“I would’ve taken care of that.”
“I’m sure you would’ve, Cindy, as awful as that sounds.” I paused, taking in the coldness of her words. “You’re my friend, and I love you,” I told her, “but right now the entire school is in jeopardy. We can fight later. We have work to do now.”
The storm clouds of her aura again swelled up.
“Let them all die,” Preggers said.
There was a loud crack, like thunder, as her anger and grief mixed, ignited one another.
The Taker in me felt, was drawn towards, her pain. An image of Alex as he was now appeared, packing his sports bag for the last practice before the big game. His mind wasn’t on his cleats or his soccer jersey. It was on me. He was still in shock. So much of the school was. But as Alex thought back to the times we kissed, made love, his aura showed no thoughts of Preggers, of his would-have-been girlfriend. He had been using her to get back at me. I hurt him deeply in our on-again off-again love. He never forgave me for cheating on him, and he blamed me deeply. He wanted me to hurt like he hurt, and Preggers was the way. This infuriated her to no end.
“Don’t worry,” she said, flashing me a smirk evil enough to rival Crazy T’s. “I’ll take care of Alex. Burn Girl, Crazy T, promised him to me. I’ll be the one who makes sure Zipper shoots him, who makes sure he goes straight to hell.”
“Cindy, these are your friends we’re talking about here, people you grew up with, who—”
“People who used me, who will get used,” she told me. “My life won’t be the only one cut short. I won’t be robbed out of my whole life by you and do nothing. No, I’ll hurt you worse than you hurt me by taking the one person you love the most.”
“Cindy,” I whispered. “Don’t do this. Let me save you.”
“I don’t want to be saved.”
“But I can help—”
“Save yourself, if you can. Your time to save me passed,” she said. “Maybe you should’ve been thinking of that instead of drinking and driving.”
“I am sorry.”
“I’ll make sure of that.”
“Cindy, don’t!”
“See you in hell,” she told me.
I felt her fire and brimstone stench fade, her clouds dissipate, swallowed as they were into a black hole of Taker energy.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any darker, an image of a teen girl wrapped in light stood up, floated closer. Though she was a ball of light and stardust, I could tell, through the well-defined, angular cheekbones, the gently sloping nose, the blue eyes.
“Aliya,” I said.
“Where am I?” she asked. “And what happened to your head?”
A cloud of Keepers surrounded her with their balls of light and white energy. They came around me too, keeping me from following my instincts, from following Preggers into the black abyss.
“I need your help,” I told her. “I’ve been killed.”
“Is this heaven?” she asked.
“Not exactly…”
* * *
My mind flashed to the moment Alex saw Zipper on the field, asked him if he’d joined the team.
I got a sick feeling then, and now I knew why. I saw in Zipper’s aura what I didn’t see earlier, what I didn’t notice until my Taker energy was attracted to his. There was an image of Zipper with a shovel, digging by the stands. He’d taken a job as a part-time caretaker around the school with just this purpose in mind. His guidance counselor pushed for it, hoping to get Zipper an opportunity to help pay for college. Zipper was just under the stands, around their supporting beams. He had bought some type of explosive, and he was burying it by the stands. He’d been putting dynamite, petrol, and other explosives under the school grounds, all across the field, under and down along the stands, for months, just as soon as boys’ soccer got on a roll. There was enough there to blow up anybody and everybody who had a seat, to blow out the lights, to blow out the field and any players who were on it. He even placed some underneath torn patches in the parking lot, which it was his job to clean up and report on. Apparently, his studies of Andrew Kehoe had not gone to waste.
Zipper played “Adam’s Song” by Blink 182 on his iPod, played it over and over again, as it was rumored to be the song Crazy T played just before he walked the streets for the school. Crazy T was hovering around him, making sure each detail was right. I knew this was what the Takers were doing, covering for Crazy T so that he could make sure he masterminded everything to perfection. I fought to see more, to see into Zipper’s aura, into his plan, into the exact time and place he’d fire his first shot, but it was already too dark. Before I could finish seeing the vision, I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned around.
* * *
“…What happened to you?” Aliya asked me.
“I was pulled somewhere,” I told her.
“Why?”
I attempted to show Aliya a vision of the darkness that was Zipper and Zipper’s plan, but she didn’t see. She appeared unlike any other soul I’d seen before. She’d start out as radiant light and then diminish.
I put my head on. It would stay in place for only a few moments, a painful reminder of my death to all who came upon my ghost.
“You’re not dead,” I told her. “You ended up in a coma.”
“For how long?”
“Less than a week,” I told her. “I died Saturday night.”
“If I’m not dead, why am I here?” she asked.
“You’re here to stop a killer,” I said.
“What?”
“One of our classmates snapped. He plans to shoot the school at the soccer championship,” I said. “You’ve heard of him. Zipper.”
“Zipper would never do that,” she said.
I tried to call the images I’d seen before, of bodies lying bloodied, of devastated bleachers.
None of it made it through the light protecting Aliya.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?” she asked.
“More like an out-of-body experience,” I said.
Aliya flew up and down, laughed giddily as she flew colorful circles around me.
“Aliya, this is important for you to remember,” I said. “You’re going to wake up again. I know it.”
“Why would I ever want to leave this?” she asked, flying loops around the light.
“Here you’re neither living nor dead.”
“So how do you know you aren’t in a coma?”
“Because I saw my head looking back at me,” I told her.
Aliya slowed down in her flying, landed by me. Her smile vanished. She looked at me.
“You’re not human,” she said. “You’re part mist.”
“Whatever I was like when I died, that’s what I am here,” I told her. “I’m something called a Taker. I take lives.”
“Not mine?” she asked.
“No,” I told her.
Aliya came over and hugged me. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I should’ve been the one driving.”
“I was meant to die,” I told her. “It’s a long story. All I need you to know right now is that you have to tell people what I’ve told you about Zipper. You have to speak until they listen.”
“Who will listen to me?”
“Alex,” I told her, “and Tom and maybe Steph.”
Aliya nodded.
“And Zipper. Try to get through to him before he does what he does.”
“How?”
“Tell him that I’ll save a dance at prom for him,” I said. “Tell him that I was with him, that I heard, that I’ll be there. Tell him that I promise.”
Aliya looked at the swirling black and white mist that was half my body, at the empty eyes.
“I’m not going to see you again, am I?” she asked.
I hugged her.
“Fay, I don’t want you to die,” she said, in between a few sobs.
I kissed Aliya’s forehead.
“It’s too late for that,” I told her. “Besides, they planted a tree. You
can visit me there, if it grows. But first, you need to help me. You need to remember what I told you.”
“I’ll try.”
Aliya began to disappear again, fading into the white light.
“Fay,” she called back.
“Yes?”
“What’s the afterlife like?”
“There is a heaven and a hell,” I told her. “There’s just two groups of teens and kids waiting to get to one or the other.”
“Are you going to heaven now?” she asked me.
“That spot goes to you,” I said.
We waved at each other. I smiled faintly at the beautiful light of heaven that Aliya would one day become. Then she vanished.
* * *
Back in her room, Aliya lied perfectly still.
She looked so peaceful for a girl who was flatlining.
Nurses swarmed around her, checking her respiration, her tubes, her injuries to see if there was anything that could be done. I heard them calling for a doctor frantically when nothing worked.
And then, just as quickly as the commotion began, Aliya was there again. I saw her fingers twitch and her ribs rise and fall.
The machines went silent, except for the occasional beep attesting to the fact that life was still there.
The doctor arrived too late, but checked Aliya, probing each wound, determining that she had a crisis but that she was back now and that she should be fine. He assigned a nurse to watch Aliya’s room and Aliya’s room only for the next few hours. That was more than the hospital, skeletal as it was in its staffing, could afford, but the doctor made the attempt anyway. I sensed from the blue and gold orbs circling around in his aura that he had a daughter about her age, that he was reacting as a father as much as he reacted as a physician. I was the happier for it.
When everyone went back to their normal duties, and only one nurse kept watch, ever so briefly, I went up to Aliya’s bed. I looked down at her beautifully curved face, at her closed eyes, at the beads of sweat that formed in her fingers. She was such a beautiful girl to nearly die. I always thought she was too vain, too into her looks, but seeing her aura I realized that she was the best of us all. Preggers always was jealous and hedonistic, and I was always insecure and rebellious. Aliya went along, and maybe that was her greatest sin. But she was still a kind soul. She deserved her life.
I reached down and stroked her hair, gently, the way a mother would. I’d never know what it would be like to be a mother, but I felt protective of my friend.
“Rest, Aliya,” I told her, “but not too long. As soon as you awake, tell your friends. Tell Zipper. Tell everyone…if you remember.”
I enjoyed the moment with my friend until I sensed the blackness of a Taker in the room.
“You’re not taking her,” I told the ghost before he could form.
“We won’t have to,” a voice said.
I recognized the bizarre, uneven pitch that was Crazy T’s voice.
He materialized just enough to point down at Aliya’s folder on the edge of her bed.
I couldn’t grab material things too easily yet, but Crazy T could. He lifted up the folder, stood right next to me. He opened right up to a page where the doctor noted a break in her spinal column. She was being prepped for major surgery, but the prognosis was clear. Aliya would never walk again.
Crazy T smirked, which looked even eerier with his black pit eyes. He threw the papers on the floor.
“It’s your choice,” he said, pointing to Preggers, who hovered around Aliya. “Either your school or your friend.”
Crazy T disappeared, and it was just Preggers and me.
I could hear her voice, whispering to Aliya that she was nothing, that she’d be in a chair for life, that it was my fault, that death was wonderful, that she should come along for a safer ride.
“Be strong,” I told Aliya.
“She will be,” Belinda said.
The Keeper appeared as a blinding, protective light, one not even Preggers could look directly into. Fellow Keepers swarmed around Aliya, showing her images of herself with children, of herself leading a different, but meaningful life. They gave her life; they gave her strength.
Chapter 7
Angry at the attack on Aliya, I lashed out.
The Taker in me gravitated towards the fields, towards the explosives, the deaths that were sure to abound there. The fields were a massive, pulsing black sun calling to all Takers, to all lost souls that fed on fear, death, and hatred.
Even by night the fields were surrounded by Takers, some I hadn’t even seen before. Rope Man was there, a hanging shadow leering out. Burn Girl was there, waiting to stir up new fires, new burns. But there were a group of boys without faces, just shadowy scabs standing guard. I tried to read their auras, but they were too abysmally black. The only picture I could get was of gang wars decades earlier. These were dark sentinels, street soldiers hastening their arrival in hell.
I stood before them, concentrating, seeing if I could picture an explosive, set it off—anything to warn the town. I could feel a small spark of fire forming when I felt a smack that sent me flying clear across the sky.
Crazy T appeared, taller than I’d ever seen him, feeding off of the energy of the Takers. They gave him their hatred, their rage and strength, and he wasn’t about to let a small obstacle like a dead girl stand in the way of hell.
“You just never learn,” he said to me.
“So teach me,” I challenged.
My hatred only fed Crazy T, who grew powerful enough to send me flying from the field. Flocks of Takers fed on me, magnifying my worst fears. I could see bits and pieces of my classmates raining all around me, overcome as I was by endless Taker negativity.
“I gave you this life, and I can take it away,” Crazy T told me.
“You said it yourself,” I told him. “I’m a Taker, and before this is done you’ll see that it’s me who’s come to take you.”
I lunged at Crazy T. He became a tornado of energy, ripping me apart with images of my crying mother, of Aliya, paralyzed, of Steph taking a stone to the head in the explosion and dying before being consumed by fire.
In that moment, as Crazy T came for me, I sensed something behind his anger, something that fueled him. There was a face, a girl, who Crazy T adored. The master was more like his protégé than I imagined. I sensed the girl, now a woman, was still alive, married, and close, and anger towards this fueled Crazy T’s storm of supernatural activity.
I knew she was still in town, still drawing in the manic energy of this lord of Takers. I’d have to find her, find a way for her to come. Her life, with all the others, might be the only way to shock Crazy T, to get him to relinquish some of his power.
Or it may have been what Crazy T counted on all along.
Crazy T sensed my vision and blindsided me with a barrage of dark energy, flinging one nightmare after another until I fell at his feet. I saw my mother dying, broken-hearted, alone, her final thoughts of me as she passed away. I saw Alex turning to promiscuity, getting closer to other women to fill the void he’d never fill in my absence. I stood up, shook off the nightmares.
“They’re untrue,” I said. “You can’t lie to a Taker and expect to get away with it.”
“Can’t I? You really think you know me?” Crazy T asked.
His face became distorted, black, like shadows falling into shadows of greater darkness.
“Bring your friend to me, and I promise you I’ll kill her,” he said. “Just like I will you.”
“You can’t kill what’s already dead.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said. “Ever feel death coming over you a second time?”
Crazy T started conjuring massive winds of black, the essence of his fellow Takers. The pain I’d caused others, the agony of my head, severed from my body, overtook me, and I knelt for mercy. Just as I fell, Crazy T sent the negative energy right at Zipper until the rage consumed him, propelled him on. The idea was brutal in its simplicity: shoot Alex fir
st.
I regained my strength just enough to fly off, but I wasn’t fast enough. The other Takers surrounded me, until I was forced to join their collective, until I felt that I was losing my spiritual body.
“Consider this your punishment,” Crazy T told me. “You can stay and watch us take souls until you act like a real Taker.”
I fought, but the angrier I became, the more the anger consumed me, the tougher the bonds became. I was trapped, bodiless, in The Flow, and the only emotions I knew how to feel were the very ones that held me in bondage.
* * *
Deep inside The Flow, no Keepers could pull me to safety. I felt surrounded by Takers on all sides, seeing their memories, feeling their emotions, consumed by the same rage. There were no faces, no names, nothing but a collective of negativity. Crazy T had described The Flow as a joining of sense and consciousness. He never mentioned how dark this ghoulish consciousness could be.
I sensed The Flow was a portal, the ultimate force that would drive some teens to heaven and others to hell. But it was dormant at the moment, collecting energy. It would take a huge event to trigger it, to darken enough souls to open the portal to hell. But it was close, and the Takers waiting inside only fueled its negative energy.
“You might as well give up right now,” one voice said. “Once you taste of The Flow, you never leave.”
“Once a Taker, always a Taker,” another told me.
I saw the memories I’d rather forget as I bled my pain into The Flow. There I was, partying away at the age of thirteen, already on my way to alcoholism. I was amazed; I thought I looked so sexy, so fun, so alive. Instead, I was a kid in a t-shirt pouring beer over myself in an effort to appear to be something, someone I was not. To see my tiny, dimpled cheeks, my kid body, still developing, made me sick. If I were to see that same body in a school photo, I’d guess that I was eight, maybe nine, years old. Instead, I was thirteen, and this was the path I’d chosen. The overwhelming drain of wasted life cascaded into The Flow, and I felt weaker, more jaded.
“I wasted my life,” I said.
Spree (YA Paranormal) Page 7