“Great.” Chris slammed the front door hard enough for the frosted windows to rattle. He’d wanted to stay home in bed, but instead, he’d been forced to go to the funeral home with his family and talk about arrangements.
“It’ll be good for you,” he mocked in a falsetto version of his coach’s voice.
What the hell did his coach know about losing a brother?
He couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t listen to his mother weeping or watch his father’s face become more drawn with every passing second. Couldn’t sit there while his freaking ten-year old brother took charge, asking about dates and times and costs. So he’d slipped away. They’d notice eventually. And then they’d worry. He felt bad about that, but right now, he could get away with murder.
Chris shivered at the thought, using his sock-clad foot to push his other sneaker off. No one was calling what had happened to his brother and the rest of the team a murder, but he knew better. He peeled the wet socks off, balled them up, and threw them toward the laundry room.
Thank God, Tess D’Ovidio wasn’t talking. They’d all taken her memory loss excuse and run with it. It wasn’t even really a lie. The whole night stayed an out-of-focus blur, but he knew what they’d been planning.
A text chimed on his phone and he glanced at it, expecting to see Mom demanding to know where he was. But it wasn’t her. No, it was just another meaningless sympathy text flashing across the screen before his drained phone gave up and died. Chris got more of them than most of his teammates. He wasn’t the only one with a brother on the football team, but he was the only twin.
Not anymore. Part of him wished he could disappear so he could stop seeing that look in everyone’s eyes when he walked into a room. Like they’d just realized they didn’t need to puzzle out who was who anymore.
“Jesus, Mom, what’s the air set to, forty?” Shivering, Chris shucked off his hoodie, letting the black fabric hit the floor with a wet thwack. He picked his way across the living room until he reached the sofa table.
Mom had a thing for shining, white Greek-esque columns, deep purple walls, and random plant life. He’d never minded before, but now his house reminded him one of those weird coffin-mansions for snobs too good to get buried in the ground like regular folks.
Mausoleum, idjut.
Chris turned; fully expecting to see his brother sprawled out on the couch with a condescending smirk on his face. Of course, he wasn’t there.
Swallowing his disappointment, he plugged his phone in and set it down next to an elaborate hand-drawn sympathy card. The door slammed behind him.
Did he forget to close the door? Chris rubbed his eyes. He just wanted to take a shower then crawl in bed and wake up tomorrow to find out the last few days had been hallucinations from one helluva trip. But first, he needed to let Mom and Dad know he was okay. And he couldn’t do that until his phone charged enough to send a quick text.
Lightning lit the sky, illuminating the room in one bright, white flash before plunging Chris back into darkness. A shadow moved across the living room in the half-second of light. “Hello?”
No answer. Chris rubbed his eyes again. If he was seeing things, that meant he needed to get sleep. Real sleep, unplagued by nightmares. He pressed the home button on his phone, frowning when the screen remained dark. “Power’s out, genius.”
He reached for the house phone and was surprised to find it wasn’t in its cradle. Weird. No one ever used that thing. He pressed the locate button.
A sharp chime rang out from upstairs. It sounded like it was ringing from the bathroom? Chris cleared the top of the stairs and narrowed his eyes, squinting down the long, dark hallway, trying to force his vision to adapt.
The chiming grew louder as he made his way down the hall. The darkness forced Chris to walk to the bathroom with measured steps, one hand trailing along the wall. He could see the phone’s keypad glowing in the darkness. As he drew closer, he realized the green light hovered in the center of the room.
Chris froze. Someone was holding the phone.
Lighting cracked again, illuminating a small figure shrouded in shadow. A grin stretched across its face in a terrifying mockery of a human smile. Its teeth glittered. Memories from the bonfire came flooding back to him in a brutal blur. Last time he’d seen those teeth, they’d been buried in his brother’s neck.
“No,” he gasped. “How did you get in here?”
Fear was rooted in instinct. It was a primal sensation, stretching back to The Before when people cowered in caves, afraid to turn their eyes to the hidden depths of the forest because they knew something would look back at them. Something with teeth and claws and a grin that stretched a bit too far to be human.
We did this, Chris realized. We summoned it.
The phone rang.
A chill swept over Chris as the creature, more shadow than flesh, moved forward. “You’ll want to take this.” Its rasping voice slid through Chris’s ears like sandpaper. Then silently, somehow still audible in the recesses of Chris’s brain, the figure issued a command. Repeat after me.
Numbly, he took the phone from the outstretched hand.
Hello.
“Hello?” The word sprang from his lips, unbidden.
“Chris? Hon!” His mom’s voice shouted from the phone, barely audible over the wind whistling through the receiver. “Thank God!” Thunder boomed, and she cut out for a second. “—been worried sick—” Another burst of thunder reverberated through the house hard enough to shake the walls. “—shouldn’t be alone right now.”
I’m okay. The voice sounded toneless, but Chris swore sarcasm glittered in its dark eyes.
He shuddered, remembering the fire he’d seen flickering in those eyes. The predatory gleam when they’d latched on to him and his friends. Josh swore the only thing that would come of the stupid ritual was good luck, but that was before the match had lit of its own accord. The second the fire flickered and died in those eyes, leaving nothing behind but an all-consuming hunger, he’d realized their horrible mistake.
By then, it had been too late. He’d never seen anything move that fast. Why he’d been spared, he didn’t know, but he’d always felt on some level that the reprieve was temporary.
Chris swallowed hard. “I’m okay.”
A burst of static had Chris holding the phone further from his ear. “No—neighb—until—”
Chris half-expected a forked tongue to dart out from behind the creature’s over-stretched lips. “Mom,” his voice cracked as he echoed the voice in his head.
You don’t have to worry about me anymore.
The creature stared him down, its head jerking suddenly to the left. There was something in the way it stood, the flex of its fingers, the square of its narrow shoulders that suggested confinement. Like a tall man driving a clown car in desperate need of a stretch. Chris really didn’t want to see what happened when it stretched.
“You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”
“What, honey?”
He closed his eyes, trying to focus on her voice. She loved him so much. Fragments of memories—birthday parties, hugs, swinging—flashed through his mind in quick succession. Mom had already lost David, this was going to destroy her. And Dad, he’d never get to talk to Dad again.
He’d never get to tell Brian how proud he was to be his brother.
A note, he begged. There’s so much I need to say. Please! At least let me leave a note.
I’m sorry, that toneless voice said, devoid of any emotion. Maybe it wasn’t capable of real feelings.
For a second, Chris thought the voice was apologizing to him, but he should have known better. The compulsion to speak overwhelmed him. He resisted.
“Just know that—” Deviating from the script hurt. A white-hot flash of pain ripped through his head. Pressure, so much pres
sure. Just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, something gave. Warm, sticky fluid trickled from his ears and onto his neck. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, clenching his fist against the pain. He had to say it.
He couldn’t die without telling her. “I love you and Dad and Brian, I—”
“Chris?” His mom sounded alarmed. “Is everything okay?”
He doubled over, his free hand shooting to the countertop to steady himself. The figure tilted its head in that strange lizard-like way, as though curious why he would struggle. Chris shuddered. The look in its eyes was so alien, so strange, that—
No. There was no fighting this, he knew, but that thing wasn’t worth an iota of his last thoughts. “I love you all, so much.” His voice cracked.
I can’t do this anymore. Not without David.
“I can’t do this anymore. Not without David.” There was some truth to that. Chris didn’t want to live in a world without his brother any more than he wanted to become his brother’s ghost. They’d all made a choice on the night of the bonfire. He just hadn’t realized it at the time. Fulfilling his promise was the right thing to do. He should have died right alongside David. Why was he so afraid before?
“Do what? Chris!” Another burst of static erupted through the phone. “Do what? I’m on my way home, okay? Just . . . I’ll be right there.”
“No!” Fear returned to Chris in full force along with a wave of pain that knocked him to his knees. The rain slammed against the house. When he thought of his mom, dad, and little brother all swerveing along the road trying to reach him, his gut clenched.
A flash of lightning illuminated the creature’s piercing gaze. Chris met it, pleading with the voice in his head. I’ll do anything, anything you want, but don’t let them die for me.
“They won’t.” It sounded almost sympathetic. Human.
He’d been prepared for anything but that. The creature looked so unnatural, everything from the gleam in its eyes to the strange, almost reptilian tilt of its head sent a primal surge of fear through Chris. But now . . .
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “What we did . . .” There were no words that could make it right. Only deeds.
“Chris!” His mom was shouting now. “Chris, answer me!”
Chris breathed a sigh of relief, somehow certain no harm would come to his family. “I love you, Mom.” He turned the phone off and flinched when the figure handed him a razor blade. Swallowing hard, he slid the blade up his right wrist.
Nothing happened. For half a heartbeat, he allowed himself to hope that maybe he’d somehow become impervious to the blade. Then a thin line of red filled in the indention the razor had left against his dark skin. The blood welled and spilled over his wrist.
Wordlessly, Chris held his arm out to the creature in offering. Its too-long fingers gripped his wrist. The tip of its tongue darted out, brushing against the wound. His blood quickened. With a horrified fascination, Chris watched the creature press his wrist to its mouth, its dark eyes never leaving his.
Then the real pain began.
Chapter 10: Tess
Thursday, September 15th
CONVERSATIONS CEASED when Derrick and I squeezed past the crowd of reporters in the gym. But I was getting used to that. Every time I passed a group of people, they stopped talking. I didn’t care for being The Girl Who Lived, I mean, it was better than the alternative, but my letter from Hogwarts could come any day now.
“We don’t have to do this,” Derrick murmured, taking a second to meet the gaze of every person staring at me until they looked away.
In the center of the gym, photos of each of the deceased football players were propped on stands surrounded by flowers, notes, candles, and stuffed animals. The lights from above reflected off the shiny floors, encircling the makeshift shrine in an almost ethereal glow. “It’s the least we can do.”
My gaze caught on Christopher Hendrix’s picture, and my mouth went dry as the image of a razor sliding up a wrist pierced my mind.
Oh, Chris. To have survived whatever happened at the bonfire and then done that . . . . I couldn’t make sense of it. But I was glad someone had thought to add his photo next to his brother’s.
Whispers from a group of girls a few feet away caught my attention.
“ . . . can’t believe she’s here.”
“Did you hear . . . ?”
“ . . . no other girls at the . . .”
Derrick narrowed his eyes, but I grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the bleachers before he could say anything.
Derrick followed me, whispering in a low voice, “You know you don’t need to apologize for living, right? If people are stupid enough to blame you, they won’t care how many memorials you attend or cards you make. They’re grieving. That’s not a logical process.”
Cards I make? That seemed like an oddly specific example, but whatever. “Tell that to the rest of the town. They would trade me in a heartbeat if it meant they got one of their precious football players back.” Dropping my book bag between the bleachers, I glanced around to make sure no one in the crowded assembly room was listening. Thank God they all seemed wrapped up in their own conversations.
Maybe there were some benefits to everyone giving me such a wide berth. “Between their watching and whispering and the crying, it feels like this whole town is stuck in an eternal wake, and I’m suffocating. And I can’t seem to react right enough to make them stop. If I cry, it’s like,” I hooked my fingers into air quotes, “‘How dare you? It’s not like you were close.’ But God forbid I crack a smile because then they’re all like ‘How dare you not weep twenty-four seven?’”
If I could give them some answers, maybe it would be different. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember anything. The surviving football players didn’t remember the night any more than I did, but no one seemed mad at them.
Derrick quirked his eyebrows. “Can I get a word in, or do you just want to keep monologuing at me?”
I flushed. “Sorry.”
He shoved his book bag in the space between bleachers and stepped up, taking his seat. “When my dad died, people kept giving me the same speech over and over again. It does make you crazy.” He leaned forward and took a deep breath. “I wasn’t trying to say you shouldn’t feel guilty, because you’re not like . . . allowed to feel or whatever. I meant—” He broke off and looked around to make sure no one could hear us. “I don’t think you should feel guilty because . . . I think they deserved it.”
My head snapped up. “You can’t say that.”
“Why not?”
I glanced across the gym where the group who would forever be known as “The Survivors” huddled together in the front-right section of the bleachers. As far as I could tell, they hadn’t left each other’s sides since the bonfire. A group of adults always hovered far enough away to leave them to their grief but close enough to intervene when the reporters got too pushy.
Certain no one was listening, I spoke fast in a low voice. “Because they were already well-loved, and now they’re dead. That raises them to a level we can’t touch. You especially. If someone got it into their head that your mom isn’t putting as much into this as she could because of some personal bias—”
“They did something, Tess!”
“I can’t do this.” I stood, ignoring the odd looks I got.
Derrick grabbed my hand before I could jump off the bleachers. “Do what?”
“I can’t play devil’s advocate like this, Derrick. I can’t defend them.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“You are,” I growled, careful to keep my voice low. “Because you say stuff like it’s fact. Someone has to point out when you jump to conclusions.”
“Students,” Mrs. Smith, the principal, addressed the room.
I shot Derri
ck a glare, daring him to say something as I sat back down.
“We have all experienced such a tremendous loss—” Her voice broke, and more than a few students began to sob.
Everything pretty much went downhill from there. Each member of the faculty said a few words, students spoke, read poems, a few sang, and at the end, Mrs. Smith reminded us that routines help in times like these, but Mrs. Minchin, the school counselor, would be standing by if any students needed her.
Derrick and I stayed long after everyone else filed out of the gym. Every now and then, a teacher would walk by to check on us, but they mostly left us alone.
“I’m sorry.” Derrick said finally. When he leaned forward, he put lines in his dark dress slacks. We’d both worn black out of respect for the dead. The color suited him.
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be biting your head off.” Not when I was the reason he’d been dragged into this.
“I shouldn’t be telling you how to feel. When my dad died . . .” He cleared his throat. When I clutched his hand, he continued. “I felt nothing. Everyone else was crying, and I couldn’t. I felt like there was something wrong with me.”
“I remember.”
Derrick went through phases where he got super interested in some random topic. He’d get obsessed. We’d spent one summer learning everything there was to know about the Titanic, another Anastasia, one building a computer, and everything in-between. But nothing quite topped the summer after his dad died, when we’d studied serial killers.
“I think . . .” Derrick’s phone buzzed with a notification, so he released my hand to dig it out of his pocket. “Maybe there’s nothing wrong with not feeling anything. We have this expectation of gnashing of teeth and hand-wringing thrust upon us. But maybe that’s not supposed to be everyone’s reality. I still don’t think you should feel guilty, and you definitely shouldn’t feel like you have to defend them, but however you need to grieve—”
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