Lurker

The cafeteria was gone. Behind Laurel, whose head continued to turn from side to side, stood a blond brick building, the library. It was night, and the floodlights bathed the edge of the parking lot in a dull amber glow. Beyond the light, a field of tall dead grass ran to a stand of black woods. The trees looked like they were moving, but then Mandy’s eyes adjusted, and she saw them:

A hundred people—men and women, boys and girls—seemed to be carved from smoke. They sat at similarly misty desks, typing frantically at computer keyboards, staring vacantly at panel screens made of fog. Two girls paced back and forth at the tree line, cell phones growing from their heads like tumors. They did not speak into the phones, simply listened, shambling back and forth between the trees.

Nicki was there, walking through the field of dead grass. Her steps were jerky and slow, and each one seemed to hurt her a little more. As she approached Mandy, she became less mist and more flesh, growing more solid with each agonizing step.

Mandy’s heart raced; her pulse thundered in her ears. Nicki was coming to give her a message. Mandy knew this, but didn’t want to hear what the dead girl would say. The thought of Nicki’s wisdom terrified her.

She tried to back up, but Drew and Laurel and Dale stood behind her, blocking her retreat. Her friends stared blankly past her, like they were hypnotized.

Then, Nicki was right in front of her. She still wore the sliver-moon earrings she was wearing the last time Mandy saw her.

“We’re going to miss so much,” Nicki said.

Mandy spun away. Her friends no longer blocked her path. They were gone. Everyone was gone. She sat in front of a flat panel screen that foamed with opaque mist. Two of her fingers jabbed keys frantically creating a single word, repeating it over and over:

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahaha…

She woke with a start, the details of her dream instantly forgotten. Sitting up in bed, Mandy looked at the clock on the nightstand just as her mother yelled, “I’m home,” from downstairs. It was a few minutes after six.

“’Kay,” Mandy called.

Wiping the sleep from her eyes, Mandy walked to her computer, looked at the screen, and felt an odd sense of dread. Why her computer should scare her, she couldn’t say exactly. As she sat down, she thought about something stupid Drew had said at the candlelight vigil.

She’s going to miss so much.

Drew’s ability to state the obvious in the most inappropriate ways was a long-standing character flaw. Everything was a romantic notion to her friend, and she didn’t seem to be gifted with the filter that kept such ridiculous ideas in her head and out of her mouth. Still, for all of her clumsy speculation, Drew had actually made an interesting point.

Unlike Nicki’s dream of being a veterinarian, Mandy didn’t know what she wanted to do after school, not as a profession anyway. She presumed she would go to college and study something, figured she would get married and have kids. Over the years, she’d imagined her wedding day down to the finest detail as she sat around her room dreaming with Drew or Laurel; they’d all taken turns describing the perfect husband. These were the obvious things, events in a woman’s life that she’d grown to take as givens. But they said nothing about what she wanted for herself.

Little-girl dreams of pop stardom, modeling, being a great actress had all come and gone in their time, but even when she had lip-synced into a hairbrush; or strutted in outfits before her mirror, working the runway of exposed wood by her bed; or recited lines from her favorite movies; she never really expected them to come true. They were fancies, daydreams, distractions created on boring afternoons. They made her feel giddy and silly. It was fun to pretend, but Mandy took none of those glamorous careers seriously.

So, what am I going to be, Mandy wondered. What do I want to do?

She knew she wanted to travel, to see the world. Her parents had taken her on family trips to New York and to Walt Disney World in Florida. They had gone hiking in the Rocky Mountains. But these trips, while fun and full of wondrous sights, were only a taste of the exploring she intended to do. All the pictures she saw in history class and poli-sci opened her eyes to a planet full of interesting places. Some places were wrapped in obvious desires: dining in Paris; shopping in Rome; skiing in Austria, shooshing down the slopes with a hottie before getting drinks in a lodge; wandering through London just because it was there. But it was the other places—places like Prague and Thailand and Istanbul, places she knew little about but that sounded exotic and different—that really excited her. There were probably a thousand such destinations, filled with amazing people waiting for her.

What am I going to miss?

It occurred to her that the greatest shame, the biggest loss would be not experiencing those unknown things. New people she would never meet, new places she would never see.

“We’re going to miss so much,” Nicki said.

Mandy sat down at her desk and hit the space key to shut down the screen saver. Maybe surfing the Web would help her find the right career, some profession—and not something silly like being a flight attendant—she could pursue that would open the world up to her.

But before she opened Google to start her career search, she noticed the e-mail that had been sent to her by the guy named Kyle. She had intended to erase it, until Dale showed up and started freaking out. Now, she found herself opening the note again.

Kylenevers

Subject: Me Again

Hey, sorry about yesterday. I know we don’t know each other. Kyle here. I feel kind of bad about IMing you like that. With everything going on with N., I just wanted to chat…don’t know a lot of people…

Mandy read the entire note twice, and though she at first had thought it the miserable plea of a looz, she now figured he was just another kid, like her, who wanted to expand his world. She cut and pasted his screen name into the Profile Search box, just to make sure he wasn’t a complete goof, like some science geek who thought dissecting rats was interesting.

Name: Kyle Nevers (Nevers: like the airport in Nantucket)

Location: Elmwood

Gender: Male…Born: ’90s

Hobbies & Interests: How much time U got?

Favorite Gadgets: PC, cell, text: U name it, I’m there.

No picture. Not a good sign. And he certainly didn’t give much away in the profile, but Mandy wasn’t surprised. Most people her age knew better than to string together lists of personal information. It made it too easy for the creeps to start up a conversation. He lived in town, which struck Mandy as interesting. If he was local, he had to have attended Lake Crest High; there was no place else to go, unless…

Not Hammond, she thought. Ew! Okay, that wasn’t fair. The kids at Hammond Special Studies School couldn’t help being different. They had challenges, physical and mental. It’s not like they were dangerous or mean or anything.

With more than a little curiosity and a bit of excitement, Mandy clicked the Reply button. She wrote back, telling Kyle she understood exactly what he meant about feeling weird after Nicki’s death, and yes, they should chat sometime. She sent the e-mail before talking herself out of it, then leaned back in her chair.

There, she thought. I’ve just met a new person. Already on my way to expanding my horizons. Kyle might become a new friend, maybe a new boyfriend (no way, stop thinking about that), and if he turns out to be creepy, I’ll just block his messages. Delete him. Sending a reply was the polite thing to do. No harm in it.

Besides, Dale would be really pissed off if he knew.