Uncanny Day (17 page)

I whirled around and found Kate shaking her hips in sync with the beat.

“Huddy?” I managed to say.

I couldn't believe it. I had never seen this side of Kate, and watching it even then, I had no idea how to react. Keeping her eyes on me, she moved like liquid to Dean and handed him her cell phone.

“Hold this for me. I'm going to need both of my hands,” she said as Dean put it in his pocket. Then he gave me a shove toward Kate. I just about tripped over myself as she threw her head back in laughter. I'm not a tightrope walker, nor am I a dancer, so let's just be clear here when I say I have no skill when it comes to this.

I tried my best to wiggle my body and stay in motion with Kate and the others, but it was no use. Kate was having the time of her life watching me act as though I was a cross between Frankenstein's monster and a baby learning to walk for the first time. She kept inching farther and farther into the brigade of other bodies. What had gotten into her?

Looking back over my shoulder, I couldn't even see Dean anymore, but I didn't care. This night was finally starting to turn around! Fun, something I sorely needed after the week I'd had.

That was when Kate, instead of playing hard to get, was close enough to me now that I could smell her perfume and see those freckles across her nose. Reaching up, she wrapped both her arms around my neck and I took a deep swallow. She'd just become a vine, and I was her tree.

With her lips next to my ear, she whispered, “Okay, Trent is to your five o'clock.”

Ah, I understood now. Kate, like always, was after the story, but I wasn't going to complain. I liked her methods. I put my hands on her hips.

I waited a few more seconds and looked over my left shoulder. No Trent.

I faced Kate again, and she whispered into my ear, “Your other five o'clock, Top Gun.”

I gave her a sarcastic look and turned my head, this time over my right shoulder. Trent was talking with one of his cohorts, but I couldn't see who it was. They had their backs to me.

“Okay, what's the plan?” I asked, her arms still around my neck. To be honest, I didn't really want to leave that moment.

“Do your thing. Jump inside his noggin,” Kate suggested.

I shook my head. “We're too far away. I have to look into his eyes, remember?”

The goal now was to read Trent's mind without having some sort of confrontation with him before or after. Getting close enough to do so would take some stealth and expertise, and I'm sure you remember my dancing skills.

Chapter Thirty-nine

KATE AND I EDGED closer to the outer rim of the collective of moving bodies. Yeah, we got a few stares.

“Closer,” Kate ordered into my ear. “Act casual.” She kept prompting me.

“I am,” I argued back.

“No, you're not. You're like a clown sneaking up on a circus.”

“Be quiet.”

“No, you be quiet.”

I felt something press against my foot hard. “Ow!”

I backed off from Kate. She made a “Whoops!” face at me, looking concerned. She had intentionally stepped on my foot.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. My teeth gritted together, and now I noticed that Trent and his buddies had all turned our way.

She got me again.

He pushed a few of them aside and loosened his shoulders, sizing me up. I looked for Kate, but she had somehow mysteriously vanished.

Oh, great. Now where did she go?

Then I remembered the plan.

“Where'd your date run off to?” Trent taunted. “I saw her moves. I wouldn't mind a dance with her.”

I held firm as he stepped closer. “This is between you and me,” I said.

“So that's what you think?” Trent slowly blinked his eyes as if he had imagined what I'd just said. Then he turned his head to his buddies Dink and Doofus behind him, and laughed. It was now or never, and I had to make my move.

Firmly planting both of my hands on Trent's chest, I pushed strong and hard. I caught him off guard, and from the strength of my push and the off-balance weight of his body, he went down. Half turning mid-fall, Trent caught himself with his hands before he hit. My breathing was heavy, and a few other people had started to gather around us. I watched his two buddies move for me.

“No.” Trent was back to his feet, his wise-ass smile glinting from the sparkling disco ball overhead. “He wants to fight me? Then let's see what he's got without his
bro
around.”

What had I just done? I was way out of my league here. Then I did the one thing I knew I could do. I looked Trent square in the eye, matching his stare, and jumped into his mind.

***

I
'D READ A LOT of minds throughout the school, and even though I'd been inside before, I always hesitated returning to Trent's. His mind was one of those sleazy motel rooms where the sign is highlighted in neon out front and always has a vacancy. Yeah, I know what you're thinking—it's the kind where serial killers lure their prey. That was why, first and foremost, I was being cautious in there—whatever Trent was involved in or behind, it wasn't going to be good.

I'd forgotten how simple his room was. It had been a while since I'd been there, and from what I could remember, it was actually not as messy as last time. Although, the murky dim glow that bathed the room fed uneasiness into the pit of my stomach, as if something were just waiting for me. Had I been tricked into coming here? Not by Kate, but by Trent?

The first thing you'd noticed in the room was a TV, but this was no ordinary set. Hanging by rusty supports that were bolted to the wall, the old box TV flipped stations as if a ghost were channel surfing. The weird part was that there was no sound coming from it. The picture wasn't all that clear, but it was eerie to see game shows, news stories, and cartoons all flip by one after another silently, at a heartbeat pace. Trent's current wave of thoughts ran on the bottom of the screen, displayed in closed captioning. They too set off a troubling vibe.

SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH. SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH. SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH.

They just kept repeating in tiny white lettering boxed out in a black frame. Who was “she”? Stephanie? Laura? Had Trent been in on everything? Stephanie and Laura had both been hurt in the last few days. The question still remained: did he possess powers similar to mine?

Beneath the TV stood a dresser with four standard-looking drawers; most likely they hid something inside them. Like I said, I'd been in there before, and the contents were different each time. When I turned counterclockwise from the TV and dresser, I faced a gray, wide-angle picture window, but there was nothing on the other side. It let more light into the room, but not much. The glass was frosted over or had been covered in a thick film of some kind.

I left the window and kept turning around the room. An oversized painting hung above a neatly made bed; it was the one peaceful scene in the room. A white sailboat coasted on cool blue water with a golden sunset on the horizon. Next to the bed was a nightstand with a digital clock on top, but I doubted it was the correct time because it counted down, as if it were a bomb set to go off.

My body ran with a chill just as a certain odor stung my nostrils. I wondered if it was the stained, molding wallpaper that seemed to be tearing itself from the walls, revealing water damage underneath, but I figured that would smell better than this stench.

I didn't know Trent personally all that well, so I couldn't make a diagnosis of how his mind worked. I could base everything off the fact that he was a bully, cheat, and criminal, but then again, the motel room really gave me no indication of what was truly going on. I'd have to dig deeper.

Taking to the chest of drawers beneath the creepy TV, I pulled them open one at a time. Inside the first drawer were shattered beer bottles. I picked one up and looked at it. The letters
A-L-D
were on the side. The letters were part of a word, so I searched the rest of the drawer and found a green piece that had the letter
R
. Another brown piece that looked way too much like a brand of beer Dad used to buy had the letters
O-N
on it. I tried to formulate a word in my head using the letters so far.

“Ronald?” I said.

Then I found a clear piece of glass that just said
R-O-N
before the rest was cracked. Then there was an
L-D
piece, then one that was just
R-O
. Whoever Ronald was, he was considered a drawer of fragments to Trent.

I closed the drawer and opened another. The smelly funk was getting stronger, and it almost brought tears to my eyes. Whew, nasty stuff.

The next drawer had a stack of photos wrapped in twine. I picked them up. The first photo on top was of a couple I didn't recognize, but I had a sinking suspicion they were Trent's current foster parents. Loosening the knot and releasing the twine, I thumbed through a few more. The same couple was in the next three photos, and then I found a picture of a boy, a young boy, maybe six or seven years old. The boy looked way too much like Trent not to be him. And then a few more down, I found a picture of Rick and Tracy. The Mitchells looked the same as they always had. In the photo, they had happy expressions on their faces and looked excited. I turned it over to the backside, hoping to find more clues, but there was nothing.

I retied the twine around the stack and placed it back in the drawer. Moving on to the next drawer, I shielded my face the moment I opened it and reeled back, falling to my butt. I had figured out where the smell was coming from. Inside this drawer were what looked like small dead animals. They were rotted black and almost covered completely in tiny white maggots. I used my foot to kick that drawer closed. I never ventured into the fourth drawer; who knew what would be in there.

I stood and the TV caught my attention again. On it now was an episode of some sitcom from the '80s or something. Beneath the actors' faces, Trent's current string of thought ran across the screen in black-and-white block letters.

SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH. SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH. SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH.

I wasn't getting anywhere. Rubbing the back of my neck, I turned around and was now faced with the sailboat painting again. It looked nice, too nice.

Chapter Forty

I JUMPED UP ON the bed and it groaned at my weight upon it, but I didn't care. My fingers edged the sides of the painting and I lifted it from its spot on the wall. There had to be something behind it, but I found nothing more than torn wallpaper.

At my feet I noticed another photo. It was a black-and-white picture of Dean. It looked like it had been taken without Dean's knowledge with some kind of hidden camera.

I replaced the painting back on the wall and picked up the photo. The edges were black and crispy as though they had been burnt. Where had it come from? I tilted my head to the ceiling, somewhere I hadn't thought to look when I entered the room, but it was clean. I plopped myself down on the bed and rested my head against the headboard. The rotting smell was still as strong as ever, and too many things in this room were beyond my power to decipher. I just sat there, thinking I'd never come up with the truth about Trent's intent, when something fell on my head and landed on my chest.

Flipping it over, I found that it was another photo of Dean. This one looked like an action shot of him playing baseball, but where in the heck had it come from? Photos of Dean just falling out of thin air? I'd seen crazier things, I supposed. But then I again noticed the sailboat painting above my head and saw something sticking out from behind it. I rose to my feet and this time I took the painting off the wall and flipped it over to the backside, setting it on the bed facedown.

On the other side of the painting were more photos of Dean. One had the word “liar” written across his face. Another had the word “faker,” and two others had black X's crossing out Dean's eyes. A third photo looked like it was a mash-up of multiple photos of Dean put together to create some ugly-looking creature with Dean's features on it.

What did these all mean? Was this just what Trent thought of Dean in his own mind, or was there some weird twist to all of this?

The photos were pulling on me. Dean was my brother, and Trent didn't have an ounce of respect for him. My eyes welled up and I felt my hands grip the painting. I was ready to chuck it at the window like a giant Frisbee, but I didn't. I was being irrational and wasn't looking hard enough. If I wanted the truth, I had to keep searching, and what better place to look than in something every motel room has that speaks the truth? A Bible.

I'd never thought to look for it before. I turned to the bedside table and jerked open the drawer a little too hard. The whole thing pulled out, flinging an object across the room.

As I retrieved it from the opposite side of the room, the lamp on the nightstand blew out with a zap, pitching me further into darkness. I looked around the room and noticed the light shrinking from the window. I had to figure out what was going on, and fast. I was afraid I'd soon be in complete darkness, and who knew what would happen then?

Now with most of my light coming from the TV screen, I moved to it and turned to a random page in Trent's Bible. I held the pages up to the glow. But it was no Bible; it was a small leather-bound journal. The handwriting was barely identifiable in the closing light. What was I looking for? I didn't have time to read the entire thing. I flipped a few more pages, leafing back and forth through the volume. Finally, I took the spine of the book and shook it like a madman.