Nicolae High (6 page)

V
ICKI
had not intended to ignore Judd or abandon him, but he was gone before she knew it. She had not seen or heard from her former neighbor Shelly since the day they both discovered what had happened. To Vicki’s horror, Shelly looked the same as she had that day. She stared into the distance as if she had seen things unspeakable.

“Are you all right, Shel?” Vicki asked.

Shelly looked at her, flat brown hair straight and lifeless, her pale green eyes vacant. “I don’t know you,” she said.

“Sure you do, Shelly. It’s me, Vicki.”

Shelly furrowed her brow and squinted. “No way,” she said. “Vick, what happened to you?”

“To me?” It was out before Vicki could rein it in. Shelly was the one who didn’t look like herself. Vicki may have been made up differently and dressed differently, but Shelly looked as if someone had punched her in the stomach.

“It’s really you, Vicki?”

Vicki nodded. “Shelly, I know what happened. I lost my whole family, and—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, OK? I really don’t.”

“But as awful as it was, Shelly, I—”

“Don’t,” she said, trembling.

“Leave her alone,” an older girl said, glaring at Vicki. “Don’t you know what happened to her?”

“No! What happened?”

“Don’t tell her, Joyce!” Shelly said.

“You just get to class, Shelly. And don’t let anybody make you say anything you don’t want to say.”

Shelly looked apologetically at Vicki and moved away. Joyce turned on Vicki. “Are you Byrne?”

“Yes, Joyce. Just dressing a little different these days.”

“I’ll say. Your trailer burned, right?”

Vicki nodded.

“So where you livin’?”

“Mount Prospect, with people from my church.”

“That explains the threads. They makin’ you dress that way?”

Vicki shook her head.

“So you didn’t hear Shelly’s story ’cause you haven’t been back to the park?”

“Right.”

“She was baby-sitting for the Fischers. You knew them.”

Vicki nodded, moving toward the girls’ locker room.

“One of the kids starts crying just when the parents get home. Shelly goes in to check on her, and the kid’s really wailing. She picks her up, and that gets the little guy crying, so she picks him up too. Now she’s got two squalling kids in her arms as the Fischers come in the door. She’s about to explain that they just then woke up when both kids disappear and the parents too. Mom and Dad, poof, clothes in a pile right where they stood. The babies, gone with their pj’s draped over Shelly’s arms.

“Tell you the truth, it would have scared me to death, Vicki, but I wish I’d have seen it. Well, you know Shelly. She can’t let it go. She’s playing it over and over in her mind. I saw her the next afternoon, wandering through the trailer park, not saying a word to anybody.”

“I saw her late that morning,” Vicki said. “Same thing.”

“I finally got her to tell me. Now everybody knows and nobody talks to her, figuring she doesn’t want to talk about it. Which is true. But I think she feels like it was her fault somehow.”

“Where you headed, Joyce?”

“Health. Next door here.”

“You know what happened, don’t you?”

“The disappearances? Sure. Jesus came back. What else? It’s not like we haven’t heard that all our lives.”

“You believe that?”

“Sure, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Vicki said, “but I didn’t know you did.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna get saved or anything. But look who went and who was left. Your mom and dad, right? And your little sister. But you were left. So was I. My whole family. How about Eddie? Bet your brother’s still around.”

“Gone,” Vicki said.

“No kiddin’? Disappeared?”

Vicki nodded.

“That might prove me wrong. He was no Holy Joe, was he?”

“He became a believer after he got to Mich—”

“See? I knew it! What else could it be, Vick? Huh?”

“But that doesn’t make you want to be a Christian?”

“No way! I still think the whole thing sounds wacky.”

“Even though you believe it’s true?”

“Especially
because I believe it’s true. Hey, I 
know
it’s true. If that was God’s idea of how to do things, I want no part of it. How about you?”

“I believe it too. And I plan to be included when Jesus comes back again.”

“Well, good for you, girl. You’re not going to set your sights on me, are ya?”

“Well, I wish you would—”

“Oh, you are, aren’t you? I’m going to be a project, just like my mom was to Mrs. Fischer. Save your breath. I don’t need any convincing. I believe, and I’ve chosen. So turn those Bible guns on somebody else. Like Shelly. She’d be perfect. Gotta go.”

Psychology was one class Judd had actually enjoyed, and Mr. Shellenberger was the reason. He was a tall, fleshy man with a generous nose and receding, wavy hair. He had a sonorous voice, a superior manner, and he loved to bestow his opinions on one and all. He was in rare form today.

“OK, class,” he began, “listen up. Parking-lot stickers in the office, new books in the bookstore—title, if you forgot already, is on the board. Now let’s do some practical psychology. Let’s vent our traumas and deepest fears for the benefit and enjoyment of all. I’ll start.”

The class chuckled.

“First, is there anyone in here who will turn me into the thought police if I discuss the religious theory? Anyone? No one? Don’t be intimidated. If you’re going to gum up the school year with an expensive lawsuit, tell me now, and I’ll avoid the subject. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Very well, the God thing:

“Jesus didn’t come to get the good people and leave the bad. There are some who actually believe that, you know. Anyone here want to stake claim to that view? Nothing to be ashamed of. Some very respected people have fessed up to it. Come on. Anyone? No one? Mr. Thompson! Really? I thought you acted the agitator this morning just to get a rise out of our fearless leader. That was out of character for you, though. Well, isn’t this just too interesting? Do you care to discuss it?”

Judd shrugged. He was no match for an intellect, a presence, like Mr. Shellenberger. Judd had considered hiding his belief, but he wouldn’t have been able to live with that much cowardice.

“I’ve already stated my opinion,” the teacher said, “so I promise not to try to shred your belief system. Tell me, is this new for you? Apparently it is, because if you had held this belief before, and your theory is right, you’d have been taken by Jesus too, right?”

Judd nodded.

“So, who convinced you? Let me guess. A parent.”

“In a way.”

“Hmm. One that was left or one that was taken?”

“Both were taken.”

Mr. Shellenberger suddenly grew serious, his face grave. His volume fell, and he appeared truly different. “Mr. Thompson, forgive me if I have offended you. I meant to ask at the beginning how many of you lost immediate family members in the vanishings. Let me back up and do that.”

Half a dozen of the thirty kids raised their hands.

“How many lost extended family?”

Eight or ten more raised their hands.

“How many of you lost people you knew well or cared about?”

Another half dozen or so.

“And how many of you feel almost isolated from this, having lost virtually no one in your orbit?”

Four kids raised their hands.

“Now then,” the teacher continued, his tone still subdued, “regardless of my personal view of this—which you may be assured I will impart—I do not take lightly the losses. Mr. Thompson, I am sorry for your losses. Did you lose other family members?”

“My brother and sister, twins.”

Mr. Shellenberger stood towering over the students, his arms folded, a hand under his chin. “Mm-hm,” he said. “Religious family?”

Religious
was not a word Judd’s family used. But he knew what the teacher was driving at. He nodded.

“And you were the only one left behind.”

“Right,” Judd said.

“It is not surprising at all that you find comfort in ascribing these losses to something divine. It has to make you feel better to believe your family is in heaven with God.”

“Somewhat.”

“I wouldn’t denigrate that. You will outgrow it, but I’m sure it’s of great benefit to you now. It may be years before you will be able to differentiate the very real confidence you feel from the defense mechanism your mind has provided.”

“So I believe because I have to?”

“Excellent. Exactly. Don’t get me wrong. Right now this is as real to you as if it were literally true. Our perceptions, as I have said many times, are our realities. If you perceive I despise you and you will never succeed in this class, that is reality to you. If you believe the opposite, regardless of what you know about me, the opposite will be real for you.”

Judd wondered why he had never detected the silliness of the man’s logic before.

“Let me ask you, Mr. Thompson, what you now believe is the reason that your family was taken and you were not?”

“I was never really a believer. They were.”

“Really? Where did you fall short?”

“I just told you. I didn’t buy into it. I knew what was being taught. When I was younger I was more devout.”

“But not devout enough?”

“I never actually made the commitment to Christ.”

“Mm-hm. Class, anyone? We’re not arguing here, and I would be loath to try to talk Mr. Thompson out of a belief that has to be therapeutic for him, but someone tell me what he’s really feeling now.”

“Survivor’s remorse,” came a low voice from the back. “Just like soldiers who come back from war.”

“Very good,” Mr. Shellenberger said. “I’m not asking you to concede the point today or even this year, Mr. Thompson. But file it away. Let it work on you a little. You feel like the unworthy one, and yet you are the lone survivor.”

“That’s why I was the survivor! I
was
the unworthy one.”

“You’re asking, ‘Why me?’ ”

“I know why.”

“OK, very interesting. Someone else?”

A girl raised her hand. “You were going to tell us your opinion. You’ve said what it was not, so what was it?”

“Well, it was
not
a lot of things. I don’t believe it was space aliens. I don’t believe an enemy could be so surgical, taking certain ones and leaving others. No doubt it was something cosmic, perhaps even psychic or metaphysical. But the result was physical. I lean toward the hypothesis of Nicolae Carpathia and Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig of Israel, who ascribe the phenomenon to some nuclear reaction. We have stockpiled so many nuclear weapons that it was only a matter of time before something in the atmosphere—electricity, energy, magnetism, something—triggered a reaction.

“I should say this, however. Admittedly mine is a personal observation and far from scientific. But it seems to me that those who were taken, generally and on the whole, mind you, were of a slightly lower intellect than those who were left. I come from an extremely intelligent and highly educated extended family. We lost no blood relatives. I did lose colleagues I respected and admired, but in fairness, I have to say they were not quite the academic equals of those left behind. I have no idea what that means.”

You sure don’t,
Judd thought.

V
ICKI
'
S
first-period class met in the gym normally used for volleyball practice. The girls sat on the floor and got the standard announcements about books, parking permits, and even gym clothes. Then her P.E. teacher sat on the floor and gathered the class around her. Mrs. Waltonen, in her midforties, was thin and dark with short hair and glasses.

“What do you make of all the children disappearing?” she said. “That's the part I can't figure out.”

“You can figure out the rest?” someone said.

“Well, no. But if this is what a lot of people think it is, why would all the babies, even unborn babies, and toddlers and little kids be taken?”

“What do most people think it is?” a girl asked.

“You know,” Mrs. Waltonen said. “The subject we aren't supposed to raise.”

“Most people think it's that?” a tiny girl next to Vicki said. “I thought that was just a few of the crazies. I don't think that, and nobody I know does.”

“We're not supposed to discuss it, at any rate,” Mrs. Waltonen said. “Let's just express some feelings.”

“I have a question,” Vicki said, raising her hand.

Mrs. Waltonen squinted at her, and Vicki knew the woman was wondering who she was.

“Vicki Byrne,” Vicki said. “Um—”

“Without all the makeup,” the teacher said. “I like the look.”

Vicki blushed. “Thanks.”

“Your makeup disappear?” someone said, and several laughed.

“What's your question, Vicki?”

“If you think most people think what happened was what you said, why can't we talk about it?”

Mrs. Waltonen shook her head and sighed. “You heard what I heard. I don't know. Seems nothing should be off-limits now. We have the freedom to talk about everything else under the sun, including stuff I never thought I'd hear in public, but not God. No way.”

“Then don't!” someone called out. “If I hear another person say they think Jesus did this, I'm gonna croak!”

“All right,” Mrs. Waltonen said. “Let's move on.” She asked for a show of hands for those who had lost family members and so on.

Someone asked, “Did you lose anyone?”

Mrs. Waltonen pressed her lips together. “I'm, ah, trying to get through this right now,” she said, her voice quavering. “We lost a grandchild.”

To Vicki it seemed the groan of pain and sympathy came from the whole class.

“How old?”

“A baby. Not six months.”

“That's awful.”

“We miss her terribly. Her father, my son-in-law, also disappeared. And we lost my husband's sister and her whole family, her husband and three kids.”

“No way God did that,” a girl said.

Several others nodded and grunted in agreement. Vicki wanted to scream. Instead, she asked, “Anything different about your sister-in-law and her family? Any clues why them?”

“Well, see, I can't talk about that without getting in trouble.”

“Talk about it!” a girl hollered. “We won't tell.”

“No!” someone else said. “We're not supposed to, so let's not!”

Vicki turned to see who had said that, and while she couldn't tell, from the looks on the faces behind her, it could have been anyone. They were angry. In the back she saw a few confused, sorrowful faces.

Wasn't this just a little too obvious? The one explanation that made sense, that most people were aware of, that many had been warned about, was the one they were not allowed to discuss. And why? Because of the separation of church and state? Vicki suddenly felt very old.

Like Judd, she found herself bolder than she had ever been. She had been so lazy and lackadaisical in gym class that she usually skipped it or sat out, making up a litany of complaints, illnesses, and injuries. She had never responded to Mrs. Waltonen or to any other teachers. It just hadn't been her style.

Now Vicki felt like an agitator. A rebel for another cause. She had been against the status quo before. But now she was
for
something. “If we're not going to talk about what obviously is the truth about what happened,” she said, “let's hear some other explanation.”

That started it. Angry words were tossed about, several girls raising their voices. “You believe it was God?” several said. “Where've you been? And why are you still here?”

Finally Mrs. Waltonen calmed them. “Vicki is right,” she said. “Let's hear what others think happened.”

Silence.

“Surely someone has an opinion.”

A soft-spoken girl in the back said, “Who could ever know? I mean, really. Certain people disappeared; others didn't. Some in the same family. Almost as many women and men, but all babies and young children. I know a twelve-year-old who is still here, and a friend of mine said she knows a ten-year- old, but I don't know. These kids' mothers are wailing all over the place. This is like the worst horror movie you could ever see.”

“Yeah, but we're
in
this one.”

“Yeah.”

“Personally,” a girl sitting by herself said, “I think it was some big science experiment that went bad.”

“That could be.”

“Yeah, I never thought of that.”

“Right, like a scientist figured out how to beam stuff like in the old
Star Trek
movies, only he beamed the wrong people and can't bring them back.”

“I think they're coming back,” one said.

“You do? Why?”

“I have to. I'd go nuts otherwise. If I lost somebody in a wreck or I knew they died of some disease, that would be one thing. But these people didn't die. At least I hope they didn't.”

“Some people died.”

“Not the ones who disappeared. Just people who, like, got run over because of someone else disappearing.”

“You don't know the ones who disappeared are still alive.”

“I do,” Vicki said.

“You can't know that!”

“Fine, but I do.”

“You might believe it, Vicki, but you can't know.”

“Then why do I know?”

“You don't. You just think you know.”

“If my granddaughter is alive,” Mrs. Waltonen said, “I'd like to know that. I agree you can't really know, Vicki. But tell me why you think so, and tell me where you think she is.”

Vicki looked around. It seemed people were actually curious. “But isn't somebody going to get me in trouble with the church/state police? I guess my freedom of speech goes only so far.”

“So you think Mrs. Waltonen's baby is in heaven with Jesus.”

“I know she is.”

“You can't know that! And if you did, you'd be there too!”

“If I had known in advance, I would be, yes. With my parents and my brother and sister.”

“Whoop, there it is!” a girl cried out. “You lost your family, so you've got to come up with some nice explanation. That's all right. You're entitled. No offense to Mrs. Waltonen, but you two can believe whatever you want so you feel better about who you lost. That's all. I'd like to know where the girls are who aren't here today. What about that fat girl who was such a good athlete? And those twins nobody could stand? And that girl with the bad face and the—”

“All right,” Mrs. Waltonen said, “I think that's enough detail. I have a list here of the girls in the class who are known to have disappeared in the vanishings. The ones you mentioned are included, yes. Mary Alice—you know her? She's out sick today. And Francis also disappeared. There are two others, Barb and Sue, who are assumed to have disappeared.”

The girls sat silently for a moment, a few weeping. Finally someone said, “Do you hear how this sounds? We're sitting here talking about people we knew disappearing.”

And no one,
Vicki thought,
seems to want to face the truth.
As wild as the truth seemed, it sure made more sense than the crazy ideas she'd heard.

“Is there anybody else who believes this was the rapture of the church?” Vicki blurted, and she scanned the group.

It seemed everyone responded at once, waving her off, groaning, saying no. But she saw the look of hope on the teacher's face, and a couple of girls at the edge of the group just looked sadly at her.

“Stop talking about it!” came a voice over the din. “We were told not to, so don't! You're pushing your personal religious beliefs on us, and that's wrong!”

Vicki was mad. “I don't accuse you of forcing your beliefs on me when you tell me it was aliens or
Star Trek
scientists. Don't you have a brain? Can't you think for yourself? Do you need to hide behind some rule about the separation of church and state, so you don't hear something that might mess up your mind?”

“Vicki!” Mrs. Waltonen said. “That's enough.”

“Can I ask about the separation thing then?” Vicki said.

“It depends.”

“It's just a question about the history of it. Where did it come from?”

“I've heard different theories,” Mrs. Waltonen said. “I know it's not in the Constitution, but I believe it came from those who wanted to protect citizens from having their religious freedom threatened by the government. One of our freedoms is the right to believe and to worship without the government telling us what church we have to belong to.”

“That's what I thought,” Vicki said, knowing she had heard something about this, maybe from her dad, whom she had ignored. “So when did it get turned around to protect the government from religion?”

“I'm sorry?”

“You said the separation of church and state was designed to keep the government out of the church. Now it's used to keep the church out of the government.”

Mrs. Waltonen raised her eyebrows, but several girls said things like, “That's the way it should be!”

“Even if it was a law, which it's not,” Vicki said, “it would be no good if it violated the right to free speech. I have the freedom to say whatever I want, except here.”

“Good!”

“Yeah, shut up!”

“Let her talk!”

“She's talked enough! And when did she start talking anyway? I don't even remember her from this class!”

“You do too! That's Vicki Byrne!”

“Well, when did she start caring about anything?”

“What's happening to us?” someone said, tears in her voice. “I thought we were supposed to discuss this to start coming to some closure.”

“Closure? You sound like a talk-show host! How are we going to have closure on something like this?”

“That's right,” Vicki said, “especially when certain theories are out of bounds?”

The bell rang, and the gym quickly emptied, but Vicki noticed that Mrs. Waltonen was gazing at her. When Vicki returned the glance, the teacher said nothing but did not look away. Vicki felt as if Mrs. Waltonen was trying to communicate something to her—exactly what, she did not know. The quiet girls in the back were also some of the last to leave, and they peeked at her too.

Was there something here, some core of a group that might agree with her or at least be willing to listen? Vicki decided to spend the rest of the day bringing these issues up in every class. Maybe she wouldn't be as aggressive as she had been in gym class, but she would say enough to get people arguing about freedom of speech and whether God had anything to do with the disappearances. Somehow she would get an inkling of how many believers or potential believers there were at this school.

Vicki didn't want one more person to die before she at least had the chance to tell them what she believed.