Under the Microscope

Chapter 9

Zach knew exactly what happened before last night, however. Scott had suspended him for a week for nearly putting Eric Patterson into the hospital after finding out that Stacey had been cheating on him with Eric for the duration of their relationship. Scott had gone to visit Kimberly again, this time without Timmy and Margaret, and left Wanda in charge of watching Zach, and Timmy on the days Scott got him and Kimberly. Scott was totally oblivious to all of Wanda's infidelities and her attempts to entice him.

The reason he did was because after confessing to Stacey about his kiss with Kimberly back at Thanksgiving in Canada, she started to cheat on him with Eric. To make a truce, Zach had gotten her tickets to see her favorite recording artist, Justin Beiber, perform live in concert at Madison Square Garden, during mid-winter vacation.

At the concert itself, Zach caught Eric and Stacey dancing quite suggestively and Stacey revealed quite cruelly that she and Eric had been having secret sexual liaisons the whole time she and Zach were together. She told him quite heartlessly that she never loved Zach and only used him for the attention he was getting from his parents deaths and bragged about forever being able to claim that she was the one who took his virginity. Even though they only did it once, the night before they arrived in Newfoundland when he heard that Kimberly and Jonathan had professed their love for each other, Stacey claimed that she always needed to go to Eric to have an orgasm.

When school had resumed, Zach confronted Eric about the affair in the hallway, in front of everyone and he used the same cavalier attitude and smug apologies he used when Eric was with Gail, saying,

"I'm really sorry, Zach, but it looks like once again, the better man got the girl."

Zach's response to this was using every martial arts and fighting technique Leo and Crawford had taught him, to beat Eric to a bloody pulp. He was so enraged that in his rush of adrenaline was able to knock over Phillips and the rest of his entourage like bowling pins and was able to stave off any body from breaking it up until Crawford himself along with Alice were able to pull him off. They were posing as the school's new Cuban janitor and nurse couple, respectively. Crawford and Alice told everyone that they used to work for Fidel Castro's Secret Service in order to avoid blowing their covers.

Zach knew exactly where he needed to go, to Leo's Dome.

As Zach rode on the interstate along the Hudson, he tried to remember how to go, but the only way he could recall was the way he left with Alice and Crawford because he was unconscious when first time around. But even that was hazy since it was all woods.

It was still light outside anyway, so Zach wanted to avoid any onlookers from seeing where he was going because he promised Crawford and himself that he'd keep Leo's existence and his hiding place a secret to any one who did not need to know or who already knew.

However, as he entered the woods, Zach saw something that drew his eyes. There was a clear path underneath the canopy of the trees, one that Zach knew definitely was not there the last time. But what evoked Zach's attention the most was on one of the large tree trunks was a carved out circle that hung a small wooden board from a nail. The board also was very neatly carved and on the top there was an arrow pointing in the direction of the path.

The carving read, "This way, Zach." and Zach did.

He peddled all through the makeshift bike trail and Zach would come across more carved out signs with arrows until he was right behind the concrete auditorium. In the momentum of his bike riding, Zach nearly collided head-on into the solid structure, were it not for the chalked out sign on the cement itself that said, "Make a sharp right, Zach and be careful!" He finally arrived at the entrance way to auditorium just as it was beginning to snow for the first time in 2011. He noticed that the chicken coop or its chickens were no longer outside, but he heard them chirping from inside the dome. The garden was covered with the burlap tarp that usually covered the coop.