First Evil (13 page)

Bobbi stood awkwardly in front of the desk, nervously
toying with a strand of her hair. When Miss Green motioned her toward a seat, Bobbi obediently lowered herself into it, folding her hands in her lap.

She realized she was perspiring. It was so hot in the gym, and she had been the only one to really work during the aerobics warm-ups.

“Bobbi, I'm really sorry,” Miss Green said abruptly, setting down the pink message sheets and leaning with both hands on the desktop. “I have to ask you to step down from the squad.”

“Oh!” Bobbi uttered a short cry.

She had anticipated those very words. But somehow they had come as a surprise anyway.

“I really don't—” she started.

Miss Green held up a hand to silence her. “I don't want to discuss what happened yesterday. I know you wouldn't deliberately try to injure one of the girls. But what happened, happened. Whether it was a loss of concentration or whatever. It happened.”

She sat down, leaning forward over the desk, playing with an opal ring on her right hand. “You're a very talented cheerleader, Bobbi,” she continued. “You and your sister. I like you both. But after yesterday, I'm afraid—well, I'm afraid you've lost the confidence of the squad.”

“Confidence?” Bobbi managed to utter in a tight, choked voice. She suddenly realized she was breathing hard. Drops of perspiration were sliding down her forehead, but she made no attempt to wipe them away.

“A squad is built on trust. And the girls just don't feel they can trust you,” Miss Green said, lowering her
voice, her face expressionless. “They've made it very clear to me. Whether it's true or not,
they
believe that you deliberately didn't catch Kimmy yesterday.” She cleared her throat noisily, covering her mouth with one hand. “I'm really sorry, Bobbi. I have no choice. I have to ask you to quit.”

Bobbi lowered her head, struggling to stop her body from shaking, struggling to hold back her tears. “I understand,” she managed to whisper.

“If you'd like to talk to someone,” Miss Green offered, her eyes sympathetic, “a doctor, I mean. If you'd like me to recommend someone you could . . . confide in—”

Bobbi rose to her feet. She had to get out of there, she realized. She felt hot and cold and shaky and sick. “No, thanks. I'll just leave now,” she said, turning to the door, avoiding Miss Green's stare.

“I know how you must feel,” Miss Green said, standing too. “If there's anything I can do . . .”

A few seconds later Bobbi found herself in the locker room. Alone. Her footsteps echoing on the damp concrete floor. She choked back a sob.

I'm wringing wet. Wringing wet.

I'll take a shower, she decided. Change into street clothes.

That'll make me feel better.

She thought she heard a scraping sound from another row of lockers. “Anybody here?” she called in a quivery voice.

No reply.

“Now I'm
hearing
things too,” she said out loud.

Oh, well, she thought, pulling her sweatshirt over her head, at least now I'll have more time to study.

With that thought, the sob she'd been holding back burst out.

How could this
happen
to me? How could this happen?

Am I really going crazy?

Leaving her clothes on the bench, she pulled a towel from her locker and padded over the damp floor toward the shower room. A warm shower would be soothing, she decided. She'd make it nice and hot. It would stop the trembling, stop the chills down her back.

She turned at the entrance to the showers, thinking she heard someone again. She listened. Again, silence.

She stepped into the large shower room with its stained tile walls, its row of chrome shower heads. The floor was puddled with cold water, left over from last-period gym class.

Bobbi shivered.

I'm so cold. So cold.

As she reached up to turn on the water, metal doors nearby slammed shut with a
clang
.

“Huh?”

At first Bobbi wasn't sure what had happened. She jumped, startled by the loud, unexpected noise. Maybe someone had entered the dressing area outside, she decided.

But then she saw that the shower room doors had been closed.

That's weird, she thought. She turned on the water.

And screamed as scalding water burst out of the shower head with a roar, striking her chest, her shoulders.

“Ow!”

She dodged away. But the next shower head was spraying down hot water, too, scalding hot, burning hot.

“Help!”

All the showers were turned on now. Scalding hot water shooting out of all of them.

Something's wrong, Bobbi realized, stumbling back in a panic, her chest burning, her legs burning. Something's terribly wrong.

“Ow!”

She slipped and toppled backward, landing with a splash in a steaming puddle.

“Help!”

Scrambling to her feet, she saw that the hot water was rising rapidly. The drain appeared to be clogged.

“Ow!”

The water was nearly an inch deep already, and so hot, it burned her feet.

The steam rose like a thick, choking curtain.

Gasping in the hot, wet air, Bobbi lunged for the doors. She tugged on the handles. “Hey—” They wouldn't move.

“Hey—”

She struggled to push open the doors. But they were stuck. Or blocked. Or locked.

“Hey—!”

The steam was thick. She felt as if her lungs were burning, filling up. It was so hard to breathe.

Crying out from the pain of the scalding water, she hopped back to the wall of shower heads, reached for the first control knob, turned it, turned, turned. . . .

To her horror the water didn't slow. Didn't grow colder.

Frantically she turned another knob. Another. Another.

“Ow!”

She couldn't shut them off.

“I can't
breathe!”
The steam was so thick, so hot. “I can't
see!”

She slipped, stumbling back to the double doors.

“Help me!” She choked out a desperate cry. “Somebody—help!”

The water was up over her ankles. Why wouldn't it drain? She danced wildly, a dance of unbearable pain.

“Help me! I can't—breathe!”

The rush of water became a roar.

She closed her eyes and covered her ears.

The roar didn't go away.

The pain didn't go away.

The roar grew louder.

Then all was silence.

W
here'd everyone go? Corky wondered.

She stepped into the gym, shifting her backpack to her other shoulder. “Anyone here?” she called, her voice echoing against the high ceiling.

Her sneakers squeaked on the shiny, polished floor. She glanced up at the scoreboard clock. Not even four-thirty.

Practice usually lasted until five, she knew.

So where
was
everyone?

Had they moved the practice outdoors? Sometimes they did that on nice days. It was good to practice in the stadium, get some fresh air, get out of the gym, which was usually stifling hot.

But it was gray and blustery outside today, not a day for an outdoor practice.

Her footsteps echoed as she made her way to Miss
Green's office and peered in through the big glass window.

Empty. The papers all neatly stacked on one corner of the desk. The chair pushed in.

I guess practice ended early for some reason, Corky thought, shaking her head.

Well, Bobbi must be glad. She wasn't in any mood to face the girls anyway.

Bobbi. I wanted to talk to her, to make up, Corky thought.

She pushed open the door to the locker room and stuck her head inside. “Bobbi? Anyone?”

The locker room seemed empty too.

She was about to close the door when she heard the sound of rushing water.

Someone's taking a shower, she decided.

She made her way into the locker room, warmer and steamier than usual. Through a row of lockers.

She spotted someone's clothes tossed onto one of the long benches that stretched in front of the lockers. On the other side of the lockers, she could hear the rush of shower water going full force. She picked up the sweatshirt, recognized it as Bobbi's.

So Bobbi was taking a shower.

By herself?

Where were the other girls?

This didn't make any sense.

Corky took a step toward the shower room, then stopped. She had spotted something on the floor under Bobbi's things. Something shiny.

She bent down and picked it up, bringing it up close to her face to examine it. It was Kimmy's silver pendant, the shiny little megaphone.

It must have fallen off again, Corky decided. She rolled it into a tissue and stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans.

I'll have to remember to return it to her.

She walked past the lockers, turned toward the shower room, then stopped in surprise. The shower doors were closed.

Weird, she thought.

The shower doors were
never
closed. She didn't even know they
could
close.

As Corky drew nearer, the rush of water on the other side of the door grew louder. Could one shower make all that noise? she wondered.

She knocked on the metal door. “Hey—Bobbi!”

No reply.

“Bobbi?” She pounded harder.

She can't hear me over the water, Corky decided.

She put a hand on each of the two door handles and pulled.

The doors swung open easily.

“Hey—!” Corky shrieked as a tidal wave of hot water came spewing out at her. “Whoa!”

Startled, she staggered back until she bumped into the side of a locker. The hot water rolled over her sneakers, washed up onto the legs of her jeans.

‘Ow! Hey—” It was boiling hot.

She looked up to see thick, white steam floating into the locker room, like a fog rolling over a beach.

What's going on? she wondered, more angry than frightened. Who closed the doors?

Where is Bobbi?

The steaming hot water flooded through the locker room, but it sounded as if the water had been shut off.
Walking on tiptoe, Corky made her way back to the shower room.

Holding on to the tile wall, she peered inside, squinting against the swirling steam.

And saw Bobbi.

Lying facedown against the wall under the shower heads.

“Bobbi—?”

Through gaps in the parting fog, her body slowly became visible.

Her arms were crumpled beneath her. Her legs were folded. Her hair was soaked and matted over her head and onto the floor.

Her back, her legs, her skin—her entire body was as red as a lobster.

“Bobbi—?”

Gripped with fear, Corky plunged into the room, dropped to her knees in the scalding water.

“Bobbi—?”

With a loud gasp, she reached down and pulled her sister's head up by the hair.

“Bobbi—? Bobbi—? Please?”

Bobbi stared back at her with vacant, wide-eyed terror, her flesh swollen and red, her mouth locked open in a silent scream.

“Bobbi—?”

No. No answer.

The heavy steam settled over Corky, making her shiver.

Holding her sister tightly in her arms, Corky knew that Bobbi would never answer her again.

A
pearly full moon seemed to hover over the Fear Street cemetery, casting pale, ghostly light over the jagged tombstones. Trees whispered and shook their nearly leafless branches in the cold, gusting wind.

Corky slipped on wet leaves, and she nearly lost her balance. A light rain had just ended, leaving the weed-choked ground between the graves soft and muddy.

Like quicksand, she thought. She had a sudden picture of sinking into the ground, of being pulled down, down, until only her head poked out. And then it too would be sucked into the mud to join the corpses.

Something slithered through the clump of dead leaves near her feet. A squirrel? A mouse?