by Joy Elbel
I lay down in my bed and tried to sort out the myriad of thoughts scattered around in my weary brain. More and more, I felt that I was slipping into something that wasn’t going to end well for me. The veil that separated me from the world of the dead seemed to be thinning at a frightening rate of speed. If I was right, I was about to have a stare down with Death one more time. And this time, I was going to be the first one to blink.
23. Rain of Terror
If April showers truly do bring May flowers, Charlotte’s Grove was only a few weeks away from being the world’s largest botanical garden. It rained every single day. Some days, it was barely more than a mist. Other days, a complete downpour. One thing’s for certain—this month was nothing short of one giant April Fool joke on my hair.
Once Dad had a chance to really think about the possible dangers I was now facing in regards to ratting out Shane and Dylan to the police, he decided to hold off on buying me a new car. For one thing, he did it as a safety precaution. Without a car of my own, I was now forced to have a chaperone of some sort everywhere I went. Zach picked me up for school. Rachel brought me home from school after every soggy track meet. Shelly took me to work on the weekends then escorted me back to the mansion.
With Clay still shadowing my every move—including my non-waking ones—that meant zero independence for me. After two weeks, I was ready to scream. Before I had my license, bumming rides from whoever was never a problem. But now, I was spoiled. When I wanted to go somewhere on a whim, I hated having to track down someone who was willing or able to take me. I seriously needed my freedom.
Since I hadn’t seen nor heard from Shane or Dylan in those two weeks, I finally broke down and begged my dad to get me another car. It took two full hours of hardcore convincing on my part, but eventually we struck a deal. He agreed to get me a new vehicle but only if I agreed to carry pepper spray, call the police at the first sign of trouble, and stay away from the wrong side of town. I considered myself lucky— he caved right before I was about to offer whine-free housework for a month in exchange for unsupervised parole.
I was desperately hoping to drive away in something red. Yet again, I did not. The least of all the evils was a black, semi-sporty car that was almost as old as I was. It wasn’t that bad actually. The color was acceptable and according to Big Al, the previous owner put a lot of work into it before deciding to sell it. Dad took those words with a grain of salt—“All used car dealers say that about every car,” he insisted—until Clay confirmed it for us.
“That was my friend Jeremy’s car! As a matter of fact, I’m the one who helped drop a new tranny into that thing shortly before—” He trailed off for a second then added, “Jeremy knows what he’s doing. I’m sure that car runs like a dream.”
When I relayed his message to my dad, he didn’t hesitate and soon, I was rolling off the lot with my new set of wheels. As happy as I was, Clay seemed even happier. He hadn’t been very much fun to be around since our conversation about him being a dream hijacker. I was hoping this would grease up the wedge that had been shoved tightly between us since then.
“Oh, the fun we used to have in this car, Ruby!” Clay exclaimed as we took our maiden voyage downtown in my new beast. “We used to cruise down this very street looking for girls! Until I met Sophie, that is. I would love to know what Jeremy is up to these days. He always said that the only way he would sell that car is if he could get his hands on a vintage Barracuda. We were going to open up our own garage together after high school—somewhere far away from this stupid little town. He had family in Ohio. That’s probably where he ended up. I wonder if he and Sophie stayed in touch?”
This was a topic that I wanted to steer clear of until I had an opportunity to follow up on my lead. It was very odd— all roads now suddenly seemed to point to Ohio. Zach and I were going to have to make another trip out there and see if we could find Jeremy, too, while we were there. At least if the whole Sophie situation turned out not to be a good one, finding Clay’s best friend for him might help ease the pain.
Enough depressing thoughts for one night—time for something more light hearted. I flipped through the radio stations until I found something Clay and I could both sing along to. It was a dreary Friday night, but I wanted to have a little fun. When I’d asked Zach to join us, he declined because of the fight that he’d had with his dad right after school. Instead, he was spending the evening at the shelter with Andy in order to plan out the upcoming dog show charity event.
Zach’s worsening depression troubled me. I knew that it had nothing to do with me but that actually made me feel worse. If he were upset over something I’d done, I’d be able to apologize and make everything better. But I didn’t know how to fix what was currently broken in him. All I could do was offer my support then stand back and let him try to figure things out for himself. And try to solve my own problems in the meantime. Speaking of which….
Clay and I had been driving around town for nearly an hour when I noticed something odd. Someone was following us and had been the whole time. Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it. But after what happened to the Neon, I was on high alert. And yes, high alert for me meant an hour’s worth of suspicious activity before I took note of said activity. My powers of observation were far more keen when there was nothing there to see than when danger was right in front of my nose.
“Clay,” I said as I made the turn by the library and watched as the small, dark car did the same, “Someone’s following us.” “What?” he replied as he tilted his head to look into the passenger side mirror. “Are you sure?” “Positive. They’ve been following us since we left Rosewood. I saw that exact car pull out of the road leading down to Silver Lake at the same time we were turning onto the main road.”
“It’s dark, Ruby. There isn’t anything special about that car—I think you’re mistaken. And besides, neither Shane nor Dylan would be caught dead driving something like that. They’ve driven pickup trucks for as long as I’ve known them. Even if it is the same car, lots of kids cruise town on Friday nights and we’ve been driving the loop they always take.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I responded even though my gut told me that he was the one who was wrong. I made a few more laps through town but my zest for adventure was gone and I wasn’t going to find it again tonight. “Let’s go home now. I have to get up early for work.”
Distracted by the fact that I’d insinuated that he actually lived with me, Clay began to talk about how great my family was for accepting him into our home. He didn’t seem to notice that I did nothing but nervously glance into the rearview the entire drive. When the car followed us out of town, I knew that my theory was correct—someone had been following us the entire night and still was. When I pulled into the oak lined drive of Rosewood, the car continued on in the direction of Silver Lake.
I parked my car in the garage as my dad suggested I do for a little while at least and turned off the engine. With my new pepper spray keychain at the ready, I exited the car and walked out into the dark night. As I moved swiftly toward the mansion, every noise seemed magnified. Every bird squawked louder, every stone crunched more noisily under my feet, every raindrop fell with a sharp thud. It was like nature itself were trying to give away my location to whatever might be lurking in its midst.
A loud click sounded as I set my foot on the bottom step of the porch and I ducked instinctively. Then instantly felt like a complete moron. That clicking sound was coming from the motion activated light that my dad recently installed at our front door. I smiled as I realized that it made complete sense for someone like me to be more afraid of the light than I was of the dark.
When I left for work the following morning, I watched anxiously to see if that car would pull out of the lake behind me again. Nothing. I kept one eye on the rearview until I got to Something Wick-ed. Still nothing. I parked my car and—with pepper spray poised—made my way to the front door of the shop. Again, nothing. Maybe
paranoia was responsible for what happened last night. Or what I thought happened last night. I was starting to understand exactly what Clay meant by being confused about what was real and what wasn’t.
Work was perfectly boring. The battering rain kept customers at bay and kept me in a funky mood. I’d always enjoyed the rain—considered myself a hardcore pluviophile— and prided myself on knowing what a pluviophile actually was. But lately, I found the rain depressing. The fact that I felt depressed by something I’d always enjoyed depressed me even more. And Zach, my eternal ray of sunshine, was too miserable himself to be able to pull me out of it.
With no customers to speak of, Clay and I played poker with an old deck of cards I found in Rita’s filing cabinet. I was never a big poker fan but it was even less enjoyable when played with a ghost. Since he couldn’t hold his cards himself, I had to hold every hand up for him so that he could decide his next move. Being able to read Clay’s body language the way I could meant that I walked away with the pot ninety percent of the time. I must have looked like a complete nutcase when Captain Donaldson’s wife walked in and caught me vehemently telling “myself” that I was most certainly not cheating and resented the accusation.
By the end of the day, boredom had erased my fear of being followed and I bounded out onto the sidewalk excited to finally be going home. Until I saw what was parked on the other side of the street. There it was—the car that I was certain had been following us the night before.
Under the glow of the streetlights, I could see it better now. Well, kind of. I couldn’t tell if it was black or a very dark shade of blue. Make and model? Beats the hell out of me—cars didn’t excite me and therefore identifying them wasn’t my forte. The interior of the car was obscured by darkly tinted windows—so dark, in fact, that I couldn’t even tell if there was a driver inside it.
While my back was turned as I locked the front door to Something Wick-ed, I whispered to Clay, “There’s that car from last night. Directly across the street from where I’m parked. Do you recognize it?”
Clay whirled around quickly to get a peek. “Are you talking about that piece of crap Buick? The charcoal gray one?”
Since there weren’t any other cars parked nearby when I first saw it, I whispered back, “Yes.”
“Are you sure that’s the same one that was following us? It looked smaller last night.” Intuition, a gut feeling, paranoia—whatever you chose to call it, I knew it was the same car. I needed to get a closer look at the driver—if there was one in it. Correction. Clay needed to go take a peek in those tinted windows—not me. It would be a lot safer for me plus he knew people that I didn’t.
“It’s the same one—trust me. Go look inside and see who’s driving that thing. I’m going to get in my car and waste a minute or two while you’re over there.”
“Yes, Dom,” he fired back at me sternly then cracked a smile. I chuckled to myself as I got into my car. At least if I had to be tied to a ghost, I ended up with one with a good sense of humor. He was also coming in pretty handy right now. Using a ghost to handle potentially dangerous situations for me was sheer brilliance on my part. “Good thinking, Ruby,” I said out loud as I slipped the key into the ignition. Now, all I needed to do was fumble around for a bit while he took care of business.
As I reached for my bag though, I found Clay sitting right on top of it. “That was quick!” I said excitedly, “What did you find out?”
There was no sign of his stellar sense of humor when he replied, “I found out that our bond’s gotten stronger, Ruby. When I got about five feet away from you, I couldn’t go any further. If you want me to look in those windows, you’re going to have to at least pull up next to that car and stop for a few seconds.”
What? now—when I Of all times for this to happen, it had to be most needed his ghostly assistance. I contemplated the situation for a moment, tempted to do exactly what he had suggested that I do. Then I changed my mind. Stopping in the middle of the street and just sitting there would be no less suspicious—or dangerous—than going over to the car myself. No. I was going to do the smart thing this time. I was going to accept this temporary defeat gracefully and drive home.
“Too risky,” I replied as I put the car in gear and pulled out onto the street. “We’re going to have to try this again and hope that it isn’t after dark the next time we see that car.” I consoled myself with the fact that the driver probably wasn’t even in there—that I wouldn’t have garnered any information anyway.
Clay nodded his head in agreement and said, “I’m sorry, Ruby.” I sighed heavily as I came to a stop at the first stoplight. “It isn’t your fault, Clay. I’m the one who created this bond in the first place, remember? You have no control over what’s happening to you now, either.”
“No, that isn’t what I’m sorry about. Look behind us,” he said as he pointed into the mirror. “You were right.” There it was, pulled up so close to my back bumper that there wasn’t enough room for a snake to slither between our cars. My heart began to thump faster and I was certain the driver could see the fear in my eyes reflecting back from the mirror. The light refused to turn green but when it finally did, I realized that driving away with him behind me was an even more frightening thought.
Any normal driver would have honked the horn angrily while they waited endlessly for me to pull forward. My pursuer did not. Instead, he sat there patiently like a panther lying in wait. No need to alert your prey to danger—just sit back and wait for the right moment to pounce. The sound of its engine ticking softly behind me was simply maddening but held me entranced.
“Go!” Clay yelled and I instinctively complied. My foot hit that peddle and I took off like a wild doe that had caught wind of the enemy’s scent. I broke the speed barrier through town—or the speed limit at least—in the hopes of losing my pursuer. My greatest fear while driving was that I would be stopped and handed a ticket for irresponsible driving. Now, my greatest fear would have been a dream come true.
“I’m calling the police,” I said as we broke past the borough line and out into the desolate secondary roads. I reached over to grab my bag and veered a little too far to the right around a curve. I could hear the sound of wet gravel spinning out from under my back tire so I spun the steering wheel to get back onto the road.
The car lurched over to the left, throwing me into the other lane of traffic. Through the misty windshield, I could see the headlights of an oncoming car further down the stretch of highway but I tried not to panic. There was enough time to correct my over-correction. My main concern wasn’t what was coming toward me—it was what was behind me.
“Clay!” I shouted, “Are they still behind us?”
“Don’t worry about that until you get this car back on your own side of the yellow lines! Stay calm, dammit!” One long, loud honk began to echo through the darkness as the oncoming car screamed at me to get under control. I jerked the wheel forcefully right and sent myself flying back too far to the right again. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate, starting to become light headed from breathing that was much too shallow.
“Ease on the brakes!” Clay commanded. “Turn the wheel slowly back to the left! And turn your damn wipers on woman! You know I love you and I would give anything to spend eternity with you but this isn’t how I want it to happen!”
For the love of all things holy, why did he have to tell me he loved me at a time like this? I was caught in a trifecta of terror—murderous drug dealers behind me, eternally unrequited ghost love beside me, and innocent bystanders about to total my new car in front of me. FML—make that a quadrafecta now because fat raindrops were splattering onto the windshield at an alarming rate.
I flicked the wipers on, hit the brakes, and carefully turned the wheel back the other direction—all the while wondering whether or not “quadrafecta” was a real word. Why couldn’t I shut off just a fraction of my weird brain long enough to get myself out of situations like this without unnecessary distractions? Wh
y, for one single day, couldn’t I stop being me?
Clay made an excellent driving coach. No sooner did I complete his suggested moves, than the car was back where it needed to be. The oncoming vehicle sailed past us, horn still blaring, but far from threatening to hit us. The car behind us had backed off to a slightly safer distance but was still in moderately hot pursuit. The wipers were keeping the rain effectively at bay so that I could see to drive us home without any more incidents.
The only thing Clay’s coaching didn’t take care of was his impromptu declaration of love for me. He may have been calm enough to keep me under control, but he had to have been severely panicked to let that one slip out. Even the best driver’s ed teacher on the planet couldn’t have prepared me for that kind of accident. And it had to happen so shortly after realizing that we were even more tightly bound to each other.
On the drive home, I made two—what I thought were very wise—decisions. Neither of them turned out the way I expected them to. Looking back on it later, I’d have to say that they were two of the most important decisions of my entire life—in an odd sort of way. They led to a very weird chain of events, a strange unraveling of who I thought I was and what I thought to be true. Fate was about to rip me apart at the seams for the sole purpose of stitching me back together using a very different pattern.
24. This Should Be a Breeze
Decision number one—how I was going to handle Clay’s verbal admission that he loved me. It was a two-fold plan that I had in mind. If he chose to open up the subject, I would tell him in no uncertain terms how I felt about him. He was a great friend to me—even better than Rachel. While she and I were super close, she had her own life to live. She had school, Boone, and plans for her future which took up a lot of her time. She wasn’t able to hold my hand every time I needed support. That’s just how life goes, I guess. Clay, on the other hand, had none of the above and was able to spend every second of his day catering to my myriad of emotional needs. That’s just how the afterlife goes, I guess. Nope, I wasn’t going to give him a watered down version of what he meant to me—I was simply going to let him know in no uncertain terms, that he was eternally friend-zoned in my book. And not just because of the whole him being dead thing, either. My heart belonged—and always would belong—to Zach.