Forever Freaky (6 page)

I slowed as I approached the girls’ room.
Three strips of bright yellow crime-scene tape stretched across the
doorjamb. The solid wooden door itself wasn’t locked, because none
of the bathroom doors in school had a lock. I had always supposed
this was for safety reasons, so that nobody would accidentally get
locked in the bathroom.

It would be an easy matter to get inside.
Just turn the door handle, push the door inward, and then slip
between the lower and middle strips of crime-scene tape, much as a
wrestler steps through the ropes to enter a ring.

As I inched down the hallway, looking at the
door out of the corner of my eye, I tried to probe the bathroom
with my freak senses. I did this kind of thing all the
time—especially when one or another of my classes was getting
particularly boring and I wanted to see what was happening in the
next classroom over. Now, I was stunned to discover that I couldn’t
read the interior of the girls’ room. It was strange. At first I
thought there was something wrong with me. I’d been doing this
since I was six-years-old, and I had never, not even once, had a
problem. But the inside of the girls’ room remained as much a
mystery to me as to any of the other kids walking down the hallway.
In a very small way, I, for once, didn’t feel like such a freak. I
stopped in front of the door, and eyed it in wonder. My mind could
see just behind the door— the pale tiles of small entrance hall,
the doorway to the left leading into the bathroom—but that was all.
I concentrated harder—which I never had to do—trying to see inside
the bathroom itself, but it was as though somehow my senses were
being prevented from seeing any further. Something was there, like
a shield, and my mind probed it, like the fingers of a blind man,
trying to feel its shape, its texture, its temperature. The harder
I tried to probe it, the denser the shield became, and colder,
finally becoming cold enough to give me a case of brain freeze, as
though I had just gulped down a slushie on a hot summer day. And
just as I had to reel in my senses, I heard the sound, a low
rumbling noise that reminded me of the challenging growl of some
wild animal.

Okay, that’s new, I thought, and continued
quickly down the hallway.

The idea that there might be some living
thing in the bathroom freaked me out but also fascinated me. What
exactly could it be? Jerry had said that some entity had slipped
into our reality, but it didn’t seem logical that the entity, once
here, would choose to loiter in a bathroom. Jack, on the other
hand, had not mentioned any entities; in his clue-less way, he
talked of an aperture between realities, and seemed to believe
rescuing Mary Jo was akin to rescuing somebody who had fallen down
an old well. Now I was certain that both of them were wrong.

I wanted to find Jack, and fill him in on
this new development. Maybe he would change his mind about
proceeding with the plan. But, really, I barely knew the guy; I
didn’t know his class schedule, or where he might be found at the
moment. So it would have to wait until the next time I would see
him, tonight in the darkened interior of the school.

I wasn’t afraid of the unknown. So the idea
of entering a dark bathroom in which there might be some dangerous
otherworldly creature didn’t trouble me. I figured what was the
worst that could happen? Some monster could kill me, but so what? I
knew that only my body could be killed, while my spirit, the thing
that was really me, would continue to live. The worse that could
happen would be that I end up a spirit and have the chance to haunt
somebody else the way spirits had haunted me since I was born.

After my last class, I stopped at my locker
and dumped off my books. Usually I was fast to leave school, but
today I lingered, waiting for the other kids to go home. It was
maddening. I wasn’t used to killing time, and a lot of kids didn’t
seem to want to leave. They loitered in the hallways, standing in
twos or threes, talking as though they had all the time in the
world. When they headed toward the exits, they moved slower than
snails. I stood in front of my opened locker, pretending to
straighten the things inside, until finally there were just a
couple stragglers in the hallway.

I slammed shut my locker, and headed toward
the gym.

I looked through the window of one of the gym
doors. Inside half the overhead lights were off, and the basketball
court lay silent in the dimness.

I pushed open the door and walked inside. The
coaches’ office was dark and seemed locked for the weekend. The
soles of my shoes squeaked softly as I slowly made my way toward
the locker rooms. I figured if anybody caught me now, I’d tell them
I needed to check in the locker room, that I’d lost a ring or
something. I could be a very convincing liar. Lying is easy if you
know what is going through peoples’ minds. You know what mood they
are in. You know pretty much what they are willing to believe. But,
now, lies were not needed; there was nobody around. All the coaches
and gym teachers had fled the school for the weekend, as Jack had
guessed.

I glanced at the bleachers. I didn’t wonder
if he was already hidden beneath them; I sensed he wasn’t here yet.
Probably he was somewhere in the school, still killing time.

I entered the locker room. The lights had
been turned off, but still there was enough light so that I could
see without bumping into lockers or tripping over benches. I
wandered around, looking for a hiding place. I had thought I might
be able to hide atop one of the sections of lockers, but now I saw
that the lockers were not high enough; I would have been easily
spotted up there. I found the mop closet locked. And all the vent
covers were screwed tightly in place. I felt like an idiot. Here I
was, a freak that could see into the future, and yet I had not
thought to bring a screwdriver.

I sat on one of the benches that were bolted
to the floor between the rows of lockers. I waited, but nobody
wandered into the room. After a while, I figured I was safe where I
was—I didn’t have to squeeze into some tight place to hide. I
relaxed, stretching out on the bench, my hands crossed on my
stomach. I shut my eyes and listened. The only thing I could hear
was the distant dripping of a single faucet in the shower room.
Soon I fell asleep, so much more easily than I did when I was at
home and lying in a soft warm bed.

When I awoke, the room was almost completely
dark. I panicked. I wasn’t sure how long I had sleep—maybe too
long.

I jumped off the bench, and, feeling along
the lockers and walls, I made my way back to the gym.

The lights were all off, and the gym was lost
in darkness. I walked carefully along the length of the basketball
court. When I reached the end of the bleachers, I peered under
them, but I couldn’t see Jack—everything under the bleachers was
lost in inky darkness. I made a couple pssst sounds, just in case,
he, too, had fallen asleep. But I got no response. It didn’t make
sense. He must be under there. I wasn’t sure of the exact time, but
it should have been more than enough for him to get to his hiding
place.

Unless something went wrong.

“Jack,” I called out, keeping my voice
low.

But there was no answer. Great, I thought,
sure that he wasn’t there. I should have been relieved, but instead
I resented the hell out of him. He’d talked me into this
harebrained scheme and for one reason or another he bailed out on
me. That should have been a good thing, except, alone or not, I
didn’t want to be doing this anyway. What was I? The guardian of
all tree-hugging bitches?

I stooped over and started to duck walk under
the bleachers. I made it halfway down the length of the bleachers,
but never stumbled across any sleeping idiot. I found a spot where
I could sit, resting my back against the wall, and wonder what to
do. I had no watch, so I wasn’t exactly sure of the time. It was
late, but how late? Had everybody left the building? Was Carl the
janitor still lurking around?

While I was trying to figure things out, I
heard the gym door open and shut. The lights didn’t go on, and a
moment later, I heard stirring under the bleachers as Jack crawled
toward me. He stopped about four or five feet away and then seemed
to settled down to wait, completely unaware that I was nearby.

At first I sat there quietly, listening to
his excited breathing and the rustling noise his gym bag made as he
shifted it around. Who is this dude? I wondered, for about the
thousandth time in the past two days. I avoided reading him, so he
remained something of a mystery to me. Was he just some guy
obsessed with the paranormal? Did he really have the hots for me?
Or was it some combination of both? I wasn’t sure I really wanted
to know. In any case, he would lead to problems and/or
disappointments.

Finally I said, “You’re late.”

Though I didn’t speak loudly, he issued a
startled yelp—a rather girlie-sounding startled yelp— and there was
sudden movement followed by the loud thunk of skull hitting thick
bleacher wood.

He seemed to settle back down again, uttering
a low “Ouch.” He was probably holding his head in the dark. For a
second I genuinely felt sorry for him.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Why am I hitting my head whenever you’re
around?” he asked.

“You should take a hint—associating with me
will only lead to pain.”

“No, seriously, lie to me.”

“Oh, in that case, it’s probably because of
my scintillating personality and the allure of my curve-less
body.”

He chuckled in a pained way.

“I thought you’d be in the locker room,” he
said.

“Yeah, that didn’t work for me. What time is
it, anyway?”

“A little before ten,” he said.

“Where were you?”

“Drama club rehearsal ran a little long.”

I rolled my eyes. “Drama club? Figures.”

“What? You have something against drama?”

“Just about everything,” I said. “Listen, can
we do this thing, and then get out of here?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Carl is still in the
building. I saw him in the auditorium before I sneaked over
here.”

“Well, how long is he going stay?”

“I figure another half hour or so.”

I sighed. “I feel like an idiot, sitting
here.”

“Hey, I’m sitting here, too.”

“But it must be normal for you to feel like
an idiot,” I said, and instantly regretted it. “Sorry,” I
muttered.

We sat in the darkness, under the bleachers
in the gym of a closed school. It was a stupid place to find
myself. But it was sort of peaceful. Nobody was around, except for
Jack, and, really, it was as though he wasn’t even there, because
he was keeping quiet and I was blocking out his thoughts.

I folded my arms in front of me, and shut my
eyes. With any luck, I would doze off and the waiting wouldn’t seem
so long.

I heard Jack stir as he shifted his gym bag
on the floor. He settled down right next to me, his shoulder
bumping mine.

“Hey, don’t touch me, seriously,” I warned
him.

“It was an accident.”

“Then be careful. It’s not a good thing to
touch me.”

“Why?”

“Because,” I said, trying to be patient,
“physical contact with anybody causes me to see things about
them.”

“I don’t mind,” he said dully.

“I know you don’t mind. You ever think that
maybe I do mind?” I thought I sounded a bit harsh, so I lighted me
tone and said, “Look, touching is bad for me. I can block out
people to a certain extent. Actually, I’m getting quite good at
that— I have a fair degree of control. But if I have physical
contact with another person, I have no control at all. I’m, like,
forced to see things about them. Sometimes, it actually hurts.”

“Hurts? You mean you feel pain?”

“Not physical pain. That wouldn’t be so
bad—that I could handle.”

“So you can never touch anybody?” he asked,
and I thought he finally might be realizing that having paranormal
abilities wasn’t such a great thing.

“No, never,” I said.

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“I’m used to the idea. I’ve known for some
time that I’ll never get married or have kids or any of the things
other people take for granted.”

“No kids? You serious?”

“Yeah, totally. I’m horrified at what happens
if somebody brushes against me in a store. Sex?—my head would
probably explode. So, no, no kids in my future.”

Jack was quiet for a while, probably trying
to process what I had told him.

“Well…” he said. “Exactly what happens?”

To me, this was a highly personal question. I
should have been offended, but, really, this was just Jack, right?
It seemed all right for him to ask, and for me to answer. “Nothing
good,” I said. “I pick up on peoples’ memories mostly, their most
intense memories, which are usually traumatic. I feel extreme grief
or sorrow or fear. One time I was walking down the street and I
bumped into this woman. She wasn’t watching where she was going.
Just that one brief contact… The woman’s four-year-old son got hit
by a car and killed a week earlier. I couldn’t stop feeling the
agony she felt. It wouldn’t go away. I didn’t know how to stop it.
I almost…”

“Almost what?”

“Never mind,” I said. “Just be careful not to
touch me.”

“What if somebody didn’t have terrible
memories?” Jack asked.

“Everybody has terrible memories.”

“I don’t.”

“Believe me, you do—buried somewhere. What
time is it, by the way?”

There was a flash of green light as he
checked his wristwatch.

“Ten-fifteen.”

“That’s all.”

“Yeah,” he said, and was quiet for a long
moment, before asking, “I was wondering…”

“Go ahead,” I said. I wasn’t reading his
mind, and yet I knew what he was about to say. You couldn’t explain
something to him: you had to show him.