Without Annette

by Jane B. Mason

  I rinsed my hands and studied my reflection in the mirror—my unruly auburn hair, my pale skin, my smattering of freckles and amber eyes. I looked exactly like the girl who’d come here six weeks ago, but didn’t feel the same at all. And what about Annette? She clearly needed to be accepted by these new girls, by Becca. How far would she go to be one of the pack?

  Something on my desk beeped—something that sounded like my phone. That made no sense, though—my phone had been destroyed by Brookwood’s high-end watering system.

  I dried my hands, then heard it again. My desk was piled with books, papers, and a bunch of other crap I wasn’t sure what to do with, so it took a good fifteen seconds to find the thing, which had been plugged in, presumably by Roxanne. It beeped a third time, and there was a text on the screen.

  Meet us under the T at 11:45. –PM

  PM. Was that the time, or was that … Penn McCarthy? Or both? It had to be Penn, but how did he get my number? And what was going on with my phone? (Not that I could complain about having a functioning cell.)

  I checked the time. 11:22. Could I make it to the T in twenty-three minutes? Did I know how to get there? But even as I considered these details, I was pulling a long-sleeve shirt over my head and changing into sneakers. Rummaging through my desk, I slipped a tiny flashlight into my pants pocket and walked out the door, leaving the barf party behind.

  I padded down to the laundry room to tell Roxanne where I was going, but she wasn’t there. “Roxanne?” I called quietly. The dorm was completely silent—apparently the barfers had gone to sleep on their empty stomachs. I stood there for several seconds, wondering where Roxanne was, and then decided I needed to go—I was short on time as it was.

  Walking to the end of the hall, I silently opened the door to the basement. I was greeted by semidarkness and the hum of the furnace.

  Heart thudding and half-certain someone was about to barge into the utility room and haul my ass to the dean’s office, I quickly got myself through the hatch and pulled it closed. Stale blackness engulfed me as I retrieved my flashlight from my pocket. I shined the beam down the long, cramped tunnel. My skin was already damp.

  This is seriously creepy, I thought, shivering. Part of me wanted to hurl myself against the hatch and land with a thud in my dormitory boiler room, where I could breathe normally and turn on a light. The tunnel was already way creepier than it had been the last time I was in it—probably because I was dead sober, and alone. Without a map or another person to guide me. I shined my light back at the door I’d come through longingly. Get going, chicken.

  I took my first step, and then a second and a third. I tried to walk at an almost normal pace, bending my head and willing myself to be narrower than I actually was. You’ve been here before—it’s the same tunnel. The seemingly endless hiss of traveling steam filled my ears.

  Within minutes, I came to the wider section where tunnels branched out in several directions. I shined my flashlight down one tunnel, then another. This was where we’d figured out that we weren’t heading toward the library, I remembered. But where was the T?

  I pointed my beam of light back down the tunnel I’d come through. It looked much narrower than it had felt when I was in it, and I wondered if I was mistaken. Maybe I’d come out of the passage next to it? I shined my light into that tunnel. It was practically identical.

  Oh crap, I thought. I’m not sure.

  Panic rose in my throat, tasting almost exactly like the barfy bathroom had smelled. But I couldn’t freak out now—I had to keep going. And to do that, I had to get a grip. I envisioned the Brookwood buildings above my head. I’d come from my dorm, which was on the edge of campus—the only thing beyond it was the athletic center. I’d traveled straight, then left, and then straight some more. I should be under the main building by now, maybe the dining hall … was that the smell of dinner?

  I shined the light down the tunnel I thought I’d come from a second time. Was that it? I peered into the semidarkness, willing the answer to come to me. Instead, the shaft of light dimmed, flickered, and disappeared altogether.

  I stood stock-still in the darkness, trying to remain calm. I whacked the flashlight against my leg and pushed the power switch. I lifted it to my face even though I couldn’t see a thing.

  “Come on!” I shouted, arms flailing. I felt the flashlight slip between my fingers, but my brain took too long to react. By the time I understood what was happening, the slender metal torch had already clattered to the floor.

  Oh shit. The tunnel was pitch-black. Sweat trickled down my back like rows of ants marching downward, following the flashlight to the floor. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t brought my phone. I wasn’t used to carrying it around—you weren’t allowed to have it in public—and it had been broken since the day I arrived. Still, totally stupid.

  I thought I’d heard the flashlight land just to my right, but I forced myself not to lunge after it. I had to keep my bearings to have any hope of finding it.

  I really needed to find it.

  The pipe behind me clanged, then went quiet. I could hear the steam hissing in the tunnel to my left. I dropped to my butt and scooched forward slowly, hoping my shoes would protect me from anything that was too hot to touch. The big pipes were behind me, but there were cables all over the place. My hands scraped across the dirty cement floor as I inched my feet forward, lifting the toes and swinging them downward so they could “eat” my flashlight like a video game monster.

  I rotated in circles, counting how many turns I made and creeping outward to enlarge the circumference. My foot touched something, but it was just a cable.

  Be grateful it didn’t shock you, I thought, fighting back tears. What was stupider, barfing up pizza on purpose or compulsively heading into the steam tunnels without a reliable light source … alone?

  Quit whining and keep searching. I wiped my cheek with my hand, then realized I’d just smeared dirt across my face. I turned slightly and got back to feet waving. I was wondering just how foolish and desperate I looked when my foot touched something.

  Reaching out, I sank my fingers into something oozy and soft. “Ahhhhh!” I recoiled, bumping a pipe and boomeranging right back toward whatever it was. Only it wasn’t oozy and soft anymore—it was round and hard. My flashlight. Snatching it up, I said a silent thank-you to the tunnel gods, adding a silent please. Finding the flashlight was only half the battle—I needed it to work.

  I whapped the metal casing against my palm. Nothing. I bit my lip and tried not to follow my worst-case scenario thoughts. I was unsuccessful.

  With no light, there was no way I’d find my way out of here. I’d probably pass out from the heat and die in the tunnels like Edward Hunter, only nobody would even remember me because I so obviously wasn’t some kind of genius, nor was I in possession of some valuable archeological artifact. I was just stupid, compulsive me.

  I could feel the grit on my cheeks mixing with tears. God, I was pathetic. Unbelievably, undeniably pathetic. I’d gotten myself into this mess and now here I was, sitting on the filthy tunnel floor doing absolutely nothing but feeling sorry for myself.

  The flashlight was warm from the heat in the tunnel, and I caressed the on/off button with my thumb, feeling the smoothness of the metal. I pressed it one last time and (miracle!) a faint beam of light illuminated my small section of tunnel, including a mass of matted hair and two sunken eyes on the floor right next to me. The head!

  I screamed, crab-crawling backward into a steam pipe. The fabric covering my thigh sizzled and a searing heat burned my leg, but I barely felt it. I’d just found the shrunken head! I cautiously shined the beam over the thing on the floor, and was immediately grossed out and disappointed. It wasn’t the head at all but a decomposing dead rat. Its shriveled eyes had pulled back into its skull and clumps of matted fur stuck to its rib cage—fur and a rib cage I’d just touched. I wiped my hand on my pants. Yuck.

  I was still staring at the thing when I heard a noise. Voices? Pl
ease let it be voices, I prayed silently. The pipe behind me groaned, and I willed it to be quiet so I could hear. Then I saw a beam of light around a corner, off to the right. Someone was coming. The groaner chose that moment to go silent, and I could make out footsteps shuffling along the dirty floor. A second later, the beam flashed in my eyes, momentarily blinding me.

  “Fancy meeting you here.”

  The relief that washed over me was so strong I only barely resisted the urge to rush forward and throw my arms around the boy leading the pack. Penn dropped the light away from my eyes and came up next to me, just in front of Hank and Sam. “We thought maybe you weren’t coming.”

  “I was waylaid,” I explained, my voice scratchy from heat and only recently subsided panic. “Technical difficulties.” I didn’t want to get any further into that subject, so I added, “Who’s navigating?”

  “Is that an insult, Subzero?” Penn sounded a little wounded.

  “Perhaps I should rephrase. Who’s got the map?”

  Hank chuckled, and Sam waved a large piece of paper in the air. “I do,” he said. He raised his head, shining his headlamp into one of the subtunnels. “We’re going that way.”

  I noted that it was the direction I thought I’d come from, but chose not to mention it. None of us were expert underground navigators, and I put myself at the back of the class. “Don’t step on the dead rat,” I warned as Penn started off. I passed my beam right over the decomposing bugger, thinking it was strange that I couldn’t smell him.

  Penn jumped back, nearly tripping on a line of cables. “Holy crap!”

  I gave him a little shove forward. “Nothing to panic about—just a decaying rodent.”

  “Gross.”

  Um, yeah.

  We started to move. I was so happy to have company and multiple light sources that I practically floated through the tunnel. We jagged left, then right. The passage widened and sloped downward.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “The athletic center.”

  “Because …”

  “Just because.”

  I didn’t buy the “just because” story—I was figuring out that Penn wasn’t really a “just because” kind of person. But I let it slide.

  The tunnel leveled off, and we came to a hatch. Penn and I stepped aside so Sam could get to work. Thirty seconds later, we were on the other side, in a room humming with electricity. I breathed in the cooler air, smelling bleach. There was a whooshing noise, too …

  “That’s water,” Hank explained, reading my expression. “We’re in the pool pump room.”

  We switched off our various lights and stashed them in our pockets. “What happened there?”

  Sam was pointing to the burn hole in my pants, and the angry swelling on my thigh.

  “Pipe contact due to a close encounter with dead steam-tunnel rodent.”

  “Would you stop talking about the dead rat?” Penn asked, his nose wrinkled.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” Sam chided. “You okay, Josie?”

  I ran a finger across the welt on my thigh. It was a good two inches long, and now that I was paying attention, it throbbed like a mother. “Yeah.”

  “Shhh,” Penn said, raising a finger to his lips. “I think I hear something.”

  It was hard to hear anything other than water rushing through the pump system, but there was something else … voices.

  “Someone’s in the pool,” Hank stated.

  I turned. “After lights?”

  Penn looked mischievous. “If you know how to get in without being detected, it’s the best time to swim.”

  We headed through the pump room door onto the pool deck, hiding ourselves behind the bleachers that ran the length of the pool. I hadn’t even gotten a look when I heard Hank gasp.

  “Mother lode,” he said.

  I peeked around the edge of the bleachers and involuntarily sucked in my breath. At the far end of the pool, Annette stood on the diving board, wearing nothing but a bra and underwear and poised to dive. Moonlight streamed through the wall of eight-foot windows, reflecting off the water droplets that clung to her skin. She looked like a freaking moon goddess.

  “Go for it, girl!” Marina was in the gray-blue water, her breasts bobbing on the surface.

  “Isn’t that …”

  Splash! Annette disappeared into the pool.

  “My girlfriend,” I said, just like that. Only the words didn’t feel quite right as they came out of my mouth, and there was bitterness in my voice.

  “Some sort of water goddess,” Hank corrected breathlessly.

  “Annette, that was fantastic!”

  I could feel Penn watching me. “Your girlfriend?”

  Becca was on the board now, getting ready to dive.

  “Yes.” I didn’t bother to explain that things were actually a lot more complicated than that.

  Penn shook his head as if to clear it, his hazel eyes filled with something I didn’t recognize.

  Becca took two lunging steps, bounced, and leaped, tilting her head and arching in a perfect swan.

  “Josie …”

  “What,” I snapped. I really didn’t need a reaction, especially not from Penn. “Are you homophobic or something?”

  Penn winced, his eyebrows clashing together behind his tousled hair. He raised his hands a little and took a step back. “No, Subzero. I’m not homophobic.”

  Over his shoulder I could see Marina climbing the ladder. Sam and Hank were dumbstruck as she strode to the end of the board and bounced once, twice, three times …

  “That’s gotta hurt.” Hank’s hands instinctively covered his chest.

  Splash! When she surfaced, she was giggling madly. You had to hand it to her—Marina had game—and something told me that Roxanne was right. There was a lot going on with that girl.

  All three girls were in the water now (where was Cynthia?), diving and goofing around. For a fleeting moment, I considered stripping down and joining them. Why the heck not?

  Because you weren’t invited, I reminded myself, remembering the barfing party. Was that really just a couple of hours ago?

  “Did you know they were coming here?” Penn asked.

  I shook my head, then realized I could ask him the same question. The boys hadn’t said why we’d come to the athletic center. “Did you?” I couldn’t keep the accusation out of my voice.

  “Hey, who’s there?” Marina called out, her voice echoing off the tiled walls.

  We froze, and waited.

  “Penn McCarthy, is that you?” Becca’s voice rang out, clear as anything.

  “In our dreams,” Marina said.

  “I swear I heard something.”

  “I heard it, too,” Annette agreed.

  Behind the bleachers, Sam, Penn, and I were standing stock-still. Hank, though, was unbuckling his belt, a giant smirk on his face. He dropped his pants to the floor, revealing plaid boxer shorts. “You said it yourself,” he told Penn. “It’s the best time to swim.”

  Before we could stop him, he’d pulled his shirt over his head and stepped out from behind the bleachers.

  “Hank Jeffrey!” Marina chortled. “Who else are you hiding back there?”

  Penn looked at me, as if he needed permission. I shrugged noncommittally at first, then thought, for a second time, Why the hell not?

  Sam pulled his Green Lantern T-shirt over his head and dropped it onto the lowest bleacher. “May as well join the party,” he said with a small smile.

  I was about to pull off my sweatpants when I realized that showing myself would basically announce that I was hanging out with these boys after lights, and something told me I didn’t want to do that. I dropped my hands to my sides.

  “You go,” I said. “I’m going to sit this one out.”

  “You sure?” Penn asked. “I can skip …”

  “Penn McCarthy, we know you’re behind there!” Becca called. I heard someone get out at the shallow end—heard footsteps coming toward us. I ducked
farther behind the bleachers just as Annette appeared. Water dripped off her light blue bra.

  “Don’t be shy,” she said, tugging Penn’s arm. “The more, the merrier!”

  Penn took a step sideways to block me while I crouched lower, half under the bleachers. My heart was thudding like a freight train. He hesitated for the smallest of moments before walking onto the pool deck behind Annette and stripping down to his boxer shorts, leaving his clothes on the bleachers.

  “Last one in’s a rotten egg,” Marina called as Annette slipped back into the water. Penn dove in and swam a few easy strokes to the far end and got back out, heading for the diving board and the other guys.

  I felt a little like a Peeping Tom, crouched behind the bleachers, watching. But I was riveted.

  Hank did a cannonball from the diving board, sending up a giant wave of water in the deep end. Penn followed with a double.

  “Show-off!” Becca reprimanded, but she sidled closer to him as the water settled, smiling. All three girls did, actually. Penn appeared to be some sort of water-activated magnet.

  Sam was an elegant diver, and took several turns on the board while everyone else was in the pool. Then, suddenly, Becca was out of the water and walking toward the ladder, her lacy turquoise thong grabbing everyone’s attention.

  She climbed quickly, then marched straight to the end and did a cannonball, mimicking the boys. Before I knew it, there was a full-fledged cannonball contest going on, including Penn and Hank off the board at once, which sent waves of water onto the deck and under the bleachers, soaking my sneakers. As I felt the water seep into my socks, my mind flashed back to my first night at Brookwood, and I wished Roxanne would appear out of nowhere with an invitation and a bottle of vodka. I suddenly realized that right then, I was out of the petri dish. And, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure I liked it any more than being in it. It felt a little lonely.

  After the boys had proven their cannonball supremacy, the group got back to splashing around. But not for long.

  “We’d better get out,” Penn said. “The guards will be on soon.”