Diary of the Gone (8 page)

When she said this, Bev
nearly fell off her chair with laughter. I’m sure it was her idea
of making fun of me, telling Mom about my late-night
walks.

I told Mom I’d leave home
if she does that. Of course I’m not going to leave. Sometimes I
need to be away from everyone, just for a little while, and the
forest is the only place where I can feel at home.

I rushed into the forest, right into
the thick of darkness. The girl still screamed, the shrill sound
rippling in thousands of echoes around me.

My feet brushed against the wet
leaves, wetness making my feet cold. Once or twice I tripped over
gnarled tree roots, but managed not to fall. The dark hung like a
curtain before my eyes and I had to stop then probe my way by
taking cautious steps.

The girl’s screams
were getting closer and closer. Blood chilled in my veins at the
possibility of meeting the kidnapper. What could they do to a girl
to make her shriek like this? And what’s more important: what
could
I
do
against this person?

I’d never been a chivalrous type of
boy, yet I pushed myself forward.

The full moon above waded through
cotton-wool clouds, bathing everything around me with silvery
shimmer.

I found myself in a small clearing,
old trees watching me like sentinels.

As soon as the moon showed, the
screams stopped. No matter how hard I tried to catch any sound all
I could hear was my ragged breathing.

Where to go
now?
I didn’t want to arrive at any
conclusions, but the silence couldn’t mean anything good. Too many
things had happened for me to take everything in. Nathan gone,
Greg’s dead body found, a girl being dragged into the thick of the
forest.

Someone’s fingers clawed my right
shoulder from behind, and I recoiled in horror, wailing.

Whoever stood behind me didn’t attack,
but pressed a forefinger to his lips, shushing me.

I squinted trying to see who it was,
then sighed in relief.

Wayne.

“
Damn you! I thought it
was— Wait! What are you doing here?” I whispered as silently as I
could, rubbing my sweaty palms against my sides.

“
Let’s talk about it
later,” he said, beckoning me to go towards a clump of trees. When
we hid from the moonlight he asked, “Did you hear those
screams?”

“
You bet,” I
said.

Crouching in the shadows, we watched
for any sign of movement around us.

“
Did you see who it was?”
he asked.

I shook my head.

“
Damn it,” he hissed. “I
followed them at a distance, but they were too far from me. A man
and a girl. Didn’t see their faces, like they were blurred or
something. He had some book in his hand. Showed it to the girl and
she followed him. When the moon hid behind the clouds she started
screaming for help, but it seemed the screams came from
everywhere.”

Pinpricks spread all over my body at
the mention of the book. My diary. The intruder had taken it, and
now he had kidnapped a girl. Sweat beaded my palms and I rubbed
them against my clothes with renewed vigor.

“
What are we going to do?”
I felt braver once I wasn’t alone. “We need to go after
them.”

Wayne awarded me a
skeptical look that said,
Didn’t know you
were that mental.

After a few seconds’ consideration, he
sighed. “Okay, let’s go.”

I stepped out into the silver light,
not afraid to be exposed to danger. My tired mind didn’t register
danger the way it should, pushing me towards the unknown. The
underbrush rustled behind me.

“
They headed this way.”
Wayne pointed to the shadows, and we went there without saying
another word.

The moon watched with its sad eyes as
we weaved our way deeper into the forest. Nothing stirred, our
steps and breathing the only sounds. I’d never been to this part
before, so when we reached the Swamps, I peered ahead to see
nothing but a pool of water reflecting the moon’s orb.

“
There’s no way farther,”
Wayne said. “Let’s go back.”

I turned to him. “What about the
girl?”

“
We won’t find her. They
must’ve taken a different path. We’ll never find them here. And the
moon is about to hide behind the clouds again.”

I looked up. He was right. A cloud was
encroaching bit by bit on the moon, its contour shimmering with
silver. In a minute it would consume our only source of light,
leaving us in complete darkness. We rushed back, no longer caring
about being quiet.

On the way back, I was thinking about
coming back here the following day or night, with or without Wayne.
Something needed to be done.

When we reached the Olden Cross sign
we slowed down. For the rest of the way we walked in silence. I
told him about Greg Thorby, but his reaction was not even close to
Bev’s wide-open eyes. He cursed once, then looked away, clenching
and unclenching his fists.

“
Tomorrow we’ll find out
who that girl is,” Wayne finally said after a minute or
so.

I swiveled and raised an eyebrow at
him.

“
The girl who won’t come
to school will be the one,” he explained.

School. It felt like a different world
to me. I shoved my cold hands into the pockets. “Yeah, right,” was
all I said. Suddenly I wished tomorrow to never come. I’d rather be
safely locked in my room than go to school and have suspicious eyes
boring into me.

“
See you,” Wayne said and
veered off the route, climbing through the fence.

“
See you.”

The girl’s screams still echoed in my
head, and I quickened my pace.

I climbed up the tree, then jumped
onto the tile and pushed the shutters up, all without making a
sound. Everything was still when I got into the room.

For the first time this evening I
realized how ravenous I was. The corridor was dark and silent when
I opened the door. Going down the stairs into the kitchen, I
spotted a plateful of tuna sandwiches on the table. I got hold of
one and bit into it like a lion would rip the flesh of its prey. I
took a can of coke out the fridge, then hurried back to my
room.

I closed the door, put the key in the
keyhole and turned it slowly. It clicked lightly, and I exhaled in
relief. Only then did I realize I had a visitor sitting on my
bed.

Chapter 8

Entry #30

August 15

I seem to be an exception
to every rule. When there’s absolutely no way something unlucky or
weird is supposed to happen, it happens, and it happens to
me.

I don’t care if I come
across Stan Crosby and his freak friends at lunchtime, but I can’t
put up with the fact that no one else can see the dead, except me.
They are here, right next to me. Next to you. I can point my finger
at him or her, but no one would believe me if I told them about my
taciturn visitors.

Why can’t I be as normal
as everyone else?

If only they could talk to
me. I may not feel lonely then. But they just look at me, watch me
in total silence.

The odor of mold and decay filled my
nostrils. The sandwich stuck in my throat, and for a moment tears
blurred my vision from the lack of oxygen. The can of coke slipped
out of my fingers and rolled across the floor. Not that I was
thirsty anymore. Somehow I managed to swallow, the lump grinding
its way through my gullet.

I exhaled loudly, then took a breath
of the stale air that turned my stomach. Wrapped in a dark mantle,
the visitor turned his face shrouded by a cowl to me.

I hurried to unlock the door, but for
some reason, the key wouldn’t turn. Then it flared hot, singeing my
fingertips, and I let go of it yelping like a hurt dog.

Even in the dark of the room I could
see the bluish streetlight turning gray.

The Shadow.

The figure got up from the bed,
tugging at the cowl with rigid fingers.

I retreated into the farther corner of
the room, my back grazing the wall.

I knew who it was. Greg.

He had a noose around his neck, his
bruised fingers trying to remove it without success.

The pungent stench intensified,
filling the air with a mixture of dampness, mildew, and rotten
leaves.

When he opened his mouth, static noise
escaped his cracked lips, his words slicing through my brain. “Stop
the pain. He keeps strangling me.”

Cold snaked its way down my spine as I
looked into his dead eyes. The static grew, his raspy breathing
fogging the air around him.

“
Who does?” I asked,
freaked out.

Greg came close to me, titling his
head. His hollow eyes scrutinized me as his fingers pried off the
noose that constricted his neck.

Static filled my head again. “If I
tell you, he’s going to make me suffer more.” His rancid breath
caressed my cheek. I tried not to breathe as I knew I’d throw
up.

“
It was you there in the
Swamps watching us from behind the underbrush,” I said. He nodded
and blinked once.

“
You need my help, but how
can I help you?” I asked, hoping he would step away from
me.

“
Find him. That is the
only way.” His rotten breath fanned my face, and I gagged, then
stepped through him, which felt like someone had drained a
bucketful of icy water down my body.

“
Why is he doing this?” I
shivered as the warmth of the room wrapped me up.

He kept silent, but I needed the
answers. After a few moments Greg exhaled with a shudder, then
repeated, “Find him. Stop my pain.”

“
Where?” I asked. “Where
can I find him?”

“
You know,” a distant echo
reached my ears as if from far away. I turned to where he’d stood,
and found him gone. Color faded in, the odor of rotten leaves
receding. My gag reflex subsided, leaving a dull ache and a
hollowness in the pit of my stomach.

I was shivering all over, cold sweat
trickling down my temples.

Greg left without giving me a proper
answer. I was too exhausted to wonder what he meant by his last
words.

As my head hit the pillow, I sincerely
wished for tomorrow to never come. I closed my eyes, hoping to wake
up in a world where the dead would leave me alone.

***

I awoke to an
unfriendly, gray dawn. 4:47
am
glowed on my electric clock. Knowing I wouldn’t
be able to get back to sleep, I untangled myself from the sheets
and climbed onto the windowsill.

At least it’s not
raining today,
I
thought.

When I had a spare minute I always
took my diary to jot down a line or two. I’d grown so used to the
dog-eared pages where I could write about my secret that the idea
of someone else’s fingers caressing its spine, someone else’s eyes
reading the lines never meant to be shared with anyone, made me
feel hollow inside.

Why would anyone even steal my diary
in the first place? I did get a few people in Olden Cross who hated
me, but they were not clever enough to get into my room and take
the diary.

No matter how hard I wished to
suppress the idea, it crackled in my head like the static of Greg’s
voice: it’s the one who killed Greg and kidnapped
Nathan.

And I was supposed to know where to
find him, according to Greg.

To take my mind off things, I decided
to clean my room. First I picked up the can of coke I’d dropped
last night at the sight of Greg, then made my bed, evening out the
creases on the sheets and blanket. Books piled my desk, so I
stacked them on the bookshelves. Bringing my CDs to order was the
hardest part. I always put them in the wrong cases, so it took me
awhile to place every disk where it belonged.

After this had been done, I rewarded
myself by fishing out a Sum41 album, plugged earphones into my ears
and hit the Play button of my old CD player.

As punk rock energy assaulted my
brain, I looked out of the window to see a lonely ray of wan light
breaking through the thick pall of the clouds.

Maybe it wasn’t going to be another
bad day, I hoped.

Bev kept silent at breakfast, Mom
fussing around us pretty much the usual way. No one was brave
enough to bring up the topic of me finding Greg in the Swamps. Mom
didn’t chide me for going out there.

When I grabbed my half-empty bag to
leave for school, Bev called out, “Wait for me.”

It was so unexpected I even asked,
“Are you talking to me?”

“
Sure, sissy pants.” She
rolled her eyes, turning for a few seconds into the sister I
loathed.

As we walked down the road to school,
the tension built up inside me. Beverly’s silence held more meaning
than her abuses. Her black hair streamed down her shoulders, a
shield against me. She swept it behind her back in one swift
motion, then turned to me.