Blur (Blur Trilogy) (12 page)

He went to the parking lot to look for her and checked his messages again.

Still nothing.

The night had cooled, and gra
y
tendrils of fog were snaking out of the nearb
y
woods.

His thoughts trailed back through the unusual and tragic events of the last week, and his frustration over Stac
y’
s not showing up shifted unexpectedl
y
to concern.

Could something have happened to her?

Something bad?

No, that was just ridiculous.

She was fine.

For whatever reason she’d just decided not to show.

Oka
y,
he was a big bo
y.
He could deal with that. There was no reason to start getting paranoid.

He was about to text K
yl
e and tell him that he was heading home when Nicole stepped out of the building.

She held up her hand. “Honestl
y,
I’m not stalking
yo
u,” she said. “I just needed some fresh air.”

“You waiting for someone too?”

“Actuall
y,
Brent Beslin was supposed to meet me fort
y-
five minutes ago.” She shook her head. “Jerk.” A much stronger word might have been in order, but just the fact that she held back from using it said something about her.

Daniel knew Brent, and if he was supposed to be here with Nicole, he was definitel
y
dating out of his league. Not at all the kind of gu
y
Daniel would have guessed Nicole would come to the dance with, but since she still hadn’t had a date
ye
sterda
y
when he spoke with her at school, Brent obviousl
y
hadn’t been her first choice.

You were.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “Jerk.”

Daniel knew that, personall
y,
he wouldn’t have left Nicole hanging if he’d been the one to ask her here. No, there was no wa
y
that would have happened.

For a moment he remembered Emil
y,
her funeral, the fact that she was the kind of girl that people ignored and—

“So, do I know her?” Nicole asked him.

“Do
yo
u know her?”

“The girl
yo
u’re waiting for, sill
y.
Coming to something like this b
y yo
urself isn’t
yo
ur deal at all. You’re more private than that. Besides,
yo
u’ve been looking for someone ever since
yo
u got here.”

“You know me prett
y
well.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Stac
y.
”

“Stac
y?
” She looked a little confused.

“The new girl.”

“Oh.”

“She was supposed to meet me here.”

“Of course.”

T
y
and his friends were still lurking nearb
y.
The
y’
d stopped smoking, but were joking around about something among themselves. Ever
y
once in a while one of them would glance over at Nicole and smirk and whisper something to the gu
y
next to him.

Daniel didn’t like the wa
y
the
y
were leering at her. Not at all.

She got a text, checked it, then shook her head. “So I was gonna head home, right? But Gina gave me a ride here, and now she’s decided to sta
y.
” A sigh. “Perfect.”

Nicole had worked together with Daniel on a project last
ye
ar for biolog
y
and their stud
y
group had met at her house. It wasn’t far from his place. “So,” he said, “
yo
u don’t have a ride home?”

“Not till later.”

That meant Daniel had a choice to make.

He could wait here for Stac
y,
he could take off for home, or he could offer to give Nicole a ride to her house.

Yeah, and if he did that, he could just imagine Stac
y
showing up right in the nick of time to see Nicole climbing into his car. Oh, that would be brilliant.

But Stac
y
wasn’t here, hadn’t been in touch all da
y,
had obviousl
y
changed her mind about coming.

So, sta
y?

Leave?

Offer a ride?

Nicole seemed to be waiting for him to sa
y
something.

And finall
y
he did: “I could drop
yo
u off at
yo
ur place, if
yo
u want?”

“Naw, I’m . . . well . . .” She faltered, obviousl
y
reconsidering. “Seriousl
y?
”

“It’s no big deal. I was about to leave an
yw
a
y.
”

“Is that alright? I mean, since . . . ?” She left the rest unsaid, but he could anticipate that she was thinking about how he was supposed to be meeting Stac
y.

“No. It’s fine.”

“That’d be awesome, actuall
y.
Let me go tell Gina. I’ll be right back.”

She slipped back into the building, Daniel texted K
yl
e that he was taking off, and when he looked up from his phone, he saw that T
y
and his friends had left.

A few minutes later Nicole returned, walked with Daniel to his car, and the
y
left school together to head to her home west of town.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

The farther the
y
drove into the countr
y,
the thicker the fog became.

It was almost as if the
y
were passing into another realm, a blear
y,
unexplored world that was slowl
y
unfolding before them from nowhere as the
y
drove into it.

“So
yo
ur head’s oka
y?
” Nicole asked.

While he appreciated ever
yo
ne’s concern, he was getting a little tired of people asking him how he was. “It’s a good thing it’s as hard as it is.”

“I’ll sa
y.
”

“You weren’t supposed to agree with that.”

“Well, like
yo
u said earlier, I know
yo
u prett
y
well.”

“I guess
yo
u do.”

But that’s not exactl
y
what was running through his mind. Instead, he was wondering if his head reall
y
was oka
y.

He kind of wanted to tell her, “You know, the more I think about it, the more I think I passed out at the game not because I got smacked on the head when I was tackled, but because I saw Emil
y’
s ghost, just like I did at the funeral. So I reall
y
don’t know if I’m oka
y
at all.”

No, it probabl
y
wouldn’t be the best thing in the world to be quite that open and honest with Nicole tonight.

On the other hand, ma
yb
e she would be good to talk to, at least if he wasn’t quite that forthcoming.

“I know this is sort of out of nowhere, but do
yo
u believe in ghosts?” he asked her.

“Ghosts? Have
yo
u been talking to Mia about her book?”

“No, just thinking about them.”

“I don’t know. What about
yo
u?”

I might be starting to.

“I’m not sure.” He recalled the blog entr
y
Nicole had read
ye
sterda
y
in class. “In that pra
ye
r
yo
u wrote for Teach’s class,
yo
u mentioned demons. Was that for real? Do
yo
u believe in them or was that all s
ym
bolic?”

“No, I do.”

“But not ghosts?”

“Well . . . ma
yb
e.” She gave it some thought. “I mean, when I was working on that assignment, I found this stor
y,
in the Bible,
yo
u know, about a gu
y
named Sau
l—h
e was the king of Israel. An
yw
a
y,
he found this medium and had her tr
y
to summon back a prophet named Samuel from the dead to talk to him.”

“What happened?”

“It worked. Samuel appeare
d—o
r at least his ghost did. I’m not exactl
y
sure which it was.”

“But Samuel was dead when he appeared to Saul?”

“Yes.”

“Sounds like a ghost to me.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “Me too.”

“So it’s possible, then, for dead people to communicate with the living?”

“At least in that case it was.”

Daniel had heard about people doing what Saul di
d—t
r
yi
ng to consult with the dead. For just an instant he wondered if that might be a wa
y
to get some answers.

But just for an instant.

Because, reall
y,
the last thing he needed to do was ask dead people to show up and start talking to him. The
y
were doing that prett
y
well on their own.

At least one of them was.

“And,” Nicole went on, “Jesus apparentl
y
believed in ghosts. Twice his disciples mistook him for a ghost and he told them he wasn’t one, proved it the second time b
y
letting them touch his hands and his side.”

“How does that show he believed in ghosts?”

“Well, he said, ‘A ghost does not have flesh and bones.’ But if ghosts weren’t real, wh
y
would he have put it that wa
y?
”

“Oh, I get it. If ghosts didn’t exist he would’ve just told his friends the
y
were being idiot
s—b
ecause how could he be a ghost when the
y
weren’t even real?”

“Yea
h—i
nstead of proving to them that he wasn’t one.” She looked at him questioningl
y.
“Wh
y
the interest in demons and ghosts?”

“Just wondering.”

Ghosts. Demons. What a great conversation to be having
when
yo
u’re driving through the countr
ys
ide on a fog-enshrouded
night.

The
y
were onl
y
a couple miles from Nicole’s house when the
y
came around a curve and Daniel saw something ahead of them, l
yi
ng in the middle of the road.

At first he wasn’t sure what it was, but as he slowed down he realized it was a toddler’s plastic swimming pool. The road dipped slightl
y
and the headlights revealed that it was a little crunched on one side and partiall
y
filled with murk
y
water.

It was directl
y
in the middle of their lane.

Daniel stopped.

Let the car idle.

The fog fingered through the night, and taking into account what he’d been talking with Nicole about onl
y
a few minutes ago concerning whether or not his head was oka
y,
he had a thought that he did not like.

Ma
yb
e the pool wasn’t reall
y
there at all. Ma
yb
e he was just imagining it, and Emil
y’
s ghost was going to rise out of the water and walk toward his car.

He waited, hoping Nicole would sa
y
something about the pool to prove that it was there, because if it wasn’t, that would mean he definitel
y
was starting to lose touch with realit
y.

Daniel studied her face in the dim, greenish glow cast from the dashboard lights. She was still staring in front of them at the road. He anticipated that if she didn’t see the pool she would’ve most likel
y
been looking at him instead, tr
yi
ng to figure out wh
y
he’d stopped the car. So he took her intense gaze out the windshield as a good sign.

The silence went on until it became uncomfortable, then she said, “Drive around it, Daniel. Just go through the other lane.”

Well, that was good. At least she saw it too.

“I think I should move it.”

“Just leave it. I don’t like this.”

He reached for the door handle and felt her hand on his other arm. “Something’s not right. It couldn’t have just fallen out of someone’s truck or something. It wouldn’t have water in it then.”

“I know. Wait here. Lock the doors behind me.”

Daniel stepped out of the car.

The cool night wrapped around him. Some kind of owl he couldn’t identif
y
shrieked in the distance, and slight rustling sounds in the darkness told him he might have disturbed an animal hidden in the shadows along the side of the road.

Tendrils of drear
y
mist curled through the night, filtering eeril
y
through the headlights’ beams.

No stars. No moonlight.

Daniel didn’t hear the doors lock so he opened his again. The car was still running. “Lock them, Nicole. I’ll be right back.”

“Daniel, let’s jus
t—”

“Trust me.”

He closed the door, and after a moment, she hit the lock button.

Fog encircled him as he paced forward.

The pool was ocean blue and had pictures of happ
y
cartoon dolphins and small green fish imprinted on it. The left side was crinkled enough for some of the water to have seeped out.

When he was about fifteen feet awa
y,
he heard movement again out of sight along the edge of the road. Something large crunching across the leaves.

“Hello?”

No repl
y.

He came to the toddler pool and grabbed its edge to drag it off the road. The water made it a little hard to tug, but as he lifted one side, some of it sloshed out the other, and he was able to drag it along the pavement toward the ditch.

He’d made it about halfwa
y
there when he saw the first figure step out of the darkness and into the headlights, right next to the car.

T
y
Bell.

And since he almost alwa
ys
had his three buddies with him, Daniel couldn’t imagine that he’d come out here alone.