by Shawn Jolley
"What?" Eden whispered.
"Not the movie."
Eden stopped breathing and turned back toward the door. In the silence that followed the scream, Eden thought he heard an engine idling on the other side of the door. He pressed his ear to the cold metal like a suction cup and listened more intently, and he was sure he could hear a car engine.
The movie soundtrack made it hard for him to tell what was going on outside the theater, but when he heard the sound of something slamming, he couldn't stop his curiosity. His fear left him. He grabbed the handle and would have turned it, but Dustin yanked his arm back.
"Let go!" Eden yelled over the noise of the movie. He ripped his arm away as tires squealed outside. Dustin tried to grab him again, but Eden turned the handle and pushed the door with his shoulder.
He rushed out into the chilly night air and was surprised to see thick white fog everywhere. Where was the car? He looked from side to side, but he couldn't focus on anything in the fog. He tripped over what must have been a rock and fell to the ground, scraping his hands on the asphalt. Red brake lights danced at him through the fog.
He pushed himself back up and ran toward the lights, but they disappeared and he heard the car shift from first to second gear as it drove down the street. "Eden!" Dustin called from behind, but he didn’t stop.
As he ran through the fog he caught glimpses of sidewalk and street light, but he never saw the car. He slid on his heels in some gravel when he came to a brown wooden fence. He recognized the fence as belonging the old church about a quarter of a mile away from the theater.
He looked around even though he couldn't see more than five feet in any direction. He couldn't even hear the car anymore. He knew if he walked back along the fence, he would make it to the theater again so, with his mind still racing, he started walking.
When Eden came to where the fence turned, he walked across the street and found himself at the theater. Dustin stood next to the open exit door, holding something in his hand. "Get back in here," he said. Eden made his way through the deserted parking lot.
He stepped back into the empty theater, and Dustin closed the door behind them. He shoved what he held into Eden’s chest. The object felt hard in some places and soft in others. He couldn't believe it. This must have been what he had tripped on. It was a shoe. A girl's shoe, by the looks of it. He thought he had seen it before.
Eden looked back up at Dustin whose face was pale and eyes were wide. "Do you know whose this is?" asked Dustin.
Eden shook his head. "I can't remember where I’ve seen it." Dustin took the shoe back and turned it over so Eden could see the worn out bottom in the projector's light. Two letters had been drawn in heavy black marker right in the center which read: "T.V."
Eden scrunched up his eyebrows and thought about why someone would write T.V. on their shoes, then he realized what T.V. stood for: Tamara Veres.
Eden felt dizzy and sat back down in a mess of candy wrappers, putting his head in his hands. Dustin sat next to him and let out a big sigh. Eden sat like that for a few minutes, thinking about what had happened. Was he to blame for not opening the door sooner? Had something happened at all? The brake lights. He knew those were real. But what about the scream? When he couldn't think anymore he sat back and sighed.
The credits were rolling up the screen, and he wondered why the director chose to have credits at the beginning and end of the movie. He couldn't remember anything that had happened during the film. "We need to tell someone," said Dustin.
Eden knew he was right, but who could they tell? He sat for another moment. "Follow me," he said, getting up and going to the main exit.
Dustin began protesting, but gave up, and got up. When they reached the lobby, Eden whispered, "Let's see if anyone comes out of the other theater."
"Why?" asked Dustin.
"Just to see if the twins are here. I thought I saw them walk in after us."
"We have Tamara's shoe."
"We have a shoe with 'T. V.' written on it. That could mean anything." Eden doubted the words even as he said them, but Dustin stopped arguing and they walked outside (not wanting to be near the theater owner) and waited by the side of the building for the other movies to end. The night air was still chilly, but the fog had lifted slightly.
A quarter of an hour went by and they heard the lobby door open. They casually walked from the side of the theater, but nobody was on the sidewalk. Eden continued walking until he could see through the lobby doors. The old man, Mr. Galland, was wiping the cash register with a blue rag.
"What, nobody in the other movies?" asked Dustin.
"No, or at least, not anymore."
They walked together in silence all the way to Dustin’s trailer. Eden didn’t tell him, but he wanted to see him get home safely. The fog continued to lift, and they didn't see anything suspicious while they walked. The only thing Eden heard was Dustin's teeth chattering. He said bye when they got to the trailer park; there didn't seem to be anything else to add. He wanted to get to the blue house and sort out his thoughts before he said anything else.
As he walked home, he thought the field looked particularly eerie and an unnatural chill flicked up and down his spine. His senses seemed sharper. He glanced around whenever he stepped on a twig or rustled the leaves. He was almost to his backyard when he felt someone watching him. He looked over his shoulder, but couldn’t see anyone. He spun around hoping to catch the voyeur off guard, but he saw no one, and he heard nothing.
When he entered his backyard, he smelled dinner, and the chill in his spine began to ease away. He trusted his feelings, but he took relief in the thought that if someone was watching him—stalking him—they couldn’t get to him inside his house.
5
Eden spent most of Sunday in bed claiming to be sick so he didn’t have to go outside. In a way, this was true. He didn't feel like eating or doing much of anything.
His mom took his temperature and despite there being no proof on the thermometer that he was actually sick, she believed him. It was the weekend after all, and no kid she knew faked sick on the weekend. She didn't ask him if something was wrong, but if she had, he might have told her.
Eden thought Dustin would come over to talk to him, but he didn’t. And the treehouse stayed unfinished and ignored while Eden lay in bed.
Monday came and Eden found himself obsessing over what had happened at the theater. He tried to put the brake lights, shoe, and fog out of his mind, but it kept creeping back in. The more he replayed the night's events in his head, the less clear his memories seemed. He decided he needed to talk to Dustin about it as they walked to school. That way, he could clarify what had happened and when it had happened.
He thought maybe the reason Dustin hadn’t come over on Sunday was because he was trying to figure it all out himself. He was the one with Tamara's shoe, after all. Eden got out of bed and opened the blinds for the first time since Saturday night. Frost covered the ground, but the sun was shining through the clouds.
His mom knocked on his door and said, "Sweetie, I’ll drive you to school today." Had he heard that right? He ran to the door and opened it as she turned away. Startled, she looked back and stared at him. Eden’s mind went blank. He wanted to have time to talk with Dustin, but that wouldn’t happen if she drove him to school. There had to be an excuse he could use.
"But you never take me to school," he said. He racked his brain for a better excuse that she couldn't argue with, but he couldn't think of one.
"I am today. Is that a problem?" She certainly didn't look like she had just called him sweetie less than a minute before. Her eyes dared Eden to argue.
"Are you sure you want to? I mean, I need the exercise." He cringed at himself.
Her lips pursed, and she said, "Actually, what you need is to eat more. You’re a stick." Eden refrained from telling her he couldn’t eat more because her cooking was terrible. He didn't need to be grounded on top of everything else.
"What about D
ustin? He’ll wonder where I am."
"He’ll live." She turned around and walked toward the kitchen. Eden rested his head on the doorframe and watched her, hoping she would come back and change her mind. She didn’t. He guessed he would have to wait until lunchtime to talk to Dustin. He got ready and walked to the living room, expecting his mom to be waiting for him, but she was still in her room. It was strange. She never usually showered until noon. Why was she getting ready today?
When Eden saw her, she didn't look right, because her hair was done, she was wearing a skirt, and she smelled strongly of flowers. "Let’s go," she said.
He followed her to the car in confused silence. They drove down Ardburn Avenue and turned onto Main Street before coasting into the small school parking lot. Eden glanced at the clock on the dash and realized they were half an hour early. He looked at his mom with a questioning look, but she didn’t seem to mind dropping him off now. Eden didn’t even know if the school would be open yet, and he didn’t want to wait on the steps.
"I’m going to be super early," he said.
"That's not a bad thing, is it? I always thought punctuality was good."
Again with the punctuality. Ugh. "This isn’t punctual. This is crazy."
She raised her eyebrows and Eden knew he had lost. He pulled the door handle and got out. The car engine died as he closed the door, then his mom's door opened. She got out and walked over to him, throwing her purse over her shoulder as she did so.
"What’re you doing?" asked Eden.
"I’m freezing. Let’s go," she said, walking toward the school, but Eden blocked her, and said, "Go where?" He didn't like the sound of this.
She rolled her eyes and smiled as though he had just asked the world’s dumbest question. "I didn’t think I’d have to spell it out for you. In fact, I wanted it to be a fun surprise." She paused, as usual, waiting for him to say something, but he remained silent. She looked over her shoulder, then back to him. "I'm a hard working woman. This is a small town, and they need hard working women. That school right there," she said, nodding her head, "needs me."
Eden froze looking at her, his lips parted but he couldn’t say anything. He had no idea why she was giving a speech, or what it had to do with the present situation.
She smiled. "I got a job, silly." She grabbed his hand and pulled him behind her.
"Wait," said Eden, but she ignored him. They went up the steps. She reached for the door handle but it flew open before she grabbed it, barely giving her time to inch out of the way. Ms. Kozi walked out with some papers she was reading and bumped into Eden's mom.
"Oh, sorry," Ms. Kozi said while sidestepping around Eden. She smiled her usual smile and her eyes lit up when she saw who she had bumped up against. "Are you Eden's mom?"
"Yes, I am," she replied flatly.
Eden couldn’t believe she wasn’t talking in a cheery tone to Ms. Kozi; his mom wouldn’t keep a job at the school for long if all of her first impressions were awful. But he supposed when you were a hard-working woman you needed to be equally mean or else people might think you didn’t really work hard at all.
Ms. Kozi’s smile wavered for a second, but she recovered her composure and said, "I'm so sorry. I shouldn’t have bumped into you like that. You’re just so pretty, I assumed you were an angel and that I could just walk right on through you." She smiled bigger, nodded her head, then she walked down the steps.
Eden's mom looked dumbstruck from the odd compliment. Her nostrils flared, and she watched Ms. Kozi walk away. Eden couldn’t help but feel like he was in the middle of something he didn’t want to be in the middle of. He realized his mom was still holding his hand and quickly pulled away while her attention was still elsewhere. She made a grunting noise, muttered something about blonde women, and pushed the door open.
Eden looked up the road as his mom walked inside but there was no sign of Dustin. He thought about waiting outside for him, but the morning air was chilly, so he turned and followed his mom inside. She was standing next to the front office smiling a wide smile, probably bigger than even Ms. Kozi’s. "This'll be great. I’ll be right here if you need anything," she said.
"Alright," Eden said halfheartedly.
He didn’t like the idea of his mom working down the hall from him and his classmates. They were sure to make fun of him if they found out she was his mother. And, no doubt, they would find out before the next hour had passed. He thought about going back outside to find Ms. Kozi so he could tell her not to mention that his mom now worked in the front office, but just as he turned around, Tony walked in.
Eden looked away from him and backed up against the wall. His mom watched with narrowed eyes, but she seemed to understand and walked into the office. Eden wondered if he had hurt her feelings. He watched Tony, who was staring at the floor, walk down the hall to the classroom.
Once Tony had left, Eden waited in the hall for Dustin to show up. Everyone else managed to beat him, and when he finally arrived three minutes before class he was panting. Eden walked over to him as he tried to catch his breath. "Where were you?" asked Dustin.
"It’s a long story."
Dustin sucked in a huge gulp of air before talking. "It better be a good one. I waited at your house forever. I knocked. I looked through the front window. I mean, come on."
Eden was about to explain everything when Ms. Kozi walked through the entrance carrying a plate of cookies. She stopped and held the plate so they could see it. "Better hurry and get to class if you want these," she said before walking away.
They glanced at each other and Dustin rolled his eyes. Eden started walking down the hall and Dustin followed, still puffing. When they got to class, Ms. Kozi was writing at her desk. "Eden, would you be kind enough to help me pass these out to the class?" She didn’t bother getting up to help him but kept on writing.
Dustin sat down in his seat and Eden walked over to Ms. Kozi’s desk to grab the plate of cookies. The bell rang as Eden walked along the front row to where Tony waited eagerly for his cookie, but he stopped before getting started, much to Tony's dismay. Not everyone was there yet. The Veres twins had not come to class. They had always come to class. Eden felt sick.
"Ms. Kozi?"
She looked up from her writing. "Yes?"
"Do you want me to leave some of these on Tamara and Millie's desks?"
Ms. Kozi didn’t answer. She just looked at the two empty seats. Dustin looked back and forth between her and Eden. The other students stared at Ms. Kozi. Tony was looking at the plate of cookies.
"Ms. Kozi?" Eden repeated.
She set her pen down and scrunched her eyebrows together. Eden took a step toward her, but he stopped when she looked at him without her usual smile. "Do whatever you want to," she whispered.
She pulled her black purse across the table and onto her writing. The top button snapped open and she pulled a bottle of aspirin out. Eden stood and watched her while she unscrewed the lid and popped two pills into her mouth, beginning to chew, slowly at first, then more quickly.
Tony raised his hand, but Ms. Kozi ignored him so he dropped it and said, "Is Eden giving you a headache?"
She looked up, her face pale, and said, "Eden sit down. Let’s have silent reading." She mindlessly grabbed a book from the corner of her desk and flipped it open. Eden looked at Dustin, but he was already reading, so Eden took the cookies to Ms. Kozi’s desk and put the plate down. She was staring into space, twirling her hair, and that’s when he noticed her arm.
He hadn’t seen it before because she always wore long sleeves, but now her right sleeve was scrunched up against the pages of her book. Her forearm was an ugly purple, black, and white. Eden managed to count four short cuts before looking away and returning to his seat.
Everyone was reading except Tony, who was batting a crumpled piece of paper across his desk. Eden couldn’t focus on reading with the image of Ms. Kozi’s arm crawling through his mind. It seemed that her arm had been vividly plastered to the side of his bra
in, but he couldn’t figure out if the bruises and cuts were fresh.
He thought Dustin would be able to tell better than him. Dustin knew about these things—things no one else bothered to know about. Sometimes, Eden found how much Dustin knew to be annoying, but other times it came in handy.
They ended up reading until the lunch bell rang and everyone bolted for the door. Ms. Kozi hadn’t excused them, but she didn’t seem to mind. Tony was the first one out of the room as usual, and Dustin was the last. He waited for Ms. Kozi to snap out of her trance and excuse him, but when she never did, he simply stood up.
Eden was already in the doorway waiting for him when he came out with his nose still in his book. He seemed to sense Eden when he came out because he stopped and waited for him to move so he could follow like an obedient puppy.
Instead of going to the front steps to eat lunch, Eden led Dustin into an unused classroom across the hall. He didn’t resist or ask what they were doing; he didn't look like he had even stopped reading.
Eden checked to make sure the hallway was empty before quietly closing the door and turning around. The classroom was dusty and dark, but some light streamed in through the long-forgotten windows. Desks and chairs were stacked everywhere alongside instrument cases and piles of cassette tapes. He grabbed Dustin’s book and pulled it away from him.
"Ms. Kozi's hiding something," said Eden. "Did you see how she acted when I told her the Veres twins weren't here? You did notice, didn't you? Don't you find that odd?"
"What?" Dustin, who was still staring at his book, seemed to be coming out of a trance.
"And her arm is bruised and cut. Tell me how that happens to a teacher? No, she didn't fall. Do you think she's involved with the Veres twins' disappearance?"
"I don't know. We don't even know if they were kidnapped. You’re sure about the arm?"
This was the first time either of them had acknowledged that kidnapping was what probably happened on Friday night. Eden nodded his head. "I just saw it! I can’t get the image out of my head. She has to be involved with something. Wait! Didn't we see her filling up her car up at the gas station? Remember? What if she followed us to the theater and waited?"
