Nineteen
Rick could have held his breath in the amount of time
it took him to respond to Marla's cry for help. He would have been able
to hear her anywhere in the school.
He stopped at the shattered doors to the main office
in time to see Mort pawing the girl with his face buried in the side of
her neck. Mort was out of it, making noises in his throat like an
animal. It would be dangerous to intervene.
Quietly, he approached the two. Marla saw him
first. Mort had forced her back against a cabinet. Her arms dangled limp
at her side. She gave Rick a pleading look as he drew closer.
Rick paused when he saw the knife sticking in the
desk. He reached for it if only to disarm Mort.
"No!"
Marla kneed Mort in the stomach and sent him
staggering back. She snatched the switch blade from the desk surface and
backed away, swinging it from side to side to cover the two of them. "You
stay away from me, both of you!"
Mort snarled in anger. He advanced on her with no
regard for the knife at all.
"Mort," Rick said, offering fair warning that he had
company.
Mort froze in place without bothering to look
around. His jaw was clenched tight, rigid tendons and muscle standing out
along his neck.
Rick mustered what indignation he could. "It's no
good. You'll have to go through me first."
"Will that be a problem?" Mort said in a low, husky
tone.
"I didn't say it would, but I can't let you do this."
Mort chuckled. "Maybe she likes it. She can stop me
any time she wants. You saw that for yourself."
"Let me have it," Rick said to Marla and reached
again for the knife.
Marla ignored him and jabbed the knife at Mort. "Maybe you think a
bloody mess is such a big deal," she hissed at him through gritted teeth,
"but it would hardly be more gross than you already are."
Mort gave her a twisted grin. One lip was
twitching. Rick has seen it before. Mort's on the verge of loosing it
completely. Marla was doing none too well herself. Her usual beauty was
ruined by a face twisted by contempt.
"Thanks for the help, Rick," she spat at him. "The
both of you can get out of here. And don't try to sneak up on me again,
Mort. I'll kill you."
Rick backed carefully through the office and the
floor of broken glass. Mort followed and turned on him in the corridor
outside. "I ought to kick your head in, Kaiser. Don't mess with me
again. You don't get no more warnings."
Rick wanted to tell Mort and Marla about his talk
with Becky and her theory that they were still dreaming. He'd get nowhere
trying to reason his way through a time of sharply focused anger.
"You couldn't burn through the locks," he said,
hoping to distract Mort and break the ice.
Mort looked suddenly haunted. "They just fused
together. We'll never get out that way. And the glass is got some kind
of plastic filling. I can crack it, but it won't break."
"Maybe we should get everyone together and talk about
it."
Mort laughed at him. Mort had no patience for ideas
that couldn't be acted upon with brute force. Rick decided not to push
too hard for a group meeting. For all her smarts and insight, Becky was
as helpless as the rest of them.
Mort slapped the palm of his hand against the nearest
wall. "Steel-framed concrete. I found tools in the basement. It'll take
an hour or two, but I can go right through an outside wall, if that's what
it takes. We'll be out of here by morning."
"It's already morning."
Rick held up his watch for Mort to see.
Mort sneered derision. "Better get a new one,
Kaiser. That one is trashed."
"It reads the same time as the school clock."
Mort wasn't impressed. "So, the school is trashed,
too. Nobody knows we're here, so nothing's working right. But I plan on
being long gone by the time they find out. Because I'm not taking the
blame for the mess I'm making."
Mort turned and hurried away. Rick turned the other
way with no particular destination in mind.
"Rick?"
He swung around. Marla stood in the ruined door to
the offices, still holding the switchblade.
"I don't want to go steady with you no more," she
said, her voice a weary monotone. "I don't like the way you let people
push you around."
Rick had to at least try to reason with her. "Did
you hear what I told Mort about the clocks?"
"I guess you're a nice guy and all," she said,
continuing with her own line of thought. "I just don't think we're right
for each another."
Rick watched her weave her way back through the
office to a corner cubicle. She sat behind a desk and put the knife in
her lap.
"Don't stare at me!" she shrieked.
Rick ducked out of sight. He leaned against the
corridor wall, breathing hard. What more did they expect of him? He had
tried to help Mort and Marla over the rough spots of their lives. He had
asked nothing in return for himself. He was already failing Becky as a
friend.
Rick wandered to a nearby classroom. He took refuge
inside. Only some of the lights came on. A part of the room near a wall
of video screens remained dark. He stood at the window running the length
of the outside wall and studied the night outside.
He leaned forward and looked up at the moon glowing
in the night sky. Not a cloud in sight moved. Not a bat, bird, or bug
flew past his field of vision. Not a leaf stirred anywhere among the
trees scattered across the grounds surrounding Armstrong High. The view
could as easily have been a three-dimensional, but lifeless image.
He was turning away when he caught sight of movement
out of the corner of his eye. He turned in time to stagger back from the
hurtling body of a large black dog. The dog struck the outside window and
fell to the ground. It thrashed its way to its feet, lunged at him again
snarling, his mouth flecked with foam, his eyes glowing metallic orbs of
blue-green. No sound penetrated the barrier of glass.
Rick continued to back away. He stumbled over a desk
and turned.
Becky stood before him, her dark eyes on fire. "Do
you understand now?" she said softly. "I told you I could prove that what
I say is true."
Rick glanced back at the maddened animal still trying
to claw his way through the armored insulated glass.
"He isn't a real dog, you know," Becky said.
"If he bit me," Rick said, "I think I'd have to have
an imaginary rabies shot."
"I can prove he's not real," Becky said with a smile
on her heart-shaped lips. "I can prove it here and now."
More fearful of the five-foot girl than of the
snarling animal outside, he sat at a desk, hoping it would help keep down
the black dogs and beautiful young girls jumping in his face.
"You don't believe me," Becky said calmly. At least
she didn't rant and rave like Marla when crossed.
"I find it hard to believe."
"Do I scare you?"
Rick let her have her own way. "Yeah, a little," he
said.
Becky knelt facing him so that they were eye to eye.
"That's why the dog is outside, so that I didn't scare myself too badly.
Maybe I left a little room so that I, too, could believe that maybe the
dog is just a coincidence."
Rick had trouble swallowing. His mouth was dry.
"How did you do it?" he asked.
"I just spend about fifteen minutes concentrating on
the idea of a dog roaming around outside. I visualized it."
"Like self-hypnosis?" Rick said.
"I didn't have to try that hard."
"I see."
His tone of voice betrayed his disbelief, but he was
more than willing to listen. For almost an entire school year she had
haunted the corridors of Armstrong High with a face turned to the floor.
Now, as she leaned forward to urgently present her case to him, their
noses hovered hardly more than a foot apart. And she was very beautiful.
"What color dog was it?" Becky said.
"It was a black dog." Rick weighed the significance
of a black dog. "A lot of dogs are black," he said. "Maybe most dogs are
black, or at least a dark color, especially in dim lighting."
"Are you sure it wasn't white?"
Rick managed a thin smile. "It wasn't white."
"Absolutely one hundred percent certain?"
Rick smiled and confidently held up crossed fingers.
"Scout's honor."
"I can turn it white," Becky said with confidence.
"I've already succeeded creating myself a dog to begin with, so I think I
have the belief I need to turn the dog white if I want. So why don't you
go see for yourself whether the dog is white or black?"
"It's probably run off by now," Rick said.
"It's right outside the window. Go see for
yourself. It's a white dog."
Rick rose wearily to his feet. The fact that it was
still night out was enough to frighten him. He hoped rather than believed
Becky was wrong about the dog and the nature of their predicament. He had
taken about as much as he could handle.
He went to the window and looked for the dog. Maybe
it had run off.
No such luck. It paced along the lawn just in front
of the window, running back and forth along a path roughly twenty feet in
length.
Illuminated by the full moon, it was clearly a white
dog.
