“Okay,” Johnathan said. “So, we’ve decided the contamination could be from a food or drink source. What else could it be? Let’s try to think about something only the students would be exposed to.”
“Maybe the showers … in the gym?” Halli asked. “The teachers aren’t supposed to use those.”
“Good one, Halli. Write it down.” Johnathan smiled at our young friend.
“I don’t want to be a Downer Dan or anything, but what if, whatever it is, it’s something the kids are willingly taking? Like a rave drug or something,” Alec piped up. I was sure his experience with the foster system and certain foster parents and siblings had turned his mind to think of that as an option. And I couldn’t dispute his idea. We had to consider it as a possibility.
Halli added drugs to our list.
“I think we’re going to have to first decide which of the kids seem to be unaffected and then try to figure out what the difference is between them and the others,” Johnathan said.
“I’m sure Brendon wasn’t affected. I’ll see if I can find him tomorrow and maybe get closer to him,” I volunteered.
Johnathan frowned and his jaw tightened at the thought. But he swallowed down his jealousy and said, “That’s a good idea, Paige. It would be a good idea for the rest of us to identify some students of both sides, affected and unaffected. We’ll have to be subtle in questioning them. I don’t want to scare them away or alert those who are leading this poisoning of minds. We could be in some serious danger if they find out we’re there to stop them.”
Our brainstorming meeting ended and we all pitched in to fix dinner. Johnathan handed out some meager school supplies: one notebook and one pencil for each of us, just enough to keep up the charade. We went to bed much earlier than we were used to that night. Seth wound up the alarm clock and set it for bright and early so we had time to get ready and walk the long distance to the school in the morning before the first bell.
Morning came all too soon for all of us night owls. We dragged ourselves out of bed. Halli was the only one to exhibit any signs of energy; she packed our lunches while the rest of us laid in our sleeping bags and groaned about the early hour. Of course, I thought to myself, she can go right back to sleep when we leave. But, I knew she probably wouldn’t; she had plans to go back to the library to see if she could find anything useful to help me cure Johnathan.
We had to get creative when it came to our channeling rods. I’m sure they would seriously frown on us carrying them around the school on our belts. I ended up strapping mine to my lower leg, under my jeans. I just hoped they weren’t planning on me taking P.E. The boys all figured out ways to carry theirs incognito, too. Then we threw on our jackets and headed for the streets above. Of course, it was raining—a slow, cold, drizzle that chilled the bones.
Alec and Seth both acted like they were actually excited about going to school. Not me. My stomach roiled like crazy. I thought I might even hurl up my breakfast at the beginning of our long trek. Watching the boys’ horseplay helped settle my stomach faster than a can of ginger ale, though, and I was soon laughing along with them. Johnathan barely cracked a smile, however. I was really starting to worry about him. He was already showing signs of depression, and here we were on our way to a school full of depressed and obviously suicidal kids … .
We split up when we were within two blocks of the school and came to the campus from different directions—me and Seth one way, and Alec and Johnathan another.
I pulled my hood down as we entered the building. There wasn’t the usual noisy, before-school hustle and bustle going on. The students were mostly subdued and eerily quiet. We picked up our schedules; I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that P.E. was not one of my classes. Seth and I compared our lists. We had only one class together, Geography. Apparently, his real sister hadn’t taken it as a sophomore, as was the requirement here. Great, I thought, I’ll be the only junior in a classroom full of sophomores.
Johnathan and Alec entered the office as we left. We did our best to ignore each other. I couldn’t help but turn and watch Johnathan, though. I noticed I wasn’t the only girl that did so; now it was my turn to feel a little bit of jealousy.
I decided to start right away with the mingling that was going to be necessary if we were to figure out what was going on. As Seth went his own way with the same idea in mind, I walked up to a girl that stood alone, staring down at a book in her hands, but obviously not reading it. Her eyes were glazed over and not moving back and forth like they would be if she was really reading.
“Um … excuse me? Could you help me find my locker? It’s my first day here, and I’m afraid I’m not very good at reading maps or following directions.” I smiled, threw in a little bit of self-deprecation, and shrugged my shoulders. Who said I couldn’t act?
It took a minute before my words gnawed their way through the haze surrounding her mind. She raised her head slowly, her lips twisting into a grimace as she attempted to return my smile. Like it hurt to turn her lips up in that unnatural or forgotten curve. I was sure there was a pretty girl hiding under the messy hair and sullenness. She had dark circles under her eyes that stood out in severe contrast to her sickly pale skin.
After a long pause, she said, “Sure. What locker number do you have?” Her voice was rough and quiet, and her speech was slowed down a few notches below normal.
I told her my locker number, then waited for another lengthy pause while this sad girl slowly processed my words.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s close to my locker. It’s this way.”
I followed with a sinking feeling as we trudged on toward our section of lockers. There was a quiet desperation in these kids—quiet, yet screaming inside. It made me want to cry. And blast the person or people who were responsible. I watched for Brendon in the crowd. I wanted to make sure his worried but friendly face hadn’t transformed into one of these half-zombies I was surrounded by.
We arrived at my locker. I opened it, stowed my jacket, and closed it, only to find that the girl was gone. I realized I hadn’t even asked her name. I shrugged my shoulders and decided to find my first class with the ten or so minutes I had before the bell rang. I kept an eye out for Brendon as I roamed.
I was apparently reading the map upside down or something because it took me only three minutes to become completely turned around. As I stood there staring at the diagram of the school, turning it around in my hands, trying to figure out which way was up and where I was in relation to the stupid thing, someone stepped up beside me.
“Can I help you find something?”
I sighed in relief when I looked up into the smiling face of Brendon. He’d survived the night without being taken by whatever was plaguing most of his classmates.
I returned his smile with an exasperated sigh and said, “Please! I hate maps—they are a worse form of torment than a medieval maze! If you could maybe just steer me in the direction of my first class, I would be very grateful.”
He studied my schedule and smiled again. “It looks like we have the same first hour. I think you’ll like Mrs. C. She’s pretty cool, even for an English teacher. I don’t think you told me your name yesterday …”
“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s P … Sasha.” Oops, I almost messed up already.
If he noticed the slipup, he didn’t show it. “Well, okay, Sasha, follow me.”
I followed him to the opposite end of the school—yep, I’d been reading the map upside down—and into a classroom that boasted shelves full of paperback books and walls full of posters. There was even a reading area with a small couch and a bunch of big pillows to recline on. I think Brendon was right; I was going to like this teacher.
More kids began to trickle in and take their seats. Brendon sat next to me and gave me a running commentary about each new arrival. “The girl with red hair is Chari. She plays softball and is a riot to hang out with. She’s still herself … for now.”
I would have found that an odd thing for him to s
ay under normal circumstances. But there, at the school of the damned, it wasn’t so weird.
He continued. “That short kid is Cody. He used to be like the class clown or something. Now he’s barely there. I worry that he’s next.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed and frowned down at me, much as he had the day before when he warned me to change schools. “Something isn’t right, here. Everyone is … I don’t know … changing. They’re either sad or stoned or … I don’t know … oblivious to the world around them.” He paused and rubbed his hands roughly over his face. “I told you to find a different school.”
I looked at the fifteen or so students around me and then back at him.
“I had to come here.”
I left it at that. I’d been almost ready to confide in him. And that was dangerous. For all I knew, he could be one of the bad guys, as Seth had put it.
The bell rang, and a few seconds later, an older lady with orange hair came rushing through the door. She dropped an armload of books on her cluttered desk. She moved things around, looking for something. She looked in the desk drawers, in her huge purse, even under her chair. She mumbled, “Hmm. Where could they be?”
“Uh … Mrs. C.?” said the now-grinning Brendon. “Your glasses are on top of your head.”
“Oh … oh, thank you, Brandon. How did you know that’s what I was looking for?”
He leaned over and whispered to me, “She always says my name wrong. And she loses her glasses several times during class … they’re almost always on top of her head.” In a louder voice he answered her, “Just a lucky guess, Mrs. C.”
“Well … okay, then. Let’s get started. To Kill a Mockingbird will be our next endeavor. Brandon, can you and …” She tapped her finger on her lips, trying to figure out if she was supposed to know me or not.
“Mrs. C. This is Sasha. Today is her first day at good ol’ Edwards High.”
Mrs. C. smiled. “Oh, well, welcome to my class, Sasha. Could you and Brandon help me hand out the books, please?”
I don’t know what I’d expected, but the normalcy of her classroom activities kind of took me by surprise. Especially with the girl silently crying in the back row, the boy who looked like he hadn’t washed his hair or bathed in days sitting across the room, and the other students in various catatonic states.
About fifteen minutes after handing out the books, the girl in the back—the one that was crying—stood up so fast that her desk scooted forward and bumped hard into the one in front of her. She started screaming and pulling at her hair. She turned as white as freshly fallen snow. Her eyes bugged out of her head, staring at the corner of the room, behind where Mrs. C. stood with a look of dread on her face. Her piercing screams tore at my eardrums until I thought they would burst.
“Ashley? What’s …” That’s all the teacher was able to get out. Ashley ran to the window with a shriek and started pounding on it. When that didn’t have whatever effect it was she was after, she banged her head into it, hard. The glass cracked and she banged her head again, even harder. The glass shattered; huge shards fell to the floor. Brendon jumped from his chair and ran toward her. I followed. Everyone else, including the teacher, just stayed where they were. Most of the kids stared at her, but some of them were so lost in their own little world, I don’t think they even registered that something awful was happening.
I choked back a cry when the girl reached down and grabbed a jagged piece of broken glass that was the size of a large butcher knife, and plunged it toward her stomach with an unearthly scream. Brendon reached her just in time and grabbed her wrists. Blood was dripping from her hands. I reached her a second after he did. Brendon looked at me with raised eyebrows, I don’t think he expected anyone to help him. I grabbed the beanie off a boy’s head who was sitting close by—he didn’t even notice; he was one of the catatonic ones—and used it to shield my hand as I reached up to pry the glass from Ashley’s hands. Her fingers loosened their grip easier than I expected. Her hands went limp, along with her whole body. I pulled the glass away from her and threw it to the ground. She collapsed into Brendon’s chest, sobbing.
He looked at me over the top of her head. He was pale and shaking like a wet dog. I was afraid he’d pass out. I searched for something to wrap around the girl’s still-bleeding hands. There was a role of paper towels on the teacher’s desk.
“Mrs. C!” I yelled over the girl’s sobs. “Please throw me those paper towels!”
She shook herself out of her shocked stupor and tossed the towels to me. I spoke in a soothing voice, for Ashley’s and Brendon’s benefit. His skin turned from pale to ashen and he swayed a little. I was afraid he was going to go down.
“Ashley,” I coaxed, “give me your hands. Everything’s going to be just fine. Ashley? Look at me.” I held her hands in mine now. I pressed a wad of towels into her palms. In a sterner voice I said, “Hold these as tight as you can, to stop the bleeding.” To Brendon I said, “You—sit down before you fall down.”
He nodded shakily, backed up to a vacant desk, and sat hard.
“I’m going to take her to the office,” I said, looking at Mrs. C. She nodded silently, relieved, I think, that someone besides her was there to take charge.
“Do … do you need any help?” I was a little surprised at the offer from the red-headed girl, the one Brendon had called Chari.
An escort would have been nice to make sure I didn’t get lost, but I really wanted to spend at least a few moments alone with this bleeding girl.
“Thank you,” I said sincerely. “But, I think I’ll be fine. I wouldn’t want both of us to miss learning about killing mockingbirds.” I smiled.
She returned the smile and let out a breath, relieved, it seemed, that I’d turned her offer down.
Ashley looked toward the corner one more time and shuddered. I led her from the room, gently guiding her and whispering encouragement. We made it to the office with only a couple wrong turns. The secretary behind the desk was busy reading a magazine and didn’t even bother to look up. “Excuse me,” I said with obvious annoyance.
She glanced up with a sneer and looked like she was about to say something impolite, but the sight of Ashley’s blood all over both of us stopped her short. “What happened?”
I scrunched my eyebrows together and shook my head. “She needs the school nurse.” It took a lot of restraint not to add, idiot to the end of that.
“Oh, right.” She opened the gate and pointed.
We entered the cramped nurse’s room. I coaxed Ashley to the small cot against the wall and made her lay down. The nurse wasn’t in there so I poked my head out of the room and told the secretary to find her. I probably should have asked instead of told, but I’d lived without any authority figures for too long and forgot the subservient manners expected of youth when dealing with adults. Even stupid, annoying adults. She narrowed her eyes slightly but then she paged the nurse to the office.
“Ashley,” I said soothingly as I wrapped some gauze and tape around her wounds to try to stanch the bleeding. “What happened in there? What did you see?”
Her eyes met mine. Hello … there was someone home in there. The fear in her eyes was thick and heavy. Her lip quivered.
“What did you see?” I repeated.
She swallowed hard, almost choking on her own saliva. “I … saw … I saw … a monster.” Her voice was hoarse. She looked away from me like she didn’t expect me to believe her. But, I did believe her. I’d seen plenty of monsters in the little while since I’d left home. She didn’t have to convince me they existed.
“I believe you, Ashley.” I made my voice as soft and gentle as I could. “What did it look like?”
She closed her eyes tight and shook her head. I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her she would never be able to remove that image completely.
“Ashley. I want to help you. Tell me what it looked like.”
She opened her eyes and searched my face before finding whatever
she was looking for there. “You’re new here,” she said.
“Yes. My name’s Sasha. What did you see in there, Ashley?” I repeated.
She hesitated before deciding to trust me. “It was awful. At first it looked like my friend, Amanda. But, it couldn’t have been her.” She looked down and added, “She killed herself last week.”
I waited.
“Then, she changed into a … a … thing. A thing with black scales and hand tipped wings. Like a … bat’s. It had huge eyes and teeth, so many teeth. It smiled at me, like it wanted to eat me.” She shuddered and closed her eyes again. Sweat beaded on her forehead. “It motioned me to come to it, then it shimmered and I could see Amanda again, but I could see through her. And … that thing … that monster reached out and held her … and touched her cheek … like it was her boyfriend or something.
“She smiled at me and motioned for me to join them. But … she’s dead, so I knew it was a trick. Then the thing started chanting, ‘kill yourself … join us … kill yourself … join us’ over and over in a creepy voice. I don’t really know what happened then.” She stared at her poorly bandaged hands.
“Ashley,” I said, “What’s happening here? What is …” I didn’t finish. The nurse walked in. She looked from me to Ashley and frowned.
“You can go back to class now. I’ll take care of her,” the nurse said.
I reluctantly stood and headed for the door. I turned and looked at Ashley one more time before leaving. Her eyes were closed tight again.
I found my way back to English class just as the bell to dismiss rang. I waited outside the door for Brendon. He was still a little pale, but he smiled when he saw me. “So? How’s Ashley? You didn’t happen to run into Mr. Jorgenson, did you? He’s the principal.” The flash of terror in his eyes when he said Mr. Jorgenson sent up a red flag.
“The nurse is taking care of Ashley. No, I didn’t see the principal, why?”
Five: Out of the Dark Page 9
