Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy

Author:James Kennedy [Kennedy, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quirk Books
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

With the booklet in my hand now, I was jerked back into that dreary world.

That had been five years ago. Already my mind was trying to scrub the unearthed memory away. Like when you try to recall your dream in the morning and the vividness melts, the storyline scrambles. Your brain doesn’t want you to remember.

But now I remembered: a few days after Archie’s mother’s visit, I had found a copy of this very booklet under my bed, and spent a dull rainy afternoon trying to read it. It was mostly the kinds of nonsense things Archie’s mom had been saying to me. And it had the same moldy, solemn aura as those little necklaces—somber, complicated, and poisonous.

I had to show this booklet to Mrs. Lois.

Don’t touch him, Mrs. Lois had said. Touching is death.

Well, we had touched plenty. And I wasn’t dead yet.

But maybe the tornado killer was?

I had to go to Mrs. Lois. I had to ask her what was going on. I barely knew anything about her but I knew she could help me. She knew about the tornado killer, she knew about Mr. Z, she knew about those men. She had that tattoo on her arm, the same symbol from the bus bathroom. She recognized my own symbol on my application. We were both part of something bigger. We were in the same club.

She had given me that black package.

Where was Mr. Lois, anyway? Was Mrs. Lois a widow?

I went down into the garage. I opened the door and there was its usual stuffy gasoliney smell. The black package was where I left it, still hidden under Dad’s tools. I unwrapped the greasy black paper.

Inside was a cardboard box sealed with duct tape. I used a blade from Dad’s toolbox to cut it open. Inside was more black paper, tissue-thin, slightly damp.

Nestled in it was an ordinary supermarket jelly jar.

Its label had been removed. But instead of jelly in the jar, there was a pale white oil. The tin lid was twisted on tight, then sealed with white wax. Still, some of the oil must’ve leaked out, because I could smell it. The unnatural stench of burnt plastic. I had the beginnings of a headache. My stomach was crawling like it was full of bugs.

If it is you, then you’ll have to drink the whole thing—

It felt like homemade evil.

I put the jar back in the box.

It took a long time to wash the toxic smell off my hands.

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