Walking Among the Shadows: Awakening: Revised Edition (13 page)

“Okay, stop! This doesn’t
prove anything,” protested Brian. “Maybe the family is in too much pain to see
Steve lying there, so they want a closed casket. And what if the police said he
had a heart attack because that’s what happened. Ever thought about that? And
why would they keep this from us anyway? How can we keep ourselves out of
harm’s way if we have no idea that there is a serial killer on the loose?

“Aiden says this makes sense?
No, it makes no sense whatsoever!”

“It does!” Ronald yelled. “The
FBI wants to flush out the killer. They know that this kind of serial killer
usually has some kind of purpose or they feel like they are a tool for a higher
power. So they need their work to be known. They need their victims to be
identified as their victims and if they don’t get credit for their work they
begin to act out of character, which makes them easier to catch. So they
haven’t mentioned anything to prevent panic and to flush him out. There will be
FBI agents at the funeral just in case the killer shows.”

The mood in the room
immediately dropped from excitement to gloom. I could tell that the team began
to accept Ronald’s explanation. Even Brian dropped his head in submission. No
one wanted to admit that the story of Steve dying from a heart attack sounded
suspicious out of respect for his family and his memory, but it was definitely
hard to believe a seventeen-year-old healthy young man died from cardiac
arrest.

I was too busy trying to keep
Brian from cleaning Ronald’s clock and shutting him up that I hadn’t had time
to process what was revealed in the locker room. Was I responsible? Did I take
Steve’s life? But there was no sign of blood anywhere on me and that kind of
violence produces a huge amount of blood. But somehow I felt responsible and
once this new information got to Tony’s ears he would surely come forward. I
felt like I was on borrowed time, that soon my life would take a 360-degree
turn and the world that I knew would transform right before my eyes and I would
no longer see things the same way again. After listening to Ronald, I really
didn’t feel like being in the same room with Steve and the federal agents.

But if I didn’t show up it
would not reflect good on me, being that his death allowed me to start in his
place, and also I was out at the time of his murder. Murder, wow! To even let
that concept enter my mind was terrifying. I prayed I had nothing to do with
Steve’s death. Because without a shadow of a doubt I had no intentions of
turning myself in if I found out I did, and that thought sent chills down my
spine.

L
ater
that evening I found myself standing in the doorway of Steven Gray’s funeral
and the atmosphere was devastating. So much grief and pain filled the room; it
was difficult to breathe, like the grief everyone was feeling just sucked the
air and life right out of me. I knew right then I would not be here very long;
it was just way too weird. I scanned the room looking for any signs of possible
agents or plain clothes detectives. I needed to either confirm or disprove
Ronald’s story about a possible serial killer on the loose, and being that the
serial killer could be me I really needed to make sure.

Being in a family with a
strong military history gave me the keen eye to single out men and women of the
armed forces or public safety and it wasn’t too hard to spot them scattered
across the room. Stern looks and postures, always observing and calculating.
They seemed to look right through you instead of at you. Assessing the threat
level, they watched everyone and no one. I counted six agents and eight
detectives. Ronald was on point and I would never doubt him again. Their
presence made it even harder to remain here for long. I decided I would just
walk up to Steve’s family, say how sorry I was, pretend to look at the casket,
which was closed just like Ronald had predicted, and leave immediately. I
didn’t care who saw me, and if asked about my speedy departure I would simply
say I needed to prepare for tomorrow’s game to be at my best to honor Steven.
Actually, thinking about that excuse, I had to admit it was pretty good. I
could feel an evil smirk develop on my face at the thought of so many people
buying that lie and showing pride in me for making that sacrifice. It was all
bullshit, but only I knew that. I made my way through the crowded room of
mourners, speaking only if I was spoken to. I was in no mood for lengthy
conversations with anyone. I just wanted out of here ASAP.

I could feel all the agents’
and undercover cops’ attentions fixed on me. I may not be a suspect yet but I
definitely was a person of interest. It’s just rare that someone my age would
be a potential serial killer. I believe my age was the only reason they didn’t
aggressively pursue questioning me about my whereabouts that Friday night. With
Tony and I at odds with each other, and my memory lapse, I had no solid alibi.
Something these men could sniff out like feces in an outhouse. So my best bet
was to not draw attention to myself by letting on that I knew they were there
and watching me. I made sure to steer clear of direct eye-to-eye contact but
didn’t cower from looking in their directions from time to time.

While in line to give my
condolences to Steve’s family I noticed that the “suits” began moving closer to
me, not too close but their positions were definitely changed to a more
tactical point if anything strange were to happen. It was a strange and
terrifying thing to change from being an introverted teen with no real social
status to a starting running back potentially guilty of murdering his teammate
with a serial killer flair. Now I was on the radar of the local authorities and
the Feds.

Oh, what a difference a few
weeks can make.

After what seemed like an
eternity I found myself face-to-face with Steve’s mom. Steve was never really that
handsome of a guy and looking at his mom I could see why. To say her looks were
average would be insulting to average-looking people everywhere. She was
totally and hopelessly ugly, and looking at her now burdened with grief just
made it worse. Steve wasn’t a total loss like his mom, so I assumed his dad,
whom he never had a chance to meet, was a pretty decent-looking guy to run
interference from all that ugly Steve’s mom “hail married” downfield.

Steve had to be the by-product
of a drunken one-night stand between his mom and dad. After experiencing my
first night of drunken passion I could only imagine how that night went.
Steve’s dad had to be totally wasted, I mean deemed “medically retarded”-
wasted to consider bedding the wild beast before me. The hangover the next
morning was nothing compared to seeing the tequila-inspired beauty being
removed from Steve’s mom’s face, revealing God’s entire wrath. Her kind of ugly
should have been labeled a toxic waste. Because of his shortcomings in the
looks department, Steve vigorously pursued sports to gain attention and
popularity. He was a pretty good running back; but NFL-bound? I don’t think so.
A college scholarship maybe, at a good school with a decent football program,
but unless he increased his speed he would ride the pine for most of his
college career and return back home to momma; ugly ass momma. Maybe his murder
was an act of kindness to prevent him from waking up another day looking at
this modern art masterpiece.

I bet her cooking tasted ugly
too. Geez! He was really attached to her as well and he may have turned out to
be Deerfield’s own Norman Bates. Who knows?!

What is wrong with me?

I’ve never been this mean
before; I mean, yes, Steve’s mom was in fact ugly, but to rip on her like this
now in my mind while she grieved the loss of her only child? The gloomy and
mournful mood in the room was having a negative effect on me and I needed to
get out of there fast. It was hard looking her in the face, not because I
somehow felt responsible for her grief, and it wasn’t because I grieved with
her. Wrong again! She was just too damned ugly in my eyes and it made it
unbearable to look at her longer than ten seconds. She reached out her hand for
me to shake it. I caught myself pulling away from her touch. Somehow I felt
like touching her would allow a portion of her ugliness to rub off on me.

I was truly tripping out. I
touched her hand slightly, and quickly made a mental note to disinfect that
hand thoroughly when I got home before I touched my face. Yuck! I immediately
got in line to view the closed casket. I could feel myself getting impatient
now. I mean, really, who wants to look at a closed casket? I’m sure, like
Ronald said, Steve’s body wasn’t even in there. Finally, I was standing in
front of Steve’s casket. I wondered seriously if he was in there. I moved
closer to the casket to try and tap it a bit to see if a hollow sound would
come back at me. From the corner of my eyes I could see the “suits” moving
closer, waiting for me to give them a reason, any reason. I knew if I touched
the casket I would be whisked away immediately by the suits.

They made it clear while
entering the funeral home: Under no circumstances were we to touch the casket.
They figured the killer would want to confirm his work was done and would find
it impossible to resist touching the casket. So far they could be  on to
something because I felt an uncontrollable urge to tap the side of the casket
to see if it was occupied by perhaps my first victim among many others to come.
I moved closer still. I could see them tensing up, waiting to pounce on me any
moment now. The urge was building stronger and stronger. I didn’t feel like I
was in control of myself anymore. I was all rage, passion, desire, and lust. I
felt impulsive and dangerous. I couldn’t take it anymore.

To hell with it, I’m tapping
this casket now!

Just before I touched the
casket I felt a familiar presence beside me; it was Tony. I didn’t see him
anywhere when I walked in the room. Where did he come from? He stood there next
to me with his hands in his pockets without looking at me. He just stared ahead
and calmly said,

“What are the odds?”

And then he turned around and
walked out of the room. I quickly followed Tony outside to confront him. The
last thing I needed was for him to terrorize me day in and day out for his own
amusement. I had enough on my plate already. After navigating through the
crowded room, I finally made it outside and exhaled deeply and instantly
started feeling much better than I did a few moments ago. I looked around and
didn’t see Tony anywhere. I really needed to confront him, but if he wanted to
play this cloak-and-dagger game, he could…but by himself. I was not in the mood
for this right now. After looking for Tony a little longer I decided it was time
to go home. While I was searching around the funeral home property I noticed
several suits had begun posting up outside to monitor me.

They played “the smoker” role,
but I wasn’t convinced. I knew exactly why they were outside now and it had
nothing to do with a cigarette. I decided to head home before something else
weird happened.

I barely got any sleep that
night and got up extra early on Saturday. My nerves were all over the place and
I had no appetite whatsoever. Jason promised that he would come to my first
game with my mom and Sarah. For strange reasons that eluded me, the thought of
Jason being there kind of eased my worries about how I would do that day. I
decided not to give much thought to it then. I had a game in a few hours and
something inside me felt that how I did today would affect my life years down
the road.

This game was important to
everyone in Deerfield after the murder of one of our own and I would be the
center of attention because I was the one taking over his position. If I clucked
this up, I didn’t think I’d get another chance. Everything, and I mean
everything, was riding on this game. Most of the time when you are excited
about an event or a new experience, time moves like a snail trapped in crazy
glue. But because I was more terrified than excited, the day moved faster than
Governor Blago’s impeachment proceedings. One minute I was getting out of bed
and the next I was in the team’s locker room trying to listen to the coach’s
speech about winning and good sportsmanship. He kept going on about “how to be
a team player and show restraint when emotions get high on the field.”

All of which I thought was a
load of crap because all of our training consisted of us being aggressive and
not holding back on the field. “Hit them so hard you knock their helmets off!”
was his slogan during practice.

Now today before the season
opener and a game dedicated to a fallen teammate, he wanted us to play nice?
Yeah right! It was only for the cameras. We knew what he really meant. From the
locker room you could hear the roar of the crowd. The sound was amazing as it
seemed to vibrate the very air around us. The walk out on the field was
incredible—the crowd, the energy, the cheers. I felt at home. All the jitters
were gone now and the more they cheered and stomped, the stronger I felt. I
felt like I could crush the entire opposing team all by myself. I belonged here
and my only regret was that I hadn’t gotten here sooner. I started searching
the stands for my family, hoping I would see them cheering and smiling back at
me. Nothing, I couldn’t find them anywhere. They said they would be here and
maybe they were just running a little late; no matter though, nothing could
spoil the great mood I was in.

I should have kept that
thought in the back of my mind because just when the offense was about to take
the field, Jasmine suddenly appeared on the sidelines staring me down. I
immediately felt weak and every step I took felt like I had two five-hundred-
pound gorillas tied to my legs beating the crap out of my thighs. Then to add
to my troubles I started feeling faint. My God, no, not right now! The entire
field began to spin and I felt myself losing balance.

I can’t, I just can’t let her
do this to me.

All I got from her was the
same smirk she gave me in the lunchroom. God, I hated her. If this becomes a
disaster and I lose my spot on the team and we lose this game, my first order
of business will be to end her life. Because whatever she was, she wasn’t
human, and she was my enemy and had to go.

The next two quarters of
football was horrendous. I fumbled the ball constantly and rushed for only
fifteen yards. No matter what I did I couldn’t get out of the backfield. I
dropped easy passes and even assisted in an interception play by the other
team’s defense. The boos and taunts from the crowd was unbearable. But the
looks from the coach and team were worse. My mom and Sarah got there about five
minutes into the first quarter and they got to see my choke performance. I
talked about Steve not having a chance of a college or NFL career, but I
wouldn’t see a career past today. The mood in the locker room at half time was
rabid and all the anger was directed at me. The team wouldn’t even sit next to
me, and a few players made choking gestures towards me.

The score at halftime was 36
to 7 in favor of the away team. Highland Park High had a great team this year
so our chances of a comeback were slim to none. A lot of the people in the
stands started leaving during the half-time show and dedication to Steve.