Nightmare City

by Klavan, Andrew

  Tom’s mother lowered her hands and said, “You mean he died?”

  “Well,” said the doctor, “I suppose you could put it like that, yes. Yes, he did. We were able to revive him, but . . . well, until he regains consciousness, we won’t know very much about how he is or how much damage he suffered.”

  “Damage?” Tom’s mother said. “You mean . . .”

  “Brain damage.”

  Sitting in the chair, watching the scene on the television, Tom groaned aloud. His mother began to cry.

  The doctor tried to reassure her, touching her shoulder. “We just don’t know. We can’t tell yet. He may come out of this in an hour. And he may be totally fine. Or . . .”

  “Or he may never come out of it,” Mom said through her tears. “He may die.”

  Dr. Leonard nodded. “We can’t promise you anything. We just don’t know. Unless or until he comes around, there’s not that much I can tell you.”

  Tom’s mother couldn’t take any more. She turned away from the doctor. She reached out and took Tom’s hand where it lay limp atop the bedcover. She brought the hand to her lips and kissed it and she began to weep. “My boys,” she said, her voice muffled by tears. “Both my boys!”

  The doctor stood up silently and walked out. As he did, Tom saw for the first time that there was another bed in the room. Another man was lying in the second bed, hooked up to a bunch of tubes like Tom, unconscious like Tom. As his mother sobbed beside him, Tom stared at this other man in the other bed.

  “What?” he said aloud.

  Shocked, he realized he recognized the man in the bed. It was the lanky young man with dirty blond hair, the man he had seen in the heavenly garden looking lost and afraid. Tom saw that both the man’s wrists were bandaged.

  Tom shut his eyes. It was too much. His mother in such an agony of sorrow. The man from the heavenly park in the hospital room. He couldn’t understand it all. He couldn’t bear to think about it anymore. He looked away—and instantly, the TV snapped off and went blank.

  In the silence of the basement room, Tom put a trembling hand to his forehead. He closed his eyes. For a long moment, he couldn’t think at all. He just sat there, his mind empty of everything—everything except confusion and the image of his mom weeping over him—and the pain and sorrow he felt for her.

  Then he lowered his hand and his shoulders slumped. Well, now he had what he wanted. Now he knew the truth.

  He looked at the TV. At the blank screen. He thought: Help me, dude. Help me. He was trying to reach Burt somehow, trying to get Burt to come back on the screen, to talk to him, to tell him what he should do, how he could get himself out of this.

  The TV remained silent, the screen blank.

  Tom raised his eyes to the ceiling—to heaven. Soon, he knew, the fog would roll in again. Soon the monsters would burst through the windows again. This time there would be no escape. This time there would be no survival. He could not leave his mother in that hospital room all alone with his dead body. Her heart was already broken because of losing Burt. Losing him too would destroy her.

  He had to find a way back to her, back to consciousness and life. But how? For the moment, Tom was all out of answers.

  Please help me, God, he thought. I so totally don’t know what to do. Please.

  He lowered his eyes to the TV again. But still: nothing. Silence.

  Then he nearly jumped to his feet as he heard a loud noise upstairs.

  Someone—or something—was pounding on the front door.

  13.

  The mist in the driveway had thickened. The figure standing in the mist looked like Death.

  Tom had come running up from the basement as soon as he’d heard the pounding on the door. But even as he crested the stairs, before he even started down the hallway to the foyer, the pounding stopped. Now he was standing at the front door, peering out through the sidelight. He saw the figure who had been knocking. It was retreating, moving slowly down the front path, deeper into the thickening mist.

  The figure wore a black raincoat, a black hood. It was a grim and ominous sight that made Tom’s stomach go sour with fear.

  Like Death.

  The ghostly figure glided slowly away from him, toward the deeper mist already gathering at the bottom of the driveway. Soon, Tom knew, the figure would vanish into the marine layer, the same way the woman in the white blouse had vanished the last time.

  And yet Tom did not move from where he was. He did not open the door. He didn’t call out. He wasn’t sure whether he should. The cowled figure was so frightening to look at that he was afraid if he called to it—if it turned—it might actually present the skeletal face of the Grim Reaper. Would it come to him then and claim him and carry him away to his own grave?

  Tom thought about it one more second while the cowled figure continued to move down the walk, growing hazier and dimmer as the mist collected around it.

  Then he made up his mind. He had come back to this house to find the truth. He would find it, even if it wore the face of Death itself.

  He pulled the door open. He stepped out across the threshold.

  “Wait!” he called, his voice trembling.

  The hooded figure stopped, stood still. The mist on the front lawn blew and swirled and grew denser and the figure grew more vague, more ghostly. A shiver of cold and fear went through Tom as he felt the damp of the mist touch his skin. He suddenly felt very vulnerable. He knew the malevolents were out here, moving in the fog, not far away, getting closer every moment.

  He forced himself to speak. “Who are you?”

  Slowly, the figure began to turn around. It faced him. Its features were obscured in the shadow of the hood.

  Tom held his breath. He thought: Is this it? Is this Death? Is this the end?

  Then the figure lifted a hand—a small white hand. It pushed the hood back. A mass of red hair tumbled free, framing a pug-nosed, freckled face. Green eyes blinked at him from behind the round lenses of a pair of glasses.

  It was Lisa McKay.

  Tom let out a breath of sweet relief as Lisa broke out into a tremulous smile.

  “Thank heavens!” she said. “I was afraid you were already gone!”

  INTERLUDE TWO

  “Sources: Tiger Champs Used Drugs.”

  In the days after the story broke, Tom’s life was like a thunderstorm: long periods of gloom and turmoil and darkness punctuated by sudden shafts of dazzling light. There were the glowering looks in the school halls every day; black, angry looks in class even from his friends, even from some of his teachers. There were whispers as he walked the halls: “Traitor.” “Creep.” “Liar.” There were hard shots from the shoulders of some of the bigger guys as they passed him. Every morning he awoke with dread, walked to school with dread, knowing he was going to face it all again. Long, gloomy, stormy hours. And then suddenly . . .

  Suddenly, Marie. Marie’s eyes; Marie’s lips; Marie’s voice, a gentle whisper. Her golden hair spilling around a face like a porcelain doll’s. She sought him out on the playing field after lunch. She sat with him under the oak tree during study period. She let him drive her home. She sat in the car with him and put her hand in his.

  He could not believe it was happening. It was as if his daydreams had sprung to life.

  “Won’t everyone hate you?” he asked her. They were sitting together on a windowsill early one morning, just before the homeroom bell rang. “For hanging out with me, I mean.”

  “I don’t care what everyone thinks,” she told him. “And neither should you.”

  “What about . . . ?” He didn’t want to ask, but he couldn’t help himself. “What about Gordon? I always thought . . . Well, everyone always thought you were with Gordon.”

  “Like I said,” she answered softly, leaning toward him. “I don’t care what everyone thinks. I want you to come to my house next week, Tom. Daddy wants to meet you.”

  Her face was so close to his just then that he felt breathless. “Really?” he said
.

  But before Marie could answer, the moment was shattered.

  “Tom.”

  Tom blinked. Looked up from Marie as if coming awake. Miss Dunphy, the principal’s assistant, was standing over them. “Mr. Kramer would like to see you in his office,” she said. “Right now.”

  Mr. Kramer, the principal, was waiting for him in the conference room. And not just Mr. Kramer. Coach Petrie was there, too—the Tigers’ coach and the head of the Physical Education Department—and so was Mrs. Rafferty, the English teacher who was supposed to supervise the publication of the Sentinel but never really did. They were all sitting around the long table, looking at Tom as he entered the room. And the minute Tom saw the expressions on their faces, he knew he was in for big-time trouble.

  Mr. Kramer sat at the table’s head. He was a young-looking man, in his early forties. He had short white hair, and his eyes were such a pale gray as to be almost colorless. Usually he was a pretty friendly guy, but when the smile disappeared from his face, there was something almost chilling about those transparent eyes of his. There was nothing like a smile on his face now.

  He indicated an empty chair and Tom sat down, feeling his stomach jump with anxiety.

  Mr. Kramer cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “We want to talk to you about this story you wrote in the newspaper,” he said. “To publicly accuse our football team of taking drugs three years ago—our championship team—that’s a very serious charge, you know. We’re very proud of our team in this school, Tom.”

  Tom opened his mouth to answer, but then he jumped in his chair as—wham!—Coach Petrie slapped the table loudly. The coach was wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt, and the muscles in his arms tensed and bulged. “It’s a lie, that’s what it is!” he growled. “You asked me about it and I told you myself it was a lie, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you that?”

  Mr. Kramer made a calming gesture at him. “Hold on, Coach,” he said. Then he went on to Tom, “I think what Coach is trying to say is that we’re disappointed you went ahead and wrote the story even after he explained to you that there was no truth in it. That’s irresponsible, Tom.”

  Tom drew a breath, hoping he could keep his voice steady. “I quoted Coach in the story,” he said. “I gave him a chance to tell his side of it.”

  “Yeah, and then you made me sound like some kind of liar,” Coach Petrie snapped back.

  Tom felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck. This was bad, really bad. Three adults—three powerful adults—angry at him. No, furious. Coach Petrie looked like he wanted to wring his neck.

  He forced himself to return their glares with a steady gaze. “The story wasn’t irresponsible,” he said. “My sources gave me proof of everything they told me. Cell phone pictures. E-mails. Personal testimonies from players who took the steroids. It’s all in the paper and I checked it all myself. The story was solid. The players took drugs. We won the championship unfairly. Those are the facts.”

  Tom recoiled—he couldn’t help it—as Coach pointed a finger right in his face. “You are calling me a liar, aren’t you? How dare you disrespect me? Who do you think you are?”

  “I’m just saying it’s the truth,” said Tom as steadily as he could. He wished he were somewhere else right now. Somewhere like Mars.

  “You’re supposed to run all stories by me for approval,” Mrs. Rafferty broke in, her voice clipped and hard. She was a large, pasty-faced woman with short red hair that curled up out of her head like fire. “I would never have approved the newspaper running a story like this.”

  Tom knew that Lisa always e-mailed the paper to Mrs. Rafferty for approval—and that Mrs. Rafferty never read it and never responded. But he hadn’t personally seen Lisa send the e-mail this time, and he didn’t want to sound like he was blaming Lisa for anything, so he kept his mouth shut.

  “All right,” said Mr. Kramer, making another conciliatory gesture at the others. “Let’s not waste time with anger and recriminations. Let’s see if we can make this right. Tom, if we let this story stand, it’s going to have serious repercussions. The school board is going to ask questions, the interscholastic sports governors, maybe even the state Board of Ed. I’m going to need to have as much information as I can in order to answer them and explain how this rumor got started and how it got out of hand like this. To begin with, I need to know who told you these tales about the team.”

  The sweat gathering on Tom’s neck rolled down his back, making his shirt damp. “I can’t tell you that,” he said. “My sources gave me this information on the condition I keep their names secret. I promised them I would.”

  Tom started as Coach Petrie slapped the table again. “Well, you are going to break that promise, son, believe you me,” he said.

  “I don’t think you understand the situation you’re in,” said Mrs. Rafferty—and the way she said it made Tom feel that her hair was going to catch fire for real. “You are facing suspension here.”

  Tom’s mouth went dry. Suspension! That was not good. That was bad, in fact. It would go on his record. It would hurt his chances of getting into a top college. Worse than that: he didn’t know how he would tell his mom.

  But he knew he had no choice about this. He licked his lips. He said, “The people who talked to me wouldn’t have talked if they thought they were going to be named—they were afraid of being punished and attacked for telling the truth.” The way I’m being punished and attacked for telling the truth, he didn’t add. “But they proved what they said beyond a doubt, and I printed the proof. The story is fair and it’s true. Even if you suspend me—even if you expel me—it’ll still be true.”

  Mr. Kramer leaned forward, his expression as serious as Tom had ever seen it, his eyes as transparent as glass. “I hope you understand,” he said tersely. “Mrs. Rafferty is quite right about this. You are facing very serious consequences here.”

  Tom took a deep, unsteady breath. “I do understand,” he said softly. “But I stand by the story. I stand by the story.”

  Tom had to say it twice to get the words out clearly—and even though he meant them, he quailed inside as he saw the anger flash in Mr. Kramer’s colorless eyes.

  Mrs. Rafferty started to say, “You do not know the beginning of how much trouble you are getting yourself—”

  But she stopped as there was a quick knock on the door. Before anyone could say anything else, the door opened and Lisa came in.

  She was wearing jeans and a striped pullover and tennis shoes. Her red hair tumbled messily down the sides of her pale face, and she blinked rapidly behind her glasses. She looked very small and skinny and much younger than she was.

  “Hi, everyone!” she said in a chirpy little-girl voice. “I heard you guys were talking to Tom and I thought, since I’m the newspaper editor, maybe I should be here, too.”

  “We’ll speak to you separately,” said Mr. Kramer tersely.

  “And you’re not the editor anymore,” growled Mrs. Rafferty.

  “Oh!” said Lisa, as if she were startled. “Really? Is this about the Tigers story?”

  “It sure is!” said Coach Petrie.

  “Okay,” said Lisa in that same high, bright voice. “I’m sort of surprised to hear that, because I did send the story to you for approval, Mrs. Rafferty.”

  “Well, I didn’t approve it,” she snapped.

  “Well, yes, I know, but you haven’t approved any of our stories since I’ve been on the paper. We always send them to you, but you never get back to us. So, you know, I didn’t think this was any different. Anyway . . . ,” she went on chirpily, “let me know when you’re done with Tom. Because when USA Today interviews me, they’ll probably want him there, too.”

  Mr. Kramer, Coach Petrie, and Mrs. Rafferty all sat up straight at the same time and said exactly the same thing: “What?!”

  “USA Today,” Lisa repeated with the same cheery tone. “You know, for their story about us and the Tigers and how a school paper got a big scoop and how the school re
acted to it and all that.”

  Mr. Kramer’s eyes flashed again. He seemed as if he was about to slap the table himself. “I absolutely forbid you to talk to USA Today or anyone else about this until we’ve fully ascertained the facts!” he said.

  And suddenly, Lisa’s chirpy, little-girl demeanor vanished—just like that. Her face became very serious, and the eyes behind the round lenses were unblinking and bright as flashing steel. Her voice became flat and hard. “With respect, Mr. Kramer,” she said, “I’ll be speaking to them after school and with my mother’s permission. You don’t have the power to forbid me. You have the power to take me and Tom off the paper. You have the power to suspend us. You have the power to close the paper down. But we told the truth and we’re going to go on telling it, in USA Today and on Facebook and Twitter and wherever else we can to whoever will listen. And I know that’ll be okay with you,” she said, turning her steady gaze from one adult to another. “Because as long as you do what’s right, you won’t mind if everyone knows.”

  With that, she turned and walked out of the room.

  A few minutes later Tom found her in the Sentinel’s office.

  “You saved my life in there, Leese,” he said with a lopsided smile. “After they heard about USA Today, everyone suddenly got a lot more friendly. I guess they didn’t want the whole country to find out they were trying to cover up for the team.”

  Lisa shrugged but blushed at the same time. “That’s what friends are for, Tommy. I knew you could stand up for yourself, but I figured, I’m the editor, it’s my responsibility to protect the story.”

  Weary with relief, Tom dropped into his chair and put his feet up on the mess on his desk. “So when do we talk to USA Today?” he asked her.

  Lisa shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I don’t know. They haven’t asked us yet.”

  Tom’s feet dropped off the desk with a thud as he came rocketing upright in his chair. “What?”

  “Well, I had to say something, right? They looked like they were about to hang you.”

  “So you lied?”

  “I didn’t lie. I said when USA Today interviews me, they’ll probably want to interview you, too. I’m sure that’s true.”