Extra Life (8 page)

When a gull landed on a beam just overhead, I tried to shoo him away. But he claimed his perch and twitched his head as if deciding exactly when he’d drop his milky white crap load.

I chanced another rung upward and the bird flew off.

Then, my cell buzzed in my mouth. It felt like my own shuddering nerves, until I realized what it was: a text message. Could be Savannah, apologizing for ditching me. Or Paige, apologizing for blaming me. But most likely it was Conrad, fishing for an apology.

Even as I thought
not now
, I still had to check, because
who knows? What if?
I hooked a rung by the crook of my elbow, dropped my slimy phone into my palm like a dog giving over a tennis ball. The fact that I’d somehow pressed stop on the recording only barely registered in my mind. Instead, I was focused on the animated envelope icon on the display. And below that, the sender’s name:
Horace Vale
. Me.

Never before had I gotten a text from my own phone. I’d seen it happen with email, but always in some virus or spyware switcheroo. My anticipation sank. All that risk for nothing but some stupid piece of spam like
great work study opportunities for high school grads. $$$
.

But that’s not what I got when I tapped the icon.

The text was just three words long:

Take the leap.

Somebody was screwing with my head. Had to be.

But that made no sense. No stranger would know my phone number, not to mention how to send a text using
my
ID. The only keyboard cowboys I knew were Conrad and my father. Neither of them had any clue where I was, and neither would callously encourage me to jump to my death. At least I hoped not.

Take the leap.

I kept reading the message. It had to be a coincidence, something like:
Take the leap into a new career with Tucson Online University!
Then it hit me that “Take the Leap” was the title of the short video about the motorcycle daredevil I’d been planning to shoot all day. I’d totally forgotten. Funny how fast priorities can evaporate.

There was a link attached. A gateway to more information.

Click the link, see what a spazz I was being. That’s all I had to do. My thumb hovered over the screen. I told myself to resist because I could end up downloading a virus and kill my phone. But I knew what I’d find would be way worse than a virus.

So I did it. I pressed the link. The spiral dot signaled that the system was retrieving the information I sent for, probably using this very radio tower as a booster. The load time was only a couple seconds. What came through was a basic home video. Just a carefully framed headshot of a guy with a blank white wall behind him. The stark light and his darting eyes gave the recording the distinctive look of a hostage recording.

The video star took a hard swallow, faked a smile, and said, “Hi, Russ. It’s Russ.”

For those first few seconds, I really didn’t recognize myself on the screen. Since I
knew
I never made this video, my brain refused to register that I was watching footage of Horace Vale.
Cannot compute.
Not until the
me
in the video actually introduced himself.

Me, down to the shirt I got for Christmas a few months ago.

Except
I did not make this video.
I would’ve remembered.

I flipped the phone over, looking for what? A false backing to show it was a gag prop? Then I realized Video Russ was talking, and I wasn’t listening. I thumbed the volume to maximum, but the small tinny voice still fought to be heard above the wind.

“…to wrap your head around…” he was saying.

I put the phone to my ear “…very little time, so hear me out. You have to trust me—trust
yourself
. Right now, you have no real plans to off yourself, but what’s going to happen when you get to the top of that tower? A dark feeling might hit you. We never know what kind of person we’re going to be five minutes from now, Russ. Remember last summer, you almost sent that private message confessing your love to Savannah, then you erased it? One minute you’re sure, the next, you’re not.”

Video Russ stared back at me. The dramatic pause, the cinematic
beat
.

“You just told me to take a leap!” I screamed at Video Russ.

The wind drowned him out again so I smacked the phone back against my ear. He was saying, “…a metaphorical leap, a leap of faith. I had to get your attention. The chance you’re about to get will seem impossible, but you’ve seen enough to know I’m legit.”

“Wait, hold on,” I said, but this was not a two-way dialog. It was just a prerecorded Video Russ psyching me out, even though I never prerecorded anything like this. He knew what I would probably say in response to what he said because he
was
me.

“…at seven o’clock sharp. After one minute, the file will delete itself, and you’ll lose your chance. You have to do this, Russ. Your one chance to make things right. This is the
real
leap. Take it.”

“What the hell?” I muttered.

Just like that, the video clip was over. A
drop-down list
gave me options to watch the video again, delete, save, respond. When I considered the strange loop that last choice might set in motion, a fresh nausea washed over me.

My arm ached from hooking the rail for so long, but all my focus was on the
6:59 p.m.
flickering in the bottom right corner of the display. Any second, seven o’clock would hit, and then, according to me, in a video I didn’t make, something else was coming. My one chance to make things right.

Seven p.m. The phone shuddered with the acceptance of another text.

After one minute, it will delete itself, and you’ll lose your chance.

I didn’t see how the video could’ve been faked. It was me, and I had to trust my own word, because why would I lead myself into a trap, knowingly? But also: I didn’t remember making the video, and if I couldn’t trust my own memory, I was screwed.

Like one of Dad’s game theory scenarios, endlessly judging the probability of what the other guy would do when it was his turn to play. It drove me nuts. I couldn’t do the calculations. So, thirty seconds into my countdown, I pressed the text icon.

The digital retrieval pinwheel spun again. There was no actual text with a link to follow or a file to download. It was a one-click maneuver. A logo came up: a clock with backwards-spinning hands and the words
The Pastime Project
in its center.

Then, my phone flashed a light so harsh, all my senses shorted out at once. My vision went white, my eardrums screamed, and every inch of my skin came alive with needle stings. I couldn’t feel a thing past the pain.

For all I knew, I was already plunging to the ground.

M
Y SENSES
came back. I wasn’t dead, wasn’t falling, wasn’t broken in a heap down below. Both my hands were locked around a rail, and I was still six stories above the earth.

“What the hell, Russ?” I asked aloud, but nobody answered.

Also, something was way wonky with my body. When the prickling faded from my skin, goose bumps sprang up in its place. The chill wind was a factor, but mostly I was cold because I was buck-naked.

I winced, sure my phone had set off a flash bomb that disintegrated my clothes and covered me in third degree burns. But there was no pain. No singed flesh. Just me, just as I usually looked when I toweled off after a shower.

Suddenly, getting caught on the radio tower didn’t seem so badass. Outlaw Russ was one thing, but
Naked
Outlaw Russ was way more likely to land me on some permanent pervert list.

So, yeah. I scaled down the tower as fast as I could, hooking the rails with my bare toes. I never felt so exposed, commando on high. Any second, somebody could stop by and snap a photo. Every teenager’s literal worst nightmare. And it wasn’t like I had a free hand to self-censor my bits.

I dropped into a crouch on the gravelly ground. Pebbles stung my foot soles, but terra firma was sweet relief.

That is, until I realized I was still inside the security fence that boxed in the tower. No biggie, except the chain was wrapped around the gate latch, padlocked shut.

I was trapped.

I rattled the gate with one hand. The other was busy cupping my junk. The chain seemed to wrap even tighter.
Crap, crap, crap, crap
. I was no better off than a zoo animal here.

Scaling the fence wasn’t an option. I got queasy just thinking about how that razor wire would greet my most sensitive areas. Hunting for a ground-level breach in the fence also got me nowhere. The chain links were taut as trampoline springs. As a last resort I might’ve screamed for help, but I couldn’t bring myself to draw an audience.

Instead, somebody just showed up without an invitation. I didn’t see the truck rumble into the parking lot, but I heard it well enough. I dropped low and pressed myself against an electrical box, hidden from view.

The truck door creaked open, then shut. Rattling keys, clanking chain. Whoever it was, was whistling a tuneless rendition of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me.” I prayed that this surprise visitor did
not
already realize there was a naked dude nearby. He was an unsuspecting maintenance worker, I told myself. Nothing more.

He gained entry, boots crunching the gravel. I hunkered down as low as I could and tried to guess where he’d go so I could dart in the opposite direction. He grunted as he hoisted himself onto the tower rail. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to will him away, but all I got for my wishing was the clap of boots on metal. Nowhere for me to hide. He was climbing the ladder, headed for a bird’s eye view.

“
What the
…” he said, and that’s when I booked it.

Dashed through the open gate, stumbled, scraped my knee on pavement. Found my awkward stride again after more stumbling steps. Didn’t dare look back. I just knew he’d be hot on my trail, some track-star-turned-electrician, reaching out to headlock and drop me for a citizen’s arrest.

I couldn’t exactly make a stark-naked appearance on one of Cape Fear’s busiest downtown roads, so I cut south through a stretch of warehouse back lots. Hunched and cupping myself, I couldn’t run at peak speed, not while I also had to watch the ground for debris that might slice open my feet.