The Sorrow King (15 page)

A ghost
, he thought. Then:
Craziness
.

It was Mom, telling me she knew I was going to die.

Again, he saw a movement, farther in front of him. Nothing more than a shape, really. He wasn’t even sure it was there. But it
could
be there. It
could
be something. He took off running after it. Drawing no closer, still not sure what it was, he continued to give chase, wondering if his body just kept running as some sick and desperate desire for exercise.

Was it a coincidence he ended up at the water tower?

Halting, out of breath and sweaty, he stared up at its monolithic girth.

Was this exactly where he wanted to end up?

Had his mind conjured up the image of something to lead him here?

He didn’t see any figures. He didn’t see any ghosts. He didn’t see any dead wandering into the tower to have a secret cabalistic meeting.

But he didn’t like the feeling of being this close to it. It made his head feel heavy and there was a strange kind of nearly-electric buzzing coming from it.

Emotionless, it watched him, its red safety signal at the top blinking like a lazy but persistent cyclopean eye.

Well
, he thought,
I don’t see any of the dead. I’m going to go home now. I don’t even know why I’m here. Maybe I’m just losing my fucking mind.

He found his car exactly where and how he had left it—the driver’s side door open, NPR blaring from the speakers as though he wanted the whole world to know how dorky he was. Covertly, making sure he hadn’t alarmed anyone in the surrounding houses, he slid back behind the wheel, gently pulled the door closed and continued home.

Thirteen

When Dreams Give Birth to the Night

In bed surrounded by the overbright room that had assumed an almost human presence, greeted by the smells of rain and dirt and blood, Steven couldn’t breathe. He pried his eyes open, adjusting them to the intense illumination wreathing him, trying to suck in breath through constricted windpipes.

Jesus, what is happening?

Jesus, what is happening?
his brain cried out, repeating over and over like a chant.

The sheets on the bed were wet with crimson. He could feel the blood on his hands, his forearms.

He was not alone in the room.

And he couldn’t breathe.

Why the fuck fuck
fuck
couldn’t he breathe? He inhaled, felt the air in his mouth, but it wasn’t making it to his lungs.

Jesus, he was going to pass out if he couldn’t get any air.

Still, the chant:
Jesus, what is happening? Jesus, what is happening?

And how many people were
in
the room, anyway?

He recognized them. What he saw threatened to send his blood racing but, like his lungs, it didn’t feel like his blood was working either.

Over in the corner of the room, on the far side of the door, Jeremy Liven, the dead boy, braced himself against the wall. Elise was in front of him. At least he thought it was Elise. All he could see was the back of her head, but he would know that body, the color of her hair, anywhere. She was on her knees, her hands around the dead boy’s hips. Steven recoiled when he realized Elise was fellating the dead boy, blowing him right here in his room. He wanted to scream but, if he couldn’t breathe then how the fuck was he supposed to scream?

Jesus, what is happening?

The boy’s eyes were open wide, staring at Steven as if rubbing it in, saying, “You wish you were me, don’t you?”

Yes,
he thought.
Yes, I do.

And the boy spoke out loud, “All you have to do is die.”

Elise pulled her head away from his cock, masturbating it with a small blue-veined hand. The boy’s penis seemed way too large. There was a hole through the boy’s shirt, dried black blood coagulated down the front. Elise, not turning her head, continued to suck him and Steven, standing there and staring at the dead boy, unable to breathe, found himself sickeningly filled with a deep longing.

He moved toward Elise and the boy, wanting to tap her on the shoulder and ask her what she thought she was doing. His body didn’t want to move and he felt his consciousness swim in front of him. He wondered how much longer he had. Elise tore herself away from the boy’s crotch and looked at Steven, continuing to stroke Jeremy. It wasn’t Elise at all. At least, he didn’t think it was her. Her face was melted, looking like it was made from wax and someone had held a flame to it. There were black holes where her eyes and mouth used to be and that was it. Clumps of the waxy skin hung from the boy’s penis. The Elisething’s hand moved furiously and the boy ejaculated a gush of red-black blood that stank of infection. The smell filled Steven’s nose and he felt his gorge rise.

He turned around, toward another source of commotion. The chant:
Jesus, what is happening?
came at him in stereo. The other dead kids were lined up on the opposite side of the room. They wore cheerleader sweaters with a water tower emblem emblazoned on them and performed various high spirited cheers but Steven couldn’t make sense of the liquid, backward-sounding words. The chant, he realized, did not come from them but from inside his head.

Gasping for breath, his eyesight swam in front of him and he woke up, gulping in his darkened room, thankful for the air filling his lungs.

He thought of a wives’ tale that said if you died in your sleep then that meant you would never wake up. He wondered if that was what he had felt in his dream. Was that death? Was that what it felt like?

Whatever it was, it had shaken him.

He turned on the bedside light, eagerly grabbing his notebook to see if he had scrawled anything.
Any more prophecies?
He pushed a pitiful excuse for a laugh through his lips.

If what he was doing
was
prophecy then, tonight, it was especially sparse and cryptic.

He had scrawled: “undoing” in crazily canted letters. Below there was a drop of something that looked like blood. He dragged his thumb across it, smudging it, smearing it over the milk-white paper.

So it was fresh, he thought.

He ran his finger against his nostrils, thinking maybe he had a nosebleed. But there wasn’t any sign of that. No fresh blood. No dark crust. He checked his pillow. No blood there, either. He quickly inspected himself, looking for fresh wounds and finding nothing.

As much as he wanted to stay and contemplate his latest musings, he saw the time on the clock and knew he had to get out of bed. It was nearly eight o’clock and he hoped his father hadn’t come home yet. He wanted to be out of the house before then, afraid his dad wouldn’t let him go. Not even bothering with a jacket, he walked quickly through the darkened house and out into the night.

He walked for over an hour before he found Elise.

When he saw her, he said, “Cirrus.”

And she said, “Huh?”

“
Cirrus,” he repeated, pointing up at the sky.

“
Oh, right,” she said. “The clouds are of the cirrus variety. Aren’t you a little science guy?” she added mockingly, reaching out and pinching a scruffy cheek.

“
I know. I’m sorry. It’s this annoying habit I’ve picked up lately.”

“
Useless sharing of knowledge?”

“
Yeah. Well, no . . . Just always looking at the clouds. Noticing what type they are. It’s like I keep waiting for them to do something.” He thought about telling her about the Deathbreakers and why clear days now seemed murderous, but held back. As much as he liked her, as much as he wanted to fuck her, he didn’t know if he could bestow all of his trust in her.

“
So, I noticed you decided not to come to school today.”

“
Yeah. Did you go?”

“
Had to. Parents would kill me if I wanted to skip. Besides, if I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have noticed your absence.”

“
Right. Makes sense,” he said. “So who was it?”

“
You haven’t heard?”

“
No. There was a big story about it on the national news but they didn’t give a name.”

“
Mary Lovell.”

“
Really?”

“
Yup.”

“
I never would have suspected her.”

“
Me either. She probably had some deep dark family secret.”

“
Yeah. How did she do it?”

“
Don’t know yet. From what I gathered, she either hung herself, left a car running in a shut up garage, or sacrificed herself in front of a cult leader by using a lighter and a paperclip.”

“
Sounds painful.”

“
I’m sure we’ll know everything tomorrow.”

“
They used your term on the news, by the way—‘The Suicide Virus.’”

“
I’m not sure flattered is the appropriate feeling in this case.”

“
Probably not.”

There were a few seconds of uncomfortable silence.

“
So, we meet again,” she said.

“
Quite an accident. Someone is probably killing themselves right now.”

“
I hope not. Just out for a walk?”

“
I was taking a nap. I had a pretty horrendous dream.”

“
You were napping at like eight o’clock in the evening?”

“
Yeah, I pretty much nap every afternoon and stay up all night.”

“
I hardly sleep at all.”

“
So I guess we have each other until dawn again, huh?”

“
I don’t really know if I’ll make it until
dawn
. I’m kind of tired from last night.”

They walked as they spoke. Both of them appeared to be world class walkers, meaning they could walk continually and look like they knew where they were going or like they had an
idea
of where they were going.

He found the whole experience to be pretty weird. There were a lot of things he didn’t tell her, even though he wanted to tell her everything. He didn’t want to push her away and he wasn’t sure which would do that the quickest—remaining all shut up or telling her everything, including the really fucked up stuff. Deciding to strike a balance, he told her about his dream but he left out the sex stuff, effectively leaving her out of the dream, as well. He didn’t tell her about the notebook. He didn’t tell her
why
his eyes continually scanned the clouds. He didn’t tell her about Ken Blanchard or the water tower. He didn’t tell her about his mom’s ghost.

Even though they seemed to be perfectly happy around each other, the suicides dominated the main thread of their conversation. Having friends, Elise was able to shed some light on them. She knew what people were actually talking about. He knew only what he could pick up in the hallways—when he actually decided to go to school.

There were several theories about the suicides, she told him, although none of them really made complete sense. Some students believed a form of subliminal brainwashing was being used. There was, of course, talk of a cult—the suicides had been members of some kind of devil worshiping sex cult and this was their punishment for divulging its secrets. It was never really discussed how one punishes another by having said person kill himself. Nor was it discussed how, if secrets were leaked, where or who they were leaked to. Or maybe they were just told it was their time to go and suicide was their way to get into heaven. Some felt it was something in the water. Something that brought on a wild fit of psychosis, causing certain people to break down. And, naturally, there was talk of something supernatural. Some ancient evil Steven thought sounded like every horror novel from the Eighties. God knows he had seen plenty of those on his father’s bookshelves.

Being a fairly skeptical person, he dismissed that idea. It just seemed too simple. The more he thought about it, however, the more it seemed to complement what he had been going through. Leave it to him to think the most outlandish explanation also seemed the most plausible.

They held hands while they walked and he almost told her about what his ghost mom had told him, about him being dead within two years. But he didn’t. He held back. As much as having her skin there in his hand made him want to spill everything, there was some deeply reserved part of him very used to keeping things locked up. Eventually, after midnight, they wound up at the park, a couple hours after Connor had stared up at the water tower.

They sat down on the dew-covered bench and looked toward the tower.

“
Are you afraid?” she asked him.

“
Afraid? Of what?”

“
Just afraid. Do you ever get scared? Just . . . scared of things. Life.”

She leaned close to him on the bench and he could smell the clean scent of her hair mingling with the freshness of the night. He thought about what she had asked and took a deep breath, not knowing what he would say. Not even really knowing how he felt.