After Dark

For Heather, Zoe and Isaac, who light the way through the dark.
And for The Fellas, who've watched way too many horror movies with me.

KCP Fiction is an imprint of Kids Can Press

ISBN 978-1-77138-596-1 (EPUB)

Text © 2015 James Leck

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of Kids Can Press Ltd. or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit
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This is a work of fiction and any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

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Published in Canada by
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Published in the U.S. by
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www.kidscanpress.com

Edited by Yasemin Uçar
Designed by Marie Bartholomew

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Leck, James, author
     After dark / written by James Leck.

ISBN 978-1-77138-110-9 (bound)

I. Title.
PS8623.E397A65 2015         jC813'.6         C2014-904583-2

“There are worse things to be than a chicken.”

~ Col. Stephen H. Sanders

Friday, 6:58 a.m.

I was sweating. I was sweating profusely. My forehead was glistening. Rivers were running down my back. Even my knees were sweating. The room was dark except for a high-powered lamp that illuminated the patient lying in front of me. Bryce Wagner was sitting off to the side, his face in the shadows. Richard O'Rourke was sitting on the other side of the table. Behind him, in the darkness of the room, the crowd was watching.

“Are you just going to sit there and sweat, Harker?” Wagner asked, leaning into the light. His pasty skin was dry. He wasn't sweating at all.

I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand and looked down at the patient. Strange things were happening at the edge of my vision. The air was shimmering. I'd been awake for too long.

“Slow and steady,” O'Rourke said, angling the lamp a little. I leaned over the patient until my nose was only two inches from the chest cavity.

“Slow and steady,” O'Rourke repeated.

I lowered my hand toward the opening and eased the tweezers into the patient. When I was sure that I had a firm grip on the heart, I took a deep breath and began the extraction. A drop of sweat slipped down my left temple. A hush fell over the room. The patient's heart was more than halfway out when the door flew open and the lights came on.

“What is going on in here?”

My hand twitched, an electronic buzzer sounded and the patient's red nose lit up. The operation was a failure. I let go of the heart, threw the tweezers down and fell back in my chair.

Stanley Peck was standing in the doorway with his finger still on the light switch. Peck is the senior monitor of Weaver Hall dormitory, one of three dormitories at Choke Academy — where I live for 272 days of the year.

“What is going on in here?” he repeated. Even though it was only 7:02 in the morning, Peck was already wearing his school uniform and his blond hair was parted perfectly, not a single strand out of place.

O'Rourke leaped out of his chair and marched over to Peck. O'Rourke was a wreck. He'd been awake for almost three days. His hair, which was usually slicked back with some kind of gel straight out of the 1950s, was hanging down in his eyes, and his skin was a pale shade of green.

“Get out, Peck!” he roared. “These are private quarters!”

“Not for me, they're not,” Peck said, glaring at me, “and Harker's in violation of Rule 1.4 of the Choke Academy Student Handbook, which clearly states that students are not permitted to have guests in their rooms between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m.”

“You've just disrupted a very important operation!” O'Rourke screamed. “This patient is going to have to live with a broken heart for the rest of the summer thanks to you!”

“That's a game,” Peck said, “and your patient has a lightbulb for a nose. Plus, you've been gambling!” he added, pointing at a pile of cash sitting on the coffee table in front of me. “That's going to get you all expelled.”

The crowd, which was made up of six other sleep-deprived sweat-hogs from the Weaver Hall dorm, slunk back into a corner of the room.

“The cash is mine, Stanley,” Wagner said, scooping up the money. “I was just airing it out.”

“Not so fast, Wagbag,” I said, grabbing his wrist. Not the smartest move. Bryce Wagner was more than a few inches over six feet tall and spent most of his time sipping protein shakes and getting ripped in the school gym.

“You blew it, Sweaty,” he grumbled. “The money's mine.”

“Speaking of sweaty,” I said, “why are you so dry? Is it a disease, or are you actually some kind of huge plastic toy?”

“That does it!” Wagner yelled, leaping over the table and plowing into me.

I tipped over backward in my chair and came down with a crunch. I had a sinking feeling that crunch was the sound of my phone being crushed.

Wagner attempted to tie me into a pretzel while the rest of the crowd made a break for the door. He was just about to dislocate my left arm when O'Rourke threw himself across the room and they both went crashing into the corner. I scrambled up and jumped onto Wagner's back before he could pound O'Rourke into a pile of dust. While Wagner twirled around the room, slamming me into every wall, Peck stood by the door, blowing his orange panic whistle. Eventually Mr. Blatz, our math teacher and Weaver Hall faculty advisor, arrived and dragged us all across campus to Headmaster Sterling's office. On our way, I picked the remnants of my phone out of my pocket and tossed them in the trash.

Friday, 8:00 a.m.

Sterling is a short man with a thick red mustache and hair that floats in wisps above his head. When he arrived, he was wearing a navy blue suit and chomping on the end of a pipe that wasn't lit.

“Please fix your tie, Mr. Harker,” he said, sitting down behind an enormous desk.

I looked down. My shirt was hanging out, I had grass stains on both elbows, there was a long tear in one of the knees of my pants, and I couldn't remember where I'd left my blazer. I figured the least I could do was straighten my tie.

“Mr. Peck, could you explain why I'm sitting here, at eight in the morning, instead of eating my breakfast?”

“Well, sir,” Peck said, standing at attention, “I was doing an early-morning floor inspection when I heard voices in Charlie Harker's room. This was in direct violation of Rule 1.4 of the student handbook, so I investigated. When I entered Mr. Harker's room, I discovered that a number of students had gathered in order to play a game called Operation and that they were gambling on the results — an offense which could, and really should, result in their immediate expulsion. I made them aware of this, and that is approximately when a fight broke out. Luckily I was able to round them up, with a little help from Mr. Blatz, and bring them to see you, sir.”

Sterling sighed. “Thank you, Stanley,” he muttered, shuffling a few papers on his desk. “It's admirable of you to be so vigilant on the last day of the school year, and your final day as a senior monitor.”

“I take my job very seriously, sir,” Peck said, standing up even straighter.

Sterling frowned and turned to Bryce. “I'm surprised to see you here, Mr. Wagner. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I apologize, sir, but Harker and his friends were being rather rowdy and woke me up. I went to his room to ask them to be quiet, and that's when Stanley arrived.”

Wagner's story wasn't true — it wasn't even close to true. Wagner, like everyone else in Weaver Hall (except for Peck), had been participating in an annual tradition known as the Weaver Hall Olympiad. This elite competition takes place on our last night at Choke every year and includes such events as the mattress toss, the mud puddle jump and a full-contact, 1500-meter tricycle race. We had just been finishing off the festivities with a high-stakes game of Operation when Peck burst in.

“I see,” Sterling said, chewing on the end of his pipe. “What about you, Mr. Harker? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Mr. Sterling, Bryce Wagner is suffering from a terrible skin disease that doesn't allow him to sweat. I think he should see the school nurse immediately.”

“Do you see!” Wagner yelled, flexing the rather large muscles in his thick neck. “Do you see the insolence! He's not Choke material, sir!”

Sterling closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It's not up to you to decide who's Choke material, Mr. Wagner. However, Mr. Harker, I must admit I am beginning to wonder …” he said, picking up a folder from his desk and opening it.

“October twelfth, you bungee jumped from the roof of your dormitory, ripping your pants off in the process.”

“The cord didn't break, though,” I said. “My pants getting ripped off was unfortunate, but nobody was injured — not physically anyway.”

“November third, you were found glued to the ceiling of your room.”

“Sir, if I may,” O'Rourke said, raising his hand. “Technically that wasn't glue — it was an experimental foam I'd borrowed from my father. Mr. Harker was simply my test subject.”

Sterling frowned. “December tenth, you and Mr. O'Rourke dressed up as a bull and sold rides for one dollar in the gymnasium.”

“All of that money went to charity,” I said.

“That's not the point!” Sterling yelled. “You're not to be dressing up like animals or gluing yourself to ceilings or doing any of the other cockamamie things you've done this year! Furthermore, in addition to these shenanigans, you've had twenty-seven uniform violations, forty-three late arrivals to class, and your marks, quite frankly, are a disaster.”

“I'm not sure I'd describe my marks as a disaster,” I said. “A calamity maybe, but not a disaster.”

“They are a disaster, Mr. Harker. In fact, unless you did extremely well on your exams, I wouldn't be surprised to find out you have to repeat the tenth grade.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Wagner and Peck were both smiling.

“I turned it around during final exams, sir. In fact, I pretty much cut out sleep altogether for the past week, just so I could cram for exams.”

“Are you telling me that you haven't slept for a week?” Sterling asked.

“I may have squeezed in a few hours here and there.”

“You need to start taking things more seriously, Mr. Harker. Far more seriously!”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Sterling,” I said. “I'll put it at the top of my to-do list.”

“Life is not a joke!” Sterling said, pointing his pipe at me. “And may I remind you, young man, that you must be cleared out of your quarters by ten o'clock this morning. Mr. Peck will conduct a thorough inspection. You are not permitted to leave until he approves the condition of your room.”

“I'll make sure that it's spotless, sir,” Peck said.

“I'm sure you will,” Sterling replied. “As for the she-nanigans this morning, you'll all be serving a five-day in-school suspension when you return in September.”

“You're not serious?” Wagner said. “I was only asking them to be quiet.”

“You disturbed the peace of this institution, Mr. Wagner. Consider yourself lucky.”

“My father will hear about this,” Wagner said and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

“Are you sure you don't want to reconsider, Mr. Sterling?” I asked. “It's the last day of school, after all.”

“Get out,” Sterling said, pointing at the door with his pipe.

“Have a wonderful summer, sir,” Peck said, and we all headed for the door.

“I don't suppose I could pay you to forget about this?” I said before stepping outside.

“OUT!” Sterling roared.

Friday, 8:22 a.m.

My room looked like a stakeout gone bad and smelled like old gym socks. A half-dozen pizza boxes were stacked haphazardly in the corner, a small mound of dirty clothes was sitting on the end of my bed and soda cans littered every table. The game of Operation we'd been using was squashed on the floor, and there were dents in two of the walls. To top it all off, the money Wagner had tried to take was scattered all over the floor.

“Don't worry about the room,” O'Rourke said, stepping inside. “I'll take care of it.”

There was a time when I might have doubted O'Rourke, but that time was long gone. Anyone who could get us off-campus passes every weekend since Thanksgiving, talk our PE teacher into starting a Ping-Pong team to fulfill our extracurricular athletics requirement and make sure we didn't have to participate in the annual Choke Academy Ballroom Dancing Competition during the Spring Fling deserved respect. I asked him once how he did it. He mumbled something about his dad owning a private security company and told me not to ask any more questions.

“I owe you one.”

“You owe me a lot more than one, Harker,” he said.

“At least keep the money,” I said, nodding at the cash that was scattered all over the floor.

“I'll leave it for the cleaners,” he said. “You need to go, before Peck gets here.”

“I'm already gone,” I said, pulling my green duffel bag out from under my bed, wiping off the dust and stuffing the few pieces of dirty clothes I owned into it. On the way to the door, I grabbed my tablet and laptop off my desk, threw them into the bag and zipped it shut.

“What about your blazer?” O'Rourke said.

“I don't know where it is,” I said. “If you see it, could you grab it for me? I'll get it from you in September.”

“Fine,” he said, taking out his phone. “Now get out of here, and make sure Peck doesn't see you!”

“Adios amigo,” I said, opening the door a crack. The hallway was empty. “And try to relax a little this summer, O'Rourke. Life is short.”

“I'll try, but I'm spending most of it holed up in a bunker at some undisclosed location in the Middle East with my dad. I'll send you some pictures.”

“Can't wait,” I said and slipped into the hallway. Peck was nowhere in sight.

I made a break for the stairs and booted it down to the lobby. I was fantasizing about curling up under a bush outside and grabbing a quick nap before my mom arrived to pick me up. Unfortunately, when I stepped into the lobby, she was already standing by the door.

She looked about the same as she had for the past fifteen years of my life — shoulder-length blond hair held back with a pair of expensive sunglasses, blue eyes, lean, holding a Grande cup of something. Usually she'd be wearing something stylish and expensive, but today she was wearing sneakers, jeans and a black T-shirt with a big red butterfly splashed across the front.

“Charlie,” she said, walking over to me, “you look terrible.”

“They're working me too hard.”

“I doubt it,” she said, giving me a hug. “And you need a shower. You stink.”

“Don't hold back, Mom.”

“Enough chitchat,” she said, grabbing my bag and heading for the door. “Let's move.”