In Much Too Deep

[Trignome]

Sarah stared owlishly at the boy.
"You don't actually mean that?" Unconsciously, she began fiddling with the fringe of the thick braid dangling over her shoulder.
There was no way the creature could escape the mines; the opening was barely large enough for an adult human to squeeze through. It couldn't get out from the mines. It wasn't possible. Not at all. Absolutely incorrigible. Sarah took a deep breath, already feeling the anger simmer away, leaving only a deadening sense of dread weighing heavily in her stomach. "...Well. It's rather late." She gestured halfheartedly at the dark field they stood in.
"Couldn't we talk about this some other time?" Never, preferably. Without giving a moment for his response, Sarah began walking again, keeping her head down and taking faster, wider strides. She was quite certain that the creature was only after the boy.
Somehow, someway, this was the boy's fault.
If she could avoid him, nothing bad would happen to her. Right?

 

[Meme]

The boy watched the girl leave. A pit in his stomach urged him to chase after her again, but he held himself back. She didn't want to talk. Maybe separating for a while was a good idea; they could calm down and think through the past events. Then they would regroup. It was a small town after all and the girl couldn't stay in denial forever. Unless she was like Jack's mom.
Oh, no, home. Time seemed to slow down in the mines but it was late. Very late. Maybe they all went to bed, Jack hoped as he started limping home. About half an hour later, he arrived at the dark house. Quietly, he let himself in by the front door. A week ago, the lock got busted and no one knew how to fix it. Although they had nothing worth stealing so it really didn't matter. He started tiptoeing past the kitchen to go to his room.
"Jack," his feet froze, " come in here." He heard Kathy's voice in the near blackness. Now that he was looking he could discern the candle light. Against his better judgment, he entered.
"They pulled the power again." Her disembodied voice sounded right in front of him. Kathy must have been sitting at the counter in front of him, even though the cased candle was dripping on the kitchen table. Even with their dad's worker compensation checks which were still sent to the house, Kathy's part time jobs at Charlie's Crazy Candies and the Y, and the temp jobs that Jack picked up, the bills kept piling up. It got so bad that Pam offered to pitch in her dog walking change but neither Kathy nor Jack would accept it.
"Oh," Jack said, trying not to give away the relief in his voice. She didn't realize that he didn't come back home until now, and she couldn't see the evidence written on his dirty clothes or pained expression. " Mrs. Cooper offered me a good sum to rake her leaves this fall. She's a real priss when it comes to getting everything done perfectly, but I could -"
"We can't do this anymore," there was no emotion in her voice. Jack was shocked; Kathy hardly interrupted him. She was one of the few people in his life who didn't treat him like trouble or look at him as if he was a good-for-nothing like his runaway father.
"What do you mean?" Jack hated how his voice croaked, which was even more pronounced in the night's quiet. His heart began thumping faster in his chest.
"Even if I stayed at community college, Yinsdale is a town away. I'd have to get on the bus at 9:00 am and I'd return at 5:00 pm at the latest. Then I would have to get ready for one of my jobs. I'd only be home when you guys were asleep."
"I can take care of myself," Jack said, but he knew Kathy wasn't listening. It sounded like she made up her mind a while ago.
" And Mom, and Pam?" There was no scorn in her voice, but Jack didn't like its cold tone. It was if Kathy was detached from the situation, from him. "Tonight was more than enough to prove that it wouldn't work. It shouldn't have to anyway. You're thirteen years old Jack. You should be focused on school and be hanging out with friends. Not worrying after an eight year old and- you know." Kathy finished. Five hollow heartbeats passed before Jack could speak up.
"So what's going to happen to us," Jack whispered; hating how young he sounded. A stressed sigh hit Jack's ears.
" I talked to the Hanson's, they're more than willing to take Pam in. They already treat her like a second daughter." The Hanson's were the family of Pam's best friend, Mellissa. They weren't rich but they were definitely better off than Jack's family. " We'll move to an apartment by Yinsdale. It will work. You'll get a new start at school without a reputation."
"And we'll just abandon Pam?" Jack demanded, forcing his volume down.
" Would it be better for us to take her from a school she loves and people who care about her?"
"We care about her," Jack shot back.
"Not enough to keep her full each day, or clothed properly so she won't be bullied at school. Pam's a sweet girl, we both know that, but she's not tough like you and I. She shouldn't have to be." Any resistance in Jack drained away. He couldn't, or didn't want to, think about that kind of life for Pam; his little sister who always smiled and stuck up for him at school. Pam, the one in their family who always cried at the puppy mill commercials and went silent for three days after their dad left.
"What about Mom," Jack's voice fell flat. He didn't care anymore - about what his dad was doing, about the thing in the mines, or the pain in his limbs- he just wanted all of this over with.
"There's a place for people like her," Kathy's voice caught at the end, but she carried on, "it's not so expansive that we couldn't afford it. They'll be good to her and help her in ways that we can't." Jack listened to her draw in a long, rattled breath. "You understand, right, Jack? I mean, eventually the mining company would realize that they were sending checks to someone who wasn't even there. There's no other option. If there was..."
"I do understand, Kathy." Jack left before his sister could start crying. It wasn't as if he didn't want to comfort her, but he knew his older sister. She was the strong child in the family. The one who didn't, couldn't, show weakness because she had to be a good example for Pam and him. If Jack held her as she sobbed... Kathy wouldn't be able to forgive herself and he'd lose her too. Jack trudged into his room and quietly pulled his door until he heard the handle click. Without bothering to change, he climbed into bed and was instantly transported to a place of pipsqueak girls looking down at him disapprovingly. They shook their heads as he ran from the Thing and right into a very bright light.

 

[Trignome]

A small stone skittered away from beneath her shoes and stopped out in the middle of the street. Though it was very late and few people would be out during this time, the streetlamps were kept on per the safety standards maintained by the community chairman. Usually, she was annoyed by the apparent waste of energy in keeping the lamps lit at night, but tonight, as she snuck quietly down the shadowy street, Sarah felt grateful for her mother's paranoia of white vans and shady old men.
She stopped at the end of her driveway.
The porch lights were on.
With a small grimace, Sarah walked up the porch steps and stretched a hand out to test the front door. It was unlocked. She shouldered her backpack tightly and walked inside. The foyer of the house was dark, dimly lit by a steady, fluorescent glow from the kitchen. Sarah chucked her sneakers off, gently tucked them into the bottom rack beside the umbrella basket, and made her way to the kitchen.
Her mother sat at the counter, apparently engrossed in the catalog of a Better Homes magazine. But Sarah knew that wasn't the case; she put her backpack down by her chair at the table and sat down. Minutes passed. The only sound came from the occasional rustle of the magazine, as her mother flipped the same page back and forth, back and forth. Beneath the crisp sound of an alternating display of beige duvets and a 5-calorie salad dressing, there was the persistent ticking of the grandfather clock from the foyer. You're late, it seemed to say. You're late, late, late, late, late...
"The library closes at 9 on school nights." The magazine dropped to the counter with a sharp rap of its stiff binding, and the woman at the counter finally looked up. Sarah waited, but her mother seemed content to stare silently, expectantly, at her.
"Yes. It did close at 9. I left last so I could put away the reference books." Sarah resisted the urge to fiddle with her hair. The braid was already frazzled from her little escapade in the mine, and she didn't want to draw any attention to that. So she tucked her hands in her lap and kept her eyes trained on the dark, caramel swirls in the wood of the dining table.
"Do you know what time it is?" Her mother didn't wait for an answer. "It's 11. When is your curfew?" Again, only a brief pause. "Your curfew is 9, 9:30 if you have school work that needs to be done at the library." Her mother stopped abruptly.
Sarah took this opportunity to speak. "Mother, I understand you may be angry, but it wasn't my intention to stay out so late."
"Angry? No." Her mother tipped up her glasses and tucked them in the nest of curls atop her head. Her eyes were dark and red-rimmed, much to Sarah's dismay. Sarah furrowed her brow and turned her head slightly, so she was now looking at the microwave over her mother's shoulder.
"I'm not angry at what you've done. But I am disappointed..."
"You should have told me where you were..."
"You should have called me..."
"You should have called your father, if you needed a ride..."
"You should have remembered tonight is a school night..."
"You should have come home..."
Sarah sat through the lecture, knowing when to nod or to say "okay" and "yes, mother". She'd seen her brothers go through the ordeal enough times that she knew what to do without thinking about it. Her eyes never left the white numbers of the microwave clock, but she couldn't say for certain what the time was.
All while her mother spoke, Sarah sat and thought to herself: you shouldn't have gone into that mine.

 

[Meme]

His whole body was a deadweight, but at least the pain notched down to a faint throbbing echo of its original self. Carefully he rolled his head on his pillow to see his alarm clock. 12:45 am.
Geez Louise, I managed to sleep through 1st to 6th period, and it wasn't even on purpose this time.
Jack debated going to the remainder of school or not. He had a pretty valid excuse to ditch; though no one would believe it. Except one creepy Thing in the mines that would probably love to see him again.
Shuddering, Jack heaved himself off his bed. Last night didn't mean anything. In a few weeks he'd be out of this dumb town where the Thing couldn't touch him. All he had to do now was distract himself so the nightmare memory wouldn't drive him mad. He changed into some laundry that didn't smell as rank as what he was wearing now, combed back his curly hair (for it just to bounce into the air again, sigh), and slipped on dirt free sneakers. Rushing out of his room to the front door, he saw his mom sleeping on the sofa in the living room.
She's still waiting for him to return home.
Waves of sadness and pity crashed into him. Maybe he shouldn't have snapped at her last night. He stopped in place and watched his Mom twitch in sleep. To fend off the rising, sick taste of guilt in his throat, he fed the flame of anger in his gut. His mom had to grow up and take care of them like she was supposed to. Yeah, the jerk's disappearance hit them all pretty hard, but they were better off without him. He opened the front door and stepped outside. Slowly, he closed the door without a sound.
Jack began to run. Wind flew its fingers through his hair and lifted his feet off the ground for a heartbeat longer than gravity seemed to allow. A rosy yellow orb in the sky, the sun bandaged his skin and stripped away the physical reminder of the trip to the mines. From years of experience, he knew how to avoid the early townspeople traffic. Ten minutes went by much too quickly as he arrived at the school's east side door. It was supposed to be locked at this time of the day, but some of the teachers used it to go out for their smoke break. Without breaking a sweat, he jumped up the three steps to the door. His sneakers slapped the stone with a satisfying slap. He opened the door with expected ease and broke into the most infamous prison for teens everywhere- high school.

 

[Trignome]

"Sarah."
She looked up from her textbook with wide, innocent eyes. "Yes, Mr. Sithers?"
The portly Mr. Sithers stepped down from the podium at the front of the class and walked over to Sarah's desk by the door. "Since you seem so engrossed in my lesson, would you care to explain humanism to the class?"
Sarah quietly closed her textbook over her pencil, to keep her spot, and turned slightly so she could see the rest of the class behind her. "Humanism was an intellectual movement which proliferated during the early Renaissance. It placed central emphasis on the human realm, and transferred focus from the spiritual to the secular experiences of life." She paused to make a face. "It's a wonder why anyone would have chosen life after death over an actual life, anyway."
She could hear giggles from the back row.
But she didn't care whether or not they were laughing with her or at her, though clearly Sarah was not laughing. The older girls were stupid anyways; that's why they were in World History with a little girl like her, and not taking calculus. Then again, they might still all be in the same class, because Sarah had calculus next period.
"Sarah."
She turned back around in her seat and tilted her head to one side. Her right braid swung out and clattered against the side of her desk. Mr. Sithers' mustache twitched at the sound. Sarah tilted her head further and smiled sweetly. "Yes, Mr. Sithers?"
"Please try not to read ahead of the class. There may be sections in the chapter I skip." And with that, the teacher waddled back to his perch. He gave the ends of his mustache a quick preening, before bobbing his head down to the textbook and presuming his lecture. "Now, who can tell me what the Renaissance was? Anybody?"
Sarah counted to 11, then opened her textbook again. Her pencil slid silently into her lap and she tucked it back into the spine of her notebook.
"Who can tell me which country started the Renaissance? Anybody?"
Papers quietly shuffled. More giggling from the back.
"What about Europe, can anybody find that on the map? Anybody? Anybody?"
Sarah glanced hopelessly at the intercom clock and sighed.

 

[Meme]

"Man, look out!" Uno called from the sidelines. Effortlessly, Jack leaned sideways to avoid the careening ball's path. "Idiot," Jack's ears caught the low mutter. Of course he had to show up at school just in time for gym class, and he couldn't slack off in the background as usual because the teachers thought it'd be fun to host a dodge ball tournament. They also thought it'd be fun to let the kids pick their own teams. No matter what generation, gym teachers never learned.
"What are you doing?" Walt shouted. Or maybe it was Poe. The twins were identical. Their mom decided to name them after great poets. Parents never seemed to learn either.
What am I doing? The thought echoed in Jack's mind as he dropped to the ground and rolled away from two balls thrown in rapid succession. His entire team wisely let themselves get hit by the other team's balls before the projectiles turned lethal. Alone and outnumbered, he now faced an eight player team made up of impatient jocks.
Ah whatever. It was already too late to surrender. Even being brushed by one of those hurtling comets would mean a mandatory visit to the nurse's office. On one hand, being waited on by the new young nurse sounded like a blast, but on the other hand, he'd have to walk out of the gym first with jeers and insults flung at his back. With a scheduled departure coming up, why not leave with style?
A ball whipped right past his ear like a bullet. Across the court, Rick Wilkins, the school's mandatory hulk, grimaced and took one of his teammate's balls.
"Come on, you throw like a girl," Jack taunted the freshman quarterback like a man with a death wish.
"Aaaargh!" Without a second to spare, Jack spun out of the way of the blazing ball sent by the one girl on the opposing team. Kenna Johnson, a not very literate rugby player, but she always got her message across. Rick hurled his ball across and Jack leaned back quick enough that he thought he heard his back crack.
"You know some schools banned this traumatizing activity!" Poe or Walt cried unnoticed by everyone else who kept their focus on the escalating match. They gained the entire gym's attention. Jack really couldn't afford a look, but he could imagine the scene: the gym teachers would be wearing dopey grins on their faces as they saw their 'star pupil' actually participate in class while nodding in appreciation by the jock team's good throws, the girls would wince in pity for Jack the doomed underdog or cheer wildly for their favorite athletes to destroy him, and the guys would be acting bored while in reality they were riveted by this challenge not so different from a man wrestling a bear in a locked cage. Gotta love public education.
Getting bored, Jack snuck a look at the wall clock and almost got his nose knocked off.
"Hey, no head shots!" Jack shouted. The response was five speeding balls (three of which had so much force that they hit the wall behind him and flew back into the arms of their throwers). Dancing in the midst of the hail of tightly wound rubber spheres, Jack wracked his brain for a survival plan. Five minutes were left in class but he couldn't last that long. It finally dawned on the opposing team that they'd had a better chance of contact if they threw together, and he wouldn't be surprised if the teachers forced them into overtime in order to gain a clear winner. Stress sharpened his movements; it felt like his nerves were sparking.
"Hey, wimp, face the ball like a man!" Howie shouted as he pitched a ball that landed on the floor and bounced up about five feet.
And lose a lung, pass. Jack grimly thought as jumped over another low ball.
" Or just run away like your father!" Howie cackled as he saw Jack skid to a stop. The adrenaline burning inside Jack went supernova as he lost his fixture in the real world. Everything, from the lemon yellow floor, discorded yelling in the gym, and balls barreling straight towards him took a step back. He viewed his surroundings like a cool observer. Impersonal and calculating, it felt like eternity was packed inside the seconds before the balls reached him and he made a decision. They didn't all arrive at the same time. Jack caught Kenna's ball at his left and slung it from his hand like a lacrosse stick. The ball thumped as it made impact with her boyfriend Dave and the teachers ordered them both off the court. Jack didn't waste time to watch. A ball slammed into his chest but he refused to let it go. Wrapped in his arms, the ball skidded backwards along with Jack; unsteady but upright. Karl Richman cursed, and Karl Richman received a demerit. Like a pro bowler, Jack allowed the ball to slide on the air above the ground to knock onto David Reeves' feet. He was out, but the ball continued to rebound and strike the back of Soham Zala's knees. Bonus. Four more to go. Side by side, Luke Hartman and Zan Shire threw their balls at Jack simultaneously. Almost simultaneously anyway. Jack's hands stopped Zan's ball which tried to replace his head and used it as a shield against Luke's ball which was headed to his gut. Luke's ball ended up rolling near the court's dividing line. Acting more cautious, Luke and Howie collected three balls in their court while warily watching Jack. Standing still, Jack noticed the crowd's lowering in volume but found that he didn't care. He was going to win this game and leave. Luke and Howie united their attack. Jack focused on knocking their balls away with his own; fake on the right, shoulder, head. Those moves left him with five balls.
" Throw the ball, Jack. You can't miss me!" Luke waved distractingly at Jack as he jumped in place, "or maybe you could." Jack ignored the obvious maneuver and struck Howie's hip right before his fingers reached Zan's ball which rolled to the division line. Then he gave Luke what he wanted. He couldn't savor their plank walk to the sidelines as something new came into play, and by something new as in big and waiting. One man on either side were left. Rick the biggest freshman in school vs. Jack the most charming guy in town. Refusing to reveal fear, Jack set his feet firmly on the ground and rose his hands to his chest. An animalistic glow sprung in Rick's eyes. He took a deep breath that at this moment everyone could hear in the silent gym. They waited for him to say something sporty and profound. Rick grunted and threw the ball. No, the simple word ' throw' couldn't capture the force behind the unbelievable speed that directed all its weight to Jack. Calling that a 'throw' would be like calling a nuclear bomb a skipped pebble. Weighing approximately 130 pounds and at 5'6 feet, Rick prepared to catch what he half-expected to go through him. However anticipation not fear shivered down his spine. He felt like the rays of the sun were magnified on him a hundred-fold, excusing the pain they only granted him their power. Jaws dropped to the ground as Jack caught the ball and 'threw' it back at Rick.

 

[Meme]

Jack had to time catch the surprise scrawled all over Rick's face as the athlete instinctively rose his hands in preparation. It didn't do him any good though. The ball slammed into his chest and knocked him back around five feet. Stunned, Rick's grasp slackened and the ball flew to the other side of the gym to land with a great THWACK. Everyone would have been going crazy over this if something else didn't occur right then. The fluorescent lights lined up on the gym's high ceiling exploded. Flickers of yellow sprayed down but dispersed before reaching the crowd's heads. Darkness was cast in the large area, but Jack didn't stick around to see what was going to happen next. He saw a line of light under one of the doors leading to the school's sports fields and ran straight for it. Swiftly, he avoided bumping into any of the panicking students or teachers. Using the door's bar, he shoved it open and left; ignoring the cries of recognition behind him.