“Hey, man, wake up! Come on, bud, it’s time for lunch!”
“Hunh?” Nick slowly levered his head up off his arms and squinted toward the source of the voice beside him—a source that resolved itself into Gordo, gesturing melodramatically at his watch.
“What are you talking about, Gordo? Go away.”
“Come on, Nick, rise and shine—it’s already almost noon, and if we don’t hurry we’ll miss Hil and the others.”
“Noon?” That was enough to get Nick to straighten up and frown down at his own watch, which only danced for a moment before obligingly showing him that it was, indeed, five to twelve. The date read Friday the fourth.
“What the hell? How did it get to be so late?” He’d planned to work all morning—hadn’t he?
“You must have fallen asleep while grading.” Gordo didn’t seem terribly concerned. “But it’s noon on Friday, and you know what that means—lunchtime!”
“Right, right.” Their regular Friday get-together with Hillary and a few of the other grads in the department—it had started after class last semester and had become a tradition. But he still didn’t understand how he could have slept away the entire morning. Had he really fallen asleep grading? That didn’t sound right. Hazy images wandered through Nick’s head as he tugged off his glasses and polished them on the edge of his shirt. He’d finished grading, hadn’t he? Yes, he had, and he’d started for home. Then there had been that weirdness in the stairwell, and that strange guy in that equally strange room, and the guy had hit him, and . . . that was all he remembered. Had it all been a dream?
“Come on, sport, we’re going to be late,” Gordo reminded him, waiting anxiously by the door. He always looked like a desperate puppy when he was in a hurry, ready to bolt at any moment. Some of Nick’s students got that same way at the end of class, unlike . . .
Amy! Amy had been there. . . .
“Excuse me sir, are you all right?”
“Ah!” Nick tensed up, squeezing his eyes shut against a flash of pain as it all came back to him. That man—Daniel—had accused him of killing Amy! And in his dream, he had! At least, he thought so. It was so hard to remember!
“Hey, are you okay?” Gordo came a little closer, sounding concerned, but Nick waved him away.
“Yeah, I’m fine—just a headache. Probably from sleeping in this stupid chair all night.” His friend smiled—they often complained about the quality of the furniture the grad students got for their offices. “Listen, I just remembered some more books I need for Carmichael’s project. Tell you what, you head on down and I’ll be along soon—I just need to write these titles down before I forget them.”
“Sure thing—if we’re not still in line when you get there, we’ll be at our usual table.” Gordo was already bounding down the hall, and Nick listened to the sound of retreating footsteps and occasional curses and apologies as his friend barreled past people. Then he pulled open his desk drawer and hunted up the forms he’d made students fill out on the first day, desperately hoping Amy had been one of the few who actually listed their phone number . . .
812-9013
Damn it! He doggedly continued to look, and finally came up with Amy’s—sure enough, she had put her number down, and it was a perfect match for the one now running through his head. But perhaps he’d subconsciously memorized it, and thinking about it had brought it into his conscious mind? He grabbed the phone and dialed it, desperately hoping she would answer and prove it had all been some weird stress-related nightmare.
“Hello?” The voice was young and female and utterly unknown—but at the same time all too familiar. Why does she always answer on the first ring? I hate that! I wish she’d learn to screen calls—there are all those weirdoes who call girls up and harass them, and once she’s answered we can’t exactly pretend we’re not there. . . .
“Is Amy Feldmar there, please?”
“No she’s not—can I take a message?”
“Yes, this is her biology teacher, Nicholas Gordon—do you know when she’ll be in?” Damn Suzie . . . she kept pestering me until I told her his name, and now everybody on our floor knows I have a crush on Mr. Gordon. I hope he doesn’t find out—I would die!
“Oh, Mr. Gordon—no, actually I don’t. I didn’t see her at all last night, and her coach said she didn’t show up for practice this morning. She never misses, too—is anything wrong?”
“Hm? Oh, no, I just wanted . . . she had asked me a question about something the other day, and I had an answer finally. If she . . . when she comes home, please tell her I called, and that she can stop by here on Monday, if she wants.”
“Okay, sure—I’ll let her know.”
“Thanks.” Nick dropped the phone back onto the receiver and leaned back in his chair, taking a great gulp of damp, slightly moldy recycled air to try and forestall the shakes he could feel beginning deep in his chest. She hadn’t come home! What if it hadn’t been a dream? What if he really had done something to her? DRAININGMEDRYKILLINGME
No! He leapt out of his chair as if it were responsible for the thoughts flowing through his mind, and headed for the door. There was one more thing to check . . . he raced down the hall, dodging startled students and one older professor with a video cart and darting into the stairwell, taking the broad concrete steps three at a time. It had been . . . here!
He skidded to a stop on the third floor landing, and grabbed the rail for support. Yes, he had been walking down here when he had been grabbed . . .
—a hand reaching out from behind, and every ounce of energy leeching from his body—
. . . and then he had fallen down to here—he bounded down the distance and paused again—and lain right about there. . . . Nick knelt down and scanned the floor for any clue that his vision had really occurred, but now his mind’s eye was confused by that double memory he had experienced earlier, of both lying there and seeing himself lying there, of touching and being touched, fading and revitalizing.
A strange thought struck him then. He’d remembered the pain of having his energy pulled from his body, but as if it had happened then. Only, for him, that had happened a few moments earlier. But for Amy, perhaps, it had been then! And at the exact same time, he had felt suddenly and miraculously restored, all of his energy and indeed his youth returned. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Had they been on opposite ends of the equation, then? If his energy had gone, and then had returned, and at the same time her energy had faded—was he responsible, as Daniel had claimed? Had she been drained the same way he had—only this time, he had somehow been the one doing the draining?
He shook off those thoughts and concentrated on the landing again. Time enough for speculation later. Right now he was seeking physical proof.
What was that?
He scuttled over a step, toward the corner, and studied the smooth, cold floor. Was that a trace of dust? It looked too pale for dust, and too substantial, more like . . . ash? He emptied his pocket across the concrete, startling an undergrad walking past at the time, and studied the contents thus displayed—a mechanical pencil, eraser, extra leads . . . aha! Grabbing up the little lead container, Nick pulled it open and tossed the leads on the floor, then squatted down and carefully scooped as much of the “ash” as he could into his makeshift test tube.
No sign of the folder he remembered, but this might be enough—he’d run some tests on it. After lunch—he suddenly had a desperate need for companionship, the warmth and security of friends, and the familiarity of routine. Afterward, he’d find out whether there was any truth to this, or whether it had all been some crazy notion caused by too much late-night grading.
So Nick made sure the lead container was closed securely, placed it carefully in his pocket, and headed down the stairs to catch up with his friends, trying to fight off the sudden image of a tuna fish sandwich and the sensation of hunger that accompanied it.
He hated tuna fish.
After lunch, Nick made a beeline for the genetics lab. He ran the mysterious sample through a number of tests but the results were less conclusive than he’d hoped. The substance was definitely carbon-based, and there wasn’t any way to tell for sure but it matched the necessary criterion for cremated human ash. He tried running a genetic scan on it with one of the department’s electron microscopes but the cell structure had collapsed, probably from intense heat—or severe dehydration—and couldn’t be identified. Still, it definitely wasn’t dust.
The rest of the day passed rather uneventfully—it was Friday and he didn’t have to teach, nor did he have anything specific scheduled, so he went back up to the office and worked on his project for several hours before joining Hillary and Gordo for pizza and beer and a late movie at the student union.
Unfamiliar thoughts still wandered through his head from time to time, mainly in response to something he saw or heard or thought, but when he concentrated on his work he was too focused to notice. The alcohol also seemed to limit them, for which Nick was grateful. He and Gordo teased Hillary about her date, which she refused to comment on, and they all laughed about the latest antics of The Lemon, a favorite adversary. Neither of his two friends commented on the fact that Amy didn’t show up—she usually only came by after class, so her absence wasn’t that unusual. It bothered Nick, though, and every time the office phone rang he leapt for it, desperately hoping to hear Amy’s voice on the other end.