The Writings of Mary Lewys

“Class, I would like you to meet our new student.”

Miss Berry was my homeroom teacher, which was pretty awesome. She looked like a 1950’s grandma, with silver, horn-rimmed glasses on a silver chain around her neck. She always wore a dress with a belt. Do dresses need belts? She was awesome as a homeroom teacher because I only had to look at her for fifteen minutes in the morning. If I had had her for a regular class, I would have had to slit my wrists.

Next to her stood the perky, blonde cheerleader type. She smiled with a row of perfectly white, straight teeth. Though I couldn’t see it from my spot in the back row, I would’ve bet she had blue eyes to go with that perfect tan. Nice, round breasts had every guy drooling. I bet the girls were burning holes in her Gap sweater.

“This is Nikki Winters. She’s a transfer, so be sure to help her find her way around. Nikki, dear, you can take your seat.”

She practically skipped to her desk in the front row. No one paid attention to my gagging noises, thank God. The last thing I needed was detention. Miss Berry started role. She warbled out a close pronouncement of our names and we would respond, “Here!” I always said, “Beer!” Don’t ask me how I got away with it since almost every day enough people laughed, but Miss Berry never said anything.

Nikki turned to stare at me after my name was called. I looked up at her for a minute, just to be sure. Girls who shopped in the mall never acknowledged that I existed. Fine by me, but yeah, she stared. Whatever.

* * *

“And you know what she said to me?” Maggie waved her arms as she talked. Mom said it was an Italian thing, but Maggie did it like she was adding proper punctuation. The French fry she held between two fingers had been twirled so much that I waited for it snap-off and go flying. It hung on by whatever little spuds it had left. If Maggie noticed, she gave no indication. “She said my poetry was too dark. Too dark! Hello! Can’t she see how I’m dressed? What the fuck am I supposed to write? About puppies and love sonnets?”

“And what’s wrong with dark poetry anyway?” I shoved a forkful of tots in my gob. Maggie’s poetry was funny because it was dark. She wrote about things no one would ever talk about, just to see the reactions. If people didn’t react, she probably would give up and do something else.

“That’s what I say! But do you think anyone gets that?”

“No.”

“No!”

As usual, she picked at her food. I don’t think she ate more than a few bites. Me, I cleaned my plate: sloppy joe day. It was about as good as I was ever going to get out of a high school cafeteria. Plus, I’d missed breakfast because I’d slept in. Mom said it was due to the shock of the limo fire. She didn’t know that I’d “borrowed” one of the school’s laptops and spent my nights chatting online. She would’ve totally freaked. Everyone online was a pedophile, according to her.

“Hey, who’s that?” Maggie pointed with her fork over my shoulder. She sat up straight to peek around me.

I glanced over my shoulder. Four tables down on the other side of the aisle, she sat with the other mindless bimbos, staring at me. Her fork rested in her perfectly arranged salad in a container she’d brought from home.

“That’s some new girl. She’s in my home room.” I tilted my head back to drain the last of my chocolate milk from the crappy container. Maggie had drawn a monocle and pirate beard on the picture of the missing kid.

“Why is she staring at you?”

“Hell if I know.” What was I supposed to say? The bitch was starting to freak me out.

“Huh.” Maggie had no problem staring back. Me, I hunkered down over my tray and did my best to ignore them both.

* * *

Gym class: torture for students. No one liked gym class, so I didn’t know why it was mandatory. Yet, for fifth period, I stood in stupid shorts and a tee shirt that I was forced to buy and tried not to sweat too much so I didn’t have to take a shower afterwards. The last thing I needed was a “fag attack” from the jocks and end up taped naked to a bench. It happened to Ted last semester and he cried when the tape pulled out his leg hair.

I was at the volleyball net, minding my own business. The ball flew past. I was doing my team a favor by not playing, even if they didn’t know it. The next thing I knew, I was face down on the stinky, wooden floor with the back of my head throbbing. The teacher blew his whistle and whatever was going on stopped.

“All right, who threw that?” The teacher barked like a marine drill sergeant. I picked myself up. My cheek hurt. I rubbed my head.

“Anyone? Anyone see anything?”

The gym was silent as I looked around. No one looked guilty, but kids learn at an early age how to look innocent. Most never lose that talent. The gym teacher blew his whistle twice to indicate that the games were back on.

Again, I was on the floor. I caught the blur of a red rubber ball before it bounced off my head at a high velocity – harder and faster than any teenager should be able to throw. I yelled out from the pain. Next thing I knew, Maggie was at my side. “It was her.”

After the whistle blow, the teacher followed my friend’s finger to confront the new girl. She gazed up at him with her big baby blues. She batted her long lashes. “I’m so sorry, sir. I must not be good at this.”

“Sit this session out, Miss Winters.” The teacher tweeted twice on the silver whistle. “You too, Nathaniel.”

Maggie helped me to my feet. Before she could spin me off towards the bleachers, I caught sight of Nikki. She was looking at me, but that goody-two-shoes face was gone. She smirked like a pro, as if she knew exactly what she was doing. Worse still, she liked that she’d beaned me.

Crazy bitch.

All Short Stories by Mary Lewys is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

I sat on the curb with a small blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I watched as Maggie, strapped down to the gurney, was bumped into the back of an ambulance. She had an oxygen mask on and her sparkly pink dress was singed. The flashing lights made everything seem surreal. A few feet away, firemen inspected the limo for any other signs of flame. Radios crackled with voices. I couldn’t understand the special cop codes or fireman protocols that were coming over the wire, not that I wanted to in the first place.

“You didn’t see anyone.” The cop towering over me had his pen poised over the paper in his notebook. He looked like all the grizzly cops I ever saw around our neighborhood patrolling for someone to pick-up to validate their existence: miserable and put-out. I shook my head.

“Sorry, no. The windows were tinted and I was with my date.”

“And you don’t know how you got out of the car?”

I looked at where the rear driver side door had been. The door hinges were twisted and torn. The door laid smoking on the lawn behind me. I shook my head again. “I don’t know how I got out.”

I kept the same face and same tone of voice as before. Sure, I sounded like an idiot, but I wasn’t about to tell him how Maggie and me escaped. He wouldn’t believe me if I did.

* * *

Memory’s a funny thing. I can’t remember what caused the first time. I just remember how it felt. I was hurt, but not crying. I was scared. That voice in my head that called itself my father came and went, but I remember asking that voice to help me.

Everything turned red, like I’d put on some cheap-ass, hippy glasses. My body was lifted and I floated off the ground. I didn’t feel any less scared, but I knew I was safe – like when you’re five and you know you’re safe from the closet monster underneath your bed blankets. Nothing could touch me. And the voice in my head was now outside my head as well when it spoke.

None shall ever harm ye, nor will ye ever know harm. I will protect ye.

And I felt power. I wanted to leap a tall building in a single bound or bench press a train car. I lifted my arm. It had a red, glowing light around it with a three fingered claw at the end. I looked at my shoes and four feet below them were cloven hooves standing in the dirt. When I looked up, I could see his face like a mask hovering before me. Huge horns curled off his forehead.

Whatever hurt me was gone. And once the danger left, he melted away. I sank down to the earth and fell to my knees. I couldn’t stop shaking.

* * *

After the fifth round of questioning from Mr. Police Officer, Mom arrived. She was all tears and hugs. Thankfully, she hadn’t hit the phlegm stage yet or I wouldn’t get back the security deposit on my tux. Once she arrived, the cop figured he couldn’t bully me anymore. He gave her the basic details of what happened while she hugged me. I didn’t say another word.

She signed papers for my release that said I was okay. Her cell phone rang. It was Maggie’s folks with an update. She was going to be released with only a minor burn to her arm where the corsage had been, I guess. I didn’t ask. Mom led me to her car down the block with her arm around me like I was five again. I didn’t know what to say.

The whole car ride home I listened to Mom go on and on about “getting a lawyer at her firm” to “check out that limo company” and “how unsafe that car must have been.” I put my head back on the rest and closed my eyes. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was something funky with the car. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But I knew my life couldn’t be that simple.

* * *

The following Monday, I walked to school. I waited by the door that was closest to the student parking lot for Maggie. Normally, she’d pick me up, but I wasn’t sure she’d come for me after what happened. She walked up with her army surplus backpack over one shoulder and her hand-me-down purse on the other. A white gauze bandage covered her arm. Her hair was black with a pink streak down the side and her make-up was heavy around the eyes. She smiled at me. I let loose the breath I’d been holding.

“My savior.”

I took her hand. Maggie was a senior, two years older than me. I will never know why she picked me out of all the freshmen to take care of, but she sidled up to me on my first day with that same smile. It wasn’t love, at least, not what I thought love should be. We didn’t kiss or make-out, but she would hold my hand through the school. We’d hang out afterwards and talk shit. To me, she was the coolest girl in school.

“You all right?”

“Best prom ever.” She laughed. “Ma’s still freaking that I missed my big senior prom.”

Her Mom was forever heartbroken. Maggie wasn’t a cheerleader or didn’t sing in the school choir. She didn’t date jocks. She didn’t stay after-school to help with the dance decorations. Her Mom lamented the fact that Maggie wasn’t her and Maggie loved driving her Mom nuts.

“I don’t know what happened. I’m so sorry.”

“Chill, all right? You didn’t cause it. Dad says he thinks it was faulty wiring in the car. It was pretty old looking.” She slipped her hand into mine as we walked into school. “Becky said everyone talked about us all night at the prom. By the end, she heard that we killed ourselves in ritual suicide. I can’t wait to see faces.”

* * *

Truth: the limo was new. The flowers were the most expensive in the shop. My tux was from a real store in the mall, not some cut-rate discount place. I lied to my mother about it all, saying I helped Angelo with his lawn mowing jobs for the extra money for prom. I haven’t told her about my job. I haven’t told anyone about my job, just like I haven’t told anyone about my Dad.

Except Mom. Mom knows about Dad. She pretends not to.

* * *

“Mom. I want to show you something.” It was late. We were in “Aunt” Martha’s backyard. I say “aunt” because she was just a friend of my Mom’s from work, but insisted I call her that. Big-boned Martha was on vacation and asked us to house-sit her two yappy, fucking dogs that peed everywhere. Instead of slugging on the couch to cable television on the big screen, we spent Saturday cleaning carpets because the stupid little things went everywhere. It didn’t matter that I took them out two seconds before and they pissed all over the patio, the grass, the fence, or whatever. They’d trot back into the house and whiz in the middle of the carpet.

“What’s that, honey?” She gave up the A/C and comfy furniture to sit on the brick steps of the patio. I think she planned on staying outside with the dogs as long as possible just so she didn’t have to scrub the rugs again. She looked tired, but liked the night air. We could see the stars in the night sky.

“You know, the voice I told you about in my head?” Her face dropped. So much for her one moment of Zen. I wished I didn’t have to do that to her, but I had to tell someone, right? “Dad? Dad, can you come out?”

He did. All seven foot, glowing red with flaming horns of Hell of him formed around me. I watched as she screamed so loud I thought she’d break the windows. She scrambled back, legs over arms until she could get to her feet. She ran into the sliding glass window and fell down. Luckily, nothing broke – the window or her.

Ah, the Vessel. Ye spoke to her.

“Sort of. I don’t think she believed me.”

Mom screamed again.

“Mom, Mom! Stop! I’m all right. See? I’m not hurt.”

The pitiful humans will not comprehend, my childe. My vestige serves only as a reminder of what they fear.

“But you said you wouldn’t hurt her.”

I shant. The Vessel is blessed and will be protected upon my rise to power.

Mom stopped screaming. She stopped running or clawing at the sliding glass door handle. She went catatonic.

“Mom, I wanted to tell you – show you I wasn’t crazy. I’m not crazy.”

Go to the Vessel, my childe. Display comfort and pity. Hence forth, never present me to the Vessel.

* * *

After school, Maggie dropped me off at my apartment complex. She couldn’t come in because she had to go to work: Hot Topic at the Mall. Her Mom hated it. She hated it too, working retail, but she’d never admit it. Plus, I think she dug the employee discount.

I grabbed the bus to my job – my real job. I guess it’s a job. I get a paycheck. But somehow, it seems silly that all I do is show up at designated spots, call on Dad and beat the crap out of something. First time, it was vampires. Vampires! I should’ve known. I’m the walking poster child of a demon’s uprising. Of course, vampires exist.

The bus stopped at the corner. I walked the rest of the way into the industrial park. By the way, never trust anything in an industrial park. The sign on the door two units down was “Silverlake Company.” Women with breast implants and spray-on tans walked in and out of that place all day. I shouldn’t say anything. The sign on the door where I work reads, “Service Industry Corporation Network.”

Inside, there was a gym and locker room. I walked through the meeting room and research center to the office at the end of the hall. The door was closed, but I could see a figure sitting at the desk through the frosted glass. She was in, no one else. Good. I knocked on the glass.

“Come in.” Her voice always scared me a little. I had heard Mom’s “professional voice” before, but Nerissa’s was chilling. It was like she was dead inside or something. Sometimes, I wondered if she was human at all.

“Nerissa? You have a minute?”

“Sure, Nathaniel. Sit.”

She typed away on her laptop. Her wild hair and dark make-up made me think of Maggie, but that was the only thing. Where Maggie liked to laugh and enjoyed music, I couldn’t imagine Nerissa doing anything other than killing puppies for fun – and she wouldn’t smile or laugh while doing it. When she was done, she closed the lid and folded her hands neatly over the it.

“How can I help you?”

I told her about prom and the limo. I made sure to tell her that I told the cops nothing and played stupid. She almost smiled. Also, I made sure to state more than once that I did not see anything. I had no idea how the car caught fire.

“Well,” Nerissa folded her fingers together and rested her cheek against them. “It sounds like someone’s out to kill you.”

“Really?”

“Considering whose child you are, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.” She pushed papers around on her desk until she could tap their edges into a neat stack. She wouldn’t look at me. “You have to find who it is.”

“Me? What about the team?”

“Whoever tried to kill you didn’t succeed. They will try again. You just have to keep your eyes open. Call if you see anything or anyone suspicious.”

All Short Stories by Mary Lewys is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.