The Returning (33 page)

The air in the Dungeon was beginning to be stifling. By now, Rebekah thought, the entire teen population of Conesus had succeeded in squeezing themselves into this one subterranean room. The only kids missing were the losers, the geeks, and the loners. Nearly everyone else she knew from school was at the Castle, along with plenty of people she didn’t know. Not only were kids milling around, they were also crowded onto lawn chairs, bean bags, throw pillows, even several couches that had been dragged down from upstairs by partiers from years past. Rebekah was beginning to feel claustrophobic from the press of bodies around her. Maybe the police were willing to play dumb, but she wondered whether any parents might wise up and bust the party.

She surprised herself with the thought that she hoped somebody would. She hoped someone would come and blow the whistle, cutting short this whole end-of-summer blowout before something bad happened. She couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that grew heavier as the night wore on. Outwardly she talked with friends, she laughed, she danced with David to the strange beat of the music. Inwardly she was on edge, as though she were inching up the steepest incline of a roller coaster and she was just about to reach the crest before the fall.

She nursed her fifth gin and tonic. The second, third, and fourth she had discreetly dumped out onto the floor. David kept bringing her more in large red plastic cups. But she didn’t want to get wasted. She wanted to keep her head on straight. She was watching everyone, watching the crowd’s slow descent from sobriety to tipsiness to flat-out drunk. The deeper they sank, the louder they got and the more they laughed. But after all, that was the point, wasn’t it? To laugh all the way to that place of feeling no pain.

Rebekah had been there many times before, but she wasn’t going back tonight. Not this time. Something was about to happen, and she was waiting for it. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew it was coming. She could feel it.

She jumped when someone laid a hand on her shoulder. It was only Lena, who leaned in close and shouted over the music and the din of the crowd, “Hey, Beka, Jim and I are going up to the library for a while. We heard there’s something going on up there.”

Jim laughed. “Yeah, it’s a meeting of the book club. Want to come?”

Rebekah ignored Jim. “What’s going on?” she asked Lena.

“Someone brought something I want to try.”

“It’s not coke, is it?”

“No, no, no.” Lena shook her head. Her eyes were beginning to glaze, and her breath was heavy with alcohol. “There are better ways to get high than to burn out the lining of your nose. I’d rather pop a pill. It’s so much easier.”

“What are you talking about?”

Lena leaned even closer. “It’s Ecstasy. Want to try it?”

Rebekah drew back. “I don’t think so. I—”

“Oh, come on, Bek. You won’t believe the rush.”

“How do you know? You’ve tried it before?”

Lena glanced at Jim, then back at Rebekah. “Sure. Once or twice.”

“What’s up?” David, who’d just returned from refilling his cup, shot the question at Jim and Lena.

“They’ve got some hug drug upstairs,” Jim said. “Want a hit?”

“Ecstasy?” David asked.

Jim nodded.

“Who brought it?”

“Dan Bradley,” Jim said.

“No lie.” David’s eyes widened. “Chief Bradley’s son?”

Jim nodded again.

“What’d he do?” David asked. “Raid the evidence room?”

“I don’t know,” Jim said. “Who cares, as long as he’s got it.”

Rebekah kneaded her forehead with the fingertips of one hand. The son of the chief of police brought street drugs?
Everything’s crazy
, she thought. Lena, Jim, this party, the whole world—nothing made sense. And she didn’t know whether it was because the world really was senseless, or because her own mind was breaking up into fearful little pieces.
What’s wrong with me?
she wondered.

She felt as though she were finally living out one of the recurring nightmares of this past year, the dream that something evil was moving toward her and she couldn’t run away or even move. Half asleep and half awake, she lay helpless on the bed, pinned down by something she couldn’t see, though she heard it breathing just above her in the dark.

“Listen, I don’t think so,” David said. Rebekah looked up and saw him wave a hand, as though to brush away Jim’s offer. “Not tonight. Maybe next time, though, huh?”

Jim, looking cocky, said, “Your loss. Lena and I are out of here.”

Rebekah grabbed Lena’s hand. “You’re coming back down, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Lena said. “Maybe. It depends.”

“On what?” Rebekah asked, but Lena pulled her hand away, and in another moment she was lost to the crowd.

David drew her close, and Rebekah leaned hard against him.

She sighed deeply. At least she was safe here, her forehead pressed against David’s shoulder. The drink in her hand—that she could get rid of. She wanted to stay straight and to stay close to David. He would make sure everything was all right.

She felt herself cradled in his arms for a moment, until he lifted her chin and said loudly over the music, “Well, babe, now that everyone’s got a buzz on, time for a little Space Monkey.”

“Space Monkey?”

“Come on.”

He took her hand, and they wormed through the crush of bodies until David found who he was looking for. “Hey, Chase,” he shouted, “ready for a little Airplane Ride?”

Chase smiled, nodded. Rebekah recognized him from the basketball team at Conesus High. Girls fawned all over him for his golden-boy looks and his athletic ability, but he was also a bookish guy who worked as the sports editor for the school newspaper. He was known for his ranting editorials on the use of steroids in professional sports, and the faculty had set him up as a youthful frontrunner in the zero-tolerance-for-drugs campaign.

At the moment he was drinking vodka straight from the bottle. “Let’s do it,” he said.

Rebekah watched as David and Chase rolled some kids off a couple of large pillows, claiming the cushions for themselves. The evicted kids protested until David said something, and they nodded. They cleared some space so that Chase could stand between the pillows, one in front of him, one behind. The bottle of vodka had disappeared.

Chase leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. Then he started breathing deeply and quickly while the kids around him cheered him on. Rebekah sensed the presence of the dream being just beyond her shoulder. The cup she was holding dropped from her hand and landed on the floor, splattering her drink everywhere. No one seemed to notice. Everyone close by was focused on Chase, who had straightened up and was holding his breath. David came from behind, wrapped both arms around Chase’s chest and squeezed. Rebekah stood motionless, her heart beating out the seconds until Chase went limp and David let him fall to the floor. He rolled, stopped, lifted one hand to his head, then rolled some more. When he opened his eyes, he laughed loudly and pounded the floor with a fist.

One of the girls jumped up and yelled, “There’s another way to do it. Watch!”

Rebekah took a step backward. She didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t turn away. She knew the girl. Her name was Nadine. They’d briefly been lab partners in chemistry last year. Nadine pulled another girl up from the floor and told her to stand against the wall. She lifted her hands to either side of the girl’s neck.

Now Rebekah understood. This was the Choking Game. She’d heard about it but had never seen it done. She’d looked it up once on the Internet, a search that landed her on a site that listed the names of the kids who had died playing. Cut off the oxygen to the brain long enough, you get a high. Cut it off too long, and that’s it.

Rebekah took another step backward. “Dad,” she whispered, surprised at herself for speaking the word aloud. But she said it again. “Dad.” He had stood in the doorway, looking heavy and tired.
“It’s over,”
he’d said. It must have taken all of his strength to end it. But that was the thing. He had done it.

She patted the pocket of her shorts, felt the bulge of her car keys. In her mind she calculated the distance between herself and the stairs leading out of the Dungeon. The staircase wasn’t far away. It was just a matter of pushing through the crowd to get there.

She turned, but even as she was turning, someone grabbed her hand and held it tight. She looked up into David’s smiling face.

“Time to fly,” he said.

John had just begun to sink gently into sleep when he was jolted awake by the telephone. He rolled toward the night table between the beds, noted drowsily the time on the clock—just past midnight—and picked up the cordless receiver in time to cut short the second ring.

Hoping it was a wrong number, he asked tentatively, “Yes? Hello?”

“Dad?”

He was wide awake now. “Beka? What’s the matter?”

“I—”

He waited, but she didn’t finish. She was weeping uncontrollably. John sat up, threw his legs over the side of the bed. Andrea was awake now too, watching him intently. “What is it?” she whispered.

He raised a hand. “Beka, sweetheart, pull yourself together and tell me what’s wrong. Are you hurt?”

He heard her take a deep breath and then let the air out in a wrenching sigh.

“Daddy.” She sounded far away, years away, as if she were a little girl again. “Can you come get me? My car won’t start.”

John frowned, rubbed the side of his brow with his free hand. “Of course I’ll come get you but—”

“My car has a flat,” Andrea reminded him, speaking softly. “Let me talk to her.”

He held up his index finger this time. “Just a minute, Andrea,” he said, speaking over the mouthpiece. Then into the phone, he said, “Honey, you’re at Lena’s, right?” Ironically, he knew exactly how to get to Lena’s house. He could be there in just a few minutes.

He heard her sniff loudly. “No, Dad, no.” More sobbing. “I’m at the party. At the Castle.”

“At the Castle?”

John looked up and met Andrea’s gaze. He should have known. Andrea had never been, but John remembered only too well those end-of-summer gatherings at the Castle.

John and Andrea both looked toward the window. Out there, across the lake, somewhere on the other side was their daughter. John stood and walked to the window. The night was calm. He heard the gentle lapping of the lake on the shore, the tapping of the boats against the dock. The night sounds stood in sharp contrast to the pounding of his own heart against his ribs. Never in his life had he felt a fear quite like this, not even when the cell door slammed shut behind him for the first time.

Andrea came up behind him. “She’s been drinking, hasn’t she?”

That wasn’t what mattered, not right now. All that mattered was that he reach her and bring her home.

“Beka, where exactly are you?”

He heard her sniff. “In my car,” she said, her voice rising. “It won’t start. Dad, I didn’t like what they were doing in there. I ran out. I just want to come home, and now my car won’t start.”

“I know, honey. Listen, do you have a flashlight in the car?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Here’s what I want you to do. Take the flashlight and go down by the shore and wave it back and forth slowly, in a small arc. Just keep waving it, okay?”

“Why, Dad?”

“I can’t drive over to get you because your mother’s car has a flat. But Billy and I will come in the motorboat—”

Andrea pulled on his arm so hard the phone came away from his ear. “John, don’t!” she cried. “I’ll call Owen. He can drive over and get her.”

John tensed. “Beka, hold on just a minute.” Putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he said, “No, Andrea, we’re not calling Owen. Not this time.”

“But why not, John?” Andrea asked, wide-eyed.

“Because Beka is my daughter, and I’m going to go get her and bring her home.”

“But you can’t go out in the boat in the middle of the night. It’s not legal. Don’t be a fool!”

“Listen, Andrea,” John said evenly. “I appreciate what Owen did for this family while I was gone. But I’m not gone anymore. I’m here and this is my family, and I’m going to take care of all of you. Do you understand? Now, it’s one mile across. One mile. Billy and I can be over and back in ten minutes.”