“So, what’d you tell your folks you were doing tonight?”“Stayin’ over at Jesse’s.”
“What if they call?”
“They won’t. They’re goin’ out. Won’t be home ‘til late. What about yours?”
“Told ‘em Curt and I are goin’ skating. They’re gonna come pick us up at eleven.”
“We’ll be back by then.”
The two twelve-year-olds coast down the sharp incline of West Lewis Street. Ashley lifts her feet off the pedals and holds them away from the sides of her bicycle like deranged kickstands. Her pale hair floats straight out behind her, the long bangs swept up and away from her forehead. She follows Ouija around the corner and down the block toward the meeting place, Del Monte’s Meats.
Ouija swoops to a stop against the curb in front of Del’s. He drops his bicycle and shrugs his way out of the backpack he’s wearing, draping it across the handlebars of his bike. “Watch this for me,” he says and dashes into the store. Ashley parks her bike in the shade on the east side of the market and sits down on the curb. She peers up West Center Street, where the sun is slipping down behind the hills.
Two more cyclists appear in the distance, a boy wearing a white helmet and a girl with short, dark hair. They both lean back slightly as they coast down the hill toward the market. The girl takes her hands off the handlebars and crosses them briefly on her chest. As they near the meeting place, she waves. “Yo, Ashley! Can you believe this nerd?” She gestures at the boy beside her.
The boy, flushed and panting a little, brakes in front of the market. He touches the top of his white bicycle helmet with a fingertip. “Tell her to stop it,” he says to Ashley. “I have to wear it. If my mom catches me--”
“Oh, your mom,” says his companion. She stands over the center bar of her bike and twitches her hips from side to side. “Your mom, your mom,” she chants.
Ashley laughs, and the boy blushes more heavily. “Tell her to stop. Or I’m not going.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go,” Ashley says. “Your mom might catch you.” Both girls laugh, and the boy in the helmet grips the handlebars of his bike tightly. The corners of his mouth turn down a tiny bit, and he looks toward the front door of the market. He lifts the front wheel of his bike off the ground and slams it down hard a few inches from Ashley’s sneakered toes.
“Okay, okay,” says Ashley. “Don’t go all ballistic on us, Curt. Can’t you take a joke?”
Curtis says nothing, just grips his handlebars.
“So, where’s Wee-Gee-Squee-Gee?” says the short-haired girl.
Ashley tips her head at the market behind her. “Getting supplies.” Just then the market door swings open, and Ouija comes out carrying a brown paper sack. He nods a greeting to the new arrivals, then unzips his backpack and begins unloading the contents of the sack.
He tosses a can of pop to Curtis. “Put this in your pocket. I don’t have room for all of ‘em.” He settles three more cans in the bottom of his backpack and layers a shrink-wrapped package of beef jerky and three ropes of red licorice on top of them. He zips the pack and slips his arms into both straps, shaking the contents into a comfortable nest low on his back. “Ready.” He grabs his bicycle, heaving it into place beneath him. “Let’s go.”
The four kids pedal down Center Street against the slow afternoon traffic. Ouija leads, with Curtis close behind him. The two girls follow at a more leisurely pace, cycling side-by-side and talking. They gradually fall a block or so behind the boys.
Ouija pulls to a stop on the corner by the First National Bar and waits for the girls to catch up. He points at a building in the next block. “Don’t you have to stop in there?” he asks the short-haired girl.
“Yeah. Guess I’d better.”
“Want me to come with you?” Ashley asks.
“I can’t stand it,” says Ashley, watching her friend.
Ouija shrugs and readjust his backpack. Curtis tightens the chin strap of his helmet. “What’s the matter with Jesse’s dad?”
“Whattaya think, you moron? He’s an alky.”
“Well, I know that. I mean--how come he drinks so much?”
“Who knows? It sucks.” Ashley stares down the street. Jesse still stands in the doorway of the Bourbon Barrel, her head and shoulders out of sight. She balances on one jean-clad leg, the other lifted behind her to waist level, toe pointed like a ballet dancer’s. As Ashley watches, Jesse withdraws her head and shoulders, letting the door of the bar swing shut. Pivoting on her toes, she executes a coltishly clumsy pas de bourrée before mounting her bicycle. She pedals quickly back to where the other three wait.
Jesse’s face is flushed but expressionless. “Okay,” she says as she pulls alongside them. “Let’s go.”
“Smells like old pee.”
Ouija whizzes through a puddle of water that has dripped from the ceiling of the tunnel. His tires spin water up behind him. Ashley is bent low over her handlebars, and she flinches as the fine spray strikes her face. “Hey! You’re getting me wet.”
Ouija laughs over his shoulder. “Don’t follow so close.”
“Then hurry up.”
Ouija pedals harder and bursts out of the east end of the block-long tunnel. Ashley and Jesse follow him, bumping their bikes over a traffic island and up onto the sidewalk in front of the Power Company. Curtis lags behind, stopping for a car that’s turning down into the underpass. He walks his bike across the intersection, then mounts it and hurries to catch up with the others. He joins Ouija in front of the girls, and the group rides several blocks in silent haste, slowing only when there is cross-traffic.
They come to a long block of businesses that have their doors nailed shut and their windows covered with sheets of rough plywood. Small printed signs reading “For Lease” and “No Trespassing” are tacked to the plywood and nearly obliterated with the swirls and squiggles of multicolored graffiti. “Going Out of Business” reads a drooping banner in the one unboarded and surprisingly unbroken window of the store on the corner.
In thick, black letters on a door next to this window, someone has scrawled, “Evil Summoning.”
Ashley slows her bike in front of this message. “Whattaya s’pose this is about?”
Jesse shrugs. “I dunno.”
A few yards farther along, another boarded-over door bears the word, “Deicide.” The girls pull to a stop in front of it.
“Decide?”
“No, it’s D-e-i-c-i-d-e.”
“What’s that?”
“Dunno. Maybe they misspelled it.”
They pedal on to the corner. The last door on the block is dark green. Thick slices of paint curl away from the wood, crackling like the ends of dried Christmas tree branches. This door reads, in the same black, printed letters, “Evil Unleashing.” The “s” doesn’t quite make its last curve; it looks like the letter “c.”
“Unleashing? Or Unleaching?”
“‘Leaching’ means like draining,” says Ashley. “I ‘member my dad and Lily talking about it. Something to do with the garden.”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“Me neither.”
