Subject 624

by Scott Ferrell

  Oh, crap!

  Chapter 9

  10:45 a.m.

  I can honestly say that I had never seen the inside of Principal Walker’s office before. I guess some might have considered me a goody two-shoes. I was pretty much a run of the mill, straight “B” student. My record was clean. There was nothing to gain the principal’s attention. At least nothing I had been caught doing, yet.

  It occurred to me that I have enthusiastically faced down armed criminals without flinching and with a joke on my tongue, but sitting outside Mr. Walker’s office made my palms sweat like a faucet.

  Ten minutes ago, a police officer showed up, heading straight into the office to join Mr. Walker, Mr. Elliot, John the Security Guy, and Justin. I sat outside in a cushioned but uncomfortable chair straight across from the door, trying my best to distract myself.

  The hall outside the office could have been any hall at any school outside any principal office. A small trophy case stood half-empty just down the hall. Numerous framed pictures lined the walls to either side of it.

  I wiped my hands down my pant legs and leaned closer to the door. All I could hear was muffled talking. I wiped my hands again, stood, and walked to one of the pictures. It was a split image. Two aerial shots showed how the school looked fifty years ago and how it looked a few years ago. I couldn’t tell much difference between the two besides the quality of the photograph.

  I slid to the right. The next picture was a group shot of the basketball team that won the State Championship four years ago. Before my time. I slid again.

  The next picture was much older. A student and a teacher stood next to each other. They both wore bell-bottoms and hideous button up shirts. The student held a piece of paper that read “First Place in the 1956 Math-a-thon.” I leaned in to get a closer look at the teacher.

  “Is that...” I started.

  The door opened, and Mr. Elliot shuffled out. He glanced my way, but turned and moved away without a word. I looked again at the teacher in the picture. “Na, can’t be...”

  Justin was the next to exit the office, still in cuffs, followed by the police officer. Justin glared holes at me. I stared placidly back. He didn’t scare me.

  Mr. Walker emerged next. Now, he scared me. He turned as John the Security Guard followed him out. “Good work,” he complimented the man.

  If there was a facial expression that was the equivalent to two thumbs up, John the Security Guard gave it to me. He turned and swaggered down the hall, thumbs hooked in his belt.

  Mr. Walker turned toward me. I did my best not to look guilty. Not that I was or anything but still. “Can I have a few moments of your time, Mr. Ferguson?”

  I nodded and followed him into the office. He closed the door behind me.

  “Have a seat.” He motioned towards two large chairs that sat in front of his desk.

  I sat while he rounded the desk and settled into his chair. He folded his hands on the desk and looked at me like he was trying to figure out a puzzle. I looked everywhere but at him.

  A plaque sat on his desk with Anthony Walker etched in it. So, that was his first name? For all I knew, his first name was Mister. The desk itself was massive, made from a shiny red wood, and free of any finger smears that I could see. The rest of the office was decorated in dark colors. A lot of deep reds, greens, and...

  “I hear you’re quite the hero, Mr. Ferguson.” He removed his rimless glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger.

  “Huh?” I said. “No.”

  His perfectly groomed brown eyebrows rose. “No?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I...I just, you know,” I stuttered.

  “From what I understand, Mr. Howard was about to throw a desk at poor, old Mr. Elliot before you stepped in to stop him.”

  Howard was Justin’s last name?

  “I just...I don’t know. I just stopped him.” I wiped my hands down my thighs. “Am I in trouble?”

  “Hmm,” he grunted. “As Mr. Elliot tells it, you ripped the desk from Mr. Howard’s hands with one hand and restrained him with the other.”

  “Why do you refer to everybody by their last name?” The question tumbled out before I knew I was going to ask it.

  “Does that make you uncomfortable?”

  “No,” I said. “I just...I guess I only know Justin as...well, Justin. And Mr. Ferguson is my dad.”

  He nodded. “Very well, Conor, but that doesn’t really address my concern.”

  “I guess I don’t really know what your, um, concern is.”

  “Just how were you able to restrain Justin?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “With one hand while holding a desk with the other?” he prompted.

  “I guess,” I said. “No, not one hand. Yeah, I pulled it from him and dropped it. The desk, I mean.”

  “And then you restrained him?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I caught myself looking everywhere but at him, so I stilled myself and met his eyes. “Yeah, I did,” I said a little more confidently.

  “Do you take martial arts, Conor?”

  “No.” Random much?

  “From what I understand, the way in which you restrained him was quite a feat.”

  “Well, you know, I watch a lot of Jackie Chan movies.” I smiled.

  He did not.

  “You know? The movie star guy from China?” I asked. “Does all his own stunts.”

  Mr. Walker stared at me for a few very long moments before he returned his glasses to their proper pace on his nose, stood, and walked to the only window in the office. He spun the rod to open the blinds. “Troubling times.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The things going on,” he responded over his shoulder. “Troubling.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Today was getting too hairy for my liking. First my mom that morning and now I was pretty sure he was about to accuse me of being part of it, too.

  “Makes a person want to do whatever he can to help, huh?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. The police dude doesn’t want people interfering.”

  “Police dude? You mean Chief Bouwman?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “He would. He would.”

  “He would what, sir?”

  “Have you felt like you want to help in some way, Conor?”

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to help.”

  His shoulders shrugged slightly. “Maybe put a mask on and run around at night confronting these criminals...” He let the statement float out in the air without finishing it.

  My mouth went dry like somebody had stuck a vacuum hose in it and let it run for about a year. “What?” I croaked.

  “Like the man in that video.”

  “Video?”

  “The one all over the news this morning,” he replied. “You didn’t see it?”

  “Oh,” I muttered. “Yeah, that one. Um. Yeah, I saw it. Briefly before school. I guess I didn’t have time to really watch it.” When he didn’t say anything, I added, “I overslept a little this morning.”

  He nodded and turned to face me. “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What do you think? Did this person overstep a boundary?”

  “What? No. He saved that lady,” I said defensively. A little too defensively.

  “I thought you didn’t get to see it that carefully,” he prompted.

  “Oh, um. I saw enough, I guess. I mean, he beat up those guys and saved her.” I tried to smile. “Pretty cool, really,” I added, then regretted it.

  “Cool?” He folded his arms and leaned against the windowsill.

  “Yeah. You know. I guess.” I stammered.

  He nodded. “If I had that person’s ability, I think I would be out there with him.”

  “You would?” My mouth hung open a bit.

  “Of course. Who wouldn’t?”

  “I guess.” The gear in my brain clicked into another notch. “What do you mean by ability? He just fought those guy
s.”

  He ignored the question and moved to sit back down, pulling a stack of papers from the side of his desk. He picked up a fancy looking pen and held it over the papers. “You know what I would tell that person from the video if I had the chance?”

  “What?”

  “I’d tell him...” He hesitated, tapping the pen on the top paper, apparently unaware that he was leaving black dots on it. “I’d tell him to be careful. He might never know what or who he might encounter out there.”

  I thought he was looking directly at me, but I realized he was looking over my right shoulder. Staring, really. It made me even more uncomfortable if that were possible. I turned briefly to glance over my shoulder to see what he was staring at. I saw nothing. I turned back to him. “Oh.”

  He dropped his eyes to the desktop. “You may go, Mr. Ferguson.” He frowned at the dots on the paper but started writing on it anyways. “Hurry before you miss any more class.”

  The dismissal was so sudden that it took a minute to sink in. When it did, I booked it out of there as fast as I could.

  3:50 p.m.

  As much as the teachers would have liked the day to go on as normal—slow and boring—it did not. The whole school buzzed with what had happened in Mr. Elliot’s algebra class. Everybody wanted to talk to me about it. The last thing I wanted was the attention, so I deflected the questions the best I could.

  Unfortunately, the story had grown bigger and bigger as the day slumped through the hours until the final bell rang. I bumped through the crowd heading for the doors, stepping around those trying to stop and talk to me. I made it to Nathen’s car before he did, but luckily he had left the doors unlocked. That shocked me. His stereo equipment was worth a lot of money, but I went nowhere near that gift horse’s mouth and climbed in, closing my eyes. I sighed, feeling my muscles start to uncoil for the first time.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when something knocked against the window right next to my ear. I turned to find Nathen grinning at me from the other side. I glared at him as he made his way a the front of the car, but it was a highly ineffective glare because he wasn’t even looking my way. He climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “You’re awful jumpy for a guy who takes out bad guys like a boss,” he commented.

  “Long day,” I said. I don’t know why adults rub the bridge of their nose when they’re commenting on how tired they are, but I did it anyway just to make that indication to Nathen.

  “I heard, Mr. Superman.”

  “Funny,” I said making a face. “Just drop it, okay?”

  “Dropped,” he said. “How did you get in here anyways?” He cranked the car and forced it into the queue heading out of the student parking lot.

  “You left it unlocked,” I told him.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Obviously you did.”

  He glanced around the inside of the car. “You sure you didn’t rip the door off to get in?”

  “Ha, ha,” I said dryly.

  “You sure you don’t wanna talk about what happened in class?”

  “Positive,” I muttered.

  “Good, because I’m sick of hearin’ about it,” he laughed. “Wish I could have been there to see it, though.” He thought for a moment. “I don’t think taking math with Mr. Elliot would be worth it, so never mind.”

  As we pulled out of the parking lot, he launched into a monolog about his day, which included multiple Clarissa sightings. I watched the school disappear in the passenger side mirror. I didn’t realize how tense I was until I felt the weight of enduring school lift off my shoulders only to be replaced by a blanket of weariness. I wanted to grab the edges, wrap myself up tight, and let myself sink into sleep.

  Even though Nathen was quite animated when he talked, his voice faded into a dull murmur that rose and fell in volume and pitch. Combine that with the vibrating car, my eyelids drooped and closed with my head leaning against the window.

  Nathen’s loud swear woke me.

  “Look at that!” He pointed excitedly outside the car.

  I turned blurry eyes toward the indicated direction. We sat at a red light surrounded by cars. Kitty-corner from where we sat, three boys burst out of a bank holding plastic, see-through grocery bags filled with money. The boys didn’t wear masks, their faces exposed to anybody who bothered to look or any cameras pointed their direction. None of them looked any older than eighteen.

  “In broad daylight,” Nathen said, unbelieving.

  All weariness drained away in a moment and I felt every muscle in my body tighten, screaming for me to jump into action. I even grabbed the door handle, ready to fling it open and give chase, but as I watched them run down the street, I noticed just how many people were at the busy intersection. If I jumped out and caught up with them, I would definitely get a lot more attention than I really needed after my in-class activities.

  “The balls on some people,” Nathen commented. “Can you believe that?” The car behind us blew their horn to let Nathen know the light had turned green. Nathen flipped him off through the rear window but accelerated through the light.

  I craned my neck to watch the three teenaged bank robbers disappear around a corner. “What in the world is going on?” I asked, more to myself than Nathen.

  “Ain’t even a full moon or nothing,” he answered.

  Chapter 10

  Day 4

  2:17 a.m.

  I hunkered behind a dumpster pushed against a wall down an alley. I tried to let the pain from several deep bruises fade while I caught my breath. Note to self: a dumpster area isn’t the best place to take deep breaths. I coughed and swallowed back rising nausea as the aroma of rotting garbage assaulted my nose.

  I stood to find a different place to rest only to come face to face with a boy who looked no more than fourteen. He was almost as tall as me; his cold, dead eyes level with mine. He sneered.

  “Look, kid...” I started, but he punched me in the stomach. I looked down at his balled fist in my gut and back up to him. “Really?”

  I grabbed his shirt collar in my left hand and the top of his jeans with my right. In one smooth motion, I snatched him up. He squeaked as he flipped into the dumpster behind me. He landed with a sort of squishy thump and the lid closed behind him, clanging down the alley. I resisted the temptation to use a “taking out the garbage” one-liner and turned to leave the alley.

  At the opening, a large group of kids stepped into view. Backlit by the glow of a street light, several weapons appeared in their hands.

  I nodded. I’d already fought more people than I could keep track of, so what were a few more to round out the night? “All right,” I said.

  I ran towards them. That threw them off guard. Unfortunately, I was too far away to take advantage of it. By the time I reached the end of the alley, they had their weapons—which ranged from the ever popular baseball bat to a tire iron, and even a plank of two by four—ready. One kid apparently hadn’t found a suitable weapon yet.

  As I approached, the one with the bat stepped forward, holding it at the ready. I ran straight at him, veering off to the left at the last moment. I dropped to my knees and slid. The stitching in my jeans gave way and my knees scrape across the pavement. I ignored it, reaching out a hand as I flew past the bat wielding punk. I grabbed his ankle and upended him. He landed with a thump as I sprang to my feet and spun to face the remaining three.

  The weaponless kid was the first to attack. He took a swing at me, but I leaned left, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him into my lifted right knee. The impact to his stomach was quite satisfying; I have to admit. He collapsed, arms wrapped around his midsection. He dry-heaved a couple of times.

  Another came at me, swinging the tire iron in a wide arc over his head. I sidestepped the blow meant to crack my skull open and brought my fist into the jerk’s face. He folded in on himself and flopped unmoving to the sidewalk.

  I turned to the last guy, Mr. TwobyFour. “Were you a carpenter in a previous life?�
� I asked.

  I guess he wasn’t in the mood for banter. He came at me.

  “You really want to do this?” I asked him. “Your buddies didn’t fare too well.”

  He raised the board over a shoulder.

  “Guess so,” I said, setting my feet.

  He swung the two by four like a bat. I took a step back expecting the lumber to pass in front of me. Here’s the problem, though. The board didn’t miss. It caught me on the side, right under my arm pit. I decided the whole hearing air leave lungs wasn’t as cool as I thought when it was my air going bye-bye.