Death & Co.

by D. J. McCune

  Adam frowned. ‘I remember dancing.’ He closed his eyes and concentrated hard. ‘And Melissa was there.’ Something was wrong with the picture of her. There were rainbows all around her and her mouth was moving soundlessly. He shook his head, frustrated. ‘Then everything goes sort of black.’

  Luc’s expression was unreadable. ‘Well, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Drink some more water.’

  Adam glared at him. ‘Why? What happened? Why can’t I remember anything?’

  His brother looked at him almost kindly. ‘Well … probably because Michael Bulber slipped you a mickey.’ He rolled his eyes at Adam’s bewilderment. ‘He spiked your drink.’

  Adam choked mid-gulp of water. ‘He what?’

  ‘He told Ripper he bought you a drink and dropped something into it. Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything really serious – some herbal thing he got on the Internet. Just enough for you to make a tit of yourself.’ Luc shook his head, almost admiringly.

  ‘A tit of myself?’ Adam whispered. He had a sudden feeling of deep foreboding. ‘Tit of myself how?’

  Luc shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I didn’t really see everything. I was a good bit away from you at first.’

  Adam glared at him. ‘What did I do?!’

  Luc was trying to keep his face straight. ‘Well, you were dancing a bit weirdly for a start – kind of pogoing – and you seemed to be babbling a lot. Your mouth was like …’ He stopped and slapped his thumb and fingers together at high speed. ‘And then Melissa came up and I got a bit closer because I could see something was wrong. So you started making this … face.’ He began to laugh.

  ‘What kind of face?’ Adam shrilled hysterically.

  Luc struggled to control himself. ‘Sort of like a … kissy face. Like an amorous goldfish.’ He collapsed and laughed until his eyes overflowed.

  Adam felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. ‘And Melissa saw all this?’

  Luc frowned. ‘Well, she seemed OK up until then. But then –’

  ‘There was more?!’ Adam screeched.

  Luc tried and failed to look serious. ‘Well, then you decided to kiss her – or at least I think that was your plan. You sort of dived at her. Only you got a bit … sick. On her shoes.’

  Adam stared at him aghast. He tried to speak as slowly as possible because clearly this was all a terrible misunderstanding. ‘You’re trying to tell me that I threw up on Melissa’s shoes?’

  ‘You mostly missed them,’ Luc said cheerfully. ‘It kind of landed in front of them. Only a few spatters really. You pretty much collapsed. Luckily I was right beside you by then. I caught the back of your shirt so no broken nose. Big brother to the rescue! Oh – for the record, someone else snagged leather-trouser girl while my back was turned. You owe me.’

  Adam looked down at his shirt, the blood and missing buttons. ‘Why was I bleeding?’

  Luc shrugged. ‘I had to swoop us home. There was no way you were going to stay on the back of the bike. At least you hadn’t lost your keystone.’

  Adam played with the edge of the quilt for a long time, waiting for Luc to jump up and laugh; say it was all just a cruel joke. As the seconds rolled by it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen. ‘I really did all that, didn’t I?’

  ‘Well, strictly speaking Bulber did it. If it’s any consolation I asked Ripper to sort him out. Now there’s a man who enjoys a bit of violence! Trust me, Mickey B will be walking crooked this morning.’

  Adam buried his face in his hands. ‘My life is over.’

  Luc sniggered. ‘Stop being so dramatic. At least you didn’t throw up on Ripper because in that case your life really would be over and we’d be burying you about now. Plus there were no call-outs. I would have had a lot of explaining to do.’

  Adam stared sightlessly at the ceiling. ‘I’ve totally messed up with Melissa.’ There was only one good thing – he hadn’t known anyone else there. The Beast would torture him but Melissa was too nice to make a big deal about it. With one week left in school before the half-term holiday, he would probably survive the scandal. By the time they all went back after the holidays it would be old news. ‘It’s a nightmare but at least only Melissa and Michael Bulber actually saw it.’

  Luc hesitated. ‘Yeah … about that. Thing is, Mickey B had his phone out. I told Ripper to get it off him – but to be honest he isn’t the brightest. He gets too excited at the prospect of tearing heads off. So … there might be a video or two.’

  Adam stared at him, horror-struck. He could feel his mouth moving but somehow no sounds were coming out. He lay down and pulled the quilt over his head. ‘Go away. Just leave me to die in peace.’ He stayed there, mind reeling, until he heard Luc leave the room and close the door. How could Michael Bulber be so evil? Did he really want Melissa that badly? If so he would be feeling pretty happy this morning. She certainly wasn’t going to want any more romantic evenings with Adam.

  ‘I threw up on Melissa,’ he whispered, the words finally sinking in. How was he ever going to face her again?

  Going into school on Monday took more courage than Adam even knew he possessed. He’d slept badly, not least because he’d been plagued by more dreams about Melissa. All of them had involved either the woman in the hospital bed – or Adam throwing up on Melissa in the middle of school, surrounded by jeering crowds. When the alarm clock went off, the temptation to hide beneath the covers for the day had never been stronger. Only the thought of Luc’s merciless needling forced Adam into his uniform and out the door.

  It had frozen hard overnight and everything looked cold and dead as he trudged up the long Bonehill driveway. To add insult to injury, when he put his hands into his jacket pockets for warmth he felt something hard and sharp-edged. It was Melissa’s unopened Valentine’s card. Adam’s heart twisted painfully. He skipped registration – there was no way he was ready to face Melissa just yet.

  He found himself slinking through the corridors like a criminal. First period no one seemed to notice him but by second period a few people were whispering, staring and sniggering. Hiding in the toilets during break only gave him the opportunity to hear the story spreading. By lunchtime things were becoming desperate. Scuttling towards the library he could see a group of sixth-formers at the end of a corridor huddled round a laptop. Their howls and hoots of mirth were still echoing as he crept through the library door.

  His friends were already there, throwing Dan’s macadamia nuts at each other and laughing. As he approached they fell silent. Adam’s stomach was flip-flopping but he sat down and gulped. ‘OK, just say whatever you need to say and get it over with.’

  He braced himself for the worst but it didn’t come. Archie grinned and shrugged. ‘You win some, you lose some, mate.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Dan piped up. ‘Plenty more fish in the sea. Even nicer fish! Fish with … longer tails! And bigger fins! She’ll be sorry she jumped out of your bucket!’

  Adam sighed. ‘I threw up in the bucket! No wonder she wanted out of it!’

  ‘At least you didn’t actually throw up on her.’ It was the first time Spike had spoken. ‘You mostly missed. I slowed the video down to check. No major damage.’

  ‘Bet you enjoyed that,’ Adam said through gritted teeth. He felt his fists clenching beneath the table. ‘She’s all yours now. You can have a cosy night in together watching me make a complete arse of myself!’

  ‘Actually I was watching the video to see if I could edit it,’ Spike said. ‘Unfortunately I can’t so I’ve just been tracking it and taking it down. I found about forty copies online at break time. There are only a couple left now.’

  Adam felt a twinge of guilt for expecting the worst from Spike. This was quickly replaced by complete despair – because if Spike felt sorry for him he must have really messed up! ‘Thanks. But you can’t take them down forever. They’re just going to keep putting them back up.’

  Spike gave a grim little smile. ‘No they won’t. They’re all having a bit of bother with their com
puters. It’s funny how every time people upload that video their laptops and phones get attacked by a particularly nasty virus …’

  Adam could have wept with gratitude. ‘Thanks. Seriously.’ He hesitated, then blurted out before he could change his mind, ‘Can I see it?’

  There was a pregnant pause. ‘That’s probably not a great idea,’ Dan said. For once in his life he seemed to be struggling not to put his foot in his mouth. Being Dan, he failed spectacularly. ‘I mean, if you see how awful it is you’ll probably want to go and kill yourself.’

  There was a strange, strangled sound from Archie. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he croaked at the sight of Adam’s glare. ‘It’s just the dancing.’ He chortled explosively. ‘You were jumping about like your feet were on fire. And waving your arms about.’ He gave a vivid demonstration of a mad man frantically swatting invisible bees. ‘I tried to draw it but I couldn’t capture it somehow.’

  Adam turned to Spike, who was trying and failing not to laugh. ‘Please. I need to see it.’

  The other three exchanged glances. Dan nodded. ‘I think he needs this. You know, for like, closure or something.’

  Spike turned the laptop towards Adam and raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure about this?’ At Adam’s nod he hit a key and the video began to play.

  Adam spent the next three minutes of his life in an agony of embarrassment. He watched himself bounce and flail about like a man possessed. He watched Melissa’s smile as he approached, then observed the smile faltering and a look of concern appearing on her face.

  The camera shook a little at this stage, as if the cameraman was laughing himself sick. He thoughtfully pulled himself together in time to move sideways and capture Adam’s ‘kissy mouth’ followed by a spectacular swan dive towards Melissa. Bulber had even been considerate enough to zoom in on the moment Adam puked and Melissa’s desperate leap to safety. There was a final thrilling scene as Luc lunged into the frame and caught Adam’s shoulder, breaking his fall. Melissa was staring at her feet and looking as if she might cry.

  Archie shook his head in wonderment. ‘What were you on?’

  Lemonade. And something herbal, Adam thought bitterly. He groaned. ‘Michael Bulber set me up. He spiked my drink.’

  Dan was squinting at the laptop screen. ‘Who’s the guy at the end? The one who caught you?’

  ‘My brother Luc. He helped get me into Cryptique in the first place.’ So Luc had actually saved him. Adam grudgingly conceded that he owed him one after all.

  Dan’s face had brightened. ‘Maybe he can get us all in some time!’

  Adam stared at him in disbelief. ‘Do you honestly think that Luc will ever take me anywhere again after that?’

  Dan’s face fell. ‘Well, maybe not for a couple of weeks but …’

  Adam rolled his eyes and turned to Spike. ‘Is the Beast in today?’

  ‘Nope. I heard The Bulb talking to Lumpton earlier and telling her how poor Michael had been jumped and beaten up while he was out. Two black eyes and a cracked tooth.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Adam muttered, feeling faintly ashamed of the warm glow this news gave him. He chewed his lip. ‘Have any of you seen Melissa?’

  ‘Nope.’ Archie’s mouth twitched. ‘She’s probably still in the shower.’

  Adam rolled his eyes a sudden, explosive snort of laughter. Everyone jumped, including him. The thing was, the whole ridiculous situation was funny. If he’d seen it in a film he would have wet himself. So would his friends and Chloe and Luc and Auntie Jo … Unfortunately this was his actual life; his life, that endless parade of blundering incompetence. He was like some kind of prehistoric animal dropped into the modern world, crashing about Godzilla-style, causing mayhem wherever he went.

  He sighed. ‘I should probably talk to her. What the hell am I going to say? What do you say to a girl when you’ve puked on her?’

  Spike grinned. ‘You tell her to keep her hair on – but to take her shoes off.’

  It was the following day before Adam saw Melissa. He had spent another night of sweaty dreams and another hellish morning scuttling about the school, listening to jeers and sneers wherever he went. On the bright side nobody was looking at laptops; presumably they were all in repair shops thanks to Spike’s counter-attacks. Once again Adam reminded himself never to fall out with Spike.

  He slunk into the biology lab, half relieved and half sad that he was no longer partnered with Melissa. He knew she liked to sit at the back so he swallowed his pride and sat at the front, much to the surprise of Stinky Pete (whose nickname was pretty much self-explanatory). When Melissa walked in Adam hit the floor, throwing his pencil case down first by way of excuse. He counted to twenty before he dared to reappear.

  The Buzzard was in foul form and for once Adam was nothing but grateful. She was tiny but terrifying and when she was in a rage a cloud of dark energy seemed to follow her round the room. Nobody dared to lift their heads for fear of meeting her malevolent gaze so Adam was able to spend the period copying his textbook into his lab book. He almost relaxed – a mistake under the circumstances.

  The bell went too soon and he swept his books off the bench and into his bag, planning to make a rapid exit. He almost made it but a scent in the air around him made him freeze. It was slightly sweet and slightly fruity and definitely not Eau de Stinky Pete. At the same time he heard Melissa’s familiar voice just behind him. ‘Are you planning on avoiding me forever?’

  Adam swallowed and turned slowly on the spot. Her face was pale but there were two high spots of colour in her cheeks. Her eyes had gone from lasers to … something stronger than lasers. Maybe alien lasers. Whatever they were, they could strip skin off a human face. She arched one eyebrow. ‘Well, are you?’

  And quite suddenly Adam felt tired. It wasn’t a ‘stayed-up-too-late’ tiredness. It wasn’t even a ‘morning-after-the-night-before-when-you-were-spiked’ tiredness. It was a kind of weariness that seemed to rise up from the very depths of his soul. All this time he had told himself that he could be normal. He could be an ordinary guy with an ordinary life, an ordinary job, an ordinary girlfriend. The choir in his chest almost sang at the thought and he screamed at it to shut up, like some demented Russian conductor. It fell into stunned silence.

  He wasn’t ordinary and he never would be. Something had changed, filtering in past his usual stubborn optimism, forcing him to see the truth. There was a kind of grim relief in the realisation. Maybe now it was time that Melissa realised that too. ‘Yeah, pretty much.’

  She stared at him. ‘What, you are going to keep avoiding me?’

  Adam sighed. ‘Look, I’m sorry about your shoes. If you tell me how much they were I’ll give you the money. Really – sorry. Now I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late.’

  She was looking at him incredulously. ‘So that’s it?’

  Adam scowled. ‘I said I was sorry. What more do you want?’

  ‘Why are you being like this?’ Her voice was quiet. There was something fragile in it.

  It was like a needle in his heart. It made him feel helpless and embarrassed and sad and stupid and guilty and then finally angry. ‘Because I threw up on you! And first time round I stood you up. And then I took you out and abandoned you for half an hour. I’m a tit and you’re really nice. So go and hang out with someone who doesn’t puke all over you!’

  She blinked. ‘I know throwing up wasn’t your fault.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Michael Bulber never knows when to keep his mouth shut. He’s the tit, not you.’

  She was so nice. Adam looked at her and felt a pang for the life he was never going to have. Who knew what might have happened … ? The Russian conductor interrupted these wistful thoughts and fixed Adam in his demented gaze. No point prolonging the agony. ‘See you, Melissa.’ He hesitated, not sure if he was doing the right thing, trying to pick his words carefully. ‘And those tests your mum needs at the hospital? Tell her to go and get them. Seriously.’

  Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. As he walked away
, he reflected that Dan would have been pleased. Adam had finally made Melissa look like a fish.

  Chapter 19

  The rest of the week in school promised to be long and miserable. Thanks to Spike the videos had at least disappeared but the sniggers and stares hadn’t. A few enterprising first years had even begun to re-enact the whole scene, until Archie threatened them with violence and embarrassing nude portraits plastered all over the school.

  As for Melissa … Well, it was like she and Adam didn’t exist on the same plane of reality. He had become invisible. She ignored him so completely that he might as well have been in the Hinterland. He felt a strange mixture of sadness and relief. His friends weren’t impressed but Adam couldn’t tell them the truth – that he had pushed her away.

  As if his sufferings weren’t great enough he was coming down with something. As he moved around the school he would have to stop, feeling his head go light and swimmy. Sometimes he felt nauseous for just a second but the feeling disappeared as quickly as it came. Lumen hardly ever got sick so on top of everything else that had happened Adam was starting to get paranoid. Maybe the Fates had their eyes on him after all …

  School felt different. It had always seemed like a sanctuary for Adam, a safe refuge in the general madness of his life. Now he felt detached from it all. Finally the penny was dropping. Like Melissa, it was just one more thing he wasn’t supposed to have. Adam knew that it was time to accept what his family had always told him. On Wednesday night, just a day after his last conversation with Melissa, Adam stunned everyone. He announced at the dinner table that he wanted to go on a call-out that night.

  Nathanial put his knife and fork down carefully. ‘You want to come out tonight? On a job? Instead of Luc?’

  Adam nodded and tried to feign enthusiasm. ‘Yeah, I’ll be on holiday next week so I don’t have as much homework as usual. I just thought I could help.’ He did owe Luc for getting him into Cryptique. And for not letting him squash his own nose.

  Nathanial nodded. ‘I see. Well, I’d be delighted if you would come with me tonight.’ He hesitated, staring at Adam’s heaped dinner plate. ‘Although … maybe you’ve had enough to eat for now.’