Gravestone (35 page)

81. Echoes

I see her outline lit up by something behind her. She stands at the edge of a doorway in the back of the church.

“This was a mistake.”

I pause for a moment. It’s her voice—I can hear her and see her. Yet I don’t understand what she’s talking about.

“Jocelyn?”

“You don’t want to be with someone like me.”

What’s she saying?

“Joss—”

“Don’t ruin yourself. I’m used goods.”

I keep walking toward her. She’s looking down, not at me.

“Jocelyn, it’s me.”

“You strip this away, and there’s nothing down inside.”

Then I remember. She said that once to me.
Yet I can’t remember when.

“God did this.”

I keep walking toward her without answering.

“Ultimately God let my parents down.”

What’s she saying, what am I hearing?

“If—and I mean
if—
God is up there, then why?”

These are things she said to me once, but …

I reach her, and she looks up at me and smiles.

But the face looking at me and those eyes looking into mine and that smile don’t belong to Jocelyn.

Up close now, I know it’s not her.

The eyes are empty and black and the gaze is needy and obsessed and the smile is hateful and wanting.

“What—who—who are you?”

She moves to kiss me, and I see her smile that’s transformed not into brilliant white fangs wanting to bite but rather blackened and oozing gums wanting to suck.

I scream and then see those eyes shrivel up to nothing. Nothing but emptiness. Nothing but rotting black holes.

“We don’t have to die, Chrissssssssssss.”

But before the rotting, sickly old man in front of me can reach over at me, I swing my flashlight and strike something hard. I think it might be his jaw or the side of his face.

I tear out of there before whatever this is can touch me.

Then I’m outside, sucking in air and sweaty and trying to find Poe to tell her to run, and I realize that I’m alone.

Poe is gone.

82. Things in My Head

I’ve lost someone else.

This is what runs through my mind as I’m calling out her name and directing my light in a hundred different spots trying to see her.

I’ve let someone else I care for get taken.

And still out of breath and still in a state of shock, my voice cracking because I’m losing it, I hear a ghost call out my name.

“Chris.”

Of course, it’s not a ghost. It’s Poe standing at the edge of the woods we came in from.

I reach her, and she clasps on to both of my arms.

“What’d you see in there?”

“Nothing. Just—my imagination is playing tricks. I just thought—when I came out and you were—”

“I felt weird standing by the empty church.”

Oh but it’s not empty not at all Poe.

“Did you find anything inside?”

“Let’s go.”

“Chris?”

“It’s already too dark, and I don’t want to get lost.”

“That’s why I’m standing over here,” she says. “To make sure we know which direction to head.”

I want to tell her that it’ll be a miracle for us to find our car again.

Yet just a few minutes later—ten or twenty or maybe thirty, I can’t tell because my mind is too full to compute time—we’re getting into her car.

“What happened?” she asks before starting it up.

“That church is like a shrine to somebody.”

“What do you mean?”

I tell her to start the car and go. As she drives, I tell her what I saw.

“What did the French say?”

“No clue.”

I would’ve forgotten even if I hadn’t seen whatever it was I saw.

“We need to go back.”

“Maybe in broad daylight,” I say. “With others.”

“Okay, fine. But this person, maybe he has something to do with everything that’s going on.”

“I sure hope he doesn’t. Since he’s, you know,
dead.
”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah.”

But maybe you’re right, maybe he’s still around and haunting this place.

“Why would they stick a gravestone in the middle of a church?” Poe asks.

I don’t want to tell her what I’m thinking.

But I’m thinking …

No, stop thinking. Stop thinking and leave it alone.

“Chris?”

“I don’t think we want to know the reason.”

“Yeah, maybe not.”

The drive home seems long and quiet and troubling. I tell Poe I’ll see her tomorrow.

I don’t say all the other things in my head.

Things like
Make sure you lock your door tonight
.

Things like
Tell me tomorrow if Jocelyn comes to you in your dreams and suddenly turns into an old, dying man with really bad dental hygiene
.

Things like

Enough, Chris.

The voice shutting me up sounds like Mom or Dad but is obviously my own.

This whole haunting and creeping and nightmaring business sure helps a boy grow up.

83. Not Watching Anymore

Hatred doesn’t forget. The longer it waits, the more it grows like some grotesque fungus.

I learn this the hard way one April day.

The end of school is not too far away, and summer is within reach. The sun is drying out the winter’s harsh bite and making things seem halfway normal.

But on the day of our track team’s big meet versus Hendersonville, I’m faced with the reminder that anger isn’t a good thing to store up. Like perishable food in a pantry, it’s going to go bad fast.

It’s the end of art class, and somehow the hippie teacher Mr. Chestle has disappeared before the bell rings for us to leave. Students file out, and I’m chatting like always with Kelsey when I see her stop in midsentence.

“I was just kidding,” I say, not really sure what I said that got to her.

Kelsey shakes her head, glancing toward the door.

I turn to look and see Gus coming in. And behind him, the rest of his crew.

The rest of the kids in the room quickly decide it’s smart to leave.

Gus walks over to us. Kelsey’s yellow painting that she’s worked on for over a month is in front of her.

“Isn’t that pretty?” Gus says, looking at me.

“What do you want?”

He only smiles, then looks back at the door. Riley closes it.

“We haven’t had a chance to talk lately,” he says.

“Cut it out, Gus. We have classes to go to.”

“What’s your name again?” he asks Kelsey.

I stand between the two of them as he sneers like a bull spotting red.

“I never did get that apology I’ve been waiting on since you attacked me in the hallway,” Gus says.

I look at the pockets of pimples on his face, the way his hair sticks up like a Chia Pet, the big forehead that needs a nice rag to sop it up.

“Why don’t you go,” I say to Kelsey behind me.

“Uh-uh. She’s staying here. You—Miss Braces and Glasses. This your painting?”

“Get out of my face, Gus.”

“Or what?” he asks me. “What are you going to do?”

He laughs as he takes a knife out of his pocket and opens it. Then he sticks the canvas of the yellow painting and cuts several slits through it.

I start to yell and go toward him, but Kelsey grabs me by the shoulder to tell me to stop. Meanwhile, Riley and Burt come to flank Gus while Oli remains at the door.

“Put that away,” I tell him.

“Or what? What are you going to do?”

“Kelsey, leave.”

“Kelsey, huh? Nice little pretty girl. So different from your last one, huh?”

“Shut your fat face.”

“Chris—”

I glance back at Kelsey and see her almost in tears. “Gus, I’m serious. Let her go.”

“I’m not a monster,” he says. “But I can do monstrous things.”

“Gus.”

“I want an apology.”

He’s still holding the knife by his side. I honestly have no idea if he’ll use it.

“I’m sorry, okay?”

“Not good enough. Not sincere enough.”

I see the gaping hole of the shredded painting Kelsey spent so much time on.

See I told you I’m no good for you. People around me only get hurt.

“Gus, I’m sorry. Now leave us alone.”

“Uh-uh. Oli, guard the door.”

Gus smiles. Riley and Burt chuckle.

“Maybe you’d learn if something happened to little Miss Virgin here.”

I look around me. I never bring anything to art, so there’s nothing to pick up and defend myself with or even to throw at him except some art tools.

“You’d learn then, wouldn’t you?”

I move my arm to shield Kelsey as I try to think through what I can do and how I can protect the girl behind me.

Then something weird happens. Something not part of the suggested plot.

Oli is standing by the door and peers through the tiny slit of glass as if to check and see if the coast is clear. Then he jogs to the side of the room and picks up a large palette knife that looks like an elongated spatula.

I’m wondering what he’s—

“Owwwww!”

I guess that’s my answer.

The blunt tool makes a loud slap against the back of Gus’s big head.

It’d be hilarious if I weren’t so freaked out about the knife and the girl behind me.

Gus puts one hand on the back of his head as he grimaces. But Oli doesn’t stop there. He flails down with the flat instrument and whacks Gus’s hand. I hear what must be the knife drop on the floor.

Oli speaks. And this time he’s not whispering to me in the locker room. “No, Riley, you stay over there.”

Meanwhile, Gus is yelling and cursing.

“Shut up and get up,” Oli says. He’s holding the palette knife like it’s an actual knife. But there’s probably no one in the room who doesn’t think he’ll use it.

“What are you doing, you idiot?” Gus says. He’s still rubbing the back of his head.

“No more. Chris, you guys can leave.”

“Kelsey, leave.”

“Chris—?”

“I’ll be just a minute.”

She gets her stuff and quickly leaves the room. I’m standing there watching the scene play out.

“Oli. Are you high?” Gus stares at him in disbelief.

“Not this time,” Oli says.

Gus curses at him some more.

“I’m tired of watching you hurt people that don’t need hurting, and I’m not going to watch anymore. This time I’m not going home feeling guilty that I should’ve done something.”

“You put that thing down—”

“Or what? Huh? No more.”

“That’s right, it’s no more. I’m done with you.”

Oli nods as if that’s fine with him. “You can leave, Chris.”

“Okay,” I say. “But after you.”

He drops the tool on the floor. “You try and do anything to me, Gus, and I’ll kill you,” he says.

“Not if I do it first.”

It doesn’t look like either of them is joking around. Oli leaves, and I follow him into the hallway.