9111 Sharp Road (6 page)

My pants were wet, my shoes ruined, and
for a reason I couldn’t
explain.
What
could
I say? My dead father pushed me down a well while I was sleeping in class? Yeah, that was believable.

I grabbed my things
before leaving the classroom. Mr. Hatc
h
was still telling
his story about
fishing, describing details that were clearly exaggerated. I mean,
like I re
ally believe his ten
-year-old so
n caught a twenty-five pound fish and reeled it in by himself, using nothing more than an earthworm as bate. Good one, Mr. Hatch, but I wasn’t born yesterday.

And didn’t he say his son was four years old earlier?
Way to be consistent.

In the office,
Mrs. Gaut
h
ier (
who I heard referred to as
Mrs.
“
Goi
ter
”
because of her thick neck) was the secretary to Mrs. Crawford, the assistant princip
al. She asked me to take a seat
but then changed her mind as she noticed my pants were soaked. “You need to call home for a change of clothes, girl.”

How embarrassing. One thing would be if I had actually wet my pants. It was anoth
er thing entirely that I didn’t
but couldn’t explain in any rational fashion why
they
were
wet
.

Mrs. “Goiter” handed me the phone
and told me to dial nine and then my home number. I pressed nine and then started dialing my old house number, and then stopped, realizing
that this wasn’t the right number at all.
“
Mr
s
. ‘Go
i
ter,’”
I said,
accidentl
y calling her by her nickname (a
t least I
d
idn’t call her “Mrs. Fat Neck”).
“I don’t
know my number
. I’m sure you could look up my records? Maybe?
Please?
”

W
ith several clicks of the mouse, she had my records pulled up on her computer screen. She
took the phone, dialed the number, and
then handed
it back to me
.

“Hello?” My
gramma
sounded like she had just woken up. She must have gone back to sleep after Lori and I got on the bus.

“
Hey,
Gramma
, I—
” I almost said
,
“
wet
myself,” forgetting that that wasn’
t what I had actually done. It’s
funny how when
you hear a lie over and over again, you begin to believe
it
even if you know it’s not the truth.
“—I need you to bring me a change of clothes.”

“Why?”

“My pants are wet…I fell down a well.”

“You what?
!
”
There seemed to be genuine fear in her voice.

“I
—
” I was going to
repeat the truth,
but then decided that maybe going along with everyone’s assumptions was probably going to be the best course of action. “I had an accident. I didn’t make it to the bathroom.”

“How old are you, Amanda?” She didn’t give me time to answer. “Old enough to ask to use the restroom!”

“Well,
I…
.
”

Gramma
save
d
me the chore of lying again by saying, “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” And then she added, “You’re going straight to you
r room when you get home
.”

Chapter 7

Gramma came and went, and I went back to class. Before I could sit down, however, I had to clean up the puddle
that was on
and under the chair.
The day had started out relatively well, so it was really a shame that it had gone so wrong.

There was a closet containing cleaning supplies at the front of the classroom.
I got out some paper towels and Lysol. If there was a bright side to this at all, it was that Mr. Hatch was still talking about fishing, still talking about how his son, who he now described as “an eight-year-old lad,” also wrestled a fish out of the jaws of a shark. I could easily tune him out while not missing a thing.

I could hear the other kids whispering and snickering as I wiped up the enormous puddle. The fact that they were still convinced I had wet my pants made me wonder how big they thought my bladder was. Come on, guys, use your heads.

Just as I was finishing up, a wailing siren went off, accompanied by bright red flashes that seemed to be coming from the fluorescent lights.

This was followed by an announcement over the PA system. “Attention, we have an emergency situation. Lock all of your doors.” Mr. Hatch did exactly that. Most peculiarly, he glanced back at me with an awful look as he did so, as if whatever was going on was because of me.

“What’s going on?” I asked Audrey, who I assumed had an idea because she wasn’t panicking.
She looked at me just as Mr. Hatch had, as if I were the cause of the turmoil. “What? Come on, tell me.”

It wasn’t Audrey who told me. It was Joey, who came up behind me and wrestle
d me to the ground. “Why did your dad have to interfere? Why?
”

I grunted as I tried to get up. Joey was much stronger than I was and able to hold me to the ground. “Let me up, Joey.”

“No. You did this.”

My only defense was ignorance because I really had no idea what he was talking about. He didn’t believe me, stating the idea that I didn’t know what was happening was “ludicrous in the extreme.”

The red lights flashed
as the wailing grew louder. And then, after reaching what seemed to be a peak, the alarm and lights ceased.

Mr. Hatch ordered everyone to return quietly to their seats. “What was that about?” I asked. My shoulders were sore from Joey pinning me to the floor.

“Quiet,” Mr. Hatch snapped. The rest of the kids looked at me, all of them wearing a measure of disgust on their face.

Then another announcement over the PA: “
The threat has been neutralized
.” And that was all. No explanation over what had h
appened, but I thought I heard a voice coming from the speaker for the rest of the day, saying,
“Amanda…let us out.”

During the rest of the school day, students treated me as if I were something to be avoided at all costs.  Even Audrey and Joey.
Like I was either some sort of monster or I had betrayed them in some way.

Relief washed over me when the bell rang
, releasing us from class. The middle school and the elementary were right next to each other and let out at the same time, so I met Lori outside. She was crying, as I expected. I barely managed to hold back tears of my own.

“It’s going to be okay, Lori,” I said, putting an arm over her shoulder. There
were five buses lined up in front
of the schools. Instead of the standard school bus yellow, these buses were black and looked almost like large hearses.

We walked up to our bus, but the bus driver, who had seen us coming, immediately shut the door. “Hey!” I shouted.
He
just looked out at us, shaking his head
and giving us
a look of revulsion
.

I just stood there confused
as a lin
e of students piled up behind us
. “Hey, move out of the way, freak
s
!” someone shouted. I tried to turn, to flee, but couldn’t move. The crowd of students moved in, pressing us against
the bus. “Freaks! Freaks! Freaks!”

I ducked down, covering Lori with my body. “Hang on, Lori. This will soon be over.”

I was wrong about that. The crowd just kept piling on, crushing us, until some
one
yelled, “Get off of them!”

I wasn’t quite sure who it was, but it sounded like Mr. Hatch. The pressure lessened immediately as the kids got up.

“Lori, are you all right?” I asked.

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Come on, let’s go.”

I held her tightly around her shoulders
, protecting her. As we walked past Mr. Hatch, he looked down on us with an ugly expression.

“Thank you, Mr. Hatch,” I said not knowing for sure if he really deserved my gratitude.

“
That dad of yours..
.”
he started and then stopped himself. “Just get out of here.”

Chapter
8

We walked home in silence. Clouds were rolling in, turning the sky into a depressing blanket of gray.
Cool air blew in from the west. Luckily enough, we didn’t have far to walk. Just like the day we were riding into this town, I was amazed at all of the tomb stones.

I heard one of the kids at school say that if you took the time to count every grave in Orchard Hills, you would come to 9,111. I thought that was rather strange considering the house number of my gramma’s home.

I really didn’t know if there was any sort of significance to that, but given how the day ended up, I would be willing to bet the kid said it to get a reaction out of me.

It certainly worke
d. Ninety-one eleven Sharp Road
. The number 9,111…what if it held some sort of significance other than just being a house number? It was possible, right? Before moving to this place, I wouldn’t have thought so. But that all changed. As far I was concerned, anything was possible.

When we got home, we both went straight upstairs to my room. I gave the door to nowhere a cursory glance as we passed by.
Something in the back of my mind begged me to open it, suggesting
that doorway, and wherever it
really
led, had to hold some sort of significance.
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard a voice say as I walked past the door,
“Amanda…let us out.”

I shut my bedroom door behind us and just let out loud sob. Lori joined me as well.
We hugged each other, and arm-in-arm, we fell onto the bed, and cried together in a loving embrace.
I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to ask her about her day,
but considering she was reacting in a similar fashion as I
, I assumed she had
n’t exactly had the best day at school
either
.

When I finally composed myself enough to speak, I ask
ed
, “What happened?”

“It was awful. Mrs. Kuzma was talking, and then everyone started staring at me! They all thought I was a-a-a monster!”

I thought back to the day when she transformed right in front me. I hugged her even more tightly.
“Everything will be okay,” I said, even though I didn’t believe it.

“Everyone got up and ran out of the room. They all left me. They were afraid of me.” Her sobs intensified with each statement
, and h
er tears brought about my own tears
. “Mrs. Kuzma said that if dad didn’t stop interfering, they were never going to be let ou
t. That it would be all his fault
if they remained trapped.”

Never going to be let out…
What was up with all this talk about being let out and trapped?
“Everything is going to be okay,” I lied again.

She sniffe
d
and gave a small laugh in embarrassment
as snot started pouring out her nose.
There was no joy in that laugh, and for that, I’m sorry because
the next time I heard her laugh, she was gone for good
.

I held back tears as
Lori
cried herself to sleep
in my arms
.

While she slept,
I kept playing the image of Lori in her classroom over and over again in my head.
Then I combined that with what had happened before. I could imagine how terrified those kids were. I had seen in myself. There was some sort of connection between Lori and these creatures, and I wasn’t sure what. Had they marked her in some way? Claimed her as their own?
It would seem if she was transforming into one, then maybe that was the case. Maybe like a vampire creates new vampires.

I remembered back to what my father had said in my vision
.
He
said the well—which was just a hole in the ground really—was where the chiroptera dwell
.
I didn’t know if that well was
real, or if it was just a figment of my imagination, but I knew where it was located in my vision, so whatever else I did, I had to make sure Lori never went out that way.