Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood) (5 page)

“I hope you
don’t mind but I went through the box for the bathroom in case you
needed painkillers or anything. We’re not allowed to buy them for
the whole house in case someone’s allergic or what not.”

“You went
through my stuff?”

“Sorry. Lainy
just thought you might need anything.”

“It’s fine. I
just was looking forward to unpacking myself.”

“Everything’s
still here. When I couldn’t find anything, I just closed the box
and put it in the bathroom.” Lainy dropped the cloth into a bowl
and sat on the edge of the sofa with Katie. “We share most things
in this house but if you have anything special not in your room
then just write on it.”

Katie braced
her arms at her sides and pushed up to a sitting position. A grey
rag slipped over her face, leaving tepid, moist tracks. She picked
off with one hand and tried to scrub her face dry with the other.
Lainy tossed the rag in the bowl with the other. “Take that out,
will you, Adam?”

The clock told
her it was late afternoon, just after five. There would just be
enough time to unpack most of her stuff and find homes for it. No.
That would have to wait until tomorrow. No way was Katie up to
that. “I’m just really tired. I think the heat and the move have
just done me in. Sorry about the fainting thing.”

“Katie, stop
apologising,” Lainy scolded her. “This is partly your home now
and…” She carried on speaking, something about the other
housemates, but Katie was stuck on those words
your home
now
. However manic the last month or two had been she had never
imagined that home would or could be any place other than the house
she grew up in with Mom and Dad and Dan.

“How long was I
asleep? It felt like forever.”

“Not long.”

“I felt like I
was in another world. Not another planet but not quite this one
either. It was… I don’t remember really, but it was beautiful. The
details are faded, as if some-one tried to rub out my dream, but I
couldn’t see anything anyway. I dreamed that… I sound like the
resident crazy don’t i?”

“Kinda.”

“Glad to’ve
filled that gap.”

“That job
already went,” Adam added. “But if there’s a house lacking a
certified basket-case…”

“Adam!”

Katie laughed
at the couple unsure which one she liked best –Adam for teasing her
and making her forget her sadness or Lainy for taking care of her
and trying to defend her honour. “You two are definitely marriage
material.”

“Hey, Lainy, do
they make bridesmaids strait jackets?” That comment earned him
cushions thrown at him from two directions.

“Your
dream?”

“Oh, I’ve
already forgotten him.” Katie stood up and stretched her long legs
out. There was a bookcase by the large window. The bottom shelf
held a few board games and quiz books. Obviously, the people in
this house liked old-fashioned entertainments. There was a TV in
the corner with a games console and some video games. Maybe there
was more to college life than studying, partying and casual sex the
way they portrayed it on TV.

“Why don’t you
go have a hot bath and an early night?”

Katie rubbed
her hand over her eyes and sat back down, rummaging in her backpack
for a pack of cards to add to the game pile. Then she worked an old
Monopoly box from the stack and pushed it across the floor to Adam.
“One hour to tire me out. Otherwise I’ll be up at three tomorrow
morning which generally means anyone within yelling distance is up
at three. I’m the car.”

The long, hot
bath had been a nice idea although it only lasted about half an
hour in total. About fifteen minutes into it, a loud and urgent
bang had come at the door.

“It’s
occupied!” Lainy had shouted up the stairs. Whoever it was walked
down the stairs again, maybe got a drink or something, and then
Katie heard them come back up. The handle rattled but then they got
bored and footsteps clipped down to another room. It was the
footsteps that alerted her to the person coming back to try the
handle again a few minutes later, just as she was letting her eyes
slip shut and allowing all her tense and scrunched up muscles relax
in the warmth. The door remained tight shut. She gave herself
another ten minutes to get clean and relaxed enough to sleep when
she finally gave up, dried and dressed herself in the PJs she’d
found and padded down to her room. The person rattling the door
would have the bathroom to him- or herself now. Just in case Adam’s
lunatic was just randomly invading rooms, she closed the door fully
and flicked the lock.

There were
stacks of boxes piled around the room but they seemed less than
they had in her old room. Funny considering it was a smaller room.
All of them needed sorting out and emptying but her brain was so
tired there was a very real possibility of putting her toothbrush
in her pencil case or her trainers in the bedside cabinet. To put
her lazily but persistently nagging mind at rest, Katie found
herself a scrap of paper and a pencil and wrote herself a to do
list, making sure to put
empty boxes
at the top, above even
go for a run.
She always tried to run in the morning but she
hadn’t really done it in a while. The academy needed to be checked
out and she guessed she could run there.

Lainy had been
kind enough, or maybe it was Adam; guys could be domestic too, to
dress the bed with a clean sheet over the mattress and then just
another sheet in place of a duvet. The duvet would have spent most
of the night getting dirty on the floor so Katie had only wanted a
sheet. It was with great relief that she crawled under that top
sheet and closed her eyes, almost instantly falling into a deep,
dark sleep.

She fell hard
and fast and so vey very far. And all she could recall upon waking
was blackness. Shiny eyes deep in shadows and a feeling that
something was coming up behind her. In the dark it could have been
anything, any one, but she looked at these pools of light and knew
that whatever it was would not hurt her. It wanted to, because she
was there and for some unknown reason, she shouldn’t be. Then the
darkness was bright sunlight, summer rain was tinkling down on the
window and Katie awoke with one hand stretched out, reaching for
something that was no longer there. She was smiling too.

When she
dressed and went downstairs to join her friends for breakfast she
was still smiling. Maybe leaving the big city behind had been just
what she needed. The smell of frying bacon called her downstairs to
find Lainy and Adam buzzing around the kitchen and another person
at the table.

“Morning
guys!”

“Some-one’s
cheerful this morning.”

“New house, new
friends, new life as a student. What’s not to love?”

“The part where
it’s still the holidays and it’s morning?” tried Adam.

“It’s summer
and there’s bacon for breakfast. There’s joy in the smallest things
if you look hard enough.”

“Ah so.” He
slid a full English in front of her and bowed like a Japanese guy
before he chop-sockied the hell out of someone else.

Was she really
expected to eat all this fried and fatty stuff? Not that she would
probably leave any of it – Katie was ravenous this morning – but
she would have to wait a while before running. Damn. “Not so long
ago, I wasn’t sure I’d even be here because stuff went really bad
and dark for a while. I couldn’t find anything that made me happy
any more but over the last few weeks… it’s strange but little
things are starting to make me smile again. And I feel like I have
this job to look for the joy in everything in case I get sad
again.”

“Leo, take
note,” said Lainy. “This is how you have a conversation.”

Over the course
of the morning meal, Katie learned through statements from the
older couple and the odd affirmative grunt from Leo, that her
arrival had been preceded by more than two weeks by this young boy
who seemed to be only a few years older than Katie herself. He had
spent most of the last fortnight in his room and rarely spoke to
any one. Lainy wondered if he was shy or overwhelmed. Katie already
decided she didn’t care. There was something about him and the way
he hunched himself up that felt almost sinister. Looking at Leo for
mere seconds sent a shiver through her.

“I thought I
might go checkout the college today, maybe mooch around town.”

“Just make sure
you stay this side of Northwood Chase. Don’t go into Millford.”

Okay, that
sounded like an ominous warning if ever there was one. “Why
not?”

“It’s just real
easy to get really lost down there.” Lainy shot a look at Adam –
shut up you shitwit
“Until you know your way around.”

“I need to sort
my stuff out first. But you could maybe write me a list of places I
might want to go.”

Lainy told her
she doubted there was anywhere she wouldn’t find on her own –
besides it was always more fun to discover things for yourself –
but that she would have a think. Leo got roped in to help wash up
and Katie headed back to her room. Following the corridor down to
her room, she on a whim, turned and tried the handle on the room
she had heard open last night. On entering Katie stopped wondering
why Leo had been shipped off so early. His parents no doubt just
wanted to get rid of him and the sooner the better. She already had
sympathy for them. The room was already decorated in a dark mixture
of fantasy and religious stuff. Statues, drawings, even a life-size
crucifix with chains and ropes for his wrists and a picture of a
half-naked woman being lashed while seemingly chained to said
cross. Just being in here was making Katie feel increasingly
uncomfortable. The room was smaller than hers and the clutter made
it seem smaller and darker. The small desk was covered with papers
and she started rifling through them. There were drawings in
various stages of completion – mostly of creatures from fantasy
like dragons and unicorns with twisted and hooked horns.

“What are you
doing?”

Katie jumped
and whipped her head up to see a shadow filling the doorway. She
inched backwards. Light hit half of Leos face. He did not look
happy at finding her in his room going through his personal
creations. This was his personal, private place and Katie
immediately felt a pinch of guilt at invading another persons
privacy. “Sorry. Honestly, I’m so sorry.” She played at tidying the
papers on the desk. “I’ll just scram, shall I?”

“You didn’t
answer the question. Why re you here?”

“To go to
college.”

“Stop playing
silly bitches, bitch.”

“You didn’t say
much over breakfast. I thought I’d find out more about you this
way.”

“You never
thought to ask.”

“I didn’t want
to seem rude. Although snooping through your stuff might make it
appear otherwise.” She tried to smile and giggle her way out of it
but it only made her feel more guilty. Why was Katie protesting her
innocence to Leo? Especially if he was who she thought he was. “I’m
sorry again. But we both have to live here. We should learn to be
friends.” Leo seemed to mirror Katie’s intention of doing no such
thing. She shuffled from one foot to the other and looked for an
opening big enough to bolt through. For one long and terrifying
minute, Leo looked as if he was going to come closer to her or, at
the very least, not move. He would advance on her until all she
could see was his dark bulk and smell the musty smell of his
tired-looking shirt. But he seemed to think the better of it and
stepped inside and to the left, letting Katie sneak past and bolt
down to her room. Leo watched her as she passed. He didn’t see the
other young man at the top of the stairs watching her too but he
had heard him yelling out, “Don’t touch her. You’ll smile and talk
and let her go but you won’t touch her. She’s not yours.”

As Leo shut his
door, all the while believing that those words and thoughts were
his own, Katie entered her own room and the boy stood guard until
well after noon, listening to her shuffling and clattering and
swearing and cursing quite a bit. And all the time, Katie felt as
though some-one was watching her. Only she was on the second floor
and the door was firmly shut if not locked. Still, she could not
shake the notion that she was not entirely alone. The boy with the
green eyes vanished as she emerged some time later. Katie looked
around for a second. She was positive there had been a person out
here but the air was cool and still, the hallway deserted and – not
silent. Far away, almost a echo or a memory, she heard footsteps.
Boot heels. She stopped and took a deep breath. This was an old
house – there were creaks and squeaks everywhere. Something seemed
to riffle the air over her face.

“Stop being
crazy. There’s nothing there. You’re just trying to imagine a
friend you idiot!” Katie told herself. “Suck it up, girl.”

She glanced
over at the hall window which was open just a crack with no real
idea why she was staring at the frosted glass. It wasn’t as if she
could see out of it. A sudden chill whispered through the window –
like something had been blocking the coolness that should have been
surrounding her all day. She wanted the warmth back.

CHAPTER
FOUR

After a quick
sandwich it was time to head off to the college. The Levenson
Academy for Sports and Action was nearer the edge of town than the
house but not quite far enough to need to find a bus going there.
Not that there seemed to be any buses on the roads. Well, since
there were so few cars on the roads either, Katie was hardly
surprised.

The academy was
a hulking building of steel and cement. It was dark and looked
totally empty. A dozen or so young girls and boys – mostly a few
years older than her – sat on the grass or wandered around the
campus grounds just beyond the chain link fence. The sensible thing
to do would be to introduce herself to them all and try to make
some allies, some friendly faces when the classes started up. But
they seemed so much older and more grown-up than her. Plus they
were strangers. A few steps would take her into the college grounds
and then she would have to greet them. But what if they were mean
to her? Katie left them behind and told herself that she was only
exploring and not intending to meet anyone here. Not yet. Her feet
had walked her to another part of the academy – one that almost
took her breath away.. in front of her was an athletics stadium. It
was nowhere near as big as a professional athletics stadium but it
was full size and properly kitted out. It was a strange thing that
she hadn’t noticed it from her bedroom window. For a training
ground the arena was amazing and far better than she had ever
anticipated for a town this size. Katie shook herself, looked up to
the sky wondering if it would rain again – the clouds were
certainly thickening nicely – and skipped down to the old man
sitting at the hatch.