“Ah, well thanks. I wondered who those 3 readers were.”
They all laughed. Dr. Swift shrugged.
“I might be one of few, but I’m a devoted minority, Detective.”
“Please. Call me Marilyn.”
“Marilyn, then.” Swift was blushing. Marilyn found it to be adorable.
“You must be the patron saint of Durango? Except with that accent, I’d say you’re from West London.” Marilyn winked.
“Highest marks! But God no! I’m merely the doctor for the kids here. Lucas Swift. It’s truly an honor, Detective. I mean, Marilyn.”
She laughed and shook her head.
“What’s Lazarus Syndrome, Doctor?”
“Well, simply put, it’s when an inanimate person becomes vital on their own after all attempts at reviving them have been stopped. It usually only occurs in subjects that have been clinically dead for a few minutes. There have been a few cases of it happening days after the death, though. Still, it’s never been recorded as happening half a year after the subject expired. Long shot, I know. It’s my best guess either way.”
“Your guess is as good as mine here. I rest my case.” Marilyn hung her head in a mock pout.
“Not so fast. My boy’s out there traipsing through Wild Country. You’re the best bloodhound we’ve got on the job. Don’t let me down.” Renee smiled, happy for the first time in months. She motioned for Marilyn to follow her and lead her into the house.
* * *
In the center of the novel farmhouse, Chief Riggs sat in front of a squirming teenage girl. She popped gum loudly and rolled her smoky mascara-caked eyes.
“Look! I don’t know anything! That nerd died like ages ago. No one cares where he’s spooked off to!” She whined, drumming her fingers against her thighs.
“Well, I’d start caring if I were you, little miss. Because I’ve got to find him and I need your full co-operation.” Chief Riggs was rubbing his eyelids in exhaustion.
“Why don’t you ask his bestie?” She tossed her head with a snarky snicker and blew a bubble that burst obnoxiously.
“Wait, I forgot. That nerd’s not talking period. My bad!” She covered her pursed lips with her palm.
“Listen real careful like, doll face. I’d love to let you sit time out in the county jail until mold started growing off the bottom of your lips, but even I admit that’s a bit extreme. It’s really a simple question and when you’ve answered it you can go back to spray netting your freaky hair. Did you or did you not know Nicolas Avalon?”
Marilyn stopped in the hallway. She made a mental note that the missing boy had the same surname as she did. Good, it would be easy to remember.
“Sally! Straighten up for the Chief or you’re on bovine enema duty for the next 5 months!” Renee snapped her fingers.
“Oh God! Yes, officer. Yes, I totally knew Nick. Heck, everybody did. He’s…Uh, he was, like the valedictorian of our class up until the day he got made into roadkill.” Sally threw her hands up in surrender.
“Alright, now we’re getting somewhere. I’m taking that means you knew about some of his hang out places. For starters, where do you think he’d go after freshly busting out of his tomb? Where does Nicky Avalon go to kick it when he’s cold, hungry, and casket sharp? “ Chief Riggs leaned over his knees in renewed interest.
“Like I’d know? Seriously, you should ask Alex.”
“Where’s Alex, then? I’ll ask him.” Marilyn stepped forward.
“Huh. Good luck. He’s turned into a robot.” Sally rolled her eyes.
“Just tell me where he is?” Marilyn folded her arms.
“Ah, so you’re the private investigator, eh? The Calvary has arrived and praise the Lord. Kudos to you if you can get the kid to speak. He’s upstairs, facing Mecca.” The Chief indicated with his head.
Marilyn took to the creaky staircase. The shadows fell long across the upstairs rooms, reflecting the sadness that had come to the foster home. Although she hadn’t known him, Marilyn could feel Nicolas’ absence. Apparently, in their own way, so did everyone. The kids smiled shyly at her as she passed down the lengthy hallway that ran between the east and west wings of the house.
“Hey. Alex’s room?” Marilyn stopped a tall boy in a football jersey.
“Which Alex, ma’am? There’s like 3?”
Marilyn swallowed.
“Nicolas Avalon’s friend?”
The boy’s eyes lit up.
“Prescott…Okay, yeah, you must be the sleuth chick Papa Vierra said was coming. Well, Alex can’t come to the phone right now. He’s…uh…wasted. Been staring out the east wing window for 12 hours, no joke. Just staring, stoned. Seeing Nicky’s box…He’s messed up.”
Marilyn felt the weight of this situation drive home. She nodded, shaking off the dust from the yard and the chill of dread that ran up her spine.
“All the same. Whatever freaky thing is aligning up in Space made this happen beats me. Nicky’s clearly not resting in peace. I need Alex to help me put a ghost to bed.”
The boy shrugged.
“Cool, I guess. I’ll take you to him.”
Of all the rooms in the dim farmhouse, Alex Prescott’s was the darkest. He sat with the shadows draped around him like fabric, forehead pressed against the frosted glass of the massive window beside his bed.
“Yo, Prescott! The sleuth chick’s here. Wants to talk to you!”
Alex didn’t move.
“Yeah, see, I told you. Hey, if you need something later, I’m Brandon.” The boy shrugged and left Marilyn alone in the dusky room.
“Hey, Alex.” She stepped closer, making a floorboard squeak.
To her surprise, Alex finally did look up. She stood transfixed. His fine-boned face was pinched like it would shatter into a thousand shards of porcelain. He clenched his teeth and his purple lips quivered spasmodically. His emerald eyes glowered with bloodshot veins. The spiked-bangs hairstyle he was sporting couldn’t hide the patches he ripped out of his scalp. These oozed blood like scarlet sideburns down the edges of his face. He had one of his fists pressed to the window pane. The knuckles were bloody. He’d chewed them to the bone.
A mess? What a severe understatement! Alex Prescott looked like Nagasaki after the bomb.
Marilyn held her breath. She went and embraced him out of instinct. He flinched but didn’t resist her.
She eased up off of him and took his face in her hands.
“We can get him back.” She peered down into his eyes, breath bated.
Trembling, he eased himself up tall and plucked his iPhone from his jeans’ pocket.
“He texted me.” Alex closed his eyes, hoarse and dizzy.
Marilyn took the phone, in shaking fingers. Silently she read:
“Alex, it’s Nick. New phone. It’s freaky, man. I blacked out and now I can’t remember much of what happened. Seriously, though, watch your back. There are people following me. I think I’m in trouble. Which if I’m in trouble, then you probably are too. Creeps usually go after family and friends, right? I’m going to head for ‘Castle Coyote’ from when we were kids. I’m not saying that you should come after me. I just wanted you to know that I’m okay. You’re probably freaked! Dude, I’m sorry.”
“Nicky…Nicky’s dead? Now he’s texting-Oh God!” Alex pressed his face against his knees.
“Can you take me to the place he’s talking about?”
Alex gave a reluctant nod.
He ran blind. His head hurt, which was his sole focus. Agonizing migraines had been plaguing him for going on three days now.
There were voices in the woods.
“It’ll be a lot easier if you stop making it hard.”
“Doesn’t have to be like this, kiddo.”
“Come back, Nicky! Let’s not make this so hard!”
Nick felt his stomach knit itself up into a tight fist of fear. He threw his head back, hoping maybe this would give him an extra ounce of speed.
Durango isn’t known for extremely cold winters, but winter it was. The grass was slick with frost.
He slipped and rolled downhill. He heard a few of his ribs crack, but barely noticed the pain.
All he could think about was the voices. The sound of feet chasing him under the shadows of the trees. Dogs barking. He thought maybe he even heard a truck meander through the foilage.
He landed on his knees and felt blood pool around his knuckles.
This might not be so scary if he could just remember why it was happening.
He remembered blacking out. He could almost see it happen. He was walking down the side of main-street, heading back from school. There was a sound behind him like somebody punching the gas. His neck had snapped in the direction of the noise. A truck was swiveling like a crazy snake down the lane closest to him.
He remembered heavy force and going numb from the impact. He’d flown through the air and landed in a puddle of his own blood and intense pain. It had started to go dark and he heard Alex screaming his name.
Oh God, Alex had been there!
Was he okay?
The voices were getting closer.
Why couldn’t he remember anything? He felt like he’d been out for centuries.
There was nothing before the car crash. His entire life was distant watercolors.
He leaped up and ran. That’s all he could think to do. Ran as his eyes teared up from the pain in his head. Good God, what the heck was happening?
He was elated when he saw the old tree fort. He and Alex had built it on an outing the first year they’d lived with the Santa Bianca kids. It was a landmark of childhood and safety to Nick. Innocence and a place to crash is what the confused teen needed now.
He dove like a baseball player and slid for home. The feet rushed past him. His head came up abruptly on the hard trunk of the ancient hollow cedar.
The impact jarred his memory. Not enough to solve his current dilemma, but enough to answer his most nagging question.
“I died.” He blurted to the darkness.
He was smothering in the blows of a full-blown panic attack then. There was no one here to help him back either. His legs kicked out and stirred up the cedar needles. He dug his fists into the ground and tore at moss. In a daze, he tried to slow his hyperventilating and think this through. It was getting the better of him.
“I didn’t just die. I was murdered. But why?”
He didn’t have time to work that out. The dogs were coming back. They wouldn’t need to see him. They could sniff him out.
“Think, dude! Got to get out of the basic trajectory of evil!”
He started crawling forward on his belly USMC fashion.
* * *
The Mach 1 peeled off down the main highway. The sun looked down from the sloping blue arches that wreathed Durango in majesty. Renee Vierra was sitting in the shotgun seat. Alex Prescott lay in the back. His eyes floated around the cab and he almost smiled.
“Kiddo, you sure you’re okay to be doing this? The Doc wanted me to rest you up.” Renee’s brow crumbled in concern.
Alex had a blank expression as he stared at the scrawling red and dirty blues of the Colorado roadside. He shrugged, running a hand over his tender head. Marilyn winced as she looked at him in the rearview mirror. It had to have been agonizing. What kind of internal darkness had compelled him to tear his hair out?
“I’m not going to be okay until Nick’s back home and totally safe.” He shrugged, twisting his mouth in a white bunch.
Renee nodded.
“You’re saying he’s gone to our old camp-sight?”
“It’s like a mile away from there as the crow flies. We marked the way by carving pictures on the trees around it. It was like a code alphabet to our clubhouse. Hey, quit smiling like that! We were 12 and 12 ½ !” Alex narrowed his eyes as Renee stifled an endeared giggle.
The riffs to “Black Hole Sun” interrupted the moment. It was Alex’s ringtone.
“Oh God…” He chewed his fingernails reluctant to look. Marilyn drew a heavy breath.
“Hey! I know all of this is freaky, but it’s still Nicky, right? He clearly hasn’t figured out what’s happened yet. When he does, it’s going to wig him out just as much as it has you. This doesn’t have to be an American Horror Story. This is a golden opportunity, my young friend. There is hardly a soul alive that has gotten a loved one back from the dead.” She forced a smile.
Alex gaped. It hadn’t occurred to him until she’d said it. He plucked the phone from his pocket again, braced for whatever the screen portended.
“Alex. It’s Nick. Dude, you were at the scene of my accident. Are you okay?
This is messed up, bro. I have no idea how it’s even possible and I’m legit freaking at the moment.
I died, didn’t I? I was murdered.”
With a nervous gasp, Alex began to type back.
“Hey, Nick. Yeah, I’m okay. I have no idea how to do this, man. How to talk to you. Tell you this.
You’ve been dead for 7 months.”
“What’s he saying?” Renee asked. She twisted around to look at Alex. It was a miracle, no questions asked. Regardless of the circumstances which lead here, this was more than they could have ever wished for. Nature dictated that Nicky Avalon was never to say anything again. That they could never talk to him again. He was dead. It was done.
Now they were texting him like it was any other day. As if that fateful day in the spring never even happened.
“He’s starting to remember.” Alex’s eyes flashed as his own words registered in his ears.
This could be both a tremendously good and bad thing.
The fish bowl blip sound echoed into the tree’s dark hull. Nicky jumped. He was honestly scared out of his mind. It wasn’t just the distant past he was forgetting. He had trouble remembering recent things, like how he got these new clothes. There was a tag in the sleeve of his black hoodie that said “Boot Barn”. The jeans were store-bought stiff. He’d even forgotten to take the paper out of the toes of his Nikes.
“Shopping center… Uh, I sold a few cartons of cigarettes I’d stashed behind the Principle’s favorite poplar for quick cash. Mrs. Thurman screamed when I walked through her yard, but I didn’t think it was weird because Mrs. Thurman is batty. Then I sold that Harley I restored last summer and hid in Old Man Payne’s tool shed for a lot of extra cash. I bought like 7 burgers, butt-loads of Coke and pop rocks, and a milkshake. People everywhere I went were giving me the truancy stare. It’s cold out and there are Christmas lights. I’m not truant. I should be on Christmas break, right? Which means they were staring at me because I’m supposed to be dead.”