Mothman's Curse (25 page)

The guard hesitated and finally pointed at the two of us. “Don't go anywhere.” Then he strode off down the concourse.

“Nice timing, Fox,” I whispered.

We made our way out to the bleachers. The players stood on the court, eyes glued to the ceiling as if the lights would come back on at any moment, their forms like ghostly silhouettes.

The crowd noise grew, people shuffling and murmuring and a few fans shouting out, “Yeah! Go Bulldogs!” or “Bulldogs suck! Go Rebels!”

No power meant no speaker system, just like we'd figured. Pretty soon a man with a megaphone came out onto the court. “Please, everyone, remain in your seats. We are looking into the problem and urge your patience and cooperation. Again, please remain in your seats and do not panic.”

The lights blinked on suddenly, blindingly, to a chorus of cheers.

“Okay, folks, it looks like the backup generator is doing its—”

The lights winked out again. The crowd groaned.

The announcer gave a nervous laugh. “All right, then. Anyone know a good joke?”

Mitch and I cracked a few glow sticks and hung them around our necks. We stood in the near-dark for twenty minutes. High above us, glass skylights ran the length of the ceiling. We could see angry clouds looming, casting odd shadows each time they were lit by a flash of lightning. Mitch stayed by my side, tense and alert. I chewed my nails as the crowd grew more and more restless. How long would it take them to call the game and evacuate? If they'd found the source of the problem, they'd know by now that the lights wouldn't be on anytime soon.

At last, the announcer returned to the court. “All right, folks. Thank you for your patience. I'm afraid I've been informed that the power cannot be fixed this evening.”

The crowd groaned and booed and stomped their feet. A few people shouted into the disappointed silence that followed.

“Rest assured the game will be rescheduled and all tickets honored. We ask that you gather your personal belongings and walk to the nearest exit, where Field House staff are standing by to assist you if needed.”

It worked. It had actually worked! The building would be empty in a matter of minutes, and still no sign of—

The pin pulsed hot, then cold. I spun around, scanning the ceiling.

“Watch your step now, and please drive carefully,” the announcer was saying. “We've had reports of some rough weather to the south…”

WHOOSH.

A shadowed figure swooped down from up near the scoreboard, down over the court, and back up to a far corner of the huge gymnasium, then took another pass just over the heads of the crowd, red eyes ablaze for all to see.

Beside me, Mitch froze, his eyes glued to the ceiling. Screams erupted all around the Field House. Children wailed. Fans scattered, pushing and shoving, running in all directions. They had to make it all the way down the bleachers to the floor to reach the exits. Several people fell as others tried to force them out of the way.

The exits began to bottleneck with people trying to escape.

I grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Fox, Code Red! Mothman's here.”

“That's a ten-four,” Fox said.

People scattered. Police officers and guards and ushers and even the man with the megaphone pled for calm. Mothman swooped again and again. His shape was an inky smear in the near-darkness, drawing fearful cries, feeding the chaos.

As I pressed through the crowd, Mitch saw me struggling and muscled in front of me just as I was nearly carried off my feet by a group of panicked high school kids. He grabbed my arm and pushed ahead, clearing a path.

I kept an eye trained on Mothman. Each time he would lunge down for another pass it was near one of the exits. People trying to leave would shrink back or dive for cover under the bleachers. Suddenly I understood. He was trying to make people stay, keep them trapped inside the gym. He paused over a cowering group of fans and turned his head in my direction, those red eyes boring into mine like the fires of hell.

I remembered the cage and fumbled for the door latch. Three furry shapes flew out into the arena, darting from perch to perch among the support beams with high-pitched squeaks, just visible in the glow of the emergency lights.

Mothman jerked. He spun around, scanning the rafters. He flinched and ducked aside every time the bats got near him. When one barely missed his head, he reached out and took a swing at it.

I held my breath—but Mothman pulled his arm back at the last second. The bat flew past untouched. I exhaled. So close.

It was now or never. “Fox, are you in position?” I said into the walkie-talkie, hoping he was manning his post in the announcer's booth, and that our power source worked.

I held up a picture of Elsie with her husband and children just as my recorded voice spilled from the loudspeakers overhead. “She's pretty, Edgar. Too bad she didn't want anything to do with you. She never loved you. Your curse didn't faze her. She ignored it, went on to live a happy life without giving you another thought. What does it feel like to be rejected your whole life? It's because people saw you for what you really are, like something on the bottom of a shoe. No remorse, no compassion. Don't you get it? You're more selfish than she ever was. Look at what you've become!” Even as my voice continued over the speakers, rattling off insults, another voice sounded in my head, vile and cold.

“I'm giving these people a chance. That's more than they would have gotten if I'd never dreamed up the curse.”

You're trying to keep them from leaving
, I thought, confident he could hear every word.
Careful, Edgar. Isn't that against the rules?

“You think you can anger me enough to make me forget myself, to make me break the curse and risk my soul?”
His voice was a razor-sharp blade, a screw being turned inside my head.
“Others before you have tried and failed.”

“You doomed your own soul when you made that deal!” I shouted aloud.

“It is a fine effort, Josie, but you are already mine. You will not win.”

Above the terrible noise of screams and running feet, my voice on the loudspeaker, and Mothman's voice in my head, a new sound rose, high and piercing. At first, I couldn't make sense of it, but realization dawned like a wave across the crowd.

Tornado siren.

People stopped running and pushing and stood still, eyes fixed on the glass skylights.

It wasn't a stampede, or a fire, or any other disaster we'd thought of. Just your run-of-the-mill, deadly tornado.

I grabbed up the walkie-talkie. “Carl?”

“We hear it!”

“How many people are still out there?”

“A few hundred.”

“You have to get all those people
inside
the building, down to the tunnels. It's the safest place. You can't let them leave. Please! Do whatever it takes.”

“We're on it.”

I switched to Fox's channel. “Fox? Get down to the tunnels, right now, do you hear me? As fast as you can.”

His face appeared in the window of the announcer's booth, looking down at the bleachers, trying to find me. “What about you, Josie?”

“I'll meet you there, okay? Okay? Tell me you understand me.”

“I understand.”

I jammed the radio back in my pocket. “The tunnels!” I cried out loud, but the only one who heard me was Mitch. He took up the call in his booming voice, and within seconds, word spread to the ushers and guards and the man with the megaphone. “Everyone!” the man shouted. “Use the exits and follow the ushers to the tunnels! Do not leave the building. Do not remain in the gymnasium. Please, head quickly and calmly to the tunnels and locker rooms and assist others around you.”

Mothman was still focused on me, eyes burning in fury. Did that mean he felt threatened, that we actually had a chance?

“I will save them!” I screamed at him. There were still people trying to make their way down from the bleachers. “Mitch!” I shouted, pointing to a mother carrying a wailing toddler, struggling to keep hold of her. “Help me!”

We pushed, squeezed, and shimmied our way through the crowd to reach them. Mitch reached up and gathered the little girl into his arms. The woman's face was wet with tears. “What's happening?” she cried. “Is Mothman causing this? Is there really a tornado?”

“Yes,” I told her. “You have to get underground.”

At last, the crowds began to thin as people swarmed out of the gym and into the concourse. I could only hope they were being herded into the tunnels, or somewhere safer than where we were. I spotted a couple of boys younger than Mason, crying and huddled together. I took off in their direction. “Josie, wait!” Mitch called.

“Make sure they get out!” I said, nodding at the girl he still held.

I glanced around to see where Mothman had got to. He still hovered, watching and waiting. I knelt down beside the boys. “Have you lost your mom?”

The older one nodded. I stood and snagged the sleeve of the nearest person—a woman in her twenties shouting about losing her purse.

“Hey!” I shook her arm. “They need help!” I pointed at the boys. The older one stood with his arm around the younger, his chin quivering.

“But my purse—”

“They can't find their mom and there's a tornado out there. You see those glass ceilings?” I pointed up. The woman nodded and swallowed. “You need to leave right now!”

She took the boys by their hands and ran for the exit.

“You know what I think hurts you the worst?” I shouted at Mothman. “That you're gonna get taken down by a twelve-year-old girl! We're winning—can't you see? These people are going to live, and you can't stand it, can you? Even if I die, at least the curse will be broken, and your soul is roadkill. You're finished, Edgar!”

I felt panic and denial rise within him.

The siren howled. The shouting and crying and pushing continued, though little by little the gym emptied. With the noise dying down, I could hear a new sound, a low rumbling, like a freight train gunning right for us.

“Josie!”

It was Fox, wearing his glow stick like a necktie, running toward me from the opposite side of the court fifty feet away. The rumbling grew. I could see Fox's lips moving but couldn't make out anything he was saying. Objects began pelting the roof, first what sounded like hail and then larger objects we could actually see: branches, fence rails, jagged pieces of metal and wood. Cracks started appearing in the glass, spiderwebbing their way along the surface. The steel framework groaned. I tore my eyes away. Fox's gaze was still locked on the ceiling. Even from so far away I could see the stark fear in his eyes. And he wasn't moving.

I tried to run toward him, but Mothman swept in front of me and hovered there, those fiery eyes so close I felt their heat singe my skin. I stopped short, tried to dart around him, but he rose up impossibly tall, wings a blur of constant motion, trapping me, making it impossible to see or move or think.

Edgar's voice crawled through my head.
“Even one life lost and the curse continues. Shall it be your brother? I can live with that.”

“Josie!” I could just make out Mitch's desperate voice calling my name.

“Get Fox!” I screamed.
“Please! Save Fox!”

Mothman became darkness itself, smothering me from all sides, but still careful not to touch me. I fell to my knees, mouth gaping like a fish on land, desperate for air. Without sight or sound, all I could do was feel:
cold, despair, hate, envy, fear, loss—

He would never break the curse on his own, I realized. But what if
I
touched
him
?

I reached out a trembling hand and grabbed hold of his robe.

“
Noooo!
” he shrieked.

Mothman shrank away from me. I gasped a few grateful breaths and tried to get my bearings.