Walking Alone Read online

  “…Some parts of the Valley have already reported massive doses of fallout, and the radiation levels in drinking water are unnaturally high. People are advised to drink only bottled water. Scientists say that while the blasts themselves did not do as much damage as expected, the after-effects have turned out to be far worse than could have been predicted…”

  She turned off the radio. The newscasters had been repeating the same thing for the past week. There had not even been any changes in the wording of the story. That just showed what kind of talent they hired on these local stations.

  As the coffee boiled, she fooled with the radio dial, trying to pick up another station, trying to get even the semblance of recognizable noise from another city.

  Nothing.

  The front bell rang, and she poured the coffee into the drip-pot and went out to the waiting room. The woman standing at the door tried to appear easy-going, nonchalant, but the worry showed in her face.

  Madame Carol led her into the reading room and sat her down. She retreated to her side of the table, and her hand reached out to canvas the other woman’s palm. Her fingers found the lifeline.

  It stopped almost immediately.

  “How long will I live?” the woman asked.

  “You will live to be seventy-six,” Madame Carol lied.

  SLAM DANCE

  (1985)

  The portrait of St. Millard hung at the front of the classroom between the clock and the flag, a ragged horrific figure standing before a crowd of huddled peasants, an emaciated, nearly naked man with wild hair and piercing demonic eyes that glared out of the painting and down at the six rows of neatly ordered desks and the twenty-three students busily working on their math assignments. Anna, as usual, had finished her worksheet early. She had turned over the paper on her desk so no one else could copy her answers and was now staring at the portrait, curious.

  The portrait stared back.

  She could never seem to reconcile the hate in the eyes of this harsh and terrifying visage with the Christianity preached by Jesus, that meek and gentle martyr she learned about in chapel. They seemed like two opposing entities with absolutely nothing in common.

  “Anna!” someone whispered.

  Her eyes dropped from the ragged figure of St. Millard to the calm figure of sister Caroline, reading peacefully and obliviously at her desk, before searching out the source of the whisper.

  “Anna!”

  She turned to look behind her and felt the square hardness of a book being shoved into her left hand. Her fingers closed around the object, and she nodded to Jenny McDaniels, acknowledging receipt of the item. Jenny turned quickly back to her assignment.

  Anna kept her eyes on Sister Caroline as she slowly and surreptitiously maneuvered the book from her lap to the top of her desk. Slam Book, it said in felt-pen letters on the cover, and Anna felt a thrill of forbidden excitement pass through her as she read the words. She glanced back at Jenny, but her friend was staring down at her worksheet, busily writing.

  Anna’s gaze returned to the bound volume before her. Slam books had been all the rage at St. Mary’s for the past semester, and though she and Jenny had tried their hardest to lay their hands on one, neither of them had seen, much less held, one of the famous and dreaded items. Father Joseph had declared last October that slam books were not allowed at the school, promising that any student caught with one would be punished, but the ban had really had no effect. If anything, the books grew in popularity after Father Joseph’s decree.

  How in the heck had Jenny gotten ahold of one?

  Anna carefully opened the book to the first page. “Gerard Starr,” it said at the top in neatly printed script. Beneath that was a list of personal information: height, weight, age, favorite color, favorite musical performer, favorite movie, favorite food. Below the statistics were the comments. All unsigned, of course.

  What a babe! I love his hair!!

  Soooo cool! I want to marry him.

  Dork.

  Probably a fag. Gay haircut.

  Fairy.

  What a hunk!

  Anna smiled. The comments were pretty much divided along male-female lines. Still, the good observations outweighed the bad. And even the slams were generic and not all that cutting.

  She skipped over Sandra Cowan’s page and all the pages of Sandra’s cheerleader friends until she found Jenny’s entry. Her eyes skimmed the stats and went straight to the comments.

  Too shy. Too quiet.

  Not bad looking. Average.

  Plain Jane.

  Would be ok if she didn’t hang around with Anna Douglas all the time.

  Anna’s heart raced, her pulse pounding. Her face grew hot as it reddened with embarrassment.

  Not much to look at but seems alright.

  Nice but doesn’t talk much.

  Fine except for her retarded friend Anna.

  Afraid to look but needing to know, Anna turned to her own page. She noticed immediately that her name and statistics were sloppily written, as though whoever had created the book hadn’t cared enough to make an effort. Most of the information was wrong. Holding her breath, she read the comments.

  A scuz.

  I hate her.

  If I was its owner, I’d shave its ass and walk it backward.

  Severe problems.

  Major damage. Should be locked in her house until she dies so the rest of us don’t have to suffer.

  Snoopy come home!

  She smells. I don’t think she bathes or knows about deodorant.

  Puke! Barf! Puuke!!! Baaaarrrfff!!!

  She’ll grow into a lonely old lady and die alone. Who wants her?

  An arrow pointed to this last one, and a scrawled black arrow led to another connected comment: She should do us all a favor and kill herself.

  Heart thumping, Anna turned the page, looking on the back for more comments. There was only one, in Jenny’s small, neat handwriting.

  My best friend. Very smart, very kind, very special. I’m lucky to know her.

  Anna looked gratefully back at Jenny, but her friend was still working on the math assignment.

  She turned her attention to the front page again, her gaze returning to the cruel comments below her name. The criticisms were harsh, unnecessarily so, and she knew without looking that no other people in the book would have such hostility directed toward them.

  And this was only one slam book in one class. There were probably dozens more floating around the school.

  She wondered what the other books had to say about her.

  No.

  She didn’t wonder.

  She knew.

  She’d known what she would find even before opening this book.

  Anna glanced up at St. Millard standing before the peasants, that look of twisted hate on his haggard face. He was undoubtedly preaching about Jesus in the depicted scene. But Jesus promoted peace and understanding. He exhorted everyone to love their neighbors.

  Her neighbors didn’t love her.

  It was Jesus who taught that she should turn the other cheek, but even his disciples had not been able to live up to that standard. She had the feeling that the saint before her now, the one at the front of the classroom, would not stand for such softness, such…submission.

  She stared at the ragged figure, meeting those demonic eyes.

  The figure stared back.

  ****

  Molly Caulfield.

  Anna finished writing the final name and closed the book. She put her pen down, flexing her fingers, which were starting to cramp. Picking up the volume, she examined its cover. It looked almost identical to the slam book she had read this morning. She smiled. This would show them. She would write her own comments, disguising her handwriting, then pass the book around. They would know what it felt like to be unpopular for once, to be the butt of jokes. They would know what it felt like to be hated.

  She put the book down and opened it to the first page. Sandra Cowan. Anna stared at the blank page
for a moment, then wrote: An airhead.

  A strange tingle passed through her, a rush of forbidden pleasure. Always, when Sandra had made fun of her in the halls, Anna had lowered her head and hurried past, trying to ignore the laughter, trying not to let it hurt. She had never had either the strength or the guts to fight back and stand up for herself. Now, in one quick moment, she had passed judgment on Sandra Cowan. Writing from on high, a voice of anonymous omniscience, she had dismissed the girl and decreed her stupid.

  Anna laughed, experiencing a sudden thrill of power. She picked up another pen and, changing her handwriting, wrote: A bitch.

  She reread the word and giggled, glancing quickly around to make sure her mother or her sister hadn’t sneaked into her room to peek over her shoulder. She was feeling brave now. She could say anything. She could be as cruel to Sandra as Sandra had been to her.

  She’s a whore, Anna wrote in red. She’ll do it for a dime.

  Moving on to the next name in the book, Sandra’s friend Brittany, Anna wrote: A godless witch. The phone rang out in the living room, and Anna waited a moment to see if the call was for her. There was a seven-second lag, then her mother called, “Anna!”

  Putting down her pen, she closed the book and ran out to the living room, wishing not for the first time that her parents would let her have a cell phone or, at the very least, get an extension of her own. She took the receiver from her mother’s proffered hand. “Hello?”

  “Guess what?” It was Jenny. Her voice was breathless, excited, something that came through even with the cheap mobile connection. “Sandra just got arrested! By the police!”

  “What?”

  “I saw it! Right here, right this second! In front of the mall!”

  “Where are you?”

  “By Nordstrom’s. I can’t talk much longer. My mom’s on her way out.”

  “Well, what happened?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. I came just at the very end. But it looked like she was trying to, you know…sell herself to some guy. Only the guy turned out to be a cop!” Jenny let out a loud, disbelieving breath. “I never liked Sandra, but I never thought she’d be doing this. Total shock.”

  Anna was no longer listening. She was thinking of her slam book in the other room. She’s a whore, she had written. She’ll do it for a dime.

  Anna was suddenly certain that the cheerleader had offered her services for ten cents.

  “Gotta go,” Jenny said. “My mom’s here. I’ll call you when I get home.”

  There was the sound of a dial tone, and Anna hung up the phone.

  “Who was it?” her mother asked.

  “No one. Just Jenny.” She walked back to her room in a daze. This was too bizarre to be just a coincidence. She hated Sandra Cowan, and even she didn’t believe Sandra would do such a thing. She didn’t even think that Sandra, despite all her talk, had had sex yet.

  Anna looked at the slam book on her desk, feeling slightly afraid of it. She knew she should throw the thing away or, better yet, burn it, but it suddenly occurred to her that if she did so, all of the kids listed on its pages might…die.

  She took a deep breath, filled with fear and weighted down with responsibility. What had she done? And how could she put a stop to it?

  Did she want to put a stop to it?

  That was the real question, but even as she asked it of herself, Anna knew the answer. She thought of that harsh, wild saint at the front of the classroom. He wouldn’t back down, she knew. He would see this through to the end.

  Slowly, carefully, she picked up the slam book and one of the pens lying next to it on the desk. First things first. She had to find out if this was really happening. She glanced up at the clock on her dresser. Four thirty-five. There was still time. She just needed to get Jenny to call her.

  Anna made her way out to the living room, checking first to see where her mother and sister were. Her dad wouldn’t be home for another hour, so she was safe there. Luckily, her mom was in the bathroom, and her sister was in her own bedroom doing homework. Anna quickly called Jenny’s cell and, when her friend answered, told her to call her back immediately.

  “I’m in the car with my mom!”

  “It’s an emergency,” Anna said. “All you have to do is dial my number and hang up when I answer. I’ll explain everything later. Please?”

  “Okay.”

  Jenny hung up, calling back moments later. Anna let it go two rings so everyone could hear, then shouted, “I’ll get it!” She answered the phone, and then Jenny hung up. Anna mumbled into the mouthpiece as though she were talking, then hung up herself.

  “Mom!” Anna called down the hall.

  Her mother was just emerging from the bathroom. “Yes?”

  “Jenny just called back. She forgot her math book at school. We’re supposed to do twenty questions at the end of the chapter, and she needs—”

  “She wants to come by, that’s fine.”

  Anna felt a split second of panic. “No. She wants me to come over there. She’s…grounded. She can’t leave the house. I’ll just speed over. I’ll be back way before dinner.” She spoke quickly, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice her nervousness.

  She didn’t.

  “You have forty-five minutes, young lady. I want you back here by five-thirty. And if you’re late, you’ll be grounded.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” Anna ran back into her room, grabbed the math text, placed the slam book beneath it, and hurried out the front door.

  Where to go?

  Liz Waite, Sandra’s chirpy little toady, lived closest, on the next block over, so it was to her house that Anna went. She had no concrete plan, assuming that she would think of something on the way over, but when she reached Liz’s driveway and still had not come up with a viable test, she decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. Opening the slam book to Liz’s entry and using the math text for support, she took out her pen and wrote: Sandra would like her better if she wasn’t so buddy-buddy with Anna.

  Books in hand, she walked up to Liz’s door.

  Knocked.

  “Anna!” Liz threw open the screen and hugged her like a long-lost sister. It was all Anna could do not to cringe.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “You should have called and told me you were coming! We’re just getting ready to eat.”

  “That’s okay. I was just on my way to Sandra’s and thought I’d stop by.”

  “Sandra’s? Oh my God! She wouldn’t…you’re not…you’re joking, right?”

  Anna shook her head. “She asked me to come over.”

  “Sandra?” Liz looked stunned. “I can’t believe it.”

  Anna opened the slam book to the page being marked by her finger and clicked her pen.

  “What’s that? A slam book?”

  “Uh huh.” Liz is a lez, she wrote. She’s in love with Sandra.

  “What are you writing?”

  Anna closed the book, clicked shut her pen. “I know about your crush on Sandra. I’m telling her.”

  Liz looked stricken. “Anna!”

  “Everyone’s going to know.”

  “No!”

  Anna turned away, walking down Liz’s driveway toward the sidewalk, ignoring the increasingly anguished pleas behind her.

  She smiled to herself.

  It worked.

  ****

  After dinner, Anna sat in her room, door shut, staring at the slam book on her desk. She’d told her parents she was going to be doing homework, though her real plan had been to write in the slam book. Now she just sat there, thinking.

  Returning from Liz’s house, she’d been elated. She had power. She could do whatever she wanted to whomever she wanted. She was queen of the world!

  What had she actually learned, though? That Liz had a thing for Sandra and didn’t want anyone to find out about it? That could have been true regardless. The fact that she’d written it in the slam book might very well be coincidence. Wasn’t it logical that a girl as fanatic
ally devoted to Sandra as Liz was might have a secret crush on her? And of course, she wouldn’t want such information to get out to the other backbiting cheerleaders.

  Even Liz’s friendliness to her was open to interpretation. After all, her parents had no doubt been home, probably standing right behind her, so of course she would be on her best behavior. And maybe Liz wasn’t such a bad person away from Sandra’s influence, maybe she just acted like a bitch because of peer pressure.

  Then again, maybe not.

  There was no way to know. What Anna needed was a more definitive answer, concrete proof that the slam book could do what she thought it could.

  Another test.

  It had to be something both serious and concrete, something that could not occur any other way, something that would happen instantly. It also had to be verifiable, something she could see with her own eyes. Tonight.

  And it had to involve Sandra Cowan.

  That was the most important part, wasn’t it? That was what she really wanted—to see something happen to Sandra. It wasn’t enough to just make it happen; she wanted to be there when it did.

  Anna glanced up at the shelf above her desk, her gaze falling upon the spine of an E.B. White book, one of her favorites from childhood. An idea suddenly came to her. She looked down at the cover of the slam book.

  And grinned.

  ****

  The street seemed scary at night.

  It wasn’t really that late. And it was a suburban street in her own quiet neighborhood. But Anna had never sneaked out of the house before. She was a good girl, and the fact that she was going behind her parents’ backs, doing something she shouldn’t, made her feel guilty and gave a darker, more malevolent tinge to everything.

  Up the next block, on the opposite side of the street, a man was walking a dog. She could see only his silhouette, but he seemed to be moving much slower than he should be, almost as though he were casing houses. Or waiting for someone else to pass by, someone he could attack.

  She opened the slam book, prepared to use it.

  The man and his dog turned the corner onto First Street.

  Anna relaxed a little. Sandra’s house was only another block away, and she quickened her step, praying that neither her parents nor her sister would get up to go to the bathroom, peek into her bedroom and discover that she was gone. If she would just be allowed to get away with this one transgression…