Dead, Sweet Boy (Book One - Dead, Sweet Series) Page 13

  “Oh look girls. The arsonist has a new friend and I think she’s a vampire.”

  “You don’t want my temper to get out of control,” Claudia sneered. I have to admit she looked pretty frightening.

  Linda hardly flinched. “You must be one of Sunny’s criminal friends.”

  “That’s right I am. Sunny here is kind of a joke around me and my friends. Playing with matches and killing animals is child’s play. I killed a bitch like you when I was ten. They had to let me out because I turned eighteen. It doesn’t make me right.”

  Linda’s group stepped back and I swear, Claudia’s timing was perfect. She stepped forward and sort of leaned, as if she were going to pounce, but instead stuck a couple of fingers in her mouth and made a gagging sound, like she was making herself voimit. Without another word, the girls from hell walked away quickly.

  Claudia and I walked coolly to her car, holding in the hysterics and laughs until she put her key in the ignition and started down the road.

  One thing I noticed in our scuffle with Linda was her tattoo seemed to get red when she got angry. I thought I saw the snake move a little in the heart design. I wanted to tell Claudia about it, but I didn’t want to talk about it. Enough creepy crap was ahead of us, and a little bit more might have made me chicken out.

  Chapter ThirteenFeed me

  It all seems so long ago

  I remember them laughing

  I heard the ambulance scream

  I saw the red light flashing, flashing

  (Elton John’s Rock of the Westies)

  “I still can’t believe you said all that to Linda. You do know that will be the new rumor around town. People are going to start a petition to get us out of here.”

  Claudia was admiring herself in the mirror. She was stunning. The front of her jumpsuit was covered with all different buttons, from smiley faces to Nixon buttons, and the front was unsnapped to the waist. “That girl is just nasty Sunny. I don’t care what she says about me.”

  “Thanks… I mean for sticking up for me.”

  “Someone had to stop you from beating the crap out of the girl. You are on probation.”

  Funny, I never thought of myself as a person who could beat the crap out of another girl. And to be fair, I did a violent act. But Claudia was right. Linda and her group were about as nasty as girls could get.

  Claudia was sort of brushing off my gratitude. Sure, she had turned into a visitor who never leaves, and she never had any money, but she had done a lot for me. In her unusual way, she was the right thing at the right time, and I really appreciated it.

  I walked up behind her and took a closer look at her. My arms wrapped around her waste from behind while I pressed my face against her shoulder as we looked in the mirror together. “You look beautiful,” I said, “and thanks. Just thanks. You’re a good friend.”

  The sparkle in Claudia’s eyes got a little wet. Her hands and arms wrapped themselves around my embrace. “You look beautiful too. Here, let me finish your hair.”

  We walked into the bathroom where she had the flat iron plugged in. I sat on the toilet while she went to work on my hair. As she worked, Claudia gabbed about all the stuff she wanted to go back and get at one of the resale shops we had scoured.

  “Frick!” she burned her hand with the iron and dropped the comb. It fell behind the toilet.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said, handing me the iron while she squatted to get the comb.

  “Ewe, don’t use that comb on my hair again.”

  Claudia came back up with the back of one of her hands in her mouth, sucking on the burn, and something shiny in the other hand.

  “Who’s is this?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  It was an mp3 player. When I got a closer look, it was familiar. “I think that’s Ricks. He must have dropped it.”

  “Gross, like it fell out of his pants when he was taking a dump?” she asked. Claudia immediately wasted a towel to wipe it off.

  “My bathroom’s clean Claud. Stop.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and plugged the buds into her ears. I watched while she listened to parts of songs. “Come on, let’s finish Claudia.”

  “He has the same chick singing in all the songs and I don’t know who it is.”

  “It’s probably his favorite CD or something.”

  “She’s good. I want to know who it is. Here, take a listen.”

  “Okay, but please let’s finish the hair so I can get off the toilet.” I traded the iron for the music and when I plugged the buds into my ears, I went weak.

  “So? Do you know who it is?”

  It took a minute to recover. It wasn’t like I had to figure it out or anything. “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “What? No freaking way! Are you serious? Oh my God Sunny, you’re like a real rock star.”

  The songs were the songs from the CD my band put together to sell at shows, and to pass around in our effort to become a band with a music deal. Missing were the songs that Mack sang and the one Rick sang. The only songs he had in the memory of his Mp3 player, were mine. And the thing was, that I’d seen him listening to them.

  “Let me listen to that again,” she squealed. And she wasn’t very gentle about unplugging the music from my ears.

  My head was spinning while Claudia raved about my voice, the music and the lyrics. All I could think about was that Rick was listening to me and only me. Rick, who stayed in the background while Mack was alive. Rick, who I am ashamed to admit that I pretty much ignored. And the Rick who I know now for sure, tried to take the blame for what I did. He must have known it was me. He knew me.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket, to see if he tried to call. The phone wasn’t working. He must have been going crazy wondering why I’m not calling him.

  Please let him make it, oh please.

  When Claudia finished my hair, she went to slip the mp3 player into her pocket. I put my hand out flat, to let her know I wanted it.

  “I want to listen some more.”

  My hand said it all. She gave it back to me and I put it in my back pocket. “We must be crazy,” I whispered.

  “Yup, but we’re the kind of crazy that rocks the world,” Claudia laughed. “We face things. Right Sunny? My crazy buddy ole ghost hunting pal.”

  “No really. We must be crazy. We have a fricking appointment with ghost hunters in the cemetery. That’s just not normal.”

  “It’s all about opportunity. If you want to confront a ghost, it’s the place to be. I feel you getting tense. Don’t go there,” she warned. She took my face in her hands to make me concentrate on what she was saying. “Sunny? Hey it’s okay. Normal is a matter of opinion. Look at me. I’m normal.”

  My hands started to shake. A deep breath helped. Once nerves strike, they’re hard to dismiss. Think of something else. Think of your beautiful top. Think of…Rick. Breathe.

  A pebble hit the bathroom window.

  We both jumped. Claudia grabbed my hand and whispered, “That’s why we’re doing this. Do you want to put up with that forever?”

  “No,” I whispered back. When I squeezed her hand, she squeezed back. My nerves were replaced, at least a little, with resolve to get this over with, but in the mix was some anger now. How does one get angry at a ghost? You have to believe that it’s all real. I did. So, it made perfect sense now – what we were doing. Claudia was right, and my certainty was finally catching up with hers.

  “I wish your mom didn’t have to go out tonight. Her car would have really added to our outfits.”

  Mom had to slip out to one of her AA meetings. Dad of course, wasn’t home. All that was left to drive was Claudia’s Junker. I was getting used to it, especially since she moved most of her belongings from the car to my house. Every time we got in it, I cleaned some of the junk out, so it was taking on a sort of old-school charm.

  We were ready and headed out, when I looked at my purse. “Wait a minute. I want to use the purse
I bought.”

  “Hurry up. Those guys are going to be there.”

  The purse was a leather bag with fringes on the bottom and the flap. I dumped the contents of my old purse into the new. Rick’s sunglasses fell onto my bed. I don’t know what made me grab them. It was dark outside.

  “Okay, I’m ready.”

  Moving from the house to the car was a little tense. I half way expected to be pelted by pebbles but apart from a very creepy feeling and a slight movement in the air, we made it to the car safely.

  “Hurry up!” I urged. “I have the creeps, major.”

  Claudia worked the old bug like it was made for her. She knew it’s every complicated complaint and how to get past them. Once we were rolling, I noticed that she kept looking at me.

  “What?” I got the feeling there was something more. Something she wasn’t telling me.

  “There’s something you need to see.” Instead of veering left to hit the main road to town, Claudia continued down the river road. The way we never went, because I wouldn’t let anyone go that way.

  “Where are you going? Don’t go this way!”

  “Just take a look Sunny.”

  “NO!”

  “Sunny its fine, just look or I’m going to stop right in front of it.”

  “Is everything about you pressure?” I asked. I didn’t want to look, but I did it, and none of it was familiar at all. A new house stood in the place of the one I burned down. I almost broke my neck to keep looking as we went by.

  “It’s probably not right to say you did her a favor, but that’s a nice little house.”

  It was a nice house. My life was turned upside down by what I had done, and because of me, Linda got a new house. “God I’m stupid,” was all I could think of to say.

  “Naw, you were just working for the wrong team. You’re back now.”

  “Back?”

  “Yes – back. You are stronger, wiser and on the road to being the rock star who’s inside of you.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s so me. A rock star.”

  Claudia sighed. “Look roommate, you have some garbage to face, but you can do it. You have a great mom and friends that want to help. That’s more than most people have. Things happen for a reason. You have to understand that you’re on a better road now.

  “It’s kind of like all those times I ran away. I could have suffered and moaned that my parents didn’t give a crap about me. I did some of that, but I knew I was on a better road. Look where it took me. We never would have been friends, and who knows what kind of sick crap would have happened if I didn’t keep leaving.

  “Come on Sunny. Look at the sunny side of things. Okay. That sounded cornier than I wanted it to. But if things didn’t happen the way they did, you would still be in the grips of a liar.”

  “Don’t Claud. Nothing was good about any of it.”

  “Maybe not right now, but you are good. You’re a really good person.”

  A sick feeling balled up in my belly. How could I see things the way she was describing? It wasn’t better that Mack was dead. It would have been better if he could have been healed. Nothing could make me even consider that he was better off. If it were true, would he be haunting us now? In my heart, I knew he was still suffering. What he did came from the darkness of his illness. Where was his better road? What happened to all the potential that he had?

  Claudia could preach all she wanted about the better road, and how I was becoming myself in the process. I knew I would never be able to leave Mack behind. We were joined at the soul. If he was a monster, then I was too. Look what I had done. My capabilities were just as dark.

  Quickly I tried to change my thoughts. If I didn’t, I would convince myself again that I didn’t deserve Rick, or that he didn’t really care about me. My hand moved to feel the Mp3 player in my pocket. It was still there.

  I noticed Claudia wasn’t going where I expected her to. “Now where are you going?”

  “I don’t want to park where people will recognize my car. All we need is a bunch of curious idiots to join us. Like Linda and her clan.”

  Claudia took a dirt road around the back, where a field butted up against the grave yard.

  “There’s no fence this way.”

  “There’s no road either. They don’t lock the gate out front Claud. I don’t know about this. It’s so dark.”

  She reached into her new macramé bag and pulled out a flashlight. “That’s why I brought this,” she smiled.

  The flashlight seemed so small compared to the darkness that waited for us outside of her bug. Something didn’t feel right, and for the life of me, I wished we had my mother’s car. We could have parked and no one would have known it was our ride.

  “How did you know about this way?”

  “I like to explore. That’s how I found Linda’s house.”

  “I don’t know Claud. This feels like one of those bad movies right now. I get the feeling if people were watching us they would be saying, ‘don’t go out there.’”

  We both looked out her windshield into the darkness. Hundreds of eternal lights flickered on the graves like a warning. These were sacred grounds and we didn’t belong. Especially not in the pitch blackness of night.

  This time I heard Mack singing in my head. One of his dark songs, and it frightened me so much, because now I knew what he meant. It wasn’t all in fun. He was living it. I sang along with him.

  It’s coming, it hates us

  I bought it, I break us

  The eyes are all around me, hounding

  Cutting my heart

  You can’t save me I am gone

  Can you taste it? So dark, so damned

  I’ll let go now, to kill this evil

  I wanted the song to stop in my head. The graveyard and its air felt alive with its death. If Claudia was frightened, she was doing a good job of hiding it. “Come on Sunny. I’m sure they’re here already.”

  I got out of the car and followed as she led the way with her two dollar flashlight. What a joke. If we had a spotlight, I don’t think I would have been any more comfortable. Right as we reached the graves she broke our silence.

  “Look, how cool.”

  “What!” my heart slammed into my chest.

  “This is the oldest section of the cemetery. Look at the dates. This is history.”

  “Keep going. I don’t want to look at anything.”

  The vibration in my pocket came first, and then my phone blasted out the beginning of Ozzie’s ‘Crazy Train.’ We both jumped into each other’s arms and gave out a scream.

  It didn’t take long for both of to realize it was my phone. “It works!” Claudia exclaimed, with happiness.

  “It’s Rick, oh thank God. Hello?”

  “Where are you guys?” Rick’s sweet and normal voice filled my head.

  “We’re here. Are you here?”

  “What do you mean you’re here? I’m with the guys and we’re waiting for you.”

  “We’re at the back of the cemetery. Claudia parked in the field.”

  “What the hell are you doing back there?”

  “I don’t know Rick, but I’m scared out of my mind.”

  “I’ll come…”

  The phone went black and I couldn’t get him back. It wouldn’t work. The temporary light I felt was gone.

  “I think he’s coming to find us,” I said, hoping. “Hurry.”

  “Now she wants to hurry? Hmmm. Very interesting.”

  I ignored Claudia’s comment and forged ahead after I took the flashlight out of her hand. This time I was leading and just knowing that Rick was there, I could do it. Before there had been no guarantee that anyone else had shown up like they were supposed to. It was too easy to imagine us getting to Mack’s grave and finding that we were all alone in the depths of the dead. Not only that. I couldn’t wait to see Rick.

  It was such a relief when I finally saw his flashlight coming to us. I ran, leaving Claudia behind, yelling for me to wait up. His arms
were open wide and just as I was ready to throw myself at him, I tripped. Over a grave marker.

  “Sunny!” Rick yelled.

  “Get me up!” I screamed, not wanting to touch the top of what might be a grave. I felt like I had touched something dirty, and kept brushing myself off.

  “Get yourself up,” Claudia barked. “You left me back there.”

  Rick came to my aide, and once I was on my feet, I wrapped myself around him. He smelled so good and so warm. Claudia’s bitter babbling couldn’t interrupt the relief I felt to see him and hold him. It was true. What I felt for him was normal. Maybe I could go with it.

  “I was trying to call you all day.”

  “My phone broke.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “You made it,” I sighed, “I was afraid that you wouldn’t.”

  “And miss these trick or treats. No way.”

  “How was your mom’s birthd…?”

  “I’m here too, if anyone cares. You know, the friend that got left in the dark when my best friend took my flashlight. Geez you guys. I’m not feeling so confident that you have my back right now.”

  Rick pulled her into our embrace. “This was your idea,” he said, “and if it turns out to be a mess…”

  “Are the ghost hunters here?” she interrupted.

  “Oh they’re here alright. They’ve brought beer. I’m not feeling it.”

  “Beer? You’re kidding. If I get caught in the grave yard after hours that might be enough to get me in trouble, but beer?”

  “That just doesn’t sound like their website,” Claudia defended.

  “Who’s the boss here?” Claudia demanded. She lit up a smoke and it was obvious she was mad. When she put the cigarette to her lips, I realized that she hardly smoked anymore. I took the smoke from her lips and tossed it away.

  It was almost too much too see them all positioned around Mack’s grave with all of their equipment. It felt so intrusive, like they were going to dig him up or something. The head of the band of paranormal geeks, stepped forward, not at all put off by Claudia’s demanding tone. “I am.” When he offered his hand for Claudia to shake, she refused.