Fraidy-Cat

  J. Dean

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2009 J. Dean

  Other titles by J. Dean at Smashwords.com:

  The Summoning of Clade Josso

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  **

  The custodians had been gone for about five minutes.

  A metal click, and the creak of a slow-opening door in the middle of the hallway broke the sea of silence which had descended upon the hallway. Out popped a freckled face, which looked both ways.

  “Okay. It’s clear.”

  He tread cautiously to the center of the hallway, dimly lit by red exit signs. From behind him came three other figures-all female, two taller than the third one.

  “Where’s your locker, Carrie?”

  One of the taller girls turned and pointed to a row of rust-cornered lockers on a nearby wall. “I’ll go get the stuff.” She murmured, trying to keep thick black hair away from her face-and failing at it. “Gimme your flashlight, Brandon.”

  Brandon handed her the small cylinder, no bigger than the palm of his hand. The light flickered on, shining up to reveal a wicked, shadowed grin. The short girl let out a yelp.

  Brandon laughed at her. “What a fraidy-cat!”

  “Shut up!” the short girl retorted, slapping him in the arm. Her round face still held the look of a small child, even though eighth grade was just around the corner for her.

  Now it was Carrie’s turn to laugh. “You just spook too easy, Izzy.”

  Isabella jabbed a tongue through pouty lips at her, face wrinkling in disgust. She didn’t like being called “Izzy.”

  Carrie’s feet clopped through the hallway as Brandon looked at the other tall girl. “Did you fix the lab door, Cheryl?”

  The girl with a red-haired ponytail bobbed her head up and down. “All set. Made sure to do it earlier today when we left. I put the duct tape on the lock when Mr. Chambers wasn’t looking, and I volunteered to shut the door for him when we left the room. I did another check of it just before you guys got here. It’s still open.”

  “Good.”

  “But how will we leave after we’re done?” Isabella asked with a plea. Her voice was colored with a nervous inflection.

  Brandon shrugged, “We’ll slip out the lab window. It’s big enough for us. When we get out, we’ll close it up as best we can.”

  “Even if the custodians find it Monday, they’ll just think it was left open from earlier today.” Cheryl added. “No biggie, as long as we put everything back.”

  A metallic sliding down came from Carrie’s direction, accompanied by lower sounds of things being shifted and bumping into the sides of the locker.

  Cheryl looked down at the sandy-haired Isabella. “So you’re sure you wanna do this?”

  “Well, nooo…” Isabella answered in an almost whine. “I mean, you guys wanted me to go along with coming up here!”

  “You’re the one who kept asking about it, Izzy!” Brandon pointed an accusing finger at her.

  Stop calling me Izzy! “Well, yeah, but I didn’t think you’d be doing something like this!”

  The locker door slammed shut, sending an echo down the hall. “You agreed to it, didn’t you?” Cheryl asked.

  Isabella let out a moan. “But I thought you guys were kidding about this!”

  “Got it all right here.” Carrie said, rejoining the others, holding up a small, nylon satchel. “You’re not getting cold feet, are you Izzy?”

  Isabella let out a nervous, choked laugh. Brandon patted her shoulder. “Look, it’s going to be fun, okay? Don’t get yourself all riled up. You don’t even know what’s going to happen yet!”

  “I know that I don’t like being in school at night after everybody’s gone!” Isabella whimpered.

  In the glow of the flashlight, the other three looked at each other with slightly upturned corners on their mouths. Isabella didn’t like that.

  “C’mon.” Brandon jabbed a thumb in the direction of the lab. “Let’s get set up.”

  **

  The set-up hadn’t taken long at all. A dozen white candles of a dozen differing lengths had been set up on various spots in the lab, carefully placed so as not to set fire to anything in the immediate vicinity. After this, a digital clock was placed on a nearby lab table, not far from one of three sinks embedded in the counter on the far side of the wall. Cheryl fidgeted with it for a few moments, after which the flashing display of twelve o’ clock changed over to the correct time: ten-nineteen.

  All of this was being accomplished without the room lights being turned on.

  Isabella watched the entire process, trying to keep an impassive look on her face. She had kicked herself a thousand times for agreeing to do this; even now, a part of her badly wished she had agreed to go to the theater tonight with her other cheerleading friends-even if it was motivated in part by their desire to watch every move made by Barry Silvers. They’d drooled over him while he was quarterbacking the team, and now that football season was over, they’d continue to leave a trail of saliva in their tracks, hoping he’d ditch that bimbo from the other school district that he started seeing. Ditch her, choose one of us. That was the plan.

  But nooooo-couldn’t do that, could she? She just had to stick her nose in where it didn’t belong on Monday. Just had to hear the conversation between Brandon and Carrie about their little “game.” Just had to make a snide remark about it, which started the conversation about Isabella’s reputation, that her own shadow could make her jump. And Isabella just had to get defensive about it, and brag about not fearing anything at all, and she just had to agree to their dare to meet her at the school after dark, and sneak in just before the custodians locked the school up on a Friday night.

  Later that week, when she had been invited to the movies by the other cheerleaders, she had to decline; in part, because Isabella kept her word, and also in part because Carrie happened to be nearby, suspiciously eyeing her, making sure she wouldn’t go back on her word to accept the challenge-or go back on her word that she was not to tell anybody else about it.

  It forced her to lie to her parents about where she was going tonight. She had told them that she was spending the night at Carrie’s place for a sleepover, which was technically true-Carrie and Cheryl did invite her for the sleepover, after this. Still, her parents thought she was over there right now, not hiding out in a place that carried a far more sinister appearance after sundown than it did during the day. A place lit by bland fluorescent bulbs during regular hours, and now nearly pitch black, only illuminated by a distant streetlamp that let in a shining strip of dead blue through the window and was reflected on the back wall

  Right now, seeing a movie and stalking a quarterback sounded really good.

  **

  Cheryl had pulled out four more things from the satchel. “Anybody hungry?” She asked.

  Four candy bars were laid out on one of the lab tables. Isabella reached out with small fingers, snatching up the one loaded with peanuts and nougat. Crinkled noise cut through the air before giving way to silent chewing.

  “So how long have you guys been doing this?” Isabella asked after a swallow.

  “Since the summer.” Cheryl answered. She had taken the bar of pure milk chocolate. “We came up here after hearing the story about Cyrus Jones.”

  “The farmer who died? Wasn’t that like a hundred years ago or something?”

  “Fifty-one years ago, Izzy.” Brandon answered, licking a chocolate stain from his thumb. He had made short work of the crispy bar which had been in his possession.

  “So what? Is he gonna pass by the window or something?”

  Cheryl shook her head. “We thought the same thing when we came up here. But that’s not what happened. We had…” she stopped for a minute, exchanging another wry look with her two friends. “We had something else happen.”

  “Something better.” Brandon nodded.

  “What? What happened?” Isabella asked. The idea of all this being a surprise didn’t suit her at all. Already, even in the middle of this conversation, her imagination was playing tricks on her, shaping the wind-blown shadows of trees into gnarled fingers, and envisioning beady eyes looking out at her from the unseen corners of the room.

  “Now where would the fun be if we just told you?” Carrie asked playfully. Her candy bar turned out to be a wide plank of cherry taffy, which had been giving her considerable grief, as she had already tried to speak a couple of times, but was stopped in mid-chew each time by the stubborn, thick candy. Isabella would have laughed had she not been contending with her overactive imagination for attention.

  “Oh c’mon guys!” Isabella pleaded. “Tell me what happened! Please!?”

  Brandon raised a curious eyebrow. “I thought you weren’t scared.”

  “Yeah,” Cheryl chimed in. “You told us that your reputation as a fraidy-cat was just a line.”

  “I’m not! Really! Well-I mean..” Isabella’s stammer ended in a frustrated sigh. Do I give in and tell them the truth? That I really do jump at the sight of my own shadow at times?

  The answer was a pride-fueled negative. “I just-look, we’re up here by ourselves, and you could, like, kill me and string

me up or whatever, and nobody else would know.”

  Carrie’s mouth dropped open in sticky, taffy-filled shock. “Izzy! That hurts! That really hurts!”

  Open mouth, insert foot. “I didn’t mean it to-“

  “What do you take us for!? This is a game, Izzy!”

  Isabella tried to speak again, but Carrie let out a disgruntled breath of air through angry lips, arms folded.

  “Hey now, Carrie!” Brandon had stood up to check the placement of one of the candles. “Go easy on her!”

  “Whatever.” Carrie snapped, taking another look at Isabella with rolling eyes.

  Isabella looked at the other two. “You have our word, Izzy.” Cheryl answered, “We will not lay a hand on you during this. At all. Okay?”

  A swallow of spit went down Isabella’s throat. “You know, maybe this was a bad idea. I really don’t know if I want to be here or not.”

  “It’s really alright, Izzy.” Brandon answered, sitting back down. “I don’t blame you for feeling creeped out a little bit. Look, if you wanna leave, go ahead. I’ll open the window right now, and we’ll all go. Nothing will be said about it next week. Not by any of us. You want to do that?”

  The three girls watched Brandon walk over to the window, putting his hand on the latch. “You wanna go now? Say the word.”

  A tremendous relief washed over Isabella. Freedom. An exit. She didn’t have to do this. There was nothing to fear now; an out for all of this had been provided to her. She and the others could just go home, with no gossip to follow. And even if they did say something about it, a part of her didn’t care. She would just be glad to be out of here. It made her feel more secure with these relatively new friends. Not that she hated them or anything; she just hadn’t talked much to them during the school day, little more than passing words said when among friends of friends. Beyond that, nothing more.

  That would have to change come Monday.

  She started to rise from her chair when a second thought stopped her.

  Why not trust them?

  They had been willing to simply let it all go, no questions asked. Certainly they didn’t intend to hurt her, did they? After all, they could have done that just after the custodians had locked up and left. They could have done so against her will, too. Three of them, relatively taller than Isabella, and probably stronger, too. But none of them had attempted to pin her down, or tie her up, or hold her hostage with any sort of weapon.

  And she really did want to quit being so afraid. She had been told once that confronting fear kills it, while running from fear only made it stronger. Eventually she would have to stop jumping at every minor bump in the night, or stop avoiding every unlit area that filled the landscape when night fell.

  The fear had to stop, had to be killed.

  Tonight was the night to do it.

  “No,” she said with a somewhat forced smile. “Let’s do this.”

  **

  The candles were lit, but did little to brighten the dark room, instead adding more gloom and shadow by their faint flickering. Outside, the glow of the streetlamp continued to pour in, but it did little more than add to the haunted look of the lab. The only other available light came from the feeble illumination given by the alarm clock, which now read ten-fifty eight.

  Isabella sat at the center table, facing the row of windows that looked out toward the desolate courtyard. Despite the distant presence of the corner lamp, all else was swallowed in darkness. No cars would be passing by that intersection tonight. The school was situated in a back corner of a subdivision, behind most of the houses, so the only reason for any car to come through this way would be for picking up or dropping off students. Nobody was doing that tonight. Not for Isabella.

  Cheryl, Brandon, and Carrie stood in front of her, faces glowing from the light of the small flashlight. They stared down at her with solemn determination, waiting in silence for Isabella to situate herself in the chair.

  “So what happens now?” Isabella asked, “You guys gonna cast a spell on me or something?”

  “Not at all.” Brandon answered in a calm, flat tone. “We do nothing else. All you have to do is sit here, say nothing, and wait for eleven-thirty.”

  Isabella leaned to her left, looking at the clock: one minute to eleven. “Why? What happens at eleven-thirty?”

  “The game will be up.” Carrie’s voice had become as lifeless at Brandon’s. Isabella didn’t like it.

  “So.. What? The game’s starting now?”

  “Close your eyes, Izzy.” Cheryl said with a slight bob of her head.

  “Huh?”

  “Do it. Close your eyes. We’ll tell you when to open them.”

  Isabella’s lips parted in slight apprehension. “Why do I-?”

  “Close your eyes, Izzy.” Brandon said. His voice remained unchanged.

  “Okay, just-just don’t do anything, alright?”

  “Close them, Izzy.” Carrie soothed.

  Isabella did so. The dim room gave way to black eyelids.

  “Three….” Cheryl whispered-or was it Carrie?

  “Guys, I-“

  “Hush. Two…”

  Isabella let out a fearful moan.

  “One…”

  Her hands gripped the sides of the table.

  “Open them, Izzy.”

  With a sudden gulp of air, Isabella did so.

  The other three were gone.

  Isabella looked to the left and right, then spun around, checking the door behind her. It remained shut. There had been no sound of it opening or closing; for that matter, there had been no sound of feet falling on floor, either. The other three had just-vanished. Just like that.

  “Hey! Where did you go!”

  “You must not talk, Izzy.” The voice was Cheryl’s, and was as loud as if she had said it standing right next to Isabella, but there was nobody there. “Sit, watch, and wait until eleven-thirty.”

  Isabella ducked her head down to the floor, searching for huddled lumps that might have been the other three hiding out on the floor. Nothing but the shadowy forms of chair legs and table bases stared back at her. “Where did they go?” she whispered to herself.

  Only the digital face of the alarm clock stared back at her, and the eleven-oh-one on the display wasn’t telling her anything, except that she had twenty-nine more minutes to wait.

  **

  Eleven-oh-five.

  Isabella’s initial worry-that one of them, or even all three of them, were going to jump up and yell “Boo!”-began to subside. Her back had built up a swarm of tingles and shudders in preparation for such a moment, but no such moment had come. The little bit of cold perspiration which had tickled her seemed to be evaporating from her forehead. She shifted in her seat, taking another look to the left and right. The lab remained unchanged. Nothing but dim light crowded in by deep, swaying shadows.

  Quiet. Very quiet. Too quiet.

  She didn’t like quiet.

  She didn’t like being called “Izzy,” either.

  Crack!

  The sound made Isabella jump, a startled yelp escaping her lips, her right hand slapping her on the chest. Eyes darted this way and that around the room, half expecting something to emerge from the shadows and advance upon her with wicked intent. Seeing nothing, Isabella focused on the spot where the sound had come from, or where it might have come from.

  The wall-mounted cupboards to her left.

  She took in a couple of relieving breaths, trying to slow her heart down from its frantic cardiac race, watching the glass sliding door which covered the cupboards. The lack of ample light prevented her from seeing anything inside, instead presenting her with an almost mirror-quality reflection of candles from the other side of the lab.

  Another moment passed: nothing.

  She swallowed again, finding it difficult to do so; her mouth refused to produce saliva.

  “I want a water.” She whispered to herself. The cupboard did not answer her, thankfully.

  More moments crawled by. Isabella blinked once, twice. The cupboard remained quiet.

  “Just something falling over.” She said to herself.

  Sure. Something falling over. A jar of something, or a piece of equipment: nothing else. Probably just set up wrong from earlier in the day-no big deal. Things fall all the time out of the blue. It happened at Isabella’s home once in a while. A book not set right, or a dish put in the sink in an awkward position-they’d be fine, and then a little while later, when everybody was off doing their own thing, an unexpected clatter would come from the kitchen, or her bedroom, or wherever. Just from setting something down wrong, putting it away just out of proper place.

 

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