Paranormal Realities Box Set (10 page)

She leaned into the hall from inside the
kitchen.

“Oh, Kizzy.” She stepped fully into the
hall. “Off to school?”

Facing the open front door, I grunted.

“Do you want me to drive you?” Her tone
was sunny.

“I’ll walk,” I mumbled.

“Okay. Be careful, honey.”

Too late for that
, I thought and stepped over the
threshold.

During the night I’d decided I wasn’t to
blame for Franky and Juliette. I’d told them not to go to the hospital. I’d
warned Juliette not to go into the morgue hadn’t I? Still I couldn’t face Mom.
Maybe I wasn’t so convinced of my lack of blame after all.

“Oh and Kizzy?”

I stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“Have you seen Juliette?” Mom asked.

“Not today.” Truthful answer.

“Where is she?”

Should I be truthful or lie?

“I don’t know.” A little of both.

“She said she was going to her friend
Brenda’s house to study last night. I suppose she spent the night.”

I said nothing.

“When you see her at school, have her
call me.”

“Sure.” I closed the door softly behind
me.

As I trudged down the sidewalk, my phone
pinged. Glancing at its face, I saw Petra had texted me:
Senji Nsane re: lst nyt ?^?

She wasn’t the only one with questions
about what had happened last night.

L8r
, I texted back, not knowing how to explain now or ever. If
I weren’t a coward, I wouldn’t go to school. I’d leave town and never come
back.

Rom waited for me at the end of the
block. Great. Another person I didn’t feel ready to face. I would have passed
him without speaking but he moved to block my way. Determinedly, I examined the
buttons of his shirt.

“Kizzy.” His long fingers traced my jaw
line ending at my chin and exerting slight pressure to force my gaze up to his.
“Discourse together is needed.”

“Not now,” I shook my head. “I can’t
right now.”

His eyes searched my face before leaning
forward. I knew he intended to kiss me. Although I longed for his lips on mine,
that pleasure would have been a betrayal. I didn’t deserve pleasure or
happiness or affection when Juliette and Franky were lost. Turning my head
away, I avoided his lips and he pulled back.

“I can’t do that either now,” I said. “I
have to think.”

“Accord. But I beg you do nothing
concerning the vortex without prior discourse with me. Vow it.”

Having no desire to have anything to do
with the tunnel or the vortex again, a promise was easy.

“All right.” I nodded and he released the
gentle hold on my chin.

“May I at least convey you to school?” He
pointed to his car at the curb.

Walking to the passenger door was my only
answer.

* * * * *

I didn’t have science that day but I
stopped into the classroom anyway to see if Mr. Hutson could talk to me. As I
hovered on the threshold, he was gathering papers and stuffing them into a file
folder. He glanced up and spotted me.

“Kizzy.” He waved me in. “How can I help
you?”

“I wondered if you could tell me…” How
could I put this? Any way I framed the questions I had was bound to sound
absolutely mental. “If somebody disappears and leaves this world where do they
go?” I finally asked.

“Are you asking where we go when we die?”
Mr. Hutson’s brows furrowed. “Your pastor could probably answer that better
than I.” His face fell into a sympathetically wan smile. “I know you had a loss
recently.”

“No.” I took a big step forward. “I don’t
mean death. I mean...” I couldn’t help staring down. I couldn’t meet his eyes
and continue. “Well. Let’s say the floor underneath you somehow opened up into
this big whirlpool and swallowed you down and you disappeared. Where would you
have gone?”

“I’m not sure.” He sat there thinking as
if attempting to formulate an answer that wouldn’t totally crush the teen by
telling her he thought she was one of the stupidest human beings he’d ever come
across. I, nevertheless, waited for his answer.

“Some physicists have theories about
multiple dimensions or universes," my teacher continued. "Depending
on who created the theory, they are called by many different terms. Parallel
dimensions, multiverses, etc. There are dozens of different names, each with a
different hypothesis on how these multiple dimensions exist and why and what
sorts of physical laws relate to their operation.”

 
“I see.” Not really. “So what you’re saying is that if you
were swallowed up into the floor you might have actually traveled to another
dimension or universe.”

"Yes." He nodded.

“What if...What if something came out of
the floor in your place.”

“Wow,” Mr. Hutson said. “You really are
in science fiction territory.” He placed a hand to his temple. “The only
scientific explanation I can think of is the quantum mechanics theory of
entanglements. The theory was developed from a phenomenon observed by
scientists wherein a particle may be tweaked and another moves miles away.
They’ve seen this movement and without any discernable connection between the
two. Scientists have theorized the connection between the particles is in some
other dimension.”

“So what you’re saying is if someone were
sucked through the floor and replaced with someone—or
something—else, then the two may have been
entangled
together?”

What if Juliette and Franky were
entangled
with those monsters? What would that mean?

“There’s a book about string theory that
might interest you called The Elegant Universe. I'll lend it to you if you
like." Mr. Hutson laughed again. “Of course, there’s a totally different
explanation. Some ministers they might say if such a whirlpool had opened under
me I was probably sucked into hell.” He stood up and placed another file folder
in his briefcase. “Good thing the floor can’t open up and swallow me down.”

“Yeah. Good thing.”

Wandering the halls while my mind raced,
I almost missed my locker. As I rummaged inside it, Petra bound up and skidded
to a halt.

“Senji told me some batshit crazy stuff
about last night,” she said in a disgusted tone. “Oh there he is now.”

Glancing over my shoulder I saw Senji
barreling down on us.

“WTF?” Senji pushed his glasses up and
fidgeted with agitation. But he seemed excited too. Happy in a way. The science
geek probably enjoyed this. “Wasn’t last night unbelievable?”

I said nothing. I couldn’t.

“Juliette and Franky. And those things?
What were those?” His excited tone made me want to punch him in this Asian
nose.

“I’m not buying, Senji. It’s crazy,”
Petra said.

“Man. It was so totally crazy but so
completely true.” He pushed his glasses up again.

Petra turned to me. “He’s just trying to
punish me for convincing Chase to go on our date rather than the spelunk,
right?”

“No.” I found my government class text
but needed my notebook. “He’s not lying.”

“How would you know anyway?” Petra
playfully hit my arm with her calculus text. “You weren’t even there. You were
out with Rom.”

“Rom and I had a fight so I went to the
spelunk.” The notebook had slipped to the back and I pulled it free. “I wish I
hadn’t.” I closed the locker. In the process I fumbled and my armload fell to
the floor. The notebook landed open.

“Come on, Kizzy. Enough is enough. This
is taking a joke too far.”

My eyes met Petra’s. “It’s not a joke.”

The smile slipped off her face. “Omigod.”

I bent to gather my stuff from the floor
and saw the notebook had opened to the page I’d stuck the post-it to yesterday.
Harold Anderson along with a telephone number and address. What had the
librarian said? Anderson knew about “oddities”.

“What are you going to do about the
tunnel?” Petra asked.

“Nothing.”

“You have to,” Senji insisted. “What
about Juliette? What about Franky?”

“Why is it on me?” I yelled. “Why don’t
you two do something?”

“But—” Petra began.

“Enough!”

Running away from them and down the hall,
I spotted the women’s restroom. It beckoned like a sanctuary and I darted
inside. Standing before the bank of mirrors over the sinks, I examined myself.
The pallid and drawn face in the mirror couldn’t be mine, but it was.

The door swung open and Petra rushed in.
Before she could say anything I scooted into one of the stalls and pushed the
metal door closed in her face. Lowering the lid on the toilet I sat down.

Scratched into the metal stall wall,
graffiti bore the message: Tara sucks.

So does Kizzy
, I thought.
Kizzy sucks
.

“Talk to me.” Petra spoke from the other
side of the metal door.

“Leave me alone,” I said. “I’m trying to
pee.”

“You are not. You’re trying to avoid me.
You wanna close yourself off like you did when Adam…” She pounded a hand on the
door and I jumped. “But I’m not letting you.”

The outer door of the restroom swung open
with a swishing sound and I heard Senji come in.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he called
to me.

“Get out!” Petra ordered.

“Okay. Okay.”

When the swish of Senji's leaving sounded,
I rose, opened the door and stepped out.

“All right. Here it is," I snapped.
"You want to know what I’m going to do? I'm going to do nothing.“

Petra started to speak and I interrupted
her.

“I keep failing.” My voice broke. “I
failed Adam and now I’ve failed Juliette and Franky. I know I’m a coward but in
the long run it’s better for everyone if I stop trying. I’ll only make things
worse. So I’m going to do nothing.”

“You don’t fail. The thing with
Adam...Who could have done any better under the circumstances?”

I would have spoken but she stopped me.
Unlike the typical Petra, this one was totally serious as she gazed at me.

“And if even half of what Senji said
about last night is true, you did all you could. You are so not a coward,” she
said. “You’re whatever the polar opposite of coward is."

Her words struck me. Petra considered me
brave?

"But you never ask people to help
you," she continued. "We’re here.” She gently shook me. “I’m here.
You don’t have to do everything alone all the time.”

The words echoed against the tile walls
before the room went silent. Could I trust myself to do something to get
Juliette and Franky back? Could I trust my friends to help? As much as I wanted
to forget the vortex and everything associated with it, I would never forgive
myself if I didn’t
try
to get Juliette and Franky back. Just as I would never forgive
myself for losing Adam...but there was nothing I could do to save him now. One
death on my conscience was enough.

“Even if I wanted to do something I have
no idea where to even start,” I said. Then a thought struck. “Wait. Maybe there
is something or someone.”

After flipping the notebook open, I paged
through until I found the post-it.

“I could start with him.” I pointed to
the name.

"We," she emphasized.

"We," I affirmed.

“Him who?” Petra asked.

“Remember the historian the librarian
told us about yesterday?”

“Yes. No. I wasn’t really listening,”
Petra admitted.

The second bell rang signaling class had
started. I knew what I had to do. And it wasn’t going to class.

* * * * *

Petra insisted on going with me. I let
her help since she had a license and a car whereas I didn’t. The address I had
for the historian was in Pooler about ten miles away. We found an old faded
green farmhouse at the end of a remote dirt driveway. The overgrowth on the
property around it shielded the house from view on the adjacent street. We
almost missed it but, at the last second, I saw the mailbox mounted on a
tilting wood post bearing the address.

We exited the car. At least two separate
dog “voices” barked from inside the rundown maintained house.
Big dogs
, I
thought. Perhaps this wasn’t such a great idea after all. But since this was
the most hopeful I’d felt since Juliette and Franky disappeared, I resolved to
talk to Anderson. So despite the trepidation I had about a possible dog bite,
Petra and I ascended the wood steps to the wrap around porch and approached the
door. Lifting a hand, I prepared to knock.

“Get off my property.” The shout came
from inside.

“Mr. Anderson?” I called. His words
freaked me out but I tried to keep the tremble out of my voice. “Can we talk to
you?”