White Rabbit Society Part One

by Brendan Detzner

  “Give him the book,” Andrew repeated.

  Jeremy dropped the book and Josh picked it up. Andrew opened his hand. Jeremy doubled over, his hands on his knees, gasping for breath.

  “Go away,” Andrew said. The other two boys got up off the ground and followed Jeremy back to the table they’d come from.

  The rest of the cafeteria carried on the way they’d been, wrapped up in their separate worlds.

  Andrew sat down and started eating his lunch.

  “Thanks,” Josh said “I don’t know how you did that.” His voice sounded uncertain.

  Andrew shrugged. “You’re welcome.” He looked down at his food, did not look at Josh’s face. He wanted this part to pass quickly, he didn’t want to deal with it. It was part of the reason he hadn’t done this sooner.

  There was a minute of awkward silence, which Josh was the one to break.

  “Do you want something?”

  He had a lunchbox next to him filled with junk food, mostly cupcakes wrapped in plastic.

  “Sure,” Andrew said. He took a chocolate chip cookie, looked up at Josh’s face. “Thanks.”

  He interpreted what he saw as best he could. Josh was still a little confused, he was still a little scared. But he was all right, he was over it.

  He started talking again, Andrew listened, it was how it usually was.

  “Do your parents let you go downtown? I’ve been down there a couple of times. My brother took me. My brother has a truck, he takes me wherever I want to go. There’s lots of crazy people down there now.”

  He paused, then started up again when he saw that Andrew wasn’t going to say anything.

  “I lied to them before you know,” he said. “My mom’s a doctor. She talks a lot about the man they found downtown, she just does it when she thinks I can’t hear her.”

  Andrew stopped what he was doing. Josh had a huge grin on his face.

  “He has four toes. Just four. The others are missing. Isn’t that weird?”

  #

  Shadow’s head spun around, and the pieces on the chessboard slid back into their starting positions. She took the first move, and Andrew responded.

  “So can you see it?” asked Andrew.

  “I can’t see it,” Shadow answered. “I can feel it, I think, but it could just be my imagination. Are you sure it’s in here?”

  “Let me check.” He opened Paul’s briefcase. It appeared to be empty. He pressed down on the back panel and it popped up with a soft click, allowing him to pull it open and reveal a hidden compartment underneath. There was an unlabeled orange pill bottle inside, held snugly to the wall of the compartment with a short loop of black elastic, and a pocket that held the torn corner of a postcard. On one side of the card was a picture of a blue sky, part of a cloud. On the other was a PO Box number and the mailing address of a women’s prison in California.

  There were other loops, other pockets, but they were empty.

  Andrew opened the pill bottle, shook one of the pills, and swallowed it dry. It felt hard as it slid down its throat. He closed his eyes and opened them again.

  He saw the thing from the briefcase, perched on top of the television. The brighter the light shining on it, the harder it was to make out; in the cafeteria, it had been almost invisible, barely an outline, but down here Andrew could see it clearly. Its body consisted almost entirely of slender tentacles; it looked like a pile of glowing blue spaghetti.

  “It’s on the TV,” Andrew said.

  The television screen went black.

  “I see. There it is. It took a moment of concentration for me to notice it. I think that’s what the pills are for. They help you to concentrate the same way that I do. Ask it to move, please.”

  Andrew waved his hand, and the thing with the tentacles leaped into the air. It landed on the other side of the room and came to rest.

  “Why does it keep doing whatever I say?”

  “It doesn’t have a name.”

  Andrew looked back down at the chessboard and thought about his next move while he talked. “What would happen if I gave it one?”

  “I’m not sure. I don't think it would try to eat you.” The television switched back on. She’d had it for a few days now; Andrew hadn’t asked her where it had come from. The screen was split down the middle by a hairline crack, and the power cord ended in a tiny bundle of splayed wire where the plug should have been, but it still worked, at least for Shadow.

  The news was on. Andrew saw crowds of people downtown, beating on bongos and dancing, praying or preaching or listening to others preach, taking pictures. They cut away for a second to show an elderly, shirtless man with long brown hair leaning against one of the glass columns, strumming an acoustic guitar and singing in a deep voice. They cut again to a woman selling hot dogs and cotton candy on what was left of the sidewalk.

  They cut a third time, to a man in a military uniform. He talked for a while, answered questions. They cut back to the crowd. Andrew noticed something he hadn’t noticed before, police in riot gear standing on some of the street corners, quiet and removed from the activity.

  The television faded to black.

  “Andrew, what would happen if they knew about me?”

  Andrew thought about it. “I’m not sure. They’d be scared. They don’t know what you are.”

  Shadow advanced her bishop. “Neither do I.”

  #

  A few minutes later, Andrew rose up through the floor of Shadow’s gazebo. He crouched down and peeked through the bars of the railing. He saw an empty sleeping bag lying next to one of the trees and a blanket spread out between the slide and the swing set, but no people. He ran down the ramp, and jogged to the edge of the park.

  He walked back to his grandmother’s house, drifting from the sidewalk to the street and back again. There were lots of people around; he saw a group of men in crisp white shirts and black pants going from door to door, and he walked past a woman in a wheelchair wearing a tie-dye T-shirt. She looked down for a moment to smile at him and wave hello as he went by. He glanced over his shoulder. The thing with the tentacles was crawling along behind him, fading in and out of sight as it passed through the shadows of the trees.

  He made it to his grandmother’s driveway. A man in a green sweater was standing on the front porch, holding a kitchen knife. He had a giant crop of greying hair sitting on top of his head, reaching towards the sky. His whole body was like that, all bones and weathered muscle, stretched upward like a piece of toffee. He was staring at the door to Andrew’s house.

  Andrew stepped onto the porch. He tried to think of something to say, tried to be the same person he’d been in the cafeteria today, but it was harder with an adult and nothing came. The man with the knife turned around and laughed in astonishment. He had blue eyes, there was something funny about them.

  He looked past Andrew, towards the familiar, and shook his head like he was impressed. He walked away.

  They were both made of glass, Andrew realized, once the man was gone. His eyes were made of glass.

  #

  Andrew went into the house and locked the door behind him. He went into the kitchen and got some yogurt from the fridge. He ate it nervously.

  Two glass eyes. That didn’t make any sense. He tried to think if he’d really been looking at the familiar, if maybe he’d just been staring off into space like a crazy person. The possibility occurred to him, again, that he was crazy, that there was something wrong with him and that this was all in his head.

  His grandmother was wiping off the counter with a wet washcloth.

  “How was school today?” she asked.

  He’d completely forgotten about school. It almost hurt, having to change gears so quickly like that. “Pretty boring,” he said.

  “I actually think that’s good after all this, Andrew. Don’t you think so?”

  She turned back towards the counter.

  He felt himself getting mad. All of this shit he ha
d to deal with and as far as she was concerned, everything was fine.

  “Grandma?” asked Andrew.

  “Yes, Andrew?”

  “After school that one day, you told me that things were going to be different. I thought that you meant that you were going to tell me more about Uncle Paul.”

  Grandma stared at the table. Andrew wasn’t sure if she’d heard him. He was about to repeat himself when she finally answered.

  “Not right now, Andrew.”

  “That’s what you said yesterday.”

  She didn’t say anything to that. Andrew kept eating his yogurt. When he was finished, he got up, rinsed out the cup, and dropped it in the garbage can.

  “Grandma, can I make a phone call? I want to talk to mom and dad about Uncle Paul.”

  “I asked you not to do that, Andrew.”

  “I know.”

  She put down the washcloth. “They won’t be able to tell you anything.” She walked over to the doorway and faced the living room while she talked.

  “Every Saturday, your father calls me, asking about you. How you are, what you’ve been doing. Whether you’ve been bad...”

  Andrew threw the spoon into the sink. His grandmother turned around.

  “Andrew, please finish washing your dishes.”

  “No.”

  He pushed past her and ran up the stairs, into his room.

  #

  Paul had left Andrew the briefcase on purpose. He’d wanted Andrew to have it, just in case something went wrong. This was what Andrew had decided.

  Looking in the mirror since the days following the event, Andrew had looked at his face more carefully in the mirror. There was a connection between himself and Paul. That didn’t mean he liked everything about Paul; there were lots of things he didn’t like, and even more things that he just didn’t know.

  Paul had hit him. But he hadn’t acted like Andrew was stupid, or defective, or a problem. He’d been scary, but he’d said himself that that was a habit, that it wasn’t personal. Maybe he had a good reason to be scary.

  And maybe Andrew did too. He replayed his encounter with the man with the glass eyes in his mind. He should have done more. He shouldn’t have just stood there.

  He was keeping the briefcase with Shadow, at least for now. But he’d written down the address from the corner of the postcard in the briefcase on a separate piece of paper, which he’d been keeping in his wallet for no real reason except that he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do with it.

  He had an idea now. It felt strange, like something somebody else would do, not him.

  He carefully ripped a piece of paper out of his school notebook and started writing. He tore up his first draft and started again. It was better the second time, shorter.

  I have Paul’s briefcase and I know what he was looking for. I want to know who you are.

  He took an envelope and a stamp from a drawer in the kitchen downstairs next to the phone, and mailed his note.

  #

  It wasn't a big town. There was only one place to get a room, and on their way in the desk clerk gave Anna a look like they knew each other. Anna didn't seem to care. The next morning, Paul waited for her to leave. He didn't want it, he just knew it was going to happen.

  Except it didn't happen. She asked them where they were going. She needed to swing by her place to pack a bag, but she said it wouldn't take more than a few minutes, and the way she said it, he believed her. He just didn't know why.

  She pushed open the curtain. There was a Dairy Queen and an abandoned building across the street. If you pressed your face to the glass, you could see a gas station on the corner. That was it.

  "So let's go," she said.

  That was it. That was it for a long time. The two of them.

  CHAPTER 5

  #

  Time went by. He went to school, visited Shadow, watched the news on TV. There were cops at the hospital twenty-four hours a day; reporters had to talk about the man they had found from the parking lot.

  School went slowly. Andrew sat in classrooms for three hours, ate lunch with Josh, sat in more classrooms for three more hours, had gym class and went home. Sometimes when he got really bored, he’d find a quiet place in the school and practice giving Paul’s assistant instructions, but mostly he went to class and just slept through everything.

  His conversations with Josh were the only thing that had an impact on him. They weren’t really conversations. Josh talked. He talked about what other kids were saying about what had happened downtown, made jokes about the teacher who’d been smoking a joint in his apartment when he’d been teleported in front of a church half a mile away. He talked about movies and comic books, talked about characters that could move things with their mind and tried to see if he could get Andrew to talk about it. He never quite asked a direct question.

  He thinks I’m cool, Andrew eventually realized. He’s curious about what I did to Jeremy, but that’s not the most important thing. He wants my approval. He doesn’t want to piss me off, he wants to be able to hang out with me.

  Andrew wasn’t sure what to do about that.

  He got a response to his postcard a week and a half later.

  Dear Whoever You Are,

  I wish I at least knew your name, but if you knew to write to this address about Paul then I guess you’re worth my time. There’s a field out on Highway M right around where you’re mailing from, not too far from the train tracks. Look for three giant oak trees. There’s a hole in between them, you’ll find what you’re looking for in there.

  If you can be cryptic then so can I. Have fun, stranger.

  -Anna

  #

  The next day, at lunch, Josh sat down in his usual seat across from Andrew, unpacked his lunch, and started talking. He finished all his junk food first and saved his sandwich for last.

  “So my parents were yelling at me because I only got a B plus on the test. It was a hard test, and I got A’s on everything else, and they’re still yelling at me.”

  Andrew interrupted, the first time he’d ever done this.

  “Can I talk to you about something?”

  It took Josh a second for him to backtrack. “Sure. What about?”

  “Not here,” Andrew said. “Just follow me, pretend we’re going to the library.”

  Andrew threw what was left of his lunch away, came back to the table for his books, and left the cafeteria. He looked over his shoulder as he stepped out and saw that Josh was following him.

  They walked towards the library. About halfway there, Andrew took a quick look around. He didn't see any hall monitors. He ducked into a hallway with no classrooms, the one the janitors used. He went up a flight of stairs. There was a single, unlabeled wooden door at the top. He slid his student ID into the crack above the bolt lock and moved it back and forth until it opened.

  He went inside, and Josh followed him. They were in an attic, a large open space with giant metal shelves covering the walls. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere.

  “Nobody ever comes up here during the day,” Andrew said. “The janitors don’t come until after school gets let out. It’s a good place to work on stuff.”

  “Wow,” Josh said. “This is cool. Are we going to get in trouble?”

  Andrew just watched him for a second. He wasn’t really sure how this worked. He wanted something, he had to give something up in exchange. Or at least share something. This place was a little thing to him, a small secret, it would be a bigger deal if he didn’t have so many others now. But maybe it would be a bigger deal for Josh. Maybe it would be enough.

  “We’ll be fine as long as we don’t miss class. The period’s almost over, actually, we should go.”

  They left the attic, closed the door behind them and heard the lock click shut.

  “Josh?” Andrew asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “You said your brother had a truck.”

  #
>
  That Saturday afternoon, Andrew was sitting on the front step of his grandmother’s house. It was warm, like a spring day, one of the weird exceptions in the weather that Andrew had learned to expect. Tomorrow it would probably be cold again.

  He looked up at the triangle on his front door. Ever since the day the man with the knife had come to the house, his grandmother had kept the doors locked. She hadn’t called the police.

  He held out his hand. “I want you to stay here,” he said. “Make sure my grandmother is okay until I get back. Squeeze my wrist twice if you understand what I’m saying.”

  He felt something wrap around his wrist; it was slender, like a friendship bracelet, and its texture changed from moment to moment, from rubber to oil to the front of a glossy magazine cover. It squeezed once, then twice.

  A few minutes later, a dark blue pick-up truck pulled into driveway. Josh was sitting in the passenger seat and a man in a red baseball cap was driving. Joshua opened the door as Andrew approached.

  #

  They stopped back by Josh’s house before they left to get some rope and a flashlight. Josh’s brother thought it was important to bring those. Andrew spent a few minutes standing in the breezeway. There was a picture of the whole family hanging on the wall next to the coat rack, Josh and his mom who looked just like him and his dad and his older brother who both looked like members of the same football team and his twin sisters, the six of them posed in front of some kind of a fountain on some kind of a vacation. They were all smiling. Andrew found it unnerving. He heard a couple of separate conversations, saw the coats stacked on top of each other on the rack. There was too much light in this house. He was grateful when Josh’s brother made it back and they could leave.

  Highway M drifted back and forth as they drove along; there was nothing but farmland on either side of them, rows of wheat and corn. Andrew was sitting in the back seat.