Out to Get You

by Josh Allen

  Mrs. Huber didn’t say anything. Not yet. She wanted everyone to be present when she began. She wanted all her students to see.

  The late bell rang, and a straggler, Jayden Moore, speed-walked from the classroom door to his seat. Mrs. Huber stood. The class became silent. Her new earrings sent light dancing across the walls. She paced the front of the classroom. Twenty-seven sets of eyes followed her.

  Cindy Watson, Mrs. Huber thought. A storm is coming for you, little mouse. She almost felt bad for Cindy. Almost. The girl was still just sitting straight-backed at her desk with her hands in her lap, half smiling. She had no idea what was coming. No idea at all.

  Mrs. Huber stopped in front of Cindy’s desk. She paused. She pointed to The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which was still on the floor. She took in a breath of air and tightened the muscles in her neck, readying The Voice.

  Cindy Watson! Stand! Now! she yelled.

  Or that’s what she’d planned to do.

  What really happened was this:

  “Cin—” she yelled, and then she stopped and bent over and covered her ears. When the first syllable shot out of her mouth, her ears had grown suddenly hot.

  They burned white and strong, and the unexpected pain silenced her instantly. After a second, the burning stopped.

  She touched her ears and felt the new earrings dangling there.

  She tried again.

  “Cin—” she yelled, and this time the pain was blinding. Heat flashed like an explosion in her ears. It was as if her earlobes were being dipped in boiling water, and she winced and lurched forward. Again, as soon as she stopped speaking, the pain faded.

  Her students looked at her, waiting.

  Mrs. Huber couldn’t understand it. What was happening?

  She tried again, lowering The Voice slightly. But once more, as the first syllable left her mouth, her ears burned and she had to stop speaking.

  She tried whispering. Even that seared her earlobes, and she thought she heard tiny hisses.

  The earrings, she realized. Principal Garcia had done something.

  She reached up to her left ear and tried to remove the earring. She grabbed the back clasp and pulled, but the earring wouldn’t unlatch. She tried her right earring, but the same thing happened. It was as if the earrings had fused permanently to her ears.

  She ran to her desk and fumbled for the earring box. She read the card again:

  For all you’ve done, you deserve this.

  The Voice, she thought. She looked at her students with sinking eyes.

  “Mrs. Huber, is something wrong?” said Johnny Pak without raising his hand. But that couldn’t be. Her students always raised their hands.

  “Yeah, you don’t look so good,” said Amira Cox. She stood up by her desk.

  “Should I get the nurse?” blurted Sharon Cross.

  There was a pause. Mrs. Huber’s earlobes pulsed. She didn’t dare speak. She shook her head slightly, and then Bobbie Duncan called out in a loud voice:

  “Hey, there’s something wrong with Mrs. Huber!”

  Then, all at once, the children were talking. Loudly. They fluttered. They buzzed. The noises they made swelled and rose, and the kids in the back of the room even stood on their chairs to see what was happening. Connor Davis, in the very back row, jumped up and stood on his desk.

  “Get back in—” she started to say, but as she spoke, the heat in her ears flared, and the shock of it silenced her once more.

  She pulled at the earrings. She tugged at her earlobes. Nothing worked. The noise in the room became deafening.

  Around her, twenty-seven students bounced and buzzed and yelled.

  But no, she realized. It wasn’t twenty-seven.

  It was twenty-six.

  One student—Cindy Watson—sat in her chair, statue-still. In all the chaos, she’d picked her book up, and she was reading it, silently, with a crooked smile.

  * * *

  Witch is such a misunderstood word, thought Cindy. Her classmates—the same ones yelling and jostling just then for a better look at their flailing teacher—had used that word dozens of times to describe Mrs. Huber.

  What a ridiculous idea, Cindy thought. Mrs. Huber a witch!

  Cindy sighed and turned a page in her book.

  It just proved what Cindy’s grandmother always told her.

  Most people knew nothing about witches. Nothing.

  IT was during the five-minute break between Mr. Johansen’s Science class and Mr. Johnson’s English class. Wally was in the bathroom washing his hands and practicing his teachers’ names.

  Johnson. Johansen.

  He lathered soap between his fingers.

  It was one of those cruel tricks of the universe, he thought, one of those little ways it was out to get him. Why else would he have two teachers with virtually identical names?

  Just a few minutes earlier, he’d had a conversation that went like this:

  “Hey, Mr. Johnson?”

  “It’s Jo-HAN-sen, Wally. For the last time, Jo-HAN-sen. Get it right.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

  It was an understandable mistake, Wally had thought, but Mr. Johansen had turned away, clacked his chalk hard onto the metal chalk holder, and Wally never got the chance to ask his question.

  Wally turned off the bathroom tap and muttered “Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johansen” over and over in a low voice, but he knew repeating the names wouldn’t help. Those two names had become like tangled ropes in his head, and he wasn’t entirely sure he had them right even now.

  He shook his dripping hands and waved them in front of the paper towel dispenser’s red blinking eye.

  Nothing happened. The paper that normally came spooling out, didn’t.

  “Great,” said Wally, thinking again of the out-to-get-him universe. “Piece of junk’s broken.”

  He tried again, waving at the blinking red eye more slowly. His wet hands glistened, and a single drop of water fell from his left pinkie onto his shoe with a plop. Finally the machine whirred. A scratchy-looking sheet of paper scrolled out.

  Wally stopped.

  Before him, on the dangling page, was something Wally couldn’t explain.

  Words.

  They were written in a dark, thick scrawl and said:

  YOU HAVE TWO DAYS LEFT

  Weird, thought Wally. The words looked angry. The letters were jagged and seemed to have been pressed hard into the paper.

  “Two days left?” Wally mumbled. He tore the paper away, wadded it into a ball, and dropped it into the trash. Then he waved his hand in front of the dispenser again. The machine whirred. A piece of paper scrolled out, and the words appeared again:

  YOU HAVE TWO DAYS LEFT

  Wally peered through the dispenser’s gray semi-transparent cover. Inside, he could make out a big spool of paper and a few gears. Nothing else. The paper on the spool seemed blank.

  Wally tore the second sheet of paper from the dispenser. He held it up and examined it under the light.

  Just then, Brandon Reynolds pushed through the bathroom door. Wally crumpled the paper as Brandon stepped up to a urinal.

  Wally tossed the paper into the garbage can. He wanted to see what would happen when Brandon waved his hands in front of the blinking eye—if the words would show up on his paper, too—so he waited and leaned in close to the mirror and pretended to look at something on his face. He ran his fingers through his hair. He hunched and untied and retied his shoelaces.

  Finally Brandon flushed, washed, and waved the backs of his dripping hands in front of the red eye. A section of paper scrolled out.

  There was nothing. No words. Just an empty sheet. Brandon ripped it off, dried his hands, and left.

  Wally walked to the dispenser. Slowly, he waved his hand in front of the red eye. The machine whirred, and the words app
eared again:

  YOU HAVE TWO DAYS LEFT

  Wally swallowed hard. Whatever this dispenser was saying, it seemed to be saying it only to him. Whatever fate loomed on the horizon, it was his.

  Two days left? Two days left for what?

  Suddenly the whole Johnson-Johansen thing didn’t seem so important.

  The universe, it seemed, really was out to get him.

  * * *

  Two days left could mean anything, Wally thought as he lay in his bed that night.

  Maybe he had just two days left to finish his science project. Or maybe he had just two days left of lunch money on his school account. Maybe this was some kind of elaborate reminder a teacher had set up to keep kids on track for an assignment. After all, it did sort of feel like something Mr. Johnson would do.

  Or was it something Mr. Johansen would do?

  Wally shook his head. It didn’t matter because those words—You have two days left—didn’t mean anything. They were part of a prank or a joke or a trick. That was all.

  Still, Wally squirmed under his covers, and in his head, the words kept scrolling before his eyes.

  Two days left.

  Two days left.

  Two days left.

  * * *

  By the next morning, Wally had convinced himself it was probably nothing.

  Yes, it’s definitely nothing, he told himself as he shoveled a spoonful of Twisty-Ohs into his mouth.

  Paper towel dispensers couldn’t know things, things like how many days you had left to…well…whatever. And even if they could, they couldn’t tell you about it.

  In the night, he’d come up with a new theory to explain what was happening.

  It had to be the school janitor, Jerry Robinson. He was an old man with gray skin that stretched tight across his arms and face. He was always smiling and playing pranks—like dropping fake vomit in the busiest hallways and laughing as kids scrambled past. He was probably the person who loaded new paper into the bathroom dispensers when they ran out. Wally spooned more cereal into his mouth.

  Yes, it must have been Jerry, he told himself. Wally could just see the old janitor in his coveralls, hunched over a heavy roll of paper, smirking and scribbling those messages with a black marker.

  Very funny, Jerry, Wally thought. Ha-ha.

  To prove his point, when he got to school, Wally ignored the morning bell and walked to the bathroom. His feet made soft tapping sounds on the tile floor. He went straight to the paper towel dispenser. He stood before it for a few seconds and then checked under the stalls to make sure no one else was in the bathroom.

  The dispenser’s red eye blinked, and Wally raised a shaking hand and waved. The machine whirred. Paper scrolled out:

  YOU HAVE ONE DAY LEFT

  Wally stared.

  How is this happening? he thought.

  He waved again, and more paper spooled:

  YOU HAVE ONE DAY LEFT

  He peered into the dispenser. The roll of paper inside was blank. He waved again…and again. Each time he did, paper scrolled and the same five words appeared.

  Wally paced in front of the sinks.

  He should ignore this. He knew that. He should ignore this and get to class. But Wally couldn’t. He returned to the dispenser and waved his hand. He couldn’t stop.

  The paper kept coming—always with the same words. Between waves, Wally stopped ripping the sheets off individually. He let one long sheet pile up on the floor at his feet.

  This can’t be happening, Wally thought. There’s no way this can be happening.

  Wally’s chest began to pound. His cheeks grew hot.

  Just one day left, he thought. How could that be? He was only a kid.

  One day left.

  One day left.

  He wanted so much more than one day.

  He scooped up the long stretch of paper from the floor and tore it. The ripping sound it made was the only thing that seemed to make any sense, the only thing that felt right.

  So he ripped at the paper again. He crumpled sheets and flung shreds. He threw them to the floor and kicked at them. He grabbed for the largest pieces and tore them smaller, and soon the floor was covered in wrinkled paper.

  The late bell rang.

  Wally stopped.

  He stood in the center of the bathroom, surrounded by a ring of debris.

  “One day left,” he muttered, and he left the bathroom, not bothering to clean up any of his mess.

  * * *

  He didn’t listen to his teachers that day—not Mr. Johnson or Mr. Johansen or any of the others. Why should he? Instead, he sat at his desk, not talking to anyone. There was so much he wanted to do, but knowing he had just one day left, he couldn’t find the will to do anything. It was like that dispenser in the bathroom had sucked the life out of him.

  That night, he skipped his homework and his chores and dug his stash of Halloween candy out from under his bed. He’d planned to save it, to eat it little by little, slowly enough to make it last the entire year, but what was the point now? He ate as much candy as his stomach would hold—suckers, chocolate bars, taffy. His belly bulged, and he developed a headache from all the sugar, but he unwrapped another chocolate-covered toffee and shoved it in anyway.

  One day left, he thought.

  He hadn’t told anybody what was going to happen. Not even his parents. He couldn’t see the point. Most likely they’d think he was crazy. And if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to stop what was coming anyway.

  Because when the universe was out to get you…it got you. Period. There was no stopping it.

  Besides, his friends and his parents would find out soon enough. Why should he make them worry?

  He closed his eyes—finally too tired to stay awake munching candy—and he saw, as if tattooed on his eyelids, the bathroom dispenser’s red eye, blinking and blinking and blinking.

  * * *

  He woke. To his surprise, he got dressed and went to school. He didn’t quite understand why, but he actually wanted to see Ridgecrest Middle School one last time. To say goodbye, he guessed.

  “Are you okay, Wally?” people kept asking. “You look a little strange.”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Johnson,” he answered during third period.

  “I’m Mr. Jo-HAN-sen, Wally.” The teacher closed his eyes and sighed. “Mr. Jo-HAN-sen.”

  Wally shrugged.

  After class, he walked slowly to the bathroom. He didn’t particularly want to see the dispenser, but if today really was his last day, he felt he needed to face it.

  When he walked in, a piece of paper was already dangling from the dispenser. It said:

  IT HAPPENS TODAY

  Wally read the words over and over, and something inside him snapped.

  It’s not fair, he thought.

  There were so many things he still wanted to do. He wanted to drive a car. He wanted to eat lots of cake. He wanted to stay up all night watching movies—at least fifty more times. And he wanted to ride a motorcycle. He’d never even touched a motorcycle, he realized.

  He thought of how it might happen. He’d avoided thinking about that all this time, but he couldn’t avoid it anymore.

  He didn’t have a cough or the stomach flu or even any aches, so he figured he wasn’t going to get sick. Probably, he would end up in some kind of accident. Would he get hit by a car on his way home? Would that be it? Or would he choke on a piece of lousy school pizza? Would it be his very last meal?

  He was starting to shake thinking about it.

  I hope it happens quickly, he thought.

  And then he added, I hope it doesn’t hurt.

  He walked to the paper towel dispenser, tore the paper off, and slapped one hand hard against the dispenser.

  “I didn’t want to know this,” Wally said, crumpling the paper. �
��Why would anyone want to know this?”

  As if in answer, the red eye blinked. Without his waving for it, a sheet of paper scrolled out:

  IT HAPPENS TODAY

  Wally leaned toward the dispenser.

  “I know,” he said in an angry whisper.

  It wasn’t fair. The blinking red eye had chosen him. Why? Why him? The red eye floated there blinking, blinking, blinking.

  Wally balled a fist and punched the dispenser. Hard. The punch cracked the plastic cover, and sent a few plastic shards to the floor.

  The impact hurt Wally’s knuckles. But what did it matter? It felt good to hit this thing that had been coming for him, so he punched again, and more cracks spider-webbed across the dispenser’s plastic cover.

  He leaned in, punching harder this time, and he broke through the plastic cover, putting a fist-sized hole in the dispenser. The shattered plastic cut him, and his knuckles started bleeding.

  Big deal, he thought. So what?

  Then the dispenser whirred and a fresh piece of paper scrolled out. Wally waited for the message—It happens today—to appear.

  It didn’t.

  The message came…

  But one word had changed:

  IT HAPPENS NOW

  Wally started shaking.

  “Now?” he said, and something inside him burst.

  He went wild, striking and flailing and ripping at the paper. He swung a leg up and kicked the dispenser, and a loud crash echoed in the tiled bathroom.

  He screamed and sent a few more kicks at the dispenser.

  Then he grabbed the whole thing and pulled until he tore it off the wall with a loud crack. It happens now, the dispenser had said. How much time did he have? Ten seconds? Less? He threw the dispenser to the floor and stomped. Plastic shards flew. The paper roll spooled out, and Wally stomped it again and again, crushing it.