“Trust me,” I said.
“Luce. Where the hell are we?”
I laughed. Truth was, “Well—”
I flrrrppped my tongue in an epic raspberry and shrugged.
He smiled, said nothing, and leaned his head against mine.
We sat in blissful silence. Every part where we touched—shoulder, arm, hip, leg, calf, cheek—I tried to memorize. To note every detail, every curve, every twitch of muscle. To absorb his nearness, to keep it forever. I could have painted Zack’s body blindfolded.
A little something flashed in my mind—my phone had gone off, right before Abraham had showed up at Benny’s. I dug my phone out of my purse and brought up the message menu. Sure enough, a text message, from my mystery-texter.
Bad Bad Vibes, Luce.
I Think He Might Be Near.
I growled and turned my phone off. That was extremely helpful. No shit he was near. Still though—who could possibly be sending the messages? It wasn’t Puck, and it wasn’t Abraham. It couldn’t be Zack or Morgan. Who else could know what was going on? And why the sudden interest in my safety?
Morgan mumbled something, and I woke up and looked over my shoulder. She was sitting up, her blonde hair covered with wet grey sand. She stared up at the sky, then at the ocean. Then at me. I took a deep breath.
“What?” she asked. “Luce?”
I disentangled myself, reluctantly, from Zack’s embrace and skidded across the sand to her side. I wish I’d been surprised by the heat of her hand when I squeezed it with mine. She hissed reflexively the instant I touched her skin—just like ice, I’ll bet. The cold of the grave? Ugh. I needed clichés like a hole in the head. Or another hole in the stomach.
“Morgan—you aren’t dead. Okay? Nobody is d…”
I stopped and looked up at Puck, and bless him—he didn’t make that see-saw gesture.
“…dead. We’re just, a little lost, okay?”
Puck stood up, suddenly, jerking to his full height with a stiff sense of danger. He reminded me of a prairie dog, and I felt a bubble of panicked laughter rolling up from my stomach.
Puck’s eyes widened and he turned toward Morgan with an apologetic look on his face. I wondered why, but for only a split second.
“We have to go. Now,” Morgan said in that robotic voice, the Puck-voice. “More phantoms are coming. Hungry ones.”
I frowned, but began to stand. Even in their is-this-a-dream stupors, Morgan and Zack both hopped to their feet with twin looks of concern. Puck checked Morgan once more, slapped her shoulder, and re-wrapped his red scarf around his neck. He pointed toward the road.
“Was Abraham…is that what he was? What he’s called?”
Puck shook his head.
“That’s what we’re called,” Puck said, through Morgan, “and not all of us have retained…humanity. We have to go.”
Phantoms. I stopped, rooted to the ground. Phantom means ghost. And ghost means dead. I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt black dots swirl in my eyes and a sense of lightness flood through me. I think I was fainting.
“Get it together, Lucy,” Puck said. “Or Zack and Morgan won’t live another hour. We can get them out.”
I shook my head, took a deep breath, and tried to steady myself. Focus, Lucy. One thing at a time. No time for self-pity, self-reflection or—really anything with the word self in it. Thinking of Zack and Morgan being attacked was all I needed. All right then. Get them out. Easy, right?
“Can we just…shift?”
Puck shook his head, and oddly, Morgan’s head matched his gesture as she spoke for him. Poor Morgan.
“We can. For them it’s a one way trip. They have to return to their bodies. We don’t.”
That was more information than I could decode. I shook my head.
“In English.”
“They didn’t shift anywhere, not really. Their bodies are lying slumped on the lawn. If they don’t return to them the proper way, they don’t return at all.”
I shook my head. I did everything I could to not ask the obvious question—where’s my body?
Zack looked up and mumbled, “Benny must be freaked the hell out.”
“How do we do it? How do we get them back? What’s the right way?’” I asked.
Puck held up one finger.
“What does that mean?”
Puck smiled impishly, turned, and started jogging up the dune leading to the road.
“What does that mean?”
The three of us followed after him in silence.
We crested the hill together—why wasn’t I surprised to see a beat-up, rusted out convertible sitting on the cracked asphalt of the road beneath us? It didn’t look much different from the other wrecks of cars scattering the road, except for two key differences. One, its tires hadn’t worn away to long disconnected flaps of rubber, and two, the engine was running. In the cold air, long puffs of white rolled out of the exhaust. Puck was half-running half-sliding down the dune towards the road, his lanky body scrambling, limbs flying, as he ran.
Without thinking, I reached to the right and grabbed Zack’s hand. My other hand took Morgan’s, and I led them down the long slope.
“Hey,” Zack said, doing a double-take. “Is this a Falcon?”
Puck nodded.
Zack detached himself from my hand and slid around to the front of the car. I glanced at Morgan and rolled my eyes. She gave me a good-natured smile, but it looked like no small amount of normal was going to counter-act the weird. She looked preoccupied, not that I could blame her.
“Sixty-four?” Zack asked. “Right?”
Puck grinned, glanced at me, and flashed his eyebrows. The look was manic, cartoony, but unmistakable—I think Puck approved. Of Zack. I couldn’t believe it, but Puck’s approval mattered.
Puck slid into the driver’s seat, and Morgan, without saying anything, slid into shotgun. Part of me thrilled—me and Zack would be nestled together in the tiny backseat. At the same time, I felt horrible—Morgan had intentionally sat next to the weirdo stranger she didn’t know to avoid me. I shook my head and vaulted into the back seat. Zack climbed over the other side and plopped down next to me.
Well, I’d been right about one thing—the seat was tiny. Zack and I practically shared an ass. We both shifted, trying to get comfortable, and I laughed. Zack reached behind him, grabbed his seat belt, and pulled it across him. The old, frayed belt tore in half. I laughed even harder.
“The car’s pretty old,” Puck/Morgan said. Without seeing her lips, the effect was even creepier. “Just try not to fly out.”
“Try not to ram anything and kill us all, eh?” Zack said.
Puck gave us a thumbs up, re-wrapped the red scarf around his neck. The car lurched forward, and Puck began steering us around the rusted bulks of long dead cars. Going north, I noticed. Toward the dim glowing light.
When I was a kid, I could never stay awake during long car rides. Or short car rides. I could barely stand next to a car and stay conscious. The gentle hum of the engine transformed every surface into the hands of a gentle masseuse. As we drove down that long, lonely highway in the middle of a grey wasteland, I thought of those days.
I snuggled into the little nook formed by Zack’s shoulder and rested my head on his chest. I rolled the hood-tie of his sweatshirt around my finger, watching it twist, then unravel, then twist, then unravel. I inhaled Zack—a mixture of something wonderful and something less-so. The Zack-smell was nice, but it was the light odor of sea and sand and bad teenage piss-beer that stung my nose. I sighed, curled a handful of sweatshirt between my fingers, and closed my eyes.
“Lucy?” Zack whispered. Deathly quiet. I doubt the front seat could have heard it.
I mumbled a positive-sounding noise into his chest.
“I’ve been thinking…adding, I guess.”
I frowned, but the expression was a secret between me and his sweatshirt.
“Okay,” I whispered. My heart started to hammer, something I had no way
of hiding as my ribcage was practically on top of his. “Adding what?”
“Thoughts,” Zack said, annoyingly cryptic.
“About—”
“About our date,” he said. “The first one. The Guess-Who’s-On-The-Milk-Carton date.”
I smiled and frowned almost simultaneously. I’m not quite sure how I pulled that off, actually.
“What about it?” I asked. I had some idea what he might be adding together. Whatever had happened to me, my being a weirdo-freak, and shunning people didn’t start until after our date.
“I was thinking—well, I have a question. It’s kinda stupid though.”
I nodded, barely. I blinked, trying to clear my eyes of tear-distortion.
“Was that your first kiss?”
I couldn’t help myself. The sudden release of tension made me snort in laughter. I slapped my hand over my mouth. It didn’t matter. Both Morgan and Puck looked over the back seat and give me nearly identical looks of bemusement. I waved my fingers in a sort of toodles gesture until they both turned away. I wasn’t surprised to see that Morgan turned away last.
“Jesus, Lucy, it wasn’t that funny,” Zack said.
There was no mistaking the tone of his voice. Hurt but trying to stay manly. Very cute, in other words. I realized what it must have looked like, him asking me if he was my first kiss and me guffawing my brains out. The laugh made me look like some kind of kiss-whore. Not exactly the most fetching attribute in a future girlfriend/date/whatever.
“I’m sorry, Zack,” I said. I turned up to look at him, and his jaw could have been carved from marble. Veins stood out in his neck.
“I didn’t mean—” I snorted, then took a breath. The look he gave me was not forgiving. “—to say. Or imply. That I was a lip-slut. I just…I guess I thought your question was going to be a little more…hard hitting.”
Zack didn’t seem happy with my explanation. If anything, he looked sourer.
“Uh-huh.”
“Really! I thought—quite naturally—that you might ask about the creepy realm of doom you’re driving through.”
I didn’t. But the real subject I feared, concerning my possible demise, was really only a hop skip and a jump from that lie so I blurted it out without too much guilt.
“I’ve only been kissed three times, Zack, okay?”
Zack twinged at the words, but after a moment, began to loosen. Someone seemed to have pulled the metal bolts out of his neck by the time I looked up again.
“What three?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re being serious?”
Zack snorted. “If you don’t wanna answer. Then I’m joking. But if you’re going to answer, then I’m serious.”
“That’s not fair.”
Zack smiled sweetly. Well, evilly, but with a certain charming sweetness.
“Okay, Mama Theresa, are your lips virginal?” I asked.
Zack’s mocking smile faded. Good. I tried not to beam triumphantly—it was more of a triumphant flicker, or a victorious flash. Victorious Flash would be a great band name. Okay, Lucy Day, you need to chill out.
“Well?”
“Well,” Zack said. “I’ve kissed five girls.”
“Me too,” I said, and the look of shock he flashed me was priceless. Oh, had I a camera.
“You mean—”
“I’m kidding,” I said. “You’re cute though.”
“You don’t care?”
I rolled my eyes and snorted. “And why, exactly, would I care how many girls you kissed? You can kiss all the girls you want.”
Zack looked hurt again—for such a witty guy, he wasn’t up on his banter. Then again, I gave him a free pass—considering his surroundings.
“I just meant. I guess I thought that would bother you.”
I grinned. “And why is that?”
“Well,” Zack said, gently. “I thought it would bother you because of…our thing. The… The us thing.”
“We have a thing?” I asked.
“Don’t we?”
I cocked my head to the side. He imitated the gesture, and I snorted again.
“I thought. After the date, and the kiss…wow, the kiss. Especially the one outside of the counseling center. I mean, you freaked out and ran away after, so, certainly demerits on my end but… wow. You really knocked me out with that kiss.”
My sense of cat-and-mouse died. I had taken something from him when I kissed him that second time—something valuable. Something I couldn’t quantify. But after what Abraham had said, I knew I hadn’t stolen heat from people. I violated them. I robbed their memories.
I tucked my face into his chest.
“So I was a bad kisser...” Zack said, in mock melancholy. “I knew it. Was it fish lips? It was fish lips wasn’t it?”
I sobbed and clung to his chest, and I felt Zack’s body tighten. He tugged his arms around me and pulled me into him. After a few long moments, and after my sobs began to still, Zack leaned down and whispered into my ear.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I looked up at him, cry-face be damned. He gave me a little sweet smile and kissed my cheek.
“What for?” I asked him.
“About the fish lips. I’ll try to practice and—”
I smacked him in the chest, hard, and he laughed softly into the top of my head.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I brought up something painful. I’m not sure what I did but I’m not dumb enough to think it wasn’t something I said.”
I shrugged. “Can we just sit?”
Zack nodded. “Yeah.”
I nuzzled back into his shoulder and let the hum of the engine radiate through my body.
I tried to enjoy the moment, so naturally, Morgan turned back to me and cleared her throat.
“So you’re dead then?”
The look on her face, the tone of her voice, and the content of the question didn’t come close to matching each other. The look, controlled anger. The tone, politely curious. The question—well, it’s the question, isn’t it now?
I turned to look at Zack’s face—still. Curious, but still. A hair shy of pensive. His beautiful eyes were sending me a message I wasn’t picking up on. The little twitches of his brow spoke volumes in a language I didn’t know.
I turned back to Morgan.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“When you disappeared, what happened?” Morgan said. That same combination of pissed-off and polite.
“I told you what happened,” I said.
I felt a twinge—something like guilt. Luckily, it wasn’t very strong—I’d more than half convinced myself that I had been accosted, hit on the head, and made to suffer merely a tremendous headache and an embarrassing cop-ride home. Only a fraction of me remembered the taste of gun smoke. And even less of that fraction recalled in perfect clarity the creeping cold of massive fatal blood loss.
“People don’t go…here for a bump on the head, Lucy,” Morgan said, and turned to Puck. “Right?”
Puck looked over his shoulder, and even in profile, looked grave. He shook his head.
“Thank you,” I said with a saccharin sweet smile. Puck turned away.
“Lucy. What happened to you?”
I took a breath.
Something let out an earth-shattering CLANG. The convertible jolted and rocked and Puck slammed both of his loafers down on the Falcon’s brake. We slid and fish-tailed, and Puck swung the Falcon’s wheel around in a desperate attempt to keep us under control. Gravel sprayed, metal twisted, and everyone in the car, save Puck, let out identical screams of terror.
Puck wrestled with the old Ford, trying to bring it down. He managed the feat, and when the Falcon crept to a—final—stop, I looked behind us. The debris in the road wasn’t hard to decipher.
The engine fell out of our car.
Zack turned and looked down the long road behind us. He seemed to be making mental calculations. After a few dozen heartbeats, he spoke.
“The engine f
ell out of the car,” he said.
I closed my eyes and let my head slide down into my lap. Zack put a hand on my back when he saw me shaking. He removed it when he heard my first guffaws of laughter. I didn’t blame him.
The hills had crept up around us as we drove, and now that we were stopped, I couldn’t see the countryside on either side. Large swells of grey earth put the road in a narrow valley—perfect for an ambush, was my first thought.
Zack and Puck spent little less than a minute coming to the conclusion that no amount of spit, elbow grease, or can-do attitude would put the Falcon back together again.
When their inspection was finished, we grabbed our stuff, and Puck knocked one frail, gnarled fist into the trunk. The trunk yawned open with a haunted-house creak.
There wasn’t much there—a few dusty sport coats and what looked like a well-traveled red tool box. Puck handed out the coats—I took a gray wool blazer, Morgan a black pinstripe, and Zack a deep red jacket that looked like something a used car-salesman might be buried in. Then he popped open the tool box and handed Zack a half-rusted tire-iron and Morgan a dull orange monkey wrench. Zack and Morgan exchanged looks and swapped weapons.
“What do I get?” I asked.
Puck smirked and waved his hand as if to say don’t worry about it.
“Figures,” Zack murmured. “I get a wrench and Lucy gets The Force.”
Morgan grinned and tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Will these even help?”
Puck gave her that maybe,-baby hand gesture I loved so dearly.
Morgan laughed at that and set the long black tire-iron on her shoulder. It gave her a jaunty, slightly bad ass look that I immediately envied.
“I pull it off though, don’t I?” Morgan asked. I didn’t think the line of questioning stopped by our car troubles was over—but I think she had decided to postpone it for a less dangerous time. Thank God for killer extra-dimensional monsters, eh?
“Hell yes,” I said, and buttoned up my gray coat. “Shall we?”
Morgan and Zack nodded. I glanced at Puck, who was already re-wrapping his battered red scarf.
“Where-to?”
Puck twisted his lips with one hand, then pointed down the road.
“Okay,” I said, then sighed. “How far?”
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