When Comes the Stroke of Midnight

by Madeline Walz

  “Yeah,” said Aidan. “I’m no runner, but I’m pretty sure you just impressed the coaches big time. I’ve never seen you go so fast!”

  “I think they were pretty impressed,” Zaivyer said. “I just broke all of my personal records.”

  “All of them?” asked Grayson.

  “Yes, all of them. It’s because of this,” and he tapped his metal plate. “It was warmer while I was running, throwing, jumping, all of it.”

  “You’ve got to be wiped out after all that,” said Aidan.

  “No, not really. I didn’t feel tired until after the 1600, and that was only for about thirty seconds.”

  “That’s like the mile, right?” asked Asher.

  “Basically.”

  “So, you’re saying you ran a mile after doing a bunch of other runs, and you only felt tired for thirty seconds?” asked Grayson in disbelief.

  “Yeah.”

  “So how far did you run today? You know, if you add up all the distances?” asked Asher.

  Zaivyer did the math in his head. “A few miles, probably. I’m not sure.”

  “A few miles?” said Grayson. “You ran a few miles and didn’t get tired?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow. Well, hurry up and get changed, Ubermensch. We have to turn in our haunted house room request and the school office closes in an hour.”

  “Uber-what?”

  “Ubermensch.” Grayson grinned. “Nietzsche’s word for a superhuman.”

  “Hilarious.” Zaivyer started walking towards the locker room. “Nietzsche can keep that one.”

  ***

  “So how was track?” Joanna asked as Zaivyer walked in the door.

  “Good.”

  “That’s it? Good?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How about more details? Such as what’s been going on with you the past few days?”

  “What do you mean?” He thought he’d done a good job hiding what had happened.

  “You and your friends have been all excited about something ever since your birthday party, and you keep touching your plate.”

  Should I tell her? Zaivyer thought. What the heck. Why not? I have to tell her eventually.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you, but I don’t know where to start.”

  “Wherever you want.”

  “Okay. Um, you know how the doctors said my metal plate doesn’t do anything? Well, it does now.”

  “Wait, what?” Joanna said, eyes widening. “What does it do?”

  “Lots of things. Touch it.”

  Joanna put her fingers on the metal plate. “It’s warm. And vibrating. How long has it been doing that?”

  “Since midnight the night of the sleepover.” He told his mom what had happened and all the things he’d discovered since then.

  She didn’t seem to believe him until he demonstrated his ability to shapeshift.

  Joanna grabbed the back of the nearest chair and slowly sat down. “This is what he meant,” she murmured.

  “What who meant?” Zaivyer asked, confused.

  “Your father. He left a note with the ring.”

  “I know, but you never told me what it said.”

  “It said... hang on. I’ll go get it.”

  She went down the hall to her room and came back a moment later with a small, worn piece of paper.

  “I’ve kept it all these years because I didn’t know what he meant,” she said, passing it to Zaivyer.

  Zaivyer looked at the note curiously. He’d heard about it for years, but this was the first time he’d seen what it said.

  Thank you for your kindness.

  He will be extraordinary.

  Zaivyer Partivan

  He had to reread the note several times before he realized what it meant.

  “My father... knew what would happen to me?”

  “It certainly seems that way.”

  “But... how? How could he know?”

  “I don’t know. Everything I know about your father is what I’ve told you. Maybe he had the same abilities. I’ve wondered what he meant for thirteen years, and now that I know we’ll both be wondering how he knew.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, what now? Who else have you told about this?”

  “Just Grayson, Aidan, Asher, and now you. My SDG group thinks I do impressions, and Coach Jameson and Coach Julie think I’m a star runner who stayed under the radar in middle school. Oh, and my friends and I are going to do a room in the haunted house. We turned in our room request form today and now we’re waiting to find out if we’ll get a room.”

  “Really. When you get a room, what are you going to do?”

  “Something awesome. Let’s just say we’re going to mess with some heads.”

  “Well, it sounds interesting. I hope you get a room. Now, don’t you have homework?”

  Part II

  September 27, 2049, 4:47 pm

  From: hhlead@clubs.dhs.edu

  To: zaivyerverling@student.dhs.edu; graysonsmith@student.dhs.edu; asherrowe@student.dhs.edu; aidanjames@student.dhs.edu; kellymitchell@student.dhs.edu; michaeljones@student.dhs.edu; more

  Cc: mitchellsunner@dhs.edu; david.wright@email.com; jackson_thomas@email.com

  Subject: haunted house room assignments

  Hello everyone,

  We have reviewed all the room requests. If you received this email, we have assigned you to a room. We tried to accommodate all of your location requests, and we apologize if your room is not where you had hoped. Room assignments and the workday schedule are attached. Feel free to email us if you have any questions.

  Mitchell Sunner, David Wright, and Thomas Jackson

  DHS haunted house coordinators

  Roomassignments2049.pdf

  Schedule2049.pdf

  ***

  4:57 pm

  “Did you see the email? We got a room!”

  Zaivyer was on the phone with Grayson, Asher, and Aidan.

  “Yeah!” exclaimed Asher.

  “And it’s the one we wanted too!” said Aidan.

  “Second-last room of the house!” said Grayson. The last room was a maze and wouldn’t work for their plan.

  “Okay, so what do we have to do now?” asked Aidan.

  “Not much. I think it’s mostly just setting up the lights and putting black cloth on the walls, and that might be almost done already.”

  “Yeah, but the divider things we want won’t be up,” said Asher. “We need to figure out how to do that ourselves.”

  “And we need to practice. We should make sure we have privacy for that.”

  “Definitely. We don’t want to give it away too soon,” said Zaivyer.

  ***

  October 22, 2049, 7:08 pm

  The DHS annual haunted house fundraiser was held in an old house on the high school’s property. It had been built over 250 years earlier as a family home. Over the years it had been a war hospital, a college fraternity house, an asylum, and a convent which had added a hallway to one side of the house. The building was no longer fit to be lived in, but it was still maintained and used by the school for storage and the haunted house.

  When school staff first explored the house decades ago, they found that it still had much of its original beauty: wood trim, intricately carved pocket doors, and old tiled fireplaces. They also found signs of the house’s strange, complicated history, such as a barber’s chair with restraints in a closet and a bomb shelter in the basement.

  Stories and rumors had sprung up over the years. People said the house was haunted. There were reports of strange occurrences, especially on the third floor. Some students preparing for the haunted house had gotten stuck in their rooms, even though the doors didn’t lock. Others had heard voices coming from the radio when testing the sounds and music for their room—voices that weren’t part of the audio track. Few students requested a room on the third floor, and no one liked being up there alone.

  Zaivyer, Aidan, Asher, and Grayson were in the second-last room of the
tour, right before the maze that took up most of the large entrance hall.

  The walls and ceiling were draped in black cloth, which was stapled into the drywall. They had hung sections of black cloth from the ceiling around the room, making it hard to see to the opposite wall no matter where one stood. A few small fans, hidden against the walls and turned on low, caused the hanging cloths to blow and flutter, further disrupting sightlines. On the floor in the center of the room were two large circles made with glow-in-the-dark tape, one inside the other.

  The three-and-a-half weeks of preparation had passed quickly. Students had put together their rooms and routines, parents had decorated the outside of the house, and student tour guides had gone over their roles.

  Now it was opening night. Family friendly hour, when the rooms were toned down for little kids, was over and the first “full scare” group was almost through the house. Zaivyer heard them coming down the stairs and notified his friends. They took their places. The lights were turned off, and the music started.

  The door opened, and a tour guide led a group in, heading for the space between the two glowing circles. A second tour guide closed the door after them. At the moment, the circles were the only light in the room, and the hanging cloths were not visible in the blackness. Several people gave little screams as the fluttering cloths brushed against them.

  “Gather ‘round here,” the first guide said. “In the large circle.”

  The group gathered in the outer circle as Grayson, hidden behind a wall of fabric, made the lights flicker, sometimes black, sometimes red, revealing Asher in the center circle. Asher, dressed in a ragged outfit, was huddled on the floor, clutching his head, rocking, and muttering, “No, no, no, no, no. He can’t. He can’t. No, no, no.” A few people edged away from him, looking nervous.

  Aidan, hidden like Grayson, made strange sounds come from speakers hidden in the shadows: shuffling, snuffling, and unidentifiable animal sounds, along with indistinct whispers and maniacal laughter. The people in the group looked around warily, jumping at every noise and trying to watch both Asher and the surrounding shadows.

  As soon as everyone had entered the circle, Zaivyer, dressed in white, started pacing in circles around the room, gradually getting closer to the people in the center. As he walked, he shifted, making a change every few seconds so he would be harder to see clearly. It had been disconcerting at first to feel the ripple almost constantly, but after weeks of practice, he had become used to it.

  As he reached the circle, he began whispering about darkness and danger, hinting at what “the thing in the dark”—Zaivyer’s character—wanted to do. He noticed Scott Carson and Michelle Harley from SDG in the tour group and addressed them by name, causing them to start in surprise and look around, trying to identify him.

  Meanwhile, Asher’s muttering had been getting louder, his rocking faster. Suddenly he stood up and shouted, “Please, no! Take me now or take one of these and let me go! Just stop the agony!”

  His sudden yell made most of the group scream and whirl around to look at him, but then continue looking around as they glimpsed Zaivyer outside the circle.

  “Okay, everyone!” the second tour guide called. “Let’s get out of here before his jailer takes someone! This way!” He led the group towards the dull red light of the maze doorway.

  Zaivyer, Aidan, Asher, and Grayson waited until Zaivyer heard the group leaving the house before they gathered near Grayson’s hidden wall to celebrate a successful first tour. It had been a lot of fun—for them, at least. Maybe not as much for the tour group.

  The second group came a few minutes later, and Zaivyer and his friends hurried back to their places.

  This time it was Asher who recognized someone. He slightly changed his shout, asking “the thing in the dark” to take Mary and let him go. Mary flinched and looked at Asher, trying to figure out who he was, but Mary and Asher didn’t actually know each other. Asher had passed her in the hallway at school several times and had overheard her name as she was talking with her friends.

  The night continued a lot like this. Sometimes the tour guides would whisper a name or two on their way in, and Zaivyer would address that person. It almost always resulted in surprise from the person, sometimes a scream. A few people even decided they didn’t want to continue and were led out of the house early by one of the tour guides.

  In many groups, there was someone who was clearly terrified but either wanted to finish or was being forced to finish by friends. When Zaivyer or Asher had that person’s name, they used it and got a bigger reaction than usual. If not, when Asher stood up and shouted to “the thing in the dark,” he pointed to that person and asked for him to be taken instead. It would invariably result in the person in question pleading with Asher and the unknown jailer to be spared.

  ***

  10:45 pm

  The last tour group had exited the house, and the tour guides and “scarers”—the students working the rooms and wandering the hallways—had gathered by the convent entrance for end-of-night announcements from the house leaders.

  “Great job, everyone,” said Mr. Wright. “We haven’t finished counting yet, but I’m pretty sure we made around $6000 tonight. Keep up the good work, and we’ll have a lot more to donate by next weekend.”

  “There isn’t any Family Friendly tomorrow night,” Mr. Jackson said, “so make sure you’re here by 6:30, and ready to go by 6:45. We’ll be sending in the first group right at 7:00.”

  “Go home, get some sleep, and rest your voice if you did a lot of screaming,” added Mr. Sunner. “The Journal is going through sometime tomorrow for their article, and I’m filming a few of the tours. If you all do half as good as you did tonight, they’ll have plenty of good things to write about.”

  A few minutes later, Zaivyer, Asher, Aidan, and Grayson were crossing the parking lot to meet their parents and go home.

  “That was awesome!” said Zaivyer. “Did you see the guy in that last group? Every time a cloth touched him he started turning in circles and swatting!”

  “I know!” exclaimed Asher. “He was doing it as he came into the circle. I had to pretend to sob because I was having trouble holding in my laughter!”

  “And Coach Julie came through,” said Zaivyer. “I stopped right in front of her, looking and sounding like myself, and talked to her, and she didn’t recognize me! I’m going to have fun at practice on Monday.”

  They kept trading stories until they reached their parents’ cars, then reluctantly said goodbye. There would be plenty of time to talk tomorrow.

  ***

  October 23, 2049, 10:21 pm

  “Who’s that talking to Mr. Sunner?” Aidan asked. He was looking towards the concessions stand near the school, where a red-haired woman was talking with Mr. Sunner.

  “I’m not sure,” said Grayson. “Probably that person from the Journal.”

  Zaivyer focused on the group, and after a moment he could hear their conversation.

  “...excited for next weekend,” Mr. Sunner was saying. “These kids have worked hard, and they did a great job these first two nights.”

  “I could tell,” the red-haired woman said. “I’ve been through the house before, and it gets better every year.” She glanced at a notepad she held in her hand. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to interview some students. Their viewpoints will be a good addition to my article.”

  “Sure,” said Mr. Sunner. “Did you have anyone in mind?”

  “Yes, actually. There was that room near the end, with all those cloths hanging down and the circles...”

  Zaivyer tuned out the rest. “It is the person from the Journal!”

  “How do you know?” asked Asher.

  “Dude, did you see his face?” asked Aidan. “He was listening to them.” He turned to Zaivyer. “What did she say?”

  “I think she wants to interview us for her article.”

  “Us?” asked Grayson.

  “Yes. When she said she wanted to interview
some of the students, she said something about a room near the end with hanging cloths and circles.”

  “That does sound like us.”

  “Look, here comes Mr. Sunner. He has the Journal lady with him,” said Asher, pointing.

  “Hi, Mr. Sunner,” Zaivyer said.

  “Hello, Zaivyer,” said Mr. Sunner. “Boys, this is Sarah Johnson, from the Journal. She’d like to talk to you if you’re okay with it.”

  Zaivyer, Aidan, Asher, and Grayson looked at each other.

  “Sure,” said Grayson.

  “Okay, then, Ms. Johnson, this is Zaivyer, Asher, Aidan, and Grayson. They’re the students from the room you mentioned.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Ms. Johnson said, shaking the boys’ hands. “Let’s start with the basics. Could you each say and spell your names for me?”

  They did.

  “Great,” she said, writing on her notepad. “Now, how long have you been involved with the haunted house?”

  Grayson answered. “We’re all freshmen, so this is our first year doing a room, but we’ve gone through the house before.”

  “Well, for first-timers, you did a great job. How did you come up with that particular room?”

  The boys looked at each other again, unsure how to answer. They had been inspired by Zaivyer’s shapeshifting ability, but they couldn’t say that.

  Asher was the first to speak. “We wanted to do something that would mess with people’s heads. We were thinking, what unnerves people? Unknown noises, strange people, and being unable to see clearly. We put those together and, well, you saw the result. I think we succeeded.”

  “Yes, you certainly did,” Ms. Johnson laughed. She looked at Asher’s ragged outfit. “You, Asher, were obviously the prisoner in the middle, but what about the rest of you?”

  “I was controlling the lights,” said Grayson.

  “I’m in charge of sound,” said Aidan.

  “And I’m the thing in the dark,” said Zaivyer.

  “Okay,” Ms. Johnson said, scribbling on her notepad. She looked at Zaivyer. “I don’t know what you were doing to make yourself so hard to make out, but you all made it very difficult to know where to look!” She looked over her notes. “I think that’s everything. Good luck next weekend.”