Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2) (21 page)

I had to be
careful.

Anything could
happen now.

---

I found myself driving around for most of
the day, all in different places I had been to with Liesel, in hopes that I’d
spot that giant brown van again. But the more I searched for it, the less
confident I felt I would ever see it, today at least. I circled Idlewild Park
three times but didn’t see anything suspicious—no odd car, no scary
female figure in the distance burning her eyes into my soul.
 

I was feeling useless by the minute. I
was like a little goldfish in the center of an ocean, with twenty-five
salivating sharks surrounding me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I felt like
there was nobody I could turn to, and that there was no way I was going to make
it through this rotten mess alive.

I passed by five cop cars, at least,
today, and was surprised to not find a single one trailing after me. Considering
I struggled to even see the road ahead of me, given that I was a borderline
munchkin by now, I was surprised to not be harassed by anyone.

My stomach growled, and I realized by
late afternoon all I had eaten this whole day was a stale granola bar that had
been lingering for weeks in the back seat of my car. I was a growing boy, let
no one forget. I needed food! Eight glasses of water! Four glasses of milk!
Fruits and veggies and protein and—

“Screw it!” I had a little money in my
wallet. I figured I’d stop by one of the fast food joints and splurge on the
kind of junk I used to eat when I was
literally
eleven years old, seven long years ago.

But seconds before pulling into the drive
thru lane, my phone started ringing. I pulled into the parking lot and
answered. I decided not to scream out Liesel’s name this time. I thought that
maybe if I pretended it wasn’t her, it would actually be her.

“Hello?” I
asked.

Silence.

“
Hello
?”

“The time has
come,” an ominous voice whispered.

“What?”

“The time has
come, Cameron Martin.”

I tried to swallow my own vomit as I
turned my head around to look out my back window, terrified at what I might
see. But I didn’t notice anyone, or that van, anywhere.

“Who is this?” I
asked.

“You know who it
is.”

The voice didn’t
sound familiar. More questionably, it didn’t even sound like a girl.

“I don’t.”

“Cameron,
I—”

“Tell me who this is!” I shouted, my
voice as deep and menacing as I could make it. I tried to control my breathing,
but my whole body was shaking with fear and rage. I looked out every window in
my car and didn’t see anyone, but I still felt like I was being watched. I
wondered, at this moment, if these were my final seconds to live.

“Meet me at the
front of CRHS. You have thirty minutes. Don’t be late.”

The caller hung up, and I found my phone
slipping through my sweaty hands all the way down to the front of my seat.
 

CRHS?
Why would this woman, or this witch, or this egomaniacal, torturous freak (or,
all of the above) want to meet me there, of all places? Does this have
something to do with what happened to me last year? With the aging condition?
With my relationship with Liesel?

I knew, deep down, that the drive to my
former high school was assuredly going to be the last drive of my new younger
life. I could barely see the street anymore. I was putting other people’s lives
at risk.

But I needed to find more answers. And I
thought that finally, for better or worse, I would get some.

I pulled out of
the fast food parking lot.

And prayed.

---

I pulled up to the front of the quiet,
abandoned school a half hour later. There were a few cars in the parking
lot—probably belonging to all the journalism students who had to spend
their Saturdays in the grungy downstairs newspaper room—but I didn’t see
a single person anywhere. And there was no female figure or van waiting for me.
I was all by my lonesome.

Not for long
, I knew.

I rolled my driver’s side window down and
remained seated, trying to listen for any unusual sounds outside. I kept an eye
on my phone, which hadn’t made a peep in the last half-hour.

I heard a car coming toward me. I turned
around to see that it was not a van, but one of those little smart cars. I
couldn’t imagine the bad guy would be driving in
that
. And he or she wouldn’t. The car just raced past me.

As the smart car made a right turn at the
end of the street, however, I heard, as well as felt, a mysterious car pull up
behind me.

I glanced into the rearview mirror to see
a medium-sized black car stalling behind mine, a figure wearing black gloves
hiding behind the steering wheel.

“What
the—”

Before I had a chance to escape, a second
figure pulled open my car door, grabbed my arms, and pulled me toward him. He
was a big fellow, at least six-foot-four, and he was wearing a ski mask over
his face. “CAMERON MARTIN!” he shouted. “It’s
time
!”

He pulled me all the way out of the car,
and while my stronger eighteen-year-old self might have been able to put up a
fight, my eleven-year-old self could only smack his sides and scream. The big
beast of a guy lifted me up off the ground and dragged me toward the back of
the black car. I looked inside to see four people, all sporting large masks on
their faces to protect their identities.
 

“Where are you
taking me?” I shouted.

He didn’t answer
me. Instead, he kicked open the trunk.

“What…
what are you doing… stop!”

He dumped my small, fragile body inside
and slammed the trunk shut. There was nothing I could’ve done. The guy was just
too strong.

I screamed for a few more seconds, but
eventually stopped. I knew yelling wouldn’t get me anywhere. Surprisingly, as
the car started up and headed down the street, I felt gratified.

Hey, at least I’m finally going to get
some answers to this unsolvable mystery.

At least I’ll get to see Liesel.

I pushed up a few times, but there was no
escaping; the trunk was locked from the outside. And while Liesel had inspired
me more than any other person in the last ten months, she hadn’t passed along a
single ounce of her magical powers over to me that I could use in this
situation

Some magic would be nice around now,
Leese.

As I felt the car accelerating onto what
I believed to be one of Reno’s freeways, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine
how lucky I would feel just to brush my hands against Liesel’s soft, velvety
cheeks, even if it were to be for the last time.

---

Twenty minutes later the car started
slowing down, and I could feel the sounds of rocks beneath the tires. I started
wondering if these figures had been hired to take me to the top of Mount Rose
and push me over the cliff. If such were the case, there was little I could do
or say now to save my life.

When the car stopped, I listened intently
as all the people in the car scattered and started running in the distance.

Oh God, are they gonna blow up the car?

I clasped my hands together and quietly
prayed. Up until a year ago I had never prayed a single time, but now I tended
to do it more often. Liesel and I weren’t invading Holy Mass as often as we
should, but I definitely felt a closer relationship with God than ever before.

“God… please…” I whispered. “If you have
to kill me…
kill me
… but don’t take
Liesel… I’ll do anything…”

The trunk shot open, and bright light
flooded my pained eyeballs. I looked up to see that same large figure, still
with the ski mask on.

“They’re ready
for you!” he shouted, sticking his hand out for me to grab onto.

They?

I sat up and tried not to barf, my
instant headache quickly turning into nausea. I reluctantly grabbed the man’s
arm, and he pulled me outside. Once my feet hit the dirt, he started pushing me
to the back of a building. It turned out we weren’t anywhere desolate and near
a mountain cliff after all. I could see streets and cars in the far distance,
and this building, which looked semi-familiar, was hugging busy South Virginia
Street.

Oh my God,
I thought.
No. No way. Is this what I think it is?

The man pushed me inside the back door of
the building, probably surprised that I wasn’t putting up more of a fight. He
knew by now I had an idea of what was going on, but I was still frightened,
still thinking pessimistically, still waiting for a gun to go off behind
me.
 

We
walked down three dark hallways, before I saw a giant blue curtain.

“He’s here!” the
man shouted, still lightly pushing me forward, even though he had to know by
now I could walk.

I finally stopped, hesitating in front of
the curtain, not sure exactly what I was going to be met with beyond it.

The man behind me grasped my shoulders
with his rough, giant hands, then kicked me on the butt and sent me crashing
forward into the large, abandoned room before me. My head hit the hardwood
floor, just as I heard a dozen voices or more shout: “Surprise!”

I looked forward at the curtains to see
the tall guy appear. He removed the mask and sported a huge smile. I had never
seen him before in my life.

But when I turned to my left, I saw some
familiar faces. At the front of the crowd was my basketball buddy Aaron, as
well as most of my other former team members. I could see Matt, Cody, Lionel,
Mike, Todd, Sam.

As I sat up, Aaron shouted at the top of
his lungs: “Who’s ready for a bachelor party!”

Everybody started clapping and
cheering
as not one but two young strippers appeared, one
more voluptuous than the other, the blonde girl on the left wearing a black bra
and underwear, and the girl on the right wearing a white bra and underwear. The
only addition necessary was one more girl dressed in black on the right to make
the perfect Oreo cookie.

“Oh my God,” I
said out loud.

“Did we surprise
you?” Aaron shouted.

I got up on my feet, and as I turned
around to face the group of young men, the applause started to fade. The only
two to not break character were the two strippers, who kept walking up to me as
if they didn’t have a single problem with my eleven-year-old appearance.

“Was it a
surprise, or—” Aaron stopped in mid sentence.

Everybody looked at me with horror. It
was unlike last year, when the Principal of our high school forced everyone to treat
me like I was just any other student. Today, my younger appearance was a
complete surprise to everyone in the room, and they were all undoubtedly going
to show their true colors.

The strippers made their way up to me,
all smiles. The tanned girl in black took my right arm, and the bustier woman
wearing white took my left. “You’re one of the younger ones we’ve had here,”
the woman in white said as she stroked the top of my head.

“Cameron?” Aaron
shouted.

Nobody moved. Nobody seemed to know what
to say. Everybody just stood in a huddle, trying to figure out if the bachelor
party should move on as planned.

And then, my old arch nemesis from senior
year stepped out from behind the others. I hadn’t seen this guy in forever, and
I was shocked to see him looking pretty rough, at least twenty pounds
overweight. He was holding a Corona beer, and he, as did everyone else, looked
shocked.

“Cameron, what
happened to you?” Ryan asked.

“What the hell
happened to you?” Aaron repeated, much, much louder.

I took a deep breath and looked up at the
strippers. I slowly pulled my arms away from their grasps and nodded to both of
them. “Can you give me a few minutes alone with my friends here?”

They both
laughed and backed away. “Certainly, kid.”

They started walking to the back of the
strip club, the same one I had visited a year ago when I snapped photos of
Coach Welch getting a lap dance from a much older, chain-smoking stripper. Now,
here I was, a year older, looking like a child, in a place only meant for those
twenty-one and older.

Aaron charged toward me and was the first
to hug me. “Oh my God, is it happening again?”

Matt, looking even taller than he did
senior year, took a few steps forward, too. “Holy shit. Now you’re aging
backward
?”

“Guys!” I shouted, trying to lower my
voice as much as possible, to little success. “You scared me half to death back
there! What the hell were you thinking?”

“What do you
mean?” Aaron asked.

“Kidnapping me like that? Throwing me in
the trunk? Couldn’t you have, I don’t know, just
called
me and had me
meet
you here?”