Halifax (17 page)

That quieted Nora down. It wasn’t worth arguing. It was better to just get it over with, to weather the haunted house and weather the storm that was Andre’s bad mood.

Nora turned and looked into a mirror along the wall. It was a trick mirror and as she stood before it her reflection began to age. Crow’s feet formed around her eyes and wrinkles appeared across her forehead. Her shiny blonde hair turned to grey and her lips thinned and drooped. Nora stared into the mirror, feeling her face, running her fingers along her smooth skin, but seeing an old woman in the reflection.

“Come on,” Andre said, startling Nora. She looked back in the mirror and her image returned to normal. She was young again though never in her life had she ever had the opportunity to be youthful. She was like a dutiful wife to her boorish boyfriend. She was a mother to her mother. She was sixteen going on sixty.

“How about just one hour,” Rom pleaded with Farrell as he paced in circles around him in the Garage. “One hour of trick-or-treating? I’ll even split the candy with you. Thirty minutes? One street. Come on, Farrell. What kind of older brother are you?”

“I’m not your brother, Rom.” Farrell finally spoke but he didn’t seem to paying any more attention to Rom. “I’m here to save you.”

“Save me from what?” asked Rom.

“No, not save you,” Farrell told him. “That’s not what I said.”

“That
is
what you said.”

“No, it’s not. It’s what the Cambian said,” Farrell pointed out. He began pushing a series of buttons all around him and typing into the keyboard on the control panel. One by one he and Rom watched as every screen filled with the same image—Nora’s class picture. Her smiling face surrounded them. It even floated as a hologram in front of Farrell. He spun around in his chair taking in Nora’s image as if he were seeing it for the first time.

“When will she die, Rom?” Farrell demanded to know.

“Nora?”

“No, your math teacher.”

“I didn’t think you were listening to me.”

“I’m always listening, Rom. You said she was going to outlive you. Either her death date changed or yours did.”

Rom thought for a moment and quickly calculated in his head. “It
is
strange, but
her
death date changed. Just randomly. She’s now going to die in sixteen minutes, six hours, four days, two months…
and three hundred years
.”

“Rom…” Farrell said, encouraging him to put the pieces together.

“Oh!” Rom exclaimed, finally realizing what Farrell already knew. “And I thought
I
was the smart one.”

Farrell leapt up out of his chair, full of energy and ready for battle. “No Rom, when will you learn? I’m the smart one. The Cambian didn’t want to turn everyone in the world into cheerleaders. It was using those cheerleaders as a force field.”

“From us?” Rom asked.

“It wasn’t about something getting in,” Farrell continued excitedly. “It was about something getting out. Call Izzy and Bobby. Tell them we’ll meet them at the Halloween Carnival.”

Farrell grabbed the keys to the Citroen and headed for the car parked on the lift in the center of the Garage. Rom followed behind, trying to catch up with Farrell both physically and mentally.

“Shouldn’t we be going to the school?” asked Rom.

“It’s not about the school, Rom. It’s about what’s sometimes at the school. The other night the Cambian wasn’t running
away
from something. It was running
after
something.”

Andre took Nora by the hand and led her into the haunted house’s parlor. It was decorated formally with old-fashioned, turn-of-the-century furnishings. Paintings of stern looking figures, formal and frowning, stared down from the walls. Nora looked at the dusty pink sofas with their perfectly placed cushions. They were inviting, as if she had just walked into the house of a kindly grandmother. There didn’t seem to be anything frightening in the room at all. Which made it all the more frightening to be in.

Suddenly the room was plunged into darkness, every light extinguishing. It was completely black. Andre pulled his hand from Nora’s and she could no longer feel him. Her heartbeat quickened as she tried to focus on something, anything, but couldn’t see at all.

“Andre?” she asked as she felt around, grasping at air. “Andre, where are you?”

A ghostly figure appeared before Nora, causing her to yell out in surprise. It was a woman dressed in a flowing white dress and she floated in front of Nora, looking at her, reaching out to her. Then she disappeared.

As quickly as the first ghost disappeared, another one appeared behind Nora. She looked over her shoulder to find the figure of a man hovering a foot above the floor, his face contorted in agony. She could see him and see right through him. She reached out to touch him, but didn’t feel anything. Her hand cut right through the man. He was a projection.

The projection of the man reached out towards Nora and she jumped back when she could feel his hand on her. After a moment she realized it wasn’t the hand of a special effects ghost she was feeling on her. It was Andre’s hand. He grabbed her and jerked her around.

“I want you,” he said as ghostly figures began to swirl around the room, racing along the walls at a faster and faster pace.

“What do you mean?” Nora asked. She searched Andre’s expressionless face, illuminated by the ghostly projections, for any clue as to his mood.

“I want you,” he said, pulling her closer. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why I came here…”

Andre leaned in and began kissing Nora. His hands began moving across her body.

“What are you doing?” she protested, pushing him away.

Now Andre’s mood was easy to read. He was angry. “What am I doing? What do you think I’m doing? Why do you think everyone comes here? It’s where you hook up. Why else would I bring you here?”

“I’m not in the mood for that,” Nora protested. “I didn’t come here to…” Nora was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone. It glowed in her pocket. Andre ripped Nora’s dress as he pulled the cell phone out. The light from the phone now illuminated his face. He was scowling. His fury built as he looked down and saw the name of who was calling.
Farrell
.

“Why is he calling you?” he yelled.

“I told…I told you,” Nora stammered. “We’re working on a science project together.”

“Oh, come on!” Andre exploded. “Science project? Believe me, Nora, no one’s interested in you for your mind. No one!” He hurled the phone across the room. “There’s only one thing you’re good for,” he said as he began pawing at Nora, reaching up the bottom of her dress with one hand as his other hand dug into her arm.

“Stop it!” Nora protested, trying to fight back, trying to push Andre away. “You have to stop now. Leave me alone!” She was becoming dizzy as the projections of ghosts swirled around the room. She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t escape.

Then suddenly Andre stopped. His arms dropped to his side and he looked down at his chest. Nora followed his gaze where she saw something that looked like a white knife slicing through his body. The object split in two and each side grew and snaked up Andre’s neck, twisting around his head. Andre began to shake violently, his face frozen in fear, paralyzed, as the pulsating, translucent tentacles of the Cambian virus bore into him.

Nora reached out to him but Andre suddenly fell to the ground as the lights in the room turned back on. Nora now saw an old woman standing behind Andre. She was connected to him by a bright tentacle. It was Mrs. O’Brien, Rom’s math teacher.

“I’m so glad you got the tickets I sent,” she said, as the tentacle retracted back into her wrinkled old body. “I wouldn’t want you to miss your flight.”

Blocks away from the battle Nora was facing, Bobby was engaged in a battle of his own. He was a strong young man and quick for his size but now that adrenaline was pumping through his body and now that he had a new title of
Alien
Hunter
, no fleeing extraterrestrial had a prayer of evading him.

The green alien was running for his life, stumbling across lawns and driveways, weaving around children, the bag of candy flopping around his side and its contents spilling along the street as he made one last sprint to elude the rampaging Bobby Ramirez. But it was no use. Bobby tackled the hapless alien on the doorstep of a house and they both tumbled off the porch into a hedgerow.

“Freaky alien!” Bobby growled as the alien struggled in vain beneath him. “Taking candy from innocent little Earth kids. You’ve messed with the wrong planet, scum!” Bobby punched the alien right between his two big oval eyes and literally knocked its head off! Both the alien and Bobby yelled out in shock when this happened and both watched as the head fell into the grass beside them.

Both the alien and Bobby could look at the head because the alien wasn’t really an alien. It was a teenage boy. And the head wasn’t really a head. It was a rubber alien mask.

“I’m sorry!” the teenager said, his voice filled with panic. “I’m so sorry! It was just a joke. Here! Take it! It’s yours!” He pushed the bag of candy towards Bobby and squirmed out from under his grip, scurrying away just as Izzy and the little boy caught up with them.

“
He
wasn’t the alien, Sherlock,” Izzy told Bobby as she grabbed the bag of candy out of his hands and gave it to the boy. “Here you go, Oggy. Sorry about that.”

The little boy lifted his skeleton mask to reveal a real green alien head beneath. He rolled his big oval alien eyes and shrugged. He pulled his mask back down and continued on his way, dragging his bag of candy behind him.

“What?” Bobby asked as Izzy looked at him disapprovingly. “So he wasn’t an alien. He was still a thief.”

Any lecture Izzy was planning to give Bobby was put on hold when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out and looked at the name on the screen. “It’s Rom…”

Nora knelt down next to Andre. He was laying face down on the floor, motionless, and Mrs. O’Brien was slowly walking towards them. The elderly teacher’s handbag was hung over her shoulder, as if the Cambian thought it was part of the old woman when it took over her body.

“Stay away from him!” Nora warned as she leaned over Andre, trying to protect him.

Mrs. O’Brien scoffed. “Stay away from him? I
am
him.”

Andre began to stir and slowly turned over to face Nora. Her eyes widened in shock when she looked at him. She was no longer looking at her handsome young boyfriend, the most popular boy at Lexham Academy. She was looking at an old man. The Cambian had infected Andre, turning him into the same thing it currently was—a withered, wrinkled senior citizen.

Nora stepped away from Andre as he stood up, steadying himself, trying to get used to the achy movements of an old man. He seemed surprised at first at his frailty but dutifully took his place next to Mrs. O’Brien.

“I’m a part of him now,” O’Brien said. “I guess you could say—we’re dating.”

“Are you going to do the same thing to me?” Nora asked, slowly backing away.

“No,” O’Brien told her. “I’ve been sent here to get you. Get you and kill everyone else. I’m sort of a hit man and in this case, my hit is your entire planet.”

Nora inched closer to the doorway leading to the hall. “Who sent you? Why do they want me?”

“I just do my job. I don’t ask pesky questions.”

The old lady reached out to grab Nora’s arm, but Nora’s judo skills reflexively kicked in. She dug her hands into Mrs. O’Brien’s arm and flipped the woman on to her back. The Cambian virus was probably rethinking its decision to infect the body of a feeble old woman as Nora ran from the room leaving O’Brien sprawled on the floor.

“Don’t just stand there!” O’Brien chastised old Andre. “Go get her!”

Andre sprung into action. Sprung very slowly. He was a senior citizen now and his days of racing down the basketball court in a fast break were forever behind him. His weak knees carried him towards the door at a glacial pace.

“Faster!” the old lady demanded. The Cambian was desperate now. Its mission was in jeopardy. “Find her!”

Rom, his penguin backpack hanging off his shoulders, and Farrell ran down the Main Street of Cahuenga Village and met up with Izzy and Bobby. Rom was still wearing his costume and looked an unlikely candidate for an intergalactic battle, but they all were unlikely soldiers.

“So, Mrs. O’Brien is an alien now,” Bobby said. “I always hated her. She gave me a ‘C’ in algebra.”

Izzy got down to the more important issue. “If the Cambian makes everyone old there won’t be any more procreation. Everyone in the world will be too old to have babies. Life on this planet will end.”

“We have to find Nora,” Farrell said urgently. He pulled his cell phone out. “I’ll try calling her again.”

“We can do this without Nora, Farrell,” Izzy chided him.

Farrell pushed a button on his cell phone and the name
Nora
came up on the phone’s screen. “If we find Nora we find the Cambian.
It’s here for her
.”

They all hovered around Farrell and listened to the phone but there was no answer. Rom grabbed the cell phone from Farrell and began navigating across its screen at speeds so fast it would make texting teenagers look like they had fingers filled with led.

“I hacked into the cellular service,” Rom said, still fiddling with the phone. “Nora, or at least Nora’s phone, is there…” He pointed to the end of the street where the haunted house stood ominously in all its cobwebbed glory.

Farrell led the group as they ran to the house and up the porch steps, Rom trailing behind the others. Sound effects of screaming voices and ghoulish laughter played out from the hidden speakers around the house and the crash of thunder and flashes of lightening greeted them from within.

Rom slowly walked up the steps to join the others. He was playing with a yo-yo and was totally engrossed in its movements as he swung it out on its string and reeled it back in. The yo-yo had a light inside and it flashed as it turned round and round.