by Dan Poblocki
The teacher turned red, and his mouth dropped open.
“Abigail,” whispered her grandmother. “Apologize right now.”
She blushed but mumbled, “I’m sorry, Mr. Crane.”
“This is not like you, Abigail,” Zilpha said, placing a hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder. She glanced harshly at Timothy, as if it was all his fault.
9.
Timothy and Abigail didn’t tell Mr. Crane who threw the water balloon; they couldn’t prove it.
After they had joined the rest of the class, Zilpha Kindred had kissed her granddaughter goodbye and quietly slipped back downstairs. Mr. Crane forced both Abigail and Timothy to accompany him, as the rest of the students were now free to roam and gather information regarding their projects. As they wandered, silently, Abigail had refused to glance up from the ground, lost once again in her own private world—a world where Timothy, apparently, was not allowed.
On the ride back to school, he sat by himself in the front of the bus, well away from both Stuart and Abigail. By then, he’d nearly dried off and was able to recall what had happened inside the museum. Timothy wondered if he’d momentarily gone bonkers, but he knew that couldn’t be the case, not entirely. He had nearly forgotten the proof of the shadow man, which was currently pressed like a cold hand into the small of his back.
He pulled the book out from his pants. It was slight, the paper jacket was torn halfway down the back, and the entire bottom right corner was missing. On the cover was a simple painted illustration of a rosy-cheeked, dark-haired girl dressed in a calf-length blue skirt, socks pulled almost all the way up to her knees, a white sweater, and a red silk scarf wrapped around her thin neck. She knelt before the opening of a small dark hole that had been carved into the slope of a hill in a mossy forest. She looked over her shoulder curiously, as if she’d noticed someone creeping up behind her. In the background, silhouettes of several gothic buildings poked out from a hillside, looking like College Ridge up near Edgehill Road. Was this book a New Starkham story? Now Timothy was even more intrigued. He looked closer. The title stretched across the top of the book. The Clue of the Incomplete Corpse: A Zelda Kite Mystery. Someone named Ogden Kentwall had written the book.
Weird names. Weird book.
Timothy had the impression that the sight of the old woman had startled the shadow man, and in his haste to leave, he’d somehow dropped the book. Surely the man had meant to return and pick it up once everyone had gone. Too late, thought Timothy.
Unless he comes to take it back.
Goose bumps tickled Timothy’s scalp. Maybe I should have left it there, he thought.
Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder, peering above the heads of his classmates and out the rear window of the bus, trying to see through the mist and the rain to make out if there was a pair of headlights following close behind. There was nothing. He immediately turned and hunched his shoulders, trying to become invisible himself.
As the bus bumped back across the Taft Bridge toward New Starkham, Timothy opened the book’s cover and began to read.
10.
By the time lunch ended back at school, Timothy had managed to get through the first couple of chapters. The story began with the description of an ordinary girl named Zelda Kite whose best friend, a fellow school newspaper reporter named Dolores Kaminski, had disappeared while on assignment at the local antiques shop. The mystery was simple, and the writing was fine, if not exactly literary like the stories Mrs. Medina made them read for English class. Timothy wondered what the man in the museum had been doing with an odd little book like this.
In fact, Timothy was so distracted by it, he didn’t consider that Stuart Chen had neglected to sit with him at their usual table in the cafeteria. He also didn’t notice the girl who regarded him curiously from the lunch line, her red hair finally lightening as it dried into stringy ringlets upon her hunched shoulders.
At the end of the day, Timothy was standing at his locker, leafing through the final few pages of the fifth chapter of The Incomplete Corpse when he came across a name written in the margins, scribbled in pencil just below the page number 102.
Carlton Quigley
At first, Timothy didn’t even notice the writing. It had been written so lightly that it seemed almost ghostly compared to the text in the rest of the book. He held the pages like a flipbook, zipping through to the end in case there happened to be any more writing.
To his surprise, Timothy found two names further along. Bucky Jenkins stared at him from page 149 and Leroy “Two Fingers” Fromm from page 203, the second to last in the book.
Carlton Quigley. Bucky Jenkins. Leroy “Two Fingers” Fromm.
Timothy flipped, again and again, looking at the writing. Who were these people? he wondered. Why had someone written their names there?
Timothy grabbed his backpack. The faint scent of chlorine filled his nose as he unzipped it. That morning, somehow, he’d remembered to shove his swimsuit, goggles, and towel inside before leaving the house. Now he placed the strange new book on top of his swim gear and zipped up the bag.
Outside, to Timothy’s surprise, he noticed Mrs. Chen’s burgundy minivan waiting at the curb. Stuart sat in the front seat and actually waved at him. Timothy trudged down the stairs to the sidewalk. Stuart rolled down his window, and Mrs. Chen leaned past her son, obviously oblivious to the events of the day.
“Hi, Timothy!” she said. “Hurry up. Get in. Don’t want to be late!” Timothy hesitated. “What are you waiting for?” she added.
“Yeah, what are you waiting for?” Stuart echoed her.
11.
Timothy meant to mention the water-balloon attack while still in the car, in front of Stuart’s mother, but by the time they’d driven up the hill to the college’s entrance, he realized that if he talked about what had happened at the museum, he might be forced to talk about why Stuart had done what he’d done in the first place. And if he mentioned the reason, he might be forced to mention some other things—things his parents had forbidden him mentioning, to Mrs. Chen especially. By the time the great gothic gymnasium appeared ahead, Timothy realized how much he wanted to talk about Ben with someone, anyone, who would listen.
But now, he wouldn’t give Stuart the satisfaction, even if he apologized a million times.
Mrs. Chen pulled up to the curb in front of the main entrance. Before Timothy was able to fully jump out of the vehicle, she called to him, “Please tell your mother I said hello.”
“I will,” Timothy answered, hiking his bag onto his shoulder.
“Timothy?” Mrs. Chen called. Stuart had already reached the top of the steps.
“Yeah?”
“She hasn’t returned any of my messages lately. Is everything okay with her? How’s Ben?”
She’d hit the nail on the head.
“I’ve gotta run, Mrs. Chen,” he said. “Thanks for the ride!”
“O-Okay then,” she said quietly. “See you boys after practice.”
As Timothy entered the locker room, he realized he didn’t want to be there. After everything that had happened that day, all he really wanted to do was curl up in bed and continue reading The Clue of the Incomplete Corpse. He was determined to find his own clue regarding the names written on pages 102, 149, and 203. Maybe the answer was in the story.
The locker room’s dim lighting, high ceilings, and dark stone walls created a unique cryptlike atmosphere deep inside the building. Timothy found a spot in the farthest corner away from the showers, hidden at the end of the longest row of lockers. From his bag, he lifted away the mysterious book and carefully placed it onto the bench beside him.
“Let’s hustle, July,” called Coach Thom from the far end of the row. Clapping his hands and moving on, he shouted, “Water’s waiting, Chen. Move it.”
Timothy’s face burned. So much for hiding out now. He flung his bag into the nearest locker. He quickly changed into his bathing suit, before grabbing the book from the bench. Zelda Kite’s worried
eyes glanced over Timothy’s shoulder, as if she knew that someone had crept up behind him.
Spinning around, Timothy was met with a smile by Stuart, standing inches away. Timothy nearly jumped but managed to control himself. “What do you want?” he said.
“Scare you?” said Stuart. “Sorry.”
“You didn’t scare me,” said Timothy. “I just didn’t expect you there.”
“Right.” Stuart briefly looked at the book in Timothy’s hands. “Pretty funny what happened today, don’t you think?”
Timothy shoved the book into his locker, snatched his towel off the floor, and wrapped it around his shoulders. “What was funny?”
“What happened to your partner,” said Stuart. “The water balloon?”
“How do you know it was a water balloon?” said Timothy, playing the game.
Stuart smiled. “Whatever, dude. We all thought it was pretty funny.”
“Well, I didn’t. I got pretty soaked.”
“Whose fault was that?”
Timothy shook his head. “Are you saying I threw the water balloon at myself?”
“No. I’m saying you were too close. You stand next to the target, you get wet.”
“Stuart …” Timothy’ face turned red. “You’re such a … a fart-slap.”
“A fart-slap?” said Stuart, laughing. “What the heck is a fart-slap?”
Timothy stared at the floor, thinking of Abigail’s cleverness. “It’s not good,” he answered, then climbed over the bench and brushed past Stuart, heading for the showers.
12.
The water was cold. Swimming freestyle, Timothy stared at the ceramic tiles drifting away into the hazy deep end. When he reached the wall underneath the diving platforms, he noticed that Coach Thom was speaking with Stuart, two lanes over and a pool length away. Stuart sat on the water’s edge in the shallow end. Their voices echoed throughout the large room.
“Where was it?” said Thom.
Stuart shook his head, closed his eyes, then pointed at the deep end. Thom peered into the water. “I’ve got a clear view of the entire bottom of the pool, Chen. I can assure you, I don’t see any monsters. You want to get back in the water now?”
Monsters? Timothy chuckled before he ducked back under and pushed off the wall. What a freak! He’d heard a ton of excuses for wanting to sit out a lap or two, but that was the craziest in a very long time.
The weird thing, though, was that Stuart had looked truly scared. Timothy swept the bottom of the pool with his eyes, trying to make out exactly what Stuart could have mistaken for a monster. But there was nothing down there except for a couple of glimmering pieces of loose change, far away near the drain at the bottom of the twenty-five-foot well. Seconds later, he’d made it to the wall in the shallow end to find Stuart still sitting in the gutter, his feet pulled up out of the water.
Now Thom sounded really angry. “You can get in or go home, Chen. I’m not going to say it again. Let’s move!”
Reluctantly, Stuart slid into the water. He glanced at Timothy briefly before popping his goggles over his eyes. He ducked under the lane lines and entered Timothy’s lane. Timothy was about to push off the wall, when he felt Stuart grab his arm.
“What is it?” said Timothy.
Stuart’s eyes were invisible behind his mirrored lenses. “It was the thing with the claw,” he said in a low voice.
“What was the thing with the claw?”
“The monster from Wraith Wars?” said Stuart, sounding freaked out. “The game? It was at the bottom of the pool.”
Timothy didn’t even know how to respond. Hadn’t they just been fighting? Obviously, Stuart was terrified. Timothy remembered how crazy he had felt in the basement of the museum that morning, when all the golden idols had stared at him.
“I didn’t see anything down there,” said Timothy. “Maybe your goggles were smudged.”
Stuart nodded. “I’m gonna follow behind you, though, okay? In this lane.”
Timothy sighed. “Okay.”
When he finally pushed off the wall, he realized that, in a way, they’d both just apologized to each other.
Twenty laps later, Timothy hopped out of the pool to take a drink from the water fountain. He was out of breath and his brain was racing with numbers. Five hundred yards, twenty laps, twenty minutes on the clock …
Then, pages 102, 149, and 203.
And eventually names: Carlton Quigley. Bucky Jenkins. Leroy “Two Fingers” Fromm … Zelda Kite. Zilpha Kindred. Abigail Tremens.
Timothy had just come up from the fountain, when he noticed someone standing in the last row of bleachers. Since the lights hung low in a similar fashion to the locker room, the steep seats were dark. The pool itself was bright. Timothy held his hand up to shade the light.
What he saw sent goose bumps rippling across his skin. Timothy could see only a silhouette—the man in the long overcoat and the brimmed hat. He understood clearly why the man had come.
The book.
It was still in his locker.
The man descended the stadium stairs and slipped into the nearest exit, disappearing entirely into the shadows of the upstairs hallway.
Timothy turned and dashed toward the boys’ lockers. Slipping and sliding on the cold ceramic tile, he heard Thom shout, “No running!” before careening through the doorway. He ignored his coach, fearing that, in his rush to get away from Stuart, he might have forgotten to put the padlock on his locker.
In the hallway, Timothy slowed. He suddenly felt foolish. Was he really willing to risk his life just to keep a stupid old kids’ book?
He skidded to a halt. The hallway didn’t look the same. It was longer than usual. Where had the showers gone?
Timothy turned around. The hallway behind him stretched on for what looked like hundreds of yards before disappearing into murky darkness.
Had he taken the wrong hallway? Maybe he was accidentally heading toward the girls’ room? Something deep inside told him, No. He hadn’t made a wrong turn—the hallway had.
Timothy decided to return to the pool, toward the safety of his team, but as he ran, the hallway continued to grow even longer. The ceiling sank lower. The walls were covered with grime. The floor was slick with gray-green slime. Mildew. Or something. And it stank, like old cheese.
He stopped again. The pool entrance should have been directly in front of him. But all Timothy could see in both directions was the hallway, which was growing darker by the second. There were no pool sounds. No shouting, no splashing. He could almost hear the mold growing in the wall’s crevices. The sound of his heart was pounding in his ears.
Timothy squeezed his eyes shut for a brief second and violently shook his head. Snap out of it, he told himself. When he opened his eyes again, he caught a glimpse of light at the end of the hallway behind him. Stainless steel. The showers! Timothy bolted. At least now, he knew where he was going.
He burst through the doorway into the shower room’s yellow light. Beyond the showerheads was the cavernous locker room. He bounded to the last row of lockers. But when he peered around the rusted aluminum edge, the row was about half as long as usual. A T-shaped path veered where an L usually bent. Maybe he was remembering it wrong?
Without thinking, Timothy dashed forward, but when he reached the T, he knew for certain that the problem wasn’t his memory.
His locker was not there.
Timothy glanced in both directions. The shadows were encroaching from the ceiling again, the low-hanging globes inching closer to the ground. How was that possible?
Though his mind raced, Timothy walked slowly, lightly, back toward the showers. His feet were cold, and his skin was prickly. He made his way to the end of the row and peeked around the corner, but the showers were no longer there. Instead, the sight of a dirty brick wall greeted him, like a slap in the face.
“No,” Timothy groaned. He leaned against the locker at the end of the row. The coldness of the metal bit into his shoulder, and he leapt away fro
m it, holding in a shriek.
A locker slammed. He jumped. He couldn’t tell where the noise had come from.
Someone was with him, somewhere in this big room.
Timothy shivered. Then he ran. He wasn’t sure where he was going. The more he ran, the more he realized he was not merely lost—the room didn’t look familiar at all anymore. These lockers were bashed and battered, the doors hanging off their hinges. Some of them had been painted black; graffiti was scratched into their metal surfaces—words much worse than the one he’d called Stuart earlier—strange, almost alien symbols, horrific faces with slitlike feline eyes and gaping needle-filled mouths. Timothy tried not to think that anything could be hiding just inside these doors—Stuart’s clawed monster, the Aztec idols, the cloudy creatures in the specimen jars. Things with black watchful eyes. The more Timothy ran, the more he realized that if he stopped, he’d regret it.
He came around a corner and screamed.
A man stood at the end of the corridor, his hand reaching into the nearest open locker. He turned to look at Timothy. The shadow from the brim of his hat obscured his face. His long gray overcoat hung almost all the way to the floor, barely covering his black wingtips. For a second, Timothy had the feeling he was staring at a ghost. Then the man withdrew from the locker. In his hand was the book; he used it to slam the locker shut.
Timothy was frozen with fear. He wanted to shout, Put it down! But the book didn’t even belong to him. If anything, the man was simply stealing it back.
“You shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to you,” said the man. His voice was low, resonant, a bit scratchy.
Timothy surprised himself by answering lamely, “I’m sorry.”
“You had the chance to run at the museum this morning. Shoulda used it, Timothy. Leave her behind.” The man was talking about Abigail….
Slowly, the man raised his other hand—the one without the book—toward the ceiling. In this fist, he tightly gripped a different object. The two ends of a horseshoe jutted out from either side of the man’s sleeve. A small piece of the object sparkled brightly as light from the nearest aluminum globe struck it. The overhead light grew fainter and fainter, until the locker room disappeared entirely.
