The Locker (16 page)

“And kids have heard footsteps in the halls after school sometimes, but the halls are empty. They hear doors slamming, and some of them even say they hear ghostly laughter from classrooms, but when they look in, there's nobody there.”

“They say those things just to see which kids are stupid enough to believe them.” Tyler's voice was patronizing. “And what a surprise! You win, Noreen. You're the stupidest one of all.”

Noreen ignored his comment, but turned sideways to look at him. “Maybe Suellen really
is
trying to make contact with Marlee, trying to make everyone realize what really happened to her. Maybe she's been trying to do that all this time, but Marlee's the only one who's ever listened to her!”

Tyler groaned and slid down in his seat.

I thought about all this for a few seconds, then ventured carefully, “If more than one person has sensed Suellen … then maybe it's true. Maybe she
is
still there trying to make herself heard.”

“Make herself heard?” Tyler sighed again. “She's probably somewhere in another city by now, and if she knew she'd finally caused all this interest in herself, she'd feel successful at last. Not to mention smug.”

“Marlee”—Noreen touched my arm and leaned close—“if this stuff
is
true … if Suellen
is
trying to make contact with you … what do you think she's told you so far?”

I balked. It's one thing to be certain in your own mind about something, but to share it is something else. There's that thing about responsibility. Feeling like I should tell the police, but having no proof. Feeling like I should let Tyler and Noreen in on what I was sure of, but not being able to back it up.

Dobkin nudged me in the stomach, and I said slowly, “It's all mixed up. Sometimes it takes a while to sort it out.”

“But you must have opinions,” she pressed me. “I mean, I saw your face that first morning when you said something was wrong with your locker. I could tell you weren't faking.”

“I think …” I began slowly, “I think she felt a whole lot of fear right before she … disappeared. I think she was really terrified. And I think …”

Now Dobkin was practically punching me, and I knew Noreen must be able to feel my body jerking with each silent blow. I managed to grab his arms and pin them at his sides.

“What Noreen means is,” Tyler said, his glance flicking casually to me and then back to the road, “where
is
Suellen?”

Noreen was staring at me intently. Tyler's hand had started toward the radio dial, but stopped now half-way to the dash.

“I don't know,” I mumbled.

“But … you think you
could
know, right? That it's possible you'll find out?” Noreen's voice dropped. She was barely whispering, and she wasn't looking at me anymore. “I mean … just suppose she
is
dead or something awful like that. You're probably going to know sooner or later, aren't you?”

I glanced at her, but she was staring at the luminous dials on the dashboard. Tyler wasn't looking at either of us, but had his hand still suspended in the air.

“If she
is
dead,” Noreen murmured again, “would you know? And …”

Her voice faded. She took a deep breath, but it trembled in her throat.

“And … would you know how it happened?”

Why was I so afraid to answer? I just sat there squeezing Dobkin tight against my chest, and the air in the car had suddenly gone very hot and very, very close—

“I … I'm not sure,” I murmured.

“But the truth is, you
could
know,” Tyler spoke up at last, his voice steady and reasonable. “The truth is, you
could
know what nobody else has been able to find out. What happened to her. Where she is … how she died …”

I nodded. “I might,” I whispered.

There was a long stretch of silence.

“This is really scaring me,” Noreen finally whispered. “I hate things like this—all this weird stuff—”

“I thought you didn't believe in it,” Tyler scoffed, and she turned on him, her voice going shrill.

“Well, I never knew anyone like Marlee before—this kind of stuff has never happened around here before! It's really scaring me—of course I don't want to believe in it—I don't know what to think about it!”

“If anyone should be scared,” Tyler said solemnly, “it should be you, Marlee.”

His warning was so unexpected that I felt a cold stab of fear go through me.

“What? Why do you say that?”

“If I had that kind of gift,” he said, and his wide dark eyes shone calmly through the shadows as they settled on my face, “being able to see what others aren't even supposed to know … I'd be really scared.”

“Of what?” I could feel my throat tightening up, and he seemed to be taking forever to answer—

“The knowledge,” he spoke at last. “The connection.”

“What connection?”

“Well, if it's true what you've told us, then you and Suellen are connected and she's using you to communicate. So suppose she's dead and you're not … what if she just decides to take over? Her mind becoming your mind … and you becoming her.”

I'd never thought about the possibility before. It was a chilling consideration, and I shivered violently and held Dobkin closer.

“Yeah … maybe he's right,” Noreen mused, thinking out loud. “And what if you two are so connected, things that happened to Suellen will start happening to you?” She covered her face with her hands and squealed. “I'm scaring myself! Let's not talk about it anymore!”

Tyler made a stab at the radio, and the car filled with music, and he shifted his eyes back to the road once again.

“Maybe it's not such a good thing to have supernatural knowledge,” he said quietly. “Maybe there are some things just not meant for people to know.”

I was glad when they let Dobkin and me out at our house.

I locked the door tight and stood in the hall a long time, trembling from head to foot, and knowing something horrible was about to happen to me.

18

I
didn't get much sleep that night.

I tossed and turned a whole lot and had horrible nightmares. In one of them I dreamed that I went to Dobkin's room and his bed was empty, and I knew he'd been kidnapped, but no matter how hard I tried to picture his whereabouts, I couldn't find him. It was so horrible that I woke up crying, and I gripped the covers to my chin, letting the hot tears roll down my face.

I got up as quietly as I could and tiptoed down the hall to Dobkin's room, and then I stood for a long time beside his bed watching him sleep. He looked so innocent and helpless lying there, with this faint smile on his face and one hand resting against his cheek. I watched him, and I started thinking how ever since Mom and Dad had died, I'd never believed I could ever love anything ever again, but here was Dobkin, my pain-in-the-butt little brother, and the absolute light of my life. And then I reached over and smoothed his hair back from his forehead, and he stirred a little and squinted up at me, all sleepy.

“Marlee?” he mumbled.

“It's nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“How come you're in here?”

“Checking your window. It looks like rain,” I lied.

That seemed to satisfy him. He was out again in an instant, and I slipped back out into the hall.

Aunt Celia's room was downstairs, and I kept quiet so I wouldn't wake her going back to my bedroom. I'd left the door partway open, and as I approached it, suddenly every hair on my arms stood straight up. I froze in my tracks, one hand raised to touch the door, and something told me not to touch it, not to take one more step across the threshold.

I felt a cold lump of fear lodge in my chest.

I tried to swallow, but there was only cotton in my mouth.

A faint, faint sound floated out through the door. I thought I heard the faint creak of bedsprings … the muted thud of something touching wood … a muffled tread across the floor …

Oh, God …
there's someone in my room.…

My mind spun in a dizzying circle—half of me praying I was imagining things, the other half terrified to go in there. After what seemed like forever, I finally gave the door a little push and froze there in the threshold, a cry lodged in my throat.

Pale moonlight filtered in, angling down through the gnarled tree outside the house, speckling the walls, scattering tiny droplets across the covers of my bed. I could see the curtains flapping crazily in the wind, darkness sucking them in and out my open window, and the empty windowsill, and the huge old branch scraping against it.

It's cruel the way your mind plays tricks on you when you're scared. I stared wondering—did I throw the covers back like that, or had they been moved since I was in there? And when the floor creaked again, I gasped and looked behind me, not sure if the sound had come from inside the room or out in the hallway.

I took a step toward the window.

I didn't leave my closet open … did I?

I felt like a little kid—just standing there and staring at that open closet—afraid to go any farther. I opened my mouth to call for Aunt Celia, but nothing came out.

This is silly … you're not a child … go close the door and get back to bed!

I took a step toward the closet. I heard the soft groan as the door moved slightly, and I jumped back. Shadows seemed to flow from behind the door, to melt right out the window, as though the black, black night had pulled itself from my bedroom. It happened so quick and so smooth that I didn't even have time to blink, and when I finally
did
blink, everything was still as could be.

The closet was still open.

I was still standing there staring into the dark.

I can't believe what a coward you are!

Determinedly I hurried over and shut the closet door. The corner behind it was empty. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and looked out the window into the swaying branches of the old tree. Leaves gathered and dipped in the wind; shadows squirmed like snakes. Across from me, Tyler's window was a blank square of nothingness. I dived back into bed and burrowed down beneath the covers.

I don't know how long I slept.

It seemed like I'd just drifted off again when something woke me.

I opened my eyes, but I didn't move.

I was lying on the very edge of the mattress and my arm had slipped so that one hand was hanging down off the side of the bed.

My fingers were touching the floor.

I stared out into the darkness, and that's when I heard the sound again—
the sound that had woken me …

It was a slow sliding sound—and in that first confused instant I remember thinking it was like something being pulled along the floor.…

“Dobkin,” I mumbled, “is that you?”

And it's funny how your mind blanks out just to save you, just to save you from going into shock or dying right there from fright.…

“Aunt Celia,” I said, “is that—”

And suddenly I realized that my fingers were cold—so icy, icy cold, but the rest of me was so warm, almost hot with all those covers, and I tried to shake my hand, to wiggle my fingers and get the blood flowing again, but they wouldn't move, and so I reached down with my other hand to rub them, thinking they'd gone to sleep—

That's when I realized.

That's when the sudden horrible reality hit me, and I screamed and screamed—

That's when I realized it was someone else's hand coiled around mine upon the floor, and the icy fingers were tightening … tightening … trying to drag me under the bed.

19

I
don't even remember getting to the door.

I just remember screaming and suddenly being out in the hall, and Dobkin stumbling out of his room, and Aunt Celia pounding up the stairs, and everyone trying to grab me and talk all at once. Somewhere in all that chaos Aunt Celia must have managed to disentangle herself and call the police, because the next thing I knew, there were two uniformed men in the hall there with us, trying to calm us down.