To add insult to injury, the storm outside only seemed to be getting worse. Sure enough, tiny specks of hale pelted the windshield as I rolled my tiny red Civic out of the garage. Maine’s magnificently abysmal weather appeared to have come out in full force. Our house sat on the hillside corner of DuPont Lane and Rochester Drive, where the fog continuously rolled down each street, flooding our lot in the crossfire as the two bends converged. Tonight was no different, making visibility pretty much nonexistent as I drove down the main drag.
Between the poor driving conditions and the fact that I got stuck behind a sluggish, phantom-breaking minivan, the typical ten-minute drive to the school wound up taking me an exhaustible twenty. Boxing had become kind of a big deal at Belleview over the last couple years, and by the looks of the occupied parking lot, the guys were still inside training. At least one thing had panned out in my favor.
I took the closest parking space I could find near the gym doors and cut the engine. It wasn’t more than a thirty foot trip, but I still ended up completely soak from head to toe by the time I made into the building. Sneakers squeaked across the gymnasium floors as hollering overpowered the thunderous echo of the rain pounding against the vast rooftop. I rounded the end of the drawn-in bleachers to see the basketball team practicing on the court, and I immediately recoiled.
Crap. They’d changed their schedule.
If Carly had resorted to calling my mom, she sure as hell had told Daniel, and Mark, and Eric all about my vanishing act. The last thing I wanted was to have to talk to anybody, let alone explain myself. And all three were right there. I didn’t have a choice though. There wasn’t another way to get to the hallway. All the other doors would have been locked and chained up hours ago.
I remained hidden behind the bleachers, waiting for the game to head to the other end of the court. When my opening came, I darted across the gym. Heaving a sigh of relief, I entered the hallway, thankful that no one seemed to have noticed me. The janitorial staff must have already done their rounds, because the lights were all off. Only the faint glow of the street lights outside illuminated the shadowed corridors. The creepy atmosphere did nothing to calm my nerves as I pulled open the doors to the stairwell. Thankfully, one of the dim light fixtures remained on at the half-landing, allowing me to safely travel up the steps. I made it to my locker on the second floor, but failed the first five attempts to get the stupid thing open. There weren’t any windows or doors nearby, so I had next to no visibility to see the numbers on the combination dial.
When I finally did get inside, I blindly reached up into the top shelf, feeling around for my cell. As soon as I pulled it down, the theme from Dracula erupted from within my hands, startling me back.
Damn, I really did need to change that.
It came as no surprise that I had 52 text messages and 21 missed calls. I scrolled through the texts, seeing messages from pretty much everyone begging to know where I was. What was surprising was the fact that Vice Principal Wallace hadn’t raided my locker, given how often my phone must have been going off throughout the day. I could’ve sworn I’d set it to vibrate…
The phone played its sinister ringtone once again, and I noted another incoming text message.
That was odd. The name of the user was listed as Unknown. I tapped on the message.
“Good to see you bounced back so quickly.”
Another message immediately popped up, and I nearly dropped the phone as a picture came up on the screen.
Broken glass lay spewed all over, the bits seeming to stick to the masses of blood splattered across me as my lifeless eyes bore into the void above. I was on the pavement, the damp asphalt gleaming under the flash of the camera. It was…from the accident. My trembling fingers zoomed in on the photo. It wasn’t the blood that was keeping the glass in place. It was burrowed in my skin, a particularly large shard protruding from the front of my temple. How could that be? I didn’t have any cuts on me when I woke up in the hospital, mere hours after the accident.
Who the hell would send something like this? Or the better question, how did they even get a hold of it?
The floor rumbled as a vicious bout of thunder resounded outside. I frantically tossed a mass of textbooks and notes into my satchel before slamming the locker shut. Lightning crackled again, and I froze, catching sight of the figure lurking at the end of the hallway out of my peripheral. Slowly turning, I faced the individual, unable to see anything down the long, shadowed corridor. My feet backpedaled toward the stairwell as lightning struck again. Between the distance and brief illumination, all I could make out was a tall frame hidden behind a massive black sweatshirt with the hood drawn over the person’s head and dark pants. No features were distinguishable, but the frame was relatively tall. Around six feet, give or take.