Fearscape (Horrorscape)

by Nenia Campbell

  That was weird.

  Val finished her sketches, brushing the man's strange words off like the dust from the floor, and checked her phone for new messages. No calls from her mother, which meant she was probably still shopping. Instead of calling for early pickup, Val walked over to the Starbucks two stores down to get herself a drink while she waited.

  The coffee shop was crowded because of the grocery stores nearby. Val waited in line, flipping through her sketchbook to study her drawings, and also secretly hoping that someone walking by might comment, when she was suddenly compelled to look up.

  There, sitting at one of the tables by the window with a half-drunk espresso, was the boy from Petville. Staring — at her.

  (There's a boy works here. He's an artist, too.)

  I wonder if he's the artist.

  But such a coincidence seemed too great. There had to be dozens of people his age — our age — working there. The artist could have been anyone, a college student, maybe.

  Funny, though, her running into him here.

  Don't be stupid. He's probably on break or something.

  “What can I get for you today?” the barista asked.

  “An iced hazelnut latte, please.”

  “That'll be three dollars and fifty cents.”

  Val came up with exactly two-fifty. The barista fixed her with an annoyed look, glancing over Val's shoulder at the long line building up behind her. Val's face flushed. Where is that other dollar? I know I had more money in here.

  “Miss? You still owe me a dollar. People are waiting.”

  “I know. Um.” Val wished the floor would just open up and swallow her whole. “I don't think — ”

  “I'll take care of it,” said a deep, amused voice.

  Val looked up in shock. Gavin had left both his table and his drink unattended, and was handing the barista a crumpled dollar. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. It was like something out of a book. She didn't know this boy or anything about him, really, and yet here he was, stepping in to her rescue like a hero from a harlequin romance.

  Except he's not the hero, she reminded herself. Lisa had made that painfully clear.

  “Wait,” she said, “You don't have to — ”

  “It's fine,” he said smoothly, slipping his wallet back into his pocket.

  Val crossed to the other side of the counter, blinking back tears. She wasn't sure why she was so upset, but she was. That had been so embarrassing — and then he had just paid for her, out of the blue. Who did that? Not that she wasn't grateful, because she was, but she was nervous, and her nervousness was intensified by the sheer force of her gratitude. It threatened to bowl her over as he sauntered over to where she stood, pointedly not looking at him.

  Indebted, that was the word for her feelings. She felt indebted.

  “You're welcome,” he prompted.

  “Thank you.”

  “Is that all you have to say to me?”

  What else was she supposed to say?

  When the barista called out her name, mispronouncing it as “Valerie” the way everyone did, he took her drink, and Val was forced to chase after him, all the way back to his table. She reached for the cup and he shook his head, sliding it out of reach so that she would be forced to slide in beside him to reclaim it. At her hesitation, he said, “I don't bite.”

  Resigned, she plopped into the booth and sat away from him as far as possible.

  He was wearing a black and white checked shirt beneath a black V-necked sweater, and one of those newsboy caps all the hipsters wore. He didn't look like a hipster, though, not even with those glasses. He didn't look quite like anything she had ever seen before.

  He cleared his throat, and she realized with no small amount of embarrassment that she'd been caught staring. “Are you always this reticent?”

  “You were rude to my friend,” she said in response.

  “Mm, that's right. You're the girl from a few days ago,” he mused. “Valerian — Val.”

  Val stiffened. “You — you remember my name?” Now that's a first.

  He smiled at his espresso as he took a sip. “I remember more than that.”

  “She told me I should stay away from you.”

  “I figured,” he said pleasantly. “That's why I used a lure. How's the wrist?”

  “It's healed,” Val said, “What lure? What are you talking about?”

  “Making you come to me. With this.” He tapped his cup.

  Val's frown deepened. “You shouldn't be so dismissive. I think you hurt Lisa's feelings.”

  “What a pity.” He set down his mug and laced his fingers together. “She'll get over it.”

  “Why are you acting like this?”

  Gavin chuckled, shaking his head. “How else should I act?”

  “Nice.”

  “I'm not nice.”

  “Then why did you do that?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “What, bandage your wrist?”

  “Yes, that. And buy my drink. You don't know me.” She winced — that sounded prudish and pedantic even to her own ears — but she didn't backpedal towards an apology. She wanted to know the answer. “Why would you help me?”

  “Maybe I'd like to,” he said, taking another sip of coffee. He paused. “Know you, that is.”

  “You can't have possibly decided that already.”

  “You're in my art class, Val. I've seen your work. It's very interesting.”

  Val swallowed hard. “First period?”

  He nodded.

  “With Ms. Wilcox?” At his nod, she said, “No way, I would have noticed — ”

  “I sit in the back. I'm usually working. I'm the TA for that class, so I arrive quite early.”

  “Oh,” said Val. “Then you're the one who — who draws all the animals. Like the tiger, and the wolf — ”

  “Yes.”

  “They're so good.”

  He half-smiled. “Thank you.”

  “No, I mean — really good. How do you make them so real?”

  “How do you get on so well with animals?”

  The question caught her off-guard. “I — I don't.”

  “That's not what I've heard. You're getting quite the reputation. You, and your feline friends.”

  “Lisa,” Val muttered.

  “That, and the fact that the local animal shelters can't wait to get their hands on you.”

  “It's really not that big of a deal.”

  “Oh? Do tell.”

  “I just, um, think of them as little people.”

  “Well, I suppose I think of myself as a big animal. Very apropos, isn't it?” He smiled, then, and when it came it was more than a little suggestive. Val averted her eyes.

  “Don't make fun of me.”

  “Oh.” She felt his fingers brush against her cheek and the overly familiar gesture made her jump. “I'm not making fun of you.”

  What are you doing, then?

  Her phone bleeped, nipping the thought in the bud. Gavin dropped his hand from her face and it was as if a dark spell had been lifted, restoring both mobility and will. “I've got to go,” she blurted, and she grabbed her drink from him and walked quickly away, aware of his eyes burning into her back. As she'd made her departure, she had half-expected him to grab her.

  To not let her go.

  And perhaps the curse hadn't been lifted after all, because a small but significant part of her wouldn't have minded if he had. What's happening to me?

  Chapter Four

  Val kept her eyes peeled in Art to see if Gavin really was in her class as he'd claimed.

  It took her longer than she would have guessed to locate him. For such a tall boy, he camouflaged himself with remarkable ease. A black t-shirt and dark jeans rendered him nearly invisible in a school where 90% of the population wore that color as a fashion statement.

  Locate him she did, though, and she took advantage of his distraction with his charcoals to study him raptly. He was sitting in the back, which didn't surp
rise her at all. He was a total mess, which did. At Petville, he struck her as rather fastidious (despite his obvious indifference to blood), but now his hands were smeared gray with the charcoals he was using to sketch. As she watched he adjusted his glasses, leaving smudges of charcoal on his face, as well.

  Val found herself with the wild urge to giggle and looked down at her own work in progress before said laugh could manifest itself. Stupid. If he didn't think she was an idiot already, obnoxious laughter and snorts were a surefire way to swing him in that direction.

  He probably thought her an utter child.

  Her expression sobered as she studied what little advancement she had made on her drawing. She had decided to sketch the kittens from the pet store — and then, later, paint them — but she was having trouble getting their expressions just right. Their eyes looked too human.

  Serious now, she tilted her head this way and that to study the painting from new angles. I suppose I could say it's intentional. That it's — what's the word? — anthropomorphic.

  But she would know, and the minor flaw would bother her until she got it right.

  A cold, wet sensation tickled her skin as she shifted her position. The paintbrush was still in her bunched fingers, forgotten until now. She'd been resting her cheek against paint for God knew how long. Val stood up, holding her hands gingerly in front of her, and rinsed herself off in the trough-like sink built into the far wall nearest to the door.

  The orange color dripped from her palms and spiraled down the drain, reminding her disconcertingly of blood. Specifically, from the iconic shower scene in Psycho. She shook her hands over the basin and tore off a paper towel from the nearby roll. She turned and came close to crashing right into James Lewis.

  “Sup?” he said. “You've got paint on your nose.”

  “Great.” She mopped at her face with the damp paper towel. “Did I get it off?”

  “Yeah, you're fine now. Oh, by the way — I got your Facebook message.”

  Val poked a hole through the paper towel. “Did you?”

  “Uh-huh. Sorry. I didn't get a chance to respond until this morning and then I had to hightail it to class. I've been busy. Football, you know.”

  Where Gavin was dark, James was fair. He had auburn hair, about two shades darker and browner than hers and tinged with wires of gold highlights. His eyes were a charming sea foam green and he had a crooked smile that could break a heart.

  He was smiling that smile now. The “aww shucks” edition of it, which had gotten him out of trouble successfully, and on more than one occasion too. It might have even worked on Val if that wasn't such a blatant lie. Val was torn between amusement and annoyance. Lies usually went right over her head, blatant or no. She didn't often get the opportunity to call people out on their BS.

  But pointing out James's lie wouldn't do her any good. It would only make her look like a desperate stalker, creeping his profile to see if he was online. Make that an extremely possessive stalker. Lisa had told her many times that boys didn't like possessive girls — which was stupid, considering how possessive boys acted.

  Val remembered her own stalker, and her stomach tied up in knots of dread. “It's okay,” she muttered.

  But it wasn't, not really.

  James's smile brightened. “Good. I'm glad. Because, you know, I felt pretty bad about that.”

  I bet you did.

  “I'm still down for a movie, though, if you and Lisa are.”

  Val said nothing, so he pressed on.

  “What movie were you guys thinking about? There's a cool action one — ”

  There was that word “cool” again. What had possessed Lisa to think that this was going to work? James didn't even see her. She could tell. Not as a girl, anyway. Boys didn't look at girls they liked like that.

  He obviously doesn't care about anyone but himself ….

  “ — great rating on Rotten Tomatoes — ”

  A clatter in the back gave her a polite excuse to divert her attention from James's rambling monologue. Gavin was missing from his seat, and his tablemate was staring at the floor. Val's brow furrowed. She could see his hair peeking over the desktop. What could he possibly be doing?

  “ — not a big fan of chick-flicks, but I'd be willing to see — ”

  He must have dropped something, she decided.

  “ — good dramatic comedy — ”

  Oh, he's coming over here!

  “ — and some horror, if you're into that — ” Even James, self-absorbed though he was, noticed his audience's reactions weren't on par with his standards of what constituted raptness. He glanced over to see what had held her attention, and his lip curled. Something Val registered with annoyance.

  Ignoring the two of them with a nonchalance that surely had to have been practiced in front of a mirror, Gavin threw away his broken charcoal pencil, now snapped into two distinct pieces. He washed the black from his hands, and his face, and then reached past her to get a paper towel, accidentally brushing her side. She looked up at him and thought she saw him wink.

  “So anyway, do any of those sound good to you? Lisa says she doesn't care.”

  Val wadded up her own piece of paper towel, which she had been twisting and knotting in her hands this entire time, and lobbed it into the bin. “I'm not sure.”

  “Playing hard to get?”

  “No. Actually busy. I'm on the track team, you know,” she added, unconsciously mocking his earlier tone. At his blank look, she added, “You do know I'm on the track team, right?”

  “Uh, yeah. I think I've seen you in uniform before. You wear it on game days, right?

  Wearing a sports bra and spandex shorts to school? Game days? For heaven's sake. “No, I don't wear it to school. And we don't have game days. I'm not a cheerleader.” Val was tired of feeding him hints. “I'm wearing it in my profile picture. On Facebook.”

  Which you would know if you had actually looked at my profile, you liar.

  James had the grace to flush. “Ah.”

  Val eyed him. “You didn't even read my message, did you?”

  “I read the email notification on my phone. Same thing.”

  No, it isn't. She sighed. “I don't think this is going to work.”

  “Hey,” he said, a touch defensively. “There's no need to get all uptight. So track's not my thing.”

  “This isn't about track.” A hot spike of annoyance bored through her, that he could be so stupid. It made her bold. Bold enough to say, “I don't think you understand what I meant. Lisa — our Lisa — was trying to set us up.”

  The genuine surprise on his face hurt more than if he'd insulted her, point-blank. “What, like on a date?”

  “Yes. Like a date.”

  “Jesus.”

  “It's not important.”

  James shook his head. “I didn't think — ”

  “Really. Don't even worry about it.” Feeling suddenly as if she might cry, Val started to walk past him and back towards her seat but James grabbed her arm.

  “Hey, wait. I'm sorry.”

  Val tugged away — but gently. “It doesn't matter.”

  I don't care, anyway.

  She did, though. That was the problem. She did.

  Val raked her now-clean fingers through her hair, staring at the unfinished picture of the kittens. She reached for the thinnest of the paintbrushes to go to work on the detailed markings of their striped fur, and her wrist brushed against a balled-up paper set incongruously before the old tin can which held the brushes. What's this? She picked it up. I didn't leave this here.

  She uncrumpled the paper, revealing black, penciled writing done in charcoal.

  I think you're exquisite.

  Val's heart skipped a beat. Exquisite? Me? She looked up and caught Gavin staring at her, his chin resting on the back of his hand as he regarded her through inscrutable, hooded eyes. She pointed to the note and he inclined his head, a small smile curving his lips.

  (Maybe I'd like to — know you,
that is.)

  Val swallowed.

  Oh, wow. She thought, I see.

  ▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

  It was a strangely giddy mood Val found herself in as she walked through the crowded cafeteria to sit at her and her friends' usual table. Rachel and Lindsay were already there. Their Biology teacher was actually pretty cool and always let his class out a few minutes early if their lab stations were neat, which meant they were always first in line for the hot lunches.

  Even though brown-bag lunches were so junior high, Mrs. Kimble still insisted upon packing Val's. As Val unpacked her fifth peanut butter and banana sandwich that week, she eyed her friends' grease-laden pizzas and thought the hot lunches might be worth the indigestion.

  “Is that friend of yours joining today?” asked Rachel, mouth full. “Whassername?”

  “Lisa?”

  “I prefer Whassername.”

  “She should be,” said Val. “Lisa doesn't have her phone, so I don't know. I can't text her.”

  “Oh, no,” Rachel said, adopting an expression of mock-horror. “Princess lost her phone?”

  “Lisa isn't that bad,” Val said automatically, wondering even as she said it whether it was true.

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe,” Rachel said. “I'm never going to forget what she said to us.”

  “What are you — oh, calling us a 'cute couple'?”

  “What?” Val said, looking from one to the other, not quite sure if they were serious. “When did this happen? You never told me that Lisa thought you were — ”

  “Lesbians?” Lindsay supplied, at the same time Rachel said, “Dykes?”

  Lindsay glared at her. “Rachel, that's offensive!”

  “We both know that's what Miss Thing was really thinking.”

  “I'm sure Lisa didn't mean anything bad by it,” Val said uncomfortably.

  “She asked me if I listened to Indigo Girls.”

  “And she asked me if I played lacrosse.”

  “You did play lacrosse,” Rachel pointed out.

  “Yeah, but she didn't know that. She just assumed.”

  Rachel nodded. “And she asked both of us if we had a Tegan and Sara thing going on.”