I stepped out of the third stall, and saw that Jack had been watching me closely the entire time.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“Maybe the timing isn’t right,” he suggested. “It’s not midnight yet.”
I gave him a look. “Midnight? The witching hour? You’re kidding me, right?”
“There is some truth to every myth.”
I sighed. “Jack, really––”
“No, listen,” he said, and seemed agitated. “I know you think I’m stupid, but I’m right about this. When did Mary Jo disappear?”
“Not at midnight—that’s for sure.”
“No, at lunch-time,” he said. “Noon and midnight—different sides of the same coin.”
I wagged my head. “I don’t know about that.”
“Did any of the cops go missing in here?” he asked, with greater confidence.
“No.”
“When did the cops take their lunch breaks?”
“I see what you mean,” I said, yet still I wasn’t convinced.
Jack looked at his wristwatch, and said, “It’s almost eleven-fifteen. So we wait an hour, and see what happens.”
“Sure, why not,” I said, but I couldn’t shake the feeling this might end up being one huge waste of time.
Jack sat down on the hard floor, and tried to get comfortable, while I slowly paced the length of the room. A couple times I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror that stretched across the wall above the sinks. My hair looked stringier than usual, my face…paler, my eyes… wearier. I looked like a 98-pound corpse that had somehow crawled her way out of a grave. How could anybody possibly find me attractive? I hopped onto the counter, so that I didn’t have to look at the mirror, sitting there with my feet dangling above the floor.
We waited, with neither of us saying a word. Since I’d met him, this was the longest I witnessed Jack not running his mouth. One part of me wanted to read his mind, but the other part didn’t want to know anything. What if he was thinking something weird? What if that weird something had to do with me? What if I just got static, like you get when you tune into an open radio signal? No, I decided, it was best not to know. You must never let yourself believe that somebody is thinking something that will make you happy.
The room was getting colder. At first I thought it was my imagination, but then goose-bumps started to rise on my bare arms. I hadn’t been anticipating an Arctic blast. All I wore were jeans, gym shoes, and a light t-shirt. I never wore socks or a bra, because to me neither seemed to serve much of a purpose.
I hugged myself to try to stay warm, but it did no good. And my feet felt like two pieces of ice. So I slid off the counter and paced the floor again, hoping that would help keep me warm.
Jack watched me walk back and forth, sitting placidly on the floor with his legs crossed before him. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the chill.
“Aren’t you cold?” I asked.
“I have warm blood,” he said.
“Lucky you.”
I checked the stalls again. Everything was the same, except that a thin layer of ice had formed on the water in the toilet in the second stall. The wall in there felt somewhat colder than the walls in the other two stalls.
“I think she vanished from the middle stall,” I said, and told him about the ice. “Do you know if anybody complained about it being cold in here?”
“No,” he said. “I heard some of the girls said that it seemed too warm, but, you know, that was during the day.”
I supposed that made sense, in a way. “What time is it?”
“Eleven-fifty,” he said, after glancing at his watch.
If he was right about the whole midnight thing, something should happen soon.
I sat on the floor across from him. We stared at each other for a moment. He really wasn’t such a bad guy. If I weren’t such a freak, I might even consider dating him. I realized that every time I’d got mad at him, it was because of my issues, not his. He had only been trying to treat me as a normal human being. His mistake had simply been in not understanding how truly abnormal I was. As I thought about all this, I started to experience an unpleasant irritating feeling that I was pretty sure was guilt. It was not a feeling with which I was familiar, because, frankly, I was not a caring person. You have to care first to end up feeling guilty later.
“I have to be honest with you,” I said.
“You’re really madly in love with me, too, but afraid to admit it?”
“Uh—no, not even close. What I didn’t tell you—and should have—was that earlier today I passed by and tried to get a read on the room, and, well, I heard something growling in here.”
“Growling?”
“Yeah, like some kind of—I don’t know—wild animal.”
He blinked his eyes, and then stared at the floor thinking for a moment, before looking back up at me.
“And you’re telling me this now?”
“To be fair to you, so you can leave before it’s too late, just in case—” I shrugged—“Mary Jo actually got eaten by something.”
He frowned. “You’re making this up, right?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Growling, really?” he asked.
“Feral growling,” I said.
“And so,” he said, still trying to figure things out, “you’re telling me this and expecting me to run away.”
“I’m not expecting anything. I’m just telling you, to be fair. So if you want to stay, stay. If you want to go, go. It doesn’t matter to me either way.”
“It doesn’t matter if I leave you here alone?”
“No, why would it? I mean, I’m stuck with this weird stuff. I don’t really have a choice. You do.”
“I couldn’t leave you here,” he said. “What if you need my help?”
I laughed. “That’s doubtful.”
“Well, I’m staying,” he said stubbornly.
“Then stay.”
He glowered at me, as though I’d just played some practical joke on him.
A few minutes later I noticed that something was happening in the middle stall. The wall behind the toilet looked strange, shimmering as though invisible heat waves were coming off it.
Jack noticed it at the same time I did.
“It looks like a mirage,” he said.
“Yeah, doesn’t it?”
We both rose to our feet and stepped toward the stall to examine the phenomenon more closely.
An invisible layer of something that looked like clear gelatin was swirling and shimmering and slowly growing thicker, edging forward, enveloping the entire toilet and filling half the stall. The patterns of motion within the clear substance were mesmerizing. The shimmers, which had been yellowish, now became many colors—red, blue, pink, and purple, and a hundred other colors, some of which I had never imagined. The colors swirled around a small depression that was forming, growing wider and deeper. Then, little by little, as the depression grew, the colors faded to black and so did the clear substance that quickly started to resemble molten tar. Suddenly the depression flexed and transformed into a huge gaping mouth that twisted and emitted a loud wail.
Jack and I jumped back at the same time.
“You seeing what I’m seeing?” I asked, not looking at Jack, not tearing my eyes away from what was in the stall.
“A huge ugly mouth?” I heard him ask.
“Oh, good. It’s not just me, then.”
I looked over at Jack. His eyes seemed twice their normal size, and his skin was about as pale as mine.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Uh, I don’t know. Honestly, I’m fighting off the urge to run.”
“Big help,” I snorted. I studied the large dark maw. There were no visible teeth, which, I supposed, was a positive sign. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to come out of the stall.”
“Not yet,” he said.
“So any ideas, because I have nothing here.”
Jack shrugged weakly. “It looks like a mouth, but really it’s just a portal connecting one place to another. Why don’t you try call to Mary Jo? Maybe she’ll hear you?”
So I tried that, stepping up as close as I dared, calling out Mary Jo’s name several times.
Nothing happened at first. Then the mouth became animated, looking as though it might be chewing an enormous wad of gum, and then, like somebody about to make a bubble, puckered up and blew an icy breath.
An object shot out of the mouth and clattered to the floor between Jack and me. We jumped to the side, not recognizing the object at first. When we did realize what it was, we gave each other a look that cried, What’s with that?
On the floor at our feet, a tiny wind-up plastic duck waddled about aimlessly.
“I don’t get it,” Jack said dully.
I stooped down to pick up the duck. Its little legs were still pumping up and down, slowly losing strength until they stopped.
“A little kid’s toy,” I murmured.
“Probably fell through another aperture, some other place, some other time.”
I squinted at him. “You mean this kind of thing might happen at the time?”
“Who knows?”
“Well, it would sure explain why I keep losing hair brushes.”
Jack seemed emboldened at the harmlessness of the toy.
“Maybe I should try a spell,” he said.
“Really, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t know what we’re dealing with here. I don’t think trial-and-error is the way to go with this thing.”
“Then what? Years of research?” he said. “This thing—whatever it is—isn’t going to be here forever. One day it’s going to stop appearing, and then there goes Mary Jo—forever. Look at that toy—you do know they were big in the 1970s.”
I sighed. “All right—try a spell.”
He retrieved the notebook from his gym bag. He flipped through the pages until he settled on something. Before he started to read, I came up from behind him and pushed him into position directly in front of the stall.
“There, perfect,” I said. “Now when you read whatever it is you’re going to read, don’t even look over at me. I don’t want there to be the chance of an accident. I have enough problems already, and I really don’t need green skin and warts.”
Jack recited something that sounded like a combination of Latin and gibberish. When he was finished, I leaned in to get a good look into the stall. The large mouth hovered there completely unchanged.
“Maybe try it again,” I suggested. “This time try to sound a bit more in charge.”
I gave him a good-luck slap on the shoulder, and stepped aside.
Jack started to repeat the spell. He lowered his voice, and did managed to sound commanding.
I noticed that pink light was flaring around the mouth. The flares looked tiny bursts of aural light, and as Jack read, the color slowly changed from pink to a deep bloody red.
“Uh… Jack,” I said. “I think you should stop.”
But he was on a roll. He waved me off with his free hand.
“Seriously, I don’t think it likes whatever you’re saying.”
But he wasn’t listening.
The mouth began to twist and contort wildly, and then seemed to suck inward.
“Jack, stop! I’m not kidding. Something’s wrong.”
Just then the mouth expelled a large greenish glob of matter that struck Jack in the chest. It looked exactly as though he’d been hit by a huge slimy booger. Green goo covered the front of his shirt and dangled off his chin. He held his arms out to the side, like a scarecrow, and uttered a yelp of disgust.
“Why don’t you ever listen to me?” I asked, but he didn’t hear me. He raced over to the paper towel dispenser on the wall, and started cleaning off the gross gunk. All I could do was shake my head.
I went up to the stall and faced the mouth. It seemed calm again. By now I was sure that this was much more than just a portal to another place. It had to be a living thing; only living things give off an aura or aural lights. I wasn’t sure, though, whether it was dangerous. I didn’t think so. I figured if it was truly dangerous, it would have done more than just hock a loogy at Jack.
I tried to read it, but I got nothing. I stepped into the stall, and didn’t feel at all unsafe. So I reached out to touch it.
It felt soft, doughy, and not quite as cold as the air around it. It didn’t seem agitated by my touch, and so I let my hand linger there. I allowed my mind to drift, to reach out and make contact with whatever was in there or behind there or through there.
“What are you doing?” Jack screeched behind me.
I shushed him. I let my mind drift further than I had ever before allowed it to drift. I had always been afraid that it if I let go too much, I might never be able to reel my senses in and get them back under control. But now it seemed necessary reach out far with my senses. This wasn’t like reading a human being, who occupies a small space in the here and now. This thing was spread out over a vast distance, over space and time and dimension. Little by little, I felt I was contacting it, encompassing the enormity of it, with my freak senses. When I realized what it was, I couldn’t help grinning. It was so delightful and pure and logical.
I withdrew my hand, and turned round to face Jack.
“I understand now,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s a little kid.”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than the room seemed to swirl around.
The next thing I knew I was laying on the cold floor. Jack was kneeling over me, holding a bloody wad of paper towel.
“You okay?” he asked anxiously.
My head was clear now, but I felt completely drained. I pushed myself up into sitting position, and it felt as though I weighed a thousand pounds.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You fainted.”
“Did not. Only wimps faint.”
Jack looked at me gravely.
“I think I should take you to the emergency room,” he said.
“No, no emergency rooms,” I said. “Are you kidding? Too much for me to see in emergency rooms—people who got decapitated in car accidents ten years ago, and such.”
“You had a bad nose bleed,” he said.
“It’s all right. It happens sometimes,” I told him.
“You looked like you were dead.”
“You still think what I have is a gift?” I asked. “Hey, help me up, huh? I’ll feel better once I’m on my feet.”
“You’re sure about that?” he asked, but put his arm round my back and helped me to stand.
I leaned against the metal frame of the door. My legs were rubbery, and I was short of breath.
I noticed that Jack was looking at me with great concern, and I told him to shut up before he had the chance to say something stupid.
“It’s like a child, a bored little child,” I said. “All it’s doing is playing—well, that’s what it thinks it’s doing.”
“Did you sense Mary Jo?” he asked.
“No, nothing. But I’m sure she’s there…somewhere. It has her. It tried to play with her, the way it’s playing with us now. It really doesn’t mean any harm.”
“Yeah, right,” he snorted.
“It wants us to take her back,” I said. “The best I can tell, it’s playing Keep Away.”
“Keep Away?” he asked, his voice rising an octave or so. “You got to be kidding.”
I was starting to feel a little better. I walked across the room to the sinks, and checked myself out in the mirror. I looked worse than usual. There was some drying blood under my nose. “Hey, hand me a couple of those towels,” I said.
I wet the towels with cool water and wiped my face.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Sure, but make it fast. I don’t think we have much time.”
“Do you
really like me?”
“You read my mind. You know.”
“Just double-checking.”
“Why?”
I glanced at him and grinned. He looked puzzled, but figured it out pretty fast.
“No!” he yelled.
Before he could stop me, I spun round, raced toward open stall, and made a flying leap into the huge gaping mouth that seemed content to swallow me.
12
I was lost in inky darkness, and there was a loud humming in my ears. I was falling, and the feeling of falling was curious; it felt as though I was falling very fast, and yet, because of the absolute darkness around me, it appeared that I was hovering in space and not moving at all.
Then there were flashes of pale blue light all around, like claws of lightening, defining a tunnel that was invisible because everything was so black. The humming in my ears grew so loud I thought my eardrums might rupture. The pain was unbearable. I screamed but couldn’t hear my screams because of the humming. Just as I thought for sure that I would pass out from the pain, I exploded into another place.
I landed with a sickening slap on a floor, and slid forward and my head struck a wall. I rolled onto my back, holding my head, my eyes shut tight in agony. Intense pain pulsed behind my eyes, but then slowly receded. After a moment I was able to sit up and look around. My eyes were blurry and I wasn’t sure I was seeing right, because I found myself sitting on the floor in another bathroom. It looked exactly like the bathroom I had just left except for one thing: there were absolutely no colors. Everything was black and white and shades of gray. It was like suddenly finding yourself in an old movie. I shuddered to discover that I, too, was colorless. I looked down and saw that my blue jeans were dark gray, my arms and hands were so white that they nearly glowed. My hair looked like strings of ash. I wondered if maybe something was wrong with my eyesight, but then decided that, no, this was just the way it was here.
Well, this must be the place, I decided.
I staggered to my feet. I went over to the mirror. I was stunned to see that I looked even worse in black-and-white than I did in color.
Okay, now where would a tree-hugger like Mary Jo go? I wondered. Three days had passed. It was too much to expect her to stay here in the bathroom.