The Accidental Siren (36 page)

My God,
I realized.
She
knows!

My jealousy, my lust, my plots.
Mara knew
my transgressions and I was her next victim.
Her face contorted
behind that ride, her neck twisted like Ms. Grisham’s.
“Is this
a ploy, Jaaames? Have you been a good little boy, Jaaames? Mentally
undressing an innocent girl? Creating scenarios in your little
head? Masturbating to your pervy thoughts, Jaaames? Savoring the
moments your bodies touch, Jaaaaaames?”

Mara knew it all. I was no different than the
ferrets and she knew it! I was just like Ryan and Danny and Little
Trevor Tooth Fairy!

I turned from her horrible smile. I closed my
eyes until my sockets fused. I felt her descend upon me, binding my
arms with rosaries, crucifying my wrists with her teeth, and
ravaging my body whole.

* * *

The ride stopped between us. The carnie awoke
from his momentary bliss and his face melted at the sight. Children
were sobbing and parents were shouting. There was blood on the
grate of the first cage and a heap of dead bully on the ground
beside me. One eye was buried in the cement. The other was open,
watching me.

But I was alive. I had been spared.

I looked behind the cages but Mara was gone.
I spun around, and there she was, sitting on the street with her
back against a plastic trash can, knees to her chest, blood on her
bare shoulder, weeping.

It was exactly what the world needed to
see.

12.
HAPPILY EVER AFTER

The carnival beast was dead.

The rides had been powered down, but their
silhouettes still loomed above the horizon like a graveyard of
petrified dragons. Main Street had turned septic with candy
wrappers, discarded wristbands and spilled drinks. A traffic signal
bobbed in the breeze, its usual rotation of red and green had
ceased at eleven PM, now it warned outsiders with a monotonous
yellow strobe.

(The musings of a traumatized twelve-year-old
are normally unreliable, but I’ll never forget that prevailing
thought as I stumbled through the fair:
Mara Lynn was pure
evil.
My face, they told me, was slack and expressionless after
Danny’s death. My mind, however, was alive and busy assembling the
pieces to Mara’s plot. She didn’t need Carrie-like telekinesis or
Jedi mind tricks to exact her revenge, only supreme, inescapable
allure.
)

I didn’t see A.J.’s body as the paramedics
pulled it from the Tilt-a-Whirl’s base, only the chalk outline of
legs climbing into that rusty seam. It was A.J.’s dying scream that
we heard at the funhouse; ghastly shrieks and the gnashing of metal
arms. Twelve riders had to be treated for whiplash after the
attraction screeched to a halt. A.J. was killed instantly.

Nobody knew why he crawled through the broken
panel. Witnesses could only attest to a look of determination as he
weaseled his scrawny limbs through the seam.

(What did Mara whisper in A.J.’s ear that
sent him dashing through the fair? Did she claim she left some
exciting trinket in the gears beneath the Tilt-a-Whirl? Perhaps a
fresh cassette with her singing voice in magnetic tape, maybe a
lacy article marked with a scent unique to her. Or maybe she didn’t
need to lie, but simply commanded the boy’s servitude. Maybe he
obeyed. Whatever method she used, the message was clear, and I
recalled Mara’s fondness for squishing flies as a warning to the
other flies.)

Within minutes, the carnival bigwigs arrived
with their lawyers. Behind them, a handful of representatives from
The Lakeshore Celebration planning committee.

The carnies looked like a Where’s Waldo
convention as they stood–arms crossed–among the midway games. Men
with grim faces and colorful ties took turns lecturing the
operators; one by one, they were plucked from the group and lead
into a tent to give their official statements. By morning, six
carnies would lose their jobs.

(Were the carnival employees collateral
damage from Mara’s plot? Middle-aged men–hopeless targets with dull
lives, slugging from city to city to push buttons for ungrateful
kids–gladly surrendering their pinup penchants for a numbing
glimpse of absolute beauty.)

My family and friends were reunited at a
cluster of picnic tables at the front of the park. An ambulance was
positioned between the tables for easy access. Inside, a trio of
paramedics inspected us for physical and mental trauma as Mom and
Dad paced outside the open doors.

“Can you tell me your name, tiger?” asked the
male paramedic as he listened for my pulse.

“James Parker,” I replied.

“And how old are you, James?”

“Twelve.”

“Did you see anything that frightened you
tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

I told him about Danny.

The paramedic held a light to my eye. “And
how did you feel afterward?”

“I barfed two times on the street, then once
in a trash can. My legs feel like Jello and my heart feels
fluttery.” I didn’t tell him I saw Mara’s bloody gaze every time I
closed my eyes. “Other than that, I feel fine.”

He asked me several more questions then
patted me on the back, helped me out of the ambulance, and beckoned
my parents.

Kimmy and Haley were holding each other on
the picnic table, waiting their turn. Whit’s head was leaning
against the handlebar of his chair as he slept with open eyes. Livy
refused to leave my mother’s wing and begged her to stay through
the ambulance visit.

(Whit, Livy, Kimmy, and Haley were innocents
in Mara’s plot. None were punished. None were made to witness.)

Mara was the last to be inspected. When her
exam was complete, she refused to leave the ambulance. She only
spoke when spoken to, and only the detectives dared to ask her
questions.

Mr. and Mrs. Brosh looked exactly like their
son with smooth Republican faces, a touch of grey in their roots,
handbags and cufflinks and shoes that matched. They were dining
with friends at the Dune Grass Grill when the Tilt-a-Whirl
collapsed. When they rushed outside to survey the drama, they were
unaware that their own child was being traumatized at the opposite
end of the park. By the time they realized Ryan was involved in the
mayhem, he was already en route to the hospital. Until witnesses
gave their statements, the Broshes knew nothing of their son’s epic
apology to Mara, only that he had been unusually busy with his
friends over the last several days.

(No one would ever know what happened to Ryan
behind the funhouse walls. Perhaps Mara whispered words only adults
should utter. Maybe she revealed a patch of flesh that high-school
freshmen only dream about; an image reflected a thousand times
through the hall of mirrors. Whatever she did, she knew her
effect.)

Kimmy and Haley’s parents arrived next. The
Conrads were right behind them. Whit’s father surveyed the scene
with a hand on his forehead. Whit’s mother fell to her knees and
sobbed at her son’s feet.

“Get up, Mom,” Whit said. “And stop
crying.”

She looked at her son and her face softened.
Then she stood up and wiped away her tears.

If the brawl had been the only unusual
incident that evening, I suspect the boys would have been hauled to
jail for processing. Instead, they were separated into three
groups–jerseys, bandanas, and bleach guns–then un-cuffed,
finger-printed, and loosely detained on plastic benches until their
parents arrived. Firemen attached hoses to hydrants and sprayed
down a line of bandana boys and half-naked jocks still itching and
crying from the bleach attacks. Paramedics treated the more serious
burns in the ambulances. In the coming days, two kids would be
declared legally blind.

The surreal affair kept the parents detached
and defensive, but eventually, they began to mingle. As they
chatted amongst themselves, an interesting dynamic began to play
itself out, sparking a chain reaction of mini-revelations. Parents
were shocked to learn that they were’t alone; that other families
had similar problems with unnaturally defiant boys. They shared
stories about their sons sneaking out of the house despite threats
of the strictest punishments. “It started with missed dinners,” one
mother said. “Then he would disappear until midnight and refuse to
tell us where he was. We even installed a bolt on his bedroom
door... something a mother should never need to do... and he still
managed to sneak out.”

Neither army spoke about the girl who united
them. Without a motive for the attacks or the late-night
excursions, the parents assumed that their children had been
brainwashed by gangs, that they were living proof of America’s
skyrocketing violence, that family values were being stripped away
by movies, computer games, and Saturday morning cartoons. Concerned
mothers exchanged numbers and organized support groups to serve as
a lifeline to their troubled kids.

(How easy it must have been for Mara to
invite the boys outside her window, to drop a paper football with
the time and place and a note to arrive at the carnival armed and
ready for a fight. Perhaps a similar letter was mailed to the
abandoned Grisham house where she knew the blue bandanas–her
previous stalkers–would find it.)

The old ladies were there too, scattered on
the carnival outskirts, clustered behind taut yellow tape, watching
the aftermath from the shadows.

(They were mothers and grandmothers and
churchgoing ladies called to witness Mara’s act of vengeance,
doomed to know the source of chaos but unable to betray their
malevolent goddess.)

Hank was last to arrive. I watched as he
returned from the Salt and Pepper Shakers with a police escort at
his heel, scuffing the pavement and wringing a neon hat between his
fists.

There was a woman caught in the crook of his
arm, a feeble crutch supporting a broken man. Her cheeks were caked
with mascara, but her eyes were dry. She wore a black skirt that
revealed more leg with every step she took, but I didn’t need to
see her thigh to know it was Rosyln.

We exchanged a glance. I like to think that
she somehow knew about the ripped-up Poloroid in the middle of the
woods. But that was impossible. I forced a smile and she looked
away.

Dad also saw the couple approach. He rose
from his seat, stood twelve feet tall, and scowled at the grieving
man.

Hank noticed my father immediately. He nodded
once, then squeezed Rosyln deeper into the fold of his arm as she
led him away. Only when they were out of sight did my father return
to his seat.

A.J.’s parents never arrived. It would be
daybreak before they learned the news about their son. I was
grateful not to see their reaction.

* * *

Thanks to his developing relationship with
the Parker family, Sheriff Beeder became our liaison with the
authorities. We were suspects, though nobody used that word at the
time.

The detectives had no trouble assembling the
more blatant connections: Danny and A.J. were best friends, all
three victims were closely associated with our group, and most
importantly, we all had reasons to want them dead. Mara was the
obvious focus of the investigation, but every conversation with the
girl ended in hugs, handshakes, and absolute certainty that she was
uninvolved.

Charlie, the funhouse operator who followed
Ryan’s cries through the house of mirrors, couldn’t identify the
creature he saw as a little girl. Eyewitnesses at the Salt and
Pepper Shaker claimed Mara was the closest to Danny at the moment
of his death, but they never saw her touch him and claimed he
walked by his own free will into the path of the ride. When asked
why she disobeyed the safety gate and stepped through the spinning
cages, Mara told them that Danny had frightened her and she was
trying to get away.

To secure her innocence, the little girl was
nowhere near A.J. when he crawled to his demise.

* * *

I was interrogated only once and I lost my
composure before the detective could ask her first question.

“I didn’t want him to die,” I sobbed.

A second woman comforted me and assured me I
wasn’t in trouble.

The rest of the interview was benign. I only
confirmed what fifty witnesses reported before me.

Whit, Livy, Kimmy and Haley were useless.

By the time the sun peeked over the horizon
and announced a new day, all six of us had been exonerated.

* * *

I don’t remember the car ride home. I don’t
remember shutting my curtains or crawling into my bed.

I do remember my restless sleep, waking up to
the ringing phone, listening to my mother’s concerned voice as she
explained her version of the story again to the police, to the
parents of the victims, to Mr. Anderson from Social Services, and
to the Greenfields.

I churned beneath my dinosaur sheets. I
dreamt of Danny’s death. I drifted between planes of consciousness,
reveled in the mystery, and pondered the hundreds of unanswered
questions.

Why was A.J. at the carnival? There was more
he wanted to say, but he never got the chance. Why was Ryan Brosh a
target of Mara’s wrath? I hated the boy, but there was a time when
her diary declared us as equals. Who were the boys with the bleach?
What summoned them to the trees outside my window?
They heard
about Mara through the grapevine,
I convinced myself.
Somehow, they heard her voice and wanted more.

The most important question wracked my brain
for hours as I slept:
why was I spared?

I awoke again when a hand touched my
forehead. The curtains were dark, but I could still see the white
part of Mara’s eyes. The blood was gone.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.