Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 14

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Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 14

Eli stepped out of Nick’s car and onto the cracked concrete of the sidewalk outside their old high
school. Even though he had been there only a few hours ago, the place felt completely different

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at night. Shadows buried the buildings. The school’s sign stood without illumination, the dot-
matrix ticker below it dead and gray. Once Nick’s headlights cut out, only the weak streetlamps
threw any light. The surrounding neighborhood seemed abandoned. An eerie quiet seeped
through the air, making Eli shiver.
“Come on,” he said, switching on his cell phone’s flashlight. “Let’s confront the past or
whatever.” He tugged at the nearest swath of chain-link fence. It gave without much effort,
revealing a break near one of the fence posts. Well, that was easy. Although Eli wasn’t really
surprised—the county was notoriously cheap.
“Wait, we’re going inside?” Nick was beside him with his own phone flashlight switched on. It
cast weird shadows along his face, highlighting his cheekbones. “Why do we have to do that?
You can scream from out here.”
“I want to make sure it hears me.” Eli slipped through the break in the fence, letting the chain
link clatter back into place behind him.
“Eli!” Nick’s whisper-shout came in that frantic register that Eli had heard when they were
thirteen and Eli tried to sneak one of his uncle’s Natty Ices.
“It’s fine,” he said over his shoulder. “You can wait out here if you want. Your choice.”
He wasn’t even finished speaking before he heard Nick wrestling with the fence. “Absolutely no
way am I staying behind. That’s how people die in horror movies.”
“This isn’t a horror movie.” Eli trained his light on the closest wall, trying to get his bearings.
“Well, maybe a ghost story,” he mumbled to himself. The old gym loomed on his right, with the
front office on his left, which meant—“The library must be this way. Let’s go.”
Their flashlights bobbed along the weed-choked ground as they picked their way over brown
palm fronds and pieces of broken glass.
“Why the library?” Nick asked in a hushed voice.
“Why are you whispering?” Eli whispered. “There’s literally no one else around.”
“It just feels like we should whisper. You’re doing it too.”
Couldn’t really argue with that. “I want to see if it’s how I remember.” He couldn’t quite
articulate why, but the library felt like the most appropriate place to investigate if they were
going to revisit the past. It was the literal center of the campus—or, at least, it had been when
they were kids. Eli remembered spending study hall and lunch periods in the quiet of the stacks
at one of the brown tables covered in scratchitti. The librarian, Mr. Vine, didn’t mind if Eli

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listened to his Discman or split a bag of Sun Chips with Nick. Damn, he hadn’t eaten Sun Chips in
years.