GABRIEL WINSTON: GHOST OF A CHANCE - Excerpt
Chapter 1: The Last Day of Summer
Jack and I were watching this spooky movie. I of course was slumped down on the couch looking at the television through my stringy hair. I knew my bangs were too long, but I’d kind of settled into this I-don’t-care-what-I-look-like phase, and have to admit, I wasn’t as charming a character as I might otherwise be. In any case, I’ve never seen the movie before and during the scene where this kid is in a creepy old church talking to this older guy, Jack turns to me and says, “That guy’s dead.”
“What?”
“He’s a ghost; he died at the beginning of the movie when he was hit by the car. I don’t know, but for some reason that kid can see him.”
“Are you kidding me? Have you seen this movie before?”
“No.” Jack just continued staring at the screen, watching the little kid look at the older guy like he was a monster.
“So you just ruin the movie for me?” I clicked off the television and threw the remote at him, but it bounced off the cushion of the couch and landed on the floor.
“You punk!”
Jack did that goofy snort-filled chuckle that makes me want to put a bag over his head – although I don’t mention that this is how his laugh affects me.
“You always call me punk. I think that’s hilarious,” he snorts again.
“You are a punk. I was enjoying the movie. I would have enjoyed not knowing the ending until it actually got to the ending!”
Katrina (Kat) my irritating teenage sister jumped off the bottom step and into our basement family room. She’s tall with long blond hair, and is very popular with the boys. She just got her driver’s license last week and thinks she’s cooler than dry ice. Her life between driving places and talking about boys is filled with adolescent anxiety – which she usually takes out on me.
“Hey Gabe, I thought you were watching Dark Senses?”
“I was,” I said, giving Jack a dirty look, “until it was ruined for me.”
“Oh,” she gives me one of her oh-so-patient, patronizing looks. “Jack told you the ending?” Her grimace makes it clear she’s feeling sorry for me; I’m a pity case, but I know she’s simply embarrassed to have me as her brother.
I suppose I should tell you up front, I can see auras: clouds of color around people. I don’t often tell others about this ability because they then give me patient looks like Kat’s giving me right now. Her aura was glowing a warm yellow when she first entered the family room. After talking with me it darkened into a burnt-orange, which I’ve been able to interpret as worry from her. Worrying about me? Granted Jack ruined the movie for me, but hardly a point to stress over. Sisters…
“Who else?” I answer.
Jack gives her a wicked grin, eyes crossed, the whole monster-face. She says nothing in response. I’m watching all this, looking through my shaggy bangs in this out-of-focus way I do from time to time that I know freaks Kat out, but is how I’m able to see auras and other things.
“Would you stop that?” she gripes.
“Sorry Kat, it just happens.”
“Uh-huh.” She obviously thinks I do it to mess with her, but I don’t. Her aura now has some red streaks shooting through it – she’s irritated with me, but somehow better than the worry color. It feels too much like pity to me that burnt orange.
In any case, Kat has had enough of my company for the moment and goes back up the stairs, her aura flickering yellower with each step. She’s made her attempt at trying to be a nice sibling, figures it didn’t work out so well, and is off to make a phone call. At least that’s usually what she’s doing: phoning, texting, face-booking or tweeting. Personally I can’t understand why people think that everyone in the world needs to know what they’re doing every second of the day. I figure she’s texting her friends stuff like: Hi, it’s Kat. I’m texting, what are you doing? Are you texting too? Let’s text together. Better yet, come over here and we’ll text someone else who’s texting.
“Put in something else,” Jack commands, a little annoyed that I turned the TV off.
“You’ll just ruin it. I hate watching movies with you.”
“Oh, I know. Let’s go over to Sadie’s house and look over the fence. Wasn’t she having a last day of summer vacation pool party over there?”
I hate Jack sometimes, because this isn’t the first time he’s said something that feels like my subconscious trying to speak out-loud.
“Yeah,” I say slowly. I’m not really up for this, wishing he’d forgotten about the party. Suddenly I’m ready to watch anything if it will put him off of this little adventure he’s about to suggest.
“This will be fun. We can see everything from the alley. We could even climb that old walnut tree. Come on, bring your binoculars.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Not in the mood?” Unfortunately he knows me too well. “You’re always in the mood. This is Sadie Valens. You’re in love with Sadie Valens.”
This is not exactly true by the way. I do find her attractive and kind of quirky, in a good way, and I might have a case of the “she’s cutes” but nothing more. Instead of replying to Jack’s taunts I just give him the eye – which is my most dirty expression where I glare at him from an angle designed to make him feel like he’s beneath contempt. But he knows better and grins. Of course I’ll go; we’re going to go spy on Sadie Valens for crying out loud.
So I’m up and on my bike in no time. We skid into the alley behind the Valens’s home. They have this real nice cedar wood fence that Mr. Valens coats with a light stain and lacquer every summer. There’s a smattering of old, really tall trees that flank the back of the alley. On the other side of the trees are shops and beyond them a highway. But from here you feel like you’re in a forest cut off from the rest of the world. We also feel like we’re invisible out among the trees.
On the other side of the wood fence we can hear the giggling and splashing of girls in a pool. This was the last Saturday before school starts and so the last day to play without fear of homework or having to go to bed early. The days are still warm but the nights are getting cooler. It’s the end of the dog-days of summer and though you can’t smell autumn in the air yet, subconsciously you know it’s just beyond the next turn.
During the summer we’ve all gotten quite tan, me included, even though I’m not really one for hanging out doors soaking up the sun. Jack is the exception to this rule. Unlike everyone else he doesn’t have a tan – nor does he ever get tan. I’m wearing a T-shirt and shorts as I scramble up the tree. Jack hovers nearby on an adjacent tree branch dressed more or less the same.
In the yard are six girls, all with hazy yellow auras. Only one of them is wearing a bikini the rest are in one piece suits of yellow, black, pink or red. I’m only really interested in seeing Sadie. She’s on a pool lounger wearing sunglasses and speaking to Chloe Hodson who has this beautiful long brown hair that shines like the women in shampoo commercials. Her aura, oddly enough isn’t as yellow as I had thought, but a sickly green.
Whatever.
I want to see Sadie’s face but Chloe’s big fat head of beautiful hair is right in the way. Her head isn’t actually fat, but it is actually in the way.
“I’ve always liked Layla,” Jack says from his perch next to mine. Don’t you think she’s hot?”
“She’s okay if you like cute girls who wear too much mascara, and are into that hot-Goth look.”
“She doesn’t wear too much mascara!”
“She does too.” I’m looking at her through my miniature binoculars as I’m telling him all this. “She’s got gobs of it around her eyes right now and she’s at a swimming pool. It’s like watching a raccoon trying to fish.”
The truth is Layla is very attractive, in a punkish sort of way. She has very pretty eyes, and dark spiky hair that gives her kind of a Joan Jett look.
There are rumors about her sordid life, including drugs, smoking, drinking, that sort of thing. As for her personal style, I’m never sure if she’s part Goth or Emo, or what, but she definitely has her own unique image. She wouldn’t be caught dead outside her house without make up on – that’s for sure. I’m guessing she probably wears it to bed. Of course I’d never say all this to Jack. Despite the goo around her eyes, and her black fingernails Layla’s one of the most popular girls at Thomas Jefferson Jr. High School.
Sadie and Layla are pretty tight, both being very popular at school – as are all the girls at this pool party – but with Sadie you don’t feel like she wields her cuteness like a weapon to get her way, which I sometimes feel from some of these other girls.
“I don’t know what you see in Sadie, her eyebrows are too bushy. She’s like a Neanderthal with a huge brow ridge.” Affecting the voice of a Neanderthal Jack says, “Sadie like Gabriel, have big brow ridge and swing club.”
I know he’s just trying to get even for my comparing Layla to a raccoon. Sadie’s eyebrows are actually sculpted like a model’s. She has defined, but delicate cheekbones and perfect skin. Well, in any case, I ignore Jack’s jab and go back to looking through the binoculars, waiting for Chloe and her long brown hair to get out of the way.
Apparently she and Sadie have a lot to talk about. Chloe’s hands are gesticulating like a mime on speed. She’s the “actress” at our school and everything is always dramatic with her. Even from behind I see her shaking her head, body moving in ways that only someone on stage can match. That strange shade of green that is glowing around her makes me wonder for a moment if she’s not feeling well: such an unnatural color.
Finally Chloe moves her big fat, dramatic head out of the way. She turns toward Emma Bullough, the girl in the cherry-colored two-piece suit, and says something to her. Emma giggles; I can hear it from way up in the tree. Her aura glows a more brilliant shade of yellow when she giggles, which through the binoculars sort of hurts my eyes.
Chloe stands up from the lounge and turns in our direction and for just a moment I can see her face straight through the binoculars. And what freaks me out is I swear she sees me as she’s looking from the far side of the pool across the yard, over the fence, right up the walnut tree and through the binoculars directly into my eyes. And for that brief moment I see something else that makes the marrow in my bones get icy.
Chloe’s eyes turn the color of gray smoldering charcoals with a tinge of glowing red beneath. I can also see a lizard textured green skin beneath Chloe’s tanned flesh. The sight shocked me to such an extent that I dropped my binoculars, which fortunately had a strap preventing them from falling very far. Unfortunately I also lost my grip on the tree and slipped down a branch, colliding into it like brick striking wood. A lot of popping and snapping sounds filled the air and I could see the small faces from Sadie’s backyard turn in our direction.
“What are you doing?” Jack hissed, as if it had been my grand design all along to create ruckus so that we’d get caught.
I lay down tight against the bough I’m on, willing myself to be the dark walnut color of the tree’s bark. Leaves and limbs are still shaking and I could hear loose nuts clattering onto the ally below.
Daring to peer up and over my branch without moving my head, I could just make out the confused looks on the girls’ faces as they scanned the tree. All the yellow auras are tinged with burnt orange with bright green sparks shooting through them indicating curiosity with a bit of apprehension. Fortunately they couldn’t see us. I made this assumption because they never called out or told us to get lost. But they had all gathered together at the far side of the pool, having heard the noise, and were pointing at the tree discussing what they believed caused the outburst. We must have been adequately camouflaged by the tree limbs, however, because they didn’t spot us.
“I saw a leach,” I finally managed to whisper.
“A terror leach?” Jack demands.
He gives me a concerned look, but it quickly changes to one of belief. He’s the only one in my circle of friends and family, limited though it may be, who not only knows about my ability, but believes in it. Ever since I was young I’ve seen auras, but I’ve also been able to see strange things in people or around them. I’ve come to realize that there is an unseen world around us that is capable of interfering in our world. I’ve seen stranger and weirder things than a terror leach but that doesn’t make them any less scary when seen inside someone I know.
Terror leaches are these green scaly demonic looking creatures that exist in this unseen world that surrounds ours. As a rule, I don’t see them that often. But, they crawl or clamor by on occasion. I’ve only seen them inside another human being once before and what happened then haunts me to this day.
I was nine years old the first time I saw a terror leach. My mother had dragged me along on one of her errands that I hated having to be part of. I wasn’t quite at the age where she trusted me alone at home. She had several different checks to deposit and some cash to get out and I think she was making a payment of some sort as well. We stood in line for a while. I counted eight other people in the bank not including my mom and me, and the two tellers. There was also a loan officer at a desk talking with a couple. It wasn’t until we finally got to the teller that the terror leaches made their entrance. The first one slid through the glass doors at the front of the bank as if they were not only transparent but made of smoke. Two more of the grotesque monsters followed it in. They slid along the walls, these black serpent-like tongues flashing from their mouths. Somehow I knew they were sniffing at the air with them. Their gray smoldering eye sockets glanced about the room like they were selecting a victim.
My blood ran cold at the sight of these things. I knew I was the only one who saw them and didn’t bother to point them out to my mother. She would have thought I’d lost my mind. And at that moment I was feeling a little like I had just lost my mind. They scared the living crap out of me.
These lizard-like mutants were paying an eerie amount of attention to the people in the bank. This made my chilly blood even colder. Usually the unseen creatures I saw went about their business, uninterested in the living that shared the world with them. I couldn’t help my heart from racing, or from giving these things sidelong glances, fearing they were going to come over in our direction at any moment.
I had learned one important thing about these creatures from the unseen world and that was that though I could see them, they didn’t know I could see them. And to maintain my anonymity with these creatures, I had to stop myself from looking directly at them. If they suspected that I was aware of them they might do something to me. Something like what they were about to do to some others in the next few moments.
As the creatures skulked around the bank, flicking their tongues at people and crawling up the walls then darting faster than I could follow to the other side of the room, a man entered the bank. He wore a sports coat over an open shirt and went straight to a counter to fill out a withdrawal slip or something. It was only seconds later that another man came in. He looked like he was some sort of clerk. He was thin, wore wire-framed glasses and an old battered looking open vest. He took his place in the line next to ours to wait his turn to speak with a teller.
I automatically linked these two men in my mind, because unlike the regular shades of yellow auras I normally saw around people, these two had the sick green color I’d seen around Chloe, only floating in the auras were hazy purple smudges. I didn’t understand it, only recognized it as a very strange aura that was out of the ordinary. On top of the strange sickly glow around them, there were red sparks shooting out of their heads into the green field. These I knew to be associated with high-tension due to an extreme emotion: usually fear, although anger could also spark red like that if strong enough.
At this point I noticed that the terror leaches had slowed down their spastic motions around the room, and looked from side to side as if they suddenly felt a cold breeze and weren’t sure where it was coming from.
The last man to enter the bank was a throw-back from the seventies. He had long hair, jeans and a T-shirt with a beer logo on it. Instead of getting any transaction in order, he went straight over to the water fountain and started drinking. Red sparks shooting into his sick field of green just like the other two men.
I thought it strange that these three apparent strangers should all enter the bank separately with such similar auras, but in truth the majority of my focus was still on the terror leachesand the change in their manic behavior. Mentally I was trying to get my mother to hurry up but she continued to casually chat with the teller. All I wanted was to get out of there.
“But Irene, I thought your husband couldn’t eat chocolate,” my mom said to the teller she obviously knew pretty well.
Irene’s hands moved smoothly, completing the transaction as she spoke, “He can’t, but the man said it was carob, and that it wouldn’t have the same reaction on him.” She gave my mom a skeptical expression as orange dots floated in her yellow aura, the normal reaction for one who was dubious.
While they spoke I noticed the extraordinary way the three foul looking creatures reacted upon spotting these three men who’d just entered the bank. They quickly moved to the middle of the lobby, their lizard-looking heads together, making a hissing, rumbling noise in their unknown language, and sharing glances at the three men from time to time. It was obvious to me that they were of great interest to the terror leaches.
By now sweat had broke out along my hairline and it was dripping down my back. I couldn’t stop the way I was breathing. I’m pretty sure I was starting to hyperventilate. My mother finally noticed me and asked if I was feeling all right.
“No, I think I need to get home mom, right now.”
“He doesn’t look too good Anna-Jean, you better get him home.” Irene handed my mother a slip of paper.
Mom agreed with her friend. Judging from their reactions I must have looked awful. My mother’s aura began to flare with blue flamed edges, a sign of concern. Irene handed her some cash, completing her transaction. As my mother was stuffing this into her purse the clerkish looking man in line next to ours stepped forward to speak with the teller of the other line.
I was just feeling a small measure of relief that we were soon going to be out of here and away from these creepy creatures I called terror leaches – not to mention the three suspicious men with the same auras, when the clerk, pulled out a gun and pointed it at the teller he had just approached.
The teller was a young girl of perhaps nineteen. She was cute with long brown hair, a white blouse and a pink elastic band that stretched across her teeth; a final stage of a long orthodontic procedure. This girl batted her eyes, confused at the weapon pointed at her heart. The man had said something, which I believe was, “empty your register,” but I’m not certain.
My mother and I were frozen in place, staring wide-eyed at the man. The enormous hand gun looked large enough to punch a hole in a bank vault. I still remember the odor of metal and gun oil that filled our noses from our close proximity. And the man’s eyes that looked as scared as those of the young girl he was pointing the gun at.
The young lady, who had been more than willing to help him moments before, stared at the gun like it was a scorpion ready to strike. Her eyes went wide and her face went white, and her aura turned bright pink and began to blink as if someone where moving a switch up and down on it. Then she did the oddest thing, she simply crouched down behind the counter and disappeared. I think I was as surprised as the bank robber. For a moment he seemed at a loss, but quickly recovered by pointing the gun at our teller, Irene.
Unlike the young girl next to her who had disappeared from view, Irene was matronly, in her late forties I would guess, overweight wearing a print dress with her hair piled on her head in a rather complicated style. Her aura had gone burnt orange, indicating worry, but it also pulsed in a deliberate fashion. She too stared at the gun, but also at the man. She didn’t hide her dislike for the creep. She told him, “You’ll regret this. Put the gun away.” Looking back on it, I remember thinking even at the time that she was very brave and I hoped she didn’t have her head blown off because of it.
The hippy looking man over by the drinking fountain was under the security camera. He suddenly fired his weapon straight up at the ceiling. People were just becoming aware of what was happening at the teller’s counter when the deafening sound of the gun drew all of our attention toward the water fountain. Several women screamed. The security camera that had been above his head earlier was gone and from a huge hole in the acoustic tile fell fragments of ceiling and camera.
“All right, everybody over to the north wall; let’s go!” He barked, waiving an equally large pistol at the six other people in the bank.
The third man who had been filling out a deposit slip had disarmed the security guard and was slipping a plastic tie around his wrists. He moved quickly over to the door with a set of keys he had just lifted from the security officer and locked the doors shut.
In the meantime the terror leaches were running about the room in a blur of bizarre ecstasy. They ran up the walls, dashed about the room looking like green streaks of paint appearing and disappearing on the floor and walls. They were in a frenzy that somehow connected to the potential violence that was drawn tight as a bow in the room. Having recognized their attraction to the terror around me I developed the first part of their names: terror.
I turned my attention back to Irene. She was stuffing money into a sack, but staring daggers at the clerkish man. He waved his canon at my mother and me indicating the north wall where everyone else was assembling. I noted that the terror leaches had each moved off in a path toward each of the gunmen. A shiver shot through me as I contemplated what they might have in mind.
I was three paces away from my mother before I realized she was holding her ground. I knew what she was thinking. The same thing had occurred to me: the man holding the gun was scared. He just wanted to get his money and get out of here. He wasn’t going to terrorize anyone, and more than likely would never pull the trigger. Though the same thought had occurred to me, I had decided that I was much more frightened than the clerk and wasn’t about to push him in order to test his resolve. You never know, maybe to save face he’d be willing to shoot you in the face, or at least fire his gun to scare you. The gun that had already gone off had already scared me pretty good. And finally, there were theterror leaches. I didn’t know exactly what they were going to do, or even what they could do, but I did know they were up to no good and that somehow the potential violence in the room really appealed to them.
“Lady, get movin’,” barked the clerk at my mother. “Get over there with everybody else.” His voice seemed unusually husky for someone as small as he was.
I wanted to say, “Come on mom, get over here,” but my voice failed me I couldn’t get a squeak out. I started to move back to her. If I couldn’t coax her I’d drag her over with me.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” she announced. Then she turned back to Irene, who I could see was instantly taking confidence from my mother’s words. Both their auras were bright pink with fear, but pulsing like heartbeats in unison.
“Put the money back Irene. These men have made a mistake and they’re going to leave.” Turning to the clerk she said, “Aren’t you?”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The clerk actually started to back down. He glanced over at the other men for support. The two of them also looked unsure. It was as if they wanted to be told to stop and go home. They might have even thanked my mother for stopping them from being so stupid.
But then the unbelievable happened.
The terror leach that had come right up behind the bank robber was sniffing at him. Its long black tongue licked at him in quick flicking motions. Its strange green hands came up and moved around the man’s head rubbing along the edges of his strange green and purple mottled aura obviously finding some pleasure in it. It tilted its head back like it was enjoying some phenomenal taste. He reached out toward the man and his hand passed through him and into his head. The creature looked down surprised, like it didn’t know it was capable of doing that. The bank robber also reacted to this event by standing up smartly like he had been called to attention.
I couldn’t take my eyes off what was happening, knowing that if that creature figured out that I was watching it, it would probably come after me and try to put its hand in my head; but still I gawked at what was taking place.
“Now give me your gun, you don’t want to hurt anyone.” My mom held out her hand totally expecting the man to hand the gun over. I was thinking that was a little bold, since the only way these guys were going to abandon their crime was if they could get away without being in trouble for it. If he gave up his weapon it could probably be traced back to him. If she just let them slip out the door, we might get through this thing in one piece.
Well, I was wrong, the man was weakening. He looked like he might actually give my mom his gun. I couldn’t believe it. My mom was Spiderman in a skirt! Actually, if only she had been, perhaps what happened next would have turned out differently.
As the man’s will was weakening, the terror leach was deciding to do something I guess it’d never tried before. He came up directly behind the would-be robber then moved forward and disappeared into the man’s skin. The results of its actions were immediately apparent.
The gun that was lying in the clerk’s palm on its side suddenly jerked back up into firing position. He aimed it at my mother and said in a voice that was full of menace, “Get over there.”
To my ear it was an ultimatum. There would be no fooling around, no weakening, no changing of its mind. And failure to obey it would not result in a slap on the hands or even being pistol whipped. It would shoot to kill.
Unfortunately my mother hadn’t fully grasped the transformation that had taken place in the man. She also hadn’t witnessed what the terror leach had just done.
“Now you listen to me!” My mother was using her authoritarian voice now trying to push him back into the submissive man he had just been. But I knew it wouldn’t work.
“Mom!” I screeched, regaining my voice.
But my warning cry was now too late. The man/creature brought the gun into position and fired it. It sounded like a canon and was so loud I thought I might have gone momentarily deaf from the huge boom that reverberated around the building.
Then everything moved in slow motion. The man/creature’s lips curved into an unworldly, even impossibly wide grin. His eyes lighting up like it had just experienced the most amazing sensation the world had to offer. I could now see the image I had seen through the binoculars minutes ago over at the pool: the charcoal smoldering eyes, the green skin beneath the human flesh. And those gray charcoal eyes looked as if someone had blown on them, heating up the red glow to the point of bursting into flames.
In the mean time, a hole exploded in my mother’s chest. It too was impossibly big. My mother flew across the room like she’d been hit by a bus. I watched in horror as she flew several feet before landing on the ground, dead. Her aura winked out like a candle flame at a birthday party.
I was at her side before I realized I’d moved. I didn’t care about the monster holding the gun; I just knew my mother had been killed. I don’t remember exactly what happened for several moments. I could hear myself screaming and wailing. I was out of my mind. I cried and yelled and stroked my mother’s hair. I think I may have hurled threats at the creature that had leached inside the hapless man wearing a vest.
The next thing I remember was the barrel of the gun being aimed at me. The cold hard eyes of the animal inside the man stared down at me, ready to shoot me simply to stop me from making noise. Even that didn’t shake me back to reality. But one of the other hostages got brave. Mr. Zack Cantwell I found out later. He came up from behind me, put his arms under mine, and dragged me back against the wall with the other hostages. The creature seemed mollified by this because it didn’t shoot me or the man. In fact it leaped over the counter and started yanking open drawers and pulling out their contents.
The other robbers approached the counter and watched him with their mouths open, looking at him as if they had no clue who he was. Obviously the man was off script.
Against the wall I continued to wail. I could still see my mother across the room with a hole in her chest. But my eyes left her still lifeless form long enough to see the inevitable. The skinny hippie dude and the larger man in the open blazer were followed by their respectiveterror leaches. Having seen what happened with their friend who’d leached onto the clerk-robber they were all worked up and ready to try the same. They didn’t quite seem to catch onto the idea as quickly as the other one, but were working their hands around the invisible auras of the two other crooks, considering a leaching of their own.
I watched this, knowing it was just a matter of time. Those two would get inside the other men and all sorts of violence would break out.
As I sat mesmerized watching this unfold, I heard someone off to my right say, “Hey, can you hear me? Over here.”
I had been sitting next to Mr. Cantwell who had dragged me to safety against the north wall. I was closest to a hallway that led down to where some restrooms were located. I looked over and standing there just barely in sight was a kid about my age. I locked eyes on him and his expression of surprise must have matched my own. Why he should be surprised I didn’t understand since he had just called out to me.
He looked over at the bank robbers and I followed his gaze. The clerkish robber was no longer happy to rip open drawers full of money; he was now knocking things off desks, fax machines, money counters, calculators, computers. They landed with crashing noises that only fueled its frenzy. His two associates were yelling at him and telling him to stop.
The crazy man looked up from his mess right into Irene’s cold, glaring eyes. He grinned in a malevolent way that made all the saliva in my mouth dry up, and then shot her. The big boom sounded as loud as a bomb going off. From where I was on the floor all I could see was her form thrown across the floor like my mother’s. Now the women weren’t the only ones to scream and cry, the men against the wall were yelling and moaning too. Everything had just gone completely crazy.
“Come on!” the boy hissed at me. No one was paying any attention. Not even my fellow captives saw this kid; they were far too engrossed in the carnage they were hoping to avoid; and far too scared to look away from it.
I got on my hands and knees preparing to move, but as I did so I saw the other two terror leaches slip into the bodies of the other bank robbers. That was enough for me; I scuttled like a little bug across the floor to the hallway. The kid led the way and I got up and ran for the exit door like my hair was on fire.
That was four years ago. I was the only one to survive that ordeal. Zack Cantwell who had pulled me to safety watched me take off for the hallway. His was the only body found dead there; apparently he tried to follow. Everyone else had been shot against that north wall where we’d been cowering.
As it turned out the kid that led me to safety was something else from the unseen world. I was the only one that could have heard him or seen him. He hadn’t known anyone would be able to hear him when he first got my attention, which is why he was as surprised to see me respond as I was to see him standing there. He was no terror leach; in fact, he couldn’t see them any more than living people could. He was just a run of the mill dead kid hanging out at the bank when all this went down.
Back to the here and now, Jack and I scrambled down the tree no longer worried about attracting attention. Once I’d told him about the terror leach he understood that something was going on and we had to warn the girls in the pool.
We dashed to the finely lacquered fence, realizing at once why it was so necessary to climb a tree to spy on them. The fence towered about nine and half feet from ground to top. I’d gone through a growing spurt lately and was now around five foot four, and expecting to grow much taller; however at the moment, with my hand stretched high, I could only reach to about eight feet and a bit more. When I jumped, I could get to almost nine, but my fingers couldn’t quite get purchase on the top of the fence.
Jack and I looked at each other. I knew what he was thinking and I nodded. He disappeared looking for another way in while I tried to figure out how to get into the yard from here.
I looked about, but there was nothing I could climb. But, I did have an idea that I think is present in the genes of every boy ever born. I’m not particularly athletic, but I had an inner sense that what I was about to attempt would work. I backed up from the fence so that I could get a running start. I charged and as I got in front of it my right foot climbed as high as it could up the wooden slats and then pressing up and forward I launched myself up the wall of the fence. It didn’t send me sailing up and over, not that I expected it to, but it did get me high enough that my hands were able to latch onto the top of the fence. I walked my gangly legs up the side of the fence and threw the closest one over the top of the fence so that I lay straddling the barrier.
With my face squashed against the top of the fence I turned and saw the girls all staring at me from the pool in astonishment, as if I’d just poorly landed a spectacular parachute drop. I knew I looked like a fool laying there. I even considered rubbing the side of the fence and saying, “I love you wooden fence,” just to see if I could get some laughs.
Looking straight down I saw the ground about a hundred miles away. This side of the fence slanted down making the drop to the ground closer to ten or eleven feet. Oh goodie!
I’d dropped off the occasional garage roof in my time, but usually after hanging my legs over the side so that the greatest distance I’d dropped before was perhaps eight feet – if that.
Well, I had to deal with a terror leach I had no choice but to suck it up. Acting like I was on the edge of a tall building, I got my outside leg up and over the fence, suddenly swinging by my fingers, gripping on the top of the fence while my legs dangled below me. Counting to three, I closed my eyes and let go.
I came down hard on my heels and fell backward onto my rear end. And thus completed my first inelegant entrance into Sadie Valens’ backyard.
All six of the girls continued to stare at me. I wished they’d looked away until I landed, but no, I was free entertainment.
I got up, brushed myself off, as if that looked cool in some way, like I’d just survived a thirty-foot drop without a scratch and was just walking away. I crossed the lawn and through some hedges that had been trimmed into elegant shapes. These eventually opened out onto a tiled patio and stairs that went up to a tiled deck that surrounded the pool. The girls waited patiently for me to arrive.
“Aren’t you Gabriel Winston?” Peyton glared at me with hands on her hips. Peyton’s a bossy kind of girl who thinks she knows everything and quite often tries to convince you of it. She always has an opinion about stuff, even if you could care less about it. I like her okay, don’t get me wrong, but, at times she can be a little full of herself.
“The boy whose mother was killed?” I heard this whispered from Layla, and glanced over at her and her overly-mascared eyes and mischievous eyebrows. She looked down after this; I figured she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“It was you up in the tree wasn’t it?” Cally had stepped forward to accuse me. Cally I liked a little better than Peyton. She was cute, with this little pert nose and auburn hair that floated just above her shoulders. I think she was seventh grade president or something last year. She was always in charge of something. Someone had to be and most people liked her so that seemed to work out fine.
Sadie was holding back behind the others but I saw the trace of a smile on her lips. For some reason her playful grin gave me courage.
“You don’t climb very well, do you?” Sadie snickered. My courage melted like a snow cone fallen on one of the hot deck tiles.
“You just don’t climb over a fence into someone’s backyard.” Peyton began to march along the edge of the pool; she was very upset by my retarded social behavior. “We’re not wearing anything but swimsuits. Who do you think you are?” she wrenched a towel around herself then pulled brusquely at a strand of her short brown hair, still damp, that had hung in her eyes.
Up to this point I hadn’t said anything. The girls were keeping things going pretty well so far on their own. I noticed that Chloe hadn’t said anything; she was hanging out a bit behind the others and I felt her eyes on me. Chloe was a really attractive girl that normally I liked, despite her dramatic flair when she spoke, or moved, or did anything for that matter – she was kind of fun. But right now I couldn’t bring myself to look in her direction for fear the leach would somehow know I could see it inside her.
The dark-eyed Layla Chase, having recovered from her verbal faux pas about my mother approached me. She was a daring one who scared me a bit even without having a terror leach squirming inside of her. She circled behind me and drew a long black fingernail lightly across my neck, giving me chills. “You like spying on girls, don’t you?” Her eyes penetrated mine and for a second I thought she was so very attractive and equally frightening – the same feeling I get sometimes watching an Angelina Jolie movie.
The thin blond girl with the enormous blue eyes, Emma, started giggling. She found everything a little funny, as if everyone was out to make a joke and she didn’t want to be caught not understanding it. But it also had a nervous quality about it.
Cally came to my rescue, as did Sadie herself. In unison they both admonished, “Layla!”
But Layla knew she was on sturdy ground. The same long finger lifted the small binocular from around my neck. She held it on the end like she was presenting exhibit A during cross examination.
“Why else would he have binoculars? Why was he up in the tree?”
Cally once again took charge. “You haven’t said anything yet. Why did you just climb over the fence and what were you doing up in the tree?”
I turned to Jack for help, but he wasn’t there. Where had he run off to? I hadn’t noticed him slip away. Something about my reaction caught Emma as funny and she giggled again, this time into her towel.
In any case, what was I going to say? I hadn’t planned anything. I had just come charging over here thinking I would stop some awful act of violence from happening, but so far there was no sign of any violence.
Wearing a swimsuit it was quite clear Chloe wasn’t packing a weapon. At first I thought maybe she’d have super human strength and simply start drowning them all in the swimming pool. But so far the only suspicious thing she’d done was remain quiet. And actually, if you knew Chloe the way I do, that was suspicious.
When I looked over to where I’d expected to find Jack, I caused the girls to follow my gaze but of course they saw nothing. But, from my vantage point, I was lined up with the entrance to the pool-house at the far side of the tiled deck. Inside Jack was motioning for me to come over. He was pointing at something.
I didn’t say anything, just trudged over to the pool house where I assume the girls changed from their regular clothes into their swimsuits. They didn’t say anything, but intrigued by my strange behavior fell in line behind me.
It was actually a large glass-walled playroom. There was a pool table and several electronic games in the middle of the room. On the far end was a carpeted area with a projection screen on the wall. On the opposite side were several small rooms for changing clothes. The first of these small rooms was a utility closet with the door open a jar. This is where Jack had been when he motioned for me.
I walked straight into the pool house through one of the open glass doors and made my way directly to the utility room. Jack wasn’t outside the room now; I figured he’d gone inside it. The girls had followed me, somewhat curiously since I still hadn’t uttered a single word.
The utility closet was not very big. And Jack wasn’t in there. I don’t know where he ducked out to, but he was gone. Inside, however some things were obviously amiss.
“This door is always locked,” I heard Sadie say, confused. “My father doesn’t want anyone in here.”
I was drawn immediately to the electrical panel whose metal door was open exposing all the wires and connections that powered the lights and outlets in the pool house as well as the outdoor pool lights and heater.
“That panel door shouldn’t be open,” Sadie continued. “My dad would never leave that open.”
The girls crowded into the closet with me, so we were cramped. Sadie was pushed against my shoulder. Two of the girls actually couldn’t fit and were forced to look in through the doorway. Chloe was one of them and she was acting like she’d rather be anywhere but here. I could see the green beastie squirming inside her, its coal gray eyes trying to smoke me to death. I was sure the creature didn’t know I was aware it was in there, but it did understand that somehow I was ruining its plans.
In the panel are breakers that are connected to all the various electrical circuits that controlled the outdoor mechanisms. Normally a flat panel covers the wiring so that you can’t see what is connected to what. People simply rely on an electrician to know what he is doing and assume he has connected everything according to code. In this case, the front panel was missing and all the connections to the various circuits were visible.
There were several things that looked jerry-rigged and rewired but the most noticeable thing was the circuit breakers.
“The GFI’s been bypassed,” I said, speaking my first words since entering her yard. The wires that went to the Ground Fault Interrupter had been disconnected and wired together in the back.
“What does that mean?” Sadie asked.
“GFCI stands for Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter. When a circuit is shorted out it produces too many amps, the GFI breaks the circuit, stopping the flow of electricity.” I showed her where the wires had been disconnected and wired back to each other to complete the circuit but bypassing the safety of the GFI.
“So . . .what does that mean?” Peyton asked. She was in the doorway next to Chloe. I turned back to her and saw Chloe’s eyes dart suspiciously from side to side. If anyone else had looked at her they would have wondered why she was acting so guilty, but no one did.
“I think it means that if the line is shorted out, it overheats and could cause a fire. The GFI prevents that from happening.” She was a bright one that Cally, even if her swimsuit was the color of Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum.
I nodded encouragingly and added, “Should anything get in the middle of this circuit and unbalance the current, instead of shutting down, the flow of electricity will increase causing a fire.” I looked through my long shaggy bangs at five of the six faces now looking back at me in rapt attention. “Or, electrocution,” I finished.
Sadie, who was next to me said, “What do you mean electrocution?”
I returned her look and enjoyed the bright green of her eyes for a moment before responding, “Electricity, as it flows through the wires goes from hot to neutral. If it gets interrupted in some way by something with lower resistance the flow of electricity increases. Usually if the flow gets above a certain rate, the GFI trips, breaking the circuit and preventing the flow of electricity from heating up and catching something on fire – or killing someone if they happen to be the thing that interrupts the flow.”
I didn’t take the time to explain that I’d studied electricity, guns, poisons, even mental illness after the murder of my mother. Anything that I foresaw as a possible way a person could die suddenly became a point of interest for me. Some people go crazy after seeing their parents killed. Bruce Wayne dressed up like a bat. I studied ways people could die.
My comments had them all talking at once, sharing looks and sounds of astonishment as they came to realize that someone had basically removed the safety feature of the electrical system.
As they murmured I continued to investigate the other wiring anomalies in the panel. I looked at the inside of the panel door where labels told me which each electrical circuit powered. The one that really looked suspicious was across from the one labeled: ‘pool heater.’ This circuit was wired for a 220 line. The line allowed for greater amperage as the power it took to heat the pool was significant.
“Excuse me, Gabriel,” I heard Sadie say in my ear. Her close presence was very distracting. I swallowed hard and looked back at her, thinking I couldn’t have set up a better situation for getting close to her. The fact that she was asking me for information, which I was able to provide, was sort of thrilling. I was now someone with a name other than that weird kid whose mom died.”
“I go by Gabe,” I said.
“Gabe, um, we were wondering, if someone disconnected the GFI making all the electrical circuits dangerous, are we in any real danger as long as we don’t touch them?” She pointed to the panel as if it were a cobra deciding which one of us to strike.
“Is the heater in the pool on right now?” I asked.
Sadie looked back at Cally as if she might know. Cally just shrugged, then Sadie turned back to me, those beautiful green eyes alight. “Oh, I know, my dad told me it’s connected to a thermostat that turns it on automatically when it drops below eighty-five degrees.”
“Where is this thermostat?” I asked.
Sadie looked out the door. “It’s on a panel on the wall just around the corner.”
We all pushed back out of the utility closet into the main area of the pool house. On the wall were two thermostats. One was obviously the thermostat for the pool-house itself. The one below it was also digital, a little larger with a display screen flashing two temperatures. The top one registered the current temperature of the pool, which was 86 degrees. The number below flashed 88 degrees.
Cally made her way to the panel first. “You must have heard your dad wrong,” she said to Sadie. “It’s set at 88 degrees.”
“Which means that the heater has now turned on out in the pool,” Sadie said. She looked quizzically at the thermostat then shook her lovely blond hair.
“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen!” Chloe had her hands on her hips and her dark eyes flashed – not a normal look for her. “We’ve spent all this time listening to horror stories by this,” she paused and looked me over as if I’d been spat on the sidewalk, “person, when we could have been out in the pool. He just charged into your yard Sadie, and it’s obvious why.”
Grinning Peyton nodded. “He just wanted to see us in swimsuits before school starts.”
“What about the GFI’s?” Cally countered.
“Who cares?” Layla drawled. “Let the geek swim with us. Let’s just get back out there.”
“Your dad was probably working in there. Who even knows if those things really are GI’s?” Peyton said.
“GFI’s,” I said in unison with Sadie. We looked at each other and smiled. That smile just about made me forget that something strange was going on here.
“Okay, GFI’s,” Peyton continued. “The point is he’s just here for attention. Your father wouldn’t let us swim out here if it wasn’t safe.”
Chloe shot her a quick, but visible smile, which I knew came from the creature inside her, grateful for a logical argument to support its plan. Its plan . . . what did this thing hope to accomplish?
“Gabe,” Sadie asked me. The sound of her voice speaking my name brought me out of my momentary thought bubble. “Let’s say the GFI’s really are disconnected, is that really a problem? I mean, what are the chances of us getting electrocuted out there?” she indicated the pool area beyond the door.
I started thinking like crazy. There was some weird wiring back there with the heater; that I knew. I needed to look at it again to really be sure what had been done to it. What could a heater do? How could they be electrocuted by the heater? It was electric, but there was nothing connected to metal out in the water. The only way to get the power to electrocute them would be if somehow the electricity could bubble up from the ground, into the pool water itself….could that even work? Wait, the ground? I had to look at it again.
“Hang on a second,” I said and darted back into the utility closet.
“I’m going back out to the pool,” Chloe announced.
“I’ll come with you,” I heard Peyton echo. I could tell by the insipid giggle that Emma was right behind them.
Inside the utility closet I looked closely at the wiring. I couldn’t believe it. The hot line had been disconnected from the lead and wired to the ground. The ground had been wired to the hot lead. That meant that the electricity would flow…backward? No, it meant that electricity was flowing where the ground was, but not making a circuit – unless, of course –
I darted back out into the main area. Chloe was out the door on her way to the pool. Emma was right behind her followed closely by Peyton. Layla was on her way to the doorway while Sadie and Cally stood next to each other not sure what to make of everything.
I looked down at each of their feet and couldn’t believe what I saw. Chloe, out front, approaching the pool wore flip-flops, made no doubt of some form of rubber. Emma and Peyton were barefoot as were the other three girls still in the pool house.
“Stop!”
My shout brought all three of the girls outside to a sudden halt. Chloe was on the area of the cement that was wet, just a few feet from the pool. Emma was about six inches from a wet tile. Peyton was just a step behind her.
“Get back in the pool house,” I ordered.
Layla snorted. “You are a weird one.” But she gave me a wry smile just the same.
“You aren’t really going to listen to him are you?” Chloe walked right up to the edge of the pool. “Come on you guys.” She motioned to Emma and Peyton.
“No, don’t move!” I yelled. “You’re barefoot.”
This earned me a confused look from both Cally and Sadie.
“You’ll complete the circuit if you step on anything that’s wet.” I said, as if this would explain the whole thing to them. I could tell from my tone of voice that they were now concerned. Perhaps I was right about something.
“Just come back into the pool house.” Sadie said, on my side now, “What if he’s right?”
“Look at me,” Chloe said from the pool side. “I’m okay.”
I was just about to tell her to touch the water, or kick off her flip-flops, but then it occurred to me that the terror leach inside her might not flinch at harming its host-human. I didn’t want Chloe dead anymore than the rest of them.
“Peyton and Emma listen to me and whatever you do don’t move,” I warned. “The electrical line to the heater was wired to the ground. The ground goes up through the cement and everywhere you see water is a circuit waiting to be completed. If you touch that water with your bare feet there’s no GFI to break the circuit. You’ll go up in flame like you’re covered in gas.”
“Oh,” Chloe sighed. “Since when are crazy dweebs who burst into yards suddenly experts on electricity?”
I could see horror in Emma’s eyes. Vapid or not, she didn’t look like she wanted to tempt life or death over my credentials as an electrician. Peyton didn’t look scared, but wary. Neither one had moved yet.
Suddenly Emma bolted back for the pool house, screaming the whole way. When she burst through the doorway she fell into Layla’s arms crying like the big bad wolf had blown her house down.
“Em!” Layla groused. “Your nose is running. Gross.”
“Peyton, I’m not kidding.” I warned.
I looked around me. I had an idea.
“If what you say is true,” Chloe challenged, now lounging on a chair, “why not just disconnect the wire from the lead?”
Suddenly she’s an electrician? Great.
“Because the wire has been bared all the way to the floor. If I touch it I’d burn just like Peyton if she steps in a wet spot.”
“Gabriel Winston, if you’re making me look like an idiot, I will kill you.” Peyton was trying to hold on to her cool, but she was scared, I could tell.
“I don’t think he’s making this up,” Sadie said, now standing next to me. “You better come back to the pool house.”
Slowly and deliberately Peyton retraced her steps back to where she joined us.
“You stupid idiots!” Chloe challenged. “He’s a dork who doesn’t know how to comb his hair. Why did you listen to him? Come out here. I’m fine. Look.”
She jumped up from the chair and spread her arms wide. “Nothing is wrong. He’s just trying to scare you.”
Her behavior began to bother me. She was going to do something crazy, I could feel it. I looked about and saw a drawer across the room in the small kitchenette. I pulled open the first one and found plastic forks and knives. I opened the drawer beneath. It contained barbecuing tools, one of which was a long handled steel spatula. I yanked it from the drawer and fled across the room, out the glass door and over toward Chloe. My rubber soled tennis shoes I was reasonably sure would keep me safe.
“Oh look, he’s going to beat me with a spatula.” Chloe was spouting nonsense now. I turned back and could tell the girls in the pool house could see it too.
“So, you’re trying to ruin my little surprise, huh?” This was said quietly just for me, and it wasn’t Chloe speaking. I could see the charcoal eyes glowing like a demon plain as day.
“Well, perhaps I’ll still get what I came for,” the Chloe beast promised me.
I quickly realized that I was right on the edge of the pool holding a piece of metal. If she pushed me into the pool I’d go up like a roman candle.
I wasted no time and tossed the spatula at the nearest puddle near the edge of the pool. It bounced and sparks shot up as if it had skidded across flint. A popping noise crackled loudly as sparks shot up three to four feet high. One arced in a dazzling display of blue and red lightning. The smell of burnt rubber and overheated batteries filled the air as a black gray acrid smoke billowed up from the where the metal hit water.
I could hear the girls screaming behind me, but the beast’s eyes looking out of Chloe’s bore through me in a dark, savage anger. I locked eyes with it, unable to look away, when suddenly Chloe’s eyes rolled back in her head and her knees began to buckle. I reached out and caught her, afraid that if she hit the water she’d catch fire.
That’s when the transformer across the street exploded. It was amazing! It was a pyrotechnic display to rival an Independence Day fireworks finale. Every color of the rainbow arced high in the sky, sending sparks and colored plasma bursts into the air. The limbs of a nearby tree caught fire. It was unreal. And the power in every house for fourteen blocks went out.
Jack and I were watching this spooky movie. I of course was slumped down on the couch looking at the television through my stringy hair. I knew my bangs were too long, but I’d kind of settled into this I-don’t-care-what-I-look-like phase, and have to admit, I wasn’t as charming a character as I might otherwise be. In any case, I’ve never seen the movie before and during the scene where this kid is in a creepy old church talking to this older guy, Jack turns to me and says, “That guy’s dead.”
“What?”
“He’s a ghost; he died at the beginning of the movie when he was hit by the car. I don’t know, but for some reason that kid can see him.”
“Are you kidding me? Have you seen this movie before?”
“No.” Jack just continued staring at the screen, watching the little kid look at the older guy like he was a monster.
“So you just ruin the movie for me?” I clicked off the television and threw the remote at him, but it bounced off the cushion of the couch and landed on the floor.
“You punk!”
Jack did that goofy snort-filled chuckle that makes me want to put a bag over his head – although I don’t mention that this is how his laugh affects me.
“You always call me punk. I think that’s hilarious,” he snorts again.
“You are a punk. I was enjoying the movie. I would have enjoyed not knowing the ending until it actually got to the ending!”
Katrina (Kat) my irritating teenage sister jumped off the bottom step and into our basement family room. She’s tall with long blond hair, and is very popular with the boys. She just got her driver’s license last week and thinks she’s cooler than dry ice. Her life between driving places and talking about boys is filled with adolescent anxiety – which she usually takes out on me.
“Hey Gabe, I thought you were watching Dark Senses?”
“I was,” I said, giving Jack a dirty look, “until it was ruined for me.”
“Oh,” she gives me one of her oh-so-patient, patronizing looks. “Jack told you the ending?” Her grimace makes it clear she’s feeling sorry for me; I’m a pity case, but I know she’s simply embarrassed to have me as her brother.
I suppose I should tell you up front, I can see auras: clouds of color around people. I don’t often tell others about this ability because they then give me patient looks like Kat’s giving me right now. Her aura was glowing a warm yellow when she first entered the family room. After talking with me it darkened into a burnt-orange, which I’ve been able to interpret as worry from her. Worrying about me? Granted Jack ruined the movie for me, but hardly a point to stress over. Sisters…
“Who else?” I answer.
Jack gives her a wicked grin, eyes crossed, the whole monster-face. She says nothing in response. I’m watching all this, looking through my shaggy bangs in this out-of-focus way I do from time to time that I know freaks Kat out, but is how I’m able to see auras and other things.
“Would you stop that?” she gripes.
“Sorry Kat, it just happens.”
“Uh-huh.” She obviously thinks I do it to mess with her, but I don’t. Her aura now has some red streaks shooting through it – she’s irritated with me, but somehow better than the worry color. It feels too much like pity to me that burnt orange.
In any case, Kat has had enough of my company for the moment and goes back up the stairs, her aura flickering yellower with each step. She’s made her attempt at trying to be a nice sibling, figures it didn’t work out so well, and is off to make a phone call. At least that’s usually what she’s doing: phoning, texting, face-booking or tweeting. Personally I can’t understand why people think that everyone in the world needs to know what they’re doing every second of the day. I figure she’s texting her friends stuff like: Hi, it’s Kat. I’m texting, what are you doing? Are you texting too? Let’s text together. Better yet, come over here and we’ll text someone else who’s texting.
“Put in something else,” Jack commands, a little annoyed that I turned the TV off.
“You’ll just ruin it. I hate watching movies with you.”
“Oh, I know. Let’s go over to Sadie’s house and look over the fence. Wasn’t she having a last day of summer vacation pool party over there?”
I hate Jack sometimes, because this isn’t the first time he’s said something that feels like my subconscious trying to speak out-loud.
“Yeah,” I say slowly. I’m not really up for this, wishing he’d forgotten about the party. Suddenly I’m ready to watch anything if it will put him off of this little adventure he’s about to suggest.
“This will be fun. We can see everything from the alley. We could even climb that old walnut tree. Come on, bring your binoculars.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Not in the mood?” Unfortunately he knows me too well. “You’re always in the mood. This is Sadie Valens. You’re in love with Sadie Valens.”
This is not exactly true by the way. I do find her attractive and kind of quirky, in a good way, and I might have a case of the “she’s cutes” but nothing more. Instead of replying to Jack’s taunts I just give him the eye – which is my most dirty expression where I glare at him from an angle designed to make him feel like he’s beneath contempt. But he knows better and grins. Of course I’ll go; we’re going to go spy on Sadie Valens for crying out loud.
So I’m up and on my bike in no time. We skid into the alley behind the Valens’s home. They have this real nice cedar wood fence that Mr. Valens coats with a light stain and lacquer every summer. There’s a smattering of old, really tall trees that flank the back of the alley. On the other side of the trees are shops and beyond them a highway. But from here you feel like you’re in a forest cut off from the rest of the world. We also feel like we’re invisible out among the trees.
On the other side of the wood fence we can hear the giggling and splashing of girls in a pool. This was the last Saturday before school starts and so the last day to play without fear of homework or having to go to bed early. The days are still warm but the nights are getting cooler. It’s the end of the dog-days of summer and though you can’t smell autumn in the air yet, subconsciously you know it’s just beyond the next turn.
During the summer we’ve all gotten quite tan, me included, even though I’m not really one for hanging out doors soaking up the sun. Jack is the exception to this rule. Unlike everyone else he doesn’t have a tan – nor does he ever get tan. I’m wearing a T-shirt and shorts as I scramble up the tree. Jack hovers nearby on an adjacent tree branch dressed more or less the same.
In the yard are six girls, all with hazy yellow auras. Only one of them is wearing a bikini the rest are in one piece suits of yellow, black, pink or red. I’m only really interested in seeing Sadie. She’s on a pool lounger wearing sunglasses and speaking to Chloe Hodson who has this beautiful long brown hair that shines like the women in shampoo commercials. Her aura, oddly enough isn’t as yellow as I had thought, but a sickly green.
Whatever.
I want to see Sadie’s face but Chloe’s big fat head of beautiful hair is right in the way. Her head isn’t actually fat, but it is actually in the way.
“I’ve always liked Layla,” Jack says from his perch next to mine. Don’t you think she’s hot?”
“She’s okay if you like cute girls who wear too much mascara, and are into that hot-Goth look.”
“She doesn’t wear too much mascara!”
“She does too.” I’m looking at her through my miniature binoculars as I’m telling him all this. “She’s got gobs of it around her eyes right now and she’s at a swimming pool. It’s like watching a raccoon trying to fish.”
The truth is Layla is very attractive, in a punkish sort of way. She has very pretty eyes, and dark spiky hair that gives her kind of a Joan Jett look.
There are rumors about her sordid life, including drugs, smoking, drinking, that sort of thing. As for her personal style, I’m never sure if she’s part Goth or Emo, or what, but she definitely has her own unique image. She wouldn’t be caught dead outside her house without make up on – that’s for sure. I’m guessing she probably wears it to bed. Of course I’d never say all this to Jack. Despite the goo around her eyes, and her black fingernails Layla’s one of the most popular girls at Thomas Jefferson Jr. High School.
Sadie and Layla are pretty tight, both being very popular at school – as are all the girls at this pool party – but with Sadie you don’t feel like she wields her cuteness like a weapon to get her way, which I sometimes feel from some of these other girls.
“I don’t know what you see in Sadie, her eyebrows are too bushy. She’s like a Neanderthal with a huge brow ridge.” Affecting the voice of a Neanderthal Jack says, “Sadie like Gabriel, have big brow ridge and swing club.”
I know he’s just trying to get even for my comparing Layla to a raccoon. Sadie’s eyebrows are actually sculpted like a model’s. She has defined, but delicate cheekbones and perfect skin. Well, in any case, I ignore Jack’s jab and go back to looking through the binoculars, waiting for Chloe and her long brown hair to get out of the way.
Apparently she and Sadie have a lot to talk about. Chloe’s hands are gesticulating like a mime on speed. She’s the “actress” at our school and everything is always dramatic with her. Even from behind I see her shaking her head, body moving in ways that only someone on stage can match. That strange shade of green that is glowing around her makes me wonder for a moment if she’s not feeling well: such an unnatural color.
Finally Chloe moves her big fat, dramatic head out of the way. She turns toward Emma Bullough, the girl in the cherry-colored two-piece suit, and says something to her. Emma giggles; I can hear it from way up in the tree. Her aura glows a more brilliant shade of yellow when she giggles, which through the binoculars sort of hurts my eyes.
Chloe stands up from the lounge and turns in our direction and for just a moment I can see her face straight through the binoculars. And what freaks me out is I swear she sees me as she’s looking from the far side of the pool across the yard, over the fence, right up the walnut tree and through the binoculars directly into my eyes. And for that brief moment I see something else that makes the marrow in my bones get icy.
Chloe’s eyes turn the color of gray smoldering charcoals with a tinge of glowing red beneath. I can also see a lizard textured green skin beneath Chloe’s tanned flesh. The sight shocked me to such an extent that I dropped my binoculars, which fortunately had a strap preventing them from falling very far. Unfortunately I also lost my grip on the tree and slipped down a branch, colliding into it like brick striking wood. A lot of popping and snapping sounds filled the air and I could see the small faces from Sadie’s backyard turn in our direction.
“What are you doing?” Jack hissed, as if it had been my grand design all along to create ruckus so that we’d get caught.
I lay down tight against the bough I’m on, willing myself to be the dark walnut color of the tree’s bark. Leaves and limbs are still shaking and I could hear loose nuts clattering onto the ally below.
Daring to peer up and over my branch without moving my head, I could just make out the confused looks on the girls’ faces as they scanned the tree. All the yellow auras are tinged with burnt orange with bright green sparks shooting through them indicating curiosity with a bit of apprehension. Fortunately they couldn’t see us. I made this assumption because they never called out or told us to get lost. But they had all gathered together at the far side of the pool, having heard the noise, and were pointing at the tree discussing what they believed caused the outburst. We must have been adequately camouflaged by the tree limbs, however, because they didn’t spot us.
“I saw a leach,” I finally managed to whisper.
“A terror leach?” Jack demands.
He gives me a concerned look, but it quickly changes to one of belief. He’s the only one in my circle of friends and family, limited though it may be, who not only knows about my ability, but believes in it. Ever since I was young I’ve seen auras, but I’ve also been able to see strange things in people or around them. I’ve come to realize that there is an unseen world around us that is capable of interfering in our world. I’ve seen stranger and weirder things than a terror leach but that doesn’t make them any less scary when seen inside someone I know.
Terror leaches are these green scaly demonic looking creatures that exist in this unseen world that surrounds ours. As a rule, I don’t see them that often. But, they crawl or clamor by on occasion. I’ve only seen them inside another human being once before and what happened then haunts me to this day.
I was nine years old the first time I saw a terror leach. My mother had dragged me along on one of her errands that I hated having to be part of. I wasn’t quite at the age where she trusted me alone at home. She had several different checks to deposit and some cash to get out and I think she was making a payment of some sort as well. We stood in line for a while. I counted eight other people in the bank not including my mom and me, and the two tellers. There was also a loan officer at a desk talking with a couple. It wasn’t until we finally got to the teller that the terror leaches made their entrance. The first one slid through the glass doors at the front of the bank as if they were not only transparent but made of smoke. Two more of the grotesque monsters followed it in. They slid along the walls, these black serpent-like tongues flashing from their mouths. Somehow I knew they were sniffing at the air with them. Their gray smoldering eye sockets glanced about the room like they were selecting a victim.
My blood ran cold at the sight of these things. I knew I was the only one who saw them and didn’t bother to point them out to my mother. She would have thought I’d lost my mind. And at that moment I was feeling a little like I had just lost my mind. They scared the living crap out of me.
These lizard-like mutants were paying an eerie amount of attention to the people in the bank. This made my chilly blood even colder. Usually the unseen creatures I saw went about their business, uninterested in the living that shared the world with them. I couldn’t help my heart from racing, or from giving these things sidelong glances, fearing they were going to come over in our direction at any moment.
I had learned one important thing about these creatures from the unseen world and that was that though I could see them, they didn’t know I could see them. And to maintain my anonymity with these creatures, I had to stop myself from looking directly at them. If they suspected that I was aware of them they might do something to me. Something like what they were about to do to some others in the next few moments.
As the creatures skulked around the bank, flicking their tongues at people and crawling up the walls then darting faster than I could follow to the other side of the room, a man entered the bank. He wore a sports coat over an open shirt and went straight to a counter to fill out a withdrawal slip or something. It was only seconds later that another man came in. He looked like he was some sort of clerk. He was thin, wore wire-framed glasses and an old battered looking open vest. He took his place in the line next to ours to wait his turn to speak with a teller.
I automatically linked these two men in my mind, because unlike the regular shades of yellow auras I normally saw around people, these two had the sick green color I’d seen around Chloe, only floating in the auras were hazy purple smudges. I didn’t understand it, only recognized it as a very strange aura that was out of the ordinary. On top of the strange sickly glow around them, there were red sparks shooting out of their heads into the green field. These I knew to be associated with high-tension due to an extreme emotion: usually fear, although anger could also spark red like that if strong enough.
At this point I noticed that the terror leaches had slowed down their spastic motions around the room, and looked from side to side as if they suddenly felt a cold breeze and weren’t sure where it was coming from.
The last man to enter the bank was a throw-back from the seventies. He had long hair, jeans and a T-shirt with a beer logo on it. Instead of getting any transaction in order, he went straight over to the water fountain and started drinking. Red sparks shooting into his sick field of green just like the other two men.
I thought it strange that these three apparent strangers should all enter the bank separately with such similar auras, but in truth the majority of my focus was still on the terror leachesand the change in their manic behavior. Mentally I was trying to get my mother to hurry up but she continued to casually chat with the teller. All I wanted was to get out of there.
“But Irene, I thought your husband couldn’t eat chocolate,” my mom said to the teller she obviously knew pretty well.
Irene’s hands moved smoothly, completing the transaction as she spoke, “He can’t, but the man said it was carob, and that it wouldn’t have the same reaction on him.” She gave my mom a skeptical expression as orange dots floated in her yellow aura, the normal reaction for one who was dubious.
While they spoke I noticed the extraordinary way the three foul looking creatures reacted upon spotting these three men who’d just entered the bank. They quickly moved to the middle of the lobby, their lizard-looking heads together, making a hissing, rumbling noise in their unknown language, and sharing glances at the three men from time to time. It was obvious to me that they were of great interest to the terror leaches.
By now sweat had broke out along my hairline and it was dripping down my back. I couldn’t stop the way I was breathing. I’m pretty sure I was starting to hyperventilate. My mother finally noticed me and asked if I was feeling all right.
“No, I think I need to get home mom, right now.”
“He doesn’t look too good Anna-Jean, you better get him home.” Irene handed my mother a slip of paper.
Mom agreed with her friend. Judging from their reactions I must have looked awful. My mother’s aura began to flare with blue flamed edges, a sign of concern. Irene handed her some cash, completing her transaction. As my mother was stuffing this into her purse the clerkish looking man in line next to ours stepped forward to speak with the teller of the other line.
I was just feeling a small measure of relief that we were soon going to be out of here and away from these creepy creatures I called terror leaches – not to mention the three suspicious men with the same auras, when the clerk, pulled out a gun and pointed it at the teller he had just approached.
The teller was a young girl of perhaps nineteen. She was cute with long brown hair, a white blouse and a pink elastic band that stretched across her teeth; a final stage of a long orthodontic procedure. This girl batted her eyes, confused at the weapon pointed at her heart. The man had said something, which I believe was, “empty your register,” but I’m not certain.
My mother and I were frozen in place, staring wide-eyed at the man. The enormous hand gun looked large enough to punch a hole in a bank vault. I still remember the odor of metal and gun oil that filled our noses from our close proximity. And the man’s eyes that looked as scared as those of the young girl he was pointing the gun at.
The young lady, who had been more than willing to help him moments before, stared at the gun like it was a scorpion ready to strike. Her eyes went wide and her face went white, and her aura turned bright pink and began to blink as if someone where moving a switch up and down on it. Then she did the oddest thing, she simply crouched down behind the counter and disappeared. I think I was as surprised as the bank robber. For a moment he seemed at a loss, but quickly recovered by pointing the gun at our teller, Irene.
Unlike the young girl next to her who had disappeared from view, Irene was matronly, in her late forties I would guess, overweight wearing a print dress with her hair piled on her head in a rather complicated style. Her aura had gone burnt orange, indicating worry, but it also pulsed in a deliberate fashion. She too stared at the gun, but also at the man. She didn’t hide her dislike for the creep. She told him, “You’ll regret this. Put the gun away.” Looking back on it, I remember thinking even at the time that she was very brave and I hoped she didn’t have her head blown off because of it.
The hippy looking man over by the drinking fountain was under the security camera. He suddenly fired his weapon straight up at the ceiling. People were just becoming aware of what was happening at the teller’s counter when the deafening sound of the gun drew all of our attention toward the water fountain. Several women screamed. The security camera that had been above his head earlier was gone and from a huge hole in the acoustic tile fell fragments of ceiling and camera.
“All right, everybody over to the north wall; let’s go!” He barked, waiving an equally large pistol at the six other people in the bank.
The third man who had been filling out a deposit slip had disarmed the security guard and was slipping a plastic tie around his wrists. He moved quickly over to the door with a set of keys he had just lifted from the security officer and locked the doors shut.
In the meantime the terror leaches were running about the room in a blur of bizarre ecstasy. They ran up the walls, dashed about the room looking like green streaks of paint appearing and disappearing on the floor and walls. They were in a frenzy that somehow connected to the potential violence that was drawn tight as a bow in the room. Having recognized their attraction to the terror around me I developed the first part of their names: terror.
I turned my attention back to Irene. She was stuffing money into a sack, but staring daggers at the clerkish man. He waved his canon at my mother and me indicating the north wall where everyone else was assembling. I noted that the terror leaches had each moved off in a path toward each of the gunmen. A shiver shot through me as I contemplated what they might have in mind.
I was three paces away from my mother before I realized she was holding her ground. I knew what she was thinking. The same thing had occurred to me: the man holding the gun was scared. He just wanted to get his money and get out of here. He wasn’t going to terrorize anyone, and more than likely would never pull the trigger. Though the same thought had occurred to me, I had decided that I was much more frightened than the clerk and wasn’t about to push him in order to test his resolve. You never know, maybe to save face he’d be willing to shoot you in the face, or at least fire his gun to scare you. The gun that had already gone off had already scared me pretty good. And finally, there were theterror leaches. I didn’t know exactly what they were going to do, or even what they could do, but I did know they were up to no good and that somehow the potential violence in the room really appealed to them.
“Lady, get movin’,” barked the clerk at my mother. “Get over there with everybody else.” His voice seemed unusually husky for someone as small as he was.
I wanted to say, “Come on mom, get over here,” but my voice failed me I couldn’t get a squeak out. I started to move back to her. If I couldn’t coax her I’d drag her over with me.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” she announced. Then she turned back to Irene, who I could see was instantly taking confidence from my mother’s words. Both their auras were bright pink with fear, but pulsing like heartbeats in unison.
“Put the money back Irene. These men have made a mistake and they’re going to leave.” Turning to the clerk she said, “Aren’t you?”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The clerk actually started to back down. He glanced over at the other men for support. The two of them also looked unsure. It was as if they wanted to be told to stop and go home. They might have even thanked my mother for stopping them from being so stupid.
But then the unbelievable happened.
The terror leach that had come right up behind the bank robber was sniffing at him. Its long black tongue licked at him in quick flicking motions. Its strange green hands came up and moved around the man’s head rubbing along the edges of his strange green and purple mottled aura obviously finding some pleasure in it. It tilted its head back like it was enjoying some phenomenal taste. He reached out toward the man and his hand passed through him and into his head. The creature looked down surprised, like it didn’t know it was capable of doing that. The bank robber also reacted to this event by standing up smartly like he had been called to attention.
I couldn’t take my eyes off what was happening, knowing that if that creature figured out that I was watching it, it would probably come after me and try to put its hand in my head; but still I gawked at what was taking place.
“Now give me your gun, you don’t want to hurt anyone.” My mom held out her hand totally expecting the man to hand the gun over. I was thinking that was a little bold, since the only way these guys were going to abandon their crime was if they could get away without being in trouble for it. If he gave up his weapon it could probably be traced back to him. If she just let them slip out the door, we might get through this thing in one piece.
Well, I was wrong, the man was weakening. He looked like he might actually give my mom his gun. I couldn’t believe it. My mom was Spiderman in a skirt! Actually, if only she had been, perhaps what happened next would have turned out differently.
As the man’s will was weakening, the terror leach was deciding to do something I guess it’d never tried before. He came up directly behind the would-be robber then moved forward and disappeared into the man’s skin. The results of its actions were immediately apparent.
The gun that was lying in the clerk’s palm on its side suddenly jerked back up into firing position. He aimed it at my mother and said in a voice that was full of menace, “Get over there.”
To my ear it was an ultimatum. There would be no fooling around, no weakening, no changing of its mind. And failure to obey it would not result in a slap on the hands or even being pistol whipped. It would shoot to kill.
Unfortunately my mother hadn’t fully grasped the transformation that had taken place in the man. She also hadn’t witnessed what the terror leach had just done.
“Now you listen to me!” My mother was using her authoritarian voice now trying to push him back into the submissive man he had just been. But I knew it wouldn’t work.
“Mom!” I screeched, regaining my voice.
But my warning cry was now too late. The man/creature brought the gun into position and fired it. It sounded like a canon and was so loud I thought I might have gone momentarily deaf from the huge boom that reverberated around the building.
Then everything moved in slow motion. The man/creature’s lips curved into an unworldly, even impossibly wide grin. His eyes lighting up like it had just experienced the most amazing sensation the world had to offer. I could now see the image I had seen through the binoculars minutes ago over at the pool: the charcoal smoldering eyes, the green skin beneath the human flesh. And those gray charcoal eyes looked as if someone had blown on them, heating up the red glow to the point of bursting into flames.
In the mean time, a hole exploded in my mother’s chest. It too was impossibly big. My mother flew across the room like she’d been hit by a bus. I watched in horror as she flew several feet before landing on the ground, dead. Her aura winked out like a candle flame at a birthday party.
I was at her side before I realized I’d moved. I didn’t care about the monster holding the gun; I just knew my mother had been killed. I don’t remember exactly what happened for several moments. I could hear myself screaming and wailing. I was out of my mind. I cried and yelled and stroked my mother’s hair. I think I may have hurled threats at the creature that had leached inside the hapless man wearing a vest.
The next thing I remember was the barrel of the gun being aimed at me. The cold hard eyes of the animal inside the man stared down at me, ready to shoot me simply to stop me from making noise. Even that didn’t shake me back to reality. But one of the other hostages got brave. Mr. Zack Cantwell I found out later. He came up from behind me, put his arms under mine, and dragged me back against the wall with the other hostages. The creature seemed mollified by this because it didn’t shoot me or the man. In fact it leaped over the counter and started yanking open drawers and pulling out their contents.
The other robbers approached the counter and watched him with their mouths open, looking at him as if they had no clue who he was. Obviously the man was off script.
Against the wall I continued to wail. I could still see my mother across the room with a hole in her chest. But my eyes left her still lifeless form long enough to see the inevitable. The skinny hippie dude and the larger man in the open blazer were followed by their respectiveterror leaches. Having seen what happened with their friend who’d leached onto the clerk-robber they were all worked up and ready to try the same. They didn’t quite seem to catch onto the idea as quickly as the other one, but were working their hands around the invisible auras of the two other crooks, considering a leaching of their own.
I watched this, knowing it was just a matter of time. Those two would get inside the other men and all sorts of violence would break out.
As I sat mesmerized watching this unfold, I heard someone off to my right say, “Hey, can you hear me? Over here.”
I had been sitting next to Mr. Cantwell who had dragged me to safety against the north wall. I was closest to a hallway that led down to where some restrooms were located. I looked over and standing there just barely in sight was a kid about my age. I locked eyes on him and his expression of surprise must have matched my own. Why he should be surprised I didn’t understand since he had just called out to me.
He looked over at the bank robbers and I followed his gaze. The clerkish robber was no longer happy to rip open drawers full of money; he was now knocking things off desks, fax machines, money counters, calculators, computers. They landed with crashing noises that only fueled its frenzy. His two associates were yelling at him and telling him to stop.
The crazy man looked up from his mess right into Irene’s cold, glaring eyes. He grinned in a malevolent way that made all the saliva in my mouth dry up, and then shot her. The big boom sounded as loud as a bomb going off. From where I was on the floor all I could see was her form thrown across the floor like my mother’s. Now the women weren’t the only ones to scream and cry, the men against the wall were yelling and moaning too. Everything had just gone completely crazy.
“Come on!” the boy hissed at me. No one was paying any attention. Not even my fellow captives saw this kid; they were far too engrossed in the carnage they were hoping to avoid; and far too scared to look away from it.
I got on my hands and knees preparing to move, but as I did so I saw the other two terror leaches slip into the bodies of the other bank robbers. That was enough for me; I scuttled like a little bug across the floor to the hallway. The kid led the way and I got up and ran for the exit door like my hair was on fire.
That was four years ago. I was the only one to survive that ordeal. Zack Cantwell who had pulled me to safety watched me take off for the hallway. His was the only body found dead there; apparently he tried to follow. Everyone else had been shot against that north wall where we’d been cowering.
As it turned out the kid that led me to safety was something else from the unseen world. I was the only one that could have heard him or seen him. He hadn’t known anyone would be able to hear him when he first got my attention, which is why he was as surprised to see me respond as I was to see him standing there. He was no terror leach; in fact, he couldn’t see them any more than living people could. He was just a run of the mill dead kid hanging out at the bank when all this went down.
Back to the here and now, Jack and I scrambled down the tree no longer worried about attracting attention. Once I’d told him about the terror leach he understood that something was going on and we had to warn the girls in the pool.
We dashed to the finely lacquered fence, realizing at once why it was so necessary to climb a tree to spy on them. The fence towered about nine and half feet from ground to top. I’d gone through a growing spurt lately and was now around five foot four, and expecting to grow much taller; however at the moment, with my hand stretched high, I could only reach to about eight feet and a bit more. When I jumped, I could get to almost nine, but my fingers couldn’t quite get purchase on the top of the fence.
Jack and I looked at each other. I knew what he was thinking and I nodded. He disappeared looking for another way in while I tried to figure out how to get into the yard from here.
I looked about, but there was nothing I could climb. But, I did have an idea that I think is present in the genes of every boy ever born. I’m not particularly athletic, but I had an inner sense that what I was about to attempt would work. I backed up from the fence so that I could get a running start. I charged and as I got in front of it my right foot climbed as high as it could up the wooden slats and then pressing up and forward I launched myself up the wall of the fence. It didn’t send me sailing up and over, not that I expected it to, but it did get me high enough that my hands were able to latch onto the top of the fence. I walked my gangly legs up the side of the fence and threw the closest one over the top of the fence so that I lay straddling the barrier.
With my face squashed against the top of the fence I turned and saw the girls all staring at me from the pool in astonishment, as if I’d just poorly landed a spectacular parachute drop. I knew I looked like a fool laying there. I even considered rubbing the side of the fence and saying, “I love you wooden fence,” just to see if I could get some laughs.
Looking straight down I saw the ground about a hundred miles away. This side of the fence slanted down making the drop to the ground closer to ten or eleven feet. Oh goodie!
I’d dropped off the occasional garage roof in my time, but usually after hanging my legs over the side so that the greatest distance I’d dropped before was perhaps eight feet – if that.
Well, I had to deal with a terror leach I had no choice but to suck it up. Acting like I was on the edge of a tall building, I got my outside leg up and over the fence, suddenly swinging by my fingers, gripping on the top of the fence while my legs dangled below me. Counting to three, I closed my eyes and let go.
I came down hard on my heels and fell backward onto my rear end. And thus completed my first inelegant entrance into Sadie Valens’ backyard.
All six of the girls continued to stare at me. I wished they’d looked away until I landed, but no, I was free entertainment.
I got up, brushed myself off, as if that looked cool in some way, like I’d just survived a thirty-foot drop without a scratch and was just walking away. I crossed the lawn and through some hedges that had been trimmed into elegant shapes. These eventually opened out onto a tiled patio and stairs that went up to a tiled deck that surrounded the pool. The girls waited patiently for me to arrive.
“Aren’t you Gabriel Winston?” Peyton glared at me with hands on her hips. Peyton’s a bossy kind of girl who thinks she knows everything and quite often tries to convince you of it. She always has an opinion about stuff, even if you could care less about it. I like her okay, don’t get me wrong, but, at times she can be a little full of herself.
“The boy whose mother was killed?” I heard this whispered from Layla, and glanced over at her and her overly-mascared eyes and mischievous eyebrows. She looked down after this; I figured she hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“It was you up in the tree wasn’t it?” Cally had stepped forward to accuse me. Cally I liked a little better than Peyton. She was cute, with this little pert nose and auburn hair that floated just above her shoulders. I think she was seventh grade president or something last year. She was always in charge of something. Someone had to be and most people liked her so that seemed to work out fine.
Sadie was holding back behind the others but I saw the trace of a smile on her lips. For some reason her playful grin gave me courage.
“You don’t climb very well, do you?” Sadie snickered. My courage melted like a snow cone fallen on one of the hot deck tiles.
“You just don’t climb over a fence into someone’s backyard.” Peyton began to march along the edge of the pool; she was very upset by my retarded social behavior. “We’re not wearing anything but swimsuits. Who do you think you are?” she wrenched a towel around herself then pulled brusquely at a strand of her short brown hair, still damp, that had hung in her eyes.
Up to this point I hadn’t said anything. The girls were keeping things going pretty well so far on their own. I noticed that Chloe hadn’t said anything; she was hanging out a bit behind the others and I felt her eyes on me. Chloe was a really attractive girl that normally I liked, despite her dramatic flair when she spoke, or moved, or did anything for that matter – she was kind of fun. But right now I couldn’t bring myself to look in her direction for fear the leach would somehow know I could see it inside her.
The dark-eyed Layla Chase, having recovered from her verbal faux pas about my mother approached me. She was a daring one who scared me a bit even without having a terror leach squirming inside of her. She circled behind me and drew a long black fingernail lightly across my neck, giving me chills. “You like spying on girls, don’t you?” Her eyes penetrated mine and for a second I thought she was so very attractive and equally frightening – the same feeling I get sometimes watching an Angelina Jolie movie.
The thin blond girl with the enormous blue eyes, Emma, started giggling. She found everything a little funny, as if everyone was out to make a joke and she didn’t want to be caught not understanding it. But it also had a nervous quality about it.
Cally came to my rescue, as did Sadie herself. In unison they both admonished, “Layla!”
But Layla knew she was on sturdy ground. The same long finger lifted the small binocular from around my neck. She held it on the end like she was presenting exhibit A during cross examination.
“Why else would he have binoculars? Why was he up in the tree?”
Cally once again took charge. “You haven’t said anything yet. Why did you just climb over the fence and what were you doing up in the tree?”
I turned to Jack for help, but he wasn’t there. Where had he run off to? I hadn’t noticed him slip away. Something about my reaction caught Emma as funny and she giggled again, this time into her towel.
In any case, what was I going to say? I hadn’t planned anything. I had just come charging over here thinking I would stop some awful act of violence from happening, but so far there was no sign of any violence.
Wearing a swimsuit it was quite clear Chloe wasn’t packing a weapon. At first I thought maybe she’d have super human strength and simply start drowning them all in the swimming pool. But so far the only suspicious thing she’d done was remain quiet. And actually, if you knew Chloe the way I do, that was suspicious.
When I looked over to where I’d expected to find Jack, I caused the girls to follow my gaze but of course they saw nothing. But, from my vantage point, I was lined up with the entrance to the pool-house at the far side of the tiled deck. Inside Jack was motioning for me to come over. He was pointing at something.
I didn’t say anything, just trudged over to the pool house where I assume the girls changed from their regular clothes into their swimsuits. They didn’t say anything, but intrigued by my strange behavior fell in line behind me.
It was actually a large glass-walled playroom. There was a pool table and several electronic games in the middle of the room. On the far end was a carpeted area with a projection screen on the wall. On the opposite side were several small rooms for changing clothes. The first of these small rooms was a utility closet with the door open a jar. This is where Jack had been when he motioned for me.
I walked straight into the pool house through one of the open glass doors and made my way directly to the utility room. Jack wasn’t outside the room now; I figured he’d gone inside it. The girls had followed me, somewhat curiously since I still hadn’t uttered a single word.
The utility closet was not very big. And Jack wasn’t in there. I don’t know where he ducked out to, but he was gone. Inside, however some things were obviously amiss.
“This door is always locked,” I heard Sadie say, confused. “My father doesn’t want anyone in here.”
I was drawn immediately to the electrical panel whose metal door was open exposing all the wires and connections that powered the lights and outlets in the pool house as well as the outdoor pool lights and heater.
“That panel door shouldn’t be open,” Sadie continued. “My dad would never leave that open.”
The girls crowded into the closet with me, so we were cramped. Sadie was pushed against my shoulder. Two of the girls actually couldn’t fit and were forced to look in through the doorway. Chloe was one of them and she was acting like she’d rather be anywhere but here. I could see the green beastie squirming inside her, its coal gray eyes trying to smoke me to death. I was sure the creature didn’t know I was aware it was in there, but it did understand that somehow I was ruining its plans.
In the panel are breakers that are connected to all the various electrical circuits that controlled the outdoor mechanisms. Normally a flat panel covers the wiring so that you can’t see what is connected to what. People simply rely on an electrician to know what he is doing and assume he has connected everything according to code. In this case, the front panel was missing and all the connections to the various circuits were visible.
There were several things that looked jerry-rigged and rewired but the most noticeable thing was the circuit breakers.
“The GFI’s been bypassed,” I said, speaking my first words since entering her yard. The wires that went to the Ground Fault Interrupter had been disconnected and wired together in the back.
“What does that mean?” Sadie asked.
“GFCI stands for Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter. When a circuit is shorted out it produces too many amps, the GFI breaks the circuit, stopping the flow of electricity.” I showed her where the wires had been disconnected and wired back to each other to complete the circuit but bypassing the safety of the GFI.
“So . . .what does that mean?” Peyton asked. She was in the doorway next to Chloe. I turned back to her and saw Chloe’s eyes dart suspiciously from side to side. If anyone else had looked at her they would have wondered why she was acting so guilty, but no one did.
“I think it means that if the line is shorted out, it overheats and could cause a fire. The GFI prevents that from happening.” She was a bright one that Cally, even if her swimsuit was the color of Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum.
I nodded encouragingly and added, “Should anything get in the middle of this circuit and unbalance the current, instead of shutting down, the flow of electricity will increase causing a fire.” I looked through my long shaggy bangs at five of the six faces now looking back at me in rapt attention. “Or, electrocution,” I finished.
Sadie, who was next to me said, “What do you mean electrocution?”
I returned her look and enjoyed the bright green of her eyes for a moment before responding, “Electricity, as it flows through the wires goes from hot to neutral. If it gets interrupted in some way by something with lower resistance the flow of electricity increases. Usually if the flow gets above a certain rate, the GFI trips, breaking the circuit and preventing the flow of electricity from heating up and catching something on fire – or killing someone if they happen to be the thing that interrupts the flow.”
I didn’t take the time to explain that I’d studied electricity, guns, poisons, even mental illness after the murder of my mother. Anything that I foresaw as a possible way a person could die suddenly became a point of interest for me. Some people go crazy after seeing their parents killed. Bruce Wayne dressed up like a bat. I studied ways people could die.
My comments had them all talking at once, sharing looks and sounds of astonishment as they came to realize that someone had basically removed the safety feature of the electrical system.
As they murmured I continued to investigate the other wiring anomalies in the panel. I looked at the inside of the panel door where labels told me which each electrical circuit powered. The one that really looked suspicious was across from the one labeled: ‘pool heater.’ This circuit was wired for a 220 line. The line allowed for greater amperage as the power it took to heat the pool was significant.
“Excuse me, Gabriel,” I heard Sadie say in my ear. Her close presence was very distracting. I swallowed hard and looked back at her, thinking I couldn’t have set up a better situation for getting close to her. The fact that she was asking me for information, which I was able to provide, was sort of thrilling. I was now someone with a name other than that weird kid whose mom died.”
“I go by Gabe,” I said.
“Gabe, um, we were wondering, if someone disconnected the GFI making all the electrical circuits dangerous, are we in any real danger as long as we don’t touch them?” She pointed to the panel as if it were a cobra deciding which one of us to strike.
“Is the heater in the pool on right now?” I asked.
Sadie looked back at Cally as if she might know. Cally just shrugged, then Sadie turned back to me, those beautiful green eyes alight. “Oh, I know, my dad told me it’s connected to a thermostat that turns it on automatically when it drops below eighty-five degrees.”
“Where is this thermostat?” I asked.
Sadie looked out the door. “It’s on a panel on the wall just around the corner.”
We all pushed back out of the utility closet into the main area of the pool house. On the wall were two thermostats. One was obviously the thermostat for the pool-house itself. The one below it was also digital, a little larger with a display screen flashing two temperatures. The top one registered the current temperature of the pool, which was 86 degrees. The number below flashed 88 degrees.
Cally made her way to the panel first. “You must have heard your dad wrong,” she said to Sadie. “It’s set at 88 degrees.”
“Which means that the heater has now turned on out in the pool,” Sadie said. She looked quizzically at the thermostat then shook her lovely blond hair.
“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen!” Chloe had her hands on her hips and her dark eyes flashed – not a normal look for her. “We’ve spent all this time listening to horror stories by this,” she paused and looked me over as if I’d been spat on the sidewalk, “person, when we could have been out in the pool. He just charged into your yard Sadie, and it’s obvious why.”
Grinning Peyton nodded. “He just wanted to see us in swimsuits before school starts.”
“What about the GFI’s?” Cally countered.
“Who cares?” Layla drawled. “Let the geek swim with us. Let’s just get back out there.”
“Your dad was probably working in there. Who even knows if those things really are GI’s?” Peyton said.
“GFI’s,” I said in unison with Sadie. We looked at each other and smiled. That smile just about made me forget that something strange was going on here.
“Okay, GFI’s,” Peyton continued. “The point is he’s just here for attention. Your father wouldn’t let us swim out here if it wasn’t safe.”
Chloe shot her a quick, but visible smile, which I knew came from the creature inside her, grateful for a logical argument to support its plan. Its plan . . . what did this thing hope to accomplish?
“Gabe,” Sadie asked me. The sound of her voice speaking my name brought me out of my momentary thought bubble. “Let’s say the GFI’s really are disconnected, is that really a problem? I mean, what are the chances of us getting electrocuted out there?” she indicated the pool area beyond the door.
I started thinking like crazy. There was some weird wiring back there with the heater; that I knew. I needed to look at it again to really be sure what had been done to it. What could a heater do? How could they be electrocuted by the heater? It was electric, but there was nothing connected to metal out in the water. The only way to get the power to electrocute them would be if somehow the electricity could bubble up from the ground, into the pool water itself….could that even work? Wait, the ground? I had to look at it again.
“Hang on a second,” I said and darted back into the utility closet.
“I’m going back out to the pool,” Chloe announced.
“I’ll come with you,” I heard Peyton echo. I could tell by the insipid giggle that Emma was right behind them.
Inside the utility closet I looked closely at the wiring. I couldn’t believe it. The hot line had been disconnected from the lead and wired to the ground. The ground had been wired to the hot lead. That meant that the electricity would flow…backward? No, it meant that electricity was flowing where the ground was, but not making a circuit – unless, of course –
I darted back out into the main area. Chloe was out the door on her way to the pool. Emma was right behind her followed closely by Peyton. Layla was on her way to the doorway while Sadie and Cally stood next to each other not sure what to make of everything.
I looked down at each of their feet and couldn’t believe what I saw. Chloe, out front, approaching the pool wore flip-flops, made no doubt of some form of rubber. Emma and Peyton were barefoot as were the other three girls still in the pool house.
“Stop!”
My shout brought all three of the girls outside to a sudden halt. Chloe was on the area of the cement that was wet, just a few feet from the pool. Emma was about six inches from a wet tile. Peyton was just a step behind her.
“Get back in the pool house,” I ordered.
Layla snorted. “You are a weird one.” But she gave me a wry smile just the same.
“You aren’t really going to listen to him are you?” Chloe walked right up to the edge of the pool. “Come on you guys.” She motioned to Emma and Peyton.
“No, don’t move!” I yelled. “You’re barefoot.”
This earned me a confused look from both Cally and Sadie.
“You’ll complete the circuit if you step on anything that’s wet.” I said, as if this would explain the whole thing to them. I could tell from my tone of voice that they were now concerned. Perhaps I was right about something.
“Just come back into the pool house.” Sadie said, on my side now, “What if he’s right?”
“Look at me,” Chloe said from the pool side. “I’m okay.”
I was just about to tell her to touch the water, or kick off her flip-flops, but then it occurred to me that the terror leach inside her might not flinch at harming its host-human. I didn’t want Chloe dead anymore than the rest of them.
“Peyton and Emma listen to me and whatever you do don’t move,” I warned. “The electrical line to the heater was wired to the ground. The ground goes up through the cement and everywhere you see water is a circuit waiting to be completed. If you touch that water with your bare feet there’s no GFI to break the circuit. You’ll go up in flame like you’re covered in gas.”
“Oh,” Chloe sighed. “Since when are crazy dweebs who burst into yards suddenly experts on electricity?”
I could see horror in Emma’s eyes. Vapid or not, she didn’t look like she wanted to tempt life or death over my credentials as an electrician. Peyton didn’t look scared, but wary. Neither one had moved yet.
Suddenly Emma bolted back for the pool house, screaming the whole way. When she burst through the doorway she fell into Layla’s arms crying like the big bad wolf had blown her house down.
“Em!” Layla groused. “Your nose is running. Gross.”
“Peyton, I’m not kidding.” I warned.
I looked around me. I had an idea.
“If what you say is true,” Chloe challenged, now lounging on a chair, “why not just disconnect the wire from the lead?”
Suddenly she’s an electrician? Great.
“Because the wire has been bared all the way to the floor. If I touch it I’d burn just like Peyton if she steps in a wet spot.”
“Gabriel Winston, if you’re making me look like an idiot, I will kill you.” Peyton was trying to hold on to her cool, but she was scared, I could tell.
“I don’t think he’s making this up,” Sadie said, now standing next to me. “You better come back to the pool house.”
Slowly and deliberately Peyton retraced her steps back to where she joined us.
“You stupid idiots!” Chloe challenged. “He’s a dork who doesn’t know how to comb his hair. Why did you listen to him? Come out here. I’m fine. Look.”
She jumped up from the chair and spread her arms wide. “Nothing is wrong. He’s just trying to scare you.”
Her behavior began to bother me. She was going to do something crazy, I could feel it. I looked about and saw a drawer across the room in the small kitchenette. I pulled open the first one and found plastic forks and knives. I opened the drawer beneath. It contained barbecuing tools, one of which was a long handled steel spatula. I yanked it from the drawer and fled across the room, out the glass door and over toward Chloe. My rubber soled tennis shoes I was reasonably sure would keep me safe.
“Oh look, he’s going to beat me with a spatula.” Chloe was spouting nonsense now. I turned back and could tell the girls in the pool house could see it too.
“So, you’re trying to ruin my little surprise, huh?” This was said quietly just for me, and it wasn’t Chloe speaking. I could see the charcoal eyes glowing like a demon plain as day.
“Well, perhaps I’ll still get what I came for,” the Chloe beast promised me.
I quickly realized that I was right on the edge of the pool holding a piece of metal. If she pushed me into the pool I’d go up like a roman candle.
I wasted no time and tossed the spatula at the nearest puddle near the edge of the pool. It bounced and sparks shot up as if it had skidded across flint. A popping noise crackled loudly as sparks shot up three to four feet high. One arced in a dazzling display of blue and red lightning. The smell of burnt rubber and overheated batteries filled the air as a black gray acrid smoke billowed up from the where the metal hit water.
I could hear the girls screaming behind me, but the beast’s eyes looking out of Chloe’s bore through me in a dark, savage anger. I locked eyes with it, unable to look away, when suddenly Chloe’s eyes rolled back in her head and her knees began to buckle. I reached out and caught her, afraid that if she hit the water she’d catch fire.
That’s when the transformer across the street exploded. It was amazing! It was a pyrotechnic display to rival an Independence Day fireworks finale. Every color of the rainbow arced high in the sky, sending sparks and colored plasma bursts into the air. The limbs of a nearby tree caught fire. It was unreal. And the power in every house for fourteen blocks went out.