Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (61 page)

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a package of cigarettes, taking one out and playing with it between her fingers. She was still composed, but she was on edge. I could tell she was done.

“I’m going to step out for a minute,” she said.

I watched as she went out to the curb and lit a cigarette, the smoke striking against the black sky. I finished cleaning behind the counter and called Kate to let her know I was leaving soon. Mo came back in.

I grabbed my coat. We turned out most of the lights and stepped outside. She locked the door.

“So how do we do it?” she said. “How does he talk to me?”

“I don’t really know. The ball’s in his court. I’m sure he’ll let us know.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen.

“Hold out your arm. Here’s your first taste of ink.”

She wrote her phone number on my skin.

“Call me right when you see him. I’ll come and find you.”

CHAPTER 25

I looked up at the sky. In the distance, black clouds clustered together and looked like they were coming our way. But we had some time.

I dribbled out toward the center circle, turned, and took it in. Ty was back in front of the goal.

He was a natural athlete. He biked, skied, rock climbed, and ran on trails. He did triathlons and had run a marathon.

But he sucked at soccer.

“Goooooaaaaallllllll!” I shouted out as I threw up my arms and ran in circles around him. He laughed, retrieving the ball from the back of the net.

“I wasn’t even ready yet. Go again.”

The crowd in the next field cheered and I glanced over to see one of the teams celebrating. We were at Big Sky and a group of Hispanic men was playing nearby, their families watching on the sidelines.

I saw them out here sometimes. Over the last few months I had gotten to know a few of them, enough to say hi. They had even invited me to join in on their practices. I hadn’t done it yet, but decided that the next time they asked I would play with them. They had some sweet skills, some with moves I had never seen before.

“Come on,” Ty shouted behind me. “Bring it. Let’s see what you got.”

I scored on him three more times. Once, he literally ate my dust, as a made my best Iniesta move and he tripped over his own feet, falling down hard on the grass as he tried to stop me.

“Fogetaboutit,” I said to him right before scoring. I took the ball out of the net as he got up, dusting off his butt.

I could hear one of players on the other field saying something in Spanish to one of his teammates.

“Eres más malo que ese buey jugando contra aquella chamaca.”

“Go again. Now I’m really ready,” Ty said, a little confidence leaving his body.

I smiled and gave him a thumbs up.

He wasn’t really ready for me and he never would be. I knew that behind his gentle nature was a competitive beast. We could easily be out here all day, me scoring a thousand goals over and over again and him always getting the ball out of the goal and telling me to go once more. I liked that about him. I liked that a lot.

And I had to be honest. It felt good to be good at something. Especially something you loved.

I stopped counting my goals and then after a half hour or so, threw myself on the ground in the middle of the field and stared up at the sky. It was getting darker. Ty ran up and threw himself down next to me.

“Just an off day. Don’t get a big head over it. Next time you’re
mine
.”

I laughed.

“Okay, I’ll keep up on my practicing then.”

He leaned over and kissed me.

“David says that I should be worried,” I said, sitting up. It was a little bit of an embellishment, but that was the feeling I got after our chat at 10 Barrel. That Ty could start dating someone over there.

“About what?” he said.

“Well, that there are all these people you work with who you might want to go out with and that…”

“Take it easy, Abby. I’m not like that. You should know that by now.”

I hugged the ball.

“I know,” I said, trying to think of the right words. I was lost. “I guess I just wanted to say that I appreciate you being so…”

“Stop. I don’t think you know what you’re saying. You’re fuzzy in the head right now.”

“Well, I know we’re taking it slow. I guess I wanted you to know that I have some really strong feelings for you.”

He kissed me again.

“It’s a special thing, this feeling. I’ve only been in love once, a long time ago. It’s worth waiting for, Abby. Don’t listen to your friend so much. I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t know me.”

“Good to hear,” I said.

We got up and headed to the parking lot, my heart ready to explode under my jersey.

And then I saw him.

In the trees, staring.

Waiting.

CHAPTER 26

I turned to Ty.

“This is going to sound weird,” I said. “But I have to go over there by myself for a few minutes. I’ve been having trouble sleeping and I read about this meditation technique. At this point I’m willing to try just about anything.”

I knew it sounded lame, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. I could tell he wasn’t completely buying it. I bit my bottom lip. He looked at me for a minute, and then looked over at where I had pointed, then back at me.

“Well, I’ll come along with you,” he said and started heading in that direction.

I glanced over at Spenser, my chest tightening, and pulled Ty’s arm.

“It’s supposed to work better if you’re alone. But I’ll be right over there, in full sight, next to that tree. It’ll just take a few minutes. I’ll meet you at the truck.”

He hesitated for a moment.

“Okay, whatever,” he said, rubbing his chin. “But I’ll wait right here.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I was hoping Spenser would stay longer this time. I needed more information and wanted him to tell me what really happened the night he died. I had a strong feeling that’s why he was here. Maybe he just needed his family to know before he could move on.

As I walked up to him, the first thing I noticed was that he looked stronger, more like a teenager than a ghost. He wasn’t so faded.

“Hi, Spenser,” I said, trying to hide the horror I felt as I looked at his face. He was scary up close, the scar darker and thicker than before.

“Hey,” he said, nodding.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against a tree.

“Is that your boyfriend?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“He sucks.”

“You were watching, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said, grimacing.

“Hey, I talked to Mo about you the other night. She listened this time. I think she believes that I can see you. Do you want me to call her and let her know you’re here?”

“No. I just want to talk to you. I want you to tell her.”

“Okay.”

I sat down on an old log and he sat next to me and we both looked out at the soccer fields. A family with small children was down by one of the goals, playing with a small ball.

“It was a bad night. The worst night of my life.”

“Well, yeah. You died.”

“Yeah. That too. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not even close.”

I turned quickly and looked at him. His eyes were wide.

“Before you told me that you messed up,” I said. “Tell me what happened. What did you do?”

He let out a ghostly sigh.

“It’s what I didn’t do. I should have listened.”

“Listened to who?” I asked.

“My folks for one. My friends on the team. Even Mo told me.”

“Mo told you what?”

But he didn’t answer. He just stared out at the little boy who had picked up the ball and laughed as he ran toward us, his father chasing him.

“That he was bad news,” he finally said. “But I just didn’t see it. I thought he was okay. Different but fun. I was stupid, so stupid.”

The junipers swayed in the wind.

“Are you talking about your friend Devin?”

“He’s not my friend.”

He stood up and started pacing in front of me.

“So what happened that night?”

“We were going to hang out, like we always did. His dad wasn’t home. He worked nights. We usually just hung out and played music and video games. He had a drum set we goofed around with. Sometimes Devin drank beer and smoked pot.”

“Not you?” I said.

“No. I was serious about my training. Always a big game coming up. I just sat and we talked about stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Sometimes girls. Sometimes about teachers and kids at school we didn’t like. He got in trouble a lot and was always getting sent off to detention. He was suspended once for setting a fire in the bathroom. Almost expelled, I think.”

He was quiet for a moment, and I worried that he might start fading away, but he was just thinking.

“So you guys were just hanging out like that the night you died?”

“It started out that way. Then he says to me, ‘McSorley, come with me for a minute. I want to show you something cool.’”

Another silence.

“So you went with him?”

He nodded.

“Yeah. I followed him outside. He lives on one of those ranches out in the country. You know, with lots of land around. There’s this little shed behind the house, and Devin’s walking to it. It’s like dark as hell out there and I’m stumbling around like a zombie and wondering what’s so important to interrupt our game of
Mass Effect
that he’s gotta show me. And he opens the door to this little crappy shack and flips on some light and says, ‘Welcome to
my
jungle’ or some shit like that.”

He sat down again and held his head in his hands.

“The smell was so bad. So bad. I could smell it before I even got to the door.”

He looked up at me.

“It was sick. I wanted to puke right there, but he comes up to me and pulls at my shirt like really hard and makes me go inside.”

I inhaled slowly, trying to shake the feeling that was building inside me. Spenser started touching his fingers together over and over as he watched the family running around on the grass.

“What was in there, Spenser?” I asked after a long silence. “What was in the shack?”

“Cats,” he said finally. “Five, maybe more. All laid out on this long table. All without heads. Devin had decapitated them and nailed their heads up on the wall.”

Chills ran up and down my back and I struggled to breathe.

“What did you do?”

“I think I screamed. No, I’m sure I did. And he just started laughing. He says to me that this was his sport. That he played games, too. Not soccer, but ‘games.’ And then he says he wants me to join him. And he pulls out a bag from the corner and I hear the meowing.”

“Oh, my God,” I said.

“He hands me the bag and tells me he wants me to do it. Slice off the head for the collection. It’s the best feeling in the world he says. ‘I want this for you, McSorley.’”

Spenser shook his head. He was crying. I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m like, you’re sick man. And he’s laughing and I’m backing out of that shed and he’s following me with the bag. And then he pulls out a knife. And he says that he’ll just do it himself, that he’ll show me how it’s done.”

I had seen my share of evil, but Spenser’s story showed me that I wasn’t finished learning.

“I didn’t know what else to do. I grabbed the bag and ran. I ran as fast as I could across the field. I could hear him laughing behind me, but I knew he couldn’t catch up. No way. But then I tripped. By the time I got up, he was on my ass. And he was crazy mad, calling me all these names and waving that knife around. I wasn’t just scared for the cat I was holding anymore. I thought…”

He stopped mid-sentence.

“You thought he was going to kill you,” I said.

Spenser looked over at me.

“No,” he said. “I
knew
he was going to kill me.”

He sat quiet for a moment and I waited. I didn’t want to rush him. I knew that it took everything he had to be here, telling me his story. But I worried he would disappear before he had a chance to finish.

I cleared my throat and he started again.

“But something happened inside me. Even when I tripped and fell and I could hear him getting closer and closer, I decided that I wasn’t going to let him have the cat. I was holding onto that bag with all my strength and I was going to fight to save it. I ran and ran in the dark, across the open field. I had no idea where I was anymore. Everything was so dark and still. All I knew was who was behind me.”

I nodded.

“I ran right out onto that road. And that’s when the car hit me. The next thing I know I’m mangled in some bush, and in a lot of pain. I taste blood in my mouth. And I can’t move.”

“That’s terrible,” I said, thinking the story was over. It wasn’t.

“Devin found me. He found me and he walked up to me and saw that I was having trouble breathing. And then he takes out his cell phone and I’m thinking, good. Help is on the way. I’ll be all right. I’m coughing up blood, but I can hold on. But no. The sick bastard isn’t calling anyone. He’s taking pictures. He’s taking pictures of me. He says in a sweet, soft voice that he’s always been curious about it. And then he asks me, Abby. He asks me how it feels to die.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “My God.”

I didn’t have any words. None. My mind was sludge and I just sat there next to Spenser, wanting to scream or yell or hit something. It was beyond horror, this story he told me. I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t have anything to comfort him with. I just stared out in front of me, seeing nothing, unable to speak or think or react.

Numb.

“I want you to tell Mo,” he said. “Maybe it will help her to know.”

“I will,” I said. “I’ll tell her.”

“But Abby, that’s not why I’m here. There’s—”

A soccer ball suddenly flew between us and I jumped up and caught it in mid-air, throwing it back to the girl who was running in my direction. I knew before looking. Spenser McSorley was gone.