Gravestone (30 page)

67. One Thing

That night I’m driven around by another beautiful girl.

It’s not Jocelyn or Poe or Heidi Marsh. Thank God it’s not Heidi Marsh.

This is a golden-haired beauty and she’s laughing and she turns up the stereo and the music competes with the wind rushing against us. We’re in a convertible.

This can be yours and more
she says.

You can have whatever you want
she says.

She grabs my hand and then accelerates.

I’m a kid on a roller coaster. Except this time, some gorgeous girl is holding my hand.

Of course she is. This is my dream. I’m far away from Solitary.

No you’re not,
the driver says.
You’re still here. And you’re here because you belong. Because you were chosen. Because all your life has been orchestrated for you to be here right here and now.

I feel the wind and feel her grip and feel the motion as if we’re flying. Maybe we are.

Just let go and stop fighting.

She doesn’t understand, of course, but dreams never do.

I understand everything
, she says
. And that heavy, sickening, horrific feeling you wake up and go to sleep with every day … it can be gone.

I see the lights of the center of town right ahead.

There’s just one thing you need to do.

I look at her and believe her and want to stay here.

I suddenly realize I’ll do anything she says.

But I wake up and find I can’t.

At least not yet.

68. Train Wreck

I’m heading down to the car to climb in and wait for Mom. She’s running slow this morning. Guess she had a rough day yesterday too.

I open the side door and see an envelope on the seat.

We never lock the doors because nobody is ever going to steal our car. I glance around to see if anybody is watching, to see if I can see tracks or any trace of someone. As usual, nobody is around for me to see.

I climb in and close the door and then wait for a minute, listening for Mom’s footsteps on the wooden stairs. When I don’t hear anything, I open the envelope.

A small sheet of paper is inside. On it is a handwritten address:
49 McKinney Gap.

No town or state or zip, though I doubt I need it.

I fold the envelope and sheet of paper in half and tuck it in my pocket by the time Mom opens the car door.

“Ready?” she asks.

I nod and look out the windows and wonder if someone’s watching us.

If they are, I wish they’d just come out of the shadows.

For several days I try to find out where McKinney Gap is. I spend time in the computer lab looking on Google Maps, which I thought showed every single street and road in the world. But many of the roads around Solitary aren’t even on the map. Even my street isn’t on there.

If our address isn’t on Google, does that mean we don’t even exist?

Poe doesn’t know. She reminds me that she doesn’t technically live in Solitary and doesn’t know the place extremely well. I tell her where I got the address, and she says she’ll do some investigating herself.

Next I ask Newt. We don’t talk very much, even though we usually are around each other at our lockers or at lunch. Sometimes I think the less he knows about me and my life, the better. He doesn’t recognize the street either.

I shouldn’t be surprised when he comes to my locker Wednesday morning and hands me a sheet with something drawn on it in black ink.

“There you go,” he says. “Your own treasure map.”

“You found it?”

He nods, acting like he’s about to say something else … then nothing.

“Thanks.”

“It should be obvious where you need to go,” he says, in a way that makes it seem like he’s also saying
so don’t ask me to show you.

Mom is working tonight, so I know what I’ll be doing after track practice.

If someone will drive me, that is.

“So what exactly is your deal?”

I’m standing at my locker and am not exactly sure if Georgia is talking to me.

“What?”

“Yeah, you. Hello? Anybody there?”

I put up my hands. “What?”

“So, like, are you going to ask her out again, or was that something you just said to make yourself feel better?”

For a brief moment I honestly don’t know who she’s talking about.

Then I remember. Kelsey.

“Because, you know, there are
a lot
of other guys she can spend her days and nights thinking about instead of weirdos like you.”

I’ve woken up to what she’s talking about. And now I’m fully aware, fully functioning, and fully irate.

“Georgia. It is Georgia, right? I keep confusing it with some other state like Florida or Oklahoma. But Georgia, right, because here’s the thing—and shut up for a second and let me talk—whatever happens between me and Kelsey or me and
anybody
in this school is totally not your business and never will be. So please get out of my face and get out of this space and leave me alone.”

She curses in my face. I’m guessing she’s never been told off by a guy before.

First time for you, too.

I’m expecting her to spit on my face.

“I told her you’re a jerk,” she says before walking off.

I still have art class today.

Like I need any extra drama in my life.

I stand for a second and just look into the sliver of space in my locker and wonder if I can lock myself inside.

When I first see Kelsey, it’s obvious to me that Georgia’s spoken with her. Maybe in another world I’d make small talk and not get to the point, but this is not that wonderful world.

“Hey, look, can I—can we talk out in the hall for a second?”

Kids are getting their stuff ready and coming and going. Mr. Chestle is oblivious, and half the time lets kids come and go as they please. Kelsey nods and walks out, and I follow her.

We stand by a door to the outside that leads to the parking lot and the track field below.

“Look—Kelsey—this is the thing. My life is sorta—no, not sorta, it really is a train wreck. And I couldn’t—there’s really no way I could begin to tell you why. Or how. And the thing is, you’re a really neat girl. Sorry—I mean, that sounded stupid. It’s just—it’s not that I don’t want to hang out, because I’d like that. But the way things are now—I just—it’s not really the best time.”

“Would you like to have dinner at my house sometime?”

There are many responses I might have imagined from this shy blond hiding behind the glasses and braces. An invitation to meet her parents is
not
one of them.

“What?” I honestly laugh out loud, it’s so unexpected.

“I know,” she says, understanding my surprise. “It’s just—I’ve been talking to my parents, especially my father, about you. He’s been on me to invite you over. You don’t have to, but I told him I’d ask.”

Did you not hear everything I just said?

I start to shake my head, but then I look into those sweet blue eyes that look away and then sneak a peek at mine.

“Yeah, sure,” I say.

Kelsey is not the only one of us who is saying surprising things.

“Just ignore Georgia. She likes to think that she’s my protector or something.”

“Tell her I’m sorry.”

“Maybe you should.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“I’ll ask my parents—but maybe this Sunday.”

I wonder if she’s going to invite me to church, but she doesn’t.

We go back into art class, and for the next forty minutes I manage to forget about the train wreck. It’s still there, the embers of the fire still hot and burning, but I’m able to ignore it for a while.

It’s a cool thing.

69. Getting Darker

Sometimes I think I’m growing to like girls driving me around. If I wrote a memoir about my junior year of high school, it might be called exactly that.
Riding with Girls. And Ghosts.

“So you think this is right?”

“Definitely.”

Poe waited around for me to get through track practice. I’m still sweaty and wearing my sweats and drinking the bottled water she was kind enough to give me.

“You’re pretty good.”

The comment surprises me. “At what?”

“Hurdles, stupid.”

“Oh.”

“How do you even get over those tall ones? I’d totally kill myself.”

“Yeah, I’ve done that too.”

“You gotta watch out. Unless, you know, you don’t care about having children one day.”

I laugh.

“That Coach Brinks is on your case a lot.”

“Ray says it’s because he thinks I’m good.”

“Well, our school isn’t exactly known for its amazing athletic program.”

“Maybe if it was, then it wouldn’t end up being so …”

“Creepy?”

I nod. “I was going to say so forgotten about.”

“Yeah, that, too.”

She slows down at the road we’re approaching. It’s not like there’s a street sign or anything.

“Is that a road or a driveway?” she asks.

I can’t tell.

“Oh, well. Let’s check it out.”

The map says that we’re close. But this road doesn’t even look like a road. It looks like a dirt entrance to the woods, maybe a driveway that’s been long abandoned or a logging trail that hasn’t been used for years.

Branches scrape the top of Poe’s car.

“That didn’t sound good,” she says.

We bounce in our seats like we’re in some kind of slow, rocky ride at an amusement park. Though it’s not dark out, nor is it raining, the trees still block the fading sunlight of the day.

We drive slowly for a few minutes.

“Scared?” Poe asks as she glances my way.

I shake my head in an obvious no, but then see how tightly I’m gripping the handle on the side of the car.

“Worst thing that happens, we run face-first into the pastor. Or someone worse,” Poe says. “Then I just reverse and we hold on.”

We narrowly miss a small tree on my side.

“That’s a real comforting thought,” I say.

We actually pass the house the first time, because we think it’s abandoned. I hope it’s abandoned, because if anyone’s living in the cobweb-infested coffin we spot, I don’t want to meet them. But the road soon dead-ends into nothing, just a wall of woods, so we turn around and go back to the small one-story cabin nestled behind weeds and overgrown bushes and trees blocking half of it from view.

“There’s nothing in that,” Poe says.

It’s getting darker, and while we can still see fine here, it might be a little more difficult inside the house.

“Let’s just check it out.”

“
You
check it out. I’m not going in there. I said I’d drive you.”

“I don’t even know if I can get in.”

I step out of the car and still feel sore from practice. The only bad thing about running track is that I’m prone to shin splints, which coach says is all in my head but sure doesn’t feel in my head right now as I’m standing on the side of the road.

Nobody’s touched this cabin for a long time, that’s for certain. The porch looks caved in and dangerous to walk on. The door is missing, along with the windows. In their place are fallen wooden beams overgrown with wild vines, impossible to get through. It still has a roof, but the wood on the house looks ancient, as if a violent thunderstorm could knock it over without even trying.

“You think we missed the street?” Poe asks.

I shake my head. “I’m sure Newt gave me the right directions.”

“And you trust him?”

“I have no reason not to.”

“Do you see any address?”

If there was a mailbox it’s long gone. Same with any numbers on the dark wood on the front of the house.

“I don’t want to break my neck trying to get in there. Let me see if I can get in from the back.”

I have to take a long route around the house since the overgrowth is so wild and thick right around the edges. I get near the back of the house, about twenty yards away, when I step on something smooth. It’s a trail leading away from the back of the house, and it looks like it’s been used lately.

The trail cuts its way through the trees and weeds straight to the back of the house, where a door waits.

When I get to the door, I try it, but it’s locked.

The front of this house looks demolished, while the back has a door that’s actually locked?

I can’t see Poe back here. It’s shadowy, and as I try the door again, I suddenly feel watched.

I look behind me to the small incline and the dense forest.

There could be a dozen men watching and waiting back there.

Something about this place, about this door, about touching it—something doesn’t feel right.

I feel dirty.

I get a sick feeling inside, but I know it’s probably nerves. A collection of nerves that has been growing like a cancer inside me.

There are windows on each side of the door, dirty windows coated with grime and mud. I look in one but can’t make out anything. I take the edge of my sweatshirt and rub it against the glass.

It’s just light enough to make out something.
A chair. A chair and a desk.

I can make out things on the desk. A computer. A big one.

I go back to the door, and then I hear the sound of an engine starting and tires spinning.

I don’t have Poe’s phone this time to ask her what’s going on.

I bolt back the way I came, and as I approach the road I can see something.

Not a car, but a figure.

I drop to the ground and find a tree to hide behind.

For a while I remain hidden, breathing fast but as quietly as I can, not moving.

I hear something jingle and then a deep cough. No car, no voices, nothing else.

I don’t know how long it’s been when I peer back around. I can hear the moving and shuffling going away from me.

It’s the big guy, the one in the trench coat and boots, and his dog. The German shepherd is on a leash. That’s what’s making the jingling sound.

They’re walking away from the house, down the road.

I watch them until they’re out of view.

Now what?

I need to start a to-do list.

Get a license and a car.

Get a phone.

Get a gun.

And yeah—get a life.

I wait for a little while and then step back on the road. It’s a lot darker now, and it’s just going to keep getting worse.

I start walking the way we came, hoping that maybe Poe will come back around. I walk for a few minutes, then stop, walk for a few minutes, then stop again, listening.

The mountain man and his dog are gone.

I reach the paved road and head back to town. I wonder if the cabin belongs to the bearded stranger I keep seeing.

If so, what’s he doing in the back there? And why does he keep showing up in the middle of nowhere?

I have another scary thought, one I don’t want to dwell on.

What if this guy is a ghost roaming these hills?

If he is, then Poe saw him too, the same way Jared saw him. So at least I’m not completely crazy.

It’s amazing how long I walk before hearing anybody or anything. When a car finally comes from behind me with its lights on, I’m not sure whether to remain on the road or hide. Before I can decide, I see the flickering brights of the headlights and realize that it’s Poe.

“Did you see that guy?” she says as I get in the car. “Tell me you saw something. Please.”

“Yeah.”

“He came out of the woods with that monster dog, and I completely freaked out.”

“That house is hiding something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. The back door was locked.”

“You gotta be kidding.”

“Maybe it belongs to the guy we saw.”

“Who gave you the address, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“See what I mean? This is why you can’t say anything, why we have to be careful.”

“I thought that’s what we’re doing, being careful. Not saying anything to anybody.”

“I gotta get home,” Poe says.

She doesn’t say much of anything else in the car ride home except that she’ll see me tomorrow.

When I shut her door and watch her drive off into the night, I wonder if I’m making a big mistake involving her in whatever’s happening to me.

I stand there outside in the darkness, full of so many questions. And so few answers.