Scott Nicholson Library Vol 3 Page 20

  The pimply-faced clerk was busy thumbing through a muscle magazine. Three other people occupied the shop: a middle-aged couple who hunched furtively over their cups as if not wanting spouses to find out, and a nerdy guy in wire-rimmed spectacles who held a thick book. None of them particularly looked like demonic denizens from beyond.

  “Dude,” she said. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but there’s no reason to come to Parson’s Ford to start a tech business. Shouldn’t you be in Hollywood or Toronto or something?”

  “It’s not a tech business, it’s a people business.”

  “Blah blah. That’s what Fatback Bob says. ‘It’s not a video business, it’s a people business.’ Or ‘It’s not a tanning business, it’s a people business.’”

  “Sounds like the guy’s got some smarts.”

  “Smart enough to pay me minimum wage plus a quarter.”

  The Kenny Chesney soundtrack finished and the counter clerk, making a predictable uberhip grope for eclecticism, punched up a Dandy Warhols disc that sounded like sex on a bed of cotton candy.

  “So, are you in?” Dempsey said, leaning forward and doing the eye-roll thing. She suspected not many women answered in the negative to anything once that lighthouse beacon swept their waters.

  But she also didn’t like to dive headfirst until she’d poked underwater for rocks. “Tell me more,” she said. “My coffee’s getting cold.”

  Dempsey wiped his latte soul patch. “Here’s the deal. You order six of my horror movies for the price of one, then you keep the one and send five to your friends. When they join, you get five more, and they get the same deal.”

  “But then I only end up with six, just like I started with. Why should I bother?”

  “That’s the beauty part. Every time one of your friends signs somebody up, you get an additional five.”

  “A pyramid scheme?”

  “‘Viral marketing’ is the preferred nomenclature.”

  “Sure. But still, Parson’s Ford?”

  Dempsey tipped his Styrofoam cup to the corner. “See that?”

  She glanced, and if she hadn’t seen such things before, she would have chalked it up to imagination or maybe a contaminated bran muffin emitting hallucinogenic mold spores. The crack where the two walls and floor met expanded for a split second, showing a black fissure.

  The third gateway? So soon?

  Darkness seeped across the floor like spilled motor oil or boiled-down coffee sludge, a tendril of it rolling toward Crystal’s sensible shoes. Even though they’d been on sale at JC Penney for $19.95 and would be out of fashion by December, she lifted her feet up to avoid any stains.

  “I see it, but I didn’t think anyone else was supposed to,” she said.

  He flung his half-filled cup at the wall, and latte splashed into the crack. The clerk glanced at the corner, which had returned to its previous angles. “Hey,” the clerk yelled over the alt-rock music, “why you want to trash the place?”

  “Sorry,” Dempsey said. “Thought I saw a spider.”

  “Ease off on the caffeine, man.”

  Dempsey had the muscle mass to rearrange the clerk’s pointy chin and nose and stuff a drip-ground bag of flavor-of-the-day up the runt’s backside. But he relaxed and leaned back in his chair. “Like I said, sorry. Thought the lady here might be afraid of spiders.”

  “I’m not afraid of spiders,” Crystal said.

  “What about ghosts?”

  “Depends.”

  “Maybe you got potential.” He grinned, and she was a wreck.

  Luckily, he gave her a break.

  “I’ll get some paper towels.” He went to the bathroom, and the clerk returned to scrubbing the espresso machine, a petulant glower giving him premature wrinkles.

  So Dempsey sees down the rabbit hole. And we thought Darkmeet was a secret. Curiouser and curiouser.

  Sure, Momma knew about it, because the main gateway was in her mobile home. Bone knew, because she sneaked back and forth like it was the skipping trail at high school.

  And now a stranger–a guy making a horror movie–came into town and into Crystal’s life just when things couldn’t get any more complicated.

  And then they got worse, because she appeared.

  “He thinks you’re cute,” Bone said, voice carrying over the dandy music.

  “How come you show up every time things get weird?”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  Crystal squinted into the corner. “Where are you?”

  “It was a tiny crack,” Bone said. “I had to hitch a ride.”

  “Don’t see you.”

  “Look higher.”

  The cobwebs shook, and a single silver line descended toward the table. Swinging from the end was a black spider with red eyes. “Hola, chiquita.”

  “What is this, a Tim Burton version of ‘Charlotte’s Web’?”

  “Cute pop-culture references will get you nowhere. Did you already drive Chain Boy away? I told you to start using breath mints.”

  “Go find your own toys. Oh, yeah, I forgot, you’re dead.”

  “Don’t be mean. I’m on your side here.”

  “My side. The living side. For now. But you’re not reliable.”

  The spider’s eyes glistened and an obscene clear gel oozed from the rear of its abdomen. “Not my fault. I’d trade places in a heartbeat.”

  “You wish me dead, too?”

  The Bone-spider sighed. “I live through you.”

  “I know, I know. I’m your vicarious pleasure. I do what you can only dream about. That’s a lot of pressure, you know?”

  “You’re failing to grasp the significance here. See, you can still get guys.”

  “There’s more to life than sex. And besides—”

  “No more blasphemy. You try being a permanent virgin and see how you like it. I mean, I’ve seen Emily Dickinson, and, hoo boy, does she have regrets.”

  “You said nobody judged sins over there. That everybody starts over.”

  “Like I know anything? Look at me. I’m a talking spider.”

  Dempsey ended the conversation by emerging from the bathroom with a stack of wet paper towels. Bone gave a wink, or maybe winked with half of her eight eyes, and scuttled up the silk thread into the dusty nest.

  So Crystal would have an audience. As if things weren’t awkward enough already.

  She was going to offer to help wipe up the light-brown spatters on the walls, but Dempsey bent over in his jeans and his buns strained against the denim.

  Pettigrew, Pettigrew, Pettigrew.

  She wasn’t sure whether using her boyfriend’s name as a distraction was a good idea, but she decided any port in a storm. And now the whole encounter seemed kind of sneaky, no matter how much she told herself it was “just coffee.”

  She had to get out of there while she was still thinking PG-13.

  But first—

  “How long have you been seeing the gateways?”

  “I heard about them,” Dempsey said. “That’s why I came to Parson’s Ford.”

  “Heard about them? So other people can see them, too?”

  “I didn’t say ‘people,’ did I?”

  Was Dempsey connected to someone on the other side in the same way that Crystal was linked with Bone? Did Dempsey have his own spiritual advisor?

  “I need you,” he said, touching her arm, and she could have sworn a spark jumped off her skin.

  “I...I don’t know anything about making movies.”

  “It’s not about making movies. It’s about saving the world. And getting the girl. Happy endings.”

  He kept his hand on her arm, letting the heat flow from his palm and into her body. She tried to focus on Pettigrew’s face, his boyish grin beneath the cock-eyed baseball cap, the green eyes that sparkled. But all she could see were the half-moons of grease under Pettigrew’s nails.

  Dempsey was a glossy Goth, the kind of man who ordered products out of Gentleman’s Quarterly and knew h
ow to use them. This dude was no dude. He was an auteur.

  “My mom’s waiting for me,” she said, pushing away from the table and heading for the door.

  His touch lingered on her skin. Somewhere above her came the silver tinkle of a spider’s laughter.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Unlawful possession,” the Judge intoned.

  The tomb was dank and mossy, but a cool wind passed through and stirred the stale air. Sconces filled with burning oil dotted the stone walls, and the firelight licked at the darkness as if it were a foul-tasting liquid. The odors of mushrooms and rot were accented with a sweet tinge of roses and carnations. Flowers could never mask death, no matter how high you piled them.

  “I was only over for an hour.” Bone blinked, with gossamer eyelids. She was tired of gossamer. It was near the top of the list of things she hated about being dead. Gossamer was so hard to accessorize.

  “Second offense.” The Judge’s face was hidden inside a dark hood, and he wore a monk’s robe billowy enough to hide his true shape. She wondered whether he was naked underneath, or if he was even there at all. He sat behind a tall podium carved of oak and alabaster.

  “Well, I only had a narrow crack, and I had to hurry,” Bone said. “They told me I could skip back and forth as much as I wanted until my trial was over.”

  “Duly noted.”

  “And because the crack was closing fast, I couldn’t get all of me through there, so I jumped into the spider.” The excuse sounded lame even to her.

  The Judge, who sounded a bit like James Earl Jones on helium, shuffled some papers that crackled like sheepskin. Apparently computers hadn’t made it to the afterlife yet. “Bonnie Faye Whitehart, you are trying the patience of this court.”

  “Look, it’s not like I possessed a human,” she said. “This is the spiritual equivalent of jaywalking.”

  “Just because you’re a Tweener doesn’t give you the right to play God.”

  Score one for Shadowface. “The jury said I had a free pass.”

  “This is a probationary period,” the Judge said in his ominous squeak. “You’re not innocent yet.”

  “I thought they called this ‘The Graveyard of Second Chances.’”

  “Which is why you should be on your best behavior.”

  Darkmeet has no trouble sending poor lost souls like me to burn in hell for an eternity. But slip into a spider for a few minutes and you’d think the golden stairway was crumbling and St. Peter was asking Judas for his hand in gay marriage.

  “Okay, let’s plea bargain,” she said.

  “You have nothing to offer the court.”

  “Hold on a second.” She rummaged in her purse and brought out the pack of Milk Duds she’d swiped from the Tan Banana & Movie Emporium. “Processed sugar, milk chocolate, and caramel. Sinfully delicious.”

  The mouth inside the hood audibly licked its lips. “Smuggling contraband across borders is a serious crime.”

  She cracked the small cardboard box and let the chocolate aroma drift in the chamber. “I’d sure hate to be sent gently down the stream without sharing these.”

  “Up the river, you mean.”

  “Whatever.”

  She popped a Milk Dud in her mouth. The sweetness flooded her tongue, almost making her sick. She smiled despite the nausea, smacking her teeth. “Mmm. Nothing says ‘All is forgiven’ like a Milk Dud.”

  The Judge leaned forward, sniffing the air. “Perhaps we could show some leniency. You were a hit-and-run, after all. Still figuring out your way around.”

  She palmed three of the caramel doots and gave them a little toss. The hood tilted up and down, following the arc of the candy. This was fun. But she didn’t have all day.

  Who was she kidding? She had forever.

  She put a dud between her teeth and carefully diced it in half, letting a thick strand of brown drool trail down the corner of her mouth. “I’m thinking a casket,” she mumbled and mushed. “Jush me and chocolatey gooey goodnessh.”

  The Judge swept up his gavel and banged it so hard she could have sworn sparks flew from the mallet head. “Contempt of court,” he said.

  She rolled out a dud and flicked it onto the bench. The hood dipped down after the candy like a vacuum cleaner on steroids, sucking it into a hidden mouth. She’d assumed the Judge was human, but she couldn’t be sure. He might just as easily be a Lurken, or one of the other monsters she’d only heard about. The Graveyard of Second Chances was so foggy, it was difficult to know exactly what was playing among the tombstones.

  “How about time off for good behavior?” she asked, holding up a piece of candy as if it were a diamond.

  The hood nodded, chewing sounds emanating from inside. “How good?”

  Feeling magnanimous, she played out half a dozen Milk Duds, and they rattled across the bench like hailstones. A decidedly rodent paw emerged from the robe—he’s not a Lurken, unless he’s got tentacles as well as arms—and scooped up the candy. As it shoved candy toward its mouth, the hood slipped back a little. Firelight glinted off the wet, pointy nose and revealed a pair of dark Raybans perched across the snout.

  Blind. Justice. I get it.

  She tiptoed toward the gate of the crypt, looking forward to a little down time in her casket. All that “Rest in Peace” business had been just so much jabber. She’d barely slept a wink since she’d gotten here.

  The Judge, as usual, wanted the final word. “I’ve got my eye on you, Bonnie Faye Whitehart.”

  She wanted to say, “Here, I’ll give it back, it’s kind of sticky,” but figured she was nearly out of Milk Duds and more contempt was inadvisable. She skittered past the empty jury box and up the stone steps, then out the oak door to freedom.

  Well, relative freedom. The afterlife was only a bigger prison.

  No streets of gold, as some of the living pictured it. No street performers plucking harps, haloes tossed down on the sidewalk to collect tips. No white-robed choirs gathering in perfect harmony. No great buffalo hunts, no bodhi trees, no endless stacks of turtles, no virginal harems for suicide bombers, no sign that any of the Earth religions had been the “correct” one.

  The Graveyard of Second Chances was locked in permanent night, and the full moon hung above as always. Mist drifted across the darkness, with tombstones protruding from the dirt like giant teeth.

  The gnarled, bare branches of trees were visible here and there, and the faint suggestion of a stone wall surrounded the graveyard. Beyond that was an endless gray void, and Bone’s desire to flee was weaker than her fear of what might lay in that vast unknown.

  “Bonnie!”

  She groaned. The past had a way of catching up with you. She kept walking.

  “It’s me. Tim.”

  Three more steps, the grass like a sponge beneath her bare feet.

  “Tim! Remember?”

  She turned.

  Tim McFarland had a serious crush on her in sixth grade. In a moment of blind stupidity or show of power, she’d let him sneak a kiss on the playground, eliciting a series of corny but sweet poetry from him over the course of the summer. He slipped the poems to her in theater camp, tucking folded stationary in the pages of Shakespeare.

  Tim had been diagnosed with leukemia that fall, undergone chemotherapy, and withdrawn from school after all his hair fell out. He had died the following spring. During his final stay in the hospital, he’d written her a poem called “Winter of the Soul” that had made her cry.

  Now, here he was, still bald and 12, and still, apparently, crushing on her big-time.

  “Bonnie Faye as I live and breathe,” Tim said. He’d always been one for annoying attempts at cleverness. The poet thing.

  “Howdy,” she replied, tucking the Milk Duds box in her purse. “How’s it going?”

  “Could be worse,” he said. “I’ve got a hung jury. They’re deliberating the ‘Bad things happen to good people’ clause.”

  “We’re like bugs in a jar to them. Entertainment.”

&nbs
p; “You back with your boyfriend?” His pale face was guarded, two moons reflected in his glasses.

  “He’s not my boyfriend. We’re just hanging out.”

  “Does he get jealous when you cross back over?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend on the other side, too?”

  “What’s with the ‘20 questions’ routine? You’re worse than the Judge.”

  “Look, just because we had a thing–”

  “We didn’t have a thing. Just two kids fooling around. It was nothing.”

  She didn’t enjoy the pain that flashed in his blue eyes. Well, not much. But it had to be done. Hurt a little now or hurt more later. Bone knew that drill.

  “It meant something,” Tim said, his voice huskier, almost at pre-cancerous strength, cracking with adolescence. “Everything that happened over there was for keeps.”

  “Over there,” Bone said. “It’s not that far away.”

  “Christ, you’re a Tweener, aren’t you?”

  “Can you say ‘Christ’ here?”

  Tim held out his hands in another indifferent shrug, only this time he turned his palms up. “What are they going to do, crucify me?”

  Bone glanced around. Crystal said she’d been dead two years of Earth time, but Darkmeet still felt strange and dangerous, where shadows crawled but the mist remained forever fresh. Though the Judge was the one she reported to, she sensed powerful, unseen forces hiding beyond the graveyard walls.

  “Don’t tempt them,” she said. “If they’ve been here a while, they might be bored.”

  “I’m not afraid of them.”

  “Well, I need to stay out of trouble. They’re still deciding my Tweener case.”

  “I’m jealous,” he said. “I died fair and square. Wasn’t even an accident.”

  “I didn’t ask for this,” she said. “I’d just as soon be plain old dead.”

  Sure, my death was an accident. But maybe it was justice, too. Because of why I was walking on the side of the highway at one in the morning when that truck came along.

  “Hey, you made it through puberty. Try being a twerp for the rest of eternity.”