The kid pulled out a roll of cash—all twenties—peeled off one, and smacked it on the table. He then reached over and pulled Celine's pen from her apron pocket. She refrained from smacking him as she watched him write the name Royal Lodge, one of the town's two apartment complexes, and the number 300 on the back of the bill. He slid the paper and the twenty over. "My apartment number."
"I told you—"
"Yeah, a boyfriend I know. That's in case you're just blowin' me off and later on you come to your senses."
Celine shook her head. "Sorry but you're wasting your time."
Alfred E. Neuman smiled. "Why? You only like women?"
"Hey, you ordered the sausage." Celine snatched up the bill and the twenty. The kid's hand flew to his mouth and she heard him say "daaaammmnnn!!!" as she walked back behind the counter.
Standing at the register, she watched as he walked to the front door, stopped, then turned around. He pulled up his hoodie and said, "keep the change" then exited through the side door. Celine glanced at Ty's cruiser once again. So, he doesn't like cops.
She rang the bill, pocketed the tip, and looked at the clock. It would still be a while until closing. Too long. Celine was looking forward to seeing Jason.
***
The voices, distant and hazy, floated to him through the void. They arrived almost as the half-remembered snippets of a dream, tenuously grasped upon waking, captured briefly before slipping away.
"Is this deep enough?"
CJ's voice. Strained, raw. He was your friend once. That seemed so long ago. He killed you. Am I dead? If I'm dead how am I having these thoughts? The voices continued…
"Keep digging."
"C'mon, man…"
"Dig."
The void claimed all once again. For how long, it was impossible to say. Then, conversation drifted once more to his awareness.
"Get his legs."
A sensation, of being held, but this was also distant—a light touch, as on a body limb that has fallen asleep. Then:
Motion. Floating/falling. Followed by… an impact. Realized only in the faintest sense.
"Fill it in."
There was a subtle beating against his chest, like falling rain. And more. And more. The voices were now nothing more than a muffled murmur. It was a feeling of being cocooned, engulfed, swaddled. Is this what it felt like to be in the womb?
All sound faded once again to the void. There were faint vibrations, the slightest rumbling of the cocoon, and that too faded. Then there was only darkness, pressure, and silence.
***
CJ had no idea how long he had spent in the shower. At one point he was just curled against the bottom of the stall letting water pour over him, with the vague notion that the continuous stream might somehow wash away the evidence. Sit there long enough and hell, maybe it would even wash away the guilt. That could happen, right? You didn't have a choice. It was you or him.
He laid down on his beat-up, cum-stained sofa still shivering. The box truck was outside, parked in his spot.
You are so completely fucked.
How much of this shit was his fault? He made some poor choices. I'm only human. For as long as he could remember he was his own worst enemy. But lately it just seemed like one thing after another. Working for Boil, shooting up, trying to fuck Celine, which set off all this other shit… and now… Jesus, now…
You killed your best friend.
CJ shouldn't have said what he said. He had gone and bragged to Carter that he was going to "off" Jason; wanted to prove to the big man that CJ had some stones; prove to the boss that he was a man who could take care of his own messes. Now, as usual, all he had done was make shit worse.
You buried him.
After moving the body, covering up the blood, and collecting casings, Carter had ordered CJ to follow (with Jason's body rolling around in back.) Carter took Jason's old Duster, drove it to a bluff overlooking the deepest end of Whisper Lake, put it in neutral, and let it coast right in. It made one hell of a splash, threw up a shitload of bubbles, and then was gone. Vaguely, CJ had thought about his own truck getting dumped in the drink by that bitch Celine.
CJ had driven the muscle-head back to his own vehicle. On the way, Carter made one thing very clear to CJ, even in his freaked out state: if he so much as breathed a word of Boil's operation to the cops, the gun CJ had shot Jason with (which had his fingerprints on it,) would find its way into the sheriff's hands.
Before they had put Jason's body in the ground, Carter had gone through his best friend's pockets. He took his wallet, and he pulled an old photograph from Jason's coat. It was from the summer of '86, when CJ had shot the rabbit with his crossbow. Jason and CJ were standing together, looking like they were ready to take on the world. Carter had thrown the picture to CJ and said "take this with you."
CJ sat up now, grabbed the print from the coffee table and looked down, his tears falling onto their smiling faces.
You put him down just like you did that rabbit.
He needed to escape. Ride the horse. Shoot up. Forget. Float up into the clouds and just sail away to Never Never Land. And if he did it right…
He would never, never come back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
From the time he was little up until the age of seventeen (when his grandma died and left him enough money to the buy the beat-up old Duster) Jason had ridden his bike everywhere, mostly to run errands for Mom and Dad and go to friends' houses.
When Dad was alive he would send Jason off to buy groceries with an extra five bucks and a wink. Jason would go to the supermarket and get whatever was on the list, but he'd also blow the five dollars on Pac Man, Donkey Kong, comic books, or a rental of the latest action movie. In the years after Dad's death, Mom would simply tell Jason to go do something, get out of her sight. On those occasions Jason would take the money he had saved up from shoveling driveways and go blow it on those same games, comics, and movies. Sometimes he and CJ would go together and sometimes (usually when CJ's mom had grounded him) Jason would go by himself.
It was on one of those mornings when CJ's mom had been particularly pissed off at him, and Jason's Mom had basically told him to get lost, that he had been riding on his way home from the market. Jason had been cutting through the overgrown Cramden property to get to the interstate and the two miles down where he would hit the turnoff for his neighborhood, when he had hit a rock wrong with his front wheel and eaten shit.
He couldn't walk the bike because the wheel wouldn't turn, so he had decided to leave it and have Mom convince someone with a truck (they didn't have the minivan in those days) to come pick it up. It had been a hot day. Thin, wispy clouds feathered the sky and what little breeze there was had carried a scent of pine as Jason strolled along the shoulder, kicking a rock ahead of him. A few cars had passed, and he thought of hitching as walking in the heat for the next two miles was not appealing, but Mom had always sternly warned him against it.
A passing car had pulled over— a copper-colored Buick, covered in a thin coat of grime, like powder on a donut. A bumper sticker on the left side read "I IS A COLLEGE STUDENT," and Jason thought that was just about the funniest thing he had ever seen. When he had caught up to the passenger side door a welcoming voice called out: "Hey, buddy, need a lift?" Jason had peered in and seen a normal looking guy, old enough to be his dad. He had said "I'm only going a couple miles…"
"Hey no trouble at all," The man replied. "It's a real cooker out there today…" he turned and fiddled with something behind the passenger seat, then held a water bottle to the window. "Keep 'em in a cooler behind the seat. Just filled up on ice."
Jason had thought about what his Mom said, thought about the heat, thought about how harmless the man looked, but most of all he thought about how cold that water would feel going down his throat. He opened the door.
Some old country song had been playing on the radio. There was an open ashtray filled with cigarette butts. The man had sung along for a moment as Jason
gulped down his drink and looked over. The driver was big, with a belly that stuck out over his belt. He had worn a button up shirt with sweat stains radiating from the pits, and a solid blue tie with what looked like an old mustard stain on it. Sunlight reflected off of his thick glasses, a thin sheen of sweat slathered his face and collected in the stubble across his bulging jowls and there had been a long, single hair poking out of his veiny nose.
The more Jason had looked at the man, the more repulsed he became. "What's your name, buddy?" the driver asked as the song ended. "Jason," he answered. The man had looked over at his left knee. "Well, Jason, it looks like you got scraped up a bit here…" It had been true, there was a hole in his jeans and scratches on his knee. The man had placed his pudgy hand on Jason's leg, halfway up the thigh. "This okay?" The man had asked.
Say no, stupid, just say no.
"Uh, I guess so," he had answered.
The car was going slow, and suddenly Jason had wanted to be anywhere but there. The man had smiled, revealing nicotine-stained teeth. He slid his hand up just under Jason's crotch and asked "Is this okay?"
"No!" Jason had finally said, "No!" Shaking his head furiously. "I want to get out now. I'll just walk, I don't care about the heat okay? I just want out."
For a moment it seemed that the man hadn't heard, because he didn't remove his hand. He appeared to be giving the matter careful consideration. "You can drop me off right here," Jason had said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.
With a final squeeze the man removed his hand and pulled the Buick over to the roadside. "Hey no problem, buddy, no problem at all…"
When Jason had opened the door the car hadn't even come to a complete stop. He had run home, as fast as his legs would carry him. When he had gotten to the house that day he ran straight to his bed and laid there crying for what had seemed like hours straight. Mom came to check on him eventually, and he had told her about the bike (which had ended up earning him some time in the closet), but not about the sweaty man. It was something he wanted to pretend didn't happen, and it was something he didn't want to tell anyone about, ever, for as long as he lived.
And he never did.
When Jason emerged once again from the void, it was if he was in a dream. But in this dream he was back there. He walked out from the trees on Cramden's land, and looked up at the thin streaking clouds.
As he realized what day this was that he was reliving, terror closed in on him like a cold fist. He had pushed this event so far into the back of his mind that he had never even had nightmares about it.
Why now? Why am I dreaming of this now?
He began kicking a rock, catching up to it, kicking it again. He heard the sound of a motor, saw the old Buick pass and pull over. Saw that same bumper sticker.
Run, just run.
Jason walked up to the window and the man asked if he needed a lift. Jason heard his young self say that he was only going a couple miles.
"You got a long way to go, buddy. You're just getting started," the man said. This isn't right, that's not what he said… The man reached back behind the passenger seat then, and when he retrieved something and held it out to the window, it was a plastic bottle filled with dark red liquid. The label read "Divine Essence."
"Keep it in a cooler behind the seat," the man said. "Just filled up on ice."
There was a deep thirst in Jason. An irrepressible craving for that crimson drink.
Don't do it, don't open that door.
Jason opened the door. Next thing he knew he was in the passenger seat drinking from the bottle, and it was the most fulfilling, satisfying drink that had ever crossed his lips. He downed it all in one long pull, and when he was done, he found that he immediately wanted more.
"Blood is life," the driver said. There was no country song this time, just a strange kind of chanting coming through the speakers. Jason looked over, at the bulging gut, the sweat-stained shirt, the stained tie, and then at the man's face…
It was the same, but different. Thick blue veins laced pale skin that had gone dry and begun to flake. The eyes behind the glasses were sunken, featuring black pupils, each pierced dead-center with a single pinprick of light.
"Blood is the divine essence," the man spoke through blue, cracked lips. Those distant star-like eyes fixed on him. "Your goddess seeks to embrace you. She submits that no harm born of nature or man shall come to you; she submits that death shall hold no dominion over you; that you shall be elevated above all humankind. Is this okay?"
Say no. Say no you idiot just say no.
"I… guess so," he heard himself reply.
"In recompense you shall curry tribute."
"What tribute?" Jason asked.
The man reached out and brushed the plastic bottle with a cracked, yellow nail. "The essence. Blood is life. Will you honor her request? Is this okay?"
Jason looked down at the empty bottle in his heads with its red-stained insides. He wanted more… but it would come at a price. What was being asked of him…
"You want me to kill. Like, animals?"
The man's forehead creased. "Don't be dull-witted."
Jason began shaking his head, slowly. "No!" You want me to kill for you. "No!" He shook his head harder. "I want to get out now!"
Confusion was evident on the driver's face. More than confusion… he appeared dumbstruck. "How can you…"
"Stop the car! I want out!!" Jason shouted. He pulled at the door handle repeatedly but with no success. The driver turned back, staring at the road ahead. He fetched a sigh and accelerated. The trees on either side began to shoot by.
"No," the man said, and the tone of his voice had changed. His response was far more casual, though it chilled Jason's bones to the marrow. "No stopping, buddy. Our journey has only just begun."
***
Somewhere in Never Never Land, a phone was ringing.
CJ didn't want to come back. More than anything, he wanted to stay. But you couldn't even get that right. You didn't shoot enough, dipshit.
Slowly he became aware of his presence in place and time. He could have sworn that the phone actually got louder the more it rang.
His shoulder was throbbing like a son of a bitch. Most of his veins had collapsed, so CJ had been shooting directly into his shoulder, and there was an abscess forming deep in the muscle. He would try to drain the pus later. Or maybe he would just shoot up again and try to do it right this time so pain would no longer be an issue. Ever.
The phone continued insistently. CJ maneuvered on the couch so that he could pick up the receiver with his right hand, since his shoulder wouldn't allow him to answer it with his left.
"Hello?"
"What are you doing?" It was Carter.
"Overslept," CJ croaked.
"Get to work," Carter said. "The kid needs more supplies."
Carter hung up. CJ looked to the far right of the sofa, where the picture of him and Jason lay, then quickly looked away. "Fuck, man…" he said, thinking of Jason. "What do you want from me?"
***
The feeling Celine had been experiencing since late last night and all through the day could only be described as a fearful sense of doom, as if something terrible was on the cusp of occurring and she was powerless to stop it.
She tried to tell herself that Jason had just gone out with some friends, partied too hard and slept in, maybe was someplace where there was no phone. He didn't disappear like that very often, and on the rare times that he had in the past, it was usually because he and CJ had gotten up to some trouble somewhere. Given the falling out between the two of them, that didn't seem likely. Her sense of dread deepened. What if some calamity was on the verge of taking place…
Or worse, what if it already had?
Jason had said he would pick Celine up at work. She had waited for a half hour. Finally, Burt had taken her home. There had been no phone call to the house. Her first reaction was to be pissed off. As she drove to the Careless Whisper she imagined all the things sh
e was going to say to him, but his car wasn't in the parking lot, and no one inside had seen him. From the Whisper she had driven by his house, but his car hadn't been there and it had been too late to wake his Mom. There were only a few other places in town to hang out that late at night, and Jason hadn't been at any of them. After finally giving up and going home, she had lain awake until past two in the morning, and her anger had turned to genuine worry.
When she woke up this morning, Celine had returned to the Emblock home. Bethany had been bathing Trish in the tub, and she wasn't pleased about being interrupted. She had said Jason didn't come home last night. Despite this, she hadn't seemed concerned about his whereabouts.
Celine then spent two hours driving through town, looking for Jason's Duster. When that failed to yield results, she had gone to Ty. He had just finished his lunch when she walked into the station. Though he had listened attentively, he had said what she knew he would say: that it was too early to warrant an investigation. Celine shared her suspicion that CJ was to blame. The sheriff said he would be keeping an eye on CJ. "I saw you outside the Wayside yesterday," she said. "Somethin to do with that kid just got here?" The old man had nodded. "That kid's mixed up with Boil. I'd give him a wide berth." Ty had ended by saying that he was sure Jason would turn up, but that he would keep his eyes and his ears open and let her know if any other information came to light.
She had thanked him and then drove to where Jason had said he was headed when she went to work: Clearcut Cemetery. She had found evidence of his visit: there were flowers in front of Jason's dad's headstone. Other than that, there had been no sign of him. There was something about the burial ground, the remoteness, the silence… the feeling of foreboding deepened within her.
After that she had returned to her home and asked Mom if there were any messages (there weren't.) It was time to get ready for work. As she changed, she couldn't stop thinking about the cemetery. Something bad had happened. She didn't know how she knew, but she did… and she was willing to bet that CJ was involved somehow. There was also that unshakeable sense that something worse was still on the way. As she donned her uniform, Celine began forming a plan of what to do next.
Whisper Lake (The Turning Book 2) Page 8
