|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 9:51 pm
This time, Elke made a point of sitting in the bleachers during Avery's practice, instead of sitting back in Giselle's room. She had her books spread out far enough back that no stray basketballs could hit her, but close enough that she could clearly tell which player was her boyfriend. It was a careful balance she had had to learn very quickly, especially after the first time she'd gotten a concussion from a missed free throw.
Which had been destiny, really, because that missed throw had introduced Avery and Elke. It had made her very happy.
Practice ended and she gathered up her Spanish workbook, shoved it into her backpack, and bounced down the stairs to wait for Avery to come out. This was something she'd done many times before, but this was the first time she had stood there looking quite so - worried? Wide-eyed and terrified? Whatever it was, it wasn't good, but nor was it an I'm breaking up with you expression, so at least that was good.
Right?
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:48 am
Avery hadn't done as well as he normally would have, the coach would later say. And by "hadn't done as well", what he would mean was the boy had done horribly. All his shots were off, his running was slow and he tripped once. He tripped.
Elke's tension had not been lost on him, and he was feeling his own in sync with hers; adding onto it had made him adrift in a substitute sea known as the basketball court. Her breaking up with had never crossed his mind, either, if only because it was too preoccupied.
You had to be some kind of idiot to not notice something was wrong with this place. Something was going on, and Avery didn't like it. Not one bit.
"What happened?" he asked when he was close enough to Elke.
No "hello", no kisses or hugs. Just a question that almost sounded like a demand with an ultimately protective edge to it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:28 am
"You were right," was the first thing she said as soon as he was close enough to hear, "You were, there is something wrong here and weird things keep happening-"
When Avery started talking, she shut her mouth and shrunk in on herself a little. "There was a monster outside, Sue saw it too, but when a teacher went out to see it it had become a cat and it crawled up the drainpipe and when I was studying with Giselle there was a st-student outside the window and she fell and there was b-blood on the sheets and a monster on the st-stairs," Elke explained, all in one breath. She looked down at the floor and clasped her hands in front of her, but couldn't quite seem to hold still; she couldn't seem to decide what she wanted to do with herself, because she shifted her hands to her pockets - all nervous, fearful energy. What if Avery didn't believe her? She wasn't lying. Elke didn't even know how to lie, not really!
It seemed she couldn't wait for even ten seconds to start adding on rationalizations, because suddenly she continued, "And I know it sounds ridiculous, and if other people hadn't seen them too I wouldn't bother you but it's true, Sue and Giselle and Frankie all saw them, I know Frankie's n-not really someone who should be believed without a doubt b-but now people are d-dying, and..." Now she looked up, expression pleading, biting her lower lip: "I wouldn't lie about this, I can't even lie--"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:55 am
Avery Roth was quite certain everyone could lie if they really wanted to. But, it didn't make sense for Elke. Not about this. Not about anything. Even if she could lie, she never did. To start now disrupted every pattern she'd set for herself, and one thing that drew him to this girl in the first place was how predictable she became. There were never any surprises with Elke, never any curve balls...
Suddenly, she was throwing one right at him and all he could do was struggle to catch it. The natural skeptic that he believed lay inside every man same as the part of them that could speak untruths was calling to him. It didn't want him to believe something that was so much easier to condemn.
Avery wanted to trust her, he just didn't know what to do. None of this was making sense. The rate they were dying, how they were dying. There was nothing in his life that had happened quite like this, and without something to compare it to, he was lost.
"I believe you," he told her sternly, hopefully convincing the both of them. He did trust her. No matter what it took, he would believe her. "But you need to calm down. If you panic we won't get anything done, okay? Just breathe. I need to hear everything in detail and then we need to think, Elke."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 10:20 am
If Avery was hoping for a "lol, tricked you," he wasn't getting one. She took deep, deep breaths in an attempt to chill out. It worked, sort of; she sat on the lowest row of the bleachers, set down her backpack, and then tried, in a passably un-trembly tone, to explain.
"With the cat, we were outside and I took a picture, and then Sue got mad. You know how Sue is, he is crazy but in a Sue-ish way, you know, and that's fine because he's Sue, and there was something in the bushes and I got scared and went inside and something came out of the bushes. Sue slammed the door and it ran into it, and it was screaming this horrible scream the whole time, and it kept running into the door and then Mr. Stevens came and he thought we were on drugs because when he went outside, it was just a kitty, you know, a little white kitty, but after Mr. Stevens left it smiled and its eyes turned red and it ran up the drainpipe."
Elke seemed to be working herself up into another nervous tizzy, but she noticed it and stopped. Deep calming breaths. Nothing could get at her when Avery was around, it was like a Rule that bad things couldn't happen. (But she could practically feel her heart trying to escape from her rib cage. She shuddered, resolving not to picture it.)
A few more seconds and she closed her eyes. "We, that is, me and Giselle, we were studying in her room and there was a hand tapping at the window. And I'd seen the monster outside and I - I kind of -" She paused, turning red with embarrassment. "Well, I hid, and Giselle opened the window and it was a girl outside, and she was stuck there and she asked for help, and Giselle tried to toss a sheet down to her but... I don't know what happened, I couldn't see, but I heard her, the student not Giselle, I heard her scream and then there was b-blood on the sheet--" Elke was turning green, so she covered her mouth. There wasn't any blood here, no matter how freaky that nightmarish incident had been it couldn't get to her here. She was fine.
"And the monster on the stairs... it just... dragged itself up the stairs, and I kind of-- it was really, really freaky, I went to the other stairs and ran back to my room." An apologetic look for not being as courageous as she could have been. With her story related, and no lightning strike coming to smite her, Elke seemed to relax a little bit. "I wouldn't make it up," she repeated earnestly, "Halloween was ages ago."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 10:35 am
Ugh, Sue. One day, Avery swore, he was going to beat him and throw water on all his stupid cats. Especially the white ones. The more Elke went on, the more he had to wonder if that dipshit (his mental wording was charming as ever, clearly) had something to do with it beyond just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For now, he just listened. Every detail was cataloged, every word stored somewhere to be revived later when he needed it. He was a man of details, of patterns. If he could just find one strand of that, he could do something.
White cats, monsters, and dead women hanging out windows. How that was connected he had no idea, but he planned to find out.
"Alright." Deep breath. In. Out. "What you did was the smart thing to do, Elke." So said the man planning on doing the exact opposite. "It's better you ran away. That was smart of you." He expected nothing less, nothing more. What was she supposed to do? Stay and fight this "monster" on the staircase? She was a girl, and a fragile one.
But not him.
Avery was not a hero, and most of these people could get eaten for all he cared, but by harassing Elke they were stepping out of bounds. Invading his "territory" was not to be tolerated. No matter who was to blame.
"First thing I'm going to do is try and find any stupid white cats." He did not, however, mention what his plan was for those felines. "If nothing comes from that, or when I'm finished, I'm going to try and find the history of this place. I'll look for any girls that may have... died that way." A haunting sounded stupid, but it was all he had to go on.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 10:52 am
It felt better to have someone else in on the problem; Giselle had still been insisting that it was nothing but a joke by Frankie when she had left, and... Well, Frankie had called out the staircase monster. Avery could be trusted to believe her, as evidenced by right now - already he had a plan. Of course he did, he was Avery.
Although she didn't really think fleeing the monster was smart. It was cowardly, was what it was, but it was self-preservation cowardice, so maybe it was kind of smart. She felt bad for abandoning Frankie, though...
"I never saw any white cats before that one, though," she pointed out, "And Sue hadn't seen it, either." You could count on stupid jerk Sue to know all the cats on campus. Always. It was kind of his thing, which just about everyone knew, which is why she hadn't reminded Avery that hunting down cats would not sit well with Sue. Really this was for the greater good, wasn't it? "Do you need help," she asked at the mention of the history of Barren Pines, "I helped out at the library once, I know where they have the school microfiches and stuff. It didn't look like there was a lot, though..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 3:15 pm
Sue hadn't either. Ha. What was he going to believe that guy for? He'd believe Elke, yes, but no one else. The more she talked about him, the more Avery wondered if Cat Boy was in on the whole thing. Hadn't seen one either, he said...
A likely story. A likely story.
Avery was just as predictable as the world he lived in, and he recognized what was going on here; this behavior was more a knee-jerk reaction because he hated the guy--or any guy too close to what was "his". Or was it really that? It would make sense for Sue to be involved with some freaky demon cat. But then why not take out Elke out? Clearly, whoever was killing them wasn't hesitating.
So, it wasn't Sue. But then--
"Hm?" He looked up, trying to recall what she had just asked him. "I..." If he told her no, would she really be content to just sit still? Or would she do something even more stupid? She'd run away before, but if it was him who was involved, would she react differently?
Be it because he would hate to think Elke would run and leave him, or because he didn't think she would, he decided the best course of action was one that never failed with women: just nod and agree. "Yeah, you can do research. But do it quietly. Really, really quietly. If anything weird starts happening, come and get me right away, alright?"
Death trap school or not, research had to be the most harmless thing that would keep her busy. Books couldn't hurt anyone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 6:34 pm
She smiled hopefully as he thought it over. It wasn't that she didn't trust Avery's research ability or anything. He was really smart! But even though she had a lot of faith in her boyfriend, she recognized he was just human. And this way, she could help!
Plus, hardly anything happened in the library, right?
"Really, really quietly. I will be the spiritual and talkative equivalent of a mouse." She zipped her lips and threw away the imaginary key. Almost immediately, she continued, "I promise, I'll come get you." What if she didn't know where he was? "You'll keep your cell phone on you? And call if something weird starts happening to you, too?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
