They All Fall Down

by Roxanne St Claire

  But I know grief counseling when I see it. The parent volunteer at the desk gives me a pitying look when I ask for the nurse. “Can you wait? She and the counselors can probably see you in a few minutes. There’s no one else in front of you.”

  I don’t want to talk to the counselors, but I know there won’t be any other way to get to Nurse Fedder today. After about fifteen minutes, they all come out.

  Nurse Fedder spots me immediately. “Kenzie, how’s your finger?”

  “Healing. Can I talk to you?”

  One of the counselors, an older man, steps forward. “You can talk to all of us. I’m Dr. Horowitz, a psychologist.”

  I shake my head and gesture to the nurse. “I just want to talk to Nurse Fedder.”

  “Don’t be put off by the profession,” the doctor says. “We can just talk. And this is Pastor Eugene.” He indicates another man.

  “Hello, dear,” the pastor says, his voice so gentle and kind I’m almost tempted. But I doubt my questions about a curse would go over big with a pastor.

  “Please?” I ask Nurse Fedder.

  “I know this young lady.” She reaches for my arm. “We’ll talk in the clinic.”

  The shrink looks like he’s about to argue, but another student comes in looking for counseling and helps me out. I follow Nurse Fedder down the short corridor to the same room where she’d bandaged my hand.

  She closes the door and turns to me, as pale as I must have been the last time I was in here.

  “This is bad,” she says simply.

  Whoa. Wasn’t expecting that. “Yes, it is,” I agree.

  “I’ve been waiting for one of you to show up.”

  I assume she means one of the girls from the list. “We were too busy having a coven in an empty lab downstairs.”

  Her expression flickers. “A coven?”

  “Talking about curses and stuff …” I eye her carefully, praying for her to look at me like I’m crazy. Like Kylie and Amanda are totally wacked out and there is nothing remotely true about this.

  Instead she nods. “This could be a bad year,” she says solemnly.

  My weak knees bend and I sink into the patient cot. “What are you talking about?”

  She glances at the door like someone might barge in. “We can’t talk here.”

  “Why not?” I demand, despising the note of panic that hitches my voice. Why isn’t she just waving this off as nonsense? Has everyone who’s ever been on that list been brainwashed or something?

  She sits next to me and closes her clammy hands over mine. “Most of the time, actually almost all the time, the girls on the list are … fine.”

  “Fine.” I whisper the word. “What about the rest of the time?”

  She closes her eyes and blows out a slow, noisy sigh. “There have been accidents.”

  So I’ve heard. Frustration and fear mix into a black ball of nausea in my stomach. I want to know more … but I kind of want to run away and never hear that word again.

  “Are you sure they’re accidents? Not …” Murder. “Intentional?”

  “They’re fatal. Never anything but bad luck or, more accurately, cursed luck.”

  “Nurse Fedder.” I am fighting for calm, trying to ignore the quivering of terror and irritation in my body. “I don’t believe in the supernatural. I don’t believe in a curse.”

  Her smile is wry. “No one comes into this believing. But after a while … There’s no denying that the hand of something very powerful is on this list. Something insidious and unpredictable, something that thrives on the unexpected and never leaves a trace of crime in its wake, only the stink of a curse.”

  How could someone so smart—trained in medicine and, one would assume, science—fall for this crap?

  “Nurse Fedder—”

  “Christine,” she corrects. “Call me Christine.”

  “What I’m calling you is crazy.” I don’t care what I sound like. “I don’t believe in curses or supernatural garbage or any insidious hands that … whatever you said. I don’t buy any of that.”

  She gives a shrug that says it all: what I think matters not one bit.

  “I think these deaths might be …” Murder. Levi’s face flashes before me. If someone is accused, it’ll be him. “Not accidents.”

  “They’re not,” she agrees readily. “But if you think someone killed anyone who’s ever been on the list, think again. Not one death has ever been anything but a freak accident. No crime, no evidence of murder, no other person involved. Believe me, we’ve investigated.”

  “We? You mean other women who’ve been on the list?”

  She nods. “We hired a private investigator who found absolutely no shred of evidence that any death was anything but accidental. Of course, there were two suicides.”

  I just blink at her. “How many girls have died who’ve been on that list?”

  “Counting Olivia and Chloe? A total of eleven.”

  “Eleven?” I flinch in shock.

  “That’s not that many,” she says.

  “By whose math? It sounds like a buttload to me. How can this not be in the news? Eleven women with this list in common are dead and—”

  “Eleven over thirty years, Kenzie? Before yesterday, it was only one every three years.”

  I practically sputter in response. “Which still qualifies as the handiwork of a serial killer.”

  There’s a spark of something like hope in the nurse’s eyes; it fades as she shakes her head. “There’s no serial killer, Kenzie. No one forced Chloe to eat something that killed her.”

  In my mind’s eye, I see the pickup truck. “You don’t know that.”

  “They found Olivia’s leg trapped between two rocks.”

  “That’s what they say. What if someone put her there?”

  “A scuba diver? Underwater and waiting for her? They have the full police report and evidence. None of the boys were in the water, no one else was even wet. She jumped—”

  “Or was pushed.”

  She shakes her head. “No. It’s on camera. One of the boys taped the whole thing on his phone. I’ve talked to the police and they have the proof that she jumped of her own accord and went so deep her foot got trapped between two rocks. Just very bad luck.”

  I puff out a breath, frustrated. “You know murder can be made to look like an accident.”

  “No one put Sylvia Rushing’s scarf between elevator doors in a hotel in Cincinnati, strangling her when the doors closed. No one knocked Susan Cordaine off a ladder while she was stringing Christmas lights on her front lawn, breaking her neck.”

  I can’t do anything but stare at her. My brother died from a broken neck.

  “Trust me, Kenzie. A killer would be more … appealing. A killer could be stopped. A killer would be a great improvement over worrying about a tree falling on you and killing you on the street like—”

  “Roberta Livingston.” I remember that accident, of course. Mom obsessed about it for days. It happened about a year ago not far from here, and she was a Vienna High graduate. A huge branch of a willow tree just cracked off and killed her right on the street with multiple witnesses. That wasn’t murder, and that wasn’t suicide.

  So, that was … a curse? “How did the others die? When?”

  She shakes her head like she doesn’t want to tell me or, possibly, refuses to tell me. “Is there a list somewhere?” I demand. “With every name? I want to talk to the others. I want to look at these eleven ‘accidents.’ For God’s sake, hasn’t someone told the police? A reporter? Something to stop this?”

  She stands and puts her hands on my shoulders as if that will stop the rising alarm in my voice. “If you say a word, you’re bound to be next. That’s part of the curse.”

  Or a way to keep us all quiet. “No.” I shake out of her grip. “I don’t believe that. I can’t.”

  “We know how to stop it, Kenzie. My year never lost anyone, not once. And none of us have ever talked outside the group. If I learn anything to help y
ou, I’ll contact you.”

  Oh, for crying out loud. “How? By voodoo? Through the clouds? In time for me to escape a falling tree?”

  Her fingertips tighten and pull me a little closer. “I know you’re scared, Kenzie. But just remember not to trust a soul. Don’t even think about telling someone outside the list.”

  I let her ease me into a comforting hug because, hell, I need one right now.

  CHAPTER XIX

  After leaving the nurse’s office, I cruise by my locker and find Josh leaning against it, nodding and murmuring “ ’Sup?” to passersby but holding my gaze as I approach.

  “Hey, Fifth.”

  I want to smack him for calling me that, but he reaches out his hand to me and I take it, letting him pull me in closer. “Where have you been?”

  “Nurse’s office.”

  He frowns. “Why’d you go there?”

  I search his face for a second, considering telling him more. Everything, in fact. But Nurse Fedder’s words are still fresh. “Grief counseling.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No.” The admission is out before I can stop myself. “I’m not okay. How can anyone be okay?”

  He lifts my hand to his heart. “You can be okay because you’re with me.”

  I appreciate the sentiment, corny and cocky as it may be, but it doesn’t comfort me. It makes me want to laugh. “You sure don’t lack for ego, do you?”

  “Because I’m sexy and I know it?” he sings, giving his shoulders a playful shimmy.

  I’m still smiling at him, maybe—just maybe—starting to feel that sensation I’ve been waiting for. He’s funny, he’s cute, and, holy hell, he likes me. And, added bonus, he hasn’t been escorted out of school by the police today. Why am I fighting it so much? Why am I thinking about the wrong boy?

  “Seriously, babe,” he says, fleetingly making me prefer Fifth in the nickname department. “I didn’t realize you were such good friends with Chloe.”

  “I wasn’t.” To be honest, I didn’t even like her. But that doesn’t make this any easier. “It’s still sad.”

  “School’s a wreck,” he agrees. “Nobody’s doing anything. Me and Ty are cutting out. Did you get my text?”

  I nod.

  “Well? Wanna come?”

  The idea of cutting class is so foreign to me I almost laugh again. “I don’t …” Wait a second. Why not? Who’s going to know, today? I’ve always wanted to just walk out of school and not care, to go have fun and laugh and hang out with kids who don’t worry about declensions or trig identities or passing the AP exams. And God knows I could use a change of scenery.

  “Okay. Where to?”

  “Let’s just drive.” He gestures toward my locker. “Ditch your books and we’ll go. Ty’s in the parking lot already.”

  A few minutes later, I’m sitting in Josh’s Audi, inhaling the smell of leather and listening to really annoying rap music. Tyler Griffith, another football player, is slouched in the back, earbuds in, his attention firmly on his phone.

  Josh keeps one hand on the gearshift, tapping the other on the steering wheel as we pull out of the parking lot, the image of a young man in control, cool and calm. That helps me—a lot. With each passing minute, I consider the possibility of sharing the whole curse business with him.

  Ty isn’t paying attention, but will Josh think I’m a nutcase and tell everyone, and the other girls will want to kill me? What if there’s something to the secrecy? What if telling someone about the curse brings it to fruition?

  Stop it, Kenzie. You’re too smart for that crap.

  “So what’s everyone saying about this?” I ask, hoping to get information instead of giving it.

  “Other than that the Sterling dick was arrested?”

  Ire shoots through me at the assumption. “He wasn’t arrested, was he? I heard they just took him in for questioning.”

  “Whatever. If anyone is capable of murder, it’s that kid.”

  “Murder? Who said anything about murder?”

  “Like, everybody. And Sterling’s a complete bag of douchery, if you ask me.”

  No, he’s a kid with dyslexia whose mother is in a mental institution, and he carries a bunch of guilt in his back pocket because of an accident that paralyzed a girl. And he disappeared on me half an hour before another girl was found dead.

  “Being a douche bag doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  “Haven’t you heard he tried to kill some chick in his old town?”

  “I don’t think he tried to kill her, but—”

  He turns hard onto the main drag, his jaw set a little. “Kenzie, you know he was at the quarry, right?” He says it like the statement is proof positive that Levi pushed Olivia off the cliff.

  “Did you know the whole incident is on tape?”

  He shoots me a look. “Doesn’t mean Sterling didn’t give her a nudge off camera.”

  I don’t know why I have to defend Levi, but I do. With everything in me. “Last time I checked, this was America, where you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Bullshit. If someone killed those chicks, he’s the one, and you better hope like hell they lock him up.”

  I turn and look out the window, watching a strip mall roll by. “What if no one killed them?” I say.

  “Then we have one hell of a weird coincidence at Vienna High this weekend.”

  I can’t argue with that. “What if … I mean, I heard people saying there’s a curse.” I slide him a look to get his reaction. It’s a slow, sly smile.

  “Cool.” The word comes from the back, startling me because I’d kind of forgotten about Ty.

  “Cool?” I ask, turning to look at him. “What is cool about that?”

  “I totally dig all that paranormal shit.” Ty doesn’t take his earbuds out, so I have to assume he’s heard the entire conversation. “A curse? Man, that’s just cool.”

  Speaking of douche bags. I manage not to roll my eyes as I look away. “I personally don’t think it’s anything but creepy. And bogus.”

  Josh takes his hand off the gearshift and transfers it to my leg, his palm warm even through my jeans. “You don’t know,” he says. “Maybe the list is cursed. Like there’s a price you have to pay for being so hot.”

  I have to work to keep the disgust out of my voice. “That might be the stupidest thing I have ever heard. And not even funny, because I’m on that list.”

  “Thanks to me.”

  “I know you voted for me,” I say, not sure if Josh is really expecting me to thank him or not. I look to the window, my eye on an interstate sign as he slides into the right lane. “I can’t believe I got any votes at all, let alone one from you and enough to make the list.”

  “More than enough,” Tyler says.

  I turn around to stare at him. “How do you know?”

  He looks up from his phone, but not at me. He catches Josh’s eye in the rearview and they exchange a silent message, Josh’s expression clearly a warning.

  “Did you count votes?” I ask Tyler.

  I see Josh give the tiniest shake of his head and some fire shoots through me. “Did you?” I ask Josh. A guilty look passes between the two of them, followed by silence.

  “Josh,” I say. “Do you guys know who tallied the votes?”

  “It’s a secret, Kenzie. We can’t say.”

  More secrets? “Or what?”

  Another exchanged look, and this time Tyler kind of laughs nervously. And neither of them says a word, which just tightens my stomach with all kinds of aggravation.

  “I think, given that two girls from the list have died, you owe me an answer, Josh.”

  He doesn’t respond, easing onto the ramp to I-70. “Where are we going?” I ask. I didn’t plan to get this far out of Cedar Hills, let alone leave the town of Vienna.

  “I’m thirsty,” Josh replies. “Let’s get some brewski.” He juts his chin at a highway sign that says it’s nineteen miles to Wheeling, West Virginia. “Gotta love the redneck
s in Dubya-V-A,” he says. “Never look twice at a fake ID.”

  “Do you really know how the votes are tallied?” I ask again. “Do you know if it’s … legit?”

  “Fifth, you do not give yourself enough credit. Of course it’s legit. You are top ten, and you”—he squeezes my leg—“are in for the ride of your life.”

  Sliding around a van to get in the left lane, he slams on the accelerator, taking my breath away. “Hey!”

  “Relax.” He gives the steering wheel a pound and turns up the music. “This machine was made for speed. Why take forty minutes to get our beverages when I can get us there in twenty?”

  “Please, slow down.” I pull at my seat belt, a low-grade panic rising with the speed of the car.

  He responds by flooring it, revving the expensive engine, and whipping around a slower car.

  “Look, I don’t care about the voting,” I lie, aware that every vein in my body is pulsing. “And I don’t want to drink, so—”

  “We do,” Tyler says, proving again that he’s hearing everything we say, despite the earbuds.

  “Then get something at your house. Your grandfather’s hardly strict about you drinking at home.”

  “Just chill, Kenzie. This is what we do.”

  But it isn’t what I do. What made me think this was a good idea? I don’t cut class with two football players I hardly know and get booze from across the state line.

  I inhale slowly, forcing myself to do exactly as he says: chill. But questions plague me. I go to the one that bothers me the most.

  “How many boys count the votes?”

  Josh laughs softly. “Damn, woman, you’re relentless.” He adds a devilish smile that has probably gotten him through most sticky situations in his life that involved a female on the opposing side. “After we get our refreshments, I’ll tell you.”

  Ty leans forward. “But then he’ll have to kill you.”

  At my gasp and look of horror, Josh cracks up. “He’s teasing, Fifth.” But he can’t wipe the smile from his face as he taps a button on the steering wheel to make the music so loud no one can think or talk. The whole car vibrates with bass, or maybe that’s my insides. My stomach is doing cartwheels, my heart is jackhammering, and my head is screaming Get the hell out of here.