Allison's Story

At ten thirty-two p.m. on Sunday, February first, Allison Noble turned sixteen years old. The occasion passed without acknowledgement, without even personal awareness, for as the moment arrived she was in that vague state between consciousness and a dream. Her eyes closed, she breathed deeply of the cool air in her bedroom, buried beneath a pile of blankets mostly old and worn but undeniably warm. It was quiet and still in her small, violet room. It was peaceful… right up until it wasn’t.

The sound of a window sliding open, something dropping from the dresser beside it had her sitting straight up in bed, her breath frozen in her lungs, her heart pounding. As her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit interior of her surroundings, she saw a figure against the light of her window and screamed.

The figure moved with lightning speed. A hand covered her mouth just as her foggy brain recognized the familiar form of the least threatening person alive.

“Are you kidding me?” Delaney Gray looked down at her friend in disgust. “If your mother was home, we’d both be grounded right now.”

Allison pushed her hand away, then rubbed her own over her face. She felt damp and cold and disorientated. “What are you doing here?”

“You’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached,” Delaney complained. She dropped to the foot of Allison’s bed. “I thought you were going to stay awake.”

Belatedly, she remembered. They had plans tonight. Stupid, reckless plans only an idiot would see through. Because Allison had already promised to be that idiot, she threw the blankets off her lap and stood. “I was tired.”

“It’s ten thirty. How can you be tired at ten thirty?”

“Because I’m normal,” she said around a yawn.

“You are the furthest thing from normal I’ve ever seen,” Delaney said lightly. “You’re not wearing that, are you?”

She looked down at the Scooby-Doo pajama pants she’d thrown on hours ago. “Too flashy?”

“We’re wearing black. See?” She had on black slip-ons, black leggings, a closely fitted black knit sweater, and a black scarf.

“You look like Agent 99.”

“No one gets your weird sixties sitcom references.”

Allison said, “Yes, you do.”

“And that makes me sad,” she said gravely. Delaney got up and rummaged through the dresser drawers, tossing a pair of black socks, black jeans, then a long sleeved black tee at her friend. “Get dressed. I want to be there before eleven.”

Allison didn’t sigh, but she wanted to. She’d been best friends with Delaney since she was seven years old, when the school counselor decided Allison should skip second grade altogether and dumped her in a room with thirty kids a year older than her that she hadn’t known. Socially, it had been sink or swim. If not for Delaney’s fast friendship, Allison wasn’t sure she would have stayed afloat.

Because of that, and the nine years since of perfect loyalty, Allison threw on the clothes and began searching her room for her sneakers.

“You aren’t wearing those,” Delaney told her.

“Why not?”

“They’re white.”

“Nobody’s going to see my shoes,” she complained.

“No, they aren’t.” She disappeared into the hall, then returned with Allison’s mother’s black work shoes. “Because you’re going to wear these.”

“They don’t fit.”

“They’re half a size too big,” Delaney said. “Wear two pairs of socks.”

Allison rubbed her hand over her face again. “Do you see a rubber band?”

Delaney twisted her lips in contemplation. “We’re going to have to do something about your hair, too.”

“Like what?”

Again, she left the room. Allison heard her rummaging as she added another pair of socks and slipped on her mother’s shoes. When she saw what Delaney was carrying when she returned, she let out a groan. “You aren’t serious.”

“Why not?” Delaney waited until Allison had wrapped her long red hair into a low ponytail before she slipped the jet black fedora on her head. “This will make you less noticeable.”

Allison checked her reflection in the mirror. “There is no one place in this entire city that this would make me less noticeable.”

“I kind of like it.”

“And that makes me sad.”

Delaney gave her a look, but tossed the hat aside.

They left her room, starting down the carpet-covered stairway, then straight out the front door. It was cool, but not cold outside. It was also pitch black. The streetlight in front of her house flickered, the old bulb fighting a losing battle for illumination. Silence surrounded them.

Allison looked up and down the street. Not a single window in any single house on her block had left a light on. It was, she thought with sudden foreboding, downright creepy. “What time did you say it was?”

Delaney pulled out her cellphone and hit a button on the side. “It’s a quarter till,” she whispered. “What time is your mom getting off?”

“Two,” she answered. “We’ll be back before she’s home.”

“Unless we get busted.”

Allison took another look down the street. “Or killed.”

“You’re neurotic enough for both of us. Stop trying to drag me down with you.”

She laughed, as she was meant to. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

They crept along the inside of the sidewalk, using the shadows of trees and the poor maintenance of the streetlights to disguise them. Stillwater City Council had instituted a curfew for anyone underage. If they were caught out after eight without a parent, they could face criminal mischief charges. At least, that’s what Delaney’s dad told them and, as Chief of Police, he probably had a good idea what he was talking about.

Allison stayed close to her friend, keeping a good eye behind them as Delaney watched in front. “You understand this is monumentally stupid, right?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“It’s not too late to turn back.”

“She totally deserves this, Ally, and if we don’t do something, I’ll just end up killing her.”

Allison rolled her eyes, though she didn’t argue. Rebecca Miller did deserve it, but Allison would rather enact her revenge more subtly—and without getting a felony for it.

“She started that rumor,” Delaney reminded her.

“I know.”

For days afterward, their classmates had looked at Delaney’s short crop of dark hair with suspicion. It hadn’t helped that the school nurse got involved and took Delaney to her office to search for lice herself.

As Delaney’s best friend—and a human being—Allison hated Rebecca for what she’d done. It didn’t matter that the other girl had never done anything to Allison. She didn’t look at her or talk to her or whisper behind her back. Allison might as well have been invisible for all the notice their classmates took of her. For the most part, and especially during times like these, Allison was grateful.

Whereas Delaney drew attention, both good and bad, Allison faded into the background. It wasn’t something either of them bragged about.

Two blocks from their destination, they reached the entrance to the park. In the daylight, Baxter Park was a lush, welcoming retreat with several small ponds, rolling hills, and deep valleys. At night, it looked like the entrance to a swamp. One likely filled with ghouls and or murderers.

Delaney walked right past. “We’ll take the long way.”

“Thank you.”

At the end of the block they turned right, past Delaney’s grandmother’s house, past the bar where Allison’s mother worked the closing shift. Stillwater was a small town, lacking the crime and commotion of bigger cities, but tonight it seemed to harbor its own dangers.

The quiet, darkened homes stood tall and imposing. Trees, with their thin, brittle branches, creaked against the wind.Thunder, from somewhere not too far away, rumbled in the distance. The moon was dark, not even a sliver of light through the thick gray clouds. Allison wrapped her arms around herself.

Not a single car passed them. Indeed, it seemed as though they were the only two people still awake in their small, sleepy community. While that should have given Allison a measure of comfort, it only added to her growing sense of unease.

They approached the school warily, scanning the perimeter before they let their eyes fall on the building itself. Jefferson High was a three story monstrosity built in the heart of Stillwater, Ohio. Constructed entirely of modern gray stone and shiny new glass, it sat on a wide field of manicured lawn against a background of trees and sky.

Delaney led her toward the side entrance. It was the only entrance partially hidden from the streets that ran both in front and behind the building. It was also, as Delaney had promised and now proved, always left unlocked.

Allison followed her inside what was, technically, a service entrance. She slid her hand along the wall, finding the light switch and flipping it on. The room was small and windowless. Delaney opened the drawers of a workbench, then a desk. Allison scanned the shelves along the far wall, finally locating what hindsight told her they should have brought from home: a flashlight.

Allison flipped the light switch back off and turned the flashlight on. She pointed it at her friend. “Where were you on the night of February first?”

Delaney grinned. “Breaking into school.”

“You’re too easy.” She lowered the flashlight and put her hand on the inner door. With painstaking care, Allison turned the knob and they crept into the darkness of the hallway.

Rows of lockers lined the walls, between classroom doors and glass cabinets with championship awards. Rebecca Miller’s first place cheerleading trophy sat front and center, showcasing the accomplishment of the school…and justifying the deluded judgment of everyone who praised her.

Their shoes padded soundlessly down the halls, from one to the next. At the main hall, they turned left, toward a narrow corridor with six doors on either side. Delaney approached the first, that of Mrs. Gail Howard, Guidance Counselor, and tried the handle. Locked.

Allison blew out a breath. “It’s probably for the best,” she said, trying to disguise her relief and failing miserably.

Delaney shook her head. “It’s a cheap lock, I can get past it.”

She watched her pull a Macy’s gift card from her back pocket and slip it between the door and jamb. “You get that this is now officially breaking and entering?”

“We aren’t breaking anything,” Delaney whispered back.

And she didn’t. She maneuvered the card in and out, turning it this way and that, then pulled the door open with ease. “We’ll be five minutes, tops,” Delaney told her.

Allison had never been in Mrs. Howard’s office. It was small, somewhat cluttered. An imposing desk sat along one side, two small chairs in front. She had four filing cabinets, a coat rack and a stack of boxes that almost reached the ceiling.

Delaney went for the desk, plopping down on the swivel chair, reaching underneath the top to turn on the outdated computer.

Allison went to the window, drawing the curtains closed, then peeking around the edge. Only darkness and the faint outline of shadows could be seen.

The computer came on, illuminating the room. Allison winced against the light, her eyes shifting from the window to the gap between the bottom of the door and the tile floor. “If anyone walks past, they’re going to see the light.”

“No one is here,” Delaney said quietly.

Allison knew that, but committing a felony was making her paranoid. “I’m just saying.”

“Uh-huh.” Delaney opened the email program, which prompted for a password. Without hesitation, she hit several keys, then enter. Mrs. Howard’s email opened right up.

Allison looked at her friend. “How do you know her password?”

“It’s Huggles, after her dog. No creativity,” she muttered.

“But how—”

“I saw her type it in a couple months ago.”

“Oh.” Allison glanced at the door, then through the window before she looked over her friend’s shoulder. “You think he’s going to buy this?” Allison asked.

Delaney pulled an envelope out of the second drawer and handed it to her friend. “Look at this,” she said.

Allison opened it. Inside was a copy of the test she, herself, had taken two days ago. The answers were written in ink, in Mr. Jeffries’ handwriting. “Yeah?”

“Mike Cobb got caught with it.”

She understood at once. The perfect storm Delaney had been telling her about. Mr. Jeffries had been out with the flu all week.
He was expected back on Monday, when Mrs. Howard officially began her maternity leave. “Are you sure she didn’t tell him already?”

Delaney pointed to the computer screen, where an email detailing the offense, as well as the culprit, sat in Mrs. Howard’s sent mail folder. “You can unsend as long as it hasn’t been received.” She hit the button and began editing. As she replaced Mike’s name with Rebecca’s, she smiled.

“I think this is the meanest thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

“We don’t hang out enough.”

She laughed, enjoying herself as she watched Delaney edit. Her friend replaced the word “shocked” with “appalled,” took out the week’s detention recommendation with a suggestion that Rebecca speak with the school psychiatrist and get after-school tutoring from the Science Club.

The sound of commotion in the hall stilled Delaney’s fingers. Footsteps shuffled past. No voices, just the movement of bodies, the rustling of jeans, the jingle of keys.

Delaney held her finger up in front of her mouth as they listened.

The sound was fading, nearly gone now. Allison forced her legs to move forward, to walk slowly and carefully toward the door. She let out a shaky, silent breath, and cracked the door an inch. Blackness greeted her.

She shut it again, turned around to face her friend. Delaney ordinarily had the loveliest complexion: like dark, warm coffee. At that moment, she was nearly gray.

Though Allison was the coward of the pair, she had far less to lose than her friend. “Just hurry,” she told her, and forced her hand to turn the doorknob.

“Where are you going?”

“To see who that was.”

“Ally, don’t,” Delaney whispered. “It doesn’t matter!”

It mattered a lot. A teacher, unlikely as that possibility may be, meant they’d have to tread carefully. If they’d accidentally tripped some silent alarm and it was the police, however, the stakes were raised a hundred fold.

“It’s probably Mr. Jones.” The maintenance man kept strange hours, anyway. It made sense. She tried to reassure herself as much as Delaney.

“It probably isn’t.”

“I’ll be right back,” she told her. Before she let the door close, she added, “If I’m not back in five minutes, go home.”

“Ally!”

Allison shut the door and drew another deep breath. It had to be Mr. Jones. The heat wasn’t working well in the building. Of course he’d come in to take a look.

If not, she’d let the cops pick her up rather than allow her friend to go down. Allison might get grounded for a few months, but Delaney’s dad would never look at his daughter the same way again.

She hugged the wall, tucking her ponytail into the neck of her shirt, wishing suddenly that she’d worn the fedora like Delaney suggested. Her face was forgettable, but her hair did attract attention. In the dark, hopefully, it wouldn’t matter.

Rustling. She heard it again when she reached the main hall. She closed her eyes, put all her concentration into listening. She thought she heard a voice, possibly a laugh, then a deep, bizarre whoosh!

It was too far away to make out. She crept closer, letting her ears guide her down another hall, to the top of the basement stairs. There was nothing down there, except the Olympic sized-swimming pool, two locker rooms and the gymnasium. To get to the furnace, you had to take the stairs at the opposite end of the building.

She hesitated. If whoever they’d heard was down there now, she and Delaney had a good chance of getting away. And yet…the whooshing was closer now. She could almost feel the sound, peculiar as that was. It was like heat, tingling at the tips of her fingers.

Allison never made the decision to go. Her legs seemed to move of their own accord, descending the stairs with measured steps. Damp warmth closed around her, a wave of suffocating heat. Still, she kept going.

The darkness was thick. The scent of the locker room told her where she was. From memory, she raised her hand and touched the door. Metal here, and hot. So hot.

Without a single thought as to what she’d find—or whom, she opened the door. Soundlessly, the metal gave, heavy against her arms as she pushed her way inside. The room stood empty, except for the shadow of three figures at the opposite end of the pool.

Allison froze. She could still smell the heat, like burning wood or fire, but she couldn’t see either until the figure on the right turned. In his hand, held up waist high, hovered a small, perfect ball of flame.

In his hand.

She gasped, the sound too loud in the stillness of the building, the quiet of the room. As one, they turned towards her. The flame was too small, leaving their faces bathed in shadow, nearly unrecognizable in the dark.

As she stood there overwhelmed, confused, and afraid, two things happened at once. The small circle of fire snuffed itself out and as total blackness fell upon the room, she heard them move.

Whatever common sense had abandoned her long enough to get her into this situation, kicked right back into gear. She whirled around and ran, survival instincts pushing her legs harder and faster than she’d ever moved before. Allison barely felt the stairs beneath her feet as she raced back up.

The hallway passed in a blur of blue lockers and stone walls. She reached Mrs. Howard’s door and yanked on the handle. It was locked, but Delaney was right there on the other side, opening it quickly. “What—”

Allison clamped her hand over her mouth and pushed her back inside. “Shh!” she hissed, dragging Delaney deeper into the room, behind the desk, and finally underneath it. A narrow power strip lay on the floor, the cord disappearing around the side. Allison hit the button and the soft whirring of the machine turned off. The light died.

Her friend was squished beside her, chocolate brown eyes wide and locked on Allison’s. She said nothing while Allison worked to slow her breathing.

Footsteps: heavy, loud and obvious, thundered through the hall. Voices, muted and indecipherable murmured somewhere close by. They weren’t even trying to be covert now. They knew they’d been seen and they were determined to find her—

No. It had been too dark. They couldn’t have recognized her. She knew who they were, but she’d never spoken even ten words to any of them. They probably wouldn’t know her if they were introduced in the full light of day. They could know only that someone had seen them. Doing what, she wasn’t exactly sure.

He’d had a ball of fire in his hand… Of course, the more she thought about it, the more stupid it sounded. Had he been playing with a lighter? That made more sense, but the flame was too large. Wasn’t it? She tried to picture again exactly what she’d seen, but the memory was fading, unclear.

The footsteps were closer, directly on the other side of the door. Her heart hammered, then slowed. Her thoughts abruptly scattered.

They aren’t going to hurt me.

She felt her brows draw together. She didn’t know what their intentions were.

They’re nice guys. They probably just want to say hi.

They probably didn’t just want to say hi. If all they wanted to do was say hi, they’d have said hi when they realized they were being watched. They hadn’t. They’d come after her.

They’re harmless.

She didn’t know that and it was madness to assume she did. They could be planning to grab her and… what? They’d snuck into the school same as Delaney and Allison. Neither could rat on the other without bringing justice down on themselves. Both parties were equally in the wrong.

Except one of them had been playing with fire.

I should just come out and talk to them.

Her eyes narrowed. She absolutely should not just come out and talk to them.

Delaney was giving her a funny look, but with the quiet murmuring on the other side of the door, Allison couldn’t explain that she was having a ridiculous argument with herself.

She listened hard, tried to sort the voices, the words.

“Try again…”

“…idiot…”

“...get them back?”

Several doorknobs rattled, including theirs. Allison tried not to jump.

“Can’t you…”

“…brain dead…”

“…not my fault!”

“They’re close…”

It was quiet a long moment. So long that Allison wondered if they hadn’t left. She began to relax, as did Delaney, who went a step further and tried to scoot out from under the desk.

Allison snatched her back, holding tight when Delaney pushed away from her. “Are you crazy?” she said in a barely audible voice.

Delaney looked at her, her gaze not entirely focused. She opened her mouth to speak, forcing Allison to once again cover her mouth. She shook her head wordlessly, but Delaney paid her no attention. She kept trying persistently, if not very aggressively, to get up.

Allison held tight. Delaney had probably three inches on her, but Allison had her by fifteen pounds. She used every ounce of it to keep her friend down until abruptly, she stopped on her own.

The voices resumed.

“More than one…”

“…get a lock.”

“…no choice.”

“Go…”

“…idiots.”

Delaney stared at her, eyes now sharp and focused, and swallowed audibly. She did not speak. Not until the voices faded, the footsteps retreated and they waited a good five minutes just to be sure they were alone.

“What the heck just happened?” Her voice was unsteady. As unsteady as Allison felt.

“I saw someone,” she whispered. “In the basement.”

“Doing what?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. Playing with a lighter or matches or something.” She trusted Delaney more than she trusted anybody, but she wasn’t telling her fireball theory to anyone.

“I figured it was bad when I saw your face,” she said.

“Then why did you try to get up?”

She looked away. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“Just seemed like a good idea at the time?” she asked incredulously.

“I know how this is going to sound, but yeah.”

Allison had had the same impulse. “Maybe Mrs. Howard’s an addict and we’re getting some kind of contact buzz.”

“Did they see you?”

“I don’t think so. It was too dark.”

“But you saw them.”

“Barely. If I didn’t know them, I wouldn’t have known them.”

Delaney understood. “Who was it?”

“The Baileys and Jeremy Austin.” The male half of their high school royalty. Until ten minutes ago, she would have said they were all decent guys. Snobs, but nowhere near as offensive as their female counterparts. Now, she never wanted to see any of them again.

“Playing with fire,” Delaney murmured. “What were they doing? Trying to burn the place down?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Concentrate. Tell me exactly what you saw.”

She did, though without the influence of the adrenaline and outright fear, she was growing less and less sure of everything.

Delaney listened patiently, nodding along with her friend as she thought about it. “If you recognized them, why did you run?”

“Because they chased me.”

She raised one perfectly arched brow. “Did they chase you, or did they just move in your general direction?”

“They came up here looking for me!” Allison said, exasperated. At some point, Delaney had stopped taking this seriously. “You heard them!”

“So I did,” she conceded. “What do you think they were going to do if they found you?”

“I don’t think I want to know.”

“They aren’t evil. I know you felt threatened but that could be more a product of your own neurosis than anything.” She looked at Allison, speculating. “They’re as much in the wrong as we are. The only difference is that we know who they are.”

They listened to the silence of the building. “Do you think they left?” Allison asked quietly.

“Yeah, but I don’t know how far they went.”

“You think they’re waiting for us to come out?”

“Could be.” She got up, looked around the room as she brushed off a layer of dust she’d picked up somewhere from the side of her sweater. “We aren’t leaving anything, are we?”

“I’m not leaving at all. I don’t want them to see us!”

Delaney leaned a hip against the edge of the desk. “We can’t stay here all night. First of all, my dad would kill me. Second, your mother would have a heart attack.”

“But—”

“Think rationally, okay? They probably only wanted to know who we were. If they’re out there and they see us, so what? They can’t rat on us any more than we can rat on them.”

“What if that’s not what they want?” She couldn’t explain the fear she’d felt in the basement. It was like happening on a murderer in the middle of a spree. “They could be serial killers.”

Delaney laughed with genuine amusement. “Nate and Ryan and Jeremy as serial killers. I love that.”

“So glad I could amuse you.”

“Oh, come on. Jeremy? He looked like he was going to cry when we had to dissect that cat.”

“It was Jeremy holding the lighter.”

“Fine. Look, we’ll take a different way out, okay? I doubt if they’re still out there, though. It’s going on midnight.”

As much as she might want to, Allison didn’t have the luxury of simply staying put. Her mother always checked on her when she got home from work and the sight of Allison’s empty bed probably would give Regina a heart attack.

“All right,” she said reluctantly. “Let’s go.”