Will Rock

Willie heard the rain falling outside his bedroom window and saw the periodic flash of light as a bolt of lightning cut across the sky and slammed into trees or nearby hills. It was one of the most severe electrical storms he had ever encountered, but it was still nothing compared to the thoughts that were bouncing around in his head.
The wireless phone sat next to him on his bed, still warm and even a little wet from his sweaty hand. His heartbeat was a little faster than was normal for anyone who lay awake in bed, but for good reason. He had just received word from Jessica that she needed to see him fast. She didn’t explain, but the tone of urgency was not at all modestly weaved into her voice. He had heard her speak like this only once before, and that was when she had told him that Kerry, another one of their friends, had mysteriously disappeared. That happened only a few days ago.
Now he anxiously waited for the sound of an SUV coming up the muddy road to his house. He wasn’t sure if he could take the news of another disappearance, especially not this soon after the first one.
Jessica pulled into his driveway only a few minutes later. He got out of his bed, feeling numb all over, and got his slippers on. It was almost midnight, which was just one of the many reasons that Willie felt so on edge.
He got to the door before she could knock or ring the doorbell. He opened it and was surprised to find two girls standing there.
Jessica looked worried standing next to someone Willie didn’t recognize. She was dirty and drenched for having walked through the rain without an umbrella, but she was also somewhat in control.
“Is everything alright?” Willie said carefully, not even thinking to ask the girls to come inside.
“Willie, do you remember what Kerry looked like?” Jessica asked.
Willie was stumped. Sure, he remembered exactly what Kerry looked like. Kerry’s picture was on his dresser, more prominent than the rest, with a couple of purple roses laid down on the wooden surface in front of it. He had been hoping beyond hope that the authorities would be able to find her.
“Yeah, I remember exactly what she looked like.”
At the end of last school year their biology teacher took the brightest students of their high school on a trip to Brazil. Ever since then, strange things that Willie couldn’t explain had been happening. For one, he found a notebook sitting on the wall of his bedroom as if gravity held it there. There was also Jessica’s incident in the cafeteria when she somehow managed to break her table into shreds during a particularly heated argument with a football player. And there were weird cars or people popping up a random, taking pictures and driving off or stopping to ask strange questions.
“Well, I don’t think you do anymore.” Jessica said.
“What do you mean?” Willie asked. He took a second glance at the girl that accompanied Jessica. She looked a little different than she did the first time he saw her a few seconds ago. She was about Jessica’s height, weight, and shape. Come to think about it, she looked very similar. If Willie didn’t know any better he would have thought that she was Jessica.
Then it dawned on him. The idea seemed impossible to him, but even as it came, he could see that it was true. The second girl no longer looked like Jessica at all, but more slender, slightly shorter and smaller…
“Kerry?” He asked suddenly.
“You recognize me?” The second girl asked hopefully.
“No. But… what happened?” Willie looked at both of the girls, expecting one of them to come up with some answer that made sense.
“I was hoping you would know.” Jessica replied.
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments while Kerry began to grow taller and older looking until she would have fit right in at a nursing home.
“Well, don’t stand out there in the rain.” Willie said, opening the door wider and motioning for them to enter.
Now Kerry looked like a supermodel, but that only lasted a few seconds before she turned into some sort of a midget.
“I think it has to do with Brazil.” Jessica said.
“Hang on a second.” Willie said. “Brazil? I mean, how could that place have changed Kerry into… this?!?”
They sat down on the sofas in the living room and continued their discussion.
“I don’t know exactly.” Jessica began. “I’ve been thinking though. It might have something to do with how all five of us in our group felt the same stomach pains after hiking to that one cave.”
“That sort-of makes sense.” Willie said. “But I thought we all just caught Montezuma’s Revenge or something.”
“No. Nobody else caught anything but parasites, and these symptoms are never caused by parasites!”
Willie thought about this for a second. That meant that, somehow, his notebook on the wall experience was his own fault. That didn’t make much sense, but it was a strangely exciting idea. That was when he had an idea.
“Give me a second.” He said.
Willie ran to his bedroom, retrieved his picture of Kerry, then came back to the others, who were both looking equally confused.
“What are you doing?” Jessica asked.
“Just watch.” Willie told her. He then handed Kerry the picture of herself.
When Kerry looked at the picture, the effect was almost instantaneous. She suddenly looked exactly as she had before.
“See?” Willie said. “All she has to do is have an image in her head. I think she’ll be able to learn how to control it! She could look like anybody she wanted to!”
“I can?” Kerry said, sounding hopeful. She was suddenly looking like a supermodel again.
“I think you already are.” Willie said to her.
“Then what do we do about it?” Jessica asked.
Willie thought about this for a moment. “I think that’s totally up to Kerry. She’ll have to practice, of course, but she might even be able to get special government jobs or something.”
“Come on! I’m sixteen! What could they possibly want with me?” Kerry said, suddenly turning into a stern looking mother that Willie knew so well. The effect was rather spooky.
“It was just a thought!” He said defensively.
“Yeah, well, I don’t want you thinking it too much!” Kerry said, and she started to cry a little.
Then Jessica piped up. “What if we can do what she can?” She said suddenly.
It took Willie a moment to register this comment into his brain. He was too busy considering all the ways he could make Kerry a little more rosy. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks. His active imagination showed himself standing on a wall, just as if gravity had put him there, and just when he thought it, it happened, only, he wasn’t standing so much as laying down.
Jessica gasped. “Willie are you okay?” She screeched.
“Willie, what’s going on?” Came his mother’s voice from her bedroom.
“Uh, nothing mom, everything’s fine!” He said.
“Just checking…”
“What happened?” Jessica whispered.
“I thought about it. I thought about walking on the wall, and suddenly, I’m on it.” Willie said, unsure if his explanation did justice to his thoughts.
It took Willie a few seconds to get his feet back on the RIGHT floor. He sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. “This is too weird.” He said.
“What about you Jessica?” Kerry piped up finally. She was looking like herself again.
Jessica thought about that for a moment. She remembered vividly how she had simply placed her hand on the table and it fell to pieces. It was as if some unseen energy had flown through her and ripped the table apart. She stood up, a distant look in her eye, as she concentrated on what she was about to do.
After a total of five silent minutes, something happened. A small glowing globe appeared and gained solidarity as she concentrated on it. It grew and filled the room with blue light, until it suddenly disappeared.
“That was totally cool!” Willie said. “We have to find Ken and Tyler!”
“I don’t know for sure if they got it.” Jessica said suddenly.
What was really happening was that she didn’t want them to know. They were both pranksters, and both of them were boys she never wanted to be around. Willie, on the other hand, quite enjoyed their company. They made things interesting, risky, fun…
“I’m going to call them tomorrow.” He said. “I want to see if they have been having the same symptoms we have been.”
And so begins the story of Will Rock and his friends.