Teen Frankenstein (17 page)

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The only kind of pressure I believed in was the ratio of force to the area over which that force was distributed. That's what I told Adam when he practically bounced out of football practice and told me the team wanted him to attend a field party tonight. Peer pressure was for people looking for an excuse to make bad decisions without enough guts to make them on their own.

Of course, I then learned of another kind of pressure. The kind where the boy you killed and reanimated really-really-really wanted to meet up with his new friends, which meant you really-really-really had to tag along to chaperone. Now why wasn't there a name for that?

“Surprised you could make it.” Paisley leaned against the taillights of Knox Hoyle's pickup truck. She was only five foot tall, which made her the shortest girl in the junior class.

Not a lot of people attributed this disorder to girls, but I was convinced that everything about Paisley Wheelwright could be explained by the Napoleon complex, a bona fide psychological condition where a person was extra aggressive and domineering just to make up for his or her short stature.

“Surprised you asked,” I replied. A group of students had met in the Walmart parking lot to collect ice for coolers and firewood and to consolidate vehicles. I looked around, feeling out of place and without anything useful to do.

This was exactly what I'd been afraid of. First, Adam would join the football team, and before I knew it, we'd be
involved
in things. Hanging out with the Hollow Pines High social elite on a Friday after mandatory school hours definitely counted as involved. It set my teeth on edge.

“I didn't.” She turned her back and strode to the passenger side, where she hopped in and slammed the door with a solid clang that shot through the dark parking lot like a gun.

“That's that Southern hospitality I was telling you about,” I said to Adam.

“You don't like her.” Adam's eyes had a way of boring into me.

“Yeah, well, I don't like rabid animals, either. They bite,” I said, climbing onto the back of Knox's truck. My tennis shoe slipped off the ledge, and Cassidy, already perched on the side of the truck bed, caught my elbow.

“Careful,” she said, giggling softly.

I stepped over the tailgate, and Adam climbed in behind me.

Even in the dark, Cassidy's legs were tan against her cutoff jean shorts. She wore a white tank top, and her hair fell in loose waves around her face. She smiled and scooted over. I sat down next to her on the side of the truck, wearing an oversized army jacket and shorts with my dirty checkered Vans, while Adam took the seat beside me.

“This y'all's first time?” she asked.

“At least that I can remember,” said Adam.

She quirked an eyebrow and I smacked a mosquito sucking on my arm. One minute in and already I could see nothing great about the great outdoors.

“All aboard,” yelled Knox. From behind the steering wheel, he reached his hand out the open window and thumped the cabin roof like it was a horse. The other trucks roared to life. Headlights flickered on. Wheels spun and squealed against the asphalt. “Giddyup!”

The truck lurched forward. I fell against Adam and he caught me against his chest. Strong hands wrapped around my waist protectively. “Sorry,” I muttered. I put my hand on his thigh and pushed myself up straight as fast as I could.

“You better hang on,” said Cassidy. The rushing air off the top of the truck brushed Cassidy's hair back from her shoulders so that she looked like a model standing in front of a wind machine, while somehow the same airflow made my hair stick to my mouth. Knox steered the truck over the curb and onto the neighboring dirt road. I watched as the blazing lights of the parking lot faded. The truck bed rocked back and forth on the gravel road.

After ten minutes of driving, the liquid contents of my stomach had converted into a wave pool. Knox swerved into potholes. He floored the accelerator to pass the truck in front of us. Billy Ray, moonlight gleaming off his white head, gave us a friendly middle finger as we edged in front. I was on the verge of hurling in Cassidy's lap when we reached an open field and Knox decided to perform a doughnut.

I swayed, leaned forward with my head between my knees. Vomit burned the back of my throat and slid into my mouth. I clamped my teeth together while the world spun.

Just when I thought my mouth was about to be converted into a human puke geyser, Knox slammed on the brakes. We went flying forward and all toppled over one another in the bed of the truck. Kids laughed into the open air while watery slime slithered back down my gullet. The bones in my legs had dissolved into mush. Adam offered me a hand and, with a grunt, pulled me off Cassidy, who I'd managed to squash.

“I should at least make you buy me dinner first,” she said, propping herself up on her elbows. Her eyes sparkled in the darkness.

I reached down to help her up. “Don't talk about dinner right now,” I said, clutching my stomach.

Three more pairs of headlights skirted the field. I was still wobbly and dangerously close to vomiting. Adam held my hips and lowered me to the ground.

I dusted off my knees and looked around at the empty field. Fireflies played hide-and-seek, glowing yellow an inch away before disappearing, then lighting up again another ten yards farther. Crickets chirped out a high-pitched screech that made me watch where I was walking. I didn't know why anyone would want to hang out someplace where there were bugs and no plumbing.

“Smith, catch.” Knox tossed Adam a can from a cooler on the back of William's truck. Adam snatched it from the air. “Tor, you drink?”

“Actually, um—” I much preferred being able to think clearly, thank you very much.

“Catch.” I caught the glint of aluminum arcing through the air. I shuffled sideways, trying to position my feet. I stretched out my fingers. There was a flash of cold on my hands as the can slipped right through them and landed with a dull
thunk
in the dirt.

“Nice catch.” Knox fitted a camouflage baseball cap over his head and pulled the brim low over his eyes before kicking the cooler lid shut with his boot.

“Yeah, well,” I muttered as I bent down to pluck the can out of the dirt, “I bet you don't know what forty-eight times thirty-five is either, buddy.”

“One thousand six hundred and eighty.” Beside me, Cassidy cracked open the tab on her beer.

I brushed caked mud off the side of the can. “Yeah. Um, that's right, actually.”

“Don't look so surprised.” She slurped the foam off the top. We stood side by side in silence for a few moments, watching kids pile out of the trucks. Adam had been corralled by the Billys and was being introduced to everyone by William and Billy Ray. “So what's a girl like you doing at a thing like this, anyway?” She had one of those sweet-tea accents. I bet she sang out loud to country radio in the car.

“You mean a nerd like me?” I ran my finger around the edge of the can.

She shrugged, not bothering to correct me.

I kicked at the dirt. “I guess we're sort of a package deal.” I nodded in Adam's direction.

She nodded. “Man of the hour. You're lucky.” Except that luck didn't have a thing to do with it. Unless she was referring to bad luck, in which case there was probably a little of that.

Paisley walked over and bumped hips with her. “Try not to get so sloppy drunk this time, Hyde. Boys at least like a bit of a challenge.” Paisley's belly button poked out from a denim vest.

Cassidy shifted her weight and abruptly dropped her beer to her side. I'd heard stories about Cassidy. About things she'd done with boys under the bleachers and in the woods and once in a deer blind. I stared up at the Big Dipper and pretended I hadn't heard.

“Tor, on the other hand.” She circled me like a shark. “You could use all the help you can get.” She stopped walking and scanned my outfit, from my tennis shoes all the way up to the jacket sleeves that nearly swallowed the tips of my fingers.

Cassidy leaned over. “Seriously, though, if you're going to be bitten by fire ants and mosquitoes for an entire evening, it's best to brave it while buzzed.” She slurped beer from the rim of her can.

Paisley's blue eyes were cool and appraising. She brushed away a strand of blond hair. “Knox says there's worse out there than bugs, you know.” She put her hand over her eyes, using it as a visor. “Can't even see more than a few yards beyond the headlights and we're a long way from home,
Tor
antula.” She stepped closer. “I suppose anything could happen.”

“Well, we all know Knox is full of shit.” Cassidy raised her beer as if she were making a toast.

Nearby, a ring of onlookers gathered around the beginnings of a fire. William was pushing his leather boot into a Duraflame log to get it crackling. The first orange flames licked the air, and Billy Ray and Knox took turns throwing sticks over the top.

“It's true. This is where Roy McCardle died a couple years back.” Paisley ignored Cassidy. “You think if I drew a pentagram right here on the ground, I could raise him back from the dead?” She grabbed a stick from the ground and waved it over her head.

Roy McCardle. The name rang a bell, but I couldn't place it.

“Here?” Cassidy jumped back.

Paisley rolled her eyes. Her bob took on a silver sheen in the moonlight. “Or, I guess it could have been where Tor is standing.” Her smile was wicked as she began to trace a five-pointed star on the trampled grass.

I stared off at the fire. “Sorry, Wheelwright. It's going to take a lot more than that to scare me,” I said.

She paused from her makeshift drawing. “Challenge accepted,” she said. I could tell she was getting annoyed that I wasn't doing a good job of playing with her Ouija board.

“Can you stop that, Paisley?” Cassidy grabbed for the stick, but Paisley snatched it clear.

“Relax, Cassidy. Tor doesn't mind, do you?” She finished another point on her star and drew a circle around the outside.

The name then clicked into place. “Roy McCardle. That's the janitor's son?”

“A-plus, Ms. Frankenstein.” She tossed the stick into the shadows. “Poor Roy McCardle was helping his daddy do some farmwork a couple years back. Riding at the front of the tractor when his pant leg got caught in the wheel. You know what happened then?”

“He died,” I said without emotion.

Her lips drew close to my ear. She smelled like Mom's wine. “The thing sucked him straight down.” She grabbed me suddenly and shook. My heart jolted awake in my chest, but I kept my face placid. “And the machine ate his legs until they were bone before chewing up his intestines and leaving them as fertilizer.”

“You paint a vivid picture, I'll give you that.”

“It's more than a picture. I heard his daddy carried him all the way to the road looking for help while his entrails hung out of Roy like a leash dragging in the dirt. Then”—she paused, enjoying her story—“he died. Right there in his daddy's arms.”

Cassidy fiddled with the tab, twisting it back and forth until it popped off and she tossed it over her shoulder.

“Not exactly party conversation, Paize.” Cassidy gave a nervous laugh.

“I bet his ghost haunts this field.” Paisley turned on the spot as though expecting the ghost of Roy McCardle to come gliding in from any direction.

Cassidy shoved Paisley gently. “Shut up and stop trying to scare us. You believe in ghosts, Victoria?”

The night was hot and my shirt was sticky. I was already salivating at the thought of a shower and wondering why I'd been stupid enough to come out here without my own car. “No,” I said. “I don't believe in anything that can't be explained through rational thought, and neither should you.”

Cassidy bowed her head and peered down at the can of beer she was holding between two hands. “I don't know about that.” Her voice was small. “I believe in love.”

A short distance away, the fire blossomed to life, sending a tongue of flame up from the ground. I watched Adam, whose figure had been silhouetted against a navy sky, jerk back from the fire and shield his face. Trace flecks of orange and gold floated into the air and disappeared. Adam retreated farther from the blaze into darker shadows. Already, I felt I could mentally trace the lines of Adam with my eyes closed. From the
v
of muscle that winged out from the base of his neck to the pronounced curve of his brow bone. As if sensing me watching, he turned. His eyes scanned the dark surroundings for several seconds, at last landing on me. Adam. My Adam.

“It must be exhausting always thinking that everyone's so much dumber than you, huh?” Paisley's voice penetrated my thoughts.

“What?” I broke my gaze away from Adam. “Oh, yeah,” I said absently, although it occurred to me I was supposed to refute what she'd said. “I'm going to go sit in one of the trucks,” I said instead. “I think I've reached my outdoor quota for the month.”

I started off and had made it no farther than a couple of paces when—“What about
your
daddy, Tor? Ever seen
his
ghost?”

A column of ice wrapped its way around the base of my spine, causing me to stiffen. I didn't turn back to face Paisley. Like a ghost, the image of my father was there the moment she spoke the words. The coroner had told me his death was instantaneous, that he felt nothing. But I could never shake the memory of my father's face when I found him soaked, dead, and lying in the rain. His mouth was open; his eyes were wide and glassy, a look of shock that had been cast onto his face like a mold for me to find. What was left was evidence of an instant, at least one moment where he knew what was about to happen and he understood that the nature he loved so much was going to kill him. Barbed wire punched through my heart, sending fire through the nerves at my fingertips, which I folded into fists at my side.