One House Left, page 16
I watch the woman holding Max’s hand and tug on Rowan’s jacket sleeves to free my own.
Tyler steps forward and Max hugs each of us in turn; quick, emotionless gestures that leave nothing behind.
“I’m Jasmine,” the woman says, looking directly at me. “Thank you for coming.”
I don’t know how to reply, so I nod.
She touches Seb’s and Tyler’s shoulders as she steps past, hugging a few people closer to the church before disappearing inside.
“How are you?” Seb asks.
“Not too bad,” Max replies, but there is no sparkle in her eyes today. “You didn’t have to come.”
Tyler smiles. “Yes, we did.”
She takes his hand and I watch the slightest squeeze echo in the tips of their fingers. Then the four of us turn as the murmuring stops, and a hearse creeps slowly around the corner.
The coffin is lifted gently onto the shoulders of four men and two women—some blank-faced and professional, others leaving streams beneath their feet.
I feel jealous and proud of these people. And certain that I will never be one of them.
I’ll be lurking in the shadows, like we are now. I will be watching the strength to do what’s right, not channeling it.
Seb and Tyler sit on either side of me in the narrow pews. Max is four rows ahead, on the opposite side of the church, and I wait the entire service for her to turn. But the only time she moves is when she walks to the altar and reads a poem full of cracks.
Her eyes burn into the sheet of paper that quivers through each silence, and I want to be up there with her—something solid to hold as she crumbles.
I picture Mrs. Taylor, barely lifting words the rest of us tossed to one another like Hacky Sacks. Max’s words aren’t heavy; they are fragile.
Seb wipes his eyes and I wonder how they said goodbye to his brother. He is here, putting someone else’s grief above his own. He’s a good person, and I wish he didn’t have to suffer.
Max stares at the floor as she retakes her seat, her mother pulling her into a hug and whispering something against her hair.
Max gives one emphatic nod, then stares straight ahead until we follow the Taylors’ family and friends to the hole in the ground.
In movies, it always rains at funerals. In real life, as we watch the coffin lowered into the earth, the sun stings my neck.
Mr. Taylor stands between two women who look about Mom’s age. His face is dry and blank, while tears paint mascara tracks down their cheeks.
Next to them, spread out on either end, are younger people, some around my age, their hands holding the arms of tugging toddlers.
If they want to run, let them run. But there are rules on days like this. Some may call funerals a celebration of life, but that celebration must be muted, acceptable, with caveats the dead have no say in.
One of the women next to Mr. Taylor reads a poem; then he steps forward and drops dirt on the coffin. One by one, the rest of his family does the same, and I must tell my parents that under no circumstances do I want to be buried.
Then we walk slowly back to the car, Max carried along ahead of us—on a tide of more important people.
“Are you okay?” Tyler asks, and before I can answer, Seb mumbles, “I’m fine.”
As Jasmine drives away, and Max sits in the passenger seat staring through us, I wonder why we came.
“Are you going to the wake?” Tyler asks.
“I can’t.”
They don’t ask why. They only nod and head for Seb’s car, while I wait until the parking lot is almost empty. Then I go back into the church, where someone has restocked the candles, and I light every single one.
40
The following day, our classmates hurry past like nothing is wrong. They don’t care about Bella or Max or anyone but themselves. They aren’t grieving for the candy-store owner’s wife, because she’s as relevant to them as they are to me.
These strangers, these apathetic nobodies—all they do is take up space and spoil silences.
As I open my locker, a sheet of paper slips out, two words scribbled on one side.
It’s coming.
I let it fall to the floor, the warning twisting and turning until it lands facedown at my feet.
I thought it was over. There had been nothing since I tossed the other notes and clippings into the flames and I assumed, naively, that whoever was doing this had grown bored.
Whatever they think they know—it’s only part of the picture. But sickness still stirs in my stomach as my hands shake and a collage of horrible images forms in my mind.
I look down and the paper is gone.
I search for it in the slipstream of the crowd, then check the bulletin boards and the rolling news display for hidden messages. But everything is the same as always.
I stumble to class and make myself even smaller than usual. Then I fill my notebook with those words.
It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming.
And suddenly Max’s hand is pressed into mine and we’re running. As I look at her, I stumble, but she yanks me up and we keep going until my thighs burn and my lungs scream for me to stop.
“Come on!” Max says.
But I can’t. I have nothing left.
“Nate!” Max yells, my head jolting up as laughter spills over me, washing my dream away.
“Late night?” Ms. Hewitt asks, her kindly smile out of place among my classmates’ cackles.
“Sorry,” I mumble, turning the page of my book before she can see the warnings screaming from every page.
She taps the side of her head as she strides back to her desk, and I do my best to concentrate on a lesson that isn’t important, for a test that means nothing, in a school that has no idea what’s coming.
41
Each day, the warnings multiply—the notes that fall from my locker stamped on and kicked aside, flyers fluttering under windshield wipers as I hurry through the parking lot, unfamiliar words creeping out from below bulletin board announcements like claws emerging from caves.
I avoid enclosed spaces now, leaving campus if I need the bathroom, my ears on high alert for the stirrings of that terrible tune.
No one whistles. No one shows themselves. But I know they are here, hiding in plain sight.
I watch Tyler and Seb from the shadows, doing their best to be happy in Max’s absence, then sneak away before they can find me.
In class, my eyes grow too heavy to lift, and most teachers let me sleep. Only Ms. Hewitt thinks I’m important enough to include in conversations—even when she gets nothing back.
“Is everything okay?” she asks. “Is something keeping you awake at night that you want to talk about?”
I imagine being farmed back to Miss Kittle—so greedy for the secrets of high school kids that she made a career out of it.
“It’s nothing,” I say. “Honestly.”
“I can’t stand by and watch you sleep through my lessons, Nate. If it does continue, maybe we should call your parents in.”
“I’ll try harder,” I reply, and she nods—an emphatic gesture from a face full of doubt.
As I leave, I imagine Mom and Dad sitting in this classroom—hands clenched, smiles fixed, their responses rehearsed and rewritten.
Fragments of words stir in the recesses of my brain, crawling toward each other and crunching into place.
Ready or not. Whatever you do. The Hiding Boy is coming for you.
I don’t need anyone else to taunt me now. I know enough to punish myself.
“There you are!” Tyler says. “Are you avoiding us?”
Yes.
“Of course not.”
“That’s all right then. Have you seen?”
“Seen what?” I ask.
“The countdown.”
Tyler points to the end of the hallway, where a huge sheet hangs overhead, the paint from the words written on it leaving thick crimson trails on the otherwise crisp white.
4 DAYS TO GO
“You can see that?”
Tyler’s brow creases as he says, “Yes. Are you okay, Nate?”
Not at all.
“What does it mean?”
A broad smile plays across his face. “You’ll see.”
“Stop fucking with me.”
“What?”
“I’ve been getting these notes in my locker, and seeing warnings on the bulletin boards, and now…” I point at the banner. “There’s that. If you know what it means, please tell me.”
Tyler’s features soften as he touches my arm and says, “It’s a game, Nate. We’ve all been getting those notes.”
“Seriously?”
I close my eyes for a few seconds and, when I open them again, I focus on the people around me. I listen to their laughter as sheets of paper fall from their own lockers. I read the flyers that are no longer hiding under other announcements on the boards that line the corridor. They have broken free now, two words stuck and stapled to every available surface.
It’s coming!
“Hey,” Seb says. “It’s good to see you, man.”
When I don’t answer, Tyler leans toward him and whispers, “Nate’s having a moment. He’s taking in … this.”
The corridors are suddenly buzzing, everyone I usually ignore grinning or screeching or slapping someone on the back.
School spirit makes me nauseous but this feels different.
“It’s back, baby!” someone yells, high-fiving Tyler as they race past.
I press my back against the lockers and picture my “happy place,” Max, anything at all that could slow my heart rate even slightly. But I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.
These notes might be for everyone, but how does that fit with the Murder Road articles, and the warnings I was getting before?
“It’s okay,” Seb says. “This is probably a bit unexpected. But you know when I said there’s only one night of the year that I’d go in the cemetery? This is that night. Well, if Max lets us.”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Tyler asks, his eyes widening as Seb nods and mumbles, “Fair point.”
“Is this … a Hell Chasers thing?”
They laugh in unison, then shake their heads.
“This is a Montgomery-Oakes thing. A school tradition … with a twist.”
“So, no urban legends?”
Tyler draws a circle in the air with his finger. “Zero. But, like we said, Max has the deciding vote on this one.”
“What are we voting on?”
Everyone sneaks up on you in this place, especially today.
There’s another streak in Max’s hair—red this time, on the opposite side from the blue—and she has a flyer in her hand.
Tyler’s lips twitch as he says, “After the funeral, we thought you might not want to, you know…”
“We haven’t missed one yet,” she replies. “Besides, Bella loved it when I told her about them.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Henry and I joked that we’d sneak her in one day.”
The cracks from Max’s poem rush through her mouth and she shakes her head hard.
This is my chance, to be the something strong, but she steadies herself, the smile she offers us broken in places but enough to do its job.
“I want to go,” she says.
Tyler grins. “Then we should probably tell Nate what’s happening.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“He’s been hard to track down while you were off school.”
An awkward silence hangs over us until Tyler adds, “But he’s here now.”
Max watches me with an uncertain smile. “Are you okay? You seem nervy.”
“He thought this was all in his head,” Tyler replies. “I get that. For some totally unknown reason, the principal lets the social committee cover these pristine walls for one wonderful week. It’s called Bloodbath. The game we play. And it’s happening this weekend.”
Max points at the people celebrating in the corridors. “Everyone’s invited.”
I know what happens when teenagers get foolish ideas. So many have camped out on Murder Road down the years, thinking there was nothing to worry about. They were excited, too, at the start. They told ghost stories the way Max, Seb, and Tyler do, until they became the story.
But this isn’t a clique, it’s an army. Everyone in the entire school seems to be excited for Bloodbath. So hopefully it’s as harmless as it sounds.
Something warm and wet trickled down the insides of his eyelids, painting words that he could see in the dark.
When they faded, three shapes pulled themselves free of the shadows, their features coming into focus until he saw them as clear as day. If only it was.
He studied their scars—some, tiny trinkets from forgotten accidents; others, daily reminders of unimaginable tragedies.
He read those scars like stories. Then he fought against the blood matted in his lashes until his eyes peeled open.
As he reached out, they ran from him, toward a house that suddenly filled his vision. Its shattered roof tiles and crumbling chimney scratched the clouds that dared to drift past, while headless stalks swayed in the front yard.
“It’s coming.”
The whisper snaked up his spine, turning to a wail that filled his head like a bomb blast.
“I know!” he screamed back—over and over until he finally burst a hole in his dreams.
42
I’m not in control anymore. If I ever was.
I’m lost. Hopeless. And yet, I can’t tear myself away from them. Away from her.
That’s why I go with them to Bloodbath—because, however many good days we have left, I want us to spend them together.
A statue of an angel towers over us, its crumbling face illuminated by portable spotlights. Most people are crammed between the graves, but a few perch on headstones, their feet thudding thoughtlessly against the inscriptions.
“Assholes,” Max mumbles. “I’m killing them first.”
Seb laughs as something hard settles behind her eyes.
I shouldn’t be surprised that almost the whole school is here. The buzz as the final three days ticked down to tonight told me all I needed to know about Bloodbath.
Whatever happens next, this feels like the biggest event of the year.
“The smartest thing about this,” Tyler says, “is no one ever knows the exact date. It could be in October. It could be in July. Those flyers and the countdown could begin on any given day. That’s smart marketing.”
“I still don’t understand how the school lets you get away with this,” I reply.
“It’s a win-win,” Max shouts over the rising volume of the crowd. “We get to blow off some steam, and the rest of the year we do as we’re told. Besides, if you look closer, it’s not just schoolkids.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bloodbath is open to all, Nate. Everyone needs to unleash their frustration now and again.”
I scan the crowd, their caps suddenly pulled low, while unfamiliar eyes glisten in the shadows.
“Welcome!” someone shouts, silencing everyone in an instant. “This is Bloodbath. And anyone can win.”
The cheer makes me shudder but no one else looks uneasy. Max, Seb, and Tyler grin at the cloaked shape in front of us, hanging on their every word.
“What’s your favorite scary movie?” the person asks, their voice distorted under their hood. “Because this is mine.”
They open their arms wide and the crowd cheers again.
Tyler catches my eye and chuckles. “Just run with it. It’s fun.”
There it is again—“fun.” But my definition is different from his, from Max’s, from everyone’s in this strange town.
I think of the old elementary school—the wood pulled back from that broken door so many times it may as well have not been there. Then I think of the storefronts protected by a single pane of glass.
In Montgomery-Oakes, some places are open to all and others are untouchable.
“The rules of the game are simple,” the figure in the cloak booms. “Last person standing wins.”
I feel a surge at my back and, when I turn, more people are joining us from all sides.
“I think we’re past capacity,” I say, and Max shrugs and replies, “And that’s only the people you can see.”
She touches the nearest headstone, her lips moving soundlessly, then puts one hand on Seb’s shoulder and the other on Tyler’s. “You ready?”
They nod and turn to me.
“We’re a team,” Max says. “We work together.”
“Of course.”
“You kill by bloodying your victims,” the cloak says. “Use these wisely.”
When we reach the front, whoever is doing this passes a bundle of ten tubes full of liquid to each of us.
I lean forward to take mine, trying to look under their cloak, but they bend lower. Then we are pushed aside by the crowd and I focus on the vials.
Tyler flicks one. “Plastic, so they don’t crack in your pocket.”
“What’s inside?” I ask, peering at the red liquid.
“It’s not real blood. If that’s what you’re worried about.”
I unscrew one and sniff it. It smells sweet, but something nasty is already swirling in my stomach.
“A little tip,” Seb whispers. “Always have one ready to throw. If you’re messing around trying to open these in the dark, you’ve missed your chance.”
I watch the crowd crawl forward. Someone from math class tucks his vials into his pockets, nervously glancing back and forth. A girl who sits next to me in film class empties all ten tubes into a flask before scurrying into the shadows.
The kid who gets closest to Hazel when I watch her on the track slides his ten into elastic loops sewn into his jacket, practicing pulling them out and slotting them back in.
As for us, we wait, no special routine, no tricks. The four of us stand amid everyone else until our hooded host claps their hands and says, “It’s time!
“The rules are simple. You have one minute to hide. After that, if you are cut in any of the four target areas, you are dead and out of the game. The target areas are head, heart, throat, and stomach. Any area with blood on it counts as a cut. So … happy killing.”
