CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Who’s your friend here?”
I turned my head and looked over at Tara, who was sidling up to Angus, her lanky arms hanging at her sides, unsure of what to do with them. The party was absolutely packed with people, some I recognized from class, some a bit older, maybe college-aged. The air in the house was filled with clouds of pot and tobacco smoke, music was blaring from three different rooms and beer and hard liquor was being spilled in all directions.
Tara pointed at me and asked Angus, “Her? That’s my friend Perry. I thought you two were in the same math class.”
I sighed internally and walked over to them. I gave Angus a shy smile. He was cute but not my type. “No, it’s the same biology class.”
Angus nodded quickly, thinking it over. A flash of recognition came across his freckled face. “Ah, right, Perry. You sit at the back with the Asian dude.”
Actually there were several “Asian dudes” in our class but my partner was Andy Lao.
“Listen, I better go find Adrianna. I think there are some people who shouldn’t be here.” Angus patted Tara on the shoulder and disappeared into the crowd.
She exhaled all dramatically and threw her hands up in the air. “I can never win.”
“Oh come on,” I said. “Just forget about him. You know he’s with Adrianna. Go find someone else.”
Tara shook her head angrily. “Easy for you to say. You don’t have anyone and you don’t care about anyone.”
I was a bit shocked at that. Tara made a disgusted noise and then took off into the crowd, going the same way Angus went.
Well that sucked. What did she mean, I didn’t have anyone? I had…well, her. And I had…and what about me not caring about anyone.
I looked around me awkwardly, feeling like I stood out like a sore thumb in this place. Of course, no one was paying attention to me at all. They never did.
I chugged back the rest of my beer that Tara had stolen for me from the fridge and then made my way to the back of the house, squeezing through people, too many of whom couldn’t handle their alcohol.
It wasn’t any better outside. The air was crisp but a few people were puking here and there. Mrs. Gee’s garden was going to be totally obliterated by teenage vomit come morning.
I walked out away from the noise and smell and around the side of the house. I wanted to be alone, needed time to get a hold of my heart, which was racing. I had done a line of coke in the bathroom earlier and it was already wearing off. I didn’t have any more, so I brought out another joint and lit that, taking in a deep breath and slowly exhaling it while keeping my cough to a minimum. My lungs were so used to it now, and this strain was surprisingly gentle to me. Potent as hell though, which is why I liked it.
“Perry,” I heard someone whisper.
I sprang up from the fence I was leaning against and grabbed at my pounding chest. I couldn’t see anyone in the shadows where the motion detector light didn’t reach, but eventually I heard a shuffling noise and Jacob stepped out in front of me.
The tips of his inky Mohawk sparkled in the light. He was looking unusually pale. The bandages around his wrists were gone and what remained were two vicious looking red welts. Whatever he had used to attempt suicide with must have been jagged in nature. It made me feel sick.
“I need your help Perry,” he said.
“Jacob, what are you doing here?” I asked, trying not to sound frightened. He had been so obsessive with me lately, the way he followed me around when people weren’t looking, that it was starting to freak me out. And now, he was here, at this party that he wouldn’t have been invited to.
“My girl is in there,” he said. His voice sounded strange and metallic. He nodded at the house. “Adrianna. I’ve come to free her. And help you.”
“First of all, Adrianna is not your girl. She’s with Angus. I’m sure you can go plan a line of attack with my friend Tara, she’d be happy to take him off your hands, but for now, those two are a couple. Get the net. And, help me…help me with what?”
I took a smaller toke of my joint and offered it to him. He shook his head and pushed my hand away.
“Listen to me, Perry,” he said. He stepped closer to me, cornering me up against the fence, and suddenly I was totally afraid. “We have a job to do tonight.”
“We?” I asked, my voice stammering. I shrank back as far as I could go.
“I need to show you some things. Because you obviously don’t see them, do you?”
I shook my head, not understanding anything at all. It wasn’t the pot. What he was saying made no sense.
He raised his arm and pointed over at the back yard. A couple were in the middle of it, making out on the grass.
“Do you see it?”
I squinted. “See what? The couple about to hump each other?”
“No. Beyond them. Do you see that shimmer?”
I squinted again. I didn’t see anything.
“Relax your eyes. Like a Magic Eye painting.”
He placed one of his cold fingers and laid it on my temple. The temperature jarred me and I was conscious of having his mangled wrist so close to my face. I could almost…smell it. It smelled like death.
“Try again,” he continued.
I took in a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the space beyond the couple, on this shimmer. I didn’t see anything but a dark lawn and the outline of the wooden fence against the passing clouds.
“No, Jacob, I…”
But I stopped in mid-sentence.
There was something. Something sort of in between where the couple lied and where the fence was. It was a shimmer, like a mirage in the desert, or heat lines. It radiated from the ground straight up into the sky. It didn’t take up all of the yard, but it was there, and the more I stared at it, the more it was all I could see. My eyes were locked.
“What is that?” I whispered. Was the house on like a leaking gas line or something? That thought filled me with panic.
“That…is where I come from,” Jacob said.
I turned my head and looked at him, unable to process that properly. “What?”
He lowered his head and stared at me with his eyes. I watched them, mesmerized, as they turned from brown to bright red, like unripe cherries. “That’s where the rest of them will come from too. Tonight. The demons.”
Demons? That’s it, I’m quitting drugs first thing in the morning, I thought. Then I slumped to my knees and passed out at Jacob’s feet.