Forever Freaky (7 page)

“What?”

“Take my hand,” I said impatiently, “before I
change my mind.”

I held my hand out toward him, and he groped
around in the dark until he found it.

“Are your hands always this cold?” he
asked.

“I’m like walking death. Haven’t you noticed?
Now shut up,” I said. His memories were already flashing through my
mind. They seemed pretty harmless. Falling and skinning his knee…
followed by crying. Six stitches on the inside of his upper right
arm, after he’d tripped and put his arm through the window of his
basement door. “I see that you’ve always been a klutz,” I
commented, and the images kept coming. His parents fighting over
something, which caused him a moderate degree of anxiety, which I
could now feel. “You stole money out of your mom’s purse to buy a
CD?”

“It was the new Avril,” he said. “I had to
have it.”

“Hmmm. You weren’t even that guilty.”

“It was Avril,” he said, as though that
justified stealing.

“Okay, here we go—who is Caroline?”

“Freshman crush,” he said with disdain.

“Boy, did she do a number on you! I feel like
strangling her myself. She actually said you reminded her of her
father? That is so cold!”

“But all in all, it’s not so bad, is it?” he
asked.

“Wait. Wait. Your grandfather died—that’s
getting pretty bad. You were very sad. You were close to your
grandfather. He took you fishing. He took you to the Cubs game… a
lot. And—Oh My God!” I cried, feeling a sick surge of adrenaline.
My head buzzed. I could barely breathe, the panic I felt was so
extreme. I jerked my hand out of his.

“What? What is it?” he asked.

“You saw your dog get hit by a car?”

“Yeah, but he was okay.”

“But you didn’t think he was okay when it
happened.”

“No, but the vet operated on him, and--”

“-- cut off his leg!” I finished for him.

“He’s alive,” Jack offered. “He hops around
pretty good, too.”

“You don’t get the point, do you? You think
your memories aren’t so bad, but still you have a dead grandfather
and a three-legged dog. That’s enough to make my skin crawl.”

He fell quiet for a moment, and then asked
carefully, “You see anything else?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said mildly. “I’m causing
you a lot of angst. Right now, my hands are shaking because of your
angst. I know you’re not making it up or exaggerating, but I still
find it hard to believe.”

“I think maybe it was one of those
love-at-first-sight things,” he mumbled. It sounded like an
apology.

“I don’t believe in love-at-first-sight. I
think you just have terrible taste in girls, or some kind of
unusual mental condition. Just try to put it out of your mind. If
it persists maybe your doctor can give you some kind of medication.
It’s never going to be possible,” I said, and the added, as sort of
an offering, “After we find this tree-hugger, we can be friends.
I’m down with that. We can have lunch together, and hang out.”

“What if I can’t be your friend?” he
asked.

“Then we have a problem. It’s either friend
or enemy. I’ve told you way too much. That’s my fault, not yours,
and I’m sorry for being so—weak.”

“You just need somebody to talk to,” he
said.

“I don’t need anybody,” I said. “I just made
a mistake by blabbing everything to you.”

Just then the gym door creaked open, and the
lights came on. Light filtered through the bleachers and cast
stripes of shadows across us.

Jack appeared puzzled and panicky. He looked
over at me, and I shrugged my shoulders.

I got on my knees, and peered over a thick
length of wood. What I saw was grosser than most of the things that
flashed through my mind. Carl, the janitor, was plodding across the
basketball court. The guy weighed a good 350 pounds, and all he
wore were white boxer shorts and a pair of flip-flops. His huge
stomach hanged over the waistband of his shorts, and white curly
hair covered the expanse of his chest. He waddled over to the
sideline, and grabbed a basketball off the rack, and started
dribbling it out onto the court.

I sat back down next to Jack.

“Marvelous,” I said in a vicious whisper.

We both listened to the lonely thud-thud-thud
of Carl dribbling.

“You got to be kidding,” Jack whispered.

The basketball thunked as it bounced off the
rim.

“Can’t you do something?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“I don’t know—like plant a suggestion in his
mind to go home.”

“I can’t do that. I can only read what’s
already there. I’m not Obi Wan Kenobi, you know.”

“Well, can you tell how long he’s planning on
staying?”

I concentrated for a few seconds, and then
snorted softly. “The dude thinks in German.”

“Figures.”

“Well, he won’t be too long. Did you ever
take a good look at him? He’ll get tired, right?”

“I sure hope so,” Jack said.

We waited, and then mercifully, after about
fifteen minutes, Carl called it quits. He returned the basketball
to the rack, and headed for the door. The lights in the gym went
out.

We were in the dark again, but something was
wrong. There was a soft groaning all around us. The bleachers were
slowly rolling in on us.

“He hit the switch!” Jack cried.

There wasn’t enough time for us to scuttle
along the wall to the end of the bleachers to escape.

For once my pitiful thinness came in handy. I
was able to squeeze under one of the bleachers as they began to
collapse. I rolled and bounced off a couple lower bleachers and
landed hard on the floor. I got up, and I called out to Jack,
“Where’s the button?” Before he could respond, I picked the answer
out of his mind, and started running through the darkness toward
the door.

I felt over the wall next to the door. When I
caught the light switch I flipped it and the light fixtures above
flickered on.

I saw the two buttons, one red and the other
black, just beneath the light switch. I quickly pressed the red
button, and the bleachers creaked to a halt. They were almost
completely closed. I pictured Jack behind them, crushed like a bug.
I saw blood gushing out of his mouth and ears. I saw his head
flattened like a pumpkin under a car tire. I pressed the black
button, and the bleachers started to inch forward and expand until
they were fully opened again.

For a moment everything froze. I couldn’t
read Jack, and thought for sure he was dead. I couldn’t move my
feet, to go and check if I was right.

Then he emerged from the far end of the
bleachers. He was slightly hunched over, carrying his gym bag with
one hand and holding his head with the other.

As he walked toward me I was furious. I
wanted to punch and kick him. I hated so much that I had felt
scared for him. I didn’t want to feel anything for him.

When he stopped before me, he was still
holding his head.

“Don’t say it,” he said.

“Hiding under the bleachers,” I hissed. “What
a dumb-ass idea.”

“Can’t we just get this over with,” he said
meekly.

“Yeah, definitely,” I seethed, wishing my
heart would stop hammering against the inside of my ribcage. “And
after we’re finished, I don’t even know you. Got it?”

I turn round and stormed out of the gym and
into the dark hallway.

We made our way up the dark stairwell to the
second floor. Jack was behind me with the flashlight, and as we
jogged up the stairs, the beam of light made creepy jiggling
shadows all around us.

We came out on the main second floor hallway.
Before we headed for the girls’ room, we turned the other way and
went to the end of the hall, where a large window overlooked the
parking lot. We had to make sure Carl had left the building. We
didn’t need any more surprises.

When we reached the window, we saw Carl’s
beat-up red pick-up truck just as it started to rumble out of the
dark lot. At least now we had the entire building to ourselves—just
me, love-puppy Jack, and whatever creature lurked in the girls’
room.

***************

Jack wanted to enter the room first. How
gallant! Maybe he was trying to make up for being such a nitwit. I
found the gesture more annoying than endearing. I wondered if he
would be so eager if I had told him that I heard something growling
in there earlier.

“Go right ahead,” I said. I took the
flashlight from him, so that he could open the door and slip
between the two lengths of police tape. I really wanted something
to be inside, something hideous and festering, to scare the beans
out of him. Maybe that way he would finally get the message that
this paranormal stuff wasn’t as cool as he believed—that it could
be downright dangerous. Maybe, then, too, he would think of me
differently, and leave me alone. But all this was wishful thinking;
Jack was, at best, a very slow learner.

Once inside, he stood with his back to the
door, holding it open for me.

I rolled my eyes, and gave the flashlight
back to him. I slipped between the police tape easily.

It was only after the door shut behind us
that I noticed how chilly the air was in the bathroom. Jack was
moving the flashlight back and forth. The beam of light swept over
the sinks and stalls and pretty pink tiled walls. I felt dizzy as I
watched the light playing over everything. Finally I reached over
and flipped the light switch next to the interior doorway.

Jack shrieked and squinted when the bright
light filled the room.

“Somebody will see,” he complained.

“Nobody’s here,” I said.

“Somebody will see from outside.”

“If they do, they’ll just think somebody
forgot to turn off the light.”

Reluctantly, he turned off the flashlight,
and returned it to his bag.

We both wandered around the room, checking
things out. Everything looked pretty normal to me.

“Hey, why’s the girls’ room so much nicer
than the guys’ room?” Jack asked.

“Duh.”

“What? I really want to know.”

“If I have to explain that to you, then
you’re hopeless.”

“Well, I guess I’m hopeless.”

“My point exactly,” I said, and then asked,
“Does it seem cold in here to you?”

He considered it a second or two. “Maybe a
little. It must be chilly outside by now.”

“I think it’s a bit more than that.”

“Drops in room temperatures usually accompany
the presence of a ghost,” he stated.

I stopped in front of him. “You read that in
a book.”

He shrugged. “I heard that from a lot of
sources.”

“Well, it doesn’t always work that way. Jerry
shows up at home every single morning, and never once did I feel
the slightest draft when he was around. Besides, this is
different,” I said, “This isn’t cold spots. It’s the whole room.
The coldness seems evenly distributed from wall to wall. Do we know
which stall Mary Jo was in when she vanished?”

“No,” he said.

I crossed over to the first of the three
stalls. I eyed it carefully. Everything looked safe, so I stepped
inside. I felt the floor round the toilet base with the toe of my
gym shoe, and the floor seemed solid enough. I leaned over and ran
my hand over the wall behind the toilet. Other than feeling
abnormally cool, the wall seemed all right. I repeated this process
with the other two stalls, but discovered nothing that suggested it
was possible a person could slip through to an alternate dimension
or, for that matter, to any place else.

I stepped out of the third stall, and saw
that Jack had been watching me closely the entire time.

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Maybe the timing isn’t right,” he suggested.
“It’s not midnight yet.”

I gave him a look. “Midnight? The witching
hour? You’re kidding me, right?”

“There is some truth to every myth.”

I sighed. “Jack, really--”

“No, listen,” he said, and seemed agitated.
“I know you think I’m stupid, but I’m right about this. When did
Mary Jo disappear?”

“Not at midnight—that’s for sure.”

“No, at lunch-time,” he said. “Noon and
midnight— different sides of the same coin.”

I wagged my head. “I don’t know about
that.”

“Did any of the cops go missing in here?” he
asked, with greater confidence.

“No.”

“When did the cops take their lunch
breaks?”

“I see what you mean,” I said, yet still I
wasn’t convinced.

Jack looked at his wristwatch, and said,
“It’s almost eleven-fifteen. So we wait an hour, and see what
happens.”

“Sure, why not,” I said, but I couldn’t shake
the feeling this might end up being one huge waste of time.

Jack sat down on the hard floor, and tried to
make himself comfortable, while I slowly paced the length of the
room. A couple times I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror
that stretched across the wall above the sinks. My hair looked
stringier than usual, my face…paler, my eyes… wearier. I looked
like a 98-pound corpse that had somehow crawled her way out of a
grave. How could anybody possibly find me attractive? I hopped onto
the counter, so that I didn’t have to look at the mirror, sitting
there with my feet dangling above the floor.

We waited, with neither of us saying a word.
Since I’d met him, this was the longest I witnessed Jack not
running his mouth. One part of me wanted to read his mind, but the
other part didn’t want to know anything. What if he was thinking
something weird? What if that weird something had to do with me?
What if I just got static, like you get when you tune into an open
radio signal? No, I decided for sure; it was best not to know. You
must never let yourself believe that somebody is thinking something
that will make you happy.

The room was getting colder. At first I
thought it was my imagination, but then goose-bumps started to rise
on my bare arms. I hadn’t been anticipating an Arctic blast. All I
wore were jeans, gym shoes, and a light t-shirt. I never wore socks
or a bra, because to me neither seemed to serve much of a
purpose.