The Legend of the Firewalker

by Steve Bevil [paranormal/YA]

  Paying careful attention not to bump into the round common room tables, she slowly headed toward the bathroom. “Well, at least the bathroom lights are still working,” she said aloud.

  She froze as soon as she entered the bathroom because it was as equally quiet. “This is definitely weird,” she mumbled, while shaking her head.

  Leah placed the items in her hand on one of the sinks lined against an enormous wall mirror. She looked down to wet her toothbrush under the cool water as the shadow of a figure entered the shower area. She jerked up. “Hello?” she called out.

  Her stomach twisted in knots as she waited and her hand slightly trembled as she shut off the water. The silence was deafening and she cringed at a muffled creaking noise. “Relax, Leah,” she sighed, composing herself. “It’s probably just the water pipes in the shower.”

  Leah bent over again to rinse her mouth out with water, when a soft high-pitched wail reverberated from the shower area. “Hello?” she cried out.

  Instinctively, she looked into the large mirror and followed it with an immediate turn around to scan the room. The sound continued to screech like grinding metal. “What is that?” she mumbled.

  Leah looked intently around the room for anything that could have made the noise. Surely, the person in the shower must have heard that, she thought. Taking a deep breath, she shook her head.

  “These nightmares have me so paranoid – I need to get a grip on myself!”

  She turned back around to brush her teeth again, but another high-pitched sound pierced the air. “Leeah!” a voice shrieked out.

  Instantly Leah froze – goose bumps shot down her back. “I know that voice,” she stuttered, her hands trembling in fear. “It’s that woman’s from my dreams!”

  Panic rippled throughout Leah’s body and her heart throbbed forcibly against her chest. She struggled to move. “Leeeahh!” the metallic voice rang out again – this time louder, echoing, and bouncing off the walls.

  Frantically, Leah’s eyes raced around the room for the source of the sound. “This can’t be real,” she said, her voice trembling. “It’s – it’s just a dream.” As Leah spun around, her mind flooded with images of the shadowy figure that hunted her in her nightmares. “This just can’t be!”

  Suddenly, a loud bang came from one of the shower stalls followed by the sound of quick footsteps. “Move Leah, move!” Leah yelled.

  Quickly, she scanned the room and against one of the walls, shoved in a corner, was an old broom. With broom in hand, Leah crept over to where she heard the noise to defend herself from her mysterious attacker. After all the terror filled nights, she didn’t want to run anymore. She didn’t want to live in fear. She wanted to face her pursuer.

  “Aaaah!”

  The sound of two different screams echoed throughout the hallway and the bathroom. “Oh my God, Leah!” said Lafonda, stepping out from the shower stall. “You scared me.”

  Still a little shaken, Leah stood there with broom in hand. She took a couple of deep breaths to try to relieve the tightness she still felt in her chest. What will people think about this one? she thought, as her cheeks and ears reddened. She could only imagine what people were saying about her and her middle of the night screaming. “Lafonda, I – I…”

  “I forgot my body wash,” Lafonda grinned, but it quickly faded into a look of concern. “Wait – Leah, are you okay?”

  She tried to force a smile. “I’m fine.” she said, trying to sound convincing.

  Lafonda secured the towel wrapped around her and frowned as she scrutinized her answer. “Yeah – but you don’t look okay,” she said.

  “I’m fine,” Leah said again, more convincingly than before. “Really, I was just frightened by the noises.”

  Two girls from the floor entered the bathroom. It looked as if they were unaware of what had just transpired, but they looked on suspiciously.

  “Frightened?” asked Lafonda, in a low whisper. She quickly took the broom out of Leah’s hand and placed it back in the corner. “And what noises?”

  “You didn’t hear the noises?” asked Leah. A worried and tired look washed over her face. “But you were – in the shower, right?”

  “Yes,” said Lafonda, still puzzled. “But, I didn’t hear any noises.” She paused. “Wait, but I did bump the shower wall with my elbow – and I did yell out from the pain…”

  “No, that wasn’t it!” interrupted Leah. “And you didn’t call my name?”

  Slowly, Lafonda answered. “No,” she said, while shaking her head. “I didn’t call your name.”

  “I must be just rattled because the stupid hallway lights aren’t working and the heat,” she stammered.

  “What do you mean?” asked Lafonda, as she peeked out into the hallway. “The hallway lights are working.” She paused. “I know that there is a storm…”

  The sound of someone fast approaching could be heard from the hallway and they both turned their attention towards the bathroom entrance. A tall and slender girl who lived on the floor stood in front of them. She was trying to catch her breath. “Lafonda!” she let out. “I thought I heard your voice – I just walked past your room and I think your phone was ringing.”

  “Oh, shoot!” said Lafonda, pausing to secure her towel again. “That must be my grandmother calling about tomorrow.” She started to take off running, but noticed that Leah was following behind her. “Wait – aren’t you going to get your shower?”

  “Oh,” said Leah, while staring at the towels in her hands. “I guess I forgot my body wash too.”

  Lafonda smiled and Leah trailed behind her as Lafonda darted off towards her room. The hallway lights were on just like Lafonda had said and the air was cooler. Several girls from the floor were laughing as Leah walked past them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were laughing at me, she thought. Especially, with all the craziness going on in my life and Jamie’s death hasn’t made things easy.

  She was pretty sure everyone knew about her nightmares due to her frequent middle of the night screaming, but she had started to feel proud of herself. It was the end of the school year and even with everything, she had managed to finish the semester without withdrawing from school like Amanda and her mom had wanted her to.

  Leah took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders. She was determined not to let anything get to her. Tomorrow, she would be home in St. Louis and she could put the whole nightmare behind her.

  The narrow hallway from the bathroom to her dorm room opened up to the common area that was frequently used by the girls on the floor to hang out. On most nights, you could find people playing cards or studying at the round tables. “Hey, Leah!” one of the girls from the card game called out. “You think we’ll have a chance to get a good night’s sleep with this storm?”

  Another girl at the table let out a stifled chuckle. “I mean, it would be nice to sleep through the night for once without your screaming.” Sounds of laughter suddenly filled the room. “Maybe you should sleep with the lights on!” she laughed.

  Leah could feel her cheeks turn red as the blood rushed to her head. “Sure!” she let out, her voice shaking with anger.

  She walked quickly to her room; trying to beat the laughter before it ended. Forcibly, she closed the door behind her and sighed heavily as she pressed her back against it. “Can this be over any faster?” she yelled. In frustration, she tossed her toothbrush and her towels on the floor. “Ugh!”

  At the same moment, a gust of wind rushed violently through the open window, knocking the lamp on her desk onto the floor. The room was suddenly in complete darkness. “Grrreat!” she said in a drawn out huff.

  She bent over to pick up the lamp but felt a little uneasy as lightning from the approaching storm created strange shadows around the room. As the sound of thunder filled the room, she stumbled to find the socket to plug in the power cord. Duh, she thought. I should just turn on Amanda’s lamp. As she reached out to turn on the lamp, she paused. She had an eerie feeling that someone was
standing behind her. No one is behind me, she thought, as she extended her arm to turn on the lamp.

  “Aaah!”

  There was a burst of light in the room followed by a loud crack as the light bulb from Amanda’s lamp shattered into many pieces; landing across the table and the floor. Startled, Leah jumped back; withdrawing her hand. At the same time, the door to her closet slammed shut, causing her to let out a stifled scream. Quickly, she spun around; her heart pounding against her chest.

  Leah stood in the dark frozen with fear. Through the darkness, she could see that a strange mist began to fill the room, and when lightning struck, there was no thunder to follow.

  Leah dared to take a step forward. She felt the glass from the light bulb crunch beneath her tennis shoes, but there was no sound at all. Leah waved her hand through the air and the air seemed to ripple like water. Nervously, she looked around the room. She noticed the light underneath the door from the hallway was gone and she could no longer hear laughter. The posters of male models on Amanda’s side of the room, which once were vibrant with color, now appeared to be in black and white. “It’s like my dreams!” she stuttered, in a panic. “Everything is washed in gray!”

  Suddenly, there were shuffling noises all around her and goose bumps formed on her arms and legs. She took a deep breath and saw her breath form in the air. Her heart was racing fast now and Leah bolted towards the door. “Help!” she yelled.

  Spontaneously, the closet doors from both sides of the room flung open, stopping her in her tracks. Several small shadows darted in and out of the closets. Leah screamed in horror because she had seen them before; surrounding her, chasing her, in her dreams.

  She took several steps back now, her back against Amanda’s desk. Frantically, her hand surveyed the table. She was desperate to find something to protect herself with, but little stabs of sharp pain suddenly shot up her arm. Leah looked down and shards of glass from the light bulb had sliced into her palms and fingers. Amongst the array of tossed paper and glass, she could make out a small shape in the darkness. Instantly, Leah recognized Amanda’s cell phone and she plunged for it, causing a wave of ripples in the air.

  The phone, closer now, was no longer washed in grey and the light from the LED display illuminated the apple-red color in the darkness. Without hesitating she dialed 911 but there was no dial tone – just silence.

  Abruptly, a high-pitched wail filled the air and goose bumps rushed down her back.

  “Leeah!”

  2

  NIGHTMARES

  Nathan let out a huge gasp as he suddenly awoke from sleep; instantaneously sitting up in bed. His face and chest were drenched with sweat and his palms tingled. His heart pounded ferociously against his chest and his breathing was labored.

  Frantically, he looked around the room only to be caught off guard by the piercing bright sunlight that crept through the curtains to his bedroom window. Groggy, he shielded his eyes, as faint memories of the dream that had terrified him began to replay in his mind. Who is she? he wondered. And why am I having the same dream over and over about her?

  Every night since he’d returned home from school for summer, he’d dreamt about her. The dreams had become so recurrent that Nathan had stopped counting the number of times in which he awoke in the dead of night drenched with sweat. For hours, he would stay awake trying to recall some small detail about her; to identify her – retracing her steps; recalling details from the dream.

  Nathan shivered. He always remembered her tousled brown hair and the blood that glowed brightly against her fair skin. “It all seems so real,” he murmured. He also remembered her waling arms as she fought desperately against an unseen attacker. “This just can’t be real,” he reasoned.

  Like he did on most nights after awakening in the darkness, he sat in bed recalled the scratches and blood on her and tried hard to remember from whom she’d been defending herself.

  Suddenly, Nathan shivered again. He didn’t want to admit what his mind had been circling for weeks. “The scratches,” he muttered. “There were so many of them and appearing all at once – she just couldn’t keep up her defense.” He slowly shook his head. “It was like she was overwhelmed – as if she was fighting against more than one person.”

  He looked down and was drawn to the tingling sensation in his hands. The sensation in his palms was just as recurrent as his dreams and he found it equally annoying. The first couple of nights home, he thought maybe his hand had fallen asleep; that he was just sleeping wrong. It wasn’t until both hands started having a prickly feeling that he actually considered something was wrong.

  On most days he just ignored it and it usually went away before he finished brushing his teeth. His only working theory was that the tingling was from all the heavy weightlifting he’d been doing and that he might want to consider investing in some workout gloves. Now that he was back home, he was taking full advantage of the weight room at the Devaro Mansion. He detested using the gym at school because the weight room was always crowded but despite this, he’d still managed to keep a somewhat consistent workout schedule.

  Since returning home, he had also made a concentrated effort to sleep in and to avoid Lafonda Devaro as much as possible. He had managed to avoid her at school practically all year; only having to see her during the holidays when they returned home for breaks. It was easy for him to avoid her most of the time because they lived in different houses. Nathan lived with his grandfather, Rodion, in the medium-sized, two bedroom cottage behind the main house near the garden. His grandfather, the caretaker for the Devaro estate, maintained the grounds on the property.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t like Lafonda. They had actually been close while growing up, but once they entered high school, her new friends and their big houses, fast cars, and money kind of complicated things. Although the money issue in his mind created distance between him and Lafonda, he knew he could always count on her to be there if he ever needed her.

  The Devaro estate was the only home he had every known and the Devaros were the closest thing he had to an extended family. Without them, it would be just him and his grandfather. As far as he knew, his grandfather had always worked for them.

  It was still mid-morning when he finally decided to get out of bed. Nathan’s hand prickled as he pulled back the curtains and opened the window. He took in a deep breath as the warm air rushed across his bare chest. I’m up a little earlier than I usually am, he thought with a sense of accomplishment. He rarely got out of bed before noon.

  Nathan showered, put on a pair of shorts, and wore his favorite IUCF t-shirt. He had bought it when he first arrived to campus last fall and it was his favorite because it had no sleeves. He hated wearing anything that was too constricting especially on his arms.

  He stared in the mirror at the now over-washed t-shirt and thought it was interesting that before, he had never desired one, even though campus was a short commute away. Nathan felt that he ended up at IUCF by default and had never really put thought into attending anywhere else. Lafonda, on the other hand, had been set on going there since high school. He thought this was mainly because her father, Avery, and her grandmother LaDonda were both alums of the school.

  Nathan’s stomach grumbled as he entered the hallway. As he got closer to the kitchen, he heard his grandfather mumbling something in Russian over the sound of rattling pots and pans. “What the heck is he looking for?” Nathan muttered. “We never use the kitchen.”

  Besides drinks and snacks, they normally cooked or ate at the main house. This was mainly because neither of them could cook very well and both loathed washing dishes. Nathan was convinced that if it wasn’t for Lafonda’s grandmother, everyone would starve. Lafonda wasn’t a wiz in the kitchen either and after her dad accepted a position in London, England, her parents were hardly ever home.

  Nathan entered the kitchen to find his grandfather on his knees with his head buried in one of the bottom kitchen cabinets.

  “So, what’s for breakfas
t Grandpa?” he asked teasingly and with a half grin.

  “I’ll Grandpa you!” Rodion answered from inside the cabinet.

  “I don’t smell anything burning – so you’re obviously not cooking,” laughed Nathan.

  The rattling and clinking sounds of metal abruptly came to a stop. Nathan’s grandfather stood up, revealing a slender man with an olive skin tone. His hair was white but full and his face was sprinkled with signs of age. Although Nathan’s skin was pecan or bronze in color, his grandfather in his youth probably looked much like Nathan.

  “Well,” Rodion said, after taking a deep breath. “Look who decided to join the living and actually start their day before everyone else goes to sleep.”

  Nathan smiled and casually leaned against the small wooden island in the middle of the kitchen. “It’s summer Grandpa!” he whined. “Plus, I had all morning classes last semester, and based on that alone, I think I am in need of some much deserved shut-eye.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you were stuck with all morning classes through no fault of your own,” Rodion chuckled. “And I’m sure it has nothing to do with procrastinating or playing video games, or perhaps registering late or all of the above.”

  Nathan sighed heavily. “Can’t I do anything without Lafonda keeping tabs on me?” he groaned. “What else did your annoying little spy report?”

  His grandfather frowned. “First, as if I need to have a spy to know my only grandson and second, I thought we agreed that I was too young-looking and too handsome to be called Grandpa.” he retorted. “You know that I’d rather you call me Roy.”

  Rodion had taken to the name Roy after Lafonda had started calling him that several years before.

  “Grandpa!” Nathan whined, through glaring eyes. “Did she happen to mention that I almost made the Dean’s list last semester? If it wasn’t for my Spanish class, I would have gotten all As.”