After that, over the years we talked about most things. Not as much as me and Logan, because Jonas lived on the other side of town. But we did stuff in school together—Jonas liked to play guitar, and so did I, though we both knew we would never reach rock-god status. We loved acting in school productions and shared a loathing of II Duce, Dr. Valenti.
And then, when he reached sixteen there was Jonas and his Harley Dyna—this monster accessory obviously made him super cool. He rode it without a helmet, his fair hair caught by the wind, his face and bare arms a golden brown. He would drive it hard up into the mountains, making that engine roar.
“Look what I found,” I said, trying to ignore the angel-wing tattoo, which now I’d spotted, I couldn’t miss, as if my eyes were constantly drawn towards it. I pulled the Harley buckle from my pocket and held it in the palm of my hand. “It was on the barn floor. I guess it belongs to you.”
Jonas took it and turned it over, running one finger over the silver skull and the wording of the logo. “You keep it,” he told me, handing it back. “A thing to remember me by.”
“Why so sad?” I asked him. “We’re already moving towards some answers about the crash. Zoey told me that Charlie Fortune fixed the brakes on your bike.”
“That’s true, he did.”
“I think we should check it out.”
“Maybe. But remember the cops would go over stuff like that. Bad brakes would be an obvious thing for them to look for.”
I nodded. “Could they have been OK for a while after Charlie did the work, then suddenly not OK? Then OK again when the cops examined them.”
“An intermittent fault?”
“That’s the word—intermittent.”
“You can check it with Charlie,” Jonas decided. He got out of the car to stretch his legs and I joined him. We gazed at the lake and the mountain range beyond. “This is the first chance for me to say thanks, Darina,” he murmured.
“No problem.”
“You’re risking a lot.”
“And I’ve got a lot to gain, remember.”
Jonas turned to me. “Twelve months with Phoenix, huh?”
Weird—I skipped the time reference here and went right back in to Jonas’ situation. “So, after you dissolve and disappear or whatever it is you do, I’ll drive over to Charlie Fortune’s place, ask some questions, find out if Charlie’s got something to hide.”
“You take care, Darina.” Jonas’ warning flipped in and out of my consciousness, just like the twelve-month thing.
“Then I’ll call Zoey and fix up another visit. Each time we talk she’ll fill in a few more gaps, you’ll see. Before long she’ll be remembering the whole day and how the crash happened.”
“A week Tuesday it’ll be exactly one year.” He was off on his track, me on mine. “That’s ten days from now.”
“Listen to me, Jonas. I’m certain the key to everything lies with Zoey. If only she can remember.”
“Ten days is all I have,” he told me.
I stopped chasing my idea and switched to what he was saying. “After ten days what happens?”
Suddenly Jonas realized there was something important that I didn’t know. He hesitated and tried to brush it off. “Let’s get in the car and drive.”
“No! What do you mean, ten days is all you have?”
“That’s why Hunter brought you in to help,” he explained slowly. “My time here is running out. It’s the same for all of us. The Beautiful Dead have exactly a year to find out the truth about how we died and get justice. No extensions, no second chances.”
“Then what?” I asked the question though I dreaded the answer, feeling the blood drain from my face and my hands begin to shake.
“We step aside and give someone else a chance.”
“All of you?” I whispered, unable to take it in.
“All,” Jonas insisted. “Me, Arizona, Summer and Phoenix. We have no free will, no choice. Zombies exist for exactly a year then leave. We leave the far side and go back beyond the grave—end of story.”
With my emotions in a tailspin I drove across town to Charlie Fortune’s workshop. In a crisis like this, I find myself something to do, and I’m better if it involves driving, don’t ask me why.
The workshop wasn’t easy to find, so I had to ask directions. A woman in a dry-cleaning store pointed to an awning fabricator’s unit on a small industrial estate. “Take a left there and you’ll find Charlie’s place.”
I followed instructions and pulled up outside a showroom window with a gleaming Softail on display—a metal giant, all silver exhaust tubes and wheel guards, with slick leather seat and high handlebars. Outside the building there were six or seven other bikes and two guys dressed in biking gear lounging against a wall. They stared hard at me and my beat-up car.
I braced myself and walked past them, through a side door into a high space stuffed with tyres and spare parts. In one corner of the workroom was a small office hung with the usual calendars and a notice board with pinned lists and receipts. Sitting at the desk in the office was Matt Fortune’s brother, Charlie, talking to a guy who was sideways on to me—an older version of Jonas who I recognized straight away as Bob Jonson.
I knew that Charlie had seen and chosen to ignore me. “So how come the Dyna got so beat up?” he asked Bob. “Where the hell did you ride it?”
“Places you don’t want to know,” Jonas’ dad replied, looking sheepish.
“You’ve only had her, what is it, three months?”
“Three and a half. I had to save real hard.”
“You’re not treating her right. These babies need your total respect.” Charlie stood up and came out into the workshop to study scratches and dents on the exhaust system of Bob’s bike.
“I hit a patch of rough track,” Bob explained, only half acknowledging me then stating his case to Charlie. “We were out at Foxton, by Government Bridge. I ran into trouble.”
“Again?” Charlie crouched down for a closer look. “Tell me, what are you guys looking for up there?”
“Nothing. Just doing a little hunting.” Bob clammed up and waited nervously for Charlie to tap a few panels and tug on some brackets.
“That’s not the way I heard it.” Charlie stood up straight. “I heard a bunch of you went out there on the strength of stories running round town. The ones about squatters or some such, up on Foxton Ridge.”
“Maybe,” Bob said grudgingly. “So?”
“So you run into trouble, but no one says exactly what kind of trouble. And you arrive back looking like you saw something you didn’t like up there. You know what I think?”
Bob folded his arms across his chest. “Go ahead, Charlie, tell me.”
“It’s not about squatters. This stuff with the kids, including your boy, Jonas—it’s spooked everyone real bad. I just have to talk with Matt to know how big a deal it is.”
This is where I came in. Like it or not, the guys had to let me in to their conversation. “I saw Matt up at Foxton last night,” I butted in. “He was there fishing with Christian Oldman and a couple of others.”
“God damn it, I told him to stay away!” Charlie reached for his cell phone but before he called Matt’s number he turned to Bob again. “Foxton is trouble, right?”
“Something’s definitely going on,” Bob confessed. “It’s not right for a bunch of guys—normal, everyday guys like me—riding out there, taking a look, doing nothing in particular, all to feel the same way.”
“Which is?” Charlie demanded.
“Weird stuff. We all felt a wind, like a storm coming, but no clouds in the sky. To me it sounded like a big flock of birds gathering, kind of driving you back, not letting you go forward.”
“Wings?” Charlie echoed.
I stood paralyzed, helpless to halt the conversation and half expecting to see one of the zombie death-heads materialize right in front of me.
“I know, it doesn’t sound like a bunch of invisible birds would drive you away from a
place. But I tell you, Charlie, I swear I saw things too. I was riding my bike up a track, over rough ground and I saw a woman with a baby, out there in the middle of nowhere.”
“Alone?”
Bob nodded. “Then the weird shit—shadows started moving and closing in, the wind from the wings rose again. It felt like faces were crowding in on me so I rode out of there like a bat out of hell.”
I swallowed hard, wanting to stop the flow of Bob’s confession but stuck for a way to do it. Luckily Charlie did it for me.
“Man, you need to see someone about this. Talk to a shrink about losing your boy. I’m sorry, Bob, but that’s how I see it.”
Bob shook his head. “I wasn’t the only one. When we got back to town, all the guys had the same story—shadows, faces, the whole deal. We definitely need an explanation, and until we have it we’re not going to rest. So now four of us plan to head back out there later today.”
I wanted to protest, but Charlie shrugged off the situation and dialled his brother’s number. “Just do something for me,” he muttered to Bob as he waited for Matt to answer. “Next time you visit Foxton, spare the Harley and take the old Kawasaki.”
“Hey, Darina, you been swimming lately?”
This was all I needed—Brandon Rohr had joined the two guys hanging out outside Charlie Fortune’s workshop. It was his voice that called me as I headed for my car. And he jokingly told his friends about my near-drowning experience in every drenched detail.
“What happened to your car?” he asked after they’d finished laughing and clambered astride their bikes, roaring the engines and cruising off along the street.
“The fender fell off,” I replied. “What does it look like?”
“Charlie doesn’t do car repairs,” Brandon told me calmly. “Only bikes.”
“Yeah, I just found out.” Back off, Brandon. Leave me alone. I needed to warn Phoenix about what I’d just heard from Bob Jonson.
“So how did it happen?” he asked more seriously. “Who did you hit?”
“Logan Lavelle, actually,” I was calm with Brandon, but underneath I was desperate to drive away. “He’s a kid in my class. It’s cool.”
Brandon walked slowly round my car then kicked the dent where the missing fender should be. “This piece of crap is falling to pieces.”
“Tell me about it,” I jumped in and started the engine.
He stood in my way. “Phoenix didn’t like you driving this old heap. He said you could use a new car.”
I bit my lip, surprised that Phoenix had ever talked to his brother about me, and surprised twice over that Brandon should remember the conversation.
“He was right,” Brandon grunted.
“Yeah, when I win the lotto.” I eased the car forward. “Until then it’s either this or I walk.” Top of my list, well before any talk about a replacement vehicle, I needed to go and find Phoenix before Bob Jonson and his friends came searching. “Step out of my way, Brandon. I have to be somewhere.”
“What’s the rush?” he asked, leaning in through the passenger side window. “Try driving at half the speed, why don’t you? That way you won’t run into stuff.”
“Thanks for the road safety advice. I really need to leave now!”
He curled down the corners of his mouth—one feature that did actually remind me of Phoenix, with its full top lip and small kink that pulled it further down on one side. “Why don’t you let me ask a few people about finding you a new car?”
Drumming my fists against the steering wheel, I gave him three reasons why not off the top of my head. “Because I don’t have the cash—not a bean. Because I don’t have a job to pay for it month by month. Because my folks can’t afford it.”
“Who said anything about paying?” he drawled, still leaning in. “I know a lot of people with too many cars in the garage, just taking up space.”
“Don’t go out of your way to do stuff for me,” I protested. Ulterior motives and unsavoury thoughts about Brandon were circling around my head.
“Why not?”
“Because!”
“Not even if Phoenix asked me to?” He waited to see the shock register on my face then stood up and slammed the palm of his hand on my roof three times. “Take care how you drive, Darina,” he said, waving me off.
It was only when I stopped at the traffic lights in Centennial that I remembered there was more than one road through Foxton and decided not to take the highway.
It was important for me to reach the ridge without Logan and his fishing buddies seeing me, and without running into Bob Jonson and the rest. If I took the back road I would avoid them and might even get there faster.
So I swung left at the lights and followed a narrow track, passing close by the giant neon cross, then looking down from Turkey Shoot Ridge to the bend where Jonas and Zoey’s crash happened. There was a twist in the road between sheer, dark rocks, but no major danger that I could see. I drove on, higher into the mountains into the pink light of the setting sun.
Up on the high road I came across a Jeep parked under some redwoods and two guys in checked shirts drinking beer from cans. They had rifles resting against the back of their car.
“Hey!” The guy with the beard flagged me down. “Seen any sign of elk?”
I shook my head, checking their registration and feeling relieved to see that it was an out-of-state plate. Most likely they knew nothing about the disturbances on Foxton Ridge.
“Seen much deer?” the second man asked.
I grinned then sent them off in the direction I’d just driven. “Yeah, plenty down by Turkey Shoot.”
“How many?”
“Ten, eleven maybe. On a meadow behind the ridge.” It was a lie. I’d seen no such thing. But I liked the graceful, big-eyed mule deer better than the big-bellied, redneck hunters.
They thanked me, swallowed down the rest of their beer, tossed away their cans and threw their guns in the back of their Jeep.
Satisfied, I drove on up the mountain, seeing no one else until I reached the end of the track.
What next? I’d never been this far along the back road before and had to get out of the car to figure out how close to Foxton Ridge the route had brought me. Looking down from the high point I could make out the creek winding through the valley and the old fishermen’s shacks lining the banks. Further away still was the small cluster of houses at the road junction, and up on the ridge facing me was the rock formation Phoenix had showed me called Angel Rock.
Close, but not close enough, I thought. To get to Hunter’s place I had to walk along this new ridge and approach the ranch from the opposite direction to the route I usually took—a trek of maybe thirty minutes. Then again, I’d kept well out of sight and I knew I wouldn’t be spotted by Bob Jonson and the guys from town before I reached Phoenix. Plus, I’d get there before dark and with luck my warning would be in time.
So I set off bushwhacking west through the yukkas and sage, my feet crunching over the pale, gravelly soil, keeping my sights fixed on the landmark of Angel Rock. Soon my face was sweating in the heat, so I took off my jacket and tied it around my waist, glad of a breeze that blew off Amos Peak in the far distance.
Fifteen minutes passed. Angel Rock showed up black against the sinking red sun. I paused to wipe the back of my hand across my cheeks, hoping soon to catch sight of Phoenix and rehearsing the words I would say. “More trouble. The guys from town are definitely heading back here. Be ready.”
The Beautiful Dead would be happy to see me. I would prove that I was worth their trust.
But as I walked on, the wind rose and slowed me down. It flapped at my shirt and tugged at the jacket slung round my hips. Dust blew in my face. I struggled on.
And then, as I reached Angel Rock, the wind turned into something else, fiercer and louder, bringing the rush of wings that beat down on me, forcing me to crouch in the deep shadow of the rock. “Stop!” I yelled. “Don’t send me away. I’m here to help.” The wings drowned out my voice, risi
ng to a wave of sound, suffocating me and battering me down to the ground.
I lay flat on my stomach, face to one side, watching the sun disappear and darkness fall like a blanket over the ridge. That was when I grew truly scared, but still I didn’t turn and run.
“Get through this,” I told myself. “It’s happened before—the wings, the force field driving you back. This time you know what you’re dealing with.”
So I raised myself off the ground and began to stumble into the valley, with no hope now of finding another landmark or a point to head for, not in the pitch black shadows of the mountain. So I slid and clutched at bushes, hit my shins against a fallen tree, gasped for breath and kept on going.
Now my heart was beating fast and loud, the wind from the wings was tearing at me. I was breathless, filled with dread, almost defeated. Why are you doing this to me? I asked, crouching in the shelter of a tall rock.
I sensed a movement overhead and looked up into one of those skull-faces with black holes where eyes should be, domed head and death-grin, swooping down, coming right at me, one and then another and another until I had my hands over my head and I was screaming just like the time before.
Strong hands lifted me up. I fought back, kicking and pulling free into the darkness, hearing footsteps follow me. They gained on me and I was caught again in the harsh grip.
“Stop!” I cried, turning, amazed to see I was being held by the woman who was the mother of the baby—one of Hunter’s living dead. “Don’t do this. You know me!” I cried.
Holding me by the arm, the woman dragged me back on to the ridge, her own hair torn back from her face, her features lost in shadow. The wings as loud as ever, the death-faces hovered.
I cried and struggled, fearful that I wouldn’t get through to Phoenix and would suffer the ultimate punishment: I would be sent running with my mind wiped clear of everything that had happened. “Don’t!” I pleaded. “I need to talk to Phoenix. He’ll make you understand.”