Scott Nicholson Library Vol 3 Read online

  But how do you explain that kind of thing to a counselor? Like, how can they help with REAL problems?

  “I know it’s hard to feel like you fit in,” Miss McMarkus said. She rolled her eyes down to her ample bosom and said with a bitter chuckle, “Lord knows, I have a lot of trouble fitting anywhere. But you’re doing it your way, Crystal, and that’s the only way that matters.”

  “I’m a drop-out. A statistic. And when I come to school, I can hear the whispers and feel the stares. Honestly, I wonder if it’s worth it.”

  “Depression is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s chemical. You want to talk about statistics, let’s go with the three kids in every classroom who are right now thinking about killing themselves. Remember Bradley Cox?”

  Of course I do. I kissed him in seventh grade during a game of spin the bottle, and Mitzi poured Sprite on my head because the kiss lasted almost a minute and was still going strong. And four years later Bradley swallowed 27 Codeine tablets.

  Hopefully the two events weren’t related.

  “Money doesn’t make people happy, Crystal. Good grades and popularity and dates don’t solve the problems inside your own head. The world’s a lot more complicated than when I was a teenager. Social networking, YouTube, Facebook, ‘American Idol,’ ‘Survivor.’ There’s a million ways to get humiliated or screw up where everybody can see.”

  “It’s not that—” As usual, a grown-up in a rush to be helpful had no interest in the real issue.

  “And you’re an Aldridge. Did you know I was a classmate of your mother’s?”

  Crystal’s mouth fell open and she forgot all about Darkmeet and tentacles and Dempsey’s horror movies and Royce Dean. She’d browsed her mother’s high-school yearbook and the rows of earnest faces with awkward hair. Minerva Aldridge’s dark raven eyes stared back at the photographer and the world as if daring either of them to say a word about Roy Reed. Yet beneath the tight lips lay a secret as torrential as any burst dam.

  Beneath Momma’s face was the usual list of activities to help people remember the kids who weren’t popular: Future Homemakers of America 11, 12; Volleyball, 12; Chemistry Club, 9. Minerva had been the star of the chemistry club until she’d dissected a frog and it croaked right in the middle of class. The teacher assumed Minerva mistakenly and cruelly performed the operation on a live frog when in fact she’d brought the frog back to life.

  Regardless, that was the end of her academic science career and she was quickly shuttled off into the “homemaker” track where the highest aspiration was to become a hairdresser.

  “This isn’t about my mother,” Crystal said.

  Miss McMarkus leaned back with a mighty squeak of her chair. “The school can’t do it all, and who can trust the community? So it ends up coming down to the parents. I only get you an hour a week, and she has you 24 hours a day.”

  Tell me about it. She’s ruining my life.

  Crystal recalled Royce’s ham-fisted quote: “I coulda been a contendah.”

  “What’s my mom got to do with me?” she said. “You just said yourself our generation has a whole new playing field.”

  “She was an outsider. The sort of person kids played tricks on. You know, slipping stinky sardines in the cracks of her locker, pouring yogurt in her bra while she was showering after volleyball, stealing her homework so she’d get a zero.”

  Even lamer than I figured. Don’t go making me feel sorry for her. “At least she graduated.”

  “You’ll graduate, too. You’re right on schedule.”

  “Except I get my diploma in the mail while the rest of my former classmates cross the stage and shake hands with the principal. Then they go out and get liquored up and crash their cars.”

  “You’re special, Crystal.”

  That’s the same Kool-Aid Momma’s been serving me. But if I keep on like this, McMack Truck will think I need an extra counselor or two. “Sorry for whining.”

  “We all understand.”

  Crystal wondered who the “all” were. Maybe they sat around and talked about the girl who’d missed seventeen days in a row after her friend died. And how she lost interest in her studies. And how they found the note in her locker. And how all the do-gooders pitched in and saved her.

  As a failure, she was quite a success story.

  Crystal reached for her papers. “Well, I better get to work.”

  As she was sliding the sheaf of pages into her backpack, she heard a moist plooosh and thought Miss McMarkus had unleashed a stray bodily function. This called for a hasty retreat.

  “Did you hear that?” Miss McMarkus said.

  “Uh…what? Did the bell ring?”

  “No. Something squishy.”

  Crystal glanced at the wall clock to further the illusion of haste. That’s when she saw it.

  An Orifice had opened on the wall just behind Miss McMarkus’s head and it glistened with dark intent. It was barely large enough to swallow a stapler, but these things tended to get bigger the longer she waited around.

  “Crystal.”

  Bone’s voice.

  Miss McMarkus apparently hadn’t heard, because she stared straight ahead with that inquisitive, trained smile.

  “What?” Crystal shouted, not sure how far away from the Orifice Bone was, or if sound even traveled at all in Darkmeet.

  “What?” Miss McMarkus said.

  “Bone.”

  “I know it’s hard when you lose a friend—”

  “I didn’t lose her.” Though sometimes I wish I had.

  “If you ever want to talk, you know where to come.”

  “In Royce we trust,” Bone said.

  Oh, no. She’s gone over to the dark side. Fallen for those brooding eyes. Or maybe…

  She recalled Rance and Snake’s vacant-eyed incantations and remembered the subliminal messages in The Darkening.

  Bone had watched one of Dempsey’s movies.

  “Anything else, Crystal?” Miss McMarkus said.

  “That math problem? I think I know where the ‘two’ went.”

  “Excellent. We’re making progress.”

  The portal narrowed down to the diameter of a rotten plum, and then vanished with a final splurp.

  “Pardon me,” Miss McMarkus said with a giggle.

  “Later.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Well, I did it,” Bone said. “I hope you’re happy.”

  “I’m never happy,” the Judge said.

  Which made him the perfect hammer in this crazy land of midnight moonlight. After the little stunt with the owl and the bloody grin that followed, the Judge had laid out the ground rules for their new relationship:

  A. Royce was going to be a star.

  B. Bone was going to help by tricking the Aldridge family.

  C. They, along with the Judge and some of his producer buddies, would channel the Royce worship and become solid and alive again.

  D. She would be Royce’s arm candy and the whole world would be jealous. Plus—the beauty part—she’d get to be flesh and bone again.

  E. Or else the Judge would have her reincarnated as Paris Hilton’s purse pooch and she’d be a virgin all her days—after the operation.

  Now that she’d followed his instructions, they stood in the silence of the mausoleum, listening to leaves skitter against the granite. Tim stood near the wall, looking like he was late for dinner and would be getting a spanking.

  “What happens now?” Crystal said.

  “It depends,” the Judge said. In the flickering candlelight, the hood hid his face, and the gap of darkness seemed to roil and slither. “We can’t predict the future.”

  Where have I heard that before? Aren’t any of these dead know-it-alls omniscient?

  “You got to Dempsey, didn’t you?” she said. “That whole horror-movie thing.”

  “Dempsey was easy. Almost as easy as you. You see, Bonnie Whitehart, you don’t have to be a fortune teller to know how weak, desperate people will react. All it takes is a lit
tle understanding of human nature.”

  “I’m not human anymore. I’m dead.”

  “You’re a Tweener. You haven’t let go. And I can use that.”

  “Why don’t you leave her alone, you big bully?” Tim balled his fists. It was cute but not very threatening.

  “Tim McFarland,” the Judge said. “Your affection for Miss Whitehart is quite endearing. But it makes you vulnerable. And I eat ‘vulnerable’ for breakfast.”

  He belched for emphasis, and another feather flew out.

  “You’ve been watching me the whole time,” Bone said.

  “Actually, little dumpling, I’ve been watching Crystal. Those Aldridges have been a thorn in my crown for centuries. When you had your—er, accident—I saw an opportunity I couldn’t resist. In this market, timing is everything.”

  “What? The end of the world was like, more than a decade ago. And the whole 2012 thing was overrated.”

  “The apocalypse is always in fashion. The world is already dying a little at a time but refuses to accept it. I’m merely putting it out of its misery.”

  Bone eyed the mausoleum entrance. She was young. She could knock him over and be out of the graveyard before he even untangled his robes. But Tim might not be so lucky. He’d already risked his neck to save her from Royce, for all the good it did. But she owed him anyway.

  Tim’s eyes flicked to the corners of their sockets and back, indicating something in the corner of the chamber. Bone nodded, as if agreeing with the Judge’s assessment.

  “Okay, so you tricked Dempsey into putting subliminal messages in his movies,” she said. “Probably promised he’d be the next Steven Spielberg. And Royce got some bit parts so you could feed off his ego, too.”

  “Creative types,” the Judge said, in his somber, stentorian cadence.

  “What, you’re an executive producer?”

  The laugh shook stones. “My ego is too large to settle for that. I, my dear, am the agent.”

  “So you get a cut of the action no matter how it plays out,” Tim said.

  When the Judge shifted his obscured face to Tim, Bone took the opportunity to glance into the corner. She understood.

  “I suppose you never reached Latin,” the Judge said to Tim. “Ergo—thus—you likely don’t know the root of ‘agent’ is from the root ‘agere.’ To drive, act, do.”

  Just keep on with the lecture, Professor Ego Ergo.

  The candlelight bobbed as a breeze blew in from somewhere, carrying the aromas of permanent autumn—sweet grass, dead leaves, and allspice. She wouldn’t have put it past the Judge to open up a can of Almost Heaven just to taunt them. Bone eased a step toward the corner.

  “The only Latin I know is ‘Et tu, Brute,’” Tim said, springing forward and kicking the Judge in the shin. His foot plunged into the fabric of the robe and kept going until he lost his balance. As he fell, he reached for the robe to keep from falling and managed to grab a sleeve.

  The Judge reached out a gloved hand and snared Tim by the wrist. Tim’s eyes opened in surprise but he didn’t yell in pain. When you were dead, the physical sensations may have passed but the expectation and memory still existed. It was one reason Bone hoped she’d eventually have a real boyfriend and embrace the pleasures of the flesh—even if she had to sell her soul to the Judge to do it.

  “Now,” Tim shouted, and Bone sprinted for the corner and scrambled in the leaves for the object Tim had hidden. She grabbed it and thrust it toward the Judge, making sure the candlelight glinted off its silver sheen.

  The Judge kept his grip on Tim and the hood’s black oval opening was directed right at her. She couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed, or if the Raybans were hiding their red sparks.

  Heck, I can’t even tell if he HAS eyes.

  “Uh, et tu ergo,” she said, waving the object. “Latino mumbledy-jumbledy-oh.”

  The Judge sucked in what might have been a breath, or maybe it was a hiccup of laughter. “You,” he said, with a dramatic pause.

  Tim motioned her forward with his free arm. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to thrust the thing in the Judge’s face-hole or not. He might not have eyes, but she knew he had teeth, because he’d smacked and snacked on the Milk Duds she’d smuggled from Earth.

  She wasn’t ready to risk any fingers because she wasn’t sure if they’d regenerate.

  “I command you to release him,” she said, waving the silver cross with an ominous flourish.

  “Or what?” the Judge said.

  “Or I’ll send you to the fiery pits of hell.”

  The Judge let go of Tim, who slumped on the cool stone floor.

  “Why not Waikiki Beach?” the Judge said. “Or the Antarctica? Or the Andromeda Galaxy?”

  “It’s the rules,” she said. “You’re the devil, right?”

  The Judge took a step toward her. She lifted the cross higher, wondering if this was going to blow her reputation.

  “You’re certainly one to worry about rules, Bonnie Whitehart. Do you recall what you were doing the night you had your nasty accident? Why you were in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

  I never told anyone about that. Not even Crystal. How could he—

  The Judge took another step. “Come now, Bonnie. Pretending to have post-traumatic stress disorder and amnesia may work on the Counselors, but not on me.”

  Her hand trembled, the cross reflecting a glint of candlelight against the hood’s opening, but it revealed nothing of the face inside. “G-get thee behind me, Satan.”

  The laughter filled the mausoleum as if it were spilling from every crack in the stone, and maybe even through the portal to Earth. Bone wondered if Crystal was standing near an Orifice and listening.

  “The devil is in the details, little dumpling.”

  Tim raised himself to his hands and knees, but he looked like he’d just undergone a major round of chemo. He dry heaved, sweat beading his pallid forehead.

  “Not in front of the kid,” Bone begged. “Please.”

  “False chivalry. If I were the devil, and frankly, that’s below my pay grade, then I’d take advantage of your pride.”

  Another step and he was in front of her, a low rasping noise issuing from the face-hole like a lost breeze over a bleak desert night. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And you say she’s your best friend.”

  He reached out and plucked the cross from her limp fingers, the chill of his glove penetrating her substance. She swayed, feeling disconnected from her spirit body, and wondered if she were finally moving on to the afterlife—the real afterlife, because there had to be some kind of reward for all this pain and suffering.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” someone boomed from the mausoleum entrance. “Did I miss the cast party?”

  Bone sagged against the wall as the Judge concealed the cross in the folds of his robe.

  “You’re late, Royce,” the Judge said.

  “Had to press the flesh down at the Rock’n’Roll Café,” he said. He was wearing a deerskin jacket that looked pretty fresh, and his hair was a carefully crafted mess. “Hey, Dollface, you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Take that line out of your repertoire,” the Judge said.

  Bone ignored both of them and went to Tim, who was still dry heaving. She’d only visited him in the hospital once, when her mother made her go with Crystal and a couple of classmates from Sunday School. That had been a couple of weeks before he took a turn for the worse, and even then he’d been waxy, his cheeks sunken and hair falling out from the chemo. But his eyes had burned with a fierce intensity, and Bone had wondered how such a light could ever be extinguished.

  But, being kids, they mostly wondered what it was like for someone to hold a pot for you to poop in.

  She knelt beside him as Royce worked the room. “Tim, are you okay?” she whispered.

  He gave one more retch and a tuft of vapor came out and curled away in the candlelight. “Yeah,” he managed. “Never been deade
r.”

  “Hey, that’s good,” Royce said. “Can I use it?”

  “You’re supposed to be alive, remember?” the Judge said. “If you go to Earth and start getting typecast, you’ll lose your star power. Don’t be eccentric. Nobody likes eccentric.”

  “If Johnny Depp can do it, I can do it.”

  “We’re a long way from Netflix, Royce. We’re still at the Tan Banana & Movie Emporium level.”

  “Do you know how he started out?”

  There was so much venom in the word “he” that it could only mean Jimmy Dean, and not the sausage-king version, either.

  “High school theater,” Royce continued, jumping the cue line. “Such immortal classics as ‘You Can’t Take It With You’ and ‘Our Hearts Were Young and Gay.’”

  Tim wiped his mouth. “And now your heart is a geriatric drag queen,” he said, though he lacked the energy to put any real malice in the comeback.

  Bone helped him stand, resisting the impulse to put her wrist to his forehead and check for fever. Any heat would be an illusion, though she could have sworn the banked coals of rage glowed deep in her belly.

  “Okay,” Bone said to the Judge. “Make him better, and I’ll help.”

  “Oh, you’re helping anyway,” the Judge said. “What good is a shepherd without sheep? What good is a star without a supporting cast? What good is—”

  “Take the cancer,” Bone said. “Just let him be a boy.”

  “What is this?” Royce said. “‘Pinocchio’?”

  “Bonnie Whitehart, you think it’s that simple?” the Judge said. “That I can just wave my hand and undo the great, grinding wheels of time and Fate? That I can just—”

  She cut him off before he could get rolling again. “Fix it.”

  “No, Bonnie,” Tim said. “I’d rather puke my guts out for a billion years than owe Hoodie Boy here any favors.”

  The Judge chuckled, which sounded like a dozen knucklebones rattling in a China cup. “We all get on our knees sooner or later, Tim.”

  Royce stood there looking cute and confused, as if waiting for the director to yell “Action.” Bone considered another run for the cemetery gate, but Tim was barely able to stand, much less run or float.