He taught me to stand up for what I believe in, to shout it out at the top of my lungs. He taught me to feel—the deep, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, soul-singing kind of emotion I had avoided for so long. He taught me about the importance of life. He taught me about the beauty of death. He also taught me about love.
This is our story.
CHAPTER ONE
Drums blared from the radio, but even over the loud music, I could still hear Izzy’s bell-like voice as she sang along. She knew every word to the song. She bobbed her head and wiggled her shoulders, tapping her thumbs rhythmically on the steering wheel.
Her dark auburn hair was pulled back in a French twist at the back of her head and the dashboard lights illuminated her heart-shaped face, making her silvery blue eyes look even paler. Her cheeks were a little fuller than usual and her skin had an uncharacteristic glow.
I wondered about her weight gain, had my suspicions, but I said nothing. If she had something to tell me, she’d get to it in her own sweet time. That was Izzy’s way.
She slid me a sidelong glance. “What are you staring at, Perv?”
“Those man hands,” I replied teasingly. “You could palm a grown man’s head with those mitts.”
“Hey,” she said, glaring at me. “Do you want to walk home?”
“Yeah, like—”
And then, as I’d done hundreds of times in the last three years, I awoke in a cold sweat. Heart racing, chest aching, I lay in bed and struggled to catch my breath. I squeezed my eyes shut against the last few seconds of the car crash, but that didn’t stop me from seeing it. It never did. The awful crunch of metal rang in my ears and I knew what was coming after that—the same images that always did, the ones that only got more confusing with time.
Memories of a deer and a boy tangled together in my mind. I’d told the authorities of a person I’d seen as the car spun off the road, about the pale face of a stranger that had flashed in front of the headlights just before my recollection went blank.
I assumed we’d hit him, but they’d found no body, no evidence of blood or tissue on the blackened remains of the front bumper. They’d assured me that no one could’ve survived being struck by a car going over fifty miles per hour. They’d concluded that, since they hadn’t found a body, the boy must’ve been a figment of my imagination, born of terror and trauma.
But I wasn’t convinced, and after three long years, I hadn’t forgotten him either. Though the details of his face had faded over time, there was something about his eyes—a soul-deep agony, a burning self-loathing—that I’d never been able to get out of my head. It had stayed with me since that night. I was drawn to that kind of suffering, almost like a kindred spirit.
Slowly but surely, as I stared at the ceiling, reality returned, settling over me like a blanket of blandness. The television played the early morning news reports, as it did every morning.
I was probably the most well-informed kid in school, mostly because I went to sleep every night with the television on and woke up every day listening to the most recent happenings as they echoed through my room.
I listened with half an ear to the Channel Six anchorman as he talked about the top story.
“Another body was found late last night in Arlisle Preserve, near the area police have dubbed the ‘Slayer’s Slaughterhouse’.” The body was positively identified as seventeen year old Jolene Turner of Falls Town. At this time, police are not able to divulge all the details surrounding her death, though they did confirm that she was killed in a manner typical of the Southmoore Slayer, including the animal attack-like markings on the neck, a fatal chest wound and exsanguination. Turner makes victim number twenty-seven of the Southmoore Slayer and, unless he’s captured, police fear that her death will not be the last.
Southmoore Chief of Police Edwin McDonnahough has teamed with local authorities from four neighboring towns to form a task force dedicated to the identification and apprehension of the Slayer. Law enforcement officials from Harker, Columbia, Camden, and Sumter have devoted at least one officer to the team in hopes of bringing the Slayer to justice before the violence spreads across the borders into their townships.
In other top news, The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta still has not been able to confirm that the mysterious illness plaguing now thirty-one Southmoore residents is Mad Cow Disease. Authorities have yet to lift the quarantine that has been imposed on the sale of local cattle…”
I let the reporter’s voice fade into the background as my breathing returned to normal and then, with a sigh, I smacked blindly at the television’s remote control until I found the power button. Without the noise of the TV, an uncomfortable silence filled my bedroom. It was the kind of quiet that always led to troubling thoughts. It was the kind of quiet I avoided like the plague. Already, my mind was wandering back to the dream.
With another sigh, I rolled over and turned off my alarm clock, even though it had yet to buzz. I knew from years of experience that I wouldn’t find sleep again. Resigned, I threw back the covers, got out of bed and went to take a shower.
********
I shouted at the tiny, dark-skinned blonde at the top of the pyramid. “Trinity, you’re wobbling!”
“I can’t help it. Aisha’s moving. If I fall off, I’m gonna kick her- ahh!”
And just like that, the pyramid came tumbling down. Actually, it was more like a gentle folding, thank God. But I knew that just because no one was hurt this time didn’t mean it wouldn’t end badly next time.
“Aisha, I’m switching you to the shoulder stand on the end.”
“Thank God,” she muttered, angrily flipping her long, intricately braided hair.
Ignoring her, I directed my attention to the slightly stocky brunette with the pigtails at the other end of the formation. “Carly, can you help hold Trinity for the center?”With a snort and a roll of her eyes, Carly agreed, albeit ungraciously. “I guess,” she said weakly.
We looked at each other expectantly—me waiting for her to move and her waiting for…I don’t know what she was waiting for, but it was obvious Carly had no intention of moving whatsoever.
Carly was my whiner. I wanted to slap her. I wanted to slap her a lot. Seriously, I did, just not as badly (or as often) as I wanted to punch Trinity. And I mean really punch her. Hard. Right in her pouty mouth. Trinity was the type of personality that would’ve brought Gandhi himself to violence.
I was rarely ever surprised by the behavior of the other cheerleaders, only irritated by it. After all, I understood them better than anyone. Until three years ago, I was fundamentally the same as them—shamefully selfish, vapid, useless and vicious. But when tragedy strikes, it leaves no part of your life, of your being, untouched, unscathed, unscarred. No, tragedy had carved a whole new person out of my less-than-ideal former self, and in a way, I’m thankful for it.
Now my eyes are open and I’m content, at least for my soul’s sake, to be growing more and more different, growing further and further apart from them. It does make things more difficult, though. Much more difficult.
Pushing both the violent and the troubling thoughts from my mind, I simply smiled sweetly and asked Carly, “Then how about getting over there so we can try it?”
With a loud, exaggerated sigh, Carly obliged me by moving toward the other end of the line.
“Ridley, you better not get me killed,” Trinity said theatrically as she followed Carly into position.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Trinity. Just keep your balance and you’ll be fine.”
“I don’t see you up here, risking your life for a pyramid, Moby Dick,” Trinity mumbled under her breath.
Her comment was point in case. Trinity was convinced that anyone who wore a size greater than a four was a cow. Or a whale in this case. She was unbelievable.
Though the barb rankled, I ignored her. As always. She assumed that I didn’t hear her, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. I simply disregarded her remarks because anything less than that was like pouring gasoline on a fire. If her nastiness was given the tiniest bit of attention or credence, she just acted out all the more.
So, as I’d done a thousand times before, I swallowed my anger and my retorts, opting for a future at Stanford instead. My college dreams, my life’s dreams were riding on a scholarship and Trinity was a great flyer for the squad, just another reason not to rock the boat.
My biggest goal was to keep my nose clean until graduation. The end. And if that included ignoring Trinity so as not to get her too riled up, then so be it.
“All right, let’s see it from the ground up with the music,” I shouted, hitting the play button on my iPod’s docking station.
Usher blared from the speakers and the cheerleaders began to move in time with the beat. Steadily, they climbed and built the pyramid until Trinity was once more perched on top, a foot in each of two girls’ palms. Then, right on cue, they lifted her until she was standing high in the air, atop their extended arms.
“Perfect,” I said, clapping excitedly. “Now we can work that new toss in from right there.” I approached the girls as they dismounted. “Let’s take five and then we’ll work on flying for the rest of the afternoon.”
Shorts-clad cheerleaders disbursed to the bleachers to get sips of their bottled waters and complain about what a slave driver I was. Same drill, different day.