The Haunting of Secrets (2 page)

I manage to push myself up with my hands into
a crouching position. For the first time, I get a real picture of
what happened those few precious seconds ago. The large, box-like
cafeteria, once filled with students laughing, talking, texting,
and eating, is no more. All my shocked vision sees is rubble
tainted crimson and the striking blue sky above me where a ceiling
once reigned. Students covered in dirt and blood are either running
for their lives or aimlessly walking in no particular direction.
Shock is a good thing. Those poor souls won’t know what hit them
until later. Then all hell will break loose.

I manage to get myself up onto my shaky legs
and follow the nearest running zombie to what looks like a door.
Nothing is as it should be anymore. The minute the bomb exploded,
the cafeteria became a war zone with no recognizable entry or exit.
Meandering through the rubble with something between a walk and a
run, I head for the hole that resembles a door, avoiding as many
people as possible as I fight for freedom from the nightmare. It is
nearly impossible. There are bodies everywhere that I have to
sidestep. I’m constantly drawn to the horrific sights as I pass
pieces of bodies hanging from all sorts of places in completely
unnatural positions. Briefly, I wonder what would happen if I
touched one of them, but quickly wipe the notion from my mind. The
dead would also have entirely too many secrets.

Suddenly, a scream erupts from somewhere
behind me and a fresh surge of panic envelops the few remaining
students lost in the rubble. They emerge from every possible corner
and begin running toward any source of light they can find,
desperate for a way out. I no longer aim for the exit. My only goal
now is to avoid the stream of people coming toward me. One touch
and I’m done for. One graze and the small slice of peace I managed
to find at this school since arriving two years ago will be lost.
Two people are coming straight at me, running full tilt with every
intention of running through me or over me. Neither looks sane
enough to care. Quickly, I throw myself left to avoid them, doing
my best not to land on the body of a guy that looks an awful lot
like Daniel. There’s no time to think. It is essential that I get
out of the way.

My ploy works as I fly over Daniel’s chopped
up mess of a body and curl myself into a ball. I roll under a split
cafeteria table and hit my back hard on a chunk of concrete. The
pain in my back surges, but is bearable now that I am out of range
of my companions. Still, people keep coming. Screams surround the
air as the blessed peace of shock wears off and the students
realize they are missing limbs, chunks of precious flesh, or simply
coming to terms with the fact that there may be no way out.

Slowly, I get up for a second time and panic
as I realize my left glove is missing and the thick black shirt I
wore this morning is ripped to shreds, exposing over half of my
arm. Panicked, I push my arm as far as I can under my shirt, but
it’s easy to see that it won’t be enough. A great deal of my arm is
still vulnerable. I panic some more before I shake myself mentally.
Yes, this is a problem, but right now, I need to focus
.

The only way to be safe is to get out of
here. For the first time I realize the precariousness of my
position. The survivors are still in danger. The cafeteria as we
knew it: whole, sound, strong, is no longer. The ceiling, a third
of which was blown off with the bomb, could fall in at any time.
All exits are blocked but one, located at the complete opposite
side of the cafeteria. I can almost feel the pillars that surround
me quake, the stress of holding up an imperfect structure too much
for their fragile hands. The desperate pull of survival tugs at me
and overrides the dominant fear of being touched. Finding new
strength, I jump up and take flight, my arm still folded within my
shirt and protected as much as possible. As much as I hate it, I
have to follow the crowd.

Behind me, I hear a deep rumble and I push on
faster in my haze, thinking it is another bomb. But somewhere deep
within my mind, I know that rumble. I have heard it before. That is
the sound of compromised concrete giving us a final warning. No
longer able to care about my exposed hand, I give one final push
toward the light up ahead, using my covered shoulders to push
others out of my way. We are all desperate now to leave this
horror. We are all determined to survive.

One final large boulder blocks our way. We
are merely a pile of bodies as we try to climb it, desperate to
simply make it to the light, desperate to breathe clean air again
and escape the smell of iron and scorched flesh. The boulder rolls
beneath us and we all go down together. There must be five, six of
us grasping at air, desperate to find something to break our fall.
Without thinking, I reach out my ungloved hand to grab the wall
next to me on the left and push off of the chunk of concrete with
my feet. My goal is the far wall, away from the others crowded
around me on the falling, doomed boulder. I don’t want them to
touch me, but I’d also rather not be squished. In my haste to save
myself, I failed to notice who was beside me and what the others
were doing. To my horror, a hand grabs my bare arm and holds on for
dear life.

Past images flood my brain, sixteen years’
worth of images to be exact. I am momentarily blinded by the
onslaught of the person’s memories. Everything he has ever done
flows into my brain, completely without a care that I don’t welcome
it. The images are actually happy ones at first. Images of getting
his favorite DS for Christmas, the first time he hit a home run at
the ballpark, the first time he kissed a girl. The images are hazy
and from the point of view of the person so I only see what they
see, feel what they feel, as if I am them.

Quickly, as they always seem to do, the
images turn ugly. Rage replaces happiness; images of knives
dominate his senses. He caresses them, becomes a part of the knife
as the horrific images bombard my brain. I almost throw up when I
feel the excitement of his first kill. I witness the process of
tying up the young girl, maybe thirteen, and slicing her as she
screams. Image after evil image floods unwillingly into my mind
despite my consciousness screaming for it to stop.

Finally, the images recede as his touch
leaves my skin. I am so lost in the two worlds that I no longer
know which one is real...the blood or the rubble, both an undesired
hell. Slowly, I find my way back to the real world. I see the wall
I so desperately reached for and lift myself up off the cold hard
floor. The other survivors are gone; smartly, they fled without a
second thought to the girl lying on the floor. Ignoring the
grotesque memories running through my brain, I run to the light,
fly through the hole where a door used to be, and take in the
blessed sun and fresh air.

As I walk in a daze, with people running
amuck all around me, the light I so desperately sought with the
others has brought momentary safety. I bask in the feeling for a
bit, since it is so rare in my life. I breathe in deep the clean
air, thankful that I’m alive. I try not to think of all the
students who did not make it out, who would never make it out. With
some effort, I try to push back the memories so viciously thrown at
me by another’s touch, but they stubbornly come back. They always
do.

I can’t stay in this bubble of safety for
long. The aftermath of the bomb will have consequences. The real
question is - for whom? Who in the world would plant a bomb to go
off during lunch in a crowded cafeteria? Are all the people in this
world insane? If you asked me, I would say yes. And it would be the
truth, born out of thousands of real memories each containing
secrets. Secrets that were never meant to be shared. Granted,
that’s why they’re secret, or supposed to be anyway. Personally, I
hate secrets. I could go the rest of my life never knowing another
juicy bit of gossip. But they always seem to find me. It is my
curse. I wish upon star after star that I could see the future, not
the past, or even nothing at all. But all of my wishes go
unanswered. It would be so much cooler to see the future. There is
no pleasure in seeing someone’s past, of seeing things that others
try so desperately to hide. Believe me when I say that some secrets
should never see the light of day.

I’ve spent my life running from the evil that
I have seen others commit through their memories. The ones that
touch me know. It seems they can feel their memories rolling off
them in waves. With my help, they relive the horrors that once
dominated their lives. There is no benefit to reliving the past, no
positive, except perhaps if one learns from it. Which, I’m sad to
say, few ever do. In my experience, most people simply want to
forget. I can never forget. Seeing the past has only ever given me
enemies. Now, I must add one more to my ever-growing list, thanks
to an asshole with an unhealthy attachment to knives and an
affinity for causing pain.

Chapter
Three

~ Aftermath ~

Right now is one of the few times where I
wish I had more friends. In the aftermath of the bombing, as I sit
on the side of an ambulance, being checked out by a paramedic, I
look up and see concerned students and adults everywhere. I see
students calling each other and texting in a desperate attempt to
see if their friends made it out alive. No one is calling me. No
parents will come and see if I am okay, because my parents are
dead. They both died when I was very young, and I’ve been shuffled
from foster home to foster home since I could remember. My strange
‘gift’ never endeared me to my foster parents. One touch and I saw
everything they hid under their concerned, loving façades. I ran
away more times than I could count. Finally, when I was twelve, I
found Mary. She was truly everything she was on the surface. One
touch showed me her sadness over never being able to have kids and
her subsequent desire to help as many unfortunates as she could.
Her past was filled with regret, but nothing sinister or mean. She
was the real thing and she changed my life.

After a short time, Mary realized the
consequences of my curse I so desperately hid behind my clothes. It
was when an old, batty friend of hers, Betty, came over for dinner.
I was, as usual, required to attend. I did my best not to become
part of the conversation but Mary, being the epitome of a good
hostess, tried to draw me in. Betty asked me to pass the salt and
she brushed my hand in the process. Waves and waves of disgusting,
mean memories flooded me that night at the table, to the point that
I could no longer stomach the poached salmon force fed to me by my
loving foster mom. So many grotesque, abusive acts towards others
were perpetrated by this so-called ‘wonderful’ friend that I leapt
out of my chair, turning it over in the process. All I could think
of was fleeing; I was no longer able to sit at the same table with
her. To my utter surprise, Mary laughed it off to my quirks and
continued to be the gracious hostess. I never saw Betty in our
house again after that night. Since I had touched Mary before, she
had felt her memories flow into me and realized what was happening,
yet never treated me differently. She immediately accepted and
believed in it and was willing to drop one of her closest friends
simply based on my disgusted reaction to her. I never thought it
was possible to love someone until that night. Six months later,
Mary adopted me and we have been a dynamic duo ever since.

The sound of the ceiling collapsing brings me
back to the present. The paramedic was putting the final touches on
the deep cut in my forehead when all hell broke loose for a second
time. Screams erupt and white smoke envelops us as the ceiling
gives way, effectively cutting off any chance of finding survivors
in the rubble. I take the opportunity in the ensuing chaos to sneak
around the ambulance and run toward the parking lot located
adjacent to the stadium, just a short walk from what was once the
cafeteria. Luckily, the destruction was contained within the
commons area, which left the rest of the school out of power, but
pretty much untouched.

All around us, students and teachers are
evacuating the building. All pretense of organization lost in the
panic that gripped everyone once the ceiling fell. Quickly, I duck
under the fence and run as hard and as fast as I can toward the
student lot where my car is parked. It isn’t that I don’t care
about what happened to the students in the cafeteria; I am not an
unfeeling monster. It’s just that I have to get as far away from
the killer that I know still lurks within the makeshift triage that
was once the outside eating area. Worse still, he knows that I know
his secrets. He might not have put two and two together yet, but
experience has shown me that it won’t be long before he realizes
his secrets aren’t safe. Seconds from freedom and the car within my
sights, I hear someone calling to me from far away.

“Hey, Aimee, wait up!” yells Logan, a junior
and star of our baseball team who, coincidentally, was also very
easy on the eyes. For some reason, he has seen me as his own pet
project since I arrived at this school, so I’ve made it my purpose
in life to dodge him daily. Though he really is a pretty nice guy,
I don’t date. The reason is obvious; I can’t bear anyone’s
touch.

I try my best to bear down and run faster as
I veer between the cars, but my injuries from the bomb must be
extensive, because I immediately become dizzy. Vertigo hits me
fiercely and I go down beside a red Honda, helpless within its
grasp. Logan catches up with me quickly and falls to his knees
beside my inert body. I see that his first instinct is to touch me,
but he pulls his hands back, aware that I retreat from everyone’s
touch. My heart is softened by his show of restraint. Whether he
knows exactly what happens when I touch someone or not, he still
seems to respect me enough not to do it. I can see that his face is
speckled white from the collapse.