Chapter 13 - Thirteen Little Pieces

Fighting a breath in and out, I held the blanket in front of me along with the lesser light I'd been left with. Lacy's phone had been a deterrent for me earlier. I still needed to track it down, at least for an extra, emergency light. The shadow-cloaked dining area had a lot of dark corners but nothing that set my mind on edge.

Turning into the kitchen, I dug around for grandma's best knife while reminding myself not to sleep with it and injure Lacy, but just return it after all these nerves had passed.

It felt silly to hunt around for a knife but, the instant I found it, the shakes that had crept into Lacy's legs finally settled. Her muscles still quivered when I tensed up a little bit, but it wasn't as bad as before. I still needed to find that blasted purse though. Breathing with each wave, the blanket became a sense of security or at least a comfort and warmth against a cold spot over by the door and especially as I checked the basement.

This was stupid. Firstly, I had no reason to check in the basement because anxious kids were going to bang on the front door and no way I would hear them from this far away, but I needed to at least take a peek in the basement before I could feel settled in by myself.

Holding a long, deep breath, I paused on the top and willed Lacy's legs to stop pulsing with uncertainty and weakness. For the instant after I did that, they settled into perfect ease like I could run a mile on them without concern for what was before or behind me. Then the twitching gradually returned, but I had already started in my mission down the old steps.

Taking them like rapid heartbeats, I was to the ground before I had time to process Lacy's natural fear. The bundle of Christmas lights was right where I had left it in my anxieties as the dryer finished a second load of clothes picked out from the attic for lounging and sleep after grandma and grandpa returned from their fun.

In the noise of a thought and taking in the relative silence, I heard a heavy "THUNK" from somewhere upstairs. It was too loud to be the house settling, although I couldn't rule that out and it was too short to be a knock on the front door. Earlier in the season, the weight of leaves on the roof had startled Lacy that the walls were going to give way.

We didn't get a lot of breeze around here so it couldn't be the wind rattling things. No one would be on the roof, unless it was some animal or bird doing some evening exploration. The sound felt both close to me and so far away that it was impossible to place accurately. It could be a branch glancing across a window that just sounded louder from my attention or it could be a shadow man dropping onto something above me.

Fortunately, I found Lacy's purse near the washer down there, so my trek was not a complete loss of confusion and worry. How it got to be down here wasn't something I wanted to question, even though I didn't remember bringing it down and it felt like if Lacy left it here then that would be something she would mention as a reminder for me.

She could've just forgotten it was down here though or maybe I was the one who forgot. Not that I would forget something like that. Although, I was still getting used to the concept of a purse or a bag like a purse outside of college. I had seen that brief apparition of the lights in a bramble bundle, which I turned and intended to scoff at like it had done something else to bother me, but I couldn't see the Christmas lights anymore.

It wasn't like I was angled wrong. Gazing at the jars, cans, and other stuff grandma kept down here, there was no way I should have been able to miss the lights, but the box was there without the wreath-like prominence of the lights cresting. And that was with both lights on.

I shivered without the cold gnawing on me and decided this was enough venturing down into the basement by myself while not myself. As John, I could chill in here and wander happily, but like this, it was as though the temperature had turned down ten degrees even though the stuffy feeling of the dryer should've still been invading everything around.

Taking the steps with a spidery sideways walk which allowed me to check the basement and the little area that led to the kitchen and the screen door provided some sense of safety, especially with a knife balanced in these girlish hands as I hauled the purse and aimed the phone to catch whatever might be around as I clung for the straggling warmth of the blanket.

Once back on the ground level, I expected to sneak my way back to the front room, instead I sprinted to the couch, not bothering to check what was behind me, advancing on tiptoes and fleet feet as I jiggled and wiggled all my way to a plop. All of Lacy may as well have been a slapped ham for all I cared about where it went, so long as it wound up buried under a blanket with her legs and feet just small enough to be contained by its softness.

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Soon after landing on the couch, I recognized a few different things. Firstly, I had tucked the jagged knife underneath me and it risked cutting a hole in Lacy's skirt. Shifting and rolling gradually freed it. Secondly, I was still chilly despite the scope of the blanket across Lacy's body. This made me yearn for a few different things, especially some comfort food only my grandmother could best provide. Just some water would be enough to placate me for the time being though.

And thirdly, slamming onto the couch had awakened the same kind of dusty spirits which had settled into the attic. With a billowing puff, they nipped and circled around Lacy's sensitive nostrils, cobras testing their fangs and eager to strike. The perfumed, sharply-lavender air mist just within reach of Lacy's arm wasn't quite a mongoose-level remedy but it pushed the worst into a groveling but swift retreat.

As a fourth thing and a capper to it all, I could hear raucous, childish noises filtering up the walkway to the front of the house. Extracting myself from comfort to sit up with all of Lacy's weight settling onto me in the newly usual ways, I plucked the bowl from the table one-handed and waited for the noises of expectation to develop into my next group of visitors.

For an instant, I envisioned the older guys of that Halloween ago but without a real John to scare them off. At least I had a knife and a first-hand lesson in poking. Drawing Lacy's breath across the interference of her chest in everything, though reduced to a tolerable static, I waited for the next thing.

Seconds later, a firm, regular rapping resonated from the front door and I lightly muttered a few words as I climbed to Lacy's feet and closed the distance. Unlocking it, I wasn't sure what I expected.

No one was at the door.

I'd seen this game before. Setting the bowl down behind me, I flicked on the brightest setting of the phone light and pressed it into the shadows. A few quick snaps lit up the area like silent lightning. Though I didn't find the obvious signs of someone ding-dong ditching or whatever it was called now, I had left enough time for them to bolt and fade back into the darkness. The absence of any sign I'd been pranked, along with everything else, didn't help though. Snapping four photos in total with the flash, I snorted in irritation and relatched the door.

After a few long, heavy breaths and plenty of water with a few crackers from the cabinet, I nestled under the cozy blanket and glared at one of those terrible ads for Kotex using blue fluid on what seemed like a diaper between acts of the Indiana show.

Casually, I brought up the photos I'd taken. The first was a cock-eyed view of the porch with a bit of the street mostly cloaked in darkness. Pinching around on the image, I was about to delete it when I noticed a human-shaped shadow peeking around one of the trees at the front of the property. Zooming in as tight as possible, no tweaks dispelled the black mass. It appeared as though the figure might've had a hat on the top of his head, but it was too indistinct to resolve.

Scrolling to the next shot, I didn't need to manipulate it as a second black figure lingered on the edge of the side drive, almost on the neighbor's property line. I didn't feel like checking the rest of the images even though they were just a gesture away. Some small, terrified, and shaking part of me expected the next one was even closer, right on the steps, and the last one was right next to me in the doorway, sneaking in while I kept it open, unaware.

Darn it! I nearly slapped Lacy's cheek in frustration at even entertaining that notion. Clearly, the pranksters had been caught on camera with the first two, but it was beyond the skill of the lens to resolve them and everything else was pushing my anxiety. I should've been happy to have a pair of feet that could be tucked under this blanket but, instead, I was racing away from simple shadows.

Two photos remained on Lacy's phone though. Anything could be on them, from blown out imagery of an upside-down tree and enough questionable shadow shapes to smolder and smother my imagination with fear. Leaving them unknown was almost as bad as the spooky snaps of what I knew.

The swipe not registering at first, I gazed at picture three. For an instant, I thought that the shadow had crouched down like a feral beast waiting to spring towards me but I soon resolved that was instead a relatively-bare bush and some forced perspective.

However, the shadowy presence from the previous was absent and, as I ran back through my picture-taking, it was just a few seconds, not much time for a watching prankster to scamper away soundlessly.

Before I could dwell further, Lacy's thumb rested on the screen and I started to wiggle the image to the last one. Before I could get further than that, a screen popped up with a quick melody and the words "Ahole Mark".

Worse than shadow monsters in the night, it was my father.