The dawn stirred Kelan gently. His body ached. Frost crusted his eyelids; his face felt brittle. For a moment, he was unsure of where he was. The darkness had finally vanished, and only now, his vision returning, did the place offer discernible shapes.
He started when he realized where he lay. He slipped away from the body and backed up against the lockers. The rattle they made made him bolt for the window. The bitter wind taunted him.
The night had been terrifying, the longest he had ever known. He had been without Eric, without Mom, and worse, without Bear. The place had become a haunted house filled with goblins and ghosts, strange echoes and even stranger whispers. He had heard them—surely he had—demonic voices in shallow breaths, and he had screamed into the dark. The sound of his voice had scared him even more, sending him darting about the blackness like a crazed fool. He had tripped on the body, banging his knee again, and his screams had become sobs in the corner by the window. He might have stayed there all night, had the cold not forced him to curl up with the dead.
He turned to Mrs. Arbor. Her twisted shape was growing more repulsive with the rising light. He turned away. It all came back to him in a rush. He almost cried. In life, she had scared the dickens out of him with that oddball eye, yet in death, she had protected him from the dark and the demons. She had been cold and stiff and dead, but her mere presence had warmed him. Somehow, at some level, he did not feel alone.
Her eye was open. He knew it. He turned to face her.
It must have shot open when he pushed himself away. He had closed it last night, and it had stayed closed, even after he toppled over her. He would have felt its stare, as he felt it now. She was dead, but somehow her soul wasn’t. Somehow, dark or no dark, when that oddball was open, she could see. It was open, God yes, and it was staring at him, like a pitiful dog keeps an eye on the fist that has beaten it.
Oddly, it was not the body, nor the eye itself that upset him. He knew her intimately now, and from that he had drawn great respect. It was the staring. It was as if she could see into his mind … into his heart. As if in some way, she knew everything about him. And that didn’t sit.
He could not bring himself to close her eye. Not again.
He tried the doors instead. It was better than standing still, and far better than having that eye staring him down. At the very least, it got his fingers and toes working again.
His stomach grumbled. There was no food, of course, and the washrooms had no running water. He hoped Arnie was having as good a time as he was, but what he wouldn’t do for a stick of the big turd’s gum right now, even a wad that Arnie had already chewed. It would be better than starving.
An hour or two passed. He began to believe he would never be found. His call to the night had gone unanswered. He assumed that his mother had been too far, that his ability could not bridge great distances. But no. It was Mom herself.
Messed up, that’s what she was. Messed up with worry. It had blocked his thoughts, like lead blocked Superman’s X-ray vision. Outside on the platform, charging like a wild animal, Arnie had been just a few feet away. But he had been messed up, too, as angry as a tiger. Getting Arnie to freeze like the others had been as impossible as getting one of these doors to open.
Did he still hold the power? Had the cold taken it from him?
All he could do was try. And pray.
He rubbed his hands and stomped his feet. He couldn’t feel them, couldn’t be sure he still had them. But the one thing he was sure of was this: He was running out of time.
Kelan looked at the woman. Looked away. He hobbled over to the bench and curled up, afraid, and brought his hands to his temples.