Be the Death of Me (22 page)

Ford

Pain.

Palpable. Concrete. Real. The sensation floods my body, engulfs my mind. I’m drawn under as lead meets flesh, thrown to the ground, landing with my back against the cold stone of a marked grave. Blood flows in a gruesome fountain from my shoulder, soaking my shirt, staining my skin crimson. My body recoils in pain, curling against the tide of agony. Opening my eyes, I look into the face of my would–be murderer, a boy who was not so long ago my friend. His hand, still outstretched, shakes uncontrollably. A thousand thoughts flood my mind; the clues that fit together so easily now, signs I never saw for what they were. Why did I never suspect? Why did I never question? Was I so desperate for human interaction I would befriend the first person who seemed the least bit receptive? Was I drawn to Riley because he seemed even more alone and awkward than I was? Is this where my life of isolation has led me?

The sun’s last rays are visible just over the horizon, a streak of gold across a black sky. The lush grass beneath me sparkles under a vanishing sun, the emerald blades now painted scarlet with drops of my blood. My arm burns with invisible flames. I grit my teeth against the fire, and in the split second of hesitation Riley offers, I know what to do.

Dragging my useless arm along the damp ground, I crawl my way down a narrow row of hedges to a nearby grave, circling on my knees at the far side. The headstone proves an effective fortress from the next shot Riley fires. The bullet grazes the slab, taking with it a chunk from the corner, sending a rain of granite chips down upon my cowering form.

“Riley, stop!” The force of my cry pulls at the wound in my arm. “Stop! What are you doing?”

“What my father can’t do for himself!” comes the rage–fueled reply.

“Your father?” I shout back.

He laughs maniacally. “Poor Benedict! Poor boy! Lost his dad so young! Well, what about me? What about my loss?”

It’s only then I realize . . . 

I’ve never bothered to learn Riley’s last name.

All those hours spent with him, all the days of friendship, I never once asked him a thing about his life; where he was from, who his family was. Did I ever really care? Or was I so consumed by my own problems, I never bothered to see those troubling a so–called friend?

“Milo Kastanellos is your dad?” I shout through the eerie stillness of the graveyard. Arching my back ever so carefully, I’m able to see over the top of my makeshift barricade. Riley stands amidst the hills and graves like a stone angel, unmoving, frozen, the very image of despair. The gun hangs limply in his hand, and I can’t help but hope that maybe he’s realized his mistake.

Then again, maybe not. He raises his thin arm, firing the gun without so much as a flicker of hesitation. The bullet is so close, I feel the wind off of it like a gentle breath on my neck.

“He
was
my dad,” he murmurs.

The closest grave is only ten feet or so from where I crouch. But with my serious lack of coordination and already injured arm, Riley would have no problem using me for target practice. Still, he makes no move in my direction. Why doesn’t he come closer? Why doesn’t he finish it? Is he regretting his decision, or simply playing games with me?

“Let’s just stop and talk about this for a minute,” I say. Perhaps if I keep him talking, force him to explain, thoughts of killing me will be forced to take a backseat. “Let’s try and figure this out, okay? You’re obviously upset about something.”

Another bullet whizzes by, a hairsbreadth away.

“OKAY! You’re
very
upset about something! I get that. I’m angry, too!” Mostly I’m just terrified. “We both lost our dads! But there’s no reason to kill me over it!”

“You sent him to prison!” he cries into the night, sounding more pitiful than I’ve ever heard him. “You testified against him! It’s your fault he’s dead!”

“It isn’t!” I shout back. “He killed my dad!”

“It was an accident! He didn’t mean to!”

“He pulled the trigger, Riley. He got caught! Of course I testified against him! Wouldn’t you have done the same thing if it had been your father?”

I realize it’s the wrong thing to say the instant the words fly out of my mouth. Riley fires off another shot, this one even closer than the last.

“I never wanted your dad to die!”

I once told Billie I was happy Milo Kastanellos was dead. But now, knowing his son, knowing the suffering it’s brought upon us, do I feel the same? Would I still have him die for what he did?

The wound in my shoulder continues to pour blood in a steady stream, leaving the grass around my feet soaked and slippery. My skin feels drastically, frighteningly cold. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Riley! We can both walk away from this! We were friends, weren’t we?”

A bullet crashes into the ground by my left hand.

“Okay, maybe not!”

I hear the soft sound of a click echo through the haunting breeze, a warning for me to shut my overactive mouth.

“Don’t you get it? I can’t walk away from this!” comes his ragged voice once more. “I can’t! All these years! I’ve worked so hard. Watching you. Following you. I had to be so careful. I thought I was done for that day you saw me at Jenning’s Hardware. I thought for sure you would see the wire cutters, but lucky for me Shannon showed up just in time. You’d never suspect her, would you? Give you something pretty to look at and you’re an even bigger idiot than Logan.”

“Logan?”

“That moron seemed to pop up just when I needed him to. The hallways, the grocery store. And it was almost too easy renting an SUV that looked just like his.”

“Wait a second. You
rented
a car to run me over? Who does that?”

“I had to! I couldn’t use my car; you would have known. All that work! You can’t even imagine the planning that’s gone into this. The years it’s taken! That day, the last time I saw my father, I knew you had to pay. I couldn’t let you get away with it. And now . . . I can’t let it go. I have to finish it!”

“You don’t, Riley! It’s over!”

“It’s not over!” And from his throat bursts the most terrifying, most chilling laugh I have ever heard. It ricochets against the stone monuments, floating along the night wind where it crashes against my ears. “I’ve tried to end it, but you keep surviving! You won’t die! You live and let others die in your place!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Shannon!” he screams. “She wasn’t supposed to be in the car! She wasn’t! But you just had to give her a ride, didn’t you? And those kids that died in the fire! I didn’t mean to kill them. It was supposed to be you!”

I shake my head sending sweat coated bangs into my eyes. “What kids?” I call out. “What are you talking about, Riley?”

He doesn’t seem to hear me. His words are for himself now, turned inward with inspection and justification. “It was so easy. I knew you wouldn’t recognize me, you were so self–absorbed even then. I followed you, switching schools when you did, learning your schedule. I planned, I read all the books. It’s not difficult finding information, what with the internet at your fingertips. Did you know they have websites specifically designed to instruct people how to assemble explosives out of simple household items? Genius, really. But they really should be more careful about who sees their website. Wouldn’t want that information in the wrong hands, would we?” He laughs again, sending chills down my arms.

“I was so careful,” Riley goes on, “building step by step. I did everything right! And then what happens? You don’t even have the decency to show up! You were supposed to be there! You ruined everything!”

“Maybe that’s a sign!” I shout. I don’t actually believe in signs, and I’m not sure why I say it. Maybe I’m suffering from severe blood loss, or I’ve decided to abandon all logic and appeal to Riley’s insanity. It’s all white noise, each crazed word he speaks is another second I get to live. I need to keep him talking.

“Maybe you’re not supposed to kill me! There has to be a reason for it, right? What if all of the mistakes and accidents, what if they’re trying to tell you something? It’s a sign, Riley! I’m not supposed to die!”

“No!”

There’s a brief moment of silence as his scream fades into the rustle of the trees. My heart pumps frantically inside my chest, sending blood, fresh and red, through my veins, out through my arm. And in the quiet of the approaching night, I know there will be no escape. Not this time. I close my eyes for the last time, readying myself for death.

“What are you doing?” a voice barks close to my ear.

I jump at the sound, a flood of emotion washing over me at the sight of a face so unexpected, so wonderful. But I’m frozen where I sit, trapped by the agonizing burning in my arm along with sheer and utter shock.

“Geez, Ford, you look like death.” Billie smiles playfully, eyes alight, chuckling at her own joke. “Come on, pansy. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“We?” I hiss as loudly as I dare. “You’re not even supposed to be here! Tucker said you’d been reassigned.”

“Semantics.” Billie glances quickly at my cast–covered forearm and blood stained shirt. “Can you move?”

I shrug my good shoulder, not wanting to speak again.

“How is that helpful?”

Even her sarcasm is welcome. She’s never glowed as brightly or looked as radiant as she does right here, right now. Perhaps it’s knowing that even if I don’t make it out of this, even if Riley does at long last succeed, at least I won’t die alone.

“There’s a house just over that hill,” she goes on, sweeping her hair over her shoulder. “Do you think you can get there if I can come up with a diversion?”

I nod, not half as certain as I appear. “Okay, let’s go.” Slowly, gently, she takes my hand in hers.

I know the instant we touch that something is wrong. An excruciating jolt surges through my hand like a shock from an electrical socket. Billie’s fingers release mine, dropping my hand like a hot brand, her wrists flexed at a strange, unnatural angle. A cascade of silver hair falls back as her head tilts, face turned to the sky, eyes closed. Her spine curves into a position that would snap most bones in two. I’m unsure of what’s happening, or what to do, horrified and spellbound. A scream explodes from her chest, a scream so terrible I know in a brief instant of clarity that I will never, as long as I live, be able to erase it from my memory. Her cry rings through the deserted graveyard, a wail of the living and the dead. I cover my ears with my hands, afraid to listen, afraid to move, afraid of what will come next.

She falls to the ground, writhing in a terrible heap of hair and skin and shimmer. Her glow appears somewhat diminished, not nearly as lovely or tangible as it was a moment ago. Her eyelids remain closed, purple and pale against an already pallid face. I crawl to her side through the wet, sticky brush. The pain in my arm is nothing now, pushed aside by a greater need.

“Billie,” I say, placing a bloodstained hand to her cheek. “Billie! Answer me!”

She doesn’t stir, and it’s only then I hear what in my moment of fear for Billie, I’d forgotten to remember.

Riley stands at my side, gun poised just above my head. I twist to stare into his face, impassive and cold, feeling my entire body ache with protest as I attempt to stand.

“Please,” I say, watching his arm rise with my body.

He takes a single step forward, unable to see the girl, failing, fading at my side. He sees only me, cowering in fear at the death he brings.

I put my hands out in front of me as if that will stop him. “Please. This isn’t you, Riley! You don’t have to repeat your father’s mistakes!”

“I’m meant to do this,” he says quietly. “I’m meant to kill you. Dad would want me to!”

“No, Riley. He wouldn’t.”

But he can no longer hear me, trapped inside his own head.

“I’m meant to do this. I’m meant to do this. I’m meant to do this. I’m meant to do this.” His voice becomes steadier with each word, as if his mind knows I will soon be gone, and with me, all his troubles. Time ceases to exist. The world is silent as I wait for death. I brace myself, unsure of how even to die, when from out of the darkness and shadows emerges a figure, glowing and glorious. He appears, a light burning, searing through the night.

Tucker’s steady eyes find mine until, as if drawn there by a force more powerful than I will ever understand, they rest upon Billie’s crumpled, unconscious form. It takes only a moment for him to understand, only a moment for the fearful resignation to sink in. And in that moment, the tired, weary old man Tucker once was is gone. He’s replaced by someone–
something–
more horrible than I could ever imagine.

Furious. Ethereal. An angel of death.

The ground beneath my feet begins to rumble, swelling like the birth of fury and flame. The world groans, trembling with an unseen force, a strength so terrible, so heartbroken there may not even be a name for it. Confused, Riley stumbles, dropping his gun as the earth splits violently, cracking like the fragile shell of an egg. The soil splits into caverns, gaping and deep. With a single twitch of his finger, Tucker rips a headstone, heavy and unyielding from its place of rest. It hangs, suspended in the darkness before crashing into a neighbor grave, creating a shower of stone that falls around us like rain. Dirt and soil and earth cloud the air in a thick mist, coating my lungs with each labored breath. I hit my knees, searching for cover as another granite slab sails past my head. Riley falls too, though not by choice. A grave marker strikes him from behind, crashing into his frail body with a sickening blow. He plummets with a final horrified look, and doesn’t move again.

Of the many things I have seen in my life, the guns, the death, the looks of absolute, consuming fear on the faces of those I love most, it is the utter calm with which Tucker tears apart the world that terrifies me most.

“Tucker!” I scream at him. “Tucker, stop!”

Yet the destruction continues, more devastating now than ever before. Earth and stone fly above my head. To my left is a coffin, unearthed by the chaos. To my right lies Riley, face down, unmoving. Panic and fear consume me. My mind reels, filled with images of devastation and terror. All around me is death and destruction and blood.

I close my eyes against the nightmare as somewhere in the distance, a siren wails.