Ship Falling

Chapter 9

Mary woke up on a Monday morning with a sense of missing out on something. She knew she'd been there yesterday when all those strange things had happened in the woods, but she felt like something important was going to happen, or had already happened. She got up and went through her morning routine in a daze. Had yesterday been a fever dream? Nothing like this had ever happened to her; run-ins with the paranormal were things of TV shows, not real life. As she headed out, she decided to call Ted. He was the smartest person she knew in the field of paranormal activity. She called him up and he answered the phone after about three rings. "Jesus, Mary, you better be in an alien ship or something. It's 8 in the morning!" She sighed. "You're on your way to the bus stop, Ted, i'm pretty sure you're awake by now." He grumbled out something about sleep deprivation and then grew quiet. "Do you think what happened yesterday was normal? The weird birds, the purple whatever-it-was, the thing in the trees?" Mary asked quietly. "You know what happened, Mary. Either a really, really weird and telekinetic bear was following us, or something much more, you know, out of this world." Mary stopped in her tracks. She hadn't thought it would be something from another planet. "Are you serious? You think an alien's in the forest?" Ted continued his explanation. "Well, think about it, something with bright slimy skin wouldn't survive in the forest for long since it doesn't blend in. if it was native to the forest, it would have no reason to develop such a weird texture for its skin. We don't live anywhere near a swamp. Either a very exotic pet that happens to be able to control birds ended up there, or an alien. I think you can guess which one sounds more likely." Mary had continued walking, but at a slow pace. All of it made sense to her, but it couldn't be true. It just couldn't. "We'll talk about this at school, Ted." Mary said, a bit hastily. Before he could get halfway through the word goodbye, she hung up and practically ran to the bus stop.

Looking around at her peers while the bus bumped along, it didn't take long for her to feel out of place. She usually had her nose in a book or was scrolling through her phone on the morning bus, but this morning she wasn't in the mood for any pleasant distractions. She kept seeing that shadow in the woods and remembered how scared she'd felt. Suddenly, she felt very lonely even though she was surrounded by people. All of them were happily talking or listening to music. She wondered how they would've reacted in her shoes; would they have tried to see it more clearly? Would they have taken off in a random direction, becoming frantic? She thought about what Ted had experienced. Imagining birds, suspended in the air, unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to even obey the ground laws their world was built on, made her feel increasingly uneasy. As she stared aimlessly out the window, she saw something behind an abandoned building. Like a flash it was gone as the bus turned at a sharp angle, but this time she could tell she was making things up. She was making herself scared just like she had when she first watched Friday the 13th, imagining Michael the killer on her front lawn, watching, waiting to strike. She was used to unintentionally scaring herself like this. This time, though, the monster wasn't some estranged psycho killer created with special effects and movie makeup. This was real life, and the monster plaguing her mind was anything but human. Looking for a word to properly describe it out of everything she'd learned so far, one word came to her mind; unnatural. If only this were a survival horror book where she was the final girl. She felt a tapping on her shoulder and tensed up, almost giving herself whiplash from turning around her neck. It was one of the brothers from the bus stop; he had sat next to her while she was lost in thought. He reeled back a little, shocked at her overly jumpy disposition. "Are you good? It looks like you've-" He stifled a laugh- "seen a ghost!" She looked at him with confusion. What was so funny? "Maybe I have." She said, coming off as more ominous than she meant to. He gave her a crooked grin, like he was daring her to share her story. She didn't want to say it out loud, even if he didn't mean any harm. Saying it would make it real, too real. She wasn't ready for that yet. "I, uh, saw a little ghost girl in my attic." His interest peaked off of her fake story and he pushed closer to her, urging her to go on. She backed into her seat, wanting to keep distance from him. Usually she wouldn't have minded, but being close with anyone but her friends today would end up probably making her nauseous. "She's probably the little girl from the 1800s that got pushed out of my house's attic window - under mysterious circumstances." His smile grew even wider and he jumbled his words telling her to explain more. Oddly, his enthusiasm made her a little calmer. Even though her story was a lie, any happiness spread today would make the dismal events of the day before seem a little more distant. The rest of the ride was spent theorizing with the boy about who could have pushed the girl out of the attic - maybe a vengeful babysitter or perhaps an even older ghost who was agitated by her playing dolls. It went by in a flash and soon Mary and the boy had to part ways. She carefully indexed their interaction in the archives of her brain and decided that maybe the other kids at her school weren't as dull as she thought they were. She didn't get to have any more unique conversations in her classes, though, since every period seemed to be filled with more and more homework. She did good in her classes - in fact, she'd won an academic award the year before - but sometimes even she got tired of the endless stream of work the teachers put forth. Besides, she wasn't very good at homework since all she wanted to do when she got home was shower, eat, and talk to her friends. By the time she got around to remembering her homework, it was already an hour before her usual bedtime and she had to sneak into the kitchen to make coffee. She sighed internally, predicting that that course of events would likely take place tonight. She kept busy to keep her mind off of work, but in between quick talks in the gaps between classes and teachers giving directions, her brain wandered off to a fearful place where she was surrounded by dark trees that towered over her like cathedrals and something - something putrid and evil and unnatural - was creeping towards her. She snapped back into reality sooner or later, however. By the time lunch rolled around, yesterday was all they could talk about. Oliver tried to come up with logical explanations for Ted's experience, the best of which were "figment of the imagination", "optical illusion" and "well maybe you're just crazy Ted". Mary couldn't help but giggle. Meanwhile, Anya seemed to be the only one who avoided talking about their failed hunt. Although she had acted calm and collected when she and Katherine were stuck in the cave, Mary knew she was just as freaked out. Though she didn't show it often, Mary knew that Anya feared a lot of things - things you wouldn't expect. Needles and loud noises are common fears she shared with Katherine, but Anya also had a fear of the deep ocean, of sinkholes and the vast emptiness of outer space. She was even quieter than usual today, only interrupting to agree with someone using a halfhearted "yeah" or "totally". Mary decided to share what she'd been feeling, seeing things that weren't there, but she didn't expect anyone to share her experiences - besides maybe Katherine. Surprisingly, Ted agreed with her that he'd been more creeped out by things recently. "Like, just today, I saw this thing behind an abandoned building that i'd never seen before. I haven't actually seen that thing like you guys have - well, besides you, Oliver - but it was too tall to be any guy that i've seen." The group continued to talk, but she remained silent and still. If Ted had seen it too, it must have been there. Then again, Ted was the most likely to make up paranormal things he saw. She waited until they changed the topic, afraid saying anything would give away what she'd seen. 5 minutes before lunch ended, Anya seemed to think of something and took her head out of her arms. "We should catch it." Everyone looked at her, surprised. "Catch what?" said Mary; she knew what she was referring to but was shocked at such an obviously stupid idea. "The thing, the thing in the woods. We should catch it so it can't kill any more animals." Ted was the first to veto the idea, which was even more surprising. "We're just high school kids, we couldn't overpower that thing if we tried. If it's as tall as we think it is, it could easily kill one of us. That's nothing to scoff at." Anya took on a pained look, like she knew what he was saying was true and didn't want to admit it. "Well, we can't just leave it out there. We should at least try to get evidence so people believe us and call in whoever takes care of stuff like this." Katherine sighed. "So we're risking our lives again for a stupid mission? Talk about deja vú." Oliver laughed, but Anya just nodded solemnly and looked at Ted, hoping he would agree with her plan. He looked from Katherine to Anya, undecided about who he should listen to. "You know what? Let's go," Mary declared. He stopped looking like he was watching a ping pong ball match and instead looked only at her. "If we don't do something about this thing, it's gonna haunt me. It's already given me nightmares. I'm going, more for my own sake than the forest animals." Ted nodded and sat up a little straighter in his seat. "Alright," he said. "Let's do this." Eventually, the lunch period ended with them deciding to skip on friday and go into the forest again, but not without Sophie, Mary's main patronizer, suddenly taking on an even more suspicious look on her face that no one else seemed to notice. Unbeknownst to the friend group, she was planning something - something sinister and cruel - but only time would tell what she had planned for the 5 friends.