Super Bad Feeling About This! 💖

“Who are you and what have you done with Snowball?!”

“What are you talking about, dude? Are you blind? This obviously is Snowball.”

“And I’m telling you it’s obviously not. I would know, after all the time I’ve spent putting up with her. This is not how Snowball acts. At all.”

The three of us — me, Fence, and the girl who looked exactly like Snowball but clearly wasn’t her — were walking through the woods. Well, the other two were walking. I was being led by the sleeve. The left one to be exact, pinched between not-Snowball’s ice cold fingers pulling me ever forward to our destination.

“Just… uh… follow me…” the Snowball body double said. Her voice was so soft I had to strain my ears just to make out what she was saying. It was almost as soft as the walls of the insane asylum cell I was expecting to wake up in any minute now. Was I going nuts? It seemed pretty likely. Who was this girl I had literally stumbled across and why did she look exactly like Snowball? Was she some kind of impostor? What was going on?

The whole “her pulling me every which way against my will” part was probably the only thing about this strange Snowball-lookalike girl that was actually similar to Snowball.

“Just keep following and you’ll understand everything in no time,” was what she said. Was all she said. And that settled it, really. Snowball was never this quiet. Ever.

Our path plunged us deeper and deeper into the forest. We wound around trees, crossed secret green glades, kept going further and further. This time I was sure we really were heading far, far away from all civilization. Not-Snowball pulled on. For his part, Fence was taking all of this in stride, walking along with us with fingers interlocked behind his head. The Super Secret Love Diary 💖 was now with not-Snowball.

I didn’t like that. I didn’t like it one bit.

It was the whole situation I didn’t like, actually. But if you asked me why I didn’t like it, the funny part was I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.

On paper, this new Snowball was also an improved one. And it wasn’t even close.

My Snowball was loud, obnoxious, crass, and wore an ultra-realistic orangutan costume to school every third Thursday of the month.

This new Snowball was the exact opposite. She was relaxed. Chill, even. Aside from her attire, which hadn’t changed at all from the previous Snowball, she was actually quite suave and cool. Her mannerisms were elegant. Her fingers were long and slim, and when they accidentally brushed against mine earlier, they were ice cold.

And then there was her voice. The old Snowball’s lispy voice was like my one little slice of hell on Earth. I’d been Pavlovianly conditioned over the course of months to have a mini heart attack every time I heard it. This new Snowball’s voice, on the other hand, was like drinking from a pure mountain spring. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. It was at least like drinking one of the more expensive bottled water brands. Or like slipping on a brand new pair of shoes that just fit. Like pulling the plastic top off a soda cup and finding a single large ice cube shaped exactly like a perfect diamond.

In any case, she was leading us somewhere important, and it goes without saying that she knew something about all this kidnapping business and was related somehow. So it seemed like we had to keep following.

“So do you have a name?” I asked.

No response.

“Oh, cool. I’ll just call you           from now on.”

She moved her pinch from my sleeve to a good-sized tuft of my hair and pulled hard.

“Ow! Ow! Ok, ok! I won’t call you           from now on then. Geez. I wasn’t going to anyway. It was just a joke.” Not-Snowball frowned deeply. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so upset by literally nothing.

When I removed her grip on my hair and jogged a step or two ahead to walk side by side, I caught a single frame of her face before she brought her hands to it and turned away from me. I couldn’t be sure, but she looked like she was blushing.

I was getting a really bad feeling about this.

But it wasn’t until we found the restroom that my stomach truly started Titanic-ing.

“We’re here,” the Snowball-like girl whispered.

“Oh, thank goodness. I’ve been holding it for the last half hou—Ow, hey! What was that for? You just stepped on my foot, dude!”

“Yeah, to stop you from doing anything totally stupid,” I snapped back as I pulled Fence in close, elbow bent around his neck, drawing him into a two-person huddle. I whispered to him so that not-Snowball hopefully couldn’t hear. “Just look at this place, man. You can’t just waltz in there. It has ‘danger’ written all over it.”

We had rejoined with the trail at some point and, like I said, were at some sort of public restroom. But this wasn’t any part of the trail I had ever been on, and I knew for sure I had never used this bathroom. Not only cause I didn’t even know there were bathrooms out here to begin with, but also cause if I had, I would’ve had nightmares about it for weeks, probably.

“Run down” didn’t even begin to describe the state the bathroom was in. It was dingy, dirty, and trash was littered everywhere. The walls were fading and peeling — where you could see them, anyway. Most of the exterior was covered in ivy and other weird encroaching plants. Not to mention the fact that this building was creepily situated in the middle of nowhere. Who would even come all the way to this part of the woods to go to the bathroom anyway?

To top it all off, there was one of those poster slots on the outside with a “grand opening” flyer for the restaurant I used to work at in it. That just proved how ancient and unattended to this building was. That place opened years ago.

“So, what, dude? Do you not want to go in there? We’ve come all this way.”

“Yeah, and we can go all the way back, too. And probably should while we’re still alive.” Not-Snowball had left a decent first impression on me so far. But that didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t a crazed, knife-slinging killer just waiting to get her latest victims — us — alone. I told Fence as much.

“Uh, dude? We’ve been alone with her for a while now. If she wanted to kill us, she could’ve tried already, no sweat. And probably got away with it too…”

A chill shot up my spine. “Jesus, Fence. It’s like you’re trying to creep me out here.”

“Are you two coming?” Not-Snowball was shooting the both of us a quizzical look from near the entrance to the women’s. “Or are you just going to stand there talking about how eerie this place is and how I might be a murder?”

So she could hear us all along! Dammit. Her words and gaze were just as cold as her touch. As cold as ice.

#

We arrived in the women’s room to an orchestra of echoes, footsteps clicking and drumming the cold cream tile floor.

“Inside is even more ominous,” I remarked. It smelled weird. Like, public bathroom-y (you know the smell), but also with hints of dirt and moss and stuff.

“From one bathroom to the next,” Fence remarked contemplatively. “Funny how things work out sometimes.”

Was that supposed to sound deep or something?

The fact that the place was deserted was, I guess, a good thing considering where we were. Didn’t want a repeat of last time, after all. Still, it just added to the creepy atmosphere.

“This might be the second scariest women’s bathroom I’ve ever been in.”

“Uh. Yeah. Me too, technically.”

Not-Snowball remained silent and composed. She moved soundlessly — glided, almost, it felt like — to the furthest stall from the door, pressed a single hand gently to its smooth, grainy face. That alone was enough to send the hinges whining.

Then, something else whined.

“Eeeep!”

“Was that a ghost?!?!?!” Fence jumped into my arms.

“Holy… crap…” My arms started burning almost instantly. For a skinny guy, Fence sure wasn’t light. Also, what the heck? I thought I was supposed to be the one freaked out here. “I think you need to… urgh… lay off the McRonald’s, man!”

I didn’t even have time to think about that though. The scared voice sounded again, and this time I recognized it. It wasn’t a ghost. It was…

“They’re on to me! Run!”

All of a sudden, Snowball — the real Snowball this time, no doubt about it — burst out of the stall, pushed her doppelganger, or whoever this other girl really was, out of the way, and tried to make a break for it.

Just what was going on here?!

To be continued!