Lucas Ryan Versus: The Return (7 page)

LEVEL 13

BEGGIN FOR THREAD

The hallway of the high school was bathed in purple and gray hues. The morbid colors washed over me as I ran down the corridor. Dark lockers whipped past my face as I continued to push my pace quicker and quicker. My legs began to ache and I was already gasping for air. How long had I been running?

“Lucassssssssssss!” the terrifying voice called to me again. This time it sounded even closer than last time. I bit down harder and pushed my body to its limit. I ran without thinking, in a complete and overwhelming frenzy. The hallway grew smaller as the lockers reached for me with bent and crinkled doors. Dark liquid poured from each one, staining the floor in blackness. My sneakers tried their best to wade through the muck but it was no use. Slowly, I started to ease my escape.

“No!” I puffed, with desperation. From down the hallway came another cackle that ricochetted off every wall around me. I was being hunted. I was trapped. My heart raced as the first hint of a shadow crawled along the ceiling, stretching for me like a dying tree branch.

With a guttural growl, the voice called out again, “Lucassssssssss!”

“Leave me alone!” I ripped my fist in front of my face and willed Ripley to appear but nothing happened. I concentrated even harder but still no magic dragon.
What the hell?

“You’re mine, Lucasssssssssssss…” the hidden evil promised.

That’s when I realized there was no longer a mystical tattoo scribbled around my wrist and arm. Just my bare skin and sweat. I begged the darkness, “Ripley? Where are you?”

“Lucassssssssssss…I want you!”

“Go away!” I screamed, still stuck like a pathetic fly on a sticky strip of poison.

“I need you!” it warned, sounding more human-like than before.

“No!” I wailed.

“I crave you!”

As the foreign shadow expanded in front of me I pulled my eyelids tightly together. Just because I was about to be eaten didn’t mean I had to watch. With my lungs gasping for air, I dared the hidden evil. “Go ahead! Eat me! I hope you choke!”

“Lucas…I need you…”

“I know, I know! Hurry up! End this friggin’ nightmare!”

“I need you to take me to Homecoming,” a sweet and familiar voice said, shockingly.

“Huh?” I gasped, and peeled my eyelids open, one at a time. “Olivia, is that you?”

It was. Olivia was now standing in front of me with a soft smile and rosy red cheeks. The school hallway was back to normal and I was no longer stuck in the deadly molasses.

“Please?” she asked, again. Suddenly, it all made sense…I was dreaming. My hand found the back of my neck, it was covered in cold wetness. I let out a long breath and stepped closer to her.

“This is just a dream.”

“I need you to sew up this hole in my heart,” she begged me.

“But you’re not real…”

“I’m begging you for the thread to fix this hole. Only you can help me, Lucas.” She smiled wildly and reached out for me.

“This isn’t real.” The words vibrated from my mouth, causing her smile to fade again.

“So,” she said, sweetly.

“So, it doesn’t matter what I say. When I wake up this whole scenario will fade away. No you, no me, no Homecoming,” I spoke, with the first hint of calmness. Olivia frowned and hung her head in defeat. She twirled around and skipped away into the distance.

“Whatever,” she called out, over her shoulder. I watched her bounce away until she was gone again. Feeling relieved but confused, I turned around to hopefully make my way home and out of this dream. When I did though, I was stopped immediately by another shock.

“Soph?”

Sophia was standing just out of my reach. She had her arm extended out with her hand open, holding all her special rings. They were glowing with a dull hum and she was crying.

“Soph, what’s wrong?” I asked, scared.

“They can’t protect me forever,” she whispered.

“You don’t know that for sure,” I stumbled over my words.

“You can’t protect me forever.”

I leaned into her and curled her opened fingers back around the rings. “I can try.”

“It won’t matter,” she sobbed.

“Why?”

“Because…” she drifted off.

“Because why?” I shouldn’t had asked.

“He’s coming,” she warned.

Her words stole my breath. “Who’s coming, Soph?”

She turned from me and ran down the hall.

“Who? Who is it?” I hollered, as loud as possible. She flickered into the distance and disappeared as quickly as she had appeared. I was beyond scared.
Who was she talking about?

~ Lucas! ~

“Ripley? Is that you?”

~ Wake up! ~

“I can’t,” I said, nervously. Uncontrollably, my body began to shake and twist. The walls of the school fell away and suddenly I was falling. I tried to scream but slammed into my pillows before I could. My body bounced off my bed and crashed to the floor, sending my sheet into the air like a wave made of linen.
Ouch.
Well, at least I was awake now, even if I hadn’t been asleep very long. My clock was blinking 1:07 a.m. in the morning.

Quickly, I jumped up and tried to gather my racing thoughts. “What a rush.”

At the foot of my bed stood Ripley, silent and still. I looked down at my forearm and traced the lines of the tattoo. I was so happy that it was back.

“Rip! What’s going on?” I asked, a little winded but relieved.

~ You have a visitor. ~

Ripley slid to the side to reveal my bedroom window. The nighttime sky peeked at me through my half-closed blinds. Just then a faint tap came from outside. Then, another. Someone was here, throwing rocks at my window. I ran to the window as fast as possible. Ripley coiled up behind me without making a sound. From below my window was the last person I figured wanted to speak to me. Olivia.

I opened the window, quietly, and with a nervous tone, she asked, “Were you sleeping?”

I shrugged in my sweat-stained T-Shirt, “No.”

“Good. Can we talk?”

I called down to her in a hush, “Hang on. I’m coming down.”

Two minutes later Olivia was standing in my room between Ripley and I, fidgety and beautiful.

“Hey,” I said, softly.

“Hey,” she smiled, and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Lucas, I wanted to apologize for earlier today.”

With a sneaky glance toward my clock, I teased, “You mean yesterday.”

She laughed, lightly. “Yeah.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to.”

“Yes, I do. I know you have Soph’s best interest in mind. Hell, if it wasn’t for you, I would have never seen her again,” she sighed. I could tell it was extremely hard for her to apologize. She gently touched my forearm, tracing the familiar lines of my tattoo.

“It was much easier dealing with your impossible powers when it was just you and me. Now, with my little sis playing in this supernatural sandbox, I’m having the worst time separating my fears from my feelings.”

I swallowed hard, “What feelings?”

She looked me deep in my eyes. “You know.”

I did know. She still cared about me. Our bond was still there, still strong. Time slowed as we stared at one another.

We stood in silence for almost a minute before the presence of Ripley at our sides, pulled her attention away from me. Ripley hovered above the carpet without moving, mysterious and unwavering. Curls of twisting smoke spun above the floor as if dripping from Ripley’s monstrous torso. I watched as Olivia studied every feature of my dragon.

Not knowing what to do next, I said the first thing that came to my mind. “Are you thirsty? I can grab you a drink from the kitchen.”

Olivia smiled, shyly. “I guess I could go for a Coke or something.”

“I’m on it,” I said, and rushed out my bedroom door as fast as I possibly could without making any noise. Last thing I needed was my parents catching me with a girl, and a dragon, in my room. I hustled down the stairs and into the dark kitchen. Quickly, I poured us both a glass of soda with extra ice and ran back upstairs.

Just before I reached the door to my room, I heard Olivia and Ripley having a conversation. It startled me because it was one of the few times I’ve heard Ripley speak out loud. Usually Ripley just spoke within my mind. The scene locked me in place, just outside my bedroom, huddling behind the crack of my opened door. I leaned up against the wall and listened.

“Is she safe?” Olivia asked. I assumed she was asking about Sophia.

Ripley spoke articulately,
“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“The power of the Jynshee chose her for a reason. She is very strong.”

Olivia nodded but with obvious doubt across her face. “But why did the Jynshee Orb change into the rings?”

“Sophia chose the Jynshee’s true form. She made them take the shape of thirteen rings. Just like Lucas designed this form for me,”
Ripley said, without any movement.

Olivia leaned against my desk and pondered her next question before asking. “Are
we
safe?”

Ripley said nothing.

“I mean, is the town in danger anymore? Me, Lucas, and all our friends, are
we
safe, Ripley?” she asked, loud enough to wake the rest of the house. Ripley finally shifted and spun into a shiny cloud of sparkly smoke.

“That depends,”
Ripley whispered, and circled around Olivia slowly.

She held her breath, and asked, “On what?”

Ripley’s golden amber eyes flickered with power and my bedroom door pulled open, revealing my spying stance. The two glasses of soda jingled with melting ice in my hands as Ripley finally answered her question.

“On him.”

I slowly kicked the door closed with my foot, leaning up against it once it clicked into place. Desperately, I tried to keep my balance.

“What?” I mumbled. Ripley looked back at Olivia before spinning back into my forearm in an instant. It caused another rattle of ice cubes in the glasses I was trying to balance. Ripley’s last words rang out through the shadows of my bedroom, haunting both Olivia and I.

“Our fate rest with Lucas.”

LEVEL 14

DANGEROUS

The morning began with the news that at least another dozen students were absent, maybe more. Kids were disappearing at a crazy rate now, and the hallways of the high school looked emptier because of it. The weirdest thing was there didn’t seem to be any uproar about it. No angry parents, no inquisitive faculty, no authorities or police snooping around. The missing students were just…gone. Like they never even existed in the first place. After my first couple classes I bumped into a worried Roland.

“Mr. King’s missing now, too,” Roland whispered, through a tight frown.

“The music teacher? What the heck is going on, Ro?”

Roland snatched up his cell phone as its screen flickered to life with a new notification. “I don’t know but Mo just messaged me that the school nurse isn’t here today either. This isn’t normal, Luc.”

“I agree.”

“Things have been different ever since you returned,” he accused, softly.

With a nervous and lost expression plastered across my face, I mumbled, “I know.”

“That’s it, I’m calling an emergency meeting,” Roland said, and pulled me by my arm to follow.

“What about the rest of the gang?”

Leading me into the school’s library, he shook his head. “There isn’t time. Mo and T will just have to be brought up to speed later. Come on.”

As we both marched through the mostly empty library we expected to be stopped by Ms. Logan, the school’s librarian, but she was nowhere to be found. Roland and I exchanged matching stares, both full of fear. We quickly ran to our unofficial hiding spot, lost behind the maze of bookshelves that resided at the back of the library. One of the long fluorescent lights above was always burnt out in this section and it left a moody but perfect place for students to hide out. Usually to make out or share a forbidden smoke. The dusty books still smelled of cigarettes and hormones.

Checking the corners of our sanctuary for privacy before continuing, Roland and I tucked ourselves up against the furthest wall.

“We don’t have much time. The next bell for class is about to ring,” I warned.

“Class? We have bigger things to worry about, my friend.”

He was right. I didn’t want to think about it, but the missing faculty and students was a sign of something bad on the horizon.

“All right, Ro, what’s the plan?”

“First off, we need some kind of head count, you know, a solid number to tell us how many kids are disappearing and when. Second, what’s the connection to the disappearances and your return.” He stopped his stream of thought and found my weary eyes. I was already thinking what he was. We both whispered at the same time…

“Ms. Strickland.”

“It’s got to be more than just a coincidence that when she shows up everyone goes missing, Luc.” He pulled out his computer and started clicking through his many X-files.

“You really think you’ll find any answers in there? She’s not an alien,” I teased.

He peered up at me. “Are you sure?”

I hesitated but quickly found my words. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“Why?”

“Seriously, Ro, have you ever seen an alien that beautiful?” I questioned, in a small laugh. He ignored me and clicked on some other files. Just then the bell for the next class rang loudly. Great, we were late for our next classes.

“Well, how about a vampire?” he asked, with one eyebrow raised.

“Umm…no.”

“A werewolf?”

Again, I huffed, “No.”

“Evil fairy?”

“Nope,” I giggled. “You’re not even trying now.”

“Dang it, Luc. Maybe she’s Bigfoot!” he grumbled.

“Why do all your theories come back to Bigfoot? I think you have a thing for Sasquatch!” I laughed even harder.

“Shut up!” he demanded.

“That’s it! One-hundred and ten-percent Sasquatch love!” I couldn’t stop laughing but Roland just sat there with his eyes searching his computer screen. Finally, he closed his laptop and shoved it back into his bag.

“Wait a second, I got it!” he cheered.

“Okay, let’s hear it,” I smiled, still filled with laughter.

“A succubus.”

“You mean one of those ancient creatures that fed on peoples life force?” It didn’t fit exactly, but there were some similarities.

“Maybe she’s an alien succubus that feeds on human flesh and plans on eating the entire school, one by one,” his voice cracked a bit. In a flash, my brain filled with a dark image of a shadow. It was tall and had glowing silver eyes. It stood still and slowly pointed a long arm toward me. I had seen the foreboding outline before.

With a dry cough, I whispered, “A demon.”

“What?” Roland asked.

Suddenly, from behind Roland’s shoulder another warning sign reared its head. A large book bound in dark leather with gold writing printed along its spine pulled my eyes toward it. The words weren’t in English and I had never seen writing like it before. Very foreign, almost alien looking. The lettering spun in vibrant yellow flashes of light. Immediately, the lines of my tattoo began to mimic the flashing perfectly. Roland looked down at my arm and froze.

“What is it?” he asked, quietly. I slowly pointed behind him, at the mysterious book. As he turned to soak in the surreal image of both the book and my arm glimmering in unison, I concentrated on Ripley inside my head.

What’s going on, Ripley?

~ Danger. ~

Danger? No kidding. What’s happening? What’s that book on the shelf?

~ Danger. ~

I heard you the first time. Why are you blinking with the same light?

~ I don’t know. I’ve never felt this way before. ~

Huh? What do you mean, this way?

~ I’m scared. ~

But you never get scared.

~ Exactly. ~

Shocked, I pulled my arm into my chest and covered the flashing light with my other arm. Roland watched me closely but said nothing.

With a large gulp of nerves down my throat, I said, “Don’t touch that book.”

Beginning to shake, Roland asked the obvious, “Why?”

“It’s dangerous.”

He held his breath for a moment before shaking his head in defiance and turned back toward the strange book.

“I want to touch it,” he said.

“No! Are you crazy? Ripley warned me not to mess with it!”

“Trust me, Luc, I know what I’m doing,” he said, drifting off. He was acting as if he was hypnotized by the thing. I grabbed his shoulder to hold him back and his muscles tightened, ready to fight back.

“Roland, please,” I begged. He paused for a second and eased his body. It only lasted for a moment though. He urgently pulled forward, reaching for the book.

“Ro!” I warned.

From behind us came a hauntingly familiar voice.

“You’re late.”

Absolutely terrified in our secret little corner, we both spun around to find Ms. Strickland standing there. Her hands fell on her waist and her eyes shined from behind her thin-rimmed glasses. A fleshy pout painted along her lips, taunted us.

“Ms. Strickland,” Roland snapped.

With a step forward, she snarled, “Mr. Saint, Mr. Ryan, you are both very tardy for your next class.”

“We’re sorry,” Roland whimpered. I could only watch her and that deviant smirk.

“What are you two doing back here?” she asked, with a pop of her neck. She instantly looked past us at the book on the shelf. It was no longer blinking with light, same with my tattoo. I rubbed the tattoo before placing my arms at my sides. She watched me like a predator stalking its prey.

“Nothing, Ms. Strickland,” Roland said, scared. She stepped up to him and placed her slender fingers along the strap of his schoolbag. Roland leaned away from her as far as he could as if he was about to be attacked.

“Good. You may leave, Mr. Saint,” she said, and twisted around toward me. Roland shot me the look of a captured fish being thrown back into the ocean. His eyes bulged with fear and relief, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave without me. Ms. Strickland placed a hand in front of me but made sure not to touch me. Her fingers hovered centimeters from chest. “Not you, Mr, Ryan. You stay right where you are.”

With a nod, I let Roland off the hook. He ran from the literary cove, knocking a few books off the shelf as he did. In my head I could hear Ripley’s warning again…

~ Danger. ~

“I better get going. Like you said, I’m late…” I tried to say as I pushed forward. Ms. Strickland stepped aside just enough for me to pass, still making sure not to touch me. I tried my best to ignore her, shielding my eyes from hers. She quickly surveyed the whole area, letting her wicked stare fall on the mysterious book last. Before I could disappear around the corner, her voice rang out.

“Mr. Ryan.”

Frozen in my tracks, I answered, “Yes.”

“After-school detention will be held in my classroom today.”

“Oh, okay,” I swallowed. My hand had instinctively curled into a fist, ready to call upon Ripley.

With a fake smile, she demanded, “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t,” I barely said.

“I hope not. You know what they say about the effects of tardiness on the average teenagers health and well-being?” she said, morbidly.

I held my breath. “No.”

“It can be…dangerous.”

Without even noticing, I took a defensive step backwards. Our eyes locked into place and the air in my lungs slowly slid through my lips, escaping their prison.

Stupidly, I stepped forward and declared, “Lucky for me I’m not an average teenager.” I have no idea why I said it. It just came out. Inside my head Ripley came alive.

~ Danger! ~

Ms. Strickland smiled, wildly. She looked exhilarated and angry at the same time. She patiently stepped up to me and lowered her head to the side of mine. Her breath felt hot on my ear and cheek. She inhaled a long swig of my scent and exhaled two paralyzing words…

“I know.”

I turned and ran out of the library without looking back but in my imagination I could see her laughing wickedly.