The Haunting of Katrina Milford

Even with the uproar of voices that surrounded her, Katrina was still able to make out the extremely audible yell of the Malberry Mariners’ first string positioned, reasonably revered, accolade contending quarterback as he called out hike to the center positioned on the offensive line in front of him.

The ball snapped.

Players all over the field went into motion.

Jack Keller dropped back to pass.

Katrina barked out an involuntary, reflexive yell of encouragement toward the efforts of her alma mater’s colors on the field that saw her leaning forward in her seat and bellowing out a cry of ‘Go, Mariners!’ to the forces in play beneath her.

It was to some tremendous degree of disappointment that Katrina saw Jack Keller’s football toting hand draw back behind his shoulders and swiftly spring forward in defiance of the rushing backs quickly closing in on him only to watch the pigskin that she followed with her eager eyes freeze still in the middle of its arc through the air.

The football was by no means alone.

Katrina heard the calamitous roar of the crowd all around her instantaneously meld into silence as she slowly leaned back down into her seat. Her loud voice trailing off at the end was the last noise that she heard ringing in her ears as she was suddenly engulfed by a world of stillness and quiet.

Katrina was petrified beyond belief.

Every player present down on the football field had been simultaneously transformed into motionless mannequins. The same effect had overtaken Marcus, Brandy, and the rest of the seated crowd all around her. Katrina was surrounded by a living, presumably still breathing, still shot of the once vibrant scene of this congregation.

“So who’s winning?” he said from an elevated position at her back.

The sound of his footsteps descending the levels behind her coupled with the sudden occurrence of his voice snatched Katrina’s body around sideways on the platform.

“Thomas!” Katrina spoke in a voice that was soaked in as much anger as unnerving startle. “What…the hell?” she spat at him through clenched teeth.

He merely continued in his stroll down the bleacher stairway until he reached her level and took a seat beside her on the platform.

“What’s going on here!?!” Katrina said, turning back to the frighteningly silent spectacle that filled the small stadium.

“Offhand, I’d say a football game,” he responded. Katrina turned and stared at his docile profile with a perplexed look covering her face. “But that’s just at first glance.”

She couldn’t believe the smartass fluxion of vocals spilling out of his mouth as he sat beside her bearing witness to the same bout of miraculousness that she was.

“Anyway,” Thomas continued, turning his head to the side to face her. “What I came here to talk about is you. Anything new in your life?”

“Yes!” Katrina hissed at him. “Derangement! Now fix…,” she said, craning her body around and flailing her arms out at the frozen crowd in front of her, “…this!”

“No new acquaintances that I should be made aware of?” Thomas said.

“What?” Katrina uttered as she gave him a face twisted in confusion. “New acquain…” Watching him turn his glance back out to the freeze-frame play on the field, Katrina’s mind was busy flashing back to what she had deemed to be the slyly orchestrated hallway collision that she had experienced earlier that week along with the not so chance library encounter with Malberry’s scrupulously challenged, fall season social elite. “Are you talking about Keller?” Katrina quickly located his stiff form down on the field. “What’s your deal with him anyway? Are you bisecting your schedule of annoying things to do between the two of us, or what?”

“No,” he said, hunching his shoulders. “Just wondering what you thought of him.”

“Why?” she quickly replied, glancing over the rigidified bodies that filled the stands on her side of the field. “Accepting the assumption that you somehow rationalized that I was plagued by any thoughts of him at all.”

Thomas looked over in her direction. “Are you telling me you weren’t?”

Katrina gave him her eyes. “No, I’m asking you, what do you care?”

Thomas turned his face back to the scenery in front of him. “I don’t know. Maybe I just thought it would prove profoundly prudent if I were to assess a more accurate gauge of your preconceiving abilities where the occupants of the world outside of your known comforting norm were concerned.”

“Yeah. And as pragmatic as you may have found such a thing, you have yet to clue me in as to why you chose him.”

Thomas remained silent in his poise.

Katrina rolled her eyes up as she turned them away from him. “OhmyGod, I don’t believe this! What is this?” she said, jerking her face back around to his profile. “Some kind of postmortem dating service? What?” There was more cheer in her voice now as she spoke to him. “You got designs on rigging the two of us up to seize the throne of this year’s homecoming coronation?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas said, dropping his forehead and lowering his chin down to his chest as he turned to face front again. “You haven’t told me what you thought of him yet.”

“Then in the interest of the sound parties that so ingeniously coined the phrase, ‘duuuh,’ let me ease your mind by asking you to consider the most obvious of responses in regards to the question you’re posing.”

“I didn’t ask for the obvious. I asked for you.”