Freddy checked his phone. Ninety minutes in and they weren't even through a third of the Ramones discography. It was going to be a long night.
Billy's face was buried in Annie's clunky old laptop. Its front was covered in faded stickers that he could only half read.
"Hey, Freddy," Billy said, jabbing him with his elbow but not meeting his gaze. "Look!"
Freddy turned his head, taking in the screen. Positioned across its center was a picture of Billy's dad holding up a lopsided cake unevenly coated with butter cream frosting. Something was scribbled across the top in thin blue icing, but he could only half decipher it from the shaky image.
"I made the whole thing from scratch myself!" He circled the cake with his mouse.
"Mmm-hmm," Freddy replied, not meeting his gaze.
For the past two days, Billy had ignored every single message that he'd sent him. Freddy knew he'd seen them - the "Read" notification below each proved it. So, once school had ended for the day, he'd kind of, sort of kidnapped him. Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that. But if Billy wanted to keep being a depressed weirdo then he'd just have to do it with some company.
Truth be told, Billy probably needed the change in scenery. According to Annie, he'd barely left her living room of his own volition since Sunday except to shower. How she'd managed to get him to eat or buy some new clothes was beyond him. As far as Freddy was concerned, Billy had spent the last two days doing nothing but looking at pictures of his dad in Google Photos. Judging by how quickly his friend could find them, his hypothesis was probably true.
His whole night so far had been nothing but looking through old photos and listening to Billy spout off random trivia about his dad. So far, Freddy knew that he'd gone bald at twenty-seven, been the back vocalist in a punk band during college, and only ever ate his cereal dry. He also had a fear of undercooked meat that caused him to only eat steak that was the texture of shoe leather, had gotten a sci-fi short story published in a now defunct, nationally-syndicated magazine when he was only fourteen, and was allergic to bee stings.
If Billy kept this up much longer, Freddy feared that he'd soon know Dr. Sivana's social security number.
But, well, how was he supposed to tell Billy to stop? It was weird as hell, but Freddy figured that it was better to sit through this than let Billy keep doing this same thing alone.
"And here's when we went to Knott's Berry Farm last summer," Billy said. He clicked through a few photos.
Freddy pulled the one earbud he'd been sharing with Billy from his ear, momentarily embracing the relative silence. Grabbing his crutches, he walked over to his dresser and pulled out a box of Nilla wafers hidden behind a stack of comic books.
He shook it. Good, Darla hadn't found them. "You want some?"
"I'm not hungry."
"More for me." He poured some into his hand.
"Hey, I just realized that I forgot to show you something."
"What?" Probably his dad's baby pictures or some snapshots of their last vacation to Timbuktu.
"I discovered these Sunday." Billy pulled the other earbud, leaving them falling off the edge of Freddy's bed. "I just typed my dad's name into Google and a ton of these came up."
"What?" Freddy asked. Sitting back down, he peered at the screen.
"[Open Access] A Review of Shared Hallucinogenic Phenomena in the Midwest: 1995 - 2015"
Crosby, L., MD; Sivana, T., Ph.D.; Caine, D., Ph.D.; and Leland, J., MD, Ph.D.
"Am I missing something?" Freddy squinted at the screen.
"My dad's written like a million papers. I can't even read most of them because they cost like two hundred bucks each to rent them for two days, but from what I can tell most of them are about the wizard. You know, Sha..."
"...Zam." Freddy finished. He narrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
"Just listen to this." He scrolled down past a long stream of text. "'While alien abduction remains the most commonly reported mass delusion, at a rate of 63%, abductions by 'The Weiss Wizard' continue to occur in 21% of cases. Reported experiences remain relatively uniform among a widespread demographic of patients.'"
Freddy peered closer, taking in the text and figures.
"'Subjects commonly report seeing a group of statues that bear a striking resemblance to historical sketches of the seven mythological Kahndaq manifestations of vice.'"
"Give me that." He didn't even wait for Billy to give him the laptop, just took it and began looking over some of the other tabs that Billy had open. He clicked a few, scanning their contents. "Jesus, you mean he's been researching this stuff for years? That would have been nice to know when we literally had to find those stupid sins!"
"It's not like I knew! Dad didn't really talk about work besides what classes he was teaching for the semester."
That made sense, of course. Billy had been just as shocked as he'd been when they'd broken into his study. But reading through the case reports was surreal.
"They keep acting like it's a bunch of hallucinations!" He clenched his fists. "My dad had to know it was real, right?"
"Are you even hearing yourself? Of course he knew it was real! Didn't you say he met the wizard?"
"Yeah, when he was a kid." Billy gestured towards the screen. "But it keeps saying..."
"I know what it says! But why wouldn't your dad act like it was fake? You can't just go screaming to the world that you got kidnapped by a wizard and taken to some weird cavern unless you want a one way ticket to the loony bin."
Billy's face fell. "But..." He never finished.
Freddy pressed the laptop shut and sat it in the empty space next to him. He pulled Billy into a hug, running his fingers along his back the way Rosa always did. "Man, I know this sucks."
"He's gone. You know? I wake up every morning and it takes me a few seconds to remember that. But right before I do, I keep wondering what he made for breakfast."
Freddy said nothing, just held him tighter. Rosa made this look so easy.
"My whole life is just insane right now. I can barely believe what happened Friday night."
"Tell me, champion, do you wish to die?"
Freddy shook the memory away. He pulled away. Billy's eyes, he noticed, were watery. "Look, you're not the only whose life is weird right now." Freddy grabbed a box of tissues from his nightstand. "It's pretty late. Maybe we should get some sleep before I have to stuff you in my closet tomorrow morning."
"What?"
"Where the hell else am I supposed to put you? You said Annie's mom is home now." He rubbed his chin. "And besides, our basement is freezing!"
Billy rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm not tired."
"Annie says you slept thirteen hours yesterday!"
"You wouldn't be tired either if you did that." Billy picked Freddy's phone back up, slipping both earbuds in this time. "Look, I won't bother you if you want to go to sleep." He stood and climbed into the top bunk.
Freddy groaned. He had school tomorrow, didn't he? It wasn't exciting news by any means, but it was as good of an excuse to skip listening to "Pet Sematary" for the third time that night as any.
"You've been in your room a lot lately."
Freddy didn't look up from his plate of toast. "Yeah?"
"You trying to hide something?" Mary asked.
"Just his internet search history," Eugene replied.
Mary glared at him before returning her gaze to Freddy. "So what's wrong? It feels like you hardly talk to us anymore. You never have any news to report over dinner either."
Freddy shrugged. "I lead a boring life."
"Rosa's really worried." Mary's frown deepened. "And Darla? She thinks you're mad at her."
Freddy's stomach flipped like a pancake. "Look, I've just been really busy lately."
"With what?" Pedro asked, looking up from his phone. Why the hell had he been listening?
"Just stuff."
"That doesn't sound suspicious at all." Eugene smirked.
Freddy clenched his fists. He hadn't gotten out of bed that morning to be lectured by little miss know it all and a nine year old who never turned off his computer. "Look, things have been really weird for me lately. Excuse me for not wanting to make everyone else deal with my problems!"
He stood, leaving his food right where he left it. No doubt that'd make him stuck with dishes duty that night, never mind that it had just been his turn the night before. Whatever, he reminded himself, he could put up with that.
When he reached his room, he found a note on his nightstand.
"Decided to come out of the closet," it read in blue ink and hurried handwriting. "Plugged your phone back in. See you later?"
Billy hadn't written where he went and right then Freddy didn't care. He crumpled the piece of notebook paper into a ball and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.
In the end, Billy had gotten more sleep than he had. Freddy had gone to bed around 12:30 a.m. and woken up less than two hours later furiously panting. The sharper edges of the dream had faded in the hours since, but he could still distinctly remember the feel of Dr. Sivana's hands around his throat, his palms pushing inwards, and the cold metal sting of lockers pushing against his own back. A few teachers and students had walked by, given the two a quick glance, and then walked past, their paces faster and eyes locked on the ground.
"Why did you say that name? What the hell did the wizard tell you about him?"
So many voices had spoken at once that he hadn't been sure which to try and answer. Not that it had really mattered, because when he opened his mouth all he could do was desperately gasp for air.
And still the people walked on. Didn't anyone else see the supervillain? Anyone at all?
Freddy shook the thought away. It had just been a dream, after all.
Billy had been snoring when he awoke. He'd spent the whole night listening to him while he himself tossed and turned. No matter how hard Freddy had squished his eyes shut, he hadn't been able to return to sleep. The image of the bridge collapsing had filled the darkness behind his eyelids.
Whatever his dad called himself, Billy had spent the last four days crying over a supervillain.
It wasn't that Billy had particularly wanted to go to school. While a month prior he had been stressing over getting A's on all of his finals, these days he couldn't tell algebra II, Spanish, and American literature apart. Everything just bled together, and what little he ended up remembering he couldn't piece back into a sensible whole.
But, Billy reminded himself, he'd be out before the first bell rang.
He didn't even want to imagine what would have happened had someone actually been in the bathroom stall. Immediately teleported back? Freddy's closet wasn't comfortable by any means, but at least it wasn't awkward.
Well, not that awkward.
But no one was there. Really, at this hour it shouldn't have been surprising. It was, what, five thirty in the morning in this part of the country?
It wasn't like he had anywhere else to be. And better to get this done now when he only had the janitor to deal with rather than a bunch of students and teachers.
Billy felt like he was in a horror movie. The hallway was deathly silent and only half lit. He walked down the east wing slowly, turning his head behind him every few seconds to make sure it was truly empty. The whole place reeked of cleaning supplies.
It was a bit like being in the hospital after-
He shook his head. That hadn't really happened to him, had it? And even if it had, all that truly mattered was what was happening right now.
His heart was hammering against his rib cage when he finally made it to his locker. With shaking hands, he began turning the wheel of his lock. Two tries later and it still hadn't opened. He gritted his teeth, holding his fists behind his back. Billy took a breath in. Out. In. Out.
When he next jiggled his lock, it finally clicked open.
Billy's chest tightened when he saw the inner door of his locker. Taped between class schedules and old announcement fliers were a handful of photos. Right near his eye level was a picture of him and his dad at one of the trivia team regional competitions from the year prior. Billy was grinning a mile wide, a golden medal held high. He carefully untaped it and placed it in his jacket's breast pocket. There was another taped near the top of his locker that his dad had made them get done professionally as a kid. It had been shortly after Billy had moved to California. While the actual photo shoot had long since left his memory, he could still remember putting his hand under his collar and scratching at his neck and repeatedly pulling off his clip on bow tie. The suit his dad had picked out for him had been downright suffocating on that eighty degree day. His dad, younger and brighter eyed, sat next to him, just as sharply dressed. He knew his father kept a larger copy of the same picture on his nightstand.
Had.
One picture was just of his dad. He was dressed in a bottle green sweater vest and collared white shirt. Billy wasn't sure where the picture had been taken, only that it had been at some conference. He'd used it in a Spanish class presentation on his family. Compared to some of his classmates, who had multiple siblings or aunts, uncles, and grandparents who lived with them to discuss, Billy had only spoken for a short time. In a last minute effort to meet the two minute minimum time requirement, he'd discussed goldfish of years past.
The last photo of his dad was one Billy had taken himself. He'd brought it in to show his American history teacher once and forgotten to ever take it home. Pictured was his dad at Gettysburg in a blue Revolutionary War uniform, a fake bayonet held waist high. Billy had been, what, eleven when it was taken? They'd only rented costumes for an hour, but they'd itched so badly that as soon as they were done taking photos they'd returned them. And what a waste of money they'd apparently been. According to his teacher, the costumes had been almost laughably inaccurate.
Slipping the last one into his pocket, he looked over the few remaining photos he had up. One was of the marching band. He could see himself near the right of the center in the second row. Another was his homeroom from the semester prior on the first day of class. A teacher had printed it out for them. The last was a clipping of his swim team friends taken by the school newspaper. Billy left them where they were. Maybe he'd come get them again. Maybe he wouldn't. Even the day after next was too far away in the future for him to worry about.
Billy turned to the inside of his locker. Most everything of importance he'd taken home with him on Friday. His school laptop, a zip up bag holding his calculator and pencils, some notebooks, and even two textbooks. They were all ashes now. What little remained mostly wasn't of any use to him. Even if he cared about his remaining textbooks, they didn't actually belong to him. His planner was a waste of trees. Really, all that was worth taking was his spare jacket. It was emblazened on the back with his school's logo and mascot. He always kept it in his locker in case he forgot one at home. Keeping the hallways and classrooms at a constant forty-five degrees was Principal Minerva's preferred way of stretching dollars.
It was only when he pulled it from its hook that Billy noticed how heavy the jacket was. He held it up, his eyes landing on a bulge in the bottom left pocket.
How the hell did that get here? he wondered, holding up the Magic Eight ball in the dim light. The last time he'd taken it to school with him, he couldn't have been no more than a fourth grader.
Throwing his coat over his shoulder, he held the ball up. It looked no more scratched than it had been before, though he couldn't be sure if the paint on the top had always been that chipped.
Are things going to be okay?
He shook it before holding it up. A blanket of blackness was his only greeting. Billy shook it harder, his eyes locked upwards on the space where the answer should have appeared.
Nothing.
"Well?" He shook it harder, passing it first from one hand to the other.
Zilch.
Billy rubbed his forehead with one hand. The other felt as though it were being dragged down by a lead weight. Oh, what did it matter if it didn't work any longer? This was what had started this whole mess, wasn't it?
"William Sivana?"
Billy froze, his grip tightening on the Magic Eight ball. All he had to do was release his hold on it and blink. Bam, freedom and further embarrassment removed. Yet, suddenly, he could do neither.
"William, is that really you?"
Billy turned. Hurrying towards him was Mr. Dudley, the vice principal. A pudgy, ever smiling older man, he had made a habit out of learning the name and recognizing the face of everyone at school. He was mostly balding save for three tufts of white hair that decorated the top of his head and the sides above each ear.
"I..." He looked across the hallway. If he bolted straight for the boy's bathroom, he could easily outrun the man and be across the country before his vice principal even pushed open the door.
"You're okay!" He was only ten feet from Billy now and getting closer with each step. "The police haven't stopped calling us about you."
"What?!"
Shit, he'd definitely have to go find Freddy now. Who cared if he was probably already in class that day? The authorities were probably looking for him too.
Mr. Dudley's face softened. "You're hardly in trouble, my boy. But you must understand that the authorities like getting these missing person cases wrapped up as soon as they can."
Mr. Dudley's office was small, cramped, and smelled like old leather. His bookshelves and cabinets were filled with stacks of paper. That he had any spare space on his desk to write was nothing short of a miracle.
"Hungry?" He held out a plastic bowl overflowing with Jolly Ranchers.
Billy shook his head. "No thank you, sir." He hadn't been sitting in the hard plastic seat opposite the vice principal for more than a minute and already his butt was going numb.
"I was quite surprised when I saw your name on the absentee list Monday morning. That there wasn't a reason only made me more concerned." He picked up some papers from his desk and began sorting through them. "Before these past two days, you've had perfect attendance."
Billy gave a weak laugh. "Nobody's perfect."
"Then I got the phone call from the police not fifteen minutes afterwards and it all made sense." He shook his head. "What a sad business. I saw the report on the news but had never realized one of our students lived at Imperial until the call came in. The building's owner even tried calling, but the law prevented us from telling her anything."
Billy slapped on a thin smile and nodded. He averted his gaze from Mr. Dudley to the window behind him. Only hints of sunlight came in through the curtain's slats.
"You and your father were one of the handful of people that the authorities found no traces of when interviewing the survivors. I must admit, I feared the worst." He wrinkled his eyebrows. "Might I inquire about your father?"
It was as if he'd flipped a switch. Tears decorated the corners of Billy's eyes within an instant.
"I don't know what happened to my dad."
Wasn't that true, in its own grotesque way? The past few days easily could have been one extended Kafkaesque nightmare. Hell, the past few weeks easily qualified as such.
"I don't even think my dad got home that night. My phone had broken earlier that day, so it's not like I could reach him. Then the fire alarms started going off and I just ran. It wasn't even a drill. There was really smoke and everything was so hot. I just went down the fire escape, pushing past people as I went. And when I got outside, I just kept running."
Everything came out so quickly and so easily that Billy half believed himself. In comparison, watching news clips and reading articles about the fire on Monday morning had been surreal, distant. The burnt building he'd seen earlier had quickly become fuzzy in his mind. Now, its image was sharp and clear once more.
"Where have you been?"
"With friends." Again, it wasn't a lie. "I haven't been able to contact my dad. I kept calling him on my friend's phone but he never picked up."
"And your friends' parents didn't think to report to the authorities that you were at her home?"
"Well, her mom didn't really know that I was there."
He pulled open a cabinet drawer and pulled something out. "This is where I keep the good stuff. Are you sure that you don't want anything?" He held up a half full bag of mini candy bars.
"Really, I'm not hungry."
"I suppose I can't blame you for that." He picked up his telephone. "I really do have to call the police."
"But I'm not in trouble?"
"Of course not. Oh, you might have given me a scare being here so early, but it's such a relief to have found you."
"There was an, uh, unlocked door. I just wanted to come in and grab some stuff from my locker." His jacket was in his lap. He'd slipped the Magic Eight ball back into its pocket. He couldn't really get rid of it. It was more than just special; it was his dad's. The weight on his legs was less a brick dragging him down now than it was a weighted blanket.
"Billy!" Annie raced forward, grabbing him in a tight hug. He returned it, squeezing her as hard as he could. When they pulled away, she looked him over. "You don't know how worried I've been since... Since the call."
Truth be told, the whole day before had moved like a whirlwind. Once the police had arrived, Billy had spent half the morning in a cramped office just opposite the teacher's lounge explaining to a policewoman and a social worker what had happened. That largely meant repeating everything he'd told Mr. Dudley and playing dumb for the rest. Try as he might, tears always hit him when they brought up his dad. The two women seemed to have an endless supply of tissues between them.
"No, I don't know what happened to my dad! How many more times do I have to keep saying that?"
"Billy, we just thought..." He could still remember the way the social worker, Ms. Zhu's, lips had crinkled into a frown. "If you think of anything, let us know."
In the end, he'd brought up only two things about his father: his recent eye problems and where he worked. Billy had been honest when admitting he didn't know which doctor his father had gone too. In retrospect, he couldn't be sure if his father had ever actually gone to one.
"Oh, sorry to bother you, but I have this demon ball stuck in my face. Would you mind getting me signed up for an X-ray?"
It had taken Ms. Zhu less than a minute to find the phone number for the department his father worked at on the university's website. She'd left for a few minutes to make her call. When she had returned, her frown was heavier than ever.
It shouldn't have surprised him that his dad hadn't called into, let alone gone to, work in the past few days. But it made his eyes water all over again. It was just another reminder, he supposed, of his father's absence. That gaping hole in his life that threatened to swallow everything else. Out came more tissues.
Finally, the policewoman, Ms. Reed, had asked about any family members they might be able to contact. The first and only people who had come to mind had been Aunt Adelaide and Annie. He couldn't remember his aunt's number, so he'd had to give them Annie's. According to Ms. Zhu, she'd answered on the first ring.
So, some thirty-two hours after arriving in California, things finally made some sort of sense.
Up until this point, he'd only ever spoken to Aunt Addy twice on the phone. The pictures he'd seen of her couldn't compare to seeing in her real life, if only because of how static she was in them. She was exactly six feet tall, with a petite ballerina's frame and a firm, practiced step. She was dressed in a blue pantsuit with matching colored beaded bracelets. Her hair, which was cropped close to her skull and held only a hint of grey at the temples, only seemed to exist to emphasize her dark, serious eyes. Her gaze had an almost owl-like intensity.
She had given him only a curt nod before turning to Ms. Zhu. Billy had ended up spending the night at the child services office downtown. He'd slept in an empty office on a cot. When morning arrived, the two had shared some Nutri-Grain bars and cups of watery hot chocolate.
"I understand that this is urgent."
"We wouldn't have called you if this wasn't a pressing matter. We tried to see if there were other family members we could contact - closer relations to be exact - but Billy said you two were the only people he could think of."
Aunt Addy's expression reminded him a bit of a Greek statue. "It's no trouble coming here. Thaddeus has helped my daughter before, so it's only fair that I return the favor."
Billy hadn't been able to pay attention to what else they said because Annie pulled him into another hug. Leaning close to his ear, she dropped her voice to a whisper. "Are you really okay?"
"I don't know what I'm feeling."
He'd finally gotten home when there was no home to go to. Now he was going back to a place he probably shouldn't have left.
"Is that all you have?" Aunt Addy asked, looking over the jacket in his arms.
Billy nodded. He'd left his bags of new clothes buried in the back of Annie's closets. Most of them he hadn't even tried on yet.
The parking lot was only half full when they went outside. Turning towards the door, he waved to Ms. Zhu. As far as he knew, she hadn't slept a wink the night before.
"This is a rental car, so be sure to keep your feet on the mat. I know they'll charge me extra if this thing gets dirty." Aunt Addy spoke with a slight Southern accent.
Billy sat in the back seat behind Annie. No one spoke until Aunt Addy had turned off the side street housing the child services office and onto the expressway.
"So, would anyone mind telling me why I had to fly all the way to California when this little fellow spent the past weekend at my house?"
Billy blinked.
"M-Mom?" Annie turned her head towards her.
"Well?" Even looking at him only from the rear view mirror, he could feel her gaze burning into his skin. "And just what is this 'Shazam'?"
