David turned and shoved through the crowd of students that had gathered in the hallway just outside the classroom. Burt followed him down the stairwell and out into the courtyard, where a sizeable crowd had already gathered. Shock registered on every face. Someone kept muttering, over and over again, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God . . .”
It was only a two-story drop, but Sandy Udell had swan-dived onto the stamped concrete walkway. His paper mask had come off in the fall, revealing a lacerated and glistening pulp that looked more like raw hamburger meat than someone’s face. The impact with the pavement had flattened one side of Udell’s skull while the glass from the window had sliced the kid’s nylon jacket to ribbons.
When Udell gasped, David did, too. The kid’s shoulder, which bulged from his torn jacket at an impossible angle, readjusted itself. One of Udell’s arms grated along the concrete, scraping over bits of gravel and javelins of glass. He brought his hand up and out and past his head, his fingers groping for purchase on the pavement. Udell was trying to drag himself along the ground.
Jesus Christ, no, David thought.
He knelt beside the boy and said, “You’re going to be okay. Just lie there and don’t move. Lie there and don’t move.”
There was a sound like air escaping a vent. Udell’s body seemed to deflate. His arm stopped moving; his fingers stopped groping. David heard the gurgle of blood at the back of the kid’s throat as he died.
30
They were back on the road the following morning by the time Ellie woke up. She yawned, stretched, gazed momentarily out the passenger window at the autumn trees shuttling by, then looked at him.
“Was it a bad dream?” she said.
He didn’t need her to elaborate. What happened back in Goodwin felt like a nightmare to him, too. He shook his head. Said, “I wish it was. Are you okay?”
“I guess so.”
He stared at her for several heartbeats before turning back to the road.
“What?” she said.
“What you did to him,” he said. “That guy Cooper. With the gun.” He wanted to ask a million questions but he couldn’t formulate a single one.
“It just happened,” she said.
“Was it like when you were angry and you shocked me?” he asked.
“Sort of,” she said. “But different, too. It was an accident with you.”
“I know. But it . . . I mean, you were able to do it this time. To control it.”
“I was angry,” she said. “I was scared.”
“Is that how it works?”
“I don’t know how it works.” There was a noticeable tremor in her voice now. Her face became instantly red. She looked on the verge of tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice lowered. “Does it upset you to talk about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m just curious. I’m trying to wrap my head around it.”
“I don’t know how to explain it,” she said. “Just like I can take the bad stuff out of you,” she said, “I can put it inside someone, too. That’s what I did to that man. I gave him all the bad stuff.”
“You were able to will it this time,” he said.
“I think so,” she said. “Yeah.”
“Where does it come from? The bad stuff you . . . you gave him . . .”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe that’s what I take out of people when they’re scared or nervous or angry—all that bad stuff. I don’t put anything in there to make you calm, Dad. I just take all that bad stuff away.”
David’s mind was racing. “So it’s . . . it’s like you just suck out the fear, the anxiety?”
“Yeah.”
“And then where does it go?”
She seemed to consider this. “Inside me, I guess. I hadn’t really thought about it until recently.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
Ellie didn’t respond.
“How come it doesn’t make you feel all those things? All the bad stuff?”
“It just doesn’t,” she said simply enough.
“What other people have you done this to?” he asked. “Take the bad stuff away, I mean.”
She looked down at her hands twisting in her lap. It was a question he could tell that she did not want to answer.
“How many others, Ellie?”
“I don’t know.” It came out almost in a whisper.
“Can you think of someone else that you’ve . . . you’ve calmed down . . . other than Mom and me?”
“Mrs. Blanche,” she said. Mrs. Blanche was the elderly widow who lived in their neighborhood who sometimes watched Ellie after school. Ellie had been with her the day Kathy died.
“Why Mrs. Blanche?” he asked.
“Because sometimes she gets lonely and sad and I feel bad for her.”
“Did she say anything to you about it?”
“No,” Ellie said. “She never noticed I was doing it.”
“Who else?”
“Some kids at school. The day that girl died on the playground, everyone was so upset, Dad. We went inside and were watching the people who came in the ambulance from the windows, but we all knew the girl was dead. Some of the kids were very scared. I went around and touched each of them.”
This can’t be real, he thought. This can’t be happening. It’s impossible.