“No,” Mike responded, his voice taking the high-toned pitch it did whenever he was truly annoyed. “I don’t think we’re doing this right,” he admitted as he took out another yearbook, this one dating back ten years, and flipped it open to the index. “Shouldn’t we have found that clue everyone else had overlooked yet?”
“I think you’ll find it’s rarely that simple. Plus, we’re the only ones looking for clues, in case you haven’t realized that yet,” Xander responded bitterly, muttering something incomprehensible about this town’s population. He stopped a moment, slamming down one stack of counsellor files and scooping up another. “I’ve been through all these a thousand times. Our guys aren’t in here.”
“Are you sure they went to school here?” Mike asked under his breath, scrolling his finger down through the index.
“That’s what Derek said, anyway. We’re taking a lot on his word, and he’s taking a lot on Julie’s. I’m not entirely certain we can trust third-hand knowledge, man. You know the way gossip in this hole works.”
“True,” Mike nodded, handing him the yearbook. “But we’ve got nothing else to go on.”
Xander shook his head in dismay. “I thought you said there were three guys?”
“There were. She only told Derek about two of them.”
“Christ. Remind me to stay away from this girl. If I met anyone whose logic was that screwed up, I’d have to reconsider whether or not they deserved saving.”
“Same goes for Cathy, then?” Mike asked without looking up, his tone even and very hurtful.
Pain shot through Xander, as he realized that was the same way he’d spoken to Cathy earlier. “I didn’t mean --”
Mike raised a hand to dismiss the thought, then abruptly changed the topic. “Is it just me, or does the fact that these two have gang connections unsettling?”
“Tell me about it. I didn’t even know there was a real gang, outside of the Godfather films anyway.”
“Not what I meant,” Mike said quietly. “I mean, these two guys are probably sitting around with twenty other guys, laughing it up about what they did to that girl.”
Xander grimaced, flipping the black leather book open to the index and began to scan through it. “Shouldn’t this all be computerized?” he asked in exasperation.
“The last few years, yes. But nobody’s bothered to go back and type in all the old files yet since we got the new systems in. Threw out all the old comps, remember?”
Xander smirked mischievously. “I remember the four of us fishing through the dumpster out back so that I could salvage some of the parts into a PC.”
“Good times,” Mike nodded, the both of them falling into a short, uncomfortable silence. Both of them trying not to dwell on Xander’s slip of tongue when he had said ‘the four of them.’ Because that would have implied Sara. Therefore, it was never actually said.
“Got it,” Xander said, turning his yearbook around so that Mike could see. He pointed down to the side-by-side pictures as Mike leaned in, putting his own book back on the shelf. “Allan Bishop and Bram Raine. Their last year was about ten years ago, before they got kicked out.”
The pages were yellowed a little even though they shouldn’t have been, their edges curling and cracking as Xander thumbed through them. The photos themselves looked like twisted black and white images from the twilight zone. He wasn’t sure if it was just the knowledge of what they had done, but something about the two yearbook photos seemed eerily sinister… As if they could see him through the old book. The first guy had shoulder-length brown hair and some bad acne, along with braces that shone with the reflection of the camera’s flash. The other man was thinner but looked wirier, his mouth the only one on the page not curled up into a smile. His expression was blank and devoid of emotion, and Xander didn’t need a colour photo to know that his eyes were red.
“I didn’t think Shnieder kicked people out,” Mike said, his voice a mixture of surprise and newfound respect for the sniveling weasel that had been gawking at his girlfriend earlier today.
Xander cocked his head to one side. “Back in the day he did, when he first got here. And it wasn’t just him; these two had a recommendation for expulsion from the guidance counsellor and everything.”
“Phillips?”
“Before his time. This was Dr. August O’Grady,” Xander corrected, pointing to a picture of the woman. She looked as though she’d seen a great deal of pain walk through her doors in her tenure, every cry of suffering taking its toll upon her face. Even her mouth hung open on one side, which would have given her an almost comical expression if not for the menacing glare of her eyes.
“I remember the stories the seniors used to tell about her,” Mike recalled with a start, pointing at the picture. “She was a witch!”
“I don’t know about that, but I think they should put that picture up in prisons. It’d start scaring people straight,” Xander smirked.
“No, you don’t understand,” Mike chuckled. “She kept permanent records on everybody. She’d give out detention slips for chewing gum. She even had one of those canes mounted on her wall. I heard she even used it once or twice.”
Xander slammed the book shut, a cloud of stale dust rising up as he did so. He turned and pointed to the files on his desk. “If she kept records on everything, then why isn’t there a single word about either of our two offenders in those?” he asked, his tone gravely serious.
Cathy sat in Math class, staring at the empty chair next to her. It was one of many throughout campus. As Mrs. Green babbled on and on about logarithmic functions and their practical use in today’s society - none whatsoever, by the way - Cathy sat in the fourth row with her back uncomfortably shoved against her wooden chair, a loose screw digging into her behind. As much as it bothered her, her attention was still focused on the seat adjacent to her. It was the seat that until a few days ago had belonged to Sara Johnson. She remembered all of the times the two of them had sat there gossiping about Jamie, Mike, and Grendel. How she’d tried to convince Sara over and over again to go out on a date with Xander, much to the blonde’s disdain.
Neither of them had ever done exceptionally well in Math... but it wasn’t like it was their fault, they reasoned. What kind of moron sticks Math on the third period slot anyway? Sara would often contest, usually just after Mrs. Green had handed out the results of their latest pop quiz. Right between Recess and Lunch was not a good time to start logarithmic functions, in my mind. It seemed to go against nature and puppies, as the perky little blonde next to her used to quote six times a period. Cathy never did understand what that meant, but she was certain it was a compliment to the puppy population of the world.
But she’d never do that again. She’d never sit there and talk about how the teacher looked like a troglodyte and how she was growing whiskers. She’d never go to the mall and watch the new Stephen King movies even though she hated to be scared and usually jumped into either Mike or Xander’s arms -- and depending on which she chose, Cathy would either get jealous or excited. She’d never eat a birthday cake again, the kind that’s two days old with little bits of candle wax melted into the icing. The kind that you eat with your best friend while you talk about boys and the biggest worry you have is whether each other’s hair was done right. Sara would never have a milkshake again either. Come to think of it, Sara had always disliked milkshakes and would only get them upon Cathy’s demand that it was a ‘girl thing.’
Cathy felt the sadness start to bring moisture to her eyes, then she wiped it away stubbornly.
Sara would never have chocolate, or kiss a guy, or fall in love, or watch Power Puff Girls re-runs, or sit there in Math class and yap about how the men in this school were adolescent perverts except for the one that she was gunning for this week, and -
“Miss Kennessy?” Mrs. Green said for the third time, her voice taking a much more annoyed tone.
Cathy jumped in her seat, dazed and confused that the teacher had not been where she thought she
’d be. She scanned the room quickly and located her at the door, talking to a balding man with large, round glasses and a cheap blue suit. “I’m sorry, Miss,” Cathy apologized earnestly. “It won’t happen again, I swear.”
Mrs. Green smiled, shaking her head kindly and speaking as one spoke to a kitten. “No, no, Catherine,” she chided warmly, motioning to the man behind the door again. “It’s not that. Mr. Phillips would like to see you now.”
“Who?” Cathy asked as she got her things together, shoving textbooks unceremoniously into her book bag. “Who is that?”
Green smiled again, as did many of the students around the room. “The Guidance Counsellor, Miss. Kennessy.”
Cathy huffed, throwing the heavy bag over her back and starting towards the door.
The office was stuffy and stupid, reminding her of the inside of a shoebox. It was so humid that she could practically see all the air in the room creating wavy lines in her field of vision. It made her feel like the room was closing in on her, her breath becoming short from the moment she walked in.
The only thing in the room that did not make her feel uncomfortable was the man sitting behind the desk in front of her, his hands laced together and his thumbs twiddling each other. He was waiting for her to say something first, a typical tactic of his it seemed.
Her eyes darted around the room, everything in there seemingly out of place with the rest of the school for some reason. For instance, the rugged old cross on the wall to her right that her pupils kept itching for in her peripheral vision. It was just a standard brown wooden cross with Jesus slung upon it, but something about it was different. Something about the tilt of it, as if Christ were trying to turn the entire rig so that he could stare her right in the face and tell her that she was doing wrong just by being here.
The colours in the room did not match, and in fact clashed drastically, leaving her disoriented as her pupils made their way from one side of the room to the other. She wanted to get those guys from that decorating show on TV in here right now and remodel the whole place. Maybe a fireplace and something else rustic...
“The colours were like this when I started, I’ve been lobbying for paint for a year and a half,” he informed her with a smirk, as if reading her mind.
She shifted in her chair, moving her purse so that it covered her crotch and making sure that her jacket was zipped all the way up for the fifth time that minute. “Uh,” she started finally, and his eyebrows rose to hear what she had to say. “Why am I here again?”
He chuckled softly at her unease, doing his best to assure her that it was unwarranted. “You’re here for the same reason that everyone else in the school has been here over and over again for the past week. I want to make sure that you’re all okay. That everything’s fine.”
She shrugged, then slapped her hands down onto her knees and smirked her best fake-smirk. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m fine. So... I don’t have to be here, right?”
He spread a hand toward the door in casual defeat, glancing down at her file as he did so. “What about Sara and Julian?” he asked, not even bothering to look at her as her entire body ceased into a complete halt. His voice was even-toned and icy cold. “Are they alright?”
She stopped, the only movement her pupils as they slowly turned away from the door to finally meet his gaze. He wasn’t looking at her blouse as it hung out of her jean jacket, and he wasn’t trying to catch a glimpse of her pants as she moved her purse to her side. He was meeting her gaze with his own, waiting for a response like a stone statue. “Excuse me?” she demanded, her voice slicing through the air like a knife.
“I asked you how your friends Sara and Julian were... although I believe the latter went by the name Grendel, is that correct?” he asked, but his voice wasn’t cold anymore. He sounded like a computer talking... like an android on that damn Star Trek show that Xander loved so much. She wondered how anyone could say these things without the slightest hint of sympathy.
She sat back down, but didn’t really notice the chair beneath her. Her entire body was numb, and she looked around as if she’d forgotten where she was. “Why are you saying these things?” she asked. She gripped her purse now, digging her fingers into the black imitation leather.
“What have I said?” he shrugged, pouting his bottom lip out momentarily. “What do you think about when I say these things, Cathy?”
Still in shock, Cathy looked back and forth across Dr. Phillips’s desk, answering the questions absent-mindedly. “Frozen yogurt,” she said truthfully, only meeting his eye for a fraction of a second.
Now it was his turn to be totally confused. “What?”
“I think about how much I like frozen yogurt -- in cones, not dishes -- and how I used to like to eat it with Sara. But Sara won’t ever get to eat frozen yogurt ever again. Or have coffee, or go out by the door and have a smoke. She won’t get to do anything anymore,” she sobbed, tears finally streaming down her hot, pink cheeks. “And nobody will tell me why,” she whispered, so softly that Phillips had to struggle to hear her.
“And what about Mr. Grendel?” he asked, still holding both fists against his mouth with his thumbs riding the waddle of his neck. “What do you think about when I say his name?”
She buried her head deep into her hands, gazing down at the floor from between her knees. She sucked back the mucus that was in danger of streaming out of her nose and tried hard to control her mouth, stop it from quivering. But it didn’t stop; it spread until she felt as though her entire body were shaking. Until she couldn’t feel her legs. “I wasn’t worth it,” she said softly, holding her shoulders with her hands.
“What does that mean?” he asked, his voice taking on a little more compassion now.
She swallowed hard. “He took me up into his bedroom...” Her eyes were burning a hole into some point on the far wall and it was hard to understand her, with her mouth refusing to work and her sinuses wet with tears trying to force their way out of her body. “... and he forced me down onto the floor. He got on top and started... started...” She sobbed uncontrollably.
“I know,” he soothed, reaching out and touching her hair softly. His touch calmed her slightly. “Believe me, I know.”
“He stopped,” Cathy sobbed, her chest feeling as though it were going to collapse in on itself. “He didn’t finish.”
“He said you weren’t good enough,” Phillips nodded, pursing his lips and fighting the urge to curse. “Cathy, what do you think of when you hear things like... like what happened to poor Julie Peterson?”
Cathy stopped sobbing a little then, slowly raising her head to look into his eyes. “I don’t care,” she said, with the same lapse of emotion he had employed only moments ago. “I’m sorry, but I -- can’t think that it’s happening to other people. I’ll--”
“It’s okay,” he assured her, and she started to cry again.
Outside the door, Mike watched the girl he loved break down crying again. He raised his hand, wishing that he could reach out and touch her. Wished that he could tell her everything was all right. That he wasn’t going to let it happen again, that he wouldn’t let it happen to anyone again. Slowly, that hand clenched into a fist as he stared down at the address in his opposite hand. Then again, why tell you when I can show you? he asked her mentally, then turned and walked toward the exit, careful to keep a lookout for Shnieder’s hall-monitors.
It was three o’clock by the time Mike arrived at the address on the sheet of paper he still clutched in his hands, and that gave him a sense of relief. Now he was actually supposed to be off school, as opposed to simply not being there for no reason. It also meant that Xander would be walking Cathy home, so he didn’t have to worry about where either of them were. Besides, there were plenty of other things for him to worry about. Like if he had any sweet clue what he was doing, like if she was as mean as all the kids at school said she was, like what he was going to do with the knowledge he was after should he get it... plenty of things to keep his
mind active.
So why was it that I keep thinking about Cathy and Xander? he grumbled softly, wiping a layer of sweat from his freckled cheeks as the warm sun beat down on his face as it had the entire way here. The sidewalk was boiling now and every time he chanced a glance at it, his vision got wavy, making it hard to focus on anything. His hair was sticking to the top of his head, so he ruffled his hands through it to try and make it presentable as he looked up at the mammoth house that jutted up from the soil before him.
It was a two-story house that was pretty much shaped like a square. The main entrance was on the second floor -- not the ground level -- so there was a veranda and a winding set of stairs leading from it down to the driveway, where there was a small yellow Beetle parked. The siding was painted white, with a navy trim on it that gave it an almost royal air. Those colours inspired a sense of awe, except here that wasn’t a good thing. Mike had been hoping for some quiet little condo with lawn-ornaments depicting cats scattered across the lawn, maybe even a large wooden sign hanging from the mail box that read ‘welcome.’
He took one last look up at the house. As he stood there, he couldn’t help but feel as though the asphalt driveway was melting into his sneakers. Shifting his feet slightly to test the theory, he found that there was an odd sticky feeling beneath his sweaty feet, which supported his hypothesis.
He turned, shoving the small piece of paper down into his pocket and began to walk back down the driveway, his frown weighing down his face like an anchor.
“Young man?” came a squawky, parrot-like voice from behind him. He stopped in his tracks, all of the colour draining from his face until he looked like the paper he’d just shoved into his pocket.
He turned slowly and saw an elderly woman’s head sticking out through the front door of the house, looking at him. Her face looked for the world like melted wax, drawn out as far as it could go. There was still some up-lift around the eyes, giving her friendly cheekbones. Her eyes were black and sunk deep into her withered head, but there was still a mischievous twinkle in them, a gleam of youth left in her. She had curly, thin silver hair that Mike thought was the standard for all little old ladies, wondering if somewhere they were cloning that hairstyle and sending it to them by mail. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, realizing that he’d been staring. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Habeas Corpus: Black Womb (Black Womb Collection Book 1) Page 23