Lindsey

Omega Rising
By E.J. Price

Chapter One
Lindsey

I pushed my back against the pine tree, willing myself to be calm. We didn’t have much time. I glanced over to my right. Allan had found an oak tree not too far away. He muttered under his breath, his brick colored skin went all shimmery and then began to turn blotched with grey, brown and green. He looked over and smiled a “see how clever I am” smile at me. A moment later he was completely invisible against the tree. I listened hard and could not even hear the beat of his heart. “I can still smell you.” I growled.
“Ya, I always forget that bit,” he said and then even his smell was gone. I closed my eyes a listened. Whoever called the woods quiet had never been there. Small mammals were running all over the place making an unholy racket in the fallen leaves. Insects hummed and buzzed and the birds were practically screaming back and forth. I couldn’t pick out anything in the noise. I could smell the three foul things bearing down on us. They smelled of death and rot. The smell drifted off of them and seemed to fill the air. It was imposable to use it to accurately pinpoint them. I opened my eyes and glanced at the nearest bird, a little starling hopping on the ground happily singing. He looked up at me and peeped. I growled back at him and he flew off screeching. I don’t know what he was saying but the forest fell silent, truly silent, except the sound of the three creatures baring down on us. They were closer than I thought.
I crouched on the balls of my feet. The deer skin moccasins Allan’s mom had given me stretched and breathed. I loved them. I could feel the energy building up in my body, ready to spring at the last creature as he passed. Closer, they were coming running fast. They assumed we were still on the run. After all who would stop in the face of such creatures?
I thought of Emily. Where was she? The one thing I had learned since reaching good old camp weirdness was that things could go sideways in a heartbeat. Emily’s absence was a variable I didn’t like. Just then a feeling of calmness started to wash over me. If I wasn’t trying to coil myself up for a fight I might not have noticed it. Allen was getting better but I still didn’t like him casting spells on me. I had told him to keep his magic hokum to himself, but he didn’t seem to be able to. I looked over at him, well at the tree I knew he was in. I was angry and frustrated but that does not excuse what happened next. “Really?” I growled at him in a low whisper. I hadn’t meant to say it out load, but I did. There was silence throughout the forest. The three creatures stopped, they were listening, thinking. Things were starting to go sideways. Our plan had counted on the beasts running past us. Now they were headed straight for us and I didn’t know if we could take on three full grown Wendigos.
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It all started at lunch. I hated lunch. Probably most fat kids do, but I think no one ever hated it as much as I and it was my own entire fault. That day, the day it all started, I was standing against the wall in the lower E wing of my high school trying not to be seen. This was not as hard as usual. Oh I stuck out just as much as always but right at that moment everyone was busy looking for their friends, racing to the head of the lunch line and fighting for a chair because for some reason the school didn’t find in necessary to provide enough chairs in the cafeteria. With all that on their minds they weren’t apt to be looking for their favorite target.
Even so I wedged myself between the snack machine and soda machine. There was not any soda in the soda machine as the school board had decided to replace it with sports drinks. Like that was a healthier choice because there were pictures of people running on the bottles. Like seriously had they even bothered to read the labels on those things?
I heard her long before I saw her. Jennifer, my arch nemesis, well back then before it all started and I found out what a real arch nemesis was. Anyway, Jennifer was a cheer leader and I swear she never spoke below a shout so it is no great feat that I heard her coming down the hall. “OMG did you see what Amy did to her hair? I would kill myself if I ever went out looking like that.” She always spoke in text speak.
I could hear Todd whispering, “Don’t listen to her.” I figured Todd and Amy, were in the pack of kids behind Jennifer’s entourage. Jennifer never dished like that unless her victim was in ear shot. Todd had been practically surgically attached to Amy since they were like two years old. He followed her around like a puppy but they were both such nice people it was kind of cute. Jennifer passed by me. She was hanging on to Oliver, the basketball star. He was looking kind of tiered and I guess if I had Jennifer yelling in my ear all day I would look like that too. She didn’t see me and I took a deep breath. I must have stopped breathing when I heard her voice. Call it a reflex, it was all I could do to not open my mouth and rip into her. As much as I hated the way she treated me I really couldn’t stand the way she went after everyone else or the truly stupid stuff that came out of her mouth. I was so glad I didn’t have any classes with her. The AP classes were more work but man it was so worth it not to have to put up with her.
I saw Todd next. He mouth was set in a tight thin line across his round baby face and his eyes gleamed with unvarnished hate. Amy was a couple of steps behind him attacking her hair with a comb as she walked. Amy was tiny, in every way tiny. When she spoke, which wasn’t often, even her voice was tiny. I gave her a sympathetic look as she passed. Unfortunately she saw me. A look of terror came over her face and she hurried over to Tom and tucked herself up against him all but forgetting about her hair. Poor Amy was having a bad day. First Jennifer and now the “evil” eye from the school witch. I sighed again and as soon as the hall was clear I slunk out from between the machines and slowly headed towards the cafeteria.
I was picked on because I was fat, but that was not exactly all there was to it. I was not the fattest kid, not by a long shot. Nancy was like twice my size and everyone loved her. Even I liked her. She was pretty much nice to everyone and she could sing, really sing. Maybe that talent gave her the confidence to fit in or maybe it is because she grew up there and all the kids had known her since she was like in dippers. She was also very pretty. She was probably the only kid in that place with perfect skin. So my problem was way more complicated than just being a fat kid.
My problems started pretty much the day we moved there. I was seven and in the second grade. I came from Texas where I was happy, popular and warm. Arriving in Rhode Island and walking into the elementary school on that cold January day it was made clear to me that I would never be any of these things again. No one had to say or do a thing, I knew the minute I walked into the class.
There I was in my southern best, pink dress with lots of ruffles and lace trim, patent leather Maryjanes, my blonde hair pulled up in two perfect little pig tails full of ribbons. I walked into a classroom that could double as a Lands End catalog page, polar fleece and duck boots as far as the eye could see. To make things worse, compared to these kids I was gigantic, not fat but tall and very muscular. Despite my ribbons and lace I had spent most of my life outside climbing trees, roller-skating, biking all year. The long dark New England winters must not be too good for growth because the kids in the class were almost a foot shorted then me and pale and wirery. I must have looked like a cross dressing fairy princes to them. I am surprised they didn’t laugh their heads off then and there. The visual was bad enough but then I opened my mouth and out came the Sothern Draw, “Excuse me, are ya’ll Miss. Orlander’s second grade class?”
There was a moment of silence and then a girl with short mouse brown hair pointed at me and yelled, “Look class little bow peep’s ugly step sister has come looking for her sheep.” Then she started to laugh and all twenty of the other Lands End models joined in. That would set up the pattern for the rest of my time in Rhode Island. Even after I managed to subdue my southern accent, I would speak; there would be an odd moment of silence and then laughter.
I didn’t make things easy on myself. The accent was about the only thing I was willing to give up. Somehow even then I knew the mouse brown haired girl, Jennifer, would always find something, so why bother. Anyway, I decided at the tender age of seven that I was not going to change myself just because I was picked on. I know most people probably would have gotten the hint and at least tried to fit in at some point. Not me, as mom says "Lindsey makes a decision and then follows it through to its inevitable bad end."
I did get duck boots but wore then like twice before I shoved them to the back of the closet. Boy that made mom mad. She may be a Texan but she does hate to waste money. For the most part I didn’t much care about clothes so I went ahead and let my mother get whatever. It was easier that way. She mostly bought oversized old lady cloths that were either drab or covered in obnoxious giant flower patterns. It was bad but I didn’t much care. I did however hate the hush puppies she insisted I wear. Not because I got teased about them, which I did a lot right up until high school when they suddenly became a fashion trend and everyone wanted them. I had to put a lock on my locker to keep kids from stealing the foolish things. I was supposed to be warring them so it would be really hard to explain how they got stolen. In fashion or out, I was not going to wear them. I can’t stand shoes and would run around stock raving bare foot even in the winter if I could get away with it. Hush puppies are an awful lot of shoe so I got in the habit of buying cheap china flats and changing my shoes when I got to school. I went for the bright odd colors which never matched what I had on, but I didn’t care. Like I said, it was all my entire fault.
The E wing which housed only three class rooms Mrs. Arlington’s AP English, Mr. Toman’s theater department and Miss. Lopeze’s AP foreign language lab. It was the oldest and smallest wing in the school. Nerdlits and drama geeks are kind of at the bottom of the social order in the school and that goes for their teachers as well. So the Ewing didn’t get much love. It was a drab green grey color that would make the most hardened of navy personnel comfortable. The floor tiles were chipping or mismatched were they had taken the time to change them. A musty smell seemed to leak down from the looker rooms above which mingled with the heavy cafeteria smells to create a uniquely E wing smell that would make me kind of nauseous if it wasn’t so strongly associated with my favorite classes and teachers. It might have been a little run down and nasty but it was home and for the most part quiet and safe.
Miss. Lopeze looked up when I walked into her room. She had long straight shiny black hair and sparkling green eyes hidden behind her glasses with the thick black rim. She managed to look young and ancient at the same time. “Come for your lunch chair Lindsey?” She asked in her perfectly pronounced oddly foreign sounding English.
“Yep.”
“Smartest kid in the school.”
“Yep, apparently it doesn’t take much.” We had this same conversation every day. She always ate at her desk using the time to learn Mandarin which she intended to add to her already ridiculous list of languages. Apparently I was the first kid in the seven years of the cafeteria chair shortage to figure out that I could grab a chair out of an empty class. According to Miss. Lopeze this was the talk of the teacher’s lounge last year when I started the practice on like my first day of high school. Teachers tended to find me fascinating which didn’t make any since to me at all. They either liked me or hated me for my quirky intelligence, but just like with everything else it didn’t matter much one way or the other. Funny I think I kind of miss it now.
I grabbed my chair and headed for the cafeteria. Maybe if I had realized what I was in for that day it all started, I would have skipped lunch all together. It was A day and a Friday which meant the kids I usually sit with would be cutting their next class and spending lunch at the pizza place down the street. The school frowned on this, of course. Their solution was to pad lock the front door, heaven help us if there was a fire. The cafeteria door was open because there was not enough room for us all so locking the front door was just plain silly. I ran my hand over my jaw, feeling for whiskers, as I walked. It was a nerves habit.
I was eleven years old the first time I grew a whisker and I will never forget it. My mom made sure it would be something I could never get over. I was at an amusement park with my family. I didn’t want to be there in the first place. Amusement parks are loud and smelly. I don’t mind the smell of cotton candy, fried dough, fudge, hot dogs, and greasy fries which are what most people smell when they go to places like that. The thing is I also smell the grease they use to keep the rides running, the fumes from the generators, the riot of people smells, body odor, soaps, perfumes, cigarette smoke, and alcohol which tends to hang in the air. Heat always seemed to make the smell situation worse. It is like the smells get sticky and just walking through the air makes me feel dirty. I had problems with my since of smell for as long as I can remember. I was not complaining about it that day because I had long ago learned that this smell thing as my problem and no one cared.
What I was complaining about was the crowd. I was feeling crushed. Since I couldn’t tell all the strangers not to stand so close to me, I was focusing my frustration at my two little brothers. I was yelling at my baby brother, “keep your sticky little hands to yourself. Mom!” We were waiting in line for the roller-coaster. I was not looking forward to the ride and as the line snaked and doubled on itself the feeling of being crushed was overwhelming.
I was feeling like one of those pond gold fish gulping for air at the surface when my mom announced so that everyone in the park could hear, “Oh my Lindsey you have a whisker!” I looked at her like she was crazy, the way I always looked at her. It was kind of like pay back for her always calling me crazy. “On your cheek.” She added and before my brain could even ask my hand to check it out she reached up and pulled it out.
Ouch! I will never see those old Tom and Jerry cartoons without feeling the pain. She held the offending thing out to me. Sure enough it was a true and actual whisker, about three inches long, thick and kind of translucent. “Odd,” I thought and then I noticed that I was not feeling quite as crushed by the crowd. The whole thing was so weird that my mom got a free pass and I didn’t yell at her or even give her the pouty silent treatment I was so good at.
Whiskers aren’t like normal hair. They seem to just pop up already three inches long. Pulling them out had become an obsession with me. I was weird enough without whiskers growing on my face. Besides if I left them in it was like I could feel every living thing around me and that sucked far more than the pain of yanking them out.
I was whisker free as I turned the corner into the cafeteria. It was noisy but the smells were the worst part of it. Food smells are bad enough but all those teenagers crammed into one place produce quite a stink. The girls doused themselves in buckets of cheap perfume, the boys either never showered or used too much of that spicy deodorant. Last year a new smell entered the scene, blood. Blood has a distinctive burning metallic smell that I hate most of the time. Most of the month I can’t stand it, but when the moon is new I can’t get enough of it. On those dark nights I crave rear red meat. I have even been known to take a spoon full of raw hamburger when my mom is not looking. Kind of gross but it helps. The moon had its first full night of the cycle that night and the blood smell was really turning my stomach as I dropped first my chair and then my book bag. I didn’t have to stand guard over my chair or my book bag. Enough people knew they were mine and after what happened last year they wouldn’t dare touch them.
Last year I had U.S Government with Mr. Harington. He had been teaching the class forever. I knew this because he told us this little fact every day he was there, which was not very often. When he was there it was very clear that he was excited about history but was not particularly excited about teaching. That day we had a substitute as usual. I was actually reading my book but only because I had finished reading Jane Eyre yesterday and I didn’t have any other books with me. The other kids were busy playing games on their phones and texting each other. There must have been a good joke going around because there was a lot of giggling going on. The text book was not well written; actually it was very bad and out dated. I was struggling to use it to blot out the rest of my class when little bits of eraser started bouncing off the desks around me.
When one hit me on the head I could not resist and I whipped around to see where it came from. There were two boys looking sheepish in the back row. One I didn’t recognize and the other was Oliver’s little brother. Before I could turn back around I was struck with a sudden chill and a feeling of dampness. The room seemed to go dark and I could hear and smell rain. I had the impression of a tree seeping sap from a wide gash and a red car tangled in the grass. I heard myself say, “You, you must stop and grow up or you will kill him.” I was looking at the boy I didn’t know and pointing at Oliver’s brother. The whole class was simply looking at me. Their faces were almost as shocked as I felt. I was odd but I had never done anything approaching that odd.
A few months later there was an accident. The boy I didn’t know was driving too fast on a rainy night. Oliver’s brother was in the passenger’s seat. Only one of them survived. Half the kids thought I caused the accident because I was mad about getting pelted with erasers and the other half thought I can see the future. Most people leave me alone now. Jennifer even started using others to bother me. She was too chicken to mess with me to my face. Lunch had become a particular hassle when I didn’t have people to sit with. Even though I had a table to myself I very rarely got to eat alone because someone sits with me and asked me to predict their stupid future. Will they be asked to the dance, will they pass their final, is so and so going to break up with them, bla bla bla I don’t care and I can’t see the future.
I had taken my time getting to the cafeteria and the lunch line was empty, just the way I liked it. I got my usual, a tuna sub and a SusyQ. I wanted the Italian sub but fish is supposed to be good for you so I got the tuna. When I headed back to my table, sure enough, there was someone set up across from my chair.
I wanted to eat in peace so I pulled my phone out of my pocket and managed to pretend to text and keep hold of my lunch. I sat down never looking up from my phone. I fake texted and chewed my way through my sub. I hated tuna but for some reason I really liked the way the shredded lettuce tasted cold and crisp on the soft chewy bread. I was busy liking the cream out of the sides of my first SuzyQ when something odd happened. My phone rang. My phone never rang and I was pretty sure only my mom had the number. I was so startled I almost dropped the phone. Feeling silly because it was obvious I hadn’t been texting with anyone for the past ten minutes I checked the message. It read “I know what you are meet me in the theater fifth period”. I looked up and over at the radiator where Jennifer ate her lunch. She looked like she was busy yelling at Oliver. The phone rang again it read, “I know you always skip fifth period on A days this is not Jennifer” I decided that I would bite and play into the game. It seemed more creative than usual and they had my attention. I suppose if I thought about it I would have realized that it was more creepy then creative. But I didn’t. The decision to go was made and I would see it through until its inevitable bad end.