The Boys Are Back in Town

by Christopher Golden

  Back in the kitchen, Kyle dialed his own home phone number, even as he grabbed a Coke from the fridge and a bag of pretzels from the cabinet. The house phone started to ring and he nodded impatiently, silently urging it on as though he had just instantly developed some kind of freaky telekinetic power that could cause the answering machine to cut in quicker. On the fourth ring, it picked up. He listened to his mother's voice on the machine.

  “Hi guys, it's just me,” he said at the beep, trying to disguise the fact that he was a bit breathless. “I hope you don't mind, but I'm gonna spend the night at Ben's. We rented a bunch of horror movies and we're gonna have a gore-fest, with blood and popcorn. Mom, I know how much you love this stuff, so, y'know, come on over.” He laughed nervously and wondered if they would hear the falseness of it in the message. “Anyway, I'll call in the morning. See you tomorrow.”

  He cut off the call, paused, and stared at the phone a moment, then clicked it over from ring to vibrate. He was going to be right underneath them. If they heard the phone ringing, that would blow the whole thing.

  With Coke and pretzels in hand, Kyle left the kitchen and went quietly out the back porch door. Just as he was going down the stairs, he heard the sound of car doors closing out in front of the house. His heart beat like hummingbird's wings and he crept as silently as possible down to the patio. As he opened the door to the storage area he could hear his parents laughing about something as they approached the front door.

  Too close, he thought.

  And he closed himself in for the night, too late remembering that he had no pillow and no blanket, and that it was going to be cold in the small hours of the morning.

  For several minutes he sat on the concrete, breathing slowly. Then he took out his cell phone again and quietly dialed Ben's number.

  October, Senior Year . . .

  “You know you're not supposed to fuck around with the time stream. It's in every movie.”

  Will stared through the screen at Ashleigh. She looked so young to him it was hard to imagine this was their senior year. There was something precious about her, something she lost as she grew older. Of course, he suspected that was true of all of them.

  “It wasn't my idea,” he replied, his voice just loud enough for her to hear him over the music she had put on to cover their conversation so her parents wouldn't hear. “I hate magic. I told you the whole story already.”

  Ashleigh studied his face. “Yeah. You did. And I get it, Will.”

  He was in awe of her, and it must have shown on his face, for she became self-conscious and lowered her gaze.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked.

  Will laughed softly. “Please. Like you weren't staring at me? I'm just amazed that you're taking this as well as you are.”

  A slightly hysterical giggle bubbled from her lips and she clapped one hand over her mouth. Over the top of her hand her eyes were more than a little crazy and she breathed as though she feared she had forgotten how.

  “Ashleigh, what . . . I didn't mean to—”

  She waved him to silence, at first staring at him and then tearing her gaze away. She pulled away from the window and paced the bedroom in her white tank top and blue cotton sweats. Will could not tear his eyes away, but there was nothing prurient in his interest. Or very little, at least.

  With her back to him she first lowered her chin, her ponytail sliding off her shoulder to hang beside her face. At length she threw her head back and took a deep breath. Will was gravely concerned for her. The girl had freaked out when she had first gotten a look at his face but she had not screamed, had not called for her parents or the police. Once she had calmed down enough and the strength had returned to her legs, she had gingerly approached the window and in hushed tones had demanded that he explain, that he make her believe in the impossible, in magic.

  He had thought she was taking it all very well indeed.

  Now Ashleigh turned toward the window again, still hugging herself. She glanced at her CD player, as though expecting it to perform some strange action. Then she shook her head again. Her eyes narrowed and abruptly she strode across the room. Will watched the decisive expression on her face as she worked the screen free and removed it from the window. She turned and slid it under her bed.

  Will was confused. The last thing he wanted was to upset her more. Did she want him to come inside? Before he could ask, Ashleigh came over to kneel in front of the window in her bare feet, her sweatpants gathering dust from the hardwood floor.

  “Don't move,” she instructed him.

  The plea in her eyes at that moment broke his heart. Will loved his friend Ashleigh DeSantis, professional woman, wife, and mother of twins. But only now, in this moment, inches away from this sweet, clever, baby-skinned high school kid, did he realize how much he missed Ashleigh Wheeler, the girl next door.

  Her right hand fluttered up as though out of her control, but then she seemed to recover herself, for she reached out through the open window. Her long, slender fingers traced his features as though she were a blind woman. Will flinched at her touch and another rush of emotion filled him. He had told Ashleigh the facts, the sequence of events, but only what she absolutely had to know. That people would be hurt. That people would die if he and Brian did not do something to stop it. He hadn't told her what could happen to her . . . or what her life would be like if he couldn't prevent that.

  Ashleigh ran her fingers over the stubble on his chin.

  “Let me see your hand,” she said.

  Will raised his left hand, resting it on the windowsill.

  “No. The other one.”

  He clung to the branches of a tree he had climbed hundreds of times as a kid, yet his hip hurt where he leaned against the exterior of the house, and his right arm was slung over a thick branch at an angle that made his armpit hurt. I'm twenty-eight, he thought. Jesus, what the hell is fifty-eight going to feel like? Not that he expected to be climbing trees then.

  It took some doing to twist around so that he could switch hands. When he reached up with his right hand, she took it and held it in both of hers. Her fingers traced his palm and then turned it over. With her index finger she seemed almost to be trying to tickle him, and Will frowned and glanced up at her face. So intent was she upon her work that she paid him no attention at all.

  Her fingertip paused upon the fleshy web of skin that separated his thumb from the first finger of his right hand.

  “It really is you,” she whispered, so quietly that he could barely hear her over the music playing in her room.

  Will frowned and looked down, and then he realized what it was she had found. There upon his skin was a tiny, pale circle of scar tissue. The scar was so small and so old that he almost never thought about it, yet he could still remember the circumstances of his receiving it very clearly. Will had been seven at the time and his parents had taken him to visit his uncle Harry, at the site where the architectural firm his amiable uncle worked for was constructing a new library. Will had been given a hard hat to wear, which he'd thought was just about the coolest thing ever.

  Uncle Harry smoked.

  As they stood together gazing up at a crane that was lifting a steel beam high into the air, Uncle Harry let his hand dangle by his side, a lit cigarette between two fingers. The burning tip accidentally brushed Will's hand and the ash had come off, clinging to his skin. Searing. Scarring.

  In the darkness, in the branches of that tree, Will looked in the window at the sudden light in Ashleigh's eyes, as though a veil of cobwebs had been torn away, and for a moment it was as though he had not used dark sorcery to travel back in time, but rather had woken up to find that his entire life since this moment, this night, had been one long dream.

  “Uncle Harry,” he said.

  Ashleigh let out a long breath that ended with a tiny laugh. “Uncle Harry,” she repeated, and nodded. “And so what happens to us, Will? Me and you? We're still friends, right?” Her shoulders bobbed in the smal
lest of shrugs and her tone was cautious. “All of us. I know people drift apart after high school, but I have to believe this group will be different.”

  Will felt queasy. “We probably shouldn't talk about this.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Please. You're totally screwing up the future anyway. You're here. I've seen you. I believe you're you. You don't think I'm just going to forget that, right?” Ashleigh sat back on her haunches and sighed. “I know you had to come back. People are going to die, blah, blah, blah. But you're here now. So tell me . . .”

  In that moment while she paused, he thought of a hundred questions she might ask. Would she marry Eric? Would Will marry Caitlyn? Where did she live? What did she do for a living? Did she have children? But Ashleigh asked the one question he wasn't prepared for.

  “Am I happy?”

  Will froze, moisture burning the corners of his eyes. His throat tightened, and try as he might he could not force himself to smile. Looking at her now, the idea of what was to come, what would happen to her, devastated him even more than it had when he had discovered it.

  Her eyes widened and a look of anguish contorted her beauty. “Oh, God, Will . . .” she began, her voice cracking. “What? Tell me, what is it?”

  “No.”

  “No?” she demanded, cold and angry.

  Shit, he thought. This wasn't in the plan. “You were happy. That's part of the reason I'm here, Ashleigh. I'm not going to give you any other details, but yeah, you were happy. Then whoever is messing with us . . . changed things. I want to stop that from happening.”

  For several seconds she quietly digested this, and then she nodded slowly. “And the group?” she asked, moving on from his unsettling response. “What about that? We're still tight?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “It's pretty amazing, actually. Not that everyone hangs together all the time, but we keep in touch. It's all good.”

  How could he explain to her the bittersweet nature of the truth? They were fortunate, he knew that much. The group of them had remained friends and that was unusual. But the intensity, the passion with which they had all viewed their friendships and the world around them, was a pale shadow of what it had once been. The things that had seemed so immediate and vital when they were teenagers were fondly remembered, and that was all. Other, more adult concerns occupied their minds now. But that was a lesson Ashleigh would learn for herself as she matured. Even if he told her, she couldn't really understand until she lived it.

  “Yeah,” he repeated. “It's all good.”

  Her eyes seemed to focus on his face without the doubt and shock and fear that had been there before. “I feel like I just woke up.”

  Will smiled softly, remembering all the secrets he and Ashleigh had shared. “From a nightmare?”

  She frowned. “Not exactly. More like I was dreaming the world was this ordinary place. Now I wake up and it's anything but. But I feel like I always knew it. Isn't that weird?”

  “Not really,” Will told her warmly. “You were always wishing for something amazing to happen.”

  “But when it did happen, for real, you didn't say a word,” she chided him, gaze darkening.

  Will felt a cold chill pass through him, an icy shiver that lingered around his heart. His nostrils flared and he shot a glance down at Brian, who still lurked at the base of the tree. He shook his head.

  “I didn't want to think about it. Not ever.” Will resettled himself so that he was more comfortable, the tiny scar from Uncle Harry hidden in the autumn leaves. When he looked at Ashleigh again he could not hide the melancholy in him. “You were hoping for something wonderful. Magic is not that.”

  Ashleigh widened her eyes. “But you're here. Look at this. Look at you. This is . . . this is fantastic.”

  Will shook his head, icy tendrils wrapping around his heart ever more tightly. “Is it? Think about why we're here. If magic is this . . . this untapped power in the world, a way to break the code of the fabric of things, then obviously it isn't natural for a reason. This is the code of miracles. The secret pattern of the universe. It's encrypted for a reason, Ashleigh.” He stared at her, hearing the edge in his voice and wishing he could banish it. “I know it's all real. I know it exists. But maybe the reason I tried to pretend for so very long is not just that I didn't want to know, but that I realized that I shouldn't.

  “Nobody should know how to do this shit. It isn't our place. That's why it's magic. Sorcery. Whatever you want to call it. It's intruding upon the mesh that makes up the fabric of the world, but without the tools to do it right.” He gestured down toward Brian, though Ashleigh couldn't see him without leaning out her window. “We're idiots. Screwing with magic gets people hurt, sometimes worse. And this . . . Jesus, I can't believe I did this. You were right, Ash. Traveling in time is like running through a minefield. We're bound to step on something that explodes.”

  He felt a darkness come over him then, and Will lowered his gaze, brows knitting together. In his mind he still had so many memories, ugly pictures of Bonnie Winter's corpse and of Mike Lebo's funeral, images of Ashleigh's face changing before his eyes as someone in the past violated her, altering everything she had become.

  “Listen to yourself,” Ashleigh said, a little too loudly. She glanced nervously around and then quickly scurried over to her door and peeked out. After a moment she seemed satisfied no one had heard her and she came back to the window.

  “All of this stuff . . . I hear you, Will, but don't you understand how cool this is?” She shot him a look of dismay. “My friend Will, the guy who still lives next door? He would think it was very cool.”

  “He did,” Will said, trying to get through to her. “I did. Until I understood what it is. What it does. You start picking at the fabric of something and it starts to unravel. That's all magic is. Unraveling. I swore I'd never go near it again. Magic is hideous. It would have been easier if I could have been clueless like everyone else. But magic tainted me, and Brian, too. Somehow traces of the old reality stayed with us. And as long as I knew how things were supposed to be, my only choice was to try to make it right.”

  At last the gravity of his words seemed to sink in, to eliminate the sense of wonder and adventure that had begun to sparkle in Ashleigh's eyes. Now it had been replaced by the glint of fear. It hurt him to see that, but Will knew it was necessary. She had to see what magic was.

  “All right,” she said. “So what's the plan, then? What do you need from me? What's first?”

  Will paused and glanced down at Brian, whose face was barely visible in the shadows. He had not completely abandoned the idea that Brian was involved, but his behavior certainly diminished Will's suspicion. Perhaps they shared some bond now, or perhaps it was just instinct, but Brian's claims had simply felt true.

  Now that Ashleigh had asked the question, he had to confront the reality that he and Brian didn't really have a plan beyond convincing her to help. That had seemed so insurmountable that they hadn't gotten much further.

  “I'm not sure,” he said. “We can get by, food-wise, until the morning, I'm sure. Chances are we can sleep in the storage space under my porch . . .” He glanced at the house next door. “You know what I mean. Under his porch.”

  “Young Will's.”

  Will smiled. “I'm not exactly old.”

  “Older than Young Will. Besides, I've gotta have some way to keep you two separate in my head.” Ashleigh crossed her legs and watched him expectantly, helpfully.

  “I guess. Anyway, tomorrow's when we're really going to need your help. We have to figure out some kind of identities for ourselves, who we say we are if anyone asks. And we'll need the car tomorrow.”

  Ashleigh grimaced. “I don't know. My parents only let me drive the Toyota, and my father always takes it on Sundays to go golfing with his friends while Mom does her whole church thing.”

  The ice around Will's heart had thawed, but now a new tendril seemed to slide into his chest, coiling to strike. “But tomorrow's Saturday. T
he fourteenth of October.”

  She thought a moment, but then Ashleigh shook her head. “Nope. No school today, Will. Tomorrow's Sunday. This is Saturday right now.”

  Suddenly he began to shiver, his head shaking. The music in her room seemed far too loud, and he looked down at Brian, who was gazing curiously upward. He wanted to call down but didn't dare draw the attention of Ashleigh's parents.

  “Son of a bitch,” Will murmured. He pulled himself to Ashleigh's window now and poked his head in. She backed up, startled, as he twisted around, surveying her room.

  “What?” she asked in a harsh whisper.

  He looked at her, frantic. “Your clock. Where is it? You . . . you used to have that one, the cat with the ticktock tail.”

  “It broke,” she said, still taken aback. Then she scrambled to her bedside table and grabbed a small alarm clock from atop it. “It's—wow, I thought it was later than that. It's only quarter to ten.”

  Will drew a shuddering breath and nodded to himself. “OK. OK, we've got about half an hour.”

  Ashleigh frowned. “Why? What happens in half an hour?”

  “If we don't do something about it?” Will replied grimly. “Mike Lebo dies.”

  ASHLEIGH STAYED CLOSE to the garage door, out of sight of any of the windows. Her heart thundered in her chest and she stared with wide eyes at the sight of Will and Brian, at these two men who were even now stealing her father's car. With her help.

  What the fuck am I doing? she thought wildly, numb as she tried to process everything she had heard and seen this night, everything she had come to believe. Whatever whispered conversations she and Will had had with him perched in the tree in the middle of the night, whatever delicious thrills had gone through her, whatever dark fears had begun to surface in her, all of those things were hers and hers alone.

  This, though, this wasn't magic. This wasn't whispers in the dark. This was two grown men stealing her father's car, and Ashleigh had given them her spare set of keys.

  Her eyes felt strangely dry; it was as though she could not close them as she watched Will get into the driver's seat and give the key a quarter turn. Not enough to start the engine, but enough so that he could slip the car into neutral. Moving quickly—they had no time to spare—Brian pushed the car out of the driveway while Will steered. Ashleigh was proud of Will, seeing him like this. He was a handsome man. But Brian was the real surprise. He had always been a little doughy and more than a little sloppy. Despite the bruises on his face, it was obvious that he had changed a lot. He was handsome and fit.