Night School (12 page)

Bevin didn’t blame her. He would have loved to distance himself from such a loser. Unfortunately, he occupied the body.

Bevin would circle the school. A school on one floor, built for mild weather, it had covered porticoes all the way around, like a Roman villa. Walking purposefully, a technique he hoped would throw off pursuers, he would head for the one place where there was no covered walkway. The nifty little backing-in spot at the nurses’ office door, in case an ambulance ever had to visit the school. Once it had been used for the occasional gym accident, the occasional gang fight, the occasional teacher heart failure.

Here Bevin would wait until the late bell had rung, and everybody else was in class. Then, quietly, he would walk at an angle into the trees and heavy growth that wrapped the parking lots, invisibly circling the school grounds. Then he would walk back home.

The school never called his house to ask where Bevin was, in spite of the fact that they had a full-time clerk to do this.

At first Bevin thought perhaps the clerk might call his parents at work, and that was why he had no calls to intercept at home. Then he realized that nobody had noticed his absence. No teacher had paid any attention to him when he was there, and no teacher was paying any attention to him now that he was not.

Bevin had thought there was nothing left in him to be broken, nothing left in him that still cared, but he was wrong. Not even bureaucracy cared. Not even paperwork or computers cared.

Nobody on earth cared whether or not Bevin existed.

“Hi, Mrs. Deale!” called Andrew’s mother. “How are you today?”

“Fine, thank you,” said Mrs. Deale. She liked Andrew’s mother. She liked Andrew. She wished she could run over and embrace Mrs. Todd; pour out her loneliness; say “I’m not fine! Please ask me over for dinner! Or at least for tea!” But of course she never said any such thing, and they would all wave politely and then Mrs. Todd or Mr. Todd would drive off swiftly, in the manner of busy people with much to do.

She knew they never thought of her again.

She had decided, in her old age, that the worst and most terrible thing was never to be thought of again. At least she had had her youth, when she was beautiful, and boys adored her, and her legs were long and full of dance.

Her legs now … they were stumps that hardly worked.

Young Andrew waited patiently for her to cross his driveway. He had a car, too, and was always going someplace. It was wonderful, really, all these people who were never lonely. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, twinkling his fingers as she hobbled on alone, thinking what a nice boy he was, and how once, many many years ago, she had been loved by nice boys like that.

Mariah studied herself in the mirror.

She had started doing this, as she recalled, in sixth grade. She wasn’t putting on makeup or fixing her hair. She was studying herself, as if she could learn who this person Mariah was by looking good and hard at that reflection.

She had learned nothing.

How extraordinary, she thought. I’ve occupied this body for seventeen years and I don’t know who lives in it. I’m a stranger to me.

And the part of me I loved most, my secret crush, isn’t inside me anymore.

Mariah, who loved bed, the cozy sweet familiar comfort of it, that squiggling-down time under the covers, where nothing but Mariah and her crush existed—Mariah could no longer stand going to bed.

There was no sweet dream of Andrew to hold in her arms like a teddy bear.

Just when she tried to snuggle down into the dreams, remember the dialogue, feel the face and kiss the lips, Night Class swarmed over her. The choice of homework. The memory of Mr. Phillips, and the film, and the future assignments.

The crush was there, she still adored Andrew, but the daydreams, the dialogues, the pretend loving and hugging—it evaporated.

Mariah was left with nothing to think about. Just a steady desperate pulsing in her skull, as if she were just anatomical now, just physiological. Not a person anymore, only a body; the delightful dialogues and histories of her imagination dried up and gone. How empty life was without it. Could she even survive without her secret lives?

As the days passed, and the second Night Class approached, Mariah felt more and more as if she had truly lost a love. As if she’d been jilted and abandoned.

Every day she would run into the real Andrew, sometimes several times a day, and she didn’t know him. She tried to tell herself that real life was better, but it wasn’t. In daydreams, everything worked out warm and happy, and even if she threw in some dreadful twist, some terrible event (like Andrew being in a car accident, and she, Mariah, the one to sit by his bed and hold his hand during the coma) it always worked out beautifully, with Andrew fully recovering and deeply indebted to her for her loyalty and strength.

But in real life, he was just a busy kid with a lot of stuff to do and a lot of friends she hardly knew, and a lot of worries she knew all too well.

That last night before night school, Mariah made herself very flat on the mattress, like a paper doll. She tried to find her beloved addiction; her sweet entertainment. Andrew wasn’t there.

And the moment she thought of Night Class, and the instructor, and the homework, she thought of Mr. Phillips, vanished into his own fear. It had eaten him, and he was gone.

And Bevin … fear was eating him. He, too, was partly gone.

Bevin was being gentle with her. It terrified Mariah. Was he preparing something … something she didn’t want him to do?

Why can’t I say it even inside the privacy of my head? Why be fearful of saying out loud,
I’m afraid that Bevin might
—

But even in the privacy of her head, Mariah could not express her deepest fear of what Bevin might do to himself.

It was important not to think too much about Bevin. If she kept having these thoughts that he was—well, that he—well, that—anyway, it might affect Bevin, and move him closer, and anyway, Bevin couldn’t be that bad off. She was daydreaming again.

Besides, she comforted herself, I am doing things to help Bevin. I’ve given Night Class a different SC in his place. Julie. Julie’s not innocent. Julie’s cruel and deserves what she gets.

Late in the night, staring out the window at the shadows that might be more than shadows, pulling down the blinds to hide herself from whatever was out there, knowing how pointless that was, because whatever was out there didn’t care how many blinds were lowered … Mariah thought, But Julie won’t be the final assignment. How much does Bevin count? Does he count for two victims? For ten victims? When do I quit handing innocent victims over and let them have Bevin?

Autumn, too, had trouble in the evenings.

They were darker than usual, and the shadows hovered close to her face.

And yet, she was not afraid of the dark. She was afraid of the day. For it was by day that her Night Class was truly evil.

By day they looked like anybody else. They laughed and talked and dressed like anybody else. You could not tell who was who. You would guess wrong. You would trust the very ones who had chosen you as a victim.

Her own friend Julie, her longest and best friend Julie, had been named by Autumn herself as SC.

They carpooled. Ned picked up Mariah and Autumn. It was a drive full of false friendship and faked greetings. Ned had actually done a dry run, timing himself, wanting to get the drive exactly right. There must be no fumbling at driveways, no confusion at intersections.

But when Ned arrived at Autumn’s house, Ned saw that she knew him to the bone. Knew his fears and flaws and failures as if she’d done a research paper on Ned. Ned waited to be cut.

But it didn’t happen. Autumn grinned, slid into the front with Ned, said Ned was right on time, said it was good to see Ned.

Ned began to believe that he had a group of his own at last.

The parking lot was lit by pools of yellow which did not overlap. Ned parked carefully. He had done it, done everything right, done everything exactly as he had rehearsed, and he was part of the group.

And then he ruined it, without thinking first, without even knowing he was going to.

He got out first and saw little circles of dark, expanding and growing like cancer, taking out the circles of light. The dark chuckled, circling the four teenagers, faster and faster, like hounds going in for the kill.

“Let’s not do this,” said Ned. “Let’s just go on home. I want to drop out.”

How slurred and foreign the words felt coming out of his mouth. They were a mud slide, like the mud slide that had taken away the neighbor’s house last year. His voice didn’t sound normal at all.

Autumn was filled with shame, picking Julie, who might be rotten and nasty, but who trusted her. I must go with Ned, she thought. Ned is the one who knew the right thing, in the end.

But if I do what Ned says, I’ll be linked with him forever. Think what Julie will say next time! I just can’t have my name fastened with Ned. He may be right, but he’s such a pathetic dweeb. Ned would think I liked him and I don’t. I can’t be in public with Ned unless Andrew and Mariah are there, too; people would laugh. The worst thing, thought Autumn, is to have somebody laugh at you.

Nobody ever laughed at Autumn, but she had seen it done to others, and she played her life carefully to prevent it ever happening to her.

“We can’t drop out,” said Autumn. “The instructor said so.”

I must go with Ned, thought Mariah. To every thing there is a solution. A time to stay and a time to drop out. It’s time to drop out. But … I’m a half loser already because of my brother. And if my secret dreams are revealed, who cares? I don’t have them anymore; they burned up, or flew away, or got sick of me. But if I drop out, they’ll take Bevin. “The class is closed,” she reminded Ned. “And it doesn’t mean nobody else can join. It means none of us can leave.”

Andrew remembered the hospital, where Mr. Phillips had not been. What if Julie …

No. Julie was tough as steel. Julie might scream or run or something but she wasn’t going to end up in a mental hospital. She was just going to have a few minutes of knowing what it was like to be picked on, instead of being the pick-owner.

Besides, if Andrew went along with what Ned said, it would be as tedious as taking on Bevin. Andrew’d be wearing those two sad-sack boys like lead weights on his shoulders. He’d never be rid of them.

People have to learn to make it on their own, Andrew told himself; you can’t always be hauling them to the surface. That’s called enabling.

A little psychiatric jargon always made Andrew feel better. I can’t be an enabler, he reminded himself.

The night closed in, like the end of class, or the end of hope. They clung to each other, and walked on carefully, uncertain of the terrain.

Well, I did the right thing, Ned consoled himself. I suggested quitting. I can’t help it if nobody actually did.

He began to look forward to tonight’s work. Ned wanted to be there when Julie got hers, but at the same time, he didn’t want to be.

Oh, that’s nice, he thought, you’re a really nice guy, Ned. It’s fine with you if Julie suffers, as long as it isn’t actually your fault she suffers.

Ned had forgotten how the instructor had access to his thoughts, how the silent speech penetrated like tiny bright lasers.

You are so right, Ned,
said the instructor.
If the SC panics, it isn’t your fault. It’s theirs.

How could it be
their
fault, thought Autumn, when we’re doing it?

Julie,
reminded the instructor,
has been very, very cruel in the last several years. And not just to you. Think of her as the piranha she is, slicing open vulnerable kids, attacking the weak. It is her turn.

We won’t actually hurt her, will we?
said Autumn. I’ve spent the night at Julie’s a hundred times, thought Autumn, had dinner with her a hundred times, done homework with her … and now Julie is nothing but homework herself.

We do nothing. Of course, the effect often
c
ontinues even after our departure. Last year the Scare Choices clung to each other, trying to figure out what had gone wrong in their lives, trying to find somebody to blame. They lashed out at everybody who was different. It was quite wonderful.

Were people hurt?

Oh, yes. But we didn’t do it. The Scare Choices did it.

So this is never our fault?

Never. We just start things. It isn’t our problem if it goes on and on, its own little ripple effect.

Even their thoughts were nothing but shadow, meaningless swirling miasma.

The closure of the class was tight around them, like nooses around the throats of the doomed.

Julie started her beloved car. There was a strange moment before the key turned the motor over, as if something were lying on the engine. She felt faintly uneasy.

Her headlights didn’t penetrate the night the way they should have. She was driving in a sort of fog. A darker dark. And the dashboard no longer lit the interior the way it usually did; the inside of the car was blacker.

She had forgotten to check the backseat before she got in. With a sickening lurch, she sensed the presence of somebody else in the car. Somebody was in there with her.

Julie whirled to look behind her, and saw nothing, but it was so dark, thick as black pillows. She reached to turn on the overhead light, but the bulb was out, and nothing happened. She even opened her car door to turn on that light but all that happened was she nearly lost control of her driving.

She actually put her hand between the two front seats to pat the leather backseat, to reassure herself that nothing was there.

Something was there.

Her hand was taken by another hand and squeezed. The hand was sweaty and thick.

Julie screamed and yanked the car to a stop, leaping out in the middle of traffic.

Cars honked, and braked, and swerved, and narrowly missed each other.

Julie stood panting on the yellow dividing lines of the pavement and stared into her own car. It was fully illuminated by the street lamps and it was empty. Completely empty.