The Ghost and the Goth

Dad? This nasty black cloud thing was Killian’s father? On one hand, that made sense. I could maybe see now why Killian was so messed up. On the other … damn, I thought I had problems at home.

At the sound of Killian’s voice, the mass of black smoke rose up and launched itself toward him. Unfortunately, it had to pass through me to reach him. Cold air rushed over me, like tiny slivers of metal slicing open my skin.

I screamed and tried to curl into myself, only to find I’d disappeared, again, from the waist down. Twisting my head around, I managed to catch one last glimpse of Killian. He shoved Joonie out of the way and stood there, pale and resolute, just watching this … thing rush at him.

It engulfed him and threw him hard to the left into the lockers. Killian’s head bounced off the metal with a sickeningly loud clunk. He slid to the floor, his eyes closed, and his body motionless.

So much for Plan A. I wondered if Killian would still be able to help me if he were dead. Surely, even dead he would have more knowledge than the average …

The now familiar tingling sensation rose up through my neck and into my face. I sighed. Here we go …

… Again.

I woke abruptly, expecting to feel the gravel biting into my shoulder blades once more. Instead, I found myself sitting in the backseat of an unfamiliar car that seemed to be traveling at excessive speed and taking corners a little too fast for even my comfort.

What was going on? First, the whole disappearing thing, and now a different location? I did not like this. Did the first four days of my afterlife experience mean nothing?

Not that I was complaining too much. Waking up in a car was more comfortable, at least, than waking up in the road. Whether it was better depended on whether I would die — again or more? — if we crashed. We were coming around the front of the school on Elm Street (I know, right?), just passing the turn for Henderson, where I’d died. Elm veered right sharply, to avoid cutting through St. Paul’s Cemetery, and people were forever missing the curve and cracking into the light pole. “Hey, you want to slow it down?” I shouted at the dark-haired driver, whose face I couldn’t see.

To my surprise, the driver turned slightly at the sound of my voice, revealing her identity. Killian’s friend, Joonie. Or, the High Priestess of Pain, as I liked to call her. She wears safety pins in her face for heaven’s sake.

“Will, you doing okay back there?” she asked, sounding nervous.

Killian? Aware suddenly of a warm weight pressing against my lap, I looked down. Hey, my shoes and socks were back … and Killian’s head was resting on my legs! His hair was softer than I would have thought … and I could feel it. That was weird.

“Ew.” I shoved at his shoulders and actually made contact. My hand touched his sweatshirt, and I could feel the heat and solidness of his body beneath it. Well, that explained how those other ghosts were hanging on him. Something was definitely weird about Killian, and it wasn’t just his obsession with the Walmart sale bin (or wherever he bought his clothes).

Pushing at him didn’t do much good, though. Just made his head loll away from me. He was completely out of it, his body limp. A large red bump had risen on the side of his head, one I could see even through his dark hair. That couldn’t be good.

“Will?” Joonie called again.

A horn blared, and with a muffled curse, she spun around to face forward again.

Oh, my God, I knew exactly where I was now. I was riding in the Death Bug. Joonie Travis had taken a cute little VW Beetle, one of the old ones, and painted it black except for the white skull and crossbones she’d spray- painted on the door panels. Say it with me: FREAK. Right? I mean, how twisted do you have to be to take something so happy and turn it into something so gross and goth? I thought longingly of my graduation present, a silver VW Eos convertible, sitting in my dad’s driveway, waiting for me to come back for a drive. I frowned. Unless my dad had sold it already …

“You want to wake up again and tell me exactly why I’m not taking you to the hospital?” Joonie called over her shoulder, without turning around again, thank God. If she’d paid enough attention, she would have seen that Killian’s head appeared to be floating a few inches above the seat rather than resting on it — at least from her perspective.

Will did not respond. His head remained on my thigh, his left shoulder nuzzled right up next to my hip. I wondered, for a brief second, whether I’d been here, though not aware yet, when he’d decided on this arrangement, or whether he’d simply fallen into this position and I’d rematerialized underneath him, just by chance.

Huh. Seemed an awful lot to put on chance. “Killian, get up.” I reached over his chest and shook his shoulder. “Despite all the brain cells you must have burned up, your head is really heavy and it’s putting my leg to sleep.”

Plus, it was making me a little uncomfortable. His head in my lap suggested an intimacy that I hadn’t even shared with Chris. The thought of Chris, sudden in its attack, made it hard for me to breathe for a second. No, I hadn’t been planning to marry him or anything. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t ever planned on marrying anyone. I’d witnessed the fallout from my parents’ divorce at close range, and I’d have sooner … well, died, than go through that myself. But still, Chris had been mine, you know? Yeah, he’d talked about wrestling way too much and seemed happiest when I wasn’t talking at all, but still. I’d miss some things about him. The smoothness of the back of his neck under my fingertips, the way he always chewed gum before kissing me so that he would taste all minty and fresh … Tears welled up in my eyes. None of that belonged to me anymore. He was Misty’s now, that evil slut.

I sat up straight, jostling Killian’s head in my lap. Had she promised him sex? Is that what this was all about?

Killian groaned, turning himself in the seat until he was on his side … with his hand tucked under my knee!

“In your dreams.” I slapped at his shoulder.

“If you don’t talk to me, I’m taking you to the hospital and calling your mom,” Joonie threatened.

Whether it was the effect of my actions or Joonie’s words, I didn’t know, but he seemed to wake up a little then. He left his hand behind my knee but rolled his head back to look up at me with a dopey smile, his eyes half glazed. “No hospital. Home, please.” He was slurring worse than a freshman left in Ben Rogers’s tender care. Lovely. He’d be all kinds of help in this condition.

His eyes drifted shut again almost immediately, and his body went limp … again. And his head was STILL in my lap.

In the front seat, Joonie relaxed, letting out her breath in a loud rush. “You were starting to scare me there.”

Um, starting to?

“You were talking to people who weren’t there … again,” she said with a shaky laugh. “Anyone we know?” Her gaze flicked to the rearview mirror as though she were expecting him to sit up and have a chat; desperation flashed through her eyes. “Will? Are you awake?”

“Yes, he’s just doing a lot of intense staring at the back of his eyelids,” I muttered.

“Dammit,” she said.

I sighed. “Chill out, psycho. If you’re not going to take him to the hospital — which is probably not the brightest choice you’ve ever made, but then again you’re wearing deliberately shredded tights, so whatever — can you please take him home where he might have a chance of waking up and helping me? Seriously, I’m having, like, the worst day.”

As if she’d heard me, Joonie turned the Death Bug off the main drag in Groundsboro — called, believe it or not, Main Street — and back into the neighborhood behind the post office. Little boxy houses with even tinier lawns lined both sides of the street.

I’d been in this neighborhood before. Ilsa, our cleaning lady, used to live over here, and a long time ago, before the divorce, my mother would drop me off to play with Ilsa’s daughter when my dad was on a “business trip” and she needed “an afternoon.” A “business trip” translated to a weekend away with Gigi, his assistant then and his wife now. “An afternoon” meant a little quality time with Jim, Jack, and Smirnoff. Sometimes I felt I lived my whole