By Stoney M. Setzer
The floorboards of the psychiatric facility creaked beneath my feet as I followed Dr. Kelvin down the hall. All the other residents either stared at me or looked through me like I wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure which was creepier.
“Does she still talk about Lenora?” I asked.
“Sometimes.” Kelvin raised an eyebrow. “You said you’re her cousin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Never seen you here before. Can’t blame you, considering.”
“I’m not very close to this cousin.” Hence the poisoned sugar cookies.
If Mom and Dad were here, they would tell me to let it go, that nothing good could come from revenge, quoting Scriptures at me. Then again, if they were still here, I wouldn’t need revenge. They died because of Courtney’s practical joke, and she had never accepted responsibility for it. Now it was time to avenge them.
What kind of psychopath steals a stop sign? Courtney had pulled plenty of stupid pranks before then, but nothing like that. My parents had the right-of-way, not the SUV that hit them. Dad died instantly, and Mom passed an hour later at Sardis County’s Bloom Memorial Hospital, a.k.a. Doom Memorial. I can imagine him greeting her at the Pearly Gates with some lame wisecrack about her running late even in death.
Despite everything, Courtney swore somebody named Lenora did it. The stop sign was found in her bedroom, but she stuck to her story well enough to get off by reason of insanity. Meanwhile, I bounced from one bad foster home to another, longing for the day when I would get her back.
Today was the day.
“She’s right over there,” Kelvin said, guiding me to the courtyard. “I’ll be around, but I’ll try to give you a little space.”
“Thanks.” She had the manicured courtyard to herself and sat at a little table, playing solitaire.
I hadn’t seen Courtney in years, but her face was always in my mind. She hadn’t changed much. When she looked up from her cards and saw me, she broke out into that same gap-toothed smile, the one she always flashed after pulling some prank. No matter—today the last laugh would be mine.
“Shannon! I didn’t think I’d ever see you again!” Courtney said with a laugh.
“Been a while since I’ve been in Sardis County,” I said. “Foster care sent me to nearly every other county in west Tennessee though… thanks to you.” I raised an eyebrow pointedly.
Courtney gaped at me for a beat. “Well, Lenora did that, not me.” She chuckled.
That name incensed me, but I held my composure. Maybe I could catch her off guard if I humored her. “You said that in court, but you never said why.”
“Because I wasn’t supposed to know about her. I first saw her when I went with my dad to Janus Labs for Job Shadow Day in eighth grade and sneaked off to prank him. I never knew what she was capable of, but the joke was on me.”
Janus Labs. That had figured into her lawyer’s insanity defense somehow. They had even gotten some bigwig from there named Lockhart to testify that Courtney had sneaked somewhere off-limits and gotten exposed to some weird chemical called caprinium. “Unpredictable side effects,” Lockhart said. Since Courtney had never mentioned Lenora before, her lawyer argued that the exposure must have impacted her mental health.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Courtney whispered, eyes darting this way and that. “Okay, he’s behind that door. I don’t think he can hear us.”
“Sure.” I drummed my fingers on the table. Come on, spill…
“Janus Labs is connected with this so-called hospital. That ‘Kelvin’ guy is really Dr. Lockhart. Somehow, he got me sent here so they could monitor me.”
“Really?” Enough of her jokes already. Time to do what I came here for, even if it landed me in prison. Couldn’t be any worse than foster care. I put the Ziploc bag on the table. “Sugar cookies were always your favorite, right?”
“Aw, you remembered…” Courtney had a cookie inches from her mouth before stopping and looking to the left. “Wait, what?” She turned to me, laughing. “Come on, Shannon. You’re ripping off my brownie prank.”
“I’d never serve you laxatives.” It wasn’t a lie.
“No, it’s rat poison, right?”
My guilt must have shown on my face, but I said nothing. It suits you.
Courtney’s chuckle seemed forced now. “Lenora told me.”
“What?”
Suddenly something invisible grabbed my throat. Courtney chuckled even as a tear welled up in her eye.
“Janus Labs found this door between our world and another dimension—the Other Side, they call it. Whatever lives there wants to invade our side, because their world is dying. Lockhart and Janus Labs found out and want to stop them. When I got exposed to that stuff in the lab, I could see Lenora, and she didn’t like it. She took down the stop sign and framed me so nobody outside Janus Labs would believe me when I told people about her. Lockhart knew it was true, but he didn’t want people to know about the door or the invasion, so he had me sent here.”
Though I could still breathe—barely—I couldn’t speak. Tears filled my eyes, and my bladder released. This was a mistake.
“Now Lenora says she has to get rid of you too,” Courtney said. She looked over my shoulder and said, “Don’t kill her, Lenora. Can’t you keep her from talking without killing her?”
After a blinding flash of light, the death grip on my throat was gone—along with Courtney. The courtyard looked much the same, but there were no people, and the sky had gone from blue to a smoky maroon color.
I didn’t even have to ask. Courtney had been telling the truth all along. Lenora had sent me to the Other Side. Somewhere she was getting the last laugh.
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Interesting!
Thank you!