Soul Fire (23 page)

The two of us were opposites. I loved sports, bright open spaces, my dog, my buddies, and having a girl in my life, even though there wasn’t one at the moment. Mole, on the other hand, found sports distasteful, loved dark places such as his computer room, disliked animals, and had seemingly no need of friends, with the exception of cyber friends. He had never had a girlfriend and if he desired one, there was no sign of it. It was true, he was kind of nerdy and played the computer like a maestro. He whipped up new websites, made utube videos, pirated movies and music, blogged, chatted tweeted and generally lived most of his life in cyberspace, with the exception of the time the two of us spent hanging out.

By-passing the front door, I limped around to the back corner of the house to my friend’s private entrance, waving to the cameras as I passed by just in case he was watching. He had installed them so no one—not even me, could arrive unannounced, although most of the time he was so engrossed in whatever he was doing on the computer that me missed my arrival. The door was unlocked, so I walked in without knocking. My sneakers made no sound on the hardwood floor. I guess he didn’t hear me enter the dark, musty computer room. His back was to me. In front of him, on his vast, electronic laden desk stood a thirty-inch screen that flickered, sending lights flashing across the black room. Mole was bent over the keyboard typing furiously, totally absorbed, and unaware of my presence. I was halfway across the room when an image hit the big monitor. I stopped cold.

Ashla’s face blazed across the screen. But there was something wrong with it. It appeared distorted, smeared, elongated, and twisted. Her hands were stretched and her delicate fingers were twice too long. I was stunned.
What was this?
What was Mole doing?
I leaned closer, bending over him as he typed:
Let’s do her!

I reeled backward as if I’d been slugged. “Holy crap!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”

Mole whirled around, took me in, and hit a key. The screen went black. “Hey! I thought you said you were an hour away.”

I pointed to the monitor. “What was
that
?” I demanded, fury threatening to overtake me.

“Nothin’.”

“
Nothing?
Nothing
! That was Ashla up there. And what were you typing? Why were you on that site?”

And then it hit me. What I had just seen on Mole’s computer screen was what Celeste had described so painfully. “That was one of those disgusting websites!” Reaching past him, I hit a key on the keyboard and the screen flashed back to life, Asha’s face, stretched and discolored, stared back at me.

“Hey Man,” Mole’s hand slid beneath the desk and the computer died. That single move seated the final piece of the puzzle into place. Mole. Master of webpage design. It was
him.
There was no other conclusion to draw.

My longtime friend had put up that vicious, destructive site, fed it, nurtured it with poisonous remarks, and solicited the same from others like him. “You!” I shouted, pointing at him accusingly. I turned away from him and reached for the overhead light, flipping it on. “How could you do a thing like that!”

Mole stood up. “Hey, Man. What’s the deal? She’s a total loser. Look what she did to you. That chick ruined your life, Man.”

I stepped backward, away from him. My cane clattered to the floor. As I glared at him, a cold look twisted his long, bony face. He pushed dark-rimmed glasses off his beaky nose and moistened his thick lips. “Just playing, Man,” he said flatly.

I was seeing a part of Mole that I had ignored for years. The telltale signs had always been there. Like the time in third grade, when we were walking home from school . . . a small boy was pedaling toward us on his tricycle. As the child passed us on the sidewalk, Mole put his foot on the front wheel, sending the little guy and his bike into the ditch. “What did you do that for?” I had asked Mole as I climbed down to help the boy. Mole had replied, “What? The kid rode off the sidewalk. Not my fault.”

I thought back over other incidences like that and realized I had been duping myself. Mole was a bully, plain and simple. I had chosen not to see it. I was so pissed with myself and with him that I could barely speak. “You don’t know Ashla. You haven’t got a clue. You’re so filled with malevolence that you can’t see what’s in front of you.”

“Hey, I don’t get this. I mean after what she did, I would have thought you’d want to jump in, not—“

“Take that website down!” My voice had taken on a dangerous edge. “Take it down right
now
!”

He half turned to the computer. “I don’t get this…”

I pushed into his space. “Do it!”

He shrugged and sat down. When the screen came back up, he brought up a work page, typed for a couple of minutes and said, “It’s gone.”

I watched him. “Now, kill the rest of them.” I realized that if he had built one horrible site, he had likely created the others. We stared at each other. His dark eyes looked like pinpoints. “What makes you think—“

“Do it.”

Mole tapped his index finger on the desktop. “And if I don’t?”

“Don’t test me, Mole. I’ve known you a long time. Kept your secrets . . . like a good friend. But I’m thinking our friendship’s done. Those nasty little secrets might just make themselves known.”

He snarled, “You promised never to say anything.”

“And I won’t. Unless I have to.”

Girls’ night out. The four of us agreed that it was time to do something fun for a change and decided on dinner and a movie. I needed to escape, to get away from myself for a while. My brain never left me alone. Sometimes, I teetered on the edge and came close to losing it. When I found myself reading hideous remarks on those evil websites, I had to force myself to stop. They were causing me to all but self-destruct. It was definitely time for a
breakaway
.

Celeste, Tara, Brenna, and I each had a favorite restaurant, so to keep things fair, each of us wrote the name of that restaurant on a strip of paper and dropped it into a bag. I shook it and we picked a number to see who would draw. Brenna got it. “Carrabba’s,” she announced flapping the strip of paper and looking at Tara. “It’s your pick, Tara. You won!”

Tara grinned. “Oh yum. Let’s go.”

Once there, we settled ourselves at a window booth, spent considerable time pouring over the menu, and once we had ordered, Celeste told us about her visit to Justin’s. “Wow, what a house,” she swooned, describing everything, including the conservatory where she and Justin had discussed their ideas. She shared them with us.

“A dedicated deputy at our school and parents patrolling the grounds are really good ideas,” Tara commented. “Why didn’t we think of that? There’s just one problem.”

“What?” I wondered aloud.

“We don’t go to Mount Olympic anymore.” She looked at me. “And you don’t go to school at all.”

Brenna sipped her iced tea. “Maybe if those ideas work, it would be safe for us to go back. I miss my other friends.”

“Me too,” Tara agreed.

I knew it would never be safe for me to return, but I kept my thoughts to myself, not wanting to sour the mood.

Our food came and we dug in. Tara was sitting by the window and seemed to be watching something outside. "Strangest thing," she said, “an older Ford pickup has driven by at least three times. Looks like Mako’s truck.”

Celeste added, “I’ve seen him around a number of times in the last week.

“Me too,” Brenna added. “Creepy.”

“Everything about him is creepy,” Tara said between bites.

“And scary,” I added. We finished our meals and ordered desserts, savoring every decadent bite. Then we were off to the new multiplex theatre, not far away. The first Tuesday of every month, they dedicated one of the fourteen theatres to the classics. Tonight was
Love Story
, number nine out of the top one hundred best all time classic love stories. For once, we all agreed that was the film we all wanted to see and hurried inside to get good seats.

Afterward, full of the movie, we walked to Celeste’s Cavalier. The evening breeze whispered through our hair and caressed our bare arms as we crossed the parking lot. I climbed in the front passenger seat. Tara and Brenna took the back seat. For a while, we had forgotten our troubles and the anxious sector of my brain went on snooze. It felt good. On the drive home, we discussed the show, our favorite scenes, lines, and moments.

Celeste opted for the shortcut and leaving the city lights behind, we descended into the dark river valley. Knowing we would be home in less than fifteen minutes, we bounced along the narrow rutted road, The rear view mirror on my side lit up. I squinted, as the headlights loomed ever larger. “There’s a car catching up to us. He’s going way too fast. Watch him, Celeste,” I warned nervously. Its headlights soon lit the interior of the car and I saw Celeste’s eyes shifted nervously between the rear view mirror and the road in front of us. She slowed and edged the car over toward the gravel shoulder. It was a moonless night in the valley. I couldn’t see a thing out the windows, but I figured we were near the narrow section of the road where it squeezed between a high bank on one side and the mud slope down to Black River on the other. I gripped the door panel, my entire body tense.

There was no warning, no horn sounding, and no squeal of brakes. The vehicle behind slammed right into us. Our heads and bodies flew forward and then backward into the seats. The Cavalier was flung down the road.

We were frozen in our seats. The headlights from the vehicle behind lit Celeste’s pale hands as she clutched the wheel, struggling to keep control. Suddenly, Tara screamed, “Don’t stop, Celeste! He’s going to run us off the road! Boot it. Go! Go! Go!”

Celeste hit the gas and the tires squealed as the Cavalier took off. The chance of the small car outrunning the other vehicle seemed slim, but we had to get out of there. Not far up the road was a residential area of homes.

“He’s going to pass us,” Brenna shouted. “There’s no room. The road’s too narrow!” She was seated behind Celeste and I could imagine her leaning away from the door.

“Slow down, Celeste, let him pass,” I told her, my voice raw with nerves. She hit the brakes and edged our wheels onto the slippery gravel.

Then I saw the big black pickup loom up beside us.

“It’s Mako!” Brenna shouted.

He struck broadside and accelerated. “He’s trying to shove us over the bank!” Tara yelled. The Cavalier veered and fishtailed. Celeste pumped the brakes and fought the wheel, trying to keep the car from going off the edge. We skidded crazily. The pickup hit us again. This time the right front passenger wheel slipped off the road. The Cavalier tilted and time stopped. We hung suspended. Then the Cavalier lurched and we plummeted over the edge.

Brenna’s scream filled the car. Time expanded and morphed crazily into slow motion. I feared we would roll over. Celeste took her foot off the brake and pointed the car down the incline. If I was right about where we were, we were careening nose first toward the fast-moving river at the bottom of the embankment. We bounced violently over the humps and my head struck the roof of the car.

“I’ve got my foot hard on the brake, but the car won’t stop!” Celeste shouted in desperation. I sat frozen. My breath stuck in my lungs as we freewheeled down the incline. Then, I saw it. Our headlights lit the churning river below us.

It loomed closer, and I gripped the door handle ready to jump. A large tree branch appeared in front of us. We crashed over it and a moment later, the car came to an abrupt stop, pointing steeply downward, the headlights shining on the dirty river.

Stunned . . . we sat there, not daring to breathe . . . staring at the muddy water rushing past the front end. Tara’s shaky voice came from behind me. “Everyone okay?”

I answered. “I think so. What about you, Celeste?”

It took a minute for her to answer and I reached across and touched her hand. Ice cold, it was still on the wheel. Her voice was a bare whisper. “I’m okay.”

I turned around to look at Brenna, but couldn’t see her. “Brenna?”

A small voice answered. “Present and still here. I think.”

Tara sounded relieved. “Thank goodness. I’m calling home. My dad will call a tow truck and come get us.”

Celeste found her voice. “I hope Mako kept going ‘cause we’re sure vulnerable sitting here.” She was right but we had another problem. I could swear the car was slipping slowly forward toward the river. “Hey, guys, we’re sliding. I can feel it. Hit the brakes, Celeste!”

“My foot’s on the brake. I can’t stop it!”

“We’ve got to get out. Now!” Tara and I threw our right side doors open. Sure enough, the ground was moving under my feet. “Hurry!” I yelled and jumped out, Tara doing the same.

“My door won’t open,” Celeste said and scrambled across the front seat.

“Mine neither,” Brenna said and came flying out behind Tara.

We huddled together, shivering on the slimy bank, watching helplessly as the Cavalier rolled slowly toward the river’s edge, the engine still running, and the lights still on. We watched in horrified silence as it slipped slowly over the riverbank and nosed down into the river. It came to a rest with the headlights submerged, which cast an eerie hue into the rushing water.

Tara eventually said, “We should climb back up the bank so my dad can find us.”

“As long as it’s him who finds us. Not Mako,” I said through chattering teeth.

The police arrived a few minutes later, their headlights illuminating the four of us standing on the gravel shoulder. Almost in unison we turned to peer down at the swollen river, our eyes fixing on the submerged car.

It was three in the morning and I couldn’t sleep. Like a bad re-run, I kept seeing Mako’s black pickup pummeling us, the Cavalier going over the bank, the terrifying ride down the embankment, and the car sliding into the river. Those visions and my fear of Mako kept my eyes wide open. As I stared blindly at my bedroom ceiling, a light flashed around the edges of the drapes. Two shorts, a pause, and one long flash. Returning to the present, I sat up and used my flashlight to repeat the signal, and then throwing on a sweater and slippers, I stepped quietly out the back door of our house.