First Evil (5 page)

“N
o!”

Corky's anguished cry cut through the air. She dropped to the wet ground beside Jennifer and grabbed her pale, limp hand.

“No!”

At first Bobbi thought the low wail she was hearing came from her sister. But as the sound grew louder, cutting through the crackle and whisper of the wind bending the ancient trees of the cemetery, Bobbi realized it was the siren of an ambulance.

Someone in one of the houses across the street must have seen the accident and called for help.

A few seconds later three ambulances and a police cruiser pulled onto the wet grass, their flashing red lights washing over everyone, making everything seem too bright, the colors all wrong, too frightening, too vivid to be real.

The white coats of the paramedics, scrambling through the wet weeds, flashed red and gray, red and gray. The light caught their hard expressions like those in artificial-light snapshots, freezing them in Bobbi's mind. She knew she'd always remember every somber face, every flash of light, every second of this dark, wet nightmare.

Behind the tilted tombstone, Ronnie stood crying, sobbing loudly, her mouth open wide, her eyes round. Kimmy and Debra huddled around her, trying to comfort her, their faces distorted by the flickers of red light too.

The rain had stopped now, leaving the air heavy and cold.

On the ground in front of the tombstone, several paramedics worked over Jennifer, speaking softly among themselves, softly but urgently.

Gentle hands pulled Bobbi and her sister back. Two young police officers were questioning Simmons, who was shrugging and gesturing to the overturned bus. He appeared very frightened and upset.

Radios crackled from the ambulances and the police car. A paramedic leaning over Jennifer spoke rapidly into a cellular telephone. The wind blew a shower of ice-cold rainwater down from the trees. Bobbi took a reluctant step closer.

Was Jennifer alive? Were they bringing her around? She had to see.

The white coats had formed a protective circle around Jennifer. Bobbi tried to make sense out of the buzz of low voices. She made her way to just outside the circle, her sneakers sinking into soft earth.

One of the paramedics stood up. In the blink of red
light, Bobbi saw his eyes close, his teeth clench. “She's gone,” he said.

Another white-coated young man climbed to his feet, shaking his head.

“Gone.”

Radios crackled. Ronnie's sobs cut through the air.

“No!” Bobbi screamed.

Without realizing it, without even realizing she was moving, Bobbi pushed past the grim-faced paramedics. She knelt at Jennifer's side, stared down at her pretty, expressionless face.

And Jennifer opened her eyes.

“Hey!” Bobbi cried. “Whoa!”

Jennifer blinked. And stared up at Bobbi.

“Hey—” Bobbi called. “Hey—”

Jennifer blinked again. Her lips trembled. Her dark eyes moved from side to side.

“Hey—she's alive!” Bobbi called. “Hey—”

Corky was holding on to Bobbi's shoulders, leaning over her, staring down at Jennifer.

Jennifer smiled up at them both.

“Hey—”

Cheers and cries. Urgent voices. The crackling of the radios. A low voice speaking rapidly into a cellular phone.

The sounds were drowned out by a rush of wind. It started to rain again.

Bobbi stared at the flashing colors, the darting yellow cones of light from the flashlights, the pale white beams of headlights. The lights all melted into one and grew brighter and brighter until she had to close her eyes.

Jennifer was alive. Okay. She was going to be okay.

Her eyes still shut tightly, Bobbi said a silent prayer.

When she opened her eyes, Jennifer's gurney was being gently slid into an ambulance. Two more squad cars had pulled up. Several officers stood outlined in headlights, inspecting the overturned bus, shaking their heads.

“Lucky no one was killed.”

The words floated through the air and repeated in Bobbi's mind.

The rain came down harder, swirled by the wind. The ambulance siren started with a cough. Then the shrill wail corkscrewed through the rustling trees. The ambulance roared away.

“How will we get home?” Ronnie was asking, still flanked by Kimmy and Debra.

“What about the game?” Heather asked.

“We have to get
home!
” Ronnie insisted.

“Will Jennifer be okay?”

“Has anyone called our parents?”

“Someone should call Miss Green”

“She's probably at the game.”

“They won't play in this rain.”

Let it rain, Bobbi thought, raising her face to it. Let the rain wash everything away. Everything.

She turned, startled to see Kimmy standing beside her, a cold, grim expression on her face, her eyes locked on Bobbi's.

“Kimmy—?” Bobbi started.

“This is all your fault,” Kimmy said, speaking through clenched teeth. Her hands were balled into tight fists at her sides. The rain had matted her black hair against her forehead.

“Huh?”

“All your fault,” Kimmy repeated, continuing to glare at Bobbi. “If you hadn't made us turn onto Fear Street—”

“Now,
wait
a minute!” Bobbi cried. “That isn't fair!”

She realized the other cheerleaders were all staring at her, their faces grim and unhappy, lit by the flashes of red light.

“Kimmy, that's not fair,” Corky cried, rushing forward to join her sister.

Kimmy walked quickly back to Ronnie and Debra.

“That's not fair!” Corky repeated.

The rain fell harder, making it difficult to see. The ambulance carrying Jennifer was far in the distance now, its siren a lingering cry that refused to fade away.

T
he cheers thundered down from the bleachers as the cheerleaders ran out onto the floor. As the seven girls bounded across the gym, the noise rose and echoed until it felt as if the roof might be blown off.

Kimmy led the girls onto the floor, and they immediately went into what they called their clap-clap routine. The girls clapped out a rhythm—and everyone in the bleachers repeated it as loudly as possible.

As she clapped, Kimmy stared up at the colorful blur of kids filling the bleachers, spilling out onto the gym floor, standing along the walls. The entire school was at the pep rally.

The hand clapping gave way to foot stomping. The bleachers quaked and trembled. The rhythm picked up. Faster. Louder.

What a thrill! Kimmy thought, an excited grin
spread across her face. What a thrill to perform for the entire school! What a
sound!
Like an earthquake or the stampede of a thousand elephants!

She knew she looked great in her new uniform. They all did. The maroon and white was so sharp, the skirt so crisp, and the sweater so bright. Their old uniforms had been ruined that night in the rain.

But here it was, two weeks later, and everything was fresh and new again. And everyone was cheering. Cheering their lungs out.

Well . . . almost everyone.

“Give me a T!”

“T!”

“Give me an I!”

“I!”

“Give me a G!”

“G!”

What a sound! Kimmy thought, her grin growing even wider as her shiny black hair bounced around her face every time she jumped.

They finished the cheer in a wavelike ripple, the girls going down in splits one after the other. Kimmy glanced down the row of cheerleaders, all so happy, so fresh and excited, as if that terrible night had never happened.

There was Ronnie down at the end, radiant, shouting her heart out. Her curly red hair, caught in the bright lights, seemed to glow on its own. How happy she'd been to be back on the squad.

And Debra, normally so cool, so withdrawn, was cheering at the top of her lungs.

Only cheerleaders, Kimmy thought, know what this
is like. A lot of people put us down. They think we're wasting our time. Or we're out-of-date or something. But that's because they don't know this special excitement, the special thrill of getting a huge crowd to forget itself and go wild.

The cheer ended to raucous shouts and applause.

Kimmy peered down the line of girls to see Corky and Bobbi do their special double cartwheel.

Ugh, she thought bitterly. What showoffs. They really make me sick. With their blond hair and sweet, innocent faces. Always prancing around together, trying to make the rest of us look second rate. I could throw up. I really could.

The echoing drums of the marching band brought Kimmy out of her dark thoughts.

No, she decided. I'm not going to allow those two to ruin this day. I'm not going to give them another thought.

Everyone stood and clapped along as the band played the Shadyside High marching song.

I want only good memories of this pep rally, Kimmy thought, clapping as hard as she could. After all, the rally is in honor of
us
, in honor of how brave we were, in honor of how we survived that terrible night.

The band ended its number to wild applause. Corky and Bobbi did their cartwheel again, and Kimmy forced herself not to react.

The girls all turned to her to begin the next cheer routine.

“Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. . . .”

Kimmy's eye caught Miss Green leaning against the
wall of her office and clapping along with them, a big smile on her usually dour face.

In a few minutes Miss Green will name me as the new captain, Kimmy thought. The thought sent a shiver of excitement down her back.

It's something I've wanted for so long. I've worked so hard for it, so hard.

I'm not knockout beautiful like the other girls. I'm not tall and well built. I don't have straight blond hair like the Corcorans or look like a movie star like . . . Jennifer.

But I'm going to be captain. I'm finally going to be captain.

She wished her parents could have been there to see it, to see the pep rally, to see their daughter, to see how exciting it all was. She had begged them to come. But, as usual, they claimed they couldn't get away from their jobs.

Just an excuse, Kimmy thought bitterly.

Then forced those thoughts out of her mind. Nothing was going to spoil her day. Nothing.

Whoa!

The routine ended. The band started up immediately. Kimmy turned toward the far side of the gym, and the other girls followed her lead.

As the band finished its number, a deafening cheer went up as Jennifer wheeled herself out onto the floor. She was wearing a new uniform too, Kimmy saw. In her hand was a maroon and white pennant with her name embroidered on it, the pennant they had given her in the hospital.

She waved it from her seat as she vigorously
wheeled herself across the gym. The applause grew and grew until Kimmy felt like covering her ears.

Jennifer has been so brave during all this, Kimmy thought, staring at her in her wheelchair now lined up with the other cheerleaders.

So brave and cheerful, even though she might never walk again.

Even though her life was ruined.

Kimmy wondered if
she
would have been so brave, so smiling, so . . . accepting.

Of course, Jennifer had nearly died that night, Kimmy remembered. Everyone had thought she
was
dead. So in a way she was lucky, lucky just to be alive.

But how could anyone consider being crippled, perhaps for life, lucky?

Kimmy realized that the gym had grown silent. Jennifer had wheeled herself to a microphone and begun a short speech.

“I'm not good at making speeches,” she was saying, her voice so weak and unsteady. “I'd much rather be cheering than talking!”

Nervous laughter rolled down from the bleachers. One of the drummers in the band hit a rim shot.

“I just want to say thank you to everyone at Shadyside High,” Jennifer continued, her voice breaking with sudden emotion. “You've all been so good to me . . . all my friends . . . everyone . . . with all the cards and presents and stuff. . . .” She waved the pennant. “And I just want to tell you all that . . . I feel
great! Go, Tigers!
”