Forever Freaky (8 page)

I hugged myself to try to stay warm, but it
did no good. And my feet felt like two pieces of ice. So I slid off
the counter and paced the floor again, hoping that would help keep
me warm.

Jack watched me walk back and forth, sitting
placidly on the floor with his legs crossed before him. He didn’t
seem the least bit bothered by the chill.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked.

“I have warm blood,” he said.

“Lucky you.”

I checked the stalls again. Everything was
the same, except that a thin layer of ice had formed on the water
in the toilet in the second stall. The wall in there felt somewhat
colder than the walls in the other two stalls.

“I think she vanished from the middle stall,”
I said, and told him about the ice. “Do you know if anybody
complained about it being cold in here?”

“No,” he said. “I heard some of the girls
said that it seemed too warm, but, you know, that was during the
day.”

I supposed that made sense, in a way. “What
time is it?”

“Eleven-fifty,” he said, after glancing at
his watch.

If he was right about the whole midnight
thing, something should happen soon.

I sat on the floor across from him. We stared
at each other for a moment. He really wasn’t such a bad guy. If I
weren’t such a freak, I might even consider dating him. I realized
that every time I’d got mad at him, it was because of my issues,
not his. He had only been trying to treat me as a normal human
being. His mistake had simply been in not understanding how truly
abnormal I was. As I thought about all this, I started to
experience an unpleasant irritating feeling that I was pretty sure
was guilt. It was not a feeling with which I was familiar, because,
frankly, I was not a caring person. You have to care first to end
up feeling guilty later.

“I have to be honest with you,” I said.

“You’re really madly in love with me, too,
but afraid to admit it?”

“Uh—no, not even close. What I didn’t tell
you—and should have—was that earlier today I passed by and tried to
get a read on the room, and, well, I heard something growling in
here.”

“Growling?”

“Yeah, like some kind of—I don’t know—wild
animal.”

He blinked his eyes, and then stared at the
floor thinking for a moment, before looking back up at me.

“And you’re telling me this now?”

“To be fair to you, so you can leave before
it’s too late, just in case--” I shrugged—“Mary Jo actually got
eaten by something.”

He frowned. “You’re making this up, right?”
he asked.

I shook my head.

“Growling, really?” he asked.

“Feral growling,” I said.

“And so,” he said, still trying to figure
things out, “you’re telling me this and expecting me to run
away.”

“I’m not expecting anything. I’m just telling
you, to be fair. So if you want to stay, stay. If you want to go,
go. It doesn’t matter to me either way.”

“It doesn’t matter if I leave you here
alone?”

“No, why would it? I mean, I’m stuck with
this weird stuff. I don’t really have a choice. You do.”

“I couldn’t leave you here,” he said. “What
if you need my help?”

I laughed. “That’s doubtful.”

“Well, I’m staying,” he said stubbornly.

“Then stay.”

He glowered at me, as though I’d just played
some practical joke on him.

A few minutes later I noticed that something
was happening in the middle stall. The wall behind the toilet
looked strange, shimmering as though invisible heat waves were
coming off it.

Jack noticed it at the same time I did.

“It looks like a mirage,” he said.

“Yeah, doesn’t it?”

We both rose to our feet and stepped toward
the stall to examine the phenomenon more closely.

An invisible layer of something that looked
like clear gelatin was swirling and shimmering and slowly growing
thicker, edging forward, enveloping the entire toilet and filling
half the stall. The patterns of motion within the clear substance
were mesmerizing. The shimmers, which had been yellowish, now
became many colors—red, blue, pink, and purple, and a hundred other
colors, some of which I had never imagined. The colors swirled
around a small depression that was forming, growing wider and
deeper. Then, little by little, as the depression grew, the colors
faded to black and so did the clear substance that quickly started
to resemble molten tar. Suddenly the depression flexed and
transformed into a huge gaping mouth that twisted and emitted a
loud wail.

Jack and I jumped back at the same time.

“You seeing what I’m seeing?” I asked, not
looking at Jack, not tearing my eyes away from what was in the
stall.

“A huge ugly mouth?” I heard him ask.

“Oh, good. It’s not just me, then.”

I looked over at Jack. His eyes seemed twice
their normal size, and his skin was about as pale as mine.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Uh, I don’t know. Honestly, I’m fighting off
the urge to run.”

“Big help,” I snorted. I studied the large
dark maw. There were no visible teeth, which, I supposed, was a
positive sign. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to come out of the
stall.”

“Not yet,” he said.

“So any ideas, because I have nothing
here.”

Jack shrugged weakly. “It looks like a mouth,
but really it’s just a portal connecting one place to another. Why
don’t you try call to Mary Jo? Maybe she’ll hear you?”

So I tried that, stepping up as close as I
dared, calling out Mary Jo’s name several times.

Nothing happened at first. Then the mouth
became animated, looking as though it might be chewing an enormous
wad of gum, and then, like somebody about to make a bubble,
puckered up and blew an icy breath.

An object shot out of the mouth and clattered
to the floor between Jack and me. We jumped to the side, not
recognizing the object at first. When we did realize what it was,
we gave each other a look that cried, What’s with that?

On the floor at our feet, a tiny wind-up
plastic duck waddled about aimlessly.

“I don’t get it,” Jack said dully.

I stooped down to pick up the duck. Its
little legs were still pumping up and down, slowly losing strength
until they stopped.

“A little kid’s toy,” I murmured.

“Probably fell through another aperture, some
other place, some other time.”

I squinted at him. “You mean this kind of
thing might happen at the time?”

“Who knows?”

“Well, it would sure explain why I keep
losing hair brushes.”

Jack seemed emboldened at the harmlessness of
the toy.

“Maybe I should try a spell,” I said.

“Really, I don’t think that’s a good
idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because we don’t know what we’re dealing
with here. I don’t think trial-and-error is the way to go with this
thing.”

“Then what? Years of research?” he said.
“This thing—whatever it is—isn’t going to be here forever. One day
it’s going to stop appearing, and then there goes Mary Jo—forever.
Look at that toy—you do know they were big in the 1970s.”

I sighed. “All right—try a spell.”

He retrieved the notebook from his gym bag.
He flipped through the pages until he settled on something. Before
he started to read, I came up from behind him and pushed him into
position directly in front of the stall.

“There, perfect,” I said. “Now when you read
whatever it is you’re going to read, don’t even look over at me. I
don’t want there to be the chance of an accident. I have enough
problems already, and I really don’t need green skin and
warts.”

Jack recited something that sounded like a
combination of Latin and gibberish. When he was finished, I leaned
in to get a good look into the stall. The large mouth hovered there
completely unchanged.

“Maybe try it again,” I suggested. “This time
try to sound a bit more in charge.”

I gave him a good luck slap on the shoulder,
and stepped aside.

Jack started to repeat the spell. He lowered
his voice, and did managed to sound commanding.

I noticed that pink light was flaring around
the mouth. The flares looked tiny bursts of aural light, and as
Jack read, the color slowly changed from pink to a deep bloody
red.

“Uh… Jack,” I said. “I think you should
stop.”

But he was on a roll. He waved me off with
his free hand.

“Seriously, I don’t think it likes whatever
you’re saying.”

But he wasn’t listening.

The mouth began to twist and contort wildly,
and then seemed to suck inward.

“Jack, stop! I’m not kidding. Something’s
wrong.”

Just then the mouth expelled a large greenish
glob of matter that struck Jack in the chest. It looked exactly as
though he’d been hit by a huge slimy booger. Green goo covered the
front of his shirt and dangled off his chin. He held his arms out
to the side, like a scarecrow, and uttered a yelp of disgust.

“Why don’t you ever listen to me?” I asked,
but he didn’t hear me. He raced over to the paper towel dispenser
on the wall, and started cleaning off the gross gunk. All I could
do was shake my head.

I went up to the stall and faced the mouth.
It seemed calm again. By now I was sure that this was much more
than just a portal to another place. It had to be a living thing;
only living things give off an aura or aural lights. I wasn’t sure,
though, whether it was dangerous. I didn’t think so. I figured if
it was truly dangerous, it would have done more than just hock a
loogie at Jack.

I tried to read it, but I got nothing. I
stepped into the stall, and didn’t feel at all unsafe. So I reached
out to touch it.

It felt soft, doughy, and not quite as cold
as the air around it. It didn’t seem agitated by my touch, and so I
let my hand linger there. I allowed my mind to drift, to reach out
and make contact with whatever was in there or behind there or
through there.

“What are you doing?” Jack screeched behind
me.

I shushed him. I let my mind drift further
than I had ever before allowed it to drift. I had always been
afraid that it if I let go too much, I might never be able to reel
my senses in and get them back under control. But now it seemed
necessary to reach out far with my senses. This wasn’t like reading
a human being, who occupies a small space in the here and now. This
thing was spread out over a vast distance, over space and time and
dimension. Little by little, I felt I was contacting it,
encompassing the enormity of it, with my freak senses. When I
realized what it was, I couldn’t help grinning. It was so
delightful and pure and logical.

I withdrew my hand, and turned round to face
Jack.

“I understand now,” I said.

“What?”

“It’s a little kid.”

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than
the room seemed to swirl around.

The next thing I knew I was laying on the
cold floor. Jack was kneeling over me, holding a bloody wad of
paper towel.

“You okay?” he asked anxiously.

My head was clear now, but I felt completely
drained. I pushed myself up into sitting position, and it felt as
though I weighed a thousand pounds.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You fainted.”

“Did not. Only wimps faint.”

Jack looked at me gravely.

“I think I should take you to the emergency
room,” he said.

“No, no emergency rooms,” I said. “Are you
kidding? Too much for me to see in emergency rooms—people who got
decapitated in car accidents ten years ago, and such.”

“You had a bad nose bleed,” he said.

“It’s all right. It happens sometimes,” I
told him.

“You looked like you were dead.”

“You still think what I have is a gift?” I
asked. “Hey, help me up, huh? I’ll feel better once I’m on my
feet.”

“You’re sure about that?” he asked, but put
his arm round my back and helped me to stand.

I leaned against the metal frame of the door.
My legs were rubbery, and I was short of breath.

I noticed that Jack was looking at me with
great concern, and I told him to shut up before he had the chance
to say something stupid.

“It’s like a child, a bored little child,” I
said. “All it’s doing is playing—well, that’s what it thinks it’s
doing.”

“Did you sense Mary Jo?” he asked.

“No, nothing. But I’m sure she’s
there…somewhere. It has her. It tried to play with her, the way
it’s playing with us now. It really doesn’t mean any harm.”

“Yeah, right,” he snorted.

“It wants us to take her back,” I said. “The
best I can tell, it’s playing Keep Away.”

“Keep Away?” he asked, his voice rising an
octave or so. “You got to be kidding.”

I was starting to feel a little better. I
walked across the room to the sinks, and checked myself out in the
mirror. I looked worse than usual. There was some drying blood
under my nose. “Hey, hand me a couple of those towels,” I said.

I wet the towels with cool water and wiped my
face.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“Sure, but make it fast. I don’t think we
have much time.”

“Do you really like me?”

“You read my mind. You know.”

“Just double-checking.”

“Why?”

I glanced at him and grinned. He looked
puzzled, but figured it out pretty fast.

“No!” he yelled.

Before he could stop me, I spun round, raced
toward open stall, and made a flying leap into the huge gaping
mouth that seemed content to swallow me.

*************

I was lost in inky darkness, and there was a
loud humming in my ears. I was falling, and the feeling of falling
was curious; it felt as though I was falling very fast, and yet,
because of the absolute darkness around me, it appeared that I was
hovering in space and not moving at all.