Seven #2
I glanced down the empty sidewalk. I should try to catch Russo. Then again, did I really want to go whine to him now? Main Street felt a little emptier than usual. No cars sitting at the light. No pedestrians on the sidewalk.
Ping.
Ready or not.
Different number this time.
Ready or not.
I blocked that, too. Took a screenshot as I glanced up and around the backyard.
The koi fish were my only companions. The phone messages unnerved me a little, but they were just that—messages.
One fish slapped his tail against the pond’s surface but then went uncharacteristically still.
The uneasy quiet that followed felt sinister.
Like the koi wanted to brace themselves for something.
I slowly walked away from the bamboo gate, back to the curving pebble path of the Zen garden.
Ping.
I flinched.
Ready or not…
The sun ducked behind a cloud, and the air grew colder.
I blocked that number, too.
Ping. Ping.
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
The messages began coming faster than I could block them.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
Text bubble notifications popped up one after another. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Each little notification bell was a little ice pick in my brain. My breath quickened.
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
“Stop,” I told the phone, even as my fingers blocked and deleted, blocked and deleted. I felt hot and cold all at once. Powerless. I couldn’t stop the messages. I couldn’t keep up with them fast enough.
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
“Stop!” I shouted, louder, as if the phone would obey my commands.
The messages just wouldn’t stop. They just kept coming. Over and over and over again. I felt helpless. My phone was under attack. So was I.
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
Ready or—
I shut off my phone. I had no choice. I turned it off.
I stared at the black screen, half fearing a notice would pop up anyway.
But it didn’t.
Of course it didn’t. My phone was off.
I glanced up and around me, but nothing in the yard had changed.
A cool autumn breeze hit the cold sweat on my neck.
The fish circled each other, flapping colorful tails in the pond.
The large stone lanterns on each side of the bridge stood like sentries.
I sucked in a breath, unnerved. Off-balance.
Anxious sweat broke out at the small of my back.
I glanced over my shoulder, but no one stood on the pebble path from the gate.
Delicately, I tried turning on my phone again.
Ready or not…
Ready or not…
I switched it off again, flinching. I hated this feeling of helplessness. Of being under attack with no way to fight back. Okay, breathe. Think. Maybe there’s a way to block every single number that’s not in my contacts. I could figure out how to do that.
I’d have to turn my phone on again.
But I didn’t want to.
I winced, hitting the On switch, expecting to hear the waves of pinging notices, but surprisingly none came.
Then came a single ping and I jumped.
Here I come.
And then, nothing.
I waited. No more came. My fingers shook as I cleaned up the message list, deleting and blocking the seemingly hundreds of Ready or not… messages. My thumb hovered over the last Here I come.
Good, asshole, I thought. Come out in the open so I can punch you in the face.
Monsters were always scarier when you couldn’t see their faces.
As I walked to the back porch, I fought off the urge to run, like I used to do as a little kid at dusk, racing up the porch steps imagining ghosts and goblins coming from the shadowed corners of the yard. Their long, clawed fingers reaching for me.
Except now it wasn’t an imaginary monster pursuing me.
It was a real one.
I walked quickly up the back steps and to the back door, the screen slamming behind me. I took one more look back at the empty yard. The sun came out from behind its cloud and shone on the koi pond, making the water glisten and the posts of the wooden bridge seem a shade lighter.
No one was there.
I needed to get a grip.
I took screenshots and sent them to both Oscar and Russo. I got an automated reply that Russo was driving—duh, of course he was. Oscar left me on read, but that wasn’t uncommon at the station when things got busy. He’d seen it. I had to assume he was working on it.
That’s when I heard a burst of laughter from deeper in the house, probably the kitchen.
I needed to go save Olivia from Jude and Mateo.
Who would save me from Spider-Man Mateo was the real question.
I trotted up the wooden stairs and into the lobby of Koi.
I took a left down a little hallway that led me to the open, white-marbled kitchen.
I saw the three of them laughing as they held coffee mugs, strawberry mochi donuts set on delicate white china on the countertops near them.
Mateo seemed pretty at home lounging on a stool near the breakfast bar, his costume cowl sticking out of his back pocket, but then again, Mateo never felt social anxiety about anything.
It was literally his superpower. He had a hole starting in the right pocket of his jeans that wasn’t the trendy kind and 100 percent because he was actor broke and didn’t have money for clothes.
He wore extra-scuffed Nikes that he had found at a thrift store.
Jude was across from him, leaning near the stove, and Olivia perched on another stool, coffee in hand as she giggled in delight, rings of gold glinting along the cartilage in her ear as Mateo regaled them with one of his stories about driving stunt cars on the set of the Spider-Man movie.
Normally, I loved Mateo’s stories. Just not today.
“Everything okay?” Jude asked me. I felt a little faint and tingly.
“Uh. Yeah. Fine,” I lied. The blood was slowly returning to my numb fingertips.
“You look pale,” Jude said, sounding concerned. He was always the perceptive one.
I gave a dismissive shrug, eager to change the subject. There wasn’t a point in getting into this with Jude. “What are you all talking about?” I asked Olivia, because I wanted to change the subject.
“Oh, Jude was just telling us about that one Halloween when Oscar dared you to go into the haunted hay maze at the apple orchard,” Olivia said. “When you tackled a goblin.”
“Zombie, actually,” I pointed out. “And he touched my hair.”
“That was his first mistake,” Jude said dryly.
I glanced at Mateo. The Canceled Killer had shorted out all my patience. Plus, I remembered Russo saying Spidey needed to go. How could I be sure he wasn’t the one taunting me with messages from the kitchen?
“Uh, Mateo? Could I… talk to you a minute?” I asked him.
Jude and Olivia exchanged a glance.
Mateo slipped off the stool he was sitting on, bouncing like a puppy dog. With that adorable energy? No, he couldn’t be the Canceled Killer.
Still…
He followed me gamely back out the screen door and into the Zen garden.
I saw a Briton Landscaping truck parked out on the street, half in front of our house and half in front of Tammy’s, where they’d be working.
Men in Briton Landscaping T-shirts began unloading lawn equipment, probably one of the season’s few remaining trims before freezing temperatures set in.
I walked across the footbridge to the other side of the koi pond, where Diamond Dave hoisted his head out of the water, opening and closing his large mouth, and splashed the pebble path with a stream of pond water. Next door, someone powered up a riding lawnmower. Loudly.
“Mateo…” I began.
“What?” he called, cupping his hand to his ear.
The mower made talking difficult. I whipped open the door of my Airstream and pulled Mateo inside behind me.
I was barely two steps in when he took a swing at me.