Authors: Dan Poblocki
already reached the top of the steps.
“Yeah?”
“She hasn’t returned any of my messages
lately. Is everything okay with her? How’s
Ben?”
She’d hit the nail on the head.
“I’ve got a run, Mrs. Chen,” he said. “Thanks
for the ride!”
“O-Okay then,” she said quietly. “See you
boys after practice.”
As Timothy entered the locker room, he
realized he didn’t want to be there. After
everything that had happened that day, al he
real y wanted to do was curl up in bed and
real y wanted to do was curl up in bed and
continue reading The Clue of the Incomplete
Corpse. He was determined to nd his own
clue regarding the names writ en on pages 102,
149, and 203. Maybe the answer was in the
story.
The locker room’s dim lighting, high ceilings,
and dark stone wal s created a unique cryptlike
atmosphere deep inside the building. Timothy
found a spot in the farthest corner away from
the showers, hidden at the end of the longest
row of lockers. From his bag, he lifted away the
mysterious book and careful y placed it onto
the bench beside him.
“Let’s hustle, July,” cal ed Coach Thom from
the far end of the row. Clapping his hands and
moving on, he shouted, “Water’s waiting, Chen.
Move it.”
Timothy’s face burned. So much for hiding
out now. He ung his bag into the nearest
locker. He quickly changed into his bathing
suit, before grabbing the book from the bench.
Zelda Kite’s worried eyes glanced over
Zelda Kite’s worried eyes glanced over
Timothy’s shoulder, as if she knew that
someone had crept up behind him.
Spinning around, Timothy was met with a
smile by Stuart, standing inches away. Timothy
nearly jumped but managed to control himself.
“What do you want?” he said.
“Scare you?” said Stuart. “Sorry.”
“You didn’t scare me,” said Timothy. “I just
didn’t expect you there.”
“Right.” Stuart brie y looked at the book in
Timothy’s hands. “Pret y funny what happened
today, don’t you think?”
Timothy shoved the book into his locker,
snatched his towel o the oor, and wrapped it
around his shoulders. “What was funny?”
“What happened to your partner,” said
Stuart. “The water bal oon?”
“How do you know it was a water bal oon?”
said Timothy, playing the game.
Stuart smiled. “Whatever, dude. We al
thought it was pret y funny.”
thought it was pret y funny.”
“Wel , I didn’t. I got pret y soaked.”
“Whose fault was that?”
Timothy shook his head. “Are you saying I
threw the water bal oon at myself?”
“No. I’m saying you were too close. You
stand next to the target, you get wet.”
“Stuart …” Timothy’ face turned red. “You’re
such a … a fart-slap.”
“A fart-slap?” said Stuart, laughing. “What the
heck is a fart-slap?”
Timothy stared at the oor, thinking of
Abigail’s cleverness. “It’s not good,” he
answered, then climbed over the bench and
brushed past Stuart, heading for the showers.
12.
The water was cold. Swimming freestyle,
Timothy stared at the ceramic tiles drifting
away into the hazy deep end. When he reached
the wal underneath the diving platforms, he
noticed that Coach Thom was speaking with
Stuart, two lanes over and a pool length away.
Stuart sat on the water’s edge in the shal ow
end. Their voices echoed throughout the large
room.
“Where was it?” said Thom.
Stuart shook his head, closed his eyes, then
pointed at the deep end. Thom peered into the
water. “I’ve got a clear view of the entire
bot om of the pool, Chen. I can assure you, I
don’t see any monsters. You want to get back in
the water now?”
Monsters? Timothy chuckled before he
ducked back under and pushed o the wal .
What a freak! He’d heard a ton of excuses for
What a freak! He’d heard a ton of excuses for
wanting to sit out a lap or two, but that was the
craziest in a very long time.
The weird thing, though, was that Stuart had
looked truly scared. Timothy swept the bot om
of the pool with his eyes, trying to make out
exactly what Stuart could have mistaken for a
monster. But there was nothing down there
except for a couple of glimmering pieces of
loose change, far away near the drain at the
bot om of the twenty- ve-foot wel . Seconds
later, he’d made it to the wal in the shal ow
end to nd Stuart stil sit ing in the gut er, his
feet pul ed up out of the water.
Now Thom sounded real y angry. “You can
get in or go home, Chen. I’m not going to say it
again. Let’s move!”
Reluctantly, Stuart slid into the water. He
glanced at Timothy brie y before popping his
goggles over his eyes. He ducked under the lane
lines and entered Timothy’s lane. Timothy was
about to push o the wal , when he felt Stuart
grab his arm.
grab his arm.
“What is it?” said Timothy.
Stuart’s eyes were invisible behind his
mirrored lenses. “It was the thing with the
claw,” he said in a low voice.
“What was the thing with the claw?”
“The monster from Wraith Wars?” said Stuart,
sounding freaked out. “The game? It was at the
bot om of the pool.”
Timothy didn’t even know how to respond.
Hadn’t they just been ghting? Obviously,
Stuart was terri ed. Timothy remembered how
crazy he had felt in the basement of the
museum that morning, when al the golden
idols had stared at him.
“I didn’t see anything down there,” said
Timothy. “Maybe your goggles were smudged.”
Stuart nodded. “I’m gonna fol ow behind you,
though, okay? In this lane.”
Timothy sighed. “Okay.”
When he nal y pushed o the wal , he
realized that, in a way, they’d both just
realized that, in a way, they’d both just
apologized to each other.
Twenty laps later, Timothy hopped out of the
pool to take a drink from the water fountain.
He was out of breath and his brain was racing
with numbers. Five hundred yards, twenty laps,
twenty minutes on the clock …
Then, pages 102, 149, and 203.
And eventual y names: Carlton Quigley.
Bucky Jenkins. Leroy “Two Fingers” Fromm …
Zelda Kite. Zilpha Kindred. Abigail Tremens.
Timothy had just come up from the fountain,
when he noticed someone standing in the last
row of bleachers. Since the lights hung low in a
similar fashion to the locker room, the steep
seats were dark. The pool itself was bright.
Timothy held his hand up to shade the light.
What he saw sent goose bumps rippling
across his skin. Timothy could see only a
silhouet e—the man in the long overcoat and
the brimmed hat. He understood clearly why
the brimmed hat. He understood clearly why
the man had come.
The book.
It was stil in his locker.
The man descended the stadium stairs and
slipped into the nearest exit, disappearing
entirely into the shadows of the upstairs
hal way.
Timothy turned and dashed toward the boys’
lockers. Slipping and sliding on the cold
ceramic tile, he heard Thom shout, “No
running!” before careening through the
doorway. He ignored his coach, fearing that, in
his rush to get away from Stuart, he might have
forgot en to put the padlock on his locker.
In the hal way, Timothy slowed. He suddenly
felt foolish. Was he real y wil ing to risk his life
just to keep a stupid old kids’ book?
He skidded to a halt. The hal way didn’t look
the same. It was longer than usual. Where had
the showers gone?
Timothy turned around. The hal way behind
Timothy turned around. The hal way behind
him stretched on for what looked like hundreds
of yards before disappearing into murky
darkness.
Had he taken the wrong hal way? Maybe he
was accidental y heading toward the girls’
room? Something deep inside told him, No. He
hadn’t made a wrong turn—the hal way had.
Timothy decided to return to the pool,
toward the safety of his team, but as he ran, the
hal way continued to grow even longer. The
ceiling sank lower. The wal s were covered
with grime. The oor was slick with gray-green
slime. Mildew. Or something. And it stank, like
old cheese.
He stopped again. The pool entrance should
have been directly in front of him. But al
Timothy could see in both directions was the
hal way, which was growing darker by the
second. There were no pool sounds. No
shouting, no splashing. He could almost hear
the mold growing in the wal ’s crevices. The
sound of his heart was pounding in his ears.
sound of his heart was pounding in his ears.
Timothy squeezed his eyes shut for a brief
second and violently shook his head. Snap out
of it, he told himself. When he opened his eyes
again, he caught a glimpse of light at the end of
the hal way behind him. Stainless steel. The
showers! Timothy bolted. At least now, he
knew where he was going.
He burst through the doorway into the
shower room’s yel ow light. Beyond the
showerheads was the cavernous locker room.
He bounded to the last row of lockers. But
when he peered around the rusted aluminum
edge, the row was about half as long as usual.
A T-shaped path veered where an L usual y
bent. Maybe he was remembering it wrong?
Without thinking, Timothy dashed forward,
but when he reached the T, he knew for certain
that the problem wasn’t his memory.
His locker was not there.
Timothy glanced in both directions. The
shadows were encroaching from the ceiling
again, the low-hanging globes inching closer to
again, the low-hanging globes inching closer to
the ground. How was that possible?
Though his mind raced, Timothy walked
slowly, lightly, back toward the showers. His
feet were cold, and his skin was prickly. He
made his way to the end of the row and
peeked around the corner, but the showers
were no longer there. Instead, the sight of a
dirty brick wal greeted him, like a slap in the
face.
“No,” Timothy groaned. He leaned against
the locker at the end of the row. The coldness
of the metal bit into his shoulder, and he leapt
away from it, holding in a shriek.
A locker slammed. He jumped. He couldn’t
tel where the noise had come from.
Someone was with him, somewhere in this
big room.
Timothy shivered. Then he ran. He wasn’t
sure where he was going. The more he ran, the
more he realized he was not merely lost—the
room didn’t look familiar at al anymore. These
lockers were bashed and bat ered, the doors
lockers were bashed and bat ered, the doors
hanging o their hinges. Some of them had
been painted black; gra ti was scratched into
their metal surfaces—words much worse than
the one he’d cal ed Stuart earlier—strange,
almost alien symbols, horri c faces with slitlike
feline eyes and gaping needle- l ed mouths.
Timothy tried not to think that anything could
be hiding just inside these doors—Stuart’s
clawed monster, the Aztec idols, the cloudy
creatures in the specimen jars. Things with
black watchful eyes. The more Timothy ran, the
more he realized that if he stopped, he’d regret
it.He came around a corner and screamed.
A man stood at the end of the corridor, his
hand reaching into the nearest open locker. He
turned to look at Timothy. The shadow from
the brim of his hat obscured his face. His long
gray overcoat hung almost al the way to the
oor, barely covering his black wingtips. For a
second, Timothy had the feeling he was staring
at a ghost. Then the man withdrew from the
at a ghost. Then the man withdrew from the
locker. In his hand was the book; he used it to
slam the locker shut.
Timothy was frozen with fear. He wanted to
shout, Put it down! But the book didn’t even
belong to him. If anything, the man was simply
stealing it back.
“You shouldn’t take things that don’t belong