Feral

by Schindler,Holly

  “I haven’t been—in years,” she confessed, feeling self-conscious. In truth, Claire and her father had gone to church for weddings. The occasional funeral. Her father, the scientist, was not exactly regular-churchgoing material.

  “Don’t worry about it. I don’t exactly live here, either,” Rich admitted.

  Claire raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “It’s by design. Dad figures if he lets me make my own decisions about going to church—about what I believe—there’s nothing to rebel against. No preacher’s kid gone wild. I’m here every once in a while, but not every weekend.”

  Claire nodded as Rich led her down the stairs, into a basement with a large open space filled with tiny kindergarten-sized chairs and construction paper drawings. They passed a kitchen, the counter lined with paper plates for Sunday school snacks, and slipped into a small office where bookshelves were crammed full of volumes stacked every which way, where padded chairs filled corners and an overgrown philodendron wrapped its vines like tentacles around four filing cabinets. Pictures of a chubby boy took up a cluster of frames on the desk.

  “Dad,” Rich called.

  Pastor Ray glanced up from the screen of his laptop. He was every bit as big as Rich, his muscular arms tugging at the sleeves of a black sweatshirt. His balding head had been shaved clean, and he smiled at Rich as he pulled a pair of glasses from the tip of his nose and tossed them on his desktop.

  “This is Claire. From the old Sims place,” Rich said.

  “Ah, yes.” Pastor Ray stood, wrapping Claire’s hand in both of his. The touch was warm, friendly, without being overly solicitous. “I’ve been meaning to come by and say hello,” he informed her. “Rich, though, is sometimes protective of new friends.” He winked, like he was sharing a secret with her, while Rich grumbled wordlessly under his breath.

  “I was going to ask you to read this,” Pastor Ray told Rich, as he gestured toward his computer. “What I’ve started to prepare for the Sims funeral.”

  Claire felt her stomach twist. The funeral. Somehow, she’d forgotten there would be a funeral.

  “The school will shut down for the service, of course,” Pastor Ray said. “And all businesses will be closed. No doubt the whole town will turn out. I need your help figuring out how we’ll get them all upstairs—those pews surely won’t—” He shook his head. “But I really wanted you to look at what I’m preparing to say. You knew her.”

  “When we were kids, Dad,” Rich said. “I haven’t known Serena for a long time.”

  Claire watched from her spot near the doorway. Even a disagreement with a father felt calm, when Rich was involved. No shouting, no gnashing of teeth.

  “Well. I don’t want to keep you two, but I’d appreciate it if you’d give this a look—”

  “If you really want me to,” Rich conceded with a shrug. “But I’m sure that whatever you have planned—”

  Pastor Ray’s eyes drifted behind Rich’s shoulder, toward the flat-screen TV anchored to his wall. He picked up a remote off the corner of his desk, aimed, and made the screen pop to life.

  “. . . coming to you from the police station in Peculiar, where Sheriff Holman is preparing to address the community regarding the Sims case . . .”

  “What’s this?” Rich asked as voices continued to pour from the TV.

  “Local Kansas City station. Been promising the results of Serena’s autopsy all day,” Pastor Ray said.

  Claire turned her own eyes toward the screen. The man who stepped up to a small cluster of microphones, sporting bulldog jowls and a large paunch, looked about as comfortable standing in front of the microphones as a girl in her first pair of heels. “Thank you all for coming today,” he grumbled into the mics. And shuffled nervously.

  “My name is Sheriff Holman, and I would like to thank, first of all, the community of Peculiar for their outpouring of sympathy during this time. And on behalf of the Peculiar PD, I would also like to extend our condolences to the Sims family.

  “The statement I will now read has been prepared by the coroner and the Peculiar Police Department.” He shuffled again, cleared his throat, sucked in a shuddery breath.

  “The autopsy on Ms. Serena Sims has been completed. The coroner’s examination indicates that Ms. Sims died of suffocation. There is no sign of foul play. The results show that Ms. Sims’s death was not caused by strangulation—no petechial hemorrhaging present in the eyes, no tissue under the nails to indicate a struggle.

  “To further explain how we reached this conclusion, the body of Ms. Sims was discovered in the wooded area behind Peculiar High. She was found beneath an ice-coated limb, wearing only her school uniform. We believe that the cancellation of school early on the day of the ice storm startled Ms. Sims—as I can assure you it startled other students and faculty. In her rush to leave school, Ms. Sims forgot her coat. But the doors, as the security guard has assured us, locked behind the students, in an effort to ensure that all would go home before the roads deteriorated.

  “With only her school cardigan to protect her from the elements, Ms. Sims would surely want to get home as soon as possible. In her rush, we believe she decided to cut through the woods behind the school—a common practice among the students. The injuries to Ms. Sims’s face helped us conclude that she was struck by a falling limb. A dislocated shoulder also led us to conclude that she was not instantly knocked unconscious, but attempted to get free. The weight of the immense branch would have made it impossible for her to breathe, leading to her suffocation. The official cause of Ms. Sims’s death, therefore, is being classified as ‘accidental.’

  “While we are sure the town will continue to mourn for our lost loved one, we can all rest assured that there was no criminal intent. Ms. Sims was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Pastor Ray hit the remote again, pressing “mute” as flashbulbs popped on the screen. “An accident,” he said, as though trying on the word for the first time..

  Rich grunted and nodded.

  “You don’t want to listen to him answer any questions?” Claire asked.

  “He won’t,” Pastor Ray said.

  Claire squinted at the screen, watching as Sheriff Holman nodded to the small crowd of reporters, waved, and disappeared inside the station.

  “How did you know he wouldn’t—” she started.

  “Sheriff Holman,” Pastor Ray said as he slid back behind his desk, “would never say anything that wasn’t prepared down to the last word. He doesn’t know how to handle himself during an incident like this one, because he’s never been asked to before. He’s patrolled these roads with nothing much to do, throughout the course of his entire career.” Pastor Ray’s eyes grew distant as he acknowledged, “He’s always reminded me of a mean dog someone got to guard their house. But his owners spoiled him with table food, let him get fat and lazy, and now he doesn’t even know how to handle basic commands. I’ve only known him to write maybe a half dozen speeding tickets in his entire career.”

  “I can only think of three arrests,” Rich agreed. “And those were kids playing Halloween pranks. Come to think of it,” he added, “he can’t even be trusted with tomatoes. He’s let hornworms destroy them the past four summers.”

  Pastor Ray chuckled along with Rich. “Hey!” he said suddenly. “He still has my barbecue tongs. From—”

  “Two presidents ago?” Rich finished.

  Pastor Ray laughed harder. “The portrait of hard work,” he quipped. He started to gesture back toward his laptop when he caught sight of Claire’s horrified face.

  “Rich,” he said. “Take your friend home. We can talk about the funeral later.”

  Claire allowed Rich to steer her out of his father’s office. “Is the sheriff really that bad?” she whispered as they reached the stairs.

  “Oh, he’s more funny than bad,” Rich said dismissively.

  This time, though, when he smiled and put a hand on her arm, he didn’t give Claire the same calm feeling. Not even
close.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  SIXTEEN

  Claire unloaded the contents of her backpack across her bed—the printouts, the articles about strange, inexplicable events at Peculiar High. She reread every one of them, as the daytime light on the opposite side of her windows slid toward night.

  “What was the draw?” Claire asked, sifting through the old news stories she’d printed from the microfilm reader. “Why did you want to write about this, Serena?”

  Shivering in the constant stream of cold air that poured from her broken balcony door, Claire glanced up at the dresser scarf lying in a heap in the middle of the dresser. She still hadn’t straightened the material out—it was every bit as bunched and crooked as it had been the moment she’d first stepped inside during the night of her arrival. But maybe, Claire had started to think, some things really were like that—they never did get straightened out. Sometimes, bruises never got a chance to heal. Serena’s didn’t, anyway.

  Accidental, Sheriff Holman had said. But the word didn’t sit right. Especially now that Claire had a better idea of who Sheriff Holman really was.

  Claire rubbed her eyes. “There had to be a reason. Did you see something? Did you think you saw something?”

  She sighed. “Why did you need to stay after school? You could have drafted your story anywhere. Why would you risk staying? Why—?” She felt the blood race out of her face as she remembered the angry words Becca had shouted at Rich in the street during the ice storm: Someone needed to look in the basement. That’s why Becca’d been so angry.

  Claire picked up a printout, staring at a news photo of the front hall of Peculiar High, crime scene tape stretched in front of the basement door. “Someone needs to look in the basement,” she said aloud.

  “Maybe I do, too,” Claire added, gathering her papers together just as her father began to call her down to dinner.

  She arrived at school twenty minutes early the next morning, only to find the front hallway had been invaded by the marching band—most likely an attempt to escape the persistent, bitter cold.

  Claire eyed the door beside the front office marked Faculty Only. She wanted to see the basement for herself in peace. But the band director was a tall man who shouted at the tuba section, “Pep! More pep!” in a gravelly voice and stared at Claire with what she interpreted to be suspicious eyes. She didn’t need him reporting her curiosity to the main office, so that a secretary would come out jingling a set of master keys to lock the basement up, eliminating the possibility of the new kid getting a chance to look around.

  Feigning complete disinterest in the basement door, she took her time sauntering down the front hall. Turning the corner, she found the cheerleaders in the midst of their own early rehearsal, filling the side corridor with the sounds of their clapping hands and their voices shouting cheers in unison.

  Becca was in the middle of the group, wearing a Peculiar High sweatshirt and black sweatpants. Her eyes settled on Claire’s face as she rustled her pom-poms just before sliding into the splits.

  Claire nodded a polite hello and quickly veered around the cheerleaders, heading upstairs to her own locker. She hung her trench on the hook inside, working to cram the shoulders and tuck the tail into the tiny space, and slowly began to make her way back, hoping the band had left the front hall.

  Back in the side corridor, though, the cheerleaders had apparently just wrapped up; the squad was breaking apart when Claire rounded the corner, the girls all sprinting for the bathroom to change for class. Becca waved, an awkward smile on her face.

  Claire waved back and tried to scoot past her, but Becca jumped in front of her path.

  “So,” Becca began. “You’re going to the dance with Rich.”

  Claire forced a smile. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the speed of small-town news,” she admitted.

  “Do you know what you’re going to wear?” Becca asked excitedly.

  Claire flinched against Becca’s enthusiasm.

  “I’d be happy to take you shopping this weekend,” Becca offered quickly. “In Kansas City. Where we—where I—got my own dress. I know some good places.”

  “I have something,” Claire blurted. She hadn’t expected Becca to pounce so quickly on her promise to be a better friend the second time around. And she didn’t want to endure the horrors of a dress shop changing room with someone who would have to be told the entire gruesome story of the pink scars that made Claire’s skin look like a road map.

  Becca tilted her head. “Probably way better than anything you could buy around here, anyway,” she said. “I’m sure you’re going to look really beautiful.”

  Judging by the syrupy tones in her voice, it was exactly the kind of thing Becca felt she should have said to Serena.

  The word made Claire flinch, though. Beautiful. It made her feel unbalanced. She cleared her throat, straightened herself. “Gotta get to journalism,” she lied. “Talk to you later,” she promised.

  As she edged away, disappearing into the gathering throng, Claire realized the only way to slip into the basement unseen was if she were surrounded by a crowd. She needed the bustle of classes changing. A distraction.

  The dismissal to lunch would be perfect.

  That afternoon, as the talking, shouting, laughing hordes made their way toward the cafeteria, Claire drifted toward the cool wall along the front hall, gripped the “Faculty Only” door handle, and twisted. While the crowds were paying attention only to each other—to their friends and their plans and their small-town gossip, Claire slipped behind the door.

  Mind spinning, Claire hurried down the stairs. The hallway bleeding out from the bottom step was dimly lit. The basement had been closed up so long, it smelled empty—sour, like the inside of an unused refrigerator.

  Claire poked her head through the first open doorway. To her left, she found shelves packed with half-opened containers of soaps and bleaches, stained squeegees and sponges, and racks of paper products for the bathrooms. Mops stood in old buckets. A large, battered, wooden teacher’s desk stood near a small group of metal lockers; here, heat trailed from the boiler, as uncomfortable as a thick wool blanket on a summer night. As she glanced about, she noticed a faded Janitors sign glued to the door.

  One of the lockers by the desk looked tortured; its warped door stood open a few inches. It hung funny, promising never to shut completely again—or to never open if the door ever happened to be forced shut.

  A cold breeze circled the room, pushing the heat aside and hitting Claire’s sweaty skin in a way that made her shiver. She jumped against a sudden thud; her breath became ragged as she began to raise her arms, as though to guard her face. With another brutally cold gust, a crooked venetian blind bowed out, then slammed against an open window near the ceiling.

  “Stop it,” she scolded her racing heart. “Just stop it,” she said as she walked across the floor, feeling a need to push the window shut. But the ground-level window was up near the ceiling of the office. She had to climb up onto the old wooden desk in order to reach it. She grabbed hold of the latch, pushed it down.

  Turning back around, she noticed the desk beneath her feet was covered in dust, with strange swipes through it—like someone had hurriedly knocked some of the dust off with their hand. She swore she could see long slender stripes—swirling marks from four fingers.

  There was something so weird about the room—an off-kilter feeling that made her back out quickly. She raced into the hallway, turned one corner, then another, hurrying past classroom doors, not even sure, at this point, what she was really looking for.

  She paused in the center of a corridor, listening to the muffled sounds of Peculiar High above her. Foot traffic, metallic thuds of locker doors, voices calling to friends, laughter, teachers barking at students, “Come on, hurry up. No dawdling in the hallway. Get to the cafeteria”�
�all of it seemed miles away. She felt buried deep beneath the earth’s surface.

  Claire glanced over her shoulder once, then again. But she felt so bare—uncovered—vulnerable as she stood in the corridor. All the open classroom doors began to seem like eyes, staring.

  She darted through one of the doors, pulse pounding out a prayer that the room would feel safer, like a hiding spot. Just for a minute, she promised herself. Just until I get rid of this odd feeling of being watched. She found herself inside a sprawling old gymnasium, being used as some sort of storage facility. Wooden bleachers had been pushed back against the far wall, and the gym was crammed with broken desks and tables. Buckets of half-used roofing tar, brooms, moldy mops, and even an old push mower drew her attention. Spiderwebs caught the light near the windows along the ceiling. At the back of the gym, a metal bar had been fed through the door handles of the exit, then chained into place, giving the room a prison-like feel.

  All the scooting in and out of furniture and floor waxers had destroyed the court, now missing so much paint that it looked like an eraser had been taken to the floor. A scraggly-looking net dangled from a gray, faded basketball backboard. Along the ceiling hung dirty remnants of state championship banners.

  Claire frowned at the school history that seemed to be rotting away, instead of on display, proudly. Pictures of girls’ basketball teams hung in a line near the entrance, as did blowups of one particular athlete—a gorgeous girl, blond hair—number 21, Jennifer Isles. Top scorer.

  “Isles,” Claire repeated, taking a step closer. She squinted at the picture of her history teacher. A former Peculiar High student herself. Today, Isles looked exactly like she had in high school—maybe a bit more polished. But not any older. Those photos, Claire told herself, couldn’t have been taken that long ago. Somehow, though, in the midst of the dusty gym, those pictures, those basketball wins seemed like ancient history.

  Glancing at the piles of discarded equipment, Claire began to think the gym looked untamed, overgrown—like all the scrub brush that surrounded the town. It looked like an enormous hiding place. But not for her. For someone else. Someone lying in wait.