Hollow

by Rhonda Parrish

  Not yet.

  Not ever.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I TAKE MY time, moving zombie-like through the streams of students in the hallway, to get to my locker. My fingers move in slow motion on the lock, and it is with a distinct weight to my movements that I exchange my biology books for my gym clothes. The bell for the next class sounds as I re-secure my locker, but I don’t quicken my pace. I’d rather deal with Ms. Reigns being angry at me for being late than anyone my own age.

  The change room is empty when I reach it, which is a mixed blessing. It means I don’t have to face anyone yet, but it also means I am going to be the last person to get to class. I change as quickly as I can and toss my street clothes into a locker. I’m tying up my shoes as I hear voices approaching the heavy double doors into the change room.

  Familiar voices.

  Male voices.

  Keith and his cohort are on the other side of the door.

  “Nah, trust me,” Keith is saying. “The sprinkler system in the girls’ locker room doesn’t work.”

  “Why does it work in ours?” That’s Simon.

  “How should I know? Do I look like the janitor to you?”

  I hear the first door open and know any moment they are going to be in here. With me. Alone. Alone with me.

  I’m frozen for what feels like an age but must only be a heartbeat, then, my pulse pounding in my temples and with weak knees, I scoot back. Out of the main locker room area and into the back part, where the showers are. Whatever Keith and his friends are doing, I don’t want them to see me. I’ll hide in the showers until they are gone.

  A cinderblock wall separates us. The boys and myself. One row of bricks. That’s it. I can hear them laughing and joking with one another as clearly as if they were standing right beside me, and that’s when I realise I’ve trapped myself. I have nowhere to go. The only way into the shower room where I’m hiding is through a narrow doorway, which means it’s the only way out as well.

  I press my back against the outside wall in the shower stall furthest from the door, rubbing my arms to try and alleviate the sudden goose bumps I feel there, and give myself an outlet for my nervous energy at the same time.

  Go away, I think at Keith, Simon, and Darian. Go away, go away, go away! You don’t belong here!

  Maybe, I think, maybe Ms. Reigns will realize I’m not in gym and she’ll come to check on me. She’s never done that before that I know of, but maybe, this time . . .

  “C’mon, spark it up,” Keith says, impatiently. I hear the boys shuffling around and then the spark of flint on steel—a lighter.

  What are they doing?

  Then it hits me. The unmistakable scent of pot.

  I could laugh, or roll my eyes, or both, if I wasn’t so scared.

  Just smoke it and get out, I think. Smoke it and get out.

  I hear the sound of someone exhaling slowly, then, “That’s good shit.”

  “Course it is, I got it from my brother’s stash.”

  I shift my weight and when I lift my foot off the drain on the floor it wobbles in its place. I bite my lip, closing my eyes and swallowing a curse. Damn it! I’d forgotten that one was loose. Maybe they didn’t hear. Maybe they didn’t—

  “What was that?” Keith’s voice. Sharp. Alarmed.

  “Dunno.” Simon, sounding unconcerned.

  Then Keith’s head peeks around the corner of the doorway, and he spots me, cowering in the corner of the shower, arms wrapped around myself with I can only imagine what kind of look on my face. “Well, lookee here,” he says like the villain out of some terrible old movie.

  “What?” Darian asks, coming around the corner. “Oh, well, look at you.”

  “Who?” Simon peers over Darian’s shoulder.

  The boys completely fill the doorway, blocking my only means of escape.

  My heart is pounding as though I’m running a race, but my legs feel frozen in place. I don’t want to show them my fear, but I can’t feign nonchalance. I can’t even move.

  “If it isn’t Morgan,” Keith says. “I was just talking about you.”

  I feel the blood rush to my face. I can bet he’d been talking about me. He’d done nothing but talk about me since that day. How could I have been so stupid?

  I look at the ground, then force myself to lift my gaze back up to meet the trio of boys in the doorway.

  “Aww look, she’s shy!” Simon says, and his voice lifts a bit at the end of the sentence. Not quite cracking, but close.

  “Oh nah, she ain’t.” Keith laughs again, and his friends join in. He pinches off the glowing end of the joint he’d been holding, drops it to the ground, and steps on it. He tucks the rest of the joint into his pocket, and he and his friends move toward me. They step in unison, like pack animals on the hunt, forming a semi-circle around me, keeping me pressed against the wall.

  They are close. Close enough to touch.

  I move to the side, hoping to slip around on the outside and make it to the doorway. Bad move.

  I don’t know how they knew to move so quickly but suddenly they are around me, completely fencing me in. The wall presses against my back, and the boys are so close on either side of me that I can smell the onions Simon had for breakfast even over the heady scent of pot and the faint whiff of Keith’s BO coming out from under his hoodie. “Leave me alone,” I say, and the words sound weak and pitiful.

  “Awww, c’mon,” Keith wheedles and reaches out to tuck a strand of hair that’s escaped my ponytail behind my ear. “We don’t mean no harm. We’ll play nice.”

  “Yeah,” Simon laughs. “Real nice.”

  The emphasis he puts on the words leaves no confusion about exactly what he means. My face burns even hotter. No, no, no. My knees have turned to water, I’m not sure I can trust my legs to hold me up my longer. “Get out of my way.”

  I try to shoulder my way past Darian. He’s the smallest of the three and the one doing the least amount of talking. I hope he’ll be the weak link that will let me past, but he isn’t. He stands firm. Not pushing me back but keeping me trapped between his friends and the wall.

  “What do you want from me?” I say, then wish I hadn’t. The answer is pretty obvious and asking the question makes me seem, and feel, even more weak and helpless than before. The very two things I most desperately want not to be.

  Keith moves closer. His body is a breath from mine, his flame blue eyes burn into me. They move from my face, slowly down to where my arms are clutched desperately across my chest. He lets his eyes go down further still, then looks back up at me, a leer splitting his face. “I think you can figure that out . . .”

  I feel ill. My thighs tremble and it’s as though there is a squadron of bats whorling around in my belly. I’m going to throw up. That would serve them right. If I puked all over them. I almost want to throw up then, almost as much as I want to get out of this locker room.

  “Let me go,” I say again, and this time it sounds almost forceful. “Let me go or I’ll scream.”

  Darian takes half a step back, like he’s going to let me go and I turn to thank him, to thank him, but Simon steps up to close the gap again.

  “Who’s going to hear you?” Keith laughs. “These walls are soundproof and the doors damn near . . .”

  “Uh,” Darian says, looking confused, uncomfortable. “Guys?”

  Keith moves closer, his body presses me against the wall, pinning me against it the way he’d pinned me to the backseat of his car that day at the park. “Fuck you!” I say, as anger fills me, replacing my shame, my fear. More anger than I’ve ever felt at one time. Ever. “Fuck you,” I say again, and bring my knee up as hard and as fast as I can, right between his legs.

  Keith buckles. He stumbles backward, bent at the waist. His eyes are wide, his mouth gaping open and closed like a fish on land. I don’t wait around to enjoy the moment. I shoulder between him and Simon, pushing them both out of the way with adrenaline-fueled strength, and bolt from the change room d
oors.

  I’m out of them, with the last one swinging shut in my wake, before I hear the boys shouting in the shower, and the unmistakable sound of their pursuit.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE HALLWAYS ARE empty. Completely empty. The hallways are never completely empty. Ever. There’s always someone on a spare or filling a water bottle from the fountain, someone on their way from a classroom to the washroom, but not now. Because of course there isn’t. This is the only time in the history of the school that every hallway is empty because it’s the only time in the history of the school that I’ve wanted them to be full. That I wanted a big crowd, because I need to disappear.

  I’m in big trouble. There is no way in a million years Keith is going to forgive and forget me kicking him in the balls. Not in a million, million years.

  I’m dead. I’m so dead. I’m dead or I’m going to wish I was.

  I’ve been running mindlessly through the halls, looking for, I don’t know what. A crowd to disappear into, perhaps? Now I realise that is a bad idea. The high school wing of the building is shaped like a giant squared-off donut. If I keep this up with Keith and his buddies pursuing me I’m guaranteeing that they are going to catch me. And then what are they going to do?

  I’ve never felt physically intimidated by Keith and his friends, never worried they were going to attack me, not even that day. But something had changed. Back in the showers, that had been a different story, a different Keith, a different Simon than I’ve ever seen before. More intimidating. More predatory.

  I hear feet approaching from around the corner, and without waiting to see who they belong to, I duck into the nearest door. I’m in the library. The librarian looks up and raises an eyebrow. “No running in the halls, Morgan.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Rushfeldt,” I murmur, slowing my pace. I think about telling her what’s going on, asking for help, but that would require too much context. Too much explaining. I’d have to tell her about that day. I dismiss the idea and, instead, move deeper into the library.

  It is a sharp contrast to the hallways. The lights are a little less stark, the concrete walls feel a little warmer and there is carpet rather than shiny tiles under my feet. All that combines to make a soothing, intimate feeling. My racing heart rate, my whirling thoughts, they all feel out of place here. Plus, it’s probably the one place in the school Keith and company won’t think to look for me. I don’t know if they even realise the school has a library. It’s not the sort of room that would be on their radars.

  I walk further in. Two of the walls facing the hallway are glass from the waist up and I don’t want to boys to spot me and come in. Pretending I have an actual reason for being here, I square my shoulders and move to the heart of the library, where no one will be able to see me from the hallway.

  I feel like I should cry. Part of me wants to cry, I can feel the tears welling up within me, feel them pushing to get out, but it’s as if a wall has gone up between them and my eyes. Push as much as they want, they can’t escape. Can’t. It’s especially weird given how easily they’ve been coming these past few weeks but now, with a real reason to fall, they can’t.

  Something is going on with Keith and Simon. Something has changed. I’ve never felt so menaced by them before. Their eyes have never been so hard, so cruel, so lacking in even the most basic human empathy. Even Darian had seemed shocked by his friends. Not enough that he was willing to stand against them, but it had been there. I’d seen it. The uncertainty in his face. Something had changed. Like something had changed for Marcus, last night as we’d sat on my step. He hadn’t threatened me, hadn’t done anything like what Keith and Simon had, but still, there had been a shift there, I know it.

  My gaze falls on a book about photography and I feel my brows pull together. What if—?

  What if it was the camera? I’d taken their pictures with the camera I’d found in the haunted hospital and it had changed them. First the squirrel, then Marcus, then Stacy, and now Keith and Simon.

  It sounds impossible. I know it sounds impossible, but at the same time, it kind of makes sense. And it’s the only explanation which even comes close to making sense. Occam’s Razor. It’s something people in horror movies say all the time. Once you’ve dismissed all the impossibilities, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

  Or maybe you’re in shock, I think. You’re upset about what happened in the showers and you’re in shock. You’re ascribing it to something supernatural, something paranormal, and it really is just a bunch of jerks being jerks. You shouldn’t be in the library hatching bizarre theories, you should be in the principal’s office. Or at the police station. You should be reporting them. You should be telling—

  I cut that idea off before it can develop further. I can’t tell. I won’t. No one would believe me, and even if they did, well, then they’d know, wouldn’t they? And who’s to say that shame wouldn’t be worse than all the crap I’m going through now? And besides, shock wouldn’t explain the change that had come over Marcus, would it? Unless . . . no. I won’t believe that. I hadn’t done anything to drive him away. We’d been happy and having fun and then, as quick as the shutter release on the damned camera, we hadn’t been.

  It had to be the camera.

  Well, I could be freaking losing it. I mean, taking Marcus out of the equation, I am talking about the boy who . . . did what he did to me this summer. It’s not like he was a nice guy and then suddenly he wasn’t. In fact, what happened in the showers is nothing compared to that—

  Except that, somehow, it is.

  Unbidden my thoughts flash back to the day in his car. I’d thought he was amazing then. My first boyfriend. Well, my first real boyfriend. I’d marvelled over the fact he’d picked me, I’d drowned in the gas flame blue of his eyes, adored running my hands through his hair. When he kissed me . . . when he kissed me I got weak in the knees like in all the romance novels I kept hidden under my bed. I got butterflies in my belly, tingles down lower. I loved kissing him. I could do it for hours and hours. Had, in fact, done it for hours and hours. Just not that day.

  That day he’d texted and asked if I wanted to go for a drive. I remember feeling like we connected on a level deeper than reality, like he’d read my mind. Mom had come home from rehab that week and things were tense. Awkward. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than a good excuse to leave. So I had. I’d bolted out the door like my heels were on.

  We met at the park a few blocks from my house. Me on foot, him in his car. The park was an empty lot, but there was an old wooden bench there, and enough trees and bushes for kids to play hide and seek.

  Keith had been sitting on the bench when I’d seen him and my heart had leapt at the sight. His black hair, turning up where it brushed against his collar, in slight waves where he’d parted it in the middle and brushed it back, it flattered his face, framed his eyes. His eyes which could hypnotize me like nothing else. He’d smiled when he’d seen me and my tummy had flipped with joy

  “Hey you,” he’d said, getting up off the bench to kiss me hello. His hands stroked my back, then down, cupping my bottom and pulling me tight against him so I could feel how my proximity affected him. “I missed you.”

  “Apparently,” I said, laughing nervously. We’d made out plenty of times, I wasn’t unfamiliar with the feeling of his erection through his clothes, but there was something in the huskiness of his voice, in the fact he was hard before we’d even done anything, that made me uncomfortable.

  We’d moved to the back seat of his car. Talking, listening to music, and making out. Mostly making out.

  I’d liked the way he was touching me, stroking my thighs through my jeans, sliding his hands over my shirt to cup my breasts and play with my nipples through my bra. I liked it. Maybe that was the worst part, because I had liked it, until I hadn’t.

  “Should we be doing—I mean, someone could see.”

  “No one will see,” he laughed, pushing me back against the seat and k
issing me hard. His hand pulled at my shirt, tugging the ends out of the waistband, slipping beneath my shirt. Skin on skin.

  And I’d liked it.

  I’d liked it enough to grow brave, brazen enough to touch him through his jeans, and I’d felt a flare of arousal when he’d sucked in his breath, growled against my lips, and pressed harder against me.

  I’d liked that too.

  I hadn’t liked it when he pulled my track pants down and I’d felt his nails scratching at my panties, pulling them down too. I hadn’t liked that, but I hadn’t said no. Not yet. Not then. I hadn’t wanted to be that girl. I didn’t want to be—I almost laughed about it now—I hadn’t wanted to be rude. To hurt his feelings. So I hadn’t said no. I hadn’t said no, but I hadn’t said yes either. Instead, I’d frozen. Paralyzed with indecision. I didn’t know what to say, what to do, how to react.

  When I felt him touch me, there, with his hands, I hadn’t liked that either. And when he fumbled with his belt, pulling his jeans down and pressing himself against me, I hadn’t liked that. Again, I hadn’t said no. Not yet. Not then. Instead I’d thought back to when Stacy and I had been friends and she’d talked about losing her virginity. She said it hurt but she relaxed, breathed deep, and willed herself away from the pain and, eventually, it stopped hurting.

  I tried to do that.

  You’re going to have to do this sometime, I thought. It may as well be now. You can do it. Will your thoughts away from the pain.

  And it hurt.

  I closed my eyes, trying to stop the tears. I coughed, trying to stifle the cry that came to my lips. I turned my head to the side, away from his kisses. I didn’t want him to see I was upset. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t cool.

  Then it hurt too much. Just . . . too much. I pressed my hands against his hips and pushed, pushing him away. I opened my eyes to see him leering down at me, his hair falling around his face, distorting his features, making them look sharper, harder.