Imaginary Friend, Page 4

  Where was she?

  The thunder clapped. Christopher looked at his math test. 4 out of 10. He had to work harder. He picked up the first book. A Child’s Garden of Verses. It was old. Kind of dusty. Christopher could feel the spine creak a little. The leather cover smelled a little like baseball gloves. There was a name in the front cover. Written in pencil.

  D. Olson

  Christopher turned the pages until he found a picture he liked. Then, he settled in and started reading. The words were scrambled.

  Up itno the cehrry tere

  Woh shuold cilmb but ltitle me?

  Suddenly a shadow cut across the page. Christopher looked up. And saw it drifting overhead, blocking out the light.

  It was the cloud face.

  As big as the sky.

  Christopher closed the book. The birds went silent. And the air got chilly. Even for September. He looked around to see if anyone was watching. But the security guard was still nowhere to be seen. So, Christopher turned back to the cloud face.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?” he asked.

  There was a low rumble in the distance. A thunderclap.

  Christopher knew it could be a coincidence. He may have been a poor student, but he was a smart kid.

  “If you can hear me, blink your left eye.”

  Slowly, the cloud blinked its left eye.

  Christopher went quiet. Scared for a moment. He knew it wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal. But it was amazing. A plane flew overhead, shifting the cloud face and making it smile like the Cheshire Cat.

  “Can you make it rain when I ask you to?”

  Before he got out the last word, sheets of rain began to pour over the parking lot.

  “And make it stop?”

  The rain stopped. Christopher smiled. He thought it was funny. The cloud face must have understood he was laughing, because it started to rain. And then stop. And rain. And then stop. Christopher laughed a Bad Cat laugh.

  “Stop. You’ll ruin my school clothes!”

  The rain stopped. But when Christopher looked up, the cloud started to drift away. Leaving him all alone again.

  “Wait!” Christopher called out. “Come back!”

  The cloud drifted over the hills. Christopher knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. He started walking after it.

  “Wait! Where are you going?”

  There was no sound. Just sheets of rain. But somehow, it didn’t touch Christopher. He was protected by the eye of the storm. Even if his sneakers got soaked from the wet street. His red hoodie remained dry.

  “Please, don’t leave!” he yelled out.

  But the cloud face kept drifting. Down the road. To the baseball field. The rain trickling on the clay-caked dirt. Dust like tears. Down the highway where cars honked and skidded in the rain. Into another neighborhood with streets and houses he didn’t recognize. Hays Road. Casa. Monterey.

  The cloud face drifted over a fence and above a grass field. Christopher finally stopped at a large metal sign on the fence near a streetlight. It took him a long time to sound out the words, but he finally figured out they said…

  COLLINS CONSTRUCTION COMPANY

  MISSION STREET WOODS PROJECT

  NO TRESPASSING

  “I can’t follow you anymore. I’ll get in trouble!” Christopher called out.

  The cloud face hovered for a moment, then drifted away. Off the road. Behind the fence.

  Christopher didn’t know what to do. He looked around. He saw that no one was watching. He knew it was wrong. He knew he wasn’t supposed to. But Christopher climbed under the construction site’s fence. Snagging his little red hoodie. Once he untangled himself, he stood on the field, covered in wet grass and mud and rain. He looked up in awe.

  The cloud was HUGE.

  The smile was TEETH.

  A happy SMILE.

  Christopher smiled as the thunder clapped.

  And he followed the cloud face

  Off the cul-de-sac.

  Down the path.

  And into the Mission Street Woods.

  Chapter 6

  Christopher looked up. He couldn’t see the cloud face anymore. That’s how thick the trees were. He could still hear the rain, but not a drop fell to earth. The ground was still dry. Cracked like old skin. It felt like the trees were a big umbrella. An umbrella keeping something safe.

  Christopher

  Christopher turned around. The hairs on his neck stood up.

  “Who’s there?” he said.

  There was silence. A quiet, shallow breathing. It might have been the wind. But something was here. Christopher could feel it. Like the way you know when someone is staring at you. The way he knew Jerry was a bad man long before his mother did.

  He heard a footstep.

  Christopher turned and saw that it was just a pinecone falling from a tree. Thump thump thump. It rolled down the ground and landed on

  The trail.

  The trail was covered by tree needles. And a few twisted branches. But it was unmistakable. A trail worn into the earth by years of bikes and ramps and races. By kids taking shortcuts to the other side of town. But now it looked abandoned. Like the construction fence outside had kept the kids away for months. Maybe even years. There wasn’t a pair of fresh footsteps on it.

  Except one.

  He could see the imprint of a shoe in the dirt. Christopher walked over and put his little sneakers next to it. They were about the same size.

  It was a little kid’s footprint.

  That’s when he heard a little kid crying.

  Christopher looked down the trail, and he saw that the little-kid tracks went on for a long, long time. The sound was coming from that direction. Far away. In the distance.

  “Hello. Are you okay?” Christopher yelled out.

  The crying got louder.

  Christopher’s chest tightened, and a voice inside told him to turn around, walk back to school, and wait for his mother. But the little kid was in trouble. So, he ignored his fear and followed the footprints. Slowly at first. Cautiously. He walked toward an old creek with a billy goat bridge. The footprints went through the water and came out on the other side. They were muddy now. The little kid must be close.

  Help me.

  Was that a voice? Was it the wind? Christopher picked up his pace. The little-kid tracks led him past an old hollow log that was carved out like a big canoe. Christopher looked ahead of him. He saw no one. The voice must be the wind. It didn’t make sense to him. But there was no other explanation because he saw nothing.

  Except the light.

  The light was far down the trail. Bright and blue. The place where the crying was. Christopher began walking toward it. To help the little kid. With every step, the light got bigger. And the space under the trees got wider. And pretty soon, there were no trees above his head.

  Christopher had reached the clearing.

  It stood in the center of the woods. A perfect circle of grassy fields. The trees were gone. And he could see the sky. But something was wrong. He had gone into the woods a few minutes ago when it was day. But it was nighttime now. The sky was black. And the stars were shooting a lot more than usual. Almost like fireworks. The moon was so big that it lit the clearing. A blue moon.

  “Hello?” Christopher called out.

  There was silence. No crying. No wind. No voice. Christopher looked around the clearing and saw nothing but the trail of footprints leading to

  The tree.

  It stood in the middle of the clearing. Crooked like an old man’s arthritic hand. Reaching out of the earth like it was trying to pluck a bird from the sky. Christopher couldn’t help himself. He followed the footsteps. He walked up to the tree and touched it. But it didn’t feel like bark. Or wood.

  It felt like flesh.

  Christopher jumped back. It hit him suddenly. This horrible feeling that this was wrong. Everything was wrong. He shouldn’t be here. He looked down to find the trail again. He had to get out of there. H
is mom would be so worried. He found the trail. He saw the little-kid tracks. But there was something different about them now.

  There were handprints next to them.

  Like the little kid was walking on all fours.

  Crack!

  Christopher turned around. Something had stepped on a branch. He could hear creatures waking up all around him. Surrounding the clearing. Christopher didn’t hesitate. He started to run, following the trail out. He reached the edge of the clearing. Back into the woods. But the minute he stepped under the trees, he stopped.

  The trail was gone.

  He looked around for it, but the sky was getting darker. The clouds were covering the stars now. And the moon was shining through the cloud face like a pirate’s good eye.

  “Help me!” Christopher called out to the cloud face.

  But the wind moved, and the cloud covered the moon like a blanket. Christopher couldn’t see. Oh, God. Please, God. Christopher fell to his knees and started digging through the pine needles. Frantic. Looking for the trail underneath. The needles sticking to his palms.

  He could hear the little kid now.

  But it wasn’t crying.

  It was giggling.

  Christopher found the trail with his hands and began to crawl on all fours. Get out of here! Faster! That’s all he thought. Faster!

  The giggling was closer now.

  Christopher started running. He moved so fast that he lost the trail. He ran in the darkness. Past the trees. His legs buckled when he stumbled into the creek. Past the billy goat bridge. He fell and ripped up his knee. But he didn’t care. He kept running. A full sprint. He saw the light up ahead. This was it. He knew it. The streetlight. He had somehow found the street again.

  The giggling was right behind him.

  Christopher ran faster toward the street. Toward the light. He ran under the cover of the last tree. And he stopped when he realized he wasn’t in the street.

  He was back in the clearing.

  The light was not the streetlight.

  It was the moon.

  Christopher looked around and could feel things staring at him. Creatures and animals. Their eyes glowing. Surrounding the clearing. The giggling was closer. Louder. Christopher was surrounded. He had to get out of here. Find a way out. Find any way out.

  He ran to the tree.

  He began to climb. The tree felt like flesh under his hands. Like climbing arms instead of branches. But he ignored the feeling. He needed to get higher to see a way out. When he reached halfway up the tree, the clouds parted. The moon made the clearing glow.

  And Christopher saw it.

  On the other side of the clearing. Hidden behind the leaves and bushes. It looked like a cave mouth. But it wasn’t a cave. It was a tunnel. Man-made. Wood-framed. With old train tracks in the ground running through it. Christopher realized what that meant. Train tracks led to stations, which led to towns.

  He could get out!

  He climbed down the arms of the tree. He reached the ground. He felt a presence in the woods. Eyes on him. Waiting for him to move.

  Christopher ran.

  All of his might. All of his speed. He felt creatures behind him. But he couldn’t see them. He reached the mouth and looked into the tunnel. The train tracks went through it like a rusty spine. He saw moonlight on the other side. An escape!

  Christopher ran into the tunnel. The wooden frames held up the walls and ceiling like a whale’s rib cage. But the wood was old. Dilapidated and rotting. And the tunnel wasn’t wide enough for a train to pass through it. What was this place? A covered bridge? Sewer? Cave?

  A mine.

  The word hit him like water. A Pennsylvania coal mine. He saw a movie about them in class. Miners using handcarts and rail track to bring out earth to burn. He ran deeper. Racing to the moonlight on the other side. He looked down at the tracks to get better footing. That’s when he saw the little-kid footprints were back. And the giggling was back. Right behind him.

  The moonlight faded ahead as the clouds played hide-and-seek. The whole world went black. He groped into the darkness. Trying to find the walls to guide his way out. His feet scraped the tracks as he reached out like a blind man. And he finally found something. He finally touched something in the dark.

  It was a little kid’s hand.

  Christopher

  was

  not

  seen

  or

  heard

  from

  for

  six

  days.

  Part II

  Dreams Come True

  Chapter 7

  Mary Katherine was guilty. That was nothing new. She had been guilty ever since her first CCD class with Mrs. Radcliffe over ten years ago. But this was really bad. She couldn’t believe she let it get so out of control. The law clearly stated that kids were not allowed to drive alone after midnight. It was 11:53 p.m., and she was at least ten minutes from home. How did she let this happen?

  “You just got your license! You’re so stupid!” she berated herself.

  How long did it take her to get her license? Remember?! She had to beg her mother to even bring it up to her father. Then, when her mom finally mustered enough courage to throw back a couple of (boxes of) white wine and have the talk, it took both of them working on Dad for weeks to even allow a learner’s permit. When the other kids only took one Driver’s Ed class, Mary Katherine had to take two. When the other parents let their kids drive on McLaughlin Run Road or even Route 19 for gosh sake, Mary Katherine was still stuck in the church parking lot. Not even the big parking lot at Holy Ascension. She was stuck at St. Joseph’s! Hello!

  By the time slutty Debbie “Done Him” Dunham and that notorious drunk Michele Gorman were driving all the way to downtown Pittsburgh, Mary Katherine was pulling in and out of her own driveway.

  “Hey, Virgin Mary,” Debbie would say in the locker room. “Could you give me a lift up my driveway?”

  Mary Katherine was used to kids calling her names. “The more devout the child, the more devout the insult,” her mother liked to say when Mary Katherine couldn’t keep the tears down with the usual “sticks and stones” advice. But Debbie Dunham was the worst. When it came to Christians, she cheered for the lions. So, when Mary Katherine graduated from her Catholic middle school to the public high school, she had found the transition more than difficult. In the end, being a true believer was not an easy path in a multiple-choice world.

  But the good thing about Catholic guilt was that it worked both ways. Mary Katherine’s perfect attendance, straight A’s, extra credit when she already had a 99, and 2020 SAT score eventually wore down her father. Eventually, even he had to admit that he had the most responsible daughter a man could ever hope to have. He allowed her to take her driver’s test. She aced it! Thank you, Jesus. And when her permanent license came in the mail, her picture was drop-dead gorgeous. She was guilty because vanity is a sin. But this quickly passed. Because she was seventeen. She had her license. It was senior year. She was applying to Notre Dame. Life was endless with the possibilities of freedom.

  She had to make it home by midnight.

  Or else she was going to ruin it all.

  The clock read 11:54 p.m.

  “God dammit!” she said, then immediately crossed herself.

  “Gosh darnit,” she corrected, hoping it would be enough.

  Mary Katherine retraced her mistake. She had met Doug at the movie at 9:30. The theater manager said the running time was two hours. That would have brought her to 11:30. It would be 11:27 if she left before the credits ended, which made her feel guilty because those people work so hard. But either way, she had plenty of time, right? But the theater kept playing commercials. And more trailers for Bad Cat 3D (as if we needed another one!). By the time the movie started, she actually forgot what movie they were supposed to see. She wanted to see the new romantic comedy from Disney. But oh, no. Doug needed his disaster movie.

  Stupid Doug.

/>   Why do the smartest boys like the dumbest movies? Doug had gotten straight A’s since kindergarten. He would be valedictorian and get into every college he applied to—even the secular ones. But he just had to see the world almost destroyed again.

  “And no, Doug,” she said aloud to herself in the car, practicing for a fight she would never actually start, “I don’t like it when you put the Junior Mints in the popcorn. I don’t think it tastes better at all!”

  The clock read 11:55 p.m.

  God dammit!

  Mary Katherine considered her options. She could exceed the speed limit, but if she got a ticket, she would be grounded for even longer. She could blow off a stop sign or two, but that was even worse. The only plan that made sense was going on Route 19, but her father forbade her from driving on highways. “Honor thy father and thy mother” worked on most days, but this was an emergency. It was either jump on Route 19 for two minutes or be late.

  She turned onto the highway.

  The traffic was so fast. Her heart beat with all of the cars rushing by in the left lane with her doing the legal 45 miles per hour in the right. She couldn’t risk a ticket. No way. Especially on Route 19. Her father would take her license away for that. And she would never drive her mother’s Volvo again.

  “God,” she said, “if You get me home by midnight, I promise to give extra money to the collection plate this Sunday.”

  After she said that, something gripped her. It was an old guilt. An old fear. The first time she’d thought it was after Doug and she went parking near Mill Grove Elementary School last Christmas. They were tongue kissing, and out of nowhere, Doug touched her left breast over the fuzzy sweater her grandmother had given her. It only lasted a second, and he claimed he slipped. But she knew better. She was very upset with him. But the truth was, she was more upset with herself.