Elongated shadows spread across the empty parking lot. I leaned into the steering wheel, peering up through the bug-splattered windshield. The lights had been cut like an after-hours merry-go-round. Nearly as creepy, too. Reluctantly, I turned the key in the ignition and the engine died. After another second, the headlights faded as well. Einstein’s breath left little cloud puffs on the window.
“Let me guess? You’re staying here again?” On cue, she lowered her rump to the seat and reclined in a lazy heap against the door panel. “Okay, but next time you can’t find your bacon treats, don’t go looking at me.” I clanged the door shut and pressed the lock button. At least one of us should be safe.
I hugged myself, less because I was cold and more because I didn’t know what to do with my hands. The school building looked on with hooded windows as I cut across the grass. Alone and out in the open, I felt as though anyone could be watching. The familiar prickle crawled over my arms. I tried to rub it away, and a pit solidified in my stomach.
I was still in my pajamas and slippers. Not exactly the outfit I’d prefer to be wearing if caught by the cops … or worse. The creak of metal bleachers and the crisscrossed network of support beams groaned in the wind like an abandoned swing set. I scaled the short stack of aluminum steps to the stands and mounted one of the bleachers.
I kept my footsteps quiet across the beam, spiriting along the length of the football field. Every twenty yards or so, I stopped and listened, too scared to call his name and afraid of what might be lurking out of sight.
When it came to fear, I was a faithful follower of logic. How likely was it that someone would try to break into my house the one time I forgot to lock the door? I was twice as likely to be killed in a car accident as I was to be murdered, though this statistic somehow still felt high, and lately I’d seemed to be gunning for both. But, still, there was no reason to be inherently scared of being in a place alone at night. The odds that something bad would happen were slim. That was the logical answer, anyway.
I tried hard to focus on mathematical probability while I looked under bleachers and up in the announcer’s box. I ventured onto the field, taking hesitant steps onto the turf. Adam was nowhere to be found, and I was beginning to feel that the ghostlike car parked in the lot was a cold lead.
I was picking my way down from the highest bleacher when I saw a rectangular sliver of light. It was faint, nearly hidden, and it was just to the left side of the stadium. I narrowed my eyes and stared hard. There was definitely something there. I rushed the final few rows and used the railing to skip steps onto the track.
I looked around, still fighting off the sensation that someone else was here with me. When I could finally convince myself that I was alone, I cut straight across the fifty-yard line and past the concession stands on the other side, where the signs had turned a dull gray in the faint light of the moon and dried-out mustard stains coated the sidewalk.
As I approached, the light grew brighter, and I could see it was the outline of a door on the side of the main building. My heart raced. I suddenly had sympathy for the horror movie heroine at whom the entire theater audience was screaming, “Don’t go in there!” because I was totally going in. Logic be damned, this would add at least five points to the statistical probability that I would be murdered in the next hour.
I jammed my fingers between the door and its frame and pried it open using the full weight of my body. I then found myself peering into the boys’ locker room. I poked my head inside.
A dying fluorescent light flickered overhead. I inched my way over the threshold. The acrid scent of caked-in sweat and the inside of a jockstrap overwhelmed me to the point I could taste it, sour, on the tip of my tongue. I took each step gingerly, rocking my weight from heel to toe, scared to so much as breathe.
I glanced between each row of lockers. They were eerily empty. The strobe-light effect didn’t help. I felt the distance growing between me and the door. I swiped clammy palms across my pajama bottoms and swallowed.
A little farther, I promised. Someone had been in here. Someone had turned on this light. “Adam?” My voice came out hoarse.
Just then I heard a shuffle beyond the lockers. Past the rows, the room darkened where a row of sinks led to a short line of bathroom stalls.
Another scrape across the floor sent a chill up my arms. I could hardly wrench my legs forward. My footsteps grew shorter. I reached the last bench, where I caught my own spectral reflection in the mirror and rounded a tiled wall, and then I saw it. Him.
His body writhed in the group shower on its side, centered between two drains. The lights hadn’t been turned on here, and it obscured the form. Its—his—back was facing me. His legs twitched, and the shuffling sound they made was louder from here. Barely human.