Spree (YA Paranormal) (8 page)

“I won’t let it get in the way of Friday’s game.”

They drilled again, this time alternating the ball, doing something with the forwards that they called the outside foot hook and reverse. Alex messed up the drill, and Tom came to a stop, shaking his head.

“We’ll try again,” Tom said.

“Later,” Alex said. “I need some water.”

Coach Ryan stood and watched, muted by the events at hand. Normally, he’d scream up and down Alex, but he had a daughter who was friends with Cindy, and I sensed from the blue pervading his aura that even he was a bit down.

Alex stumbled towards a water cooler lying on the side of the field. A few kids hanging out in the bleachers called out to him.

“Hey, man, we need to talk about the party after the game,” one of the kids said.

“We got three full kegs,” the kid’s friend called out.

They laughed, and Alex nodded, his eyes on a kid standing on the side of the field. It was Zipper, dressed in a groundskeeper uniform. That was his after-school job. Alex stood up, water in hand, and looked at Zipper while he imbibed the water.

“Hey, joining the team?” Alex called out. “You can start by picking this up.”

He threw his cup towards Zipper. The two soccer groupies laughed, taken with the excitement of the upcoming game. It was so huge that it was the only time I could remember when the players would be let out of class early just to warm up.

Zipper said, “No need to get jumpy. Just celebrating an anniversary.” He then disappeared.

“You have a girlfriend?” Alex asked.

By that time, Zipper was far gone, but the groupies still had a good laugh at his expense.

It began to occur to me what Zipper meant. The day after tomorrow was the same day Crazy T shot up the gym class. Judging from his aura, Alex’s thoughts were too much on the game and on me for him to get it. That’s how much our town tried to the put the past behind us. But one kid hadn’t, and even though he was showing the warning signs, walking into the school with concealed weapons, no one was noticing.

Two full days from today Crazy T and his protégé would have the perfect opportunity. Everyone was going to the game. Everyone. Brothers and sisters of the team, making a special trip from work or college—some of the very kids Crazy T set out to kill years earlier. That year they’d come close to the title, but lost in the finals to Franklin Shore. Now their brothers and sisters would have their chance at high school legend, and Crazy T would have his shot at immortality. Seeing the Takers circling around Zipper, Alex, and the two groupies, I began to realize that everyone going to the game didn’t mean everyone would be leaving the game without stretchers and body bags. But how to warn them when soccer was the only thing on their minds?

TWO DAYS TO GO

Chapter 6

Two mornings before the school shooting Takers hovered, watching over me.

I could feel Preggers’s macabre presence, could smell the fire and brimstone before I could see her.

The memories of my drinking days came back to me.

I saw myself, at thirteen, in the basement, experimenting with cigarettes and alcohol, nothing too big. By that age, at least one-third of the kids I knew had experimented with actual drugs. I wanted to be cool. I wanted to be popular. I wanted, most of all, to be Alex Maroshe’s girlfriend. The sweet taste of whiskey intrigued me. Heinekens repulsed me at that age, but I drank them anyway. I found that I could loosen up more if I drank, that I could do more wild things that kids in my class would remember after the weekend was done. As plain old Fay, I was the smart girl trying to be pretty and popular. As Fay the partier, I was uninhibited, wild, free.

Ironically, I’d just gotten done working on history project with my ex, Zipper, still John at that point. He’d tried to get me to stay, but I’d run off after mocking him a bit. That’s how eighth graders can be, I guess. Immature and mean. As I sat there, surrounded by bottles in a competition to see who could drink the most, I didn’t even remember Zipper. Like everyone else, I’d come to forget him.

“Hey, Fay,” Preggers told me. “Bet I can drink you under.”

I laughed. “Make it worth my while and I’ll take you on,” I said.

Preggers looked right at Alex.

“Winner gets a kiss,” Preggers said to Alex.

Alex smirked.

“So long as you don’t barf in my mouth,” he said.

“No promises,” Preggers said.

We ponied up to the coffee table. Kids surrounded us, chanted.

“Whoever downs the most in two minutes,” she said.

“You’re on.”

We set up a whole row of scotch, whiskey, Heinekens, Budweisers, even a few chick drinks.

Alex called time, and we were guzzling. I saw myself for what I was, a kid, really, who looked ridiculous with foam from beer running down her cheeks. I looked like a mess. I was already bad at applying makeup, but the beer foam made it run even more. Camera phones flashed as kids threatened to put up pics on Facebook and Youtube. I kept drinking.

Preggers was a true friend that day. She had the weight advantage and could’ve easily held more liquor than me, but she let me win.

I smiled, looking as awful as I did, and Alex puckered up. I kissed, went in deep, trying to turn it into a French kiss to act cool. That kiss signaled the first time we’d become a couple. Not that it was me, really. It was Popular Fay, the girl who knew how to have fun at parties. Watching my old self kiss Alex, I wondered when I lost sight of who I really was.

The focus changed to an image of Zipper, or John, as he was then, back at his home. He was curled up on his bed, listening to old music from Joy Division, crying his eyes out. He had a middle school yearbook picture of me, and for all intents and purposes, that picture was his girlfriend. He kept it with him always. I felt shame. I knew I had hurt him. I liked Alex, but I never really gave John a chance. There was just something about him—too serious, too depressive, too quiet, too far removed from the friends I’d soon call my drinking buddies.

“You did this,” I heard a voice say. “You took my life.”

It was bodiless, deep, hollow, but still had some girlish familiarity. The ghostly voice was Preggers’s.

“You liked Alex too,” I said.

I could see her red and blue aura in the vision; she was such a good friend, but still jealous.

“I gave him up for you, and this is how you repay me?”

“I drove that night as a favor to you,” I said.

“You did it because you couldn’t get to the party fast enough so that you could put down the one girl Alex was going to announce as his girlfriend. You always were a jealous bitch.”

I looked more closely at what was left of Preggers. She was a giant black mist, not unlike my lower body, but she had this storm above her. Her aura was full of red and black clouds swirling with occasional bursts of gold that looked like pure anger, pure lightning. Her face was sunken in, and her lips and her eyes were black.

“You were going to be the new girlfriend,” I said. “Preggers, I’m so sorry.”

“I always hated that name.”

“Cindy,” I said. “I really am sorry.”

“No, not yet,” Preggers told me. “But you will be.”

Preggers threw her storm of anger towards me. I could feel her anger enveloping me, making me flash back to the time I kissed another boy, Tom, Alex’s friend. Alex never burst in and caught us in the act, but rumors started and those rumors were enough to end our relationship. I saw myself looking up Alex’s Facebook status, seeing it change. I saw an image of myself handing him his ring back, telling him that he was making the biggest mistake of his life, that he’d be sorry. Turns out that it was the second biggest mistake of mine.

I fought my way back to the moment.

I was a Taker
, I told myself, and
Preggers’s exploiting my grief
.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I told her.

“A little late for that,” she said.

Preggers again threw her storm clouds at me, and again I saw a painful memory, one where she was watching as Alex and I kissed, as we got to talking one summer day. It was by the town beach, and Preggers had just left. I thought we were alone. I was talking to Alex about finding a guy for Preggers.

“That’s a hard one,” Alex said. “Don’t know if I have any friends with arms long enough to wrap around that big a body.”

I slapped him playfully, but Preggers heard, broke down as she fled.

The image jolted me back to the present.

“Cindy,” I said. “Why in the world would you want to go out with a guy after he said that about you?”

“Because I loved him,” she said, “and I wouldn’t have played the tramp on him like you did. I would’ve been the best girlfriend he ever had.”

“But you were pregnant.”

“I would’ve taken care of that.”

“I’m sure you would’ve, Cindy, as awful as that sounds.” I paused, taking in the coldness of her words. “You’re my friend, and I love you,” I told her, “but right now the entire school is in jeopardy. We can fight later. We have work to do now.”

The storm clouds of her aura again swelled up.

“Let them all die,” Preggers said.

There was a loud crack, like thunder, as her anger and grief mixed, ignited one another.

The Taker in me felt, was drawn towards, her pain. An image of Alex as he was now appeared, packing his sports bag for the last practice before the big game. His mind wasn’t on his cleats or his soccer jersey. It was on me. He was still in shock. So much of the school was. But as Alex thought back to the times we kissed, made love, his aura showed no thoughts of Preggers, of his would-have-been girlfriend. He had been using her to get back at me. I hurt him deeply in our on-again off-again love. He never forgave me for cheating on him, and he blamed me deeply. He wanted me to hurt like he hurt, and Preggers was the way. This infuriated her to no end.

“Don’t worry,” she said, flashing me a smirk evil enough to rival Crazy T’s. “I’ll take care of Alex. Burn Girl, Crazy T, promised him to me. I’ll be the one who makes sure Zipper shoots him, who makes sure he goes straight to hell.”

“Cindy, these are your friends we’re talking about here, people you grew up with, who—”

“People who used me, who will get used,” she told me. “My life won’t be the only one cut short. I won’t be robbed out of my whole life by you and do nothing. No, I’ll hurt you worse than you hurt me by taking the one person you love the most.”

“Cindy,” I whispered. “Don’t do this. Let me save you.”

“I don’t want to be saved.”

“But I can help—”

“Save yourself, if you can. Your time to save me passed,” she said. “Maybe you should’ve been thinking of that instead of drinking and driving.”

“I
am
sorry.”

“I’ll make sure of that.”

“Cindy, don’t!”

“See you in hell,” she told me.

I felt her fire and brimstone stench fade, her clouds dissipate, swallowed as they were into a black hole of Taker energy.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any darker, an image of a teen girl wrapped in light stood up, floated closer. Though she was a ball of light and stardust, I could tell, through the well-defined, angular cheekbones, the gently sloping nose, the blue eyes.

“Aliya,” I said.

“Where am I?” she asked. “And what happened to your head?”

A cloud of Keepers surrounded her with their balls of light and white energy. They came around me too, keeping me from following my instincts, from following Preggers into the black abyss.

“I need your help,” I told her. “I’ve been killed.”

“Is this heaven?” she asked.

“Not exactly…”

* * *

My mind flashed to the moment Alex saw Zipper on the field, asked him if he’d joined the team.

I got a sick feeling then, and now I knew why. I saw in Zipper’s aura what I didn’t see earlier, what I didn’t notice until my Taker energy was attracted to his. There was an image of Zipper with a shovel, digging by the stands. He’d taken a job as a part-time caretaker around the school with just this purpose in mind. His guidance counselor pushed for it, hoping to get Zipper an opportunity to help pay for college. Zipper was just under the stands, around their supporting beams. He had bought some type of explosive, and he was burying it by the stands. He’d been putting dynamite, petrol, and other explosives under the school grounds, all across the field, under and down along the stands, for months, just as soon as boys’ soccer got on a roll. There was enough there to blow up anybody and everybody who had a seat, to blow out the lights, to blow out the field and any players who were on it. He even placed some underneath torn patches in the parking lot, which it was his job to clean up and report on. Apparently, his studies of Andrew Kehoe had not gone to waste.

Zipper played “Adam’s Song” by Blink 182 on his iPod, played it over and over again, as it was rumored to be the song Crazy T played just before he walked the streets for the school. Crazy T was hovering around him, making sure each detail was right. I knew this was what the Takers were doing, covering for Crazy T so that he could make sure he masterminded everything to perfection. I fought to see more, to see into Zipper’s aura, into his plan, into the exact time and place he’d fire his first shot, but it was already too dark. Before I could finish seeing the vision, I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned around.

* * *

“…What happened to you?” Aliya asked me.

“I was pulled somewhere,” I told her.

“Why?”

I attempted to show Aliya a vision of the darkness that was Zipper and Zipper’s plan, but she didn’t see. She appeared unlike any other soul I’d seen before. She’d start out as radiant light and then diminish.

I put my head on. It would stay in place for only a few moments, a painful reminder of my death to all who came upon my ghost.

“You’re not dead,” I told her. “You ended up in a coma.”

“For how long?”

“Less than a week,” I told her. “I died Saturday night.”