Bedbugs (6 page)

Mesmerized by the flood of reminiscences, Pete leaned forward until his nose was pressed flat against the wire-mesh glass. He couldn’t get rid of the sensation that he truly was looking back in time into another dimension.

He glanced down at his watch and saw that it was three-fifteen. Exactly the time when school used to let out.

He tensed, half-expecting to hear the sudden clanging of the school bell and see the rush of students, charging into the hall toward the front door and freedom.

Chilled trickles of sweat ran down his sides from his armpits. Rubbing his hands roughly over his face, he stepped back and cast a nervous glance in the direction Cindy had taken Ryan. The building blocked his view of the playground and cut off all sounds. He could no longer hear the shrill squeal of Ryan’s laughter or the squeaking of rusty swing chains. Pete had the impression that he was inside a glass jar, looking out at the world.

“All right . . . all right,” he whispered to himself. “You’ve seen enough.” His voice had a harsh quality that grated on his nerves.

Taking hold of the doorknob again, he pulled back on it hard and spun it around. A shocking jolt as bright and hard as a bolt of lightning shot through him when he heard the door latch click. He whimpered softly when he pulled back on the door, and it opened slowly with a low, chattering groan.

“Oh, Jesus! . . . Oh, shit!” Pete whispered, looking around fearfully.

A rush of stale air wafted over him like a dry breeze from inside a tomb. It carried with it a teasing mix of aromas, so subtle yet strong they seemed more like tastes than smells. They stirred Pete’s senses and memories—

The warm sting of old varnish that almost burned the back of his tongue . . . the scratchy mustiness of stale air that irritated his eyes and the inside of his nose . . . the smell of ancient floor wax that felt thick and pasty in his throat . . . and—beneath all of that—something else. . . .

Something that had a faint, sickening tinge of decay and rot. It hit Pete’s stomach—hard, like a clenched fist.

For several seconds, he just stood there with the door braced open with his hip. Finally, realizing that someone might drive past and see him breaking into the school, he sucked in a breath of fresh air as if it were his last and stepped into the building. The hydraulic door closer wheezed loudly as it pulled the door shut behind him. The heavy latch clanged with the sharp finality of a jail cell slamming shut. The sound echoed loudly through the deserted corridor.

I can’t believe I’m actually doing this!
Pete thought as a thrill raced through him.

He moved hesitantly toward the stairway as though hypnotized. Once upon a time, the wooden risers had been painted flat black with black rubber protective edges, but now the tan ovals of bare wood were showing through from wear. Cupped depressions marred each step close to the railing where the heaviest foot traffic had passed over many decades.

As he started up the stairs, Pete automatically reached out for the handrail to steady himself. He was mildly surprised by its smooth, comforting feel that seemed so familiar . . . as if he had touched it every day of his life as recently as yesterday.

He took each step cautiously, one at a time, not at all surprised when the treads creaked loudly underfoot. The slow, groaning sound made him wonder if the stairs were even safe after all these years, but he reminded himself that the school had been used up until only a few years ago. There was nothing to worry about, unless it was getting caught trespassing on public property.

The schoolhouse had trapped the stale summer heat like an oven. Even before he got to the top-floor landing, he was sweating ferociously. In the rectangle of light that fell across the floor, he saw every detail in intensely sharp relief. Every dirt-filled crack between ancient boards, every swirl of wood-grain pattern worn to a dull black gloss with age stood out with near-hallucinatory clarity.

At the top of the stairs, Pete paused to wipe his face on his bare forearm.

The stale air was making his throat feel raw, as if he were running a fever. He looked longingly down the hall to the old porcelain water fountain, which was attached to the wall. He knew there was no chance the water would still be turned on, but just seeing the fountain—the “bubbler,” as he and his friends used to call it—made him think of all the times he had asked to be excused from class to get a drink. Beneath the layers of dust and dirt, the dull white gleam of old porcelain showed through the grime like ancient, rotting bone.

One detail which he didn’t remember from when he was a student here was the pale brown pine wainscoting that lined both sides of the corridor. The varnish had yellowed with age and was peeling up and laced with cracks like old river ice. Between the parallel joining grooves as well as in the angles where the wall met the floor, there was a thick accumulation of dust and black gunk.

Pete walked over to the door and entered Gussie Doyle’s old classroom. He was surprised to see the desks and chairs still there, all lined up in neat, narrow rows as though waiting for another onrush of noisy students. The desks looked much smaller than Pete remembered them. Afternoon sunlight streamed in through the tall windows and glanced like white fire off the dusty aluminum sills. The heat in the room was stifling. Scores of trapped flies and hornets bounced against the grimy glass and tangled themselves in the clots of cobwebs as they sought a way to escape. The sill was littered with the dried husks of those who had failed.

The room looked and felt incredibly ancient, but everything still appeared to be in order. Pete let out a grunt of surprise when he saw what looked like a small, slouch-shouldered person in the coat closet at the back of the room. It took him a heart-stopping moment to realize that it was an old coat someone had left behind. On the teacher’s desk was a faded ink blotter, a cobweb-draped cup filled with pens and pencils, and a row of dusty textbooks. Pete had the distinct impression that the closing of the school had caught everyone by surprise. Everything looked like it was just waiting for the new school year to begin.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Pete inhaled deeply, letting the mixture of smells fill his mind with a kaleidoscope of memories. In spite of his gathering nervousness, he felt a deep sense of peace here, too—a quietude that soothed him like he had never been soothed before.

He wondered how he ever could have twisted a place as peaceful and quiet as this, a place so full of warm, nostalgic memories, into such nightmare images.

Maybe, he thought, his nightmares simply originated in a longing he felt for his own lost childhood—a deep, indescribable yearning for those precious times he knew could never be recaptured or relived.

His reverie was suddenly broken when he heard a door slam shut, somewhere out in the corridor.

“Shit,” he whispered as the sound echoed and faded away.

Spinning around on one foot, he stared at the door, more than half-expecting to see hump-shouldered, gray-haired Mrs. Doyle standing there and scowling at him as only she could.

His first rational thought was that the custodian might have stopped by to check on the place. Maybe someone had seen him enter the school and had called the police. Or maybe Cindy had come looking for him.

Holding his breath, Pete tiptoed over to the door and looked out into the hall. He was acutely aware that the sunlight coming in through the windows behind his back cast his shadow ahead of him. It would give him away in an instant.

The corridor appeared to be deserted, but Pete froze in place, holding his breath and waiting either to hear the sound repeated, or else the sound of approaching footsteps.

After a while, when he heard nothing else, he exhaled slowly and took a shallow breath.

The stiffing air inside the school muffled all sound with such density that it felt as though his ears were packed with cotton. When he caught a quick flutter of motion at the far end of the corridor to his left, he dismissed it as just his eyesight, adjusting to the gloom.

Still, he didn’t quite dare move out into the hallway.

Not yet.

He had to be absolutely certain he was alone in here.

What if this is another one of my dreams?

The thought sent a panicky shudder racing through him.

No!
he told himself.
This can’t possibly be a dream. If it was, then when had it begun?

Could he still be in bed, back at his mother’s house?

Or what if he had dozed off while sitting in his mother’s hospital room?

Or maybe the dream had started even further back than that.

Maybe he had never come back east with Cindy and Ryan.

Maybe he was still back home in San Diego, in bed and dreaming
all
of this.

“No,” Pete whispered, his voice tight and trembling. “That’s simply not possible. This is real. This is happening.”

He raised his hands in front of his face and focused on them. The sunlight shining over his shoulder made every hair, every wrinkle and pore in his skin, every vein and tendon in his hand and wrist stand out in sharp relief. He could feel the hot blast of sunlight on his back. The tightness in his chest was getting worse, and the shuddering breaths he was taking did little to relieve his steadily rising panic.

No!
he told himself.
You don’t get sensations like this in a dream!

Then, just as he was starting to relax, he heard something else echo in the stairwell at the far end of the corridor. It was low, soft, and sounded like . . .

—someone crying.

The sound reverberated inside the stairwell with a distorted, hollow ring.

Pete’s feet dragged like lead weights across the creaking floorboards as he moved slowly out into the corridor, drawn by that teasing, elusive sound.

The soft, muffled cry had sounded more like an animal in pain than a person. Although he didn’t want to believe it, he knew that he wasn’t imagining it. The sound was coming from the far end of the corridor, probably from somewhere downstairs. His heart was punching hard against his ribs when he realized that it must be coming from down in the boys’ basement!

Oh, Jesus! . . . No! . . . Not down there!

A tight, choking sensation gripped his throat as he shuffled slowly past Mrs. Khune’s fourth-grade classroom. At the far end of the hall, the large window above the stairwell was filmed with dust and grime, so there wasn’t much available light. A soft, sepia glow filled the area.

The closer Pete got to the stairwell, the more it looked to him like a deep, dark pit, much darker and deeper than he remembered it.

All the while, the sound—a faint, sniffing cry—continued to resonate in the corridor, luring him forward like the strong, irresistible pull of the tide.

“This is fucking crazy!” he whispered to himself.

His own voice echoed harshly in the hall, like metal rasping against stone, but that didn’t stop him from gripping the handrail at the top of the stairs and starting down.

With each step, the crying seemed to get louder, but Pete also had the odd impression that it was fading away, retreating from him with every step.

No matter how silently he tried to walk, his footsteps thumped heavily on the stairs. Ancient wood creaked beneath his weight, making his ears ring with tension.

There’s no way! There can’t be anyone down there!
he thought.

He desperately wanted to convince himself of that, but then he thought that maybe some kids had been playing in the schoolhouse when he had first entered; maybe one of them, thinking it must have been the police who had come in the front door, had hurt himself trying to get away and hide.

“Hello,” Pete called out.

The sudden sound of his own voice startled him.

“Hello down there! . . . Are you—are you all right?”

“. . . no. . . .” came the faint reply.

The single word reverberated in the stairwell like the long sound of tearing paper.

Pete stopped short on the landing, halfway down the stairs and turned around, not believing he had really heard a reply. His body was slick with sweat; his breath came in hot, fast gulps. He gripped the railing and leaned forward, peering down into the swelling darkness below. The silence of the schoolhouse was suddenly a palpable, threatening presence, like a beast, long buried and now—after decades—finally stirring.

“Who . . . Where are you?” Pete called out, his own voice catching painfully in his throat.

“. . . down here. . . .”

“Wha—what are you doing down there?”

“. . . down here . . . where he . . . left me. . . .”

A terrible, hot pressure tightened like hands around Pete’s throat.

“Who are you?”

“. . . don’t you . . . remember me . . . Petey? . . .

Pete opened his mouth and tried to say something, but his throat closed shut with an audible click.

Petey!
he thought.

Pete gripped the sides of his head with both hands. No one except his mother and his two aunts had called him Petey since he was a little kid.

And that voice!