They had left their vehicles about a quarter mile down in a deserted turnoff, a two-tire trail worn into the knee-high grass. They had to climb over a barbed-wire fence to enter the forest. The trek was only the first test of the night but Dawson thought it revealed quite a lot about tonight’s guests. How they maneuvered and crawled over the sharp barbs showed just how capable they were. Whether they turned to help the next person get over or under the fence or if instead, they looked for assistance. Or worse, expected assistance.
That was another thing about Dawson that made him different from other kids his age. He liked watching how people reacted to each other, to their surroundings, and especially to the unpredictable. His generation had become mindless zombies, mimicking and copying each other, caught up in their own little worlds of what is rather than what if. That was probably what interested him most about Johnny’s experiments.
There were only seven of them here tonight and yet they still grouped together in their cliques. Johnny was surrounded by the babes, Courtney and Amanda. Tonight even Nikki had inserted herself into the cool clique, which disappointed Dawson. He had hopes that Nikki would be better than that. All three girls looked like they were hanging on every one of Johnny’s words, laughing and tossing their hair back then tilting their chins in that way girls do to show their interest.
That was okay. Johnny was good at looking like it was his club, his party. Quarterback, homecoming king, he was charming but with just enough of a badass attitude that nobody challenged him. Being Johnny’s friend was safer than being someone who annoyed him.
Dawson wasn’t quite sure why Johnny wanted the Taser. He didn’t need it. Johnny exuded confidence, even in those silly cowboy boots. Kids called him Johnny B and it was the coolest nickname. Dawson had even heard Mr. Bosh call out “Johnny be good” at one of the football games and then the man laughed like he expected just the opposite from his son and that it was perfectly okay with him.
The first flash of light came without a sound. Everyone turned but only briefly.
The second flash crackled overhead. Dawson thought it might be lightning but it blurred into blue and purple veins that spread over the treetops like a crack in the twilight sky.
Dawson heard “oohs” and “aahs,” and smiled to himself. They’re tripping out, enjoying the fireworks. He probably was, too.
He hadn’t used salvia before but Johnny B said it was better than anything from the family medicine cabinet and way more potent than regular weed. Johnny said it was like “rock-’n’-roll fireworks squeezing your brain, convincing you that you could fly.”
Dawson thought the stuff looked harmless. Green, the color of sage, with wide leaves and similar to something he’d find in his mom’s old flower beds.
God, he missed his mom.
Dawson squashed some more of the plant into a tight wad and stuck it into his mouth between his gum and cheek like chewing tobacco, no longer wincing at the bitter flavor.
Johnny had called the plant “Sally-D” and told them that the Indians used it for healing. “It’ll clear your sinuses, clean out your guts, soothe your aches, and erase the static in your brain.”
However, he also sounded this excited last week when he had them all snort the OxyContin he’d crushed into fine particles. He had been able to confiscate only two of the pills from his mom’s medicine cabinet so the effects—when crushed and spread out among a dozen kids—didn’t quite live up to Johnny’s promises. But here he was, once again, sounding like an infomercial, working his magic and getting them to give the new drug a try in the hopes of feeling good and being cool.
Less than a minute after Dawson’s second hit he felt light-headed, a pleasant mind-tickling buzz that disconnected him from the others as he watched them stumble and laugh and point at the sky. It was like he was watching from another room, in slow motion from a faraway galaxy right outside his bedroom window.
There was a deep bass rhythm pounding, pounding, pounding at the base of his skull. Tree branches started to sway. Their trunks multiplied, by twos then threes.
That’s when he saw the red eyes.
They were hidden in the bush, back behind Kyle and Trevor, right behind Amanda.
Fiery dots watched, darting back and forth.
How could the others not see this creature?
Dawson opened his mouth to warn them but no sound came out. He lifted his arm to point but he didn’t recognize his hand, yellow and green, almost fluorescent in the flashing strobe light that came out of the treetops. Waves of purple and blue crackled through the branches.
That’s when Dawson first smelled the heat. Almost like someone had left on a hot iron for too long. Then suddenly the smell was stronger, reminding him of scorched hot dogs on an open campfire—black, crispy, burned meat. Then he remembered they hadn’t brought any food.
The sensation started as a tingle. Static electricity traveled the airwaves. The others felt it, too. They weren’t “oohing” and “aahing” anymore. Instead, they stumbled, heads tilted upward, searching the treetops.