Darkheart

The Past: Creep & Crawl

"I know it's a movie and everything," Jess warbled, skipping along next to her older sister under the copper-orange of the street lamps as they exited the theater, "but I wouldn't share my pants with you. Sorry."

"Not offended," Crystal replied.

"I mean, even if the pants like, had some meaning or something . . ."

Crystal let Jess ramble, didn't pay much attention to her. The air was absolutely perfect, shorts-and-tee-shirt weather even at night, and the mosquitoes hadn't gotten terrible yet, so she was just enjoying the freedom she felt at that particular moment. It was a Sunday evening, about three weeks into the resort season, end of June, and the two of them had ridden their bikes in town to see a movie.

The Port Killdeer theater was in a stately brick building that was a half-cinema, half-library known as The Community House. In between the two ends, beneath audacious brick arches, was a mural wall depicting bits of the town's history, images of lighthouses and shipwrecks, trains and agriculture, and a few faces of historically important people Crystal cared too little about to recall. The paintings were fun, but they'd always seemed out of place, to her, as if the town were trying too hard to be something it wasn't. Something interesting, or something memorable. She'd never felt it was much of either. The theater inside had a full stage and everything, red curtains, cushioned wooden auditorium chairs--they'd put on holiday plays there, and sometimes, if local bands needed a place to perform that wasn't outdoors or in a bar, they'd come to The Community House. Crystal recalled one time when the high school had put on some sort of battle of the bands in the theater. Jess had been in fourth or fifth grade and wanted so badly to go, but their mother had told her to stay home with Crystal; she'd had to work a night shift. They'd snuck out, of course, and when the sheriff had caught them out and about without parental supervision he'd called their mother, and they'd been in some deep water.

Well, all that was a long time ago. Crystal had grown a little wiser with Jess, not quite as capitulating, and Jess herself had grown older and more capable of responsibility, so things were better. But it'd been difficult for a while when their mom had quit one of her jobs and been forced to take on any shifts she could get at the hospital just to pay the bills. The girls were always alone.

"Uh oh," Jess said, her tone hushing as she pulled on her sister's arm. "There's that guy."

Crystal didn't have to ask. She knew exactly whom Jess meant and was loath to turn around and look.

"Just keep walking, okay? We're almost there."

They'd locked their bikes a little ways down, closer to Penzer's pharmacy, because sometimes groups of obnoxious middle schoolers hung around the bike racks outside the theater. But that meant that they had to walk a little extra bit. It wasn't so late that others weren't out, but Crystal wasn't afraid of abduction or harassment, nothing a few extra eyes and bodies could help her with. This guy probably wasn't going to hurt them. All the same, she didn't want to talk to him. There was something kind of off about the way he'd looked at her sister when they'd seen him in that snack shop on the resort a week or so ago. Jess and Crystal had gone to meet with Jeremiah at Starboard for some ice cream before Crystal had to go into work, but Starboard had been closed for some reason (the teenaged staff had probably been making out in the kitchens or something) and Jeremiah had suggested going to get ice cream at that snack place instead. He and Crystal had their dining hall uniforms on, so it wouldn't look weird, and he'd wanted to see what it was all about, anyway.

Well, it'd been fine, except for that guy who worked in it. Crystal had recognized him as someone from the high school, but she'd only vaguely known who he was, couldn't recall his name but was aware that he was a delinquent of some kind, hung out with druggies and skaters, and he was older than she was.