Gravity

chapter 21

I took it as a cosmic sign that McPherson was absent from school the next day. Nurse Callie did the morning announcements instead, a welcome change.

At lunch, Theo and I gathered around Henry and Alex's table to make plans.

"I don't know about being a part of another one of your crazy schemes," Alex said, shaking his head.

"Okay, Ricky, you just go to the Tropicana," Theo said.

"What the hell?" Alex said, looking like he was about to sneeze.

"You never watched I Love Lucy? Why am I not surprised?" She scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"Can we please get back to the topic?" Henry asked impatiently.

"Sorry," Theo muttered.

"We need to have a distraction, so that we can get into the security office," Henry explained. "That way we can check out the tape of the day of the fire."

"How exactly are we supposed to do that?" Alex asked.

"Figure something out," Henry said. "You're both very creative." Theo and Alex exchanged a look, eyebrows raised.

Ten minutes later, we were all standing over by the administration offices, watching the office workers through the glass front as they chatted by the counter.

"I hope this works," I said softly.

"Me too," Henry replied. We stared at each other. If we got caught, we would be in too bad of trouble for even his father to get us out.

Theo fell to the hard floor and started screaming.

"I didn't mean it!" Alex shouted, all part of the scene we had rehearsed.

The two office assistants, followed by Nurse Callie, ran out to where Theo lay twitching on the ground.

Henry and I rounded the corner, walking quickly. The security officer took his lunch breaks outside, so we had the office to ourselves. We slipped inside the door, hopefully unnoticed.

I followed Henry back into the security office. A slideshow of images of different parts of the school cycled on the monitor.

There were boxes of labeled DVDs beneath the desk. We each pulled out a box and started thumbing through them. Every DVD was dated.

"What was the date of the fire?" I asked.

"November sixth. It's not here," he said, not sounding entirely surprised. "Son of a..."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I'm completely sure. Thursday the fifth is here, Monday is ninth is here. No Friday." He pushed the box back in place.

"Then our only alternative is to go down in the basement," he continued. There was a need in his eyes I couldn't argue with. "We have to see what he's hiding."

"Why are you so sure there's something down there?" I asked, but I knew he was right. The voices I had heard there the first day, the charred black marks like a sunburst from underneath the door. All obscure evidence that the basement harbored a secret. Not to mention McPherson's creepy shed, and the fact that he was conveniently missing.

"It's something so important he felt the need to stop the electricians or anyone else from going down there," Henry reasoned. "They were supposed to come on the following Monday, Wick told me."

We slipped out of the office, where Theo and Alex were still holding everyone's attention. It looked like they were running out of ideas. We skidded back around the corner, keeping fast to the wall, and then came back, walking as casually as we could.

"Oh my gosh, Theo! Are you okay?" I asked, rushing to her side. I hoped my acting skills were okay, as I hadn't needed to use them since the school play in seventh grade.

"I think I'm alright, I just got knocked down by this dummy and I thought I broke something," Theo said groggily. I caught Alex wrinkling his nose at her. I helped Theo up to her feet, where she immediately straightened.

"Yep, I think it passed," Theo said, striding away with her shoulders back.

Alex shrugged to the others left wondering what had happened, and trailed behind us. I especially hated tricking Nurse Callie since she had been so nice, but I felt like it couldn't be helped.

"Did you find anything?" Alex asked when we were out of earshot. Henry filled them in on the missing DVD.

"So now you're going into the basement?" Theo asked, looking concerned.

"We'll be careful," I assured her. I found I was just as curious as Henry to find out what McPherson had been hiding down there. I had a feeling little Alyssa had something to do with it, as much as that made me fearful. There was a reason she showed herself to me in the school.

The two of them headed back to class as the bell rang. Henry and I joined the crowd heading to their classrooms. When we reached the blocked off area, Henry and I waited until the hall cleared out. Making sure no one was around; we slipped through the traffic cones and into basement access.

The acrid smell of fire damage still clung heavily to the room. We entered onto a small platform, with a burnt circle in the center of the floor. Navigating around the burn mark, we began to descend the metal stairway.

Our steps echoed in the air, metallic tinks as we went further into Hawthorne's belly, the old foundation. The area in which we found ourselves had existed for a long time. The rooms were filthy, poorly lit, with grime on the drab gray walls.

"What are we looking for?" I asked Henry, putting my head on his shoulder without realizing I was doing it.

"Whatever it is that snake is hiding down here," Henry said. He pulled out his phone and lit the back light, casting a synthetic glow, which only illuminated the ugliness of our surroundings more. Barrels of some unknown substance slouched against the wall. He walked over and cracked the top of one; it was empty.

"This is disgusting," he commented. As if to prove his point, a trio of rats scurried along the wall. I jumped, while he remained in place.

"Does anything scare you?" I asked, checking the pulse in my neck.

"Of course," he said. "Just not the normal stuff. I guess I've immunized myself a little over the years."

We stopped when we heard noises beyond, like someone dragging a cumbersome object across the floor and struggling to do so. Exchanging a look, he shut his phone and we made our way to a closed door behind which the noise was coming from.

Henry jiggled the handle. It appeared locked.

"What do we do — "

I was cut off as Henry pulled out his wallet, retrieving his Visa and sliding it into the slit between the door and the frame. The lock popped easily.

"How do you know how to do that?" I wondered aloud.

"I told you everyone has secrets," Henry said.

Inside the room were rows of old supplies that had been there possibly for decades. It looked mostly like pool equipment — buckets of old chlorine, hoses, broken floaters.

We walked behind a shelf, and peering through the gap, saw the source of the noise. The bucket next to the man wafted the smell of strong chemicals our way. Two filthy sleeping bags were next to him on the floor. To my horror, I noticed human hair spilling out of them, and I had to jam my fist in my mouth to stop from screaming.

Mr. Warwick scrubbed the floor furiously. His throaty breathing was loud in the short-ceilinged chamber.

"We need to get out of here," I whispered.

Henry's fingers were busy. "I'm telling Alex to call the police," he whispered back, hands visibly fumbling.

"Who's there?" Warwick called out. Henry and I froze, peering back through the gap.

He stood up, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A gritty sponge dripped dirty water from his hand.

"I know someone is there, I heard you." His voice wavered.

"What do we do?" I whispered frantically. For once, Henry looked scared. The color washed out of his face, leaving his skin gray. His fear worried me most of all.

Warwick started advancing to where we were, hiding behind the flimsy shelving.

"Just let me think for a second," Henry whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.

"We don't have a second!" I said through gritted teeth. I looked around the area we were in. Diagonal to us was a stack of large, rolled up tarps in a wire bin.

It was only a matter of moments before Warwick reached us. Chlorine stung my nose as I breathed rapidly. It was either there or nothing, as I couldn't see anywhere else the two of us could even try to hide.

"Over there," I mouthed, and ran and dove underneath the stacks. Henry followed, and we shimmied into the space, sitting against the wall.

"I'm going to find you," Warwick called out. "I know you saw me. And the girls. Sorry to say that means I'm going to have to shut you up. For the greater good."

We watched as he reached into his pants pocket and retrieved a small gun, which glimmered in the faint, grimy light. My stomach dropped and I swallowed hard.

I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my chin down towards my hammering heart. I never would have imagined Warwick being anything but kind. He was the person who performed magic tricks with decks of cards and pulling quarters out of my ear.

He passed the stack of tarps that protected us. He kept talking conversationally, as if he were lecturing us on Abraham Lincoln instead of being caught trying to hide a couple of rotting corpses.

"The girls won't tell anyone. They're dead. Funny thing about being dead. It makes it so you can't tattle." He continued to stalk the area, peeking into shelves and around items, and out the door.

"I think he's in the other room," I whispered after a few minutes, my voice shaking so much I could barely articulate the words.

"How do we get out of here?" Henry asked.

"I don't know," I said, my mind racing with possibilities, all tumbling over one another so I couldn't separate them into a coherent plan.

"We should just wait," Henry said.

"No, I'll go look and see if there's a way out," I said firmly. I started to get up.

"Are you nuts?" he asked, pulling the sleeve of my shirt, hard. His eyes were wild. "He'll kill you, Ariel!"

"Me doing something is a better option than us staying here and waiting to be killed," I said, and yanked my sleeve out of his grasp. "And besides, he's my dad's best friend. He won't kill me. The police are on their way, but who knows how long it will take for them to get to us?"

Bravely or stupidly, maybe a mix of both, I crept out, and around the shelving, leaving Henry protesting behind me.

I crept down the row of crowded pool supplies, looking back and forth. I tried everything I could to squash the rising fear within my chest. Panic would only make things worse. I'd seen him go through the door ahead of me, but I didn't know where he was looking, and how much time I had. I couldn't see any other doorways. If only there was a window or a vent shaft...

"Gotcha!" Warwick said, catching me by my hair as I shrieked. He had been hiding in a shallow space in the wall between two stacks of bromine buckets. My eyes bugged out of my head as my vision shook, every cell inside me screaming at me that I was trapped and disaster awaited me.

"I should have known," he said, shaking his head and laughing grotesquely. "Daddy's little girl."

"You're Hugh's friend," I said, my breath hitching in my chest. My scalp stung as he continued to yank at the roots of my hair. It felt like he was pulling clumps of it out. "Doesn't that matter? I thought you cared about me."

The most horrible, twisted look appeared on his face.

"Friend? He's on the other side in this. There are no friends, when the Master comes to earth. Hell is closer than you think, Ariel."

He raised the gun with his free hand, pointing it at my face as I sputtered nonsense.

"You're not going to shoot me," I said, more of a plea than a sure statement anymore.

"Are you so sure about that? Because this looks like a gun in my hand. And I don't think anyone would miss you too badly. You're always just sitting there, coasting through life like it owes you. Well, think of this as your just reward."

I was fully convinced that he had lost his mind. And now I was going to die for it.

"And I will have a seat on the throne when that day comes," Warwick said, cocking the gun and reading his finger on the trigger. "He promised me a seat."

"Drop it!" said a voice to my right as another gun appeared and pressed against Warwick's temple. "You don't want to die today."

I don't want to die today.

Warwick dropped both me and his gun, and I fell to the floor, my arms flailing above me like I was falling off a cliff. My feet scrambled for purchase but found nothing. I fell with a heavy thud onto the hard ground, feeling my body instantly bruise. The roots of my hair stung.

I saw four policemen standing behind my would-be murderer. Warwick looked at them, dropped his gun, and attempted a smile.

"Gentlemen!" he said cheerfully, "You interrupted us. I was just informing her..."

"Shut your mouth," said one of the officers sternly. He spun Warwick around forcefully and grasped his wrists, hooking handcuffs over them.

Another officer came over and knelt beside me. "Are you alright, miss?" he asked.

I couldn't catch my breath. All I could see was the barrel of the gun in front of my face, the imaginary bullet travelling a pathway through my skull to destroy my brain. My finger reached out and pointed to the area where the girls' bodies were wrapped up as they led Warwick away.

"Aw, no," the man muttered under his breath, and went over to the sleeping bags. "Mike, come over and look at this."

I stood without realizing I was doing it, and walked beside them. Someone stood behind me, but I couldn't tell who it was.

"You need to stay back," the second officer said.

"My friend...my friend Jenna," I stuttered, aware that my face was twitching and I would probably have a nervous breakdown any moment. "I need to know if it's her. If she's dead. Please."

I watched as they slowly unzipped both sleeping bags, even though my stomach rolled and I wanted to run, to see anything but the shriveled bodies in front of me. Alyssa was still wearing her blue raincoat, even though her flesh was mostly gone, revealing a smiling skull beneath. The other girl I didn't recognize at all, but I assumed it was Susan, the girl who went missing at the dance. Beside the filthy sleeping bags, a purplish blur of soap remained on the concrete from where Warwick had been scrubbing.

Strong hands grasped my shoulders, and I turned around, not knowing who to expect. Henry stood there, his hair for once a mess, his face blotchy with tears. I fell into his arms with a gasp of relief and he hugged me tightly. I just wanted to disappear inside of him and pretend the world stopped. Tears rolled off of his cheeks and pattered the top of my hair.

"This is too much," he said softly. "This is too much. I didn't know. Are you okay?"

I didn't feel okay. I didn't feel anything at all. "I'm alive," was all I could say.

My parents were speechless as they drove me home from the police station. Claire kept turning around and looking at me. I stared straight ahead, more tired than I had ever felt in my life. Hugh especially seemed drained. It was understandable, considering he had just found out his best friend was not only a kidnapper, but a murderer. Who also almost shot his only daughter.

School shut down for a week to help assist in the police investigation. McPherson had supposedly been visiting his sick mother, and was quite surprised when he came back and saw the drama that unfolded in his absence. I didn't know what I would do with all the time off, and I hated the idea of having to sit around and think about things.

There had been no sign of Jenna in that horrible basement. Just more confirmation that everyone had been right and she had abandoned me. I started compulsively checking my email, wondering if I'd get a note from her. No note ever came.

Theo came over and we had a sleepover in the living room, with me on my unusual couch and Theo on the recliner beside me. We didn't talk much, but it was nice to have the company. Theo fell asleep early, the princess comforter on top of her tucked under her chin.

Even though I was groggy, it took me a long time before I drifted off to sleep. I didn't dream.