CHAPTER 6

 

 

An hour later I decided I needed more aspirin and a better screwdriver. The lock on the box was sealed like a mummy's tomb minus the whole curse business. At least I hoped there wasn't a curse on the box.

I stopped my picking and leaned back to get a look at my handiwork. There wasn't so much as a scratch on the lock, but my screwdriver looked like it'd been trying to peck away at solid steel. The poor thing's nose was more out of joint than Ralph on a bad night, not that there were any good nights with him, or even from him.

I looked at my watch and sighed. It was forty-five minutes after I should have given up. I stood and gave the box a good kick to let off some steam. Turns out the box had some steam to let out, too. White mist blew out from beneath the lid and spilled onto the floor.

"Whoa!" I yelped and hopped back.

My imitation of the Easter Bunny saved my tail, or in this case my toes. The mist blew over my floor and the rug on top of that, and ate through both of them like a pack of starved piranhas with a taste for cloth and vinyl. The crispy edges of the mist's reach boiled like acid and smelled like a dead animal that was ripe enough for a vulture. The mist slipped back into the box, but my floor didn't stop bubbling like some chemistry experiment gone wrong.

I left the box where it sat. I liked behind able to count to ten without using my toes. I sat back on the couch and glared at the box.

"Your owner better pay for the damages or the manager's going to have my hide," I scolded the box. It sat there like an innocent box, but I knew better.

After ten minutes the bubbles stopped bubbling. I leaned over the box and inspected the damage. I couldn't wave to my neighbors below me, but a few more inches and they would've had a funny skylight. I left the box and went to bed. Maybe I'd wake up and find this was all some sick joke by the trucker guys. Maybe Charlie had rigged the whole thing with a friend of his.

"And maybe I'd wake up to a million dollars in cash on my doorstep. . ." I muttered.

Yeah, even I didn't believe the guys could pull off a prank this complicated. I'd seen their style of tricks, and most of it consisted of dunking a guy's head in a toilet. Something did smell fishy here, but it didn't come from a restroom. Most of it came from that small girl with her gagging adorableness. A voice in my head told me I hadn't seen the last of her.

I got into bed and laid over, but sleep didn't come. Having a possessed box in the living room with a penchant for pyrotechnics meant counting sheep wasn't going to work, not that night. I lay awake half the night thinking about that damn box and its damned owner. He was more trouble than he was worth, and considering he was a vampire he was worth a lot to the scientific community. Whatever the reason I needed to protect that box, short of saving the world, I wasn't going for it.

I rolled over and sighed. "Come sunup, the box goes back to his coffin. . ." I murmured.

That calming thought finally got me to sleep. I woke up later that day and sat up in bed. A thick clump of hair hung in front of my face, and I brushed it aside and glanced at the clock on my nightstand. My mouth dropped open. Four o'clock. I had an hour to get that box back to its owner before the owner woke up and refused service. Worse yet, I had to get to work in that same hour.

I jumped out of bed and opened my closet to grab one of my diner outfits. The closet was empty, but there was a stack of dirty clothes in the laundry basket. In all the excitement of vampires, scary little girls and terrifying boxes I'd forgotten to do the laundry.

"First thing when I get back," I promised my dirty clothes as I grabbed one of their own from the basket.

The apron was grease-stained and the skirt was wrinkled, but I'd iron some of it out with my butt. That was all anyone ever looked at, anyway. I slipped into the outfit and raced through the bedroom door only to confront my old enemy, the box. It sat where I'd left it on the floor surrounded by its burn victims, my floor and rug.

That thing had to wait just a few minutes. I lunged for my fridge and pulled out something I'd been saving for soup: garlic. They were pathetic little bulbs barely worthy of the name, but I strung them on some dental floss from the bathroom and in a moment they were my dearest friends. No vampire would dare attack me with a necklace made of garlic.

I slipped that over my neck and hid it beneath my white blouse. Then I tiptoed over to the box and leaned towards the thing. It didn't move. I gave it a tap with my finger and jumped back. There was no sign of the acid fog.

There was also not much time. I snatched the box and raced to the door. I swung it open and ran into someone standing just outside. We tumbled into the hall and crashed into the door opposite mine. I ended up with my face buried in a suit jacket and one of the pointy corners of the box stuck into my gut.

I pushed off from my visitor and smiled. "I'm so sorry, I didn't-" Wow. This guy was a looker.

I'm not talking about some cute guy you see on the street. This guy belonged in one of those model magazines, the ones with weight-loss ads and promises to make any teenage girl into a sexy cougar kitten in ten easy steps. He had short, perfect blond hair swept back to show off a perfectly sculptured forehead. His perfect blue suit was wrinkle-free after our collision, and his black shoes were so clean I could see my reflection. He wore thick-framed black glasses in front of his sparking green eyes and had a smile that would've made Candy's knees shake so bad you could've heard the water splash. The only thing that messed up his perfect face was his hand. His nostrils flared like a bull and he slipped his hand over his face. I couldn't blame him, not when I walked around like an Italian pizza.

"Where's the fire?" he teased.

Any other time and I might have thought about giving him the time of day, but time and I were not on friendly terms right then. I needed to get somewhere before the wooden bomb in my hands decided it wanted to blow its foggy top.

"Sorry about that," I told him as slid around him.

He grabbed my arm and stopped my escape. "Wait. You're Miss Misty-"

"I'd love to chat, but I've got to get to work," I persisted. I tried to pull myself out of his hand, but it was like trying to get out of a required health class. Teacher wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer.

"I really must speak with you," the man insisted. He pulled out a card from inside his suit and held it out to me. "My name is Owen Alston."

I took the card and read the name. It was the one he gave, but he forgot the part about him being a lawyer. "What do you want from me?" I asked him.

"One of my clients would very much like to speak with you," he explained.

"I'd love to, but I really need to go." I twisted my arm from his grasp and faced him as I walked backwards down the hall. "Maybe some other time."

"My client demands it be tonight," Alston persisted.

I shook my head. "I really can't."

"He will be very displeased if I don't bring you to him," the lawyer told me.

"Well, tell him I died or something," I suggested.

A strange smile slipped onto his cute lips. "I'm afraid he would know I am lying."

"Just think of it as practice, but I really have to go," I insisted.

I spun around and ran down the hallway to the stairs. The guy didn't follow me, but my thoughts followed him as I rushed to my car parked on the street. I wondered if I'd just passed up an opportunity to get into an unknown rich relative's will, or maybe I inherited a haunted mansion that would end up killing me with upkeep costs. Whatever he wanted could wait until tomorrow. I had his card, and with internet and a few minutes a name was as good as a phone number.

I stomped on the gas and drove like the devil was after me. Stop signs were more of a guideline as I sped through town and out into the country. I hit the country road half an hour before sunset, and hit the end of the road fifteen minutes before my shift began. I snatched the box from the passenger seat and dashed through the spooky woods to the house. The sun must have known I was in a hurry because I swear it dropped faster the closer I got to that place. I rushed up the stairs and across the porch to the door.

That's when I remembered I didn't have the key. It was in my day-off clothes, and they were in the hamper at my house. Behind me the setting sun disappeared behind the horizon. I groaned and knocked my forehead against the door.

"Can this day get any worse?" I wondered aloud.

I heard a girly giggle behind me and turned around to find the creepy little girl standing at the bottom of the porch steps. She wore the same dress, but now it was completely black.

"Thank you for leading me to him and the box," she told me as she walked up the steps. "Now I can have both of them."