The Clique

by Jay Mason

  “So?” she said.

  “Oh my god, milk and cookies for a growing boy!” exclaimed Bethany. “What are you like Rusty! You sound like you’re eight years old.”

  “I’m hungry,” protested Rusty, “besides I thought it was kind of Mrs Morgan to ask. It’s not like we were expected.”

  “No, it isn’t,” said Alex. “What do you want?”

  Bethany tossed her long luxurious mane, which immediately resumed its look without a hair out of place. “Well, Rusty told me how you were the one behind Beyond Belief.”

  “He what?” gasped Alex.

  “Is he pulling my leg,” said Bethany. “Only it seemed wrong to me. I mean whoever runs that website really knows their stuff. It’s where Savannah got the whole idea for the lunchtime club. She spent ages reading through the stuff.”

  “You’ve looked at my website?” said Alex.

  “Aren’t you listening? I said Savannah. She’s the one who decided we needed a USP, so we told her she had to find it.”

  “Unique selling point,” said Rusty.

  “I know what it means,” snapped Alex. “You gave me your word …”

  “So it is you?” said Bethany.

  Alex’s mother came in at the moment. She was carrying a tray with a glass of milk, a pitcher of lemonade, some more glasses, homemade chocolate cookies, cheese straw twists, a bowl of crisps, and several little plates, as well as some paper serviettes. “I’m sorry this is all I have in,” she said setting the tray down next to Alex’s computer. “If Alex had let me know you were coming.” She cast a dark glance at her daughter.

  Bethany and Alex were staring at each other like cats disputing territory. “It’s ever so good of you, Mrs Morgan,” said Rusty. “We really appreciate it. Alex didn’t know we were coming. Beth and I have a bit of a problem — school stuff — we thought she could help us with.”

  “That seems unlikely,” said Irene. “But you’ve very welcome — I’m afraid my daughter has not introduced me.”

  “I’m Rusty,” said Rusty rising and holding out his hand, “and this is my friend, Bethany.”

  “Girlfriend,” corrected Bethany, who was still giving Alex the evil eye.

  Irene shook Rusty’s hand, “It’s nice to meet a young man with manners,” she said. “Let me know if there is anything else I can do. I’ll just leave the door open a crack.” Then she left.

  “What does she think we are going to do?” asked Bethany. “Have a threesome?”

  Alex got up and shut the door. Rusty zeroed in on the tray, helping himself. “Pig,” muttered Bethany.

  “What do you want with the owner of Beyond Belief?” said Alex.

  “We — well,” said Bethany. “It’s like this. Savannah, Charisma, Tiff, and I are like super sporty, so we look really hot. We’ll graduate from this utterly pointless college of losers alright, but it’s not like it’s going to get us what we want.”

  “Money, fame, riches?” guessed Alex. “Try You-tube.”

  “Exactly,” said Bethany. “Smarter than I thought. But You-tube with what? Cheerleaders are ten a penny — besides it’s hardly a long-term career. I’m pushing twenty one and Savannah,” she lowered her voice, “believe it or not is actually twenty-three. She’s flunked a few years. That’s why she’s working so hard on the USP — she thinks we might dump her for being old.”

  Alex blinked a little. “Okay, still not seeing how I come into this.”

  “Savannah decides that we could be like a team of psychic cheerleaders.”

  “Come again?” said Alex.

  “You know we could sit around in our uniforms and contact the dead for people. We could start and end each show with a routine.”

  “I thought you said you were too old to be cheerleaders,” said Rusty between a mouthful of crisps. Bethany didn’t even look round. She slapped his leg hard. “Hush-up. Grown-ups talking,” she said.

  Then she shrugged. “Of course we wouldn’t be able to use the uniforms for that long, but it’s a good gimmick to get us started.”

  “Cheerleaders who talk to the dead,” said Alex. Her gaze met Rusty. “Is this for real?” she asked him.

  “Lots of weird stuff on the Internet,” said Rusty.

  “Oh come on,” said Bethany. “Sex and death how more turned on could we be?”

  “What do you want from me?” asked Alex.

  “It was all going so well,” said Bethany. “We’d found this slightly spooky looking room down in the tunnels under the school. We’d dressed the set — you know lamps, floating veil-like stuff. We’d even got rid of most of the dust. It looked so cool.”

  “Cos obviously the dead are so into interior design,” said Alex.

  “OMG,” said Bethany. “Don’t you get it? We didn’t mean to do anything for real. We were rehearsing — like you rehearse a play. No one thinks any of those psychics on TV are honestly talking to the dead. That’s crazy. It’s all a game. Those old British people thought it up — the ones who lived when that old woman was Queen.”

  “You mean Victorians,” said Alex.

  “Uh-ha,” said Bethany. “Think so. That was all stuff Savannah told us about. She said people did it to amuse themselves in the evening cos they didn’t have TV. Savannah said the lives of the rich were so boring they would have these little séances for fun. Like a game. She thought we could bring it up to date.”

  “With cheerleading,” said Alex in as calm a voice as she could manage.

  “Hey, I’d watch,” said Rusty.

  Alex rolled her eyes.

  “So it’s all going absolutely fine. Savannah’s written us some lines. We’ve given Tiffany the smallest part cos her brain is so absolutely sieve-like, but she gets to a major manoeuvre in the routine — and I mean major. A top secret special one we’ve worked out. It’s …”

  “So not interested,” said Alex. “What’s the problem?”

  “You found me in the parking lot the other day. That wasn’t meant to happen.”

  “What happened?” asked Alex.

  “I have no idea. I’d arrived early, so I was practising my chant when like — everything goes blank and then next thing I know I’m sobbing my eyes out in the parking lot with Rusty’s arms around me and you scowling at me like that character out of play.”

  “Which play? No never mind,” said Alex. “Is that it?”

  For the first time Bethany lost her smug confidence. She looked up at Rusty. “Do I have to tell her?” Rusty nodded.

  “Oh alright. Since then I’ve been hearing voices,” said Bethany in a rush. “There. Go on. Make fun of me.”

  Alex stiffened in her chair. “What kind of voices and what did they say?” she asked.

  “If you’re asking me if they are telling me to kill everyone or just the ones with bad hair, then no.” Bethany turned to Rusty. “I told you this was a bad idea. It’ll be all over college tomorrow that I’m mad.”

  “You mean like the rumour you four started about me?” said Alex, shortly. “Don’t judge everyone else by your own miserable standards.”

  “Girls,” said Rusty. He picked up a dish from the tray. “Make peace. Have a cookie!” He thrust it at Bethany to stop her getting up and leaving. Reluctantly the girl took one.

  “Watch your veneers,” said Alex. “My Mom’s cooking is unique.”

  Bethany tested the cookie between her fingers. “OMG,” she said, “it won’t snap.” She put the cookie back on the plate. “Does she always cook like this?” asked Bethany, giving Alex a sympathetic look.

  Alex nodded. Meanwhile, Rusty was well on his way through his first cookie and reaching for his second. Both girls looked at him and then at each other. Alex smiled first. Then they both laughed in a shared moment of scorn at the ability of males, especially teenage males, to eat anything.

  “I’m sorry,” said Bethany. “I feel so stupid about all this. I can’t tell you what the voices say because they’re sort of echoey. I can tell there are words with in them, but I
can’t make them out.”

  “How do they sound? Mocking? Angry?”

  “No,” said Bethany. “They sound sad most of the time. Sometimes they sound frightened. That’s the worst. It’s like a kind of howling.” She shivered. “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “If you don’t even want to think about it,” said Alex practically, “I’m not sure how I can help you.”

  “Isn’t that enough? Eerie voices that follow me around.”

  “When do they happen?” said Alex.

  “Any time. And I can hear them no matter what else is going on like they’re inside my head. I could heard them in the canteen yesterday even when those goths were doing their slam poetry thing.”

  “That was bad,” said Rusty, finishing his third cookie. “I’d rather listen to funny voices than emos wailing about the pointlessness of existence as exhibited by the erosion of civilisation through the over use of plastics.”

  “That was a poem?” asked Alex.

  “Not as we know it,” said Rusty with a wry grin.

  “Excuse me,” said Bethany. “We were talking about me. Me. Me, the one with the ghosts in her head.”

  “Is that what it feels like,” said Alex. “Talking to the dead?”

  “It certainly doesn’t sound like I’ve suddenly started picking up cell phone connections,” said Bethany waspishly.

  “I mean did you have any sense that they weren’t living people?”

  “Yes — if you mean there wasn’t anyone else there.”

  “In the canteen?” asked Alex puzzled.

  “In the restroom,” said Bethany blushing. “I hear them everywhere.”

  Rusty put a hand up to smother a grin, but Alex frowned. “I don’t like this,” she said.

  “That makes two of us,” said Bethany.

  “If you don’t know what they’re saying — only that they are distressed, and they talk to you regardless of where you are — that sounds like something or someone is expending an awful lot of energy to try and reach you. Whatever it is, isn’t going to be happy about failing,” said Alex.

  Bethany’s eyes went even wider than usual. She clutched Rusty’s arm. “You are scaring me,” she said.

  “Good,” said Alex. “You should be scared. We need to go back to the basement. I don’t know how I could get you both in tonight, so …”

  “I have keys,” said Bethany, producing some from her jeans pocket.

  Alex raised an eyebrow.

  “Savannah went on a couple of dates with the janitor.”

  “Creepy Bob!” exclaimed Rusty.

  “I know she is such a …” she broke off as Alex’s Mom opened the door. “Everything okay?” she asked. “I thought I heard raised voices?”

  “Lively debate,” said Alex.

  “This cookies are amazing Mrs G,” said Rusty.

  “Really?” said Irene. “You like them?”

  Rusty beamed. “In fact if you’ve got any spare I’d love to take some home with me. If that’s not presuming too much.”

  “No. No. Not at all,” said Irene, looking a bit bemused. “Come into the kitchen on the way out and I’ll have a box for you.”

  “Cheers Mrs G,” said Rusty.

  Irene left still looking confused.

  “You are the first person ever to say they liked my mom’s cooking. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s gone for ‘a little lie down’ to get over the shock,” said Alex.

  “Do I have to keep reminding you …”

  “Yes, it’s all about you,” said Alex. “I’ll meet you at the college side door in half an hour. Don’t say anything to my mother.”

  It took Alex far longer to get out of the house than she had hoped. When she went downstairs to return the tray and tell her mother she was going to bed, Irene spent a good twenty minutes saying how lovely Rusty was. “Such nice manners,” she said. “So well brought up. You can tell he’ll go far. I wonder why he’s at that dreadful community college.”

  “He has to look after his Mom,” said Alex. “She’s an invalid and he has a little sister too.”

  “What an angel,” said Irene. “I think I might start cooking a little extra at meal times. You can give it to him at college to take him. Do you think he’d like that?”

  Alex shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to offend,” said Irene.

  “I don’t think Rusty could ever be offended by gifts of food,” said Alex. “What did you think about the girl?”

  “Hmm,” said her mother, pulling out a cookbook from the kitchen shelves. “She had very nice hair. What do you think about a risotto?”

  Alex pled tiredness and said she was going to bed. Five minutes later, her door locked and her sneakers tightened, she was out the window and swinging down from the tree.

  “My mum’s going to give me food packages for you,” said Alex with a sneer. She was trying to cover her relief they had waited for her and that Bethany seemed perfectly normal. “Let’s go down,” she said.

  Bethany unlocked the door and with a practised air, keyed in the number to shut down the primitive alarm. Alex made a mental note of the number and to get those keys off the cheerleader.

  They went down a different way this time. Bethany’s keys opened several more doors leading to the basement, until they arrived at the place where Alex had first entered the tunnels. Bethany took a little pink LED torch from her pocket and turned it on. Alex could see the side was stenciled with cats and flowers, but she was in no place to mock. She hadn’t even thought to bring hers.

  To Alex’s relief she did not head towards where Alex had met the entity, but struck off in a different direction. In a few minutes Bethany opened another door and announced proudly, “Welcome to the Lunchtime Club’s Séance Center.”

  Alex stepped through first. The girls had cleared out a small room. An oriental style rug covered the floor. A small black round table — the kind with only one central pedestal leg, but with a thick and heavy top — stood in the middle of the room. Around the walls someone had pinned white material, netting of some kind or maybe even old wedding veils. Whatever they were they gave Alex a shiver down her spine. In the far corner, screwed high up on the wall was a lantern. Bethany lit it and placed an orange shawl over the top, so the room was filled with a warm glow. Then she lit a couple of candles in some makeshift niches in the soft walls.

  Rusty paced the room. “This is cool,” he said. “You’d never think this was in the tunnels. It looks like …”

  “A TV set,” said Bethany hopefully. “We were going to borrow some cameras from the media department and do a couple of trial runs.”

  “You’re going to do cheerleading in here?” asked Alex.

  Bethany shook her head. “We’re going to film the top and tail sections outside.” Rusty sniggered. The girls ignored him.

  “We can cut it together in the department media Center.”

  Why does she keep having to say ‘Centre’ thought Alex. She could feel herself getting jittery. Meanwhile Bethany was rambling on and on about the four’s plans to be social media stars. She seemed to have totally forgotten how scared she had been.

  “Why don’t you show me what you lot did?” said Alex, breaking in on her monologue.

  “W-what?” said Bethany, coming to a sudden halt.

  “You must have tried something to attract whatever is following you.”

  Bethany shivered. “I’d rather you didn’t put it like that.”

  “Have any of the others heard anything?” asked Alex.

  Bethany shook her head. “Then it’s following you,” said Alex. “For some reason something is drawn to you.” She added a can’t-think-why inside her head. “So come on, get on with it.”

  Bethany stood frozen in the middle of the room. “C’mon Beth,” said Rusty, encouragingly. “Alex knows what she’s doing. Let her get rid of this thing. I don’t much fancy being watched by this thing when we’re — you know.”

  Bethany went fiery red. “Is that why you w
ouldn’t — the other day.”

  “You bet,” said Rusty.

  Alex looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Can we get on with this please?”

  “Oh, all right,” said Bethany. “We all have to stand round the table, fingertips touching. Now close your eyes and I’ll try and remember what Savannah said. ‘In the darkness behind your eyes, hear these words, the words that bind. Hear friends of flesh, expand your minds, turn out your thoughts, open your minds. Be ready to receive. Know now that we are between worlds.’” Rusty opened one eye. Alex looked back at him and mouthed close your eyes. Rusty nodded towards Bethany and pulled a face. Alex almost laughed. Bethany did sound ridiculous. “Close your eyes,” she mouthed again and did so herself. Bethany continued speaking unaware of their exchange. Her voice had taken on a new confidence.

  “Hear me, those of you who have gone before. Hear me, oh you shades of the dear departed. Know we come in peace and friendship. Know we are here to help you. We are your willing servants. Come here together this night to convey your messages to the waking world.”

  Silence.

  Alex was thinking she had never heard anything so ridiculous in her life, when the temperature in the room suddenly fell several degrees. Bethany’s fingers touching hers went very rigid. Without moving Alex opened her eyes.

  “Please …” said Bethany, except it didn’t sound like Bethany usually sounded. Now, her voice sounded filled with sadness and raw as if she had been crying. “Please, don’t let him come for me again. I won’t be a bad girl. I won’t ask again. I’ll be good. I’ll be quiet. Please. Please don’t let him come to me again. I promise I’ll do anything you ask. Only keep him away.” Bethany turned her head quickly from side to side. Her eyes were closed, but fear was written all over her face. “Oh sweet Jesus, I hear him. He’s coming. Any moment now I will see …. Oh no, no. No. Dear God in heaven protect me!” Bethany cried out. Her voice rose in pitch. Pain resonated from her. The scream drew out into a bestial howl. Tears rolled down her face from her closed lids. “I cannot,” she cried. “I cannot bear it … no, no, no.” She screamed again. Alex watched her closely. She didn’t think Bethany was faking this and she was fascinated. She didn’t break contact with the table or Bethany’s fingers. She could see the girl was distressed, but other than that no harm seemed to be happening to her. The best thing she could do, she felt, was let this thing run its course. They needed to gain as much knowledge as they could from this encounter. If the spirit calmed a little she might even be able to ask it questions.