closely. I did not order a veggie pizza.”