by Greg Herren
“The gasoline is already set,” she said, standing up and effortlessly lifting Laney up onto one of the bales. “Once we ignite it, that will take care of both of these bitches. And then we can take care of Tony.”
“Do we really have to do anything to Tony?” Glenn scratched his head. “He’s a good guy, Sara. Really. And he got pretty banged up in the accident.”
“He’s lied to you.” Her voice dripped with scorn. “He didn’t really accept you, you know, he just pretended for his own reasons. Remember—he was afraid to sleep in the same bed as you, even though he always did before you came out. He was worried you’d go so crazy with lust that you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off him. That’s what he really thinks.”
Glenn lowered his head and nodded, but before he did I could see the hurt look on his face, and it tore my heart apart.
I wanted to apologize for being such a jerk, to let him know he was my best friend and I loved him, to let Candy and Laney go and we’d figure out a way to get out of this mess, to get rid of Sara, even if Mr. Lockhart said she was a part of him, his creation, maybe from his darker side, SHE was the one who was killing, SHE was the one who was pushing him and whispering in his ear, convincing him that his friends needed to die…
“Tony?”
I opened my eyes and saw the sign reading Carterville 16 Miles with an arrow pointing to the right. Mr. Lockhart was slowing down to make the turn where the old abandoned drive-in movie theater sat.
“Yeah?” I replied, shaking my head.
“You okay? I think you fell asleep there for a minute or two.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I was dreaming.”
I held on to the armrest as he made the sharp turn. He’d slowed down, but not enough, and the big SUV tilted a bit to my side. I swallowed, but before I could get really scared we settled back down all four wheels and he was picking up speed again. “We’ll be there in just a couple of minutes,” Mr. Lockhart said, “so just relax.”
“I wish it was that easy,” I said through clenched teeth. The anxiety was building up in me. Every second that passed was another second the girls were in danger. I could still smell the gasoline.
We can’t be too late—we just can’t.
The Suburban sped on through the night. The wind seemed to be picking up—it was a lot colder than it should be for early September. I shivered and wished I had a jacket with me. Like he’d read my mind, Mr. Lockhart turned up the heater, and I settled down in my seat.
“You know where the Sterlings live?” I asked as we passed the Carterville city limits.
“Ash Lane, right?” Mr. Lockhart replied, glancing over at me. “The one that turns into County Road 312?”
I nodded. “They technically live in the county, but the house is just right outside of town.”
I looked out the window. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought Carterville was a ghost town. There were no signs of life anywhere. My cell phone started ringing. I pulled it quickly out of my pocket. Laney Calling was written in blue letters across the screen. I flipped it open. “Hello? Hello?”
All I could hear was the wind blowing, and a rustling sound.
“Laney? Are you there? Answer me!”
I heard that horrible laugh of Sara’s, the same one I’d heard before the car accident, and then the phone went dead. I hit redial, but it didn’t ring. “Hey there, it’s Laney, you know what to do when it beeps, right?”
I closed the phone and my eyes. Mr. Lockhart turned to the left, and I knew we were almost there. “Mr. Lockhart, when we get there, I want you to pull into the driveway and let me out,” I said without opening my eyes. “And I want you to go get the sheriff as fast as you can, okay?”
“Can’t we just call him?” Mr. Lockhart slowed down as the headlights illuminated the You Are Leaving Carterville sign.
“No,” I replied, keeping my voice level. “He would never believe the story anyway, and we don’t have time to make something up he would believe. If you walk into the station and say it’s an emergency, he’ll go with you.” I’d known Sheriff Channing my whole life. He’d never in a million years listen to me—but he would listen to Mr. Lockhart.
Of course, he would listen to Mr. Lockhart on the phone, too—but I wanted him gone.
This was something I had to do on my own.
It was crazy, and I knew it. But I just knew somehow.
This was between me and Glenn—and Sara.
This whole thing was my fault.
The headlights of the Suburban lit up Laney’s car parked on the right side of the road.
My stomach twisted into a knot.
He turned into the driveway of the Sterling house and switched off the headlights. The Suburban rolled all the way to the carport, where the Sterlings’ Nissan was sitting. I opened the door and maneuvered myself out of the seat and onto my crutches.
“That is just plain crazy, Tony. What do you think you’re doing? I can’t leave you here.”
“Please, Mr. Lockhart. Go get Sheriff Channing.” I sighed. “I’ll be okay, really. Just tell him you saw something weird at the Sterlings’, and they’re not answering their door or their phone.” They’re probably dead, too—Sara undoubtedly chose them for her aunt and uncle because they don’t have any kids of their own, and she killed them so no one could question them about anything.
“Tony—”
I looked him in the eye, and he looked away. He understood, all right. “I have to do this, Mr. Lockhart.”
He nodded, and I shut the car door behind me, putting all of my weight on the crutches. He started backing the Suburban down the driveway. I didn’t wait for him to go, I just started walking.
I was out of breath by the time I got to the back of the house and could see the rows of corn with the open field just beyond them. It was a lot harder to maneuver the crutches through the grass than I had thought it would be. My hip and knee ached, my ribs twinged with each breath I took, and despite the cold wind I was sweating.
But I couldn’t just stop there. The girls were in danger.
And I knew I was the only one who could reach Glenn, get through to him.
This was all my fault, I knew that deep inside my heart. I was to blame for all of this. Glenn wouldn’t have given a shit about what Zack or Noah said about him. He would have laughed the whole thing off, returned their gay-baiting with insults and put downs of his own. He would have even been able to laugh off Randy’s betrayal, without any of it coming to this.
If only he’d believed I was behind him 100 percent.
I’d failed him, and even though he’d never faulted me, I’d seen it on his face that night when I’d stayed over and asked to sleep in the guest room. I’d seen the pain and hurt on his face and in his eyes, but I’d just pretended it wasn’t there because I didn’t want to admit it. I couldn’t admit even to myself that I’d let him down, that I hadn’t been the friend he’d believed me to be. Glenn would have walked through fire for me.
And I hadn’t been comfortable around him.
Not since he came out, I hadn’t.
And it was that rejection that made the others so painful, a pain that went so deep that it had eventually turned to fury.
And a desire to punish everyone who made him hurt.
So, Sara had come back. I didn’t know what she was, or how he created her. Maybe he didn’t know she was his creation, maybe he didn’t know he had these incredible powers his father had told me about.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter. This was my fault. It had started because of me, and it would end because of me.
I had to make things right. If it meant I had to die, so be it.
Maybe Sara would take me in place of the girls.
If they’re still alive.
I forced that thought out of my head.
They were still alive.
They had to be.
I managed to use the crutches to push the corn aside, and then I was standing in the field.
&nb
sp; Almost immediately, I smelled smoke.
It was the hay bales I’d seen when I’d dozed off in the Suburban. There were three people standing in front of the fire. I started toward them.
One of them turned and saw me, and screamed. It was Laney. “Run, Tony! Get the hell out of here!”
A chill went through me. “Tony?” It was Glenn’s voice. One of the figures started walking toward me. I started hobbling toward the fire, but the crutches sank into the dirt. I was panting by the time he reached me.
“Glenn? What the hell is going on here?” I demanded.
“What are you doing out of the hospital?” His voice was concerned. He ignored my question. “Are you crazy? Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
“What the hell is going on around here?” I demanded angrily. I pulled the crutches out of the soft earth and swung them forward.
“Laney seems to have lost her mind.” He shook his head. “She thinks Sara and I killed Zach and Noah and Randy. I mean, I knew she was depressed after Noah died, but I think her mind has finally snapped.” He made a face and smiled. “Come on, I’ll take you back to the hospital.”
He put his hand on my sleeve, but I yanked it away from him. “What’s wrong with you, Glenn?”
“Me?” He stared at me. “Don’t tell me you’ve been listening to her paranoid fantasies?” He stepped back. He looked disappointed.
In me. Again. “Glenn, please, listen to me.” I urged. “Please. You need to stop listening to Sara. Please, you have to believe me—”
His face twisted. “I thought you were my friend, Tony. I loved you like a brother.” His eyes filled with tears, and he turned away from me. He started walking back to the fire. “I thought you were my friend.”
That hurt. I started after him. “I am your friend.”
“No, you’re not!” he shouted back at me. “You’re just like everyone else! You laugh about me behind my back, don’t you? You were afraid I was going to try something!” His voice broke, and the pain in his voice broke my heart.
“That’s not true!” We were getting closer to the fire. I could feel its heat. “I love you, man!”
“Liar.” Sara’s voice was smooth as silk. “You lie.”
Glenn turned his back to me.
“Tony, they killed Candy,” Laney blathered. “They’re burning her body.” Her voice was hysterical, and she was shaking. She was sitting on the ground, her ankles and wrists tied. “Run, get away if you can!”
“Shut up, bitch.” Sara slapped her across the face.
“Stop this,” I said, struggling to keep my voice level.
“Stop this?” Sara threw her head back and laughed. “It’s too late, Tony.” She turned to me, her eyes glistening. I couldn’t stand it—I looked away. “You know this was all your fault, don’t you?” She laughed again. “He could have stood it all, if you’d stood by him. But you didn’t, did you? You turned your back on him in the worst possible way! At least Randy was honest! You pretended to be his friend when you really hated him for what he is!”
“Glenn, please, you have to believe me,” I pleaded. “Don’t listen to her! You know you’re like a brother to me. Please. I love you, man.”
“I don’t want to believe it.” Glenn looked at me, and there were tears in his eyes.
“Believe it.” Sara sneered. “You saw the look on his face when he stayed over! You’ve seen how he turns away to hide from you in the locker room, in the showers! What does that tell you, Glenn?”
“I thought you were my friend, Tony.” His voice was stricken. “How could you do this to me?”
“She’s lying!” Laney shrieked. “Can’t you see that, Glenn? She’s lying to you!”
“They deserve to die,” Sara hissed, her lips pulled back into a snarl. “They don’t deserve to live. Even now they lie to you.”
“This will stop!” We all turned. Mr. Lockhart was walking across the field toward us.
“Dad?” Glenn asked. “What are you doing here?”
“I am here to put an end to all of this.” Mr. Lockhart stepped in front of me. “The way it should have been ended years ago.”
“You can’t stop anything, old man,” Sara taunted. “Your powers are weak, they always were. You can’t stop me.”
“What’s going on?” Glenn looked from his father to Sara, and back again. “What are the two of you talking about?”
“You have no powers,” Mr. Lockhart went on as though Glenn had said nothing. “You are a monster, a monster who draws its powers from someone else. You have destroyed lives and killed, and I will stop you.”
“What is going on!?” Glenn shouted.
“She draws her power from you, son.” Mr. Lockhart walked toward him. “It is your hate and anger that fuels her, and gives her power. You have to let go of that hate and anger. Tony and Laney don’t deserve your hatred. They love you.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Sara said, grabbing Glenn’s arm. “It’s not true. He doesn’t love you, either. He’s tried to kill you—”
“No, son, I never tried to kill you,” he said softly.
“I won’t let them get away with it!” Glenn shouted. “I won’t!”
I will never, no matter how long I live, be able to erase what happened next from my mind. It was like slow motion, as though somehow time had slowed down. The entire time he had been talking, Mr. Lockhart was walking toward Glenn.
Mr. Lockhart lunged at his son, and they fell backward into the fire.
Sara screamed and burst into flame.
Not a sound came from the fire.
There was a pop, and Sara was gone.
There was an explosion from the fire that drove us backward. Laney began to cry, and I put my arm around her.
In the distance, we could hear sirens.
I just stared into the fire. “Glenn,” I whispered. “Glenn.”
Epilogue
Before the police came, Laney and I came up with a story to tell them.
As Laney had said, “They’ll never believe the truth—they’ll think we’re crazy.”
I don’t think they believed the story we did come up with—that Glenn had been suicidal, how we’d all tried to stop him, that his father and Candy ran into the fire to try to save him.
Making Candy a hero was the least we could do for her.
Through all the police questioning—which included talking to a psychiatrist—I managed to not cry.
I was numb inside.
I didn’t cry at Candy’s funeral, or at the special double service for Glenn and his father.
I was numb.
I didn’t feel anything.
I kept expecting Glenn to show up at my front door, or just walk into my room, like he used to.
Then I would remember.
A part of me was missing. I didn’t feel whole anymore.
And the guilt was eating me alive.
I was sitting on my front porch two days after Glenn’s funeral. I hadn’t been back at school since everything had happened, and I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. My mom and little brother stayed out of the way.
“Tony?”
I looked up. It was Laney. “Hi.”
She sat down beside me. “I keep expecting to see them, you know? When the phone rings, I always think it might be Candy. At school. And then I remember that they’re gone, and they’ll never be back.” She sighed. “And then I start to cry all over again.”
“Yeah.”
“I miss him, Tony, I really do.” She looked as though she was going to cry again.
“So do I.”
She put her arm around me. “We’ll get through this somehow. At least that’s what everyone tells me.”
“Yeah.”
“Remember that time when Glenn drove us to go see that horror movie?”
“He had just gotten his license.” I began to smile. “And he hadn’t quite figured out yet how to drive, really.”
“And he kept driving over the median?”
“And we kept yelling at pedestrians to hit the pavement because there was a rookie driver on the road?” I started to laugh, and then something inside me broke, and the tears finally began to fall. She put both her arms around me, and I hugged her back, and we both cried.
I love you, Glenn. I will miss you for the rest of my life.
And above all else, I’m sorry.
About the Author
GREG HERREN is the award-winning author of fourteen novels and has edited eight anthologies, including the award-winning Love Bourbon Street: Reflections On New Orleans. He currently lives in New Orleans. He has published over fifty short stories and is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the International Association of Crime Writers, Private Eye Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime. He has worked as a personal trainer and published over fifty articles on health and fitness. He began his career as a book reviewer, and has published over a thousand reviews and interviews with authors as varied as Margaret Cho, Dorothy Allison, and Laura Lippman. A longtime resident of New Orleans, the flavor and culture of his beloved adopted city colors all of his work.
Soliloquy Titles From Bold Strokes Books
Sara by Greg Herren. A mysterious and beautiful new student at Southern Heights High School stirs things up when students start dying. (978-1-60282-674-8)
Boys of Summer, edited by Steve Berman. Stories of young love and adventure, when the sky’s ceiling is a bright blue marvel, when another boy’s laughter at the beach can distract from dull summer jobs. (978-1-60282-663-2)
Street Dreams by Tama Wise. Tyson Rua has more than his fair share of problems growing up in New Zealand—he’s gay, he’s falling in love, and he’s run afoul of the local hip-hop crew leader just as he’s trying to make it as a graffiti artist. (978-1-60282-650-2)
[email protected] by K.E. Payne. Is it possible to fall in love with someone you’ve never met? Imogen Summers thinks so because it’s happened to her. (978-1-60282-592-5)
