To Save a Friend

Part One

At a high school, somewhere in middle-of-nowhere Iowa, it was the seniors' last day of class. Many of them would show up right on time or a tad late, but Orlina was still her usual twelve minutes early. John had been counting on that.

He smiled to himself as he zig-zagged his way from the classroom door to the second row of seats near the window. He and Orlina were both taking first-period calculus.

"Hey," he said, plopping into the desk behind her.

Orlina had been reading something on her phone, but now she set it down and turned round in her seat. "What's your problem?" she asked, with a hint of a smile.

John cocked an eyebrow, then glanced around the room to ensure Mrs. Blackwood wasn't in earshot. They were the sole occupants of the classroom.

"My problem?" he said. "It's just that you're too much of a tightwad to go to the senior party tonight."

She rolled her eyes and gave a melodramatic sigh, but John thought he saw a pained look flash across her features. "You know why I'm not going, you ass."

A flicker of confusion crossed John's features, but Orlina wasn't paying any attention.

When they were sophomores, before John moved into the area, Orlina and her best friend, Flynn Goldman, snuck into the senior party, and when she was driving them home around two, a drunk kid in a red Jeep ran a stop sign and struck her car, killing Flynn. She'd seen very little of Flynn's brother or his parents since then. Her arm broke in that accident too; it was the only bone she had ever broken.

Orlina absently rubbed her forearm.

"C'mon," said John. "You can't just not go to the senior party."

"I'm not throwing away my future for a few solo cups of shitty beer," she replied.

"Fine," he said, finally seeing that there was really no use in this line of persuasion. "Would you throw it away for the chance to see some of the crazy stuff in old Kent's shed?"

"Are you serious?" He had Orlina's attention now. Roland Kent was really not that old, perhaps in his late fifties, but his eccentricity had passed into local legend; Orlina had once heard a third-grader claim that Kent was a hundred and ten. On somewhat more reliable authority, however, Orlina knew that strange lights and sound were sometimes observed coming from his property, where he lived alone and kept to himself. Most of the legends hinged upon just what was causing those lights and sounds.

"Dead serious," John replied.

"You don't really believe all that stuff, do you?" Orlina asked.

"I didn't," he replied, "until last night. Kent's supposed to be out of town this week, so my brother and I snuck in around half past one."

John Donahue's family lived just a quarter mile nearer to town than Kent, so ever since they'd moved in, John and his brother had taken maybe too strong of an interest in the supposed goings on. Still, Orlina's curiosity was piqued. "Go on," she said.

"You've still got open campus during lunch hour, right?"

"You bet," Orlina replied.

"Eat something during third period, then. We've got some trespassing to do."

- - - - -

It was a five-minute drive from the high school to John's house, and only a minute more to old Kent's place. Sure enough, his truck was absent and the house dark. John pulled through the driveway and parked behind the shed, so his car wasn't visible from the road.

"You got a flashlight?" he asked.

"On my phone, anyway," Orlina replied.

John shrugged. "Good enough."