Fade

by Lisa McMann

  “I didn’t know,” he says. He lets his head fall back on the couch and takes a deep breath. Lets it out. “Do you still love me, Janie?”

  Janie stares at him, incredulous. “Yes, of course! I don’t say it lightly.”

  “Say it lightly in my ear,” he demands.

  She smiles, rests her soft cheek on his scratchy one, and whispers it. “I love you, Cabe.”

  They sit, holding each other. And then Cabel asks her, “Truth or dare?”

  Janie blinks. “Do I really have an option here?”

  “No,” Cabel says. “Okay, um . . . ” Takes a deep breath. “What’s happening to you, Janie? I just . . . I need to know. Please.” He shifts her, so he can see her eyes.

  They fill with tears.

  He straightens her glasses and takes a deep breath. “Tell me,” he says.

  Janie bites her lip. “Nothing, Cabe. I’m fine.” She can’t look at him.

  Cabel rips his fingers through his hair. “Just . . . just say it. Get it out there, so we can deal with it. You’re going blind from all the dreams, aren’t you.”

  Janie blinks. Her lips part in surprise.

  He touches her cheek, stroking it with his thumb.

  “What . . . how . . . ?” she begins.

  “You squint, even with your glasses on. You get headaches all the time. Bright light bothers you. It takes you longer to get your sight back after each dream you get sucked into.” He pauses. Anxious. “And then, in the hospital, when you weren’t sucked into anyone’s dream, but you were having your own nightmare, you couldn’t see when you woke up. That was the first time for that, wasn’t it?”

  She sinks back into his shoulder. Doesn’t remember that dream in the hospital. Also doesn’t want to cry anymore. “Damn,” she says. “You’re a good detective.”

  “How soon?” he whispers.

  She presses her lips to his cheek, and then she sighs. “A few years.”

  He takes in a sharp breath and slowly lets it out again. “Okay. What else, Janie.”

  She closes her eyes, resigned. “My hands,” she says. “They’ll be gnarled and ugly and useless in fifteen years.”

  He waits, stroking her back. “Anything else?” His voice is anxious.

  “Not really,” she whispers. “Just . . . I can’t drive anymore. Ever again.” She loses her fight with the tears. “Poor Ethel. At least she’s got a good home now.”

  He holds her, rocking, stroking her hair. “Janie,” he says after a while. “How old was Miss Stubin when she died?”

  “In her seventies.”

  He breathes a sigh. “Oh. Thank god.”

  “Can you deal with this, Cabel? Because if you can’t . . . ” She chokes. “If you can’t, tell me now.”

  He looks into her eyes.

  Touches her cheek.

  4:22 p.m.

  Cabel calls Captain.

  “Komisky.”

  “Sir, any chance Janie and I can be seen together now?”

  “Under the circumstances, that would pretty damn much make my day, yes. Besides, the Wilder cocaine case got settled on Monday. He pleaded guilty.”

  “You rock, sir.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. Go out to a movie or something, will you?”

  “Right away. Thank you.”

  “And stop bothering me.”

  “Good-bye, sir.”

  “Take care. Both of you.”

  Cabel smiles and hangs up. “Guess what.”

  “What,” Janie says.

  “We can go out on our first date.”

  “Woo hoo!”

  “And guess what else—You’re buying.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because you lost the bet.”

  Janie thinks a moment. Punches Cabel in the arm. “You did not fail five quizzes or tests!”

  “I did. I have proof.”

  “Shit!”

  “Yep.”

  DON’T LOOK BACK

  May 24, 2006, 7:06 p.m.

  Janie strides into the Fieldridge High School auditorium, where hundreds of parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters are seated in bleachers, folding chairs, and balcony seats, and waving programs near their soppy necks in ninety-five-degree heat and humidity. It seems the old building’s air-conditioning can’t take the pressure of another graduation ceremony.

  She glances around and spots Cabel several rows behind her. He blows an impish kiss, and she grins. Her cap’s band threatens to squeeze her brain into mush, and she feels the sweat soaking into it.

  Janie looks in the other direction, scanning the audience. Some familiar faces. Carrie’s parents sit off to the side on the wooden bleachers, and Janie offers a small smile, even though they aren’t looking at her.

  Even with her newly updated prescription glasses, it’s difficult to see far away. Colors bleed from one dress to the next. But finally Janie spots her. It’s the bronze hair contrasted with her dark skin that helps. Sitting next to Captain is a large man who looks like Denzel Washington, twenty years from now. His arm is spread lazily across the back of Captain’s chair. Janie can see Captain poke her husband and point. Janie squints and smiles, and then lowers her eyes. She’s not sure why.

  The valedictorian takes the stage, and the crowd quiets, leaving only the rush of flapping programs.

  It’s not Cabel.

  Thankfully.

  He managed to pull his grades down successfully to a mere 3.93. Third place. Enough to keep him out of the limelight. Which is all he wants, really. Janie’s not far behind with a 3.85. She’s thrilled.

  There are three faculty chairs empty in the auditorium this year. Doc, Happy, and Dumbass. Suspended without pay. Awaiting the hearing. Janie feels a pang of sadness for those chairs.

  Not for the men who sat there.

  Just so we’re clear.

  Even so.

  They are reminders of pain and embarrassment, horror wrapped up like a gift. Janie’s glad that box exploded.

  Up at the microphone, Stacey O’Grady begins speaking. She has a different air about her now. New, in the past few months. Reserved. Solemn. A maturity, perhaps, or a sense of understanding that not all things turn out the way you’d wish them to.

  Janie’s mother isn’t there.

  Neither is Cabel’s, but no one expected her. Although Cabel’s older brother, Charlie, and Charlie’s wife, Megan, are somewhere in the crowd.

  Expectations. It’s what they always talk about at these things. Making a difference in the future. Striving for excellence. Blah, blah, blah.

  Janie wipes a drop of sweat from her forehead. Looks around as Stacey says from the podium, “The best years are yet to come,” and Janie watches the room explode in applause.

  Janie doesn’t join them.

  The ominous words ring in her ears.

  The crowd of seniors stands and, one by one, over the course of an hour, their names are called. Janie steps carefully across the stage, prays that the little sleeping baby nearby doesn’t dream yet, and takes her diploma. Shakes hands with Abernethy. Moves her tassel over to the other side. Walks lightly down the stage stairs and back to her folding chair to wait.

  When the stage is silent and Principal Abernethy gives one last word of congratulations, the hats fly and the voices around Janie rise to fill the auditorium. Janie takes her hat off her head and tucks it under her arm, waiting, waiting. Waiting to be done. So she can say good-bye to this place, once and for all.

  When the madhouse clears, she’s still standing there. Only a few lingerers remain in the building that now feels like a rain forest after a downpour. She walks slowly down the aisle toward the exit steps, where she’ll meet Cabel and whoever else he’s schmoozing with. But for now, she is alone.

  The custodian comes by with a broom, and he smiles at her. Janie nods and smiles in return, and he begins sweeping the wood-floored aisles that most often serve as a basketball court. And then the lights fade a bit.

  Janie blinks and leans against the wa
ll, just in case.

  But it’s no one’s dream.

  It’s just the end of some things.

  And the beginning of others.

  The end is near:

  GONE

  Static and shockingly bright colors. Janie nearly crumples to her knees, but this time she is more prepared. She steps blindly toward the bed and Cabel helps her safely to the floor as her head pounds with noise. It’s more intense than ever.

  Just when Janie thinks her eardrums are going to burst, the static dulls and the scene flickers to a woman in the dark once again. It’s the same woman as the day before, Janie’s certain, though she can’t make out any distinguishing features. And then Janie sees that the man is there too. He’s in the shadows, sitting on a chair, watching the woman. He turns, looks at Janie, and blinks. His eyes widen and he sits up straighter in his chair. “Help me!” he pleads.

  And then, like a broken filmstrip, the picture cuts out and the static is back, louder than ever, constant screamo in her ears. Janie struggles, head pounding. Tries pulling out of the dream, but she can’t focus—the static is messing up her ability to concentrate.

  She’s flopping around on the floor now. Straining.

  Thinks Cabel is there, holding her, but she can’t feel anything now.

  The bright colors slam into her eyes, into her brain, into her body. The static is like pinpricks in every pore of her skin.

  She’s trapped.

  Trapped in the nightmare of a man who can’t wake up.

  Janie struggles again, feeling like she’s suffocating now. Feeling like if she doesn’t get out of this mess, she might die here. Cabe! she screams in her head. Get me out of here!

  But of course he can’t hear her.

  BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

  Lisa McMann presents

  Janie—the way Cabel sees her . . .

  October 14, 2005, 10:05 a.m.

  “Good luck,” he says, his voice harsh. Cabel Strumheller shoves his way past classmates and off the bus, and enters the hotel in Stratford, Canada. Fuming. Still shaking a little. Eyes to the ground, not wanting to accidentally look at her, see if she’s coming.

  He goes straight to his room and flops on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Three other guys let themselves in. They rummage around the room for a few minutes, but Cabe barely looks at them, barely acknowledges their presence. They don’t talk to him, either. What else is new?

  Once his weekend roommates are gone, off to see the first play, Cabel rolls over on the hotel bed to think about things.

  About Janie Hannagan, and what exactly happened on the bus for the past four hours.

  About what the hell is wrong with her, and how she managed to get inside his dream.

  He slams his fist in the pillow. Can’t get the nightmare to stop.

  Cabel stands on the steps at the back door of his house, hand on the knob of the open door, looking in. Then he slams it shut and marches through the dry, yellow grass. His dad bursts out the door after him, yelling, standing on the step, carrying a beer and a cigarette in one hand, a can of lighter fluid in the other. His dad screams at him, and Cabel turns, frightened of the towering man. He freezes as his father approaches. The man sprays Cabe’s clothes with the lighter fluid.

  Sets Cabe on fire.

  Cabel flops around on the ground in flames, screaming, pain searing through him, the fire blistering his skin. And then, with a furious roar, he transforms into an enormous monster with knives for fingers and he lunges for his father with only one goal in mind.

  Killing him.

  That’s how it starts—the nightmare Cabe has had for years. That, or some form of it. It changes a bit each time. Cabel can’t imagine a worse nightmare.

  But that’s not even the part that’s bothering him. Not now. He’s packed away all those emotions, thank you very much. That nightmare he can handle.

  But what happened on the bus? That was just crazy. Because this time, asleep sitting next to Janie, he actually watched himself have the nightmare. As if he were an onlooker to someone else’s dream.

  And Janie was there, too, behind the shed in the backyard with Cabel.

  Watching.

  Watching Cabel’s dream play out as if they were right there, in it.

  And then afterward, when he woke up, seeing the shock in her face too—it was like a confession, and she didn’t try to deny it.

  He knows her. Knows where she lives. Casually, not weird like a stalker or anything. They’d ridden the bus together since middle school, back when Cabe was a grade ahead of her. Back before his dad messed up Cabe’s life.

  But Cabe doesn’t want to think about that now. Doesn’t want to think about his dad ever again. He’s done with that. Done with him.

  Still, the nightmare he had on the bus is fresh. He didn’t think he was still having that one. But now he knows he has been.

  And he’s not the only one who knows that.

  The monster man roars and runs away from the house, back toward the shed. There’s a girl back there. Janie. The girl he always dreams about.

  The monster man growls. He sees her.

  She squeaks and closes her eyes, her back pressed up against the shed, as if she’s trying to melt into the siding.

  And then the monster transforms, back into Cabel. He looks at the girl, so sorry, so very sorry for scaring her. Wanting her to see him like nobody else ever does. The guy that nobody really knows. When she opens her eyes and sees him, she steps toward him.

  He touches her face.

  Leans in.

  Kisses her.

  She kisses him back.

  “Ugh,” he says, remembering how the nightmare ends. Squeezes his eyes shut, trying to figure it out. Trying to understand how Janie Hannagan managed to see all of that.

  “She’s a freak,” he says slowly. “Psychotic. What if she’s an alien?” Cabe shakes his head. He’s seen enough weird stuff to know that weird stuff really happens. Not much surprises him anymore. And after what just happened, thinking Janie might be an alien or at the very least, psychic, isn’t much of a stretch. Is she dangerous, though? He thinks she might be.

  He feels the paranoia coming, lets it wash over him. Was she spying on him? How long has she known that he dreams about such awful things? And that he dreams about her? It’s embarrassing. And now, quite possibly, after four hours riding together in the freaking middle of the night, she knows the dreams and nightmares of half the people on that bus.

  But why are they oblivious when he’s not? Why aren’t they confronting her?

  Is he just imagining this?

  He can’t figure it out.

  He saw her on that bus. For hours, on and off, she shook. Out of control, like a multitude of seizures. She’d begged him to keep quiet about it after the first episode, made him promise her he wouldn’t get help, wouldn’t tell a soul, no matter how many more times it happened. He saw how she was too weak to get food when they stopped at McDonald’s. Watched her helplessly. She looked terrible. Would anybody subject herself to that on purpose?

  But she got inside his psyche, where nobody else could ever go. Where he doesn’t want anybody to go. And it’s scary. What is she?

  He hasn’t felt this vulnerable in a long time.

  Cabel shakes his head.

  He thinks about the first time she noticed him at the neighborhood bus stop on the first day of junior year. It was funny then—they’d ridden the same bus for a few years, but he’d never seen her even glance his way.

  He’d heard what Carrie Brandt had said to Janie back then while they waited for the bus to come. Lookie, it’s your boyfriend. And Carrie laughed. God, that was embarrassing. Janie shushed Carrie, but then she started laughing too.

  Cabe sat behind them on the bus to school that day. Pretended to sleep so he could overhear. In case they were going to make fun of him even more.

  But they didn’t.

  Not Janie. Not ever again.

  He caught Janie’s eye once or
twice after that, and she didn’t look away in disgust or anything. But they didn’t speak.

  When the homecoming dance approached, Cabe thought fleetingly about asking her. Ha. Yeah, right. No way she’d go with him. He was a total loser. The only group that accepted him was the Goths. And they take anyone.

  He almost didn’t even go to the dance, but the guys were going to hang out, so what the hell, right? He never even went inside the gym. He just loitered outside the back door with the guys, smoking, and thinking about how he should quit now that he was getting his life figured out. And wondering if Janie was inside.

  When the door flew open, nobody saw it coming. The doorknob gutted him before his foot could stop it. Took his breath away for a minute. Searing pain. He doubled over. His friends laughed. Why not? It was funny for them, he supposed.

  But his eyes stayed on her as she flew out of there as if on a mission in the dark, cool evening, heading down the same street Cabe had walked dozens of times a year, every time he missed the bus.

  She wobbled on high heels like she’d never worn them before. It was a long walk home, and not very pleasant—it was getting cold and the farther away from school, the worse the neighborhood got. Once Cabe got his breath back, he eyed his skateboard. Maybe now was his chance. He adjusted his beanie, shoved his bangs up under it a little so he could see. Lit another cigarette and smoked it slowly, his fingers shaking just a little.

  “You going after her?” one of the guys, Jake, asked him.

  “Maybe,” Cabe said coolly. He took another drag and let it out slowly, then crushed the butt with his shoe and grabbed his board. “Yeah.”

  “I’m coming,” another guy said. “Curfew.”

  “Me too,” said another.

  Cabe took a breath and frowned in the dark. “Whatever.”

  Before he could change his mind, he tucked his board under his arm and they set out.

  It took several minutes to catch up to her on foot, and for a short time he thought he’d lost her. She’d abandoned the high heels by now, but the neighborhood was deteriorating rapidly as they moved toward the crappy side of town, where both Cabel and Janie lived.