Olivia looked at me with wide eyes. “You gonna answer that?”
Embarrassed and terrified, I pulled my gauntlet up and reached for the touchscreen.
‘TURN AROUND, BRIGHT EYES...’ it continued to serenade us.
It was blinking with two small ovals on the screen. The shapes resembled the outline of my index and middle fingertips. I placed them on the flashing images and my musical ringtone stopped with a tiny pop.
“Um...that’s better,” I tried to joke. Olivia smiled with a tiny pout. Just then, all around us, the room began to change back to normal. The bookshelves stood up in place again. The desks crawled down the walls like mechanical spiders and marched themselves back to their original resting spots. The books flew down from the ceiling and perched their paper bodies back where they belonged, on the shelves. Spinning shards of glass found their way back into the frames of all the windows and picture frames. Within seconds, they healed themselves, leaving fresh new glass and reflections.
“Not possible,” Olivia whispered. I rubbed my eyes, trying to make sense of the situation.
~ Keep moving. Room 99. ~
The voice was back. I was too shocked to argue with it though. I pushed past Olivia, snatching up her hand as I did.
“Let’s go, the computer lab is just around the corner.”
“What’s in the computer lab?” Olivia asked, but followed me easily.
“Hopefully, some answers,” I said. We exited the library and ran into the computer lab that was located just outside. The door slammed behind us and I quickly turned out the lights. There was a computer keyboard and monitor on each desk in the room. All of them powered off and still. I tapped on the nearest computer’s keyboard, trying to wake the machine up. Click, click, click. Nothing. If this one didn’t work, none of them would. I had hoped the voice in my head directed us here to send for help. I didn’t know what to do next. I shook my head in defeat and watched Olivia for a moment. The world fell quiet, for a few seconds, at least.
“This isn’t happening?” Olivia cried, still holding my hand tightly. It felt wonderful, even with all the apocalyptic mumbo-jumbo going on.
“We’re okay, for the moment,” I said, with renewed confidence. She looked at me intensely. She was far from believing me. I leaned in to repeat my last statement when something stopped me. Her eyes, they were different. Well, one of them was. She had one bright blue eye, but her other one was a deep brown now. She had lost one of her contacts and her natural color was right in front of me.
“How do you know that?” she snapped, as if I was crazy. I couldn’t stop staring at her eyes. She filled with anger and insecurity.
“I promise we’ll be okay,” I said, in a goofy fog. My stare locked on the newly discovered secret. She realized something was wrong.
“What?” she huffed. “What’s wrong?”
I blushed a little, “You have a brown eye now.”
“Oh,” she cringed, and whipped her head away from my prying eyes. Her hands searched her pockets for her contacts case, but she quickly realized, it was gone. She hid behind her falling hair.
“You okay? Are you hurt?” I asked, softly. She slowly pulled her hair from her face and slid it behind her ears. She looked up at me for a moment and then reached up and removed the other blue contact. She let out a long deep sigh and tears began to well up in her eyes. She was scared and unsure of everything.
“Those were my favorite pair of contacts,” she said. Her mouth pulled down into a frown. I could see the weight of the day on her face as she became overly shy. With all the horribleness of the morning, she was worried about someone seeing her without her contacts in. We had just survived an impossible explosion, and that’s what she was upset about. Nervously, I let a small laugh escape my mouth.
She snapped at me, “Is there something funny?”
“No,” I said.
“Spill it.” Her paranoia was in full bloom.
“Brown eyes,” I said, carefully. She stepped closer to me, forcefully wiping away her fresh tears.
“So!” her voice cracked. I gently took her hand in mine. She tried to pull away from my advance, but I wouldn’t let go.
“Better,” I smiled.
Seeing her true eye color made me forget about everything. The futuristic explosion in my locker, the out-of-his-mind General chasing us, the fact that the school was being held hostage, or that I had no idea what to do next. There was only her big, wonderful, brown eyes. She started to calm down as my answer started to sink in. She ran her purple streaked hair behind her ear, and waited for me to say something. But before I could say anything else, one of the black screened monitors came to life, with a blip of wild colors.
“Lucas, look,” Olivia pointed to a familiar image on the screen. It was the hallway in front of my locker. We were watching a live feed from the schools security system. I leaned in for a closer look.
“It’s the General and his men,” I said, surprised. They were all spinning in slow motion, just above the ground. With a quick thud they were all on the floor again, flailing around, trying to find their bearings.
“What’s happening? How can we see this?” Olivia asked. I shrugged my shoulders in confusion.
“I don’t know.”
General Love climbed to his feet, quickly. He ordered his men to do the same. All of them found their weapons and disappeared off screen. General Love slowly stepped to my open locker, studying the emptiness that was before him. A hollow black shell of tin and dust. He smashed his fist into the locker next to mine and turned toward the camera we were watching him on. His eyes studied it for a long, paralyzing minute. Staring up at us through the digital screen, I could feel my skin crawl. Could he see us? No way he could see us.
“I think he can see us,” Olivia trembled. On the screen, the General’s eyes began to glow white. It was faint, but it was there. And just as quickly as they started to shine, they stopped.
“So do I,” I gulped. The computer screen fell black again. Olivia and I looked at each other, nervously.
“I’m scared, Lucas,” she whispered.
“We’ll be fine.” I tugged on her fingers, lightly. I found it amazing that she was still holding my hand. She nodded without a word and followed me as I led her out the door of the computer lab. It had been a waste of time going in there. Why did it tell me to go there? Maybe so I could see that image on the computer monitor. Maybe it wanted me to see the General’s eyes, those ghostly eyes.
“Come on. We need to find Sophia,” I said, softly. Down the hallway I could hear the General and his team. They were close. He was barking orders to his men and he was irate.
“Double the guards at every possible exit! No one gets out of here! Find those two kids! Now!” General Love’s voice echoed everywhere. It seemed to follow us no matter how fast we ran.
So, we ran even faster.
LEVEL 12: Short Change Hero
Olivia and I had made our way in and out of a dozen classrooms, three dead ends, and a girls restroom. General Love had tripled the guards at every possible exit in the school. There was no way out. As I tried to catch my breath, doubt and fear curled themselves around me. I was close to giving up when something along the wall of the latest classroom, caught my eye.
“I remember those,” I said, winded. Olivia settled next to me and turned toward the wall I was pointing at. An oversized pair of leather boots sat on top of a dusty shelf. They were worn, musty and faded black.
“Me too,” she sighed. We had stumbled into our Art class, Room 102. Those particular pair of boots were our class semifinal last year. Sketching them with messy chalks, counted as a third of our grade. She earned an A, I didn’t. I hated those boots.
“Stupid boots,” I shook my head.
Olivia asked, with a smile, “Didn’t you get a C?”
“I wish...C-.” We both let out a much needed laugh. It filled the empty room with a positive vibe. The moment was fantastically perfect and ended much too soon.
; From outside the classroom windows came the sound of approaching helicopter blades, ripping and chopping through the morning air. The sound was thick and full. It had to be a military helicopter. Its arrival brought a sobering thought to my attention; where were all the local news choppers. The ones with the big colorful numbers painted on the sides and witty pilots who cracked jokes on the morning TV shows. The earlier explosion had to be large enough to be seen throughout the city. Where were all the sirens, the emergency teams? This crazy ordeal had “LIVE NEWSCAST SPECIAL” written all over it.
And the students, were any of them hurt by my locker’s hissy-fit? Surely, there had to be parents lining the perimeter of the school, demanding the safe return of their sons and daughters. The image filled my gut with a dull ache. What had I started here? My mind wandered as the helicopter’s engine faded away.
“Phone lines are still down,” Olivia reminded me, with the classroom phone dangling from her hand. She was standing just inside an open door at the back of the classroom. This adjoining room was where the teacher kept the art supplies and other teacherly things. It was also home to a tiny, personal bathroom at the very back of it. Not many students knew about it, but I did. I had discovered it one afternoon when the teacher had left the class to handle a personal matter, during school hours.
“How about your cell phone?” I asked her, already knowing the answer. The power was working, but our phone lines weren’t. General Love was probably behind it. Standard military procedure, no lines of communication in or out.
Shaking her head back and forth, “Nope. And yours?”
Glancing down at the alien technology embedded in my wrist, I smiled. “Nada. You’d think with the new upgrade I’d get better service.”
“Funny,” she giggled. I walked up to her, tapping the shiny smooth glass on it, nervously. She shuffled her stance, leaning toward me, slightly. Her dark brown eyes held me in their grasp. If this were a movie, this was a perfect moment to kiss her. She watched me fidget over the idea. If only I could’ve harnessed the courage to do something about it before we were interrupted.
The slender brown door to the bathroom behind us, flew open with a crash.
“You! It’s because of you!” Mr. Parker accused. He was shaking and pointing his finger at me, in a rage. Olivia and I stepped back as he continued his advance. “You, Mr. Ryan! All because of you!”
“What the...” I huffed. He stumbled up to us with his face as white as a ghost and beads of sweat peppered all over his forehead. His giant glasses dangled from his nose with new scratches and tiny cracks twinkling inside them. He was trembling with the same intensity of a drug addict.
“Do you have any idea what you have brought upon us, upon this world? Well, do you, Mr. Ryan? Do you?” He scratched at the temples of his forehead, just below the arms of his glasses.
“Are you crazy?” I grumbled. Mr. Parker cocked his head to the side, with his teeth grinding together. He lunged forward at me, his hands reaching out like arthritic claws scraping through the air. Was he really about to attack me?
“Back off!” Olivia yelled. She cocked her arm back and threw one lightning fast punch. It connected with his chin in a bone-crunching smack. He fell backwards to the floor, crashing onto a pile of paintbrushes and charcoal pencils. He cried out in a pathetic yelp. I tried not to laugh too loud.
“Armageddon! The end! No hope!” he chanted, as if he were hypnotized.
“Shut up or I’ll hit you again!” Olivia promised, with her fists balled up at her sides. Mr. Parker winced and wiped at his broken spectacles.
“Please, no. Don’t hit me again,” he surrendered.
“Mr. Parker, what are you talking about? What did I do?” I asked, still flattered by the act of violence Olivia had shown.
“I overheard them talking...the General and his men.”
“Talking? About what?” I asked.
“About you,” his teeth chattered, sickly. “They came for you.”
“Me?”
“They came for...it,” he hissed. I slid my hand over the cold surface of my magical wristband.
“I don’t understand?”
“You’ve brought them here, Mr. Ryan.”
“Who?” I blinked.
Mr. Parker stared up at me, slowly trying to find his balance to sit up. He said nothing else, but it was obvious he knew more.
“What has he brought here?” Olivia asked, as politely as possible. He stood up slowly, adjusting his shirt. His eyes wandered from Olivia’s face to mine and then to my wild gauntlet. It made me instantly uncomfortable.
“You said the end...what do you mean? The end of what?” I asked, cautiously. His lips pulled together tightly in an insane grin.
“Everything.”
“Oh, bummer,” I rolled my eyes.
“This is no place for a hero, Mr. Ryan.”
“A hero?” I mumbled.
“And you are no hero...” he trailed off. He was babbling.
“Mr. Parker, I think you need some help,” Olivia said, coldly. He ignored her and continued to taunt me.
“You must be stopped. It must not come. It must go back to where it came from. You...must...be...stopped,” he said, determined.
“You’re crazy!” Olivia snapped. Mr. Parker began to cackle wildly in a fit. His eyes rolled back in his head, leaving only white, glossy globes. I grabbed Olivia’s hand and pulled her back to me. Inside his eyes something changed. The white filled with a crimson liquid that bubbled out onto his cheeks and down his neck. The lower eyelids started to quiver as if something were trying to get out. The skin poked out in tiny points of flesh. With a twitch of his head a silver tentacle slid out from each slit of his eye sockets. They slithered down his cheeks like tears and grabbed at his upper lip, pulling it back in a fierce snarl.
“Lucas!” Olivia screamed, with her hand over her mouth. Mr. Parker ran forward, pushing us out of his way. He sprinted for the main door to the classroom, overturning desks as he did.
“I won’t let you win, Mr. Ryan! I won’t!” Mr. Parker threatened, with his head still pulled backwards. He slammed into the door before ripping it open in a frenzied fit.
~ Stop him. ~
The voice warned, but I didn’t know what to do. That feeling was becoming awfully familiar. Olivia held onto my arm as everything turned much, much worse.
“He’s in here! I found him! Lucas Ryan is in here!” Mr. Parker screamed down the hallway.
“Oh no...” I gasped.
“He’s here! He’s here! He’s not alone! It’s here too!” he continued, at the top of his lungs. I ran for the door and slammed it close, locking it as fast as possible. From outside the door I could hear him still wailing and cursing. Still calling out my name.
“We have to get out of here, now!” I said, full of dread.
Olivia grabbed me tightly. “Did you see his eyes? What was in his eyes, Lucas?”
“Some kind of nightmare.”
“Some kind of...monster,” she added.
~ Get ready. ~
Uh oh, another warning. My wristband suddenly came to life, flickering with a single word. Olivia and I read the foreboding word at exactly the same time, our mouths dry with panic.
“Hide.”
LEVEL 13: No Fear
CRASH!
The small window inside the main door shattered inward, raining dangerous shards of glass onto Olivia and I. A small brick flew past our heads and slammed into the opposite wall of the room. It bounced to the floor, spinning slowly as it came to a reckless rest. I strained to look at the intruder and found, it was not a brick at all.
CLICK - CLICK - PFFFFT. Gray smoke shot out from one end of the black and red tube, in three thin streams. A smoke bomb. Just like the ones in the movies and video games I adored.
“Get down!” I yelled, shoving Olivia to the floor. She shuffled herself under the nearest desk, her hands tightly strapped over her nose and mouth. I slid next to her, hoping that it was only smoke com
ing from the tube, and not knockout gas...or worse.
“They’re going to find us, COUGH - ACK - ACK! We’re never gonna make it...ACK - KACK - AK!” Olivia tried to say. She was right, we were screwed. I crawled to the desks at the back of the room and Olivia followed. The smoke had filled almost the whole room now.
“What do - COUGH - we do - COUGH - HACK - ACK!” she began to gag. I placed her hands back over her mouth and placed my index finger in front of my lips, and nodded to her to not make anymore sound. She nodded in agreement.
THUD! THUD! THWACK! The classroom door swung open. It crashed against the wall, almost off its hinges. Three, fully armed soldiers filed into the room, with large guns drawn and gas masks on. Their boots pounded the floor as they marched in.
Olivia scratched at my hand as the smoke pushed into our lungs through the tiniest of airways. My eyes started to burn something fierce. The gas was winning. It would only take a few seconds for us to be found, or to pass out. Either option I would lose Olivia. I had to think of something. My eyelids pulled close, with fresh tears sliding down my cheeks and I held my breath.
Please, let us breath! I wished deep inside my head. I could feel my consciousness slipping away as I begged for more oxygen. Quickly, a rush of fresh air pushed away from us, just past our two hiding torsos. The rush of wind expelled all the sickly smoke. It looked as if we were encased in a giant bubble of air. The smoke was everywhere throughout the room, but it couldn’t penetrate our protective shield.
“Holy crap! It worked...” I whispered. Olivia’s eyes opened up and filled with shock. I covered my mouth, surprised that my wish had come true. The three soldiers slowly walked around the room, softly placing their heavy boots on the floor. Their menacing guns pointed at attention, laser-sights fully awake. Bright red beams cut through the dancing smoke as they searched every inch of the art room. Olivia began to shake.
Lucas Ryan Versus: The Hive (The Lucas Ryan Versus Series) Page 9
