Free School of the Dead by Avi Page A

“Can you get to school okay?”
    â€œIt’s only six blocks.”
    They moved away, Mom calling, “Have a great day. Love you.”
    I watched them dissolve into the fog. Then I turned toward school, only to be engulfed by the dense mist.
    Unable to see beyond a foot or two, I walked with care, my feet making soft pit-pats on the sidewalk. Foghorns moaned. The swirling fog played hide-and-seek with the world. The air smelled wet. I was wet. Buildings rose up into nothingness, while solid things became oddly shaped. Red and green traffic lights were bleary, blinking eyes. Car headlights were uncertain flashlights, and on the damp roads, tires hissed like spitting snakes. From somewhere came a screeching siren, which I assumed was an ambulance. The drifting gray shadows that crept by were like people in a fake horror movie. I felt clammy, uncomfortable, confused, as if I were walking through an ever-changing maze.
    Muddled, I stopped and tried to figure out where I was. I couldn’t. I took out my cell phone to check the time. It was dead. I had forgotten to charge it. When I peered back to see where I had started, I couldn’t.
    I turned around, only to become more jumbled, hesitant about which way to go. Uncle Charlie’s words, “The separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion,” filled my head. It felt that way. Not wanting to go the wrong way, I stood still.
    Without warning, an old man loomed out of the fog andpeered so closely into my face that I saw his lively eyes. As if he knew I was lost, he grabbed hold of my arm and shoved me forcibly a few steps until I saw a street sign I recognized. I knew where I was. “Thanks,” I muttered as the old man disappeared into the fog.
    It took two seconds for me to realize that the man who had helped me was Uncle Charlie.
    Except he had not
just
helped me: he had taken
hold
of my arm and guided me to safety. I spun about and gazed into the murk where he had vanished. “Uncle Charlie!” I called. “Uncle Charlie!”
    I had
felt
his touch. Except . . . that was impossible. He was dead. He was a memory.
    Heart hammering, struggling to catch my breath, I considered going back to the apartment, staying home from school. I reached for my phone only to remember it was dead. Like Uncle Charlie. Anyway, how could I explain not going to school? My parents would think I was insane.
    Maybe I was.
    Almost falling, I stumbled off a curb onto the street, only to have a huge black hearse leap out of the fog from behind a steep hill, like a black fish breaching from the sea. I jumped back. Unnerved, I looked all ways before I started across the street again. A kid ran past me. He looked like the Penda Boy.
    Mid-street, I froze. What was happening?
    A car horn blared at me. Startled, I bolted for the far curb, wanting to be with people. Forcing myself to go on, I kept searching my mind back to what had happened, or what I thought had happened: that Uncle Charlie had
touched
me.
    I reached the school, where, if anything, the fog was denser. Kids drifted about, coming, going, solid one moment, dissolving the next. I couldn’t tell who was who. I looked up. The school towers were wrapped in drifting gray. Same for that tall tree. The school seemed only partly there, the way I felt.
    I
moved toward the entryway, wanting to get inside. As I started up the steps, I saw the Penda Boy peering out from behind the doors, waiting for me.
    I whirled about and stood in place, heart pounding, desperate to know what he wanted from me. The question fused with my fright about the old man I had seen, the one who had touched me, helped me. Because if it had been Uncle Charlie, and he was just a memory, how could he have
touched
me? I could make no sense of it—or him—or me.
    â€œTony.”
    Taken by surprise, I turned.
    Standing close was a girl wearing a yellow slicker and a lavender scarf around her neck. Her face was wet,