Be the Death of Me (5 page)

“Why not Benny?”

“I’d rather keep calling you
pansy
, but I don’t think that will go over too well with the people I work for.”

“The mafia?”

“Keep pushing me, Ford. I may kill you myself.”

“Okay! I think we’ve all had just about enough fun for one night.” Tucker, who must have experience handling insane women, takes Billie by the shoulders and ushers her across the room. “It’s cool if you want to get some sleep,” he tells me. “We’ll be here all night.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Kind of,” he grins. “But we can talk more about your feelings in the morning, okay?”

“Uh . . . okay,” I shrug, still not sure how I feel about being thrown into utter chaos by two people I’m not a hundred percent sure aren’t hallucinations. “There’s a couch downstairs if either of you want to get some rest.”

Billie laughs. “We don’t sleep.”

“You don’t sleep?” I can’t help my mouth from gaping open. “Like ever?”

Tucker shakes his head.

I climb into bed and pull the sheets up to my chest. “Man, that’s gotta suck.”

“Oh yeah,” Billie adds, sliding down the opposite wall and resting her chin on top of her knees. “Death, the afterlife, it’s nothing compared to not getting our beauty rest.”

I sit up and glare at her. If tonight turns out not to be a nightmare after all, and this girl really
is
dead, it isn’t difficult to understand why. Beautiful or not, I think someone obviously must have had their fill of her attitude and killed her just to get some peace and quiet.

“What is your problem? Is it me? Am I the reason you’re so pissed off or is it because you left your army of flying monkeys home without a babysitter?” I say, not backing down. “I mean, honestly.”

She turns to her comrade, who, oddly enough, is standing with his ear pressed to the wall. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”

He shrugs. “Seems like a legitimate question.”

She turns to him in a huff. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that little trick you pulled earlier. You threw that crucifix halfway across the room without laying a finger on it.”

“So?” he asks.

“So? That’s what your gift is, isn’t it? I knew I’d figure it out sooner or later.”

“You didn’t
figure out
anything. I didn’t want him to hurt himself, so I took his toy away. You’re welcome by the way.”

“I don’t remember thanking you.”

“Is she always like this?” I interrupt, looking to Tucker for an answer.

He laughs and takes the wall across from Billie. “You get used to it.”

“God, I hope not.”

An inexplicable radiance bounces from her thin, willowy figure now huddled against the wall where a soft, steel–blue glow springs from her skin while sparks of light dance over each cheekbone. I turn on my side, and push thoughts of my beautiful tormentor from my mind. With any luck, I’ll wake up and find all of this was nothing more than a horrifically realistic dream. Outside, a restless branch continues to scratch at my window, and the same melancholy owl hoots eerily into the night.

It’s the last thing I hear before I finally succumb to my exhaustion.

Billie

“Doesn’t he
ever
stop snoring?”

“Go easy on him, Billie,” Tuck says over the much louder sound of obnoxiously heavy breathing emitting from the broad expanse of mattress. He leans his lanky frame against the closet wall, folding his arms across his chest. “This hasn’t been easy for any of us.”

Another earsplitting snore issues from deep within the layers of covers strewn messily around the bed and floor. At some point during what I can only assume was a less–than–pleasant night’s sleep, Ford must have declared war on his bed and its allies. The sheets are tangled around a figure lying somewhere amidst their depths, while the comforter is draped chaotically over the headboard, and the pillows, freed from their cases, occupy opposite corners of the floor.

“This is getting ridiculous.” I pull my knees in tighter. “Shouldn’t he be in school or something? It’s two o’clock in the afternoon for crying out loud.”

“It’s Sunday.”

The muffled response comes from the bed. Ford sits up, pulling the sheets and bedspread with him, making it impossible to discern whether or not there’s an actual person inside the tightly wrapped cocoon of blankets. “It’s Sunday,” the voice repeats, sounding a degree or two more hostile than before. “The day of rest. The day I had planned to waste in bed, convincing myself that spending the rest of my life confined in a mental institution wouldn’t be nearly as bad as the reality of having to deal with the two of you.”

The sheets begin to move as he fights to liberate himself from their constricting embrace. “And what do I get instead?” he asks once he’s finally free, his dark hair sticking up in untidy tufts. “I get to wake up to find the two hallucinations I deluded myself into believing I’d dreamt up aren’t hallucinations at all! They’re real. And they’re you.”

He finishes with a final groan, flopping back onto the mattress.

I turn to Tucker with a smile. “My, he’s chipper.”

“A regular ray of sunshine,” he grins back.

“They’re not real,” comes the sound of soft, determined chanting. “They’re not real. They’re not real. They’re not real. They’re not real.”

“Oh, but we
are
real,” I counter, phasing onto the mattress, appearing on the pillow next to him. I tap his nose. “Now time to get up, silly boy, before you sleep the day away.”

He’s out of the bed in a flash, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. I smile and sit up. “Or not,” I offer with a shrug. “Either way, have your butt dressed and downstairs in fifteen minutes.”

His head shakes back and forth, sending messed, chocolate brown bangs falling across his forehead.

“What do you mean, no?” I ask, trying very hard not to lose my cool.

“I’m not changing with you here,” he says, a flush of pink coloring his pale cheeks.

I can’t help my smile at his discomfort. “Let me assure you, Ford, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen and laughed at before. So do us both a favor, and don’t concern yourself with trying to protect the innocence of my eyes.”

“Billie.” The reprimand comes from Tuck who’s staring at me with a rather disapproving frown.

“Fine,” I relent. “But you and I both know that if this was like any other assignment and we were still invisible, he wouldn’t have to worry about being seen naked by a girl.” I close my eyes and picture the downstairs kitchen in my mind, finding myself standing in my vision a moment later.

An older woman, in her sixties or seventies at least, trundles through the front door, humming what sounds like an old gospel hymn, her arms full of brown paper grocery bags. She’s a sturdy looking lady, with wide hips and a cheery, plump face. Her long, gray hair is tied into a single braid that lays neatly against a back hunched slightly with age. She sets the bags on the counter and begins unloading the groceries, darting back and forth from the small, green refrigerator to the cabinets overhead. She pauses and digs to the bottom of one of the bags, resurfacing with the receipt a minute later. Holding it close to her face, she attempts to read the tiny, ink faded print, but gives up after a moment, only to begin patting her pants and shirt pockets in frustration.

With a tiny, hidden smile I reach forward, and with a gentle flick of my finger, push her rather stylish, cat–eye glasses from the top of her salt and pepper head, down to her nose. The old woman halts her search, obviously startled by the sudden improvement in her vision, but laughs softly to herself, and with a shake of her head, dives back into unpacking the supplies.

“Morning, Gran!” comes Ford’s enthusiastic call from the top of the stairs, followed quickly by a series of thundering footsteps. He appears, dressed in torn jeans and a forest green t–shirt with the name of some band printed across the front, his hair brushed and smoothed to the best of its natural ability, which is to say, hardly at all.

Turning back to the now–crowded kitchen, I discover Tuck standing next to me. He smiles and leans lazily against the counter.

“Morning?” the older woman smiles at her grandson. “More like afternoon. Glad to see you’re finally up. Have you eaten anything, Benedict?”

“Not yet, Gran,” Ford replies. “I will though, don’t worry.”

“Don’t tell me not to worry,” she says in a playful tone. “You’re already too skinny. Simon was twice your size when we he was your age, you know.”

“Didn’t Simon die of a cholesterol–induced heart attack when he was forty?”

“Watch your tongue,” she slaps the back of his mop top head. “Simon was a fine man, God rest his idiotic soul.”

I laugh loudly. The sound reverberates around the four of us present, though only Tuck and Ford look my way. “Who’s Simon?” I whisper into my companion’s ear. He bends his ear to my lips.

“Fay’s second husband,” he answers. “Don’t you ever do your homework?”

“Right. Second husband,” I say with a nod, skipping over his question. “Now who’s Fay?” He groans, and I knock him one in the arm. “Kidding.”

“Come on,” Fay says to Ford after emptying the final bag. “Let me fix you some brunch. How do pigs in a blanket sound?”

“Probably a little hostile at being trapped inside a blanket.”

“Billie.”

“Sorry.”

“Maybe in a bit,” Ford says, ignoring our comedy act.

“What about your friends, Benedict? Do you think they’ll want anything to eat?”

The old lady’s cheery question would have caused my blood to freeze in my veins if such a thing were possible. Judging from the look on Tuck’s face, he’s been thrown for a loop as well.

Ford’s eyes shift nervously in their sockets before finally resting on us. “Fr . . . friends?” he stammers when her back is turned. “Wha . . . what friends, Gran?”

She smiles, wide and toothy. “Didn’t you say you had a couple of friends coming over to watch a ballgame tonight? Some boys from school?”

His shoulders deflate with a wild rush of air. “Oh, the guys from school. Of course. I mean, who else would you have been talking about, right?”

I can tell, buried deep within those words is a cry of absolute desperation for her to see the two lightly glowing teenagers leaning against her kitchen counter.

“I was thinking maybe fajitas,” she replies, crushing Ford’s hopes. “Do you think that’s okay, or should I cook something more conventional? I can make cheeseburgers if you want.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ford mutters, staring intently at his hands. “Turns out the guys can’t come after all. There’s a game at school tonight, so they’re going to hang there instead.”

“Oh,” she says, her smile turning to a tiny, wrinkled pout. “Are you going to meet up with them at the game? Should I plan on dinner by myself?”

“No,” he answers, still not looking up from the table. “I’m just going to stay in. I’ve got some things I have to do here anyway.”

“Homework?” she asks, moving to pat her grandson’s shoulder. “Math again? I could help you with a few of the problems if you’d like. It’ll be our little secret.”

“Trust me, Gran,” Ford says, finally lifting his gaze to stare–no, glower is more accurate–at Tuck and me. “I don’t think you can help me with the kind of problems I’ve got.”

“All right.” She lets loose a sigh of acceptance. “I’m heading to the community center for the afternoon, hon. There’s a meeting about next weekend’s yard sale. Will you be okay by yourself?”

Ford nods. “Yeah. I have a feeling keeping busy won’t be a problem.”

His grandmother drops a folded newspaper and a stack of mail on the table in front of him. She leans down to kiss the top of his hair. “I saved the puzzle for you,” she says with a smile. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

And she’s gone, unknowingly leaving her grandson at the mercy of the undead.

“Okay, two questions,” I say the minute I hear the sound of an engine rumbling in the driveway. “Who are these boys she was talking about, and when do I get to meet them?”

“Never,” he growls in my direction, unfolding the newspaper to the weekly crossword and reaching for a pen. “You never get to meet them.”

“Well, that seems a little rude.”

“You
can’t
meet them,” he clarifies. “They don’t exist.”

“But she just said–”

He lets out an exasperated huff, and tears his eyes from the paper. “Gran worries about me, okay? So to make it easier on her, I sometimes make up these fake plans to hang out with guys from school. She never seems to notice that something always comes up every time they’re supposed to come over.”

He finishes and plunges back into his crossword puzzle.

I stare at Tuck, who in turn is looking at Ford with an expression of disbelief and pity.

“That,” I say, sweeping around behind him, “is the saddest thing I have ever heard.”

“It’s better than having a seventy–year–old woman think her grandson is a loser.”

“You thought the opposite of being a loser was to invent fake friends?”

“Just drop it, okay?”

“All right, all right.” I hold up my hands in surrender. “No need to get snippy.”

“Oh really?” Ford chuckles darkly, filling in the boxes for 8–Across. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was just fine before you showed up.”

“Yeah, you were doing wonderful,” I scoff. “Except for that part about your imminent death.”

He turns to Tuck, who has remained quiet during all of this. “Yeah, about that,” Ford says. “Thanks for letting me know and all, but wouldn’t it be easier for me to just call the cops?”

“The cops?” I can’t contain the sneer that decorates my face. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. Why should I let
you
protect me when you obviously couldn’t keep yourself alive?”

“Hey, watch it,” Tuck snaps from the counter. “Low blow, man.”

“Like I care. Ten bucks says I’m dead before the day’s over.”

“Go to the cops then!” I shout. “But mind if I ask what you plan on telling them? Because saying two dead teenagers came to you in the middle of the night and told you something or someone is going to kill you is only going to get you locked in a cozy, padded cell.”

“That would be better than spending another second with you.”

“Make sure they put that on your headstone, will you? Right below ‘Here lies Benedict Bartholomew Ford. He had no friends and a really stupid name’.”

“This coming from a chick with a guy’s name.”

“Well, it could be worse.”

“How?”

“I could be a seventeen year old shut–in with imaginary friends.”

“I hate you, you know that?”

“Yeah, well take a number, pal.”

“That’s enough!”

Tuck slams his fist down on the table, shaking the thin, antique legs with the impact. The pendant light dangling over our heads flickers on and off, on and off as if hit with a sudden, overwhelming surge of electricity. Ford and I fall silent.

“What is the matter with you people?” Tuck exclaims. “Honestly! I feel like I’m in charge of the two most obnoxious kids on the planet! And contrary to what you may believe, I don’t enjoy babysitting you.”

He turns to me, more enraged than I’ve ever seen him. “Is this how you handle all of your assignments? Because I gotta tell you, Billie, if you were
my
Guardian, I’d probably kill myself just to get away from you. You may think you’re some unattainable, gorgeous girl, and you’d be right, but it still doesn’t give you an excuse to act this way.”

“Amen,” Ford chimes in.

“And you!” Tuck whirls on him. He slumps lower in his chair. “What’s your problem, man?”

“I don’t have a–”

“Don’t interrupt me,” he jumps back in, snatching the crossword from Ford’s hands. “You know, most people would be grateful to have their own secret service assigned to protect them. I mean, you do realize you’re complaining about people trying to keep you
alive
, right? So just stop with the self–pity act and cowboy up. And if both of you can somehow manage to grow up, deal with the situation, and at least
pretend
to like one another, then maybe, just maybe, no one will die.”

The silence that washes over us is both palpable and painful. In that instant of speechlessness, Ford staring at his fingers, Tuck staring at me, I see it. The plea for cooperation written in the furrow of his brow, in the flare of his nostrils and strength of his hands. He isn’t asking for much, and I know then that one of us is going to have to bend before this entire operation breaks.

I look at Ford across the expanse of table. “Jeez, what’s his problem?”

And for the first time since meeting him, I receive a genuine smile. His face lights up with a grin, the sharp lines melting away to reveal a completely new person.

“Seriously,” he agrees with a playful roll of his eyes. “Calm down, buddy, before you spontaneously combust.”

“Hilarious,” Tuck says. “Just answer me this, will you? How, out of all the assignments in the entire world, did I get stuck with this one?” His words may sound indignant, but his tone is anything but serious, and with a good–humored jab to my shoulder, he takes a seat at the table, choosing the chair across from Ford.

“Just lucky, I guess.” I flash him my brightest smile.

“I know I haven’t reacted well to all of this,” Ford jumps in, laying his pen down, “but you have to understand, I just found out that not only are there ghosts, but their entire purpose for being here is to keep me from joining their ranks. And let’s be honest. I haven’t totally chucked the idea that you two aren’t just very lifelike hallucinations. So bear with me. It’s just . . .  a lot to deal with. Let me handle it in my own way for now, okay?”

“I think we can do that,” Tuck says before I have a chance to put in my two cents. “It’s Persephone, by the way.”

Both Ford and I stare at him like he’s lost his mind.

“Twenty–three down. Queen of the Underworld? It’s Persephone.”

“Oh, right.” Ford smiles and scratches the answer down in the spaces provided. “Thanks.”

I breeze around the kitchen as the minutes tick by, opening random cabinets and drawers in search of something interesting.

“Doesn’t your grandmother eat anything without the words fiber or bran in the name?” I ask Ford.

He offers me a wry shrug. “Not that I know of. She’s old.”

“Why do you live with her anyway?”

He doesn’t look up from his puzzle. “Because the judge told me to.”

“The judge?”

“Yeah,” he answers. “My mom ran out on us when I was really little, and when my dad died a few years ago, Gran was the only option left. Hey, do either of you know what nineteen–eighty–two film was directed by Tobe Hooper? Eleven letters, starts with a P.”

“Poltergeist,” both Tuck and I shout at the same time.

Ford grins and fills in the blanks. “How appropriate. So,” he says after answering a few more clues. The crossword is nearly finished, sky blue ink covering almost every white box on the page. “How did I get lucky enough to get the two of you as my . . . Guards?”

“Guardians,” I say.

“Right, Guardians. Did I win a raffle or something?”