My Friends Are Dead People (15 page)

0:13 . . . 0:14 . . .

I leaned out of my seat to see what was
happening. Kala had run smack into a wall. The hole was practically
over his head. The tortic magically raised Kala off the ground by
slicing the air with his claws just inches from Kala’s chest.
Kala’s legs flailed wildly in the air while he slid up and along
the wall. The tortic moved along with him, going at the same speed
and in full control of the spellbinding grip he had on Kala,
effortlessly heading toward the black hole.

The spectators were darting glances back and
forth between the clock and the arena.

0:18 . . . 0:19 . . .

The tortic was going to crush Soundrec’s
record. But the tortic stalled under the hole, while Kala hovered
at the lip of it. Kala squirmed, trying to break loose, but to no
avail. The malicious black eyes roamed the seats and the dark sky
once more. He was a throw away from ending the game and smashing
all existing records, but he just wouldn’t do it. Did he not care
about winning?

0:22 . . . 0:23 . . .

I looked over to the tortics across the
stadium. One of them was staring directly at me.

“
Jacoby?” I mumbled
uneasily. “Jacoby! He’s looking at–”

Jacoby was staring right back at the curious
tortic. And it wasn’t just one looking our way, it was all of
them.

Dorian bowed his head even lower. This time
I could make out what he was saying.

“
Listen,” he muttered.
“They hate foul smells. . . . No, Kala, don’t do that. Do what I
said.”

A bright purple light fired from Kala’s
hand, but the tortic tilted his head, smoothly dodging the fizzing
beam of light, which went swirling and spiraling into the crowd.
Samhains jumped out of its way until a red-boned skeletis captured
the trail of light and sucked it into its mouth.

Unfazed, the tortic magically pulled Kala’s
hands back and flicked his claw sharply. Kala’s scream rang
nauseously throughout the stadium.

“
He’s torturing
him!
” yelled Katie. Her yell carried to
the other side. “
Stop hurting him, you
freak!
”

“
Katie, stop,” I begged
quietly. “You can’t–”

It was too late. The entire stadium had
already turned its attention to Katie, including the competing
tortic.

Not intimidated by this, Katie persevered.
“Kala!” she shouted again. “Listen to me!”

0:38 . . . 0:39 . . .

The tortic snatched the sobbing Kala,
getting a choking hold on him this time, and stepped in front of
the hole.

Meanwhile, I could hear Dorian still trying
to communicate with him. “This must be done. They cannot endure
strong smells. Listen to me, Kala! They are not here for the
games.”

I turned to Jacoby. He hadn’t taken his eyes
off the tortics who were now untying their golden ear bands.

0:47 . . . 0:48 . . .

Katie shot up from her
seat and shouted, “
Kala! They don’t
like
–”

Jacoby tried to reach for her throat, but
she had anticipated this, and took off running down the stairs,
with all the samhains watching her every step. Her witch hat flew
off her head; her hair was perfectly straight, her face was smooth
and young; she looked unmistakably human.

Katie ran up to the safety
bar and shouted, “
Kala! I know how you can
free yourself!
”

The samhain crowd didn’t care about the game
anymore and began to murmur loudly amongst themselves.

Trying to prevent the worst, Jacoby shot
past me and hurried down the steps.

Katie noticed Jacoby and took one sharp deep
breath then screamed, “THEY - HATE - HORRIBLE–”

The last word didn’t come out. Jacoby had
muted her scream by placing a hand on her throat. He pushed her hat
back on her head and folded the brim down to hide her face.

A great commotion occurred afterward. I
thought it was because of Katie, but it wasn’t only her. Something
had happened on the game floor. I walked down my aisle to see Kala
kicking and flinging his body all over the place. The tortic
released him and turned away. He wasn’t interested in Kala anymore.
His ears flung open and perked up, rotating a smidgen to the right
to listen for something amidst all the noise. The tortics in the
audience were doing the same thing.

Kala used the opportunity to rip a portion
of the wall out and shoot it at the tortic, pointlessly cracking
him in the back. The tortic stepped heavily onto Kala’s leg and
continued to listen.

Dorian was still talking to Kala. “Are you
listening to me? Four deep breaths and a hold will do it. . . . No,
you do have time. Fight through it. Now, Kala! Or I am coming to
get you.”

The tortic picked Kala up, preparing to
launch him. But the aim was for the wall rather than the hole.
Before I knew what possessed me, I leaned over the seat in front of
me and shouted at the top of my lungs.

“
THEY HATE FOUL
SMELLS!”

Katie pushed herself angrily away from
Jacoby. Kala had heard. He took four quick breaths, held it, and
then opened his mouth, letting out a puff of hot air. The tortic’s
face withered as he stumbled backward, with Kala still in his
grasp. Kala twisted his body, freeing himself immediately.

The tortic leaned down and stabbed four
fingers into Kala’s leg, then chucked him into the wall.

I turned to look at Dorian, but he was gone.
I turned down to the lower level to see Katie standing by
herself.

“
Leave him
alone!
” she screamed.

Kala wobbled for a moment
across the floor and fell into a puddle of his own blood right as
Jacoby and Dorian appeared ten yards behind the tortic. The tortic
didn’t notice them, completely absorbed in something
very
frightening. He
apprehensively sniffed the air, and his nose shriveled up at once.
His ears fell to his side, and he promptly disappeared, along with
his family.

The crowd didn’t even murmur. They were as
confused as Jacoby and Dorian, who now stood alone on the game
floor. A whirlwind of commotion broke out in the stadium, but
didn’t last long, coming to an abrupt stop as the game clock went
silent. Just then, the light wind inside the stadium eerily
reversed its course and sucked all the candy wrappers, leaves,
lamps, and the dirt on the floor out of the stadium. Nothing
stirred, but a terrible thunderous sound was swelling outside the
stadium.

BOOM!
. . .
BOOM!
. . .
BOOM!
. . .
BOOM!
. . .

Then everything was silent, except for the
nightmarish wind howling outside the stadium. The crowd had stood
up, sensing great danger. When the wind came inside, it carried the
foulest smell imaginable. It was a hundred times worse than inside
a garbage truck.

A witch’s scream set off a chaotic stadium
evacuation, samhains stamped in all directions, frantic to get out
of the place. Some shut their eyes and disappeared while others
clamped their hands over their ears.

I had to get to Katie. She was still down
below, getting jostled around like a tetherball.

“
Come on,
Lin!
” I shouted over the
craziness.

Lin was huddled under his seat.

“
We have to get
Katie!
”

I could barely see anything through the
flashing legs of the running samhains. However, I caught a glimpse
of Dorian appearing in front of Katie, grabbing her hand, and
telling her something. She closed her eyes, and they both
disappeared just as Jacoby appeared in front of Lin and me.

“
W-what’s going
on?
” I shouted beside myself.

“
Close your eyes–” said
Jacoby urgently, cut off by a dreadful roar coming from
outside.

The stadium began to shake violently until
it was swaying side to side, shooting up a huge dust cloud. Large
cracks slashed the arena, and the top deck was entirely gone. The
stadium was going to collapse any moment.

Jacoby forced me down, knowing what was
coming.

BOOOOM!!

“
Jacoby
,” I wailed in pain, an awful ringing noise was piercing my
head.

Jacoby placed his hand over my left ear,
which did the trick. The din ceased. He then shut my eyes with his
fingers. As I sensed a huge mass flying toward me, he squeezed my
hand and yanked me off the ground into an endless black vast. It
was a million times stronger than a welgo pull. I squeezed my eyes
shut, wondering why I had opened them in the first place.

The terrible shaking had stopped. Was it
really over?

“
Jesse, you may open your
eyes now,” echoed Jacoby’s voice from afar.

I cautiously opened my eyes. Jacoby, Dorian,
Katie, Lin, and I were somewhere outside of the festival grounds,
standing in the middle of a demolished alley. The stadium was four
blocks away, split completely in two. It was a lot warmer here. I
foolishly extended my hands out in front of me, as though I was
putting them over a fire.

“
It’s warm,” I said,
catching my breath.

“
Psyclining has that
effect,” said Jacoby, looking exhausted. “Let’s get to the street.
It’s not safe here.”

I remembered from the rules inside the
stadium that psyclining was a means of transportation. However, it
felt like I had traveled to a different dimension, not just a
couple of blocks away. Maybe I shouldn’t have opened my eyes.

“
Where’s Kala?” said
Katie.

“
Where’s Kala?” I
repeated.

“
He’s safe. Dorian dropped
him off in a distant land.”

“
Is he going to be okay?”
I said.

“
He’ll be fine. We have a
much more serious problem now. From the looks of it, the city has
suffered serious damages. Casualties should be minimal though if
Soundrec stayed nearby as he had been told to.”

A large crowd had gathered in what used to
be a grand street, now reduced to giant piles of rubble. We were in
the middle of an obliterated town. No streets or structures
remained – just dust and debris as far as the eye could see. Most
buildings had been flattened to their concrete foundations, as if a
tornado had just swept through. Uprooted trees were scattered about
like spilled matches.

A few costumed pedestrians, covered in dust
from head to toe, climbed up the displaced road and slid down the
other side, rather matter-of-factly. It was as if they had just
happened upon this by accident, passing through.

A tall skeletis emerged from the crowd of
samhains.

“
Scaley,” greeted Jacoby,
bowing his head.

“
Hello, Jacoby,” said
Scaley, returning the greeting. “Hello, Dorian.”

“
We need to move
everyone,” said Jacoby. “We can’t have them here.”

“
Jacoby,” said Scaley
delicately. “It’s a Night Watcher.”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

The BELLNICSI

Jacoby and Dorian pushed their way through
the antsy crowd. As the samhains noticed Dorian’s orange skin,
which was the brightest color in the group, they moved aside, their
heads down, giving Jacoby and Dorian a clear path to a contorted
body sprawled on a pile of twigs and leaves. I craned my neck
behind Jacoby to see who it was. Soundrec was completely
motionless, except for his heaving chest. His skin was charred,
with shards of glass embedded in it.

Jacoby crouched down next to Soundrec. “In
two days, you’ll be fully recovered.”

Soundrec didn’t react, looking as though he
could die at any moment.

“
He protected thousands,”
informed Scaley, crouching next to Jacoby.

“
Do we know anything
else?”

Scaley shook his head. Jacoby stood up and
looked around at the crowd, all waiting anxiously for him to
speak.

“
Who did this?” called out
a skeleton from the back.

“
I don’t know,” said
Jacoby, taking off his Kala wristband.

“
You do know. You just
don’t want to tell us,” said someone next to the skeleton, “afraid
we’d panic.”

“
Do-Do-Dorian,” mumbled
another, “you-you must know.”

Dorian was standing near Soundrec in his
bowed-head stance, definitely not going to reply.

“
I’m sorry,” Jacoby said,
“but neither of us knows what happened at the games.”

“
Soundrec, you wake up,
you hear,” said Murlie the witch, standing at the front of the
crowd. She wore a three-layer brown robe and no shoes. Her small
feet were so cruddy they blended in with the street. “Tell us who
done it. We will erase the wrongdoer from the face of Halloween.
You answer me, Soundrec! I’ve been in the condition you’re in. I
know you can speak.”

“
Murlie, he can’t,” said
Jacoby. “You know it’s different with him.”

More halloweens began calling out.

“
Why did you come here,
Jacoby? Whenever you and Dorian come out, something bad
happens.”

“
What’re we going to do
now?”

“
You all need to go back
to your shops and stay put,” commanded Jacoby. “It would be best if
you stayed in groups or go to Lurching Hotel or a Dark Hour group
for the Dark Hours.”

“
Can I come with you
guys?” asked a teenage witch. “I don’t want to be
killed.”