Rising (25 page)

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Do you have a hot date tonight?”

Ugh.
 
Who says that?

“I don’t mind you having a date,”
chimed in Dad, “but I don’t want to hear the word ‘hot’ mentioned in any
reference to an outing with a boy.”

He was so overly protective.
 
Geez.

“It’s not a date, Mom.
 
Well, not really.
 
I’m riding with Jessie to the BCHS football
game.
 
We’re meeting Gabe and some other
friends.”

“Oh, Gabe?” Dad said, his voice perking
up a bit.

“Yeah, Dad.
 
Remember Gabe, the guy I’ve been dating for a
little while now.”

A horn honked in the driveway.
 
I plopped Misty on the sofa and headed out
the door.

“Have fun, dear,” Mom crooned, primping
herself in the mirror.

No telling what social event she was
headed out to tonight.

Jessie’s hair was mostly black now with
several chunks of fuchsia streaking over the right side of her face.
 
When we were little kids, her hair was light
brown, but I hadn’t seen that Jessie in a long time.
 
It actually looked pretty with her violet
aura hovering over her head.
 
Her faded
jeans were ripped at the knee and her neon green t-shirt read in all caps “I
DARE YOU TO STARE.”
 
Jessie wasn’t really
scary or depressed or anything.
 
She was
just incredibly independent.
 
If I could
imagine anyone in the world who didn’t need another human soul, that would be
Jessie.
 
At least, that’s the impression
I got from her.
 
Even as kids, she
preferred to suntan alone rather than play in pool games with our other
cousins.
 
That’s why it was a little
weird for her to want to come along to a football game.
 
I had no idea how she regularly spent her
Friday nights.

“We’ve
gotta
swing by and pick up Mel, too,” she said when I hopped in.

“Cool.”

We wound our way out of the
neighborhood in silence.
 
Then she
started a conversation I definitely did not expect.

“So,” she said in that ultra-casual way
that wasn’t casual at all, “you and Gabe are a thing now.”

She didn’t say it like a question.

“Yeah, I guess we are.”

I couldn’t hide the small smile that
came to my lips.

“Well, I can’t imagine anyone else I’d
want him to be with.”

Okay.
 
Anyone else, other than you?
 
I
really didn’t know what to say.
 
Jessie
and I had never exactly been best friends, but we always had a decent,
comfortable friendship.
 
This was so not
comfortable.

“He’s a good guy,” she continued.

“Yeah, I know.”

“No, I mean, he’s a really good guy,
not like what you’d expect from someone like him.”

“What do you mean?
 
Someone like him how?”

“You know, guys who are that good
looking are usually such . . .”

She seemed to be at a loss for the
right word.

“Jerks?” I suggested.

“Egotistical, vainglorious,
narcissistic dweebs.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. That about sums it up.”

“Gabe’s not judgmental about people.”

Ohhhhh
, and therein
lies the attraction.
 
Jessie spent her
whole life scaring off people with her super-tough exterior, and Gabe was one
of the few she’d consider dating who never judged her.
 
If I know him at all, he probably tried his
best to make her feel included.
 
That’s
just how he was.
 
I wondered if that was
because he always felt different on the inside, even though no one could ever
see it on the surface.
 
She didn’t seem
resentful of me for dating Gabe, so she must be over him by now.
 
I debated whether to tell her she had an
admirer, decided not to, then decided to go ahead anyway.

“You know, Jessie.
 
I just found out today that there’s a very
interesting boy who has his eyes on you.”

Her eyes flicked in my direction as she
made a right turn onto a country road with only a few houses.

“Yeah?
 
Who’s that?”

“Jeremy Kaufman,” I said casually.

“Jeremy Kaufman?” she asked, wracking
her memory.
 
“The metal head?”

“Yeah,” I said giggling.
 
“I think you ought to give him a chance.
 
He’s very unique.”

“Unique, huh.
 
Like me?”

“Well, not exactly like you, but I
definitely think you’d have interesting conversations.”

“
Hmph
,” she
said as we pulled up a shell drive-way on the outskirts of town.

I stared at the two rocking chairs on
the front porch.
 
One was more used than
the other.
 
It only took a few seconds
before Melanie came out to meet us.
 
She
was dressed conservatively as always—khaki pants and a white cardigan sweater
over a blue tank.
 
I thought we were
quite the trio.
 
We didn’t look like we
belonged together, but it definitely felt like we did.
 
Mel’s presence was always soothing, even when
she was picking a fight with Ben.
 
I
thought she downplayed her beauty too much.
 
She had that flawless Creole skin and pretty almond eyes that were
usually hidden behind her reading glasses.
 
She had soft, wavy hair that she always smoothed into a ponytail that
dropped just below her shoulders.
 
Tonight was no exception.

“Hello, everyone,” she said.

I thought it funny how she always
sounded so proper, even when she was trying to be casual.

“Hey, Mel,” said Jessie, pealing out
backwards down the driveway.

“Hey! Slow down, Jessie! You’ll give my
Gram a heart attack right in her living room.”

“Sorry, Mel, but my mom’s got a
Hemi.
 
I’m not used to it.”

“Your
mom’s
got a Hemi?” she asked.

After about ten seconds of tension, we
all started laughing.
 
It seemed funny,
but fitting somehow, that the three of us were piled into a very manly
vehicle.
 
My Aunt Vanessa had never been
one for conformity.
 
I suppose that’s
where Jessie got it all.

The boys were conveniently pulling into
the back parking lot near the stadium at the same time we were.
 
I saw Gabe’s Jeep veer into the last parking
spot on the third row.
 
We followed and
found a spot close by.

Gabe, Ben, Zack, and Jeremy met us in
the drive as we piled out of the Durango.
 
It was mostly dark with just a few streetlights, but it didn’t keep me
from noticing how good Gabe looked.
 
He
was wearing just some plain jeans and a black t-shirt, but it accented all the
best parts of him.
 
As I got closer, I
saw how his eyes flickered up and down my body with that tilted smile lingering
on his lips.
 
How I wished he wouldn’t do
that.
 
My stomach started flip-flopping
around again.
 
We didn’t say anything at
first, but he intertwined his fingers through my left hand as soon as I was
close enough.

“What?” I asked as casually as I could
manage.

“You know what,” he said, taking a deep
breath and brushing a light kiss on my cheek.
 
“Let’s go.”

The rest of our group had already
started walking a little ahead of us.
 
Ben seemed sullen, which was not like him at all.

“Did you talk to Ben?”

“Yeah,” said Gabe, pausing a
minute.
 
“He’s just in sort of a state of
shock.
 
He looked at me like I’d gone
insane when I asked if he knew what sixth sense he had.
 
If he has one, he apparently doesn’t know
about it.”

I noticed that Jeremy had sidled in
next to Jessie.
 
I also noticed something
else very peculiar about him tonight.

“Hey, Jeremy!
 
Where’s your iPod?” I asked.

“Oh, I decided to leave it at home
tonight,” he called over his shoulder then resumed his conversation with
Jessie.

I gave Gabe my raised-eyebrows
look.
 
He chuckled.

“I know,” he said.

I had to admit.
 
From where I was, they looked kind of cute
together.
 
Jeremy was at least a foot
taller than her, but they both had the same gangly walk and lop-sided black
hair.
 
Well, at least there was no
fuchsia in Jeremy’s hair, but his aura certainly was tonight.
 
How weird is that.
 
They matched.

The stadium lights burned brightly and
the bands were in full swing, banging their drums and exciting the crowds to
cheer.
 
There were still tons of people
mingling outside and inside the gates.
 
Like any small town, a Friday night football game was a regular social
event.
 
It seemed like everyone in a
twenty-mile radius got all dressed up and piled into the bleachers for the
occasion.
 
We passed through the gate
quickly, showing our school
i.d.’s
.
 
I was feeling on top of the world.
 
It was a beautiful night out with all my
friends and Gabe was holding my hand, standing wonderfully near me.
 
Then, in a heartbeat, the perfection
shattered like a devastating mirage.
 
Fear stiffened my body to the spot.

“What is it?” Gabe asked, suddenly very
close to me.

I couldn’t believe what I was
seeing.
 
It was a living nightmare
whirling in front of me in and out of the crowds.
 
Black shapes with evil, yellow eyes.

“Shadow people,” I whispered as if they
might hear me.

“Where?” asked Gabe, his voice low and
deep.
 
“Where are they?”

“Everywhere,” I gasped, “They’re
everywhere.”

10

GABE

         
Clara
shrank into me, facing the milling crowd.
 
It was an eerie moment.
 
There was
a sea of faces in blithe oblivion—smiling in conversation, laughing at friends’
jokes, shouting excitedly at the football field.
 
Along the edge of this façade, I could feel a
menacing presence slithering around us like a breath of icy wind.

         
“I
can’t see them, but I know they’re there,” I said, still holding onto Clara’s
hand which was clinching mine too tightly.
 
“What are they doing?”

         
I
thought for a minute that she didn’t hear me, then she whispered back to me.

         
“It’s
like they’re just watching and listening to people.”

         
“Do
they see you?”

         
“Not
yet.”

         
“Man,
I feel better.
 
I was starving,” said
Ben, walking up behind us, stuffing cheesy nachos into his mouth.
 
“Y’all
waitin
’ for
me?”

         
The
rest of our group had stopped at the base of the bleachers.
 
Mel and Zack were quietly observing Jeremy
while he gestured intensely about something.
 
Jessie was listening with something like a smile on her face.
 
No one could see or sense the company of
intruders circling them, except for Clara and me.

         
“Come
on,” said Ben, urging us toward the others.

         
“What
should we do?” asked Clara, her breath short and quick.

         
“Just
act normal.
 
Tell me what’s going on, and
stay close to me.”

         
I
could hear the tension in my voice.
 
Ben
had bounded ahead of us, joining the others.
 
We moved closer.
 
Mel and Zack
were now leaning against the chain-link fence.
 
Zack was pointing out to the field, obviously to Mark.
 
Ben moved up beside Mel, offering her a
nacho.
 
She shook her head.
 
He continued to chomp away, bobbing his head
to our band’s rendition of “Doctor Who.”
 
Jeremy was absorbed in a conversation with Jessie as we moved up beside
them.