There's an Invisible Man Sleeping in My Bed

Chapter 23

            William thumped into the plastic chair beside Thalia, making both girls turn to look at him. The harsh fluorescent lights of the cafeteria showed his face clearly, and the expression on it worried Thalia. She was glad he was no longer the colour of the school’s walls, but the red flush of what she guessed was anger, wasn’t really any better.

            “What happened?” Ruth asked before Thalia could.

            He turned hard eyes on her, arms crossed over his chest. “I met with some of the craziest SOBs I’ve ever come across. I had to use the excuse that I was hungry to get out of there. And I found out that they’re the ones who’ve been freaking stalking me. Though they used ‘keeping an eye on’ as if that was any different.”

            “Tell us,” Thalia urged when he fell silent, eyes locked on him, feeling her face tighten with worry.

            He stared at her for a moment then relaxed slightly, his arms falling back to his sides. Then he sighed. “It was more weird than anything else. I’m mostly just pissed they’ve had me jumping at shadows for the last couple of days.”

            Ruth glared. “Tell us what happened or I’ll focus on you for my next experiment.”

            That got her a half smile out of him. “You are evil.” When her glare got fiercer, William shrugged. “Alright, alright. Calm yourself. When I got called down to the office, I didn’t really think I was going to get anything worse than a detention for skipping too much or something. Which is why when I saw the three strange guys waiting with our fearless principal, I began to realize something was up.

            They had me sit, and after Mr. Schmidt brought them some coffee, he left. Apparently they told him I was a potential finalist for some kind of award or something and you how Mr. Schmidt is about anything that’ll raise the school’s rep. He practically fell over himself, trying to make them comfortable.

            Then their leader, at least that’s who I think he was since he did most of the talking and the other two acted more like bodyguards than anything else, starts by asking me how I’m feeling. I told him confused. I mean, I haven’t even applied to any award programs before.

            He jumped all over that. Starts saying I’m ‘a special young man’ and that ‘I’m clearly destined for great things in the future’. He says he and his people have been talking to some of the people around me, and what they’ve heard makes them sure I’m exactly the person they’ve been looking for,” William said then paused, frowning. “They didn’t talk to either of you, did they?”

            While Thalia shook her head, Ruth snorted. “I’d have told them drop dead if they had.”

            William nodded then continued. “I had no idea what they were talking about, so I asked them why they were sure I was the right kind of person. Then their leader launches into a whole spiel about their group. It’s been around for hundreds of years, it’s had a lot of influential people involved in it, they’ve made a lot of real progress. Blah blah blah, betterment of humanity, blah blah. It was long, boring, and I couldn’t have cared less.

            I think he figured that out, because he jumped into the freaky stuff right after that. Starts by asking me if I’ve ever thought about abilities ‘beyond normal people’. I told him I hadn’t, not that that stopped him. He goes into how their group has been researching ways to gain ‘new strength’ and that they’ve investigated a lot of those who ‘claim to have superhuman powers.

            Basically, the Ghostbusters minus the actual ghosts. That’s about the time I told them they’re all nuts. That ghosts, and psychics and all that crap aren’t real. The weird thing is, that seemed to make the leader guy happy. He was smiling. Then he suddenly started asking me about my life. How I’d been feeling and if everything at home and school were fine.

            I said it wasn’t any of his damn business and if all they wanted to talk about was their crazy theories, then I was out of there. The two other guys stiffened, like they wanted to stop me, but the other one just waved his hand. He said he didn’t want to make me uncomfortable, just that I needed to understand.

            He said his group had been keeping an eye on me the last little while and that they’d been looking for me ever since they first heard the rumours. Apparently some guy tried to rob a house and had told people that a ghost had stopped him. They’re still looking for him but the thief had left town, he was that freaked out.

            They came here after that and they said several other incidents all pointed towards me as the person they’re looking for. He said that almost a hundred years ago, his group had come into possession of a diary. It was the diary of a priest who’d been very interested in the occult. According to it, there’s this spirit wandering around that knows how to give people supernatural powers.

Apparently since they found the diary, they’ve been looking for this spirit. After some digging, they found more accounts of it that corroborated what the priest had written. They said it always attaches itself to young men, often for years, and that it will often help them.

It doesn’t take a genius to know they think that I’m the one the spirit’s attached itself to. They said they wanted to speak to it and they might even be able to help it and me. That’s about the time I decided to leave. After having to listen to a few more minutes of how humanity could be great with my help, I got them to let me go. I’d have rather sat through three hours of calculus than that.”

Ruth, whose lips had been pressed into a flat line, finally lost control and began laughing. William grinned at her before turning to look at Thalia. Her expression made a frown replace his smile. Her skin was paler than even his had been that morning and her eyes were wide in a pinched face. “Are you alright? You’re not afraid of ghosts are you?”

Thalia blinked, feeling her heart finally resume beating, thought now it was pounding against her ribs. “I…” she said, blinking more as her brain began to move. “I-I’m worried. If they could force their way in here and follow you for so long, they could hurt you, Will. You need to be careful.”

He smiled then reached over to gently squeeze her shoulder. “I’ll be fine. I know they’re nuts so I just have to avoid them. It’s not like that’ll be hard.”

            She shook her head, hoping he was right. But at the moment she was too focused on what she was going to ask Colt as soon as they were home. Clearly, he’d been hiding more things from her than she’d thought.