Bennington wasn't amused, his Grinchish frown seeming to stretch longer in defiance of physics as his lips receded deeper into his mouth. "We were discussing Newton's Third Law of Motion."
"Oh yeah, that one. How does it go again?"
This drew a few more laughs. Bennington glanced above the chalkboard at the clock. Two minutes away from the bell. ''It seems not everyone benefited from today's lecture, so perhaps the entire class should read chapter four in your textbooks and write a two-page report on Isaac Newton's laws."
Bennington's frown lifted a little as the class let out a collective groan. "Good going, witch," Harold whispered.
After the bell sounded, Jett hurried from the room. She was to meet Tommy just before sixth period in the boiler room behind the gym. Tommy had skipped English class, so Jett assumed he'd gone off the school grounds to score. She didn't feel the least bit guilty for her part in his truancy. His attendance record was his problem. It wasn't like the goon was going to last past the legal dropout age of sixteen anyway.
The gym was set apart from the school, with a walkway that led to the bus parking lot. Phys ed classes weren't held during the last period so it was the perfect place for a little privacy. Jett passed a necking couple who were tucked behind a screened Dumpster. The boy wore dark boots and a stained baseball cap, the girl wore cheap jewelry and an outdated Friends hairstyle. From their downscale Kmart fashion wear, she pegged them for trailer trash. The girl would probably be pregnant by ninth grade and the boy would do the honorable thing and marry her, at least until he realized that diapers didn't change themselves and three people could never live as cheaply as one.
Not that you're any great shakes, Jett, but at least you're aware of your flaws. Like criticizing others.
She hefted her backpack higher on her shoulder and cut around the gym entrance, where cigarette butts and old ticket stubs littered the gravel. The dirt around the boiler room was stained black from spilled fuel oil. A large rusty tank was half-submerged in the ground, the cap locked to prevent sabotage or theft.
The door to the boiler room was ajar. The custodian must have been performing maintenance earlier in the morning. She'd expected the door to be locked and for the deal to go down in the shadows of the little brick outbuilding. The building had no windows. Now they would have decent concealment, and if she and Tommy were caught, they could always pretend they were just another couple sneaking off to swap a little saliva.
She took a look around before easing into the boiler room. It was dark and smelled of oil, musty pasteboard, and old pipes. Something rustled behind the giant steel-plated pipe-entangled contraption in the center of the room.
'Tommy?"
She reached into her hand purse for the money. She usually didn't carry a purse but had gone with a black, ruffled skirt today, with white knee hose, figuring cold weather would come soon enough so she might as well log some leg time while she could.
The noise came again, and the room grew darker. The door slammed shut behind her. A ventilation grille in the wall allowed some light, but it took her eyes a few seconds to adjust. Tommy must be playing some stupid stoner game. Or maybe he was dick-headed enough to try and get laid even under threat of death from AIDS.
"That's not funny, Tommy," she said trying the doorknob. Stuck tight.
"It's not funny," came a voice from behind the boiler. It wasn't Tommy's. It was deep and raspy and evoked a tingling familiarity.
Jett turned with her back to the door. The custodian? Maybe he hung out in here with his girlie mags in the afternoon, waiting for the last bus to leave so he could run a buffer over the hallway tiles. Except how had he closed the door when he was on the opposite side of the building?
A pipe reverberated as if someone had bumped into it. Though the boiler wasn't running, the room was stuffy. Jett tried me door again, wondering if her screams would carry to the couple by the Dumpster.
"It's not funny, it's serious," said the voice, and a blacker shadow moved in the darkness.
The brim of the hat lifted and the moon-white face gave a grin. Except it wasn't a grin, Jett saw, just an illusion caused by the man's missing upper lip. She decided it was a man though she had little evidence that it had once been human. A stench flooded the room, and Jett recognized the musky aroma of a male goat.
"You're not real," Jett said moving her backpack to her chest as if to add a protective layer between her and the nightmare.
"Judge not, that you be not judged" me man said. The head turned and dull silver flashed where the eyes might be. "I just wanted to tell you something while you were away from home, because home clouds your judgment."
"It's not my home," Jett said throat dry, sure she was having a nervous breakdown spiced with a bad acid flashback and a panic attack thrown in for good measure. Each breath felt like swallowing a handful of sand. She worked the knob with all her strength, chafing her palm.
"It will be your home soon enough." The man waited, as if reluctant to leave the safety of the shadows.
"What do you want?"
"To warn you about false prophets."
"I don't know any prophets." She wondered if acid flashbacks had a time limit, or if she was likely to keep on retro-tripping until her brain was a puddle of ooze.
"Yes, you do."
"Okay, whatever. I'll watch out for them, just let me go."
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves."
Jett nodded toward the dark figure.
"You will know them by their fruits," the voice said, as the shadows merged into an unbroken darkness.
The knob turned in her hand. She staggered blinking into the sunlight.
Tommy Williamson sat on the oil barrel, legs crossed cigarette trailing smoke into the cloudless autumn sky. "What the hell were you doing in there?"
She didn't want to blow her cool in front of this ass clown. "Waiting for you."
Tommy inhaled blew out a long snake of smoke as if he were sighing, then flicked his butt onto the gravel. "Who were you talking to?"
"Nobody."
"You're as crazy as you look."
"No wonder the girls flock to you, with lines like that."
"Whatever." Tommy slid down from the barrel and reached into his NASCAR windbreaker. He pulled out a paper bag that had been twisted into the size of a hammer handle. "Here's your quarter ounce. Fifty bucks."
Jett peeled off the bills with a trembling hand, hoping Tommy would think she was nervous instead of insane. She put the paper bag in her backpack without looking at its contents. "Thanks. I've got to get to class."
"Sure. Plenty more where that came from, just say the word." She left him lighting another cigarette, her heart throbbing, wondering how she would make it through math with the man in the black hat's voice buzzing through her skull.
Chapter Thirteen
Katy lay on the bed, listening to the ticking of the tin roof as the sun warmed it. The afterglow of sex had faded, and only a faint stickiness remained. Her toes were cold. Her robe was tangled around her. She must have fallen asleep because the alarm clock on the bedside table read almost ten. She forced herself out of bed, legs heavy, head feeling as if it were stuffed with wet rags.
On the way to the bathroom, she paused at the linen closet to get a clean towel. The closet was still a mess from moving, strewn with garbage bags full of winter clothes, boxes of shoes, and bun-dled-up coats. The door bulged open, with mufflers, pajamas, and dish towels oozing from the crack. Had Rebecca been this messy? She kicked the clothing away and opened the door, and a shoe box fell from the shelf and bounced off her shoulder. As she put it back, she noticed a string running down the inside of one wall. She thought it might be a light switch and gave it a tug, peering into the darkness above. There was a slight metallic rasp and the squeak of a spring. Katy pulled harder and saw a small wooden door descending. It must be an attic access.