The Felix Chronicles: Freshmen

by R. T. Lowe

  He passed along the wall of sepia-toned photos, randomly glancing at them. He normally avoided the pictures because the eyes skeeved him out. But he was too elated for anything to darken his mood, even pictures of kids who were now worm food. Just before the coffee bar, something in one of the photos jumped out at him, pulling him back like he’d been lassoed. He stopped and searched for it among the hundreds of photos jostling for space; all were black-and-whites, even the handful taken in the last few years. He found it three photos over from the end of the bar: A five-by-seven in a simple black frame.

  He leaned in close, leading with his nose, studying every detail. In the picture, three women were standing side by side with a stone building in the background. Above their heads, he could read the words INVERNESS HALL—the words that had caught his eye. The women wore dark ankle-length dresses and their hair was pulled back in tight face-stretching buns. They looked like they’d just gotten off the Mayflower. Then he noticed their faces and his jaw dropped.

  Felix knew the woman in the center. He’d met her. It was the St. Rose Ghost.

  “You look like you just saw a ghost.” A girl’s voice at his side.

  “Huh?” Felix flicked a sideways glance at her. She was one of the students who worked behind the bar. He’d ordered a few hundred coffees from her since the start of school but their conversations hadn’t evolved past “thanks” and “you’re welcome.” She wore glasses—the black-rimmed kind that make you look a little naughty—and not that he’d given it much thought, but she was friendly, and there was something about her face that was guileless and likeable. He didn’t know her name, and at the moment, he was too stunned to think about asking.

  “That’s the founder’s photo.” She nodded at the picture. “That’s what you’re looking at, right? It’s not really a photo, you know. It’s actually a print of a painting from around 1820. The real one’s in color and it’s in Dean Borakslovic’s office behind glass. Photography hadn’t been invented yet.”

  “The founder’s photo?” he said hesitantly, staring at the face of the woman—the ghost—he’d met at the Star Trees. There was no question in his mind, not a single shred of doubt, that it was her. His skin was crawling almost as much as when she’d looked at him with her strangely iridescent eyes.

  “Uh-huh. This is the only known picture of the three founders of Portland College. It’s kind of famous in its own way, I suppose. None of them ever sat for official portraits or anything like that. The one on the left is Lucinda Stowe”—she pointed at her—“the one on the right is Constance Wethersby, and in the center’s—”

  “Agatha.”

  “Yeah.” She sounded impressed. “Very good. How’d you know that?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “Agatha Pierre-Croix was the first president of PC and she was best friends with Constance and Lucinda. They weren’t originally from around here. They were all east coasters who met at Harvard. No one really knows why they came to Oregon or why they decided to start a college in Portland. I only know so much about them because we have to learn the history of PC to be in my sorority.”

  “Oh.” Now he had absolute proof, absolute certainty, that he’d seen a ghost. Not that he’d ever really doubted it. And now that he knew for sure, and even though it was a little freaky, it was sort of a relief: confirmation he hadn’t been imagining things. Confirmation he wasn’t crazy.

  “Do you wanna know something really weird?” she whispered, looking over at the bar to make sure there weren’t any customers in line.

  Felix shrugged. It couldn’t possibly be any weirder than what Agatha Pierre-Croix was doing these days.

  “They all died in eighteen twenty—”

  “Nine,” he finished the sentence for her. When he was down in the tunnels standing in front of their coffins, he remembered thinking how strange it was that they’d all died in the same year.

  “Yeah,” she said, surprised. Then she nodded solemnly. “But I bet you don’t know how they died?”

  He shook his head and glanced at the back of the bistro. Harper was still talking on her phone, laughing about something. The kid with the organic chemistry text had changed tables, taking a chair closer to Harper but behind her where she couldn’t see him.

  The girl moved in closer to Felix, her shoulder touching his arm. They stared at the photo together like it held some kind of mystical power. “Well,” she said in a soft whisper, “officially they died in a gas leak at the chapel. You know—the church on campus? St. Rose. Them and four other people. If you buy any books on the history of this place, they’ll say seven people, including the founders, died from carbon monoxide poisoning. But that’s not what really happened.”

  “So what happened?”

  “They were witches.”

  “What?”

  She nodded. “That’s the story, anyway. Our own Portland College was founded by three witches. Can you believe it? And they ran a coven right here on campus and held meetings at St. Rose in some secret room. There’s supposed to be secret rooms all over campus, but no one I know has ever found one. And a friend of mine spends all her free time hunting. I look too. When I have time. Anyway, one night in 1829, a group of religious fanatics stormed the church during a meeting of the coven and killed them all. But they didn’t just kill them. They cut out their hearts.”

  “Cut out their hearts?” Felix’s eyes started to water as an image of a dark-haired man preparing to drive a curved blade into his chest gripped his mind. There was only one group he knew of that made a habit of cutting out hearts.

  “Uh-huh. Cut the hearts right out and took ‘em with them. Sounds just like a horror movie, right? Can you imagine what people would’ve thought if they knew the school was founded by witches who had their hearts removed by religious nutjobs? That sounds like satanic rituals and other weirdness, right? So of course the school couldn’t let anyone know what really happened to the founders. So it was all covered up. Lots of things get covered up here.”

  “How do you know all this?” he asked.

  “It’s just the truth. I mean, I guess it’s not exactly common knowledge. But it’s the truth. There are so many stories about this place. Maybe not all of them are true. But this one is. One thing about our lovely little campus, there’s more to it than meets the eye.”

  “Yeah.” She was right about that.

  “You’re Felix, right?” Her eyes turned up to his.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m Sophia. I watched you play football. You’re good. Nice to officially meet you. You’re friends with Minnesota, aren’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “You guys are like our best customers.” Sophia looked over at the line, now four deep. The only other person working behind the bar was frowning at her with a hateful stare. “I better start dispensing caffeine,” she grumbled. “Kaleb’s gonna blow a gasket. See ya.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for the history lesson.”

  “No problem,” Sophia said over her shoulder as she went to resume her barista duties.

  Felix’s cell phone beeped. He took one last lingering glance at the face of Agatha Pierre-Croix before dragging it from his pocket. He looked down at the screen.

  It was a text from Lucas. It said: “in trouble. 11-11 17th st. hurry.”

  Chapter 46

  Traps and Bricks

  Felix stared at the text from Lucas. 11-11 17th Street was right in the heart of no-man’s-land. He headed west, staying off the paths, skirting the crowds.

  He texted back: “nml? joke?”

  Lucas’s next text came just a second later, like he’d set his phone to auto-reply: “yes-nml. no joke. serious trouble. hurry. pls.”

  Felix picked up his pace.

  He called Lucas’s number. It went straight to voicemail: “This is Lucas. Leave a message after the beep. Beeeep.”

  Lucas was a funny guy, but he wasn’t into practical jokes; it wasn’t his thing. Felix hadn’t seen Lucas since last night. Neit
her had Harper.

  He started running.

  17th Street was exactly as he’d pictured it. Most of the houses on the block were boarded up, and the few that weren’t should have been. Two lots had been bulldozed, but city hall must have forgotten to tell anyone to clear away the debris. The street was deserted. He hadn’t seen anyone since 14th. Not a bad thing considering the quality of the characters that voluntarily frequented this part of town. There was only one car parked on the block—a wood-paneled station wagon with no hubcaps. Probably stolen. Taken for a joyride and then dumped here, a wasteland the Portland PD had given up on years ago. The sky had suddenly gone gray, hanging low and stagnant as if the shroud of chemical contamination hovering over no-man’s-land like a dense and poisonous fog was drawing the gathering clouds to it.

  He rested for a second, hands on knees, chest heaving, getting his wind back. He hopped off the dangerously neglected sidewalk, his feet crunching over broken glass as he crossed the street. The house with the address of 11-11 17th Street was a single-story ranch that looked like its occupants had fled in the dark of night before the cops, bounty hunters or rival gangs could capture or kill them. The house was a lurid shade of orange, but so much paint had peeled away that an older color, the color beneath it—blue—was now more prominent. There were three windows in front. All boarded up. The storm door had fallen off and was propped up against the main door at a forty-five degree angle like it was holding it up (or keeping something from getting out). The low-sloped roof was falling in on itself; the roofing material had been installed from long rolls cut into strips and then glued down. Some strips were missing, presumably blown away. The rest had lost their grip, curling up at the seams, bunching, rolling and sliding off the edges, dangling like dreadlocks. The gutters had pulled away from the frame, frozen in freefall stasis, dipping close to the tall foliage on the ground. Patches of brownish-green moss clung to large swaths of the exterior, and like Martha’s house—which was right around the corner—the little lawn next to the front walkway was a jungle of weeds and garbage. The chain link fence—matted with trash and battered and sagging like a car had driven over it—must have enclosed the back yard at one time, but not any more. In places it was lying flat and covered over entirely with weeds snaking their way through the metal coils, thriving like adaptable fish making use of a sunken ship as though it were a coral reef.

  Felix had two choices: do nothing and go back to campus, or have a look inside. Not a dizzying array of options, but not knowing Lucas’s whereabouts confounded his decision. If Lucas was in the house, he was definitely in trouble. He was certain of that. But what if Felix went charging in and Lucas wasn’t there? Or what if instead of finding Lucas, he found the Protectors lying in wait with their garrotes and knives? They’d laid a trap for him in no-man’s-land once before. Maybe they were unimaginative one-trick ponies trying the same hand again? But he had the texts from Lucas. So he must be in the house. Right? But maybe somebody had stolen his phone. Maybe it was just Lucas’s phone in there. Not Lucas. So then who was using it? Maybe some tweeker took it. Maybe there were a hundred squatting meth heads inside who wouldn’t react very well if he crashed their meth party. Maybe—but not likely. The Protectors—the trap setters—were the obvious odds-on favorite. But even if it was a trap it wouldn’t change the fact that the Protectors were using Lucas as bait. Which meant his life was in grave danger. Which meant Felix couldn’t go back to campus. Not until he had a look inside. Doing nothing didn’t seem like such a viable option anymore.

  So Felix went up to the front door, moved the storm door aside and started thumping on it. “Lucas! Lucas! Are you in there! Hey! Open up!” He pounded feverishly on the door. “Lucas!” He raised his arm back behind his head and brought his fist down as hard as he could.

  The door suddenly swung open and Felix’s hand found nothing but air.

  He lurched forward, losing his balance, his arm still out in front of his body. A shape appeared. It wasn’t silhouetted in the doorway. It filled the doorway. Something gripped Felix’s outstretched arm and the back of his head. Something incredibly strong. His own forward momentum caused him to stumble over the doorjamb, carrying him a step inside the house. Then whatever had hold of him yanked him in the rest of the way and flung him to the floor. He barrel-rolled two or three times then crashed against a hard vertical surface, face down, head jammed up against one wall, legs bent by another, knees tucked into his chest. The door slammed shut behind him. He scrambled to his hands and knees, brought one foot out from under him and pushed off with his—

  Felix was snatched off the floor like a cat by its scruff. The entry hall was cramped and dim. He couldn’t see anyone. He tried to turn his head, and a sudden biting pressure on his throat cut the movement short. Reaching behind his head, he grasped for whatever was crushing his neck. He felt something. But it didn’t make any sense. It felt like fingers. A hand? But that was impossible. It was too big. A hand couldn’t simultaneously hold him up in the air by the back of his neck and crush his windpipe in the front. No hand was that big. Or that strong. It was a machine, he thought vaguely, overcome by confusion. He was caught in the clutches of some kind of hydraulic machine.

  Whatever had hold of him shook him like a lion trying to snap the neck of a gazelle. He felt himself being wrenched backward, his head brushing and bumping against the ceiling. He stopped abruptly, his feet dangling a foot above the floor. Then it propelled him toward the wall face-first. He didn’t have time to cover up. He felt something give way—the plaster?—as his face smashed against the wall. He heard a loud cracking sound. But it wasn’t the wall that gave way and cracked; it was the bones and cartilage in his nose. He felt hot liquid pouring out of his nostrils.

  Disoriented, his eyes were thrown out of focus, clouding and haloing at the edges. As it pulled him away from the wall, he caught a glimpse of blood—a swirly smear of dark red on primer gray—and then it tossed him through the air like a child’s toy. He sailed down a narrow hallway, the walls blurring by, bounced on the floor and skidded into a table. One of the legs snapped off and the tabletop fell on him. He pushed it away and scrabbled around on the slippery tile, finally getting to his feet. He looked up.

  Something was standing in front of him. It wasn’t a machine. It was a man. But not just any man. He was two heads taller than Felix and twice as wide. His twisted and contorted face was a Cubist nightmare, like the subject of one of Picasso’s stranger paintings. His mouth was set halfway between a ghoulish smile and a snarl, his teeth gold and polished and shaped like spikes. His nose was missing a nostril; what remained was an amorphous glob of flesh. One ear was gone. The other was hard and balled up like a chunk of dried cauliflower.

  Felix felt his mouth working silently, trying to articulate words that his brain wasn’t capable of formulating. He took a numb, clumsy step backward, but there was nowhere to go. His back was brushing up against a wall. He had a hard time believing, really believing, what was happening, what he was seeing. How could he be standing in an abandoned house in no-man’s-land looking at the Faceman? The Faceman. The last person in the world he expected to see. His brain started spewing up random disconnected images of the Faceman that he’d seen on TV and the Internet, comparing them to the giant towering over him. Then it occurred to him that this situation was really, really bad; he’d come here to find Lucas, and instead, he found the Faceman. A hundred meth addicts, or even the Protectors, would have been preferable to this.

  “I assume you know who I am?” the Faceman said conversationally. The veins in his rippling forearms were as thick as ropes. “I apologize for my lack of hospitality. But I’ve found with athletic types it’s best I set a certain tone. I think it prevents, shall we say, misunderstandings.”

  Felix used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe the blood from his face. The air was cool with an undercurrent of something nasty. Maybe garbage. Maybe something else. Something much worse. They were in the kitchen in the rear of the house
. The light was dull and artificially yellow, dreary but adequate. A tiny sane part of him told him to be quiet. To do as he was told. He ignored it.

  “Where’s Lucas?” Felix shouted, standing up straight.

  “Ahhh, so you’re a feisty one, eh? That’s good. But we’ll need to establish some ground rules if we’re going to get along.”

  “Where’s Lucas?” Beads of blood shot from Felix’s mouth, spattering the checkered linoleum floor.

  The Faceman frowned but only one side of his mouth turned down. The other was fixed in a perpetual rebel yell. He reached behind his waist and came away with a silver handgun. He wheeled it around and pointed it at Felix’s face. It shimmered beneath the fluorescent tube lights on the ceiling. The Faceman stood at the entrance to the hallway just inside the kitchen, but with his arm extended, the tip of the muzzle was close enough for Felix to sniff if he leaned forward on his toes. The Faceman’s wingspan was tremendous. He could easily dunk without jumping.