Janelle assumed that meant her. She assumed it meant she was about to die. She just didn't know if that would be from fright—could someone actually die from fright?—or from her attacker slitting her throat. She could only assume that he was offering her up to these dead people. She remembered the conversation on the bus—about the undead sucking the life force out of the living through their eyeballs. Apparently they couldn't do that. Apparently they needed a live person to lure someone here to be killed and to be made into one of them.
But her attacker jumped to his feet, letting the knife clatter to the stone floor. He didn't look as though he'd been expecting any of this. Perhaps the talking, moving dead people were a surprise to him, too. Looking as scared as she felt, he pulled the door open.
One of the other women—an old, old, grandmother—kicked the door shut before he could get out. "Nasty man," she called him.
"Nasty," echoed the third woman, who was wearing what appeared to be a wedding dress. "Freddy, Bobby—do something."
There were two other men with her, both wearing old-fashioned military uniforms, though one looked even more old-fashioned than the other. They floated away from the shelves toward the man who had lured her in here—apparently not because he was on friendly terms with them.
Her attacker tugged at the door, and though his hands passed right through the grandmother, who stood there looking fragile enough that it seemed a breeze would dissipate her, the door did not budge.
The man who looked like a banker said, "You, sir, are a disgrace. How dare you break into our home?"
When her attacker tried to beat the spirits away, his hands passed through them. But the spirits were able to hold on to him, and they dragged him away from the door.
So the ghosts would be able to kill her without any help from the living. Janelle very much hoped that it wouldn't hurt, that it wouldn't be—as her classmates had been joking—through having her life force sucked out via her face.
Instead, the grandmotherly one said to Janelle, "No damage done. Make wiser choices, young lady. But don't be afraid of us."
They weren't after her?
Janelle felt someone's solid hands support her as she got to her feet, and it was the older of the two military men. When she tried to grasp his hand to thank him, her fingers passed through him, though he smiled kindly.
Still, when she looked back from the doorway, the spirits were clustered around her attacker. Though all they did was crowd him, he was unable to catch his breath. He wheezed, he gasped, he fell to his knees.
"Go," the woman named Margaret urged her. "Run."
Janelle ran.
Out the door.
Across the gravestone-littered grass.
Down the hill.
Along the cemetery road until she caught up with Xavier and Courtney, who were straggling behind the rest of her classmates.
"Looks like it's going to rain," Xavier said mildly.
And she took a deep breath, and another, and another.
Then she said, without even checking the sky, "Probably."
She never did tell anybody what had almost happened.
And she most especially didn't tell what had happened.
Not even when she heard Mount Hope Cemetery mentioned on the news the next day. She learned that authorities—checking the cemetery after Halloween night to make sure no pranksters had caused any damage—had found a dead man in a crypt that had been broken into. Despite the large knife that was on the floor beside him, the man looked to have died by natural causes: He had simply stopped breathing. The police described him as a homeless man, and they speculated he had been using the crypt to sleep in, because they found his tattered tweed coat bundled up as though he'd been using it as a pillow.
Ms. Hurston, Janelle thought, would be appalled at the politically incorrect stereotyping.
The news report went on to say that there was no evidence the coffins had been disturbed.
"Fortunately," the report ended, "there was no damage done."
Best Friends
Nikki
This is a picture of me and my best friend, Aimee Ann. We've known each other since kindergarten, when our mothers ran into each other—almost literally!—in the school parking lot. Afterward, while they were waiting for us, they got to talking and realized we lived only one block apart, which meant each of them could drop us off and pick us up half the time if they car-pooled and took turns.
It was like Fate.
We were destined to be inseparable best friends.
Aimee Ann loves my mom just as much as I love hers. It's like we both have two families.
As kids, we used to share toys; now that we're teens, we've moved on to sharing makeup. On occasion we have been known (don't tell the teachers!) to share homework. We've always shared clothes. That's one of the main reasons to have a best friend! We once even shared a boyfriend—though that, honestly, was a bit of a test of our relationship. But then we figured you can get a boyfriend—especially one of Chuckie Zarpentine's quality—anywhere. But how often are you going to find a forever friend?! So we both dumped him.
This picture is from last summer. Every year for, like, the last five years, Aimee Ann's parents have rented an RV for a week at Darien Lake and—because they know better than to try to separate two best friends!—they invite me to go with them. Camping, swimming, enjoying all-week passes at the amusement park, being together day and night: It's like one, never-ending pajama party for two.
You can see the Ferris wheel in the background. Aimee Ann and I love riding on Ferris wheels.
Notice how we're wearing our matching Mickey Mouse T-shirts? "You're like twins," my mother said, then laughed, when she brought them home for us, "separated at birth."
Aimee Ann and I loved those T-shirts.
Aimee Ann
I know I sound like a cold, hateful monster when I complain about Nikki.
But, oh, those retarded Mickey Mouse shirts. I don't think I ever truly hated an article of clothing as much as I hated those. I mean, c'mon, we were about to start high school, not third grade—and they were secondhand from the Volunteers of America Thrift Shop. The one Nikki gave me had some sort of anonymous stain on the front, like maybe the previous owner had a problem with getting her food into her mouth in any consistent manner, or maybe she just drooled a lot.
Nikki might or might not have noticed. She could be hard on clothes herself. She was always borrowing my stuff and returning it with stains or spills or snags or stretched-out waistbands.
But, "Be nice," my mother kept telling me. "The Bianchis haven't had as easy a life as we have. It wouldn't hurt you to be bighearted."
The Bianchis. Poor husbandless, friendless Mrs. Bianchi, who worked at the Stop 'n' Go Mini Mart in the afternoon and as a bartender in the evenings. Ever since they met, when she almost ran my mother down in the school parking lot (and any truly sane mother would have taken that as an omen), she and my mother were supposed to take turns driving us to and from school. But Mrs. Bianchi was always calling to say, "Could you please drive the girls in tomorrow? I'm having to work the late shift, and morning comes around so fast when I haven't gotten home till 3 A.M. I mean, I could do it if you can't..." Or, "I know it's my turn to pick the girls up, but I need to cover for one of the other cashiers, who didn't come in today..."
Even on days when she said she'd pick us up, Nikki's mother wasn't reliable. After she forgot us at school two or three times, my mother learned to hang around the house around two forty-five or three o'clock so I could call her, just in case.
Don't tell me Mrs. Bianchi didn't count on that.
"It's rough for her," my mother would defend her, "with no husband and having to work two jobs." She didn't seem to mind Mrs. Bianchi taking advantage of her, and she didn't seem to mind Nikki taking advantage of me.
And poor fatherless, friendless Nikki. Who only had me.
Not counting my parents, of course, who always took her side.
"Ooh, I've never seen such a beautiful doll," Nikki would say, and my mother would nudge me, hard, until I would say, "Oh well, I hardly ever play with her anymore. Would you like her?"
Nikki never turned down anything my mother forced me to offer to her, no matter how grudgingly I made that offer.
Or, "Ooh, that sweater is so soft. And it matches perfectly the stripe in that skirt my mother just got me at the consignment shop. You're so lucky. It's tough to get matching pieces secondhand."
Always in front of my mother, Mrs. We-Must-Be-Aware-of-Our-Standing-and-Our-Obligations-in-the-Community. Mrs. Soft-Touch. Mrs. Easy-Mark.
Nikki always wanted to do whatever I was doing, be with who I was with. When we were younger, it was flattering, and I admit there was a certain fascination for me to be at the Bianchis, since Mrs. Bianchi believes the food pyramid consists of pizza, root beer, and chocolate, and in every other way, too, is just about as opposite my mother as two people can be. But after a while, Nikki became almost a stalker. She joined the choir just because I did, and the chess club, and the volleyball team. She'd ask to copy my homework; and if I didn't let her, it meant she'd get detention; and then I'd have to stay after, too, since we rode together, so what was the point of saying no?
Last year, after Chuckie Zarpentine and I had worked together for a week on our final joint economics report, then skated together for four couples-only numbers at Krista Orsini's roller-skating birthday party, and I was just waiting for him to invite me to the Last-Chance-Before-Summer Dance, Nikki went ahead and asked him to go with her. Like she hadn't heard me saying, "Oh, I hope he asks me," every time he walked by for about two months.
I refused to talk to her for a week, then she showed up at our house, crying and claiming she'd had no idea I'd been interested in Chuckie, offering to break up with him, and begging to be friends again.
Did my father, who may be brilliant as a tax auditor, a church alderman, and a world-class Scrabble master catch on that she apologized only after the dance?
That was when he invited her, yet again, to Darien Lake with us.
Nikki
Now that I'm dead, I find myself kind of floating rather aimlessly.
If there are other dead people around, I'm not aware of them. And living people seem totally unaware of me.
The first person I tried to talk to after the accident was—of course—Aimee Ann, since she is, was, and always will be my best friend. I was sure if any two people could connect the world of the living with the world of the dead, it would be us.
Nothing.
I tried my mother, both before and after she was told of my death.
Nothing there, either.
I tried my deadbeat father.
No wonder my mother left the creep.
I even tried the guy who had run me over with his car.
What's the good of being a ghost if you can't even haunt the person who killed you on Halloween night?!
There's nothing—besides me—in the world of the dead. And in the world of the living, I can pass through walls, but I also pass through anything I try to pick up—unless I give it my absolute, total, don't-even-think-about-thinking-of-anything-else(!) concentration.
But I can be single-minded.
It's one of my best attributes.
I concentrated with all my being.
When a ghost tells you that, she is not speaking figuratively.
I concentrated with all my being, and—eventually—I was able to pick up this picture that my mother had tucked into the coffin with me.
I was able to take the picture out of my dead hands and up into my spirit hands.
I am bringing it to Aimee Ann to comfort her in her sorrow. To let her know that not even death can separate us.
Aimee Ann
I didn't mean to kill Nikki.
We were walking home from Celeste Camillo's Halloween party because Mrs. Bianchi was supposed to pick us up, but—surprise!—she hadn't shown up. Meanwhile, my parents were at a tax auditors' Halloween party for my father's company (one can only imagine how much fun that was), and it was too embarrassing—half an hour after everyone else had left and Celeste was sitting on the couch yawning so hard her jaw was cracking—to ask her to roust her parents out of bed and drive us the few blocks to our houses.
Nikki was wearing an outfit that was supposed to make her look like a rock star, because that was what I had told her I was going as. But I've known Nikki for ten years, so I saw that coming, and all along I'd been planning on dressing like an Egyptian princess, which I'd seen in the window of a costume rental place. But when I showed it to my mother, she said it was too expensive and I could put together a princess costume from some of the fabrics she had stockpiled for projects she'd never gotten to.
Princess, of course, is totally different from Egyptian princess, but my mother pretended to be oblivious to the nuances.
So I went dressed as trailer-park trash, which meant, basically, I dressed like Nikki, which—I know, I know—was cruel, and I'm totally ashamed of myself. But in my own defense I can honestly say that anyone can always count on Nikki, also, to be oblivious to nuances.
I even wore the Mickey Mouse shirt, and my only excuse is that I was in a foul mood because of my mother's lack of Halloween spirit.
So there we were, walking home together at almost one o'clock in the morning, and Nikki was going on and on about what a great time we always have at Darien Lake.
She had pulled out of her purse that snapshot she carries everywhere and was telling me—yet again—how much alike we are. As if! She said, as she does each time she shows the picture to anyone, "My mother has to take my word for it which of us is which."
Yeah, right, Mrs. Bianchi. I'm the one with the pained expression because your daughter's got her arm around my neck in a stranglehold that would make the World Wrestling Federation proud. I'm the one with the green complexion because no matter how many times I tell Nikki, "Nikki, I don't like Ferris wheels because I can't stand heights," she always insists that I got over my fear of heights last time and tells me what a really great time we had, and my parents say, "Oh, go on with her—rides are more fun for two than alone," and she drags me on, and I spend the next two hours feeling ready to puke.
So there we were on Halloween night, walking home in the cold and the dark, and I was thinking I probably should have peed before leaving Celeste's, and Nikki was chattering on and on and on about how great the Ferris wheel at Darien Lake is because it goes so high up you can see just about all of the park spread out below you.
"Nikki," I said, talking over her because when she gets on a roll she doesn't even stop to take a breath, "I hate Ferris wheels."
"No, you don't," she corrected me. "They're fun." She was walking on the edge of the curb, balancing herself like a tightrope walker. She said, "People need to get their adrenaline going once in a while. Ferris wheels are a good kind of scare."
"Like this?" I said. And I shoved her. I thought she'd totter on the curb, her adrenaline going.
In the darkest recesses of my heart, I even suspected that, taken unawares, she might fall off.
I never saw the car.
I never, ever saw that car.
And I'd give anything—anything—to take that moment back.
Nikki
Of course I know Aimee Ann didn't want to hurt me. Best friends don't want to hurt each other!
That's why with total, absolute concentration I've worked so hard until I've been able to move the picture from my coffin to the stairs by her bedroom.
She'll bend down to see what it is, and she'll know I've forgiven her.
Then with total, absolute concentration, I'll push her.
And then I won't be alone anymore. We'll be together forever and always.
Just the way best friends are meant to be!
Pretending
The moon wasn't up yet, and out here in the country, the night was darker than it ever got in the city. Brian turned on the overhead li
ght and glanced again at the directions to Kyla Zolla's house.
"She might have just said, Drive till you get to East Nowhere," he grumbled to himself, "then keep on driving till you run out of gas or fall off the edge of the earth, whichever comes second."
If he had looked at the directions during study hall, when she'd passed the note to him, he might have known to suggest that she get a family member to drive her to school for the Halloween dance. One should always be leery of a set of directions that includes county route numbers instead of street names, and that says things like, "Pass by the Feed and Tractor store, then turn right at the first paved road." And "If you get to the falling-down barn with the old sign that says GUTHRIE'S POULTRY, you've gone too far."
Sure enough, Brian saw the GUTHRIE'S POULTRY sign. Sighing, he made a U-turn, hardly having to slow down at all since there was no other traffic in sight.
"This better be worth it," he muttered. He had to turn on the light again to see his watch. He hadn't figured out yet how to set the car's clock, which wasn't just off by the hour, like it was from a different time zone, but was wrong when it came to the minutes, too. The good thing about the car was that it was a red Camaro. Never mind that it was almost as old as Brian. Red Camaros are total chick magnets.
Seven thirty. He'd told Kyla he'd pick her up at a quarter after seven.
It was her own fault for living so far out in the sticks. Who'd have thought the school district extended this far into the wilderness?