Joe (24 page)

“Shadowman,” I said out loud,
momentarily unmindful of my company.

The word fell from my mouth easily, but
in a whisper. I ran my tongue out along my dry lips, and felt my breathing grow
deep and unsteady. Could it be
him
down there? Sure it could. I had
already come to the conclusion that I was looking for a psychopath, and I had
learned from my internet research that they are meticulous planners. So, would
it be too far of a leap to think that the man down on the walkway was here to
do one last run-through where he planned to mass-murder tomorrow? He wasn’t
dressed like a janitor, and seemed too young, even at this distance, to be a
teacher. Maybe I was making leaps, but everything in life is either a leap or a
fall, right?

“I’ve think I’ve seen that guy,” Michael
said. “Do you know him? What’s ‘Shadowman’?”

I turned to stare at Michael. When I
looked back toward the walkway, where my potential Shadowman had been standing,
he was already walking swiftly back in the direction from where he had come,
nearly rounding the corner of Blue. I stood up, grabbed Michael’s hand and
pulled him to his feet before I knew what I was doing.

He followed me without hesitation,
almost eager for me to pull him along. “If you want to leave I should pack up
the—

“L-leave it,” I said. “Wuh-wuh-we’ll
come back.”

“Okay.”

“When did you-you-you—

I stopped to take a deep breath. My heart
was pounding out of my chest. I felt like if God or whoever was doing me a
favor, He was only going to do it once.
Follow that car, man. And step on
it.

“When duh-did you see him?” I asked,
tugging Michael along faster as I headed toward Blue. I felt like time was
running out. The man had already disappeared around the building.  I had
to catch up with him and…well, and then I would figure out what to do next.

“The other day,” Michael answered. He
let out at laugh, and I looked at him for a moment. He waved a hand. “I ran
into him, I think, because I was…distracted.” He smiled. I pulled him along
faster.

“Th-that’s it?” I asked. We were passing
around the side of Blue now and under the stone archway that led out to the
parking lot. Shadowman was nowhere in sight. I was all but running now.

“Well…” Michael began.

He didn’t finish the thought, because we
had reached the other side of Blue, and Michael’s black Lexus was the only car
in sight. We were the only people in sight, too.

Shadowman was gone.

A word tumbled rapidly out of my mouth
that would have put my dear mother to shame.

Chapter
Thirty-Nine

Michael

“Th-the
car th-that was huh-here before, duh-do you remember it?” Joe asked.

Michael was utterly confused by the raven-haired
girl’s actions, but his heart was pounding hard in his chest as though he were
on some sort of roller coaster. There was only one thing he was sure of, and
that was that Joe knew something he didn’t know. Maybe she knew
a whole lot
of
somethings. He wasn’t even sure what he meant by that, but he was sure of it
nonetheless.

And one other thing: he
really
liked
her. She was unpredictable and unreadable. Rarely did he come across a person
who was such a mystery, and he just bet that she didn’t let people in easily.
More than anything, at this strange moment, he wanted
in.
So he would
open up to her first. He had made a strong effort to keep the conversation to a
minimum because he suspected that was what she preferred, but she had to talk
to
someone
. She had to
trust
someone, didn’t she? He wanted it to
be him. He was beginning to think that if he spent too much more time around
this girl, he was going to fall in love. She was excitement and mystery and
intrigue, and she was beautiful. Especially with the intense look in her
silver-blue eyes that she had right now. She was beautiful.

“A silver Honda,” he said, trying hard
to recall the car that had been parked here when they arrived. “Probably like a
’93. There was a rust spot on the top of the trunk, not a big one, but
noticeable.”

Michael watched her closely as Joe
mulled this over. He waited patiently for her to do so, even though he had
about a million questions on the tip of his tongue. He had a feeling that if he
asked too much too quickly, she would shut him out for good.

He caught up to her when she began
walking back toward the Quad, and on impulse, took her hand into his own. Her
hand was soft and warm, and he was pleased when he felt her squeeze back. She
had almost torn his arm off when she had pulled him out here, but he wasn’t
complaining.

She didn’t say a word on the entire walk
back to the picnic spot. When they got there, she took a seat on the blanket,
and Michael sat down beside her. He was just about to break the silence when
she looked over at him.

“You wuh-were about to-to tell me
something about that guh-guy when I started puh-puh-pulling you,” she said.
“Wuh-what was it?”

Michael searched his brain for the
information she wanted, and found that even though he was eager to please her,
he didn’t want to really give it. He did anyway. “I ran into him,” he said. “I
was distracted by, well, by you when I saw you walking across the Quad. I
wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and I just smacked right into him.
At least, I think that was him. Real plain-looking guy. And he was even cool
when I apologized to him. Except…”

Joe’s eyebrows went up, asking the
question silently:
Except, what?
Michael again had reservations about
telling her how he had felt when he looked into the guy’s eyes. Michael was
worried he would sound silly—superstitious even—if he told her that he just got
feelings about certain people, and those feelings usually had no evidence to
support them, but they were
strong
feelings sometimes. Only stupid
people ignore strong feelings, and only stupid
er
people went and
preached them to the world. But you gotta give a little to get a little.

“Except that he…well, he smiled at me,
and said that it was no problem that I had run into him. Just like most people
say when you apologize for something like that. But I just got a little, I
don’t know,
creepy
vibe from him or something.” Michael paused, trying
to put his encounter with the man who called himself The Decider into words.
“It was like his mouth and his face was saying it was okay, but his eyes
were…vacant. Not sure if that’s quite the right word, but it’s close,” he said.

Michael watched the girl as she
considered all of this, half-waiting for her to burst into laughter at his
strange claim. But she didn’t laugh. Of course she didn’t. She was no stranger
to strange.

They finished their lunch, Michael
hoping that she would pick up the conversation again, too afraid of scaring her
off somehow if he started it on his own. She was a rare creature, this Joe, and
she had to be handled with caution and care. He really was gifted at reading
people, so he allowed her her silence. She seemed to be deep in thought anyhow.

But by the time he was dropping her off at
her apartment, he figured that if he couldn’t ask any questions, then he could
at least make one last leap of faith.

“Th-thank you for lunch. It was
r-r-really nice,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt.

“No problem. I had a good time,” he
said.

“Muh-me too.”

She was blushing, the rosy color of her
cheeks delicate and lovely beneath her magnificent eyes. He swallowed hard,
wishing he could reach out and run his fingers down her soft cheek. He had to
take a deep breath before he could get his next words out. He could only hope
that they wouldn’t force her to run away from him somehow.

“I’d like to see you again,” he began.
“I really did have a good time. I understand that you’re a private person, and
you probably wouldn’t appreciate me bombarding you with questions, so I won’t
ask any. I just want you to know if you need anything, any help that I can
give, I’ll do it.”

With a burst of courage, he took her
hand. She had begun to look a little frightened, so he was glad when she didn’t
pull away.

“I like you a lot, Joe. To tell you the
truth, I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we talked in class last
Thursday. I-I just have never met anyone like you in my life. And I hope you’ll
agree to see me again.”

There. That wasn’t so hard.

When the raven-haired girl just sat
there silently in the front seat, a perturbed look of indecision covering her
features, he realized that the hard part hadn’t been saying it. The hard part
would be waiting for her response. When she finally spoke, he felt a wonderful
amount of relief.

“Okay.”

It was a better response than he had
hoped for.

“So, I can see you again?” he asked.

She studied him with those penetrating
silver-blue eyes for what seemed like long time. Finally, she said, “You
puh-puh-promise to skip classes on muh-Monday?”

He nodded a little too vigorously, and
this made her laugh. He smiled wide, happy to hear the musical sound of
amusement in her voice. He held up two fingers and adopted a serious look.
“Scouts’ Honor, ma’am,” he said. “No classes for me tomorrow.”

She laughed again and opened the car
door. “When can I see you, then?” he asked.

Joe stepped out of the car and leaned
down to look in at him. The smile on her face just a moment ago was gone,
replaced with a look that made his heart twist. Somehow, all at once, the look
was sad and sardonic and scared and hopeful and other things that he couldn’t
quite grab on to.

“That,” she said, “even
I
don’t
know.”

She offered him one last smile—a real
one, not the one she used for customers at the bar—and shut the door. That
smile spoke the words so clearly that she would have struggled to get out if
spoken verbally. That smile somehow managed to say both
thank you
and
I’m
sorry
at the same time.

That smile stuck itself to the inside of
this head and to the insides of his eyelids, so that every time he blinked or
closed his eyes he could see her face. It wasn’t enough. He decided he would
see her face in person again the next chance he got.

Which just happened to be tomorrow.
Which just happened to be Monday.

They shared a class together on Mondays,
and though he had given his word that he would not attend his classes on
Monday—for a reason that she had refused to divulge—she had not said anything
about not
coming to
school
on Monday. If he went up to UMMS
around noon tomorrow, maybe he could have lunch with her again in the Quad.

Yes, that sounded like a plan indeed.

Chapter
Forty

The
Decider

He
was once again sitting on the edge of his tightly-made bed in his neatly
arranged apartment. His breath was coming in short, harsh gasps, and his hands
were clenched into sweaty fists that had turned red with the halted blood flow.
Danny was trying desperately to calm himself. Everything was going to be all
right.

The planting of his bombs at UMMS had
gone well. He had placed four of them in various places around campus; one for
each building that surrounded the Quad. He had a walkie-talkie that would
ignite the explosives—
if
he had wired them correctly—when he pushed the
send
button. But it wasn’t
someone
who would get the message. It was four
somethings,
and if all went well they would respond to his call with a
big
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
He could almost hear it now. 

He hadn’t seen so much as a security
guard or a janitor on campus. There had been no cars in the parking lot when he
had arrived. Of course, all of the buildings had been locked, so his bombs had
all been placed on the exterior of the school, but that was okay. He had used
enough dynamite to take out large portions of the buildings. It was almost
funny how easy it was to obtain such destructive items, just like it had been
easy to obtain the guns. God Bless America. Home of the brave and land of the
fucking free.

When the hell had that black Lexus shown
up?

His final run-through hadn’t gone
completely
as planned. He hadn’t gotten to stand in the spot where his destiny would be
realized. Someone else had already been there. Two someones, actually. Some
bitch with hair black like a

(raven?)

and some quarterback-looking piece of
shit, like the one who had run into him the other day. He hoped he saw that
motherfucker tomorrow. Him
and
his little black-haired bitch. He hoped
they would be around for the show. They had been sitting there, in
his
spot,
up by the old oak tree that stood so slightly but definitely higher above the
rest of the ground in the Quad. He hadn’t been able to stand there and savor
the scene and bask in his glory. Those two fucking pricks had stolen that from
him. It was a small thing–certainly nothing so huge that he would have to
reschedule tomorrow—but it made him shaky with anger and unease just to think
about it. Danny liked his control. He
needed
it.

No matter, though. He would stand there
tomorrow. And that stupid fucking jaguar with its stupid fucking platform would
bear silent, frozen witness to Danny’s Power and Legacy. And if that stupid
fucking raven decided it wanted to show up, perch atop the jaguar’s head and
grin down at him in that stupid way he had dreamed, well then, that was just
fine, too. It could witness right along with the rest of them.

Who would get the last laugh then?

Of course, Danny decided that
he
would.

He would like to see the raven’s face
when that happened. He just bet it wouldn’t be so quick to grin at him then. He
just bet.