Tommy Nightmare(50)

“Then I’ll heal you,” Seth said. “After I kill him.”

“I’m serious, Seth.”

“Me, too.” Seth folded up the paper and tucked it in his pocket. “I’ll study this stuff later, when I’m stuck at home. Right now, I’d rather talk about you.”

Seth kissed her again.

This time, Jenny didn’t resist him.





Chapter Twenty-Two


Tommy drove them out of the city, into the vast lonely universe of the Mojave desert, where the air was clear and the sky was a bottomless blue overhead. She gripped him tight with her arms and thighs.

He followed a narrow unpainted spur road up the top of a bluff, and then he stopped at the edge of the cliff, looking down over a sea of sand and rock.

“That was a long ride,” Esmeralda said.

“You loved it.”

“Maybe.”

She got off the bike and stretched her arms. He dropped the kickstand and killed the engine, then stood beside her, looking over the cliff.

“Why did you come looking for me?” she asked. “Why now?”

“I should have come years ago,” he said. “I keep thinking about you.”

“Thinking what about me?”

“Take off your helmet.”

Esmeralda took it off and shook her long black hair. She smiled at him.

“I have a magic touch like yours,” he said. He took off one glove.

“What do you mean?”

“You can talk to the dead when you touch them,” he said.

“Maybe when I was a kid. It kind of faded away as I got older.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You shouldn’t. I’m lying. But I can’t really talk to the dead.”

“Then how did you find out about the old man’s money?”

“What I do is more like listening,” Esmeralda said. “It’s like all their memories are left behind in their bodies. And I can find them. But it’s not like talking to dead spirits or anything. Their souls are gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Wherever souls go.” Esmeralda shrugged. “What do you do?”

“I can make people feel fear.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Everyone is. Let me see your hand.”

“Don’t do anything creepy.” She held out her hand to him.

“Everything I do is creepy.” He took her hand and watched the inevitable chill bumps spread up her arms. She trembled and pulled away.

“You see?” he asked.

She touched her fingers to her lips, staring at him.

“I did warn you,” Tommy said.

“No…it’s okay,” she said. “It’s like a shock. I remember from when I was a kid. When you…” She blushed. “Let me try again.”

She took his hand in both of hers. She shuddered, but she kept looking him in the eye. Tommy felt his own heart move faster at her touch. She was going to drive him crazy.

“How scared are you?” Tommy asked.

“It’s kind of a rush,” she said. “It makes you feel alive.” She stepped closer and looked up at him. “I want to scream. But I like it. I want you to touch me more.”

She reached up and laid a cold, sweaty palm against his neck.

“I need you to do something for me,” he said.

She pushed closer against him. “What do you want?”

“I have the body of a third person. Like us. I need you to read it, or whatever you do.”

She took a breath and stepped back, releasing his hand. “Is that why you came?”

“I’m trying to understand more about what we are. Don’t you want to understand?”

“It can’t be understood,” Esmeralda said. “We are as God created us.”

“I’m not sure God did,” Tommy said. “We aren’t like normal people.”

“So who is this person?”

“A girl,” Tommy said.

“Oh. And what do you want to learn from her?”

“I saw her on television,” he said. “She seemed very together, very in control. And I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Esmeralda looked over the cliff and said nothing.

“I think she’s like us,” Tommy said. “Whatever we are. Only she knew what she was doing.”

“And you could see all this on the television?” Esmeralda asked, still not looking at him.

“I just felt it. I keep dreaming about her. I keep seeing her face and hearing her voice, all the time.”

“So you did not come out here for me,” Esmeralda said. “You came for her.”

“It’s all the same thing,” Tommy said. “It’s all about figuring out what we are, and what we can do—”