Dead Boy

by Laurel Gale

  He opened the front door. The bells his mother had put there clattered noisily. “You promised.”

  “Come here right now!”

  “Or what? You’ll ground me? I don’t have anything left for you to take away. Dad was right. You can’t do this. Maybe I would be happier living with him.” Except, of course, his father hadn’t offered. His small apartment wasn’t designed for two people, especially not when one of them stank. But that was beside the point right now. “Make that definitely. I hate living with you.”

  “How can you say that?” Her voice had softened. She looked really hurt.

  Crow felt bad—but not bad enough to stop. “I just want to go trick-or-treating. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  He stepped outside and shut the door behind him. To his surprise, it stayed shut. Mrs. Darlingson didn’t chase after him and drag him inside. She didn’t yell at him from the living room. Of course, she’d have plenty to say to him later, but there was no point in thinking about that now. He had a holiday to enjoy.

  It was early—not even five o’clock yet. Hopefully Melody was still home. He walked over and rang the doorbell.

  Mr. Plympton answered, dressed as a chicken and holding a big bowl of candy.

  “Is Melody here?” Crow asked. “We’re supposed to go trick-or-treating together.”

  “I thought she was going with Grace and Hannah.” Mr. Plympton moved his head around, searching for an angle that would let him peer into the eyeholes in Crow’s sheet. “Who are you? Luke? Or is it Travis?”

  The Plymptons’ dog, a floppy-eared mutt, sniffed Crow a couple of times before it started growling.

  “Travis,” Crow said, remembering what Mr. Plympton had said before. He didn’t want his daughter spending time with a boy whose flesh rotted off. Okay, that wasn’t exactly what he had said, but Crow was sure it was what he had meant. “The five of us are going together,” he added.

  “She’s putting on her costume. Why don’t you wait inside?”

  “No thanks. I’ll wait out here.” In a warm and enclosed space, the stench would be more noticeable. A lot more noticeable. Crow couldn’t risk it. Besides, the dog was still growling at him.

  “Suit yourself.” Mr. Plympton shut the door.

  Crow examined the Plymptons’ Halloween decorations, an elaborate graveyard scene, before sitting down between an inflatable vampire and a plastic tombstone. The seconds ticked by. The minutes crawled past. He wondered if Melody was avoiding him. Maybe she was mad because he hadn’t responded to any of her letters.

  The front door opened. Crow jumped up.

  “What are you doing here?” Melody demanded. “Why don’t you guys just leave me alone?”

  Crow’s entire body slumped. “I’m sorry. I won’t bother you anymore.” He started to walk away, ready to go back home and apologize to his mother. “Wait…what do you mean you guys?”

  “Crow?” Melody whispered. “Crow, is that you?”

  He nodded underneath his sheet.

  She sniffed the air a few times. Her nose scrunched up, but then she smiled. “It is you! My dad said you were Travis.”

  “So you’re not mad at me?”

  Her eyes widened. “Of course I’m not mad! I thought you were mad at me. Didn’t you get my letters? Or my emails? Or my phone messages? I called you like a billion times.”

  “My mom cut the telephone wire. She hid the letters from me, too, and then when I found them, I think she started throwing them away.” He frowned. “And I guess she blocked your emails. I didn’t know about those until just now.”

  “Oh. Sorry I couldn’t visit you at night anymore, but my dad had a fit.” She smiled. “I like your costume. It’s funny, you know, ’cause you’re dead.”

  “I like your costume, too. You look…” He paused. If his blood had still circulated, he would have blushed. “Nice.”

  “I’m supposed to look scary,” she said.

  Crow frowned. She was wearing large purple and pink wings, a blue leotard, and antennae. “What’s scary about a butterfly?”

  “They’re just fancy moths, and everyone hates those. A cousin of mine had a moth crawl into her ear once. She had to go to the hospital to have it removed, and I think it ate some of her brain before the doctors could get it out. That’s why she’s so stupid. See?” She pointed to some red smeared around her mouth. “Fake blood. I’m a brain-eating butterfly.”

  Crow was pretty sure butterflies didn’t eat brains, and neither did moths, but he decided not to say anything about it.

  “I’ll be back in one second. Wait here.” Melody ran inside her house.

  A couple of minutes later, she returned, and although she didn’t say anything about what she had needed, Crow couldn’t help noticing a bit of gloss under her nostrils. She’d gone inside to apply rose oil to her nose so the smell wouldn’t bother her. Crow didn’t mind. Well, he may have minded, but he understood.

  “Do you need to find Grace and Hannah?” he asked. “And Luke and Travis? Your dad said you were trick-or-treating with them.” Even though he had made plans with Melody first. But he supposed a bigger group would be okay, as long as the other kids didn’t mind the smell. Maybe he could say it was part of his costume.

  “Not anymore. We got into a fight.” She started walking to the neighbor’s house. “Come on. We won’t get any candy standing here.”

  The first house gave them two miniature candy bars each. The second house gave them rather old-looking lollipops, which was still better than the third house, where they received toothpaste. At the fourth house, a large zombie appeared suddenly, causing Melody to laugh and Crow to scream. The zombie—a person in costume, Crow realized—gave them loads of chocolate.

  Too bad Crow couldn’t eat any of it. Oh well, he’d give it all to Melody. If she got twice as much candy, she’d definitely want to go trick-or-treating with him again the next year.

  They were walking to the next block when Melody suddenly stopped. Her bag of candy slipped from her hands. Without bothering to pick up the bag, she ran behind a parked car.

  Crow picked up the bag.

  Melody had seen something. Something scary.

  And what was scarier than the Meera? Crow left his house on Halloween, confident that his disguise could hide him. Maybe the Meera had picked the holiday to wander the streets, too.

  Crow crouched behind the car with Melody.

  The street lamps flickered on. Crow searched the shadows and listened to the breeze. If the Meera was anywhere nearby, it was hiding itself very well. Aside from the other trick-or-treaters, Crow couldn’t see or hear anything.

  “Why are we hiding?” he whispered.

  Melody nodded toward a pair of girls. “Grace and Hannah. I don’t want them to see me.”

  Hannah was dressed as a princess, which Crow guessed was meant to remind everyone that she was related to royalty. Or claimed to be, anyway. Her tiara sparkled under the street lamps. Grace wore a Greek goddess dress with matching earrings and an armband. They were as cute as ever, although he thought they were wearing a little too much makeup, even if it was Halloween. He didn’t see how the high heels would make trick-or-treating any easier, either. And he knew for a fact that the ancient Greeks didn’t wear shoes like that. Grace could have chosen something a little more historically accurate.

  They didn’t look scary, though. They certainly didn’t look like anything people needed to hide from.

  “Why can’t they see you?”

  “I told you. We’re in a fight.” Her body slumped. Her hands covered her face. “It was awful.”

  Crow waited a moment. When she didn’t say anything, and she didn’t look any happier, he asked, “What happened?”

  “I was just explaining to Luke and Travis why I think the school librarian is an alien. We’re so close to Area Fifty-One, and she has this weird thing on the back of her neck that I’m pretty sure is a second mouth, probably the one she uses to eat people. At first, they seemed really int
erested in my theory, asking for more details and stuff. I thought someone finally believed me! But then they started making fun of me.”

  “Oh.” He looked at Grace and Hannah. “What about them?”

  “They were supposed to be my friends, so I thought they’d back me up. But when I told them, they made fun of me, too. And then they told everyone! Now the entire school thinks I’m crazy.” She brought her hands down from her face and crossed them. “I don’t care. I don’t even need any friends—except you, of course. You’d never be mean to me. You can be my best friend!”

  Crow couldn’t help smiling. She wanted him to be her best friend. Not just a friend—her best friend. Thankfully, the sheet masked his joy, which seemed horribly inappropriate considering how upset Melody was.

  He wanted to say something, but he wasn’t used to comforting people. His hand jerked a few times as he debated whether he should hug her. That was what the people on television always did. Then the maggots started squirming, and this convinced him to keep his putrid hands to himself.

  They sat in silence, watching Grace and Hannah. Hannah stopped to fix her tiara. Grace ate a piece of chocolate. She threw the wrapper on the ground. A moment later, they disappeared around a corner.

  “You’re lucky,” Melody said as they walked toward the next house. “You don’t have to go to school.”

  “I want to go to school. It’s better than staying home alone all day.”

  Melody winced. “Of course. I’m sorry. Um, how did your parents wish you back to life? I know I’ve asked you before, and I guess you don’t like talking about it, but—”

  “It’s okay,” Crow interrupted. “They went to the Meera—that’s the monster we heard at the park—and wished for me to come back.” Not wanting her to think that he’d withheld information earlier, he quickly added, “I just found that out recently, after our trip to the park.”

  Melody blinked several times. She opened her mouth, closed it, and blinked some more. “There’s a monster at the park, and it grants wishes? That’s great! I knew what we heard that night couldn’t have been a regular animal, so I kept going back, but I couldn’t find anything. Maybe you can wish for a normal life!”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” But that would mean returning to the park. Facing the monster. It hadn’t gone so well last time, and he had the singed hair to prove it.

  They’d reached the next house. Crow rang the doorbell, and he and Melody received some chocolate. Then he hurried on to the next house, hoping Melody would be too busy running after him to remember what they had been talking about.

  More chocolate. Some lollipops. Some gum. Raisins. Caramels. They moved on to the next block.

  “Oh no!” Melody whispered. She was staring at two boys, one dressed as a cowboy, the other as a pirate, both standing in the middle of the street. Crow recognized the cowboy as Luke, which made the pirate Travis.

  “Do we need to hide again?” he asked.

  “No. Just ignore them.”

  They continued walking, heads held high and eyes focused straight ahead. A car honked, but neither of them looked to see why. A series of loud noises followed, short banging sounds that made Crow jump. Curiosity got the better of him. He stopped walking and looked at the source of the noise.

  Travis was holding a lighter in one hand and a small item in the other. He lit the item and threw it at the ground, where it exploded with a deafening crack.

  Melody groaned. “They’ve been bragging about those stupid firecrackers all week. I don’t know why. They’re not nearly as impressive as fireworks.”

  The driver of a red truck blocked by the boys certainly wasn’t impressed. He honked his horn again, but Luke and Travis stayed where they were. The driver went around them slowly. Luke threw a firecracker at the truck as it passed.

  Melody tugged at Crow’s sheet. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait,” Crow said.

  A group of boys was crossing the street several yards away. They were young, probably in third or fourth grade, and Luke and Travis were headed straight for them.

  Travis snatched a bag of candy from a small boy in a superhero costume.

  “Give that back!” the boy yelled. His friends hurried across the street, leaving him to fend for himself.

  Luke and Travis passed the stolen loot back and forth, always keeping it inches beyond the reach of the younger boy, who seemed on the verge of tears. His friends cowered in the background.

  Earlier, Melody had been like that little boy. No one had stood up for her, either.

  Crow couldn’t watch anymore. He marched over to Luke. “Give him back his candy.”

  “Why would I do that?” Luke smirked under his cowboy hat. “Nice costume. Did your mommy make it for you?”

  “No. I made it myself. Give him his candy.”

  “Why don’t you give it to him?” He threw the bag to Travis. “You just have to get it from us first.”

  “I can’t reach,” Crow said to Travis. “You’re at least a foot taller than me.”

  Travis smiled as if this were something to be proud of. As if either of them had any control over their height.

  Luke and Travis weren’t just taller than Crow. They could jump higher and run faster, too. Crow would never succeed in taking the bag from them. Instead of making a pathetic attempt, he handed his own bag to the small boy in the superhero costume. “Here, you can have mine. Sorry, it’s not much.”

  The little boy just stared at him.

  “It’s okay, really. I can’t eat candy anyway.”

  The boy took the bag and ran off to his friends.

  “Come on, Crow,” Melody whispered. Her eyes darted back and forth between Luke and Travis. “Let’s go.”

  “Look, Travis,” Luke said. “It’s Smelody. I saw an alien a few houses down. It wants us to think it’s just a kid in a costume, but you know better.”

  “Shut up, Luke.”

  Luke pretended to look shocked. “Shut up? Me? Melodork, I thought we were friends.” He lit a firecracker and threw it. “Guess not.”

  The first firecracker was followed by a second from Travis, then a third and a fourth. Crow couldn’t tell whether they were actually aiming for him and Melody, but the firecrackers were getting awfully close regardless. “Come on, Melody. You were right. We should go.”

  “Crow!” Melody screamed. “Your sheet’s on fire!”

  Crow glanced over his shoulder and saw the flames crawling up his back. There was little pain—his nerves had decayed like everything else—but that wouldn’t stop his flesh from burning. He scrambled to remove the sheet.

  “Why—What—” Travis squinted at Crow in the light of the street lamps and of the burning sheet. Apparently still unsure of what he was seeing, he removed his eye patch to get a better look. “Why are you wearing a costume under your costume?”

  A maggot crawled out of Crow’s ear.

  “What is that?” Luke asked, stepping forward to investigate. Crow scurried away, tripping over the curb in his rush. His chin smacked against the pavement, the jolt causing his left eye to pop out of the socket. It rolled into the path of some trick-or-treaters, who were too busy staring at the burning sheet to notice. A pink ballet slipper hovered over the eye, an eye that Crow could still see through. He watched in horror as the shoe stomped down.

  Melody shoved the ballerina. While the ballerina’s friends helped her up, Melody snatched the runaway eyeball.

  Travis and Luke had already fled. Crow was thankful they were gone, even though it didn’t seem fair. Stealing, lighting firecrackers, setting someone on fire—were they really going to get away with it all?

  A man carrying a fire extinguisher approached the burning sheet. “Move out of the way,” he ordered the kids who had gathered around to watch the flames. He released a stream of white foam that doused the fire.

  The man returned to his house, leaving the sheet behind. The crowd of onlookers dispersed.

  Crow prodded his sheet with his
foot. The remaining scraps of charred material wouldn’t be enough to cover him.

  “It’s okay,” Melody said, stepping onto the sidewalk as a silver sedan approached. “You don’t need the sheet.”

  Crow nodded and followed her, but the empty eye socket was already drawing a lot of attention. A group of little children screamed when they saw him. A mother herded her daughters to the other side of the street. A toddler started crying. Even on Halloween, he couldn’t pass for normal.

  Melody held on to the eye. The split vision that resulted—the lines of Melody’s palm with one eye, and the dark street with the other—made Crow dizzy. He stumbled into a bush. He barreled into a family dressed as assorted fruit. A car nearly ran him over when he lurched into the street.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “We need to wash off the eye, right? And then, I don’t know, do we just pop it back in?”

  Crow nodded. “I don’t think we even need to wash it first. Infection isn’t really a problem for me.”

  “Of course we need to wash it. It’s covered in dirt.” She peeled off a candy wrapper that had been stuck to the white of the eye. “And viruses might not be a problem for you, but what about parasites? And fungus? I read an article about a brain-eating fungus that keeps popping up all over the country. Brain-eating. Even you would be hurt by that. We need to wash the eye off.”

  “Okay. Where?”

  “The park.”

  Crow walked into a telephone pole. “What? Why there?” He wanted to face the Meera again, but not so soon. Not without a plan. And definitely not tonight, when it was already so dark.

  “Where else?” Melody asked. “I don’t want to risk going home—what if Grace and Hannah have stopped by, and my dad realized I wasn’t with them? And I think he’d freak out if he saw your eye. We could go to your house, but I don’t think your mom likes me very much. The park has a water fountain we can use, with no parents to bother us.”