Twenty
The dog spotted him. It leaped and banged off the
tinted window, leaving behind flecks of foam on the glass.
Rick reeled back in surprise.
"Well?"
The dog had looked gray when it moved beneath the
overhang of the roof. A moment earlier, he had caught only a brief
glimpse of the animal in the shadows. Obviously the dog had been white
all along, but appearing darker in color beneath the overhand.
Rick was reluctant to voice his opinion. "I thought
it looked kind of dark..."
Becky threw her arms into the air. "I should have
known. I left too much room for doubt."
Rick gave her a crooked grin and an apologetic shrug.
Becky sighed in defeat. "Okay, so I'll have to come
up with something undeniable, something with more shock value."
She sat at another, nearby desk. Rick slid into the
one across from her.
"I've seen you around school," she said. "You were
always staring at me. I didn't think that collision we had was an
accident. That's why I wasn't more friendly."
"You thought I did it on purpose?"
"You scared me," she admitted. She smiled briefly.
"I guess you really do like my eyes after all."
"What made you change your mind about me?" Rick
said.
Becky looked embarrassed. "Because of the problems
you're having with your friends. You're much too self-sacrificing."
"But not very intimidating."
She gazed at him openly. "You can be my friend. I
could use one. I had one when I was a kid. He's dead now, and I can't go
with him. Not unless I kill myself."
Rick felt like a birdie in a fast-paced game of
badminton.
"Suicide would be stupid not knowing what death is
really like," Becky said. "It might be nothing. But then again..."
She let the thought hang. "I'd be using you like the
others use you," she said. "Do you mind? I don't know how else to
protect myself from Mr. Peters."
Tears appeared in her eyes. They ran down her high
cheekbones and dripped into her lap.
Rick sat up a bit straighter. "Would I be prying if
I asked who Mr. Peters was?"
Becky laughed through her tears. "Not if I'm going
to be spilling my guts to you. Mr. Peters molested me when I was a little
girl. I think he was handicapped. He had this really goofy smile, which
made it all that much worse. Kids are easy to traumatize at five or six
years old. Then it happened again a few years later at summer camp. Mr.
Peters turned a perfectly good summer vacation into a real nightmare."
"A man is stalking you? After all these years?"
Becky laughed at his expression of shock. "No, of
course not. It wasn't really Mr. Peters. The second time, I didn't a
good look at his face, but he was just a kid, maybe sixteen or so. What I
got now is a phobia with one face pinned on it. Mr. Peter's smiling
face. He's become my own personal bogey-man."
"There's nothing to fear here," Rick said, doubting
his assurance even as he gave it. "I won't hurt you. Mort's got his eye
on Marla. I don't think Marla is any danger to you."
"Considering the circumstances, Mr. Peters himself
could get me again, right here in this school, before the night ends."
Rick understood what she was thinking. "Like the
dog? Do you really think you could hallucinate something so far-fetched?"
"It would be more than a hallucination. It would be
like reality itself. Did you know you were dreaming during the virtual
reality evaluation?"
"I guess not. So you think you could conjure up Mr.
Peters like you did your dog? You're absolutely convinced that you
created the dog out of thin air?"
Becky nodded solemnly. "It would be too much
coincidence if another dog just happened along, especially one that can
change color so easily. Did you see whether he was wearing a collar?"
Rick thought about it. "He wasn't."
"I bet I can put one on him. He's still out there if
you'd like to go check."
Rick's courage failed. "I'll pass."
"If you're afraid, too, then you know that I might be
telling the truth. I'll just have to come up with something less
ambiguous."
I wish you wouldn't bother. But he only shrugged and
faked an easy-going smile.
"I'm just afraid I'll frighten myself if I go too
far," Becky added. "Things could get out of hand."
Rick looked away from the girl, no longer able to
maintain comfortable eye contact. Despite his reservations, it seemed far
more likely that Becky had let her imagination run away with her.
"I'll have to try," she said with conviction. "I
have to prove it to you. You have no idea how bad things can get, how bad
things will get, if we don't stop it."
"I'll stay with you," Rick said, hoping that would be
the case. "We can talk about it."
Becky got up. "You stay here. I need to be alone."
She stood and with a swish of her skirt, she left the
room.
Rick sighed. He couldn't seem to win for lose. He
had always been too willing to accommodate Mort and Marla's foolishness.
With Becky Marple, part of him was holding back. Maybe because he knew so
little about her as yet.
From somewhere outside in the corridor, he could hear
Mort pounding at the walls. Curious, he followed the sound. He stopped
at a hall intersection and peeked around the corner.
Mort had found himself a sledgehammer and was putting
it to good use. Rick drew back out of sight. He closed his eyes and
leaned his head against the wall. He needed to sleep. Maybe if he hid
and slept, the night would pass in blissful unconsciousness. Daylight and
Security would take him by pleasant surprise.
Mort's sledgehammer banged against solid steel. Rick
looked around the corner and saw that Mort had uncovered an I-beam. Mort
calmly sidestepped the rubble at his feet and began bashing himself a new
hole a few feet off to one side.
Between blows of the hammer, Rick heard a distant
scream. Still spooked by Becky's wild claims that they were four ghosts
haunting a ghostly Armstrong High, he balked at running off down deserted
corridors on another rescue errand. He thought of recruiting Mort to
accompany him, but only briefly. Mort was too wound up in a mission of
his own.
Rick backtracked to the junction where one of the
central corridors bisected the building. As he had feared, the terrible
screams were coming from the depths of Armstrong High, toward the main
offices where he had left Marla van Kirk alone.
