In the end there was silence, as all parties tried to digest the information, even Xander himself.
After the silence became too much for her to bear, Cathy sighed and walked over to Xander, once again placing her hand on the side of his face to force him to look at her. This time he did not turn away or object in any way, her touch sending a tingle through his oily black form. She traced his large eyes with her fingertips, looking deep into them. Really looked. Past the liquid hatred that covered him, somehow cutting through it all and getting past it unscathed. She squinted and bit her lip as she found what she was looking for, smiling. “It’s really you in there, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,”he replied.“Somewhere.”
That night, Reverend Robert Gallagher lit over forty candles in the Apostle Church, one for every life lost in the massacres. Their flames flickered, making shadows like ghosts against the stained glass visages of the saints. The darkness flowed back and forth over their faces like masks, making them laugh and scowl and cry in turn. He closed his eyes, and let the voices of the dead wash over him.
Suddenly, he opened them again.
He picked up his coffee and walked over to the window that overlooked the graveyard. He saw Xander out at a grave he recognized as belonging to Sara Johnson, just standing there.
“You will find peace, my son,” he whispered softly, glancing at the steam which rose hauntingly from his cup. He sat there, watching Xander keep a silent vigil over Sara’s grave, for a long, long time.
CHAPTER TWO:
PICTURES
Mike wrapped his hand around the cold stainless steel knob of Coral Beach High School’s front entrance and stepped inside, feeling as though it had been years since he was last there. The head of his tall frame brushed across the top of the door as he entered, dislocating several strands of his short blonde hair. He carefully patted them back into place, more out of habit than vanity. His green t-shirt itched, so he scratched it as he looked throughout the assembled students crowded around their individual lockers. Their eyes struggled to avoid him, and failed. They stared at him, like he was some kind of freak. As though he’d done something wrong, narked out on them or some other crime punishable by loner-status.
Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew that it was just his imagination. A little stray madness left over from the past few weeks, during which there had seemed to be no shortage. His sideways grin slowly returned to him, and he continued strutting down the halls the way all his Language and Lit teachers hated. He walked to his locker, number three eighty-seven, and took a moment to appreciate the gaudy orange and green sunflower sticker that Cathy had stuck there months ago. It was faded now, almost white in places, but it still caught his eye every time he went there. He opened the locker and the picture that was taped lazily at all four corners smiled back at him from inside the door. It was him, Cathy, Xander and Sara out at Coral Cove. The four of them had gone out. Grendel had been there too and had gotten completely wasted in front of everyone, somehow managing to break his ankle jumping off a small rock.
Sara had laughed at that.
Sara who was dead, now.
Sara, whom Xander had killed.
Mike pursed his lips tightly. He wasn’t taking to that idea as well as Cathy had.
He shuddered at the thought of that thing that Xander had transformed into, what it had looked like. As if everything he’d ever had a nightmare about had been boiled down in a vat of hatred and bubbled onto his body from inside of him. Mike shut his eyes tight and braced himself, gripping the sharp metal of the locker door. He kept his eyes closed until painful little dots started piercing their way through his eyelids. He clamped his teeth until they made a sound like nooks of wood grinding against one another and clenched a fist until his knuckles were white with spots of burst red blood cells showing through. His breathing got hard as sweat started rolling down his face, making it glisten under the fluorescent lighting. He opened his eyes, only to find that his vision had become blurry -- fuzzy around the edges. He reached out and grabbed his Physics book, his fingers spread wide enough that he would catch it even if he had misjudged the distance. As soon as he moved, pain shot up his side, erupting up through his spinal cord and burning a hole in the back of his brain. His vision shook, as if he was the only thing on the planet that was standing still. He put the book back down and let his arm flop to his side unceremoniously. The pain slowed, decreasing from a streaming rapid to a small trickle that pumped into his mind with every beat of his heart. His ears were ringing so much so that all he could hear above it was the sound of his own heavy, labored breathing.
“What’s up?” came a whiney falsetto voice. Its bearer slammed the locker door shut, nearly chopping Mike’s fingers off in the process.
Mike watched the small dial on the combination lock snap back to zero as it bounced against the cold steel under the force of motion. He didn’t have to look to see who it was. There were
