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Barry Allen walks away from his middle school with quick, jerky steps. He picks at his nails, pulls at his fingers, cracks his knuckles. He looks ahead of him as he walks, tracking movement with his peripheral vision. The day is sunny and the street is empty except for two other boys walking home.
Their names are Michael and Darrel and when Barry's mom was alive, he lived two doors down from one of them. They're best friends and next door neighbors. Barry remembers going to Darrel's house with his parents one year to watch the Super Bowl.
Darrel doesn't talk to him much anymore.
Three more blocks and they will turn down the road, taking a shortcut to Michael's house. Barry will continue on for three blocks after that before he gets back to Joe's house.
When they turn, he will be alone. And he can feel the weight of a foreign pair of eyes, boring into him, just out of sight.
Someone is watching him. Someone's been watching him since he stepped out of the school building.
He wishes that Iris didn’t have softball practice after school every Monday and Wednesday. She’s braver than him. She makes him want to be brave. Right now, all he can feel is unsettled.
The boys behind Barry start to walk a little faster, and he walks more quickly in order to stay ahead of them. Stay in their line of vision.
A car turns onto the street ahead of them, and cruises towards the group of middle-schoolers. Barry is the first to notice it. The windows of the car are tinted and rolled up; he realizes, panicking, that he can't see inside the car.
He fiddles with the straps of his backpack. His legs tense, like they're gearing him up to run.
The car rolls to a stop a few steps away from Barry. The bologna sandwich he had for lunch burbles unhappily in his lurching stomach. The boys behind him continue to walk. Michael bumps into him.
“Ah, sorry Barry,” he says. Then, he notices the car.
“Hey,” he says, bumping his friend’s shoulder. “Isn’t that your dad’s car?”
The car’s passenger window rolls down. Barry can feel his heartbeat in his throat. He swallows.
Mr. Suel, Darrel's father, smiles at the group.
He must have gotten a new car, Barry thinks, anxiety eased, but not gone. The feeling of being observed persists. He looks up and down the street.
“Hey kid,” the man says to Darrel. “I got out early and I thought I’d get you from school. Maybe get ice cream, too.”
Darrel looks at Michael. Then, he looks at Barry.
“Can Michael come too?”
“Sure,” his dad answers easily. “We’ll swing by the house so he can get permission from his parents first, though.”
The boys clamber into the car. Barry remains on the sidewalk. His hands are damp with sweat. The cheery sun peaks from behind what few clouds are in the sky. The world is at a strange, tilted angle around him.
“There’s no way my mom won’t say yes.” Michael reassures Darrel. “I’m over all the time anyways.”
The boys close the door and roll down the window. They look at Barry. Mr. Suel hesitates. He also looks at Barry.
Barry, alone on the sidewalk on a, seemingly, empty, street, looks back at Mr. Suel.
“You gonna be okay making it home alone?”
No, Barry thinks.
“Yeah,” Barry says. “It’s only a couple blocks away.”
Joe’s house is six blocks away. Three more blocks than he thought he would be alone. The prickle on the back of Barry’s neck grows more persistent.
He’s being paranoid. He’ll tell Nancy the therapist about this on Friday and she’ll congratulate him on working through it. It’s fine. He'll be fine.
“I’ll be fine,” he says. Mr. Suel’s eyes focus on the tight grip he has on the straps of his backpack. Barry lets go of his backpack quickly. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt instead, hidden and safe from scrutiny. His pockets are warm, and it only makes the sweat on his palms worse.
“If you’re sure you're alright,” Mr. Suel says, trailing off. Barry nods at him insistently, feeling sick. “Alright. Be careful, Barry.”
“Bye Barry!” MIchael yells from the backseat.
“See you tomorrow,” he calls. The car drives away.
He is alone.
He is not alone.
Barry walks with an urgency, legs burning. He doesn't dare to run. He makes the six blocks back to Joe's house in record time. The feeling doesn't leave him even as he walks up the steps. The hair raising on his arms, the dryness of his tongue, the darting of his eyes.
He steps onto the porch with half his attention on the street and half on the front door. His body is turned awkwardly, facing the street across from him as his hands fumble with his key.
There’s a man up the street. He isn't moving. Barry doesn't know when he appeared.
The street is empty except for him and Barry. He’s several houses away, almost a full block, and Barry should be comforted by that, but the man's presence is so strong, he may as well be standing right next to Barry.
As he slides the key into the lock, the man turns. He’s wearing a dark baseball cap and Barry can’t see his face. He knows, though, he knows, that the man is looking directly at him. That he has been since Barry walked out of the school.
The key turns in the lock. The tumbler clicks.
The man vanishes.
Barry's breath catches in his throat. The door swings open, seemingly by itself, and his hands, one frozen on his key and the other frozen at his side, shake.
Barry heaves in air. Even as he stumbles inside, he can’t look away from the sidewalk.
Because, in the space between moments when the man disappeared, Barry saw an arc of red electricity.