The Mall (64 page)

Then I realize.
 
This is the End.

What is the word my Uncle Hank would use?
 

Apocalypse.

I hear the screams in the distance and wonder if they are the screams of my mother, my father.
 
No, somehow I know that everyone I care about is in there.
 
Inside the House
Without
Doors.
 
It is then I realize that I have come to rescue them.

But I’m only five years old.

Suddenly, it is all too much for me.
 
The stark terror.
 
The overwhelming sense of death.
 

It waits for me inside.
 
Patiently.
 
It knows I am here.
 
It has prepared for me.

My hearts races, pumping adrenaline, and my instincts warn me to get away from this unholy place.
 
No matter what the consequences, no matter who I might leave behind, I must flee.
  
It is the need of an animal trapped in a forest fire, a compulsion beyond rational thought.

I look down and see the orange plastic pumpkin in my hand and recognize that it must be Halloween and from the amount of candy in the bucket, I must have been at it a good, long while.

There is an aroma of fresh apples, a smell so overpowering that in my mind it becomes the aroma of the season: apple bobbing, candied apples, apple cider.
 
When I was five years old, it had been everything.
 
The dark magic.
 
The candy.
 

But tonight those silly childhood fantasies wouldn’t be enough to save my family.

That’s when I awaken.
 
Sweaty.
 
My heart pounding in my chest.

Have I told anyone about the dreams?
 
Never.

I’m sure Mom would try to get me counseling.
 
Dad would shrug and tell me to stop eating so late.

And Uncle Hank…
I believe he would try and read something into it.

There is one thing that has helped me cope.
 
The overwhelming opinion of the interpretations I’ve read is that dreams featuring end of the world scenarios generally mean the exact opposite of what we might believe.
 
It usually symbolizes new beginnings.
 
A re-ordering of the world we know.

It was Monday afternoon the first day of my junior year of high school when Claudia came back into my life.

Halfway through fifth period band practice, I noticed the small dark shape
up in the bleachers, sitting in the shade of the announcer’s box.
 
At first, I thought it was just a couple giving each other CPR, but the closer we got to the stands, the more the shape looked like an individual.
 
Just before the end of class, the shape strode down the stands, a baggy black shirt flapping in the wind, long black hair flowing out behind from beneath earphones.
 
The girl carried a notebook and a wadded up brown lunch sack that she hooked into a trash barrel from several yards away.

I stared up at this spectral creature with fascination, as did most of the trumpet section around me.
 
The girl reached out behind her, snagged her hair with practiced precision, and wound it into a loose knot.
 
She flipped it back and disappeared into the shadows like a ghoul.

Greg Hebert sidled over to me, lowering his cornet.
 
“What the hell was that?”

My mouth opened and I started to tell them it was Claudia, when suddenly I wondered how I could be so sure given the fact that I hadn’t seen her for seven years (which, to a teenager, translates to an eternity).
  
If it was Claudia, she had morphed into a completely different creature than the one I remembered.

“New girl.
 
Had her for second period English,” Sonny Bertrand responded, clearing out his spit valve.

“Sonny, you were here back in third and fourth
grade,
weren’t you?”

 
I got a blank stare.

“That’s Claudia Wicke.
 
Remember?”

His eyes glazed over as he tried to pass a thought.

“Oh yeah,” Sonny answered.

“Hallow.”

A chill passed through me.

There it was.
 
It had been eight years and already the old label had been re-attached.

Claudia had garnered the nickname “Hallow” back in fourth grade when the kids were assigned to write a poem about their favorite holiday.
  
Claudia chose Halloween.
 
One by one, the kids were required to, in the typical sadistic fashion of public schools, stand up in front of the class and recite their work.

We had most of our classes together that year and I was there the day Claudia read the poem in question, but I was so completely focused on my own impending doom that I didn’t realize who was next on the chopping block until I heard her voice.

“‘Hallow,’ by Claudia Wicke.”
 
She stared down at her single page of college-ruled paper, hiding behind the long black bangs that obscured her eyes, seemingly oblivious to the snickers that had already begun.

“When the season transforms the weather,

When leaves fall and nights grow long,

That’s the time when the spirits gather,

They might scare you, but I never fear.

I walk past the graveyard and sing a song,

Cuz things aren’t always as they appear.”

The class began to titter and elbow anyone next to them who wasn’t paying complete attention.
 
The sadistic ones knew this would be good fodder for later and if their audience couldn’t recognize their insightful references to the source material, their cruel puns would be wasted.

Claudia continued undaunted into the second stanza.

“They want to be heard but sometimes are unable.

On this night of nights you can hear.

Loud and clear.

For this is their time of year.

The season of the shadow people.”

Clearly, I remember that she looked up and in the face of the blatant laughter from her
classmates,
she looked only at me… and caught me with a smirk.
 
She shot me a glare as dark as ink, as if I were the only one in the room who was laughing, and slunk back to her seat.

Then there was the time in fourth grade when the rest of the class was reading books like
The Hobbit
and
Watership Down
, Claudia asked Mrs. Sommers if she could read Truman Capote’s
In Cold Blood
.
 
When Mrs. Sommers, told her that the novel wasn’t appropriate for her age level, she went to the principal, Mr. Smalls, who of course, told her that he didn’t care what she did on her own time, but the school district could get in real legal trouble for approving a book for a ten year old about a quadruple homicide.
 
Claudia responded by reading the book, writing the book report, and handing copies out to whoever was curious about it.
 
Since it was outside of the school grounds, she would have gotten away with it, if some of the students hadn’t--maliciously I suspected-- brought the reports with them to school the next day.
 

She ended up getting two days detention for it.

That was the Claudia Wicke I remember and it was also the one I found later that day leaving the senior hallway pursued by several large senior girls led by Trudy Simmons, student counsel and cheerleader (a label that seemed to be required immediately following her name whenever and wherever her name might be printed).
 

I turned at the sound of a loud voice proclaiming:
 
“Excuse me, but there are no
Juniors
allowed in the Senior bathroom.”

In the uncanny speed of the world we inhabit as teenagers, the crowd had dropped whatever important business to which they had been attending, and were now gathering expectantly around Trudy and Claudia.
 
Much to Claudia’s credit, she had stopped and had turned to face Trudy, who was a good foot taller than her and almost as broad-shouldered as Brad Fuller, the Varsity tackle.

“You’re new here so maybe someone needs to explain the facts of life to you, newbie.”
 
It was at this point that Trudy got chest-to-chest with Claudia and adopted a loud, slow-paced delivery as if speaking to one of the mentally challenged.
 
“This is the See-nior hallway.
 
The hallway for See-niors.
 
You are a Jun-ior.
 
Not a See-noir.
 
Am I making any sense to you yet?”

From my vantage point, I could see Claudia, though I could not reach her, if I had wanted--which I particularly didn’t.
 
After all, why was this any of my business?
 
I hardly knew this person anymore.

Without a glance at the gathering throng of people around her, Claudia stared calmly back at Trudy.
 
Without any change of expression, she said the most bizarre and non-sequential thing I had ever heard in the course of an angry confrontation.

“You’re so beautiful.”

The expression on Trudy’s face was an odd combination of confusion and satisfaction.
 
Should she be offended or gratified?
 
Wasn’t this supposed to be a fight or did someone change the rules?

Claudia continued, oblivious to the rising murmurs of the crowd all around her.
 
“But… you’re going to die someday, because everything in life passes away.”

Trudy’s jaw dropped.
 
I mean, actually dropped.
 
Y’know, you read about this sort of stuff happening to characters in novels and you see it in cartoons, but it doesn’t really happen, right?
 
Well, that’s exactly what Trudy’s jaw did.
 
Drop.
 
She tried to recover then and looked at her nearest minion and began to laugh.

“Can you believe this little freak?”

It was about this time that the crowd started to break up because Principal Smalls (who was anything but, as he is six foot five and was once Lieutenant Smalls in the U. S. Army) had caught the foul scent of a fight on the wind and was sweeping down the steps of senior hall like an eagle.

Trudy’s co-horts had begun to abandon her at the steadily increasing approach of Lieutenant Smalls’ size twelves.
 
Now it was Trudy and Claudia standing alone with a few of us hardcore bystanders seeking closure.
 
From a distance, the two of them made an interesting couple: the statuesque blond in fluorescent green blouse with a tight canary yellow skirt and the other; short, dark in a baggy black shirt and jeans.
 
It looked like a Rat Terrier facing off against a Golden Lab.