by Greg Herren
And Noah. Poor, poor Noah.
When she’d heard about the accident, she’d wondered if God was punishing them both for what they’d done to Laura, her best friend since first grade. Noah and Laura had been together since the eighth grade. Everyone just assumed they’d get married after graduation. They were kind of an institution. You rarely saw one without the other. They were so obviously in love, the way they looked at each other and never really noticed anyone else when they were together. She’d always envied Laura that—she hoped to maybe someday find her own soul mate.
And Noah—she’d always thought he was cute, and he, like Glenn, could always make her laugh. She’d never thought of him in that way—there was no point, he was her best friend’s boyfriend. She never imagined in a million years she’d ever date Noah.
But then she’d never imagined Laura’s parents’ car would get crushed by an out-of-control eighteen-wheeler on the highway during a thunderstorm, either. She’d never imagined Laura would move to California to live with a great-aunt she’d never met. She’d never dreamed that Glenn, dear sweet cute Glenn who could make her laugh no matter what and was always her go-to guy whenever she needed a date would come out of the closet and start going out with Clark Murphy.
She and Noah had gravitated to each other in the void created by Laura leaving and Glenn coming out.
It was just a rebound thing, two lonely people coming together.
It was also a mistake.
Maybe you’re trying to make more out of this to alleviate your own guilt about Noah dying, a voice murmured inside her head, and Tony’s right, there’s nothing strange about what’s going on around here.
She pushed that thought away and opened her eyes. The next article had finished loading, and she was looking at the laughing face of a really good-looking boy.
His name was Gary Rasmussen. She printed that article, too, and went back and forth until she had printed all seven articles about the teenagers who’d died in that one-month period.
She walked over to the checkout desk. The woman there was still sorting books. Laney was just about to say something when she looked up. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. May I help you?” She looked about fifty years old, and was wearing a pale blue sweater over a pair of dark blue slacks. Reading glasses hung on a chain around her neck. There were gray streaks in her brown hair, which was pulled into a French braid that hang halfway down her back.
“Yes, thank you. I printed out some articles off the Internet, and was wondering where I could pick them up? I don’t see the printer anywhere.”
The woman was wearing a name tag that said Mrs. Soltis on her right breast. She smiled. “Well, it used to be here on the counter, but we started going through so much paper and ink we had to move it to the office.” She hesitated. “We charge a quarter a page for printing.” She said the last apologetically, and went on in the same tone, “I know we should have signs up explaining that, but…I’m sorry, it could prove to be expensive.”
“That’s fine.” Laney smiled back at her.
“Let me get those for you, then. I’ll be right back.”
Mrs. Soltis went through a glass door into another room, and Laney could see her collecting paper from a large printer. Mrs. Soltis was frowning, and she slid her reading glasses onto her nose as she put the pages together.
“Are these yours?” Mrs. Soltis said when she came back to the counter, holding the paper out to Laney. “These articles about teenagers dying?”
Laney hesitated for just a second, but the lie came easily. “I’m doing a paper about teenage suicides and death for my psychology class.” Laney hoped her face looked solemn enough. “And I found this weird set of deaths in this Chicago suburb a few years ago.”
Mrs. Soltis brought her hand up to her chest. “Mercy.” She crossed herself. “Such a subject!” She shook her head. “When I was a teenager…” Her voice trailed off and she sighed. “It was a simpler time of course, none of this Internet and Facepage nonsense.” She peered at Laney through her glasses. “Are you researching the deaths in the south part of the county? I’m so glad my kids don’t go to that high school.”
“Uh-huh.” Laney swallowed. I’m so glad my kids don’t go to that high school. She forced a smile. “You said it’s a quarter per page? How much do I owe you?”
“Three dollars and twenty five cents.”
“Great.” Laney smiled. “Thanks.” She found exact change in her purse and collected the pages. She almost sat down again at the carrel she’d been at, but couldn’t decide if she should read the articles first or go back to the hospital and show them to Tony. She started to walk out of the library, but hesitated when she got to the door.
She didn’t know what to do.
She felt sick to her stomach. This is all just crazy, we’re all losing our minds, Tony’s right, we’re just trying to make sense out of a string of strange unexpected deaths and grabbing at straws.
But there had been seven strange deaths at Glenn’s old school while he was there. Two years later, kids were dying at his new school. That couldn’t be coincidence.
Could it?
She felt like talking to Glenn. She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone but hesitated before touching his name in her Contacts app. What would I say to him? She took a deep breath and bit her lower lip. Glenn, please tell me your new friend Sara is the one who’s killing everyone, that you’re not involved, that the kids who died at your old school—that had nothing to do with you. Please.
She put the phone away.
She missed him.
Glenn couldn’t be involved.
Glenn wouldn’t hurt a fly, even when he was angry.
Glenn just wasn’t like that.
It had to be Sara, it had to. That was all there was to it.
Glenn was sweet, Glenn was kind, Glenn was loving.
Glenn couldn’t kill anyone.
But how could she have killed Noah? How could she have caused his wreck? How could have hanged Zack from a rafter in his dad’s barn? What was she?
And did she go to his old school, too?
It was, she realized, completely crazy. This wasn’t a scary movie—it was her life.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was Sara.
And what about the dreams, Laney? What about the dreams? How is that possible? How could you and Tony and Candy be having the same dreams?
Fluke, coincidence—collective delusion or whatever it was Candy had told them it was yesterday. What they—what she was imagining was just not possible.
Sara would have to be some kind of otherworldly demon, and there was no such thing. Demons didn’t exist outside of stupid Bible stories, and only crazy people believed they did. Why would a demon come to Southern Heights High School?
The sudden rash of deaths at Southern Heights High was strange, and the deaths at Farmington High had to be a coincidence.
There was no such thing as demons or magic.
Just throw the articles in the garbage and go home, forget all about this. Tony doesn’t believe you anyway, Candy never believed in the first place. They’re just humoring you. Maybe Laura moving away and Noah dying so suddenly unhinged your mind—that and your guilt. You don’t want to feel responsible, so you’re trying to find someone, something, else to blame.
It made sense, she had to admit that.
She walked over to the garbage can to the left of the exit and hesitated before shoving the pages inside.
Seven deaths at Farmington High.
“Miss?”
Some accidents, some suicides, some murders.
“We’re getting ready to close. Was there anything else you needed?” Mrs. Soltis had appeared at her side.
Laney gave her a weak smile. “Oh, no, thank you for your help.”
Seven deaths—ten if you add in Noah, Zack, and Randy.
Her stomach churned, and she took a deep breath. She nodded at Mrs. Soltis and pushed the door open. S
he walked outside and shivered as the wind hit her. She heard the sound of the door being locked behind her.
No, you’re on the right track, even if you don’t want to believe it. You’re right and they’re wrong. Ten of Glenn’s classmates have died—that can’t be a coincidence, no matter how much you don’t want to believe that Glenn had anything to do with it, no matter how much you want to blame Sara.
She felt like she was going to throw up.
She sat down on the steps and took deep breaths until the nausea subsided. She took another deep breath and started sorting the pages by date order, the oldest going to the top of the pile. The wind picked up again, and she got up and walked over to her car. She got inside and shivered for a few moments. She thought about starting the car and turning on the heater, but decided not to.
She started reading.
Jared Wheeler had been the first kid to die at Farmington High School. Jared had been sophomore class president. He smiled toothily for the camera—his smile lit up his entire face. He did have enormous teeth. He was kind of good-looking, with his hair cut into a buzz cut, and had definitely been a star jock. Just a sophomore, he’d been on the varsity football team, played varsity basketball and junior varsity baseball. He’d also been on the honor roll and had done a lot of charity work. He’d been found shot to death in his bedroom—but he’d apparently been cleaning the gun and it had somehow gone off, another senseless gun tragedy and statistic.
Three days later Tiffany Fowler, his girlfriend, was found by her younger sister in her bedroom—she’d hanged herself with a lamp cord. She’d been a varsity cheerleader and very popular. She was wearing her cheerleading uniform in her picture, kneeling with her pom-poms in her hand, her dark hair pulled back into a ribboned ponytail. According to her friends, she’d been horribly depressed since Jared’s death and sometimes verged on hysteria. One of her friends, not named, claimed that on the day she killed herself, Tiffany had complained about having horrible nightmares every night since Jared’s death—and had even dreamed about Jared the night he died.
That sounds familiar, Laney thought as she turned to the next page.
Jared’s best friend, Alec Johnson, was the next one to die. Just two days after Sharon’s suicide, he was killed in a car accident. Driving home from a party where he’d had too much to drink (according to the article, his blood alcohol level had been three times the legal limit), he’d missed a turn and driven his sports car into a tree. The car had exploded—there was a picture of the smoldering wreckage that made her wince.
And Glenn himself was quoted in that particular write-up, as one of Alec’s friends. “What is going on around here?” he had said. “Three of my closest friends have been taken in little over a week. I don’t know what to think anymore.”
Three of his closest friends, she thought, a shiver going down her spine. So he knew the victims in Farmington, too.
The next kid on the death list was a loner named Gary Rasmussen. Before she read the accompanying article, she looked long and hard at the picture accompanying it. He couldn’t have been part of the same group, she decided. He had acne scars, his long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and he had a diamond stud in one ear. He scowled at the camera. She knew the type—he probably smoked, cut class a lot, wasn’t a particularly good student, and was just marking time till he was old enough to drop out. According to the article, he’d been a bit of a loner. His body had been found next to a county road, in the ditch. He’d not only been hit by a car, but apparently the car had backed over him as well. She winced as she read that. The police chief believed he’d been hit, backed over, and the driver got out of the car to roll his shattered body into the ditch. No one had any idea what Gary was doing out walking in the country—which apparently was very much out of character for him.
The next to die was a cheerleader named Mary Sheen, who just missed being pretty. Her nose was a little too long, her mouth a little too wide, but she wore really cute glasses and her smile was infectious. Mary took an overdose of sleeping pills the day after Gary’s body was found—no one could even say for sure if the two had even known each other. But she had been Tiffany Fowler’s best friend and, like Tiffany, had been having terrible nightmares before her suicide. She told one friend, apparently, that the dead kids came to see her while she was sleeping. She’d also been behaving erratically. Her boyfriend, Glenn Lockhart, was too distraught to talk to the police.
Glenn.
There was a break of about a week before Dylan Radford was found drowned in the school pool. Dylan was on the swim team, and no one, least of all the swimming coach, had any idea how he’d managed to get into the closed pool area at night. He was a champion swimmer, with Olympic dreams—so his drowning made absolutely no sense.
Randy drowned, too, Laney thought. Her hands were shaking as she turned to the last page—but it was Stacy Bolton, the one she’d read on the computer. She put the pages aside and stared out the windshield. The wind whistled around the car, blowing so hard the car rocked a little bit.
A ring of deaths, more than half of whom were people who were close to Glenn.
Randy and Noah had been close to Glenn—even if Zack hadn’t.
But that Gary Rasmussen kid didn’t fit in with the others at Farmington, either.
It couldn’t all just be a coincidence, could it?
Laney didn’t think so.
She ticked them off on her fingers. Accident, suicide, accident, suicide, accident…and here, the same pattern. Accident, suicide, accident.
This was pretty damning—for Glenn. There was no mention of Sara in any of the write-ups. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t there, hadn’t somehow followed him here two years later.
But that didn’t make sense, either. Sara was living with her aunt and uncle. Glenn had come here first—and it was too much of a coincidence that she had relatives in the same area.
And Glenn had acted like he’d never seen her before that night in Vista.
Unless they were in on it together.
The thought chilled her, and she shivered. She started the car, turning on the heater. I’d better take these to Tony and see what he thinks, she thought. She started to put the car in reverse, but the car stalled.
She restarted it, and again, when she slid the gearshift, it stalled.
“What the hell?” She turned off the heater and started the car again. This time the engine coughed and died before she could shift gears. When she turned the key this time, nothing happened.
“Great.” She looked over at the library, which was dark. Hers was the only car in the lot—whoever was parked there must have left while she was reading the articles and she just hadn’t noticed. She popped the hood and opened the car door. She stood up and grabbed her cell phone out of her purse. It slipped out of her hands and clattered underneath the car. She swore and got down on her hands and knees to reach it. She got her hands on it, but as she started to sit up she hit her head on the bottom of the car door—and fell unconscious to the pavement.
Candy and Sara were walking in a bare field. It was dark, the quarter moon sending very little light through the clouds. Sara’s arm was around Candy.
“RUN! Get away from her!” she tried to shout at Candy, but nothing came out of her lips. She tried to walk toward them, but nothing happened. Her bare feet were like lead, mired to the ground. She tried to shout again, but only a hoarse croak crept past her lips. She was helpless. Sara was going to hurt Candy, she had to do something, get help, anything, but she was unable to make a sound, unable to move, and across the field the sound of Sara’s laughter came to her ears, and she was cold, so very very cold, Candy was going to die and she could do nothing to help her, nothing to stop Sara, she had to do something, and then the moon reflected off the scythe that Sara was holding, and she brought it down across Candy’s throat, and the blood was coming out, torrents and torrents of blood, who would have thought there would be so much blood in her, and she was falling, and S
ara was laughing, laughing, laughing…
Laney sat up. Her head hurt from where she’d hit it.
“Oh, my God, Candy.” Mercifully, her phone still worked despite being dropped. She dialed Candy’s number. It rang, and rang, and rang—and never went to voice mail.
That wasn’t good.
Tears filled her eyes. “Oh, Candy.”
She got back in the car and tried the ignition again. This time, it started without a problem or hesitation. She put it into reverse, and this time it didn’t stall. She roared out of the parking lot and headed out of town.
Chapter Thirteen
Candy looked out her bedroom window as her parents’ car backed down the driveway. She let the curtain fall back into place and shivered. Her parents were going to her uncle’s for dinner. She’d begged off, claiming she’d promised to go spend time with Tony in the hospital. Her mother had clearly not been pleased, but hadn’t argued with her. The wind rattled her window, and she shivered again. She wasn’t looking forward to going over to the Sterlings’—and wished it hadn’t gotten dark. But she’d agreed to go talk to them, no matter how big a mistake she thought it was. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was go into the house Sara called home.
Maybe I should have been more honest with Tony and Laney, she thought as she pulled a black cardigan sweater out of her closet and slipped it on. She wasn’t entirely convinced Tony and Laney really believed what was going on—which was understandable. Wasn’t that why she hadn’t told them everything? She could hardly believe it herself, let alone talk two other people into believing what she knew to be true. She couldn’t explain it to them because she’d have to—
