Haunted Organic Read online

  He wanted to bring her home himself.

  He wanted to carry her there himself.

  He wanted the news crews to stop caring about him.

  He wanted Emerald to stop being more courageous and determined than him.

  He wanted to be the brave one.

  He wanted to be powerful and sure and important and huge.

  He jumped down and ran to the Sculpin most intent on getting to Trinket, and slammed his feet into its chest until it was flattened. And then he kept going. He raged and stomped the moaning creature with his legs and hit him with his fists, and pummeled him hard and long until the Sculpin was nothing by entrails and soft broken fish parts.

  And he still kept on stomping at it, clawing it, shredding it with his fingers. He got down on his knees, over the body and slammed his hands into the cavity of the fish, slashing its insides with its fingers. His mind slipped into some awful monster reverie, where all he wanted was to hurt and kill and destroy.

  “Josie, Josie!....What are you doing?”

  He looked up and saw her standing there. Her face sad and scared. Emerald. His friend.

  All the Sculpin had been killed, ripped apart by his own hands. The shop was a carnage of shredded and broken bodies. He looked down at his hands and saw that he was holding handfuls of the Sculpins insides, and that he had been stuffing handfuls of the body parts into his mouth.

  He spit out what was possibly a kidney, all slimy and red, the color of dark clay, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, which only served to get more fish into his mouth.

  “Let me explain…” he sputtered, getting to his feet.

  Emerald moved toward the crab pot, not taking her eyes off him.

  “Stay away from us,” she squeaked.

  “I’m getting her out of here.”

  She tried to lift the pot and got about two feet before she dropped it. It was like it was a magnet, tethered to the floor. She picked it up and the crab pot crashed down. She did it again and again, picking it up, having it slam down, until she became so frustrated and broken she started kicking it.

  “He won’t let her leave,” he said it softly, as if the words were being fed to him.

  But she already knew.

  “He or you?...” she asked through teary eyes.

  “You’re the same, aren’t you?”

  He had not seen her scared of anything, and now, she was scared of him. She wiggled her fingers through the crab pot and Trinket grabbed them as if they were her only lifeline. And maybe they were. He didn’t know anymore.

  Bangkok was close.

  Josie felt the pang of wanting to hurt and lash out. He wanted to rip them apart limb from limb. He wanted to do harm. His head reeled. He stumbled toward them, sloshing through fish, and slipping and hitting the floor hard. Josie stepped on something hard and small. It was Trinkets dummy. He picked it up.

  It meant nothing to him. His heart was closed. He felt nothing for Trinket or Emerald.

  The pitch dark closed around him, sucked him under. He felt a despair so deep it made him burn with hate. It was like a fire being coaxed in his belly. For once, he was happy to feel something. He called the fire to rise up inside him.

  Burn harder. Burn harder.

  He reached for Emerald, grabbed her by the hair, pulled her into him. He bit down on her neck. He felt his teeth sink through muscle and bone, veins collapsing into his mouth, felt her body thrash under him. He let himself go, felt the warm blood of his friend run like an electric current right through him. He had never felt more powerful, more real. He was a killer. And it felt good.

  “Bangkok!” Trinket shouted again, her voice frantic and high.

  And that’s when the first eel tentacle slammed through one shop front window. Another tentacle came slamming through the front door of the shop. Another burst through the second shop front window. Glass shattered and flew everywhere. The eels snapped and hissed, and moved like thick, oily snakes through the aisles. Bangkok was like a great stream of molten lava, unstoppable and oozing into every part of the Organic Food Shop.

  An eel tentacle snapped around Josie’s neck. His mind when blank, cold, dark, sad. He felt numb, like everything was moving in slow motion around him, like he was being pulled under water, like he was drowning. He heard Emerald scream and go limp in his arms.

  He saw was the monster. The watery eyes. His darkness that covered him like a heavy black shroud. Josie no longer cared what happened. He belonged to Bangkok. He would do whatever he wanted. He gave in. Gave himself over. Let the monster take him.

  There was another child. Bangkok wanted the boy. The one that lived down the street.

  Musa.

  Yes, he would take Musa.

  And everything went black.

  nine

  BK

  Rasha Kadoura was going to be late for school. Again.

  She hobbled around her room, putting one leg into raggedy jean shorts and then another, and throwing on a TV shirt she was pretty sure she had worn the day before, and working her feet into flip flops.

  She looked into her mirror, applied a swoop of silver eye shadow across her lids, a rip of sparkly gloss over her lips, and fluffed and pinned the long mane of mohawk that rode down the back of her like a horse’s tail. She saw that her hair was still damp, but there was nothing she could do about it. She barely had enough time to get Musa out of bed, ride him to his kindergarten on her handle bars before she had to get herself over to her own school, a block away.

  She grabbed an old American military kit bag that she used for her books and tore out of the room.

  “Musa, are you dressed, kid? We gotta move.”

  Rasha had been up early catching the first good waves of the day. That’s where she was every morning when the sun came up. Sitting on the beach in her wet suit and bikini, feeding scraps of jerky to Bacon, and waiting for the waves off Tamarama to get good and big. Then, she would leave Bacon to his breakfast in the sand, and run out into the water, belly down on the board, and catch the first big ones of the day.

  Rasha spent every morning this way when weather allowed. She came in dripping of salt and sea, flinging her board onto the back porch, Bacon trotting along behind her, always at her feet. She bent down and kissed her old blind grandmother on the cheek.

  “Musa and Mariam were here,” the old lady told her in Arabic.

  “Yes, Teta,” she said softly, putting a hand on hers. “I saw them.”

  “They came for Musa,” she said conspiratorially.

  “I said they should have him home by dinner.”

  Rasha squeezed Teta’s withered hands and said in her ear,” I hope you had a great visit.”

  “Oh yes, Musa said he would take good care of the boy…”

  Musa and Mariam were her parents, and Rasha knew they were back in Lebanon. She hadn’t seen them nor spoken to them in years. They sent her and Musa to live with Teta when she was a toddler and Musa was a baby. All she knew of Lebanon was Teta’s stories of the war and the food she made for them when she was still able to cook, her little stuffed cabbage rolls and her Baba Ghanouj. But she hadn’t cooked for them in nearly two years. Her mind was fuzzy and she said crazy things. She sat in her arm chair most days and had long conversations in Arabic, and sometimes in languages she didn’t recognize, with the coat rack.

  Rasha was used to being the mother of the family. She fed them, she loved them, she told no one that Teta was so far gone in her brain for fear that they might take Musa away from her.

  She knew grown-ups wouldn’t understand, so she made friends at the beach and at the skate park, away from her neighborhood. Her friends were mostly boys because they liked riding skateboards and doing street tricks. They didn’t ask too many questions about her life or her family, or want to have sleepovers, or want to hang out at her house. It was all sports all the time with these dudes and she was just fine with that.

  She would protect her little family and her secret, at any cost.
/>   “Musa!” she yelled for her brother. “Let’s go!”

  “Bacon,” she told the dog, setting out some new water and food in his bowl, “Take care of Teta, okay boy?’

  “Musa, what’s the problem?”

  There was no movement or noise coming from his room.

  Rasha rolled her eyes and dropped her pack.

  Musa should’ve been able to get himself dressed every morning, but these last few weeks, he had barely been able to keep himself together. He cried at the slightest thing, and pronounced daily that he didn’t want to go to school or leave her side. At night, Musa climbed into her bed nearly every night.

  “Nightmares,” he told her, his lips right against her cheek.

  “Monster is gonna come for me.”

  She had rolled her eyes at his wild-running imagination, but always tousled his hair, called him ‘Squirt’, and cuddled him closer. She loved him more than anything.

  So it struck her as odd when she opened the door to find Musa’s room empty, his whole bed turned over, the paintings and drawings he made in school blown to bits and scattered around the room.

  “C’mon Musa, I have to get to school,” she looked under the bed and in the closet. “Stop playing around.”

  At first, she didn’t worry. Musa loved to play games, and he couldn’t care less about making it to school on time. She didn’t start to really worry until she had searched the whole house and the back yard.

  “I can’t find him, Teta…” she said, not expecting her to answer.

  “He’s not here.”

  “What?” Rasha bent down to look in her glassy marble eyes.

  “Musa came and took him,” she said.

  “...But he’ll bring him back for dinner.”

  That’s when Rasha knew that something was not right. She took off down Tamarama Street, Bacon running at her heels, calling his name, knowing he wouldn’t answer.

  ✽✽✽

  Josie had the distinct impression he was being watched.

  And he was, by just about everyone at his school.

  He had woken up in the morning with the idea that he had tried to kill the only person who had ever believed in him, and had no memory of anything that happened after that.

  He looked out his window. He couldn’t quite see the front of the shop through his window, but people walked up and down the sidewalk as if it were just the usual day. News people sat waiting for him to come out. Mrs. Fockerson was running around looking for Ludivine Salt to see if she could buy some clams, but was flummoxed and threw her hands up in the air in utter despair when she was told she wasn’t going to be coming in today.

  Botany Cook was interviewing Mrs. Kippelibby on the front lawn, who apparently had more information to give them. It didn’t look like the front of the building had been blown out. Everything looked the same.

  Josie saw Emerald walking out the side door of her house and getting in her dad’s jeep. She stopped before getting in and stared at the Organic Food shop. Then got in and closed the door behind her.

  “She got out,” he thought to himself.

  “Did she leave Trinket?”

  There was still a mob of people standing on the curb outside Trinket’s house carrying signs of support and love, so he guessed Trinket was still in the crab pot. Emerald probably had no idea how she got out. She probably woke up scared and confused, as if it had all been a dream.

  Just like he did.

  That’s when Josie realized he was holding something in his hand. Trinket’s dummy.

  He thought about how alone she must be feeling and to not have this stupid little plastic thing that gave her so much comfort must be even harder for her. He tried to push the thought away.

  He went to his dresser, opened his sock drawer and took out the silver cigar box.

  His grandfather, Jack, a grisly old guy with mahogany leather for skin, a bushy white beard and shaggy white hair gave him the box with a bowie knife inside. It was his most important possession. Josie took out the knife and slid his fingers over the blade.

  He used to spend every summer in the Northern territories with Grandpa Jack on his crocodile farm. Those were the best summers of his life. He wondered if he'd ever get to visit him again.

  His mother never understood her father much, and especially never understood Jack's love for crocodiles. She hated growing up on that filthy, dangerous farm with every ounce of her being. It was an indelicate existence for Phyllis. She stopped sending Josie to visit Jack the year before, and it broke his heart, and pounded yet another wedge between him and his mother.

  Grandpa Jack's phone had been dead for the last few months, and they hadn't heard a word from him. His mother could've cared less. But it made Josie feel even more alone.

  “Josie, are you ready for school?” Phyllis yelled, impatiently.

  “I have to get to work.”

  Josie was startled and dropped the knife on the floor. He pushed the dummy into the box. He slammed the lid and hid the box underneath a pile of socks.

  Phyllis knocked on his door and popped her head in.

  He quickly bent down and shoved the knife into the only thing around, his backpack.

  Josie frowned. He didn’t like his mother in his room.

  “I don’t need a ride,” he said, hating the idea of his parents chaperoning him to school like a baby.

  “Yes, you do. The police insist we do this,” Phyllis said, her voice stressed and thin.

  His parents had barely grunted at him since they picked him up from the police station. They passed each other in the kitchen, like cars speeding on the highway. Phyllis and Portland frowned a lot and kept their heads firmly wedged into their computer screens. Sometimes they talked to people on the phone, mostly lawyers and inquisitive neighbors.

  “How could my own son have done this to us?” Josie had overheard Portland say to someone at his work. He was talking in a hushed voice, covering his mouth over the phone as if Josie couldn’t hear.

  “Bob called me in for a meeting tomorrow about all the press coverage…” Portland continued, clasping the phone tightly, “How am I going to explain this?”

  His parents believed he kidnapped, possibly killed a child. And even worse, all they cared about was how it affected them. These realizations, that his parents barely knew he existed, or who he was, always struck him like a lightning bolt to the chest. He had to put his hand over his heart to keep it from popping out of his chest. Even now, at the worst time in his life, what he wanted was his parents to believe him.

  But he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  Josie threw on his hoodie, jammed his cell phone in his pocket and slipped his backpack over one shoulder. By the time he got to school, after a wordlessly awkward car ride with his mother, he had read Twitter, Snapchat and his personal messages - the whole school was talking about him, mocking him.

  Wonder if Baby Killer is coming to school?

  Let's just call him BK from now on.

  Bet he won’t show his FREAK face.

  BK is probably hacking up other kids right now.

  Think he chopped up Trinket and put her in his freezer?

  Don’t eat at BK’s house. lol.

  Is that a chicken leg or a BABY leg? lol.

  Better not show his freak face around me.

  Thought he was a big fat FREAK.

  Someone oughta teach him not to hurt babies….

  He turned off the notifications on his feed. It was too much. Everyone had made up their minds.

  When Josie walked through the front door of his school, crowds of kids huddled around lockers, talking about Trinket. It was the biggest news in Sydney, and all of Australia.

  They went silent at the sight of him.

  He stood there, looking at them, them looking at him.

  Then, when he thought they would all be frozen this way forever, there was movement. Grotty Greg stepped through the crowd. He was the squarest boy Josie had ever seen. He was as long as he was w
ide, and his face sat on his body like a little square sitting on a big square. Grotty Greg walked over and stood in front of Josie, so close that Josie could see the pores of his skin, and the little boils and pimples cropping up on his nose and forehead.

  “Hey BK!” Grotty Greg said, all cheery like that was his name.

  Josie didn’t say anything. But he knew better than to look away or down. He looked right at Grotty.

  “That’s your name, right?” Grotty Greg said, “Cause you’re a Baby Killer now?”

  Josie said nothing. He just kept looking, but inside his stomach had turned to mush. He felt squishy and sick. He wanted to run away.

  “What did you do with Trinket, BK?”

  “Did it make you feel like a tough guy to hurt the little girl?

  “C’mon BK are you a tough guy?” Grotty Greg pushed his fist into Josie’s chest. Each time he pushed his knuckles into his skin just a little harder.

  It hurt, but Josie focused his mind. He tried to disconnect from his body and stay in his head.

  “Wanna beat on someone your own size, BK? he said slamming his fist into Josie’s shoulder, knocking him back.

  “Or you just like 'em small and helpless?”

  “Or do you like to hurt little girls?...Is that your style, FREAK?!”

  “Freak,” he heard a girl whisper.

  The students had formed a long aisle down the hall. He pushed around Grotty Greg and walked through the line. He tried to pretend they didn’t exist, but how could he pull that off - all eyes were on him.

  And more kids chimed in.

  “Freak.”

  “Freak.”

  “Freak.”

  The chanting started low, like it was an ominous prayer in a monastery, but then grew and split wide open, the word “Freak!” bouncing off the walls, slamming at him, defining him. He had gotten half way down the hall, one eye on the stairwell, when the first spitball hit him on the side of the face. Then, a balled up paper. Then fruit. An orange clobbered him in the shoulder. Then a shoe thrown at his ribs. He walked not an inch faster and never looked at them, but kept his eyes on the door that let to the stairwell just in front of him.

  “FREAK.”