Jack turns the bat in his hands. The Red of battle fades from his eyes.
Elie gawks at him.
Jack shrugs. “You wouldn’t give me a gun.”
From the base of the stairs, Catarina screams.
Elie snaps his fingers at Jack. “You’re cleaning that up.” Then he rushes to Catarina.
Jack stares at the bloody end of the baseball bat. He’s impressed with his home-run hit. His brain doesn’t allow any thoughts of grief or terror.
Elie comforts his shaken daughter.
In the hurricane of noise, a wounded tentacle makes a sad whimpering sound. It detaches itself from the businessman’s corpse. Then it slithers away, unheard.
Chapter 6: School Daze
Unlike almost every one of his peers, Caleb likes school. Not because he’s a kissass or because he enjoys the company of those around him. It’s more that he can... Well, he can feel his brain getting smarter. Weird as that sounds.
His classmates don’t care much for him. Jack and Viktor say it’s because they’re jealous. Maybe. But Caleb’s got a hard time thinking so highly of himself.
And jealous of what? His intelligence? His grades?
Hell, they were all twelve and thirteen-year-olds. Not like he’s screwing them out of a promotion or beating them in the Olympics.
Caleb doesn’t understand kids.
Who cares about phones? Shoes? Clothes? That shit does not matter.
Math matters. Science matters. Learning matters.
Caleb sneezes. Twice. Violently. A small splash of boogers and blood bursts from his nose. The goo grenade splorch-es onto his note pad. It creates an icky piece of modern art.
He waits for the laughs. Waits for his classmates to start making fun of him.
They’ll say, “Haha, fag. Can’t stop your nose from leaking.” Or, “First your boner, now your face is gushing.”
All that.
Caleb stares at the head gunk that congeals on his notebook. Bits of yellow and green and red between the blue lines.
He hears nothing. No laughs or chuckles or teasing.
He looks around the room. At the girl in front of him as she leans back and yawns. Hannah. He sees the rise of her chest. There’s Johnny, a few rows over. Johnny grins and raises his eyebrows, Yeah, she looks pretty good.
Caleb scratches his cheek. Thinks, Uhhh... He closes his notebook to hide the grossness. Wonders if he can save all of his notes.
Miss Callahan smiles at the front of the room.
He feels his bladder beg for release. “May I be excused?”
Miss Callahan spreads her hands. “Of course.”
Caleb slides out from his seat and pads toward the door. Outside in the hallway, he wonders how loud and gross he’d been.
But screw it.
* * *
Caleb sits with Zarifa during lunch.
He sticks his fork in his tuna casserole. Stares at the ceiling. Then to the beautiful Afghan girl next to him. Butterflies take over his stomach. He wonders if he should say anything. Zarifa, will you go out with me?
Man, but would she run away? Would she make fun of him? Would she leave him all alone at the table? Would stuff just get awkward?
These are very serious questions. Questions that plague young boys and grown men alike.
Caleb exhales and shovels more casserole into his face.
At another table, one of the popular kids sits with an acoustic guitar. Spencer. Looks like he’s tuning it. Checking his E and A and D strings. Caleb feels a pang of jealousy.
Of course the popular kid can play guitar.
Caleb listens.
Spencer plucks the strings. A few notes pepper the air. Then Spencer pauses. Positions his fingers into different chords. Starts strumming. Something pretty good. A blues-rock kinda tune.
Caleb feels a bit more jealous. Of course the popular kid can play guitar well.
He lets his mind wander.
Zarifa cocks an eyebrow at him. “Earth to Caleb. You all right, bonerbutt?”
“Hm? Yeah, no, I’m fine.”
“Why are you staring at Spencer like an idiot, idiot?”
“Well... Well, I was thinking about something my mom and dad were talking about.”
“How to look like a dork?”
“No. Geez.” Caleb wipes his palms on his pleated pants. “String theory. How maybe there are these huge, ancient lines of energy that were formed at the Big Bang. And those things represent atoms or particles from certain slices or views, like an autopsy of existence on slides in a microscope. All the stuff that makes physics work.”
“Caleb, get off it. That’s not just your mom and dad. You see that on the Science Channel every weekend. Your folks aren’t the only ones who think of cool stuff. They probably saw it on TV or something.”
Caleb wrinkles his nose at that. Thinks for a second. “Okay, but, what about... What if those strings can play notes? Like an instrument?”
Zarifa plays along. “If they’re wrapped around something. A piano or a guitar.”
“They’re wrapped around the universe. Around reality.”
Zarifa considered that. “Well then... What’s plucking them?”
“Cosmic quakes? Shifts in reality. Or they shake themselves.”
“Then they’re God.”
Now Caleb looks at her like she’s crazy. “They don’t care about humans. They don’t think. They simply are: Equations and theories and formulae. Unfeeling truth.”
“So... Then they’re God.”
Caleb grumbles. “Gods are just constructs created by people ignorant of science because they can’t explain why some crap happened.”
She leans in close. Whispers, “They’re God to someone. I can promise you that.”
For a moment, Caleb thinks there’s something malignant behind her eyes.
The bell rings. It steals his attention away from Zarifa.
He gets up for his next class. Waits to see if she’ll follow.
She doesn’t move.
He wonders what he’s done to annoy her this time.
* * *
Caleb’s footsteps echo down the halls. The bell keeps ringing. Its shrill voice bounces and warps until it sounds wrong and repeated. Different frequencies colliding. Caleb chalks it up to some Doppler effect. He walks up the stairs to the second floor.
Halfway up the flight, someone bumps into him going the other way. The impact is hard enough to make Caleb’s books fly out of his hands. And the kid’s bigger than Caleb. Older. Nobody he recognizes from his classes.
Caleb mumbles an apology. Just in case the big kid wants to shove him. Then collects his school supplies: An AP math text. Some black and white binders. A calculator. Pens and pencils.
The other kid breathes. Once and heavy. He grunts. Trying to force air out of his mouth. “Cannn…hearrr…” The words drawn out like speaking is some new crazy thing.
Caleb blinks. Stares back at the bigger kid. “Uh, what?” He wonders what kind of problem the guy has. He’s way too big to be in Caleb’s grade.
The big kid sneers. “Cannn you...he-hearrrr?” He blinks his left eye before blinking his right. They’re mismatched. One a perfect blue, the other red.
Caleb says, “Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Sorry. I gotta get to class.” He steps around the weird kid. Trots up the stairs.
The weird kid watches Caleb the whole time. His red and blue eyes follow the boy’s every step.
* * *
“Okay,” Caleb says to himself. “You’re at school. Nothing batshit is gonna happen here.”
His brain counters that idea, What about the whip-poor-wills?
“Fair point.”
He shrugs the feeling off. Walks to his second math class. Sure, he’s a few minutes late, but that shouldn’t matter. Miss Baxter loves him. All of his teachers do.
He opens the door.
The whole class is waiting for him. Twenty-five pairs of eyes. Twenty-six if you count the te
acher. Her standing up at the front of the class. Her standing with her hands folded at her crotch, like she’s praying.
Miss Baxter says, “Hello, Caleb. Please take your seat.”
“Yes, Miss Baxter.”
Caleb tried to avoid making eye contact with anyone. He’s just gotta find his seat and keep the clock moving. The school day is almost over. Another ninety minutes, he’ll be home with his mom and dad and Jack.
Jack.
Maybe he can text Jack. See if there’s anything screwy happening at his older brother’s school too.
Caleb sits. He thumbs open his textbook while Miss Baxter watches. Page nineteen is written on the left side of the board. He finds it. Leans back. When the teacher seems satisfied, she turns her back to him and starts writing.
He yanks his phone out of his pocket. Texts to Jack, School is really weird today. Anything happening where you are?
Before he can send it, Miss Baxter shouts from the front of the room. “Caleb. Bring your phone up here, please. You are aware of the rules.” She smiles.
He lies. Just a little white one. “My brother messaged me. I was worried it was an emergency.”
“That is no excuse. Bring your phone up here. Now.”
Caleb thinks, Crap. What the hell is going on here?
Then there’s twenty-six pairs of eyes back on him as he meanders to the front of the room.
He hands his phone over. Miss Baxter’s still grinning.
She looks at the screen. Makes a noise. Tsk tsk tsk. After a moment of staring at the phone, she says, “Oh, your brother messaged you back. He says he wants you to stop bothering him.”
Caleb’s heart skips a beat. “No he didn’t.”
“Yes he did. He said you have to stop bothering him. He does not want to talk to you.” Her face is plastic. “Now, return to your seat, Caleb.”
He knows it isn’t true. Knows it’s impossible. Jack wouldn’t say that. Even as a joke. “Can I have my phone back?” He wants to cry. Just a little.
“Not until after class. Now, Caleb. Return to your seat. Please. We have some very important information to cover today.”
He grimaces, but does what he’s told. This is horseshit.
Caleb sits. Runs his hands through his hair. Waits while Miss Baxter marks up the board. His eyes float over to the windows. A flutter of movement catches his attention. A shadow.
A bird. Just a bird.
The whip-poor-wills...
Caleb fidgets at his desk. An itch nags the back of his head. Some frenzied animal in there scratching around. It seems so familiar. The birds. Their song. The headaches…
The face in the window...
But that was a dream. A feverish hallucination as he drifted off to sleep. He’s at school now. And it’s sort of strange but...
More shadows flash by the windows.
A thousand tiny voices fill Caleb’s ears with their song.
The blinds shoot up. They flap against their rollers.
Caleb’s head pounds. He grabs at his hair. Droplets of red spatter onto his desk. He touches his nose with shaky fingers. They come away bloody.
The light in the room dies as the bodies of countless whip-poor-wills crowd the glass near Caleb. Their bodies are rotting, putrid, feathered things. But still they sing and squirm and push against the windows until spider web cracks appear.
His eyes dance around the classroom. He sees the heads of his peers. All turned toward him. Their eyes sparkle when the fluttering wings lets stray beams of light in. The effect is like being stuck in a music video from hell. He can only catch glimpses. Suggestions of movement.
Then they surround him. Circle him as he cries and bleeds onto his desk.
Caleb shouts over the birdsong and the din of flapping wings. “Leave me alone. What do you want? What’s going on?”
He trembles.
Their eyes glare. Unblinking.
He shrieks. “Why won’t you talk to me? Someone say something. Please.”
The ring of classmates breaks in front of him. They part. Back away so he can see Miss Baxter. Her back still turned to him.
Her lungs wheeze. “Cannn... Hearrr...” Her head jerks to the side. She stumbles. Catches herself on her desk. Then she faces Caleb.
Two awful eyes sit above her smile. One blue and one red.
Her slurred words slither out again. “Cannn... You... Hearrr...”
She totters toward him.
Caleb covers his face. He doesn’t want to see anything. He doesn’t want to see this. He wants it to go away. The sounds. The headache. The birds. “Please go away. Please go away.”
He says it over and over and over and over.
Until the horrible ocean of noise falls away and he hears nothing.
He chances a look between his fingers.
Afternoon sunshine streams into the room. The birds are gone. The windows are fine. There are no cracks in the glass. No rotten little bodies.
He sighs.
Then there’s someone... Something pulling on his fingers. An iron grip that rips his hands away from his face.
Miss Baxter’s smile fills his vision. Her hands grip his head.
She lowers her blue and red eyes to meet his. She screams. Her voice a mix of volumes and tones and frequencies. “Cannn youuu hearrr themmm? Cannn youuu hearrr themmm? Cannn youuu hearrr themmm?
“Cannn youuu hearrr themmm?”
* * *
Caleb’s eyes shoot open. He holts upright in bed with a frightened howl.
He touches his face. Under his nose.
He feels blood.
Chapter 7: Switchblade Diplomacy
“Calling the cops was useless,” Jack says. “Oh, well, sorry. Guy you brained was already dead. Hurf a durf a derp. No leads. Seeya.”
Elie pours himself more coffee. Jabs a cigarette out in the sink as though he’s trying to murder it. Then glares at Jack.
The teen’s face flashes red. A combination of anger, frustration, and fear.
Everyone’s gathered in the Svoboda household the morning after the night terrors.
Viktor says, “What are we going to do? We know that, at best, someone’s messing with our kids. Catarina, Jack, and Caleb have all been the targets of something.”
“Not Catarina,” Jack says. “Nothing happened to Catarina and nothing actually spooked her.” He twirls the baseball bat from Elie’s house. He’s cleaned the grime and gore off, but he kept it with him as a means of security. Hefting its weight feels good.
Catarina’s red-faced too. “Bullshit, it didn’t scare me.”
Jack exhales. “What I mean is: You were all by yourself a good long while back at your dad’s. If someone or something was actually after you, don’t you think it would’ve attacked when you were alone? Like it did with Caleb?”
Caleb’s eyes grow glassy. He thinks about the face in the window. Thinks about the dream. Thinks about not being safe at school.
Dierdra puts her arm around him.
Jack taps the bat against the linoleum kitchen floor. “It would have. One thing somehow found its way up to my little brother’s second-floor window. And the other came through your front door. Doesn’t make sense.”
Viktor keeps his mouth shut.
Elie says, “Don’t you think that’s a little self-important there, slugger?” He wears a slight smile. Tries to be cheeky.
“Not really,” Jack says. “I’m going based on what happened. Whoever’s trying to freak us out is hell-bent on doing so. I mean, they brought a corpse with them. If they’d wanted to get to Catarina, they would’ve found a way. It’s me and Caleb they’re after.” Jack hits the floor with the baseball bat again to make his point. “I’ll let that sink in for a while.” The muscles in Jack’s jaw flex. He grinds his teeth.
“Please don’t scare your little brother any more than necessary,” Dierdra says. “Last night is reason enough to be concerned.”
“I don’t think he’s trying to freak Caleb out,” Eli
e says. “I was there. I opened the door. I saw it. Nobody was holding the body up. But it moved. Boy, it moved. Creepiest part? Feet were barely touching the ground.”
Jack says, “And I told you I couldn’t hear any footsteps when we were being followed.”
Elie snaps his fingers and gives a thumbs-up.
“Don’t tease him,” Viktor says.
Elie holds his hands out. “I’m not teasing.”
Viktor crosses his arms. The towering Svoboda is trapped between his drive to protect his children and his drive to seek out rational reasons behind whatever’s going on. “So what do we do?”
Jack holds up the baseball bat. “Get things to hurt monsters with.”
Viktor nods. Strokes his chin.
Dierdra releases Caleb and steps toward the men. “I can’t tell you how much I disagree with this newfound war mentality. You’re going to arm yourselves and, what, hunker down here like it’s the Alamo? Viktor, none of this helps.”
Viktor says, “I don’t think we’re going to war, honey. But there’s no reason not to be...let’s call it cautious. At least for the weekend. Once they’re back in school, we can relax a bit more. Nothing is going to happen around that many people.”
Caleb thinks of the dream, You don’t know how wrong you are.
Dierdra puts her hands on her hips. “So I get to spend the weekend with a bunch of excitable men looking to beat someone to death.”
Viktor’s voice rises. “That’s not what we’re doing. You know that.” He stops himself. Puts an arm around her and passes into the living room with her.
Elie and the boys let the Svoboda couple do what couples sometimes need to do.
Dierdra hisses. “Don’t you goddamn do that to me. I hate it—hate it—when you bark at me in front of people. It isn’t fair and it’s an asshole thing to do.”
“Well, I hate that sarcasm shit you do,” Viktor says.
They turn to face each other.
Dierdra says, “I don’t think this is the way to figure out what’s going on.”
“I think it’s a good idea to take it seriously.”
“I am taking seriously, for fuck’s sake.” She glances into the kitchen. “I never said I wasn’t. I just don’t find the excitement over finding weapons all that comforting. You’re talking about a bunch of kids brought up on horror movies.”
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