Whispers in the Dark (11 page)

With a stern look, Mrs. Ramsey said, “Now, I'm going to ask you again. Is there something
you're not telling me? Because I've known Dorian and his family since he was eight
years old, and nothing like this has ever happened. We are a family here at Finley
Academy, and when one family member is hurt or upset, we're all hurt and upset. So
tell me exactly what happened between you and Dorian.”

I had to tell her. Maybe, like Denise, she knew that something wasn't right at this
school.

“Okay,” I said, leaning forward. “After I spoke with the twins and Dorian, the twins
left the classroom. But there was something in the room besides me and Dorian, like
a shadow figure or something, that was standing behind me. It was as if it was watching
us. Dorian saw it, too.”

“Could it have been your shadow, Mr. Ramirez?” Mrs. Ramsey asked.

“No! It wasn't!” I responded. “I moved to see if it was my shadow, but it didn't
move. It wasn't my shadow. Like I said, it was as if it was just watching us. Then,
we both saw it move slowly out of the room.”

“And it was just you and Dorian in there?” Mrs. Ramsey asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded.

“You know what this sounds like to me?” she asked.

“What?”

“Think about it, Mr. Ramirez,” she said, looking into my eyes. “You and your student
were left in the classroom together by yourselves, and now he's terrified to the
point of not returning to school.”

“Wait! Are you saying
I
did something to Dorian?” I asked, appalled. Mrs. Fuller's
message said nothing about me—so why was Mrs. Ramsey saying it was my fault?

“I didn't say anything,” Mrs. Ramsey said, calmly. “You said that. But if I find
out different, you will be charged and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The bell rang.

My heart pounded, and I could hardly catch my breath. Another panic attack was coming
on.

“Now, get to class,” she said, nastily.

“I had nothing to do with what happened to Dorian!” I yelled.

“Get to class, Mr. Ramirez,” Mrs. Ramsey said, looking back down at her paperwork.

“You have to believe me!” I told her.

“Get to class, Mr. Ramirez,” she repeated.

I couldn't believe it. She really thought I had something to do with what happened
to Dorian. Or she wanted to pin it on me. Now this was going to
spread across the
school and make me look like some type of pedophile. I should have never said anything.

I had to talk to Dorian and Dorian's mother to clear this up. I wouldn't be getting
any help from Mrs. Ramsey; that much was clear. I walked out of Mrs. Ramsey's office
and went to Denise. “Denise, you have to help me. You have to call Dorian's mother
for me and let me talk to her.”

“Okay. Is everything all right?” she asked.

“No, just do this for me,” I said, impatiently.

Denise scrolled through contacts in her computer, then picked up her phone and dialed
a number. She handed the phone to me. I waited for the ring, but the number wasn't
in service.

“It's not working,” I told her. “Is there another number?”

“That's the only one I have in the system,” Denise told me.

“I have to go to their house,” I said. “You have the address, right?”

“I do, but, Adrian, what's going on?” Denise asked.

“Mrs. Ramsey thinks I did something to Dorian,” I explained. “I have to go see them
so Dorian can explain to his mom what happened.”

“What happened?” Denise asked.

I looked around to make sure Mrs. Ramsey wasn't nearby, then told her. “Remember
what we saw on the surveillance tape with Dorian? Well, there was something in the
classroom the other day. Dorian and I were in the classroom, and there was some kind
of figure, a shadow, in there with us. It had to be a bad spirit, and I think it
was there because of Robin.”

Denise looked shocked and terrified at what I had just told her.

“Mrs. Ramsey thinks
I
did something to him,” I explained.

“Maybe we could show her the tape,” Denise suggested.

“No, I have to talk to Dorian first and have him explain to his mother what happened,”
I told her. “I have to help him, and he has to help me clear my name.”

“Adrian, I don't think it's a good idea if you show up at his house,” Denise said.
“I mean, think about it. If she's accusing you, then you could get in trouble for
showing up, and I could get in trouble for giving out Dorian's information.”

“Denise, this could be our only chance of getting to the bottom of
things,” I explained.
“If we can get Dorian to talk about what he experienced and show what happened on
the surveillance tape, then maybe that's our first step to finding an answer. You
know I don't have an answer, and you don't have one either. Maybe my whole purpose
for being here is to find an answer to what's been happening and to get help for
Robin. I really need you right now to help me with this. Please?”

Denise nodded her head and agreed. “Okay. You're right. We do need to get to the
bottom of things. We'll go at lunch, okay?”

“Okay.”

At lunch, we left in Denise's car and headed to Dorian's house. So many thoughts
were running through my mind that I didn't know where to start. Christy!

“Hey, do you remember a girl named Christy?” I asked Denise.

“Christy Barkley?” Denise asked.

“I don't remember her last name,” I admitted. “You graduated in 2010, so she had
to be in your class.”

“The only other Christy I knew was Christy Messner,” Denise said. “Dark hair, short,
wore glasses?”

“Yeah, her! What do you remember about her?”

“Well, she was one of my closest friends up until freshman year,” Denise told me.
“We used to hang out a lot, then we stopped.”

Whoa! What a coincidence. If I would have known that I could have come to Denise
earlier about Christy!

“Why did y'all stop hanging out?”

“I noticed she was turning into a whole different person. She started getting more
into boys, and I remember she had a sleepover at her house, and we watched that movie
The Craft
. She thought it was cool that you could put spells and stuff on people,
and I'm a Christian, so I wasn't into that. Plus, I was getting more involved with
my church, and I didn't want to be around someone who would want to hurt people like
that.”

Putting spells on people? So that's what Christy did! That must be how I tore my
ACL.

“You heard what happened to her, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, I did,” Denise said. “I was at the funeral. I figured that's what happens
when you tap into something that's not of the Lord.”

“It was because of me,” I told Denise.

“What do you mean?”

“Christy and I had sex, and I did her dirty by not talking to her afterward,” I explained.
“I ignored her and acted like she didn't exist. I'm sure I made her upset enough
to look up casting spells. She would show up to my baseball games and just stare
at me. I ended up tearing my knee ligament one night while she was at the game, and
she kept calling me that night to come to the hospital with her. I told her no, then
I just started ignoring her phone calls. I just found out from one of my friends
that she died giving birth. I believe I was the one who got her pregnant.”

“Really?” Denise said, astonished. “I didn't even know she was pregnant—she must
have been hiding it. But how do you know the baby was yours?”

“I've been having the same dream over and over again,” I told her. “That someone
is downstairs in my house, but I can never see who it is because it's always dark.
So last night I finally saw who it was, and it was Christy, holding a baby. She kept
saying ‘Come here' and ‘I'm not going to hurt you.' So I walked closer to her and
looked down at the baby, and I saw that the baby's eyes were blacked out. So were
Christy's eyes. But her eyes had blood coming from them. Then she said, ‘But
she
will,' talking about the baby.”

“Oh, my. That's not good, Adrian,” Denise said. “Did you rebuke the dream?”

“Rebuke the dream?” I asked, confused.

“Yes, you have to rebuke those types of dreams,” Denise explained. “My preacher talked
about this not too long ago in a sermon. When you're asleep and dreaming, your subconscious
is open to anything. In the Old Testament of the Bible, God spoke to many people
through their dreams, to further His plans. I believe bad spirits can come to you,
too, and you have to rebuke those. You have to cast those evil spirits away from
your life. The fact that there's darkness around Christy, and her and her baby's
eyes are blacked
out isn't a good thing. You have to ask the Lord to protect you
and to cover you, because there's no telling what you're getting ready to face. And
maybe it was your baby, and maybe it wasn't. Like I said before, she opened that
door of darkness into her life, so you shouldn't feel guilty about her death. But
I know you are feeling guilty, so you have to ask for forgiveness, and just know
that everything happens for a reason.”

Denise's profound insight on spirituality spoke volumes to me. Even though she was
younger than I, I could tell she had reached a level of faith that I hadn't reached
yet. Her explanation reminded me of how my grandmother used to explain things to
me when it came to the Bible and questions I had.

“So, how do I rebuke a dream?” I asked.

“Just say, ‘Lord, I rebuke this dream,'” Denise started. “You have to be specific
when you say it, so you are clear for yourself on what you're talking about, and
always ask for clarity.”

I closed my eyes, then said to myself, “Lord, I rebuke that dream I had last night.
I rebuke that dream last night. Take Christy away from me. Give me clarity so I can
understand what I should do.”

We pulled up to Dorian's house. It was a nice one-level, ranch-style brick house.

“This is it,” Denise said, parking her car in front of the house.

We got out of the car and walked up to the door. I rang the doorbell and we waited.
I hoped Dorian's mom wouldn't be too upset that we came to her house. Hopefully,
she'd see that we were concerned about Dorian.

Finally, we heard footsteps coming to the door, and a woman's voice said, “Who is
it?”

“Hi, Mrs. Fuller,” I said. “I'm Mr. Ramirez. I'm Dorian's English teacher at Finley
Academy, and I have our front office secretary Denise with me. We were concerned
about Dorian and wanted to see if we could talk to him for a second.”

Mrs. Fuller opened the door. She was a short, stocky woman with her hair up in a
bun. She looked upset, like she had been worrying all night. “Dorian's really not
feeling too well right now.”

“We understand, ma'am, but we really need to talk to Dorian to see if he can tell
us what happened to him,” Denise said.

“Okay,” Mrs. Fuller said, opening the screen door. “I guess y'all got my voice mail
about Dorian?”

“Yes, we did,” I tell her.

“He's in his room right now,” Mrs. Fuller said, walking us through the house.

We reached Dorian's room. He was lying on his bed with his head on his hands, looking
at the wall.

“I don't know what's going on with him,” Mrs. Fuller said, standing at the doorway.
“He won't eat, he barely talks, and this just isn't like him.”

Denise and I went into the room.

“Dorian, honey,” Denise said, sitting on his bed. “Do you know who we are?”

Dorian looked at us, then nodded his head.

“Can you tell us what happened to you at school?” Denise asked.

Dorian didn't move or say anything. We all waited to see if he would say something,
but he didn't. We were getting nowhere fast this way.

“Dorian, look,” I said sitting down on his bed. “I did like you said and we looked
at the surveillance tapes. I know that there is something going on at the school.
Something that can't be explained.”

Dorian looked at me. I had his attention now.

“Dorian, remember what we saw in the classroom?” I asked him. He nodded slowly. “Well,
you have to explain what you saw to Mrs. Ramsey and to your mom. And you have to
tell them what happened to you in the hallway. Denise and I saw the whole thing on
the surveillance camera, and we'll be there to back you up. We need to figure this
thing out.”

“But I can't go back,” Dorian whispered.

“Yes, you can, you can come back,” I told him. “What makes you think you can't come
back?”

“No, I can't go back,” Dorian repeated. “I don't want to be haunted for the rest
of my life.”

“Who said you would be haunted?” I asked.

“I know that's what will happen,” Dorian said. “That shadow that was
in the classroom
was only one of them. There's more, and I saw them. They came after me after I ran
out of the classroom. I ran all the way to the store down the street, until I didn't
see them anymore.”

I felt so bad for Dorian. I'd never seen him like this before.

“Wait, who chased you down the street, baby?” Mrs. Fuller asked, confused.

“Mrs. Fuller, can I speak with you in the living room?” Denise asked, walking out
of Dorian's bedroom. Mrs. Fuller followed Denise, and I could see the concern on
her face for Dorian.

“Dorian, listen to me,” I told him. “Denise and I saw on the surveillance tape what
happened to you in the hallway. We saw you being choked, and we went looking for
you, but we couldn't find you. And I know Robin had something to do with it. Maybe
I can talk to her about the spirits and . . .”