It’s the First Day of School … Forever! 8 страница

The hall was bustling now, crowded and noisy. Homeroom had ended and everyone was heading to their first period class.

I moved slowly to my English class. Some kids called out to me, but I ignored them. I kept rubbing my forehead, massaging my temples as I walked. My head felt about to explode.

This was an Advanced English course, mainly for creative writing students. We all sit around a big, round table and share our stories and essays and critique them.

Normally, this is my favorite class. But now, I just wanted to hide in a corner, shut my eyes, and try to think. Of course, that was impossible. There’s nowhere to hide at a round table.

And naturally, Mr. Lovett tapped me on the shoulder as I walked to my seat and said, “You’ll go first this morning, Caitlyn.”

As the other kids settled in, I pulled my essay from my bag. I don’t get nervous reading in front of the whole class. I’m pretty confident as a writer, and, everyone knows I’m not shy.

But today, my hands were shaking as I glanced through the pages I had written. The essay wasn’t quite finished, and I wished I had time to polish it. My head was still throbbing. I hoped maybe reading the essay to everyone would give me a chance to calm down and stop puzzling over Deena Fear.

That didn’t happen.

When Mr. Lovett gave the signal, I stood up and introduced my essay. “It’s about the Stradivarius violin,” I said. “I wrote it because this priceless instrument has special meaning to my family.”

Mr. Lovett leaned forward and crossed his hands on the table. “Interesting,” he murmured. “Go ahead, Caitlyn.”

I started to read. “Stradivarius musical instruments were made in the seventeenth and eighteenth century by an Italian family named Stradivari. Today, they are valuable beyond belief, not just because of the quality of the workmanship, but because only 650 of them survive in the entire world.”

I raised my eyes from the paper to see if everyone was listening. And uttered a gasp when I saw Blade. He stood in the open doorway.

He wore his red hoodie. One sleeve was pulled down low, covering the stump where his hand was missing. His hair was disheveled, falling around his pale white face.

He gave a thin smile as our eyes met. His eyes flashed. Then he raised the back of his hand to his lips. He puckered his dead lips and, eyes locked on me, began to make loud kissing noises against his hand.

I lowered the essay and pointed to the door. “Don’t you hear that?” I cried. “Don’t you hear what he’s doing? Look! See him? Do you see him there? It’s Blade!”

Chairs scraped as everyone turned to the door.

But Blade was gone. The doorway was empty.

They quickly turned back to gape at me. I heard whispers and some muffled laughter.

“Caitlyn, I don’t see anyone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Blade? You mean the kid who was killed?”

I tossed my essay onto the table, shoved my chair out of the way, and ran. I hurtled out of the classroom. Mr. Lovett’s startled shouts followed me down the hall.

I lowered my shoulder and pushed open the side door to the school. I burst outside, breathing hard, my temples throbbing.

“I can’t go back there,” I told myself. “I can’t go anywhere. Not till Blade is gone. But … how do I get rid of him?”

34.

I knew Deena Fear was the only one who could answer that question. I jogged into the student parking lot. I glanced in all directions.

Every nerve in my body was tense. My skin prickled. I felt sure that Blade would come leaping out at me.

The parking lot was deserted. Everyone was in class. Across the street, I saw a woman pushing a baby stroller. A tall white poodle followed after them. Normal life.

I wanted my life to be normal, too.

I climbed into my car. The steering wheel was hot from the sun burning through the windshield. I pulled out of the narrow parking place.

I glimpsed someone watching me from the school entrance. Was it Mr. Lovett? I didn’t care. How could I care about school? How could I care about anything with a living corpse following me, haunting me?

The drive to Deena’s house was a blur of flashing lights and streams of sunlight, shade then sun, houses sliding past, trees and cars and everything … everything just a jumble, a pulsing wave of motion and color. I didn’t even realize I had turned onto Fear Street until the street became dark under the archway of tangled old trees.

As I reached the cul-de-sac where the street ends and the woods begin, Deena’s house came into view. No car parked in front.

A black cat sat watching me from the front yard, very still, green eyes glowing, half-hidden in the tall weeds that led up to the house. The green eyes reminded me of Blade. And once again, I saw those glassy blank eyes green as emeralds, pictured them watching me as he stood in the classroom doorway making those obnoxious sounds. Enjoying himself. Having fun as he haunted me and drove me crazy.

I pulled to the curb and climbed out of the car, my eyes on the house. Sunlight reflected off the windows along the front. I couldn’t see inside them.

The cat didn’t move. It sat up straight as if ready to defend its territory. Its eyes followed me as I made my way past it to the door at the side of the house.

I pushed the doorbell. I didn’t hear it ring inside. I waited a short while. The cat lost interest and wandered toward the burned-out remains of the Fear Mansion.

I could feel my heartbeats start to race. I rang the bell again. Then I knocked on the door. “Deena? Are you home? Deena?”

Silence.

The morning sun, now high in the sky, beamed down hard, but it didn’t warm me. A chill covered my body, as if I’d just stepped from a cold bath.

“Deena? Where are you?”

I pulled out my phone. I studied her number again. I’d called it before today, and it had worked. Maybe if I tried it again …

I punched it and waited. Please be there. Please answer.

No. I got the same message telling me the number had been disconnected. With a sigh, I dropped the phone into my bag. I turned and pounded the door with both fists. Pounded until my knuckles throbbed.

“Deena? Deena?” I was about to totally lose it. I could feel myself about to snap, about to explode into a million pieces. “Deena?”

A window slid open at the side of the house. A head poked out. I squinted into the glare of the sun and recognized Deena. “You’re home?” I said in a tiny, choked voice.

“Caitlyn, it’s you,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Expecting me?

The window slid shut. A few seconds later, I heard footsteps inside the house, the front door swung open. “I rang and knocked,” I said breathlessly. “I’ve been shouting your name and—”

She motioned for me to step inside. “I was in the back. Getting ready,” she said. “Getting ready for you.”

I edged past her into the small front entryway. The house smelled strange, as if something was burning. “Do you have something on the stove?”

She shook her head. “No. But I am cooking something up.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I tried to interpret the thin smile that spread on her black lipsticked lips, but I couldn’t figure it out. Was she making a joke?

She had her long hair tied back with a wide purple ribbon, but strands had come loose and fell about her owlish face. She wore a satiny purple top over black straight-legged jeans.

She took a few steps toward me. I instinctively stepped back.

“I … looked for you in school,” I blurted out.

“But, Caitlyn, I don’t go to your school.”

“I didn’t realize,” I said. “Where do you go?”

“Actually, I’m homeschooled.” For some reason, that made her laugh. A scornful laugh.

“By your parents? You said your parents are dead,” I said.

She laughed again. “I homeschool myself.”

I nodded. My fists were clenched. Every muscle in my body was tensed. Was I crazy to come here?

No. Just desperate.

She studied me. She seemed very amused. “Why are you stalling? We don’t have to chat like we’re best friends. I know why you came.”

“Okay,” I said. “Can you … can you help me?”

Her smile faded. “I think I can. I’m very prepared. I have what we need.”

I shook my head. “Deena, you’re talking in mysteries. What are you saying?”

She reached under the oversized purple blouse. She pulled something out from beneath her shirt, something round, a little smaller than a softball.

A hand. Coiled into a fist.

Blade’s hand.

I stared at it. The thumb poking over the curled fingers. The hand had turned a light purple color. “H-How … did you get that?” I stammered.

“Never mind,” Deena said. “It doesn’t matter.” She tossed the hand up, then caught it in her palm. Tossed it again and caught it. Then she motioned me toward the hall. “Caitlyn, are you ready to rock and roll?”

35.

Deena led me down the long, shadowy hall to her room. The burning smell grew stronger as we walked. And as I followed her into the room, I saw that it came from dozens of burning candles, black candles that she had placed on every surface.

Eleven tall black candles formed a pentagram on the floor. The candles were scented and filled the air with a tangy incense aroma, kind of cinnamon.

The parrot made a chirping cry as I came near and flapped its wings as if it wanted to escape its perch. Three or four silvery fish floated through the aquarium on the table to the right of the parrot’s perch.

Deena didn’t speak, silently tossed Blade’s hand up and down as we walked to the center of the room. Red morning sunlight filled the glass wall looking out on the Fear Street Woods.

She motioned to two black, square cushions she had set down in the middle of the tall, burning candles on the floor. “You sit there, Caitlyn,” she said, breaking the silence.

I hesitated. “Wh-what are we going to do?”

“You’ll see. We have a lot of work to do.”

She walked to the table and picked something up from beside the aquarium. I recognized it as she draped the chain around her neck. The silver bird amulet. She arranged it over her purple blouse and returned to the pentagram.

She carefully stepped between the flames and, without warning, tossed the hand to me.

I fumbled it. Caught it before it hit the floor. “You hold it,” Deena said, taking her seat across from me, so close our knees almost touched.

I gripped Blade’s hand in both hands, afraid I would drop it. The hand had hardened. It felt like grainy plaster. The thumb and fingers were locked tight. At the stub end where the wrist had been, I could see dark spots where there once were veins.

I shuddered. How did I get involved with this terrifying girl?

“Deena, tell me,” I insisted. “What are we doing here?”

She squinted at me through her big, round glasses. “Bringing Blade here, of course.” She raised the amulet off her chest with one hand and smoothed the front of it with two fingers.

“Bringing him here?”

She nodded. Candlelight flickered off her pale face, reflected in her glasses. “He betrayed us again,” she murmured. “Well … actually, he betrayed me.”

Blade’s hand felt heavy between mine. I didn’t want to hold it. I lowered it to my side to get it out of sight. A wave of nausea rolled up from the pit of my stomach.

“Betrayed you? He’s been haunting me,” I said. “He said he would never leave me.”

Her black lips tightened into an angry scowl. “That’s exactly my point, Caitlyn. It was supposed to be my turn. I worked all that night to bring him back … to bring him back to me, not to you.”

She tossed the loose strands of hair off her face. “He betrayed me again. I cannot allow it.”

Suddenly, without thinking, my most frightening thought burst from my lips. I never should have said it. But it was there in my mind, terrifying me as I sat cross-legged across from her. As I sat there, such an easy victim.

“Deena, if you killed me … Blade might be yours. Is that your plan? To get me out of the way?”

Her eyes widened in shock and she uttered a short gasp. “Kill you? Of course not. What are you thinking? You’re my best friend in the world.”

She’s crazy. Totally insanely psycho.

I swallowed, trying to force down my nausea. “So you’re going to bring Blade here and—?”

“Explain to him,” she said. She leaned over a black candle, lowering her face to the flame. She raised the amulet in front of her. “Caitlyn, pick up Blade’s hand. Hold it in front of you. We want him to know we have it.”

Obediently, I cupped the hard purple hand between my trembling hands. I raised it high.

“He will come,” Deena said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “He will know we have it, and he will come for it. And then…” She raised her eyes to me. “… We will have him.”

She dropped her gaze to the amulet and lowered it to the candle flame. Shutting her eyes, she began to chant. Words in a strange language I’d never heard.

Her lips moved quickly, her tongue clicking against her teeth, her eyes shut, the sound of her voice just a murmur against the flickering light, a whisper so light, I wasn’t sure I was hearing it.

She didn’t move a muscle. Kept the amulet in place over the flame and whispered her strange words, her back straight, her legs spread out from the cushion.

I held the hand in front of me. My arms started to ache, and my back stiffened. I shifted my weight but it didn’t help. I took deep breaths and wondered how long Deena would chant, how long it would take before Blade came knocking on the door.

And then what? Then what? Deena was being so mysterious. She didn’t want me to know her entire plan.

Was she keeping it a secret because it would end badly for me, too?

I didn’t buy that BFF nonsense. I knew I was in danger, too.

But I couldn’t just jump up and run. If she really wanted to help me get rid of Blade … If she really wanted to use her powers to send Blade back to his coffin … I had to stay. I had to do what she asked.

I shifted my weight again. My arms throbbed. My back ached. I stared straight ahead at Deena and listened to her drone on … and on.

My eyelids suddenly felt heavy. The soft rush of her whispered words were lulling me to sleep. I struggled to stay alert—and gasped when something moved between my hands.

I gazed down and saw the fingers on Blade’s hand start to move.

I let out a horrified cry and dropped the hand to the floor in front of me. It made a squishy thud, bounced once, and stopped at Deena’s ankles. And I stared in horror as the dead fingers slowly unfurled. The thumb slid out stiffly, and the fingers curled and uncurled, as if testing themselves.

Deena opened her eyes for only a second. She glimpsed the moving hand, like a fat purple insect trying to get off its back. Her expression didn’t change. She closed her eyes again. She chanted softly.

Gripped in horror, I watched the hand flop onto its other side. Like a crab, it began to crawl over the floor. “Deena—” I shouted. “It’s moving. It’s crawling away.” I couldn’t hold in my terror.

“That means Blade is near,” she said, still whispering. “That means he is coming. Listen. Listen for his knock, Caitlyn.”

Fingers scrabbling steadily across the floor, the hand crawled toward the table. The parrot squawked and shuffled its wings, its eye on the approaching creature.

“Blade is near,” Deena whispered. “Listen carefully. Listen for his knock.”

I realized I’d been holding my breath. I let it out in a long whoosh.

I froze again when I heard a sound. A soft thump.

Where was it coming from?

Deena stopped her chant and tilted her head, listening.

Thump … Thump …

Someone knocking softly on the glass wall.

“He’s here,” Deena whispered.

Thump … Thump …

36.

I froze as chill after chill rolled down my back. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. Finally, I forced myself to turn to the glass wall.

Thump … Thump …

I shielded my eyes with one hand against the harsh sunlight. Then I uttered an astonished cry and jumped to my feet.

Deena and I both stared at the black cat up on its haunches. It peered into the room from the other side of the glass and tapped the wall with one paw.

Thump … Thump.

Not Blade. Not Blade.

Deena let out a long sigh. Her breath blew out one of the candles. It sizzled and sent up a thin column of black smoke.

Her shoulders drooped. She tossed the amulet onto one of the cushions. “It didn’t work, Caitlyn,” she murmured, avoiding my eyes. “Blade is out of my power.”

Thump. The cat tried one more knock. Then it lowered itself to all fours and took off, its tail raised high, sprinting through the tall weeds of the backyard.

Once again, I felt cold all over. Strange how fear can control your body temperature. Fear and shock. I really expected to see Blade in the glass. Now that he wasn’t there, I didn’t know what to say or what to do next.

Deena picked up the hand, which was halfway to the aquarium table. The fingers curled as she lifted the hand off the floor. She tossed it into the aquarium. The water splashed violently and the fish inside scattered. The hand sank to the bottom and didn’t move.

I stood there with my mouth open, trying to clear my head. I was surprised to see that Deena had tears running down her face. “All my energy,” she murmured. “I used it all. I’m drained, see. The dead take so much energy. To bring them … and to send them back again. I … I don’t have it, Caitlyn. I’m drained.”

“But, Deena—” I started.

She wiped her tears with her fingers. Her eyes were narrow slits. Her cheeks were pale and puffy. The color had faded from her lips. “Drained. The amulet is empty. My words have no power.”

She grabbed my shoulder. Her hand was ice cold. “I can’t help you, Caitlyn. Blade is out there and he’s on his own.” She sighed. “I guess I took on too much. I thought I knew how to bring him here, how to control him. My family has always had such strong powers. But … I wasn’t ready.”

“Deena, that doesn’t help me,” I cried, backing away from her grip on my shoulder. “He’s following me everywhere. He’s haunting me and he says he’ll never leave.”

She shook her head wearily. “What can I say? I tried.”

“But I can’t live like this!” I screamed. “I can’t live with a dead boy following me everywhere, grabbing me, kissing me with his dead lips, fighting, haunting me. How can I live with that?”

“Caitlyn, listen to me. I’m telling you the truth. I can’t do anything,” she said. She leaned against the wall. Her face grew even paler. In the harsh sunlight through the glass wall, she nearly disappeared. “You have to deal with Blade on your own.”

“Huh?” I gasped. “On my own? What on earth do you mean, Deena? What can I do?”

“Isn’t the answer obvious?” she said. “You have to kill him again.”

37.

At my shift behind the popcorn counter that afternoon, I must have looked dazed or distracted. Ricky kept coming over and asking if I was okay. “If you’d like, you can take a ten-minute break,” he said after I’d been on duty for only an hour. What a guy.

The theater was pretty crowded. I kept my eyes on the lobby entrance. Anyone wearing red made my breath stop. I knew Blade would show up. I knew he’d come to haunt me, to terrify me.

By the end of my shift, the tension from waiting and watching for him made me feel exhausted. Ruined. I almost forgot I’d made a plan to meet Julie after work.

I met her at Fresh Chopped, the salad restaurant in the mall near the Cineplex. We meet there a lot since Julie is a vegetarian. “How’s it going?” she asked, her eyes studying me.

I shrugged. “Not bad. Do I smell like popcorn?”

She nodded.

We made our salads. I didn’t pay much attention to what I put in mine. My stomach felt too tight to be hungry.

We slid across from each other in a booth away from the open double doors. In the next booth, two little kids were whining and complaining to their mother.

“But I hate salad.”

“The lettuce gets stuck in my teeth. I hate this. It’s yuck.”

“We want McDonald’s!”

“It’s delicious,” the mother argued. “Eat some of it and I’ll buy you some ice cream.”

“With sprinkles?”

“Okay. With sprinkles.”

That seemed to quiet them down. Bribery almost always works with little kids.

Julie mixed the dressing into her salad with a fork. Her dark eyes were still on me. Her straw-blonde hair fell loosely to the shoulders of her striped tank top.

I noticed a bandage over her right earlobe. I pointed. “What happened to your ear?”

She rolled her eyes. “A piercing accident.”

“You got your ears pierced again? That’s very bold of you.” As I’ve said, Diary, Julie is usually timid about things. She says she’s “old-school.”

“Yes. I wanted two holes. But the guy messed up or something. It got infected.”

I tsk-tsked.

Julie stirred her salad some more. “Let’s not talk about me,” she said. “You left school this morning. What’s up with that?”

I set my fork down. “Why? Were people talking about me?”

“Caitlyn, I saw you leave. You ran out the door like you were being chased. Were you sick or something?”

I opened my mouth to answer, then stopped, my brain spinning. And in that instant, with Julie peering across the table at me with such concern, I decided to tell her the truth.

I had to confide in someone. Deena Fear admitted she could be no help. But I couldn’t face this entirely on my own.

“Julie,” I started. “I know this is going to sound totally crazy, but I’m going to tell you the truth. Please listen to me. Please believe me, no matter how nuts it sounds.”

She squeezed my hand. “Are you in trouble, Caitlyn?”

“No,” I said. “I mean … yes. I mean…”

“Take a breath, okay. You’re scaring me,” she said. “Take a breath and start at the beginning. You know you can trust me, right?”

I nodded. I leaned over the table so I could whisper. I didn’t want my story to scare the little kids in the booth behind me.

“Blade is back,” I whispered. “Remember? They didn’t bury him? Deena Fear brought him back from the dead. She—”

“You’ve been hanging out with Deena Fear?” Julie said, narrowing her eyes at me.

“Not hanging out exactly,” I replied. “But she has powers. You know her family’s story. They’re all weird and they … can do things. And she brought Blade back to life. And…”

“Caitlyn, you’re hyperventilating,” Julie interrupted. “You’re scaring me. Try to calm down.”

Behind me, the two kids were arguing about where to go for ice cream. They both wanted Dairy Queen. Their mother was insisting on Tastee-Freez.

A wave of sadness washed over me. I wished I could talk about normal happy things like ice cream.

“Blade is back from the dead, Julie,” I whispered. “And he came back to haunt me, to torture me, to terrify me.”

Julie shook her head hard. She swept her blonde hair back. “Why, Caitlyn? Why you?”

I hesitated. Should I tell her the whole story?

Yes, I decided. It was all spilling out of me. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“He’s haunting me because I killed him, Julie. I’m the one. I’m the one who stabbed him. And now … now he’s come back for revenge.”

I grabbed both of her hands on the tabletop. “Do you believe me? Please say that you believe me. Please, Julie.”

She stared at me for a long moment. I could practically see the gears of her brain spinning. She didn’t move. She didn’t blink.

Finally, she nodded. “I believe you, Caitlyn. I believe you.”

I squeezed her hands. I wanted to jump up and hug her. “Oh, thank you!” I cried. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me, Julie. I can’t tell you how much better I feel that you know the truth now.”

“You must be so frightened, Caitlyn,” she said. “Blade back from the dead? It’s like a horror movie. What are you going to do about him? What can you do? You have to get rid of him. You have to—”

“Deena Fear tried to help, but she couldn’t,” I said, my voice breaking. “I-I don’t know what to do next. I’m so scared. I’m scared all the time.” I held my breath, trying to hold back my tears. “I’m just so glad to have someone who believes me.”

“We’ve been friends since sixth grade,” Julie said. “I want to help you. Maybe I can help you.”

“Help? How?” I asked. I watched a group of guys from our school walk into the restaurant. One of them was wearing a red sweatshirt. It made me gasp. Then I realized it was actually a maroon-and-white Shadyside High sweatshirt.

“Come to my house,” Julie said. She slid out of the booth. “In half an hour, okay? Come in half an hour. Maybe I’ll be able to help you. I mean, maybe.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Half an hour. I’ll kill some time here in the mall. I’ll be there. Thanks, Julie. I mean, really. Thanks.”

I watched her hurry away. Neither one of us had touched our salads. But I felt so much better, knowing that I had a true friend who believed me, believed my story no matter how insane it sounded.

How did she think she could help me? I didn’t have a clue. But I was no longer alone.

I made my way to the exit. One of the guys from school called to me. I waved, but I didn’t go over to them.

I wandered around the mall, just gazing into windows, not really seeing anything. The place was nearly empty. A lot of tables were filled at the food court in the basement. But bored salespeople stood around in empty stores, leaning on counters, their eyes on the clock, waiting for nine so they could close.

I remembered I had to buy a birthday present for my dad. I saw a Brooks Brothers store across the aisle. I took a few steps toward it, then stopped. I was in no mood to shop for anything.

I glanced at my phone. Time to head to Julie’s house. My car was in the lot at the other end, near the Cineplex. I walked quickly past the stores, not seeing anything now but a blur of color and light.

My car stood all by itself in Row B. I felt a chill tighten the back of my neck. Parking garages give me the creeps. I thought about the guy who tried to rob me after work that night. You’re just so totally vulnerable in a deserted parking garage.

My car squealed around a turn as I followed the circling aisle down toward the exit.

Julie lives on Bank Street, a short drive from the mall. She has two younger sisters, so there are five in her family. Their house is small, almost like a cottage. The kitchen, dining room, and living room are all one open room. Julie’s sisters share a bedroom.

Julie says she doesn’t mind being a little cramped. Her main complaint about the house is that it has only one bathroom. When her sisters go in to do their hair, it can take hours!

She says she loves her family because they’re all pretty mellow. Bathroom time is the only thing they fight about. I know they were thinking of moving to a bigger house before Mr. Nello hurt his back. He was an assistant manager at a Walmart warehouse, but he had a bad accident unloading a truck. Now he gets some kind of disability.

I had all these thoughts about them as I drove. I guess I was trying to think about normal things, trying to keep my mind off my terrifying troubles. A few minutes later, I parked my car at the curb and walked up their small, square front yard. Her sister’s scooters leaned against the front stoop. A jump rope was tangled around a low evergreen shrub at the foot of the steps.

I took a long breath of the cool night air and held it for just a second. Then I climbed onto the narrow stoop and rang the doorbell.

The door swung open almost instantly. Julie greeted me with a solemn face. “Hi, Caitlyn. Come in.”

I stepped into the small front room. Saw the people standing there, standing there so stiffly. And I let out a cry: “What are you doing here?”

38.

Diary, I was trapped.

My mom stood behind Julie, her eyes moist, her chin trembling the way it always does when she’s upset. Dad stood beside her, one hand on her trembling shoulder. He squinted at me as if he didn’t recognize me.

“Come in,” Mom said. “Come sit down, Caitlyn.” She spoke slowly, softly as if she was speaking to a sick person.

I saw Julie’s parents huddled together behind the couch at the back of the room. Julie’s cheeks were bright pink. She could see the anger on my face, the betrayal I felt.

“I had to call them, Caitlyn,” she said, clasping her hands tensely in front of her. “I had no choice.”