New Genesis

Chapter 5

“Honey wake up.”
Mark’s mom shook him awake. Mark bolted awake. He hadn’t slept well and he was still really tired. He slowly got up, dressed, and went down stairs. He sat down in his chair across from his dad and waited as his mom placed two pieces of toast in front of him. He slowly ate the toast while reading the comics from the newspaper.

“Any tests today?” asked his dad.
“I have a chemistry test but it should be easy.”
“That’s good. Anything after school?”
“No. Keyclub is only on Thursday and math team is on Tuesday.”
“Okay, well we can watch shows while we eat then.”

Mark shook his head in agreement and got up from the table to go brush his teeth. Mark walked upstairs and brushed his teeth. He put his contacts in walked back downstairs to get his book bag. As he was about to leave the house he had to give his mom a hug.”

“Where’s dad?”
“I don’t know. He’s probably upstairs trying to hurry up. Call up to him.”
“Ok. Dad I’m going now!”
“Wait. I’ll be right down!” Mark’s dad raced down the stairs to give him a hug. Mark was afraid that his dad would trip down the stairs if he wasn’t careful. Mark got into his car and drove to school. He got there in about ten minutes, walked into the school and headed to the music room for band. All of the school’s musical classes and activities had been placed in one room after they school had changed the old band room into a weight room. There had been much debate about whether or not the school needed to make a weight room for girls when there was one across the street at the school’s west campus. Mark wasn’t surprised that the school had forced the band to move but that wasn’t what annoyed him the most. What annoyed him was that the weight room was barely used at all and now all of the music classes were in one room and even though the room was pretty big there was barely enough room for the two classes.

To Mark band was a joke. The easiest A that anyone could ever get. The teacher could teach the material but she didn’t command respect. Mark was late constantly last year but this year the teacher, Mrs. Johnson, had threatened them with detentions. Mark had been pissed because now he had to hurry to make sure he wasn’t late. Mark walked in and saw Zach working on homework. Mark smiled and walked over to him.

“What are you working on?”
“Pre-calc.”
“What problem are you on?”
“56. I’ve got two left. I can do this.”
Mark laughed a little and went to the band boxes to get his music. He had one of the bigger boxes for no reason. He was percussion and his instrument was always set up. All Mark kept in the locker was his folder that held all his music and his drum set. Over the next fifty minutes, Mark sat in band bored as hell. Nothing interesting went on. As the bell rang, Mark walked out and headed toward his locker. He put the combination in when a few lockers that were opened slammed to Mark’s right. People looked around wondering what happened while Mark hurriedly put in his combination to get his books. As Mark swung his locker open, it came back and hit him. Mark stumbled but regained his balance. He got his books for Pre- Calc and went to class.

The first part of the day passed without much excitement. The only thing out of the ordinary was that empty desks would slide towards him a little when he walked by. Mark was happy when the lunch bell rang. He walked out of his Theology class as fast as he could and went to lunch. The school said not to run to lunch but there were so many gaps where one could run that it was a stupid rule. As Mark reached the door to the commons he looked behind him and noticed that the closest person to him was about ten feet away. Mark had been the first one out the door but he was nowhere near the fastest kid. Mark turned around puzzled and continued to lunch.

Mark sat down at his usual spot and waited for his friends. They slowly came and sat around him.  Only Matt, Josh, Tyler, Blake, Steven, and Jake were in his lunch shift.  They laughed about random stuff that they remembered until Mark asked an important question.

“Has anything weird happened to anyone?”
“Well not anything to me, but a light post did fall down in my neighborhood.” Blake replied.
“That’s not that weird. It could have been hit by a car.”
“But that’s just the thing, the light part of the lamp post is the only part that fell down. The actual post stayed up. What can only break of the light part when it hits the lamp post?”
“That’s weird. Now that you mention it, my mom couldn’t find her keys so I helped her look for them. We looked over the whole house and I thought my mom was just being stupid, but right as I was leaving I found them on the counter, which was where we first looked. We had been looking for about ten minutes.” added Matt.
“What happened to you Mark?” asked Tyler.
“Well, yesterday electronic stuff kept shorting out and metal objects stuck to my skin. Today, electronics are fine, but metal objects keep coming at me. I have to protect myself because my locker swings at me as I open it and desk slide towards me. Has anything weird happened to the rest of you?”
Tyler, Josh, and Steven shook their heads.
“Maybe you’re sliding across the carpet too much Mark?” Steven joked.
“Actually, I did shock my dad when our hands touched as I took the comics from him yesterday.”
“I wonder what’s going on.”
“I have no idea. Maybe just random crap is going on and there are reasonable explanations for everything.”

Mark left the lunch room to go to the bathroom. As Mark left the bell rang and Mark went through the rest of the day. At the end, Mark collected the homework he had and went to the commons. He met up with the gang and they walked over to west campus. As they walked, Mark posed his question to the rest of his friends.  None of them had something weird happen to them. Mark said his goodbyes to his friends and as he got into his car and left. The rest of the night was uneventful, but Mark still had trouble with metal sticking to his skin. Mark got to bed around eleven because he had trouble with his Pre- Calc. As Mark went to bed he thought again about the weird stuff that was happening and why it was happening.  Yet, none of the incidents seemed related. Something might have been placed on top of the keys and maybe the light post was weakened during the tornadoes two years ago that destroyed half the town. Mark didn’t sleep well that night either.