A Dark Road (2 page)

Chapter
2

McKay

All I had wanted was something to eat. Now, I’m on the side of the road like a jackass trying to decide if I should just set my pickup on fire or if I should bother fixing it at all (if I had a coin, I’d flip it). I wanted to blame the overheating on the summer, but now it’s almost jacket weather. And even after I replaced the battery, the wheel bearings, and cleaned the engine (I like to think of it as a pickup enema), the damn thing is giving me problems. But it’s almost dark now and I can’t really see anything, which is making this even harder than it probably has to be, so if it is another problem on top of the original problem, I might be screwed.

I have a
flashlight, but oil is flooding everywhere, so I can’t even see a spark from a wire. Maybe I should put it out to pasture. It might be more merciful, but then I’d have to walk more than I’d like, and there is nothing that sticks out more than a geeky kid walking along the side of the road. All I needed was one more winter. One more—

“Goddamn it.”

People are stopping at the light and looking at me. Their stares dig into me like tiny little rivets. just being self-conscious, and logically people see broken down cars on the highway all the time, and that this isn’t a big deal, but I still can’t make the thoughts go away. And because I can’t make it go away, I want to rip their fucking eyeballs out, one pair at a time.

It could be worse
, though. Somebody could pull over and try to help, and that would be so much more fucking worse, just the idea of it makes me want to hurl. If I was alone, I think I might laugh. If I’m this paranoid about producing and selling, can you imagine what a basket case I’d be if I actually used my own stuff?

I have a macabre vision of
trying to fit myself in a basket.

I
practicing the awkward explanation in my head so that it comes out the way I want it to. If I do end up having to have a conversation with a do-gooder, I figure its best to be prepared.

Inside of the truck
, Dog is dying to get my sandwich, or at least get out of the pickup and see what the hell I’m doing out here. Obviously, I can’t let him do that with all of the traffic, so I try to ignore his whining. I see his head darting back and forth from window to window. He’s trying to cram his entire massive body out of the passenger side just to get to me. He must think I’m in distress or something. I can practically read his teeny little mind.

Hey
, McKay? Are you in trouble? I love you! I smell cheese! Can I have this sandwich? I love you! Can I go play with the cars?

Yet because
I can’t take all the imaginary eyes off of me and it’s getting darker by the second, I feel drained by every little effort. All I want to do is get back to the house, my lab, and feed Dog. But my sandwich and fries are getting colder and I’m getting more and more self-conscious, which led to me getting pissed. I start thinking of cold meatballs and food poisoning and lettuce with brown edges and I hate it.

I hate
it
. Hate this town. Hate this pickup. Hate this life. Hate. Hate.
Hate
.

Its times like these that I
wish I kept a regular phone so I could hold it up to my ear and pretend like I’m talking to someone or pretend to type and smile. That way people would think a friend sent me a funny message. They would think that help was already on the way.

Chapter 3

Hadley

Mom drove us to school while Dad went to get our car serviced. It worked out well since Dad didn’t trust ol’ Bull with the additional two hundred and four miles on its speedometer. And since Mom had been so busy getting the new dealership together, she hadn’t had much time to research our new school. Dropping us off would give her a ‘lay of the land’ as well.

“You have money for lunch
, right?”

Simon handed me some mints.
I shook my head and offered him gum.

“Simon? Hadley? Do you two have enough money for lunch?”

“Brought our own.”

Simon completed my sentence
. “Precautionary measure.”

Ravel
Regional High School looked as standard as any other academic establishment I had ever seen: several brick buildings were loosely fitted together behind a baseball field and spruce parking lot. The entire structure was surrounded by sidewalks with broken pavement. I sighed and tightened the straps of my backpack.

Sim
on pushed me forward at the curb. “This won’t be so bad.”

“Un-huh
.”

“Come on
.” He pulled me along. “Let’s go.”

I turned away and watc
hed some crumbled leaves make their way into the foyer of the school. By now Jordan, Aimee, and Ian would be meeting in the weight room for a morning workout. I
should
be at home with them. If I tried picturing it hard enough, maybe I could make this place feel like home. Then again, I never had much of an imagination. I tried to stitch the images out as best I could, the greenhouse beside the school, the freshmen trying to sneak in cigarettes before homeroom, but the pattern wasn’t coming together the way I wanted and my daydream of remembered things quickly fell away.

A large token
security guard interrupted any chance I had at rescuing the images as we walked into the lobby.

“Walk on straight
through,” he said. “Office is the second door to your left.”

A
secretary with a phone to her ear pointed to a bench on the wall when we walked in. I took off my backpack and slammed it to the ground, letting the thud echo into my well-worn sneakers.

“Could you be any more immature
, Hads?”

I stared at the useless drabble of information on the
bulletin board, and then flicked off a loose thumb tack. “I could. I
was
going to sit here and pout, for your information.”

“Hi there. Grayson twins
, right?”

“
That’s us.” Simon stood up and immediately started laying on the same charm that back home had made him popular. It was instantly obviously that his niche would take root here as well. “Can I just say that I
love
the way you wear your hair?”

The secretary beamed
. “Thanks! I never know about wearing it down. I think it makes my face look fat.”

“Not in the slightest. It’s very feminine.”

I stared up at the ceiling, preparing myself for the long haul. By now everybody would be starting up their morning routine and competing over reps and times. Jordan would be begging me to make her a photocopy of an athletic pass, though by now the hall monitors all knew why
we
came in late and didn’t care…

After wasting my life with
ten minutes of chatting about hairstyles, the secretary showed us to a classroom down the hall and handed us each a pink piece of paper with our schedules on it. She assured us that if we had any trouble we could come to her and she would
personally
take care of it.

“See what a little niceness can do?” Simon said
. I pointed out two empty desks in the back of the room vertical to one another.

“Careful
, Simon. Your nose is looking a little brown there.”

“
My nose may be brown, Hads, but I guarantee that I’ll always have a fan base.”

I
gritted my teeth. Had I been closer, I would have flicked him upside the head just to mess with his hair. “He with the brownest nose may have an overcrowded funeral, but if he isn’t careful, that funeral may be sooner than he thinks.”

He rolled his eyes
. “Thanks, Confucius.” His attention quickly left me as he started scouting the room for new talent. I also let my eyes glaze over the other kids in the room. I wondered which of the girls’ hearts Simon would break, if any of them could ever be faster than me with a sword, who among them was the most tolerable.

The young man
at the front of the room looked over a clipboard before straightening his tie. He was relatively short with thick hair, and clean-cut, like a typical teacher might be, but other than that, there was nothing special about him, though I might have guessed by appearance alone that he was a stickler for promptness and neat handwriting.

“Good morning
, guys. We have two new ones today.”

As if the
class hadn’t noticed. The kids who weren’t whispering with stares were snickering as they walked in behind us, doing double-takes as they realized they had never seen us before.

“My name is Mr. Grander
. I teach senior English, journalism, and work with the yearbook staff. Do you mind standing up and saying a little something about yourselves so we can get to know you better?” Grander leaned back and rested his palms against his desk. “You two are twins, right?”

Simon stood up and took the
reins, which I hardly minded at all since it forced fewer people to look at me. “Hey, everybody. I’m Simon, this is my sister Hadley.” He smiled widely. “And yes, we are twins, though obviously I’m the pretty one.”

Some people in the class actually nodded as if they were impressed.
Imagine if we had been the same gender or identical? Oh la la! I wondered if they had any inkling how annoying it was to hear the ‘you’ constantly used in plural. God forbid we had been triplets.

“We just moved here from Connecticut
, where Hads, here, was captain of the girls’ fencing team, and I was first chair in band. Magic fingers.” He whispered this last part to the girl sitting next to him and winked. I swear she turned redder than her hair.

No one really paid any attention, but I did hear a faint “oh” and someone actually asked
:
“What, she puts up fences?”
To Simon’s credit though, Grander asked some relevant follow up questions.

“What do you play
, Simon?”

“Piano
.”

Grander nodded, seeming somewhat interested. I was glad then that the bell rang, releasing us to the hallway beyond and taking me from any further potential
humiliation. It was like being a freshman all over again, the awkward feeling that you were in a place meant for others, and not just any other, but
the
other.

Simon held his pink piece of paper
up to my own, though I only glanced at it. His eyes quickly went to the task of memorizing.

“Looks like guys and gals ha
ve gym together here.” I could almost feel his eyebrows rising at the prospect.

I strapped my backpack back on
. “When do you have band?”

“Ah, last period.
When do you have Econ?”

“
Right now.” I looked again at our schedules. It was looking more and more hopeless. “Damn, we only have a couple of classes together.”

“Not if you include lunch.”

We shoved our way through the hall, struggling to overlay the classroom numbers over the pool of students. Every few seconds a toe would get stepped on or an elbow would get thrown, but we pushed forward, yelling louder to hear one another.

Simon said something like ‘see you later
,’ but I never quite heard it over the crowd.

***

With study hall came the library, which was pathetically small. Its walls were covered with those outdated posters from the 80’s that had celebrities advertising the importance of reading before it became popular to ask people if they were drinking milk instead. The computers were slow and my login password didn’t work, suggesting the support staff wasn’t well maintained at all. The carpet was stained and smelled worse than the science hall, and when I tried to check something out, I was all but certain the librarian was asleep.

I huddled at the cleanest tabl
e I could find and withdrew my economics’ textbook. If nothing else, I could try and catch up on some of the assignments I had missed. Though the school year was only a couple of weeks old, I had missed more than my fair share and Mom was adamant that I do well in the class because ‘something about females and independence and the stock market, blah.’

Ta
pping my pen against my workbook, I tried to picture the library at school back home. The last time I had seen it was during the blood drive the second week of school. Simon had only been in it for the free cookies, but I liked helping out. Not to mention my brief fascination for all things medical. Like a real sword, I like watching the needle puncture the flesh; digging for the red gold just beneath.

That day Mrs. Jenkins promised to write me a recommendation for college and thanked me for all my help. Jordan and I laughed at everyone who passed out
, but Ian and I were the only volunteers who were strong enough to hoist up the dead-weight of those who had lost consciousness. We all had passes to miss class and were excused from the assignments; we even had our picture in the paper. ‘
Sword-bucklers’ Swipe Blood.’
It had gone over way better than the cheerleaders’ car wash (at least among the adults), as it was deemed far more tasteful

Now I was alone
without a weapon in my hand. I hated to think about the truth of the situation, the fact that the last time I had been happy was when the veins of others had been opened and pumped for their life.