My foot slipped on something and I almost went down but caught my balance. I reached down and felt the moisture on my foot. Blood. Not mine. But definitely blood. They were trying to scare me and doing a damn fine job, because my stomach rose into my throat, my skin felt cold, and my heart thumped.
I picked up the basket and moved down the hallway. In my peripheral vision, I could see a few of them staring at me from inside their dark rooms, the whites of their eyes creepy and glowing. My lower lip quivered, but I was determined not to cry. I clenched my jaw and lugged the basket along.
* * *
The first room I came to was like mine, with two single beds. The sheets and blankets had been stripped off the stained mattresses. The laundry basket in the corner was overflowing with soiled bedding, shirts and pants and underwear. I started to pick it up and stopped suddenly. Panic shot up my spine. There was a finger poking out of the pile. I took a deep breath. They were messing with me again, just like with the blood.
“Very funny. You can come out now,” I said.
Nothing. I flicked it with my fingernail but it didn’t move. It looked gray. Oh god. I couldn’t help myself and touched it. It wasn’t just a finger, it was part of a whole hand, and it was cold. Shuddering, I grabbed the hand by the finger and pulled. It came out of the basket, a bloody stump. I screeched and flung it across the room where it bounced. My stomach lurched—until I saw it was just some stupid rubber hand. Another prank. Great. Welcome to the nuthouse. I shook my head. Enough of this bullshit. I decided I wasn’t going to let them get to me. I was going to go and do the stupid laundry and, in the process, find some way out. If I couldn’t find an exit, I would go and have a heart-to-heart with the tall woman and find out what in the hell Middle House was.
The possibilities of how I got here swam through my mind. I was thinking natural disaster, a flood or an earthquake maybe, and I must have gotten knocked out, lost in the storm, and wound up in this place. Ugh. I saw another hand in the laundry basket. I grabbed it angrily, ready to toss it across the room, but this time the hand grabbed me back!
I shrieked and yanked away and fell back on my ass as a stubby boy crawled up out of the basket. He had a large head and was bald, had a thick neck, and had diagonal scars like zippers on his skull. I felt dizzy. Now kids were staring in at me from the hallway, their eyes wide, their sinister faces expressionless.
“Stupid newbie,” one of them said.
* * *
I sat in silence for a few seconds and calmed my throbbing pulse. Then I rose and picked up the dirty laundry. What else was I going to do? I was obviously in this place for a reason, and toeing the line for the time being seemed like the best strategy. Let them have their stupid fun.
Down the hall I slogged, lugging baskets by their handles. My back was killing me. I found the end of the hallway and carried my smelly cargo down the stairwell. On the way down, I heard noises, as if the walls were filled with scurrying rats. I heard howls and a moaning, too, but I ignored it all, vowing to get out of this place as soon as humanly possible. I couldn’t wait to go do something normal, like a bike ride or a walk in the park with Andy. I hoped he was okay. If I’d ended up here, where was he?
* * *
The laundry room had a single naked light bulb, so dim that darkness crowded around a huge old boiler, hissing and clanking away like some dying beast. The concrete walls were sweating, and there was one window, barred, against the far wall. I wasn’t even going to try it. I found the soap and loaded up the battered old Maytag washers. I remembered all the times I had bitched and moaned to Mom about having to help her do laundry. If I could only be with her right now, I’d gladly do laundry all day long. I turned the first washer on but nothing happened.
I kicked it—always worth a try—but as soon as my bare foot hit the side of the washer, someone yelped. More hazing. Just what I needed. A head popped up from behind the washer. It was a boy, around my age, with dark hair hanging down over his eyes. When he brushed his bangs away, I saw that he was actually trending toward handsome. He had nice eyes—hazel and friendly. He had nice lips, too, but they were curled in a sneer, which he probably thought was sexy but instead reminded me of a neighbor’s nasty Siberian husky that once took a chunk out of my leg.
“I suppose you all think you’re very clever,” I said. “But you’re not really scaring me; you’re just getting on my nerves.”
He reared his head back like I’d just slapped him.
“I wasn’t trying to scare you. I’m fixing the plug. That’s why the machine you were brutalizing didn’t turn on.”
He held up a plug that he’d repaired with electrical tape, and then proceeded to plug it into the wall socket.
“Try it now. Maybe without the kick.”
I did, and the machine started chugging away dutifully. I suppose I should have thanked him, but I was in no mood to thank anybody.
“Do you always go around kicking things that don’t cooperate?” he asked, pushing the bangs out of his eyes again.
“Who cares what I do?” Ms. Petulant. Nice touch.
“I suppose that is the question now, isn’t it?”
“No, the question is … where am I?”
“You don’t know?”
“If I knew, would I ask?”
He smiled. It annoyed the crap out of me. I was going to tell him as much but then he answered my question.
“You’re in Middle House.”
“Middle what?”
He looked at me like I was some kind of idiot.
“Middle House. It’s an orphanage.”
“How the hell did I get here?”
He gazed at me a long time, slowly squinting his eyes as if he were nearsighted and trying to focus on something far away.
“We all come to Middle House in different ways.”
“Well, thank you so much for the entirely vague and mysterious answer. Here’s the thing. I don’t belong here. I’m not an orphan. My parents are very much alive.”
He gazed thoughtfully at me and was about to speak when a bell rang.
“Breakfast,” he said, and then left the basement, taking the stairs two at a time.
I wanted answers, but I also happened to be hungry. Starving, actually. I had two choices. I could stay in the damp, smelly laundry room watching the clothes churn while I sulked, or I could follow Hazel Eyes upstairs. I climbed the steps and followed the scent of frying bacon to a double doorway.
DINING
The dining hall was full of kids sitting at long, low wooden tables, hunched over their bowls and plates, chowing down like wild animals. I wondered why they even bothered with utensils, because bits of food were flying around and milk was slopping out of their bowls onto the tables and everybody was acting like this was perfectly normal. A black cat darted past me into the room and zipped under a table to lick spilled milk.
Fingers crossed that I’d been properly hazed and that initiation was over, I entered, which caused a slight lull in the gobbling. Dozens of eyes locked on me as I glanced around eagerly for a seat. Hazel Eyes happened to have a place next to him. He saw me and waited a painfully long moment before grudgingly waving me over. Not my first choice—he’d been verging on rude in the basement—but everyone else in the place looked worse, so I approached his table. A lanky boy with freckles, long red hair, and buckteeth was sitting on the other side of the open seat. He coughed loudly into his hand and more gazes fell upon me.
I took the seat between Freckles and Hazel Eyes. I almost jumped back up, because the seat was absolutely freezing. It felt like my butt was on a block of ice. Confused, I slid my hand under my rear end. The wood felt cold enough to freeze water on contact, but there was no ice there or anything else that would explain why the seat was so cold. I shivered. This place was getting weirder by the second.
The voice in my head was looping, telling me, I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I’d always thought I had really good karma. WTF?
What did I do to deserve this?
Every single kid was staring at me, including Mick with the long white hair. I stared back—for what seemed an eternity—until they began to look away and went back to feeding. They didn’t just eat the food—they demolished it noisily, hoovering away like it was some kind of contest or something. I shook my head, my grumbling stomach protesting as I searched for my usual breakfast fare of fruit and yogurt with a few walnuts and raisins sprinkled on top—the morning meal my mom had been preparing for me for as long as I could remember. But there was no fruit and/or yogurt in sight. I scooped some sickly looking scrambled eggs onto my plate and grabbed a piece of toast.
“Name’s Cole,” said Hazel Eyes as he pushed a plate of donuts and maple bars toward me. I took one. Mom would kill me. I tended to eat unhealthy when I was stressed, and I was totally stressed on this particularly weird and spooky day.
“You got a name?” he asked.
“My name’s Echo.”
“What are your parents, hippies?”
“Hardly. When I was two, I apparently repeated everything they said. So they just started calling me Echo.”
“What’s your real name?”
“I only tell my close friends that.”
Cole nodded. So calm.
“Okay, nice to meet you, Echo. You better hurry up and eat while there’s still food left. In case you hadn’t noticed, we love to eat around here. Go ahead and dig in. Lunch isn’t for hours.”
I ate the eggs, which were better than they looked. I poured myself a glass of milk and drank some as I munched on the toast. My butt was still freezing, but I ate nonstop, succumbing to temptation and wolfing down a maple bar, and amazingly I wasn’t even starting to get full. As I carelessly wiped milk from my chin, I inadvertently let loose with a sizeable burp. All eyes stared at me. Then Mick let loose with a burp, too, and someone chuckled. But the levity didn’t last. I was thinking about how odd everyone here was when out of nowhere, I got smacked in the head with a donut. Sprinkles rained down.
“What the hell?!” I yelled.
I had no idea who threw the donut; it was as if the thing decided to attack me and just leapt off the plate on its own. The herd stared at me. My ears burned with embarrassment. I took vengeance upon the donut by biting into it. It was scrumptious and I shoved the rest into my mouth. Chewing like a mongrel, I saw something out of the corner of my eye—it looked like a spark or a streak of fire.
A cereal box in front of me burst into flames. I was scared out of my wits. What was happening? I was trying to figure it all out and my head felt lighter. No wonder, because I was having trouble swallowing and it gradually dawned on me that I was choking. Panic spread through my chest. I was turning blue! I opened my mouth to scream for help but nothing came out. I was gagging, waving my arms around like a fool. No one jumped up to help me. Instead they just stared at me with their cold white eyes. I should have been angry at their apathy, but I was too scared. All I could think was Please don’t die, please, not now, Echo—it’s not your time!
Bees buzzed in my head. I was starting to lose consciousness and I begged God not to let me perish here in the land of creeps. Something slammed into my back, hard, and I thought they were finally doing it—they were ganging up on me and were going to put me down. But it was Cole, thumping the ball of his hand into my back. He was trying to save me but was only making things worse, lodging the deadly lump deeper in my throat. My eyes searched the room for help, but every single kid in there was staring impassively at me. The short boy with the scars, Zipperhead, smiled a tight little nasty vermin smile and made a choking gesture. It drew laughter. Despite my terror, I couldn’t believe how cruel they were being.
I turned to Cole, who was eerily calm. His eyes were telling me not to panic, but the truth was I was no longer in control here; fear was rushing through me. My limbs were numb. I was starting to pass out. Cole got up and pulled me to my feet and started applying the Heimlich maneuver, wrapping his arms around my chest and yanking. A jolt of fear shot up my spine as my brain exploded in a kaleidoscope of red and yellow starbursts. I was going to die. I fought back, using my last reserves of strength to scream.
“Let go of me!”
Cole released his grip and I realized that I’d just screamed. He’d managed to dislodge the lump of food that was trying to kill me, and I was breathing again, sucking in air like I’d just broken the surface after a long dive. The kids kept staring like a herd of sheep. No one seemed to give a shit that I almost just died. My face was burning.
“Can’t you see that I almost just died! What is wrong with you people?” I screamed.
A pause, then more laughter. Sadistic assholes! I scanned the collection of weird young faces, every one of them looking haunted and broken. I was pissed off, but still … I almost felt bad for them. They were scary but at the same time looked hopeless. I couldn’t help myself and exploded with anger.
“I don’t belong here! I’m not an orphan! My parents are alive!”
Pin drop. Five long seconds. Then the room absolutely erupted with cruel, taunting laughter that sliced my heart to ribbons. Zipperhead oinked like a pig and squealed in a shrill voice, mocking me. “Alive, I tell you—my mommy and daddy are alive!” More laughter. They were enjoying this.
I held my head high and walked out. I wished Andy were here. He would have kicked their sorry asses.
“Echo, wait!” said Cole.
“Echo? That’s her name?” blurted Zipperhead.
This started an all-too-familiar game.
“Echo … Echo … Echo…”
Ha-ha. I got it, the big unoriginal joke. The one I’d heard my whole life. The life I couldn’t wait to get back to.
INTRODUCTIONS
I ran from the dining room, down the hall, and into my room. I wasn’t going to let them see me cry. I gave the door an angry slam and threw myself on the bed. Safely behind the closed door, the tears came and I didn’t even try to resist. I hoped that releasing them would free me from the pain that was threatening to swallow me whole. It was like I’d not only lost my way but I was getting way too close to losing myself. I thought of my mom and dad and Andy. I kept fighting the horrible feeling that something awful had happened. The sobs came from deep within, racking my body until my stomach ached.
There was a knock on the door.
“Go away.”
“You don’t even know who it is,” said Cole.
I was secretly glad it was him and not the tall woman or another gang of sadistic freaks.
“Please just leave,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
When I didn’t answer right away, he came in. I wiped away tears and curled into a ball. He sat at the foot of the bed. His fingers touched my ankle. I couldn’t believe how light his touch was. Wait. Was he busting a move on me now?
“I’ll help you with the laundry,” he said gently. “But we better get it done soon. You don’t want to piss off Headmistress Torvous—trust me.”
He stood up and then his hand found my wrist. Oddly, I didn’t jerk away but let him pull me to my feet. Again I noticed his killer lips. I told myself to knock it off.
“Come on. It’ll be cake,” he said.
Feeling like a kindergartener who’d just had a time-out, I followed Cole downstairs and we worked on the laundry. I had a million questions and I rattled them off. He thought about each one, and in the end he only answered two. But they were important ones.
Yes, there was a way out, and yes, he would help me.
For the first time since waking up in this freak zone, my spirits began to lift. I wanted to know how we were going to escape and why he was helping me, but I didn’t press the issues, because I didn’t want him to change his mind. We took the stuff out of the dryer and were folding towels when Cole asked me, “Your mom and dad—what were they like?”
The past tense—it was like a knife in my gut. I bristled.
“What do you mean ‘were’? I told you,
they’re alive!”
He stayed calm. Even though my eyes were burning with anger. He spoke softly.
“Tell me about them.”
I wanted to tell him all about my amazing, beautiful mom, my smart and strong dad, how much they meant to me and how much my heart ached because I wasn’t with them now. But I knew that if I started baring my soul, more tears would come. Because this insane fear was creeping up inside me. The fear that, as crazy and unfair as it seemed, my being in this horrible place was somehow justified. That Mom and Dad were gone. No! Stuff like that didn’t happen to girls like me. I chased the thought away and pushed the fear down.
“I’ve got a better idea. You can meet them. I’ll bring them back when you get me out of here, and then you can ask them anything you want.”
“I can hear it in your voice that you really loved them.”
“Cole, stop it! Love them. Not loved, I love them. No more past tense, okay?”
Right away he was nodding, his eyes full of empathy.
“Sorry. I get it. You love them. You’ll always love them. Forever. Believe me, I understand.”
But I wasn’t so sure he did. I didn’t think anybody here did. That’s why I had to get out. Every minute I was there I felt like the place was changing me into someone I didn’t want to be, and there was no way I was going to let that happen.
* * *
We brought the laundry back upstairs, folded and sorted, and delivered it to the rooms. While doing so, Cole acquainted me with some of my tormentors, trying to make nice, which was pointless because I was leaving ASAP. But he’d helped me out and I didn’t want to be rude. In room number one, I met his roommate, the other kid who sat next to me at breakfast, the one with the freckles and red hair. His name was Dougie; he was eleven and tall for his age, all elbows and knobby knees. Even though it was super cold in the room, he was shirtless, his skin pebbled with goose bumps. I shivered as he nodded and gave me a limp fist bump when Cole introduced us.
“Sup, Cole?”
“Just showin’ the newbie around.”
Bad Girl Gone Page 2