The Afterlife Academy (8 page)

But hearing her defend him in front of everyone else just made everything worse. Scrambling to his feet, Charlie ran out of the cafeteria and headed straight for the bathroom.

“I
told you that was going to happen,” Walter said as Charlie dried his pants under the hand dryer. “I saw him reaching for the box. It's a classic bully move.”

“Well, you didn't do anything about it!”

“I did! You're just slow to react.”

Charlie checked his progress in the mirror, but the lemonade wasn't drying fast enough. A dark wet mark remained.

“You know what I don't get?” Walter asked. “Why did a hot girl like Melissa Bitner stick up for you? Maybe she really is your girlfriend.”

“No,” Charlie answered flatly. “She's just nice like that. She's nice to everybody.”

“Wow. She's amazing! We should try to talk to her today. I could help you not sound like a moron.”

“Could you please stop talking about Melissa? I have a real problem here.” He pointed to his pants.

Walter giggled. “It looks really bad.”

“I know! I can't go to my next class looking like this. I'll be laughed out of the school!”

“Then leave,” Walter suggested.

“Okay,” Charlie said sarcastically. “Good advice.”

“No, I'm being serious.”

“I can't cut class.”

“Sure you can.”

“I wouldn't even know how to. I've never done it before.” But he was warming up to the idea. There was no way he could go to his next class looking like this. He stared down once more at the lemonade on his pants and vowed never to bring a juice box in his lunch again.

“Just follow my lead,” Walter said confidently. “It's not hard.”

“Fine. Let's try it.”

With the exception of the janitor and a couple of hall monitors facing the opposite direction, the hallway seemed empty when Charlie quietly pushed open the bathroom door and checked around the corner.

“Okay,” Walter whispered, although he didn't need to. “You have to act like you're supposed to be out in the hallway.”

“Explain,” Charlie said, wiping his nose.

“Don't creep around. Don't act like you're trying to avoid being seen. That never works, and it only draws attention to you. You'll get caught for sure.”

Charlie nodded. That made sense. After grabbing his bag from his locker and stopping for a swig from the drinking fountain, per Walter's instruction, Charlie headed for the cafeteria.

“Slow down!” Walter hissed. A teacher stood between him and the cafeteria, posting announcements on a bulletin board. “Be cool!”

Charlie smiled at the teacher as he passed her, but she paid him very little attention, focusing more on the position of her pushpins in the corkboard. Three minutes later, Charlie was racing along the sidewalk by the front parking lot entrance, headed for home.

“I can't believe I just did that!” He pumped a fist in the air. “Did you do that a lot?”

“Yeah, whenever I needed to,” Walter answered. “But you can't get careless. Teachers don't notice if you're gone a class period or two every now and then, but they'll pick up quick if you make it a habit.”

“Believe me, I won't make it a habit. But I've never felt so alive!” Charlie practically skipped.

“Way to rub it in.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Several dark clouds gathered overhead, blotting out the afternoon sun. A storm was brewing, and Charlie gave a satisfied sigh. “I love it when it rains, don't you?” Thunder, lightning, the feel of raindrops on his face…

Walter moaned, and Charlie understood. “Did you feel anything when the lightning struck you?”

But his Agent never had a chance to answer. As Charlie rounded the corner at a stoplight, his neighborhood just coming into view, the rain began to pour. And Charlie's feet skittered to a stop.

Halfway between him and his apartment, in the middle of the road, stood a red gorilla with horns.

“W
hat the heck is that?” Walter screamed.

Charlie didn't answer. He was holding his breath and couldn't move a muscle.

The creature wasn't really a gorilla, but it resembled one, with gold slits for eyes, jet-black claws, and a pair of sharp horns curling from its skull. Charlie stood paralyzed as the creature flicked its forked tongue and leapt on top of a parked car. Nostrils flaring and glistening with some sort of glowing, demonic snot, the beast sniffed the air. Then it spoke with a voice that echoed through the core of Charlie's body.

“Leave from it. Break free!”

“I think we should leave now,” Walter said.

“Unattach!” the creature commanded, striding forward with arms outstretched.

Before Charlie could run, a clawed hand shot out and penetrated his chest. From inside Charlie's body, Walter screamed in agony. Charlie could actually feel him writhing.

“It's burning me!” Walter shouted.

Petrified, Charlie looked down, expecting to see a bloody mess, but the creature's claws vanished into his skin. Judging by Walter's continuous screaming, the creature was torturing him. Charlie tried to grab its shoulders, but his hands passed through as though the creature were made of thick red vapor.

“Please!” Walter begged, gasping for air.

“What's it doing?” Charlie asked, but he knew the answer. The claws continued to work into his body, trying to pull Walter out.

“Just run!” Walter yelled. “It burns so bad! You need to run!”

Charlie's heart drummed in his chest. He stumbled backward as the creature took another swipe, fingertips barely grazing his skin. Turning on his heel, Charlie ran in the opposite direction from his apartment.

“Don't stop! Try to lose it!” Walter breathed more steadily now.

“How?” Charlie spat out the word through his panting. He didn't have an athletic bone in his body.

The creature galloped behind, snarling. “Get out! Get out!”

“Is it talking to you or me?” Charlie shouted.

“Me,” Walter answered. “Definitely m— There! Just up ahead!”

Less than a hundred yards away, a white steeple jutted up from a redbrick building with a sign reading
HOUSE OF WORSHIP
. The creature made a final swipe with its claws as Charlie leapt off the road and scampered up the lawn toward the entrance of the church.

Charlie looked back toward the road and watched as the creature smacked against an invisible barrier and tumbled backward. A few rays of sunlight broke through the rain clouds, and Charlie could see wispy plumes of steam rise from the horned ape's skin as it lay, dazed, on the concrete. It stood slowly, blinking bewilderedly as it searched for the wall. Then it raised one of its claws but hesitated before touching the barrier.

The creature's eyes found Charlie standing on the lawn. Its arms flexed, and its claws balled into fists. “Where will you go?” it snarled. “I can wait forever, you know.” But even as it spoke, the creature looked miserably skyward, and, with a puff of red smoke, the monster vanished.

“That was close,” Walter whispered.

“
That
was a demon,” Charlie said.

“It felt like someone had reached down my throat and was tugging my insides back up.”

“Geez!” Charlie stood and walked to one of the church's beautiful stained-glass windows. He had never been inside the building, but he had seen people attending service there on Sundays. The rain began to pour once more, and Charlie ran up the church steps to duck under the eave that jutted out over them.

“How did you know to come here?” he asked Walter. How many books and magazines had Charlie read? Hundreds? There was always a chapter about safe zones. Areas where creatures couldn't enter. Sanctuaries. He should've thought to use the church as a safe zone.

“Just a lucky guess. I saw something about it in a movie.” Walter fell silent for a moment. “So, seriously, who did you tick off in the Underworld?”

Charlie flinched and looked once more at the church. “What do you mean by that?”

“Everything from the dark side is trying to get you. I don't think that happens too often.”

“That demon attacked
you,
” Charlie said defensively, stepping off the front steps of the church and back onto the lawn as the rain let up once more.

“It was trying to get rid of me, not kill me. Didn't you hear it?”

“So? What makes you think this is my fault?” Charlie folded his arms and jumped when a stray cat shot out of one of the bushes. “My life was fine until you showed up.”

Walter laughed, and Charlie imagined the sarcastic look on the Guardian Agent's face. “We both know none of what you just said is true. I showed up in time to save your butt.”

Charlie stomped toward the sidewalk, but stopped at the edge of the lawn, checking either direction for signs of demons. He knew Walter was right. That demon had been interested in trying to get rid of Walter. And there could be only one reason for that: to attack Charlie. Walter must be protecting him somehow.

Charlie made his way through his neighborhood and to his bedroom without any other incidents. Inside his bedroom, he walked straight to his bed and tentatively lifted his pillow. The peculiar brown book with indecipherable writing was lying just where he'd left it.

“We're lucky it's still here,” Charlie muttered. “If the demons wanted it so badly, why didn't they just take it while I was at school?”

“They probably thought you took it with you. I bet that's why that demon was waiting for you in the neighborhood.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

The box springs groaned in protest as Charlie plopped onto his bed and sifted through a couple pages, thinking things through. He noticed an unsettling silence in his room. Normally, he could hear the methodical hum of his alarm clock, or the air conditioner kicking on and rattling the vents. The Dewdles' apartment complex had been built in the seventies, and the wooden floorboards naturally popped.

No sounds. No disruptions. Just silence.

Charlie stood and walked to the study. He'd missed computer lab, but maybe Walter was right. What his parents didn't know couldn't hurt them. Charlie grasped the door handle and started to turn it, but it stuck.

“I can't believe they locked the door! I thought they trusted me,” Charlie moaned.

“Guess they know better.”

Charlie rubbed his chin in thought. “I'll ask my Spanish teacher tomorrow if she recognizes the language.”

“That's almost twenty-four hours away!”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

Walter did not. At the moment, it would have to do.