Linger | ✔️

Part 1

Lunchtime at Apple Valley High was a catch-22. Either you sat through the ridiculousness of gossip and petty pranks, or you learned to go hungry.

I'd only been a student there for a few weeks, after Mom and I packed up our belongings to start fresh in a new town, but already I understood the annoying peer politics -- they didn't vary much from school to school. As nerve-wracking as it could be as the new kid, suffering through lunchtime was the worst, whether you had friends to sit with or not. Luckily for me, I'd fallen in with a pretty good clique that made dealing with the mystery-meat-of-the-day somewhat tolerable.

This wasn't the first time we had "started over". Mom wasn't the greatest when it came to romantic commitments and her recent break-up had prompted yet another address change. But I had it better than a lot of kids in my situation. Each time I started a new school -- Apple Valley being the sixth since Kindergarten -- I'd always managed to quickly slide in with a group. When you move around a lot, you learn to roll with the punches, and I had the Miss Friendly and Outgoing act down to a T. Really, I had no choice. It was either that or become a social pariah.

Lunch on this particular day started out the same as the rest. The girls at the large circular table where I sat were involved in a deep conversation discrediting different members of the student body, while the boys participated in a series of pranks, each one trying to out-trick the next. It was in the middle of these antics when the bright LED lights overhead began to flicker erratically. I didn't think much of it -- I mean, lights quiver sometimes -- but when I looked around at the wide-eyed faces in the packed cafeteria, I discovered they'd all stopped mid-sentence to gape at the unstable bulbs. After a moment, the activity ceased and the cafeteria resumed its noisy, mid-day routine.

"This is the third time this week I've seen that happen," Jasmine announced, her gaze fixed to the lights on the ceiling. She stuffed the last of the carrot she'd been nibbling on into her mouth. "Rose must be pissed off. She's been showing up more than usual these days."

"That's nothing. Last week I walked into History and the place reeked of flowers. The smell was so overwhelming we ended up having class in the senior courtyard." The look on Elliott's face as he recounted the incident was a mixture of excitement and disbelief. He shoved a nail-bitten hand through his shaggy blonde hair. "I wanted to hurl! Ms. Carmichael blamed it on the Horticulture class, but I'm taking Horticulture this semester, and we're growing tomatoes, not roses."

The rest of the table began to speak at once, their animated tales crashing over one another. It seemed everyone had a story about flickering light bulbs or phantom scents. "Wait a minute," I began, holding up my hands to slow them down. "I'm the new girl in school, remember? What're you guys talking about?"

"That's right!" Erica exclaimed. She leaned closer and threw an arm around my neck. "Chloe's never heard the story of Rose Marie Foster." She drug out the name in an eerie sing-song tone, making it as creepy-sounding as she could.

Ben snickered from across the table. "Fresh meat." He rammed his shoulder into Elliott's and they broke out into full-blown laughter.

"Well, is someone going to tell me about her, or are you just going to sit there and laugh?" I stuck my tongue out and threw an empty chip bag into Ben's face. He responded by puffing air into it and then smacking it against his hand, blowing out the side. The loud noise made the girl sitting behind him jump a mile high, and she gave him a nasty look before leaving the table to return her lunch tray.

Jasmine turned to me, her face an earnest mask. "Rose Foster went to school here about forty years ago. Rumor has it, she died after an explosion in the science lab. The fire spread quickly and she was trapped. No one was able to save her." Her brown eyes widened and she lowered her voice, as if she didn't want the tables nearby to overhear. "Apparently, everyone in the lab watched in horror as she burned to death right in front of them."