Chapter two

Ah yes, good ol' chapter two, please enjoy.

During lunch, I sat down in between Shilo and Greg in a table around a small bend in the cafeteria where no one could see us unless they were in the three tables surrounding ours in the corner. I sat down with my slice of greasy pizza and started eating. I wasn’t at all hungry, but I knew I needed to eat. Shilo fidgeted in her seat and nudged my arm. “What?” I asked. She looked up and nodded towards a boy with dyed blond-brown hair that goes down to his cheekbones in a bowl shape, and had a shirt perhaps what looked like ten sizes too big for him. He was big, but not pretty. He had five boys following him, all pretty skinny and gangly, and I emphasize the gang part.
“Hello Karlos.” Shilo said.
“Hello Z von creep.” Karlos said to me, emphasizing the creep part. His goons laughed.
I didn’t even look up at him and kept eating. “Not today Karlie, I’m really not in the mood for a three stooges act.” I returned. Greg smiled at this and hid his face in his hands.
His face turned red. He held his black cowboy hat with two fingers as he thought, “And I’m not really in the mood for a-“ He paused, thinking of what to say next, “another funeral tomorrow!” He finally got out. His buddies laughed again. “Yeah, so I hear your little insane mommy and daddy died. I hear they saw ghosts before they went!" The teenagers laughed even harder. My anger was rising. Normally, I would just ignore him and that would make him even madder, but I didn’t feel normal today. I finally looked up at him and saw his smug expression across his face. I grinned and spoke, “Y’know, you really should learn some manners, before it kills you.” I didn’t really want to have another popularity battering, especially today. They were paranormal experts, so they studied the supposed ghosts, and spirits of our world. I don’t really see how they got so rich doing that, but they were gone a lot on out of country trips, mostly Asia and Germany. I knew they were working on these trips, but there was no way they got so much money from investigating ghosts. I also knew they were on one of their trips when they died and how seriously they took their work. “So, what was the last thing your mommy said to you?” Karlos said to the air. He wasn’t directly looking at me.
“Was it… I see dead people?”
I snapped. This last comment totally went out of the nice insult box. I stood out of my chair and kept my eyes towards the floor. Karlos and his hoodlums “oo’d” as I did so. “Looks like I ripped someones poor little heart out!” He, thinking that he was getting more popular by making fun of me, was actually hurting himself. I didn’t really think of this at the time, and walked around the table and glared and poionted at him from maybe a foot away. “If you ever, EVER speak of my parents like that again, I will rip your heart out, and not figuratively.”
He looked mildly fearful for a split second then regained his composure.
“Try me.” He whispered, trying to sound brave.
“I will.” I said, tapping my head to the side a little. I grabbed his neck and drove him towards the wall. He screamed. Karlos’s face was priceless. Little Zieky vonkreep just totally owned the self proclaimed strongest kid in school in a test of speed. His goons pulled me off of him, but I got a nice punch on his eye that knocked him down, and would leave a mark before they grabbed my arm. I smiled, Karlos’s expression changed from completely surprised, to burning anger. He cursed at me and stood up. “You’re dead Vonkreep!” He knew I was pinned from every angle, so he grabbed my shoulder and drew back for a huge punch.
I knew what was coming, so I looked at Shilo and cocked my head to one side as if to say, “so what?” She looked completely flabbergasted at my actions. Her eyes were as wide as a coke can. Greg shrugged a small shrug saying, “don’t look at me!” I smiled slightly. I knew even though I was beaten in this fight, the larger fight was already won. His reputation was ruined, he was beaten. People would look at him as a whimp now. My job was finished, beat me up I don’t care. It seemed like I could see his fist in slow motion as it flew through the air towards my face. I flinched, but nothing happened except for a slight tingle on the outside of my right hand. I opened my eyes and saw him drawing back his fist with a perplexed expression on his face. He tried it again. Drawing back and punching with all his force. I watched this time. His fist went through, that’s right, through my head. I saw the workings of his fist, blood veins, vessels, and fat. Ew. I felt my hand start to burn as I fell through the arms of Karlos’s goons. One of them screamed and started to run away yelling, “Demon child!” I didn’t know what just happened. What is this? I thought. The burning on my hand grew. What the hell is happening to me? I grabbed my hand and started to run towards the cafeteria door. The halls were totally empty. All I could hear were my footsteps ringing through the halls. I ran to the bathroom and slammed the door open. The burning was getting out of control. I turned on the cold water and stuck my hand under the ice cold stream. It didn’t help. It just got worse as I felt it climb up to my arm. It felt like I was on fire. No, like I had it in molten lava. I didn’t scream, mostly because it was so painful I could barely make a sound. I fell to my knees and lowered my head. Why? I wondered. I could feel the consciousness slipping. I fell on the bathroom floor and could feel no more.





So much screaming. I saw hints of blue, and green as I heard people, groups and masses of people screaming, horrible, terrifying screams of pain and death. I was scared, but who wouldn’t be? I finally saw shapes of people running every which way, and a girl. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen holding my hand, her eyes purple, like mine leading me through hallways of fire. Most of the people we saw running passed us were engulfed in flame, oblivious of our presence and soon to die. It was the most horrifying, but beautiful thing I had ever experienced.

I woke with a start and saw the blue and black stripes that were my rooms ceiling. I remembered what had happened and sat up. How did Karlos’s hand just pass right through me? My arm! I uncovered my arm revealing… nothing. I was half expecting burn marks, or for it to be completely gone. I thought it was kind of random that it even happened. I was frustrated, I had no idea what happened. I sat up and felt completely rejuvenated. I finally noticed Hilga sitting in a rocker chair reading a book. “Good morning.” She said.
“Morning? How long was I out?” I asked.
“Two days.” Was her simple reply.
Two days?! “What have I missed?” I said quickly.
“Oh, nothing much.”
“Who found me?”
“Greg, he said you were on the bathroom floor muttering to yourself about something called a Spinnerette. At least, that’s what he says.”
Spinnerette? “Never heard of a…Spinnerette…” I mumbled.
“Well you have been talking to yourself in your sleep.”
“What did I say?”
“Just some…stuff.” She grinned.
“Hmm?” I said impatiently.
“Oh, just stuff about someone named Shilo and the sort.”
I blushed. “What?! Oh come on, you know that’s passed.”
“Yeah, ok.” She grinned even more and went back to reading.
Whatever. I thought, I have more important stuff to ask. “So.” I continued.
“Yes?” Hilga looked up again.
“Who knows that I-“ I paused, “I passed out?” I said, curious of who knows about what happened.
“Only your principal, me, Greg, and Shilo.”
“How did she know?”
“She called to see what happened.”
“Ah.” I muttered, kind of embarrassed that I made someone worry about me. Then I realized something.
“Oh right, Hilga. How long have you been sitting there?”
“Pretty much the whole time, I just left for meals.”
At the mention of meals, my stomach rumbled in protest of not being sated. “Did I eat anything?”
“No, you wouldn’t accept anything. I felt like I was feeding a baby that didn’t want its applesauce.”
“Heh, sorry.” I laughed.
“Let’s get you something to eat.”She stood up and motioned for me to follow.
I walked down to the dining room and sat down on the mahogany chair at the head of the table. Hilga brought in two plates of pasta and set one down in front of me, and one for her. I ate while thinking of what happened a few days ago, and my dream. Who was the girl? How did my face not get pummeled by Karlos’s fist? What was a Spinnerette? None of it made sense. I finally came to the conclusion that I was probably just going mad. In which case, it was most likely because of all the recent deaths in my life. I wondered when I would come next. I scarfed down the rest of my pasta and walked in the kitchen to put my plate in the sink. I needed to tell Shilo what was going on. I told Hilga I was going to Shilos and that I would be back sometimes around six. Good thing it was only eleven. I couldn’t believe I slept two and a half days. Went up to my room and grabbed the backpack that was hanging on the door. I headed out the door and grabbed the skateboard on a rack on the porch. Shilo had taught me how to simply ride one, and a couple tricks. Although it seemed now that I was better than she was. Poor, clumsy, Shilo. I silently wished I could drive by the time I rode out to the end of the driveway, which was around half a mile. I rode for about five minutes on NW Cumberland road, which was about half a mile away from the end of my driveway when I noticed a small group of kids hanging around the outside of a house. They looked vaguely familiar as I drew closer. Oh crap. I thought. It was Karlos. I slowed down and tightened the chain I had around my wrist. I slowly rode on the other side of the street and hoped they wouldn’t see me. “Hey, Isn’t that-“ I heard one of them say in a Mexican accent. I kept riding as I heard another one say, “It is! Yo Karlos, it’s Zeik!” I looked back as Karlos looked around until his eyes met mine. “You!” He screamed. Him and his gang started running for me. I kept trying to stay faster than they were, but they were quick little buggers. They seemed to be catching up with me around two bends in the road. I could feel exhaustion starting to creep up on me as I rode. I didn’t want to get Shilo involved, so I looked for a way to get them off me before I got there. I saw a small cluster of trees. The opening being around the next corner, I quickly jump off my skateboard, grabbed it and ran into the small grove. I threw my skateboard to the side and noticed this small clearing was surrounded by a wooden fence. It was closed off, I had no other escape route if they found me here. I quickly climbed up a tree and waited maybe twenty feet in the air for them. I heard heavy footsteps right outside of the entrance to the circle of trees. I couldn’t see anything thanks to the pine needles covering my vision to the entrance, but I could hear their heavy breathing. I heard more footsteps catch up with the first pair. “Where’d he go?” I heard Karlos say desperately.
“I don’t know, he just turned the corner, and was gone!” one of his friends said breathlessly.
“Hey, there’s nowhere else he could have gone, except for that.” Another crony said. I could imagine one of them pointing into the grove. I heard one of them shh the others and started walking towards me. A small wind picked up and I could feel small raindrops land of my arms through the branches. I then saw one of them walk under the tree I was in, and if he looked up, he would have saw me in an instant. I froze, all except for matching the movement of the tree I was completely still. I recognized one of Karlos’s followers, Reed. He was new, and sort of a go with the crowd kid, easily persuaded, and a total sucker. I didn’t know he was part of Karlos’s gang already. I saw two others beside him searching around on the ground for me in the bushes. I heard another one call the three below me over and they ran to look. They obviously found my skateboard. I silently climbed down to the second to the bottom branch and hung from it with my legs to look around. None of them were looking at me from what I could tell, so I climbed down, and tip toed my way out of the grove. I turned my head from looking at the goons and saw Karlos standing just to the side of me, leaning on the fence like he was the coolest kid in town. He spoke, “Hey, Zeik.” I rolled my eyes. His voice totally wasn’t doing what he wanted to. He kind of sounded like a duck. At this thought I chuckled a little bit. “What was that?!” He yelled at me totally losing control of himself at one little hiccup in his plan of making me scared.
“Oh sorry, I just saw you.” I said, still smiling. This totally made his face flare up in anger. “That’s it von kreep! You and your little hellish way of making me suck at school ends now!”
Clichéd remarks, Woohoo. I thought. He got off the fence and tried to punch my face from the side. I easily dodged this thanks to his telling me so from body language maybe two seconds before hand. One of his goons came out form the grove holding my skateboard, “Hey look Karl! We got a skateboa-“ He stopped as he saw me. “Hey boss I found him!” He said, trying to be funny. I snatched my skateboard from him and pushed him into a bush. Karlos started to charge me again, so I swung my skateboard around and whacked him in the head. He fell to the side holding his ear as I started running away down the street towards Shilo’s house. I heard Karlos groaning as his buddies came out from the cluster of trees surprised to see him on the ground, their friend getting out of a bush, and me running away with my skateboard.