The New Kid (2 page)

Reaching the corner, Will quickly scanned the teenage faces. They were like a pack of wild animals taking stock of him, summing him up by appraising his worn Converse All Stars, his Gap jeans, his Caterpillar T-shirt, scratched Diesel watch, leather friendship bracelet, and faded DC backpack. They took great pains not to give him too much face time, averting their eyes to more important things like the weeds poking up through the concrete or the dried-out three-week-old squirrel flattened in the middle of the road.

High school rule number one: Whatever you do, don’t let anyone think you might
like
them. The kids sizing up Will were wired, of course, pod punks numbing their ear drums listening to rich artists pretending to be pissed off at the Man. If they only knew who
The Man
really was, they’d tune in to something else, anything else, hell, church music or Wayne Newton, just to drown out their own screams. Will kept thinking to himself, they don’t know me, they’ll never know me, they have no idea what I’m capable of or what I’ve been through. Then he laid it on himself straight: They didn’t know him because he wouldn’t, he
couldn’t
, let them, for their own good. It was nobody’s fault. It was just sucky fate. He wished that this time he could let himself make a friend. Just one friend. But that wasn’t too likely. Friends were for normal people, and the one thing that Will was definitely not was normal. One of the boys, an obese stoner with jowly cheeks, tore open a package of sour gummy worms and sucked them into his mouth with a slurping sound. As he chewed he glanced at Will like he was a bug on a windshield or something. Cute.

Then a pretty, self-assured-looking girl came running to the bus stop from the same direction Will had come. She looked strong and fast, and carried herself like she knew how to handle trouble should it ever come her way. She had clear blue eyes and dusty blonde hair with highlights, and wore navy blue cords and a long-sleeved Iron Maiden T. She gave Will a quick, neutral once over and quickly
pretended he was pond scum or something equally appealing. And then their eyes met again as they both stole a second glance and their faces flushed with embarrassment.

Even though girls seemed drawn to him in a big way, Will was never all that smooth around them and, mercifully, the girl turned her back to him. But in a few moments he noticed she had angled her body and hung her head down so she could scope out Will through her bangs.

Will had been attracted to a few girls in the various towns he’d lived in but so far he’d been able to resist them. It wasn’t like he was a big King Shit or something, but he had to blow them off because if his enemies ever found out he liked a girl she’d likely wind up in pieces. If she was lucky. So getting close enough to fall in love? Was-n’t in the cards.

Trying to act cool and nonchalant, he took out his iPod and held it to his ear like he was making some important call on his cell phone. The only problem was he’d left his cell phone at home. He caught his mistake and jammed the iPod back in his pocket, then turned to see if she’d noticed his blunder. She had, and she half-smiled beneath her hair curtain. He wondered if she hoped she was the cause of his faux pas.

As the North Colone School District bus lumbered up the hill toward the corner, the kids bunched together in anticipation of boarding. But then a brand-new black on black Scion xB with smoked windows and cherry red spinners pulled up, pumping gangsta metal from Crimson at a gabillion decibels. Inside were two self-appointed alpha males, Duncan Walker and Todd Karson. Duncan was muscular and had short blond hair and green eyes and his skin was smooth and white. Todd was taller and darker in complexion but they both were unusually handsome, the kind of guys you’d see in a teen sports magazine ripping on a skateboard or dunking a basketball. They craned their thick necks out the car’s windows in order to be better seen by the group and smiled. Their teeth were
perfect. But they had no manners, a fact that Duncan demonstrated as he hocked a green projectile onto the sidewalk and sneered at the bus riders.

“Check it out, pussies, the Dunc’s got his license to thrill. Guess where I got this puppy! I WON it on KXMC radio! That’s right. I was the last one still awake at the mall, my tongue jammed up this baby’s tailpipe! Some of us are winners, and the losers get to ride the short bus!”

Todd and Duncan barked out staccato laughs, and then Duncan leered at the girl Will was still pretending not to watch.

“Hey Natalie, you wanna ride? The backseat’s full, but you can sit on my lap. You better hurry, though, ’cause it’s filling up fast!”

Duncan pumped his lap up and down, an act which he apparently found greatly amusing as he cranked up the volume on his stupid donkey laugh. Natalie rolled her eyes as if she couldn’t believe how idiotic this guy was. Will just stared at Duncan calmly, studying him as though he were some sort of lab rat. Duncan stopped laughing and pointed at Will.

“What are you looking at, ass face?” he growled.

I’m looking at an idiot
, thought Will. But he said nothing and with Herculean effort just stared dumbly at the ground.

“That’s right, a-hole! Keep your ugly mouth shut!” Confident he was victorious in this minor skirmish Duncan then stomped on the gas, the xB spitting forward into traffic looking like some freakish troll delivery truck. Shaking his head, Will quietly boarded the school bus, moved all the way to the back, and plopped down, putting his iPod earbuds in. He stole another glance at the girl, Natalie, and for a moment he thought he’d seen her before somewhere. But he couldn’t think of where or when so he pushed the notion out of his mind. She was just some girl. Period.

 

A large crow sat on a telephone line on Route 16. Common wisdom has it that crows are incapable of having human thoughts like
hatred. But this crow felt power surging within him, and his pea-sized brain was on fire. This bird was pure malevolence, a meanassed sucker, a killer ready to spring into action. His black eyes flared slightly red and he swooped down off the line and glided down the road.

In the bus Will peered out the window, watching the town of Harrisburg go by. It was a normal-enough looking town, no better or worse than the others he’d lived in. Just like all those other towns, it had a polished surface that made it feel safe and welcoming. And, just like all those other towns, underneath was another story. Always another story, and usually not one with a happy ending. The hairs on the back of Will’s neck prickled and he immediately went on alert. His seventh sense told him that the wind of the Dark One was blowing. He glanced at the faces on the bus. Normal kids. Just normal teenage kids. But that could change any second.

BAM!

Something hit the top of the bus. Then something else hit. And something else. It sounded like gravel but it wasn’t. It was hail. Kids gawked out the window.

“Cool!”

“Holy crap, look at it come down!”

Flying right through the hail the crow located its target and tucked its wings in to gather speed. From its point of view the world was shades of brown, a sepia view of suburbia. As the bus roared along Will sensed the crow coming and looked out the window. The crow was flying erratically by the bus. For a split second Will dismissed it as just an ordinary crow but as it swooped right down at his window as though taunting him he concluded differently. Especially when he saw its eyes.

A few seats away Natalie leaned up and opened her window, reaching an arm out to feel the hail. Will sprang forward and dashed down the aisle, bumping whoever got in his way.

“Sorry, excuse me!”

“Hey, watch it!”

“What’s he doing?”

He reached Natalie’s seat and there was no time to do anything else but bull his way right over her to get to the window. The crow was rocketing right at the opening, emitting a horrifyingly un-bird-like cry, a guttural braying sound more likely to have come from a dying farm animal.

“Hey, do you mind?!” yelled Natalie as Will not only stepped on her foot, but brushed his face against her forehead and inadvertently elbowed her boob. She might have done more—like protested with a kick to his privates—but she must have finally seen the crow jamming right at the open window. She screamed. Hearing the scream, the bus driver glanced in his side mirror just in time to see it. BAM! Will slammed the window shut and the crow crashed into the safety glass, breaking its neck, splintering its beak, and cracking the window before bouncing backward onto the pavement. The bus driver yanked the wheel and the front tire smacked into the curb, sending kids flying from their seats. On the pavement, the crow’s eyes fluttered and its claws grasped for life, but life was saying adios, amigo. Blood spilled from the crow’s eyes and then it died.

Inside the bus, everyone had moved to Natalie’s side to see the action, gawking out the windows and marveling at the bird bleeding on the sidewalk.

“Cool! Did you see that?”

“Man, this is just like that old guy’s movie, Hitchlock!”

“It’s Hitchcock, dipweed.”

“Whatever.”

“Crows live longer than any other bird.”

“Not this one.”

Will was gazing at the cracked window and the pattern of blood that the crow had left there. It looked like someone had hastily painted a sloppy little symbol. In the shape of a pentagram.

Natalie was staring at Will, her eyes narrowing.

“How did you know that crazy bird was gonna—”

BAM! Another crow slammed into a window three rows back. And then another, and another. The bus was being swarmed by a murder of crows and they were out of their minds, diving and slamming into windows like kamikazes trying to sink a destroyer. The bus erupted with shouts and screams. The hail came down harder. A couple of freshman girls started to cry and the bus driver sat there in dumb shock until Will shouted up to him:

“DRIVE!”

The driver stomped on the gas and the bus lurched forward. A few more crows dive-bombed the bus, cracking the back window, and then the attack was over. The hail stopped abruptly. The bus was stone silent the rest of the way to school. As it pulled into the unloading area the shock began to wear off and was replaced by excited talk. Just about everyone on the bus shot at least one suspicious glance at Will. They all wondered the same thing: How the heck did he know that the first crow was going to attack? Will kept his head down and pretended to groove to music on his iPod, taking care not to return their gazes. Best to appear nonchalant. No big deal.

He tried to tell himself that the crows were acting crazy on their own accord, that it was just some freaky nature thing and had nothing to do with him. And he’d probably just imagined the bloody symbol. But deep down he knew better. He always did. It was the same story wherever he went. Things looked good and pure and wholesome on the surface, but underneath the whole place was evil and sucked beyond words.
They
already knew he was here in Harrisburg.
They
were here, too, and he would have to battle them.
Demons
. The crows had been a nice little twisted welcoming committee. Back on the pavement, the dead crow lay still for a moment longer, then rose on crushed legs, flew up into the sky, and banked toward Mount St. Emory.

Will looked out the bus window at Harrisburg High—HOME OF THE MUSTANGS!—as kids poured out of the bus and chatted excitedly, spreading the story of the hail and the whacked bird attack to all their friends. Will was the last one to exit the big yellow bus and Natalie was waiting for him, her eyes full of questions.

“Hi, I’m Natalie.”

“Um, I’m Will.”

“Nice to meet you, Will.”

He smiled thinly and started to walk away but she blocked his path, looking at him with her searching eyes.

“Can I ask you something? How the heck did you know about that crow?”

“I just . . . had a feeling.”

“Some feeling. Thanks. If you hadn’t slammed that window shut that freaky bird might have pecked my eyes out.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Well, my eyes are a big deal to me.”

“I didn’t mean. . . .” Will was flushing now, flummoxed and inept. He could usually avoid chicks without too much trouble. But
this
girl—he was thrown off balance by her. Not only was she totally hot—in a natural way, an unconventional way—she also seemed mature for her age. She held a kind of sadness in her eyes and she looked haunted, like she’d lost something, or someone, important. Maybe Will was imagining it or projecting his own feelings on to her, but he couldn’t help feeling connected with her because of it. Then it hit him again, this feeling that he’d
seen
her before.

She looked so appealing, just standing there, defiant, ready for him to make the next move. Will told himself he had to stay aloof. Better for everyone that way. But hell! Given half a chance, he might really dig this Natalie. She was so pretty that his brain went numb. He stood there and the only thing he could think of was to ask her how long she’d had her shoes. Moron! Numbskull! He kept
his mouth shut and stared at her kneecaps. Exasperated, she shook her head.

“Whatever,” she said as she left.

He watched her walk away and was inexorably drawn to her. He liked the way she got right in his face, liked the sparkle in her eyes, liked the way she wore her cords. He’d never had a girlfriend; just the thought of such a thing seemed way too perilous. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t dream. He was a guy, after all. Again he shoved Natalie out of his mind. It was time to take care of business, time to start in at yet another school.

A couple of white panel trucks were parked next to the school. Some painters had the shrubbery covered with drop cloths and were rolling out a coating of primer onto the masonry walls of the school. No doubt they’d come up with some innocuous institutional color for the place. Schools always did that. He guessed this one would be some shade of boring beige. On another wall, the main wall of the front of the school, the painters had already laid down a coat of primer and someone, probably members of the art class, had sketched a huge rough outline of a galloping mustang. Whoopee.