Chương 91: The Third Onside Kick (08/01/1989)

DATE: Tuesday, August 1, 1989 LOCATION: Carlsbad, CA | The Tillman Residence LOCAL TIME: 03: 45 PM PST Alright, let's take it from the top. My name is Heather O'Rourke. I spent most of my childhood pretending to see things that weren't there. I got sucked into a television set, talked to a few poltergeists, and for the last seven years, I've basically been Hollywood's go-to creepy blonde kid. I think you know the rest.

I did the sequels, booked a few guest spots, and tried to figure out how to be a normal thirteen-year-old. But the safety I feel hanging out in my friend Chad's bedroom? That is entirely real. Right now, I'm running lines for the role of Cole Sear in a movie called The Sixth Sense. It's about a kid who can see dead people. And honestly? The dead people are way less stressful than the Tillman brothers. The heavy Amblin script felt like a literal weight across my knees.

Sitting on the edge of Chad's bed, I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, slowing the rhythm until the ambient air in the Carlsbad house felt cool and perfectly still. The walls here were thick—built for thermal efficiency and seismic stability—but they were no match for the raw, high-decibel fury of the Tillman brothers. I tuned out the distant, rhythmic electronic chirp of the Tecmo Bowl menu music bleeding through the vents.

I needed to find the frequency of a girl who lived in a permanent state of hyper-vigilance.

"Okay," I whispered, feeling my vocal cords slacken as I dropped into that haunting, hollow register.

"Read the hospital prompt again." Across the room, Chad sat in his desk chair. He was perfectly still, the script held steady in his hands, completely ignoring the chaos brewing outside his door.

"I'll start from the transition," he said, his voice a level, calming anchor.

"What is it you feel, Cole? What's the secret?"

"IT'S RIGGED!" Chase's muffled roar exploded from the living room, vibrating up through the floorboards and into the soles of my shoes.

"Bo Jackson plays for the Chargers! You literally hacked the cartridge to put him on Chicago!" I didn't flinch. I let Chase's scream wash over me and imagined it as just another ghost yelling in the hallway.

"I see dead people," I whispered. I kept the delivery flat—the exhausted confession of a soul that had simply seen too much.

"I'm the GM!" Nick's voice drifted through the walls next, dripping with a smug arrogance.

"Dad bought the team, but I own the code! Bo is a Bear now! Deal with it! Look at that speed—he's gone! Touchdown, Chicago!" Chad didn't look up from the page. He refused to let the domestic comedy outside break the tension we were building.

"In your dreams?" he asked, reading the doctor's line with a soft, probing curiosity.

"While you're awake?"

"Walking around like regular people," I replied, letting a carefully measured tremor slip into my throat.

"They don't see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dead."

"NO!" Chase shrieked, the pitch high and desperate.

"That's three! Nick, that's your third onside kick! The Tillman Rule! You agreed—two per game! You made that rule specifically so I couldn't beat you with the 49ers!"

"I never said that," Nick countered coldly.

"And look at that... recovered. My ball. Again." I heard a heavy foot stomp on the hardwood out in the hallway. Chad merely adjusted his posture.

"How often do you see them?"

"All the time," I whispered, staring at a fixed point on the carpet.

"They're everywhere."

"Who cares? I beat Miami!" Nick shouted in triumph, followed immediately by the heavy, rhythmic thud of a victory dance.

"This is my dynasty! I own this turf! I built the U!"

"I'll fucking kill you!" CRASH. The violent shatter of a ceramic lamp base and the heavy thud of a flipped end table shuddered through the house. The vibration rattled the pencils on Chad's desk. I kept my eyes locked on his, refusing to break. I held my face in a mask of pale, supernatural grief, staying entirely in the moment. The bedroom door burst open. Amy stood in the frame, her hair a mess, panting with a mix of exhaustion and rising panic.

"Chad, they're fighting again," she gasped, gesturing wildly toward the hall.

"Chase is trying to throw the console out the window because Nick broke the onside kick rule. You have to get out there!"

"Is there any blood?" Chad asked, his voice entirely clinical.

"No, but Chase looks really angry."

"Angrier than usual, Ames?" Amy blinked, looking puzzled.

"No. But…" Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"It'll be OK," Chad said, entirely unfazed.

"Chase won't seriously hurt Nick. He's just mad that Nick broke the rules. Where is Neil?"

"He was just sitting there watching them and eating popcorn. I think he has next game," Amy muttered. I watched Chad look down at the script, his eyes calculating. I could practically see the gears turning in his head, weighing the variables of his brothers' aggression like a math equation. He let out a slow, older brother's exasperated sigh.

"I've got it, Ames," he said, standing up.

"Did you want to read the Mom's lines for Heather while I go break this up?"

"Yes!" Amy squealed, her panic evaporating instantly. Chad looked at me.

"Stay in character. We're doing the car scene next. I'll just be right outside." He stepped out, pulling the door mostly shut but leaving it cracked just enough. From the living room, the grunting, crashing, and taunting 8-bit music raged on.

"Were you really worried that Chase was going to kill Nick?" I asked Amy quietly.

"No," she replied smoothly, taking Chad's chair.

"This happens every time they play on the Nintendo. I just like making Chad do stuff. So where were we?" I couldn't help but admire her hustle.

"The car scene," I instructed, guiding her back to the page.

"It's the big one. It's where I finally tell my mom the truth about Grandma..."

"Okay. I'm Lynn," Amy stated, her eyes lighting up with excitement.

"I'm driving the car and I'm stressed out because we're stuck in traffic. Go." Just as we started, the house went completely silent. The television audio abruptly cut out. It was a suffocating half-second of quiet.

"What the hell, Chad!" Nick and Chase screamed in unison. Amy gasped, covering her mouth.

"Wait. Did Chad just pull the plug on the NES? Nick is going to lose his mind. He was in the middle of a dynasty." I didn't break. I let my voice drop effortlessly back into that low, eerie register.

"He'll survive," I told her.

"He doesn't know he's already lost. He's just seeing what he wants to see." CRASH.

"It looks like someone wants to take a shot at the title!" Chad's roar echoed from the living room, a calculated escalation designed to burn out their adrenaline. CRASH.

"You're all going to die!" Chase screamed.

"I wish I had brothers," I told Amy softly, listening to the absolute madness tearing apart the next room.

"Why? They are all so loud."

"It is nice to have an older sister," I admitted.

"But, I only get this…" CRASH.

"…when I come over here." My own house never felt this alive. We waited. Exactly a minute later, the wrestling stopped. Chad's voice cut through the air—immediate, absolute, and leaving zero room for negotiation. Two minutes later, the door pushed open. Chad stood there, slightly disheveled but entirely composed. Blood was actively dripping down his forehead from a sharp gash, and a red welt was rising on his forearm. Despite looking like he'd just walked out of a war zone, his expression was perfectly calm.

"The console is in time-out," he announced, walking toward his desk.

"Nick is currently explaining to the wall why the Tillman Rule is an 'illegal restraint of trade,' and Chase is in the kitchen with a bag of frozen peas on his knuckles. Neil is still eating popcorn. He says he's waiting for the replay."

"Did you really make them stop?" Amy asked, her eyes wide.

"The moment blood appears, your brothers get remorseful," Chad said matter-of-factly.

"They may get mad at each other, but they don't want to actually hurt each other." I laughed, the tension breaking, and tossed a spare pillow at him.

"So, who wanted to take a shot at the title?"

"I forget. I guess you just had to be there," he replied. He picked up the script with one hand and casually grabbed a stray t-shirt from the back of his chair with the other, pressing it firmly against his bleeding forehead. He didn't even wince. He just applied pressure, letting the physical reality of the wound sort itself out.

"Now, where were we? Did Cole just tell her mom about the pendant?"

"Yeah," I said, marveling at his absolute steadiness.

"The pendant. Let's pick it up from 'She says she's sorry.' Ames, you're on." Amy sat up, eyeing the growing red spot on Chad's shirt before nervously looking at her script. She took a breath.

"Right. Okay. Um...

'The bumblebee pendant? Heather—Cole—how could you know about that? I never told anyone it was missing.'" I let the room fade away. I didn't need the script anymore; the words were etched into my bones. I looked at the dark blood seeping into Chad's improvised bandage, and then looked through it, visualizing a ghost standing right there in the small bedroom.

"She said she had hidden it in the velvet box in the back of your closet," I whispered. I stripped all the teenage inflection from my voice, leaving it flat and cold.

"She said she wanted you to have it for your wedding day, but she got confused. She says she's proud of you every day." The room was dead quiet. The only sound was the faint crunch of Neil eating popcorn down the hall.

"She says..." My voice cracked. I let the physical sensation of crying well up in my throat, measuring the exact pressure needed to make it real.

"She says the answer to the question you asked at her grave... the one you said out loud when no one was listening... she says the answer is 'Every day.'" I let the line hang in the air, counting the beats. Then, I exhaled, letting my posture slump as the character washed out of me. I looked over at Chad, suddenly hyper-aware of the gravity of the scene.

"Was that too much? Spielberg said the car scene is the emotional spine of the movie. If the audience doesn't believe I'm talking to her mom, the twist at the end doesn't matter."

"It wasn't too much," Chad said. He pulled the shirt away from his forehead; the bleeding had already slowed to a dull seep.

"It was clinical. That's why it works. You aren't playing a psychic; you're playing a witness. You're just reporting what you see."

"It made me want to cry," Amy sniffled. She wiped her nose with her sleeve.

"And I don't even have a bumblebee pendant."

"That's the point," Chad said. He stood up and tossed the bloody shirt into his hamper, glancing out the window toward the Carlsbad coastline. When he looked back at me, there was a strange, heavy depth in his eyes—a protective certainty that always made me feel like nothing bad could ever happen as long as he was around.

"You're ready, Heather," he said, his voice entirely devoid of doubt.

"The table read on Monday is just a formality. You've already got the role. You've had it since 1982." I couldn't help it. A massive, genuine smile broke across my face.

"Thanks, Chad. For everything. Even for pulling the plug on the Nintendo."

"Professional necessity," he replied, tapping the script.

"Now, let's go one more time from the top. Ames, try to sound a little more stressed. You're stuck in traffic, your kid is acting weird, and your brothers are probably still fighting over the remote in the next room. Internalize the chaos."

"I can do that," Amy said, grinning brightly.

"I've had a lot of practice."