Rising (16 page)

“Don’t worry, Clara.
 
This is a good thing.”

She didn’t ask me how I knew or what this
meant.
 
She accepted what I said as true,
and I felt a heaviness lift.
 
I’d
apparently kept her from spiraling into a depression with a distracting kiss,
or actually with my other sense.
 
Now,
she was light again.
 
The longer I held
her hand and pushed my newfound confidence out to her, the sweeter her feelings
became. That fuzzy tranquility spread over me, giving me what I needed to work
my head through this.

During first period, I listened to that ditzy
anchor on
News Now
interview more
experts on how the hurricane seemed stalled in the middle of the Gulf of
Mexico.
 
It was odd.
 
Even the meteorologists couldn’t understand
what was going on.
 
The front they’d
expected had rolled through, but it hadn’t diminished the hurricane at all.
 
Actually, the hurricane continued to grow
bigger, although it was at a complete standstill.

“What
d’ya
think of
that?”

I turned to Jeremy Kaufman who’d asked me the
question.
 
His usual black hoodie was
pulled up over his head.

“Me?”

“No, my invisible friend here, Harvey.”

He was straight-faced, and his sarcasm was
borderline rude, but I knew it was just his way.

“There’s not much to think about,” I said.

“Really?
 
You don’t think that’s a little strange?”

It was weird.
 
Jeremy Kaufman had barely said three words to me since ninth grade.
 
All of a sudden, he was interested in my
opinion on a hurricane.
 
I knew it was no
ordinary hurricane, but what was up with him?

“Yeah.
 
It’s strange,” I finally added.
 
“There’s lots of strange things in the world.”

“You got that right, man.”

With that, he plugged his earphones back in and
sank down in his desk into silence.
 
I
just shook my head.
 
He was a hard one to
figure out.

The first few periods crawled by at an
outrageously slow pace.
 
I saw Mr.
Hampton’s mouth moving, but I heard nothing.
 
Even Mr. Dunaway, who was a great teacher, couldn’t pull me from my
thoughts.
 
I felt like I was in a Charlie
Brown episode listening to adults ramble nonsense.
 
At lunch, Clara and I sat, picking at our
lunch quietly while the others babbled away.
 
I perked up when the conversation turned to the hurricane.

“Yeah, we’re not going anywhere.
 
Chances are, it’ll turn toward Florida.
 
That’s what my dad says,” said Ben.

“Awesome.
 
That means the game is still on for Friday,” said Mark.
 
“Y’all are
comin
’,
right?”

“Of course we are,” said Zack.
 
“You just better make it worthwhile and
actually catch the ball, make a touchdown or something.
 
We’ve
gotta
beat
the Trojans.”

“I’m just glad this thing looks like it’s
turnin
’.
 
That girl on
News Now
this morning said the
hurricane’s got little rain, but is highly electrical.
 
That means lots of lightning,” said Ben with
a shiver.

“You really are scared of lightning, aren’t
you?” asked Mel.

She seemed to be amused by finding out this
phobia of Ben’s, but she wasn’t to the point of teasing him.
 
Not yet.

“Yeah.
 
You would be, too, if you were struck by lightning as a kid,” he said
defensively.

“Not this again,” said Zack.
 
“We know.
 
We know.
 
It was a traumatic
event.
 
We get it.”

While they were distracted, Mark turned to me
and whispered.

“You’re awfully quiet,” he said with a
nudge.
 
“Is there trouble in paradise?”

He winked and nodded to Clara who seemed to be
analyzing exactly what was on her sandwich rather than eating it.

“Oh, no.
 
Everything’s fine.
 
Just
tired.
 
You ready for that game?”

I knew if I turned the conversation to him, he
would easily get distracted.
 
It worked,
of course.
 
He launched into a detailed
explanation of all the plays he planned on using to score points against the
Trojans on Friday.
 
Finally, the bell
rang.
 
Just as we found our seats in Mrs.
Jaden’s class, there was an interruption over the intercom.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Jaden?”

It was Mrs. Brewer, the front office
secretary.
 
She had a thick southern
accent.
 
She had moved here from
Mississippi after marrying a local from Beau
Chêne
years ago, but she’d never lost that twang.

“Yes,” Mrs. Jaden called up to the loudspeaker.

“Could you please send Gabriel Goddard to the
front office for a few minutes?”

“Yes.
 
Gabriel, go ahead.”

I turned to Clara who mouthed the word ‘what’
to me.
 
I shrugged then shuffled out of
the classroom.
 
I wondered what I
could’ve possibly done to get called to the office.
 
Maybe it was about a scholarship or
something.
 
No, Guidance would’ve called
me to their office.
 
Maybe my mom needed
to get me a message.
 
No, she would’ve
texted me. Unless, of course, it was something about Pop.
 
Maybe the doctor had some kind of bad
news.
 
I was suddenly afraid as I opened
the door to the front office.
 
Mrs.
Brewer was on the phone.
 
There was a
freshman in the waiting area.
 
From his
freakishly negative vibe, I knew he was in some kind of trouble.
 
He was seated closest to the principal’s
office.
 
Mrs. Brewer looked up and cupped
the phone.

“Your cousin’s here to give you that paper,”
she whispered.

What cousin?
 
I know the confusion showed on my face.
 
She pointed back to the waiting area, then resumed her phone call.
 
I hadn’t noticed the other person sitting in
the waiting area.
 
She was a petite woman
in her early thirties with shoulder-length dark hair and bright brown
eyes.
 
She was eyeing me cautiously.

“Hi, Gabriel,” she said, walking up to me very
casually.
 
“I brought that English paper
you typed at my house and forgot in the printer.”

I knew right away this must be Theresa
Miguez
.
 
Obviously,
she was hiding her identity to give me something.
 
In general, high schools don’t allow personal
visits from paranoid scientists who think the world is on the brink of an
invasion by supernatural monsters. She handed me a manila envelope and gave me
a loaded look.
 
By this time, the
secretary had finished her phone call.

“Okay, Mr. Goddard.
 
I did you this favor and let you get that
paper.
 
I don’t do that for
everyone.
 
Now, get on back to class.”

I nodded my appreciation to Mrs. Brewer and
glanced at Theresa.

“I’ll see you after school,” said Theresa.

“Yeah,” was all I could reply.

On my way back to class, I opened the
envelope.
 
There was Theresa’s business
card and a note attached to a thick stack of papers with four photos on each page.
 
I glanced at the photos then stopped
mid-stride. I nearly dropped the stack of photos as my brain tried to register
what I was looking at.
 
My mouth went
dry.
 
My hands began to shake.

“Are you alright, Gabriel?”

I glanced up to see Mr. Dunaway slowing down in
front of me with a concerned expression on his face.

“Yes, sir. Fine,” I managed.
 
“No problem.”

I quickly moved on my way, studying the
pictures as I went.
 
Although the
carvings were primitive, they were definitely visions of these people at some
kind of stand-off with the ash-eaters that haunted my dreams and tall, dark creatures
with arms that extended into killing rods that stabbed some of the human figures.
 
I had only dreamed about those creatures
once.
 
All I could remember from the
dream was these unbelievably huge beings with black bone-like appendages they
used to kill my family.
 
There were also
some other dark human-like figures watching these scenes from nearby.
 
These primitive carvings proved that some people
thousands of years ago had faced them before.
 
What had been their fate?
 
I was
almost back to Mrs. Jaden’s class, so I flipped back to the note on the front.

Gabriel and Clara,

I know why they’re
coming.
 
I’m staying at the Holiday Inn
near the Interstate.
 
Meet me in the
lobby after school.

--Theresa

Clara was obviously waiting for me to
return.
 
Ben apparently hadn’t even
noticed.
 
He had nodded off on his desk
and was beginning to drool, while Mrs. Jaden continued to spout the morals of
the epic hero
Beowulf
.

“What was it?” Clara whispered.

“Theresa
Miguez
,” I
answered.

“Gabriel and Clara, unless you are enlightening
one another on the difference between the Saxons and the
Geats
,
then I ask that you keep quiet.
 
Unless
of course you would like to enlighten the whole class?”

I shook my head.
 
Mrs. Jaden always had an interesting way of
saying ‘shut up.’
 
My mind raced wildly,
wondering what news Theresa had to
enlighten
us on the fate of mankind.
 
Normally,
I enjoyed the lengthy speeches Mrs. Jaden gave on literary heroes and heroines,
but right now it all seemed ridiculously trivial.
 
Learning about
Beowulf
wasn’t going to help us figure out what to do with these
supernatural creatures.
 
Could they truly
be real?
 
Or, were we letting fantastical
dreams and odd coincidences make us believe the impossible?

I watched the clock.
 
So did Clara.
 
As soon as the bell rang, she headed toward the door, grabbing my hand then
dragged me toward the end of the hall.
 
We stood right at the back exit.

“Tell me,” she demanded.

“It was Theresa. She gave me pictures of the
carvings we saw on her website.”

I pulled them out and let Clara shuffle through
them.
 
I immediately felt that familiar
fear coming from her.

“These are the shadow men,” she said pointing a
shaky finger at one carving in particular. Many of the dark human-like figures
crowded around one woman who held her arms out to stop them from coming closer.

“She says she knows what they want.
 
She wants us to meet her after school,” I
said, drawing her attention away from the pictures.

A group of cheerleaders whizzed by us,
gossiping about who knows what.
 
Clara
pulled me out the back door that led to the track field.
 
No one was out here at this time of day.
 
I could sense Clara was on the verge of a
breakdown.

“I know why they’re here, too.
 
They’re coming for us.”

“Which ones?”

“All of them,” she nearly shouted, her voice
was cracking. “The shadow men, those giant things, those ashy creatures, all of
them!”

I grabbed Clara by the shoulders, trying to
calm her.
 
Tears pooled in her eyes and
were spilling down her pale cheeks.
 
I
swept one away with my thumb, cupping her face.
 
She was giving me a pitiful look, but slowly, her eyes lost that
wildness.
 
I was about to pull her to me
when I heard a movement from behind us.
 
We both turned quickly.
 
Jeremy
Kaufman was watching us with a strange smile spread across his face.
 
His iPod earphones were dangling loosely out
of his hoodie and his arms were crossed.
 
He looked as if he were casually watching a sporting event, although I
doubted he ever attended sporting events.
 
Clara and I glanced at each other, wondering if he’d heard everything
and if he thought we were completely insane.
 
What he said surprised us more than anything else we could’ve imagined.