Cheerleaders From Planet X

by Lyssa Chiavari

  I started with “Bayview University cheerleaders.” The top results were news stories about the two missing girls—“missing” for two days, all the news sites kept reminding me, even though I’d seen them less than six hours ago.

  Below the news articles was a link to the Swordsmen Athletics website, which had a roster of the cheer squad with each of the members’ pictures. That must be where all the news channels had gotten their pictures of Leah and Joanie, the other girl from the train who had looked at me with those pale green eyes before disappearing from view. I scrolled quickly down the page, but there was no information apart from the squad members’ names, projected graduation years and photos. I refused to let my eyes linger on Shailene Peterson, freshman. Not any longer than it took to register her name, anyway. It still seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place it. Thinking about it was starting to give me a headache.

  I browsed through a few more pages of results, but there was nothing of interest. Bayview’s cheer squad was small, but it had a reputation for being elite among those who cared about that sort of thing. They’d won the regional championships the last three years in a row—I couldn’t help snickering to myself, remembering how Erikka said on the news that they’d had to forfeit this year due to the missing teammates—and several national championships as well. The squad was known for its “almost superhuman athleticism and agility” (that’s what popped up when I searched “Bayview cheerleaders superhuman”). But there was no information about them being, you know, monster hunters or whatever they were, so the cheerleader angle seemed to be a bust.

  The next thing I tried was that weird word Shailene had mentioned: “Anesidoran.” I had to try a few different spellings, but finally I got it. Anesidora: an alternate name for Pandora, the one with the box (or, more correctly, jar—as Wikipedia so kindly informed me) from Greek mythology.

  I frowned. Pandora was supposed to have unleashed evil monsters into the world. If those bug creatures in cops’ clothing didn’t count as evil monsters, I didn’t know what would.

  I scrolled through a few pages of increasingly random nonsense, each seeming to have less and less to do with what I was looking for. Finally, I clicked away from a page about alien abductions near Area 51 and closed my eyes, massaging my stiff jaw with my fingers. My headache was worse than ever. It was starting to remind me of how my Auntie Cristina described migraines, though I’d never had one myself. I needed to just forget this and start working on my English paper before this headache took me entirely out of commission.

  Just one more search. Just to satisfy my curiosity.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, my fingers were flying across my laptop’s keyboard, typing the one phrase I’d been most itching to search all night but hadn’t had the nerve to.

  “Shailene Peterson, Everett Middle School.”

  I pressed enter, and the dull throbbing behind my eyes suddenly turned into a sharp stabbing pain. It hurt to keep my eyes open, but closing them didn’t seem to help, either. Sucking my breath in through clenched teeth, I hunched forward, pressing my head between my hands to try to abate the pain. My ears started to ring, the sound growing louder and louder until I just couldn’t take it anymore.

  Everything went black. k'12

  * * *

  Someone was watching me.

  Even though my eyes were closed, I knew someone was there, staring at me. It startled me awake, and I tried to fling my eyelids open, but they were heavy and wouldn’t move. My vision swam with colors. I wanted to see, but I couldn’t.

  “Laura.”

  At last I managed to pry my eyes open and immediately wished I hadn’t. Because there was Mr. Trenchcoat standing over me, his skin oscillating all the colors that had been swimming in front of me just a minute ago.

  I screamed.

  “Laura!”

  I blinked and the man in the trenchcoat was gone. In his place was Ana. She hurried over to my side and perched at the foot of the bed, looking at me fretfully. “Are you okay?”

  I glanced around the room in confusion. “How did I get here?” I asked. I was somehow in my bed, but I couldn’t remember moving from my desk.

  Ana leaned over and handed me a glass of orange juice that had been sitting on the nightstand next to me. “I think you’re sick. You fell asleep at your desk or something, and when I stuck my head in here a couple hours ago you started going, ‘My head hurts, my head hurts.’ So I helped you get into bed.”

  I pulled my knees into my chest. “I don’t remember,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize!” She smiled. “I think you had a fever. Did the aspirin help? You took some before you went to sleep.”

  I nodded. “It must have. I don’t have a headache anymore at least.”

  “Good.” She hesitated. “And listen. If you want to talk, remember I’m here, yeah?” I quirked my eyebrow, confused, and she laughed embarrassedly. “On your computer. That girl you were Facebook stalking, Shailene?” She patted my foot as I continued to stare blankly at her. “I recognized her from the TV earlier, when you got all pissy. She’s your ex, right?”

  My jaw dropped. “Uh, no,” I said. I didn’t even remember pulling up her Facebook page. All I remembered was clicking search on Google and then my head exploding.

  “Oh, sorry. But you know her, right? It said on her page that she’s from Everett. I closed it for you, though, so you wouldn’t get upset again.”

  I smiled tightly, my mind a blur. “Thanks,” was all I could manage to say. Why didn’t I remember any of this?

  “Well, let me know if you want to talk,” Ana said, taking my empty orange juice glass from me. “Try not to think about her, and get some sleep. The Deltas are going to breakfast at Gunther’s in the morning. If you’re feeling okay, do you want to come?” The Deltas were Ana’s pledge class, mostly girls two years ahead of me. Most of them had stayed at the house over spring break, though I hadn’t seen them when I’d gotten back.

  “Sure,” I said. Ana nodded and patted my foot again, and despite my grogginess from the dream, I felt that familiar rush of affection that I’d experienced so often in the months since Big Reveal and initiation—the feeling that I was the luckiest little in the world. Ana was more than just some girl who’d been assigned to me at random. She was like the sister I’d never had. All the cousins and uncles and aunties were nothing like having a real sibling. But joining Gam-Lam? It gave me what I’d been missing.

  After Ana left, I looked around the big room at the rows of empty beds. I didn’t know how I was supposed to sleep alone in here, not if I was going to have nightmares about the Technicolor Dude in a Trenchcoat staring at me all night.

  I stood up and moved to look out the window, down at our small garden. Fog had rolled in from the Bay, obscuring the tops of the trees and coating the wrought iron bench in the courtyard with moisture. Little dewdrops trickled off the house’s letters, Gamma Sigma Lambda.

  Shailene is from Everett, I thought, running my finger across the glass. So she’s probably the girl I remember from middle school. But why didn’t I remember more about her? I supposed it could have been just one of those things—it was six years ago, after all, and if I hadn’t known her that well then I probably wouldn’t remember much. But it felt wrong somehow, especially after today.

  Why did thinking about it make my head hurt so much?

  I resolved not to think about it for probably the eight-hundredth time. Then I pulled the blinds shut and went to bed.

  If you really want to get your mind off something, I recommend one of Gunther’s Dutch babies. Seriously, just try to stay stressed with a light, fluffy popover the size of a bicycle tire—drizzled in lemon and coated with powdered sugar—in front of you. It’s a physical impossibility.

  Beside me, Makeisha, one of the Deltas I’d gone to breakfast with, laughed. “My favorite part of coming here is seeing the look on Laura’s face when they bring one of those things out. It’s like she’s having a
religious experience,” she said, elbowing me playfully.

  “I can’t help it if I love food,” I replied solemnly, though a grin was threatening to break through. “It’s part of my heritage.”

  She quirked her eyebrows. “Including German pancakes?”

  “That’s from my dad’s side.”

  Everyone laughed, and across the table, my big caught my eye. I could tell she was relieved to see me feeling better. And, honestly, I did. A good night’s sleep had put some distance between me and the events of the day before. In a few weeks, I was sure, I’d forget the whole thing.

  Just like I’d apparently forgotten Shailene.

  Breakfast went swimmingly until the end, when we got up as a group to pay the cashier and noticed the TV over the register. The news was playing another story about the Bayview cheerleaders.

  “That’s so scary,” Natalia, a senior, said. “Do you think it was a kidnapping? My cousin goes to Bayview, and he said that’s what everyone’s saying. What if it’s some kind of fetishist with a thing for cheerleaders?”

  I chuckled shakily, pulling my card out of my wallet. “Well, as long as he sticks with them and doesn’t switch to sorority girls, I guess we’re safe.”

  We headed out of the restaurant and started back toward the Gam-Lam house. Gunther’s was just a few blocks away from campus, but going back was uphill all the way.

  “Time to work off those sausages,” Makeisha said, smacking her stomach and laughing as we started up the incline. It was early enough—and cold enough—that the fog that had rolled in last night still hadn’t burned off yet. The businesses around us were shrouded in mist, the signs over their doors smudgy and barely legible. Other St. Francis students, starting to trickle back today for one last weekend of partying before school resumed on Monday, milled around us in groups.

  I felt oddly unsettled. It was probably just because of what Natalia had said, but I felt like I was being watched. I kept thinking I saw shadows out of the corner of my eye, things moving too fast to be human.

  “Probably just birds,” I muttered under my breath.

  “What’d you say, mija?” Ana said, glancing over her shoulder at me.

  “This hill is killing me,” I replied without missing a beat. “Aren’t you supposed to wait twenty minutes after you eat before exercising?”

  A shadow moved to my right, and a streak of red shot past me, fog swirling around her figure. That definitely wasn’t a bird. And it wasn’t my imagination, either. I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “You okay, Laura?” Natalia asked.

  Thinking quickly, I started rummaging through my purse. I couldn’t let her get away. “Crap,” I said. “I think I left my wallet at Gunther’s.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Ana.

  “Yeah. It’s not in here. Now that I think of it, I remember setting it on the counter in front of the register.” I shoved my purse back up onto my shoulder. “I’m just going to run back and get it.”

  “You want us to come with you?” Makeisha said.

  “No, no, it’s fine,” I replied, edging away from the group. “I’ll just be a minute. You guys go on ahead.” I turned and hurried back down the hill before any of them could protest further. But I didn’t stop when I reached Gunther’s; after all, my wallet was safely in my purse. Instead, I kept running all the way down to the corner, following the red blur that—I swear—looked like one of the Bayview cheerleaders on one of those old Razor scooters. What next, a pair of rollerblades?

  At the corner, I lost sight of the girl. I paused, wondering if I’d been mistaken. But no—I knew what I’d seen. Seconds later, I heard a crash and raised voices. I darted forward, following the sound to a service alley that ran behind Gunther’s. I was just steps away when the sky above my head lit up with bright red lightning, eerily diffused by the fog. There was a scream, and then a crash of thunder followed, rattling the windows of the buildings around me. I let out a cry and ducked, covering my ears. Then it was quiet.

  Across the street, a guy who had been selling hemp jewelry on the corner lifted up his sunglasses (Seriously, on a foggy day like this?) and stared at me with his mouth open. I gave him the dirtiest look I could muster and rushed into the alley.

  It was empty.

  I crept forward slowly, looking around at the bedlam. A trash can near the service entrance to Gunther’s had tipped over, its contents strewn all over the wet asphalt. The air smelled like something burning, but the alley was eerily quiet. It was like no one had been here at all. But I knew I’d seen her. And there was that red lightning…

  There was a soft rustle behind me. I whirled around. Standing at the entrance to the alley, boxing me in, was Shailene. She was wearing black yoga pants and a red letterman jacket zipped up all the way to her neck to protect against the chill damp air. Her dark, sideswept hair fell loosely around her shoulders like a curtain, framing her stony face. She breathed heavily, puffs of mist rising from her mouth in bursts.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked as soon as I found my voice.

  “I should be asking you that. Where’s Leslie?”

  “Leslie?” I repeated. “The girl on the scooter?” Shailene nodded. “I don’t know. I saw her come in here, but there was this loud noise, and the sky got all red, and—”

  A noise that didn’t quite sound human tore from Shailene’s throat. She abruptly turned and kicked the dumpster beside her with an enormous crash, making me jump. She squeezed her eyes shut, and for a second I thought she was going to cry. I started to move forward, hesitantly, reaching for her shoulder, but then I pulled back. It felt like I was intruding.

  “Three in two days,” she murmured, barely audible. Then she opened her eyes and the sorrow was gone, replaced with cold fury. “Okay, who the hell are you?” she demanded.

  I took a step backward. “I-I don’t—”

  “Don’t give me that crap. Every time you turn up, our girls start vanishing.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with me!” I protested.

  “Oh, really? Then how come there were sentries following you just now? Leslie was trying to lure them away from you, but then you broke away from your group. And now she’s gone.” She crossed her arms, glaring at me. “Sentries don’t waste their time with ordinary humans. They leave that to the technicians. Sentries are only interested in us. But you can’t be one of us. HQ has a record of all the free lab rats in the state. But no record of you.” She’d started advancing on me as she spoke. I backed up until I hit the cold metal of the dumpster behind me. “You’re supposed to just be a normal human, yet you see and hear everything. So who the hell are you?”

  Her face was just inches from mine. My heart pounded in my throat. I wish I could say it was because I was afraid, like any normal person would be in this situation. I knew I should be; but at this close proximity, something else was coming over me. And it wasn’t even hormones, either. That weird déjà vu feeling was back, overpoweringly. Like she and I had been in this position before—only she hadn’t wanted to wring my neck back then. Quite the opposite, in fact. The memory teased at the sides of my mind, but it was blurry and muted. My temples started to throb.

  I turned my face away from hers, focusing on the dingy alley instead. “I don’t know why they’re following me. I really am nobody. I’m just Laura Clark, like I told you yesterday. I don’t know why I can see these things. I didn’t ask for any of this. So please, just—” My voice broke off. I wanted to say go away, but the words wouldn’t come out. I tried, but my mouth just couldn’t form them. What the hell was wrong with my body? The headache was returning with a vengeance, along with nauseating tunnel vision.

  “Laura?”

  Startled, I glanced at Shailene. She looked a little green around the gills herself. Her eyes were out of focus, staring at me but not seeing me. She murmured something—possibly my name again—but I couldn’t hear it over the ringing in my ears.

  Then a woman’s voice, bold and clear,
echoed across the alleyway. “Striker Peterson.”

  Shailene jolted, her eyes clearing, and she turned. When she moved away from me, the tunnel vision abruptly receded. I took a shaky breath and looked at the newcomer. She was a tall, muscular blond woman, her hair pulled back in a slick ponytail.

  “Coach,” Shailene said.

  The woman folded her arms across her chest. “Stand down.”

  “But, Coach,” Shailene protested, “now Leslie’s gone. I can’t sense her anywhere. And she’s the last person who saw her.”

  “I said, stand down,” the woman repeated.

  When Shailene moved away from me, the blonde stepped forward to shake my hand. Bewildered, I let her.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Laura Clark,” she said in a silky smooth voice.

  I felt like I’d been transported to The Twilight Zone. “Uh, thanks,” I said. “Who are you? And how do you know my name?”

  She opened the lapel of her jacket and pulled out an extremely official-looking badge. “Special agent Janice Sheldon. I’m with the I.G.A., and I’m going to need you to come with me.”

  “Wait a second,” I said dubiously, peering through the tinted windshield of the SUV at the tall white-stone campanile looming over us. “You said you’re with the I.G.A. So why did you bring me here?”

  Janice Sheldon smiled over at me from the driver’s seat. “Don’t worry. You’ll understand everything once we get to my office.”

  I frowned. “No offense, but that sounds pretty shady. Shouldn’t I have my lawyer with me or something?” Not that I had a lawyer, of course. I suppose there was always my uncle Julian who lived in New York, but he was a divorce attorney, and he wasn’t even licensed in this state. I didn’t know how much use he would be in a case like this.

  “You’re not under arrest, Laura,” Janice said with a laugh. “And I think you’ll agree that the things that have been happening to you are already pretty shady. I just want to help you understand what’s going on a little better.”