The EMTs asked Bobby a series of questions, which he answered groggily but with evident awareness. Ronnie broke into the circle of people surrounding Bobby, and Bobby gave his friend a grin and a wave. “I know it’s way past your bedtime,” he said. “But I’m sure glad you didn’t play Deathboy tonight. Thanks for finding me.”
Littlefield wondered if the boy had staged some sort of over-the-top practical joke—selecting for the spectacle the very site where he and Ronnie had found a corpse—but that suspicion was overwhelmed by a wave of relief.
Suddenly Elmer burst into the circle, face moist with sweat and blotched red with rage. “What do you think you’re doing, you little shit?”
Littlefield put an arm out to restrain the man, but Elmer gave him a shove and hovered over his boy, fists trembling at his sides. “You trying to kill yourself? Trying to throw away your future? After all I done for you?”
The emergency tech treating Bobby said, “Sir, please step back and let us—”
“Is your arm broke? Jesus Christ, boy, you just knocked yourself out of the draft!”
Bobby flexed his right arm as if it had only just occurred to him to consider whether he’d suffered any career-ending injuries. “Feels good,” he said. “Better than ever.”
Littlefield gave Elmer a bear hug, ready to fling him to the ground by force if necessary. But the flabby man relaxed his grip on Bobby, the tension draining out of him. “You better be all right,” Elmer said, allowing himself to be led a few feet away so the techs could finish their examination.
One of the state troopers had helped a first responder carry a stretcher down the bank, but Bobby waved it off. “Really, guys, I’m fine,” he said.
He stood, Ronnie on one side and a tech on the other, and he only swayed for a moment before regaining his balance. He really did look fine.
“What happened?” Littlefield asked. He’d be on the scene for hours anyway, collecting what evidence there was left to collect, but he was hoping Bobby could answer some of the unanswerable questions.
“I don’t remember,” Bobby said. “I was over at the church and … then I was here.”
Short-term amnesia was a common symptom of serious accidents, but it might also signal a brain injury. A couple of the techs nodded to each other, and then asked Elmer for permission to transport Bobby to the hospital for further evaluation.
“We ain’t got no insurance,” Elmer said, wiping at his eyes with his shirt sleeve. He seemed small and deflated, like a balloon the day after a birthday party.
“We’ll worry about that later,” Littlefield said. “Right now, you want to make sure your boy is all right.”
“Is there any way we can keep this out of the paper?” Elmer pleaded. “If word gets out.…”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Eldreth,” the sheriff said, sympathetic nevertheless. He understood a parent’s hopes and fears—over the course of his career, he’d shattered plenty of the former and confirmed just as many of the latter. “A wreck’s a matter of public record, and anyway, the press is already here. We’ll cooperate with the Highway Patrol’s office to find out what happened and keep you informed.”
As the techs ushered Bobby up the bank to the waiting ambulance and the search party began heading for their own vehicles, Littlefield saw Ronnie standing at the edge of the river, looking across the water. He appeared to be saying something, and the sheriff edged closer so he could hear the boy over the sound of the lapping and gurgling of the currents.
“You didn’t get him!” Ronnie said, almost giddy. “We kicked your ass this time!”
Littlefield almost felt the same way, but part of him sensed that the victory might only last a night. While they measured life from breath to breath, the river had forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I’m sick,” Bobby said.
When the nurse gave him a look of alarm, he winked at Ronnie. “Sick of all this poking and prodding,” he added.
Bobby felt weird lying in his underwear with Ronnie, his parents, and the nurse in the room, even though he was covered by a sheet that smelled of Lysol and bleach. He’d even had to pee in a plastic cup for the nurse, but at least she was homely and dour, her hair knotted in a bun so severe that it stretched the shiny skin of her forehead. If she’d been cute, he wasn’t sure he could have squeezed out even a few drops.
The nurse frowned. “You survived a serious crash, but don’t push your luck. We haven’t completed all the tests.”
“Why doesn’t anybody believe that I’m okay? I know you don’t like to let people out of the hospital before you’ve wiped out their life savings, but that only took fifteen seconds with me.”
“Give her a break, Bobby,” Ronnie said. “She’s just doing her job.”
“Bobby doesn’t care about nobody’s job,” Elmer said. “He ain’t never had to work for a living. But he might find out soon enough.”
Elmer and Vernell were perched in chairs beside Bobby’s bed, both exhausted and looking washed out, his mom wearing a faded pink house robe and tennis shoes without socks, her veins swollen and blue around her ankles. Vernell had nearly collapsed with worry, but Elmer was back to being his usual asshole self. Bobby couldn’t believe it was only three in the morning. It felt like he’d been in the hospital for a week.
“How soon can I get out of here?” Bobby asked, giving the nurse his best smile. “I told you, I feel great.”
“Yeah,” Elmer said to the nurse. “Some of us got better things to do than wait around for the vultures.”
“The doctor wants to keep him admitted for observation,” the nurse said, adjusting the pulse oximeter clipped to the end of Bobby’s left index finger.
“Do they think something’s wrong?” Vernell asked, her voice cracking with a dry sob. “Something serious?”
“Just a precaution,” the nurse said. “We want young Mr. Eldreth fit enough to walk across the stage for his diploma.”
So the nurse knew he was a senior. She’d probably read about his baseball exploits in the newspaper, or maybe she’d even heard about his band—
Holy crap. The dance is tomorrow night! I can’t stay here.
Bobby tried to sit up, but Ronnie held him in place. “Look, B,” Ronnie said. “I know you’re dying to bust out of this disease hotel, but just play along for a while, okay? You saw the truck. It’s a miracle that you’re alive.”
“But the dance,” Bobby said. “I can’t let The Diggers down.”
“You got bigger worries than that,” Elmer said. “If word gets around that you got banged up, no team will touch you. And even if you get a clean bill of health, nobody wants to draft a head case.”
Vernell clutched Elmer’s forearm, her spidery fingers seeming desperate for something solid to hang onto. “Honey, that’s not important right—”
“The hell it ain’t.” Elmer stood so suddenly that even the taciturn nurse gasped in shock. Shoving his wife’s hand away, he glowered at Bobby. “You almost threw it all away. Whatever kind of game you were playing on that bridge, you were betting your future—the one I gave to you.”
Vernell’s lips quivered and she fell on her knees before her husband, as if she’d gladly offer her head to his ax if only he’d shift his anger away from Bobby. Bobby found his mom’s pathetic attempt at appeasement even more disgusting than his dad’s display, and he was embarrassed to have Ronnie witness this bare reality of his life. He wanted to climb over the stainless steel bed rails and slap both of them. The cardiac monitor beeped as his pulse accelerated with adrenaline.
“Please,” the nurse said, stepping in front of the foot of the bed as if to shield her patient. “Rest is the best thing for your son right now.”
“He’ll get plenty of that when he’s riding the bench in the minors,” Elmer said, pushing his way to the door. “He ain’t the only one who feels sick. I better get out of here before I puke.”
Vernell gave her son one pained, forlorn look—Which one of you needs me more?�
��and then hurried into the hall after her husband. Bobby sagged back against the pillows and closed his eyes.
“Whoa,” Ronnie whispered.
“I see this sort of thing a lot around here,” the nurse said, patting Bobby’s shoulder. “Stress and drama. I’ll be right back. I’m just going to check on that urine test.” To Ronnie, she said, “Don’t keep him up. He needs his rest, and visiting hours are over, even for family members.”
“That’s what you get for pretending to be my brother,” Bobby said after she left. “Welcome to the family.”
“Who cares about that?” Ronnie said. “What happened?”
The sheriff had already stopped by to ask Bobby more questions about the accident, but he’d stuck with his story about not remembering anything besides driving to the McFall property to cover the lumber. It was a story he needed to start believing. The alternative was too impossible, too disturbing.
“Maybe I got struck by lightning out at the work site,” Bobby said.
“Don’t bullshit me, Bobby. I know there’s something you’re not saying.”
There it was again in his mind’s eye—the smoldering figure rising out of the gray foundation of the church ruins. The rest of it was like a drifting fog threatening to assemble into terrifying shapes, and Bobby didn’t dare feed the fog with thoughts or words. Still, he had a feeling he’d been taken somewhere, to a place he didn’t care to revisit. The frenetic beating of the cardiac monitor gave away his disquiet, and he removed the clip from his finger before the nurse returned to check on him.
“Did you wreck on purpose?” Ronnie asked.
“What? Why would I do that?”
“To collect insurance money.”
“On that piece of junk?” Bobby said.
“Could be that you have some kind of weird death wish.”
“Maybe so. I hang around you, don’t I?”
“I’m not the one lying in a hospital bed.”
“Get the nurse,” Bobby said. “There’s a sudden pain in my ass.”
“Not funny. You know she’d just slap on a latex glove and go digging. Maybe she’d find your head in there.”
Even though Ronnie would understand—hell, Deathboy was practically the local expert on bizarre occurrences—telling the truth would make what had happened more real somehow, and he did not want to reveal his weakness to anyone. Even though he knew staying silent might create a rift between him and Ronnie, particularly since their relationship was already strained over the whole Melanie thing, Bobby wasn’t quite ready to tell the truth.
The wind kicked up a little skirl of ash and you freaked out, he told himself. You blew the game within the game.
“I guess I was driving too fast,” he finally said, a confession that was close enough to the truth to allow his conscience to skate. “Lost control. But I didn’t do it on purpose, no matter what anyone thinks.”
Ronnie yawned. “Well, if you’re not going to die, and if you’re not going to get real, I got classes tomorrow. I better get some sleep.”
Bobby almost asked his friend to stay, but Ronnie was right—final exams were the following day, and while Bobby could get out of them if he wanted, he doubted if Stribling and Gladstone would give Ronnie a free pass.
“How you getting home?” Bobby asked.
“The sheriff said he’d send a deputy around. A patrol’s heading out that way anyway.”
“Make sure you ride up front. Somebody might think you’re getting arrested for one of those murders.”
“None of them were murders, dorkface.”
Bobby grinned, then grew serious. “Thanks for coming by, Ronnie. And for finding me. Means a lot.”
“Yeah. Don’t get all goofy on me. I’m just being a bro. G’night.” Ronnie paused when he reached the door. “I called Melanie.”
“For real? How did it go?” Bobby was glad he’d removed the clip or his rapid heartbeat would give him away.
“Fine. Except she’s going to the dance with Brett Summers.”
“That dickhead? I thought he was going with Amy.”
“Maybe he dumped Amy when something better came along. Or maybe Amy dumped him. You know how girls are.”
“Sure.” Bobby closed his eyes. “See you tomorrow.”
After the door whispered to a close, Bobby lay in the bright, antiseptic room and stared at the blackness beyond the window shades. He retraced his route after fleeing the church ruins, the tense skidding on the gravel curves of Little Church Road, the acceleration on the straightaway as he approached the bridge. He hadn’t really been going that fast, maybe ten miles over the speed limit. And while Sheriff Littlefield might think he had been driving recklessly, Bobby had even slowed down once he’d put a mile between him and the creepy stack of smoke and ashes.
At first, when he’d arrived at the bridge, he’d thought the rainstorm had cast a thick mist over the river, because vapor thickened and swelled over the railings as he approached. He’d hit his brights, but they’d been instantly swallowed by the effluvium. The mist had begun to roil and twist all around him, and then a gray palm of gauze had pressed against the windshield, followed by a white, screaming face. Bobby had punched the accelerator even though he could barely see the road.
And just before he’d cleared the bridge, the stack of smoke and ashes had emerged impossibly from the mist in front of him, only now with articulated limbs and a great, grinning face whose mouth looked like the deepest dead ember in the cold hearth of hell. One of its shimmering arms had waved him forward.
Welcome to the game within the game, it had seemed to say.
The last thing he remembered was waking up in the weeds, Ronnie calling his name from a few feet away. Now, in the hospital bed, he rubbed his hands over his face and chest, surprised to find himself in one piece. He’d dodged a bullet. But maybe that was part of the game, too.
The door to his room whisked open, and at first he thought Ronnie had returned. But those gray-white worms of fingers that clutched the edge of the door—
The Ash Man!
Bobby nearly fell out of bed reaching for the button to summon the nurse.
The door swung fully open.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Bobby,” Larkin McFall said. “I heard you had an accident.”
Bobby was pale and trembling, which was understandable. He’d had quite a night, and it was just beginning.
“Huh-how did you get in here?” Bobby asked, pulling the sheet up to his chin.
“Visiting hours are just like those rules on the sign at the bridge,” Larkin said. “If you ignore them, they don’t exist.”
“But why are you here?”
Larkin checked out all the expensive monitoring equipment hooked up to Bobby. This little misadventure would cost the Eldreth family at least $8,000, including the ambulance ride. If only they had believed Bobby when he’d told them he was fine. But humans were like that, always going overboard to ensure they were “doing the right thing.”
“I’m the kind of boss who likes to take care of my people,” Larkin said. “We need you at McFall Meadows, so I have a vested interest in getting you back on your feet as fast as possible. Plus …”
Bobby’s eyes flicked first to the summon button, then over to Larkin. “Plus what?”
“The dance. The gig. I know how much it means to you.”
Bobby gazed at his own hands as if wondering how they’d ever held drumsticks, much less tapped out a steady rhythm. “I guess I’ll have to miss it.”
Larkin shook his head. “This is the game now. This is your heart and soul. This is where you win.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ll be out at sunrise. I promise.”
“But the doctor said—”
“I have a friend on the hospital board. I’ll call in a favor while he’s eating his eggs and toast, and you’ll get the go-ahead.”
Bobby still seemed confused, and Larkin didn’t blame him. Drifting through the hosp
ital as smoke had been simple, his passage disguised by green fluorescent lights and the smell of disease, but Larkin should have solidified a moment sooner. Bobby was undergoing the classic struggle of trying to deny what he’d seen with his own eyes. Larkin had long used such willful self-denial to his advantage. It was a fundamental principle of the McFall way of life. And unlife.
After all, if he believes what he’s seen, he’s insane. And if he’s insane, he can’t believe what he thinks he’s seen.
“This is the biggest moment of your life,” Larkin said. “Bigger than the playoffs, bigger than the major league draft, bigger than Amy Extine.”
“I just want to play the drums,” Bobby said.
“And you will.” Larkin approached the bed. The boy drew back a little, but apparently he’d decided that Larkin wasn’t a danger, at least for the moment. Larkin fished in his pocket and pulled out a ring with two keys. “Go on, take them.”
Bobby held out a tentative hand. “What?” he asked, his voice laced with confusion.
“You crashed your truck. You need to borrow one of mine if we want to get any work done.”
Bobby’s eyebrows arched, and he almost grinned as he squeezed the keys. “Wheels?”
“Chevy Silverado four-door with a crew cab. Just off the lot. Of course, the gas mileage is atrocious, but there’s a BP credit card in the ashtray. It’s all on the company’s dime.”
“Gee, Mr. McFall,” Bobby gushed like a kid at Disney World, seemingly forgetting all about his employer’s strange entrance. “That’s …” Without finishing the sentence, he frowned.
“Don’t worry about your dad,” Larkin said, picking up on his thoughts. “I’ll have a little talk with him. It will be okay.”
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