So I forced myself to stay out of sight. And I watched as the two men came marching back, each carrying a large brown can. Gallon cans of … what?
“What are you doing?” Dad screamed as they tilted the cans over him and a thick golden liquid oozed out. “Gasoline? Huh? Gasoline? Are you going to set me on fire?”
“Relax, Angelo. Do we look like the kind of men who would set you on fire?” the taller one said, pouring the liquid over the front of my dad’s undershirt.
“What is it? Tell me. What is it?” Dad demanded.
“It’s honey,” the other thug said. “Sweet honey. Look how sweet you are.”
They both laughed. They poured the honey over my dad’s legs, his chest. They emptied the cans over him, then tossed them across the courtyard. They gazed down at him, seemingly pleased with their work.
This is insane, I thought. What are they planning?
I shut my eyes again. I had to make the magic work. I had to stop this whole thing now. But the words wouldn’t come to me. The words were lost, hiding somewhere in my fevered brain.
I clenched my fists in frustration. I opened my eyes—in time to see the taller masked man holding a big burlap bag over my dad. “Oats,” he said. “We can’t forget the oats, can we?”
He tore open the bag. His partner helped him hold it up. They tilted it and emptied the oats onto my dad. They covered his chest, his waist, his legs.
Dad had gone silent. He stopped squirming and twisting. His bare arms and legs were red from the cold. Now he lay still, under the oats, stuck to him in the honey. From where I stood, it looked as if he had a brown blanket spread over him.
“I … I don’t understand,” he said to the two men in a soft voice, just above a whisper. He sounded defeated. The fight had gone out of him. “What are you doing? I don’t understand.”
“You want to feed the horses, don’t you, Angelo?” the taller one said.
“Yeah, you like feeding the horses,” his partner chimed in. “It’ll be like old times.”
“No. Wait—” My dad pleaded.
“The horses are starving,” the taller one said. “They haven’t been fed in days.”
“No. Please—” My dad had figured out what they planned to do, and so had I.
They were going to let the hungry horses out of their stalls so they could come feed on the oats spread over my father.
I started to picture their lowered heads, their gnashing teeth as they chomped hungrily into my dad’s chest. No! I forced the picture from my mind.
I shut my eyes and frantically struggled to remember the words of my spell. But no. They wouldn’t come. They were lost. My panic had chased the words from my memory. And now …
I opened my eyes and saw someone trotting across the snow. The two men turned to greet him. Aaron. Aaron Dooley. His red-and-black plaid coat was open, revealing a black sweater underneath. He had a red wool cap pulled down over his long hair.
Oh, thank goodness, I thought. For the moment, I forgot about my violent encounter with him two days earlier. And I felt glad to see him as he jogged toward my father’s captors.
You’ll stop this, won’t you, Aaron? I thought.
You’ll stop this. You won’t let this happen—right?
7.
As I watched holding my breath, silently praying for Aaron to do something, he trotted up to the two masked men, his breath streaming up above his head. He crossed his arms and gazed down at my dad. He said something to the men that I couldn’t hear.
I leaned forward from the corner of the building, begging, pleading. Please, Aaron. Please.
He turned. Did he see me? I snapped my head back out of sight.
When I gathered the courage to look again, I saw that the two masked men had moved to the barn. They began opening stall doors. Aaron didn’t move, just stood there with his arms crossed, his back to my father.
The horses came screaming out of the stalls. Their hooves thundered on the snow, their heads tossed back, their voices raised in a siren-like whistle, a deafening, desperate cry. Their eyes were wild. They rose up on their back legs and whinnied at the sky.
My dad’s scream rose over the horse’s whinnies as they attacked him. They galloped in a line, lowered their heads, bared enormous teeth, and began to chew. Grunting, snapping their teeth, hoofing at him, kicking him, they voraciously devoured the oats, ripping at his body, their teeth tearing chunks of skin away as they frantically fed.
Dad’s screams of agony rose with the cries and shrieks of the horses. They pawed him, bit and chewed into his flesh, into his chest, his arms. Blood spurted into the air and puddled on the snow.
Dad’s screams stopped. I saw his arms go limp. His head fell back, as if he couldn’t bear to watch any more of it.
And still the horses grunted and chewed, tearing Dad apart, tearing his skin off, hungrily swallowing, digging their big teeth deeper … deeper into his body.
Paralyzed by fear, I couldn’t bear to watch—but I couldn’t look away. I felt like I was outside myself, not in my body at all, watching something impossible, something that could never happen.
But my dad’s unmoving silence … the lake of dark blood around him in the snow … the chunks of flesh scattered on the ground … it snapped me out of my dream state. Was I too late to get help?
Probably.
But I had to find someone. Without thinking, I ran from the safety of the building. My idea was to try to find help in the staff building. But in my shock and horror, and with the living nightmare of seeing my father eaten by horses, I lurched the wrong way.
Before I could pull back, I heard one of the men shout, “Hey—look! It’s his daughter!”
I gasped. And heard the other masked man yell, “Don’t let her get away. The horses are still hungry.”
8.
I didn’t turn back. I lowered my head and ran straight past them.
“We don’t need a witness,” one of the men shouted. And then I heard the rapid thud of footsteps over the now. I glanced back and saw Aaron chasing after me, his open coat flapping behind him, his cold blue eyes narrowed in determination.
“Noooo.…” I gasped. I darted around the back of the barn building and followed the riding path that led into the Fear Street Woods. The snow was piled higher back here. No one had shoveled. The wind had blown drifts nearly to my knees.
“Beth—stop!” Aaron called. “You know you can’t outrun me.”
I jumped over a fallen tree limb, ducked my head under some snow-covered brambles, and plunged into the woods.
Behind me, Aaron uttered a cry. I turned to see him fall over the tree limb. He picked himself up quickly, brushing snow off the front of his black sweater.
A wind shuddered the trees, and snow fell off the branches. I lowered my head and kept running.
“Beth! Beth! Beth!” he kept chanting my name as he came after me.
Did he think I’d turn around to answer him? Did he think I’d ever speak to him after … after …
A low branch scratched my face. I cried out in pain, spun away and headed along a patch of tall shrubs that led downhill.
Aaron’s calls suddenly seemed farther away. Was he falling behind?
Maybe I can outrun him.
I leaned forward and tried to pick up speed. But I was running downhill and my shoes landed on a square patch of ice on top of the snow. I started to slide, my arms flailing at my sides, struggling to keep my balance.
As I started to go down, I wrapped my arms around the trunk of a slender birch tree, spun around the tree, and came to a stop.
Panting hard, I listened for Aaron. No footsteps. No cries. Had I managed to lose him in my frantic dash through these tangled woods?
Both of my sides throbbed with pain. I couldn’t slow my racing heartbeats. I glanced around quickly. I had no idea where I was. No idea how to find my way out of the woods.
A row of white-trunked birch trees stood on my right. To my left, a snowy path cut through sc
raggly shrubs and reeds. I took the path, forcing my legs to move, ignoring the pains in my sides. Had I already been this way? I couldn’t remember.
I kept glancing back, searching for Aaron. Did I lose him? Was he still coming after me?
I’ve got to get out of the woods. But—how?
I came to the end of the path, turned to see where I was—and ran right into Aaron.
“HA!” he uttered a triumphant laugh. He wrapped his arms around my waist and tightened his grip. “Did you think you lost me?”
“Aaron—let me go,” I choked out. “Why are you doing this? They’re going to kill me. Is that what you want?”
I didn’t give him a chance to answer. I shot my knee up as hard as I could into the pit of his stomach. His eyes bulged and he let out a groan. His arms slid off me, and he dropped to his knees in the snow, gasping in pain.
I didn’t give him time to recover. Kicking snow as I ran, I took off to a thick clump of low-limbed trees up ahead. The tree limbs were bent, many of them nearly to the ground. I ducked my head and stumbled forward, eager to lose myself behind the tangle of limbs.
Where does this lead?
To my surprise, the trees ended at the mouth of a low cave cut into gray rock. I ducked under the last tree limb and darted into the cave. The air felt a lot colder inside.
I made my way a few feet into the cave, then turned back. Had Aaron seen me? He couldn’t be far behind. If he came running through the clump of tangled tree limbs, he’d see the cave, and he’d know … he’d know …
I backed in farther. Backed into a deep well of black. The cave was longer than I’d imagined. The air grew even colder … and heavier. The heavy chill made me shudder.
Please … please don’t find me.
I gasped. It felt as if whirls of darkness were circling me, washing over me … pulling me down, forcing me deeper into the cave. Swallowed. I was being swallowed by the inky darkness. I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I felt myself sinking into the shadows … shadows over shadows … shadows rolling and dancing over shadows.
I was falling helplessly into a darkness I’d never seen before. And as I fell, I knew I was fading, fading, fading away …
Is this what it feels like to die?
PART ONE
PRESENT DAY
9.
“Michael? Michael Frost!”
I looked up from my phone when I heard my name called. I’d been staring at a text from Pepper Davis, my girlfriend, trying to decide if it made any sense or not. Pepper likes to send texts with no whole words, only bunches of letters like OMG or LMAO and then a string of emojis. I was never good at languages. You can ask Mr. LeForet, my French teacher. The other day, it took me twenty minutes to decipher a text from Pepper that said: I’ll meet you after school at your house.
“Hey, Michael!”
I lowered the phone, turned, and saw a guy at the end of the dairy section, grinning at me. I didn’t recognize him at first. He must have been a little older than me, early twenties I’d guess. His hair was shaved short on the sides, and he wore a maroon and yellow sweatshirt that said WORLD TOUR 09 on the front, pulled down over baggy cargo khakis.
He shifted the shopping basket he held in one hand and stepped toward me. “Hey, it’s me. Buddy Griffman. Remember? I was an intern at your dad’s store a few winters ago?”
“Hey, yeah,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going okay.” He gestured to the shopping basket. I saw a big pack of Pampers and several cans of something called Similac. “Got a kid now.” He flashed me a strange grin, like he was embarrassed or something. “No more interning, you know?”
I nodded. My phone dinged but I ignored it. Probably another unreadable text from Pepper. “Where you working, Buddy?”
He shrugged. “Sort of in-between things, you know. Staying with my parents in Martinsville.” He shifted his weight. “How’s your dad? How’s his business? Good, right? This winter…”
I nodded. “Well, there’s been a ton of snow. That’s good for snowmobiles, you know. Dad’s probably the only guy in town who prays for more snow every winter.”
Buddy tossed back his head and laughed. A little too hard. It wasn’t that funny. Then we had an awkward moment where neither one of us knew what to say next.
I waved my phone. “I’ve got to … uh … answer this.…”
“Michael, tell your dad I said hi.” He shifted the basket to his other hand and headed down the aisle. He was wearing sandals even though there was about eight inches of snow on the ground outside.
I don’t remember this guy at all, I thought. Did I ever meet him?
I moved my cart in the other direction. I had the chicken breasts and the vegetables Mom needed. Now I had to find black olives. Don’t ask. Some kind of new chicken/olive thing Mom was whipping up for dinner tonight.
I shop for her here at the Food Mart all the time. I’m not the best shopper in the world. In fact, I suck at it. But Mom works two jobs, so I don’t mind pitching in.
I spotted a likely shelf across from the cold cuts counter. I had to swerve my cart around a middle-aged bald guy in gray sweats who was balancing a whole ham in each hand. He had the two hams raised above his head. At first, I thought maybe he was working out with them. Cheaper than the gym, right? Then I realized he was showing them to his wife at the end of the aisle.
I rolled my cart past the cold cuts shelves, and that’s when I spotted the girl.
She was … beautiful. Well … not drop-dead beautiful. But there was something unreal about her, something startling that made me stand there staring at her.
I’m really into writing. Pepper and I write a Shadyside High blog every day. And I plan to be an English major when I start at Duke next fall.
But it would take a better writer than me to describe this girl. What was it about her that was so totally fascinating? I guess it was her eyes. She had big, glowing cat eyes. Like that movie star. What’s her name? Emma Stone? Big, beautiful eyes, only black. Against her pale face, they looked like shimmering black olives. Ha. Yeah, I had olives on my mind.
She had black hair that fell down the sides of her face in tight curls. She didn’t smile. Actually, she looked troubled. Her lips were together in a kind of pout. She wore a black hoodie with the hood pushed back, over straight-legged denim jeans.
“Excuse me, please. Excuse me.” A woman wanted to move her cart past me. She had to ask three times before I realized she was talking to me. Like I was in a trance or something.
I rolled my cart to the side. I turned back to the girl. She still hadn’t noticed me. Her eyes were on the cold cut packages.
I took a few steps toward her. I’m not sure why. It was like an invisible force was pulling me to her. But I stopped when I saw her raise her large purple canvas bag.
Her eyes darted from right to left. Then she quickly grabbed up packs of ham and turkey and shoved them into her bag.
I blinked. This isn’t happening, is it?
It took only a few seconds. She closed the bag, tucked the handle under her arm, and moved slowly, casually to the bread department. I followed her. I couldn’t help it. I watched her tuck a small loaf of crusty bread into her bag.
Her face was expressionless. Her eyes were blank. She smiled as she passed two white-aproned store workers. I watched her walk slowly through the automatic exit door and into the parking lot.
No one chased after her. No one had seen her steal the food. But me.
Why did I follow her? Why did I leave my cart in the middle of the aisle and hurry out the door after her?
I don’t know. I guess I thought maybe I could help her. I mean, I wasn’t going to turn her in. I didn’t plan to try to stop her. I thought maybe she needed help—and why wouldn’t I try to help such a totally hot, mysterious-looking girl?
Some of my friends say I’m a do-gooder. They call me Scout. You know. Like I’m a Boy Scout or something. They think it’s funny, but I don’t see
anything wrong with it.
Maybe she’s really poor, and she’s hungry, I thought. Maybe she lost her wallet. Maybe she’s run away from home.…
My dog was tied up at the side of the building. She bent to pet the dog, and I caught up with her there. She raised her eyes, saw me for the first time. “Is this your dog?”
I nodded. “Yeah.” Suddenly a little speechless.
“What kind of dog?”
“She’s a mix,” I said. “Mostly Lab.”
“Cute. How old?”
“Almost three.”
“Still a puppy.” She scratched the dog’s ears. “What’s her name?”
“Mindy,” I answered.
She laughed. “Mindy? Really? That’s my name!” She stood up. She gripped the canvas bag handles tightly. I kept glancing at the bag, picturing her stealing the food.
“No. Seriously,” I said. “Your name is Mindy?”
She nodded, a teasing grin on her face. “Yes. I’m Mindy. Mindy Barker.”
“Hey,” I said. “Barker? Like a dog?”
She had a great giggle.
“Come on. Give me a break. What’s your real name?” I asked.
She shrugged. Her big eyes flashed. She enjoyed teasing me. “Mindy Barker is a good name, don’t you think?”
If only I could stop picturing her shoplifting. I gazed at the bag. There was no way I could bring it up, say that I saw what she did.
She’d run away.
And I didn’t want her to run away.
“I haven’t seen you in school,” I said. “Do you go to Shadyside?”
“I’m new. I just started.”
“Are you a senior, too?”
She tugged at a long, red-plastic earring that dangled from her black hair. “Yeah.”
“Must be hard moving to a new school for your senior year,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.” Her expression suddenly changed. “Why do you keep staring at my bag?”
I blinked. “Me? I wasn’t. Really.” I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks.