~ Tell her. She’ll understand. ~
Oh crap, the impossible voice was back in my head. My posture shrunk with the thought. Just ignore it...you’re not going crazy.
~ Pick me up and tell Olivia. ~
I tried with all my might to shake the ‘crazy’ to the back of my brain. I stepped forward and smiled at Olivia. She winked back at me. If I had not been lost in the moment, I might have noticed the unwanted attention that my personal serenade was generating. From across the room, a pair of hurt eyes carved into me. I was on cloud-nine, but I would soon find that this particular cloud was quite crowded.
The concert lasted another hour and I loved every minute of it. Every song, every squeal of her guitar, and every thunderous drum assault. Sadly though, I couldn’t tell you the name of any of the songs, or how many songs were played. All I could remember was Olivia’s smile.
“Luc, we have to get home soon,” Roland said, worried. “We’re already like, five minutes late.” He turned to his sister, “Mom’s gonna kill us, Mo!” He quickly paced the length of the school parking lot back and forth.
“Take it easy, Roland. Let’s give Olivia and her band a few more minutes,” Taylor tried to ease his worries. My friends had been overly patient waiting with me for Olivia. They were the best friends a guy could have. Taylor was probably the only one of them really there to support me though. Morgan stayed to soak up every moment she could with Taylor, and Roland only stayed because his sister made him.
“Come on, Luc...you’ll see her tomorrow,” Roland pleaded, watching the clock on the screen of his cell phone. Taylor and I both shot him an annoyed glance. I noticed that the school parking lot had shrank down to just a few vehicles. It wouldn’t be much longer, so I let them off the hook.
“Thanks for hanging out guys, but you can go home. I’ll be all right,” I said.
Roland whipped around, relieved. “Really?”
“Are you sure?” Taylor asked, concerned.
“Yeah. Get them out of here, I’ll walk if I need to,” I said, with a friendly smack on his back.
“Okay, Luc, I get it. We’re cramping your style,” Taylor teased. He nudged Roland to climb into his truck as I blushed, stupidly. Taylor’s truck was exactly like him; big, sporty, and strong. Roland hopped in quick and Morgan followed with a wave goodbye.
“Remember...be yourself,” she said, softly. I gave her a quick smile and a wave.
“Call me if you need a ride and I’ll come back after I get these two home,” Taylor offered.
I shook his hand, “Thanks, T.”
They drove off and I stood alone in silence. Fifteen minutes later the school doors flew open, startling me a little bit. Olivia and the rest of her band, marched out into the failing light. Olivia carried her guitar case in hand. Sarah Jane, her bass player and sometimes hairstylist, enjoyed a fresh piece of gum before blowing a pink bubble and popping it. Gwen Davis, the other guitarist and self proclaimed psychic, stared at me hard. She stomped by me with a look of suspense and disgust. I quickly stopped my eye contact. And finally, Linda Perry, the drummer and music fanatic. She handed Olivia a bright blue mp3 player and bounced on by me.
I watched them all, silent and still. Each girl jumped into their vehicles, first sliding in their individual band equipment, carefully. They were all gone in seconds, all of them except Olivia. She stood just out of reach, watching me with curious, colorful eyes.
“Lucas Ryan.” She stepped toward me and a lump found its way up into my dry throat.
~ Tell her. ~
My mind ignored the voice that echoed inside my head. No time for that now. No time for crazy. I had to find something to focus on...I decided on her eyes. They were now an unnatural shade of purple that matched the streaks in her hair. Call it her hobby. Some people collected stamps, others hoarded shoes. Olivia Weaver collected colored contacts. She has done it since before I knew her. Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember what her original eye color was.
“You were amazing tonight,” I said, as calmly as I could while looking into her stare. She looked back at me with no smile in sight. Something felt wrong. Something felt off. Maybe I was coming on too strong.
“You enjoyed the show?” she asked, but it sounded more like a fact. Slowly, I nodded yes. She looked down at what I was wearing, the T-shirt she had given me this past afternoon. Her band T-shirt. One eyebrow raised on her face and her eyes filled with a new brightness. Her lips bent upward, readying themselves to smile.
“I see the shirt fits perfectly.”
“Um...yeah.” Why hadn’t I said something more witty, or normal? I was trying too hard. I needed to settle myself. I pointed to the image of the girl on the front of the shirt, trying my hardest to erase the last thirty-seconds.
“She’s cute,” I said, unsure. Olivia stepped closer to me, reaching for the face of the girl. Her finger traced the outline of the girls cheek.
“She’s my sister.”
“Really? I asked, calming down. She nodded yes, with a small smile.
“It’s an older photo of her, she was only six years old when this picture was taken...” her raspy voice drifted off. The amount of unconditional love on Olivia’s face was overwhelming. Her eyes found mine again with a question ready to jump from her lips, but then something pulled her attention away from me. She looked past me with concern.
“Sophia. That’s her name, right?” I asked, trying to ignore the change in her posture. She stepped backwards and looked away from me, completely.
“Right,” she huffed. “See ya around, Lucas.” Was she angry at me now? Did I say the wrong thing? Confusion rolled over me, leaving me bewildered. I didn’t know what to say or do. Unfortunately, from behind me, someone knew exactly what to say.
“Olivia! Get in the car!” the strange voice barked. I turned around to find a rather large boy wrapped in a black pullover, stomping towards me. His hair was a mess of black that needed a stiff comb. His eyes were steel gray and filled with anger. He pushed past me, nearly knocking me over. As he collided with me the world slowed down and I could sense his dislike for me. My right hand tingled with fresh goose bumps.
“Get in my car!” he ordered, again. She gripped her guitar case harder and pushed through me.
“Olivia...” I started to say when he cut me off.
“Don’t!” he warned. I froze in place, taking in his entire outline. He stood at least six inches above me and outweighed me by twenty-five pounds, easily. He marched past me, never looking away from my face. His chest tightened as if he was about to swing a giant fist at my face. I closed my eyes and wished that Taylor was here.
“Who are you?” I asked, unsure. He turned my way, agitated.
“What did you say?” he cussed. I glanced behind him and found Olivia watching with hurt painted across her face.
“Who are you?” I asked, again. He noticed that I was concentrating on Olivia and not his threats. He positioned himself inches from me and glared down at my worried face, “Trust me, punk, she’ll rip you to pieces and break your heart.”
I leaned away from his words, filling with embarrassment. Who says things like that?
“Lucas!” Taylor called from his truck window, as he rolled up with pop music pouring from his window. I spun around dumbfounded. Where the heck did Taylor come from? How did he get back here so quickly? An engine roared to life from behind me, and the stranger tore out of the parking lot without another word my way. Olivia pouted from the passengers seat, angry and upset. I felt dizzy with emotions.
“Tay?” I coughed out. He threw the passenger door open and waved.
“Get in.”
“Who was that?” I asked him, quickly. My hands rushed to tighten the seatbelt around my waist and chest. Taylor looked over at me worried, avoiding my question.
“Who?” I asked, again.
He sighed and put the truck in gear. “Trouble.”
“Oh,” I whimpered. “Where did you come from?”
?
??You know me, where there’s trouble...there’s usually my best friend, Lucas,” he laughed. I rolled my eyes and tried to find Olivia’s prison on wheels, in the passenger side mirror of the truck. She was gone. Taylor watched me curiously.
“You’re welcome,” he winked. I leaned back in the seat as the night’s adventure began to sink in.
I sang quietly to myself...
“...let’s be more than...this.”
LEVEL 07: Hysteria
Her long black shadow was the first thing I saw. At the foot of my bed, she stood silent and dark. I searched the entire bedroom in a foggy panic. I didn’t even know what I was looking for, only that I needed to find something.
“Who are you?” I asked the shadow. A bright purple flash of light bursted above me, jerking my head to the ceiling. Instead of the usual off-white paint and science fiction movie posters that populated that space, I found only the night sky. Crawling through it was finger trails of purple lightning, flickering with vibrance. My bedroom roof was gone. Giant stars peppered the alien sky and twinkled with a brightness of a hundred camera flashes. They were beautiful, but hurt my eyes.
I pulled my stare back to the slender ghost at the foot of my bed. “What...I mean...who, are you?”
“Just a dream,” she spoke, softly. I recognized the voice, immediately. I sat up in my bed, still tangled in my sheet.
“Olivia?” I asked, in a loud gasp. She leaned forward, just enough for the overhead light show to reveal her familiar features. It was her. Olivia was in my bedroom. But why? What was going on?
“Tell me. Tell me your secret,” she demanded. I watched her mouth as her lips moved in slow motion. Her eyes were blood red and filled with urgency. “I want to know your secret.”
“What secret?” I asked, unsure. Thunder shook my room, but it didn’t sound right. It sounded synthetic, processed. Like a computer had created it. I glanced upward, to my invisible ceiling, and found that the stars were now sliding along the dark background. They moved slowly and unnatural. It reminded me of the surface of the stone in my locker. Same snake-like slithering. A large lump in my throat fought me as I tried to swallow it down. Olivia’s vampire stare found me again.
“Tell me!” she screamed. Her face tightened into a grimace. The room fell heavy with her words. From the corner of my eye I could see that my computer screen had begun to pulsate with a golden yellow light, on and off, like a strobe light. My pulse doubled inside my chest. Within seconds I realized that the flashing light was mirroring my racing heartbeat. Quickly, I jumped from my bed, confused in this weird dream world. When I turned to confront Olivia’s ghost, she was no longer there. Sadness gripped me. If only I would have told her my secret. My impossible secret, and maybe more.
“Olivia?” I called out, and my voice echoed throughout my room. My ceiling returned to normal overhead, movie posters and all. My computer screen fell back to its boring, black screen. No more magic. No more fantasy. Just me in my pajama bottoms and my cold, dark room. I felt confused and alone.
~ Pick me up. ~
“Not now!” I yelled. I was sure I had said it loud enough to wake my parents.
~Tell her. ~
Tell her. Like it was that easy. Tell her I had been hopelessly infatuated with her since we were in fifth grade. Tell her I had a growing, glowing, piece of rock that talked to me and knew her name. Yeah, right. I couldn’t deal with that voice right now, no matter how loudly it rang inside my brain. Olivia had been in my room and I had let her get away. Even if it was just a crazy dream. My hands found my throbbing head and squeezed tightly. I should have told her...everything.
~ Look behind you. ~
I whipped around with my heart in my throat. She came back, I thought. I hoped.
“Hello, Lucas,” Felicity said, with a large smile. “La, la, la, Lucas!”
I jerked back, stubbing my heal on the leg of my desk. What was she doing here? Was I still dreaming? She watched me with a never ending smile painted across her face. She bounced up and down in the same spot, lifting up on the tips of her toes and back down again. Up and down, up and down, like a seesaw. Her curly hair pulled into two fluffy ponytails on the side of her head. She was wearing a dress that was much too young for her. It was something a toddler would have worn on her best day of Sunday school. My confusion was replaced by a new frustration.
“Get out...of my...room,” I grumbled. She hopped forward once, with a goofy laugh, her arms folded behind her back. I took a short step backwards, nudging up against my desk.
“What are you doing here, Felicity?”
“I brought you something,” she giggled.
“What are you talking about? Why are you in my room? And why in the world are you dressed like a preschooler?” I begged her. She threw her head back in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Her pigtails whipping back and forth as if she were throwing a tantrum.
“I brought you something special!” she called out, still laughing. Her eyes were gleaming with a craziness I had only seen in horror movies. I was officially scared.
“Do you want it? Do you want your special...gift?” she winked. I shook my head no and she cackled even louder. Oh no, this was about to get ugly.
“Too bad!” she screeched. In a split second she pulled her arms from behind her back, wielding an oversized mallet. It was twice the size of her and striped like a humongous candy cane. The face of the mallet was covered in dark stains that were dripping from it in big fat drops. She twirled it inside of her hands with the skill of a berserker ninja. Her body vibrated in a shaking blur.
“What the...” I fell back. She leaped into the air and swung the hammer with the strength of a lumberjack. It smashed through my desk with the force of a bomb, just barely missing me. My desk shattered into a million slivers. I jumped for my bed as she nearly hit me with her second swing. I could feel the moist edge of the mallet as it grazed my cheek.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” she cackled. She flipped the hammer over her head instantly and brought it down onto my mattress. It made a muffled THWACK, and sent me into the air; my head just missing the ceiling by an inch.
“Felicity!” I screamed. She pulled back again and leveled my bed with the next swing. This time I flew off the side of my bed, crashing down on top of my laundry basket.
“You’re going to kill me!” I said, petrified.
She leaped onto what was left of my bed with a wicked pout on her face, “Kill you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Yay for me!” she screamed.
Outside my bedroom window came a buzzing. It sounded as if a dozen chainsaws were about to explode. It grew louder, hurting my ears. I covered them instinctively, but it didn’t help. The horrible sound kept growing. Felicity seemed to not be affected by it at all. Lucky her. And just when I couldn’t take the sound anymore, the window exploded inside the bedroom. The pieces of jagged glass ricocheted off everything in the room, bouncing around like a million little rubber balls. They never stopped. I held still and waited to be cut into pieces.
“All right! She’s going to squash him like a bug!” a familiar, but unwelcome voice hollered through the window frame. My irritating and nosy neighbors, the Anderson’s, had joined the party.
“Mr. Anderson?” I whispered.
“Hit him again!” Mrs. Anderson cheered. What the hell was going on? Felicity obeyed their requests, quickly.
“Okay!” she said, with a thumbs up. Another wild swing rushed through the air. Her smile never faded. This time she connected with my ribs and stomach, sending me flying across my room. I hit the far wall with a dull thud. All three of them bellowed with evil laughter. Stars filled my sight as blood gushed inside my mouth. The pain radiated along my spine, tickling the ends of my legs down to my toes. I tried to speak, but coughed out a splat of blood instead. This dream had just crossed the line into nightmare territory. I was done. Wake me up, please.
She slowly walked up to me with the hammer across her shoulders, a
nd continued her interrogation. “Tell me your secret.”
“I can’t,” I grumbled, in pain.
“Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!” she chanted, and raised the giant mallet over her head. Its shadow covered me as I sat up grasping my chest.
“No!” I spit. Her eyes filled with red fire that teased the freckles along her cheeks. The room was spinning now, but I managed to pull myself up again. She didn’t like that at all.
“I...will...break...YOU!” her voice echoed everywhere. “Tell! Me!”
“I won’t tell you anything, I’ll only tell Olivia,” I pouted. Her hands tightened around the handle of the mallet. She puckered her lips and lifted up onto her tippy toes again.
“She’ll only tear you to pieces and break your heart,” she warned, in a haunting whisper. The warning echoed off of every wall in my bedroom. That was the second time someone had said those words to me. I filled with a new doubt.
“I’ll take that chance.”
“Idiot!” she coughed, and pulled back her oversized weapon, as far as possible. I closed my eyes and waited for her final blow. One-second passed. Then another, and another, but the hammer never fell. From the darkness, a whisper spun through the room and the pain in my chest disappeared.
“Give me your heart and your soul,” Olivia sang to me. I opened my eyes to find her floating up to me. Her hair trailed behind her as if she were under water. Gone were the fiery red eyes from before, and in their place were big, brown eyes. I stole a quick glance around the room. Felicity was gone and so were the prying eyes of my neighbors.
“Tell me,” she insisted, softly. Her hands slipped along my cheeks and she smiled.
“Olivia?” I asked, not believing or understanding this crazy night. Her smile grew wider.