Free Forever Freaky by Tom Upton Page B

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.
    *************
    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 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