An Apple for the Creature Page 2

  I had time to gather this positive first impression while Ms. Yarnell was holding the door for me. All the children were vibrating with excitement at this break in their routine (which had been so recently learned). I set down the box and my purse on a low worktable right inside the door when I saw Hunter dashing toward me.

  “Aunt Sookie!” Hunter yelled, and I squatted so I could catch him in my arms. It was like being wrapped in a skinny, warm boa. Hunter was dark of hair and eyes like his mother—and like her, he was an attractive person, an advantage he would need since he’d gotten the family “gift.”

  I’m so glad you’re here, he said silently.

  “Hey, Hunter,” I said, careful to speak out loud. I’d been trying to help Hunter learn to control his telepathy, which (sadly) meant teaching him to conceal his true nature. Children’s emotions are so much purer, undiluted. I hated having to curb his natural exuberance.

  You made the cupcakes, he said happily, right into my head. I gave him a gentle squeeze to remind him. “You brought cupcakes,” he said out loud, grinning at me.

  Lest you should think Hunter was a pitiful child with no one to love him—not only could Remy have followed instructions on a box of mix and opened a can of icing, but I was also certain that Remy’s girlfriend, Erin, would have been thrilled to be asked to make treats for Hunter’s first real school party. Though I didn’t know Erin well, I knew she genuinely cared for Hunter. I didn’t know why Hunter had picked me instead. Maybe he’d just wanted to see if I’d do it. Maybe, since I had to drive farther, I was the bigger challenge. Maybe he just wanted to be around someone like himself; we hadn’t gotten to spend much time together since Hunter had started school. I confess that I’d been both surprised and secretly flattered when Remy had called to tell me, in a very tentative way and not within Hunter’s hearing, that his son wanted me to attend the holiday celebration.

  “Sure, I brought the cupcakes, silly. And if I can unwind you off me, I’ll go back out to the car and get the rest of the stuff,” I said. “You think Ms. Yarnell would let you help me? By the way, Ms. Yarnell, I’m Sookie Stackhouse.”

  Hunter detached himself and I stood up. He looked at Ms. Yarnell, hope all over his face.

  She patted him on the head, turning to me with a warm smile. “I’m Sabrina,” she said. “I’m filling in this semester for Mrs. Gristede, as I’m sure you know.” Then her smile faded as she took me in.

  I tried not to look as startled as she did. I was getting a strange vibe from Hunter’s teacher, and she was getting the same sort of vibe from me. Well, well. This day was turning out to be extraordinary.

  “I have a friend who’s a lot like you,” I said. “Her name’s Amelia Broadway, she lives in New Orleans. Amelia belongs to a small group of people with the same interests.” I didn’t think any of the kids would know the word coven, but I didn’t want to test that belief.

  “I’ve met Amelia,” Sabrina Yarnell said. “She’s a sister under the skin. What about you?” Her voice was casual, but her eyes were not.

  “Afraid not,” I said. I truly have no magical ability of my own. (The telepathy had been given to me, by way of being a baby shower present to my grandfather.) But it would be silly not to tell her what she was already guessing. “I’m like Hunter,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. His otherness could not have escaped the witch; he was too young to conceal it from a real practitioner.

  “Can I go out to the car with Aunt Sookie?” Hunter asked, impatient with grown-up talk.

  “Don’t interrupt, Hunter,” I said gently.

  “Sorry!” Hunter squirmed, clearly worried that his bad manners might cost him a privilege.

  “All right, Hunter, you go with your aunt, but you two come right back,” Sabrina Yarnell said, giving me a level look to make sure I understood I wasn’t getting permission to take Hunter to Dairy Queen for an Oreo Blizzard, or on any other unauthorized expedition. She was schoolteacher first, witch second.

  “Not off school property,” I agreed, smiling. “Mind if I leave my purse in here?”

  When she nodded, I moved the cupcakes to the top of a filing cabinet, too high for any depredating little fingers. I stowed my purse on Ms. Yarnell’s desk after tucking my car keys in my jeans pocket. “Come on, buddy,” I said, holding out my hand to Hunter. He waved at his classmates, delighted to be the man of the hour. Most of the children waved back as if Hunter were leaving on a trip; they were clearly revved up by the prospect of the party. Maybe later, say by January, they’d be more blasé—but kindergartners, this early in the school year? Yeah, they were excited.

  Hunter and I walked up the hall together, Hunter so full of the joy of it all that he was practically bouncing off the walls. I could hear the murmur of voices in each room. I caught glimpses of teachers and children through each rectangular window. The smell and sounds of school—did they ever change?

  “Are you coming to Daddy’s cookout Saturday?” Hunter asked, though he knew the answer. Since we were in a public place, he was taking care to talk out loud, which I appreciated, so I was gentle in my response.

  “Hunter, you know already I have to work on Saturday. That’s the tough part of being the boss, sort of. I have to fill in when other people can’t be there.” Because of a family wedding, two of our regular servers were going to be out on Merlotte’s busiest day. “That’s one reason I’m so glad I can be here now,” I said. I wondered if I should stop at the office to explain that I had permission to take Hunter out the front door, but Ms. Minter and Ms. Javitts were having such an earnest conversation that I didn’t want to interrupt them.

  In fact, they looked so worried that I felt a flash of concern, myself. But I didn’t want to involve Hunter in my anxiety, and I quickly blocked off my thoughts as I pushed open one of the front doors. “Who’s going to be at you-all’s cookout? Your daddy and Erin, I know. What about your great-uncle?”

  Hunter told me about the few relatives and two distant cousins his own age who’d said they’d come grill hot dogs, too. They’d meet at the little Red Ditch park to play kickball and fly kites and throw Frisbees. He was describing his new dragon kite as I unlocked the car door and lifted out the box full of goody bags.

  I’d bought the plastic bags stamped with horses (feeling proud that they fit in with the Pony Room theme!) at Wal-Mart, and I’d filled each one with candy, a tiny top, a harmonica, and a sheet of stickers on the advice of Halleigh Bellefleur, a schoolteacher friend. Maybe the twirl you had to give a top was too much for such little kids? Maybe I should have gotten something else? Oh, well, too late now. Hunter seemed pleased, which had been my goal. I let him carry the box, which he promptly tilted to one side.

  “Whoops, we dropped one,” I said, bending over to pick it up. “You think you can count them again for me? Make sure we have them all?”

  “One, two—” Hunter began, and suddenly our heads snapped to look in the direction of the turn into the parking lot. The screeching tires and the racing motor of an oncoming truck were telling both of us that something was wrong.

  The pickup swerved into the parking lot and stopped with a spray of gravel in front of the school. We both squatted down, instinctively concealing ourselves. Luckily, there was a van parked between my car and the pickup, so Hunter and I had extra coverage. In Hunter’s mind the van provided an impenetrable wall, and he felt much safer. I was not so optimistic, simply because I was larger and therefore more visible.

  Maybe I was also more realistic.

  If I canted myself at a strange angle I could see the driver’s door of the pickup. It hadn’t opened. I could glimpse the man behind the wheel. He appeared to be talking to himself, though maybe he had a cell phone in his farthest hand. He was wearing a Red Ditch Oil & Lube baseball cap and a plaid western-style shirt.

  I glanced sideways at my nephew, torn between trying to absorb this new development and wanting to protect him. Hunter’s eyes were wide and his face looked much older than a kindergartner’s s
hould. I could feel his fear beating against my own mind.

  The pickup had parked in the BUSES ONLY area, designated by an unmistakable sign and yellow stripes on the pavement. That was lawless enough to rile any middle-class citizen, but that wasn’t what had raised the hair on the back of my neck and made Hunter’s face go dead white.

  The man in the truck was batshit crazy.

  I slapped my pocket, but I knew where my cell phone was—in my purse. In the Pony Room. All I’d brought out with me was my car key.

  There were fields all around the school, except here in the front, on the west side. Small houses lined the two-lane street leading from Main to the school, but of the six or so dwellings, three were clearly empty right now, the occupants at work, if the lack of vehicles was a reliable indication. One of the others had a For Sale sign in front, and two were too far away for me to assess. If I took off for one of them, I might simply be wasting valuable time.

  Damn. I had to go back into the school.

  Was Hunter safer out here or inside? I could ease him back into the car, tell him to stay down. I had a mental montage of the sheriff’s deputies showing up, bullets flying, Hunter hit by accident.

  Okay, he had to come with me.

  The people in the school had to be warned, especially Sherry Javitts. This man was surely the enraged Brady.

  Sometimes I hated my telepathy. You’d think I could have gotten some talent that was useful for offense. I couldn’t stop an armed man by thinking at him. But there was a defensive way it could be helpful.

  Hunter, here’s what we’re going to do, I said silently. You’re going to walk into the school with me like we don’t have a care in the world, and once we’re inside you’re going to run like a rabbit, right to the Pony Room. You’re going to tell Ms. Yarnell to lock the door, a silly man is here. “Silly” seemed inadequate, but “crazy” and “violent” and “probably armed” seemed too heavy for Hunter. I took a deep breath. You and your friends are going to lie down on the floor, where no one looking through the door window can see you. Lie flat like pancakes, you hear?

  His head jerked once. You come, too, he pleaded.

  I’ve got to warn the other people, I said. I’ve got to try. You get to the room, you stay down, and you don’t move, no matter what. Ms. Yarnell will take care of you all. Sabrina Yarnell was capable of taking care of a roomful of children with both hands tied behind her back, but she couldn’t stop bullets. At least, I didn’t think so.

  We were still squatting beside the open car door. Now, in the slowest way possible, Hunter and I stood up. I took another deep breath as I shut the car door.

  Slow and easy, I reminded Hunter, and I smiled at him. It wasn’t a good effort, but he smiled back in a very small way. We began strolling down the sidewalk to the front doors. I hoped, with the box of goody bags under my left arm, we made a convincingly casual scene. I put my free hand on Hunter’s shoulder and squeezed gently. He looked up at me, no longer able to sustain even a neutral expression. Fear looked out of his dark eyes, and I had to work hard to force away my mental image of what I’d like to do to the man who’d ruined Hunter’s happiness. With the box propped against one hip, I opened one of the old front doors. We stepped inside, and it fell shut behind us. I knelt, handed the box to Hunter. I told him, Scoot, darlin’. I’ll see you in a minute or two. Now, run!

  The minute he started down the hall to the Pony Room, I stood and whirled around to look back through the window in the right front door. The crazy man was getting out of the truck, his mouth moving as he talked to himself. I knew he had a gun. I knew it, right from his head.

  I spun back around to see Sherry Javitts blotting her face, the principal standing in the doorway of her own office. They were both staring out the office window at me, alerted by my odd actions and body language to the fact that something was very wrong.

  “He’s out there with a gun,” I said as I pulled open the office door. “Call nine-one-one right now! Can we lock the doors?”

  Without a word the principal hit a button and an almighty racket sounded throughout the school. “Lockdown alarm,” she explained, grabbing a set of keys from right inside her office and hurrying to the entrance to shoot the deadbolt that secured the double doors. She stooped to push the floor bolt that held the left door in place. Once it was pushed down, she reached for the right one; but it didn’t work.

  Sherry was still gaping at me.

  “Call the police,” I said, biting back the word idiot. She picked up the phone. As she punched in numbers, her thoughts weren’t coherent enough to decipher even if I’d had the time or inclination.

  I didn’t have to look outside to track Brady’s progress. The turmoil in the man’s brain got closer and closer until his chaos was beating inside my own head in time with his footsteps. He reached the front doors and began pounding on them.

  Though they were bowing in, the doors held under Brady’s initial assault. Ms. Minter spun on her heel and began running down the left-wing hall to lock the back doors leading to the playground. Sherry was staring at the way the doors were jumping. The phone was still in her hand. Someone on the other end was yelling.

  “You need to hide,” I said urgently. “If the doors give in, you have to be out of sight.”

  “But he might shoot someone else,” she said. “He just wants me.”

  I didn’t have time to figure out whether that was an incredibly brave thought or simply shock-induced honesty. “He doesn’t have to get anyone,” I said. “The cops will be here soon.”

  “Hardly any cops in Red Ditch,” Sherry said, “as he’s been reminding me every day for months.” I could tell from her thoughts that Sherry was resolving to sacrifice herself. She felt surprisingly good about that; she would regain her pride and finally accomplish something big. A tinge of fatalism and self-righteousness colored this decision. If I’ve learned anything from years of hearing other people’s most personal reflections, it’s that we never do anything for only one reason.

  I didn’t want anyone to die today.

  I spied a janitor’s closet across from the school office. (I deduced this from the fact that a sign on the outside read JANITOR.) I grabbed the secretary’s arm and hustled her over to it, opened the door, and shoved her inside. When Rachelle Minter came running back, presumably having locked the playground doors in both wings, I said, “Sherry’s in there. Lock it,” and she did it instantly. Then she stood and gasped for breath. The principal was not a runner, but she was a damn quick thinker.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to do. We’d locked the doors, we’d called the police, we’d hidden the target of the violence from the dealer of the violence.

  It was like waiting for a tornado to touch down.

  The principal and I stood side by side, our gazes fixed on the old doors with the ominous gap between them and the missing right-hand floor latch. Each time Brady crashed into the doors they spread a little farther apart before they rebounded into place. Though there was more play between the two doors than there should have been, the broken floor bolt would be the deciding factor.

  “Maintenance guy didn’t fix it,” Ms. Minter gasped. “But who knew someone would try to kick the doors in?”

  Abruptly, I wondered what the hell we were doing standing there. We weren’t armed, and our mere presence would hardly be enough to deter Brady from whatever plan was in his crazy head. So far, he was absolutely bent on gaining entrance and finding Sherry.

  “We better get out of the way!” I was surprised at how calmly I spoke, because my heart was racing like a motor on high. The unknown Brady had a lot of stamina. With every blow the doors bowed in more, rebounded more slowly. I grabbed Ms. Minter’s hand and began to urge her back into the office.

  I should have been concentrating; or maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference, since Brady was moved by nothing more than rage and impulse. He hit the doors as hard as he could. Simultaneously, he fired twice through the gap between them. The
boom of the gunfire was magnified in the little lobby. Even as I flinched, I felt a yank on my hand and I staggered.

  Ms. Minter folded to the floor, still holding on to me.

  Caught off balance, I sprawled to the floor with her, landing partly across her legs. I knew she’d been hit. There was shock and pain caroming from corner to corner in her brain. In a second, I could see the blood soaking her pantsuit. Her eyes were terrified.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, it hurts.” Then she passed out.

  I lay as still as though I were paralyzed. Had I been hit, too? I didn’t think so, but I was so stunned I couldn’t move.

  I was facedown on the green linoleum, sprawled across poor Rachelle Minter’s legs. She’d landed on her right side. I could feel the wetness as her blood pooled underneath me. Brady had continued his assault on the front doors after he’d fired. I could feel the surge of triumph in the gunman’s brain. He was pretty sure we’d gone down, but I didn’t think he could see us at the moment, and he didn’t know if we were dead or not.

  I could feel how wet the front of my T-shirt had become in a few seconds. Taking a big chance, I rolled over onto my side so I wasn’t putting any more pressure on Ms. Minter. I lay as close to the wounded woman as I could. She wasn’t dead yet. I could feel the life in her brain. Before I began my impersonation of a dead person, I opened my eyes a slit to look at myself. I was bloody enough to looked seriously wounded, perhaps even dead, as long as Brady didn’t try to locate an actual bullet hole.

  I made myself go totally limp. I told myself over and over, as I heard the doors finally spring apart, that he could not tell I was alive as long as I thought “limp and lifeless.”

  He won’t shoot me. He won’t shoot me. I begged God that Brady would not think a coup de grâce was necessary.

  The school was eerily silent . . . to my ears, anyway. In my head, the panic of more than a hundred adults and children beat like an irregular drum. Clearest of all was the regret and terror of the woman in the closet only seven feet away from where I lay pretending to be dead. Sherry was almost incapable of coherent thought. I could totally understand that. At least I knew what was happening, but she was shut in that windowless tiny room, knowing that the man whose footsteps she could hear was there to kill her.