The New Kid (15 page)

Meanwhile Natalie was making little coughing sounds in her throat as the stadium lights went out and a laser light show began, dancers running onto the field and shaking their hips to a bass-heavy rap song. The laser lights played against Natalie’s face and Will couldn’t help but think about how pretty she was even when she was grimacing.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Sure, I’m fine, my throat just got really dry all of a sudden,” she said.

“I’ll get you something to drink.”

Natalie nodded and held her fingers to her temples. No doubt about it, her ears were ringing. She wanted to tell Will but she didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily. It was probably just normal tinnitus, it didn’t mean anything. But just to be safe, she stopped having bad thoughts about Sharon Mitchell and forced herself to think positive things.

Will left Natalie and Rudy in the stands, then descended the stairs, waited in the interminable concession line, and bought cokes. He paid and was on his way back when he saw something that made his skin prickle. It was a guy who looked like his father, Edward, moving fast through the crowd. Will was sweating and his stomach was churning. It couldn’t be his father . . . could it? He had to follow him!

He took off after the guy, but then lost him. Found him then lost him again. Was it just a hallucination? Was he just seeing what he wanted to see, what he’d been yearning to see for all these years? He whipped his head back and forth, his blue eyes searching . . . searching. There! A quick glimpse told him the man definitely looked like his father, but younger, maybe a lot younger. Will tossed the cokes in the garbage and ran after the man. But he moved preternaturally fast and in the intermittently flashing lights from the laser show it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t. Will was about to give up
when he felt something. His seventh sense had kicked in. He whirled and saw the silhouette of the man underneath the stands. Then came a voice.

“Let go, Will.”

Will took a step toward the man. He couldn’t see his face; surely it wasn’t his father, how could it be? He had to get closer, get a better look. But the man held up a warning hand.

“Stay where you are and listen to me. I don’t want you to come after me, Will. It’s too dangerous!”

He knows my name!
thought Will.
It
is
him!

“Dad?”

“There’s no time. Just heed my warning. Stay away from me, abandon your quest. Take your mother and run, just go away! Go as far as you can and don’t look back!”

“But I want to help you! Let me see you!”

The laser light show guys kicked it up a notch and for a few brief seconds Will thought he saw the man’s face. Maybe it
was
his father, maybe it was Edward! Will couldn’t be sure.

“Dad, I can’t just—”

“THERE’S NO TIME!” yelled the man. An obnoxious kid passing by blew an air horn at his friend and the ensuing movement distracted Will momentarily—and just like that the ghostly figure that might or might not have been Will’s father was gone.

“Dad!” Will cried out and ran under the stands, searching. But the man had disappeared in the blink of an eye. Suddenly Will was uncertain if he’d really even been there at all. Maybe it was an apparition. It
had
to be, because why would his own father tell him to stay away?

Will searched under the stands until the stadium lights came back up and it was clear that no one was under there except him. He was nearly hyperventilating from the event and forced himself to breathe. He knew he needed to calm down. If the stranger actually was his father it could only mean one thing—that he was getting
close. Close enough that they were getting desperate, trying to make him stop looking. It wouldn’t work. He had questions for his father, so many questions. He hoped Edward could help him understand many of the thoughts and feelings he’d had over the years, the pain and anger he’d held inside. When he got mad the rage was like having a mad dog in a cage inside his head and he hated it. It was like a disease that was eating him alive and he was sure the answers to his questions would cure him, like a shot of some miracle drug. Because as certain as he was of his quest to rescue his father and put his fractured family back together again, Will was still plagued with uncertainties about who he really
was
inside.

Will went back, bought more cokes, and rejoined Natalie and Rudy in the stands.

“Where were you for so long?” asked Natalie.

“Talking to someone.”

“Who?”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not really all that sure.”

Natalie and Rudy exchanged a look. Their new friend, as was his custom, was acting hugely strange.

The halftime hoopla died down and the second half got underway. At the beginning Will kept searching the crowd for his father but he was nowhere to be found. Finally giving up, Will watched the game and noted how the Mustangs, under Coach Kellog’s guidance, took cheap shots and seemed to delight in causing injuries to the opposing team. Two Gardenville Gophers were taken off the field on stretchers and when the final gun sounded the Mustangs had routed the Gophers 57-3. It was not a pretty sight.

In the parking lot Will, Natalie, and Rudy climbed into Will’s Mitsubishi EVO. As Will started the car he saw Duncan arguing with Sharon Mitchell, who had changed from her homecoming gown into some tight black jeans and a black tank top and vest and wore a paisley scarf. Duncan was obviously trying to get back on her good side but she was having none of it and Duncan was getting more
pissed off by the second. Then Todd Karson showed up and he and Duncan yanked Sharon into Duncan’s xB. Will thought about jumping out and kicking some serious ass right then and there but Sharon looked more annoyed than scared and Will was on a mission. So he motored his Mitsubishi EVO through the post-game traffic jam and out onto Sampson Boulevard where he headed south across the river into the industrial part of town. A heavy rain began to fall but visibility wasn’t an issue because Will’s GPS led them directly to the address still written on Rudy’s arm. Rudy was smiling as he stared at his inky badge of honor.

“I’m getting kind of used to it. I was thinking maybe I’d make it permanent, you know, have some ink laid down by Mookie Man.”

In the couple of weeks since his “accident” Mookie had become quite the tattoo maven, working from his dingy basement studio. He had a crude but determined style and his designs were predominantly pagan and satanic in nature. Kids were paying major bucks for his ink.

“Stay away from Mookie,” said Will.

Rudy was tempted to lip off but he kept silent and wondered for the thousandth time why everybody bossed him around. He wished that somehow he could earn some respect and longed for the day when his peers stopped dissing him. Rudy felt a stinging in his arm and looked down at where Jason had written the address. It was burning like ten bee stings.

“Uh, Will, my arm. . . .” Rudy’s voice was thin and full of pain.

Will turned and looked at the affected area on Rudy’s arm. It was swelling with welts where Jason had scrawled on it, and tiny drops of blood were forming on the swollen lines.

“It hurts!” said Rudy.

“Hang on,” said Will as he pulled over to the curb and cut the Mitsubishi’s 291-hp engine, then reached into the glove box and pulled out a leather pouch. Unzipping it he took out a small bottle and used a dropper to apply liquid to Rudy’s arm, which immediately
stopped bleeding. Will turned to Natalie and touched the bandana she was wearing on her wrist.

“Can I use this?”

“Of course.” She took it off and watched as he tied it around Rudy’s arm.

“Thanks, Will,” said Rudy, relaxing. The stinging sensation had subsided and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“No problem. Just keep it wrapped up. It’s dangerous to walk around with your blood exposed like that. And don’t go thinking that any of the crap that Mookie or Duncan or their kind is doing is in any way, shape, or form cool, you got it? I need you to be vigilant, to stay on your toes.”

Rudy nodded, and he looked like he totally meant it when he replied, “I got it, you don’t have to tell me again. I’m with you man, I’m down with your way of thinking.”

“Good. It might save your butt,” said Will. Then he looked out the window.

“We’re here.”

All three gazed out. Dozens of cars both old and new lined the street and groups of kids were climbing out of them and then disappearing through a nondescript doorway halfway down the block. A couple of big older guys in tight black T-shirts stood in front of the door with their arms folded across their massive chests. Behind them the doorway was draped with a thick velour curtain. Will noticed that most of the kids entering the place were wearing black, too.
I guess black is the new black
, he thought. Then Duncan’s xB pulled up and he got out with Sharon, who looked scared as he and Todd hustled her inside.
Maybe I can kill two birds with one stone tonight
, thought Will. He got out of his EVO and with Natalie and Rudy in tow he made his way down the sidewalk.

Natalie suddenly froze in her tracks, her eyes wide. She was looking at a long-haired kid wearing a huge skull necklace and the ubiquitous black. He was there one minute, then gone the next.

Will noticed Natalie’s pause.

“Hey, something wrong?”

“No, I guess not. I just thought I saw somebody.”

“Who?” asked Will.

“Never mind. I guess I’m just nervous,” answered Natalie. “Let’s go.”

She didn’t want to say that she couldn’t have seen the person she thought she’d seen. It just wasn’t
possible
. They kept moving toward the entrance.

“What if they don’t let us in?” squeaked Rudy.

“Think positive, Rudy,” said Will. “You are what you think, you know.”

“Okay, but what if I think I’m going to piss my pants?”

“How about you don’t think, and just follow,” said Will, shaking his head.

He approached the doorway and didn’t even pause, just walked right in past the muscle. Rudy and Natalie knew better than to make eye contact with anyone and rode Will’s wake into the place.

“Note to self,” said Rudy. “Always act like you belong and you can go anywhere.” His face broke into a grin. “Cool.”

 

The dimly lit hallway they passed through opened up to a large room with ceilings that soared up to open skylights. Speakers were blasting music by a heavy metal band singing about bleeding eyes and dying young. Will looked around. The scene was the antithesis of the wholesome pep rally at Harrisburg High. Booze and dope were in abundance. A half-smashed disco ball rotated rapidly, throwing helter-skelter shafts of multi-colored light throughout the space, which was thick with fetid smoke from cigarettes and weed. There were battered tables and three-legged chairs and an old neon Budweiser sign with half the letters burned out. Black leather-clad teens danced to seductive music that thumped from speakers as big as refrigerators.

Some of the kids were from Harrisburg High but many others were not. Natalie was amazed at the way the kids danced—their faces, chests, arms, and legs beaded with sweat, their eyes bloodshot, their muscles taut. The almost trance-like nature of their moves was chilling. Then she thought she saw the long-haired kid again. And as before, he was elusive, here and then gone. Natalie touched a finger to her ear. The ringing had come back.

Neither Natalie nor Rudy had ever seen anything like this bash, at least not in person. Will had seen way too much of it. Every single one of the party goers looked infected. But that was the tricky part. You could never tell until you got down to the bone whether a kid was infected, a true demonteen, or whether he or she was just another wannabe poser. Hopefully most of the kids were just mimicking what they saw on TV.

Will felt confident and in command of himself. But then the song changed, the beat becoming more and more alluring. It felt like the beat of the song was in synch with the beating of Will’s own heart. It was tempting, seductive, like a siren calling out to him, and it made his blood hot. He hated the feeling and yet he craved more of it.

Natalie looked around because she thought she heard someone calling her name. And there it was again. And again. Then she realized that the voice wasn’t coming from anywhere in this room, it was coming from someplace . . . else. And it was not only clear but hauntingly powerful. She couldn’t resist it, could she? She had listened to the voice call her name three times. And now she began to think many different thoughts. . . .

Will was on such high alert looking for his enemies that he did-n’t notice anything weird about Natalie. But as the lights continued to flash and strobe and the music jacked up, suddenly Natalie looked less like the wholesome girl next door and more like a sly seductress. Will rubbed his eyes trying to rid himself of the images.

“Natalie, what’s going on?” he said.

“Huh? Oh, nothing. I’m just . . . thinking. . . .”

Will looked at her eyes and followed her gaze. Kids were smiling at him, beckoning him with friendly faces, faces that said,
You’re one of us!
But when Will resisted, using all his inner strength to remind himself why he was here, the faces changed, strobing back to being filled with loathing.

A kid with white face makeup, black eyeliner, a double-pierced tongue, and lowbrets danced up to Natalie and began massaging the air surrounding her in a vulgar fashion as he flicked his tongue in and out of his mouth like he thought he was some kind of snake.

Will’s eyes went cold.

“Find somewhere else to be. Now.”

The kid froze in his absurd dance posture, holding his breath, and for a moment looked like he might take a swing at Will. But then he exhaled and danced away, his harsh laugh sounding goat-like. Will looked at Natalie and she was her old sweet self again. That put Will back on solid ground—the incident of temptation had passed. He led Natalie and Rudy through the undulating throng toward a beat-up overstuffed chair in the corner. As they passed dancers Will shouted to be heard above the music, asking any- and everyone where he could find Rage. They acted like he’d just asked them to find Jesus or something and backed away from him as though he were suddenly emitting a noxious gas.
So much for the direct approach
, thought Will.