Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2) (20 page)

“She wants you
to ask questions,” the psychic said. “I’ll allow it.”

“OK.” I leaned
forward. “Liesel, tell me, exactly where you are.”

The psychic hesitated for a moment, and
then started shaking her head. “I’m losing her…”

“No. What?”

“I’m losing her, Cameron. She’s saying
‘in the mountains’… she’s saying ‘mountains’… she’s saying she can hear the
water…”

Mountains? Water? What? That could be
anywhere!

The flame on the
candle before me started flickering. “No! Come on! Don’t let her go!”

“It’s not me, “ the psychic said.
“Someone else is pushing through… I can hear her screaming.”

“Liesel!
Tell me where you are and I will come find you!”

“She’s
drifting… she’s fading… she’s—”

I opened my eyes fully, just in time to
see the psychic’s head crash down against the table. She didn’t move for a few
seconds.

“Uhh… Psychic
Lady? Becka?”

She still didn’t
move.

Oh, great. I killed her.

“Are you all
right? Do I need to call someone—”

And then, out of nowhere, I heard the
most heart-stopping, demonic laugh start erupting from the psychic’s mouth. She
jerked her head up, her arms dropping below the table. The laugh slowly
transitioned into a childish giggle.

Worst of all,
her eyes were now full-on
black
.

“Oh my God…” I
said. “Liesel… what—“

“To hell with Liesel!” the deep, manly,
terrifying voice shouted. The demonic laugh returned.

“What have you
done with Liesel?” The flame was flickering even faster.

“Your fiancée is fine, Cameron. She’s
safe. And don’t worry. You’ll get to see her soon enough.” More laughing
ensued.

“Who are you?
Tell me who you are!”

“You’re about to find out, boy. I’m just
letting the days play out. I’m gonna bring you to Liesel at the moment when
it’ll be far too late for her to save you!” The loudest, most demonic laughing
erupted from the psychic’s mouth.

“What
do you want from me?”

The psychic stood up and towered over me.
She had a chilling, enormous smile on her face that was the creepiest I’d ever
seen. Her eyes looked ready to bulge out from their sockets. “I want you to
suffer! Just the way I want
her
to
suffer!”

I wanted to
start crying. “Why? What did we do to you?”

 
“I’m not about to see Liesel be happy!
She’s going to suffer, just how I have suffered! You, my friend, have
zero
chance of saving her! Because by
the time you see her, it will be too late! There is nothing, absolutely
nothing, that you can do! So just sit back and get younger… and younger… and
younger! Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“You
crazy bitch! Who are you?”

I jumped up on the table, knocking the candle
over as I rolled down to my stomach to start choking the psychic. She just kept
on laughing.

“Tell me who you
are!” I shouted.

“In due time, in
due time! I’m coming for you, Cameron Martin! Hell is coming!”

“Tell me your
name! Tell me!”

I saw the psychic blink, twice, to reveal
her normal eyes. As I continued to choke her, her giggling, maniacal face
turned to one of panic.

“Stop… please…
I’m choking,” she said.

“Obviously!” I
shouted.

“The voices…
they’re gone… please… please stop…”

I didn’t fully believe
her. I wasn’t about to let up.

“Oh God… my
curtains,” she said.

I turned to my left. The candle had
smashed against the curtains on the left side of the room, igniting them on
fire.

“Oh shit!” I shouted, rolling off the
psychic. She started coughing as she immediately jumped up to her feet and ran
toward the back of the room.

She returned five seconds later with the
fire extinguisher. She sprayed the fire out so quickly I figured this kind of
thing had happened in her little psychic home before.

When the fire was out, she turned to me,
hatred in her eyes, this time of the more normal human variety. “Get out of my
house!” she shouted.

I was already one step ahead of her,
racing for the front door before she had even completed her sentence.

I raced toward my car, turned on the
ignition, and sped down McCarron Blvd, trying not to cry. I didn’t know where
to go from here.

She’s
coming for me,
I
thought.
Hell’s coming for me, she said.
But who is she? And what does she want with me?

I pulled up to Liesel’s apartment
complex, but I didn’t get out of the car until well past midnight. I wasn’t
sure if that evil witch of a woman would be waiting for me in the apartment. I
was too scared to get out of the car. I was too scared to
move
.

I ended up sleeping in my car that night.
I didn’t think things could possibly get any worse.

But I knew in my
heart they would.

8.
Eleven

I was happy to see daylight that next
morning. The birds were chirping, and cars were racing past the complex behind
me. Life was going on as normal in Reno; Hell hadn’t overtaken the world like
that psychic had promised. I sat up, looked at my short, messy hair in the
rearview mirror, and noticed how ridiculously young I looked. My lips were
fuller, my nose was a tad smaller, and my skin was a bit darker. There was so
much baby fat on my cheeks I wanted to start pinching them, but I managed to
keep my hands away. I had more important things to do.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that
psychic. I thought something unusual might happen at the encounter, but
certainly nothing like that. When she started saying Liesel’s words, I didn’t
think my day could become any stranger. But when she became the human
microphone for the crazy woman who
kidnapped
Liesel, I decided that would be my first and last time I’d ever visit a sketchy
Reno psychic.

I downed some water from a bottle I still
had in my car, just as my cell phone vibrated on the passenger seat next to me.
I spit up practically all the water as I leaned over and grabbed the phone. The
missed call hadn’t been from Liesel, unfortunately.

The call was
from Wesley.

I called him back hesitantly, and waited
five long rings before he finally picked up. “Hello?” He sounded cheery.

“Wesley?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s Cam.”

“Cam?”

“Uh huh.”

Wesley laughed
on the other end. “Yeah, sure it is, kid.”

“No, no, it’s
me.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yeah it is!”

Wesley laughed again, this time so loud I
moved the phone away from my ear. “If this is truly Cameron, answer me this
question.”

“OK.”

“What
did I give you when you were in the hospital last year?”

I didn’t hesitate. “You gave me a DVD
which had a photo montage of the two of us, set to my favorite Coldplay song.”

Silence ensued
for a moment. And then: “Cam…”

“What?”

“What’s
wrong with your voice?”

“Nothing.”

“You sound like
a little girl!”

“I know I do. Don’t worry, man. Anyway, I
was just calling you because I had a missed call—”

“Oh my God! It’s
happening again!”
 

I leaned up in
my chair and stared at myself in the rearview mirror again. “What?”

“
Cam
.”

More silence.
“OK, Wes, I’ve had a little setback.”

“Are you aging
backward
now?”

“I… well…”

“Are you?”

I took a deep breath. There was no sense
in hiding it from him.
What can he do,
anyway? He lives in another state, for God’s sake.
“Yes.”

“How old are you
today?”

“Eleven. I
think.”

“Eleven?”

“Yeah.”

“How did this
happen?”

I really didn’t feel like going into the
story, especially since Wesley and I weren’t on the best of terms at the
moment.

“What do you care?” I asked. “Oh, right.
You’re thinking this could be your second chance at an award-winning
documentary, isn’t it?”

“Cam, no—”

“Wes, you made it plain and clear at
Christmas. You have a whole new life in L.A. now. And anything to do with me
has to only suit you and your needs—”

“
Cam
.
I called you this morning to let you know that I had re-arranged my finals
schedule so that I could come to Reno for your wedding and be your best man.”

The guy could take my breath away, he
really could. To say this had been an unexpected response would have been an
understatement. No matter how many times Wesley disappointed me, in our
discussions, in his behavior, he always seemed to find his way back into my
sometimes broken but forgiving heart.

“Wesley… are you
serious
? Or are you just saying that because you know I’m in
trouble again?”

“Cam, I’ve been on an ego trip lately,
I’ll admit it. It’s easy to lose yourself where I am. But I got to thinking
this week how far we’d come as friends after everything that happened to you
last year, and how quickly our friendship dissolved after I left for school,
and you stayed in Reno. I knew things would never be the same, but I also
didn’t know just how much of a jackass I’d become. It’s time for me to change
that.”

“Wes—”

“And I’m gonna
start by being the best man at your wedding.”

“Yeah, if I even
have
a wedding.”

“What do you
mean?”

“Wes, the wedding’s not exactly at the
top of my priority list right now. Not only am I going through this disease all
over again, this time at a faster rate, but Liesel’s gone.”

“She’s
gone
?”

“She’s missing.
And I have no idea how to find her.”

“How long has
she been missing?”

“Six days.”

“Six
days! And you’ve done nothing about it?”

I wanted to cry. Doing something about it
was all I thought about from the moment I woke up and the moment I went to
sleep. I didn’t even care about my condition so much at this point. All I
wanted was for Liesel to be returned in one piece, still herself, still in her
vibrant, magical condition.

“I can’t do anything about it, Wes,
because I don’t look like
me
. I look
like a little kid, and I can’t let this town find out about me again. I just
can’t do it.”

“
Nobody
knows?”

“My sister
knows. That’s it.”

“Oh my God. OK. Well, I’m actually off of
school this week for Easter Vacation. I was going to spend most of my week
working on my final film project, but I think—”

“Wesley!
No!”

“What?”

“I’ll be fine,”
I said. “Please don’t feel like you need to help me.”

“But it’s the right thing to do, Cam.
You’re sick. You don’t have anyone to help you. You need me there.”

“I can’t do that
to you.”

“I’m an hour flight away. Just shut the
hell up, and let somebody else take care of you for a change. If you’re not
gonna tell your parents, at least let me help you… with your disease… and with
finding Liesel. Do you know how she went missing?”

“Somebody
kidnapped her.”

“What?
Who?”

“I’m not sure.
It’s a girl. Our age, I think.”

“Really? Whoever
she is, she’s going down.”

I shook my head
and couldn’t help but smile. “OK, Wes.”

“One other
thing,” he said. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I waited.

“What?”

“Would you mind if I brought my video
camera along? You know, just to document a few things?”

I laughed. “I’ll
see you when I see you, Wes.”

I tossed my phone on the passenger seat
and brought my head down to the steering wheel. I wanted to go to sleep again,
but I knew I was getting younger at every second. And the more time that
passed, the closer I was to my demise.

Eleven more days. And then I’m history.
And if I can’t find Liesel… it’s for real this time.

I pulled out of the parking lot and
started speeding down South Virginia Street, even though at this point I could
barely reach the pedal or see out the windshield. I knew this was it, the last
day I could get away with driving, before another, less friendly, officer were
to stop me, impound my car, and throw me into Juvenile Hall.