Call Me Twice

Chapter 11: Nice day to start again

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I sleep a couple of hours, and then stop for coffee on my way to school since my grandparents didn't call the police (considering officer Brett waves to me on my way in), I'm assuming they don't know I didn't spend the night.
Coffee in hand, I go directly to the high school library. Lia meets my eyes in the hall and she and Josie follow me there, after stowing their backpacks.
"Hi, I've not slept so bear with me and total discloser I tend to over explains and over analyze things when I'm freaked out hazard of being raised by a scientist so I'm about to do that a lot you're allowed to hit me," I say, perching in a chair backwards as we gather at a table near the corner of the dingy school library.
"Okay before you start—why were you so freaked out by that note. 'Hey Sammy' what did that mean?" Lia asks, raising a hand. She's wearing a black turtle neck, no make up, and gold hoop earrings. She looks like she cried herself to sleep.
"Sammy is what Harper called me it was a joke he said Link didn't fit me. He was teasing, whatever. He called me Sam, or Sammy, and when he called me the night that he died, he greeted me saying 'hey Sammy, fuck you', because I'd called you to tell you he was sitting on train tracks," I say, rubbing my forehead.
"What so—okay so literally only you and he—," Lia begins.
"Knew the significance of it," I say, nodding, "Yeah."
"That wasn't there. Mom and I went through the whole room," Josie says.
"I believe you," I say, "I also believe what happened with the tape deck. And what you're hearing on the stairs. And the doors. And that room going cold. Were not coincidences or explainable. Not anymore. Not with three now unusual deaths."
"We don't know those were connected to Harper," Lia says, "They saw him yes but the method of death is different—-each time and as we said Harper appeared to be sacrificed somehow."
"Yeah, but I thought of something those three had in common," I say.
"That they saw Harper his last few days? We did too, nothing's happened to us," Josie says.
"Yeah, but they all made him angry," I say, "We didn't. In theory. I did a little but he'd mostly made up with me. No. Those guys, all upset him."
"Joe fired him," Lia says.
"Priscilla at the drug store wouldn't sell him the cold medicine," Josie says.
"And Rick broke his precious tape. Bingo," I say.
"What—you're saying Harper is doing all of this?" Lia asks, shaking her head, "He wouldn't even—even assuming ghosts are real and he could. He wouldn't."
"I'm not saying it's Harper. Anymore," I say, rubbing my face, "Did some reading last night, and phoned a friend who had a friend who's an expert on demons."
"Demons? Why would—," Josie begins.
"I don't know. But here's what I do know. Harper died on the ley line. Harper's body was clearly—sacrificed on the ley line. Next we have very typical behavior to do with a demon haunting. Demons, unlike spirits, are usually a bit malicious. Ghosts, they'll appear, maybe move a toy or something, nothing else. Demons a bit worse, usually associated with children, or playful. They appear as shadows or shadowy figures, and will go so far as to injure people, move things, make noise, especially if disturbed. Usually they only haunt one place, though it's possible a whole town. Clearly the activity is centered at the Miller's house. Demons are hard to get rid of, and they're usually very old, but something will often bind them in place. Now I have more information, a lot, but I'm condensing a six hour phone call with a former exorcist who apparently got an identical set of questions from my dad when he still lived here," I say.
"What—so this—demon, you think has been here—?" Lia asks.
"Possibly hundreds of years. And for some reason my father also was aware of it, he was in college then and frankly he left pretty quick after, but that means that we have some evidence of past incidents," I say.
"Why now? Why Harper?" Josie asks.
"That is the question," I say, "I don't know if we're going to get an answer."
"But—okay assuming that all this is real—," Lia says.
"I wish it weren't," I say.
"—assuming all this is real, then like Josie said, why Harper? And why now? Why does Harper's death—trigger all this? And why is it getting revenge on people who hurt or upset him? And why not go for someone big like his dad?" Lia asks.
"I've got research, not answers, but Harper's death on the Ley line can't be a coincidence. And something has clearly disturbed the spirit even if it's only in the Miller's house—even if it's not responsible for the murders. We know something is in that house. And it got angry when we started talking about," I say.
"Mom has to go back to work tonight, she only got three days, and she doesn't have leave, not after Harper got hospitalized that last time," Josie says, twisting his hands.
"We'll stay with you," Lia says, "It's fine."
"We're coming over," I say, nodding, "Nobody is staying alone in that house till we have some answers."
"It knew Harper's song, and the light he told me to leave on. It wanted it on," Josie says..
"When you saw it—you said you saw it that first night. What did it do?" I ask.
"It just watched me, then it went away. It wasn't—it wasn't trying to scare me," Josie says, quietly, tugging on his orange vest, tears in his eyes.
"The people killed, all wronged Harper in the days before his death," Lia says.
"And the message to me was something only he knew to say," I say, quietly.
"Do we—do we think it's him?" Lia asks, tears in her eyes.
"I don't see why he'd be a demon, not a spirit—or why he'd be so restless, before we found him maybe, but now..." I shake my head.
"But you think it could be him. He's doing this," Lia says, tears in her eyes as well.
I nod.
"Harper wouldn't try to scare us,"Josie says, "That's what my mom said and she's right he wouldn't scare us."
"If it's him. It's not the him we knew, something happened out there on the ley line," I say, gently, "And we don't know what."
"So what are we gonna do?" Josie asks.
"We need to talk to him. That's how you deal with demons, you ask them why they're there, why they're upset, sometimes they can be reasoned with," I say.
"Tonight, we'll come over, Josie, and when it starts again, we'll try to talk to him. He appeared to you," Lia says, strongly.
"Agreed, it's not going to hurt you two, and I can handle myself, I want to provoke it into coming out to talk to us, and hopefully persuade it to rest. That could be all it takes," I say, as calmly as I can, "Okay, Josie?"
"Maybe he's lost," Josie says.
"Yeah, that can happen. Women in White, are women who die tragically, and then are lost looking for their children, so it would stand to reason an untimely death would leave the spirit confused, wanting to come home. He wanted to come home and find you. Perhaps if we tell him you're okay and Lia is okay and not mad, then he can rest," I say, squeezing Josie's arm.
"I hate that it scares me," Josie says.
"My father told me, that it's a foolish man who fears nothing. For there is always something to fear. Fear keeps you alive," I say, "Trust it."
"If we're assuming that Harper is, coming back—to do these things because of his death on the ley line—okay then. That doesn't tell us who killed him," Lia says.
"Bear while he was drunk? He could have gotten drunk after he hung up with us this is Harper," I say, shrugging, "I'm not saying it's common, but I called in two favors—I was on the phone all night—and there's no recent cult activity in the area. Nothing to suggest satanists nothing of that kind."
"The toxicology report came back this morning. Harper was sober. He had only traces of weed in his system," Lia says.
"That can last for over a month," I say.
"And even if he'd gotten high that night on a stolen joint—that didn't intoxicate him enough to be completely passive to being mauled," Lia says.
"He was clean," Josie says, to me, "Like we thought. But his dad said he was drunk when he left."
"So he's lying," Lia says.
"It all goes back to him, yeah, he's still lying, and we need to find out why," I say.
"He has to know something—he knew something or he wouldn't have tried to brush off Harper's disappearance," Lia says.
"Yeah, okay, let's go talk to him," I say, stretching, "I prefer to do this sort of thing with my dad because he's fucking terrifying, but he's not gonna make bail in the next day and we've got till tonight."
"We'll go together and just—feel him out. He knows me, we can ask to get Harper's things," Lia reasons.
"Yeah, cool," I shrug.
"Is he gonna be home?" Josie asks.
"He works from home he's so rich," Lia says, rolling her eyes, "He's like a billionaire."
"Why? No one in this town is that rich, no offense, but why live here?" I ask, as we head out of the school.
"Home town I guess," Lia says "I never paid much attention."
"What does he do to make money?" I ask.
"Stocks apparently, he's always lucky," Lia says, "Harper always joked that he was the unluckiest thing that had ever happened to his father."
"He was always mean to Harper, he hated him," Josie says.
"Yeah, I get that, I'm not popular with family at the moment. Completely related note: do you both know what the Cryllic Alphabet is?" I ask.
"Um—isn't that like what they use in Russia?" Lia asks.
"Ding ding, you win the prize you're smarter than two retirees," I say, clapping my hands.
"What is it?" Josie asks.
"It's the alphabet system that's common in Eastern Europe and Russia, it's based off Greek as opposed to Latin letters," I say, kindly, "You're in elementary school, you're excused. Somebody over eighty years old should know that."
"What, they found your notes and thought it was some creepy devil code? Independent of the probably I'm guessing extensive mountains of demon research you do have?" Lia laughs.
"Yes in fact! That's exactly what happened, we had it out," I say.
"What did you do?" Lia asks.
"Had it out. They made me read it aloud naturally it was very gay and my grandfather tried to take it and throw it away and I took it back and went up and locked my door and hopped out the window and haven't been back since. completely related until the end of the week and Greta's lease can start can I just stay with you?" I ask.
"Sure, when we're not ghost hunting," Lia says, shaking her head.
"Oh, yeah, that's tonight," I say, with false cheer.
"Do you really think that Harper's dad will let us in?" Josie asks.
"I'm sure he will," Lia says.
Lia is optimistic for no real reason. We hike all the way across town, back to the great mansion that backs to the dark, dark wood. And we walk up to the door. And he does not answer.
"You kids should be in school," he yells through the door.
"Please? We just want to ask you about Harper's last night, and get his things," Lia says.
"I'm going to call the cops, you kids are supposed to be in school," he calls, "Now go!"
"Cool, I can scream sing, all of Sweeney Todd, you two join in whenever comfortable," I say, leaning against the door idly.
Lia and Josie are about to ask me either what that is, or why I'm like this, but I ignore them in favor of starting to sing at the top of my lungs.
Harper's father actually makes all the way through the intro to 'No Place Like London' when he opens the door and nearly causes me to fall into the grand house.
"Get in here," he growls, letting us in, "Go get whatever. And then go."
"Mr. Roschell, what happened to your face?" Lia asks, stopping. The man has raw, red scratch marks all over his face, and now that I see it, hands. He's wearing a dress shirt, but it too is stained with blood.
"Nothing, now go, before I do call the police," he growls, gesturing to the stairs, "Go get whatever—drugs or shit he had up there."
"No, seriously—did that happen in the night?" I ask, pointing. Scratches are common with demon hauntings.
"That is none of your concern," he snarls.
"We're trying to help—it's coming after us too," Lia says, shaking her head, "Mr. Roschell, can you tell us what happened the night Harper disappeared? Did anything—unusual happen?"
"You need to leave," he says, holding the front door open, "Now."
"Honey? What is it?" Mrs. Roschell I presume comes down the stairs too. She's also badly scratched.
"Ma'am what happened? How did you get hurt?" Lia asks, not moving. I hold Josie's shoulders. Oh the demon did get them. Definitely.
"We don't know—we think a cat or something got in in the night," she says nicely.
"Do not talk to them! Get out!" Mr. Roschell cries, "NOW!"
"It's okay, they're upset," she says.
"We are not talking to them. You need to go, I will call the police," he says, severely.
"Mr. Roschell, do you know it's a demon?" I ask, staring at him. Oh he knows. He thinks he does.
"Why would you say that?" He asks, quietly.
And then his eyes explode out of his head.
Several people scream. Blood is everywhere, pouring from his now empty eye sockets and ears, as the corpse falls to the floor.
I drag Josie away, he's covered in blood as am I, I pick him up out of it, as Lia and I beat a retreat out the door. Mrs. Roschell is screaming.
And for the second time in as many days I'm talking to Officer Brett about a body I just found. Well. This one was alive when I got here.
"What do you three have against going to school?" He asks, standing in front of us, "I'm two seconds from calling your parents and tell 'em you found another body instead of going to school."
"I'm not being parented at the moment," I say.
"We were coming to pick up Josie's stuff, we had nothing to do with it," Lia says.
"His head exploded," Josie says. He might need therapy.
"Seriously. All three of you. Get to school. I got enough on my plate without you cutting every damn minute to witness a murder or something. Go!" He growls.
"We're covered in blood," I say.
"And we're witnesses," Lia says.
"We're not gonna talk about his head exploding?" Again, Josie probably needs to see a therapist at some point.
"Well go change. I got your statements about the head exploding and you just showing up. Now get, I'm not baby sitting you all day. Again."
We go, walking down Mullholland drive. This time we're all three covered in blood.
"I'm not going back to school, I want to sleep and eat bagels, so what do you say we go to the Walmart and get clothes?" I ask.
"You're—hungry right now?" Lia asks.
I shrug. Possibly I also need therapy.
"I'm not hungry," Josie says.
"We're not gonna—,"
"It's listening," I say, in Korean, and tap my mouth to Josie. He nods.
"Okay we'll talk to it tonight. It did that," Lia says.
I nod.
We all know it did that. And we all don't want to admit it's getting more likely that 'it' is somehow Harper.