The Nightmarys (5 page)

not now, while she looked like she wanted to

kil him.

“You know what?” said Abigail. “Just forget

it. Do the project by your stupid self. I don’t

care.” She turned around to face The Edge of

Doom.

After a few seconds, Timothy tried again. “I

said it was real y cool. How is that making fun

of you?”

Abigail continued to stare at the painting, her

arms hugging her torso. Timothy took a deep

breath. This wasn’t what he’d expected to

happen.

“I’m sorry you thought I was making fun of

“I’m sorry you thought I was making fun of

you.”

Without turning around, Abigail said, “You’re

sorry for making fun of me or you’re sorry I

thought you were making fun of me?”

“I wasn’t making fun of you,” Timothy

answered as simply as he could. “I was just

being a … but -munch.”

Final y, Abigail turned around, amused. After

a few moments, she said, “A but -munch? No.

I’d say more of a … fart-slap.”

Timothy laughed. Fart-slap was funnier than

anything Stuart had ever come up with. Abigail

chuckled too, then stepped closer to the

painting. “What do we have to do? Make a

chart or a graph or something?”

“I have no clue.”

“I actual y wasn’t paying at ention in class at

al .”

“I noticed,” said Timothy. He could almost

hear the click of her lit le lighter in his

memory. “I mean, none of us were.”

memory. “I mean, none of us were.”

“Hey, Abigail!” a voice cal ed into the room,

resonating of the wal s.

What happened next, happened so quickly, it

took Timothy several seconds to even realize he

was soaking wet. Abigail screamed. Timothy

jumped and nearly slipped as his feet slid

across the now-slick marble oor. When he

spun around, he saw Abigail holding out her

arms helplessly in front of herself. Her T-shirt

was drenched. Her face was dripping with

water, and her long red hair was plastered to

her head.

“What the heck just happened?” Timothy

heard himself say.

Some of the class had gathered and were

staring and pointing. Laughter echoed

throughout the cavernous room. Other museum

guests had stopped to watch the commotion

too. Timothy felt his face turning red as he

noticed a smal blue dot on the oor next to his

foot. It looked like a thin piece of peeled paint,

or maybe rubber. He kicked at it, almost

or maybe rubber. He kicked at it, almost

unconsciously, and the answer came to him.

A water bal oon.

Someone had thrown a water bal oon at

Abigail.

Stuart.

Timothy wanted to scream. Carla, Stuart’s

partner, stood next to Mandy and Karen in the

doorway, but the culprit was gone.

“Are you okay?” he said to Abigail instead.

She only stood there, dangling her arms,

looking like a wet cat. She shook her head

slightly, but Timothy couldn’t tel if she was

just trying to dry of .

Through the crowd of his classmates,

Timothy watched a couple of security guards

push their way toward him. He glanced at The

Edge of Doom. Droplets of water clung to the

black clouds and the open chasm, as if the

painting itself had started to precipitate.

Oops.

Before the two large men in uniform could

Before the two large men in uniform could

make their way to him, Timothy felt Abigail

rush past him, through the door on the far side

of the room. “Wait,” Timothy cal ed, running

after her, trying not to slip on the wet oor.

Peeking over his shoulder, he noticed that one

security guard had stopped to examine the wet

painting. The other guard, however, was

coming after them.

7.

Through the doorway, Timothy went to the

large staircase spiraling into the lower levels of

the museum. Pausing brie y to peer over the

brass railing, he noticed a quickly moving

shadow descending, ut ering against the white

marble steps, already one ight down.

“Abigail!” he cal ed. Footsteps were coming up

close behind him. Timothy hurried toward the

top step.

He ran so fast that the stairs seemed to

disappear beneath his feet. He descended into

the bowels of the building, aware that he’d

nal y breached the ground level and was now

chasing Abigail into the basement. When he ran

out of stairs, a darkened hal way stretched

before him. The shadows at the far end of the

hal way seemed to shiver, or maybe that was

just Timothy, cold and winded and wet.

Timothy listened. He could stil hear

Timothy listened. He could stil hear

footsteps, but he wasn’t entirely certain

whether they were in front of him or above

him. He kept going. Halfway down the hal ,

Timothy noticed movement in a lighted

doorway. This room was long and thin with a

low ceiling. On the opposite wal was another

doorway. A red velvet rope hung across it. A

smal sign, perched in the center on a silver

pole, read: ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES—CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC.

Timothy entered the room. He wandered past

smal luminescent gold objects, Aztec creations,

which were crowded onto the shelves of several

display cases. A few smal idols with wide,

toothy smiles looked ready to laugh … or bite.

Halfway through the room, Timothy heard a

sni . Looking down, he could see Abigail’s foot

sticking out from behind one of the cases.

“Abigail, are you okay?” he asked.

Her foot disappeared behind the case. She

peered at him. Her face was blotchy with tears.

Her shirt was stil soaking wet, and her hair

was a tangled mess. “Hel ,” she said. “Just … go

was a tangled mess. “Hel ,” she said. “Just … go

away.”

Timothy bent down anyway. “Stuart got me

pret y good too,” he said. He pointed at his

darkened shirt.

“Wow,” said Abigail. She looked at Timothy

and seemed to real y see him. Her face

changed, and in her ery eyes, he noticed

recognition, as if she had suddenly stumbled

upon a mirror. “You’re total y drenched.”

“Freakin’ Stuart Chen.” Timothy chuckled.

“He’s the freakin’ fart-slap. Bet er watch himself

at swim practice tonight. His towel might just

end up in the pool.”

They stared at each other for several seconds,

surrounded by the grinning golden idols, before

Timothy felt laughter creeping up from the

bot om of his stomach. Before he knew it, they

were both giggling. It felt good to laugh. The

laughter grew the more he tried to contain it.

He tried to be quiet. But soon, it was

impossible to stop. Abigail appeared to have

the same problem. Her shoulders hitched and

the same problem. Her shoulders hitched and

quaked, but a few seconds later, as their

laughter began to die down, she covered her

face in her hands. Now she was crying.

Timothy didn’t know what to do. When he’d

come after her, he hadn’t thought about what

might happen next. He reached out and

touched her shoulder. “Abigail, don’t worry

about it,” he said. “It’s not worth it. People are

just … stupid and mean.”

Through her hands, she said, “It’s your fault.”

It took a few seconds for him to register her

statement. “My fault?”

Her voice was mu ed through her ngers,

but he could hear her say, “If you hadn’t picked

me for a partner, this wouldn’t have happened.

No one would have noticed me, and everything

would have been fine.”

“What do you mean, no one would have

noticed you?”

Final y, she took her hands away from her

face. Her eyes were red rimmed and swol en.

“You don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Wel then, tel me.”

“When no one notices you, stu like this

doesn’t happen.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Timothy could

see something moving. It stood beyond the dark

door on his left, behind the red velvet rope in

front of the administrative o ces. When

Timothy looked at it straight on, it quickly

moved backward into the soupy black shadows.

Whatever was there had been watching them

for some time. Timothy thought he could hear

it whispering something to itself.

“Just … go back to the rest of the class,” said

Abigail. If she noticed the shape in the hal way,

she didn’t want Timothy to know. “I’l come

nd you later. I want to be by myself right

now.” She turned away from him, hiding her

face again.

Before he could respond, the room seemed to

grow darker. At the same time, the light

re ecting o the gold pieces in the cases

appeared to grow brighter. Timothy stared into

appeared to grow brighter. Timothy stared into

the face of a smal , ghastly gold skul sit ing on

the shelf to the left of Abigail’s shoulder.

“I’l be ne,” he heard Abigail say, as if from

far away.

He could not answer her. The rest of the

room faded. Soon, only the glowing gold pieces

were left. The skul stared at him, its eyes

widening like dark whirlpools. When he

looked away, to his horror, every other artifact

on the shelves was facing him too. The mouths

of the idols slowly opened and closed, as if

chanting silent prayers.

Timothy covered his mouth and closed his

eyes.

Last night’s dream rushed back at him—Ben

gasping for breath inside the jar. Timothy let

out a whimper and opened his eyes again. The

idols continued to stare at him. He was

tempted to run, but he couldn’t leave Abigail

here alone. Instinctively, he grasped her

shoulder and spun her around to demand that

they go, when he realized that half-hidden

they go, when he realized that half-hidden

underneath Abigail’s tangled mess of red hair

was a horrible skul -like grimace, grinning like

the golden idols in the glass cases.

The Abigail-thing simply reached up, touched

his cheek with bony ngertips, and forced him

to look into the darkness near the

administrative o ces hal way. “Get out of

here,” she whispered. But Timothy couldn’t

move.

Lit dimly by the golden idols’ unnatural glow

was a tal man. He appeared to be cloaked in a

long coat, a brimmed hat perched on his head,

shiny black wingtip shoes on his feet. Timothy

could not make out any other features, but the

sight of these simple few shrank his skin to his

bones. The man appeared to be staring at him.

However, as Timothy stared back, unable now

to turn away or even contemplate what might

be happening, he slowly understood that the

shadow man was not in fact staring at him, but

at something beyond him, behind him, in the

doorway on the opposite side of this strange

doorway on the opposite side of this strange

room.

“Abigail?”

The voice seemed to throw the horror world

of this room into tumult, and before Timothy

could even blink, the shadows had

disappeared, the gold idols had become lifeless,

and Abigail had become herself again.

She turned toward the voice, which had come

from the entry opposite the velvet rope, and

this time it was her turn to wear an expression

of shock. There stood an old woman.

Her voice wavering, Abigail replied,

“Gramma? What are you doing here?”

8.

The old woman was tal . She wore a knee-

length navy pea-coat, a oral blouse, and

polyester pants. Tufts of dark gray hair curled

out from underneath a oppy houndstooth hat,

the brim of which fel in waves around the

edge of her face like the petals of a ower. She

had a long, regal nose and large, wide-set

brown eyes. She seemed truly surprised, almost

shocked, to nd Timothy and Abigail in the

basement of the museum.

“What am I doing here?” said the woman

addressed as “Gramma.” “My dear, I feel I

should ask you the same thing. Aren’t you

supposed to be in school?” She sounded more

confused than concerned, as if she were

worried that she might be seeing things.