My Friends Are Dead People (8 page)

“
Need help?” called
Jacoby.

“
No,” replied Dorian,
rocking the handle up and down. “I just have to–”

“
Looks pretty stuck to me.
Dorian, just let it be. I’ll get another–”

With one more rock, the shovel flipped out,
nearly hitting him in the face.

“
You’d never think he
would harm anyone,” said Jacoby. We both shook our head in
agreement. “But if tortics were here, you would see the fury he’s
capable of.”

“
Do tortics come over
here?” I asked.

“
No. They live in Europe.
They’re like us. They keep to themselves. From what Lin has told
me, they can disappear so–”

“
Marvelous spectacles!” I
said excitedly.

Jacoby gave me an odd look.

“
He says stuff like that
sometimes,” explained Katie.

“
You shouldn’t be using
words like that,” he said. “No one talks like that. Don’t let me
catch you again.”

I nodded uneasily.

“
That’s what I said,”
agreed Katie. “If I didn’t know him, I’d knock him out for such a
thing.”

What was she talking
about? She used weird words, too.
Crapper
was just as weird as
anything I’d ever said. I quickly thought of a question.

“
How can anyone match the
tortics if we can’t see them?”

“
There are ways.” Jacoby
paused and grinned. “They’re the reason I’m afraid to leave the
graveyard. I don’t want to encounter one of them on a bad
day.”

“
What about the ones in
Antarctica and Japan?” questioned Katie.

“
We don’t know much about
them. Himalaya and the twin demons don’t come out
often.”

“
Is it the same with the
one in Brazil?”

“
Yes. But she’s like Jack,
no one has ever seen her. She may not even exist. But then there
is
that famous picture of her, and
Soundrec claims she was the one who turned his arm into a
branch.”

“
I saw that weird thing,”
said Katie.

“
Me too,” I
said.

We all noticed that Dorian
had finished our hole
and
two others.

“
Well, I believe we’re
done,” said Jacoby. “Dorian and I plan on visiting a few towns for
an inspection, and if you like, you can come along for a short
bit.”

“
Really?” I shot
out.

“
However, you’ll have to
warn your parents that you’ll be gone for an hour.”

“
Mine won’t mind,” said
Katie. “We can just ask Jesse’s.”

“
And if you get into any
trouble,” Jacoby added, “we won’t be held responsible.
Alright?”

“
Alright
,” Katie and I nodded
eagerly.

“
Where we going to meet
up?” said Katie.

“
Do you know where the–”
began Jacoby, stopping to stare at my cleats. “Jesse, did you just
come back from a soccer match?”

I shook my head, blushing a little.

“
It’s better if you leave
them here.”

Jacoby handed me a pair of some nice running
shoes. “These will be more practical for now.”

“
Thanks!” I said, quickly
putting them on. They were very comfortable and . . . “There’s sand
in them. You like going to the beach?” I asked, noticing it was
white sand.

Jacoby didn’t answer, but Dorian did.

“
He loves the beach.” I
could clearly sense Dorian smiling.

“
I like the beach, too,”
said Katie.

“
Yeah, we all should go
together sometime,” I proposed.

“
The cross,” continued
Jacoby, answering Katie’s question about where we would meet up.
“Have you been there?”

“
Yeah,” said Katie.
“That’ll work.”

“
Alright, then,” he
finished. “The north domain – where we’ll be heading – is piling up
at the moment. Many are coming from outside America. Understand
you’ll be sent home immediatly if any kind of violence unfolds.
These graves aren’t for you. Understood? . . . You’ll need to hurry
back. Night and death tread together. When the sun dies, so does
the good.”

We nodded, too excited to ponder what he had
said.

“
I’m serious when I say
you need to hurry,” Jacoby stressed. “If you're late, you will have
to wait till next year.”

“
How late is too late?”
asked Katie.

“
You'll figure it out.
Judging by Jesse’s expression, he already knows. You can ask
him.”

I did know. I drew my eyes away from the
setting sun beaming through the trees, knowing we had a good hour
before it was dark. We waved goodbye, then ran out of the
graveyard.

CHAPTER SEVEN

KATIE GOES MAD

Katie and I sprinted up Beverly Street, just
realizing that Oz was probably going mad looking for us. We ran up
Lisa’s porch and knocked on the door. The inside was totally
dark.

“
I don’t think she’s
home,” I said, giving one last knock. I checked Katie’s
watch.

5:03 PM

I wasn’t even sure why we were looking for
Oz when I wasn’t going to ask her about the trip. She would
definitely say no. But I could ask her if I could stay at Katie’s
house.

I pulled out a notepad and wrote a note for
Oz.

“
Let me skim through it,”
said Katie after I was done.

“
Why?”

“
For grammatical errors,
duh.”

I handed it over. “I think it’s fine. . . .
Katie, what are you doing? Don’t add anything!”

There was nothing I could do. She was
stronger than me. She turned her back to me and continued
writing.

To Oz, the greatest mother
in the vastness of space,

Katie and I are fine and
healthy. We’re looking for you.

We ran into some kids and
lost track of time. I’m going

to stay at Katie’s for a
little while.

With love and more love,
your great son, Jesse

Jesse drew the heart.
He likes doing things

like that. He is a liar.
Don’t listen to him. We met

some strangers who want to
take us somewhere. Katie

Katie was so stupid! I tried ripping it out
of her hands, but she pushed me away, giving her just enough time
to slip the note under Lisa’s door.

“
But I didn’t draw the
heart,” I complained as we jumped off the porch and started jogging
away from the house. “Now she’s going to think I’m
crazy.”

"She already thinks that."

"No, she doesn't."

Katie and I slowed down as we reached my
small front gate. My house was also dark. We ran right in. We could
both tell that Oz wasn’t there; we didn’t have to search every
room.

“
She’s probably at the
police station,” guessed Katie, staring at the leftovers on the
kitchen table.

“
You can have mine. I’m
not that hungry. Do you want to call the police?” I suggested,
watching her already fork her way through a bowl of
salad.

“
I’m not calling them,”
mumbled Katie with her mouth full, chewing on lettuce as if it was
candy. Yuck.

“
So what are we going to
do after we show her we’re okay? Are we asking her if we can
go?”

“
Yeah. I’m not going to
lie to her.”

“
Fine. But she’ll say no.
Let’s check your house next.”

“
Fine.”

We each downed a glass of water and ran out
of the house. We jogged the whole way there. Her living room was
kind of scary at night. All the furniture was dark, the striped
wallpaper was bleak, and it was colder in here than outside. Katie
noticed her foster mother, Sandy, and Oz right away sitting next to
each other in separate sofas. It was hard to see now, but Sandy was
tall, young and had long blonde hair. None of them said a word.

“
Oz, we went
trick-or-treating at the circle,” Katie lied, disregarding what she
had said. “We thought it would only take a minute.”

That was stupid. No one went to the circle.
That was where old people walked around.

“
After that, we found a
real haunted house,” I added. “Katie was terrified. She nearly peed
her pants.”

Katie made a face at me.

“
Jess, I told you to wait
for me,” reminded Oz in a tense but level voice. “I didn’t want you
two to go out alone.”

That was it. I was going to be grounded
forever. But then, an epiphany seemed to hit Katie.

“
We got jumped,” she
said.

Oh, yeah, I had totally forgotten about
that. Good job, Katie!

“
Jumped?” said
Oz.

“
A bunch of–”

I cut Katie off. “Huge football players took
us apart. One of them pulled a shotgun on me.”

“
But you guys are okay?”
said Oz.

“
Yeah. A policeman saved
us. He shot one of them.”

“
Jess, that’s enough. Get
your jacket, and let’s go.”

Oh, my God, I was dead.

Oz picked up on my petrified look. “Katie,
did you borrow my jacket from Jess?”

I gave Katie a pleading nod.

“
What jacket?” she said
anyway.

“
Katie,” I
whined.

“
You lent me her jacket?
When?”

“
It’s upstairs in her
room!” I said impulsively to Oz. “She forgot – no, I haven’t told
her yet!”

Oz stood up. “You haven’t told her you’re
going to let her borrow the jacket?”

“
Uhmm . . .
yes.”

“
Wait here. When I say
that, I mean don’t move.”

Oz strode out of the room. It was quiet for
a while. What was she going to do to me after I tell her I had lost
her jacket? What freaked me out even more was that Sandy was
sitting in the dark not saying a word. But then . . .

“
You all deserve to be
punished–”

“
No one asked you to
speak!” thundered Katie.

Sandy got out of the sofa and slapped Katie
in the face. “Get in the kitchen now!”

“
No.”

“
Don’t hurt her,” I
pleaded quietly.

Sandy turned to me. “Do you know what kind
of girl you’re running around with? Do you know what she did two
years ago?”

“
Sandy, don’t tell him,”
cried Katie, looking frantic.

Sandy looked into Katie’s eyes and said,
“She killed a girl.”

A tear seared down Katie's cheek. “It wasn’t
my fault. She tripped.”

“
You were fighting with
her, right? It’s your fault.”

Katie had never told me about her life
before we had met, always avoiding the topic. But it took me just
one second to search my heart and make up my mind that Katie was my
best friend, and she always would be no matter what she had done in
the past, good or bad.

“
I don’t care,” I
said.

No one paid attention, it seemed.

“
Girl, I said get in the
kitchen–”

“
Shut up,” muttered Katie.
“I’m tired of listening to–”

“
You listen here, you
juvenile nuisance!”

Katie was now standing face to face with
Sandy.

“
You ain’t mí real
mamá!
” Katie barked into her face.
“
You’re a foster mamá! Stop telling me
what to do!
”

Oz came running in and pulled Katie back,
who intentionally knocked over a lamp.

“
Pick - that - up–”
sneered Sandy.

“
I’m not your maid!
You pick it up, you sick . . .
I don’t care if you die!
”

Tears streamed down her reddened cheeks. I
knew that Katie hated Sandy, but I didn’t realize exactly how much
till this point.

“
Becky, this is not your
house,” said Sandy.

Oz took my hand and dragged me out of the
house. What was she doing? Katie and Sandy were just about to
fight. If we didn't resolve this, something terrible might happen
between them. But I kept quiet. Oz didn’t say a thing either while
we headed home. She had me walk ahead of her, which made it
difficult to know how much trouble I was in. When we got home, I
lingered in the kitchen, not sure where she wanted me to go.