Glitch. Part 9

From down here, the climb looked small. Josh planted his feet one by one with a casual laboriousness, like he was on round three of a Stairmaster workout. It looked easy. But I don't think I'd ever climb up that railing again: I knew how high it felt when you were up there.

And I knew what was on the other side.

Josh planted a foot on the top of the railing. Then he jumped.

Dropped.

Stopped in mid-air.

f.u.c.k.

I groaned.

During the card ride, I'd hoped. I'd really hoped, that these people were just crazies. Even that I was crazy. It was a better explanation than the one Lena had explained back in the car, and therapy was cheap in Toronto.

But now, Josh walked on air. And I realized with a sinking feeling that the others hadn't flinched. This was normal for them.

In the pit, Josh lifted his head side to side, angling his head away from the rain. Now, I noticed a gla.s.sy surface beneath his feet.

It was rainwater.

Now that Josh stood inside the pit, the rainwater streaming from above stopped just at his feet, sketching the invisible barrier that held him up.

Josh noticed the water slowly rising to skirt his shoelaces. He lifted his feet. I couldn't see a sneer on Josh's hidden face, but he could look disgusted with his entire body.

Josh looked around some more. He inspected the walls, ran his hands over the clay, and I think swore to himself a couple of times. Finally, he ran over to us.

"You said there was a barrier here?" He shouted.

I nodded.

Josh hugged his arms and looked around. He jogged over to where the blue line had been.

Josh reached into his pocket. The darkness didn't let me see much. He put a shadowed arm to the wall and tapped it.

Josh ran back to us. The rain was piling up. Wide puddles were forming on the surface, but they moved strangely; drifting into strange shapes, forming and dispersing by themselves to no apparent force. And it could have been my imagination, but the water seemed to vibrate-almost imperceptibly, like a hummingbird's wing. I remembered how force had cancelled out when I landed on the barrier. Maybe the water's behaviour was somehow affected.

"Gate's gone!" Josh shouted. "Need a blank!"

Laurent turned away from the railing. He flexed his jaw and shook his head like he'd just heard some bad news.

Lena reached to her face. Her hands spun around her ear, and came back with one of her plain, golden earrings. She slipped her arm between the railings.

"Heads up!" Lena shouted. She flicked the earring like a coin, and it flipped up to Josh's face. Josh s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of the air. He jogged back to the wall, and held the earring against it.

Amrith patted my shoulder and leaned in to my ear. "The Stalker Man must have put in a fake barrier. We always thought it was possible but it's never been done before."

I didn't know what that meant for me; I stared at Josh, still holding the earring against the wall.

"He's getting a vibration now," Amrith said. "Hopefully we'll be able to track the Stalker Man based on what we find. Then we can keep you safe."

"Keep me safe from what?" I asked.

Amrith bit his lip.

Inside the pit, Josh pocketed the ring and trotted over. He grabbed the railing, pulled himself up, and made a quick climb over. He gripped the top of the fence and slowly climbed down the other side, returning to us. By the time I remembered to look, the barrier was gone. I don't know what happened to the water.

"It's a fake program," Josh announced as he came down. The wind roared as he spoke, and threw the rain sideways. "My gate's gone."

"What do Stalker Men do?" I asked Amrith.

"Christ," Laurent muttered. He kicked the fence.

"What do Stalker Men-" I began.

"How smart do you think this one is?" Lena asked.

Josh dug around in his pocket, retrieved the gold earring, and thrust it at me. I took it on reflex.

"Smarter than this f.u.c.ker." Josh sneered.

I punched Josh.

The blow came fast, before I knew I'd thrown it. My fist hurtled from my hip, shot out, and sank into Josh's ribs. Impact shook my arm.

It was stupid. But so was he.

I didn't hear much after that. The scene went slow and fast at the same time. Laurent went to Josh and Amrith held up a hand and shouted something mediating. I shouted something back and jammed the earring into my pocket.

I backed away. Laurent and Amrith stepped towards me but I balled my fists and they backed off.

They grew smaller and smaller as I retreated: Josh kneeling on the ground clutching his side. Laurent swearing. Lena hiding her face in her hands and Amrith watching me go.

My car was in the parking lot I left it in. I'd paid for all-day parking, so I didn't even have a ticket. I drove home and didn't think about anything.

I live on the second floor of Horizon Apartment Complex, room 217. The building sits a few blocks away from Lakesh.o.r.e, right next to an empty field that'll probably be a new apartment building soon. The apartment is in Etobic.o.ke, hovering between Toronto proper and Mississauga's Port Credit.

The lights were off when I came in. Greg wasn't in either. Good. I'd rode the elevator to get up, and my eyes were still blue. I didn't want to explain why. I wasn't sure I could explain.

I'd noticed something about my eyes: they only glowed in the dark. In lighted areas, they just looked dark blue, like I'd put on contact lenses.

I don't have a lot of girls over to my apartment, but when I do they called it *unique.' I'm not sure what that meant. We aren't allowed to paint the off-white walls, but Greg had put up a lot of paintings-some reprints, most originals from Toronto artists. The furniture is a little schizophrenic since most of it we got from garage sales or Ikea.

But it's clean, quiet, and most of our neighbours are old people who don't bother us. It's also a distance from my parents in Brampton.

I closed the door behind me and turned the lock. It thudded into place and I felt a bit better.

The earring felt cold in my pocket. Might have been my imagination. I took it out and left it on the table in my hallway.

The lights were off in my apartment. I edged forward, navigated my way to the kitchen, and found the fridge. I pulled out a pack of Coors.

On the way to my sofa, I caught my eyes in the TV.

In the black screen, my eyes glowed blue. Two lights in the darkness.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE STALKER MEN.

The snow fell thick and heavy from a black sky, from clouds that choked the moon and the ambient, glowing light of refracting stars. The snowflakes fell fat and heavy like marshmallows, caking the streets. The snow clogged the gutters. It buried cars. It ma.s.sed in crooks of naked trees and turned the night into a black and white photo.

I s.h.i.+fted on my feet, letting the snow pile up on the shoulders of my jacket.

I stood on the sidewalk outside UTM's Davis building, the gigantic slab of concrete that held the oldest lecture halls on campus. The lights were still on inside, but the Davis building was empty now. The last bus left ten minutes ago.

My phone buzzed in my palm. I flipped it open.

"Talk to me Jon." I said. My words made clouds in the air. Flakes of snow dusted my bare knuckles, then melted away with a feathery feeling.

Jon's voice came m.u.f.fled through the phone. "Yeah. Sorry I'm late. You'll see me in a minute."

"Got it," I folded the phone and dropped it in my jacket pocket.

I took a deep breath and blew a column of mist into the air. When I was a kid, we'd use the cold air to pretend we were smoking. I was nineteen now, and I'd tried smoking. It made my mouth taste like a.s.s.

Davis was only accessible by a narrow, single-lane road. The road was the best way into campus: it cut through the woodlot, wound through the hills and ponds dotting the parks, and made a clear, clean path around the Davis building and up to Mississauga Road. I watched the road, and waited for Jon.

A m.u.f.fled, comfortable silence had settled with the snow. The birds were quiet or gone, the crickets long burrowed beneath the ground. Just the buzzing streetlights at the side of the road, and the sound of snow settling.

Stillness followed the silence. Outside, with no people and no traffic, it was easy for me to think time had stopped. The only exception was the snow, drifting from the sky in thick, white sheets.

A pair of headlights lanced the woodlot. The twin lights mounted the hill beyond the circle road, and glimmered through the dark trees. They pa.s.sed across the road, and turned the snow to sparks.

The headlights belonged to a blue Honda. As I watched, the Honda rounded the turn of the circle road. The engine roared. The driver honked. A white hand waved in the window.

I hitched my backpack and headed to the street. The car skidded to a stop, ploughing snow up around the tires.

In the window, Jonathan reached behind his seat and popped the back seat open. I yanked the door and threw my backpack into the seat. Snowflakes scattered on the black fabric.

"Exam went okay?" Jon asked.

I shut the pa.s.senger door and went around to the shotgun seat. Jon opened that one for me too.

"I'm guessing no." He said as I sat down.

"It went fine." I pulled the door shut. The thump of the door gave a verbal period.

Jon revved the engine. The car squealed. The wheels spun, spun, and finally kicked us over the piled snow.

I shrugged off my coat and threw it in the back seat. I didn't like snow, and I didn't like being wet. I pried off my boots and tucked them in the back too. Finally I peeled off my wet, dirty socks, and tossed the damp woolen b.a.l.l.s behind me. I dialed the heater up to its highest setting.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. "Comfortable enough?"

I dialed the radio to 97.3 ROCK. Finger Eleven blasted out Paralyser. I grunted to indicate I was now comfortable.

"Cool." He said.

The headlights cast the circle road in stark light, like a Polaroid with too much flash. The road stretched white and clear ahead of us, while the woods around us loomed dark and murky. The streetlights came rarely. Long stretches of bare tree trunks flashed in the headlights as we pa.s.sed. They reminded me of tiger stripes.

The wipers squeaked across the gla.s.s. The heating whooshed on and off as the car rumbled through the snow. Finger Eleven's Paralyser cried out tinny and ragged on the ancient speakers.

I shuddered. Jon glanced over at me.

"So Cheri facebooked me. She said you haven't spoken to Nicole in a while."

I grunted. I wasn't getting along with Nicole at the moment.

The headlights. .h.i.t a stop sign. Jon pa.s.sed by without stopping.

I shot him a dirty look. "That's two demerit points."

"No one's here." Jon said.

"Doesn't make a difference." The sign grew smaller and smaller in the window. "It was under a light and everything."