Chapter 7
1640 Words
Chapter 7
Evan’s nearly empty backpack banged against his shins every few steps, but he didn’t bother slinging it onto his back. The early spring weather was just warm enough that it made him feel way too hot. As he walked toward home with Anne silent beside him, he enjoyed the hot sun on his face after a terribly long and cold winter.
He’d grown used to the sound of his own voice on these walks over the last few months, and the lack of any response from his friend. Evan talked about his day, all the trivial little details he was sure no one else in the world would want to hear. From the second he’d parted company with Anne that same morning, he filled in all the minutes and hours in between.
Each class, every conversation, even the thoughts that wandered through his mind when he was bored.
Once he ran out of daily chatter, Evan switched to the walk itself. He pointed out how the daffodils were lining the sunnier yards and driveways, joining the redbuds in an early show of color and new life. He mentioned how many trees held the first pink flush of budding, with only the stoic oak trees refusing to respond to false warm weather. A car that he didn’t recognize passing them on the residential street made it into his comments from time to time.
Evan wasn’t naturally given to so much inane conversation. He was far more likely to want to listen most of the time. But since Anne had started to withdraw over the winter, turning into a pale, barely there whisper of the friend he’d grown up with, Evan couldn’t stand the silence between them.
It never occurred to him to spend time with someone else, someone who would talk instead of leaving him running his mouth constantly.
Because somewhere inside, he was afraid if he turned his back on Anne, she’d fade away into nothing. Evan was somehow even more afraid of sinking into withdrawal with her and disappearing.
He slipped his worn flannel shirt off as they walked onto a sunnier street, getting close to the park where they’d spent hours playing in happier times. Evan knew he was probably going to feel too old for such things in the fall when he started high school. He couldn’t remember ever seeing kids that old in the sprawling public park, at least not near the playground equipment.
He sometimes saw them in twos or in groups huddled in the picnic shelters, surrounded by low conversation, loud music from giant silver boomboxes, or floating clouds of smoke.
The move to a new building wouldn’t be all that far or dramatic once the coming summer passed and Evan joined those crowds of older kids. He’d even still be able to walk to school with Anne and have lunch with her, though his big sister Gwen told him that wasn’t the best idea, hanging out with a middle school kid.
Evan nodded and let Gwen talk, but he couldn’t imagine purposely avoiding Anne, either on this walk or in the cafeteria the middle school and high school shared.
Being in a different building than Anne all day long was going to be more than enough change for him.
They were just about to turn the corner toward their street when a low whisper startled him.
“I need to talk to you.”
“What? Did you say something, Anne?”
Evan turned to look at her, certain he’d imagined hearing her voice. She hadn’t spoken to him for what seemed like weeks now. She was looking right at him instead of at the ground, her green eyes wide and frightened. She slowed, then stopped. Anne fidgeted for a second, then grabbed Evan’s arm.
“I need to talk to you.”
She pulled him back the way they’d come, continuing on into the playground. Evan was too confused to do anything but follow. He watched her straight brown hair shifting over her shoulders, flat and lifeless as it had been for a while now. She kept pulling him past the redbud trees in full violet bloom and stopped beside the swings.
Anne kicked at the ground and stared at it too, not meeting Evan’s eyes, for several seconds.
“Okay then, talk,” Evan said, dropping his backpack. “You haven’t said a word to me in ages.”
Anne dropped her own backpack and sat on one of the swings. Her feet finally reached the dusty groove underneath instead of dangling above it, but she just sat there. Evan sat beside her, wondering what in the world he was supposed to do.
He’d been worried about her for a long time, everybody had, but she’d resisted everything he’d tried to figure it out. His constant chatter wasn’t working, so he decided to be quiet until she decided to say something.
He didn’t have to wait long.
“I’ve been seeing things, Evan.”
He was relieved she was still staring at the ground instead of watching him. Her seeing him scowl when she finally started talking wouldn’t help either one of them.
“Seeing things? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Dreams, like I always had, but worse,” Anne said, her voice a little louder. “Visions. Nightmares. I don’t know what to call them, but they’re happening all the time now.”
Evan stared at her, afraid to move. He didn't remember anything like that happening to his sister several years ago when she was eleven. He did remember some of the awful dreams Anne had told him about over the past few years.
Until she stopped telling him much of anything.
“What are you seeing?”
“The end of the world,” she whispered, finally looking into his eyes. “I keep seeing the end of the world.”
“You mean like in the Bible?”
“No, this isn’t like that.” Her eyes and mouth wrinkled, but not like she was going to cry. She stared over his shoulder for a few seconds before looking at him again. “This is people, people do it. At least part of it. The air is poison and the water is poison and nothing ever will grow anymore.”
Evan blinked, casting around desperately for anything to say. All his words had left him, and most of his thoughts had too. All he had inside was fear.
“Is it something you’ve been reading? A book or something?”
“No, not a book, not a Bible, not a movie or a TV show,” she said, her voice rising as she scowled at him. “It’s not fake at all. It happens, Evan. It’s going to happen.”
Now Evan was starting to get a little mad to go with his fear. Was she just trying to prank him, to make him ask her stupid questions and then laugh and tell everyone? That had happened to him before. He wondered for a second if it was April Fool’s Day, but that was a few weeks away.
Something in his gut told him Anne would never do that to him.
“Why do you… I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Anne, but what makes you think this is all going to happen?”
“I can see they way it happens, and it already has. Remember I told you about the woman in the room across from my grandmother, where she lives? I started seeing her face hurting and blue, like she choked to death, for days before it she really did die that way. I never saw the body, but I heard my parents talking about it. That woman, she had food hidden in her room when she wasn’t supposed to have anything crunchy. She choked to death, Evan.”
“You didn’t tell me all of that,” Evan said. As unbelievable as this whole conversation was, he had to force his brain, and his heart, not to focus on her keeping secrets from him on top of not speaking for weeks. “Why didn’t you tell me that when it happened?”
Anne stared at him, her eyes bright with tears nearly falling. He was afraid he’d already said too much.
“Would you tell anyone about this, Evan? About crazy dreams, about predicting when an old lady was going to die? If I’d said something about seeing her choke, maybe they would have found the food and stopped it, but I never did!”
Evan shook his head, the pain in her voice almost making him cry. He rubbed her shoulder, wishing he had the courage to hold her hand.
“You don’t know,” he said. “Maybe she had it hidden really well. Or maybe she would have just hidden more later. I’m sorry. This is visions, not just dreams? Or did you dream about her too?”
“No, I didn’t dream about her. The dream is always the same, about the end of the world.” She took a deep breath, her chin and lips quivering. “But now I can see the way everyone is going to die. Every person. People don’t look like people to me anymore. They look like they’re dead. And the same people look the same way, all the time.”
Evan’s stomach fell past his feet. He couldn’t imagine anything more awful. No wonder she didn’t look at anyone anymore. She was looking at him now, though, right into his eyes.
“What about me?” he said, his voice trembling. “How am I going to die?”
“You look normal to me.” She nodded once. “You’re the only one left. That’s why I want to walk to school and home with you. To get a break from everyone and their dead faces.”
Evan looked at Anne again, really looked at her, and he saw something about her for the first time. He knew she would never tell him something like this to trick him, or fool him, or scare him on purpose. Without having to ask, he knew she’d never told anyone else about this. Not her parents or a teacher or any other soul.
Anne trusted him.
She was scared to death, and she was still trusting him. Even if nothing she was saying made any sense to him, he couldn’t turn away from her.
Not now, not ever. Evan’s fear went deeper, driving cold through his whole body.
And his heart left the secure place in his own chest, something he hadn’t even suspected it could ever do.
Evan’s heart belonged to Anne from that moment forward.
“Okay, Anne. You see the end of the world. Tell me how it’s going to happen. Maybe we can do something about it.”
- Writer
