The New Kid (19 page)

Natalie awakened and blinked, trying to hold on to the images she’d just seen in her mind’s eye. But they faded. She got up and went to the window. Looking up at the full moon, she made her sister the same solemn promise she’d made so many nights before this.
I will find you. Wherever you are, I’ll find you and I’ll get you out of there.

S
aturday morning after a hearty breakfast of pancakes, bacon, orange juice, and a banana, Will went out and mowed the front and back lawns, raked up the clippings and put them in the green rolling dumpster. He had enough money to hire a gardener for everyone in Harrisburg and beyond but he didn’t mind doing manual labor; it allowed him to let his mind wander and he often got some of his best insights when he was doing something as mundane as taking out the garbage or clipping a hedge.

As he finished up the lawn and set about washing the windows Will thought about where he was on his quest. Including Harrisburg he’d been to five different towns and five different high schools in the last three years. He wondered if it meant anything, if there was any kind of pattern evolving. If there was, perhaps he could use this knowledge to get one step ahead of the Lord of Darkness instead of always feeling like he was one step behind. He made a mental note to check into the pattern thing and then climbed down off the ladder and checked the windows. They were as clean as anyone could possibly get them. He saw his own reflection and for a moment almost didn’t recognize himself. His mother was right; he had grown up, he
was now a young man. And as he looked at his reflected image he knew that anyone looking at him would quickly conclude that he was a
tough
young man, the kind of guy you didn’t want to get into a scrape with. But he also wondered, was this young man looking back at him the kind of guy someone could really love? Someone Natalie could love? Natalie. There she was again in his thoughts. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Well, the truth was he didn’t
want
to stop thinking about her.

It was noon by the time he finished all his chores and he retired to his secret chamber in the basement. He brought up a map of the USA on his main frame screen and entered all the locations where he’d done battle with the Black Spirit. A red light blinked on each of the towns, spanning the continental US: San Diego, California; Corpus Christi, Texas; Greenhaven, North Carolina; Brunswick, Vermont; and now Harrisburg, Washington. Will stared at the screen a long time but no extra insight came into his mind. So he went up into the garage and worked on his Mitsubishi EVO.

After he serviced the turbo charger and tuned the suspension he washed his ride inside and out, using a chamois cloth to make the chrome wheels shine. Then he slid the key into the ignition, fired up the kick-ass engine, and took the EVO out for a spin. He drove around Harrisburg, watching the kids playing in the street, the wives working in the garden, the husbands painting fences and fixing broken sprinkler heads. There was a plethora of dogs in Harrisburg and Will passed his neighbor Mrs. Norrington, a kindly overweight woman in her late sixties, who walked her regal little Toy Fox Terrier Scoopy every morning and afternoon. She was outgoing and friendly and waved to Will like she was running for mayor. She wore designer clothes and way too much jewelry, including a gaudy diamond ring that Will figured had to be at least five carats. Where did these people get their money?

Mrs. Norrington picked up Scoopy and kissed him, then held his paw so he “waved” at Will as well, which cracked Will up. He
generally liked the people he’d encountered in Harrisburg, most of them seeming to be decent, hard-working Americans doing their best not just to get by but to lend a helping hand to those around them. There was always some charity event going on and various fund drives netted thousands to help spruce up the schools even in the crappy part of town.

Stopping at a light Will discovered that he’d inadvertently cruised back around to Natalie’s street. Or maybe it wasn’t so inadvertent. He smiled and thought,
What the heck, I might as well pop by since I’m this close
. He pulled up to her house. Her front yard was choked with tall weeds and the gutters on the house were sagging. He wished he could buy her a new house without drawing attention to himself. Instead he sent her a text.

“
SUP?
”

“
ZIP
”

“
I’m out frnt
”

There was a pause and Will saw the curtains in Natalie’s second story bedroom move. She was peeking down at him.

“
Y?
”

“
Wanna ride?
”

In two minutes she was outside, climbing into his car.

“Hey.”

“How’s it goin’?”

“Cool. You?”

“I’m okay.”

“Where are we going?”

“Let’s let the wind decide,” said Will.

Natalie smiled. Somehow, Will just always managed to bring out the happy in her.

“I’m down with that,” she said, trying to act casual.

 

With Natalie in the passenger seat Will cooled his jets a little but he could tell by how tightly she held on to the door handle with her
right hand that his driving was still fast enough to make her nervous. They cranked up some tunes and stopped by Dave’s Drive On In for a couple of burgers, fries, and cokes. Then they wound their way up Davidson Road and parked at a vista pullout, where they soaked in a breathtaking view of Mount St. Emory, the volcano that had lain dormant for 600 years. Looking down at Harrisburg, Will realized how precarious the town’s position was. If Mount St. Emory ever erupted again, even with only one-tenth the power of Mount St. Helens, the pastoral, bucolic town of Harrisburg would be obliterated.

As Will and Natalie kicked back with the windows down, feeling the cool breezes waft through the EVO, they skillfully managed to avoid any lingering eye contact. Swollen clouds crawled slowly across the brilliant cornflower blue sky. Neither of them was about to mention the lips-to-cheek incident from the night before but they could both still feel it. Finally, focusing on a cloud that resembled a huge pair of lips, Natalie looked at Will.

“What are you thinking about?”

Of course he was thinking about several things—one being what it would be like to really kiss her, tongue and all—but he chose not to mention that particular thought and went with a secondary idea he had rattling around in his head.

“Um, I was thinking about Rudy.”

“What about him?”

“I was kinda hard on him last night. I was thinking maybe we could head over to his place and check in on him. And I had some ideas on some things you and he could do to help out. You know, for the cause.”

“Um, sure. Great.” Not exactly romantic, but at this point Natalie would take anything she could get.

In minutes they were in Rudy’s driveway. They got out, walked up, and rang the doorbell. Rudy’s mom, a haggardly thin woman with smoker’s teeth, opened the door. When they inquired about
Rudy she said he had left earlier and mumbled something about getting ready for the dance tonight.

“Rudy? The dance?” said Natalie, bewildered.

“My thoughts exactly,” said Rudy’s mom, and then added with a smile, “You teens kill me. Always changing. A baby one day and a big shot the next. What can I say?”

 

They left Rudy’s place after making Rudy’s mother promise to have him call them the minute he came home. Natalie dialed Rudy’s cell but got nothing but his goofy message: “Yo, this is Rudy Toody McGroody, leave your incredibly important message at the BEEEEEEP!” She sent him a text but he didn’t reply. At this point they were starting to worry; Rudy always responded to texts. They went to the mall and checked both levels twice but there was no sign of him. He wasn’t feeding his face in the food court, wasn’t getting all bleary-eyed at Rex’s Game World, and wasn’t in any of the clothing stores checking out the chicks.

They cruised around town and hit a few of the usual hangouts: the skate park, the fast food joints, the rope swing on the Blue River landing, but Rudy was nowhere to be found. By mid-afternoon they still hadn’t found him. They were left with just one more option to find Rudy but it involved venturing into territory that made Will uncomfortable in a way even sewers filled with demon rats did not.

“Um . . . I guess we better go to the dance.”

“You mean the fall dance?” asked Natalie.

“Uh, yeah. Uh . . . you want to go to the dance. With me?” asked Will.

Natalie turned her head away from him and looked out the window so he wouldn’t see her smile.

“Sure. Okay. Why not? I mean, if that’s the only way to make sure Rudy’s okay.”

“I’ll pick you up around seven.”

A million thoughts swirled through Natalie’s brain. What would she wear? How would she do her hair? What if Will tried to kiss her? What if he
didn’t
?! Not that it was a real date. Unless it was. And she was still worried about Rudy. Was he mad at them about yesterday? Was he just busy? Or was there something else, something more dangerous, keeping him from getting back to them?

So she did what she usually did when she couldn’t relax: she collapsed onto her bed and closed her eyes. When she was under stress or a deadline, the times when most people would have great difficulty falling asleep, Natalie nodded off like nobody’s business. She simply told herself she absolutely should not fall asleep—and that almost always did the trick. This time was no exception, and she was snoozing within minutes.

After sleeping for twenty minutes without so much as a stitch of a dream, the vision images came upon her in waves. She saw faces from school, her girlfriends, and faces from her childhood. They were all frowning and many were wiping away tears because they were attending some sort of ceremony—Natalie’s funeral, where she herself was in attendance, looking down at her body in an open casket. An identical casket sat next to hers and contained her twin sister Emily. Then the dream shifted as the coffins floated up into space and gathered speed.

And now Natalie was again dreaming with Emily, parallel minds in parallel universes and they were back in that same tunnel racing away from something behind them. It was a creature, a large creature, so large that when its massive feet slammed into the tunnel floor the tunnel shook and rocks rained down. A pair of clawed paws swiped at them and Natalie screamed for Emily to go, to keep going while she faced the monster down. Turning in her tracks, Natalie grabbed a large stone and was about to throw it when the creature stepped from the darkness into a pool of light and Natalie’s nerves collapsed. She was so shaken by the sight of him that she dropped the rock; it was pointless to resist such a beast. It was at least eight feet tall and had
mottled leathery hide, a double set of horns, and a mouth dripping with foul liquids and filled with jagged teeth. Where there should have been eyes there were nothing but hollow sockets lit from within. Natalie fell at the creature’s feet and its jaws were inches from her face, ready to make her not so pretty and dead besides—when thankfully the dream shifted again and she was once again running through the tunnel, scrambling up and up and now she burst out of the mouth of the tunnel into the moonlit night.

Spinning around she saw that the tunnel opening looked like the entrance to a mine of some sort. Two enormous boulders were perched on the hillside above the tunnel opening so that the side of the mountain resembled a tormented face; the boulders were the eyes, almost glowing from the moonlight glinting off them, and the tunnel opening was the gaping mouth, open in a silent scream that was suddenly not so silent as flames shot out of it and were just about to rip into Natalie’s face when she woke up.

 

When Will casually mentioned to his mom that he was going to the dance she tittered with excitement and not only ironed a white shirt for him but actually ran out and bought a lapel flower and wrist corsage. He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t like that, he wasn’t some dorky teenager going to his first dance. But he didn’t want to hurt her feelings and besides, it was at least partly true. He’d never been to any kind of dance before, let alone a fall prom kind of thing. He was in uncharted waters. Gerald thought the whole thing was so funny he doubled up on his beer input, kept calling Will a “stud,” and brought out several bottles of malodorous tawdry cologne for Will to sample. When Will declined the cologne Gerald grumbled and called him an ungrateful punk and stomped into the living room to rip a few in his La-Z-Boy.

April had tears in her eyes as she pinned the white rose on the lapel of his sports coat and she told him he was surely going to be the handsomest young man at the dance.

“Thanks, Mom, but I know you’re only saying that because I’m your son.”

“I’m saying it because it’s true, Willie.”

“I’ll see you later, Mom,” he said.

“Don’t be too late.” She always said that every time he left the house. But this time she added: “Never mind. You stay out as late as you want to.”