Salvation's Song

by Pearl Love

  Tyrell was barely a block from his home when the sensation hit him, subtle but distinctly eerie. He paused and glanced up and down the street. There were a few people and cars ambling along Garfield Avenue, but the area immediately around him was silent. At first he couldn’t quite identify the feeling that came over him, but when the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end, he realized he was being watched, or, more accurately, hunted.

  “What the hell?”

  He spun around in a complete circle, but there was nothing to see besides the old converted mansions and newer houses that lined either side of the block. The air was completely still, and even though it was the first weekend in October, it was suddenly sweltering, as though it was the middle of July.

  He was about to dismiss it as a result of his physical and emotional exhaustion, but then the nausea hit. His knees buckled as his stomach began to churn. He’d had the stomach flu when he was in the seventh grade and, even then, he hadn’t felt this bad. Knives stabbed him in the gut and ripped upward, and he was amazed that his insides hadn’t in fact spilled all over the sidewalk. The only time he’d experienced anything close to this was….

  “Oh God!”

  He gasped as he remembered the heat and stench coming from beneath the bleachers at Kendall High, only this time seemed far worse. He broke out in a sweat, feeling as though he were roasting from the inside. He doubled over as a spike of pain twisted in his middle, but although he gagged, nothing came up. This time he fell on the ground, his knees hitting the concrete with an agonizing thud.

  And then he heard it, the faint but unmistakable sound of a growl. It might have been a dog, but instinctively, he knew better. Whatever it was, it wasn’t an animal, and it definitely wasn’t human. No way a human throat could produce such an alien sound. For the first time in his sixteen years on earth, he was genuinely afraid for his life.

  Tyrell wasn’t sure when he’d started beating on the ground, his hands tapping out an unknown rhythm. At first the music was barely audible, and it began to fade almost as soon as he heard it. He felt like he might faint, but he continued beating his hands against the ground even as his head swam with dizziness. He thought of Jeremy and how much he’d regret it if he never saw him again. He thought about how much he’d hate it if he never got to express how very sorry he was for what he’d done, or more accurately, hadn’t done. He thought about how much better he would feel if only Jeremy would flash those adorable dimples at him again.

  Gradually the music grew in strength, swelling until it overwhelmed the unnerving rumble of sound. It grew in clarity and strength, and soon Tyrell recognized it as that pure brass note he’d heard while standing next to the bleachers. All the while, he focused his mind on Jeremy’s smile and continued to beat his hands against the ground, the pattern coming from some unexplored corner of his subconscious. The concrete scraped his palm, but he dared not stop, somehow knowing that his life depended on it.

  The trumpet’s call blared out over the darkened street, so loud he was sure everyone could hear it for miles around. But no one came out of their homes to investigate the cause of the racket. The street remained as still as before. The music blasted one final refrain, for the first time altering into a rising arpeggio until the final note threatened to shatter glass.

  Abruptly all went quiet, and the only thing Tyrell could hear was the sound of his own ragged breathing. The sensation of paranoia was gone, and he felt a mixture of profound relief and intense fatigue. After giving himself a moment to make sure he wasn’t going to spill his guts over the sidewalk, Tyrell struggled to his feet.

  Now, he was even more desperate to speak with Jeremy. There was no way he could dismiss what had just happened as a hallucination. Something had been trying to kill him, of that he had no doubt.

  Tyrell shuddered as he turned to continue his walk home, remembering as clear as day the piercing screech like the shriek of a wounded beast that had assaulted his ears right before the trumpet call faded away.

  Chapter TWENTY-THREE

  “JEREMY? KIDDO? I have to go to work now, but Irina will be here over her lunch break to check in on you. Jeremy?”

  He pulled the covers farther over his head in his effort to feign sleep even though Monica couldn’t see him. Several more seconds passed before he heard her sigh and finally walk away from his door. He had to use the bathroom, but he refused to get out of bed until she was gone, otherwise, she might realize that he wasn’t sick, at least not physically. He would rather die than tell her what was really wrong. The last thing he needed was General Monica sailing into the principal’s office with murder in her heart. One severe humiliation was more than enough for a single lifetime.

  He closed his eyes in relief when he heard the front door shut. Emelia and Anna had already gone to their respective schools, and Andrew was who knew where. He had the house to himself as he had for the past two days. Sunday had been bad since his parents had been home nearly all day, and it had been more difficult to pretend he was under the weather. Once the workweek rolled around, he’d had an easier time of it.

  Jeremy glanced at the clock sitting on the nightstand next to his bed. It was nearly 9:00 a.m. Homeroom would be starting in a few minutes. Mr. Crabtree had called on Monday after he’d missed school, and Monica had provided an excuse for his absence. He knew his continued charade was on borrowed time. Soon, Mr. Crabtree would be obligated to ask Monica to submit a doctor’s note on his behalf, otherwise the truancy officer would be coming by for a visit. Monica wasn’t big on Western medicine, as she called it, though she wasn’t one of those crazy, crunchy anti-vaxxers. She’d always made sure he and his siblings were up-to-date on all their shots and doctor’s visits. Though she’d yet to insist that he see his pediatrician, a call from the school would quickly change that.

  He groaned and flipped back the covers. His bladder was threatening dire consequences if he kept ignoring its demands. He heaved his weary body off the bed and trudged over to the door of his room. He opened it a tiny crack and peered out into the hallway, but he’d been correct about being alone in the apartment. Everything was quiet, and all of the lights were off except for the one in the bathroom. After taking care of business, he risked looking at himself in the mirror as he washed his hands.

  “You look like shit,” he mumbled to his reflection.

  It was an understatement. His eyes were red and puffy and his skin was blotchy from neglecting to wash his face for three days. Beneath the red spots that had popped up, his complexion was sallow, which had helped immensely in convincing his mother that he was at death’s door. At this point, he would have welcomed the flu in a heartbeat.

  He hadn’t combed his hair since running into the house Saturday night and going straight to his room, and his long hair was a tangled, frizzy mess, sticking up and outward in all directions. He’d ended up sleeping in his clothes after having cried himself to sleep. Fortunately his parents had been visiting Irina, and only Anna was in the house when he’d come home. She’d been talking on the phone to her boyfriend and hadn’t bothered him longer than necessary to confirm that he was the one who’d slammed through the front door. Sunday morning, he’d gotten out of bed long enough to pull on his pajamas, and he’d been wearing them ever since. He wrinkled his nose as he got a whiff of the odor rising from the fabric. Thinking back to the last time he’d showered, he remembered it had been Saturday shortly before he’d gotten dressed to go to the party.

  The mere thought of that travesty was enough to drive him back to his bed. He still couldn’t believe that he’d been so naive. While he might not have imagined anything as awful as what had actually gone down, he should have been more careful. Well, it was too late now. As far as he saw it, he had two choices. He could either transfer to another school, which would be a pain since the term had already started, or he could take Monica’s previous suggestion that he sign up for the online homeschooling course she’d found.

  Neither option appealed.
The first meant starting all over with an entirely new set of strangers he’d need to deal with, while the second would ensure that his band days were at an end. There were several ensembles for people his age, but most were set up through the Chicago Public School system. If he became a homeschooler, those doors would be closed to him.

  Anger flooded Jeremy at the realization that his life had been thoroughly disrupted because of those assholes at Nicole’s party. What had he ever done to them? Nothing, that’s what! While he’d never hidden the fact that he liked boys, he hadn’t been particularly blatant in his preferences. In fact, the only person he’d outright lied to was Patricia.

  “Crap,” he groaned as he closed his eyes and turned away from the mirror.

  He turned out the bathroom light and shuffled back to his room. His behavior toward her had been inexcusable. First he’d led her to believe that he liked her more than as merely a friend, and then he’d used her as a crutch to help him get through the party. The worst, though, was that he’d simply left her behind in a completely foreign part of town while he ran off to wallow in his own misery. If he were her, he’d never speak to him again. He was briefly torn between wanting to go to school and find her so he could apologize and continuing his cowardly avoidance of her and everyone else.

  He flopped heavily onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling. Wishing aside, he seriously needed to think about what he was going to do. Monica wouldn’t let him get away with pretending to be sick for much longer. It was already Tuesday, and he couldn’t afford to miss any more days of class. Winton Yowell’s reputation for rigorous academics was well-deserved, and if he dragged this out much longer, he would be in danger of falling behind.

  But how could he go back? More accurately, how could he face Tyrell again? No matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t get Tyrell’s face out of his head. That blank look Tyrell had given him right before he’d run away in humiliation was unforgettable. He shivered, still haunted by the memory three days later. Beyond the embarrassment and sense of betrayal that he’d been set up so callously, it was Tyrell’s indifference that was the hardest to accept. Even worse, he knew he still liked Tyrell despite everything.

  They had been on the verge of something important, and the realization that their alliance was over before it had truly begun was hard to accept. He felt more than a little guilty for letting his own petty concerns get in the way of what he’d started to think was a higher calling. Yesterday morning, he’d flipped on his radio long enough to hear that a young boy twelve years of age had been found dead behind a dumpster in a Hyde Park shopping center. He’d guessed the reason for the boy’s death even before the news reporter had mentioned that the suspected cause of death was cardiac arrest.

  People were dying, and with or without Tyrell’s help, he knew he had to do something. The police obviously hadn’t picked up on the pattern, not that he could really blame them. To be fair, he wouldn’t have realized anything was going on if it hadn’t been for the eeriness that had accompanied the deaths he and Tyrell had apparently witnessed. Mr. Crabtree’s mysterious phone conversation the day he and Tyrell had been cleaning up the band room proved his teacher knew more than he was letting on. Jeremy needed to speak with him, but that meant that he would need to leave his house and face the world.

  Sighing, he bowed to the inevitable. He would indulge in one last day of solitude, but then he needed to get back to his life. Although he’d worn only his pajamas for the last few days, he hadn’t removed his brother’s pendant. He lifted it off his chest and held it before his eyes.

  “Yeah, Chris, I know what you’d say if you were here. ‘Don’t let the bullies win.’”

  He closed his eyes and squeezed the pendant in his hand, fervently wishing his brother were still alive. He wouldn’t be nearly so frightened if Chris were there to support him like he’d always done before his death. But Chris was gone, and it was time he accepted that fact. It was time he learned to stand on his own.

  “I won’t,” he whispered out loud on the off chance that somewhere, somehow, Chris was listening. “I promise.”

  The journals stored away in their basement storage unit popped into his head, and Jeremy felt the sudden urge to comfort himself with his brother’s thoughts. While he was determined to face what was to come, he might as well get all the help he could.

  TYRELL WAS distraught when Jeremy didn’t show up for school on Monday. Beyond his desperate need to apologize, he was trying to deal with the fact that his little brother’s friend had turned up dead. Given the manner of Jerome’s suspected death, he was convinced it was part of the larger mystery he and Jeremy had only just begun to uncover. He needed to talk to Jeremy so they could figure out how they might prevent any more senseless deaths like Jerome’s or those girls’ or Sam’s. Not to mention, he still needed to tell Jeremy about the freaky encounter he’d had on his way home from the party, since he was convinced it was connected to everything else that was going on.

  Jeremy’s absence wasn’t all that surprising. Very few people would have been able to simply shake off what he’d had gone through. While his absence made Tyrell feel even worse, he respected Jeremy’s need for space to recover.

  As he entered the classroom on Wednesday, his gaze tracked straight to Jeremy’s desk. He’d tried not to worry when Jeremy hadn’t been there on Tuesday either, but now he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that distinctive tumble of blond hair. The ringlets Jeremy usually boasted were loose and limp, and Tyrell grimaced at the sight of his pale complexion. Maybe he really had been sick after all, Tyrell thought until Jeremy met his gaze for all of a millisecond before jerking away like he’d been burned.

  Tyrell hadn’t thought it possible to feel any worse about what happened at the party, but in that moment, he did. By a thousand times.

  “Hey, Jer. You look like crap. Did you eat something bad at Nicole’s? I keep telling people, no one should eat raw vegetables.”

  Jeremy shook his head weakly at Ryan’s questions. Tyrell admired his friend’s attempt to welcome Jeremy back as nonchalantly as possible while at the same time being indescribably uncouth. Ryan’s ability to simultaneously be a nice guy and a complete jerk was truly a skill. Nevertheless, Ryan’s eyes flashed with relief when he saw Tyrell, clearly grateful he wouldn’t have to try and hold a one-sided conversation any longer.

  “Morning, Ty.”

  “Hey.” Tyrell slid behind his desk and slouched back in his seat before tossing a cautious glance toward Jeremy. He swallowed hard and mustered his courage. “You feeling okay?” he asked.

  Jeremy didn’t bother to acknowledge that Tyrell had spoken. He sat motionlessly, staring fixedly at the scarred top of his desk. Tyrell gritted his teeth at the blatant snub but held his tongue. Jeremy had every right to hate him, and it would take time for them to return to where they had been if that was even an option. Booker T. Washington had said it best: “Nothing ever comes to one that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.”

  As was to be expected, Jeremy was nowhere to be found during the lunch period. Cynthia had heard all about the events at Nicole’s party and had been vilifying Tyrell to his face every chance she got since Monday. By lunch, she knew Jeremy was back in school, and she made it her mission to express how irritated she was at both Tyrell and Ryan while they sheepishly ate their rectangular pizza.

  “Trust me, Cynthia,” Tyrell said insistently. “I will beg for his forgiveness as soon as he gives me the time of day.”

  Ryan nodded as he swallowed his large bite of chewy crust. “He wasn’t having anything to do with us this morning. Not that I can blame him.”

  In the face of their obvious contrition, Cynthia eased up and resorted merely to glaring at them evilly in lieu of continuing her verbal derision. “So long as you know just how badly you both fucked up.” She sighed and tossed down her fork, which landed softly in her grilled chicken salad. “I should have gone, no matter how much I can’t stand those brats. Maybe i
f I’d been there I could have at least done something to help.”

  Tyrell didn’t doubt she would have, seeing as how she was a much better person than he was. Lunch continued in morose fashion, their number conspicuously depleted by one. By the time he got up to head to his next class, the pizza was sitting like a brick in his stomach. Of all the days for him to decide to buy lunch for a change, he thought miserably. Cynthia had been wise to go for lighter fare.

  His stress level increased throughout the remainder of the day, and he was glad they didn’t have band practice that afternoon. As much as he wanted to talk to Jeremy, his stomach roiled at the thought of facing him. The next day, however, he got no such reprieve.

  Jeremy was already in his seat when Tyrell arrived Thursday after classes ended, and the presence of several other band members ensured that any overtures he intended to make would have to wait. Mr. Crabtree continued rehearsing them on “Saturn” and started in with the ever popular “Mars.” The jarring rhythm of the 5/4 time signature only increased Tyrell’s edginess. By the time practice was over, he was fidgeting badly, tapping his feet and beating his sticks against his legs whenever he wasn’t playing. The sting of anxious disappointment that swept through him when Jeremy ran out of the room without even storing his clarinet like he was being chased by a pack of wolves merely added salt to the wound.

  By Friday, he was fed up. Even if Jeremy was rightfully pissed at him, they had bigger concerns than their own petty disagreements. Another body had turned up, this time in Oak Park, the first victim he’d heard of outside the city limits. The twenty-four-year-old man had been found feet away from his car in Scoville Park, making him the oldest of the mysterious heart attack sufferers of whom Tyrell was aware. The news had reported that police initially treated the man’s death as a homicide, but the coroner had swiftly put an end to that by ruling that he’d died of natural, if unexpected, causes. With the bodies piling up at such a rapid pace, Tyrell knew that the time for idleness was long past, if indeed they could actually do something to stop the string of unfortunate deaths.