Authors: Dan Wells

I Don't Want To Kill You (21 page)

BOOK: I Don't Want To Kill You

8.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads

‘Of course, sir. Would you like it with grilled chicken?’

‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘No meat at all.’

Chapter 15

The Homecoming Dance was held in City Hall, in a large open room with a marble floor circled by rows of ornate wooden pillars. It was probably too small for a crowd this size, but it was really the only choice. Whenever the city needed a bigger venue than City Hall they used the gym at Clayton High, and nobody wanted to hold the dance there. Instead, the students crammed into this small space, jumping and pulsing in time to the music, and retreating to the cool shadows outside whenever it grew too loud, too noisy, or too hot.

Marci grabbed my hand and ploughed her way through the crowd, becoming almost instantly separated from Brad and Rachel. I followed her, holding tightly to her wrist and apologising mutely to everyone we bumped into on the way. Nearly everyone smiled and waved at Marci, followed by a polite wave to me; people were accustomed to seeing us together, but that didn’t mean they knew how to react to us. To them I was still just the weird kid who lived over the mortuary.

When we reached the centre of the room Marci turned around, cheered loudly, and started dancing. I did my best to follow along, which mostly just meant shifting my weight back and forth from one foot to the other. I decided in that moment that I was never meant to be a dancer. I also decided that of all the torture I’d experienced in Agent Forman’s house of death, nothing could compare to the torture of a high-school dance.

Marci laughed, tried to show me what to do, then laughed again as I continued to suck. A more empathetic person would have said, ‘At least she’s enjoying herself,’ but I was ready to turn around and run. Thankfully, blissfully, the song ended and the dancing stopped. There was a chorus of cheers from the eager crowd, and then another song started – slow and bluesy. Marci stepped in close, wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and began to sway softly.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘this works a lot better if you touch me back.’ I glanced at the other couples around us, saw how they did it, and tentatively put my hands on Marci’s waist. It was soft, and perfectly curved, and I touched her lightly, like a balloon I was afraid of popping. She chuckled and sighed.

‘How are you liking your first dance?’

‘A few seconds ago it was also my last dance,’ I said. ‘But I have to admit that this part is pretty nice.’

‘It is,’ she said, stepping in closer. We moved back and forth, hesitantly awkward and blissfully comfortable at the same time.

We were close to each other, yet still worlds apart. I have rarely felt truly connected to anyone, but those few connections were all powerful memories: brandishing a knife at my mom; staring hungrily at Brooke in Forman’s house. Each event was a scar in my mind, violent and intense, like a white-knuckle ride in a speeding car. I lived my whole life behind a hazy, emotionless curtain, cutting me off from the rest of the world, but for just a few seconds here and there I’d been able to break through it; I had been connected, sharing my emotions with another person just like a real, empathetic human being. Even then it was limited – not in the depth of emotion, but in the variety. It only ever worked with fear and control.

Then Marci shifted slightly, beginning to rotate, and without thinking I went along with her: step forward with one foot, step back with the other. Forward with one foot, back with the other. Words were unnecessary; we were perfectly coordinated. Perhaps it was a coincidence. Perhaps we were thinking the same thoughts. Perhaps . . .

Perhaps it was best to think no thoughts at all.

We danced that way for an ageless eternity, locked in perfect sync, moving and turning and shifting in a harmony I’d never known.
This is real.
The song faded and still I clung to her, desperate to keep going, to hold onto that connection like a lifeline to humanity.

Another grinding dance song exploded over the speakers, and the crowd cheered loudly. They shook the floor, stomping and waving, and I cocked my head towards the refreshment table on the side.

‘Can we sit this one out?’

‘What?’

I leaned in close, whispering in her ear, feeling her hair on my face. ‘Can we get a drink?’

‘Sure!’

We made our way back to the side, ducking into an alcove that made the sound less oppressive, and reached the drinks table just as Rachel found us in tears and grabbed hold of Marci’s arms.

‘Rach, what’s wrong?’

Rachel was too much of a mess to speak, and I turned to the punch bowl while she composed herself. I reached for the ladle just as another hand got there first – slender and pale, flanked by a flash of blue in the corner of my eye. Brooke. I looked up just as she did; we stared at each other a moment, faces blank. She poured her drink, offered me the ladle, and slipped into the crowd.

‘This whole night is a disaster!’ cried Rachel, while Marci clucked and cooed to try to soothe her. ‘This dress looks horrible, I spilled some salad dressing on it, and Brad was just looking at you the whole time anyway.’

‘Oh, come on,’ said Marci, pulling her into a hug. ‘You’re gorgeous, and he can’t take his eyes off you.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Marci. ‘You look great, and he looks great, and he’s had a thing for you since last year. You need to get out there and enjoy yourself!’

‘Thank you,’ said Rachel, crying. ‘I wish I was as happy as you, or as pretty.’

‘Seriously, Rachel, you’re gorgeous.’

‘You’re the best friend ever. I wish I could be . . .’ And then she left, melting back into the crowd, and Marci stepped next to me.

‘Sometimes I don’t know what to do with that girl,’ she sighed. ‘She is an emotional issue with legs.’

‘She’s right, though, you know.’ I turned to face her. ‘You’re always happy, you’re always . . . there. I can read people really well, most of the time. I can look at a face and figure out almost exactly what that person is thinking. But that’s as far as I can go – I know what people are feeling, but I don’t know what I should be feeling about it. You can do the same thing, and then you actually use that knowledge productively.’

Marci smiled and leaned in closer, grabbing my hands. ‘John Wayne Cleaver, you give the weirdest compliments in the entire world.’

‘You have empathy like I’ve never seen,’ I went on. ‘You know exactly how to talk to people, exactly how to connect. You think it’s weird because it’s easy for you, but for people like me, it’s . . .’
How could I explain what she had done?

‘People like you, huh?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And what kind of people are you, precisely?’

In her heels she was nearly the same height as I was, and standing this close our eyes were perfectly level; our lips were level; our noses were almost touching. I stared deeply into her eyes.
Does she really want to know what I am? Do I even dare to tell her?

No, I don’t. I can’t. But if she could figure it out on her own . . .

‘You’re the social genius here,’ I said, pasting on a smile. ‘Why don’t you tell me what kind of person I am?’

‘Well,’ she said, grinning, ‘you’re smart, but very eclectic about it; you focus on the things that interest you and ignore everything else.’ While she was speaking, a movement caught my eye – not an individual motion but a wave of activity rippling across the crowd, accompanied by a rustle of voices audible above the music. I stood on my toes to get a better look, and Marci turned, crinkling her brow. ‘What’s that?’

Someone shouted, though I couldn’t hear the words. The music stopped abruptly and in the sudden silence a girl screamed, harsh and terrified.

‘Get away from me!’

The shout was like a signal for the dance to collapse into chaos, and the whole crowd started screaming and backing into the wall. Marci and I were pressed back; the drink table tipped and crashed to the floor, and a swarm of terrified dancers surged into it, scrambling on the wet floor, trapping people behind the overturned table, desperate to get away from . . . what? There was an old radiator behind us, and I stepped up on it to get a better view.

‘That scream sounded like Ashley,’ said Marci.

‘It is,’ I said, looking over the heads of the maddened crowd. Ashley Ohrn, a girl from school, was walking through the centre of the hall, eyes squeezed shut and sobbing loudly. There was a black harness draped over her satin dress, a web of straps holding six brown blocks to her chest. It was an image I’d seen in a hundred movies, now horribly real and barely fifty feet away – bricks of C4 explosive, strung together with brightly coloured wires. ‘She’s wearing a bomb.’

‘Ashley,’ called someone. ‘What are you—’

‘Don’t talk to me!’ she shrieked. The crowd by the doors was fleeing in two trickling lines, but the rest of us were being trampled back into the walls, leaving a wide circle of terror with Ashley at the centre. ‘Everybody just get away!’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Marci.

‘She’s here for me,’ I whispered.
Nobody’s here, but she doesn’t know who I am. She narrowed it down and discovered I was a teenager, but not which one specifically. She stole Ashley’s body and made a bomb big enough to kill every teenager in town.

Ashley reached the centre of the room, crying hysterically. Marci grabbed hold of my arm and stood up on the radiator with me, balancing precariously against the wall.

‘She’s really going to do it,’ I said.

‘She’s terrified,’ said Marci. ‘If that’s a bomb, she didn’t put it on herself.’

I glanced back at the door, and the black night beyond.
Marci’s right: Ashley’s not the killer, she’s the pawn. Nobody’s out there somewhere, watching where it’s safe.
I flexed my fingers in frustration, curling them around imaginary weapons. I had nothing – there was no way I could confront her. I didn’t even know if I could reach the door, and the window behind me was too high to climb to. I thought about calling her, begging her to cancel the attack, but Forman’s phone was still at home, hidden away.
There’s nothing I can do.

The press of people surged against us, squishing screaming students into the wall and almost jostling us down from our perch on the radiator. Someone else was scrambling up now, pulling heavily on Marci, and I shoved him back.

‘I can’t just stand here,’ I said, staring out at Ashley. She had something in her hands; her knuckles were white around it. ‘I’ve got to do something.’

‘Are you crazy?’ asked Marci.

‘Technically, yes.’
But what could I do?
I caught a glimpse of Brooke on the far side of the ring, eyes wide with terror, and I made my decision. ‘Do you have your phone?’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going to stop this,’ I said. ‘Do you have your cellphone?’

‘Where would I hide a cellphone in this dress?’

‘Then find someone who does,’ I said, ‘and call the police. And stay here.’

She called after me again but I ignored her, diving down into the crowd and shoving my way through a sea of stomping feet and frightened faces. Ashley’s voice rang out, wet and hoarse with tears. ‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’

‘Let me through!’ I shouted, but the only people lucid enough to pay attention merely shouted back insults as they pushed past me in a futile rush towards safety. I struggled against the current and finally got through, stumbling into the wide circle that had formed around her. Students and teachers and chaperones were pressed tight against all four walls, rigid with terror.

‘John, move back!’ bellowed a teacher. ‘You’ll get us all killed!’

‘She doesn’t want to kill everyone,’ I said. The next words stuck in my throat, but I forced them out. ‘This doesn’t have to happen.’

‘It’s not me,’ Ashley said, her voice cracking. ‘I swear it’s not me.’

‘I know,’ I said, walking slowly towards her. ‘I know it’s not you – it’s the woman who put the bomb on you.’

BOOK: I Don't Want To Kill You

8.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads