“Shut up,” Sue told him.
“I can see the sensitivity shining through the classroom,” Mrs. Walters said.
Usually, Mrs. Walters didn’t like sarcasm in the classroom. With the kids in this class, she couldn’t always help it, though. It’d become too much of a survival skill.
“Please raise your hands if you feel comfortable reading this book,” Mrs. Walters said.
Nearly every hand went up. Zipper’s didn’t.
“Please raise your hand if you’d rather read something else.”
“Like what?” Sue asked.
“Shakespeare Made Fun,” Mrs. Walters said.
The hands stayed down.
“John,” Mrs. Walters said. “Your hand didn’t go up.”
“It’s Zipper,” Zipper told her.
“Sorry, Zipper,” Mrs. Walters said. “Do you have any thoughts on this issue?”
Zipper looked around the classroom; each kid had a number on them, in his mind. Tom was one of the kids who’d get shot first. He was turned around, the whole class was, watching Zipper, who was seated in the back. He was just so creepy. Even teachers sensed something was wrong and placed him in the back of the room.
“Doesn’t matter to me,” Zipper said. “I’m not going to read the book anyway.”
The class laughed.
“Loser,” Sue called back.
She was quiet enough to think she avoided detection, but the class, of course, was quiet at just that moment, magnifying her whisper.
“Apologize,” Mrs. Walters told Sue.
Sue looked back half-heartedly, not even catching Zipper’s eyes, and muttered a sarcastic: “I’m really sorry.”
“I bet your father is too,” Zipper said. “If he just stayed sober and away from your mom that night…”
The class, sensitive as they were, roared.
Sue swore at Zipper, who sat with a nasty smirk on his face.
Mrs. Walters looked at Zipper, stunned.
She then started to phone the office. Zipper stood up.
“That was uncalled for. I’m sorry, Sue,” he said. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”
Sue just stared icily at Zipper. She did have the good sense to apologize for swearing, though.
Mrs. Walters put the phone down, wrote up two detention slips instead.
“You have until Tuesday afternoon to serve,” she said, handing over the slips.
Class went on, and Zipper sat there, planning.
He’d been careless. He wouldn’t be again. Nothing must get in the way of the plan. Nothing.
* * *
Just after school Mr. Peterson had Zipper cleaning the bleachers one more time before the big game.
Zipper had to make sure there were no disgusting patches of filth after the morning rain, and he was adviser to the one man who could call the game off if the field was too wet.
“Well,” Mr. Peterson asked. “What do you think?”
“Wet, but playable,” Zipper said.
“You sure? If one preppy breaks his neck—”
“They’ll be safe, at least as safe as they can be.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Soccer’s a dangerous game.”
Mr. Peterson chuckled. “Football’s a dangerous game. If you ask me, tackling a few of these kids might do them good. Soccer’s too…gentle.”
“It’s a sport of skill. Like checkers moving around on a field. I admire it. All it lacks is a hunter.”
“Like you’ve done a day of exercise in your life.” Mr. Peterson took a drink out of a concealed container, then asked Zipper: “You planning to show tonight?”
“Why?”
“Principal Buckley wants someone on the field in case he needs ‘em.”
“For what? Mowing?”
“To keep the fields clear during the game.”
“I’m not a bouncer.”
“Rumor is there may be a storm coming.”
“Do you melt in the rain or something?”
“Don’t be a prick. I have to pick my girls up from their own games.”
“I see.”
“So can you make it?”
Zipper wore his trademark smirk. “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said.
“Good. Be here at five o’clock.” Mr. Peterson took another swig and then added: “You can leave now. Rest up. I’ll finish the bleachers.”
Zipper nodded, walked off, but looked back. The exact placement of everyone from Alex and Tom’s families to Mrs. Walters to Sue to their soccer groupies unfolded before him. He could picture the surest way to ignite the explosives, and he knew just when to take out his gun. He walked along the woods, plotting his escape route and then laughed.
There was only one escape Zipper wanted, and only one thing that could provide it: a gun, carefully hidden.
* * *
Sure enough, my friends decided to start the party early. I’d never realized just how much we drank until I was there with them, watching beer can after beer can pile up.
How I longed for the taste, even the aftertaste, of just one can of beer.
But now I got to see, for the first time sober, just what my friends acted like.
There were dozens of people there. Some, like Jessica, drank moderately and didn’t attract much attention. The one who stood out to me was Sue. She was trying to draw a sexy tattoo on some guy she picked up just before they made out. She finished and laughed drunkenly. She started making out way too wildly with this guy who just followed her to a mall and gave her his number. That was the qualification: some older guy showed interest, and Sue was willing to compromise every last moral just to make out with him and have a boyfriend. Alcohol was the means to loosening her up.
“Careful, Sue,” Tom said. “They’ll never let you in if you can’t walk in a straight line.”
“You can’t play a straight line,” Alex said, “but they let you on the team.”
Both Alex and Tom drank—stupidly—before the game. They told themselves it was just one beer, which they savored, and that was true. It wasn’t like they were making themselves the entertainment like Sue was. But they couldn’t go without that one beer.
“I’ll bet you,” Tom said, “that I make more goals than you.”
“You’re on. But what’s the wager? Make it worth my time.”
Tom smirked and then looked at Sue. “Ten minutes with Sue,” he said.
“I can get that for free,” Alex replied.
“Hey,” Sue said.
Her boyfriend stood up, trying to make a stand, but he was too drunk and fell down again.
Alex sipped his beer, looking away from it all.
For a moment his eyes became clear, alert, and he looked right at me.
I’d forgotten that I was there at all.
“Fay,” he whispered.
There I was, the queen of black mist, which was the ghostly equivalent to letting your boyfriend see you without your makeup on.
I had one moment, one clear second when I could tell Alex how much I loved him, how sorry I was for everything. Or I could tell him how much danger he was in.
I pointed to a zipper, the only thing that came to mind.
“Damn,” Alex said. “I could’ve sworn I just saw Fay.”
“Knock it off with that garbage. We have a game,” Tom said.
“She pointed to a zipper,” Alex said.
Tom and Sue laughed, as did Sue’s drunken boyfriend, who probably didn’t know why.
“That’s sick,” Tom said. “You have the hots for a dead girl.”
“Not my zipper,” Alex said.
“Then whose?”
“Sue’s.”
“So Ghost Fay’s a lesbian?” Tom asked. “Did you drive her to it?”
“Stop talking about Fay,” Alex said.
“Fine. Just keep your mind on the game, you drunk.” Tom came over, gave Alex a pat on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go. It’s showtime.”
The
two clanged their beer cans together and then tossed them. They brushed the alcohol from their mouths and then gathered their gear. Drunken kids, led by Sue, stood up and cheered the great soccer team’s departure like it was a triumph in ancient Rome.
* * *
I looked over Zipper’s shoulder one more time as he texted away, typing in his Twitter feed with no followers.
“This is my last time on Twitter,” he tweeted.
He tweeted a few smaller messages, like: “When police discover this it’ll be too late,” and “This was done out of love, not hate” and “Love you, Mom and Pop” with a link to “Adam’s Song” by Blink 182 to stress how it wasn’t his parents’ fault.
How lonely the posts looked on the web. Zipper’s blog had already announced his suicide, and no one had noticed.
THE NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING
Chapter 12
Phantoms of white light, shaped like butterflies and orbs, swirled around me. I was too consumed in darkness to see their faces.
“Belinda?” I asked.
Three of the spirits came up to me. One was Belinda, with the glowing white-blond hair. The other two I didn’t know or couldn’t make out, Taker that I was.
“You will not fight without friends,” Belinda said to me.
“That’s a little vague,” I said. “How many of you are going to stand by me?”
“By you?” Belinda said. “None.”
“You might want to look up the meaning of the word friends then.”
“Such a Taker,” Belinda said. “So negative.”
“I’m fighting so that the rest of my school doesn’t end up like me, young and dead. I’d say that gives me the right to be a little negative.”
“That’s not your fight,” Belinda said. “This you must understand. You cannot save the entire school. Your fight is with Crazy T, who will test you as his successor. In that fight you must stand alone. Our fight is for the lives of your friends.”
I looked around at the mists of Takers filling the skies. There were so many, circling, each ready to claim a life.
“I’ll take whatever help I can get,” I said, “wherever it comes from.”
A ghostly red fiery lake opened up, surrounding and then swallowing the field of play. The Burgundy Hill High fields became like a supernatural pit of hell, with Takers flying everywhere.
The players for both teams were out on the field, passing balls, making plays, warming up for the biggest, and perhaps last, game of their lives.
Spectators began settling in, filling the stands, including Mrs. Walters, who took to the ticket stand.
Next were the families of Alex, Tom, and the other players. They were a loud, rowdy bunch, and they staked out the best seats, competing with the Franklin Shore families to see who got preferential seating.
Steph showed up alone. She hid in the bleachers with a few familiar high school students and said little.
Sue and Jessica and the drunks came next, hoping to sneak in without having to take the breathalyzer. But Mr. Higgins was there with Mr. Buckley. Neither was that capable at administering the test, but test Sue they did. Not too surprisingly, Sue and her friends cheated the system and passed. Leave it to Sue—the one time being a drunk might save her life and she had to play sober.
“This will be a good thing for the school,” Mr. Buckley said, turning his attention away from the drinkers.
He always spoke like he was before a crowd, even if he was just speaking to himself.
“We’ve dedicated the game to Fay, Cindy, Aliya, and to Steph and her mother,” Mr. Buckley went on to anyone who’d listen. “We’ve asked each of the parents to be here.”
“Have any accepted?” Mr. Higgins asked.
Mr. Buckley shook his head. “It’s too soon,” he said. “I do hope someone shows up to say a few words to the crowd first. These kids need a boost.”
The crowd grew in size and in noise, until nearly the entire town of Burgundy Hill found itself crammed into the bleachers by the lights.
I looked at the field. Takers were following the soccer stars, mocking them.
Rope Man, at home in his native jock element, tossed a lasso across the neck of Tom, who he planned to personally see killed. Burn Girl and Cut Girl took stations near where Zipper had loaded up the explosives underground, just waiting for the time to detonate it all. Perhaps the most sickening sight was Preggers, who followed Alex around more overtly than she did in life, smiling as she planned to stake her claim. I saw her attention shift just a moment, and then I saw why: unbelievably, Aliya was wheeling herself to just beside the bleachers. Her parents followed. Preggers smiled her Taker smile, extended her arms, welcoming Aliya to death by fire.
“Each Taker only gets to take one soul,” Crazy T said.
He was fluttering among the legions of black mists, then swooped right down by Mrs. Walters.
“I know just who I’m going for,” Crazy T went on.
“Be strong,” Belinda told me.
“If every Taker gets one soul,” I said, “then I know just who I’m going for too.”
Crazy T sized me up. “Try it,” he said.
“All in good time.”
The Takers took their positions, forming impenetrably around the explosives, around the soccer team, and around Zipper, who was wandering around the sides of the fields with his green camouflage backpack. Moments earlier Takers clouded him so much that not even I could see through that much darkness. I could only imagine him loading his guns, checking them in the woods, making perfectly sure that nothing would go wrong. I could feel the anger, the fear, in his aura, which whipped around in angry reds and blacks like a bloody tiger unleashed upon the crowd. Up and down Zipper paced to calm himself, using the pretense of having to check the field.
Before the soccer team was announced, out came the cheerleaders.
“How do you spell champion?” the captain asked a live crowd.
She was a demure redhead named Monica who stood in perfect place by her teammates. I wondered if she knew I had died at all.
“B-U-R-G-U-N-D-Y H-I-L-L!” her squad shouted, jumping up and down and cheering wildly.
The soccer moms and dads clapped, but the crowd, unappeased, started their own chants.
“On the first day God made soccer,” Sue’s drunken boyfriend shouted, “and saw that it was great.”
The high school boys took the lead.
“On the second day,” they continued, “God made Franklin Shore soccer…We all make mistakes.”
The boys laughed and chanted “We all make mistakes” again as if it was ridiculously funny. Alcohol made idiots feel like Oscar Wilde. I’d know. I spent my life as one of them.
Another bench, filled with equally drunk Franklin Shore kids, took to chanting: “Sucks” every time the cheerleaders spelled out Burgundy Hill.
This chant led to parents cringing, and a few chant leaders got broken up by teachers.
The gesture was unnecessary, though, as the entire field became quiet the moment Aliya wheeled into full view.
A huge ovation started out and soon the Burgundy Hill chants turned to: “We love you, Ali.” The Franklin Shore boys even took to the chants, and the parents and other students were silent, just watching the only survivor of the most infamous drunk driving crash in town history situate herself next to the bleachers.
Principal Buckley made a big production out of going up to Aliya, shaking her hand like she was a visiting ambassador from some far-off country.
In a way, I suppose she was, having been to death and back again.
Crazy T sought my attention, forming from the darker mists with a cruel smile on his lips as he floated, stirring up his Takers.
I stood by Aliya, as did a few Keepers, trying to give her strength.
“We don’t want to make any speeches,” Aliya’s mom said.
“I’ll say a few words,” Aliya volunteered.
“Dear, no,” her father said. “No one expects—”
&n
bsp; “I should say something,” Aliya said. “Is Steph here?” she asked.
Principal Buckley nodded.
“Okay. Get me a mic,” she said.
Principal Buckley went back before the crowd and tried to quiet the chants. The chants of “Ali” only grew louder until everyone was on their feet, applauding. Principal Buckley went over to the announcers’ table and asked them to announce that Aliya had something to say. They did so and passed the principal a working mic. He passed it along to Aliya, whose parents wheeled her to the center of the field.
Aliya looked around. The two teams were getting ready to take their announce positions to be called out to the field, but not one of them was focused on hearing their names. They all stood, applauding, waiting for Aliya to speak.
“One week ago,” Aliya said, “I was in a wreck that claimed three lives.”
All applause died; there wasn’t a sound on the field or in the bleachers.
“My best friend, Fay, is dead. My good friend Cindy is gone, and Steph’s mom, who was innocent, is gone too.”
Aliya started crying, but still there was silence.
“I learned this week that I may be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, and I grew scared and angry and wished that I was dead,” Aliya said. “But what we did was wrong. My parents don’t want me to say anything because of a lawsuit. We need the money since it will take millions and millions to keep me alive for the rest of my life. But at least I’m alive. Steph’s mom isn’t. And while I can’t ever apologize enough for what I did, for what Fay did, and for what Cindy did, as the only one of us left to speak, I feel I should say sorry from the bottom of my heart. I need to warn other kids not to drink and drive the way I did. I know that sounds corny. I know you’ll do what you’ll do anyway, and I can even tell a few of my friends have been drinking before this game. Some of them got behind the wheel. But if one kid looking at me, seeing a reminder of what drinking can do, if that kid stops, then all of this will have been worth it, everything except the deaths that didn’t have to happen. I’m not a great speaker, and I don’t know quite how to end,” Aliya said, “but I will fight to be back in high school before graduation. I want to be a daily reminder to my friends to stay sober. And I want to be a daily reminder of how precious life is and of how quickly it can be taken away.”
Spree (YA Paranormal) Page 13