It took her a moment to sense what J.R. must have.
The physical world blinked back into being as Janis seized Scott’s hand.
“Ready for that walk?” she asked.
3
“A disturbance?” Scott asked, still trying to picture what Janis was telling him.
“Like the lines of space had been altered,” she said, “messed with.”
“And this was over the glass door?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what J.R. was reacting to.”
Scott looked over at his poodle, who was stretching his leash to sniff at the brown husk of a horseshoe crab. Though J.R. appeared healthy enough now, Scott remained bothered. He’d never seen him behave like that before—as though he’d been excited and in mortal pain at the same time. Scott tugged him along, stepping over the leash to keep from getting tangled up again.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
Janis pushed her hands into the pockets of her hooded Thirteenth Street High sweatshirt and shook her wind-blown ponytail. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. A point of entrance, maybe?”
“You think someone warped space?”
“We’ve been privy to stranger,” she reminded him.
Scott pushed up his glasses and looked around. They were following a spotty path through a swath of sea grass that swept the shore. The Gulf chopped to their left. To their right, frame beach houses rose in a lonely procession. Once more, he was struck by the utter unremarkable-ness of Murder Creek. “I guess that would rule out the detective’s petty thief theory.”
“And then some,” Janis agreed.
“Well, they’re probably long gone by now.” Scott tugged J.R. away from a gelatinous blob of jelly fish. “And it’s not like they took anything that valuable. Though I think my dad had his stomach set on those Humpty Dumpty chips.”
Janis chuckled, light seeming to return to her eyes.
“Hey, you hungry?” he asked, realizing he was starving. He was also anxious to hit the reset button on their vacation. To have it be the fun respite they both needed. “The boardwalk’s closed, but there’s a bar-and-grill downtown. Goof’s, I think it’s called. Bit of a grease pit, but they make a decent burger.”
Janis slipped her hands around his elbow. “It’s a date.”
Where the sea grass gave way to sand, Scott and Janis climbed a steep staircase to the boardwalk. The store fronts were shuttered. Some, Scott knew, would not be reopening. The place had never attracted the tourist swarms promised by Murder Creek’s mayor. Judging by the graffiti, it was attracting a fair amount of juvenile delinquents, though.
TURDER CREEK, one message read.
For Scott’s mother, the failure of the boardwalk—and the town, more generally—was an itch that had begun to fester. She blamed everyone and everything for her misfortune, save her own real-estate speculating.
But Scott didn’t want to think about that, either.
They strolled in silence, J.R.’s nails clicking over the boardwalk’s graying planks. Seagulls circled and called forlornly. At the end of the empty storefronts, Scott led Janis beneath an arcing sign that announced the amusement park—MURDER WORLD—in a mosaic of bulbs, now dim.
“Where are we going?” Janis asked as Scott set J.R. over a locked turnstile.
“Thought we’d take a little shortcut,” he said, planting his hands on the turnstile and swinging his legs over like a gymnast. A year or so before, the same maneuver would have landed him on his face.
“I’m usually up for an adventure, but…” Janis scratched the inside of an elbow as she glanced around. “Are you sure about this?”
Scott could see that something was still gnawing on her intuition. He slipped his backpack from one shoulder and fished his hand inside until he encountered a headlamp. Untangling the wires that ran to a car battery, he drew the lamp out and secured it around his forehead. As he raised his face to Janis’s, he cocked an eyebrow, fully conscious of how dorky he looked.
Janis’s mouth slanted into a smile. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“I swapped the bulb for a laser.”
“Ah,” Janis said. “Sneaky.”
As Janis cleared the turnstile, Scott tested his device, watching a red spot appear and disappear between his Nikes when he clicked it on and off. The laser was a cheapie, but it would act as a channel for his powers, allowing him to generate a concussive-force blast. His Champions-designed helmet? Now that was the Ferrari. It featured a fifty-thousand-dollar laser—which was precisely why it was locked up in a high-security facility back in Gainesville.
“For just in case,” he said, adjusting the headlamp and threading his free arm back through the pack strap.
They wandered the amusement park’s thoroughfare, past closed food and drink kiosks and a locked video arcade where Scott used to burn through his allowance, playing games like Asteroids and Space Invaders. He wasn’t as into the rides. He’d been a little afraid of them, actually—and more than a little afraid of the beef-faced men who powered their greasy levers.
He remembered those summer afternoons: the cacophony of shouts and thrill-screams and electronic sounds—so different from the present landscape, where all he could hear were the seats of the giant Ferris wheel squeaking overhead and the occasional skitter of garbage.
“This isn’t creepy or anything,” Janis remarked.
Scott chuckled uncomfortably. He’d brought Janis in here to cheer her up, or at least to help shift her thoughts from whatever was bothering her. But as they passed beneath the grim scaffolding of the Blood Curdler roller coaster, he feared he’d accomplished the opposite.
“Yeah, sorry,” he said, rubbing her shoulder. “This place used to be a lot cooler when there were actually, you know, people.”
Even J.R. was beginning to behave nervously, his large, liquid eyes flicking around, his nose twitching at the scummy smell that hung over the park.
They sped their pace, past the blue-and-white-topped carousel and then Murder Mansion, with its gnarled plaster trees and nightmarish turrets. To their left, a massive dome held the Bloodsucker, a tilt-and-spin whose insane G-forces, blasting music, and flashing lights had once given Scott vertigo for a week. He pointed to the ride’s entrance, which passed through the mouth of a vampire, the red tips of its fangs chipped and peeling.
“That face used to give me nightmares,” he confessed.
Janis burst out laughing. “He looks like a constipated version of Count Chocula.”
“Well, yeah, now…”
“And check out that widow’s peak.” Janis looked from the fanged face to Scott and pressed her hands into the hair above his temples. She cocked her head in appraisal. “That’s actually a pretty good look for you.”
“You’ve got a thing for vampires now?” He turned Janis around and, hands on her shoulders, walked her ahead of him. In a thick East European accent he asked, “Do you vant me to suck your blood?”
Laughter shook Janis’s body until she froze. Scott bumped into her back.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Just keep walking,” she whispered, seizing his hand and veering toward the right.
Scott peeked over. On the backside of the Bloodsucker, which was still rounding into their view, a pack of guys in black dusters leaned against the wall, smoke scattering from their bowed heads. Their postures alone spoke to trouble. When the wind brushed Scott’s face, he caught the low, seedy smell of pot.
Before Scott could look away, one of the hoodlums raised his pale face.
“Well, looky here. Fresh meat.”
The words drilled Scott between the shoulder blades and prompted Janis to squeeze his hand.
“Don’t acknowledge them,” she said.
A couple of others took up the jeering chant: “Fresh meat, fresh meat, fresh meat.”
Hot blood climbed Scott’s neck and broke over his face. It was middle school all over again. And for the taunting to happen in f
ront of Janis … With trembling fingers, he clicked on the laser.
“No, Scott,” Janis warned. He heard the laser click back off.
“Yo, Red,” one of the hoodlums called. “Ditch the stiff, and we’ll show you our version of an amusement park.”
One of them laughed. “It’ll be the ride of your life.”
This time Janis stopped and spun. The hoodlums had separated from the wall and were sauntering toward them, faces whitish and smirking, eyes alight with malevolent interest. Earrings, some with feathers, dangled from left earlobes. Long hair batted in the wind. Scott looked from the four of them to the red points on Janis’s cheeks. Energy radiated from her.
“Back off,” she warned.
None of them slowed. They continued to amble forward, their smirks growing.
“Is that a threat?” the lead one asked. He was taller than the others, his spiked blond hair falling in dirty tails over each shoulder. His face hardened into cruel angles when he smiled.
Easy now, Scott thought toward Janis.
He knew what she was capable of. The same telekinetic abilities that had just turned off his laser could hurl the four Poison wannabes the height of the Vertigo Tower—give them the rides of their lives. Except there was the sticky issue of not being allowed to use their powers on the outside. If push came to shove, he and Janis would have to resort to their hand-to-hand combat training.
And Scott had a nasty feeling these guys were packing blades.
“Yeah, you threatening us?” the ones flanking Spike asked. Their shaggy manes of hair whipped in the gray wind. One was wearing a net shirt beneath his black duster while the other was shirtless, his lean chest draped with leather necklaces.
Scott cleared his throat. “C’mon, guys. We’re not bothering you.”
“Yeah, but you’re on our turf,” Spike said calmly. The chains on his black boots rattled as he came to a stop in front of them. J.R. shuffled backward, a growl crackling in his chest.
“I didn’t see the sign,” Scott answered.
Spike raised his pale blue eyes slightly, the pupils mere points. “Maybe you should have used your little headlight.”
The two flankers laughed wickedly. Beyond their shoulders, Scott saw their fourth member. His hair was dark blond and curly, the jacket beneath his coat a mosaic of dingy skull patches. His face pinched as he dragged off a joint, a fist-sized goiter bobbing from his throat.
“And maybe you should have used the kickstands on your little motorbikes,” Janis said, nodding past them.
The four hoodlums looked at one another and then wheeled around. Their black and chrome motorcycles, which they’d parked behind the Bloodsucker, were teetering like Dominoes. The sound of their collapse was brutal. Something shattered, scattering over the pavement like thrown pebbles.
Net Shirt drove his hands into his sandy brown mane. “Oh, shit!”
Bare Chest and Goiter set off after him, back to their bikes. The corner of Janis’s lips twitched upward.
Nice going, Scott thought.
What’s a rule’s charm if not to be broken? she replied.
Spike turned back to Scott and Janis. “Well, well, well,” he said, opening his coat with the hands in his pockets, “saved by the spill.” Something like mad humor danced in his eyes before they narrowed to red-rimmed blades. “Now get the hell out of Murder World before it lives up to its name.”
“You can have this rat’s nest,” Janis said. “Come on, Scott.”
But Scott didn’t yield to her gentle tug. Beneath his coat, Spike was wearing a black V-neck. A brown splotch marred the left breast, as though from a bleach spill. The splotch was in the crude shape of a heart. Scott knew the blotch; he knew the heart shape. For as far back as Scott could remember, his father had kept the shirt at the beach house for night wear.
“Your shirt,” Scott said as Spike was whirling to leave. “Where’d you get it?”
Spike turned back with a leering grin. “This old thing?”
“I asked you a question.”
“I start revealing my wardrobe secrets,” Spike purred, “and soon everyone in Murder Creek will be dressing like me.”
Anger quaked in Scott’s throat. “What’s your name?”
“Pudding Tang.”
Scott shot an arm forward and balled the lapel of Spike’s jacket inside his fist. J.R. yelped in excitement. “You don’t start giving me answers,” Scott said, jerking him until they were almost nose to nose, “and you and me are going to have a very serious problem. Do you understand?”
Scott had never picked a fight in his life—he had always been the one being picked on—but he knew his Champions training was more than enough to handle this emaciated punk. He also knew he’d left himself open to a knife thrust to the gut. He was too furious to care.
Spike didn’t resist, though. Hands in his pockets, he continued grinning, his chill eyes shifting between Scott’s, as though marking him.
“Don’t waste your energy,” Janis said, her hands wrapping Scott’s arm. “Let the police deal with him.”
Scott glared at Spike, breaths flaring his nostrils. The thought of that dirtbag in their beach house, rifling through their things, taking what wasn’t his…
With a hard sigh, Scott shoved him away. Janis leading, they aimed toward the turnstiles at the back of the park. The lights of the downtown beyond glowed in the dusky afternoon.
Behind them, Spike began to laugh a hoarse, throaty laugh.
“Ignore him,” Janis said.
Scott peeked over his shoulder. Spike’s head was thrown back from his open mouth, reminding Scott of the entrance to the Bloodsucker ride. But that’s not where the similarity ended. A cold bolt shot down Scott’s spine and landed in his bladder.
“What is it?” Janis asked.
“No, biggie.” He swallowed. “Just that our new friend is sporting a pair of fangs.”
4
“Vampires?” Janis said, not meaning to sound as dubious as she did. She finished halving her burger with a steak knife and raised her gaze to Scott. “A bit of a leap, don’t you think?”
“How is that a leap?” His eyes faltered before growing earnest again. “Spike was wearing my dad’s shirt, which means he was the one who stole it. There was no sign of entry, no evidence left at our house—at any of the broken-into houses, according to what you picked up from the detective—which means Spike didn’t use conventional means to enter and exit. And oh, let’s see, he has fangs.”
“So you’re suggesting, what exactly, that he turned into a bat?”
Scott seemed to have forgotten about his burger, which sat slip-shod in his basket beside a pile of over-salted fries. But while the excitement in Murder World may have stolen Scott’s appetite, it had only stoked Janis’s. A savory chunk of her medium-rare burger vanished behind her first bite.
“Or mist,” Scott said defensively.
Janis lifted her chin. “You mean like that?”
Scott flinched as a gray plume drifted over their booth. He jerked his head around to the bar, where an aging woman had just hitched herself onto a stool, her drawn lips pinched around a cigarette.
“Ha, ha,” Scott said thinly.
“That was mean. I’m sorry.”
“Then why are you still smiling?”
“This? It’s my sympathetic smile.”
Janis felt him grip her knee beneath the table as he squinted his face in mock anger. “Seriously,” he said, sitting back. “What do you think about my vampire theory. Don’t hold back.”
“As if a Graystone could,” she said, taking another bite of burger. She wasn’t quite as skeptical and pragmatic-minded as her father and sister, but the attributes were hard to shake.
“Let’s hear it.”
“Well…” She paused to dab her mouth with a napkin. “You make a decent case. But from what little I know of vampires, the biggest blow is that they only come out at night. Isn’t sunlight death to their kind? And yet there they were,
roaming around at two in the afternoon.”
Scott looked toward the front window and mumbled, “It is pretty cloudy out…”
“And I’ve heard that vampirism is sort of a thing now.”
“How so?”
“It’s supposed to be an offshoot of the Goth scene, but more intense. You know Star from school, right? Well, in addition to dressing like her, sporting loads of black makeup and piercings and all of that, these vamp groups take it a step further. For one, they drink blood…”
“Wait, blood blood?”
“And,” she said, pointing a fry at him, “some have been known to file their teeth to points.”
Scott frowned as he swirled a wad of ketchup with one of his own fries. She could feel him struggling with how to resurrect his theory. “Well, that wouldn’t explain how they got in and out of the beach house without a trace.”
“You’re a lock picker. Couldn’t they have…?”
“No way.” Scott shook his head emphatically. “I had my parents swap the old locks out for security-grade models. I can pick them, yeah, but that’s because I’ve had years of practice.” He laughed sharply. “I’d like to see one of them try to get past a five-pin security chamber.”
“Hey, it was just a thought.”
“Let’s go back to that disturbance you felt over the sliding glass door.”
Janis thought of the way the astral lines comprising the door had appeared spent, taken on a dull ochre color. “That was weird,” Janis admitted. “But I didn’t pick up the same energy around the gang of faux vampires. They were burying something, though. I did feel that.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I mentioned letting the police deal with them, your spike-haired friend reacted. Not outwardly—he just kept on smiling—but in his deeper layers, something clenched. Like a fist.”
“They’ve probably been in legal trouble before.”
XGeneration (Book 5): Cry Little Sister Page 2