Bewitched

by Mark Jay Harris

  “Show us what?” T.J. asked.

  “Yeah, what was down there?” Tony demanded. “Was it a dead slimy baby, come back to life, that sucks the blood out of anyone it can find in the school late at night?”

  Everyone gaped at Tony.

  “Where did that come from?” Darren asked.

  “You’ve been watching too many of your dad’s movies.” Mike laughed, referring to Tony’s movie-star father. “No, nothing quite that bizarre I’m afraid. But, it was strange. And I’m not kidding; this really happened. I walked a little farther along the passage to this area that ramped upward. I shone the light in front of me, and there at the top of the dirt ramp, I found the basketball.”

  Everyone stopped and stared at him.

  “So, you found the ball?” T.J. asked. “That’s it?”

  “You weren’t listening. I said it was at the top of a dirt mound that ramped upward. I wasn’t sure if I was seeing things right. The ball had rolled to the top of this little mound and stopped. So, I walked over to the side, took it down, and set it at the bottom of the ramp, and it rolled up it again. Only this time, it hadn’t already been rolling toward it. This dirt ramp was three and half feet high.”

  It was silent for a moment as everyone considered what he was saying.

  Shelley snuggled closer to Seth. “That is weird.”

  “I don’t know why, but that makes my skin crawl,” Sandy confessed, the spring having gone out of her former bounciness.

  “Hey, don’t get freaked out,” Mike said. “It’s not scary. It’s just trippy. But you’ve got to see it. It’s totally sick!”

  “And you’ve figured out a way for us to get in?” Darren asked.

  “Of course. Come on; let’s go.”

  The others shared looks between them. Darren glanced at Andrea. She shrugged.

  Seth rose from the couch, towering above everyone else. “I want to see this.”

  Shelley took his hand but obviously didn’t share his enthusiasm.

  They parked their cars east of the main lot where the entrance to the Smithfield Recreation Center—that was incorporated into the school—was located. There were several cars parked about. The bright lights of another vehicle sliced through the night as it entered the parking lot not too far behind them.

  The cars idled next to each other. It was chilly outside, and the girls were complaining about how cold Utah was in March.

  “We’re going in through the Rec Center?” Darren asked.

  Mike nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Aren’t the doors between the Rec Center and the school locked?” Tony called from the window of his Mazda RX-8, humming proudly beside Mike’s Jeep.

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Mike talked over Darren and Andrea who were holding each other to keep warm. “Let’s go inside and see what we can do.”

  The motivation of the group had decreased considerably because of the weather. Seeing a basketball roll up a hill didn’t seem to be that important anymore. To forestall any backing out, Mike killed the engine and jumped out. Darren opened the side door, and he and Andrea rolled out as well. The rest reluctantly followed.

  Inside the Rec Center, where the heat was on, everyone began feeling better. They approached the front desk, manned by a girl of about twenty and a lady in her forties. The two women checked their cards and reminded them that the Rec Center closed at ten o’clock—forty minutes from now.

  The group headed down the hall, whispering about how ridiculous the whole adventure was. Mike led the way, followed by Darren and Andrea. The rest straggled behind, giggling and teasing each other. They passed the door that led to the pool and walked around a turn where middle-aged residents rode stationery bikes while watching flat-screen TV’s set in the wall. They passed through two metal doors that led farther into the recreational center. On their right was a glass-enclosed room complete with machines, free weights, benches, and fans scattered throughout. There were treadmills and stair-climbers across the hall, as well as an exercise room where aerobic classes were normally taught. People were scattered throughout, busy increasing their heart rates or taxing the endurance of their muscles. At last the group came to two metal doors that separated the recreation center from the high school.

  Tony pushed on the double doors. They moved together as one and flexed back into place. Locked.

  “Well, it was a fun idea,” Darren said.

  Mike pushed Tony out of the way. He reached inside his white robe and pulled out two little metal tools. “This is called a tension wrench.” He held up a small flat, metal tool. “And this is the pick.” This time he flashed them a little tool that could have been the instrument the dentist used to scrape plaque off teeth, only smaller.

  Mike inserted his tools into the door’s lock. The others gathered around him as he set to work.

  “What are you doing?” Lindsey asked from the back of the group.

  Mike glanced up. “Lindsey, head back around the last turn and make sure no one comes around the corner,” he instructed.

  Lindsey hesitated, then took off to do as he’d said.

  “Are you picking that?” T.J. asked.

  “As I apply pressure on the plug,” Mike said, maneuvering the pick as he spoke, “I find the pins inside the lock and push them up into the housing.” He moved the pick up and down, listening as he did so. “Until, all of them are up, held in place by the pressure I’m putting on the cylinder.” There was more shifting inside the keyhole. “Then I can...” There was a small click, followed by Mike pushing at the locked door. “Open the door.”

  “Ah!” and “Cool!” quietly filled the hallway.

  Sandy ran down the hall and brought Lindsey back. They passed through the door Mike held open.

  “Nice,” Seth intoned as he took Shelley by the hand and disappeared into the dark school halls.

  “That was cool!” Tony said. “You gotta show me how to do that.”

  “Do you do parties?” T.J. joked.

  Lindsey and Sandy giggled as they passed through. Lindsey gave Mike an appreciative chop with her hand.

  “Let’s hope there’s not a silent alarm,” Darren stopped to point out.

  “On the outside, perhaps,” Mike replied. “But the school’s too cheap; this door just has a simple tumbler lock.”

  “Well, once again, life is never boring with you around, Mike.” Darren waggled fingers with Mike.

  Andrea stopped long enough to say, “Why does it not surprise me that this particular ability is part of your skill-set?”

  Mike grinned at her, but as soon as she caught up with Darren, he pulled a face at her back.

  Through the now dark halls of the school, the basketball team and cheerleaders snuck around like thieves down corridors that, during the day, they ruled like royalty. Darren wondered if the cameras in the ceiling were on at night, and if so, how much they could see in the dim lighting. Getting Mike’s attention, he pointed silently to one of the dark semi-spheres attached to the ceiling. Mike only shook his head. Whether that meant they didn’t work at night, or they needn’t worry about them, Darren wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that Julander, one of the school’s vice-principals, hated him, and if he got his hands on film of Darren sneaking around the school after hours, he’d ruin Darren’s life with it.

  Darren cocked his head for a moment, believing he heard something back down the way they’d come. It might have been the door they’d entered being opened again, or it might have been some ambient noise the school produced on its own when no one was around. This feeling of being watched and followed was a nuisance. He shook it off and caught up with the rest of them.

  After passing down the long halls, they came to the new gym. Mike whipped out his lock picking tools and started to work on the door. They all gathered around him as he worked, sensing that as long as they were in the school at night, they were safer while on the move. For some reason, standing still increased their anxiety of being caught.

  Nervous laughter
from the girls started to annoy Darren. He stared back the way they’d come and could have sworn he saw someone duck behind the wall just as his gaze passed over it. He was positive this time it wasn’t his imagination. Someone was back there.

  Mike was taking longer than he had on the previous door.

  “How’s it coming?” Darren asked.

  “Not so good,” Mike admitted.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There are pins all around the cylinder. It’s probably a tubular lock. They’re almost impossible to pick.”

  Andrea, who’d overheard, shared a look of concern with Darren.

  “What’s going on?” Sandy asked from the side of the door next to T.J.

  “He’s dragging this out so we get caught,” Tony complained.

  “You can’t open it?” Seth rumbled from behind the others.

  “I didn’t say that,” Mike groused, but he was obviously losing his battle with the lock.

  Darren watched Mike’s frustration grow as he fumbled with the lock. Andrea squeezed his hand, and a funny tingling shot up his spine as if she’d breathed cold air on his neck. He shivered. Certain it was the fear of being caught, he almost mentioned it when Mike announced, “Got it!”

  With an audible click, the door popped open.

  They rushed into the gymnasium and scurried across the long wooden floor, down past the bleachers, which were automatically pulled into the side walls beneath the balcony seating.

  At the far end of the gym were the coaches’ offices. The group scuttled around the turn at the end of the bleachers and entered the small hallway. Mike tried Coach Hawthorne’s door, and thankfully, it wasn’t locked.

  Once inside, a strange giddiness descended upon the group.

  “I can’t believe we’re in here!” Sandy screeched. She brushed her long curly hair back over her shoulders. Lindsey bobbed on her toes next to her.

  “We should have brought a video camera,” Tony said. “We could add a soundtrack and do some Mission Impossible stunts. Pretend we’re hanging from the room suspended over Coach’s desk.”

  Tony leapt on top of the desk. “Hey, you could shoot me up here, like I’m diving into the room from the window.”

  “Get down from there!” Darren snapped. “You’re going to break something.”

  Tony jumped down, but whispered to T.J. they’d have to come back later and try it.

  There wasn’t much room in the small office, so all the movement was causing others to bump into cabinets or the ball bags.

  Pushing the others out of his way, Mike rolled the coach’s chair to one side. As a maintenance entry point, the coach had simply thrown a small rug over the top and forgotten about it. Mike pulled up the worn mat and exposed the trapdoor.

  Silence settled over them as the first proof of Mike’s claim became visible. There was an entrance to a cavern below.

  Darren, who was next to the credenza, grabbed the flashlight Mike had replaced earlier and flicked it on. “Looks like we’re ready.”

  Mike pulled another small flashlight from his robe. “I wasn’t taking chances.”

  As soon as the trapdoor was moved out of place, Shelley reminded everyone, “I’m not going down there.” She shook her head and backed away as far as she could, given the size of the small room.

  “Come on, Shell!” Sandy said. “I’ll go if you go. Plus, you’ll have Seth to protect you.”

  Shelley was unconvinced, but Seth’s gaze and squeeze helped. She nodded, but her watery eyes made it clear she was still scared.

  “Anyone else feel like chickening out?” Mike had moved the wooden trapdoor to one side so the opening had free access.

  “Not me,” T.J. said. “I want to see this thing!”

  “Me too,” Tony agreed.

  “I kind of want to,” Lindsey said, although her tone left plenty of doubt.

  Seth didn’t say a word, but it was clear he intended to go down. Andrea squeezed Darren’s hand. She was in for the excursion. He loved that she was such a good sport about stuff like this, especially since this escapade had been Mike’s idea.

  After grabbing a basketball, Mike dropped down into the hole, followed by the others. They bunched together in the dark. Mike struck out with his smaller light, and the rest formed a line and followed. They walked along in the semi-dark, just the two flashlights providing weird, elongated shadows before them. There were indeed pipes down there, mainly running along the top of the shaft, covered in white insulation as well as dust and cobwebs. At their feet, metal pipes climbed the earthen walls, ran along the ceiling, and disappeared through the top to some room above. At this point in the tunnel, they all stood up straight with the exception of Seth who, at six-foot six, was forced to stoop the whole way.

  “It’s right up here,” Mike said. “Watch out for that crosswise running pipe on the ground; that’s what I tripped over.”

  Mike stopped them, indicating with his light where the ramp began. Darren experienced that strange cold sensation on the back of his neck and spine again. He actually wanted to tell someone to quit breathing down his shirt, but no one was behind him.

  “Do you see here in front of me, where the dirt forms a small ramp running upward?” Mike aimed his flashlight on the spot. They all crowded forward to see. It was a slight graded area that gradually tilted upward for about ten feet, climbing to a height of just over three feet. “Notice how it goes up?”

  They all agreed. Darren noticed they were whispering, even though there was no danger of being heard. It added to the creepy, cold feeling Darren couldn’t shake. He did his best to ignore it.

  “Now watch.” Mike stooped down and set the ball where the slope and the flat ground met. At first the ball sat there, but before long, it began to rock slightly back and forth as if it were teetering on the edge of a basketball hoop, deciding to fall in or out. All of a sudden, it rolled right up the incline and stopped at the top.

  A hushed “Whoa!” in unison filled the dark cavern as each witnessed the strange physics the ball obeyed.

  “That is creepy!” Sandy said. She and Lindsey had become one, they were hugging each other so tightly.

  “That is weird!” Darren agreed, his eyes meeting Mike’s. He turned his gaze to Andrea, whose lips were slightly parted as she shook her head in bewilderment.

  “Do it again,” Tony whispered.

  Mike retrieved the errant basketball and brought it back to the same spot. The same strange occurrence happened. They expressed their amazement again. It shouldn’t be happening, but there it was, rolling up a hill.

  “Maybe there’s some sort of magnetic pull around here coming from up above,” Tony suggested.

  “The ball’s made of rubber,” T.J. pointed out.

  Darren tried to reason it out, but came up with nothing. Finally, he tried the only thing that made sense to him. “My dad told me about the funhouse that used to be at Lagoon.” He was referring to the amusement park in Farmington, Utah that drew thousands each year from Utah, Idaho, and other surrounding areas. “He said there was a part of the funhouse called the tilted room. You had to hang onto these bars as you walked up and down through the room. There was a spot where you could see through this dark glass and watch glowing ping-pong balls as they appeared to be bouncing up hill. Maybe it just seems like it’s slanted, but it really isn’t.”

  “For that to be true,” T.J. explained, “we would have to be on a slant right now.”

  “Which we’d feel if we were,” Andrea finished for him. Though obviously puzzled, Darren could see the concentration on her beautiful face as she tried to reason out what was going on.

  “My mother grew up in Salt Lake,” Sandy said, her face as white as her hair under the weak glow of the flashlights. “She said they used to go to a place where the cars, once put in neutral, would roll up hill. They called it Gravity Hill.”

  “It’s one thing to hear about it,” Seth said. “It’s another thing to see it.”

  Silence fil
led the dusty, dirty corridor for a few moments. Mike set the ball down. Only this time, he gave it a little shove. The ball shot to the top, accelerating as if it were thrown downhill.

  “Check your watches,” T.J. suggested. “Maybe they’ve stopped working.”

  “Nope,” Mike said. “Mine’s still ticking.” He paused, then dramatically exclaimed, “Wait a second, I don’t have a watch.” The flashlight jerked about crazily until it was under his chin shining gruesomely at the freakish face he’d pulled.

  His teammates laughed, but Sandy and Lindsey screamed, which made the boys laugh harder. Andrea’s grip on Darren’s hand grew tighter. She shouted, “I could kill you, Mike!” Darren knew she hated being scared. Mike was not helping to make their friendship any friendlier.

  From the far end of the tunnel, near the hole through which they’d entered, a creaking sound from above brought a halt to their talking.

  Someone was walking overhead.

  “Shh!” Darren commanded. They all froze, paralyzed in the dark by the fear of the unknown and the possibility of being caught. Mike shut off his flashlight, and so did Darren.

  They listened as the creaking came to a stop. Darren could sense each of his friends trying to breathe through their noses to make the least sound possible. Somebody’s nose was actually whistling, but very quietly. From his side vision, he saw Sandy’s eyes wide with fear and her platinum blonde hair quivering in the dark. Darren squeezed Andrea’s hand. She looked serious, but somehow confident, like she knew they’d come out of this okay.

  Each of them stared down the dark tunnel to where a faint bluish glow of the school’s emergency lighting filtered in through the trapdoor. Was someone about to come down? They definitely heard a person above grumble and move about. The floor creaked again under the stranger’s weight. This was followed by a scraping sound, more creaking, and then a clunk. The bluish light coming in through the trapdoor winked out. Someone had replaced the trapdoor.