The Screaming Season (10 page)

I slid in behind him, wet body to wet body. I sneezed, hard. The Vespa rolled forward toward the road and I hastily put on the helmet, fastening the chin strap.

“I’m sorry,” I said as lightning crashed and thunder rumbled. He didn’t respond—I was sure he couldn’t hear me—so I tapped him on the shoulder. He leaned to the left and turned his head in my direction. I could barely make out his face through the sheets of rain; it stretched and blurred the way Celia’s did when it was reflected back to me on a curved surface—a bronze drinking fountain, a stainless steel teakettle. It frightened me. I was afraid to ride with him—but more afraid to stay.

“Sorry,” I mouthed.

He turned back around. I put my feet up on the running board and looked at the rain hitting the messenger bag. I tapped his helmet again.

“You should let me hold that,” I yelled, giving the bag a tug. “It’s going to soak through.”

I couldn’t believe he wasn’t being more careful with it. They were Mandy’s notes, possibly the key to everything. We should be back in the roadhouse, studying them. They might be getting ruined as we sat there.

Maybe he’d scanned them in his computer to archive them. But still, there might be something about the originals—something on the originals—strands of hair, ash, magic juju powder—that he wouldn’t be able to duplicate. The way he had crammed them in all higgledy-piggledy was incredibly careless. He couldn’t give them back without her knowing that someone had taken them. Maybe he’d gotten her permission? Maybe she even knew we were out together.

I tapped his helmet again. “We should go back inside. The bag is soaking through.”

The Vespa started rolling. Lightning flashed and I pulled on the messenger bag, trying to shield it with my hand, at least. As if to shake me off, he swooped the moped to the right, forcing me to grab onto him, and we zoomed off into the storm.

I was furious. He was going to regret this. Just like I was regretting my mean little swipe at him. Wow, he could dish it out, but he sure couldn’t take it.

More lightning, more thunder, and I thought about the slickness on the road. I hoped he would calm down. At least we couldn’t go very fast; if it had been a motorcycle, I might have rethought my plan to go with him.

We rounded a corner and he leaned far into it. I almost put my foot down to keep us upright, but at the last moment we straightened out. The road was dark; there were no overhead lights, and the Vespa’s beam shone weakly against the storm. I couldn’t see around his shoulders and I lost track of where we were.

Then three flashes of lightning flared one after another and I saw that we had reached the part of the road where I had seen the ghost girls screaming in my druggy dream. The wind whipped up and a low wail wrapped itself around us. I held him more tightly, leaning my head against his back as I stared out at the trees rising and falling in the wind. Blurs of white flickered through the skeletal silhouettes. Ghosts.

Not there, not there,
I told myself. My heart was pounding. I wanted to get out of here.

Then his spine straightened, and he reared back against me. My grip was broken, and I flailed, fighting to hang on. I caught the messenger bag. The Vespa wobbled. He pulled back again, and I was afraid I was going to fall off the back of the bike. I craned to look around him.

Something white in the middle of the road, running at us—

The Vespa listed right, shooting for the trees, the ones filled with ghosts, and I screamed as I went flying, straight for a tree—

—and someone dangling from it, with a white face and black eyes—

“Lindsay,”
I heard.

Did I smell geraniums?

Blackness.

EIGHT

“
LINDSAY
,” THE VOICE murmured.
“Lindsay, get out of here. You’re not safe.”

My head clanged. Something dripped on my forehead and I opened my eyes, then let out a gasp when I saw a white blob. But it was the moon, only the moon. I had fallen off the Vespa at the side of the road, and it looked like I might have rolled down a little embankment, coming to rest in a circle of trees. My helmet was still on, but my clothes were sopping wet.

The voice . . . had it been my mom? Hope clutched my heart as I tried to raise myself up on my elbows. My body was rubbery. “Memmy?” I whispered.

But as I shook myself out of my confusion, I knew very well that it hadn’t been my mom. It was Celia’s voice.

So she was back—or else she had never left. I wanted to burst into tears. Except . . . I didn’t feel her presence inside me.

“Celia?” I whispered aloud.

Silence.

Then I heard footsteps through wet leaves, and I forced myself to sit up. Miles was shuffling toward me. His helmet was cradled against his hip.

“Oh, shit,” he said, seeing me. He dropped to his knees beside me and searched my face. He pushed hair out of my eyes. “God, Lindsay, are you okay?”

“I—I think so. My head kind of hurts.”

“Did you black out? You might have a concussion.” He opened up my eyelid and practically pressed his eye against mine. I pulled back. “I can’t see anything.”

He pushed back onto his feet and began to straighten, bringing me up with him by wrapping his gloved hands around my wrists. I turned and saw the Vespa at the top of the berm. It hadn’t slid down with us.

“What did we hit?” I asked him, glancing fearfully around as my teeth chattered together. “Was it a ghost?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think we
did
hit it. I think I veered in time. But it all happened so fast.”

I exhaled shakily, and we began to walk back up to the road. Miles let go of my hand and grabbed the Vespa by the handlebars, balancing it and bending over to inspect it. He rolled it back and forth. Then he touched the key, which was still in the ignition, and turned it. The engine started.

“I’m buying stock in this company,” he crowed. He waved me over and had me take his place, keeping the scooter idling, while he walked out to the center of the road. There was nothing there.

“I know I saw something,” he said.

“I did too. But it was raining so hard.”

“It was coming at us. In the middle of the road.” He ran his hands through his hair. His retro ducktail was long gone, and the wet strands were slicked against his skull. There was rainwater in his platinum eyebrows and his eyelashes glistened. He looked otherworldly.

“If it was an animal . . . ” I began. He looked over at me and shook his head.

“We need to get out of here.”

“We need the messenger bag,” I pointed out.

“Shit.” He nodded. “You stay here.”

I was grateful that I had to stay with the Vespa to make sure it kept working but a little ashamed that I was wimping out and letting him do the searching. Jane had reinforced the notion that girls didn’t need guys for anything. We wanted them, yes. But we were perfectly fine without them. It was an excellent strategy for getting them interested in us.

“Celia, was it you?” I asked aloud. There was no response. “Was it someone else, who found out that Miles had taken Mandy’s notes?”

I pictured all of Mandy’s notes scattered down the hillside, the ink run to illegibility, the paper nothing more than a pulpy mess. I was furious with him all over again. Yes, I had been tacky, but he had been incredibly stupid.

I studied the road, then walked the moped over and placed it so the headlight would shine on the strip of road where the figure had appeared. I saw nothing but rain.

A roll of thunder made me jerk. I was shaking with cold; my teeth were chattering, and I was starting to feel more bumps and bruises. I kept scanning the landscape. No ghosts, no anyone. No Miles.

“Hey!” I called out, and my voice echoed off the darkness. I tried again. “Miles!”

Wind wafted against my cheek like a kiss. I touched my skin, turning in a circle. All my nerve endings were crackling. Something was watching us. Something was here. And it meant us harm. We had to leave.

“Miles!” I yelled. “Miles, come now!
Now!
”

I clamped down on the handlebars, making the engine roar. Pressing on the horn, I gave it a good blast.

Nothing.

“Oh, God,” I whispered. We were out here with nothing, not even flashlights. I reached in my pocket and pulled out my wet cell phone. It wouldn’t turn on.

I looked up and down the road, hoping to see an approaching vehicle. We hadn’t left the roadhouse that long ago.

Crickets chirped. Raindrops plopped off the trees in a steady rhythm,
plink, plink, plink,
as if they were counting time.

No Miles.

“Miles!” I shouted. “Can you hear me?” I got on the Vespa and gave the handlebar a roll, moving forward. I’d never ridden a moped before, but it was fairly easy to figure out. After a couple of jerking forward motions, I wheeled around in a wide circle and rode to the edge of the berm. I looked down.

It was pitch black. The wind rustled through the trees, but I heard nothing that sounded like a guy looking for a messenger bag. My throat tightened. If someone had run us off the road, had they gone after Miles? Had they knocked him out, or were they using him as bait to get to me?

Run,
I thought, and it wasn’t Celia talking—it was me. But never in a million years would I leave Miles out here by himself.

“Miles, damn it,” I shouted. “Answer me!”

I hovered on the top of the incline and thought about walking the Vespa down. I was afraid to turn it off for fear it wouldn’t turn back on—or if I had to start it up alone, I wouldn’t know how. On the other hand, I had no idea how much gas it would take to get back to Marlwood.

First thing’s first.

“Miles!” I shrieked his name.

“Oh, God, Lindsay,
God
,” he managed, bursting through the trees. His face was scratched, and there were pine needles in his hair. He scrambled toward me, losing his balance, sliding, grabbing onto a tree branch and pulling himself up.

I jumped off the bike and held out a hand. He grabbed it. Then he threw himself into my arms, trembling.

“We have to get out of here
now
,” he said.

“But the bag . . . ”

“Screw the bag.” He hopped onto the seat and gazed expectantly at me. I climbed on and threw my arms around him. He wasn’t wearing his helmet.

“Miles?” I called to him.

He didn’t answer. I held on, peering around him, almost breaking down and cheering when a car passed us, then another. We didn’t stop and ask for help. We just flew back to school as fast as we could.

In the parking lot, Miles killed the engine. We would have to drive farther to get to the infirmary. But we were within walking distance of my dorm.

“I’ll take you to Grose,” he said. “You can change your clothes. Maybe get Julie to look at your head. If I take you back to the infirmary like this, Trina will have a fit.” He was distracted, raking his hair, glancing over his shoulder.

“What did you see?” I demanded. “You have to tell me.” I wanted to hear that he’d seen something—but I was afraid to know what it was. And I was afraid he’d have a breakdown, the way Shayna did. Tonight might be the only time we had to talk about it. I was desperate for help. We’d been so close to finding answers, and then he’d lost the bag.

He walked beside me, wheeling the scooter along rather than leaving it behind in the parking lot. He was panting and shivering. There was a cut over his right eye that I hadn’t noticed before. And he was muddy.

“I don’t know what I saw. It was what I
felt
.” He looked at the ground for a long time. “It was . . . horrible.” He grunted. “It’s the shits, you know? You get clean so you can face life head-on, like a man, and life throws this kind of crap at you.”

“What did you feel?” I pushed. He was falling apart. I had to know before he completely lost it.

Beneath the moon, he turned and looked at me, and his face floated in the darkness. His eyes were dark sockets. He looked like a ghost, and he scared me.

“I felt . . . I felt that if I didn’t leave there then, I would never leave,” he whispered. “I felt like I was . . . dead.” He shook. “God.”

I put my arms around him. His heart was pounding so fast I was afraid he would pass out. He hesitated, and then he put his arms around me. We clung to each other so hard I was afraid one of us would crack apart. I was holding Miles Winters. He cupped my head and leaned it against his chest. I heard his heart beating way too fast.

“I kept calling you,” I said. “I didn’t see you anywhere.”

“I fell into . . . I think it was a grave. It was full of mud and rocks, but I just knew . . . I thought I was lying on bones . . . ” He pressed his forehead against the top of my head.

Celia’s grave?
I thought.
The one I dreamed about?

Body parts?

“But why didn’t you answer me?” My voice was shrill.

“I didn’t hear you,” he replied. “I couldn’t hear anything. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, but I didn’t even hear myself.”

I couldn’t imagine how terrifying that must have been for him. Even thinking about it made my stomach clench and my knees wobble.

“That place was haunted,” he said. “Wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “It was . . . interesting. Fun. Ghostbusting. Another Miles and Mandy adventure. Until this.”

“Welcome to my world,” I said wanly.

He exhaled. “I need a cigarette. And a bottle.” He smirked. “And a hookah and a bong and stuff you’ve never even heard of, Snow White.”

“What happened to the messenger bag?” I asked him.

His smirk faded. “God, I screwed that up.”

“Yeah, you did.” I couldn’t help my deep, red fury. “Miles, we had the answers. And you just freaked out and . . . ”

“You freaked out too,” he accused. “Okay, you pissed me off. I have anger management issues.” He shook his head. “I sure could use that joint right now.”