by Dan Rix
She knows.
She knows about Ashley.
“What . . . what kind of trouble?”
“Leona, did you do something you weren’t supposed to do?”
She knew.
I opened my mouth, and for a moment I thought it would all come tumbling out. Everything I’d done. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean to . . .” I began, but the words couldn’t get past the lump in my throat. Instead, a tear dripped off my eyelid, and my gaze slid to the floor, my lower lip trembled.
“Dad’s waiting with him in the office,” she said. “Come on.”
I sniffled and looked up. “With . . . with him?”
“Come on,” she said sternly. “He’s been waiting for a while.”
Confused and scared, I followed her up the hallway and into the office.
In a split-second, I took in the scene.
My father stood with his arms crossed, lips pressed together, making strained small talk with Major Rod Connor of the USAF Security Forces.
My dad noticed me first, and his posture stiffened even more. “Here she is . . .” He cleared his throat. “Sweetheart, this man says he wants to talk to you, but you don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to. If you want him to leave, he has to leave. He’s with the military, and the military has no right to be in our house.”
Major Connor bowed his head slightly, deferring to my dad.
My jumpy nerves instantly relaxed.
Dad had this under control.
I threw a glare at my mom as if to say, Why didn’t you stick up for me like that? She’d practically given me a heart attack.
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “Hi, Rod.”
“Leona,” my mom scolded.
“I mean, Major Connor,” I said.
“What kind of a name is Rod anyway?” said my dad, and he caught my eye like it was our inside joke. I bit my lip to stop from laughing. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Still tense about something.
Major Connor ignored the comment. “I was in the area. I stopped by to see how you and your family were doing . . . after the decontamination.”
“We’re doing fine,” I said quickly.
His gaze bored into me like a laser. “Are you?”
“I . . . I think so. Why?”
“The contagion has broken containment,” he said. “We found it at UCSB. A grad student committed suicide, and the same radioactive isotopes were found in her body that were found in the meteorite.” Seeing that my face had paled, he raised an eyebrow. “Do you know anything about that, Leona?”
“Uh, I . . .”
“No, she doesn’t know anything about that,” said my dad.
In my pocket, my phone was still invisible. Covered in the stuff. Instinctively, I covered the lump.
Connor’s eyes flicked to my hand. “You were in possession of a very dangerous substance, Leona.”
“That’s enough,” growled my dad. “If you want to ask her any more questions, she’ll have a lawyer present.”
“That’s quite alright, Mr. Hewitt.” Major Connor straightened up. “I was leaving.” He shuffled past my mom, but paused in the doorway. “Leona, just so you know,” he peered back at me, “we’re seeing evidence that this thing may be a parasite. We believe it’s looking for a host.”
Chapter 4
“Come on, where are you?” I muttered, sliding my fingernail around the case of my smartphone later that night, trying to find the seam to peel off the dark matter before I went to bed. Major Connor’s departing words kept repeating in my brain, and I was quickly losing focus. It’s looking for a host.
Finally I gave up and tossed the invisible phone onto my backpack. I’d peel it off tomorrow. I rolled over and pulled my sheets up to my chin.
A parasite. The thought spread unease through my stomach. Absently, I scratched at my forearms, which suddenly seemed to itch from wearing dark matter earlier.
If dark matter was a parasite, then I was already infected.
I wasn’t aware of falling asleep, and pretty soon I was walking down a street in the middle of the night, the salty smell of the ocean tickling my nose. Tendrils of fog swept in through the trees, and in the distance, surf crashed against cliffs. I must be on the Mesa, near Emory’s house.
I looked down to see if I was invisible. Nope.
But naked, yes.
My palms cupped the yellow glow of streetlamps, and below them, my pale legs.
Naked, but not invisible . . . this was new.
Something bumped my hip and knocked me to the side, jolting my heart senseless. I scanned the street, suddenly short of breath. Just an empty street, dark houses, lonely streetlamps.
What hit me?
A dull object smacked my lower back, sprawling me forward onto hands and knees. Gravel scraped my palm, pain burning hot. I scrambled to my feet and backed away, terrified gasps pulling at my lungs.
Nothing there.
Just the sidewalk.
I backed right into a solid wall. Not a wall. Invisible. Something invisible. Another impact threw my shoulder back, and I tripped over my heels and sat down hard on the cold asphalt. I jumped to my feet, too scared to breathe. Out of the night, a rustling came at me, louder and louder and louder . . . but nothing there. Panic set in suddenly. Like spurts of electricity. I turned to flee, just as something soft and smooth and warm rubbed against my hand. I flinched.
Skin.
An arm.
An invisible hand closed around my wrist, and I yanked out of the grip, stumbling right into someone else. I screamed and jumped away, only to trip over someone’s feet. My body slapped onto the street. Tears blurred my eyes.
Then I heard it, building in the ground like slow thunder. Footsteps. Thousands of them.
The street was packed.
A city full of people, all invisible.
I couldn’t see them, but they could see me.
Fingers closed around my forearm and hauled me to my feet. Then more hands clawed at me, groped me, crawling over me like insects. I wiggled away and tried to run, but a hand snaked around my bare waist, iron fingers digging into my abs, and yanked me backward against rough fabric. A palm clamped over my mouth and nose, cutting off my air. I scratched at the wrist, but it might as well have been a tree trunk. My lungs screamed for air, writhing in my chest as the life was suffocated out of me.
I woke up soaked in sweat.
Just a dream . . . just a stupid, freaky dream.
I rolled over and smashed my face into my pillow and tried to fall back asleep. But my body remained on high alert. Adrenaline trickled through my veins. The terror lingered in my nerves, now hypersensitive.
The sheet moved against my toes.
My eyelids flew open.
No, it was the sheet settling after I’d rolled over, deflating and brushing my skin. That and my agitated mind, still recovering from the dream.
It moved again.
So gently I almost didn’t notice. Just a faint pressure. Moving slowly up my ankle.
I jerked my head up and scanned my bedspread, my heart pounding in my ears. Was something moving?
I held my breath and stayed perfectly still, watching the sheet under a square of moonlight, a row of folds.
Then, very clearly, one of the folds compressed before my eyes.
I scrambled out of the sheets and backed against the wall, terrified. Another rumple sank under the weight of something invisible, coming closer. I shrank back, terrified.
Something cool and smooth glided onto my leg.
I gasped and leapt out of bed and hopped around, frantically brushing myself off.
It touched me.
What touched me?
That
cool, reptilian skin.
A shudder passed through my body, and I ran to the door and swatted the light switch. My eyes zeroed in on the bed.
Nothing there.
But the sheets were still moving, sinking into a valley as something moved across the mattress. I crept closer. The indentations formed in a S-shape, as if made by something that slithered.
Something that slithered.
“Salamander,” I hissed, curling my hands into fists. “I knew it!” The garden snake we’d wrapped in dark matter, which had somehow vanished from its cage, had of course ended up in my bed.
Megan probably left it here as a prank.
Teeth gritted, I felt around my backpack for my phone, not wanting to take my eyes off the mattress. A tiny dent appeared next to my pillow. The damn thing probably would have crawled down my throat if I hadn’t woken up.
Where the hell was my phone?
I patted my backpack and dipped my hands into the pocket, but came up short. I tore my eyes off the bed for a split-second to look for it, then remembered it was still invisible.
Forget it.
I noted the snake’s last location—my pillow—and sprinted into the kitchen to grab the cordless.
It was four a.m.
Surprisingly, Megan answered after the second ring. “Hello?”
“Come get your stupid snake,” I snarled.
“What?”
“Your snake . . . your invisible fucking snake.”
Silence. “You found Salamander?”
“Uh-huh. In my bed. Now come get it before it eats me!”
“Okay, chill. I’m coming over.”
I slammed the phone down on its holder. It’s in my room. I had to go back there. I had to go back there and watch to make sure it didn’t get away, otherwise I’d never be able to sleep in my room again.
An invisible snake . . .
I’d have to beg my parents to move.
I journeyed back to my bedroom, pausing in the foyer to leave the house unlocked for Megan. Then I crept up the hallway, took a deep breath outside my room, and pushed the door open a crack. When the snake didn’t hiss and jump out at me, I pushed it in a little further and stepped inside, and my pulse took a fearful leap.
It didn’t attack.
Nothing moved on the bed. Or anywhere.
I licked my lips, and a chill slid down my spine.
Where was it?
My eyes darted around the room, alert for movement. My parents had finally helped me repaint the walls yellow—supposedly yellow made people happy—and we’d brought in a big rug from the living room to cover the exposed floorboards. At least until they got new carpet installed. My clothes slumped in stacks next to the closet. My mattress still lay on the floor, covers dragging on the ground.
That must have been how the snake got up.
Now where was it? My breath pinched off in panic.
There! In my periphery. On the rug, closest to the bed, the loose threads began to flatten. It was moving across the rug, making a beeline toward my clothes.
Oh, hell no.
I sprinted into my mom’s office and rummaged around the desk for masking tape, spilling a neat stack of paper onto the floor. I found it and dashed back to my bedroom, and it took a few nerve-wracking seconds to locate the moving area of squashed threads. Still on the rug.
With sweaty fingers, I yanked off a piece of masking tape, lunged forward, and hurled it onto the snake. The tape fluttered to the floor and stuck to the carpet fibers, nowhere near its path. I ripped off another piece and threw it. Another miss. Growing desperate, I unrolled a yard-long piece and let it fall. It folded and stuck to itself, useless. The snake slithered right under it and cleared the edge of the rug.
Where I couldn’t follow it.
A better idea.
I yanked the sheet off my bed and tossed it over my clothes, stretching the front edge so it lay flat. Then I waited, hardly breathing.
The sheet nudged a little. Then one by one, the rumples began to depress. Got ya. I sprang forward and yanked up the edge of the sheet, and the snake’s weight tumbled into the middle. I gathered all the corners and pulled them into a bundle, trapping the snake inside. Holding the fabric in my fist, I wrapped scotch tape around the neck, dragging it around and around until the last strip tore off the cardboard roll. A whole roll wasn’t enough.
I could feel the snake twisting, searching for an escape. For a moment, its hideous serpentine body pressed against the fabric, brushing my bare thigh. I flinched and dropped the bundle and backed away, panting. My hair clung to my face in sweaty locks, which I wiped away. My whole body trembled.
“Leona, it’s a garden snake,” said a voice from the doorway.
I shrieked.
Megan stood in the doorway.
“Jesus . . .” I clutched my palpitating heart. “How’d you get in here?”
“The front door.” She carried the snake’s terrarium under her arm, which she set down next to the wriggling sheet. Next she cut the tape with her car keys, reached inside the bundle, and delicately lifted out her palm, now holding the snake. She spoke to it in a baby voice. “Aww, was that bad woman being mean to wittle Salamander?”
“You’re gross,” I said.
“Shh . . . you’re scaring her.” She set the snake inside the terrarium and replaced the screen lid. Finally, she hoisted the cage off the ground and shuffled toward the door.
“Wait!” I said, alarmed. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” she said. “It’s four in the morning.”
“No. Stay. Don’t go. You can spend the night.”
“Your mom said I couldn’t, remember? What was that all about, by the way?”
“Oh, yeah. Major Connor stopped by for a visit. I wasn’t actually in trouble, so it’s fine if you stay.”
“What’d he want?”
“I’ll tell you if you spend the night,” I said.
She sighed and set the terrarium down. “Okay, but can we please just go to sleep? I’m exhausted.”
My gaze froze on the terrarium. “First get that thing out of my room.”
“Seriously, where is my phone?” I said, raking my fingers across my bedroom floor on Saturday morning. I’d lost track of it last night during the Salamander fiasco. We’d relocated the snake to the garage—I wanted to smash the reptile with my dad’s sledgehammer, but Megan wouldn’t let me—and I’d spent the sleepless night shivering on a couch in the living room, refusing to touch my contaminated bedding, while Megan snored blissfully next to me.
How could she sleep like that?
Did she have any conscience at all?
“Why didn’t you just unwrap it?” she said, watching me probe the pockets of my backpack for the tenth time, in case it had fallen inside. Two plates of half-eaten scrambled eggs and sourdough toast sat next to us, courtesy of my mom.
“I was tired. You know how hard it is to get off sometimes.”
She nodded. “Like Sarah’s journal.”
“Yeah, but Sarah’s journal didn’t vanish.” I threw down the backpack in despair. “I give up. It’s gone.”
I wondered if Emory had texted me. I’d left the phone on vibrate, which meant it wouldn’t have woken me. The realization brought a wave of despair. Now I’d never know.
Megan nibbled on the crust of her toast. “Your room’s depressing.”
“Why do you think I painted it yellow?”
“You need furniture,” she observed.
“You’re welcome to leave,” I said irritably.
“What do you want to do today? You want to go to the beach?”
“Megan, I need to find my phone.”
“Try to retrace your steps,” she said.
“Shut up.” I sat back against my mattress, clutching my temples. I wanted to scream.
“Retrace your steps. It works.”
I inhaled through flared nostrils. “Last night, I had the phone at Tina’s party.”
“Did you leave it there?”
“I had it in your car afterward. I couldn’t get the dark matter off, so I stuck it in my pocket. That’s the last time I had it . . .” I looked up brightly. “Your car—wait, wait, no, I had it before I went to bed last night. I still couldn’t get the stuff off, and I put it right . . . fucking . . . here.” I kicked the empty backpack in frustration. “And then your stupid snake ate it.”
Megan pulled her own cell phone out and wordlessly navigated to my phone number.
Duh.
She swiped to make the call and pressed the phone to her cheek.
In the silence, I listened for a buzzing.
“It’s ringing,” she said.
“Shh.” On hands and knees I pressed my ear to my backpack. Silence. I crawled around the rest of my room, pausing every few feet to listen. I circled back to my mattress and dug through the bedding, hoping an invisible object would tumble out.
“It went to voicemail,” she said, lowering the phone and tapping the screen. “I’m going to call you again.”
While she did, I scrambled through the rest of the house—the hallway, the living room, my mom’s office.
Nothing buzzed.
Where could it be? I went back to my backpack—where I knew I’d put it last night—and dumped the contents onto my floor. My AP Calculus book, my graphing calculator, my now overdue copy of The Great Gatsby, which I was determined to finish.
The pile remained silent.
No phone.
“What the hell?” I breathed.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa—” Megan squeezed the phone against her ear. “It’s not going to voicemail this time, I hear something . . .”
“Someone picked up? Let me talk to them.” I scooted closer and tried to pry the phone off her face, but she twisted away, swatting my hands.