(Chapter 8: The Design)
Mike lay down on his bed, staring at the ceiling, not quite sure what to make of anything. It was raining outside, a comforting sound that continued since the moment the investigation into the accident happened. Police came by the football stadium, asked everyone how it happened and what happened. Mike didn't mention the vision of the crows, fearing more people would think he'd lost his sanity. One hell of a way to start off the winter break, Christmas coming soon. You went in expecting a football game, a simple memorial service, and going home with two weeks of relaxing and minimal work. It's less than a week until Santa makes his rounds, and one more family was deprived of a daughter.
He looked at the clock positioned on the dresser no more than three feet away. Two in the morning. Great. They say insomnia is a sign of depression, lack of appetite should follow. Sitting up for the umpteenth time, he looked at the bulletin board set up above his bed. Across the bottom he had pictures from the yearbook of the eleven survivors. In the middle there was one of Rhonda, all smiles and enthusiasm from what seemed like a long time back. She's dead.
A tap at the window got his attention. He looked around and across the room, nothing. You're on the second floor of your house, no one short of an Olympic high jumper could reach the window, you just imagined it, Mike thought. It could be the rain, but the rain has a hard time hitting the glass. Then there was another tap, and he could see the distinct pattern of a small stone as it impacted on the glass. In some back corner of his mind he wondered how cliched it all seemed, though that thought was taken over by the curiosity over who might be throwing the stones. Opening the window, he caught one pebble right in the nose, loudly cursing.
"Mike!" someone whispered loudly over the rain. Rubbing his nose, Mike looked out the window. There was a figure standing on the lawn, female, getting drenched in the fierce storm. Black skirt, black tank top, black leather jacket, black boots.
"Mike, is that you?" she asked. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Mike could see who it was. It was Sarah.
"Yeah, it's me," he said, "good aim, you just about broke my nose."
She almost giggled, but Mike could tell that she was frightened thoroughly.
"Sorry. Look, can I come in? I have to talk to you about something, and it's pouring like mad out here" she said with some hesitance.
"Is it about Rhonda?" he asked.
She was silent for a moment before speaking again, "Can I come in please?"
Quickly, Mike closed his window. Pulling on a pair of sweat pants and a shirt, he practically ran down the stairs, stumbling in the process and landing hard on one knee. Reaching the front door, he snapped the lock off and opened it. Sarah, in all her glory, stood in front.
"Hi, Sarah," he said nervously.
"Hi Mike. It's freezing out here and I'm soaking wet, can I come in?"
"Sure," he said, stepping back and letting her in as the water literally dripped from her.
He closed the door quickly behind her as the wind and rain began to sneak in the front door, while she stood before him, taking off her boots.
"You know, make yourself at home," he said sarcastically as she took off her boots.
"Sorry," she said, "but I'm pretty soaked through here."
"I'll get you a towel and some dry clothes if you'd like," he offered.
"What I'd really like is a shower if that's all right," she said.
"All right," he said, somewhat bewildered and avoiding the obvious question in mind, "won't your parents miss you?"
"Right now, they're so hammered they couldn't give a damn if I was dead or alive," Sarah said, particularly lingering on the last part, "what about your dad?"
"Out of town on business," Mike answered as honestly as he could, trying desperately to read what was going on with his one time friend. Seeing her nervousness, he realized what was going on, "You saw it too, didn't you?"
She jerked her head around as if something wrong had been said, "Something like that."
Rummaging through her small backpack, she pulled out a novel-sized book and tossed it to Mike. He nervously caught it, almost dropping it in the process, but quickly catching it. It's cover was dark with white print, and in the dark it was hard to read. What he could see was that it had several post-it notes sticking out of it at various points, set there by Sarah.
"I suggest you read the passages with the post-its on them, you might find them interesting. Is the bathroom still where I remember?" she asked.
"Yeah, up the stairs, down the hall to the right, across from my room."
"Gotcha," she said with a faint hint of a smile, one that almost got Mike to smile back. She bounded up the stairs and made a quick turn. Mike could hear the door slam shut and soon water was running. He followed in her footsteps up the stairs, walking to the bathroom and politely tapping on the door.
"Sarah?" he said.
"Yes?" she said back, slightly strained.
"There's a bathrobe hanging on the door, feel free to use it when you're done."
Stepping away from the door, he turned to go to his room, then hearing the door to the bathroom open. Sarah stuck her face through a gap in the door (trying her best to hide the rest of her body from view) and was smiling pleasantly, the first smile Mike had seen from her since the ship sank.
"Thanks Mike," she said genuinely, before withdrawing her head and going back into the bathroom and to her shower.
Sitting on his bed, Mike turned on the reading lamp above it. The title and cover of the book shone brightly, making him shudder. It was a skull, but not a normal one, it was darker than normal and had a pervading sense of evil to it. The cover read:
THE DESIGN: The Curse of Flight 180 and other disasters
By Alex Browning and Clear Rivers
Edited and Foreword written by Kimberly Corman-Burke
-----------------
For a few minutes, Mike listened to the water as it run through the nearby wall, trying to make sure Sarah was all right. Then, taking her suggestion, he flipped through the pages that she had marked. The stories within seemed almost random, all relating to death and destruction, natural disasters and man-made accidents. The greater portion of the book was written about Flight 180, the mid-air explosion that had lent itself to one of the greatest modern urban legends, that of the premonition and the death curse. The book was written by the two people who had successfully gotten off of the plane and avoided the curse, having written the book while in seclusion. According to the foreword though, they had both since died. Flipping through more pages, he read in grim detail of the series of accidents that led to the deaths of all but two of the seven who had left the plane before takeoff, though as the foreword indicated, the other two eventually died themselves. There were more incidents mentioned, historical ones. A man who had a premonition about the Titanic sinking and cancelled his ticket, only to be run over by a horse-drawn carriage. A young Japanese girl having a premonition of the Hiroshima attack and convincing her family to leave town and avoid the blast, all killed when a plane fell out of the sky and hit them. Stories went on, bus crashes, shipwrecks, volcano eruptions, the 9/11 attacks, an island infested with plague, train wrecks, tornadoes, all seemingly disconnected incidents with similar ties. They all had individuals who had premonitions and avoided their imminent death and often took people with them. Then one by one or all at a time, they were killed under mysterious circumstances, all with a seeming pattern as to the order of death. Death's Design as the book stated. With wide eyes, Mike kept thumbing from page to page, enthralled and alternately terrified with what the book had written.
"Yeah, I thought so," Sarah said as she dried her hair with a towel.
Looking up, Mike saw Sarah standing in the doorway dressed in nothing but a large white bathrobe with "Property of Bates Motel" written jokingly above one breast pocket, wrapping her hair with a towel.
"Why me? Why not Tina, she's your best friend," he said.
"Because she wouldn't believe me, and she wasn't always my best friend," she said.
In the brief yet slightly awkward moment of silence, the two just stayed staring at each other, sizing each other up, not having seen either vulnerable in a great many years. In the back of his mind, Mike admired her beauty, same as it had been since he first knew her. Looking back at her old friend, Sarah realized that he was not half the geek she once remembered him to be, he could be cute if he were to lose a few pounds and get contacts, maybe get a haircut. After a brief moment, both realized they were staring, each quickly looking away. Looking to the book, Sarah tried to change the subject.
"That's some scary shit, huh?" was all she could manage to get out as she intimated the book.
"Yeah, I know. That's what's happening here, isn't it?" Mike asked even though he knew the answer.
"I think so. Rhonda falling could have been an accident or a coincidence, but I had a something like a premonition, I saw a sign," Sarah said with some fear as she sat down in a chair.
"Me too," Mike said, "reflected in a piece of glass, I saw a sign."
"Just like the book," said Sarah, "it's all happened before. We cheated death once, it's not going to let us get by."
"But it says there's a design, and if we can figure it out we might be able to be one step ahead of death," Mike stated.
"Exactly," Sarah said as she looked above Mike's bed. The bulletin board caught her eye, the pictures and articles all seeming too familiar.
"I got one just like it," Sarah admitted shamefacedly.
Mike looked where she was looking and looked away quickly sheepishly.
"Dad thought it was a little obsessive," he said.
"It is, but it might hold the key," she said as she stood up. Looking to the board, she tore down a newspaper picture of the eleven survivors floating in the raft.
"Eleven of us got off of that boat. Rhonda's gone, that leaves ten. You, me, Nick, Mr. Christy, Lori, Clinton, Darwin, Rudy, Katie and Tina are still a part of whatever the design is. Now, as history seems to hold it, the order of death tends to be in the order that they should have died, am I right so far."
"Yes, but…" Mike said as he flipped to the book's foreword, "the car wreck that this Burke girl talks about, it had people who should have died yet survived, but they were killed in reverse order."
"Also true, which means that the order is not constant," Sarah stated, "but finding out where everyone else was sitting on the boat could help us determine what the order is or is not. Do you remember where everyone sat?"
Probing his memory to the best of his ability, Mike couldn't remember.
"Sorry," was all he could say.
"Damn it," Sarah said, "neither do I."
Thinking back, Mike tried his best to remember every detail about the day he would never forget, water, drowning, screaming, Nick and Mr. Christy joking. Nick. Something about Nick. Something that Nick always had…
"Nick!" Mike yelled.
"What?" Sarah responded in a bewildered manner.
"Nick! The guy's always got that camera with him and he's always taking pictures, I remember he was at the end of the boat and I remember seeing a flash from the end. It must have been him."
Suddenly getting excited, Sarah's face brightened, "Let's do it, let's get Nick!"
She started to get up, at which point Mike himself got up and had to practically restrain his friend.
"Hey, hey, I don't know if you realized it but it's about three in the morning, all reasonable people, Nick included are probably asleep now."
"Yeah, but if he can help prevent another one of us from dying, then I'd like to see it," Sarah said, yawning and visibly tired.
"Well neither of us is going to be any good without any sleep. Let's get a few hours of shuteye and then get a move on, all right?" he asked as he tried to reason with Sarah.
"All right," she said, "but watch for the signs. Either of us could be next, we look out for each other."
"Just like old times," Mike said as he forced a smile.
"Like old times…" Sarah said, trailing off, "can I sleep in here?"
After a moments consideration, Mike said, "Sure, no problem, I'll just shack up on the couch downstairs."
"No Mike," Sarah said, "I'd like it if you were here too. We've shared beds when we were kids, remember?"
"Yeah," Mike said as he looked up and down her body and kicked himself in his mind, "but you were a bit different then."
"And so were you," she said, then smiling her evil smile and grinning, "don't worry, I promise you won't get any tonight."
"Just the same," Mike said, "it'll be a little awkward. You have the bed, I'll sleep in the chair."
"Suit yourself," she said as they traded positions, Sarah walking to the bed while Mike walked over to his chair, taking a pillow with him. As Sarah crossed the room, she caught her foot on a hat that had been left there.
"Honestly Mike, I thought you would have cleaned your room once in the last six years," she said absentmindedly, throwing the hat across the room. The piece of clothing sailed far, landing on Mike's clock radio. Sarah and Mike both jumped slightly as the radio jumped to life, spouting Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust". Going over to turn it off, Mike saw that the numbers on the face of the clock were shuffling around rapidly. They stopped on a combination of lines and dots that made up C7.
"C-seven," Sarah said, "what's that mean?"
"It's a sign," Mike said with great fear.
No more words were exchanged in the night, the pair resigning themselves to a fitful sleep while spending the rest of their time mentally trying to figure out what C7 meant.
Mike lay down on his bed, staring at the ceiling, not quite sure what to make of anything. It was raining outside, a comforting sound that continued since the moment the investigation into the accident happened. Police came by the football stadium, asked everyone how it happened and what happened. Mike didn't mention the vision of the crows, fearing more people would think he'd lost his sanity. One hell of a way to start off the winter break, Christmas coming soon. You went in expecting a football game, a simple memorial service, and going home with two weeks of relaxing and minimal work. It's less than a week until Santa makes his rounds, and one more family was deprived of a daughter.
He looked at the clock positioned on the dresser no more than three feet away. Two in the morning. Great. They say insomnia is a sign of depression, lack of appetite should follow. Sitting up for the umpteenth time, he looked at the bulletin board set up above his bed. Across the bottom he had pictures from the yearbook of the eleven survivors. In the middle there was one of Rhonda, all smiles and enthusiasm from what seemed like a long time back. She's dead.
A tap at the window got his attention. He looked around and across the room, nothing. You're on the second floor of your house, no one short of an Olympic high jumper could reach the window, you just imagined it, Mike thought. It could be the rain, but the rain has a hard time hitting the glass. Then there was another tap, and he could see the distinct pattern of a small stone as it impacted on the glass. In some back corner of his mind he wondered how cliched it all seemed, though that thought was taken over by the curiosity over who might be throwing the stones. Opening the window, he caught one pebble right in the nose, loudly cursing.
"Mike!" someone whispered loudly over the rain. Rubbing his nose, Mike looked out the window. There was a figure standing on the lawn, female, getting drenched in the fierce storm. Black skirt, black tank top, black leather jacket, black boots.
"Mike, is that you?" she asked. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Mike could see who it was. It was Sarah.
"Yeah, it's me," he said, "good aim, you just about broke my nose."
She almost giggled, but Mike could tell that she was frightened thoroughly.
"Sorry. Look, can I come in? I have to talk to you about something, and it's pouring like mad out here" she said with some hesitance.
"Is it about Rhonda?" he asked.
She was silent for a moment before speaking again, "Can I come in please?"
Quickly, Mike closed his window. Pulling on a pair of sweat pants and a shirt, he practically ran down the stairs, stumbling in the process and landing hard on one knee. Reaching the front door, he snapped the lock off and opened it. Sarah, in all her glory, stood in front.
"Hi, Sarah," he said nervously.
"Hi Mike. It's freezing out here and I'm soaking wet, can I come in?"
"Sure," he said, stepping back and letting her in as the water literally dripped from her.
He closed the door quickly behind her as the wind and rain began to sneak in the front door, while she stood before him, taking off her boots.
"You know, make yourself at home," he said sarcastically as she took off her boots.
"Sorry," she said, "but I'm pretty soaked through here."
"I'll get you a towel and some dry clothes if you'd like," he offered.
"What I'd really like is a shower if that's all right," she said.
"All right," he said, somewhat bewildered and avoiding the obvious question in mind, "won't your parents miss you?"
"Right now, they're so hammered they couldn't give a damn if I was dead or alive," Sarah said, particularly lingering on the last part, "what about your dad?"
"Out of town on business," Mike answered as honestly as he could, trying desperately to read what was going on with his one time friend. Seeing her nervousness, he realized what was going on, "You saw it too, didn't you?"
She jerked her head around as if something wrong had been said, "Something like that."
Rummaging through her small backpack, she pulled out a novel-sized book and tossed it to Mike. He nervously caught it, almost dropping it in the process, but quickly catching it. It's cover was dark with white print, and in the dark it was hard to read. What he could see was that it had several post-it notes sticking out of it at various points, set there by Sarah.
"I suggest you read the passages with the post-its on them, you might find them interesting. Is the bathroom still where I remember?" she asked.
"Yeah, up the stairs, down the hall to the right, across from my room."
"Gotcha," she said with a faint hint of a smile, one that almost got Mike to smile back. She bounded up the stairs and made a quick turn. Mike could hear the door slam shut and soon water was running. He followed in her footsteps up the stairs, walking to the bathroom and politely tapping on the door.
"Sarah?" he said.
"Yes?" she said back, slightly strained.
"There's a bathrobe hanging on the door, feel free to use it when you're done."
Stepping away from the door, he turned to go to his room, then hearing the door to the bathroom open. Sarah stuck her face through a gap in the door (trying her best to hide the rest of her body from view) and was smiling pleasantly, the first smile Mike had seen from her since the ship sank.
"Thanks Mike," she said genuinely, before withdrawing her head and going back into the bathroom and to her shower.
Sitting on his bed, Mike turned on the reading lamp above it. The title and cover of the book shone brightly, making him shudder. It was a skull, but not a normal one, it was darker than normal and had a pervading sense of evil to it. The cover read:
THE DESIGN: The Curse of Flight 180 and other disasters
By Alex Browning and Clear Rivers
Edited and Foreword written by Kimberly Corman-Burke
-----------------
For a few minutes, Mike listened to the water as it run through the nearby wall, trying to make sure Sarah was all right. Then, taking her suggestion, he flipped through the pages that she had marked. The stories within seemed almost random, all relating to death and destruction, natural disasters and man-made accidents. The greater portion of the book was written about Flight 180, the mid-air explosion that had lent itself to one of the greatest modern urban legends, that of the premonition and the death curse. The book was written by the two people who had successfully gotten off of the plane and avoided the curse, having written the book while in seclusion. According to the foreword though, they had both since died. Flipping through more pages, he read in grim detail of the series of accidents that led to the deaths of all but two of the seven who had left the plane before takeoff, though as the foreword indicated, the other two eventually died themselves. There were more incidents mentioned, historical ones. A man who had a premonition about the Titanic sinking and cancelled his ticket, only to be run over by a horse-drawn carriage. A young Japanese girl having a premonition of the Hiroshima attack and convincing her family to leave town and avoid the blast, all killed when a plane fell out of the sky and hit them. Stories went on, bus crashes, shipwrecks, volcano eruptions, the 9/11 attacks, an island infested with plague, train wrecks, tornadoes, all seemingly disconnected incidents with similar ties. They all had individuals who had premonitions and avoided their imminent death and often took people with them. Then one by one or all at a time, they were killed under mysterious circumstances, all with a seeming pattern as to the order of death. Death's Design as the book stated. With wide eyes, Mike kept thumbing from page to page, enthralled and alternately terrified with what the book had written.
"Yeah, I thought so," Sarah said as she dried her hair with a towel.
Looking up, Mike saw Sarah standing in the doorway dressed in nothing but a large white bathrobe with "Property of Bates Motel" written jokingly above one breast pocket, wrapping her hair with a towel.
"Why me? Why not Tina, she's your best friend," he said.
"Because she wouldn't believe me, and she wasn't always my best friend," she said.
In the brief yet slightly awkward moment of silence, the two just stayed staring at each other, sizing each other up, not having seen either vulnerable in a great many years. In the back of his mind, Mike admired her beauty, same as it had been since he first knew her. Looking back at her old friend, Sarah realized that he was not half the geek she once remembered him to be, he could be cute if he were to lose a few pounds and get contacts, maybe get a haircut. After a brief moment, both realized they were staring, each quickly looking away. Looking to the book, Sarah tried to change the subject.
"That's some scary shit, huh?" was all she could manage to get out as she intimated the book.
"Yeah, I know. That's what's happening here, isn't it?" Mike asked even though he knew the answer.
"I think so. Rhonda falling could have been an accident or a coincidence, but I had a something like a premonition, I saw a sign," Sarah said with some fear as she sat down in a chair.
"Me too," Mike said, "reflected in a piece of glass, I saw a sign."
"Just like the book," said Sarah, "it's all happened before. We cheated death once, it's not going to let us get by."
"But it says there's a design, and if we can figure it out we might be able to be one step ahead of death," Mike stated.
"Exactly," Sarah said as she looked above Mike's bed. The bulletin board caught her eye, the pictures and articles all seeming too familiar.
"I got one just like it," Sarah admitted shamefacedly.
Mike looked where she was looking and looked away quickly sheepishly.
"Dad thought it was a little obsessive," he said.
"It is, but it might hold the key," she said as she stood up. Looking to the board, she tore down a newspaper picture of the eleven survivors floating in the raft.
"Eleven of us got off of that boat. Rhonda's gone, that leaves ten. You, me, Nick, Mr. Christy, Lori, Clinton, Darwin, Rudy, Katie and Tina are still a part of whatever the design is. Now, as history seems to hold it, the order of death tends to be in the order that they should have died, am I right so far."
"Yes, but…" Mike said as he flipped to the book's foreword, "the car wreck that this Burke girl talks about, it had people who should have died yet survived, but they were killed in reverse order."
"Also true, which means that the order is not constant," Sarah stated, "but finding out where everyone else was sitting on the boat could help us determine what the order is or is not. Do you remember where everyone sat?"
Probing his memory to the best of his ability, Mike couldn't remember.
"Sorry," was all he could say.
"Damn it," Sarah said, "neither do I."
Thinking back, Mike tried his best to remember every detail about the day he would never forget, water, drowning, screaming, Nick and Mr. Christy joking. Nick. Something about Nick. Something that Nick always had…
"Nick!" Mike yelled.
"What?" Sarah responded in a bewildered manner.
"Nick! The guy's always got that camera with him and he's always taking pictures, I remember he was at the end of the boat and I remember seeing a flash from the end. It must have been him."
Suddenly getting excited, Sarah's face brightened, "Let's do it, let's get Nick!"
She started to get up, at which point Mike himself got up and had to practically restrain his friend.
"Hey, hey, I don't know if you realized it but it's about three in the morning, all reasonable people, Nick included are probably asleep now."
"Yeah, but if he can help prevent another one of us from dying, then I'd like to see it," Sarah said, yawning and visibly tired.
"Well neither of us is going to be any good without any sleep. Let's get a few hours of shuteye and then get a move on, all right?" he asked as he tried to reason with Sarah.
"All right," she said, "but watch for the signs. Either of us could be next, we look out for each other."
"Just like old times," Mike said as he forced a smile.
"Like old times…" Sarah said, trailing off, "can I sleep in here?"
After a moments consideration, Mike said, "Sure, no problem, I'll just shack up on the couch downstairs."
"No Mike," Sarah said, "I'd like it if you were here too. We've shared beds when we were kids, remember?"
"Yeah," Mike said as he looked up and down her body and kicked himself in his mind, "but you were a bit different then."
"And so were you," she said, then smiling her evil smile and grinning, "don't worry, I promise you won't get any tonight."
"Just the same," Mike said, "it'll be a little awkward. You have the bed, I'll sleep in the chair."
"Suit yourself," she said as they traded positions, Sarah walking to the bed while Mike walked over to his chair, taking a pillow with him. As Sarah crossed the room, she caught her foot on a hat that had been left there.
"Honestly Mike, I thought you would have cleaned your room once in the last six years," she said absentmindedly, throwing the hat across the room. The piece of clothing sailed far, landing on Mike's clock radio. Sarah and Mike both jumped slightly as the radio jumped to life, spouting Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust". Going over to turn it off, Mike saw that the numbers on the face of the clock were shuffling around rapidly. They stopped on a combination of lines and dots that made up C7.
"C-seven," Sarah said, "what's that mean?"
"It's a sign," Mike said with great fear.
No more words were exchanged in the night, the pair resigning themselves to a fitful sleep while spending the rest of their time mentally trying to figure out what C7 meant.