by Tom Upton
“Yeah, you’re probably right about that,” she said, and let the issue drop. She was good that way; she knew that whatever I told her she could never understand, so why bother asking? She had learned that a long time ago, from my grandmother, who used to freak her out all the time. For instance, my mom would mention seeing somebody, an old acquaintance, and grandma would say Oh, I thought he died. And then a couple days later mom would hear that the person actually died. Things like that happened all the time. After a while my mom started to wonder if, maybe, my grandmother had actually caused the person to die. Really, it was impossible to tell for sure. So mom decided that the less she knew, the better off she was—and she was right.
“You feeling better?” she asked.
“A little,” I said.
“You know your father is worried about you.”
I didn’t know what there was for him to worry about. My dad had no clue about my problems. Neither my mom nor I ever told him. How could we? He was a very well-grounded guy. Some people just don’t believe in spirits and other weird things, no matter how much you try to convince them. If he knew half the things that went on in my head on any given day, he’d have me under a 72-hour psychiatric hold or worse. “Why is he worried about me?” I asked. “Tell him to worry about himself.”
She shrugged. “It’s just your weight.”
“I have a high metabolism.”
“Well…”
“I know. He’s thinks I’m anorexic or bulimic or something.”
“He thinks you’re not getting enough protein. He thinks you need to start eating meat again.”
“I can’t do that,” I said.
“I know, not eating meat is supposed to be healthy, but you don’t really seem that healthy.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with being healthy.”
“Then what?”
“Do I have to explain?”
“I wish you would,” she said.
“I can’t eat meat, because every time I touch it, every time I try to eat it, I have these flashes.”
She frowned. “Flashes? What flashes?”
“I see the animal it came from. I see how they killed it…. I just can’t eat meat, all right? If Dad is worried about me not getting enough protein, tell him to get me some protein powder or something.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said somberly. “Your grandmother never had that problem.”
“Well, I’m a bigger freak that she was,” I said.
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” she said.
“I’m just telling the truth.”
I needed to lie down for a while. I got up and left my mom sitting there in the kitchen. If I let myself think of it, I started to feel sorry for her. It must not be easy to be the mother of a freak. She wanted to make things better, but couldn’t. How could she? She couldn’t control what I saw, what I knew, what I felt. Nobody could, not even me.
5
The next morning I almost didn’t go to school. There was more than usual I didn’t want to face. Jack would be looking for me at lunch. He would want to give me copies of information to help me retrieve Mary Jo Mason, which, honestly, I’d never wanted to do in the first place. He would ask me a million annoying questions. I’d have to fully explain yesterday’s freaky event. Then, worse of all, he would probably thank me for saving his life. What an awful thing to do!—thanking me for saving his life. As though I had had any choice in the matter. Something had simply snapped in my head, and I had acted. It had absolutely nothing to do with me. As far as I was concerned, he could have ended up a crushed piece of meat pinned to the light post.
When it was time for lunch, I didn’t go to the lunchroom. Melody would be looking for me, but I didn’t care. I went straight outside. It was a warm early spring day. The sun was bright and the sky was a pale blue. There was plenty of fresh air to breathe. I sat on one of the wooden benches along the walkway that snaked through the campus. I had a good view of the student parking lot. There was only one cop car parked near the front now. Nobody was around, although people might start straying outside after they finished eating, to kill time before going to their next class. It all should have been peaceful, but I sensed a low hum of anxiety. It had been there, slowly growing, since Mary Jo Mason vanished. It was a generalized anxiety, not the kind of anxiety I felt in a single person sometimes. I sensed it the way you sense an annoying background noise, a tiny persistent buzz you hear sometimes on a cordless phone. People were concerned and uncertain. What exactly happened to Mary Jo? Could it happen again? I realized, then, that maybe I had no choice but than to find Mary Jo. I had hardly any tranquil moments as it was, but with her missing, and everybody all nervous, I would never have another peaceful second. The buzz would probably grow and grow, too, and maybe, finally, I would pop my cork and end up in Strait Jacket City.
Then I sensed him, Jack. What a stubborn tool! He had searched the lunchroom for me—twice. He had passed by the table I usually shared with Melody, and she—you have to be kidding me—checked out his butt as he walked away. I couldn’t figure out what irked me more, that he was so intent on finding me, or that she actually sneaked a peek at his man cheeks. It was probably a tie.
Now he decided to wander outside. It wouldn’t be long now. I waited with dread, counting down… thirty-seven…thirty-six… thirty-five…thirty-four…thirty-three…thirty-two… By the time I got down to one, he was sitting at the other end of the bench.
At first everything was going fine; he didn’t say I word, and I didn’t have to look over at him and acknowledge his presence. I looked out at the parking lot, and watched as nothing happened.
Then he said, “Hey,” which I ignored; whenever anybody said “Hey” to me, or even “Hi” or “Hello,” I treated it like a rhetorical question—really, I saw no reason to respond.
Then he asked, “What are you doing?” which I found extremely annoying.
“What does it look like?” I asked. “What? I always have to be doing something more than what it seems I’m doing?”
He shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I brought those copies.”
He handed me about twenty sheets of paper, and I didn’t feel compelled to thank him. I scanned several of the pages.
“This all looks—theoretical,” I said, more to myself than to him.
“What else is there?” he asked.
“I need something practical—you know, like practical applications.”
“Practical applications in alternate realities? I doubt that you’ll find anything like that.”
“Well, that’s what I need,” I said.
“Why?”
I sighed. I felt like biting his head off, but that didn’t seem enough of a punishment. Instead I considered doing something much worse: telling him the truth. Sometimes, especially with me, the truth is a horrible weapon.
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said.
“Try me,” he said, and sounded a bit cocky.
“All right,” I said. “Mary Jo Mason slipped into an alternate reality, and if I don’t figure out of way of getting her back, I’m never again going to have another breakfast that isn’t heinously haunted by a dead cop.”
“What?” He stared at me, and I savored his confusion. “I don’t understand,” he finally said.
“I told you.”
“Maybe if you explained it a little more,” he suggested.
“No,” I told him “You’re curious—I get that. You like me—I don’t really get that. But here’s the thing: you really need to leave me alone, okay? I have never been reduced to begging somebody to leave me alone, but in your case I’ll make an exception. So, please, please, go away.”
He didn’t give it a second’s thought. “I don’t think I can.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I just have this feeling I’m not supposed to,” he said. He was completely sincere, too; I was certain he wasn’t joking or anything.
I didn’t know what
to say. I understood gut feelings all too well.
“Maybe I can help you,” he offered.
“Help me? Help me what?”
“Find Mary Jo. Maybe that’s what I’m meant to do.”
“Help how?”
“I’ve read a lot,” he said.
“Ah-hah.”
“I know some spells.”
“Spells? Are you kidding?” I asked.
“They might help.”
“I need to find Mary Jo. I don’t want to turn her into a frog.”
“Maybe, it’s just time for you to stop being so alone,” he said.
“I don’t think that’s it,” I sighed. “But for the time being, we’ll go with that—until I can figure out a way to get you to leave me alone without having to maim or cripple you.”
“That sounds fair—Julia Dundee.”
I had never told him my name. He had me for a second, but only for a second.
“You looked up my yearbook picture, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“Nice try,” I said.
He shrugged.
“By the way, don’t call me Julia,” I said. “I’ve never been fond of the name. I hate Julie even more—probably because that’s what my parents call me. My friends call me Jules.”
“Jules, then.”
“We’re not there yet.”
“Then what should I call you?” he asked.
“Call me ‘Hey you.’ I don’t care. We’re probably not going to know each other for long anyway.”
I got up and started walking away. He followed—big surprise; I figured he would linger like a bad rash.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Please, don’t be shy,” I said dismally.
“I’ve studied a lot about, you know, unusual phenomena. So far I know you can see dead people, read minds, see the future. What else can you do?”
“If you must know—and I suppose you must—sometimes, if I concentrate really hard, I can turn on and off light switches.”
“That’s telekinesis. Anything else?”
“If somebody asks me too many questions, they tend to burst into flames.”
“That’s pyrokinesis,” he said, and then, finally getting it, “That was a hint, wasn’t it?”
“Duh.”
“Sorry, you’re just so interesting.”
“There is something seriously wrong with you, Jack,” I said. “Just leave me alone, okay?”
I got up and walked away down the path that curved past the parking lot. He followed, of course, a step or two behind me.
I didn’t know what to do with him. I was not a violent person. Other girls would have turned on their heel and clocked him in the head. I couldn’t do that; it wasn’t in my nature—besides, I probably only would have hurt my hand; Jack would have remained a persistent dunderhead.
“Most people can’t even do one of the things you can do,” he said.
I ignored him, and kept walking.
“I figure you have to be pretty rare.”
I kept walking.
“I don’t see why you don’t think it’s a good thing.”
I kept walking.
“You’re special,” he said.
It was starting to get to me. It was as though he was rubbing my nose in how different I was from everybody else. That was supposed to be a good thing. He was so clue-less it was actually sad.
I stopped to sit on another bench, where the walkway ran near the parking lot, where landscapers had recently planted new trees to border the lawn. I put my elbows on my knees, and rested my head in my hands. I felt a sick burning in my chest. You never truly realize how much of a freak you are until somebody points it out to you. I felt like crying, but I couldn’t cry—I never cried, not even when I’d been a little kid and hurt myself. Something inside me prevented me from letting go, prevented my emotions from blooming to normalcy.
“Have I ever done anything to you?” I asked, not looking up at him, the burning in my chest growing hotter and hotter. My closed eyes saw globs of faded orange that whirled around and as they whirl darkened to blood red.
“No,” he said innocently.
“Then why are you tormenting me?” I asked, my voice starting to crack.
“I didn’t think I was doing that.”
“Just—just stop talking about me.”
“But you have gifts.”
“Don’t call them gifts.”
“That’s what they are.”
“Stop.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Just stop.”
“I’m just trying—”
“Stop!” I screamed, jumping to my feet.
And something invisible erupted from me, like heat shimmers over desert, erupting outward, away from me in all directions, knocking Jack to the ground, bending two of the newly-planted tree at strange angles, setting off the alarms of just about every car in the parking lot.
Jack looked dazed as he got back to his feet. Car alarms were honking and hooting and whistling.
I grabbed him by the arm, and we ran.
We didn’t stop running until we reached the street that was buzzing with midday traffic. Then we walked at a fast pace down the sidewalk, away from the parking lot.
“What the hell was that?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know. Nothing like that ever happened before.”
I was scared. The only time I got truly scared was when I experienced some new weird experience. It’s like, Well, what’s that all about? Why did that happen? What next?
I ran my finger under my eye, and it came up wet. It was probably just a couple tears, not much, but more than ever before. I realized I wasn’t just a freak, but that I could be a dangerous freak if I didn’t control my emotions. It was frightening, more frightening still that I felt so good after I’d released just a little bit of everything that had always been pent-up inside me.
I stopped and turned on Jack.
“You can’t do that,” I told him. “You can’t press me like that. I don’t know what could happen.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Stop being sorry,” I snapped. “If somebody tells you to stop, then—you know—stop.”
“I was just trying—”
“I know what you were trying. You think I don’t know? You’re trying to say I should embrace my weirdness. I should be who I am. You think I never tried that. I gave up on that when I was ten years old. I knew it would never work. How can anybody embrace what they hate? And what I hate most is what I am. You think you know me? Well, you don’t.”
I turned and walked away, leaving him standing there in the street. I must have given him something to think about, because he didn’t run after me—not right away, anyway.
6
I was laughing so hard my side hurt. It felt strange. I wasn’t used to laughing—not much in my life seemed funny.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, after I caught my breath. “You think I should use my powers for the benefit of mankind. Am I getting this right?”
We were sitting at a table in a greasy-spoon diner a couple blocks off campus. I didn’t know what class Jack was cutting. I was cutting English. After what had happened, how could I go to English class and listen to people reciting creepy poems by Edger Allen Poe. To me, creepy wasn’t only fiction.
“I’m just saying,” Jack said carefully, “that you seem to lack focus. Maybe if you could focus on some purpose…”
“Wait a second,” I said gravely. I reached out one hand and waggled my fingers in the air. “I’m looking at you, and I’m getting a message. I see an M. I see an O. I see an R… O…N. I see a MORON.”
I burst out laughing again, as Jack gave me a sour look.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “That was funny. You got me laughing—I’ll give you that much. At the moment everything is not so bad. I’m cutting class. I’m sitting in this diner.” I paused to look around at the place, at the scattering of custome
rs sitting at other tables. “There isn’t a single spirit in here. Wow, the food here must be awful—even the dead people won’t come in.” I pulled one of the menus out from behind the condiment holder, and started scanning the meals.
“I was being serious,” Jack said.
“I know. That’s what makes it so funny. Hey, are you buying?”
He nodded. He looked pretty glum.
“You should, really—since you made me cry. I think that should be a law: whenever somebody makes somebody else cry, they owe that person a free lunch. The world would be a better place.”
I studied the menu. It seemed all the meals had meat. Dead cow. Slaughtered chicken. Mutilated pig.
“You find anything?” Jack asked.
“Everything has meat in it,” I said, and explained to him briefly why I couldn’t eat meat.
When the waitress came, I ordered a cheese omelet. Jack asked for just coffee.
He looked puzzled. “I don’t get something. You can’t eat meat, I understand that, but you can eat eggs. Eggs are future chickens, so how can you eat eggs?”
“If I eat eggs, I get visions of fluffy little chicks. That’s not so bad. I figure what the hell? Somebody’s going to eat them, right?”
“I want to suggest something to you,” he said.
“Go ahead,” I sighed.
“I have to ask you first: are you reading my mind now? Because if you are, I’d be wasting my breath.”
“No, I’m blocking you out—boy, am I blocking you out. And you’ll probably be wasting your breath anyway. But go ahead. Suggest away.”
“Maybe there’s a reason that Mary Jo vanished,” he said.
“Sure, she fell into an alternate reality.”
“I mean a greater reason.”
“Like?”
“You ever hear that saying: everything happens for a reason?”
“Yeah, but I never believed it. How could I? I constantly see things that make absolutely no sense. What reason could there be for that?”
“Well, what if Mary Jo vanished so that you could find her, so that you discover a practical use for your abilities.”
I stared at him for a moment. “Now you’re thinking there’s a cosmic conspiracy to lead me to do what? Find missing persons?”
“You could do worse things in life,” he said.
“Sorry, I just don’t buy that,” I said. “I guarantee you, if I find Mary Jo, it’s going to be for purely selfish reasons. And I suppose I have to find her,” I added dismally. Already that morning, Jerry had been harping that I didn’t seem to be doing anything to retrieve Mary Jo.
