The phone rings. Marjorie startles as if she’s been electrified, so I get it.
“Get on Facebook,” Flatso demands, before I even say hello.
“Can I borrow this?” I ask Marjorie, whose laptop is open on the kitchen table. Morris the Dog paces below, and when I reach out to scratch his ears, he skitters away. Wow. Everyone’s jumpy.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Marjorie screeches, and throws her arm over her eyes, as if she can’t bear to watch the horror.
Her screen is already open to Facebook. I have an account, but I only check it once a day or so. It’s a huge time suckhole for me, so I try to stay away. I sign in and look at my newsfeed.
“This video of a Chihuahua licking a kitten?” I ask.
“Scroll down,” Flatso commands, so I do, and that’s when I see it.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. I feel like I’m going to vomit.
“I can’t watch!” Marjorie screeches, and runs from the room.
“The Haters hacked us,” Flatso snarls. “I didn’t think they were smart enough.”
I didn’t think they were horrible enough. But they were. They are. This is bad.
I’m not worried about myself. I don’t care if everyone thinks I’m nuts.
It’s Brainzilla I’m worried about.
Chapter 50
SCARY STUFF
Hey, Katie. It’s me again. Just give me a call when you get this, okay?”
I hang up and immediately start to worry that Brainzilla’s voice mail isn’t working. Then I worry that my phone is defective. I pick it up and listen. Dial tone. But wait—what if she just tried to call me during that one second that I was holding the receiver to my ear? I click off. It still doesn’t ring.
I start to dial her number again and am interrupted with a call-waiting beep. I click over.
“Did you see what those a*sholes did to us?” Zitsy demands.
“I know—it’s totally messed up. Listen, can I call you back in a few minutes?”
“I can’t get through to Brainzilla.”
“Me either.” My throat is thick.
“Keep trying,” Zitsy says, then clicks off.
The moment I get a fresh dial tone, I call Katie again.
“Hello?” a strange voice says.
I’m so surprised that someone has picked up the phone that I actually drop the receiver and fall off my bed. Literally. I didn’t even know that was possible. I haul myself onto my knees and grab the receiver.
“Oh—uh—sorry, I’m trying to reach Katie Sloane?”
“Hi, Kooks.”
I stare at the number display on my phone and slowly realize that the limp voice is Brainzilla’s. It sounds too exhausted, too zombielike to be my best friend. But it is. God, I wish I could just reach right through the phone wires and give her a hug. “Did you see—”
“The Yale lady friended me,” Brainzilla says.
I feel like I’m falling, sliding down a deep hole. I have to lean back against the bed frame to steady myself. “What?”
Dead air on the other end of the line, and Brainzilla’s words start to seep into my brain. The Yale lady friended me. The meaning snaps into place. “She saw it?”
I can hear Katie’s breath, ragged and uneven. I wait a moment for her answer, but it never comes. Instead, I just hear the soft click of the receiver.
My best friend since preschool has just hung up on me.
She has never hung up on me before. Never. Not once.
I call back, but I get dumped straight into voice mail again. “Katie? Katie?”
But I’m shouting into a black hole, a deaf in-box. I hang up.
Even though it’s useless, I can’t stop myself from calling again. And again.
I leave something like fifty-seven voice mail messages. I fill that black hole until nothing more can go in it. Her voice mail is full, but I keep on calling.
From my end, it sounds like it’s ringing in an empty room.
Chapter 51
EVEN SCARIER STUFF
I can’t sleep. I can’t get the sound of the ringing phone out of my head. Even after I hang up, it just rings on and on.
I feel this desperate need to talk to Katie. I really need to know she’s okay. When she said that the Yale lady saw what the Haters posted, she sounded hollow. It was the sound a dead leaf makes when it rattles on a tree just before it falls.
I really want to go over to Brainzilla’s house, but she lives all the way across town. Still—maybe I could get there on my bike. Except that it’s already past nine. And it’s January.
A ringing phone wakes me up. I don’t know when I fell asleep, but a quick glance at the clock tells me it’s almost midnight.
Here is a basic life rule: Good things never happen in the middle of the night. Well, unless you order pizza really late.
My hand hesitates over the receiver for just a moment. But the phone rings again. It almost seems louder, as if it’s demanding to be answered.
Flatso starts shrieking the moment I answer. “Ohmygod, Kooks! Kooks! We have to get over to Tuality right away—I don’t even know if they’ll let us in, but we’ve got to try.” She sounds like she’s struggling to speak, like she’s crying. “Katie’s there! She’s stable, but—ohmygod, Kooks—just wait there, and Zitsy will be right over—”
“What? Wait—Bev—slow down, okay? What’s happening in Tuality?”
“Katie! Katie’s in Tuality!”
“What’s she doing in Tuality?”
“She’s been admitted!” Flatso’s voice rises to a scream. “Mrs. Sloane told Aunt Joan to call Mom—”
The cogs in my brain click and whir, reorganizing everything Flatso has said, trying to force it to make sense. Aunt Joan. Flatso’s aunt Joan is a nurse at Tuality Community Hospital. Mrs. Sloane told her to call Flatso’s mom. Katie has been admitted. I sit bolt upright, suddenly understanding everything. “What happened?” Oh my god, it’s Bloom. He went after her. He hurt her—
Marjorie pokes her head into my room. In the darkness, her eyes are shadowed, and her pale skin is almost gray. She looks like a ghost, and I’m suddenly covered in the same creepy spiderweb feeling I had the night I found Mrs. Morris in the garage.
“Oh, Kooks,” Flatso wails. She’s sobbing now, crying so hard that her tears have traveled through the wires, wetting the receiver in my hand. No—wait. That doesn’t make sense. Those must be my tears, I realize as I wait for the answer I think I already know.
“Kooks—Katie tried to kill herself.”
Chapter 52
NIGHT FRIGHTS
I hear someone calling my name from far away as I run into the cold, dark night. I think the person yelling must be Marjorie. I had to push past her to get out of my room, out of the house. I feel bad, but there’s no time to apologize.
I have to get to Tuality.
I have no clear plan, no awareness of anything except the desperate need to get to Katie. There are shoes on my feet, but I have no idea how they got there. I’m not wearing a coat. I am wearing my Snuggie, though. Plus I’m running, so I’m warm.
I dart across a busy street.
The honking wakes me up a little, and I remember something dim about how I’m supposed to look both ways before I cross a street. I plunge forward, past a McDonald’s, a Walmart, a strip club, a check cashing place. I barely notice them as I run past. My mind can only process one thought: Katie, Katie, Katie.