Perdition

by PM Drummond

  I sighed and left the kitchen. It was hard to “be myself” when I had to hide who or at least what I was my whole life. With each hurried step toward the front door, the tingle in my neck increased. By the time I snapped the deadbolt and turned the knob, the feeling had intensified to a vibration like being on a massage-o-matic hotel bed. Pressing my palms to my temples didn’t alleviate the sensation, but it did get a strange look from my visitor.

  The man at the door was square. That was the first word that popped into my mind when I saw him. About five feet ten, his wide, squared-off shoulders and ramrod posture gave the illusion that he took up more space than he actually did. His crewcut brown hair topped off his squareness. He could probably set a tray on his head and run a marathon without it falling off.

  “Mr. Smith?”

  He nodded. His unblinking eyes sat dark and flat on his expressionless face. Odd. I’d never noticed someone whose eyes didn’t reflect light. He held up a cage, and I jumped. A meow and perfect little kitty nose escaped the bars of the cage.

  “BooBoo Kitty!” I said.

  Mr. Smith crossed the threshold and advanced a few steps into the living room. I closed the door so BooBoo wouldn’t get out again.

  “Mr. Smith. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate—”

  He turned back to me, and something in his eyes and thin-lipped smile sent a surge of fear through me. He put the cat cage down and took a step toward me. A ball of energy swirled and grew in my chest. I tried to suppress it. The last thing I needed was to overreact to a Good Samaritan and kill him. He was a Good Samaritan—I hoped. But he exuded some very strange feelings. In my mind, I saw swirls of dark red and black around him. A small flare blossomed in my chest and escaped. Something crashed in the kitchen.

  “Oh my gosh,” Mrs. Norris shouted from the kitchen. “Marlee, your glass just flew off the counter.”

  Mr. Smith spun toward the kitchen, and I used the momentary distraction to slip around him and open the cat cage. BooBoo Kitty shot out and disappeared down the hall.

  Mrs. Norris appeared in the doorway leading to the kitchen. She smiled at Mr. Smith. “You must be Mr. Smith. We can’t thank you enough for bringing that cat back. Marlee’s been worried sick about . . .” Her voice trailed off as she got a good look at his expression and those weird eyes.

  “Yes, Mr. Smith. Please let me pay you a reward.” I grabbed my backpack off the sofa and clutched it to my chest. Another surge pulsed from the general area of my sternum, and the front door popped open.

  I rushed to the door and put my hand on it. “Darned old door,” I said. “It’s always just popping open.”

  “I never noticed it doing that before,” Mrs. Norris said. “You know Burt’s on his way over to look at that back door. He’s bringing that big sledgehammer over to fix it. He can look at the front door, too. You know, with the big sledgehammer.”

  “Sledgehammer?” I said.

  “Yes, dear, sledgehammer.” Mrs. Norris twitched her eyes over toward Mr. Smith, and I finally got what she was doing. My unease must have been apparent and catchy.

  “Oh, sledgehammer,” I said, “that’s right.” I shrugged and blinked at Mr. Smith. “You know these old houses. Sometimes you just have to whack ’em with sledgehammers to unstick things.”

  Mr. Smith scowled. He grabbed the cat carrier and edged toward the door. “No reward. I’m leaving,” he said.

  If he was just a Good Samaritan, he now thought my neighbor and I were homicidal maniacs. If he was as evil as he felt, he was giving up. As soon as he was out the door, I shut it and locked it. I leaned over the couch and slivered the curtains open to watch him leave. His free hand opened and clenched over and over as he walked with thudding steps down the front walk and climbed into the passenger side of a gunmetal-gray panel van with darkly tinted windows. The van lurched from the curb and sped away.

  He hadn’t come alone. Of course, coming with someone else to return a cat didn’t make him a rapist or serial killer. Come to think of it, he had shown more caution than I had. How could I fault the man for being more sensible than me? I was being paranoid. Right?

  “That man was surely strange,” Mrs. Norris said right next to my ear.

  I jumped. “Jeez, Mrs. N, you scared me to death.” I let go of the curtains and put my hand over my heart to try to keep it in my chest.

  “I’m sorry, dear.” She reached for my shoulder. A spark jumped from my shoulder to her hand, and she jumped back. “Ouch,” she said. “Darn static. That really hurt.” She stuck her fingers in her mouth.

  I edged away from her. BooBoo Kitty ran in and jumped on the couch. I started to reach out to her, but when her fur swayed toward me and crackled, I thought better of it.

  “Mrs. Norris, I have a favor to ask. I still don’t know how BooBoo got out, and I really need to run to class right now. Can you take her to your house until I get home?”

  She wiped her hand on her cotton dress and picked up the cat. “Well, sure I will. I still have some of her food from last time I babysat her when you had that overnight seminar.” She rubbed noses with the cat. “BooBoo loves her Auntie Kay, doesn’t she?”

  BooBoo just hung there in her hands and let her have her way. The irresistible lump of fur was so mellow, I just couldn’t picture her running away. Whenever she did get out, she spent most of her time scratching at the door to be let back in. She was a huge coward when it came to the big outdoors. I had hoped her lack of courage didn’t have anything to do with the name I gave her.

  Another small jolt of energy escaped me, and one of my shoes tipped over.

  Mrs. Norris tucked BooBoo Kitty under her arm. “You know, I think we’re having little earthquakes or tremors or something. Things are moving all over the place.”

  I popped my feet into my shoes before they had a chance to levitate or shoot across the room and peered back out the curtain. Good. No dark, spooky vans. I opened the door and ushered Mrs. Norris out.

  We said our goodbyes, and I started the JC and backed out of the driveway. A dark van pulled away from the curb several blocks up and turned the corner. My heart leaped.

  “Jeez, Marlee,” I said, “you’re really freaking yourself out.”

  I concentrated on being calm on the way back to the university. My hopes of dissipating power before I got back into a crowded environment were shot. If I wasn’t too late to class, I could get my regular seat by the back door. I’d explained to the professor that I had claustrophobia, and he let me block the door open most of the time. The natural flow from the open door to the large bank of windows that lined one whole side of the classroom helped push the energy of forty active college students outside instead of lying stagnant in the room for me to absorb. That was one thing I didn’t need. My energy level was the highest I’d ever experienced. I didn’t know what would happen if it got any higher.

  I didn’t see any vans, dark or otherwise, on my way to the university. The parking lot was crammed as usual and being late didn’t help my parking spot selection. After fifteen minutes of frenzied searching, I found a stall in last row of J lot. The lots were assigned letters of the alphabet according to proximity of the quad, A through K. K lot was closed for construction of a new parking structure, so I was as far as I could get from the buildings without being off campus. I shouldn’t have gotten upset over parking, considering what had happened during the rest of my day, but I did, and my energy level soared even higher.

  I pulled my backpack full of books out of my trunk, threaded my arms through the loops, locked the JC, and jogged to my class. I tightened the backpack straps so the pack wouldn’t beat against my lower back, and I ran. The minimal drain on my energy from the physical exertion took the edge off. At least I didn’t feel so much like Grandma’s pressure cooker at full steam anymore.

  The classroom door was closed when I arrived, which made sneaking in late a lot harder. I pulled the door open just enough to squeeze through. My backpack strap caught on the outside knob jus
t before the door clicked shut. I was stuck facing away from the door. My right hand was nearest the knob, but no matter how much I twisted I couldn’t curve my arm enough to get hold of the knob. A trickle of sweat rolled down between my shoulder blades.

  I glanced to the front of the class, hoping in vain that no one was looking. All eyes were on me. I yanked forward a few times. The strap didn’t give, and it was too tight for me to extricate my arm from it. I thought of asking for help, but my mortified brain wouldn’t form the words. After a few more twists, I finally knelt down, lifted my arms, and managed to wiggle out of the pack. I stood, opened the door, and yanked my pack out.

  A few snickers echoed behind me but stopped when I turned around. My axe-murderer expression turned everyone back to the front, even the instructor. In my regular chair in the back right corner of the classroom slouched a typical, twenty-something, stringy blond-haired surfer dude complete with tank top, board shorts and flip flops. I mentally called him a dipstick, Grandma’s favorite insult, and turned away from him when static lifted a few hairs on top of his head.

  Since this was a computer science class, the room was filled with five rows of long tables that each accommodated three computer stations. Each row was three tables wide with aisles between each table. A sturdy, 1970’s looking metal desk commanded the front right of the room for the professor. The rest of the front of the room sported dry erase boards that doubled as a screen for any audio visual stuff the professor wanted to torture us with on any given day.

  The only open computer terminal was in the center row at the far left end by the wall of windows. As energy spots were concerned, the open seat wasn’t too bad, if the door wasn’t shut. I turned to open the door.

  “Please leave the door closed to minimize ambient noise, Ms. Burns,” Professor Willis said. “We’re having a pop quiz today. No one is to leave the class until it’s done.”

  Ambient noise my foot. He just didn’t want anyone to see him dozing like he always did when we took quizzes.

  A collective groan escaped the class. Everyone’s stress levels spiked and the energy level in the room surged. I grabbed my ponytail to keep it down. I needed to leave, but I couldn’t exit gracefully, especially now after the quiz announcement and my stellar entrance. I’d have to try to stick it out.

  I slogged through the heavy, charged air to the available computer. When I pulled out the chair, the student at the terminal behind me caught my eye. He stared at me with the interested look of an entomologist with a new bug. I smiled, and he glanced away but after a few seconds resumed staring. He wore all black with ample amounts of chains and other metal adornments decorating his clothing. His dyed black hair hung to his shoulders in greased curls. Several piercings with gold hoops and studs adorned his nose, ears, and eyebrows.

  I stowed my backpack under my desk and thudded down into the chair.

  The professor cleared his throat. “You will find your quiz instructions and all necessary files to complete your quiz in a file on the computer desktop titled ‘Quiz.’ You have one hour as of now.”

  I squinted and tried to block the emotional energy bombarding me. Professor Willis retreated behind his desk in the front of the class, put on his headset, pulled his keyboard toward him, and immediately dozed.

  When I pressed the power button to turn on my computer screen, a spark arced from my finger to the monitor. The display folded in on itself and then flipped back into focus with a pop. At this rate, I was going to fry the computer before I got the test started.

  A buzz cut through the air, and I pushed away from my desk.

  “Sorry,” the girl next to me whispered. She pulled out her cell phone and ducked her head behind her monitor so the professor wouldn’t see her.

  “Don’t call me anymore,” she whispered into phone. “No, I told you, it’s over.”

  She hung up the phone and put it back on her tabletop. I scooted my chair back to my desk, now that I knew it was her cell phone that had vibrated and not my computer about to blow up in my face.

  Her phone buzzed again. She checked the caller ID, and stabbed at a button on the phone’s side to disconnect. I pulled out my keyboard. The phone buzzed again. The girl’s stress level spiked as she read the caller ID again, and I pinched the bridge of my nose and squinted again to try and block her.

  “Sorry,” she whispered to me. She grabbed the phone and mashed the power button to turn it off. “That ought to do it.” She dropped it into her purse.

  I opened the files to begin my test and took long slow breaths through my nose to calm myself. I’d just answered the first set of questions, and was opening the sample database file to finish the rest of the test, when a tap hit the window beside me.

  A man in his twenties crouched in the bushes on the other side of the window. He mouthed something and pointed to the girl beside me. I shook my head and turned back to my computer.

  Another tap, this one louder. The girl next to me looked over and moaned. “Oh, no,” she whispered and shooed her hand at him. “Go away,” she mouthed.

  He shook his head and motioned for her to come out. She shook her head.

  They were throwing emotion at each other at a frenzied rate, and I was right in the middle of it. I put my face in my hands and sighed. Fate hated me.

  The couple continued to mouth things at each other and my stress level soared. The girl finally looked away, so the guy outside threw a rock at the window. I jumped and several computer screens around me flickered. Students at the affected terminals looked around.

  The professor still dozed, his fingers locked together on his stomach just under his man-boobs. I could probably leave, and he wouldn’t notice, but because of my graceful entrance, he’d remember I had been there. I’d fail the test and wouldn’t be able to retake it. Half a semester of work down the educational tubes.

  I smiled at the girl next to me. “Maybe you should go out there,” I whispered.

  “No, that’s what he wants. Just ignore him. He’ll go away.”

  She turned back to her computer. He folded his arms over his chest and stared at her. He wasn’t saying anything, but the angst continued to flow between them.

  A faint, high-pitched squeal sounded from my monitor, and it snapped off with a pop. That was it. Grade or no grade, I had to leave before I shorted the whole room out. I twisted in my seat to grab my backpack, and the man behind me caught my attention again. Astonished, he held his hand out to me as if he felt something in the air.

  My pulse jumped. Could he somehow feel my energy? One look at him, and I knew it was true. His eyes gleamed with excitement, and a sly smile curled his lips.

  Without breaking our locked gaze, he pulled out a cell phone, pushed a few buttons, and held it to his ear. I had to get out of there. I tried to turn away but realized that he held one of my backpack straps. I yanked at it, but his grip held fast.

  Fear clenched my stomach. The monitor between the man and I snapped and went out. His wicked grin disappeared, and he pushed his chair back a few inches. His grip held steady. Panic swirled molten twisters of power in my brain, chest, and abdomen.

  “Let go,” I said, my voice a harsh whisper.

  He spoke into the phone in a language that sounded Middle Eastern. He tucked the phone against his shoulder and held his hand again, palm up to feel the air in front of him. Whatever he said next sounded excited. He was telling someone about me. I pushed my hands against the back of his desk, trying to pull the pack from him.

  “Let go,” I said again, “or someone’s going to get hurt.”

  The lovesick guy outside shouted something, and a loud bang rattled the window. Something inside me snapped. A pulse shot from my head and chest. The man holding my pack flew backward, and the bank of windows beside me exploded. I ducked and wound up half lying on the girl next to me.

  A few seconds of silence enveloped the room, then the screaming started. People cowered on the floor. Someone shouted that we were under fire.

&
nbsp; “Everyone stay down,” the professor yelled from under his desk.

  Monitors near me crackled and went black then the monitors behind those monitors winked out as my erratic abilities sent a shock wave through the room. I sat up and grabbed my backpack from the desk behind me. If I didn’t get out of there, the whole place would short out. In fear for the lives of everyone in the room including myself, I crouched and ran toward the door. The dark man behind me grabbed my arm but a pulse leapt from my chest to my arm and threw him back against the wall.

  An electric arc jumped from my hand as I reached for the doorknob. Fighting the panic that twisted my mind and heart, I wrenched the classroom door open and fled down the hall, through the outer doors, and escaped into the night.

  CHAPTER THREE

  VOID ALLEY

  I retreated to the only safe place I knew on campus, the small alley between the food court and the science building. I’d found this little haven by accident one day while taking a short cut to the Dolphin Credit Union. It was lined with brick walls–two stories up on one side and ten stories on the other. It’s only full time inhabitants were the metal doors leading to the kitchen areas of the fast food places and the dumpsters where the businesses dumped their trash. Something about the way the small alley was made blocked outside energy making it the only energy-dead zone on campus.

  I ran into the alley, squatted between two dumpsters, and tried to slow my breathing and heartbeat. I’d never been here at night. The place had a completely different feel than during the day. The buzzing sodium lights high above threw shadows that pulled the night into the crevasses and corners. The relatively quiet quad outside created an eerie echo of far-away classroom voices and growling traffic of the nearby 57 freeway. The unexpected creepiness amped up my body’s alarm. Pulses erupted from me, intermittently shooting in different directions, and I sensed each jolt’s erratic path as it bounced against the walls until it dissipated or escaped the brick enclosure.