The New Year's Party

  Beth started after him. But Todd moved in front of her, blocking her path. “Hey—where are you going?”

  “Todd, you don’t understand. I—”

  “I’m tired of being ignored,” he declared. “All you’ve been doing this whole night is watching Jeremy. Why don’t you let him take care of himself?”

  “He needs me,” Beth protested.

  “Then maybe I’ll find someone who pays a little attention to me.” Todd turned and stormed away.

  I hate him! Beth thought. I hate them all for what they did to Jeremy.

  Beth saw Jeremy bolt out the front door. She thought about getting her coat. But then she’d never catch up to him. So she ran out into the freezing night.

  “Jeremy!” she shouted, her boots sinking into the deep snow that blanketed the front yard. “Wait up! Where are you going?”

  He spun around to face her. His handsome face was twisted in anger. “Beat it, Beth. Leave me alone! I’m sick of being made fun of!”

  He turned away with a scowl and trudged over the snow to his beat-up Ford Fairlane.

  Ignoring the freezing, swirling winds, Beth ran after him. “They were just kidding you. Come back. The roads are all icy. You’re too upset to drive!”

  “Go back to the party with your stupid friends! Leave me alone! You’re not my mother!” Jeremy slid behind the wheel and slammed the door. Snow toppled off the car roof.

  Slipping and sliding, Beth rushed around the car and jumped in the passenger side. “I’m going with you.”

  The tires spun on the icy street as he pulled away from the curb.

  “The roads are all covered with ice,” Beth cautioned. She fastened her seat belt and checked to make sure Jeremy had his on. “Be careful, Jeremy. This is stupid. Pull over. Let’s talk.”

  Jeremy ignored her. Squinting through the snowy windshield, he sped through a stop sign without slowing down.

  “Jeremy! Don’t drive like this. Please!”

  The car slipped dangerously close to the snowbank at the edge of the road. Beth shut her eyes, sure they would hit it. But Jeremy managed to steer the car back toward the center of the road.

  “Slow down,” Beth pleaded. She gripped the dashboard with both hands.

  Jeremy paid no attention. Trees and telephone poles flashed by in the car’s headlights.

  Beth studied his face in the dim glow from the instrument panel. His jaw was set, and he stared straight ahead, his eyes filled with anger.

  Why do they have to hurt him like this? Beth wondered. Why do I have to be Jeremy’s only friend?

  The car skidded out of control. Jeremy spun the wheel, struggling to keep from sliding off the street.

  “Slow down, Jeremy. Please!”

  They sped down the two-lane highway. Beth usually loved to speed through the darkness. It was a great feeling of freedom.

  But not tonight. Not on these icy roads. Not with Jeremy driving so recklessly.

  Jeremy plowed through a snowdrift, sending waves of white snow flying in all directions.

  The highway glistened like silver under the headlights—a solid sheet of ice.

  We’re not driving. We’re flying, Beth thought, feeling the panic tighten her throat. We’re flying out of control.

  “Jeremy, the road is too slippery!” she wailed. “I’m begging you—slow down!”

  “Hey,” Jeremy snapped. “It’s New Year’s. Why can’t I have a little fun?”

  The windshield fogged over. Beth could barely see out. “Turn on your defroster,” she urged.

  He shrugged.

  “Jeremy! Turn it on! You can’t see!”

  “It’s broken.”

  “Why didn’t you get it fixed?”

  “Because I didn’t. That’s why. Leave me alone, Beth. I didn’t ask you to follow me.”

  Beth wiped the windshield with her sleeve. But it only smeared it.

  “Oh, please,” Beth begged. “We can barely see the road.”

  Jeremy tromped down harder on the gas pedal. The old Ford roared over the ice.

  I hate it when he’s like this, Beth thought. She squinted through the fogged windshield.

  And saw the dim figure.

  A boy?

  A boy in the middle of the road?

  She screamed.

  Too late.

  Jeremy swerved.

  Something bounced on the hood with a heavy thud.

  A face appeared through the foggy windshield. A boy’s face, his mouth open in a scream of surprise.

  The boy dropped to the ground.

  The car rolled over him with a hard bump.

  Chapter 4

  KILLED

  Jeremy jammed on the brakes. The car zigzagged wildly. Then slid to a stop halfway across the road.

  Beth stared out the windshield. The headlights showed nothing but the snowbank and the dark trunk of a gnarled tree.

  “It was a boy,” Jeremy moaned. “I hit him. We’ve got to go back.”

  “No!” Beth screamed, her voice full of panic. “Get out of here now. Before we get caught!”

  “Beth, we have to help that boy. We can’t just leave him there!”

  “It wasn’t a boy, Jeremy,” Beth insisted. She repeated the words again and again in her mind. Wasn’t a boy. Wasn’t a boy. Wasn’t a boy.

  “I saw his face.”

  “No, we hit a raccoon or something.” Beth pulled her hair back behind her head.

  “We’ve got to turn around and go back. Maybe he’s okay. And if he isn’t, we’ve got to get some help for him. We’ve got to, Beth.”

  “You can’t!” Beth cried. “You’ll lose your license—maybe forever!”

  Jeremy frowned. “Forever?”

  “And what if—what if—the boy is dead?” Beth stammered. “They could charge you with murder, Jeremy.” She shuddered.

  “But … it was an accident,” he protested.

  “You were driving recklessly, speeding. It was your fault,” Beth insisted.

  “Wait—what’s that?”

  Beth heard it, too.

  A siren. In the distance. Growing louder.

  “The police!” Beth exclaimed. “We’ve got to get out of here! If it was a boy, they’ll help him. Now, go!”

  For a moment Jeremy hesitated. Then he floored the gas pedal. The tires squealed over the ice. And they sped away.

  This time Beth didn’t tell Jeremy to slow down. She watched the snowbank fly past in a white blur, her heart pounding.

  She thought she saw the flash of a police car’s red light behind them. But when she peered out the back window, the road stood empty.

  We’re okay, she thought. We’re going to make it. We’re going to get away.

  “I can’t see,” Jeremy complained. “The windshield is completely fogged now.”

  “I need something to wipe it,” Beth answered.

  “There’s a rag under the seat.” Jeremy leaned over the wheel, struggling to make out the road in front of them.

  Beth felt around for the rag. She pulled out a crumpled map, a soft drink bottle, a screwdriver, a Burger Basket wrapper. “Here it is!” she cried.

  She frantically wiped the windshield. But every time she cleaned a spot, the fog came right back.

  She was still wiping the glass when the car slid out of control.

  She saw the look of panic on Jeremy’s face as he fought with the wheel, turning it hard, one way, then the other. Trying to pull them out of the skid.

  It all seemed to happen in slow motion.

  The headlights swept over the icy highway. Then, as the car whirled, spinning faster, faster, the high snowbank spun into view. Then the icy highway again.

  Beth opened her mouth in a shrill scream as the car smashed hard into the snowbank.

  “Unh.” Her scream ended in a grunt as she was thrown forward and her head cracked against the dashboard.

  Darkness filled the car as the tall snowpile covered the windshield.

  Beth felt warm blood t
rickle down her forehead. She squinted hard, struggling to see through the blinding pain.

  The pain …

  She felt another jolt as the car broke through the snowbank.

  The car plunged down. Down the gorge beside the road.

  She could feel it topple, but she couldn’t react.

  She felt the warm liquid roll down her face. Felt shock after shock of pain.

  The car bounced hard. Rolled over. Toppled and rolled.

  Down, down.

  “Jeremy!” she choked out. “You’ve killed us. You’ve killed us both.”

  PART TWO

  THIS YEAR

  Chapter 5

  THE BODY IN THE CLOSET

  “Brrr!” Reenie Baker shivered as she closed the back door behind her. It was only November, but already the weather felt as cold as January.

  “Reenie, is that you?” Mrs. Baker called from the living room.

  “Yeah, Mom, it’s me,” Reenie answered. She hung her heavy winter coat on a varnished wooden peg.

  “Greta and the others are here. They’re in your room.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Reenie hurried down the hall and into her room. “Sorry I’m late!” she called.

  Her best friend, Greta Sorenson, tossed the copy of Vogue she’d been reading onto Reenie’s nightstand. “Don’t worry, we saved you a few problems,” she teased.

  “Yeah,” Greta’s boyfriend, Artie Hodges, added. “About ninety-nine of them.”

  They had a group project due in a week—one hundred killer trig problems. Reenie didn’t know how they would ever finish in time.

  “No. Only ninety-eight,” Ty Lanford told Reenie. He stretched his arms over his head, balancing Reenie’s desk chair on its back legs. “I finished one while those two were fighting about Artie’s sneakers. He says comfortable. She says gross.”

  “Fighting, huh?” Reenie glanced over at Greta and Artie. They sat on the edge of her bed—Greta almost in Artie’s lap.

  “Now we’re making up,” Artie explained, looping one arm around Greta’s waist.

  Reenie tried not to laugh. They made such a goofy-looking couple. Artie in his plaid shirt, ripped jeans, hair in a buzz cut, an earring in one ear. Greta in her long straight skirt and belted jacket, every strand of blond hair carefully tousled, makeup perfect.

  Reenie could hardly believe it, but Greta and Artie had been going together since the ninth grade. A lot longer than she had been going out with Sean.

  “Where’s Sean?” Reenie asked. “He’s never late.”

  “Can’t start without him,” Greta replied. “He’s the only one who understands this stuff.”

  “I think I saw him with Sandi Burke after school,” Artie joked.

  Greta swatted him playfully on the leg. “Don’t believe him, Reenie. He’s making it up.”

  Reenie forced herself to smile. She knew Artie was kidding her. But Sandi Burke could make any girl feel insecure. All the guys at Shadyside High drooled over Sandi.

  Reenie knew she was pretty enough—tall and slim with long light brown hair. But she also knew she was no Sandi Burke. Sandi could be on the cover of one of Greta’s fashion magazines.

  “I’m serious. Sandi was all over him,” Artie insisted. “Now’s your chance to make a move on Reenie, Ty. Go for it.”

  “Ooooo!” Greta exclaimed. “You’re terrible. Really terrible.”

  He always carries a joke too far, Reenie thought. She shot a glance at Ty. He smiled at her, but he seemed embarrassed.

  I bet Ty doesn’t know that half the girls in school are dying to go out with him, Reenie thought. I wish he could hear them talking about how cute he is. Ty had transferred to Shadyside in September, and he still hadn’t asked anyone on a date.

  “Go on,” Artie urged Ty. “Reenie’s—”

  “Ty, Sean’s not working at the Burger Basket today, is he?” Reenie asked.

  Ty shook his head. “Sean is off till Saturday. We both are.”

  Then why is Sean so late? Reenie wondered.

  Ty let his chair fall back to the floor with a thump. He turned to the trig book, open on Reenie’s desk. He frowned. “I finally got to where I understood degrees of angles,” he muttered. “Now I’m supposed to forget degrees and start using radians.”

  “It’s a plot,” Artie said. “All the teachers have secret meetings. They figure out new ways to make us suffer.”

  “Trig is an elective,” Ty replied. “Nobody made us take it. I guess we can’t complain.”

  “Actually studying this stuff is pretty stupid when you think about it,” Artie declared. “How many people out there in the real world worry about radians and sines and cosines and stuff like that?”

  “Engineers do,” Greta shot back. She sounded irritated.

  “Maybe I don’t want to be an engineer.”

  “Right,” Greta muttered. She slid away from Artie. “You want to flip burgers for the rest of your life.”

  She meant that, Reenie thought. She wasn’t just teasing.

  Artie shoved himself to his feet and strode to the other side of the room. Reenie saw the muscles in his jaw tightening.

  Great. Now they’re going to start fighting again, she thought. Reenie tried to remember if Artie and Greta had always argued this much. She didn’t think so.

  Artie flopped down on the floor across the room from Greta. He stared at the carpet in front of him.

  Reenie checked her watch. They had to get started—Sean or no Sean—if they wanted to get a chunk of their assignment done. Even trig would be more fun than sitting in a room with Greta and Artie giving each other the silent treatment.

  Reenie felt too warm. She wore a heavy sweater over a turtleneck. She pulled the sweater off and started to toss it onto her dresser. Then she heard her mother’s voice inside her head. That’s no way to take care of your things, Reenie. Hang your clothes up properly, or they won’t last.

  Okay, Mom, Reenie thought as she opened her closet door and reached for a hanger.

  She instantly yanked her hand back.

  Because a pair of eyes stared out at her from behind the clothes.

  Bulging eyes. Blank eyes.

  A face, moving forward.

  Behind her Greta screamed. Artie cried out in horror.

  Reenie jumped back, raising her arms to defend herself.

  No need.

  She was staring at a corpse.

  The body fell face-first to the floor.

  A boy, Reenie saw.

  She stared at the top of his head. Gooey blood, dark and caked, oozed over his hair.

  Familiar hair.

  Reenie bent down for a closer look. The head rolled to the side, revealing his face.

  Sean’s face.

  “Oh, no!” Greta wailed. “Noooooo!”

  “He’s dead!” Ty gasped. “Sean is dead!”

  “Good,” Reenie said.

  Chapter 6

  A BREAK-IN

  “I’m not falling for that stupid joke,” Reenie declared. “No way.”

  Everyone laughed except Sean, who lay motionless on the floor.

  Reenie nudged him with her toe. “You can get up now, Sean. You’ve had your laugh for the day.”

  “Come on, admit it,” Artie urged. “We had you for a second there. We all saw you jump.”

  “Well, yeah. You’d jump, too, if someone fell out of your closet!” Reenie explained. “It took me a whole two seconds to figure out it was your usual dumb stuff.”

  Sean climbed slowly to his feet, grinning. “I thought I did a pretty good fall.”

  Reenie sighed. “I’ve seen it too many times. You guys need some new victims for your stupid jokes.”

  “It worked great when we pulled it on Deena Martinson,” Artie told her. “She’s probably still screaming.”

  “Deena hasn’t seen it a hundred times before,” Reenie replied, shaking her head.

  “Maybe it didn’t work this time,” Greta declared, “but we’ve fooled you
pretty good before.”

  “Like at the Burger Basket,” Ty recalled.

  “Yeah,” Artie agreed, “we got you good at the Burger Basket.”

  Reenie had to admit it. They had fooled her that time.

  She’d stopped by the restaurant to meet Sean when he got off work. As she opened the door, a masked robber grabbed her and told her he was taking her hostage. She could still remember the feel of his rubber glove across her mouth and nose.

  Greta laughed. “You screamed that time!”

  “Especially when the robber killed me,” Ty added. He sounded a little ashamed of himself. As if he enjoyed the prank, but found it kind of childish.

  “Hey—don’t forget about the time I got you, Greta,” Reenie said. “At Artie’s house. Remember? I hid in the bathtub for almost an hour. The water was freezing by the time you finally came in and found me floating facedown.”

  Sean touched the gooey red spot on his head. “Yuck!” he groaned, staring at his fingers.

  “What is that stuff?” Reenie asked. For blood, they’d been using a concoction Artie came up with—corn syrup, red food coloring, sometimes a little flour to make it clump together. This stuff looked different.

  “Theatrical blood,” Sean replied. “I got it at Jack’s Jokes. The package claims this stuff washes out with water. I hope it’s true. Mind if I use your bathroom?”

  “Mess it up, and my mom will kill you,” Reenie warned as he headed out the door.

  “I can’t believe Sean bought theatrical blood,” Greta said. She turned to Artie. “I thought he had to save all his cash for college next year.”

  Guess the fight isn’t over, Reenie thought. If Artie decides not to go to college when we graduate, I’ll bet he and Greta will break up.

  Sean returned from the bathroom, his wet hair slicked back. Reenie’s mom always joked that a color photo of Sean would be identical to one in black and white. But Reenie didn’t agree. Black and white film would capture Sean’s black hair and pale skin. But it wouldn’t show his blue eyes.

  “We’d better get started. We don’t want to be here all night,” Greta urged.