Becca made a copy of the email and put it on a flash drive, and then we turned off the computer and left Mr. Warbrath’s house. The sun lingered on the horizon, and its light had acquired a ferocious red tinge. In that light, the scrubby grass threw stiff shadows along the bluff, and the seams of the bare, cracked dirt looked deep enough to go diving in. Becca shivered, and I caught a whiff of her sweat and her shampoo—a clean, no-nonsense smell, without the fruity frills I would have expected from another girl. It blended well with the crisp October air.
“I’m going home,” Becca said. “I need a shower. I need like ten thousand showers.”
“I’ll walk you back.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I kind of want to walk by myself, Vie.”
I nodded. “Thanks for earlier. It seems like nothing now, after what we just saw, but—thanks just the same.”
“It’s not nothing,” she said, and she looked like she’d say something more, but then she blew out her cheeks and shook her head. After a moment, she added, “It’s a real thing, Vie. It’s your life. And it matters. Whatever else is going on in the world, it’s always going to matter.” She paused again and added, “Good night.”
“Becca, mind if I borrow the bump key?”
One peroxide eyebrow arched. “Normally, I’d make you tell me why, and I’d probably insist on coming along. Tonight, though.” She shook her head, and somehow that motion conveyed the depth of her weariness. “At least tell me you won’t do anything dangerous.”
“Promise.”
Her eyes told me she didn’t believe me, but she sighed and handed over a keyring. “They’re all bump keys. You just have to find the one that fits the lock.”
“Thanks, Becca.” I don’t know why, but I kissed her cheek. Ever since I had told Becca I was gay, things between us had been pleasantly platonic, and this kiss was meant only in the same spirit of friendship. But it was still a surprise, even for me, and I saw her eyes widen and go soft. Even the silver around her eyes seemed soft, as though suddenly malleable.
“Good night, Vie Eliot,” she said, swatting me on the backside and giving me a grin that was both bemused and wicked. “I feel sorry for Austin Miller. That poor boy doesn’t have a chance.”
I had no idea what she meant, but my face turned hot anyway, and I was grateful when we parted ways at the top of the hill. Instead of heading back towards Sara’s house, though, I followed Main Street east. While Becca and I had come to many of the same conclusions at Mr. Warbrath’s house, I disagreed about a few things. For example, Mr. Warbrath might have deserved to die. In fact, he probably did. But finding his killer was still important. Not because of some abstract notion of justice, but because someone who killed could kill again. If Makayla had killed Mr. Warbrath, I was certain that she would not limit her killing to people who deserved it.
So I headed towards Vehpese High School. When I arrived, the sun had slipped beneath the edge of the world, and now only a grapefruit-colored glow wavered along the horizon. The high school itself, a single-story building of blond brick, sprawled drunkenly in a mish-mash of additions and wings that had been built onto the original building as Vehpese’s population had grown. A few emergency lights showed in strategic locations—the commons, the front hall, the stairwells—but otherwise, the school looked abandoned. Perfect for conducting an investigation, especially when that investigation depended on finding a ghost.
For a few minutes, I fumbled through the bump keys, trying one after another until I found one that fit the old commercial lock the led into the double doors at the end of the science wing. It took me a few tries with a rock before I managed a successful bump, but then the door opened, and I slipped into the school.
During the day, the high school had felt creepy because of the quiet and dark. At night, it was much, much worse. From overhead, chalky semi-circles of moonlight, like the tips of fingernails, bit into the windows. The red and green glow of exit signs showed at both ends of the hallway, and their light reflected in the irregular folds of the linoleum. The effect made the floor seem liquid, as though every step would send ripples, or as if I might plunge through to the basement as easily as falling into a swimming pool. I breathed in a mixture of floor polish and a harsh, chemical cleaner. The custodial crew must have been working overtime to
The feeling of supernatural pressure, though, had faded, and I opened my third eye with only moderate difficulty. Looking out over that ultra-textured world, as though my inner sight were a high-definition channel when I was accustomed to standard, I scanned for the frigid luminescence that I had seen the day before. There was nothing, though. No fading tracks, no preternatural script that would explain what had happened here. It had seemed like a longshot, but I had still hoped for something.
When I reached Mr. Warbrath’s room, everything had already been cleaned and put to right. All of the lab tables were clean, the stools were in their proper places, the broken glassware had been swept and the drying racks stood empty. The chemical cleaning smell was stronger here, burning my nose. It would still be here tomorrow, I guessed. Once the sheriff had decided that this was a suicide and not a murder, the school must have worked as fast as it could to get things ready for Monday. The smell would still be here tomorrow. The custodial crew had replaced the panel in the drop ceiling overhead where the rope had been hung, and maybe nobody would notice that this panel was slightly whiter, that it showed none of the scuffs and wear that the other panels did. But the smell would be here, and the students would know that this was where it had happened. I would know.
I lingered in the room, making a full circuit around the lab tables, hoping that the ghost would show itself again. After a while, though, I resigned myself to the fact that I was alone. Alone, I thought, feeling a prickle along my spine, like Mr. Warbrath. Had he come to school to do some work? Or had he been lured here? Or forced here? Had he been conscious when they had tightened the noose around his neck? At some point, I knew, he had been awake and terrified. He had clawed at his neck, trying to free himself, and in the process he had managed to kick off one of his shoes. It had knocked over a pile of textbooks, which in turn had knocked over and broken the glassware. That was the sound Becca and I had heard. It was the sound that had dragged us into this mess. And where had that damned loafer gone to?
And then I remembered something else: Becca had heard a second noise. While I had run out to Austin’s car to explain the situation and bring him inside, Becca had heard something else. What? I wasn’t sure; maybe it had simply been more textbooks falling. Maybe it had been something else. A door slamming shut, maybe, as the killer made her escape.
Or, as the killer pretended to flee. Kaden had been in the building with us that day. He had left us, insisting that he had to go to his locker, but when we had entered the science wing, Kaden had been there. He had explained that he had seen Coach Z going into the science wing and that he had lost him. If Kaden were telling the truth, then Coach Z was a suspect in Mr. Warbrath’s murder. But if Kaden were lying—
I didn’t like Kaden Decosse. I didn’t like how good he was at running, and I didn’t like how happy he was, and, to be honest, I didn’t like how he kept trying to be my friend. But all of those went back to the more important fact that I was, in an unwinnable, hopeless way, jealous of how Austin felt about him. So I told myself to stop acting like a crazy boyfriend and admit that Kaden Decosse couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this. After all, he’d fainted when we found Mr. Warbrath, and that hadn’t been an act.
Oh really, a quiet part of my mind asked. How can you be sure?
As I headed out of the classroom, I told that voice to shut up.
When I saw the coolly glowing trail in the hallway, I forgot about Kaden Decosse. The trail led deeper into the school. I gave the doors that led outside a single glance. The smart thing to do, the responsible thing to do, would be to go call Austin, or Becca, or even Emmett for God’s sake. I pretended to think about it, but I didn’t fool myself. If I’d wanted to do the smart thing, I wouldn’t have come back to the school by myself.
I followed the trail, running to keep up as the tracks shimmered and faded. As I did, I passed windows set into classroom doors and glass-faced trophy cases. My reflection trotted alongside me, wide across the shoulders and blond and ghostly. There was something about the weak light that made my reflection catch oddly: at one moment, I’d have no arms, and then an instant later I’d have three, or I’d seem to disappear down the middle, as though only part of the reflection was able to keep pace. After a while, I stopped watching the glass and focused on the glowing tracks.
Maybe I should have been surprised, but I wasn’t. The phosphorescent trail led straight to the girl’s locker room. I was sure, as I approached, that the door would be lock. Why wouldn’t it be locked? I was sure that Coach Z had closed everything up when he left for the day. Besides, there was something strange—something wrong—about going into the girl’s locker room, even when there weren’t any girls in there.
When I put my hand on the door, though, it swung open. I thought I heard something—a footstep, I was sure—and my head snapped to the left. The hallway was empty, though. The slivers of moonlight had unfurled into gray streamers that ran along the walls, and the exit signs still buzzed and cast their watery, red-and-green reflections, but I was alone. Jesus, I really, really hoped so, at least.
Shouldering the door open, I stepped into the locker room. The first thing I thought was that it really wasn’t that different from the boys. It had the same skinny, sagging benches, the same battered lockers that had, at some point, been painted the same color as the walls, a brownish-gray the same hue as Wyoming dust. It had some of that same smell that the boys’ locker room always did—mold and sweat and a pervasive, athletic funk that you couldn’t kill with a bucket. On top of that stink, though, floated a heavy layer of air freshener that, in some warped universe, was probably meant to smell like fresh linen or clean laundry or something bogus like that. A few discrepancies signaled that this was not a place for boys: the row of stalls, without any urinals; the blocks of showers, four to a group, each with a curtain; and a strip of bubble-gum pink border overhead that read Love Your Mind, Love Your Body, Love Your Self. I wondered if they had a matching one in blue; some of the guys could use a confidence boost too.
The lingering trail of chilly light led deeper into the room, past the blocks of showers and into a second section of lockers. I quickened my pace; regardless of the fact that there weren’t any girls currently using the space, I felt like I was trespassing. As I passed the showers, a roar like Niagara Falls filled the room as every single shower head burst to life. Water cascaded behind the pulled-back curtains, rushing into the drains until they overflowed and then flooding across the tile. Huge clouds of steam boiled up, thickening and obscuring my vision in a matter of seconds. The heat made my skin clammy, and my clothes stuck under my arms and between my legs, chafing with every movement.
“Nice trick,” I called out, but there wasn’t any answer.
Water continued to pour from the showers, slopping across my old running shoes and soaking my socks. It was time to leave. Time to get the hell out of here. Most guys, with a few exceptions like me, probably dreamed of sneaking into the girl’s locker room. No man in his right mind, however, had ever wanted to be in a haunted girl’s locker room.
But that chilly trail of light led deeper, and I had come here for a reason. Splashing across the tile, I moved into the second section of lockers. The glowing tracks broke to the left, entering the last row of lockers. I took a breathy of the hot, humid air and turned.
The trail ended at an unremarkable locker, and as I watched, the last remnants of that cold, blue light began to fade. I waited for something more. Steam from the hot showers grew denser until it hung in gauzy patches that made it hard to see more than a few feet. I shuffled closer, water gurgling out from my bedraggled sneakers.
Through my inner sight, I could see a glowing finger trace words in the beads of condensation on the locker door. For a frantic moment, I thought they would be the words from the Bible, the words written on the wall at Belshazzar’s Feast, the words Becca had painted beside her window. I can’t read Hebrew, that same thought continued, and I felt a shrill laugh waiting.
But the word that appeared in the steam wasn’t Hebrew. It was plain English, five letters that wouldn’t have meant anything to most people. Feast. That was all. And then that glowing finger wrote the word again, and again, and again, until it covered the locker door from top to bottom. With a shaky hand, I unlatched the door and let it swing open. On the bottom of the locker, resting on the toe because the locker wasn’t wide enough to accommodate its length, stood Mr. Warbrath’s missing shoe.
The killer had taken it, I realized. My hands shook as I bent to examine the shoe. A sliver of glass—from a broken beaker or test tube or whatever had been hanging on the drying rack—protruded from the leather tassel. The killer had stayed and watched Mr. Warbrath die. The killer had stayed long enough, at least, for Mr. Warbrath to kick off one shoe and knock over the textbooks and the drying rack. And instead of leaving, the killer had taken—
—a trophy—
—Mr. Warbrath’s shoe. Should I take it? Leave it? I wasn’t sure, but I thought about what Kaden had said: he had seen Coach Z heading into the science wing, and now I found the shoe hidden in the girl’s locker room.
In spite of the steam clouding the room, the next breath I took lodged in my chest like a shard of ice. I shivered, and I couldn’t seem to stop shivering. Reluctantly, I returned the shoe and pushed the locker door shut, and that was when I realized something was terribly, terribly wrong.
As the locker door clicked shut, ice flaked away from the metal and clattered to the floor, erasing the string of Feast written along the surface. The thin steel of the locker door froze to my fingertips. My clothes had gone stiff, and they crackled and loosed small puffs of frost when I twisted. While the showers continued to pump out hot water, filling the air with steam, the water spilling across the tile had hardened into a sheet of ice. I flexed my foot free, and the ice popped and crackled.
Spinning back towards the door, I glimpsed something through my inner sight: a shape in the fog. It was the ghost of a man, that much was obvious, and he was about my size. There was something about the set of his shoulders, something about his stance, that told me I knew him. I slipped along the icy tile, sliding towards the apparition. The temperature had plummeted, and now my breath plumed in hard, white starbursts. The tips of my fingers stung from the freezing metal, but that sting was fading, and now they were going numb.
I struggled to focus my inner sight. If I was going to stop this ghost, if I was going to save myself, I had to keep my third eye open. I reached out along that inner sight, trying to establish a connection with the spirit. It might as well have been made of ice too because the connection slipped away from me. The clouds of steam swirled, and the ghost vanished.
But the temperature continued to drop. Icicles grew along the lockers, and the spray of the showers had changed. Now the pipes groaned as they forced slush through tiny openings, and sleet dribbled from the shower heads. Flakes of snow fluttered down as the clouds of steam collapsed.
I might have made it, if I could have kept my footing. I might have survived the attack. But the sole of my old sneaker had about as much traction as an oiled skillet, and when I tried to run, both of my feet flew up and behind me. I hit the ground hard, first my chest and then my chin cracking against the ice. Through the ringing in my head, I scrabbled forward, digging my hands into the slick shards that had broken under me.
Footsteps. There were footsteps. And someone, a woman, laughing. As the icy temperatures cleared the clouds of steam, I glimpsed her shadow. Just for a moment, just as she slipped through the door. She was short, I could tell that much, and round, and there was something strange about her head. She had horns, I thought. Horns. I wanted to laugh, but by then, I could barely move. Each breath cut like a knife. The muscles in my arms and legs contracted uncontrollably as my body fought to keep warm.
I made one last, scrambling effort towards the door, lunging along the broken sheet of ice. Then my strength gave out, and I shuddered to a stop. A warm sleepiness was creeping in at the edges. I drifted towards that warmth, and a part of my brain thought, this is how people die, this is how they die from the cold, and it’s like going to sleep. But I didn’t fall asleep. Not quite. I lingered there, on the fuzzy, flannel fringe of that warmth, watching as the frosty explosions of my breath grew softer, and slower, and spaced farther apart. And then that flannel blackness was too warm to resist any longer.