Free The Orchid Eater by Marc Laidlaw

all jumped. Mike stared at
the door, expecting it to come flying open, torn from its hinges. He was
waiting for the real destruction to begin. The guys outside weren’t yelling anymore,
but he could hear them whispering their threats, and that was even worse.
Death, mutilation, torture—all this and more was in store for them. Jack and
his mom would find the walls freshly painted in the morning—painted with his
blood.
    And you
asked for it, Mike told himself. You had to invite everybody in.
    If they’d
caught him outside, it would have been quicker. At least the house would have
been untouched. He’d have received a proper burial then, and the pity of his
family.
    As it is, he
thought, if they leave any part of me alive, Mom’ll finish the job they start.
    He put his
back to the door, as if he could hold it shut alone if they decided to batter
it down. “Shit,” he said finally.
    “You can’t
think that way,” Edgar said firmly. “We all have to start focusing on some
positive images.”
    “Oh, get off
that bullshit,” Kurtis said.
    “I’m
serious. We can do it. Seven minds, working together. We have so much untapped
power. All we have to do is concentrate.”
    “You’re
worse than Hawk, man. At least the Bible really exists.”
    “The rest of
you, then,” Edgar said. “If we all focus on one thought, visualize the thing we
want, it’ll work. We can influence them, I swear to God. You just have to hold
a clear picture of what you want, and that creates the space it needs to
happen.”
    “What do you
mean?” Mike asked. “Like, ESP?”
    “It’s mind
power, brain power.”
    “But it only
works if you have shit for brains, like Edgar.”
    “I’m just
ignoring you, Kurtis. I’m seeing your negativity locked up inside a safe where
it can’t hurt us. The rest of you, close your eyes and try. See them going
away, leaving us alone.”
    “When I
close my eyes I see myself getting killed,” said Howard.
    “Come on,
concentrate. Visualize them going away, leaving the house, going back to
Sal’s.”
    Edgar’s
voice was deep and slow, but could not quite manage to be hypnotic.
    “Going away
. . . going away . . . leaving us alone, like . . . leaving us alone . . . can
you see it?”
    Mike didn’t
need to close his eyes. Desperation made it easy to picture their pursuers
slipping away like shadows under a strong light. It was his most fervent desire
at the moment. “Going away . . . going away . . .”
    “Are you
doing it, Scott?” Mike asked.
    “Worth a
try,” Scott said.
    “Imbecile,”
said Kurtis, but no one else was arguing. They seemed to be following Edgar’s
instructions.
    After a few
minutes, Mike didn’t hear any more whispering or scraping around the house. The
rocks had stopped clattering on the windows; no more threats crept in under the
door. “See?” Edgar said. “It’s working.”
    As soon as
he spoke, a scream erupted less than a foot from Mike’s head. They began
hammering the door under his back. He flung himself away.
    “That’s it,
Edgar,” Kurtis said. “You’re elected. Go get Hawk. Fucking call him by ESP if
you don’t want to run for a phone.”
    Edgar stared
at Kurtis, his eyes gleaming in the dark as if he were crying. “All right,” he
said after a minute, defeat in his voice. “I’ll go.”
    Mike felt
sorry for him, but not sorry enough to argue with Kurtis. Whoever Hawk was,
Mike would be glad for any help they could get.
    “You can go
out the bottom door,” he suggested. “Someone should watch from up here on the
balcony, to make sure the coast is clear.”
    Craig Frost
said, “Me and Howard’ll watch.”
    So Edgar,
Scott and Mike groped their way to the dark spiral stairs. They discovered,
upon entering the lowest room, that they were clearly visible to anyone
outside, thanks to the streetlights glaring in through the sliding glass
doors. There were no curtains or blinds on the doors. Fortunately, there didn’t
seem to be anyone around. But