“Ray, that wasn’t what you think.”
“Let me guess. You were saving her from a brutal attack.”
I’d never seen her cheeks that red, that kind of anger in her eyes.
“No, it was something else. I’ll tell you if you’ll just calm down.”
“No, Owen! I won’t! You promised not to hide things from me, but you keep sneaking around with Jess.” She pushed against my chest. “Just say it. You want to be with her. I don’t care!”
She turned and kept stomping down the street.
I followed. “If you don’t care, why don’t you stop and let me explain?”
She spun around and raged at me. “Because I can’t stand liars! And that’s what you are, Owen Edmonds! Don’t deny it!” She went back to stomping. “I’m such an idiot. To think I believed your stories.” Her voice cracked, the pain seeping through her tantrum. “Creepers? Shackles?”
“Ray Anne, please, there’s an explanation.”
She ranted in my face again, her eyes narrow and disgusted. “You aren’t committed to me. You aren’t even a loyal friend! I can’t believe I took you seriously.”
That’s when the kingdom of hate showed up—three Creepers, headed right for me. A really bad time to ask Ray Anne for help.
“Hey,” I said. “Let’s talk this out, at your house.”
“I’m not ready to go home, and I wouldn’t let you in, anyway.”
She stopped her angry march and shouted toward the black sky. “How could you let someone deceive me again? Are you even there, God? Do you care at all?”
The Creeper trio was closing in fast.
“I know you don’t want to hear this right now,” I said, “but there’s three—”
“Oh, shut up!” She stopped under a streetlamp, arms crossed. “I’m done listening to you. Leave.”
I recognized Faithless, but its accomplices were new: Betrayal and Distrust. They fanned out.
But not around me.
“Ray Anne.” I went to her. “I get that you’re angry, but you have to listen to me. Something’s happening—not to me. To you.”
She stuffed her index fingers inside her ears.
Distrust plunged its hand underneath the neckline of its grimy garment and pulled out some sort of burlap sack, dark and dilapidated. Without taking its eyes off Ray Anne, it rummaged through the bag, pulling out two chains. It stepped closer, careful not to cross into her light.
“I said leave.”
“There’s three of them, and one has chains.”
“That’s enough, Owen!”
Distrust tossed a chain to each of the Creepers on either side of Ray Anne. Betrayal went first, locking its wrist inside the menacing cuff, then hoisting the chain in the air, whipping it toward Ray Anne. It fell and slammed the pavement.
“They’re after you!”
She put her flexed hand in my face. “Not. Another. Word.”
Faithless tossed its chain at her too, and finally, after a few attempts, they both managed to whip the links around her throat.
“The Creepers are attacking you! We have to run!” Surely her parents’ combined light would make a difference.
“Creepers are afraid of me, remember? Try to keep your stories straight.”
Distrust pulled four cords from the bag, much longer than the ones that hung from people’s heads—at least fifteen feet long. Then it discarded the shabby sack, tossing it not far from me, and began the sickening process of burrowing the cords, two in each palm. Once the cords were nestled deeply, Distrust swung its bony arms in the air, sending the grisly cords soaring behind Ray Anne. They pounded her in the back of the head and stuck, latching on to her scalp like bloodthirsty leeches.
I watched as Ray Anne’s fractured heart crumbled.
“Everyone lies to me.” She sank to the ground, her hands buried in her hair. “I can’t trust anyone.”
Her tearful confession flipped a switch in the alternate world. The three assailants began to moan, a monotone hum that covered me in chills, and more Creepers emerged—dozens of them, spilling out of the shadows between houses, crawling from the street gutters, dropping like bats from the dark sky.
I crouched down. “I know you’re upset, but you have to stop this. Stop talking and let me walk you home. Please!”
“Don’t lecture me, Owen!” I thought she might hit me. “I can make my own rules!”
The evil forces were really stirred now. They pressed in close, making a tight circle around us, just beyond her aura, all moaning a morbid, one-note chorus with no need to pause for a breath.
I couldn’t sit there and watch them batter her soul. I rushed to Faithless and read the inscription on the cuff around its wrist, eye level with me.
“Who is Tori Deanne Lansing?”
“What?”
“Tori Lansing! Do you know her?”
“She was a bully in elementary school. She used to make my life miserable. Why?”
I charged over to Betrayal and read that cuff too. Mrs. Greiner’s name. Okay?
“Your mom’s middle name is Ruth.”
“How’d you know that?”
I slammed on my knees in front of her. “Ray Anne, those names are on the cuffs, on the chains being used to torment you right now.” I squeezed her hands. “They’re around your neck. And there are cords attached to your head—and tons of Creepers in a wall around us right now, watching you.”
“I—I don’t know.”
I pushed back and pounded a fist on the concrete. “I’m not lying to you!”
I was out of options.
Then hope shined down on us.
I stood, straining to see over the Creepers. Sure enough, help was coming, lighting the atmosphere. Seven Watchmen, dressed for battle, were charging toward us.
“Watchmen! They’re here to rescue you, Ray!”
I counted down the seconds, grinning, ecstatic at what I knew was coming—Creepers squealing, pleading, fleeing the wrath of Ray Anne’s avengers. Any second now.
The three oppressors linked to Ray Anne kept up their assault, but the others turned outward, hissing like venomous snakes, assembling tighter around their prey.
This was it. Time for the Watchmen to rain down judgment. I held my breath.
But they slowed their pace. Then stopped completely, glaring down at the mob.
“Something’s wrong,” I said. “The Watchmen, they’re standing still. They look frustrated.” I lifted my arms. “Hey! Help!”
No movement.
“Please, stop,” Ray Anne said.
I looked down and saw she was shivering. I turned to her.
“I feel awful,” she said. “I’m so confused. And scared.”
I grabbed her hands and held them to my chest. “Ray Anne, listen to me. You’re playing right into their trap. You’ve got to stop. Come back to your senses. Remember who you are. What you believe. What you stand for. Can you do that? For me?”
She closed her eyes and released her head back, a runaway tear traveling down her cheek. Deep breaths. Deeper still. Then a nod.
“Lord, please forgive me for—”
Instant chaos, so loud and intense that I hunkered down and covered my head. But not for long. I wanted to watch, take it all in. I saw Watchmen hurling Creepers so hard that some flew a hundred feet away. Creepers ran and hid in obvious places, trembling. One tried to float up, but a Watchman grabbed its foot right out of the air and slammed the Creeper to the cement. It sank into the earth like the pavement was water.
It didn’t take long for every last one of them to be driven away. I looked back at Ray Anne, and the chains and cords were gone.
“I wish you could have seen that!” My arms were raised like an MMA champion. But then I noticed her. Sitting still, face to the sky, eyes closed. Tearful.
The Watchmen were still poised for action, looking for stragglers, but one of them stopped and gazed down at Ray Anne. He was magnificent, arms and legs like a bronze statue, calf mus
cles bigger than my head.
He crouched and put his hand across his chest. Then he used his other humongous hand to wipe a tear from Ray Anne’s minuscule cheek with the tip of his finger.
I felt it—compassion filling the atmosphere like the warmth of a morning sunrise. I threw myself to the ground beside him, attempting to look into his radiant face. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”
He didn’t even glance my way.
He and his companions peered into the sky, then charged off in the opposite direction they’d come from.
“It’s over now.” I sat next to Ray Anne, welcoming the new calm. A quiet, victorious moment.
There was no denying that I’d just seen Ray Anne’s prayer ignite a drastic change in the unseen realm, but was the difference maker the actual prayer or her personal resolve to resist the Creepers’ manipulation?
I also wondered, if Lights could be refitted with chains and cords, why hadn’t I seen glowing people dragging stuff around? It was worth thinking through; now just wasn’t the time.
I told Ray Anne about the Watchman’s affection toward her. And after a while, I told her what really had happened with Jess—pregnancy and all.
“That’s serious.” She wiped her cheeks. “I’m sorry I freaked out on you. I have a huge fear of being lied to, and sometimes I overreact.”
I put my arm around her. “What happened? To make you so afraid?”
She stared at the cement. “Lucas told my mom he was having suicidal thoughts, but she didn’t want to burden me with the news. My dad thought it was best to tell me, but my mom talked him out of it. I knew Lucas was depressed and seeing a counselor, but I had no idea . . .”
She covered her face. I waited.
“There’s so much I would have said and done if I’d have known. Maybe things would have even turned out differently.” I pulled her closer. “I’ve forgiven my mom, but it still hurts sometimes. Especially if I think someone is holding out on me again.”
I’d buried my friends but never a brother. I ached for her.
We sat awhile in the silence, my arm tight around her the whole time.
“What do you think happened tonight?” she eventually said, twisting her hair into a knot. “With the Creepers coming after me?”
My sweet, trusting Ray Anne was back.
“Creepers look for any opportunity to get in our heads. I think tonight, they threw your past in your face, so to speak—used your old chains and cords against you. Took advantage of you in a low moment. And as long as you stayed down, they had you.”
“Where’d they get my chains and cords from?”
“There was a sack.” Speaking of which . . . it was still lying there, in the street. I pointed. “You can’t see that, right?”
“See what?”
I walked over to it and took a close look. “They pulled stuff out of this bag.”
“I wish I could see it.”
I reached and touched it, and felt what had to be cords and chains, back in the sack now. The instant I my fingers made contact, a crushing, overwhelming sense of guilt hit me—a crippling feeling of defeat. It was so agonizing, I jerked my hand back. The oppression instantly lifted.
And then I saw something, messy stitches in the fabric. I read them out loud: “RBG.”
“My initials?” Ray Anne stared at me.
“They’re on the bag.” That was weird, but not as weird as what happened next. A shriveled hand reached up through the pavement and snatched the sack, pulling it beneath the earth’s surface.
“Um, Ray Anne. About that bag . . .”
“Wait!” She jumped up so fast it scared me. “Three letters, like the Creeper notes.” I pulled up the images on my phone. “They’re initials, Owen!”
It was all clicking now. And actually about as unsophisticated a code as you can get.
“All targets of a mass attack,” I said.
“How do you know?” She paced in front of me.
I showed her another Creeper note image, zooming in on the numbers. “523.” She could hardly talk fast enough. “Same numbers on all of them.”
“What if it’s a date, Ray Anne?”
She sank to the curb, eyes wide. “May 23 . . . a month away.”
THIRTY-SIX
I BOUGHT RAY ANNE a cup of Starbucks and brought it to her house for our “mass attack” brainstorming session. We weren’t positive we were right about our theory, but it was the best intel we had. She had note cards, highlighters, two spiral notebooks, a white board, and dry erase markers set out on the kitchen table next to a schematic of the school that she’d found online and printed.
“Really?”
“One more thing.” She set a leather journal on top of the office supply explosion.
“What’s that?”
It took her a moment to answer. “I wrote things in here for my brother, then gave it to him as a gift. I’d like to read some of it to you now.”
I didn’t know what she’d put in the journal, but I figured it had to be important.
She motioned for me to sit down. “All I ask is that for the next few minutes, you listen.”
I agreed and lowered into the chair beside her. She proceeded to explain what she called the plan of salvation, flipping through the journal and reading Bible passages she’d copied by hand. It was like she was the teacher and I was a kindergartner on a story-time rug. Not that what she said was childish—just the way she pointed to the text and moved her finger under each word.
In short, she said I needed a Savior, and if I prayed to receive Christ into my heart, God would forgive everything I’d ever done wrong, and I would glow, like her family.
“It can’t be that simple. Everyone would glow.”
“You would think,” she said, “but not everyone is willing to accept God’s invitation.”
I wasn’t suddenly blown over with faith, and it didn’t add up to me that one prayer could erase every wrong I’d ever done. But out of the two of us, she glowed, not me. So maybe there was something to this. And I was willing to try anything at this point if there was a chance it could save me from afterlife torture.
Problem was, the last time I’d talked to God, I’d shouted that I hated him. If there was a Creator who bothered listening to people’s prayers, I doubted he’d be willing to hear mine. But like I said, I’d try anything.
“Do I need to take my hat off?”
Ray Anne reached for my hands. “You can, but I don’t think a Browning ball cap is going to mess up your prayer.” She was so giddy I thought she might break out into one of her drill-team dances.
“Do you get some sort of award at your church for making a convert?”
“Of course not.” She bowed her head, then looked up again. “Well, I technically get my name in a drawing for a Subway gift card for sharing the plan of salvation, but that’s not why I’m doing this.”
“I know. I’m just giving you a hard time.”
We faced one another, and I clutched her fingers in mine, our knees and bowed heads nearly touching. She led me in a prayer that I repeated after her, admitting I had sinned and committing to give up my old self-centered life for a new one where God would save me and lead me and help me discover his plans for me. It was nice enough, as far as prayers go.
We said amen, then I sat there, staring at my feet, waiting for a burst of light—at the very least, an energizing feeling—to wash over me.
It never did.
“Well, you’re my witness. I tried.”
For me, the issue was settled once and for all. Religion was not the answer.
Our brainstorming session turned out to be about as productive as that prayer.
The following week, I went to the meeting my mom had arranged with the defense lawyer—“scumbags,” I’d always called them, but not anymore. I told the same story I’d already told the police but added that Walt and Marshall must have ingested something they regretted, then blamed me as their scapegoat. There was the essence of
truth in it.
The lawyer agreed to represent me. He said he thought investigators would probably leave me alone for the next month until after I graduated, to avoid a surge in negative publicity. “Your senior class has been through enough, but after graduation, I imagine they’ll come after you. But don’t worry, we’ll be ready.”
I made a fat payment and left.
Over the next few weeks, I spent every second with Ray Anne that she’d let me, and we kept racking our brains about May 23. Her plan for stopping Molek and the Creepers between now and then was to pray every day. Not the most reliable action plan. Not that mine was any better.
I tried convincing people to skip school that day. They just looked at me like I was weird. As usual.
In the middle of May, Ray Anne’s parents went out of town, and I fantasized about her inviting me over and us taking advantage of the privacy. But I knew better. Ray Anne would kick me out of her life before she’d go back on her convictions—something I admired about her but had a hard time liking on occasion. I tried to behave—didn’t want to draw any Lust monsters.
That Saturday, my mom handed me the keys to her SUV and a long list of errands to run. While driving, I got to thinking about how no one would be there to see me at my high school graduation except her. Why should I go? I had new priorities in life now, and long school assemblies weren’t one of them, even if it was the last one.
Along the way, I found a ceramic crucifix in the parking lot of our dry cleaner’s and held it up to a Creeper attached to the guy behind the counter as he handed me my mom’s clothes. The guy stared me down like I was a weirdo, but other than that, nothing happened. Shocker.
On my way home, I turned onto the street with the railroad bridge—the place where Jess had brought me, then taken off with Dan. After I begged her to stay away from him.
Sure enough, I spotted her Mustang parked beside the bridge now, but it was the way she was parked that bugged me. Her car was angled toward the curb like she’d flung it there blindfolded. I had no desire to get in some long conversation with her, but I found myself parking.
At first I didn’t see her, but I took a few more steps along the bridge, and my heart skipped a beat. She’d climbed over the railing and was facing the rushing water some fifty feet below, holding on but leaning over like she might let go at any second.
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