2018 - Two days after the earthquake (cont.)

Patrick and Tate decided to take the suit out to the shed. The sinkhole was silent but had a weird magnetic feel, like it could pull in whatever got too close to the edge. The city had put a barricade around it as a public service that consisted of four sawhorses and some yellow CAUTION tape. One piece of the yellow cordon had already broken. Both Patrick and Tate avoided the area without conscious intent, giving it wide berth on the way out to the storage shed.

In the old shed they located an old trunk and dumped the contents on the floor. Patrick found some old bungee cords and electrical tape. It was the best they could do.

"Okay," said Tate. "I'm gonna take this thing off now. You ready?"

Patrick braced his stance and nodded.

Tate stripped. He wadded the rubber suit up and hurled it into the open trunk. Patrick slammed the lid down and they both grabbed a bungee cord and wrapped as fast as they could. Then Pat tipped the trunk on its end and Tate wrapped the center of it in the electrical tape. Patrick set the trunk back down on its bottom and they both watched it closely.

After a couple of minutes passed without a sound from the trunk they began to relax a little.

"Let's leave it out here for now," Pat said. "Nobody needs to know where this thing is."

Tate nodded and then looked down at himself. "I don't know where my clothes went when I went inside the suit. It was weird. It's like I went into this black space between... space. Like being inside the walls. Getting into the suit was like... it was like... um. There was this big fat squishy invisible thing inside it and I had to push that out to get in." He tipped his head curiously. "Do you think it's got my clothes on now? Since I took its'?"

Patrick gave him a peculiar look. "I... don't know. Go put some clothes on. Then come help me move my stuff inside. I don't want to leave it out here. We'll stick it in the attic. Then we can figure out what to do about the suit."

Tate nodded and disappeared. Patrick looked at the trunk. He decided it needed a lot more electrical tape.

...

Tate, still in teen form, looked at himself in the dressing mirror. He straightened the collar of his father's sweater. He had a few of them that he'd salvaged from his mother's donation bags. They were the only long-sleeved tops he wore that he didn't pick apart the sleeves of. They were also the ugliest sweaters he had. Straight out of the 70's.

The one he wore now didn't go with the Chad-approved Guess t-shirt beneath it but he wore it anyway. The sweaters were all he had left of his father. They had gotten him through many of life's ups and downs. After the Rubber Man weirdness he needed a little reassurance.

Then he felt her presence and she was madder than hell.

"Mama." Fear shot through Tate. He'd never felt her presence without searching for her before. "Oh, shit. Michael. Oh no, oh no."

He tried to think but panic set in. He didn't know where Michael was. His mother was on the porch. He started crying. He forced himself to calm down and tried again to think. He grabbed his hair. If she was here and mad then she probably knew where Michael was. Which was good. Unless he got hurt. Which would be bad.

Tate started crying again. Then he angrily smudged his cheeks with his sleeves. He didn't have time for tears. He paced back and forth, trying to figure out what to do. Then he could hear her. She was inside the house and calling him. She was mad at him.

He disappeared and reappeared downstairs in the hollow place under the stairs near the basement door. He peeked out into the entryway. Constance was there and she had Billie Dean and Father Jeremiah with her. She saw him as soon as he saw her. She marched right over to the teen, looking every bit as angry as he was afraid she was.

"Is he here?" Constance demanded, reaching for him.

Tate shrank into himself. "He came over on his own. I didn't ask him to."

"Where is he?" said Constance. She grabbed a handful his shirt and sweater and pulled him closer.

Tate didn't answer. She smacked him on the head, making him flinch and surprising Father Jeremiah.

"Where is he?" she demanded again.

Jeremiah went over to where Constance and the teen were. He suffered a vague sense of deja vu when looking at the young man but the situation kept him from thinking much of it.

"Constance, do you think that's appropriate?" the priest asked, concerned. He'd had to intervene on Michael's behalf before, more than once, but he never imagined he'd have to stop her hitting a neighbor. It was bad enough that they'd barged in without being invited.

She glared at him. "He's my son. And he knows where Michael is."

Jeremiah was confused. "Your son? You have a son?"

Tate was hurt by the insight. It was one thing to have her not visit much. But to not talk about him with someone she was living with really bit deep. So he said the first thing he could think of that would hurt her back. "I don't know where Michael is."

She looked at him hard, searching his face for the truth beyond his hurt anger. She lifted her chin. "You'd better find him. Now."

Tate's frown darkened. Tears glimmered in his eyes but he didn't blink in order to keep them from falling. He concentrated and could feel Michael's presence somewhere below. He turned and let himself into the basement without another word to his mother.

"Michael?" he called as he went down. He shifted to his Ethan aspect and stepped off the stairs. "Michael?"

Then he saw him. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Thaddeus and Shelly sat with him in an approximate circle. They were all just staring at each other. It was kind of weird.

"Michael?" Ethan said and put a hand on his shoulder.

The other boy snapped his head to the side to focus on Ethan. There was a strange look in his eyes but it faded when he saw who was touching him. "Why's your brother 'n sister in the basement?"

Ethan looked at the ghoulish babies. They had also had stopped staring and were now crawling away into the gloom of the basement. The answer to Michael's innocent question was too complicated so he just didn't answer it.

"Mama Constance is upstairs," he said. "She's mad 'cause you came over by yourself."

Michael's eyes widened. He had intended to sneak back before she knew he was gone but the Patrick scare and then the babies... He'd lost track of how long he'd been in the house. He scrambled to his feet and ran for the stairs but he stopped at the bottom when he saw Ethan wasn't following him.

"Aren't you coming?" Michael asked.

Ethan didn't want to. But he knew he had to go up. His mother would go nuclear if he hid from her. He hugged himself with his father's sweater and followed Michael up the stairs.

Constance was waiting at the doorway to the stairs like a snake waiting to snap up bats. As soon as Michael emerged she grabbed him by the arm and started slapping his backside. He put his hands back to shield himself but she was far too experienced for such a defense. She back-handed them out of the way with her ringed knuckles while raining more blows on his bottom at the same time. He started to yell.

"You never ever leave the house without telling a grownup first!" she scolded hysterically as she hit him. "You know better! I was scared to death! Did you go out the window?" She gave him a rough shake then hit him some more. "Is that what you did?"

Michael just hollered. Ethan cowered back in the shadows, afraid she'd notice him. He felt bad that the other boy was in trouble but he'd seen more helpless victims under his mother's brutal hand. He didn't want to be next.

"Constance!" Jeremiah said. He put a hand on her arm though he didn't actually try to stop her hitting. "I really think we should go home."

She snapped out of her rage-haze enough to recognize his logic and nodded. She let go of Michael who started bawling. Constance patted her hair though it didn't help. She didn't look at Ethan at all. "Michael won't be coming over for a while."

She put her hand between Michael's shoulders then and pushed him to where Billie Dean was still standing right next to the front door. Constance ushered her grandson out of the house with Father Jeremiah following. Billie Dean met Ethan's eyes.

"I know who you are," she said. Her voice was calm, almost hypnotic. It drew the boy further out of the alcove. She regarded him steadily. "You need to stay away from that child. It's bad enough that you brought him into this world. Don't make things worse."

"I wouldn't hurt him!" The tears he'd held back earlier began to fall. It just made him madder.

Billie Dean took a step backward toward the door. She dealt with few spirits that scared her like Tate did. He was the reason she stayed near the entryway. "You will hurt him if you keep bringing him here."

"I didn't bring him here!" Tate yelled, tears streaming down his cheeks. "You're pretty fucking stupid for a psychic, bitch! Get out! Get outta my house!"

She retreated outside. The door slammed right in front of her. She stumbled back, turned and quickly left the porch.

Tate cried for a bit longer then forced himself to suck it up. He shifted back to his 17-year-old seeming and scrubbed his hands through his hair. Then he willed himself into the garden shed where Patrick had already moved everything except the weight bench. He was sitting on the bench and looking at the back of an old record album. He looked up when Tate appeared.

"What took you so long?" he said irritably, tossing the record into a nearby box. Then he saw the look on Tate's face. "What's wrong?"

"My stupid cock-sucking mother," he said with a sniffle. "She yelled at me because Michael was here without her permission."

"Why was he in the front room by himself?"

Tate looked at him blankly. He didn't want questions. He wanted support. "I just was going to show him my stuff."

Patrick peered at him. "You left him alone in a haunted house so you could show him some 'stuff'?"

That was another question. Tate chewed on his thumbnail. "I didn't want to take him to the attic because it's not real safe."

"So your solution was to leave him by himself. While you were gone that thing," Patrick motioned to the trunk he'd triple-layered in electrical tape. "Almost grabbed him. If I hadn't been there it would've..." He shook his head and refused to speculate. "Who knows what the hell something like that would do. I can't believe you left him alone. Do you want him to die?"

Tate frowned. He felt like he was having a rehash of the conversation with the psychic. "No."

"Then act like it." Pat shot him a no-nonsense look and got to his feet. "Come on. Let's get this bench out of here."

They moved the thing inside the house and into a corner of the attic where Pat had put the rest of his stuff. Once he'd gotten it put together the way he liked he sat back down on the bench.

"So what should we do with that suit?" asked Tate. He hopped up on a nearby storage box.

Patrick shook his head. "What can we do with it? Burn it, maybe."

"Ew. Burnt rubber."

"It may be our only choice," said Pat. "We can't throw it away. I can't send something like that out into the world."

"I don't think it'd let you." Tate pulled a knee up and started to pick at a tiny snag in his jeans. "Can we make a fire hot enough to burn it before it kicks our asses?"

Patrick frowned. "It won't kick our asses. Who's in the box?"

"Hey," Tate brightened. His expression was rendered manic thanks to the recent crying. "You're right. We kicked its ass!"

"It didn't seem to fight when you took it off. Maybe that's a good sign?"said Patrick.

"But what made it move around by itself?"

They both looked at each other.

"The only person I've seen in it lately," Patrick said at last. "Was Ben. But that definitely was not Ben."

Tate managed to tug a string free from the knee of his jeans. "Maybe we could just throw it down that sinkhole. The property sales-people're going to fill it in. Right? Can't we just bury it?"

Pat thought about that. "Maybe." Then he shook his head. "I'd rather just burn the whole thing."

"Maybe we could set it on fire then push it into the hole?" suggested Tate.

"Only after we're sure it's actually burning."

Tate nodded. "We can cover it in gasoline from the mower. Or there's some kerosene in the hurricane lamps in the upstairs hall. You know what? We could mix 'em up. That'd really burn."

"You go get the kerosene," said Pat. "I'll get the gas and the trunk. Meet me at the hole."

And they did just that. The fire blazed up nicely, attracting Mrs. Harvey and her girls and Hayden with her baby. They watched it till the smoke turned black and foul and the trunk was completely engulfed in flames. Then Patrick used a shovel to push it into the sinkhole. It disappeared into the well of darkness.

...

Author's Note:

Give me Rubber Man over Constance any day. Ghost mom from hell. If you stuffed her up in a trunk, set fire to it and shoved it down a hole... Do you think she'd go away? Or would it just make her mad?

Next chapter is the last one for this episode. It's about the same length as the one before this one and tied directly to the rest of this multi-chapter scene so I'll be publishing it soon. Thanks for the reviews and feedback. I love hearing from you!