I sucked on my lip and thought things over. “Do you know who Declan O’Shea is?”
“No. Is that Dex?”
“I’m not too sure,” I said honestly. In the recording that Creepy Clown Lady (or Pippa, as she introduced herself as) had left, she had told me to ask my parents who Declan O’Shea was. I did about a week after I arrived home, when I final y calmed down enough to talk without sobbing or punching things. I asked my father, anyway, since he has a greater memory and he’s a lot smarter than my mom. He seemed surprised that I asked but he said he had no idea.
Then of course he wanted to know why I was asking. I couldn’t very wel say “wel there’s this old lady who looks like a clown. I think she’s dead. Anyway, she said you’d know,” so I just said I had heard the name mentioned once and wasn’t sure if he was a friend of the family’s or not.
Regardless, Declan O’Shea was definitely not a friend of the family.
“I could ask Dex for you, if you want,” she said in a smal voice.
The thought of that made my heart race and a strange heat creep up the back of my neck.
“No, that’s OK. I’m sure it wasn’t important anyway. You know how ghosts are.”
“Sure…” she said uncertainly. Then she smiled. “I’m glad you’re doing OK, Perry. I real y am. I hope we’l meet again one day.”
I nodded absently as she gave me a short wave with her dainty fingers and left my room. I heard her go down the stairs and shut the front door behind her. Then the car started up noisily and seconds later, Rebecca was gone and out of my life again. Perhaps forever.
I sank to my knees and felt tiny prickles of moisture stinging the corners of my eyes.
I didn’t know how I felt, but I felt…alone.
“You need a friend?” Ada asked. I looked up. She was standing at the doorway, looking down at me with pity, or maybe it was affection. “And not a forced friend either.”
I smiled grateful y as Ada sat down on the ground beside me and enveloped me in a much-needed hug.
CHAPTER TWO
“Death! Death! It’s al about death! Satan inside, ripping out of my skin!” screamed the eyebrow-less lead singer for this metal band cal ed Eat the Goat or something like that.
I was standing in the far back of a gritty, jam-packed club with Ash, watching the band perform. It was the first act of the lineup and if it was any indication of the talent that was to fol ow, I needed to drink a lot more beer. I was only on my first one and it wasn’t making them sound any better.
“May I?” Ash asked me, holding out his hand for my drink. Though Ash had handsome features and was tal , lanky and carried himself with an air of maturity, he was stil only 20 and wasn’t al owed to buy any booze. So he pilfered mine most of the time. I didn’t mind, though. He’d been good to me so far.
“Sure,” I said, and handed him my cup, looking around the dark venue to see if any narcs were watching. Al I saw were headbanging bald guys in denim vests and cargo shorts.
Ash took a big sip, relishing it with a smile. Draft beer in plastic cups tasted a lot better when you were underage.
He handed it back to me considerably emptier and said, “I thought with a name like Eat the Goat, these guys would be hel of a lot better. They are pretty gnarly.”
“Gnarly as in good?”
“Gnarly as in terrible. Sorry for dragging you out here.”
I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Thanks for inviting me.
Though, I would have thought the rest of the crew would have showed up.”
The lead singer went into a piercing wail, giving Jim Gil ette a run for his money. I put my free hand over my ear.
“Mikeala is closing tonight,” Ash shouted over the noise, which was somehow increasing, “and everyone else was smart enough to stay away. You’re real y my only friend who likes this type of music!”
I snorted. “I don’t like thi s type of music. I like good music.”
We turned our attention back to the stage as the guitarist blasted out a generic solo.
“What did you do today, anyway?” he asked conversational y, eying my beer like a hungry dog. I took a sip and handed it to him again.
“Not much. I went for a jog. Then ran into someone I didn’t want to see.”
“Ooooh,” he said with wag of his eyebrows.
“She’s a girl.”
“Ooooooooh.”
“No, she has a girlfriend.”
“Triple ooooh!”
I laughed and punched Ash in his arm, causing the beer I laughed and punched Ash in his arm, causing the beer to spil out sideways and onto his skate shoes. He looked down with acute disappointment, probably more for his lost beer than his shoes.
“Wel , I guess that’s a sign to get another one,” I said, and turned to make my way to the bar.
His face lit up. “Get two this time!”
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved at him and walked over to the bar near the side. With the concrete floors and the bar, which consisted of fold-up tables and drinks kept in camping coolers, the whole venue had this “let’s throw a party in my parents’ basement” kind of vibe.
Of course, when the music is bad, the drink line is longer. There were five people in front of me and the ordering was going slow. I tapped my combat boots impatiently and was adjusting my Mastodon shirt when the dread-locked girl in front of me turned around and gave me the eye.
“Nice shirt,” she said. I couldn’t tel if she was being sarcastic or not. Her voice was very low, almost manly. Her eyes were red.
Not because she’d been crying but her actual irises were red.
She was wearing vibrant red contacts with streaks of gold in them. They were beautiful but deadly-looking and sent a shiver down the back of my spine.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice trembling slightly. I was suddenly very afraid and I didn’t know why. They were contacts, right?
She smiled, her red lips spreading slowly, until I saw al of her teeth.
Her very misshapen, sharp, dagger-like teeth.
Aside from the lipstick, she had the exact grin of a shark.
My eyes widened. A stabbing feeling erupted from my stomach.
She continued smiling. A whiff of that foul, rotten smel that plagued the Port-Town bathroom came back and swirled around her, creating a wave of nausea throughout my body.
Then she took her eyes off of me, looked past my shoulder and smiled again. A tal , beefy man with long hair and a pentagram shirt walked up to her and put his arm around her shoulder.
“Hey babe,” he said. “Stil wating?”