I'd Rather Not Be Dead

by Andrea Brokaw

  The world's noticeably more clear when I open my eyes again. My medium's sitting in an overstuffed blue chair. It has lace draped over it.

  The phone starts to ring again and he glances at it.

  “Someone's calling you,” I point out.

  “Probably wondering where I am.”

  The bizarre orange tint that didn't fade when everything came into focus implies it's sometime around sunset. “Don't you have a football game?”

  His mouth twists. “That's why they care where I am.”

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “Aren't you going?”

  He watches me for several seconds before answering. “Guess so.”

  “You don't you know?” My head spins as I sit.

  His expression is wry. “There's a girl passed out on my sofa.”

  “Oh.” I stretch a little and he looks away. “She's awake now.”

  “You alright?” He hasn't made any signs he's going to get out of the chair anytime soon.

  “Yeah. Just exhausted. Busting a few dozen car windows will do that, I guess.” When you get down to it, it's amazing I didn't sleep for at least three days after pulling something like that.

  “That was you?” A complete lack of surprise accompanies the question.

  “People noticed, huh?”

  “You could say that.” Cooper Finnegan gives me a tiny smile. “Or you could say the police have roped the area off and the whole town's going mad trying to figure out what happened.”

  “Anyone sending for an exorcist?” It would be very bad if someone started with that at the club. I don't know what would happen to Fray, but I hate knowing it would be my fault. I force myself to stand up, then have to wait a while for my knees to steady.

  “Nah. Not yet anyway.” Still sitting in the chair, Cooper Finnegan watches me closely. “You with Fray when it happened?”

  Nodding makes my vision swim. “Yeah. I... I got mad at him and all the cars near me started to shake. Then all the windows shattered.”

  Cooper Finnegan doesn't seem at all shocked I would be responsible for such a thing. He could at least pretend to be. Or act impressed by my awesome power. He doesn't need to be this blasé about it all. He doesn't have to sit there so silently.

  “So you collect teddy bears?” I ask him.

  One side of his mouth slides up, but his eyes seem sad. “Mom does.”

  “I'm sorry. I never knew your mother had mental problems.” The dig was supposed to be teasing but the smiling half of his mouth collapses and his breathing catches. Shit. His mom really is crazy? Explains a lot...

  “She just went a little weird during the divorce,” he says softly. He clears his throat and stands in a rush. “We'd better get going before someone sends the cops to find me.”

  “We?” I fold my arms.

  He sighs, his shoulders slumping. “You hate football so much you'd rather sit here waiting for The Spirit to come back than come with me?”

  “I don't hate football,” I mutter to the floor. “I hate high school football.”

  “Whatever.” He goes into the foyer, sits on a bench, and starts to put on a pair of work boots. “Why's The Spirit chasing you anyway? It bothers the others occasionally, but nowhere near this often.”

  “Dunno.” I lean against the archway and watch him tie his laces. He's very particular about it, making each loop exactly the same length. “Fray doesn't think it leaves me alone when I'm with you because you're a medium though.”

  “Oh?” He stands and grabs his letterman's jacket. “And why does the ever-wise Fray think it happens?”

  Suddenly nervous, I look away. “He thinks you're my Place of Power.”

  “What?”

  “Fray thinks I'm haunting you.”

  I expect him to laugh. Or to demand to know why I'd do that. His silence confuses me. His face is very still, calm but shaken.

  “What?” I ask. “You think I'm haunting you? Why?”

  His throat bobs as he swallows.

  The phone rings again.

  “We've got to go,” Cooper Finnegan announces, leaving the house and not waiting for me to get out before closing the door. I can't go through it. For whatever reason, it's solid. I wrap my hand around the doorknob and get it to twist, but I'm not strong enough to do more.

  My medium realizes there's a problem pretty quickly and comes back to open the door with an apologetic air.

  “I can usually go through doors,” I say, not quite asking a question.

  “Newer doors. This is one of the oldest houses in town, it's got a stronger imprint on Shadow.” He ushers me to hurry up.

  I walk through the doorway but then hit my second problem. “I can't ride in vehicles.”

  Closing his eyes, he curses. “Right. Guess we'd better run.”

  “You can take your truck. I'll catch up with you.”

  He frowns in consideration, then shakes his head. “No. It's not far. I'll just tell them I couldn't get the thing to start. Gives me an excuse for being late.” He starts to jog up the road. “I should have worn running shoes.”

  “Yeah,” I agree. “Next time I die, I'm so not doing it in boots.”

  He gives me a funny squint. “You do know you can change clothes just by thinking about it?”

  What? No. Obviously not. How? I concentrate hard on changing my shoes, but they stay the same. Maybe Cooper Finnegan's making fun of me. But... Now that I think about it, it has to be possible to change. Fray's look is definitely this century and I've seen him in different clothes, I've just been too busy being stupid to notice the implications of his wardrobe on my existence. So why won't my boots change into something I can run in?

  I'm winded less than halfway there and starting to feel like I'm going to fall asleep again. I have to stop.

  “What's wrong?” Cooper Finnegan halts and looks back at me with eyes widened by concern.

  Bending over a little, I shake my head as I catch my breath. “I'm too tired for this.”

  “Okay.” He glances nervously toward the stadium and its floodlights but stays with me.

  “Go,” I say. “I'll be right behind you.”

  He holds his ground.

  “I'm not going in the locker room anyway. By the time you get out, I'll be there.”

  “But...” He's clearly torn. Already late on my behalf, he needs to hurry if he's not going to be so late the game starts without him.

  He's honestly willing to miss the most important game of the season to keep me safe.

  It boggles my mind.

  Cris wouldn't sacrifice something half as important to him, let alone something the whole school and most of the town cares deeply about, unless I was in clear and immediate danger. And maybe not even then.

  “Go, Finn.”

  A grin is born.

  “What?” I ask, exasperated.

  “You called me Finn.”

  I roll my eyes. “It's your name, isn't it?”

  “Yeah, but you never use it.”

  My gaze narrows as he stands there backlit in the glow of the setting sun. “Just go, you idiot.”

  The grin widens. “Now, that's more like you.” He winks ¨C winks! And then he turns and sprints away, leaving me marveling at his lack of sense and smiling as I walk behind him.

  Unfortunately, I stop smiling well before I see him again. Bobbi and her cohorts are outside of the locker room, waiting for the team to come out, and the sight of them completely wrecks my good mood.

  “Shouldn't you people be shaking your butts for the crowd?” I ask her, folding my arms and glaring at her perkiness. She's too busy chattering with her friends about the party tonight to pay attention to me even if I were audible.

  “The skirt's really tight and the top comes down to here,” she says, illustrating a point well below where the school dress code would allow but not quite low enough to get her arrested. Although the term 'jail bait' does spring to mind. “I'm worried it might be too slutty.”

  “You think?” Ar
ms folded, I lean against the wall across the door from her group and marvel at how different we are. Before we moved to Pine Ridge, Bobbi and I got along. Sure, we weren't best friends, but we were friends. What is it about this place that changed her into someone I can't stand?

  “You looked really hot in it,” one of the interchangeable blondes assures her, as if this is some sort of argument against the assessment of sluttiness.

  One of the others makes a thoughtful mew. “It does sound kind of skanky. But, on the other hand, Finn's pretty oblivious. You need to bring out the big guns, you know?”

  My eyes shut in pain over the fact my own sister is friends with someone who would say something like that.

  The first blonde speaks again. “There's no way he can ignore you in that.”

  “He could be gay,” I mutter. “Or he could be smarter than previously indicated. Too smart to go for a ignorant twit with poofy hair and a weekly make-up budget higher than her IQ.”

  “Did you get that shimmery blue eyeshadow you were talking about?” one of the blondes asks, as if on cue.

  “Yes! And did you see this nail polish? I'm absolutely in love with it!” She holds her hands up for them to admire, even though the hallway isn't exactly well-lit.

  Her friends are gawking at her fingers when the locker door opens and the first of the players comes out. “You girls ready?” he asks them.

  “Always.” Bobbi lowers her hand and gives the guy a bright smile.

  I take a deep breath. This could be a very long night.

  The players pile out the door and wait in the hallway for the team to be introduced. The cheerleaders form a line before them, reminding me of cannon fodder preparing for a charge.

  Bobbi breaks away from her squad to weave her way back to where Finn leans against the wall, slapping his helmet against his palm in a fast rhythm. My sister stops in front of him but his eyes don't focus on her until she speaks. “I'll be cheering for you, Finn.”

  “That's your job,” he reminds her.

  She responds to the smile accompanying the words, not the sarcasm coating them. “No, silly. I mean, I'll be cheering for you. More than I'm cheering for everyone else.” Her voice drops to a whisper and she leans in closely, so close she's nearly touching him. “I might even be persuaded to cheer for you in private later.”

  My teeth sink into my lip as Finn's eyes drop to the microscopic distance between him and Bobbi. His spine straightens, drawing him up the wall, but that's all he can do to back away from her.

  He opens his mouth but the world will never know what he would have said because the cheerleading supervisor interrupts, ordering Bobbi to get the squad out on the field so the team can come out. “This is a football game,” she says. “Not a make-out party.”

  There are several cat calls in response to that.

  Finn smiles weakly as the guys rib him about Bobbi, not saying anything one way or the other.

  “Hey,” I call to him just before they finally go out. “I'll be cheering for you, Finn,” I mock, dropping my voice in a overdone sex-vixen imitation.

  He holds up his middle finger behind his helmet, where no one else can see it.

  I grin at him. “Good luck.”

  He grins back and takes the field with his team.

  As the captains gather with the refs for the coin toss, I wander the stands and find a seat by my family. I wind up having to perch on the steps because the benches near them are full, but I'm close enough to Mom that she pulls out a blanket and drapes it over her legs almost as soon as I arrive.

  The first quarter goes well enough, but the defense falls apart in the second. Then, rather than being rallied by whatever happens in the locker room at halftime, they not only continue to crumble in the third but they take the offensive line with them, leaving Finn open to be pounded by four sacks. And I lose count of how many runs fail because someone doesn't bother to block Yancy's defense.

  If you look at the stats of Pine Ridge's failures, the sacks, the lost yardage, the points allowed by the defense... It says something really positive that they're only down by ten at the end of the third. So far Finn's thrown four touchdown passes and rushed for another. One of his receivers even breaks a school record on the first drive of the final quarter.

  I know this because my dad repeats it over and over to my mom with an admiring excitement he usually reserves for particularly well designed electronics.

  I don't know where the other me is. Probably with Cris, but maybe not. She'd rather sit in the basement staring at the wall than come here, even though I wasn't lying when I told Finn I don't dislike football itself. And that's fine. It's cold here. The seats are hard metal. None of my friends are here. But... I never did anything else with my family either, other than be annoyed by their existence. With the exception of Miss Whiskers, I'd honestly thought I'd be happy to be rid of them.

  On the field, the ball snaps and within a heartbeat Finn's on the ground again. Sack number five. It earns him some respect from me that he doesn't waste a second moaning but instead leaps up and motions energetically to his team, trying to rally them at a time when I, personally, would be bellowing at the guys who weren't bothering to block for me.

  The running back picks up a first down, bringing the ball to what would be field goal range in the NFL but isn't anywhere near in high school. The chains move and a new play starts. Finn pulls back, looks downfield, and throws straight toward the record-setting receiver.

  A shattering crash resounds through the night.

  Finn flies several feet, landing on his back with a thud I could probably hear from here if it weren't for the stadium full of people suddenly yelling.

  The receiver's too busy staring with the rest of the us to catch the ball.

  Finn doesn't move.

  The crowd stops screaming about the late hit and goes perfectly silent. Deathly silent.

  When Finn finally starts to sit up, we all breathe out in perfect synchronization. The coach and the emergency staff haven't gotten onto the field yet before he's climbed to his feet again. He wasn't down for a fraction as long as it felt like. I could have sworn minutes had passed, not mere seconds.

  The group sigh of relief turns to a cheer, but then it gets ugly. Because there's no flag. The ref was standing right there. And. There's. No. Flag. My blood boils. If that wasn't a text book example of an illegal hit, I'll bleach my hair blond and start wearing pink.

  The whole crowd jumps to their feet and bellows at the officials. Even Rain's stopped texting her friends to make threatening gestures. If unsportsmanlike conduct could be called on the fans, we'd be getting penalized for it.

  But it doesn't phase Finn in the slightest. Nope, he just gathers his troops into a huddle and then trots them out to the line of scrimmage with a cheerful little series of signals to the sideline.

  Then he rushes fifteen yards before jumping out of bounds.

  He hands the ball to the asshole ref who failed to make the late hit call without a hint of hostility.

  Five plays later, the running back's in the end zone and the extra point will make this a three point game with less than five minutes to go. Except the kicker shanks it, sending the ball careening way off to the left.

  The crowd groans as we stay down by four points, meaning the home team can't tie with a field goal. Not that it matters. If the guy can't make an extra point, who'd trust him with a field goal anyway?

  Yancy eats up four minutes of game time before turning the ball over and giving Finn another shot.

  The halfback sprints straight into two defenders, leaving the clock to tick downward while I wonder why in the world anyone would have called a running play there.

  The offense hurries into place without conference, snapping the ball the instant everyone is set. The defense, denied time to gather itself, allows a twenty yard pass. So, we're midfield now but there's only fifteen seconds on the clock and we're out of timeouts.

  I bite my lip and hope the offensive line
holds. The defense is going to be coming hard because there's no question as to whether Finn's going to try to throw the ball, just how far downfield he'll be aiming.

  The defense blitzes but Finn gets the ball off as they crash into his line. He goes down in another uncalled late hit but the receiver makes the catch before being shoved out of bounds near the thirty.

  No one's sitting as the teams line up for the last play of the game.

  Finn takes the ball and dashes backward.

  The lines slam into each other.

  Finn throws...

  Our record-setting receiver is under double coverage but the ball's right on target, homes straight into his hands.

  Sails right through his hands.

  The ball smacks against his chest, falls to the ground somewhere in the vicinity of the one yard line. And gets picked up by a Yancy player.

  The guy from Yancy jogs across the turf, making a pretense at moving the ball even though it's obvious to everyone the pass was incomplete. No one even bothers to try tackling him.

  The clock ticks off the last four seconds.

  Only when the numbers on the scoreboard make it down to zero does anyone blow a whistle. Which is when it hits us. The ruling on the field is that the obviously incomplete pass we just witnessed was a catch followed by a fumble.

  And this isn't the NFL. There's no replay.

  The game's over. The season's over. And the official walking away from the field to the sound of the entire population of Pine Ridge cursing at him gets to go home and fear for his life.

  Chapter Ten

  I sprint out of the stands before everyone else starts to leave, unwilling to be caught in the middle of a potentially violent crowd even if they'd pass through me.

  Finn's first out of the locker room. He's taken off his game uniform and tossed on the stuff he wore over even though he didn't take the time to shower. He smiles and waves to people on the way out, but doesn't stop for them.

  We've passed the lights of the parking lot and gone to the dimmer lighting of residential streets before he says anything. “Well, that's over.”

  It's said lightly, but with an odd strain of finality that tell me he means more than the game. “At least you went out with a completion.”