Silver and Salt(24)

The neighbor we’d had three years ago, the serial killer one. Junior. With some help, we’d taken care of him…or Nik had, and permanently. There were no ghosts, but there had been empty bases. Things we hadn’t planned for ahead of time, hadn’t imagined, ones that had left us with visible and invisible scars, and had almost turned us into ghosts ourselves. We’d lived though it, scars or not. I didn’t blame the Nik or myself of way back then. Who would plan for a Christian chubby serial killer who lived fifteen feet from you? No blame, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t learned. Think of everything, because everything could be out there. No, there were no ghosts with him, but there’d been worse. There had been things I hadn’t told Nik and wouldn’t tell him. I’d seen a Grendel cut a hole in the world and I’d heard it speak to me. I’d understood what it whispered in my ear, the threat and the promise.

After that, I’d known there was nothing horrible enough I that couldn’t imagine it.

There were also nightmares. Not being able to talk. “Short-termed mutism,” Niko had called it. “Post-traumatic stress disorder.” The less words I had, the more he’d had. Then there was not being able to be more than four feet from my brother, bedwetting, sucking my thumb. And more. But eleven-year-olds bounced back fast. It passed and there were no ghosts that time. Who knew how often that might be the case?

That’s why you had to plan. Yeah, who would plan for that Christian chubby serial killer who lived next door?

Me.

I did. Since then, I planned for everything I could possibly dream up. Were there vampires? Maybe. Were there werewolves? Probably. Were there ventriloquists’ dummies who came to life at night and killed you in your sleep? Niko would say highly unlikely…I said absolutely. That was too terrifying to not exist. If you had to kill someone, it was the only thing to do; what did you then do if ghosts were a real consequence? You should know. The world was out to get you, and you should at all times know what could happen before it did happen. No matter how insane it seemed.

Anticipation beat emancipation…when that emancipation would be from life itself.

“Someone bad,” he said slowly, aiming his gaze at the cracked ceiling. He wouldn’t, couldn’t talk about our late-not-so-great neighbor. He felt guilty, and if I tried to talk about it, he felt worse. I’d long stopped bringing it up. The darkness in his eyes was enough to have me shutting my mouth whenever I tried. The first few times I’d flown past the warning signs to keep talking and questioning had been enough for me to not ask about it again. There wasn’t anything in our monster-crazed lives Nik couldn’t handle…except this one thing. I let him have it. God knew he f*cking deserved it and then some.

“Covering our bases,” he repeated as I wrapped my hand around his braid and tugged it to bring him back.

“Covering our bases,” I confirmed.

It was a good lesson taught by a bad teacher. Niko tried to forget him, but I didn’t. The lesson was too important.

Now I wanted all my bases covered. Grendels, werewolves, human monsters…anything could be out there. Most likely was out there. I needed to be ready for anything. Everything.

“First, we’re not going to kill any people, evil or not.” He was back, Nik. Our Bible-carrying, skinning-the-dead neighbor Junior was forgotten or pretended to be. I didn’t change my mind on that whole shitstorm and push. It had been worse for Niko. I knew if Junior had started to skin him first instead of me, I’d still be sucking my damn thumb. He didn’t want to remember, and that was fine with me. I’d carry the lesson for him.

“If there are evil people, I’ll take care of them,” he went on, which made me think he actually had forgotten what Junior had done to us, buried it deep and gone. “I’ll put them in the hospital, perhaps, but I’m big enough and know enough to not have to kill them.” That was true now. At seventeen, Nik was often mistaken for twenty. He was six feet tall and muscular but not bulky. Nik wouldn’t know a steroid if it bit him in his ass. His shoulders were broad and his muscles apparent, but lean and subtle in that catlike and dangerous manner people who fought for a living had—like his teachers. He’d been learning every kind of martial art he could since he was ten or twelve. He wouldn’t have to kill someone to be safe.

It wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t quite been there yet, a shame that hadn’t been true three years ago when our neighbor came knocking at our door. I yanked harder at Nik’s braid, glad he seemed to genuinely not remember. It was better for him. He was too good a brother to relive that; amnesia—his best friend.

“Second,” he was saying, “if your friend Marcus is that worried, although I am positive ghosts don’t exist, tell him to throw salt at it. There’s an extremely long history about salt representing purity, protection, and a talisman against the wicked. If you thought the devil was behind you, you’d throw salt over your left shoulder to drive him away. Naturally, like all mythology, you can’t know what’s true or not.” His lips quirked. “So Marcus should take the information with a grain of salt.”

That was Niko humor. I wondered if throwing a condiment like pepper or Tabasco sauce at him would cure that. Having neither one, I tried the wadded-up wrapper of my candy bar.

It didn’t work.

That night I lay in bed with a butcher knife from the kitchen stuffed under the mattress as always, and I thought about it. I had no problems with what I’d done to the invisible man and how much more I’d do. After all, I had those bases covered now. I knew the possible consequences and the cures for them. I turned over, tangled in my blanket. The blinds were down, but they were old and there were gaps.