The truth was that the very smell of this place made her want to throw up.
It wasn’t a bad smell. It was probably like the odor of most schools—a mix of sweaty teenage bodies, a musty old building, and the chemicals used to keep both at bay. She’d been in plenty of schools before, chasing some story or other. She’d smelled these scents. But this particular mix—the strength of each element and the myriad other scents that swirled through it—was a concoction that went straight to her gut. She could have been transported here in the pitch dark, sniffed that, and known exactly where she was.
She ran her hands over her face and told herself to get a grip. It was high school, for God’s sake.
She laughed a little at that, the sound echoing through the empty halls.
Just high school.
Such loaded words for so many people. She’d never thought of herself as one of them, but she supposed she hadn’t been completely immune to the agony of those years—of struggling to fit in and managing it quite well, but always feeling as if she was, in some way, cloaking herself in shadows even then … and hoping no one paid too much attention. That was probably how most kids felt, even those who’d pulled it off as well as she had.
After a deep breath, she headed down the hall. If someone had asked her to pull up a mental map of her old school, she would have sworn that she couldn’t even find the front door. But now that she was here, there was no question of where to go. Muscle memory took over, leading her down one hall and then another until she saw the sign for the office, and across from it the display of photographs for graduating classes.
It wasn’t a large school. There were maybe sixty graduates a year, so this hall was dedicated to those photos, one large frame with a full set of small portraits dating back over two decades. Nora found her graduating year easily and …
And there she was. Looking exactly as she remembered from her own senior photo. It wasn’t the most flattering shot—a little bit wide-eyed, as if the photographer had startled her at the last second. It made her look skittish, nervous. Hardly the confident grad she’d wanted to be. No matter, it was the photo she remembered, exactly where it should be. And if she’d expected otherwise, well, it’d been a long day and night, hadn’t it? Her brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
Now go check for that athletic award.
Seriously? She shook her head at the urge. A crazed cult priestess suggested her past wasn’t what she recalled, and she actually believed the woman? That was nuts enough. Tracking down an endless parade of proof was a complete waste of time. Nora had better things to do. Such as make sure that cult was stopped. And, you know, get some sleep.
But you’re here now. What’s the harm in checking?
She sighed and shook her head at the thought. The harm was giving credence to madness. The harm was in doubting herself.
But even as she mentally sighed, she found herself heading for the gym. She hauled open the heavy metal door, and fresh smells hit her, making the hairs on her neck rise.
No. Not this. Get out. Get out now.
She shook off the ridiculous sense of foreboding and walked in. The door smacked shut behind her. The clang made her jump. She rubbed her neck and peered into the near darkness. The halls had decent emergency lighting, but here all she got was the red glow of the exit signs.
She took out her phone, turned on the flashlight app, and made her way toward the side wall, where she remembered all the plaques listing athletic awards. They were arranged by year, and she found the right ones easily.
Which year had she gotten the award? She wasn’t sure, so she started at the first and read each name. None were hers. On to the second, the third, the fourth … nothing. She even checked the year before and after, in case there’d been a mistake. But, no, her name wasn’t listed for anything, and she’d been so sure she’d gotten an award. She could remember getting up on stage, her parents in the audience, smiling, her team cheering …
“Oh, look, the freak thinks she’s going to try out for the volleyball team.”
Laughter echoed through the gym as Nora spun toward the voice. She flashed her light beam around, seeing nothing.
“You really think we’d let you join?” another voice said, from her left now. Nora turned that way and stared at the empty gym.
“But I’m good at volleyball. I really am.”
Was that her? It sounded like it, but it was so soft, almost whispery. A timid voice, better suited to the girl in that terrible grad photo than how Nora remembered herself.
“Here,” that almost-hers voice said. “Just give me the ball—”
“You want the ball, freak? Take it.”
An invisible ball hit Nora in the gut and she went down, gasping. When she looked up, she could see the girls, ghost memories of them encircling her.
“You think we’d let you on our team, Nora?” the dark-haired girl in front said. “We don’t care how good you are. You’d embarrass us, you and your Jesus-freak mommy.”
“Her mom’s not a Jesus freak,” another said. “She’s into some weird pagan shit, that’s what my dad says. He said I should stay away.”
“Which is exactly what we’re doing. Staying away … by not letting Freak-Nora on our team.”
“B-but I’m not like that. And I am good at it. Let me show—”
“Okay, girls. Let her show us. Someone, give her a ball.”
One of the girls pitched a ball at her. Then another whipped one at her head, and a third scrambled to retrieve the first, and soon they were pelting her from all sides, throwing the balls as hard as they could as Nora huddled on the floor, screaming for them to stop, screaming for someone to come and no one came and—
The memory snapped and she jolted up, still on the floor, tears streaming down her face, her whole body shaking, throat raw as the last strains of her screams reverberated around her.
“That’s not what happened. That’s not what happened at all.”
She huddled on the cold floor, hugging her knees to her chest, whispering the words over and over …
5
Nora slept, long and dreamless. But when she finally awoke, she did so with a gasp, as if someone had whispered to her in the dark. The first things she saw were the shadows, pressing in from all sides like a black-clad coterie of deathbed attendants stealing the air from the soon-to-be deceased.
She jerked upright and flailed, but caught only empty air. She panted, shivered. Looked around in confusion.
What was she afraid of? The darkness was her friend, the shadows her servants. So if it wasn’t the shadows that had unnerved her so badly, it must’ve been the memory—the one that’d hit her with such force in her old high school.
No, not a memory. That frightened, bullied girl hadn’t been her. It couldn’t have been.