The Felix Chronicles: Freshmen (16 page)

Ba-Beep, Ba-Beep, Ba-Beep, Ba-Beep, Ba—

“Roommate violation,” Lucas muttered sleepily.

Felix’s eyes snapped open. He lay on his side looking at an empty bed—Lucas’s bed—on the other side of the room. A blue comforter was gathered up in a loose bunch at the bottom. Tacked to the wall above it were two posters: the logo of the Minnesota Timberwolves and a scenic shot of Eagle Mountain (big trees and a hiking trail). Without moving his head, his eyes rolled up in their sockets until he found Lucas standing by his desk with his pointer finger pressed down on the alarm clock. Behind him, bright mid-morning sunlight was slanting in between the slats of the closed blinds.

“—turning off your roommate’s alarm is worse than drinking your roommate’s beer,” Lucas was saying. “Or banging a chick on your roommate’s b—”

“I’m alive.” Felix sat up sharply, his hands going to his throat and then his chest.

“Looks that way,” Lucas replied glumly as he crossed the room and climbed back into bed.

“How’d I get here?” Felix asked, looking down at himself. Looking down at
his
bed. The bed he’d apparently just slept in.

“Is that a philosophical question or…?”

“No!” Felix said. “I mean, how did I get here? To the room.”

“I don’t know, dude.” Lucas yawned, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “I met this chick after dinner at the Student Center and we went back to her room. You were here when I got back. But it was late. Don’t you have a game?”

“A game?”
His thoughts felt disorganized—jumbled.

“Yeah—you know. Football. You chase the guy with the ball and try to kill him. That game.”

“I don’t understand,” Felix said softly. “I don’t understand.”

“What are you talking about?” Lucas asked, sounding more awake now.

“No-man’s-land. Skis. Martha. Allison…
Allison!”
His heart froze in his chest. “Where’s Allison?” He threw the blankets back and sprang to his feet.

“Is that a trick question?” Lucas looked confused. “Probably her room. Don’t you think?”

Felix was already at the door. He wrenched it open and burst out into the hallway, sprinting for the staircase.

“Dude!”
Lucas called after him. “You might wanna put some clothes on!”

Felix flew down the flight of stairs to the third floor, parting a group of girls who screamed and flattened themselves against the wall as he barreled through the hall. When he reached Allison’s room, he started pounding on the door. “Allie! Allie!” The girls in the hall whispered and giggled, their eyes clinging to him, but he didn’t take notice. “Allison!”

The door opened slowly. Caitlin, wearing Tiffany-blue pajamas, gazed at him groggily. “Felix?” she said, her eyes swollen from sleep. He slipped past her, expecting Allison’s bed to be empty, his mouth already choking out the terrifying words: “Where is she?”

But Allison was there, in bed, propped up on an elbow and facing the door, squinting her eyes at Felix. She blinked hard a few times and said in a thick sleep-heavy voice, “Felix? What’s going—?”

Felix rushed to Allison’s bed and scooped her up in his arms. “Thank God you’re okay. Thank God.” He’d never experienced relief like this before; it was so intense it hurt like physical pain.

“Hey!” Caitlin shouted at him. “What are you doing to my roommate?”

“Felix?” Allison said, her voice distorting against his chest. “Um… as much as I appreciate the wake-up call, I think you’re going to break my ribs.” She drew herself back and after looking him over for a moment, began to laugh. “Why are you in your underwear?”

Felix loosened his grip. “I thought you were…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. “But you’re okay. Right? Right?” He paused for a moment and tried to reassemble the broken thoughts bouncing around madly in his head. “What happened? I thought I was gonna die. The woman with the scar. And the guy—the guy with the knife. They were gonna kill me. What happened? What happened to you? You were on the deck and I looked over and then you were gone and—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Allison’s eyes grew wide. “No one was trying to kill you.”

He stared at her for a moment in silence. “Are you joking?”

“Joking?”
she said. “About…?”

Felix’s equilibrium had completely deserted him. He got up from the bed and went over to the window that looked out onto the Freshman Yard. Two kids—Jonas and Salty—were down there throwing a football around. Jonas threw it. Salty dropped it. But how could he be standing in Allison’s room watching two fatassosaurs playing catch in the Freshman Yard? Wasn’t he at Martha’s? Wasn’t he fighting for his life? Wasn’t he about to die?

“They were trying to kill me,” Felix muttered faintly, turning away from the window. The memory sent tremors through his hands, making them shake. Then he shouted: “They were trying to kill me!”

“Who?” Allison asked.

“You don’t… you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Felix spoke in a rush: “We went to Martha’s house and she told us to go around to the back. The woman came at me with a piano wire. She was strangling me. And then this guy jumped me. He was going to… stab me. And then… and then… I don’t know what happened. Everything went… dark.”

“Wow!” Caitlin sat down on her bed. She’d slipped into a robe that matched her pajamas. “Sounds like you had a bad dream, big guy. Maybe it—hey!” Her head turned to the door. “Can’t you knock?”

“Dorm rules,” Lucas replied coolly as he sidled up next to Caitlin on her bed. “An open door means you don’t have to knock.”

“Get off my bed,” Caitlin snapped at him, scowling.

“Relax.” Lucas put his arm around her shoulder. “Dorm rule number twenty-three: beds double as sofas. Hey—at least I’m wearing clothes. Check out my roommate.” He nodded at Felix and laughed.

Caitlin grabbed Lucas’s arm and heaved it over her head. “Dorm rule number one: Don’t touch me.”

“What am I missing?” Harper asked as she breezed into the room. When she saw Felix (now pacing like an agitated lion) she stopped, stared open-mouthed, blinked and then took a seat next to Caitlin.

“It wasn’t a dream!” Felix shouted at Caitlin. “It wasn’t. I swear.”

 “Damn! They grow them big in Coos Bridge.” Harper’s eyes wandered over Felix’s body.

“I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Lucas said with laughter in his voice.

“That’s not what I meant!” Harper dropped her head and brought her hands to her lap as if a teacher had scolded her for talking in class. Then her cheeks flushed pink and she turned to Lucas and shouted: “Do you always have your head in the gutter?”

Lucas nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Nobody tried to kill you, Felix,” Allison said softly, getting up to take a closer look at him.

“The hell they didn’t!” Felix’s throat hitched and he struggled to keep his voice calm. “The wire thing nearly took my head off.” He touched his neck, running his fingers over the skin where the wire had dug in.

“What’s he talking about?” Harper whispered to Caitlin, who gave her a confused shrug in return.

Allison tilted up Felix’s chin and regarded his throat intently for a long time. “I don’t see anything. You’re fine. Caitlin’s right. It must’ve been a nightmare.”

“That’s impossible!”

“Have a look.” Allison pointed at the wall mirror next to her closet.

Felix stepped over to it and stared at a reflection of his mouth drifting open as he realized his neck was unmarked. There wasn’t a scratch on it—not even a hint of redness.
But that isn’t possible,
he thought hollowly. The woman had tried to strangle him—
twice
. The wire had cut into his neck. He’d felt it.
He could still feel it.
The cord tightening around his throat. His lungs screaming for air. The pain. The terrible pain.

“I don’t understand,” Felix said quietly. “I couldn’t have dreamed it. It was too… real.”

“So that’s what this is all about,” Harper said. “I’ve had some crazy dreams like that. Sometimes I’m so sure they’re real that even after I wake up it bothers me. I had a dream once where my old boyfriend cheated on me and I was mad at him for like a week. But then it turned out he really did cheat on me.”

“Are you sure that’s the point you want to make?” Lucas said to Harper, laughing.

“You’re a jerk,” she said sourly.

“This was different,” Felix muttered, half talking to himself, trying to work out the implications in his frazzled head. “But if… so… if it didn’t happen. If they didn’t try to kill me. Then what
did
happen? I don’t… I don’t remember anything. What—”

“I got them,” Allison said. “Thirty-nine dollars. As advertised.” She flapped a hand at the wall to his back.

“What?” Felix twisted his head around. There were skis—matte black with yellow tips and a big “R” set within a yellow circle—propped up in a corner. “But… how? How’d they get here?”

“You carried them,” Allison said simply, a crease appearing between her eyebrows.

“I what?”
He stared at the skis, feeling confused—and panicked.

“You don’t… remember?” Allison asked.

Felix shook his head. “I remember two people trying to kill me in the back yard. A man and a woman. That’s it.”

“Well, we did go to the back yard,” Allison said in a light voice as if she was afraid loud noises might send Felix over the edge. “But Martha was there with the skis. I gave her the money. And we left. She was nice. Said she was moving out today to be with her husband in Denver. Something about a job transfer.”

“So nobody… tried to…?”

Allison shook her head.

“Then what happened?” Felix asked, the panic swelling inside him. “After we got them?”

“You were hungry. You wanted pizza. We found a little place on Tenth. You ate a medium all by yourself. And they didn’t card us so you drank like three pitchers of beer.”

“Dude!” Lucas bellowed and laughed. “That totally explains it. You got wasted drunk and blacked out. And you had some weird hallucinations. That’s new. And weird. But maybe the beer was bad… or something. Right?”

A girl passing by stopped outside the door and shouted into the room, “Take it all off!” Then she whistled and moved on.

Felix looked down at himself. He was only wearing boxer briefs. But he didn’t care. He felt clouded and heavy, like he was moving in water; he was far too confused for anything to embarrass him.

“Felix!” Another voice from out in the hall. A booming voice. Felix glanced up to see Larry. He was looking down at his watch. “You’re gonna be late. Pre-game meal’s in ten minutes. See ya there?”

“Uh, yeah.” Felix dragged a hand through his hair. He didn’t understand what Larry—or anyone else—was talking about. Nobody was making any sense.

“Are you okay?” Harper got up from Caitlin’s bed and smiled at him. He noticed for the first time that she only had on a tiny pair of shorts and a tight T-shirt. But not even the vision of Harper’s perfect body could penetrate the confusion that had darkened his mind.

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “That’s never happened before. I mean, I’ve had nightmares. But not like that. It just seems too
real.
”

“But Allison got the skis,” Caitlin pointed out. “And you guys had dinner and everything. It was just a dream. What else could it be?”

Allison came over to him and rubbed his arm. “It’ll be okay. Now get the hell out of here and go play some football. If you don’t score a touchdown I’m gonna be pissed.”

Coach Bowman had gathered the team in the locker room. He was rasping about something, but Felix couldn’t focus on the pot-bellied, bull-necked man with the irreparably damaged vocal cords. He figured it was the pre-game speech, although the words didn’t mean anything to him. He was completely disconnected from everything around him. His mind was stuck at Martha’s house (
Play. Rewind. Play. Rewind. Play…).
But it wasn’t like recalling an ordinary memory. It felt like it was still happening to him: the wire cutting into his neck; the pressure of the woman’s legs coiling around him, her hot breath whispering across his face; the sense of complete helplessness as he watched the man mounting him; and the stark realization that he couldn’t protect himself, that he was weak, that they were going to kill him and that he was going to let them.

He couldn’t make it stop. (
Play. Rewind. Play. Rewind. Play…).
He wanted to scream.

But those things didn’t even happen. Nobody had tried to kill him. It was just a dream—a very, very vivid dream. And as weird as that was, he couldn’t remember what had
really
happened. He didn’t remember having pizza and drinking three pitchers of beer with Allison. He didn’t remember carrying her skis back to the dorm.
It didn’t make any sense.
He was going to go crazy if he couldn’t get a handle on what was real and what wasn’t. He tried to focus on the words coming out of the coach’s mouth, hoping it might yank him back to reality.

“…as a school,” Coach Bowman was saying, “we’ve struggled on the field. We’ve yet to capture the Rain Cup, and we haven’t had many seasons to be proud of. But you should know that playing for PC—and wearing the orange and green—is an honor. I know that you’ve been told before why we don’t play road games. But it’s worth repeating. It’s because we have Stubbins Stadium. Stubbins Stadium is
ours
. Walter Stubbins didn’t just build a stadium. Walter Stubbins built his vision.

“He wanted PC football to be special. And that’s why he built an exact replica of Chicago’s old Soldier Field right here on our campus. It may be smaller, but it looks just like the greatest stadium ever built. Stubbins Stadium is so special that every school in our league demanded they play here every year. It’s a special experience for everyone. And we’re damn lucky to have the privilege to play our games here. So when you go out and take that field today, remember you have a wonderful stadium. And give thanks to Walter Stubbins.”

Felix followed his teammates out onto the field, thinking that had to be the worst pre-game speech in the history of organized sports. As Brant trotted beside him, he whispered to Felix, laughing: “Do it for Walter Stubbins.”