Uncertainty (3 page)

The zombie presidents glared at me, awaiting my compliance. I couldn't tell if their green skin was due to the oil paint aging or the original intent of the patriotic artist.

"I'll tell you what," McPherson said. "Read over the form. If there's anything that makes you question it, or causes you to be the least bit comfortable, then don't sign. But I assure you, it's simply a waiver. A disclaimer."

This new calm, cooperative McPherson was freaking me out. Had my parents won the lottery and not told me?

I sighed and looked over the form, curious as to what was so important as to prompt this little visit. The brief paragraphs merely stated the bare facts, or at least the school's official version of the bare facts.

It had been gym class, we were playing tennis. Lainey "accidentally" hit the ball into my nose, causing me to fall down and knocking me out. They hadn't seen the cold-blooded look she'd given me right before whipping her racket back. If they had, they never would have used the word accidental.

The school also hadn't taken into consideration the fact that I was dating the boy Lainey had wanted to get her claws into from day one. Or the fact that she had eventually gotten him. But that made sense; the administration viewed our little student dramas as pithy and unimportant, no matter how huge they were in our own lives.

McPherson stood up, retrieving a handful of brown paper towels and a bottle of glass cleaner. He twisted the blinds on the lone window, revealing a pile of dead flies on the sill. His obsession with cleanliness reminded me of Claire.

I picked up the pen and scrawled my signature, still a work in progress. The form didn't contain anything Hugh and Claire didn't know about. The matter had long since been dropped in our house, why not drop it all the way? I reasoned.

At least my nose had healed up. I had checked it every day in the mirror for months, until I could no longer notice the bump that the tennis ball had raised.

Plus, I just wanted out of McPherson's lair. Being this close to him always spooked me. He still had his back to me, busy cleaning off the offending flies.

"You don't like me much." The words just slipped out. I didn't know why I even said it, but it seemed so obvious.

"What gave you that impression?" McPherson asked flatly, not turning around. He picked up a trash can and tossed the paper towels in.

"You did. You always give me that impression," I said, unable to zip up my trap.

The leather chair creaked as McPherson settled himself back in it. He snatched at his jacket as it began sliding off of the back.

"Did you sign?"

I handed him the paper in answer. He gave it only a cursory glance, then slid it into a file folder.

I'd begun to feel strangely anxious. Not just the general nerves I'd noticed when I woke up, but like something horrible was happening, when nothing much was happening at all. My vision started to blur, as though I'd been staring into the sun. The feelings had been creeping up on me as I'd been sitting there.

I really wanted out of the cramped, sterile room. My right leg bounced up and down, and I felt unable to control the urge to keep doing it. In my head, I could see the zombie presidents coming alive, reaching their bony hands out to grip the picture frames, diseased flesh peeling off in clumps...

"Ariel, there are many types of people in this world," McPherson said in an unusually soft voice.

Shut up and let me go, my brain shot back. But my curiosity won out again, and I kept mum.

He glanced upwards towards the ceiling, swiveling back and forth in his chair. "Not all of those people will get along, or find one another favorable. But the world keeps turning, regardless of what we want."

"Yeah," I said. Weirdo.

"Everyone has to know their place in the scheme of things. And accept it for what it is," he continued, lost in his own speech. "The mouse is just as important as the cat. The insect is just as important as the person who destroys it."

I blinked, staring blankly at him. After a minute, I asked, "Is that all you needed?"

He nodded towards the ceiling. That's how I left him.

The uncomfortable feeling didn't go away for the rest of the day. It ebbed and flowed in strength, but it was always there.

As soon as I got home, I was on the internet, looking up benzo withdrawal. Apparently, my symptoms were extremely common. That didn't comfort me very much, especially since the website claimed they could last for months.

I was careful to delete the history. I didn't need Claire seeing that particular research.

At dinner, my parents and I were eating in silence. I picked at my food, mostly drinking water as I couldn't seem to get enough. I contemplated bringing up the form, but I didn't want to have to deal with them if they got pissed off. They still thought I was five years old, in need of twenty-four hour protection from myself and the bad, bad world.

"Pass the salt," Hugh asked my mother.

"You already put salt on your plate," Claire said, but she passed the shaker anyway.

I caught Hugh giving Claire the evil eye when she wasn't looking. It wasn't good to stand between the man and sodium.

Cottonmouth ruined any appetite I may have had. Hugh and Claire were discussing work, as usual. They both seemed tense, although whether it was from job stress, or if I was just seeing them through the filter of my own feelings, I couldn't tell.

"How is Theo doing with her painting?" Hugh asked me, splitting apart a roll. "I'm excited to see it. She's like my own personal ball of clay. I've never had a kid think I was such hot stuff."

"Referring to yourself as hot stuff isn't helping," I said. It hurt my mouth to talk. My jaw was locked up tightly. "She's getting frustrated. But she's Theo; she'll do a great job. She'd make fruit look amazing."

"I wouldn't have brought up the idea if I didn't think that," Hugh said. "Theo's going to go places and leave us all in the dust."

"She was actually talking about maybe heading out to the mall this weekend," I said, although all I wanted to do at this point was curl up in my bed and never come out. It was something Theo had brought up that day in class, on my suggestion about stepping away from the easel.

"You're not going to go this weekend, are you?" Claire asked, looking up.

"I...It was just an idea, I don't know yet." I stammered. "What's bad about this weekend?" Since Jenna's disappearance became her death, they had gone from being overprotective to downright prison wardens.

"I just mean, the mall's forty five minutes away. And it's in the bad part of town."

"It's in the business part of town," I countered, but arguing with my mother was just making me feel worse. "I figured she could use a break. She's getting painter's block or something."

"It's a nice idea," Hugh said, and left it at that. "I've been having an awful lot of trouble finishing my own concepts, lately. Maybe it's something in the air."

"Sure, maybe you need a vacation from scribbling," Claire said sarcastically. Hugh grinned at her, but I got the strong impression, as usual, that Claire didn't take Hugh's business as seriously as hers.

After I pushed around my hamburger for a few more minutes, I stood up.

"Can I be excused? I'm pretty tired, and tomorrow's my last day." I was trying to sound casual, but the plate was shaking a little as I held it.

"Are you feeling sick? You look a little green." Claire said.

I shook my head, although I knew she was right. I felt green. "Not sick. Just sleepy. I thought I'd get to bed early."

Neither of them noticed I'd barely touched my food. They went back to talking about an unprepared intern at Claire's insurance company, and how many days they had put up with her before letting her go.

I couldn't be around people right now, especially not my parents. I ran down the stairs and into my room, diving on top of the green and blue comforter. But I found I couldn't rest, either. When I closed my eyes, I felt bugs crawling around my skin.

Bad thoughts began popping into my head unbidden. I tried deep breathing, but it didn't help, and if anything made me woozier, enhancing the lightheaded feeling.

Maybe this withdrawal would lead to me getting really sick. Maybe I would have to be taken to the emergency room, have needles and tubes stabbed and looped through my body like a bad science experiment.

Maybe Henry had been dating Lainey the entire time, and they met up every day to laugh at all my foolish attempts at flirting. Maybe every word he'd said and every kiss we'd shared was an utter lie.

And Jenna...how much suffering had she endured before she died? The newspapers reported she had cuts on her body, even though her official cause of death was drowning. So did the little girls, and Alyssa and Susan's throats had been cut. Every single report mentioned torture.

I jumped off the bed and began pacing my room. My heart beat strange and unfamiliar like bird wings. I had to stop stressing so much about things I had no control of, and no way of knowing the answer to.

For no real reason at all, I looked at the wall above my desk, where the lamp cast a fractured halo. Months and months ago, I'd heard a knocking sound there, one I'd never identified the source to. I knew it had something to do with the ghosts I was seeing. I hadn't heard it since Jenna was found.

I stood and pressed my ear against the wall, hearing nothing but my own frantic pulse. Shutting my eyes, I tried to focus. To make out any kind of sound that wasn't the dishwasher running or voices upstairs.

But no sound came. And the more I wished for a sign, the more the silence filled my ears.

Hours passed as I ticked off the seconds. I finally began slipping in and out of consciousness, after laying on my side with a pencil between my teeth for a while. I thought it might help on the off chance I had a seizure. I remembered seeing in on some medical drama.

It wasn't a restful sleep. Every few minutes, my body would force me awake. Either because I randomly stopped breathing, or when blood would rush to my temples, making me feel like I was swimming in it.

A distorted dream floated into my head. Angry, turgid colors twirled and blinked like the lights of a carnival. Scarlet to orange, to blinding neon yellow, back to orange, then to the ruby red again.

My feet were moving. Solid ground held me up, though the scenery continued to shift. The world began to come into focus, more solid and recognizable as edges and corners appeared.

The warped rainbow melted away into flat, greenish-gray walls. I was in Hawthorne High School's basement, altered slightly in its dream state. It stank of chlorine, and I waited for the urge to hurl. It didn't effect me while sleeping, apparently.

A wall sprang up before me, the barren cement undulating as though it had just been poured. I turned, and yelped. I was face to face with Warwick.

He tilted to and fro before me, his eyes too pronounced, like a anime character. The pupils were stricken with a maddening look, the same one I'd seen right before he'd pointed the barrel of his gun at me. It struck me as grim and ironic how familiar his face was. Like a member of my own family.

I parted my lips to speak. His hand tangled in my hair, grabbing the long strands in a death grip, and wrenching me backwards. I thought people weren't supposed to feel pain in dreams. But I felt every pinch and twist. The world tilted sideways, making me dizzy.

I could make out the blurry boxes of pool equipment, the containers of chemicals with skulls and crossbones on the labels.

"There are no friends, when the Master comes to earth," Warwick said, his voice echoing through my ears like they were full of water.

The gun glinted in his free hand. Hello, old friend. I've been expecting you. I knew this scene. I'd lived it. I'd even relived it before in dreams. Was I still dreaming?

Then, breaking from the sequential events in my memory, Warwick dropped the gun. It clattered and spun on the floor like a wound-up top.

His mad slate eyes bore into mine. "Hell is closer than you think, Ariel," he said.

CHAPTER 3

ABOVE ME, STARS
glowed. Theo had stuck the plastic ones to my ceiling months ago. I blinked, then raised my torso. I stood on weak jelly legs, before my brain had even gotten a chance to catch up.

I still felt out of it, I realized, as I wiggled my limbs. The bugs continued creeping across my skin, building nests in my pores. But the dream had somehow cleared my mind. I didn't feel as close to death's door as I had at dinner.

The dark made the dream seem too close, too recent. I leaned over and flipped on the desk lamp. I had to pinch both cheeks several times, just to reassure myself this was reality, and the nightmare I'd left behind was truly in my distant past.

The final phrase reverberated in my thoughts, in my own voice. Hell is closer than you think.

Warwick had said it to me last year, just like in the dream. In the basement, before he tried, and failed, to do away with me, before Henry jumped in to get his attention.

That was someone I needed to block completely out. It was yet another contradiction, that Henry would risk his life for me and then cast me aside for to be Lainey's lapdog.