Sara

by Greg Herren

  He sped up a little bit, and the road curved to the left on its way around the lake. He liked the lake at night. It was quiet and peaceful, and he liked that he was the only person around. He kept driving until he was on the opposite side of the lake from the public beach. A driveway loomed up out of the darkness on the left, and he turned into it. He parked alongside the house and grabbed the bottle of whiskey. The sound of the car door shutting seemed incredibly loud—he couldn’t believe how quiet it was out there on the lake. He walked down the sloping lawn till he reached the dock. He took another swig of liquor. It didn’t burn quite as bad this time, and he was starting to like the taste of the whiskey. He grinned and walked out onto the dock. The wooden planks groaned beneath his weight. It was a cool night, and he sat down on the end of the dock. He took off his shoes and socks, dangling his feet just above the water.

  So, why haven’t you asked another girl out since Corey broke up with you? If you had a girlfriend, sticking up for Glenn wouldn’t have been an issue, would it?

  “Shut up,” he said out loud. He twisted the cap off the bottle and took another drink. This time it didn’t burn at all, and the taste—well, the taste seemed a lot better. He tilted his head back and looked up at the stars.

  “I fucked up,” he said aloud to the night sky. “I fucked up and lost my best friend, the only real friend I ever had.” He felt a wave of sadness wash over him, and his eyes filled with tears again. He took another drink.

  Damn that Glenn anyway! Why did he have to tell the whole wide world that he was gay? Why, when we’re still in high school? Why couldn’t he have waited until he—we—were off at college?

  He felt incredibly sorry for himself.

  He took another drink.

  “Glenn should know why I did what I did,” he mumbled. He hiccupped, and it tasted of whiskey.

  His head was woozy, and he felt all tingly inside.

  If this is what it felt like to get drunk, he could understand why people liked it. He grinned and giggled.

  He took another drink.

  The wind picked up and he shivered, despite the warm feeling he was getting from the whiskey. He pulled his feet back up and put his socks and shoes back on. He had trouble tying the shoelaces, and that made him laugh all over again.

  I do like feeling like this, he decided, taking yet another swig from the bottle. Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe I should do it more often. And if I just drink on Saturdays that won’t affect how I practice on Monday, will it? It can’t hurt my playing on Friday night. This struck him as funny somehow, and he started laughing all over again.

  He held the bottle up to his mouth, but stopped. His head was swimming, and he didn’t feel so good anymore.

  “Randy,” a voice said from behind him. Startled, he almost dropped the bottle into the lake. He looked back over his shoulder and frowned. I must be really drunk, he thought, hiccupping again, because it looks like her feet aren’t touching the ground.

  He turned around so he was facing the shore.

  “Hello, Randy.” Sara’s voice was soft, and she was smiling as she walked out onto the dock. He shook his head. Her feet were touching the ground—but she was barefoot. That didn’t make any sense.

  She was wearing a sheer white dress, and he could see her nipples, firm and erect, through the material as she came closer to him. Her smile was broader, and her eyes, her beautiful eyes, seemed so warm and caring.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, looking at her nipples. He felt himself starting to stir inside his pants.

  She sat down beside him. “You really miss Glenn, don’t you?” She touched his arm, and he shivered. Her hand was so cold.

  “’Course I miss Glenn.” The words sounded slurred, so he tried to focus, to form the words properly. “He was my bestest friend.”

  “And that’s how you treat your bestest friend?” she replied, putting her arm around his shoulders.

  He didn’t like having her touch him, but he didn’t want to pull away from her. His head was floating, and it was taking all of his concentration to keep it on his shoulders.

  “I—” He stopped as a wave of nausea rolled over him. He frowned. “I don’t feel so good,” he said thickly.

  “There, there.” She placed her right hand on his forehead and pressed against his skin. Her hand was so cold, so unnaturally cold, but it did help. The wave receded, and he felt better.

  Still drunk, but better.

  “I still—” He frowned as she took the bottle away from him. “What are you doing?”

  “You don’t need any more of this,” she replied, turning it upside down so the liquor poured into the lake. “Trust me, okay?” She smiled and her breast brushed against his arm. Her voice was so low, so seductive.

  “I—” He stopped talking. She was lightly touching his inner thigh, tracing a circle with her index finger.

  “Do you want me, Randy?” she said, her voice teasing. “You’re not really gay, are you? You like girls, don’t you?”

  “’Course I do.”

  “You didn’t need to be worried that people might think you were a fag, did you, Randy?” she purred. “Even if you and Glenn—well, did what you did, that didn’t really mean anything, did it? That was just two friends horsing around, isn’t that right? Isn’t that how you explain it to yourself?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He couldn’t wrap his mind around what she was saying, then words pierced through the alcohol fog. “Glenn told you?”

  “You don’t mind really, do you?” she purred, unbuttoning his shirt. She ran her fingertips down his chest and he shivered. Something wasn’t right, and he knew he should stop her, get away but he somehow couldn’t move.

  He felt fear licking at his guts, a dull terror starting to rise inside his alcohol-dulled senses.

  She finished unbuttoning his shirt and slid it off his shoulders and down his arms. She leaned over and licked his nipple. Involuntarily, he moaned and closed his eyes.

  “Do you want to kiss me?” She breathed the words out. She kissed his chest.

  “No,” he slurred. His mind was still cloudy and he knew something wasn’t right, that he needed to get away from her somehow, get back to his car and go home, anywhere but here with her.

  But the way her mouth felt on his skin, the way her soft warm lips worked on his chest, he couldn’t find the strength or energy to push her away.

  “You know you want me.” He could feel one of her hands working against the front of his pants. “I know you do, Randy. Don’t you want to prove once and for all that you’re not gay?”

  “No! I don’t have to prove anything to anyone!” From somewhere, he managed to find the strength to push her away from him. “Jesus.” He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. Why did I drink so much? I was wrong, I don’t like this feeling at all.

  “So you are a gay boy, after all?” She raised an eyebrow and laughed. It was a cold sound. As it echoed off the lake water, he tried not to throw up. “I’ve seen the way you look at other boys at school. You blame Glenn for what happened between the two of you, but it didn’t start with Glenn, did it? Glenn didn’t find those websites you look at late at night alone in your room, did he?”

  He gaped at her, unable to form words in his shock. How could she know that?

  He knew he should get up and drive away, no matter how drunk he was. He needed to get away from her because there was something about her that wasn’t right, and maybe if he wasn’t so drunk he could figure it out, but he could feel the fear coursing through his veins, and he tried to stand but his legs wouldn’t cooperate.

  “Even here and now, you can’t admit it, can you?” She brushed her fingertips, her oh-so-cold fingertips, against his cheek and he pulled back from her touch. “When it’s just you and me, you can’t admit it to yourself.”

  “Leave me alone.” His voice sounded incredibly small to him.

  “Yes, you are gay,” she whispered, leaning over to him, her breasts brushing ag
ainst his arm. “You’ve never had a woman, have you?” She stood up, stepping out of the dress as she rose, and stood there, nude, before him. Her perfect body gleamed like marble in the pale moonlight. “You don’t want me?” She smiled at him, and her eyes and teeth seemed to gleam at him.

  “You are so beautiful,” he whispered. “So very very beautiful.”

  She took his hand and pulled him up to his feet. She was so strong, somehow she managed it even though his legs were so rubbery he couldn’t really help her. She slid her arms around him and pressed her lips against his. Her lips were soft, but cold. Her tongue entered his mouth, exploring, her hands slipped down from his back to his buttocks, squeezing them gently.

  She broke away from him, teasingly. “Let’s go for a swim.”

  “I don’t have a suit.” He swayed a bit.

  “Silly.” She laughed and undid his pants, sliding them down his legs, and he stepped out of them. He shivered, crossing his arms, standing there in just his underwear. She kissed him lightly and dove into the water. She surfaced, tossing her hair. “Come on in,” she purred. “The water’s delicious.”

  He jumped in, and the freezing water covered him. He rushed to the surface, his teeth chattering. “This water is like ice!”

  She glided through the water to him and entangled her body with his. “Then we need to generate some body heat, don’t we?” She kissed him.

  But it was a different kind of kiss, hungry and desperate. His mind raced in a million directions, and then his head slipped under the water. He tried to surface, but couldn’t.

  She was holding him down.

  Panic cleared the liquor right out of his head. He struggled and opened his eyes. The water was black, but he could see the surface, far above his head, the moon’s glow touching it as though it were a window. They were several feet below the surface.

  He needed air.

  He tried to grab hold of her, but she slipped out of his grasp, her hold on his head never lessening. She was so strong.

  Unnaturally strong.

  “Fight her, Randy, she’s going to kill you,” a voice said in his brain. It sounded like Noah Greene.

  His lungs were burning.

  He had to have air.

  He pumped his legs beneath him, but did not rise.

  She was too strong for him.

  Doesn’t she need air?

  His feet touched bottom, and in his fevered brain an idea came to him. He let himself go slack, and coiled his legs beneath him, and pushed off for the surface.

  He didn’t move.

  And as he lost consciousness, he thought he heard her laughing.

  Chapter Eleven

  A nurse had just taken my tasteless and inedible lunch away when Laney came bursting into my room.

  Her eyes were frenzied, her face flushed. There was perspiration on her forehead. I don’t think I’d ever seen her look that disheveled before. Her hair was wild, like she’d been caught in a really strong wind. I glanced over to the window. The sun was shining outside. She stood there for a moment and ran her hands through her hair, making it even messier.

  “Randy Froelich is missing!” she finally said. She was breathing hard, like she’d run the entire way from the parking lot, gasping as she tried to catch her breath and calm down. She clapped her hand over her mouth, and I could tell she was trying really hard not to start crying.

  I was tired. I hadn’t slept well—with the leg elevated I had to sleep on my back and couldn’t move. They’d given me something to make me sleep every night, but I’d refused last night. I hadn’t had one of the dreams since the accident, and I’d wondered if maybe it had something to do with the sleeping pill. I’d spent most of the night staring at the tiles in the ceiling—there were 546 of them. They brought me tasteless scrambled eggs and toast around seven, and the doctor who’d put the pins in my leg came by around nine to let my leg down and check on it. They’d taken me down for more X-rays, to see how it was healing, and apparently I was doing pretty well—they didn’t put my leg back up in the contraption once I got back to my room. Dr. Welling told me I might be able to go home the next day, depending on how I did with the crutches. The elation I felt on getting out of the hospital died about an hour later when a sadistic physical therapist named Gretchen came by to make me try out the crutches I’d have to use for a couple of weeks.

  Crutches suck.

  Despite the heavy padding, they were brutal on my armpits. After a few minutes I was pretty sure my pits were bruised and raw, and Gretchen the sadist wouldn’t cut me a break. “You have to get used to them,” she told me grimly in a no-nonsense tone. “So you can either work with me or go back to bed and feel sorry for yourself. But I’ll just come back and make you do it later.”

  I called her a bitch in my head and did as she asked. She made me make several trips up and down the hall. She was right—it did get easier with practice. By about my tenth trip down to the nurses’ station and back my shoulders didn’t feel like they were being ripped out of their sockets, and even my armpits had toughened up some.

  But she wasn’t done with me yet. She had me head for the fire stairs at the end of the hall and made me go down the fire stairs to the first floor—and then I had to climb on the crutches all the way to the fifth floor. I went up and down several times. I was drenched in sweat and breathing hard, and the pain from my injured ribs made me feel like I was going to pass out. My hips hurt, as did every muscle in my upper body. I was praying for death by the time she was finally satisfied and let me head back to my room. I’d fallen asleep almost as soon as I’d gotten back into bed and my head hit the pillow, only to be awakened what seemed like a minute later when the orderly brought my lunch—a tasteless hamburger and soggy French fries. I decided once I’d choked down lunch I was going to go back to sleep.

  And Gretchen had said I’d probably be able to go home the next day—which was more than fine with me. I hoped I’d never set foot in this stupid hospital ever again.

  I moaned inwardly at the sight of Laney. I was going to have to put my nap off, and she clearly needed to be calmed down a bit.

  Bearing that in mind, I set my can of soda down carefully on the nightstand. “Missing?” I said in a quiet voice, raising my eyebrows. “What do you mean, missing?”

  She took a deep breath. “His parents are calling everyone—they called me a little while ago, and I got over here as fast as I could.” She sat down on a chair and ran her shaking fingers through her hair. “All they know is he went out last night—and no one seems to know where he went or with who.”

  “He didn’t tell them where he was going?” That seemed out of character for a straight arrow like Randy.

  She shook her head. “They weren’t happy about it. His mom was out somewhere, and his dad was watching TV with his brother. He heard Randy taking a shower, and then the next thing he knew Randy’s car was backing out of the driveway. He tried calling his cell, but Randy had left it behind.”

  “They’re sure he didn’t have a date?” Even as I said the words, I knew Randy hadn’t spent the night with a girl. It was hardly a secret around Southern Heights that Randy had never had sex with Corey Barlow; it was one of the reasons she broke up with him. I would have more readily believed Randy was gay than Glenn, honestly.

  “Uh-uh. Ever since he broke up with Corey, he hasn’t been dating anyone. He left his parents’ house around seven thirty and never came home. And no one has seen him, Tony.” She swallowed. “And how likely is that? Nobody?”

  A burning knot was forming in my stomach. She was right—it not only wasn’t likely, it was pretty damned impossible. If there wasn’t a party somewhere out in the country, most kids always came into Kahola, and someone would have seen him if he had. There weren’t many things for kids to do. Bowling, go see a movie, eat, hang out in the parking lot of the Vista Drive-In was pretty much it. The odds of going out on a Saturday night in Kahola County and not being seen by anyone were about the same as winning the
lottery. “There wasn’t a party somewhere?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. You know, after what happened to Noah after Linda Avery’s—” She swallowed. “I don’t think there are going to be any parties for a while. I’m really worried, Tony—this is really not like him.”

  She didn’t have to tell me this was out of character for Randy Froelich. Randy had never been in trouble for as long as I’d known him. It kind of surprised me when he turned on Glenn—I would have never guessed Randy would do that, or join in with Noah and Zack in talking smack about him. If Randy’s parents told him to be home by eleven, he’d be home by quarter till. That’s just the kind of guy he was.

  But Laney was close to hysteria already, so the most important thing for me to do was calm her down. “He probably just got drunk and passed out somewhere.” I laughed, having managed to keep my voice calm. My stomach was churning, and the nasty hospital cheeseburger I’d eaten felt like a stone. I took a few deep breaths to try to stave off my own panic. Somehow I managed to add, “I’m sure he’ll turn up eventually, you’ll see.”

  “Randy doesn’t drink, Tony, you know that as well as anyone.” She sighed and started twisting a lock of hair around her index finger. “I feel so responsible.” She blew out her breath.

  “Why would you feel responsible?” I stared at her. “That doesn’t make any sense, Laney.”

  But I knew exactly what she meant. The guilt was already starting to creep into my mind, a little voice whispering, You knew Randy was in danger, didn’t you? You knew how badly his betrayal hurt Glenn, even though he acted like he didn’t care, you knew it really hurt him to have Randy turn on him the way he did, to have someone who used to be his friend call him a faggot and join in with Noah and Zack’s reign of terror with him, you knew it and still you did nothing, you said nothing, because Randy never liked you, either—so fuck him, right? Who cares if he lives or dies?

  I closed my eyes and forced that voice out of my head.

  “We should have said something to him, you know?” She was twisting her hair so hard I was afraid she might rip it out at the roots. “We sat here in this room last night and talked about everything that was going on, compared notes, and we should have known Randy was in danger, but we were so busy trying to talk ourselves out of believing the truth, about what’s really happening—” She shook her head. “It was irresponsible. We need to make a list of people who’ve made Glenn mad—”