I'd Rather Not Be Dead (7 page)

And then I'm sitting in an empty
room, staring at the window and wondering what the heck happened.
I'm not certain, but I think Cooper Finnegan may have just saved my
afterlife.

Chapter Six

The freaky fog doesn't sweep
down on me when I leave the school building. I'm nervous about
distancing myself from Finn, but I don't think he's going to answer
the questions bouncing in my head. I'm not sure he actually could.
I need to find Fray.

Of course, my new friend isn't
in the hunting club. And there's no one in the hardware store
either. No one dead at least. The customers, being alive, rank
somewhere below the furniture for me.

Where else to find a ghost? The
cemetery maybe?

I start walking that way but I'm
stopped about a block from Finnegan's Hardware by a little girl who
calls out to me. “What are you doing?”

The sound of her voice makes me
smile. The smile dims when I notice her feet are sharing space with
a pile of cardboard without the boxes seeming to mind, but since
I'm looking for a ghost...

“Hi. I'm Drew.” I hold my hand
out to her but she looks at it like it's a viper.

“The Spirit is strong today.”
The girl's eyes are huge, more like a cartoon's than a child's.
“Get to your Place of Power and stay there.”

“My Place of Power?” I ask.
“Where's that? What do you mean The Spirit's strong today?”

“The Spirit hunts,” she replies
in a creepy voice. “Go to your Place of Power.”

She starts to back away and when
I step toward her, something blocks me from entering the alley.
“This is my Place! Go to yours!”

“But where is mine?”

“Go!” she yells as she turns and
runs behind a dumpster.

And the unnatural darkness
returns, sending terror straight into my core.

“Find your Place of Power, you
idiot!” the child screams from hiding.

My Place of Power? What the hell
is my Place of Power? Ice prickles on my back and I know without
looking that the fog looms directly behind me. So I do the only
thing I can. I run.

Cooper Finnegan. God help me,
but I have to find Cooper Finnegan.

The fog rolls closer. The voices
tumbling in it get louder. They call to me and I consider stopping,
consider letting it swallow me. I run faster, but it's no use. The
fog's catching up. I can't outrun this thing. I need a Place of
Power. I need... I need Cooper Finnegan.

The world shifts, the fog falls
back. There's a clap of thunder and I'm running through a hallway
at school, crashing into the cafeteria.

Cooper Finnegan... Where is he?
I look to the popular table. It's filled with the usual assortment
of jocks and pretty people. Minus, naturally, the one I'm looking
for.

The room darkens and horror
fights to take control of my mind. It's not having to fight hard.
Reason is more than willing to take a dive.

“Drew!” Cooper Finnegan
yells.

My head snaps to him and I
sprint indiscriminately through tables and students in a mad dash
for his safety while the whole room goes silent to stare at
him.

Just before I reach him, I fall,
tripping on my own feet. I slide against the ground, grabbing his
ankle and holding onto it for dear life.

The darkness pauses,
recedes.

“What?” the other me yells at my
savior.

He stares at her, no clue what
to say. The entire cafeteria is waiting.

“Ms. Pauler wants to see you,” I
say. There's a good chance it's true. Or at least that everyone
will think it's true. It would be a rare day if the principal were
happy with me.

He repeats the line perfectly
and TOM scowls at him. “Whatever. Mind your own business.”

His leg gives a jerk to show
he'd like to move now.

Worried the fog will come back
the second I let go of him, I take my time unwrapping myself from
his foot. The light stays though.

Cooper Finnegan doesn't go to
his usual table but walks out of the cafeteria into a deserted
hallway. He untwists the cap off the sports drink he'd been
fetching when I ran in and downs about half of it in one gulp.

“It's not beer,” I tell him.
“That probably won't work.”

He laughs and screws the top
back on. Leaning against the wall, a splash of color on the white
bricks, he shakes his head in mild wonder. “What the hell was
that?”

“I don't know. I kind of hoped
you would.” I take a deep breath. “I think it's The Spirit.”

His eyebrows draw together and
he nods slowly. “Could be. My grandfather described it as something
less tangible though.”

I shrug, putting a lot of effort
into not allowing myself to look around and make sure the darkness
isn't lurking nearby. “I met a little girl who said it was strong
today.”

He nods again, tapping the end
of his bottle lightly against his leg. “Becky Lynn?”

My eyes roll, completely of
their own accord. “We didn't have time for introductions. She said
I had to get to my Place of Power to hide from the thing.”

This produces a frown and makes
the bottle go still. “So why'd you come here?”

I give a disgusted grunt.
“Because I don't know where my Place of Power is.”

He stares at me for several
seconds before pushing off of the wall and starting to walk away.
He glances to make sure I'm following, like I'm going to get
separated from him again with fog hovering around.

“Usually someone's Place of
Power is the place they died.” Cooper Finnegan turns down another
hall, heading, I think, toward the athletic storage room.

“I don't know where I died,” I
remind him.

“That would be a problem.” We go
into a room filled with random sports equipment and Cooper Finnegan
sits down on a box lid. “Where do your postmortem memories
start?”

Folding my legs, I sit on the
floor in front of him. “One of the stops off the Parkway.”

His head tilts and he makes a
thoughtful noise. “It wouldn't be the first to get a ghost.”

“It wouldn't?”

He gives me a funny look. “Don't
talk to folks much, do you?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Well...” Letting out a breath,
he opens the bottle again. “I wouldn't go so far as to say all of
them are haunted, but there are several stories everyone knows.
There's one where one of the men who built the road was crushed to
death. There's another where a man shot a cheating wife.” He meets
my eyes. “And one where a college girl was thrown off a cliff.”

I've gone so cold I can't
remember ever being warm. “You're saying I was murdered?”

“Something bad happened to you,”
he says.

I smack the carpet beside me
with both palms, the sting of it riding up to my shoulders. “Yeah,
I'm dead!”

Cooper Finnegan sighs.
“Exactly.”

Pulling my knees up to my chest,
I think about that for a while as he takes a drink. “So, you think
that overlook is my Place of Power?”

“Could be.” His cautious tone
doesn't convey much certainty though. “But usually ghosts haunt
their Places of Power. And you don't seem very attached to that
spot.”

“Maybe I haunt the school?” I
seem to spend more time here than anywhere else.

“No, I don't think so. Or The
Spirit wouldn't be able to try to swallow you here.” He leans
forward, his arms on his legs while his drink dangles from one
hand. “That's what The Spirit does. It assimilates ghosts.”

“Like the Borg?”

He smiles at me, grimly and
without being willing to meet my eyes. “Exactly like the Borg.
Except, I think the Borg retain more individuality.”

I shudder. “So learning to stay
away from The Spirit is important.”

“Yeah.” His shoulders slump and
his head bows forward. “Unless you're suicidal.”

“No.” Leaning back, I look up at
him. “But why does touching you make it go away?”

“No idea.” He shrugs, keeping
his eyes rooted on the ground. “Maybe because I'm a Shadow
Walker.”

“Shadow Walker?” I repeat,
unable to keep from sneering at the phrase.

“Also known as the guy who just
saved your ass so you can cut it with that condescending
smirk.”

I do my best to blank my
expression and say, “I'll stick with medium.”

Probably, I should thank him for
the whole rescue thing, but it's not like he really had to do
anything. And I'm not exactly thrilled to be learning that not only
is Cooper Finnegan the only living person I can see or touch but
he's also the only thing standing between me and being absorbed
into a giant, menacing fog bank. “I'm going to have to follow you
everywhere you go, aren't I?”

He sits up sharply. “No.”

“You want me to die?” I ask.
“Again? Because I'm still blaming you for the first time.”

“Me? You think I killed you?”
There's a tremble in his shoulders as he looks at me through eyes
that have gone wide and very, very dark.

“You're not doing anything to
stop it,” I point out, snarling to cover up the tremor his
expression brings to my voice. “That makes you an accomplice.”

In a blast of exasperation, he
jumps to his feet and hurls the bottle across the room, where it
slams into a poster proclaiming the virtues of endurance.
Unnaturally blue liquid slides down the wall. “We've been over this
already. I can't stop you from dying. If I could, you wouldn't be
here now.”

My lip tries to quiver, so I
turn the motion to petulant speech. “What? The universe would
explode?”

Cooper Finnegan glowers down at
me, his anger flaring before evaporating completely in a sudden
whoosh of defeat. His body slumps and he shakes his head. “I have
no idea, Drew. I just know it isn't possible. I wish to hell you
didn't have to die. But I can't stop it.”

He steps around me and leaves,
just like that. He's gone before I remember I was supposed to be
trailing him.

Chapter Seven

By the time I get into the hall,
Cooper Finnegan's nowhere to be seen. Not having a clue what class
he has after lunch, I seek out myself. She and Cris are both in the
library on their free period. Usually, they'd be huddled together
to snicker over some website or another, but today they're on
opposite sides of the room.

I guess Cris is still mad at us.
On one of the couches along the windows, he flips through a
magazine, shooting glances in TOM's direction but showing no signs
of talking to her as she sits with an English essay open on one of
the schools antique computers. She types slowly, thoughtfully,
while I read over her shoulder.

Funnily enough, she's discussing
the ghost of Hamlet's father.

“Drew?”

TOM and I look up from the
monitor. Tanya Stewart's biting her lip, her eyes wide behind
slightly smudged lenses as she waits for TOM's attention.

“What?” the other me asks, not
bothering to be nice about it.

“I just...” The girl's arm
shoots out, a pamphlet in her hand.

The other me makes an annoyed
sound. “I know who Jesus is, Tanya. I walk by his fort twice a
day.”

“I...” Tanya struggles to take a
breath. The pamphlet wavers in the air. “I just... You can be
saved?”

I find myself giggling as the
other me shakes her head.

“Please? Just read it?”

TOM closes her eyes for a
second. “Why are you bothering me with this? Do you honestly think
I've never heard of the Baptist Church before?”

Tanya looks like she might cry.
“It's my duty to help the unsaved find salvation.”

TOM just looks at her.

“You want to go to Hell?” Tanya
asks.

“Already there.”

The poor little Baptist girl
pales.

With a dramatic sigh, TOM takes
enough pity on Tanya to hold out her hand. “Just give me the damn
paper.”

Without a word, not even to
mention that cursing is a no-no, Tanya rams the tract into TOM's
hand, turns, and literally runs away. Which is just over-reaction.
I'm not that scary.

TOM crumples the paper into a
ball and tosses it into the wastebasket before returning to
work.

I watch her fingers dance over
the keyboard. Click, click, click...

If I can use a remote, maybe I
can type too. Leaning over the desk next to TOM's, I put a hand out
to the keyboard. It's there. I can touch the computer. Yes! I
position my fingers to type and enter my username.

It doesn't work.

My fingertips touch the keys
without going through them, but the keys don't go down. Boo! It's
all I can do not to cry in frustration. But maybe I just need to
try harder. The remote didn't work at first either.

The period ends and TOM leaves,
Cris a few steps behind her. His eyes are locked onto her but he
doesn't rush to catch up. I stay put, continuing to try to get the
keyboard to acknowledge me.

Lethargy settles on me, but I
keep trying to type until the world starts swaying and I list
forward, asleep before I hit the desk.

Hours later, I'm drawn awake by
a heavy but gentle warmth on my shoulder. “Drew?”

Cooper Finnegan moves his hand
as my eyes blink open, placing it on the back of my chair. His
smile is lightly amused, but his forehead crinkles with worry. His
home football jersey hangs loosely over torn jeans.

“Is that your uniform?” I
mumble, confused.

He shrugs. “It's got my name on
it.”

“But...” Blinking, I run a hand
through my hair and look around the room. People mill about in the
early morning light, some of them struggling to complete homework
assignments, others just not wanting to go to class yet. “It's
morning.”

“Yeah...” Cooper Finnegan tilts
his head to the side. “When did you fall asleep?”

“You're playing Yancy today?” I
check, just to be sure.

“Yep. Last game of the
season.”

I stretch. “Yesterday. Two
classes after lunch. I was trying to type.”