Challenger Deep (10 page)
Authors: Neal Shusterman
Today I start a game. The signs I see will tell me what to do.
LEFT TURN ONLY!
I make a sharp left turn and cross the street.
DON’T WALK
!
I cease walking and count to ten before moving again.
FIFTEEN MINUTE ZONE
I sit on the curb for fifteen minutes—challenging myself to keep still for that long.
The road signs become too repetitive, so I expand to other things. An advertisement on a bus stop says,
“Don’t you want a Whopper?”
I don’t, but I walk to the nearest Burger King and get one anyway. Can’t remember if I eat it or not. I may have just left it there.
“Time to upgrade? Visit your neighborhood Verizon store today!”
The nearest one is pretty far away, but I make the trek, and have the clerk spend twenty minutes trying to sell me on a phone I have no intention of buying.
There are so many signs out there! I’m out until the sun sets. I never make it to the movies.
I can’t recall when it stops being a game.
I can’t recall when I begin to believe that the signs are giving me instructions.
Not all spiders have perfect webs. Black widows don’t. There are black widows in our garage, or at least there were before the house was tented. But even if they’re gone, they’ll be back faster than the termites. Black widows are easy to identify. A red hourglass design on their bellies. They’re hard and shiny—they look almost like plastic Halloween spiders. They’re not as deadly as people think. Without antivenom you might lose a limb at worst. It would take three or four bites from different spiders to kill a full-grown human. The thing is, they’re shy spiders. They don’t bite easily; they’d rather just be left alone. Very reclusive. Ironically it’s the brown recluse spider that’s aggressive and will go after you. Their venom is pretty deadly.
I always know when there’s a black widow in the garage because of the web. Black widow webs are messy. No pattern. Like whatever mechanism in their tiny brains that makes webs is broken. They lack the engineering skill to make picture-perfect, fly-catching nets. Or maybe they just can’t be bothered. Maybe they embrace the randomness. Maybe the lines they draw have meaning to them that the rest of the arachnid world is blind to.
For this reason I have more than the usual amount of sympathy when I crush them with my shoe.
“I can’t contain myself,” I tell Max as we work together in my living room on a school project.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you happy or something?” He doesn’t bother to look up from the PowerPoint that he’s creating on my computer. I can’t get comfortable in my chair. I wonder if I actually look happy, or is he just ridiculously unobservant?
“Ever have an out-of-body experience?” I ask.
“What are you on?”
“I asked you a simple question. Why is it so hard to answer?”
“It’s not, you’re just acting like a freak.”
“Maybe I’m fine and everyone else is a freak. Have you considered that?”
“Whatever.” Finally he looks at me. “Are you gonna work with me on this, or do I have to do it all myself? You’re the artist—you should be doing the PowerPoint.”
“Digital is not my medium,” I tell him. Then for the first time I focus my attention on the screen. “What’s the project again?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Yeah, of course I am.” But I’m not kidding and it troubles me that I’m not.
Max moves the mouse like it’s a living thing. Maybe it is. He clicks and drags and drops. He’s building a fictional earthquake scenario in Miami. A science project. Now I remember. After my last test, I know I should take this seriously, but my mind keeps flying elsewhere. We chose Miami because the city’s skyscrapers are designed to withstand hurricanes, not earthquakes. In our PowerPoint, glass towers crumble. Mega-devastation. It should get us an A.
But it makes me think of the earthquake in China that I worry I could cause if I think about it too much.
“Would a seven point five do this much damage?” he asks. I watch his hand continue to move the mouse, but sometimes it feels like it’s my hand, not his. I can feel my fingers clicking that mouse. It’s unnerving.
“I’m not entirely
in
myself,” I say. I meant to say it in my head, but it came out of my mouth.
“Just shut up with the freaky crap, okay?”
But I can’t stop. I’m not sure if I want to. “I’m kind of like . . . all
around me. I’m in the computer. I’m in the walls.”
He looks at me, shaking his head.
“I’m even in you,” I tell him. “In fact, I know what you’re thinking, because I’m not entirely me anymore. I’m partially in your head.”
“So what am I thinking?”
“Ice cream,” I instantly say. “You want ice cream. Mint chip, to be exact.”
“Wrong. I was thinking that Kaitlin Hick’s rack would really bounce big-time in a seven-point-five earthquake.”
“No, you’re confused.” I tell him. “That’s what
I
was thinking. I just put it in your head.”
Max leaves a few minutes later, kind of backing out of the front door, like there’s a dog that might bite his behind if he turned his back on it. “I’ll finish the project alone,” he says. “No problem. I’ll do it myself.” And he’s gone before I can even say good-bye.
Dad calls to me in that “we have to talk” kind of voice after a dinner that I had no appetite for. I have an urge to bolt, but I don’t. I want to pace the family room, but I force myself to sit on the sofa. Still, my knees bounce like my feet are on miniature trampolines.
“I emailed the track coach to get a schedule of meets,” he tells me. “He says there is no Caden Bosch on the team.”
I knew this would happen eventually.
“Yeah, so?” I say.
My father gives an exasperated puff of air that could blow out birthday candles. “It’s bad enough that you lied to us about this—but that’s another conversation.”
“Good, can I go now?”
“No. My question is why? And where do you go after school? What have you been doing?”
“That’s three questions.”
“Don’t be cheeky.”
I shrug. “I go walking,” I say honestly.
“Walking where?”
“Just around.”
“Every day? For hours?”
“Yeah. For hours.” My sore feet are evidence of the truth, but it still doesn’t give him what he needs.
He runs his fingers through his hair, imagining his hair actually gives him some resistance. “This isn’t like you, Caden.”
I stand up and find myself yelling. I don’t even mean to, I just am. “SINCE WHEN IS WALKING A CRIME?”
“It’s not just the walking. It’s your behavior. Your
thinking.
”
“What are you accusing me of?”
“Nothing! This is not an inquisition!”
“I didn’t make the team, okay? I got cut and I didn’t want to disappoint you, so now I go walking, all right? Are you happy?”
“That’s not the point!”
But it’s the only point he’s getting. I head for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“For a walk. Unless I’m grounded for getting cut from the team.” And I’m out the door before he can say anything more.
On the way to school a few years ago, Dad had an unusual freak-out moment. Unusual, because anytime my dad freaks out, it’s as predictable as a tax table, but this was something new. Mackenzie was in the back, and I was riding shotgun. From the moment we left the driveway, Dad was jittery, like he had had too much coffee. I figured it was something to do with work, until he let out an unsettled sigh and said:
“Something’s wrong.”
I didn’t say anything, I just waited for him to explain, because he never says anything provocative without explaining himself. Mackenzie, however, doesn’t have patience to wait.
“What’s wrong with what?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Dad said. “I don’t know.” He was distracted enough to miss a yellow light, and had to slam on the brakes to keep from careening into the intersection as the light turned red. He looked at the cars around us nervously, and said, “I’m just having trouble driving today.”
I started to worry that maybe he was having a heart attack or a stroke or something, but before I voiced my concerns, I noticed
something at my feet right next to my backpack. It was metallic and oddly shaped, but was only odd because of its location. It was a common enough object, but you generally don’t see such a thing lying on the floor. Only after I picked it up did I realize what it was.
“Dad?”
He glanced over to me, saw what I was holding, and all of his anxiety melted with a single short laugh of recognition. “Well, that would explain things, wouldn’t it?”
Mackenzie leaned forward from her spot in the backseat. “What is it?”
I showed it to her. “The rearview mirror,” I told her.
Dad pulled over to the side of the road to readjust himself mentally to the idea of driving without being able to instantly see behind him.
I remember looking at the adhesive pad on the windshield where the mirror should have been, and shaking my head like my father was clueless. “How could you not know it was gone?”
Dad shrugged. “Driving’s automatic,” he said. “You don’t think about those things. All I knew was that I felt somehow . . . impaired.”
I didn’t get it at the time, but that feeling—knowing something is wrong, but not being able to pinpoint what it is—is a feeling I’ve come to know intimately. The difference is, I’ve never been able to find something as easy and as obvious as a rearview mirror lying at my feet.
I stare at my homework, unable to lift a finger to do it. It’s as if my pen weighs a thousand tons. Or maybe it’s electrified. That’s it—it’s electrified—and if I touch it, it will kill me. Or the paper will slice an artery. Paper cuts are the worst. I have legitimate reasons for not doing my work. Fear of death. But the biggest reason of all is that my mind doesn’t want to go there. It’s in other places.
“Dad?”
It’s getting toward “that time of year,” and my father sits at the kitchen table with his laptop, stressed and distracted by the new tax code, and some client’s haphazard collection of receipts. “Yes, Caden?”
“There’s this boy at school who wants to kill me.”
He looks at me, into me, through me. I hate when he does that. He glances back to his laptop, takes a deep breath, and he closes it. I wonder if he’s doing it to hide something from me. No, it couldn’t be. What would he be hiding? That’s crazy. But still . . .
“Is this the same kid as before?”
“No,” I tell him. “It’s someone different.”
“Someone different.”
“Yes.”
“A different kid.”
“Yes.”
“And you think he wants to kill you.”
“Kill me. Yes.”
Dad takes off his glasses, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about these feelings you’re having—”
“How do you know it’s just a feeling? How do you know he hasn’t already done something. Something bad!”
Again he takes that deep breath. “What has he done, Caden?”
I start getting louder. I can’t help myself. “It’s not what he’s done—it’s what he’s going to do! I can read it in him! I know! I know!”
“All right, just calm down.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
Dad stands up, finally maybe taking this as seriously as he should. “Caden, your mother and I are worried.”
“Well, that’s good, right? You should be. Because he might be after you, too.”
“Not about him,” my father says. “About you. Do you understand?”
Mom comes in behind me, making me jump. My sister is with her.
My parents’ eyes meet, and it’s like mind reading. I can feel their thoughts shooting through me: Dad, to Mom, and back to Dad again. Mental Ping-Pong through my soul.
My mom turns to my sister. “Go upstairs.”
“No, I wanna stay here.” My sister puts on a face to match her whine, but Mom won’t allow it.
“Don’t argue with me. Just go!”
My sister slumps her shoulders and stomps up the stairs, exaggerating every footfall.
I’m alone with my parents now.
“What’s wrong?” Mom asks.
“Remember what I told you? About a kid at school?” Dad says, making it crystal clear that I can’t tell either of them anything in confidence. I give her the details, and she weighs it a little differently than Dad.
“Well, maybe we need to look into this. Find out about this boy ourselves.”
“See, that’s what I’m saying. Look into it!” I feel the tiniest bit relieved.
Dad opens his mouth like he’s going to speak, but closes it again, reconsidering his reaction. “Okay,” he says. “I’m all for due diligence, but . . .”
He never finishes the “but.” Instead he goes into the living room, kneeling by the bookshelf. “Where’s last year’s yearbook?” he asks. “Let’s see this kid for ourselves.”
And now that they believe me, I feel relieved. But not really. Because I know they
don’t
believe me. They’re just going through the motions, to placate me. To make me feel like they’re on my side. But they’re not. They’re like Ms. Sassel and my teachers and the kids who look at me with evil intent. It’s like these aren’t my mother and father, they’re just masks of my parents, and I don’t know what’s really underneath. I know I can’t tell them anything anymore.
