Лиза Макманн - Fade

Lauren dances in the center of a circle. Her shirt is off and she twirls it as she stumbles around, laughing, wearing just a black bra and jeans.

Someone joins her.

He strips his shirt off and grabs Lauren.

Everyone claps and cheers as the guy pulls Lauren to him. They kiss and grind as the music pounds in the background.

Hip-hop music.

Janie watches in horror as the guy removes Lauren’s clothing and shoves his jeans down to his knees. The guy pushes Lauren to the floor, falling on top of her, their drinks spilling everywhere, and the rest of the group begins making out and tearing off one another’s clothes.

Then they pile up on top of Lauren until people are stacked to the ceiling. Lauren is screaming, muffled. She’s being crushed to death.

Janie’s numb. Her body shakes. She’s had enough, but it’s too horrible.

She can’t escape. She tries to pull herself away, but the nightmare is too strong.

Janie tries to scream, but she knows she can’t.

Look at me! she cries mentally to Lauren. Ask me to help you!

But this nightmare is out of control. Janie can’t get Lauren’s attention.

She can’t pull out of it. She watches in horror as Lauren fights, tearing uselessly at the people on top of her, shouting, “No! Stop! No!”

Janie summons all her strength and tries to pause it. Tries to scan the room again. It’s not working.

Until.

With a final, heroic effort, Janie manages to pry her eyes off of Lauren.

Looks around the room.

There.

In the kitchen.

Laughing and drinking, watching the craziness, like it’s a football game or something.

Someone has a cell phone out.

A strange expression on her blurry, laughing face.

When Lauren screams, everything goes black. Janie is paralyzed, blind.

She hears Stacey mumble, “What the heck?” and feels Lupita groan and shove her head under her pillow. And Janie waits for three things:

Lauren to stop breathing so hard.

Her own sight to return.

And to feel something.

Anything.

It takes a very long time for all three things to happen.

Morning comes too quickly.

February 20, 2006, 8:30 a.m.

The chem team finalizes their display. It’s a DNA helix, with posters theorizing how cloning could safely be done with humans.

Janie doesn’t care much about it. She lets the real chem geeks do all the work.

Which they probably preferred anyway.

Mrs. Pancake arrives with doughnuts, and they sit and wait for the observers and judges to come by. Everyone looks exhausted, including

Mr. Durbin.

Janie excuses herself and goes into the restroom.

Calls Cabel.

Tells him everything about Lauren’s dream.

They hover together in grim silence over the phone.

“Be careful,” Cabel says for the hundredth time.

“I just can’t understand how no one seriously reported it or followed up on it, unless they were all too wasted to remember,” Janie murmurs.

“There must have been something in that punch. Captain told me to study up on date-rape drugs. I think she nailed it.”

“Sounds like it, J.”

The door to the restroom opens and Lupita walks in, waving cheerily at

Janie.

“I’ve got to go,” Janie says quietly as she returns Lupita’s wave, and hangs up.

4:59 p.m.

The team packs up the display. They walk away with white third-place ribbons. Not bad for a stupid theory and a hundred brazillion Popsicle sticks.

By nine p.m. everyone is dozing in the van. Everyone but Janie and

Mr. Durbin, that is. Janie struggles and pulls herself out of a variety of ridiculous dreams. Thankfully the silly ones are the easiest to pull out of.

She snacks and tries to sleep between dreams.

Finally Mr. Durbin pulls over along the highway. The sleeping troupe rouses to see what’s going on.

“My dear Rebekkah,” Mr. Durbin says to Mrs. Pancake, “can you drive for a bit? I’m falling asleep.”

Mrs. Pancake glances nervously at Mr. Durbin.

“Just for an hour or so,” he says. Pleads.

“Fine,” she says.

Mr. Durbin climbs out of the van and enters the rear sliding door.

“Somebody, go sit up there with Pancake, will you, please? I need to stretch out.”

He drops into the backseat with Janie. “Hey,” he says. His eyes travel up and down her cloaked body.

“Hey,” Janie says, trying to appear interested, but then gives it up and looks out the window into the night. Watches the snow beginning to fall lightly around them. Wonders if something terrible is about to happen. That she’ll be discovered shaking and blind because of Mr.

Durbin’s dreams, or that he’ll try something creepy in the dark nether regions of the van.

Neither one sounds especially good right now.

Mr. Durbin stretches and yawns. By the time they’ve gone ten miles, he’s snoring lightly next to Janie, his legs splayed out into the aisle, his upper body tilting and sliding an inch at a time toward Janie.

She’s trapped.

She wills herself to stay awake and keep her wits about her. Manages to last an hour, maybe.

11:48 p.m.

Janie startles awake.

The van is humming. Everyone else is asleep except Mrs. Pancake up front. Everyone too exhausted to dream.

Janie looks at Mr. Durbin.

His shoulder is against hers. His hand on her thigh.

Janie blanches. Shoves his hand away. Shrinks farther into her little corner and turns her back to him.

He doesn’t wake up.

He doesn’t dream.

Useless piece of shit, thinks Janie.

3:09 a.m.

The van pulls into Fieldridge High’s parking lot. All the students’ cars are blanketed in nearly two feet of snow.

Janie shoves Mr. Durbin awake.

“We’re here,” she says gruffly. She just wants to go home to bed.

The group stumbles out of the van.

“See you in the morning, bright and early for school,” Mrs. Pancake calls out into the crisp night as the students wearily shove the snow from their windshields.

Janie calls Cabel.

“Hey. I’ve been waiting up for you,” he says, sounding worried. “Are you safe to drive?”

“I can’t imagine any people will have their windows open on a night like tonight,” she says.

“Come to me.”

“I’m five minutes away.”

Janie falls into Cabel’s arms, exhausted. Tells him about Mr. Durbin in the backseat of the van.

He leads her to the bedroom, helps her into one of his T-shirts, and whispers in her ear as she falls asleep, “You did great work.”

Closes his bedroom door.

Makes his bed on the couch.

Lies awake, pounding his pillow in silence.

February 21, 2006, 3:35 p.m.

Janie, dark circles under her eyes, and Cabel, concerned look on his face, sit in Captain’s office. Janie snacks on almonds and milk as she relays the events of the chemistry fair adventure.

“It looked sort of like Durbin’s house,” she says. “His living room.”

“But you couldn’t see anyone’s face?” Captain presses her.

“No,” Janie says. “Just Lauren’s. She’s the one who was dreaming.”

She wrings her hands.

“It’s okay, Janie. Really. You’ve given us a lot of information.”

“I just wish I had more.”

Cabel reaches over and squeezes her hand. A little too tightly.

Afterward, Janie heads home, checks on her mother, grabs dinner, and hits the sack. Sleeps twelve hours straight.

February 27, 2006

Cabel calls Janie on the way to school.

“I’m right behind you,” he says.

“I see you,” she says, and smiles into the rearview mirror.

“Hey Janie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got a huge, terrible problem.”

“Oh no! Not that horrible toenail fungus that takes six months to cure?”