Urga appeared unfazed.
“That…was…awesome! Do we get to drive those?”
Urga shrugged and turned to face forward. Clearly the question-and-answer portion of their time together had ended.
An hour later, Urga had made fast friends with a portly Viking named Gordon, and the two were discussing the pros and cons of penalty-inducing blocking in “American” football. Walter was pretty sure the Viking was just wearing a costume, but the beard looked real enough.
The wide banquet tables were finally only a few yards away, when a man carrying a clipboard approached Walter.
“You there. Are you Walter Prairie?”
“Uh…yeah. That’s me.” Walter stood on his tiptoes to see over the edge of the clipboard, but the man hid it from view.
“You lived at Two Thirty-Seven Poleman Boulevard in Baldwin, Virginia?”
“That was my address.” Walter smirked. “Until I…”
“Son of Greg and Darlene Prairie and older brother to—”
“Dude, I said it was me!” What was with the clipboard and the questions?
“This way, sir.” The man held his hand out toward the front of the line.
Sir? When had he ever been called sir? “Why? Where are we going?”
The man had already pushed off, walking briskly past the row of tables. Walter hopped out of line and hurried to keep up.
“What is this about? I thought I was supposed to check in at that table.” Had the Academy reached its capacity? The thought tied his stomach in knots. They couldn’t ask him to leave now. Not after he’d seen people shooting purple light missiles!
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Just come with me, please.”
Reluctantly, Walter continued to follow the man. Eventually, the walkway they were on rounded a corner and ended at an office door, which the man opened. Black and white tiles formed a checkerboard across the floor of the room inside, and dark wooden bookshelves lined the walls. A statue of a full-sized lion crouched in the corner behind an immense oak desk, where a man sat wearing a three-piece suit and holding a gold pocket watch.
“Hello, hello!” the man said, rising from the desk. “Is this him? Is this the one?”
“I don’t believe it!” Charlie exclaimed, popping his knuckles. Wisdom’s message was waiting for him after dinner. Charlie had written to him on a number of occasions, but this was the first time Wisdom Willows had ever replied.
Charlie,
Your book discovery is quite impressive. Where did you find it? Who wrote it? You said the book caused your EMF detector to go crazy? Explain. Books don’t usually register readings on EMF detectors. I’m interested in learning more, and I’m excited that you chose to contact me.
Sincerely,
WW
“Wisdom Willows,” Charlie whispered reverently. “Writing to me!”
After several attempts to sound official, Charlie typed his answer on the keyboard, settling for relaying every detail of his discovery.
Then, Charlie hurriedly changed into pajamas and sat down on his bed with the heavy book centered in his lap. From what he had seen, there were no legible numbers or words on any of the pages, but maybe a second look would spark a discovery.
At some point before nine o’clock, and after he had been searching for over an hour, Charlie noticed the curtain fluttering out of the corner of his eye. Sitting up, he yawned and blinked. The window was closed, and no air pumped through the apartment’s vents, but there had been definite movement. Charlie’s skin prickled, and an uncomfortable pit began to form in his stomach.
“Stop wasting time,” he whispered to himself. He couldn’t read the words in the book, but maybe he could pick up on some sort of pattern or recognize a symbol from his research. He stared down at the opened pages once more and honed his focus.
The screech of chair legs scooting across the floor echoed through the office as the man in the three-piece suit stood up. He rounded the desk and grasped Walter’s hand before Walter could think twice about it.
“Here you are, my boy. My dear, dear boy.” His eyes twinkled as he shook Walter’s hand vigorously. “Very good, Frederick. You may return to your duties.”
The man with the clipboard nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Walter watched Frederick leave and wondered how he might retrieve his hand without coming across as rude. When shaking a hand, one had to let go after three pumps, five at the most. Walter knew that. Everyone knew that. But the man with the pocket watch didn’t seem to have grasped the concept. His hand felt moist and smooth, as though he used too much lotion. Did dead people need lotion? Walter began to wonder how he could feel things at all. Wasn’t he a spirit? Didn’t that complicate one’s ability to feel things?
“The name’s Darwin Pollock, and I am the Head Assigner of Agents for HLTA at the Afterlife Academy.” He relinquished his hold on Walter’s fingers, and Walter jammed them into his pocket to prevent another handshake.
“HL what?” Walter questioned.
Darwin blinked. “HLTA. Stands for High-Level Target Assignments. It gives meaning to our establishment. The whole Afterlife Academy works because of HLTA, and every assignment must be stamped and approved at this desk.” He patted the tabletop. “By me.”
“Cool.” Walter glanced sideways at the lion statue and whistled. “Where did you get that?”
Darwin’s smile dimmed momentarily as he followed Walter’s gaze. “You don’t know why you’re here, do you?” Darwin asked. “Frederick didn’t tell you?”
Walter made a face as if he’d just eaten something and couldn’t tell whether or not it contained raisins.
“You registered a perfect score. One hundred percent!” Darwin exclaimed. “Not in the three hundred years I’ve worked here has anyone done that.”
“Really?” Walter tugged at his collar. “A perfect score?”
Darwin nodded vigorously.
“On what?”
“On your entry exam, of course! No one scores one hundred percent on that questionnaire. It’s unheard of. Do you know what that means?”
Walter thought back to the lengthy list of questions Alton had given him in the Categorizing Office. Questions concerning his life. Ones about bumper stickers and meals he had ordered at fast food restaurants with his family. Questions about what he wore on picture day in the fourth grade. Pointless questions. Multiple-choice questions with no right answer to choose from. He had skimmed most of them and circled randomly without considering what they asked.
“Um…wow.” Walter scratched his head in confusion. “Does it mean I can stay?”
Darwin’s lower lip curled out and he snorted. “Stay? Can you stay?” He belly laughed and sat down on the edge of the desk. “My boy, you’re exactly what the Academy needs. Instinctual. Aggressive. A take-the-bull-by-the-horns type of Agent.”
The queasiness in Walter’s stomach vanished.
“But I’m not going to let you stay,” Darwin added, and Walter’s hopes plummeted.
“Why not?” How could earning a perfect score on the questionnaire get him kicked out of the Academy? Unless…“I didn’t cheat, if that’s what you mean! I just—”
“I know you didn’t cheat, son. No one can cheat on Alton’s exams. He personally observes and stamps each one to assure their authenticity. And to be honest, he’s the only one who really understands them.”
“Then why am I in trouble?”
“You’re not in any trouble.” Darwin interlocked his fingers and pressed them against his lips. “You are the future. A shining star. Someone destined for greatness. Walter, I am so pleased, so very, very pleased that you opted to join the Academy! It gives me hope.”
Walter grinned awkwardly. “So…I can stay?” He was getting confused.
Darwin reached out and placed his hands firmly on Walter’s shoulders. “On the contrary, you’ve already been assigned.” Darwin returned to his chair and scooted up to the desk.
Perhaps Walter ha
dn’t understood the meaning of the word “assigned.” He wanted to sit down, but the closest available chair rested in the corner next to a large potted fern. Instead, he leaned forward and gripped the edge of the desk for support. Darwin opened a drawer and pulled out a laminated card similar to the ones the Logan boys had shown Walter earlier.
“Here’s your HLT, though that’s what we call every one of them, no matter how minor or insignificant. High-Level. It’s standard. You’ll understand after a few days in the field. The particulars are listed on the reverse.” He flipped the card over and ran his index finger down the fine print.
Darwin might as well have been speaking in guinea pig.
“I’m going down?” The latter part of the sentence squeaked out of Walter’s trembling lips. Was this good news? Walter sniffed, then swallowed. It sounded like good news. Maybe he would see the Logan brothers. They could hang out. Have some fun. Until some demon ate him. It didn’t take a genius to understand the importance of training. “I think you’ve made a mistake. I don’t know what I’m doing. I need training!”
“You don’t need training. You’re a natural. The test proves it. Alton knows what he’s doing with those tests. He’s never been wrong before, and I don’t think he ever will be.”
Okay. Time to come clean.
“Look, I just made that stuff up. I didn’t even read the questions.” Typically in school, when a teacher praised him for performing exceptionally well on a test, a feat Walter rarely accomplished, he knew better than to tell the truth. Never tell them you made stuff up. But this felt different.
“Instinct,” Darwin whispered. “You used your instinct. You know, you remind me of me when I first joined the Academy. Oh, I tried to show humility when they told me about my near-perfect score. But deep down inside, in here”—Darwin pressed his fingers into his stomach—“I knew it to be true.”
“You got a perfect score on your exam too?”
“A near-perfect score. I only missed two. And, in three hundred years, no one else has even come close. Perhaps you and I are linked somehow.” Darwin paused, musing, then snapped back to business. “At any rate, these are dangerous times, Walter Prairie, and training would be a waste of valuable resources. Trust me, you’ll do wonderfully!” He slid the laminated card across the desk to Walter’s reluctant fingers.
Walter glanced over the card and stared at a bright-orange boy. Orange hair. Orange freckles. An annoyingly toothy smile.
“ ‘Charlie Dewdle,’ ” he read aloud. “Why’s he important?”
Darwin leaned forward and pointed to the information on the back of the card. “Age, closest relatives, likes, dislikes, sleep patterns, fears, et cetera.” Walter flipped the card over and perused the information. “Everything you need to know is on the card.”
“So what happens when I need to do some spell or something like that? How do I do it?” Walter asked.
“Here.” Darwin pressed something else into Walter’s hand. “This is a ready-reference pamphlet. It lists the basics every Afterlife Agent should know. Now Walter, listen to me closely. You’ve been selected for a covert assignment. Do you understand what that means?”
“Not a clue.”
Darwin’s eyes sparkled. “This is an observation mission. We don’t really know all the details of what’s going on. It’s up to you to investigate. It’s highly unlikely you’ll need any of this”—he tapped the pamphlet—“but if you do, follow your instincts.”
Walter took a deep breath. The poor guy really believed in him.
“Come. You may use my personal passageway.” Darwin held out a hand toward the door behind his desk.
Walter shrugged, took a last look at his sudden and enthusiastic mentor, and exited the room.
How would he know when his instinct was necessary? Would it just come naturally to him like the questionnaire? Well, maybe his first assignment would be nothing more than a babysitting job with the orange-headed goof.
That, he could handle.
Charlie had been flipping through the book for hours. He still couldn’t make any sense of it.
Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to Charlie, he had become quite popular among the creatures of the Underworld. His bedroom buzzed with excitement. Shades crowded around the mattress, scrambling over one another to steal a peek at the book. Others hovered shoulder to shoulder over his bed, snarling, gnashing, and groaning in anticipation.
“The Summoner’s Handbook!” one shade whispered.
“How can it be?” questioned another, flitting around near the ceiling of Charlie’s bedroom.
Had this boy really found it? If so, surely they would be rewarded for bringing it to their master. But they had to make sure it was indeed the book. Raising a false alarm would be a painful mistake.
“Could—” one shade started to say, hesitating as if not wanting to sound foolish in front of the others. “Could we make it work?”
A unified murmuring began among the growing number of shades. They had all heard stories of The Summoner’s Handbook, of course. But deciphering its codes, reading extensive, complex passages, opening gateways…those sorts of things didn’t exactly fit under their job descriptions. Shades were merely wanderers. Spies. Operating the book required a more qualified being.
Three more shades spiraled into the room. “The master has spoken!” they shouted together. “We must act immediately! We must call…her!”
The murmuring ceased, and Charlie’s room grew quiet. Forming a circle, the shades linked their arms, bowed their cloaked heads, and began to chant.
The temperature in the room plummeted.
Walter heard a slurping sound, as if a dentist were suctioning saliva out of his mouth. A force yanked his body through the door in Darwin’s office, and he plunged through a blindingly white column of light. Before he had time to scream, he was standing in a closet. There were shoe boxes on the floor and a hamper of dirty clothing next to him. Walter took a moment to control his breathing, and then peered through the slats in the closet door.
It looked like someone had hung about fifty graduation robes to dry on a clothesline. What were they doing hanging up in a bedroom? Then Walter realized that the robes were moving and had faces. Tall, ghastly creatures with red eyes, quivering mouths, and dark, bony fingers hovered in a circle around the room. All of them were focused on the redheaded boy shivering on the bed.
“Dude, get out of here!” Walter shouted at his HLT as he burst out of the closet.
Charlie didn’t acknowledge Walter, but the shades let out a collective squeal. Several floating closest to Walter swarmed nearer, zapping him with electric energy from their fingertips.
“That stings!” yelled Walter.
“Do not interfere!” one of the creatures hissed.
“Begone!” said another.
Walter quickly backed up into the closet and held up his hands to surrender. “Okay, take it easy.”
The creatures withdrew and rejoined the circle.
Frosted breath plumed from Charlie’s lips. He was wearing pajamas and appeared to be reading a book, completely unaware of the atrocity happening all around him.
Did this sort of thing happen all the time during the first day on the job? Walter poked his head slightly out of the closet. Maybe he would find another kid from the Academy surveying the crime scene. Maybe this was just a training session. Maybe Walter was in the wrong room.
But there was no one else. And no way for him to get back to Darwin’s office. Walter had forgotten to ask for one of those little white clips that would allow him to get back to the Academy. He was stuck. Walter pressed his hand against the wall. It passed right through. The sensation tingled in his fingertips. He didn’t mind it after a few moments, but he gaped openmouthed at his vanishing hand nonetheless.
“No way!” Could he also float and fly like those black robes in the bedroom? Concentrating on an image of himself drifting up toward the ceiling, Walter closed his eyes and tried to fly. Nothing happened
. Behind him, several of the creatures cackled, bringing him back into reality. He watched them swirling around Charlie. What was he supposed to do? There were so many of them, and their fingers hurt.
“I’ll go get help!” Walter whispered, even though Charlie couldn’t hear him. He strode forward and approached the rear of the closet. He’d entered from there. Maybe if he stepped back through that same wall, he’d end up in Darwin’s office. Walter closed his eyes and immediately started giggling. Passing through walls tickled in the worst sort of way.
When he stopped giggling, he had exited to the other side of the wall. But instead of seeing Darwin and that enormous lion statue, Walter found a little girl in pigtails standing in front of a bathroom mirror, brushing her teeth and gargling as she sang.
The girl spat into the sink, stuck out her tongue at her reflection, and said, “Die, sugar bugs, die!”
“Hey, little girl, where’s Darwin?” Walter asked.
The girl sucked her toothbrush dry and chomped her teeth together. She did not notice Walter.
Deciding to take a more drastic approach, Walter reached for the girl’s arm, but his hand passed effortlessly through her, as it had done with the wall.
“Mom!” the girl shouted at the bathroom door. “Charlie left his towel on the floor, and his dirty underwear, too!” From somewhere else in the house came a woman’s muffled response. Then the girl started slurping water from the running faucet.
Obviously, Walter was invisible to human beings, including little pigtailed girls.
Walter threw his hands in the air. “This is stupid! Darwin, can you hear me?”
Silence.
“Look, about that exam—I just made it all up!”
Nothing.
He ran back to Charlie’s bedroom. The chanting had grown to a thunderous level. The room, which had been overly crowded before, now swarmed with more dark spirits. Even though light poured from Charlie’s bedside lamp, Walter could hardly see his target in the midst of the swirling black masses. The boy had slumped over and was twitching and seizing in rhythm with their chanting. A large form started taking shape near the ceiling above Charlie’s bed. The object dwarfed the other spirits and became less distorted as the chanting grew louder. Tentacles stretched from what looked like a grotesque woman dressed all in black. Her hair stood on end as if electrified, and her bulbous white eyes protruded from their sockets.
The Afterlife Academy Page 3
