The Felix Chronicles: Freshmen (54 page)

“Um… well.” Quinn’s breath was coming fast and thin. He felt lightheaded. He took a deep breath and glanced down at the crud-spattered linoleum floor, praying it wasn’t puddled in piss. It wasn’t.
Deep breath,
he told himself.
You’re a genius.
You can do this.
“I’ve seen the same three or four guys following Harper around. If she gets a cup of coffee or checks her mail, they’re usually there. Watching her. I think they’re just infatuated with her but who knows these days. And I have noticed this other guy, an older guy, a few times. He’s probably in his thirties or forties. I think he’s a professor. He’s black. Has a beard.”

“Professor Malone?” the Faceman asked. “The Psychology professor?”

“I don’t know his name.”

The Faceman smiled down at Quinn as he finished his beer. “Eleven eleven seventeenth street, correct?”

“Sorry? Eleven eleven seven—”

“Your address,” the Faceman interrupted. “It has a nice ring to it. Eleven eleven seventeenth street. Eleven eleven. Eleven eleven.”

“Yeah,” Quinn mumbled weakly. “I guess it does.”

“Is the rent paid up?”

“
The rent?
Yes. Through the end of the year.”

“Perfect.” The Faceman glanced around the kitchen. A sheet of plywood blacked out the lone window above the sink. “This is just what I need.”

“Can I go now?” Quinn’s voice was faltering. “I gave you what you wanted. The information. That’s what you wanted, right? You said you’d let me go. You promised.”

“What did you give me?” the Faceman said slowly. “That’s not information. That’s common knowledge. You gave me nothing. You told me about the people Lucas spends ninety-nine percent of his time with. And you call yourself a reporter?” He laughed, his teeth glimmering under the overhead fluorescents.

“Please,” Quinn begged. “I have a sister. She’s only sixteen. She looks up to me. I’m supposed to teach her how to drive. And my mom—she’s sick. She needs me. Please. Let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone I saw you. I swear. Please.”

“You have a fine basement.” The Faceman put his empty beer bottle on the counter. “Did you know that? Have you been down to the basement?”

“No.”

“I know you haven’t. Do you know why I know?”

Quinn shook his head.

“Because I’ve been living in your basement for the past three weeks.”

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Quinn felt like he was going to hyperventilate. The thought of the Faceman living in his house caused him to chill over like ice crystals had formed all over his skin. He choked back the tears but not before a few big drops leaked from the corners of his eyes and rolled down his pudgy cheeks. His plan wasn’t working. And he didn’t have a Plan C.

“Crying like a little girl, I see,” the Faceman mocked, laughing. “Your basement isn’t finished, but there’s lots of space. There’s even a nice long work bench down there. You didn’t have any tools so I brought some of my own after I moved in. I’ve always been a huge fan of saws. It’s amazing what you can do with a good saw. You may not know this, but a properly sharpened saw will go clean through flesh and bone like room temperature table butter.” He smiled and locked eyes with Quinn. “It won’t take me long to saw you up into snack-sized pieces. I’ll be carrying you out of here in a duffel bag.”

“Oh my God!” Quinn wailed in terror.

“And there’s this remarkably well maintained furnace at the old paper plant just a few blocks from here. I’m a fan of your neighborhood, Quinn. I even like the name. No-man’s-land. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? So this furnace at the plant gets just hot enough to turn bone to ash. I tried it out the other day on one of your neighbors. She was old and had a limp. I think I did her a favor by putting her out of her misery. Anyway, I’m happy to say that the furnace exceeded even my demanding expectations. When I’m done with you, it’ll be like you never existed. After all, you didn’t leave much of a mark during your life, did you? Too bad, ‘cause you only get one.”

Quinn screamed.

The Faceman folded his arms and the veins popped out under his skin like garden hoses. “You know what really pisses me off about you, Quinn?” His lips rolled back over his teeth like a wolf about to take a bite out of its prey. “It isn’t the screaming. I mean, that’s tiresome, but I realize I have that effect on people. I’m not exactly new to the business of killing. What pisses me off is that you have no survival instincts. You just sit there. You haven’t even thought about trying to fight or escape. You haven’t even moved. I killed a rat in your basement the other day. I grabbed its throat and squeezed the life right out of it. And do you know what that filthy rodent did before it died? It bit me. A rat bit me. A rat has more fight in it than you. A rat has more will to live than you. You don’t deserve to live.”

“Please. Please. No. No. Please. I don’t—”

“Shut up. Relax. I’m not going to shoot you in the face.”

“You’re not?” Quinn said hopefully. He was shaking so hard his voice warbled.

“No. I find that shooting people doesn’t satisfy all my needs. It lacks a certain
personal
touch I crave. For someone like you, I prefer to use my hands.” He grinned. “And a nice sharp saw.”

“Help me!” Quinn shouted, twisting around in his chair. He knew that no one could hear him. The surrounding houses were abandoned and the drug dealers and prostitutes who sometimes conducted their business out on his street weren’t the type to call 911 if they heard someone yelling for help—but he screamed anyway. “Please! Someone! Someone help me! No. No. No. Oh God! Nononono.”

The Faceman was on top of Quinn in an instant, gripping him by the back of his chicken neck with one meaty hand and lifting him out of his chair. The bones in his neck made soft cracking sounds under the crushing force of the Faceman’s fingers. He flailed helplessly, his feet swinging above the floor.

“We’re going to play a little game.” The Faceman smiled and drew Quinn in close, bringing his face right up to his own. The Faceman’s colorless eyes were the size of billiard balls, the fragment of nose that remained was bigger than Quinn’s fist, and his mouth could swallow an apple in a single bite. He didn’t look human. The Faceman’s smile widened and he whispered: “It’s called
how much pain can you endure before you die
?”

Quinn screamed. And then he felt a rush of warmth travel down his legs.

The Faceman carried Quinn across the room and jerked open a door just off the kitchen—the door to the basement. Quinn swung his arms and kicked frantically like a drowning swimmer trying to find solid ground. He felt warm liquid dribbling down his feet, pattering on the floor. He’d never felt weaker or more helpless (or more ashamed). He was at the mercy of the Faceman, and Quinn knew that mercy wasn’t a concept he subscribed to.

“Let me introduce you to the basement,” the Faceman said, hurling Quinn through the doorway into the darkness below. Quinn felt the cold damp air rushing over him, then he crashed against the stairs, thudding down hard, tha-thumping to a jarring stop at the bottom. Something
crunched.
He heard it before he felt the sharp flashing pain in his wrist. He screamed, but even to his own ears, it sounded fainter than before, more like anguished, defeated moans than cries for help. The room smelled dank, like black spores and rotting wood.

Quinn heard the snap of a stiff switch and the lights came on. He was lying on his stomach, his face pressed against hard gray concrete. He couldn’t move. He was in too much pain and too scared to even try, so he just lay there, sobbing. He heard the heavy
thud, thud, thud
of the Faceman’s footsteps coming down the staircase, tolling like the bell of a grand European cathedral, heralding Quinn’s departure from this world.

“Don’t worry, Quinn Traynor,” the Faceman called down the stairs, laughing. “In five or six hours, this will all be over.”

The light from the hallway leaked into the room and took aim at Lucas. He appeared to be sleeping. But now a diagonal strip of yellow light was slapping him across the face. Felix slipped in and eased the door back, clicking it shut. He waited. No movement. He crept across the darkened room and stripped down to his boxers, leaving his clothes in a pile next to his bed. He was still thawing out from the suddenness of emerging from the brutal cold into the warmth of the dorm. His nose and chin burned and itched, his cheeks felt chafed and prickly. He pulled back the cover and crawled in. His head hit the pillow. The crisp sheets were pleasantly cool for a second, then they enveloped him in soft warmth as the heavy comforter settled slowly over him, capturing the heat from his own body. It felt wonderful. He hesitated before closing his eyes, daring to hope that tonight might be the night his mind would give him a reprieve from the dream that haunted his sleep.
Please.
Cut me some slack.

“Hey.” A voice from the other side of the room. Lucas.

Felix wanted to ignore him. Maybe pretend like he was asleep? Not realistic. He’d just climbed into bed and Lucas knew that he wasn’t narcoleptic.

“Sorry,” Felix said. His voice was scratchy. He cleared his throat. “Did I wake you up?”

“It’s okay. It’s like three, ya know. The girls stopped by before. Around eleven. They wanted to hang out. They asked where you were.”

“What’d you tell ‘em?”

“I said I didn’t know.” Lucas yawned.

Silence for a beat. Would Lucas ask the question?

“So where were you, anyway?” Lucas asked sleepily.

There it was.

“You’re not out banging some heinous chick you’re too embarrassed to tell me about, are you?”

“No.” Felix smiled into the dark, looking up at the ceiling. “I got over my heinous-chick-fetish last year. I was just out for a walk.” What else could he tell him?

“A walk?”
The deep skepticism in Lucas’s voice carried easily across the room. “It’s cold enough to freeze pee midstream, dude.”

“I just needed to clear my head.”

“Right,” Lucas said softly. He sniffed. Then he sniffed again. “Hey—is that smoke?”

Shit!
Felix thought, alarmed.
I must smell like I was rolling around in a bonfire
. He hadn’t planned for Lucas waking up; he hadn’t even considered it. And it didn’t occur to him that the scent of the old library—currently smoke—would hitch a ride on his clothes and travel back with him. After fleeing the Old Campus—he literally ran, fearing the winter-like chill might make the St. Rose Ghost lonely for warm-blooded teenage boys—his only concern was making it to the dorm without the Protectors killing him. He didn’t think they would come after him on campus, but he had no basis to support that theory. It was just an assumption. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe they didn’t play by any rules.

“I swear I can smell something.” Lucas sounded calm, like he was just making an observation. That was good, because Felix didn’t need him panicking and jumping out of bed. If he did that and ambled over to Felix’s side, he stood a better than even chance of figuring out that his clothes were the source.

“It’s gotta be from outside,” Felix replied, thinking it would be disingenuous to deny that the room smelled like smoke. “Someone’s got a fire going, I guess.”

“I hope it’s not Allison’s room.”

“No shit.”

“You think you’re gonna have that nightmare again?” Lucas asked. “Like last night?”

“I don’t know.” As exhausted as Felix was, he was afraid to close his eyes. The prospect of being burned alive was deeply depressing.

“It’d be cool if you’d give me a heads-up. I could like mentally prepare myself for what’s coming.”

“Sorry,” Felix said. “I feel, you know I… I wish I didn’t have them. Sorry.”

“I’m just busting your balls, dude.”

“Oh.”

The room went silent again.

“Hey,” Lucas said suddenly. “You know um… if you wanna talk about something, well, I’m a pretty decent listener. For a dude, I mean. I won’t listen for like an hour or anything. I’m not a chick. But if you keep it short, I’ll probably stay awake.”

Gray moonlight probed through cracks in the drawn blinds. A strip of light slashed horizontally across Felix’s knees. He lifted up his right hand and watched it playing across his fingertips. What would Lucas say if he shot fire from his hand? What would he say if he raised the wastebasket off the floor and crumpled it? Or exploded it? He could tell Lucas some things—show him some things—that would blow his mind. A part of him wanted to. Keeping secrets, especially colossal ones like his, was physically draining. But he knew he couldn’t tell him. No good could come of it.

Felix changed the subject. “So what’s up with Caitlin?”

“Caitlin?”
Lucas coughed. “Nothing. Why?”

“I don’t know. You guys like, you know, kissed or whatever.”

“Yeah, so?” Lucas said defensively, then paused. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m her kinda guy. And you know, Caitlin’s like, a really good girl. She’s not like other, you know, she’s a cool chick. She deserves someone… better than me.”

Felix didn’t know what to say to that.

“Thanks for helping out with that midget stalker asshole.” This time Lucas changed the subject. “I hope that little shit didn’t hurt you too bad.”

Felix laughed. “I think I’ll survive.”

“’Night, dude,” Lucas said. “Sweet dreams.”

“Sure.”

Felix stood in front of the Caffeine Hut, the aroma of brewing coffee drifting out through little cracks and fissures around the door. Harper wanted to meet him. She’d sent him a text during his Economics class:
I want to see you. Hut in 15?
He was already late, yet he didn’t go in. He was trying to sketch out a plan in his head, but he couldn’t tamp down the nervousness inching up his throat. Harper hadn’t made eye contact with him in three weeks so he thought he should have a plan. A script. Something to fall back on if she was in a mood, or if awkward silences overwhelmed him. But planning and scripting were best left for times when you weren’t falling apart like the stitching on the Prada knockoff wallet his mom had brought back with her from her trip to New York City two summers ago.