Nine

by Zach Hines

  Julian frowned. “Maybe,” he said. “But if retrogression is getting worse, and if people aren’t returning, then what is their goal here?”

  “That’s what we need to find out,” Cody said. “But the Department of the Lakes is like a hydra. Lots of heads popping up wherever something seems rotten. It’s possible that one head isn’t aware of what the other one is doing, but I’m sure everything is adding up according to a bigger plan.”

  But no matter how he tried to get his mind around this potential connection, Julian felt that the Burners still seemed too peculiar to the history of Lakeshore Academy. The worn leather of their Bible, the hundred-year history with the school, and Nicholas’s long-simmering rivalry with the alumni, epitomized in his mad race to one-up Georgie Vander.

  And yet . . .

  Molly was gone.

  Her house was seized by the Lake.

  “Take me to this Drop Dead Drop,” Cody said. “This Burners club is clearly taking things to another level, and I want to see it myself.”

  “I don’t know,” Julian replied. “I think it might be better if I stay away.”

  But then he thought about it some more.

  “On the other hand, everyone in the school is going to be there,” he said, as if arguing with himself. “If there’s any chance Molly is still in the area, anywhere . . . she might show up.”

  Cody cocked her finger-gun.

  “We’re on, Mr. Julian,” she said, firing.

  The field outside the old amusement park was packed with cars.

  A throng of kids dressed like fluorescent skeletons was laughing and drinking from liquor bottles as they headed to the carnival entrance. Cody snapped a picture on her phone.

  “So many people,” she said. “Is every party like this?” she asked.

  “Everyone at the academy feels like they have to go to a Burners party. If you don’t, you’re some kind of outcast,” Julian said. “This is, basically, the entire school.”

  He watched her documenting the party and frowned, uneasy. Things had a tendency to get out of Julian’s control when either Nicholas or Cody were around. And now his two worlds were about to collide.

  They followed the neon zombies to the entrance. The old carnival sign that once read “Thriller Land” still hung over the gate, but the Burners had stretched a banner over it, proclaiming The Drop Dead Drop. Below it, written in a spooky red scrawl, it said: “Check Your Squeamishness at the Door.”

  Inside, clumps of kids had gathered near kegs in abandoned snack stalls now lined with booze bottles. A massive roller coaster loomed above the grounds, craggy and derelict. Its huge loop was broken in half, hanging jagged like the broken claw of some sinister fantasy beast.

  Julian pushed through the horde of kids in neon paint and glow-in-the-dark skeleton T-shirts, feeling exposed in his plain hoodie. Cody’s recording didn’t help his unease.

  The fairgrounds were set up so that all the attention funneled toward the roller coaster. The loading platform was retrofitted into a stage, where all the Burners had gathered. Ribbons of twinkling LED lights hung in thick clumps over the platform, casting it in a yellowish glow. Music boomed from speakers mounted on the sides of the platform. A microphone stood in the center of the makeshift stage. Julian knew who would soon be standing behind it, directing his flock from on high.

  He turned around to find Cody talking to two jocks in glow-in-the-dark face paint. She was shouting to them over the thumping music.

  “Are you coming here to burn?”

  One of the jocks downed his drink. “I’m all burned up and square on my score,” he said. “So it depends on how drunk I get.”

  “It’s a party. Free booze!” the second one said. He completely downed his cup in one gulp. “Who cares what it’s for?”

  “What if they ask you to burn a life ahead of schedule?”

  “Lives are supposed to be used up,” he said, tossing his empty cup into the dirt. “You’re cute. Want a drink?”

  Julian scanned the grounds for Molly or Anastasia, but he didn’t see either of them. He did, however, see a group of Burners descending from the stage and fanning out through the crowd. He stepped in close to Cody. “Something’s up,” he said, grabbing Cody by the elbow. “Let’s hang back.”

  But before they had a chance to say or do anything else, Franklin stepped in front of him. His face was expressionless, his mouth a thin, dry line.

  “Nicholas wants to see you,” he said.

  Julian took a step back and swallowed. Cody looked to him, concerned.

  “I’m good right here,” Julian said.

  Franklin took a step toward Julian, puffing out his chest. “He wasn’t asking.”

  Cody stepped between them. “Actually, Julian was just taking me home.” She grabbed him by the arm and tried to pull him away. Franklin regarded her like a naturalist might consider a curious bird, then put his hand in the middle of Julian’s chest, stopping him from going anywhere.

  Julian brushed off Cody’s grip. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll deal with him.”

  “You’re crazy if you think I’m not coming with you,” Cody said, and followed beside him as they headed for the stage.

  They had to push through a mosh pit of kids. Franklin pulled a drunk kid off the steps so Julian could climb up. He turned to Cody. “Just stay here,” he said. He glared at her as hard as he could. “Please.”

  She frowned and reluctantly nodded.

  Franklin led Julian across the stage. As he crossed behind the microphone, someone from the mosh pit yelled, “Warrior spirit!” The crowd cheered. Julian staggered away from the mic, startled. And that’s when he saw him.

  Nicholas was approaching Julian from the wings, his arms stretched out as if receiving a long-lost friend. He met Julian in the center of the stage, grabbed his hand, and thrust it into the air. The crowd cheered. Nicholas walked him to the microphone, his arm still held up triumphantly. “Julian Dex here,” Nicholas shouted into the microphone. His voice echoed across the fairgrounds, drowning out the music. “The true Warrior spirit!”

  The crowd exploded in cheers. Julian tried to pull away from Nicholas’s hand, but his grip was tight. After the cheers died down, Nicholas led him to the wings.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” Nicholas yelled back at Julian over the noise. “The whole school. Eating out of the palm of my hand!”

  In the wings, Constance, in a sexy skeleton costume, was filming the scene with her phone. She turned to Julian. “We’re streaming on DeadLinks,” she said. “But where’s your stain?” she asked, pouting. Julian looked down dumbly at his gray hoodie. Constance leaned toward Julian and kissed him on the forehead. It was long and hard. She pulled away, wiping the red lipstick that had smeared around the edges of her lips. “There you go,” she said, and winked, then turned her camera back to the crowd.

  Nicholas threw his arm around Julian and walked him over to a control panel off to the side. Franklin was already standing behind it, inspecting the controls.

  “It would be nothing without you here,” Nicholas said into Julian’s ear. He reeked of alcohol and sweat. “And just in time for the main event, too.” Nicholas flipped a switch at the control panel.

  The floor shook as machinery beneath it came to life. The lights on the track lit up one by one, running up the broken loop-de-loop. Two trains rumbled up and stopped beside the loading platform with a shrill hiss.

  “What a sight,” Nicholas said, beaming, almost in a daze.

  Julian wanted to get the hell off the stage. He wanted to find Cody and get out of these fairgrounds right now. “You wanted me?” Julian shouted over the noise into Nicholas’s ear.

  “I wanted to apologize for my aggressive nature the other day,” Nicholas said, putting his hand on Julian’s shoulder. “And I wanted to say that I didn’t ‘make you.’ You made yourself.” He grinned, his eyes sparkling in the lights.

  Julian realized he might be looking at the real, genuine, actual Nic
holas right now, standing before him, drunk on his own lunacy. There was a small, hard feeling like a rock in the bottom of Julian’s stomach.

  Pity.

  That’s what it was.

  “Now watch this,” Nicholas said as he strode to the center of the stage and took his spot behind the mic.

  “Lakeshore senior class!” he shouted.

  The crowd cheered. From the wings, Franklin turned down the music so that Nicholas’s voice was all that boomed across the grounds now.

  “This old, crumbling roller coaster here,” Nicholas said, gesturing up at the dramatic rise and loop on the track behind him, “was once known as the Nose Dive. Long ago, it provided thrills and amusement and adventure. How quaint. But we in the Burners don’t need roller coasters . . .”

  He held a long pause.

  “Because death has become our thrill!”

  The crowd cheered.

  “And so I re-dub this roller coaster the Drop Dead Drop!”

  More cheers.

  “The most burns ever done in a single year was conducted five years ago by the Gold Star Georgie Vander. He burned forty students. But we . . .” He gestured behind him to the loop-de-loop on the track. It was cracked at its pinnacle, about seventy yards up.

  “We will burn fifty students tonight, at once! We will run our entire senior class up the loop, and fling you off. You will crash and you will . . . burn!” Nicholas shouted, his eyes bulging. Strands of his perfectly coiffed hair fell loose across his face, and he returned them to formation on his head. “There is no better metaphor for senior year!”

  The Burners who had earlier spread out among the crowd began funneling the mosh pit toward the stairs, where Franklin was already leading kids up to the platform one by one and strapping them into the coaster.

  Julian looked with concern to their faces, to their eyes behind the makeup—some of them were scared. These weren’t all Burners who fetishized death. Many were ordinary seniors. They were Twos and Threes. They’ve been going to ex clinics, following the rules. They didn’t need to burn for years. They just wanted a party. Free drinks. And now they were going to be flung into this godforsaken ravine . . . all for one person’s amusement.

  He watched as they were led, reluctantly, up to the stage.

  Cody suddenly grabbed Julian. She was on the stage now, pulling at him.

  “We have to stop this,” she said.

  But Nicholas suddenly yanked him toward the mic.

  “We all know Julian Dex here was a One—a goddamned ONE—until just a few weeks ago,” Nicholas shouted into the mic. “Until he saw the light! So, why don’t you strap in first, and lead us off for the evening?”

  “What?” Julian said, shocked. “No! We never discussed this.”

  “Julian, don’t be shy,” Nicholas whispered, his hand over the mic. “You’re our star, after all!”

  But Julian yanked his arm free from Nicholas’s grasp. “I said no.”

  The microphone squealed. Nicholas stepped back, confusion bleeding through his mask of enthusiasm. “But Julian—”

  Cody intervened. “We’re not participating in your psychopathic suicide cult,” she shouted. The mic picked it up and broadcast it out to the crowd. There was a murmur of confusion as people tried to understand what was happening onstage. Nicholas stood still behind the mic, his mouth half-open.

  “And who are you?” he asked. His confusion, and the sting of Julian’s rejection, seemed genuine.

  Julian pushed Cody away from the mic. “Don’t get involved in this,” he said.

  But Nicholas brought the mic to them. Julian realized what was happening—they had defiled Nicholas’s sacred stage. The mount from which he preached to his flock. But you don’t just run an angel off his pedestal and walk away.

  No.

  Nicholas was going to take his stage back.

  “Now, now,” Nicholas said into the microphone, an icy-cool confidence eerily restored to his voice. He looked out at his crowd. They were rapt now. Whatever other antics were going on, things were far more interesting up on the stage.

  “Suicide cult? I find that description totally wrong, little . . .” He peered at her beaten-up old hoodie. “Homeschooled girl?”

  Cody snorted. “You kill yourselves over and over ahead of schedule. You get nothing out of it except for laughs,” she said, grabbing the mic from his hand. “But someone gets something out of all of your deaths. Who wins? You? The Department of the Lakes? The academy?”

  Nicholas’s eyes practically bulged out of his head. He released a tiny disbelieving laugh. His nose twitched, like an animal detecting the scent of a predator on the wind.

  There were audible gasps from the crowd now. Some of them—probably most of them—were drunk and spoiling to watch a fight. But there were other faces in the crowd that looked disturbed—kids who, like Julian or Molly, had been coerced into the Burners and felt Cody’s words resonate. The mood shifted from something jovial into something . . . unpredictable, dangerous.

  Which meant it was time to go.

  He tried to back Cody away from the mic, but she was fired up. She wasn’t budging. She pushed away from him, clutching the mic to her. “It seems like some kind of sick scam to me! You are taking all these people for a ride, all right. Just not the one they think.”

  Nicholas snatched the mic with a fierce swipe that knocked Cody back. He forced his face into a grin. He paced the stage, a thick strand of his usually impeccably coiffed hair stuck to the sweat on his forehead, spoiling his perfect image.

  “The world demands we die. It demands we extinguish our lives to get into colleges, extinguish our lives to get jobs, extinguish our lives to get promoted, get married! The government plans our lives out for us. They tell us when to extinguish down to the day. They tell us where to do it, too—in their antiseptic, white-walled clinics with the nurses and the elevator music and all that boring garbage.”

  He shook his head dramatically, like a television evangelist.

  “But the Burners . . . ,” he said. “We do not extinguish. We burn! When we want and where we want. These are our lives, and we burn them bright.”

  He turned to the crowd. “Am I right?”

  There were some cheers, but the response was muted. It was not the reaction Nicholas was hoping for. He yelled again, this time his voice cracking. “Am I right?!”

  “Wrong!” Cody shouted, loud enough to broadcast it to the crowd. “The Lakes are changing, and some people are not coming back! You all need to know this!”

  There was a grim murmur of shock from the crowd.

  Julian saw movement from his peripheral vision—Franklin was coming toward them from the roller coaster.

  Nicholas was breathing hard now, fuming, stalking toward Cody like a panther.

  Julian looked to the crowd. To the individual faces. To all the pending waste. To all the pending death.

  Cody was right: No.

  Julian stepped in front of her, shielding her from Nicholas. He wrestled the mic from Nicholas’s hands. Nicholas pulled back and after a brief tugging match, Nicholas stumbled, crashing to the floor of the stage. Julian whipped the mic up to his mouth.

  He took a ragged breath, and the sound of it squealed over the PA, silencing the crowd for a moment.

  “Where’s Molly?” he asked simply.

  Nicholas shook his head in disbelief, pulling himself to his feet.

  “Where’s Anastasia?” Julian asked.

  “Julian!” Nicholas shouted. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Where is Molly?” a voice shouted from behind them. Julian turned—it was Amit, strapped into the roller coaster.

  “Where did she go?!” he shouted, his face red. Tears were streaking his now hollow cheeks.

  “I have no fucking idea!” Nicholas shouted. He was totally unhinged now.

  Julian looked out into the crowd. Everyone was watching him.

  “Molly and Anastasia joined the Burners. They
went to Constance’s house,” he said, looking over to the wings. Constance was glaring daggers at him.

  “And then they were gone.”

  Julian moved toward the steps leading off the stage, ushering Cody behind him with his arm.

  He had to think the unthinkable now.

  There was no other way.

  “Retrograde?” he yelled. “Or . . . permadead?!”

  Muted gasps rose up from the crowd.

  Franklin charged at them from across the stage. Julian slammed the mic down, producing an earsplitting squeal. He grabbed Cody by the hand and they leaped from the stage into the crowd. All at once, the crowd melted away from the stage, away from the Burners. The kids already in the coaster unstrapped themselves and joined them, pushing past Franklin. The entire student body poured through the white jackets, who tried vainly to keep them funneled toward the death coaster. As they left, some flipped over tables, grabbed kegs, and tore down lights and decorations.

  Among the chaos, Julian saw Nicholas in the center of the stage, standing alone and still, clutching the microphone to his chest as the senior class streamed away from him. His eyes tunneled into the core of Julian’s being.

  Julian turned his back and sped up. He gripped Cody’s hand tighter as they charged away toward the exit.

  Part Two

  Chapter 27

  WELL . . .

  This was a disaster.

  Franklin looked out at the orchestra room. It was a hell of a lot emptier. Just last week, white jackets would fill out the whole wing. Forty members in regular attendance. Now, there were . . . twelve, by Franklin’s count.

  Twelve.

  Tragic.

  In the center of the stage, Nicholas stood behind the conductor’s podium, hunched over the mic, intoning in a dull voice about meeting minutes as if everything were normal. Franklin pushed the red wristband he wore as the stain of blood aside to check his watch: it was ten to eight. Surely Nicholas would wrap this up now, if he had any dignity left.

  After that whole . . . incident, when everyone trashed the carnival while Nicholas paced the stage with his head hung low, mumbling into the mic like an idiot—rumors started flying.